Vorobyova-Desyatovskaya M.I. The Kāśyapaparivarta. Romanized Text and Facsimiles. The International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology. Soka University. Tokyo, 2002 (in collaboration with Seishi Karashima and Noriyuki Kudo).
There is a unique Sanskrit manuscript of the Kāśyapaparivarta (hereinafter KP) in the collection of the St. Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies, which has attracted the attention of scholars since 1926,when Alexander von Stael-Holstein published its transliteration. The reason for this unusual interest becomes clear if we take into consideration that the oldest part of this sutra, its core, was formed at the earliest stage of development of the Mahayana literature (Conze 1968: 302-5; Pasadika 1991: 59), and that the two most important philosophical schools of Mahayana Buddhism – Madhyamaka and Yogacara – regarded it as one of the basic texts to their doctrines.
Also, the sutra is of particular interest for the study of moral and ethical rules of Mahayana Buddhism, because the moral code of a bodhisattva was fully formulated in this text for the first time. This code was quoted in many other Mahayana texts and held in high regard in Central and East Asia.