འཕགས་པ་ཚ་དང་ཡ་ཤས་དཔག་ཏ་མད་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.13

intro.13

The shortest name, Aparimitāyus, is translated into Tibetan as Tsepamé (tshe dpag med or, in full, tshe dpag tu med pa). Tsepamé, however, is also the Tibetan translation of Amitāyus, an alternative form of the name of the Buddha Amitābha found in many scriptures. These two buddhas, who seem to have been originally quite distinct, are often identified with each other—not only in Tibetan Buddhism but also in the Chinese and Japanese traditions⁶—and the overlap of their names in Tibetan is therefore not the only factor at work. But partly as a result of back-translation from Tibetan into Sanskrit, Aparimitāyur­jñāna has become commonly known as Amitāyus, a name which makes him difficult to distinguish from the Amitāyus who is Amitābha.