Púsà shànjiè jīng 菩薩善戒經
Sūtra on the Bodhisattva’s Excellent Discipline (one-fascicle abridgment) by 求那跋摩 (Qiúnàbámó / Guṇavarman, 譯)
About the work
A short, single-fascicle text traditionally counted as a separate work but in fact an extract from the larger nine-fascicle Púsà shànjiè jīng (KR6n0004, T30n1582) of the same translator, 求那跋摩 (Guṇavarman, 367–431). The single fascicle preserves the Púsàjiè běn 菩薩戒本 — the bodhisattva-precept core — extracted from the larger translation for liturgical use in the Liú-Sòng monastic communities. It thus stands in the same relation to T1582 as Dharmakṣema’s Púsà jièběn 菩薩戒本 (KR6k0020, T30n1500) stands to the Púsà dìchí jīng (KR6n0003, T30n1581).
Structural Division
CANWWW (T30N1583) places the text alongside KR6n0001, KR6n0003, and KR6n0004 as a related text in the Bodhisattvabhūmi group. The single fascicle has no formal subdivisions; its content is the recitation-text of the bodhisattva-precepts.
Abstract
求那跋摩 arrived in Jiànkāng 建康 in 431 CE (Yuánjiā 元嘉 8) and died there later the same year. The Chū sānzàng jì jí 出三藏記集 (T2145) reports both T1582 and T1583 as products of his Jǐyuánsì 祇洹寺 translation work in that single year. Tradition treats T1583 as the jièběn (precept-text) extracted for chanting at the bodhisattva-precept ceremony; the parallel later passage in T1582 is generally considered the textual source.
The text was widely used in the early Northern and Southern dynasties for the conferral of the bodhisattva-precepts and is repeatedly cited in early Púsàjiè commentaries. Its short length and standalone format made it the standard short jièběn for the LiúSòng and early Liáng monasteries; it was eventually superseded in normative status by the Fànwǎng jīng 梵網經 (KR6k0017) but never entirely replaced in the Northern transmission.
Translations and research
No substantial monographic study of T1583 in isolation; covered as an appendix to the literature on T1582 and the Bodhisattvabhūmi (see KR6n0004).
Other points of interest
The two Púsà shànjiè jīng texts (T1582 and T1583) together with Dharmakṣema’s Púsà jièběn (T1500, KR6k0020) and Xuánzàng’s later KR6k0121 Púsàjiè běn (T1501) form the Yogācāra strand of bodhisattva-precept literature in the Chinese canon, parallel to and in productive tension with the Fànwǎng jīng tradition.
Links
- CBETA online text
- Dazangthings date evidence (430): [ T ] T = CBETA [Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association]. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭. Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai/Daizō shuppan, 1924-1932. CBReader v 5.0, 2014. Dazangthings source
- 求那跋摩 Qiúnàbámó DILA
- Kanseki DB