[Buddha-l] Re: buddha-l Digest, Vol 21, Issue 64

[Elihu Smith]

> Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 18:07:34 +0100
> From: "Joy Vriens"<joy at vrienstrad.com>
> Subject: [Buddha-l] Mahaayaana suutras
> To: "buddha-l"<buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
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> 
> I generally assumed that mahaayaana suutras were
> written in sanskrit and therefore composed in India.
> But if Dan's observation and Schopen's suggestion
> (both below) hold any truth, then those erudite
> Indian (or neighbourhood countries) monks who went
> to the East, where they spend many years working
> with local erudite monks and translators might have
> composed some of the mahaayaana suutras there in
> sanskrit and then helped translating them in the
> respective languages of the countries they went to.
> Later they could have taken back the "originals"
> with them to India. Is there any evidence for this?
> I am not talking about apocrypha or "translations"
> with missing equivalent Indian originals.
> 
> 

There is a similar theory regarding the source of the
Heart Sutra (which you might exclude as apocrypha but
the wide spread nature of the Heart Sutra makes the
theory interesting): see Jan Nattier "The Heart Sutra:
A Chinese Apocryphal Text?" Journal of the
International Association of Buddhist Studies, 1992,
pp.153 -223.

Elihu