Dàshèng shèlísuōdānmó jīng 大乘舍黎娑擔摩經
Mahāyāna Śālistamba Sūtra translated by 施護 (Dānapāla, 譯)
About the work
T711 in one fascicle is the Northern Sòng translation of the Śālistamba-sūtra by the Indian monk 施護 (Dānapāla, fl. 980–1017), the fourth of the seven Chinese versions. The transliterated title preserves the Sanskrit śālistamba phonetically as 舍黎娑擔摩 (the rendering 舍黎 reflects śāli, “rice”; 娑擔摩 reflects stamba, “stalk”). Dānapāla worked at the Sòng Yìjīngyuàn 譯經院 (Sūtra Translation Bureau) under imperial patronage; the date bracket reflects his attested translation activity in Chang-an / Kaifeng.
Abstract
Dānapāla’s version translates the same Indian recension as Amoghavajra’s KR6i0402 / T710 but in a more conservative register, adhering closely to the Sanskrit syntax. The opening preserves the standard sūtra preface (一時佛在王舍城耆闍崛山中) and the encounter between Maitreya and Śāriputra. The twelve-link doctrine is again expounded through the rice-stalk metaphor, with paired internal/external causation. The translation is a useful philological control on the Tang versions.
The Śālistamba was a particularly favored text of the Sòng translation bureau — it had become a key Mahāyāna scriptural source for the equation of pratītyasamutpāda with dharmakāya, much cited in Madhyamaka and Yogācāra commentarial literature. The retranslation of this short sūtra in the late tenth century was therefore not redundant but a deliberate philological project to recover the original Sanskrit from a fresh Indic manuscript.
Related canonical Chinese versions of the Śālistamba: KR6i0400 / T708 (Zhī Qiān, Wú), KR6i0401 / T709 (anonymous, Eastern Jìn), KR6i0402 / T710 (Amoghavajra, Tang), this work KR6i0403 / T711 (Dānapāla, Sòng), KR6i0404 / T712 (anonymous, Tang), KR6i0405 / T2782 (commentary).
Translations and research
- Schoening, Jeffrey D. The Śālistamba-sūtra and Its Indian Commentaries. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, 1995.
- Sen, Tansen. Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600–1400. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003. (Background on Dānapāla and the Sòng Yìjīngyuàn.)
- Jan Yün-hua, “Buddhist Relations between India and Sung China,” History of Religions 6 (1966), 24–42, 135–168.