Kenta Suzuki

This paper investigates the kṣāntipāramitā in the smaller Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtras. Translated terms in the Daoxing banruo jing 道行般若経 (T. 224), the oldest version of the smaller Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtras, were examined first. The translator of the Daoxing banruo jing, Lokakṣema, had translated kṣānti into 忍辱, kṣāntipāramitā into 羼提波羅蜜, and anutpattikeṣu dharmeṣu kṣāntiḥ into 無所従生法楽. Moreover, the Daoxing banruo jing barely explained the contents of the practice of kṣānti. In conclusion, the smaller Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtras did not change the contents of kṣānti practice already known through other sūtras and elsewhere.

The enlarging of Buddhist Scriptures essentially ceased in Pāli Buddhism after the initiation of commentaries on the scriptures. Conversely, in Mahāyāna Buddhism, adding words to the sūtras continued even after this initiation of commentaries. The purpose of the present study is to identify some factors that allowed Buddhists to add words to the descriptions of the Prajñāpāramitā-sūtras. First, I argue that the descriptions that urge Buddhists to transcribe the sūtras and give them to others might make it difficult for Buddhists to stop changing words in the sūtras. Second, I argue that Buddhists might not have stopped enlarging the sūtras because enlargement is not prohibited in the sūtras, even though forgetting and losing only one word in the sūtras is forbidden.