Art. XI.—Maṇicūḍāvadāna, as related in the fourth chapter of the Svayambhūpurāṇa [Paris, dev. 78

Abstract

The Svayambhūpurāṇa [Paris, dev. 78] is probably a literary recast of the Svayambhūpurāṇa named by copyists Vṛhat˚ and Mahāsvayambhūpurāṇa, and existing in many copies in the Paris, Cambridge, and London (A. S.) Libraries, and also in India. The topics of this work are identical, but the language is, to some extent, different, and the treatment of the matter fairly independent. The same can be said, so far as I am acquainted with the facts, about the Madhyama recension of the S. P. [London A. S. Library and Cambridge]. The number of chapters differs in the S. P. [Paris, dev. 78], and other redactions (being respectively 12, 20, and 8); prose and verse of very varied rhythm occur intermingled throughout the book, whilst, on the contrary, the Vṛhat˚ and the Mahāsvayambhūpurāṇa are both, from beginning to end, written in classic çlokas. The Mahā˚, as noticed in Bendall's Buddhist MSS. Catalogue, is only a second recension of the Vṛhat˚: all the verses of the Mahā˚, together with the prologue itself, are faithfully reproduced in the Vṛhat˚ edition, the distinctive mark of the two redactions being the separation between the first and the second chapters.