Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Contemporary Buddhism
Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713694869
The letter of the law and the lore of letters: The role of textual criticism in the
transmission of Buddhist scripture
Andrew Skilton a
a
Cardiff University,
To cite this Article Skilton, Andrew(2000)'The letter of the law and the lore of letters: The role of textual criticism in the transmission of
Buddhist scripture',Contemporary Buddhism,1:1,9 — 34
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/14639940008573719
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14639940008573719
This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or
systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or
distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents
will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses
should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss,
actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly
or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
The Letter of the Law and the
Lore of Letters: The Role of
Textual Criticism in the
Transmission of Buddhist
Scripture
Andrew Skilton
Cardiff University
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
Western Buddhists are the victims of a harsh stroke of fate. Born as they are in
societies that are far removed in time, language and ethos from those which saw
the birth of most Buddhist scripture, access to this literature is usually achieved
through intermediaries. As such they qualify as denizens of one or more of the
aksana, those unfortunate states which were described by the Buddhist tradition as
not conducive to contact with the dharma.1 If we also think of the massive loss of
original Indie materials after the demise of Buddhism in its homeland, such that,
for example, the bulk of Mahäyäna scripture now survives only in ancient
translations into Chinese or Tibetan, their fate can only be deemed more cruel.
Marooned in languages remote from those of the surviving texts, the majority
of western Buddhists can only speculate on the substance of this literary heritage
that is preserved in Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese — to name only the major
languages involved — since its bulk remains untranslated.2 Even the English
translation of the Pali canon, available for the most part by the middle of this
century, is still not complete3 and a substantial part of what has been done now
cries out for revision. Restricting discussion to the Pali canon ignores the
substantial non-canonical Buddhist literature in Pali that was produced across
South and South East Asia during the 20 centuries that have passed since the
canon was put into writing and thus 'fixed' at the end of the first century BCE.
Access to Buddhist literature is thus acquired by two means and two only: the
time consuming and often impractical task of learning one or more of these
languages, or the reliance upon one of the aforementioned intermediaries — I am
of course referring to the translators.
It could be said that there are two extremes of translation: the literal and the
interpretative. Certainly there have been those who have tried to maintain, for
example, that it is possible to seek consistent word for word equivalents in source
and target languages, or who claim that it is possible to prepare a literal
translation, as if there were some basic meaning to language which will somehow
'do' for any text, even if other parties wish to complicate life by pulling fancy or
9
Contemporary Buddhism
fine distinctions out of the air. My own view is that this approach is inadequate.
Translators seek to 'carry across' the meaning of their source text into another
language. Language is dependent in a number of ways upon the community that
uses it, and differences between languages often reflect substantial differences
between respective geographical and conceptual communities. Because of this,
the process of meaningful translation usually involves more than the simple
substitution of words from the source language with words from the target
language. With the absence in the new language of artefacts or concepts that are
explicit or implied in the source text, the translator is often engaged in the creation
in the target language of a new text — a text that is new because it eschews
mechanical lexical correspondences in favour of new 'gestures' that the translator
thinks will better indicate the ideas and experiences of the source text. Hence, our
interpretative translators.
Perhaps this account will provoke the reader-response critic, who asserts that
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
all texts are 're-created' in the process of reading on the part of each reader, but this
solipsistic diagnosis reflects a relativism that is hardly compatible with the
assumptions of most western Buddhist practitioners — namely, that the dharma is
concerned with the transmission of 'the' truth as embodied in privileged
experiences that transcend time and culture.4 I do not intend here to engage in this
debate, and instead will take for granted, for the meantime, the assumption that the
Buddhist tradition is concerned with the transmission of such trans-cultural and
trans-temporal insights. In so doing, I bring our discussion straight back to our
intermediaries, the translators.
Translators can also be twofold in a sense other than the divide between
literalists and interpreters. Some translators see themselves as translating words
and others as communicating experiences. Of course, especially where we are
dealing with an interpretative translation, we can see that there will be no clear cut
distinction between these roles, but now I am thinking of what we might
characterise as the distinction between linguists and teachers. By teachers I mean
those who understand themselves as functioning explicitly within the Buddhist
tradition, whereas the linguist need not be a Buddhist and might have no
ideological sympathy with that of the text being translated.5 The streetwise
western Buddhist will have her own assessment of the virtues of each variant that
I have outlined, and probably reads translated materials with a rudimentary sense
in most cases of which type of translator it is upon which she is dependent. This
state of affairs would hardly matter if it were not the case that so much of the
canon, especially of the Mahäyäna canon, is available in only single translations,
if it is available at all. To take just one example, even so oft-translated a text as
the SaddharmapundarTka Sutra (Lotus Sütrá) is not adequately served. Of the 6
or 7 English translations that have appeared over the years, only one is from the
Sanskrit text, while all the rest have been made from a single source —
Kumârajïva's Chinese translation. This hardly does justice to the surviving
Chinese translations, of which there are a further three, while that from the
Sanskrit was amongst the very first translations of a Mahâyâna text made into a
10
Andrew Skilton: The Letter of the Law
texts, but rather of questioning the assumption that the source text somehow exists
'out there', pristine, inviolate, waiting for a treatment, good or bad, by the
translator — for this is just what we do not have. The idea that the original text is
'handed to us' perfectly formed, transmitting verbatim buddhavacana has no basis
but in hope or piety. These texts arrive at the translator's desk as the result of a
process, and it is this process, that of textual criticism or textual editing and some
of the issues that it raises, on which I wish to reflect. In so doing, in surveying this
territory, I am of course going where many a biblical and classical scholar has
been before, and in this respect we need to admit with due humility that the
scholarly treatment of Buddhist literature lags in many years of maturity behind
these other disciplines.8
The process of textual editing is required because, before the use of the printing
press, this literature was transmitted by hand through the laborious copying of
manuscripts — on palm leaf, birch bark or paper, the most common media. These
media are fragile and the process of copying decidedly fallible. As a result
individual manuscripts have lacunae, both large and small, and some have
interpolations of material from other sources. Slips of hand and eye on the part of
the scribe introduce all sorts of errors. Entire pages can simply be lost. Strangest
of all, scribes often copied all the pages of a text before adding page numbers to
the folios. It is not unknown that the folios became jumbled before numbering. It
is only in the rarest of cases that we possess an ancient manuscript of a Buddhist
text — ancient in so far as it may come within half a millennium of the time of its
composition.9 Most manuscripts of most Mahäyäna texts preserved in Sanskrit
date from the 17th century onwards, with occasional exceptions dating from as
early as the 11th century.m These manuscripts thus carry a text that has been
transmitted by a form of literary 'Chinese whispers' for something up to 15
centuries in the majority of cases. Reading such a manuscript is rarely
straightforward, and later mss. often carry their full share of one and a half
millennia of copyists mistakes.11 It can be guaranteed that no manuscript version
of a given text will be identical to another.
11
Contemporary Buddhism
The following paragraph, extracted from a later part of this present article, has
been adapted in a variety of ways that illustrate, admittedly at the extreme degree,
how a late Nepalese manuscript of a Mahäyäna sütra might read before touched
by an editor. The language is English.
The rrecottutyonoffa textasha conbeyorrofmeaninginthe Htelally
ratherrtthansymvolicsenshe. requiredanhishtolicalperrspettive
thatextendsveyondatthopology. atpresettwedonutknowwhenorrwhere the
finaldemishe ofthe srrsasha nitteligivle texttookprace thisqueshtyonare
provavly neberrto ve anshweredwithany confidence, notleastvecaushe
theshe two functyonshofatextis notandpresumavly neverrwere exclusibe ash
Shchopenhauer shayspoittedoutshuchlituralfiinctyon shaveprovavly
veenamajolushe ofmahäyäna shcriptureshfromthe earrliestperyod. *****
with the lackof textualccriticishm shuggestthatacoherett shavepprovavly.
veenamajolushe ofrnahäyäna shcriptureshí&omthe earrliestperyod .
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
The text editorial process begins with the collection of all extant witnesses, i.e. all
surviving manuscripts, and their comparison and collation.12 On the basis of this
data, the editor must then decide which readings are the 'correct' readings and
compile these as the basis for a printed version ofthe text in question. While this
is a précis account of the full process, the important point to note is that the
resulting text which will be printed and later used by translators is not one which
exists as such in any extant source — most, if not all, the imperfections of the
manuscript medium will have been ironed out, and such a 'perfect' text has never
been available to Buddhists of earlier centuries since they have always been
dependent upon the more or less faulty manuscript medium. The text to be
translated has thus been put together, word by word, by a technician, the textual
editor, and in this very important sense has been very thoroughly 'processed' en
route from its source (whatever that may have been) to the translator. Of
particular importance are the criteria used by the textual editor to decide which
readings are 'correct' and thus warrant inclusion as a part of the printed text.
Discussion of such criteria warrants a major study in its own right, and I can only
offer comments on some criteria later in this paper. In an ideal world we would
look for a 'technician' who combines an understanding of the linguistic issues
involved with practical knowledge of the technicalities of manuscript
transmission, and an understanding ofthe text, or at least ofthe subject matter of
the text. Thus, for a Mahäyäna Buddhist text, we might expect proficiency in
Sanskrit and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, along with Tibetan and Chinese (for
comparison with the ancient translations), knowledge, for example, of at least 5
12
Andrew Skilton: The Letter of the Law
different scripts or alphabets used for the Sanskrit text alone, and a good
grounding in the realict and issues of early Mahäyäna Buddhism in India as well as
some sense of Mahäyäna Buddhism as a viable and meaningful religion. This is a
daunting range of skills which few individuals acquire in full, and hence the value
of collaborative projects such as that published in Gomez and Silk in which a large
range of competencies can be pooled.13 More often a single scholar is biased
towards one side or another of this triangle of competence, and textual editions are
compiled typically by linguists or philologists who concentrate primarily on
grammatical and stylistic considerations, with occasional forays into doctrine.
From the point of view of the mere Buddhist, such people are the least qualified to
decide what does and does not constitute scripture. Even from an academic point
of view, there is a very real sense in which the textual editor can be accused of
inventing a text that has no historical reality, and for this reason textual editing has
fallen under something of a cloud in some quarters in recent decades.
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
My own engagement with this process has arisen from my interest in the
substantial Mahäyäna sütra known as the Samädhiräja Sütra (hereafter SRS).
This interest started c.1989 when I became aware that this text existed, that there
was no complete translation of it available in a European language14, but that there
had been published two printed editions of the Sanskrit text, edited by Dutt and
Vaidya respectively.15 These both purport to be editions of the Gilgit manuscript
of this sütra. There had even been published a complete facsimile of the ancient
Gilgit manuscript, although I was later disappointed to find that due to its poor
quality this facsimile was often illegible.16 While at first I had assumed that I
could launch myself immediately into a process of translation and interpretation of
the SRS, my 'faith' in the printed texts of Dutt and Vaidya was eventually
undermined. It soon became apparent that the editorial practice of each left much
to be desired. I shall explain.
The first thing that must be understood is that Vaidya's edition is essentially a
reprint, with modifications, of Dutt's edition. The explicit purpose of the
publication series in which Vaidya's edition appeared was to make available
important texts of the Buddhist Sanskrit corpus in affordable devanagari
editions.17 This involved reprinting texts that had either appeared originally in
European editions or that were by that time rare or unavailable in the original
Indian edition. Editorial input was therefore minimal, and in the case of the SRS
involved the substantial pruning of Dutt's critical apparatus. Thus, footnotes
recording variants in the manuscripts used by Dutt were drastically reduced in
number, often lengthy passages found in some sources were extracted from
footnotes and relocated to an Appendix, and the main text was occasionally
emended in accordance with Vaidya's understanding of "modern editorial
practice" and of the nature of Buddhist Sanskrit.18 Given the nature of these
revisions, it is easy to understand that we should turn to Dutt's edition as the
primary source for this text — at the very least, it contains a much fuller account
of the original editor's sources, which included the manuscript of the SRS from
Gilgit, two late Nepalese mss. and the Tibetan translation.
13
Contemporary Buddhism
occasions where a supposed variant reading from the Gilgit ms. is recorded
incorrectly. The passage represented in Dutt's text by samprakâsitam is hard to
read in the facsimile edition, but can nevertheless be made out with a fair degree
of confidence. Dutt's note to this gives the reading -Sita, but it is clear that where
he reads three syllables preceding this, there are in fact only two, and that -prakä-
should be read as -thä-.
Dutt does not make clear his rationale for introducing the square-bracketed
passages in the prose introduction to chapter 24, since they are clearly not a part of
the Gilgit recension. There are five such passages, amounting to 2 out of 21 lines
of text. That they are editorial additions is obscured by his use of square brackets
in earlier chapters to denote passages lost through damage to the ms. that have
been reconstructed from his Nepalese sources. Less accountable still is his use of
square brackets in vv. 8, 11 and 51 for words or characters which are clearly
readable in the Gilgit text! There are also 32 incorrect readings or unremarked
emendations (the latter more likely?) printed in the text, along with three
unremarked omissions from the Gilgit text and three unremarked additions to it.
There are 5 instances in which visarga is omitted unremarked, and likewise 26
occasions in which it has been supplied. Anusvara has been omitted in 9 places
and added in 11, all without notice.
While this catalogue of error might seem too obscure or technical to bother the
reader who is not also a textual editor, there are other 'emendations' which have a
broader significance. In chapter 16, in the context of a lengthy passage which
describes the ways in which the Buddhist sañgha will degenerate in future times,
Dutt prints the following verse.
14
Andrew Skilton: The Letter of the Law
This curious statement suggests that for the community by which the Samädhiräja
Sütra was produced, the building of monasteries was seen as a problematic
activity, at the least a cause of serious dissent. But there is not a single manuscript
of the SRS which carries the term vihäru, 'monastery', at this point, and the true
reading, attested by all sources, is vivada, 'quarrel'.20 The verse thus reads:
Quarrelling with each other and begetting malice, hatred and hardness of
heart, making slanderous accusations against one another, they will find
pleasure by doing evil.
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
15
Contemporary Buddhism
the 5th century CE to the late 19th century. There is also a Tibetan translation,
made in the 9th century, and three Chinese translations: two incomplete, made in
the 5th century, and one complete, made in the 6th century CE. The Sanskrit
manuscripts have an immediate and obvious claim upon one's attention, since they
record the text in its language of composition, but quite what to do with this
number of sources is another problem. Imagine the following purely hypothetical
scenario. Let us pretend that for chapter 17, verse 111, there really are some
manuscripts that record the term naukä and others that have kolo. How are we to
select the correct term? What if, out of 40 mss., 30 have naukä and only 10 have
kolol We might be tempted to say that naukä is correct, because most mss. say it
is so, and one comes across editions where this argument is used. This is
essentially a statistical approach, in which sheer numerical superiority is deemed
sufficient authority to establish the text. But our 30 mss. saying naukä may have
all been copied from a single source ms. in which the scribe substituted naukä for
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
kolo. The numbers of manuscripts that survive are determined by the accidents of
history, but mere counting would still be an unreliable guide even if all copies ever
made were available to us in our study. Another version of the statistical approach
is to nominate one manuscript as 'the best manuscript' because one has noticed
that it has a tendency to produce the 'correct' reading more often than the other
mss. available. On this basis one then uses it as an arbiter when faced with
otherwise imponderable choices. One's observation of correctness leads one to
inductive conclusions that are simply statistical and do not indicate a necessary
truth — like people, all manuscripts tell the truth until the first time they lie.27
There is a further problem, that of sheer volume of data. Collating even a short
chapter of this lengthy text from c.40 mss.28 can further blunt even the dullest
mind and is disproportionately fatiguing. It is an urgent desideratum to reduce this
total and work if possible from a more manageable number, perhaps c.12. Even
this modest number will keep one from seeing the sunshine more than one's doctor
would deem healthy. We thus need a strategy that achieves two goals: that
reduces the sheer number of sources on a rational basis; and that saves us from the
failings of a purely statistical basis for one's choice of readings to go in the text.
For these reasons, one can turn to a technique of analysis refined in the field of
Classical studies since the beginning of the last century, by which one attempts to
establish the genealogy of all one's manuscripts. If the analysis works, the
product, called the stemma codicum, is something resembling a family tree for all
one's manuscripts, and like a family tree, this is often expressed diagrammatically
with each manuscript neatly sitting on its branch and each branch (or twig) leading
back eventually to the main trunk, which represents the source of our text.
There are three important questions that arise from this process. How do we do
it? What further conclusions arise from such an analysis? How can it go wrong?
Taking the first, we do it by comparing errors. If one scribe makes an error in his
copy, another scribe who later uses that copy to make yet another cannot help but
transmit that error. By tracing the patterns of distribution of errors we can
establish the forks in the tree trunk, the branches and even the little twigs. Further
16
Andrew Skilton: The Letter of the Law
conclusions that arise include the possibility that we identify manuscripts that are
direct copies of other existing mss. Where this is the case we can happily discard
the copy, since it will tell us nothing that is not in its exemplar.29 We can also
isolate emendations made to the text during its transmission, and which on face
value could have been the true readings. The stemma codicum will clearly show
us such features characterising an isolated branch of the tree. We can now choose
an appropriate selection of mss. from all the major branches of the tree — without
this guidance we might accidentally select our 12 mss. from a single branch, for
reasons which have no ultimate bearing upon their contents.30 Our analysis goes
drastically wrong, is sometimes fatally holed below the waterline, when a copyist
consulted more than one text in making his copy. Editors call this 'contamination',
an alarming term that reflects the trauma experienced when the lifeline of
stemmatic analysis seems about to snap in one's hand. Unfortunately the analysis
of patterns of error only works when all parties used a single manuscript to make
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
17
Contemporary Buddhism
... at some future time bhiksus and bodhisattvas who are conceited, who
have not cultivated their bodies, not cultivated their minds, not cultivated
wisdom, who are immoral... [etc.]... when they hear this samädhi of Direct
Encounter with the Buddhas of the Present expounded, they will not give
ear to it or listen to it, will not have faith in it, nor accept, master, keep, or
read it, to say nothing of expounding it in full to others....
'With the intention of belittling it, with the intention of deriding it, and
with the intention of reviling it they will say:
"The proliferation of these scriptures, this appearance in the world of the
likes of the bhiksu Änanda, and the appearance of sütras like this are indeed
great wonders!"
and going to a secret place they will revile it, saying to each other:
"Sütras like this are fabrications, they are poetic inventions; they were not
spoken by the Buddha; nor were they authorised by the Buddha!" ...
and 'certain other beings':
When they hear this samädhi of Direct Encounter with the Buddhas of the
18
Andrew Skilton: The Letter of the Law
Present, they will not understand, have faith in, believe, or incline strongly
towards it. Far from it, when they hear it they will laugh at it, deride and
revile it. Going off in secret they will abuse it among themselves and reject
it, saying:
"These bhiksus have a real nerve! These bhiksus talk nonsense! It is a
great wonder indeed that they should give the name surra to something
which was not spoken by the Buddha, which is a poetic invention of their
own fabrication, a conglomeration of words and syllables uttered merely in
conversation!"
And saying: "These sutras were not spoken by the Buddha," they will
make other people believe so too.... 35
(Some) scoff with words such as these: 'You are teaching the doctrine on
your own inspiration, for this is not what was taught by the Tathägata. You
have made this doctrine to please yourselves. The doctrine you teach has
your own creation as its source, so there is no need for you to show it
respect, no need to show it veneration'.36
Nor was this scepticism limited to the early Mahäyana period, for we find the
same debate surfacing in the Bodhicaryävatära of Säntideva, the 8th century
Mädhyamika37, and we read in Dharmasvämin's biography that, in the 14th
century, he was turned away from the Bodh Gaya temple by the frävaka
incumbents because he was carrying a Mahäyana sütra at the time!38 There can
be no doubt that the sustained view of Mahäyana sütra on the part of the Érâvaka
community in India was that they were trash. Even if the Mahäyana community
held only that their scripture was inspired by the Buddha (and there are some sütra
that claim just this39), in the face of such critical pressure from the rest of their
community, they had a vested interest in hiding the true authorship. Most of the
large Mahäyana sütra appear to be composite texts, probably compiled over a
considerable length of time, and in this sense at least were the product of
communities rather than individuals, inspired or otherwise. This last consideration
may account for another important consideration for the text editor.
An open tradition can come about through two processes which are not
altogether dissimilar. Either, at some point in the transmission of the text, that text
is changed (not necessarily intentionally) in some way that on its intrinsic merits
makes the changes of equal value in the eyes of the editor, and all evidence of the
priority of the original state is lost so that no historical research can re-establish its
priority; or, the text has circulated in distinct recensions from the start. Now it is
often the assumption where one has to deal with two or more recensions of a text,
that one of them is the 'original' and the rest have been produced by redactors who
have intentionally changed that original text for some purpose that may or may not
be possible to discern. However, even the considerations concerning the
19
Contemporary Buddhism
composition of Mahäyäna stttra just outlined should alert us to the possibility that
this model may be simplistic. For example, a text produced through some process
of communal composition or legitimation might circulate in several forms,
perhaps forms that have been generated or approved by different parts of that
community. The same text might be written down in different ways in
geographically distinct communities where different religious or social conditions
pertain.40
Either way, it is quite possible that the editor can be faced by a mass of raw
material which eventually yields to a picture in which we have several recensions
of a text with no basis on which to prefer one over another as the 'original'. This is
just the situation that we have with the SRS. Analysis of the various witnesses of
the text shows that: there are extant 4 distinct recensions of this text; that at least
three were in circulation contemporaneously; that there is no absolute basis for
giving priority to any one of these three; and that only one (the fourth) is
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
20
Andrew Skilton: The Letter of the Law
variant textual material which must be assessed. Through the exacting work of
Eimer and Harrison, however, much headway has been made in our understanding
of the relationships of these materials to each other, and several attempts have
been made to delineate a stemma codicum for them.46 The result of these labours
for the bKa' 'gyur can be summarized briefly as follows.47
In the early 14th century the translated texts of the Tripitaka were collected and
copied at the Narthang monastery and this 'Old Narthang' bKa' 'gyur was
disseminated in manuscript copies, eventually to form the basis of the majority of
later editions. These later traditions can be grouped into two major strands: one,
derived from the Them spangs ma manuscript of 1431 CE, includes the Stog
Palace, Tokyo and London mss., together designated as the Thems spangs ma line;
the other, derived from the Tshal pa manuscript, and including the Peking edition,
called the Tshal pa line.48 In addition to these Thems spangs ma and Tshal pa
strands there are several independent manuscript editions which appear not to be
derived from the Old Narthang edition: Phug brag, Newark and Tabo. Later
blockprint editions, such as those from Derge, Cone and Lhasa, have been shown
to be conflated editions prepared from exemplars from both the Thems spangs ma
and Tshal pa strands. They may read well, but they are the result of recent
traditional editorial activity and are relatively useless for text critical purposes, or
indeed for any work that puts a premium on the exact meaning of the text.
Uncritical use of these late editions can best be described as naïve.
As an attempt to apply the principles of Classical textual editing to an
anonymous Mahäyäna Buddhist scripture, my own work on the SRS has been
confronted by all these problems. At the same time, I have been aware of
criticisms of this type of project, and have noted with some interest and sympathy
the introductory comments in a recent and important study and partial translation
of the SRS. Here the authors explain the editorial methodology adopted by the
translation team that worked on the SRS chapters translated in that volume.
The classical versions of the surra were also considered in our discussions,
21
Contemporary Buddhism
but not as different limbs of some imaginary conflated text. Therefore, the
multilingual approach was conceived of as an interpretative tool, not as a
criterion for editorial emendation. Only one recension, that of the Nepalese
manuscripts, was chosen as the primary object of translation. We utilised the
edition of Matsunami, since it is the only critical edition of these
manuscripts. Other editions and recensions were used as hermeneutical
devices. Only in the most obscure passages, where Matsunami's text or his
manuscripts defied translation, was any attempt made to correct the
Nepalese recension, or Matsunami's edition, in the light of other recensions.
Otherwise it was assumed that Matsunami's readings were "correct," in the
sense that they represent an actual textual tradition, not a mere scribal
accident. This principle was followed even when, occasionally,
Matsunami's text appeared to be grammatically irregular or doctrinally
inconsistent with other sources.
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
I should state at the outset that I am in full agreement with what I understand to be
the main thrust of these remarks — viz. that the editor must use her sources
responsibly, consistently and with due restraint. The very same volume contains a
critique of bad editorial practice, which highlights a number of pitfalls that await
the unwary, cavalier or opinionated editor.50 However, not least because we are
making contributions to the study of the same text, I must take issue with other
opinions both expressed and implicit in this passage.
The authors are correct in criticising the conflation of recensions. The first
problem facing the reader and the textual editor is to judge at what point we are
dealing with recension and at what point mere corruption. Mere corruptions can
legitimately be corrected by comparison of shared material recorded in different
recensions. However, this only begs the question of what we mean by a
'recension' of a text. The definition of recension with which I have approached the
tasks involved in my own work on the iS7?S is that a distinct recension of a text is
an independent redaction or consciously rewritten version ofthat text. A text that
happens to differ in some minor, and particularly an accidental, matter cannot
legitimately be classed as another recension. Thus, an entire family of mss. may
omit a verse or a chapter, but only because of a scribal accident in their archetype,
and however numerous the mss. derived from this accidentally changed text, this
difference is not an a priori justification for calling them representatives of a new
recension, the integrity of which we then must defend.
Adventitious modifications to the text may also be entirely intelligible. In such
cases one is surely justified in removing even intelligible corruptions by way of
22
Andrew Skilton: The Letter of the Law
deference to the original intentions of the redactor, so far as these are recoverable.
It is entirely justifiable on the textual evidence alone that such modifications
should be made good by the editor and duly sign-posted in the apparatus, but at
the least, they must be based on a holistic knowledge of the complete text. Her
decision about items in this category need to be informed by the extent to which
any adventitious modification, once introduced, became a significant part of the
text and formed an integral part of the text in its later exegesis. Any such decision
by the editor requires an act of judgement, often of whether such changes are
intentional, and each such judgement might in the long run be shown to be wrong.
Thus, I have been able to adjust parts of Matsunami's edition of the samädhi list
from chapter 1 of the SRS, but this does not amount to a critique of the editorial
enterprise in which both he and I have been engaged — rather a vindication.51
The correct view to take is not that Matsunami was wrong, but that the successes
of scholarship are incremental.
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
The authors also admit the need for emendation, or 'conflation' as they
condemn it, whenever they come across a passage that is problematic — when the
text "defied translation". Resolving corruptions that defy translation is one of the
major tasks of the textual editor. That such problems had still to be resolved by
such cross-reference only suggests that the original editor had apparently not done
the job completely.52 Furthermore, it is only possible for the authors to adopt this
position because they have (except for the problematic passages where they do
resort to standard editorial practice) abdicated responsibility for editorial matters,
and this they can do only because someone, in their case Matsunami, has come
before to shoulder those responsibilities. In reality, the position adopted by the
translation team is perhaps intentionally similar to the presumed position of the
Buddhist community that utilised the original mss., in that they express a belief
(should it be 'faith'?) that Matsunami's text is "correct" and need not be examined
critically. Their inconsistency in adhering to this principle, in that they do resort to
critical emendation when the text is incomprehensible, reveals the real distance of
their attitude from that of the presumed 'believing Buddhist'. If their position is
adopted out of convenience, i.e. to restrict the amount of technical work on the
text prior to translation, it is entirely reasonable, but not if expressed as a critique
of the editorial enterprise.
But how appropriate is this picture of the uncritical believer? The Buddhist
tradition has utilised its scriptures in two ways. On the one hand there have been
those who have handled texts as literary items, to be read, understood, expounded
and if necessary corrected. On the other hand, there have been communities
where the text is utilised as part of a system for the generation of religious merit,
and in this sense a text is not apprehended primarily as an intelligible document,
but rather as a powerful totem which must be ritually and magically manipulated.
This brings me to a second strand of the argument in the passage quoted from
Gomez and Silk. Towards the end of the above extract the authors make a
derogatory distinction between the text of the SRS as "a real text, an actual
religious object" and an edition, which they dismiss as "simply a scholar's idea of
23
Contemporary Buddhism
what the Samädhimja should have been at some undetermined point in time".
Presumably a part of the opprobrium expressed in this passage is directed towards
any artificially conflated text. It is not stated if they had any specific edition in
mind, although both Dutt's and Vaidya's editions are seriously faulted in this way.
Be that as it may, the passage also appears to reflect some undisclosed hostility
towards what is seen as the merely theoretical reconstitution of texts when
compared to the anthropology of religious practice.
Without doubt the Nepalese manuscripts of the SRS have been produced in a
community primarily concerned with the generation of merit, as is evidenced by
the almost total lack of correction of the often grotesque scribal errors which
abound in each and every manuscript. Since such corruptions make an intelligible
reading of an unrevised manuscript, qua "actual religious object", impossible, we
are justified in concluding that any translation which seeks to present to the reader
a fully intelligible rendering is false to that text as "an actual religious object", at
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
least for the community which produced our manuscripts. It must be understood
that there is no such thing as 'simply reading a manuscript' as a strategy that
bypasses the alleged obfuscation and falsification of the textual critic. Every
manuscript is corrupt to some degree, and once one begins to read, one is drawn
into the task of textual editing, i.e. making corrections, as surely as one seeks to
draw an intelligible text from one's manuscript.
My point is underlined by the observations of the anthropologist, David
Gellner:
Few seem to realize that in a traditional society, where literacy is a minority
accomplishment and study of the scriptures is carried on only by a minority
of that minority, most of the priests — let alone the laity — are simply
ignorant of the contents of these scriptures. Priests learn liturgies by heart,
they know how to perform rituals, and often have a deep intuitive
understanding of their own tradition. But only a tiny number are actually
pandits, that is to say, spend their time reading the original scriptures.53
24
Andrew Skilton: The Letter of the Law
preserved for the sake of the merit-making acts of recitation and preservation, or
as physical symbols of the dharma, rather than for the sake of access to the text
contained therein. As "an actual religious object" its intelligibility was not at issue,
as it is for us, as curious 'outsiders'. It makes sense that, if one is to engage in the
labour intensive pastime of textual editing at all, one should work towards
establishing a text that was read in the sense that we understand this sort of
cognitive activity, rather than simply recited. Mutatis mutandis, if we are
interested in reading any scripture for the sake of its content, then we are
automatically committed to an interest in a text that is intelligible. Our very
interest in reading these works assumes the existence of such a text at some point
in its history.
I have no doubt that this situation is characteristic of the bulk of ms. evidence
for Mahäyäna sütra literature. By contrast, there survive mss. of Buddhist texts,
usually of non-sütra material, which contain abundant marginalia and provide
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
direct evidence that they were used as texts to be read and their contents studied
and compared with other mss. — in other words, they provide direct evidence that
where mss. were read for their content, as we now wish to do, past readers have
shared our textual and commentarial concerns, i.e. where the tradition itself reads
its own literature for the purpose of understanding, it also engages in textual
criticism. It is false to the tradition of Buddhist scholarship to presume that text
critical work is the preserve of a falsifying modern scholarship that is removed
from the reality of the religious tradition.56 A relevant example of such traditional
scholarship occurs in Bu-ston's discussion of the recensions of the
Bodhicaryävatära {BCA), a discussion that only differs from that of a modern
textual scholar by the implicitly religious orientation of the author and the data to
which he had access in the 14th century. Bu-ston links the matter of recension to
the translation process. " The BCA was translated into Tibetan three times: the
first time, in the 9th century, by Sarvajñadeva and dPal-brstegs on the basis of a
manuscript from Kashmir; the second time, in the early 11th century, on the basis
of a manuscript from the Madhyadeáa (the homeland of Buddhism, i.e.
Bihar/Uttar Pradesh); and the third time, in the late 11th century, revising this
second version. In the 17th century, the Buddhist historian Täranätha discussed
the same problem, but gave different information: he mentions a version of 1000
verses plus known to the Kashmiri pandits, a 700 verse version preserved by the
'easterners', and a version of 1000 verses known in the Madhyadeáa.58 Both
Täranätha and Bu-ston resolve the problem of recensional primacy by recounting
a story that all three were in circulation during áántideva's life and that, after he
had left Nälanda, he was traced by a delegation of three pandits who asked,
amongst other things, which version was authentic, aäntideva replied that it was
the 1000 verse recension from the Madhyadeáa. Part of this discussion is
circumstantially confirmed by the discovery, amongst the manuscripts recovered
from Tun-huang, of a translation of the BCA by Sarvajfiadeva and dPal-brstegs in
701.5 verses rather than the 912 verses of the canonical version. That this short
version is not just the product of an idle or arbitrary hand is suggested by the
25
Contemporary Buddhism
existence of three manuscripts that record it, in different hands, and that two of the
ten commentaries on the BCA that are preserved in the bsTan 'gyur are
commentaries on this short version.59 Primarily through the work of Akira Saito,
we now know that the short version is probably the original text, and that the
longer version was produced by the addition of 200 plus verses which in a number
of places spoil the structure and argument of áüntideva's original text. We do not
know who added these extra verses.60
Just as it is false to assume that the Buddhist tradition was itself 'innocent' of
text critical concerns, so is it also to assume that the product of the sophisticated
literary milieu through which this literature passed (whatever its origins) can be
properly and fully assessed without the help of modern textual critics and
historians. Prajñákaramati, the ?llth century commentator on the
Bodhicaryävatära, made text critical judgements concerning this text. For
example, in the ninth chapter, in a passage that debates the authenticity of the
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
Mahäyäna sütra, he judges that three verses, 9:49-51, are not genuine because
they break the flow of the chapter and they are also disrespectful to Mahäkäayapa,
an important disciple of the historical Buddha.
You accept that whatever text might be in accordance with the Discourses
was spoken by the Buddha. So why are the Mahäyäna scriptures not
accepted as equal in value to your own Discourses?
If the whole lot is faulted because one part is not accepted, why not treat
the lot as spoken by the Conqueror because a single part is the same as in
the Discourses?
Who will bar acceptance of the teaching over which those led by the
great Kaáyapa hesitated, simply because you do not understand it? 61
His first point is quite reasonable, since they revive an argument that starts in
verse 41 and appears to conclude by verse 44. His point about Mahäkäayapa is
less so, for he appears to have forgotten that this is a reference to a significant
episode in the fourth chapter of the Saddharmapundarïka Sütra in which
Mahäkäayapa and three companions confess the arrogance that had held them
back from accepting the teachings of this sütra. Comparison with the Tun-huang
recension of the BCA shows that these verses are indeed later interpolations, and
so modern historical research vindicates Prajñákaramati's editorial judgement.
Unfortunately the same comparison also shows that the previous verses (41 and
43-52) are all interpolation. Prajñákaramati appears to have been right for the
wrong reasons.
The reconstitution of a text as a conveyor of meaning in the literary rather than
symbolic sense requires an historical perspective that extends beyond
anthropology. At present we do not know when or where the final demise of the
SRS as an intelligible text took place. This question is probably never to be
answered with any confidence — not least because these two functions of a text
are not and presumably never were exclusive. As Schopen has pointed out, ritual
26
Andrew Skilton: The Letter of the Law
functions have probably been a major use of Mahäyäna scriptures from the earliest
period.62 The Nepalese mss., with their lack of textual criticism, suggest that a
coherent modern translation will not fairly represent the SRS as "an actual
religious object" in Nepal since at least the 17th century, and it may be due solely
to the fragility of the medium of transmission that we cannot push this date several
centuries further back.
Returning to my point of departure, since we cannot define in time or place the
point at which our text was last an intelligible document but are committed to
doing so through the very assumption that our text should be intelligible, we are
without question committed likewise to establishing an "idea of what the
Samädhiräja must have been at some undetermined point in time".
The editor's responsibilities include: to gather as many witnesses to the text as
are available, and are within her competence to assess; to establish whether or not
there is more than one recension of the text, and if there is, the character of the
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
References
Allon, M. (1997) Style and Function: A Study of the dominant stylistic features of the prose
portions of Pali canonical sutta texts and their mnemonic function, Studia Philologica
27
Contemporary Buddhism
28
Andrew Skilton: The Letter of the Law
York.pp.70-94
Harrison, P.M. (undated) Philology in the Field: Some Comments on Selected mDo mang
Texts in the Tabo Collection, draft paper
von Hinüber, O. (1980) Remarks on the Problems of Textual Criticism in Editing
Anonymous Sanskrit Literature, in Proceedings of the First Symposium of Nepali and
German Sanskritists 1978, Kathmandu, pp.28-40
von Hinüber, O. (1991) The Oldest Pāli Manuscript. Four folios of the Vinaya-Pitaka from
the National Archives, Kathmandu, Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur,
No.6, Mainz
von Hinüber, O. (1993) Pāli und Lānnā (Nord-Thai) in Kolophonen alter Palm-blatt
Handshcriften aus Nord-Thailand, Festschrift für Helmut Rix, Indogermanica et Italica,
pp. 223-236
von Hinüber, O. (1994) Traces of Khmer Influence in Northern Thai Pāli Manuscripts, in
Bizot F. (Ed.) Recherches Nouvelles sur le Cambodge, École française d'Extrême-
Orient, Paris, pp. 97-100
von Hinüber, O. (1996) Chips from Buddhist Workshops, Scribes and Manuscripts from
Northern Thailand, Journal of the Pali Text Society, XXII, pp.35-57
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
Hodgson, B.H. (1874) Essays on the Languages, Literature, and Religion of Nepal and
Tibet, London
Hundius, H. (1990) The Colophons of Thirty Pāli Manuscripts from Northern Thailand,
Journal of the Pali Text Society, XIV, pp. 1-173
Katre, S.M. (1941) Introduction to Textual Criticism, Bombay
Kern, H. (1884) Saddharma-Puņdarīka or The Lotus of the True Law, Oxford (since
reprinted)
Lethcoe, N. (1976) Some Notes on the Relationship between the Abhisamayālamkāra, the
Revised Pañcavimśatisāhasrikā, and the Chinese Translations of the Unrevised
Pañcavimśatisāhasrikā, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 96, pp.499-511
Maas, P. (1958) Textual Criticism, Oxford
Matsunami, S. (1975) Ed. Samādhirāja-sūtra Taishō Daigaku Kenkyū Kiyō, Memoirs of
Taisho University, The Departments of Buddhism and Literature, 60, pp.244-188 (=SRS
chapters 1-4); 61, pp.796-761 (=SRS chapters 5-7)
Regamey, C. (1990) Three Chapters from the Samādhirājasūtra, (originally published
Warsaw 1938) reprinted New Delhi
Reynolds, L.D. and Wilson, N.G (1991) Scribes and Scholars — A Guide to the
Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature, Oxford, 3rd edition
Rockwell, J. (1980) Samādhi and Patient Acceptance: Four Chapters of the
Samādhirāja-sūtra, unpublished M.A. thesis, Nāropa Institute, Colorado
Roerich, G and Altekar, A.S. (1959) The Biography of Dharmasvāmin, Patna
Saito, A. (1993) A Study of Aksayamati (=Śāntideva)'s Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra as Found in
the Tibetan Manuscripts from Tun-huang, Miye (Japan)
Salomon, R. (1999) Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhāra — The British Library
Kharosthī Fragments, London
Sangharakshita, (1976) The Endlessly Fascinating Cry, private publication
Sangharakshita, (1985) St. Jerome Revisited, Glasgow
Sāñkrtyāyana, R. (1937) Second Search of Sanskrit Palm-leaf mss. in Tibet, Journal of the
Bihar and Orissa Research Society, xxiii, pp. 1-57
Schopen, G (1975) The phrase sa pŗthivīpradeśaś caityabhūto bhavet in the Vajracchedikā:
notes on the cult of the book in Mahāyāna, Indo-Iranian Journal, 17, pp.147—181
Schopen, G (1977) Sukhāvatī as a Generalised Religious Goal in Sanskrit Mahāyāna Sūtra
Literature, Indo-Iranian Journal, 19, pp. 177-210
Schopen, G (1985) Two Problems in the History of Indian Buddhism: The Layman/Monk
Distinction and the Doctrines of the Transference of Merit, Studien zur Indologie und
Iranistik, 10, pp.9-47
29
Contemporary Buddhism
Schopen, G (1997) If you Can't Remember, How to Make It Up: Some Monastic Rules for
Redacting Canonical Texts, in Kieffer-Pülz, P. and Hartmann, J.-U. (Eds.)
Bauddhavidyāsudhākarah, Indica et Tibetica Verlag, Swisttal-Odendorft, pp.571-582
Skilton, A. (1997) The Samādhirāja Sūtra: a study incorporating a critical edition and
translation of Chapter 17, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Oxford
Skiiton, A. (1999a) The Dating of the Samādhirāja Sūtra, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 27,
pp.635-652
Skilton, A. (1999b) Four Recensions of the Samādhirāja Sūtra, Indo-Iranian Journal, 42
pp.335-356
Skiiton, A. (forthcoming 2000) The Gilgit Manuscript of the Samādhirāja Sūtra, Central
Asiatic Journal
Snellgrove, D. (1958) Note on the Adhyāśayasamcodanasūtra, Bulletin of the School of
Oriental and African Studies, xxi, pp.620-623
Sparnam, G (1986) The Tibetan Dhammapada — Sayings of the Buddha, London 1986
(originally New Delhi 1983)
Srinivasan, S.A. (1967) Vācaspatimiśras Tattvakaumudī: Ein Beitrag zur Textkritik bei
kontaminierter Überlieferung, Hamburg
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
Sukthankar, V.S. (1933) Prolegomena to the critical edition of the Ādiparvan of the
Mahābhārata, Poona
Tatz, M. (1972) Revelation in Mādhyamika Buddhism, unpublished M.A. thesis, University
of Washington
Thrangu Rinpoche, (1994) King of Samādhi, Hong Kong
Vaidya, PL. (1961) Ed. Mahāyānasūtrasamgraha, part 1, Darbhanga
Vaidya, PL. (1961) Ed. Samādhirājasūtra, Darbhanga
Vira R. and Chandra, L. (1974) Gilgit Buddhist Manuscripts (facsimile edition), part 9,
Śata-Pitaka Series, vol. 10 (9), New Delhi
Weller, F. (1973) Der arme Heinrich in Indien, Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 68,
pp.437-48
West, M. L. (1973) Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique, Stuttgart
Notes
1
The tradition appears to be in agreement that there are 8 of these states, even if there is
slight divergence between particular lists. In both Pali and Sanskrit sources we are
warned against rebirth in the pratyantajatrapada, i.e. 'border countries or barbarian
regions' (Edgerton). I would say that we qualify on both counts. Buddhist literature
that deals with proselytising such regions is an interesting but uninvestigated genre.
2
There is no comprehensive and up-to-date catalogue of Buddhist scripture translated
into modern languages, nor indeed any single comprehensive catalogue of existing
Buddhist scripture.
3
Two texts of Abhidhamma still await translation — the Yamaka and the Patthāna.
4
There are commentaries on Buddhist texts by modern Buddhist teachers that seem to
have little to do with the text nominally being expounded. The text acts as a
springboard, from which the exegete jumps to a variety of topics on which they wish
to speak, but which have no direct connection with the text under study. Thrangu
Rinpoche (1994), based on the Samādhirāja Sūtra, and Sangharakshita (1976), based
on the Bodhicaryāvatāra, could be seen as examples of this.
5
This distinction has been explored, in autobiographical mode, in Sangharakshita (1985).
6
1 am referring to that of Kern (1884). The very first Western translation of this text was
made into French by Burnouf (1852). It would be unfair to suggest that the situation
30
Andrew Skilton: The Letter of the Law
remains that bad, since the last decades of this century have seen a minor
efflorescence of sound translations of Mahāyāna sūtra into European languages.
7
Conze (1973) and an earlier version by the same translator, (1958).
8
It is not my intention to give a definitive account of this complex process. On the
general principles and, more importantly, the practice of textual criticism see: Dearing
(1974); Katre (1941); Maas (1958); Reynolds and Wilson (1991); Sukthankar (1933);
and West (1973). More specific observations can be gleaned from: Edgerton (1924
and 1957); von Hinüber (1980); Srinivasan (1967).
9
The Gilgit collection, a small library of 50 plus Sanskrit Buddhist texts found by
accident in the 1930s, is one such case. It is thought, on the basis of one of the scripts
employed, to predate the year 630 CE. Manuscripts have also been discovered
amongst the ancient oasis towns of Central Asia, and recently some very early mss.
have been recovered from Afghanistan (ancient Gandhāra). The British Library
kharosthī mss., which contain material from the śrāvaka canon, appear to date from
the first 50 years of the 1st century CE (see Salomon 1999). Other very ancient mss.
from the same region containing sections of a Prajñāpāramitā text, have been
provisionally dated to the 2nd century CE.
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
10
These exceptions are usually late Indian or early Nepalese mss. preserved in Nepalese
or Tibetan libraries — although a good number have since been acquired by Western
museums and libraries. The standard 17th century or later ms. of a Mahāyāna text
comes from Nepal and represents what might be fairly described as the demise of the
scribal tradition. The situation is somewhat worse in the case of Pali mss., since there
seem to be far fewer ancient survivals, there being relatively few Pali mss. older than
17th century. Recently Lānnā Pāli mss. from Northern Thailand dating from the 15th
century have begun to receive attention from Western scholars: von Hinüber (1993,
1994 and 1996) and Hundius (1990). The manuscript tradition of Central and
Southern Thailand was extensively destroyed by a Burmese (mainly Buddhist) army
of invasion in 1767. Von Hinüber (1988) estimates that only 35 mss. from Central
Thailand predate 1767. Northern Thailand missed out on the depredations of this
period and thus preserves a larger number of mss. that date from the textual revival in
the region of the 15th century. Early exceptions to this dismal picture are the
6th-century golden leaves of the Khin Ba Mound, Burma (Falk 1997) and the
9th-century vinaya fragment from Nepal (von Hinüber 1991). These facts serve to
remind us that Buddhists have been at times responsible for the mindless destruction
of their own scriptural heritage.
11 Many Western Buddhists imagine an erudite, conscientious and unflagging pandit
reproducing treasured buddhavacana with meticulous care and profound faith. Alas!
While such people undoubtedly existed and occasionally may have copied
manuscripts, those that we have were almost always produced by jobbing scribes,
who did not necessarily understand the language they were copying and who were
being paid for the job by the number of syllables reproduced. The standard scribal
measure of text was the anustubh verse, containing 32 syllables, and the final tally
was sometimes noted in the colophon to the manuscript (like an invoice?). In the case
of the Prajñāpāramitā corpus, these measures were used to differentiate the
recensions of the text. The care lavished upon the reproduction of a manuscript is no
guarantee of the accuracy of its contents, as many textual editors have found. Our
Western Buddhists would be dismayed by the condition and appearance of many mss.
The Buddhist tradition has itself produced attempts to stimulate the scholarly
understanding of the content of texts and the copying of mss. for merit rather than for
money (i.e. subtle rather than financial gain) as was the case in 18th-century Sri
Lanka under the reform of Saranarnkara and King Kīrti Śrī Rājasimha. See Blackburn
(1996), p.33.
31
Contemporary Buddhism
12
Where they exist, an editor is also wise t o consult translations of t h e text made in
antiquity, since these sometimes give us insights into the text as it existed at that time.
The editor of a Mahāyāna sūtra is thus often compelled to look at ancient Chinese and
Tibetan versions of a text, even if the Sanskrit itself survives. Rarely will Sanskrit
mss. predate these ancient translations, and usually they are many centuries younger.
13
1 9 8 9 , section 1.
14
By that date 8 out of 40 chapters had been published in English translation: Cüppers
(1990), text and translation of ch.9; Gomez and Silk (1989), translation only of
chs.1-4; Regamey (1990), text and translation of chs.8, 19 and 22. I later discovered
translations of a further four chapters in two American M.A. theses: Rockwell (1980),
Tibetan text and translation of chs.4, 6, 7 and 9; and Tatz (1972), Tibetan text and
translation of ch.11. In addition to these we have: Filliozat (1963), a partial French
translation of ch.33; and Weiler (1973), a partial German translation of ch.34.
15
Dutt and Sharma (1941, 1953 and 1954) and Vaidya (1961). T h e first seven chapters
of the Sanskrit text were re-edited by Matsunami (1975).
16
Vira and Chandra (1974). For a description and discussion of this ms., see Skilton
(forthcoming 2000).
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
17
Buddhist Sanskrit Texts, published by The Mithila Institute of Post-Graduate Studies
and Research in Sanskrit Learning, Darbhanga. Devanagari is the main script used
for Sanskrit in modern Indian publications, but, apart from a generic similarity to
earlier Indie scripts, has no a priori relevance to Buddhist texts. In m y own
experience devanagari is only used in the very youngest and least useful mss., from
the end of the 19th and the early 20th centuries. For Nepalese mss. one needs a
knowledge of Newari script and its variants, and for Indian mss. knowledge of a
variety of Gupta scripts, śāradā or proto-Bengali scripts, as well as decorative scripts
such as rañjanā. For early Indian mss. Brahmi and for very early mss. even
Kharosthī scripts will be needed. All these are scripts and are entirely distinct from
the languages that they are used to transmit. For mss. of the Pali canon, another range
of scripts used in the different regions of South and Southeast Asia is required.
18
Thus, for chapter 24 the total number of variants recorded by Dutt is 141, but this
number is reduced to 18 by Vaidya.
19
E.g. Schopen (1977), Appendix III, Dutt's Edition of the Bhaisajyaguru-Sūtra, pp.
208-210.
20
H e does record the reading vicāru, from the Gilgit ms., but this is a misreading of the
ms.
21
Dutt, 17.111.
22
Majjhima Nikāya, i.l30ff. In this text, t h e B u d d h a asserts t h e need t o grasp t h e
meaning rather than just the letter of the Dharma. Since it is just a means t o an end,
even the Dharma must eventually be discarded, just as one leaves behind a raft after
one has used it to cross a river.
23
Such editorial errors and lapses are not without a certain unwitting entertainment
value: thus, Vaidya's edition of the Kārandavyūhasūtra reads, te satpurusāh ye āryās
tān gomārgāya vāsam upavasanti, 'those good people, the noble ones them who live
life for a cattle track', where surely we should have ...ye āryā astāngamārgāya vāsam
upavasanti, 'those who live life for the sake of the eightfold path of the noble ones'; or
in the next line, te satpurusāh ye dharmadandikām ākotayanti, 'those good people
who beat [others] with the stick of the Teaching', where we should surely have te
satpurusāh ye dharmagaņdikām ākotayanti, 'those good people who beat the gong of
the Teaching' (Vaidya 1961, p.264). From a manuscript of a mediaeval Pali text, the
Upāsakamanussavinayavannanā, 'Description of the Code of Conduct for Good
Buddhists', we have: yo bhikkhu vā pandito vā sūkarampi vāhinī paresam dhammam
desesi so addhakappa niraye patanti, 'The monk or learned person who teaches the
Dhamma to others while holding a pig as well will go to hell for half an aeon1, where
32
Andrew Skilton: The Letter of the Law
transcription of the Vajracchedikā for a recent account of the problems Conze created
in one piece of work ( G o m e z and Silk 1989, pp.96-7). Further examples could easily
be adduced.
27
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics", Mark Twain (attributed
to Disraeli).
28
I use this round figure since three of the 4 3 mss. mentioned are single folios (from
Central Asia) and not all of those remaining are complete for all chapters.
29
B y this means, only one of the 38 Nepalese mss. of the SRS can be excluded!
30
It is very easy to favour readings from a well written manuscript, or from manuscripts
that carry a text that is easy to read but are the product of relatively late emendation
by a pandit.
31
T h e suspicious aspect of this is discussed in brief in Reynolds and Wilson (1991).
32
It is possible that Aristophanes revised his own work during his life, thus producing
another autograph text, and the editor will doubtless accept the challenge of" trying t o
distinguish the t w o states of the text.
33
This point is all the more relevant because a large proportion of Western textual editors
of Indie texts began their training as scholars of the Western Classical tradition. I d o
not know of a n y autograph ms. of a Classical text. I know of only o n e Indian
Buddhist autograph ms. — Sānkrtyāyana found in Tibet a copy of Manorathanandin's
glossary on the Pramānavārtlika written by a young scholar from the sacked monastic
university of Vikramaśilā called Vibhūticandra, t o which this young m o n k appended
various apparently autobiographical verses. H e arrived, as a member o f the entourage
of the famous Śākyaśribhadra, in Tibet in 1203 C E and was clearly an unhappy exile
there. This ms. is an interesting and poignant find, but not of great significance for
the Buddhist textual tradition (Sānkrtyāyana 1937).
34
This is not the place to address this important and interesting area. Although there is
no comprehensive treatment of it, the reader who wishes to read more is directed to:
M. Allon (1997); Collins (1990); Salomon (1999); Schopen (1985); Schopen (1997).
These are all pertinent to the canon of the śrāvaka tradition, rather than the Mahāyāna
corpus.
35
From the Pratyutpannabuddhasammukhāvasthitasamādhi Sūtra, Harrison 1990, from
pp.55-58. Ellipsis mine.
36
F r o m the Adhyāśayasamcodanasūtra, Snellgrove (1958).
37
Chapter 9.4I ff. In fact, these verses are interpolations into Śāntideva's original text
and in all likelihood post-date the 8th century.
33
Contemporary Buddhism
38
Roerich and Altekar (1959). Śrāvaka opinion of tantric texts w a s equally hostile, of
course.
39
e.g. the Pratyutpannabuddhasammukhāvasthitasamādhi Sūtra, Harrison (1990).
40
This point begs t h e question of the degree to which oral transmission played a part in
the origination of Mahāyāna sūtra. There are many more considerations that could be
drawn into this picture of uncertainty.
41
T h e technical arguments for these conclusions are discussed in Skilton (1999b).
42
Sparham (1986), p.9. Although the author later (p.20) makes show of textual
sophistication b y explaining that the basic source text, from the sNar-thang edition,
was compared with that in t h e sDe-dge edition, and that 'most of t h e differences'
found were in spelling, it is a matter of demonstrated fact that the sDe-dge edition is
derived primarily from a manuscript source shared with t h e rNar-thang edition! O n e
also wonders what exactly is covered b y the term 'most' in this instance. Furthermore,
there is always a mass of spelling errors in such media, and they will always be
statistically predominant. This inevitable statistical predominance tells u s nothing
about the other kinds of 'difference'.
43
C o n e , Derge, K u m b u m , Lhasa, Narthang, Peking, Urga, a n d Yongle; summarised from
Downloaded By: [Jones, Dhivan Thomas] At: 15:59 6 November 2009
34