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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| Reopening the Maitreya-fi les
Two almost identical early Maitreya sūtra translations in the Chinese Canon: Wrong attributions and text-historical entanglements * Elsa I. Legittimo Introduction The future Buddha Maitreya has long exerted an intense fascina- tion and attraction to ancient and modern Buddhist civilizations. His popular ity is attested in Buddhist art, literature, faiths and practices. As a matter of fact the great number of ancient sources and transla tions dealing with Maitreya’s future buddhahood are complemented by just as many modern publications written on the Maitreya myth, its versions, its possible origin, the extant Maitreya texts and their affi lia tions. 1 However, only little atten tion was so * My heartfelt thanks go to Max Deeg for having organized the Symposium on Early Chinese Buddhist Translations in Vienna, in April 2007, and for his unfailing support in proofreading this paper. I also express my gratitude to the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and to its director Helmut Krasser for having hosted and managed this event. 1 A selection of publications dealing with Maitreya’s literature is given in the bibliogra phy of the present paper. Regarding primary Maitreya text versions cf. the bibliogra phy indicated for example by Baruch 1946, Deeg 1999, Demiéville 1920, and Lévi 1932. More over, Jan Nattier wrote a valuable appendix entitled “Major Canonical Texts Concern ing Maitreya” that was unfortunately omitted from the publication (Nattier 1988). I am very grateful to her for giving me a copy of this unpublished appendix. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies Volume 31 • Number 1–2 • 2008 (2010) pp. 251–293 252 Elsa I. Legittimo far paid to the linguis tic features of one of the pre sumably oldest Maitreya sūtra trans lations extant in Chinese. We have in the present Taishō canon several sūtras with titles, as well as content, referring to Maitreya. 2 Within the vast “Mai- treya genre” fi ve sūtras focus on Maitreya’s future buddha hood, its pre requi sites and setting. The editors of the Taishō edition arranged these texts one after the other (no. 453–457) in volume fourteen. The fi rst text is called the “Sūtra on Maitreya’s coming down to birth,” Mile xiasheng jing 彌勒下生經. The following two scriptures are both called: the “Sūtra on Maitreya’s coming down to birth and buddha hood,” Mile xiasheng chengfo jing 彌勒下生成 佛經. These are fol lowed by the “Sūtra on Maitreya’s great buddha- hood,” Mile dachengfo jing 彌勒大成佛經, and the “Sūtra on the time of Mai treya’s arrival,” Mile laishi jing 彌勒來時經. Further Maitreya texts that mention Maitreya’s future buddha hood focus on other issues. This is the case with the chap ter dedicated to Maitreya in the “Sūtra of the Wise and the Fool,” Xianyu jing 賢愚經, 3 the Maitreya pari pṛcchā, Mile pusa suo wen benyuan jing 彌勒菩薩所 問本願經, 4 and the “Sūtra on Maitreya’s Birth in the Tuṣita heav- en,” Guan Mile pusa shangsheng Dou shuai-tian jing 觀彌勒菩薩上 生兜率天經). 5 Of these eight texts no. 453 and no. 349 are attributed to Dhar - ma rakṣa / Zhu Fahu 竺法護, one of the best known early translators of Buddhist texts into Chinese. He worked in China between 265 and 313 AD. Thus these two sūtras represent the supposedly oldest extant Maitreya sūtra translations. However, as indicated in the title of the present paper, we have in the Chinese Buddhist Canon two virtually identical texts on Maitreya’s future buddhahood. One of these is the “Sūtra on Maitreya’s coming down to birth” (no. 453) attributed to Dharmarakṣa. The other one is included without a specifi c name in scroll forty-four of the Chinese Ekottarika-āgama 2 The full details are given in tabular form in Appendix I. 3 T4, no. 202. 4 T12, no. 349. 5 T14, no. 452. Reopening the Maitreya-fi les 253 translation, the Zengyi ahan jing (増壹阿含經). 6 This text without any specifi c title is the third section of chapter forty-eight entitled the “Ten unwholesome [paths of the acts]” (daśa-akuśala[-karma- tải về 1.27 Mb. Chia sẻ với bạn bè của bạn:
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