The Sanskrit word \u0101laya is composed of the preposition \u0101- (from) and the verbal element laya, which can be traced back to the root l\u012b, to cling. A common meaning of \u0101laya is a \u201chouse\u201d or \u201cdwelling\u201d. (Monier-Williams) Derived senses are \u201creceptacle\u201d and \u201casylum\u201d. These may all be consistent with \u201cstorehouse\u201d. As a noun, laya means a place of rest, residence, house, dwelling. It also means rest, repose, a pause, and lying down, cowering. According to Monier-Williams, the verb from the root l\u012b basically means to adhere, to cling, to press closely, to lie, to recline, to settle. This root l\u012b might be connected to another Sanskrit root, lip\/limp\/rip, to smear, which is related to the English \u201cto leave\u201d in the sense of \u201cleave behind\u201d. We can imagine that the sense of \u201chouse\u201d has evolved from the basic sense \u201cto cling\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Chinese Tripitaka<\/strong><\/p>\n The earliest extant Chinese translation is that of Gu\u1e47abhadra, dating back to 443 CE, labelled Sung (Song) by Suzuki, after the ruling dynasty at that time. The other two translations are analogically labelled Wei and T\u2019ang. Suzuki has prepared a Sanskrit-Chinese-Tibetan index<\/a> of terms used in the La\u1e45k\u0101vat\u0101ras\u016btra. From this index we can learn that the three Chinese versions all have \u85cf (z\u00e0ng) for \u0101laya, but only Wei and T\u2019ang have in some places phonetic renderings.<\/p>\n The Chinese interpretation \u85cf (z\u00e0ng) simply means storehouse, depository. So, the common interpretation of \u0101laya, cf. Suzuki, as \u201cstorehouse\u201d, is following the Chinese interpretation.<\/p>\n The D\u016bnhu\u00e1ng Findings<\/strong><\/p>\n There are also a number of Chinese fragments of the La\u1e45k\u0101vat\u0101ra among the D\u016bnhu\u00e1ng findings, of the Song and T\u2019ang editions. In some of these we can see that at least since the early 11th century, which was when the M\u00f2g\u0101o cave complex at D\u016bnhu\u00e1ng was sealed off, the T\u2019ang manuscript was very faithfully copied. The first occurence of the character \u85cf (z\u00e0ng) in the T\u2019ang manuscript is identifiable in some of the fragments, for example in Or.8210\/S.6<\/a>:<\/p>\n In the fragments of the Song edition, quite a few characters are different from the text in the Taish\u014d edition of the Chinese Tripitaka. The Taisho text (T16n670) of the Song edition seems to be a modernised version, though at first glance textually it seems to be as faithfully copied as the T\u2019ang version. Also in these fragments we can verify the use of the character \u85cf (z\u00e0ng), for example in Or.8210\/S.5311<\/a>:<\/p>\n According to the International Dunhuang Project database, this manuscript (Or.8210\/S.5311) dates back to the 7th century. In connection with the Tibetan translation by chos grub, who based his Tibetan translation on the Song edition, it is interesting to know that the same rendering of \u0101laya was used in earlier Song manuscripts.<\/p>\n The Tibetan Versions<\/strong><\/p>\n In his Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra (1930), Suzuki already mentioned that there are two different Tibetan translations. (pp. 12-15)<\/p>\n The Tibetan \u201cversion 1\u201d, which is published in the Tibetan Tripitaka Peking edition (TTPE), Vol. 29 No. 775. It seems to be translated directly from Sanskrit. In the Asian Classics Input Project (ACIP<\/a>) we find a text<\/a> from the Lhasa Kanjur, still not completely entered, labelled KL0107<\/a>, corresponding to Vol. 29 No. 775 from the Peking Tripitaka catalogue. In this Tibetan version the terms \u0101laya and \u0101layavij\u00f1\u0101na are rendered kun gzhi and kun gzhi rnam par shes pa.<\/p>\n The Tibetan \u201cversion 2\u201d was translated by \u201cthe monk chos grub\u201d on the basis of the Chinese Song version, around the beginning of the 9th century. It can be found<\/a>, for example, in the digital library of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (TBRC<\/a>). This version also renders \u0101laya and \u0101layavij\u00f1\u0101na as kun gzhi and kun gzhi rnam par shes pa.<\/p>\n The Mah\u0101vyutpatti Sanskrit-Tibetan glossary was probably composed between 800 and 838, which is around the same time the Chinese Song edition was translated into Tibetan by chos grub (version 2). Here, \u0101laya (entry 2017) is also connected to kun gzhi.<\/p>\n The primary sense of the word gzhi is ground, foundation, original cause, exciting cause, or even axiom. Another sense however is residence, abode. (J\u00e4schke) Perhaps this combination has motivated the Tibetan translators to choose kun gzhi, the \u201cbasis of everything\u201d, instead of a compound with, for example, the element khang, house, or mdzod, storehouse. Most probably they were familiar with the Sanskrit term as well, which, like the Chinese term, contains the element of house, abode, storehouse etc., which makes their choice for kun gzhi even more significant.<\/p>\n The Tibetan word gzhi, or gzhi ma, might be traced back to the reconstructed Proto-Sino-Tibetan root *\u019ba\u0306j, meaning earth or ground, cf. the Starling Database<\/a>, established by the late Sergei Starostin. Tibetan gzhi would then be related to the modern Chinese word \u5730 (di\u0300), meaning earth.<\/p>\n At the time the Tibetan translation was made by chos grub, Buddhism in Tibet was still in the process of becoming what we now call Lamaism or Tibetan Buddhism. The developing religious culture may have already used the term gzhi, or kun gzhi, to indicate its \u201cground of being\u201d, which became an important concept in the rDzogs Chen subschool of the rNying Ma lineage. For the Chinese translators the Tibetan situation was of course not a force to reckon with, so the interaction between Buddhism and the existing substratum might provide an explanation for the difference, between the semantic fields of Sanskrit \u0101laya and Chinese \u85cf (z\u00e0ng) on the one hand, and Tibetan kun gzhi on the other.<\/p>\n For completeness we should mention that Schlagintweit, in his Buddhism in Tibet (p. 39) presents yet another Tibetan word for \u0101laya, which is snying po, which generally means heart or essence. HPB, following Schlagintweit (p. 39), also presents \u201cNyingpo\u201d and \u201cTsang\u201d as Tibetan renderings of \u0101laya, in The Secret Doctrine (SD I, 48), where tsang evidently corresponds to our Chinese character \u85cf (z\u00e0ng).<\/p>\n Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n The above data relating to the La\u1e45k\u0101vat\u0101ras\u016btra are summarized in the following table.<\/p>\n![\"Lank](\"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Lank-Tang-Dunhuang-Mss-Or.8210-S.6-2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Lank](\"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Lank-Song-Or-8210-S-5311-alaya-2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
![\"Alaya](\"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/eg-attachments\/img\/flags\/document.png\")
\r\n\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t<\/dt>\r\n\t