Nattier, Jan. "The 'Missing Majority': Dao'an's Anonymous Scriptures Revisted." In Chinese Buddhism and the Scholarship of Erik Zürcher, edited by Jonathan Silk and Stefano Zacchetti, 94-140. Leiden: Brill, 2023.
| Assertion | Argument | Place in source |
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Nattier argues that a small group of anonymous scriptures, comprising T5, T20, T46, T145, T392, T507, and T582, were probably composed in the South in the third century. Her argument is based upon the presence of some very rare vocabulary/terminology, which otherwise appears (in datable texts) in translations produced in this time and place (T225B, T152), and also on the absence of other, very common terms. |
95 n. 7, 115-116 w. nn. 73-75, |
Nattier identifies five texts from the Liu du ji (jing) T152 as bearing titles corresponding to items appearing in Dao'an's list of anonymous sūtras: in T152, these are texts nos. 13, 41, 64, 88 and 91 . |
97 n. 9 |
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Nattier suggests that the title Pusa daoshu jing 菩薩道樹經 in Dao'an's list of anonymous sūtra translations may correspond to T532, because T532 circulated under this alternate title. |
97 n. 9 |
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Nattier suggests that the title Shi biqiu jing 師比丘經 in Dao'an's list of anonymous sūtra translations may correspond to T392, because T392 circulated under this alternate title. |
97 n. 9 |
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Nattier suggests that the title Nei wai liu boluomi jing 內外六波蘿蜜經 in Dao'an's list of anonymous sūtra translations may correspond to T778. |
97 n. 9 |
Nattier suggests that the title Shi shan shi e jing 十善十惡經 in Dao'an's list of anonymous sūtra translations may correspond to T729 [NOTE: Nattier's text in fact reads T792, but this is certainly a typo --- MR]. |
97 n. 9 |
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Nattier mentions T525 as an example of an ascription to An Shigao which is rendered implausible by the presence in the text of verse, which never appears in his authentic translations. |
99 n. 14 |
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Nattier mentions T530 as an example of an ascription to Zhi Qian rendered implausible by the presence in the text of 如是我聞, which is never used before Kumārajīva. |
99 n. 15 |
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Citing personal communication from Antonello Palumbo, Nattier mentions T514 as a possible case in which the formula 如是我聞 might have been added to an earlier text in the course of transmission. The Song, Yuan, Ming and Palace editions all have 聞如是. |
104 n. 28 |
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The earliest external evidence for the existence of the Fo mu bannihuan jing 佛母般泥洹經 T145 is found in the sixth century, in citations in anthologies compiled by Sengyou and Baochang (120). However, Nattier argues that T145 is one of a small group of anonymous sūtras that can be identifed as belonging to the Wu kingdom. Her argument is based in part on a cluster of rare items of vocabulary and terminology, which are only found in texts of secure ascription from this same period, like T225B and T152. Nattier gives examples of such wording in T145 at 120 n. 88. Nattier's argument is also based upon the close comparison of T145 with T144, which is a parallel version of "the same" text (carries the same content). She identifies a number of differences between the two texts: a tendency to transcription in T144, contrasting with a tendency to translation in T145; greater brevity in T144 than in T145. Nattier argues that T144 is even earlier than T145, and T145 was produced with reference to T144. This pattern fits with other known cases of texts that were produced under the Wu, especially by Zhi Qian, with reference to earlier versions of the same texts (e.g. T224 > T225B, T362 > T361). An important corollary of these observations is that the titles of the two texts appear to have been swapped at some point in transmission history (an argument made independently by Hayashiya many years ago; n. 84). This development must have taken place early, since the texts are cited under their swapped titles in anthologies of the sixth century. Nattier also notes that in T144, a number of proper names shift from one transcription to another at a certain point in the text (126): for Vaiśālī, Śāriputra, Maudgalyāyana, and Yaśodha. (Mysteriously, the point at which this shift takes place is not the same for all the names in question.) She argues that this indicates that even before it was revised or used as a basis to produce T145, T144 itself had already undergone some sort of revision, which was left incomplete, and which is only betrayed by these traces within the text itself. She argues that the transcriptions in the first part of the text are products of revision, appealing to two criteria: it is generally the case that revision is "front-loaded", i.e. that revisers work from the beginning of a text forwards; and the transcriptions in the latter part of the text, in each case, are rare than those in the first part. This suggests that the transcriptions in the latter part of the text are original. The better-known transcriptions in the first part of the text align with known usage in the school of Lokakṣema, and this fact, along with the rarity of the "unrevised" transcriptions, suggests that this base layer of T144 might be very old indeed. |
95 n. 7, 115-116 w. nn. 73-75, 118-129 |
Nattier points out that the Fo bannihuan hou bian ji 佛般泥洹後變記, which is carried at the end of T145, is in fact a separate text. |
119 n. 84 |
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Nattier shows that the Sunduoyezhi jing 孫多耶致經 T582 is a parallel to the Vatthūpama-sutta MN 7. |
133-134 |