Dà bān nièpán Móyé fūrén pǐn jīng 大般涅槃摩耶夫人品經
Chapter on Lady Māyā in the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra (recension a) attributed to 大德安法師; critical edition by 李際寧 (整理)
About the work
The first of four Dūnhuáng recensions of the apocryphal Fómǔ jīng 佛母經 (also titled Dà bān nièpán jīng Fómǔ pǐn 大般涅槃經佛母品 or Dà bān nièpán jīng fó wèi Móyé fūrén shuō jì pǐn jīng 大般涅槃經佛為摩耶夫人說偈品經), here edited from P. 2055. The four recensions correspond to KR6v0018, KR6v0019, KR6v0020, KR6v0021.
The narrative core is shared by all four: the dying Buddha sends Upāli 優波離 to the Trāyastriṃśa heaven to inform his mother Lady Māyā 摩耶夫人 of his impending parinirvāṇa. Māyā has already been forewarned by six dreams of ill omen (Mt. Sumeru collapsing, the four oceans drying up, a lion biting her body and her breasts spontaneously yielding milk, fire engulfing her body, etc.); she descends to earth, finds the Buddha already in the golden coffin, circumambulates it weeping. The Buddha emerges from the coffin and pronounces the anitya-gāthā (impermanence-verses) to her. She returns to heaven; heaven and earth tremble; tears fall like rain.
Abstract
The work is a Chinese composition combining the Mahāmāyāsūtra 摩訶摩耶經 (j. 2: “fó lín nièpán mǔzǐ xiāngjiàn” 佛臨涅槃母子相見) with the Chinese filial-piety (xiào 孝) tradition and the Indian anitya doctrine. As such it is one of the most striking documents of the Chinese assimilation and transformation of Indian Buddhist narrative material. It is unrecorded in Chinese catalogues; the Taishō (T85n2919) prints only one of the four recensions (S.2084, an incomplete witness). Twenty-six Dūnhuáng witnesses are now known. The four recensions divide along narrative differences in the dream-list, the descent-narrative, and the verses; the present recension a is based on P. 2055 and represents the most narratively elaborated version. Composition window is approximately Suí–early-Táng; the manuscript-tradition spans the Táng and Five Dynasties.
The catalog meta names “Dàdé Ān fǎshī” 大德安法師 as the alleged “translator” — this is a hagiographic convention attaching the work to a vaguely-remembered eminent teacher, not a historical attribution.
Translations and research
- Lévi, Sylvain, Mahāmāyāsūtra, Journal Asiatique 1900 — comparative material on the canonical Indian source.
- Lai, Whalen, “Legends of Birth and the Buddha’s Mother in Mahāmāyā Texts,” Journal of the Pali Text Society 13 (1989).
- Liú Yìfēng 劉一峰, “Dūnhuáng Fómǔ jīng yánjiū 敦煌《佛母經》研究,” Pǔmén xuébào 普門學報 (2007).
- Lǐ Jìníng 李際寧, “Fómǔ jīng zǒng xù 整理本前言,” in Zàngwài fójiào wénxiàn vol. 1 (Beijing: Zōngjiào wénhuà, 1995).
Other points of interest
The Fómǔ jīng is a key data-point in the literary-historical case for Chinese filial piety as the principal redactional driver of Buddhist apocrypha: the Indian source contains the mother-son reunion scene but does not foreground the xiào affect, while the Chinese recensions consistently amplify it.