ལྷའ་མད intro.3

intro.3

There are two Sanskrit witnesses. A full version of the sūtra, which matches the Tibetan translation quite closely, is included among the Gilgit Buddhist manuscripts discovered in 1931 in present-day northern Pakistan.¹ Written in the proto-Śāradā script, the manuscript is dated between the sixth to eighth centuries ce. Sanskrit editions of the sūtra that are based on this manuscript have been published by two contemporary scholars.² The sūtra is also included as one of the twenty sūtras in an undated Sanskrit manuscript written in the Dhārikā script and preserved in the Potala Palace, Lhasa.³ A comparative critical edition based on this manuscript, which also presents the parallel Tibetan and Chinese texts along with an English translation, has been published by Bhikṣuṇī Vinītā.⁴ While the Gilgit manuscript corresponds quite closely in length and content to the Tibetan translation found in the Kangyur, the Potala Palace Sanskrit manuscript contains five additional ślokas at the beginning and two ślokas toward the end that are not found in the Tibetan.