Some Remarks on the Textual Transmission and Text of Bu ston

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Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines
found text of the Dba' bzhed. 77 As will be shown below, there is very
little consistency as far as the number or the names of these men is
concerned, and Mkhas pa Lde'u even quotes the phrase "the thirteen
examined individuals [who] renounced the world" (sad mi bcu gsum
rab tu byung ba). 78 Evidently, the tradition [or traditions] surrounding
these events and the names and identities of the individuals who allegedly
played a role in them are contaminated and multimorphous
and, most likely for the better part, invented.
Dpa' bo II discusses the question of these different groupings and
the identities and names of the individuals in considerable detail by
comparing various accounts, and it is in this context that he alleges
that there was a problem with the print of the Chos 'byung with
which he was working. To be sure, the passage in question, or, for
that matter, the entire section on the development of Buddhism in
Tibet, does not cast Bu ston in the light of a shining historian. Even
without the text-critical conundrum proffered by the reading of the
Zhwa lu print of the Chos 'byung for which he can be hardly blamed,
he provides us with a fairly muddled and confusing account of two
varying [and, perhaps, competing] groupings. He first rather curtly
observes in the Chos 'byung that, in a sheep-year [?779], twelve
monks of the [Mūla]Sarvāstivāda school were invited to Tibet so as
to determine whether or not institutionalized, monastic Buddhism
could take hold in this country, and that ultimately seven men "were
selected and ordained as monks." 79 After these laconic remarks anent
the background to the ordination of the "seven examined individuals,"
three prints of the Chos 'byung, but not the Lhasa Zhol one, continue
by saying:
rgan gsum ni / sba ma ñdzu śrī / gtsang de we ndra / bran
ka mu ti ka / gzhon gsum ni / 'khon nā ge ndra / pa gor bai
ro tsa na / rma ā tsā rya rin chen mchog go // bar pa glang
ka ta na / rab tu byung ba mtshan ye shes dbang po yin la /
mkhan po dā na śī las byas zhes kha cig zer ro // mkhan po
bo dhi sa twas byas nas / thog mar bya khri gzigs rab tu
byung bas / mngon shes lnga dang ldan par gyur to // de
77
78
79
first ordained Tibetan men came to my attention after this article was completed;
see his "Bod kyi sad mi'i skor gyi gleng gzhi thog ma," Krung go'i bod rig pa 4
(2001), 122-38.
We would have expected the term in the relevant passage of the Dba' bzhed in
Pasang Wangdu - Diemberger (2000: 69-72, 17a-b).
LDE'U, 358. His enumeration of these thirteen consists of one grouping of seven
and one of six men, for which see below.
Szerb (1990: 28-30) [Obermiller 1932: 190, Satō 1977: 857, Guo 1986: 174] and
BUm, 1191.