Fó shuō mànfǎ jīng 佛說慢法經
The Buddha’s Sūtra on Despising the Dharma translated by 法炬 (Fǎjù, 譯)
About the work
T739 in one fascicle is a brief Western Jìn rendering by 法炬 (Fǎjù, fl. late third / early fourth c.) of an Indian Buddhist sūtra on the karmic consequences of despising or slighting the Dharma (慢法 = dharma-avamāna).
Abstract
The text addresses mànfǎ 慢法 — the unwholesome action of disrespecting, despising, or treating contemptuously the Buddhist teaching, monks, monasteries, or sacred objects. The Buddha exposits the karmic consequences: rebirth in the lower destinies, intellectual blindness in subsequent human rebirths, alienation from the Buddha’s teaching across many lifetimes. The text closes with the contrasting positive results of jìngfǎ 敬法 (respecting the Dharma).
The text fits the broader genre of Buddhist karma-vipāka sūtras specifically targeting attitudes toward the sacred — the vinaya-school’s analytical interest in “internal” sins of disposition rather than “external” sins of action. Such texts were particularly important in the early Chinese Buddhist context, where the legitimacy and authority of Buddhist institutions and clergy needed to be argued and defended against Confucian and Daoist critique.
法炬’s translation activity at the late Western Jìn court at Chang-an / Luòyáng (c. 290–313) is documented in the Chū sānzàng jì jí 出三藏記集 and the Kāiyuán shìjiào lù 開元釋教錄. He worked both independently and in collaboration with 法立 on a series of brief moral-doctrine sūtras and Āgama extracts.
Translations and research
- Zürcher, Erik. The Buddhist Conquest of China. Leiden: Brill, 1959 (rpt. 2007). (Background on the Western Jìn translation circles.)
- Boucher, Daniel. Bodhisattvas of the Forest and the Formation of the Mahāyāna. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008.