Fó shuō púsà nèijiè jīng 佛說菩薩內戒經
The Sūtra on the Inner Bodhisattva Precepts by 求那跋摩 (Guṇavarman, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Mahāyāna sūtra on the inner-mental aspects of bodhisattva-discipline, translated by Guṇavarman (求那跋摩) at Jiànkāng in 431 CE. 內戒 nèi-jiè “inner precepts” refers to the mental-attitudinal dimensions of the bodhisattva-vow, complementing the external behavioural precepts.
Prefaces
Translator’s colophon: 宋罽賓沙門求那跋摩譯.
Abstract
The text is part of Guṇavarman’s foundational project of introducing Mahāyāna bodhisattva-precept material to early-medieval Chinese Buddhism. Its emphasis on the inner-mental dimensions of the bodhisattva-vow — the bodhicitta “mind of awakening” and the meditative-volitional aspects of bodhisattva-practice — anticipates the later Tiāntái and Chán readings of the bodhisattva-precepts as fundamentally mental-spiritual rather than merely behavioural commitments.
Translations and research
- Funayama Tōru 船山徹. Bommōkyō. Kyoto, 1996.
- Demiéville, Paul. “Le bouddhisme chinois.” In Encyclopédie de la Pléiade I, Paris, 1970.