THE STORY OF SUDHANA AND MANOHARA: AN ANALYSIS OF THE TEXTS AND THE BOROBUDUR

The story of Sudhana is one of the most popular of the avadcnas of Northern Hinayana Buddhism. There are two main versions of this story, one adopted by the Mahasafghika school and the other by the Mflla-Sarvastivada school. The former is preserved in the Mahavastu 1 under the title Kinnarijitaka, and a similar version of this story is found in a Chinese collection called Liu-tu-chi-ching 'Collection [of tales to illustrate] the six paramitas ', said to have been translated in approximately A.D. 270 (Taish5 Tripiztaka, III, no. 152, 44 f.) and accessible to us in Chavannes's Tripitaka (Cinq cents contes et apologues, no. 80). The Mafla-Sarvastivada redaction is found in a Vinaya text of that school called the Bhaisajya-vastu.2 It was translated by I-ching a and is referred to as Ken pen chouo... by Chavannes (iv, 133). A Tibetan translation is also found in Bkah-hgyur,4 a translation of which is available in Schiefner's Tibetan tales (44-74). This redaction was bodily adopted by the Divydvadana.6