Dàshèng zhuāngyán jīng lùn 大乘莊嚴經論
Ornament of the Mahāyāna Sūtras (Maitreya/Asaṅga, Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra) by 無著菩薩 (Wúzhuó púsà = Asaṅga, 造) and 波羅頗蜜多羅 (Bōluōpōmìduōluó = Prabhākaramitra, 譯)
About the work
The thirteen-fascicle Chinese translation of the Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra — verses traditionally ascribed to Maitreya, bhāṣya by Asaṅga (or in some Indian sources to Vasubandhu) — translated into Chinese by the Indian master 波羅頗蜜多羅 (Prabhākaramitra, 565–633) at Cháng’ān during the early Táng. The first of the five Maitreya treatises to receive a complete Chinese translation, and one of the major systematic philosophical treatises of the Indian Yogācāra tradition.
Structural Division
CANWWW (T31N1604) does not preserve a per-fascicle internal table. The thirteen juǎn are organised into twenty-one chapters covering: (1) establishment of the Mahāyāna; (2) refuge; (3) the family lineage; (4) generation of bodhicitta; (5) the bodhisattva’s two benefits; (6) suchness; (7) power; (8) maturation; (9) bodhi; (10) confidence; (11) doctrine-search; (12) doctrine-teaching; (13) practice; (14) instructions; (15) skilful means; (16) perfections and means of conversion; (17) deference; (18) factors of awakening; (19) qualities; (20–21) summary.
Abstract
The Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra (the principal alternative title is Sūtrālaṅkāra-kārikā with auto-bhāṣya) is, with the Madhyāntavibhāga, the first of the five canonical Maitreya treatises (Císhì wǔ lùn 慈氏五論). It functions as a systematic exposition of the Mahāyāna path through the bodhisattva bhūmi and as the locus classicus for the Yogācāra exposition of the three-natures doctrine in connection with the tathāgatagarbha tradition.
The translation was completed by 波羅頗蜜多羅 (Prabhākaramitra) at Cháng’ān shortly after his arrival from India c. 627. The dating window adopted (630–633) reflects the colophons preserved in the Lìdài sānbǎo jì j. 11 and Kāiyuán shìjiào lù j. 8, which place the translation in the years just before Prabhākaramitra’s death in 633. The translation team included Sēngmín 僧旻, Bǎoshēng 寶生, and others; the great preface to the translation is by Lǐ Bǎiyào 李百藥.
The text was eclipsed in seventh-century Yogācāra study by Xuánzàng’s KR6n0001 Yogācārabhūmi and the Mahāyāna-saṅgraha corpus, but it remained an important reference for the Mahāyāna path; in Tibetan Yogācāra (where it is the Theg-pa chen-po mdo-sde’i rgyan, D 4020), by contrast, the Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra is one of the two or three central texts of the entire tradition. The Sanskrit original survives, edited by Sylvain Lévi (1907, repr. 1983).
Translations and research
- Lévi, Sylvain. Mahāyāna-Sūtrālaṅkāra: Exposé de la doctrine du Grand Véhicule selon le système Yogācāra. 2 vols. Paris: Champion, 1907–1911.
- Thurman, Robert et al., trans. The Universal Vehicle Discourse Literature: Mahāyānasūtrālaṅkāra. New York: AIBS / Columbia, 2004.
- Jamspal, L., R. Clark, J. Wilson, et al., trans. The Universal Vehicle Discourse Literature. New York: AIBS, 2004.
- Hayashima Osamu 早島理 et al. Daijō shōgon kyōron no kenkyū 大乗荘厳経論の研究. Multiple vols., Tokyo, 1990s–2000s.
- Funayama Tōru 船山徹. Daijō Bukkyō no Ajia 大乗仏教のアジア (multi-vol. series).