Note on the Bodhisatvapiṭaka (Bspṭ) and the Akṣayamatinirdeśa (Akṣ):

The reconstruction of the Sanskrit text as in this edition of the Akṣ can be substantially improved after the Sanskrit Bodhisatvapiṭka has been made available. Akṣ has many of the paragraphs, even verbatim, and themes, in common with the Bspṭ. It may seem, as has always been the stand of Ulrich Pagel, that Akṣ is based on the Bspṭ. Earlier I thought, and wrote in my edition of the Akṣ (q.v.), that the Bspṭ and the Akṣ would descend from a common origin. However, it seems that Akṣ may belong to a slightly later edition of the Mahāyāna canon, and borrowed, as many other sūtras did, from the Bspṭ. While the Akṣ is quoted all over in the commentary literature of Mahāyāna Buddhism, the Bspṭ is strangely absent in these commentaries as a canonical source. Probably it was superceded by the Mahāsannipāta collection, which also, on the whole, seems to borrow large pieces from the Bspṭ. The Mahāsannipāta Collection, or for that sake the Akṣayamati chapter of it, even as it is worded in the Akṣ itself, is a “complete” exposition of the Mahāyāna ideology, a statement that in reality also might be applied to the Bspṭ. The details of the relations between Bspṭ, Akṣ and other Mahāyāna sūtras – their involved “intertextuality” – remains to be investigated.

Jens Braarvig

Braarvig, Jens. (1993). Akṣayamatinirdeśasūtra, vol. I: Edition of extant manuscripts with an index, Oslo: Solum forlag; pdf.

Braarvig, Jens. (1993). Akṣayamatinirdeśasūtra, vol. II: The Tradition of Imperishability in Buddhist Thought, translation with introduction, Oslo: Solum forlad; pdf.

The input was completed by Jens Braarvig the 31st of July, 2014.