Fó shuō wēnshì xǐyù zhòngsēng jīng 佛說溫室洗浴眾僧經
The Buddha’s Sūtra on the Warm-Bath-House: Bathing the Saṅgha translated by 安世高 (An Shigao, 譯)
About the work
T701 in one fascicle is the canonical Mahāyāna scriptural authority for the Buddhist practice of operating bath-houses (wēnshì 溫室, “warm-rooms”) for the Saṅgha as a meritorious lay activity. The Taishō witness colophon “後漢安息三藏安世高譯” attributes the rendering to 安世高 of the Later Hàn Parthian-state translation programme at Luòyáng, c. 148–170 CE.
Abstract
The narrative frame is a popular early-Buddhist conversion story: the physician Jīvaka (耆域) — son of the gāṇikā Āmrapālī (奈女) and the great medicine-king of the Buddha’s circle — comes to the Buddha at Vulture Peak / Gṛdhrakūṭa near Rājagṛha to ask how he should accumulate merit. The Buddha responds with a discourse on the meritorious value of constructing and operating bath-houses for the Saṅgha: providing seven specific items (firewood, clean water, bath-bean / soap-bean, fragrant ointments, lavender, gāṇa / chickpea-based skin-cleansers, and inner garments). The text closes with the seven types of disease the bath cures, and a list of the seven types of merit accruing to those who provide the bath. The text is one of the earliest scriptural authorities for Buddhist hygienic and medical philanthropy in East Asia, and was widely cited in Tang and Sòng monastic regulations on monastery bath-houses (yùtāng 浴堂).
The 安世高 attribution is conventional. Per Jan Nattier (2008), some Han-attributed sūtras may be later compositions, but the Wēnshì jīng shares vocabulary and frame-narrative structure with other texts confidently attributed to An Shigao’s circle and is generally considered authentic to the second-century Luòyáng translation activity. The text has two important medieval Chinese commentaries: [[KR6i0392|Wēnshì jīng yìjì 溫室經義記]] (T1793 by Jìngyǐngsì 慧遠 of the Suí) and [[KR6i0393|Wēnshì jīng shū 溫室經疏]] (T2780, recovered from Dunhuang, by Tang-period 慧淨).
Related canonical texts: commentaries KR6i0392 (T1793), KR6i0393 (T2780).
Translations and research
- Salguero, C. Pierce. Translating Buddhist Medicine in Medieval China. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. Treats the Wēnshì jīng as a foundational text for Buddhist bath-house medicine.
- Salguero, C. Pierce. “On Eliminating Disease’: Translations of the Medical Chapter from the Chinese Versions of the Sutra of Golden Light”. eJournal of Indian Medicine 6.1 (2013).
- Demiéville, Paul. Buddhism and Healing: Demiéville’s Article “Byō” from the Hōbōgirin. Lanham: University Press of America, 1985.
No standalone English translation located.
Other points of interest
The personal name Jīvaka (耆域) — the physician of King Bimbisāra and patron of the Buddha — is the canonical Indian Buddhist medical exemplum and the principal subject of a substantial body of medieval Chinese Buddhist medical literature. The frame-narrative of the Wēnshì jīng — Jīvaka asking the Buddha about merit — establishes the medical / hygienic register of the entire bath-house tradition.