Reading section 7

11. Taranatha informs us that among the many Mahayanist works which appeared in the reign of Kanishka's son was the Ratnakuta-dharma-paryaya in 1000 sections and the Ratnakuta is cited not only by the Sikshasamuccaya but by Asanga.[145] The Tibetan and Chinese canons contain sections with this name comprising forty-eight or forty-nine items among which are the three important treatises about Amitabha's paradise and many dialogues called Paripriccha, that is, questions put by some personage, human or superhuman, and furnished with appropriate replies.[146] The Chinese Ratnakuta is said to have been compiled by Bodhiruchi (693-713 A.D.) but of course he is responsible only for the selection not for the composition of the works included. Section 14 of this Ratnakuta is said to be identical with chapters 11 and 12 of the Mulasarvastivadin Vinaya.[147]

12. The Guna-karanda-vyuha and Karanda-vyuha are said to be two recensions of the same work, the first in verse the second in prose. Both are devoted to the praise of Avalokita who is represented as the presiding deity of the universe. He has refused to enter Buddhahood himself until all living creatures attain to true knowledge and is specially occupied in procuring the release of those who suffer in hell. The Guna-karanda-vyuha contains a remarkable account of the origin of the world which is said to be absent from the prose version. The primeval Buddha spirit, Adi-Buddha or Svayambhu, produces Avalokita by meditation, and Avalokita produces the material world and the gods of Hinduism from his body, Siva from his forehead, Narayana from his heart and so on. As such doctrines are not known to have appeared in Indian Buddhism before the tenth century it seems probable that the versified edition is late. But a work with the title Ratna-karandaka-vyuha-sutra was translated into Chinese in 270 and the Karanda-vyuha is said to have been the first work translated into Tibetan.[148]

13. The Karunaa-pundarika[149] or Lotus of Compassion is mainly occupied with the description of an imaginary continent called Padmadhatu, its Buddha and its many splendours. It exists in Sanskrit and was translated into Chinese about 400 A.D. (Nanjio, No. 142).

14. The Mahavairocanabhisambhodhi called in Chinese Ta-jih-ching or Great Sun sutra should perhaps be mentioned as it is the principal scripture of the Chen-yen (Japanese Shingon) school. It is a late work of unknown origin. It was translated into Chinese in 724 A.D. but the Sanskrit text has not been found.

There are a great number of other sutras which are important for the history of literature, although little attention is paid to them by Buddhists at the present day. Such are the Mahayanist version of the Mahaparinirvana recounting the death and burial of the Buddha and the Mahasannipata-sutra, which apparently includes the Suryagarbha and Candragarbha sutras. All these works were translated into Chinese about 420 A.D. and must therefore be of respectable antiquity.

Besides the sutras, there are many compositions styled Avadanas or pious legends.[150] These, though recognized by Mahayanists, do not as a rule contain expositions of the Sunyata and Dharma-kaya and are not sharply distinguished from the more imaginative of the Hinayanist scriptures.[151] But they introduce a multiplicity of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and represent Sakyamuni as a superhuman worker of miracles.

They correspond in many respects to the Pali Vinaya but teach right conduct not so much by precept as by edifying stories and, like most Mahayanist works they lay less stress upon monastic discipline than on unselfish virtue exercised throughout successive existences. There are a dozen or more collections of Avadanas of which the most important are the Mahavastu and the Divyavadana. The former[152] is an encyclopaedic work which contains _inter alia_ a life of Sakyamuni. It describes itself as belonging to the Lokottaravadins, a section of the Aryamaha-sanghikas. The Lokottaravadins were an ancient sect, precursors of the Mahayana rather than a branch of it, and much of the Mahavastu is parallel to the Pali Canon and may have been composed a century or two before our era. But other parts seem to belong to the Gandharan period and the mention of Chinese and Hunnish writing points to a much later date.[153] If it was originally a Vinaya treatise, it has been distended out of all recognition by the addition of legends and anecdotes but it still retains a certain amount of matter found also in the Pali and Tibetan Vinayas. There were probably several recensions in which successive additions were made to the original nucleus. One interpolation is the lengthy and important section called Dasabhumika, describing the career of a Bodhisattva. It is the only part of the Mahavastu which can be called definitely Mahayanist. The rest of the work marks a transitional stage in doctrine, just as its language is neither Prakrit or Sanskrit but some ancient vernacular brought into partial conformity with Sanskrit grammar. No Chinese translation is known.

The Divyavadana[154] is a collection of legends, part of which is known as the Asokavadana and gives an edifying life of that pious monarch. This portion was translated into Chinese A.D. 317-420 and the work probably dates from the third century of our era. It is loosely constructed: considerable portions of it seem to be identical with the Vinaya of the Sarvastivadins and others with passages in the works of Asvaghosha.

The Avadanas lie on the borderland between scripture and pious literature which uses human argument and refers to scripture for its authority. Of this literature the Mahayanist church has a goodly collection and the works ascribed to such doctors as Asvaghosha, Nagarjuna, Asanga and Vasubandhu hold a high place in general esteem. The Chinese Canon places many of them in the Pitakas (especially in the Abhidharma Pitaka) and not among the works of miscellaneous writers.

The Mahayanist scriptures are still a living force. In Nepal the nine Dharmas receive superstitious homage rather than intelligent study, but in Tibet and the Far East the Prajna-paramita, the Lotus and the sutras about Amitabha are in daily use for public worship and private reading. I have heard the first-named work as well as the Leng-yen-ching expounded, that is, read aloud with an extempore paraphrase, to lay congregations in China, and the section of it called the Diamond Cutter is the book which is most commonly in the hands of religious Tibetans. The Lotus is the special scripture of the Nichiren sect in Japan but is universally respected. The twenty-fourth chapter which contains the praises of Avalokita is often printed separately. The Amitabha sutras take the place of the New Testament for the Jodo and Shin sects and copies of them may also be found in almost every monastery throughout China and Annam. The Suvarna-prabhasa is said to be specially popular among the Mongols. I know Chinese Buddhists who read the Hua-yen (Avatamsaka) every day. Modern Japanese writers quote frequently from the Lankavatara and Kasyapa-parivarta but I have not met with any instance of these works being in popular use.

I have mentioned already the obscurity surrounding the history of the Mahayanist Canon in India and it may seem to throw doubt on the authenticity of these scriptures. Unauthentic they certainly are in the sense that European criticism is not likely to accept as historical the discourses which they attribute to the Buddha and others, but there is no reason to doubt that they are treatises composed in India early in our era and representing the doctrines then prevalent. The religious public of India has never felt any difficulty in accepting works of merit--and often only very moderate merit--as revelations, whether called Upanishads, Puranas, Sutras or what not. Only rarely have such works received any formal approbation, such as recognition by a council. Indeed it is rather in Ceylon, Burma, Tibet and China than in India itself that authoritative lists of scriptures have been compiled. The natural instinct of the Hindus was not to close the Canon but to leave it open for any additions which might be vouchsafed.

Two sketches of an elastic Mahayanist Canon of this kind are preserved, one in the Sikshasamuccaya[155] attributed to Santideva, who probably flourished in the seventh century, and the other in a little work called the Duration of the Law, reporting a discourse by an otherwise unknown Nandimitra, said to have lived in Ceylon 800 years after the Buddha's death.[156] The former is a compendium of doctrine illustrated by quotations from what the author regarded as scripture. He cites about a hundred Mahayanist sutras, refers to the Vinaya and Divyavadana but not apparently to the Abhidharma. He mentions no Tantras[157] and not many Dharanis.

The second work was translated by Hsuean Chuang and was therefore probably written before 600 A.D.[158] Otherwise there is no external evidence for fixing its date. It represents Nandimitra as explaining on his deathbed the steps taken by the Buddha to protect the True Law and in what works that Law is to be found. Like the Chinese Tripitaka it recognizes both Mahayanist and Hinayanist works, but evidently prefers the former and styles them collectively Bodhisattva-Pitaka. It enumerates about fifty sutras by name, beginning with the Prajna-paramita, the Lotus and other well-known texts. Then comes a list of works with titles ending in Samadhi, followed by others called Paripriccha[159] or questions. A new category seems to be formed by the Buddhavatamsaka-sutra with which the sutras about Amitabha's Paradise are associated. Then comes the Mahasannipata-sutra associated with works which may correspond to the Ratnakuta division of the Chinese Canon.[160] The writer adds that there are "hundreds of myriads of similar sutras classified in groups and categories." He mentions the Vinaya and Abhidharma without further particulars, whereas in describing the Hinayanist versions of these two Pitakas he gives many details.

The importance of this list lies in the fact that it is Indian rather than in its date, for the earliest catalogue of the Chinese Tripitaka compiled about[161] 510 is perhaps older and certainly ampler. But if the catalogue stood alone, it might be hard to say how far the selection of works in it was due to Chinese taste. But taking the Indian and Chinese evidence together, it is clear that in the sixth century Indian Mahayanists (_a_) tolerated Hinayanist scriptures while preferring their own, (_b_) made little use of the Vinaya or Abhidharma for argument or edification, though the former was very important as a code, (_c_) recognized extremely numerous sutras, grouped in various classes such as Mahasannipata and Buddhavatamsaka, (_d_) and did not use works called Tantras. Probably much the same is true of the fourth century and even earlier, for Asanga in one work[162] quotes both Maha-and Hinayanist scriptures and among the former cites by name seventeen sutras, including one called Paripriccha or questions.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 119: In the Mahayana-sutralankara he quotes frequently from the Samyukta and Ekottara Agamas, corresponding to the Samyutta and Anguttara Nikayas of the Pali.]

[Footnote 120: A reading Vaitulya has also been found in some manuscripts of the Lotus discovered at Kashgar and it is suggested that the word may refer to the sect of Vetullas or Vetulyakas mentioned in the Commentary on the Kathavatthu as holding that the Buddha really remained in the Tushita heaven and sent a phantom to represent him in the world and that it was Ananda, not the Buddha, who preached the law. See Kern, _Vers. en Med. der K. Ak. v. Wetenschappen, Letterk._, R. 4 D. VIII. pp. 312-9, Amsterdam, 1907, and De la Vallee Poussin's notice of this article in _J.R.A.S._ 1907, pp. 434-6. But this interpretation does not seem very probable.]

[Footnote 121: IV. 160. 5.]

[Footnote 122: See Cullavagga, V. 33. The meaning evidently is that the Buddha's words are not to be enshrined in an artificial literary form which will prevent them from being popular.]

[Footnote 123: Sutralankara, I. 2.]

[Footnote 124: See Waddell, "The Dharani cult" in _Ostasiat. Ztsft_. 1912, pp. 155 ff.]

[Footnote 125: Chap. XXI, which is however a later addition.]

[Footnote 126: Dig. Nik. 32.]

[Footnote 127: Watters, _Yuean Chwang_, II. p. 160.]

[Footnote 128: The Mahavyutpatti (65) gives a list of 105 sutras.]

[Footnote 129: The word param-ita means as an adjective _gone to the further shore_ or _transcendent_. As a feminine substantive it means a transcendent virtue or perfection.]

[Footnote 130: See Walleser, _Prajna-paramita_ in _Quellen der Religionsgeschichte_, pp. 15 ff. _S.B.E._ XLIX. Nanjio, Catalogue Nos. 1-20 and Rajendralala Mitra's _Nepalese Buddhist Literature_, pp. 177 ff. Versions are mentioned consisting of 125,000 verses, 100,000 verses, 25,000 verses, 10,000 verses and 8,000 verses respectively. (Similarly at the beginning of the Mahabharata we are told that the Epic consists of 8,800 verses, of 24,000 and of 100,000.) Of these the last or Ashtasahasrika has been published in the _Bibliotheca Indica_ and the second or Satasahasrika is in process of publication. It is in prose, so that the expression "verses" appears not to mean that the works are Gathas. A Khotanese version of the Vajracchedika is edited in Hoernle's _Manuscript Remains_ by Sten Konow. The Sanskrit text was edited by Max Mueller in _Anecdota Oxoniensia._]

[Footnote 131: The Sanskrit text has been edited by Kern and Nanjio in _Bibliotheca Buddhica_; translated by Burnouf (_Le Lotus de la bonne Loi_), 1852 and by Kern (Saddharma-Pundarika) in _S.B.E._ vol. XXI.]

[Footnote 132: There appears to have been an earlier Chinese version of 255 A.D. but it has been lost. See Nanjio, p. 390. One of the later Chinese versions alludes to the existence of two recensions (Nanjio, No. 139). See _B.E.F.E.O._ 1911, p. 453. Fragments of a shorter and apparently earlier recension of the Lotus have been discovered in E. Turkestan. See _J.R.A.S._ 1916, pp. 269-277.]

[Footnote 133: Edited by Rajendralala Mitra in the _Bibliotheca Indica_ and partially translated in the same series. A later critical edition by Lefmann, 1902-8.]

[Footnote 134: The early Chinese translations seem doubtful. One said to have been made under the later Han has been lost. See Nanjio, No. 159.]

[Footnote 135: See Burnouf, _Introduction_, pp. 458 ff. and _J.R.A.S._ 1905, pp. 831 ff. Rajendralala Mitra, _Nepalese Buddhist Literature_, p. 113. A brief analysis is given in _J.A.S.B._ June, 1905 according to which the sutra professes to be the work of a human author, Jina of the clan of Katyayana born at Campa. An edition of the Sanskrit text published by the Buddhist Text Society is cited but I have not seen it. Chinese translations were made in 443 and 515 but the first is incomplete and does not correspond with our Sanskrit text.]

[Footnote 136: Abstract by Rajendralala Mitra, _Nepalese Buddhist Lit_. p. 241.]

[Footnote 137: See Nanjio, No. 127 and F.W.K. Muller in _Abhandl. der K. Preuss. Akad. der Wissenschaften_, 1908. The Uigur text is published in _Bibliotheca Buddhica_, 1914. Fragments of the Sanskrit text have also been found in Turkestan.]

[Footnote 138: Abstract by Raj. Mitra, _Nepalese Buddhist Lit._ pp. 90 ff. The Sikshasamuccaya cites the Ganda-vyuha several times and does not mention the Avatamsaka.]

[Footnote 139: The statement was first made on the authority of Takakusu quoted by Winternitz in _Ges. Ind. Lit_. II. i. p. 242. Watanabe in _J.R.A.S._ 1911, 663 makes an equally definite statement as to the identity of the two works. The identity is confirmed by Pelliot in _J.A._ 1914, II. pp. 118-121.]

[Footnote 140: Abstract by Raj. Mitra, _Nepalese Buddhist Lit._ pp. 81 ff. Quoted in Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara, VIII. 106.]

[Footnote 141: See _J.R.A.S._ 1911, 663.]

[Footnote 142: Abstract by Raj. Mitra, _Nepalese Buddhist Lit._ pp. 81 ff.]

[Footnote 143: Translated in part by Beal, _Catena of Buddhist Scriptures_, pp. 286-369. See also Teitaro Suzuki, _Outlines of Mahayana_, p. 157. For notices of the text see Nanjio, Nos. 399, 446, 1588. Fa-Hsien, Chap. XXIX. For the equivalence of Shou-leng-yen and Surangama see Nanjio's note to No. 399 and Julien, _Methode_, 1007 and Vasilief, p. 175.]

[Footnote 144: See Sikshas, ed. Bendall, pp. 8,91 and _Hoernle, Manuscript remains_, I. pp. 125 ff.]

[Footnote 145: Mahayana-sutralankara, XIX. 29.]

[Footnote 146: _E.g._ the Rashtra-pala-paripriccha edited in Sanskrit by Finot, _Biblioth. Buddhica_, 1901. The Sanskrit text seems to agree with the Chinese version. The real number of sutras in the Ratnakuta seems to be 48, two being practically the same but represented as uttered on different occasions.]

[Footnote 147: There is another somewhat similar collection of sutras in the Chinese Canon called Ta Tsi or Mahasannipata but unlike the Ratnakuta it seems to contain few well-known or popular works.]

[Footnote 148: I know of these works only by Raj. Mitra's abstracts, _Nepal. Bud. Lit._ pp. 95 and 101. The prose text is said to have been published in Sanskrit at Calcutta, 1873.]

[Footnote 149: Raj. Mitra, _Nepalese Buddhist Lit_. pp. 285 ff. The Sanskrit text was published for the Buddhist Text Society, Calcutta, 1898.]

[Footnote 150: Avadana is primarily a great and glorious act: hence an account of such an act.]

[Footnote 151: The Avadana-sataka (Feer, _Annales du Musee Guimet_, XVIII) seems to be entirely Hinayanist.]

[Footnote 152: Edited by Senart, 3 vols. 1882-1897. Windisch, _Die Komposition des Mahavastu_, 1909. Article "Mahavastu" in _E.R.E._]

[Footnote 153: So too do the words Horapathaka (astrologer), Ujjhebhaka (? Uzbek), Peliyaksha (? Felix). The word Yogacara (I. 120) may refer simply to the practice of Yoga and not to the school which bore this name.]

[Footnote 154: Edited by Cowell and Neil, 1886. See Nanjio, 1344.]

[Footnote 155: Edited by Bendall in _Bibl. Buddhica._]

[Footnote 156: Nanjio, No. 1466. For a learned discussion of this work see Levi and Chavannes in _J.A._ 1916, Nos. I and II.]

[Footnote 157: It is not likely that the Tathagata-guhya-sutra which it quotes is the same as the Tantra with a similar name analysed by Rajendralal Mitra.]

[Footnote 158: Watters, _J.R.A.S._ 1898, p. 331 says there seems to have been an earlier translation.]

[Footnote 159: Many works with this title will be found in Nanjio.]

[Footnote 160: But the Chinese title seems rather to represent Ratnarasi.]

[Footnote 161: See Nanjio, pp. xiii-xvii.]

[Footnote 162: Mahayana-sutralankara. See Levi's introduction, p. 14. The "Questions" sutra is Brahma-paripriccha.]

CHAPTER XXI