Jiùjí jīng 救疾經
Sūtra for the Healing of Disease Anonymous Chinese composition.
About the work
A one-fascicle protective and healing apocryphon, set — like KR6u0001 (Hùshēnmìng jīng) — at the twin śāla trees on the eve of the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa. The Buddha exhorts the assembly to spread the text after his death in order to bring healing to a corrupt world; subsequent passages describe the encounter with three ulcerated and disfigured beggars whose plight prompts the Buddha’s healing teaching. The text is preserved with substantial lacunae (visible as 「□」 boxes), and is collated in the Tàishō against multiple manuscript witnesses (甲, 乙).
Abstract
T85n2878 is a Dūnhuáng manuscript apocryphon. It belongs to the same protective-healing genre as the Hùshēnmìng jīng cluster (KR6u0001/0002), the Yánshòumìng jīng (KR6u0024), and the Xùmìng jīng (KR6u0025), all of which deploy the parinirvāṇa setting to authorise a short, talismanic Buddha-utterance for averting illness, prolonging life, and managing demonic interference. The text is registered as 偽 in catalogues from the Suí period onward. Modern scholarship treats it as a representative case of Northern-Dynasties to Táng “healing-cult” apocrypha; Christine Mollier (2008) has shown how this stratum overlaps in iconography and ritual lexicon with Daoist jiùjí and yánshòu talismanic scripture-traditions.
Translations and research
- Makita Tairyō 牧田諦亮, Gikyō kenkyū 疑經研究 (Kyōto: Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyūsho, 1976).
- Christine Mollier, Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face: Scripture, Ritual, and Iconographic Exchange in Medieval China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008).
- Cao Ling 曹凌, Zhōngguó fójiào yíwěijīng zōnglù 中國佛教疑偽經綜錄 (Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi gǔjí, 2011).
Links
- CBETA
- Dazangthings date evidence (550): [ Fang 2010 ] Fang Ling 方玲. “Sûtras apocryphes et maladie.” In Médecine, religion et société dans la chine médiévale: étude de manuscrits chinois de Dunhuang et de Turfan, Tome II, sous la direction de Catherine Despeux, 1001-1093. Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 2010. 1003-1004 https://dazangthings.nz/cbc/source/215/