敦煌本 『佛說般泥洹後比丘十變經』 小考 ― 撰述 시기와 종교적 배경을 중심으로 ―

Abstract

A Dunhuang manuscript, S.2109 includes among four short Buddhist scriptures The Scripture on the Ten Changes among the Monks After the Buddha’s Paranirvana (Foshuo pan nihuan hou biqiu shibian jing 佛說般泥洹後比丘十變經). This paper first reads the scripture into a standard characters, provides an annotated translation, and then examines the religious and textual background of the text. The Scipture on the Ten Changes foretells the decline of the dharma, eschatologic catastrophe, the advent of Yueguang tongzi 月光童子 (Candraprabhākumāra) as a Buddhist saviour, and the ultimate extinction of the dharma in a distinctive way. Judging from the style in which the catastrophic events are narrated, this text seems to have been inspired by, or based on the Scripture of the Great Maya (Mohe moye jing 摩訶摩耶經, Mahāmāyāsūtra). The text also seems to share the Yuehuang tongzi cult and the Buddhist eschatology found in many of the Chinese Buddhist apocrypha of the mid or late fifth century, for example, The Scripture on the Extinction of the Dharma (Fa miejin jing 法滅盡經). Judging from the internal evidences of the text and the historical backgrounds, it is clear that The Scipture on the Ten Changes among the Monks is an indigenous Chinese scripture and was composed in the mid- or second half of the fifth century. This scripture is a significant source material for understanding of early medieval Chinese Buddhism in that it illustrates how the individual notions such as the eschatologic catastrophe, Yueguang tongzi, and the ultimate extinction of the dharma, were woven together in a single narrative, which later developed into the messianic Maitreyanism.