Xiǎo fǎmièjìn jīng 小法滅盡經
Lesser Sūtra on the Extinction of the Dharma Anonymous Chinese composition.
About the work
A short one-fascicle apocryphon paralleling — and probably depending upon — the canonical Fómiè jìn jīng 佛滅盡經 (T12n0396). Set at Kuśinagara three months before the parinirvāṇa, it has Ānanda asking why the Buddha’s customary radiance has dimmed; the reply is a long invective on the corruptions of the saṅgha after the Buddha’s death — false monks who wear secular dress beneath their robes, drink wine, eat meat, kill living beings, and lust after sense-objects. The text concludes with predictions of the eventual extinction of the Dharma.
Abstract
T85n2874 is preserved in Dūnhuáng manuscripts. The CANWWW entry explicitly cross-references this text to T12N0396 — the canonical Fómiè jìn jīng (sometimes translated as “Sūtra on the Extinction of the True Dharma”) — confirming that the Xiǎo fǎmièjìn jīng is a derivative or shortened apocryphal recasting of that scripture. The text belongs to the well-studied family of fǎmiè eschatological apocrypha (cf. Shǒuluó bǐqiū jīng KR6u0009, Xiàngfǎ juéyí jīng KR6u0006) and was shaped by Chinese sectarian anxiety over monastic decline. Its critique of monastic corruption, especially the trope of monks living in worldly clothes and abusing the laity, is closely related to Sānjiè-cult rhetoric. Pre-Suí catalogue evidence is wanting; cataloguers from the Suí period onward did not always distinguish this Xiǎo recension from the canonical text.
Translations and research
- Jan Nattier, Once Upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline (Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1991) — the principal study of the fǎmiè prophecy genre.
- Makita Tairyō 牧田諦亮, Gikyō kenkyū 疑經研究 (Kyōto: Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyūsho, 1976).
- Erik Zürcher, “‘Prince Moonlight’: Messianism and Eschatology in Early Medieval Chinese Buddhism,” T’oung Pao 68.1–3 (1982): 1–75.
Links
- CBETA
- Cf. canonical KR6g0041 (T12n0396, Fómiè jìn jīng) — parent/parallel text.
- Dazangthings date evidence (420): [ Strickmann 2002 ] Strickmann, Michel. Chinese Magical Medicine. Edited by Bernard Faure. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002. 59-61 https://dazangthings.nz/cbc/source/294/