Jātakamālapañjikā/Full text
The Jātakamālāpañjikā (Tib. Skyes pa'i rabs kyi rgyud kyi dka' 'grel pa, "An Explanation of the Difficult Points of the Words in the Jātaka-mālā") is a commentary by Vīryasiṃha on Āryaśūra's Jātakamālā, preserved in the Derge Tengyur (Toh. no. 4460, vol. PO/212, folios 275v.1–312v.1) and the only work by this author recorded there. True to its title, the commentary proceeds through the root text glossing individual difficult words and phrases rather than offering a continuous paraphrase, opening with its own verses of homage to the Buddha and bodhisattvas before turning to the Jātakamālā itself. Alongside this word-level exegesis, Vīryasiṃha addresses broader interpretive questions about the text's structure—organizing the thirty-four jātakas according to the six perfections (giving, discipline, patience, and so on) and noting where opinions differ on the count and order of subdivisions within each—and records a view held by some that Āryaśūra's work was left unfinished, a question he treats as needing further examination rather than settling outright. According to the Encyclopedia of Buddhism, it is this commentary that is the source of the tradition that Āryaśūra originally intended to compose one hundred jātaka tales, of which only thirty-four are known to survive.
| Reference | Vīryasiṃha. jātakamālapañjikā [जातकमालपञ्जिका]. skyes pa'i rabs kyi rgyud kyi dka' 'grel pa [སྐྱེས་པའི་རབས་ཀྱི་རྒྱུད་ཀྱི་དཀའ་འགྲེལ་པ]. [A Commentary on the Difficult Points of the "Garland of Birth Stories" (84000)]. Tengyur, RKTST 3785 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3785&typ=2. |
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| People | People/Vīryasiṃha |
