Source: Palumbo 2003

Palumbo states that recent scholarship has questioned whether the 太子瑞應本起經 T185 is an original translation. Zürcher has argued that it is "a very able compilation" drawing from at least 修行本起經 T184, 中本起經 T196, 異出菩薩本起經 T188 and one unknown source. Matsuda Yūko (1988) also concluded that there was no Indic text in the same format behind the text. However, Palumbo believes that this "assumption that [T185] is just a compilation of Chinese materials, without a foreign source text, is not as compelling as it might seem". He cites a passage in Zhi Qian's CSZJJ biography which he believes "makes clear that he worked on both the Chinese and the Indian side, and he did have the sources before him when he revised the extant translations". Palumbo himself also holds that it is likely that T188 predates T185.

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205 and n. 110, 206-207

Palumbo's main concern is not to examine the attribution of T588, but to scrutinise the possible authenticity of the anonymous 未詳作者 Xuzhen tianzi jing ji 須真天子經記 (preserved in CSZJJ, presented as if dating to 266). Palumbo 187-191 argues that "several circumstances cast doubt upon [the] precision [of this record], if not its authenticity": the location it gives for the Baima si 白馬寺 is anomalous; the date (the 30th of a given month) is impossible, since that month only had 29 days; it speaks of Dharmarakṣa as a "bodhisattva from India", whereas he was in fact a "sinicized Yuezhi from Dunhuang"; and Dharmarakṣa's name is transcribed rather than given in the usual translation form. Palumbo n. 65 also discusses the problems raised by the fact that the document speaks of "interpreter/translators", 傳言者, whereas elsewhere Dharmarakṣa is said to have been capable of translating directly himself, and these two figures, An Wenhui 安文惠 and Bo Yuanxin 帛元信, do not reappear in Dharmarakṣa's translation team. This might suggest that Dharmarakṣa was at this point in his career still learning Chinese, but Palumbo suggests that "he was presumably fluent in Chinese from the beginning, all the more so since he lived at a crossroads where multilingualism musth have been widespread"; and cites the passage in his biography that says he learned Chinese classics early. Thus, for Palumbo, "the mention of bilingual intermediaries speaks rather against than for the genuineness of the note on the Xuzhen tianzi jing". “This is enough to arouse some doubt on the whole document as it stands, and take a possible forgery into account.”

Palumbo then examines mentions of the title in Sengyou's lists of scriptures. One concise mention (須真天子經二卷(泰始二年十一月出), T2145:55.7c17) "was certainly drawn from the old bibliography compiled by Dao'an...and confirms that Dharmarakṣa did release a translation of the Xuzhen tianzi jing. However, this does not guarantee the authenticity of the note..." Palumbo notes (n. 68) that usually, where he was supplementing Dao'an's list of Dharmarakṣa translations with items he had found in other catalogues, he explicitly noted the fact, and suggests that since he does not do so in this case, "We may be assured that this item actually occurred in Dao'an's catalogue". A second mention of this title is found in a second CSZJJ note on the text (須真天子經二卷(或云須真天子問四事經太始二年十一月八日出)。右一部二卷。晉武帝世。天竺菩薩沙門曇摩羅察口授出。安文惠白元信, 9c9-11, trans. Palumbo 192), which Palumbo says is "not entirely consistent with" the "note" discussed above: it describes An Wuhui and Bo Yuanxin as 筆受, and omits the name of "White Horse Monastery" (and of some of the assistants involved in the translation). Palumbo suggests that "Sengyou...seems to have been unsure whether...Zhu Fahu...and [曇摩羅察] were the same person....Sengyou was probably aware of the inconsistencies in the documents at his disposal, and cautiously decided to report them as they were."

Palumbo suggests that the anonymous "notes of translation" in CSZJJ are not necessarily original colophons, but could rather have been compiled over a period of time, and culled from a variety of sources, "in some cases long after the release of the original issue". (He gives the example of Sengyou's "note" on T202, compiled by Sengyou himself, seventy years after the event, on the basis of an interview with a witness.) "Obviously, the same procedure could be used fraudulently to concoct entirely counterfeit attributions, in other words, to authenticate forged texts....The note on the Xuzhen tianzi jing is just one of thees anonymous records...But whoever wrote that document and for whatever reason he did it, he must have...known genuine sources (including Dao'an's catalogue) attesting that a Xuzhen tianzi jing had been released in the eleventh month of the second year Taishi; the additional information may have been gleaned from these sources, and the names of two out of five collaborators [Nie Chengyuan and Bo Yuanxin]...actually occur in other documents which are not open to doubt (hopefully)."

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187-194

Palumbo argues that the biographies in CSZJJ are earlier than other portions of the text, on the following grounds: glosses are explained with reference to the "language of Qi" 齊言; the latest date in this portion of the text falls around 502-503. He promises to treat this problem in more detail in a study entitled "Forgeries in the Chu sanzang ji ji" (forthcoming). He also refers to Naitō (1958).

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197 n. 87

"I will argue elsewhere my perception that the book is a forgery dating from the middle of the fifth cent., nevertheless consisting for the most part of Han and Three Kingdoms material; this was apparently woven together with great care in order to give the treatise a late Han appearance and serve its rhetorical purpose, which belongs wholly in the religious arguments of 5th-cent. southern China."

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174 n. 21