འཕགས་པ་རྡ་རྗའ་སྙང་པའ་གཟངས་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.10

intro.10

To our knowledge, there is no extant Sanskrit manuscript of The Dhāraṇī of the Vajra Quintessence. Two major Chinese translations of this text were completed, first by Buddhaśānta either in the year 525 CE or the period between 525–529 CE,⁴ and the second by Jñānagupta in 587 CE.⁵ The Tibetan translators’ colophon states that the translation was made by the chief translator Bandé Yeshé Dé with the help of the Indian scholar Śīlendrabodhi, both of whom were active in the late eight to early ninth centuries CE. The text is recorded in the Denkarma⁶ and Phangthangma⁷ inventories of Tibetan imperial translations and appears to have been translated into Tibetan no later than the early ninth century CE. A fragmentary version of this text is also included in the collections of texts recovered from the Dunhuang caves of Central Asia.⁸ Although The Dhāraṇī of the Vajra Quintessence is not cited in Indian Buddhist texts, it is quoted by a few Tibetan scholars.⁹ This English translation was prepared based on the Tibetan translation found in the Degé Kangyur, in consultation with the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) and the Stok Palace Kangyurs.