Yánshòumìng jīng 延壽命經
Sūtra for Prolonging Life Anonymous Chinese composition.
About the work
A short apocryphal sūtra in one fascicle, set at the twin śāla trees on the eve of parinirvāṇa. The four-fold assembly together with a bodhisattva named Yánshòu 延壽 (“Lengthen-the-Lifespan”) petitions the Buddha not to enter nirvāṇa but to remain in the world for one kalpa longer; the Buddha replies with a discourse on the futility of the request and on the proper means of “prolonging life” — namely, devotion, recitation, and meritorious works. The text belongs to the same protective-and-healing apocryphal cluster as KR6u0001 (Hùshēnmìng jīng), KR6u0014 (Jiùjí jīng), and KR6u0025 (Xùmìng jīng).
Abstract
T85n2888 is a Dūnhuáng manuscript apocryphon. The bodhisattva Yánshòu 延壽 — like the Círén 慈仁 of KR6u0003 — is a sinicising calque-name that betrays the apocryphal nature of the text; no canonical bodhisattva of this Chinese name is attested. The catalogues from the Suí 《眾經目錄》 onward classify scriptures of this title as 偽妄. The work belongs to the late-Northern-Dynasties to Suí–Táng “yánshòu” (life-prolonging) genre, which competed at Dūnhuáng with Daoist yánshòu / jiùmìng talismanic scriptures (Christine Mollier 2008 traces several examples of cross-traditional borrowing in this stratum). The stock parinirvāṇa setting and the petition-and-response structure mark this as a clear instance of formulaic apocryphal composition.
Translations and research
- Christine Mollier, Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face: Scripture, Ritual, and Iconographic Exchange in Medieval China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008).
- 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).