Oldal 203 [203]
OCR
IN PURSUIT OF THE ORIGINAL The Mongolian Translation of the Pratimoksasütra and the Most Significant Differences between its Various Versions AN OVERVIEW OF THE TEXT"s HISTORY The Pratimoksasütra is known to be one of the most ancient Buddhist treatises. Although classified as a para-canonical text in respect of the Pali Tipitaka, it is considered to be the core of the Vinaya pitaka, the nucleus from which all Vinaya literature developed." The content of the Pratimoksasitra is usually described as the enumeration of the rules defined to be followed by the Buddhist clergy. These rules are accompanied by the penalties prescribed in case of the violations of those rules. The text exists in two gender versions — the Bhiksupratimoksasitra, which lists the rules for monks, and the Bhiksuniprätimoksasütra, which enumerates the transgressions for nuns. The Mülasarvastivada Vinaya is the only available Indian Vinaya collection in which the Pratimoksasutra is separated from the commentary and presented as an individual text. It is also the only Vinaya in all the Indian collections of Buddhist sacred texts, in which the Bhiksunipratimoksasutra is found in its entirety and as an independent treatise. The texts of both the Bhiksu- and Bhiksunipratimoksasiitra were translated into Tibetan from Sanskrit no later than the beginning of the ninth century AD, as they are listed in the /Han kar ma catalogue.” It seems that this early translation was the only Tibetan translation of the texts. The content of the translated treatises as well as the comparison with the Vinaya collections existing in Chinese and the extant parts of the Vinaya in Sanskrit prove that it was the Vinaya of the Mulasarvastivada that came to be translated into Tibetan. Later on, both of the texts became an integral part of the Tibetan Kanjur. The translation of the texts can be found in the K, N, D, H, Uxyl, J, C, and S redactions of the Tibetan Kanjur. The titles of the Bhiksu- and Bhiksuniprätimoksasütra were rendered into Tibetan as So sor thar pa’i mdo and Dge slong ma’i so sor thar pa’i mdo respectively. The number of precepts listed in the Tibetan and consequently Mongolian versions of the Pratimoksasiitra is 262 for monks and 371 for nuns. 28 The Prätimoksasütra as an independent, separate text does not exist in the Pali Tipitaka. The whole content of the text, however, is dispersed, or embedded, in the text of the Suttavibhanga, which appears to be a commentary on the Prätimoksasütra and comprises the first of the three parts of the Pali Vinaya pitaka. °° Herrmann-Pfandt, Adelheid: Die Lhan Kar Ma. Ein früher Katalog der ins Tibetische übersetzten buddhistischen Texte. Kritische Neuausgabe mit Einleitung und Materialien. Verlag der Österreichschen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien 2008, pp. 280-281. The colophon of the catalogue says that the work on it was finished in the Dragon-year, without specifying the sequence number of the rab byung. Provided the catalogue was compiled after the beginning of the systematic, royally-sanctioned translation of the Buddhist literature (780 AD) and before the end of King Ral pa can‘s reign (836 AD), four possible dates come into play — 788, 800, 812, or 824 AD. Textual and historical analysis of the treatise, however, has led some scholars to believe that the most probable date of the catalogue’s compilation is 812 AD; see Herrmann-Pfandt, A.: Die Lhan Kar Ma..., pp. X1X—XXI. 201
