མ་རྟག་པ་ཉད་ཀྱ་མད intro.6

intro.6

The translation of The Sūtra on Impermanence within the Degé Kangyur contains only a very brief colophon mirroring the Sanskrit colophon. The colophon simply states that the sūtra has ended, providing no details on the translation.¹¹ This brief colophon is seen in the majority of witnesses to The Sūtra on Impermanence within the Tibetan Kangyurs. However, there are three witnesses with expanded colophons: two witnesses in the Langdo (lang mdo) collection and one in the Namgyal Kangyur.¹² These colophons state that The Sūtra on Impermanence was translated by the team of Kamalagupta (tenth–eleventh century) and Rinchen Sangpo (958–1055), who were frequent collaborators. Kamalagupta, a Kashmiri paṇḍita, was an immigrant to Tibet, and Rinchen Sangpo was a native Tibetan translator. This places the date of the translation within the tenth and eleventh centuries in the beginning of the second transmission of Tibetan translations. Beyond these colophons there are no major variations among the Tibetan versions of The Sūtra on Impermanence within the various Kangyurs. The Sūtra on Impermanence is always included in the General Sūtra Section in all Kangyurs. There is another work titled The Sūtra on Impermanence (1) (Anityatāsūtra),¹³ Toh 309, appearing directly before Toh 310, the sūtra translated here. While these two works share a title and theme, their content differs, and they are each unique works. It should be noted, however, that the opening and concluding narrative frame of Toh 309 is nearly the same as that of Toh 310. This may suggest that the two works developed in connection with one another and are possibly parallels of the same work from different Buddhist textual traditions.