[page 111] Tibetans translated into Tibetan more than one hundred sūtra commentaries. In this essay, we shall make observations about this genre of literature and give some indication as to its value and significance to the Buddhist tradition. For specific examples, we shall refer primarily to the three Indian commentaries to the Śālistamba Sūtra (SJD). We shall limit our observations to commentaries translated into Tibetan, largely excluding from consideration those written by Tibetans, with the exception of a few of historical importance from ancient Tibet. The sūtra genre itself will be mentioned here primarily to contrast Buddhist sūtra commentaries with ritual and grammatical sūtra commentaries in India. Information derived from this contrast will help us to appreciate the relation of sūtra commentaries to sūtras in the Buddhist tradition.

In India, Buddhist and Jain sūtras formed a distinct genre of literature. This can best be seen by contrasting them with ritual, grammatical, and philosophical sūtras. The latter types of sūtras, often called "aphorisms," are a prose literature characterized by conciseness of formulation, mnemonic arrangement, and the fact that they are descriptive in nature. They are intended to present succinctly the rules or tenets of a discipline. Because of these sūtras'[page 112] conciseness, commentaries are generally required to make sense of them. Sūtras and their commentaries probably began as part of an oral tradition of learning and were later written, though the question is undecided (Gonda: 648). Ritual and grammatical sūtras also had rules of interpretation called paribhāṣā, which, along with the careful ordering of the sūtras, contributed to their brevity. Finally, this literary genre is recognized to be unique to India.

Buddhist and Jain sūtras may be called "discourses." Leaving aside the Jain sūtras, those of the Buddhists bear little resemblance to ritual and grammatical sūtras. Although there do exist philosophical aphorisms in the Buddhist tradition, these are for the most part not known as sūtras. Instead, sūtras, or in Pāli, suttas, are considered by the Buddhist tradition to be the discourses of the Buddha, or at least inspired by the Buddha. These sūtras can and do mix verse with prose and, with the development of the Mahāyāna vaipulya sūtras, can be vast in size. Each Mahāyāna sūtra typically has four parts: a prologue (nidāna, gleng gzhi) with an opening formula that gives the time, place, and retinue of the Buddha when the discourse was spoken; an introduction of the topic of the discourse; a discourse or narration containing the bulk of the sūtra; and a formulaic conclusion. Because, unlike the ritual and grammatical sūtras, Buddhist sūtras are not exceedingly concise nor composed primarily for their mnemonic value (though they do contain features suggestive of an oral tradition—formulae and repeating structures), they do not require commentaries, but are more or less in the language of everyday discourse. They are meant as authoritative teachings of Buddhist doctrine that were spoken on a particular occasion, not as systematic summaries of a discipline. Thus, they are intended to be intelligible by themselves.

Therefore, whereas the ritual and grammatical sūtras are considered to have had commentaries from their beginning, the same cannot be said for Buddhist sūtras. Gonda observes that most ritual sūtras have commentaries and that their origin derives from "direct personal instructions of teachers who lived in close community with their pupils"(648). Compare this situation to Vasubandhu's urging anyone who wishes to comment upon a sūtra to greatly study, base oneself on study, and to accumulate learning (29a).1 Vasubandhu, who wrote in the fourth or fifth century C.E., seems to be urging the would-be commentator to become broadly knowledgeable in Buddhist doctrine before writing any[page 113] commentaries to sūtras. In that case, the sūtra commentary would not be based upon specific instructions about the sūtra passed down from teacher to student, but upon knowledge the commentator has been able to acquire through study, whether in an oral or written tradition, or some combination of both. In such a scenario, the commentary to a sūtra could be written any time after the sūtra came into existence, but would not accompany the sūtra from its origin.

Given the difference between the ritual and grammatical sūtras on the one hand and the Buddhist and Jain sūtras on the other, we well may wonder how the two literary genres could have the same name. Renou suggests the Buddhist use of the term sūtra may derive from the brief phrases that announce a dominant thesis, which is expanded upon and returned to in the large Buddhist sūtras (174). For example, the SJD begins with Śāriputra asking Maitreya the meaning of the following sūtra (and Śāriputra does indeed call the following statement a sūtra [mdo]) spoken by the Buddha: "Bhikṣus, he who sees dependent arising (pratītyasamutpāda, rten cing 'brel par 'byung ba) sees the Dharma. He who sees the Dharma sees the Buddha" (116a). The rest of the SJD is devoted to answering Śāriputra's question, with primary emphasis on describing dependent arising. In this way the SJD, when taken as a whole, can be seen to combine a sūtra, the Buddha's brief enigmatic statement, with its commentary, Maitreya's response to Śāriputra's question.

Now let us turn our attention to Tibet. Sūtra commentaries were among the early translations into Tibetan. We know this from early catalogues such as the Lhan (or lDan) kar ma (LKM), which is preserved in the bsTan 'gyur, "translated treatises," which constitutes one half of the Tibetan Buddhist canon (the other half is the bKa' 'gyur, "translated word [of the Buddha]"; see Harrison and Martin, in this volume). This catalogue, compiled in a Dragon year such as 800, 812, or 824 C.E., after approximately one hundred and fifty years of Tibetan translations of Buddhist texts, is an inventory of treatises stored in the Lhan kar ma Palace in Tibet. Lalou, who has transcribed and indexed the LKM, records 736 titles2 in thirty sections. Section twenty (nos. 514-564) contains the "Commentaries[page 114] on Mahāyāna Sūtras"; section twenty-one (nos. 565-572) contains the "Sūtra Commentaries Translated from Chinese" (318). Of these sixty recorded in the LKM, approximately3 half have been preserved in the bsTan 'gyur while the other half have been lost. Thus, fifty percent of the sūtra commentaries recorded in the LKM did not survive during the dark ages (ca. 840-1040 C.E.) between the early and later propagations of Buddhism in Tibet.

Eventually, Tibetan savants preserved translated sūtra commentaries in the bsTan 'gyur. The original Old sNar thang bsTan 'gyur dates back to the early fourteenth century. Bu ston Rin chen grub of Zhwa lu Monastery copied and expanded the bsTan 'gyur in 1335. All of the extant bsTan 'gyurs are descended from the Zhwa lu Monastery bsTan 'gyur and all of them have divided the sūtra commentaries into two sections: Prajñāpāramitā (Sher phyin), containing commentaries on the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, and Sūtra Commentary4 (mDo 'grel), containing commentaries on non-Prajñāpāramitā sūtras. Although the LKM did not divide the Mahāyāna sūtras into these same two sections, it did place the Prajñāpāramitā commentaries first among sūtra commentaries. Likewise, the LKM placed the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras before all other sūtras, a tradition continued in many of the extant bKa' 'gyurs.

Each of these two sections of the bsTan 'gyur contains about forty sūtra commentaries. However, not all sūtra commentaries are found in the Prajñāpāramitā and Sūtra Commentary sections; seven more can be found in the Tantra (rGyud),5 Cittamātra (Sems tsam),6 and Miscellany (sNa tshogs) sections. Three of the four sūtra commentaries in the Miscellany section are by Tibetans, for this section is reserved for writings of ancient Tibetans, and the fourth lists no author.7 The compilers of the LKM included four or five (see the previous note) of these seven texts among the sūtra commentaries, but the editors of the bsTan 'gyur decided to place them in these other sections. Their placement in the Tantra and Cittamātra sections highlights the occasionally arbitrary nature of the classification of treatises as commentaries of sūtra, tantra, or Cittamātra treatises. For the most part, the Peking and sDe dge bsTan 'gyurs have the same sūtra commentaries, with some minor differences as to placement and total number. When the thirty sūtra commentaries lost since the compilation of the LKM are added to the ninety preserved in the bsTan 'gyur, we get a total of 120. Thus, of the more than one hundred sūtra commentaries translated into Tibetan, fewer than one hundred still exist.[page 115]

One-tenth of the sūtras in the bKa' 'gyur, a mere thirty-four, have extant commentaries in the bsTan 'gyur. Eight Prajñāpāramitā sūtras have extant commentaries (a ninth whose commentary is lost is recorded in the LKM)8; approximately twenty-five non-Prajñāpāramitā sūtras have commentaries. The non-Prajñāpāramitā sūtras include four spells (dhāraṇī, gzungs),9 three cherished recollections (anusmṛti, rjes su dran pa),10 one verse (gāthā, tshigs su bcad pa) entitled Ekagāthā, one prayer (praṇidhāna, smon lam) entitled Bhadracaripraṇidhāṇarāja, and sixteen sūtras proper, for a total of twenty-five. Thus, sūtra in this context seems to mean "the word of the Buddha" (buddhavacana) rather than the genre of sūtras that have prologues, introductions, lengthy discourses, and conclusions. Seven sūtras that received one-third of the extant commentaries include some of the most famous, popular, or important. These are the Hṛdaya (with seven commentaries), Vajracchedikā (three), Saddharmapuṇḍarīka (one), Bhadracaripraṇidhāna (six), Laṅkāvatāra (two), Saṃdhinirmocana (five), and Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā (six). Although all of these sūtras have been translated into Western languages, only some of these sūtras' commentaries have been analyzed with the results published. One example is Donald Lopez's study of Indian and Tibetan commentaries on the Heart Sūtra in which he summarized the seven Indian commentaries and translated two Tibetan commentaries.

Now let us take a closer look at the sūtra commentaries themselves. They range in length from several volumes (Haribhadra's Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, vols. ga to ca) to less than a folio (Asaṅga's Dharmānusmṛtivṛtti); some are in verse (Śālistamba[ka]kārikā [SJT]) while most are predominantly prose (Kamalaśīla's Śālistambaṭika [SJGG]); some discuss several immense sūtras (Smṛtijñānakīrti's*Śatasāhasrikāpañcaviṃśatisāhasrikāṣṭādaśasāhasrikātrayasamānārthāṣṭabhisamayaśāsanā), others only a single verse (Vasubandhu's Ekagāthābhāṣya). Some comment upon entire sūtras (any of the SJD commentaries) and others only on parts of a sūtra such as the prologue (Śākya'i blo's *Daśabhūmisūtranidānabhāṣya) or a chapter (Ye shes snying po's *Saṃdhinirmocanasūtre ṭryamaitreyakevalaparivartabhāṣya). Thus, the commentaries are not homogeneous.

One sūtra commentary has been the subject of more commentaries than any one of the sūtras themselves. The Abhisamayālaṃkāra, a systematic exposition in verse of the Mahāyāna path of deliverance based on the doctrines of the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras [page 116] (in particular, on the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, according to ṭrya Vimuktisena) has inspired at least twenty commentaries. Tradition includes the Abhisamayālaṃkāra, which has been translated into English by Edward Conze, as one of the Five Treatises of Maitreya, a heavenly bodhisattva, but many scholars attribute the work to Asaṅga, fourth-fifth century C.E. The text has eight chapters, one for each of its eight subjects, which also become the organizing principle for most of its commentaries. The first and dominant subject is the Buddha's omniscience. Because the treatise is very concise, it is difficult to understand without its commentaries, not unlike the ritual sūtras of the non-Buddhists. In fact, it has more features in common with the ritual sūtra genre than with other Buddhist sūtra commentaries: Stcherbatsky describes the Abhisamayālaṃkāra as descriptive, summarizing Prajñāpāramitā doctrine and its practice; concise, requiring commentary to be understood; and mnemonic in arrangement (vi, viii). It has also had the most lasting impact of any sūtra commentary; it serves as a gateway for the study of Prajñāpāramitā sūtras by Tibetan Buddhists of all schools, whose savants have amply added over the centuries to the number of its commentaries. One noteworthy example is gYag ston Sangs rgyas dpal's (1348-1414) eight volume gYag Tik for the study of the Prajñāpāramitā.

The other sūtra commentaries exhibit various commentarial techniques. (Indigenous Tibetan typology of commentary includes, but is not limited to, the tshig 'grel, mchan 'grel, don 'grel, and dka' 'grel; see Wilson, in this volume.) Versifications such as the SJT summarize their sūtras and require commentaries to explain both sūtra and versification. Prose commentaries invariably explain the words and phrases of their sūtras, again to lesser and greater degrees. Kamalaśīla's SJGG comments upon the opening phrase of Buddhist sūtras, evaṃ mayā śrutam ekasmin samaye:

In that [connection], by the expression "THUS" ('di skad; evaṃ), the compiler, having been supplicated, indicates all the contents of the sūtra that come below, in order to avoid disparagement (skur pa; *apavāda) and false attribution (sgro 'dogs pa; *samāropa).

These two [words], "I HEARD" (bdag gis thos pa; mayā śrutam), indicate that I directly heard [the sūtra from the Buddha] and did not understand [its meaning]; I myself heard but [what was heard] is not hearsay coming through a lineage from one [person] to another. [It] was merely heard and not understood, because it is impossible that another besides the Buddha [could][page 117] understand a matter such as this. That also is a cause for inducing belief; otherwise, if an impossible matter were stated, it would not be believed.

"ON ONE OCCASION" (dus gcig na; *ekasmin samaye) is joined to the above "heard"; "occasion" [means] either "time" or "gathering [of] the retinue," because of the great difficulty to hear such a precious sūtra anytime, anywhere. Also, "on one occasion" is joined to the following "the Blessed One resided"; this indicates that for the sake of infinite disciples, at other times the Blessed One resided at other [places]. (146b)

The next level of organization is for a commentary to follow its sūtra's chapter arrangement or a set of topics for its organizing principle. A twofold example of this is Haribhadra's Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitāvyakhyābhisamayālaṃkārālokā, which includes the eight subjects from the Abhisamayālaṃkāra and follows the thirty-two chapters from the Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā. More than thirty commentaries are organized along similar principles.

Many sūtra commentaries employ five terms in order to introduce their exposition: the "purpose" (prayojana, dgos pa), the "text" (abhidhāna, rjod pa), the "subject matter" (abhidheya, brjod par bya ba), the "connection" (sambandha, 'brel pa), and the "purpose of the purpose" (prayojanaprayojana, dgos pa'i dgos pa). Broido characterizes these terms as describing "the connection between the whole work and the general purposes for which it was written and is to be studied" (6). As far as he knows, the Indians had no single word for these terms whereas the Tibetans called them dgos 'brel ("purpose-connection") (6). Any number of the five terms may be found in a sūtra commentary, and they can be found in twenty-five of the commentaries, most often using four of the terms.

The relation of the five terms to the four anubandhas, which Huparikar describes as the four requisites at the beginning of a text that explain its purpose, may be quite simple. The Buddhists use the five introductory terms called dgos 'brel and certain non-Buddhists use the four anubandhas in order to introduce a text and its purpose. Three terms are similar: subject matter (viṣaya [non-Buddhist], abhidheya [Buddhist]), connection (sambandha), and purpose (prayojana) (121-122). Not surprisingly, in connection with the five terms, no Tibetan translation of the term anubandha is found in any of the sūtra commentaries.

Four of the five terms are used in the SJGS, a commentary to both the SJT and the SJD. After quoting and commenting on the[page 118] verses (kārikās) as well as on many of the sūtra's passages, it interprets both texts according to Yogācāra doctrine, thus bringing into question its traditional attribution to Nāgārjuna, who is credited with founding the Madhyamaka in approximately the second century C.E. The SJGS, whose organizing principle is the quoted verses from the SJT, is, however, encyclopedic in its descriptions of the Eightfold Path and its antithesis, the various realms, their inhabitants, the many localities of rebirth, the five aggregates, the Four Noble Truths, and so forth.

The SJGS gives us more information about its four introductory terms than most of the other commentaries that use them. It discusses at some length these four: the connection, the purpose, the text, and the subject matter. The commentary can be said to have a "connection" because it will explain the SJD and its kārikā; also, it is "connected" with the Buddha and not the works of non-Buddhists. Its "purpose" is—by understanding the meaning of causes and conditions, by realizing that persons and the factors of existence are selfless, and by realizing the absence of grasped and grasper—to become free of the obscurations of defilement and knowledge and so attain the supreme, truly complete buddhahood. Its "text" is the Śālistamba, which uses the example of a young rice plant (śālistamba, sā lu ljang pa) to link inner and outer dependent arising. Its "subject matter" is dependent arising, which is devoid of an agent and so forth, the understanding of which leads to the abandonment of defilement, the arising of wisdom, and the attainment of the Dharma Body (dharmakāya, chos kyi sku) (21b-22b). The omitted term is the "purpose of the purpose." It might also be translated as the ultimate purpose. It is the deeper purpose of the work and, according to Broido, is often more important than the purpose, though dependent upon it (7). However, the SJGS appears to combine the "purpose" with the "purpose of the purpose," since the stated "purpose" is so long and concludes with the attainment of buddhahood, a typical "purpose of the purpose."

Another commentarial system is explained in Vasubandhu's Vyākhyāyukti (NR), a treatise on how to explain and comment upon sūtras. He sets out five components to be included in a sūtra commentary: the purpose (prayojana, dgos pa), concise meaning (piṇḍārtha, bsdus pa'i don), meaning of the words (padārtha, tshig gi don), connections (anusaṃdhi, mtshams sbyar ba), and objections and answers (codyaparihāradvaya, brgal ba/dang lan gnyis) (30b). The[page 119] "purpose" points to the goal or result of the treatise, the "concise meaning" to the meaning and subject of the treatise, the "meaning of the words" explains the concise meaning and so forth, the "connections" explains the order of the words, and the "objections and answers" uphold the treatise's logical and internal consistency. Even though Vasubandhu composed a number of sūtra commentaries, Kamalaśīla (late eighth century C.E.) is the author who most explicitly follows Vasubandhu's instructions. The best example is the SJGG, in which Kamalaśīla introduces the treatise according to the NR's five components. He organizes the commentary according to a sevenfold concise meaning that conforms to Vasubandhu's directives in the NR. Eleven commentaries in all either mention or actually employ this fivefold method. Kamalaśīla wrote three of them: the SJGG, the Avikalpapraveśadhāraṇīṭīkā, and the Vajracchedikāṭīkā.

As recorded by the Tibetan tradition, the authors of the sūtra commentaries include the greatest luminaries of India: Maitreya, Nāgārjuna, Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, Dignāga, and Śāntideva. However, the authenticity of the authorship of the first two authors is not accepted unequivocally, making Asaṅga the most venerable of the sūtra commentary authors credible to most modern scholars. The next oldest author, and most prolific in this category, is Vasubandhu, with nine commentaries. Some of the other authors of sūtra commentaries have only a single surviving work: ṭrya and Bhadanta Vimuktisena, Dharmakīrtiśrī, Dharmamitra, Kumāraśrībhadra, Jaggatatālar gnas pa, Praśāstrasena, Śrīmahājana, Jñānadatta, Guṇamati, Śīlabhadra, Nyi ma grub, mDzes bkod, rGyan bzang po, and Yuan ts'e (Wen tshegs). Little is known about them. The authenticity of the attribution to later figures from the eighth and ninth centuries C.E. such as Kamalaśīla, Haribhadra, and Vimalamitra, who could have been alive when their works were translated into Tibetan, is more likely.

The LKM clearly identifies eight commentaries as translations from Chinese (332). Of these eight texts, only three survive in the bsTan 'gyur: the Saṃdhigambhīranirmocanasūtraṭīkā (= Lalou 565 according to Steinkellner [234]), Saddharmapuṇḍarīkavṛtti (= Lalou 567), and Laṅkāvatāravṛtti (= Lalou 568). Oddly, neither of the authors of the first two commentaries is Chinese: the first is Korean, Yuan ts'e (613-696 C.E.), according to Inaba (105), and the other, Pṛthivībandhu, Sinhalese, according to the colophon.11 Steinkellner observes that these two treatises display the analytical system used[page 120] by Tibetans of all epochs to structure their texts, the "divisions" or "sections" (sa bcad), a technique he has not been able to find in treatises of Indian origin; he concludes they are of Chinese origin (235).

According to the sDe dge catalogue, important translators of the sūtra commentaries include dPal brtsegs rakṣita and Ye shes sde (ca. 812) from the early spread of Buddhism in Tibet. Important translators of the Prajñāpāramitā sūtra commentaries include rNgogs lo tsā ba bLo ldan shes rab (1059-1109) and Rin chen bzang po (958-1055) from the later spread. More than forty paṇḍitas and translators translated sūtra commentaries.

What does a commentary tell us about its sūtra? On the one hand, in a direct manner, it interprets its sūtra, the meaning of its words, its purpose, and in some cases its perceived underlying organization. The commentary defends the statements of its sūtra or reframes them in a logically defensible manner. It may advance doctrinal positions not explicitly stated in its sūtra or be used to debate doctrinal points with contemporaries. Gómez has described a controversy between the proponents of sudden and gradual enlightenment that found expression in Kamalaśīla's Avikalpapraveśadhāraṇīṭīkā. Thus, the commentaries give us insight into the thoughts and contexts of their immediate authors and into the larger tradition of which they are a part. Because sūtra commentaries are written after the sūtra, not along with it, Eckel's comments on the Heart Sūtra commentaries are quite appropriate when he says they do not "yield the 'original' meaning" of the sūtra so much as "what a distinctive group of commentators thought it meant" (69). That is not to say that the commentaries are of no value for understanding their sūtras. They indeed help the reader to gain an understanding of their sūtras, but how are we to know that the understanding gained corresponds to that of the original meaning or that that was the commentator's purpose? We can count far more upon learning about the commentator and the meaning he (all the sūtra commentators are men) wished to convey (i.e., his interpretation as we interpet it) as well as the doctrinal issues and the received views of the tradition at his time.

In the relatively unstudied area of sūtra commentary, many problems still remain. For example, what was the relationship of the[page 121] sūtras to their commentaries: what determined which sūtras received commentaries and which did not? What was the role of sūtra commentaries in the Buddhist world: were they written primarily in order for the authors to express their doctrinal views, to explain the sūtras, or for some other reason, and who was their audience? How innovative were the commentaries: to what extent did they rely on traditional interpretations of the sūtras? How did the Tibetans decide which commentaries to translate?

To summarize, Buddhist sūtras and their commentaries preserved in the bsTan 'gyur did not originate contemporaneously; the sūtra commentaries came later than their respective sūtras. Approximately one-tenth of the sūtras in the bKa' 'gyur have commentaries in the bsTan 'gyur, and the bsTan 'gyur has placed them in two sections: Prajñāpāramitā and Sūtra Commentary. The Sūtra Commentary section, which includes commentary upon spells, cherished recollections, and so forth, uses a broad definition of "sūtra." From among all the sūtra commentaries, the Abhisamayālaṃkāra is preeminent; in Tibetan Buddhism it has become the gateway for the study of Prajñāpāramitā. The commentaries employ different commentarial methods, and the authors, though primarily from India, include a Korean, a Sinhalese, and a few Tibetans. Finally, the genre is at least as valuable for what it indirectly tells us about the later tradition and the role of sūtra in it as for its interpretations of the sūtras themselves.

Broido, Michael M.

1983A Note on dgos-'brel.Journal of the Tibet Society.35-19.

Eckel, Malcolm D.

1987Indian Commentaries on the Heart Sūtra: The Politics of Interpretation.Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 10/2: 69-79.

Gómez, Luis O.

1983Indian Materials on the Doctrine of Sudden Enlightenment. In Early Ch'an in China and Tibet, pp. 393-434. Ed. by W. Lai and L. R. Lancaster. Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press.

Gonda, Jan

1977The Ritual Sūtras.A History of Indian Literature. Vol. 1: Veda and Upanishads. Fasc. 2. Ed. by Jan Gonda. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.

gYag ston Sangs rgyas dpal

1985g.Yag Ṭīk: The Complete Yig cha for the Study of the Prajñāpāramitā[page 123] Literature. 8 vols. Manduwala, Dehra Dun: Pal Ewam Chodan Ngorpa Centre.

Huparikar, G. S.

1949 The Problem of Sanskrit Teaching. Kolhapur City (India): Bharat Book-stall.

Inaba, Shōju

1977On Chos-grub's Translation of the Chieh-shên-mi-ching-shu. In Buddhist Thought and Asian Civilization: Essays in Honor of Herbert V. Guenther on His Sixtieth Birthday, pp. 105-113. Ed. by Leslie S. Kawamura and Keith Scott. Emeryville: Dharma Publishing.

Kamalaśīla

SJGGŚālistambaṭīkā; Sā lu ljang pa rgya cher 'grel pa. In the sDe dge bsTan 'gyur, facsimile edition published in Delhi, vol. ji, Toh. no. 4001, ff. 145b-163b.

Lalou, Marcelle

1953Les texts bouddhiques au temps du roi Khri-sroṅ-lde-bcan.Journal asiatique 241/3: 313-354.

LKM

Pho brang stod thang lhan dkar gyi chos 'gyur ro cog gi dkar chag. In the sDe dge bsTan 'gyur, facsimile edition published in Delhi, vol. jo, Toh. no. 4364, ff. 294b-310a.

Lopez, Donald S., Jr.

1988The Heart Sūtra Explained: Indian and Tibetan Commentaries.Albany: State University of New York Press.

Renou, Louis

1963Sur le genre du sūtra dans la littérature sanskrite. In Journal asiatique 251/2: 165-216.

SJD

Śālistambanāmamahāyānasūtra; Sā lu ljang pa zhes bya ba'i theg pa chen po'i mdo. In the sDe dge bKa' 'gyur, facsimile edition published in Delhi, vol. tsha, Toh. no. 210, ff. 116a-123b.

SJT

Śālistamba[ka]kārikā; Sā lu ljang pa'i tshig le'ur byas pa. In the sDe dge bsTan 'gyur, facsimile edition published in Delhi, vol. ngi, Toh. no. 3985, ff. 18a-20b.

SJGS

Śālistamka[ka]mahāyānasūtraṭīkā; Sā lu ljang pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo'i rgya cher bshad pa. In the sDe dge bsTan 'gyur, facsimile edition published in Delhi, vol. ngi, Toh. no. 3986, ff. 20b-55b.

Stcherbatsky, Th.

1929Abhisamayālankāra [sic] prajñāpāramitā-upadeśaśāstra: The Work of Bodhisattva Maitreya.Fasc. 1. Bibliotheca Buddhica 23. Co-authored with E. Obermiller. Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag, 1970.[page 124]

Steinkellner, E.

1989Who is Byaṅ chub rdzu 'phrul? Tibetan and non-Tibetan Commentaries on the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra—A Survey of the Literature.Berliner Indologische Studien 4/5: 229-251.

Tohoku

1934A Complete Catalogue of the Tibetan Buddhist Canons (Bkaḥ-'gyur and bstan-ḥgyur) . Ed. by Hakuju Ui, Munetada Suzuki, Yenshō Kanakura, Tōkan Tada. Sendai: Tōhoku Imperial University.

Vasubandhu

NRVyākhyāyukti; rNam par bshad pa'i rigs pa. In the sDe dge bsTan 'gyur, facsimile edition published in Tokyo, vol. shi, Toh. no. 4061, ff. 29a-134b.

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