Zhen Liu and Huaiyu Chen, Some reflections on an early Mahāyāna text Hastikakyasūtra, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (BSOAS), May 2014, pp 1-20.

Some reflections on an early Mahāyāna text Hastikakyasūtra

Zhen Liu and Huaiyu Chen

Abstract: This paper attempts both to transliterate and translate a newly published Sanskrit fragment of the Hastikaksyasūtra and compare it to its corresponding Chinese and Tibetan translations. This fragment is part of the Hoernle Collection housed in the British Library. Through a comparison of all extant titles of this text found in both the Chinese and Tibetan versions and their reconstruction in Sanskrit, this work further deciphers why some titles use the metaphor of the effort or power of an elephant. In analyzing the Chinese and Tibetan versions, this paper suggests that the content and structure of this text shed some light on the early development of Mah膩y膩na sūtras.