Yuán shēng lùn 緣生論
Treatise on Dependent Arising (Pratītyasamutpāda-śāstra) by 欝楞迦 (Yùléngjiā / Ullaṅgha, 造) and 達磨笈多 (Dámójíduō / Dharmagupta, 譯)
About the work
A one-juǎn verse-and-prose treatise on dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) by the Indian master Ullaṅgha 欝楞迦 (also Sanskritised as Ullaṅgha or Ullaṅkha), translated into Chinese in the Suí 隋 period by 達磨笈多 (Dharmagupta, fl. 590–619). The work is structurally a verse-commentary on the twelve-link dependent-origination scheme using the yán-zhèng 言詮 (utterance-and-explanation) format characteristic of late Indic mātṛkā literature. The same Indic original was retranslated a century later by 不空 (Amoghavajra) under Táng patronage as the Dà-shèng yuán-shēng lùn 大乘緣生論 (KR6o0057).
Structural Division
CANWWW (T32N1652) does not record an internal sub-division.
Abstract
The Taishō text opens with a Yuán-shēng lùn xù 緣生論序 — a Suí-period preface (the author of which is not named in the text but conventionally attributed to the editor of Dharmagupta’s translation team) that praises the work as completing the Buddha’s teaching on dependent origination beyond the Daśabhūmika and Śālistamba-sūtra: “至若此經獨苞彼例，彼所未說，此乃具演” (“This treatise alone embraces those examples; what they did not declare, this fully expounds”). The translation is fixed by the Lì-dài sānbǎo jì 歷代三寶記 (T2034) and Kāiyuán-lù 開元錄 (T2154) to Dharmagupta’s Suí period, probably between Dà-yè 大業 1 (605) and 12 (616). Comparison with [[KR6o0057|Amoghavajra’s Dà-shèng yuán-shēng lùn]] shows the two are translations of the same Indic original — a fact already noted in the Taishō editorial apparatus (“No. 1652 [No. 1653]”) — though Dharmagupta’s version is more literal and the Tang re-translation more idiomatic. The author Ullaṅgha is otherwise unattested; he may be a Yogācāra-affiliated master of the late fifth or sixth century, but no certain dates can be assigned.
Translations and research
- Hakamaya Noriaki 袴谷憲昭. “Engi-shōron to Daijō engi-ron: futatsu no Kanyaku no hikaku” 縁生論と大乘緣生論 — 二つの漢譯の比較. Komazawa daigaku Bukkyōgaku-bu kenkyū kiyō (various). — Compares the Dharmagupta and Amoghavajra translations.
- Frauwallner, Erich. Die Philosophie des Buddhismus. Berlin, 1956. — Brief notice in the pratītyasamutpāda section.
Other points of interest
The text is one of three closely related “twelve links” treatises in the Taishō Lùn-jí (alongside T1651 and T1653). Its preface, with its erudite reference to the “kàn-chéng 看城” (pratītyasamutpāda as a “viewing-city”) and the dào-yù 稻芋 (śāli-stamba “rice-stalk”) simile, is one of the better-written paratexts in this section of the Taishō.
Links
- CBETA
- Dazangthings date evidence (610): [ 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/