Pú tí xíng jīng 菩提行經
Sūtra on the Bodhisattva Practice (Bodhicaryāvatāra) by 龍樹菩薩 (Lóngshù púsà / Nāgārjuna, 集頌 — but see Abstract; the underlying work is Śāntideva’s) and 天息災 (Tiānxízāi / Dānapāla, 譯)
About the work
A four-juǎn verse text in eight chapters, translated into Chinese by 天息災 (Tiānxízāi, fl. 980 – c. 1000) at the Sòng-period imperial Yìjīngyuàn 譯經院. The Taishō title-line attributes the verses to 龍樹菩薩 (Nāgārjuna), but this attribution is incorrect: the underlying Indic work is Śāntideva’s 寂天 (c. 685–763) Bodhicaryāvatāra (“Entry into the Practice of Enlightenment”) — one of the most celebrated and widely studied Mahāyāna treatises, the principal classic of the Mahāyāna bodhicitta tradition. The misattribution to Nāgārjuna in the Sòng-period translation reflects either editorial error in the Indian source manuscript that 天息災 brought to China, or a deliberate generic ascription to “the great Madhyamaka master” without reference to specific authorship. The error has been corrected in modern scholarship (de la Vallée Poussin, La Vallée; Crosby and Skilton 1995): the work is indisputably Śāntideva’s.
Structural Division
CANWWW (T32N1662) records eight chapters:
- Zàn pútí-xīn pǐn 讚菩提心品 — Praise of the Bodhi-Mind (Skt. Bodhicittānuśaṃsa)
- Pútí-xīn shī-gōng-yǎng pǐn 薩提心施供養品 — Confession and Offering Worship (Pāpa-deśanā / Pūjā)
- Hù jiè pǐn 護戒品 — Maintaining Morality (Bodhicitta-parigraha / Saṃvara)
- Pútí-xīn rěn-rǔ bōluómìduō pǐn 菩提心忍辱波羅蜜多品 — Perfection of Patience (Kṣānti-pāramitā)
- Pútíxīn jīngjìn bōrě bōluómìduō pǐn 菩提心精進般若波羅蜜多品 — Perfection of Vigour (Vīryapāramitā)
- Pútíxīn jìnglǜ bōluómìduō pǐn 菩提心靜慮波羅蜜多品 — Perfection of Meditation (Dhyānapāramitā)
- Pútí-xīn bōrě bōluómìduō pǐn 菩提心般若波羅蜜多品 — Perfection of Wisdom (Prajñā-pāramitā)
- Pútí-xīn huí-xiàng pǐn 菩提心回向品 — Dedication of Merit (Pariṇāmanā)
(The Chinese eight-chapter division differs from the more common ten-chapter Tibetan/Sanskrit recension, suggesting Tiānxízāi worked from a slightly different recension, possibly a vyākhyā-augmented “old recension”.)
Abstract
The Taishō text opens “《菩提行經》卷第一 / 聖龍樹菩薩集頌 / 西天中印度惹爛馱囉國密林寺三藏明教大師賜紫沙門臣天息災奉 詔譯”. The colophon’s “From the Mìlín Monastery 密林寺 of Jelandhara 惹爛馱囉 in central India” places Tiānxízāi’s source manuscript in Jalandhar (modern Punjab), an important late-medieval Buddhist center. The translation falls within Tiānxízāi’s career at the imperial Yìjīngyuàn between 980 and his death around 1000. The opening verse (“如佛妙法體無邊 / 佛子正心歸命禮”) is a faithful echo of Śāntideva’s homage at Bodhicaryāvatāra 1.1.
The Sanskrit original of the Bodhicaryāvatāra survives complete; the Tibetan translations (two: a “Yeshes-sde” version and a later one) are widely studied; modern Sanskrit critical editions exist (Vaidya 1960, Vaidya-Tripathi 1988). Tiānxízāi’s Chinese is a faithful but somewhat abbreviated rendering and represents the only Chinese version of the Bodhicaryāvatāra in the entire East Asian canonical tradition. Its relative obscurity in subsequent Chinese exegesis — despite the work’s enormous importance in Tibetan tradition — is one of the more striking asymmetries of East Asian Mahāyāna reception history.
Translations and research
- Crosby, Kate, and Andrew Skilton (trans.). Śāntideva: The Bodhicaryāvatāra. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. — Standard recent English translation from Sanskrit.
- La Vallée Poussin, Louis de. Bodhicaryāvatāra: Introduction à la pratique des futurs Bouddhas. Paris, 1907. — Foundational French translation.
- Crosby, Kate, and Andrew Skilton. “Bodhicaryāvatāra: Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (various). — Comparative textual studies.
- Saito Akira 齋藤明. Sōkō-ron no kenkyū 菩薩行論の研究. Tokyo, various. — Major Japanese study.
- Hahn, Michael. “Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra and Its Chinese Translation.” Indo-Iranian Journal (various). — Comparative analysis of the Chinese.
Other points of interest
The misattribution of Śāntideva’s work to Nāgārjuna in the Sòng Chinese tradition is one of the most consequential editorial errors in East Asian Buddhist text history: it kept the Bodhicaryāvatāra — a foundational Tibetan classic and a central Mahāyāna bodhicitta manual — out of mainstream Chinese exegesis, where Nāgārjunian texts were read in a Madhyamaka-Sānlùn context that did not particularly need a bodhicitta manual. The correct Sanskrit/Tibetan author Śāntideva 寂天 was active in the eighth century at Nālandā; his Śikṣāsamuccaya (also a bodhicitta-related anthology) was rendered into Chinese only in the eleventh century by 法護 as [[KR6o0040|Dà-shèng jí púsà xué lùn 大乘集菩薩學論]] (T1636), but again with no recognition of Śāntideva’s distinctive authorship.
Links
- CBETA
- Wikipedia
- Dazangthings date evidence (990): [ 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/