Dàfāngguǎng huáyán shí’è pǐn jīng 大方廣華嚴十惡品經
Vaipulya Huáyán Sūtra: Chapter on the Ten Evils Anonymous Chinese composition, ascribed as a chapter of the Avataṃsaka.
About the work
A pseudo-chapter of the Avataṃsaka-sūtra (Huáyán jīng) on the ten evils (shí’è 十惡) and their counterpart ten goods. The text is structured as a dialogue between the Buddha and Mahākāśyapa: Kāśyapa asks what is “good” (善), and the Buddha replies with five injunctions — do not harm beings, do not act recklessly, do not drink alcohol, do not eat meat, and constantly practice great compassion (大慈) — followed by their negative counterparts. The text further relates wealth-accumulation among rulers and laity to subsequent rebirth in hell, in tones that recall the social-justice passages of the Xiàngfǎ juéyí jīng KR6u0006.
Abstract
T85n2875 is a Dūnhuáng-only manuscript text. Like the various pseudo-chapters of the Lotus (KR6u0008, KR6u0035), the Shí’è pǐn presents itself as a chapter of a major canonical scripture — here the Huáyán — but is not found in any extant recension of the Avataṃsaka. Cao Ling (2011) lists it among Northern-Dynasties-to-Táng moral-catechism apocrypha; the abstinence-pentad (no killing, no carelessness, no drinking, no meat-eating, constant compassion) is a homiletic compression of mainstream Mahāyāna ethics with explicit Chinese social colouring (the rebuke of meat-eating, building on the “no-meat” tradition codified by Liáng Wǔdì). The Foguang Dictionary of Buddhism (s.v.) classes it as 偽經. The work is short and homiletically focused, and has been adduced as evidence in modern studies of Chinese vegetarian ethics (Liú Shūfēn 劉淑芬).
Translations and research
- Makita Tairyō 牧田諦亮, Gikyō kenkyū 疑經研究 (Kyōto: Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyūsho, 1976).
- Liú Shūfēn 劉淑芬, Zhōnggǔ de fójiào yǔ shèhuì 中古的佛教與社會 (Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi gǔjí, 2008) — context on Chinese Buddhist ethics and dietary codes.
- Cao Ling 曹凌, Zhōngguó fójiào yíwěijīng zōnglù 中國佛教疑偽經綜錄 (Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi gǔjí, 2011).