 So, well, welcome to everyone. This is the second event of the Robert HNO Family Foundation lecture series on Chinese Buddhism of this year. You might remember that we had a launching event on Buddhist arts, Chinese Buddhist arts and material culture. And this particular lecture will be engaging with the broader team of the intellectual history of Chinese Buddhism. And of course, it is my pleasure to thank again the HNO Family Foundation for their support in developing this very exciting series of lectures. It's also a particularly great pleasure to be opening what promises to be a highly interesting talk by one of the leading figures in the field of Buddhist theology as a whole of Buddhist philosophy and of Chinese Buddhism. And I also take some pleasure and also some emotion in introducing what will be the last talk I share as the chair of the Center of Buddhist Studies, because as some of you know, I will be leaving to us at the end of this year. And since I am not myself an expert of Chinese Buddhism, as is very well known as well, and since I didn't have the privilege to read a lot of Professor Funayama's work because he has published extensively in Japanese, in the language I have yet to learn, I have asked a very dear friend of Funayama and very well-known experts of Buddhist studies and a very grand connoisseur of also Japanese scholarship who has been bleaching a lot between the both worlds of Japanese Buddhist studies and Buddhist studies in Europe and in America. So it's a great pleasure to invite Professor Jean-Althe Tseo, who is professor in the study of Buddhism at Laigana University, to present properly Funayama's work. Well, thank you very much for your kind introduction of me to introduce, Professor Funayama. I think part of what you said was slightly misleading. I'm also not a scholar of Chinese Buddhism and not claimed to be. But that's certainly not true of our guest. But to say that he is a scholar of Chinese Buddhism is also, in a sense, misleading because the implication is that that is what he does. But in fact, Professor Funayama is in some respects almost unique in that his background and his formation in the French sense is actually in both the study of Indian Buddhism and in the Buddhism of China. And he began his work. And if you look at his quite extensive publication record, both in English and in Japanese, what you will find is that he has contributed extensively. And so both broadly, I would say, but also very deeply to the study primarily of logic and epistemological traditions of later Indian Buddhism. At the same time, he is also a specialist indeed in Chinese Buddhism. And I wanted to, in the course of introducing him to talk just a little bit about why I think what he brings to the study of Chinese Buddhism is, well, it's a very overused word and usually used incorrectly. But I think in this case, one can say, what he brings is really unique. And the reason is as follows. That for a long time in the modern history of the study of Buddhism, scholars have appreciated sources in Chinese. And those people who are interested in the study of Buddhism from the Indian side primarily have looked at Chinese sources and tried to understand how they can be read and used really if one is honest about it as a kind of encoded Sanskrit. So these are Indian texts, which happen, unfortunately, to be written in Chinese. So that's one way of looking at it. On the other hand, scholars who are looking at Chinese Buddhism view, generally speaking, sources in Chinese as sort of universally available, whatever is there, and just kind of look at it. Because of profiling, I would think it's fair to say because of Professor Konayama's unique background and the kind of problematic he brings to the study, he looks at Chinese sources, that is to say, sources in Chinese, and tries to understand them with different lenses, not just a single lens. And one of the things that he has really stressed in, I would say, his scholarship over the last 10 or 15 years is that our adoption of a way of understanding Chinese sources as either authentic Indian sources or Chinese apocrypha or forgeries or questionable texts, this is really to fundamentally misunderstand their nature. And so in the course of his research, he has asked questions like, what does it mean to translate a text into Chinese? How does that process work, not in the sense of trying to know what did the person who the call of funds tell us took up the brush, what did he do, but rather conceptually what's going on in the process of transforming Indian material into Chinese? What happens when scripture summaries are produced? What happens when texts are produced that are inspirationally Indian but in some sense composed in China? And he used the example, if I remember right, of the production of a car, or was it a stereo or something like that. Anyway, the production of a car is easy enough example. You have a car which is put together in Ohio out of some Japanese parts, some parts which come from Southeast Asia, and it's put together and it gets the name of a Japanese carmaker on it. Is that a Japanese car? Is it an American car? What is it? I think what Professor Phanama suggests is this is the wrong question. So in that perspective, he is also looking at, and he will talk to us today, I think, about a very important text, which we will, a small part of which we will read together tomorrow, which is one of the foundational texts, in fact, for all of East Asian Buddhism. And I am not going to tread on his territory by talking about the content, but simply to say that all of us are really thrilled and delighted to have with us a truly interesting scholar. Welcome. OK, thank you very much. Really kind and thoughtful comments of Professor Silk. That's the closest it's going to get. First of all, I want to say thank you very much for all of you for coming to this lecture. And it is really my great honor to be here, actually, for the first time at SOAS. And I also thank the Robert Hall Foundation, which supports my visit. And of course, I want to say thank you very much for all kind arrangements done by Dr. Bonson Tunier. So I'd like to start my talk. This is related with one of my recent topics. And the main text I'm talking today is nothing to do with Indian Buddhism, actually, because it is called apocryphal text. But I would like to suggest some common characters between the Indian Buddhist sutras and Chinese apocryphal texts in the final part of my talk. So I want to start. Can I do this? Is this one? Yeah, OK, thank you. So the text I will take up today is called Fan Wang Jin in Chinese. This Chinese Buddhist scripture exerted enormous influence on the formation and evolution on the idea of bodhisattva precepts in East Asian Buddhism. Traditionally, it is regarded as an authentic text of Indian Buddhism, translated by the central Asian monk, Kumara Jiva, who was active at present day Xi'an, the old Chang'an, during the first decade of the fifth century. However, numerous modern studies have clarified already that it is not a pure translation by the Chinese Buddhist apocryphal. The term Chinese Buddhist apocryphal refers to those scriptures, or the genre of such scriptures, that while appearing in form to be purely Chinese translation of a scripture or sutra originating in India, were in fact composed in China. The today's text Fan Wang Jin was most probably composed during 450 and 480 CE. The main context of the text are bodhisattva precepts or bodhisattva's daily life in general in Mahayana. However, the precepts include the teachings such as do not kill any living beings, do not tell a lie, or do not eat meat, do not drink alcohol, which I don't like, all of which represent general aspects of Mahayana. The Fan Wang Jin also indicates or includes some quite unique rules too, one of which is do not eat five pungent vegetables. The five pungent means five kinds of vegetables which intensively with intensive order, such as garlic and green onion. Now let's think about the meaning and the possible translation of the title Fan Wang Jin. Maybe you feel very strange about my questions about the translation of Fan Wang Jin, but actually after I carefully studied the contents and tried the Japanese translation, I found that nobody had carefully thought about this problem. So as a matter of fact, this is a big problem. Previous studies use the translations such as Brahma's Net Sutra or Brahmajala Sutra. But I feel it inappropriate to use these translations. One of the reasons is the use of Sanskrit words. The typical case is Brahmajala Sutra. All three words are Sanskrit and not English. It is difficult to explain why this Sanskrit translation is convincing and why it is possible to use Sanskrit words for the title of Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha. Fan Wang Jin is not a translation of Sanskrit text. Therefore, the equivalent Sanskrit did not exist in India. Nevertheless, modern scholars like to use Sanskrit words for translation. It is very strange to me at least. In Chinese Buddhism are translations of Sanskrit word Brahma as created god in Hinduism. And then the Brahma is used in the masculine singular form in Sanskrit. However, to the contrary, the Fan Wang Jin itself uses the signograph, Chinese characters, Fan, always as plural, not in singular form, without exception in the text. Therefore, the meaning of Fan cannot be created god Brahma in the singular form in the case of this Sutra, this Fan Wang Jin. I understand that Fan means pure divinities who came to hear the Buddhist teaching of this text. Each holding and stick, a stick with banners, the top of which is ornamented with a special kind of net. By the way, I tried to explain by using illustration, but it was not easy to find the best pictures I want to use. But I just found this one. I imagine this type of stick with banners. And in some cases, Indian gods or Indian bodhisattvas holds this stick and banners like this. So I think this is the meaning of the title Fan Wang Jin. Thus, I like to propose a new translation of the title, scripture or pure divinity's netted banners. But let me stop talking about my argument here because of time constraints. This year in March, I have published an over 500-page monograph about the Fan Wang Jin. The book has seven chapters, and two chapters are directly related to today's talk. In chapter 2 in Orange, I made an edition of the text by using 22 versions of manuscripts, stone inscriptions, and later woodblock printed editions. And this is the breakdown of 22 sources I consulted to make a critical edition. Can I go back to the previous page? How can I go back? Which one? It's OK. The left one is the book. Ah, this one. Thank you. Another point I personally think significant is chapter 5. This one. It is the world's first study of an old important manuscript of the Fan Wang Jin copied in 757 CE. Currently preserved in Kyoto National Museum Japan, registered as important cultural property of Japan. Chapter 5 is a diplomatic edition of the whole manuscript, including marginal notes. I'm sorry, I can't show you the picture itself because I don't have any permission of the museum. But this is the one I tried, I published in chapter 7. So this is the main part. And sometimes these words are amended by using marginal space. And there are some comments on the top sometimes. And this manuscript itself has two colors, black and red. But in the case of the novel publication, I can't use two colors. So I distinguished the difference of colors by using brackets. This means red, written by red ink. Next, I will explain the basic contents of the text. Fan Wang Jin is made of two fascicles, or in Chinese language, it is called scrolls or chuang. Fascicle 1 is spent for the detailed explanation of Bodhisattva's religious practice, especially on the 40 stages of Bodhisattva practice. And Fascicle 2 is renowned for its unique theory of the 10 major and the 48 minor offenses or transgressions. Bodhisattva should not do. The term major offenses signifies the 10 most serious offenses for the Bodhisattvas, such as intentionally killing other beings. If a Bodhisattva commits a major offense in an intentional way for many times, then he or she is not a Bodhisattva any longer. As a result, the possibility of enlightenment and salvation is extinguished. Thus, the Fan Wang Jin is fundamental to understanding the history of Mahayana practice in Sino-sphere. Furthermore, the text has philological significance, too, too many variants. That's my point. I want to talk about this one. We normally rely on the Taishou Canon, a modern Canon, as the basis for the study of Buddhist texts. The Taishou edition of the Fan Wang Jin is a version of the text copied from the second Korean edition, which was made in the first half of the 13th century, along with a collation of five woodblock printed editions dating from the 12th century or later. On the other hand, excellent versions of Fan Wang Jin dating to earlier periods include early Dongwan manuscripts, one stone steely version or stone version from the 8th century, and two Japanese manuscripts, one dated 757, as I said, and the other in 9th century. They reveal intriguing details concerning the formation and reformation of this scripture. Generally speaking, the use of manuscripts of the Fan Wang Jin offers two important contributions to philological research, I think. First, a careful comparison of early manuscripts and woodblock print editions reveals that the Fan Wang Jin was reformed again and again over the centuries. Manuscripts before the 10th century offer particularly valuable data about the texts' earlier form, as it existed prior to the woodblock printed editions of the Buddhist canon, which started with Kaibao canon at the end of the 10th century. Second, a large number of variants in the Fan Wang Jin are worthy of attention. The second fascicle of the Fan Wang Jin in the Seven Pages Long in Taishou edition has more than 300 locations for which variant readings exist, more than 300 variants. This is a quite large number when compared with other texts. For example, the second one, Gunabhadra's translation of the three and other sutras is of nearly the same length, seven pages in Taishou. But it has only 79 locations of variant readings. Actually, 79 means very many. Similarly, the first seven pages of Xuanzang's famous translation of the Great Sutra of Wisdom, Mahaprajna Paramita, have only 24 locations of variant readings in the first seven pages. So, compared with these cases, the existence of more than 300 locations of variant readings of the Fan Wang Jin in Taishou edition deserves special attention. Moreover, by incorporating variants from nine manuscripts, two stone carvings, and 11 woodblock print editions, I have found that the number of variants becomes much higher than the given in the Taishou canon. The number of variants in my book is over 660. So, just compare the number of 660 with Xuanzang's translation of Great Sutra of Wisdom, which has only 24 variants. So, I'm tempted to think about, ask my very naive question, what is the difference of these? Maybe in the case of the Great Sutra of Wisdom, it is a repetition of the stereotyped expression over throughout the 600 fascicles. So, actually, it is not very interesting to read through. And I've heard that the latest guy who read through the 600 juan of the Great Sutra of Wisdom is not human, but scanner. I think this is true. But in the case of the Fan Wenjin, it has over 660 variants. And I think that it is because of, it shows the curiosity of readers and they could understand the contents. Therefore, and it is directly related with their actual life as Bodhisattva practice. Therefore, they can compare the contents of the text with what they are doing in reality. So, if there is any difference, readers are tempted to change some wording. Therefore, such a big number of variant readings took place. This is my personal speculation. Please see the next slide. I want to speak about the implication of Fan Wenjin's too many variant readings. I pay special attention to the two points. First, the Fan Wenjin of the Taishou edition does not show the form before the production of the woodblock editions. Still more, the earlier text in the form of manuscript to say nothing of the original form. Taishou edition only, they are based on the woodblock print editions, which is probably more than 700 years after the original sutra. And second, the number of variant readings in the Fan Wenjin is too many to an unprecedented level. When compared with normal Chinese Buddhist translations. Here, a lot of people, including me, may have questions. For example, how was the Fan Wenjin prior to the woodblock print age? Can we get access to the original form, which was composed in the fifth century? And why were such copious amounts of variants made in late, later periods? Actually, I want to ask these questions to me, or I want to ask someone else who knows, but it is not easy to make a reply to these questions. So in order to give possible answers to these questions, I think it is significant to divide a long history of the Fan Wenjin roughly into two periods. In the first period, number one, the earliest form of the text we can attest through 22 versions prevailed in China. Actually, it is the period around 500 to 700 CE. As I said above, the original text was composed around 450 to 80, I'm sorry. Therefore, the first period 500 to 700 cannot directly relate it with the original period of the text. Nevertheless, this is the earliest period we can trace and identify by using philological sources. In fact, it is impossible to confirm the original form by any of extant versions, simply because we don't have a manuscript in the fifth century. However, at the same time, we can philologically ascertain the earliest if not original form of the Fan Wenjin on the basis of plural sources. They are old manuscripts and the oldest commentary. There are three manuscripts, actually. One is Dunhuang manuscript, B.D. in 1972, currently kept in Beijing, China. The Chinese catalog suggests the dating seventh or eighth century. The second manuscript is a catalog. The second manuscript is a Chinese manuscript, formally kept by Nakamura Fusetsu, Japanese calligrapher, currently kept in calligraphy museum Tokyo. Fortunately, beautiful color pictures of the manuscript are published. The third manuscript is dated 757 CE in the color form, currently preserved in Tokyo National Museum, Kyoto National Museum, as I said before. In addition to these three manuscripts, we can also consult the oldest commentary entitled Commentary on the Bodhisattva Precepts, composed by Chi. This is not worthy that this commentary is based on remarkably old wording sometimes of the Fan Wenjin. Therefore, by using these plural sources, we can make a critical addition of the earliest form, if not the original, the earliest form of the text to ascertain the textual form in the first period. The second period, this one, number two in blue color, signifies the start of revisions or commendation. In other words, foundation of later editions. This period started around 700 CE. With regard to this period, too, we have two kinds of historical sources to ascertain the initiation of revision. One is what is called stone sutra or stone carving produced at Fan Shan near Beijing in the early 8th century. Another one is a manuscript available online. It is a Japanese manuscript in the 9th century, formally kept in Horyuji Monastery in Ara, and currently preserved in Tokyo National Museum as important cultural property. The other source is Fa Zhang's commentary, composed nearly at the same time at the turn of the 8th century. The variant readings commonly tested in the three texts and Fa Zhang's commentary unanimously indicate that the change of the text started around the beginning of the 8th century. There are examples of three significant manuscripts in the first period. This is the Du Wan manuscript and Nakamura Fusetsu collection. This is the one preserved in Kyoto National Museum. Actually, this is used by using two colors. This is okay because this is open. The first part is open online. Next one. These are examples of the two important sources in the second period. One is Fan Shan stone sutra carved in stone around the beginning of the 8th century, and another one is Horyuji manuscript in the 9th century. The classification of the two periods are summarized in this way. First, we can assume the original form composed by the original author, or authors around 450 to 480. But we cannot attest this form by using any kind of manuscript. And from the theological sources, we can divide the period into two succeeding periods. The one is the earliest form. This is from 500 to 70. And the revision started, or foundation of later edition started, around 700 CE. So this means that there is a border either before or after 700 CE. And that is exactly the time when this stone version was carved. And Fan Shan's commentary also was made composed exactly at the same time. So what are characteristics of textual emanation in the second period? That is my next question. First of all, I must emphasize the fundamental feature of the text in the first period. Usually, we assume that the original form of the text shows the best form, and by lapse of time, later transmissions expose a variety of deterioration of the text. So the quality is getting lower and lower and lower. In contrast to this usual assumption, the earliest form of the Fan Wan Jin certainly gives evidence of rather low quality of wording, both grammatically and stylistically. So it's very hard to read. And it's a very strange text. In short, the earliest text around 500 to 700 CE is full of ambiguous and inconsistent words. I will give some typical example of this feature on the next slide, but before that, I want to claim that the problem of quality in the first period caused the necessity of revision in the second period. Because of the bad character of the earlier form, people at later period had to change or improve the wording. And under the condition that the earliest form has ambiguity and inconsistency, the readers are quietly requested to react to the problem of the first period. The reaction has actually two options. One is to leave the text, all the text as it is, without any change. This type. In this case, and inconsistency of all the text are not resolved. In fact, there are lots of such passages in the text of the second period, too. The other option is to revise the text or change the wording. This bold reaction realizes clear and consistent wording. However, at the same time, revision of the sacred text has something to do with the criticism or refutation of Buddha's words. So pious believers are very careful about changing words. Two kinds of amendmentation is possible, as I wrote shown here. One is amendmentation concerning the meaning and thought. However, this type of amendmentation is a small minority in the case of the Fan Wenjin. The other type of amendmentation is stylistic improvement of wording without changing the meaning of the sentence. The great majority of amendmentation belongs to the second type, this second type in the case of the Fan Wenjin. More importantly, a large majority of those variants suggest not scribble errors, but a clear intention to improve ambiguous or inconsistent wording in the original text of the Fan Wenjin. Indeed, some kind of amendmentation should be caused by scribes' carelessness or the lack of concentration. But the number of such miscopying is very few in the case of Fan Wenjin. So here are three examples of the first case of amendmentation. This means this one, amendmentation concerning religious meaning, which is very few. The earliest form has the expression Buddha's great presets like here. Great is colored, blue. And it was amended to Buddha's precepts of great vehicle or Mahayana by adding the synograph, shen, vehicle to express the attitude of Mahayana fundamentalism in my conjecture. The second example shows a slight change of meaning from practicing or acting as bodhisattva to practicing bodhisattva path by adding synograph dao or path. The third example is concerned with the similarity of character form between Zhu, master, this word, and shen, living. As I said, only a small minority of amendmentation belong to this type. However, the next slide shows three other examples of the second type. Stylistic amendmentation without changing meanings. The first example is an attempt to resolve grammatical ambiguity of the first phrase. I mean the first phrase means here. So the earliest form just said any sick person, respect, just as the Buddha. So the meaning, each word is clear but it is very unclear from the meaning. So later edition adds these three Chinese characters. Adding seeing, that means that when you see any sick person then you always should respect them just as you respect the Buddha. So by adding three characters the syntax and grammar becomes very clear. And the second example aims at consistent phraseology before commit a right and impure offense. So there is no change around here but the former part improved by using rule and jer which means that if you do not on purpose then jer means that end of conditional clause then you commit a right and impure offense. So by using four character expression which is quite common in Chinese Buddhist translation it is rewritten in this way and it is a clarification of the syntax of if and when. The third example is interesting at least to me. On the basis of Buddha nature thought which is very deeply concerned with the essential part of the Phan Wan Jin this text evidently assumes the existence of the potentiality for any animals to become a Buddha in the future. So even a cat can be a Buddha later. And hence the text says in a context like this in one context you are an animal arouse the mind of Bodhisattva and then it was changed into a you are an animal arouse the mind of enlightenment or arouse the mind for enlightenment. This phrase is common in Buddhist texts. The problem of commendation in the second period is deeply related with the Chinese attitude to sacred text I think. Phan Wan Jin has more than 660 variants in 22 versions. This is an extraordinary number I think. Question is why such a huge number of corrections were necessary for this text? As I said above this is based on the nature of the earliest form of the text as being of rather low quality of expression in terms of ambiguity and inconsistency. This is indeed true but what was the intention of those who dared to change the wording of sacred text? Did they attack the Shakyamuni Buddha or not? In order to answer this I want to draw your attention to the Northern Song commentator whose name is Yuxian this person, Yuxian who died in 1163. A careful reading of his commentary on Tien Tai Chi's classical work Commentary on the Bodhisattva Precepts reveal that Yuxian held two interesting views for the critical selection of variant readings. I mean that his commentary called such in Chinese is a kind of sub-commentary on Chi's commentary so commentary on commentary. As for the reasons for adoption adopting a certain reading Yuxian certainly gives priority to the founder of this school Chi. For example, Yuxian says this is our great master's reading therefore we have to take that so this is conservatist idea I think and when he agrees on the reading of someone else which is not Chi's reading he says it is also fine or it also makes sense although it differs from great master's reading. So this is a logical choice I think. More interesting are the reasons for the rejection of a variant I think. Number here reasons for rejection of other variants. So Yuxian says errors and omissions wrong omissions can happen at any time. This is really modern scientific idea don't you think so? He also says later scribes easily fail to make a correct copy like me I always miss copy and this is a scribal error this is also one of typical examples of Yuxian. And these expressions suggest Yuxian's view on the nature of manuscripts namely, manuscripts are far from perfect and they are not free from scribal errors. So let me summarize Yuxian's idea in his commentary. He claims the necessity of improvement of the Fan Wan Jin and he tried to justify his choice and his idea is just like this. First, Yuxian takes the Fan Wan Jin not as an apocryphon but as a Kumara Jiva's authentic translation this is the idea opposite to modern view we call Fan Wan Jin as apocryphal work and consequently to Yuxian the Fan Wan Jin is the Buddha Shakyamuni's true words it is nothing to do with apocryphal character and second Yuxian considers that no manuscript is free from scribal errors third, Yuxian attempts to improve the transmitted Fan Wan Jin in China and consequently restore the original state of the Buddha's words as correctly translated by Kumara Jiva Yuxian's intention is not to deny the Buddha's wording itself but to correct the garbled Chinese text after Kumara Jiva's death and fourth Yuxian does not take into account the possibility of Chinese scribal emanation in a time between Kumara Jiva and himself so he just gives the negative evaluation to scribal function my explanation is tentatively based on Yuxian's commentary only therefore it is still a matter of speculation however I hope that this case this case study will lead to our better understanding sometime in the future so among the four points the fourth especially thought provoking to me exactly the same view is found in the latest theological work of professor Dr. Ernst Steinköner Vienna in his edition of the 8th century Sanskrit commentary on epistemological work of Indian Buddhism he wrote in this way and in my words Steinköner states the following two points these two points number one only the author's work is important in the case of Mahayana treatises and number two scribal changes are all wrong and valueless in the history of thought for example, Nagarjuna's work is important but the scribes copying wrong errors of Nagarjuna's work is meaningless in my view Steinköner has in common with Yuxian with regard to their negative evaluation of scribal improvement after the author however I suppose that there is still some room for reevaluation or reconsideration of scribes' activity or scribes' role Steinköner's view is quite understandable and correct I think because he deals with a philosophical work as a single author however on the other hand how about the case of Mahayana sutras and other orthodox sutras in India we know that wisdom sutra Prajnaparamita sutra in India has a history of often repeated rewriting and reediting again and again and the same is true for the history of other Indian Mahayana sutras Lotus Sutra, Sattarma Pundarika which has various Chinese translations and Sanskrit versions therefore I don't think that Steinköner's attitude is attitude to single authored theological work is applicable to Sanskrit Mahayana sutras too if we totally deny the evaluation of later revision or reedition we cannot explain a long history of Mahayana sutras over centuries furthermore exactly the same viewpoint is indispensable when we trace a history of Phanwanjin and its later reformation so needless to say there is a fundamental difference between Indian Mahayana sutras and Chinese Buddhist apocrypha the former is made in India and the latter in China therefore the language used language is also different and the actual way of revision and reedition has also difference Indic Mahayana sutras often realized reformation in the form of either enlargement or deduction sometimes new chapters were added for enlargement of the text however such a kind of revision is not found in the case of Phanwanjin immigration is realized by changing some Chinese characters on the minimal level and not addition or deduction of sections is discernible no deduction and delusion is discernible in spite of such fundamental difference we are able to find some characteristic characters between them firstly both Indic Mahayana sutras and Chinese Buddhist apocrypha has anonymous works anonymous works and those anonymous authors were active after the Buddha Shakyamuni Buddha and secondly both have a kind a long history of reformation and reformation of the earlier text the most noticeable affinity is the fact that later changes of words were made not by mistakes or errors but with a clear intention for revision of the text in this sense it is decisively important to give the changes of early the positive evaluation in the case of Mahayana sutras and Chinese Buddhist apocrypha so finally I'd like to speak about the methodological remarks on the condition editorial work of course I intend how to edit a text like the Phan Wan Jin which has a large amount of variance and evolves even after the formation of the original form in the case of the critical edition of the earliest form of the Phan Wan Jin it is possible enough to make a critical edition based on critical apparatus in a normal way for example the slide on the screen like this slide on the screen is a critical edition of the earliest form and the critical apparatus on the second major offense in my monograph here I just followed a normal traditional way and presentation in Indian Buddhist philology the method here has no contradictions with Stinecomner's methodology because I am I aim to present the earliest form of the text by using the 22 versions therefore the style of critical apparatus is also fit for the normal methodology I admit that the editorial work goes well in so far as I present the earliest form as critical edition however at the same time I see a serious problem of this type of critical apparatus regarding the later evolution it is almost impossible to understand what kind of revision was made in later periods if we when we see this list of change so this is effective to confirm the earliest form but this is not really good to explain later development or later changes in my conjecture in order to solve this problem I decided to add a selected list of later editions of my monograph like this I chose I first I presented the earliest form as a critical edition and this is the basis of my critical decision and after that I introduced six kinds of the other important resensions in a chronological sequence and one manuscript in 757 this one and the next one is the one stone sutra at the beginning of the 8th century and the next one is one manuscript in the 9th century and actually these three sources are much prior before than the before the the wood proclinth editions and this actually suggest the first original form and this shows the start of revision and this also reflects the start of revision and then later I presented the first edition of Korean tripitaka and then the most famous one for us the second version second edition of Korean tripitaka so in this way I presented I made a list of six major versions as diplomatic editions not a critical edition, diplomatic edition only difference is that I try to add punctuation in order to make it clear so I think this is the one I try to present in my new monograph this is in a sense just a mixture of the critical edition in the western style and the diplomatic edition in the East Asian traditional style but at least I thought that only this critical from this critical apparatus it is extremely difficult or actually almost impossible to understand the later changes therefore I wanted to add these later versions by choosing not showing all of them but choosing only six important ones and in order to make it clear I also add underline like this for easy comparison between this and this and this so I don't know whether my new work and new idea goes good or anybody else will follow me I don't know but I would like to present as one style or one challenge to proceed just one step further to the next age so any critical remarks is welcome thank you very much for this amazing lecture and we clearly see that it represents a considerable work and thoughtful thinking about how to represent the kind of life and plurality of the most central text it shows also very much the connection between the kind of diversity and use that has been used and read and reinterpreted as a result and not unlike the larger Prajna Paramita which maybe was never read in full and it was extremely interesting question on the kind of methodological level as how to deal with multiple texts with living texts I'm sure there will be a lot of questions there was a lot of chattering on the front row so I'm sure they are getting ready to articulate their questions maybe to open up the discussion I was wondering whether so you about this issue of Urtext you contrasted the contrast you established between Shastras and Mariana Sutras grouping very much the Chinese apocryphal apocrypha Mariana Sutras was between the Shastras being author text and the Sutras being an author less in a way and more fluid and this is of course, for example, this junction that was done earlier by Professor Ruegg for example and Steichenler as a point that is representing this so I was wondering in this particular case actually one of Steichenler's other student cruiser actually even started relativising the very notion of an Urtext in the question of Shastras for particular cases like the Tarkachvala where texts emerged Shastras attached to a particular name emerged out of the notes of students and were edited later but in the particular case of the Fan Wang Jing to zoom back into the kind of Sutras genre I was wondering because you seem to take the earlier version as a bit in a way hesitant and ambiguous and this in itself seems to be representing not so an early situation but I was wondering whether you would qualify this as really the Ur version or a frozen written version of something very lively that is still going on and for which we have only very rare witnesses and if you could develop a little bit on how what you understand as the kind of early state of formation of the Fan Wang Jing so I try to clearly distinguish the two cases the earliest form and the later form but the question is that what about the original form and that is a very important question but as far as I check as far as I carefully try to carefully check the possibility of the earliest form it is very difficult to assume the Ur text in a very clear and non ambiguous text in that case suppose the original text is very clear then we don't explain why such a strange unclear text was produced later and then came back to the original one in later period and as far as I check earliest manuscript and by using especially by using three manuscripts and the oldest manuscript commentary by Tien Tai Chi then all of them suggest this form so there is no old source which suggest the other possibilities yeah at least philologically maybe this is a limit by present situation and someone else may find the new text which is very old and very close to the later text but I think it is not very it is not very likely and of course I would like to assume that the original form is very close to this one yet I have to admit the difference between the old text which is Uo text which I can't hear and the second oldest one which I called earliest excellent text the reason is that in some commentaries especially in the Tien Tai Chi is oldest commentary there is a quotation of Sutras the Fan Wan Jin passages not appear in any of text and Tien Tai Chi's commentary is the oldest one therefore I would like to assume that Uo text has a little different version different phraseology and expressions which disappears for some reason and we cannot place we cannot put in the correct place so it's just at least of the unidentified old passage therefore that is there the evidence for assuming the slight difference between Uo text and the earliest version I don't like to say that this earliest version is the original text that's what I don't mean thank you and also maybe the question is goes to the formation of Vinaya too because Fan Wan Jin is the Mahayana type of Vinaya according to Chinese understanding of course this is not a Vinaya but a kind of monastic rule and lay rule which has equivalence equivalent in the form of Vinaya in the public text but I don't have any special idea about that thank you first of all thank you very much I really enjoyed it and there are many things that you might already be inspiring I'm sure you wouldn't have but I maybe I should say something also in defense of the larger Paraniparamita no and the thing is that I don't think that the reason why there are so few variants is really due to the text itself because all of Xuanzang translation has very few variants so I just had a quick look at the for instance the Mahayana also there are very few variants and in other texts and I think the reason is that at the time the transition between translation and transmission was very smooth and very quick in fact so we there are these very interesting manuscripts produced in Chang'an studied by Fuji and Akira and they show that the texts were copied by scriptoria which also were left in part with translation teams so basically the quality of the transmitted text was fairly high from the beginning and so generally I think there was less room for samples that we find like in the case of earlier texts so that's how I felt I had to to say something but I had a question about because I find very very intriguing and suggestive the fact that the earliest texts that you can reconstruct be that the original one but the earliest one in it linguistically is very old as a Chinese text and so since we seem to know I mean we know that this is an apocryphal text the oddity and this middle wooden syntactic quality which you completely show is the regular library it does remind me of early translation so I wonder if that's not the this kind of syntax or syntax it might not be a way to attempt to reproduce the language of translation in a way you know these people knew how to fabricate texts I mean she seemed to do it in another case of a text which is clearly apocryphal and it's quite carefully crafted as a translation in the use even of syntactical construction so I just I don't know that's something that came to my mind I don't know whether it makes sense to you I feel I have the impression that the original author of the Fan Wan Jin has a very strong consciousness about the translation style and they want to follow and they want to make it appear as if it was translated and sometimes the very odd sequence of words which is not easy to understand is they thought it is a common character of Chinese Buddhist translation but another point I would like to add is that this is not known so far this is my new contribution I think so far on the Taisho edition and the base text such as the second Korean version was used and even reading these woodblock print editions some modern scholars claim wanted to claim that Fan Wan Jin is wording was very strange and difficult to read and grammatically incorrect sometimes therefore they would like to assume that the author of the Fan Wan Jin was not Chinese but Central Asian but I don't like to agree with the idea it is too hasty conclusion and thinking about my case or my friends or any students around me I have a lot of I know a lot of examples who are Japanese but their Japanese is very bad so it is concerned with level of education I think and in case of monastics for example some Chinese aesthetics is very bad may be bad at writing so from the bad quality of writing style we cannot conclude that the author is not Chinese it is too much and too hasty I think first of all I'd like to echo what Professor Zacchetti said thanking you but also for raising very many stimulating questions I want to ask you about a single one of them right now which is that if I understood you right you you propose the kind of contrast between this fluid situation of Indian Buddhist scriptures let's say in Sanskrit to be vague about it and the situation that you find in the text that you have studied here in that what you propose what I understood you to propose is a kind of anarchy in the Indian situation lots of variants lots of maybe variants is the wrong word lots of different wording and here what you see is a kind of self-conscious revision have I understood you right so far okay because I wonder if I'm not sure I agree with that but I wonder if partly the picture emerges because the chronology of the sources is so clear thanks to your work whereas in the Indian case we have no idea of the chronology of the sources so we can't develop a hypothesis of revision I agree but when I started my work I wanted to talk about the background of my interest research interest first of all when I found such a different wording and variant readings in the phalangean I immediately wanted to connect this situation with Indian Mahayana texts therefore I try to find the preceding case studies which very nicely deal with this type of text in the field of Mahayana but I could not find only the recension A, recension B or Kashi Garu text like this and there is no comparison just a list of the enumeration and there is no analysis therefore I cannot I gave up using such a text and instead I would like to make my own version then as a next stage by using computer actually I'm not very good at computer but I have some friends who are skilled in computer programming and so on so I try to ask them to make a program to deal with this kind of text as a software but many of them just told me that don't do like that don't think in that way writing the computer software is not so easy and you need some platform text or platform methodology on which we have some variant or change of application form so I thought at first that I wanted to relativize each text not absolutize the original text so by choosing which one do you like to make focus on then if I choose this one then this text comes in front and then as critical apparatus other text is listed in this way and we can use double monitors and so on but the computer specialist of my acquaintance just said that in order to do that you should present your own idea in a printed version otherwise no one among computer specialists can make the software like this because of course this is good for in the case of the Fan-1 gene but if you like to use multilingual sources then the situation changes quite a lot and in the case of the Fan-1 gene nearly all of the variant readings is related with a small change, minimum change and there is no difference like the change of chapters and addition of chapters and so on, just a small number of the minimum change was made but it is quite different in the case of Prajnaparamita Sanskrit text or Saddamapandarika in in so in order to use for the use of such a different type of text you have to make a really good program in advance which I can't do therefore what I did here is just one example in the case of the Fan-1 gene this is not the time to go into detail about this but my new research project is exactly to build this so please this is being done good so the next thing I should do is just join my research team no, no, no, I just I'm a simple user let the program I want to use that thank you and after this promotion of the new established project is there any last question you you raise your hand first, so please thank you thank you for talking I have a very tiny question regarding you Xian because you mentioned that this date is like 1163 that's in the Dalmatian dynasty but then you mentioned in the I'm not sure how you would date the text because if it's not so then that must be the point of period so do you see any kind of because we all know that the religious policy were interesting and also it involves a lot of the promotion really on the side of Dalmatia so do you see any kind of that I don't know say government policies influence the context of the construction of this text regarding you Xian and if we can date it of course yeah dating is not clear that's why I just indicated his death year even the the year of birth is not known but as far as I check this author you Xian refers to only manuscripts reading and not woodblock print I don't know why but that is his circumstances and surroundings so yeah the another one the father also the father is well known this person and his life period is certain but we cannot identify the exact year of the composition of this text so we should last question thank you thank you I was wondering about your method of critical editing as we know critical editing is based on the assessment of errors in your case as you have mentioned most of the revisions starting from the beginning of the 8th century actually assisting the improvement of the text so I wonder what you are actually doing when you choose from among the errors so are you supposed to choose statistically the worst error in case of the earliest version the earliest version but statistically are choosing the worst one no I I simultaneously compared the one Tunghua manuscript and Chinese but Japanese Tokyo version and another version in 757 and in order to choose the original to judge this is the original one my principle simple actually and not always I did not always choose the oldest one and I did not always choose the most difficult reading I know what you mean because usually the very strange variants can be the oldest one then because it does it is not understandable therefore other later want to rewrite in a clear way that is really typical in the case of the text of the second Korean version this one this text is full of reasonable readings but not very old this is just the logical reading as a result of compromising one thing I want to show I forgot to give you the final one this is