Last year in Leipzig, at the IABS conference, a friend of mine kindly shared images of a Hevajratantra manuscript currently kept in Bhutan. Certain images had already circulated online and later appeared in Drigung Kyabgön Rinpoche’s edition of Marpa’s ‘Bum chung nyi ma, a commentary on the Hevajratantra. The manuscript is a very fine palm-leaf witness, though only about two-thirds of it appears to be extant. I recently finished collating it and will soon describe it in more detail.

The manuscript’s colophon is particularly interesting. It tells us that the text was copied in Nepal for a Tibetan. The patron’s name is rendered in Sanskrit, and judging by the corrections, the Newar scribe evidently struggled with the unfamiliar name.

Here is a transcription:

<unclear reason="uncertain akṣara">ta</unclear>kaladvayātmakatantrarājaḥ samāptaḥ || <space n="5" unit="akṣara"/> || ye dharmmā hetuprabhavā hetu teṣān tathāgato hy avadat teṣāñ ca yo nirodha evamvādī mahāsramaṇaḥ || deyadharmmo yaṃ pra<lb n="2"/>varamahāyānayāyina bhoṭadeśīyaśrībhikṣu<add position="above line">siddha</add>siṃha<unclear reason="possibly rubbed out">dhvaja</unclear>sya ya<cb/>d atra puṇyaṃ tada bhavatv ācāryopādhyāyamātāpitṛpūrvaṅgamaṅ kṛtvā śakalasatvarāser anutta<lb n="3"/><unclear reason="possibly cancelled">tta</unclear>raphalāvāptayeti || <space n="4" unit="akṣara"/> || nepālasammat 409 | <cb/>caitraśuklatrayodaśyāṃ maṅgalavāsare śrīśrīmahārājādhirāja anantamalladevasya vi<lb n="4"/>jayarājye śrīrājavihāre śrībhikṣubuddhaśrījñānena li<cb/>khitam idaṃ || <space n="3" unit="akṣara"/> ||

The date corresponds to Tuesday, April 5th, 1289 CE. Anantamalla’s reign has been dated to c. 1274–1308 (Petech, Mediaeval History of Nepal, 96). I imagine we can identify the individuals mentioned here with greater specificity, and perhaps I can try to do so in a future post. For now, I will simply note that our copyist, Buddhaśrījñāna, is not the same figure who worked extensively with Khro phu lo tsā ba Byams pa’i dpal (1172–1236).