Fó shuō zàolì xíngxiàng fúbào jīng 佛說造立形像福報經
The Buddha’s Sūtra on the Karmic Reward of Erecting Buddha-Images translator unknown (失譯, 譯)
About the work
T693 in one fascicle is the slightly later of two early Chinese versions of the King-Udayana-makes-the-first-Buddha-image legend, parallel to T692. The Taishō witness identifies it as “闕譯人名附東晉錄” — “translator’s name unknown, attached to the Eastern Jìn 東晉 catalogue (317–420 CE).” Title difference: T693’s zàolì xíngxiàng fúbào (“the karmic reward of erecting Buddha-images”) makes the merit-of-image-making aspect of the doctrine explicit in the title, where T692 simply names the act (“making Buddha-images”).
Abstract
The narrative substance is the same as in KR6i0382: King Udayana 優填, in his fourteenth year, hears the Buddha is absent (preaching to his mother in Tāvatiṃśa) and commissions the first sandalwood Buddha-image. The text then unfolds the merits of image-making: rebirth in human or god-realms, beauty, wealth, dignity, etc. The two versions (T692 and T693) appear to be parallel translations of the same Indian original — possibly with minor independent interpolations — rather than one being a revision of the other.
The Eastern-Jìn cataloguing is conventional. Together with T692, this short pair constituted the canonical scriptural ground for the East Asian Buddhist image-cult; the Udayana sandalwood Buddha-image itself is the conventional prototype of the standing Buddha-image in East Asian art history (the Saidaiji-Sakyamuni / Seiryōji-Shaka lineage in Japan, the Yōutián wáng xiàng in China).
Related canonical texts: parallel KR6i0382 (T692); related sūtras KR6i0384–KR6i0388.
Translations and research
- Carter, Martha L. The Mystery of the Udayana Buddha. Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1990.
- McCallum, Donald F. Zenkōji and Its Icon. Princeton, 1994.
- Soper, Alexander C. Literary Evidence for Early Buddhist Art in China. Ascona: Artibus Asiae, 1959 (foundational on the textual sources for early Chinese Buddhist art).
No standalone English translation of T693 located.