末法家としての那連提黎耶舎 : 周隋革命と德護長者經

Abstract

Narendrayasas 那連提黎耶舎, who was active in the Northern Qi and early Sui, is famous as the translator of the Dajiyuezangjing 大集月蔭經, a sutra that expounds the concept of a latter day of the Buddha's law 末法. There were good reasons for his choice of this sutra to translate. In India, he had experienced the anti-Buddhist policies of the Huna king Mihirakula and of the Hephthalites. In China, he lived through the Buddhist persecutions of the Northern Zhou. Because of these experiences, he became a believer in the idea that age of Buddhism's degeneration had arrived. As proof of this, one notes his emphasis on the intense practice of Buddhism and the fact that he translated a series of texts that teach the concept of the latter day of the Law, among them the Lianhuamianjing 蓮華面經, which describes Mihirakula's persecution of Buddhism, and the Rizangjing 日藏經 and Dehuchangzhejing 徳護長者經. In particular, he seems to have been responsible for adding to the Dehuchangzhejing a prophecy that in the latter day of the Law, Candra-prabha 月光童子, a legendary patron of Buddhism, would appear as the ruler of the Sui dynasty and cause the religion to flourish--a passage lacking in other translations of the sutra. Presumably, he believed that, although the latter day of the Law had arrived, by equating the Sui's Emperor Wen 文帝 with a Buddhist hero, the religion might still prosper under imperial patronage. This was related to the similar strategy of the Editorial Director Wang Shao 著作郎王劭, who used the legend of Emperor Wen's birth to stress the legitimacy of the transfer of the mandate of heaven from the Zhou to the Sui, while at the same time he was supporting Wen's propagation of Buddhism.