འཕགས་པ་རག་པའ་རྒྱལ་མ་ས་སར་འབྲང་བ་ཆན་མ་སངས་རྒྱས་དང intro.8

intro.8

The popularity of The Great Amulet is attested by the significant number of surviving Sanskrit witnesses, the earliest among which are manuscript fragments discovered in Gilgit that date to approximately the early seventh century. Also among the earliest Sanskrit versions are four manuscript fragments dating to the latter half of the second millennium that were found in East Turkestan. The majority of Sanskrit witnesses comprises manuscripts from eastern India, which can be dated to the tenth and eleventh centuries, and a large number of manuscripts that were scribed in Nepal beginning in the ninth century and continuing into modern times. In addition to manuscript sources, the main Sanskrit incantations from The Great Amulet have been found on amulets, copper plate inscriptions, and bricks that date between the eighth and eleventh centuries. These material applications of the incantations were discovered across a wide geographic range, from Central and East Asia to the Philippines and Indonesia.¹¹ Comparisons of these surviving Sanskrit versions of The Great Amulet indicate that this text may have gone through two major recensions—once in the sixth century and another in the late seventh century—before it was grouped with the other four Protectresses in the early eighth century.¹²