Tibetan
Although this translation has been made principally from the Sanskrit, many readers may wish to read it along with the Tibetan text. It would therefore be an omission not to include here some mention of the complex history of the Tibetan translation.
The colophon of the version of the Tibetan text in the Degé Kangyur records seven consecutive stages in its evolution from the earliest translation:
1. in the early, imperially sponsored translation period (late eighth or early ninth century), translation, revision, and verification by Śākyasena, Jñānasiddhi, and the editor-lotsāwa Dharmataśīla (Chönyi Tsültrim);
2. in the late tenth century, harmonization with “the commentary” by Subhāṣita and Rinchen Zangpo;
3. in the early eleventh century, revision, correction, and editing by Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna and Rinchen Zangpo on the basis of “a commentary from Magadha”;
4. verification of a passage by Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna and the translator Dromtön Gyalwai Jungné;
5. verification by Dromtön Gyalwai Jungné, twice, against three Indian manuscripts;
6. further verification of some minor points by Dromtön Gyalwai Jungné; and
7. in the late eleventh or early twelfth century, verification by Ngok Loden Sherab against a number of manuscripts from Kashmir and Magadha.
To these stages, the colophons in the Narthang and Lhasa Kangyurs add an eighth:
8. in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, further corrections by the Zhalu translator Pal Rinchen Chökyong Zangpo, who edited and verified the text from the earlier versions compared with several Tibetan and Indian manuscripts.
The colophons in two of the Kangyurs of the Themphangma line, the Stok Palace (stog pho brang) and Zhey (shel mkhar) Kangyurs, and of one version of the text in the Phukdrak (phug brag) Kangyur, add further names and details, seemingly to this same stage of editing, and date it to an Iron Tiger year (possibly 1471 or 1531).
In parallel to these details recorded in the colophons, traditional Tibetan scholarship identifies three textual traditions for the Eight Thousand, differing only in minor stylistic phrasing, but distinguished—and named—according to how they render in Tibetan the Sanskrit name of the wandering ascetic Śreṇika, who is mentioned in the first chapter (1.23) as having firm conviction in the Buddha’s teaching. The names of these three versions of the text are ’phreng ba can (pronounced “Trengwachen”), bzo sbyangs (“Zojang”), and sde can (“Dechen”). The extant Sanskrit manuscripts use only the name Śreṇika for the wandering ascetic in this passage, but one of the greatest Sanskrit scholars in Tibet, Rinchen Chökyong Zangpo, the last recorded reviser of the text (see the stage numbered 8 above), is said to have mentioned witnessing three different versions of the Sanskrit name (set out below) in different Indian manuscripts of the Eight Thousand, each corresponding to the three renderings in Tibetan. He is also said to have confirmed that between these different manuscripts there were no other variants with a significant impact on meaning.10 Olkha Lelung Jedrung disagrees with earlier scholars who thought that these were three entirely different names for the same person, and expresses the opinion that the three Sanskrit names mentioned by Rinchen Chökyong Zangpo are in effect no more than variants of the same name.11
Although the Degé Kangyur catalog seems to say that the three versions correspond to different Sanskrit source manuscripts,12 the most likely explanation for the existence of these three textual traditions, differing principally in this minor distinction alone, is that they represent the sequential results of specific revisions made (along with many others) over time to the original Tibetan translation. A study by Torricelli and Dudka, and another by Shōji, suggest that the earliest translation may have rendered the name as bzo sbyangs, that the name sde can may be characteristic of a revision made by Kamalaśīla and Kawa Paltsek, and that ’phreng ba can was a revision introduced at a later stage in the editorial history of the text, perhaps with the coming to Tibet of Atiśa Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna. Shōji does go so far as to divide the hypothetical Sanskrit manuscript traditions into two, A and B, with the bzo sbyangs and sde can Tibetan versions derived from A, and the ’phreng ba can from B. Both of the studies mentioned assume that the commentary used by Subhāṣita and Rinchen Zangpo for their revision of the sūtra (stage 2 above) was that of Haribhadra, the Abhisamayālaṃkārāloka (see below), and the integration of the name change from the commentary may suffice to explain the origin of the B lineage.13 The use of all three names in the different sūtras and commentaries (see below) supports that view.
The details in the available Tibetan sources and modern studies on these three traditions can be summarized as follows:
sde can: taken by Rinchen Chökyong Zangpo to render the Sanskrit Seniṣka. The rarest of the three traditions, only one extant witness is known, an independent thirteenth-century manuscript in the LTWA collection.14 Thought to have been a version resulting first from revisions made by Kamalaśīla and Kawa Paltsek in the eighth century to the very earliest translation, and then from further revisions made to that version by Dharmaśrībhadra and Rinchen Zangpo in the early eleventh century, before Atiśa’s arrival in Tibet.
bzo sbyangs: taken by Rinchen Chökyong Zangpo to render the Sanskrit Śaniṣka. Witnesses of this version are found in the Toyo Bunko and the London (shel dkar) Kangyurs, as one (F 11b) of the three versions of the sūtra in the Phukdrak Kangyur, and as some independent manuscripts. One of the latter15 has a colophon mentioning only the names of the early translators, suggesting that this version may represent the early translation in its unrevised form.
’phreng ba can: taken by Rinchen Chökyong Zangpo to render the Sanskrit Praniṣka. This is the most widespread version of the sūtra in Tibetan and is the one witnessed in most independent versions of the text and in all Tshalpa and mixed Kangyurs, in the Stok Palace and Zhey Kangyurs among those of the Themphangma line, and the two other versions in the Phukdrak Kangyur. The two forms of the colophon found appended to such versions detail the full set of eight or more translation and revision stages, as outlined above.
It should be noted in this context that in the other Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, the name of the same wandering ascetic, Śreṇika, is rendered in Tibetan as ’phreng ba can in the Hundred Thousand (Toh 8) and the Twenty-Five Thousand (Toh 9), but as bzo sbyangs in the Eighteen Thousand (Toh 10), the Ten Thousand (Toh 11), and the Verse Summary (Toh 13). Furthermore, in the Tengyur, the Tibetan translations of Bhadanta Vimuktisena’s commentary (Toh 3788) on The Ornament of Clear Realization (see below) and of Ratnākaraśānti’s commentary (Toh 3803) on the present text (much referred to in the notes to this translation) both render the name as sde can, while those of Dharmaśrī’s commentary (Toh 3802) on the Hundred Thousand and the commentary on the three long sūtras attributed to Vasubandhu or Daṃṣṭrasena (Toh 3808) both render the name as bzo sbyangs. It is therefore intriguing that the classification of Tibetan translations based on the threefold variants of this name seems only to be mentioned with regard to translations of the Eight Thousand.
In any case, the Tibetan translation found in most Kangyurs is closely aligned with the extant Sanskrit and may be read with it, as will be seen using the bilingual view in the present translation as published online, which uses the text from the Degé Kangyur. Minor variants between different Kangyurs are comparatively infrequent and have not been recorded in the notes, given that the translation is based principally on the Sanskrit. Among the many available versions of the Tibetan text, of particular note is the magnificent volume in the Lhasa (zhol) Kangyur, printed from woodblocks made in the early 1930s, with two line drawings—each depicting a notable figure in the transmission of the sūtra—on the recto of every single one of its 523 folios.
In summary, the Tibetan translation seems to have been very carefully checked, edited, revised, and verified against a number of Sanskrit manuscripts, and indeed with the help of one or more of the Indian commentaries (although there is no record of which16), by many generations of scholars.
The Commentaries
Readers of this translation of the Eight Thousand will not necessarily be making use of the treatises and commentaries to help them understand how the tradition understands the esoteric meaning of the Prajñāpāramitā scriptures, for much in these works can indeed be understood on its own. Nevertheless, the selected material from the commentaries that we have included in the notes is quite extensive, and it may therefore be helpful to sketch out the historical background and ongoing role of the commentarial tradition.