Fó shuō chūjiā gōngdé jīng 佛說出家功德經
The Buddha’s Sūtra on the Merit of Going Forth (i.e., entering monastic life) translator unknown (失譯, 譯)
About the work
T707 in one fascicle is a short Mahāyāna avadāna-style sūtra of unknown translator, attached by the Taishō to the Eastern Jìn 東晉 catalogue (317–420 CE). The narrative recounts the karmic backstory and conversion of Bǐluó-xiánnà 鞞羅羨那 (Skt. Vīra-sena, glossed by the Taishō with the Chinese rendering 勇軍 Yǒngjūn, “Valiant-Army”), a Licchavi 梨車 prince of Vaiśālī (毘舍離).
Abstract
The Buddha enters Vaiśālī at the food-time and sees Vīra-sena, a Licchavi prince given over to sensual indulgence with a host of consorts (“譬如天與諸天女共相娛樂”). Through the Buddha’s intervention and the karmic working-out of past-life merits and demerits, Vīra-sena is brought to renunciation. The text then expounds the immeasurable merit accruing to those who renounce worldly life and enter Buddhist monasticism (chūjiā 出家). The Eastern-Jìn cataloguing is conventional; the actual date of composition / translation is uncertain.
The text is one of a small group of Buddhist avadāna-cum-doctrinal sūtras (with [[KR6i0395|Dēngzhǐ yīnyuán jīng]] and others) that combine narrative conversion-stories with doctrinal exposition of the pāramitā framework. The merit-of-renunciation theme was particularly important in the early Six Dynasties period when Chinese Buddhism was actively justifying the legitimacy of chūjiā — a deeply un-Confucian abandonment of family obligations — to a sceptical Confucian elite.
Related canonical texts: thematic cluster on Buddhist merit KR6i0394–KR6i0398.
Translations and research
- Cole, Alan. Mothers and Sons in Chinese Buddhism. Stanford, 1998 (background on the chūjiā / filial-piety tension).
- Kieschnick, John. The Eminent Monk: Buddhist Ideals in Medieval Chinese Hagiography. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997.
No standalone English translation located.