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E. Steinkellner
Samdhinirmocanasūtra
One fact must be finally stressed: the Vyākhyāna is a commentary of great scholarly achievement and by no means simple. And TUCCI's words on the improbability of the king's authorship of the bKa'yan dag pa'i tshad ma42 would hold good even more so in the case of the Vyākhyāna. But the authorship of the expert and experienced Tibetan translator that Klui rgyal mtshan must have been need not be doubted in the same way.
5. Ka'yan dag pa'i tshad ma las mdo btus pa of Khri Sron lde btsan
(P 5839, D 4352).
The author again is only mentioned in the Derge edition and the work is also transmitted within the group of Tibetan works in the Tanjur.25 It is already listed in the lHan kar catalogue (LALOU 723) and also appears in the 'Phan than catalogue (NISHIOKA 2900) both of which contain lists of works attributed to king Khri Sroń lde btsan.43 The latter catalogue even adds a smaller version of the work in 1 bam po (Ka' yan dag pa'i tshad ma mdor bstan pa, NISHIOKA 2909) to a work (NISHIOKA 2908 = LALOU 729) that it declares as "commissioned by the divine king" (lha btsan pos bkas bcad pa).44
42 TUCCI 1958, p. 151. 43 LALOU 723-729 under the title: btsan po Khri Sron Ide btsan gyi mdzad pa'i gtsug
Lag, and NISHIOKA 2899-2908 or 2909 with the same title but different names for some of the works (cf. also KhGT, Ja, 124a7f.). bkas bcad pa literally "determined, decided by order (of the king)". For this term cf. SIMONSSON 1957, pp. 226ff. Where the term refers to a particular work as in the case of NISHIOKA 2908 and possibly 2909 we may understand the term in two, if not both ways: the king gave order to compose or compile that work, or the king gave order to accept that work as authoritative.
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