Madhyamaka-hRdaya

[Sara McClintock]

Professor Vasslikov and Listmembers:

The following information concerning the history of the Madhyamaka-hRdaya
manuscript is taken from S.S. Bahulkar's introduction to the photographic
reproduction of Prof. V.V. Gokale's hand-copy.

It seems that the manuscript has made its way to China and that a
photographic reproduction of the ms was published there in 1991. Bahulkar
gives the bibliographic information as follows:

Jiang Zhingxin, "Sanskrit TarkajvAlA-SUtra Manuscript Copy" (in Chinese) in
_Papers in Honor of Dr. Ji Xianlin on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday_,
Jiang Xi, China, 1991, pp. 212-217 (+ 12 pages containing photographs of
the manuscript).

The manuscript is written in RaJjanA script. It was with the idea of
facilitating the reading of these photographs that the editors of the
journal SaMbhASA (vol 15, 1994) published by the Nagoya Studies in India
Culture and Buddhism decided to publish the photographs of Gokhale's
hand-copy (written in Devanagari script). This publication also features a
short introduction by Bahulkar, who had worked on the text with Professor
Gokhale.

In that introduction, Bahulkar mentions a joint project to prepare a
critical edition of the Sanskrit, initiated by Gokhale and presently (?)
being undertaken by H. Nakamura, J. Takasaki, S. Kawasaki, Y. Ejima and
others. He lists a number of preliminary studies and editions of chapters
that have come out of this joint project. As of the present time, I am not
aware of any complete critical edition of the text. If anyone on the list
knows whether this Japanese project has come to completion, please do alert
us all. Since Professor Gokhale passed away in 1991, I am not sure what has
become of the project.

Bahulkar's introduction does not make clear where either Samskrtyayana's or
Gokhale's hand-manuscripts are now. I suspect that Gokhale's version may be
with Bahulkar himself. There is mention in the introduction of "photographs
of the same MS" which Gokhale obtained from Prof. Tucci. It is unclear
whether these are photographs of Samskrtyayana's edition, but I suspect
that is the case. This is all that I know about this at the present time.

If anyone has further information, I too would be happy to hear of it.
Sara McClintock

At 10:01 AM 12/15/97 +0300, you wrote:
>Dear colleagues,
>
>        does anybody know anything about the destiny and present location of
>the original Sanskrit text of "Madhyamaka-hRdaya" by Bhavya (BhAvaviveka)
>which was copied by Rahula Sankrityayana in 1936 in Tibet? I have some
>information on what happened to it before 1980 - mostly from Prof. Hajime
>Nakamura's "Indian Buddhism"(2nd Indian edition, Delhi, 1989, pp.284-285).
>Two small portions of the Sanskrit text were
>edited and translated into English by V.V.Gokhale in IIJ, vol.2, 1958, n.3,
>pp. 165-180 and IIJ, vol.XIV, 1972, n.1/2, pp.40-45. V.V.Gokhale used a
copy of the
>Sankrityayana's copy. But I don't have answers to two most important
questions:
>
>        1. Did V.V.Gokhale (or some other scholar) published later any
>other parts of the Sanskrit text? Or has the complete text been published
>since 1980?
>        2. What happened to Gokhale's copy or Sankrityayana's copy itself?
>Where it is now?
>
>        Any information will be of great help to me and my colleagues.
>        Thanks in advance.
>        With my best wishes
>
>                                        Yaroslav Vassilkov
>                                        St. Petersburg Institute of Oriental
>                                        Studies
>                                        Russian Academy of Sciences
>                                        yavass at yavass.usr.pu.ru
>                                        tel/fax: 7 (812) 275 8179
>
>


____________________

Sara McClintock
Section de langues et civilisations orientales
Université de Lausanne