འཕགས་པ་གནས་འཇག་པའ་མད་ཞས་བྱ་བ notes.3

notes.3

3. According to Gregory Schopen, The Sūtra of Vasiṣṭha represents a “version of an old sūtra which occurs in five slightly different versions as the first of five suttas of the Uposathavagga of the Pali Aṅguttara-nikāya (iv 248–62).” See Schopen 1982, p. 227. Indeed, several Pali suttas overlap at various points with The Sūtra of Vasiṣṭha, perhaps most notably the Mūluposathasutta (AN 3.70), the Saṅkhittūposathasutta (AN 8.41), the Vitthatūposathasutta (AN 8.42), the Visākhūposathasutta (AN 8.43), and the Bojjhasutta (AN 8.45). For much of the text, the Vāseṭṭhasutta within the Aṅguttara Nikāya (i.e., AN 8.44) follows the Vitthatūposathasutta, but it also goes on to laud the benefits of observing the uposatha in general. The Vāseṭṭhasutta one finds in Sutta Nipāta 3.9 (cf. Majjhima Nikāya 98) is a sutta in which a brahmin named Vāseṭṭha asks the Buddha how to discern who is a true brahmin, and deals more with the topic of lay ethics in general without mention of the uposatha. For resonance with works that can be found within the Tengyur, it is worth mentioning Sunāyaśrīmitra’s Eight Verses on the Vows of Laypersons (Upāsakasaṁvarāṣṭaka, Toh 4141) and its commentary, An Explanation of “Eight Verses on the Vows of Laypersons” (Upāsakasaṁvarāṣṭakavivaraṇa, Toh 4142), wherein we find a section detailing the poṣadha. See the text beginning at folio 158.b.1. Giulio Agostini, in his 2010 edition and translation of the verses and their commentary, dates these works between the last quarter of the eleventh century and the first quarter of the twelfth.