Fó shuō xīyǒu jiàoliàng gōngdé jīng 佛說希有挍量功德經
The Buddha’s Sūtra of Marvels and Comparative Calculation of Merit translated by 闍那崛多 (Jñānagupta, 譯)
About the work
T690 in one fascicle is the Suí-period translation by 闍那崛多 / Jñānagupta (523–600) of a short Mahāyāna sūtra in which the Buddha, at Jetavana, responds to Ānanda’s question about the merit accruing to one who takes the three refuges (sān guī yī 三歸依: 歸依佛、歸依法、歸依僧). Composed at the Suí imperial translation programme in Cháng’ān between 闍那崛多’s appointment as senior Tripiṭaka in 587 and his death in 600.
Abstract
The text uses the standard late-Mahāyāna jiàoliàng 挍量 (or 校量, “comparative calculation”) rhetorical structure: Ānanda asks how much merit a “good son or good daughter” (善男子善女人) accrues by taking the three refuges; the Buddha responds with a sequence of escalating comparisons — the merit of giving food and clothing to a continent of people, then to all four continents, then to all the sahā-world, etc. — culminating in the assertion that the merit of taking even one refuge surpasses these material gifts immeasurably. The text is an example of late-Indian Mahāyāna pious-merit literature concerned with quantifying the spiritual returns on devotional acts. 闍那崛多’s rendering is in the polished Suí-period scriptural register; the work was widely cited in Tang and later Buddhist apologetic literature as scriptural ground for the supreme merit of refuge-taking.
闍那崛多 arrived in Cháng’ān in 559 and was a leading translator under the Northern Zhōu, the Suí, and into the early Táng. The text is one of his shorter works, completed at the Dàxīngshànsì 大興善寺 imperial translation programme.
Related canonical text: closely-related Tang version KR6i0381 (Zuì wúbǐ jīng 最無比經 / T691, by 玄奘).
Translations and research
- Chen Jinhua. Monks and Monarchs, Kinship and Kingship: Tanqian in Sui Buddhism and Politics. Kyoto: Italian School of East Asian Studies, 2002. (Background on Suí imperial Buddhism.)
- Funayama Tōru 船山徹. “Jōnakuta yakukyō no tokushoku” 闍那崛多訳経の特色. Indogaku Bukkyōgaku kenkyū 50 (2002).
No standalone Western-language translation located.