Korea Journal of Buddhist StudiesISSN:1598-0642(Print)불교학연구회

This paper is a philological study on two extant Sanskrit manuscripts of Ārya-Vimuktiṣeṇa’s commentary, commonly called Abhisamayālaṅkāravṛtti. The contents of this article can be divided into two parts: a newly identified Nepalese manuscript of the Abhisamayālaṅkārakārikā, and research on the colophon of the two manuscripts preserved in Nepal and Tibet. This paper is notable for being the first study of based on the Tibetan manuscript, which was displayed to a small group of experts at Beijing University in 2014. Inside the Nepalese manuscript (NGMPP A 37/09) written in Nevārī script with hooked top, three folios are mistakenly inserted whose contents are in fact the Kārikās. In another Nepalese manuscript, NGMPP A 35/12, the first nine folios identified as a manuscript of the Abhisamayālaṅkārakārikā are also added to Haribhadra’s commentary. Among the nine folios, only five folios are written in the hooked Nevārī script. I find these eight folios in the Nevārī script originally constituted one and the same manuscript of the Abhisamayālaṅkārakārikā, which was placed before Ārya-Vimuktiṣeṇa's commentary text in the original manuscript. Second, I point out two discoveries about the colophon of the manuscripts in Nepal and Tibet, 1) The two manuscripts were both written in the early 12th century. The Nepalese manuscript is dated to the 32nd year of the king Dharmapāla (r. 1108-1113), while the part of the colophon that states the exact date of the manuscript in the Tibetan manuscript is missing. But given that the latter manuscript was a religious gift from Śubhākaragupta, a student of Abhayākaragupta who composed the Munimatālaṅkāra in the 30th year of the king Dharmapāla, it is clear that the two manuscripts were contemporary. 2) According to the colophon, Ārya-Vimuktiṣeṇa’s commentary is called Abhisamayālaṅkāraśāstra, which is the same with the title of the Kārikās traditionally ascribed to Maitreyanātha. In the recto of the first folio (1r) of the newly identified manuscript, the text consisting of the Kārikās alone is titled “a commentary on the Prajñāpāramitā by Ācārya-Vimuktisena.” These facts indicate the possibility that Ārya-Vimuktiṣeṇa himself composed the Kārikās that is believed to be a work of Maitreyanātha. Consulting other materials such as the Tibetan translation of the Abhisamayālaṅkārakārikā from the end of 11th century, I also make reference to three different opinions about the authorship of the Kārikās: Maitreyanātha, Ārya-Vimuktiṣeṇa, and an anonymous author.