The Realm of Awakening: Chapter Ten of Asanga's Mahayanasangraha.

• Author: Wayman, Alex

This important text of the Buddhist master Asanga has been known to Western scholarship for some time by the French translation by Etienne Lamotte: La Somme du Grand Vehicule d'Asanga (Mahayanasamgraha), 2 vols. (Louvain, 1938-39). Lamotte for his translation and commentary utilized the Tibetan translation and canonical commentaries, the four complete or partial Chinese translations and the Hsuan-tsang Chinese Vasubandhu commentary, and gave parallel passages in the Sanskrit editions of the Mahayanasutralamkara and the Bodhisattvabhumi. After one scholar did so much, the reader may wonder why it takes four plus three scholars to study the tenth and last chapter of the same work. Naturally, these authors will respond that they have studied this chapter in depth. That is to say, they have completely translated the Chinese versions of Paramartha and Hsuan-tsang, rendering Vasubandhu's commentary (the Bhasya); and from Tibetan have translated Vasubandhu's commentary (although a large part of it is missing) and the entire Asvabhava commentary (the Upanibandhana). Besides, Asanga's Abhidharmasamuccaya and its commentary were both cited from the Sanskrit editions. Thus, these authors can insist that they were severally trained in the various essential languages, and so could study the chapter thoroughly. For the texts utilized, the Sanskrit and the Tibetan are presented in transcriptions in the section "Texts". The authors do not present the Chinese "for technical reasons" (not given), but give text references to the Japanese edition of the Chinese Buddhist canon. Of course, the Indian commentaries were meant to explain the basic text, make it more comprehensible. Therefore, the reviewer will test the book on a few of Asanga's verses to see if the authors have advanced over Lamotte's work and have adequate control of the Tibetan. It should be mentioned that Lamotte employed a sensible system of numbering (in chapter ten) of bold arabic numerals and a group of less bold and smaller arabic numerals. Our authors adopted an awkward system using alphabetic letters and frequently a symbol, that is not on standard keyboards. Therefore, I shall refer only to page numbers.

Our authors translate an Asanga verse at pages 54 and 190: "At times, like a fire, Buddha manifests perfect awakening, and at times, like a fire, he is extinguished. But the body of the Tathagatas is never non-existent." The translation agrees with Lamotte (II: 310-11), where for the "at...