The editions of the Chinese Tripitaka must be distinguished from the collections, for by editions are meant the forms in which each collection was published, the text being or purporting to be the same in all the editions of each collection. It is said[751] that under the Sung and Yüan twenty different editions were produced. These earlier issues were printed on long folding sheets and a nun called Fa-chên[752] is said to have first published an edition in the shape of ordinary Chinese books. In 1586 a monk named Mi-Tsang[753] imitated this procedure and his edition was widely used. About a century later a Japanese priest known as Tetsu-yen[754] reproduced it and his publication, which is not uncommon in Japan, is usually called the Ō-baku edition. There are two modern Japanese editions: (a) that of Tokyo, begun in 1880, based on a Korean edition[755] with various readings taken from other Chinese editions. (b) That of Kyoto, 1905, which is a reprint of the Ming collection[756]. A Chinese edition has been published at Shanghai (1913) at the expense of Mrs. Hardoon, a Chinese lady well known as a munificent patron of the faith, and I believe another at Nanking, but I do not know if it is complete or not[757].
3
The translations contained in the Chinese Tripitaka belong to several periods[758]. In the earliest, which extends to the middle of the fourth century, the works produced were chiefly renderings of detached sûtras[759]. Few treatises classified as Vinaya or Abhidharma were translated and those few are mostly extracts or compilations. The sûtras belong to both the Hîna and Mahâyâna. The earliest extant translation or rather compilation, the Sûtra of Forty-two sections, belongs to the former school, and so do the majority of the translations made by An-Shih-Kao (148-170 A.D.), but from the second century onwards the Prajnâpâramitâ and Amitâbha Sûtras make their appearance[760]. Many of the translations made in this period are described as incomplete or incorrect and the fact that most of them were superseded or supplemented by later versions shows that the Chinese recognized their provisional character. Future research will probably show that many of them are paraphrases or compendiums rather than translations in our sense.
The next period, roughly speaking 375-745 A.D., was extraordinarily prolific in extensive and authoritative translations. The translators now attack not detached chapters or discourses but the great monuments of Indian Buddhist literature. Though it is not easy to make any chronological bisection in this period, there is a clear difference in the work done at the beginning and at the end of it. From the end of the fourth century onwards a desire to have complete translations of the great canonical works is apparent. Between 385 and 445 A.D. were translated the four Agamas, analogous to the Nikâyas of the Pali Canon, three great collections of the Vinaya, and the principal scriptures of the Abhidharma according to the Sarvâstivâdin school. For the Mahâyâna were translated the great sûtras known as Avatamsaka, Lankâvatâra, and many others, as well as works ascribed to Aśvaghosha and Nâgârjuna. After 645 A.D. a further development of the critical spirit is perceptible, especially in the labours of Hsüan Chuang and I-Ching. They attempt to give the religious public not only complete works in place of extracts and compendiums, but also to select the most authoritative texts among the many current in India. Thus, though many translations had appeared under the name of Prajnâpâramitâ, Hsüan Chuang filled 600 fasciculi with a new rendering of the gigantic treatise. I-Ching supplemented the already bulky library of Vinaya works with versions of the Mûlasarvâstivâdin recension and many auxiliary texts.
Amogha (Pu-K'ung) whose literary labours extended from 746 to 774 A.D. is a convenient figure to mark the beginning of the next and last period, although some of its characteristics appear a little earlier. They are that no more translations are made from the great Buddhist classics—partly no doubt because they had all been translated already, well or ill—but that renderings of works described as Dhâraṇî or Tantra pullulate and multiply. Though this literature deserves such epithets as decadent and superstitious, yet it would appear that Indian Tantras of the worst class were not palatable to the Chinese.
4
The Chinese Tripitaka is of great importance for the literary history of Buddhism, but the material which it offers for investigation is superabundant and the work yet done is small. We are confronted by such questions as, can we accept the dates assigned to the translators, can we assume that, if the Chinese translations or transliterations correspond with Indian titles, the works are the same, and if the works are professedly the same, can we assume that the Chinese text is a correct presentment of the Indian original?
The dates assigned to the translators offer little ground for scepticism. The exactitude of the Chinese in such matters is well attested, and there is a general agreement between several authorities such as the Catalogues of the Tripitaka, the memoirs known as Kao-Sêng Chuan with their continuations, and the chapter on Buddhist books in the Sui annals. There are no signs of a desire to claim improbable accuracy or improbable antiquity. Many works are said to be by unknown translators, doubtful authorship is frankly discussed, and the movement of literature and thought indicated is what we should expect. We have first fragmentary and incomplete translations belonging to both the Mahâ and Hînayâna: then a series of more complete translations beginning about the fifth century in which the great Hînayâna texts are conspicuous: then a further series of improved translations in which the Hînayâna falls into the background and the works of Asanga and Vasubandhu come to the front. This evidently reflects the condition of Buddhist India about 500-650 A.D., just as the translations of the eighth century reflect its later and tantric phase.
But can Chinese texts be accepted as reasonably faithful reproductions of the Indian originals whose names they bear, and some of which have been lost? This question is really double; firstly, did the translators reproduce with fair accuracy the Indian text before them, and secondly, since Indian texts often exist in several recensions, can we assume that the work which the translators knew under a certain Sanskrit name is the work known to us by that name? In reply it must be said that most Chinese translators fall short of our standards of accuracy. In early times when grammars and dictionaries were unknown the scholarly rendering of foreign books was a difficult business, for professional interpreters would usually be incapable of understanding a philosophic treatise. The method often followed was that an Indian explained the text to a literary Chinese, who recast the explanation in his own language. The many translations of the more important texts and the frequent description of the earlier ones as imperfect indicate a feeling that the results achieved were not satisfactory. Several so-called translators, especially Kumârajîva, gave abstracts of the Indian texts[761]. Others, like Dharmaraksha, who made a Chinese version of Aśvaghosha's Buddhacarita, so amplified and transposed the original that the result can hardly be called a translation[762]. Others combined different texts in one. Thus the work called Ta-o-mi-to-ching[763] consists of extracts taken from four previous translations of the Sukhâvatîvyûha and rearranged by the author under the inspiration of Avalokita to whom, as he tells us, he was wont to pray during the execution of his task. Others again, like Dharmagupta, anticipated a method afterwards used in Tibet, and gave a word for word rendering of the Sanskrit which is hardly intelligible to an educated Chinese. The later versions, e.g. those of Hsüan Chuang, are more accurate, but still a Chinese rendering of a lost Indian document cannot be accepted as a faithful representation of the original without a critical examination[764].