The Sanskrit Bhadracaryāpraṇidhāna and its Tibetan Translation in Textual, Doctrinal, and Historical Contexts

The paper is dedicated to the contextual study of the Bhadracaryāpraṇidhāna (Tib. Bzang spyod smon lam), i.e., Aspiration for Good Conduct, one of the most important Mahāyāna aspiration prayers (Skt. praṇidhāna, Tib. smon lam). The aim of the paper is to examine the Sanskrit text of the Bhadracaryāpraṇidhāna, including its dates, literary genre, doctrinal context, textual witnesses, and references in other ancient Indian texts, and then explore its Tibetan translation – the history of its creation, translators, and an alternative translation version preserved within the Dunhuang collection of Tibetan manuscripts. The historical context of the Sanskrit Bhadracaryāpraṇidhāna is chronologically limited to the time starting from the date of historical Buddha (c. the 5th century BCE) to the end of the 12th century CE when Buddhism largely disappeared from India, and the historical context of its Tibetan translation – to the time of early spread (snga dar) (c. 641–842) and later spread (spyi dar) (986 – the beginning of the 14th century) of Buddhism in Tibet. Thereby the paper contributes to the field of Mahāyāna philosophical and linguistic research in general, and to the further advancement of scholarship on the Bhadracaryāpraṇidhāna in particular.