Yuánqǐ shèngdào jīng 緣起聖道經
Sūtra of the Holy Path of Dependent-Origination (Nidānasūtra / Nagaropamasūtra) translated by 玄奘 (Xuánzàng, 譯)
About the work
T714 in one fascicle is Xuánzàng’s Tang rendering of the Nidānasūtra / Nagaropamasūtra, the second of the three Chinese versions of this canonical post-enlightenment narrative. Xuánzàng’s date bracket of 645 (return from India) – 664 (death) is the standard window for his Chang-an translation programme. The Sanskrit Nagaropamasūtra is preserved in fragments from Central Asia (treated in Bongard-Levin et al. 1996) and provides a useful philological control on the Chinese versions.
Abstract
Xuánzàng’s rendering, characteristically literal, preserves the structure of the canonical narrative: the Buddha’s solitary contemplation under the bodhi tree of the chain of conditioning, in both reverse-order and forward-order traversals. Where Zhī Qiān (KR6i0407 / T713) emphasizes the contemplative act (“thinking under the pippala tree”), Xuánzàng emphasizes the discovery — yuánqǐ shèngdào 緣起聖道, “the Holy Path of Dependent-Origination” — and the doctrinal content over the narrative frame. The Nagaropama simile of the ancient city is rendered explicitly in this version: 譬如有人遊險野林中，忽見舊城 (“just as a person traveling in a perilous wilderness forest suddenly sees an ancient city”).
The Nagaropama simile is the locus classicus for the Buddha’s claim that the Dharma is not invented but discovered — an ancient road leading to an ancient city, rediscovered by the Buddha after long disuse. This is one of the most frequently cited canonical narratives in Chinese Buddhist exegesis, used to ground the claim that the Dharma preceded the historical Buddha. Xuánzàng’s translation, with its philological precision, is the standard Chinese version cited in subsequent Tang and Sòng commentarial literature.
Related canonical Chinese versions of the Nidānasūtra / Nagaropamasūtra: KR6i0407 / T713 (Zhī Qiān, Wú), this work KR6i0408 / T714 (Xuánzàng, Tang), KR6i0409 / T715 (Fǎxián / Dharmabhadra, Sòng).
Translations and research
- 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. The principal modern philological treatment.
- Bodhi, Bhikkhu, trans. The Connected Discourses of the Buddha. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000. (Pāli parallel SN 12.65.)
- Anālayo. “The Brahmajāla and the Early Buddhist Oral Tradition,” Annual Report of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology 17 (2014). (Background on the Saṃyuktāgama / Saṃyutta-nikāya parallel.)