Fó shuō wúcháng jīng 佛說無常經
The Buddha Speaks: The Sūtra on Impermanence (Skt. Anityatāsūtra; alt. Sānqǐ jīng 三啟經, “Sūtra of the Three Invocations”) translated by 義淨 (Yìjìng, 譯)
About the work
T801 in one fascicle is a short doctrinal sūtra on impermanence (anityatā) framed by an elaborate liturgical apparatus, translated by 義淨 (Yìjìng) by imperial order during his Translation-Office career at Luòyáng (probably between 700 and 711). The alternate title 三啟經 (“Sūtra of the Three Invocations”) refers to the threefold gāthā-prologue that opens the text — separate verses of homage to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṃgha — a liturgical structure characteristic of the Mūlasarvāstivāda tradition that Yìjìng spent his career rendering into Chinese (cf. his great Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya translations, T1442–T1459).
Abstract
The text opens with three substantial gāthā-prologues, each addressed to one of the Three Jewels. The Buddha is hailed as the Unsurpassed (Anuttara) of great compassion who undertook the bodhisattva vow to ferry beings across the stream of birth-and-death; the Dharma is praised as the treasury that comprehends the catur-ārya-satya, the aṣṭāṅga-mārga and the eightfold gate to the unconditioned shore; the Saṃgha is praised as the eight grades of āryapudgala who have wielded the vajra-sceptre of wisdom against the mountain of error.
A second gāthā sequence then expounds the universality of impermanence: even Mt Sumeru disintegrates at the end of the kalpa; the great oceans dry up; the earth, sun and moon all reach their end; nothing escapes consumption by impermanence. Even the cakravartin with his seven jewels and thousand sons, even the highest devas of the naivasaṃjñānāsaṃjñāyatana, all return to the sea of death. Even Buddhas, pratyekabuddhas and śrāvakas relinquish the impermanent body — how much more the ordinary worldling. The verses are followed by the prose narrative frame: the Buddha at the Jetavana addresses the bhikṣus on the three things universally despised in the world (老 jarā, 病 vyādhi, 死 maraṇa), and explains that it is precisely because these three exist that the Tathāgata appears in the world to teach the dharma of liberation. The sūtra closes with a third elaborate gāthā on the necessity of contemplating impermanence and seeking the deathless.
The text was popular as a recitation-text for funeral and memorial liturgy in Mūlasarvāstivāda monastic practice, and its tripartite gāthā-prologue structure made it suitable for the same function in Chinese Buddhist liturgy. The Sanskrit parallel is the Anityatāsūtra preserved in Central Asian manuscripts.
Translations and research
- Schopen, Gregory. “Hierarchy and Housing in a Buddhist Monastic Code: A Translation of the Sanskrit Text of the Bhikṣu-vibhaṅga of the Mūlasarvāstivāda.” Buddhist Literature 2 (2000) — incidental discussion of the Anityatā-sūtra’s liturgical use.
- Mette, Adelheid. “Zur tibetischen Überlieferung der Avadāna-Sammlung.” In Buddhism and Its Relation to Other Religions: Essays in Honour of Dr Shōzen Kumoi. Kyoto: Heirakuji-shoten, 1985.
Other points of interest
The 三啟 (“three invocations”) opening structure is one of the few Chinese Buddhist canonical texts to preserve a fully-developed liturgical frame, reflecting the Mūlasarvāstivāda monastic-recitation context from which Yìjìng worked. The text was widely recited at Chinese Buddhist funerals.
Links
- CBETA online
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (705): [ 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/