Birch-bark manuscripts from Gandhāra are the oldest material remains of Buddhist texts known so far. In recent years, a growing number of these texts can be ascribed to the Mahāyāna movement. The largest of these Mahāyāna texts is part of the so-called Bajaur Collection. According to its linguistic and paleographic features the text can be dated to the 1st or 2nd century CE. It is written in the sūtra style and centers around the prediction given to 84,000 devaputras that they will become Buddhas with their own buddhafield. The text has no direct parallel in Indic, Chinese or Tibetan languages. The present article gives for the first time an overview of the content and compositional structure of the text based on the ongoing edition carried out by the authors.
目次
Introduction 309 Principles of text reconstruction 310 Summary of contents 313 1. Teaching of the Tathagata 313 1.1. The teaching on emptiness 313 1.2. The aryasravaka 314 1.2.1. His brahmacarya 315 1.2.2. His four asamharyafharma, abhedyaprasada and acintya 315 1.3. Wondrous phenomena 316 2. Instruction of the devaputras 317 2.1. Bodhicittotpada 317 2.2. Bodhisattvasiksa 317 2.3. Dharmaksanti and non-retrogression 318 2.3.1. Non-retrogression 318 2.3.2. Merit of the dharmaksanti 318 2.4. The Tathagata's smile 319 2.5. Verses (12): Repetition and reason for the smile 3. Prediction to the devaputras 320 3.1. Buddha name and time span 320 3.2. Buddhaksetra 320 3.3. Dharmadesana 321 3.4. Verses (20): Repetition 322 4. Qualities of the instructed devaputras 322 4.1. Moral conduct: pancasila and dasakusalakarmapatha 322 4.2. Mental conduct: Non-practice of smrti 323 4.3. Verses (10): Repetition 324 5. Rebirth of the devaputras 324 5.1. Among the gods 324 5.2. Among the humans 324 5.3. In Abhirati 325 5.4. Verses (32): Praise of the Tathagata (stotra) 325 6. Awakening 326 6.1. Not understanding the features of a Tathagata 326 6.2 Seeing a Tathagata in a dream 326 6.3. Waking up and seeing no Tathagata, dharma, or samgha 328 6.4. No perception, no thinking 6.5. Verses (32): liberation 328 7. Extinction without rebirth 328 Conclusion 329 Abbreviations 332 References 332 ABSTRACT 335
