A Literature Review And Variants Repertoire Of The Dunhuang Manuscripts On The Dabaojijing

The Dabaoji jing(大宝积经)(the Maharatnakuta Sutra) which is included in Volume11of the Taisho Resvied Tripitaka with a total of120volumes are translated by Bodhiruci(菩提流志),a Buddhist monk of Tang Dynasty,and some other monks.There is little research by academia on the Maharatnakuta Sutra,so this paper aims to making a literature review and variants repertoire and study of the Dunhuang manuscripts on the Maharatnakuta Sutra.Firstly,we find that there are305segments Dunhuang manuscripts after a widely survey of Dunhuang papers in many countries such as Japen,Russia and England.The Dunhuang papers are so incomplete that we can not find a complete vision because of the damages to different extents.A Descriptive Catalogueof the Dunhuang manuscripts is made to objectively describe the plate sources, beginning and ending text, missing text,false text, line section, writing and special book traces,and we also do some inquiry and judement for the naming and writing time from some index bibliographis.This paper names accurately80unnamed segments in Volumes11to17of Dunhuang Manuscripts collected in the St. Petersburg Institute of Orental Studies of the Academiy of Sciences of Russia,and pieces48segments into23series.Secondly, the collection and research to the viriants and difficult forms of Dunhuang manuscripts on the Maharatnakuta Sutra is another important work.Viriant is different from cuoe word,which is defined in this paper into the range of "appears often, writing easier, with the presence of the word can be shaped evolution, learning to see the strokes or structural relationship".The last chapter provides an overview of the variant types and features of Dunhuang manuscripts on the Maharatnakuta Sutra,with a study of the difficult forms that have not been found and described by the scholars.Lastly,this paper intergrates the viriants recoded by the variant database system into a word table,which includes orthography, pronunciation, variant glyphs, provenance and example sentences,showing a complete viriants’appearance of Dunhuang manuscripts on this sutra.