འཕགས་པ་སངས་རྒྱས་ཀྱ་སྙང་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་གཟངས notes.8

notes.8

8. Tibetan: dbang phyug chen po dka’ thub bzang po la sogs pa. This translation interprets dbang phyug chen po and dka’ thub bzang po as two separate deities, the Śaiva godhead Maheśvara and Suvrata (also rendered as munisuvrata), the twentieth Jain arhat of the present descending period of the cosmic cycle (avasarpiṇī). The reader should note that it is possible to interpret the term dka’ thub bzang po/ suvrata as an epithet for Maheśvara, but this is likely not the correct interpretation in this case. The setting for this text, Śuddhāvāsa, is the highest heavenly realm of existence that, in Buddhist traditions, is accessed by attaining the fourth and highest level of meditative absorption (dhyāna, bsam gtan). This places the setting at the zenith of reality, which various Śaiva traditions identify with the Maheśvara form of Śiva. It is also the realm in which the Jain traditions locate those arhats who, like Suvrata/Munisuvrata, have ascended to the highest reality where they await the arrival of the next Tīrṭhāṅkara and final liberation. In this work, the point of listing the two divine beings that occupy the highest level of reality in the Śaiva and Jain traditions is both to identify them among the worldly deities occupying the highest level of saṃsāra that can carry on the Buddha’s teaching after his parinirvāṇa and to place them in a position that is subordinate to the Buddha himself.