Rúlái zài jīnguān zhǔlěi qīngjìng zhuāngyán jìngfú jīng 如來在金棺囑累清淨莊嚴敬福經
Sūtra of the Tathāgata in the Golden Coffin Entrusting Pure Adornment and Reverent Merit Anonymous Chinese composition.
About the work
A short apocryphon set at the moment between parinirvāṇa and cremation: the Buddha, having concluded the Mahāparinirvāṇa discourse, takes his seat on the rim of the golden coffin and, weeping with light radiating from his eyes, delivers a final entrustment to the assembly. Subhūti, sensing the assembly’s confusion (“Why does the Tathāgata, who has always taught that nirvāṇa is permanent bliss, weep upon the golden coffin?”), petitions for clarification. The Buddha’s reply addresses the maintenance of the Dharma after his death by reverent offerings and meritorious works.
Abstract
The title’s parenthetical note — “新西方胡國中來出皇涅槃中” (“newly come from the Western Hú countries, extracted from the Royal Mahāparinirvāṇa”) — is itself a tell-tale apocryphal claim, asserting Indic origin in the formulae characteristic of pseudo-translation. The title pasted onto canonical Mahāparinirvāṇa iconography (the golden coffin, the twin śāla trees, the entrustment to Subhūti) is one of the more elaborate “addendum to the Mahāparinirvāṇa” apocrypha, a small but persistent class of Chinese-composed continuations of the Buddha’s deathbed discourse. The text is preserved at Dūnhuáng and registered as 偽 in catalogues from the Suí onward. Cao Ling (2011) groups it with the Xiàngfǎ juéyí jīng KR6u0006 and the Rúlái chéngdào jīng KR6u0026 as Mahāparinirvāṇa-extension apocrypha.
Translations and research
- Makita Tairyō 牧田諦亮, Gikyō kenkyū 疑經研究 (Kyōto: Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyūsho, 1976).
- Cao Ling 曹凌, Zhōngguó fójiào yíwěijīng zōnglù 中國佛教疑偽經綜錄 (Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi gǔjí, 2011).
Other points of interest
The colophonic claim of “Western-Hu” (Indic) origin is itself the rhetorical signature of forged translation; genuine translations from Chinese-recognised originals never carry such a defensive note in the title.