Bèiduō shù xià sīwéi shíèr yīnyuán jīng 貝多樹下思惟十二因緣經
Sūtra of Contemplating the Twelve Links of Dependent-Origination Beneath the Pippala Tree (Nidānasūtra / Nagaropamasūtra) translated by 支謙 (Zhī Qiān, 譯)
About the work
T713 in one fascicle is the third-century rendering by the Yuèzhī-state lay translator 支謙 (active at Jiànyè 建業 under Wú Sūn Quán 222–252 CE) of the Indian Nidānasūtra / Nagaropamasūtra, paralleled in the Pāli Saṃyutta-nikāya (SN 12.65 Nagara-sutta). The expanded title — “thinking under the pippala tree” 貝多樹下 — preserves the sūtra’s narrative hook: the Buddha, just after his enlightenment, contemplates the twelve nidānas beneath the bodhi / pippala tree (Skt. aśvattha; Pāli assattha; transliterated 貝多 from Skt. paṭṭra / pippala). Note that this is a different sūtra from the Śālistamba tradition translated by Zhī Qiān as KR6i0400 / T708, despite both treating dependent-origination.
Abstract
The Nagara-sutta / Nagaropamasūtra tradition is the canonical narrative of the Buddha’s post-enlightenment contemplation of the twelve nidānas. The sūtra opens with the Buddha alone under the bodhi tree, working through the chain of conditioning: “what existing → this exists; what arising → this arises” (此有故彼有，此起故彼起). He proceeds backwards through aging-and-death, birth, becoming, attachment, craving … to ignorance, then forwards from ignorance to aging-and-death, mapping the dependent-origination structure as the Buddha himself had done. The simile that gives the Nagaropama its name — the discovery of an ancient city in the forest, paralleling the Buddha’s “rediscovery” of the ancient Dharma — is preserved in the related Tang version KR6i0408 / T714 (Xuánzàng) and Sòng version KR6i0409 / T715 (Fǎxián / Dharmabhadra) under the Jiùchéngyùjīng 舊城喻經 (“Sūtra of the Old City Simile”) title.
This Nidānasūtra tradition stands alongside the Śālistamba tradition as one of the two principal Mahāyāna scriptural sources for dependent-origination. The two traditions are closely related and the Śālistamba’s opening formula (“見十二因緣即是見法”) is itself a paraphrase of the Nidānasūtra’s autobiographical narrative.
Related canonical Chinese versions of the Nidānasūtra / Nagaropamasūtra: this work KR6i0407 / T713 (Zhī Qiān, Wú), KR6i0408 / T714 (Xuánzàng, Tang), KR6i0409 / T715 (Fǎxián / Dharmabhadra, Sòng).
Translations and research
- Bodhi, Bhikkhu, trans. The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000. (English translation of the Pāli parallel SN 12.65.)
- Bongard-Levin, G. M., D. Boucher, T. Fukita, and K. Wille. “The Nagaropamasūtra: An Apotropaic Text from the Saṃyuktāgama. A Transliteration, Reconstruction, and Translation of the Central Asian Sanskrit Manuscripts,” in Sanskrit-Texte aus dem buddhistischen Kanon, Folge 3. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996, 7–131.
- Nattier, Jan. A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations. Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, 2008. (Treats Zhī Qiān’s translation activity, including this work.)