Walravens & Zorin (2017), The Āli-kāli

Hartmut Walravens, Alexander Zorin. ‘The Āli-kāli Trilingual Syllabary Brought by D. G. Messerschmidt from Siberia and Edited by G. S. Bayer in 1728’. Journal of the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies Vol. XXI, 2017 (国際仏教学大学院大学研究紀要 第 21 号 平成 29 年), 183–241. [official repo] [PDF]

Ālikālivijahāra a.k.a. Dbyangs gsal bzhugs a.k.a. Lingva Tangutica prima Elementa (Walravens & Zorin 2017:235)

Abhayākaragupta (2015), Āmnāyamañjarī

Abhayākaragupta; 四川省藏文古籍搜集保护编务院 (编) (Sichuan Sheng Zang wen gu ji sou ji bao hu bian wu yuan), (ed). 2015. 藏区民间所藏藏文珍稀文献丛刊(精华版)[Rare and ancient Tibetan texts collected in Tibetan regions series: collection edition]. Vol. 1: Dpal yang dag par sbyor pa’i rgyud kyi rgyal po’i rgya cher ‘grel pa 第一卷《喜金刚吉祥正加行续王之注释》 [Śrīsaṃpuṭatantraṭīkā Āmnāyamañjarī]. Chengdu: Sichuan Nationalities Publishing House 四川民族出版社. 891 pp. 17 × 46 cm. ISBN: 9787540959746.

Note: Volume 1 is a facsimile of a complete bilingual Sanskrit-Tibetan MS, with Sanskrit in Bhujiṅmol script and Tibetan underneath in dbu med script.

《喜金刚吉祥正加行续王之注释》
The Āmnāyamañjarī at Matheson Library Rare Books Collection, Monash University

OCLC: 974706095, 960106478.

Bellezza, ‘Death and Beyond in Ancient Tibet’ (2013)

John Vincent Bellezza. Death and Beyond in Ancient Tibet: Archaic Concepts and Practices in a Thousand-Year-Old Illuminated Funerary Manuscript and Old Tibetan Funerary Documents of Gathang Bumpa and Dunhuang. Denkschriften der philosophisch-historischen Klasse 454; Beiträge zur Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte Asiens 77. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2013 [official]. 292 pp. ISBN 978-3-7001-7433-2.

John Bellezza in Kathmandu after walking from China, September 2007. (Photograph © I. S.)
John Bellezza in Kathmandu after walking from China, September 2007. (Photograph © I. S.)

Szántó, Selected Chapters from the Catuṣpīṭhatantra (2012)

Required reading for tantric studies specialists:

Péter-Dániel Szántó. ‘Selected Chapters from the Catuṣpīṭhatantra’. Vol.1: Introductory study with the annotated translation of selected chapters. Vol. 2: Appendix volume with critical editions of selected chapters accompanied by Bhavabhaṭṭa’s commentary and a bibliography. D. Phil. diss., Oxford University, December 16 2012. Viewable at academia.edu [v.1, 2].

Karashima, ‘Was the Aṣṭasāhasrikā composed in Gāndhārī?’ (2013)

Seishi Karashima. ‘Was the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Compiled in Gandhāra in Gāndhārī?’ Annual Report of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology (ARIRIAB) at Soka University for the Academic Year 2012, vol.XVI, 2013, pp.171–188. [PDF]

This is a remarkable piece of detective work and a milestone in the study of the Mahāyāna, whether or not one thinks (as I do) that Prof. Karashima’s theory nails it. Karashima’s many years of lexicographical toil seem to have finally paid off: the earliest Chinese phonetic transcriptions from the Aṣṭasāhasrikā agree most fully with the newly found Gāndhārī fragments (for which see also Strauch 2007). And that, moreover, is merely one of many compelling indicators pointing to the composition of the text in Gandhāra.

One minor comment: the image of Dharmodgata discovering the Prajñāpāramitā written on gold plates vilīnena vaidūryeṇa — in “melted” lapis, according to Karashima (p.181) — sounds excessively fantastic. The reference is to lapis lazuli pigment, well known to medievalists as ultramarine, ‘beyond the sea’ — i.e., from Afghanistan.

Kragh ed., The Buddhist Yogācārabhūmi Treatise (2013)

Ulrich Timme Kragh (ed.) The Foundation for Yoga Practitioners: The Buddhist Yogācārabhūmi Treatise and Its Adaptation in India, East Asia, and Tibet. Harvard Oriental Series 75. “Available 07/22/2013”. ISBN 9780674725430.

From the Summary

“The present edited volume, conceived by Geumgang University in South Korea, brings together the scholarship of thirty-four leading Buddhist specialists on the Yogācārabhūmi from across the globe. The essays elaborate the background and environment in which the Yogācārabhūmi was composed and redacted, provide a detailed summary of the work, raise fundamental and critical issues about the text, and reveal its reception history in India, China, and Tibet. The volume also provides a thorough survey of contemporary Western and Asian scholarship on the Yogācārabhūmi in particular and the Yogācāra tradition more broadly.”

(Contains, among others [updated, 2013-05-01]:

H. Sakuma 佐久間秀範, ‘Remarks on the Lineage of Indian Masters of the Yogācāra School: Maitreya, Asaṅga, and Vasubandhu’, pp.330–366.
M. Delhey, ‘The Yogācārabhūmi Corpus: Sources, Editions, Translations, and Reference Works’, pp.498–561.)