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Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c10.s1: The Earliest Prajñāpāramitā

Aspects of Mahāyāna Buddhism and its Relation to Hīnayāna c10.s1

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The Earliest Prajñāpāramitā

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The dates of Chinese translations of the various Prajñāpāramitās help us very little in ascertaining which of them is the oldest; nor is the theory, which is so often launched by scholars, that the more concise a book the earlier it is, of much consequence in regard to this class of literature. The earliest Chinese translation, we are told, was made of the Daśasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā by Lokarakṣā about 148 A.D.¹ Curiously enough this particular version of the Prajñāpāramitā was not known to the Sanskritists. The Mahāvyutpatti² mentions six of them without referring to it while Bendall, R. L. Mitra, and H. P. Śāstrī catalogued many manuscripts on Prajñāpāramitā but did not come across any of the Daśasāhasrikā. Besides these facts it should also be noted that Śāntideva or the author of the Laṅkāvatāra had occasions to refer to the Śata. and the Aṣṭa. but never to the Daśa.¹ The only explanation that can be offered for this silence of the Sanskritists is that either this Prajñāpāramitā is of non-Indian origin or is only a version of the well-known Aṣṭa. Profs. Nanjio², Walleser and a few other scholars prefer the latter view on account of the fact that the Chinese version of the Daśa. follows more or less that of the Aṣṭa. But then again the question arises, why in the Chinese collection there should be versions of the Aṣṭa. too? A very close study of the various Chinese versions may yield some definite results but the names of chapters as given in the Chinese versions help us very little, specially in view of the fact that the titles of chapters were mostly invented by the Chinese translators and were not translations of the titles of the Sanskrit originals.³

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¹ Nanjio's restoration of the name Daśasāhasrikā, it seems, was made from the Tibetan name Ses-rab-kyi-pha-rol-tu-phyin-pa-khri-pa (10,000), for, there is nothing in the Chinese title to indicate that it is Daśa. and not Aṣṭa. or any other Prajñāpāramitā. Again, Nanjio points out that this Daśa. was the same as Aṣṭa.

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² Mvyut. 65 mentions Śatasāhasrikā, Pañcaviṃśatisā, Aṣṭasā, Pañcaśatikā, Triśatikā and Saptaśatikā.

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¹ Henceforth Śata., Daśa., and Aṣṭa. will be used for referring to the Śatasāhasrikā, Daśasāhasrikā and Aṣṭasāhasrikā.

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² Nanjio, Catalogue, p. 3(d).

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³ E.g. in the Sanskrit original of the Śatasāhasrikā the chapters are indicated by numbers only without any name but the Chinese version gives the names of chapters. Evidently the names were chosen so as to indicate the subject-matter of the chapter.

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If we are to rely on the Tibetan traditions, we should regard the Aṣṭa. as the oldest, for it was the first Prajñāpāramitā preached by Maitreya.⁴ Adding to this the opinion of Profs. Nanjio and Walleser about the identity of the Daśa. and the Aṣṭa., it would not be wide of the mark to hold that the Aṣṭa. was the oldest. The Nepalese tradition, however, makes it to be the latest abridgment made from the original Prajñāpāramitā, which extended over a hundred and twenty-five thousand ślokas,⁵ the earliest abridgment being the Śata. followed by the Pañcaviṃśati. and the Aṣṭa.

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⁴ Tāra., p. 58.

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⁵ Mitra, Intro. to the Aṣṭa., p. iv.

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We might have made a better approach to the truth if we had known the text upon which Nāgārjuna commented and produced his famous *Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra*. Rosenberg informs us that the text used by Nāgārjuna was the *Pañcaviṃśati.*, but he does not indicate his source of information.¹ A view current in Japan at the present moment is that Nāgārjuna’s *Śāstra* was written upon the *Prajñāpāramitā* called 大明度經 (Ta-ming-tu-ching)². According to Nanjio’s information this is a version of the *Aṣṭa.* or *Daśa.*, at least the fact that the *Ta-ming-tu-ching* contains also thirty chapters like some of the versions of the *Aṣṭa.* and *Daśa.* points towards the probability of its being a translation of a version of the *Aṣṭa.* but on comparison we see that this text does not literally follow the present Sanskrit text. Besides, the number of chapters in the Sanskrit original is thirty-two while that in the Chinese is thirty and so if it be a translation of the *Aṣṭa.* it must be of another version of the same.

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¹ Rosenberg, *Die Probleme der buddhistischen Philosophie*, p. 273. Rosenberg’s statement is not based on any authority. This tradition is also recorded by Przyluski (see *I. H. Q.*, vol. V, p. 2).

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² Forming no. 135 of the Taisho edition, vol. VII, pp. 475ff. It was translated by Chi-Chien of the Wu dynasty (222-280). The Japanese view was communicated to me by Prof. E. Tomomatsu.

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