Some Remarks on the Textual Transmission and Text of Bu ston

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debate, as is illustrated in D. Seyfort Ruegg, "Notes on some Indian and Tibetan
Reckonings of the Buddha's Nirvāṇa and the Duration of his Teaching," The Dating
of the Historical Buddha / Die Datierung des historischen Buddha, Part 2 (Symposien
zur Buddhismusforschung, IV, 2), ed. H. Bechert (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht, 1992), 263-90. Not translated by G. Tucci, the second chapter of the
Paṇ chen's chronicle on the genealogy of the rulers of Shambhala contains the
necessary chronological details to make sense of what he says about things having
to do with chronology in the third chapter on Tibet's imperial period; see the
texts in Deb t'er dmar po gsar ma. Tibetan Chronicles by Bsod nams grags pa, 6b-14b,
and Deb ther dmar po gsar ma, 6-14, as well as the translation in Huang Hao, Xin
Hongshi, 7-14. In his deliberations, he mentions Mkhas grub's commentary on the
first chapter of the Vimalaprabhā of 1434, the Dpal dus kyi 'khor lo'i 'grel chen dri ma
med pa'i 'od kyi rgya cher bshad pa de kho na nyid kyi snang bar byed pa, Collected
Works [Lhasa Zhol print], vol. Kha (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and
Archives, 1981), 145, 150, 155-7, 878 - p. 156 contains an intralinear gloss
“twelve,” signaling either that the number was initially omitted by a careless
scribe or carver when the text was being prepared for printing, or that the original
manuscript was corrupt. The text of the Paṇ chen's chronicle published by G.
Tucci also suggests by way of an interlinear note that the chu pho rta [year, 879
B.C.], the date given for the historical Buddha's enlightenment in Mkhas grub's
work [on p. 878], is a “corrupt wording” (yi ge ma dag), and both it and the Tibetan
text published in Lhasa have a note to indicate that the Paṇ chen alludes once
to the position of a Jo nang pa scholar. The biographies of Zhwa lu Lo tsā ba
Chos skyong bzang po (1441-1528) by his disciple Skyogs ston Lo tsā ba Rin chen
bkra shis (ca. 1480-1540) and A mes zhabs suggest that Zhwa lu Lo tsā ba took
serious exception to some of the views Mkhas grub had expressed in this and
other Kālacakra-related writings; see the 1517 Rje btsun zhwa lu lo tsā ba'i rnam par
thar pa brjed byang nor bu'i khri shing, dbu med manuscript, C.P.N. catalog no.
002790(9), 16a, and the Dpal dus kyi 'khor lo'i zab pa dang rgya che ba'i dam pa'i chos
'byung ba'i tshul legs par bshad pa ngo mtshar dad pa'i shing rta, Collected Works, vol.
Pa, dbu med manuscript, C.P.N. catalog no. 003204, 140a [= Collected Works, vol.
19 (Kathmandu: Sa skya rgyal yongs gsung rab slob gnyer khang, 2000), 270].
Mkhas grub was Dga' ldan khri pa III, the third abbot of Dga' ldan monastery. It
is therefore noteworthy that Dga' ldan khri pa XIV Rin chen 'od zer (1453-1540)
does not once allude to his 1434 treatise in his 1517 study of religious chronology
(bstan rtsis), though he does briefly note a bstan rtsis text Mkhas grub had written
in 1437, some three years after his study of the Vimalaprabhā's first chapter; see
Bstan rtsis gsal ba'i sgron me, dbu med manuscript, C.P.N. catalog no. 002324 (1),
23b. As far as I am aware, such a work was never included in the various printed
editions of his collected œuvre. The Paṇ chen writes that, though Mkhas grub's
treatise was unclear about the year in which the Buddha was born, he took it to
have been the fire-horse year [915 B.C.]. The generally accepted life-span of the
Buddha is eighty years, so that his nirvāṇa took place in 834 B.C. This then
means that the Paṇ chen was of the opinion that Srong btsan sgam po was born
in 617. See further Tshe tan Zhabs drung 'Jigs med rigs pa'i blo gros' (1910-89)
Bstan rtsis kun las btus pa (Xining: Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1982),
34, who cites A kyā II Blo bzang bstan pa'i rgyal mtshan (1708-68) for a different
interpretation of Mkhas grub's incomplete remarks. The relevant passage in Nor
brang O rgyan's recent study of the fifth Dalai Lama's chronicle, the Dpyod kyi
rgyal mo'i glu dbyangs kyi 'grel pa yid kyi dga' ston (Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun
khang, 1993), 146-7, does not help here. To be noted also is that the latter's Western
dates for events that happened during Tibet's imperial period are not always