བྱང་ཆབ་ཀྱ་སྙང་པའ་རྒྱན་འབམ་གྱ་གཟངས intro.5

intro.5

A complete Sanskrit witness of the short version of the One Hundred Thousand Ornaments of the Essence of Awakening is not presently available. A Sanskrit inscription of a text that corresponds to this text was identified on a stone slab held by the Provincial Museum of Orissa, Cuttack. The inscription, published by A. Ghosh (1941), can be dated to approximately the tenth century.⁸ Other witnesses of the root mantra, essence mantra, and ancillary essence mantra have been found among terracotta tablets dating from the sixth to the ninth century that were discovered at the site of Nālanda in northern India. The contemporary Tibetan tradition counts the One Hundred Thousand Ornaments of the Essence of Awakening among the “the five great dhāraṇīs” (gzungs chen sde lnga) that are placed inside newly consecrated stūpas. ⁹