ཚལ་ཁྲམས་ཡང་དག་པར་ལྡན་པའ་མད intro.6

intro.6

There was no known Sanskrit original of Having Moral Discipline available until recently, when a manuscript containing a collection of twenty sūtras was found in the Potala Palace in Lhasa. Bhikṣuṇī Vinītā published a critical edition and English translation of this collection in the series Sanskrit Texts from the Autonomous Region (2010). Unfortunately, due to the inaccessibility of the manuscript collection and because it is missing a final colophon, its origin and date are currently unknown.³ There seems to be a thematic connection among these twenty sūtras: Vinītā notes that moral discipline (śīla) is a recurrent theme in the manuscript,⁴ and we also can identify themes of karmic cause and effect and the hierarchy of merit.