Loukota, Diego. "Made in China? Sourcing the Old Khotanese Bhaiṣajyaguruvaiḍūryaprabhasūtra." JAOS 139, no. 1 (2019): 67-90.
| Assertion | Argument | Place in source |
|---|---|---|
|
Loukota notes that strictly speaking, only the second fascicle of Yijing's T451 can be considered a version of the Bhaiṣajyaguru-sūtra. The text as a whole is, rather, a translation of a larger work that contains the Bhaiṣajyaguru, which is also extant in Tibetan, namely, the *Saptatathāgatapūrvapraṇidhānaviśeṣavistara or De bzhin gshegs pa bdun gyi sngon gyi smon lam gyi khyad par rgyas pa. |
70 |
Loukota argues that the Khotanese fragments of the Bhaiṣajyaguru-sūtra represent a version of the text translated from the version now incorporated in the Consecration Sūtra as T1331(12). Loukota notes and summarises former studies, classical and modern, of the provenance of this text, including Strickmann, and the treatment of the text by Sengyou (CSZJJ) and Fei Zhangfang (LDSBJ). As he notes, Strickmann regarded the text as the probable kernel out of which the entire Consecration Sūtra evolved. Sengyou states firmly, and in detail, that the text was a composition rather than a translation, made by Huijian 惠簡 in 457. Fei, by contrast, treated the text as a genuine translation, and ascribed it to *Śrīmitra—the ascription still borne by T1331 in its entirety in T. Loukota illustrates the affinity he perceives between T1331(12) and the Khotanese fragments by analysing in parallel the Chinese and Khotanese of the longest and most substantial passage still preserved in the Khotanese corpus. For the same passage, he also presents Schopen's translation from Sanskrit. Loukota argues that the sequence of events is similar in Khotanese and Chinese, in a way that departs from the "mainstream" version represented by Sanskrit; and also, that Khotanese and Chinese share many details. At the same time, he notes that in other respects, Khotanese seems closer to the "mainstream" version, e.g. in a fuller list of afflictions that might overcome a dying person. He also identifies what he regards as Chinese cultural elements paralleled in Khotanese, such as a reference to acupuncture and moxibustion, or a reference to specifics of astronomy in a description of black magical methods (76-77). Loukota discusses critically, and in detail, the question of whether the Khotanese fragments can all be regarded as belonging to the same text. He cites and agrees with Skjærvø, who groups the corpus into six different manuscripts. He holds that T1331(12) underlies them all. He dwells most upon Manuscript F, which is most divergent, and speculates that it represents a version of the text still ultimately deriving from T1331(12), but later updated. In some places, he identifies details that he believes show that this revision was made with reference to Sanskrit; and he likens this to the apparent process by which later Chinese versions were produced, and their relation to T1331(12) itself. Loukota proposes that two alternate explanations might explain this pattern in the textual evidence (81 ff.). The first is that the "Old Khotanese" based upon T1331(12) was updated on the basis of a Sanskrit text, which, in accordance with the pattern usual in history, had been transmitted from points further West, and perhaps ultimately India. The other, however, is that the Sanskrit text was itself produced in Sanskrit "more as a revision than strictly a translation of the Khotanese text". This would make the Sanskrit a rare and significant case of a text produced by transmission processes operating in a direction opposite to the norm. He believes that this second, more radical hypothesis is supported by the relative dates of the Chinese and Sanskrit materials (all extant Sanskrit evidence is later than Huijian); and also some details, such as the possibility that the name of the Bodhisattva Trāṇamukta (Tib. Skyabs grol) is better explained as a back-translation from 救脫 than the reverse; details of the description of the "nine untimely deaths", which Schopen had already noted is not well integrated with the remainder of the text in the "mainstream" version; the fact that questioning about means of prolonging life would (supposedly) be unusual in India, but expected in China; that a system of training for bodhisatvas (bodhisattvasaṃvaram ... śikṣāpādānāṃ) would be more at home in China, where we find an emphasis on bodhisattva precepts; and that details of a critique of blood sacrifice in honour of ancestors also sounds more at home in Chinese religion than Indian. Loukota concedes that none of this evidence constitutes conclusive proof that the Sanskrit was ultimately derived from the Chinese, rather than the reverse, but that it makes his hypothesis plausible (83). In an Appendix, Loukota lists further words and phrases shared by T1331(12) and Khotanese to the exclusion of other versions of the text. |