On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c8.s7.11

v1.c8.s7.11

For the sentence—‘Wherever there is a community of Brethren it makes rules of gradation’ the original is 隨其衆居各制科防, and Julien translates—“Suivant le lieu qu’ils habitent, on leur a fait un code de règlements et de défenses d’une nature spéciale.” This is not in accordance with Buddhism, and it is not a fair rendering of the author’s words. These mean that each community of Brethren had its own hierarchy promoted according to a recognized system. The system of promotion, Yuan-chuang explains, was briefly this—the Brethren in any establishment were advanced according to their ability to expound and teach the canonical treatises of the Vinaya, Abhidharma, or Sūtras. In the D text the original is “without distinguishing Vinaya, Abhidharma, Sūtra, in Buddha’s canon—(無云律論經是佛經), but the B text has the words chi-fan (紀凡) after Fo-ching, and C adds the word kua (圭) after fan. Julien having the reading of the B text translates—“Les règles de la discipline (Vinaya), les Traités philosophiques (Sāstras), les textes sacrés (Sūtras), les Prédictions (Vyākaraṇas), &c. sont tous également des livres du Buddha”. He tells us in a note how he gets “les Prédictions”, viz. by altering the 紀 of the text to 記. This emendation is quite untenable and unnecessary, as is also the insertion of “&c.” by the translator. There is no classification of the Buddhist Scriptures which contains the four heads of division given in Julien’s translation. All the canon is contained in the Three Baskets (or Stores), Vinaya, Sūtra, and Abhidharma, and the Chi (記) or “les Prédictions” constitute one of the subdivisions of the sūtra.¹ In the passage under consideration the words Chi-fan are not wanted; they were probably inserted to satisfy the demands of style.