Source: Saitō 2001

As part of a larger series of studies of rhyming verse in Chinese Buddhist texts (especially but not exclusively translation texts), Saitō argues that because it contains such verse, which is unusual, the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra 般泥洹經 T6 is in fact by Zhi Qian. In other studies, Saitō had already argued that rhyming verse of this type is characteristic of Zhi Qian. Referring to earlier studies by Iwamatsu Asao, he notes that prior scholars have propounded two main theories about the translatorship of the text, one ascribing it to Zhi Qian, and the other to Dharmarakṣa. He writes somewhat dismissively of the hope that other, more usual methods, based on either the external evidence of the catalogues or the internal evidence of translation terminology and phraseology, can resolve this question, and argues that his own method, using rhyming verse as a touchstone, is therefore our best hope. In his own earlier studies, Saitō had found that only four texts ascribed to Dharmarakṣa contained rhyming verse (T154, T182a/b, T186, and T623 --- note that Saitō confusingly gives the title of T623, 如來獨證自*誓*三昧經, incorrectly as 如來獨證自*制*三昧經, and of the alternate translation ascribed to An Shigao, 自*誓*三昧經 T622, as 自*制*三昧經). In each case, he holds that there is reason to believe that at least the verse portions may in fact derive from earlier Zhi Qian translations. He therefore argues that such verse is not characteristic of Dharmarakṣa, and its presence in T6 allows us to determine that the text is in fact due to Zhi Qian. He argues further that records exist indicating that a fanbai 梵唄 ("Sanskrit-style hymn") was composed on the theme of the MPNS by Kang Senghui 康僧會, based upon the reported translation by Zhi Qian. Although Kang Senghui's text has been lost, Saitō argues that we can find in the present T6 a set of verses which are likely to have formed the basis for this fanbai. Given that Kang Senghui is almost certainly too early to have worked on the basis of a text by Dharmarakṣa, this is additional support for the ascription of T6 to Zhi Qian.

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As part of a larger series of studies of rhyming verse in Chinese Buddhist texts (especially but not exclusively translation texts), Saitō argues that because it contains such verse, which is unusual, the Dhammapada 法句經 T210 is in fact by Zhi Qian. Saitō notes that CSZJJ and GSZ give conflicting reports about the translatorship of the text, CSZJJ ascribing it to Zhi Qian and Jiangyan 將炎, but GSZ ascribing it to *Vighna and Jiangyan. He argues that both *Vighna and Jiangyan would have known too little Chinese to have produced the text, let alone such intricate, rule-bound rhyming verse. He notes that an anonymous preface to the text (T210 [IV] 566b14-c26) reports that the author of the preface 僕 had a disagreement about the translation with others involved in the process, arguing that it was too rough. This same author states that Indic gāthās are similar to Chinese shi 詩, an attitude which Saitō holds was rare in Chinese Buddhist translation history. Saitō argues that it is most plausible that Zhi Qian, whom he has shown elsewhere to have produced verse translations obeying the rhyming rules of the shi 詩 genre, would have held such attitudes, and Zhi Qian is therefore the likely author of the preface; and that the preface gives us reason to believe that Zhi Qian, dissatisfied with the initial product of the translation process, made his own polished revision, one of the hallmarks of which was precisely the rhyming verse we find in the text as extant.

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