佛說無希望經

Fó shuō wúxīwàng jīng 佛說無希望經

The Buddha Speaks: The Sūtra of [the Practice of] No Expectation (Skt. Hastikakṣyā-sūtra; alt. Xiàng-bù jīng 象步經, “Sūtra of the Elephant’s Stride”) translated by 竺法護 (Zhú Fǎhù, Dharmarakṣa, 譯)

About the work

T813 in one fascicle is a Mahāyāna sūtra on bodhisattva-practice without expectation of reward, translated by 竺法護 (Dharmarakṣa) at Cháng’ān during his Western Jìn translation career. The Sanskrit title Hastikakṣyā-sūtra (“The Elephant’s Hide / Girth”) is preserved alongside the alternate Chinese title 象步經 (“Sūtra of the Elephant’s Stride”). A parallel translation by 曇摩蜜多 (Dharmamitra, 356–442) survives as [[KR6i0520|Fó shuō xiàngyè jīng 佛說象腋經 (T814)]], rendering a closer phonetic equivalent of the Sanskrit kakṣyā (“girth, hide of the elephant”). The “elephant” simile of the title is doctrinal: the bodhisattva’s practice should be like the elephant’s stride — measured, strong, and without backward-looking expectation.

Abstract

The text opens at Mt Gṛdhrakūṭa near Rājagṛha, where the Buddha is seated with 500 bhikṣus and 60,000 bodhisattvas including Mañjuśrī Kumāra, Wúsǔnjìn 無損進 (“Undiminished-Progress”), Dùxiǎngléizhènwēi 度響雷震威 (“[Bodhisattva] Whose Voice Crosses [the World] Like Thunder”), Ruòyèyuèhuá 若夜月華 (“Night-Moon-Flower”), and a long catalogue of similarly-named bodhisattvas. Śāriputra approaches the Buddha and observes him in jìsuíxiǎng sānmèi 寂隨響三昧 (“the samādhi that follows the silent echo”). The Buddha emerges from this samādhi and addresses the assembly.

The body of the sūtra expounds the doctrine of the bodhisattva’s anabhilāṣa-caryā (無希望行 “practice without expectation”). The bodhisattva should practise the six pāramitās without expectation of reward, fame, karmic result or rebirth in heaven. Each of the six pāramitās — dāna, śīla, kṣānti, vīrya, dhyāna, prajñā — is treated in turn, with the bodhisattva’s expectation-free conduct contrasted with the worldly expectation-laden practice of ordinary beings. The bodhisattva’s dāna is given without retaining any sense of “I gave”; his śīla is upheld without retaining any sense of “I keep precepts”; his kṣānti is practised without retaining any sense of “I endure”; and so on through the six. This triplete-emptiness (三輪體空) of giver, gift, and receiver — and its analogue across all six pāramitās — is the definitive Mahāyāna mode of practice that distinguishes the bodhisattva from the śrāvaka.

The “elephant simile” is unfolded: the bodhisattva’s deportment is like the elephant’s, who moves with measured strength, who when he turns turns the whole body, and who carries his burden without backward glance. So the bodhisattva, having undertaken the anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi aspiration, moves forward with the whole body of the pāramitā-practice, never turning back even at the cost of life.

Translations and research

• Boucher, Daniel. “Dharmarakṣa and the Transmission of Buddhism to China.” Asia Major 19 (2006): 13–37.
• Skilton, Andrew. “The Samādhirāja-sūtra: A Compilation Sūtra.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oxford, 1999. (Treatment of related “expectation-free practice” doctrine.)

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/