DESCRIPTION
The text known as the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana 大乘起信論 is a short commentary on Mahayana Buddhist teachings as a whole. The reconstructed Sanskrit title of the work is *Mahāyāna -śraddhotpāda-śāstra and it is said to have been written in Sanskrit by Aśvaghoṣa (80 - 150 C.E.), yet no Sanskrit version of the text exists today and it is now widely regarded by scholars as having come from a later date. The oldest known version of the text is from around 550 C.E., attributed to the famous Indian translator of Buddhist texts Paramārtha (499-569 CE), yet this attribution is also debated. Knowledge of the work is based upon this Chinese version, a second version (or reedited version) attributed to the Khotanese monk Śikṣānanda (active 695-700), and Chinese commentaries that have been made on the text.
TRANSLATIONS
Aśvaghoṣa’s Awakening of Faith (LUSB Standardized Ed. Paramārtha version) Aśvaghoṣa’s Awakening of Faith (LUSB Standardized Ed. Śikṣānanda version)📖 Suzuki, Daisetsu Teitaro, Aśvaghoṣa's Discourse on the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana. Chicago, Ill.: Open Court Publishing Company, 1900.
📖 Richard, Timothy, The Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna Doctrine—the New Buddhism. Shanghai: Christian Literature Society, 1907.
📖 Hakeda, Yoshito S., Awakening of Faith—Attributed to Aśvaghoṣa, with commentary by Yoshito S. Hakeda. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1967.
📖 Jorgensen, John; Lusthaus, Dan; Makeham, John; Strange, Mark, Treatise on Awakening Mahāyāna Faith, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019.