Zhūfǎ wúxíng jīng 諸法無行經
Sūtra on the Non-Practice of All Dharmas translated by 鳩摩羅什 (Jiūmóluóshí / Kumārajīva, 譯)
About the work
T650 (two fascicles; Sanskrit Sarvadharmapravṛttinirdeśa-sūtra, “Sūtra Setting Forth the Operation of All Dharmas”) is 鳩摩羅什’s Yáo-Qín translation of a major Mahāyāna prajñāpāramitā exposition. The Chinese title — “all dharmas have no practice” — is a polemical reading: from the absolute prajñā perspective, no dharma is the agent of any practice, since all dharmas are devoid of intrinsic nature. The text is closely paralleled by T651 (Fóshuō zhūfǎ běnwú jīng) and T652 (the Northern Song Dàshèng suízhuǎn xuānshuō).
Abstract
T650 is unanimously ascribed to 鳩摩羅什 in the canonical bibliographies. Date bracket follows his Cháng’ān period (401–413). The Sanskrit Sarvadharmapravṛttinirdeśa survives in a Tibetan version and in fragments. The text is a vigorous statement of the anutpattikadharmakṣānti — the forbearance of the non-arising of dharmas — and was a key source for Madhyamaka exegesis in China; it is cited extensively in [[KR6c0005|the Dà zhìdù lùn]] (T1509, also Kumārajīva’s translation). The Sarvadharmapravṛttinirdeśa is one of the most radical statements of the prajñāpāramitā paradox that the bodhisattva path consists in not practising any dharma — i.e., that all real practice is the realization that no dharma has any intrinsic mode of operation.
Translations and research
- Silk, Jonathan A. Riven by Lust: Incest and Schism in Indian Buddhist Legend and Historiography. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009. — discusses related prajñāpāramitā literature.
- Bhattacarya, K. Le retour à la non-pensée. (Various studies on anutpāda-doctrine.)
No standalone book-length English translation of T650 located.
Links
- CBETA T15n0650
- Kanseki DB
- 鳩摩羅什 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (405) — Sengrui 僧叡. Er Qin lu 二秦錄, as preserved in Fèi Chángfáng 費長房, Lìdài sānbǎo jì (LDSBJ) 歷代三寶紀 T2034. T2034 (XLIX) 77b26–79a10.