《佛說長壽滅罪護諸童子陀羅尼經》與佛教產孕觀──兼論與大理叢書本《佛說長壽命經》之關聯

On The Sūtra of Erasing Sins and Protecting Children for Longevity Taught by the Buddha and its Dali Recension: An Indigenous Buddhist View of Childbirth and Abortion

The Sūtra of Erasing Sins and Protecting Children for Longevity Taught by the Buddha, contained in the Xuzang jing collection, describes the karmic retributions of women who had abortions or committed infanticide. It also offers incantations and rituals for repentance, alleviating the psychological burden for mothers. The Xuzang jing version of this scripture attributes the Chinese translation to Buddhapālas of the Tang dynasty. However, Chinese Buddhist catalogues do not include this scripture or even mention its translator. This leads Venerable Yinshun and some later scholars to regard the text as a Japanese production from the early twentieth century, given its first appearance in the Manji zokuzōkyō collection. Fortunately, among the ancient texts discovered at the Fazang Temple in Dali in 1956, there is one text named the Sūtra of Longevity Taught by the Buddha, which contains almost the same content as this scripture. In this article, I first analyze this Longevity Sūtra and identify similarities with another scripture, entitled The Dhārāni Sūtra for Protecting Children Taught by the Buddha, translated in the sixth century during the Northern Wei dynasty. I then identify ideas in the Longevity Sūtra, such as reproductive pollution, the taboo of birth blood offending earth deity, warning of killing animals for banquets after birth, and potential demonic harm on mothers and newborns, which share commonalities with two other well-known indigenous Chinese Buddhist scriptures, the Blood Bowl Sutra and the Sūtra of the Original Vows of Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha. Finally, I compare the format, layout and calligraphy of the Xuzang jing and Dali recensions of the Longevity Sūtra. Through these textual investigations, this paper dates the appearance and circulation of the Longevity Sūtra to a time between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. I also found some existent copies of the scripture dated to the fifteenth century in Korean Buddhist Canon. This indigenous Buddhist scripture not only reveals indigenous Buddhist views regarding childbirth and abortion, it also provides ritual resources for tackling these issues. Its historical disappearance from the Chinese Buddhist canon and its spread to Dali, Korea and Japan further show the different preferences and tendencies for choosing certain scriptures for inclusion in the Buddhist canon in different areas.