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占察善惡業報經

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Text ID
KR6i0545
Date
581–618
Dynasty
隋

Zhànchá shànè yèbào jīng 占察善惡業報經

The Sūtra of Divining the Karmic Retribution of Good and Evil Acts (alt. Zhànchá jīng 占察經; Dàshèng bǎoyì jīng 大乘寶義經) translated by 菩提燈 (Pútídēng, 譯)

About the work

T839 in two fascicles is a doctrinal-ritual sūtra on the use of a wooden-block divination practice to ascertain the moral state of one’s karma, attributed in the Suí-period catalogues to the otherwise unknown translator 菩提燈 (Pútídēng / Bodhidīpa). Modern critical scholarship (Whalen Lai 1990; Funayama Tōru 2013) treats the text as a likely Chinese apocryphon (sino-apocryphon) of late-sixth-century date, composed in China to provide a doctrinal-ritual framework for the Buddhist appropriation of indigenous divination practices. The colophon’s note 出六根聚經中 (“excerpted from the Liùgēnjù jīng”) attributes the text to a (now-lost or fictional) larger work Six-Faculty Compendium Sūtra. The Zhànchá is also catalogued under the alternate title Dàshèng bǎoyì jīng (“Mahāyāna Sūtra of Precious Meaning”). It is the only canonical Chinese-language sūtra dedicated to the cult of Kṣitigarbha at this early date and is foundational for the development of the Kṣitigarbha-cult in East Asian Buddhism, alongside T412 Dìzàng púsà běnyuàn jīng (translated by Śikṣānanda) and T410 Dàfāngguǎng shílún jīng.

Abstract

The text opens at Mt Gṛdhrakūṭa near Rājagṛha, where the Buddha is teaching an immeasurable assembly. The bodhisattva Jiānjìngxìn 堅淨信 (“Firm-Pure-Faith”) rises and asks the Buddha about the situation of beings in the end of the saddharma and the entry into the paścima-kāla (末法 mòfǎ) — when the Buddha is gone, the saddharma extinct, and the pratirūpaka-dharma (像法 xiàngfǎ) waning. In such times, beings will lose right mindfulness, will pursue greed, hatred, jealousy and pride; even the apparently virtuous will pursue worldly profit and fame; the assembly will be assailed by disasters and warfare; few will attain the path; eventually no being will attain even the dhyāna-attainments or supernormal powers.

The Buddha refers Jiānjìngxìn to the bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha (地藏 Dìzàng), explaining that Kṣitigarbha — though equal to the Tathāgata in attainment — has assumed an upāya-form for the salvation of beings of the pañca-kaṣāya (the five impurities), is supremely effective in the salvation of those of weak faculties, and has dedicated eleven kalpas to the maturation of beings in this very world-system. Kṣitigarbha then expounds the wood-block divination ritual (木輪相法 mùlún xiàng fǎ).

Fascicle one sets out the ritual practice: small wooden blocks (about an inch in length, with four flat sides and tapering ends, marked with characters) are tossed onto a flat surface; the configuration of marks reveals one’s past-life karma, present-life difficulties, and the auspicious or inauspicious nature of contemplated actions. The text gives detailed instructions for the construction of the blocks, the ritual purification preceding their use, the repentance-formulas to be recited, and the interpretive scheme by which the blocks’ configurations are read. It is emphasised that this practice is exclusively for Buddhist use — practitioners must not lapse into syncretic worldly divination — and that the practice is foundational for clearing karmic obstacles in the mòfǎ age.

Fascicle two expounds the doctrinal frame in which the divination practice is embedded: the doctrine of karma, the bodhi-mind, the bodhisattva-bhūmi, the prajñā-pāramitā, the one-vehicle doctrine, and the tathāgatagarbha. The doctrinal exposition includes a developed presentation of the two truths (satya-dvaya) and the one mind doctrine (ekacitta) — the latter showing affinities with the Sui-period Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna (T1666–7) tradition.

The text was widely cited in medieval East Asian Buddhist literature, especially in the Pure-Land and Tiāntái traditions, and the wood-block divination practice was preserved as a living tradition into the early Republican period. The Míng monk 智旭 composed three commentaries on the text (Xuányì T1485, Yìshū T370, Xíngfǎ T371), all of which are catalogued in this division of KR6i.

Translations and research

Reminder: AI generated list - beware of hallucinations. Corrections and additions welcome

  • Lai, Whalen. “The Chan-ch’a ching: Religion and Magic in Medieval China.” In Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha, ed. Robert E. Buswell, Jr. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990, pp. 175–206. (Foundational study; argues for sino-apocryphal composition.)
  • Funayama, Tōru 船山徹. Butten wa dō Kanyaku sareta no ka: sūtoras no Chūgoku-ka 仏典はどう漢訳されたのか. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2013.
  • Zhiru. The Making of a Savior Bodhisattva: Dizang in Medieval China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007.

Other points of interest

The wood-block divination practice (木輪相法) of fascicle one is one of the few East Asian Buddhist ritual technologies for which we have detailed textual instructions; the practice was preserved as a living tradition in some Chinese and Japanese monasteries into the modern period.

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