འཕགས་པ་ཡལ་འཁར་སྐྱང་གས་ཞས་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.11

intro.11

The older parts of the text feature a number of themes that are considered representative of early Mahāyāna development.¹⁰ There is an emphasis on retreating into the wilderness,¹¹ engaging in austere discipline, and dedicating all efforts to a correct way of practice, i.e., with the mindset of a renunciant.¹² Such measures reflect a resistance on the part of many early Mahāyāna proponents to the increasing interactions of monasteries with society, which was accompanied by their strong determination to retreat into the wilderness, in order to return to the original path taught and exemplified by the Buddha. Because of the utmost importance accorded to the topic of retreating into the forests in this text, the Sanskrit term araṇya has been rendered literally as “forest” in this translation, although the equivalent Tibetan term is dgon pa, which is normally rendered as “solitude” or “monastery.” In reaction to perceived dangers of worldly interactions, fellow monks, in the earlier parts of the text, are criticized for their pretentious and inappropriate behavior and perfidious intentions,¹³ and even more so in some of the parts added later, where these corrupt monks are also held responsible for the decline of the Dharma.¹⁴