MINOR BUDDHIST TEXTS (Part 1)

G. TUCCI
same Bodhiruci. In fact the compiler of the Chin
kang hsien lun states openly that Vasubandhu
was the author of the karikas, ibid. p. 799 a.
The same statement is found at the end of the book
(p. 874 c) in a passage which was made known for the
first time by N. Peri, (BEFEO, XI, 1911, p. 343, cf.
Takakusu, The date of Vasubandhu, the Great Buddhist
philosopher in Indian studies in honour of Charles Rockwell
Lanmann; H. Ui, Maitreya as an historical personage, ibid.,
p. 99. Frauwallner, On the date of the buddhist Master
of the Law Vasubandhu, Serie Orientale Roma, III, p. 42,
Roma 1951).
In this passage it is stated that the interpretation of
the sutra started from Maitreya who transmitted it
to Asanga.
44 Maitreya, the world-honoured, feeling pity for the
men of Jambudvlpa made the explanation of the meaning
of the Vajracchedika-prajfiaparamitasut
r a , and of the T i c h ' i h lun (ft Jf gf
B ° "
dhisattvabhumi) and he handed them over to
the bhiksu Asanga enjoining upon him to spread them.
But Maitreya, the world-honoured, only made (f^i Peri
44 n'avait explique que le commentaire en prose ") the
prose l) explanation: the author (^ j^) Vasubandhu
having learned it from Asanga, sought farther the significance
of the sutra and of the sastra; then he
again made a sastra in verses widely proposing doubts
and questions in order to explain this sutra; in all
there are eighty stanzas. Moreover he made an explanation
of the sastra in prose. Again he transmit-
" * if.
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