PhD thesis by Martin Delhey, University of Hamburg
Supervisor: Professor Lambert Schmithausen
Expected date of completion: March 2002
Thesis language: German
The Yogaacaarabhuumi (YBh), an anonymous compilation (sometimes attributed to Asanga or Maitreya), is a vast and important source of information on Indian Buddhist scholasticism. At the same time it marks the beginning of one of the two main schools of Indian Mahaayaana thought. Approximately one half of this work is preserved in the Sanskrit original. Although these materials are indispensable for the attempt to gain an accurate understanding of the YBh in its original literary, dogmatic and historical context, large parts of them are still not accessible to the public.
The Samaahitaa Bhuumi.h (SamBh) belongs to this group of hitherto unpublished YBh texts. Therefore, it is quite natural that the primary goal of this project consists in preparing a reliable critical edition of the Sanskrit text. 'Reliable' means that it rests on an accurate decipherment of the manuscript (a task which in itself is not easy in view of the fact that the text is only preserved in photographs that are at times very indistinct), and that a text is presented that comes as close as possible to the original text. For this purpose the Tibetan and Chinese translations of this chapter have been collated and carefully evaluated. The critical edition will be accompanied by a diplomatic edition and an edition of the Tibetan translation that will be based on the Derge and Peking block prints. I will translate large portions of the text, while trying to elucidate as many as possible of the often terse and difficult passages with commentary.
It goes without saying that this task can only be accomplished by taking Aagamic sources, parallel passages in related works and, once again, the Tibetan and Chinese translations into consideration. Last but not least, a detailed introduction will discuss problems regarding the language and the contents of the text, its history of composition, its place in the relative chronology of the YBh texts and the place it occupies in the history of Indian Buddhist meditation practice and theory. It may be of some interest to sketch briefly the character and contents of the text, the more so since even its Chinese or Tibetan translation have rarely been treated in secondary literature.
The SamBh belongs to the 'conservative' texts of the YBh. This can easily be seen from the fact that: (1) it relies heavily on Aagamic utterances of the Buddha, without showing awareness of any Mahaayaana sutras; (2) there seem to be no traces of illusionist ontology and especially; (3) it abstains from describing or proclaiming the Bodhisattva way. The text does not deal with the vast complex of Buddhist meditation practices — as is already to be expected from its very name, it only treats meditative practices that no longer belong to the sphere of everyday consciousness, i.e. to the sphere of sensual pleasure. These meditative states can, in a narrower sense, roughly be divided in those that only lead to a temporary stay in the higher spheres and those that are conducive to escaping from the round of rebirth. Both kinds of meditative states are exhaustively treated.
Far from being a guideline for meditative practice, the SamBh rather is concerned with exegetical and dogmatic questions. Many individual suutras are commented on and Aagamic teachings as well as post-canonical concepts and practices (among them many which first appear in the `Sraavakabhuumi) are presented and defined in a systematized way.
I would be very glad to receive communication from other scholars who are interested in similar texts or topics.