The Sanskrit Lotus Sutra, Saddharmapuṇḍarīka (SP) is regarded as one of the earliest examples of Mahayana Buddhist texts. There are three classical Chinese translations of the Lotus Sutra in existence, including Kumārajīva’s translation, Myōhō-renge-kyō (鳩摩羅什『妙法蓮華経』), which is one of the most important sutras in East Asia. It has had a major influence on the formation and development of other sutras, ideas, and cultures. Where literary problems and issues arise in relation to the SP and the Chinese translations of the Lotus Sutra, in particular with regard to the correct interpretation of the Myōhō-renge-kyō, it is vital to study the SP in its original language.
The original SP is a sutra of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit (BHS) texts and contains frequent usage of Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA) word forms and language. Edgerton classified Mahayana texts broadly into three classes. Edgerton calls the unique vocabulary, word forms and syntax that appear in Mahayana sutras BHS.
The extant SP manuscripts can be broadly divided into the Central Asia tradition (CA) and the Gilgit-Nepal tradition (G-N). Kern and Edgerton advocated that in its prototype form, the SP was compiled in MIA and was converted to Sanskrit as it was passed down over the years (Kern-Edgerton’s hypothesis). Tsuji studied SP in detail and pointed out the following: (1) The BHS forms frequently appear in the verse texts, and Skt. forms in the prose texts, but some BHS forms are found in the prose texts. (2) Various degrees of Sanskritization occurred during the tradition, which caused some differences in hybridity, and it is considered that manuscripts that still exist were made.
In a previous study, I noted the variant readings (91 corresponding terms) of Kern's list in relation to this discussion. The results of this study support the points made by Tsuji. There is another example of the use of synonyms that can be highlighted.
For the purposes of this presentation, existing SP recensions of the old and new copy ages have been used. Using the Kern-Nanjo (KN) revision as a reference, passages in the individual SP recensions that clearly correspond to KN have been identified. Based on this, the corresponding passages in each of the manuscripts have been identified. The methods used for identifying the three sets of synonyms highlighted above are discussed in another paper. This presentation looks in detail at some sets of Edgerton's variant readings in the context of Kern-Edgerton’s hypothesis and Tsuji’s points.