Fó shuō Fǎjí míngshù jīng 佛說法集名數經
The Buddha Speaks: The Sūtra of the Names and Numbers of the Compiled Dharmas translated by 施護 (Shīhù = Dānapāla, 譯)
About the work
T764 in one fascicle is a brief mātṛkā-list translation by 施護 (Shīhù = Dānapāla, fl. 980–1017) at the Northern Sòng Translation Bureau in Kāifēng. The title 法集名數 (Fǎjí míngshù) — “names and numbers of the compiled dharmas” — describes the genre exactly: an enumerative list of doctrinal categories grouped by the number of items each contains.
Abstract
The text presents a sequential mātṛkā — an “indicial list” — of standard Buddhist doctrinal categories arranged by enumerative number: things in groups of one, two, three, four, and so on. Topics typically include the one dharma-realm; the two truths; the three jewels, three poisons, three learnings, three gates of liberation; the four noble truths, four foundations of mindfulness, four right efforts, four bases of ṛddhi; the five aggregates, five faculties, five powers; the six perfections, six sense-bases; the seven factors of awakening; the eight-fold path, eight liberations; the ten stages, ten powers, and so on up to higher numerical schemes.
The genre is the Buddhist doctrinal mātṛkā-list, well-attested in Indian scholastic literature: the Daśottara-sūtra of the Dīrghāgama (the parallel of the Pāli Dasuttara-sutta DN 34), the Saṅgīti-sūtra of the same collection (DN 33), and the Mahāvyutpatti lexicon. Dānapāla’s brief Chinese rendering corresponds to one of the late-Indian alphabetised or numerically-organised abhidharma-extracts of this kind. It serves as a doctrinal mnemonic and as a reference for monastic study.
Translations and research
- Csoma de Kőrös, Alexander, ed./trans. Mahā-vyutpatti. (Various editions; the standard Indo-Tibetan parallel.)
- Mejor, Marek. Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa and the Commentaries Preserved in the Tanjur. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1991. (For the systematic mātṛkā-tradition.)
Links
- CBETA online
- Dazangthings date evidence (1000): [ 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
- 施護 DILA