Some Research Notes on Sutra of the Twelve [-year] Travel [of the Buddha] (十二遊經)

Abstract

As a preliminary attempt, this paper first combs through all the information regarding this text in the traditional Chinese bibliographies and finds that the text had always been considered by traditional Chinese Buddhist bibliographers to be an authentic translation, although the information presented by Fei Zhangfang’s catalogue is confusing, if not mistaken. By analyzing other Chinese-written works which either quoted from or referred to this text the same conclusion is arrived, which means that various Chinese masters had too taken the text as a genuine translation. The paper next highlights some of the obvious issues surrounding this text and makes some research notes on the main points of the major episodes of the early life of Śākyamuni Buddha. It specially focuses on the Origin Story of the Śākya clan, the Bodhisattva’s descending from heaven, Siddhartha’s wives, early ministry career of the Buddha and the ending part of the text of which a missing part was identified in the Jingü yixiang. Finally the paper selectively identifies a couple of writing issues that might betray its mixed identity as a translated text. The tentative conclusion the paper reached is that this text might have been a hybrid apocrypha, containing something genuinely foreign and organized probably by a Chinese hand.