འཕགས་པ་ཆས་ཡང་དག་པར་སྡད་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.7

intro.7

There is yet another valence of the term dharmasaṅgīti operative in this text, one that can be inferred through the Tibetan title chos yang dag par sdud pa. The Tibetan term yang dag par sdud pa specifically conveys the sense of a Dharma “collection” or “compendium.” This is also the sense given by the Chinese title 法集經 (fa ji jing), where 集 (ji) means to “compile,” “collect,” or “assemble.” The Dharma Council is precisely that: a comprehensive and detailed presentation of Great Vehicle Buddhism that incorporates many of its most prominent doctrines, categories, guidelines, and terminologies. The dual valence of the Tibetan term to mean both “a Dharma gathering” and “a compendium of the Dharma” may have been appealing to its translators, and might have been particularly apt for the Tibetan community who first received and then transmitted the sūtra in a textual format.