Bhikṣu Chang Tzu
Doctoral Candidate, Department of Indian Sub-Continental Studies, University of Sydney
In the prajñāpāramitā sūtras of 8,000, 18,000, 25,000 and 100,000 lines, and their respective translations in Chinese and Tibetan, there is one particular story about Sadāprarudita's search for prajñāpāramitā (perfection of wisdom). This story teaches bodhisattvas to learn from his diligent spirit. In this story the doctrine of prajñāpāramitā, which is said to be vast and deep, is taught through many interesting and impressive episodes. There are two main different versions of the story in those sūtras. I will refer to these as version I and version II in this paper. Version I is found only in two Chinese translations of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā prajñāpāramitā sūtra (Aṣṭa), while version II is found in the Sanskrit Aṣṭa and its Chinese translations except the previous two. Version II is also found in the Chinese translations of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā prajñāpāramitā sūtra and the Śatasāhasrikā prajñāpāramitā sūtra. In addition to these two versions, the story of Sadāprarudita also exists in a jātaka version recorded in the Liùdùjíjīng 六度集經 (Sūtra on the Collection of Six Pāramitās). There is evidence to indicate that the Sadāprarudita jātaka has a close relationship with version I of the story. The focus of this paper is on the relationship of the three versions, in particular, the evolution of the story of Sadāprarudita.
(Presented in the International Conference – Buddhist Narrative in Asia and Beyond, 9-11 August 2010, Imperial Queen's Park Hotel, Bangkok, organized by Institute of Thai Studies, Chulalongkorn University with support from The Thailand Research Fund (TRF), in co-operation with Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Institute of Asian Studies, The Confucius Institute, Chulalongkorn University and l’École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO))