འཕགས་པ་མཚན་མ་བཟང་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་མད intro.18

intro.18

In summary, at the core of these different versions and their recensions is a set of four to five stanzas that articulate the main teaching of the sūtra: not to dwell on the past, be concerned about the future, or be distracted by present events. The narratives that frame this discourse vary widely across the versions of the text and their translations, but these core verses are relatively stable. The starkest difference between the Pali suttas and early Chinese translations on the one hand, and the Sanskrit fragments, later Chinese translation, and the Tibetan translation on the other, is the incorporation of incantations and mantras, which expands the import of the sūtra beyond the articulation of Buddhist doctrine to include the magical and apotropaic. Thus the two Sanskrit fragments, the latest of the Chinese translations, and the Tibetan translation should be considered recensions of a sūtra that differed significantly from the suttas preserved in the Pali canon and the three earlier Chinese translations.