Fó shuō wúshàngchù jīng 佛說無上處經
The Buddha Speaks: The Sūtra of the Three Supreme Refuges translator unknown (失譯, 譯), assigned to the Eastern Jìn
About the work
T800 in one fascicle is a very brief anonymous sūtra on the three unsurpassed refuges (三無上處 sān wú-shàng chù), assigned by the canonical catalogues to the Eastern Jìn (東晉錄). The colophon’s note 失譯人今，附東晉錄 (“translator unknown; now appended to the Eastern Jìn record”) follows the standard cataloguing convention of placing untraced anonymous translations in the period most consistent with their idiom. The text corresponds to the Pāli Aggappasāda-sutta (AN 4.34, Aṅguttara-nikāya iv.34) in its content and structure.
Abstract
The Buddha at the Jetavana addresses the bhikṣus on the three unsurpassed refuges (三無上處): the Buddha (the unsurpassed object of refuge among all beings, of two-footed, four-footed, footless, multi-footed, formed, formless, conscious, unconscious, neither-conscious-nor-unconscious sorts); the Dharma (the unsurpassed object of refuge among all conditioned and unconditioned, formed and formless dharmas — the desire-free dharma being supreme); and the Saṃgha (the unsurpassed object of refuge among all communities, groups and assemblies — the disciples of the Tathāgata being supreme). Beings who arouse faith in any of these three obtain the unsurpassed reward among gods and humans. The text closes with the standard formula of the disciples’ joyful reception.
The doctrinal content is a versified expansion of the Three Refuges (tri-śaraṇa: 佛, 法, 僧) formula that opens every Buddhist liturgy, explaining why each is “supreme” by ranging it over the canonical taxonomies of beings, dharmas, and assemblies respectively. The Pāli parallel Aggappasāda-sutta gives essentially the same doctrine. The brief anonymous Chinese version is one of several short Āgama extractions transmitted from the Northern manuscript tradition into early Chinese without preserving the translator’s identity.
Translations and research
No standalone Western translation located. For the Pāli parallel see:
- Bodhi, Bhikkhu, trans. The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Aṅguttara Nikāya. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2012 (AN 4.34, Aggappasāda, pp. 416–417).
Links
- CBETA online
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (420): [ 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. https://dazangthings.nz/cbc/source/1/