Fó shuō jiānyì jīng 佛說堅意經
The Buddha’s Sūtra on Resolute Determination translated by 安世高 (Ān Shìgāo, 譯)
About the work
T733 in one fascicle is another brief moral-psychological sūtra attributed to 安世高. The title — jiānyì “resolute determination,” “firm resolve” — addresses the cultivation of mental steadfastness as a Buddhist virtue.
Abstract
The text expounds the Buddhist virtue of jiānyì 堅意 — the steady, resolute mind that does not waver under temptation, fear, or adversity. The exposition treats jiānyì as one of the principal supports of the practitioner’s path: without it, the precepts cannot be kept, meditation cannot be sustained, and wisdom cannot be cultivated. The text is set as a brief Buddha-discourse in the standard early sūtra format.
The doctrine of jiānyì relates to several Indian Buddhist concepts: adhimokṣa (resolute determination), vīrya (energy/effort), kṣānti (patience), and anutpāda-jñāna (the unwavering wisdom of the bodhisattva-path). The Chinese rendering as jiānyì is a calque approach drawing on existing Chinese moral vocabulary (in which yì 意 denotes “intention” and jiān 堅 denotes “firm”), and the text is a useful witness to the early Chinese reception of Indian Buddhist moral psychology.
The cluster of 安世高-attributed karma- and mind-doctrine sūtras: KR6i0418, KR6i0423, KR6i0424, KR6i0425, KR6i0426, this work KR6i0427, KR6i0428.
Translations and research
- Nattier, Jan. A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations. Tokyo, 2008.
- Zürcher, Erik. The Buddhist Conquest of China. Leiden: Brill, 1959 (rpt. 2007).