Sharon Tzu-Yin Chi

Zhu Fonian’s “Sutra on the Ten Stages and the Cutting of the Bonds” (Shizhu duanjie jing) is a rare case of Chinese Buddhist composition that can be ascribed with confidence to a historical figure—and one who was also active as a genuine translator. While previous studies have focused on its verbatim borrowings from Chinese sources, this project discovers that Zhu Fonian also embedded in the sutra an independent, partial translation of a proto-Buddhāvataṃsaka text. Furthermore, doctrinal ideas in this translation and other proto-Buddhāvataṃsaka texts dovetail with Zhu Fonian’s idiosyncratic system of soteriology and Buddhology throughout the text, pointing to the (proto-)Buddhāvataṃsaka tradition as one of Zhu Fonian’s main sources of inspiration. By mapping out the relationship between this text and other Buddhist traditions, this dissertation sheds new light on the transcultural dynamics underlying the transmission and production of Mahāyāna sūtras in Central Asia and northern China in middle-period Mahāyāna.