Fóshuō Hǎilóngwáng jīng 佛說海龍王經
Sūtra of the Sea-Nāga King (Sāgara-nāgarāja-paripṛcchā) translated by 竺法護 (Zhú Fǎhù / Dharmarakṣa, 譯)
About the work
The Fóshuō Hǎi-lóngwáng jīng (T598, Sāgara-nāgarāja-paripṛcchā) is a four-fascicle Mahāyāna sūtra translated by Dharmarakṣa 竺法護 (竺法護). The Sea-Nāga king Sāgara invites the Buddha to his palace beneath the ocean, where Mahāyāna doctrines are expounded. A Tibetan parallel (Klu’i rgyal po rgya mtshos zhus pa’i mdo) and several later Chinese partial translations exist.
Prefaces
The text opens with the canonical formula. The colophon dates the translation to Tàikāng 太康 6 (285 CE) by Dharmarakṣa.
Abstract
A four-fascicle bodhisattva-doctrinal sūtra — prajñāpāramitā-leaning, with passages on the dhāraṇī of the bodhisattva path — staged at the underwater palace of the Nāga king Sāgara. Datable to 285 CE per the Chū sānzàng jì jí colophon. The text was extracted in part by Yìjìng as KR6i0233 Fó wèi Hǎi-lóngwáng shuō fǎyìn jīng (T599) and survives in alternative Tibetan transmission.
Translations and research
- Boucher, Daniel. “Dharmarakṣa and the Transmission of Buddhism to China.” Asia Major 19 (2006): 13–37.
- DeCaroli, Robert. Haunting the Buddha: Indian Popular Religions and the Formation of Buddhism. Oxford, 2004 — nāga-cycle in Buddhism.
Links
- CBETA T15n0598
- Kanseki DB
- 竺法護 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (285, 300) — Boucher, Daniel. “Buddhist Translation Procedures in Third-Century China: A Study of Dharmarakṣa and his Translation Idiom.” PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1996. 269.