Ten Thousand Articles

Our Dictionary of Gāndhārī has reached 10,000 articles with a total of 69,708 references. Article ten thousand is Savavivhu, the name of a Buddha of the past mentioned in a Gāndhārī parallel to the Bahubuddhasūtra of the Mahāvastu. As in the Mahāvastu, in our text this buddha succeeds the buddha Dīpaṃkara and precedes the buddha Padmottara, so his identity is not in doubt. The spellings of his name, however – Sarvavivhu and Sarvaviho – suggest a different etymology from the well-known Sanskrit form Sarvābhibhū “all-conqueror” (so Salomon 2021, 368) for which one would have expected *Sarvavhivhu or a similar form with double aspirate. Savavivhu, on the other hand, appears be derived from OIA Sarvavibhu “all-pervader.” This form is attested as the name of King Māndhātr̥ in a previous birth in Kṣemendra’s Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā, and with its second part one may further compare the bodhisattva name Vibhūti in the Gaṇḍavyūhasūtra. Such variations in buddha names across or even within languages are not uncommon (cf. our edition of the Gāndhārī Bhadrakalpikasūtra), and this particular one is a welcome addition that contributes to our understanding of the pattern.