Fó shuō shíhào jīng 佛說十號經
The Buddha Speaks: The Sūtra of the Ten Epithets translated by 天息災 (Tiānxīzāi = Devaśāntika, 譯)
About the work
T782 in one fascicle is a brief sūtra-translation by 天息災 (Tiānxīzāi = Devaśāntika, fl. 980–1000) at the Northern Sòng Translation Bureau in Kāifēng. The title 十號 (shíhào, “ten epithets”) translates Skt. daśa-nāma / daśa-adhivacana, the ten standard epithets of the Buddha that pervade the sūtra-piṭaka.
Abstract
The text expounds the ten standard epithets of the Tathāgata, recited at the opening of countless Buddhist sūtras: (1) Tathāgata 如來; (2) Arhat 應供 (“worthy of offerings”); (3) Samyak-saṃbuddha 正遍知 (“fully and rightly enlightened”); (4) Vidyā-caraṇa-saṃpanna 明行足 (“perfect in knowledge and conduct”); (5) Sugata 善逝 (“well-gone”); (6) Loka-vid 世間解 (“knower of the world”); (7) Anuttara 無上士 (“unsurpassed one”); (8) Puruṣa-damya-sārathi 調御丈夫 (“trainer of those-who-are-to-be-trained”); (9) Śāstā deva-manuṣyāṇām 天人師 (“teacher of gods and humans”); (10) Buddha-bhagavat 佛、世尊 (“Buddha, Blessed One”). The Buddha addresses the doctrine to a monastic audience and explains the meaning and significance of each epithet — what it implies about his attainments, what it teaches the practitioner about the goal of the path, and how it should function in buddha-anusmṛti (recollection of the Buddha) practice.
The doctrine of the ten epithets is foundational to mainstream Buddhist devotion and meditation; the recitation of the ten epithets is one of the standard forms of buddha-anusmṛti in mainstream and Pure-Land contexts. The text presents the doctrine in a stand-alone sūtra-form for the use of devotees and reciters, and is one of the more practically-oriented of the Sòng Bureau’s brief doctrinal translations.
Translations and research
- Hirakawa, Akira 平川彰. 『仏教漢梵大辞典』. (For technical Sanskrit-Chinese term equivalences of the ten epithets.)
- Skilling, Peter. Mahāsūtras: Great Discourses of the Buddha. 2 vols. Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1994–1997. (Background on the canonical daśa-nāma tradition.)
Links
- CBETA online T0782
- Dazangthings source 1 — 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.
- Kanseki DB
- 天息災 DILA