Fó shuō kūshù jīng 佛說枯樹經
The Buddha Speaks: The Sūtra of the Withered Tree translator unknown (失譯, 譯)
About the work
T806 in one fascicle is a very short anonymous sūtra whose narrative concerns not a “withered tree” of the title proper but a stūpa of the Buddha Kāśyapa (迦葉佛偷婆 Jiāyè-fó tōupó) at the city of Saṅghanagara (僧伽尼城) and the Buddha Śākyamuni’s miraculous extraction of it from beneath the city. The text is anonymous, assigned by the canonical catalogues to the broad Han-Six-Dynasties period; the language is consistent with this dating but not securely datable. It is sometimes catalogued (e.g. in Lìdài sānbǎo jì) alongside the Six Dynasties avadāna-type apocryphal compositions.
Abstract
The narrative concerns the historical-mythical city of Saṅghanagara (僧伽尼城; Skt. probably Saṅkāśya / Sāṃkāśya, the legendary site of the Buddha’s descent from the trāyastriṃśa heaven after preaching the Dharma to his mother). North of the city is buried in the lower kalpa-realm a stūpa (偷婆 tōupó, Skt. stūpa) erected at the time of the Buddha Kāśyapa, the previous Buddha. When Śākyamuni descends from the heavens after his sermon to his mother and arrives at the city, Ānanda asks what marker should be set up. The Buddha responds by stretching his hand into the lower realm and drawing forth Kāśyapa’s stūpa — a polychrome stone-and-jade construction three hundred cubits tall and three-and-a-half li in circumference — and setting it as a marker of the city. The text also rehearses the foundation legend of the Council of Pippalāyana (the First Council under Mahākāśyapa and Ānanda), explaining that the council was held at this site for two reasons: (1) it was outside ordinary human settlement, and (2) it spared the catur-pariṣad the heart-broken sorrow that an inhabited locale would have produced.
A second narrative-strand recounts the stūpa’s subsequent miraculous defence: a king named Qúnchá 群茶 disliked its blocking the city gate and ordered it demolished; on the appointed night the stūpa moved itself to a forest twenty li south of the city; the courtiers who had advised the demolition were executed (with their five generations of kin), and the king himself reformed and became a upāsaka (清信士). The text closes with the note that the stūpa was subsequently restored by a later king named Héng (橫王) and remains standing.
The text is a short geographical-legendary sūtra of the avadāna type, on the model of the legend-cycle around Kuśīnagara, Lumbinī, and other Buddhist holy sites. The “withered tree” of the title may be a misreading or alternate name for the stūpa; the text itself does not centre on a withered tree.
Translations and research
No standalone Western translation located. For the Saṃkāśya descent-from-heaven legend see:
- Lamotte, Étienne. History of Indian Buddhism: From the Origins to the Śaka Era. Trans. Sara Webb-Boin. Louvain: Université catholique de Louvain, 1988, pp. 678–679.
- Strong, John S. The Buddha: A Short Biography. Oxford: Oneworld, 2001, pp. 113–116.