Guānshìyīn púsà wǎngshēng jìngtǔ běnyuán jīng 觀世音菩薩往生淨土本緣經
Sūtra on the Original Causes-and-Conditions of Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva’s Rebirth in the Pure Land (Anonymous translation, conventionally placed in the Western Jìn 西晉 catalogue)
About the work
A short single-juǎn Pure Land / Avalokiteśvara devotional text presenting itself as a Buddha-discourse on the běn-yuán 本緣 (“original cause-and-condition” / jātaka / avadāna) of Guānshìyīn 觀世音 (Avalokiteśvara) and his rebirth in the Pure Land. The colophon classes the work as “lost in translator-name; appended to the Western Jìn catalogue” (shī yì rén jīn fù xī jìn lù 失譯人今附西晉錄), the standard formula for an unattributable text given a tentative dynastic placement. The contents — a Buddha-discourse on Vulture Peak, framed by light-rays of cosmic radiance, on Avalokiteśvara’s past-life devotional career — are characteristic of the Chinese-composed guānyīn devotional genre rather than of an Indian source-text.
Abstract
The text opens with the Buddha at Wáng-shè chéng Jiù-fēng shān 王舍城鷲峰山 (Vulture Peak), surrounded by bhikṣus, bodhisattvas, devas, nāgas, and the rest of the eight assemblies. The Buddha emits a great light that illuminates Jambudvīpa and the other realms, and within the light a verse is heard: “Achieving the great-compassion gate of liberation, / always dwelling on the Sahā [-world’s] Mt. Potalaka 補陀山, / six times day and night observing the world, / the original-vow cause-and-condition benefits all” (成就大悲解脫門。常在娑婆補陀山。晝夜六變觀世間。本願因緣利一切). A bodhisattva in the assembly asks for the cause of this light, and the Buddha responds with the běn-yuán of Avalokiteśvara — culminating in his rebirth in Sukhāvatī.
The text is unattested in the standard Tang catalogue tradition (Kāiyuán shìjiào lù, Zhēnyuán shìjiào lù) and first appears in the Xùzàngjīng. It is conventionally classed with the apocryphal Pure Land / Guanyin sūtras of the late-Tang and Sòng. The combination of Guānyīn devotion with Pure Land cosmology — and the explicit naming of Bǔtuō shān 補陀山 (Mt. Potalaka, often identified in Chinese tradition with the offshore mountain Pǔtuóshān 普陀山 in Zhèjiāng) — points to a date in the period of consolidation of the Pǔtuóshān Guanyin cult, i.e. probably late Táng to Sòng. The dating bracket adopted (c. 700–1100) reflects this. The Western-Jìn catalogue placement is a fictional convention.
Translations and research
- Yu, Chün-fang. Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokiteśvara. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001 — the standard treatment of the Chinese-mediated Avalokiteśvara cult, including the apocryphal Guanyin sūtras.
- Buswell, Robert E. (ed.). Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha. University of Hawai’i Press, 1990.