Saddharma Pundarika

Author(s): H Kern
Publisher: Oxford

Page 23

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INTRODUCTION.
The difference, however, does not affect the contents of the whole, because the matter divided over chapters 11 and 12 of the older translations is contained in chap. xi of our texts and the latest Chinese version. The order of the chapters is the same in all the texts, both original and translated, up to chap. xx (=21 older division); the discrepancies first begin at chap. xxi, on Dhâranîs. The subjoined comparative table, to begin with the chapter on Dhâranîs, exhibits the order of the last seven chapters in the various texts. The first column refers to the Nepalese MSS. and the Chinese translation by Gñânagupta and Dharmagupta; the second to the oldest Chinese translation; the third to that of Kumâragîva.
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xxi
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A glance at this table will suffice to convince us that chapters xxi-xxvi (1-6) are of later growth, if we bear in mind that the order of the chapters down to the Dhâranîs is the same in all sources. This result is quite in harmony with what we would have guessed upon internal grounds. The last chapter, entitled Dharmaparyâya, must, from its very nature, have been the close, the epilogue of the whole. In the Chinese translation of Kumâragîva it occurs, as the table shows, immediately after chap. xx, by itself a clear indication that xxi-xxvi are later additions. It is somewhat strange that in the older translation of Ku Fâ-hu the Dharmaparyâya has already taken its place after the additional matter, but this may be explained on the supposition that Kumâragiva, though living in a later time, made use of ancient manuscripts1. However that
The preface to the Chinese translation of Giânagupta and Dharmagupta says: The translations of Ku Fâ-hu and Kumâragîva are most probably made from two different texts.'
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