MAHAMAHOPADHYAYA HARAPRASAD SASTRI, Honorary Joint Philological
Secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.
Louis De La Vallee Poussin
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain And Ireland
1903
pp.189--198
p.189
The news that Pandit Haraprasad Sastri was
printing the Catalogue of the Nepal Durbar
Library,(l) and that Professor Cecil Bendall had
agreed to write, as an introduction to this
Catalogue,(2) an essay on the history of Nepal and
surrounding kingdoms, has given me the greatest
satisfaction.
By the recent explorations of such scholars as S.
Levi, C. Bendall and Haraprasad, our knowledge of the
older Buddhist Sanskrit documents has increased. For
years we were obliged to confine our researches to
the MSS. sent to Europe by Hodgson. Then the
Cambridge Catalogue of the Wright Collection marked a
new stage of progress. But now our hopes are better
to-day, as Khotan will not conceal its treasures for
ever; and the time may be coming when, in that field
of Indian philology, the number of our texts promises
to prove a positive embarras de richesse.
We will endeavour to indicate the more
interesting amongst the large number of MSS.
hitherto noticed by Haraprasad, partly in the
Proceedings and in the Journal of the Society of
Bengal, partly in his Report, 1895-1900.
------------------------
1 See the pamphlet published so early as 1868 by the
Resident, Mr. Lawrence; the Cambridge Catalogue;
the account of the Library by Haraprasad in the
Journal of Bengal (lxvi, pt. 1), 1897; S. Levi,
Acad. des Inscriptions, Seance du 27 Janvier 1899;
and C. Bendall, J.R.A.S., 1900, PP. 163 and 345-7.
2 Also published as article, J.A.S.B.
p.190
The Nisvasatattvasamhita(1) seems to be a work
of real interest. The MS. is written in a form of
Gupta which can be at latest referred to the
beginning of the ninth or to the end of the eighth
century. It deals with Tantric matters, but in a very
extraordinary way, the interlocutors being Rsis, men
of the 'old school' of Tantrism! The very subject of
the discourses, according to Haraprasad, is the
non-vaidic initiation or diksa. The Rsis wonder how
there can be such a thing as diksa without any
reference to the Vedas. But the oldest among them
explains that even the great gods like Brahma, Visnu,
and others-not Civa, who is siddha by birth--received
non-vaidic dlksa at the very spot they were sitting
upon, namely, in the celebrated Naimisaranya. The
book is complete, divided into two parts,
Crautasutra, Guhyasutra(? ). Attention must be paid
to the designation 'samhita.' But I do not know if
it deserves to be called "an important original
tantric work"; I feel rather sceptical when
Haraprasad says, " The composition of this work must
go back to the early centuries of the Christian era";
because, so far as we are entitled to make any
conjecture on the original form of the Tantras, it
seems that the very mention of Rsis and such a doubt
on the orthodoxy of rites are rather marks of
posteriority.
Not to the ninth, but at latest to the seventh
century belongs the Kulikamnaya MS., acquired for the
Society of Bengal by their Secretary. "The character
is Gupta. I have carefully compared the letters with
charts of the Gupta alphabet.... The shape of letters
agrees more with those of the Horiuzi palm-leaves
than with any other....; the proportion of open tops
(which, as is well known, are an index of antiquity)
appears to be much larger than in the ninth century
palm-leaves in Professor Bendall's Cambridge
Catalogue." This Tantra, actually incomplete (77
leaves from about 261), is said to have an extent of
6,000 slokas, being a resume of the Kubjikamata
-----------------------
1 See " Proceedings" and "Report" of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal, 1900.
p.191
in 24,000 slokas; four MSS. of the Kubjikamata do
exist, and Haraprasad has ascertained the corelation
of both books. The pagination, with the rather
surprising letters: Sri, below the figure, below Ma
and Sa, refers more probably to the following title:
Clrimate Satsahasre = "page so and so in the
compilation running through 6,000 verses of the
school of the goddess Cri."(1)
The interlocutors being Bhairava and Devi, there
is no doubt about the intimate relation between the
Kubjikamata and the Tantra of the same name, known by
Catalogues (see P.W., sub voc.) and often quoted in
Tantrasara, Anandalahari, and elsewhere (see Oxford
Cat.). This book, therefore, is common and unreadable
literature; but it gives me occasion to quote
Haraprasad: "The Tantras are regarded as very recent
works. Some distinguished Orientalists have
pronounced them to belong to the fourteenth century.
The appearance of these MSS. disproves that assertion
" (Proceedings, April, 1900).
So does the date of the colophon of the MS. of
the Lankavatara, 28th year of the Newar era (908
A.D.). This Lanka "is a work on the treatment of
fever and other diseases by medicine, incantation,
and charms."
But I am afraid Haraprasad does not exactly
realize the meaning of some distinguished
Orientalists as concerns the age of the Tantras. That
the Tantras are older than the fourteenth century
nobody will deny; the dispute, if there is any
dispute, bears first on a considerably older date for
the books, secondly on the rather difficult problem
of the influence of the Tantric ideas in civilized
Buddhist or Brahmanic circles.
I have read with curiosity another note on a very
similar subject. How can we settle this puzzle "that
the pure metaphysical religion of Buddha could be
made the medium of practising immoral and obscene
rites"? "On entering the Svambhu Ksetra [Nepal], I
was, says Harapraead,
--------------------
1 I have seen this 'Sri' in other MSS; but i don't think
it means more than a kind of lucky mark made by
a scribe. It is speciall common in first leaves
of MSS.--Bendall.
p.192
struck with a female figure labelled or inscribed as
Namo-Dharmaya. I at once enquired from the Residency
Pandit. He coolly said Dharma is nothing else but
Prajna," "I know, explains Haraprasad, that Buddha is
never an object of worship. His image is kept in
monasteries simply for the purpose of keeping his
noble example always present before the aspirers to
Nirvana, and so he is the Upaya or means to Nirvana.
I also knew that Prajna or true knowledge is the
great goal..... But none ever suspected that Dharma
and Prajna are identical. This identification
introduced a female deity into the Buddhist Trinity,
and she at once became the mother of all
Bodhisattvas, being [taken as] representing the
Samgha. ...." This hypothesis is clever indeed, and
well deserves notice; nevertheless, one will observe
that the deification of the pantheistic and
idealistic Prajna in the shape of a feminine body is
an altogether Tantric idea; and that the
identification of Dharma with Prajna, parallel to the
identification of Dharma with pratityasamutpada,
known from Pali sources, has not been of any moment
in the development of this idea. Upaya in some cases
is Karuna opposed to Prajna; in Tantric texts of the
Kalacakra school it is synonymous with linga.
Haraprasad has acquired a manuscript of the
Astasahasrika, copied at Nalanda in the sixth year of
the reign of Mahipala (first part of the eleventh
century), and curiously inscribed as written "in the
year indicated in the page mark. This page mark is
303." The era is difficult to ascertain. The MS., as
many other Prajnaparamitas, is enriched with many
illuminations. (Proceedings, March, 1899.)
Four leaves from an old MS. in Bengali
characters, "in fact, intermediate between Gupta and
Bengali," contain fragments of a supplement to the
Amarakosa. The author is a Buddhist; he adds many
synonyms to the Buddhist words--for instance, Gopesa
for Buddha. I do not know if these curious
identifications have been, as it was the intention of
the Pandit, "published in the Journal" (Proceedings,
April, 1900). A MS. of the Amaraku'sa,
p.193
dated 1185, has been noticed by Haraprasad in
1893 (J.A.S.B., p. 250), and should prove useful for
the critic of the text.
Very old is the MS. of the Skandhapurana, in
Gupta hand, to which so early a date as the middle of
the seventh century can be assigned on palaographical
grounds.
As concerns the Buddhist Darcanas, there are
discoveries of first-rate importance. There are,
besides, two MSS. purporting to be works of
Ratnakirti, entitled Apohasiddhi (eight leaves only)
and Ksanabhangasiddhi. A full description of both
occurs in the Report, p. 12, and Haraprasad rightly
insists on their evident importance. "These are the
first treatises written in a philosophical style and
on philosophical topics." This statement is not
perfectly accurate, as the Bodhicaryavatara, the
Madhyamakavrtti, the Abhidharmakosa deserve the
same appreciation. Nyayabindu--I agree with
Haraprasad--is more a treatise on Buddhist logic than
on philosophy, but the whole of the pariccheda on
pratyaksa is a dissertation on the theory of
knowledge. The theory of Apoha is " very important in
Buddhist philosophy." As the nominalism of the school
objects to any idea of genus, the difficulty is got
over by a rather subtle artifice. An asva is not asva
by asvatva, but because he is not a go or anything
different from asva. The asva is atad-vyavytta,
different (vyavrtta) from what is not that (a-tad).
We know the doctrine fairly well, if we do not
realize it (of course! ), by the discussion of
Kumarila (Clokavatrtika). The celebrated Mimamsist,
or his commentator, quotes on the matter, as it has
been said in the Journal (1902, p. 365), a large
number of slokas from the Pramanasamuccaya by
Dignaga. Ratnakirti wrote the Kalyanakanda, the
Dharmaviniccaya (Tanj. Mdo, lxi), a commentary to the
Madhyamakavatara. Being son of the king, he had been
converted by the "Epistle to a pupil" of his friend
Candragomin (Wassilieff). So he was the contemporary
of Candrakirti and of several acaryas of reputation.
The second treatise, Ksanabhangasiddhi, in two
parts, proves "that no entity exists for more than
one ksana."
p.194
The first part, complete in eleven leaves,
proceeds by anvayayvapti (where is existence there is
momentaneity); the second one, incomplete, nine
leaves, by vyatirekavyapti (where is not
momentaneity, there cannot be existence). I do not
believe, as does Haraprasad, that "the author of the
Sarvadarcana probably had Ratnakirti's book before
him, when writing the portion of the work concerned
with Bauddhadarcana, " but in noticing parallel
sentences in both works, also in Udayana's
Bauddhadhikara, Haraprasad shows us that he knows the
right method to follow in editing the book.
Ratnakirti mentions Samkara and Nyayabhusana, an
ancient writer on Mimamsa: "he gives a summary of
Samkar's arguments against the Buddhists in a few
words, and refutes them;.... he shows a mastery over
the Sanskrit language and the philosophical style
which is unique."
A new recension of the Prajnaparamita has been
found, called Sualpaksara, Prajnaparamita in a few
words, three leaves only. " The authorship of the
Prajna is a question involved in obscurity.... There
is one clue to the solution of this question obtained
from the MSS. under notice: they profess to have been
brought from the nether worlds by Nagarjuna:
aryanagarjunapadaih patalad uddhrta. That Nagarjuna
and his learned followers had a hand in the
composition of these works appears to be certain from
this passage." Observe the curious character of this
shortest recension: according to Haraprasad there is
no metaphysic in it, but only common practical
formulas: bodhisattvena mahasattvena samacittena
bhavitavyam, maitricittena..., krtajnena...,
krtavedina...,
The Kavivacanasamuccaya and the Dohakosapanjika
are important books. The first is a Sanskrit
anthology divided into vrajyas (sugatavrajya,
lokecvara, surya....), well furnished with stanzas of
Asvaghosa, Jetari, Ratnakirti ...; the second a
commentary on a Prakrit anthology in the interests of
Buddhism. Professor Bendall is studying
p.195
the last-named, full indeed of difficulties of
several kinds, but well deserving time and labour.
This review must now come to an end; were I to
make it complete, I should merely be giving a new
edition of the Report. My main object has been to
call attention to the achievements of the Pandit
Haraprasad, and to pay to him a tribute of friendship
and of admiration.