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) The 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.