Bīntóulú tūluóshé wèi Yōutuóyán wáng shuōfǎ jīng 賓頭盧突羅闍為優陀延王說法經
Sūtra on Piṇḍola Bhāradvāja Expounding the Dharma to King Udayana by 求那跋陀羅 (Qiú-nà-bá-tuó-luó / Guṇabhadra, 譯)
About the work
A one-juǎn Liú-Sòng dynasty translation of an Indian Buddhist sūtra in which the arhat Piṇḍola Bhāradvāja (賓頭盧突羅闍 Bīn-tóu-lú tū-luó-shé — the full Sanskrit form Piṇḍola Bhāradvāja) expounds the Dharma to the legendary king Udayana (優陀延 Yōu-tuó-yán) of Vatsa. Translated by 求那跋陀羅 Guṇabhadra (394–468), one of the most important translators of the early Liú-Sòng. Alternative title Bīn-tóu-lú shuō-fǎ jīng 賓頭盧說法經.
Structural Division
CANWWW (T32N1690) lists no internal sub-divisions and no related-text pointers; the related work is KR6o0144 (T32n1689, the ritual invitation manual translated by 慧簡).
Abstract
King Udayana of Vatsa (modern Kausāmbī) is one of the legendary contemporary royal patrons of the Buddha in Indian Buddhist literature; he is the king commissioned in the Maitreyavyākaraṇa tradition to commission the first Buddha-image. The present sūtra preserves a discourse in which the arhat Piṇḍola Bhāradvāja gives the king teachings on the Buddhist path. The work belongs to the avadāna-style narrative tradition characteristic of pre-Mahāyāna Indian Buddhism, in which canonical doctrinal content is delivered in a frame-narrative of king-and-monk dialogue.
Guṇabhadra’s translation is bracketed by his Liú-Sòng career, 435–468 (he arrived at Guǎngzhōu in 435 and died at Jiànkāng in 468). The Taishō uses 高麗 as base, collated against 宋, 元, 明, 宮, and 麗.
Translations and research
- Strong, John S. The Legend of King Aśoka. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1983.
- Lévi, Sylvain, and Édouard Chavannes. “Les seize arhats protecteurs de la loi.” Journal Asiatique 8 (1916): 5–50, 189–304.
- Carter, Martha, and Phyllis Granoff (eds.). (Various studies on the Udayana legend and the Buddha-image tradition.)
- de Visser, M. W. The Arhats in China and Japan. Berlin, 1923.
Other points of interest
The pairing of KR6o0144 (the Piṇḍola-invitation ritual) and KR6o0145 (the Piṇḍola-Udayana sūtra) reflects the centrality of the Piṇḍola figure in early Chinese Buddhist devotional practice — the arhat who remains in the world is at once a doctrinal figure (the avadāna protagonist of KR6o0145) and a liturgical recipient (KR6o0144).
Links
- CBETA
- DILA Authority (Guṇabhadra): A000527
- Dazangthings date evidence (440): [ 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/