Bǎoyún jīng 寶雲經
Sūtra of the Jewel-Cloud translated by 曼陀羅仙 (Màntuóluóxiān / Mandrasena, 譯)
About the work
T658 (seven fascicles; Sanskrit Ratnameghasūtra, “Sūtra of the Jewel-Cloud”) is the early-Liáng translation of one of the most important Mahāyāna sūtras, the Ratnamegha. The text was translated in the south at Jiànkāng under the Liáng by the Funanese monk 曼陀羅仙 (Mandrasena, fl. early 6th c.). The “Jewel-Cloud” of the title is a vast cosmic image of the bodhisattva’s stockpile of prajñā and upāya; the sūtra is structured as the Buddha’s lengthy answer to a series of bodhisattva queries (the “108 questions”) about the path. The closely paralleled T659 (the Dàshèng bǎoyún jīng) is a slightly later joint translation by Mandrasena and Saṅghabhara; the Tang T660 is Dharmaruci’s much-expanded re-rendering.
Abstract
曼陀羅仙 (Mandrasena, also Mandra; Màntuóluóxiān) was a monk from Funan 扶南 (the Cambodian-Vietnamese kingdom of the Mekong delta), who arrived at the Liáng court in 503 with a Khmer-Chinese delegation. The [[KR6r0011|Lìdài sānbǎo jì]] (T2034, juan 11) places his translation activity precisely in 503 CE. Date bracket: 503 (single year of attested activity at Jiànkāng). Mandrasena worked together with Saṅghabhara (Saṃghapāla), another Funanese monk, who served as his Chinese-language consultant; though the colophon of T658 names Mandrasena alone, the Lìdài records suggest cooperative work. Modern scholarship has noted that Mandrasena’s Chinese was reportedly limited and the translations are stylistically rough, lacking the polish of contemporaneous indigenous Chinese masters. The Ratnamegha is a major Mahāyāna paripṛcchā-style sūtra that became canonical in later Indian and Tibetan tradition; in East Asia it was largely overshadowed by the much-expanded Tang version T660.
Translations and research
- Cleary, Thomas. The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra. Boulder: Shambhala, 1993. — context for the paripṛcchā genre to which the Ratnamegha belongs.
- Cousins, L. S. “Aspects of Esoteric Southern Buddhism.” In Indian Insights: Buddhism, Brahmanism and Bhakti, ed. Peter Connolly and Sue Hamilton. London: Luzac Oriental, 1997. — context on Funanese Buddhism.
No book-length English translation of T658 specifically located.
Links
- CBETA T16n0658
- Kanseki DB
- 曼陀羅仙 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (503) — Ono Genmyō 小野玄妙, Maruyama Takao 丸山孝雄, eds. Bussho kaisetsu daijiten 佛書解說大辭典. Tokyo: Daitō shuppan, 1933–1936 [縮刷版 1999]. Vol. 10, 136 (Sakurabe Bunkyō 櫻部文鏡).