Shīshè Lùn 施設論
Prajñapti-śāstra: Treatise on Designations by 法護 (等譯)
About the work
The Shīshè Lùn 施設論 (Skt. Prajñapti-śāstra, CBETA T26n1538) is a Northern Song dynasty partial translation of the Sarvāstivāda canonical Prajñapti-śāstra, one of the “six feet” (六足論) of the school’s Abhidharma canon, in 7 juan. It was translated by the Indian monk Fǎhù 法護 (Dharmapāla, 法護, c. 963–1058) and colleagues at the Chuánfǎyuàn 傳法院 in Biànjīng during the Northern Song. The text is a partial rendering of the Sanskrit original, dealing with cosmological and ontological “designations” (施設 prajñapti) — the conventional names assigned to persons, time, and world-systems.
Prefaces
No independent preface survives in the received text. The text opens directly with the discussion of cosmological and phenomenological categories without a narrative frame.
Abstract
The Prajñapti-śāstra (Pāli Paññatti) is attributed in the Sarvāstivāda tradition to Mahāmaudgalyāyana (大目乾連, 目犍連), the disciple famed for supernatural powers, which connects to the text’s concern with the cosmological realms and their inhabitants. The Sanskrit original is not fully preserved, but a substantial Tibetan translation (‘Phags pa rin po che’i sgron ma in the Tengyur) survives. The Chinese translation covers only a portion of the original, focusing on questions of cosmology (the three realms of existence, world-systems), the material elements, and sense objects.
Modern scholars have suggested that the Prajñapti group of texts may be among the earliest layers of Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma, predating the more systematized Jñāna-prasthāna (KR6l0009). The received Sanskrit/Tibetan material encompasses far more than the 7-juan Chinese translation, suggesting that Fǎhù translated only part of the Sanskrit manuscript available to him.
Fǎhù’s translation activity belongs to the final phase of the Northern Song imperial translation bureau (傳法院), where he worked in collaboration with 惟淨 Wéijìng and others on Sanskrit texts imported from India. The dynasty field in the catalog (宋) refers to the Northern Song (960–1127 CE).
Translations and research
- Frauwallner, Erich. Studies in Abhidharma Literature. Albany: SUNY Press, 1995.
- McDermott, James Paul. “Sarvāstivāda and the Prajñaptivāda.” Philosophy East and West 22, no. 3 (1972): 307–316.
- Willemen, Dessein, and Cox. Sarvāstivāda Buddhist Scholasticism. Leiden: Brill, 1998, pp. 57–59.
Links
- CBETA Online
- Taisho Vol. 26, No. 1538
- Kanseki DB