Fó shuō sìpǐn fǎmén jīng 佛說四品法門經
The Buddha Speaks: The Sūtra of the Dharma-Gate of Four Grades translated by 法賢 (Fǎxián = Dharmabhadra, 譯)
About the work
T776 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 四品法門 (sìpǐn fǎmén) — “the Dharma-gate of four grades” — translates a Sanskrit fourfold dharma-mukha / dharma-paryāya schema; the textual relation to the earlier [[KR6i0468|Sìpǐn xuéfǎ jīng 四品學法經]] of Guṇabhadra is one of subject-overlap rather than direct textual descent.
Abstract
The Buddha addresses an audience on a fourfold gradation of doctrinal dharma-paryāya — “Dharma-discourses” / “Dharma-gates.” The gradation is typically expounded as a fourfold scheme in which the Buddha’s teachings are organized into four categories or strata of doctrinal understanding, paralleling the catuṣkoṭi logical schema and the catur-pratisaraṇa (four reliances) hermeneutical doctrine. Variants of this fourfold schema are well-attested in the abhidharma-literature. The text rehearses each grade as a dharma-paryāya and exhorts the audience to study and master each in turn.
The short sūtra-form is characteristic of the Sòng-period output of the Translation Bureau, which made systematic use of brief late-Indian doctrinal extracts of standard mātṛkā-categories. The text is part of a small group of Sòng-period translations of fourfold-doctrine sūtras (with KR6i0468, KR6i0469, KR6i0470, KR6i0471, and KR6i0472) that together constitute the late-medieval Chinese reception of the late-Indian catuṣka genre.
Translations and research
No substantial Western secondary literature located on this specific text.
Links
- CBETA online T0776
- Dazangthings source 1 — 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.
- Kanseki DB
- 法賢 DILA