Brief History Of Buddhist Studies In Europe And Maerica

Author(s): J W De Jong
Publisher: J W De Jong

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THE EASTERN BUDDHIST
the Tibetan the Uttaratantra or Ratnagotravibhāga. 92 His main work was devoted to the Abhisamayālamkāra.93
Heinrich Lüders's importance for Buddhist studies consists in his extremely careful editions of Sanskrit fragments from Central Asia. His edition of fragments of Buddhist dramas revealed for the first time the fact that Asvaghosa had written for the theater, a fact of great importance for the history of Indian theater.94 We mentioned earlier his edition of fragments of the Kalpanamanditikā. Other publications of fragments have been reprinted in his Philologica Indica. Of great importance for the problem of the pre-canonical language is his posthumously published Beobachtungen über die Sprache des buddhistischen Kanons (Berlin, 1954) in which he defended the view that the Pāli and Sanskrit Buddhist texts show traces of the existence of a primitive canon (Urkanon) written in an Eastern dialect, called Ardhamāgadhi or Old-Ardhamāgadhi. Lüders's work on the Sanskrit fragments was continued by his pupil Ernst Waldschmidt (1897– ), who edited fragments of the Bhikṣuṇīprātimokşa of the Sarvāstivādin and fragments of canonical sūtras. 95
In the field of Buddhist philosophy important work has been done by Stanislas Schayer (1899–1941), Poul Tuxen (1880–1955), Giuseppe Tucci (1894- ), and Erich Frauwallner (1898– ). Schayer and Tuxen have contributed to a better understanding of the Madhyamaka philosophy by their studies on Candrakirti's Prasannapadā.96 Schayer provoked a lively discussion
92 The Sublime Science of Great Vehicle to Salvation (Uttaratantra), Acta Orientalia, 9, 1931, pp. 81-306.
93 The Doctrine of Prajñāpāramitā as exposed in the Abhisamayālamkāra, Acta Or., II, 1932, pp. 1-133, 334-354; Analysis of the Abhisamayālamkāra, 3 fasc., Calcutta, 1933, 1936, 1943. See further La Vallée Poussin, MCB, 5, 1937, p. 244; Th. Stcherbatsky, Dr. E. Obermiller, Obituary Notice, J. of the Greater India Society, 3, 1936, pp. 211-213.
94 Bruchstücke buddhistischer Dramen. Berlin, 1911; Das Sāriputraprakarana, ein Drama des Aśvaghoșa, SPAW, 1911, pp. 388-411 = Philologica Indica, Berlin, 1940, pp. 190-213. For a bibliography of Lüders's writings see H. Lüders, Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden, 1973, pp. vii-xiii.
95 Bruchstücke des Bhikṣuni-prātimokşa der Sarvāstivādins, Leipzig, 1926; Bruchstücke buddhistischer Sūtras aus dem zentralasiatischen Sanskritkanon, I, Leipzig, 1932.
96 St. Schayer, Ausgewählte Kapitel aus der Prasannapadā, Cracow, 1931. For an incomplete) bibliography see Rocznik Orientalistyczny, XXI, 1957, 24-27; Poul Tuxen, Indledende Bemaerkninger til buddhistisk Relativism, København, 1936; In what sense can we call*
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