Fan wang ching

A Dictionary of Buddhism | 2004 | 700+ words | Copyright

Fan wang ching (Chin.). The Brahmajāla Sūtra or ‘Sūtra of Brahma's Net’, 1484 in the Taishō canon, translated by Kumārajīva in the early 5th century. The text describes the practices in which a Bodhisattva (in this case meaning the ordinary practitioner of the Mahāyāna path) ought to engage. The scripture is most significant for its list of ten ‘grave’ and 48 ‘light’ Bodhisattva precepts which are now normally taken as the third set of precepts by Chinese monks and nuns. Lay Buddhists in China also take a set of so-called Bodhisattva precepts, but these are derived from the Sūtra on Upāsaka Precepts, 1488 in the Taishō canon. The precepts of the Fan wang ching came to be the sole precepts taken by certain Japanese Buddhist clerics following a petition by Saichō (767–822) that his Tendai monks not be required to take the ‘Hīnayāna’ precepts.

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DAMIEN KEOWN. "Fan wang ching." A Dictionary of Buddhism. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

DAMIEN KEOWN. "Fan wang ching." A Dictionary of Buddhism. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O108-Fanwangching.html

DAMIEN KEOWN. "Fan wang ching." A Dictionary of Buddhism. 2004. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O108-Fanwangching.html

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