Source: Nogami 1950

Nogami argues that the "new" Sukhāvatīvyūha 無量壽經 T360 was more probably translated by Dharmarakṣa. In so doing, he argues against what he characterises as a standard view, by his time, that it was translated by Buddhabhadra and Baoyun, which was the view of scholars such as Sakaino, Tokiwa, Mochizuki and Tsukamoto (though he also notes that it was not an absolute consensus, and mentions such dissenters as Izumi Hōkei 泉芳璟). He characterises the attribution to Buddhabhadra and Baoyun as based primarily upon mention in the text of a *buddhāvataṃsakasamādhi (得佛華嚴三昧。宣揚演說一切經典 etc., T360:12.266b13), which is thought to support some connection with the Buddhabhadra (earliest) translation of the *Buddhāvataṃasaka 大方廣佛華嚴經 T278; and the resemblance of translation terminology to other texts by Buddhabhadra-Baoyun, especially the Buddacarita 佛本行經 T193.

The primary grounds upon which Nogami advocates consideration of reattribution to Dharmarakṣa is the discovery of a Dunhuang manuscript copy of T360, held by Ōtani University, with a colophon giving a date of Shenrui 神瑞 2 = 415 CE. This date is incompatible with the date of 421 given in CSZJJ for the Buddhabhadra-Baoyun translation. Nogami is absolutely certain that the colophon is written in the same hand as the rest of the manuscript, and therefore places total confidence in the date. He therefore regards the evidence of the colophon as necessarily overturning the attribution to Buddhabhadra and Baoyun, regardless of whom we then put in their place. In considering the alternative ascriptions this leaves open, he first rejects the ascription (as in the Taishō) to Kang Sengkai 康僧鎧. He notes that this ascription is first found in the notoriously unreliable LDSBJ, and that it found its way into the modern canon via Zhisheng, who took up the ascription in KYL. However, Fajing and Yancong, in the same period as Fei Changfang, ascribed the extant text to Dharmarakṣa; the style of the text is not archaic enough for Kang Sengkai; and some scholars have even questioned the very existence of Kang Sengkai, wondering whether the name might stem from some confusion with the name of the much better-known Kang Seng*hui* 康僧會, active in the same period.

Nogami is careful not to characterise his arguments in support of Dharmarakṣa as "proof", and aims only to show that there are grounds enough to investigate the possibility of this ascription further. He notes again that this ascription is supported by Fajing and Yancong, and that CSZJJ also includes information that indicates that Dharmarakṣa at least translated *a* Sukhāvatīvyūha [whether or not it was the extant T360]. He adduces arguments by Izumi Hōkei that the terminology of T360 resembles that of other Dharmarakṣa texts such as the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka 正法華經 T263 and the 佛昇忉利天為母說法經 T815. However, he then mounts something of a broadside against the use of terminological and stylistic evidence altogether, noting that Mochizuki concluded that the phraseology of T360 precisely did *not* resemble that of T263, and used such evidence to argue *against* the ascription of T360 to Dharmarakṣa. He argues, more generally, that use of such evidence to assess ascriptions to Dharmarakṣa is likely to be problematic, given that Dharmarakṣa was active for four decades, moved and worked over such a wide geographic area, and was assisted by quite a large number of collaborators (e.g. as amanuenses 筆受). [MR---Nogami certainly has a good point when he argues that for these reasons, we cannot use any *single* text, however famous it might be, such as T263, as the benchmark of Dharmarakṣa's style.] For this reason, he says he prefers to use the colophon date of 415, which he regards as rock-solid, as a starting point. He argues that in such turbulent times as the fourth-fifth centuries, texts would have taken a long time to circulate, and the gap of 107 years between the date recorded for of Dharmarakṣa's translation of the Sukhāvatīvyūha and the Ōtani manuscript date of Shenrui 2 = 415 fits such a picture. He then argues that passages in Zhi Dun 支遁 and Xi Chao 郄超 show possible influence from the content and wording of T360.

In the case of Xi Chao, the phrases Nogami adduces are: 愍傷眾生 [which, however, only appears once in T360, and is found in other works by Dharmarakṣa, T152, etc.---MR]; 蠕動之類 [twice in T360, but common in a range of early texts]; 端心正意 [in fact, very rare, and never found in any other Dharmarakṣa text; concentrated in the works of Zhu Fonian, his associates and contemporaries, except for two instances in "Bo Fazu" T5 and "Faju" T33]; and 兩舌惡口妄言綺語 [once in T360; rare but attested in other Dharmarakṣa works].

Edit