Dàbiàn xiézhèng jīng 大辯邪正經
Great Sūtra Distinguishing the Heterodox from the Orthodox Anonymous Chinese composition.
About the work
A two-chapter apocryphal scripture set at “Many-Fragrances City” (眾香城) in which the Buddha, in concert with Mañjuśrī, the bodhisattva “Subduing-the-Self-Sovereign-Mind” (攝自在心), and several specifically-named “body-contemplating” (觀身) bodhisattvas — “two emptinesses of body,” “two realities of body,” “impurity of body,” “stainlessness of body” — addresses an assembly of 84,000 disciples and the bodhisattvas of the ten bhūmi in turn (one bhūmi per chapter-section). The first chapter discriminates xié (false) from zhèng (true) Dharma; the second enumerates the qualities of the ten-bhūmi bodhisattvas in characteristically schematic Chinese ledger form.
Abstract
T85n2893 is preserved in Dūnhuáng manuscripts. The bodhisattva nomenclature (“Subduing-the-Self-Sovereign-Mind”; “two-emptinesses-of-body”; etc.) — formed entirely from doctrinal compounds rather than from transcribed Sanskrit — marks the text as a Chinese composition. The doctrinal kernel of xié / zhèng discrimination is consonant with mid-Táng anti-heretical polemic (compare the Lìdài fǎbǎo jì and the various Chán-school Xié zhèng zhī biàn writings of the eighth century). Cataloguers register the text as 偽 from the Suí period onward. Cao Ling (2011) discusses the work among Táng-period polemical 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).