ཕག་མའ་རྟགས་པ་བརྗད་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་མད intro.8

intro.8

In the centuries that followed, this avadāna continued to be well known in the Buddhist world. The Chinese translation that has come down to us was made in the Song capital Bianliang sometime between 982 and 1001 ce by the Indian scholar-monk Dharmadeva, who is described as having received his training in Nālandā.⁷ Prajñākaramati (±950–1030), one of the famous gatekeepers at the Vikramaśīla monastery, quotes the first verse in his commentary on Śāntideva’s Bodhi­caryāvatāra—again to point out the potency of the Three Refuges in clearing away past wrongdoings—with direct reference to the Śikṣāsamuccya.⁸ The same verse is cited by Dharmakīrti of Suvarṇadvīpa, present-day Sumatra, in his commentary on the Abhisamayālaṅkāra,⁹ which was translated into Tibetan by Atiśa and Rinchen Zangpo around the middle of the eleventh century. The quotation is also found at the beginning of the Ādikarmapradīpa,¹⁰ the bodhisattva manual compiled by the tantric master Anupamavajra, who was influential in the Kathmandu Valley from the twelfth century onward.