Notes

n.1The word saṃjñā (Pali saññā) has a broad range of meaning. It is often rendered “perception,” in the sense of a mode of perceiving rather than of an object of perception, but the word occurs in contexts in which it is better rendered by “discernment,” “recognition,” “consciousness,” “awareness,” “conception,” “idea,” or “notion.” In the entry on saṃjñā in his Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit dictionary, Franklin Edgerton nicely captures the sense most relevant to the present sūtra: “purposeful thought about.” It is in that sense that “thought” is intended here, as an active and intentional process of thought.

n.2Ui et al. 1934, no. 315.

n.3Resources for Kanjur and Tanjur Studies , Universität Wien, accessed June 3, 2022.

n.4IOL Tib J 311, IOL Tib J 89, and PT 45. Accessed through The International Dunhuang Project: The Silk Road Online.

n.5Tib. ’du shes bcu bstan pa’i mdo, Skt. Daśasaṃjñādeśasūtra. This is the Sanskrit title as it is given in the Tibetan. Presumably this ought to be Daśasaṃjñānirdeśasūtra.

n.6Degé and Stok read ku sha’i grong khyer na gyad kyi nye ’khor shing sA la zung gi tshal na bzhugs te. We have adopted the reading in Teaching the Ten Thoughts (Stok), which is more straightforward: ku sha’i grong khyer gyad kyi nyen kor shing sA la zung gi tshal na bzhugs.

n.7Tib. mngon du bya. Interestingly, there are variant readings of the verb here. In the Stok version of Teaching the Ten Thoughts, the verb is mngon du bsgom par bya (“cultivate”) at the beginning of the list and mngon par bsgrub par bya (“establish”) at the end of the list. In the Dunhuang manuscript PT 45, the verb is mngon du dran par bya (“be mindful of”).

n.8Tib. nyes pa chen po byas pa dag la yang yang ba’i ’du shes. Presumably this refers to previous harms to oneself caused by others.

n.9Note that the audience is said to consist of the “fourfold assembly”‍—monks, nuns, lay men, and lay women‍—but the vocative here is bhikṣu , the word for “monk.” This would appear to be an instance of bhikṣu in the vocative used inclusively to refer both to men and women. On this usage, see Collett and Bhikkhu Anālayo 2014.

n.10The presence here of “oneself” as well as “others” is difficult to understand, since it would appear to make light either of harms that one has caused to others, or, reading nyes pa as “faults” or “offenses,” of misdeeds that would be expected to bear fruit as suffering in the future. Perhaps the inclusion of “oneself and others” here, considering its inclusion in the following item, was a mistake of the translators or later editors.