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The Text of the Dharmasamuccaya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

Of the Dharmasamuccaya, a collection of stanzas from the Saddharmasmṛtyupasthānā Sūtra and the only part of that Siitra known to survive in Sanskrit, the first five chapters were published in 1946 by the late Mr. Lin Li-Kouang from a modern Devanāgarī transcription of a presumably still extant twelfth-century Nepalese MS. From this deeply corrupt source (how far the corruptions derive from the original and how far from the copy I cannot say) it would be impossible to construct anything like a satisfactory text were it not for the existence of a Tibetan version of the Siitra in the Kanjur. The relevant verses in this and in two out of three extant Chinese versions were extracted by Lin Li-Kouang from their prose environment and accompany the Sanskrit in his edition. But even with these aids many uncertainties remain. For the Tibetans were evidently working from a text which had already suffered some deterioration and their renderings must be used with more than ordinary circumspection. Of the two published Chinese versions the first contains some helpful indications but, as is usually the case, its value as a clue to the original is small in comparison with the more literal Tibetan. The second is so free as to be nearly useless.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1955

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References

page 37 note 1 In Annales du Musée Guimet, no. 53.

page 37 note 2 See the same author's introductory volume L'Aide-mémoire de la Vraie Loi (Paris, 1949), pp. 156 ff.Google Scholar

page 37 note 3 I allude to chapter 4 of L'Aide-mémoire de la Vraie Loi.

page 38 note 1 Professor Edgerton includes, as a borderline case, the Jātakamālā (Grammar, p. 8).

page 38 note 2 They are scattered through the Sūtra which sprawls over four volumes, Lhasa, Mdo ZA, ḤA, YA, RA. To save space I do not give the page references, but I shall be happy to supply them on inquiry.

page 38 note 3 I ignore 186 which is a repetition of 175.

page 39 note 1 The list aims at completeness, except that I do not notice compendia scripturae such as yoṅsu, ḥgyuro. The Lhasa regularly has the correct forms yuṅs su, ḥgyur ro, etc.

page 42 note 1 For the moment I leave aside abnormal syntax; and I notice nothing which does not appear in Lin's text, as distinct from footnotes.

page 42 note 2 In the review above mentioned.

page 42 note 3 C1 and C2 = Lin's SU and DS respectively.