On the Authorship of the * Śūraṃgama-sūtra Ascribed to *Pāramiti

: Research presented in this paper is primarily based upon two manuscripts from the Kongōji 金剛寺 manuscript set of the Buddhist canon: (1) Zhenyuan xinding Shijiao mulu 貞元新定釋教 錄 [Buddhist Catalogue Newly Revised during the Zhenyuan-era [785–805; T no. 2157; henceforth Zhenyuan lu and abbreviated as Z .) no. 0502-007(a&b)–008 and (2) Z no. 1181-001. The first manuscript is a late-Heian period copy of what appears to be a Nara-era manuscript of the apocryphal Shoulengyan jing 首楞嚴經 [Skt. * Śūraṃgama-sūtra ; Book of the Hero’s March], T no. 945. The second manuscript is a Kamakura-era copy of a Nara period manuscript of the Xu gujin yijing tuji 續古今譯經圖紀 [Supplement to the Portraits and Records of Translated Scriptures, Past and Present, T no. 2152], which is an account of nineteen translators compiled by Zhisheng 智昇 (active 700–740), in 730. Both of our earliest accounts of the composition of the Shoulengyan jing , the Kaiyuan shijiao lu 開元釋教錄 [Catalogue of Buddhist Texts Made during the Kaiyuan-era (713–741)] and Xu gujin yijing tuji agree that Huaidi 懷迪 and an anonymous ‘Indian monk’, rather than *Pāramiti, compiled the Shoulengyan jing . Yet almost all later sources in China and modern secondary studies of this important scripture ascribe the * Śūraṃgama-sūtra to *Pāramiti in error.


4
Lowe et al., 'Guide to Shōsōin Research'. Cf. Iida, 'Shōgōzō kyōkan "Jingo keiun ni nen gogangyō" ni tsuite', and Sakaehara, Shōsōin monjo nyūmon. It is worth noting here that the entire contents of the Shōgozō are currently available on 10 DVDs released by Kunaichō Shōsōin Jimusho shozō Shōgozō kyōkan 宮 内庁正倉院事務所所蔵聖語蔵経卷 (Tokyo: Maruzen 丸善, 2000-) for between ¥900,000-¥1,400,000 (approx. US$8,000-14,000) per DVD. behest of the imperial family during the Nara period . 4 The seven principal sets of the Buddhist canon, copied in Japan during the Nara, Heian (794-1185), and Kamakura (1185Kamakura ( -1333 periods, can also be considered highly accurate and reliable because they were often proofread multiple times by copyists working in a relatively limited geographical area. In terms of the comparative significance between Dunhuang manuscripts and manuscript sets of the Buddhist canon in Japan, Bryan Lowe suggests that 'While Dunhuang materials only contain about thirty-percent of the [contents of the Taishō Buddhist] canon, Nara and Heian manuscripts can be gathered together to comprise nearly the entire canon'. 5 Despite the fact that scholars have been well aware of the limitations of the Taishō-era Buddhist canon almost since its publication between 1924-1935, specifically because it relies chiefly upon the second printing of the Korean canon (ca. 1236-1251), we are still a long way from completing the gigantic project of developing a critical edition of the Chinese Buddhist canon. 6 Thanks to pioneering efforts by members of the Academic Frontier Project of the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies (ICPBS) in Tokyo, Japan, directed by Ochiai Toshinori, we are getting closer to that eventual goal, even if the progress seems to be somewhat piecemeal. 7 Ochiai, 'The Digital Archives of Old Japanese Manuscripts'. There are eight extant manuscript sets of the Buddhist canon in Japan, which include: Nanatsudera issaikyō 七寺一切経, Chūsonji issaikyō 中尊寺一切経, Kōshōji issaikyō 興聖寺一切経, Saihōji issaikyō 西方寺一切経, Natori jingūji issaikyō 名取 新宮寺一切経, Ishiyamadera issaikyō 石山寺一切経, Matsuosha issaikyō 松尾社 一切経, and Shōgozō. 8 Cf. Z no. 1181-001 in Deleanu, 'The Transmission of Xuanzang's Translation', 2: 186, 398. ICPBS recently digitised the Nanatsudera manuscript of Z no. 1181-001, but I have not yet read it.
(tuoluoni 陀羅尼)-in roll seven that may or may not be apocryphal. And third, the Book of the Hero's March promotes ideas and practices that cannot easily be corroborated using Indian Buddhist textual precedents (e.g., self-immolation). 9 Yet it has been considered a 'masterpiece of Chinese philosophy with a Buddhist flavor' by Arthur Waley, Paul Demiéville, and James Benn because it alludes to indigenous Chinese cultural concepts and contains vocabulary that clearly refers to Chinese literature. 10 Benn also points out that the *Śūraṃgama-sūtra seems to have appeared during the 'vibrant ideological scene' toward the end of the reign of Empress Wu Zhao 武曌 (Wu Zetian 武則天,, and certain 'parts of the text may have been written in response to certain statements concerning matters of correct practice contained in an influential work by a Chinese Vinaya master who visited India around the end of the seventh century-Yijing 義淨 (635-713) '. 11 In order to flesh out the dubious provenance of the Book of the Hero's March, I show that the traditionally accepted dating and attribution for the 'translation'-or composition-of this scripture need to be emended because of information found in MS Z no. 1181-001, a medieval Japanese copy of the Xu gujin yijing tuji 續古今譯經圖紀 [Supplement to the Portraits and Records of Translated Scriptures, Past and Present, T no. 2152], which is a short account of nineteen translators compiled by Zhisheng 智昇 (active 700-740) in China in 730. 12 The reason why MS Z no. 1181-001 of Zhisheng's Xu gujin yijing tuji is important is because it presents the same account of the Book of the Hero's March as in the Kaiyuan shijiao lu 開元釋教 錄 [Catalogue of Buddhist Scriptures made during the Kaiyuan-era (713-741), T no. 2154), also compiled by Zhisheng and also completed in 730. It stands to reason that two books written or edited by the same author and ostensibly finished in the same year ought to accord with one another on matters related to the same scripture. Yet the well-known and normative account of the translation and dating of the Book of the Hero's March depends almost entirely on the notion that Zhisheng's Kaiyuan Shijiao lu and Xu gujin yijing tuji do not concur about the authorship or composition of the Book of the Hero's March. Traditional accounts of the Book of the Hero's March, which attribute its translation to a team of four-two Indians and two Chinese-who worked together in the southern port 13 Forte, 'The Relativity of the Concept of Orthodoxy', 243. 14 Zhanguo ce 9.356. city of Guangzhou 廣州 at Zhizhi monastery 制旨寺 on June 18, 705 (Shenlong 神龍 1.5.23), are repeated in nearly all later catalogs of Chinese Buddhist scriptures, biographies of eminent monks (gaoseng zhuan 高僧傳), and hagiographical literature-especially those works written by Chan 禪宗 monastics. One plausible way to explain the apparent pressing need medieval-and many modern, as we shall see-Chinese Buddhists may have had to embellish the story of the translation and dating of the Book of the Hero's March is to follow two of Antonino Forte's propositions about the relativity of the concept of textual orthodoxy in Chinese Buddhism, particularly during the eighth century. Medieval Chinese Buddhists maintained the illusion that the absence or existence of a Sanskrit text was sufficient to confer canonical status. Second, foreign teachers-even fake ones-symbolised orthodoxy for the Chinese. 13 It is interesting to note, therefore, that several versions of the Book of the Hero's March from Dunhuang and in Japanese manuscript sets of the Buddhist canon assign no translator whatsoever. Forte's remarks about the relativity of the concept of orthodoxy in Chinese Buddhism also explain how several Chinese and Japanese scholars have attempted to assign textual legitimacy to the Book of the Hero's March today, mishandling many of the same sources discussed in this article.

Zhu Xi and the Authorship of the Book of the Hero's March
It surprises me the extent to which scholarship on the Book of the Hero's March seems to strongly reflect many of the infamous things Zhu Xi had to say about this Buddhist book. In the section on 'Buddhists' (Shishi 釋氏)  [77] The Book of the Hero's March was originally only a spell-text. In later times, Fang Rong 房融 (d. 705) added to this text many discus-18 Zhuzi yulei 126.3028. 19 Fang Rong was an official during Empress Wu Zhao's Zhou dynasty interregnum between 690-705, when he held the title of Joint Manager of Affairs with the Secretariat-Chancellery, just as reported by the Xu gujin yijing tuji. But the Chinese characters for this office were changed during the Great Zhou dynasty to reflect different names for the Secretariat (Fengge 鳳閣, 'Phoenix Pavilion') and Chancellery (Luantai 鸞臺, 'Phoenix Hall'), which were changed back to reflect Tang nomenclature by Zhisheng in 730, thereby suggesting that Fang Rong may have held the post under the weak, fourth Tang emperor Zhongzong (656-710; r. 684, and r. 705-710) after he was reinstated following the forced retirement/ sion points about the natural ordering [of things, daoli 道理]. Even though the ideas presented by the spell are simple and close at hand, there were those followers who were afraid to translate it, which is how Fang Rong changed the text, leaving the spell alone. This spell was created by the Buddha to prevent animals, snakes, gods, and demons from harming him when he was living deep in the mountains. It was because of his intelligence that he was able to know their temperaments, and thereby capture these frightening creatures. Spells are really just a method of thinking. People of the western regions recite spells [that sound] like shouts or cries, considering them to be of strong and resolute design with the capacity to arrest and subdue gods and demons, similar to rituals employed by spirit mediums (wu 巫 and whether or not the *Śūraṃgama-sūtra prescribes burning cow dung while reciting its long spell for the moment, what seems clear from what one can only assume is a widely read text by one of China's most famous medieval intellectuals is that what conferred authenticity or canonicity to the scripture by the twelfth-century was wholly the presence of a Sanskrit-sounding spell in roll seven. Zhu Xi also seems to know more about the text than he lets on here.

Book of the Hero's March with only two interlocutors: 23
The śramaṇa Huaidi, a person from Xunzhou, lived in Nanlou monastery on Mount Luofu in that prefecture. The mountain is a place where immortals and saints roamed and lived. Huaidi had long studied the sūtras and commentaries, and was very learned in the coarse teachings of the Seven Outlines and Nine Schools of Thought. 24 But since he lodged close to [Nan]hai and [Pan]yu (two districts in the city of Guangzhou), and there were many Indian monks who traveled and stayed there, Huaidi studied their written language with them (Sanskrit), and was able to completely comprehend their books. In the past, when Bodhiruci (II: Putiliuzhi 菩提留志, d. 727) was [leading the project to] translate the [Mahā-] Ratnakūṭa-sūtra (Ch. Da baoji jing 大寶積經, Heap of Jewels Sūtra, T no. 310), he summoned Huaidi from afar to come to fill the role of verifier of meanings. When the task was completed, he returned to his home town. Later, when he traveled to Guangfu 廣府 (Guangdong), he met an Indian monk [note: I did not get his name] who had brought a Sanskrit sūtra [to China], and asked him to join in translating it. When written out it came to ten rolls. This is the Dafoding wanxing Shoulengyan jing 大佛頂萬行首楞嚴經. Huaidi received the gist of the sūtra and also put the text into literary style. Once the Indian monk had transmitted the sūtra and the work was completed, it was not known where he went. It was due to an envoy from the south that this sūtra was circulated here (the capital The only significant difference between the Kongōji edition of the Xu gujin yijing tuji and the chronicle in the Kaiyuan Shijiao lu is 27 There is good circumstantial evidence concerning the transmission and reception of the *Śūraṃgama-sūtra in Japan that strongly suggests that the Kongōji Xu gujin yijing tuji manuscript reflects a Nara, rather than a Heian (or Kamakura) source-text. Demiéville, citing Mochizuki, op. cit., in one of the longest and most carefully researched footnotes I have ever read, in his Le Concile de Lhasa of 1952, recalled that the *Śūraṃgama-sūtra first came to Japan with the return of Fushō 普照, one of the monks of the Japanese delegation led by Tajihi no Mabito Hironari 丹墀真人広成 (d.u.) from 733 to 754, which ultimately brought the Vinaya master Jianzhen/Ganjin 鑑真 (688-763) to Nara Japan. By 829, Gen'ei 玄叡 (d. 840), of the nascent Sanron school 三論宗, had written in his Daijō sanron daigishō 大乘三論大義抄 [Commentary on the Cardinal Principles of the Mahāyāna Three Treatises (School)] of debates that took place between Sanron and Hossō 法相宗 adherents regarding how the doctrines of the *Śūraṃgamasūtra both correspond and conflict with the teachings of Madhyamaka texts and the seminal Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi-śāstra. Empress Shōtoku 称徳 (r. 749-758) presided over these debates because her parents, Emperor Shōmu 聖武 (701-756, r. 724-749) and Empress Kōmyō 光明 (701-760), had already abdicated and taken tonsure as royal patron monk and nun. Gen'ei records that the Empress declared the *Śūraṃgama-sūtra was an authentic sūtra, but apparently she was too late since, during the Hōki 宝亀 era (770-781), an official with a recent Buddhist mission to China, led by the monk Tokusei 徳清 (d.u.), which left Japan in 772 reported that a lay official by the name of Faxiang 法詳 told Tokusei that the *Śūraṃgama-sūtra had been composed by Fang Rong 房融 (d. 705). Therefore, in 779, a petition to destroy the *Śūraṃgama-sūtra was circulated within the Buddhist temples in Nara. Only a monk by the name of Kaimyō 戒明 (d.u.), who had also just returned from China in 778, was able to rescue the *Śūraṃgamasūtra from destruction by declaring that the Emperor of China had personally invited monks to explain this sūtra. Cf. Demiéville, Le concile de Lhasa, note 3, 43-45. See also Ch'oe, Tonkōbon Ryōgongyō no kenkyū, 19-52, esp. 49-52. the addition of the character wu 無 before zhengyi 證義 or verifier of meanings, which suggests that, perhaps, Huaidi had no role to play in the translation project of the Ratnakūṭa. It may also simply be a copyists' error. 27 The historical lacuna in Chinese Buddhist historiography between roughly the beginning of the ninth to the middle of the 28

Commentaries to the Book of the Hero's March and the Question of Authorship
The first commentary to the Book of the Hero's March-and the Yuanjue jing, too-is attributed to an obscure Huayan zong 華嚴宗 exegete named Weique 惟愨. 30  As outlandish as it may seem that the narrative of the transmission and translation of the Book of the Hero's March went from attributing it to one anonymous southern Chinese monk (Huaidi) and an unnamed Indian monk who allegedly brought the Sanskrit 33 Jibin guo may also refer to the region of Kabul in present-day Afghanistan: Forte, 'The Activities in China of the Tantric Master Manicintana', 324. manuscript to (only) south China (Kaiyuan Shijiao lu and Xu gujin yijing tuji, ca. 730), to four (Zhenyuan lu, ca. 800) and then to six (Song gaoseng zhuan, 988, and Song exegete Zixuan), a poet-monk and Chan monastic historian by the name of Juefan Dehong覺範 德洪 (aka. Juefan Huihong 覺範惠洪 [1071-1128]) elaborates the narrative even further in a lengthy colophon, written on May 5, 1118 (Zhenghe 政和 8.5.1), he appended to his own commentary on the *Śūraṃgama-sūtra: During the Shenglong era (705-710) of the Tang, *Meghaśikha[ra] brought the Sanskrit manuscript to Guangzhou, where he and governor Fang Rong translated it together. Almost immediately, the king of Gandhārā (Jibin guo 罽賓國) dispatched an envoy to retrieve the manuscript. 33 The manuscript was almost not transmitted to this land; but it was conveyed here and translated, in the end. Fang Rong submitted it to emperor Zhongzong (r. 705-710), who had just assumed the throne. Posthaste, the emperor proclaimed that the monk Shenxiu should be summoned to the inner quarters of the palace for a meal, to receive the sūtra and take it back to Yuquan monastery in Jingzhou (Hubei province). It has been five hundred years since then, during which time more than ten experts have passed on, copied, and explained the distinguishing marks of the doctrinal tenets this sūtra sets up. These possess many similarities and differences, but their language has not penetrated the sūtra's [decisive] meaning…Worldly affairs became a heavy burden recently, as I dejectedly took up my brush to write. On the tenth month of the inaugural year of the Zhenghe period (November, 1111), as a mere descendant of the magnificent Dharma, I was exiled from the capital under difficult circumstances to Zhuya (southern Hainan island). In the second month of the following year (March, 1112) Let us recall here that Zanning mentions the connection between the newly translated Book of the Hero's March and the Northern Chan master Shenxiu as well, and adds that he shared it with Weique, who apparently wrote a commentary to it in 766. 35 Dehong's commentary, the Zunding falun 尊頂法論 [Dharma Talk on the Venerable (One's) Crown/Sinciput], which is included today in Leian Zhengzhou's 雷庵正受 (1146-1208) Lengyan jing helun 楞嚴經合論 [Combined Discussion on the *Śūraṃgamasūtra], is not the first commentary to the Book of the Hero's March written by a Chan scholar-monk. Yet, of the thirty-eight primary commentaries to this scripture discussed in the most authoritative and comprehensive commentary cited most often by modern scholars, the one compiled by scholar-official and lay Buddhist Qian Qianyi 錢謙益 (1582-1664) called the Lengyan jingshu jiemeng chao 楞嚴經疏解蒙鈔 [Notes to Explain the Confusion among the Commentaries of the *Śūraṃgama-sūtra], only Dehong's Zunding falun appears to have such a strange title. 36 We will return to this matter vol. 13). Ch'oe, Tonkōbon Ryōgongyō no kenkyū and Chen, Lengyan jing chuanyi ji qi zhenwei bianzheng zhi yanjiu heavily rely on Qian Qianyi's commentary. Among the members of the 'Gong'an School' (Gongan pai 公安派) of Confucian scholars was Yuan Hongdao 袁宏道 (1568-1610), whose pen name was Middle Brother (Zhonglang 中郎), testifying to the inclusion of three Yuan brothers in this group. In addition to the three Yuan brothers, this group also included Chen Jiru 陳繼儒 (1558-1639) and Qian Qianyi. Yuan Hongdao compiled several treatises concerning the relationship between Confucian learning, Chan thought, and Pure Land practice, three categories that would eventually spread to Japan via the Ōbaku 黄檗宗 tradition. Yuan Hongdao-and Qian Qianyi-were well acquainted with Chan Buddhism through the famous late-Ming master Yunqi Zhuhong 雲棲祩宏 (1535-1615), whom he met at Mount Wuyun 五雲山. See Araki, Sangorin. 37 Jørgensen,495: 'the frontier nature of Ling-nan 嶺南 meant that…its very remoteness and obscurity allowed for the fabrication of texts and scriptures, as there were fewer checks, and because its main centre, Kuangchou, was an entrepôt for product, books and ideas from the south and from India'.
shortly. Dehong's colophon, however, demonstrates that on the eve of the downfall of the Northern Song dynasty in 1127, the normative account of the transmission of the Book of the Hero's March to China, and subsequent translation from Sanskrit into Chinese, was understood to have taken place surreptitiously in the southernmost quarter of the medieval Chinese realm by one or more Indian monks who hastened to return it to the Indian state where it apparently originated in the first place. Dehong's personal encounter with a copy of the scripture in a niche on Hainan island-the very definition of remoteness and obscurity at the time, where criminals were banished to-solidifies that this scripture, the *Śūraṃgama-sūtra, had acquired the status of a precious gem or treasure in the form of a translated Buddhist scripture. 37 38 On Empress Wu and Buddhism, see Barrett, The Woman who Discovered Printing.

Conclusion: Dubious or Difficult to Substantiate Authorship of the Book of the Hero's March
If we contend that the Kongōji MS edition of the Xu gujin yijing tuji is a copy of a Nara-period manuscript, then it appears that the earliest attribution of the Book of the Hero's March-in Zhisheng's records of 730-was to an almost otherwise unknown Chinese monk from south China (Huaidi) and an unknown Indian śramaṇera who brought a Sanskrit text to China from India. Since Huaidi was apparently working on the translation project of the Ratnakūṭa led by Bodhiruci [II] sometime during the period of 705 and 713, it stands to reason that the translation and/or fabrication of the *Śūraṃgama-sūtra must have taken place after 713. Antonino Forte (1940Forte ( -2006, who spent the lion's share of his remarkable career researching religion and politics during the reign of Empress Wu, provides trenchant context within which to consider matters of canonicity, textual orthodoxy, and especially the role Zhisheng played in determining both: 38 I need not dwell on the importance assumed by a Sanskrit text as evidence for the authenticity of a translation. For centuries, the Chinese cultivated the illusion that the existence or absence of a corresponding Sanskrit text was sufficient to establish whether a specific work written in Chinese was authentic or apocryphal. Although convenient heuristically for rejecting many would-be sūtras produced in China-as, for example, in the 705 condemnation of the was willing to commit the most unprejudiced actions in order to support Buddhism and the contemporary political group that had tied its fortunes to the religion'. 42 If textual orthodoxy was really in the hands of the Trepiṭakas, then similar conclusions may also be true regarding the work by Divākara (Dipoheluo 地婆訶羅, 613-688), *Atikūṭa (Adiquduo 阿地瞿多, fl. 650s), the Khotanese Śikṣānanda 實叉難陀 (ca. 695-704), the legendary Fazang 法藏 (643-712) of Sogdian ancestry, as well as the Chinese Yijing 義凈 (635-713), who had just returned from a long sojourn in India from 671-695. 43 As we will soon see, these figures are given credit for translating several sūtras that contain sections that correspond to scroll seven of the *Śūraṃgama-sūtra, containing the dhāraṇī known more precisely as the Baisangai zhou 白傘蓋呪 [Skt. *Sitātapatra-dhāraṇī, White Canopy of the Buddha's Crown or Sinciput], *Śūraṃgama or Hero's March Spell (Ch. Lengyan zhou 楞嚴呪), or simply the Spell of the Buddha's Crown or Sinciput (Foding zhou 佛頂呪). Several of the Trepiṭakas studied by both Forte and Chen Jinhua have also been viewed as the team who brought the cult of so-called esoteric manifestations of the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteśvara 觀音菩薩, to China through dhāraṇī-sūtras devoted to his/her veneration. Let us also recall that, at least by extension, Bodhiruci [II] was implicated in the cover-up of the 'translation' of the *Śūraṃgama-sūtra through his alleged connection to Huaidi. One of the primary reasons scholars have considered the *Śūraṃgama-sūtra to be an apocryphal scripture is precisely because it reads like a proper Chinese text-see Zhu Xi's remarks above-but the dhāraṇī in roll seven is presented using uncommon Chinese characters to transcribe the sounds of a Sanskrit dhāraṇī, rendering it magical gibberish for anyone other than a Trepiṭaka familiar with the Sanskrit original. 47 Kaiyuan Shijiao lu, T no. 2154, 55: 9.571c14-26. 48 Song Gaoseng zhuan, T no. 2061, 55: 3.720c13-28 49 I am deeply indebted to research on the topic by Lin, 'Nihon koshakyōbon', 1066.