Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism

Sūtrālaṅkāra – 176
śāstras, composed a commentary on the Vibhāṣaśāstra. The
Vibhāṣaśāstra was the principal work of the Council of Kaniṣka. It
was for the editing of it that Aśvaghoṣa was officially requisitioned.
We are still in the same circle of authors and their works; but we
might go further and take a more decisive step. A learned Chinese in
a compilation of about 520 drew up two lists slightly divergent
representing the filiation of the Sarvāstivādi doctrine. Aśvaghoṣa
figures in both. In one list he occurs twice. List No. 1 has Katyāyana,
Pūrṇa, Aśvaghoṣa. List No. 2 comprises Katyāyana, Vasumitra,
Thus we meet with Pūrṇa in the authentic tradition of the
Sarvāstivādis alongside of Aśvaghoṣa, either as the second successor
of the first Aśvaghoṣa or as the predecessor of the second. And he
occurs again in a similar disguise, which has thrown sinologists off
the scent. Since the beginning of Chinese and Buddhist studies
Rémusat drew up a list of thirty-three primæval patriarchs which he
had abstracted from a Japanese cyclopædia (Melanges asiatiques
1,113).
This list having become classical has been reproduced by Lassen in
his Indian Antiquity (vol. 2, supplement 2). Since then the Sanskrit
transcriptions of Chinese names communicated by Stanislaus Julien
to Lassen have been regarded as authoritative. The best of the
Sanskrit-Chinese scholars Eitel, Edkins, Nanjio have tamely copied
them. This list has: Parśvika, Puṇyāyaśas, Aśvaghoṣa. [205]
The original Chinese from which Julien restored Puṇyāyaśas is Founa-yache.
This is in fact the name of the eleventh patriarch