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E. Steinkellner
Samdhinirmocanasutra
Whatever a bam po in the old lists may mean37 it is obvious that the Vyākhyāna with its ca. 568 folios in the Peking edition where normally 12-13 folios make 1 bam po has a size of ca. 43-47 bam po of this kind.38 Whether this is the same size as 40 bam po in the lHan kar list cannot be said for sure, but it is possible.
All doubts as to Byan chub rdzu 'phrul's authorship of the Vyākhyāna and also with regard to his identity are finally removed of course by the passage in the Vyākhyāna itself that was adduced by Bu ston in his reasoning where the Vyākhyāna refers to the bka' yan dog pa'i tshad ma composed by the dban phyug dam pa'i mna' bdag dpal lha btsan 39 Byan chub rdzu 'phrul as a source for definitions from the section on bltos pa'i rigs pa which definitions it does not deal with therefore.40
But if we then follow Bu ston in assuming that the author of the present Vyākhyāna was Klu'i rgyal mtshan, the attribution to Byan chub rdzu 'phrul, the king, in the Derge edition would ask for an explanation. Yet for lack of further material only two hypothetical answers may be offered to show our limits in this respect: some parallel texts41 in parts of the tenth chapter with the king's bKa' yan dag pa'i tshad ma may have caused the identification of the authors which each other. Or it may have been based on a simple misunderstanding of Bu ston's notes.
37 For some remarks cf. STEINKELLNER 1985, n. 8. A widely diverging size of the
single bam po can be found in the commentary of Wen tshig (P 5517) described above. There we find the third bam po for instance with ca. 10.5 folios as against the tenth bam po with 19 folios. And it is of great import that the number of bam po in the Peking edition (75) corresponds to the number given in the lHan kar
catalogue (74). 38 If we base our estimate on the Derge edition with approximately 12 folios for 1
bam po and ca. 476 folios of the present text its size will be ca. 40 bam po. 39 This is the title that recurs in Bu ston's Chos bsgyur dkar chag (cf. above n. 34).
SNSūV 159a1f.: de dag gi mtshan nid rab tu dbye ba ni dban phyug dam pa'i mňa' bdag dpal lha btsan Byan chub rdzu- phrul gyis mdzad pa bka'yan dag pa'i tshad (: mtshan) ma las 'byun ba bzin du blta bar bya'o //; this passage must be
the one that is referred to in SEYFORT RUEGG 1981, n. 51. 41 For instance: SNSUV 158a6-b1 and KTsh 65b7-66a3, SNSOV 163b2-7 and KTsh
70a5-b2, SNSūV 163b7-164a4 and KTsh 70b2-7.
40
240
