Dàshèng biànzhào guāngmíng zàng wúzì fǎmén jīng 大乘遍照光明藏無字法門經
The Mahāyāna Sūtra of the Letterless Dharma-Gate of the Universally-Illuminating-Radiance Treasury (alt. Wúzì fǎmén jīng 無字法門經; Biànzhào guāngmíng zàng wúzì fǎmén jīng 遍照光明藏無字法門經) re-translated by 地婆訶羅 (Dìpóhēluó, Divākara, 再譯)
About the work
T830 in one fascicle is Divākara’s second translation (再譯 zàiyì) of the Anakṣara-karaṇḍaka-vairocana-garbha-sūtra, the same source-text as [[KR6i0534|Wúzì bǎoqiè jīng 無字寶篋經 (T828)]] by Bodhiruci and his own [[KR6i0535|Dàshèng lí wénzì pǔguāngmíng zàng jīng (T829)]]. The fact that both T829 and T830 are by Divākara — explicitly marked 再譯 (“re-translated”) — reflects the late-Táng practice of producing successive refinements of the same source within a single translator’s career. The Taishō editors retained both versions side-by-side. CANWWW gives the alternate Sanskrit title Anakṣara-granthaka-garbha-sūtra.
Abstract
The narrative frame and doctrinal content are identical to those of T828 and T829: the assembly at Mt Gṛdhrakūṭa; the bodhisattva Shèngsīwéi’s two questions; the Buddha’s exposition of the eight (or nine) kleśas the bodhisattva must extinguish; the Buddha’s exposition of the anakṣara-dharma-ground that the Tathāgata has awakened to. See KR6i0534 for the full doctrinal summary.
The chief differences between T829 and T830 — both by Divākara — are at the level of phrasing and bodhisattva-name selection: T830 renders the title as Biànzhào guāngmíng zàng (the more etymologically transparent rendering of vairocana-garbha), where T829 had Pǔguāngmíng zàng. The doctrinal content is unchanged. The two-translation situation within Divākara’s own career is one of the few preserved instances in the Chinese canon of an intra-translator revision.
Translations and research
See KR6i0534 for the relevant secondary literature.
Links
- CBETA online
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (680): [ 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/