ཟླ་བའ་མད intro.3

intro.3

The Sūtra of the Moon (1) is a Tibetan translation of a canonical Theravāda text and thus was probably translated from Pali. It belongs to a group of thirteen late-translated sūtras² (gsar du ’gyur ba), as noted in Butön Rinchen Drup’s³ History of Buddhism and in the Lithang, Degé, and Urga Kangyurs.⁴ One of these sūtras, The Sūtra of the Sun (Toh 41)⁵, presents an almost identical narrative concerning a solar eclipse. It features one additional verse not found in The Sūtra of the Moon (1), and the same is true of the Pali counterparts of these two texts. The equivalent of The Sūtra of the Moon in the Pali canon, the Candimasutta, is included in the Saṃyutta Nikāya (SN 2.9). Except for some words and one short phrase, the Tibetan and Pali are very similar.