Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra - Versions

Versions

Like the majority of Mahāyāna sūtras, the Nirvana Sutra evidently underwent a number of stages in its composition, which is of some importance for any discussion of the Tathāgatagarbha and Buddha-nature (buddha-dhātu) doctrines. A leading scholar in this field is the Japanese scholar Masahiro Shimoda, who posits a short proto-Nirvana Sutra, which was, he argues, probably not distinctively Mahāyāna, but quasi-Mahāsanghika in origin and would date to 100 CE, if not even earlier. He suggests that an expanded version of this core text was then developed and would have comprised chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 of the Faxian and Tibetan versions, though it is believed that in their present state there is a degree of editorial addition in them from the later phases of development.

Sasaki (1999), in a review of Shimoda (1997), conveys a key premise of Shimoda's work, namely, that the origins of Mahayana Buddhism and the Nirvana Sutra are entwined.

Hodge (2004) frames the versions and history of the Nirvana Sutra:

There are three extant versions of the Mahāyāna-mahāparinirvāna-sūtra, each translated from various Sanskrit editions: the shortest and earliest is the translation into Chinese by Faxian and Buddhabhadra in six juan (418CE), the next in terms of development is the Tibetan version (c790CE) by Jinamitra, Jnanagarbha, and Devacandra, and the extended version in 40 juan by Dharmakshema (421-430) which was also translated into Tibetan from the Chinese. There also exists a secondary Chinese version in 36 juan of Dharmakshema's translation, produced by polishing the style and adding new section headings and completed in 453CE. It is also known from Chinese catalogues of translations that at least two other Chinese translations were done, slightly earlier than Faxian, but these are no longer extant. Though a complete version of the entire text in Sanskrit has not yet been discovered, some fragments of original Sanskrit versions have been discovered in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Japan.

The text of the Nirvana Sutra in the original Sanskrit has survived only in a number of fragments, which were discovered in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Japan. It does exist in Chinese and Tibetan versions of varying lengths. Faxian, the monk who initially brought the text to China from India, prepared a brief translation containing six fascicles, but Dharmakṣema's slightly later translation had forty fascicles. Still later, Huiguan, Huiyan, Xie Lingyun, and others during the Liu Song dynasty integrated and amended the translations of Faxian and Dharmakṣema into a single edition of thirty-six fascicles. That version is called the "southern text" of the Nirvana Sutra, while Dharmakṣema's version is called the "northern text." There is also a Tibetan translation, compiled in about 790 by the Indian panditas Jinamitra, Jnanagarbha and the Tibetan scholar-monk Devacandra, which is comparable in length to Faxian's translation. Thus, there are four extant versions:

• The "six fascicle text", translated during the Eastern Jin Dynasty by Buddhabhadra and Faxian between 416 and 418, T 376.12.853-899.
• The "northern text", with 40 fascicles, translated in the Northern Liang kingdom by Dharmakṣema between 421 and 430, T 374.12.365c-603c.
• The "southern text" with 36 fascicles, complied in the Liu Song Dynasty by Huiguan and Huiyan, in approximately 453, T 375.12.605-852.
• The "Tibetan text", translated in 8th century Tibet by Jinamitra, Jnanagarbha and Devacandra.

It is also known from Chinese catalogues of translations that at least two other Chinese translations were done, slightly earlier than Faxian, but these are no longer extant.