Típó púsà shì Léngqié jīng zhōng wài dào xiǎo shèng nièpán lùn 提婆菩薩釋楞伽經中外道小乘涅槃論
Bodhisattva Āryadeva’s Explanation of the Non-Buddhist and Hīnayāna Theories of Nirvāṇa Mentioned in the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra by 提波菩薩 (Típó púsà / Āryadeva, 造) and 菩提流支 (Pútíliúzhī / Bodhiruci, 譯)
About the work
The companion piece to KR6o0043: a short one-juǎn polemical treatise enumerating and refuting twenty non-Buddhist and Hīnayāna theories of nirvāṇa mentioned in the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra. The same colophon “提波菩薩造，後魏北印度三藏菩提流支譯” attributes the work to Āryadeva (in the Wèi-period 提波 orthography) and the translation to 菩提流支 (Bodhiruci). Like its companion, the work is closely tied to the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra and is best read as part of the early-sixth-century Wèi-Buddhist effort to systematise Mahāyāna polemics against rival schools.
Structural Division
CANWWW (T32N1640) lists no internal sub-divisions.
Abstract
The text enumerates twenty rival theories of nirvāṇa — (1) the māṭhara theory (i.e. liberation = absence of merit and demerit); (2) the jainamata theory; (3) the Sāṃkhya theory; and so on — and refutes each in turn using Mādhyamika arguments rooted in the impossibility of substantial nirvāṇa if saṃsāra is itself empty. The structure parallels the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra ch. 3 enumerations of these theories. The Sanskrit does not survive. The translation, like its companion, is from Bodhiruci’s Wèi period; both texts are placed together in T32 (Nos. 1639–1640) and are conventionally treated as a single doctrinal unit. Translation date 508–535.
Translations and research
- See KR6o0043; the secondary literature is the same.
Links
- CBETA
- 提波菩薩 Típó púsà (Āryadeva) DILA
- 菩提流支 Pútí-liúzhī (Bodhiruci) DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (520, 530): T = CBETA, Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經, ed. 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
- Kanseki DB