A Triad of Texts from Fifth-Century Southern China: the *Mahāmāyā-sūtra, the Guoqu xianzai yinguo jing, and a Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra ascribed to Faxian. (2nd January 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Radich, Michael
• Is Part Of: Journal of Chinese religions. Volume 46:Number 1(2018)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 41
• Publication Date: 2018-01-02
• Subjects: Faxian -- Guṇabhadra -- Mahāparinirvāṇa-sutra -- Guoqu xianzai yinguo jing -- *Mahāmāyā-sūtra; China -- Religion -- Periodicals; 299.51
• DOI: 10.1080/0737769X.2018.1435370
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0737-769X

Abstract

Abstract : In previous work, I have shown that the (Mainstream, "smaller") Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra ascribed to Faxian is in fact almost certainly not his work, and that internal evidence closely associates it with two other texts: the Guoqu xianzai yinguo jing ascribed to Guṇabhadra and the * Mahāmāyā-sūtra ascribed to Tanjing. This paper analyzes the content of these texts, in order to ascertain (as much as possible) their likely relation to one another; the context in which they were composed; and their relations to that context. In addressing questions of context, the analysis applies innovative computer-assisted methods, which allow us to pinpoint detailed clues of highly specific intertextual relationships among a broad range of texts. This enables us to discover in the present triad of texts internal evidence pointing to close relations to a very specific body of literature in the fifth century.