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Allon, ‘A Gāndhārī Śrāmaṇyaphala-sūtra’ (2013-04-05)

Mark Allon. ‘A Gāndhārī version of the Buddha’s Discourse on the Fruits of Living the Ascetic Life (Śrāmaṇyaphala-sūtra)’. Australasian Association of Buddhist Studies Victoria Seminar, 5th April 2013, Deakin Prime Campus, Melbourne.

Abstract

The Senior collection of Gandhāran Buddhist manuscripts includes a scroll which contains a Gāndhārī version of the introductory section of the Śrāmaṇyaphala-sūtra, the Buddha’s discourse to King Ajātaśatru on the benefits of living the ascetic or holy life. The appearance of a Gāndhārī version of this interesting and popular sūtra coincides with the appearance of a second Sanskrit witness of it, namely, that included in the new Dīrghāgama manuscript, which preliminary research indicates is similar to but not identical with the Sanskrit version found among the Gilgit manuscripts. We therefore now have Indic versions of the Śrāmaṇyaphala-sūtra in Gāndhārī (albeit incomplete), Pali, and Sanskrit, a Tibetan translation and four Chinese translations, which belong to a diversity of schools and originate from different times and places. Not surprisingly the Gāndhārī sūtra is not identical to any other version, but shows a complex relationship with them. In this paper I will discuss the Gāndhārī version of the sūtra and its relationship to the parallels in other languages, the possible reasons for its popularity, and the likely reasons for its inclusion in the Senior collection.

Dr Mark Allon
Dr Mark Allon (photo © I. S.)
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Simha, Tantrākhyāna (2009)

Tulasīlāla Siṃha. Tantrākhyāna: Ne saṃ. 638 yā mūlapāṭhayā sampādana, anuvāda va vivecanā. Yala: Nepālabhāṣā Kendrīya Vibhāga, Pāṭana Saṃyukta Kyāmpasa, 2009.

This is a transcription and translation into contemporary Newar of the earliest dated manuscript of the Tantrākhyāna(kathā) kept in Nepal. An older manuscript of this Newar Buddhist Pañcatantra remake — if we could call it that — ended up in the hands of Cecil Bendall and is kept in the United Kingdom, presumably unavailable to Mr. Siṃha.

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Liu, On the Sanskrit Version of Dharmadhātustava (2012)

Zhen Liu (刘震). ‘On the Sanskrit Version of Dharmadhātustava‘. Paper presented at Buddhajayanti: The Celebration of 2600 Years of Buddha’s Enlightenment, Mahachulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 2012. [PDF]

Dr. Zhen Liu tracks down the earliest dateable source for the Dharmadhātustava — a Chinese translation of preaching attributed to Kṣitigarbha, surviving in a unique Dunhuang manuscript — and concludes: “it is obvious that before the middle of the eighth century it was not thought that Nāgārjuna authored the text” (p.10).
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Philology as national security threat

It’s not every day that philology determines the future of a superpower. November 12, 2000 CE, was just such a day. The outcome of the 54th United States presedential election hung in the balance, awaiting a manual recount of the Florida ballots. Officials were shown on television holding up punched ballots to the light, straining to determine whether their chads were dimpled or pregnant, or had hanging or swinging doors.

Know your chads (infographic: abcnews.com).

The officials’ process engendered doubt – doubt that could grow into a grey area which, left unchecked, might obscure entitlement and privilege itself. At this crucial juncture, former Secretary of State James Baker laid down his nation-changing methodological critique:

“How do you divine the intent of the voter on that voting card … with those little punch holes?” he said today on NBC’s Meet the Press. “You’re divining the intent of the voter with respect to whether it has two chads hanging down or whether it’s punched or whether it has an indentation? I mean, that’s crazy.” *

Textual critics were dismissed as diviners; textual criticism became an act of madness. The rest is history. But since history, especially bad history, loves nothing more than to repeat itself, the eve of the 57th presidential election provides an occasion to reflect on the value of philology.
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Johnson, Candrakīrti’s Saṃskṛtārthapratiṣedha (2012)

Johnson, Dennis. ‘Refuting the conditioned: the Saṃskṛtārthapratiṣedha of Candrakīrti’s Catuḥśatakaṭīkā’. Diplomarbeit, Universität Wien (Philologisch-Kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät), 2012. [official / PDF]

From the Abstract

The original Sanskrit text of CŚṬ is available only in form of fragments that cover about one third of the work, and there is a critical edition of these, based on a single manuscript (Suzuki 1994). A complete Tibetan translation by Sūkṣmajñāna and Nyi ma grags is contained in the bsTan ‘gyur (P. vol. 96, 5266 ya 33b4-273b6; D. ya 30b6-239a7; C. ya 29a6-236a7; N. ya 34b2-246a6).Furthermore, there is an English translation of the verse text (Lang 1986), but not of the commentary, for which there are but translations of single chapters into different languages (Lang 1976 and 2003; Tillemans 1990 are the English ones).

The thesis further contributes to this work by presenting a translation and summary of the hitherto unaddressed chapter of CŚṬ XV, on the basis of the remaining Sanskrit text (in this case CŚṬ XV.18-25) and a critical edition of the Tibetan translation.

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Emerging Unicode codeblocks

Recent discussion on the proposed Newar Unicode codeblock has been met with silence (signifying disinterest, ignorance, or unqualified approval – or all three, one must assume). Those who did more than glance at the discussion would have been aware that that several areas of the Unicode codespace are expanding rapidly, many of which are going to infringe upon a far wider chunk of Asianists’ and philologists’ territories. In an age of character-constrained discourse, when just a few letters can reveal something important about you – OMG!* – and a picture tells the thousand words you don’t have the time to text, demand for emoticons, emoji and pictographs soars.

@mrJUSTINMARTIN yeah man!!! Be there in 5!

The Symbola font [download] has reasonably good coverage of the newer codeblocks. Other fonts by the designer, George Doulos, show how much work (non-Indological) classicists are putting into the codification of the premodern repertoire.

Symbola specimen, p.10, showing glyphs from the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs, Emoticons, Transport and Map Symbols, and Alchemical Symbols codeblocks.

Other fonts which cover recent additions to the standard, like Quivira, are easy to find online.
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Karashima et al, ‘Abhisamācārikā Dharmāḥ’ (2012) [Or: Inappropriate Monastic Wedding Speeches]

What the śrāvakas aren’t supposed to sing to the bride on the happy day:

nagnā nadī anodikā nagnaṃ rāṣṭram arājakam |
istrī 'pi vidhavā nagnā sacesyā daśa bhrātaraḥ || [sic]

This and other abhivinaya jocularity to be found in:

Seishi KARASHIMA unter Mitwirkung von Oskar von Hinüber. Die Abhisamācārikā Dharmāḥ Verhaltensregeln für buddhistische Mönche der Mahāsāṃghika-Lokottaravādins
herausgegeben, mit der chinesischen Parallelversion verglichen, übersetzt und kommentiert. Bibliotheca Philologica et Philosophica Buddhica Volume XIII.1, 2, 3 (Grammatik und Glossar). Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, 2012. ISBN 978-4-904234-05-1 [PDF flyer fixed]

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Giebel, ‘The 108 Names of Mañjuśrī’ (2011)

Nice to see some respect for Mañjuśrī in a journal on Indian Logic:

Rolf W. Giebel. ‘The One Hundred and Eight Names of Mañjuśrī: The Sanskrit Version of the Mañjuśrīkumārabhūta-aṣṭottaraśatakanāma Based on Sino-Japanese Sources’. Indian Logic 3 [インド論理学研究 第Ⅲ号], 2011 [平成23 年11 月30 日], pp.303–345.

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