Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism

Mahāyānasūtras – 91
Age of the Sūtra
Although, however, the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka represents later and
earlier ingredients it displays a much greater unity of character than
either the Mahāvastu or the Lalitavistara. It is not possible that the
older and the younger components should be separated by any
extensive lapse of time. If the book had assumed its present compass
between 265 and 316 A.D., when the first Chinese translation was
prepared or even earlier, in its primary formation it must have well
arisen about 200 A.D. Even Kern, who strives to establish that the
Saddharmapuṇḍarīka and the Lalitavistara have preserved materials
going back to the most ancient period of Buddhism, has been able to
cite instances only from the Lalitavistara. There is no ground for
asserting that the older text saw the light “a few centuries earlier,” as
Kern assumes (p. xxii). Bendall ascribes to the fourth or fifth century
a manuscript of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka discovered by him
(Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1901, p. 124). Fragments of the
Saddharmapuṇḍarīka have been discovered also in Central Asia
during the explorations by Stein and others (Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society 1911, p. 1067 ff). One fact is incontestable. The entire
Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, prose and gāthā, presupposes a high
development of the Mahāyāna Buddhism, especially in the direction
of Buddha-bhakti, the adoration of relics, the worshipping of images
and, above all, a highly flourishing epoch of Buddhist art. For, when
there is such prominent mention of thousands of myriads of ten
millions of stūpas, which were erected for the relics of a Buddha or
of the ten millions of vihāras which are delineated as magnificent
buildings, most luxuriously, furnished there must have [74] existed at
least several hundreds of stūpas and vihāras, topes and monasteries,
and these were doubtless embellished with images of the Buddha in