Fó shuō wèicéngyǒu jīng 佛說未曾有經
The Buddha’s Sūtra on the Unprecedented Marvels translator unknown (失譯, 譯)
About the work
T688 in one fascicle is a short sūtra on the Buddha’s discourse to Ānanda about the unprecedented merits of constructing reliquary stūpas (tā 塔) — particularly small portable shrines — to enshrine images and relics. The Taishō witness identifies this as “後漢失譯人名出古舊錄” (“translator’s name unknown, attributed to the Later Hàn from the Old Catalogue”). The Taishō also notes T689 (KR6i0379) as the parallel rendering by 玄奘; the two are alternate Chinese versions of the Adbhuta-dharma-paryāya 甚希有經.
Abstract
The discourse, set on Vulture Peak (Gṛdhrakūṭa) at Rājagṛha, opens with Ānanda’s question about the merit accruing to one who builds a stūpa enshrining a Buddha-image. The Buddha responds with a graduated comparison between the merit of stūpa-construction at increasing scales — from the size of an amalaka fruit, to a jujube, to a cīvara needle, etc. — culminating in the assertion that even a stūpa “the size of a mustard-seed” enshrined with a Buddha-image yields immeasurable merit. The text is one of the canonical Mahāyāna scriptural authorities for the practice of small-stūpa veneration in late-imperial East-Asian Buddhism. The Han-dynasty cataloguing is, as Jan Nattier (2008) cautions, often unreliable: the actual date of composition / translation is uncertain and may be substantially later (Three Kingdoms or Western Jìn). The bracket given here reflects the conventional Han-period attribution.
The work has a paired late translation by 玄奘 in 645 CE: [[KR6i0379|Shènxīyǒu jīng 甚希有經]] (T689). The two versions render the same Indian original (Adbhuta-dharma-paryāya); 玄奘’s rendering uses the more standardized late-Tang Yogācāra-style technical vocabulary.
Related canonical texts: alternate translation KR6i0379 (T689); related cluster on stūpa / image merit KR6i0382–KR6i0390 (T692–T700).
Translations and research
- Nattier, Jan. A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations. Tokyo: Soka University, 2008. (On the doubtful Han-dynasty attribution of small Taishō texts.)
- Boucher, Daniel. Bodhisattvas of the Forest. Honolulu, 2008.
No standalone Western-language translation located.