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 [[KR6s0084|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 ([[KR6r0011|Lìdài sānbǎo jì]], [[KR6s0093|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
- 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.