Fó shuō guǐwènmùlián jīng 佛說鬼問目連經
The Buddha’s Sūtra of the Ghosts Questioning Maudgalyāyana (Preta-Maudgalyāyana-paripṛcchā?) translated by 安世高 (Ān Shìgāo, 譯)
About the work
T734 in one fascicle is a preta (hungry-ghost) -doctrine sūtra attributed to 安世高. The narrative frame is distinctive: a series of preta (鬼, “ghosts”) approach Maudgalyāyana 目連 (Mùlián) and recount the karmic actions of their previous lives that led to their preta rebirth, asking the Arhat to confirm or explain.
Abstract
The text is structured as a series of preta-confessions: each preta describes its present suffering (the standard Indian Buddhist preta phenomenology — burning hunger that cannot be relieved, water that turns to fire, food that turns to refuse) and recounts the prior-life unwholesome action — typically miserliness (mātsarya 慳) directed at monks, hoarding of food, refusal of charity — that led to the rebirth. Maudgalyāyana confirms each diagnosis. The format is avadāna-like: each segment a stand-alone karma-rebirth case-study.
The figure of Maudgalyāyana 目連 (Mùlián) as the principal interlocutor for preta is canonical: he was the Arhat with the most powerful psychic powers (ṛddhi) and was particularly associated with the visualization of beings in other realms. The text is one of the earliest Chinese sources for the Maudgalyāyana-and-the-preta tradition that becomes foundational in the Yúlánpén 盂蘭盆 ritual cycle (cf. the Yúlánpén jīng T685) — one of the most important East Asian Buddhist liturgical traditions, the August festival of the dead.
The cluster of 安世高-attributed karma-, hell-, and preta-doctrine sūtras: KR6i0418, KR6i0423, KR6i0424, KR6i0425, KR6i0426, KR6i0427, this work KR6i0428.
Translations and research
- Teiser, Stephen F. The Ghost Festival in Medieval China. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. The standard study of the Yúlánpén tradition and its scriptural sources, including this and related Maudgalyāyana-preta sūtras.
- Nattier, Jan. A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations. Tokyo, 2008.