Miàofǎ shèng niànchù jīng 妙法聖念處經
Sūtra on the Holy Establishment of Mindfulness of the Wonderful Dharma (Saddharma-smṛtyupasthāna-sūtra, abbreviated Sòng version) translated by 法天 (Fǎtiān / Dharmadeva, 譯)
About the work
T722 in eight fascicles is 法天’s Northern Sòng rendering of an abbreviated form of the Saddharma-smṛtyupasthāna tradition. Where the Eastern Wèi version by 瞿曇般若流支 (KR6i0415 / T721) runs to seventy fascicles, this Sòng version is a much shorter eight-fascicle redaction. 法天’s active period at the Sòng Yìjīngyuàn (982–1001) gives the date bracket. The differing extent suggests that the Sòng version is either based on a shorter Indian recension, on a deliberately abridged Indian re-redaction, or — less likely — on a Sòng selection from a complete Sanskrit manuscript.
Abstract
法天’s rendering preserves the basic smṛtyupasthāna structure (body, feeling, mind, dharmas) but in a much-condensed form. The cosmological elaboration that makes KR6i0415 / T721 so massive is here radically truncated: the hells receive a brief treatment rather than the encyclopedic mapping of the Wèi version, and the heavens are similarly compressed. This makes the Sòng version a useful concordance text — preserving the essential doctrine and structure but in compressed form — but a less rich source for the cosmological imagery that gives the Wèi version its cultural significance.
The Sòng Yìjīngyuàn programme included the rendering of multiple existing canonical works in updated translations, motivated by the desire for philological precision and for fresh Sanskrit witnesses. The shorter extent of this Sòng version suggests it may represent a different Indian recension circulating in Pāla-period eastern India, where the source manuscripts came from.
Related canonical Chinese versions: KR6i0415 / T721 (Prajñāruci, Eastern Wèi, 70 juan), this work KR6i0416 / T722 (法天, Sòng, 8 juan).
Translations and research
- Stuart, Daniel M. A Less Traveled Path: Saddharmasmṛtyupasthānasūtra Chapter 2. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2015. (Includes brief discussion of the Sòng abbreviated parallel.)
- Lin Li-kouang. L’aide-mémoire de la vraie loi. Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1949.
- Sen, Tansen. Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003.