prayojanaabhidheya

[mkapstei at UCHICAGO.EDU]

Dear colleagues,

Thanks to those who responded to my query. You very
well confirmed my hunch that the issue has not 
been very much treated so far: just the article by
Funayama and some in the Zaastraarambha vol. ed. by
Walter Slaje. To these I may add that there is
one article discussing the matter in respect to 
its treatment by the 16th c. Tibetan figure
Padma dkar-po: M. Broido, "Notes on dgos 'brel" in
Bulletin of the Tibet Society 1983.

So not a lot, to date, on a topic that's almost ubiquitous in
the Sanskrit and Tibetan zaastric literature (and no doubt
Pali as well, though I've not yet verified this).

Matthew T. Kapstein
Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies
The University of Chicago Divinity School
Directeur d'études
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris