THE BONES OF A BUDDHA AND THE BUSINESS OF A MONK: CONSERVATIVE MONASTIC VALUES IN AN EARLY MAHĀYĀNA POLEMICAL TRACT

[...]Z[#7F]urcher, in a paper covering much the same ground as Demi[#13]eville had, has translated two short passages from, again, the second half of the text, and, again, without being able to show that either was of any particular importance.4 Apart from these published sources, at least one recent unpublished dissertation makes several references to our text and translates several more passages from it.5 But other than this very little seems to have been said about the text, and very little seems to be known about it.Although it appears to have had two different titles, there was apparently only one translation of the Maitreyamah[#16]asim. han[#16] ada-s [#16] utrainto Chinese. The translation seems to be already listed in the Ldan Kar catalog as no. 47 under the slightly shorter title byams pa seng gei sgra = Maitreyasim. han[#16] ada, and Bu-ston still uses this shorter title (byams pa seng gei sgrai mdo) when he quotes two sets of verses from our text at the beginning of his Chos byung.8 Like the Chinese version, the Tibetan version of the Maitreyasim. han[#16] ada also now forms a part of a Ratnak[#16]ut. a.* * *Given how little is known about the Maitreyasim. han[#16] ada, and given the fact already noted that it appears to have been even less known in India and to have had no particular impact on the history of Buddhism there, it is not altogether clear that rescuing it from what might be a well deserved obscurity could be counted as a positive contribution to scholarship: surely we do not need another convoluted argument that tries to make a silk purse out of a sows ear. [...]Z[#7F]urcher himself like Demi[#13]eville before him appears to have been drawn to the text not by what it said about emptiness, but rather by what it had to say about images. [...]what it said about images was unusual.The author of the second half of the Maitreyasim. han[#16] ada who mayor may not have been the author of the first half as well10 was not,THE BONES OF A BUDDHA AND THE BUSINESS OF A MONK 281it seems, so concerned with images themselves as he was with how he thought they were being used by some monks. The further fact that the polemical position taken by the Maitreyasim. han[#16] ada appears to have failed, that monastic involvement with images did not decrease but actually increased after the Kus.[#16] anperiod,16 does not necessarily render that position less interesting.