अष्टसाहस्त्रिका प्रज्ञापारमिता: Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita with Haribhadra's Commentary Called Aloka (An Old And Rare Book)

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The Astasahasriki Prajñāpāramitā was first edited by Rejendra- lal Mita (R in marginal references) and published in Biblio- theca Indica, Calcutta, 1888. This edition was based on six Mss. five of which were obtained by different scholars from Nepal and one was a Bengali transcript of a Nepalese original. The oldest dated Ms. bears the date 1061 A. D.; one of the Cambridge Mss. is held by Rajendralal Mitra to bear the date of 1020 A. D., while Bendall thinks that its date to be A. p. 1155 or 1255. Two more Mss. used by Rajendralal Mitra are copies prepared in Nalanda or its neighbourhood in the reigns of Govinda and Rama of the Pala dynasty of Bengal-Bihar. No new Mss. of this work have come to light, though copies are often prepared in Nepal. The result is that we have no more sources to check the text and fill in the gap indicated in the footnote on page 229 of this edition. However, the contents of the original were not much different from what we have them today, or what Haribhadra, its commen- tator, had before him in the 8th or 9th century A. D. This Hari- bhadra records a few variants in his work, but they are not mate- rial and only vagaries of scribes. So, barring the only lacuna on page 229 of this edition, the text of Aşțasāhasrikā is uniformly handed down by tradition.

The edition of Rajendralal Mitra, being the first in the field when critical studies of Buddhist Sanskrit literature were still in infancy, is, however, marred by a number of misprints. Professor Wogihara, the editor of Haribhadra's commentary called Aloka, thought it necessary to re-edit the text in the earlier edition for the benefit of his readers. (1932-35 A. D.). This text in Roman characters along with Aloka, also in Roman script, has proved to be a good check (Win marginal references). I, therefore, prepared my text carefully comparing the two versions thus made available, and further checked it by reference to the Commetary Aloka, Dr. G. Tucci also has published the bare text of Aloka in his edition in GOS, Baroda, 1934. The Ms. material in both these editions for the commentary is almost the same, yet, I must admit that Wogihara's text is superior to that of Tucci.

I, naturally, had the advantage of consulting both these editions in preparing my text.