Fó shēng dāolì tiān wèimǔ shuōfǎ jīng 佛昇忉利天為母說法經
The Sūtra of the Buddha Ascending to the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven to Preach the Dharma to His Mother (alt. Wèi-mǔ shuō-fǎ jīng 為母說法經) translated by 竺法護 (Zhú Fǎhù, Dharmarakṣa, 譯)
About the work
T815 in three fascicles is a Mahāyāna sūtra on the Buddha’s three-month sojourn in the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven (忉利天 dāolì tiān) to preach the dharma to his deceased mother Māyā (摩耶 Móyé), translated by 竺法護 (Dharmarakṣa) at Cháng’ān during his Western Jìn translation career. A parallel translation by 安法欽 (Ān Fǎqīn) survives in four fascicles as [[KR6i0522|Fó shuō dào shénzú wújí biànhuà jīng 佛說道神足無極變化經 (T816)]]. The sojourn-in-Trāyastriṃśa narrative is among the foundational Buddha-biographical episodes, with parallels in the Mahāvastu, the Lalitavistara, and the Aṅguttara-aṭṭhakathā.
Abstract
The text opens at the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven, where the Buddha is seated beneath the Pārijātaka (晝度樹 zhòudù shù “Day-Crossing Tree”) on the white-stone seat (無垢白石), preaching to his mother for the three months of the rains-retreat (正夏三月). The audience comprises eight thousand bhikṣu-arhats and seventy-two thousand bodhisattvas gathered from the Buddha-fields of the ten directions, plus immeasurable devas, nāgas and other beings.
Two principal deva-interlocutors emerge: Yuèshì 月氏 (Skt. Candra, “Moon”) and Yuèshàng 月上 (“Moon-Above”). Yuèshì rises and asks the Buddha — in a series of gāthās — about the inconceivability of the Tathāgata’s jñāna. The Buddha responds with the doctrine of the inexhaustibility of Buddha-knowledge (佛智不可量) and develops a sustained Mahāyāna-doctrinal exposition over three fascicles.
Fascicle one unfolds the deva-questioning and the Buddha’s exposition of the prajñā-pāramitā and the inconceivability of the Tathāgata’s wisdom. Fascicle two continues with the doctrine of non-arising and non-cessation (anutpāda-anirodha), the Mahāyāna theory of dharmatā, and the bodhisattva’s training in upāya-kauśalya. Fascicle three narrates the Buddha’s descent from the Heaven (the famous avatāra legend, with the triple-jewelled stairway built by Indra and Brahmā), the meeting with Mahā-Maudgalyāyana and the assembly that has been awaiting his return for three months, and the conversion of immense numbers of beings.
The doctrine threaded through the deva-questions and the Buddha’s responses is the inexhaustible interpenetration (相入 xiāngrù) of the Buddha’s wisdom with the dharma-dhātu — a doctrinal motif that became central to Huáyán-school exegesis. The text is one of the earliest Mahāyāna sūtras to develop the inter-penetrative doctrine in narrative form, and was foundational for the later Huáyán synthesis.
Translations and research
- Boucher, Daniel. “Dharmarakṣa and the Transmission of Buddhism to China.” Asia Major 19 (2006): 13–37.
- Strong, John S. The Buddha: A Short Biography. Oxford: Oneworld, 2001, pp. 113–119 (on the Trāyastriṃśa-sojourn legend).
- Lamotte, Étienne. History of Indian Buddhism. Trans. Sara Webb-Boin. Louvain: Université catholique de Louvain, 1988, pp. 678–679.
Other points of interest
The descent-from-Trāyastriṃśa episode is one of the eight or twelve great events of the Buddha’s life and is depicted at numerous Buddhist holy sites including Saṃkāśya (cf. [[KR6i0512|Kūshù jīng]] T806).
Links
- CBETA online
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (300): [ Kawano 2006 ] Kawano Satoshi 河野訓. Shoki kan’yaku butten no kenkyū: Jiku Hōgo o chūshin to shite 初期漢訳仏典の研究 : 竺法護を中心として. Ise: Kōgakkan Daigaku Shuppanbu, 2006. Table 6, p. 87 https://dazangthings.nz/cbc/source/310/