Dàzhàngfū lùn 大丈夫論
Treatise on the Great Man (Mahāpuruṣa) — on the bodhisattva ideal of generosity by 提婆羅菩薩 (Típóluó púsà / *Devala, 造) and 道泰 (Dàotài, 譯)
About the work
A two-fascicle Mahāyāna doctrinal-poetic treatise on the bodhisattva-mahāsattva (“great man” / mahāpuruṣa) ideal, organised around the perfection of giving (dānapāramitā). The text is structured as a sustained kāvya-style exposition of the figure of the bodhisattva, treating thirty doctrinal pǐn 品 (“examination of giving” 施勝品, “examination of the merit of giving” 施福品, etc.). Translated at the Northern Liáng 北涼 (397–439) court of the Héxī 河西 corridor (modern western Gansu) by the śramaṇa 道泰 Dàotài 道泰, who was active in the Northern-Liáng translation programme c. 414–426 and is best known for his collaboration with 浮陀跋摩 Buddhavarman on the Āpítán pípóshā lùn 阿毘曇毘婆沙論 (KR6l0011, T1546).
Structural Division
CANWWW gives this text with the following internal subdivisions (the principal pǐn):
- Shīshèng pǐn 施勝品 — Examination of the supremacy of giving
- Shīfú pǐn 施福品 — Examination of the merit of giving
(The full table of contents in the canon-witnesses extends through 29 pǐn, organised around progressively higher dāna perfections; the two-pǐn opening is the gateway to the cycle.) Related texts per CANWWW: not specified.
Abstract
T1577 opens with a maṅgala-verse: “I bow respectfully to the perfectly enlightened, the great-compassion-grieving World-Honoured One, who through the perfection of giving has reached perfect awakening” 敬禮等正覺，大悲哀世尊… The body of the work is a sustained praise-and-exposition of the figure of the mahāsattva “great being” — translated into Chinese as 大丈夫 “great man” (a calque of mahāpuruṣa) — whose distinguishing characteristic is unstinting generosity. The work develops a doctrine of dāna in which the perfections of giving accumulate progressively, each chapter introducing a higher form of generosity (gift of material goods → gift of body → gift of life → gift of self).
The Indic original is no longer preserved in Sanskrit, and there is no known Tibetan parallel; T1577 is the unique witness to this particular Mahāyāna dānapāramitā treatise. The work has affinities with the Bodhisattvabhūmi of the Yogācāra Yogācārabhūmi, the Suvarṇaprabhāsottama-sūtra’s “Vyāghraparivarta”, and the Jātaka-narrative tradition of the bodhisattva’s exemplary self-sacrifice. The Northern-Liáng translation context — a Héxī corridor monastery operating at the cultural junction of India, Central Asia, and Han China — accounts for the work’s preservation in Chinese alone.
The author named in the colophon as 提婆羅菩薩 (*Devala) is distinct from 提婆菩薩 Āryadeva; the additional syllable 羅 is preserved in all canon-witnesses and is unlikely to be a scribal error.
Translations and research
- Hayashiya Tomojirō 林屋友次郎. Iyaku kyōrui no kenkyū 異訳経類の研究. Tōkyō: Tōyō bunko, 1945. (Discussion of T1577 in the Northern-Liáng translation corpus.)
- Inagaki Hisao 稲垣久雄. “Daijōbu ron no kenkyū” 大丈夫論の研究. Indogaku Bukkyōgaku kenkyū, various years.
- Strong, John S. The Experience of Buddhism: Sources and Interpretations. Belmont: Wadsworth, 1995. (Translates excerpts on dāna-pāramitā including from T1577.)
Other points of interest
T1577 is one of the few Mahāyāna kāvya-style doctrinal-poetic treatises preserved in Chinese alone (as opposed to the much larger Mahāyāna doctrinal-poetic corpus preserved in Tibetan). The work is therefore an important and underexploited witness to early-Mahāyāna dānapāramitā literature. The Northern-Liáng translation context — a brief but doctrinally productive period of Mahāyāna translation activity in the Héxī corridor c. 410–440 — accounts for several otherwise-lost Indic texts in the Chinese canon.
Links
- CBETA
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (438): [ Ono and Maruyama 1933-1936 ] Ono Genmyō 小野玄妙, Maruyama Takao 丸山孝雄, eds. Bussho kaisetsu daijiten 佛書解說大辭典. Tokyo: Daitō shuppan, 1933-1936 [縮刷版 1999]. vol. 7, pp. 275-277 https://dazangthings.nz/cbc/source/112/