April Seminar - Śrāmaṇyaphala-sūtra
A Gāndhārī version of the Buddha’s Discourse on the Fruits of Living the Ascetic Life (Śrāmaṇyaphala-sūtra)
The first Victorian AABS Seminar for 2013 will be held on Friday 5th April, from 4.00–5.00 pm, at Deakin Prime Campus, Level 3, 550 Bourke Street, Melbourne. Dr Mark Allon, Chair of the Department of Indian Sub-Continental Studies and and Director of the Buddhist Studies Program at the University of Sydney, will present new findings on a Gāndhārī version of the Śrāmaṇyaphala-sūtra. Dr Allon’s talk will directly follow the Buddhism in Australia Research Program Melbourne Workshop held at Deakin Prime, from 1.00–4.00pm.
Please contact Dr Anna Halafoff (anna.halafoff@deakin.edu.au) to RSVP for the Seminar and/or to enquire about the Buddhism in Australia Research Program Workshops.
We do hope you can attend
Kind regards,
AABS Victoria
A Gāndhārī version of the Buddha’s Discourse on the Fruits of Living the Ascetic Life (Śrāmaṇyaphala-sūtra)
The Senior collection of Gandhāran Buddhist manuscripts includes a scroll which contains a Gāndhārī version of the introductory section of the Śrāmaṇyaphala-sūtra, the Buddha’s discourse to King Ajātaśatru on the benefits of living the ascetic or holy life. The appearance of a Gāndhārī version of this interesting and popular sūtra coincides with the appearance of a second Sanskrit witness of it, namely, that included in the new Dīrghāgama manuscript, which preliminary research indicates is similar to but not identical with the Sanskrit version found among the Gilgit manuscripts. We therefore now have Indic versions of the Śrāmaṇyaphala-sūtra in Gāndhārī (albeit incomplete), Pali, and Sanskrit, a Tibetan translation and four Chinese translations, which belong to a diversity of schools and originate from different times and places. Not surprisingly the Gāndhārī sūtra is not identical to any other version, but shows a complex relationship with them. In this paper I will discuss the Gāndhārī version of the sūtra and its relationship to the parallels in other languages, the possible reasons for its popularity, and the likely reasons for its inclusion in the Senior collection.
Dr Mark Allon is Chair of the Department of Indian Sub-Continental Studies and Director of the Buddhist Studies Program at the University of Sydney. He teaches Pali, Sanskrit, and Buddhist and Asian studies. His current research focuses on recent discoveries of ancient Buddhist manuscripts from Afghanistan and Pakistan, particularly those in the Gāndhārī language, through the Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project. His primary interests are in the composition and transmission of early Buddhist literature, in the ways in which texts have been used by Buddhist communities, and in the languages of early Buddhist texts.
