Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c10.s1.1

c10.s1.1

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