Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchā: Sūtra du Mahāyāna (1901)

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Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchā: Sūtra du Mahāyāna

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Sutras (Sanskrit)

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Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

Critical Sanskrit edition of the Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchāsūtra edited by Louis Finot, with an introduction in French.

Citation

Finot, Louis, ed. Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchā: Sūtra du Mahāyāna. Bibliotheca Buddhica 2. St. Petersburg: Académie Impériale des Sciences, 1901.

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Works related to this item

1 Recension of

Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchāsūtra [आर्यराष्ट्रपालपरिपृच्छानाममहायानसूत्र]. 'phags pa yul 'khor skyong gis zhus pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo [འཕགས་པ་ཡུལ་འཁོར་སྐྱོང་གིས་ཞུས་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་མདོ།]. [The Sūtra of Rāṣṭrapāla's Questions (84000)]. Translated by Jinamitra, Dānaśīla, Munivarman, Ye shes sde, Jñānagupta, Dānapāla, Dharmarakṣa. Kangyur, RKTSK 62 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=62&typ=1.

Classical WorksAbout this item

Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchā (T. Yul 'khor skyong gis zhus pa; C. Huguo pusahui [jing]; J. Gokoku bosatsue[kyō]; K. Hoguk posal hoe [kyǒng] 護國菩薩會[經]). In Sanskrit, "The Questions of Rāṣṭrapāla," one of the earliest Mahāyāna sūtras; the terminus ad quem for its composition is the third century CE, when Dharmarakṣa (c. 233–310) translated the sūtra into Chinese (c. 270 CE), probably following a manuscript from the Gandhāra region in the Kharoṣṭhī script. (The extant Sanskrit recension is much later.) There are also two later Chinese translations, one made c. 585–600 by Jnānagupta and other c. 980 by Dānapāla. The Raṣṭrapāla represents a strand of early Mahāyāna (found also in such sūtras as the Kāśyapaparivarta and the Ugraparipṛcchā) that viewed the large urban monasteries as being ill-suited to serious spiritual cultivation because of their need for constant fund-raising from the laity and their excessive entanglements in local politics. The Rāṣṭrapāla strand of early Mahāyāna instead dedicated itself to forest dwelling . . . away from the cities, like the "rhinoceros" (khaḍgaviṣāṇa), and advocated a return to the rigorous asceticism (S. dhūtaguṇa) . . . that was thought to characterize the early saṃgha. To the Rāṣṭrapāla author(s), the Buddha's own infinitely long career as a bodhisattva was an exercise in self-sacrifice and physical endurance, which they in turn sought to emulate through their own asceticism. The physical perfection the Buddha achieved through this long training, as evidenced in his acquisition of the thirty-two major marks of the superman (mahāpuruṣalakṣaṇa), receives special attention in the sūtra. This approach is in marked contrast to other early Mahāyāna sūtras, such as the Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, which were suspicious of the motives of forest dwellers and supportive of cenobitic monasticism in the towns and cities, where monks and nuns would be in a better position to serve the laity by preaching the dharma to them. (Source: "Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchā." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 700. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)

1 Other editions

Finot, L., ed. Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchā: Sūtra du Mahāyāna. Bibliotheca Buddhica 2. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1992.

Books1992About this item

Critical Sanskrit edition of the Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchāsūtra edited by Louis Finot, with an introduction in French.

1 Scholarship on

Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchāsūtra [आर्यराष्ट्रपालपरिपृच्छानाममहायानसूत्र]. 'phags pa yul 'khor skyong gis zhus pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo [འཕགས་པ་ཡུལ་འཁོར་སྐྱོང་གིས་ཞུས་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་མདོ།]. [The Sūtra of Rāṣṭrapāla's Questions (84000)]. Translated by Jinamitra, Dānaśīla, Munivarman, Ye shes sde, Jñānagupta, Dānapāla, Dharmarakṣa. Kangyur, RKTSK 62 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=62&typ=1.

Classical WorksAbout this item

Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchā (T. Yul 'khor skyong gis zhus pa; C. Huguo pusahui [jing]; J. Gokoku bosatsue[kyō]; K. Hoguk posal hoe [kyǒng] 護國菩薩會[經]). In Sanskrit, "The Questions of Rāṣṭrapāla," one of the earliest Mahāyāna sūtras; the terminus ad quem for its composition is the third century CE, when Dharmarakṣa (c. 233–310) translated the sūtra into Chinese (c. 270 CE), probably following a manuscript from the Gandhāra region in the Kharoṣṭhī script. (The extant Sanskrit recension is much later.) There are also two later Chinese translations, one made c. 585–600 by Jnānagupta and other c. 980 by Dānapāla. The Raṣṭrapāla represents a strand of early Mahāyāna (found also in such sūtras as the Kāśyapaparivarta and the Ugraparipṛcchā) that viewed the large urban monasteries as being ill-suited to serious spiritual cultivation because of their need for constant fund-raising from the laity and their excessive entanglements in local politics. The Rāṣṭrapāla strand of early Mahāyāna instead dedicated itself to forest dwelling . . . away from the cities, like the "rhinoceros" (khaḍgaviṣāṇa), and advocated a return to the rigorous asceticism (S. dhūtaguṇa) . . . that was thought to characterize the early saṃgha. To the Rāṣṭrapāla author(s), the Buddha's own infinitely long career as a bodhisattva was an exercise in self-sacrifice and physical endurance, which they in turn sought to emulate through their own asceticism. The physical perfection the Buddha achieved through this long training, as evidenced in his acquisition of the thirty-two major marks of the superman (mahāpuruṣalakṣaṇa), receives special attention in the sūtra. This approach is in marked contrast to other early Mahāyāna sūtras, such as the Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, which were suspicious of the motives of forest dwellers and supportive of cenobitic monasticism in the towns and cities, where monks and nuns would be in a better position to serve the laity by preaching the dharma to them. (Source: "Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchā." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 700. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)