[INDOLOGY] Buddhist Citation

[Ashok Aklujkar]

I cannot avoid the feeling that the Tantravārttika passage originally read  'alaṃkāra-bhuumau sthita.h (along with vyatikromo you should also correct the typo kāru to kāra). 

What Kumārila is saying is that a transgression the followers of Veda dharma would consider degeneration, the Buddhists etc. have raised to the level of an ornament (a feather in their cap, to use the English idiom). The following lines of the passage suggest this as the intended meaning. Secondly, a form of sthaa is not likely to be used if a text was to be named as a source. Thirdly, since Kumārila has used aadi after bauddha, he is not likely to cite only from a Buddhist text.

What he cites probably came from one of the Skt renditions of a Jaataka, perhaps a work of Aarya-;suura or  A;sva-gho.sa or a text in the Sukhaavanii (= Sukhaavatii) tradition as what I cite in the next paragraph suggests. 

The verse half not quoted by Kumaarila can be had from Hema-candra's Kaavyaanu;saasana:
aapta-vacanam aagama.h /  tatra "saivaagama-naipu.na.m yathaa- ghora-ghora-taraatiita-brahma-vidyaa-valaatiga.h/ [--> balaatiga.h?] paraaparapada-vyaapii paayaad va.h parame"svara.h //12// bauddhoma-naipu.na.m [--> bauddhaagama-?] yathaa kali-kalu.sa-k.rtaani yaani loke mayi nipatantu. vimucyataa.m sa loka.h / mama hi sucaritana [--> sucaritena] sarva-sattvaa.h parama-mukhena sukhaavanii.m prayaantu //13// evam aagamaantare.sv api /

The full TV passage is cited in Louis DE LA Vall`ee Poussin. On the Authority (Pramanya) of the Buddhist Agamas(1)  The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland  1902  pp.363-376. 

a.a.


On 2013-07-10, at 11:38 AM, Patrick Olivelle wrote:

I wonder whether any of you can help me with a citation in Kumārila's Tantravārttika (on PMS 1.3.4; ĀnSS p. 114). 

buddhādeḥ punar ayam eva vyatikromo 'alaṃkārubuddhau sthitaḥ | tenaivam āha |

kalikaluṣakṛtāni yāni loke mayi nipatantu vimucyatāṃ tu lokaḥ ||

Does anyone know of a Buddhist text called Alaṃkārabuddhi? Or is this a misreading of a different text with a similar name?