Dàshèng wújìnzàng fǎ 大乘無盡藏法
The Mahāyāna Inexhaustible-Treasury Method by 信行 (Xìnxíng, 撰); critical edition by 方廣錩 (整理)
About the work
A short Chinese Buddhist treatise in one fascicle attributed to Xìnxíng 信行 (540–594), founder of the Sān-jiē-jiào 三階教 (Three Stages Teaching). The text articulates the doctrinal foundation for Sānjiē’s distinctive Wújìnzàng 無盡藏 (“inexhaustible treasury”) institution: a monastic perpetual-charity fund — pooled donations meant to sustain the Sān-bǎo 三寶 (Three Jewels), the saṅgha, and the laity in perpetuity. The treatise expounds the basic theory of Sānjiē, its modes of practice, and Xìnxíng’s own activities in founding the school, making it a primary source for the early-Suí Sānjiē movement.
Abstract
The text was first identified by Yabuki Keiki 矢吹慶輝 in the British Library Dūnhuáng collection as Stein 2137 — a fragment with both head and tail damaged and additional internal lacunae, lacking title-cartouche, which Yabuki provisionally titled Xìnxíng yíwén 信行遺文 (“Xìnxíng’s testamentary text”) and published in the source-section of his 1927 Sangaikyō no kenkyū. Fāng Guǎngchāng 方廣錩 subsequently identified Stein 9139 — head damaged, tail intact with title-cartouche — as a second copy of the same text; S.9139 preserves more text than S.2137 and gives the original title Dàshèng wújìnzàng fǎ. The 1998 Zàngwài fójiào wénxiàn edition uses S.9139 as the base copy with S.2137 as the secondary witness (“甲本”). The work is recorded in no Buddhist catalog and was never admitted to the canon — a casualty of the repeated Sānjiē proscriptions (600, 695, 699, 713, 725 CE).
The composition window is bracketed by Xìnxíng’s emergence as an independent teacher (ca. 580, when he begins his Sānjiē preaching at Fǎzàngsì 法藏寺) and his death in Kāihuáng 14 (594). The Wújìnzàng-institution itself — under the patronage of Gāo Jiǒng 高熲 — was housed at the Huàdùsì 化度寺 in Cháng’ān; the Wújìnzàng grew into one of the largest monastic financial institutions of the Suí–early-Táng, finally suppressed by Xuánzōng 玄宗 in Kāiyuán 1 (713). The treatise is therefore the doctrinal charter of an institution that became — for a century — a central feature of the Chinese Buddhist economy.
Translations and research
- Hubbard, Jamie, Absolute Delusion, Perfect Buddhahood: The Rise and Fall of a Chinese Heresy (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001), esp. ch. 6 on the Wújìnzàng institution.
- Yabuki Keiki 矢吹慶輝, Sangaikyō no kenkyū 三階教の研究 (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1927) — editio princeps of the S.2137 fragment.
- Nishimoto Teruma 西本照真, Sangaikyō no kenkyū 三階教の研究 (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1998), esp. on the textual reconstruction.
- Gernet, Jacques, Les aspects économiques du bouddhisme dans la société chinoise du Ve au Xe siècle (Saigon: EFEO, 1956); English trans. Buddhism in Chinese Society: An Economic History from the Fifth to the Tenth Centuries (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995) — the classic economic treatment of the Wújìnzàng.
- Fāng Guǎngchāng 方廣錩, “Dàshèng wújìn-zàng fǎ zhěnglǐ qián-yán,” in Zàngwài fójiào wénxiàn vol. 4 (1998).
Other points of interest
The Wújìnzàng of Huàdùsì 化度寺 became famous in early-Táng Cháng’ān not only as a religious treasury but as a de facto state-tolerated banking and pawn-broking operation, which Sòng historians later cited as a corrupting influence on Buddhist monastic economy. The doctrinal grounding for the institution — that giving to the wújìnzàng is identical to giving to all buddhas of the three times across all worlds — is articulated here in Dàshèng wújìnzàng fǎ. The 713 imperial proscription specifically targeted the Wújìnzàng finances at Huàdùsì, with its accumulated wealth being redistributed to other monastic institutions.
Links
- CBETA
- IDP record for S.2137
- IDP record for S.9139
- Cf. KR6v0052 Fóxìng wèndá (Sānjiē)
- Cf. KR6v0092 Fóxìng guān xiūshàn fǎ (Sānjiē)