著者

柳橋 博之

出版者

西南アジア研究会

雑誌

西南アジア研究 = Bulletin of the Society for Western and Southern Asiatic Studies, Kyoto University (ISSN:09103708)

巻号頁・発行日

no.90, pp.77-93, 2020

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Although several researchers have been interested in the issue of textual variation of hadith, few studies have been undertaken to determine statistically the date and the process of generation of hadith variants. This study seeks to present three initial mathematical models that approximate the processthrough which variantsof the whole hadithsrecorded in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ were generated, under the assumption that many of the recorded hadiths were intentionally or unintentionally (i. e., by error) reformulated once or more with almost the same probability since they first entered circulation. Namely, by counting Bn, i. e., the number of hadith groupsthat comprise n variants, we obtain a sequence (Bn). Notably, (Bn) formsapproximately a geometrical sequence with a common ratio of 0.63. Based on this finding, we can establish a recurrence formula containing two or three parameters that determines the numbersof hadithscompris ing a certain number of variantsat a certain point in time each. By setting these parameters to appropriate values, we can establish two models that closely approximate (Bn).