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E. Steinkellner
Samdhinirmocanasūtra
ture, eight in the lHan kar (Nos. 1 - 8) and one in the 'Phan than catalogue (No. 9). By the time of Bu ston only five of these texts were still available (Nos. 1-5). That means that during a certain period (and we can limit this period to the late years of king Khri Sron Ide btsan, the last two decades of the eighth century) a large body of commentaries on the Samdhinirmocanasūtra was extant, a considerable part of which was lost during the following centuries.
It is further of significance that a great part of these works, six in fact, are either attributed to Tibetan authors, whatever their actual share in the creation of these works may have really been, or are said to have been written or commissioned by a Tibetan king: No. 2 may have a Tibetan author (Ye ses sñin po); No. 4 was written by Klu'i rgyal mtshan; Nos. 5 and 10 were written or commissioned by Khri Sron lde btsan who also gave orders to Chos grub to translate No. 3; No. 9 was written (or commissioned ?) by Khri IDe sron btsan.
Finally it can be said that except for No. 1, the only real translation of an Indian original among the extant works, and Nr. 2, which comments only upon the eighth chapter of the Sūtra, a heavy emphasis of the commentators on the tenth chapter cannot escape our notice.
This tenth chapter of the Samdhinirmocanasūtra is devoted to the Buddha in his different forms, above all in that form which realized his teaching for us. In other words Buddhism as such and in its totality is the chapter's subject. It provides us with most detailed categories of textual exegesis and of the various possible approaches towards the contents of the teaching. It tells what the Buddhist religion consists of and how it can be scrutinized by oneself but also - and in our context most importantly - how other people can be told about it in a strictly ordered argumentative way. It is in short a great summa of Buddhist hermeneutics. The textual body of the religion and the
lations of the Samdhinirmocanasūtra: Some Notes on the History of Early Tibetan Translation. Komazawa Daigaku Bukkyðgakubu Kenkyū Kiyo 42, 1984, pp. 192-176; A Comparative Edition of the Old and New Tibetan Translations of the Samdhinirmocana-sūtra (I). Komazawa Daigaku Bukkyōgakubu Ronshū 17, 1986, pp. 616-600; (II). Komazawa Daigaku Bukkyogakubu Kenkyū Kiyo 45, 1987, pp. 354-320); (III). Komazawa Daigaku Bukkyōgakubu Ronshū 18, 1987, pp. 606-572.
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