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Lambert Schmithausen
Samdhinr mocanastra VIII. 7
453
(2) rnam par ses pa tid gzugs brian gyi dmigs pa lta bur snart bas sems
dai gengs brian tes gdags sugar runt la (3) sems kyi no bo las tha mi dad pa'i gzugs brilan de ni rail rig pa'i ishul
gyis rnam par rig pa ni ram par ses pa'i mishan nid yin no tes bstan
to ll (2) "As mind itself (vijnanam eva) appears as the object (alambana) [in the
form of a mental) image (pratibimba), it can be called both 'mind' (citta) and 'image'. (3) The essential characteristic (laksana) of mind (vijnana) is that this image which is not different from mind itself (citta-(svarapa) is cognized (vijnanti) by way of autoperception (svasamtvitli) - this is what has been taught [by the Buddha) Cor: what is shown [by the Sotra passage.] The decisive sentence is (3) which in spite of interpreting it in the light of later developments (svasamvitti) is clearly a paraphrase of the Satra sentence under discussion. For vijnana and vijnapti are found in the text, and the other words of the Satra sentence are easily parelleled with other elements of (3): alambana is of course represented by gangs brian (pratibinba; cp. also (2) grugs brilan gyi dmigs pa, probablypratibimbalambana in the sense of a rapaka compound); mishan nid (laksana) corresponds to prabhavitam; and matra seems to be explained by rast rig pali tshul gyis (svasamvittiyo gena). Thus, there can be hardly any doubt that (3) is a paraphrase of the Satra sentence under discussion. And there can also be hardly any doubt that the text on which this paraphrase is based can only be (S), not (A); for clearly rnam par ses pavijnana is the definiendum, i.e. must have been taken as the subject of the whole Sotra sentence, whereas gengs bran (pratibim ba) which corresponds to alambana can only be construed as the grammatical object of nam par rig pavijnapti. This is precisely the construction of [S2]. Byan chub rdzu 'phrul's commentary is thus an unambiguous support of [S].
17. The result of the preceding investigation is that unambiguous evidence for [A] is, except for the somewhat evasive testimony of Jhanagarbha (15), restricted to Paramartha's and Dharmagupta's Chinese translations of both 59) The commentary has, at least in the Tibetan translation, changed the comtruction of the
Setra sentence, via "A.prabhavitam F" (which would correspond to "A-lakpapan B") into
the equivalent pattern "A is the lake of B". 60) Cp : 59
Mahayanasamgraha (8 12 2 and 3) and Mahayanasamgrahabhasya (13. 1 and 2). But as I have tried to show in my analysis of the Bhasya passage ($ 13.3), the interpretation of these Chinese translations is not likely to represent the original meaning of the Bhasya passage but rather is the effect of a misunder standing of the function and wording of its statements. It is quite probable that the reading alambanay in the Satra sentencei. e. (A), is somehow connected with this (mis)interpretation of the Bhasya passage. I even suppose that (A) is the result of this (mis)interpretation, for somebody who had difficulties with the rather unwieldy compound 'alambanavijAaptimatraprabhavita in the Sotra sentence and mistook the explanation of the Bhasya for a pratika may casily have inserted, into the Satra text, what he considered a missing anusvara. In a similar way, the initial tad- of the Bhasya may have come to intrude into the Satra sentence, too. It is of course difficult to say when this happened first, but at any rate both phenomena are conspicuous in Paramartha's and Dharmagupta's translations.
In the case of Halan-tsang, too, it is likely that his rendering of the Sotra sentence though not his reading which seems to have been [S] (see $ 12 1) is influenced by the explanation of the passage in the Bhasya ( 13. 1 and 13. 3. 1) and the Upanibandhana (8 14.3).
18. This does not mean that the reading (A) could not have arisen under the influence of this interpretation of the Sotra quotation in the Mahayanasamgraha or, in view of the graphic insignificance of the change, even indepen dently- also in the context of the Samdhinirmocanastra itself; for in the preceding sentence of the Satra (see $2), the grammatical subject qualified as vijfapti matra is the image (pratibimba, i. e. the objective support of mind in meditative concentration). Thus, it might have seemed natural to make the objective support, and not vijnana, the suliffect of the following sentence, too.
19. While it is thus intelligible and, in the case of MSg II. 7, even palpable how the reading (A) could arise from (S), I do not see how if we disregard the possibility of a mere scribal error which would hardly have become so wide spread [S] could be explained as having arisen from (A). For, as wé men tioned above ($ 17. 1), the predicate in [S], viz. 'alambanavijnaptimatraprabhavita, is, from the point of view of analysis, definitely unwieldy, especially if one wants to interpret it, as the context requires it, in an idealist sense. It is hard to imagine that anybody, even if he felt some change necessary, would have changed the wording of (A) into such a terse formulation.
