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
Gilgit and Central Asia have been properly edited, it will be possible to see how they relate to the text as transmitted in Nepal. Until now only some fragments from Gilgit and Central Asia have been edited. The Nepalese manuscripts were not properly edited by Nanjio and Kern, as Baruch pointed out in his Beiträge zum Saddharmapundarīkasūtra (Leiden, 1938). Only when a substantial part of the Central Asian and Gilgit fragments of Buddhist texts has been edited will it be possible to study in far greater detail both the metrics and the grammar of BHS. For Edgerton's work the Mahāvastu is of fundamental importance. The presence of an old manuscript in Nepal and the publication of parts of the Mahāsāmghika Vinaya will make it possible to re-edit the Mahāvastu and to re-examine the characteristic features of its language and metrics. Roth's edition of the Bhikṣuṇī-vinaya will be of great help but Jinananda's edition of the Abhisamācārikā cannot be used because the editor has failed to reproduce the manuscript readings correctly (see my review of Jinananda's edition in IIJ, XVI, 1974, pp. 150-152). It will also be one of the tasks of the future to study again the problem of the Prakrit underlying BHS. Dschi Hiän-lin has defended the view that the original Buddhist canon was written in Old-Ardhamāgadhi and that texts, which show the substitution of -u for -am, have been submitted to the influence of the dialect of northwestern India (Bailey's Gāndhārī).11 Both Edgerton and Bechert (Über die "Marburger Fragmente” des Saddharmapundarika, pp. 78–79) have shown clearly the unacceptability of Dschi's theory. Edgerton believes that BHS is based upon a Middle Indic vernacular which very probably already contained a dialect mixture. He finds no reason to question the essential dialectic unity of the BHS Prakrit. Bechert (op. cit. p. 76) has pointed out that the Mahāvastu and the Bhikṣuṇī-vinaya of the Mahāsāmghika belong to a different linguistic and stylistic tradition than other BHS texts such as the Saddharmapundarīka. Undoubtedly, future research will be able to make finer linguistic and stylistic distinctions between the texts which have been named BHS by Edgerton. Brough has already made a division in nine groups which takes into account linguistic and stylistic features. However, for two reasons it will probably
11 Die Verwendung des Aorists als Kriterium für Alter und Ursprung buddhistischer Texte, NGGW, 1949, pp. 245-301; Die Umwandlung der Endung -am in -o und -u im Mittelindischen, NGGW, 1944, pp. 121-144.
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