Fóshuō shǒuléngyán sānmèi jīng 佛說首楞嚴三昧經
Sūtra on the Heroic-March Samādhi as Spoken by the Buddha translated by 鳩摩羅什 (Jiūmóluóshí / Kumārajīva, 譯)
About the work
T642 (two fascicles, alt. titles 首楞嚴經 and 新首楞嚴經; Sanskrit Śūraṅgamasamādhi-sūtra) is 鳩摩羅什’s Yáo-Qín translation of one of the most important early Mahāyāna samādhi-sūtras. The Śūraṅgamasamādhi is the “Heroic-March Samādhi” of an advanced bodhisattva whose meditative power crushes all obstacles; the text was foundational for the Chinese understanding of bodhisattva samādhi and is one of Kumārajīva’s most influential translations. It must be carefully distinguished from the entirely different and pseudepigraphic 大佛頂首楞嚴經 (T945), which despite its similar Chinese title is an independent text composed in China in the eighth century.
Abstract
T642 was translated by Kumārajīva at Cháng’ān between 401 and 413. The Sanskrit text was lost in India but partially reconstructed by Étienne Lamotte from Tibetan and Chinese; Lamotte’s La Concentration de la marche héroïque (Śūraṅgamasamādhisūtra) (1965) is the standard study and contains a complete French translation of T642. The text is a major source for the Mahāyāna doctrine of the daśabhūmi (ten bodhisattva stages), the upāya-kauśalya (skill-in-means), and the active beneficent bodhisattva-presence in the world. The bodhisattva Mañjuśrī and Maitreya play prominent roles. Earlier Chinese versions by Lokakṣema, Zhī Qiān and others are recorded in the catalogs but do not survive; T642 (Kumārajīva) and T1042 (a Tang-period dhāraṇī text bearing a related name) are the only Chinese versions extant.
Translations and research
- Lamotte, Étienne. La Concentration de la marche héroïque (Śūraṅgamasamādhisūtra). Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques 13. Brussels: Institut belge des hautes études chinoises, 1965. — standard critical edition with French translation.
- Lamotte, Étienne / Boin-Webb, Sara (trans.). Śūraṅgamasamādhisūtra: The Concentration of Heroic Progress. London: Curzon, 1998. — English version of Lamotte’s French.
- Powell, William. The Record of Tung-shan. (Discusses Śūraṅgamasamādhi in Chán context.)
Other points of interest
The pseudepigraphic 大佛頂如來密因修證了義諸菩薩萬行首楞嚴經 (T945, Dà fódǐng shǒuléngyán jīng) is unrelated to T642 despite its name. T945 is an eighth-century Chinese composition; T642 is the genuine Indic Śūraṅgamasamādhi-sūtra. The conflation has caused considerable confusion in East Asian Buddhist tradition and in modern Western literature.
Links
- CBETA T15n0642
- Kanseki DB
- 鳩摩羅什 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (405, 409) — Lamotte, Étienne, tr. Śūraṃgamasamādhisūtra: The Concentration of Heroic Progress – An Early Mahāyāna Buddhist Scripture. Translated by Sara Boin-Webb. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2003. 94–97.