Āyùwáng zhuàn 阿育王傳
Biography of King Aśoka
translated by 安法欽 (Ān Fǎqīn, fl. late 3rd c., 譯) under the Western Jìn 西晉 dynasty
About the work
A seven-juan Chinese version of the Aśokāvadāna tradition, attributed to the Parthian-descended Western Jìn translator 安法欽 (Ān Fǎqīn), active in Luòyáng 洛陽 in the late third century. The Taishō (T50 no. 2042) classifies it under the Shǐchuán-bù 史傳部 because of its biographical-historical character. The work is the earliest extensive Chinese translation of the legends of King Aśoka of the Maurya dynasty (r. ca. 268–232 BCE) and of the patriarchs and missions of Buddhism after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa. Together with KR6r0032 (the later Liáng-period 僧伽婆羅 translation, Āyùwáng jīng) it constitutes the principal Chinese version of the Aśokāvadāna corpus.
Abstract
安法欽’s active period is given by the Chū sānzàng jì jí of 僧祐 as the years 281–306 of the Western Jìn (Tàikāng to Yǒngjiā). The dating bracket of 281–306 follows from this. The text translates not the Sanskrit Aśokāvadāna in its narrowest sense but a broader compilation of legends about Aśoka and the early Indian Buddhist patriarchs — Mahākāśyapa, Ānanda, Madhyāntika, Śāṇavāsin, Upagupta, etc. — including the famous Mauryan accounts of Aśoka’s rise, his conversion, his support for the saṃgha, his construction of 84,000 stūpas, the Third Council, and the missions to Sri Lanka and elsewhere.
The Chinese version has features that suggest a Sarvāstivāda or Mūlasarvāstivāda affiliation in the underlying Indic source. It preserves narratives that are absent or differently structured in the Pali Aśokan literature (the Mahāvaṃsa, Dīpavaṃsa) and is therefore an essential comparative witness for the historical Aśoka and the early-Buddhist saṃgha-historical tradition.
The text was reissued in slightly different form by 僧伽婆羅 (Saṃghabhara) under the Liáng as the Āyùwáng jīng (KR6r0032); the relationship between the two Chinese versions has been a subject of philological debate. Both reflect underlying Indic recensions of the same general tradition.
Translations and research
- Jean Przyluski, La légende de l’empereur Aśoka dans les textes indiens et chinois (Paris: Annales du Musée Guimet, 1923) — the foundational Western study, with French translation of much of the Chinese material; still standard.
- John Strong, The Legend of King Aśoka: A Study and Translation of the Aśokāvadāna (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1983) — book-length study of the Sanskrit Aśokāvadāna, with extensive comparison to the Chinese versions.
- Étienne Lamotte, Histoire du bouddhisme indien (Louvain, 1958) — uses both Chinese versions extensively.
Other points of interest
The Āyùwáng zhuàn is the textual source for many Aśoka-related legends preserved in Chinese Buddhist culture, including the famous narrative that the great pre-Buddhist iron pillar at Faxiang Monastery 法相寺 was one of Aśoka’s 84,000 stūpas — a legend that became an important framework for Chinese Buddhist relic-cult.
Links
- CBETA: T50n2042
- Wikipedia: Aśokāvadāna