Dr. Kengo Harimoto (University of Naples “L’Orientale”): Gāndhārī Substratum of the Larger Prajñāpāramitā?
3 May 2023
Photo: Orna Almogi
16:00 May 3, 2023. ESA-Ost, Raum 120 & via Zoom.
One of the most fascinating discoveries of the 20th century in Buddhist Studies was the first-century carbon dating of a Gāndhārī Prajñāpāramitā manuscript. Since then, it has been generally accepted that a text close to the Sanskrit Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā was already present in Gandhāra by the first century. In this talk, I am going to propose that even the Larger (e.g., Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā) Prajñāpāramitā was already in existence in a similar fashion by the 3rd century: in the Gāndhārī language or in the language Richard Salomon calls Gāndhārī Hybrid Sanskrit and possibly written in the Kharoṣṭhī script. I will assert this position using peculiar word/letter choices that Dharmarakṣa made when he translated the Larger Prajñāpāramitā in the 3rd century. Many otherwise inexplicable word/letter choices by Dharmarakṣa make me suspect that he was looking at a Kharoṣṭhī manuscript (or its Brāhmī descendant) that recorded a text with heavy Middle-Indic (Gāndhārī) features.
- Click here to download the invitation [PDF]
The lecture will be held at ESA-Ost, Raum 120, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, 20146 Hamburg, and via Zoom. For those who wish to participate via Zoom and are not students/members of Universität Hamburg, please write a short email to Prof. Dr. Wangchuk one day before the event: dorji.wangchuk@uni-hamburg.de(dorji.wangchuk"AT"uni-hamburg.de?subject=Khyentse Center Lecture Zoom Access)
Prof. Dr. Dorji Wangchuk (Director)
Khyentse Center for Tibetan Buddhist Textual Scholarship (KC-TBTS)
Abteilung für Kultur und Geschichte Indiens und Tibets, AAI, Universität Hamburg
Alsterterrasse 1, D-20354 Hamburg