Fóshuō Zūnnà jīng 佛說尊那經
Sūtra Spoken by the Buddha to Cunda by 法賢 (Fǎxián / Tiānxīzāi, 譯)
About the work
A short single-fascicle dialogue-sūtra translated by 法賢 Fǎxián 法賢 (originally named Tiānxīzāi 天息災, Skt. presumably Devaśāntika; renamed Fǎxián in 987) at the Sòng Institute for the Translation of Sūtras (T17 no. 845). The interlocutor is the zūnzhě 尊者 (“Elder”) Zūnnà 尊那 — i.e. the Pāli/Sanskrit Cunda — who comes to the Buddha at the Ghoṣila Park in Kauśāmbī (憍睒彌國瞿師羅林) and asks: “World-Honored One, can the merit-stream be obtained without exhaustion? May the World-Honored One expound this for me.” The Buddha’s reply enumerates a series of meritorious activities — the planting of trees, the digging of wells, the construction of bridges and shelters, the offering of food and clothing — each of which generates ever-renewing meritorious karma even after the donor’s death.
Abstract
The signature line gives Fǎxián’s full court title at the time of translation: 西天譯經三藏朝散大夫試光祿卿明教大師臣法賢奉詔譯 (“The Indian trepiṭaka of the translation-of-sūtras [bureau], cháo-sǎn dà-fū, shì guāng-lù qīng, Master of Bright Teaching, your subject Fǎxián, translated by imperial command”). The 法賢 form of the name makes the translation post-987 (the year of his renaming) and pre-1000 (the year of his death). The composition window is therefore 987–1000.
Fǎxián’s translation programme is extensively documented in the Sòng gāosēng zhuàn 宋高僧傳 (juan 3), the Dàzhōngxiángfú fǎbǎo lù 大中祥符法寶錄 (juan 6, 11), and the Sòng huìyào jíběn 宋會要輯本 (道釋 2/5–7); the present sūtra is one of the simpler, more clearly edifying abhīkṣṇika (continuous-merit) genre productions of his oeuvre. Bibliographic data: K1231 (Korean Tripiṭaka); H064 (Zhōnghuá); Nanjio 899. The Sanskrit original is not extant; the work has no securely identified Pāli or Tibetan parallel.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The Cunda of this sūtra is most likely the Cunda Kammāraputta of the Pāli tradition (the smith whose final meal-offering preceded the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa), but the Sòng-era Indic original from which Fǎxián was translating presumably gave a generic Mahāyāna-style “Elder Cunda” without specific narrative-locating; the connection to the Cunda of the Mahāparinibbāna-sutta is tenuous. The merit-doctrine — that physical acts of public infrastructure-building (wells, bridges, shelters, planted trees) generate continuously-replenishing meritorious karma — is well-attested in the Pāli Vanaropasutta (SN 1.47) and in similar early-Mahāyāna scriptural material, suggesting that this sūtra preserves an Indic textual tradition of considerable antiquity even though the Chinese transmission is late.