A Late Mahayana Text on Being without Self—with Special Reference to the Chinese Versions of the Nair?tma-parip?cch? (T846, T1643)

Abstract

The late Mahayana text Nairatma-pariprccha "Questions regarding No-Self" is available to us in a cluster of four versions: one in Sanskrit, one in Tibetan, and two in Chinese. The text is relevant as a witness to Buddhist debates with non-Buddhists in the second half of the first millennium. After reviewing previous research on the text, a discussion aims to delineate the identities of the speaker and his questioners, as well as a rough date for the text. A final section provides an annotated translation of one of the Chinese versions (T1643).