Which manner of Mahaparinirvana Sutra at Gandhara?

Discuss and learn about the traditional Mahayana scriptures, without assuming that any one school ‘owns’ the only correct interpretation.
Post Reply
User avatar
Leo Rivers
Posts: 498
Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2011 4:52 am
Contact:

Which manner of Mahaparinirvana Sutra at Gandhara?

Post by Leo Rivers »

Which manner of Mahaparinirvana Sutra at Gandhara? [found in a Khotan area of Chinese Turkistan}

Apparently the only really Mahayana text found amongst the Gandhara scrolls is "a" Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra. I feel like Clinton because I need to define the word "a". So my question to you is - what manner of Mahaparinirvana Sutra at Gandhara? Is it mainly the Nikaya version only tarted up a little, like the Buddha Biography that introduces the Jatakas, or is it all out full frontal Flower Ornament Sutra tesseract to the Outer Limits?

See page 142 "New manuscripts sources for the study of Gandhara Buddhism" by Richard Solomon in Image
Behrendt, Kurt A, and Brancaccio. Gandharan Buddhism Archaeology, Art, and Texts. Vancouver [B.C.]: UBC Press, 2006.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0774810807/ref ... 1_ST1_dp_1
Son of Buddha
Posts: 1123
Joined: Wed Dec 21, 2011 6:48 pm

Re: Which manner of Mahaparinirvana Sutra at Gandhara?

Post by Son of Buddha »

Is it the Mahaparinirvana sutra
Or the Mahaparinibbana sutta found in the Digha Nikaya.?
Son of Buddha
Posts: 1123
Joined: Wed Dec 21, 2011 6:48 pm

Re: Which manner of Mahaparinirvana Sutra at Gandhara?

Post by Son of Buddha »

Until 1994, the only Gāndhāri manuscript available to the scholars was a birch bark scroll of a Buddhist text, the Dhammapada, discovered at Kohmāri Mazār near Hotan in Xinjiang in 1893 CE. From 1994 on, a large number of fragmentary manuscripts of Buddhist texts, seventy-seven altogether,[1] were discovered in eastern Afghanistan and Western Pakistan. These include:[2]
29 fragments of birch-bark scrolls of British Library collection consisting of parts of the Dhammapada, Anavatapta gāthā, the Rhinoceros Sutra, Sangitiparyaya and a collection of sutras from the Anguttara Nikaya.
129 fragments of palm leaf folios of Schøyen collection, 27 fragments of palm-leaf folios of Hirayama collection and 18 fragments of palm leaf folios of Hayashidera collection consisting of the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra and the Bhadrakalpikā sutra.
24 birch-bark scrolls of Senior collection consists of mostly different sutras and the Anavatapta gāthā.
8 fragments of a single birch-bark scroll and 2 small fragments of another scroll of University of Washington collection consisting of probably an Abhidharma text or other scholastic commentaries.

apparently the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana sutra is one of the oldest dated sutras we have.
User avatar
kirtu
Former staff member
Posts: 6997
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2010 5:29 pm
Location: Baltimore, MD

Re: Which manner of Mahaparinirvana Sutra at Gandhara?

Post by kirtu »

Amazon has numerous Gandhari sutras and fragments that have been published. This is the research about them of course but also the fragments. I wasn't aware of how many (there are at least 10 listed). These are all hardcopy books; no ebooks unfortunately. So it's past time for a trip to a good library to see what has been going on with these manuscripts.

Kirt
“Where do atomic bombs come from?”
Zen Master Seung Sahn said, “That’s simple. Atomic bombs come from the mind that likes this and doesn’t like that.”

"Even if you practice only for an hour a day with faith and inspiration, good qualities will steadily increase. Regular practice makes it easy to transform your mind. From seeing only relative truth, you will eventually reach a profound certainty in the meaning of absolute truth."
Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.

"Only you can make your mind beautiful."
HH Chetsang Rinpoche
Post Reply

Return to “Sūtra Studies”