The Kāśyapaparivarta (Pāsādika 2015)
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The Kaśyapaparivarta
Book
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Description
This book contains a) the first Devanagari edition of the Kaśyapaparivarta, the unique Sanskrit manuscript of which (supposedly written sometime in the 7th or 8th century ce in Khotan) was discovered more than a hundred years ago in Eastern Turkestan, and b) an English translation of this text. It highly esteemed, for there exist several Chinese versions and one Tibetan translation of it. It can be argued with good reason that, together with the oldest textual strata of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā-Prajñāpāramitā, those of the Kaśyapaparivarta constitute a specimen of the earliest Mahāyāna literature. A study of the present text reveals that it must have inspired the compilers of further Mahāyāna discourses and, moreover, become one of the basic sources for the chief Madhyamika and Yogācāra masters who both rather substantially quote from and often allude to it. The main themes of the text are the bodhisattva ideal and the teaching of śūnyatā, "emptiness," both being the key features of the Great Vehicle. (Source Accessed Aug 10, 2026)
Citation
Pāsādika, Bhikkhu, ed. and trans. The Kaśyapaparivarta. Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2015.
Interconnections
1 Recension of
Kāśyapaparivarta. (T. 'Od srung gi le'u; C. Yiri monibao jing; J. Yuinichi manihōkyō; K. Yuil manibo kyǒng 遺日摩尼寶經). In Sanskrit, "The Kāśyapa Chapter"; a sūtra from one of the earliest strata of Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism, probably dating from sometime in the first Century CE. The sūtra offers an overview of practices emblematic of bodhisattvas, which are arranged in several groups of four practices apiece. The text cites a "bodhisattva canon" (bodhisattvapiṭaka) as the source for the teaching on the six perfections (pāramitā) and offers one of the earliest mentions of the "thought of enlightenment" (bodhicitta) in its Mahāyāna interpretation as the aspiration to achieve buddhahood. A bodhisattva who generates this thought even for the first time is said to be superior to the solitary buddhas (pratyekabuddha) and disciples (śrāvaka). Disciples are also censured as not being true sons of the Buddha, an early expression of the later Mahāyāna school's more explicit denunciations of the so-called hīnayāna. The sūtra also refers to bodhisattva precepts (see bodhisattvaśīla), which will subsequently be elaborated upon in such texts as Maitreya/Asaṅga's Bodhisattvabhūmi and in such Chinese apocrypha as the Fanwang jing. The Kāśyapaparivarta was one of the first sūtras translated into Chinese, by the Indo-Scythian monk *Lokakṣema (c. 178-198 CE) in 179 CE; a later recension is also included in the massive Ratnakūṭa collection of sūtras. The Kāśyapaparivarta is one of a substantial number of scriptures in the Ratnakūṭa collection for which Sanskrit recensions have been rediscovered and edited. Its Sanskrit manuscript was first discovered in Khotan in the 1890s and was more than one thousand years old; other Sanskrit fragments have subsequently been recovered. (Source: "Kāśyapaparivarta." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 426. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
1 Full translation of
Kāśyapaparivarta. (T. 'Od srung gi le'u; C. Yiri monibao jing; J. Yuinichi manihōkyō; K. Yuil manibo kyǒng 遺日摩尼寶經). In Sanskrit, "The Kāśyapa Chapter"; a sūtra from one of the earliest strata of Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism, probably dating from sometime in the first Century CE. The sūtra offers an overview of practices emblematic of bodhisattvas, which are arranged in several groups of four practices apiece. The text cites a "bodhisattva canon" (bodhisattvapiṭaka) as the source for the teaching on the six perfections (pāramitā) and offers one of the earliest mentions of the "thought of enlightenment" (bodhicitta) in its Mahāyāna interpretation as the aspiration to achieve buddhahood. A bodhisattva who generates this thought even for the first time is said to be superior to the solitary buddhas (pratyekabuddha) and disciples (śrāvaka). Disciples are also censured as not being true sons of the Buddha, an early expression of the later Mahāyāna school's more explicit denunciations of the so-called hīnayāna. The sūtra also refers to bodhisattva precepts (see bodhisattvaśīla), which will subsequently be elaborated upon in such texts as Maitreya/Asaṅga's Bodhisattvabhūmi and in such Chinese apocrypha as the Fanwang jing. The Kāśyapaparivarta was one of the first sūtras translated into Chinese, by the Indo-Scythian monk *Lokakṣema (c. 178-198 CE) in 179 CE; a later recension is also included in the massive Ratnakūṭa collection of sūtras. The Kāśyapaparivarta is one of a substantial number of scriptures in the Ratnakūṭa collection for which Sanskrit recensions have been rediscovered and edited. Its Sanskrit manuscript was first discovered in Khotan in the 1890s and was more than one thousand years old; other Sanskrit fragments have subsequently been recovered. (Source: "Kāśyapaparivarta." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 426. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
