Zhuànjí sānzàng jí zázàng zhuàn 撰集三藏及雜藏傳
Compiled Account of the Tripiṭaka and the Miscellaneous Collection
translator unknown (失譯, 譯)
About the work
A short anonymous translation in one juan, transmitted in the Shǐchuán-bù 史傳部 of the Taishō (T49 no. 2026). Cast partly in prose and partly in verse, the text gives a brief account of the compilation of the Buddhist canon at the First Council and of the Miscellaneous Collection (zázàng 雜藏, kṣudraka-piṭaka), enumerating the genres collected in it (jātaka, avadāna, miscellaneous sūtras and so forth). Its anonymity and lack of date have meant that it has been comparatively neglected; it nonetheless preserves an early Chinese conception of how the piṭakas were thought to have been formed.
Abstract
The translator’s name is lost — the catalog and CBETA both record it under 失譯 shīyì. The earliest scriptural catalogs that mention a text of this title list it among the anonymous translations of the Eastern Jìn 東晉 (317–420), and it is so classified in the Chū sānzàng jì jí 出三藏記集 (T55 no. 2145) of 僧祐 (Sēngyòu, 445–518). On that basis a composition / translation window of roughly the late fourth to early fifth century is the safe bracket. The verse passages, especially the description of the Miscellaneous Collection, were quoted by later catalogers (notably in the Lìdài sānbǎo jì KR6r0011) as evidence for the contents of the kṣudraka-piṭaka in early Indian Buddhism.
The text is short (approximately ten pages of Taishō print) and reads as a hybrid of catalog summary and devotional verse: it praises the elders Mahākāśyapa, Ānanda, and Upāli for their preservation of vinaya, sūtra, and abhidharma, and concludes with a section enumerating the literary genres of the Miscellaneous Collection.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located. The text has been used as evidence in scholarship on the early Buddhist kṣudraka-piṭaka (e.g. discussions in Étienne Lamotte, Histoire du bouddhisme indien, Louvain 1958) but has not received a dedicated critical translation in any Western language.
Links
- CBETA: T49n2026