འཕགས་པ་ཚ་དང་ཡ་ཤས་དཔག་ཏ་མད་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད notes.45

notes.45

45. The Nepalese Sanskrit texts read eva hi tiṣṭhati dhriyate yāpayati, which is the standard phrase in descriptions of tathāgatas inhabiting their respective realms, and can be seen in the Sanskrit of such texts as The Display of the Pure Land of Sukhāvatī (Toh 115) 1.2. The standard rendering in Tibetan is bzhugs te ’tsho zhing gzhes (“resides, lives, and remains”) and is found in numerous translated sūtras. It is frequently followed by a phrase such as “and there teaches the Dharma.” Here, while in the Dunhuang manuscripts it is rendered bzhugs te ’tsho zhing gzhes, Toh 674 reads bzhugs te tshe ’dzin cing tshe mthar phyin par gzhes (Toh 675 is similar but has a different spelling of the last verb, bzhed). Tāranātha notes in his commentary (see Khomthar Jamlö 2014, vol. 2, p. 65) that this latter rendering is how Patshab Nyima Drak, Chödrak Pal (kun spang chos grags dpal), and Lodrö Pal (lo tsA ba blo gros grags dpal) translate this phrase, thus specifying the particular teaching taught and not simply applying to the one who teaches it (the significance of Tāranātha mentioning the latter two translators, both early fourteenth century Jonangpa scholars of whom sūtra translations do not appear to have survived, is not entirely clear to us). The other two commentaries follow similar interpretations, Amnyé Zhab (Khomthar Jamlö 2014, vol. 2, p. 47) specifying that “extending life to its very limit” indeed refers to the actions of Aparimitāyus with regard to beings. Finally, the fact that in the “two oṁ” version, Toh 675, this phrase appears in Tibetan as the latter rendering, as here, while in the Dunhuang manuscripts it appears in the former, standard rendering, is further evidence that Toh 675 may be a back-adaptation of this translation to the “two oṁ” form rather than simply representing an earlier translation (see Introduction ). Tāranātha also mentions (see Khomthar Jamlö 2014, vol. 2, p. 76) the importance of this phrase, along with the wording of the verses on the six pāramitās ( et seq.) as indicating an interpretation of the text as a tantra involving empowerment and blessing.