Who Is Byan Chub Rdzu Phrul

Author(s): Ernst Steinkellner
Publisher: Ernst Steinkellner

Page 4

E. Steinkellner
Samdhinirmocanasūtra
The most interesting question with regard to this text is that of the identity of its author.9 DAVID SEYFORT RUEGG has shown 10 that we know of at least three persons of that name: the disciple of Srigupta and teacher of Santarakṣita from the first part of the eighth century, the translator from the early ninth century; and the teacher and collaborator of Mar pa from the eleventh century.
The translator Jñanagarbha or Ye ses snin po was quite prolific and worked together with different Indian pandits and Tibetan lotsāvas. 11 Since in the great majority of cases he works together with a Tibetan or a Tibetan and an Indian colleague but only in a few cases with a possibly Indian colleague only12 we would naturally tend to assume that he was an Indian pandit. We do not however really know whether it must be considered an iron rule that the translation team always consisted of Indian and Tibetan members and whether a team of Indians or especially Tibetans only was not also possible.
In the light of the following observations we may even consider the possibility that the translator Jñanagarbha and the translator Ye ses sõin po are .not one and the same person but rather two persons, the first being an Indian, the latter a Tibetan. We find for instance that the translation of the Ratnajālipariprcchåsūtra (P 830) was made by Jñanagarbha, Ye ses snin po and dPal brtsegs according to the Peking edition, while the Derge edition (D 163) has Jñānagarbha and Ye ses sõin po as the translators and dPal brtsegs as the reviser.
Another indication to support the possibility of his being Tibetan would consist in the fact that it is evidently the Āryamaitreyakevalaparivartabhasta which under the number NISHIOKA 2926 and with the title dGons pa nes 'grel gyi byams pa'i le'u'i brjed byan appears in the first part of the 'Phan than cat
9 According to NAKAMURA H., Indian Buddhism. A Survey with Bibliographical
Notes, Tokyo 1980, p. 256, n. 15 there is an article by NAGASAWA JITSUDŌ in Tc: sho Daigaku Kenkyu Kiyo 43, 1-50, where he says that Jñanagarbha lived in c.
8th century." This paper is not available to me. 10 SEYFORT RUEGG 1981: cf. index of names and particularly note 224, where he re
fers to our text too. 11 The Tibetan translators Klu'i rgyal mtshan, dPal brtsegs, Nam mkha' and Ye ses
sde appear most often as his collaborators. 12 Cf. P 788, 952, 986, 5232, 5730.
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