This thesis is a text-critical study of the Akutobhaya, a philosophi- cal treatise of the Madhyamaka school of Indian Buddhism. I have set out to establish a text and an historical context for subsequent study of the philosophical and religious significance of the Akutobhaya.
The thesis is divided into two parts. Part One begins with a gen- eral discussion of the text and its history in Indian, Tibetan, Chinese and modern Western scholarship. There follows a detailed compari- son of the Akutobhaya with two other early commentaries: Buddha- palita's vrtti, and the Chung lun attributed to a certain mysterious "Pingala". The problem of authorship is then discussed with specific reference to Indian, Tibetan and Chinese sources. Part One closes with brief analyses of the style and doctrine of the text, and certain important aspects of its contents. Part Two is a critical edition of the Tibetan translation of the Akutobhaya.
The results of this study indicate that the existing Tibetan transla- tion and the Chinese Chung lun are both related to an Indic source at least as old as the 4th century A.D. Through the Chung lun this Indic source had a significant effect on the development of the San lun tradition in China; by way of Buddhapalita's writing it played a deci- sive role in shaping the Indo-Tibetan Prasangika tradition. Much of the evidence suggests that this source, in its original form, may have been Nagarjuna's own oral commentary on the Madhyamakasastra, but whatever the case, it is clear that the Akutobhaya's influence on the history of Buddhist thought and practice was deep and far reaching.
