འཕགས་པ་སྡང་པ་རྒྱན་གྱ་མཆག་ཅས་བྱ་བའ་གཟངས notes.5

notes.5

5. This feature is the spelling of the terminating particle at the end of the work: rdzogs sho rather than the later standard rdzogs so. See Stein 2010, pp. 15–16. For further details on these two distinctive lexicons see Stein’s Tibetica Antiqua, especially the chapter on “The Two Vocabularies in the Dunhuang Manuscripts.” We would also note the presence in our text of the term phra men to refer to a sort of malevolent female spirit. This term also occurs in other manuscripts from Dunhuang that use the older vocabulary. See Stein 2010, p.54. In the context of one such manuscript, Stein translates ’phra men ma it as “witch-goddess,” and notes an association with “Bon and Yol.” We have rendered the term in the present text as “malevolent female spirits,” though we do think that Stein’s translation captures its intended sense. This term phra men ma was also used to translate the Sanskrit ḍākinī, usually in the sense of ḍākinīs as malevolent female entities, not as the “wisdom ḍākinīs” found in the higher tantras, where the term is usually translated as mkha’ ’gro (ma). See also the note to this term below in the translation and the glossary entry on phra men ma for further details.