References
The Sublime Science of the Great Vehicle to Salvation, Being a Manual of Buddhist Monism: The Work of Ārya Maitreya with a Commentary by Āryāsanga
From Buddha-Nature
< Articles
The Sublime Science of the Great Vehicle to Salvation, Being a Manual of Buddhist Monism: The Work of Ārya Maitreya with a Commentary by Āryāsanga
Article
Article
| Citation: | Obermiller, Eugène, trans. "The Sublime Science of the Great Vehicle to Salvation, Being a Manual of Buddhist Monism: The Work of Ārya Maitreya with a Commentary by Āryāsanga." Acta Orientalia 9 (1931): 81–306. |
|---|
Article Summary
According to the Tibetan tradition, the foundation of all the
exegetical literature connected with the Buddhist Scripture of the
latest and, partly, of the intermediate period is contained in the
5 treatises ascribed to the Bodhisattva Maitreya. These are:—
1) The Sūtrālaṁkāra,
2) " Madhyānta-vibhanga,
3) " Dharma-dharmatā-vibhanga
4) " Abhisamayālaṁkāra, and
5) " Uttaratantra
Of these 5 treatises the original Sanskrit text of the Sutrālaṁkāra has been edited by Prof. Sylvain Levi, who has likewise given a French translation of it. The Sanskrit text of the Abhisamayālaṁkāra and its Tibetan translation have been recently edited by Prof. Th. Stcherbatsky and by myself in the Bibliotheca Buddhica and will be followed by an analysis of the 8 subjects and the 70 topics which form its contents. The 3 other works have not, till now, met with the full appreciation of European scholars. The reason perhaps is that we possess only their Tibetan translations in the Tangyur (MDO XLIV), the original Sanskrit texts having not, up to this time, been discovered. An investigation of this branch of Buddhist literature according to the Tibetan sources enables us to ascertain the exclusive importance of the said 3 treatises as containing, in a very pregnant form, the idealistic and monistic teachings of later Buddhism. In particular the Tibetan works draw our attention to the Uttaratantra, the translation and analysis of which forms the subject-matter of the present work. It is indeed the most interesting of the three, if not of all the five, being the exposition of the most developed monistic and pantheistic teachings of the later Buddhists and of the special theory of the Essence of Buddhahood, the fundamental element of the
Absolute, as existing in all living beings. (Obermiller, introduction, 81–82)