Text: T0202; 賢愚經

No

• T0202; 賢愚經

Tanxue 曇學, Weide 威德 and others, from Hexi 河西 (modern Gansu) travelled in search of sūtras. In Khotan 于闐 they happened to coincide with a pāñcavarṣika 般遮于瑟之會 ("Quinquennial Meeting", Mair; 般遮于瑟者, 漢言五年一切大眾集也). They split up to listen to the various lectures and sermons that were being conducted, and made some sort of record and/or translation 隨緣分聽, 於是競習胡音折以漢義, 精思通譯各書所聞. They then returned to Gaochang 高昌 ("Kocho", Mair), where they "assembled their translations into a single text" (Mair; 集為一部). The text was compiled in 445 元嘉二十二年歲在乙酉. Huilang 慧朗, who was the "master of the religion" in Hexi 河西宗匠, gave it the present title. The monk Hongzong 弘宗, who was fourteen at the time, was present when the text arrived in Hexi, and witnessed this episode directly. In 505 梁天監四年, he was 84 years old (by Chinese reckoning), and Sengyou sought him out and interviewed him in person 躬往諮問 to obtain the information recorded in this note.

Entry author: Michael Radich

Edit

• People: Tanxue 曇學 (author); Weide 威德 (author)
• Date: 445

No

• T0202; 賢愚經

Li Channa cites work by Michael Hahn and Demoto Mitsuyo, in which they argue that stories nos. 16 and 44 of the Xian yu jing 賢愚經 T202, viz. two versions of the Mahāprabhāsa story, are based upon Haribhaṭṭa's version. Demoto argues further that stories 16, 17 and 18, which appear in sequence as a single unit in SYM, reflect a narrative scheme which distinguishes them from other chapters of T202, and resembles that of the Jātakamālās of Haribhaṭṭa and Gopadatta.

Note: Li here follows the numbering of the Song, Yuan and Ming editions of T202, which differs from that found in T. In the T numbering, Li is referring to #21, 372a17 ff. (SYM #16); and #49, 421b18 ff. (SYM #44).

Li is referring to these works by Hahn and Demoto:

Hahn, Michael. "Notes on Buddhist Sanskrit Literature. Chronology and related topics." In: Studies in Original Buddhism and Mahāyāna Buddhism in Commemoration of late Prof. Dr. Fumimaro Watanabe [= Watanabe Fumimaro hakase tsuitō ronshū. Genshi bukkyō to daijō bukkyō], edited by Egaku Mayeda, 31–58. Kyoto: Nagata Bunshodo, 1993.

Demoto, Mitsuyo. "How It All Began (II): The Prabhāsa Legends of the Xianyujing." Journal of the Centre for Buddhist Studies, Sri Lanka 7 (2009): 1–20.

Entry author: Michael Radich

Edit

No

• T0200; 撰集百緣經
• T0202; 賢愚經
• T200(79); Bosini wang chou nü yuan 波斯匿王醜女緣
• T202(8); Bosini wang nü jingang pin 波斯匿王女金剛品

Demoto notes close similarities between T200(79) and T202(8). She uses this evidence as part of a larger argument that T200 cannot be earlier than 445 CE, and therefore, that the ascription of T200 to Zhi Qian is suspect. [This means that she treats T200(79) as borrowed from T202(8), rather than the other way around.]

Entry author: Michael Radich

Edit

No

• T0202; 賢愚經

Mair begins by translating Sengyou's CSZJJ note on the text, which says that Tanxue 曇學, Weide 威德 and others went west in search of texts, and in Khotan, during a pāñcavarṣika, made notes and translations of sermons and lectures; they then went back as far as Gaochang 高昌, where they collated their work into a single text; and then, upon their arrival back in Hexi 河西, the resulting collection, the Xian yu jing 賢愚經 T202, was given its present title by Huilan 慧朗, who was some kind of head cleric 宗匠 at the time. The "lecture-note nature" of the text is evidenced by: relative paucity of prosimetric form, which is otherwise usual for such narrative literature; the apparent absence of any principle of organisation; disparity in style; and diversity in transcriptions and translations of the same terms and names, even within a single tale (8-9).

Mair has a detailed chart at the end of his paper in which he studies this "Phonological Data". Mair states that it is not possible to know exactly what sort of texts Tanxue, Weide and their confrères would have encountered in the Khotan of this period--source language, oral or written, etc. (8); but he attempts to arrive at some conclusions. He regards as the "most striking anomaly" in transcriptions the fact that Skt nouns in -a apppear in -i (or -ki, or in nasalised -i). He analyses in detail what he regards as "the most remarkable instance" of this phenomenon, the treatment of the placename Taxila (9 ff.)."The most reasonable explanation would seem to be that...the Chinese monks heard...a mixture of Sanskrit and Prakrit (mostly the latter) pronounced in a Khotanese fashion. This does not answer the question of the language of the whole text(s) the Chinese heard...only the pronunciation of the proper nouns and technical terms within them....All indications are that there was indeed at least a partial Indian textual basis for [T202]" (12).

Mair considers the problem of possible sources or models for T202 in our extant literature. The story of King Prabhāsa and his elephant (Tale no. 49) contains highly specific details matching Haribhaṭṭa’s Jātakamālā, and Michael Hahn has shown that some of Haribhaṭṭa’s stanzas have been translated almost verbatim in T202 (citing Hahn [1981]). T202 cannot be the source of Haribhaṭṭa. Hahn dates Haribhaṭṭa before the first half of the fifth century, and so his Jātakamālā could have been one of the texts the Chinese encountered in Khotan (or they could have encountered one of its sources). Another text "unmistakably connected" to T202 is the Daśa-karmapatha-avadānamālā. This text is thought to have originated in Tocharian B (the language of Kucha), then been retranslated into Tocharian A (Karashahr), and thence into Uyghur. Mair thinks either the Tocharian B or a collateral version was a source for T202, more probably the latter (13-14). "Judging from the tales that it included and from the title itself, there is a high degree of resonance between the Daśa-karmapatha-avadānamālā and [T202]." Mair also thinks possible connections exist with the Khotanese Jātaka-stava, which shares a story with T202 (Kāñcanasāra) (14-15).

Takakusu (1901) showed on the basis of transcription terms that the Tibetan (D341/Q1008) was translated from the Chinese (see also 23 n. 97, which notes that colophons to all but the Peking version explicitly state that the text was translated from Chinese: rgya nag las 'gyur ba(r) snang ngo). However, but Mair argues that it cannot derive entirely from our extant text. The order of stories differs. Both Tibetan and Mongolian (from Tibetan) also include three stories "not even present in the earliest known integral printed Chinese edition of the sutra, the Khitan, which is later than the time of the Tibetan translator, Chos grub" (15). Mair suggests that perhaps multiple, possibly local versions of the [Chinese] text were in circulation at Chos grub's time (ninth century). In addition, terminology and proper names in Tib are often at variance with Ch.

"From the above information concerning the Haribhaṭṭa Jātakamālā, the Daśa-karmapatha-avadānamālā, and the Tibetan and Mongolian translations, as well as from our knowledge of Indian avadāna literature in general, it would appear that the Buddhist masters in Khotan from whom the Liang-chou monks heard the stories of [T202] would have based them upon one or more available Indian texts. In some cases, they must have followed the original texts very closely, because the relationship of the Chinese text to the Sanskrit/Prakrit original shows through clearly even in translation. There is no evidence that there ever existed a written Khotanese exemplar of [T202]" (16).

Entry author: Michael Radich

Edit

No

• T0202; 賢愚經

Takakusu (1901) showed, on the basis of transcriptions, that the Tibetan text was translated from the Chinese. The text dates to 445 and was composed by Huijue, Weide et al. in Gaochang (Turfan). Lévi gives a translation of the colophon (312-313). He discusses discrepancies between the main extant versions, namely, the Tibetan, the Chinese as transmitted in the Korean lineage, and the Chinese as transmitted in the Song-Yuan-Ming lineage (SYM; which is longer) (313). He finds strikingly close relations between T202 as in SYM and a Kuchean fragment, including certain similes not found in the other versions, and the name of a king.

Entry author: Michael Radich

Edit

• People: Huijue, 慧覺 (author)
• Date: 445