Reopening the Maitreya-files – Two almost identical early Maitreya sūtra translations in the Chinese Canon: Wrong attributions and text-historical entanglements
Buddhasmṛti’s connection to Dharmarakṣa and Kumārajīva
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| Buddhasmṛti’s connection to Dharmarakṣa and Kumārajīva
It is certainly reasonable to say that Dharmarakṣa cannot have trans- lated a scripture that contains as much vocabulary, which is incon- gru ent to his own linguistic preferences and which overlaps with Bud dha smṛti’s terminological habits. The few occurrences of the searched items in Dharmarakṣa’s translations should be considered as terminological borrowings by Buddhasmṛti from Dharmarakṣa. Other translations by Buddhasmṛti actually show a higher number of borrowings from Dharmarakṣa than the investigated opening section of the Maitreya text. The low percentage is probably due to the fact that the beginning section has relatively few doctrinal terms that usually constitute the core of the borrowed vocabulary. It is no exaggeration to say that borrowings represent a signifi cant aspect of the translation process and the translation history of the Chinese Canon. Dharmarakṣa who translated during the second half of the 3 rd and the beginning of the 4 th century AD has created many important terms and formulations and it was common prac- tice for later trans lators to make use of his termi nology until cer- tain wordings were reformulated by Kumārajīva in the fi rst decade of the 5 th century. Even the famous scholar-monk Daoan had a particular inter- est in Dharmarakṣa’s translation corpus. And since manuscripts of Chinese Buddhist translations were hard to obtain in the middle of the fourth century, Daoan is credited with having learned numerous scriptures by heart. At a rather early stage of his career he started to Reopening the Maitreya-fi les 259 collect the extant Chinese translations of Buddhist texts and related data. In 374 Daoan composed the fi rst catalogue of the Chinese Canon, the Zongli zhongjing mulu 綜理衆經目録. 20 In 379 he ar- rived in Chang’an where he set up a translation team. Buddhasmṛti arrived at Chang’an at about the same time and started to work as a translator under Daoan’s supervision. Buddha smṛti seems to have had a predilection for terminology created by Dharmarakṣa. Many expressions in Buddha smṛti’s trans lations are discernable as vo- cabulary created by Dhar ma rakṣa. This tendency might be due to Daoan’s educational infl u ence. In any case Buddhasmṛti’s literary style and vocabulary presuppose that he was well-acquainted with Dhar ma rakṣa’s trans lations. It is safe to assume that Buddhasmṛti knew all the Dharma rakṣa translations available in Chang’an dur- ing the last quarter of the fourth century, and that he either had direct access to the texts or had learned them by heart. The use of Dharma rakṣa’s terminology is therefore one of the characteristic features of Buddhasmṛti’s trans lation corpus. When Buddhasmṛti’s vocabulary appears in Kumārajīva’s trans- la tions, however, the circumstances are diff erent and more diffi cult to comprehend. The fact that certain translations by Kumā ra jīva con tain a great number of formulations and vocabu lary that is mostly, but not exclusively, used by Buddhasmṛti deserves our full- est atten tion. Buddhasmṛti actually lived and worked in Chang’an at least be tween 378 and 413. This means that during Kumārajīva’s whole stay in Chang’an, roughly the fi rst decade of the fi fth century, 21 Buddha smṛti was also living there. It is signifi cant that we have – with one exception – no record of Buddhasmṛti’s trans- lation activity during these ten years. The catalogues only men- 20 It is generally assumed that he made additions to the catalogue until he passed away in 385. Although his catalogue was lost, most of its data is included in the still extant Chu sanzang jiji 出三蔵記集, T55, no. 2145, composed in 515. The data borrowed from Daoan’s catalogue are speci- fi ed as coming from the Anlu 安録, the “catalogue of (Dao)an.” 21 No matter which tradition regarding Kumārajīva’s stay in Chang’an we assume as correct (arrival in 401 or 402, and death between 409 and 413), during the whole time Kumāra jīva lived and worked Chang’an, Buddhasmṛti was also residing there. 260 Elsa I. Legittimo tion him once as Kumāra jīva’s collaborator. 22 Yet despite this fact a certain number of other translations attributed to Kumārajīva display Buddhasmṛti’s linguis tic infl uences. On several occa- sions I have detected, for example, that the Chinese version of the Mahāprajñā pā ra mito pa deśa, the Da zhidu lun 大智度論, 23 that has always and exclu sively been attributed to Ku mā rajīva, bears in fact considerable traces of Buddh asmṛti’s ter minol ogy. 24 It cannot be excluded that in the fi rst decade of the 5 th century, Buddhasmṛti worked “back stage” as one of Kumāra jīva’s translating assistants together with other scholar monks, translators and scribes. The fact that scrip tures translated by others or with the help of others carry solely the master’s name – in this case Ku mā ra jīva’s – is a common feature of Chinese Buddhist translation data. 22 The only explicit mentioning of a collaboration between Kumārajīva and Buddha smṛti concerns the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā (Mohe banruobo luomi jing 摩訶般若波羅蜜經, T8, no. 223). The Lidai sanbao ji 歴代三寶紀 (T49, no. 2034, 77b-79a) says that this text was expounded by Kumārajīva (Shi zhi fanwen 什執梵文), translated by the Indian Buddhasmṛti (Zhu Fonian chuan-yu 竺佛念傳語) and written down by Ruizhao (Ruizhao bi-shou 叡肇筆受). Cf. Hureau 2006: 98, note 45. 23 T25, no. 1509, 57c6–756c19. The full title is Mohe banruo boluo- miduo jing shilun 摩訶般若波羅蜜多經釋論. 24 There is no reason why Kumārajīva should not have adopted vocabu- lary and termini used by Buddhasmṛti or by other preceding translators, but ordinary usage of preexisting vocabulary cannot explain why certain translations attributed to Kumāra jīva contain a relatively signifi cant pro- portion, i.e. a higher number of expressions characteristic of Bud dha- smṛti. As the Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa is a large scripture consisting of hundred scrolls that cover seven-hundred pages in the Taishō edition, it is no easy task to determine whether Buddhasmṛti infl uenced the transla- tion on particular occasions, i.e. whether his traces are to be found only in certain chapters, whether he has “collaborated” throughout, or whether he even translated the whole text on behalf of Kumārajīva. |