The Nirvikalpapravesadhāraṇī (Dhāraṇī For Entering into the Unmediated State) is a short yet consequential scripture, which has been at least twice translated into Tibetan and Chinese, judging from the surviving manuscripts found in Dunhuang. Several Indian masters, including Sthiramati, Kamalaśīla, Vimalamitra, Ratnākaraśānti, and Atīśa, explicitly cited and commented on this text in their writings.
The page and line numbers in Matsuda (1996)'s reconstruction refer to the Leningrad manuscript, which consists of three long paper sheets. Unfortunately, the left end of the manuscript has gone lost, leaving roughly 18 missing akṣaras at the beginning of each line.
As for IOL Tib J 51, the original folio numbers are from “ka-5” to “ka-8,” and the IOL Vol pressmarks run from 39 to 42.
The folios of IOL Tib J 52 have been subject to three sets of pressmarks after its modern discovery, catelogued by LVP, TTMD and shown on the scanned photo on the IDP website. LVP uses no. 73 to refer to the first three folios and no. 93 to refer to the fourth. Only the pressmark 93 is still legible on the left corner of the recto. TTMD uses pressmarks 1-4 on the right corners of the rectos, though its order is different from LVP’s. IDP pressmarks run from 2 to 5 in yet another order.
The original leaves seem to bear no folio numbers. However, considering that the length of an extant folio’s content roughly equals to that of half a Derge folio’s content, it is safe to suppose that this Dunhuang manuscript originally comprises 10 folios in total. Here is a summary.
Assumed numbers |
LVP Pressmarks |
TTMD Pressmarks |
IOL Vol Pressmarks |
Corresponding folio in I T J 51 |
Corresponding folio in D |
4r |
73-1r |
2r |
3r |
none |
2b.7 – 3a.7 |
4v |
73-1v |
2v |
3v |
||
5r |
73-2v |
3v |
4v |
3a.7 – 4a.1 |
|
5v |
73-2r |
3r |
4r |
||
6r |
73-3r |
1r |
2r |
5r |
4a.1 – 4b.2 |
6v |
73-3v |
1v |
2v |
5v |
|
9r |
93r |
4r |
5r |
8r |
5b.2 – 6a.3 |
9v |
93v |
4v |
5v |
8v |
LVP Tibetan Manuscripts frrathiom Dunhuang by de la Vallée Poussin
TTMD Tibetan Tantric Manuscripts from Dunhuang by Dalton & van Schaik
IOL Vol. The ‘volumes’ created by the India Office Library which created "volumes" together with a new set of folio pressmarks.
IOL Tib J, Tibetan manuscripts from the library cave at Dunhuang kept at the British Library
Jinamitra, Dānaśīla, and Ska-ba Dpal brtsegs rakṣita, 'Phags pa rnam par mi rtog par 'jug pa zhes bya ba'i gzungs (Tibetan translation of the APDh), in Tg, vol. pa, 1b1-6b1.
Matsuda, Kazunobu 松田和信 (1996), "Nirvikalpapraveśadhāraṇī bonbon tekisuto to wayaku" Nirvikalpapraveśadhāraṇī: 梵本テキストと和訳 (Nirvikalpapraveśadhāraṇī, Sanskrit Text and Japanese Translation), Bukkyō daigaku sōgō kenkyūsho kiyō 仏教大学総合研究所紀要 3: 93-99.
Raghu Vīra & Lokesh Candra, Gilgit Buddhist Manuscripts, New Delhi, 1959-1974, nos. 1668-1681.
Ru wufenbie zongchi jing 入無分別總持經 (A Dunhuang Chinese Translation of ADph), BD 6123, in Guojia tushuguan cang dunhuang yishu 國家圖書館藏敦煌遺書, Vol.82, pp. 110-117.
Input by (Allan) Yi Ding, Stanford, 2016