There are some collation notes of Taishō Tripitaka which have been identified as variants with “Sheng 聖” or “Sheng-Yi 聖 乙”. According to the paper of Iida Takehiko 飯田剛彥, ‘正倉院･ 聖語蔵経巻について’(About the Fascicles of Scriptures in Shogozō at Shōsōin), fascicles of scriptures at Shōsōin were managed and categorized into three parts as ‘Buddhist manuscripts’, ‘engraved editions of Buddhist scriptures’, and Miscellaneous scriptures’, Furthermore, ‘Buddhist manuscripts’ were sorted into six categories, they are: ‘Sui texts’, ‘Tang texts’, ‘Tai-Ping manuscripts 太平寫經’, ‘Shen-Hu manuscripts 神護寫經’, ‘A-type manuscripts 甲種寫經’, and ‘B-type manuscripts 乙種寫經’. Therefore the collation mark as “Sheng 聖” or “Sheng-Yi 聖乙” should not be simply referred to ‘Tai-Ping manuscripts 太平寫經’. It takes further investigations to find out which category did they imply. In this article I shall take up variants of Taishō Tripitaka identified as “Sheng 聖” alone by following four categories: (where ‘A’ stands for words adopted by fascicles of Scriptures in Shogozō, and ‘B’ stands for words adopted by Taishō Tripitaka.) 1. Both ‘A’ and ‘B’ are probably wrong. 2. ‘B’ is much favorable than ‘A’. 3. It is quite obvious that ‘B’ is the wrong one. 4. It is difficult to tell which one is correct. ‘Tang manuscripts’ is one of the most valuable legacies to modern world. It is a precious gift regards to cultures, Calligraphy arts, and Buddhist literature. Among them, Sui-Tang scriptures in Shogozō at Shōsōin, together with rase copies of them done in earlier era, are even better. Be that it may, it is still not proper to assume that the Shogozō scriptures are always the best version where there is a variant issue. Because the Kai-Bao Tripitaka (開寶藏) were sponsored by emperors of earlier Song Dynasty, its authenticity should not be underestimated. It is also true for Si-Xi Tripitaka (思溪藏), Chong-ning Tripitaka (崇寧藏), Qi-Sha Tripitaka (磧砂藏) and Jia-Xing Tripitaka (嘉興藏). It might be too optimistic to assume those Buddhist scriptures brought back from Tang to Japan happen to be the best recension. As to the topic of Buddhist textual criticism, some readers might second guess that the older recension is the better one. As a matter of fact, there would not be such a conclusion in general. It takes efforts to judge variants based on disciplines of Buddhist textual criticism, not by discrimination against recension, age, manuscripts or engraved scriptures of a specific Tripitaka.
