A fragment of the Pancavimsatisahasrika Prajnaparamita-sutra from eastern Turkestan

•期刊原文

A fragment of the 'Pancavimsatisahasrika Prajnaparamita-sutra' from eastern Turkestan

by Bongard-Levin, G.M.

The Journal of the American Oriental Society

Vol.114 No.3

Pp.383-385

July-Sep 1994

COPYRIGHT American Oriental Society 1994

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INTRODUCTION
In the Central Asian Collection of the Manuscript Archive (St. Petersburg Branch, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences)(1) there are many fragments belonging to the Prajnaparamita literature.(2) During the author's stay in Japan (March, 1991) Dr. Takayasu Kimura and Mr. Shogo Watanabe managed to identify some of the fragments as belonging to the Pancavimsatisahasrika Prajnaparamita-sutra.

This Sanskrit sutra is one of the main Prajnaparamita texts. It has been preserved mainly in late manuscripts(3) although Central Asian fragments of this sutra are also known.(4) he publication of the Central Asian Sanskrit fragments of this sutra is very important for the reconstruction of the oldest version of the text.(5) It is necessary to compare the Sanskrit text with Tibetan and Chinese translations.(6)

The fragment under publication was identified by Shogo Watanabe as a pan of the sixth chapter of the Pancavimsatisahasrika Prajnaparamita-sutra.(7) This fragment belongs to the N. F. Petrovsky collection; together with many other texts it was sent to S. F. Oldenburg by N. F. Petrovsky, the Russian consul in Kashgar. The fragment is kept in the N. F. Petrovsky collection under the number SI P/19(1). 1 folio (recto and verso), 32.5 cm x 24 cm; 17 lines on each side are preserved, upright Gupta Brahmi.(8)

The text is written in Indian ink light brown paper; there is a hole for binding; some parts of the text are badly damaged. The pagination number (219) is preserved on the left side. The language is Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit with influence of Middle Indic.(9)

Among the orthographic peculiarities should be mentioned the doubling of consonants and, at the same time, the shortening of consonants. (In the transliteration I give the forms as they are in the text of the manuscript, with the explanations of irregularities in the footnotes.) The textual comparison of this fragment with the version known from late Sanskrit manuscripts (see the publication of the sixth chapter of the Pancavimsatisahasrika Prajnaparamita by Shogo Watanabe) shows many differences and allows one to see later alterations, which are very important for the general study of Buddhist Sanskrit texts in Eastern Turkestan.(10)

1 See G. M. Bongard-Levin, M. I. Vorobyeva-Desyatovskaya, Indian Texts from Central Asia (Leningrad Manuscript Collection), Bibliographia Philologica Buddhica, series minor V (Tokyo, 1986).
2 See G. M. Bongard-Levin, M. I. Vorobyeva-Desyatovskaya, Pamyatniki indiyskoy pismennosti iz tsentral'noy Azii, vol. 1 (Moscow-Leningrad, 1985 [Bibliotheca Buddhica, vol. XXXIII]); vol. II (Moscow-Leningrad, 1990 [Bibliotheca Buddhica, vol. XXXIV]).
3 See E. Conze, The Prajnaparamita Literature, 2nd ed. (Tokyo, 1978), 34-35; E. Obermiller, Prajnaparamita in Tibetan Buddhism, 2nd ed. (Delhi, 1989).
4 Several fragments were identified by Kaikyoku Watanabe from the Hoernle-A. Stein collection. The article by K. Watanabe was published in Japanese in 1912 ("Fragments of the larger Prajnaparamita-sutra from Khotan," The Shukyo-kai, June, 1912, vol.
8, pt. 6) and then republished in 1933 (Kogetsu Zenshu, vol. 1 [Tokyo, 1933]: 539-49. Mr, Shin'ichiro Hori from Tokyo University is now working on the Khotan fragments of this sutra which have been preserved in the O. T. Crosby collection. This collection was received by O. T. Crosby in Khotan in 1903 and deposited in the Library of Congress (Washington). One fragment from the A. Stein collection (see a photograph in the book Buddhism: Art and Faith, ed. W. Zwalf [London, 1985], 57, n. 61) was identified by me as part of chapter two of the Pancavimsatisahasrika-prajnaparamita-sutra. The article on the fragment will be published in the Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, India.
5 See Nancy R. Lethcoe, "Some Notes on the Relationship between the Abhisamayalamkara, the Revised Pancavimsatisahasrika, and the Chinese Translations of the Unrevised Pancavimsatisahasrika," JAOS 96 (1976): 499-511.
6 There are several Chinese and Tibetan translations (see Pancavimsatisahasrika Prajnaparamita, vols. II-III, ed. Takayasu Kumura [Tokyo, 1986]). A careful study of these translations was done by Shogo Watanabe in his article supplementing this
publication: "A Comparative Study of the Pancavimsatisahasrika Prajnaparamita."
7 Shogo Watanabe has published the sixth chapter of the sutra: "Pancavimsatisahasrika Prajnaparamita, VI (Anapurva-bhisamayadhikarah)," Toyo Daigaku Daigakuin Kito (Bulletin of the Graduate School, Toyo University Graduate Programme of
Liberal Arts), 26 (1988): 165-82. The text of our fragment can be compared with pp. 168-72 (henceforth Watanabe).
8 See L. Sander, Palaeographisches zu den Sanskrithand-schriften der Berliner Turfansammlung (Wiesbaden, 1968); F. W. Thomas,
Brahmi-Script in Central Asian Sanskrit Manuscripts (Leipzig, 1954), 667-700.
9 See F. Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, two vols. (New Haven, 1953) (henceforth Edg. I or Edg. II).
10 See G. Bongard-Levin, "Sanskrit Texts from Eastern Turkestan," in Papers in Honour of Prof. Dr. Ji Xianlin on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday, vol. II (Nanchang, 1991), 525-32.

TEXT
Recto
1. ...[sm]r...buddhanusmrti punar apara[m] Subhu...
2. ...hyasya svabhavo nasti ta abhavo asmrti amanasikaram(1) buddhanusmrti...
3. purvvakkriya(2) prajnayati anapurvvasiksa anapurvvaprasthanam so iha anapu....
4. ddipada pamcaindriya pamcabala saptabodhyanga(3) aryya(4) astangikam margam su[ny]...madhi
5. abhavasvabhavayogena so abhavas caiva dharmanam anabuddhisyati
yatra svabhavasamjnapi na...
6. bodhisatvena mahasatvena(5) prajnaparamitayam carantena kusala dharma manasikartavya na[ku]...
7. ryya(6) na anaryya na sasrava na anasrava na kamadhatuparyapanna na rupadhatuparyapann...
8. tha hi tesa dharmanam svabhavo nasti yasya svabhavo nasti so abhavo asmrti ama...
9. jnata anaprapunisyati so abhavas caiva dharmanamm abhisambuddhyisyati(7) yatra ca...
10. tavya yatra anopi smrti nasti ka pu[na]rvvadam smrtikarmo katham ca Subhuti bodhisa...
11. samgho anusmartavya yava sarvvakaramjnata anuprapunisyati anusmrti amanasikarena....
12. karmo nasti katham ca Subhuti bodhisatvena mahasatvena silanasmrti manasikarttavya iha[.]u...
13. [akha]ndehi silehi acchidrehi asabal[e]hi akalmasehi aparamrstehi bhusyehi(8) vijnaprasastehi...
14. [ya]t[ra] anopi smrtikarmo nasti so evam manasikaranta anupurvvena yava sarvvakaramjna[ta] anuprapunisya...
15. ....paramitayam carantena tyaganusmrti [mana]sikartavya iha Subhuti bodhisatvena mahasatvena abha...
16. ....Subhuti utpadayi[..] dadami vana va dadami parityajami va na va parityajami [...] angapari...
17. ...tyaganusmrti...[[te?]sa] anapurvvena yava sarvvakaramjnata anuprapunisyati evam...

Verso
1. ...s[i]kartavya ka...bodhisatvena mahasatvena prajnaparamitayam carantena devatanus....
2. ...nnas caturmaharajakayi[ke?]supapannaka[ ] paranirmitavasavartikesu de[vesu]papannakas te
3. ..nusmarati [api no smr]tikarmo nasti so evam manasikaranto ya sarvvakaramjnat[a] anuprani..(9)
4. .bhavo nasti iti abhavasvabhava[yogena] tam devata anusmara[ti] pyalam. yava sarvvakamjnata[m]...
5. .nasikarantasya anupurvvakkriya(10) prajnayati anupurvvasiksa anupurvvaprasthanam prajnayati...
6. purvvakkriya anupraptukamena anupurvvasiksa anupurvvapratipadana abha[va]svabhava[yo]...
7. smrtyupasthanesu siksitavya pyalam yava mahakaruna yo siksitavya so hi bodhimarg[a]...
8. ka punarvvada yava sarvvakaramjnajnatam(11) [na] idam sthanam vidyate evam hi Subhuti...
9. nupurvvasiksa anupurvvapratipada prajnayati yatra kkriyayam(12) citta cari...
10. m etad avocat. yadi bhadante bhagavam abhavasvabhava sarvvadharma tanasti ru[pa]m...
11. va sarvvakarajnajnata nasti buddho nasti dharmo nasti samgho nasti margo nasti phalo nasti samkles...
12. gavam ayusmatam Subhutim etad avocat. api nu Subhuti abhavasvabhavebhi sarvvadharmebhi...
13. rmebhi astita va nastita va upalabhyati aha katham idam Subhutisya evam bhavati yadi...
14. evam ukta ayusmam Subhutir bhagavantam etad avocat. na aham bhagante bhagavam....ti kaksa(13)
15. pratyekabuddhayanikas ca bodhisatvayanikas ca te evam vadisyanti abhavasva...
16. [ta] silavipannas ca bhavisyanti drstivipannas ca bhavisyanti acaravipannas ca..
17. ....l[o]kam va idam caham bhaga[nta] bhaga...
1 See Watanabe, 171, amanasikara.
2 See Edg. I:21 (2.78-2.82). Compare Edg. I:23 (3.1-3.4).
3 Regular, saptabodhyanga.
4 See note 1.
5 Regular forms, bodhisattvena mahasattvena (see Edg. II:403, 426).
6 Should be long a (see Watanabe, 171, narya nanarya).
7 Usually without y (*buddhisyati). See Edg. I:148 (31.1) but also 31.2 (badhyisyate). Watanabe, 171, abhisambhotsyate.
8 Unusual form. If it connects with bhus, bhusa then see Edg. I:68 (9.105); u for u in Middle Indic and BHS, see Edg. I:25-26 (3.45-46); see Watanabe, 170, 'bhujisye. s instead of s in BHS is possible.
9 pu may be omitted: anuprapunisyati, see recto 14.
10 Should be one k; see note 2.
11 See verso 4: sarvvakaramjnat[a]; Watanabe, 169, sarvakarajnata. In this line and also in line 11 jna is extra; maybe it is a mistake of the scribe; a in second jna should be short, but the last one long: a.
12 Should be one k; see note 2.
13 See Watanabe, 168, kanksami.