Source: Unebe 1970

Mizuno Kōgen had argued that a number of individual Āgama discourses scattered through the canon are vestiges of second translations of the Ekottarikāgama and Madhyamāgama [Mizuno also ascribed both of these otherwise lost collections to Zhu Fonian, while supporting the traditional ascriptions of the extant full collections T125 and T26 respectively to Saṅghadeva --- though Unebe does not address this aspect of Mizuno's argument directly].

Unebe notes that in fact, prefaces credit Zhu Fonian as the actual translator of EĀ (like a range of other texts), and also document other collaborations with *Dharmanandin (the reported "translator" of the supposedly lost "second EĀ"). On this basis, Unebe explores the hypothesis that in fact, the extant EĀ T125 was translated by Zhu Fonian. He bases his argument primarily on internal evidence, viz., the close study of a limited set of interrelated stylistic markers, though he also pays ample attention to external evidence (in the biographies, catalogues, and primary documents of CSZJJ, etc.). In fact, Unebe also presents his study in part as a methodological model and overt manifesto for better attention to internal evidence in attribution studies.

Unebe first surveys external evidence to identify all the works that are ascribed to ZFn as the real translator in one source or another: T1, T125, T194, T212, T309, T384, T385, T656, T1505, T1543, T1549, and T2045. He then explains his method for the treatment of internal evidence using the example of translations of samyaksaṃbuddha, on which he had already published previously.

The core of Unebe's argument about Zhu Fonian's works centers on terms for the members of the eightfold path of the noble ones (*āryāṣṭāṅgamārga). Unebe compares translations of these terms in translators from An Shigao down to Zhu Fonian, Saṅghadeva and Kumārajīva (results tabulated, 26-27). From the ZFn corpus, Unebe examines translations of individual members of this eightfold set in T1, T125, T194, T309, T1505, T1543, T1549. He finds that generally speaking, Zhu Fonian consistently renders samyak- (in saṃyagdr̥ṣṭi, saṃyaksaṃkalpa, etc.) as deng 等: e.g. 等見、等治、等語、等業/等行、等命、等方便、等念、等定/等三昧 (with some interesting variation in both order and two individual terms, 等行 vs. 等業 and 等定 vs. 等三昧; 11). This is in striking contrast to the usual practice of all other translators in the same period, who use zheng 正. The terms with deng- therefore constitute a strong marker of Zhu Fonian's style and corpus.

Unebe finds two exceptions to this pattern in Zhu Fonian's corpus. First, the Dīrghāgama T1 never uses terms with deng-, but always uses zheng-. Second, the pattern in EĀ T125 is even more peculiar. There, we find two groups: both deng- and zheng-. Renditions with deng-, moreover, are only found in six times, in a small group of EĀ discourses: 10.2, 19.2, 23.9 (twice), 24.5, 42.3 (see p. 11). Unebe deduces that the zheng-type renderings point to revision of EĀ at some time after it was originally produced. Since the deng-type renderings are more typical of Zhu Fonian, Unebe proposes that they preserve traces of the original “Dharmanandin translation”, for which Zhu Fonian served as the actual translator, and which has generally been considered lost.

Unebe argues that this evidence allows us to draw several inferences about our extant EĀ T125 (28-29). First, it shows clearly that Zhu Fonian was involved in the production of the text in some form, at some stage of its history. Second, it shows that the text includes a layer reflecting revision. Third, it allows Unebe to nuance the very notion of ascription and translatorship for this case. Against the traditional notion of two (independent) translations (and against Mizuno, who accepts this notion), Unebe proposes that it is more reasonable to think in terms of an initial translation, and then a subsequent revision of that translation (he extends this argument to the Madhyamāgama as well). For Unebe, the texts regarded by Mizuno as the "alternative" translations of EĀ and MĀ (which Mizuno believes were due to Zhu Fonian) were probably the pre-revision (actual) translations, produced in both cases by Zhu Fonian. In support of this hypothesis, Unebe cites four texts from Mizuno's "alternate MĀ", and two from his "alternate EĀ", which feature (some of) the same terms with deng- that are typical of Zhu Fonian: respectively, T66, T70, T75, and T83 (MĀ); and T127 and T140 (EĀ). This inference implies that Saṅghadeva is the most likely candidate for the layer of revision preserved in the extant EA T125—but Unebe notes that this is only a possibility, and the reviser need not have been Saṅghadeva.

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