Notes

n.1Advice to a King (1) (Rājadeśa­nāma­mahāyāna­sūtra, Toh 214).

n.2Although a title Mahāyāna Sūtra “Advice to a King” is found in the Denkarma, this refers to the advice to King Prasenajit (Toh 221). This can be ascertained because it is listed there as having 160 ślokas. Denkarma, fol. 229.a; Hermann-Pfandt 2008, pp. 102–3.

n.3As Peter Skilling notes, both texts appear “out of nowhere” in the Kangyurs of the Tshalpa line. Skilling 2021, pp. 410 and 430.

n.4For more on King Udayana as a literary and historical figure, see Adval 1970.

n.5The Hundred Deeds (Karmaśataka, Toh 340), 1.­194.

n.6For an English translation, see Bodhi 2000, pp. 1197–99. Another story featuring an encounter between the monk Piṇḍolabhāradvāja and the king is also found in the early Pali commentary on the Sutta Nipāta (see Bodhi 2017, pp. 1021–22), and a series of stories about him and his wives are found in the commentary on the Pali Dhammapada, on which see Burlingame 1921, pp. 247–93. Burlingame notes (p. 51) that versions of these tales are also told in the commentaries on the Aṅguttara and Majjhima Nikāyas, and in the Visuddhimagga.

n.7King Udayana of Vatsa’s Questions (Udayana­vatsa­rāja­paripṛcchā, Toh 73).

n.8Particularly in The Detailed Explanations of Discipline (Vinayavibhaṅga, Toh 3) as well as The Finer Points of Discipline (Vinayakṣudrakavastu, Toh 6).

n.9For an English translation from the Sanskrit, see Rotman 2017, pp. 259–72.

n.10On these traditions, see Carter 1990.

n.11See King Udayana of Vatsa’s Questions, 1.­3-1.­5, Rotman 2017 p. 262, and Vinayavibhaṅgha (Toh 3), Degé Kangyur vol. 8 (‘dul ba, nya), F.188.a.

n.12D: bad sa la; N: bad sa. As Skilling notes (See Skilling 2021, pp. 572–73, n. 942.), bad sa la here refers to Vatsa, not Vaiśāli. as suggested in Thubten Kalzang et al.

n.13gser can. Skilling suggests Kanakāvatī, which is also the name of a city in the distant past in a story in the Divyāvadāna, but we have not yet been able to trace whether this is an attested translation equivalent for gser can. For more on the term, see Skilling 2021, p. 573, n. 943.

n.14mda’ ste’u kha nya rnga ma. Skilling notes that the term corresponds to the Sanskrit kṣurapra, listed in Apte’s Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary as an “arrow with a sharp, horseshoe-shaped head” and translates accordingly. The Tibetan uses the analogy of a crescent-shaped fishtail (nya rnga ma), rather than a horseshoe, to describe the arrowhead, and so we have opted for a rendering closer to the Tibetan. The term ste’u kha nya rnga is also found in a list of weapons in Upholding the Roots of Virtue (Toh 101, 7.­102) which has been translated there as “bhalla arrows.”

n.15Here there is a play on the term for “person” (Skt. pudgala, Tib. gang zag), which is at times etymologized as the combination of “filling” (Skt. pūra, Tib. gang) and “flowing out” (Skt. gala, Tib. zag). For an example of this, see entry no. 340 in the Mahāvyutpatti.

n.16de la dmigs nas mu stegs lnga rnams ’jug. “Rival tradition” is our translation of mu stegs (Skt. tīrthika), though it remains unclear to us precisely what is meant here. The Yongle and Peking Kangyurs here read lha (“god”) instead of lnga (“five”), and Skilling gives slight preference to this alternate reading. He translates, “If you resort to a self, then you fall in with the heterodox and the gods,” but also notes his uncertainty about the best reading in his notes on this passage.

n.17As Skilling points out, the term ming (Skt. nāman), “name,” may refer here to consciousness and the three other mental aggregates, since the next line refers to the body. Nāmarūpa, “name and form,” is a common way that Buddhist texts refer to the person as an aggregation of mental and physical components.