Coping with Too Many Variants : A New Type of Edition of the Scripture of the Pure Divinities’ Netted [Banners] (Fanwang jing)

Abstract

The Chinese Buddhist scripture Fanwang jing (FWJ) or the Scripture of the Pure Divinities’ Netted [Banners] (T 24, no. 1484) exerted enormous influence on the formation and evolution of the idea of bodhisattva precepts in East Asian Buddhism. A careful comparison of early manuscript and woodblock editions reveals that the FWJ was reformed again and again over the centuries. A large number of variants in the FWJ are also worthy of attention. The second roll of the FWJ, seven pages long in the Taishō edition, has over 300 locations for which variant readings exist. I have attempted to make a list of earlier manuscript and woodblock editions of the FWJ; to explain the fundamental differences between the two—old and new—lineages of the text; and to present problems posed by both the Western-style “critical edition” and the “East Asian traditional edition.” As an example of the appropriate method for editing a text rich in variants, I proposed a new type of edition for the FWJ by selecting turning points in the text’s history, upon which basis I present the following data: a presumed original or earliest form with a critical apparatus #1; a manuscript version of its early succession #2; a version dating to the beginnings of later transformations #3 and #4, and the three canonical versions as representative of currently popular editions #5, #6, and #7. By presenting three samples, I explained a possible style for a new type of edition appropriate for simultaneously describing both the original form and later transformations of the FWJ. In accordance with this methodology I have published a monograph as Funayama (2017).