The Ratnameghasutra, an important discourse of the Mahayana: The retrieval of its Sanskrit version (continuation)

大乘佛教的重要论述《宝经》：梵文版本的检索（续）

• 批准号: 281899732
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Jens-Uwe Hartmann
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Institut für Indologie und Tibetologie
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2015-12-31 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/281899732?language=en
• 关键词: Ratnameghasutra; important; discourse; Mahayana; retrieval

The Ratnameghasutra, the “Discourse (entitled) Cloud of Jewels,” is not counted among the narrative sutras of the Great Vehicle. It rather contains a comprehensive description of the notions and practices of a bodhisatva. They are dealt with in a total of 101 questions, all of which the Buddha answers systematically. Thus the sutra offers a large fund of doctrinal topics, and this explains why time and again it was used as a canonical point of reference in the commentarial literature of the Mahayana. The number of quotations from the Ratnameghasutra in commentarial literature is impressive, and it highlights the importance of the text already in Indian Buddhism. It was translated into Chinese four times as well as into Tibetan at a very early stage. In both cultural environments it gained additional socio-historical importance. In modern scholarship it did not receive due attention; however, in view of its highly terminological content this is unsurprising, since the Sanskrit original was lost. In the late eighties of the last century it became known that a Sanskrit manuscript of the Ratnameghasutra was preserved in Tibet. Although access to those manuscripts is extremely restricted, to our surprise the relevant authorities in Beijing placed the manuscript at our disposal and gave permission to publish it. After two years of intensive work about half of the text has been edited, but it has become clear that it will not be possible to finish the entirety within the three years allotted to the project. Therefore this application seeks an extension in order to finish the critical edition of the sutra based on the manuscript and in comparison with the Chinese and Tibetan translations. Only the edition will ultimately procure the Ratnameghasutra an adequate place in modern scholarship that reflects its former significance to the intellectual history of India, China and Tibet.

Ratnameghasutra，“话语（标题）云的珠宝，”不算在叙述经文的伟大车辆。它包含了一个全面的描述的概念和实践的菩提心。这些问题总共有101个问题，佛陀系统地回答了所有这些问题。因此，佛经提供了大量的教义主题，这就解释了为什么它一再被用作大乘佛教评论文献的规范参考点。评论文献中引用《拉特那摩迦经》的数量令人印象深刻，它突出了该文本在印度佛教中的重要性。它被翻译成中文四次，以及在很早的阶段就被翻译成藏文。在这两种文化环境中，它都获得了额外的社会历史重要性。在现代学术界，它没有得到应有的重视;然而，鉴于其高度术语的内容，这并不奇怪，因为梵文原件已经丢失。在上个世纪的八十年代后期，人们知道在西藏保存了一份梵文的《拉特那摩迦经》手稿。尽管这些手稿的使用受到了严格的限制，但令我们惊讶的是，北京的有关部门将手稿交给了我们，并允许出版。经过两年的紧张工作，大约有一半的文本已经编辑完毕，但很明显，在三年内不可能完成整个项目。因此，本申请寻求一个扩展，以完成基于手稿的佛经批判版本，并与汉藏译本进行比较。只有这一版本才能最终使《拉特那摩哈经》在现代学术中占有适当的地位，反映出它以前对印度、中国和西藏思想史的重要性。