འཕགས་པ་མཚན་མ་བཟང་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་མད intro.15

intro.15

The second Sanskrit witness to Auspicious Night is preserved in a manuscript fragment discovered in Kashgar, in present-day Xinjiang province.⁸ The framing narrative, in which Ānanda asks the Buddha for protection from a spell cast by a caṇḍālī, is unique among the versions of this sūtra but has clear parallels to a story preserved in the Śārdūla­karṇāvadāna of the Divyāvadāna. Though this narrative does not correspond to that of the Tibetan text, it does frame the ensuing discourse in a way the supports the inclusion of incantations and mantras, a feature not found among the Pali sources.