Císhì púsà suǒ shuō dàshèng yuánshēng dàogǎn yù jīng 慈氏菩薩所說大乘緣生稻𦼮喻經
Mahāyāna Sūtra on Dependent-Origination Spoken by Maitreya Bodhisattva, Through the Simile of the Rice-Stalk (Śālistamba-sūtra) translated by 不空 (Bùkōng / Amoghavajra, 譯)
About the work
T710 in one fascicle is the Tang-period Tantric master Amoghavajra’s version of the Śālistamba-sūtra, the third of the seven Chinese versions. Amoghavajra’s lifedates 705–774 and his Chang-an translation activity at Dàxìngshànsì 大興善寺 give the date bracket 746 (return from India) – 774 (death). The expanded title — naming Maitreya (Císhì 慈氏) as expounder — reflects the structural shift of the Śālistamba tradition: the historical Buddha pronounces the formula, but it is Maitreya who delivers the exposition.
Abstract
Amoghavajra’s rendering retains the basic structure of the Śālistamba — Buddha’s gnomic utterance + Maitreya’s exposition before Śāriputra — but expands the doctrinal vocabulary to the standard Tang Yogācāra-Tantric register. The twelve-link chain of pratītyasamutpāda (從無明 … 至老死) is exposited through the rice-stalk metaphor: the inner causation (nèiyīnyuán 內因緣) of consciousness, name-and-form, and the six sense-spheres is paralleled by the outer causation (wàiyīnyuán 外因緣) of the seed → sprout → stalk → leaves → flower → fruit sequence. The two parallel domains — psychic and vegetative — share the same structure of conditioned arising, the same absence of self.
This is the most theoretically elaborate of the Chinese versions and was the standard reference text in Tang and Northern Sòng commentarial traditions. The Sòng Dànāpāla version (KR6i0403 / T711) translates the same Sanskrit recension, providing a useful alternative reading. The associated commentary KR6i0405 / T2782 by 法成 (Chos-grub, Tang Tibetan-Chinese translator) takes one of the Śālistamba recensions as its base text.
Related canonical Chinese versions of the Śālistamba: KR6i0400 / T708 (Zhī Qiān, Wú), KR6i0401 / T709 (anonymous, Eastern Jìn), this work KR6i0402 / T710 (Amoghavajra, Tang), KR6i0403 / T711 (Dānapāla, Northern Sòng), KR6i0404 / T712 (anonymous, Tang), KR6i0405 / T2782 (commentary), KR6i0407 / T713 (Zhī Qiān, Nidānasūtra parallel).
Translations and research
- Schoening, Jeffrey D. The Śālistamba-sūtra and Its Indian Commentaries. 2 vols. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, 1995. The most thorough modern study, treating the Sanskrit, Tibetan, and the Chinese versions including this one.
- Reat, N. Ross. The Śālistamba Sūtra: Tibetan Original, Sanskrit Reconstruction, English Translation, Critical Notes. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993.
- Orzech, Charles D. Politics and Transcendent Wisdom: The Scripture for Humane Kings in the Creation of Chinese Buddhism. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. (Background on Amoghavajra’s translation activity.)