The Transmission of a Sūtra and its Interpretation : On the Passage ""samyaktvaniyamam avakrāntah"" in the Aştasāhasrikā

In the second chapter of the Aşţasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitāsūtra (AsP), we come across a passage which seemingly contains a contradiction about the possibility for disciples (śrāvakas) who have definitely entered the stream (samyaktvaniyamam avakrāntah) to attain supreme enlightenment (samyaksambodhi). There the Buddha speaks as follows: ""(1) Those gods who have not yet resolved to attain supreme enlightenment should do so. (2) However, those who have definitely entered the stream are unable to resolve to attain supreme enlightenment.... (3) Nevertheless, I am delighted to approve of them as well.... (4) For the most supreme teachings should be attained rather than supreme ones (visişţebhyah dharmebhyah)."" Needless to say, traditional interpretations by commentators on this text should provide leads for gaining an appropriate understanding of these complicated passages, which concern the fundamental position of the sutra regarding whether or not it admits of the existence of those who are denied the ability to attain enlightenment. As a result of comparing the interpretations provided by the three extant commentaries, the Abhisamayālamkārāloka (AAA), the Sārottama(SA), and the Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa (MP), and paying particular attention to the original passages of the sutra on which the respective commentaries seem to have been based, I have obtained two important findings. First, there is a difference in the original passages of the sūtra as quoted in the three commentaries, with two lacking the term dharmebhyah. Secondly, the understanding of this phrase also varies, with the AAA and the MP taking an almost identical stance and the SA taking a different position. In the sūtra to which Haribhadra, the author of the AAA, refers, and which is different from the AsP currently available to us (which is translated above), the word dharmebhyah is missing. In this passage, Haribhadra regards the word vişişţebhyah as supreme friends (kalyānamitra) and interprets passage (2) as intentional, reading the phrase ""visişţebhyah dharmebhyah"" as ""on the basis of supreme friends, one should resolve to attain the most supreme teachings."" The MP shows remarkable agreement with the AAA in that it too lacks the word dharmebhyah in the original sūtra, takes vişiştebhyah as a person, and interprets (2) as suppositional, with only a slightly different understanding of the whole passage as ""supreme people should resolve to attain the most supreme teachings"" The SA, on the other hand, commenting on the passage in the original sūtra which explicitly has the word dharmebhyah, exhibits the totally different understanding that the people indicated by passages (2) and (3) are different and does not interpret them as ""intentional."" Details of the background behind the concordance of the AAA with the MP and their disagreement with the SA in their manner of interpretation and in regard to the original passages is very difficult to clarify, but this example suggests that a sūtra and its interpretation may have been transmitted simultaneously