Púsà xíng wǔshí yuán shēn jīng 菩薩行五十緣身經
The Sūtra of the Bodhisattva’s Practice and the Fifty Causes for [the Adornment of the Buddha’s] Body (alt. Wǔshí yuán shēn xíng jīng 五十緣身行經) translated by 竺法護 (Zhú Fǎhù, Dharmarakṣa, 譯)
About the work
T812 in one fascicle is a doctrinal sūtra on the bodhisattva-causes that produce the thirty-two major and eighty minor marks (三十二相、八十種好) of a Buddha’s body, translated by 竺法護 (Dharmarakṣa) at Cháng’ān during his Western Jìn translation career. The “fifty causes” of the title is a round number for the some-fifty bodhisattva-virtues and acts which are listed as the karmic-aetiological accounts of the various physical and behavioural perfections of the Buddha’s body and conduct.
Abstract
The text opens at Mt Gṛdhrakūṭa near Rājagṛha, where the Buddha is seated with 1,250 bhikṣus, the four-fold assembly, and 100,000 bodhisattvas on their lotus-thrones. The bodhisattvas of the ten directions are struck by the Buddha’s perfect bodily form — the dvātriṃśat-mahāpuruṣa-lakṣaṇa (32 marks) and aśīty-anuvyañjana (80 minor marks). A bodhisattva named Ruònàshīlì 若那尸利 (Skt. Jñāna-śrī) asks Mañjuśrī to inquire on his behalf about the karmic-causal antecedents of the Buddha’s perfect body. Mañjuśrī puts the question to the Buddha, who agrees to expound.
The body of the sūtra is an extended catalogue of approximately fifty bodhisattva-acts performed across countless past lives, each correlated with a specific physical or behavioural perfection of the present Buddha-body. Sample correlations: (1) life-after-life giving precious objects with kind eye and good intention → all-knowing wisdom of the Buddha’s prajñā; (2) life-after-life giving courtesans, jewels and finery with pure mind → the Buddha’s voice manifesting ten thousand kinds of sound; (3) life-after-life looking on others with kind regard → people seeing the Buddha can never tire of looking; (4) life-after-life teaching the Dharma without expectation of reward → people listening to the Buddha can never tire of hearing; (5) life-after-life never speaking ill of others → no dust ever clings to the Buddha’s body; (6) life-after-life enduring slander with bodily strength → the ground rises before the Buddha to make low places high; (7) life-after-life never making weapons → thorns and rubble part before the Buddha; (8) life-after-life lighting lamps before stūpas, masters and parents → the Buddha’s body emits unmatched radiance; (9) life-after-life never holding lustful thoughts toward beautiful women → the Buddha’s body is incomparably beautiful; (10) life-after-life levelling rough roads, building bridges → the doors of every dwelling enlarge to admit the Buddha. The catalogue continues through some fifty entries, ending with the Buddha’s exhortation to the assembly to practise these bodhisattva-acts and so cultivate the same physical-karmic perfections.
The doctrine — that every minute physical and behavioural feature of the Buddha-body is the karmic-fruit of a specific bodhisattva-act — is foundational for Mahāyāna theories of the trikāya (the rūpa-kāya as causally produced by bodhisattva-puṇya) and was widely cited in later commentarial tradition.
Translations and research
- Boucher, Daniel. “Dharmarakṣa and the Transmission of Buddhism to China.” Asia Major 19 (2006): 13–37.
- Lamotte, Étienne. Le Traité de la Grande Vertu de Sagesse de Nāgārjuna. Vol. I. Louvain: Publications de l’Institut Orientaliste de Louvain, 1944, pp. 271–281 (treatment of the dvātriṃśat-lakṣaṇa and their bodhisattva-causes).
Links
- CBETA online
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (300): [ 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/