Re: [INDOLOGY] Vajrasūcī

[Hartmut Buescher]

Dear colleagues,



allow me to qualify my previous remark about “having not yet met with

the notion of an *ākāśagāmin* in the various Buddhist philosophical
contexts

elaborating their notions of *mārga *… “ – in a beautifully suggestive
manner,

Prof. Schlingloff rightly pointed out to me, being habitually forgetful,
that

I may in fact be very well aware of a specific context in which various

supernatural accomplishments, including that of “moving through space”,

are regularly thematized.

Indeed, it is difficult for Buddhologists not to be aware of the *bodhipakkhiyā
*

*dhammā* and, as usual, Buddhaghoṣa is most entertaining when dealing with
the

*iddhipāda*s in *Visuddhimagga*, ch. 12. Often, he refers back to the
*iddhikathā*

chapter of the *Paṭisambhidāmagga*, whereas my favourite concise overview

(with rather exhaustive references to canonical sources) still is Gethin’s

treatment of these *iddhipāda*s in his *The Buddhist Path to Awakening*.

For references to corresponding Sanskrit sources treating the *ṛddhipāda*s,

one may still be benefitted by consulting Har Dayal’s old *Bodhisattva
Doctrine*,

pp. 104ff. and, of course, Lamotte’s *Traité* III: 1124f.



Still, just as the notion of a *yogin* may be endowed with very different

connotations, depending on the textual and traditional context one looks
at,

the accomplishments of the *ākāśagāmin *referred to by *siddhācārya*
Aśvaghoṣa

may perhaps include, or overlap with, the success of those who practice

the *iddhipāda*s/*ṛddhipāda*s, yet essentially differ (in terms of
practical details

and ultimate achievement) from the latter, just as a tantric context does
crucially

differ from a non-tantric one. Thus, though the horizon of what the
metaphor of

‘moving through/within space’ may entail is getting expanded, unfortunately

this does not immediately heighten the precision of determining *Vajrasūcī*’s


authorship.



Hartmut Buescher



.









On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 9:58 PM Hartmut Buescher <buescherhartmut at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear Dean,
> saw your message first now, after having written and sent off mine,
> and, sure, we agree.  Hartmut
>
> On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 8:55 PM Dean Michael Anderson <
> eastwestcultural at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> I'd be hesitant in using terms like *ākāśagamin *to date a text unless
>> there was an indication that it was part of a larger established doctrine.
>> Those kinds of abilities were regularly mentioned.
>>
>> The idea of sages moving through space is mentioned as early as Rig Veda
>> X.136 although it uses different terminology.
>>
>> In a forthcoming publication, I discuss how those types of experiences
>> may be part of a body of experiences that are universal psychological
>> responses to certain psychophysiological stimuli such as meditative
>> practices, entraining to rhythmic chanting, drugs, etc. (See Yoga Sutras
>> 4.1) I call it the yogic-shamanic continuum. Given that, using such
>> experiences alone to date a text would probably be misleading.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Dean
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sunday, January 26, 2020, 4:30:43 PM GMT+5:30, Dan Lusthaus via
>> INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>>
>>
>> The idea of practitioners who become ākāśagamin is already in the
>> Yogasūtra (4th-5th century? earlier?) which explains how to do it;
>> pre-tantra. The term is probably older.
>>
>> YS 3, 42 kāyākāśayoḥ saṃbandhasaṃyamāl laghutūlasamāpatteś cākāśagamanam |
>>
>> Dan
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>> On Sunday, January 26, 2020, 3:12:46 PM GMT+5:30, Johannes Bronkhorst via
>> INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Allow me to add a word of caution about chronology with respect to Manu.
>> Even if *Vajrasūcī* 12 explicitly refers to *Mānava Dharmaśāstra* 5.48,
>> the *Vasiṣṭha Dharmasūtra* (4.7) does the same (being much closer to
>> Manu's text). And yet, Olivelle considers the *Mānava Dharmaśāstra*
>> "clearly posterior to Vasiṣṭha".
>>
>> There are other cases which show that even literal quotations from and
>> references to Manu do not necessarily prove that the text concerned is
>> posterior to Manu. I discuss them in detail in the following article:
>>
>> “Manu and the Mahābhārata.” *Indologica. T. Ya. Elizarenkova Memorial
>> Volume Book 2*. Ed. L. Kulikov & M. Rusanov. Moscow: Russian State
>> University for the Humanities. 2012. (Orientalia et Classica, 40.) Pp.
>> 135-156. (available on Academia and ResearchGate)
>>
>>  Johannes Bronkhorst
>>
>>
>> On 26 Jan 2020, at 03:57, Hartmut Buescher via INDOLOGY <
>> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>> Dear followers of this thread,
>>
>>
>> although there may have been several Aśvaghoṣas (as in the cases of
>> Nāgārjuna,
>> Āryadeva, Vasubandhu, etc.), including a Tantric *siddhācārya*, the one
>> previously
>> referred to as our point of departure in this context, is of course the
>> one dated to
>> the 1st–2nd century CE, who “is widely acknowledged as one of the
>> earliest and
>> greatest representatives of Indian *kāvya* literature” (Eltschinger, JIP
>> 41 [2013]: 167),
>> and who lived around the same time that has been estimated by Olivelle
>> (“probably
>> in the middle of the second century CE”, in *Hindu **Law*, 2018: 24) to
>> be likewise that
>> of the composition of the *Mānavadharmaśāstra*.
>>
>>
>> For various reasons, I stumbled over *Vajrasūcī*, verse 12, which in the
>> commentary
>> (2nd ed. Mukhopadhyaya, 1960: 3) is introduced as having actually been
>> uttered
>> (*uktaṃ hi mānave dharme*) in this *Mānavadharmaśāstra* (MDh):
>>
>>
>>           *ākāśagāmino viprāḥ patanti māṃsabhakṣaṇāt |*
>> *          viprāṇāṃ patanaṃ dṛṣṭvā tato māṃsāni varjayet ||12||*
>>
>>
>>           Due to consuming meat, the space-walking seers do fall.
>>           Hence, observing the seers’ fall one should abandon meats.
>>
>>
>> Although not being a direct quotation, the reference to MDh 5.48
>> is clear enough, especially in consideration of VS 12d and MDh 5.48d
>> (quoting Olivelle’s ed & tr in the following):
>>
>>
>>           *nākṛtvā prāṇināṃ hiṃsāṃ māṃsam utpadyate kvacit |*
>> *          na ca prāṇivadhaḥ svargyas tasmān māṃsaṃ vivarjayet || 48 ||*
>>
>>
>>           One can never obtain meat without causing injury to living
>> beings,
>>           and killing living beings is an impediment to heaven; he
>> should,
>>           therefore, abstain from meat.
>>
>>
>> While this reference may be considered as providing sufficient
>> philological
>> evidence for historically assuming VS to be later than MDh, the fact that
>> the
>> notion of an *ākāśagāmin* corresponds to that of a *khecara* would at
>> least not
>> contradict the assumption that the author of the *Vajrasūcī* may in fact
>> have
>> been associated with the social sphere of the *siddhācārya*s, being also
>> the
>> sphere of Vajrayāna.
>>
>>
>> Another twist of the story is provided by the respective arguments for
>> abstaining from consuming pieces of flesh from the corpses of brutally
>> slaughtered animals, given particularly in Mahāyāna, prior to the
>> antinomian
>> Vajrayāna practice of ritually consuming flesh, the main Buddhist reason
>> for not harming any living beings has been compassion (cf., e.g., the
>> concise
>> outline in Schmithausen’s “The Case of Vegetarianism – A Buddhist
>> Perspective” [https://tinyurl.com/qqxhvrf]). – Comparing the two verses
>> quoted
>> above, it is in MDh 5.48, where compassion is appealed to. The
>> *Vajrasūcī*,
>> contrary to what we might expect, is not doing so. How to historically
>> account
>> for this evidence? Could it be that, while likewise casting a side-glance
>> at his
>> space-walking colleagues, *siddhācārya *Aśvaghoṣa’s intention has been
>> to also
>> include them in his critique of animal corpse consumers?
>>
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> Hartmut Buescher
>> .
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 4:52 AM Hartmut Buescher <
>> buescherhartmut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Dear followers of this thread,
>>
>>
>> although there may have been several Aśvaghoṣas (as in the cases of
>> Nāgārjuna,
>> Āryadeva, Vasubandhu, etc.), including a Tantric *siddhācārya*, the one
>> previously
>> referred to as our point of departure in this context, is of course the
>> one dated to
>> the 1st–2nd century CE, who “is widely acknowledged as one of the
>> earliest and
>> greatest representatives of Indian *kāvya* literature” (Eltschinger, JIP
>> 41 [2013]: 167),
>> and who lived around the same time as that which has been estimated by
>> Olivelle
>> (“probably in the middle of the second century CE”, in *Hindu **Law*,
>> 2018: 24) to be
>> likewise that of the composition of the *Mānavadharmaśāstra*.
>>
>>
>> For various reasons, I stumbled over *Vajrasūcī*, verse 12, which in the
>> commentary
>> (2nd ed. Mukhopadhyaya, 1960: 3) is introduced as having actually been
>> uttered
>> (*uktaṃ hi mānave dharme*) in this *Mānavadharmaśāstra* (MDh):
>>
>>
>>           *ākāśagāmino viprāḥ patanti māṃsabhakṣaṇāt |*
>> *          viprāṇāṃ patanaṃ dṛṣṭvā tato māṃsāni varjayet ||12||*
>>
>>
>>           Due to consuming meat, the space-walking seers do fall.
>>           Hence, observing the seers’ fall one should abandon meats.
>>
>>
>> Although not being a direct quotation, the reference to MDh 5.48
>> is clear enough, especially in consideration of VS 12d and MDh 5.48d
>> (quoting Olivelle’s ed & tr in the following):
>>
>>
>>           *nākṛtvā prāṇināṃ hiṃsāṃ māṃsam utpadyate kvacit |*
>> *          na ca prāṇivadhaḥ svargyas tasmān māṃsaṃ vivarjayet || 48 ||*
>>
>>
>>           One can never obtain meat without causing injury to living
>> beings,
>>           and killing living beings is an impediment to heaven; he
>> should,
>>           therefore, abstain from meat.
>>
>>
>> While this reference may be considered as providing sufficient
>> philological
>> evidence for historically assuming VS to be later than MDh, the fact that
>> the
>> notion of an *ākāśagāmin* corresponds to that of a *khecara* would at
>> least not
>> contradict the assumption that the author of the *Vajrasūcī* may in fact
>> have
>> been associated with the social sphere of the *siddhācārya*s, being also
>> the
>> sphere of Vajrayāna.
>>
>>
>> Another twist of the story is provided by the respective arguments for
>> abstaining from consuming pieces of flesh from the corpses of brutally
>> slaughtered animals, given particularly in Mahāyāna, prior to the
>> antinomian
>> Vajrayāna practice of ritually consuming flesh, the main Buddhist reason
>> for not harming any living beings has been compassion (cf., e.g., the
>> concise
>> outline in Schmithausen’s “The Case of Vegetarianism – A Buddhist
>> Perspective” [https://tinyurl.com/qqxhvrf]). – Comparing the two verses
>> quoted
>> above, it is in MDh 5.48, where compassion is appealed to. The
>> *Vajrasūcī*,
>> contrary to what we might expect, is not doing so. How to historically
>> account
>> for this evidence? Could it be that, while likewise casting a side-glance
>> at his
>> space-walking colleagues, *siddhācārya *Aśvaghoṣa’s intention has been
>> to also
>> include them in his critique of animal corpse consumers?
>>
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> Hartmut Buescher
>> .
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 3:41 AM Dan Lusthaus via INDOLOGY <
>> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>> Dear Vincent,
>>
>> Thank you for your further comments.
>>
>> I didn’t mean to suggest that the yukta pramāṇa described in the Caraka
>> Saṃhitā was the same as the dharmārthayuktaṃ vacanaṃ pramāṇam of the
>> Vajrasūcī. Only that a pramāṇa explicitly based on yukta (however one
>> parses that phrase) is something seen early on, and then it disappears. The
>> yukta-pramāṇa of the Caraka is a fascinating thing whose loss probably was
>> a loss for the entire Indian philosophical enterprise. Farmers and doctors
>> shared a common concern, which is that to get from initial cause to actual
>> fruition involves a process in time of multiple causes, with multiple
>> stages, any of which can effect or nullify the outcome: planting a crop and
>> being able to harvest; pregnancy making it to term; etc. Taking all
>> relevant factors into account and calculating the probabilities of a
>> successful final outcome was what yukta pramāṇa was designed to accomplish.
>> In some ways, that is closer to the probabalistic reasoning that has
>> displaced causal thinking in western philosophy (and some sciences) since
>> the early 20th c than the more mechanistic cause and invariant effect
>> reasoning more prevalent in Indian thought. Obviously, the Caraka’s yukta
>> pramāṇa is not the same thing as drawing knowledge through discourse
>> employing reasoning based on dharma and artha (or the meaning/purpose of
>> dharma).
>>
>> The idea of prototypical ideas that emerge later under the rubric of
>> Mīmāṃsā is intriguing. The Yogācārabhūmi is an often ignored treasure trove
>> of ideas circulating in India earlier than is often recognized (as is the
>> Tattvasiddhi, though not adequately captured in Sastri’s translations, in
>> which many of the stock arguments repeated in pramāṇavāda texts are already
>> found). Squeamishness about sacrifices is quite early — Jains and even
>> Sāṃkhyans express those ideas, and one can see some reaction against that
>> even in the Bhagavad Gītā (whether one dates that to 200 BCE or 200 CE).
>> Dignāga does deal with Mīmāṃsā in PS, for which there is no (available)
>> Chinese translation. (There is a hint that a one fascicle translation was
>> made, but no evidence of it aside from a mention of its title in a
>> catalogue of translations).
>>
>> The Chinese sources frequently cite a school by its founder’s name
>> instead of the name of the school. Typically:
>> Kapila 迦毘羅, the founder of Sāṃkhya 數論; Ulūka 優樓佉 (a.k.a. Kaṇâda 食米齋),
>> the founder of Vaiśeṣika 勝論宗, and Ṛṣabha 勒沙婆, the founder of the
>> Nirgranthas.
>>
>> As far as I can find, there is no Chinese version of Jaimini’s name.
>> Again, I would be happy to learn otherwise.
>>
>> Dan
>>
>>
>> On Jan 25, 2020, at 8:11 PM, Eltschinger, Vincent <
>> Vincent.Eltschinger at oeaw.ac.at> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Dan,
>> My impression is that the Buddhists became aware of Mīmāṃsā as a distinct
>> religio-philosophical school (and not just as a purely intra-Brahmanical
>> type of “theological/exegetical” inquiry) some time during the fourth
>> century CE (or perhaps in the early fifth), even though the term may not
>> occur, at least not regularly, before Dignāga (480-540). It is also around
>> the fourth century CE that certain Buddhists started arguing against ideas
>> that are close to those known to us from later Mīmāṃsaka sources (e.g., on
>> sacrificial violence, the caste-classes, etc.), even though several among
>> these ideas find interesting prototypes in the *Mānavadharmaśāstra*.
>> This is especially the case in the so-called *paravāda* section of the
>> *Yogācārabhūmi*. Hundreds of pages could be written on these topics.
>> The stanza you quote is arguably the most important in the *Vajrasūcī*,
>> for it spells out the philosophical-polemical program of the entire work. A
>> rough translation might be: “The Vedas are authoritative (*pramāṇa*);
>> the Smṛtis are authoritative; [any] speech/discourse endowed/connected (
>> *yukta*) with *dharma *and *artha *is authoritative. A [person] for whom
>> a [previously acknowledged] *pramāṇa* would cease (*na bhavet*) to be a
>> *pramāṇa *[because it contradicts his/her position on the issue of the
>> caste-classes], who [on earth] would take his/her speech/discourse to be a
>>  *pramāṇa*/authoritative?” One can certainly discuss the exact structure
>> and meaning of the compound *dharmārthayukta*, but seriously doubt that
>> *yukta* here has anything to do with the *pramāṇa* the medical tradition
>> refers to as *yukti *(see articles by Filliozat, Steinkellner, and
>> others). Or did I miss the point?
>> I entirely agree with you as regards Sāṃkhya and Vaiśeṣika: from the 1st
>> -2nd to the 5th century, these traditions/schools are the most frequent
>> targets of the Buddhist controversialists. The Nyāya (works by [the
>> pseudo?]Nāgārjuna) and the Mīmāṃsā play a comparatively minor role, as do
>> the Jains (targeted as early as Āryadeva’s *Catuḥśataka*, and more
>> frequently from the *Yogācārabhūmi *onwards).
>> Very best,
>> Vincent
>>
>> Vincent Eltschinger, korrespondierendes Mitglied der OeAW
>> Directeur d'études
>> École Pratique des Hautes Études, Section des sciences religieuses
>> Patios Saint-Jacques, 4-14 rue Ferrus - 75014 Paris
>> vincent.eltschinger at ephe.sorbonne.fr
>> 0033 1 56 61 17 34 / 0033 7 85 86 84 05
>> ------------------------------
>> *Von:* Dan Lusthaus <yogacara at gmail.com>
>> *Gesendet:* Samstag, 25. Januar 2020 23:52:30
>> *An:* Eltschinger, Vincent
>> *Cc:* Matthew Kapstein; Olivelle, J P; indology at list.indology.info
>> *Betreff:* Re: [INDOLOGY] Vajrasūcī
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> Just to comment quickly, though I haven’t studied the Vajrasūcī in any
>> depth, the same passage that Vincent highlighted, naming the Vedas,
>> Grammarians, et al. is also the one that caught my attention, especially
>> the mention of Mīmāṃsikas. As far as I can tell, while the others do get
>> mentioned in Chinese translations of Buddhist texts, the only text
>> preserved in Chinese that mentions Mīmāṃsikas is Xuanzang’s translation of
>> Bhāviveka’s Prajñāpradīpa, which mentions them twice in close proximity:
>>
>> 《般若燈論釋》卷13〈22 觀如來品〉：「復有彌息伽外道言。佛家所說十二部經[1]者。非一切智人所說。有作者故。譬如鞞世師等論。」(CBETA,
>> T30, no. 1566, p. 119, b15-17)
>> [1]者＝有【宮】。
>> [1]者＝有【宮】。
>> “Again there are the non-Buddhist (tīrthika) Mīmāmsikas who say: ‘What
>> is said by Buddhists In the twelve divisions of the their sūtras (canon),
>> is that no person is omniscient, because they are conditioned (saṃskṭra),
>> just as is stated in treatises by the Vaiśeṣikas, and so on.”
>>
>> 《般若燈論釋》卷13〈22 觀如來品〉：「如彌息伽外道所計韋陀聲是常者」(CBETA, T30, no. 1566, p. 119, c5-6)
>> “This like the non-Buddhist Mīmāmsikas who imagine that the Word of the
>> Vedas is eternal.”
>>
>> I have found no other mention of Mīmāṃsā in any other Chinese sources (if
>> anyone has information on discussions I might have missed, please let me
>> know). Bhāviveka, of course, devoted an entire chapter in his
>> Madhyamakahṛdaya to Mīmāṃsā, but his description of their doctrines
>> suggests they differed in several ways from the versions we are more
>> familiar with post Prābhākara and Kumārila. It is the latter’s
>> *Ślokavarttika*, of course, that made Mīmāṃsā hard to ignore for
>> subsequent Buddhists.
>>
>> Harivarman’s *Tattvasiddhi* (translated by Kumārajīva at the beginning
>> of the 5th c) identifies (among others) Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Nyāya, and
>> Jains as pūrvapakṣins. More generally in Buddhist literature preserved in
>> Chinese prior to the middle of the seventh century, the most commonly cited
>> opponents are Vaiśeṣika and Sāṃkhya. Nyāya is mentioned infrequently, as
>> are Jains.
>>
>> As for the pramāṇa issue mentioned by Matthew, the Vajrasūrī verse
>> identifies what serve as authorities for non-Buddhists (the following verse
>> turns to lineage):
>>
>> vedāḥ pramāṇaṃ smṛtayaḥ pramāṇaṃ dharmārthayuktaṃ vacanaṃ pramāṇam |
>> yasya pramāṇaṃ na bhavetpramāṇaṃ kastasya kuryādvacanaṃ pramāṇam || 2 ||
>>
>> Which are more or less equivalent to śruti, smṛti, and āpti-pramāṇa, and
>> analogous to “scripture and reason” (āgama, yukti) that was the established
>> criteria for validity for Buddhists, even into the pramāṇavāda era. And, as
>> I wrote elsewhere:
>>
>> *"Pramāṇa*-theory rst appears in the eleventh chapter of the first
>> part (*Sūtra-sthāna*) of the *CS *[Caraka-saṃhitā]. Here the *CS *intriguingly
>> proposes, along with the three *pramāṇas *one would expect
>> (perception, inference, and authori- tative testimony), a fourth not found
>> anywhere else: synthetic inductive reasoning (*yukta-pramāṇa*).
>> Discussion of *pramāṇa *occurs in two other parts of the *CS*: part 3,
>> *Vimāna-sthāna*, chap. 4 and chap. 8, but the unique *yukta-pramāṇa *is
>> absent from those discussions, a sign of the strati ed nature of the text.”
>> So a yukta pramāṇa suggest to me a possibly early date for that category.
>>
>> Has anyone considered whether it is possible that the verses may have
>> been written by Aśvaghoṣa or someone relatively early while the prose
>> exposition may have been added by a later hand?
>>
>> Dan
>>
>> On Jan 25, 2020, at 4:35 PM, Eltschinger, Vincent via INDOLOGY <
>> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Matthew,
>> I was referring to *most *of the elements of the list I quoted, of
>> course, not to the entire *Vajrasūcī*. But you are right, Matthew: the
>> *Mahābhārata *plays an important role in the *Vajrasūcī*, as does… Manu
>> – which may be the reason for Patrick’s query. It is well known that the
>> *Vajrasūcī *attributes several verses to Manu that cannot be traced in
>> the extant *Mānavadharmaśāstra *(if I remember well, this is the reason
>> why some scholars tentatively attributed them to a lost Mānava
>> *Dharmasūtra*). Whatever the case may be, we might perhaps agree that the
>>  *Vajrasūcī* is unlikely to have been composed before the 3rd-4th
>> century CE. I am inclined to believe that it is even younger.
>> Very best,
>> Vincent
>>
>>
>> Vincent Eltschinger, korrespondierendes Mitglied der OeAW
>> Directeur d'études
>> École Pratique des Hautes Études, Section des sciences religieuses
>> Patios Saint-Jacques, 4-14 rue Ferrus - 75014 Paris
>> vincent.eltschinger at ephe.sorbonne.fr
>> 0033 1 56 61 17 34 / 0033 7 85 86 84 05
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> *Von:* Matthew Kapstein <mkapstei at uchicago.edu>
>> *Gesendet:* Samstag, 25. Januar 2020 22:13:42
>> *An:* Eltschinger, Vincent; Olivelle, J P; indology at list.indology.info
>> *Betreff:* Re: Vajrasūcī
>>
>> Not wishing to differ with my learned colleague Vincent Eltschinger's
>> remarks (which are surely based on a deeper engagement with this corpus
>> than my own), I tend nevertheless to think it not quite plausible that "most
>> of its individual elements could have been known around 100 CE."
>> My sense is that the several epic and puranic parallels point to a
>> somewhat later period.
>>
>> Matthew
>>
>>
>> Matthew Kapstein
>> Directeur d'études,
>> Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
>>
>> Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
>> The University of Chicago
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* Eltschinger, Vincent <Vincent.Eltschinger at oeaw.ac.at>
>> *Sent:* Saturday, January 25, 2020 10:00 AM
>> *To:* Olivelle, J P <jpo at austin.utexas.edu>; Matthew Kapstein <
>> mkapstei at uchicago.edu>; indology at list.indology.info <
>> indology at list.indology.info>
>> *Subject:* AW: Vajrasūcī
>>
>> Dear Patrick,
>> As you know, Aśvaghoṣa directed some arguments against the Brahmanical
>> understanding of the caste-classes in one of his dramas, the
>> *Śāriputraprakaraṇa*/*Śaradvatīputraprakaraṇa*, several fragments of
>> which have been preserved in Central Asian manuscripts and edited by
>> Heinrich Lüders around 1910. It is thus plausible that Aśvaghoṣa
>> dedicated an individual treatise to this topic. The style, the method and
>> the philosophical ressources of the *Vajrasūcī*, however, are very
>> different from the ones we know from Aśvaghoṣa’s genuine works, and may
>> presuppose Buddhist works such as the *Śārdūlakarṇāvadāna *if not
>> Kumāralāta’s *Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā Dṛṣṭāntapaṅktiḥ*. Even if I am not aware
>> of any convincing argument against the attribution of the *Vajrasūcī* to
>> Aśvaghoṣa, I have always regarded the following statement as anachronistic:
>>  *dṛśyante ca kvacic chūdrā api
>> vedavyākaraṇamīmāṃsāsāṃkhyavaiśeṣikanagnā*jīvikādisarvaśāstrārthavidaḥ */.
>> “And one observes in some cases that even *śūdra*s know the meaning of
>> all *śāstra*s such as the Veda, Grammar, Mīmāṃsā, Sāṃkhya, Vaiśeṣika as
>> well as [those of] the Jainas and the Ājīvikas.” (*-*nagnā- *em. :
>> *lagnā- *Ed.) Although such a list is not *per se* impossible in
>> Aśvaghoṣa’s time, i.e., although most of its individual elements could have
>> been known around 100 CE, I do not believe that such an enumeration would
>> have been possible, *as a doxographic statement*, at that time, and even
>> less so under Aśvaghoṣa's "pen." (The absence of the Nyāya from the list
>> is intriguing.)
>> Another element possibly deserving some consideration is the Sanskrit
>> colophon in which Aśvaghoṣa is characterized as *siddhācārya *(*kṛtir
>> iyaṃ siddhācāryāśvaghoṣapādānām iti*), an expression the exact meaning
>> of which remains somewhat unclear to me.
>> I am looking forward to reading other opinions on this interesting topic.
>> Very best,
>> Vincent
>>
>>
>> Vincent Eltschinger, korrespondierendes Mitglied der OeAW
>> Directeur d'études
>> École Pratique des Hautes Études, Section des sciences religieuses
>> Patios Saint-Jacques, 4-14 rue Ferrus - 75014 Paris
>> vincent.eltschinger at ephe.sorbonne.fr
>> 0033 1 56 61 17 34 / 0033 7 85 86 84 05
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> *Von:* INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> im Auftrag von
>> Matthew Kapstein via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
>> *Gesendet:* Samstag, 25. Januar 2020 15:09:59
>> *An:* Indology List; Olivelle, J P
>> *Betreff:* Re: [INDOLOGY] Vajrasūcī
>>
>> Dear Patrick,
>>
>> You'll find some discussion of it, inter alia, in Vincent Eltschinger, *"Caste"
>> et Philosophie Bouddhique *WSTB 47 (2000). As you no doubt know, the
>> Chinese translation is late - 10th c. if I recall correctly - and is
>> attributed to DharmakIrti. I rather doubt that the true authorship can be
>> established, given the available evidence. The emphasis on pramANa seems to
>> suggest that it was written during the second half of the first millennium,
>> not much before. But the way in which pramANa is used there does not
>> resonate closely with the Buddhist pramANa school. The precise milieu in
>> which it was composed remains a puzzle (at least to me!).
>>
>> all best,
>> Matthew
>>
>> Matthew Kapstein
>> Directeur d'études,
>> Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
>>
>> Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
>> The University of Chicago
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> on behalf of
>> Olivelle, J P via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
>> *Sent:* Saturday, January 25, 2020 6:59 AM
>> *To:* Indology List <indology at list.indology.info>
>> *Subject:* [INDOLOGY] Vajrasūcī
>>
>> Does anyone know of newer work on the identity and date of the author of
>> Vajrasūcī, often ascribed to Aśvaghoṣa? Any new ideas on its possible date?
>> With thanks and best wishes,
>>
>> Patrick Olivelle
>>
>>


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