MINOR BUDDHIST TEXTS (Part 1)

G. TUCCI
skrit original has been completely misunderstood; we also
note that some pages in the manuscript used by the translator
were probably misplaced. This work represents one
of the few instances when the Chinese text adheres to the
original more strictly than the Tibetan 2) .
Now are we to believe the Chinese or the Tibetan tradition
? Shall we, in other words, attribute this prose
commentary to Asanga or to Vasubandhu ? We saw that
only one Chinese source states that the treatise was composed
by Asanga on the authority of a catalogue which
in fact does not confirm such an attribution. On the other
hand the small treatise of I Ching on the last g a t h a
of the Vajracchedika attributes as we saw (Ta. 1817,
p. 783 a) to Vasubandhu the commentary on the seven topics
of the Prajna fjfe ^ -\l f^ i^t. 3pP which cannot be
but the text here concerned 2) .
So, to conclude, it seems to me that most probably
the work was not composed by Asanga but rather by Vasubandhu.
Now before leaving this text, we must add that there
are in Chinese two redactions of the translation of the
1 ) The book ends with the following stanzas transliterated into Tibetan:
etadrslm (a) arthagatim nisamya
yesam mahayanam abuddham eva (6) |
tan asmano vedmi na vasmano 'pi (c)
gunair abhavyan lasunan avaimi || 1
hino hi gambhlryam udaratam va
bodhum na saknoti na cadhimoktum ]
prayena caivamvidha esa lokah
tenatra dharme khilatam prayatah || 2
(a) Xyl. ° d a s i m. (b) Xyl. avaddhaum eva. (c) Xyl. asmano.
The Chinese does not follow closely the Sanskrit original; meter u p a j a ti.
2 ) And Vasubandhu himself alluded to the seven topics in this commentary
on the karikas;
see below p. 131 and 143 ff.
[18]