四十二章經

Sìshíèrzhāng jīng 四十二章經

The Sūtra in Forty-Two Sections attributed to 迦葉摩騰 (Kāśyapa-Mātaṅga) and 法蘭 (Dharmaratna)

About the work

T784 in one fascicle is the most famous of all early Chinese Buddhist scriptures — the Sìshíèrzhāng jīng (“Sūtra in Forty-Two Sections”), traditionally regarded as the first Buddhist sūtra translated into Chinese. The work consists of forty-two short doctrinal sayings of the Buddha on monastic ethics, the bodhisattva path, the cultivation of wisdom, and the relationship between renunciation and lay life. Each section is brief (typically a single short paragraph) and self-contained, the whole forming a kind of doctrinal-ethical handbook for the practitioner.

According to the traditional account preserved in the Móuzǐ lǐhuò lùn 牟子理惑論 (牟子理惑論) and the Gāosēng zhuàn 高僧傳 (KR6r0052), the sūtra was brought to China and translated into Chinese in CE 67 (永平 10) by 迦葉摩騰 (Kāśyapa-Mātaṅga) and 法蘭 (Dharmaratna), the two Indian monks who came to Luòyáng 洛陽 in response to Emperor Míng 明帝 of the Eastern Hàn’s celebrated dream-vision and were settled at the newly-built Báimǎsì 白馬寺.

Abstract

The forty-two sections present a digest of foundational Buddhist teaching arranged in a loose thematic sequence. Topics include: the renunciate life (sections 1–3); the practice of dāna (giving) and the karmic merit of supporting the saṅgha (4–11); the dangers of the passions and the cultivation of śīla (12–24); the contemplation of impermanence and the impurity of the body (25–35); and the cultivation of wisdom and the goal of nirvāṇa (36–42). The doctrinal register is conservative and largely Sthavira-canonical; the work is sometimes characterised as a “Chinese Dhammapada” — a digest of canonical sayings rather than a translation of a single Indian text.

The text-historical situation is one of the most heavily-discussed problems in Chinese Buddhist philology. Modern scholarship since Hu Shih, Tang Yongtong, Henri Maspero, and especially Erik Zürcher has converged on the view that the work is not a translation of a single Indian sūtra but a Chinese-language compilation drawn from earlier translated āgama and sūtra materials, possibly assembled in the late Hàn or early Six Dynasties. The traditional attribution to Mātaṅga and Dharmaratna in CE 67 is part of a foundation-legend constructed retrospectively to give Chinese Buddhism a prestigious early date. The dating window adopted here (ca. 100–500 CE) accordingly brackets the earliest possible compilation date through to the Six-Dynasties recensions clearly attested in catalogues. Multiple recensions exist — a “shorter” and “longer” version, with substantial Chán-tradition interpolations in some Sòng witnesses (the so-called “Sòng-edition” used by 守遂 and the imperial commentary of 真宗皇帝 KR6i0484).

The Sòng-period reception of the Sìshíèrzhāng jīng 四十二章經 is itself a major topic. Under imperial Sòng patronage the text was promoted as the foundational scripture of Chinese Buddhism and grouped with the Bā dàrén jué jīng 八大人覺經 (KR6i0476) and the Yíjiào jīng 遺教經 (遺教經) as the “Three Sūtras of the Buddha-Patriarchs” (佛祖三經), which became the standard introductory monastic curriculum in late-imperial China. The grouping is the basis of the commentaries KR6i0484, KR6i0485, KR6i0486, KR6i0487, and KR6i0488 that follow this text in the canonical sequence.

Translations and research

• Sharf, Robert H. “The Scripture in Forty-Two Sections,” in Religions of China in Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez Jr. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996, 360–371. (English translation with introduction.)
• Beal, Samuel. The Sūtra of Forty-Two Sections. London: Trübner, 1862. (Pioneering English translation.)
• Maspero, Henri. “Le Songe et l’Ambassade de l’Empereur Ming,” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 10 (1910), 95–130. (Foundational Western study of the foundation legend.)
• Zürcher, Erik. The Buddhist Conquest of China. Leiden: Brill, 1959 (rev. ed. 2007). (Definitive treatment of the early-Chinese Buddhist textual situation.)
• Tang Yongtong 湯用彤. 『漢魏兩晉南北朝佛教史』. Beijing, 1938 (rev. ed. 1955). (Foundational Chinese-language study.)
• Wang Bangwei 王邦維. 《四十二章經》與佛教東來. (Various studies in modern Chinese-language scholarship.)

Other points of interest

The Sìshíèrzhāng jīng 四十二章經 has been described by Robert Sharf (1996) as “the most important Buddhist scripture in China that almost certainly was never an Indian text.” Its ideological function as the foundational scripture of Chinese Buddhism — independent of its actual textual origins — has been recognised across the Chinese, Tibetan, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese Buddhist traditions, and the Báimǎsì 白馬寺 in Luòyáng 洛陽 remains a major pilgrimage site identified specifically with this text. The Sòng emperor 真宗皇帝 Zhēnzōng’s personal commentary KR6i0484 reflects the imperial appropriation of this foundational role.

Links

• CBETA online
• Wikipedia
• Dazangthings date evidence (73): [ 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
• Kanseki DB
• 迦葉摩騰 DILA
• 法蘭 DILA