Notes
1. See Miller (forthcoming).
2. We are grateful to Jonathan Silk (Silk 2022, p. 273, n. 15) for pointing out a number of significant errors and omissions in an earlier version of this paragraph.
3. Hokazono 1994, 2019a, 2019b.
4. At the time this translation was made, the edition of Hokazono (Hokazono 1994, 2019a, 2019b) mentioned above was unavailable to us. Since it appears to be a considerable improvement on Lefman’s (as pointed out by Silk 2022, pp. 273, 281–2), we expect to benefit from a close reading of it in a planned future update of this translation. Silk’s appendix (Silk 2022, pp. 288–296) correlating our milestone numbers to both Hokazono’s and Lefmann’s editions will no doubt prove a helpful resource in that task.
5. The Sanskrit here has Kauṇḍinya, who (with his title Ajñāta-) has already been mentioned. However, Negi cites this and one another instance to suggest the possibility that the Tibetan gsus po che is sometimes used to refer to Kauṇḍinya.
6. The four rivers is a technical term for the streams (ogha) that are identical to the four “outflows” (āśrava), namely, sensual desires, desire for cyclic existence, wrong views, and ignorance.
7. We are grateful to Jonathan Silk (Silk 2022 p. 276 n19) for pointing out that these two stanzas are indeed verses, not prose as an earlier version of this translation had formatted them.
8. The translation is based on the Sanskrit.
9. The translation of the verses in the following section is primarily based on the Sanskrit.
10. This is the first time the text shifts to the first person.
11. We are grateful to Jonathan Silk (Silk 2022 p. 276 n19) for pointing out that these are lines of verse, not prose as an earlier version of this translation had formatted them.
12. The translation is based on the Tibetan tsa sha (Skt. cāṣa); the Sanskrit has apsaras.
13. The following six verses are missing in the Sanskrit text.
14. The first three lines of this verse are missing in the Sanskrit text.
15. We are grateful to Jonathan Silk (Silk 2022 p. 276–7 n19) for pointing out that this paragraph is prose, not lines of verse as an earlier version of this translation had formatted it.
16. We are grateful to Jonathan Silk (Silk 2022 p. 277 n19) for pointing out that this paragraph is in prose, not lines of verse as an earlier version of this translation had formatted it.
17. For reasons of style and readability, in our English rendering we here add the gods’ repeated proclamation, which (as correctly pointed out in Silk 2022, p. 277 n 19) is not repeated in the Tibetan or the Sanskrit.
18. According to Lefmann’s edition of the Sanskrit and the Tibetan chos ’dod. Vaidya’s Sanskrit has Dharmakāya as the second name here.
19. The Tibetan text is abbreviated here (as correctly pointed out in Silk 2022, p. 277 n19) to indicate that the Buddha repeats the five companions’ earlier scheming (in 26.20); for a more fluent readability we have chosen to repeat the relevant sentences in full.
20. We are grateful to Jonathan Silk (Silk 2022 p. 277 n19) for pointing out that the four stanzas to this point are lines of verse, not prose as an earlier version of this translation had formatted them.
21. We are grateful to Jonathan Silk (Silk 2022 p. 276 n18) for pointing out that an earlier version of this translation had erroneously read bde bar gshegs pa (sugata) here instead of de bzhin gshegs pa (tathāgata). We also note Silk’s justified and carefully argumented disapproval of our (then) rendering of bde bar gshegs pa / sugata as “bliss-gone one,” a term we had used in a few early translations but had independently abandoned, in favor of “Well-Gone One” (as in the present version of this translation), or of simply using the Sanskrit term (as in many other of our translations).
22. The rest of this statement to the end of the paragraph is abbreviated in the Tibetan (as correctly noted in Silk 2022, p. 277 n19), being a repeat of the equivalent sentences in the previous statements; for a more fluent readability we have provided the full statement here and in the following passages.
23. We are grateful to Jonathan Silk (Silk 2022 p. 277 n19) for pointing out that the three stanzas to this point are lines of verse, not prose as an earlier version of this translation had formatted them.
24. This is the first of the “thirty-two marks of a great being,” the rest of which are listed in the paragraphs that follow.
25. In the passsage that follows, the translation follows the structure of the Sanskrit rather than the Tibetan.
27. With this paragraph begins a list of the “four confidences (vaiśāradya) of a thus-gone one.”
28. The qualities listed from this paragraph until 26.205 correspond, with some variations, to enumerations in other texts of the “eighteen unique qualities of a buddha” (āvenikabuddhadharma).
29. From the following paragraph onward, the translation follows the Tibetan structure again.