Fóshuō rúlái zhìyìn jīng 佛說如來智印經
Sūtra on the Wisdom-Seal of the Tathāgata as Spoken by the Buddha translator unknown (失譯)
About the work
T633 (one fascicle, alt. title 諸佛慧法身經; provisional Sanskrit Tathāgatajñānamudrāsamādhi-sūtra) is an anonymously transmitted Chinese version of the same Indic sūtra underlying T632 (Zhī Qiān’s Huì-yìn sānmèi) and T634 (the Northern Song Dàshèng zhì-yìn jīng). The text is conventionally placed in the Liú-Sòng (420–479) on stylistic grounds, but the translator is already lost in the Chū sānzàng jì jí (T2145).
Abstract
T633 has the alternate title 諸佛慧法身經 (Sūtra on the Wisdom-Dharmakāya of All Buddhas), recorded in the Sēngyòu catalog. The translator is anonymous; both 僧祐 Sēngyòu and the Tang catalogs (Lìdài sānbǎo jì, Kāiyuán) list the text as 失譯 (“lost translator”). Modern scholarship has generally placed it on stylistic grounds in the southern Liú-Sòng period, but no firmer dating is possible. The text is shorter and more compact than T632 and may represent a separate Indic recension rather than a retranslation of the same source. Together with T632 and T634, T633 forms the Chinese tradition of the “wisdom-seal samādhi” — a doctrinal motif that was later absorbed into tantric Buddhism’s mudrā theory.
Translations and research
Reminder: AI generated list - beware of hallucinations. Corrections and additions welcome
- Nattier, Jan. A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations. Tokyo: IRIAB, 2008. — for general orientation on early samādhi-sūtra dating.
No book-length Western translation located.
Links
- CBETA T15n0633
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (460) — T = CBETA. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經. Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai/Daizō shuppan, 1924–1932.