Fó shuō jiàoliàng shòumìng jīng 佛說較量壽命經
The Buddha Speaks: The Sūtra of Comparing Lifespans (Skt. Āyuṣ-paryanta-sūtra) translated by 天息災 (Tiānxīzāi = Devaśāntika, 譯)
About the work
T759 in one fascicle is a brief doctrinal sūtra-translation by 天息災 (Tiānxīzāi = Devaśāntika, fl. 980–1000) at the Northern Sòng Translation Bureau in Kāifēng. The title 較量壽命 (jiàoliàng shòumìng) — “comparing lifespans” — describes a mātṛkā-style enumeration of the relative durations of life of beings reborn in the various realms of saṃsāra.
Abstract
The text rehearses the standard cosmological schema of the relative lifespans of beings in different realms: the very brief lives of beings in the lower hells, the long lives of beings in the form-and-formless heavens, and the comparatively middling lives of humans and beings of the four great kings’ heaven. The structure is comparative — a jiàoliàng (Skt. gaṇanā “calculation, enumeration”) in which life-durations are presented as a graduated scale, building toward the rhetorical emphasis on the rare opportunity of human rebirth in a Buddha’s age. The same comparative-cosmology schema is found extensively in the Abhidharmakośa, the Yogācārabhūmi, and a number of Saṃyuktāgama-class sūtras.
The Āyuṣparyanta-sūtra type is well attested in late-Indian Buddhist popular literature; comparative cosmologies of this kind were a staple of Sòng-period Indian-Chinese exchange and were translated systematically by the Bureau’s first generation under Tiānxīzāi’s direction. The doctrinal point of the text — that the human realm is uniquely suited to the practice of the Dharma despite its shorter lifespan — converges with the message of the [[KR6i0452|Aṣṭākṣaṇa-sūtra]] translated by 義淨 (Yìjìng).
Translations and research
No standalone Western translation located. For the parallel Indian doctrinal material see Pruden, Leo M., trans. Abhidharmakośabhāṣyam of Vasubandhu (4 vols., Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1988–1990), book 3 on the cosmology of life-durations.
Links
- CBETA online
- Dazangthings date evidence (990): [ T ] T = CBETA [Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association]. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭. Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai/Daizō shuppan, 1924-1932. CBReader v 5.0, 2014. Dazangthings source 1
- Kanseki DB
- 天息災 DILA
- 義淨 DILA