Jiādīng bǐqiū shuō dāngláibiàn jīng 迦丁比丘說當來變經
Sūtra of the Bhikṣu Kātyāyana(?) Speaking on the Coming Decline
translator unknown (失譯, 譯)
About the work
A short anonymous sūtra in one juan classified by the Taishō under the Shǐchuán-bù 史傳部 because of its subject — a prophetic discourse on the future decline of the Dharma. The protagonist 迦丁比丘 (“Bhikṣu Jiādīng”) is most plausibly an early Chinese rendering of Kātyāyana, though the manuscript witnesses are not unanimous and the identification has been debated.
Abstract
The text belongs to a small genre of late-Dharma (mòfǎ 末法) prophetic sūtras current in the Buddhist literature of the early medieval period; comparable predictions are found in the Mòfǎ jīng 末法經, the Lián huá miàn jīng 蓮華面經, and various passages in the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra. The bhikṣu Kātyāyana, addressing the assembly, foretells how, with the passage of centuries after the Buddha, monks will gradually decline in discipline and learning, lay devotion will weaken, and the Dharma will eventually disappear from the world. The text concludes with an exhortation to the present community.
The translation is anonymous; early scriptural catalogs from the Chū sānzàng jì jí onward list it among the shīyì 失譯 (“translator unknown”) works attributed to the Eastern Jìn or earlier. It is a short text, occupying only a few columns of Taishō print.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located. The text is occasionally cited in scholarship on Chinese Buddhist eschatology (Jan Nattier, Once Upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline, Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1991) as one witness to the Chinese reception of mòfǎ discourse.
Links
- CBETA: T49n2028