396 ann heirman

CAN WE TRACE THE EARLY DHARMAGUPTAKAS?

BY

ANN HEIRMAN* Ghent University

To the disadvantage of other traditions, it is the vinaya of the Dharmaguptakas that has been used in the ceremony of Buddhist monks and in from the T’ang Dynasty until the present day. The vinaya of the Dharmaguptakas seems to have occupied a prominent position in as well. In , on the other hand, the Dharmaguptaka School lost most of its influ- ence very soon after the expansion of Indian . The present article attempts to trace the early Dharmaguptaka School from its beginnings to the T’ang Dynasty in China, so as to determine why eventually their vinaya became the only one used in the Chinese ordination ceremony.

A. The Indian Dharmaguptaka School

A.1. Name and Texts The Indian Dharmaguptaka1 School is commonly seen as a deri- vation of the MahÊá§saka School, a split which must probably be situ- ated in the second half of the third century BC.2 According to tradition, the Dharmaguptaka School is named after its founder Dharmagupta, a fervent follower of “§kyamuni’s famous disciple Maudgaly§. However, modern scholars, such as É. Lamotte (1958: 575), con- sider Dharmagupta to be a legendary person. The Dharmaguptaka

* I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Dr. Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer for helping me to find my way through the recent secondary literature concerning the first centuries of . 1 On the name Dharmaguptaka, see Salomon (1999: 169, 176); Silk (1999: 373, note 34). 2 See Bareau (1955: 15-30, 34); Lamotte (1958: 571-606); Heirman (2002: 11- 12).

© Brill, Leiden, 2002 T2oung Pao LXXXVIII Also available online – www.brill.nl

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School is particularly known for its vinaya texts. These texts, which are almost exclusively preserved in their Chinese versions,3 are as follows: T.1428, Szu-fen Lü 4 (Dharmaguptakavinaya), translated by Buddhayaáas and Chu Fo-nien between AD 410 and 412; T.1429, Szu-fen Lü Pi-ch’iu Chieh-pen, a bhikßupr§timokßa compiled by Huai-su (AD 634-707) on the basis of T.1428; T.1430, Szu-fen Seng Chieh-pen, a bhikßupr§timokßa translated by Buddhayaáas at the beginning of the fifth century AD; T.1431, Szu-fen Pi-ch’iu-ni Chieh-pen, a bhikßuÖÊpr§timokßa compiled by Huai-su on the basis of T.1428; T.1432, T’an-wu-te Lü-pu Tsa Chieh-mo, a karmav§can§ for bhikßus; T.1433, Chieh-mo, a karmav§can§ for bhikßus; T.1434, Szu-fen Pi-ch’iu-ni Chieh-mo-fa, a karmav§can§ for bhikßuÖÊs, compiled and annotated on the basis of T.1433, Chieh-mo; T.1808, Szu-fen Lü Shan-pu Sui-chi Chieh-mo, a karmav§can§ for bhikßus compiled and commented upon on the basis of T.1428 by Tao-hsüan (AD 596-667); T.1809, Seng Chieh-mo, a karmav§can§ for bhikßus compiled and commented upon on the basis of T.1428 by Huai-su; T.1810, Ni Chieh-mo, a karmav§can§ for bhikßuÖÊs compiled and commented upon on the basis of T.1428 by Huai-su. In addition, two works that most probably belong to the canon of the Dharmaguptaka School have been passed down. One is in G§n- dh§rÊ,5 and the other is a Chinese translation: the G§ndh§rÊ (Khotan) Dharmapada,6 and the Chinese Ch’ang A-han Ching (T.1, DÊrgh§gama),

3 Only a few fragments of the Indian texts have been passed down. For an overview, see Heirman (2002: 27-35). Chinese characters for these titles and their authors are given in the Bibliography at the end of this article. 4 On the name Szu-fen (四分), see Heirman (2002: 54-55 note 93). 5 The term ‘G§ndh§rÊ,’ introduced by H.W. Bailey (“G§ndh§rÊ”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 11, No. 4, 1946: 764) and in general use by now, refers to the language of the KharoßãhÊ inscriptions of Northwestern India and of the KharoßãhÊ documents of Central Asia. Fussman (1989: 439) points to the fact that, although G§ndh§rÊ texts are all written in KharoßãhÊ, there is no necessary connection between G§ndh§rÊ and KharoßãhÊ. There are a few texts in a nearly correct , written in KharoßãhÊ, and there is no objection to writing G§ndh§rÊ in a script other than KharoßãhÊ. Fussman (1989: 439-440) further gives an over- view of the regions where G§ndh§rÊ has been attested, and distinguishes three groups: G§ndh§rÊ of the documents found in Niya; G§ndh§rÊ used as a literary (and possibly dead) language in Central Asia; and G§ndh§rÊ spoken and written in Northwestern India. 6 The G§ndh§rÊ Dharmapada has been found in the region of Khotan. The text has been published and commented upon by J. Brough, The G§ndh§rÊ Dharmapada, London, 1962. It dates at the earliest from the end of the first century and at the latest from the middle of the third century AD: see Fussman (1989: 438).

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