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The Composition of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Extract
TheAṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā, like many other Oriental books, is a collective work which has been subjected to additions and alterations in the course of the centuries, to suit the tastes of new generations. In this respect it does not differ from the Mahāvastu, the Lalitavistara, the Saddharma-puṇḍarīka, the Suvarṇaprabhãsa, etc., which have all been slowly built up over a long period. If the historical investigation of the doctrinal development within the Mahāyāna is to make any progress, we must learn to distinguish between the different layers in these texts. Some work has been done already on the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, the Samādhirāja, the Suvarṇaprabhāsa, and the Kāraṇḍavyūha. Without hoping to exhaust the subject, I intend to point out in this article the most obvious accretions to the basic original text of the Aṣṭa°. This, in its turn, must have grown gradually, but in the present state of our knowledge we cannot, I think, trace out its growth. In any case, such analytical studies of ancient writings are tedious to compose and unattractive to read, and when carried too far they threaten to shatter and pulverize the very text which they set out to examine, as we have seen in the case of Homer and the New Testament.
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- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , June 1952 , pp. 251 - 262
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- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1952
References
page 251 note 1 By H. Kern and W. Soothill in the Introductions to their translations, 1884 and 1930. There is also a Japanese study by Fuse, K., mentioned in Bibliographie Bouddhigue, ii, 1929–1930, no. 136.Google Scholar
page 251 note 2 Cf. Dutt, N., Gilgit Manuscripts, ii, 1941.Google Scholar
page 251 note 3 Cf. Nobel, J.'s edition, 1937.Google Scholar
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page 252 note 1 pp. 893–926.
page 252 note 2 i.e. folios 465 to 593 of P., or Chapters 53 to 73 of Śatasāhasrikā (= S).
page 253 note 1 i.e. T224, k. 9, A.d. 180; T225, k. 6, A.d. 225.—It is found first in T221, k. 20, p. 144b 29, A.d. 290, and then in T223, k. 27, 420c 23–24; T227, k. 10, 583c 5, T220, k. 399, p. 1066a 28; and T228, k. 25, p. 673a 23.—I owe this information to the kindness of Professor Lamotte.
page 254 note 1 Of. Hobogirin, s.v. Ashuku.
page 254 note 2 Of. Maitra, A. K., “The river goddess Gaṅ gā,” Rūpam, 6, 1921.Google Scholar—Vogel, , “Gaṅgā et Yamuna dans l'iconographie bouddhique,” Etudes Asiatiques, 1925, ii, pp. 385–402.Google Scholar—Coomaraswamy, A., Yakshas, i, 36.Google Scholar
page 254 note 3 Ed. Wogihara, U. and Tsuchida, C., 1933–1935, chapter xi, pp. 226–8.Google Scholar
page 255 note 1 
, MS. Cambr. Add. 1632, chapter 42, folios 97b–102a; P, MS. Cambr. Add. 1628, folioa 400a 8–404b 4.
page 255 note 2 It is not easy to explain why the first sentence should be spoken to Śakra and the second to Ānanda. A solution is offered by Rgs, where the last verse of chapter 27 (v. 9) refers to A xxvii, 456, and the next verse (chapter 28, v. 1) to A xxviii 466, 2–9, which also follows smoothly on p. 456 and is also addressed to Ānanda. It may therefore be that the bulk of the whole passage from pp. 457 to 466 was added at a later time, with the exception of a reference to the dharmakośa (cf. A, p. 464, 12, and Rgs, chapter 28, v. 2), which would naturally be addressed to Ānanda.
page 256 note 1 E.g. ii, 33–4, 41.
page 256 note 2 E.g. iii, 75–6, vi, 138–142.
page 257 note 1 The chapter shows great similarities to chapters 1–4 of the Sandhinirmocana, which also deal with the five marks of the Absolute. Cf. pp. 21 and 182 of E. Lamotte's translation, 1935.
page 257 note 2 A 281, 8–14. Rgs xiii, 1:—
yo eva paśyati sa paśyati sarva-dharmān
sarvān amātya kariyāti upekṣya rājā/
yāvanti Buddha-kriya dharmata śrāvakānāṃ
prajñāya pāramita sarva karoti tāni//
page 257 note 3 i.e. Sanskrit Śata, chapter 45, Tibetan P, chapter 45, Tibetan Ad, chapter 55, P trsl. Mokṣala, chapter 62, P, trsl. Kumārajīva, chapter 61, P, trsl. Hiuen tsiang, chapter 60.
page 258 note 1 The little treatise begins quite abruptly on p. 438, 16. After it, chapter 27 has first two sentences which refer back to xxvi, 434, 6, and the third, 444, 8–11, refers back and links up with xxvi, 438, 10–15, the sentence immediately preceding the suspected insertion. On the other hand, the api at 444, 11, refers back to xxvi, 440, 17, right in the middle of the treatise. A definite decision seems at present not possible here.
page 258 note 2 naitad buddhavacanaṁ kavi-kṛtaṃ, kāvyam etat. Aṣṭa°, xvii, 328Google Scholar, an echo of Saṁyutta Nikāya, ii, 267.Google Scholar Cf. A.N., iii, 107.Google Scholar
page 258 note 3 Lamotte, E., Le traité de la grande vertue de sagesse, i, pp. 101–5, 223.Google Scholar
page 258 note 4 Chapter 27, pp. 392–3, anuparīndanā.
page 259 note 1 Chapter 9.
page 259 note 2 Ed. Wogihara-Tsuchida, , pp. 330–1.Google Scholar
page 259 note 3 Kern, H., The Saddkarma puṇḍarīka, 1909, Introduction, pp. xxxi, xi–xxii.Google ScholarSoothill, W. E., The Lotus of the Wonderful Law, 1930, p. 28.Google Scholar
page 259 note 4 The omissions discussed in sections I and II are marked with an asterisk.
page 260 note 1 See footnote on previous page.
page 261 note 1 Column I shows the items eliminated by section I of this article, and by Rgs; column II gives those which contain a reference to Akṣobhya and are absent in Rgs (see section II); column III gives those which are missing in Rgs from chapter 19 onwards in full. A question-mark indicates a doubt about the inclusion. For SE and P see p. 258.