Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā (English)

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Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā: A New English Translation of the Sanskrit Text Based on Two Manuscripts from Greater Gandhāra
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Translations of Sutras (Skt-Eng)


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In the following pages readers will find a new English translation of the Sanskrit text of the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā based on two of the oldest surviving manuscript copies of the work. The first of these copies is the one in the Schøyen Collection, edited in this volume by Harrison & Watanabe. Only recently discovered, it appears as the second text (following the Bhaiṣajyaguru) in MS 2385. This ms is presumed to have come from Afghanistan, possibly the Bamiyan area, and is dated on paleographical grounds to the 6th–7th centuries. The second copy is the Gilgit Vajracchedikā, discovered in Northern Pakistan in 1931, and subsequently edited by Chakravarti (1956), Dutt (1959), and Schopen (1989). Since the last edition by Schopen is the only reliable one, it is used as the basis for this translation. The date of the Gilgit ms is approximately 6th–7th centuries also. The Schøyen ms (henceforth S) preserves roughly the first half of the text, in a continuous run over fols. 26–46 (corresponding to §§1–16c), the Gilgit (henceforth G) the last two thirds, on fols. 5–12, but with the loss of one folio, No. 6 (thus covering §§13b–14e, 15b–32b). In basing a translation on a combination of these two manuscripts—joining the upper half of one body to the bottom half of the other, as it were—one is obviously taking the risk of creating a hybrid Frankenstein's monster unlike any version that ever existed, but there is sufficient overlap in the waist area to establish that the two manuscripts represent roughly the same recension of the text, even if they are not identical.[1] Provided that one clearly marks the line between the two halves, leaving all the stitches visible, no great harm is done. The result is, I hope, a useful rendition of this important text in the form in which it was circulating in the area of Greater Gandhāra in the 6th and 7th centuries A.D. (Harrison, introduction, 133)

Citation
Harrison, Paul. "Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā: A New English Translation of the Sanskrit Text Based on Two Manuscripts from Greater Gandhāra." In Buddhist Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection. Vol. 3, edited by Jens Braarvig, 133–59. Oslo: Hermes Publishing, 2006. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c03ced75ffd204418037b7a/t/5c5306ce575d1f9230da8a6a/1548945103490/Diamond+Sutra-Paul+Harrison+tr.pdf.
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