Yogacara Works Annotated By Vairocanaraksita

Author(s): V V Gokhale
Publisher: V V Gokhale
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/269731/1

Page #1
YOGACARA WORKS ANNOTATED BY VAIROCANARAKSITA (discovered in the Tibetan photographic materials at the K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute at Patna ) By V. V. GOKHALE In my note on : " Fragments of Sthiramati's Trimsikavijnaptibhasya in the Patna collection of Tibetan manuscript matetials,"1 I examined the contents of four Plates from the photographic collection, made by the late Pandit Rahulabhadra Samkrtyayana and deposited in the K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute, Patna. Those Plates, showing 36 leaves of Sanskrit mss., were labelled by the photographer as : "N-Darsana, IA, IB, 2A and 2B" (indicating that they were "Darsana"-texts - whatever that may mean-found in the Ngor monastery of Tibet), and they were found to contain fragments of Mahayanasutralamkara, Cakrasamvaravivsti and Trimsikavijnaptibhasya of Sthiramati ( in which text certain variants were specially noted ). " Vimsika-vi." (= V-V) in four Plates : Now, in four other Plates from the said collection, the photographer's labels are found to bear the insinuating title: "Vimsika-vi." (= V-V) (which evidently stands for : Vimsatikavivsti') and was taken to be a commentary on the well known Vijnaptimatratasiddhi - text of Vasubandhu's Vimsatika, (seemingly corresponding with No. 115 from Bundle XXIV of the Ngor monastery, catalogued on p. 38 of JBORS Vol. XXI, pt. i : "Palm-leaf mss. in Tibet"). These four Plates were kindly placed at my disposal by Prof. S. H. Askari, Hon. Jt. Director of the K. P. Jayaswal Res. Institute, Patna for the preparation of an edition of the V-V, which they were supposed to contain. It was seen, that for taking photos of the original mss. in the Tibetan monastery, two rows of folios, vertically arranged, were placed side by side, in order to take a total of 28 to 32 folios on a quarter-size film, which though enlarged eightfold, made the text - often out of focus - hardly legible even through a good magnifying lens ! Thus, these four Plates covered a total of 121 folios. For identifying the Sanskrit texts contained herein a 1. Published in the Journal of the University of Poona, Humanities Section, No.27 (1968), pp. 175-179. 2. Published for the first time by Sylvain Levi ( Paris 1925 ), pp. 1-11. 3. Also see title no. 19 among " Mss. photographed or copied " (BORS Vol. XXIII, pt. i. p. 55.

Page #2
636 ABORI : Diamond Jubilee Volume few of the more legible places on the folios had to be deciphered, with the result, that only one highly doubtful trace of the Vimsika' of Vasubandhu could be discovered in all the four Plates, labelled as : Vimsika-vi'. The details of the four Plates, on which the labels attached by the photographer, are found to be misleading and the Plate-numbers given by him, in complete disarry, are given below after re-arrangment in their proper order. Re-arrangement of Plates and folio-numbers : (1) Plate with the title label : "V-V 3B" should come first. It contains 14 folios on the left and 15 folios on the right, all b-sides with original numbers in the margins as : 1 to 14 in the left row and 15 to 28 in the right row, with an extra misplaced folio numbered 32, placed between 21 and 22. The total number of folios on this Plate is thus 29. On folio no. 1-b is seen the beginning of the first Sanskrit text. (See below). . . (2) The Plate bearing the title-label : "V-V. 4A" comes second and covers obviously the 28 a-sides of the previous Plate, viz. 13 folios in the left row and 15 folios in the right, all with unnumbered margins. We can presume, that the a-side of folio no. 1 was not photographed, as it was the title-page, giving the name(s) of the text(s) included in this pothi, written in the centre of that folio as is the usual practice. (3) The third Plate shows the label : "V-V. 2B" placed at the top of the left row. It contains the b-sides of 15 folios, numbered marginally as: 29, 30, 31 and 33 upto 44, and then continued in the right row as : 46, 45 and 47 (in that order). Below these 3 folios there is another title-label : "Pra. va. ti-IB" under which are placed fourteen folios in a different handwriting, which are marginally numbered from 200 to 213 (thus making up a total of 32 folios on this whole Plate ). (4) The Plate, fourth in order, has the label : "V-V. 2" (which I take to be 2A, since all the folios in this Plate are found to be unnumbered ). In the left row there are 15 foilos and in the right 3 (" V-V") + 14 ("Prava. ti."), altogether 32 folios representing the a-sides of those found in the previous Plate. Thus, after arranging the Plates in their proper sequence, we find that what is labelled as : " Vimsika-vi." consists of : 29 b-side folios of Plate (1), 28 a-side folios of Plate (2), (15+3=) 18 b-side folios of Plate (3) and (15+3 =) 18 a-side folios of Plate (4), thus making up a total of 47 folios (with two folios, viz. 32 and 45, misplaced and one a-side title-page fol. no. 1 missing ). We leave aside for the time being the additional Sanskrit text, appearing under the label: "Pra. va. ti." on Plates (3) and (4) in fourteen

Page #3
GOKHALE: Yogacara Works annotated by Vairocanaraksita continuous folios numbered as : 200 upto 213. -presumably an unidentified fragment of "Pramana-vartika-tika" and proceed with whatever identification is possible of the so-called: "V-V." Identification of Sanskrit Texts: 637. (A) Vimsika-vivrtih (?): It seems clear, that the first text begins on folio 1-b on Plate ( 1 ) with the initial salutation in the first line, which could be read as Namas Tarayai". As is to be expected, these photographs show small gaps in the line to mark the end of a text or a section of the text or a verse-number within the text. The first such gap is seen in the first line on folio 2-a (i. e. the topmost folio of our Plate (2)), and the letters preceding this gap could perhaps be read (with a considerable stretch of imagination) as: "Vimsika-tika-vivrtih //". Maybe, it is this colophon of a text (extending over hardly a single side of a folio) that has misled the photographer in assigning the label: "V-V" to all the texts covering a total of 47 folios on four Plates! (B) Trimsika-tika-vivrtih (?): Then on folio 3-a there is a gap in the sixth line, preceded by words that allow themselves to be read as: Trimsik atika-vivrtih |--The texts that follow these two doubtful titles can, however, be identified with far greater certainty, as the photographs are also comparatively more legible. (C) Madhyanta-vibhaga-katipaya-pada-vivrtih On fol. 9-b in the second line there is a gap preceded by this colophon, which clearly indicates the end of "Annotations on certain words in the Madhyanta-vibhaga (of Maitreya)", which consists of five paricchedas. We can be sure of this, because preceding this end of the work, we already find four gaps, viz. on folio 4-b in the fifth line, where the first chapter ends and is marked by the figure-numeral; one', then on folio 5-b in the fourth line, where the second chapter ends and is marked by the figure numeral: 'two' then on folio 7-a in the seventh line, where the third chapter ends and is marked by the figurenumeral three', and on folio 8-b in the second line, where the fourth chapter ends and is marked by the figure-numeral : four'. The fifth and the last chapter, of course, ends with the colophon on folio: 9-b in the second line as stated above. Certain terminological identifications can also be easily made in the legible portions of the text.* (D) Mahayanottaratantra-tippani: After the gap on fol. 9-b, the next text begins with: Sutram eva aha, anidarsana ityadi' which marks the 4. See: Madhyantavibhagatastra, critically edited by Ramacandra Pandeya (Motilal Banarasidass, Delhi 1971).

Page #4
638 ABORI : Diamond Jubilee Volume beginning of a commentary on the Ratnagotravibhaga-MahayanottaratantraSastra.5 The subsequent gaps on foll. 10-6, 11-b etc. confirm this fact satisfactorily. This text extends from fol. 9-5 line 2 to fol. 17-a line 5, where it ends with : Mahayanottara-tantratippani | krtih Pandita-Vairocanaraksitapadanam //. (E) Sutralamkarah : Beginning from fol. 17-a, 1.5, we have a similar commentary on the text of the Mahayana-sutralamkara of MaitreyaAsamga, which extends upto fol. 47-a, 1.2, with gaps to mark the serial number of chapter (adhikara ) of the original work. The colophon reads : " Sutralamkarah samaptah // o // Krtih Pandita-vairocanarak sitapadanam // (F) Dharmadharmata-vibhal ga): Hereafter we meet with a text, beginning on fol. 47-a, I. 2 and ending apparently on fol. 47.5 with the incomplete colophon: " Dharmadharmata-vibhao", which could be restored by supplementing some such words as : ogakatipayapada-vivrtih // after the fashion of (C) above, presumably composed also by Pandita-Vairocanaraksita. Thus, the four Plates, examined above, going under the misleading general title of : " Vimsika-vivrti (= V-V), contain sub-commentaries in the form of annotations on the following works, all of which seem to be the compositions of Pandita-Vairocanaraksita, although only two of these bear the name of this author in their respective colophons : (A) (Vijnaptimatratasiddhi) Vimsatika (?) (B) >> Trimsika >> (?) 5. Cf. Ratnagotravibhaga-Mahayanottaralantrasastra, edited by E. H. Johnston (Patna, 1950), p. 2, line 5. Also comp. fol. 10-6, 11. 6-7 :'tatra yaduktam ityadina sutramaha' etc. with Johnston's p. 9, 11. 8-9. This commentary enumerates and explains on foll. 10-b, l. 7, to 11, 6, 1-7 the nine illustrations of the Buddha's Acts, viz. of i) Sakrapratibimba, ii) Dharmadundubhi, iii) Megha, iv) Mahabrahma, v) Surya, vi) Cintamani, vii ) Pratisrutka, viii) Pythvi and ix ) Akasa (Cf. J. Takasaki, a study of the Ratnagotravibhaga (Uttaratantra ), SOR, Rome. 1966, pp. 126-128. By the way, a fairly large portion of the photographs, containing this commentary, are legible, and we wou.d leave it to be worked out by scholars like Prof. J. Takasaki, who has deciphered recently a very difficult ms. in the Sarada script of a short versified summary of the present work by Sajjanapada. The photos of this small treatise : Mahayanottaratantrafastropadesa were provided by Prof. G. Tucci. The results of Prof. Takasaki's decipherment were published by him in the Journal of Indian and Buddhist Stndies (Indogaku Bukkyogaku Kenkyu ) Vol. XXIII. No. 2 (March 1975), pp. 1058-1065. 6. See Mahayanasutralamkara, ed. by Sylvain Levi ( Paris, 1907). It may be noted, that the ending figure-numeral for Chapter 20 (on fol. 45 a, 1. 2) is followed by " Evamgunayuktanam bodhisattvanan niscayarthan linganat / parigrahart ham parigrahanimittam muktahastatadanam kypaya sattvaparigrahah svikarah / priyakhyanam...." etc. which refers to Levi's text beginning with XX-XXI (pp.175-176 )-- The numbering of Levi's chapters needs further investigation.

Page #5
GOKHALE I Yogacara Works annotated by Vairocanaraksita 639 (C) Madhyantavibhaga (D) Mahayanottaratantra (E) Sutralamkara (F) Dharmadharmatavibhas ga) Questions regarding the little known author : Vairocanaraksita, and the text of F) Dharmadharmatavibha( ga ) will be treated elsewhere. 3-6-1977 The four plates discussed here are reproduced on the following pages. They are re-arranged in their proper order as Plates 1, 2, 3, 4 ( See p. 636 ).