The Leng-Yen-King—First Chapter

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The Leng-Yen-King—First Chapter
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THE LENG-YEN-KING. — FIRST CHAPTER.

The Sutra of firm establishment in all doctrine, describing clearly the secret merit and attainments in the religious life of Tathāgata, who appears as Buddha in his great and unsurpassed stature; also the many acts of the Bodhisattwas.

It is called also Chung-yin-tu-na-lan-to-ta-tau-ch'ang-king. "The Sutra of Nalanda, the great seat of worship, in Central India."

The monastery of Nalanda, in the kingdom of Magadha, the present Bahar, was of great size, and lasted through more than seven centuries. The Chinese traveller Hiuen-tsang visited it. He found there ten thousand monks living in six buildings erected by as many monarchs, forming together one great ascetic establishment, the most splendid in India. It was celebrated as a place of study both for the Brahmanical books and those of Buddhism, and was devoted to the study of that branch of Buddhist doctrine called the "Greater Development." For legends connected with this flourishing seat of Buddhism, the translation by M. Julien of Hiuen-tsang's travels, from which I have derived these facts, may be consulted. It lay about thirty miles south-east of the modern Patna.

The Chinese translation of the Leng-yen-king was made in the year 705 A.D., by Paramiti, a Hindoo Buddhist morell [sic] at Canton. He was assisted by Yung-pi, a Chinese, sans Migashakya, a native of Udyana, a country lying northwest of Cashmere. (Joseph Edkins, introductory remarks, 289)

Citation
Edkins, Joseph, trans. "The Leng-Yen-King—First Chapter." In Chinese Buddhism: A Volume of Sketches, Historical, Descriptive, and Critical, 2nd rev. ed., 289–301. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1893. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.84922/page/n331/mode/2up.
Interconnections
1 Partial translation of
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Classical WorksAbout this item
Śūraṃgamasamādhisūtra [or Śūraṅgamasamādhisūtra]. (T. Dpa' bar 'gro ba'i ting nge 'dzin gyi mdo; C. Shoulengyan sanmei jing; J. Shuryōgon zanmaikyō; K. Sunǔngǒm sammae kyǒng). In Sanskrit, "Sūtra on the Heroic-March Concentration," an early Mahāyāna sūtra that explains how the mind becomes free and unimpeded like the "march" (gama) of a "hero" (śūra), who "walks alone, fearlessly, like a lion." (This translated sūtra should be distinguished from the *Śūraṃgamasūtra, a Chinese apocryphal scripture of similar name, which dates from the early eighth century.) The Śūraṃgamasamādhi as taught in this sūtra not only enables bodhisattvas quickly to attain complete, perfect enlightenment (anuttarasamyaksaṃbodhi), but also ensures that even śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and arhats are put on the right path leading to buddhahood. In addition, the Śūraṃgamasamādhi also permits enlightened beings to manifest themselves in any variety of forms in order to teach sentient beings. The sūtra also includes descriptions of the world systems of many other buddhas (buddhakṣetra), including Abhirati, the buddha-land of Akṣobhya. Although some fragments of the Sanskrit recension of the Śūraṃgamasamādhisūtra have survived, the full sūtra is extant only in an early-fifth-century translation attributed to the eminent Kuchean translator Kumārajīva, in two rolls, and in an early-ninth-century Tibetan translation. (Source: "Śūraṃgamasamādhisūtra." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 873. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27)