An Old Tibetan Dunhuang Manuscript of the Avaivartikacakrasūtra (original) (raw)
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A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO TWO MANUSCRIPTS OF BODHISATTVĀVADĀNAKALPALATĀ FOUND IN TIBET
Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 2019
There are two Sanskrit manuscripts of Kṣemendra’s Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā preserved at Dre- pung Monastery in Tibet. The earlier one (according to the colophon) contains all the 108 avadānas comprising the whole text, while the later one only includes the last 61 avadānas. In this paper, we compare and analyse two paratextual elements of the extant versions, namely, pallava-endings and prologue, in order to know how frequently the translator Shong ton Rdo rje rgyal mtshan and the redactor Zha lu lotsāva Chos skyong bzang po used these two manuscripts.
Bulletin of The Institute of Oriental Philosophy, 2011
The concept of the irreversible (avaivartika) bodhisattva is considered to be one of the more intriguing subjects in the historical development of Mahāyāna Buddhism due to the concept’s prevalence, yet obscure meaning, in many Mahāyāna sūtras. The term occurs in a great number of sūtras in a variety of different forms within various contexts. In most instances the term and its related forms designate a certain status of attainment on the way to full Buddhahood. The term generally signifies a point reached in the career of a bodhisattva after which there can be no turning back from the attainment of full Buddhahood. The concept of avaivartika (generally translated in Chinese as 不退bu tui, Jpn. futai, “non-regression” or transliterated from the Indic as 阿惟越致 a wei ye zhi, Jpn. ayuiocchi [=avivartiya, avivartya] or 阿é跋致a bi ba zhi, Jpn. abibacchi [=avivartika])1) has great importance in contemporary strands of Mahåyåna Buddhism found in China, Japan, and Tibet. This paper investigates avaivartika (along with its equivalents) and avaivartikacakra in a select number of self-proclaimed Mahāyāna sūtras. The paper examines the development and formation of avaivartika as a status marking term in Mahāyāna sūtras and explains its rhetorical use among bodhisattva authorial communities. The paper then discusses the use of the term avaivartikacakra in Mahāyāna discourse with special attention to its occurence in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka (Lotus sūtra).
The World of the Orient, 2024
The paper is dedicated to the contextual study of the Bhadracaryāpraṇidhāna (Tib. Bzang spyod smon lam), i.e., Aspiration for Good Conduct, one of the most important Mahāyāna aspiration prayers (Skt. praṇidhāna, Tib. smon lam). The aim of the paper is to examine the Sanskrit text of the Bhadracaryāpraṇidhāna, including its dates, literary genre, doctrinal context, textual witnesses, and references in other ancient Indian texts, and then explore its Tibetan translation -- the history of its creation, translators, and an alternative translation version preserved within the Dunhuang collection of Tibetan manuscripts. The historical context of the Sanskrit Bhadracaryāpraṇidhāna is chronologically limited to the time starting from the date of historical Buddha (c. the 5th century BCE) to the end of the 12th century CE when Buddhism largely disappeared from India, and the historical context of its Tibetan translation -- to the time of early spread (snga dar) (c. 641-842) and later spread (spyi dar) (986--the beginning of the 14th century) of Buddhism in Tibet. Thereby the paper contributes to the field of Mahāyāna philosophical and linguistic research in general, and to the further advancement of scholarship on the Bhadracaryāpraṇidhāna in particular.
The Catalogue of Texts of the Tibetan Buddhist Canon Kept at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, RAS. Vol. 3: Separate Texts and Collections (I) / Ed. by A. Zorin. — St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg Centre for Oriental Studies Publishers, 2020. — 660 p.: il (Orientalia)., 2020
The collection of Tibetan block prints and manuscripts kept at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, the Russian Academy of Sciences, is one of the world’s largest collections of old Tibetan texts. Editions of the Tibetan Buddhist Canon and separate editions of some canonical texts comprise a significant part of this collection. Their description is to be presented in the first part of its catalogue. It will consist of four volumes. Volumes 1 and 2 (2017, 2019) included the data on the complete editions of the Tibetan Buddhist Canon (Bka’ ’gyur and Bstan ’gyur) kept at the IOM RAS. Volume 3 contains information on the manuscript copies of certain volumes of the canon, separate editions and manuscript copies of large texts of the Bka’ ’gyur (the data on the texts of this category is presented in two sections) and editions of the Gzungs bsdus and Mdo mang collections (more than 3,800 items in total). The volume is supplied with indices and concordances, and a table of stamps.
Education Materialised, edited by Stefanie Brinkmann, Giovanni Ciotti, Stefano Valente and Eva Maria Wilden, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2021
The present article deals with a palm-leaf manuscript that contains multiple texts in Sanskrit language (and one text in Apabhraṃśa) and is written in Old Bengali script. It is an autograph of - or at least closely associated with - the Indian Buddhist Tantric master Vanaratna (1384-1468 CE). The manuscript contains not only texts copied from other manuscripts but also Vanaratna's Sanskrit translations of seemingly orally transmitted texts in Tibetan language, which the Indian master must have received during one of his travels to Tibet. Because hardly any cases are known of translation of Tibetan texts into Sanskrit, the present manuscript is a document of unique historical value. The article gives an overview of the contents of the manuscript, tries to identify the Tibetan master of Vanaratna and provides an introductory discussion of the processes and purposes of adaptation at work here.