Dear Bhante,
> I am generally aware of the info on SA you mentioned. I've been in
frequent contact with Rod Bucknell, the teacher of Choong Mun-Keat, whose
book on SA/SN you were evidently referring to. I've been trying to push
these studies even further, specifying exact correlations of sequences of
suttas in SA & SN, and trying to ascertain the structural principles used by
the redactors. Early days yet, but still some interesting findings...
****
Yes, it was to Choong Mun-Keat's work that I was alluding. Your work sounds
interesting and important. Pls keep us informed of your progress.
> On the identity of Asanga's SA. I hadn't heard about the inclusion of MA
and EA sutras, hmm, interesting.
It's not that he includes EA sutras but some of the MA ones correspond to AN
suttas. He includes the following from the MA (Taisho nos), bearing in mind
that I retain the Taisho SA numbers but resequenced:
171, 11-13, 19 {between SA 201 & 202}
190, 191 {between SA 236 & 237}
163, 169 {between SA 342 & 283}
97 {between SA 293 & 294}
23 {between SA 345 & 346}
9 {between SA 370 & 371}
10, 30 {between SA 378 & 379}
181 {between SA 464 & 466}
119, 22, 103, 162, 1, 113, 111, 112, 75. {between SA 489 & 605}
Since the Vasu-samgrahani is explicitly a thematic commentary on the SA, it
seems reasonable to assume that all of the above were included in his
version of the SA, unless there was some other unobvious (to me) reason for
their inclusion.
> I don't know if it's relevant, but the Samdhinirmocana Sutra frequently
mentions a list of dhamma topics that it usually associates with the
academics who spend all day quibbling about details, full of pride -
obviously the abhidhammikas. The list of topics is reasonably consistent,
and seems to be derived from one single list, with some corruption. This
list is a version of the samyutta-matika, and in particular is virtually
identical to the list of topics in SA as commented on by Asanga. This
suggests to me that Asanga was following a Yogacara tradition in regarding
SA as THE fundamental collection.
***
I'm not sure I agree with your "pride" characterization, but yes, a standard
mat.rkaa underlies many of such works -- cf also the Abhidharma-samuccaya.
I would not necessarily tie Asanga down to a "Yogacara tradition"-- as I
mentioned previously, much of the YBS shows no obvious signs of standard
Yogacara concepts or even Mahayana ones. I think he derives his standard
from a Mula-sarvastivadin tradition. But you are right -- Asanga clearly
regards "the SA as THE fundamental collection".
> 1. A new manuscript of DA? I didn't know there was one. Any details?
It's hard to get details but it is thought the ms originated in the Bamiyan
or Hadda area -- if not stolen from Kabul Museum, as are some bits in the
Schoyen Collection purportedly from Bamiyan. Presently two chunks are
known -- one in the US and a smaller chunk in Japan (a great start !). It
is a fairly complete ms, possibly covering at 2/3 of the DA. Editorial work
is currently underway in the US and UK (Lance Cousins). The affiliation is
not certain but it may be Dharmaguptaka. This might be helpful, since the
Dharmaguptaka Vinaya is close to the Theravadin version.
> 2. Is the published Sravakabhumi in Devanagiri or Roman? Alas I don't know
devanagiri.
The Indian version by Shukla is devanagari, but I think the Japanese one is
romanized. If you get stuck, let me know and I'll see what we can work out
privately.
> Maybe I'll get around to it. I just have to learn Chinese first !
From your description of your interests, I can see that you will need
Chinese. However, Tibetan translations are much more reliable, so you might
want to think about adding Tibetan to your repertoire -- I think it is the
easiest of the "Dharma languages" to learn, though comprehension always
depends upon familiarity with the subject matter. For example, in my YBS
research, as far as the portions I have done are concerned, I have come to
the conclusion that Xuanzang sub-contracted some parts to somebody who knew
a lot of Skt vocabulary but didn't have a very good grasp of Skt grammar.
Misunderstandings abound -- where there are lemmata from the SA etc which
can be independently evaluated via Pali parellels, Tib is always correct but
C not infrequently gets the meaning completely wrong. Depressing, eh !
Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge {NB: I'm singular}