Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/58204

JaLCDOI : 10.14943/jgsl.10.1

An increasing number of Buddhist texts are being discovered among old manuscript collections extant in Japan that bear titles identical to the woodblock printed editions produced in China but that differ significantly in content. The discovery in recent years of such texts is helping to shed light on different aspects of the transmission of Buddhist texts, aspects that we would not have learned from the study of the woodblock editions alone. In this paper I would like to take up one such text, namely the text of the San fa du lun 三法度論 found in old manuscript collections. This hitherto unknown text diverges from the known editions, most notably in that it has an independent text titled ‘San fa du jing ben’ 三法度經本 by Vasubhadra in its opening. This paper discusses its considerable importance as a text as well as problems that the text raises which require further research.