李学竹 叶少勇 《六十如理颂》梵藏汉佛典丛书② 中西書局（预计2013年出版）
Nāgārjuna; Li, Xuezhu & Ye, Shaoyong (eds). *Yuktiṣaṣṭikākārikā. Fan Zang Han fo dian cong shu 2. Shanghai: Zhong xi shu ju, 2013 (expected, according to mldc.cn/sanskritweb).
3 Replies to “Li & Ye eds., Yuktiṣaṣṭikā (2013)”
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And I see from the link a forthcoming Chinese translation of the Majjhima Nikaya in 2014. Some excellent work coming out of Peking University!
Some interesting work is coming out of China, but there ought to be much, much more. For an institution with access to dozens of unique Sanskrit manuscripts — every one having the potential to expand our understanding of Buddhism dramatically — BeiDa is strangely preoccupied with unremarkable projects. Chinese translations of texts in the Pali canon can be produced with trivial effort, and many are already out there. And who would go to Beijing to translate the Kumārasaṃbhava, which — whatever its merits — is one of the most over-studied texts in the Sanskritic tradition? This kind of project would have been out of date 100 years ago. If someone wants to study Hinduism, they should go to India; it’s cheaper than China and you can find people who know what they are talking about. A major Chinese research institution investing in the study of already well-known works is wasting its time and expertise.
The announcement of a new Sanskrit text of the Yuktiṣaṣṭikā is something of a surprise. Presumably the editors are not relying on Kumar’s Sanskrit ‘reconstruction’ of the text, and have found more than just the two new verses reported by Ye (2013) in his transcription of fragments in ARIRIAB 16. There is no mention of a manuscript of the Yuktiṣaṣṭikā in Ye’s ‘A preliminary survey of Sanskrit manuscripts of Madhyamaka texts preserved in the Tibet Autonomous Region’ (2009), though his survey was not exhaustive. The manuscript documentary shown on Tibet TV last year clearly showed a facsimile of a Sanskrit Suhṛllekha manuscript. Although the Suhṛllekha is not a ‘Mādhyamika’ work, it is generally regarded as part of Nāgārjuna’s oeuvre (especially if one accepts his authorship of the Ratnāvalī, as Ye does). None of these omissions are surprising, as Ye admits that he had to rely mainly on secondary sources (2009:308).
What is surprising is that researchers at one of China’s top research centres are saying that they have no direct access to China’s most important manuscript sources. Really? Now that the survey of Sanskrit manuscripts in the TAR has been completed and the results (in some way) ‘published’, perhaps the game has now changed and specialists are accessing previously unknown material. It’s understandable if the Indological elite in the West is barred from working on Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts kept in the TAR; but if Buddhists and researchers in Asia don’t study them either, that is truly deplorable.
I’m not sure if you have had a chance to look at their translation of the Pali DN but it is quite useful in that it contains some discussion of parallels in the Agamas. You point about the relative importance of such a project is well-taken though. Eg, why do another edition of the Bodhisattvabhumi when there are other parts of the YBh that have never been done and need doing?!
Actually, of interest to you and relevant here is the involvement of Saerji (简历) in writing the pseudo-sanskrit dialogue for the Indian(?) Tantric master in the Chinese movie Painted Skin 2 (畫皮 2). All Jinajik readers should check it out!