Fóshǐ bǐqiū Jiāzhānyán shuō fǎ mòjìn jì bǎi’èrshí zhāng 佛使比丘迦旃延說法沒盡偈百二十章
One Hundred Twenty Verses on the Disappearance of the Dharma, Spoken by the Bhikṣu Kātyāyana, Envoy of the Buddha
translator unknown (失譯, 譯)
About the work
A versified sūtra in one juan, translator unknown, classified in the Shǐchuán-bù 史傳部 of the Taishō (T49 no. 2029) for its subject matter: a 120-stanza prophecy by the bhikṣu Kātyāyana (here styled “envoy of the Buddha”, Fóshǐ 佛使) on the disappearance of the Dharma after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa. The text is closely related thematically to KR6r0003 (the Jiādīng bǐqiū shuō dāngláibiàn jīng) and likely belongs to the same broader Indian prophetic tradition of mòfǎ / saddharma-vipralopa literature.
Abstract
The text consists of one hundred twenty four-line stanzas in seven-character verse. The setting is a great assembly at which the Buddha’s senior disciple Kātyāyana, dispatched by the Buddha as his envoy, prophesies in detail how the Buddhist saṃgha will degenerate over the centuries: monks will neglect vinaya, pursue worldly profit, transmit corrupt doctrines, and eventually lose the Dharma altogether. Each stanza enumerates a specific symptom of decline.
The translator’s name is lost; the text is listed as shīyì in catalog tradition from the Chū sānzàng jì jí onward. The catalog of 費長房 (the Lìdài sānbǎo jì KR6r0011) places it among anonymous translations of the Eastern Jìn period (4th–early 5th century), which gives the standard date bracket. The verse form and apocalyptic content closely parallel the Saddharma-vipralopa-sūtra in its various recensions.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located. The text features briefly in Jan Nattier, Once Upon a Future Time (Berkeley, 1991) and in surveys of Chinese Buddhist eschatology, but no critical translation in a Western language has been published.
Links
- CBETA: T49n2029