Material Heritage of the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā: Manuscripts and Inscribed Tablets

Abstract

The Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā, “Questions of the Oceanic Intelligence,” is the fifth chapter of the Mahāsaṃnipāta, “Great Collection,” and is a canonical work belonging to the tradition of Mahāyāna sūtra literature. This sūtra is highly valued in the long history of Mahāyāna Buddhism for its thematic and metaphorical richness, as it personifies the ocean (Skt. sāgara) to represent core aspects of the Mahāyāna doctrinal system. This paper presents two small Sanskrit fragments of the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā recently identified in the Schøyen Collection, with transliteration and annotated translation. In order to provide a fuller picture of the textual history of the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā, a quotation from the text on votive tablets from Kedah, Malaysia, is also discussed. These materials are employed as a case study within the context of tangible and intangible heritage. On the basis of the UNESCO declaration of 2003, it is argued that these two kinds of heritage are intrinsically interlinked, and that the categories and their pertaining definitions can be broadened so as to be relevant to more traditions and their heritage.

1. Background: Broadening the Definition of Intangible Heritage

Material culture is always connected to what has been styled in relation to intangible or immaterial culture, and vice versa. In this paper, we explore these concepts through an example of materials used in our study of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Although the material we are examining is small, it serves the purpose of discussing these concepts. The “UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage” has highlighted the dichotomy of the tangible and intangible, as well as material and immaterial heritage, and has promoted the concepts to being widely employed in cultural and educational policies.1

An issue with the terminology used by UNESCO is that it may be perceived as somewhat dismissive. In ordinary parlance, “intangible” means “less substantial,” and, with the French terminology, immatériel, it is even worse, at least in English, where “immaterial” often implies “irrelevant”, or the like. However, we disregard this and employ the categories in their technical capacity as defined by the UNESCO documents mentioned in note 1. It is even more regrettable that the whole UNESCO project may seem biased, despite its undeniable contributions within its defined domains, as it is called in the documents. The domains, namely, are almost exclusively those of ethnic minority cultures and those of indigenous peoples, which are the objects of study for ethnology, folklore studies and social anthropology only. These domains are of course very worthy objects of study, but the heritage concept also includes, particularly in its general and global sense, the heritage of more complex cultures, which, in our test case, is that of the Buddhist tradition and its heritage.

Such a broader understanding of heritage includes the material or touchable heritage, but most objects of material culture also pertain to the immaterial or intangible, in the parlance of the UNESCO initiative. Although the intangible heritage of certain objects may be lost, it can be recovered to a greater or lesser extent through the interpretation and study of material objects and artifacts.

In the “Text of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage”, established during the General Conference of the UNESCO meeting in Paris, from 29 September to 17 October 2003, § I,2,2 states that “intangible cultural heritage”, as defined in paragraph 1 above, is manifested inter alia in the following domains: (a) oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of intangible cultural heritage; (b) performing arts; (c) social practices, rituals and festive events; (d) knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; and (e) traditional craftsmanship.”

To employ the UNESCO concepts to our present study, we argue, then, that the list of domains of intangible heritage should also include (1) narrative heritage, (2) literary heritage, (3) musical heritage and (4) intellectual heritage as part of intangible or immaterial culture. Our additions to the items mentioned in the UNESCO declaration include very basic forms of heritage that hold significant importance in any culture. These additions also provide contexts in which material artifacts can be interpreted, understood and even revived as objects of cultural importance.

Our study of the artifacts, as shown in Appendix A, involves materials that allow us to communicate with present strands of Buddhist heritage. The objects are expressions of how Buddhist thought, as well as its religious, literary, narrative and intellectual traditions, depends on artifacts, consisting of palm leaf manuscripts, stone inscriptions, xylographs, votive objects and other materials. To understand these artifacts, the disciplines of codicology, palaeography and philology are crucial.

2. A Case Study of the Buddhist Tradition and Its Material Culture: The Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā in Ancient (Maritime) Silk Routes

With our study, we wish to meet the challenge of the volume in which we are participating. Our manuscript, inscriptions and xylograph materials constitute tangible heritage, whereas the “contents” of the materials constitute intangible heritage, viz., Buddhist doctrine and other aspects of Buddhist thinking. The Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā, “Questions of the [bodhisatva]2 Oceanic Intelligence,” counting as the fifth chapter of the Mahāsaṃnipāta, the “Great Collection,” is a canonical work, a dharmaparyāya, belonging to the tradition of Mahāyāna sūtra literature.3 The Mahāsannipata has come down to us as a complete collection of sūtras in Chinese; in Sanskrit and Tibetan, as well as in Chinese, the most cited and lengthy chapters appear as separate works (Braarvig 1993b, pp. xxv–xli). The Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā constitutes a pair with the Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā, “Questions of the [bodhisatva] Sky-Treasury,” as it employs the ocean as its basic theme, or metaphor, and the Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā employs that of empty space or the sky as the figure from which it develops the plot of the sūtra (Han 2021b, pp. 7–12).

The thematic and metaphorical richness of the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā, with its personification of the ocean (Skt. sāgara)—which represents core aspects of the Mahāyāna doctrinal system—made this dharmaparyāya4 quoted and translated in the long history of Mahāyāna Buddhism,5 but no complete Sanskrit text has been preserved. However, there do remain three translations of it: one in Tibetan and two in Chinese, which allow us to access the complete text, despite textual variations. The Tibetan translation, ‘Phags pa blo gros rgya mtshos źus pa źes bya ba theg pa chen po’i mdo (D152), was produced by Jinamitra, Dānaśīla, Buddhaprabha and Ye shes sde during the first propagation of Buddhism in Tibet in the late 8th or early 9th century CE. The first Chinese version, the “Haihui pusa pin 海慧菩薩品” in the Da fangdeng dajijing 大方等大集經 collection (T. 397) was translated by Dharmakṣema 曇無讖 around 420–21. The other version is the Haihui pusa suowen jingyin famen jing 海意菩薩所問淨印法門經 (T. 400), translated by Wei Jing 惟淨 and Dharmarakṣa 法護 in the early 11th century.

Several parts of the original Sanskrit still survive as citations in the Sanskrit manuscripts of later Indian commentaries, such as the ones found in the Śikṣāsamuccaya from Nepal and the Ratnagotravibhāga from Tibet. (cf. Saerji 2005, 2019).6 In addition to this, a palm leaf manuscript of the Sūtrasamuccaya, consisting of 35 incomplete folia, was discovered by Zhang Meifang 張美芳 in a collection of manuscripts from the Tibetan Autonomous Region, China, which includes two citations from the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā (Wang et al. 2020, pp. 80–81). The Sūtrasamuccaya, the Śikṣāsamuccaya and the Ratnagotravibhāga all had great impacts on the intellectual history of Mahāyāna Buddhism in India, Tibet and East Asian countries, including China, Korea and Japan. Moreover, recent research suggests that a small portion of this scripture is quoted in the voluminous Mahāyāna compendium written in Old Khotanese, the Book of Zambasta, dating back to the 5th century (Chen and Loukota 2020, p. 203).

The Silk Road, a crucial trade route linking China, India, the Mediterranean and the West, enabled the exchange of goods and culture for well over a thousand years. It attracted military conquerors, traders and merchants who brought luxury items from the Eastern and Western kingdoms. The Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan, where the manuscripts now known as the Schøyen Collection were discovered, was one of their major stopping points on their long journey. The presented textual evidence illustrates the wide-ranging role of the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā as a canonical source for disseminating Mahāyāna doctrines and practices along the Silk Road, where Buddhist manuscripts and artifacts were transported, as material expressions of Buddhism. However, it should also be noted that the historical trajectory of the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā is not limited to the northern overland routes, but it also includes the ancient Maritime Silk Road in Southeast Asia, as described below.

Another place, where material expressions of Buddhism are found, is Bujang Valley, or Lembah Bujang in Malay. It is a historical site where a port of the ancient kingdom of Kedah once existed. Located in the south-central part of the state of Kedah on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia (Samat 2013, p. 14), this region is widely recognized as one of the oldest and most significant archaeological sites in Southeast Asia. More than 80 historical sites, mostly comprising Buddhist temples (caṇḍi) and an entrepôt, have been uncovered here, making it a rich repository of cultural and historical heritage not just for Malaysia but also for the wider Southeast Asia (Mokhtar et al. 2011). It was not until British Colonel James Low discovered the remnants of an early trading settlement with fragments of Hindu–Buddhist structures in the 1840s that the existence of an ancient civilization in Kedah was revealed to the world (Low 1849). This unexpected discovery has opened new avenues for the study of ancient Kedah, and fieldwork has continued (e.g., (Evans [1927] 2011)).

The first archaeological expedition to Bujang Valley in Kedah was undertaken during 1936–1937 by H.G. Quaritch Wales, a pioneering British scholar of the early history of Southeast Asia, with his wife, Dorothy, under the sponsorship of the Greater India Research Committee based in Calcutta, India (Wales 1940, p. vii; Guy 1995, p. 91). On this expedition, he discovered a rectangular clay tablet 13 cm in length inscribed in Sanskrit verses at Site 2 located at a village about 40 m away from the right bank of the Sungai Bujang River. The Sanskrit verses were written in Later Pallava script, the same type that appeared in Śrīvijaya inscriptions produced in the first half of the 7th century; the clay tablet discovered at Bujang Valley was therefore also datable to the same period or somewhat later (De Casparis 1975, p. 20; Skilling 2018, pp. 435–36).7 The Sanskrit verses were transcribed and translated by contemporary scholars such as J. Allan, J. Ph. Vogel, E. H. Johnston and N. P. Chakravarti, and then identified by Lin Li-Kouang 林藜光 as belonging to the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā (Wales 1940, pp. 8–10).

Since the pioneering work of Quaritch Wales, archeologists have continued conducting excavations and analyzing museum objects and local texts, and they have significantly advanced our understanding of the ancient history of Bujang Valley in Kedah (see, among others, Lamb 1960, 1961a, 1961b, Wheatley 1961; Peacock 1970, 1974; Hassan et al. 1990; Jacq-Hergoualc’h 1992; Chia and Mokhtar 2011).8 Recent studies have shown that Bujang Valley was not only a major entrepot on the western coast of the Thai–Malay peninsula from at least the 5th to the 14th century but also a cosmopolitan center of ancient maritime trade and cultural exchange that functioned as a connecting bridge between the East and West (see, e.g., the recent papers by Murphy 2018; Khaw et al. 2021).

In 2007 and 2009, more stone tablets inscribed with the Sanskrit verses from the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā were discovered at two separate locations in Bujang Valley: Site 32 of Sungai Mas and Site SB1B of Sungai Batu.9 It is noteworthy that all the Sāgaramati inscriptions found in Bujang Valley so far bear the same content, i.e., the three verses on the teachings of emptiness, conditionality, the limitlessness of saṃsāra and the qualities of the Buddha. Peter Skilling, in his brief yet comprehensive survey of the Sāgaramati inscriptions from Kedah, noted that it is “a phenomenon of Bujang Valley only” and does not take place elsewhere (Skilling 2018, p. 444). He further suggested that these Sāgaramati inscriptions can be taken as evidence for the widespread practices of inscribing and installing sacred texts in Kedah, which had been widely adopted in South and Southeast Asian Buddhist societies at the time.

One reason that the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā was popular in the area where the inscribed tablets have been found could be that the settlements of Kedah were centers of international trade and thus dependent on seafaring. Śrīvijaya’s imperial power was, to a great extent, built on the control of the Malacca Strait, and the towns and settlements were very much part of a network of marine routes and seamanship. Therefore, it is reasonable to consider artifacts with inscriptions quoting the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā, or a sailor’s votive tablet, as bringing luck at sea; from that viewpoint, these artifacts serve as expressions of the sūtra in the context of the material culture of Kedah. This interpretation also points to the possibility that the text was popular in the learned circles of Śrīvijaya at the time and thus a part of the intangible heritage of the area that, although it has been lost, shows evidence of its existence in extant manuscripts. Centers of Śrīvijaya Buddhist learning were in great esteem at the time that the inscribed artifact was produced, as documented, for example, by the fact that 義淨 (Yijing, 635–713), the great Tang translator, stayed in Śrīvijaya for an extended period to learn Sanskrit before he proceeded to India proper.

The following are the transliteration and translation of the Sanskrit verses from Bujang Valley, with their Tibetan and Chinese parallels. Skilling (2018) amended the order of the verses to reflect that of the original text (p. 436, fn. 15). As mentioned above, two versions of the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā exist in Chinese: the “Haihui pusa pin 海慧菩薩品” in the Da fangdeng dajijing 大方等大集經 collection (T. 397) and the Haihui pusa suowen jingyin famen jing 海意菩薩所問淨印法門經 (T. 400). The Chinese parallels of the Sanskrit verses are found only in the later extant version, the Haihui pusa suowen jingyin famen jing, and we could not find corresponding portions in the earlier version, the Haihui pusa pin.10 It is therefore assumed that the Chinese translation that Lin Li-Kouang consulted to identify the Bujang inscriptions that he found was the Haihui pusa suowen jingyin famen jing. The first verse regards the pivotal concepts of Mahāyāna Buddhism, dependent arising and emptiness, and is quoted in later philosophical works of Indian masters, such as Kamalaśīla’s Madhyamakāloka and Abhayākaragupta’s Munimatālaṃkāra (Kanō and Li 2021, pp. 104–5). The citations of the first verse, together with the Sāgaramati inscriptions found in Kedah, indicate the possibility that the text had been used as authoritative canonical lines that present the core doctrines of Buddhist metaphysics in South and Southeast Asian Buddhist traditions:11

(a)

ye pratītyasamutpannā na te kecit svabhāvataḥ

ye svabhāvā na vidyante na teṣāṃ saṃbhavaḥ kvacit

(b)

jānīte ya imāṃ koṭīṃ akoṭīṃ jagatas samāṃ

tasya koṭīṃ gataṃ jñānaṃ sarvadharmeṣu varttate

(c)

balāni daśa catvāri vaiśāradyāni yāni ca

aṣṭādaśa ca buddhānāṃ dharmmā āveṇikā hi ye (see Figure A2 in Appendix A)

(a)

Those things that have arisen in dependence

[Have not arisen] from any own nature [of their own accord]

Those that do not exist from [their] own nature [of their own accord]

For them there is no arising.

(b)

One who knows that this limit

Of the world is equal to no limit:

His wisdom has gone to the limit

And functions with regard to all dharmas.

(c)

The ten types of powers,

The four kinds of confidence

And the eighteen qualities

That are unique to Buddhas. (tr. by Skilling 2018, pp. 436–37).

(a)

謂諸法縁生　自性無所有

若自性不有　即無少法生

(b)

實際此若知　世間等無際

是際中起智　隨轉一切法

(c)

所謂佛十力　及四無所畏

諸佛十八種　不共功徳法 (T.400, 494a16–19; 494a24–25; K1281, v41, 58b21–24; 58c06-c07, see Figure A3)

(a)

rten cing ’brel bar gang byung ba | de dag gang la’ang rang bzhin med ||

gang dag ngo bo nyid med pa | de dag gang du’ang ’byung ba med ||

(b)

’gro ba mtha’ med mnyam par ni | gang gis mtha’ ’dir rab shes pa ||

de yi ye shes mthar son pas | chos rnams kun la ’jug par ’gyur ||

(c)

stobs ni rnam pa bcu dag dang | mi ’jigs rnam bzhi gang dag dang ||

sangs rgyas rnams kyi ma ’dres chos | rnams pa bcva brgyad gang yin dang || (D152, 48r4–5; 48r6, Skilling 2018, pp. 451–52, see Figure A5)

3. Sanskrit Fragments of the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā in the Schøyen Collection12

3.1. Introduction

Apart from the inscriptions from Bujang Valley in Kedah, scholars considered that the Sanskrit original of the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā (henceforth Sgm) survived only as quotations in later commentaries, such as the Sūtrasamuccaya, the Śikṣāsamuccaya (Śikṣ) and the Ratnagotravibhāga.13 Recently, however, two small fragments of the Sgm, labeled MS 2381/11 (Figure A1 in Appendix A) and 2381/146 (Figure A1), were identified by Gudrun Melzer in the Schøyen Collection, Norway, which are to date the only known surviving witness of the original Sanskrit text.14

Each fragment has five lines to the side, and the original folio can be assumed to have had about 80 syllables in each line. The material of these fragments is palm leaf; the script is Gilgit/Bamiyan Type I, or Gandhāran Brāhmī, which was the most widely used script in Northwestern India during the 6–7th centuries before it was superseded by Gilgit/Bāmiyān Type II, or Proto-Śārada (Sander 2000, pp. 291–300; von Hinüber 2013, p. 88). Thus, the fragments vouch for the popularity at the time of this scripture in Northwestern India as well.

The two fragments belong to the same Sgm piece as that of the Śikṣ quotation, related to the perfection of patience (kṣāntipāramitā), which is the longest Sgm quotation in Śikṣ. However, the fragments also include a previously unknown portion that does not appear in either Śikṣ or any other known sources. The fragments come from two folia that were likely separated by one folio based on the distances between the last and first lines of each folio. In the following, we present the two fragments of the Sgm in the Schøyen Collection and also its annotated translation.

3.2. An Edition and Translation

Symbols and sigla15

( )	restorations in a gap
[ ]	damaged akṣara(s)
+	one destroyed akṣara
.	illegible part of an akṣara
..	one illegible akṣara
...	indefinite number of lost akṣaras
-	filler mark used when the surface of the MS cannot be written upon
•	a punctuation mark
||	a daṇḍa
◊	gap representing space
///	beginning or end of a fragment when broken

Transliteration and reconstruction (cf. Figure A1)

Folio nr. [24]16
recto
r1	+ + + + + rvasatvā[n]. + + śaparibh[ā] + ///
Rec.	... (sa)rvasatvān(ām ākro)śaparibhā(ṣā-) ...
r2	+ + + + + nayati • v[ī] .[y].[m] ārabhate • [p]. + ///
Rec.	... (saṃja)nayati • vī(r)y(a)m ārabhate • p(arākrama-) ...
r3	nn. .. + + sa◊rvalokaviruddham idaṃ [y]. + ///
Rec.	... (sa)nn(ahyati |)17 sarvalokaviruddham idaṃ y(ānaṃ yad uta mahāyānam | tat kasya hetoḥ)18 ...
r4	nnaddhaḥ ete ca sa [-] - - tvāḥ vyāpādaśūrāḥ a ///
Rec.	... (saṃnāhasa)nnaddhaḥ19 (|) ete ca satvāḥ vyāpādaśūrāḥ a(ham) ...
r5	te asiśaktitomara - - pā[.ip.] rigṛ[h]ī ///
Rec.	... te asiśaktitomarapā(ṇ)iparigrhī(tā)20 ...

verso
v1	śrutakuśalamūlacittotpādara .[n]. .. tpāda .. + ///
Rec.	... śrutakuśalamūlacittotpāra(t)n(am u)tpāda(y-)21 ...
v2	[ru]ṣābhir vāgbhiḥ samudā - - careyur adhiṣṭhitā a .. ///
Rec.	... (pa)ruṣābhir vāgbhiḥ samudācareyur22 adhiṣṭhitā a(narthakarmāṇ-) ...
v3	niga .a .. + ya◊malokagatasyāpi • [m]. + ///
Rec.	... (tiryagyo)niga(t)a(syāpi •) yamalokagatasyāpi • m(anuṣyagatasyāpi)23 ...
v4	+ + + + + ◊ tmārthaḥ kṛto na parārthaḥ [s]. + ///
Rec.	... (ā)tmārthaḥ kṛto na parārthaḥ s(ace-)24 ...
v5	+ + + + + [ta]t kasya [h]e + + [sa]rvā hy eṣā + + ///
Rec.	... tat kasya he(toḥ) sarvā hy eṣā ...

Translation25

… He endures (r1) the harsh words of all beings, and their ways of speaking that are abusive and crooked;26 he endures harms of all beings; he carries the burdens of all beings, or delivers them; but he is never depressed, dispirited, disheartened, or exhausted; he shows strength, (r2) produces power, uses strength, makes the effort, strives, and restrains the thought of infatuation;27 he being reviled does not revile in return;28 he being struck does not strike in return; he being annoyed does not annoy in return; he being irritated does not irritate in return. In this way he (r3) puts on the armor of mental calculation.29 This Great Way (mahāyāna) is therefore the way (yāna) in opposition to the whole world (sarvalokaviruddha).30 Why is that? Those beings follow the stream, and I wish to make an effort to turn back the stream. Those beings are in conflict with one another, and I am (r4) clad in the armour (saṃnāhasaṃnaddha)31 for the eliminating of their conflicts. Those beings are heroes by doing violence (vyāpāda), and I strive after certainty (niyāma) in tolerance (kṣānti). Those beings dwell in mutual deception, and I seek to be satisfied with insight (prajñātṛpta).32 Further, if (r5) those beings, as many as in the multiplying multiples of ten directions, holding swords, spears, and lances were to chase me behind, [saying]: “Wherever he, standing, sitting, or lying down, (v1) will produce the thought of awakening, the thought of giving, up to the thought of insight,33 or the jewel of the thought of the roots of good which consists in hearing,34 there we will tear, cut, sunder his body into a hundred pieces just like a leaf of the jujube tree.” If all those beings were to revile me and blame me, criticize me, disparage me, (v2) address me with lying and harsh words, be engaged in evil actions; if they were to tear up, cut up, destroy, and annihilate my body in a hundred pieces like a leaf of the jujube tree; even so I will never produce the thought of anger against any being. Why is that? Since in the beginningless cyclic existence I was an inhabitant in hell, (v3) an animal, a habitant in the Yāma’s world or a man;35 being attached to the desire for food, I did not hear the dharma; being associated with wrong36 livelihood, I lived meaninglessly; I was tortured by being dismembered into a hundred pieces; there was no occasion (nidāna) (v4) for my good nor for the good of others. If, however, in the future end, all these beings were to dismember me, even so, I would not give up omniscience, any being, nor the intense desire for the good quality. (v5) Why is that? Because all this bodily pain and damage does not approach even a hundredth part of the pains of the inhabitant in hell, until nor does it even permit analogy.37 I can endure living in the hell. I shall not give up the dharma of the Buddha, nor the great compassion that is the basis38 for [the deliverance] of all beings …39

Transliteration and reconstruction (cf. Figure A1)

Folio nr. (26)40
recto
r1	/// + + + + + .. + .. + .y. + + + + ///
r2	/// + [nt]. nām aguptānām anupaśā[nt]. + + + ///
Rec.	... (adā)nt(ā)nām aguptānām anupaśānt(ānām) ...
r3	/// + t[i] paribhāṣate • hanta vaya[ṃ] + + + + ///
Rec.	... (sa mām ākrośaya)ti paribhāṣate •41 hanta vayaṃ ...
r4	/// yam asya prajñāpāramitā [e]vaṃ hi .[ā] + ///
Rec.	... (i)yam asya prajñāpāramitā evaṃ hi (s)ā(garamate) ...42
r5	/// + [dhi]satvas[y]a vākpīḍāsahanaṃ • || ta .. ///
Rec.	... (bo)dhisatvasya vākpīḍāsahanaṃ • || ta(tra) ...

verso
v1	/// + + + jñ. t[ā]c. ttān na muhyate • buddharū .. ///
Rec.	... (sarva)jñ(ā)tāc(i)ttān na muhyate • buddharū(pa)43 ...
v2	/// .. j[a] tvam etad vīryaṃ durllabhā bodhir durllabhā .. ///
Rec.	... (tya)ja tvam etad vīryaṃ durllabhā bodhir durllabhā (buddha-
dharmā)44 ...
v3	/// + [j]aty āśayaṃ ca na viko + + ..e ..ṃ .. .. ///
Rec.	... (tya)jaty āśayaṃ ca na viko(payaty) e(va)ṃ ...
v4	/// + sramahāsāhasre lokadhāt[au] + + + ///
Rec.	... (trisāha)sramahāsāhasre lokadhātau45 ...
v5	/// + + + + + .. ..ṃ .. .e + .[e] + + + ///

Translation

… Again, he thinks: “This being is forgetful (muṣitasmṛti), unaware of what he does (asamprajña), and the one whose thought is attached to vices (kleśa). That is why he reviles me and abuses me. I shall reflect on vices! I shall be with memory and presence of mind (smṛtisaṃprajanya) and never forget bodhicitta as a single purpose (ekāgra). For the sake of beings who are (r2) undisciplined, not peaceful, unprotected, and untamed,46 I shall put on the great armor (mahāsaṃnāha), and in that way, I will enter the reflection of thought (cittanidhyapti).” Such thinking is the perfection of concentration (dhyānapāramitā). Again, he thinks: “This being is one with false insight (duḥprajña), he adheres to a self (ātmavāda), and dwells in the sphere in which such being is apprehended as an objective support. (r3) That is why he reviles me and abuses me. I shall rely on the true state of the dharmas (dharmatā). When he analyzes that who here is abusing and who is abused, he will find no such phenomenon of someone abusing or being abused.” Such tolerance that being free from false views does not apprehend the self or others (r4) is the perfection of insight (prajñāpāramitā). In that way, Sāgaramati, the bodhisatva, being skilled in means, after having heard harsh words from others and their ways of speaking that are abusive and offensive, fulfills the cultivation of those six perfections, and never forgets the great vehicle. This is (r5) the bodhisatva’s tolerance of violent words.47 What then is, Sāgaramati, is the tolerance of mental harassment of the bodhisatva?48 Even though any Māra is trying to separate you from the bodhicitta, you are still unwavering. Even though any opponent (parapravādin) attached to the preconceived viewpoints (upalaṃbhadṛṣṭi) is trying to make you disinterested (v1) in the thought of omniscience (sarvajñatācitta) that is entering the correct intention (samyagāśaya), you never forget it. Even if the Māra appears in the form of the Buddha (buddharūpa), he cannot destroy your thought equal to that which has no equal (asamasamacitta). With his magical powers (ṛddhi), the Māra may try to manipulate you like this: “You cannot establish the great vehicle (mahāyāna), so (v2) throw away your honor and give up making effort. The awakening is difficult to obtain. The qualities of the Buddha are also difficult to obtain. You will undergo a lot of sufferings of cyclic existence (saṃasāraduḥkha). Whoever attains extinction (nirvāṇa), they will be happy. Therefore, good man (satpuruṣa), you shall hurry up to attain the extinction.” O Sāgaramati, even if you are thus separated from, or thus lose your faith as the bodhisatva, the great being, you (v3) shall not discard your previous armour or become disturbed, thinking: “I shall conquer the place of awakening (bodhimaṇḍa). I shall subdue all the hordes of Mara and fully wake up to unsurpassed perfect awakening. I shall turn the wheel of the dharma (dharmacakra). I shall certainly declare the great religious discourses (dharmakathā) (v4) in the trichiliomegachiliocosm (trisāhasramahāsāhasralokadhātu). I shall invite all beings and satisfy them by giving of the dharma (dharmadāna) …

3.3. Comments

Despite the fragmentary state of the present MS fragment materials, their significance is clear for the following three reasons:

(1)

The MS presents the first evidence for the parts of the lost Sanskrit original of the Sgm that are not represented in the quotations. With the exception of the second line of the recto, the entire text of MS 2381/146 does not appear in any later commentaries, including the ŚikṣSkt. Access to the original Sanskrit, even though the amount of text is very small, offers new insights into the textual and historical relationships among various extant sources.

(2)

The MS contains unique readings that do not appear in ŚikṣMS. For example, the fifth line of the recto of MS 2381/11 can be reconstructed as te asiśaktitomarapāliparigrhītā, “they hold swords, pikes, and lances in hands,” but ŚikṣMS reads te sarvve ’siśaktitomarapāṇayo, “they all hold swords, pikes, and lances in their hand (ŚikṣMS 88a3).” In his edition, Bendall made an incorrect emendation of the phrase, te sarve ’siśaktitomarapāliyogena, as he read it as te sarve ’siśaktitomarapala(śa?)yo. (Bendall 1902, p. 186, fn. 1).49 Another example is found in the first line of the verso of MS 2381/11. ŚikṣMS reads … śrutakuśalamūlacittaṃ votpādayiṣyati (ŚikṣMS 88a4), “one will produce … or the thought of the roots of good which consists in hearing,” and the same reading is given in other versions, namely thos pa’i dge ba’i rtsa ba’i sems skye bar ’gyur ba, both in the ŚikṣTib and the SgmTib, “發 … 聞彼發起一善根心” in the ŚikṣChi and “發 … 乃至或聞發一善根心者” in the SgmChi II. However, the MS here reads śrutakuśalamūlacittotpādara .[n]. .. tpāda .., which can likely be reconstructed as śrutakuśalamūlacittotpāratn(am u)tpāda(yiṣyati?), “one will produce the jewel of the thought of good which consists in hearing.” Because the other versions all give the same reading here without the term -ratna, “jewel,” the unique reading of MS might be a scribal error. Nevertheless, one might interpret it as an editorial choice given the fact that the term ratna is often connected to the term citta within Mahāyāna contexts, even in the same paragraph (cf. ŚikṣMS sarvvajñatācittotpādaratne; ŚikṣTib and SgmTib: thams cad mkhyen par sems bskyed pa rin po che de ltar bskyed nas).

(3)

The present MS fragments show how Tibetan translators dealt with the omitted passages in the Sanskrit original that they used for producing the ŚikṣTib translation. Concerning the question of the integrity of the ŚikṣTib translation, two possible scenarios have been suggested so far. Braarvig, in his study on the Akṣayamatinirdeśa, argued that ŚikṣTib can be considered an independent witness, i.e., the Tibetan translators who worked on the Śikṣ made a new translation using the original Sanskrit of the source texts (Braarvig 1993a, p. xv). Against this argument, Silk maintains, based on his research on the Ratnarāśi, that the quotations in ŚikṣTib were modified or simply borrowed from the already existing Tibetan translations of the source texts, and thus, they cannot be regarded as an independent witness (Silk 1994, pp. 649–51). Harrison more recently examined this issue with a more systematic approach. First, he selected as a sample one chapter from the full text that contained an adequate number of citations taken from twenty canonical sources. Second, he categorized them into three groups, viz., (a) the wording of the citation from ŚikṣTib is the same as the Derge translation of the source text, (b) the wording of the citation from ŚikṣTib is broadly similar to the Derge translation of the source text and (c) the wording of the citation from ŚikṣTib differs from the Derge translation of the source text. Last, he analyzed the results of this investigation. If the citations fell into the first or second group, it indicated that the translators did not directly use the Sanskrit originals but consulted the relevant parts of Tibetan translations. In contrast, citations from ŚikṣTib that fell into the last group should be considered reliable independent witnesses because they were based on the original Sanskrit. Harrison concluded as follows:

“Category A and B outnumber Category C, but not by a significant margin…. That said, it is perfectly conceivable that when faced with passages in the Śikṣ from sūtras which had already been translated, especially lengthy passages, our team would have been reluctant to duplicate work already done, all the more so if they had done that work themselves, and would naturally have preferred to borrow the relevant sections of text as they were (Category A) or reshape them to fit (which could account for some of the Category B cases). With very short passages, however, this would hardly have been worth the trouble. It is not surprising, therefore, that many of our longer passages are Category A, while the shorter passages—sometimes no more than one or two verses—tend to fall into Category C.”

(Harrison 2018, pp. 235–37)

In MS 2381/11, in the third and fourth lines of the recto, there is a section that is found in ŚikṣTib but not in ŚikṣSkt. This suggests that the author of ŚikṣSkt omitted certain parts of SgmSkt, and that the Tibetan translators likely reinserted them, borrowing from the corresponding parts of the SgmTib translation. Such cases are also found in the cases of the Akṣayamatinirdeśa and the Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā quoted in ŚikṣSkt and ŚikṣTib. However, that the quotations in the ŚikṣSkt are to a great extent identical to the MS fragments is surprising. It could be the case that the MS folios from which the fragments come, represent popular and much-quoted parts of the Sgm that were also preserved as quotations in śāstras as loci classici, and that the rest of the folios were lost at an early stage before arriving in Bamiyan.

4. Concluding Remarks

In this paper, we present a case study of what may be called the material or tangible versus the intangible heritage of the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchāsūtra, as defined in the quoted UNESCO documents. The material heritage of the work is somewhat scanty, consisting of Chinese and Tibetan manuscripts and xylographs containing translations of the original Indic text, and in addition, other Indic manuscripts with quotations of the work. However, significantly, the material heritage of the work is also represented by the inscribed tablets from Kedah, providing further evidence of the cultural continuity between India and Śrīvijaya, a state formation in South-East Asia built on the marine control of the Malacca strait. The tablets can be interpreted as sailors’ votive gifts, referring to the main motif of the mentioned text, viz., the Ocean, sāgara—Śrīvijaya being heavily dependent on marine activities.

From this material evidence, or material heritage for that matter, intangible heritage can also be presumed, even though this heritage has now disappeared from its present whereabouts. The tablets found in Kedah are most likely related to the dynamic centers of Buddhist learning in Śrīvijaya and are thus part of the intangible heritage of this area, Although now lost, this heritage is likely better styled as narrative and intellectual heritage. However, because of the material heritage of the Mahāyāna Buddhist text, we may also to some extent construct the intellectual and narrative heritage of the work. Even though the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchā is not among the most influential expressions of Mahāyāna Buddhism, it still plays a part in conveying the heritage of Buddhism, based on its material remains. The work has even been translated into English from its Tibetan xylograph in the 84000 project (https://84000.co/new-publication-the-questions-of-sagaramati (accessed on 13 April 2023), conveying its intangible heritage to a modern audience as narrative and intellectual heritage of Mahāyāna Buddhism.