གླང་པའ་རྩལ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.20

intro.20

Until recently there had been no extensive academic research on the Hasti­kakṣya­sūtra. In the last several years, however, a number of scholars have authored studies with direct or indirect reference to the sūtra’s contents and development. Chen (2012) addresses newly identified fragments of a Khotanese translation of the Hasti­kakṣya­sūtra together with their Chinese parallels. Liu and Chen (2014) include a translation of a Sanskrit fragment of the Hasti­kakṣya­sūtra in light of its Chinese and Tibetan parallels as well as a lengthy discussion of all title variants and their possible Sanskrit equivalents. Their study looks at the early development of Mahayāna sūtras and also includes a concordance of the contents found in the different translations. James Apple (2014) considers the Hasti­kakṣya­sūtra from the perspective of his research on the historical developments of entrusted transmissions of written texts in India after the fourth century. In the process, he compares the textual differences between the Tibetan translation and the earlier and later Chinese translations of the Hasti­kakṣya­sūtra. Regarding the narrative variants of the story of Victory Banner of the Vajra told by the Buddha toward the end of the sūtra, Apple points out that the Dharma discourse is passed on as a Dharma scripture in the Tibetan version, but in the earlier Chinese versions of Dharmarakṣa and Dharmamitra it is said to be passed on as a mantra or a dhāraṇī respectively.