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達摩多羅禪經

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Text ID
KR6i0255
Date
410–413
Dynasty
東晉

Dámóduōluó chán jīng 達摩多羅禪經

Sūtra of the Meditation of Dharmatrāta translated by 佛陀跋陀羅 (Fútuóbátuóluó / Buddhabhadra, 譯)

About the work

The Dámóduōluó chán jīng (T618, two fascicles, also styled 修行方便禪經, Sūtra of the Means of Practice; provisional Sanskrit Yogācārabhūmi) is a major Sarvāstivāda meditation manual translated by 佛陀跋陀羅 (Buddhabhadra, 359–429) at Lúshān 廬山 under the patronage of 慧遠. It is among the most important meditation texts to enter Chinese Buddhism in the early fifth century and is the principal Eastern Jin counterpart to Kumārajīva’s contemporaneous Cháng’ān corpus (T613, T614, T616, T617).

Structural Division

T618 contains 17 chapters, which Buddhabhadra organizes around the alternating pair of ānāpānasmṛti (mindfulness of breathing) and aśubhabhāvanā (impurity meditation):

  1. 修行方便道安那般那念退分 — The chapter on regression in the path of breath-mindfulness
  2. 修行勝道退分 — The chapter on regression in the supreme path
  3. 修行方便道安般念住分 — The chapter on stability in breath-mindfulness
  4. 修行勝道住分 — The chapter on stability in the supreme path
  5. 修行方便道升進分 — The chapter on advancement in the path of means
  6. 修行勝道升進分 — The chapter on advancement in the supreme path
  7. 修行方便道安般念決定分 — The chapter on determination in breath-mindfulness
  8. 修行方便勝道決定分 — The chapter on determination in the supreme path of means
  9. 修行方便道不淨觀退分 — The chapter on regression in impurity-contemplation
  10. 修行方便不淨觀住分 — The chapter on stability in impurity-contemplation
  11. 修行方便不淨升進分 — The chapter on advancement in impurity-contemplation
  12. 修行方便道不淨決定分 — The chapter on determination in impurity-contemplation
  13. 修行觀界 — Practice contemplating the elements
  14. 修行四無量三昧 — Practice of the four immeasurable samādhis
  15. 修行觀陰 — Practice contemplating the aggregates
  16. 修行觀入 — Practice contemplating the sense-bases
  17. 修行觀十二因緣 — Practice contemplating the twelve links of dependent origination

Abstract

T618 is unanimously dated to Buddhabhadra’s Lúshān period, after his expulsion from Cháng’ān (probably 410–413). The preface preserved in the [[KR6s0084|Chū sānzàng jì jí]] (T2145, 9.65b–66c) — composed by 慧遠 himself — describes the work as transmitted from Dharmatrāta 達摩多羅 and Buddhasena 佛大先, two great yogācāra masters of Kashmir; modern scholarship (Demiéville 1954; Yamabe 1999) has confirmed that the text is closely related to fragments of Saṅgharakṣa 僧伽羅叉’s Yogācārabhūmi (cf. T606 Xiūxíng dàodì jīng) and represents a Sarvāstivāda Kashmiri tradition transmitted independently of, but parallel to, the line received at Cháng’ān by Kumārajīva. Confusion in later Chán historiography led to T618 being mis-identified as the work of Bodhidharma 菩提達摩, the Indian patriarch of the Chán school — a misattribution corrected already by 僧祐 Sēngyòu but persisting in popular usage.

Translations and research

  • Demiéville, Paul. “La Yogācārabhūmi de Saṅgharakṣa.” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 44/2 (1954): 339–436.
  • Yamabe, Nobuyoshi. The Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi of the Visualization of the Buddha. PhD dissertation, Yale University, 1999.
  • Greene, Eric M. Chan Before Chan: Meditation, Repentance, and Visionary Experience in Chinese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2021.
  • Chan, Yiu-wing. An English Translation of the Dharmatrāta-Dhyāna Sūtra. PhD dissertation, University of Hong Kong, 2013.

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