聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

示所犯者瑜伽法鏡經

3 min read

Text ID
KR6u0032
Date
690–720
Dynasty
唐

Shì suǒ fàn zhě yújiā fǎjìng jīng 示所犯者瑜伽法鏡經

Sūtra of the Yoga Dharma-Mirror Showing One’s Transgressions Anonymous Chinese composition; closely connected with the milieu of Mínggǎn 明佺 / 法藏 et al.

About the work

A one-fascicle apocryphon framed as a yújiā (yoga / yogācāra) “Dharma-mirror” sūtra. The opening verses (preserved with substantial lacunae) describe a “wisdom-mark wish-fulfilling jewel” capable of revealing the practitioner’s transgressions, and locate this faculty within the contemplative practice of “supreme correspondence” (最勝相應, paramayoga). The text’s zōngjù — that the contemplative yoga itself functions as a confessional mirror exposing the practitioner’s hidden faults — is doctrinally innovative and ties the work to early Tantric and yogācāra milieus rather than to the popular-cult cluster of most other T85 apocrypha.

Abstract

The Shì suǒ fàn zhě yújiā fǎjìng jīng is one of the most consequential of the late-7th-century apocrypha because of its connection with the imperial Buddhism of Wǔ Zétiān 武則天. Modern scholarship (Antonino Forte; Chen Jinhua) has identified the text as a product of the same court Buddhist milieu that produced the Dàyúnjīng shǔ 大雲經疏 (the Mahāmeghasūtra commentary used to support Wǔ Zétiān’s claim to a “cakravartin female ruler”) and that drew in the early Huáyán patriarch Fǎzàng 法藏 (643–712, 法藏) and the cataloguer Mínggǎn 明佺 (compiler of the Dà Zhōu kān dìng zhòng jīng mùlù, 695). The text was registered as 偽 by Zhīshēng (730), but the Dà Zhōu kān dìng catalogue had previously included it as canonical — the catalogue-history of the text is itself a window onto Wǔ Zétiān-era manipulations of the canon. The 690–720 dating bracket tracks the text’s documented presence in court-Buddhist circles.

Translations and research

  • Antonino Forte, Political Propaganda and Ideology in China at the End of the Seventh Century (rev. ed. Kyoto: Italian School of East Asian Studies, 2005) — the most extensive Western-language treatment.
  • Chen Jinhua, Philosopher, Practitioner, Politician: The Many Lives of Fazang (643–712) (Leiden: Brill, 2007) — context on Fǎzàng’s role.
  • Makita Tairyō 牧田諦亮, Gikyō kenkyū 疑經研究 (Kyōto: Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyūsho, 1976), pp. 246–256.
  • 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 text’s brief inclusion in the Dà Zhōu kān dìng zhòng jīng mùlù (695) and subsequent expulsion by Zhīshēng (730) makes it one of the most clearly attested Chinese apocrypha to have been formally canonised and then de-canonised within a generation.

Graph View

Backlinks