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Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1small Amitayu/^-sutra, or Smaller Sukhavati-vyuha, in one volume. This is the smallest of the three sacred books. In 424 A. D. Kalayai-as arrived in China from India, and translated the Amitayur-dhyana-sutra in one volume. Chinese translations of these texts were known to exist not only in China, but also in Japan, and there were in several cases more than one translation of the same text. But it was not known, nor even suspected, that the Sanskrit originals of some of them had been preserved in the temples and monasteries of that distant island. In the year j 880 I read a paper before the Royal Asiatic Society in London, ' On Sanskrit Texts discovered in Japan ' (Selected Essays, vol. ii, pp. 213-271), and in it and in the preface to my edition of the Sanskrit texts of the Sukhavativyuha in the Anecdota Oxoniensia, 1883, I explained how I discovered the existence and came into the possession of Sanskrit MSS. and copies of Sanskrit MSS. from the Buddhist monasteries in Japan. I had long suspected the existence of old Sanskrit MSS. in China, and had asked my friends there to search for them, and as it was well known from the works of Sicbold and others that there were short invocations in Sanskrit of Buddha hung up in the Buddhist temples of Japan or written on their walls. I entertained a hope that in Japan also some real and ancient MSS. might still be discovered. The alphabet in which these short invocations are written was known by the name of S h i d d a, the Sanskrit S i d d h a ' . It may be seen in Siebold's works and in an article published in 1880 in the Annales du Musee Guimet, vol. i, pp. 322-336, by MM. Ymaizoumi and Yamata. What was not known, however, was that there had been a period in
2^ Siddham, lit. what is successfully achieved, seems to have been used by Buddhists like siddhi^, success, as an auspicious invocation at the beginning of literary works. Thus we see that the alphabet on the Horiuzhi palm-leaves begins with siddham, and this siddham may afterwards have become the name of the alphabet itself. In Siddhanta, meaning dogma, grammar, siddha conveys the sense of settled ; in Siddhartha, a name of Buddha, it means fulfilled, i. e. he whose desires have all been fulfilled, the perfect man, free from desires and passions.
3viii THE LARGER SUKHAVAtJ-VyOhA. the history of Japan when Sanskrit was studied systematically by native priests, nay, that some of the MSS. which had travelled from India to China, and from China to Japan were still in existence there. Of these MSS. I gave an account in 1884 in the Anecdota Oxonicnsia, * The Ancient Palm-Leaves. Though hitherto no new discoveries of Sanskrit MSS. have been made, it is most desirable that the search for them should not be given up in China, in Japan, and in Corea also. But even thus a new and important chapter has been added to the history of Buddhism, and the fact been established once for all that Buddhist literature found a home in Japan, and was studied there for many generations not only in Chinese translations, but in the original Sanskrit also. Let us hope that through the efforts of my pupils, such as Bunyiu Nanjio,Kenjiu Kasawara (died 1H83), and others, a new school of Sanskrit students has been planted in Japan which will enable the followers of Buddha there to derive their knowledge of his doctrine from the original and undefiled source of the ancient Tripi/'aka. I thought it best for the sake of completeness, and in compliance with the wishes of my friends in Japan, to give in this volume the translation both of the Larger and the Smaller Sukhavati-vyuha. They differ from each other on several smaller points. The Larger Sukhavati-vyuha is represented as having been preached on the Gr/dhrakiVa hill near Ra^-agr^Tia, the Smaller Sukhavati-vyflha in the ^eta-grove near .S'ravasti. In the former the chief interlocutors are the Bhagavat, i. e. the Buddha 5"akyamuni, Ananda, and A^ta ; in the latter the Bhagavat and S&r'iputra. There is one point, however, which is of great importance in the eyes of the followers of the Shin-shiu sect, on which the two treatises differ. The Smaller Sukhdvati-vyuha lays great stress on the fact that people can be saved or can be born in the Land of Bliss, if only they remember and repeat the name of Buddha Amitdbha two, three, four, five, six or more nights before their death, and it distinctly denies that people are b(jrn in the Paradise of Amitabha as a reward or necessary result of good works performed in the present life. This
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1small Amitayu/^-sutra, or Smaller Sukhavati-vyuha, in one volume. This is the smallest of the three sacred books. In 424 A. D. Kalayai-as arrived in China from India, and translated the Amitayur-dhyana-sutra in one volume. Chinese translations of these texts were known to exist not only in China, but also in Japan, and there were in several cases more than one translation of the same text. But it was not known, nor even suspected, that the Sanskrit originals of some of them had been preserved in the temples and monasteries of that distant island. In the year j 880 I read a paper before the Royal Asiatic Society in London, ' On Sanskrit Texts discovered in Japan ' (Selected Essays, vol. ii, pp. 213-271), and in it and in the preface to my edition of the Sanskrit texts of the Sukhavativyuha in the Anecdota Oxoniensia, 1883, I explained how I discovered the existence and came into the possession of Sanskrit MSS. and copies of Sanskrit MSS. from the Buddhist monasteries in Japan. I had long suspected the existence of old Sanskrit MSS. in China, and had asked my friends there to search for them, and as it was well known from the works of Sicbold and others that there were short invocations in Sanskrit of Buddha hung up in the Buddhist temples of Japan or written on their walls. I entertained a hope that in Japan also some real and ancient MSS. might still be discovered. The alphabet in which these short invocations are written was known by the name of S h i d d a, the Sanskrit S i d d h a ' . It may be seen in Siebold's works and in an article published in 1880 in the Annales du Musee Guimet, vol. i, pp. 322-336, by MM. Ymaizoumi and Yamata. What was not known, however, was that there had been a period in
2^ Siddham, lit. what is successfully achieved, seems to have been used by Buddhists like siddhi^, success, as an auspicious invocation at the beginning of literary works. Thus we see that the alphabet on the Horiuzhi palm-leaves begins with siddham, and this siddham may afterwards have become the name of the alphabet itself. In Siddhanta, meaning dogma, grammar, siddha conveys the sense of settled ; in Siddhartha, a name of Buddha, it means fulfilled, i. e. he whose desires have all been fulfilled, the perfect man, free from desires and passions.
3viii THE LARGER SUKHAVAtJ-VyOhA. the history of Japan when Sanskrit was studied systematically by native priests, nay, that some of the MSS. which had travelled from India to China, and from China to Japan were still in existence there. Of these MSS. I gave an account in 1884 in the Anecdota Oxonicnsia, * The Ancient Palm-Leaves. Though hitherto no new discoveries of Sanskrit MSS. have been made, it is most desirable that the search for them should not be given up in China, in Japan, and in Corea also. But even thus a new and important chapter has been added to the history of Buddhism, and the fact been established once for all that Buddhist literature found a home in Japan, and was studied there for many generations not only in Chinese translations, but in the original Sanskrit also. Let us hope that through the efforts of my pupils, such as Bunyiu Nanjio,Kenjiu Kasawara (died 1H83), and others, a new school of Sanskrit students has been planted in Japan which will enable the followers of Buddha there to derive their knowledge of his doctrine from the original and undefiled source of the ancient Tripi/'aka. I thought it best for the sake of completeness, and in compliance with the wishes of my friends in Japan, to give in this volume the translation both of the Larger and the Smaller Sukhavati-vyuha. They differ from each other on several smaller points. The Larger Sukhavati-vyuha is represented as having been preached on the Gr/dhrakiVa hill near Ra^-agr^Tia, the Smaller Sukhavati-vyflha in the ^eta-grove near .S'ravasti. In the former the chief interlocutors are the Bhagavat, i. e. the Buddha 5"akyamuni, Ananda, and A^ta ; in the latter the Bhagavat and S&r'iputra. There is one point, however, which is of great importance in the eyes of the followers of the Shin-shiu sect, on which the two treatises differ. The Smaller Sukhdvati-vyuha lays great stress on the fact that people can be saved or can be born in the Land of Bliss, if only they remember and repeat the name of Buddha Amitdbha two, three, four, five, six or more nights before their death, and it distinctly denies that people are b(jrn in the Paradise of Amitabha as a reward or necessary result of good works performed in the present life. This
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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