Text: Banre dao xing jing 般若道行經; Banre jing 般若經

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• Banre dao xing jing 般若道行經; Banre jing 般若經
• T0224; 道行般若經

Fang Guangchang argues that there were two versions of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā prajñāpāramitā as translated under the title Banre dao xing jing 般若道行經 throughout history: a version in one fascicle 一卷本, translated by Zhu Foshuo 竺佛朔 alone; and a ten fascicle version 十卷本translated by Lokakṣema 支讖, also working alone. Fang thus argues against conventional assertions either that Zhu Foshuo never translated the one fascicle version, or that the ten fascicle version is the outcome of collaboration between Lokakṣema and Zhu Foshuo. Throughout his article, Fang mainly endeavors to elaborate on three questions, namely: 1) Did the one fascicle version ever exist? 2) Is the ten fascicle version a collaboration by Lokakṣema and Zhu Foshuo? 3) Should the preface to the Aṣṭasāhasrikā prajñāpāramitā written by Dao’an be associated with the one fascicle version or the ten fascicle version?

Fang first lists various opinions on related topics given by different scholars. 1) Tang Yongtong 湯用彤 and Yao Weiqun 姚衛群 deny that Zhu Foshuo ever translated a one fascicle version. 2) Ren Jiyu 任繼愈 acknowledges that a one fascicle version once existed, but doesn’t mention to whom it should be attributed. He also considers that it was an excerpt from the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā prajñāpāramitā. 3) Lü Cheng 呂澂 and Guo Peng 郭朋 purport that the ten fascicle version was translated by Lokakṣema, while Tang Yongtong, Yao Weiqun and Zürcher tend to believe that it was the product of a collaboration between Lokakṣema and Zhu Foshuo. 4) All scholars maintain that Dao’an’s preface was written for the ten fascicle version.

Fang then enlarges upon the problematic one fascicle version. He agrees with what Tang Yongtong has proposed: In the catalog compiled by Dao’an, there is no record of the one fascicle version translated by Zhu Foshuo. Nevertheless, Fang believes that this does not justify the conclusion that the one fascicle version never existed at all. Fang purports that when Sengyou added this one fascicle version to his catalog, he actually had this version physically at his disposal. He gives three reasons for this conclusion: 1) If Sengyou never laid eyes on one fascicle version, he would have marked it with 今闕 (currently missing), but it is not the case with one fascicle version, so he must have seen it in person; 2) Sengyou recorded both the one fascicle version and ten fascicle version in his catalog, so he regarded these two as alternate versions of the same text; 3) in describing the translation of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā prajñāpāramitā, both GSZ and CSZJJ first mention that Lokakṣema translated sutras including the Aṣṭasāhasrikā prajñāpāramitā, and then mention in the next paragraph that Zhu Foshuo also brought the Aṣṭasāhasrikā prajñāpāramitā to China and had it translated. These descriptions imply that Lokakṣema and Zhu Foshuo rendered the Aṣṭasāhasrikā prajñāpāramitā separately, which also tallies with what Sengyou recorded in Fascicles 2 and 5 of CSZJJ.

Fang also holds that the preface Dao’an wrote is for the one fascicle version. According to Fang, Dao’an explicitly commented on the quality of the translations of Zhu Foshuo and *Mokṣala 無羅叉 . After remarking that “the two masters illuminated even the remotest parts of the great wisdom" 二家所出，足令大智煥爾闡幽, he went on, “So did Lokaṣema’s full translation" 支讖全本，其亦應然. Thus, Fang deduces that Dao’an clearly differentiates Zhu Foshuo’s translation from that of Lokakṣema. In addition, Fang suggests that this preface was written for Zhu Foshuo’s one fascicle version—in contrast to Dao’an’s attitude towards Mokṣala’s translation, he criticizes by saying that neither the source text nor the translation of the one fascicle version were up to par, but ends by saying that 二家所出，足令大智煥爾闡幽, which implies that Dao'an had annotated Zhu Fushuo’s one fascicle version in the light of Mokṣala’s translation, so that together, the two translations make the 大智煥爾闡幽.

Lastly, Fang also corroborates his claim that ten fascicle version was translated by Lokakṣema alone with reference to the following facts: 1) in Sengyou’s catalog, there are different entries for the one fascicle version and the ten fascicle version; 2) inferring from the manner of speaking in the preface written by Dao’an, Lokakṣema and Zhu Foshuo translated independently; 3) if the ten fascicle version was rendered in collaboration by Lokakṣema and Zhu Foshuo, this fact should have been mentioned in GSZ and CSZJJ, where their collaboration in producing the Pratyutpannabuddhasaṃmukhāvasthitasamādhisūtra 般舟三昧經 is depicted. Fang ventures the opinion that most scholars believe Lokakṣema and Zhu Foshuo collaborated in translating the ten fascicle version because they are misled by the anonymous colophon to the Aṣṭasāhasrikā prajñāpāramitā, which, Fang suspects, is only a redaction of the colophon to the Pratyutpannabuddhasaṃmukhāvasthitasamādhi-sūtra, forged by some later person and interpolated into CSZJJ.

Fang therefore concludes that 1) Zhu Foshuo translated the one fascicle version by himself; 2) Lokakṣema translated the ten fascicle version alone; 3) Dao’an's preface belongs to the one fascicle version rendered by Zhu Foshuo.

Entry author: Tianran Wang

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