Reopening the Maitreya-files – Two almost identical early Maitreya sūtra translations in the Chinese Canon: Wrong attributions and text-historical entanglements
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| Final remarks
When considering content-related resemblances among scriptures that were translated by the same translator, there are a few fi nal points that I wish to bring up. A natural (and frequent) conclusion is to claim that such similarities are due to their being products of the same translator. Notwithstanding this, we should not exclude the possi bility that similari ties can also be due to – yet unknown – com mon school affi lia tion. The Chinese canon contains hundreds of texts of which we do not know the Indic school affi liation. In many of these cases we have no corresponding Indic source text. A cer tain number of these Chinese translations could be interre- lated in re gards to their place of origin, despite their generic diff er- ence. Inter textuality in Chinese texts translated by the same person or the same group of persons in one particular Chinese locality might indicate that the texts were brought from one particu lar place through the same route to the same destination, i.e. in this case to Chang’an. Texts of diff erent gen res translated by the same per- son that share certain contextual motives and/or doctrinal views might have belonged to the same – yet unidenti fi ed – school or the same Buddhist community and might have even been transmitted from the same canon. Thus, it is not excluded that the community which possessed the Ekottarika-āgama now ex tant in Chinese also had the Dharmapada, now no. 212 in the Chi nese canon, and that there could be further scrip tures in the Chinese canon that once belonged to the same Bud dhist school. Although at the moment it is too early to propose or try to prove precise intertextual relations, the question may be raised with reason. The cultural, religious and social Chinese environment is often assumed to have had a strong infl uence on the translation process of Buddhist texts and on their contents as well. It is well known Reopening the Maitreya-fi les 267 that Daoan, who acted as the key fi gure in the dissemina tion of Bud dhism in China in the second half of the fourth cen tury, was a fer vent be liever and worshipper of Maitreya. 40 Buddha smṛti might have shared the same predilection. On the other hand, Daoan is the uncontested pioneer of the establishment of Buddhist canonical orthodoxy in China and the fi rst who fought against apocrypha in a systematic way. 41 Towards the end of the fourth century Maitreya worship had got a foothold in China since not long ago, and it can be presumed that at that time belief in Maitreya was more wide- spread in Central Asia, than in China. 42 Also the numerous scrip- tures treating Maitreya’s future buddhahood that were brought to China from abroad before (or shortly after) the year 400 were proba bly more popular in their place of origin than in China. Thus, even though a canonical Indian or Central Asian Maitreya sūtra was never found, the canonical, or “āgamic,” status of the Chinese Mai treya sūtra discussed in this paper does not necessarily refl ect a Chi nese peculi arity. 40 The Gao seng zhuan 高僧傳 (T50, no. 2059, 353b26–28, composed by Huijiao, 497–554) tells us that Daoan held special repentance sessions during poṣadha days and that this practice was later carried out in every temple in China. On this occasion he and his disciples would gather in front of their Maitreya statue and express their wish to be reborn in the Tuṣita heaven near Maitreya. 41 Cf. note no. 20. 42 Colossal Maitreya statues, for example the one seen by Faxian and Baoyun around the year 400 in modern Dardistan further support this hypothesis. Cf. Deeg: 2005, 111–115. |