Wénshūzhīlì pǔchāo sānmèi jīng 文殊支利普超三昧經
Sūtra on the Universal-Transcending Samādhi of Mañjuśrī translated by 竺法護 (Zhú Fǎhù / Dharmarakṣa, 譯)
About the work
T627 (three fascicles; Sanskrit Ajātaśatrukaukṛtyavinodana-sūtra) is 竺法護’s Western Jin retranslation of the same Indic sūtra underlying T626 (Lokakṣema’s Āshéshìwáng jīng). Dharmarakṣa’s title emphasizes Mañjuśrī’s “universal-transcending samādhi” (普超三昧 pǔchāo sānmèi), which the Buddha invokes as the vehicle for resolving Ajātaśatru’s existential remorse over patricide. The text is a key source for the Mahāyāna doctrine that absolute prajñā dissolves the apparent reality of moral transgression.
Structural Division
T627 is divided into thirteen chapters:
- 正士品 (Zhèngshì pǐn) — Chapter on the True Beings
- 化佛品 (Huàfó pǐn) — Chapter on the Conjured Buddhas
- 舉缽品 (Jǔbō pǐn) — Chapter on the Raising of the Bowl
- 幼童品 (Yòutóng pǐn) — Chapter on the Young Boy
- 無吾我品 (Wúwúwǒ pǐn) — Chapter on No-Self
- 總持品 (Zǒngchí pǐn) — Chapter on Dhāraṇī
- 三藏品 (Sānzàng pǐn) — Chapter on the Three Baskets
- 不退轉輪品 (Bùtuìzhuǎnlún pǐn) — Chapter on the Irreversible Wheel
- 變動品 (Biàndòng pǐn) — Chapter on Transformation
- 決疑品 (Juéyí pǐn) — Chapter on the Resolution of Doubts
- 心本淨品 (Xīnběnjìng pǐn) — Chapter on the Originally Pure Mind
- 月首受決品 (Yuèshǒu shòujué pǐn) — Chapter on the Prediction Received by Yuèshǒu
- 囑累品 (Zhǔlèi pǐn) — Chapter of Entrustment
Related texts in the canon: T626 (Fóshuō Āshéshìwáng jīng), T628 (Fóshuō wèicéngyǒu zhèngfǎ jīng), and T629 (Fóshuō fàngbō jīng).
Abstract
The text is unanimously ascribed to 竺法護 in the canonical bibliographies; the [[KR6s0084|Chū sānzàng jì jí]] (T2145, juan 2) places its translation in Tàikāng 太康 8 (287 CE). The bracket given here follows the Chū sānzàng jì jí’s precise dating, which is generally accepted by modern scholarship (Boucher 2008). T627 is one of Dharmarakṣa’s larger Mahāyāna translations and reflects his mature translation style; the chapter structure is more elaborate than T626’s, and includes a major treatment of the xīn běn jìng — “the originally pure mind” — that became one of the most-cited passages in later East Asian tathāgatagarbha and Chán exegesis.
Translations and research
- Boucher, Daniel. Bodhisattvas of the Forest and the Formation of the Mahāyāna. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008.
- Nattier, Jan. A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations. Tokyo: IRIAB, 2008.
No book-length English translation located.
Links
- CBETA T15n0627
- Kanseki DB
- 竺法護 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (287, 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.