ཕག་མའ་རྟགས་པ་བརྗད་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་མད intro.14

intro.14

That these verses in the Udānavarga were held in high regard is clear from the fact that they are cited by none other than Vasubandhu at the beginning of his Gāthāsaṅgraha,¹⁸ the short anthology of twenty-one verses that he compiled before he turned to the Mahāyāna. Vasubandhu lived in the fourth to fifth century ce, showing that these three verses had already become celebrated at that time—well before the end of the eighth century when the Tibetan translation of The Exemplary Tale About a Sow was made on the basis of a Sanskrit version that included these verses. The Chinese translation, made by Dharmadeva about two centuries after the Tibetan translation, contains another set of three verses and a concluding verse that seem to have been added in the interval, but we have not been able to identify their source.