Fó shuō wǔdàshī jīng 佛說五大施經
The Buddha’s Sūtra on the Five Great Gifts translated by 施護 (Dānapāla, 等譯)
About the work
T706 in one fascicle is a Northern-Sòng translation by Dānapāla (lifedates uncertain, fl. 980–1017) of a brief Mahāyāna sūtra on the pañca mahādāna — the “five great gifts” — i.e. the five fundamental moral abstentions (the five precepts) recast as positive dāna (gifts) of safety from oneself to all sentient beings. The Taishō witness opens “西天譯經三藏朝奉大夫試光祿卿傳法大師賜紫沙門臣施護等奉詔譯” — giving the standard Sòng-imperial-honorific colophon for 施護 at the Yìjīngyuàn translation programme.
Abstract
The Buddha addresses the bhikṣu-saṅgha at Jetavana on the wǔ zhǒng dàshī 五種大施 (“five varieties of great gift”). The sūtra’s doctrinal innovation is to reframe the standard five śīlas — abstention from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and intoxicants — as positive gifts: by abstaining from killing, the practitioner gives all beings the gift of abhaya-dāna 無畏施 (gift of fearlessness, freedom from harm); by abstaining from stealing, one gives all beings the gift of safety in their possessions; etc. The five śīlas are thus reconceived not as restrictive prohibitions but as positive bodhisattva dānas, integrated with the pāramitā framework. The work is short and aphoristically structured.
施護 / Dānapāla was one of the principal translators at the late-tenth-century Translation Institute, working alongside 天息災 and 法天 under Sòng imperial patronage. Composition window: 施護’s active translation period at Kāifēng, 982–1017.
Translations and research
- Sen, Tansen. Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade. Honolulu, 2003.
- Bagchi, Prabodh Chandra. Le canon bouddhique en Chine. Paris, 1927–1938.
No standalone English translation located.
Other points of interest
The reframing of the five precepts as five dānas — particularly the equation abhaya-dāna = “I will not kill you” — became one of the most popular bodhisattva-ethical formulations in late-imperial East-Asian Buddhism, used in lay-precept ceremonies and homiletic literature. The text is short but doctrinally generative.