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The Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā and the Saddantāvadāna
Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā recension. It is not possible to prove that the scribe of Manuscript Add. 1306, Manjuśrībhadrasudhi, himself took the Şaļdantāvadāna from a manuscript of the Kalpadrumāvadānamālā, but the similarity of the script in the Șaddantāvadāna to that in other parts of the manuscript of the Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā makes this supposition highly probable.
The fact that the Şaďdantāvadāna is listed in the table of contents as the forty-ninth avadāna obliges us to assume that originally the text contained this story. It was, however, already missing in the copy which was translated in Tibet in the second half of the thirteenth century.21 It is difficult to find a satisfactory explanation for the disappearance of the Saddantāvadāna. This is not the only problem connected with the Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā. It was completed by Kșemendra in 1052, but he did not compose Tale 108. This is surprising in view of the fact that he was still living in 1066 (when he wrote the Daśāvatāracarita).22 Somendra does not explain why his father, after having composed 107 tales, did not complete his work by writing the 108th. If it had been Kșemendra's wish that his son fulfill this task, one would expect Somendra to have mentioned this. ·.
NOTES
1. The Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā is often referred to as Avadānakalpalatā. However, according to all the colophons and the Tibetan translation the title is Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā.
2. A copy of the same blockprint edition is listed in A Catalogue of the Tohoku University Collection of Tibetan Works on Buddhism (Sendai, 1953), p.521, No. 7034, but I have not been able to consult it. In the Cone Tanjur the Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā occupies two volumes (Vols. 91-92: Khrishing). The Cone edition contains both the Sanskrit text and the Tibetan translation. I have not been able to consult the Derge edition, but it also probably contains the Sanskrit text, though this is not mentioned in the catalogue of the Tohoku University: A Complete Catalogue of the Tibetan Buddhist Canons (Sendai, 1934), pp. 633-634, No. 4155. In the Narthang Tanjur the Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalată occupies only one volume. Cf. Mibu Taishun, A Comparative List of the Tibetan Tripitaka of the Narthang Edition (Tokyo, 1967), p. 98, No. 3646, Vol. Ge, ff. 1-328. It would appear that the Peking and Narthang editions contain only the Tibetan translation, while the Derge and Cone editions contain both text and translation.
