Fóshuō bǎoyǔ jīng 佛說寶雨經
Sūtra of the Jewel-Rain as Spoken by the Buddha translated by 達摩流支 (Dámóliúzhī / Dharmaruci, 譯)
About the work
T660 (ten fascicles, alt. title 顯授不退轉菩薩記; Sanskrit Ratnameghasūtra) is the Tang retranslation of the same Indic Ratnamegha underlying T658 (Mandrasena, 503) and T659 (Mandrasena & Saṅghabhara, c. 503–524). The translator 達摩流支 (Dharmaruci, fl. late 7th c.) — to be distinguished from the early-sixth-century Northern Wei translator Bodhiruci I — was an Indian master active under Empress 武則天 Wǔ Zétiān. T660 is the most expanded and politically significant Chinese version of the Ratnamegha: its colophon explicitly invokes the legitimacy of Wǔ Zétiān’s reign through a passage predicting that a female cakravartin will appear in the East to spread the Dharma, a passage absent from T658 and T659 and probably interpolated to support her imperial claims.
Abstract
The Tang catalogs ([[KR6s0093|Kāiyuán shìjiào lù]] T2154; Zhēnyuán xīndìng shìjiào mùlù T2157) date T660 precisely to Chángshòu 長壽 2 = 693 CE, completed at the Fóshòujì sì 佛授記寺 in Luòyáng under direct imperial patronage. Date bracket: 693 (single year). The text was a key tool in the propaganda programme that established 武則天 Wǔ Zétiān as Maitreya-elect / cakravartin-queen; Antonino Forte’s classic study (1976) demonstrates that the prophecy of the female cakravartin was inserted by the translation team — possibly with 薛懷義 and 法明 — to provide scriptural warrant for her assumption of the throne. Modern scholarship (Forte 1976, 2005) treats T660 as Exhibit A in the Wǔ Zétiān propaganda corpus.
In the Kanripo catalog meta the translator is recorded as 達摩流支 (Dharmaruci), distinct from the Northern Wei Bodhiruci I (fl. 508–537); the [[KR6s0093|Kāiyuán]] catalog explicitly distinguishes them.
Translations and research
- Forte, Antonino. Political Propaganda and Ideology in China at the End of the Seventh Century: Inquiry into the Nature, Authors and Function of the Tunhuang Document S. 6502, Followed by an Annotated Translation. Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1976; revised 2005. — landmark study of T660 in the Wǔ Zétiān propaganda programme.
- Chen, Jinhua. Philosopher, Practitioner, Politician: The Many Lives of Fazang. Leiden: Brill, 2007. — context for the late-seventh-century imperial translation projects.
No book-length English translation located.
Other points of interest
T660 is one of the rare cases in which a translation team is documented to have inserted an entire prophecy passage to legitimize an imperial regime. Forte (1976) reconstructs the political context and identifies the additional material against the Tibetan and Sanskrit witnesses.
Links
- CBETA T16n0660
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (700, 720) — Ōno Hōdō 大野法道. Daijō kai kyō no kenkyū 大乗戒経の研究. Tokyo: Risōsha 理想社, 1954. 363.