3. MS. of the Société Asiatique at Paris (Collection Hodgson), No. 17; eighty-two leaves. (Nepalese alphabet.)[131]
4. MS. of the University Library at Cambridge, No. 1368; thirty-five leaves. It begins with some lines of prose and verse in praise of Amitâbha and Sukhavatî, and then proceeds: Evam mayâ srutam ekasmim samaye Bhagavân Râgagrihe nagare viharati sma, Gridhrakûtaparvate mahatâ Bhikshusanghena sârddha, etc. It ends: iti srîmad amitâbhasya tathâgatasya [pg 217] Sukhâvatîvyûha-mahâyânasûtram samâptam. (Nepalese alphabet, modern.)
5. MS. given by Mr. Hodgson to the Bodleian Library Oxford (Hodgson 3). It begins with: Om namo ratnatrayâya. Om namah sarvabuddhabodhisattvebhyah, etc. Then Evam mayâ srutam, etc. It ends with sukhavâtîvyûhamahâyânasûtram samâptam. (Nepalese alphabet, modern.)
But when I came to compare these Sanskrit MSS. with the text sent to me from Japan, though the title was the same, I soon perceived that their contents were different. While the text, as given in the ordinary Devanâgari or Nepalese MSS., fills about fifty to sixty leaves, the text of the Sûtra that reached me from Japan would hardly occupy more than eight or ten leaves.
I soon convinced myself that this MS. was not a text abbreviated in Japan, for this shorter text, sent to me from Japan, correspond in every respect with the Chinese Sûtra translated by Mr. Beal in his “Catena,” pp. 378-383, and published in your Journal, 1866, p. 136. No doubt the Chinese translation, on which Mr. Beal's translation is based, is not only free, but displays the misapprehensions peculiar to many Chinese renderings of Sanskrit texts, due to a deficient knowledge either of Sanskrit or of Chinese on the part of the translators, perhaps also to the different genius of those two languages.
Yet, such as it is, there can be no doubt that it was meant to be a translation of the text now in my possession. Mr. Beal tells us that the translation he followed is that by Kumâragîva, the contemporary of Fa-hian (400 A. D.), and that this translator omitted repetitions and superfluities in the text.[132] Mr. Edkins [pg 218] knows a translation, s. t. Wou-liang-sheu-king, made under the Han dynasty.[133] What is important is that in the Chinese translation of the shorter text the scene is laid, as in the Japanese Sanskrit text, at Srâvastî, and the principal speakers are Bhagavat and Sâriputra.
There is also a Tibetan translation of the short text, described by Csoma Körösi (“As. Res.” vol. xx. p. 439). Here, though the name of the scene is not mentioned, the speakers are Bhagavat and Sâriputra. The whole work occupies seven leaves only, and the names of the sixteen principal disciples agree with the Japanese text. The translators were Pragnâvarman, Sûrendra, and the Tibetan Lotsava Ya-shes-sde.
M. Feer informs me that there is at the National Library a Chinese text called O-mi-to-king, i. e. Amitâbha-sûtra.[134] The scene is at Srâvastî; the speakers are Bhagavat Sâriputra.
Another text at the National Library is called Ta-o-mi-to-king, i. e. Mahâ Amitâbha-sûtra, and here the scene is at Râgagriha.
There is, besides, a third work, called Kwan-wou-liang-sheu-king by Kiang-ling-ye-she, i. e. Kâlayasas, a foreigner of the West, who lived in China about 424 A. D.