Two Gandhari Manuscripts of the Song of Lake Anavatapta (Anavatapta-gatha): British Library Kharosthi Fragment 1 and Senior Scroll 14.

• Author: Hinuber, O.V.
• Position: Book review

Two Gandhari Manuscripts of the Song of Lake Anavatapta (Anavatapta-gatha): British Library Kharosthi Fragment 1 and Senior Scroll 14. By RICHARD SALOMON with contributions by ANDREW GLASS. Gandharan Buddhist Texts, vol. 5. Seattle: UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS, 2008. Pp. xxv + 444, 22 plates, 23 figs.

With the exception of the Khotan (ex Gandhari) Dharmapada the Anavataptagatha is the longest surviving literary text in Gandhari (p. 132). The stories of the previous lives of different pupils of the Buddha and the Buddha himself, told during a meeting of five hundred monks with the Buddha at Lake Anavatapta, enjoyed a great popularity once, most likely originally as an independent text (p. 47), as parallel versions preserved in the Pali Apadana (partly also Nettippakarana), the Bhaisajyavastu of line Mulasarvastivada Vinaya, Turfan manuscripts, and translations into Tibetan and Chinese amply demonstrate (p. xviii). The name of the lake is derived in the Mulasarvastivadavinaya from a sacrifice during which rice was cooked in this lake that slowly cooled off. Therefore it is 'not heated' (p. 6). A different explanation is known to the Theravada tradition. Here, the rays of neither sun nor moon reach the lake, when they stand high in the sky. Consequently, the lake is never heated. This is said, e.g., in the commentaries to the Anguttaranikaya or the Suttanipata, cf. Mp IV 108, 19-22 quoted Sn 438,7-9.

The Anavataptagatha was the subject of two groundbreaking studies on which the author could build: M. Hofinger, Congres du Lac Anavatapta (vies de saints bouddhiques): Extrait du Vinaya des Mulasarvastivadin Bhaisajyavastu (Louvain: Publications universitaires, Institut orientaliste, 1954), and particularly by Heinz Bechert in his PhD dissertation (1956, published 1961: Bruchstucke buddhistischer Verssammlungen aus zentralasiatischen Sanskrithandschriften. Tl. I: Die Anavataptagatha und die Sthaviragatha [Berlin: Akademie Verlag]). Availing himself of, and, of course, duly acknowledging the work of his predecessors, the author presents his own study, which is fundamental not only with regard to the development of the Anavataptagatha, for his study can serve as a general model for tracing the history of early Buddhist literature.

The material available for the study of the Anavataptagatha after Hofinger and Bechert was considerably expanded by two fragmentary manuscripts from Gandhara, one in the British Library (AG-[G.sup.L]), the other in the Senior Collection (AG-[G.sup.S]). The Senior manuscript is dated to the year 12 by the pot in which it was found (p. 331). This can be assumed to be a Kaniska date and to correspond to A.D. 140. The British Library manuscript, on the other hand, was written about one century earlier. This is rather near in time to the original composition, which might go back to the first century B.C., if not to even earlier times (p. 12). Consequently, this text is firmly anchored in the earliest period of Buddhist literature to which we have immediate access at present. Moreover, these manuscripts predate in all likelihood even the rather late Pali Apadana. As the untraced quotations in the Nettippakarana indicate, there seems to have been a lost version of the Anavataptagatha (pp. 31, 158), which was, like the Nettippakarana itself, originally alien to, but introduced at some point into the Mahavihara tradition of Theravada (from northern India?).

The overall structure of the text can be inferred, because the first chapter containing the recitation by Mahakasyapa is preserved in the Senior fragment together with titles of some individual chapters listed in an index scroll. The title used in Gandhari is andoatie corresponding to Sanskrit * anavataptika as reconstructed by Salomon (p. 10). This could be understood as * anavataptika sc. gatha; compare the titles jatakam vidurapunakiyam besides sukajatakam, both found in inscriptions from Kanaganahalli, or as *anavataptikam formed like dasanamakam; see Heinrich Luders, "Dasanamaka" (1938), repr. in Kleine Schriften (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1973 [cited after reprint]), 15-27, esp. 24. A further parallel is provided by sayutaka(-banaka), i.e., samyuttakam, for samyuttanikaya in Senarat Paranavitana, Inscriptions of Ceylon (Colombo: Dept. of Archaeology, 1970), p. 50, no. 666; furthermore vaggapannasakam nama samyuttan ca nipatakam agamapitakam, Dip IV 16 referring to DN, MN, SN, AN. (On the formation of titles, compare also von Hinuber, Entstehung und Aufbau der Jataka-Sammlung [Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, 1998], 7-12; A Handbook of Pali Literature [Berlin: de Gruyter. 2000] [hereafter HPL] [section]216 with n. 387.)

Comparing the different extant versions of the Anavataptagatha (chapter 1.2, pp. 23-37)...