DESCRIPTION
The Abhidharmakośabhāṣya is undoubtedly the most widely studied textbook of Buddhism. It forms one of the five basic textbooks of the Tibetan monastic curriculum, and in Japan it is the traditional way to begin the study of Buddhist philosophy. Vasubandhu sifted through the whole mass of Buddhist teachings to produce this "treasury" (kośa) of them. Because of its excellence, it soon eclipsed all its rivals in early India, and has remained a classic for fifteen hundred years. The translation includes Vasubandhu's own detailed commentary, "bhāṣya," so it forms a self-contained veritable encyclopedia of Buddhism.
The Sanskrit original of the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya was lost for centuries, and was known to scholarship only through Chinese and Tibetan translations until an ancient palm-leaf manuscript of 367 leaves was discovered by Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana (1893–1963) that contained not only Vasubandhu's verses, but his lost commentary.
The Abhidharmakośa-kārikā (the verses) and the Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya (the auto-commentary) were translated into Chinese in the 6th-century by Paramārtha (T. 1559). They were translated again in the 7th-century by Xuanzang (T. 1560 & T. 1558).
Currently, three complete English translations exist. The first by Leo M. Pruden in 1988 and the second by Gelong Lodrö Sangpo in 2012 are both based on La Vallée-Poussin's French translation. The third by Masahiro Shōgaito in 2014 is a translation of a Uighur translation of Xuanzang's Chinese translation.
TRANSLATIONS
La Vallée-Poussin, Louis de (1923–1931). L'Abhidharmakośa de Vasubandhu. Brussels: Institut belge des hautes études chinoises.
Pruden, Leo M. (1988–1990). Abhidharmakośabhāṣyam of Vasubandhu (4 volumes). Berkeley, California: Asian Humanities Press.
Lodrö Sangpo, Gelong (2012). Abhidharmakośa-Bhāṣya of Vasubandhu: The Treasury of the Abhidharma and its (Auto) commentary (4 volumes). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.
Shōgaito, Masahiro (2014). The Uighur Abhidharmakośabhāṣya: Preserved at the Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag.