Aśvaghoṣa’s Lost Stanzas Included in the *Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa

Abstract

The Sanskrit manuscript of the Tridaṇḍamālā preserved at sPos khang monastery in Tibet contains forty Tridaṇḍas. The “Tridaṇḍa” is a sūtra used for the purpose of liturgical chanting. In the Tridaṇḍamālā, forty types of Tridaṇḍa-sūtras are sandwiched between Aśvaghoṣa’s verses. In my presentation at last year’s conference at Bukkyo University (September, 2019), I shed light on the strong possibility that many of Aśvaghoṣa’s lost stanzas in the Sūtrālaṃkāra are included in the Tridaṇḍamālā. Furthermore, I also pointed out that many of the stanzas quoted in the well-known *Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa, translated by Kumārajīva in the 5th century, also contain the same Sūtrālaṃkāra stanzas that are found in the Tridaṇḍamāla. In this presentation, continuing my previous research, I point out that twelve stanzas relating the Tathāgata’s ten titles/names are quoted just as they are in the *Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa. I also notice that one of those twelve stanzas was quoted as well in Subhūticandra’s Kavikāmadhenu, composed around the 11th–12th century, and that the Sūtropadeśālaṃkāra is considered as the original source of this very stanza.