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A Reference to Maga in the Tibetan Translation (S. Kawasaki) (20) Buddhists might have been supplied with the information about the Maga religion from such a group of people living in India. So far, however, we cannot find any reference to Maga's sun-worship either in TJ, or in the Abhidharma works.
There is another question : whether there was "the book of Maga (maga-śāstra)" as is mentioned in TJ. In the Abhidharmakośa-bhāşya, there is no reference to the existence of such a book, while the Abhidharma-mahāvibhāṣā has a sentence which is in a way possible to be rendered as follows: "Maga who have this kind of opinion and this kind of book (起如是見,立如是論)” For lack of the Sanskrit original and the Tibetan translation of the Mahāvibhasa, we have no further way of finding what was the Maga-śāstra.14)
Remarkable it is that Bhavya noticed of many similarities in the teachings of Maga in old Persia and the Vedic religion, between the two most easterly branches of the Aryan race!
14) In Kamalasila's commentary on the Tattvasamgraha, there is a reference to
gosava in connection with incestuous marriage (agamya-gamana): "vedasyâiva kridâśīla-piśācâdi-prañitatvam sambhavayitum/ yena gosavâdisv agamyagamanâ. dayo 'samācārāḥ samprakāśitä ity etad darśayann äha-kamêty-ādi/ kāma-mithyâsamācāra-prāņi-himsâdi-lak anāḥ/ / asabhyas tu kriya yena vacasă samprakäsitāḥ/ Tattvasamgraha-Pañjika (GOS., Baroda. 1926) ad TS v. 3620, p. 928.
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