An Shigao

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An Shigao (Template:Zh, Korean: An Sego, Japanese: An Seikō, Vietnamese: An Thế Cao) (fl. c. 148–180 CE)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> was an early Buddhist missionary to China, and the earliest known translator of Indian Buddhist texts into Chinese. According to legend, he was a prince of Parthia, nicknamed the "Parthian Marquess", who renounced his claim to the royal throne of Parthia in order to serve as a Buddhist missionary monk in China.<ref>Zürcher, Erik. 2007 (1959). The Buddhist Conquest of China: The Spread and Adaptation of Buddhism in Early Medieval China. 3rd ed. Leiden: Brill. pp. 32-4</ref>

OriginsEdit

The prefix An in An Shigao's name has raised many questions and hypotheses as to his origin and story. Some believe that it is an abbreviation of Anxi, the Chinese name given to the regions ruled by the Parthian Empire. Most visitors from that country who took a Chinese name received the An prefix to indicate their origin in Anxi.Template:Quote

It is still unknown whether he was a monk or layperson or whether he should be considered a follower of the Sarvāstivāda or Mahāyāna,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> though affiliation with these two groups need not be viewed as mutually exclusive. The unresolved mystery of who An Shigao was is studied in the academic work of Antonino Forte.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Antonio Forte found in various secular sources that there were several individuals living in the 4th to 8th century China who were of Iranian descent and claimed ancestry from an individual called An Shigao.<ref name=BrillEncyc>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name= BrillEncyc /> Given that the Parthian Empire was decentralised in structure, some theorise that he may have been a member of a small royal family that was held power in the eastern end of the Empire like Margiana where it would have been plausible for them to come into contact with Buddhism. An alternative viewpoint exists which hypothesises that An Shigao was a descendant of Gondophares, the founder of the Indo-Parthian kingdom however the arguement against this is that the An prefix may not have been applied if this was the case.<ref name= BrillEncyc />

An Shigao migrated eastward into China, settling at the Han capital of Luoyang in 148 CE, where he produced a substantial number of translations of Indian Buddhist texts and attracted a devoted community of followers. More than a dozen works by An Shigao are currently extant, including texts dealing with meditation, abhidharma, and basic Buddhist doctrines. An Shigao's corpus does not contain any Mahāyāna scriptures, though he himself is regularly referred to as a "bodhisattva" in early Chinese sources. Scholarly studies of his translations have shown that they are most closely affiliated with the Sarvāstivāda school.

WorksEdit

In Erik Zürcher's pioneering studies of the works attributed to An Shigao, he uses both the information provided by later Chinese catalogues and internal stylistic evidence to conclude that only sixteen of the nearly two hundred translations attributed to him by later Chinese catalogues may be regarded as authentic.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Stefano Zacchetti has proposed, in light of recent research, that thirteen of the sixteen texts originally listed by Zürcher can be reliably ascribed to An Shigao.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> These thirteen are (listed by Taishō number):

T 13 Chang Ahan shi bao fa jing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}
T 14 Ren ben yu sheng jing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}
T 31 Yiqie liu sheshou yin jing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}
T 32 Si di jing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}
T 36 Ben xiang yi zhi jing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}
T 48 Shi fa fei fa jing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}
T 57 Lou fenbu jing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}
T 98 Pu fa yi jing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}
T 112 Ba zheng dao jing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}
T 150a Qi chu san guan jing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}
T 603 Yin chi ru jing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}
T 607 Dao di jing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}
T 1508 Ahan koujie shi'er yinyuan jing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}

The remaining three translations enumerated by Zürcher that (according to Zacchetti) should be reconsidered are:

T 602 Da anban shouyi jing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}
T 605 Chan xing fa xiang jing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}
T 792 Fa shou chen jing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}

Recent scholarship has proposed a number of additional texts that may be attributed to An Shigao. Paul Harrison has provided evidence that An Shigao translated the previously anonymous collection of saṃyuktāgama sutras, Za ahan jing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Taishō 101).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Stefano Zacchetti has suggested that, though initially considered inauthentic according to Zürcher's conservative criteria, Taishō 1557, Apitan wu fa xing jing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, may indeed be the work of An Shigao.

Two manuscripts discovered by Kajiura Susumu in 1999 in the collection of the Kongōji in Osaka Prefecture, Japan, present four heretofore unknown works which, based on their apparent antiquity, may be attributable to An Shigao. The first three of these texts are related to meditation practices such as ānāpānasmṛti ("mindfulness of breathing") and the "twelve gates". The fourth appears to be a record of an oral commentary on topics covered in the preceding texts.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Another Anxi translator, a layman named An Xuan, was a disciple of An Shigao.<ref>Zürcher, Erik. 2007 (1959). The Buddhist Conquest of China: The Spread and Adaptation of Buddhism in Early Medieval China. 3rd ed. Leiden: Brill. p. 34</ref> An Xuan also worked in Luoyang (together with a Chinese collaborator, Yan Fotiao), producing a translation of a Mahāyāna scripture, the Ugraparipṛcchā Sūtra (in Chinese, the Fajing jing, Taishō no. 322) c. 181 CE.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

ReferencesEdit

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An Shigao

Contents

OriginsEdit

WorksEdit

See alsoEdit

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