金剛寺聖教に見られる『龍樹菩薩和香方』逸文=Nāgārjuna and The Fragrant Medicines Appendix: Fragments from the Lost Text Nāgārjuna Bodhisattva’s Prescriptions of Mixing Fragrances
Nāgārjuna, widely celebrated in East Asia as the patriarch of eight schools, was not only a major figure in the history of Buddhist philosophy. He appears to have also left works of traditional medicine and pharmacology. One title found amongst the texts attributed to the famous author by Chinese scriptural catalogues is Nāgārjuna Bodhisattva’s Prescriptionsof Mixing Fragrances 龍樹菩薩和香方, translated by Ratnamati 勒那摩提 (in the first half of the 6th century?). It is generally believed that this text was lost by the middle of the Tang dynasty. The manuscript was apparently transmitted to Japan, but its whereabouts became unknown in the Insei period of late Heian.
We are very fortunate, however, that a Tendai scholar-monk attached fragments of this text at the end of a scroll containing the Foding zunsheng tuolani niansong yigui 佛頂尊勝陀羅尼念誦儀軌, translated by Amoghava- jra 不空, as additional materials for reference. A copy of this text is found in the Kongō-ji Collection of Sacred Teachings 金剛寺聖教 at the Amano-san Kongō-ji 天野山金剛寺 Monastery in Kawachi Nagano City, Osaka Prefec- ture. The title of this additional material is, however, given as 龍樹菩薩合 香方 rather than the usual 龍樹菩薩和香方, which I shall also adopt here. The Kongō-ji manuscript cites three entries 三條 (i.e. ‘methods’ 法). Ac- cording to the scriptural catalogues, we know that Nāgārjuna Bodhisattva’s Prescriptions of Mixing Fragrances contained ‘fifty methods’ 五十法, which means that the citation represents about 6% of the entire original. It is plausible to assume that the Shingon monk-scholar had access to the entire text of Nāgārjuna Bodhisattva’s Prescriptions of Mixing Fragrances and chose to cite this fragment.
Until now it has been believed that the Nāgārjuna Bodhisattva’s Pre- scriptions of Mixing Fragrances had been lost in its entirety. This is the first time when a fragment from this text is brought to the attention of the academic community. Although it represents only 6% of the original, this citation is doubtless an important textual witness which opens an window to the content of the entire work.
