Collation Strategies for the Buddhist Canon—As Seen in the Frequency and Impact of Character Variance in Canonical Editions of the Song Gaoseng Zhuan 宋高僧傳 (T.2061)

Abstract

The different readings given in the apparatus of the authoritative Taishō edition of the Buddhist canon are widely used, but we do not know much about their relationship to previous efforts, their accuracy and comprehensiveness, because the witnesses used in the collation are not readily available to researchers. Moreover, we do not know exactly how other canonical editions that were discovered in the 20th century compare to the Taishō edition and to what degree a further collation might be useful. This paper tries to answer some of these questions by expanding the Taishō apparatus of the Song Gaoseng Zhuan (T.2061) through collation with the Qisha canon and a categorization of the variations encountered. The combination of qualitative judgments about the variations together with quantitative data about their occurrence makes it possible to present a clearer picture of the relationship between these two versions of the text.