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A Second Chinese Buddhist Text in Tibetan Characters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

F. W. Thomas  and
G. L. M. Clauson
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Extract

The text contained in the MS. described below begins with three syllables śa-li-ẖbur, which scholars will naturally (unless illuded for a moment by the thought of sāli “year”) find suggestive of Śāriputra. The recurrence of the syllables will confirm this impression, more especially when far on in the document appears 'an.nog.da.la.sam. yag.sam.bu.de, previously recognized as=Sanskrit anuttara samyak-sambodhi. But, since the conjunction of this expression with the name of Śāriputra is frequently exemplified in the mass of Sanskrit Buddhist writings, we are grateful for the occurrence early in the text of the combination 'a.myi.ẖda, i.e. obviously Amitābha or Amitāyus, pointing to the Amitābha literature. When we come to try the smaller Sukhāvatīvyūka (published by Max Müller and Bunyiu Nanjio in Anecdota Oxoniensia, Aryan Series, vol. i, part ii, pp. 92–100), the distribution and character of the paragraphs soon enables us to fix upon sections ix(viii)–xx, of which several afford great assistance by furnishing names of numerals or of Buddhas in succession. As in the former case, some apparent divergencies from the Sanskrit original direct attention to the Chinese version translated into French by Messrs. Ymaizumi and Yamata in Annales du Musée Guimet, vol. ii, pp. 39–44. And this has enabled Captain Clauson to verify the whole text as a transcription, syllable for syllable, of Kumārajīva's rendering (Nanjio, No. 200). We give the Chinese characters from the India Office copy, and append a direct and inverse index of the syllables as represented in the Tibetan writing. From the interesting colophon it appears that the copy was a work of piety.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 59 , Issue 2 , April 1927 , pp. 281 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1927

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References

page 281 note 1 Ch. 77, ii, 3 (Roll, 162 × 26 cm., of soiled yellowish-white paper, rather coarse and thick, being for the most part, no doubt, double). The text is in five pages: Nos. 1–3, c. 23–4 cm. wide; No. 4, c. 28 cm.; No. 5, c. 18 cm. The script is a rather formal copybook Dbu-can, not in itself specially clear in regard to the discrimination of certain characters, and now rather faint. The page was prepared by pencilled lines (16 per page) and vertical side lines.

The spaces between pages 3–4 and 4–5 are occupied each by two (superposed) rough miniatures of seated Buddhas, which in relation to the text are upside down. The space before p. 1 (c. 8 cm. wide), and those between pp. 1–2 and 2–3 (c. 7 cm. wide), show in a smaller and neater hand parts of lines of the same text, perhaps the original from which the MS. was copied. Upon separating the paper where it is now double perhaps further parts of the text may come to light, a similar process having in other instances proved fruitful.

On the reverse of the roll are to be seen: (a) thirty-one vertical columns of a Chinese text in large black characters; (b) two horizontal lines of Tibetan, c. 15 and 18 cm. respectively, which may be read and translated as follows:—

[1]ẖdi. yaṅ . de . hi . tshe. | Thu . pod . yaṅ . ẖbrug . gis . bris . pa. ẖo.

[2]gar . soṅ . gar . skyes . kyaṅ. lha . yul. du . skye . bar . smon . no ∥

[1]“This also at that time was written by Thu . pod (. yaṅ), a ẖbrug.

[2]Wherever going, wherever born, to be born in the realm of the gods is his prayer.”

That the ẖbrug people, to whom the writer, Thu . pod (. yaṅ), belonged, possessed the region associated with Śa-cu has been pointed out in JRAS. 1927, pp. 67–8Google Scholar.

page 282 note 1 chuṅ . śi . ẖgi seems to be Chinese.

page 283 note 1 The word seems to denote alternately the province and its head. Cf. the Turkī cur of the Orchon inscriptions (ed. Thomsen, V., Helsingfors, 1896, p. 155, n. 39a)Google Scholar.

page 283 note 2 The serial numbers are inserted with a view to the Index, where the Sanskrit and other meanings will enable the reader to follow the sense with little reference to the Chinese characters.

page 284 note 1 There is no syllable corresponding to this character in the MS.

page 284 note 2 Twenty-four characters omitted in MS. owing to homœoteleuton.

page 284 note 3 No corresponding character in printed text.

page 284 note 4 There is no syllable corresponding to this character in the MS.

page 285 note 1 No corresponding character in printed text.

page 286 note 1 No corresponding character in printed text.

page 286 note 2 No corresponding syllables in MS.

page 286 note 3 Four syllables omitted, presumably owing to homœoteleuton.

page 288 note 1 No corresponding character in printed text.

page 290 note 1 No corresponding syllable in MS.

page 291 note 1 In these two passages the MS. reproduces a different version from that of the printed text.

page 292 note 1 The MS. seems to require here.

page 293 note 1 No corresponding character in the printed text.

page 297 note 1 Note the final-d, which is found only in these two syllables and “bad”.