Some Remarks on the Canonical Texts Quoted by Madhyamaka Masters
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Articles/Some Remarks on the Canonical Texts Quoted by Madhyamaka Masters
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Some Remarks on the Canonical Texts Quoted by Madhyamaka Masters
Journal Article
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Description
This article examines the canonical Buddhist texts cited by prominent Madhyamaka masters, particularly focusing on the textual-critical importance of their quotations. The author emphasizes that citations by masters such as Candrakīrti, Śāntideva, Kamalaśīla, and Prajñākaramati are invaluable for reconstructing and understanding canonical texts, especially when original manuscripts have been corrupted through transmission or are no longer extant. The paper outlines several research projects examining specific texts: the Prajñāpāramitāratnaguṇasaṃcayagāthā as cited by Candrakīrti in his Prasannapadā; the Pitāputrasamāgamasūtra quoted by multiple masters; fragments of the Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtra; and the Bhikṣuprakīrṇaka preserved in Śāntideva's Śikṣāsamuccaya. Through detailed philological analysis comparing Sanskrit manuscripts with Tibetan and Chinese versions, the author demonstrates how these citations reveal textual evolution and transmission patterns. The study particularly highlights Candrakīrti's faithful citation method and shows how comparing corrupted manuscript traditions with quoted passages enables scholars to reconstruct more authentic readings, serving both textual criticism and the history of Buddhist philosophical ideas.
Citation
Yuyama, Akira "Some Remarks on the Canonical Texts Quoted by Madhyamaka Masters." The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies 3 (2002): 197–205.
Interconnections
4 Scholarship on
Pitāputrasamāgamasūtra. (T. Yab dang sras mjal ba'i mdo; C. Pusa jianshi jing/Fuzi heji jing; J. Bosatsu kenjitsukyō/Fushi gōjūkyō; K. Posal kyǒnsil kyǒng/Puja hapchip kyǒng 菩薩見實會/父子合集經. In Sanskrit, "Sūtra on the Meeting of Father and Son," a Mahāyāna scripture found in the Ratnakūṭasūtra, often cited in Madhyamaka texts, especially for its expositions of emptiness (śūnyatā) and the two truths (satyadvaya). It is quoted in such famous works as Nāgārjuna's Sūtrasamuccaya and Śāntideva's Śikṣāsamuccaya. The Pitāputrasamāgamasūtra was translated into Chinese by Rajendrayaśas in 568 as the Pusa jianshi jing and was included in the massive Dabaoji jing (Ratnakūṭasūtra) compilation. It was subsequently retranslated in the eleventh century by Richeng and others as the Fuzi heji jing. (Source: "Pitāputrasamāgamasūtra." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 646–47. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
There are three translations of this text included in the Tibetan canon:
- Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtrendrarājasūtra (RKTSK 550) translated from the Chinese by Gö Chödrub.
- Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtrendrarājasūtra (RKTSK 551) translated from the Sanskrit by Jinamitra, Śīlendrabodhi, and Ye shes sde.
- Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtrendrarājasūtra (RKTSK 552). Translator not listed.
Rattnaguṇasaṃcayagāthā. (T. Yon tan rin po che sdud pa tshigs su bcad pa; C. Fomu baodezang bore boluomi jing; J. Butsumo hōtokuzō hannya haramitsukyō; K. Pulmo podǒkchang panya paramil kyǒng 佛母寶德藏般若波羅蜜經. In Sanskrit, "Verses on the Collection of Precious Qualities," the longer title is Prajñāpāramitāratnaguṇasaṃcayagāthā, or "Verses on the Collection of the Precious Qualities of the Perfection of Wisdom." The Ratnaguṇasaṃcayagāthā epitomizes the early Mahāyāna in its emphasis on the emptiness (śūnyatā) of the aggregates (skandha) and its praise of the path of the bodhisattva over that of the arhat. The text is considered to be of particular importance in the history of the Mahāyāna because many of its verses, particularly those that appear early in the text, may represent some of the earliest expressions of Mahāyāna philosophy and may date as far back as 100 BCE. Another indication of the text’s antiquity is that it was translated into Chinese as early as the second century CE. The only extant Sanskrit version is that edited in the eighth century by Haribhadra to conform to the structure of the Abhisamayālaṃkāra, making the precise order of the original verses difficult to determine. Many Mahāyāna sūtras are composed of alternating verse and prose. The verses of the Ratnaguṇasaṃcayagāthā are written in an ancient meter, suggesting to some that they constitute part of an original sūtra, with the Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā ("Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines") supplying the prose section. However, because the verses that appear in the Ratnaguṇasaṃcayagāthā are not in all cases identical to those in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā, the Ratnaguṇasaṃcayagāthā may have originally been a separate work. It appears as the verse recapitulations in the Chinese translation of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā and as the eighty-fourth chapter of the Aṣṭadaśasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā ("Perfection of Wisdom in Eighteen Thousand Lines") in its Tibetan translation. (Source: "Ratnaguṇasaṃcayagāthā." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 702. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
The Bhikṣuprakīrṇaka ("Miscellany Concerning Monks") is a lost Mahāsāṃghika-Lokottaravādin Vinaya text, known directly only through a fragmentary Sanskrit citation preserved in Śāntideva's Śikṣāsamuccaya (Ch. 7, ed. Bendall 154.17–155.3). The cited passage recounts the Buddha instructing Ānanda to wash the soiled robes of a sick monk, illustrating the duty of monks to care for one another. Parallel accounts of the same episode survive independently in the Chinese Mahāsāṃghika-Vinaya (Taishō 1425) and the Pāli Mahāvagga (VIII.26.2), though neither is a direct witness to the Bhikṣuprakīrṇaka itself. A companion text for nuns, the Bhikṣuṇīprakīrṇaka, survives in abridged form (headings only) within a Sanskrit manuscript of the Bhikṣuṇī-Vinaya recovered from Tibet, edited by Gustav Roth (1970); no comparably abridged or complete witness of the Bhikṣuprakīrṇaka itself has been identified. Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana reported deciphering a fuller manuscript of the Bhikṣuprakīrṇaka among materials he photographed in Tibet (c. 1954), but this has not been traced or published since.
