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 The Pancavimsatisahasrika Prajnaparamita

BY

NALINAKSHA DTJTT, M.A., B.L, PH.D., (CAL.), D.LITT (LOND.)

Premehand Roychand Scholar ; formerly Professor of Pâli,

Judson College, Rangoon ; Lecturer, Post-graduate
Department (Pâli and Ancient Indian History
and Culture), Calcutta University.

PREFACE

       The present edition of the Pancavimsatisãhasrikã Prajnãpãramitã is based upon four mss., two of which belong to the Cambridge University Library, one to the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris and one to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. While proceeding to Europe in 1926, I took a copy of the last mentioned ms. and during my stay there I colla­ted the same with the mss. in Cambridge and Paris. Of the four mss., the ms. Add. 1628 of the Cambridge Univer­sity Library (referred to in the present edition as C1) is more accurate than the other three and also appears to be a little older than the other mss. It is complete in 594 leaves, of which 412 to 559 are written in a different hand and are older than the other portions i. e. leaves 1-411 and 560-594.

        The second Cambridge ms. (referred to as Cg) follows the ms. of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (referred to as A) more closely, repeating its mistakes, and in some places, committing fresh mistakes. The ms. of the Bibliotheque Nationale fares no better. It is a modern copy made at the instance of Hodgson.

       All the mss. have the same defects, such as the indis­criminate use of visarga, omission of anusvãra, the use of singular verbs in the place of plural, the use of both anusvãra and na when one is redundant as in and interchange of… In many places confusion has been made in copying the repetitions. In common with all the Buddhist Sanskrit mss., there are in these mss. many Prakrit words with Sanskrit inflexions.

         The present volume contains only the first out of the eight chapters of the work, but in extent it occupies nearly one-third of the whole treatise. In C1 it covers 200 out of 594 leaves while in A it covers 131 out of 409 leaves. The contents of the work follow quite closely those of the Satasãhasrikã Prajnãpãramitã, of which thirteen chapters have been published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal. These chapters have all been pointed out in the footnotes of the present edition, the thirteenth chapter ending at p. 245 (see fn. 2). In short, (1676+71 =) 1747 printed pages of the Satasãhasrikã have been compressed into the present edition in 245 pages. If the ms. had been printed with the repetitions in extenso, the number of pages would have been more than doubled, if not trebled. To make the reading of the text easy, the repetitions have been omitted as far as possible but sufficient indications have been given in the text and the footnotes to enable the reader to make out the omitted lines or paragraphs. This has entailed a good deal of additional labour but will, I believe, make the book easy to tackle.

         Prof. Stcherbatsky was the first scholar to realise the importance of the investigation of the Prajnaparamita literature and as early as 1916 he proposed to publish the Kãrikã and the Pancavimsati. Later on, he informed me that he would confine himself to the Kãrikã and advised me to take up the Pancavimsati. About this time Prof. Tucci also took up the edition of the Abhisamayãlahkãrãlokã of Haribhadra. All these three works are very closely interconnected. Dr. Obermiller has already set himself to the task of investigating the literature in right earnest and produced an enormous volume entitled the Analysis of the Eight Subjects and the Seventy Topics of the Abhisamayãlahkãra of Maitreya, publication of which has been taken up by Dr. Narendra Nath Law in his Calcutta Oriental Series, and one fasciculus of which has already seen the light. Prof. Tucci also has announced in the preface to the Ãlokã that he intends to take up the study of the Prajnãpãramitã literature, and I hope the present volume will greatly facilitate such studies.

       Before I conclude my remarks I must acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. Narendra Nath Law for including this book in his Series, bearing all the expenses involved in the preparation of the text and its publication, to my friend Prof. Durgamohan Bhattacharya for helping mẹ with his valuable suggestions, to Pandit Sarojbandhu Tarkatirtha for helping me in the revision of proofs and to Dr. L. D. Barnett and Dr. E. J. Thomas for giving me facilities to collate my copy with the mss. of the Cambridge University Library.

Calcutta University       NALINAKSHA DUTT

1934

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