A Fragment of the Vajrāmṛtamahātantra (original) (raw)
Related papers
2017
The core of the paper consists of the editio princeps of a long fragment of the Sanskrit text of the Vajrāmṛtatantra, one of the earliest Buddhist Yoginītantras, preserved in a manuscript of the Cambridge University Library (MS Or.158.1). The introduction contains information on the text and on its translation and commentaries, as well a description of the manuscript used, a description of the linguistic and stylistic features of the work, and a detailed synopsis of its contents. When necessary, references to the unpublished commentary by Śrībhānu are given in the notes of the critical apparatus. 1 Introductory remarks
Dissertation in Buddhist Studies submitted at Hamburg (Sanskrit/Tibetan), 2022
The research findings for this study can be grouped under the following three Categories: 1. First of all, this study includes a thoroughly annotated translation of the opening sections of the fourth chapter of Yaśomitra’s Abhidharmakośavyākhyā IV.1–4, an early sixth century commentary on of Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośabhāṣya, wherein Vasubandhu offers a basic exposition of Buddhist causality that has remained a pivotal resource in the traditional dissemination of Buddhist thought on that topical cluster. To date, said section in the Abhidharmakośavyākhyā had only been available in the original Sanskrit, its Tibetan and Chinese Translations, and, more recently, as a modern translation in the Japanese medium. Burnouf (1876, p. 399), amongst other scholars, had already by the mid-to-late nineteenth century understood Yaśomitra’s commentary to be a philosophically significant and historically impactful work, an early Buddhist commentary that is not only deeply embedded in the academic tradition of Nālandā-University, but that is also the only fully extant Sanskrit commentary to the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya known to date. The extract chosen for translation centers on an exposition of early Buddhist causal models that contextualizes and elucidates early conceptions of the relation-ship between cause and effect; Abhidharmakośavyākhyā IV.1–4 has hereby been rendered accessible, for the first time, to the wider academic community, therein allowing for further philosophical, historical, and linguistic analysis by contemporary scholarls. 2. Secondly, this study assesses the philosophical debate between the Sarvāstivāda-school on the one hand, andn the Yogācāras on the other. The former posit that any phenomenon can be broken down into a clearly defined, limited number of ‘basic building blocks’ (dharmā) that in turn, by dint of their causal efficacy, need to be based on a positively established ontology (Dhammajoti 2015b, p. 74); the latter expend effort to refute any inherent link beteween causal efficacy and any such reified, positively established, ontological status. The extract contained in this study has been chosen with a focus on the exposition of the Sarvāstivādin concepts of vijñapti, avijñapti, and avijñaptirūpa—avijñapti in particular being considered by the Sarvāstivādins as indispensable and immutable ‘sustaining link’ between cause and effect. The counterarguments fielded by the Yogācāra-school, are likewise rendered, together with an assessment of the degree and scope of their cogency. 3. The translation of Abhidharmakośavyākhyā IV.1–4 contained in this study is based on a philological study and text-critical edition both of the Sanskrit original and its Tibetan translation. A fully positive apparatus records all variant readings of the seven Sanskrit manuscripts and three Sanskrit Editions, taking into consideration scholarly observations made by Funabashi, Sako, and others. Likewise, the principal transmission lines of the Tibetan commentarial canon (Bstan ’gyur)—inter alia Cone, Derge, Narthang and Peking—have been critically collated and certain readings amended, taking into account novel insights provided in secondary literature. URN: urn:nbn:de:gbv:18-ediss-112160 URL: https://ediss.sub.uni-hamburg.de/handle/ediss/10483
The Mahavadanasutra A Reconstruction of Chapter VI ＆ V
1985
His publications of a number of Buddhist Agamas found in Central Asia are excellent examples of precise textcritical research works. Das Mahavadanasutra is also one of the important parts in this series. We owe a great deal to his work which tried to portray the Mahavadanasutra in its natural and full form by attentive reading of fragmentary manuscripts leading to a reconstruction of it based on the Pali and Chinese versions. Philological work has, however, improved and changed considerably during these thirty years after the publication of Dr. Waldschmidt's
This paper is centred on the first edition of a Sanskrit palm-leaf fragment of the Rigyaralli (Add.1680.12), a slightly obscure, late Buddhist tantra. The introductory study contains a description of the multiple-text manuscript the fragment is transmitted in, an examination of testimonia, a brief overview of the Tibetan translation of the tantra and some related literature, and a short note on the pantheon. I argue that the text must date from the early 11 th c. CE. Accompanied by a tentative translation and some notes, the edition is given in two forms: critical and diplomatic. || 1 Isaacson, personal communication, 2008. Luo 2010 has used the Buddhakapāla fragment for his edition; a study of the Vajrāmṛta is currently under preparation by Francesco Sferra (see his contribution to the present volume). 2 http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-OR-00158-00001/1\. Brought to you by |
The Saṃskṛtāsaṃskṛtaviniścaya (“An Analysis of the Conditioned and the Unconditioned”) is a learned Buddhist scholastic work by an otherwise little-known paṇḍita, Daśabalaśrīmitra (c. late 12th to early 13th c., Magadha/East India). The original Sanskrit was hitherto thought lost; we could access the work only in Tibetan translation. This paper presents the only known Sanskrit fragment, (re-)discovered in the Cambridge University Library (Ms. Or. 157.2).
The Late Khotanese text currently known under the conventional title of Book of Vimalakirti (= Vim) is a compendium of Mahayanist doctrines. It is possibly an original Khotanese composition, though it relies heavily on Indian sources. The extant portion of the text is contained in two miscellaneous manuscripts from Dunhuang: lines 224-386 of manuscript Ch 00266 of the British Library (= Vien C) and lines 1-60 of manuscript P 2026 of the Bibliothéque nationale de France (= Vim P). Vim C was first edited by Harold Walter Bailey in 1951 in his Khotanese Buddhist Texts (KBT 104-113), whereas Vien P was edited but not identified by him in 1956 in the third volume of his Khotanese Texts (KT 3.48-50). The overlap between lines 1-22 of Vim P and the last lines of Vim C (lines 368-386) was recognised by Ronald Eric Emmerick (Studies 2.118 s.v.-mya-). While this article was in the press, a new edition and a provisional translation of Vim C and the overlapping lines of Vim P have been provided by Prods O. Skjerve (SDTV 6.489-499), * Jam grateful to my late teacher and friend Ronald E. Emmerick, to Francesco Sferra and to Fabrizio Torricelli for useful comments on a preliminary draft of this article, and to Hisao Inagaki for presenting me with a copy of his recent book (Amida Dharani Siitra and Fianagarbha's Commentary, 1999) that I needed for this article.