Wúliàng dàcí jiào jīng 無量大慈教經
Sūtra of the Teaching of Boundless Great Compassion Anonymous Chinese composition.
About the work
A short apocryphal scripture in one fascicle. Ānanda asks the Buddha: only the icchantika (闡提) — those without “Buddha-seed” — are difficult to teach and nourish. The Buddha replies with three analogies: the ox plows the field as the man drives him; the macaque dances as the man trains him; sin-makers commit evil as men instigate them. Recitation of this sūtra promises deliverance from three classes of suffering — bondage in prison, illness, and the hells. The text is short, homiletically focused, and characteristic of the late-Táng popular-apocryphon stratum.
Abstract
T85n2903 is preserved in Dūnhuáng manuscripts. The doctrinal claim — that even the icchantika can be morally trained, with the icchantika recast as a class of beings shaped by external moral context rather than as an irredeemable lineage — runs sharply against the doctrinal harshness of the canonical Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra on the icchantika question, and reflects the more inclusivist reading of universal Buddha-nature characteristic of late-medieval Chinese Buddhist popular preaching. Cataloguers register the text as 偽妄. Modern study by Cao Ling (2011) places it in the late-Northern Dynasties to Táng popular-apocryphon stratum.
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).