Text Documents And Extracts Chiefly From Manuscripts in Bodleian Vol 01 Part 02

SR No.: 020817
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Max Muller, Bunyiu Nanjio
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1883
Total Pages: 131
Language: English, Sanskrit
Classification: Book_English & Book_Devnagari
File Size: 10 MB

Page 20

xiv
BUDDHIST TEXTS FROM JAPAN.
done in order to publish a readable and, with the exception of a few corrupt passages, a correct text of the Larger Sukhâvatî-vyuha. I trust that, even though far from perfect, this edition will be productive of some practical good in Japan and China, while I have no doubt that in Europe critical scholars will accord to it the same indulgence which every editio princeps has a right to claim, particularly in a branch of literature hitherto almost unexplored.
The first text composed in this peculiar Buddhist Sanskrit, the Lalitavistara, was published at Calcutta, in 1853-1877, by Rajendralal Mitra.
This was followed in 1873 by the Kâranda-vyuha, published at Calcutta by Satyavrata Samasrami.
In Europe the first attempt at a critical edition of a Sanskrit Buddhist text was made by myself in publishing, with the help of MSS. from Japan, the text and translation with notes of the Smaller Sukhâvati-vyuha1.
This was followed by an abridgment of the Meghasutra, with translation and notes, published by Mr. Cecil Bendall, in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1880.
In 1881 appeared my edition of the text of the Vagrakkhedika, the Diamond-cutter, based upon MSS. from Japan, in the Anecdota Oxoniensia, Aryan Series, vol. i. parti.
The last and most important contribution to this new branch of Sanskrit scholarship is the edition of the Mahávastu, published in 1881, by M. Senart.
These few texts, with the addition of some shorter extracts published from time to time by Hodgson, Burnouf, Foucaux, and Feer, are all that we possess as yet of Buddhist Sanskrit literature; and those who have worked in this recently opened mine, know best themselves how uncertain the ground still is on which they have to stand and to carry on their work.
There is, however, a great difference between the prose and the poetical portions of these Sanskrit texts. The prose portion can be restored with greater certainty and tolerable accuracy, not so much with the help of MSS. which, with the exception of those coming from Japan, seem to be the very worst of Sanskrit MSS., as by means of the constant repetitions and the almost stereotyped character of the general style of these Buddhist Sutras. It will be seen that in the prose portions I have often
1
1 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1880; Selected Essays, vol. ii. p. 313.