འཕགས་པ་ཀླའ་རྒྱལ་པ་རྒྱ་མཚས་ཞས་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.3

intro.3

The Degé Kangyur contains three sūtras entitled The Questions of the Nāga King Sāgara. They can be distinguished by their length, one being quite long (, 164 folio pages), one medium-length, which is translated here (Toh 154, 14 folio pages), and one very short (, 1 folio page). All three of these are included as individual texts in the early ninth century Denkarma (ldan dkar ma) catalog, confirming their status as independent scriptures in Tibet during the imperial period.¹ Of these, Toh 155 appears to be unrelated to the other two. It seems apparent, however, that at some point in its textual life (presumably in India), Toh 154 was taken as an excerpt from Toh 153 and transmitted as an independent text. A large number of minor differences and one whole section that is unique to Toh 154² distinguish these two versions, but their shared provenance is nevertheless clear.