XVIII. The Sutta Nipāta in a Sanskrit Version from Eastern Turkestan

A. F. Rudolf Hoernle

doi:10.1017/S0035869X00049674

XVIII. The Sutta Nipāta in a Sanskrit Version from Eastern Turkestan

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011

A. F. Rudolf Hoernle

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While preparing a descriptive register of the manuscript fragments recovered by Sir Aurel Stein from the sand-buried ruins of Khadalik in the course of his second tour of exploration in Eastern Turkestan, I have recently discovered a portion of the Sanskrit version of the Sutta Nipāta. It is contained in fragments of five consecutive folios. According to Fausböll, in the reasoned statement in the Introduction to his Translation of the Sutta Nipāta (in SBE., vol. x), certain portions of that work, including the Aṭṭhavagga, are “very old”, containing as they do “some remnants of Primitive Buddhism” (loc. cit., p. xi). It is just the Aṭṭhavagga which happens to be preserved in the fragments, and it is this fact which imparts a particular interest to the discovery.

Type: Articles
Information: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , October 1916 , pp. 709 - 732

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00049674 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1916

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^{page 709 note 1} By Sir A. Stein they are marked Kha. 0012. b, and belong to those Khadalik finds which he purchased from the Khotanese trader Badruddin; see his Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol. i, pp. 236–7.Google Scholar In the Register they are No. 517.

^{page 711 note 1} Prose introductory narrative to the 7th varga, or the Tissametteyyasutta in PTS. ed., p. 160. Verse 814 is included in it, similarly, e.g., to v. 450 included in the prose narrative of the Subhāsita-sutta in the Mahāvagga, PTS. ed., p. 78.

^{page 711 note 2} Prone comma and double dot as marks of interpunction, here and elsewhere.

^{page 711 note 3} Verses 817, 819, lost in Sanskrit MS.

^{page 711 note 4} Sic, read nirgghoṣaṁ.

^{page 712 note 1} Verses 821, 823, lost in Sanskrit MS.

^{page 712 note 2} Line 3 contains a part of the prose narrative which introduces the 8th varga, or the Pasūrasutta in PTS. ed., p. 161, and which extends down to obv. 1. 2 of frag. II. The 7th varga must have concluded in the lost portion of 1. 2.

^{page 714 note 1} Read udgṛhya.

^{page 714 note 2} One expects vivādayanti, 3rd plur. parasm.; but the dotted circle ⊙, indicating th, preceded by e, which points to the 2nd sing, ātm., is very fairly visible.

^{page 714 note 3} Here begins the prose narrative introducing the 9th varga, or the Māgandiya-sutta in PTS. ed., p. 163, which extends down to obv. 1. 4 of frag. IV. It was the name Māgandika which furnished to me the first clue to the identity of the text of these fragments.

^{page 714 note 4} Read samyak.

^{page 715 note 1} Complete Māgandikasya.

^{page 715 note 2} See Divyâvadāna, , p. 517Google Scholar, 1. 18; also PTS., Comra. on Dhammapada, , vol. i, pt. ii, p. 201Google Scholar; vol. iii, p. 1S5.

^{page 715 note 3} Complete sahasânupīḍitā (Pāli sahasânupīḷita).

^{page 715 note 4} See Divyâvadāna, , p. 517, 11. 25, 26.Google Scholar

^{page 715 note 5} Ibid., p. 518, 1. 1.

^{page 715 note 6} Ibid., p. 518, 1. 12.

^{page 715 note 7} Reading of faint traces uncertain; might be aśreṣṭha.

^{page 715 note 8} The traces, though faint, seem clear enough, but are not intelligible; one expects bhṭṣate sma, or such like. The gāthā in question, which stood on the lost portion of the folio, must have been v. 835 in PTS. ed., p. 163.

^{page 716 note 1} Line 4 clearly contains a paraphrase of v. 836, as part of the prose introductory narrative.

^{page 716 note 2} The four lines, within square brackets, in the Pāli version, would seem to be an interpolation. There was, apparently, no counterpart to them in the Sanskrit version. See below, p. 720.

^{page 716 note 3} Read manye.

^{page 718 note 1} Here ends the 9th and begins the 10th varga. A small surviving portion of a double concentric circle is the sole indication. The last four lines are so badly sand-rubbed as to be practically illegible; but the still visible akṣaras in 1. 5 point to the last line of v. 846.

^{page 718 note 2} Apparently an error for nyāyena; see 1. 5.

^{page 718 note 3} The identity of these two akṣaras is quite uncertain.

^{page 718 note 4} Read saṁhṛtya.

^{page 718 note 5} Or saṁjn¯ātā.

^{page 722 note 1} The M. W. Sanskrit Dictionary, rather arbitrarily, takes madgubhūta, to be a false reading for maṅkhubhūta. It appears to be connected with the √mand (mad), “be languid.”

^{page 722 note 2} Āgu for āgas, as sajju for sadyās, probably through intermediate o in āgo, sajjo. See Müller, , Pāli Grammar, pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

^{page 723 note 1} In this verse Fausböll, (in SBE. x, p. 68)Google Scholar translates by “chiefs”, as if the phrase referred to the king; but, as the technical saṁgha shows, it refers to Buddha, to whom, attended by his congregation of monks, the king promises to give wealth.

^{page 729 note 1} There is, however, in it also something reminiscent of the comic story in the Kathāsaritsāgara (ed. Tawney, ), vol. i, p. 102Google Scholar, of the ascetic in the city of Mākandikā.

^{page 732 note 1} Dhammapāla's commentary on the Theragāthā is not yet published. The above given abstract is itself founded on an abstract by Mrs. Rhys Davids in her Translation of the Theragāthā, , The Psalms of the Early Buddhists, vol. ii, p. 138.Google Scholar

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