Fó shuō Tiāngōng jīng 佛說天公經
The Buddha’s Spoken Sūtra of the Lord of Heaven (recension b) anonymous Chinese composition; critical edition of the British-Library S.2714 recension by 方廣錩 (整理)
About the work
The b recension of the Tiāngōng jīng — see KR6v0015 for the full literary description. This recension differs from recension a in opening abruptly, in medias res, with an architectural enumeration of the cosmic temple (“gé tóng guàn zhù, xiàng yá zuò wū, hǔpò zuò wūjǐ…”), with no introductory xùfēn 序分 frame; closing with the standard salvific guarantees (“if you wish to enter the knife-mountain, the knife-mountain shatters…”). It bears head- and tail-titles “Fó shuō Tiāngōng jīng” 佛說天公經 (with the explicit Fó shuō prefix that recension a lacks).
Abstract
British Library S. 2714 — the unique witness of this recension. The Taishō text (T85n2887) was set from this manuscript and contains minor scribal errors corrected in the present edition. Like the other recensions, this is a late-Táng / Guīyìjūn manuscript copy of a much earlier (Suí or pre-Suí) original. See KR6v0015 for the textual-historical and bibliographical discussion.
Translations and research
- See KR6v0015.
- Fāng Guǎngchāng 方廣錩, “Fó shuō Tiāngōng jīng (錄文二) 整理本前言,” in Zàngwài fójiào wénxiàn vol. 1 (Beijing: Zōngjiào wénhuà, 1995).
Other points of interest
The S.2714 recension’s omission of the introductory frame — and yet preservation of the head-title “Fó shuō Tiāngōng jīng” — is paradoxical: the title would normally be paired with a “rúshì wǒ wén” opening clause. This anomaly suggests that the title was applied to a fragment by a later hand, or that the apocryphon as a whole circulated without a proper xùfēn and that scribes routinely made one up.
Links
- CBETA
- IDP record for S.2714
- Cf. T85n2887 (the older Taishō recension from S.2714 alone)
- Cf. KR6v0015, KR6v0017 (recensions a and c)