Studia nad Mahāvastu: Sanskryckim Tekstem Buddyjskiej Szkoły Mahasanghików-Lokottarawadinów=Studies on the Mahāvastu: The Sanskrit Text of the Buddhist School of the Mahāsāṃghika-Lokottaravāda
1. KATARZYNA MARCINIAK, Pracownia Studiów nad Buddyzmem, Uniwersytet Warszawski, Wydział Orientalistyczny.
2. This book is lightly modified version of the author's doctoral thesis, University of Warsaw in 2013
摘要
The present work Studies on the Mahāvastu - the Sanskrit text of the Buddhist school of the Mahāsāṃghika-Lokottaravāda is a slightly modified version of my doctoral dissertation which was submitted to the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Warsaw in 2013. Thanks to the activities of the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project at present we have at our disposal much earlier and more valuable sources than those used by Emile Senart in his editio princeps of the text (3 vols., Paris 1882-1895). Therefore, it was necessary to re-consider and re-examine certain issues pertaining to the Mahāvastu on the basis of this valuable, previously unavailable textual material. As can be clearly noticed from the list of the manuscripts, there is a gap of approximately six centuries separating the oldest preserved palm-leaf manuscript Sa (ca. 12th c.) and the earliest paper copy (Ms B, 1800 A.D.) used by Senart in his edition of the Mahāvastu. Hence, the question arose - to what extent does Senart's edition reflect the language of the Mahāvastu as it has been attested in the oldest preserved Ms Sa? In other words - are the readings of the Ms Sa consistent with those accepted by Senart in his editio princeps?
It has been shown that in the light of the new findings based on the scrutiny of the Ms Sa, Senart's edition - a masterpiece of scholarship as it is - cannot be regarded as a basis for the analysis of the language of the Mahāvastu language. And this is for two main reasons: firstly, it was based on relatively late manuscripts, of which the earliest dates back only to 1800 A.D., and secondly, the author often introduced into the text unjustified emendations.
The present work tackles the subject on many levels. It offers a systematic description and thorough analysis of all the extant manuscripts of the Mahāvastu, with a particular focus on the oldest preserved palm-leaf manuscript Sa, its paleographical analysis provided with the tables of the bhujimol script, as well as a preliminary outline of the relation of all the manuscripts. An attempt was made to draw a general stemma codicum of the extant copies of the text to determine which of the manuscripts are of major importance for our research and which might be regarded as secondary or late copies of lesser importance.
The present work has been supplemented with preliminary general remarks on the language of the manuscript Sa, the so-called Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, provided with references to other works ascribed to the Lokottaravādins. Moreover, in order to show the peculiarities of the language attested in the manuscript Sa an annotated edition of the three chapters of the text, i.e. Padumāvatīye parikalpaḥ, Padumāvatīye jātakaṃ, Padumāvatīye pūrvayogaṃ was added, with a grammatical commentary. The story of Padumavatī attested in the Mahāvastu was compared with the versions preserved in Kṣmendra's Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā and in Padmāvatī-avadāna in manuscripts from Gilgit.
