Dàshù Jǐnnàluówáng suǒwèn jīng 大樹緊那羅王所問經
Sūtra of the Inquiry of the Great-Tree Kinnara-King translated by 鳩摩羅什 (Jiūmóluóshí / Kumārajīva, 譯)
About the work
T625 (four fascicles, alt. title 說不可思議品; Sanskrit Drumakinnararāja-paripṛcchā-sūtra) is the Yáo-Qín retranslation of the same Indic sūtra underlying T624 (Lokakṣema’s Han-dynasty version). The work is a centerpiece of the early-fifth-century Cháng’ān Mahāyāna programme and is the most polished of the Druma-kinnara-king texts in Chinese. The kinnara-king Druma (大樹緊那羅王 Dàshù Jǐnnàluówáng — “the Kinnara King [whose name is] Great-Tree”) asks the Buddha a series of profound questions about the bodhisattva path; the Buddha’s answers articulate the prajñāpāramitā’s vision of the inconceivability of all dharmas.
Abstract
T625 is unanimously ascribed to 鳩摩羅什 in the catalogs ([[KR6s0084|Chū sānzàng jì jí]] 2; [[KR6r0011|Lìdài sānbǎo jì]] 8; [[KR6s0093|Kāiyuán]] 4). Date bracket follows Kumārajīva’s Cháng’ān period (401–413). The translation is finer-grained than T624 and shows the Cháng’ān bureau’s characteristic concern for narrative coherence and doctrinal precision; Kumārajīva’s expansion of the kinnara-king’s musical episode introduces the now-famous figure of the dancing Mahākāśyapa, an episode that became iconographic in East Asian Buddhist art and later Chán literature. Sanskrit fragments of the Drumakinnararājaparipṛcchā survive and have been edited by Paul Harrison (1992); they confirm that T625 is generally faithful to the Indic text while occasionally smoothing or expanding for Chinese audiences.
Translations and research
- Harrison, Paul. The Druma-Kinnara-Rāja-Paripṛcchā-Sūtra: A Critical Edition of the Tibetan Text. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1992.
- Harrison, Paul (trans.). “Druma’s Question.” Translated extracts in The Pratyutpanna Samādhi Sutra and related volumes.
- Lamotte, Étienne. Le Traité de la Grande Vertu de Sagesse, vol. 1, n. ad loc. — discusses Druma-kinnara material.
Links
- CBETA T15n0625
- Kanseki DB
- 鳩摩羅什 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (405) — T = CBETA. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經. Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai/Daizō shuppan, 1924–1932.