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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 [[KR6h0016|T412 Dìzàng púsà běnyuàn jīng]] (translated by Śikṣānanda) and [[KR6h0014|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 ([[KR6i0548|Xuányì T1485]], [[KR6i0549|Yìshū T370]], [[KR6i0550|Xíngfǎ T371]]), all of which are catalogued in this division of KR6i.

Translations and research

  • 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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