Fúgài zhèngxíng suǒjí jīng 福蓋正行所集經
Sūtra of the Compilation [of Practices for] Right Practice and the Cover[ing] of Merit by 龍樹菩薩 (Lóngshù / Nāgārjuna, attributed; 集) and 日稱 (Rìchēng, et al., 等譯)
About the work
A 12-juǎn Northern-Sòng translation of an Indian compilation traditionally attributed to Nāgārjuna, on the proper practice of the bodhisattva path. The translator Rì-chēng 日稱 worked at the Sòng Institute for the Translation of Sūtras (譯經院) in Kāifēng. The full title in the colophon: 龍樹菩薩集 / 西天譯經三藏朝散大夫試鴻臚卿宣梵大師賜紫沙門臣日稱等奉詔譯 — Rì-chēng with his civil and ecclesiastical titles (“Tripiṭaka of Western-Heaven Translation, Court Gentleman of the Cháo-sǎn rank, with rank-trial title of Hóng-lú-qīng, Master Xuān-fàn, granted the purple robe; the monk-subject Rì-chēng et al., on imperial decree, translated”).
Structural Division
CANWWW (T32N1671) lists no internal sub-divisions for this 12-juan work; no related-text pointers. The work is registered as a single bibliographic entry.
Abstract
The text opens with the standard Mahāyāna verse-prologue: “I bow my head in homage to all the buddhas and to the bodhisattva sage-assembly…” It is a substantial compendium of bodhisattva-practice (bodhisattva-caryā) drawing on the Yogācārabhūmi and Daśabhūmika traditions, organized as 12 fascicles each addressing different aspects of the practice. The attribution to Nāgārjuna is conventional but uncertain — there is no surviving Sanskrit or Tibetan parallel from which the attribution can be verified, and the title (which translates roughly as “Sūtra of the Compilation of Practices for the Right Practice that Covers [the practitioner with] Merit”) suggests a late-Indian compilation rather than an authentic Nāgārjuna composition.
The Sòng translation is dated to Rìchēng’s documented activity period c. 1058–1078; Rìchēng was active at the Institute through the Jīayòu and Xīníng eras. The Taishō uses the 高麗 base.
Translations and research
- No major monographic study located. Treated in survey works on the Sòng translation bureau:
- Jan Yün-hua. “Buddhist Translation Activity in the Northern Sung.” History of Religions 6 (1966).
- Sen, Tansen. Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003. — Background on the late Indian-Sòng Buddhist exchanges.
Other points of interest
The text exemplifies the type of late-Indian Mahāyāna doctrinal-cum-practical compendium that the Sòng Institute specialized in translating in the late eleventh century — works which had no canonical East-Asian reception comparable to that of the major early translations and which are accordingly only sparsely studied in modern scholarship.
Links
- CBETA
- DILA Authority (Rìchēng): not assigned in current DILA database
- Dazangthings date evidence (1060): [ 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/