Some remarks on the Karuņāpuņdarīka

Pure Land Buddhism in India has been studied by many scholars, mainly in the form of reseach on its origin and formation, and most of those studies have been based upon Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha(Sukh). Few studies, however, have been made on its development in India after Sukh had been established. So I focus on karunāpuņdarīka(KP), which was composed under the strong influence of Sukh, and I elucidate problems concerning the development of Pure Land Buddhism in India. This paper consists of two parts. In the first part, I report briefly my research philological problems of the KP and survey some previous studies of the KP. In the second part, the essencial phrase of the KP, ""buddhakşetram parigrhņāti"", is analyzed from the semantic viewpoint. First part: As far as I have researched, the most reliable Skt text of the KP is Karuņāpuņdarīka(ed. I. Yamada, Univ of London, London, 1968). However, as Prof. De Jong has pointed out(IIJ 13, 1972), this edition must be examined critically. It is necessary, at least, to consult five manuscripts which were not referred to by Prof. Yamada. In addition, we need to compare the Skt edition more closely with Tibetan translations (especially the Pekin, Narthang, Tog palace, and Kawaguchi ms) and two Chinese translations. In Japan, a few studies concerning the KP have been done. Many scholars have noted to the resemblance between the 48 praņidhānas of Dharmākara bodhisattva in Sukh and almost all the 48 praņidhānas of Rājan Araņemin in the KP. Although such comparisons have been made intensively, studies from other standpoints have not been sufficient. Many problems remain unsolved; for example, a comparison between many praņidhānas of other bodhisattvas in the KP and those in other Mahāyānasūtras, a study of the content of the praņidhānas of Samudrareņu, a study of the contents of the stories of Sākyamuņi before he was born in this world, and so on. Second part: In the KP, the phrase ""buddhakşetram parigŗhņāti"" (to take a buddha-land) plays a leading role. But unfortunately, we cannot directly understand the precise meaning of this phrase, and thus we need to examine its meaning from the context. Generally, there is a possibility that the phrase refers to the kind of buddhakşetra one bodhisattva chooses for his birth in the future. However, after investigating several cases in the KP, I have come to know that the meaning of the phrase is that one bodhisattva builds a buddhakşetra by his own praņidhāna after his birth, regardless of the kind of buddhakşetra