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In this paper, I intend to present a series of observations concerning the relationship between the Bodhisattvapiṭaka and Akṣayamatinirdeśa.[1] Analysis of these sūtras has shown that the Akṣayamatinirdeśa is greatly indebted to the Bodhisattvapiṭaka for its material, often to the extent of reproducing entire passages from the Bodhisattvapiṭaka verbatim. Presumably in response to changes in current Buddhist thinking, the Akṣayamatinirdeśa deliberately introduced also a number of unambiguous doctrinal and editorial adjustments. On the whole, they are rather minor and are well blended into the wider context of the exposition, affecting only selected aspects of the Bodhisattva career. In several instances, modifications indicate doctrinal development and allow us to establish the chronology of the two works beyond reasonable doubt.[2] The main body of the Akṣayamatinirdeśa consists of an exposition of eighty inexhaustible (akṣaya) faculties and attributes of a Bodhisattva. Here, many of the more important practices of the Bodhisattva-training are discussed and set into an early Mahāyāna context.[3] Significantly, only the first ten of the eighty akṣayas bear unmistakable marks of Mahāyāna thought. Virtually all other practices fall within the scope of pre-Mahāyāna Buddhism and figured, in one way or another, already in the sūtras of early Buddhism. (Pagel, introductory remarks, 333–34)
Notes
- All references, unless stated otherwise, refer to the Peking Edition of the Tibetan Tripiṭaka (ed., D.T. Suzuki, Kyoto, 1958); vols. 22/23 for the Bodhisattvapiṭaka, vol. 34 for the Akṣayamatinirdeśa and vol. 104 for the Akṣayamatinirdeśaṭīkā. However, since I have produced elsewhere a critical edition of chapter eleven of the Bodhisattvapiṭaka, utilising the sNar-thang, sDe-dge, Peking and sTog-Palace editions as well as two manuscript fragments from Tun-huang, I have occasionally incorporated data from this critical edition included in my doctoral dissertation "The Bodhisattvapiṭaka: Its Doctrines and Practices and their Position in Mahāyāna Literature”, London, SOAS, 1992. When translating quotations from the Akṣayamatinirdeśa and Bodhisattvapiṭaka, I follow as a rule the Peking reading. Only where the Peking text deviates considerably from the other four editions I adopt the reading of my own edition. In these instances I provide the Peking reading in round brackets. Square brackets in the Tibetan text point to those passages in my quotations that I left untranslated because of the need for brevity. In my translations, they are indicated by the insertion of three ellipsis points in the appropriate lacuna.
- Except for a few Sanskrit quotations of the Akṣayamatinirdeśa that are extant in the Śikṣāsamuccaya, Mūlamadhyamakavṛtti and Arthaviniścayasūtra, my comparison is wholly based on Tibetan sources. For an array of references to Sanskrit quotations from the Akṣayamatinirdeśa, see Jens Braarvig, "The Akṣayamatinirdeśasūtra and the Tradition of Imperishability in Buddhist Thought", Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oslo, 1989, Ivi-lxi. Confirmed Bodhisattvapitaka quotations are much rarer and do not appear in surviving Sanskrit works. But compare the following sections: Śiks, 316.13–317.13, Akn, TTP, 69.4.2-5.6, Bdp, TTP, 86.3.2-4.5; Śiks, 233.6-8, Akn, TTP, 67.2.3-3.3, Bdp, TTP, 83.1.4-2.3; Śikṣ, 278.4-14, Akn, TTP, 72.2.2-3.2, Bdp, TTP, 87.1.4-2.3; Śikṣ, 117.13-16, Akn, TTP, 69.1.1-2, Bdp, TTP, 86.1.4-5; Śiks, 236.6-13, Akn, TTP, 68.3.5-4.1, Bdp, TTP, 84.2.1-5; Arthav, 320-322, Akn, TTP, 70.4.4-71.2.1, Bdp, TTP, 85.1.1-3.4.
- As Wayman has demonstrated in his article on the samādhi-list in the Akṣayamatinirdeśa ("The Samādhi Lists of the Aksayamatinirdeśasūtra and the Mahāvyutpatti", AOH, 34, 1980, 305-12), it is this enumeration of eighty akṣayas that was taken as a basis in the Sūtrālaṃkāra where the Aksayamatinirdeśa is cited as authority for the twenty-two forms of generating the thought of enlightenment (S. Lévi, ed., Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra, Paris, 1907, iv.15-20). Cast into twenty-two similes in the Sūtrālaṃkāra, they correspond in content and sequence to the eighty aksayas listed in the Aksayamatinirdeśa. The similes themselves, however, did not originate in the Aksayamatinirdeśa, but appear to have been derived from a number of sources, including passages in the early Prajñāpāramitā literature. The list of the similes is, for instance, contained in three Kārikās of the Abhisamayālaṃkāra (Th. Stcherbatsky, ed., Abhisamayālaṃkāra, St. Petersburg, 1929, 4, vv.18-20).
