The Text of the Dharmasamuccaya

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.