Fó shuō Fǎchéngyì juédìng jīng 佛說法乘義決定經
The Buddha Speaks: The Sūtra of Definitive Meaning of the Dharma-Vehicle translated by 金總持 (Jīn Zǒngchí, 等譯 — “and others”)
About the work
T763 in three fascicles is a Northern Sòng translation directed by 金總持 (Jīn Zǒngchí, fl. early 11th c.), an Indian-trained translator who served on the staff of the Sòng Translation Bureau alongside 惟淨 and the second-generation translators. The title 法乘義決定 (fǎchéng yì juédìng) combines the Mahāyāna technical term yāna (vehicle) with nītārtha (definitive meaning): “the determined meaning of the dharma-vehicle.”
Abstract
The text is a doctrinal compendium organising the Mahāyāna dharma under the standard yāna-classification (śrāvaka-, pratyekabuddha-, and bodhisattva-vehicles), expounding for each the appropriate doctrinal mātṛkā and culminating in the determination that the Mahāyāna alone constitutes the nītārtha — definitive — vehicle. The three-fascicle extent allows for fuller treatment than the typical Sòng-period one-fascicle compendium and includes characteristic yogācāra-influenced passages on the bodhisattva-stages and the ālaya-vijñāna. The work belongs to the late-Indian bodhisattva-piṭaka compendium genre and is one of the more substantial Sòng Bureau translations of doctrinal-summary literature.
The textual situation is comparable to that of the Dharmasaṃgīti-sūtra 法集經 (KR6i0458) translated by Bodhiruci three centuries earlier: a Mahāyāna doctrinal compendium organising the path under enumerative mātṛkā-heads. The Sòng Bureau’s productive engagement with this genre reflects the late-Indian (Pāla) Buddhist scholastic emphasis on systematic doctrinal classification, which Jīn Zǒngchí and his Indian colleagues brought to the Chinese reception.
Translations and research
Reminder: AI generated list - beware of hallucinations. Corrections and additions welcome
No standalone Western translation located. For the Sòng Bureau and the late-Indian doctrinal compendium genre see Tansen Sen, Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600–1400 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003).
Links
- CBETA online
- Dazangthings date evidence (1115): [ 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