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2 unusual facts about Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra


Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra

Written less than 100 years after the date of this translation, the earliest surviving Chinese sutra catalogue, Sengyou's Chu Sanzang Jiji (出三藏記集), makes no mention of Faxian, but instead states that the translation was done by Buddhabhadra and his assistant Baoyun (寶雲).

There are three extant versions of the Mahāyāna-mahāparinirvāna-sūtra, each translated from various Sanskrit editions: the shortest and earliest is the translation into Chinese by Faxian and Buddhabhadra in six juan (418CE), the next in terms of development is the Tibetan version (c790CE) by Jinamitra, Jnanagarbha, and Devacandra, and the extended version in 40 juan by Dharmakshema (421-430) which was also translated into Tibetan from the Chinese.



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