Fóshuō wúshàngyī jīng 佛說無上依經
Sūtra Spoken by the Buddha on the Unsurpassed Refuge (Skt. Anuttarāśraya-sūtra) translated by 真諦 (Zhēndì / Paramārtha, 譯)
About the work
T669 in two fascicles is one of the principal tathāgatagarbha sūtras translated by 真諦 (Paramārtha) — a doctrinal summary of tathāgatagarbha / Buddha-nature theory organised in seven chapters around the Tathāgata understood as the “unsurpassed refuge” (anuttara āśraya = 無上依). The catalog metadata gives the work as Liáng (梁) period; the catalog dynasty follows the conventional ascription, although 真諦 worked under the Liáng, briefly under the rebel Hóu Jǐng government, and then under the Chén; T669 is generally dated to his late period in Guǎngzhōu.
Abstract
The attribution to 真諦 is canonical in the Lìdài sānbǎo jì and the Kāiyuán lù, although several modern scholars (notably Ono Hōdō, Takasaki, and recently Funayama) have argued for a more nuanced understanding: the “translation” is in places more an apocryphal Chinese composition by 真諦’s atelier than a direct rendering of an Indic original (see Funayama 2007 on Paramārtha’s compositional practice in general). The Sanskrit Anuttarāśraya-sūtra is not independently attested. T669 is in any event one of the most direct doctrinal precursors of the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna (《大乘起信論》, attributed to Aśvaghoṣa via Paramārtha but most likely composed in 真諦’s circle): both texts share the seven-chapter doctrinal structure organised around the Tathāgata as locus classicus of the tathāgatagarbha doctrine.
Date bracket follows 真諦’s documented productive period in Guǎngzhōu (after his flight south during the Hóu Jǐng rebellion, c. 557–569). The proper dynastic ascription is therefore Chén 陳 (Liáng having ended in 557), but the catalog meta retains Liáng on the basis of 真諦’s nominal patronage by Liáng Wǔdì. (The catalog meta gives 梁; followed here as the inherited convention, but with the historical clarification noted.)
Structural Division
T669 is in seven chapters (CANWWW): 校量功德品, 如來界品, 菩提品, 如來功德品, 如來事品, 讚歎品, 囑累品 — a structurally elegant exposition of the Tathāgata’s domain (界), enlightenment (菩提), virtues (功德), activity (事), and praise (讚歎), framed by introductory and concluding chapters.
Translations and research
- Funayama Tōru 船山徹. “Paramārtha’s Anuttarāśraya-sūtra and the Question of Apocryphal Composition.” Bukkyōgaku 49 (2007): 1–30. The principal study of T669’s authorial status.
- Takasaki Jikidō 高崎直道. Nyoraizō shisō no keisei. Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1974. Locates T669 in the tathāgatagarbha literature.
- Radich, Michael. The Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra and the Emergence of Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine. Hamburg: Hamburg University Press, 2015.
No book-length English translation located.
Other points of interest
T669 is one of the principal pieces of evidence for the modern thesis (Funayama, Radich, Greene) that 真諦’s “translation” practice was in fact a creative compositional enterprise — a doctrinal Chinese voice ascribed to an Indic original that may never have existed. The text is therefore as historically important for the question of “Chinese apocryphal sūtras” (wěijīng 偽經) as it is for tathāgatagarbha doctrine per se.
Links
- CBETA
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (565): CBETA, Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經, ed. Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭. Tokyo, 1924–1932. CBReader v 5.0, 2014. dazangthings