Epigraphia Indica Vol 21

SR No.: 032575
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hirananda Shastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1931
Total Pages: 398
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XXI.
in its entirety in the Tibetan collection (Cordier, Catalogue p. 365). A gloss on the commentary of Vasubandhu made by Gunamati is also preserved in Tibetan in the same volume of the Bstan hgyur. The title of Vasubandhu's work as preserved in Tibetan is Pratitya-samutpada-vibhanganirdēsa but it was also commonly known as Pratitya-samutpāda-vyākhyā (see the fragment published by Tucci).
The Nālandā text is also preserved in a Chinese translation. It is No. 628 Yuan ki king of Nanjio's Catalogue in which Nanjio has inaccurately restored the title as Nidana-sutra. The translation has been published in Taishō Edition of the Tripitaka, Vol. II (Agama), pp. 547-548 (No. 124). The translation was prepared by Hiuan Tsang on the 9th day of the 7th month of the year 661 A.D. The K'ai yuan she kiao lu (Tokio Ed. p. 706 11) mentions this translation on the authority of an unknown source called Fan king tu and says that it is a different translation of the 46th chapter of the Ekottaragama. The text is found in the Taishō Tripitaka Vol. II, p. 794 Fang niu king. The Ēkōttaragama was translated into Chinese by Gautama Sanghadeva in 383 A.D. A separate translation of the same text was made by Kumarajiva a few years later -viz. the Fang niu king. The same text is also found in another translation in the Chinese Samyukta-Agama (Taishō II, p. 342, Ch. 47, Nos. 1248-1249). An examination of the texts shows that Samyukta 1248 is identical with the Chullagopalaka-suttanta and Samyukta 1249 with the Mahagopalaka-suttanta of the Pali Majjhima (Nos. 34 and 33). To this latter correspond also the text translated by Kumarajiva and that of the Ekōttara. But I fail to understand why the Chinese sources, and after them the Japanese editors, think that the Chinese version of the Gopalaka-sutta is a different translation of the Pratityasamutpada-sutra. Even a superficial examination of this text will show that it has no fundamental relation with the Pratityaspada-útra.
Dr. Chakravarti has suggested a relation of the Nālandā text with the Desana and Vibhanga of the Pali Samyutta, II, pp. 1 ff. The Desana consists of two parts, Pratitya-samutpada and its nirodha. The first part of the Desana which deals with the Pratitya-samutpada is almost identical with the corresponding part of the Nalanda text but the portion dealing with the nirodha is not found in the Nālandā text. Besides, though the Vibhanga portion is fundamentally the same in both the texts, in the Samyutta text it is given in an inverse order beginning with the jara-marana. Moreover the Vibhanga portion in the Samyutta is much more amplified than that in the Nālandā text. The Samyutta text (including the Pratitya-samutpada, its nirōdha and its vibhanga) really corresponds with section 298 of the Chinese Samyukta (Taishō Ed. II, pp. 85 ff.) which was translated by Gunabhadra in the beginning of the 5th century A.D. The original text of the Samyukta had been brought to China from India by Fa Hien in 414 A.D." The Sanskrit original of the Desana (the Pratitya-samutpada and Nirodha portions only) was discovered by Dr. Hirananda Sastri in a copper plate inscription found at Kasia (ancient Kuśinagara). It was published by Mr. F. E. Pargiter in the Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey 1910-1911, pp. 71 ff. A comparison of the Pali, Sanskrit and Chinese versions of the Desana shows that the Sanskrit text was the original on which the Chinese translation was based. The formula, yad-ut-asmin-sat-idam bhavaty=asy-otpādād=idam-utpadyate, which occurs in the Kasia and Nalanda text is not found in the Pali Desana but occurs in the Chinese translation. The Chinese text of the Samyukta has on the whole greater affinities with the Nālandā and Kasiā texts of the Pratitya-samutpada and its Vibhanga than with the Samyutta text of Desana and Vibhanga.
1 Nanjio 627, Taisho Ed. II, p. 546; Bagchi, Le Canon Bouddhique I, p. 196" Sūtra on a pastor". See Bagchi, Le Canon Bouddhique, pp. 347 and 382.