Comparing rBa and dBa'

Some preliminary notes from the comparison of the two manuscripts. For the sources, see the previous post.

 

a). 

The man copying rBa does not know the notations in dBa' except in two places. This means we are dealing with an exemplar with only the lowest strata of dBa' annotations, i.e. most of those found in dBa' don't yet exist or are unavailable. Now I've dated most of the annotations in dBa' after 1200 in my article published in Trading Religions, ed. Volker Rabens and Peter Wick, published by Brill. So rBa text looks earlier than this, i.e. before 1200. It shows, however, even from just these two indications, that rBa is later than dBa', representing a recension that breaks off from dBa' at an early stage.

b).

rBa is seriously redacted by a hard-nosed intellectual. That's how I see him anyway. He wants no fluff and fancy talk, gets rid of the honorific forms, and shows off his Sanskrit words. He also takes the emperor down a notch, calling him rGyal po. What's the political agenda I wonder? He will also not have the narrative as བཀའ, a word that is expunged. So some are glorifying the narrative, others are taking a harsh reductive view towards it. This is surely defined by the purpose the historical story is meant to serve. 

c).

rBa knows sGam po as a current and accepted title, and mentions it most times, unlike dBa', where it is carefully explained and then used. I guess this shows rBa is later.

d). 

Both dBa' and rBa have problems with the portion giving the account of the visit of the monks from Khotan. The start is flawed in both. This means, to my mind, that the manuscript source of the Li Yul story is damaged as found: the front folio is torn and unclear, thus the slightly garbled sentence in both. I think this is going to tell us something about the recensions of dBa' and rBa. Maybe there are 2 copies of the original story? Unlikely. My guess is that dBa' and rBa already represent two recensions, albeit at an early stages. The rBa recension we see through the lens of a strong redaction. Our scribe of rBa will not sanction, or does not know, the name of the text with the Khotan story.

Notes arising from the collation of dBa’ (2000) and rBa (2011.1)

Sources

In my study, the following sources have been used. In this list I give the title of the manuscript or version, followed by the place and date of first publication. In this listing we do not seek to priviledge any particular copy chronologically apart from the first three.

Dunhuang fragment, London 2008
This is a manuscript fragment from Dunhuang now in the collections of the British Library, London. It is the oldest surviving text giving a recognisable portion of the narrative. It was published first in Sam van Schaik and Kazushi Iwao, “Fragments of the Testament of Ba from Dunhuang,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 128 (2008): 477-88. This will be referred to in this book as the BL fragment.

དབའ་བཞེད་ Vienna 2000
This is the oldest known version of the text known so far and the focus of the present study. It was first published in Pasang Wangdu and Hildegard Diemberger, dBa’ bzhed: The Royal Narrative Concerning the Bringing of the Buddha's Doctrine to Tibet (Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2000). The text, casually but correctly written in a cursive hand, was reproduced photographically. The same manuscript was reproduced as a photo-lithograph facsimile in volume 36 of Bod gyi lo rgyus rnam thar phyogs bsgrigs gnyis pa published from Ziling in 2011 (see TBRC W1PD153537).  This will be referred to as dBa’ (2000).

རྦ་བཞེད་ Ziling 2011
This version was reproduced as a photo-lithograph facsimile in volume 36 of Bod gyi lo rgyus rnam thar phyogs bsgrigs gnyis pa,  published from Ziling in 2011 (see TBRC W1PD153537).  This text is closely related to dBa’ (2000) in paleographic terms and the narrative also corresponds up to folio 6v, after which the text turns to events in the life of the Buddha. This will be referred to here as rBa (2011.1).

སྦ་བཞེད་ Paris 1961
This version appeared in R. A. Stein, Une chronique ancienne de bSam-yas (Paris : Institut des hautes études chinoises, 1961). The publication consists of a facsimile of a hand-copy of an old manuscript made for Hugh Richardson, the well-known pioneer of Tibetan studies. Stein collated this with a second manuscript in the possession of G. Tucci. The Richardson version will be referred to here as sBa (1961.1), while the Tucci manuscript used for collation by Stein referred to as sBa (1961.2).

སྦ་བཞེད་ Pecin 1982
This version, published by mGon po rGyal mtshan under the title sBa bzhed, was issued from Pecin in 1980 and 1982 (see TBRC W20000). The text presented is based on three allied manuscripts not otherwise know. In this book, this version is referred to as the sBa (1982). In time, as the three copies behind this version become know, it may be possible to refer to the three manuscripts as: sBa (1982.1), sBa (1982.2) and sBa (1982.3).

སྦ་བཞེད་ Pecin 2009
This version was published as part of the <rBa bzhed> phyogs bsgrigs edited by bDe skyid and issued from Pecin in 2009 (pp. 80–158). It consists of an edited transcription of a source resembling sBa (1982) and this source may turn out to be one of the three manuscripts used by mGon po rGyal mtshan, i.e. sBa (1982.1, 2 or 3). This version, in any event, will be referred to here as sBa (2009.1).

ཆོས་འབྱུང་གི་ཡི་གེ་ཞིབ་མོ་ Pecin 2009
This version was also published as part of the <rBa bzhed> phyogs bsgrigs edited by bDe skyid and issued in 2009 (pp. 159–236). It consists of an edited transcription of a source resembling sBa (1961.1-2) but since a transcription of that is also included in the phyogs bsgrigs, this source comes from elsewhere, and may also turn out to be one of the three manuscripts used to create sBa (1982). This version, in any event, will be referred to here as sBa (2009.2).

རྦ་བཞེད་ Ziling 2011
This version was reproduced in a photo-lithograph facsimile in volume 36 of Bod gyi lo rgyus rnam thar phyogs bsgrigs gnyis pa published from Ziling in 2011 (see TBRC W1PD153537).  This copy, neaty written in a dense cursive hand, stands in the same Zhabs btag ma recension as sBa (1961.1-2) and sBa (2009.2). It is referred to in this book as rBa (2011.2).

Concordance of text sources and abbreviations

BL fragment            Dunhuang fragment, London 2008
dBa‘ (2000)            དབའ་བཞེད་ Vienna 2000   
rBa (2011.1)            རྦ་བཞེད་ Ziling 2011
sBa (1961.1-2)            སྦ་བཞེད་ Paris 1961
sBa (1982.1-3)            སྦ་བཞེད་ Pecin 1982
sBa (2009.1)            སྦ་བཞེད་ Pecin 2009
sBa (2009.2)            ཆོས་འབྱུང་གི་ཡི་གེ་ཞིབ་མོ་ Pecin 2009
rBa (2011.2)            རྦ་བཞེད་ Ziling 2011

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