Ēmítuó jīng yìběn 阿彌陀經異本
A Variant Recension of the Smaller Amitābha-sūtra (Anonymous, transmitted via Japan)
About the work
A brief textual note (less than one juǎn) recording a famous variant in the Smaller Amitābhasūtra 阿彌陀經 (the Smaller Sukhāvatīvyūha; cf. KR6f0061 for the canonical Kumārajīva translation). The variant adds a 21-character interpolation to the standard Kumārajīva text after the line yīxīn bù luàn 一心不亂: 專持名號以稱名故諸罪消滅即是多善根福德因緣 (“By upholding the Name in single-pointed concentration, by virtue of recitation of the Name, all karmic offences are extinguished — and this is what is meant by ‘roots of goodness and conditions of merit’”). The interpolation is the so-called “Xiāngyáng stone-sūtra” reading (襄陽石經), a Suí-period stone-engraving by Chén Rénléng 陳仁稜 that was known in the Sòng for its calligraphy; rubbings of the stone circulated widely.
Abstract
The Yìběn records the textual debate around this 21-character variant. 元照 Yuánzhào Língzhī (1048–1116) and 戒度 Jièdù both judged the additional words to be inauthentic (佚文) — perhaps a marginal gloss that had migrated into the main text. 袾宏 Yúnqī Zhūhóng (1535–1615), in contrast, suggested they were a fragment of the Sanskrit reverberation that the Chinese translator (Kumārajīva) had elided for brevity, “though it cannot now be determined whether the translator omitted them or whether they were lost in transmission.” 王日休 Wáng Rìxiū (1105?–1173) in his Lóngshū jìngtǔ wén 龍舒淨土文 KR6p0050 records the further detail that Pián Chóngshèng 平重盛 of Japan dispatched envoys in Jìshōu 治承 (1177–1181) to obtain Buddhist scriptures including a copy of the Xiāngyáng stone-sūtra; the envoys returned with rubbings in Jiànjiǔ 9 (建久 = Jōkyū 9 = 1198), landing at Munakata 宗像 in Chikuzen 筑前. Subsequent Japanese-side study of the rubbings produced the present Yìběn note, which was later included in the Xùzàngjīng as a textual-critical supplement to the Smaller Amitābhasūtra.
The Yìběn is therefore not a sūtra in its own right but a brief Sino-Japanese textual-critical note, dating to roughly 建久 9 (1198) on the Japanese side. It transmits two further textual variants from the Xiāngyáng stone — jí lè 極樂 → zuò wéi 作為 and qí guó zhòngshēng guó 其國眾生國 → tǔ zìrán shēng 土自然生 — but treats only the 21-character interpolation as substantively significant. The Yìběn circulated as a marginal note rather than an independent text and was assigned a discrete No. (X01N0006) only in the modern Xùzàngjīng recension.
Translations and research
- Inagaki Hisao, The Three Pure Land Sutras. Kyoto: Nagata Bunshōdō, 1995/2003.
- Suzuki, D. T. The Eastern Buddhist, vol. 9 (1937), discussion of the Xiāngyáng stone-sūtra variants.
- Mochizuki Shinkō, Bukkyō daijiten s.v. Amida-kyō.
Other points of interest
The Xiāngyáng stone-sūtra variant is the most famous textual-critical crux in the entire transmission history of the Smaller Amitābhasūtra — it is the only known substantive variant of doctrinal weight in Kumārajīva’s text, and the question of its authenticity has periodically resurfaced from the Sòng through the modern period. The fact that Yúnqī Zhūhóng was inclined to retain it while the earlier Lǜzōng masters Yuánzhào and Jièdù rejected it neatly tracks the doctrinal divide between the late-Míng synthetic and the Sòng Lǜzōng / Tiāntái positions.