Source: Silk 2008

Silk examines the Ji fayue she ku tuoluoni jing 集法悅捨苦陀羅尼經 [JSTJ] as a test-case in the nature and significance of materials "between translation and composition", and the methodological problems entailed in handling such materials. The JSTJ is extant only in Chinese. It has not survived as an independent text, but was transmitted independently at one time, and is mentioned as a separate text by Fajing, LDSBJ, Yancong, and DZKZM (though in some cases as a biesheng 別生 or chaojing 抄經). Today, the JSTJ is extant only as part of three larger canonical texts: the 觀虛空藏菩薩經 T409; the 七佛八菩薩所說大陀羅尼神咒經 T1332; and the 陀羅尼雜集 T1336. It appears in all three of these texts in the Jin and Koryŏ canons, but in the Qisha lineage, only in T1336. A note in the Koryŏ also says that the JSTJ was not found in the Khitan and Liao versions of T409; and it is not found in the Fangshan stone canon versions of T409 and T1332.

Of these texts, T409 is ascribed to Dharmamitra, but Silk cites Tsukinowa suggesting that all ascriptions to this figure are suspect. However, Silk says that "the dating of the text" (to around 442) is nevertheless probably generally correct". This may not help us date the JSTJ, as it may not have contained the JSTJ at the time of composition (note that it is still missing from some versions of the text, as mentioned above). T1332 is first mentioned in the DTNDL; Silk (377) translates a note from KYL noting that it had the same title as a text ascribed to Zhi Qian, but differing in length, and refraining from identifying the two. Silk is inclined to agree, and concludes tentatively that T409 may indeed have existed by the fourth or fifth century, but there is no guarantee that it, too, contained JSTJ at that time. T1336 is ascribed to the early 6th century on the basis of KYL. Silk concludes, as regards the dating of the text, that "the only really firm date we have to work with...is...the first catalogue reference in...593 [=Fajing]," but that "the simple confluence of certain...information, including the presence of the JSTJ in [T409, T1332, and T1336] in one canonical lineage, seems to suggest that JSTJ was established already in the fifth century in China."

Thus, the JTSJ is unknown outside China. Silk also notes that there are reasons to regard T409 and T1332 as Chinese compilations or compositions, in their present form. As for T1336, Zhisheng opines (note translated by Silk, 397) that it is a "locally produced abbreviated compilation" 次方抄集. Later in the paper, Silk also finds that the transcribed text of the actual dhāraṇī portion of the text is almost entirely intractable to attempts to discover the underlying Sanskrit. All this evidence might suggest that JSTJ is a pure Chinese composition. In the second part of the paper, however, Silk compares detailed elements in its frame narrative, which he identifies as a version of known narratives about Mahādeva, with other versions known in both India and China. Silk shows that the frame narrative accurately preserves elements known only in some very particular versions of the Mahādeva story in India (particularly in the *Vibhāṣā), but that versions of the narrative containing those elements could not have been known in China in the period when the JSTJ was already in circulation.

Silk summarises: "Despite the considerable circumstantial evidence, beginning with sūtra catalogues which are unable to provide any details about the translation of the work, and including the irregular mode of its transmission apparently centrally, though not exclusively, as an intrusion within other works, suggestive of an 'apocryphal' origin, we must conclude that the work nevertheless is, at least in part, genuinely and authentically Indian" (401).

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"As extended units, both the [七佛八菩薩所說大陀羅尼神咒經 T1332] and the [觀虛空藏菩薩經 T409] were obviously heavily edited, if not outright compiled or composed, in China." Silk cites Strickmann (1996): 73-74, characterising T1332 as an "obvious melange of prototantric elements and Chinese practices. Already, in passing from the bodhisattvas to the planetary spirits, we begin to notice, despite the Indian trappings, that we are truly under the skies of China."

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The Touluoni za ji 陀羅尼雜集 T1336 is ascribed to the early 6th century on the basis of KYL. Zhisheng opines (note translated in Silk [2008]: 397) that it is a "locally produced abbreviated compilation" 次方抄集, on the grounds that it incorporates other known works. Silk argues that if it were a genuine translation text, the presence of material derived from earlier Chinese sources might be explained by translators relying upon earlier translations for portions they recognised as having already been translated before them.

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