Sānchú jīng 三廚經
Sūtra of the Three Kitchens Anonymous Chinese composition; falsely attributed in the colophon to brahmin Dáduōluó 達多羅 (?Dattara) and Jñānagupta 闍那崛多 et al.
About the work
A short apocryphal scripture in one fascicle on the meditative-dietetic doctrine of the “three kitchens” (sānchú 三廚) — a triad of contemplative states sustaining the practitioner without need of food: (1) the “compassionate self-aware self-natural kitchen” (慈悲自覺自然厨), (2) the “pratyekabuddha / four-fruits / śrāvaka unthinking kitchen” (辟支四果聲聞無思厨), and (3) the “neither-being-nor-non-being / spirit-natural kitchen” (非有無非神自然厨). The text promises that recitation of the three names produces freedom from hunger and the perpetual quietude of “long life” (湛然長生 — a strikingly Daoist locution). The colophon falsely attributes the translation to “西國婆羅門達多羅及闍那崛多等奉詔譯” — the Indic brahmin “Dáduōluó” along with Jñānagupta (a real Northern Zhōu / Suí translator) and others.
Abstract
T85n2894 is one of the most thoroughly studied of the Buddhist–Daoist crossover apocrypha. Christine Mollier (2008) has demonstrated in detail that the Sānchú jīng is a Buddhist recasting of a substratum Daoist text on the “three cinnabar kitchens” (sānchú), known from the Daoist canon as Lǎojūn shuō wǔchú jīng / Sānchú jīng. The Buddhist version retains the Daoist alimentary-meditative core but reframes the three kitchens as Buddhist contemplative levels and adorns the text with apocryphal Indic translator-attribution. Jñānagupta (523–600/605, see 闍那崛多) is a historically attested Suí translator but the Sānchú jīng is not part of his authentic corpus; the colophon’s claim is part of the apocryphal posture. Cataloguers from Zhīshēng (《開元釋教錄》, 730) onward classify it as 偽妄.
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), Ch. 1 — the principal modern study; offers a close comparison of the Buddhist and Daoist texts.
- Makita Tairyō 牧田諦亮, Gikyō kenkyū 疑經研究 (Kyōto: Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyūsho, 1976).
- Stephen R. Bokenkamp, “Sources of the Lingbao Scriptures,” in Tantric and Taoist Studies in Honour of R. A. Stein (Brussels: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1983), vol. 2 — Daoist-context background.
Other points of interest
The Sānchú jīng is one of the canonical examples cited in scholarship on Buddhist–Daoist textual borrowing in medieval China. The Daoist parallel survives in the Daozang as 老君說五廚經 (HY 763 / DZ 763) and in commentaries.