Notes

n.1Another is The Verses on Circumambulating Shrines (Toh 321). Other frequently cited passages are to be found in The White Lotus of the Good Dharma (Toh 113), 2.105–109, and The Sūtra on Dependent Arising (Toh 212), 1.6.

n.2Goss 2005, 154–56.

n.3Ray 1994, 327.

n.4Schopen 1997, 131–32; Fogelin 2003, 131–32, 142.

n.5For an English translation of these verses see Bendall and Rouse 1922, 92, 270–76. See also Goodman 2016, Chapter 17.

n.6The verses in the Mahāvastu that correspond to those in the Avalokinī are contained in the final section of the thirty-second chapter, titled “The Second Avalokita Sūtra.” For an English translation see Jones 1952, 274–354.

n.7The Denkarma catalog is dated to c. 812 CE. In this catalog, the Avalokinī is included among the “Miscellaneous Sūtras” (mdo sde sna tshogs) less than ten sections (bam po) long. See Denkarma, 298.b.4. See also Herrmann-Pfandt 2008, p. 85, no. 157.

n.8We decided to use only the masculine gender to translate the following verses, both for stylistic reasons and because some of these verses seem to refer exclusively to men.

n.9We have translated this tentatively, since we have been unable to determine the precise meaning of the term phrum. The Tibetan reads: phrum ltar zlum gyur.

n.10Tentative translation. (Tib. gal te sems can thams cad sangs rgyas shing / nyons mongs med pa gser mdog stobs bcur gyur / de dag bskal bye khrag khrig brgya stong du / rgyal ba mchog la mchod pa’i bsngags brjod nus).

n.11Tentative translation. (Tib. seng ge’i phreng ba.) According to Monier-Williams, siṃha can be a flower of the moringa tree.

n.12At this point and for the following five verses, the Buddha shifts the topic and describes the way he himself worshiped buddhas of the past as well as the fruition of this activity.