A Primer in Chinese Buddhist Writings

This is the first scripture in the Cháng āhánjīng 長阿含經, literally the “long āgama scripture,” known in Sanskrit as the Dīrghāgama. It is indeed a long scripture, containing many independent scriptures and forming one of the “four āgamas.”

The Cháng āhánjīng was translated into Chinese in the capital city of Cháng’ān 長安 in 413 by Buddhayaśas 佛陀耶舍 and Zhú Fóniàn 竺佛念 from an Indian version of the text. Zhú Fóniàn is unusual among Chinese monks for being one of the few said to have mastered Sanskrit. Only fragments of a Sanskrit version of the Dīrghāgama are extant. A Pali version of the text exists as the Dīgha Nikāya.¹

The section we will read is the Dàběn jīng 大本經, literally the “scripture of the great origin.” (Pali, Mahāpadāna-suttanta; Skt. Mahāvadāna-sūtra). It describes the characteristics of a Buddha. In addition to the Chinese and Pali versions of the Scripture of the Great Origin, one fairly substantial part of the sutra survives in Sanskrit in one fragment which, together with several other manuscripts gives nearly the whole sutra.²

The Chinese text before you is useful, particularly in comparison with the Pali and Sanskrit versions, for reconstructing what many consider to be among the earliest Buddhist texts. It is also useful for understanding the Dharmaguptaka School from which it came.³

And while the  gamas were not as influential in China as key Mahāyāna sutras, they were well known among Buddhist thinkers and were studied by eminent monks throughout Chinese history from the time of their translation in the fifth century to the present day and are hence important for understanding the development of Chinese as well as Indian Buddhism.⁴

Notes

1. On the various versions of this text and it significance, see André Bareau, Les sectes bouddhiques du Petit Véhicule (Paris: Publications de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient 38, 1955), p.191; Étienne Lamotte, Histoire du bouddhisme indien des origines à l’ère Śaka (Louvain: Bibliothèque du Muséon 43, 1958), pp.629-630; and Jan Nattier, Once Upon a Future Time. Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1991), pp.19-20. For a recent English translation of the work, see The Long Discourses of the Buddha. A Translation of the Dīgha Nikāya by Maurice Walshe (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1987). The Pali version of the text we will be reading is translated in section 14, pp.199-222.
2. What is missing are mostly verses. The sections dealing with the bodhisattva's birth are also paralleled in The Gilgit manuscript of the Saṅghabhedavastu: being the 17th and last section of the Vinaya of the Mūlasarvāstivādin, edited by Raniero Gnoli with the assistance of T. Venkatacharya (Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1977). The fragments of the Mahāvadānasūtra were originally edited by Ernst Waldschmidt, Das Mahāvadānasūtra: ein kanonischer Text über die sieben letzten Buddhas; Sanskrit, verglichen mit dem Pāli nebst einer Analyse der in chinesischer Übersetzung überlieferten Parallelversionen auf Grund von Turfan-Handschriften (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1953-1956). The Sanskrit text was revised using additional fragments by Takamichi Fukita, The Mahāvadānasūtra: a new edition based on manuscripts discovered in Northern Turkestan, Sanskrit-Wörterbuch der buddhistischen Texte aus den Turfan-Funden 10 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003). There is no published English translation of the Sanskrit text, but there is a German one: Claudia Weber, Buddhistische Sutras: das Leben des Buddha in Quellentexten (Munich: Diederichs, 1999), pp. 35-103.
3. On this once-thriving school, most of the works of which are extant only in Chinese translation, see Ann Heirman, “Can We Trace the Early Dharmaguptakas?” T’oung Pao Vol.88, no.4-5 (2002), pp.396-429.
4. For a useful Japanese translation of the Cháng āhánjīng with extensive annotation, see Okayama Hajime 丘山新 et al., Gendai goyaku “Agon kyōten” 《現代語訳 「阿含経典」 : 長阿含経》 (Tōkyō : Hirakawa Shuppansha, 1995-2002). For a French translation of the Dàběnjīng, see Jin Siyan, Grand soutra sur l'essence des choses. Mahāpadāna-Sutra (Paris: Éditions You-feng, 2011).