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觀察諸法行經

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Text ID
KR6i0287
Date
591–600
Dynasty
隋

Guānchá zhūfǎ xíng jīng 觀察諸法行經

Sūtra on Observing the Practice of All Dharmas translated by 闍那崛多 (Shénàjuéduō / Jñānagupta, 譯)

About the work

T649 (four fascicles) is the Sui translation by 闍那崛多 (Jñānagupta, 523–600) of a Mahāyāna sūtra on the bodhisattva’s contemplation of the practice of all dharmas. It belongs to the broad genre of paripṛcchā-sūtras in which the Buddha responds to a bodhisattva’s questions with a graduated treatment of the path. The text is one of Jñānagupta’s many translations made during his Sui-era residence at Cháng’ān.

Structural Division

T649 is divided into three chapters:

  1. 無邊善方便行品 (Wúbiān shànfāngbiàn xíng pǐn) — Chapter on the Practice of Boundless Good Skill-in-Means
  2. 先世勤勒相應品 (Xiānshì qínlè xiāngyīng pǐn) — Chapter on Correspondence with Previous Lives’ Diligent Cultivation
  3. 授記品 (Shòujì pǐn) — Chapter on the Conferral of Predictions

Abstract

闍那崛多 (Jñānagupta) was a Gandhāran translator who arrived in China in the mid-sixth century and went on to become one of the most prolific translators of the Sui era; the [[KR6r0011|Lìdài sānbǎo jì]] (T2034) records his career in detail. T649 was completed at the Dàxīngshàn sì 大興善寺 in Cháng’ān during his late Sui period; date bracket follows this (591–600 — from the consolidation of his late Sui translation programme to his death). The text develops the bodhisattva path through three principal pillars: skill-in-means, the karmic continuity of practice across lives, and the conferral of buddha-prediction (vyākaraṇa). The closely-related text T651 (Fóshuō zhūfǎ běnwú jīng, also by Jñānagupta) is a partial parallel.

Translations and research

  • Chen, Jinhua. Monks and Monarchs, Kinship and Kingship: Tanqian in Sui Buddhism and Politics. Italian School of East Asian Studies, 2002. — context for Sui translation projects.
  • Yamabe, Nobuyoshi. Various studies on Sui-period Mahāyāna translation.

No book-length Western translation located.

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