The Ratnameghasutra, an important discourse of the Mahayana: The retrieval of its Sanskrit version (continuation)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Jens-Uwe Hartmann
• Subject Area: Asian Studies
• Term: from 2016 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 281899732

The Ratnameghasutra, the “Discourse (entitled) Cloud of Jewels,” is not counted among the narrative sutras of the Great Vehicle. It rather contains a comprehensive description of the notions and practices of a bodhisatva. They are dealt with in a total of 101 questions, all of which the Buddha answers systematically. Thus the sutra offers a large fund of doctrinal topics, and this explains why time and again it was used as a canonical point of reference in the commentarial literature of the Mahayana. The number of quotations from the Ratnameghasutra in commentarial literature is impressive, and it highlights the importance of the text already in Indian Buddhism. It was translated into Chinese four times as well as into Tibetan at a very early stage. In both cultural environments it gained additional socio-historical importance. In modern scholarship it did not receive due attention; however, in view of its highly terminological content this is unsurprising, since the Sanskrit original was lost. In the late eighties of the last century it became known that a Sanskrit manuscript of the Ratnameghasutra was preserved in Tibet. Although access to those manuscripts is extremely restricted, to our surprise the relevant authorities in Beijing placed the manuscript at our disposal and gave permission to publish it. After two years of intensive work about half of the text has been edited, but it has become clear that it will not be possible to finish the entirety within the three years allotted to the project. Therefore this application seeks an extension in order to finish the critical edition of the sutra based on the manuscript and in comparison with the Chinese and Tibetan translations. Only the edition will ultimately procure the Ratnameghasutra an adequate place in modern scholarship that reflects its former significance to the intellectual history of India, China and Tibet.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants