གསལ་རྒྱལ་གྱ་ཚགས་ས་བཅད་པ notes.14

notes.14

14. Unlike in the Tibetan, which separates the terms blo mchog and bde ba, their Sanskrit equivalents, agrabuddhe and sukha, are adjacent in the Sanskrit manuscripts from the Potala and Cambridge. Vinītā (2010, p. 212, nn. 2–3) emends both terms in the Potala MS such that agrabuddhe becomes agrabuddheḥ, the genitive (or ablative) singular form of agrabuddhi (feminine), and sukha becomes sukhaṃ, the accusative form one finds in the Gilgit and Cambridge manuscripts that preserves the verse. In the Gilgit manuscript (1581, 5–6) cited in Vinītā 2010 (p. 212, n. 2), she renders a genitive relationship between the terms, i.e., “the bliss of the ultimate understanding.” Ven. Gyalten Lekden (2019), in his translation, takes the terms to be related by a conjunction, i.e., “supreme awareness and bliss.” However, Silk (2013, p. 71), in examining Ven. Vinītā’s translation of this stanza, suggests that the line should read, “How do mortal beings obtain bliss in other [future] existences through making offerings to the supreme sagacious one...” This reading reflects what would be a locative sense of agrabuddha (m.) rather than a genitive of agrabuddhi (f.). Still, we have a further option, namely agrabuddhe as the vocative of agrabuddhi (f.). Tournier (2015, p. 191, n. 40) favors this reading, translating agrabuddhe as “supremely sagacious one” and citing the Gilgit manuscript that preserves this verse where it shows agryabuddhe as further support for doing so. The Cambridge MS also reads agrabuddhe, supporting both Silk and Tournier’s interpretations without emendation. It seems likely that the Tibetan translator(s) understood agrabuddhe as a vocative.