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Newly Identified Khotanese Fragments in the British Library and Their Chinese Parallels

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2012

HUAIYU CHEN
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Abstract

This article identifies three Khotanese fragments in the British Library – IOL Khot 25/4, IOL Khot 147/5 (H. 147 NS 106) and Khot missing frags. 3 – as Agrapradīpadhāraṇī, Mahāvaipulya-buddha-Avataṃsaka-sūtra-acintya-visaya-pradesa and Hastikakṣyā, since their parallels have been found in the Chinese canon. The first identification adds one more dhāraṇī text to the current Khotanese Buddhist corpus. The second identification provides a better understanding of the Buddhist connection between Khotan and Central China. The Chinese version was translated by a Khotanese monk named Devendraprajña. The second identification indicates that the text Hastikakṣyā has a Khotanese translation, in addition to a Sanskrit version and two Chinese translations. In sum, this article sheds new light on Buddhist literature in Khotanese and its connection with Buddhist literature in Chinese.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , April 2012 , pp. 265 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2012

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Footnotes

I would like to express my gratitude to Lewis Lancaster, Liu Zhen, Jan Nattier, Rong Xinjiang, Ursula Sims-Williams, Prods Oktor Skjœrvø and Yoshida Yutaka for their help. I am also grateful to anonymous reviewers for their corrections and suggestions. Email: [email protected]

References

1 Prods Skjœrvø, Oktor, Khotanese Manuscripts from Chinese Turkestan in the British Library: A Complete Catalogue with Texts and Translations, with contributions by Sims-Williams, Ursula, (London, 2002)Google Scholar.

2 Yutaka, Yoshida, “Review of P. O. Skjærvø, Khotanese Manuscripts from Chinese Turkestan in the British Library”, in Kōbe gaidai ronsō 55/7 (2004), pp. 27–28Google Scholar.

3 For Yoshida's identification, see Yoshida, Y., “Review of Ronald E. Emmerick and Margarita Vorob'yeva-Desyatovskaya, Saka Documents Texts Volume III: The St.Petersburg Collections”, in BSOAS 60/3 (1997), p. 568Google Scholar; Yoshida, , “Youguan Hetian chutu 8–9 shiji Yutianyu shisu wenshu de zhaji” (Notes on the eighth-to-ninth-century Khotanese Secular Documents from Khotan), Dunhuang tulufan yanjiu (Journal of Dunhuang and Turfan Studies), vol. 11 (2008), p. 158Google Scholar.

4 Skjœrvø, 2002, p. 224. IOL Khot 25/4 KTV, p. 381 (6)

5 Skjœrvø, 2002, pp. 332–333. H. 147 NS 106: KT V, p. 89 (184). He also notes that it has been published in Ernst Leumann, Buddhistische Literatur. Nordarisch und Deutsch. Teil, I.: Nebenstücke, Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 15, (Leipzig, 1920)Google Scholar; (reprinted Liechtenstein, 1966), p. 111.

6 Skjœrvø, 2002, pp. 577–578; also see Bailey, KT III, p. 126 (54).

7 Jingmai 靜 邁, Gujin yijing tuji 古 今 譯 經 圖 記 (An Illustrated Record of Translating Scriptures from the Ancient to the Present), juan 3, T. vol. 55, no. 2151: 361b6–19.

8 According to the Lotus Sūtra, ch. 21, Dhāraṇī, there are ten rākṣasī, and the last one, Sarvasattvojohārī in the Chinese translation by Kumārajīva, is called “taking all sentient beings’ vitality away” (duo yiqie zhongsheng jingqi 奪 一 切 衆 生 精 氣). See T. vol. 9, no. 262: 59a.

9 A three-line fragment (Ch/U 7694) of this text has been uncovered by the German expedition to Turfan. See Xinjiang, Rong et al. , Tulufan wenshu zongmu, Ou Mei shoucang juan (The General Catalogue to Turfan Manuscripts: European and American Collections Volume) (Wuhan, 2007), p. 456Google Scholar.

10 Skjœrvø, 2002, pp. 332.

11 For the context of the Hoernle's collection, see Sims-Williams, Ursula, “The British Library Hoernle Collection, part 1”, British Library Sanskrit Fragments, vol. 2, edited by Karashima, Seishi and Wille, Klaus (Tokyo, 2009), pp. 1–24, pl. 1–3Google Scholar.

12 Bailey, Harold W., Indo-Scythian Studies: Khotanese Texts V (Cambridge, 1963), reprinted with corrections in 1980, reprinted in 2009, pp. 89–90, no. 184, H. 147, NS106, folio 10: 7Google Scholar.

13 Forte, Antonino, “Le moine khotanais Devendraprajña”, in BEFEO 66 (1979), pp. 289–298CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I follow his reconstruction of Tiyun Bore's Sanskrit name.

14 Qing, Duan, The Maitrī-bhāvanā-prakaraṇa: a Chinese Parallel to the Third Chapter of the Book of Zambasta; Iranian Languages and Texts from Iran and Turan, Ronald E. Emmerick Memoiral Volume (Wiesbaden, 2007), pp. 39–58Google Scholar; Duan Qing, “Yutianwen Xicifen 于 闐 文 修 慈 分 (The Khotanese Maitrī-bhāvanā-prakaraṇa)”, in Zhu Yuqi (ed.), Xiyu wenshi 西 域 文 史 (Literature & History of the Western Regions), vol. 3, 2008, pp. 1–57.

15 T, Inokuchi, “Buddhist sūtras in the Tokharian and Khotanese Saka Languages”, in Buddhist Manuscripts and Secular Documents of the Ancient Languages in Central Asia, Kyoto, Monumenta Serindica 4, 1961, pp. 364–288Google Scholar.

16 Skjœrvø, 2002, pp. 349, 355, 451.

17 yuan, Dunhuang yanjiu (ed.), Dunhuang yishu zongmu suoyin 敦 煌 遺 書 總 目 索 引 新 編 (Beijing, 2000)Google Scholar.

18 Duan Qing, 2008, p. 53, noted this word hamaṃgu as hamaṃggu.

19 Personal communication on 1 March 2010. Here I want to extend my gratitude to Ursula Sims-Williams for telling me this interesting story about the travels of this fragment.

20 I am grateful to D. Liu Zhen for his help with the reconstructions of these names of the Bodhisattvas.

21 Personal communication of 1 March 2010. I extend my gratitude to Professor Jan Nattier for this tremendous help.

22 Ursula Sims-Williams has noted that according to “Dr. Watanabe's paper”, the manuscript H. 150. vii. 18 was also from Hastikakṣyā; see her “The Papers of the Central Asian Scholar and Sanskritist Rudolf Hoernle”, in The British Library Sanskrit Fragments vol. I (Tokyo, 2006), p. 23. Earlier Klaus Wille had said that this fragment was unidentified; see his “Some Recently Identified Sanskrit Fragments from the Stein and Hoernle Collections in the British Library, London (1)”, Annual Report of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology at Soka University for the Academic year 2004, vol. 8, p. 69, note 38.

23 I plan to publish a separate paper on this text.

24 I plan to publish a separate paper on this text.

25 I follow Jinhua Chen's suggestion that Mitraśānta's translation was made in 704 and Śikṣānanda's translation was made no earlier than 695; see his Philosopher, Practitioner, Politician: the Many Lives of Fazang (643–712) (Leiden, 2007), p. 205, note 18, and p. 227, note 47; he also discusses the collaboration between Fazang and these two Khotanese masters; see pp. 225–227.

26 The fragment (Ch/U 7207, T III T 349) of this text was in the findings from the third German expedition in Toyuq, now in the Turfan collection in Berlin; see Xinjiang, Rong et al. , Tulufan wenshu zongmu, Ou Mei shoucang juan [The Gereral Catalogue to Turfan Manuscripts: European and American Collections Volume (Wuhan, 2007)], p. 423Google Scholar.

27 On Bhadrapālasūtra, H. 143, SA.3, see Manuscript Remains of Buddhist Literature Found in Eastern Turkestan, facsimiles with transcripts, translations and notes, edited in conjunction with other scholars by A. F. R. Hoernle, vol. 1: Parts I and II, Manuscripts in Sanskrit, Khotanese, Kuchean, Tibetan and Chinese, with twenty-two plates, (Oxford, 1916), pp. 88–93.

28 For an introduction to Khotanese texts from Dunhuang, see Hiroshi, Kumamoto and Asao, Iwamatsu, “Kōtango bunken”, in Zuiho, Yamaguchi (ed.), Kōza Tonkō vol. 6: Tonkō kogo bunken, (Tokyo, 1986), pp. 101–183Google Scholar; for an overview of Khotanese literature, see Emmerick, Ronald E., A Guide to the Literature of Khotan, second edition, Studia Philologia Buddhica, Occasional Paper Series III, (Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1992)Google Scholar. Kumamoto Hiroshi identified a fragment SI P 103.47 in the St Petersburg collection as Dhāraṇī-sūtra of the Great Dignity (T. no. 1341, vol. 21: 801c.; Ch. Da wei de tuoluoni, translated by Jñānagupta); see his review of Ronald E. Emmerick and Margarita I. Vorob'eva-Desjatovskaja, Saka Documents VII: the St. Petersburg collections in the Indo-Iranian Journal vol. 38 (1995), p. 375. For an updated overview of Khotanese Buddhist literature, see Maggi, M., “Khotanese Literature”, in Emmerick, Ronald E. and Macuch, Maria (eds.), The Literature of Pre-Islamic Iran, Companion Volume 1: to a History of Persian Literature, A History of Persian Literature XVII (London and New York, 2009), pp. 330–417Google Scholar.