དག་སླང་ལ་རབ་ཏ་གཅས་པའ་མད་ཞས་བྱ་བ intro.4

intro.4

Very little is known about the sūtra’s history. There do not appear to be any translations into Chinese, and no Sanskrit version is extant.³ However, as we discuss below, one verse of the sūtra is cited in a commentary in the Tengyur.⁴ Just as we know very little about the sūtra’s Indic origins, we know even less about the origins of the Tibetan translation. The text’s colophon is rudimentary and does not offer any information on the translator. Additionally, two Kangyur catalogs list the translator as unknown.⁵ In terms of the date of its translation, the sūtra is not listed in the Denkarma (ldan/lhan dkar ma) or Phangthangma (’phang thang ma) catalogs, the earliest available lists of Buddhist texts translated into Tibetan, which were prepared in the ninth century. We do, however, find a reference to the sūtra in Butön’s (1290–1364) extensive catalog of scriptures and treatises, but he does not list the translator either.⁶