Dìyì zhèngdé jīng 諦義證得經
Tattvārthādhigama-sūtra by 烏瑪斯伐蒂 (Umāsvāti, 著); first Chinese translation by 方廣錩 (譯註)
About the work
The first complete Chinese translation of Umāsvāti’s Tattvārthādhigama-sūtra, the foundational scripture of Jain (耆那教) philosophy and the only Jain text accepted as authoritative by both the Śvetāmbara (白衣派) and Digambara (空衣派) schools. The work is a 10-chapter exposition of the seven tattvas (七諦): jīva 命 (soul), ajīva 非命 (non-soul), āsrava 漏 (karmic influx), bandha 縛 (bondage), saṃvara 遮 (stoppage), nirjarā 滅 (eradication), and mokṣa 解脫 (liberation). It expounds the dualism of soul and matter, the paramāṇu atomic theory, the cosmology of bound and liberated jīvas, the threefold triratna (right faith, right knowledge, right conduct), and the soteriology of asceticism.
Abstract
Umāsvāti is unanimously revered by both Jain schools as the principal systematiser of Jain doctrine. The Digambara tradition places his life c. 135–219 CE; the Śvetāmbara tradition places him in the eighth or ninth century; modern scholarly consensus (Schubring, Glasenapp, Folkert) settles on the fifth century CE — the dating reflected in this entry. According to tradition he was born at Niyagrodhātaka in north India to Svāti (father) and Vatsī / Umā (mother), ordained at 19 under Ghoṣanandi-kṣamāṇa (Śvetāmbara) or Kuṇḍakuṇḍa (Digambara) — note the catalog meta’s transcription “Mùlā” 牟拉 / “Gěngdá-gōngtuó” 耿達宮陀 — succeeded as gaṇa-leader at 44, and led the order for 40 years. Tradition credits him with 500 works; only five survive, of which the present sūtra and his own bhāṣya are pre-eminent.
The Chinese translation here is methodologically significant: Fāng Guǎngchāng worked from Kanakura Enshō’s 金倉圓照 Japanese translation (which carries facing Sanskrit text), then had the result checked against the Sanskrit by Gě Wéijūn 葛維鈞. Each sūtra is given in Sanskrit (in parentheses, with morphological dashes preserved) plus a Chinese translation; supplementary words added by the translator for clarity are bracketed. The base recension is the Śvetāmbara; Digambara variants are flagged in the apparatus. The 1996 publication is the first complete Chinese translation of any Jain canonical scripture.
Translations and research
- Tatia, Nathmal, Tattvārtha Sūtra: That Which Is, by Umāsvāti / Umāsvāmī (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1994) — the standard English translation.
- Glasenapp, Helmuth von, Der Jainismus: Eine indische Erlösungsreligion (Berlin: Alf Häger, 1925; Engl. trans. Jainism: An Indian Religion of Salvation, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999) — foundational Western survey.
- Kanakura Enshō 金倉圓照, Jaina-kyō no kyōri ジャイナ教の教理 (Tōkyō: Heirakuji, 1942) and Indo no shizenhōsoku インドの自然法則 — the Japanese Jain corpus that Fāng’s translation works through.
- Folkert, Kendall W., Scripture and Community: Collected Essays on the Jains (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993).
- Fāng Guǎngchāng 方廣錩, “Dìyì zhèngdé jīng yìzhù qián yán 譯註前言,” in Zàngwài fójiào wénxiàn vol. 2 (Beijing: Zōngjiào wénhuà, 1996).
Other points of interest
- The inclusion of a non-Buddhist (Jain) scripture in the Zàngwài fójiào wénxiàn series is methodologically programmatic: Fāng’s argument is that since Jain and Buddhist soteriology emerge from the same Magadha environment and share substantial vocabulary and structural features, comparative knowledge of Jain canonical thought is essential to a correct reading of Indian Buddhist scripture.
- The Buddhist tradition counts Jainism (under the rubric of the Nirgrantha-jñātaputra Mahāvīra) as one of the liù shī wàidào 六師外道; the present text gives the Chinese reader direct access to the philosophical voice of that “outside path.”