Source: Loukota 2019a

Loukota Sanclemente, Diego. "The Goods that Cannot Be Stolen: Mercantile Faith in Kumāralāta's Garland of Examples Adorned by Poetic Fancy." PhD diss., UCLA, 2019.

Assertions

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In his dissertation on the Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā Dṛṣṭāntapaṅkti (hereafter the Garland), Loukota challenges the traditional ascription to Kumārajīva of the main Chinese translation (also the only complete version in any language), the Da zhuangyan lun jing 大莊嚴論經 T201. He first considers the external evidence, pointing out that T201 was first ascribed to Kumārajīva only in Fajing’s Zhongjing mulu, but not in Sengyou’s Chu sanzang jiji. Since ample time elapsed between Kumārajīva’s career and Sengyou, and Sengyou based his ascription directly on Kumārajīva’s disciples’ records, we have reasons to doubt Fajing’s ascription.

Turning to internal evidence, Loukota not only challenges the current ascription, but further suggests re-ascribing T201 to Zhu Fonian, or at least to someone from his circle. First, he reviews previous scholars’ assessment of the ascription, including Kanno, who categorizes the language of T201 as kyūyaku 旧訳, i.e. no later than Kumārajīva. If T201 is not by Kumārajīva, then it should be from a contemporary. Chronologically, Zhu Fonian’s biography, which Loukota also reviews, fits this condition. Loukota then lists 11 items from his own lexical analysis of a single story in the collection, T201(3), which he characterises as “preliminary but statistically significant”. His evidence includes 11 words/phrases he judges to be characteristic or even unique to Zhu Fonian (Diego's full list of ostensible markers is: 詣, 愚無智慧, 毀、譽, 僂脊, 歡慶, 改悔, 獨一己, 輕蔑, 𠎝(var. 愆)咎, 黔毘羅, 伴黨). He also suggests that some of the works translated by Zhu Fonian share certain stylistic affinities with T201, such as T194 and T2045, which are similarly in a literary vein. Loukota acknowledges that re-ascribing T201 to Zhu Fonian does not solve the problem that Sengyou did not include T201 in his catalogue, but argues that the ascription is more fitting for the reasons mentioned above.

Lastly, Loukota also compares one of the stories quoted by Da zhidu lun (T1509, ascribed to Kumārajīva) that are from the Garland with the corresponding story in T201. In doing so, he demonstrates that the translation in T1509 is much more faithful to both the content and the poetic style than T201. At the same time, he also points out the couple of Chinese literary tropes shared by the two texts (e.g. 秀眉), arguing that this supports his theory that the texts were produced in the same milieu, i.e. early 5th century Chang-an. For Loukota, this serves as further support for his theory that Zhu Fonian produced T201, and not Kumārajīva.

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 In his dissertation on the Kalpanamanditika Drstantapankti (hereafter the Garland), Loukota challenges the traditional ascription to Kumarajiva of the main Chinese translation (also the only complete version in any language), the Da zhuangyan lun jing 大莊嚴論經 T201. He first considers the external evidence, pointing out that T201 was first ascribed to Kumarajiva only in Fajing’s Zhongjing mulu, but not in Sengyou’s Chu sanzang jiji. Since ample time elapsed between Kumarajiva’s career and Sengyou, and Sengyou based his ascription directly on Kumarajiva’s disciples’ records, we have reasons to doubt Fajing’s ascription. Turning to internal evidence, Loukota not only challenges the current ascription, but further suggests re-ascribing T201 to Zhu Fonian, or at least to someone from his circle. First, he reviews previous scholars’ assessment of the ascription, including Kanno, who categorizes the language of T201 as kyuyaku 旧訳, i.e. no later than Kumarajiva. If T201 is not by Kumarajiva, then it should be from a contemporary. Chronologically, Zhu Fonian’s biography, which Loukota also reviews, fits this condition. Loukota then lists 11 items from his own lexical analysis of a single story in the collection, T201(3), which he characterises as “preliminary but statistically significant”. His evidence includes 11 words/phrases he judges to be characteristic or even unique to Zhu Fonian (Diego's full list of ostensible markers is: 詣, 愚無智慧, 毀、譽, 僂脊, 歡慶, 改悔, 獨一己, 輕蔑, 𠎝(var. 愆)咎, 黔毘羅, 伴黨). He also suggests that some of the works translated by Zhu Fonian share certain stylistic affinities with T201, such as T194 and T2045, which are similarly in a literary vein. Loukota acknowledges that re-ascribing T201 to Zhu Fonian does not solve the problem that Sengyou did not include T201 in his catalogue, but argues that the ascription is more fitting for the reasons mentioned above. Lastly, Loukota also compares one of the stories quoted by Da zhidu lun (T1509, ascribed to Kumarajiva) that are from the Garland with the corresponding story in T201. In doing so, he demonstrates that the translation in T1509 is much more faithful to both the content and the poetic style than T201. At the same time, he also points out the couple of Chinese literary tropes shared by the two texts (e.g. 秀眉), arguing that this supports his theory that the texts were produced in the same milieu, i.e. early 5th century Chang-an. For Loukota, this serves as further support for his theory that Zhu Fonian produced T201, and not Kumarajiva. Zhu Fonian 竺佛念 T0201; 大莊嚴論經