Notes

n.1The Stok Palace Kangyur, the only Kangyur of the Thempangma line consulted for this translation, renders the title of the sūtra with the Tibetan phye ma rather than the bye ma found in all the Kangyurs of the Tshalpa line. Both spellings, like the Sanskrit vāluka, can indicate any kind of powder or dust, including sand. Since in English “gold dust” is the common idiom, while “golden sand” would be ambiguous (between color and substance), we have rendered the title with the English “gold dust.”

n.2See n.­6.

n.3Denkarma, folio 299.b; see also Herrmann-Pfandt 2008, pp. 114–15. The Denkarma catalog is believed to have been first compiled ca. 812 ᴄᴇ, with further additions for some years afterwards. This text is not listed in the Phangthangma catalog believed to have been compiled only a few years before the Denkarma.

n.4Skilling 2021, pp. 439–50.

n.5Tib. de bzhin gshegs pa’i yul. Lit. the “realm” or “domain” of thus-gone ones. Peter Skilling suggests that here it likely translates the term tathāgata­viṣaya. On this topic, see Skilling 2021, pp. 441–45.

n.6This rather striking analogy for speed (using the pool, the chariot, and the snake, followed by the sequence of further fractions of time based on the efficacy of various figures in teaching the Dharma) is not unique to the present sūtra but, as pointed out by Peter Skilling, is also found in The Seal of Engagement in Awakening the Power of Faith (Śraddhā­balādhānāvatāra­mudrā, Toh 201), 1.­444, and in a citation in The Compendium of Sūtras (Sutrasamuccaya, Toh 3934) which identifies it as being from the Buddhāvataṃsaka. For a discussion comparing the varying details of these three instances, see Skilling 2021, pp. 441–44.