Fǎjù jīng 法句經
Sūtra of the Dharma-Sayings (Chán-affiliated apocryphon, distinct from the canonical Dharmapada) Anonymous Chinese composition.
About the work
This Fǎjù jīng is not the canonical Dharmapada (T210, by Wéizhīnàn 維祇難 et al., third century) but a one-fascicle Chinese-composed apocryphon set in the “Sun-and-Moon Palace, Hall of Supreme-Treasury” (日月宮中勝藏殿上). The Buddha is surrounded by an assembly of one hundred-thousand bodhisattvas (Shèngjī, Pǔxián, Mañjuśrī, Vajragarbha, Vajraketu, Vajraprajñā, Avalokiteśvara, Niścitamati, Maitreya, etc.). The work has the title “Fǎjù jīng zhū púsà róngxīn jué xù pǐn dìyī” 法句經諸菩薩融心覺序品第一 — “Preface Chapter on the Bodhisattvas’ Mind-Fusion Awakening.” The text is preserved together with KR6u0038 (T85n2902, Fǎjù jīng shū), which is a commentary on it.
Abstract
T85n2901, while bearing the title Fǎjù jīng, has nothing in common with the canonical Dharmapada (T210) — they share no verses, no narrative frame, and no doctrinal substance. The apocryphon is a mid-Táng Chán-affiliated text that develops the doctrine of róngxīn 融心 (“fusion of the mind”) and is closely connected with early Chán pedagogy. Yanagida Seizan and Wendi Adamek have shown that the text and its commentary together circulate in early Chán manuscript collections at Dūnhuáng and were used in the formative milieu of Northern and Southern Chán; Cao Ling (2011) provides updated bibliographic detail. The text and commentary should be considered as a unit; the CANWWW entry cross-references T85N2901 and T85N2902 explicitly. Makita (1976) places the Fǎjù jīng within the wider class of yújué 譽覺 / awakening-themed apocrypha. Cataloguers from Zhīshēng (730) onward register it as 偽妄, distinguishing it explicitly from the canonical Dharmapada.
Translations and research
- Yanagida Seizan 柳田聖山, several studies on early Chán apocrypha including the Fǎjù jīng; collected in Yanagida Seizan shū (Kyōto: Hōzōkan).
- Makita Tairyō 牧田諦亮, Gikyō kenkyū 疑經研究 (Kyōto: Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyūsho, 1976).
- Wendi L. Adamek, The Mystique of Transmission: On an Early Chan History and Its Contexts (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007) — context.
- 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 title “Fǎjù jīng” is a deliberate apocryphal piggyback on the prestige of the canonical Dharmapada; this is one of the more striking examples of a Chinese apocryphon adopting the title of a canonical text to gain authority. Cataloguers from the Táng onward had to mark the two texts as distinct.