Tibetan and Himalayan Library - THL

THL Title Text

Guṇaprabha’s Vinayasūtra Corpus: Texts and Contexts

Paul K. Nietupski, John Carroll University

JIATS, no. 5 (December 2009), THL #T5698, 19 pp.

© 2009 by Paul K. Nietupski, IATS, and THL

[page 1]

Abstract: This essay is a study of the corpus of texts associated with the Vinayasūtra, written by ninth-century Indian scholar Guṇaprabha, and included in the Tibetan TengyurBstan ’gyur. The essay begins with consideration of the sūtra format of the texts, the myths associated with the author, and continues to examine the Indian and Chinese Vinayas available to the Tibetans and their choice of the Mūlasarvāstivāda and Guṇaprabha’s Vinayasūtra corpus. These are followed with a brief discussion of the problems of manuscript availability and translation into Tibetan. The essay concludes with a brief review of the texts and their translators. The Tibetans’ choice of these texts as core documents for Tibetan Buddhism is relevant to the study of canon formation, to the institutionalization of monasticism, the place of monastic life in Tibetan Buddhism in relation to philosophical inquiry and tantric ritual, and to the Tibetans’ preference for Indian sources.

Introduction

This essay introduces Guṇaprabha’s Vinayasūtra and the corpus of derived Indian texts in Sanskrit fragments and in Tibetan translations, a total of six scriptures. The entire corpus is included in the Tibetan TengyurBstan ’gyur, a sūtra corpus among the śāstras.1 That is, the lexical format of his work is modeled on ancient Indian texts written in short aphorisms or sūtras, likely for ease of memorization and for pedagogical purposes. The text is nonetheless included in the commentarial section of the Tibetan canon, or the śāstras. This apparently innocuous detail raises questions about canon classification in India and Tibet. How was this text regarded [page 2] in India? How was it presented to the Tibetans, and why did they choose to include it in the TengyurBstan ’gyur?

Guṇaprabha’s text seems to imitate the style of many Indian non-Buddhist sūtra texts. Pāṇini’s (ca. fourth century BCE) Aṣṭādhyāyī begins with the statement atha śabdānuśasanam, Patañjali’s (ca. 200) Yogadarśanam begins with atha yogānuśasanam, Bādarāyana’s (ca. second century BCE) Brahmasūtra and Śaṅkara’s (788-820) Bhāṣya begin with atha brahmānuśasanam. These begin with a uniform lexical convention, atha, followed by a short statement of the contents of the work, and continue with the body of the text in short aphorisms. Guṇaprabha likewise begins the Vinayasūtra with atha niryāṇavṛttam, which all commentators explain in great detail, and goes on to compose the text in the Indian sūtra style. This may be because he was educated in that tradition, perhaps because he felt that his subject matter was of the same order of importance as the other great Indian works, or he may have felt that his Vinayasūtra was more properly regarded as a Buddhist sūtra, not at all a commentarial work. Regardless of Guṇaprabha’s intentions, priorities, and the Indian canonical classifications, the Tibetans understood Guṇaprabha’s text corpus as a commentarial work, a śāstra, and included it in the TengyurBstan ’gyur.

Indian and Tibetan styles and canonical formulations aside, the Vinayasūtra texts were eventually selected to serve as the core Tibetan monastic documents. This was a late choice; the verifiable early ninth-century translation of one of Guṇaprabha’s texts came near the end of the Tibetan Imperial period, so it is not likely that Guṇaprabha’s texts were circulated in AmdoA mdo’s eastern Vinaya, which played an important role in the late tenth-century re-establishment of monasticism in central Tibet. Even so, AmdoA mdo Vinaya was in the Mūlasarvāstivāda tradition, likely based on the only Vinaya in Tibetan language. This made the canonization of Guṇaprabha’s Mūlasarvāstivāda-derived corpus an acceptable choice.

Guṇaprabha’s Vinayasūtra with its Autocommentary was named as one of the “Five Scriptures” (Poti NgaPo ti lnga) and was the subject of detailed commentaries by Künkhyen TsonawaKun mkhyen mtsho sna ba (ca. thirteenth century), Gendün DruppaDge ’dun grub pa, and Butön Rinchen DrupBu ston rin chen grub. The importance of the text and tradition were maintained in the Tibetan grouping, but the importance of the texts in India, even if marked by the use of the sūtra style, remains unclear.

[1] For this study I compared versions of Guṇaprabha’s works in the DegéSde dge, Peking, and ChonéCo ne TengyurBstan ’gyurs and in the existing Sanskrit versions and fragments. I have not compared the Mongolian versions of Guṇaprabha’s works. In addition, I have not been able to gain access (not for lack of trying) to the Sanskrit edition in Tibetan script of the Vinayasūtra and Autocommentary from ZhaluZha lu Monastery in western Tibet, the original currently in the possession of the China Tibetology Research Institute in Beijing, and studied and issued in facsimile by Taisho University in Japan. The incomplete reference data I have for the latter text, studies, and facsimile are: Annual of the Institute for Comprehensive Studies of Buddhism, Taisho University, 25 (2003); 26 (2004); and 27 (2005). The facsimile edition was published by Taisho University in 2001.

Note Citation for Page

Paul K. Nietupski, “Guṇaprabha’s Vinayasūtra Corpus: Texts and Contexts,” Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, no. 5 (December 2009): , http://www.thlib.org?tid=T5698 (accessed ).

Note Citation for Whole Article

Paul K. Nietupski, “Guṇaprabha’s Vinayasūtra Corpus: Texts and Contexts,” Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, no. 5 (December 2009): 1-19, http://www.thlib.org?tid=T5698 (accessed ).

Bibliography Citation

Nietupski, Paul K. “Guṇaprabha’s Vinayasūtra Corpus: Texts and Contexts.” Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, no. 5 (December 2009): 1-19. http://www.thlib.org?tid=T5698 (accessed ).