Jiě tuō dào lùn 解脫道論
Treatise on the Path to Liberation (Vimuttimagga) by 優波底沙 (Yōubōdǐshā / Upatissa, 造) and 僧伽婆羅 (Sēngqiépóluó / Saṃghabhara, 譯)
About the work
A twelve-juǎn Theravāda-affiliated meditation manual — the Vimuttimagga of the Sinhalese thera Upatissa — translated into Chinese by 僧伽婆羅 (Saṃghabhara, 460–524) at the Liáng court of Wǔ-dì 梁武帝 between 505 and 520. The Chinese title-line of juǎn 1 introduces the author as “the arhat Upatissa, in [our] Liáng-language called ‘Great Light’ (大光)” — Upatissa being a Sinhalese name whose Pāli equivalent of the Sanskritised root upatiṣya the colophon understood as Mahā-jyotis. This is the only complete witness of the Vimuttimagga in any language: the underlying Pāli original is not preserved in Sri Lanka, where the work was eclipsed by Buddhaghosa’s later Visuddhimagga; only Tibetan citations of three brief passages and the Jiě-tuō dào lùn itself transmit it. The text is structured around the threefold path of sīla (戒), samādhi (定), paññā (慧).
Structural Division
CANWWW (T32N1648) records twelve chapters following the threefold path:
- Yīnyuán pǐn 因緣品 — Chapter on Causes and Conditions (Pāli nidāna)
- Fēnbié jiè pǐn 分別戒品 — Chapter Analysing Morality (sīla-niddesa)
- Tóu-tuó pǐn 頭陀品 — Chapter on the Ascetic Practices (dhutaṅga-niddesa)
- Fēnbié dìng pǐn 分別定品 — Chapter Analysing Concentration (samādhi-niddesa)
- Mì shàn-zhī-shì pǐn 覓善知識品 — Chapter on Seeking the Good Friend (kalyāṇa-mitta)
- Fēnbié xíng pǐn 分別行品 — Chapter Analysing the Temperaments (cariyā-niddesa)
- Fēn-bié xíng-chù pǐn 分別行處品 — Chapter Analysing the Subjects of Meditation (kammaṭṭhāna-niddesa)
- Xíngmén pǐn 行門品 — Chapter on Methods of Practice
- Wǔ-tōng pǐn 五通品 — Chapter on the Five Higher Knowledges (abhiññā)
- Fēn-bié huì pǐn 分別慧品 — Chapter Analysing Wisdom (paññā-niddesa)
- Wǔ fāngbiàn pǐn 五方便品 — Chapter on the Five Methods (pañca-upāya)
- Fēnbié dì pǐn 分別諦品 — Chapter Analysing the Truths (sacca-niddesa)
Abstract
The Taishō text opens “《解脫道論》卷第一，阿羅漢優波底沙梁言大光造，梁扶南三藏僧伽婆羅譯”. The translator 僧伽婆羅 was a funan 扶南 (Khmer-region) monk who arrived at the Liáng capital Jiànkāng around 506 and translated under imperial patronage at the Shòu-guāng Diàn 壽光殿; his translation career is documented in the Liáng Biographies of Eminent Monks 梁高僧傳 (T2059, Sēng-yòu’s continuator account). The Lì-dài sānbǎo jì 歷代三寶記 (T2034) places the rendering of the Jiě-tuō dào lùn between Tiān-jiàn 天監 4 and 11 (505–512); the Kāiyuán-lù 開元錄 (T2154) accepts this. Identification of the underlying Indic original with the Pāli Vimuttimagga of Upatissa was first proposed by Nagai Makoto 永井政之 in 1917 and decisively established by Bapat (1937), comparing the structure point-by-point with Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga and with three Tibetan fragments cited in Daśabalaśrīmitra’s Saṃskṛtāsaṃskṛta-viniścaya. Modern scholarship now treats the Jiě-tuō dào lùn as the principal — and at most points only — source for Upatissa’s Vimuttimagga. Its philosophical interest lies in the substantial differences from Buddhaghosa: the Vimuttimagga preserves an older Mahāvihāra-or-Abhayagiri-vihāra meditation system in which several technical analyses (notably of the kasiṇa meditations and the colour-perception bases) differ markedly from the Visuddhimagga’s positions.
Translations and research
- Bapat, P. V. Vimuttimagga and Visuddhimagga: A Comparative Study. Poona: Calcutta Oriental Press, 1937. — The foundational comparative study; identifies the Chinese as Upatissa’s Vimuttimagga.
- Ehara, N. R. M., Soma Thera, and Kheminda Thera (trans.). The Path of Freedom (Vimuttimagga) by the Arahant Upatissa. Colombo: D. Roland D. Weerasuria, 1961; reprint Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, 1995. — Standard English translation directly from the Chinese.
- Nagai Makoto 長井真琴. “Vimuttimagga (Gedatsu-dō-ron) no shingo” 解脱道論の真義. Indogaku Bukkyōgaku kenkyū (1917, foundational identification).
- Skilling, Peter. “Vimuttimagga and Abhayagiri: The Form-Aggregate According to the Saṃskṛtāsaṃskṛta-viniścaya.” Journal of the Pali Text Society 20 (1994): 171–210. — Tibetan fragments and Abhayagiri-vihāra connection.
- Crosby, Kate. “Sāriputta’s Three Works on the Samantapāsādikā.” Journal of the Pali Text Society 28 (2006). — Mahāvihāra-Abhayagiri controversy.
- Endo, Toshiichi. Buddhist Theology of the Buddha: A Sectarian Theological Study with Special Reference to the Source of the Mahāvihāra Tradition (in Dharma World). 1997.
Other points of interest
The Jiětuō dào lùn / Vimuttimagga is one of the most consequential single texts for the modern understanding of pre-Buddhaghosa Theravāda meditation theory. It is associated by some scholars (Bapat, Skilling) with the Abhayagiri-vihāra rather than the Mahāvihāra of Anurādhapura — a hypothesis that, if correct, makes the Chinese translation our principal documentary witness to the lost Abhayagiri school’s literature, since the Mahāvihāra prevailed in Sri Lanka and suppressed the Abhayagiri tradition by the twelfth century. The relation of Upatissa’s Vimuttimagga to Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga is one of straightforward dependence: Buddhaghosa, working a century or more later, knew Upatissa’s text and silently revised it.
Links
- CBETA
- Wikipedia
- Dazangthings date evidence (515): [ 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. https://dazangthings.nz/cbc/source/1/