Māyājāla-Sūtra - A Unique Text of the Gilgit Dīrghāgama: A Critical Edition, Translation and Study

The Māyājāla-sūtra is a unique Buddhist sūtra which is contained in the newly discovered manuscript of the Sanskrit Buddhist canonical collection called the Dīrgha-āgama (The Long Collection). The discovery of this Sanskrit manuscript in the 1990s was a major development in early Buddhist studies (only Pāli and Chinese versions were previously available). In the first part of this work Gleb Sharygin presented a transliteration, reconstruction and translation of the Māyājāla-sūtra, No. 18 in the Dīrgha-āgama manuscript, as well as an overview of its content. The text of the sūtra is in a seriously deteriorated state, but a great deal of repetition helped to reconstruct it safely. It is the meaning of the text that presented difficulties. The second part of this work grew from his attempts to understand it. The main result that the study brought is that the text likely constitutes an intermediate link that unites the older ways of canonical writing and thinking with the newer types of Buddhist literature and structures of thought. In particular, the study revealed that the Māyājāla-sūtra likely was the source of the first chapters of the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra, the first Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda text.

Gleb Sharygin studied philosophy, religious studies and classical Indology at Moscow State University, the Institute of Oriental Studies (Moscow), and the University of Munich (LMU München). He was awarded a Ph.D. degree for the thesis that constitutes this publication.