2

The Tripitaka analyzed by Nanjio, which contains works assigned to dates ranging from 67 to 1622 A.D., is merely the best known survivor among several similar thesauri.[744] From 518 A.D. onwards twelve collections of sacred literature were made by imperial order and many of these were published in more than one edition.  The validity of this Canon depends entirely on imperial authority, but, though Emperors occasionally inserted the works of writers whom they esteemed,[745] it does not appear that they aimed at anything but completeness nor did they favour any school.  The Buddhist Church, like every other department of the Empire, received from them its share of protection and supervision and its claims were sufficient to induce the founder, or at least an early Sovereign, of every important dynasty to publish under his patronage a revised collection of the scriptures.  The list of these collections is as follows:[746]

1.  A.D. 518 in the time of Wu-Ti, founder of the Liang. 2. " 533-4 Hsiao-Wu of the Northern Wei. 3. " 594 } Wan-ti, founder of the Sui. 4. " 602 } Wan-ti, founder of the Sui. 5. " 605-16 Yang-Ti of the Sui. 6. " 695 the Empress Wu of the T’ang. 7. " 730 Hsuan-Tsung of the T’ang. 8. " 971 T’ai-Tsu, founder of the Sung. 9. " 1285-7 Khubilai Khan, founder of the Yuan. 10. " 1368-98 Hung-Wu, founder of the Ming. 11. " 1403-24 Yung-Lo of the Ming. 12. " 1735-7 Yung-Ching and Ch’ien-Lung of the Ch’ing.[747]

Of these collections, the first seven were in MS. only:  the last five were printed.  The last three appear to be substantially the same.  The tenth and eleventh collections are known as southern and northern,[748] because they were printed at Nanking and Peking respectively.  They differ only in the number of Chinese works admitted and similarly the twelfth collection is merely a revision of the tenth with the addition of fifty-four Chinese works.

As mentioned, the Tripitaka contains thirteen catalogues of the Buddhist scriptures as known at different dates.[749] Of these the most important are (a) the earliest published between 506 and 512 A.D., (b) three published under the T’ang dynasty and known as Nei-tien-lu, T’u-chi (both about 664 A.D.), and K’ai-yuan-lu (about 720 A.D.), (c) Chih-Yuan-lu or catalogue of Yuan dynasty, about 1285, which, besides enumerating the Chinese titles, transliterates the Sanskrit titles and states whether the Indian works translated are also translated into Tibetan. (d) The catalogue of the first Ming collection.

The later collections contain new material and differ from the earlier by natural accretion, for a great number of translations were produced under the T’ang and Sung.  Thus the seventh catalogue (695 A.D.) records that 859 new works were admitted to the Canon.  But this expansion was accompanied by a critical and sifting process, so that whereas the first collection contained 2213 works, the Ming edition contains only 1622.  This compression means not that works of importance were rejected as heretical or apocryphal, for, as we have seen, the Tripitaka is most catholic, but that whereas the earlier collections admitted multitudinous extracts or partial translations of Indian works, many of these were discarded when complete versions had been made.