The Mahavadanasutra: A New Edition Based on Manuscripts Discovered in Northern Turkestan (Book Review‪)‬

The Mahavadanasutra: A New Edition Based on Manuscripts Discovered in Northern Turkestan. Edited by TAKAMICHI FUKITA. Sanskrit-Worterbuch der buddhistischen Texte aus den Turfan-Funden, Beiheft 10. Gottingen: VANDENHOECK & RUPRECHT, 2003. Pp. xxi + 235. The Mahavadana-sutra (MAV), like its Pali correspondent the Mahapadana-sutta, presents an account of the lives of seven Buddhas, all following a virtually identical course of events, as recounted by the last of the seven, namely the "historical Buddha" known as Gotama or Sakyamuni. This rigidly patterned biography of the Buddhas did not hold much appeal for previous generations of Buddhist scholars in the west. T. W. and C. A. F. Rhys Davids, for example, in the introduction to their translation of the Pali version, described its contents as "legends of six forerunners of the historical Buddha, each constructed with wearisome iteration, in imitation of the then accepted beliefs as to the life of Gotama" (1910: 1). More recent scholarship, however, has tended to take a more balanced view; for instance, Frank Reynolds characterized the text as one in which "Gotama Buddha ... depicts himself as having a distinguished lineage of Great Beings whose life story and saving message were virtually identical to his own" (1997: 26).