Text: T0231; 勝天王般若波羅蜜經

No

• T0231; 勝天王般若波羅蜜經
• T0669; 佛說無上依經

Takasaki studies extensive parallels between the *Anuttarāśraya-sūtra 無上依經 T669 ascribed to Paramārtha, and the *Devarājapravara prajñāpāramitā(?) 勝天王般若波羅蜜經 T231 ascribed to *Ūrdhvaśūnya. The same problem had previously been studied by Shinoda (1965), but Takasaki states that he has found new parallels between verses in T669 Ch. 6 and T231, also paralleled in relevant parts of Xuanzang's T220. Takasaki's central contention is that T231 is based upon T669. Since T669 is unique to China, and probably a Chinese composition, this implies that T231 was also composed in China.

Takasaki considers the relation between his analysis and the external evidence. One "fact" potentially troubling for his hypothesis is that *Ūrdhvaśūnya is said to have produced T231 on the basis of a source text brought from Khotan. Perhaps the most serious additional obstacle his hypothesis faces is the fact that Xuanzang's T220 contains a version of T231. However, Takasaki adduces reasons to believe that Xuanzang's group used only T231 as their source text, with the independent control of an Indic version of the text (see https://dazangthings.nz/cbc/text/4650/).

Takasaki's strongest grounds for arguing that T231 was compiled in China, with T669 as a source, are these:

Most significantly, he shows that T669 presents a complex sequence of parallels to the Ratnagotravibhāga (RGV). Many of these passages are explicilty presented in RGV itself as citations from a range of sūtras. In T669, the acknowledgement of the source sūtra disappears, and the fact that they are organised into their sequence in a śāstra, and the same words are represented as a new sūtra, i.e. as a single item of buddhavacana, linked in a single expository sequence. In T231, the sequence of material is the same as T669, and as in T669, neither RGV itself, nor the ultimate sūtra sources, are mentioned. This match in sequence cannot be coincidental. Further, verbatim matches in Chinese wording between T669 and T231 are extensive enough to show that the borrowing between them must have taken place in Chinese, not in Indic source texts.

[An interesting contrast here is formed by the relation in wording between T669 and T231, on the one hand, and the wording of the same source passages in 究竟一乘寶性論 T1611, the Chinese translation of RGV. T1611 was already available in China at the time of composition of T669 and T231, and so could theoretically be their source, rather than either directly drawing upon the Indic version of the text. However, verbatim matching between T669 and T231 is in fact very rare—much rarer than such matching between T669 and T231 themselves. In the case of T669, it is in fact possible to find sufficient verbatim debts to T1611 to show that the compilers of T669 must have been aware of T1611, but this makes it all the more striking that in very extensive matches in content, such verbatim correspondence in wording is so rare, and that they were in fact rather "translating" or rendering the source passages in RGV afresh as they worked. --- MR]

Takasaki has thus established clearly that T669 and T231 must be directly related to one another. The question is therefore the direction of borrowing. As evidence that borrowing proceeded T669 → T231, and not vice versa, Takasaki cites the following points. In what Takasaski numbers §11 of Ch. 2, an ultimate source is the Yogācārabhūmi (YBh). As with RGV, this source is not acknowledged, nor the fact that it is a śāstra rather than a sūtra—the material is simply presented as buddavacana. Similarly, Item #14 in Takasaki's table at p. 183, and the names of the thirty-two major marks of the mahāpuruṣa (#1 at p. 184) are also from YBh, rather than RGV, and T231 simply follows suit (and the sequence of material, again, is the same). In other places, however, content in AĀS is not matched in T231 (186). If the direction of borrowing were T231 → T669, we would have to assume the less economical hypothesis that authors of T669 followed T231 in many respects, but then hunted out additional material in the same small set of sources. Right next to the list of the thirty-two major marks, moreover, is a list of the eighty minor marks which is from neither RGV nor YBh; but T231 still shares it with AĀS.

[Again, to supplement Takasaki's observations, Radich 2014 has discussed how both the thirty-two major marks and eighty minor marks here form part of a larger, very unusual set of "180 āveṇikadharmas", which is shared by T669 and Paramārtha's chapters of the Suvarṇabhāsottama T664; again, the most economical explanation is that this unusual rubric, also, originates with Paramārtha, and is borrowed into T231 from him. In addition, the alternate, weaker hypothesis of borrowing T231 → T669 would also require us to assume that the authors of T231 were familiar with YBh, which had not yet been translated into Chinese. We already know from other works, e.g. the Jueding zang lun 決定藏論 T1584, that one person was active in China at the time who did in fact know YBh or closely related materials—Paramārtha. Again, the more economical assumption is that the YBh material in T669/T231 also derives first from him, and is then borrowed into T231 from T669. Further evidence that borrowing proceeded T669 → T231 is constituted by closer matching in certain details between RGV and T669 than between RGV and T231, e.g. in a Sagaramati-paripṛcchā citation from RGV 49.9-50.7. The compilers of T669 could have arrived at these matches only by drawing directly on RGV, not via the mediation of T231. --- MR]

In a set of remarks that are somewhat difficult to reconcile with his central thesis, Takasaki observes that verses in T669 Chapter 6 are also closely paralleled in content in T231 (and also in T220). In this case, however, T231 and T220 use different metres, and Takasaki finds almost no verbatim matching in wording. Takasaki argues that this would seem to indicate that in this portion, the authors of T231 did indeed rely directly upon a source text brought from Khotan, as tradition maintains (187). Takasaki conveniently tabulates the verses in question against one another (194 n. 44).

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Radich, Michael. “On the Sources, Style and Authorship of Chapters of the Synoptic Suvarṇaprabhāsottama-sūtra T664 Ascribed to Paramārtha (Part 1).” Annual Report of The International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology 17 (2014): 207-244.

Shinoda Masashige 篠田正成. "Shōtennō hannya kyō ni okeru Mujō e kyō to no ruijibun 勝天王般若経における無上依経との類似文." IBK 13, no. 2 (1965): 195-197.

Entry author: Michael Radich

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• People: Anonymous (China), 失譯, 闕譯, 未詳撰者, 未詳作者, 不載譯人 (compiler 編集)