This study reassesses an old problem in the history of Chinese Buddhism, the origins and nature of the Zengyi ahan jing 增一阿含經 (Taishō 125). It does so by a close investigation of the Chinese translation of the Ekottarika-āgama at the end of the fourth century and of its most important witness, the Fenbie gongde lun 分別功德論 (Taishō 1507). It is argued that the latter document, whose original title was Zengyi ahan jing shu 增一阿含經疏, should be seen as an unfinished commentary to the newly translated collection, produced within the original translation team (including Dao’an 道安, Zhu Fonian 竺佛念 and the Indo-Bactrian master Dharmananda) during the tumultuous end of the Qin秦 empire of Fu Jian苻堅in A.D. 385. This reconstruction yields further insights into the cultural origins of the Chinese Ekottarika-āgama, and its broader significance for the history of Buddhism.
作者簡介
Antonello Palumbo is Lecturer in Chinese Religions at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
The present book collects various research papers by Bhikkhu Anālayo with translations of Madhyama-āgama discourses and a comparative study of their Pāli parallels, together with a brief discussion, found in the appendix, of the school affiliation of the Madhyama-āgama and its relation to the Majjhima-nikāya. The main emphasis in these studies is on detecting possible transmission errors in the Pāli versions through the help of the parallel Madhyama-āgama discourse. Topics taken up in the course of the different studies are the Buddha’s decision to teach, the role of investigation in early Buddhism, the notion of a recluse, the relationship between tranquillity and insight, the lateness of the dictum that a woman cannot be a Buddha, the beginnings of the Abhidharma, meditation on emptiness in early Buddhism, the development of the arahant ideal, the canonical account of the founding of the order of nuns, and the relationship between karma and liberation.
作者簡介
Bhikkhu Anālayo was born in Germany in 1962 and ordained in Sri Lanka in 1995. He completed a Ph.D. thesis at the University of Peradeniya (Sri Lanka) in 2000 and a habilitation thesis at the University of Marburg (Germany) in 2007. At present, he teaches at the Center for Buddhist Studies, University of Hamburg, and researches at Dharma Drum Buddhist College (Taiwan).