Die Asrayaparivrtti-theorie in der Yogacarabhumi.

• Author: Wayman, Alex

By Yogacarabhumi (YBh) Sakuma means the well-known encyclopedic work in seventeen bhumis, which have exegetical treatises called Viniscayasamgrahani (VinSg), etc. This huge work is completely available in Tibetan translation in the Tanjur, and is completely available in Chinese, where it occupies nearly all of vol. 30 in the Japanese edition of the Chinese Buddhist canon. Certain sections have been edited in Sanskrit. In common with previous scholarly work on this bulky work, it has not been found possible to solve problems about it without going to other works, especially Yogacara books but also Abhidharma, etc.

Sakuma's approach is to find the various instances of a term asrayaparivrtti (or -paravrtti), first in the basic seventeen bhumis, which he refers to as mauli bhumi, while in my readings in this literature I have found it referred to by Tibetan words equivalent to bahubhumika and bhumivastu. Then Sakuma traces out all the instances of the expression in the exegetical parts. He claims that this term does not occur in the early Buddhist canon but seems to be a notion developed in this Yogacara tradition. The treatment of these instances of the term asrayaparivrtti fills up the first volume.

In the light of Sakuma's topic, the contents of his second volume are somewhat surprising. Most of the space is devoted to passages, in Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese, and German translation, that were selected from the Sravakabhumi, which is probably the earliest composed among the seventeen bhumis. The present reviewer recognized all the passages, because long ago his Berkeley dissertation, Analysis of the Sravakabhumi Manuscript, was published (1961).(1) Besides, the reviewer translated from the Tibetan the "Calming (the Mind)" section of the Lam rim chen mo, whose author in this section mainly resorted to the Sravakabhumi.(2) And since these passages selected by Sakuma are not directly on the topic of asrayaparivrtti, they give the impression of a previous dissertation labor. Presumably, he changed course and bore down on asraya-p. passages and so he follows in Teil II with passages from other parts of the basic seventeen, as well as from the exegesis that especially dealt with this term. We would have expected Sakuma to have integrated these materials with what is presented in Teil I, but then he probably would have had to drop a large part of Teil II. In vol. 1, p. 4, he claimed that these other passages from the Sravakabhumi do form a background for the asrayaparivrtti theory even if the term does not occur therein. But then the entire Pali canon could have been cited, even if the term does not occur therein.

His next is a confession of difficulties:

Die Grunde hierfur sind, dass zum einen die SrBh |Sravakabhumi~ die fruheste Stufe der Entwicklung dokumentieren durfte, zum anderen aber die von K. Shukla besorgte Edition der Sravakabhumi leider nicht befriedigt, da sie aufgrund zahlreicher Fehllesungen keine verlassliche Basis fur einer ideengeschichliche Auswertung des Textes darstellt. Da die Photos der Handschrift, auf die wir bislang angewiesen sind, haufig schwer lesbar sind und uberdies auch die Handschrift selbst nicht frei von Fehlern und Lucken ist...