聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

攝大乘論

3 min read

Text ID
KR6n0058
Date
531–534
Dynasty
後魏

Shè dàshèng lùn 攝大乘論

Compendium of the Mahāyāna (Asaṅga, Mahāyāna-saṅgraha) by 阿僧伽 (Āsēngjiā = Asaṅga, 作) and 佛陀扇多 (Fótuóshànduō = Buddhaśānta, 譯)

About the work

The earliest of the three extant Chinese translations of Asaṅga’s Mahāyāna-saṅgraha — the core systematic treatise of mature Indian Yogācāra. Translated by 佛陀扇多 (Buddhaśānta) under the Northern Wèi / Eastern Wèi during his Luòyáng / Yè translation activity, prior to the better-known 真諦 and 玄奘 versions. Two fascicles (上下), no surviving prose commentary — only the verse + prose root text.

Structural Division

CANWWW (T31N1592) lists the related texts as KR6n0059 Shè dàshèng lùn (T31n1593, 真諦’s translation) and KR6n0065 Shè dàshèng lùn shì (T31n1598, 無性菩薩’s commentary translated by 玄奘). The Mahāyāna-saṅgraha root text is internally divided into ten chapters covering: (1) the ālayavijñāna and the foundation; (2) the three natures; (3) entry into knowledge of the basis; (4) the bodhisattva training in the six perfections; (5) the cultivation of the two awakenings; (6) the path of the three vehicles’ contemplative realisation; (7) the increase of the meditative trainings; (8) the bodhisattva vows / vows of the seven kinds; (9) the kāya doctrine; (10) the result of the path. Buddhaśānta’s translation preserves the ten-chapter structure.

Abstract

The Mahāyāna-saṅgraha is, with the Yogācārabhūmi (T1579 = KR6n0001) and the Abhidharma-samuccaya (T1605 = KR6n0081), one of the three principal systematic compendia attributed to Asaṅga. Of all three, the Mahāyāna-saṅgraha is the most concise and pedagogically organised. The Buddhaśānta version preserves the ten-chapter root text only, omitting Vasubandhu’s auto-bhāṣya — which Buddhaśānta apparently did not translate or did not have access to. The dating window adopted (531–534) reflects Buddhaśānta’s late-Northern-Wèi / Eastern-Wèi translation period at Yè.

The catalog’s choice of “zuò” 作 (rather than the more usual “zào” 造) for Asaṅga’s authorship is unusual but is preserved in the prefatory line of the source text (“阿僧伽作 / 後魏世佛陀扇多於洛陽譯”) and probably reflects Buddhaśānta’s particular translation usage at this date. The Sanskrit original is largely lost; the principal modern critical edition is É. Lamotte’s reconstruction from Tibetan (D 4048; La somme du Grand Véhicule, Louvain, 1938).

This Northern-Wèi version was supplanted in Chinese Buddhist practice by the Paramārtha translation (KR6n0059, 563–564) and then by Xuánzàng’s later translation (KR6n0060, 648–649), but it remains an important witness to the early-sixth-century state of the Indian Yogācāra textual transmission to China.

Translations and research

  • Lamotte, Étienne. La somme du Grand Véhicule d’Asaṅga (Mahāyānasaṃgraha). 2 vols. Louvain: Bureaux du Muséon, 1938. (Reconstruction from Tibetan; comparative use of the three Chinese translations.)
  • Nagao Gadjin 長尾雅人. Shōdaijōron — wayaku to chūkai 摂大乗論——和訳と注解. 2 vols. Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1982–1987.
  • Keenan, John P. The Summary of the Great Vehicle by Bodhisattva Asaṅga, Translated from the Chinese of Paramārtha. Berkeley: Numata Center, 1992 (repr. 2003).
  • Funayama Tōru 船山徹. Shintai sanzō kenkyū ronshū 真諦三藏研究論集. Kyoto: Kyōto Daigaku Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyūjo, 2012.

Graph View

Backlinks