A Philological Study On The Dunhuang Chinese Manuscripts Of Bayang Jing

The Chinese Buddhist scripture Foshuo Jiandi Bayang Shenzhou Jing (here in after referred to as Bayang Jing), though is assumed to be translated by Yijing or Xuanzang in Tang Dynasty, is actually a Chinese apocrypha. It exists in none of the Chinese Tripitaka published before the Qing Dynasty. Benefit from the discovery of Dunhuang documents and the publications of microfilms and facsimiles, an increasing umber of excavated manuscripts of Bayang Jing are now becoming available to researchers in photographic format. According to my statistical data there are 378 Dunhuang Chinese manuscripts of Bayang Jing,251 identified manuscripts and 127 unidentified fragments. This paper explores these manuscripts in four aspects.Chapter one is the descriptive catalogue of 251 identified manuscripts sorted in descending order of integrity. Each item in the catalogue not only gives graphical information about serial number, layout, content, character form, etc, but also points out some imprecise or even incorrect titles.Chapter two identifies 127 unidentified fragments mainly sorted in ascending order of serial number. First introduce the layout and character form of each fragment with picture, then give the predicate based on the content.Chapter three rejoins 66 fragments into 24 groups by analyzing both the content and the material manifestation of that content, and corroborates each conclusion with rejoined picture which can provide more clues for further research, e.g. dating.Chapter four collates and edits Bayang Jing by taking advantage of Dunhuang manuscripts in order to restore an original and uncorrupted version. This edition comments on some certain points besides enumerating the differences.