Bǎojì běnyuán 寶髻本緣
The Story of Maṇicūḍa (Kṣemendra’s Verse Recension) Sanskrit verse-recension by 克什曼德拉 (Kṣemendra, c. 990–1070); modern Chinese translation by 任遠 (Rén Yuǎn)
About the work
A modern Chinese rendering of the Maṇicūḍāvadāna (Sanskrit Maṇicūḍāvadānam) extracted from the Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā — the verse-anthology of 108 avadāna tales completed in 1052 by the Kashmiri polymath Kṣemendra. Translated by 任遠 from the Sanskrit and published as item No. 075 in Zàngwài fójiào wénxiàn 藏外佛教文獻 vol. 9 (Beijing: Zōngjiào wénhuà, 2003). The Chinese rendering retains the courtly verse-form of the original, numbering the ślokas sequentially (1, 2, 3 …) and reproducing the elaborate similes characteristic of Sanskrit kāvya. This is the second of the two avadāna-translations Rén Yuǎn contributed to vol. 9, paired in the canon with the much longer Mahājjātakamālā witness at KR6v0101.
Abstract
The translator’s tíjiě 題解 frames the text as a kāvya-recension of the Maṇicūḍa story — distinguishable from the Mahājjātakamālā version (KR6v0101) and from earlier avadāna and Newari versions in being shorter, polished, and produced by a non-Buddhist (Kṣemendra was an Indian Hindu, originally a Śaiva and later a Vaiṣṇava). The Chinese literary historian Maurice Winternitz is cited (via Chinese rendering): “Here, the Buddhist tendency of self-sacrifice is developed in a subtle way to its peak, while morality is expressed in an extremely exaggerated form. Consequently, the stories often run counter to their stated aims.” Brajendra Nath De’s 1893 English translation of this same recension was, the translator notes, criticised by Michael Hahn as incomplete and inaccurate, and the present Chinese rendering is offered as an opportunity to compare Kṣemendra’s kāvya-version with the Maṇicūḍa cycle’s other recensions, including the Mahājjātakamālā one. The translator emphasises the philological value of observing how Buddhist material is handled by a non-Buddhist Sanskrit poet at a moment of acute Hindu-Buddhist literary cross-pollination in 11th-century Kashmir. The narrative — the bodhisattva-king Bǎojì 寶髻 (Maṇicūḍa, “Jewel-crested”) of the city of Sākoṭa giving away successively his wealth, his crown-jewel, his eyes, and finally his head — proceeds through 108 numbered ślokas in the present rendering.
Translations and research
- De, Brajendra Nath, “Maṇicūḍāvadāna,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 1893 — the first English translation, of poor reputation but historically important.
- Tucci, Giuseppe, Indo-Tibetica I: Mc’od rten e ts’a ts’a (Roma: Reale Accademia d’Italia, 1932) — important early Western study of the Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā in the Tibetan tradition.
- Vaidya, P. L., ed., Avadāna-kalpalatā of Kṣemendra (Buddhist Sanskrit Texts 22–23; Darbhanga: Mithila Institute, 1959) — the standard Sanskrit edition.
- Black, Brian, and Patton, Laurie L., eds., Dialogue in Early South Asian Religions: Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Traditions (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015) — context for the cross-tradition reception of Buddhist narrative material.
- Wojtilla, Gyula, “Notes on Population, Society and Culture in Kashmir as Reflected in Kṣemendra’s Daśāvatāracarita and Avadānakalpalatā,” Acta Orientalia Hungarica 49 (1996), pp. 387–402.
Other points of interest
Kṣemendra’s Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā is the principal Sanskrit verse-anthology of Buddhist avadāna literature transmitted to and through Tibet — translated into Tibetan by Shong-ston Lo-tsā-ba in the 13th century, it became a foundational text for Tibetan Buddhist visual narrative and was the source of countless Tibetan thangka and mural cycles. The Maṇicūḍa-tale appearing here in modern Chinese garb is therefore a node in a literary tradition that runs from 11th-century Kashmir through Tibet (and onwards into Mongolian and Newari traditions) and into 21st-century China.