Fó shuō wǔwúfǎnfù jīng 佛說五無反復經
The Buddha’s Sūtra on the Five Without-Reciprocity (recension a) translated by 沮渠京聲 (Jūqú Jīngshēng, 譯)
About the work
T751a in one fascicle is one of three closely-related Chinese versions of a brief Indian Buddhist sūtra on the five categories of beings to whom one cannot fully reciprocate (wǔwúfǎnfù: five-no-reciprocation), translated in the Liú Sòng 劉宋 by the lay-translator 沮渠京聲 (Jūqú Jīngshēng, d. 464). The Taishō preserves three recensions as 751a, 751b, and 752, the first two attributed to Jūqú Jīngshēng. The date bracket 439 (his arrival in the Liú Sòng south after the Northern Liáng conquest) – 464 (his death) frames his translation activity at Jiànkāng.
Abstract
The text expounds the doctrine that one cannot fully repay (fǎnfù = pratyupakāra) the kindness received from five categories of beings: typically classified as parents, the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Saṃgha), teachers, the king (or all sentient beings as virtual benefactors across rebirths), and one’s own past-life self. Each category’s kindness is so vast that no human action could fully reciprocate it; only the cultivation of the bodhisattva-path can be considered an adequate response.
The doctrinal point — paramopakārin (the unrepayable benefactor) — is foundational for the Buddhist ethic of gratitude (kṛtajñatā), particularly important in the Chinese context where Buddhist ethics needed to be articulated in dialogue with Confucian filial-piety and political-loyalty values. The text frames Buddhism’s ethical vision as compatible with — and indeed deepening — the Confucian values of filial gratitude and respectful service.
沮渠京聲 himself was an aristocratic Xiōngnú-descended layman, son of the Northern Liáng ruler, who fled south after the 439 Northern Wèi conquest. His translation activity drew on the Sanskrit manuscripts accumulated under his father’s Northern Liáng court patronage of 曇無讖 (Dharmakṣema). The recensional doublet 751a / 751b suggests two distinct Indian source-versions or two stages of his translation work.
Related: KR6i0447 / T751b (parallel recension by Jūqú Jīngshēng), KR6i0448 / T752 (parallel recension also by Jūqú Jīngshēng).
Translations and research
- Zürcher, Erik. The Buddhist Conquest of China. Leiden: Brill, 1959 (rpt. 2007). (Background on Northern Liáng / Liú Sòng Buddhism.)