Fóshuō chéngjù guāngmíng dìngyì jīng 佛說成具光明定意經
Sūtra on the Concentrated Mind of Accomplished and Brilliant Light, as Spoken by the Buddha translated by 支曜 (Zhī Yào, 譯)
About the work
T630 (one fascicle, alt. title 成具光明三昧經) is a short early Mahāyāna samādhi-sūtra translated by the Yuezhi monk 支曜 (Zhī Yào, fl. 185–195) at Luòyáng during the late Han. The text is one of the earliest Chinese sources for the guāngmíng dìngyì (light-concentration) — a meditative state in which the bodhisattva’s mind irradiates limitless light as a sign of accomplishment. It is among the small but securely attested corpus of late-Han Buddhist translations made by translators other than Lokakṣema and An Shigao.
Abstract
支曜 is the third of the major late-Han Yuezhi translators, attested in the [[KR6s0084|Chū sānzàng jì jí]] (T2145, juan 2) for some seven works, of which T630 is the most important to survive. Date bracket follows his attested productive period at Luòyáng under emperor Líng 漢靈帝 (185–195); Nattier (2008) confirms the attribution. The text is also recorded under the variant title 成具光明三昧經, reflecting the later Chinese tendency to read 定意 as glossing samādhi.
T630 develops the bodhisattva’s prajñāpāramitā practice through the figure of light-emission and is a precursor of the much larger Tang and Song guāngmíng literature; it is cited in the [[KR6c0005|Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra]] (Dà zhìdù lùn).
Translations and research
- Nattier, Jan. A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations. Tokyo: IRIAB, 2008.
- Zürcher, Erik. The Buddhist Conquest of China. Leiden: Brill, 1959.
No book-length Western translation located.
Links
- CBETA T15n0630
- Kanseki DB
- 支曜 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (186, 190) — Bielu 別錄 as reported by CSZJJ 出三藏記集. T2145 (LV) 6b13, 15.