འཕགས་པ་ད་བཞན་གཤགས་པ་བདན་གྱ་སྔན་གྱ་སྨན་ལམ་གྱ་ཁྱད་པར་རྒྱས་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.23

intro.23

The translators’ colophon to the Tibetan translation of Toh 503 tells us that the text was translated by three ninth-century Indian preceptors—Jinamitra, Dānaśīla, and Śīlendrabodhi—in conjunction with Bandé Yeshé Dé (mid-eighth to early ninth century), placing the date for its initial translation into Tibetan in the early ninth century. This date is confirmed by the text’s appearance in both the Denkarma⁹ and Phangthangma¹⁰ royal Tibetan catalogs of translated works. Although both royal Tibetan catalogs indicate that this text was originally classified as a sūtra, Butön lists it in different works as both a sūtra and a tantra,¹¹ and in all Kangyurs it is placed with the tantras of the Action (kriyā) class. In the Degé Kangyur the cycle of four works related to the Buddha Bhaiṣajya­guru­vaiḍūrya­prabha, with this as the first, is presented among the Action Tantras related to the principal figure of the tathāgata family (de bzhin gshegs pa’i rigs kyi gtso bo).