འཕགས་པ་ཚ་དང་ཡ་ཤས་དཔག་ཏ་མད་པའ་སྙང་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་གཟངས intro.7

intro.7

In most Kangyurs the text translated here is included in the section of works classified as tantras belonging to the Action (kriyā) class, and is grouped with eight texts (Toh 673A–680) corresponding to the principal buddha (rigs kyi gtso bo) of the padma (lotus) family. This group, in addition to the present dhāraṇī (Toh 676), and the four works on Amitābha that follow it (Toh 677–80),⁵ also contains the very widely used (Toh 674) and (Toh 675)—the two versions of the text commonly known as the “Sūtra of Long Life” or, in Tibetan, Tsédo (tshe mdo)—and a dhāraṇī related to it, (Toh 673A).⁶ The names of the buddha or buddhas on which this group of texts focus are variable: Amitābha, Amitāyus, Aparimitāyur­jñāna, and—both in the present text—Aparimitāyus and Dundubhi­svara­rāja. The finer distinctions between these figures have not always been entirely clear. In India, the names Amitāyus and Amitābha appear to have been almost synonymous, but distinctions of role and perhaps even identity seem to have arisen later in both China and Tibet. Alternatively, some of the figures in these texts may derive from originally independent textual traditions that later came to be grouped together. In discussing these distinctions, Tibetan scholars used such terms as “the Amitāyus of Sukhāvatī” (bde ba can gyi tshe dpag med), “the Amitāyus of the Zenith” (steng gi tshe dpag med), “the Amitāyus of Akaniṣṭha” (’og min gyi tshe dpag med), and “the Amitāyus of the Immortal Sound of the Drum” (’chi med rnga sgra’i tshe dpag med). The need for such terms suggests that in Tibetan the rendering Tsépamé (tshe dpag med) as a short form of both Aparimitāyur­jñāna and Aparimitāyus, as well as of Amitāyus, may have contributed to some blurring of differences between them.