Who Is Byan Chub Rdzu Phrul

Author(s): Ernst Steinkellner
Publisher: Ernst Steinkellner

Page 6

E. Steinkellner
Samdhinirmocanasūtra
Chinese original of this text is extant to a large part.17 It was translated by the famous ('Gos) Chos grub, i.e. the bilingual Chinese monk Fa-tch'eng ( i) who worked in Tun-huang during the first half of the ninth century.18 It is interesting to note that from among the 20 works Chos grub translated from Chinese into Tibetan 19 only two (P 776, a Lankāvatārasutra commentary, and our P 5839, a Samdhinirmocanasūtra commentary) record in their colophons20 that this work of translation had been undertaken "by order of the glorious and divine king" (dpal lha btsan po'i bka'lun gis).
Among the extant commentaries this work is by far the largest and was already translated at the time of the compilation of the lHan kar catalogue, namley 824 A.D. according to the most recent analysis of the tradition.21
It can be safely identified with the commentary (ţikā chen po) listed in the lHan kar catalogue (LALOU 565) on the basis of these two pieces of information: that it was translated from the Chinese, and that its size is 74 bam po. The author and the translator are not mentioned in this catalogue. But both are to be found in Bu ston's Chos bsgyur dkar chag (NISHIOKA 655) and in his Tanjur catalogue the commentary already received the fitting name Gya cher 'grel pa (TK[Bu] 599,7f.).
17 According to the bibliography of YŪKI REIMON (Yuishikigaku tensekishi, Tokyo
1962, 174bf.) a large part of this commentary is extant in its original. It was published in the supplement of the Manjizõkyo, the Dainihon zokuzõkyo (1,34:4 - 5.35:1). However, the beginning of the 8th and the complete 10th chapter are lacking. A retranslation from the complete Tibetan version into Chinese was published, according to YŪKI, by ISABA SHÕJU Kyoto 1949 (Enjiki Gejimmikkyo. sho no san-itsu bubun no kenkyū; DE JONG mentions an edition "Kyoto 1972" in his note 2 of IIJ 30, 1987, p. 157). Seither the original nor this work of INABA are available to me (cf. also Bibl. Buddh. XXIV - XXVIII, 556). I owe to L. SCHMIT. HAUSEN and A WAYMAN the reference to this original text. I am also very grateful to ONADA SHUNZŌ for a reference to the retranslation published by INABA recently and for a copy of the same: Enjiki Gejimikkyo-sho no san-itsu bubun no
kambun-yaku (Otani Daigaku Kenkyū Nenpo 24, 1971, pp. 1-132). 18 UEYAMA 1967, 1968 (cf. the summary in DEMIÉVILLE 1970, pp. 47ff.). 19 UEYAMA 1967, pp. 143-145. 20 UEYAMA 1967, pp. 159 (163), 168f. 21 Cf. YAMAGUCHI 1985. The fact that it is already mentioned in the lHan kar cata.
logue whose latest date would be A.D. 824 provides an interesting early date for the activities of Fa-tch'eng (Chos grub).
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