Shǒuluó bǐqiū jīng 首羅比丘經
Sūtra of the Monk Śūra Anonymous Chinese composition.
About the work
A one-fascicle apocryphal sūtra in dialogue form: the monk Shǒuluó 首羅 (Śūra) interrogates a “Great Sage” (大仙) about how living beings can escape the calamities of the coming age — water disasters, epidemics, demonic interference, banditry, the trials of the city walls and lanes (城池巷陌). The replies recommend faithful adherence to the Three Jewels, observance of fasts and precepts, and — most prominently — the expectation of the bodhisattva Yuèguāng tóngzǐ 月光童子 (Candraprabha), whose advent will bring deliverance to those who have kept the precepts and excluded the wicked.
Abstract
The Shǒuluó bǐqiū jīng is one of the most important “Yuèguāng-savior” (月光救世) apocrypha and a key document in the study of Chinese Buddhist messianic eschatology. It is referenced in Northern Dynasties controversies and is registered as 偽妄 in Fǎjīng (594) and subsequent catalogues. Erik Zürcher’s seminal “Prince Moonlight: Messianism and Eschatology in Early Medieval Chinese Buddhism” (T’oung Pao 68 [1982]: 1–75) is the foundational Western-language study; Zürcher demonstrates that the Yuèguāng-cult underlying this and related texts emerged in the Northern Dynasties (5th–6th c.) and is connected with sectarian unrest and the wider millennial atmosphere that produced the Sānjiè movement. The text shares the messianic-eschatological frame with KR6u0010 (Xiǎo fǎmièjìn jīng) and KR6u0015 (Pǔxián púsà shuō zhèngmíng jīng); together they form the core “Yuèguāng” cluster.
Translations and research
- Erik Zürcher, “‘Prince Moonlight’: Messianism and Eschatology in Early Medieval Chinese Buddhism,” T’oung Pao 68.1–3 (1982): 1–75. Foundational Western-language study; partial translation.
- Makita Tairyō 牧田諦亮, Gikyō kenkyū 疑經研究 (Kyōto: Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyūsho, 1976), pp. 305 ff.
- Daniel Overmyer, Folk Buddhist Religion: Dissenting Sects in Late Traditional China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976) — context.
- Hubert Seiwert and Ma Xisha, Popular Religious Movements and Heterodox Sects in Chinese History (Leiden: Brill, 2003) — Yuèguāng-cult lineages.
Other points of interest
The text is often cited as evidence for early-medieval Chinese millennialism and is associated with Northern Dynasties popular sectarian risings.