KaaraNDavyUha

Fri Dec 11 19:12:02 UTC 1998

Here are some bibliographical notes on the Karandavyuha that may be of
some use.  (I have deliberately removed all diacriticals, Chinese
characters, and special formatting for the sake of those recipients who
may not have the right fonts or the capacity to received highly
formatted texts).

If anyone knows of other relevant sources on the Karandavyuha, I would be
grateful if they could be posted as well.

R. M. Gimello
Univ. of Arizona
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Concering the Karandavyuha

This important text -- transitional between Mahayana and early Tantra, and
concerned chiefly with Avalokitesvara (its full title is
Avalokitesvaraguhyakarandavyuha) -- survives in Sanskrit and in Chinese
and Tibetan translations.  In Sanskrit there are, in fact, two versions of
the text, a prose original in Buddhist or "Hybrid" Sanskrit and a much
later versified version in polished classical Sanskrit.  The prose version
survives in a Gilgit manuscript dating from the sixth century (very near
the presumed time of the text's composition) and in some twenty Nepalese
manuscripts, the earliest of which is no earlier than the twelfth century.
It is probable that the verse version was composed sometime after the
thirteenth century.

For (poor) editions of the prose version see:

Samasrami, Satyavrata, ed. "Karandavyuha." In The Hindu Commentator
(Clacutta), vol. 5, 1873.

Vaidya, P. L. ed. Karandavyuha. Buddhist Sanskrit Texts Series. Darbhanga:
The Mithila Institute, 1961.

There exists in manuscript, in the Bibliotheque Nationale (Fonds sanskrit
no. 24), a complete French translation of the prose version done in 1837
by Eugene Burnouf.  Burnouf also discussed the text in his epochal work,
Introduction a l'histoire du Bouddhisme indien et le Lotus de la Bonne
Loi, tr. du Sanskrit, 2d ed. (Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve, 1876), 197 [note:
the first edition of Burnouf's work was published in 1844, by the
Imprimerie Imperiale].

In the 1960's Marcelle Lalou and Constantin Regamey were working together
on a new, critical edition of the Karandavyaha, but this seems not to have
been finished before these two outstanding scholars died (Lalou in 1971,
Regamey in 1982).

On the versified version of the text see:

Giuseppe Tucci, "La redazione poetica del Karandavyuha," Atti della Reale
Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, Classe di Scienza Morali, Storiche e
Filologiche 58 (1922-1923): 271 (605)-296 (630).

Prabhas Chandra Majumder, "The Karanda Vyuha: The Metrical Version,"
Indian Historical Quarterly 24, no. 1 (1948): 293-299.

The Chinese translation was done in 983 by T'ien-hsi-tsai (Devasanti ?)
Ta-sheng chuan-yen pao-wang ching, 4 fascicles (Taisho # 1050, vol. 20,
pp. 47a-64a).  We seem to know neither who did the Tibetan translation
hpags-pa za-ma-tog bkod-pa shes-bya-ba theg-pa chen-po'i mdo  (Otani #
784,  Tohoku # 116), nor when it was done. [See the entry on
T'ien-hsi-tsai's translation in Ono Gemmyo's bibliographical encyclopedia,
Bussho kaisetsu daijiten 7, 312b-313a (in Japanese).]

Further Secondary Literature:

Mallmann, Marie-Therese de. Introduction a l'Etude d'Avalokitecvara,
preface de Paul Mus, dessins de Jeannine Auboyer. Annales du Musee Guimet,
Bibliotheque d'Etudes, tome cinquante-septieme. Paris: Civilisations du
Sud, 1948.

Lalou, Marcelle. "A Tun-huang Prelude to the Karandavyuha." Indian
Historical Quarterly 14 (1938): 198-200.

Regamey, Constantin (Konstanty). "Randbemerkungen zur Sprache und
Textuberlieferung des Karandavyuha." In Asiatica: Festschrift Friedrich
Weller zum 65. Geburtstag gewidmet von seinen Freunden, Kollegen und
Schulern, 514-527. Leipzig:  O. Harrasowitz, 1954.

Regamey, Constantin (Konstanty). "Lexicological Gleanings from the
Karandavyuha." Indian Linguistics, Chatteriji Jubilee Volume 16 (1955):
1-11.

Regamey, Constantin (Konstanty). "Le psuedo-hapax ratikara et la lampe qui
rit dans le Sutra des Ogresses bouddhiques." Etudes asiatiques 18-19
(1965): 175-206.

Regamey, Constantin (Konstanty). "Motifs vichnouites et saivaites dans le
Karandavyuha."  In Etudes tibetaines dediees a la memoire de Marcelle
Lalou, edited by Ariane Macdonald, 411-431. Paris: Librairie d'Amerique et
d'Orient - Adrien Maisonneuve, 1971.

Thomas, E. J., editor and translator. The Perfection of Wisdom: the Career
of the Predestined Buddhas, A Selection of Mahayana Scriptures Translated
from the Sanskrit. Wisdom of the East Series. London: John Murray, 1952.
[Chapters XV & XVI in this anthology are translations of brief excerpts
from the Karandavyuha.]

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On Fri, 11 Dec 1998, N. Ganesan wrote:

> In KaaraNDavyUhasUtra, is the word Potalaka as the
> residence of Avalokitezvara mentioned?
>
> Does SimhaladvIpa occur in KaaraNDavyUha?
> Does dakSiNApatha come there & Avalokita
> travels from there by vimAna to Jetavana
> near Benaras?
>
>  If SimhaladvIpa occurs, I wonder are there
> any mahAyAna texts that mention SimhaladvIpa?
>
> Are there any Western language studies on
> KaaraNDavyUha?
>
> Thanks,
> N. Ganesan
>
>
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