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Why the BZA Does Not Belong to the Kāśyapīya School

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Why the BZA Does Not Belong to the Kāśyapīya School More Suttas on Sakka and why the Shorter Chinese Saṃyukta-āgama should not be attributed to the Kāśyapīya school Marcus Bingenheimer Dharma Drum Buddhist College, Taiwan [email protected] Abstract: This article is part of a series on the Shorter Chinese Saṃyukta-āgama (BZA).1 Continuing the investigation from previous research on the provenance of the BZA, it is concluded that the attribution of the BZA to the Kāśyapīya school is mistaken. A comparison of the BZA’s Śakra-saṃyukta with the Pāli Sakka-saṃyutta shows that, with minor exceptions, the narrative content of both saṃyuttas is identical though the number of suttas varies. Finally, the article completes the translation of the Śakra-saṃyukta, the first part of which appeared in BSR 25 (2). CONCERNING THE ATTRIBUTION OF THE SHORTER CHINESE SAṂYUKTA-ĀGAMA TO THE KĀŚYAPĪYA SCHOOL In the past the BZA has been variously attributed to the Dharmaguptaka, the Mahīśāsaka, the Kāśyapīya and the (Mūla-)Sarvāstivāda school. Several recent studies, however, have shown that the BZA is best considered to be belonging to the same textual tradition as the Za ahan jing (T.99) (ZA), that of (Mūla-)Sarvāstivāda literature.2 Having commented on the merits of the Dharmaguptaka-Mahīśāsaka attribution in a previous article (Bingenheimer 2008b), in what follows I would like to assess the attribution of the BZA to the Kāśyapīya school. This attribution has, to my knowledge, never actually been disproved, but rather has been superseded by the mounting evidence in favour of a Sarvāstivādin designation. Faced with good evidence that the BZA belongs with Sarvāstivādin literature, one might consider a refutation of the Kāśyapīya attribution superfluous. For two reasons, however, it is worth the effort. First, if the text could indeed be shown to belong to the Kāśyapīya school it would make it the only known surviving sūtra text of this school;3 a precious wit- ness, perhaps offering hitherto undiscovered clues to doctrinal differences. The little we know about the Kāśyapīya has been transmitted in the doxographical his- tories (Kathāvatthu, Chinese and Tibetan versions of the Samayabhedoparacanacakra etc.), which Walleser (1927), Bareau (1955), Warder (1970) and others have summar- ized. Secondly, the ascription to the Kāśyapīya school is the earliest known attribu- tion of the BZA. It was first proposed by Hōdo 法幢 (1740-1770) in his commentary on the Abhidharmakośa, the Abidatsuma kusharon keiko 阿 毘 達 磨 俱 舍 論 稽 古 (T.64.2252.446a). Later Akanuma (1939, 48-50) commented on and qualified Hōdo’s remarks, and Yinshun (1983, 3-5) in his extensive study and re-edition of the ZA considers a Kāśyapīya source for the BZA ‘more likely’ than a Dharmaguptaka or 1 The articles are part of the BZA project at the Dharma Drum Buddhist College, Taiwan, currently hosted at: http://buddhistinformatics.ddbc.edu.tw/BZA/. The project was funded by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for Scholarly Exchange. 2 Waldschmidt (1980, esp. 146ff), Enomoto (1980), Hiraoka (2000), and Hiraoka (2003). 3 We have the Prātimokṣa of the Kāśyapīyas in Chinese (T.1460). There are also a few rare quotations of Kāśyapīya texts in later works (see Skilling (1993, 171), for one such quote in the Tibetan canon). 1 Mahīśāsaka one. Considering Yinshun’s influence on Chinese Buddhist scholarship, it is worth rectifying even minor mistakes to prevent the propagation of errors. Let us first consider the reasons Hōdo proposed for his attribution of the BZA to the Kāśyapīyas, found in the Abidatsuma kusharon keiko. Hōdo’s Kośa commentary is relevant to Āgama studies because he was the first commentator to analyze the Āgama citations found in the Kośa.4 Creative as he might have been, Hōdo was, how- ever, far from perfect in his attributions. His claim that the Chinese Dīrgha-āgama belongs to the Mahīśāsaka school, for instance, is now clearly discredited and the consensus attributes the Chinese Dīrgha-āgama to the Dharmaguptaka school.5 According to Akanuma (1939 [1981], 49), Hōdo cites three reasons why he be- lieves the BZA might be a Kāśyapīya text. Akanuma believes the first two to be per- suasive and the third completely mistaken. It should be noted that none of the three points raised by Hōdo are related to what is found about the Kāśyapīya in doxo- graphical literature as summarized by Walleser or Bareau. The seven rebirths of the Stream-enterer Hōdo makes his first point in a comment on a Kośa passage concerning the seven rebirths of the Stream-enterer. Here the question is whether the seven rebirths occur across both deva and human realms, or seven times in each realm (making fourteen rebirths in all). The passage contains the only quotation in the Kośa that is ascribed to a Kāśyapīya sūtra. The Kośa passage reads: How to prove that the seven births take place seven each among humans and devas, and not seven in both realms together? The [Saṃyukta-āgama] sūtra says: ‘[Among] devas seven [times] and among humans’ The [equivalent] sūtra of the Kāśyapīya school distinguishes more clearly saying ‘in the human and in the deva realm each seven rebirths’.6 4 In a preface, the abbot Kaiben 快 辨 of the Kongosanmai In, one of the main temples on Koya mountain where Hōdo worked on the Kusharon keiko, writes: In his desire for learning, he [Hōdo] first studied the Abhidharmakośa, the Abhidharma text with the deepest meaning. But he did not value the later commentators and traced the way back to the Vibhāṣā, the Nyāyānusāraśāstra, and the Jñānaprasthāna and the other seven basic works of the Abhidharmapiṭaka. […] Still this was not enough for him, he delved into the canon to research the sūtras from the four Āgamas that were transmitted separately. His knowledge does therefore not come only from the [Kośa]śāstra. […] [Hōdo] worked like someone tracing back the source along the bends of a river, in order to understand where what flowed forth came from, and never to doubt again. […] Here now he has extracted the differences and sources of passages in the [Kośa]śāstra as found in the Sūtra- and Vinayapiṭaka and decided on the name keiko 稽 古 ‘collating the ancient’. […] It is astounding that though this śāstra was translated more than a thousand years ago, and many hundreds, even thousands have studied it, not one has ever followed it back to the ocean of the Āgamas. (T.65.2252.440a-b). 5 Bareau (1966). For a general summary of the consensus regarding attributions of Āgama literature see Mayeda (1985, 97). To be fair, Hōdo was not far off the mark: for all we know there were few doctrinal differences between the Dharmaguptaka and the Mahīśāsaka. 6 Hōdo generally comments on the Kośa as translated by Xuanzang, but occasionally discusses Paramārtha’s translation as well. Xuanzang’s translation of the passage in question is: 以何證彼於人 天中各受七生非合受七以契經說天七及人飲光部經分明別說於人天處各受七生 (CBETA/T29.1558.123b17-20). Cf. Paramārtha’s translation: 經說於人天道。唯有七返。云何得知此義。 七返人道。七返天道。由經言。七返於人及於天。迦尸比部說。(CBETA/T29. 1559. 275.b20-22). Cf. also the Sanskrit: First quotation: saptakṛtvaḥ paramaḥ saptakṛtvo devāṃś ca manuṣyaṃś ca (Pāsādika 1989, No.422). Quotation of the Kāśyapīya sutta: saptakṛtvo devān saptakṛtvo manuṣyān iti (Pāsādika 1989, No.423). 2 Hōdo comments: The shorter version of the Saṃyukta-āgama [i.e. the BZA] says: ‘among humans and devas seven births and seven deaths, they attain the final end of suffering’; I therefore hold this to be the ‘Kāśyapīya sūtra’. How could it be otherwise? The likes of Puguang and Fabao all cite the evidence of these two references wrongly [i.e. they assume the references are equivalent]. Concerning ‘The Saṃyukta-āgama says: “[Among] devas seven [times] and among humans…’’’ – this passage says there is scriptural evidence, but the texts recited by the Sarvāstivādins do not distinguish the matter clearly. Therefore the Kāśyapīya text is cited to provide evidence.7 What Hōdo says here is that the Kāśyapīya sūtra and the BZA are one and the same because they both assert that the Stream-enterer is reborn seven times in each of the deva realm and the human realm (together amounting to fourteen times). While Hōdo is right to consider the quotation from a Kāśyapīya sūtra in the Kośa to be a clarification of the previous quotation – this is evident from the Sanskrit, to which we now have access – his reading of the passage in BZA 160 於人天 中七生七死 is problematic and has been disputed from early on. Another Japanese commentator of the Tokugawa period, Kaidō 快道 (1751-1810),8 was the first to pick up on this. He does not believe Hōdo is correct in identifying the BZA as the Kāśyapīya work referred to in the Kośa and disagrees with his reading of the passage in question. Kaidō says: There is not only one problem with this [Hōdo’s] account; there are seven mistakes. The text in the BZA does not contradict the meaning that the seven rebirths occur among devas and humans [together]. Among humans and devas together seven births and deaths, because if there is a birth there must be a death. Mentioning ‘seven deaths’ is not a proof. The above [passage in the BZA] says only that there are seven births among humans and devas [my emphasis (M.B.)]. To miss that meaning is the first mistake. To assert misleadingly that [the BZA] was recited by the Kāśyapīya is the second mistake…9 I believe Kaidō is right here and the passage in BZA 160 (於人天中七生七死) does not clearly imply that seven rebirths have to take place in each of both realms. It is not proved that the passage in BZA 160 is the sūtra referred to in the Kośa as ‘a Kāśyapīya sūtra’.
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