It was in September 1999 that I learned from Professor Ochiai Toshinori落合俊典about the discovery of an apparently new version of the An ban shou yi jing安般守意經(hereafter, ASYJ) translated by An Shigao安世高(fl. 148-168 CE). The text had been found in a manuscript scroll among the Tripitaka collection of Mt Amano Kongo Temple天野山金剛寺(Shingon School, Omuro Sect眞言宗御室派), located in Kawachi Nagano City河内長野市(Osaka Prefecture大阪府). And the big news was, Professor Ochiai added, that the scroll also contained the Shi er men jing十二門經, translated by the same An Shigao as well as the Jie shi er men jing解十二門經(which at that time was thought to be Daoan's道安commentary to this scripture), both texts already recorded as lost by the time of the Renshou Catalogue仁壽録(compiled in 602). The first discoverer of this astonishing scroll is actually Mr Kajiura Susumu梶浦晋of the Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University, who has been actively engaged in the survey and study of Buddhist manuscripts stored at various temples throughout Japan. Early in the spring of the same year, Mr Kajiura had asked Pofessor Ochiai, famous, amongst others, for his discovery and research of the Nanatsu-dera七寺texts, for advice concerning the authenticity of what was emerging to be a new discovery. By the end of April, Professor Ochiai had become persuaded that the Shi er men jing MS was, in all likelihood, the authentic translation of An Shigao previously believed to have been lost. Soon after this, Professor Ochiai had a second revelation: the MS also contained a new text of the ASYJ, quite different from the current Taisho Canon大正大藏經version. In the summer of 1999, Professor Ochiai set up a research group for the study of these new additions to the An Shigao corpus, and a year later this group as well as another team working mainly on the conservation and detailed cataloguing of the manuscripts found at Kongo-ji received a three-year grant-in-aid from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. The group eventually plans to publish a facsimile and critical edition of the newly found texts as well as a series of philological and historical studies dedicated to them.
