The Text of the Buddha-carita, Cantos I–VIII

Extract

Since the first printed edition of the Buddha-carita appeared over thirty years ago, so much labour has been devoted to clearing the text of corruptions that only the exploitation of fresh material would justify an addition to the accumulations on the subject. It so happened that a little time ago in accordance with the enlightened policy pursued by the Nepal Darbar the old MS. whose existence was revealed by MM. H. P. Śāstri in JASB., 1909, p. 47, was sent to Oxford to be rotographed. Some passages were so rubbed as not to be legible in the rotograph, and I accordingly took the opportunity to make a complete collation of the MS. itself before it was returned to Nepal. Finding difficulties in some of the readings, I then made a word-to-word comparison of the Tibetan translation; but while still at work on an article embodying my conclusions, I came across the first part of Dr. Fr. Weller's edition of the Tibetan text with a German translation covering cantos i–viii (Das Leben des Buddha von Aśaghoṣa. Eduard Pfeiffer, Leipzig, 1926). As this overlapped my article to some extent, I have redrafted the latter and limited it for the present to the first eight cantos. That the two did not coincide more was due to the different aims we had in view. Dr. Weller has concentrated on producing a correct Tibetan text and an accurate translation of it, dealing only incidentally with the text and meaning of the original with which alone I have been occupied.