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佛藏經

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Text ID
KR6i0291
Date
401–413
Dynasty
姚秦

Fózàng jīng 佛藏經

Sūtra of the Buddha-Treasury translated by 鳩摩羅什 (Jiūmóluóshí / Kumārajīva, 譯)

About the work

T653 (three fascicles, alt. title 選擇諸法經; Sanskrit Buddhapiṭakaduḥśīlanirgraha-sūtra, “Sūtra on the Removal of the Immoral from the Buddha-Basket”) is one of 鳩摩羅什’s most stylistically polished Mahāyāna translations. It is a polemical prajñāpāramitā-style critique of corrupt or hypocritical monks, framed as a discourse by the Buddha to Śāriputra; the “Buddha-Treasury” of the title is the prajñāpāramitā itself, from which the lax monastic must be excluded.

Structural Division

T653 is divided into ten chapters:

  1. 諸法實相品 (Zhūfǎ shíxiàng pǐn) — Chapter on the True Marks of All Dharmas
  2. 念佛品 (Niànfó pǐn) — Chapter on Buddhānusmṛti
  3. 念法品 (Niànfǎ pǐn) — Chapter on Dharmānusmṛti
  4. 念僧品 (Niànsēng pǐn) — Chapter on Saṅghānusmṛti
  5. 淨戒品 (Jìngjiè pǐn) — Chapter on Pure Discipline
  6. 淨法品 (Jìngfǎ pǐn) — Chapter on Pure Dharma
  7. 往古品 (Wǎnggǔ pǐn) — Chapter on Bygone Times
  8. 淨見品 (Jìngjiàn pǐn) — Chapter on Pure View
  9. 了戒品 (Liǎojiè pǐn) — Chapter on Understanding the Discipline
  10. 囑累品 (Zhǔlèi pǐn) — Chapter of Entrustment

Abstract

T653 is unanimously ascribed to 鳩摩羅什 in the canonical bibliographies; the [[KR6s0084|Chū sānzàng jì jí]] (T2145, juan 2) and the [[KR6r0011|Lìdài sānbǎo jì]] (T2034, juan 8) place it among his Cháng’ān works. Date bracket: 401–413. The Sanskrit Buddhapiṭakaduḥśīlanirgraha is preserved in Tibetan translation, edited by Padmanabh Jaini and others. The text is an unusually direct Mahāyāna critique of monastic laxity: Śāriputra is told that the prajñāpāramitā will soon enter a period of decline in which monks claiming to be bodhisattvas will in fact be hypocrites, and the Buddha lays out criteria for distinguishing the true bodhisattva from the false. The text was a major source for the Chinese Buddhist polemical tradition (cf. the [[KR6c0005|Dà zhìdù lùn]]) and is cited in disputes over the bodhisattva vinaya through the Tang.

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. — substantial discussion of the Buddhapiṭakaduḥśīlanirgraha tradition.
  • Boucher, Daniel. Bodhisattvas of the Forest and the Formation of the Mahāyāna. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008. — context on early-Mahāyāna critiques of monastic laxity.

No book-length English translation of T653 located.

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