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佛說道神足無極變化經

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Text ID
KR6i0522
Date
281–306
Dynasty
西晉

Fó shuō dào shénzú wújí biànhuà jīng 佛說道神足無極變化經

The Buddha Speaks: The Sūtra of Limitless Transformations through the Bases of Path-Power (alt. Dào shénzú jīng 道神足經; Hé dào shénzú jīng 合道神足經) translated by 安法欽 (Ān Fǎqīn, 譯)

About the work

T816 in four fascicles is the parallel translation of [[KR6i0521|Fóshēng dāolì tiān wèimǔ shuōfǎ jīng 佛昇忉利天為母說法經 (T815)]] by the Western Jìn Parthian translator 安法欽 (Ān Fǎqīn), produced at Luòyáng during his recorded translation activity from Tàikāng 太康 2 (281) to Guāngxī 光熙 1 (306). Both texts descend from the same Indian source — a Mahāyāna recension of the Trāyastriṃśa-sojourn-and-descent narrative — but were translated independently and differ substantially in phrasing, organisation, and length (Ān Fǎqīn’s version is one fascicle longer and includes more elaborated deva-question sections).

Abstract

The narrative frame is identical to that of T815: the Buddha at the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven, seated beneath the Bāzhìshù 巴質樹 (Ān Fǎqīn’s transliteration of Pārijātaka; Dharmarakṣa renders 晝度樹) on a deep-blue vaiḍūrya stone (紺琉璃石), preaching to his mother for the three months of the rains-retreat. The two principal deva-interlocutors are Yuètiānzǐ 月天子 (“Prince of the Moon”) and Yuèxīngtiānzǐ 月星天子 (“Prince of the Moon-Star”), parallel to T815’s Yuèshì and Yuèshàng.

The body of the sūtra expounds across four fascicles the doctrine of the bases of supernormal power (ṛddhi-pāda, 神足), the limitless transformations (nirmāṇa, 變化), and the prajñā-pāramitā-grounded upāya-kauśalya by which the Buddha and the bodhisattvas manifest in countless forms throughout the dharma-dhātu. The narrative unfolds in the same arc as T815: the deva-questions; the Buddha’s exposition; the Buddha’s descent on the triple-jewelled stairway constructed by Indra and Brahmā; the conversion of immense numbers of beings; the standard formula of joyful reception. See KR6i0521 for the full doctrinal summary.

The translation is significant as the principal extant work of the Parthian-Chinese translator Ān Fǎqīn, and as a complement to Dharmarakṣa’s parallel rendering. Ān Fǎqīn’s diction tends toward fuller transliteration of Indic technical vocabulary (Bāzhì 巴質 vs. Dharmarakṣa’s interpretive zhòudù 晝度) — a feature that places his translation idiom closer to the An Shigao stratum than to the standardised post-Daoan register of Dharmarakṣa.

Translations and research

See KR6i0521 for the relevant secondary literature. On Ān Fǎqīn’s translation idiom and Parthian-Chinese translation lineage see:

  • Forte, Antonino. “An Yuán-zhī e gli avatara del Buddha.” In La via della seta e l’oro dell’oriente. Milan: Skira, 2003.
  • Zürcher, Erik. The Buddhist Conquest of China. Leiden: Brill, 1959 (3rd ed., 2007).

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