佛說觀佛三昧海經

Fóshuō guānfó sānmèi hǎi jīng 佛說觀佛三昧海經

Sūtra on the Ocean-like Samādhi of the Visualization of the Buddha translated by 佛陀跋陀羅 (Fútuóbátuóluó / Buddhabhadra, 譯)

About the work

T643 (ten fascicles, alt. title 觀佛三昧經; the Guānfó sānmèi hǎi jīng) is the major Chinese visualization-sūtra (guān jīng 觀經), translated by 佛陀跋陀羅 (Buddhabhadra, 359–429) in the Eastern Jin. The text presents in immense detail the meditative visualization of the body of the Buddha — first the gross physical body, then the marks (lakṣaṇa), then the multiple buddhas in all directions, then the dharmakāya — as a graduated path culminating in the guānfó sānmèi hǎi, the “Ocean of Buddha-Visualization Samādhi”. It is among the most influential meditation texts of medieval Chinese Buddhism and a principal source for the iconography of the buddha-body.

Structural Division

T643 is divided into twelve chapters:

1. 六辟品 (Liùpì pǐn) — Chapter on the Six Repulsives
2. 序觀地品 (Xù guāndì pǐn) — Chapter Introducing the Visualization Stages
3. 觀相品 (Guānxiàng pǐn) — Chapter on Visualizing the Marks [of the Buddha]
4. 觀佛 (Guānfó) — Visualizing the Buddha
5. 觀四無量心品 (Guān sìwúliàngxīn pǐn) — Chapter on Visualizing the Four Immeasurable Minds
6. 觀四威儀品 (Guān sìwēiyí pǐn) — Chapter on Visualizing the Four Postures
7. 觀馬王藏品 (Guān mǎwángzàng pǐn) — Chapter on Visualizing the Concealed [Marks like a] Horse-King
8. 本行品 (Běnxíng pǐn) — Chapter on the Original Practice
9. 觀像品 (Guānxiàng pǐn) — Chapter on Visualizing the Image
10. 念七佛品 (Niàn qīfó pǐn) — Chapter on Recollecting the Seven Buddhas
11. 念十方佛品 (Niàn shífāngfó pǐn) — Chapter on Recollecting the Buddhas of the Ten Directions
12. 觀佛密行品 (Guānfó mìxíng pǐn) — Chapter on the Esoteric Practice of Visualizing the Buddha

Abstract

T643 was translated by Buddhabhadra at the Daochang-sì 道場寺 in Jiànkāng during his Eastern Jin period (after his expulsion from Cháng’ān in 410). Date bracket: 410–429 (his Jiànkāng period until his death). Yamabe Nobuyoshi (1999, 2002) has demonstrated through detailed philological analysis that T643 is a Chinese composition or composite text, not a straightforward translation of an Indic source: it incorporates substantial Chinese medical-cosmological vocabulary, repeats and reorders blocks of text in ways characteristic of Chinese editing, and develops the visualization scheme in directions that have no clear Indic parallel. Yamabe’s hypothesis — now broadly accepted — is that the text emerged from the Liángzhōu / Yúnnán meditation circles of the early fifth century and was given its received form by Buddhabhadra’s circle.

The visualization scheme of T643 was foundational for Tiantai guān practice (智顗, Móhē zhǐguān), for Pure Land Buddha-visualization, and for the iconographic conventions of buddha-body painting in Chinese and Japanese art.

Translations and research

Reminder: AI generated list - beware of hallucinations. Corrections and additions welcome

• Yamabe, Nobuyoshi. The Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi of the Visualization of the Buddha. PhD dissertation, Yale University, 1999. — comprehensive study with partial translation.
• Yamabe, Nobuyoshi. “Practice of Visualization and the Visualization Sūtra: An Examination of Mural Paintings at Toyok, Turfan.” Pacific World, 3rd series, no. 4 (2002): 123–152.
• Greene, Eric M. Chan Before Chan: Meditation, Repentance, and Visionary Experience in Chinese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2021.
• Quinter, David. From Outcasts to Emperors: Shingon Ritsu and the Mañjuśrī Cult in Medieval Japan. Leiden: Brill, 2015. — context for visualization-sūtra reception in East Asia.

Links

• CBETA T15n0643
• Kanseki DB
• 佛陀跋陀羅 DILA
• Dazangthings date evidence (415) — Chen, Jinhua. “From Central Asia to Southern China: The Formation of Identity and Network in the Meditative Traditions of the Fifth–Sixth Century Southern China (420–589).” Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences 7, no. 2 (2014): 171–202. 173 n. 2.