Fó shuō Fǎshēn jīng 佛說法身經
The Buddha Speaks: The Sūtra of the Dharma-Body (Skt. Dharma-kāya-sūtra?) translated by 法賢 (Fǎxián = Dharmabhadra, 譯)
About the work
T766 in one fascicle is a brief sūtra-translation by 法賢 (Fǎxián = Dharmabhadra, fl. 982–1001) at the Northern Sòng Translation Bureau in Kāifēng. The title 法身 (Fǎshēn) translates Sanskrit dharma-kāya, the technical Mahāyāna concept of the “Dharma-body” — the unconditioned reality-aspect of buddhahood, contrasted with the rūpa-kāya (form-body, nirmāṇa-kāya).
Abstract
The text addresses the doctrine of the dharma-kāya — the body of the Buddha as constituted not by physical form but by the dharma itself: by prajñā, by samādhi, by the bodhipakṣya-dharmas, and ultimately by the unconditioned tathatā. The Buddha himself, addressing an audience of bodhisattvas and śrāvakas, expounds the dharma-kāya as the proper object of buddha-recollection (buddhānusmṛti): one should not visualise the Buddha by his thirty-two marks of the form-body alone, but should recognise that his true body is the dharma he taught. The text accordingly enumerates the dharma-elements that constitute the dharma-kāya — the moral disciplines, the meditative attainments, the wisdom-stages — as a mātṛkā of buddha-properties.
The doctrine of the dharma-kāya is one of the central themes of late-Indian Mahāyāna and Yogācāra literature, with foundational treatments in the [[KR6q0030|Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra]] of 彌勒 Maitreya / 無著 Asaṅga and in the [[KR6q0011|Laṅkāvatāra]]. Fǎxián’s brief sūtra-form Chinese rendering is one of a number of short Sòng Bureau translations of late-Indian bodhisattva-piṭaka doctrinal compendia. The sūtra parallels in part the trikāya doctrinal exposition found in larger Mahāyāna scriptures but is presented here in a stand-alone, reciter-friendly format suited to popular Buddhist devotion.
Translations and research
- Makransky, John. Buddhahood Embodied: Sources of Controversy in India and Tibet. Albany: SUNY Press, 1997. (Classic study of the dharma-kāya / trikāya doctrine.)
- Habito, Ruben. “The Trikāya Doctrine in Buddhism,” Buddhist-Christian Studies 6 (1986), 53–62.
Links
- CBETA online
- Kanseki DB
- 法賢 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (1001): [ 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.nz