འཕགས་པ་ཚ་དང་ཡ་ཤས་དཔག་ཏ་མད་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.49

intro.49

The story of these two different versions may seem already complex enough, but there is more to be explored. Apart from the differences in the dhāraṇī, the other differences between the two versions in the Kangyurs (the principal ones listed above at and others in the notes) are relatively so minor that these two translations seem most unlikely to have been made independently, even allowing for the possibility that the Sanskrit texts they were made from were very similar. The most obvious explanation might be that the later translation was based on the earlier, adapting it to conform to a slightly different Sanskrit original. However, an examination of the wording and terminology of the Dunhuang manuscripts—which predate Puṇyasambhava and Patsap Nyima Drak by several centuries—shows that they almost certainly represent a Tibetan translation different from the “two oṁ” version (Toh 675) that has survived in the Kangyur.³⁶ It is therefore tempting to conjecture that the “two oṁ” version in the Kangyur could in fact be a back-adaptation of the later translation, edited to conform to the alternative “two oṁ” dhāraṇī of the earlier translation but not otherwise reflecting that earlier translation fully. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that a few significant elements of the later “three oṁ” version that are not present in the “two oṁ” Dunhuang manuscripts are present in the “two oṁ” version in the Kangyur. These elements are discussed more fully in the introduction to Toh 675, at .