Yùfó gōngdé jīng 浴佛功德經
Sūtra on the Merit of Bathing the Buddha translated by 義淨 (Yìjìng, 譯)
About the work
T698 in one fascicle is 義淨’s retranslation, slightly later than [[KR6i0387|Yùxiàng gōngdé jīng 浴像功德經]] (T697 by 寶思惟 / Ratnacinta), of essentially the same Indian sūtra on the Buddha’s-Birthday image-bathing ritual. Translated by 義淨 (635–713) — the great pilgrim-translator who returned from India in 695 and worked at Cháng’ān and Luòyáng under imperial patronage from 695 until his death — at his Cháng’ān translation programme, dated by the Kāiyuán Catalogue to Jǐngyún 1 (710 CE).
Abstract
義淨’s 710 version is in many places more careful in its rendering of Sanskrit technical vocabulary than the Ratnacinta version T697; the doctrinal content is the same — the bodhisattva Viśuddhamati / 清淨慧 asks the Buddha by what means buddhas obtain a pure body, and the Buddha’s reply enumerates the merits of image-bathing — but 義淨’s text is shorter and more rigorously parallel-structured, with explicit ritual prescriptions for the bathing-water (cool, scented, mixed with sandalwood and flowers) that became the standard liturgical recipe in East-Asian Buddhism. The text was widely cited in Tang and Sòng Vinaya and Shūifǎ 受戒法 manuals and is the principal scriptural authority for the Buddha’s-Birthday rite as still practised in East-Asian and Vietnamese Buddhism.
The pairing of T697 and T698 (KR6i0387 / KR6i0388) is again a typical Tang case of two parallel renderings of the same Indian sūtra by different imperial translation programmes within a single generation.
Related canonical texts: alternate version KR6i0387 (T697); related image-cult cluster KR6i0385 (T695), KR6i0386 (T696).
Translations and research
- Hamada Yoshie 浜田吉江. Yokubutsu shiki no shisō to bunka. Tokyo: Hōzōkan, 2009.
- Hwang, Su-Mi. The Significance of the Bathing of the Buddha Ritual in East Asian Buddhism. (PhD thesis, Princeton, 2003.)
No standalone English translation located.