འཕགས་པ་དགངས་པ་ངས་པར་འགྲལ་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.99

intro.99

I first collated all the available Tibetan editions of Saṃdhi­nirmocana: Bd, C, D, Dunhuang (Hakayama 1984–87), Do, F, H, L, N, S, Kq, U, VD, X, and Z, as well as the various extant Sanskrit fragments found in Buescher (2007), Levi (1925), Matsuda (1995, 2013), Nagao (1964), and Tucci (1971). For the Chinese, we used Xuanzang’s translation.¹⁰ I then produced a critical edition of the text prologue (nidāna) to get a sense of the textual variations across major available editions of the Tshalpa (tshal pa), Thempangma (them spangs ma), mixed Kangyurs, and independent Kangyur groups. In addition, Dr. Kojirō Katō (Tokyo University), who is editing the Saṃdhi­nirmocana­sūtra, kindly sent me his critical edition of the seventh chapter.¹¹ His work has proved invaluable to confirming the findings of my own work on the prologue. The editions belonging to the Thempangma differ significantly from those included in the Tshalpa line of transmission. As an independent Kangyur close to the Thempangma line, the Phukdrak (phug brag) edition offers very interesting readings on the level of syntax and lexicography compared to the editions of the Tshalpa group. It also diverges from the Thempangma witnesses in many locations. In the absence of colophons mentioning the translators’ and editors’ names across the available editions, it remains difficult to understand the history of these witnesses from the perspective of the underlying translation and editing process. As a consequence of its palatable variant readings compared to the Tshalpa and Thempangma editions, I used the Phukdrak witness quite extensively while translating the Degé edition, as well as the Stok edition and the Degé version of the Viniścaya­saṃ­grahaṇī, to examine more thoroughly difficult passages. The available Sanskrit fragments were on occasion also useful to determine the Sanskrit equivalent of a Tibetan technical term. They, however, did not reveal major variations from the Tibetan texts. I referred to the Dunhuang recension sporadically, as Schmithausen warned us not to follow it blindly.¹² I also referred to Xuanzang’s translation regarding a few difficult passages of the text. This translation is similar to those of the Tshalpa group and might have been carried out on the basis of a Sanskrit manuscript similar to the one (or those) used for the translation upon which the Tibetan Tshalpa editions are based.