Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
vii
Preface
xi
Contributors
xv
I. FACETS OF MAHĀMUDRĀ
The Study Of Mahāmudrā In The West: A Brief Historical Overview
Roger R. Jackson
3
The Extraordinary Path: Saraha’s Adamantine Songs and
the Bka’ brgyud Great Seal
Lara Braitstein
55
The Collection of ‘Indian Mahāmudrā Works’ (phyag chen rgya gzhung)
Compiled by the Seventh Karma pa Chos grags rgya mtsho
Klaus-Dieter Mathes
89
II. TRADITIONS OF MEDITATION AND YOGA
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa: Authority and Tradition
Ulrich Timme Kragh
131
The Aural Transmission of Saṃvara: An Introduction to
Neglected Sources for the Study of the Early Bka’ brgyud
Marta Sernesi
179
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition: The Single Means to
Realisation
Jan-Ulrich Sobisch
211
vi
Contents
III. CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE SUCCESSIVE KARMA PAS
The Doctrine of Eternal Heaven: A Tibetan Defense of Mongol Imperial
Religion
Matthew T. Kapstein
259
The Role of Rang rig in the Pramāṇa-based Gzhan stong of the Seventh
Karmapa
Anne Burchardi
317
The Eighth Karmapa’s Answer to Gling drung pa
Jim Rheingans
345
Tibetan Interest in Chinese Visual Modes: The Foundation of the Tenth
Karmapa’s ‘Chinese-style Thang ka Painting’
Karl Debreczeny
387
IV. THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF GTSANG SMYON HERUKA
What Do the Childhood and Early Life of Gtsang smyon Heruka Tell Us
about His Bka’ brgyud Affiliation?
Stefan Larsson
425
The Printing Projects of Gtsang smyon Heruka and His Disciples
Kurtis R. Schaeffer
453
PLATES
481
List of Illustrations
In K. Debreczeny, Tibetan Interest in Chinese Visual Modes
Fig. 1. The King of Lijiang, Mu Yi (1608-1692), official portrait. (After Mushi
Huanpu, p. 136.)
Fig. 2. Viewing Painting, central detail.
Fig. 3. Rabbit detail.
Fig. 4. Monkey and birds eating, detail.
Fig. 5. Lin Liang. “Wild Fowl,” landscape detail. (After Liu Zhen, fig. 21.)
Fig. 6. Lü Ji. “Two Ducks.” Ink and color on silk; 25 x 52 cm. Lijiang Dongba
Cultural Museum (no. 1115). (After Lijiang shu hua xuan, Pl. 21.)
Fig. 7. Notations detail from Deeds of the Buddha. Dpal-spungs Monastery.
(Photograph courtesy of Matthieu Ricard, Shechen Archives.)
Fig. 8. Arhat Sewing. Ink and color on paper flecked with gold; 30cm x 37cm.
Private collection.
Fig. 9. Arhat with Waterfall. Ink and color on paper flecked with gold; 30cm x
37cm. Private collection.
Fig. 10. Arhat on Rock. Ink and color on paper flecked with gold; 30cm x
37cm. Private collection.
Fig. 11. The Arhat Nāgasena. Ink on silk; 38 x 19 in. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John
C. Rezk, Collection of the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art
[92.062]
Fig. 12. Monkeys Taking Mushrooms from an Arhat. Dpal-spungs Monastery.
(Photograph courtesy of Matthieu Ricard, Shechen Archives.)
Fig. 13. Arhat with Flock of Birds. Dpal-spungs Monastery. (Photograph
courtesy of Matthieu Ricard, Shechen Archives.)
Colour Plates (after p. 487)
Plate 1. Chos dbyings rdo rje. “Buddha Śākyamuni.” Ink and pigment on silk;
68x 42 cm. Dated 1660. From a set of seven paintings, Lijiang Dongba
Cultural Museum (no. 439.1).
viii
Illustrations
Plate 2. Chos dbyings rdo rje. “Three Arhats Eating with Peacocks on
Scholar’s Rock.” Ink and pigment on silk; 68 x 42 cm. From a set of
seven paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 439.2).
Plate 3. Chos dbyings rdo rje. “Two Arhats and Dharmatāla Viewing Painting.”
Ink and pigment on silk; 68 x 42 cm. From a set of seven paintings,
Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 439.3).
Plate 4. Chos dbyings rdo rje. “Two Arhats and Hva-shang with Woman
Washing Daikon.” Ink and pigment on silk; 68 x 42 cm. From a set of
seven paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 439.4).
Plate 5. Chos dbyings rdo rje. “Three Arhats with Jade Gate.” Ink and pigment
on silk; 68 x 42 cm. From a set of seven paintings, Lijiang Dongba
Cultural Museum (no. 439.5).
Plate 6. Chos dbyings rdo rje. “Three Arhats Eating with Monkey and Bamboo
Fence.” Ink and pigment on silk; 68 x 42 cm. From a set of seven
paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 439.6).
Plate 7. Chos dbyings rdo rje. “Three Arhats Heating Tea in Waterscape.” Ink
and pigment on silk; 68 x 42 cm. From a set of seven paintings, Lijiang
Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 439.7).
Plate 8. Lin Tinggui (act. 1160-1180). “Luohans Laundering.” Ink and color on
silk; 200 x 69.9 cm. Ningbo, dated 1178. Freer-Sackler Gallery of Art
(F1902.224).
Plate 9. “Lohans View Painting.” 500 Lohan set. Daitoku-ji, Kyoto.
Plate 10. Deeds of the Buddha. Dpal-spungs Monastery. (Photograph courtesy
of Matthieu Ricard, Shechen Archives.)
Plate 11. Śākyamuni Buddha. Ink and color on silk; 68 x 52 cm. From a set of
seventeen paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 440).
Plate 12. Arhat Nāgasena with a Dragon Issuing Out of a Jar. Ink and color on
silk; 68 x 52 cm. From a set of seventeen paintings, Lijiang Dongba
Cultural Museum (no. 440).
Illustrations
ix
Plate 13. Arhat with Monkeys Stealing Mushrooms. Ink and color on silk; 68 x
52 cm. From a set of seventeen paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural
Museum (no. 440).
Plate 14. Arhat with Flock of Birds. Ink and color on silk; 68 x 52 cm. From a
set of seventeen paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 440).
Plate 15. Arhat Sewing with Birds in Tree. Ink and color on silk; 68 x 52 cm.
From a set of seventeen paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum
(no. 440).
Plate 16. Buddha Śākyamuni. Attributed to Chos dbyings rdo rje. Ink and
pigment on silk; 68 x 44 cm. Francoise & Alain Bordier Collection.
(After Jackson (1996), p. 253.)
In S. Larsson, The Early Life of Gtsang smyon Heruka
Fig. 1. Mkhar kha, Gtsang smyon’s birthplace north of Rgyal rtse.
Fig. 2. Dpal ’khor chos sde monastic complex at Rgyal rtse.
Fig. 3. Gur pa gra tshang, the monastic department where Gtsang smyon
studied at Dpal ’khor chos sde.
Fig. 4. Mar pa, Mi la, and Ras chung, the first three Tibetan lineage lamas of
the Aural Transmission of Ras chung. Modern statues at Ras chung
phug.
Fig. 5. A recent statue of Gtsang smyon in Ras chung phug, the place where he
passed away.
Fig. 6. Gtsang smyon’s shoe, kept in a village near his birthplace in Mkhar kha.
PREFACE
The spiritual traditions inspired by the great translator of Lho brag, Mar pa
Chos kyi blo gros, and known generally as Bka’ brgyud, have had a remarkable
legacy, contributing not only to the development of Tibetan religion, but to
philosophy, art, literature, and politics as well. Though prominent teachers
associated with several of the Bka’ brgyud orders have now established
teaching centres throughout the world, touching the lives of thousands of
persons outside of Tibet, and though a great many texts stemming from these
traditions have now been translated into English and other Western languages,
as a distinct area of inquiry the focused academic study of the Bka’ brgyud and
their historical role in the formation of Tibetan culture is a relatively recent
phenomenon. The present volume, offering the fruits of original research by
twelve scholars, advances our knowledge in this field, while suggesting
directions for future inquiry.
The work published here is based on presentations at two panels at the
Tenth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies convened at
Königswinter, Germany, in August 2006 under the auspices of the Seminar for
Central Asian Studies at Bonn University. The first, concerning the Mahāmudrā
teachings that are considered the very heart of Bka’ brgyud contemplative
teaching, was organised by Roger R. Jackson and Lara Braitstein and entitled
“Phyag rgya chen po: Perspectives, Debates, Traditions and Transmissions.”
Besides the organisers, the contributors included Jim Rheingans, Burkhart
Scherer, and Jan-Ulrich Sobisch. The second panel, commemorating the figure
often considered the first representative of the unique Tibetan ecclesiatical
institution of recognised hierarchical incarnation, was called “For Karma
Pakshi’s Octocentenary: Dialogue and Innovation in the Bka’-brgyud
Traditions.” Organised by Matthew T. Kapstein, it had as its other participants
Karl Debreczeny, Ulrich T. Kragh, Stefan Larsson, Klaus-Dieter Mathes,
xii
Preface
Puchung Tsering, Jann Ronis, Kurtis R. Schaeffer, and Marta Sernesi. In view
of the close relationship between the two panels, and the overall quality and
coherence of the new scholarship they introduced, the editors of this volume
thought it advantageous that our efforts be combined. We regret that three of
our colleagues (B. Scherer, Puchung Tsering, and J. Ronis) were unable to
include their work in the present publication. At the same time, we were
delighted that Anne Burchardi, whose communication was originally read in a
panel devoted to Buddhist Philosophy, could make her research available for
presentation here.
In preparing this work for publication, the editors have been guided by
the intellectual architecture of the contributions, rather than the plan of the
original panels. The first part, “Facets of Mahāmudrā,” begins with R.R.
Jackson’s survey of contemporary scholarship and translation relating to the
Mahāmudrā traditions of India and Tibet. L. Braitstein’s study of the
“Adamantine Songs” attributed to the renowned mahāsiddha Saraha, as well as
K.-D. Mathes’s examination of the compilation of “Indian Mahāmudrā Works”
directed by the seventh Karma pa, both enhance our growing understanding of
the ways and means whereby Indian Mahāmudrā traditions were transmitted
and transmuted in Tibet.
The following section, “Traditions of Meditation and Yoga,” takes up
specific Bka’ brgyud systems of spiritual discipline with reference to their texthistory and practical content. U.T. Kragh examines the formation of the textual
sources of the famed “Six Yogas of Nāropa,” perhaps the most celebrated of
the Bka’ brgyud teachings besides the Mahāmudrā. His work has its
counterpart in M. Sernesi’s study of the Aural Transmissions (snyan brgyud)
and their place in the yoga systems specific to Bka’ brgyud esotericism. In the
final chapter in this section, on “Guru Devotion” by J.-U. Sobisch, we return to
the Mahāmudrā in connection with the teaching of ’Bri gung Skyobs pa,
considered controversial by some, that such devotion offered in fact the “single
means to realisation.”
Preface
xiii
The studies making up part three, “Contributions of the Successive
Karma pas,” examine selected works—textual and artistic—produced by
members of one of Tibet’s preeminent reincarnation lineages. M.T. Kapstein, in
his investigation of a recently discovered and puzzling treatise by the second
Karma pa, Karma Pakshi, discovers within it an apparently unique, albeit
notably eccentric, defense of Mongol imperial religion. More mainstream
doctrinal concerns are at issue in the two chapters that follow, though the
approaches to them that we find here are strikingly original nevertheless. A.
Burchardi’s topic is the seventh Karma pa’s treatment of reflexive awareness, a
key element in Buddhist epistemological theory, in relation to the controversial
doctrine of “extrinsic emptiness,” or gzhan stong¸ while J. Rheingans examines
the eighth Karma pa’s remarks on Mahāmudrā in a letter responding to the
questions of a disciple. In the closing chapter of part three, K. Debreczeny
introduces us to the remarkable artistic production of the tenth Karma pa in a
study based on painstaking efforts to locate and document the identifiable
paintings that survive.
The last section of the volume is devoted to the famous “Madman of
Gtsang,” Gtsang smyon Heruka, the author of the best-loved of Tibetan literary
masterworks, his redaction of the biography and songs of the poet-saint Mi la
ras pa. S. Larsson’s contribution offers an overview of his youth and early
career, placing his relation to the Bka’ brgyud tradition in a new, nuanced
perspective. K.R. Schaeffer focuses on Gtsang smyon’s later achievement, and
that of his followers, in bringing important parts of the Bka’ brgyud heritage
into print for the first time. In this regard, one may note that Gtsang smyon also
played a particularly strong role in the redaction of the Aural Transmissions
studied by M. Sernesi in her contribution as mentioned above.
In reflecting upon the work found here overall, we may note two broad
tendencies underlying much of current Bka’ brgyud-related research. On the
one hand, there is a significant interest in the early formation of the Bka’
brgyud orders, the particular doctrines and practices that distinguished them,
and the hagiographical traditions surrounding their founding adepts. Besides
xiv
Preface
this, a second area of focused study that is beginning to emerge concerns the
great masters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, figures such as the
seventh and eighth Karma pas, as well as ’Brug chen Padma dkar po, Dwags po
Bkra shis rnam rgyal, Gtsang smyon Heruka, and others. While much of the
attention devoted to them concerns their important legacy in philosophy and
religious thought, we must also recognize that their rise to prominence
accompanied the age of Bka’ brgyud political dominance in Central Tibet. It is
a task for future research to disclose more thoroughly than so far has been
possible the precise relationships between the religious developments that have
mostly interested scholars to date and the material and political conditions that
enabled them.
Roger R. Jackson & Matthew T. Kapstein
Lo gsar, Year of the Iron Hare, 2011
CONTRIBUTORS
LARA BRAITSTEIN is Assistant Professor at McGill University (Montreal,
Canada). Her research focuses on Indian and Tibetan Buddhist poetic traditions,
Buddhist Hagiography, and Esoteric Buddhism. She completed her dissertation,
“Saraha's Adamantine Songs: Text, Contexts, Translation and Traditions of the
Great Seal,” in 2005.
ANNE BURCHARDI is External Lecturer in the Department of Cross Cultural and
Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen and Curator of the Tibetan
Collection of the Department of Orientalia and Judaica at The Royal Library of
Copenhagen. Her research focuses on Buddhist literature and philosophy, in
particular the Gzhan stong tradition. Recent publications include “Shākya
mchog ldan's Literary Heritage in Bhutan” (in Written Treasures of Bhutan:
Mirror of the Past and Bridge to the Future, Thimphu 2008), “The Diversity of
the Gzhan stong Tradition” (JIATS 2007) and “A Provisional list of Tibetan
Commentaries on the Ratnagotravibhāga” The Tibet Journal 2006).
KARL DEBRECZENY is Curator at the Rubin Museum of Art, New York. His
research focuses upon the history of Tibetan Art. Recent publications include
“Dabaojigong and the Regional Tradition of Ming Sino-Tibetan Painting in
Lijiang” (in Buddhism Between Tibet and China, Boston 2009), “Bodhisattvas
South of the Clouds: Situ Panchen’s Activities and Artistic Influence in Lijiang,
Yunnan” (in Patron & Painter: Situ Panchen and the Revival of the
Encampment Style, New York 2009), and “Wutaishan: Pilgrimage to Five Peak
Mountain” (JIATS forthcoming).
xvi
Contributors
ROGER R. JACKSON is John W. Nason Professor of Asian Studies and Religion
at Carleton College (Minnesota, USA). His research focuses upon Indian and
Tibetan Buddhist traditions of religious poetry and meditative praxis, especially
as related to Mahāmudrā. Recent publications include Tantric Treasures: Three
Collections of Mystical Verse from Buddhist India (New York/Oxford 2004)
and, with Geshe Lhundup Sopa, The Crystal Mirror of Philosophical Systems:
A Tibetan Study of Asian Religious Thought (Boston 2009).
MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN is Director of Tibetan Studies at the École Pratique des
Hautes Études (Paris) and Numata Visiting Professor at the Divinity School of
the University of Chicago. His research focuses upon the early development of
Tibetan religious thought and its Indian antecedants. Recent publications
include The Tibetans (Oxford 2006), Buddhism Between Tibet and China
(Boston 2009), and, with Sam van Schaik, Esoteric Buddhism at Dunhuang:
Rites and Teachings for this Life and Beyond (Leiden 2010).
ULRICH TIMME KRAGH is Assistant Professor and Head of the Tibetan
Research Team at Geumgang Center for Buddhist Studies (Korea). His research
focuses upon the founder of the Bka’ brgyud school of Tibetan Buddhism,
Sgam po pa Bsod nams rin chen, the Indian Madhyamaka philosopher
Candrakīrti, and the Tantric writings of the female Uḍḍiyāna-master
Laksmiṅkarā. Recent publications include “Early Buddhist Theories of Action
and Result” (Vienna 2006), “Classicism in Commentarial Writing” (JIATS
2009), and the edited volume The Yogācarabhūmi and the Yogācaras
(Cambridge, MA 2010).
STEFAN LARSSON is a Visiting Scholar in the Center for Buddhist Studies at the
University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses upon the non-monastic
and yogin-oriented aspects of Tibetan Buddhism. His Ph.D. dissertation, “The
Birth of a Heruka: How Sangs rgyas rgyal mtshan became Gtsang smyon
Heruka—A Study of a Mad Yogin,” was completed in 2009.
Contributors
xvii
KLAUS-DIETER MATHES is Professor of Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the
University of Vienna. His current research deals with the Indian origins of
Tibetan mahāmudrā traditions. Recent publications include “Blending the
Sūtras with the Tantras” (in Tibetan Buddhist Literature and Praxis, Leiden
2006), A Direct Path to the Buddha Within: Gö Lotsawa’s Mahāmudrā
Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhāga (Boston 2008), and “The Succession of
the Four Seals (Caturmudrānvaya)” (in Tantric Studies 2008).
JIM RHEINGANS is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Buddhist
Studies of the University of Hamburg. His research focuses upon Tibetan
religious
history
and
literature,
especially
meditation
guidebooks,
hagiographies, and the mahāmudrā traditions. Recent publications include
“Narratives of Reincarnation” (Boston 2009) and “Preliminary Reflections on
Guru Devotion” (St. Petersburg 2009); his 2008 dissertation is entitled “The
Eighth Karmapa's Life and his Interpretation of the Great Seal.”
KURTIS R. SCHAEFFER is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at
the University of Virginia. His research focuses on the cultural and intellectual
history of Tibet from the fourteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Recent
publications include Himalayan Hermitess (Oxford 2004), The Culture of the
Book in Tibet (New York 2009), and, with Leonard W. J. van der Kuijp, An
Early Tibetan Survey of Buddhist Literature (Cambridge, MA 2009).
MARTA SERNESI is a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Ludwig-MaximiliansUniversität (Munich). Her research focuses on Tibetan history and literature of
the eleventh through seventeenth centuries, particularly on the transmission and
representation of religious traditions and lineages. Her current work is devoted
mainly to Bka’ brgyud sources, in particular to the school of Gtsang smyon
Heruka and to the issues of the production and circulation of manuscripts and
blockprints in Tibet and the Himalayas.
xviii
Contributors
JAN-ULRICH SOBISCH is Associate Professor for Tibetan Studies at the
University of Copenhagen. His research focuses upon the reception of Indian
tantric Buddhism in Tibet and Tibetan theories of tantric practice, with a
special interest in Tibetan manuscripts. His publications include Three-Vow
Theories in Tibetan Buddhism (Wiesbaden 2002), Life, Transmissions, and
Works of A-mes-zhabs (Stuttgart 2007), and Hevajra and Lam-’bras Literature
of India and Tibet (2008).
I.
FACETS OF MAHĀMUDRĀ
THE STUDY OF MAHĀMUDRĀ IN THE WEST:
A BRIEF HISTORICAL OVERVIEW*
ROGER R. JACKSON
1 Introduction
In the late 1990’s, the Snow Lion Publications newsletter, a compendious
catalogue of popular books on Tibetan Buddhism, added a specialized subsection on “Mahamudra,” alongside such perennially popular categories as
“Dalai Lama,” “Women in Buddhism,” “Death and Dying,” and “Buddhism
and Psychology.” And, in 2005, the second edition of the Encyclopedia of
Religion, a bellwether of academic respectability in the field of religious
studies, included an article on “Mahāmudrā,”1 which had not been given a
separate entry in the first edition eighteen years earlier. These developments
seem to signal the arrival of Mahāmudrā studies as a legitimate field of inquiry
within the study of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.2 The acceptance of Mahāmudrā
* This is a significantly expanded and altered version of remarks delivered at the IATS
conference in Königswinter. My thanks to Lara Braitstein and Matthew Kapstein for
their helpful suggestions for improving the clarity of presentation of what is essentially
a bibliographic survey.
1
R. Jackson 2005; for good earlier definitions in more specialized reference works, See
e.g. Coleman 1994: 339–40; Quintman 2003.
2
Though a full exploration of the issue is beyond the scope on this paper, it is
interesting to note that over time the Sanskrit “Mahamudra” (with or without the
proper diacritics, and either capitalized or lower-case), rather than the Tibetan phyag
rgya chen po or any of the term’s English translations, has become the word most
commonly chosen to denote the focus of the field. This is despite the fact that
“Mahāmudrā studies” (that is, the designation of Mahāmudrā as an important subject
of inquiry) clearly are a product of Tibet rather than India, the vast majority of
4
Roger R. Jackson
(along with its cognate, Rdzogs chen) as a topic of inquiry can be traced to the
growth of Tibetan Buddhism in the West, and to the perennial popularity
among Westerners of styles of meditation considered to be “formless,” hence
allegedly unencumbered by cultural idiosyncrasies and ritualistic complexities.3
The growth of the field is accompanied by a host of difficult questions about its
proper scope, the role of popular and academic scholarship in its development,
and the sorts of topics that it ought to address. This essay will consider each of
these questions in turn, in the hope of beginning to situate Mahāmudrā studies
within the larger world of Tibetan Buddhist studies. My aim, thus, is to produce
not another study of Mahāmudrā per se but, rather, to outline the study of
Mahāmudrā as it has developed so far in the West.4
2 The Scope of the Field
Mahāmudrā, variously translated into English as “Great Seal,” “Great
Symbol,” “Great Gesture,” “Great Attitude,” “Great Consort,” or “Great
Embrace,” is probably best known as a system of meditative praxis in the Bka’
brgyud traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, but that context does not come close to
covering the wide range of usages of the term. Indeed, Mahāmudrā figures
more or less prominently in all the major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, so
literature focused on the topic is in Tibetan, and the earliest Western writers on the
term usually referred to it either by its Tibetan or some English equivalent. One can
perhaps explain the preference for the Sanskrit term by the fact that (a) mahāmudrā had
a long and well-attested history in India before it gained prominence in Tibet, and (b)
no single English translation has gained wide enough acceptance to eclipse all rivals.
3
The popularity of Zen in the West as far back as the first half of the twentienth
century, and the more recent enthusiasm for vipassana meditation can be explained
along similar lines.
4
By “in the West,” I really mean “in Western languages,” since a number of important
contributions to Mahāmudrā studies have been produced by Indians, Chinese, and
Japanese, not to mention Tibetans, in their own languages, and a number of important
publications have been issued in Asia.
The Study of Mahāmudrā
5
that there is discourse about it not only in the Bka’ brgyud, but among Dge lugs
pas, Rnying ma pas, Sa skya pas, and others as well. Some of this is due to the
historical connections of these traditions with the Bka’ brgyud, and some is
simply due to the fact that Mahāmudrā is a ubiquitous term in the voluminous
literature related to the Buddhist tantras that was produced in India in the
centuries just before and after the turn of the first millennium. In that literature,
depending on context, Mahāmudrā may refer to a hand-gesture used in tantric
ritual; one of three or four ‘seals’ at the culmination of tantric ritual or
meditative procedures; a ‘consort’ employed in sexual yoga practices; a style of
meditation focused on the nature of the mind; a lineage of teachings traceable
back through a series of Tibetan and Indian masters that includes Saraha,
Nāgārjuna, Tilopa, Naropa, and Maitrīpa; an alternate name for Madhyamaka; a
synonym for śūnyatā, tathāgatagarbha, dharmakāya, or a host of other Buddhist
designations for ultimacy; a blissful gnosis cognizing emptiness; or, quite
simply, the buddhahood that is the culmination of tantric practice.
Particularly when Mahāmudrā is associated with a long line of wisdom
teachings and texts in both India and Tibet, it comes to encompass texts in
which
the
term
itself
never
appears,
including,
for
instance,
the
Madhyamakakārikā of Nāgārjuna, the Ratnagotravibhāga attributed to Maitreya,
and the Dohākoṣa of Saraha. Similarly, to the degree that Mahāmudrā is a
designation for ultimate reality and its realization, it comes to be seen as a term
that extends not just to tantric contexts, but throughout all of Buddhism, so
that—as first suggested by Jñānakīrti in the eleventh century—there is a sūtrabased approach to Mahāmudrā as surely as there is tantric approach; thus, even
the Buddha’s “Hīnayāna” discourses on anātman are Mahāmudrā teachings.
When the term is applied this broadly, however, the question no longer is
Where is Mahāmudrā to be found? but rather, Where is it not? And when that
is the question, the prospect of defining the scope of the term suddenly seems
terribly elusive.
I have no obvious solution to this problem. I would suggest that the
most promising way to begin—if not necessarily to end—is to approach the
6
Roger R. Jackson
matter as a lexicographer might, and trace the history of usages of the term
Mahāmudrā from its earliest appearances in India to its most recent
interpretations by Tibetan and Western teachers and researchers. In so doing,
we might be able to produce for the first time a synoptic picture of the
significance of Mahāmudrā in all its variety over multiple centuries and
cultures. A full synopsis is probably beyond the scope of any single scholar,
however, and will be possible only through the accretion of smaller-scale, more
specialized studies of Mahāmudrā in its various textual and cultural contexts.
My task here, however, is more modest: to survey very briefly the study of
Mahāmudrā in the West. In the process, we will confront significant questions
about the way the term has been construed by scholars, the agendas and
institutions that have informed their studies, and the issues that have most
preoccupied them. On the basis of this survey of where the field of Mahāmudrā
studies has been in the past, then, we may be able to hazard some suggestions
about where it could or should head in the future.
3 A Brief Survey of Mahāmudrā Studies
The history of Mahāmudrā studies in the West has been marked by the same
syndrome that affects the study of Tibetan Buddhism more generally, namely,
the peculiar admixture of popular and scholarly approaches that is itself a
function of the psychology and sociology of the motley collection of
individuals who have been drawn to the study of Tibet in the past two
centuries: adventurers, missionaries, diplomats, spies, Theosophists, drop-outs,
artists, spiritual tourists, sincere Buddhists, and academics both peripatetic and
sedentary.5 As on Tibetan Buddhism, so on Mahāmudrā, the literature that has
appeared always has included both scholarly and popular material, yet these are
not mutually exclusive categories: much work of academic merit has emerged
from such ‘popular’ contexts as the writings of early explorers and missionaries
and more recent publications rooted in ‘Dharma centers,’ while many a
5
On this, see especially Lopez 1997.
The Study of Mahāmudrā
7
university-trained scholar has used an academic platform to expound an
idiosyncratic vision that seems not far from that of certain popularizers. In what
follows, I will survey some of the major discussions of Mahāmudrā that have
appeared in the West in the past two centuries. The survey is far from
exhaustive: I have noted many important works, but I do not have the space to
mention, let alone analyze, them all, and there undoubtedly are sources I have
overlooked. Furthermore, in a perhaps misplaced fascination with ‘origins,’ I
have given disproportionate attention to earlier discussions than to more recent
ones. Still, if the reader emerges from this section with a general sense of the
development of and issues faced by Mahāmudrā studies in the West, I will have
succeeded in my aim.
3.1. The Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Early Twentieth Centuries
It must remain forever a matter of speculation whether Marco Polo, in his
brushes with Tibetan Buddhism during his thirteenth-century journey to China,
ever encountered the term phyag rgya chen po; certainly, it is mentioned
nowhere in his account of his travels. Nor does it turn up, as best I have been
able to ascertain, in the writings of the Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries who
frequented Tibet in the early eighteenth century—though it is hard to imagine
that, learned as they were, they would not have known the term.6 In any case,
the earliest extant reference to Mahāmudrā in a Western language that I have
been able to find is in Alexander Csoma de Kőrös’s Tibetan-English dictionary,
published in 1834. His entry under phyag rgya chen po reads, in its entirety:
“The great seal &c.; the title of a book.”7 In 1869, Anton Schiefner and V.P.
Vasiliev published pioneering translations (into German and Russian
respectively) of Jo nang Tāranātha’s history of Buddhism in India, which
6 I have examined Ippolito Desideri's Account of Tibet (English translation, 1937), and
have found no references to mahāmudrā or phyag rgya chen po there. It is possible that
some of his more specialized scholarly works, especially in Tibetan, could contain the
term. For more on Desideri, see Pomplun 2009.
7
Csoma de Kőrös 1973: 87.
8
Roger R. Jackson
utilises the term frequently, almost always in the context of mahāmudrāsiddhi
as the attainemnt at the culmination of the tantric path. Schiefner includes the
term in his index, but does not elaborate on it.8 Only slightly more helpful than
Csoma de Kőrös’s cryptic entry is H.A. Jäschke’s definition of phyag rgya chen
po in his 1881 Tibetan-English dictionary: “... a figurative designation of the
Uma-doctrine.”9 Drawing perhaps from Hindu sources, the compendious 1891
Sanskrit-English dictionary of Vaman Apte, defines mahāmudrā as: “a
particular position of hands or feet (in practice of Yoga),”10 a definition
repeated almost verbatim eight years later in the even larger Sanskrit-English
dictionary of Monier Monier-Williams, who then adds obscurely: “a partic.
high number, Buddh.”11
The earliest source to offer anything resembling an informed definition
is L. Austine Waddell’s notoriously biased but vastly detailed The Buddhism of
Tibet, or Lamaism, published in 1895. In his chapter on “The Sects of
Lāmaism,” in his account of the ‘Kar-gyu-pa,’ he writes: “Its mode of mystic
insight (Ta-wa) is named Mahāmudrā or ‘the Great Attitude’ also called U-
mahi Lam or ‘the Middle Path.’”12 In a footnote about Mar pa, he adds a
reference to the great translator’s promulgation of a an exoteric Sūtra-system
emptiness and an esoteric Mantra-system inseparable bliss-emptiness.13 These
8
See Schiefner 1869; Vaisiliev 1869. I have not been able to examine the latter. For a
translation of Tāranātha’s text, see Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya 1970.
9
Jäschke 1972: 247b. Uma refers to dbu ma, or Madhyamka. Jäschke adds
parenthetically, “The other meanings given by [Csoma de Kőrös] and [Schlagintweit]
are rather uncertain.” Csoma’s definition we already have encountered; Schalgintweit’s
1863 Buddhism in Tibet, on the other hand, does contain numerous references to
mudrās, but none to mahāmudrā that I have been able to find.
10
Apte 1998: 1252a.
11
Monier-Williams 1974: 799a.
12
Waddell 1972: 64.
13
Ibid.: 65n1: “The so-called esoteric [sic] is the ‘mdo-lugs-stong-pa-nyid,’ and the
esoteric sṅags lugs bde stoṅ dbyer med.”
The Study of Mahāmudrā
9
often are associated with two different approaches to Mahāmudrā, but Waddell
does not thus identify them. In his Tibetan-English dictionary of 1902, Sarat
Chandra Das offers the fullest definition yet, under two separate entries. The
first, expanding on Jäschke, describes phyag rgya chen po as “a figurative
designation of the Mādhyamika doctrine, indicating a mode of attaining
Nirvāṇa by highly mystically-developed devotees while indulging in sexual
embrace.”14 The second entry begins by noting that phyag rgya chen po
is described in both Sūtra and Tantra. 1. ... [T]he special meaning of
Mahāmudrā is Anuttara, the supreme and absolute doctrine; it is described
as the knowledge of Dharma Karma (its practice) and the vows. 2.
according to the Tantra: ... Phyag signifies the knowledge of Çūnyatā,
while Rgya conveys the meaning of liberation from worldliness; and chenpo signifies both these important functions being brought together.15 This
occult Buddhism was first taught in India by Padmavajra (the senior),
Saraha, Nāgārjuna, Ri-khrod dwaṅ-phyug, Maitripa, etc., and afterwards it
was taken into Tibet by the Tibetan sages such as Marmije, Sgam-po, Phaggru, Sakya Pan-chen and others.16
That Das’s definition was as detailed and wide-ranging as it is, is testimony to
the the Indian scholar’s serious attempts to translate Tibetan texts, including
portions of the Grub mtha’ shel gyi me long of Th’u bkwan Blo bzang chos kyi
14
Das 1979: 831a.
15
The ellipses indicate places where Das (831b) has quoted Tibetan, perhaps from the
Dpag bsam ljon shing of Sum pa mkhan po Ye shes dpal ’byor. The second passage is
more or less accurate, but the first misses badly the meaning of phyag rgya’i dbye ba
bla na med / chos dang las dang dam tshig dang phyag rgya chen po zhes brjod do,
which translates as something like: “The unexcelled way of dividing mudrās is said be
into the dharma, the action, the pledge, and the great mudrā.”
16
Das 1979: 831b. Ri-khrod dwaṅ-phyug is Śavaripa, while Marmije probably refers to
Mar pa and Mi la ras pa (thanks to Matthew Kapstein for the latter suggestion).
10
Roger R. Jackson
nyi ma and, perhaps more to the point, Tāranātha’s Bka’ ’babs bdun ldan,
which includes a full chapter on Indian Mahāmudrā lineages.17 In the first
decades of the twentith century, the great German art historian, mythologist,
and Tibetologist Albert Grünwedel added to the fund of Western-language
works pertinent to Mahāmudrā, publishing a German translation of the Bka’
babs bdun ldan, as well as studies of biographies the the Indian siddhas (most
notably Nāropa), and his own overview of “der Lamaismus.”18
Thus—although the information was for the most part buried in widely
scattered sources in several different languages and genres—by the end of
World War I, an assiduous student could determine, quite correctly, that
Mahāmudrā may be, inter alia, a hand or foot position in yogic practice, a
designation for Madhyamaka and the emptiness doctrine, a mode of practice
entailing sexual yoga, the central view of the Bka’ brgyud tradition, and a
lineage, rooted in both sūtras and tantras, that originated in India and was
transmitted to Tibet. Notably absent from most of these discussions is any
reference to the details of Mahāmudrā as a system of meditative praxis.
This lacuna would be filled in the 1930’s by the French explorer
Alexandra David-Neel and the American Theosophist and adventurer W.Y.
Evans-Wentz, each of whom was an important purveyor of the ‘mysteries’ of
Tibet for Western audiences, and both of whom owed much to the translation
efforts of the Sikkimese Bka’ brgyud pa lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup. In
Initiations and Initiates in Tibet, published in French in 1930 and translated into
English in 1931, David-Neel gives a synopsis of the Phyag chen zin bris, a
detailed manual on Mahāmudrā meditation technique by the sixteenth-century
Tibetan polymath Padma dkar po.19 She includes a number of Padma dkar po’s
textual citations, and elements of his discussions of both zhi gnas and lhag
mthong practices, but omits much of the superstructure the author himself
17
18
See Das 1901.
See Grünwedel 1906, 1914, 1916, 1933. I have not yet had the opportunity to
consult these works for specific reference to Mahāmudrā.
19
David-Neel 1970: 198–206.
The Study of Mahāmudrā
11
provides, including the discussion of the four yogas that takes up the last part
of the treatise. She mistakenly asserts that the “Chag gya chenpo” practice is
Hindu in origin, and that its introduction to Tibet is owed to Sa skya paṇḍita.20
She also is among the first to assert that there is a similarity between the
teachings of “Tibetan mystics” and those of “the patriarchs of the Ts’an [Chan]
sect,” insofar as they distill the “fundamental principles” of Buddhism into a
form “as alien to the classic Hīnayāna as to the devout and sentimental
Mahāyāna.”21
Evans-Wentz makes a number of passing references to Mahāmudrā or,
as he preferred to call it, the “Great Symbol,” in his first two books based on
Dawa-Samdup’s translations, The Tibetan Book of the Dead (1927) and Tibet’s
Great Yogi Milarepa (1928). In the former, he identifies it as “an ancient Indian
system of yoga ... especially practiced nowadays by the followers of the semireformed Kargyutpa sect,”22 while in the latter he identifies it as one of the
“three chief Schools of Buddhist Philosophy,” along with the Mādhyamika of
the Dge lugs and the Ādi-Yoga [sic] of the Rnying ma pa.”23 In Tibetan Yoga
and Secret Doctrines, an anthology of seven Bka’ brgyud pa texts published in
1935, he includes Dawa-Samdup’s translation of a text on the six dharmas of
Nāropa, regarded by Bka’ brgyud pas as the key practices of tantric
Mahāmudrā. He also includes a complete translation of Padma dkar po’s Phyag
chen zin bris (as The Epitome of the Great Symbol), surrounded by a detailed
introduction and set of explanatory notes.24 The translation itself is reasonably
clear and accurate, but much of its significance in a Tibetan Buddhist context is
lost through Evans-Wentz’s attempts to explain it as “the quintessence of some
of the most profound doctrines of Oriental Occultism,”25 a process through
20
Ibid.: 198.
21
Ibid.: 206.
22
Evans-Wentz 1927: 135n2.
23
Evans-Wentz 1928: 4.
24
Evans-Wentz 1935: 101–54.
25
Ibid.: 101.
12
Roger R. Jackson
which one establishes “communion between the human mind and the divine
mind,”26 or a teaching of universal oneness, an “ancient postulate of yoga”
akin to what the sciences only belatedly have revealed in the West.27 These
distractions notwithstanding, with Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, Evans-
Wentz did give readers outside Tibet their first real glimpse at a Mahāmudrā-
focused text, and his discussion of it, while misleading in many respects, also
contains much information that is correct and valuable. At the very least, the
book presented the world with more information about Mahāmudrā than was
contained in all the works before it combined, and it would remain an
influential description for decades to come.
At the same time as adventurer-seekers like David-Neel and EvansWentz were publishing their observations, more scholarly works were
published by figures such as Haraprasad Shastri, who in 1927 edited the works
of Maitrīpa found in the Advayavajrasaṃgraha, and Muhammad Shahidullah,
who produced the first significant European edition and translation of the
recently discovered “People” Dohākoṣa of the great progenitor of Mahāmudrā,
Saraha (1928); Charles Bell, who wrote an authoritative account of the religion
of Tibet based in part on his long experience in the country and in part on
consulting important Tibetan historical works, such as the Deb ther sngon po
(1931); and Jacques Bacot, who gave the West its first translations of Gtsang
smyon Heruka’s hagiographies of Mi la ras pa (1925) and Mar pa (1937).28
Each of these texts has general relevance for Mahāmudrā studies, but contains
little in the way of detailed discussion of the term.
26
Ibid.: 115n1.
27
Ibid.: 136n1. He also subjects the text to a yogic critique by his Hindu guru, Swami
Satyānanda (108–9), and makes the interesting observation that it is the text in the book
with which “the Theravādin will probably feel most in agreement. Therein the
emphasis is, as in much of the yoga of the Southern School, upon yogic analyses of the
mental processes ... [and] the importance of meditation upon the breathing-process....”
(43).
28
These are, respectively, Shahidullah 1928, Bell 1931, and Bacot 1925 and 1937.
The Study of Mahāmudrā
13
3.2 The Mid-Twentieth Century
After a hiatus in Western preoccupation with Tibet during World War II,
further scholarly works—including some with a bearing on Mahāmudrā—began
to appear in the late 1940s. In 1946, Shashi Bhushan Dasgupta published his
study of Indian tantrism, Obscure Religious Cults, which, following upon the
work of Shahidullah, added much to our understanding of the Bengali tantric
Buddhist “Sahajiyās.”29 1949 saw the publication of two gigantic works, each
of which has remained a landmark in Tibetan Buddhist studies: Giuseppe
Tucci’s Tibetan Painted Scrolls and George N. Roerich’s translation of ’Gos lo
tsā ba Gzhon nu dpal’s Deb ther sngon po (1478) as The Blue Annals.30 In the
context of introducing a volume of photographs of thang kas, Tucci gives a
masterful survey of nearly a thousand years of Tibetan history, religion, and
literature, including detailed accounts of the writings of many major Buddhist
masters. Mahāmudrā does not loom large in Tibetan Painted Scrolls, but Tucci
does describe it on a couple of occasions, once, on the basis of the Kalparāja
Tantra, as “the pure Being, in which nirvāṇa and existence within time and
space are identified, the supreme reality,”31 and then, in a discussion of the bsre
’pho (mixture and transference) teaching, as “a method of freeing from the net
of cosmic illusion that great light which is a symbol of the void, shining in the
‘middle channel’ in that avadhūti or umā running along the spinal cord, often
transfigured as a goddess and invoked in the esoteric schools’ mystical
songs.”32 These definitions expose both the Sūtra and Mantra aspects of
Mahāmudrā, but they also edge toward mystification in their invocation of
“pure being” and the “great light,” terms that legitimately translate Tibetan
29
30
Dasgupta 1969: Part I.
As Roerich himself concedes (1976: xxi), he was aided in his efforts by the
expatriate Tibetan scholar, Dge ’dun chos ’phel (1903–51), though many feel Roerich’s
acknowledgement considerably understates Dge ’dun chos ’phel’s role.
31
Tucci 1949: I, 244.
32
Ibid.: I, 127.
14
Roger R. Jackson
phrases, but also evoke various preoccupations in Western metaphysics and
occultism.
Roerich’s Blue Annals is not an easy text to use, as its formatting is
forbidding, its scholarly apparatus skimpy, and its indexes often unhelpful, but
it remains a foundational text for the study of Tibetan Buddhism, and it is filled
with discussions of Mahāmudrā.33 These occur in particularly concentrated
form in 300-page chapter on the Dwags po Bka’ brgyud and the 28-page
chapter specifically devoted to “The Mahāmudrā,”34 but are found elsewhere as
well. There is no index entry for mahāmudrā or phyag rgya chen po, but a
reader who works through Roerich’s translation will receive as rich an
education in the multiple Tibetan usages of the term as is available in English.
Also in 1949, there appeared in the Journal of the American Oriental Society a
brief account of the “Bkah-Brgyud Sect of Lamaism” by Li An-che, which
gave the clearest outline yet of the various schools and subschools of the Bka’
brgyud, and also contained a full page of discussion of the various categories of
“the Great Hand-Seal,” in its exoteric aspect as the “Void-nature Seal” and, in
the esoteric tradition, as “the Joy and Light generated from the central artery”
through such techniques as the “Simultaneous Identification” (lhan cig skyes
sbyor), “Five Methods” (lnga ldan), “Eight Teachings” (khri chen brgyad) and
“Six Equalities” (ro snyoms skor drug).35 Li is not always clear in his
recounting of the details of these practices, but he does provide a useful outline
that would not necessarily be evident to a reader of The Blue Annals.
In 1950, Dasgupta published another text based primarily on Sanskrit
and Old Bengali sources, Introduction to Tāntric Buddhism,36 and two years
later, the German scholar Herbert V. Guenther published in India the first of
33
See, however, the Tibetan and Himalayan Library’s ongoing digitization and
reformatting of Roerich’s translation (under Roerich 1976 in the bibliography), which
makes the text far more user-friendly than in Roerich’s book-format version.
34
Roerich 1976: 399–724 and 839–66, respectively.
35
Li 1949: 58–59.
36
Dasgupta 1950.
The Study of Mahāmudrā
15
many works in his long career in which Mahāmudrā would figure prominently,
Yuganaddha, The Tantric View of Life. In this book, an account of Buddhist
tantric philosophy and practice based primarily upon little-studied songs and
treatises from medieval Indian mahāsiddhas, Guenther already displays the
scholarly style for which he will become (depending on one’s perspective)
celebrated or notorious: obvious mastery of original texts, deep philosophical
reflection, erudite cross-cultural references, and an evangelical desire to
demonstrate that Buddhist tantrism represents a holistic approach to life that the
West desperately needs to embrace. Thus, Yuganaddha includes ground-
breaking excerpts from Indian Buddhist tantric texts, but the translation and
discussion of these texts, as often as not, is enmeshed with Guenther’s
philosophical agenda rather than the historical or intellectual context of the
texts themselves. In any case, here, as in many of his subsequent works,
Guenther does pay significant attention to Mahāmudrā, which he describes as a
female symbol that points beyond particulars to an open, empty mind, and “is
so difficult to be formulated in words, because it is not a light that one sees, but
the light and freedom by which one sees and lives.”37 Whatever one may think
of Guenther’s approach to scholarship, he did try seriously to make Mahāmudrā
part of a global religious and philosophical conversation. Whether he succeeded
in doing this any better than his Theosophically-inclined predecessors, DavidNeel and Evans-Wentz, he would, over the years, bring a tremendous amount
of valuable material to light, and never failed to stimulate and provoke with his
reading of that material.
A number of other works published in the 1950’s had a bearing on the
study of Mahāmudrā. In 1954, David Snellgrove published the first English
translation of Saraha’s “People” Dohākoṣa, which received fairly wide
circulation because of its inclusion in Edward Conze’s anthology, Buddhist
Texts Through the Ages.”38 Helmut Hoffmann’s Die Religionen Tibets (1958)
37
Guenther 1952: 120.
38
Snellgrove 1954.
16
Roger R. Jackson
includes a section on the “Lamaist Sects,” where, in the discussion of Bka’
brgyud, Mahāmudrā is described as “a Yoga way, using special breathing
techniques and various physical exercises, and purporting to lead to a
consciousness of the identity of the soul with the Absolute, the ‘Void.’”39 In
1958, Chen-chi Chang wrote a “Yogic Commentary” for inclusion in the
second edition of Evans-Wentz’s Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, in which
he sought to contextualize the anthologized texts in terms of Bka’ brgyud pa
distinctions between “the Path with Form” and “the Path without Form,” the
former being associated with the six dharmas of Nāropa, the latter with
Mahāmudrā. Most notably, Chang gives the first detailed comparison between
Mahāmudrā and Zen, remarking, “From my own personal experiences in the
study and practice of both Zen and Tantricism, I have discovered that the
teachings of Zen and the advanced Tantricism of the Mahāmudrā are
identical”40 He goes on to cite various sayings from Zen and Mahāmudrā
practitioners to cement his claim, concluding, “Zen is esoteric Mahāmudrā and
Mahāmudrā is exoteric Zen.”41 Also in 1958, Toni Schmid published a study of
artistic and narrative traditions surrounding the mahāsiddhas of late first-
millennium India, who are important progenitors of Mahāmudrā traditions in
Tibet.42 In 1959, Herbert Guenther published his landmark translation of Sgam
po pa’s Thar pa rin po che’i rgyan, The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, which
describes Mahāmudrā meditation practices within the context of a broader
discussion of “the perfection of awareness,”43 itself very near the culmination
of the gradual path to liberation on which Sgam po pa’s text concentrates. The
same year, David Snellgrove published his equally ground-breaking critical
edition and translation of the Hevajra Tantra,44 making available in the West
39
English translation, Hoffmann 1961: 149.
40
Chang 1958: xxxv–xxxvi.
41
Ibid.: xxxix.
42
Schmid 1958.
43
Guenther 1959: 216–24.
44
Snellgrove 1959.
The Study of Mahāmudrā
17
for the first time a complete Buddhist tantra of the most esoteric sort, and, not
incidentally, a text in which Mahāmudrā figures significantly. Also in 1959, the
German-born self-styled Lama Anagarika Govinda, one of the last of the oldstyle adventurer-scholar-mystics, published his Foundations of Tibetan
Mysticism, a creative—some would say fanciful—meditation on the mantra oṃ
maṇi padme hūṃ, that found its way into the backpack of many a Westerner
who would travel to India in the 1960’s.45 Govinda, who studied with Bka’
brgyud pa lamas among others, has a brief discussion of Mahāmudrā, which he
describes as “the Eternal Feminine” that must be “known” by the seeker, not in
any coarse physical sense, but “within ourselves ... by the union of our male
and female nature in the process of meditation.”46
Thus, by the watershed year of 1959, a Western student interested in
Mahāmudrā had available an increasing number of resources of considerable
scope and precision. He or she could begin to discern the traditional contours of
the concept, in both India and Tibet, and also, for better or for worse, had tools
with which to think about it in relation either to other Buddhist practices or to
Western ideas of various sorts. Yet, as with Tibetan Buddhism more generally,
knowledge of Mahāmudrā still had mostly to be gleaned piecemeal from
scattered sources, some scholarly, some popular, and the term (unlike Zen) was
not well known outside small circles of Tibet enthusiasts, or the even smaller
circle of Tibetologists. Like history itself, however, all that was about to
change.
3.3. The 1960s and 1970s
With the Chinese suppression of the March 1959 Lhasa uprising and the
subsequent flight from Tibet by the Dalai Lama and tens of thousands of others,
there began a Tibetan diaspora that now has lasted over half a century, and
spread not just to India, Nepal, and other nations bordering Tibet, but to the
45
For a critique, see Lopez 1997: 125–26.
46
Govinda 1969: 103.
18
Roger R. Jackson
West as well. The tragedy of exile had the paradoxical effect of thrusting Tibet
to the forefront of the world’s consciousness, particularly in the person of the
Dalai Lama, who has become a peripatetic spiritual leader, best-selling author,
and recipient of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize. Because they were members of
Tibet’s ‘theocratic elite,’ a disproportionate number of Tibetans who fled the
country after 1959 were monks and other religious figures. They began to settle
in India and Nepal just at the moment when Westerners, motivated by
disillusionment with their culture and a romantic vision of ‘the East,’ and
enabled by disposable income and ever better modes of transportation and
communication, began to make their way to South Asia. The inevitable
encounters between Western travelers and exiled lamas led to a variety of
interesting developments, including the founding of centers in Nepal and India
where Westerners could study Buddhist thought and practice (e.g. Kopan near
Kathmandu and the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala) and
the emigration of lamas to the West to found centers there (e.g. Chögyam
Trungpa Rinpoche, Tarthang Tulku, Geshe Rabten) or to teach in universities
(e.g. Deshung Rinpoche, Geshe Sopa). In the course of this remarkable cultural
exchange, the most serious Western students of Buddhism settled into
monasteries in India, meditation centers in Asia or the West, or academic
programs in Buddhist studies in the West. A few Westerners spent long years
immersing themselves in Buddhism in its Tibetan diasporic setting, while
conversely, increasing numbers of Tibetans made their way through academic
programs in the West. All these characters—lamas, Dharma center denizens,
academics—would become the source of the rapid expansion of interest in
Tibetan Buddhism, and the consequent production of ever more numerous
publications on the topic,47 some traditionally academic, some unabashedly
47
Although far from scientific or complete, a bibliography I have been compiling, of
works with significant information on the Bka’ brgyud, bears this statement out. So far,
I have identified approximately 20 works for the entire period of 1895–1959, 15 for the
1960s, 20 for the 1970s, 40 for the 1980s, 50 for the 1990s, and, so far, over 70 for the
2000s.
The Study of Mahāmudrā
19
popular, many in an ambiguous category between the two. Since significant
numbers of Bka’ brgyud pa lamas and their students were involved in these
activities, publications on Mahāmudrā increased greatly, as well.
Given the exigencies of the training required for expertise in Tibetan
Buddhism (however defined), the process I have just outlined took nearly two
decades to bear fruit. As a result, in the 1960s and 1970s, publications on
Tibetan Buddhism in general and Mahāmudrā in particular increased only
gradually. Garma Chen-chi Chang, who had contributed his comparison of
Mahāmudrā and Zen to the second edition of Evans-Wentz’s Tibetan Yoga,
published two important translations in the early 1960s: the two-volume
Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa in 1962 and Teachings of Tibetan Yoga
in 1963. The former, which remains the only complete translation of Gtsang
smyon Heruka’s Mi la mgur ’bum in English, contains many passing references
to Mahāmudrā, and a brief footnoted explanation that defines it primarily as
“the practical teaching of Śūnyatā.”48 Teachings of Tibetan Yoga was the first
work since Evans-Wentz’s almost thirty years earlier to provide translations of
works on Mahāmudrā, including Tilopa’s “Song of Mahāmudrā” (the Phyag
chen gaṅga mā), the third Karmapa, Rang ’byung rdo rje’s, “Vow of
Mahāmudrā” (Phyag chen smon lam), and brief instructions on Mahāmudrā
practice by Chang’s teacher, Lama Kong Ka.49
Also in 1963, Herbert Guenther published The Life and Teachings of
Nāropa, which includes a relatively straightforward translation of a Tibetan
biography of Nāropa, and a long philosophical analysis of the twelve teachings
transmitted by Tilopa to Nāropa, one of which is Mahāmudrā. Guenther
explains Mahāmudrā through the writings of Saraha, Sgam po pa, and Padma
48
Chang 1989: 8n2.
49
Chang 1963: 25–48. Like Evans-Wentz’s, Chang’s anthology also includes a text on
the six Dharmas of Nāropa. For background on the lama ‘Kong Ka’ (i.e. Gangs dkar
Rin po che) who was an important informant for Chang, see Meinert 2009. For a
commentary by the notorious Bhagawan Shree Rajneesh, or Osho, on the Tilopa song
as translated by Chang, see Osho 1984.
20
Roger R. Jackson
dkar po,50 mixed in with observations from philosophers like Hocking and
Heidegger, such that, at one point, he remarks, “Mahāmudrā is not an event in
time, it rather is time, not restricted to a precious now, but including the past
and the future which we usually think of as non-existent.”51 In Tibetan
Buddhism Without Mystification (1966), Guenther turned for the first time to
Dge lugs sources, and translated a number of texts bearing on Sūtra and Mantra
approaches to Mādhyamika in that tradition, including two by Ye shes rgyal
mtshan (1713–97) that clearly are influenced by the tradition of Mahāmudrā
practice found in the Dga’ ldan snyan rgyud.52 Three years later, Guenther
published the first Western-language translation of Saraha’s pithy “King”
Dohākoṣa,53 preceded by a lengthy historical and philosophical introduction to
Saraha’s teaching, and followed by detailed commentaries by the eleventhcentury Nepalese scholar, Skyed med bde chen (= Bal po A su), and the
fifteenth-century Bka’ brgyud master, Karma phrin las pa. Mahāmudrā never is
mentioned in the dohās themselves, but is central to the commentarial tradition
upon them.
At the same time, other scholarly works with some bearing on
Mahāmudrā appeared, including David Seyfort Ruegg’s edition and translation
of the biography of Bu ston rin chen grub, which includes an extraordinarily
complex and erudite footnote on the gnosis related to tantric conceptions of
Mahāmudrā54; Ferdinand Lessing and Alex Wayman’s translation of Mkhas
grub rje’s fifteenth-century overview of tantra55; E. Gene Smith’s learned
50
Guenther 1971: 222–35.
51
Ibid.: 224.
52
Guenther 1976 [1966]: 77–127. Early on (93n4), Guenther defines Mahāmudrā as
“‘noetic union’ where the noetric act is grounded in the knowing agent and stretches
forth as an empty relational form to be terminated by the object having its own ground.
There is thus existential diversity with formal unity.”
53
Guenther 1969.
54
Ruegg 1966: 58–64.
55
Lessing and Wayman 1968.
The Study of Mahāmudrā
21
introductions to editions of Tibetan texts he was helping to publish in India56;
Malati Shendge’s study of Ḍombi Heruka's Sahajasiddhi and Lakṣmīṅkara’s
Advayasiddhi57; and further work by David Snellgrove on aspects of Tibetan
Buddhism.58 In the more popular realm, in 1966, the Bka’ brgyud pa
reincarnate Chögyam Trungpa published his autobiography, Born in Tibet, the
first in what eventually would become a deluge of books by exiled Tibetan
lamas. The book includes a glossary, in which “Mahamudra” is defined as “the
‘great symbol’, which transcends expression and contains the Universe; the
most profound form of Tantrik meditation.”59 Two years later, Trungpa brought
out in pamphlet form The Sadhana of Mahamudra, a Rdzogs chen-Mahāmudrā
liturgy he had received as a gter ma in Bhutan.60
The 1970s began with John Blofeld’s popular overview of Tibetan
Buddhism, The Way of Power, which includes a brief description of
Mahāmudrā, seen as a formless meditation practice that issues in “the
unimpeded consciousness of things as they really are”61; and with Giuseppe
Tucci’s scholarly summation, Die Religionen Tibets, in which Mahāmudrā is
described as “a supreme catharsis” in which “everything converges into the
supreme consciousness of being.”62 In 1972, Guenther issued a revised edition
of Yuganaddha, entitled The Tantric View of Life, which made his gleanings
from, and reflections upon, Indian and Tibetan Mahāmudrā literature available
to a new generation,63 and R.A. Stein published his French translation of the
56
See e.g. Smith 1968a, 1968b, 1969, 1970. Many of these were collected in Smith
2001.
57
Shendge 1964, 1967.
58
See Snellgrove 1967: 101.
59
Trungpa 1966: 259.
60
See Trungpa 2004.
61
Blofeld 1987: 237.
62
English translation, Tucci 1980: 71.
63
Guenther 1976. For an article-length summary of many of Guenther’s views on
Mahāmudrā, see Guenther 1975.
22
Roger R. Jackson
life and songs of the fifteenth-century Bka’ brgyud pa ‘crazy saint’ and
Mahāmudrā practitioner, ’Brug pa kun legs.64 Other important scholarly works
that appeared in the 1970s included Shiníchi Tsuda’s detailed study and partial
translation of the Saṃvarodaya Tantra, an Indian tantra source of conceptions
of Mahāmudrā nearly as important as the Hevajra65; Christopher George’s
partial translation of the Caṇḍamahāroṣaṇa Tantra66; Per Kvaerne’s seminal
article on the concept of sahaja, often taken to be synonymous with
Mahāmudrā,67 and his study and translation of the Caryāgītikoṣa, the collection
of tantric songs of the Indian mahāsiddhas68; Alex Wayman’s arcane analysis
of the literature on the Guhyasamājatantra69; and James Robinson’ Buddha’s
Lions, a translation of Abhayadattaśrī’s eleventh-century collection of
hagiographies of the eighty-four mahāsiddhas.70
The catalogue of Mahāmudrā meditation manuals available increased
with Stephan Beyer’s translation of Padma dkar po’s Phyag chen lhan cig skyes
sbyor khrid yig71; Judith Hanson’s translation of ’Jam mgon kong sprul’s
instruction on practices preliminary to Mahāmudrā, the Nges don sgron me72;
and two collaborative translations from the Library of Tibetan Works and
Archives in Dharamsala: of the first Panchen Lama’s root-verses on the “Ge-
lug/Ka-gyu” tradition73 and the ninth Karma pa, Dbang phyug rdo rje’s, Phyag
64
Stein 1972b; for further analysis of the concept of the crazy saint in Tibet, see
Ardussi and Epstein 1978.
65
Tsuda 1974.
66
George 1974.
67
Kvaerne 1975.
68
Kvaerne 1977.
69
Wayman 1977.
70
Robinson 1979.
71
Beyer 1974: 154–61.
72
Hanson 1977.
73
Dhargyey et al. 1975.
The Study of Mahāmudrā
23
chen ma rig mun gsal.74 Although not overtly Mahāmudrā-focused, two new
works on Mi la ras pa increased the material available for understanding his
approach to the topic: Lobsang Lhalungpa’s fresh translation of Gtsang smyon
Heruka’s Mi la rnam thar75 and Kunga Rinpoche and Brian Cutillo’s Drinking
the Mountain Stream, a collection of songs and stories including many that
were not contained in the Mi la mgur ’bum.76 Finally, as he established himself
in the United States, Chögyam Trungpa published a variety of works in which
Mahāmudrā figured more or less prominently, including his classic Cutting
Through Spiritual Materialism,77 The Myth of Freedom,78 and a collaborative
work with Herbert Guenther, The Dawn of Tantra, where its realization is
referred to as “the greatest encounter .... a peak experience.”79
As the 1970s came to a close, a number of trends were emerging that
would combine to expand Tibetan Buddhist and Mahāmudrā studies manyfold
in the decades to come: a rapid increase in the number of lamas familiar with
Western languages and Westerners with Tibetan; the founding, in both Asia and
the West, of ever more Tibetan Buddhist centers, at many of which translation
was seen as essential to the center’s mission; the maturation of a generation of
academically-trained Western scholars that had been drawn to Tibetan
Buddhism after 1959; and the emergence of “Dharma presses” that marketed
their books to the growing audience for works on Tibetan Buddhism.
3.4 The 1980s
In part because of the developments just noted, it was in the 1980s that
Mahāmudrā studies (like Tibetan Buddhist studies more generally) finally came
74
Berzin 1978.
75
Lhalungpa 1977.
76
Kunga and Cutillo 1978.
77
See Trungpa 1973: 222.
78
Trungpa 1976, which includes a translation of Tilopa’s Phyag chen gaṅga mā; this
translation was republished in Bercholz and Kohn 1993: 266–72.
79
Guenther and Trungpa 1975: 59.
24
Roger R. Jackson
of age in the West, beginning to achieve a level of detail and sophistication
largely unseen in previous decades. The sheer volume of publications—whether
scholarly, popular, or a mix of the two—that began to issue forth was great
enough that in our brief survey, we cannot list them all, let alone discuss them
in any detail. In this and the following section, however, we will note the
contributions from the era that seem most significant for an understanding of
Mahāmudrā.
In the academic realm, more and more studies began to appear that
focused with increased precision on particular persons, traditions, and issues
related to Mahāmudrā. Michael Broido, for instance, published a succession of
erudite and philosophically challenging articles, based upon his study of Padma
dkar po, Sgam po pa, and other Bka’ brgyud pa authors, which provided new
materials and perspectives on a range of complex problems, including the
criteria for understanding Mahāmudrā in terms of Sūtra and Mantra, or sudden
and gradual paths, or ground, path, and goal.80 Broido was a participant in the
first major academic dispute in Western Mahāmudrā studies, over the motives
for and legitimacy of Sa skya paṇḍita’s critique of Mahāmudrā (especially in its
formulation as the “white medicinal simple,” dkar po chig thub) as being akin
to the teaching of the Chinese interlocutor at the so-called Bsam yas debate,
Hvā shang Mahāyāna. The dispute, which played out over most of the decade
in The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, began with
Roger Jackson’s analysis and translation of Sa paṇ’s critique of Mahāmudrā in
his Thub pa’i dgongs pa rab gsal (1982). Leonard van der Kuijp added some
correctives about Sa paṇ’s sources in 1986, and the following year, Broido
criticized van der Kuijp and defended R. Jackson in a lengthy analysis, which
was, in turn, criticized in 1990 in an even lengthier article by David Jackson.81
The debate about Tibetan debates did a great deal to reveal how complex and
80
See Broido 1980, 1984, 1985a, 1985b, 1987.
81
See R. Jackson 1982, Kuijp 1984, Broido 1987, D. Jackson 1990.
The Study of Mahāmudrā
25
contested a notion Mahāmudrā could be, and how difficult intersectarian
relations sometimes were in Tibet.
Other academically trained scholars who made important contributions
on issues directly or indirectly related to Mahāmudrā included Janet Gyatso,
who wrote on the teachings of Thang stong rgyal po and the gcod tradition of
Ma gcig lab sgron82; Matthew Kapstein, who profiled the Shangs pa Bka’
brgyud, as well as thirteenth-century Bka’ brgyud-Rnying ma syncretic
trends83; Dan Martin, who looked into the early education of Mi la ras pa84;
David Stott, who analyzed the sources of Dwags po Bka’ brgyud in India and
Tibet85; Marie-José Lamotte, who produced a full French translation of the Mi
la mgur ’bum86; Mark Tatz, who wrote a still-definitive study of Maitrīpa87;
David Snellgrove, who published his two-volume magnum opus, Indo-Tibetan
Buddhism88; Samten Karmay, who analyzed Mahāmudrā in comparison to
Rdzogs chen89; and David Seyfort Ruegg, who masterfully discussed the
complex question of the relation between Mahāmudrā and Madhyamaka, and
elsewhere examined the sudden-gradual problem in early Tibetan Buddhism,
noting in passing the later debates in which Mahāmudrā was contested.90
At the same time, books and articles less subject to Western academic
standards, yet still of considerable value, emerged in increasing numbers from
publishers related originally to Buddhist centers in the West. The most active
and long-lasting of these were in America: Shambhala, founded under the aegis
of Trungpa Rinpoche; Wisdom, which was connected with Lama Thubten
82
J. Gyatso 1980, 1985.
83
Kapstein 1980, 1985.
84
Martin 1982.
85
Stott 1985.
86
Lamothe 1986.
87
Tatz 1987.
88
Snellgrove 1987: I: 265–68 et passim.
89
Karmay 1988: 197–200.
90
Ruegg 1988, 1989: 102ff.
26
Roger R. Jackson
Yeshe and the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition; and
Snow Lion, begun originally as a vehicle for translations from the Dge lugs
tradition. Keith Dowman published the first English translation of material
related to ’Brug pa kun legs, and a new version of Abhayadattaśrī’s
hagiographies of the eighty-four mahāsiddas, supplemented by extensive
discussions of the sādhanas practiced by each siddha and speculations on the
intractable problem of their historicity and historical relations.91 The Nālandā
Translation Committee, under the direction of Trungpa Rinpoche, produced
English translations of two important Bka’ brgyud pa texts, a collection of
‘spiritual songs’ (nyams mgur) of great Bka’ brgyud masters and Gtsang smyon
Heruka’s life of Mar pa.92 Geshe Kelsang Gytaso contributed a detailed
exposition of tantric Mahāmudrā practice according to the Dge lugs tradition,
and the Dalai Lama commented on Bla ma mchod pa, an important guru yoga
ritual related the Dge lugs Mahāmudrā tradition.93 David Templeman translated
Jo nang Tāranātha’s Bka’ babs bdun ldan, a survey of Tibetan meditation
lineages, the first of which is Mahāmudrā.94 Khenpo Könchog Gyaltsen
published two translations of ’Bri gung Bka’ brgyud pa texts: a collection of
songs of ’Jigs rten gsum mgon and a sixteenth-century manual for practicing
the Fivefold (lnga ldan) Mahāmudrā.95 A biography and two collections of
discourses of the Bka’ brgyud pa meditation master Kalu Rinpoche, all of
which touched on Mahāmudrā, were edited into book form.96 Kunga Rinpoche
and Brian Cutillo issued a fresh collection of stories about and songs by Mi la
ras pa.97 Jeremy Russell wrote a brief account of the little-studied Stag lung
91
Dowman 1980, 1985.
92
Nālandā 1980, 1982. The latter had been previously trabslated into French by Bacot.
93
K. Gyatso 1982, Dalai Lama 1988.
94
Templeman 1983: 2–14.
95
Gyaltsen 1984, 1986.
96
Kalu 1985, 1986a, 1986b.
97
Kunga and Cutillo 1986.
The Study of Mahāmudrā
27
Bka’ brgyud tradition.98 Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche brought out a detailed
commentary on Kar ma chags med’s seventeenth-century text on the union of
Mahāmudrā and Rdzogs chen practice, and a translation of Rtse le Sna tshogs
rang grol’s seventeenth-century introduction to Mahāmudrā, also from a mixed
Rnying ma-Bka’ brgyud perspective.99
Arguably, the most important single work on Mahāmudrā published in
the 1980’s was Lobsang Lhalungpa’s Mahāmudrā: The Quintessence of Mind
and Meditation, an authoritative translation of the sixteenth-century Phag chen
zla ba’i ’od zer of Dwags po Bkra shis rnam rgyal, which is probably the most
influential and detailed manual of Mahāmudrā in Bka’ brgyud tradition. The
translation is as important in its way as Roerich’s Blue Annals, but, like
Roerich’s work, it is undermined to some extent by its lack of an adequate
scholarly apparatus: there is no index at all, and the textual references provided
often are sketchy. Nevertheless, Lhalungpa’s book is a rich source of
information both on Mahāmudrā meditation procedures and on issues in the
study of the concept; it is one of the handful of works on Mahāmudrā that is
indispensable.100
3.5 1990–2009
The period since 1990 has seen an even greater proliferation of works on
Mahāmudrā, and our summary of them must be even more selective and
cursory: we will simply note major scholarly contributions on a range of
subtopics, including Indian Mahāmudrā and Mahāmudrā in Bka’ brgyud and
other Tibetan traditions—relegating more popular contributions to the
footnotes.
98
Russell 1986.
99
Chokyi Nyima 1989; Kunsang 1989.
100
Lhalungpa 1986b. The 2006 reissue by Wisdom Publications (under the title Mahā-
mudrā: The Moonlight: Quintessence of Mind and Meditation) makes the structure of
the text clearer, but does not otherwise enhance the scholarly apparatus.
28
Roger R. Jackson
The Indian sources of Mahāmudrā have received increasing attention in
recent years. Works on the sūtra and tantra sources relevant to Mahāmudrā
include Roger Jackson's translation and discussion of the Atijñānasūtra and
summary of the Ananvīlatantrarāja,101 Jeffrey Hopkins’ translation of Tsong
kha pa’s analysis of the yoga tantras,102 G.W. Farrow and I. Menon’s
translation of the root text of the Hevajratantra and Kāṇha’s commentary on it,
the Yogaratnamālā,103 Vesna Wallace’s translations and analysis of the “inner
Kālacakra” chapter of the Kālacakratantra,104 and David Gray’s translation of
the Laghusaṃvaratantra.105 Other studies of importance include Miranda
Shaw’s controversial and thought-provoking Passionate Enlightenment and
Ronald Davidson’s sweeping Indian Esoteric Buddhism, each of which attempts
to investigate the social context of Indian Buddhist tantra, and Geoffrey
Samuel’s detailed overview of the rise of yogic and tantric traditions in
India.106
Works on the Indian mahāsiddhas have continued to appear, as well.
Contributions
covering
multiple
siddhas
include
Matthew
Kapstein’s
examination of “King Kuñji’s Banquet,” Ronald Davidson's Tibetan
Renaissance, and Ron Linrothe's excellent catalogue of a Rubin Museum
exhibition of artisitic depictions of the siddhas, which includes essays by,
among others, Matthew Kapstein, Geoffrey Samuel, David Jackson, Dan
101
Jackson 2009b. In the popular realm, see Thrangu Rinpoche's Mahāmudrā-oriented
discussions of the Samādhirājasūtra (1994a) and the Uttaratantra (1994c).
102
Hopkins 2005; see also Skorupski 1983.
103
Farrow and Menon 1992.
104
V. Wallace 2001, 2004. Of the many other works on Kālacakra, see especially
Newman 1987, 2000; Arnold 2009.
105
Gray 2007.
106
Shaw 1993; Davidson 2002; Samuel 2008. See also Davidson 2001 for a a new
look at the concept of sahaja.
The Study of Mahāmudrā
29
Martin, and E. Gene Smith.107 Of individual siddhas, Saraha, in particular, has
drawn considerable attention: in 1993 Herbert Guenther translated Saraha’s
complete dohā trilogy (the “King,” “Queen,” and “People” Dohākoṣas) in his
inimitable style,108 and a decade later came Roger Jackson’s new translation of
the “People” Dohākoṣa,109 Kurtis Schaeffer’s superlative analysis of the
reception of Saraha in Tibet,110 Lara Braitstein’s pioneering study and
translation of the trilogy of vajragīti associated, respectively, with body, speech,
and mind,111 and Thrangu Rinpoche and Michele Martin’s recent translation of
and commentary on the “King” Dohākoṣa.112 Kāṇha has been discussed by
Roger Jackson, David Templeman, and Matthew Kapstein.113 Tilopa’s life and
songs were the subject of works by Francis Tiso, Fabio Torricelli, and the
Nālandā Translation Committee,114 and Nāropa has been examined from a
critical historical perspective by Ronald Davidson.115 Among treatises,
Maitrīpa’s influential but little-studied cycle of texts on “unthinking”
(amanasikāra), was investigated by Klaus-Dieter Mathes, Karl Brunnhölzl,
107
Kapstein 2000a; Davidson 2005; Linrothe 2006. See also Jampa Thaye’s brief
overview of Indian and Tibetan
Bka’ brgyud (1990), which includes (75–86)
translations of previously untranslated songs by Tilopa, Nāropa, and Śavaripa; and
Thomas Cleary’s new, Zen-flavored translation of the Caryāgītikoṣa first studied by
Kvaerne (1998).
108
109
Guenther 1994; for a review, see R. Jackson 1994.
Along with the Dohākoṣas of Kāṇha and Tilopa, all translated primarily from the
Apabhrāṃśa: R. Jackson 2004; for a discussion of ethical issues in Saraha, see R.
Jackson 1996a.
110
Schaeffer 2005; it includes a translation of the Tibetan version of the “People”
Dohākoṣa.
111
Braitstein 2005.
112
Thrangu 2006; it had previously been translated in Guenther 1969 and 1993.
113
Templeman 1989; R. Jackson 1992; Kapstein 2006.
114
Tiso and Torricelli 1991; Torricelli 1997; Nālandā 1997a; see also Thrangu 2002.
115
Davidson 2005: 44–49, 142–48; see also Trungpa 1994 and Thrangu 1997.
30
Roger R. Jackson
Tony Duff, and David Higgins116; Lakṣmīṅkarā’s Advayasiddhi further studied
by Ramprasad Mishra117; and the Ājñāsaṃyakpramāṇanāmaḍākiṇyupadeśa
(known to Tibetans as the Kā dpe) examined by Ulrich Kragh.118
On the Tibetan side, overviews of Tibetan Buddhism that have
appeared since 1990 have tended to give more attention to Mahāmudrā than
earlier ones.119 In addition, Mahāmudrā has figured prominently in a multitude
of more specialized studies. Besides its mention in more general works on
Tibetan Buddhism, the Bka’ brgyud tradition has been surveyed by Fabrice
Midal in his Pratique de l’Éveil de Tilopa à Trungpa,120 and a collection of
biographies of its great masters translated by Khenpo Könchog Gyaltsen.121
The Shangs pa Bka’ brgyud has been examined in works by Ngawang Zangpo
and Matthew Kapstein.122 Bka’ brgyud interpretations of Madhyamaka
philosophy, always closely aligned with Mahāmudrā practice, have been
analyzed in impressive detail by Karl Brunnhölzl, who also has published
translations of a range of Indian and Tibetan pith-instruction texts of
importance to the Bka’ brgyud in general and Mahāmudrā lineages in
particular.123 The most massive and ambitious work on Bka’ brgyud
Mahāmudrā in recent years is Daniel Brown’s Pointing Out the Great Way, a
116
See Mathes 2006, 2007, as well as his contribution to this volume; Brunnhölzl
2007: 125–90; Duff d.u.(b); and Higgins 2006.
117
Mishra 1995.
118
See his contribution in this volume.
119
See e.g. Powers 1995: 362–70; Ray 2001: 261–93. Similar works with passing
references include Samuel 1993, Kapstein 2000b, Ray 2000, and Davidson 2005. A
more specialized overview, Judith Simmer-Brown’s analysis of the ḍākinī (2001),
returns to some of the explorations of gender symbolism that so fascinated earlier
scholars.
120
Midal 1997.
121
Gyaltsen 1990.
122
Zangpo 2003; Kapstein 2005. See also Riggs 2003.
123
Brunnhölzl 2004, 2007, 2009.
The Study of Mahāmudrā
31
synoptic account of the gradual path of Mahāmudrā meditation from ordinary
preliminaries to buddhahood, based on manuals by, among others, Rang ’byung
rdo rje, Padma dkar po, Bkra shis rnam rgyal, Dbang phyug rdo rje, and ’Jam
dpal dpa’ bo.124 Focused more on early Bka’ brgyud doctrinal disputes than
latter-day meditation praxis is David Jackson’s exemplary Enlightenment By a
Single Means,125 which unravels the complex discourse—especially in the
writings of Sgam po pa and Zhang Rinpoche—surrounding the description of
Mahāmudrā as the “white medicinal simple” (dkar po chig thub), and the
criticism of that discourse by Sa skya paṇḍita. Jackson’s study may not close
the book on the great debate, but it is as fine a work of academic scholarship on
Mahāmudrā as has appeared.
Individual Bka’ brgyud pa persons, texts, and traditions have
increasingly been studied, as well. Mar pa has been investigated with historical
acumen by Ronald Davidson,126 and Mi la ras pa’s life and songs have been
seriously examined by Francis Tiso and Andrew Quintman.127 The heretofore
little studied Ras chung snyan brgyud has been investigated by Marta
Sernesi,128 and the Mahāmudrā corpus of Sgam po pa has been carefully
investigated by Ulrich Kragh, and his Rin po che thar pa’i rgyan translated
anew by Khenpo Könchog Gyaltsen.129 The Lnga ldan tradition of the ’Bri
124
Brown 2006. For a sophisticated discussion of the philosophical ramifications of the
notion of ‘experience’ in Mahāmudrā, see J. Gyatso 1999.
125
D. Jackson 1994; for a detailed review, see Mayer 1997. Sapaṇ’s Sdom gsum rab
dbye, the locus classicus for his critique of Mahāmudrā traditions, has been fully
translated in Rhoton 2002.
126
127
Davidson 2004: 140–48 et passim; see also Thrangu 2001a.
Tiso 1994, 1997; Quintman 2006. For additional songs, see Riggs 2003; for a
biography, see Thrangu 1994b.
128 See
129
her contribution in this volume.
Kragh 1998; Gyaltsen 1998. It is devoutly to be hoped that Kragh’s research will be
published more widely. For an extensive but uncritical biography of Sgam po pa, see
Stewart 2005.
32
Roger R. Jackson
gung pas has been studied by Jan-Ulrich Sobisch and Tony Duff, while the
Dgongs gcig tradition of Phag mo gru pa has been analyzed by Sobisch and by
Alexander Schiller.130 In addition to David Jackson, Zhang Rinpoche has been
studied by Dan Martin, whose translation of Zhang’s Mthar thug zab lam
makes available one of the greatest of all Tibetan poetic expositions of
Mahāmudrā.131 A biographical excerpt about the ’Brug pa master Lo ras pa has
been translated by the Nālandā Translation Committee, and a major study of
Thang stong rgyal po produced by Cyrus Stearns.132 Some works of the first
Karma pa have been translated by Tony Duff.133 Rang ’byung rdo rje’s famous
Mahāmudrā prayer has been translated and commented upon numerous
times,134 and his philosophical work increasingly studied.135 ’Gos lo tsā ba
Gzhon nu dpal’s commentary on the Ratnagotravibhāga has been studied and
translated by Klaus-Dieter Mathes.136 The seventh Karmapa’s perspective on
Mahāmudrā has been explored by Anne Burchardi, while the eighth Karma pa,
Mi bskyod rdo rje, has been examined by Gregor Verhufen and Jim Rheingans;
Rheingans also has studied the life and works of Karma ’phrin las pa.137 With
the withdrawal from the scene of Michael Broido, Padma dkar po has not
received his due of late, though translations and discussions of some of his
130
See Sobisch 2003; Duff 2008; Sobisch’s contribution to this volume; and Schiller
2003. Schiller is currently tracing the sources of the four-yoga tradition of Mahāmudrā
praxis.
131
Martin 1993; see also Martin 2001 for biographical comments on Zhang.
132
Nālandā 1997b; Stearns 2006.
133
Duff d.u.(a)
134
Nydahl 1991; Kongtrul 1992; Dorje 1995; Tai Situpa 2002; Brown 2006.
135
Schaeffer 1995; Thrangu 2001b; Brunnhölzl 2009.
136 Mathes
137
2008.
See, respectively, Burchardi’s and Rheingans’ contributions to this volume, as well
as Verhufen 1995 and Rheingans 2004, 2008.
The Study of Mahāmudrā
33
Mahāmudrā manuals have continued to appear.138 Bkra shis rnam rgyal’s Phyag
chen zla ba’i ’od zer remains and important reference point for the study of
Bka’ brgyud Mahāmudrā,139 and his Gnyug ma’i de nyid gsal ba has been
translated, as well.140 Important Mahāmudrā-related works by both the ninth
Karma pa141 and the eighth Situ pa142 have been translated and discussed, and,
last but by no means least, ’Jam mgon kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas’s
encyclopedic Shes bya mdzod is being gradually translated by the Kalu
Rinpoche Translation Group and published by Snow Lion; many texts in the
compendium bear on Mahāmudrā.143
Studies of Mahāmudrā outside the Bka’ brgyud fold have increased as
well. The relation between Mahāmudrā and Rdzogs chen has been discussed by
Herbert Guenther, David Germano, and Giuseppe Baroetto,144 and Karma chags
med’s synthesis of the two translated for a second time, by B. Alan Wallace.145
A tantric practice manual by the Bka’ gdams pa master Lce sgom pa has been
translated by Yael Bentor.146 Ma gcig lab sgron, the disseminator of the Gcod
practice tradition, in which Mahāmudrā is an important term, has been ably
138
See e.g. Hoshin 1991; Crook and Low 1997: 342–97. The latter text is an
intriguing, if hard-to-classify, study of various aspects of the lives of Bka’ brgyud pa
yogins in Ladakh. It should be noted that the Padma Karpo Translation Committee has
in progress a translation of Padma dkar po's important Mahāmudrā works.
139
See Thrangu 1999; Brown 2006.
140
Thrangu 2004a.
Thrangu 2003, 2004c. For a complete translation of his vitally important Nges don
rgya mtsho that is, unfortunately, available only on a restricted basis, see Callahan
141
2001.
142
Dorje 1995.
143
See e.g. Kongtrul 1994, 2005, 2007. See also Ringu 2006.
144
Guenther 1992; Germano 1994; Baroetto 2005. See also Dzogchen Ponlop 2003.
145
B.A. Wallace 1998.
146
Bentor 2000.
34
Roger R. Jackson
studied by Jérome Edou and Sarah Harding.147 Dol po pa, the Jo nang pa
exponent of the controversial doctrine of extrinsic emptiness (gzhan stong), has
been studied and translated by Cyrus Stearns and Jeffrey Hopkins,148 and the
doctrine more generally discussed by Susan Hookham.149 Sa skya pa
perspectives have been addressed most notably by David Jackson, who focuses
on the philosophical angle, and Cyrus Stearns and Jan-Ulrich Sobisch, both of
whom are concerned with the Lam ’bras tradition.150 The Dge lugs tradition of
Mahāmudrā, contained in the Dga’ ldan snyan brgyud, has probably received
the most attention of any outside the Bka’ brgyud: Janice Willis published a
translation of biographies of masters in the snyan brgyud,151 the Dalai Lama
and Alex Berzin a detailed exposition of the first Panchen Lama’s root text on
Mahāmudrā,152 Roger Jackson studies of the relation between Bka’ brgyud and
Dge lugs elements in the tradition and of Dge lugs pa uses of Saraha,153
Victoria Sujata a translation and analysis of the spiritual songs (mgur) of the
Amdo master Skal ldan rgya mtsho,154 and Glenn Mullin two collections of
translations of Dge lugs pa works on the six dharmas of Nāropa.155
147
Edou 1996; Harding 2003; see also Orofino 1987, and forthcoming work by
Michele Sorensen.
148
149
Stearns 1999; Hopkins 2006.
Hookham 1991, which includes a translation of ’Jam mgon kong sprul’s
commentary on the Uttaratantra, considered by Bka’ brgyud pas to be a foundational
Mahāmudrā text.
150
Jackson 1990, 1994; Stearns 2001; Sobisch 2008.
151
Willis 1995.
152
Dalai Lama and Berzin 1997.
153
R. Jackson 2001, 2009a. I also have in a progress a volume of translations of
various Dge lugs pa Mahāmudrā texts, entitled Lamp So Bright.
154
Sujata 2005. For other texts relevant to mgur as a medium for expression of
Mahāmudrā realization, see Ricard 1994, R. Jackson 1996b, Jinpa and Elsner 2000.
155
Mullin 1996, 1997.
The Study of Mahāmudrā
35
Finally, there has been an increasing number of popular expositions of
Mahāmudrā, by teachers both Tibetan and Western, that are related only
loosely, or not at all, to particular traditional texts or masters.156
4 Conclusion: Patterns and Prospects
In many respects, Mahāmudrā studies have come a long way from the confused
or deliberately mystifying explanations given by early writers. Scholarly work
on the topic has become ever more precise and sophisticated, and more and
more varieties of Mahāmudrā have been opened to investigation, both in the
Indian and Tibetan Buddhist spheres. At the same time, certain patterns that
emerged early in the study of the term have persisted. Scholarship on
Mahāmudrā continues to be fed both by traditional academic approaches and
popular enthusiasm for a concept and practice that promises easy, uncluttered
enlightenment in the here and now. As ever, the popular treatments outnumber
the academic ones, but to the degree that most of them are produced by Tibetan
lamas in collaboration with Western practitioners (or vice versa), popular
accounts are far more reliable than they were before 1959. Other patterns that
have persisted include a focus on: Tibetan sources of Mahāmudrā in preference
to Indian ones, Bka’ brgyud treatments of Mahāmudrā in preference to those of
other traditions, and later scholastic compilations in preference to earlier, less
systematic sources. These preferences all are understandable, and perhaps even
defensible, but they do indicate directions in which the study of Mahāmudrā
might be extended.
First, the Indian sources of Mahāmudrā need to be investigated more
deeply and systematically, especially the various collections of tantras, treatises,
and songs that are regarded by Tibetans as forming a Mahāmudrā ‘corpus.’157
Many yoginī tantras, including the Mahāmudrātilaka, remain little studied and
wholly untranslated. Of Saraha’s trilogy of Dohākoṣas (do ha skor gsum), the
156
See e.g. Tai Situpa 1992, 1996; Barth 1993; Kalu 1995; Berzin 1998; Chetsang
1999; Traleg 2003; Yeshe 2003; Nydahl 2004; Thrangu 2004b; Johnson 2005.
157
On this notion, see K.-D. Mathes’ contribution to this volume and R. Jackson 2008.
36
Roger R. Jackson
“Queen” still requires a great deal of investigation,158 and the riches of the
other two are far from depleted; the Seven Siddha Texts (grub pa sde bdun)
have drawn little notice, and Maitrīpa/Advayavajra’s Twenty-Five Texts on
Unthinking (yid la mi byed pa’i chos skor nyi shu rtsa lnga) are only just
beginning to receive careful attention.
Second, non-Bka’ brgyud Tibetan usages of phyag rgya chen po need
to be analyzed more carefully. Articulating the ways in which Rnying ma pas,
Bka’ gdams pas, Sa skya pas, Zhi byed pas, Jo nang pas, and Dge lugs pas
employ the term will add much to our appreciation of the many nuances this
multivalent concept has received in Tibet, and will tell us much about how
ideas of ultimacy are articulated in various traditions and how a single term
may be adapted in different ways depending on intellectual and institutional
needs.
Third, in the study of Bka’ brgyud traditions, earlier sources need to be
examined more thoroughly. We have a great deal of popular material on Mar
pa, Mi la, and Sgam po pa, but serious historical and textual investigation of
these and other seminal figures (e.g. Phag mo gru pa, ’Bri gung ’Jigs rten gsum
mgon, and the early ’Brug pa masters) is still, relatively speaking, in its
infancy. Only through investigation of these figures and their writings will we
ever understand how Mahāmudrā came to be the dominant term in Bka’ brgyud
discourse that it did. Furthermore, of later, more ‘scholastic’ figures, Padma
dkar po deserves renewed attention: particularly desirable would be a
translation of his Phyag chen gan mdzod, as well as of his Chos ’byung.
Another history worthy of further study is the massive Mkhas pa’i dga’ ston of
Dpa’ bo gtsug lag phreng ba.
Finally, as much as we need good, specialized studies in all these areas,
we also require, as suggested at the outset, more works that attempt to look at
Mahāmudrā synoptically across cultures and epochs, as a concept, a practice,
158
A new translation of the Queen Dohākoṣa by me is forthcoming in David White's
Yoga in Practice.
The Study of Mahāmudrā
37
and an element of institutional history.159 As also noted, though, such studies
can only be built on a foundations of careful specialized studies, and—as far as
Mahāmudrā studies have progressed in the past century, and especuially in the
past two decades—much of the foundational work on which such broader
analyses could be built still remains to be done.160
159
A modest attempt such a synopsis will be made in my Opening the Great Seal:
Mahāmudrā in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism.
160
Such foundational work will be greatly expedited by (a) significant new manuscript
finds that have been made in Tibet in recent decades, and continue to be made and (b)
the increasing availability of catalogues, searchable texts, and translations on the
internet, through the efforts of instutitons like the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center,
Tibetan and Himalayan Library, Asian Classics Input Project, Padma Karpo Translation
Committee, and Nitartha Institute; and individuals like Dan Martin, Tony Duff, Gene
Smith, David Germano, and Alex Berzin.
38
Roger R. Jackson
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THE DIRECT PATH:
SARAHA’S ADAMANTINE SONGS AND
THE BKA’ BRGYUD GREAT SEAL*
LARA BRAITSTEIN
1 Introduction
The Bka’ brgyud Great Seal (phyag rgya chen po, mahāmudrā) is distinct from
other Tibetan Great Seal traditions principally in its lineage and its methods.
Both begin to take shape from the time of Sgam po pa (1079–1153), as can be
discerned in the teachings attributed to him and subsequent controversies with
other traditions.1 The Bka’ brgyud tradition of course traces its transmission
lineage back much further than Sgam po pa, and indeed another defining
feature of the Bka’ brgyud Great Seal is its particularly strong connection to the
Indian mahāsiddha Saraha.2 As a past lineage holder and as a dynamic
presence, Saraha defies both space and time, providing limitless inspiration,
direct instruction, and a touch of magic to the whole affair. When one studies
the rnam thar of the Bka’ brgyud masters, Saraha’s importance is obvious. In
visions, songs, and dreams, from his skillfully drawn bow the Great Brahman
*
With special thanks to Roger Jackson and Matthew Kapstein for patiently reviewing
this article as well as my translations. I also wish to thank the Shastri Indo–Canadian
Institute for supporting my research.
1
The details of the controversies are highlighted particularly in the work of David
Jackson (1994) and Roger Jackson (1982).
2
The dates attributed to him range from the 4th century B.C.E. to the 11th century C.E.
The most plausible range appears to be the 9th – 10th centuries C.E.
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Lara Braitstein
pierces the heart of duality with his finely crafted arrows again and again.3
Though his most famous work is without a doubt his Dohā Trilogy (doha skor
gsum), and though that work is also without a doubt strongly linked to the
Great Seal transmission of the Bka’ brgyud pas, Saraha has another song cycle
even more explicitly engaging with phyag chen: his Rdo rje’i glu, or
Adamantine Songs.4 What follows is a study of the resonances between
Saraha’s Adamantine Songs and the ‘direct path’ (gseng lam) of the Bka’
brgyud Great Seal.
3
His importance stands out in particular relief in the rnam thar and works of Mar pa
(1012–1097) and the third Karmapa, Rang byung rdo rje (1284–1339). See Schaeffer
2005 for a detailed treatment.
4
While it cannot be definitively established that Saraha wrote the Rdo rje’i glu, unlike
the case of the Queen and King Dohās (Mi zad pa’i gter mdzod man ngag gi glu and do
ha mdzod ches bya ba spyod pa’i glu) their attribution to Saraha is uncontroversial in
the Tibetan tradition. Despite the fact that no fragments of the rdo rje’i glu have been
found in any South Asian language, in my opinion the author is nonetheless most likely
South Asian and not Tibetan. I ground that opinion in circumstantial evidence, that
these songs were transmitted by Vajrapāṇi in the same collection containing the three
Adamantine Songs together with Sku gsung thugs yid la mi byed pa, Sgom rim drug
pa, ’Chi kha ma’i gdams ngag, and the Rnyog pa med pa‘i rgyud (’Gos lo tsa ba 1010).
Further, a single translator is identified for the three Rdo rje’i glu and the Sku gsung
thug yid la mi byed pa. Schaeffer writes: “Nakpo Sherday was the last student of
Vajrapāṇi to receive Saraha’s teachings from the Indian scholar. According to ’Gos Lo
tsa ba, Nag po traveled to eastern India to meet an aged Vajrapāṇi and was given
instruction in ten Great Seal works, including six dohas by Saraha. Here we find the
only clue to the transmission history of what Mind Treasuries, together with the Body,
Speech and Mind Treasury.… Zhuchen Tsultrim Rinchen states that all four of these
dohas were translated by the same scholar. On the basis of the meeting between
Vajrapani and Nakpo Sherday recounted by Go Lotsawa, I suggest that Nakpopa is in
fact Nakpo Sherday, and thus that these four massive but apparently unpopular dohās
stem from this last period of Vajrapāṇi’s tremendous efforts toward the propagation of
the dohās in Tibet.” (Schaeffer 2005: 65).
Saraha's Adamantine Songs
57
In the interest of clarifying the terms of this chapter, I will begin with a
survey of the meanings and classifications of phyag chen. That will be followed
by a brief exploration of the particularly Bka’ brgyud articulation of phyag
chen through some of the works that have been attributed to Sgam po pa,
providing a convenient focal point for this preliminary study. Following a
resumé of Saraha’s phyag chen, principally in his Adamantine Songs, I present
an analysis of how Bka’ brgyud phyag chen as it appears to have been
crystalised from the time of Sgam po pa not only has South Asian roots (as has
already been demonstrated by Mathes5), but is closely linked to the work
attributed to Saraha.
2 The Great Seal
‘Great Seal’ is variously used to describe the basis of reality, the true nature of
mind, Buddha Nature, the ultimate fruition of the Buddhist path, and the
ultimate nature of reality. ‘Great Seal’ is also used to describe an elaborate
curriculum of practice, and especially in the Bka’ brgyud traditions there exist
numerous practice manuals, or khrid yig, describing phyag chen. The most
famous among them is perhaps Dwags po Bkra shis rnam rgyal’s sixteenthcentury Phyag chen zla ba’i ’od zer, from which I will be quoting extensively.
Beginning with the most basic definitions, mahā or chen po means
‘great’ in most senses of the English word: largeness in number, size, or extent;
major significance or importance; remarkable or extraordinary degree, magnitude, or effect; excellent; someone who has achieved honour and distinction.6
Mudrā or phyag rgya here means “seal,” in the sense of something that is used
to signify identity and authenticity. It is a seal in the manner of a ring or stamp
that is used by a political or a religious authority to identify the source and
authority of official documents. The Sanskrit term mudrā, however, has
multiple meanings, ranging from ritual hand gestures, to parched grain (which
5
6
See Mathes 2006.
I refer here to the Oxford English Dictionary.
58
Lara Braitstein
functions ritually as an aphrodisiac), images, or a tantric practitioner’s female
consort. The Tibetan term phyag rgya shares all these meanings, and others
besides, such as a bone ornament,7 or a symbolic encounter or gesture. Dwags
po Bkra shis rnam rgyal adds that it also carries the meanings of rtags (sign)
and mtshan ma (characteristic mark). He adds his own explanation of the term
as it stands for ‘seal’:
It is denoted a seal because it means [something] impressed or imprinted
upon objects. For example, just as a worldly seal is called a ‘seal’ because
it is impressed or imprinted upon other things, similarly, [phyag chen] is
denoted a seal because it is impressed or imprinted upon all dharmas of
saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, leaving a seal or signifier. For example, just as the
emblems on armour and so forth signify a particular individual, similarly,
this signifies or seals the intrinsic or abiding nature of all dharmas of
saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. It [also] denotes a seal because it cannot be
transgressed. For example, just as the edict of a king cannot be transgressed
by his subjects, similarly, this [nature of] the dharmas of saṃsāra and
nirvāṇa cannot be transgressed, and so it is denoted a “seal.”8
7
Bone ornaments are symbolic of the transformative practices characteristic of tantra.
Made from human bones found in charnel grounds—traditional sites of certain forms of
tantric practice—they are part of the ritual costume of wrathful deities and mantrins.
8
Dwags po 2005: 133–34: de yang gdab par bya ba’am btab pa’i don gyis phyag rgyar
brjod pa ni / dper na / ’jig rten du tham ga lta bus gzhan la ’debs pa’am btab pas na
rgya zhes pa ltar / ’dis ’khor ’das kyi chos thams cad la ’debs ba’am btab pas na phyag
rgya dang mtshon par byed pas phyag rgyar brjod pa ni / dper na / go cha la sogs pa’i
rtags mtshan gyis so so’i bye brag mtshon pa ltar / ’dis ’khor ’das thams cad kyi rang
bzhin nam gnas lugs mtshon pas na phyag rgya dang / mi ’dad bar byed pas na phyag
rgyar brjod pa ni / dper na / rgyas po’i bka’ rgyas btab pa la ’bangs rnams kyis mi ’da’
ba ltar / ’khor ’das kyi chos thams cad ’di las mi ’da’ bas na phyag rgya zhes brjod pa
yin. Translations, unless otherwise attributed, are mine.
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In the Gaganagañjaparipṛcchāsūtra, ‘seal’ is further glossed as synonymous
with the tathāgata (de bzhin gshegs pa), and is:
The seal of the utterly unborn, the seal of utter emptiness, the seal of utter
non-compoundedness, the seal of utter desirelessness, the seal of suchness,
the seal of authentic reality, the seal of the sky-treasury.9
The term is subject to further interpretation in scriptural (i.e. sūtra and tantra)
and śāstric elaborations. The Karṇatantravajrapāda explains: “phyag: the
acquisition of non-dual knowledge; rgya: bliss since saṃsāra’s tangled skein is
disentangled; chen po: authentic being (Dharmakāya), free in itself and being
the shining lamp of coincidence.”10 According to the Mahāmudrātilaka, “Phyag
is the wisdom of emptiness / rgya is liberation from saṃsāric phenomena / chen
po is their union.”11 The Pañcakrama elaborates that phyag is “the excellent
vision, seen by oneself, of wisdom that is itself self-reflective” and rgya is
“free of the duality of saṃsāric phenomena and imprints its seal upon all
phenomena.”12
According to Sgam po pa, whose understanding of phyag chen will be
discussed in further detail below,
9
Dwags po 2005: 134: shin tu ma skyes pa’i phyag rgya / shin tu stong pa nyid kyi
phyag rgya / shin tu ’dus ma byas pa’i phyag rgya / ’dod chags dang bral ba’i phyag
rgya / de bzhin nyid kyi phyag rgya / yang dag pa’i mtha’i phyag rgya / nam mkha’i
phyag rgya.
10
11
Guenther 1971: 222.
Dwags po 2005: 134: phyag ni stong pa’i ye shes yin / rgya ni ’khor ba’i chos las
grol / chen po zung du ’jug pa’o.
Dwags po 2005: 135: rang gis rang rig ye shes ni / legs mthong gang yin ’dir phyag
yin / rgya ni ’khor ba‘i chos gzung ’dzin las grol zhing des chos thams cad la rgyas
btab pa’am ’debs pa‘i don.
12
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Lara Braitstein
Phyag is the realization that appearances, whether saṃsāra or nirvāṇa, are
never beyond the condition of the unborn nature; rgya is the realization that
there is no transcending the authentic nature, regardless of what appears
and for however long; chen po is the realization that complete liberation is
the ultimate nature of things.13
Gser sdings pa explains his definition of phyag rgya chen po in his Theg sgron:
Phyag: Encountering karma, disturbing emotions, and obscurations as self-
liberating, mind itself, the dharmakāya.
Rgya: It cannot be transcended by forming concepts involving signs.
Chen po: It is greater than the definitional vehicle, action tantra,
performance tantra, and all other vehicles.14
Finally, a commentary on the Kālacakra Tantra entitled Padminī states:
Phyag rgya che is the perfection of wisdom that has produced all the
tathāgatas that arise in the past, present, and future. Phyag rgya is that
which seals non-abiding nirvāṇa or unchanging bliss. It is great because it
surpasses the karmamudrā and the jñānamudrā and is completely free of
saṃsāric traces.15
13
Dwags po 2005: 136: snang srid ’khor ’das rnams chos nyid skye ba med pa’i ngang
las mi ’da’ bar rtogs pa ni phyag go / cir snang ci srid thams cad gnyug ma’i don las mi
’da’ bas rgya / chos nyid rab grol du rtogs pas na chen po.
14
Dwags po 2005: 136: las dang nyon mongs sgrib pa rnams / rang grol sems nyid
chos sku ru / mjal ba’i phyir na phyag ces bya / mtshan ma’i rnam par rtog pa yis / ’da’
bar mi nus phyir na rgya / mtshan nyid theg dang bya spyod sogs / theg pa kun las che
bas na / chen po zhes ni brjod pa yin.
15
Dwags po 2005: 134: phyag rgya che zhes bya ba ni / ’das pa dang ma byon pa dang
da ltar byung ba’i de bzhin gshegs pa thams cad bskyed par mdzad pa shes rab kyi pha
rol tu phyin pa yin la / rab tu mi gnas pa’i mya ngan las ’das pa’am mi ’pho ba’i bde
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61
For the most part, the elaborate explanations read into the terms
mahāmudrā and phyag rgya chen po are concerned with explaining the Great
Seal as the basis for reality and as the fruition of full awakening. The Great
Seal as path, posited between the poles of basis and fruition, is basically the
content of Dwags po Bkra shis rnam rgyal’s khrid yig. However, there is a
marked absence of reference to the formal elements of the path in the
explanations of the term found in his text. The exception is the last definition,
taken from the Padminī, in which it is discussed in the context of the path as
superior to both the karma and jñāna mudrās. Dwags po Bkra shis rnam rgyal
summarizes this, saying:
In all statements in all the sūtras and tantras, the Great Seal as the basis is
the basic natural state: it is shown to be the abiding Buddha Nature in the
mental continua of sentient beings from the very beginning; shown to be
the luminosity that is the very nature of mind, and so forth. The Great Seal
as the path is shown in all [statements] to be freedom from conceptual
elaboration of dharmas, which brings about the blossoming of the essential
element; the specificity of emptiness; the non-veridicality of the existence
of all phenomena; selflessness; equanimity; and union. The Great Seal as
fruition is shown in all statements to be the mode of awakening that is the
omniscient wisdom of the four bodies, the five wisdoms, and so forth.16
bas bde ba la rgyas btab pas na phyag rgya ste / las kyi phyag rgya dang ye shes kyi
phyag rgya las khyad par du gyur pa dang / ’khor ba’i bag chags dang bral bar gyur pas
na chen po’o.
16
Dwags po 2005: 141–42: don bsdu na / mdo rgyud thams cad du sems can gyi rgyud
la de bzhin gshegs pa’i snying po gdod ma nas gnas par ston pa dang / sems kyi rang
bzhin ’od gsal bar ston pa sogs gzhi’i gnas lugs gsungs pa thams cad kyis gzhi’i phyag
rgya chen po dang / snying po’i khams rgyas par byed pa’i chos spros bral dang stong
pa nyid kyi bye brag dang chos thams cad bden med dang bdag med pa dang mnyam
pa nyid dang zung du ’jug par ston pa thams cad kyis lam kyi phag rgya chen po dang /
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Lara Braitstein
3 The Three and Four Seals Systems
With respect to the term mudrā/phyag rgya and the path, it is appropriate here
to explain the system of multiple seals, of which there are sometimes said to be
three, and more often four. The Great Seal is sometimes the third and
sometimes the fourth of the seals. Saraha has placed it third in the system of
four, but I will explore the constellation of possibilities. The names of the other
seals are as follows: the Action Seal (karmamudrā, las kyi phyag rgya); the
Dharma Seal (dharmamudrā, chos kyi phyag rgya, which is also sometimes
identified as wisdom or jñānamudrā or ye shes kyi phyag rgya, principally in
the system of three seals); and the Commitment Seal (samayamudrā, dam tshig
gyi phyag rgya). Common to all treatments of the seals, the Action Seal is
understood to be the female consort of a yogin and the practices they undertake
as tantric consorts. The sensation of bliss achieved during intercourse and
orgasm is cultivated and manipulated by the practitioner as a means to
penetrate the bliss of emptiness. Bliss and ultimate awakening are closely
linked, and as the source of highest mundane bliss, sexuality is employed in a
strictly ritual context as a practice to cognize that ultimate bliss.17 In particular,
the luminosity and freedom from mental elaborations that manifests at the
moment of orgasm is seen as a special opportunity to work with the mind.
The Dharma or Wisdom Seal is both the inner—or imagined—consort,
and the intense visualisation practices associated with her. The inner consort
sku bzhi ye shes lnga la sogs pa rnam pa thams cad mkhyen pa’i ye shes su byang chub
pa’i tshul gsungs pa thams cad kyis ’bras bu’i phyag chen bstan pa yin no.
17
For a concise-yet-detailed theoretical treatment of the karmamudrā, see Guenther
1971: 202–21. I also refer readers to Shaw 1994, Simmer–Brown 2001, White 2003,
and Snellgrove 1987 for further reading on the subject. There exists a wealth of new–
age reformulations of this and other related practices that disguise themselves as
presenting ‘ancient eastern wisdom’ of one variety or another. Any text on sexual yoga
that promises better sex, a better connection with your soul–mate, or enlightenment
through great sex should be discarded forthwith. Refer also to Mathes’ contribution to
the present volume.
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63
and wisdom/awareness are nearly synonymous here. Relying on the guru’s
instructions, the practice that entails visualising sexual union with an
enlightened consort also cultivates the experience of emptiness.
The Commitment Seal has a two-fold meaning. At one level it
describes the altruistic mind of bodhicitta, which entails some type of
engagement with unawakened beings, presumably through the bodhisattva vow.
This is an especially appropriate understanding when it is ranked as the Fourth
Seal, surpassing even the Great Seal. Another level is revealed by an
examination of the etymology of the term in both Sanskrit and Tib. dam tshig
and samaya both have the connotation of a bond, or something that binds. This
is a reference to achieving a level of tantric practice where the deity one
meditates on is bound to one at a profound level, to the degree that one
identifies with it constantly instead of one’s own ego-centered identity.
Saraha describes the four as follows in the first of his Adamantine
Songs : the Action Seal is the map; the Dharma seal is the path; the Great Seal
18
is the result; and the Commitment Seal is the altruistic act.19 In the formulation
of four seals, there is considerable variety in the order. Saraha’s list is one of
the most common; the other common one changes the places of the last two,
putting Commitment Seal third and Great Seal fourth. A passage from the
Vajramālā,20 for example, lists them in the latter order.
In the formulations of three seals, the Great Seal is always the third and
highest. The Kālacakratantra presents the three seals as stages following one
after the other:
18
Citations drawn from the songs are referenced to the folio number in Rgyud, vol. zhi
of the Sde dge Bstan ’gyur.
19
Saraha Body Treasury, 108b. las kyi phyag rgya dpe dang chos kyi phyag rgya’i lam
/ phyag rgya chen po ’bras bu dam tshig phyag rgya gzhan don te / chos kyi phyag rgya
man chad bsten pas mthar lhung ’du ’dzi bya ba’i skyon du ’gyur.
20
Dwags po 2005: 143.
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Lara Braitstein
By examining the karmamudrā,
One totally abandons the jñānamudrā;
By uniting with the supremely immutable,
One meditates completely on the Great Seal.21
And further:
The union of karmamudrā,
The passion of jñānamudrā:
Unified in the Great Seal,22
The immutable unfolds.23
Many other sources that rely on the three-seal formulation do not openly
valourise the Action Seal. While this is most likely a device to motivate
practitioners not to be complacent about or attached to a presumably
pleasurable practice, the accounts can be somewhat jarring. In the Guhyasiddhi,
Padmavajra writes: “The karmamudrā is angry and deceitful, the jñānamudrā is
exactly the same; abandon this proliferation of conceptualization, and cultivate
21
Dwags po 2005: 142: las kyi phyag rgya brtags pa yis / ye shes phyag rgya yongs
spangs nas / mchog tu mi ’gyur sbyor ba yis / phyag rgya chen po rnam par sgom.
22
In his translation, Lhalungpa translates “phyag rgya chen mo” as Great Mother, with
the gloss, “‘The seal of the great mother’ is the literal rendition of a rarely used Tibetan
term.... The traditional designation of ‘mother‘ is appropriate for a treatise or a doctrine
on ultimate reality, emptiness. In the same way, the term ‘great mother‘ is applied to
the doctrine of wisdom gone-beyond (Skt. prajñāparamitā) and also to the notion of
‘expansive emptiness‘ (Tib. choying; Skt. dharmadhātu).” (Lhalungpa 437–38). I am
translating it simply as Great Seal, since the term mudrā in Sanskrit is feminine, the
“mo” is likely both representing that accurately and playing on the references to the
karma and jñāna mudrās as passionate females.
23
Ibid.: las kyi phyag rgya’i rab sbyor dang / ye shes phyag rgya’i rjes chags dang /
phyag rgya chen mo gcig sbyor ba / mi ’gyur ba de ’phel bar ’gyur.
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65
the Great Seal.”24 Further, a writer identified in Dwags po’s khrid yig as
Mañjuśrī writes in Lta ba’i ’dod pa mdor bstan pa: “The karmamudrā is
crooked and vicious, the jñānamudrā is the same; having abandoned multiple
concepts, follow the Great Seal.”25
4 Bka’ brgyud phyag chen26
What makes the Bka’ brgyud phyag chen unique? Locating phyag chen at the
very apex of practice and attainment is of course not unique to the Bka’ brgyud
pas. Where the phyag chen of the Bka’ brgyud pas appears to become quite
distinct is in the work of Sgam po pa. I say ‘appears’ because it is in the work
of Sa skya Paṇḍita that Sgam po pa is first accused of innovating a unique
approach to phyag chen, one of which Sapaṇ does not approve. Sgam po pa
refers to it as the direct path, or gseng lam. It is a Great Seal teaching where
the teacher (guru, bla ma) shows the nature of mind (i.e. the Great Seal) by
directly pointing it out to the disciple. As Klaus-Dieter Mathes explains, this
approach stands out from the ordinary Mahāyāna path because of its “use of
direct cognitions even while investigating one’s mind during vipaśyanā.”27
Additionally, it stands out from tantra because it does not necessitate
empowerments as a preliminary. It is against this point in particular that Sapaṇ
24
Dwags po 2005: 142: las kyi phyag rga khro sgyu can / ye shes phyag rgya yang de
bzhin / rnam rtog mang bas spang byas la / phyag rgya chen po rnam bsgom bya.
25
Ibid.: las kyi phyag rgya g.yon can gdug / ye shes phyag rgya de bzhin du / rnam
rtog mang ba dor byas nas / phyag rgya chen po bsten par byos. In his Rgyud sde spyi’i
rnam par gzhag pa rgyas par brjod, Mkhas ’grub rje has a formulation of the seals that
is completely different from all the others. Because it would entail a lengthy digression
beyond the scope of this paper, I am not summarizing it here. Readers may refer to
directly to his text (1998: 229ff) for details.
26
I have not included here a discussion of the Four Yogas so important to the Bka’
brgyud pas, as it is not critical to the argument presented in this paper. See Guenther
1971 for a discussion of the Four Yogas.
27
Mathes 2006: 202.
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Lara Braitstein
argues.28 In the Deb sngon (Blue Annals),’Gos lo tsā ba summarises Sapaṇ’s
complaint, explaining that “In the pāramitā tradition there does not exist a
convention of Mahāmudrā, and whatever the wisdom of Mahāmudrā is, that is
the wisdom that arises from empowerments.”29 Mathes has demonstrated that
this form of Mahāmudrā attributed to Sgam po pa is in fact of South Asian
provenance and not a Tibetan innovation, but he is nonetheless credited in
Tibetan sources as the innovator of the direct phyag chen. Dwags po Bkra shis
rnam rgyal explains:
Thus, with respect to the manner of pointing out this profound path, Lord
Sgam po pa explained that the direct path is independent of the secret
mantra and did not state that one requires empowerments as a preliminary
for this practice. He stated that the very meaning of mind is solely based on
the way to go for refuge to the guru and the Three Jewels; to cultivate
loving kindness, compassion and bodhicitta; and to offer maṇḍalas [to
them], confess misdeeds, and engender intense devotion to make requests.30
What is especially interesting here is that Sgam po pa appears to be substituting
devotion to the guru for the elaborate tantric empowerments. Instead of them,
or of a complex of commitments and practices, one only needs one’s guru. It is
28
See Rhoton (2002) 116-119. For more on Sapaṇ’s critique see also Jackson, D.P.
(1994); Jackson R.R. (1982); Kragh (1988).
29
’Gos 847: pha rol tu phyin pa’i lugs la phyag rgya chen po’i tha snyad med cing /
phyag rgya chen po’i ye shes gang yin pa de ni dbang las skyes pa’i ye shes kho na yin
no zhes bzhed.
30
Dwags po 2005: 176: de ltar na zab lam ’di nyid ston tshul la’ang rje sgam po pa ni
’di nyid gsang sngnags la ma bltos pa’i gseng lam du bzhed pas / ’di nyid kyi sngon
’gror yang smin byed kyi dbang dgos par ma gsungs shing / bla ma dang / dkon mchog
la skyabs su ’gro ba dang / byams snying rje byang chub kyi sems sgom pa dang / de
dag la maṇḍal dbul zhing sdig pa bshags pa dang / mos gus drag po bskyed nas gsol ba
’debs pa’i tshul kho na la brten nas sems don nyid la khrid tshul gsungs la.
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67
this element of guru devotion in the method attributed to Sgam po pa that is
considered most radical.31 In the Deb sngon (Blue Annals), ’Gos lo tsā ba
writes:
Now, the Venerable Mi la [ras pa] did not teach the path of means
[upāyamarga] and the Great Seal separately. [Sgam po pa, on the other
hand,] taught the key instructions of the path of means only to suitable
recipients of the mantra [tradition]. But the instructions of the Great Seal he
gave to suitable vessels of the pāramitā teachings, even without
empowerments…. He said that although in the scriptures much is explained
about the necessary characteristics of the guru and the disciple, the disciple
does not in fact need many qualities; by simply having devotion one is fit
to receive the teachings. An understanding of the Great Seal was even
produced in some stupid people, poor people, and sinners in a short time.
He also composed commentaries on stages of the doctrine of the Bka’
gdams pa and explained many key instructions. From this time, the two
streams of the Bka’ gdams pa and the Great Seal were combined.32
Upāyamarga, or thabs lam, literally means “path of skillful means” and
refers to the skillful transformative methods of tantra. What is explained in the
31
32
See also Jan-Ulrich Sobisch’s contribution to this volume.
’Gos 2003 [1478]: 547: de la rje btsun mi la ni thabs lam dang phyag rgya chen po
logs logs su mi mdzad pa la / sngags kyi snod du rung ba rnams la thabs lam gyi gdams
ngag bstan / dbang bskur med kyang pha rol tu phyin pa’i snod du rung ba rnams la
phyag rgya chen po’i gdams pa btab ste / lhan cig skyes sbyor zhes bya ba’i khrid rim
yang mdzad / de la dwags po’i rtogs chos kyang zer / gsung rab rnams nas bla ma dang
slob ma’i mtshan nyid mang bar gsungs na’ang / slob ma la mtshan nyid mang po mi
dgos / mos gus yong bag cig pus chog gsung zhing / blun po dang dbul phons dang
sdig can du gyur ba ’ga’ la yang phyag rgya chen po’i rtogs pa yun mi ring bar bskyed
/ bka’ gdams kyi bstan pa’i rim pa’i bstan bcos kyang mdzad / gdams gnag kyang mang
du gsungs bas / ’di nas bka’ phyag chu bo gnyis ’dres su grags.
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Lara Braitstein
above quote is that Sgam po pa reserved the secret methods of the upāyamarga
only for the elite few who were ready for them, while the “hidden precepts of
the Mahāmudrā” were taught to anyone who was fit to receive teachings on
and practise the path of the Mahāyāna—what is referred to above as “the
pāramitās” and what I will refer to henceforth as the pāramitā path. It is in
removing the element of tantric initiation from the Great Seal instructions that
Sgam po pa blended the two streams of Bka’ gdams and the Great Seal. In so
doing, Sgam po pa made the Great Seal accessible to disciples who were not
necessarily appropriate for the tantric path, thereby forming a direct path to
awakening, phyag chen, that did not rely on elaborate, rarefied ritual and
practice. The following example from Deb sngon illustrates this nicely:
In the end, in the Female Water Bird year, just before he entered nirvāṇa,
two monks, each bearing gtor ma in their hands, called out, “We request
[instructions of] the path of means, please accept our request!” Hearing
them, [Sgam po pa] replied, “Don’t let them come.” An attendant sent
them back, telling them to request the Great Seal. When the two of them
requested the Great Seal, [Sgam po pa] acquiesced. He said, “send them
in,” and they were allowed to enter. Then they were given instructions on
the Great Seal. In this way, among the many teachings, the Great Seal
alone was favoured.33
It would be a mistake to say that Sgam po pa simply made phyag chen
accessible, as finding an authentic teacher and becoming a worthy disciple are
distinctly complicated issues in their own right, but he is credited with having
33
’Gos 2003: 549: mthar chu mo bya’i lo la mya ngan las ’da’ khar / btsun pa gnyis
kyis lag tu gtor ma re thogs te / nged gnyis thabs lam zhu ba yin pas thugs rjes ’dzin
par zhu zer ba’i skad btang bas / tho phyir ma gtong gsung / der nye gnas shig gis
phyag rgya chen po zhu ba lags na byas te skad ring po btang bas / da lta thong gsung
nas nang du btang / phyag rgya chen po’i gdams pa yang gnang no / de ltar nyid kyi
chos rnams las phyag rgya chen po ’ga’ zhig mgo ’don pa mdzad de.
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69
forged phyag chen as a path both above and beyond the distinct paths of
pāramitā and upāya, an idea sufficiently radical in Tibetan contexts to be at the
very heart of Sa skya Paṇḍita’s later scathing assault on the Bka’ brgyud Great
Seal, referred to briefly above, the details of which are readily available.34
In his Chos rje dwags po lha rje’i gsung snying po don gyi gdams pa
phyag rgya chen po’i ’bum tig, Sgam po pa35 writes:
In general, all beings in saṃsāra have always appeared as buddhas within,
but as long as this has not been pointed out by the nectar of the teacher’s
instruction, it is impossible to realize this and liberation cannot be gained.36
This is stated more poetically in his Chos rje dwags po lha rje’i gsung phyag
rgya chen po gsal byed kyi man ngag:
The three realms [of existence] have always been buddha.
Saṃsāra has always been nirvāṇa.
Beings have always been buddhas.
Obscurations have always been enlightenment.
Since always unrealized,
The three realms are but saṃsāra.
For reversing saṃsāra,
A genuine teacher’s instruction is needed.37
34
35
Sa skya 1968; R. Jackson 1982; D. Jackson 1994; Kragh 1998.
Here I am indebted to Ulrich Timme Kragh’s work on Sgam po pa’s corpus for the
quick references to his emphasis on the guru in the Great Seal. Kragh points out that
the authorship of this text (as well as the Phyag rgya chen po gsal byed kyi man ngag)
is doubtful, as many of the texts attributed to Sgam po pa were actually written by his
disciples. In my opinion this does not affect the point I am making.
36
Kragh 1998: 35: Chos rje dwags po lha rje’i gsung snying po don gyi gdams pa
phyag rgya chen po’i ’bum tig, bka’ ’bum, text 23, mdzod, vol. ka, p. 213: spyir na
’khor ba’i sems can thams cad la / sangs rgyas ye nas rang chas su yod kyang / mtshon
byed bla ma’i man ngag bdud rtsi yis / ma mtshon bar du rtogs shing grol mi srid.
37
Kragh 1998: 34: Chos rje dwags po lha rje’i gsung phyag rgya chen po gsal byed kyi
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Lara Braitstein
It is not simply a matter of the teacher’s instruction, in terms of hearing words
regarding a certain subject. This entails, true to the tantric methods, the
formation of a relationship of profound trust between guru and disciple, where
the disciple gains this ‘nectar’ not only through hearing instructions but through
the transmission of the blessing, gained through the vehicle of devotion:
Since the secret Mantrayāna is a way of blessing, it is important first to
enter the blessing of the teacher. Having entered the teacher’s blessing, the
seeing of wisdom has begun. This rising realization of innate wisdom
afterwards affects all phenomena that are experienced, making them selfliberated. One thus arrives at an awareness of wisdom, where all beliefs
have been cut off from within.38
Further, in his Chos rje dwags po lha rje’i gsung khrid chos mu tig tshar la
brgyud pa, Sgam po pa explains:
Concerning the way to guide oneself or others in the meditation of
Mahāmudrā, since this [way] of ours is a transmission of blessing, the
meaning of Mahāmudrā cannot arise in one’s mind-stream as long as one
has not received the blessing of the teacher. Thus, [one should] receive the
teacher’s blessing without difficulty. One receives [this blessing] by making
wishes with conviction and trust. Those who have the best conviction and
man ngag; Bka’ ’bum, text 21, mdzod, vol. ka, p. 173: khams gsum ye nas sangs rgyas
yin / ’khor ba ye nas myang ’das yin / sems can ye nas sangs rgyas yin / nyon mongs
ye nas byang chub yin / ’on kyang ye nas ma rtogs pas / khams gsum pa ni ’khor ba
yin / ’khor ba las ni bzlog pa ni / bla ma dam pa’i gdams ngag dgos.
38
Kragh 1998: 35: gsang sngags byin brlabs kyi lam pa yin pas / dang po bla ma’i byin
rlabs zhugs pa gcig gal che ba yin / bla ma’i byin brlabs zhugs nas ye shes kyi mthong
sa phyed / de lhan cig skyes pa’i ye shes kyi rtogs pa shar bas / phyi shes ba’i chos
thams cad la sgrog rang grol la song nas / ye shes kyi rig pa sgro ’dogs nang nas chod
pa gcig yong ngo.
Saraha's Adamantine Songs
71
trust, also get the best blessing. Those with a mediocre conviction and trust
[receive] a mediocre [blessing]. Those with inferior conviction and trust
[receive] an inferior blessing. Without a stable conviction and trust, it is
impossible to have a stable blessing. This is therefore the very core of the
Dharma.39
Sgam po pa thus put devotion to the guru (and the now ubiquitous practice of
bla ma’i rnal ’byor) at the center of the Bka’ brgyud phyag chen path, departing
from the better-beaten paths of sūtra and tantra. While Sa skya Paṇḍita clearly
thought this was an dubious innovation, and none but the Bka’ brgyud pas have
taken this particular direct route to the ultimate goal, Mathes has clearly
demonstrated that there are precedents for the essence phyag chen in the work
of Maitrīpa, Sahajavajra, and Jñānakīrti. Sgam po pa may have learned it from
his yogin master Mi la ras pa, or he may have heard or read it elsewhere, but it
clearly has roots in the late Mahāyāna context of mahāsiddhas, a context with
which he was undoubtedly very familiar. While I cannot claim definitively that
Sgam po pa read Saraha’s Adamantine Songs, compositions that precede him
by anywhere from a century to four hundred years, he was clearly familiar with
Saraha’s better known Dohā Trilogy. Given that the Adamantine Songs are
stated to have been transmitted by Vajrapāṇi in the same collection of phyag
chen texts as the Trilogy, however, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he
may have encountered one or more of them.40 What follows does not establish
that Sgam po pa read (or heard) the Adamantine Songs, or based his work on
them. It simply contributes to the growing evidence that Sgam po pa was taking
39
Kragh 1998: 36: rang ngam gzhan la phyag rgya chen po’i bsgom ’khrid lugs ni ’o
skol gyi ’di byin brlabs kyi brgyud pa yin pas / bla ma’i byin brlabs ma zhugs na phyag
rgya chen po’i don brgyud la ’char mi srid pas / bla ma’i byin brlabs ’jug pa la tshegs
med / mos gus yod pas gsol ba btab pa la rten nas ’jug pa yin / mos gus rab la byin
brlabs yang rab tu ’jug /mos gus ’bring la ’bring / mos gus mtha’ ma la byin brlabs
mtha’ ma / mos gus gtan nas med na byin brlabs gtan nas mi ’jug pas chos nyid yin.
40
’Gos 2003: 1010.
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part in a phyag chen tradition that is verifiably linked to the mahāsiddha
tradition in South Asia.
5 Adamantine phyag chen: Saraha and the Great Seal
Saraha’s Adamantine Songs (vajragīti, rdo rje’i glu) are a cycle of three long
poems that clearly belong together, as evidenced by their content and
transmission history.41 Adamantine Songs are not a genre in the way that genres
are usually understood. They do not have a meter or mood (rasa) that defines
them apart from other forms of verse. They are easily identified on the basis of
the title, which will often have ‘adamantine song’ worked into it, but they vary
considerably in length, meter, and language. What they do have in common is
the context given for the composition of the song, if this is specified (as
sometimes occurs in the course of a biography): it is one in which the author is
expressing his or her insight. According to an oral commentary by the
fourteenth Zhwa dmar Rinpoche, the adamantine quality of the songs is a
reference to their meaning and not to their form. The content has the same
qualities as a rdo rje: pure, impossible to stain or alter, clear, unbreakable, and
precious. Defined loosely, therefore, ‘Adamantine Songs’ are songs that express
a spiritually accomplished person’s realisation. Engaging with the highest view
of the Great Seal through the three doors of body, speech and mind, their titles
are, “A Body Treasury Called the Immortal Adamantine Song” (Skt.
Kāyakośāmṛtavajragīti; Tib. Sku’i mdzod ‘chi med rdo rje’i glu), 118 stanzas
long; “A Speech Treasury Called the Gentle Voiced Adamantine Song” (Skt.
Vākkośarucirasvaravajragīti; Tib. Gsung gi mdzod ’jam dbyangs rdo rje’i glu),
forty-eight stanzas long; and “A Mind Treasury Called the Unborn Adamantine
Song” (Skt. Cittakośa-ajavajragīti; Tib. Thugs kyi mdzod skye med rdo rje’i
glu),42 which is twenty-seven stanzas long.
41
See Braitstein 2008 for an extended discussion of the constitution of the collection.
42
They will be referred to throughout this paper as Body Treasury, Speech Treasury,
and Mind Treasury. Citations drawn from them are keyed to the page number in the
Sde dge Bstan ’gyur, Rgyud, vol. zhi. For a complete translation, see Braitstein 2004.
Saraha's Adamantine Songs
73
This particular cycle of songs has so far been largely ignored in
Western academic studies. Its inclusion in the Bstan ’gyur does indicate that it
was traditionally believed to be of Indic origin. Also of interest is the cycle’s
substantial length and its explicit engagement with themes and terms important
to the Great Seal. Despite this, and its being enumerated as part of Vajrapāṇi’s
transmission by ’Gos lo tsā ba, there appears not to exist so much as a single
topical outline of the text, much less a commentary. Indeed, my own research
into the large body of Tibetan literature pertaining to the Great Seal has so far
failed to locate any indigenous commentarial literature on these songs.43
A mundane but nonetheless telling indication of how central phyag
chen is to the text is in an evaluation of the frequency with which the Great
Seal is mentioned: it appears a total of sixty-two times in fifty-three separate
verses in the three songs, which is to say that it occurs in over a quarter of the
total 193 verses. In the Body Treasury it appears forty-three times (in thirtyseven of the 118 verses); in the Speech Treasury it appears sixteen times (in
thirteen of the forty-eight verses) and in the Mind Treasury only three times in
twenty-seven verses. This may be compared to the relative paucity of
appearances of the term—there are only half a dozen—in the famous Dohā
Trilogy. Saraha’s dohās have been widely studied since their introduction into
the Tibetan sphere as early as the eleventh century and their introduction into
the Euro-American sphere in the twentieth: virtually every Tibetan text
dedicated to phyag chen cites them, and they have a plethora of commentaries
43
Where I was both most hopeful and finally disappointed was in Mi bskyod rdo rje’s
volume on the Great Seal, the Phyag rgya chen po sgros ’bum, where he makes
substantial references to Saraha’s works. Unfortunately (for me), his citations are
principally drawn from the Dohā trilogy, and none are from the Body, Speech and
Mind Treasuries. This absence of any commentary is confirmed by Herbert Guenther
(1993: 20n14), whose life–long engagement with the work of Saraha consoles me in
my failure to find any such commentary.
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in both of these cultural contexts.44 It is curious, then, that the Adamantine
Songs have been generally overlooked, though they are listed among the texts
in the corpus of the phyag chen transmission attributed to Saraha.45 For this
reason I believe it is particularly useful to study how Saraha uses the term
mahāmudrā in his Adamantine Songs.
So ubiquitous is the propensity to classify phyag chen into categories of
belonging to the paths of pāramitā and upāya, or within the three- or four-
mudrā schemes, that it is difficult to approach it any other way. If we look into
Saraha’s Adamantine Songs, we find there clear evidence that he was familiar
with these methods of classification and apparently not interested in employing
them. While it is not obvious that “Great Seal” was sufficiently reified to have
been subject to the sūtra-tantra categorisation, certainly practitioners and the
practices they engaged in were. Though mentioning the chief concepts and
practices of sūtra and tantra, Saraha continually scoffs at them and posits phyag
chen as the authentic, natural, effortless version of each, accessed naturally
through the blessings of the guru—which sounds rather a lot like Sgam po pa.
On the shortcomings of tantra he writes:
Cultivating the innate, the blazing of inner fire on an object, etc.
You may cultivate commitment, the self alone, and yoga,
44
Indigenous Tibetan works abound, for example: Spar bu ba blo gros seng ge (12th
century), Bcom ldan ral gri (1227–1305), the third Karma pa Rang byung rdo rje
(1284–1339), and Karma ’phrin las pa (1456–1539) (see Schaeffer 2005). In the
contemporary context we find works by Herbert Guenther (1969, 1993), Roger Jackson
(2004), and Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche (2006), among others. See also Roger
Jackson’s contribution to this volume.
45
This is not only the case in Vajrapāṇi’s phyag chen chos bcu (listed in ’ ’Gos lo tsā
ba 2003: 1010), but they are included in the fourteenth Zhwa dmar pa’s Nges don
phyag rgya chen po’i khrid mdzod and also, as I have been informed by Roger Jackson,
in the Seventh Karmapa Chos grags rgya mtsho‘s Phyag chen rgya gzhung.
Saraha's Adamantine Songs
75
In the Great Seal, the sameness of all phenomena, how could
Conceptualization be abandoned and non-conceptualization be practised?46
Here Saraha is listing a group of tantric practices that are intended to cultivate
non-conceptualization, blazing of the inner fire on an object, commitment,
nature of self—and then goes on to explain that in phyag chen all phenomena
are equal, thus rendering the abandonment of conceptualization—not to
mention engaging in a process that encourages one to distinguish between them
and create a duality—contradictory to the very nature of the Great Seal. In a
similar vein he writes:
[It is] primordially free from activities of consciousness, subtle wind,47 the
lower doors,48 mantra, etc.,
Free from self and other, accepting and rejecting.
One should neither think of saṃsāra nor be concerned with nirvāṇa;
The three times and the three worlds49 are contained in body, speech and
mind.
No effort in anything, no views, nothing to accept and reject;
Not differentiating centre and perimeter, the middle way is the straight
path.50
46
Saraha 108b: lhan cig skyes dang yul la gtum mo sbar la sogs / dam tshig bdag gi
kho na nyid dang rnal ’byor bsgom / dngos po thams cad mnyam nyid phyag rgya chen
po la / rtog pa spang zhing mi rtog bsgom pa ci zhig ’gyur.
47
That is, vāyu, the energy that moves through the subtle body in tantric practice.
48
The ‘lower doors’ is a reference to practices that entail using the generative organs
(i.e. union practice) or substances that emerge from them.
49
The three times are past, present, and future; the three worlds usually refer to the
human world, nāga world (located below the human world), and world of the gods
(located above the human world).
Saraha 107b: rnam shes rlung dang ’og sgo sngags la sogs / ye nas spyod bral rang
gzhan brang gzhag bral / ’khor bar mi sems mya ngan ’das mi ltos / dus gsum srid
50
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Again, we are looking at a series of specific tantric practices from which one
must free oneself in order to find the ever-elusive true middle way, one that
must, according to Saraha, be “free of artificiality, the perfect path for the
mind.”51 On the other hand, the verse immediately following this reads: “The
Perfection of Wisdom path, which is passage, engagement, stages,52 etc. / Is the
cause for the longer cycle by discarding the quick path.”53 The Perfection of
Wisdom path, synonymous with the pāramitā path, and consisting of the paths,
bhūmis, and so forth, is here identified as being equally an obstacle to the Great
Seal. Engaging in the stages of the pāramitā path is explained as slowing down
the aspirant’s progress towards awakening. At the end of the same verse,
Saraha states: “The innate and the remedy are without rival.”54
The incomparable innate is without rival on either the path of pāramitā
or of upāya, indicating that it is a method above and beyond either. In a rather
evocative set of verses Saraha deprecates scriptural study and tantric practice,
expressing how attaining the Great Seal cannot be accomplished by crystalising
duality in concepts like being learned or not, seeking a goal outside of oneself,
or setting out to engage in tantric practice with specific methods and goals. The
very act of searching for the Great Seal ruins it by setting it apart from the
innate, as we read in the Speech Treasury:
By hearing the word “Great Seal” just for an instant,
Regardless of whether or not you possess scriptural learning,
Just by this teaching, this single root, it is attained.
gsum sku gsung thugs la ’dus / gang la mi ’bad blang dor lta ba med / mtha’ dbus mi
’byed dbu ma drang po’i lam.
51
Ibid.: bcas bcos bral na thugs kyi lam mchog.
52
This a reference to the ‘standard’ Mahāyāna path that entails the five paths and ten
(or fourteen) bhūmis, etc. It is also referred to as the ‘sūtra’ path.
53
Saraha 107b: bgrod ’jug rim sogs pha rol phyin pa’i lam / nye lam gzhag nas ring du
’khor ba‘i rgyu.
54
Ibid. lhan cig skyes dang gnyen po ’gran zla bral.
Saraha's Adamantine Songs
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It is Thatness itself; do not seek the dharma of others.
Because of searching like a fox in a charnel ground, etc., what is sought
after is ruined
Oh! Just as a Brahman seeks out and asks marriage of one who is low-born,
When they mix together—lowly and good—they cause harm to one
another55;
The yoga with signs will not touch the signless goal.
That which is signless can never be examined.
Signs come into being when you attend to number and time;
The stages of generation and completion are distinct, so do not think about
them.
Whoever possesses the highest yoga has the convergence of non-duality.56
Lending what I read as a comic touch to his critique of tantric methods
practiced inauthentically (without being grounded in the non-dual goal of the
Great Seal), Saraha describes practices using the subtle body as a “worldly
treasure,”57 and writes in the Mind Treasury:
55
They cause harm to one another only within the confines of ordinary thought.
According to an oral commentary by H. H. Shamar Rinpoche, the Brahman here can
also represent the deity generated in meditation, which by extension means that tantric
practice engaged in by ‘ordinary’ dualistic mind (the dualistic yoga referred to in the
following line) can be at best useless and at worst, even harmful.
56
Saraha 114b: phyag rgya chen po skad cig thos pas kyang / snod dang ldan mi ldan
la mi ltos par / bstan pa tsam gyis rtse gcig ’di yis thob / …. de nyid rang yin gzhan gyi
chos mi tshol / dur khrod wa sogs tshol phyir ’brangs te phung / kye ho bram ze rigs
ngan khyim ’dres ’tshol slong bzhin / bzang ngan ’dres pa gcig la gcig gnod de /
mtshan ma med la bltas pa nam yang med / mtshan ma dus dang grangs la ltos par
’gyur / bskyed dang rdzogs ma’i rim pa khyad par bas bsam mi bya / gnyis med ’dus
pa rnal ’byor mchog ldan.
57
The complete passage is found in Saraha 116b–117a: gter rnyed bdag gzhan gnyis
ka’i don la rmongs / snying gi ga’u padma’i me tog dkyil / thabs dang ldan pa sbyor ba
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Drawing energies up and down in the turning centres:58
Guided by those methods, the truth cannot found;59
Although you may grasp and eject and unite and ignite,60
There is no difference between these breath-control practices61 and a fool
suffering from asthma.62
In his continuing critique of all methods that make a goal of the Great Seal,
Saraha tell us of the pāramitā methods in the Body Treasury:
Oh! In the Great Seal are present body, speech, and mind, the epitome of
fruition.
The result of the Great Seal is only suitable for the essential meaning, but
not for provisional and definitive meaning.63
Provisional and definitive meaning here clearly refer to refined categories of
Buddhist philosophical thought.64 According to Saraha, these categories are
de nas ’gyed / ’khor lo’i phyogs kyi rtsa gnas gang du yang / ’dod dang bral bas chags
med nam mkha’ la / gyen thur ’dren dang ’khor lo bskor ba yang / thabs kyi ’dren tshul
don gyi gting mi rnyed / gzung dang ’phang dang sbyar dang sbor ba yang / blun po
dbugs mi bde dang khyad med mtshungs.
58
Drawing the energies up and down through the channels is again part of tantric
practice.
59
60
Literally, “the bottom of truth won’t be found.”
Presumably a reference to union practice, which is designed to result in the ignition
of Great Bliss.
61
62
63
Controlling the breath is a key element of all the above–mentioned practices.
See note 57.
Saraha 108b: kye ho phyag rgya che la ’bras bu’i bdag nyid sku gsung thugs ldan pas
/ ’bras bu de yang snying po’i don la ’thad kyis drang dang nges pa’i don la min.
64
Saraha again emphasises going beyond duality when he dismisses the utility of the
two truths doctrine in order to approach the goal in the Body Treasury, 112b: “Free of
the Two Truths, meditation on equanimity is non–dual” (bden pa gnyis bral gnyis med
btang snyoms bsgom).
Saraha's Adamantine Songs
79
entirely unsuitable when we are talking about the Great Seal. In the second half
of the same verse he describes the attainment:
All the essentials of path and fruition are distilled there,
The authentic highest Mahāyāna and the distinctness of the vehicles.65
In other words, Saraha affirms the ‘path-and-fruition’ scheme of
classification and again undermines the duality implied by the formal
distinction between the two levels of interpreting the Buddha’s teachings,
describing the whole as phyag chen, where the essence of the heart of all is
gathered. In a warning against reifying the distinction between path and
fruition, he writes in the Body Treasury:
The Great Seal is unchangeable great bliss and,
Not dependent on a cause, the result is beyond the scope of the intellect.
The Great Seal is the complete result.
Conventionally it is illustrated as the goal of the path.66
As a kind of summary of his critique of both methods, we read:
“Without the use of ‘tip of the nose,’ etc., shape and space, channel and
contact, you will abide in the primordial nature.”67 In other words, anything
from meditation practices that focus on the breath at the tip of the nose (a form
of śamatha, or zhi gnas), to practices generating deities or their maṇḍalas, to
practices working with energies in the subtle body, must be abandoned in order
to experience the primordial nature.
65
Saraha 108b: lam dang ’bras bu’i snying po thams cad bcud bsdus dang / theg chen
bla na med pa’i dngos dang theg pa dag gi khyad par dang.
Saraha 107a: phyag rgya chen po ’gyur med bde chen dang / rgyu la mi ltos ’bras bu
blo las ’das / phyag rgya chen po rdzogs pa’i ’bras bu yin / tha snyad lam gyi don la
mtshon te sbyar.
67
Saraha 108a: sna rtse la sogs dbyibs dang nam mkha’ dang / rtsa la reg par ma spyad
gnyug mar gnas.
66
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On the topic of the seals as a hierarchy of four stages whereby one
attains to the ultimate fruit of awakening, Saraha does not find himself at a loss
for words:
Those ignorant of Thatness are attached to the Action Seal, Commitment
Seal, Dharma Seal, etc.
These are mere examples that signify Thatness but cannot attain the
meaning.
Rely on the Great Seal, which is free from subject and object,
And cognition arises naturally and freshly.68
This is consistent with Saraha’s critique of anything that enforces a distinction
between the practitioner’s mind and the goal, the Great Seal. His poetic skill
reaches a particularly refined point at this moment in the Speech Treasury: “All
conventions, the Action Seal, etc. / Resemble the common subjects of a Universal Monarch.”69 In other words, relying on anything short of the Great Seal
itself is like attending to the common subjects of a king while neglecting the
king himself.
Saraha nuances his approach to the four seals in the following verse
from the Body Treasury:
The map that is the Action Seal, and the path of the Dharma Seal,
And the Great Seal that is the result, and the Commitment Seal that is the
altruistic act—
By relying on seals below the Dharma Seal, one will not reach the end;
68
Saraha 111a: de nyid mi shes las kyi phyag rgya dang / dam tshig chos la sos pa rtsol
’dod pa / de nyid mtshon ba’i dpe tsam don mi nus / gzung ’dzin bral ba’i phyag rgya
che brten pa / shes pa rang lugs so ma nyid la byung.
69
Saraha 114b: kun rdzob las kyi phyag rgya la sogs kun / ’khor las sgyur rgyal
dmangs kyi ’khor dang mtshungs.
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81
One falls into extremes of hope and fear, and becomes damaged by
engaging in frivolous activities.70
Here it seems clear that it is possible to dispense with the Action and Dharma
seals altogether. By relying on them to guide one, one will not attain the goal
and will waste one’s time and energy in mental extremes and useless practices
(presumably the practices of sūtra and tantra criticised above). Relying on the
Great Seal and the Commitment Seal as bodhicitta is the only way.
From these verses it is clear that Saraha is familiar with the terms and
concepts used hundreds of years later by Tibetans working with the vast corpus
of Great Seal material they had received. Though admittedly the context is
different, Saraha’s approach is clear. The question then arises, on what basis
can one practise pāramitā or tantra methods authentically? How does one gain
access to the authentic middle way? The key according to Saraha—as it is with
Sgam po pa—is the guru:
In your reverence to the guru, the discipline of the secret vehicle is
complete.
The very expression of the outer, inner, and secret initiations, and
The vase, secret, wisdom,
Essential direct word initiations, etc.—
The mundane siddhis arising from all these things cannot touch the Great
Seal.71
70
Saraha 108b: las kyi phyag rgya dpe dang chos kyi phyag rgya’i lam / phyag rgya
chen po ’bras bu dam tshig phyag rgya gzhan don te / chos kyi phyag rgya man chad
bsten pas mthar lhung ’du ’dzi bya ba’i skyon du ’gyur.
71
Saraha 108b: bla ma la gus gsang ba’i ’dul sdom de ru rdzogs / phyi nang gsang ba’i
dbang bskur so so’i mtshan nyid dang / bum pa gsang ba shes rab ye shes dang / ngo
bo nges tshig dbye ba la sogs kun / thun mong mthu skyes phyag rgya che la reg mi
nus.
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Since this is poetry it can, of course, be interpreted in numerous ways.
However, one wonders how Sa skya Paṇḍita would have dealt with this verse,
as it clearly sets the Great Seal initiation apart from standard tantric initiation,
reorienting towards the private relationship of the guru and disciple. As we also
saw in the work of Sgam po pa, the guru is the access point for everything. The
guru provides the requisite blessings and instructions, based on the devotion of
the disciple. Saraha is also emphatic that without the guru there is no
awakening, no Great Seal. He explains in the Body Treasury, “Precious
devotion is the wish-granting jewel of instruction / Place it so that you are free
of mental engagement and non-engagement.”72 Further, in the Speech Treasury
he writes:
The teachings and transmissions are taught by the guru; the essential
instructions are revealed afterwards.
Because of having transmission and lineage, one desires to realize the
intrinsic characteristic of reality.
Depending on the guru you will find pure essential instructions,
If you worship [the guru who has the pure essential instructions], you will
accomplish spontaneous highest bliss.
Bow at the guru’s feet, because his/her actions are free of defilement.
“If you worship [the guru], great blessings will arise,” declared the
Conqueror.73
72
Saraha 111a: yid ches rin chen gdams ngag yid bzhin gter / yid la bya dang mi bya
med par gzhag.
73
Saraha 113a: bla ma las bstan lung ’grel gdams ngag rjes su ston / lung dang rigs pas
rang gi mtshan nyid rtogs ’dod pa / bla ma la brten gdams ngag ldan pa dag las rnyed /
bsnyen bdur byas na lhan cig bde ba mchog thob ’gyur / dri ma dang bral bya phyir bla
ma’i zhabs la ’dud / mchod na byin rlabs chen po ’byung bar rgyal bas bshad.
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As mentioned above, that devotion itself constitutes the correct behaviour and
attitude, above and beyond the codes and conventions of either the pāramitā or
upāya paths. In the final stanza of the Speech Treasury Saraha tells us:
Hey! Whoever possesses the Great Seal, the highest qualities,
Does so because of delighting the guru, the basis of all siddhis.
When one does not abandon the precious guru and the Three Jewels, good
qualities arise.
Whatever rare being has confidence,
May he /she realise the meaning of this root text of through yoga!74
The greatest attribute a practitioner may have, it seems, is the capacity
for profound devotion for the guru. The guru is the source of awakening, a
theme that one encounters repeatedly in the later rnam thar and songs of Bka’
brgyud phyag chen masters. Clearly demonstrating this, Saraha closes the last
of the three Adamantine Songs, the Mind Treasury, with the following two
stanzas:
Those desiring realisation always look to Thatness.
Those with sincere devotion rely on the precious guru, and
From the highest guru the secret qualities will arise.
Defined by possessing the point, you will be victorious in the battle against
the defilements.
Possessing the transmission of the guru—
Who possesses the secret meaning itself—
May whoever goes through this non-dual door arrive at liberation!75
74
Saraha 115b: kye ho phyag rgya chen po yon tan mchog ldan gang / bla ma mnyes
par bya phyir dngos grub kun gyi gzhi / bla ma dkon mchog mi spang yon tan ’byung /
gang zhig dad pa’i sems ldan brgya lam no / rnal ’byor rnams kyis gzhung ’di rtogs par
shog.
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6 Conclusions
This chapter began with a discussion of the many ways that phyag chen is
classified in its Tibetan contexts. Throughout, I have endeavoured to make it
clear, by examining Saraha’s Adamantine Songs, that these classificatory
schemes, while highly refined by Tibetans, were not innovations but had
precedents in the earlier South Asian context of Mahāmudrā, and specifically in
the work attributed to Saraha. Saraha’s references to these schemes—pāramitā
and upāya, the Four Seals, etc.—are for the most part deeply critical. He
dismisses and mocks whatever has made its way into mainstream thought and
practice, with his own typical flair. His characterisation of phyag chen as
understood from his Adamantine Songs is one that celebrates phyag chen as
unborn, free of conventions, free of distinctions, the highest union of thought
and non-thought, the innate nature of all, instantaneous full awaking, blissful,
and uncontrived—to cite but a few of his descriptions. The sole access to this
innate nature is the guru, who is the source of blessing, wisdom, and devotion,
to whom one owes the precepts and the practice.
Where we find the guru equally highly privileged in the context of
phyag chen, and where we find phyag chen equally set apart as its own path
distinct from tantra, is in the work of the great Bka’ brgyud scholar and
practitioner Sgam po pa. Thus, although (a) Sgam po pa’s work constituted the
first exclusively Bka’ brgyud articulation of phyag chen, (b) his work was
strongly criticised by Sa skya Paṇḍita, and (c) he has a relatively minor place in
the Dge lugs pa phyag chen lineage, it is abundantly clear that Sgam po pa was
not innovating a new way of understanding and attaining phyag chen. My
examination of Saraha illustrates that Sgam po pa was, in fact, doing nothing of
the sort. While I have no way of determining if he read the Adamantine Songs
75
Saraha 117a: rtogs par ’dod pas de nyid rtag tu blta / gus dang ldan bas bla ma dkon
mchog brten / gsang ba’i yon tan bla ma mchog las ’byung / don ldan mtshan nyid
nyon mongs gyul las rgyal / gsang ba’i don nyid don dang rab ldan pa’i / bla ma slob
dpon lung dang rab ldan nas / mi gnyis sgo nas ’gro ba grol ’gyur shog.
Saraha's Adamantine Songs
85
closely (if indeed at all!),76 he was in my opinion explicitly attempting to
maintain Saraha’s phyag chen tradition. For me, this resonance is evidenced by
the shared emphasis on guru devotion in the Adamantine Songs and in the
works attributed Sgam po pa that are treated above. Sgam po pa’s attempt to
absorb the methods of the siddha Saraha into his phyag chen in itself does not
make him unique. What sets him apart is that he appears to have been
particularly successful.
76
A reading of Saraha's Treasury of Doha or, indeed, of many of the siddha poems,
reveals a clear Indian precedent. I refer readers again to Mathes 2006 for a fine analysis
of the connections.
86
Lara Braitstein
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Sources
Karma ’phrin las pa (1456–1539) 1984. Do ha skor gsum gyi ti ka ’bring po sems kyi
rnam thar ston pa’i me long. Thimpu: Kunzang Tobgyel, Druk Serig Press.
Mkhas ’grub rje (1385–1438) 1998. Introduction to the Buddhist Tantric Systems
(Rgyud sde spyi’i rnam par gzhag pa rgyas par brjod) Alex Wayman and F. D.
Lessing, trans. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
’Gos lo tsā ba gzhon nu dpal (1392–1481) 2003. Deb ther sngon po. 2 vol. Sarnath:
Vajra Vidya Library.
Sgam po pa (1079–1153) 1982. Phyag rgya chen po gsal byed kyi man ngag. In Dwags
po lha rje’i bka’ ’bum. In Dwags po lha rje’i bka’ ’bum. vol. 2, 387–405.
Darjeeling: Kargyud Sungrab Nyamso Khang.
—— Snying po don gyi gdams pa phyag rgya chen po’i ’bum tig; In Dwags po lha
rje’i bka’ ’bum. vol. 2, 441–479. Darjeeling: Kargyud Sungrab Nyamso
Khang.
—— Khrid chos mu tig tsar la brgyud pa. In Dwags po lha rje’i bka’ ’bum. vol. 2, 123–
161. Darjeeling: Kargyud Sungrab Nyamso Khang.
Dwags po bkra shis rnam rgyal (1512–1587) 2005. Phyag chen zla ba’i ’od zer (Nges
don phyag rgya chen po’i sgom rim gsal bar byed pa’i legs bshad zla ba ’od
zer). Sarnath: Vajra Vidya Institute Library.
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karmapa (1507–1554) 2004. Phyag rgya chen po sgros ’bum. In
Dpal Rgyal ba Karma pa sku brgyad pa Mi bskyod rdo rje’i Gsung ’bum, vol.
Ya (24). Reprinted by Dpal brtsegs Bod yig dpe rnyang zhib ‘jug khang.
Sa skya Paṇḍita kun dga’ rgyal mtshan (1182–1251) 1968. Sdom pa gsum gyi rab tu
dbye ba. In Complete Works of the Masters of the Sa.skya Sect of Tibetan
Buddhism (Sa skya’i bKa’ ’bum), vol. 5. Tokyo: Toho Bunkyo, pp. 297–321.
Saraha. Doha mdzod kyi glu. Sde dge bstan ’gyur, rgyud vol. wi, ff. 70b–77a.
—— [Mind Treasury.] Thugs kyi mdzod skye med rdo rje’i glu. Sde dge bstan ’gyur,
rgyud vol. zhi, ff. 115b–117a.
—— [Speech Treasury.] Gsung gi mdzod ’jam dbyangs rdo rje’i glu. Sde dge bstan
’gyur, rgyud vol. zhi, ff. 113a–115b
—— [Body Treasury.] Sku’i mdzod ’chi med rdo rje’i glu. Sde dge bstan ’gyur, rgyud
vol. zhi, ff. 106b–113a.
Saraha's Adamantine Songs
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Modern Sources
Braitstein, L. 2008. Exploring Saraha’s Treasury of Adamantine Songs. The Tibet
Journal XXXIII (1), 40–65.
—— 2004. Saraha’s Adamantine Songs: Texts, Contexts, Translations and Traditions of
the Great Seal. Ph.D. thesis, McGill University.
Guenther, H.V. 1969. The Royal Song of Saraha: A Study in the History of Buddhist
Thought. Seattle: University of Washinton Press.
—— 1971. The Life and Teaching of Naropa. Oxford: Oxford UP.
—— 1993. Ecstatic Spontaneity: Saraha’s Three Cycles of Doha. Berkeley: Asian
Humanities Press.
Jackson, D.P. 1994. Enlightenment by a Single Means. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Jackson, R.R. 1982. Sa skya pandita’s account of the bSam yas debate: History as
polemic. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 5(1), 89–
99.
—— 2001. The dGe ldan-Bka’ brgyud tradition of Mahāmudrā. In G. Newland (ed.)
Changing Minds, 155–92. Ithaca: Snow Lion.
—— trans. 2004. Tantric Treasures: Three Collections of Mystical Verse from Buddhist
India. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Khenchen Thrangu 2006. A Song for the King: Saraha on Mahamudra Meditation. Ed.
Michele Martin. Boston: Wisdom Publications.
Kragh, U.T. 1998. Culture and Subculture: A Study of the Mahamudra of sGam po pa.
M.A. thesis, University of Copenhagen.
Lhalungpa, L.P. trans. 1993. Mahāmudrā: The Quintessence of Mind and Meditation.
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Mathes, K.-D 2006. Blending the Sutras with the Tantras: The influence of Maitripa
and his circle on the formation of Sūtra Mahāmudrā in the Kagyu Schools. In
R.M. Davidson and C. Wedemeyer (eds.) Tibetan Buddhist Literature and
Praxis: Studies in Its Formative Period, 201–227. Leiden: Brill.
Rhoton, J.D. trans. 2002. A Clear Differentiation of the Three Codes. Albany: SUNY
Press.
Roerich, G.N. trans. (1949) 1988. The Blue Annals. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Schaeffer, K.R. 2005. Dreaming the Great Brahmin. London: Oxford University Press.
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Shamarpa (H.H. 14th), Mipham Chokyi Lodro Rinpoche. 1997. View, meditation and
conduct. Buddhism Today 3.
Shaw, M. 1994. Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Simmer-Brown J. 2001. Dakini’s Warm Breath. Boulder: Shambhala Publications.
Snellgrove, D.L. 1987. Indo-Tibetan Buddhism: Indian Buddhists and their Tibetan
Successors: Vol. 2. Boston: Shambhala.
White, D.G. 2003. Kiss of the Yoginī: “Tantric Sex” in its South Asian Contexts.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
THE COLLECTION OF “INDIAN MAHĀMUDRĀ
WORKS” (TIB. PHYAG CHEN RGYA GZHUNG)
COMPILED BY THE SEVENTH KARMA PA
CHOS GRAGS RGYA MTSHO*
KLAUS-DIETER MATHES
1 Introduction
In the thirteenth century certain aspects of the Bka’ brgyud teachings on
mahāmudrā became highly controversial, such as the assertion of the possibility
of a sudden liberating realisation or of a beginner’s attaining mahāmudrā even
without tantric empowerment. Such teachings were propagated by Sgam po pa
(1079–1153), but criticised by Sa skya Paṇḍita (1182–1251), who maintained
that there is no conventional expression for mahāmudrā in the pāramitā
tradition and that the wisdom of mahāmudrā can only be a wisdom that has
arisen from empowerment. ’Gos Lo tsā ba Gzhon nu dpal (1392–1481)
defended Sgam po pa’s notion of mahāmudrā, however, by pointing out its
Indian origins in the persons of Jñānakīrti (tenth/eleventh century)1 and
Maitrīpa (ca. 1007–ca. 1085), together with the latter’s disciple Sahajavajra
* The present article was made possible through a research project financed by the
German Research Council (DFG). I am grateful to Prof. Harunaga Isaacson for having
read this paper before it was published. Improvements to my English by Philip H.
Pierce (Nepal Research Centre, Kathmandu) and Michele Martin are gratefully
acknowledged. The Sanskrit manuscripts of the Sekanirdeśapañjikā used in this article
will be edited and translated by Prof. Francesco Sferra and Prof. Harunaga Isaacson.
1
Jñānakīrti’s Tattvāvatāra was translated into Tibetan by Rin chen bzang po (958–
1055).
90
Klaus-Dieter Mathes
(eleventh century).2 The works of these masters belong to a genre of literature
that was eventually called “Indian mahāmudrā works” (phyag chen rgya
gzhung).
2 The Dpal spungs Edition of the Phyag chen rgya gzhung
In 1996 Shamar Rinpoche published in New Delhi a thirteen-volume collection
of Indian and Tibetan mahāmudrā works under the title Nges don phyag rgya
chen po’i khrid mdzod.3 The first three volumes of this collection contain a
photomechanic reproduction of a Dpal spungs block print titled Phyag rgya
chen po’i rgya gzhung.4 There is no colophon at the end, but the third volume
(which is assigned the letter hūṃ) contains at the beginning an additional text
with its own folio numbering and the title “A Short Index and Inventory
[Showing] How the Three Volumes of Indian Mahāmudrā Works on True
Nature Were Put Together as a Literary Source: Earrings of Accomplishment
[for the] Practice Lineage.”5 This 42-folio-long Rgya gzhung dkar chag was
composed by a disciple of Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas (1813–99), Karma
Bkra shis chos ’phel, at the monastic seat of Dpal spungs.6 In it, Bkra shis chos
2
3
Mathes 2006: 205–206.
Scans of this collection are available from the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center
(Resource Code W 23447).
4
The reproduction is identical with an independent copy from the Dpal spungs blocks
in the possession of Thrangu Rinpoche.
5
The Tibetan title according to the front page: Gnas lugs phyag rgya chen po’i rgya
gzhung glegs bam gsum yi ge’i ’byung gnas su ji ltar bkod pa’i dkar chags bzhugs
byang mdor bsdus pa sgrub brgyud grub pa’i rna rgyan ces bya ba bzhugs so.
6
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, 42a5–6: “... written in the neighbourhood of the monastery
‘Holder of the Dharma that Delights the Mind’ at Dpal spungs (the font of many
precious qualities) by Karma Bkra shis chos ’phel blo gros rgya mtsho’i sgra dbyangs,
who is named Sgra dbyangs snying po’i zla ba mtsho byung dgyes pa’i blo gros as a
conventional appellation that speaks of qualities that might arise, a lazy person who
lacks the Dharma of definitive meaning.” (karma bkra shis chos ’phel blo gros rgya
mtsho’i sgra dbyangs sam / ’byung du rung ba’i yon tan la smos pa’i btags ming du
The Collection of ‘Indian Mahāmudrā Works’
91
’phel informs us that these three volumes of Indian mahāmudrā works were
compiled by the seventh Karma pa, Chos grags rgya mtsho (1454–1506).7
Moreover, we are given a detailed account of how the Phyag chen rgya gzhung
was compiled and its blocks carved.8 When Lama Byang chub chos ’phel of the
Ja sbra family was looking for a project to support, Mkhan chen bla ma Bkra
shis ’od zer, another disciple of Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas, suggested that
he sponsor the carving of printing blocks for a new edition of Chos grags rgya
mtsho’s collection of Indian mahāmudrā works. After recounting the reasons
for Bkra shis ’od zer’s choice, the Rgya gzhung dkar chag adds some other
interesting details, such as how the Sa skya scholar Phun tshogs rgyal mtshan
edited the copy to be used for setting the Dpal spungs print:
After that, when he looked for original texts, pure, clear-cut text
transmissions proved to be somewhat rare in these parts (surrounding Dpal
spungs). Having gathered some texts—from the Dpal spungs bla brang and
sgra dbyangs snying po’i zla ba mtsho byung dgyes pa’i blo gros zhes bya bgyi ba’i
nges pa don gyi chos med snyoms las pas yon tan rin po che du ma’i ’byung gnas dpal
spungs yid dga’ chos ’dzin gyi gandhola’i nye ’dabs su bris pas).
7
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, 17a6–b1: “The one who compiled these volumes, which are
well known in the Snowland [of Tibet], [this] precious jewel of the precious Bka’
brgyud [lineage] called ‘Indian mahāmudrā works,’ was the incarnation of Lokeśvara,
the seventh Karma pa Rang byung mtsho skyes rdo rje, also known as Chos grags rgya
mtsho.” (phyag rgya chen po’i rgya gzhung zhes bka’ brgyud rin po che’i gces nor
gangs can na yongs su grags pa’i glegs bam ‘di dag gang gis sdud par mdzad pa ni /
’jig rten dbang phyug gi sprul pa’i sku karma ka bdun pa rang byung mtsho skyes rdo
rje’am / chos grags rgya mtsho ste /.)
8
After a description of these works compiled by the seventh Karma pa and detailed
lists of the various reading transmissions (Tib. lung), Karma Bkra shis chos ’phel
presents in a paragraph of his own (the third of the second chapter) “how the volumes
of the present collection of such Dharma [texts] were carved as printing blocks.” (Rgya
gzhung dkar chag, 31a5–6: de lta bu’i chos kyi bzhugs tshogs kyi glegs bam ’di dag
spar du ji ltar bsgrubs pa’i tshul).
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Klaus-Dieter Mathes
from Kun mkhyen ’Jam pa’i dbyangs of Rdzong [g]sar (i.e. Rdzong gsar
Mkhyen brtse’i dbang po, 1820–92)—and having looked up what is in the
Sde [dge] prints of the precious Bstan ’gyur, [Phun tshogs rgyal mtshan and
his team] corrected the original text [and] carefully compared [it with all]
texts…. Many learned masters have problems when it comes to carefully
editing for correct spelling, metre, and meaning, but a close disciple of the
Venerable Blo gter (i.e. ’Jam dbyangs blo gter dbang po, 1847–1914) who
was the Evaṃ9 Thar rtse Zhabs drung Rin po che and a vessel in the ocean
of tantra classes, [namely] the monk Phun tshogs rgyal mtshan and [others],
skilled and without equal in correcting Tibetan, earnestly rendered their
service of comparing and correcting the texts many times.10
The printing blocks were then stored at the great publishing house of Dpal
spungs monastery:
The originals of [these] volumes, which had been prepared in this way,
were kept at the great publishing house attached to the great Bka’ brgyud
9
Evaṃ is the Sa skya Ngor Evaṃ monastery.
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, 31b6–32a4: de ma thag phyi mo’i dpe btsal ba na ha cang
dpe rgyun dag nges shig ’di phyogs cung dkon pa ltar gyur mod / dpal spungs bla
brang gi phyag dpe dang / rdzong sar nas kun mkhyen ’jam pa’i dbyangs kyi phyag dpe
sogs dpe ’ga’ zhig ’dzom pa dang / bstan ’gyur rin po che sde spar gyi nang du bzhugs
so ’tshal bsdus te ma dpe zhus dag dpe bsdur legs par bgyis / … tshig gi ’bru dag
kyang sdeb sbyor dang don ’thob kyis legs par ’chos thub pa ni mkhas pa rnams la’ang
bka’ seb zhig ’dug [text: ’du gi?] kyang / ’di ni e vaṃ thar rtse zhabs drung rin po che
rgyud sde rgya mtsho’i shing rta blo gter zhabs kyi zhal slob nye gnas dge slong phun
tshogs rgyal mtshan nyid bod brda’i ’bru dag bgyid pa la mkhas pa rnams kyis kyang
do zlar ma gyur ba tsam gyi ya mtshan mnga’ ba de nyid kyis lan grangs du mar dpe
bsdud ’bru bcos kyi sri zhu nan du phul nas.
10
The Collection of ‘Indian Mahāmudrā Works’
93
seat of Dpal spungs in Mdo khams, [also called] Yid dga’ chos ’dzin gyi
chos grwa.11
2.1 The three cycles in the Dpal spungs edition of the Phyag chen rgya gzhung
At the beginning of the Dpal spungs collection, we find the only text it draws
from the Bka’ ’gyur (Derge 404, Peking 58), the Anāvilatantrarāja, along with
the commentary on it by Kumāracandra (Derge 1204, Peking 2334). It is not
clear why the Anāvila is the only tantra which was included into the Phyag
chen rgya gzhung. Roger Jackson observed that it discusses topics—such as the
natural purity of mind, the ultimate non-existence of all phenomena, and the
necessity for non-conceptual meditation as the path to final wisdom—that had
become closely associated with mahāmudrā in the late period of Indian
Buddhism.12
Besides this tantra, the first volume mainly contains three cycles of
mahāmudrā works: (1) the seven sections on accomplishment (Grub pa sde
bdun); (2) the six works on essential [meaning] (Snying po skor drug); and (3)
the twenty-five amanasikāra works (Yid la mi byed pa’i chos nyi shu rtsa
lnga).13 This classification of Indian mahāmudrā works in three cycles already
existed at the time of Bu ston Rin chen grub (1290–1364).14
Karma Bkra shis chos ’phel holds that the Grub pa sde bdun represent
an extract of the essence of all Highest Yoga tantras.15 All seven works are
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, 32b1–2: de ltar grub pa’i glegs bam gyi phyi mo’ang mdo
khams bka’ brgyud kyi gdan sa chen po dpal spungs yid dga’ chos ’dzin gyi chos grwa
dang zung ’brel ba’i spar khang chen mor bzhugs su gsol ba lags so.
12
See Jackson 2009.
13
Bu ston lists only twenty–two of the amanasikāra works, but also includes in his
amanasikāra cycle the four commentaries ordered by Maitrīpa (see Bu ston gsan yig, p.
11
116, l. 2–p. 117, l. 1).
Bu ston gsan yig, p. 114, l. 7–p. 117, l. 1.
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, fol. 21b6: rnal ’byor bla na med pa’i rgyud sde thams cad
kyi don gyi snying po phyung ba grub pa sde bdun ni /.
14
15
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Klaus-Dieter Mathes
contained in the rgyud ’grel section of the Bstan ’gyur.16 The ’Bri gung chos
mdzod,17 in which the first four of the seven sections on accomplishment are
identical with the ones in the Dpal spungs edition, contains the extra
information that this cycle of seven sections on accomplishment consists of
mahāmudrā works by masters from Uḍḍiyāna.18
The Snying po skor drug are Saraha´s Dohākośagīti (D 2224, P 3068),
Nāgārjuna’s Caturmudrānvaya (D 2225, P 3069),19 Āryadeva’s Cittāvaraṇa-
viśodhana (D 1804, P 2669), *Devacandra’s Prajñājñānaprakāśa (D 2226, P
3070),20 Sahajavajra’s Sthitisamuccaya (D 2227, P 3071) and Koṭali’s
16
The Grub pa sde bdun in the Phyag chen rgya gzhung are: (1) the Gsang ba grub pa
(D 2217, P 3061); (2) the Thabs dang shes rab rnam par gtan la dbab pa grub pa (D
2218, P 3062); (3) the Ye shes grub pa (D 2219, P 3063); (4) the Gnyis med grub pa
(D 2220, P 3064); (5) the Dpal u rgyan nas byung ba gsang ba de kho na nyid kyi man
ngag (D 2221, P 3065); (6) the Dngos po gsal ba’i rjes su ’gro ba´i de kho na nyid grub
pa (D 2222, P 3066); and (7) the Dpal lhan cig skyes pa grub pa (D 2223, P 3067). See
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, fols. 21b6–22b1. The same titles are listed in a slightly
different order in the Bu ston gsan yig (p. 115, ll. 4–7).
17
During my stay at the Srong btsan Library (Dehra Dun) in March 2006 I received
copies of first two volumes of the ’Bri gung bka’ brgyud chos mdzod. There is no
useful information in the colophons of these two volumes, but according to the present
Chetsang Rinpoche, they were compiled under the direction of the seventeenth ’Bri
gung abbot Kun dga’ rin chen (1475–1527), and this is corroborated by the ’Bri gung
gdan rabs written by the fourth Che tshang Rin po che Bstan ’dzin padma’i rgyal
mtshan (1722–78). See the ’Bri gung gdan rabs, p. 183.
18
’Bri gung chos mdzod, vol. ka, fol. 4a2: sngags kyi bstan pa’i thog mar nub phyogs u
rgyan nas dar bas yul de’i slob dpon rnams kyis [text: kyi] phyag rgya chen po’i
gzhung mdzad pa la grub pa’i tha snyad sbyar ba bdun byung ba ni….
19
The attribution of the Caturmudrānvaya to Nāgārjuna was already controversial in the
11th century. Thus we find this text included in the collection of Maitrīpa´s works, the
Advayavajrasaṃgraha.
According to the Peking Tanjur (rgyud ’grel, vol. mi, fol. 99a4) and the Bu ston gsan
yig (p. 116, l. 1). In the Blue Annals (Roerich 1949–53) we find “Devākara-candra”
20
The Collection of ‘Indian Mahāmudrā Works’
95
Acintyakramopadeśa (D 2228, P 3072). Bu ston lists the same texts in a slightly
different order,21 and the ’Bri gung manuscript includes Maitrīpa´s Sekanirdeśa
(D 2252, P 3097) instead of the Prajñājñānaprakāśa.22All six works of this cycle
are also contained in the rgyud ’grel section of the Bstan ’gyur. To explain
briefly their different points of view, in his Dohākośagīti Saraha describes
unconventional techniques (he was critical not only of traditional forms of
Buddhism, but also of the tantras) for experiencing the co-emergent nature of
mind. A number of these dohās became an important Indian source for later
mahāmudrā traditions.23 The Prajñājñānaprakāśa presents mahāmudrā in the
context of the four mudrās. While Devacandra (one of the four heart disciples
of Maitrīpa)24 argues in this work that mahāmudrā must be preceded by a kind
of preliminary wisdom attained with the help of a tantric consort (i.e.
prajñājñāna), Maitrīpa suggests in his Sekanirdeśa an alternative approach,
claiming (in SN 29ab) that mahāmudrā is also known as non-abiding. In his
Sekanirdeśapañjikā, Rāmapāla (another of the four heart disciples of Maitrīpa)25
glosses “non-abiding in anything” as “not to reify”26 and “not to become
mentally engaged.”27 The works by the mahāsiddhas Āryadeva and Koṭali do
not contain anything that specifically excludes non-tantric mahāmudrā, but in
the last work, by Sahajavajra, reality is either approached through Madhyamaka
analysis or experienced directly according to the tradition of Mantrayāna.28
(read: Divākaracandra?), and in the Rgya gzhung dkar chag (fol. 22bb2) “Deva-
ākarendra.”
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
Bu ston gsan yig, p. 115, l. 7 – p. 116, l. 1.
’Bri gung chos mdzod, vol. ka, fol. 4a3–5.
See Mathes 2006: 207–208.
Roerich 1949–53: 842–43.
See the preceding note.
Tib. sgro ’dogs pa, usually rendered as “superimposing.”
SNPS(C), fol. 18a4; SNPS(P), fol. 15b6–7: sarvasminn ... apratiṣṭhānam amanasikāro
’nāropaḥ (I follow here the reading of SNPS(P)).
28
Mathes 2006: 222–23.
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Klaus-Dieter Mathes
Following are what Maitrīpa’s disciples called the twenty-five
amanasikāra works. In them, Maitrīpa expounds his view of non-abiding (Tib.
rab tu mi gnas pa, Skt. apratiṣṭhāna) and the meditation practice of “not
becoming mentally engaged” (Tib. yid la mi byed pa, Skt. amanasikāra).
Originally, each of these twenty-five works was Maitrīpa’s reply to a different
question.29 Twenty-one of the twenty-five (or rather twenty-four)30 texts listed
by Karma Bkra shis chos ’phel are contained in the Advayavajrasaṃgraha,31
and thus available in the original Sanskrit.32 The three texts that are not in the
’Bri gung chos mdzod, vol. ka, fol. 4a5–6: de nas mai [text: me] tri pas lta ba rab tu
mi gnas pa / bsgom pa yid la mi byed pa la sogs pa’i dam bca’ mdzad pa la / so so’i
dris lan gzhung phran nyi shu rtsa lnga byung la slob ma rnams kyi yid la mi byed pa’i
chos skor nyi shu rtsa lnga zhes pa’i tha snyad byas so /.
30
The Thabs dang shes rab brtse ba lnga pa (no. 5) and the Dga’ gcugs lnga pa (no.
12), which Karma Bkra shis chos ‘phel mentions in his list of amanasikāra works
(Rgya gzhung dkar chag, fols. 22b4–23a3), are simply two different Tibetan
translations of the same text, the Premapañcaka. This was not recognised by the
compilers of the Bstan ’gyur or, later, the Phyag chen rgya gzhung, but in the Bu ston
gsan yig and the ’Bri gung chos mdzod we find only the Dga’ gcugs lnga pa.
31
Actually, the Advayavajrasaṃgraha consists of twenty–three works (if one follows
the Tibetan tradition and counts the Kudṛṣṭinirghātana and its ṭippinikā as two separate
texts), but, among them, Karma Bkra shis chos ’phel does not include the Mūlāpatti
Sthūlāpatti (which is not contained in the Tanjur either) and considers the Caturmudrānvaya to be by [the tantric] Nāgārjuna and not Maitrīpa.
32
The twenty-three works of the Advayavajrasaṃgraha are: (1) Kudṛṣṭinirghātana (D
2229, P 3073); (2) Kudṛṣṭinirghātanaṭippinikā (D 2231, P 3075); (3) Mūlāpatti
Sthūlāpatti; (4) Tattvaratnāvalī (D 2240, P 3085); (5) Pañcatathāgatamudrāvivaraṇa (D
2242, P 3087); (6) Sekanirdeśa (D 2252, P 3097); (7) Caturmudrānvaya (D 2225, P
3069); (8) Sekatātparyasaṃgraha (D 2243, P 3088); (9) Pañcākāra (D 2245, P 3090);
(10) Māyānirukti (D 2234, P 3078); (11) Svapnanirukti (D 2233, P 3077); (12)
Tattvaprakāśa (D 2241, P 3086); (13) Apratiṣṭhānaprakāśa (D 2235, P 3079); (14)
Yuganaddhaprakāśa (D 2237, P 3081); (15) Mahāsukhaprakāśa (D 2239, P 3084); (16)
Tattvaviṃśikā (D 2250, P 3095); (17) Mahāyānaviṃśikā (D 2248, P 3093); (18)
29
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Advayavajrasaṃgraha are the *Dohānidhināmatattvopadeśa (D 2247, P 3092),
the *Saṃkṣiptasekaprakriyā (D 2244, P 3089),33 and the Genuine Secret PithInstruction on Settling the Mind without Becoming Engaged in the Thought
Processes of Projecting and Withdrawing (Shes pa spro bsdu med par ’jog pa’i
man ngag gsang ba dam pa).34 The last of these is contained only in the Dpal
spungs edition and is neither listed in Bu ston’s list of received teachings nor
contained in the ’Bri gung manuscripts. Its attribution to Maitrīpa thus seems to
be doubtful. But given that it was a secret pith-instruction, it was perhaps
understood within the tradition as a work that was hidden without having been
formally translated by an Indian paṇḍita and a Tibetan lo tsā ba, and thus lacks
a record of its Indian title and a colophon. Still, the text found its way into the
Bstan ‘gyur (D 2251, P 3096). The Phyag chen rgya gzhung contains further
mahāmudrā works, most of them dohās, but they have not been grouped
together into further cycles.
In his Rgya gzhung dkar chag, Karma Bkra shis chos ’phel provides
detailed lists of the reading transmissions (lung) of the various texts and cycles
in this mahāmudrā collection. We are thus informed that the works of Maitrīpa
and his disciples were not only transmitted through Ras chung pa, but also
reached Sgam po pa directly from Mar pa and Mi la ras pa:
With regard to the six works of essential [meaning] (Snying po skor drug),
[Maitrīpa’s]
twenty-five
amanasikāra
works,
the
four
related
(b.
1017)35
“commentaries” ordered [by Maitrīpa] [i.e. Rāmapāla’s Sekanirdeśa-
pañjikā,
Sahajavajra’s
Tattvadaśakaṭīkā,
Vajrapāṇi’s
Nirvedhapañcaka (D 2238, P 3083); (19) Madhyamaṣaṭka (D 2230, P 3074); (20)
Premapañcaka (D 2237 & D 2246, P 3082 & P 3091); (21) Tattvadaśaka (D 2236, P
3080); (22) Amanasikārādhāra (D 2249, P 3094); (23) Sahajaṣaṭka (D 2232, P 3076).
33
P 3089 and P 3092 are also listed in the Bu ston gsan yig (p. 116, ll. 5–6).
34
Phyag chen rgya gzhung, vol. oṃ, fols. 254a6–255a2.
35
See Schaeffer 2005: 19.
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Klaus-Dieter Mathes
“commentary” on the Kudṛṣṭinirghātana, and Bhitakarman’s (or Karopa’s)36
“commentary” on the Caturmudrānvaya],37 [all the] large and small dohās,
including the dohās by Saraha and their commentaries, … another trans-
mission of [these works of ultimate] meaning is as follows: Maitrīpa, the
translator Mar pa Lo tsā ba, Mi la [ras pa] bzhad pa rdo rje, Ras chung
grags pa. Or, from Mi la [ras pa] to the peerless Dvags po lha rje [i.e. Sgam
po pa]….38
2.2 Karma Bkra shis chos ’phel’s analysis of mahāmudrā
The Rgya gzhung dkar chag contains a valuable presentation of Bka’ brgyud
mahāmudrā based on an analysis of the most important works of the Phyag
chen rgya gzhung collection. It begins by equating mahāmudrā with the
perfection of insight (prajñāpāramitā),39 both terms standing for the definitive
See the colophon of his commentary on the Caturmudrānvaya (Rgya gzhung, vol.
oṃ, fol. 316b5–6). Karopa (Bhitakarman) was a disciple of Vajrapāṇi, while the latter,
36
Rāmapāla and Sahajavajra were heart disciples of Maitrīpa; see Roerich 1949–53:
842–43.
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, fol. 23a3–6: de rnams dang rjes su ’brel ba bkas bskul gyi
chos bzhir grags pa las dbang bskur nges bstan gyi bka’ ’grel pa ramapālas mdzad pa
… de kho na nyid bcu pa’i ’grel pa lhan cig skyes pa’i rdo rjes mdzad pa … paṇḍita
vajrapāṇis mdzad pa’i lta ba ngan sel gyi dran pa … phyag rgya bzhi’i ’grel pa rin chen
snying po rje btsun bhitakarmas mdzad pa /. Bu ston, it may be noted, lists the
Vajrapada (P 3100) by Vajrapāṇi instead of Karopa/Bhitakarman’s commentary (Bu
ston gsan yig, p. 116, ll. 6–7).
38
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, 28a6–b4: snying po skor drug / yid la mi byed pa’i chos
nyer lnga / de dang phyogs mthun bkas bskul gyi chos bzhi / saraha’i do ha rtsa ’grel
sogs do ha che chung rnams te / … / don gyi brgyud pa gzhan yang / maitripa nas /
sgra bsgyur mar pa lo tsā / mi la bzhad pa rdo rje / ras chung rdo rje grags pa’am / mi
la nas / mnyam med dvags po lha rje / ….
39
For the relating of these two terms as synonyms in Jñānakīrti’s Tattvāvatāra, see
Mathes 2006: 223–24. The relevant passage from the Tattvāvatāra has been quoted in
the Subhāṣitasaṃgraha (SBhS, p. 388, ll. 14–15) and is thus available in its original
37
The Collection of ‘Indian Mahāmudrā Works’
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meaning, the essential intention, of all sūtras and tantras.40 With reference to
the Ye shes grub pa (the third of the seven sections on accomplishment),
ascribed to Indrabhūti,41 mahāmudrā is further said to be identical with ultimate
reality, unsurpassable wisdom, Samantabhadra and the dharmakāya.42 Based on
this, Bkra shis chos ’phel speaks of “ground mahāmudrā,” in terms of the
dharmatā and the like:
In general terms, ground mahāmudrā is the true nature (dharmatā) of all
phenomena. It is free from all mental fabrication throughout beginningless
time; that is, [it is] the emptiness of natural luminosity, which pervades all
of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. With regard to luminosity and clarity in particular,
it is the primordial nature of one’s mind, which cannot be identified, being
beyond [all] conceivable and expressible objects.43
Sanskrit: prajñāpāramitaiva bhagavatī mahāmudrā ’paranāmnī tasyā advayajñāna-
svabhāvatvād (“Another name for the very great mother (Tib. yum chen mo) Prajñāpāramitā is mahāmudrā, given that the latter’s nature is that of non-dual wisdom”).
40
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, fol. 3a2: … shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa la mtshan gzhan
phyag rgya chen por grags pa / mdo rgyud thams cad kyi nges don snying po’i dgongs
pa….
41
See Phyag chen rgya gzhung, vol. oṃ, fol. 64b6–65a1: rdo rje’i ye shes bla med yin /
kun tu bzang po zhes bshad cing / phyag rgya chen po zhes kyang bya / ’di ni chos sku
zhes bya ste /.
42
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, fol. 4a4: mtshan gyi rnam grangs ni / don dam pa’i de nyid /
bla na med pa’i ye shes / kun tu bzang po / phyag rgya chen po / chos kyi sku rnams
don gcig tu bshad de /.
43
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, fol. 5a3–4: de yang spyir chos thams cad kyi chos nyid gdod
ma nas spros pa thams cad dang bral ba / rang bzhin gyis ’od gsal ba’i stong pa nyid
’khor ’das kun gyi khyab bdag tu gyur pa dang / bye brag gsal zhing dwangs la ngos
bzung med pa’i rang sems kyi gshis gdod ma’i gnas lugs bsam brjod kyi yul las ’das pa
ni gzhi’i phyag chen dang /.
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Klaus-Dieter Mathes
Once further subdivided into the true nature of ordinary beings, bodhisattvas,
and buddhas, on the basis of Ratnagotravibhāga I.47,44 ground mahāmudrā
becomes linked with the teaching of the Buddha-nature, the Buddha-element, or
suchness.
Path mahāmudrā is then subdivided in accord not only with the tantric
practices of the four mudrās (see below), but also with “calm abiding”
(śamatha) and “deep insight” (vipaśyanā):
In the *Mahāsamvarodayatantra (D 373, P 20) it is said: “Through full
realisation of emptiness one’s meditation becomes insight.” This divides
[path-mahāmudrā] into calm abiding and deep insight.45
Even though the term mahāmudrā is nowhere found in the sūtras, Bkra
shis chos ’phel argues that its meaning is clearly intended by expressions such
as “all phenomena are marked by the seal (mudrā) of liberation or emptiness”:
In the sūtras this meaning of mahāmudrā has been taught since, according
to circumstances, it was given [one or] the other name, [such as] mudrā. In
the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchāsūtra (D 152, P 819) it is stated: “Sāgaramati, all
phenomena are marked by the seal (mudrā) of liberation; they do not exist
as duality but are pure.” … In the Maitreyaprasthānasūtra (D 198, P 865)
44
RGVV, p. 40, ll. 7–8: “[Depending on whether the Buddha–nature is] impure,
[partly] impure and [partly] pure, or perfectly pure, it is called a sentient being,
bodhisattva or tathāgata respectively.” (aśuddho ’śuddhaśuddho ’tha suviśuddho
yathākramam / sattvadhātur iti prokto bodhisattvas tathāgataḥ // My translation follows
Schmithausen (1971: 148).
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, fol. 5b1–2: bde mchog ’byung ba las / stong nyid so sor
rtogs pas na / / bsam gtan shes rab tu yang ’gyur / / zhes zhi gnas dang lhag mthong du
phye ba dang /.
45
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it is stated: “Son of a noble family, all phenomena [are marked by] the seal
of emptiness.”46
Later, Bkra shis chos ’phel summarises his distinction of mahāmudrā into
ground, path, and fruition in the following way:
To sum up, teachings in all sūtras and tantras to the effect that the Buddhanature abides in the mind-stream of sentient beings throughout
beginningless time—teachings such as the natural luminosity of the mind
[and] all pronouncements on the abiding nature of the ground—point to
ground mahāmudrā. The Dharma that fosters the element of the [Buddha]nature, namely [the teachings on] freedom from mental fabrication and
emptiness in particular, and all teachings to the effect that phenomena do
not really exist and lack a true self, that they are equal and united [with the
co-emergent nature] as a pair, point to path mahāmudrā. All teachings
about enlightenment [in terms] of [attaining] omniscience—the four kāyas,
the five wisdoms and the like—point to fruition mahāmudrā.47
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, fols. 5b4–6a2: mdo sde rnams su phyag rgya chen po’i don
’di nyid la phyag rgya’i mtshan gzhan ci rigs par btags nas gsungs te / blo gros rgya
mtshos zhus pa’i mdo las / blo gros rgya mtsho chos thams cad ni rnam par grol ba’i
phyag rgyas btab pa ste gnyis su med cing yongs su dag pa’o / […] byams pa ’jug pa’i
mdor / rigs kyi bu chos thams cad ni stong pa nyid kyi phyag rgya dang /.
47
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, fol. 6a5–b1: don bsdu na / mdo rgyud thams cad du sems
can gyi rgyud la de bzhin gshegs pa’i snying po gdod ma nas gnas par ston pa dang /
sems kyi rang bzhin ’od gsal bar ston pa sogs gzhi’i gnas lugs gsungs pa thams cad
kyis gzhi’i phyag rgya chen po dang / snying po’i khams rgyas par byed pa’i chos
spros bral dang stong pa nyid kyi bye brag dang / chos thams cad bden med dang bdag
med dang mnyam nyid dang zung ’jug tu ston pa thams cad kyis lam gyi phyag rgya
chen po dang / sku bzhi ye shes lnga la sogs pa rnam pa thams cad mkhyen pa’i ye
shes su byang chub pa’i tshul gsungs pa thams cad kyis ’bras bu’i phyag chen bstan pa
yin no /.
46
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Klaus-Dieter Mathes
It is of particular note that Bkra shis chos ’phel still considers mahāmudrā to
be a category of tantric Buddhism:
Within the collection of [works on] secret conduct, one finds, in terms of
disciples with lower, average, and supreme faculties, a threefold division
into the Pāramitāyāna of defining characteristics, the Vajrayāna of secret
mantras, and the yāna of unsurpassable essence. Among them,
[mahāmudrā] is taken to be the last… In any case, one [still] asks the
favour of empowerments and blessings, be they extensive or condensed,
and meditation on deities is explained according to circumstances. Thus
[mahāmudrā] must be taken as a category of the secret Mantrayāna.48
With regard to the dohās of Saraha, Bkra shis chos ’phel discerns a
direct or short path called “path of essence[-mahāmudrā].”49 From the
perspective of the Dohākośagīti in particular, he takes the nature of this path of
essence to be independent of Mantrayāna:
[In the Dohākośagīti] it is stated:
No tantra, no mantra, nothing to meditate on, no meditative
concentration—
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, fol. 9a3–5: gsang spyod kyi skor nas / gdul bya blo dman
’bring mchog gsum gyi dbang gis mtshan nyid phar phyin theg pa dang / gsang sngags
rdo rje’i theg pa dang / bla med snying po’i theg pa gsum du phye ba’i phyi ma yin par
bzhed cing / … ’on kyang dbang dang byin rlabs rgyas bsdus gang rung re dgos pa
dang / skabs ci rigs par lha bsgom pa’i tshul yang bshad de / de ltar na gsang sngags
kyi theg pa’i dbye bas dgos so /.
49
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, fol. 9a5–6: bram ze chen po nyid kyi gzhung la dpyod na
snying po’i lam zhes gseng lam zhig tu bzhed par snang ste /.
48
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These are all causes that confuse one’s mind. (97–98)50
What is the use of butter lamps? What is the use of offerings?
What do they accomplish? Why rely on secret mantras? (58–59)51
Thus the nature of the path is explained as not depending on secret
Mantrayāna. Moreover, it is taken to be free from the three conditions,
beyond the four joys, and superior to luminosity.52
Passages in the dohās that suggest a tantric framework to mahāmudrā
teachings are illuminated in the following way:
[Still,] the way of relying on a karmamudrā, the way one must mature by
means of an empowerment, and the way of yogic conduct are explained in
the Dohās for the Queen.53 Thus this precious lineage claims that if
[mahāmudrā] is combined with the secret Mantra[yāna], it is proper to do
so.54
50
DKGS, p. 134, ll.1–2: manta ṇa tanta ṇa dhea ṇa dhāraṇa sabba bi re baḍha
bibbhamakāraṇa /.
51
DKGT, p. 129, ll. 20–21.: The Indian original is not available. For the Tibetan see the
next footnote.
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, fol. 9b1–3: rgyud med sngags med bsam gtan bsam bya med
/ de kun rang yang ’khrul par byed pa’i rgyu / zhes dang / mar me ci dgos lha bshos de
ci dgos / / de la ci bya gsang sngags bsten pas ci / / zhes pa la sogs pa gsungs pas lam
rang gi ngo bo gsang sngags lam ma ltos par bshad cing / de’ang rkyen gsum dang bral
ba / dga’ ba bzhi las ’das pa / ’od gsal las khyad par du gyur pa zhig bzhed la /.
53
I.e. Saraha’s Dohākośopadeśagīti (D 2264, P 3111).
54
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, fol. 9b3: btsun mo do har las kyi phyag rgya bsten tshul
dang / de dbang gis smin par bya tshul dang / brtul zhugs kyi spyad pa spyod tshul
yang bshad pas gsang sngags dang sbrel na sbrel du rung bar brgyud pa rin po che ’dis
bzhed do /.
52
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Klaus-Dieter Mathes
Sgam po pa’s threefold division into a path of inference (Pāramitāyāna), a path
of blessing (Mantrayāna), and a path of direct perception is based on such an
analysis.55 Bkra shis chos ’phel further elaborates that the impure ground is
either abandoned (Pāramitāyāna), transformed (Mantrayāna), or else its true
nature realised as it is (Mahāmudrā):
The path of knowing the ground is mahāmudrā. There is nothing to
abandon, no remedy, nothing to transform, and no process of
transformation. Everything is a magical display of mind. One becomes a
Buddha by recognizing, seeing and becoming familiar with the fact that
mind itself, which has never arisen, is the naturally present dharmakāya….
Those with sharp faculties and insight penetrate reality: this is mahāmudrā.
Taught in this way, [mahāmudrā] can be taken as a short path that is
different from both Sūtra and Mantra[yāna].56
Still, mahāmudrā can be combined with either sūtra or tantra paths, and thus
become something that can be practised by many: it is obvious that later
holders of practice lineages combined [mahāmudrā], according to circumstances …
with many Sūtra and Mantra[yāna] practices. Even though it has thus been
turned into the profound path of ordinary Sūtra and Mantra[yāna], [the
55
For a discussion of this division, see Mathes 2008: 40–41.
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, fol. 9b6–10a3: gzhi shes pa’i lam ni phyag rgya chen po ste
/ spang bya med gnyen po med bsgyur du med sgyur byed med de / thams cad sems
kyi chos ’phrul yin la / sems nyid gdod ma nas skye ba med pa’i don chos sku rang
chas su yod pa ngo shes mthong ba goms par byed pas sangs rgyas pa’o / … dbang
rnon shes rab can de kho na nyid la ’jug pa ni phyag rgya chen po’o / / zhes gsungs pas
mdo sngags gnyis ka las logs su gyur pa’i gseng lam zhig yin par bzhed cing /.
56
The Collection of ‘Indian Mahāmudrā Works’
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latter two] are needed by many, whether of superior or inferior mind. This
is not a contradiction.57
In other words, mahāmudrā taken on its own is a path only for those
with sharp faculties, but when combined with either sūtras or tantras, it can
become a helpful practice for many. The way in which it is harmonised with
the sūtras has been indicated above: on the level of the ground it is equated
with the Buddha-nature or dharmatā of all phenomena, while on the path
mahāmudrā is linked with the practice of calm abiding (śamatha) and deep
insight (vipaśyanā). I have already shown elsewhere that this has a clear Indian
precedent in the Tattvadaśakaṭīkā, in which Sahajavajra claims that one gains a
mahāmudrā experience of emptiness as luminosity through a particular practice
of śamatha and vipaśyanā, which starts with cultivating direct perceptions right
from the beginning. Maitrīpa and his disciple Sahajavajra thus propagate a
direct approach to reality that is in accordance with Vajrayāna, but driven
largely by pith instructions in a more general Mahāyāna context. Jñānakīrti for
his part claims in his Tattvāvatāra that someone with sharp faculties will
certainly be endowed with mahāmudrā as a result of practising the meditations
of calm abiding and special insight within the Pāramitāyāna.58 He has to admit,
though, that it takes three immeasurable æons to reach Buddhahood in the
Pāramitāyāna,59 but if one is in possession of mahāmudrā realisation at an
initial stage, this does not really matter.
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, fol. 10a4–6: phyis kyi sgrub brgyud pa dag gis … ci rigs su
mdo sngags kyi nyams len mang po sbyar bar snang bas / de ltar na mdo sngags thun
mong ba’i zab lam du byas kyang blo mchog dman mang po la mkho zhing ’gal ba
med pa yin no /.
57
58
See Mathes 2006: 209–24.
59
TA, fol. 321b2–4: “As to the second [group] (i.e. Pāramitāyāna adepts), they, having
truly perfected [their] activities of generosity and so forth, to the point of [now] being
free from mental fabrication … will attain Buddhahood within three immeasurable
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Klaus-Dieter Mathes
The combination of mahāmudrā with tantra is possible in the eyes of
Bkra shis chos ’phel because its natural presence shines through all practices of
the lower mudrās, or more precisely, it is mahāmudrā that impresses the seal of
emptiness and co-emergent bliss on the other mudrās. In support of this
assertion, Bkra shis chos ’phel refers to Rāmapāla’s commentary on Maitrīpa’s
Sekanirdeśa, stanza 26:
Given that it impresses its seal on the three mudrās, [mahāmudrā] is both
great and a seal. It is not reached by analysis, and its nature is not to abide
[anywhere]. [By] an attentive and continuous practice [mahāmudrā] directly
manifests the wisdom of a path....60
To sum up Bkra shis chos ’phel’s valuable presentation, mahāmudrā on its
own, or essence mahāmudrā, is a direct, fast path, independent of the sūtras and
tantras. It can be combined with the latter two, the result being what Kong
sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas calls sūtra-mahāmudrā and mantra-mahāmudrā.61
æons.” (gnyis pa ni / spros pa med par sbyin pa la sogs pa’i bya ba mngon par rdzogs
pas … bskal pa grangs med pa gsum gyis sangs rgyas nyid rdzogs par byed pa yin no).
60
Rgya gzhung dkar chag, fol. 8b2: phyag rgya gsum la rgyas gdab pa’i phyir / ’di
chen po yang yin la phyag rgya yang yin te / dpyod pas ma ’ongs pa mi gnas pa’i ngo
bo nyid / lam gyi ye shes gus pa dang bcas shing rgyun mi chad par goms par byas
pa[s] mngon du byas pa....
The corresponding passage in the Sekanirdeśapañjikā (SNPS(P), fol. 14b1–2 (missing in
SNPS(C)) differs slightly: “Given that it impresses its seal on the three mudrās,
[mahāmudrā] is both great and a seal. By an attentive and continuous practice
[mahāmudrā] directly manifests the wisdom of a path, which is reached by analysis and
characterised by non-abiding.” (tato mudrātrayamudraṇāt / mahatī cāsau mudrā ceti /
vicārāgatāpratiṣṭhānarūpamārgajñānasya sādaranirantarābhyāsena sākṣātkārā ....)
61
Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas, Shes bya kun khyab mdzod, vol. no. 3, pp. 375f.
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3 Mahāmudrā in the works of Maitrīpa and his disciples
Maitrīpa contributed considerably to integrating the new teachings and
practices of the mahāsiddhas into mainstream Buddhism by showing that the
latter are in line with the view, conduct, and practice of traditional Mahāyāna.62
In doing so, Maitrīpa explains tantric terms in a more general Mahāyāna
context, thus demonstrating that their meaning was already latent in more
traditional forms of Buddhism. At the same time, Maitrīpa attempts to read the
meaning of some crucial technical terms of the sūtras, such as amanasikāra,
into the tantras. The beginning of this process can be already noticed in the
songs
(dohās)
of
Saraha,
and
in
Saraha’s
(or
Śavaripa’s)63
Dohākośanāmamahāmudropadeśa, for example, Saraha even uses the term
mahāmudrā in a more general Mahāyāna context. It stands for the true nature of
mind,64 or the practice of not becoming mentally engaged.65 To be sure, the
other mudrās are not even mentioned in this dohā. But before we investigate
such sūtra-based interpretations of mahāmudrā, we shall have a look at it in its
tantric context among the four mudrās.
3.1 Mahāmudrā in the tantric context of the four moments and the four mudrās
In his Sekanirdeśa Maitrīpa presents tantric empowerment on the basis of the
four moments (i.e. the moments of enjoying manifold appearances, maturation,
62
This finds expression in the Tattvaratnāvalī, where Maitrīpa divides Mahāyana into
the traditions of pāramitās and mantras, tantra thus being a particular form of Mahāyāna (see Mathes 2007: 548).
63
64
The attribution is uncertain.
DKMU, fol. 74b6–75a1: “Watch your own [mind] without distraction! When you
realise the true nature of your own [mind] by yourself, even the distracted mind appears
as mahāmudrā.” (ma yengs sems kyis rang gis rang la ltos / / rang gi de nyid rang gis
rtogs gyur na / / yengs pa’i sems kyang phyag rgya chen por ’char /)
DKMU, fol. 75b5–6: “In mahāmudrā, [i.e. the practice of] not becoming mentally
engaged, one does not meditate because there is not the slightest reason to do so” (yid
la mi byed phyag rgya chen po la / bsgom rgyu rdul tsam med pas mi sgom ste /).
65
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freedom from defining characteristics, and relaxation), which correspond to the
four joys (i.e. joy, supreme joy, co-emergent joy, and [the joy of] no joy) and
the four mudrās (karma-, dharma-, mahā-, and samayamudrā). Maitrīpa’s
understanding of the four moments and four joys during empowerment can best
be seen from his Caturmudropadeśa:
(1) Starting from exterior activities [such as embracing and kissing] up to
the final arousing is the joy related to [the moment of] the manifold.
(2) The experience [from that point] up until [the drop of bodhicitta] has
reached the tip of the jewel is [the moment of] maturation. It is
supreme joy.
(3) The illustrious one taught [in Mañjuśrīnāmasaṃgīti, X.3b]: “Holding
the drop of sixteen halved twice.”66 Two [parts] of what is thus present
in the form of a four[fold] drop at the tip of the jewel and two [parts] in
the middle of the lotus [correspond to the moment of] freedom from
defining characteristics, [related to] co-emergent joy.
(4) When all four [parts of the] drop are inside the lotus, [it is the moment
of] relaxation, [the joy of] no joy.67
In Sekanirdeśa, stanza 38, the four moments (and thus the four joys)
are linked to the four mudrās, with the moment of enjoying manifold
appearances (in this context, the sight of a beautiful woman) being related to
66
67
MNS, p. 107: ṣoḍaśārdhārdhabindudhṛk /.
CMU, fol. 11b6–12a2: phyi rol gyi bya ba nas bskyod pa’i mthar thug pa’i bar ni
rnam pa sna tshogs pa’i dga’ ba’o / rin po che’i mthar thug par nyams su myong ba ni
rnam par smin pa ste / mchog dga’o / bcom ldan ’das kyis / bcu drug phyed phyed thig
le ’chang [text: can] / / zhes bya bas / thig le bzhi’i gzugs kyis bzhugs pa las / gnyis ni
rdo rje rtse mo’i cha la gnas / gnyis ni padma’i ze’u ’bru’i cha la gnas pa ni mtshan
nyid dang bral ba ste / lhan cig skyes dga’o / thig le bzhi char padma’i cha la gnas pa
ni rnam pa med pa ste / dga’ bral lo /.
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109
the karma-mudrā,68 the moment of maturation to dharmamudrā, the moment of
freedom from defining characteristics to mahāmudrā, and the moment of
relaxation to samayamudrā.69 Maitrīpa goes on to explain the four moments and
joys on the level of each mudrā, except mahāmudrā. Thus the four joys are first
enjoyed physically with the help of a karmamudrā, and then on the level of
dharmamudrā, based on the realisation that the sights and sounds of the
manifold world are one’s own mind and so forth. Further, in the
Caturmudrānvaya, dharmamudrā is taken as the nature of the dharmadhātu,
namely freedom from mental fabrication and similar attributes.70 In other
words, the wisdom generated with the help of a prajñā, or karmamudrā, leads to
the actual wisdom of realising emptiness, and this in turn to the realisation of
mahāmudrā. The four joys of the samayamudrā are then explained in relation to
one’s display of the rūpakāyas for the sake of others. This sequence of the
mudrās is clearly expressed in Sekanirdeśa, stanza 26:
Having approached a karmamudrā, one should meditate on the
dharmamudrā.
Hereafter [follows] mahāmudrā, from which the samaya[mudrā] arises.
(SN 26)71
In his commentary, Rāmapāla introduces this stanza as a presentation of
cause and effect, and a little further on he clearly states that each mudrā is a
68
In the commentary on the Caturmudrānvaya (CMAṬ, fol. 267a1) karmamudrā is
defined in the following way: “Karma- is bliss, and mudrā the recognition [of this
bliss], the very moment [it appears]” (las ni bde ba ste / / phyag rgya ni dus kyi sna rtse
tshad du ’dzin pa).
69
SN, p. 60, ll. 3–4: vicitraṃ karmamudraiva dharmamudrā vipākajā / vilakṣaṇaṃ
mahāmudrā vimardaḥ samayo bhavet //.
CMAS, p. 100, l. 1: oṃ dharmamudrā / dharmadhātusvarūpā niṣprapañcā….
71
SN, p. 36, ll. 5–6: karmamudrāṃ samāsādya dharmamudrāṃ vibhāvayet / tasyā
ūrdhvaṃ mahāmudrā yasyāḥ samayasaṃbhavaḥ //.
70
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Klaus-Dieter Mathes
cause of the following one.72 This leads to the question of how something
artificially created, such as the physical experience of the four joys (i.e. the
wisdom arisen from a karmamudrā), can initiate a process that leads to
Buddhahood (mahāmudrā). As mentioned earlier, Rāmapāla explains that
mahāmudrā impresses its seal on the other mudrās, which means that the
wisdom that arises from a karmamudrā or prajñā (i.e. the prajñājñāna) is only a
reflection or image of the real wisdom. This is also clear from Nāgārjuna’s
Caturmudrānvaya and the commentary on it by Bhitakarman:
All that [appears as] co-emergent is called “co-emergent” because it is an
imitation of the image of the [real] co-emergent. [This] image of the coemergent causes the experience of a type of wisdom that is similar to the
co-emergent. The co-emergent is [only] in this [limited] sense the wisdom
based on a prajñā. Therefore, there is no arising of the [real] co-emergent
in/from the wisdom based on a prajñā.73
The Caturmudrānvayaṭīkā on this passage is as follows:
[This is] because one can reveal the real co-emergent, which is like the
moon in the sky, by understanding the image[-like] exemplifying the co72
SNPS(C), fol. 16b1; SNPS(P), fol. 14a2: “Now he teaches a presentation of cause and
effect, [i.e. the stanza] starting with karmamudrā” (idānīṃ hetuphalavyavasthānam āha
/ karmamudrām ityādi /).
SNPS(P), fol. 14b7–8 (missing in SPNS(C)): “Here each preceding mudrā is a cause, and
each subsequent one an effect” (tatra mudrāṇāṃ pūrvapūrvāpekṣayā hetutvaṃ /
uttarottarāpekṣayā ca phalatvaṃ //).
CMAS, p. 94, ll. 10–13: sahajaṃ tata sarvaṃ sahajacchāyānukāritvāt sahajam ity
abhidhīyate / sahajacchāyā sahajasadṛśaṃ jñānaṃ pratipādayatīti sahajam prajñājñānam
/ ata eva prajñājñāneb sahajasyotpattir nāsti /. a The manuscript (NGMPP, B 22/24, fol.
20a2) reads sat. But the Tibetan (CMAT, fol. 151b6) has de. b CMAT, fol. 152a2: …
shes rab ye shes las ….
73
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emergent, which is like the reflection of the moon in the water. What is the
reason for presenting the exemplifying wisdom of a karmamudrā as an
image? What is [here] called the image of the co-emergent is a prajñā.
Prajñā [here] means karmamudrā. The wisdom arisen from it has arisen
from other conditions; it is close to the razor of attachment and fabricated
for a purpose, and it has come about because of an actual woman… The
co-emergent wisdom laid bare by the wisdom based on a prajñā is without
arising.74
For Maitrīpa, the prajñājñāna of the third empowerment is under all
circumstances only an exemplifying wisdom, and Devacandra warns us in his
Prajñājñānaprakāśa that the related practice of karmamudrā must go together
with mahāmudrā.75 On the other hand Devacandra insists:
[One] never attains the nature of great bliss, for without sexual union one
does not realise [reality] in its manifestation of bliss…. Cultivating wisdom
[that was based on] a karmamudrā and so forth, one becomes a perfect
74
CMAṬ, fol. 271b1–5: de’ang grib ma’i dpe’i lhan cig skyes pa chu’i zla ba lta bu
(text: bur) khong du chud pas / don gyi lhan cig skyes pa nam mkha’i zla ba lta bu
mtshon par nus pa’i phyir / / de’ang dpe las kyi phyag rgya’i ye shes la grib mar bzhag
pa’i rgyu mtshan gang zhe na / de bas na lhan cig skyes pa grib mar smra ba ni shes
rab bo / zhes bya bar bstan te / shes rab ni las kyi phyag rgya ste / de las skyes pa’i ye
shes ni rkyen gzhan las skyes pa dang / ’dod chags kyi spu gri dang khad nye ba dang /
ched du bcos pa yin pa dang / mi’i bu mo las byung … shes rab ye shes kyis bstan pa’i
lhan cig skyes pa’i ye shes ni skye ba med pa nyid do /.
75
With reference to SN 39 (SN, p. 60, ll. 5–6): “Yogins who do not know mahāmudrā
and have karmamudrā as their only means (i.e. practice) are deprived of the transmitted
reality and go to the Raurava hell.” (mahāmudrām ajānānāḥ karmamudraikasādhanāḥ /
āmnāyatattvato bhraṣṭā rauravaṃ yānti yoginaḥ //).
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Buddha through the very nature of bliss. However by merely abandoning
all thought, one never experiences even the slightest form of bliss.76
Based on the stanza from the Sekanirdeśa that links mahāmudrā to the
amanasikāra practice of the Nirvikalpapraveśadhāraṇī (i.e. SN 36: “One who
does not abide in the domain of the remedy, who is not attached to reality, and
who does not desire the fruit finds mahāmudrā”), Devacandra encourages us:
The five sense pleasures must be enjoyed without hesitation. Therefore, by
keeping in mind that defilements are naturally pure, you will no longer fear
being caught up in defilements.77
Further on, in the context of distinguishing the causal vehicle of pāramitās from
the Vajrayāna of fruition, Devacandra claims:
When one is on the Pāramitā[yāna], which does not provide for the
experience of the four joys and the four moments—namely the manifold
and the rest—the moment of the freedom from defining characteristics does
not become directly manifest. Therefore, one cannot know the essence of
the co-emergent and actualise great enlightenment.78
76
PJP, fol. 170a5–b3: … nam yang bde ba chen po’i ngo bo nyid ’grub pa ma yin te /
dbang po gnyis snyoms par ’jug pa med par bde ba’i rnam pa can nyid mi rtogs pa’i
phyir te / … las kyi phyag rgya la sogs pa’i ye shes bsgoms pas bde ba chen po’i ngo
bo nyid kyis yang dag par rdzogs pa’i sangs rgyas ’grub par ’gyur gyi / rtog pa thams
cad spangs nas ni bde ba cung zad tsam yang nyams su myong ba ma yin te /.
77
PJP, fol. 170b5–6: … ’dod pa’i yon tan lnga la dog pa med par bsten par bya ste /
des na nyon mongs pa’ang ngo bo nyid kyis yongs su dag pa’o snyam du sems pas
nyon mongs pas ’ching ba’i ’jigs pa med do /.
78
PJP, fol. 173a4–5: de bzhin du pha rol tu phyin pas kyang gang dag rnam pa sna
tshogs pa la sogs pa’i skad cig ma bzhi dang ldan pa’i dga’ ba bzhi nyams su myong ba
dang bral ba’i phyir mtshan nyid dang bral ba’i skad cig ma mngon du ma gyur pas
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113
It has become clear that mahāmudrā retains its special position even in the
context of the four mudrās. The co-emergent wisdom gained through a
karmamudrā remains an exemplifying wisdom whose blissful states only help
to reveal the unfabricated real wisdom of mahāmudrā. Still, in the eyes of
Devacandra mahāmudrā cannot be actualised without the skillful means of bliss
gained from the union with a karmamudrā.
3.2 Mahāmudrā in the context of the sūtras
The Sekanirdeśa plays a central role among the amanasikāra works, for
mahāmudrā is not only presented in the tantric context of the four mudrās, but
also equated with the Madhyamaka view of non-abiding and its practice of not
becoming mentally engaged. In the introduction to his Sekanirdeśapañjikā,
Rāmapāla claims that the Sekanirdeśa was composed in accordance with the
Caturmudrānvaya of (the tantric) Nāgārjuna.79 It goes without saying that
tradition does not distinguish between the tantric Nāgārjuna and the famous
author of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikās, and it is not a mere coincidence that
Maitrīpa considers his own Madhyamaka view and practice to be in line with
those of Nāgārjuna, the philosopher. This is clear from the final stanzas of the
Tattvaprakāśa (Yid la mi byed skor, no. 17), in which Maitrīpa claims that the
mahāmudrā or amanasikāra practice of the Nirvikalpapraveśadhāraṇī (as
indicated in TP 13ab) and the view of non-abiding (in TP 14a, the non-arising
of phenomena) were maintained by Nāgārjuna:80
lhan cig skyes pa’i ngo bo nyid ma shes par mngon par byang chub chen po mngon
sum du byed par mi nus kyi /.
79
SNPS(C), fol. 1b3–4; SNPS(P), fol. 1b4: … āryanāgārjunapādakṛtacaturmudrānvayānugataṃ sekanirdeśaṃ kartukāmaḥ …
80
See SN 36 (SN, p. 58, ll. 12–13): “One who does not abide in the domain of the
remedy, who is not attached to reality, and who does even not desire the fruit, finds
mahāmudrā” (pratipakṣe sthito naiva tattvāsakto ’pi naiva yaḥ / gārddhyaṃ naiva phale
yasya mahāmudrāṃ sa vindati //). This stanza is quoted in the Tattvadaśakaṭīkā on
pādas 7cd, which are taken by Sahajavajra as Maitrīpa’s answer to the following
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For whom there is no attachment to the fruit, reality, or remedy—
For this one Buddhahood is completed by a practice that is effortless.81 (TP
13)
The reality of phenomena is [their] non-arising. This is in accordance with
the Dharma of the Buddha
And maintained by the noble Nāgārjuna who was prophesied by the
Tathāgata.82 (TP 14)
In the eyes of Maitrīpa, it was in fact Nāgārjuna himself who combined
Madhyamaka philosophy with the dohā teachings of his guru Saraha. From this
it would follow that mahāmudrā is not limited to being combined with tantras
(and experienced in the context of the four mudrās), but can also be approached
through the Madhyamaka view and practice of non-abiding and not becoming
mentally engaged.
Returning to SN 26, it is nowhere claimed that the practice of karma-
mudrā is an absolute necessity for the realisation of mahāmudrā. This is
objection: Even to define reality as in the first part of the Tattvadaśaka is flawed in that
the definition retains the nimittas of an interpretative idea of reality, in the same way as
the meditation described above in which reality is realised as it is (yathābhūtasamādhi)
is accompanied by the nimittas of an interpretative idea of the remedy. Such nimittas
must be abandoned by not becoming mentally engaged, as set forth in the Nirvikalpa-
praveśadhāraṇī. In TD 7cd Maitrīpa explains that nothing, not even the nimittas of
duality and the like, is really abandoned; rather, everything is simply realised as natural
luminosity, as intimated in the stanza above from the Sekanirdeśa. From this it is clear
that Sahajavajra sees a mahāmudrā practice in the abandoning of nimittas in the
Nirvikalpapraveśadhāraṇī (see Mathes 2005:11–16).
81
TP, p. 76, ll. 5–6: phalatattvavipakṣeṣu yasya saṅgo na vidyate / tasyānābhogayogena
bauddhaṃ niṣpadyate padam //.
82
TP, p. 76, ll. 7–8: āryanāgārjunair iṣṭaṃ buddhadharmānusārataḥ / dharmatattvam
anutpādo vyākṛtaisa te tathāgataiḥ //.
a
The Japanese edition and the manuscript (fol. 30b3) have: vyākṛtas.
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corroborated by the Tattvaviṃśikā, in which Maitrīpa distinguishes different
types of skillful means for those with inferior, average, and sharp faculties.
While inferior practitioners rely on a karmamudrā,83 a direct approach to
mahāmudrā is open for those with sharp faculties:
The yogin who has seen reality, however, is wholly devoted to mahāmudrā;
His faculties being unsurpassable, he abides with [the realisation of the]
nature of all entities.84 (TV 11)
As mentioned above, this is even possible in Pāramitāyāna (as
explained in the Tattvāvatāra), while Sahajavajra claims in his Tattvadaśakaṭīkā
that reality is directly experienced as luminosity on the basis of a vipaśyanā
practice performed with direct perception right from the beginning. In support
of this claim, Sahajavajra quotes Maitrīpa’s Mahāyānaviṃśikā, stanza 12:
[The quintessence] to be realised in the thousand collections of teachings is
emptiness.
[Emptiness] is not realised on the basis of analysis; [rather] the meaning of
destruction (i.e. emptiness) [is attained] from the guru.85 (MV 12)
83
See TV 7 (TV, p. 68, ll. 5–6): “Those with inferior capacities have perfectly
cultivated the circle (i.e. the maṇḍala etc.) with the help of the karma– and
samayamudrās. Having [thus] turned away from [directly engaging in] pure reality,
they meditate on enlightenment.” (karmasamayamudrābhyāṃ cakraṃ niṣpādya bhāvitāḥ
/ dhyāyanti mṛdavo bodhiṃ śuddhatattvabahirmukhāḥ //).
84
TV, p. 70, ll. 1–2: dṛṣṭatattvaḥ punar yogī mahāmudrāparāyaṇaḥ / sarvabhāvasvabhāvena vihared uttamendriyaḥ //.
85
MVS, p. 76, ll. 11–12: dharmaskandhasahasreṣu budhyatāṃa nāma śūnyatāb / bucddhā
nāsau parāmarśād vināśārthaṃ bhaved guroḥ //.
a
The manuscript (fol. 34b5) and the Japanese edition read badhyatāṃ, which does not
make sense. The Dpal spungs edition (MVT(PP), fol. 250a1–2) has: rtogs pa; and the
manuscript from ’Bri gung (MVT(DK), fol. 28b5): sangs rgyas.
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With reference to Sekanirdeśa, stanza 36 (“One who does not abide in the
domain of the remedy … finds mahāmudrā”), Sahajavajra explains that
mahāmudrā instructions are fully in line with the practice of amanasikāra
described in the Nirvikalpapraveśadhāraṇī, because the reality (the luminous
nature) of the nimittas of the remedy and the others is not abandoned. In other
words, to abandon the nimittas means to realise their luminous nature. It is of
interest that the Tattvadaśakaṭīkā further elaborates this practice on the basis of
the Samādhirājasūtra (which is of course not a tantra).86 Later in his
commentary, Sahajavajra distinguishes this mahāmudrā approach from both
Mantrayāna and Pāramitāyāna,87 while in the introduction to his commentary
we are informed that he wishes to summarise the pāramitā pith instructions that
are in accordance with the secret Mantrayāna. Based on this, ’Gos Lo tsā ba in
his Blue Annals says of Sahajavajra’s Tattvadaśakaṭīkā:
In essence it is the pāramitās; it accords with the Mantra[yāna]; and its
name is mahāmudrā.88
This sentence has become the standard definition of sūtra mahāmudrā. It raises
an interesting question: What exactly does “it accords with the Mantrayāna”
mean? In fact, Maitrīpa uses this expression himself in the introduction to his
Mahāyānaviṃśikā. The first two stanzas of this short treatise on Mahāyāna
define the goal as the “original or natural kāya” (nijakāya), which is the nature
of the three kāyas (and sometimes equated with the svābhāvikakāya). Then in
the third stanza Maitrīpa declares:
b
c
The manuscript (fol. 34b5) has śūnyatāḥ.
According to the manuscript (fol. 34b5); the Japanese edition has ba–.
86
For a translation of the relevant passage from the Tattvadaśakaṭīkā, see Mathes 2005:
24–27.
87
88
See Mathes 2006: 220–222.
See Roerich 1949–53: 725.
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The seeing of this [nijakāya] is deep insight (vipaśyanā), given that
no[thing] is reified.
This will be explained now in accordance with Mantrayāna.89 (MV 3)
“Not to reify” is here to be taken as Maitrīpa’s particular Madhyamaka view of
not abiding in any ontological or other extreme, which is achieved through the
practice of not becoming mentally engaged (amanasikāra). In other words,
vipaśyanā is performed here with the help of direct cognition, which puts it on
a par with tantric practice. Apart from this nothing tantric is to be found in the
whole of the Mahāyānaviṃśikā. Thus in the present context, “in accordance
with Mantrayāna” means “on a par with tantra,” in that a special vipaśyanā
practice enables direct realisation of the fruit of the path; it means that it is a
path of fruition in the same sense as Mantrayāna is such a path of fruition.90
While the vipaśyanā practice of directly seeing true nature is said in the
Mahāyānaviṃśikā to be in accordance with Mantrayāna, in Sekanirdeśa 29ab
the related view of non-abiding is called mahāmudrā:
Not to abide (apratiṣṭhāna) in anything is known as mahāmudrā.91 (SN
29ab)
Rāmapāla comments in his Sekanirdeśapañjikā:
“In anything” means in the dependently arisen skandhas, dhātus, āyatanas,
and so forth. “Not to abide” means not to reify, not to become mentally
engaged (amanasikāra).92
89
MVS, p. 74, ll. 5–6: darśanaṃ ca bhaved asya anāropād vipaśyanā / mantrayānānu-
sāreṇa tad idaṃ vakṣyate ’dhunā //.
90
It should be noted that Mantrayāna is not taken here as a yāna separate from
Mahāyāna. In his Tattvaratnāvalī, Maitrīpa thus divides Mahāyāna into the tradition of
pāramitās and the tradition of mantras (see Mathes 2007: 548).
91
SN, p. 56, l. 11: sarvasminn apratiṣṭhānaṃ mahāmudreti kīrtyate /.
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SN 29ab marks the beginning of eight stanzas on mahāmudrā, which can be
thought of solely in terms of co-emergent joy.93 This is also clear from the
following stanza in the Sekanirdeśa:
The [four] joys can be [explained] with regard to each of the mudrās except
mahāmudrā.
This [can be known] through the scriptures, [one’s] self-awareness, and the
pith instructions of the genuine guru.94 (SN 27)
Only the third moment (freedom from defining characteristics) and the
corresponding co-emergent joy are considered to be pure, mahāmudrā being
beyond and thus independent of the impurities of the other joys.95 It could
consequently be argued that mahāmudrā can be realised without the four joys
experienced during the practice with a karmamudrā. This is suggested in,
among other sources, Rāmapāla’s commentary on SN 29:
One should not think that [this amanasikāra as taught in the
Jñānālaṃkārāloka]96 cannot be practised, for by the kindness of [one’s]
92
SNPS(C), fol. 18a4; SNPS(P), fol. 15b6–7: sarvasminn iti pratītyasamutpanna-
skandhadhātvāyatanādau / apratiṣṭhānam amanasikāro ’nāropaḥ /.
The Tibetan (SPNT(PP), fol. 334b4) reads: “… not to reify by not becoming mentally
engaged” (… yid la byed pa med pas sgro gdags pa med pa’o /).
93
See Rāmapāla’s pañjikā (SNPS(C), fol. 18a3; SNPS(P), fol. 15b5: sahajānandaika-
svabhāvāṃ mānasīṃ mahāmudrām āha /).
SN, p. 36, ll. 7–8: ānandāḥ pratimudraṃ syuḥ mahāmudrāṃ vinā punaḥ / āgamāc ca
svasaṃvitteḥ sadguror upadeśataḥ //.
95
GPKU, fol. 319a5–6: “Such a mahāmudrā is the fruit without stains…. It is the co–
emergent joy at the moment of [attaining] freedom from defining characteristics” (de
lta bu’i phyag rgya chen po ni dri ma dang bral ba’i ‘bras bu’o / … mtshan nyid dang
bral ba’i skad cig ma la lhan cig skyes pa’i dga’ ba’o /).
94
96
In the preceding part of the commentary, Rāmapāla refers to the relevant passages
from the Jñānālokālaṃkāra (see Mathes 2007: 555).
The Collection of ‘Indian Mahāmudrā Works’
119
venerable guru, mahāmudrā, which has the defining characteristic of being
endowed with all supreme qualities, can certainly be made directly
manifest. How is it then that [mahāmudrā] does not have the nature of the
four moments? [In 29c] it is stated: “Because self-awareness [i.e.
mahāmudrā] is stainless….” As it is stainless, the three [impure] moments
of the manifold and the others, along with [their] stains, do not occur in it.
Therefore the three [impure] joys do not arise in it either.97
In other words, the mahāmudrā practice of non-abiding, which involves
not becoming mentally engaged, is not only described in a sūtra, namely the
Jñānālokālaṃkāra, but can also be done, by the kindness of one’s guru, without
the occurrence of the defiled joys and moments of tantric practice. The
remaining seven stanzas of the mahāmudrā section (SN 30–36) are purely
Madhyamaka, the last of them confirming again that the amanasikāra practice
of the Nirvikalpapraveśadhāraṇī is mahāmudrā, as we have seen above. The
ability to realise emptiness directly is gained here through the kindness of the
guru. This is clear from Sekanirdeśa, stanza 31, and Rāmapāla´s commentary
on this stanza:
Those who see suchness in accordance with Madhyamaka
Are fortunate, in that they realise reality, provided that it is by direct
awareness. (SN 31)98
97
SNPS(C), fol. 18b1–3; SNPS(P), fol. 15b9–16a3: aśakyānuṣṭhānatā ca na mantavyā /
sadgurupādaprasādenāvaśyaṃ sarvākāravaropetalakṣaṇamahāmudrāyāḥ pratyakṣīkartuṃ
śakyatvāt / nanv atra kathaṃ na catuḥkṣaṇarūpatā / āha / vimalatvāt svasaṃvitter /
nirmalatayā vicitrādeḥ kṣaṇatrayasya samalasya nātra sambhavaḥ / tato nānandatrayasambhavaḥ /.
98
SN, p. 58, ll. 3–4: tathatāṃ ye tu paśyanti madhyamārthānusārataḥ / te vai tattvavido
dhanyāḥ pratyakṣaṃ yadi saṃvidāa //.
a
The Japanese edition has saṃvidāḥ.
120
Klaus-Dieter Mathes
Rāmapāla explains:
If, as a result of the abandoning of the entire “conceptual” (lit.
“carving”),99 this reality was to be experienced directly
100
—and this
[reality] consists of the two truths, is free from the two extremes, is
undivided from emptiness and compassion, and has the nature of insight
and means—[then] it should be known through an awareness [which is
obtained through] the kindness of a genuine guru.101
Here we have, in fact, an Indian precedent for what is well known as “pointingout instruction” (Tib. ngo sprod kyi man ngag) on the true nature in Tibetan
approaches to mahāmudrā.
To sum up, mahāmudrā or the reality of Madhyamaka can be realised
through the tantric practice of mahāmudrā in the context of the four mudrās and
also by merely relying on the kindness of one’s guru. That this latter approach
does not need to be specifically tantric is clear from Saraha’s Dohākośagīti and
Maitrīpa’s commentary on it:
[Saraha said:] “The own-being of the natural [state can]not be described by
others.” (158)
[Maitrīpa explains:] The own-being of the natural [state], which has the
nature of self-arisen [wisdom], [can]not be described by others, such as the
99
The Tibetan has “thought” (rnam rtog).
100
According the Tibetan: “He who has completely abandonned all thoughts, directly
experiences reality.”
101
SNPS(P), fol. 16b1–3 (missing in SNPS(C)): yady aśeṣollekhaparihārāt tat tattvaṃ
pratyakṣam anubhūtaṃ syāt / etac caivaṃvidhaṃ satyadvayātmakam ubhayāntarahitaṃa
śūnyatākaruṇābhinnaṃ prajñopāyasvarūpaṃ / sadgurupādaprasādavitter jñeyam /.
a
Emended (SNPS(P): ubhayo tu rakitaṃ).
See also SNPT(DK), fol. 212b3: ... bla ma dam pa’i zhal gyi drin gyis rig par shes par
bya’o /.
The Collection of ‘Indian Mahāmudrā Works’
121
Tīrthikas. In order to address [the question] “Then by which genuine
guru…?,” [Saraha] said: “[The natural state] is seen through [the eyes of]
the guru’s pith instructions [and through] nothing else.” (159) I have seen
through Saraha, that is, [through] the pith-instructions of the genuine guru,
based [on the teachings] of the Sugata, and through nothing else. [The
natural state] is realised through the eyes of the guru’s pith instructions.102
Two verses later in the Dohākośagīti, Saraha tells us how the
realisation of the guru can enter one’s heart even in the absence of formal
tantric practice:
When the natural mind has been purified,
The [enlightened] quality of the guru will enter one’s heart.
Realising this, Saraha sings this song
Though he has not seen a single tantra, a single mantra.103 (162–165)
4 Conclusion
It can be shown that the practice described in the Indian mahāmudrā works
does not need to be tantric. In Saraha’s dohās it is simply the realisation of
mind’s co-emergent nature with the help of a genuine guru. Maitrīpa uses the
term mahāmudrā for precisely such an approach, thus employing an originally
102
DKGP, p. 79, ll. 6–12: ṇia–sahāba ṇaü kahiü (b)aṇêa // iti nijasvabhāvaṃ
svayambhūsvarūpaṃ nānyena kathitaṃ tīrthikādinā / tadā kena sadguruṇety āha / dîsaï
guru–uaesê na aṇê // iti mayā saraheṇa dṛṣṭaṃ sadgurūpadeśena saugatāśrayeṇa
nānye(text:ya)neti / gurūpadeśacakṣuṣāvagataṃ /.
a
The text reads aṇê, which is also supported by Maitrīpa’s commentary. The Tibetan
translation presupposes baṇê.
103
DKGS, p. 139, ll. 9–12: ṇiamaṇa sabbe sohia jabbê guruguṇa hiyae païsaï tabbê / eba
amaṇe muṇi sarahê gāhiu tanta manta ṇaü ekka bi cāhiu //.
My translation of this stanza follows Schaeffer 2005:146 (see also Shahidullah 1928:
173).
122
Klaus-Dieter Mathes
tantric term for something that is not a specifically tantric practice. It is thus
legitimate for Karma Bkra shis chos ’phel to speak of Saraha’s mahāmudrā
tradition as being originally independent of the sūtras and the tantras. For
Maitrīpa, the direct realisation of emptiness (or the co-emergent) is the bridging
link between the sūtras and the tantras, and it is thanks to this bridge that
mahāmudrā can be linked to the sūtras and the tantras. In the sūtras it takes the
form of the practice of non-abiding and not becoming mentally engaged, while
in the tantras it occupies a special position among the four mudrās.
The Collection of ‘Indian Mahāmudrā Works’
123
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Sources (Indian)
[The acronym AICSB stands for: Annual of the Institute for Comprehensive Studies of
Buddhism, Taishō University]
CMAS: Caturmudrānvaya
In Advayavajrasaṃgraha. Ed. by the Study Group on Sacred Tantric Texts.
AICSB 11 (March 1989), pp. 253–238 (=92–107).
CMAT: Caturmudrānvaya (Tibetan translation)
Phyag rgya bzhi rjes su bstan pa. In Phyag rgya chen po’i rgya gzhung, vol.
oṃ, fols. 151a–154b. Dpal spungs block print.
CMAṬ: Catumudrānvayaṭīkā (Tibetan translation)
Phyag rgya bzhi’i rgya cher ’grel pa rin po che’i snying po. In Phyag rgya
chen po’i rgya gzhung, vol. oṃ, fols. 255a–317a. Dpal spungs block print.
CMU: Caturmudropadeśa (Tibetan translation)
Phyag rgya bzhi’i man ngag. In Phyag rgya chen po’i rgya gzhung, vol. hūṃ,
fols. 9a–13b. Dpal spungs block print.
DKGS: Dohākośagīti
In Shahidullah 1928: 123–65.
DKGT: Dohākośagīti (Tibetan translation)
In Shahidullah 1928: 123–65.
DKGP: Dohākośagītipañjikā
Ed. by Prabodh Ch. Bagchi. In Journal of the Department of Letters (Calcutta
University Press 28), pp. 52–120.
DKMU: Dohākośanāmamahāmudropadeśa (Tibetan translation)
Do ha mdzod phyag rgya chen po’i man ngag. In Phyag rgya chen po’i rgya
gzhung (Dpal spungs edition), vol. āḥ, fols. 73b2–76b2.
DKUG: Dohākośopadeśagīti (Tibetan translation)
Mi zad pa’i gter gyi mdzod yongs su gang ba’i glu. In Phyag rgya chen po’i
rgya gzhung (Dpal spungs edition), vol. āḥ, fols. 189b–203a.
GPKU: Guruparamparākramopadeśa (Tibetan translation)
Bla ma brgyud pa’i rim pa’i man ngag. In Phyag rgya chen po’i rgya gzhung,
vol. hūṃ, fols. 290b–320b. Dpal spungs block print.
124
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JĀA: Jñānālokālaṃkāra
Ed. by the Study Group on Buddhist Sanskrit Literature, The Institute for
Comprehensive Studies of Buddhism, Taishō University. Tokyo: Taishō
University Press, 2004.
MNS: Mañjuśrīnāmasaṃgīti
Ed. by A. Wayman in Chanting the Names of Mañjuśrī. Delhi: Motilal
MVS:
Banarsidass, 2006.
Mahāyānaviṃśikā
In Advayavajrasaṃgraha. Ed. by the Study Group on Sacred Tantric Texts.
AICSB 12 (March 1990), pp. 291–286 (=74–79).
MVT(DK): Mahāyānaviṃśikā (Tibetan translation)
Theg pa chen po nyi shu pa. In ’Bri gung bka’ brgyud chos mdzod, vol. kha,
fols. 28a–29a (unpublished manuscript).
MVT(PP): Mahāyānaviṃśikā (Tibetan translation)
De kho na nyid theg pa chen po nyi shu pa. In Phyag rgya chen po’i rgya
gzhung (Dpal spungs edition), vol. oṃ, fols. 250b–251b.
NPD: Nirvikalpapraveśadhāraṇī
Ed. by Kazunobu Matsuda. See Matsuda 1996: 93–99.
PJP: Prajñājñānaprakāśa (Tibetan translation)
Shes rab ye shes gsal ba zhes bya ba bzhugs so. In Phyag rgya chen po’i rgya
gzhung (Dpal spungs edition), vol. oṃ, fols. 161b–179b.
RGV: Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra
Ed. by Edward H. Johnston. Patna: Bihar Research Society, 1950. (Includes
the Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā.)
RGVV: Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā. See RGV.
[The manuscripts A and B on which Johnston’s edition is based are described
in Johnston 1950: vi–vii. See also Bandurski et al. 1994: 12–3].
SBhS: Subhāṣitasaṃgraha (Part 1)
SN:
Ed. By Cecil Bendall. In Le Muséon 4 (1903), pp. 375–402.
Sekanirdeśa (also: Sekanirṇaya)
In Advayavajrasaṃgraha. Ed. by the Study Group on Sacred Tantric Texts.
AICSB 13 (March 1991), pp. 289–271 (=48–66).
The Collection of ‘Indian Mahāmudrā Works’
125
SNPS(C) Sekanirdeśapañjikā
Sanskrit manuscript from Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, MS Or.
149.
SNPS(P) Sekanirdeśapañjikā
Sanskrit manuscript from St. Petersburg, Gosvdarstvennaja Publicnaja
Biblioteka im. M.E. Saltykova–Ščcedrina, MS. 283.
SNPT(DK): Sekanirdeśapañjikā (Tibetan translation)
Dbang bskur nges par bstan pa’i dka’ ’grel bzhugs so. In ’Bri gung bka’
brgyud chos mdzod, vol. kha, fols. 197b–218b.
SNPT(PP): Sekanirdeśapañjikā (Tibetan translation)
Dbang bskur nges par bstan pa’i dka’ ’grel bzhugs so. In Phyag rgya chen po’i
rgya gzhung, vol. oṃ, fols. 317a–343a, Dpal spungs block print.
TA: Tattvāvatāra (Tibetan translation)
De kho na nyid la ’jug pa zhes bya ba bde bar gshegs pa’i bka’ ma lus pa
mdor bsdus te bshad pa’i rab tu byed pa bzhugs so. In Phyag rgya chen po’i
rgya gzhung (Dpal spungs edition), vol. hūṃ, fols. 320b–377a.
TD: Tattvadaśaka
In Advayavajrasaṃgraha. Ed. by the Study Group on Sacred Tantric Texts.
AICSB 13 (March 1991), pp. 245–243 (=92–94).
TP: Tattvaprakāśa
In Advayavajrasaṃgraha. Ed. by the Study Group on Sacred Tantric Texts.
AICSB 13 (March 1991), pp. 265–261 (=72–76).
TV: Tattvaviṃśikā
In Advayavajrasaṃgraha. Ed. by the Study Group on Sacred Tantric Texts.
AICSB 12 (March 1990), pp. 299–293 (=66–72).
Primary Sources (Tibetan)
Karma Bkra shis chos ’phel. Rgya gzhung dkar chag: Gnas lugs phyag rgya chen po’i
rgya gzhung glegs bam gsum yi ge’i ’byung gnas su ji ltar bkod pa’i dkar
chags bzhugs byang mdor bsdus pa sgrub brgyud grub pa’i rna rgyan ces bya
ba bzhugs so. 42 fols. Contained as a separate text in Phun tshogs rgyal
mtshan (ed.), Phyag rgya chen po’i rgya gzhung, vol. hūṃ.
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Kun dga’ rin chen (?) (ed.). Grub pa sde bdun dang snying po skor gsum yid la mi
byed pa’i chos skor bzhugs so (’Bri gung bka’ brgyud chos mdzod, vol. ka).
No place, no date.
—— ’Phags yul bka’ brgyud grub chen gong ma’i do ha’i skor bzhugs so (’Bri gung
bka’ brgyud chos mdzod, vol. kha). No place, no date.
Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas. Shes bya kun khyab mdzod. 3 vols. Beijing: Mi rigs
dpe skrun khang, 1982.
Bstan ’dzin padma’i rgyal mtshan (Skyabs mgon Che tshang sku phreng bzhi pa). ’Bri
gung gdan rabs: Nges don bstan pa’i snying po mgon po ‘bri gung pa chen
po’i gdan rabs chos kyi byung tshul gser gyi phreng ba zhes bya ba bzhugs so
(’Bri gung bka’ brgyud 6). Dehra Dun: Drikung Kagyu Institute, 2000.
Phun tshogs rgyal mtshan (ed.). Phyag rgya chen po’i rgya gzhung. 3 vols (oṃ, āḥ,
hūṃ). Dpal spungs block print. No date. See also Zhwa dmar pa Mi pham
chos kyi blo gros.
Bu ston Rin chen grub. Bu ston gsan yig: Bla ma dam pa rnams kyis rjes su gzung ba’i
tshul bka’ drin rjes su dran par byed pa zhes byar bzhugs so. In Bu ston thams
cad mkhyen pa’i bka’ ’bum, vol. la, pp. 1–142 (Śata-Piṭaka Series 66). New
Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1971.
Zhwa dmar pa Mi pham chos kyi blo gros (ed.). Rgya gzhung: Phyag rgya chen po’i
rgya gzhung. In Nges don phyag rgya chen po’i khrid mdzod, vols. oṃ, āḥ and
hūṃ. Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center, W 23447.
Secondary References
Bandurski, F. et al. 1994. Untersuchungen zur buddhistischen Literatur. Bearbeitet von
Frank Bandurski, Bikkhu Pāsādika, Michael Schmidt und Bangwei Wang.
(Sanskrit-Wörterbuch der buddhistischen Texte aus den Turfan-Funden.
Beiheft 5). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht in Göttingen.
Jackson, R.R. 2009. Two Bka’ ’gyur works in Mahāmudrā canons: The Ārya-Ātajñāna-
nāma-mahāyāna-sūtra and the Anāvilatantrarāja. Journal of the International
Association for Tibetan Studies 5.
Mathes, K.-D. 2005. ’Gos Lo tsā ba gZhon nu dpal’s commentary on the Dharmatā
chapter of the Dharmadharmatāvibhāgakārikās. Studies in Indian Philosophy
and Buddhism, University of Tokyo 12, 3–39.
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—— 2006. Blending the sūtras with the tantras: The influence of Maitrīpa and his
circle on the formation of sūtra mahāmudrā in the Kagyu schools. In R.M.
Davidson and C.K. Wedemeyer (eds.) Buddhist Literature and Praxis: Studies
in its Formative Period 900–1400. (Proceedings of the Tenth Seminar of the
IATS, 2003, vol. 4). Leiden: Brill, pp. 201–27.
—— 2007. Can sūtra mahāmudrā be justified on the basis of Maitrīpa’s Aprati-
ṣṭhānavāda? In B. Kellner, H. Krasser, H. Lasic, M.T. Much, H. Tauscher
(eds.) Pramāṇakīrtiḥ. Papers Dedicated to Ernst Steinkellner on the Occasion
of his 70th Birthday. (Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde
70.2). Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, pp. 545–
66.
—— 2008. A Direct Path to the Buddha Within: Gö Lotsāwa’s Mahāmudrā Inter-
pretation of the Ratnagotravibhāga. (Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism).
Somerville (Mass.): Wisdom Publications.
Matsuda, K. 1996. Nirvikalpapraveśadhāraṇī, Sanskrit Text and Japanese Trans-lation”.
Bulletin of the Research Institute of Bukkyo University, no. 3, March 1996,
89–113.
Roerich, G.N. 1949–53. The Blue Annals. 2 vols. (Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal,
Monograph Series 7). Calcutta.
Schaeffer, K.R. 2005. Dreaming the Great Brahmin: Tibetan Traditions of the Buddhist
Poet-Saint Saraha. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schmithausen, L. 1971. Philologische Bemerkungen zum Ratnagotravibhāga. Wiener
Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 15, 123–77.
Shahidullah, M. 1928. Les chants mystiques de Kāṇha et de Saraha: Les Dohākoṣa (en
apabhraṃsa, avec les versions tibétaines) et les Caryā (en vieux-bengali).
Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve.
II.
TRADITIONS OF MEDITATION AND YOGA
PROLEGOMENON TO
THE SIX DOCTRINES OF NĀ RO PA:
AUTHORITY AND TRADITION*
ULRICH TIMME KRAGH
In the exoteric and esoteric layers of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, each doctrinal
system and its associated meditation instructions centres on a specific set of
principal texts that are considered its authoritative sources (Tib. khungs). The
esoteric doctrinal system of the Vajrayāna incorporates instructions on the
imaginative creation and ritual performance of personal deities belonging to the
phase of practice called the development stage (bskyed rim), as well as
instructions on the various yogas, visualizations and breathing exercises of the
completion stage (rdzogs rim). In the Bka’ brgyud and Dge lugs traditions of
Tibetan Buddhism, one set of major yogic practices of the completion stage
was passed down over successive generations in the form of a system called the
Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa, or, in Tibetan, nā ro chos drug.1
* The research presented here was made possible by a generous stipend from the
Carlsberg Foundation. The writing was also supported by a Korea Research Foundation
Grant funded by the Korean Government (MEST, KRF-2007-361-AM0046). I wish to
thank Dr. Hartmut Buescher for making me aware of Torricelli’s articles.
Tibetan words are transliterated according to the Wylie system. Sanskrit words are
transliterated according to the standard IAST system. The siglum Q stands for the
Peking Bstan ’gyur and the siglum D signifies the Sde dge Bstan ’gyur.
1
The Tibetan word is sometimes also spelled nā ro’i chos drug. In the West, the system
has primarily become known as the Six Yogas of Nāropa.
132
Ulrich Timme Kragh
The nā ro chos drug system of yoga practices was first put together by
the Indian Buddhist master Ti lo pa (c. 928–1009),2 who had received these
practices individually from various teachers. Their origin is traditionally traced
back to the primordial Buddha Vajradhāra. According to the lineage accounts
of the sixteenth century ’Brug pa bka’ brgyud scholar Padma dkar po (1527–92)
and the seventeenth century ’Bri gung bka’ brgyud scholar ’Bri gung rig ’dzin
Chos kyi grags pa (1595–1659), Vajradhāra manifested in this world as Buddha
Śākyamuni and gave the numerous teachings of the tantras. These are then said
to have been compiled by Vajragarbha, the supramundane master of all things
hidden (gsang ba thams cad kyi bdag po rdo rje snying po). Guarded by nonworldly goddesses called ḍākiṇīs, the teachings of the tantras were at some
point obtained by several different humans in India and through various
lineages of tantric masters the instructions were eventually obtained by Ti lo pa.
The first instruction he received, on the Great Seal (mahāmudrā), was passed
down through a lineage that went from Saraha → Lū yi pa → the brothers Dā
ri ka pa and Ḍiṅgi pa → Ti lo pa. The second instruction, on the five stages of
the Father Tantras (pha rgyud), including the practices of transference and
‘body entering,’ were transmitted from the bodhisattva Ratnamati → Nāgārjunagarbha → Mataṅgi → Ti lo pa. The third instruction, on inner heat, the
intermediate state, and sexual union (karmamudrā) following the Mother
Tantras (ma rgyud), was taught by the female teacher Sumati Samantabhadrī →
Vajraghaṇṭapāda residing on Mount Karṇa → Ti lo pa. Finally, the fourth
instruction, on luminosity, lucid dreaming, and the illusory body, was passed
on by Ḍoṃ bhi pa → Vinasa → Kambalipā of Oḍḍiyāna → Indrabhūti Junior
→ Ti lo pa. Ti lo pa is also said to have received the same instructions in
visions directly from Buddha Vajradhāra. Henceforth, these transmissions
became known as the four instruction lineages (bka’ babs bzhi), and it may be
added that the name Bka’ brgyud, which designates one of the major traditions
2
‘Ti lo pa’ is the most common Tibetan name for this person. Other forms include ‘Tai
lo pa’ and ‘Te lo pa.’
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
133
of Tibetan Buddhism, usually is said to mean the tradition (brgyud) of [the four]
instruction (bka’) lineages.3 After Ti lo pa had systematised the instructions, he
passed them on to his student Nā ro pa (c. 956–1040),4 who in turn taught them
to the Tibetan translator Mar pa chos kyi blo gros (1002/1012–97). It was Mar
pa, who introduced the system to Tibet, where it later became known under
different names. The most common name is the six doctrines of Nā ro pa (nā ro
chos drug), but Mi la ras pa (1052–1135) used the name ‘instructions for
liberation in the precipitous intermediate state’ (bar do ’phrang grol gyi man
ngag) and Padma dkar po called it ‘melting and transference’ (bsre ’pho).
In general, the system includes instructions on inner heat (caṇḍālī,
gtum mo), the illusory body (māyakāya, sgyu lus), lucid dreaming (svapna, rmi
lam), luminosity (prabhāsvara, ’od gsal), the intermediate state (antarābhava,
bar do), transference (saṃkrānti, ’pho ba) and body entering (grong ’jug).5
Although most of these practices also occur in various tantra scriptures,
including the Hevajra, Cakrasaṃvara, Guhyasamāja, and Caturpīṭha, and are
3
For the information given in this paragraph, see Padma dkar po’s nā ro chos drug
commentary Jo bo nā ro pa’i khyad chos bsre ’pho’i gzhung ’grel rdo rje ’chang gi
dgongs pa gsal bar byed pa, pp. 5–7, and ’Bri gung rig ’dzin chos kyi grags pa’s nā ro
chos drug commentary Zab lam nā ro chos drug gi khrid kyi lag len gsal bar bshad pa
nā ro zhabs kyi zhal gyi lung bzang po, pp. 129–30. For bibliographical details, refer to
the bibliography at the end of this article. On the name Bka’ brgyud, see also n. 18.
4
‘Nā ro pa’ is the most common Tibetan name for this person. Its Sanskrit equivalent
seems to be *Nāḍapāda.
5
The Tibetan term grong ’jug is short for grong khyer la ’jug pa. The longer form is
attested in Bka’ dpe che chung contained in ’Jam mgon kong sprul blo gros mtha’ yas,
Gdams ngag mdzod, vol. ja, p. 102, TBRC reference W20977–0138, where the
instruction is spelled out as meaning “the instruction of body entering” (grong khyer
la ’jug pa’i man ngag). The words grong and grong khyer here seem to reflect the
Sanskrit word *pura, which has the dual meanings ‘town’ as well as ‘body’ (personal
communication from Prof. Matthew Kapstein), which is probably intended in the latter
sense, although the Tibetan translation corresponds to the former meaning.
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found individually outside the nā ro chos drug system within several other
Indian and Tibetan meditation traditions, such as the gter ma of the Rnying ma
lineages; in the context of the present study the term nā ro chos drug is
understood in a narrow sense as specifically referring to the system taught by
Nā ro pa to Mar pa, which was passed down within the Bka’ brgyud and Dge
lugs traditions of Tibetan Buddhism.
Traditionally, the teaching of these yogas is given through oral
instruction accompanied by a physical demonstration of the yogic body
movements and breathing exercises transmitted by a qualified teacher.
Nevertheless, nā ro chos drug explanations are also found in a body of
literature consisting of both simple manuals that sum up their key points as
well as larger treatises, which not only provide elaborate expositions
systematising the instructions as a doctrine but also cover their background and
history. Approximately half of the manuals and treatises contain either refer-
ences to or full quotations of root texts for nā ro chos drug. On a practical level,
the root texts’ function is to aid memorisation of the practices and perhaps ease
daily recitation, but on a doctrinal level they are the wellspring of the religious
transmissions embodying their authority. The body of nā ro chos drug literature
builds on a few such authoritative sources and these are the focus of the present
study.
1 Authoritative sources for the later nā ro chos drug traditions
To establish which texts were considered authoritative sources by the later nā
ro chos drug traditions, roughly from the fifteenth century onwards, the large
nineteenth-century anthology of meditation instructions called the Gdams ngag
mdzod, “The Treasury of Instructions,” compiled by ’Jam mgon Kong sprul
Blo gros mtha’ yas (1813–99) serves as a suitable starting point. Below, this
will be combined with a discussion of the nā ro chos drug sources included in
the different editions of the Tibetan Bstan ’gyur canon as well as a critical
remark made by Tsong kha pa Blo bzang grags pa (1357–1419).
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
135
The Gdams ngag mdzod presents six small works as constituting the
authoritative sources or root texts for the six doctrines of Nā ro pa, calling
these ‟the dearly compiled scriptures of nā ro chos drug” (nā ro chos drug gi
gzhung gces par btus pa).6 Four of these works are fully or partly canonical
texts traditionally believed to be of Indian origin, whereas two are noncanonical Tibetan writings. The four canonical sources are:
1. Instruction on the Six Doctrines, Chos drug gi man ngag
(*Ṣaḍdharmopadeśa), by Ti lo pa, non-extant in Sanskrit, translated
into Tibetan by Nā ro pa and Mar pa.7
2. Vajra Verses of the Oral Transmission, Snyan brgyud rdo rje’i tshig
rkang (*Karṇatantravajrapāda), by an anonymous author, non-extant in
Sanskrit, likewise translated into Tibetan by Nā ro pa and Mar pa.8
3. The Goddesses' Teaching entitled Authentic Testimony of the
Instructions, Bka’ yang dag pa’i tshad ma zhes bya ba mkha' 'gro ma’i
man ngag (*Ājñāsaṃyakpramāṇanāmaḍākinyupadeśa), by an
anonymous author, non-extant in Sanskrit, Tibetan translation by
unknown hand.9
4. The Major and Minor Instruction Texts, Bka’ dpe che chung, by one or
more anonymous authors, but in Gdams ngag mdzod attributed to Nā
ro pa by Blo gros mtha’ yas. There is no Sanskrit original.10
6
7
Gdams ngag mdzod, vol. ja, p. 1 (TBRC W20877–0138).
Q. 4630/D. 2330, Tibetan edition and English translation by Torricelli 1996a and
translated into English again by Mullin (1997: 27–29).
8
Q. 4632/D. 2338, English translation by Mullin (1997), Tibetan edition and another
English translation by Torricelli (1998).
9
D. 2331, Tibetan edition and English translation by Torricelli (1997). The text will
here be referred to by the abbreviated title Bka’ yang dag pa’i tshad ma.
10
Tibetan edition by Torricelli (1997: 264–67). The text does not have a definite title.
In the Tibetan index (dkar chag) to the Gdams ngag mdzod volume, it is referred to as
Bka’ dpe che chung, i.e. the title adopted here. Within the volume, however, the text
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The two non-canonical sources found in the Gdams ngag mdzod are:
5. Vajra Song Condensing the Six Doctrines, Chos drug dril ba rdo rje’i
mgur, a song said to have been sung by Nā ro pa to Mar pa.
6. Three Songs Elucidating the Oral Transmission, Snyan brgyud gsal bar
skor gsum, by Mi la ras pa.11
On the surface, the Gdams ngag mdzod’s list of texts appears relatively
straightforward. It would seem that all of the works were used as the prime
sources for nā ro chos drug right from the inception of the tradition in Tibet in
the eleventh century. The implicit Tibetan assumption of the permanent and
unquestioned status of the six root texts has spilled into their academic
treatment in twentieth-century scholarship. Consequently, the scholars who
have given the most attention to the nā ro chos drug sources, viz. Torricelli and
Mullin, have unconsciously made all the texts appear equally important without
realizing that the majority of the texts were not in use prior to the Bka’ brgyud
renaissance of the fifteenth-sixteenth centuries and that several of them never
had any real significance within the Tibetan nā ro chos drug literature at any
point.
itself is not furnished with an overall title but its seven segments each have their own
individual title specifying the instruction given, viz. Gtum mo’i bka’ dpe, Rmi lam bka’
dpe, ’Od gsal bka’ dpe, Bar do’i bka’ dpe, Grong ’jug gi bka’ dpe, ’Pho ba’i bka’ dpe
and Gdams ngag gi bka’ dpe. In the modern preface to Gdams ngag mdzod, the text is
given the title Bka’ dpe tshigs su bcad pa with an added note that Kong sprul’s dkar
chag lists this text along with a prose version called Bka’ dpe tshig lhug po, which is
said to be missing in the printed volume. Yet, this appears to be a misunderstanding. In
fact, the verse part and the prose part refer to two different segments of the text as it is
found within the volume.
11
For the sake of the present discussion centering on the canonicity of the texts, the
order in which the six root texts are listed here differs from their arrangement in
Gdams ngag mdzod. For their arrangement in Gdams ngag mdzod, see under ’Jam
mgon Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas in the bibliography of Tibetan sources below.
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
137
1.1. The four canonical authoritative sources
The four canonical sources could not always claim the weight of being
canonical, since none of them were included in the canon catalogues written by
the Bka’ gdams pa scholar Bcom ldan ral gri Dar ma rgyal mtshan in the late
1260s or early 1270s and by the Zhwa lu pa scholar Bu ston rin chen grub
(1290–1364) in 1335.12 Two of the four later canonical sources were, however,
12
Refer to Bcom ldan rig pa’i ral gri's catalogue entitled Bstan pa rgyas pa rgyan gyi
nyi 'od (Schaeffer and van der Kuijp 2009) and to Bu ston’s Bstan ’gyur gyi dkar chag
yid bzhin nor bu dbang gi rgyal po’i phreng ba, folio 50a. Compare Bu ston’s catalogue
with the later Sde dge Bstan ’gyur catalogue by Zhu chen Tshul khrims rin chen
(1697–1774) entitled Kun mkhyen nyi ma’i gnyen gyi bka’ lung gi dgongs don rnam
par ’grel pa’i bstan bcos gangs can pa’i skad du ’gyur ro ’tshal gyi chos sprin rgyun
mi ’chad pa’i ngo mtshar ’phrul gyi phyi mo rdzogs ldan bskal pa’i bsod nams kyi
sprin phung rgyas par dkrigs pa’i tshul las brtsams pa’i gtam ngo mtshar chu gter ’phel
ba’i zla ba gsar pa (folio 390b/p. 780) and the Dga’ ldan Bstan ’gyur catalogue by Dga’
ldan khrid pa Ngag dbang nor bu (b. 19th century) entitled Bstan ’gyur rin po che srid
zhi’i rgyan gcig gi dkar chag rin chen mdzes pa’i phra tsoms (folio 116a). In spite of
the fact that these texts were not included in Bu ston’s Bstan ’gyur catalogue, Bu ston
was himself a holder of the nā ro chos drug teachings received from his Khro phu Bka’
brgyud teachers, and the lineage of later masters ensuing from Bu ston eventually
transmitted these teachings to Tsong kha pa, whereby the Khro phu Bka’ brgyud and
the Zhwa lu tradition became the sources for the Dge lugs transmission of nā ro chos
drug. This lineage is made clear in the Record of Received Teachings of the seventh Tā
la’i bla ma, from which the following lineage can be reconstructed: Cakrasaṃvara →
Ti lo pa (c. 928–1009) → Nāropa (c. 956–1040) → Mar pa Chos kyi blo gros
(1002/1012–97) → Mi la ras pa (1052–1135) → Sgam po pa (1079–1153) → Phag mo
gru pa Rdo rje rgyal po (1110–70) → Rgyal tsha Rin chen mgon (1118–95) → Gtsang
pa ras chung (= Kun ldan ras pa, 1148–1217) → Khro phu Lo tsā ba Byams pa dpal
(1173–1225) → Bla chen Bsod nams dbang phyug (13th century) → Khro phu ba Bsod
nams seng ge (born 13th century) → Khro phu mkhan chen Yang rtse ba Rin chen seng
ge (born 13th century) → Bu ston Rin chen grub (1290–1364) → Dpal ldan bla ma dam
pa (14th century) → Spyan snga Rin po che Grags pa byang chub (14th century) → Rje
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included in one the two canon catalogues written by the third Karma pa Rang
byung rdo rje (1284–1339) in the early fourteenth century, namely the Snyan
brgyud rdo rje’i tshig rkang (there referred to as Bde mchog snyan brgyud rdo
rje’i tshig rkang) and some form of the Bka’ dpe che chung, which in the
Karma pa's catalogue is referred to as Ka dpe rtsa ba’i sdom pa mkha’ ’gro
ma’i zhal nas byung ba / nā ro chos drug gi nyams len bka’ dpe phyi ma’o.13
Nonetheless, by the eighteenth century when the five redactions of the still
extant Bstan ’gyur editions were compiled, the first two texts, viz. Ti lo pa’s
Chos drug gi man ngag and the anonymous Snyan brgyud rdo rje’i tshig rkang,
made their way into all five Bstan ’gyur redactions. Their acceptance into the
canon was probably motivated by the clear statements of Indian origin given in
their colophons, where both texts are said to have been translated into Tibetan
by the well-known masters Nā ro pa and Mar pa. However, it is noteworthy
that these are the two texts among the six that are the least significant for the
overall Tibetan nā ro chos drug traditions.
The first text, Ti lo pa’s Chos drug gi man ngag, is a true oddity,
because it actually seems not to have played any role whatsoever in the nā ro
chos drug traditions. It is never quoted from or referred to in any of the many
Tibetan nā ro chos drug manuals, and the ’Brug pa bka’ brgyud scholar Padma
dkar po did not include it in his extensive list of eighty-nine Indian and Tibetan
nā ro chos drug sources given in his Record of Received Teachings (gsan yig)
Tsong kha pa. See the Thob yig of the seventh Tā la’i bla ma skal bzang rgya mtsho
(1708–57) entitled Zab pa dang rgya che ba’i dam pa’i chos kyi thob yig rin chen
dbang gi rgyal po’i do shal, pp. 201–02.
13
See Karma pa Rang byung rdo rje's Bstan bcos ’gyur ro ’tshal gyi dkar chag, folio
44b (p. 682); Karma pa rang byung rdo rje’i gsung ’bum, published in 2000 by Gzan
dkar mchog sprul Thub bstan nyi ma (TBRC reference W30541), vol. nga. None of the
four canonical texts are included in Rang byung rdo rje’s other canon-catalogue entitled
Thugs dam bstan ’gyur gyi dkar chag (ibid.).
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
139
written in the sixteenth century.14 It may, therefore, be the case that Blo gros
mtha’ yas, without being aware of its negligible status, perceived it as an
authoritative source only due to its presence in the Bstan ’gyur.
The second canonical text included in all the five Bstan ’gyur
redactions, viz. Snyan brgyud rdo rje’i tshig rkang, is a text related only to the
snyan brgyud transmission of Ras chung pa (1085–1161), and it was not used
or referred to in works belonging to the other nā ro chos drug transmissions
found within the Bka’ brgyud and Dge lugs traditions. Even within the snyan
brgyud tradition itself, it is possible that this text played a relatively minor
role;15 for the various snyan brgyud manuals rely on it only superficially in
copying some of its arrangement without quoting verses or making more
detailed references. There are two commentaries on the text, one being a short
summary outlining its structure and entitled Rdo rje’i tshig rkang gi bsdus don
gab pa mngon byung by the sixteenth century snyan brgyud master A khra
Byang chub bzang po. The second is a large commentary in two volumes
entitled Snyan brgyud rdo rje’i tshig rkang gi ’grel bshad zab lam chu bo
kun ’dus nor bu’i ’byung gnas written by Stag lung pa Ngag dbang bstan pa’i
nyi ma (b. 1788) in 1837–38.
The third and fourth canonical nā ro chos drug texts, viz. the
anonymous Bka’ yang dag pa’i tshad ma and Bka’ dpe che chung, were much
more significant to the broader nā ro chos drug traditions. Nevertheless, among
the five extant Bstan ’gyur redactions, the Bka’ yang dag pa’i tshad ma, on the
one hand, was included in only two. The Bka’ dpe che chung, on the other
hand, was not included directly in any of the Bstan ’gyurs, but a related text
14
Padma dkar po, Bka’ brgyud kyi bka’ ’bum gsil bu rnams kyi gsan yig, pp. 381–83.
The list is also found in his collected works as a separate text entitled Rje btsun nā ro
chen po’i bsre skor gyi tho yig nyin byed ’od kyi snang byed.
On the snyan brgyud traditions in general and for a more in-depth analysis of the role
played by the Snyan brgyud rdo rje’i tshig rkang in particular, refer to Marta Sernesi’s
15
contribution to this volume.
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entitled The Later Instruction Text (Bka’ dpe phyi ma) was included in the
same two Bstan ’gyur redactions as Bka’ yang dag pa’i tshad ma. The exact
relationship between the Bka’ dpe che chung and Bka’ dpe phyi ma remains
obscure. The Bka’ dpe che chung consists of seven short chapters and the
formulations of chapters one, four and seven have literal parallels in Bka’ dpe
phyi ma, in that 70% of the verse lines of chapter one, 43% of the verse and
prose lines of chapter four, and 28% of the verse lines of chapter seven have
parallels in the Bka’ dpe phyi ma.16 The Bka’ dpe che chung as such is thus not
included in any Bstan ’gyur but might be said to be indirectly represented by
the semi-canonical Bka’ dpe phyi ma, with which it has a close relationship.
The two Bstan ’gyur editions that include the Bka’ yang dag pa’i tshad ma and
Bka’ dpe phyi ma are the following two East Tibetan redactions of the
Bstan ’gyur:
1. the Sde dge xylograph Bstan ’gyur published in 1737–44 by the Sde
dge king Bstan pa tshe ring (1678–1738). It is a hybrid edition of four
different handwritten Bstan ’gyur manuscripts prepared by the Sa skya
scholar Zhu chen Tshul khrims rin chen (1697–1774);
2. the Co ne xylograph Bstan ’gyur published in 1753–73 by the Co ne
prince ’Jam dbyangs nor bu (1703–51) and his wife princess Rin chen
dpal ’dzom (dates unknown). The Co ne Bstan ’gyur is largely based
on the Sde dge Bstan ’gyur.
However, the two texts were left out of the following Peking, Dga’ ldan, and
Snar thang Bstan ’gyurs:
3. the Peking xylograph Bstan ’gyur first published in 1724 by the
Chinese emperor Yōngzhēng (雍正, 1678–1735, reigned 1722–35) and
16
It should be added that the Bka’ dpe che chung also shares two verse passages with
the Bka’ yang dag pa’i tshad ma. The whole rmi lam chapter as well as the three first
verses of the bar do chapter in the Bka’ dpe che chung are derived from the Bka’ yang
dag pa’i tshad ma, D2331 folio 272a1–73a1 (pp. 543–45), or vice versa.
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
141
reprinted in 1737 by emperor Qiánlóng (乾隆, 1711–99, reigned 1735–
96),
4. the Dga’ ldan handwritten Golden Bstan ’gyur prepared in 1731–41
under the patronage of Pho lha nas Bsod nams stobs rgyas (1689–1747),
5. the Snar thang xylograph Bstan ’gyur published in 1741–42 by the
seventh Tā la’i bla ma Skal bzang rgya mtsho (1708–57).
The reason for the absence of the Bka’ yang dag pa’i tshad ma, Bka’ dpe che
chung, and Bka’ dpe phyi ma from the Peking, Dga’ ldan, and Snar thang
Bstan ’gyurs is unknown. Their anonymity cannot be a sufficient explan-ation
in this case, because all Bstan ’gyurs contain numerous anonymous works. The
Peking, Dga’ ldan, and Snar thang editions are all based on the now no-longerextant ’Phying ba Stag rtse manuscript Bstan ’gyur commissioned by the
Tibetan regent Sde srid sangs rgyas rgya mtsho (1653–1705). The editors of
the ’Phying ba Stag rtse Bstan ’gyur might in turn have been influenced by the
opinion of Tsong kha pa blo bzang grags pa (1357–1419), the founder of the
Dge lugs tradition, who is the only scholar of whom we are currently aware to
have explicitly questioned the authenticity of these texts. In Tsong kha pa’s
large nā ro chos drug commentary, the Yid ches gsum ldan written in the late
fourteenth or early fifteenth century, which subsequently became the
fundamental nā ro chos drug work within the Dge lugs tradition, he wrote:
Concerning the two texts of this system, viz. the Earlier Root Synopsis
Instruction Text and the Later Instruction Text, the former appears to
contain two major inconsistencies and the latter seems difficult to trust
entirely, although it has been attributed to Mar pa in one commentary —
but there are so many attributions of that sort, such as saying that the
Samāja instructions also were written by him.17
17
Cf. Tsong kha pa’s Zab lam nā ro’i chos drug gi sgo nas ’khrid pa’i rim pa yid ches
gsum ldan, p. 521: ’di’i ka dpe rtsa ba’i sdom snga ma yin zer ba dang / ka dpe phyi
ma yin zer ba gnyis ’dug pa’i snga ma la mi mthun cher yod pa gnyis snang zhing /
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Precisely why Tsong kha pa had issues with these two texts unfortunately
remains somewhat vague and none of his commentators cared to elucidate on
this point. Neither of Tsong kha pa’s two nā ro chos drug commentaries is
based on any particular root text, but the passage quoted above indicates that he
was indeed familiar with two nā ro chos drug sources, which he refers as the
Earlier Root Synopsis Instruction Text (Ka dpe rtsa ba’i sdom snga ma) and the
Later Instruction Text (Ka dpe phyi ma).18 In using these titles, Tsong kha pa
may have been referring to the Bka’ yang dag pa’i tshad ma, some form of the
Bka’ dpe che chung, and/or the Bka’ dpe phyi ma.19
phyi ma la mar pas mdzad pa yin zer ba’i ’grel pa gcig kyang snang mod kyang / ’dus
pa’i man ngag mar pas mdzad zer ba sogs kha g.yar mang po snang bas / mtha’ gcig tu
yid ches pa dka’ bar snang ngo //.
18
The Tibetan spelling ka dpe is merely an orthographical variant of bka’ dpe. The
spelling bka’ dpe, meaning “instruction text,” is semantically preferable. The variant
form ka dpe actually means “alphabet text,” where ka represents the first letter of the
Tibetan alphabet, and is elsewhere used to signify alphabet primers teaching reading
and writing. Hence, this variant form is solecistic in the present context, but is
nevertheless attested in several nā ro chos drug sources. It is by now clear that the
word bka’ dpe occurs in several different titles for texts of similar contents. Hence,
bka’ dpe will be used in this article as a common term for the texts belonging to this
group.
As noted earlier, the word “Bka’ brgyud” is often interpreted as meaning “the
tradition of the [four] instructions.” These instructions (bka’) were written down in
manuals referred to as Instruction Texts (bka’ dpe). Thus, the first syllable bka’ of the
title bka’ dpe could be a further reason for the name Bka’ brgyud, then meaning “the
lineage of the instruction texts.”
19
An argument, although rather weak, for identifying Tsong kha pa’s Ka dpe rtsa ba’i
sdom snga ma with Bka’ yang dag pa’i tshad ma might be that Bka’ yang dag pa’i
tshad ma is called “the first Bka’ dpe” (Bka’ dpe dang po) in Zhu chen Tshul khrims
rin chen’s eighteenth-century catalogue to the Sde dge Bstan ’gyur. See his catalogue
entitled Kun mkhyen nyi ma’i gnyen gyi bka’ lung gi dgongs don rnam par ’grel pa’i
bstan bcos gangs can pa’i skad du ’gyur ro ’tshal gyi chos sprin rgyun mi ’chad pa’i
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
143
Generally speaking, it seems that the absence of these texts in Tsong
kha pa’s nā ro chos drug teachings and his critical remarks had a certain effect
on later nā ro chos drug writings within the Dge lugs tradition. The Dge lugs
nā ro chos drug commentators mostly did not rely on either of these root texts,
but rather took Tsong kha pa’s Yid ches gsum ldan commentary as the prime
source for their writings.20 That includes the nā ro chos drug commentaries by
the seventeenth-eighteenth century A mdo Reb kong master Brag dkar Sngags
ram pa Blo bzang bstan pa rab rgyas (b. seventeenth century), the eighteenthcentury Lha sa scholar Tshe mchog gling yongs ’dzin Ye shes rgyal mtshan
(1713–93), and the two nineteenth-century masters Dngul chu Dharma bhadra
(1772–1851) and A khu ching Shes rab rgya mtsho (1803–75) from Western
Tibet and A mdo respectively.21
While most Dge lugs pa nā ro chos drug authors did not refer to the
Bka’ yang dag pa’i tshad ma, Bka’ dpe che chung and Bka’ dpe phyi ma, the
ngo mtshar ’phrul gyi phyi mo rdzogs ldan bskal pa’i bsod nams kyi sprin phung rgyas
par dkrigs pa’i tshul las brtsams pa’i gtam ngo mtshar chu gter ’phel ba’i zla ba gsar pa,
folio 390b, p. 780. Refer also to the remark above regarding the mention of the title
Bka’ dpe rtsa ba’i sdom pa mkha’ ’gro ma’i zhal nas byung ba / nā ro chos drug gi
nyams len bka’ dpe phyi ma’o in the Bstan ’gyur catalogue of the third Karma pa Rang
byung rdo rje, the first part of which also bears a certain similarity to Tsong kha pa’s
title Ka dpe rtsa ba’i sdom snga ma.
20
A rare exception is found in Rong po grub chen Skal ldan rgya mtsho’s (1607–77)
concise nā ro chos drug manual Nā ro’i chos drug gi khrid grub pa’i mdzes rgyan,
wherein the Dge lugs author quotes two bka’ dpe verse lines on folio 4a5 (page 133)
that list the four steps of the pot-like breathing technique (kumbhaka, bum can) without
indicating their source: rngub dang dgang dang gzhil ba dang // mda’ ltar ’phang dang
rnam pa bzhi //. These lines are found in all the different bka’ dpe versions, i.e. the
bka’ dpe archetypes, Bka’ dpe che chung as well as Bka’ dpe phyi ma. In general,
Rong po grub chen refers to a wide array of nā ro chos drug texts, also including Tsong
kha pa’s Yid ches gsum ldan commentary.
21
For their works, refer to the bibliography below.
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opposite was the case with the Bka’ brgyud pas, who embraced these texts as
important nā ro chos drug sources. The Bka’ yang dag pa’i tshad ma was held
in high regard especially by the sixteenth-century ’Brug pa bka’ brgyud scholar
Padma dkar po. In the aforementioned list of eighty-nine nā ro chos drug
sources given in his Record of Received Teachings, the Bka’ yang dag pa’i
tshad ma is said to be the basic root text of the entire tradition,22 an opinion
later shared by another ’Brug pa bka’ brgyud scholar, the fourth Bde chen
chos ’khor yongs ’dzin ’Jam dpal dpa’ bo (1720–80).23 Padma dkar po also
wrote a 600 page commentary based on this root text.24 The Bka’ brgyud pas’
use of the Bka’ dpe che chung and Bka’ dpe phyi ma during the later period is
less apparent, particularly due to the different bka’ dpe versions, their numerous shared lines of verse, and the commentaries’ common practice of quoting
such verses without stating the title of their source. Padma dkar po’s list of nā
ro chos drug sources mentions neither the Bka’ dpe che chung nor Bka’ dpe
phyi ma, but instead mentions an Inner Heat Instruction Text (Gtum mo ka dpe)
as well as a Minor Instruction Text (Ka dpe chung ngu). The identities of these
titles are uncertain but might refer to different segments of the Bka’ dpe che
chung, whose first chapter is entitled the Inner Heat Instruction Text (Gtum
mo’i bka’ dpe) and where the word “minor” (chung) occurs in the overall title
used by Blo gros mtha’ yas. Further, there are quotations of verses found in
both the Bka’ dpe che chung as well as the Bka’ dpe phyi ma in several nā ro
chos drug commentaries of the later period, for example in the manuals written
by two major ’Bri gung bka’ brgyud scholars, ’Bri gung Kun dga’ rin chen
22
23
See n. 14.
See Bde chen chos ’khor yongs ’dzin ’jam dpal dpa’ bo’s nā ro chos drug manual
Dpal nā ro chos drug gi khrid yig gsal byed zung 'jug mchog gi nges gnas.
24
His commentary on the Bka’ yang dag pa’i tshad ma is entitled Jo bo nā ro pa’i
khyad chos bsre ’pho’i gzhung ’grel rdo rje ’chang gi dgongs pa gsal bar byed pa; for
further references, refer to the bibliography below.
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
145
(1475–1527) and ’Bri gung rig ’dzin Chos kyi grags pa (1595–1659).25 The
majority of these quotations are unreferenced and it is therefore not possible to
determine whether the authors were familiar with the verses in the form of the
texts later known as the Bka’ dpe che chung and Bka’ dpe phyi ma. In a rare
instance, ’Bri gung Kun dga’ rin chen indicates the source for his quotation of
a bka’ dpe verse, but only with the general title Chos drug Instruction Text
(Chos drug ka dpe).26
Since the nā ro chos drug is essentially a system of practical yoga and
visualisation instructions, it must also be noted that there are a number of
commentaries of the later period that do not rely on any root text and that give
no references to textual sources, but instead are written exclusively as practice
manuals. Roughly half of the commentaries refer to root texts, while the other
half do not. The present discussion of authoritative sources applies only to the
texts explicitly relying on a root text either by commenting on such a text or at
least by giving some references to it. Nā ro chos drug manuals of the later
phase from the fifteenth century onwards, which do not rely on root texts,
include the works by the second ’Brug chen rgyal dbang Kun dga’ dpal ’byor
(1429–76), the Dwags po bka’ brgyud scholar Dwags po Bkra shis rnam rgyal
(c. 1512–87), the Karma kaṃ tshang scholars the sixth Zhwa dmar pa Gar
dbang chos kyi dbang phyug (1584–1630), Mkhan po Karma ratna rin chen dar
rgyas (b. 1835), the ninth Si tu pa Padma nyin byed (1774–1853), as well as
the Dge lugs master Gu ge yongs ’dzin Blo bzang bstan ’dzin (1748–1813).
1.2. The two non-canonical authoritative sources
Besides the four canonical or semi-canonical nā ro chos drug texts discussed so
far, the Gdams ngag mdzod—as mentioned—also includes two non-canonical
nā ro chos drug texts.
25
26
For their works, refer to the bibliography below.
See folio 96a6 (p. 387) of his commentary.
146
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The first non-canonical text is a song consisting of fifteen verses
entitled Vajra Song Condensing the Six Doctrines (Chos drug dril ba rdo rje’i
mgur) supposed to have been sung by Nā ro pa to Mar pa, which is now
incorporated into Gtsang smyon He ru ka Rus pa’i rgyan can’s (1452–1507)
biography of Mar pa written in 1505.27 In his nā ro chos drug commentary,
Tsong kha pa also discussed this text along with another text attributed to Mar
pa called the Eight Verses (Tshig rkang brgyad ma or Tshigs bcad brgyad ma)28
and characterised them as being too general for practical use:
Again, the Eight Verses combining stanzas and verses said to have been
written by Mar pa as well as the Vajra Song [Condensing] the Six
Doctrines do not appear to have any other ability than merely planting the
seeds of the instructions.29
In spite of Tsong kha pa’s remarks, two seventeenth century Dge lugs authors
based their nā ro chos drug commentaries on this song, namely the first Paṇ
chen bla ma Blo bzang chos kyi rgyal mtshan (1570–1662), who lived in
Gtsang, as well as the first Rong po grub chen Skal ldan rgya mtsho (1607–77),
who lived in A mdo.30
27
For bibliographical references to the Tibetan text of the song, refer to ‘Nā ro pa’ in
the bibliography of Tibetan sources. An English translation of the song is found in
Trungpa and the Nālandā Translation Committee (1986: 95–97).
28
This text, which is not included in Blo gros mtha’ yas, Gdams ngag mdzod, will be
discussed in the section on sources for the early nā ro chos drug tradition below.
29
See Tsong kha pa’s zab lam nā ro’i chos drug gi sgo nas ’khrid pa’i rim pa yid ches
gsum ldan, pp. 521–22: yang mar pas mdzad zer ba’i tshigs bcad dang / tshig rkang
gnyis gcig tu bzung ba’i tshig rkang brgyad ma zhes pa gcig dang / chos drug rdo rje’i
mgur zhes pa gnyis la ni gdams ngag gi sa bon tsam ma gtogs pa nus pa lhag po bton
pa mi ’dug la /.
30
See the first Paṇ chen bla ma, Nā ro chos drug gi zab khrid gser gyi lde mig, and
Rong po grub chen Skal ldan rgya mtsho, Rdo rje ’dzin pa skal ldan rgya mtsho dpal
bzang po’i gsung las nā ro’i chos drug gi ’khrid grub pa’i mdzes rgyan.
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
147
In the Bka’ brgyud tradition, references to Nā ro pa’s song are very
sparse. One author who quotes the song briefly is ’Bri gung Kun dga’ rin chen
(1475–1527), and Padma dkar po (1527–92) includes it in his list of nā ro chos
drug sources.31 Since the song, aside from Tsong kha pa’s brief reference, only
appears in commentaries written after the publication of Gtsang smyon He ru
ka’s biography of Mar pa, it would seem that its popularity can be attributed to
this work.
The other non-canonical text included in Gdams ngag mdzod is a cycle
of Mi la ras pa songs entitled Three Songs Elucidating the Oral Transmission
(Snyan brgyud gsal bar skor gsum). The first song, called Elucidating Being
(Dngos po gsal bar byed pa), contains a long segment that corresponds word-
for-word with a large portion of the gtum mo chapter of the Bka’ dpe che
chung and Bka’ dpe phyi ma. The lines found in Mi la ras pa’s song, however,
occur in a different order than those found in the Bka’ dpe che chung and Bka’
dpe phyi ma, and the song therefore constitutes an important early version.
Four verse lines found in both the Bka’ dpe texts as well as in Mi la ras pa’s
song are quoted by Phag mo gru pa (1110–70) in a twelfth-century commentary,
wherein Phag mo gru pa attributes them to Mi la ras pa.32 However, none of the
other eleven nā ro chos drug commentaries quoting these lines attribute them to
any author and Mi la ras pa’s three songs are never mentioned in any other nā
ro chos drug text.
To sum up, from the point of view of the Gdams ngag mdzod of Blo
gros mtha’ yas, the four canonical and two non-canonical texts that have been
discussed are considered the authoritative sources for the nā ro chos drug
practices in the later tradition. The two undisputed canonical works were not
31
Refer to ’Bri gung Kun dga’ rin chen, Zab lam chos drug gi khrid gyi lhan thabs sbas
don kun gsal, and Padma dkar po, Bka’ brgyud kyi bka’ ’bum gsil bu rnams kyi gsan
yig, pp. 381–83.
32
Phag mo gru pa, Bla ma nā ro pa’i chos drug gi bla ma brgyud pa’i rim pa dang
gdams ngag gnad kyi dbye ba mdor bsdus pa, p. 472.
148
Ulrich Timme Kragh
widely used, whereas the two disputed canonical texts were considered the
most important sources by the Bka’ brgyud pas, while Dge lugs pa authors
seldom relied on them. Instead, the Dge lugs pas usually followed Tsong kha
pa’s Yid ches gsum ldan commentary as their authoritative source. Nā ro pa’s
song to Mar pa, which is one of Blo gros mtha’ yas’s two non-canonical
sources, received extensive commentary by the first Paṇ chen bla ma and the
first Rong po grub chen, and was briefly referred to by ’Bri gung Kun dga’ rin
chen and Padma dkar po. The other non-canonical source, the three songs by
Mi la ras pa, does not appear to have been used as a root text to be commented
upon by anyone, although one of the songs contains a segment that corresponds
to a portion of the bka’ dpe texts.
2 Authoritative sources for the early nā ro chos drug traditions
Although the Gdams ngag mdzod presents six texts as the authoritative sources
for the nā ro chos drug instructions, most of the texts do not appear to have
been known to the early nā ro chos drug traditions prior to the fifteenth century.
In fact, among the six nā ro chos drug sources found in Gdams ngag mdzod,
only the Snyan brgyud rdo rje’i tshig rkang appears to have been known in the
early period,33 since its title occurs in one of the third Karma pa Rang byung
rdo rje's Bstan ’gyur catalogues,34 as well as in a list of texts explaining the
inner meaning of the Cakrasaṃvaratantra given by the thirteenth-century
compiler of the snyan brgyud tradition, Zhang lo tsā ba Grub pa dpal (b.
1237).35 Nevertheless, aside from the mention of its title, the nā ro chos drug
commentaries and manuals of the early period do not appear to rely on the
33
In the case of Bka' dpe che chung, this text—as will be argued below—was known
prior to the fifteenth century, but most likely not in the form in which it is now
preserved in Gdams ngag mdzod.
34 Refer to n. 13 above.
35
Torricelli 1998: 385.
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
149
Snyan brgyud rdo rje’i tshig rkang as a root text, at least in terms of the corpus
of texts included in the bibliography below.
In fact, the early traditions mainly relied on only two sets of nā ro chos
drug verses that were used as authoritative sources in several early
commentaries and possibly as mnemonic verses in the oral tradition. These are:
1. The Eight Verses (Tshigs bcad brgyad ma), attributed to Mar pa Chos
kyi blo gros;
2. Several versions of an untitled, anonymous collection of verses that are
referred to herein as the “bka’ dpe archetypes.”
The first work is a short text called Tshigs bcad brgyad ma attributed to Mar pa.
It is found in the collected works of Sgam po pa Bsod nams rin chen (1079–
1153) along with a little commentary.36 The earliest preserved edition of Sgam
po pa’s works is a handwritten fourteenth or fifteenth century manuscript,
which thus is the earliest actual witness of Mar pa’s text.37 The Eight Verses
provides a brief outline of just three of the yogas, viz. the practices of lucid
dreaming, illusory body, and inner heat, to which are added two brief
instructions on the five stages (pañcakrama, rim pa lnga) of the completion
stage of the Guhyasamājatantra and the engendering of the mind of awakening
(bodhicitta). As mentioned above, Tsong kha pa was aware of this text and, in
the sixteenth century, Padma dkar po included it in his list of nā ro chos drug
sources.38 Besides these scattered references, the text is never mentioned or
quoted in any other nā ro chos drug work. Further, it was neither included by
Blo gros mtha’ yas in his nineteenth-century Gdams ngag mdzod, nor
by ’Khrul zhig Padma chos rgyal (1876–1958) in his huge compilation of
36
Refer to Sgam po pa’s text Ci entitled Chos rje dags po lha rje’i gsung / mar pa’i
tshigs bcad brgyad ma’i ’grel pa.
37
See manuscript α among the various editions of the collected works of Sgam po pa
in the bibliography.
38
Refer to n. 14 above.
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mahāmudrā, rdzogs chen and nā ro chos drug works called the Rtsib ri Print
(Rtsib ri par ma).39 The text therefore seems to have had a limited popularity in
the twelfth century that gradually faded out until it more or less had
disappeared from the textual transmission by the nineteenth century.
The second authoritative source known to the early Bka’ brgyud nā ro
chos drug traditions is an anonymous set of verses that I refer to as the bka’
dpe archetypes. They explain the practice of gtum mo and were incorporated in
the later traditions into the gtum mo chapters of the Bka’ dpe che chung and
Bka’ dpe phyi ma. The bka’ dpe archetypes must have been the major
mnemonic nā ro chos drug source in the early transmissions, because the
majority of the thirty-one nā ro chos drug manuals and commentaries of the
early period quote them and follow their structure. Some of the earliest
available Tibetan nā ro chos drug manuals are nine texts found in the collected
works of Sgam po pa,40 and five of these texts contain direct commentaries on
39
Refer to the catalogue to this collection entitled Dpal ldan ’brug pa dkar brgyud gtso
bor gzhi gzung gsar rnying gi nyams len zab gnad nyer mkho’i bang mdzod kyi dkar
chag don ldan ’phrul gyi me long, vol. shrī (TBRC W20749–1294).
40
Dpal ’byor don grub (15th century) lists a number of nā ro chos drug works by
masters predating Sgam po pa, but these are either no longer extant or at least not
currently available. These earlier works include: Chos drug sras don ma attributed to
Mar pa Chos kyi blo gros, Chos drug chen mo attributed to Rngog Chos sku rdo rje
(11th century), and unspecified nā ro chos drug works by Mtshur ston Dbang gi rdo rje
(11th century) and Me ston (11th century). He also mentions Mi la ras pa’s Chos drug
gsal ba skor gsum, which appears to be identical to the above-mentioned Snyan brgyud
gsal bar skor gsum, preserved in Gdams ngag mdzod. It should be noted that the work
by Rngog Chos sku rdo rje is not available in the recently published collection of texts
by Rngog and his disciples, i.e. the Rngog chos skor phyogs sgrig published by Dpal
brtsegs bod yig dpe rnying zhib ’jug khang, 2007. Dpal ’byor don grub also refers to a
few later nā ro chos drug works that have not been considered in this article. These
include a segment from the second Karma pa Karma Pakshi’s (1204–83) Rgya mtsho
mtha’ yas corpus with the title Gtum mo ’khor lo lnga ma (refer to TBRC W21559),
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
151
the bka’ dpe archetypes in the chapters dealing with the practice of gtum mo.41
Among the remaining four texts, one is the aforementioned commentary on
Mar pa’s Tshigs bcad brgyad ma, while the other three manuals do not rely on
any root text.42 The bka’ dpe archetypes were also used in the twelfth century
as the basis for Phag mo gru pa’s four quite extensive nā ro chos drug
commentaries, as well as for two early-fourteenth-century nā ro chos drug
commentaries by the third Karma pa Rang byung rdo rje (1284–1339), who
referred to the verses simply as gzhung, i.e. the scripture.43 Just as in the later
period, so too in the early period there are several nā ro chos drug manuals that
do not rely on any root text, which again underlines the transmission’s status as
and unspecified notes by Kun spangs pa (b. 14th c.) based on a longer explanation by
one ’Dzam gling chos kyi grags pa, and a text referred to as Chos drug chen mo by one
Drung Mkha’ spyod pa (= Zhwa dmar Mkha’ spyod dbang po?, 1350–1405). Refer to
Dpal ’byor don grub, Mdo sngags thams cad kyi rgyal po rgyud sde bzhi’i rtsa ba ma
rgyud thams cad kyi snying po bskyed rim lhan cig skyes ma rdzogs rim rlung sems
gnyis med gsal bar ston pa dpal nā ro pa chen po’i chos drug nyams len gsal ba’i sgron
me, pp. 65–66. Moreover, Thub bstan phun tshogs’s publication Rtsa rlung ’phrul ’khor
(Chengdu: Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1995), which was not available to me,
contains another text attributed to Mar pa entitled Bde mchog snyan brgyud kyi gtum
mo dang thabs lam gyi ’phrul ’khor, pp. 21–34.
41
For the nine nā ro chos drug texts found in the collected works of Sgam po pa, see
the bibliography below. The segments in these text that are commentaries on the bka’
dpe archetypes are: Pa 5–6, Tsa (implicitly without quoting the root text), Tsha 1, Ki 1–
4 and 14, and Khi 7. For two segments from the several nā ro chos drug texts attributed
to Sgam po pa that were translated into Chinese in Khara Khoto, see Shen (2005).
42
43
I.e. the segments in texts Ba, Ya and Sa.
See Phag mo gru pa’s Chos drug gi zab lam bar do’i dmar khrid dam zab lam tshigs
bcad ma, Zab lam lcag pa ma, Zab lam tshigs bcad ma’i lhan thabs rin chen gter mdzod,
and Bla ma nā ro pa’i chos drug gi bla ma brgyud pa’i rim pa dang gdams ngag gnad
kyi dbye ba mdor bsdus pa. Further, refer to Karma pa Rang byung rdo rje’s Zab lam
nā ro chos drug gi gsal byed spyi chings khrid yig dang bcas pa gzhugs so / karma pa
rang byung rdo rje’i chos drug gser zhun mar grags so, and Chos drug gi sgom khrid.
152
Ulrich Timme Kragh
being predominantly an oral instruction. This is, for example, the case with the
nā ro chos drug segments and short texts found in the collected works of Bla
ma Zhang Brtson ’grus grags pa (1123–93), ’Jig rten mgon po Rin chen dpal
(1143–1217), Rgod tshang pa Mgon po rdo rje (1189–1258) and Rgyal ba
Yang dgon pa (1213–58).44
The bka’ dpe archetypes are, however, quite problematic, because the
texts must have circulated as a loose set of verses appearing in at least three
different versions in the early sources. None of the versions include instructions
on all the yogas of Nā ro pa, but they only concern the instruction on the
practice of inner heat, which generally is considered the fundamental practice
among the six yogas. Therefore, the text is only quoted and followed in the
chapters dealing with inner heat in the various nā ro chos drug manuals,
whereas no root text is used in chapters or segments concerning the other yogas
of Nā ro pa.
As for their structure, the bka’ dpe archetypes begin by mentioning Nā
ro pa’s recitation of the Cakrasaṃvara mantra and tell how he received a
prophecy from a ḍākiṇī goddess to go and meet his teacher Ti lo pa. Next, they
elucidate the tantric nature of the body and mind, and continue to explain the
sitting posture for the yoga of gtum mo. They then go on to describe the special
pot-like breathing technique (kumbhaka, bum can) in the four stages that are
used in this practice, and point out the visualised channels, cakras and the inner
movement of the wind-energy (rlung) generated by this effort. They end by
explaining the result of gtum mo as the attainment of buddhahood in the
present life. This general structure is the same for the various versions of the
early text, and while many of their verses are shared by all, there certainly are
sufficient variations in the verses and their order to speak of three different
recensions. At least two different recensions are found in the five nā ro chos
drug manuals quoting the bka’ dpe archetypes in the collected works of Sgam
44
Refer to the bibliography for the titles of their works.
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
153
po pa,45 and a third version is the above-named song of Mi la ras pa entitled
Dngos po gsal bar byed pa.
These three early recensions differ from the two versions of the bka’
dpe known from the later tradition, viz. the Bka’ dpe che chung and Bka’ dpe
phyi ma, because both the later versions are much longer texts giving
explanations on eight practices within the yogas of Nā ro pa, including inner
heat, illusory body, lucid dreaming, luminosity, transference, the intermediate
state, body-entering, and the ‘method path’ (thabs lam). There is, though, an
overlap between the later and earlier versions in the chapter on inner heat,
which is, as mentioned above, the only yoga presented in the early versions. To
this may be added that the Bka’ yang dag pa’i tshad ma also shares several
lines with the bka’ dpe archetypes and can therefore be seen as a more distant
cousin of these texts.
To sum up, only three sources were relied on as root-texts in the early
nā ro chos drug traditions: the Snyan brgyud rdo rje’i tshig rkang belonging to
Ras chung pa’s snyan brgyud transmission, Mar pa’s Eight Verses, and the
bka’ dpe archetypes covering only the instruction on gtum mo, a much shorter
text than the two versions of the bka’ dpe known in the later traditions. The
other sources presented by the later traditions as authoritative sources for the nā
ro chos drug were not used or referred to in the early nā ro chos drug literature.
45
The two recensions are found in texts Ki 2 (recension A) as opposed to Ki 3–4
(recension B). The text found in Pa. 5–6, Tsha 1 and Ya 3 overlap with both editions,
but in particular with recension B.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Tibetan Sources
Anonymous. Ka dpe che chung contained in ’Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas,
Gdams ngag mdzod; see below.
Anonymous. Bka’ dpe phyi ma in the following editions:
•
D. 2332, Sde dge xylograph Bstan ’gyur, 1737–44, vol. rgyud zhi pa, folios
273a–76a.
•
•
Co ne xylograph Bstan ’gyur, 1753–73.
Torricelli (1996b): 36–45.
Anonymous. Bka’ yang dag pa’i tshad ma zhes bya ba mkha’ ’gro ma’i man ngag
(*Ājñāsaṃyakpramāṇanāmaḍākinyupadeśa) in the following editions:
•
D. 2331, Sde dge xylograph Bstan ’gyur, 1737–44, vol. rgyud zhi pa, folios
271a–73a.
•
•
•
Co ne xylograph Bstan ’gyur, 1753–73.
’Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas, Gdams ngag mdzod (see below).
’Khrul zhig padma chos rgyal, Rtsib ri’i par ma (see below), vol. cha, TBRC
W20749–1269, pp. 1–43.
•
Torricelli (1997): 252–58.
Anonymous. Snyan brgyud rdo rje’i tshig rkang (*Karṇatantravajrapāda), translated by
Nā ro pa and Mar pa, found in the following editions:
•
•
•
Q. 4632, Peking xylograph Bstan ’gyur, 1724.
Dga’ ldan handwritten Golden Bstan ’gyur, 1731–41.
D. 2338, Sde dge xylograph Bstan ’gyur, 1737–44, vol. rgyud zhi pa, folios
302b–04b.
•
•
•
•
Snar thang xylograph Bstan ’gyur, 1741–42.
Co ne xylograph Bstan ’gyur, 1753–73.
’Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas, Gdams ngag mdzod (see below).
’Khrul zhig pa padma chos rgyal, Rtsib ri’i par ma, vol. ja, TBRC W20749–
1270, pp. 159–69.
•
Torricelli (1998): 390–414. For other editions, refer to Torricelli (1998): 386–
87.
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
155
Anonymous. Bde mchog snyan brgyud kyi ’phrul ’khor kyi (sic) dpe ris, printed in
Rtsa rlung ’phrul ’khor, ed. Thub bstan phun tshogs, Chengdu: Si khron mi
rigs dpe skrun khang, 1995, pp. 21–34.
Anonymous. Nā ro chos drug yoga manual entitled Nā ro chos drug gi ’khrul ’khor
dmigs rim zab mo in Nā ro chos drug gi khrid skor: a collection of texts for
the practice of the Six Precepts of Naropa according to the method transmitted
by the masters of the Kam-tshang Bka’-brgyud-pa tradition, reproduced from
manuscript material brought from Tibet through the efforts of Bla-ma Nor-bla,
Delhi: Karlo, 1985, TBRC W23641–2289, pp. 285–304.
Anonymous. Nā ro chos drug manual based on notes made by Si tu pa padma nyin
byed dbang po (1774–1853) and 'Jang sprul sku skye dbang rgyal (unidentified)
entitled Nā ro chos drug las gtum mo’i bogs ’don lus sbyong ’khrul ’khor gyi
zhal khrid kun gsal me long in Nā ro chos drug gi khrid skor: a collection of
texts for the practice of the Six Precepts of Naropa according to the method
transmitted by the masters of the Kam-tshang Bka’-brgyud-pa tradition,
reproduced from manuscript material brought from Tibet through the efforts of
Bla-ma Nor-bla, Delhi: Karlo, 1985, TBRC W23641–2289, pp. 361–422.
Anonymous. Lineage prayer to the Dwags lha sgam po nā ro chos drug and
Mahāmudrā lineage entitled Sgam po lugs kyi phyag chen dang chos drug
zung ’brel gyi brgyud pa’i gsol ’debs byin rlabs ’pho ba’i gsang lam, found
in ’Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas, Gdams ngag mdzod, vol. nya
(TBRC W20877–0139), pp. 235–39.
Anonymous. Discussion of how to encounter mistakes in the nā ro chos drug practices
entitled Dpal nā ro pa chen po’i gegs sel gser lnga’i man ngag, found in ’Jam
mgon Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas, Gdams ngag mdzod, vol. ta (TBRC
20877–0140), pp. 255–76. Contained in the section of texts belonging to the
Karma kaṃ tshang tradition.
Anonymous. Manual on the preliminary yoga practices entitled ’Khrul ’khor gyi
sngon ’gro dang rjes bsdu found in Phyag chen khrid yig of Ngag-dban-bstanpa’i-ñi-ma and other texts on the Mahāmudrā and Nā ro chos drug precepts of
the Stag-luṅ-pa dkar-brgyud-pa tradition, reproduced from manuscripts from
the library of Ri-bo-che Rje-drung Rin-po-che of Padma-bkod by Tseten Dorji,
Tezu: Tibetan Nyingma Monastery, 1973, TBRC W20522–0599, pp. 505–17.
156
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Anonymous. Gtum mo yoga manual entitled Gtum mo’i ’khrul ’khor bco brgyad found
in Phyag chen khrid yig of Ngag-dban-bstan-pa’i-ñi-ma and other texts on the
Mahāmudrā and Nā ro chos drug precepts of the Stag-luṅ-pa dkar-brgyud-pa
tradition, reproduced from manuscripts from the library of Ri-bo-che Rjedrung Rin-po-che of Padma-bkod by Tseten Dorji, Tezu: Tibetan Nyingma
Monastery, 1973, TBRC W20522–0599, pp. 519–28.
Anonymous. Manual for the preliminary yoga practices according to the ’Brug pa bka’
brgyud tradition entitled ’Khrul ’khor gyi sngon ’gro found in Nā ro chos drug
texts of the ’Brug-pa Dkar-brgyud-pa traditions: a collection of rare texts on
the Six Doctrines of Naropa, Thimphu: Kunsang Topgay, 1978, TBRC
W23652–2393, pp. 1–4.
Anonymous. Untitled chart with instructions on how to dedicate the merit, found in Nā
ro chos drug texts of the ’Brug-pa Dkar-brgyud-pa traditions: a collection of
rare texts on the Six Doctrines of Nāropa, Thimphu: Kunsang Topgay, 1978,
TBRC W23652–2393, p. 319.
Karma pa De bzhin gshegs pa (1384–1415), nā ro chos drug lineage prayer according
to the Karma kaṃ tshang tradition entitled Zab lam nā ro’i chos drug gi bla
ma brgyud pa la gsol ba ’debs pa in Nā ro chos drug gi khrid skor: a
collection of texts for the practice of the Six Precepts of Nāropa according to
the method transmitted by the masters of the Kam-tshang Bka’-brgyud-pa
tradition, reproduced from manuscript material brought from Tibet through the
efforts of Bla-ma Nor-bla, Delhi: Karlo, 1985, TBRC W23641–2289, pp. 1–9.
Karma pa Rang byung rdo rje (1284–1339):
•
Theoretical nā ro chos drug exposition entitled Zab lam nā ro chos drug gi
gsal byed spyi chings khrid yig dang bcas pa bzhugs so / karma pa rang byung
rdo rje’i chos drug gser zhun mar grags so in Nā ro chos drug gi khrid skor: a
collection of texts for the practice of the Six Precepts of Naropa according to
the method transmitted by the masters of the Kam-tshang Bka’-brgyud-pa
tradition, reproduced from manuscript material brought from Tibet through the
efforts of Bla-ma Nor-bla, Delhi: Karlo, 1985, TBRC W23641–2289, pp. 109–
45. Another edition is found in ’Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas,
•
Gdams ngag mdzod, vol. ta (TBRC W20877–0140). pp. 17–61.
Nā ro chos drug manual entitled Chos drug gi sgom khrid in Nā ro chos drug
gi khrid skor: a collection of texts for the practice of the Six Precepts of
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
157
Naropa according to the method transmitted by the masters of the Kam-tshang
Bka’-brgyud-pa tradition, reproduced from manuscript material brought from
Tibet through the efforts of Bla-ma Nor-bla, Delhi: Karlo, 1985, TBRC
W23641–2289, pp. 146–93.
•
Untitled charts explaining the visualization of the nostrils in gtum mo practice
according to Rang byung rdo rje’s Zab mo nang don in Nā ro chos drug gi
khrid skor: a collection of texts for the practice of the Six Precepts of Naropa
according to the method transmitted by the masters of the Kam-tshang Bka’brgyud-pa tradition, reproduced from manuscript material brought from Tibet
through the efforts of Bla-ma Nor-bla, Delhi: Karlo, 1985, TBRC W23641–
2289, pp. 335–36.
Karma Sangs rgyas chos ’phel (nineteenth century), short nā ro chos drug manual
entitled Snyan brgyud zab mo thun mong ma yin pa thabs lam nā ro chos drug
gi ’don tshul dang ’khrul ’khor gab sprad tshul blo rmong rang gi brjed thos
gsal ba in Nā ro chos drug gi khrid skor: a collection of texts for the practice
of the Six Precepts of Naropa according to the method transmitted by the
masters of the Kam-tshang Bka’-brgyud-pa tradition, reproduced from
manuscript material brought from Tibet through the efforts of Bla-ma Nor-bla,
Delhi: Karlo, 1985, TBRC W23641–2289, pp. 305–21.
Kun dga’ sgrol mchog (1507–65/1566), brief nā ro chos drug summary entitled nā ro
chos drug gi khrid yig found as instruction no. 75 (folios 78a–80a, pp. 279–83)
in his large collection of 108 instructions called Jo nang khrid brgya, printed
as volume Tsha (vol. 18) of ’Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas’s
Gdams ngag mdzod (for bibliographical details, see below).
Mkhan po Karma ratna rin chen dar rgyas (b. 1835), nā ro chos drug texts in Nā ro
chos drug gi khrid skor: a collection of texts for the practice of the Six
Precepts of Naropa according to the method transmitted by the masters of the
Kam-tshang Bka’-brgyud-pa tradition, reproduced from manuscript material
brought from Tibet through the efforts of Bla-ma Nor-bla, Delhi: Karlo, 1985,
TBRC W23641–2289:
•
•
Nā ro chos drug commentary entitled Chos drug bdud rtsi snying khu yi / zur
rgyan lung gi ’od zer, pp. 195–238.
Nā ro chos drug liturgical remarks entitled Zab lam nā ro chos drug bdud rtsi
nying khu’i thun min tshangs gnas bzhi’i ’grel pa bla ma’i zhal lung slob ma’i
bdud rtsi, pp. 239–53.
158
Ulrich Timme Kragh
•
Nā ro chos drug liturgical remarks entitled Sngag lam rtsa rlung thig le’i ’bar
zhu dang ’brel ba’i smon lam tshig bzhi’i bsdus ’grel ’chi med don gyi thig le,
pp. 255–58.
Nā ro chos drug liturgical remarks entitled Chos drug gsol ’debs kyi ’grel pa
gtum mo bde ba chen po’i thig le, pp. 323–35.
• Nā ro chos drug liturgical remarks entitled Chos drug gsol ’debs bde stong
dbyer med kyi ’grel chung tshig don snyin po rab gsal, pp. 337–53.
• Nā ro chos drug liturgical remarks entitled Thabs lam smon lam tshig bzhi
pa’i ’grel pa sbas don rab snang, pp. 357–59.
Khams sprul Bstan ’dzin chos kyi nyi ma (1730–79/1780), nā ro chos drug manual
entitled Dpal nā ro chos drug gi khrid yig gsal byed zung ’jug mchog gi nges
gnas zhes pa’i brjod byang, found in Phyag chen khrid yig of Ngag-dbanbstan-pa’i-ñi-ma and other texts on the Mahāmudrā and Nā ro chos drug
precepts of stag-luṅ-pa dkar-brgyud-pa tradition, reproduced from manuscripts
•
from the library of Ri-bo-che Rje-drung Rin-po-che of Padma-bkod by Tseten
Dorji, Tezu: Tibetan Nyingma Monastery, 1973, TBRC W20522–0599, pp.
315–503.
Khams sprul ngag dbang kun dga’ bstan ’dzin (1680–1728), nā ro chos drug texts
found in Nā ro chos drug texts of the ’Brug-pa Dkar-brgyud-pa traditions: a
collection of rare texts on the Six Doctrines of Nāropa, Thimphu: Kunsang
Topgay, 1978, TBRC W23652–2393:
•
•
Gtum mo instruction according to the snyan brgyud tradition entitled
Mkha’ ’gro’i snyan brgyud las gtum mo bde drod rang ’bar gyi zab gnad mdor
bsdus, pp. 5–12.
Gtum mo instruction for displaying the accomplishment of the practice entitled
Gtum mo drod rtags mngon ston ras bud kyi lag len zin tho ye shes drod ’bar,
pp. 309–18.
’Khrul zhig Padma chos rgyal (1876–1958), editor of a large compilation of
mahāmudrā, rdzogs chen and nā ro chos drug works entitled Dkar rnying gi
skyes chen du ma’i phyag rdzogs kyi gdams ngag gnad bsdus nyer mkho’i rin
po che’i gter mdzod rtsib ri’i par ma (known in brief as the Rtsib ri’i par ma),
compiled in 1934–58, facsimile reproduction by Kargyud Sungrab Nyamso
Khang, Darjeeling 1978–85, TBRC W20749.
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
159
Gu ge yongs ’dzin Blo bzang bstan ’dzin (1748–1813), gtum mo instruction on the
basis of the Vajrabhairava practice entitled Dpal rdo rje ’jigs byed la brten pa’i
zab lam nā ro chos drug gi nang tshan gtum mo’i gdams pa nyams su len tshul
in Gu ge yongs ’dzin blo bzang bstan ’dzin gyi gsung ’bum, reproduced from
tracings from the Bkra shis lhun po xylograph, New Delhi: Chophel Legdan,
1976, vol. 1, TBRC W23879–4127, pp. 476–90.
Dga’ ldan khri pa Ngag dbang nor bu (b. nineteenth century), Dga’ ldan Bstan ’gyur
catalogue entitled Bstan ’gyur rin po che srid zhi’i rgyan gcig gi dkar chag rin
chen mdzes pa’i phra tsoms, found in the Dga’ ldan Bstan ’gyur vol. tso,
TBRC
W23702–1214
(www.asianclassics.org/).
and
in
electronic
form
by
ACIP
Rgod tshang pa Mgon po rdo rje (1189–1258), nā ro chos drug manual entitled Thabs
lam khyad par can gyi gdams pa / chos drug gi lag len gzhung na med pa
rnams found in his collected works called Chos rje rgod tshang pa’i bka’ ’bum
dgos ’dod kun ’byung, reproduced from a rare manuscript preserved at Rta
mgo monastery, 5 volumes. Thimpu: Tango Monastic Community, 1981,
TBRC W23661–2413, vol. 4, pp. 9–71.
Rgyal ba Yang dgon pa (1213–58), Collected Writings (gsuṅ ’bum) of Rgyal-ba yaṅ-
dgon-pa rgyal-mtshan-dpal, reproduction of three volumes of the writings of
the Stod ’Brug-pa Dkar-brgyud-pa master from Rta-mgo Monastery in Bhutan,
Thimphu: Tango Monastic Community, 1982, TBRC W23654:
•
Extensive nā ro chos drug manual entitled Ri chos kyi chos drug gi gzhung
khrid chen mo, vol. 1 (TBRC W23654–2387), pp. 297–354. Rgyal ba Yang
dgon pa’s Collected Works also contain a few individual manuals with the
•
gtum mo and bar do instructions not listed here.
Nā ro chos drug manual entitled Rgyal ba yang dgon pa’i khyad chos ri chos
yon tan kun ’byung gi snying po ma drug gi gdams zab, found in Nā ro chos
drug texts of the ’Brug-pa Dkar-brgyud-pa traditions: a collection of rare texts
on the Six Doctrines of Nāropa, Thimphu: Kunsang Topgay, 1978, TBRC
W23652–2393, pp. 321–484.
Rgyal mtshan pa (unidentified), yoga manual entitled ’Khrul ’khor spyi yi sngon rjes
kyi rim pa rnams kyi zin bris brjed dga’ ba bskyed, found in Nā ro chos drug
texts of the ’Brug-pa Dkar-brgyud-pa traditions: a collection of rare texts on
160
Ulrich Timme Kragh
the Six Doctrines of Nāropa, Thimphu: Kunsang Topgay, 1978, TBRC
W23652–2393, pp. 155–308.
Sgam po pa Bsod nams rin chen (1079–1153), his collected works (Dags po’i
bka’ ’bum) contain the following nine nā ro chos drug works, all of which are
anonymous but attributed to Sgam po pa:
•
Segments 5–13 of text Pa entitled Chos rje dags po lha rje’i gsung / khrid chos
mu tig tsar la brgyus pa, 14 folios, containing instructions on (5) bla ma mi
la’i nyams myong gi gtum mo, (6) gtum mo ā thung, (7) gtum mo ’bar ’dzag,
(8) ’od gsal, (9) rmi lam, (10) sgyu lus, (11) bskyed rim ’pho ba, (12) btsan
thabs ’pho ba, and (13) bar do dmar khrid. Page references in some of the
various editions (for editions and their sigla, refer to Sgam po pa’s works
listed below): ABC, vol. I, text Pa, folios 5v–14r; missing in TBRC copy of D;
W, pp. 585–604; Z, vol. kha, pp. 372–404.
•
Segments 3–10 of text Ba entitled Rje dags po lha rje’i gsung / dmar khrid
gsang chen / bar do’i dmar khrid / ’pho ba’i dmar khrid zhal gdams dang bcas
pa, containing instructions on (3–7) gtum mo (rgan mo ’dzug tshugs kyi
gdams pa and rlung zhon instructions), (8) sgyu lus, (9) ’od gsal, (10) bar do
dmar khrid (copy of Pa. 13). Page references in the various editions: ABC, vol.
I, text Ba, folios 5v–15r; D, vol. I, pp. 578–98; W, pp. 621–44; Z, vol. kha, pp.
437–75.
•
Text Tsa entitled Rje dags po lha rje’i gsung sgros / snyan brgyud gsal ba’i me
long, containing explanations on (1) the channels and cakras, (2) gtum mo
and ’pho ba, (3) ’od gsal, (4) rmi lam, (5) gtum mo, (6) meditation experience,
(7–8) karmamudrā, (9–10) general nā ro chos drug explanations, (11) bar do
and ’pho ba. Page references in some of the various editions: α, vol. kha, 71r–
80v; ABC, vol. I, text Tsa, 11 folios; D, vol. 1, pp. 615–35; W, pp. 662–868;
X, vol. II, pp. 70–87; Y, vol. 2, pp. 251–86; Z, vol. kha, pp. 505–40.
•
Text Tsha entitled Rje dags po lha rje’i gsung / snyan brgyud brjed byang ma,
containing instructions on (1) gtum mo, (2) rmi lam, (3) bar do, (4–5) ’pho ba,
(6) gnyid ’od gsal, (7) sgyu lus, (8) grong ’jug ’pho ba, and (9) sgyu lus and
rmi lam. Page references in some of the various editions: α, vol. kha, 176v–
85v; ABC, vol. I, text Tsha, 10 folios; D, vol. I, pp. 637–55; W, pp. 686–707;
X, vol. II, pp. 88–101: Y, vol. 2, pp. 287–315; Z, vol. kha, pp. 541–73. The
text is further contained in ’Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas, Gdams
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
•
•
161
ngag mdzod (s.v.), vol. nya (TBRC W20877–0139), pp. 147–64, under the title
Dpal ’khor lo bde mchog snyan brgyud dwags po lugs kyi man ngag gi rtsa ba
brjed byang ma.
Segments 3–4 of text Ya entitled Chos rje dags po lha rje’i gsung / phyag rgya
chen po’i rtsa ba la ngo sprod pa zhes kyang bya snang ba lam khyer gyi rtog
pa cig chog ces kyang bya phyag rgya chen po gnyug ma mi gyur ba ces
kyang bya ba, containing (3) a commentary on a bka’ dpe archetype and (4)
instructions on bar do. Page references in some of the various editions: ABC,
vol. II, text Ya, folios 6v–9r; D, vol. I, pp. 384–90; Z, vol. ga, pp. 145–56.
Segment 14 of text Sa entitled Chos rje dags po lha rje’i gsung / mdo sngags
kyi sgom don bsdus pa, containing short note on ’od gsal with mention of non-
Mar pa lineages. Page references in some of the various editions: α, vol. Kha,
71r; D, vol. II, p. 60; X vol. II, pp. 278; Z, vol. ga, p. 300.
•
Segments 1–14 of text Ki entitled Chos rje dags po lha rje’i gsung / gnas lugs
gnyis kyi man ngag dang go cha gnyis kyi man ngag, containing instructions
on (1–2) gtum mo dgu skor, (3) ’khor lo drug, (4) mchog gi gtum mo (mar
pa’i man ngag), (5) sgyu lus lnga ldan, (6) ’od gsal, (7) de kho na nyid sgom
pa, (8) sku bzhi rang chas ma, (9) ’od gsal ’chi ka ma, (10) bar do, (11) ’pho
ba, (12) rmi lam, (13) bar do sku bzhi, and (14) lus gnad. Page references in
some of the various editions: α, vol. Kha, 15r–26r; D, vol. II, pp. 121–48; X
vol. II, pp. 329–52; Y, vol. 3, pp. 247–91; Z, vol. ga, 403–48.
•
Segments 6–20 of text Khi entitled Chos rje dags po lha rje’i gsung / bka’
tshoms dang phyag rgya chen po lnga ldan / lam mchog rin chen phreng ba /
chos bzhi mdor bsdus / nyams lan mdor bsdus / nyams lan mdor bsdus / gnad
kyi gzer gsang / zhal gdams gsang mdzod ma // ḍoṃ bhi ba’i gtum mo
/ ’khrul ’khor gyi gtum mo / bar do’i gdams pa / ’pho ba’i zhal gdams rnams.
As indicated by its title, the text is a compilation of several smaller works. The
nā ro chos drug segments are the texts indicated in the title as zhal gdams
gsang mdzod ma and onwards. It contains instructions on (6) the nā ro chos
drug generally, (7) bka’ dpe archetype commentary, (8) ’khrul ’khor, (9) gtum
mo, (10) ’khrul ’khor gtum mo and ḍoṃ bhi ba’i gtum mo (11–12) gtum mo,
(13) zhabs rjes gsang spyod ma, (14) bar do bzhi, (15–16) ’pho ba, (17) bar do
gsum, (18) zung ’jug, (19) gtum mo lam rim bcu drug pa (rngog dang mi la’i
dgongs pa), and (20) bskyed rim. Page references in some of the various
162
Ulrich Timme Kragh
editions: α, vol. Ka, 122r–33v; vol. Kha, 199v–203r and 13v–14r; D, vol. II,
pp. 195–241; X, vol. II, pp. 391–432; Y, vol. 3, pp. 375–450; Z, vol. ga, pp.
530–608.
•
Text Ci entitled Chos rje dags po lha rje’i gsung / mar pa’i tshigs bcad
ma’i ’grel pa, containing (1) the root text being the Eight Verses of Mar pa
Chos kyi blo gros, followed by a commentary thereon explaining (2) rmi lam,
(3) rim pa lnga ldan gcig, (4) sgyu lus, (5) gtum mo, (6) bodhicitta. Page
references in some of the various editions: α, vol. Kha, 195v–99v; ABC, vol.
II, text Ci, 6 folios; D, vol. II, pp. 289–99; omitted from Y; Z, vol. nga, pp.
35–52.
The Collected Works of Gampopa are available in the following editions:
1.
2.
3.
siglum α: handwritten fourteenth or fifteenth century manuscript of unknown
origin; photocopies are presently in the possession of Gyaltrul Trungram
Sherpa Rinpoche and myself.
siglum A: the 1520 Dwags lha sgam po xylographic print belonging to
Chakphuk Tulku in Phole, Nepal, Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation
Project microfilm reel nos. L594/1 & L595/1, running no. L6086.
siglum B: the 1575 Mang yul gung thang xylograph produced by Byams pa
phun tshogs (b. sixteenth century), Nepal-German Manu-script Preservation
Project) microfilm reel nos. L118/3, L119/1 and L136/7, running nos. L1525
4.
and L1652.
siglum C: a later reprint of the Mang yul gung thang xylograph, date and
origin unknown, Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project microfilm
5.
6.
reel no. L247/4, running no. L2957.
siglum D: Sde dge xylograph, produced at the Sde dge par khang chos mdzod
chen mo in the eighteenth or nineteenth century, TBRC W22393.
siglum W: Selected Writings of Sgam-po-pa Bsod-nams-rin-chen published by
Topden Tshering, Tibetan Bonpo Monastic Centre, Dolanji, Himachal Pradesh,
1974, being a reproduction of an incomplete handwritten copy of the 1520
Dwags lha sgam po xylograph written in Tibetan cursive script, TBRC
7.
W23346. Contains only the sections until and including text Tsha.
siglum X: Collected works (gsung ’bum) of Sgam-po-pa Bsod-nams-rin-chen
published by Khasdub Gyatsho Shashin, Delhi, 1975, being a reproduction of
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
163
an incomplete handwritten copy of the 1520 Dwags lha sgam po xylograph
8.
written in Tibetan standard script.
siglum Y: Collected Works (gsung ’bum) of sGam po pa bSod Nams Rin
Chen published by Kargyud Nyamso Khang, 3 volumes, Darjee-ling, 1982,
being an incomplete reproduction of a handwritten copy of the 1520 Dwags
9.
lha sgam po xylograph written in Tibetan standard script, TBRC W23566.
siglum Z: Khams gsum chos kyi rgyal po dpal ldan mnyam med sgam po
pa ’gro mgon bsod nams rin chen mchog gi gsung ’bum yid bzhin nor bu,
published by Bla ma ’Phrin las rnam rgyal and Mkhan po Shes grub
bstan ’dzin, five volumes, Kathmandu, 2001, being a computer-typed pechastyle text based mainly on the Sde dge xylograph, TBRC W23439. Among
these modern reprints, the 1975 and the 1982 editions are those closest to the
readings of the first xylograph.
Dngul chu Dharma bha dra (1772-1851), nā ro chos drug commentary on Tsong kha
pa’s Yid ches gsum ldan treatise entitled Nā ro chos drug gi zin bris yid ches
dgongs rgyan found in Collected Works (gsuṅ ’bum) of Dṅul-chu DharmaBhadra, reproduced from a manuscript copy traced from prints of the Dṅulchu blocks by Champa Oser, New Delhi: Tibet House, 1973–81, vol. 8, TBRC
W20548–1311, pp. 383–471.
Cog grwa Mi pham bstan pa’i nyi ma (b. eighteenth century), nā ro chos drug yoga
exercise manuals found in Rtsib ri’i par ma compiled by ’Khrul zhig Padma
chos rgyal, vol. cha, TBRC W20749–1269:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Bsre ’pho’i ’khrul ’khor gyi rtsa tshig, pp. 379–91.
Bsre ’pho’i ’khrul ’khor spyi’i sngon rjes kyi rim pa rnams kyi zin bris brjed
byang blo dman dga’ bskyed, pp. 393–423.
Bsre ’pho las rtsa ba’i ’khrul ’khor nā ro chos drug skor gyi zin bris rjed
byang du bkod pa, pp. 423–32.
Bsre ’pho’i ’khrul ’khor yon tan kun ’byung las / sngon ’gro nyi shu pa’i
rtsa ’grel, pp. 432–42.
Lnga bcu pa’i ’grel pa, pp. 442–64.
Thig le nyi shu pa’i ’grel pa, pp. 464–73.
Bsre ’pho’i yig chung ’khrul ’khor gyi ’grel pa, pp. 473–78.
Thig le bcu gnyis pa’i ’grel pa, pp. 478–81.
Dbu ma’i ’khrul ’khor bco brgyad nang ’don gyi ’khrul ’khor, pp. 481–85.
164
Ulrich Timme Kragh
’Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas (1813–99), Gdams ngag mdzod: A Treasury
of Precious Methods and Instructions of the Major and Minor Buddhist
Traditions of Tibet, brought together and structured into a coherent system
by ’Jam-mgon Koṅ-sprul; edited from a set of the Dpal-spuṅs prints and
published at the order of H.H. Dingo Chhentse Rimpoche, Paro: Lama
Ngodrup and Sherab Drimey, 1979–81, v. 1–18, TBRC W20877:
•
Bka’ yang dag pa’i tshad ma zhes bya ba mkha’ ’gro ma’i man ngag
(*Ājñāsaṃyakpramāṇanāmaḍākinyupadeśa), Anonymous. vol. ja (W20877–
0138), pp. 69–89.
•
•
Snyan brgyud rdo rje’i tshig rkang (*Karṇatantravajrapāda), Anonymous. vol.
ja (W20877–0138), pp. 89–95.
Bka’ dpe che chung, also known as Grub chen nā ro pa’i gdams ngag chos
drug skor gyi bka’ dpe tshigs su bcad pa, Anonymous. vol. ja (W20877–0138),
pp. 95–106.
•
Chos drug gi man ngag (*Ṣaḍdharmopadeśa) by Ti lo pa, vol. ja (W20877–
0138), pp. 106–07.
•
Mkhas grub chen nā ro tā pas rnal ’byor gyi dbang phyug mar pa lo tsā la
gdams pa’i chos drug dril ba rdo rje’i mgur, attributed to Nā ro pa, vol. ja
(W20877–0138), pp. 108–09.
Rje btsun chen po mi la ras pas mdzad pa’i snyan brgyud gsal bar skor gsum
sogs by Mi la ras pa, vol. ja (W20877–0138), pp. 109–21.
’Jam gling pa Blo gros chos ’phel (1665–1727), gter ston of the ’Ba’ ra lineage of the
•
West Tibetan ’Brug pa bka’ brgyud (Stod ’brug), who revealed a manual
combining guru yoga, mahāmudrā and nā ro chos drug, entitled Rje blo gros
chos ’phel gyi zab gter / skyes mchog ’ba’ ra ba rgyal mtshan dpal bzang gis
mdzad pa’i bla sgrub phyag chen chos drug bcas mdor bsdus snying po dril ba,
found in ’Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas, Gdams ngag mdzod, vol.
tha (TBRC W20877–0141), pp. 349–82.
’Jam dbyangs Mkhyen brtse’i dbang po (1820–92), nā ro chos drug texts following the
snyan brgyud tradition found in ’Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas,
Gdams ngag mdzod, vol. nya (TBRC W20877–0139):
• Prayer to the snyan brgyud lineage entitled Bde mchog mkha’ ’gro snyan
brgyud pa yid bzhin nor bu la gsol ba ’debs pa byin rlabs dpal gter, pp. 61–64.
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
165
Nā ro chos drug manual entitled Bde mchog mkha’ ’gro snyan brgyud kyi lam
rim mdor bsdus pa yid bzhin nor bu’i snying po, pp. 64–102. According to its
colophon, it is based on the root texts of the snyan brgyud tradition by Mi la
ras pa and Ras chung pa called Tshig brgyud du gdams pa’i bum dbang yid
bzhin nor bu, steng sgo rnam grol chos drug, phyag rgya chen po ye shes gsal
byed and Lam blo nas gcod pa bar do ngo sprod kyi khrid yig, along with
Gtsang smyon He ru ka’s Rdo rje tshig rkang gi gzhung ’grel khrid yig zhal
shes and Kun mkhyen Grub thob dbang po’s Khrid yig chen mo.
’Jig rten mgon po Rin chen dpal (1143–1217), nā ro chos drug instructions found in his
collected works entitled Khams gsum chos kyi rgyal po thub dbang ratna shrī’i
phyi yi bka’ ’bum nor bu’i bang mdzod, Delhi: Drikung Kagyu Ratna Shri
•
Sungrab Nyamso Khang, 2001, TBRC W23743:
•
•
Gtum mo posture instruction entitled Gtum mo’i lus gnad dang bral na re ba
med ces pa, vol. 1 (W23743–2565), pp. 446–47.
’Pho ba instruction entitled ’Od gsal chen po’i ’pho ba’i gdams pa, vol. 1
(W23743–2565), pp. 449–50.
•
Prayer to the bka’ babs lineage entitled Bka’ babs brgyud pa’i mos gus kyi
dngos grub, vol. 1 (W23743–2565), pp. 503–06.
•
Excerpt from a song by Mi la ras pa explaining the nā ro chos drug tradition
entitled Rje nā ro’i gdams pa mi la’i thugs la shar ba rung rgang par spring pa,
vol. 2 (W23743–2566), pp. 295–98.
Tā la’i bla ma Skal bzang rgya mtsho (1708–57), record of received teachings entitled
Zab pa dang rgya che ba’i dam pa’i chos kyi thob yig rin chen dbang gi rgyal
po’i do shal, found in The Collected Works (gsuṅ ’bum) of the Seventh Dalai
Lama Blo-bzaṅ-bskal-bzang-rgya-mtsho, reproduced from a set of prints from
the 1945 ’Bras-spuṅs blocks from the library of the Ven. Dhardo Rinpoche by
Lama Dodrup Sangye, Gangtok: Sherab Gyaltsen Palace Monastery, 1983, vol.
XI, TBRC W2623–2334, pp. 1–769.
Stag lung pa Ngag gi dbang po (dates unknown), nā ro chos drug manual entitled Dpal
nā ro pa’i chos drug gi khrid yig yid bzhin nor bu, found in Phyag chen khrid
yig of Ngag-dban-bstan-pa’i-ñi-ma and other texts on the Mahāmudrā and Nā
ro chos drug precepts of Stag-luṅ-pa dkar-brgyud-pa tradition, reproduced
from manuscripts from the library of Ri-bo-che Rje-drung Rin-po-che of
Padma-bkod by Tseten Dorji, Tezu: Tibetan Nyingma Monastery, 1973,
166
Ulrich Timme Kragh
TBRC W20522–0599, pp. 271–313. Based on notes made by Stag lung thang
pa Bkra shis dpal (1142–1209/1210) from the teachings of Phag mo gru pa.
Stag lung pa Ngag dbang bstan pa’i nyi ma (b. 1788), Snyan brgyud rdo rje’i tshig
rkang commentary entitled Snyan brgyud rdo rje’i tshig rkang gi ’grel bshad
zab lam chu bo kun ’dus nor bu’i ’byung gnas, written in 1837–38, facsimile
of an dbu med manuscript from the library of Ri-bo-che-rje-drung of Padmabkod, published by Tseten Dorji, Tezu (Arunachal Pradesh): Tibetan Nyingma
Monastery, 1974, 2 volumes, TBRC W21550–0387 and W21550–0388.
Stag lung pa Nam mkha’ dpal bzang po (1333–79), nā ro chos drug manual entitled
Chos drug rdo rje’i gzhung, found in ’Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’
yas, Gdams ngag mdzod, vol. tha (TBRC 20877–0141), pp. 327–47.
Ti lo pa (c. 928–1009):
•
Chos drug gi man ngag (*Ṣaḍdharmopadeśa), translated in Tibetan by Nā ro
pa and Mar pa, found in the following editions:
o
o
o
Q. 4630, Peking xylograph Bstan ’gyur, 1724.
Dga’ ldan handwritten Golden Bstan ’gyur, 1731–41.
D. 2330, Sde dge xylograph Bstan ’gyur, 1737–44, vol. rgyud zhi pa,
folios 270a–71a.
o
o
o
Snar thang xylograph Bstan ’gyur, 1741–42.
Co ne xylograph Bstan ’gyur, 1753–73.
’Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas, Gdams ngag mdzod (see
above).
o
•
Torricelli 1996a: 147–50.
Snyan brgyud transmission entitled Rje btsun ras chung pa’i lugs kyi
dpal ’khor lo sdom pa snyan brgyud gyi gzhung chung tilli pas mdzad pa, but
according to its colophon also known as Yid bzhin nor bu zhes bya ba mkha'
'gro ma’i gsang tshig tilli pas bkod pa, found in ’Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo
gros mtha’ yas, Gdams ngag mdzod, vol. ja, TBRC W20877–0138, pp. 467–75.
Rtogs ldan Shākya shrī (1853–1919):
•
Nā ro chos drug lineage prayer entitled Zab chos nā ro chos drug gi
brgyud ’debs gsang chen rol mo’i sgra dbyangs found in Rtsib ri’i par ma
compiled by ’Khrul zhig Padma chos rgyal, vol. cha, TBRC W20749–1269, pp.
365–77.
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
•
167
Snyan brgyud ’pho ba instruction entitled Snyan brgyud gsang ba’i mthar thug
las / lam zab mo ’pho ba’i gdams pa snying gi thig le found in Rtsib ri’i par
ma compiled by ’Khrul zhig Padma chos rgyal, vol. ja, TBRC W20749–1270,
pp. 113–27. The text is also found in Grub dbang shākya shrī jnyā na’i
gsung ’bum, published by Khenpo Shedup Tenzin and Lama Thinley Namgyal,
Kathmandu: Shri Gautam Buddha Vihara, 1998, TBRC W23563–2156), pp.
429–42.
Thub bstan phun tshogs and Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho, ’phrul ’khor dpe ris kyi
mchan ’grel, printed in Rtsa rlung ’phrul ’khor, ed. Thub bstan phun tshogs,
Chengdu: Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1995, pp. 35–60.
Dwags po Bkra shis rnam rgyal (c. 1512–87), nā ro chos drug manual of the Dwags po
bka’ brgyud tradition entitled Zab lam chos drug gi khrid yig chen mo gsang
chen gyi de nyid gsal ba in Gdams ngag mdzod: A Treasury of Precious
Methods and Instructions of the Major and Minor Buddhist Traditions of Tibet,
brought together and structured into a coherent system by ’Jam-mgon Koṅsprul; edited from a set of the Dpal-spuṅs prints and published at the order of
H.H. Dingo Chhentse Rimpoche, Paro: Lama Ngodrup and Sherab Drimey,
1979–81, vol. nya, TBRC W20877–0139, pp. 253–344.
Bde chen chos ’khor yongs ’dzin Dge legs bzhad pa (1677–1719), bar do manual
entitled Bar do gsol ’debs kyi ’grel pa ’khrul mun gsal ba’i sgron me found in
Rtsib ri’i par ma compiled by ’Khrul zhig Padma chos rgyal, vol. ja, TBRC
W20749–1270, pp. 61–92.
Bde chen chos ’khor yongs ’dzin ’Jam dpal dpa’ bo (1720–80), nā ro chos drug texts
found in Rtsib ri’i par ma compiled by ’Khrul zhig Padma chos rgyal, vol. cha,
TBRC W20749–1269:
•
Large nā ro chos drug treatise entitled Dpal nā ro chos drug gi khrid yig gsal
byed zung ’jug mchog gi nges gnas, pp. 93–309.
• Gtum mo manual entitled Dpal nā ro chos drug las rtsa ba tsaṇḍā lī dang po’i
las can rnams kyi bgo skal du rnam par phye ba’i zin bris skal bzang ku mu
ta ’dzum pa’i zla tshes, pp. 311–64.
Nā ro pa (c. 956–1040), Mkhas grub chen nā ro tā pas rnal ’byor gyi dbang phyug mar
pa lo tsā la gdams pa’i chos drug dril ba rdo rje’i mgur in the following
editions:
168
Ulrich Timme Kragh
•
Sgra bsgyur mar pa lo tstsha’i rnam thar mthong ba don ldan written by
Gtsang smyon he ru ka rus pa’i rgyan can (1452–1507) in 1505, xylograph
published by Kagyu Tekchen Shedra Institute for Mahayana Buddhist Studies,
Rumtek Monastery, Sikkim, from a xylograph kept in Apho Rinpoche’s
monastery in Manali, folios 54a–55a.
•
•
’Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas, Gdams ngag mdzod (see above).
Torricelli 1996a: 157–59.
Padma dkar po (1527–92), Collected Works (gsuṅ ’bum) of Kun-mkhyen Padma-dkar-
po, reproduced photographically from the 1920–28 Gnam ’Brug Se-ba Byaṅchub-gliṅ blocks, Forest View Villa, West Point, Darjeeling, W.B.: Kargyud
Sungrab Nyamso Khang, 1974, TBRC W10736:
•
•
•
Record of received teachings entitled Bka’ brgyud kyi bka’ ’bum gsil bu
rnams kyi gsan yig, vol. 4 (TBRC W10736–1243), pp. 309–496.
List of nā ro chos drug sources (verbatim excerpt from the gsan yig listed
above) entitled Rje btsun nā ro chen po’i bsre ’pho skor gyi tho yig nyin
byed ’od kyi snang byed, vol. 22 (TBRC W10736–1261), pp. 1–5.
Extensive nā ro chos drug manual entitled Jo bo nā ro pa’i khyad chos
bsre ’pho’i khrid rdo rje’i theg par bgrod pa’i shing rta chen po, vol. 22
(TBRC W10736–1261), pp. 7–263.
•
Short nā ro chos drug manual entitled Chos drug bsdus pa’i zin bris, vol. 22
(TBRC W10736–1261), pp. 265–301. Another edition is found in Rtsib ri’i par
ma, compiled by ’Khrul zhig Padma chos rgyal, vol. cha, TBRC W20749–
1269, pp. 45–92. An edition is also found in ’Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo gros
mtha’ yas, Gdams ngag mdzod, vol. tha (TBRC W20877–0141), pp. 65–89.
Another edition is found in Phyag chen khrid yig of Ngag-dban-bstan-pa’i-ñima and other texts on the Mahāmudrā and Nā ro chos drug precepts of Stagluṅ-pa dkar-brgyud-pa tradition, reproduced from manuscripts from the library
of Ri-bo-che Rje-drung Rin-po-che of Padma-bkod by Tseten Dorji, Tezu:
Tibetan Nyingma Monastery, 1973, made available by TBRC W20522–0599),
pp. 529–63. Another edition is found in Na ro chos drug texts of the ’Brug-pa
Dkar-brgyud-pa traditions: a collection of rare texts on the Six Doctrines of
Naropa, 1978, Thimphu: Kunsang Topgay, TBRC W23652–2393, pp. 13–154.
Still another edition is found in Rtsa rlung ’phrul ’khor, edited by Thub bstan
phun tshogs, Chengdu, Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1995, pp. 449–84.
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
169
An English translation is given in Evans-Wentz 1935: 155ff. An outline (sa
•
bcad) is given by Torricelli 1996a: 159–65.
Nā ro chos drug manual entitled Bsre ’pho’i lam dbye bsdu, vol. 22 (TBRC
W10736–1261), pp. 303–633. Another edition is found in Rtsib ri’i par ma,
compiled by ’Khrul zhig Padma chos rgyal, vol. ba, TBRC W20749–1278, pp.
1–417.
•
•
•
Extensive nā ro chos drug commentary on the root text Bka’ yang dag pa’i
tshad ma entitled Jo bo nā ro pa’i khyad chos bsre ’pho’i gzhung ’grel rdo
rje ’chang gi dgongs pa gsal bar byed pa, vol. 23 (TBRC W10736–1262), pp.
1–634. Another edition is found in Rtsib ri’i par ma compiled by ’Khrul zhig
Padma chos rgyal, vol. pha, TBRC W20749–1277, pp. 1–797.
Brief outline of the nā ro chos drug teachings entitled Khyad chos bsre ’pho’i
sa bcad nā ro ta pa’i zhal gyi lung, vol. 23 (TBRC W10736–1262), pp. 635–45.
Manual for the nā ro chos drug preliminary practices entitled Thun mong ma
yin pa’i sngon ’gro found in Phyag chen khrid yig of Ngag-dban-bstan-pa’i-ñima and other texts on the Mahāmudrā and Nā ro chos drug precepts of Stagluṅ-pa dkar-brgyud-pa tradition, reproduced from manuscripts from the library
of Ri-bo-che Rje-drung Rin-po-che of Padma-bkod by Tseten Dorji, Tezu:
Tibetan Nyingma Monastery, 1973, TBRC W20522–0599, pp. 565–71.
Paṇ chen bla ma Blo bzang chos kyi rgyal mtshan (1570–1662), nā ro chos drug
manual relying on Nā ro pa’s song to Mar pa entitled Nā ro chos drug gi zab
khrid gser gyi lde mig. In Paṇ chen bla ma blo bzang chos kyi rgyal mtshan
gyi gsung ’bum, reproduced from prints of the Tashi Lhünpo blocks, New
Delhi: Mongolian Lama Gurudev, 1973, vol. nga, TBRC W23430–1639, pp.
649–64.
Dpal ’byor don grub (fifteenth century), mdo sngags thams cad kyi rgyal po rgyud sde
bzhi’i rtsa ba ma rgyud thams cad kyi snying po bskyed rim lhan cig skyes ma
rdzogs rim rlung sems gnyis med gsal bar ston pa dpal n ā ro pa chen po’i
chos drug nyams len gsal ba’i sgron me, printed in Rtsa rlung ’phrul ’khor, ed.
Thub bstan phun tshogs, Chengdu: Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1995, pp.
61–448.
Phag mo gru pa Rdo rje rgyal po (1110–70), nā ro chos drug manuals found in his
collected works entitled Dus gsum sangs rgyas thams cad kyi thugs rje’i rnam
rol dpal ldan phag gru rdo rje rgyal po mchog gi gsung ’bum rin po che,
170
Ulrich Timme Kragh
published by Khenpo Shedup Tenzin and Lama Thinley Namgyal, Kathmandu:
Gam-po-pa Library, 2003, TBRC W23891:
•
Versified nā ro chos drug manual on all the yogas entitled Chos drug gi thabs
lam bar do’i dmar khrid dam thabs lam tshigs bcad ma, vol. 4 (TBRC
W23891–3168), pp. 1–51.
•
Prose nā ro chos drug manual entitled Thabs lam lhug pa ma, vol. 4 (TBRC
W23891–3168), pp. 53–108.
•
•
Nā ro chos drug manual entitled Thabs lam tshigs bcad pa’i lhan thabs rin
chen gter mdzod, vol. 4 (TBRC W23891–3168), pp.109–40.
Exposition of the channels and winds entitled Rtsa rlung rgyu ’bras ma, vol. 4
(TBRC W23891–3168), pp. 141–74.
•
Explantion of the results of the yogas entitled Cig char rim gyis ngos sprod lus
dag ma dag gi rnam dbye thabs lam tshigs bcad ma’i ngo sprod, vol. 4 (TBRC
W23891–3168), pp. 175–86.
•
Versified explanation of the story of the mahāsiddha Kambalipā and his
system of yogas entitled Lwa ba pa’i thabs lam rdo rje’i tshig gsum dge ba’i
bshes gnyen grong pa la gnang ba gdams pa nying khu ma, vol. 4 (TBRC
W23891–3168), pp. 187–213.
•
Versified explanation of Kambalipā’s instructions on gtum mo, ’od gsal, rmi
lam, sgyu lus, ’pho ba and Lwa ba pa’i rdo rje’i tshig gsum entitled Lwa ba
pa’i zhal gdams skor la chos tshan drug, vol. 4 (TBRC W23891–3168), pp.
215–52.
•
Exposition of the nā ro chos drug lineage with short hagiographies and a brief
explanation of the nā ro chos drug instructions entitled Bla ma nā ro pa’i chos
•
drug gi bla ma brgyud pa’i rim pa dang gdams ngag gnad kyi dbye ba mdor
bsdus pa, vol. 8 (TBRC W23891–3172), pp. 462–83.
Versified explanation of gtum mo, rmi lam, sgyu lus and ’pho ba entitled
Thabs lam yid bzhin nor bu’i phreng ba, vol. 8 (TBRC W23891–3172), pp.
679–707.
Bu ston rin chen grub (1290–1364), Bstan ’gyur catalogue entitled Bstan ’gyur gyi dkar
chag yid bzhin nor bu dbang gi rgyal po’i phreng ba written in 1334, found in
Bu ston rin chen grub kyi gsung ’bum, the Lha sa Zhol edition, vol. la (26),
124 folios (pp. 405–647), TBRC W1934–0759.
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
171
Ben sgar ba ’Jam dpal bzang po (b. fifteenth century), nā ro chos drug lineage prayer
according to the Karma kaṃ tshang tradition entitled Chos drug gi nyes
brgyud zung ’jug brgyud pa’i gsol ’debs smon lam dang bcas pa in Nā ro chos
drug gi khrid skor: a collection of texts for the practice of the Six Precepts of
Nāropa according to the method transmitted by the masters of the Kam-tshang
Bka’-brgyud-pa tradition, reproduced from manuscript material brought from
Tibet through the efforts of Bla-ma Nor-bla, Delhi: Karlo, 1985, TBRC
W23641–2289, pp. 15–21.
Brag dkar sngags rams pa Blo bzang bstan pa rab rgyas (b. seventeenth century), nā ro
chos drug manual relying on Tsong kha pa’s Yid ches gsum ldan treatise
entitled Chos drug yid ches gsum ldan gyi yang snying dmar khrid sku gsum
nor bu’i gling du bgrod pa’i gru gzings, found in Blo bzang bstan pa rab rgyas
kyi gsung ’bum, rong po dgon chen xylograph, vol. 1, TBRC W28897–4821),
section ā, pp. 631–65.
’Ba’ mda’ Dge legs (1844–1904), nā ro chos drug works contained in ’Ba’ mda’ dge
legs kyi gsung ’bum, lithographic printing, ’Dzam thang (rnga ba rdzong),
1990s, vol. tsa, available from TBRC W23899–3223 (for research on this
gsung ’bum, refer to Kapstein 1997):
• Zab lam nā ro chos drug gi nyams len khrid yig bde chen ye shes rdo rje, pp.
1–175.
• Zab lam nā ro chos drug gi sngon ’gro’i lam gyi khrid yig theg chen lam
bzang, pp. 177–229.
• Gtum mo sgyu lus ’od gsal gsum gyi nyams len mdor bsdus phan bde’i snang
ba, pp. 283–92.
• Dpal ’khor lo sdom pa chen po’i lam gyi rim pa nā ro chos drug gi spyi don
rnam par nges pa dngos grub snye ma, pp. 301–604.
’Bri gung Kun dga’ rin chen (1475–1527), nā ro chos drug treatise entitled Zab lam
chos drug gi khrid gyi lhan thabs sbas don kun gsal. In Miscellaneous
Writings (bka’ ’bum thor bu) of ’Bri-gung Chos-rje Kun-dga’-rin-chen,
reproduced from a rare manuscript from the library of Tokden Rinpoche of
Gangon, Smanrtsis shesrig spendzod 27, Leh: Tashigangpa, 1972, pp. 385–413.
According to its colophon, the text was authored by Rdo rje ’dzin pa mi
bskyod rdo rje.
172
Ulrich Timme Kragh
’Bri gung rig ’dzin Chos kyi grags pa (1595–1659), Kun mkhyen rig pa ’dzin pa chen
po chos kyi grags pa’i gsung ’bum, Dehra Dun: Drikung Kagyu Institute, 1999,
vol. 13, TBRC W22082–2192:
•
•
Prayer to the teachers of the nā ro chos drug lineage entitled Zab lam nā ro’i
chos drug gi bla ma brgyud pa’i gsol ’debs mdor bsdus, pp. 95–98.
Prayer to the teachers of the nā ro chos drug lineage entitled Nā ro’i chos drug
gi rtogs pa don gyi brgyud pa’i bla mar gsol ba ’debs pa’i tshig nyung ngur
byas pa, pp. 99–103. Another edition is found in ’Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo
gros mtha’ yas, Gdams ngag mdzod, vol. ta (TBRC W20877–0140), pp. 523–
25.
•
•
Prayer to the teachers of the nā ro chos drug lineage entitled Zab lam nā ro’i
chos drug gi bka’ bab nyams dang rtogs pa byin rlabs kyi bla ma brgyud pa’i
gsol ’debs dad pa’i lang tsho, pp. 105–12.
Short nā ro chos drug manual entitled Chos drug dril ba’i gdams pa, pp. 113–
23. Another edition is found in ’Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas,
•
•
’Brug
’Brug
Gdams ngag mdzod, vol. ta (TBRC W20877–0140), pp. 515–21.
Large nā ro chos drug treatise entitled Zab lam nā ro’i chos drug gi khrid kyi
lag len gsal bar bshad pa nā ro zhabs kyi gyi lung bzang po, pp. 125–284.
Gtum mo and ’pho ba instructions received by ’Bri gung rig ’dzin Chos kyi
grags pa in a vision of Nā ro pa entitled ’Khrul snang du dpal nā ro pas gnang
ba’i tsa lī dang ’pho ba zab pa, pp. 285–91.
chen kun gzigs Chos kyi snang ba (1768–1822), nā ro chos drug manual entitled
Nā ro chos drug gi khrid kyi dmigs rim snying po bsdus pa gsang ba’i don
gsal found in Rtsib ri’i par ma, compiled by ’Khrul zhig Padma chos rgyal,
vol. ja, TBRC W20749–1270, pp. 1–60.
chen rgyal dbang Kun dga’ dpal ’byor (1429–76), nā ro chos drug manual
entitled Dpal nā ro chos drug gi khrid yig mchog gi gru chen dang gsang
spyod zlog sgom kyi khrid yig zil non seng ge’i nga ro in Collected Works
(gsuṅ ’bum) of Rgyal-dbaṅ rje Kun-dga’ dpal-’byor, reproduced from tracings
of prints from Punakha completed with sections from the Chos-rgyal-lhun-po
redaction, Darjeeling: Kargyud Sungrab Nyamso Khang, 1982, vol. 2, TBRC
W10954–0837, pp. 173–209.
Bla ma Zhang Brtson ’grus grags pa (1123–93), an untitled collection of nā ro chos
drug instructions simply marked chos drug in Bla ma zhang brtson ’grus grags
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
173
pa’i gsung ’bum dang bka’ rgya ma’i skor, Kangding: facsimile of handwritten
manuscript formerly kept at the Nationalities Library in Beijing, vol. 3, TBRC
W13994–3027, pp. 170–219.
Mar pa Chos kyi blo gros (1002/1012–97):
•
•
Nā ro chos drug commentary attributed to Mar pa but of uncertain authorship
entitled Gegs sel yid bzhin nor bu gsal byed snying po contained in Rtsib ri’i
par ma compiled by ’Khrul zhig padma chos rgyal, vol. cha, TBRC W20749–
1269, pp. 487–579. The text is a commentary within the snyan brgyud
transmission on Ti lo pa’s instruction text called Yid bzhin nor bu zhes bya ba
mkha’ ’gro ma’i gsang tshig; cf. s.v. Ti lo pa.
Partial nā ro chos drug exposition in eight verses entitled Tshigs bcad brgyad
ma found at the beginning of the commentary Chos rje dags po lha rje’i gsung
/ mar pa’i tshigs bcad brgyad ma’i ’grel pa in the various editions of the
collected works of Sgam po pa Bsod nams rin chen, section Ci; see above.
•
An unavaible or non-extant text entitled Chos drug sras don ma, listed by
Dpal ’byor don grub (p. 65) in Mdo sngags thams cad kyi rgyal po rgyud sde
bzhi’i rtsa ba ma rgyud thams cad kyi snying po bskyed rim lhan cig skyes ma
rdzogs rim rlung sems gnyis med gsal bar ston pa dpal nā ro pa chen po’i chos
drug nyams len gsal ba’i sgron me, published within Rtsa rlung ’phrul ’khor,
edited by Thub bstan phun tshogs, Chengdu, Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang,
1995, pp. 61–448.
•
Bde mchog snyan brgyud kyi gtum mo dang thabs lam gyi ’phrul ’khor,
attributed to Mar pa, published within Rtsa rlung ’phrul ’khor, edited by Thub
bstan phun tshogs, Chengdu: Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1995, pp. 1–
20
Mi la ras pa (or Mid la ras pa, 1052–1135), nā ro chos drug texts found in ’Jam mgon
Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas, Gdams ngag mdzod:
•
Cycle of three songs on nā ro chos drug entitled Rje btsun chen po mi la ras
pas mdzad pa’i snyan brgyud gsal bar skor gsum, vol. ja (TBRC W20877–
0138), pp. 109–21.
•
Nā ro chos drug text reflecting the instruction of Mi la ras pa to Ras chung pa
belonging to the snyan brgyud tradition entitled Gsang dbang dang ’brel ba
steng sgo rnam par grol ba’i chos drug gi khrid yig compiled by Rdo rje rgyal
mtshan (unidentified), vol. nya (TBRC W20877–0138), pp. 501–33.
174
Ulrich Timme Kragh
Bar do instruction entitled Bde mchog snyan brgyud kyi lam blo nas gcod pa
bar do ngo sprod kyi gdams ngag zab mo, compiled by Rdo rje rgyal mtshan,
vol. nya (TBRC W20877–0138), pp. 21–38.
Tsong kha pa Blo bzang grags pa (1357–1419), The Collected Works (gsung ’bum) of
the Incomparable Lord Tsong kha pa Blo bzang grags pa, Sku ’bum byams pa
•
gling par khang xylograph in 19 volumes, TBRC W22272:
•
Large nā ro chos drug treatise entitled Zab lam nā ro’i chos drug gi sgo
nas ’khrid pa’i rim pa yid ches gsum ldan, vol. ta (TBRC W22272–0681), pp.
395–525. English translations by Chang (1961: 123–282) and Mullin (1996).
•
Short nā ro chos drug manual entitled Nā ro chos drug gi dmigs skor lag tu len
tshul bsdus pa rje’i gsung bzhin sems dpa’ chen po kun bzang pas bkod pa,
written by Kun bzang pa (unidentified) on the basis of Tsong kha pa’s oral
explanation, vol. ta (TBRC W22272–0681), pp. 527–66. English translation by
Mullin (1997): 93–135.
Gtsang smyon He ru ka Rus pa’i rgyan can (1452–1507), hagiography of Mar pa
entitled Sgra bsgyur mar pa lo tstsha’i rnam thar mthong ba don ldan written
in 1505; see also under “Nā ro pa” above.
Tshe mchog gling yongs ’dzin Ye shes rgyal mtshan (1713–93), short nā ro chos drug
manual relying implicitly on Tsong kha pa’s Yid ches gsum ldan treatise
entitled Nā ro chos drug gi khrid dmigs kyi bsdus don yid ches gsum ldan gyi
snying po gsang ba’i mdzod brgya ’byed pa’i lde mig, found in The Collected
Works (gsuṅ ’bum) of Tshe-mchog-gliṅ Yoṅs-’dzin Ye-śes-rgyal-mtshan,
reproduced from a set of the Tshe-mchog-gliṅ blocks, New Delhi: Tibet House
Library, 1974, vol. 12, TBRC W1022–1226, pp. 55–71.
Zhwa dmar pa Dkon mchog yan lag (1525–83), untitled nā ro chos drug lineage prayer
according to the Karma kaṃ tshang tradition in Nā ro chos drug gi khrid skor:
a collection of texts for the practice of the Six Precepts of Nāropa according to
the method transmitted by the masters of the Kam-tshang Bka’-brgyud-pa
tradition, reproduced from manuscript material brought from Tibet through the
efforts of Bla-ma Nor-bla, Delhi: Karlo, 1985, TBRC W23641–2289, pp. 11–
14.
Zhwa dmar pa Gar dbang chos kyi dbang phyug (1584–1630), nā ro chos drug manual
entitled Zab lam nā ro’i chos drug gi nyams len thun chos bdud rtsi’i nying
khu zhes bya ba sgrub brgyud karma kaṃ tshang gi don khrid in Nā ro chos
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
175
drug gi khrid skor: a collection of texts for the practice of the Six Precepts of
Nāropa according to the method transmitted by the masters of the Kam-tshang
Bka’-brgyud-pa tradition, reproduced from manuscript material brought from
Tibet through the efforts of Bla-ma Nor-bla, Delhi: Karlo, 1985, TBRC
W23641–2289, pp. 35–107. Another edition is found in ’Jam mgon Kong
sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas, Gdams ngag mdzod, vol. ta (TBRC W20877–140),
pp. 193–229.
Zhu chen Tshul khrims rin chen (1697–1774), Bstan ’gyur catalogue entitled Kun
mkhyen nyi ma’i gnyen gyi bka’ lung gi dgongs don rnam par ’grel pa’i bstan
bcos gangs can pa’i skad du ’gyur ro ’tshal gyi chos sbyin rgyun mi ’chad pa’i
ngo mtshar ’phrul gyi phyi mo rdzogs ldan bskal pa’i bsod nams kyi sprin
phung rgyas par dkrigs pa’i tshul las brtsams pa’i gtam ngo mtshar chu
gter ’phel ba’i zla ba gsar pa, 503 folios, found in Sde dge Bstan ’gyur vol.
shrī (216), TBRC W23703–1531 and the index section of the text is available
in electronic form from ACIP at http://www.asianclassics.org/research_site/
webdata/monastic/open/html/R0059M.html.
Rong po grub chen Skal lden rgya mtsho (1607–77), concise nā ro chos drug manual
entitled Rdo rje ’dzin pa skal ldan rgya mtsho dpal bzang po’i gsung las nā
ro’i chos drug gi ’khrid grub pa’i mdzes rgyan, found in Shar skal ldan rgya
mtsho’i gsung ’bum, impressions from blocks preserved at Rong po mgon
chen, vol. nga, TBRC W9683–5170, pp. 127–46.
Si tu pa Padma nyin byed dbang po (1774–1853), nā ro chos drug texts in Nā ro chos
drug gi khrid skor: a collection of texts for the practice of the Six Precepts of
Nāropa according to the method transmitted by the masters of the Kam-tshang
Bka’-brgyud-pa tradition, reproduced from manuscript material brought from
Tibet through the efforts of Bla-ma Nor-bla, Delhi: Karlo, 1985, TBRC
W23641–2289:
•
Text for the nā ro chos drug preliminary practices according to the Karma kaṃ
tshang tradition entitled Chos drug bdud rtsi nying khu’i sngon ’gro dngos
grub myur stsol, pp. 23–34. Another edition is found in ’Jam mgon Kong sprul
Blo gros mtha’ yas, Gdams ngag mdzod, vol. ta (TBRC W20877–0140), pp.
185–91.
176
Ulrich Timme Kragh
Nā ro chos drug manual entitled Zab lam nā ro chos drug gi / ’phrul ’khor zin
bris mthong tsam gyis / khong chud don dang ldan pa yi / gsung rgyun go bde
rab gsal, pp. 259–84.
A khu ching shes rab rgya mtso (1803–875), nā ro chos drug notes based on Tsong kha
pa’s Yid ches gsum ldan treatise entitled Yid ches gsum ldan gyi bshad lung
zin bris dang / sgrol ma’i rjes gnang gi zin tho, found in A khu ching shes rab
rgya mtsho’i gsung ’bum, facsimile of the Lha sa Zhol new printery xylograph,
•
TBRC W21505, vol. 2 (TBRC W21505–2520), pp. 761–779. English translation by Mullin (1997): 43–70.
A jo rdzong pa Mi pham yar ’phel dbang po (1632–1704), ’pho ba manual entitled
Myur lam ’pho ba’i rnal ’byor dpal ’brug pa’i nyams bzhes ’jag tshugs ma
found in Rtsib ri’i par ma compiled by ’Khrul zhig padma chos rgyal, vol. ja,
TBRC W20749–1270, pp. 93–111.
A tra byang chub bzang po (b. sixteenth century), outline of Snyan brgyud rdo rje tshig
rkang entitled Rdo rje’i tshig rkang gi bsdus don gab pa mngon byung, edition
by Torricelli (1998): 414–22.
Western Language Sources
Chang, Garma C. C. 1961. Esoteric Teachings of the Tibetan Tantra, including seven
initiation rituals and the Six Yogas of Nāropā. The Falcon’s Wing Press, rprt.
New York: Weiser, 1982.
Evans-Wentz, W.Y. 1935. Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines – or, seven books of
wisdom of the great path, according to the late Lāma Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s
English rendering, London: Oxford University Press.
Kapstein, M.T. 1997. From Dol-po-pa to ’Ba’-mda’ Dge-legs: Three Jo-nang-pa
Masters on the Interpretation of Prajñāpāramitā. In Tibetan Studies: Proceed-
ings of the Seventh Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan
Studies, ed. Ernst Steinkellner et al. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences,
vol. 1, pp. 457–75
Mullin, G.H. 1996. The Six Yogas of Naropa: Tsong kha pa’s commentary entitled A
Book of Three Inspirations: A Treatise on the Stages of Training in the
Profound Path of Naro’s Six Dharmas commonly referred to as The Three
Inspirations, reprinted 2005 (its 1996 title was Tsong kha pa’s Six Yogas of
Naropa), Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications.
Prolegomenon to the Six Doctrines of Nā ro pa
177
—— 1997. Readings on the Six Yogas of Naropa, Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications.
Schaeffer, K.R. & L.W.J. van der Kuijp. 2009. An Early Tibetan Survey of Buddhist
Literature – The Bstan pa rgyas pa rgyan gyi nyi 'od of Bcom ldan ral gri,
Harvard Oriental Series, Cambridge (Massachusetts): The Department of
Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University.
Shen Weirong 沈衛榮. 2005. Studies on Chinese Texts of the Yogic Practices of
Tibetan Tantric Buddhism found in Khara Khoto of Tangut Xia (I):
Quintessential Instruction on the Illusory Body of Dream. Cahiers d’Extrême-
Asie 15: 187-230.
Torricelli, F. 1996a. The Tibetan Text of Ti lo pa’s Ṣaḍdharmopadeśa. East and West
46: 145–66.
—— 1996b. A Tanjur Text on gTum-mo: Tôhoku no. 2332 – I. The Tibet Journal 21:
30–46.
—— 1997. The Tanjur Text of the Ājñāsaṃyakpramāṇa-nāma-ḍākinyupadeśa. East and
West 47: 249–69.
—— 1998. The Tibetan Text of the Karṇatantravajrapada. East and West 48: 385–423.
THE AURAL TRANSMISSION OF SAṂVARA: AN
INTRODUCTION TO NEGLECTED SOURCES FOR THE
STUDY OF THE EARLY BKA’ BRGYUD
MARTA SERNESI
Among the traditions descending from Mar pa Lo tsā ba Chos kyi lo gros
stands the transmission known as The Aural Transmission of Saṃvara (Bde
mchog snyan brgyud). This tradition has been so far mostly ignored, apart from
sparse references, by researchers.1 I suggest here that its study provides
valuable insights and materials for the reconstruction of the historical
development and doctrinal literature of the early Bka’ brgyud.
The teachings of the Aural Transmission of Saṃvara have been handed
down as the esoteric core of Mi la ras pa’s instructions, the tantric transmission
he granted to his closest disciples and preserved by them. A number of
significant texts, both instructional and hagiographical, which belong to this
1
For an extensive study of the Aural Transmission, and a fuller treatement of the issues
and sources dealt with in this paper, see Sernesi 2007, now in course of thorough
revision for publication. For references to the Aural Transmission, see Smith 1969,
1970b; Ehrhard 2004, 2010, forthcoming; Martin 1996, 2005; Quintman 2006. Less
well-known articles by Torricelli (1998, 2000, 2002) deal directly with the tradition.
See also Sernesi 2004. Herein, I consider mainly the published compendia now
available to me: DCNG1, DCNG2, DCNG4, RKT, NZNG, DCNGbio (see
bibliography). A small number of significant texts of the tradition has been included
also into the Gdams ngag mdzod and the Rtsib ri spar ma. A survey of the texts of the
tradition found within the Nepalese-German Manuscript Preservation Project (NGMPP)
collection could not be included here and will be presented in a separate study.
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Marta Sernesi
tradition, are attributed to the early masters of the lineage, and were most likely
codified by the beginning of the thirteenth century.
According to tradition, the Aural Transmission was handed down in a
successive lineage stemming from Vajradhara and passing through Tilopa,
Nāropa, Mar pa and Mi la ras pa. The latter instructed both Ras chung Rdo rje
grags pa and Ngan rdzong Byang chub rgyal po, who initiated their lineages,
called respectively the Aural Transmission of Ras chung pa (Ras chung snyan
brgyud) and the Aural Transmission of Ngan rdzong pa (Ngan rdzong snyan
brgyud).2 The main lineage passed through Ras chung pa’s disciple Khyung
tshang pa down to Zhang Lo tsā ba (d. 1237), and later to Gzi brjid rgyal
mtshan (1290–1360), after whom it diversified into many branches. We have a
single hagiographical source on the main lineage of the Aural Transmission,
probably compiled in the fourteenth century. This work of the gser ’phreng
genre is composed of twelve independent rnam thars recounting the life stories
of the masters from Mi la ras pa down to Gzi brjid pa.3 After this master, the
2
The dates of Mi la ras pa and Ras chung pa are usually given as 1040–1123 and
1084–1161 respectively, even if the literary sources are not unanimous on this matter.
For a discussion of the life-span of Mi la ras pa, see Quintman 2006: 444–53; for the
birth and death dates of Ras chung pa, see Roberts 2007: 86–88, 229–30. Ngan rdzong
Byang chub rgyal po is one of the main disciples of Mi la ras pa. His name is recorded
also as Ngan rdzong bo dhi rā dza, Ngan rdzong ston pa and Ngan rdzong ras pa, and
with the alternative spelling Ngam rdzong. A lineage passing through Sgam po pa,
called the Dwags po snyan brgyud, transmitting essential or abridged instructions, is
also sometimes mentioned in texts by Gtsang smyon’s school and later in the Gdams
ngag mdzod. However, this claim should be carefully evaluated and at present remains
problematic; it will therefore not be discussed here.
3
This collection is preserved in a single manuscript written in dbu med script which
was found at the Stag sna monastery in Ladakh and reproduced in Darjeeling (1983)
with the title Bde mchog snyan brgyud biographies (DCNGbio). Gzi brjid rgyal
mtshan’s biography was written in 1361 (’phar ba’i lo); thus, the compilation of the
collection may be tentatively dated to the 14th century (as also suggested by Roberts
The Aural Transmission of Saṃvara
181
transmission of the teachings was eventually received by Gtsang smyon He ru
ka (1452–1507) and Padma dkar po (1527–1592), who were responsible for a
revitalization of the tradition, its valorisation within the more institutional
branches of the Bka’ brgyud school, and for compiling the textual collections
we have today.
The Aural Transmission tradition has received little scholarly attention
so far, and it was considered a secondary transmission introduced in Tibet by
Ras chung pa, who received it in India from the siddha Ti phu pa. This
misunderstanding is based on the oft-quoted account found in the Blue Annals
(Roerich 1949: 437–38), in which ’Gos Lo tsā ba distinguishes between the Ras
chung snyan brgyud and the Bde mchog snyan brgyud as two distinct lineages
of transmission (respectively through Ras chung pa and Ngam rdzong pa) of
the Nine Instructions of the Formless Ḍākinīs (lus med mkha’ ’gro chos skor
dgu). This statement, however, is not supported by the tradition’s sources, and
thus cannot be accepted. These nine cycles of doctrines are only supplementary
teachings of the Aural Transmission, with their own distinct root-text and early
transmission-lineage, and do not represent the core of the tradition. Moreover,
the tradition in its entirety is generally called the Bde mchog snyan brgyud or
Mkha’ ’gro bde mchog snyan brgyud, while the expression Ras chung snyan
brgyud and Ngan rdzong snyan brgyud indicate the two main lineages of
transmission (see Sernesi 2004, 2007).4
2007: 17). This hagiographical tradition is the source of the Lho rong chos ’byung’s
section devoted to the Aural Transmission lineage (LRCB: 115–51), which summarises
and quotes verbatim the life-stories found in DCNGbio. Also, the opening gser ’phreng
of DCNG2 (fols. 7–312), called Brgyud pa yid bzhin nor bu’i rnam par thar pa
(GYZNB), is based, until Gzi brjid pa’s life-story, on the tradition reflected by the
DCNGbio manuscript. On these sources see Sernesi 2010.
4
The story of Ras chung pa’s trip to India to retrieve from the master Ti phu pa four
(or five) missing instructions of the nine-fold set is very well known, as it is one of the
main episodes of the master’s life narratives. This episode has been throughly studied
by Roberts (2007: 137–209), who compared its different versions. He, however, still
182
Marta Sernesi
1 The Root-text: The Snyan brgyud rdo rje’i tshig rkang
The textual collections of the Aural Transmission are composed of a large
number of texts different in genre and aims, written throughout the long history
of the tradition. Different layers of instructional, ritual, and exegetical literature
developed on the basis of a shared heritage of core texts attributed to the earlier
masters of the lineage. In this respect the structure of the Aural Transmission
corpus is similar to those of other Tibetan esoteric traditions, like the Shangs pa
Bka’ brgyud, the Sa skya Lam ’bras, or the treasure systems. There is a
recognizable root-text that has the status of revealed scripture, called the Snyan
(b)rgyud rdo rje’i tshig rkang, which is held to reflect teachings imparted by
Vajradhara to his consort and then granted by Jñānaḍākinī to the siddha
Tilopa.5 According to the colophon, the verses were later transmitted by
Nāropa to Mar pa, who translated them into Tibetan at Pullaharī.6
did not properly distinguish between the two sets of teachings of the Aural
Transmission of Saṃvara and of the Nine Instructions of the Formless Ḍākinīs, confusing the two at the very beginning of his introduction (Roberts 2007: 1). Note that in
Ras chung pa’s biographies the transmission from Mi la ras pa of the snyan brgyud
teachings is recounted in a separate section from Ras chung pa’s trip to India, and is
always said to be complete (yongs su rdzogs pa). For the reader not misled by the Blue
Annals, the issue is never ambiguous.
5
The text is edited and translated in Torricelli 1998. It is included in the Bstan-’gyur
(Tōh 2338), and circulated widely. It is found in the Aural Transmission Collections
(DCNG1, vol. 2: 1–6; DCNG4, vol. 1: 95–104; RKT: 1–11), and in recent collections
of instructional texts such as the Gdams ngag mdzod (vol. 5: 89–94), and the Rtsib ri
spar ma (vol. 7: 159–69). It bears also a Sanskrit version of the title, namely
Karṇatantravajrapada, which would be translated as Snyan rgyud rdo rje’i tshig rkang,
a spelling of the title actually found in the collections. Nevertheless, Karṇatantravajrapada could be a later retro-translation, since in the textual tradition we find the
forms snyan brgyud and snyan rgyud used interchangeably.
6
The colophon states: rgya gar gyi mkhas grub nā ro paṇ chen gyi zhal snga dang/
bod kyi lo tsā ba mar pa chos kyi blo gros kyis puṣpa ha ri’i gnas chen du bsgyur cing
The Aural Transmission of Saṃvara
183
The root-text outlines a tantric path based on the practices of the
generation and completion stages of Cakrasaṃvara and Vajrayoginī,
culminating in those of the Six Doctrines (chos drug), Great Bliss (bde ba chen
po), and the Great Seal (phyag rgya chen po), respectively associated with the
three highest consecrations. These are followed by instructions on the bar do
and supplementary teachings. All these teachings are traditionally grouped into
three main cycles, or Wish-fulfilling Gems (yid bzhin nor bu skor gsum): the
Lineage Wish-fulfilling Gem (brgyud pa yid bzhin nor bu), the Wish-fulfilling
Gem of the Maturation-path (smin lam yid bzhin nor bu), and the Wishfulfilling Gem of the Liberation-path (grol lam yid bzhin nor bu).7 The Wish-
fulfilling Gem of the Liberation-path is subdivided into three more Wishfulfilling gems: the Common Wish-fulfilling Gem (thun mongs yid bzhin nor
bu), the Commitments’ Wish-fulfilling Gem (dam tshig yid bzhin nor bu), and
the Essential Wish-fulfilling Gem (gnas lugs yid bzhin nor bu).
The root-text of the Aural Transmission lacks this wording and any
numbering of the stages of the practice. It presents the instructions in sequence,
but introduces the different sections dedicated to the highest teachings with
zhus te gtan la phab pa’o//. “Translated and arranged in the great place of Puṣpahari in
the presence of the Indian accomplished scholar Nāropa by the Tibetan translator Mar
pa Chos kyi blo gros” (Torricelli 1998: 411–12). This would suggest that the vajrapāda
had already been redacted at the time of Mar pa Chos kyi blo gros. However, there are
no known Indian versions of this text, so that it is difficult to evaluate the reliability of
the colophon and to establish just when it was actually codified and set down in
scripture. The account of the entrustment of the teachings to Tilopa is the main story in
this master’s rnam thars; refer, for example, to Torricelli and Naga 1995 (which
provides a diplomatic edition and translation of GYZNB: 8–28), and sources quoted
there, pp. viii–xi.
7
On the Lineage Wish-fulfilling Gem, see below, and Sernesi 2010. The three Wish-
fulfilling Gems of the Aural Transmission are related to the three Buddha-bodies
(nirmāṇakāya, sambhogakāya and dharmakāya) and to the three levels of practice:
external (phyi), internal (nang), and secret (gsang).
184
Marta Sernesi
lines ending with the particles la or ni. From these lines originated a set of
fixed definitions for the tradition’s instructions, which was expanded to cover
all the stages of the path and is ubiquitously employed in later explanatory
literature (see the following table). For example, among the Six Doctrines of
Nāropa, the Inner Heat practice is referred to as gtum mo bde drod rang ’bar
(The Inner Heat, Self-igniting Warmth and Bliss), the Clear Light as ’od gsal
ma rig mun bral (Clear Light, To Transcend the Darkness of Ignorance), and so
on: these short labels are the standard way of naming the instructions of the
Aural Transmission, with minor variants in different texts.8 To my knowledge,
these are proper to the tradition, and therefore constitute a useful clue for the
identification of texts and teachings of the Aural Transmission. This technical
terminology was created by the early masters of the lineage simultaneously
with the production of the basic instructional texts, and was fixed by the
thirteenth century, at the time of Zhang Lo tsā ba.
2 The codification of the instructional core: Zhang Lo tsā ba
Zhang Lo tsā ba was the first systematiser of the Aural Transmission and thus
one of the most important masters of the lineage. A learned monk, according to
his life-stories he was trained by nearly seventy Tibetan masters, including
Nyang ral Nyi ma ’od zer (1124–1192), Ko brag pa Bsod nams rgyal mtshan
8
The original lines of the root-text are KT 16, KT 26, KT 36, KT 42, KT 50, KT 56,
KT 61, KT 80, following the numbering in Torricelli 1998 (see table). Note that the Six
Doctrines in the Aural Transmission tradition include the practice of transferring
consciousness into a corpse (grong ’jug). The bar do, called bar do lam blo nas gcod
pa, is not part of the six, and follows the Great Seal as a supplementary teaching. It is
explained in a text attributed to Mi la ras pa, titled Lam blo nas gcod pa ngo sprod bar
do’i gdams pa (DCNG2, vol. 2: 481–97; RKT: 47–76), which is briefly discussed in
Martin 1998 and Cuevas 2003: 52–53, who, however, does not link it with the Aural
Transmission tradition. On the Great Seal Illuminating Primordial Wisdom (phyag rgya
chen po ye shes gsal byed), see Sernesi 2008.
The Aural Transmission of Saṃvara
185
(1182–1261), and Khro phu lo tsā ba (1172–1236). He took vows from the
famed Indian master Śākyaśrī, during the latter’s stay in Tibet (1204–1214),
and he also travelled south to Nepal, where he studied with, among others, the
mahāpaṇḍita Ratnarakṣita.9
He received the Aural Transmission teachings of both the Ras chung
and Ngan rdzong transmissions. In particular, Ras chung pa’s disciple Khyung
tshang pa had four disciples to whom he passed the Aural Transmission, the
foremost being a woman, Ma gcig Ong jo. Her life-story is very brief and
schematised, but interestingly her influence was such that she was included in
the lineage histories between Khyung tshang pa and Zhang Lo tsā ba, two main
figures of the Aural Transmission, both monk-scholars credited with the
codification of a great number of texts. The transmission from the former to the
latter occurred thanks to this women, who preserved the personal items of her
master, including the books, and passed them to Zhang Lo tsā ba, but only
following the latter’s third request.10
9
Zhang Lo tsā ba must not be confused, of course, with bla ma Zhang G.yu brag pa
(1123–1193) of the Tshal pa Bka’ brgyud. For Zhang Lo tsā ba’s life-story, see
DCNGbio fols. 305–17, LRCB fols. 126–30, Roerich 1949: 445–48, GYZNB fols. 176–
86. The mahāpaṇḍita Ratnarakṣita was a holder of the Kālacakra and Cakrasaṃvara
tantras, and was a teacher of Vibhūticandra; see Stearns 1996: 136. On Śākyaśrī, refer
to Jackson 1990, van der Kuijp 1994, Roerich 1949: 1062–1072.
10
A version of the life of Ma gcig Ong jo (in DCNG2: 175–76) is freely translated by
Allione (1984: 213–19). See also DCNGbio: 285–88. According to Padma dkar po’s
Chos ’byung (fol. 509), she was the secret consort of Khyung tshang pa, but this is not
found in the Aural Transmission sources. For the account of the transmission to Zhang
Lo tsā ba, see DCNGbio (fols. 308–09), which reports the donation of the books
codified by the Rje btsun, i.e. Mi la ras pa (rje btsun pas bkod pa’i phyag dpe rnams,
fol. 309). See also Martin 2005: 68n51.
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Marta Sernesi
Table
1. brgyud pa yid bzhin nor bu (phyi sgro ’dogs gcod par byed pa sprul sku’i
gdam ngag)
1.1 ston byed slob dpon gyi mtshan nyid (KT: 7)
1.2 bstan pa slob ma’i mtshan nyid (KT: 8–9)
2. smin lam yid bzhin nor bu (nang nyams len long spyod rdzogs pa sku’i gdam
ngag) (KT: 10–13)
3. grol lam yid bzhin nor bu (gsang ba ngo sprod chos sku’i gdam ngag)
3.1 thun mongs yid bzhin nor bu (KT 14–15a) (bum dbang dang ’brel ba sgom
bya bskyed rim gtso bor ston pa)
3.2 dam tshig yid bzhin nor bu (KT 15b) (dbang bzhi spyi dang ’brel ba
bsrung bya gtso bor ston pa)
3.3 gnas lugs yid bzhin nor bu (mchog dbang gsum dang ’brel ba de kho na
nyid gtso bor ston pa)
3.3.1 chos drug (KT 16–60) (gsang dbang dang ’brel ba rdzogs rim rtsa
rlung gi gnad gtso bor ston pa steng sgo rnam par grol ba)
(1) gtum mo bde drod rang ’bar (KT 16–25)
(2) sgyu lus chos brgyad rang grol (KT 26–35)
(3) rmi lam ’khrul pa rang sangs (KT 36–41)
(4) ’od gsal ma rig mun bral (KT 42–49)
(5) ’pho ba gser ’gyur ma bsgoms sangs rgyas (’pho ba gser ’gyur gyi
rtsi) (KT 50–55)
(6) grong ’jug sprul lpags ’dor len (KT 56–60)
3.3.2 mkha’ ’gro gsang lam bde ba chen po (KT 61–79) (shes rab ye shes
kyi dbang dang ’brel ba mkha’ ’gro’i gsang sgrog pa ’og sgo)
3.3.3 phyag rgya chen po ye shes gsal byed (KT 80–103) (tshig dbang
dang ’brel ba phyag rgya chen po ye shes gsal byed)
3.3.4 bar do ngo sprod (KT 104–23) (lam blo nas gcod pa)
3.3.5 bya spyod tshogs su bsgyur ba (KT 124–42)
The Teachings of the Aural Transmission with their fixed set of definitions. KT
refers to the lines of the Root-text. Italicised definitions are extracted directly from
lines of the Root-text.
The Aural Transmission of Saṃvara
187
Taking part in the rich and lively religious life of his time, Zhang Lo
tsā ba must have also shared his contemporaries’ need for systematisation and
definition of the new lineages.11 He wrote a summary of texts and practices of
the tradition for his disciple Rba Dha ra shrī. This text is entitled Zhang lo’i
thim yig (ZhTY) and is preserved in a later collection, compiled in the
sixteenth century.12 It follows the scheme of the Three Wish-fulfilling Gems
(yid bzhin nor bu skor gsum), demonstrating that the main organisational
strategy of the tradition was already fully developed by that time. In this work
all the main texts of the Aural Transmission are already mentioned, proving an
early date for their composition, even if it is of course difficult to evaluate how
close the texts as given in the later collections now available are to the
redaction known to Zhang Lo tsā ba.
The known collections include nearly fifty instructional and ritual texts
that are ascribed to masters earlier than Zhang Lo tsā ba (Tilopa, Nāropa, Mar
pa, Mi la ras pa, Ras chung pa, Ngan rdzong pa, Khyung tshang pa), and thus
supposedly prior to the thirteenth century. These are mainly works devoted to
single points of the practice, together with sādhanas of Cakrasaṃvara and
Vajrayoginī. Many are called ‘notes’ (zin bris),13 which indicates that they were
11
A contemporary of Sa skya Paṇḍita and ’Jig rten mgon po, he is most probably the
recipient of a brief letter now collected in the Sa skya bka’ ’bum, where the Sa skya
scholar gives advice concerning moral discipline: Zhang lo tsā ba la gdams pa tshigs su
bcad pa bcu gsum pa’o. To be found in: Dpal ldan Sa skya pa’i bka’ ’bum. The
Collected Works of the Founding Masters of Sa-skya, vol 12 (na), fols. 160–61.
12
For the text and translation of this work, see Torricelli 2002. The text is found in
DCNG2, vol. 1: 1–5.
13
On this genre, and on the related brjed byang, van der Kuijp (2003: 404) explains:
“In a Tibetan context, a brjed byang often precisely refers to a set of lecture notes
pulled together by an author and reworked by him to form a seamless narrative. Put
crudely, a work of this kind is therefore, authorially speaking, a secondary reflex, for
what the lecturer had said was further reflected upon and digested by the brjed byang's
immediate author. It would stand to reason that, in either case, the brjed byang will to
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Marta Sernesi
private notes, intended as mnemonic aids to recall the main points of the
instructions imparted orally by the master. The master could himself quote
from or refer specifically to the teachings received from his own master, and in
this way a span of several generations might pass prior to the composition of
an organised text. For this reason, when a work is styled in the colophon as
written by a disciple in accord with the teachings of his master, it may be
attributed by later tradition to either of them.
Zhang Lo tsā ba’s thim yig (ZhTY) records a recognizable body of
instructional literature organised under rubrics familiar also to later masters,
and found in parallel versions in later collections. We may therefore posit that
by his time the redaction and codification of these essential materials had been
already accomplished. These instructions constitute a shared corpus that may
be termed the ‘textual core’ of the tradition and that was augmented by a
number of later commentaries, outlines, clarifications, and further instructions.
Several works, mostly commentaries and summaries, are attributed to Zhang
Lo tsā ba himself, and he is also credited with setting down the teachings of his
predecessors for the benefit of his disciple, following the oral instructions
received. For this reason, his career embodies the passage from the ‘creative’ to
the ‘exegetical’ phase of the tradition, and establishes the period of the first
codification of the Aural Transmission’s textual core.
3 The Aural Transmission textual compendia (fifteenth–sixteenth centuries)
After the systematization by Zhang Lo tsā ba, there was apparently little or no
further textual production for a century, and we can trace only a single and
rather obscure lineage of transmission. For a number of generations this was
even a ‘domestic’ lineage: Zhang Lo tsā ba’s disciple, Dha ra shrī, transmitted
the teachings to his son Bsod nams rgyal mtshan, and the latter to his daughter
some extent reflect its original source[s]. [...] The brjed byang, moreover, needs at
times to be distinguished from a series of notes and a draft for a study, both of which
may be called zin bris. But a zin bris can also be a record of a lecture.”
The Aural Transmission of Saṃvara
189
Ye shes kun ldan ras ma, also known as Ras ma zhig mo.14 After her, the
transmission was received by Gzi brjid rgyal mtshan (1290–1360), following
whom the tradition spread in different directions, eventually reaching Gtsang
smyon He ru ka (1452–1507), Byang chub bzang po, and Padma dkar po
(1527–1592). During the sixteenth century, thanks to these masters, the textual
corpus of the Aural Transmission was collected and edited in three main sets of
writings.
Byang chub bzang po, a disciple of a Kun dga’ dar po and a Shar kha
ras chen, is a poorly known figure who may be dated to the sixteenth century
on the basis of the transmission lineage (Roberts 2006: 52). He compiled an
Aural Transmission collection (DCNG2) which is precious in that it includes
rare texts, such as the Zhang lo’i thim yig mentioned above, and other
summaries by this master.
The Bar ’Brug pa Bka’ brgyud tradition, as is well known, afforded a
prominent place to Ras chung pa’s legacy from its very inception. Indeed,
Gling chen ras pa Pad ma rdo rje (1128–1188) is reputed to have studied
extensively under both Khyung tshang pa and Sum pa ras pa before meeting
Phag mo gru pa, and Gtsang pa rgya ras is credited with the discovery of a
14
These three master’s life stories are found in DCNGbio: 319–55, LRCB: 130–45,
GYZNB: 187–214. The latter version of Ras ma zhig mo’s biography is translated in
Allione 1984: 221–31. The epithet zhig mo refers to a religious mad, or crazy, woman,
that is to say, “a person who has totally dissolved (zhig-po) ordinary clinging to the
concept of self as well as the usual bonds of social life,” and thus acts in
unconventional or unexpected ways (Martin 2005: 57 and n. 17). Kun ldan ras ma
instructed both Gzi brjid rgyal mtshan and Bya btang Bde legs rin chen, who lived in
the first half of the 14th century. The latter’s life-story is included in DCNGbio (fols.
357–72) and GYZNB (fols. 215–26) after that of Kun ldan Ras ma, while this master is
situated after Gzi brjid rgyal mtshan and one Dbang chub shes rab in Gtsang smyon’s
lineage (see Smith 1969: 4n7, based on TMNT: 7; and also TMZB: 108–09). Bya btang
pa instructed one Gans can Kun dga’ dpal, teacher of the second ’Brug chen Kun dga’
dpal byor (1428–1476): on this see below.
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Marta Sernesi
treasure teaching (gter ma) hidden by Ras chung pa.15 However, the Aural
Transmission became part of the school’s teachings only at a later date, in the
fifteenth century, with the second ’Brug chen Kun dga’ dpal ’byor (1428–
1476); it was then passed to Ngag dbang chos kyi rgyal po (1465–1540) and
from the latter to the fourth ’Brug chen Padma dkar po (1527–1592).16 This
prolific writer and great Bka’ brgyud scholar not only compiled a collection of
Aural Transmission texts in two volumes (DCNG4), but also composed two
commentaries to the Snyan brgyud rdo rje’i tshig rkang, thus definitely
including the tradition’s literature and practices within the ’Brug pa teachings.17
15
For an extensive list of ’Brug pa Bka’ brgyud teachings coming from the
transmission by Ras chung and his disciples, see Dkar chag tshig gi me tog, in
Collected Works (Gsung ’bum) of Rgyal dbang rje Kun dga’ dpal ’byor, vol. 1, fols.
339–53. For the studies of Gling chen ras pa with disciples of Ras chung pa, see e.g.
Roerich 1949: 660–61, LRCB: 630–32. For the discovery of the ro snyoms skor drug
by Gtsang pa rgya ras, see e.g. Roerich 1949: 668, LRCB: 649–51. See also Davidson
2002: 220.
16
According to Padma dkar po, the Aural Transmission passed from Ras ma zhig mo
to Ri khrod pa Bya btang pa (alias Kun spangs pa Bde legs Rin chen), who transmitted
the teachings, among others, to a master named Gangs can kun dga’ dpal; the latter was
in turn master to the second ’Brug chen Kun dga’ dpal ’byor. Refer to Padma dkar
po’s Record of Teachings Received (Gsan yig, fols. 408–10) and Chos ’byung (fols.
509–10). The transmission to the second ’Brug chen is mentioned in his life-story, the
Dpal ldan bla ma dam pa’i mdzad pa rmad du byung ba ngo mtshar bdud rtsi’i thigs pa,
fol. 8, where his master is called Mkhan chen rin po che Dgra bcom pa Kun dga’ dpal.
Ngag dbang chos kyi rgyal po was one of the teachers of the third ’Brug chen, and he
imparted the Aural Transmission teachings also to Padma dkar po’s predecessor. ’Jam
dbyangs chos kyi grags pa (1478–1523) claimed to have received a direct revelation of
the Aural Transmission from Ras chung pa himself, and collected these teachings in a
two-volume collection that he styled the New Aural Transmission of Ras chung pa
(Ras chung snyan brgyud gsar ma, DCNG3).
These two texts are called: Snyan rgyud yid bzhin nor bu’i khrid rdo rje sems dpa’i
gseb lam (in: Gsung ’bum, vol. 19: 339–418), and U rgyan chos kyi gan mdzod nas
17
The Aural Transmission of Saṃvara
191
4 Gtsang smyon He ru ka
Gtsang smyon He ru ka (1452–1507) is famed for his literary works devoted to
the life-stories of the early Bka’ brgyud masters, but less known is his activity
as a master of the Aural Transmission. In fact, he devoted much of his life to
this tradition, and was guided by his involvement with it. As is well known,
there are three biographies of this master, all written by his close disciples: the
major one, titled Gtsang smyon he ru ka phyogs thams cad las rnams par rgyal
ba’i rnam thar rdo rje theg pa’i gsal byed nyi ma’i snying po (TMNT), was
authored by one of his chief disciples, who was much involved in the
systematisation and transmission of the Aural Transmission literature: Rgod
tshang ras pa Sna tshogs ming can (1482–1559).18 This account, although very
phyung ba snyan rgyud yid bzhin gyi nor bu legs par bshad pa’i rgyal mtshan gyi rtser
bton pa dngos grub kyi char ’bebs (in: Gsung ’bum, vol. 14: 303–444). The former is a
word-by-word commentary, and follows the root-text in Padma dkar po’s Collected
Works, while the latter is an extended explanation of the tradition based on its core
texts.
18
Rgod tshang ras pa Sna tshogs ming can, also known as Rgod tshang ras chen, is the
main lineage-holder of the Aural Transmission among Gtsang smyon’s disciples. He
was active in the hermitage of Ras chung phug in the valley of Yar lungs in Central
Tibet, the sacred place connected with Ras chung pa where Gtsang smyon died. He
authored and printed many doctrinal and hagiographical texts, including the best known
life-story of Ras chung pa and two treatises on the practice of Cakrasaṃvara, the Bcom
ldan ’das dpal ’khor lo sdom pa’i spyi bshad theg mchog bdud rtsi’i dga’ ston ye shes
chen po’i sman mchog (Bir: Tsondu Senghe, 1982) and the Dpal ’khor lo sdom pa
sngon gyur lo rgyus (NGMPP Reel no. L 514/8). A study of Rgod tshang ras chen’s
life, prints, and works is in progress: a preliminary overview was presented in Sernesi
2007b. Smith (1969: 6n11) already dismissed the identification of Rgod tshang ras chen
with the Karma Bka’ brgyud master Rtse le Sna tshogs rang grol. Gtsang smyon’s
student is often referred to in scholarly literature as Rgod tshang ras pa Sna tshogs rang
grol and dated 1494–1570. However, his sobriquet is rather rNal ’byor Sna tshogs ming
can, and Ehrhrad (2010), studies Rgod tshang’s early life and fixes the correct dates of
his life-span as 1482–1559 on the basis of the master’s autobiography (Rnal ’byor gyi
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Marta Sernesi
accurate, is at times unclear regarding Gtsang smyon’s literary production, and
we may note some discrepancies between the three sources and the existing
textual lore. I will therefore try to summarise, somewhat simplifying, the
details that are relevant in our present context.19
Gtsang smyon met his root-master Sha ra rab ’byams pa (1427–1470)
when he was still quite young, and he received from him the full transmission
of the Aural Transmission tradition, together with the injuction to take Heruka
as his tutelary deity and to meditate in the favored places of Mi la ras pa.20 He
remained true to these instructions throughout his life, which he spent traveling
widely, residing mostly in La phyi, Rtsa ri, Chu dbar, and Gung thang. After
receiving formal training at the Sa skya tantric college of Dpal ’khor chos sde,
he performed the actions that earned him the title ‘Madman of Gtsang’ and
dbang phyug rgod tshang ras chen pa’i rnam thar tshigs su bcad ma dngos grub rgya
mtsho, NGMPP Reel no. L 978/7), and of his student’s autobiography (Mkhas grub
chen po byams pa phun tshogs kyi rnam thar, NGMPP Reel no. L 783/3). On the latter
text see Ehrhard forthcoming.
19
The other two biographies of Gtsang smyon He ru ka were authored by Lha btsun
Rin chen rnam rgyal (Grub thob gtsang pa smyon pa’i rnam thar dad pa’i spu slong
g.yo ba, L) and Dngos grub dpal ’bar (Rje bstun gtsang pa he ru ka’i thun mong gyi
rnam thar yon tan gyi gangs ri la dad pa’i seng ge rnam par rtse ba, NGMPP Reel no.
L 834/2). I thank Stefan Larsson for supplying me with a copy of the relevant portions
of the latter work. A more detailed study of Gtsang smyon’s and Rgod tshang ras
chen’s works of the Aural Transmission tradition is in progress, and will be presented
elsewhere: needless to say, further research may help to refine the present discussion.
20
Gtsang smyon was fourteen according to L (fol. 9), eighteen according to the TMNT
(fol. 20). I will mostly follow the latter’s chronology, except when stated. The
transmission is recounted in TMNT: 22–26. On Gtsang smyon’s early life, see Larsson
in this volume. The life-story of Sha ra rab ’byams pa is the Mkhas grub sha ra rab
’jam (sic!) pa sangs rgyas seng ge’i rnam thar mthong ba don ldan ngo mtshar nor bu’i
phreng ba thar ’dod yid ’phrog blo gsal mgul brgyan, in Rare dKar-brgyud-pa Texts
from Himachal Pradesh, pp. 451–501.
The Aural Transmission of Saṃvara
193
started his life as a wandering yogin. According to the hagiographies, many of
his achievements and the crucial events of his life were inspired by visionary
and prophetic dreams or encounters. This was the case for his meeting with his
guru and for the composition and printing of the Life and Songs of Mi la ras
pa, and it was also true for his commitment to teach and spread the Aural
Transmission.21 The latter vision took place in 1486, during a three-year period
of retreat at Rtsa-ri, while he was undertaking the composition of a
commentary on the Hevajratantra. Vajrayoginī appeared to him in a lucid, post-
meditative dream, and said:
“Noble one, there are [already] many commentaries on the Hevajratantra,
composed by Indian and Tibetan scholars. In this degenerate age of
conflict, sentient beings have short lives, many illnesses, and inferior
intellect; they teach and learn the tantras, [but] through their mental
elaborations [such as these], they do not enhance the benefit of beings. If
you clarify the meaning of the Aural Transmission’s Wish-fulfilling Gems,
you will accomplish the benefit of the doctrine and of sentient beings!” 22
Then the deity vanished, and Gtsang smyon awoke from absorption.
Having faith in this experience, he postponed his wish to compose a
commentary on the tantric scripture and instead was compelled to clarify and
21
On the composition and print of the Life and Songs of Mi la ras pa, and the vision
which inspired the work, see M. Stearns 1985: 66–96, Quintman 2006: 195–209,
Schaeffer in this volume.
tho rangs kha zhig rnal dang ’od gsal ’dres pa’i ngang du mdun gyi nam [m]khar/ de
bzhin gshegs pa thams cad kyi yum rdo rje rnal ’byor ma ’khor du ma’i tshogs dang
bcas pa byon nas/ rigs kyi bu rtag gnyis la rgya bod kyi mkhas grub rnams kyi ’brel pa
[=’grel pa] du ma yod cing/ tsod [=rtsod] ldan snyigs ma’i dus ’dir sems can tshe
thung nad mang blo gros zhan pas rgyud kyi ’chad nyan sogs/ spros pas ’gro don yang
cher mi grub/ snyan rgyud yid bzhin nor bu’i don rnams gsal bar byas na bstan pa dang
sems can gyi don du ’gyur ro/ (TMNT: 116).
22
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Marta Sernesi
spread the Aural Transmission. At this time, he wrote his first work of the
tradition, a summary of the root-text, called Rdo rje’i tshig rkang ma rig mun
sel.23 This vision occurred prior to his writing of the Mi la’i rnam thar (1488),
when he also composed, finally, a few texts on the Hevajratantra.24 We know
that thereafter, and throughout his life, Gtsang smyon collected and wrote
numerous works of the Aural Transmission tradition.25 In particular, while in
his late forties (1492–1494) he spent three years in La phyi, where he compiled
his first collection (yig cha) of texts of the Aural Transmission, and wrote his
major work of the tradition: the Gzhung ’grel nor bu skor gsum (TMZB).26
23
I date the event to 1486 following L: 31, where it is the date given for the
composition of the Rdo rje’i tshig rkang ma rig mun sel. The vision is not recounted in
this source, but the relative chronology indicates that it occurred at that time. The
commentary is found in DCNG1, vol. 2: 17–27. Its date and place of composition are
confirmed in the colophon: dur khrod myul ba’i rnal ’byor pa rus pa’i rgyan can gyis/
gnas chen tsa rir zil gnon gyi lo’i dpyid zla ra ba’i yar tshes phyogs la grub par sbyar
ba’o//.
24
“He composed the exceptional Life Story of the Venerable Mi la ras pa as he
received it from the mouth of the master. Requested by his heart disciple Rin chen dpal
bzang, he [also] wrote the topical outline (sa bcad) of the Hevajratantra, the manual for
the visualization (mngon rtogs) of the deity Hevajra in the extensive, medium and
abridged version, together with the practical instructions (lag len) for preparing the
tantric feast.” Rje btsun mi la’i rnam thar thun mong ma yin pa’i bla ma’i zhal nas
byung ba ltar gyi thugs rtsom mdzad thugs sras rin chen dpal bzangs kyis gsol ba btab
nas/ rtag gnyis sa sbyad/ dges pa rdo rje’i mngon rtogs rgyas ‘bring sdus gsum/ tshogs
‘khor lag len dang bcas pa rnams mdzad do/ (TMNT: 135).
25
The central part of Gtsang smyon’s life, between 1488 and the renovation of the
Svayambhū stūpa (1504) is recounted by Rgod tshang ras chen in chapter 12 of the
rnam-thar, in eight sections (see TMNT: 153–208). A more detailed study of this
chapter is found in Sernesi 2007.
26
Refer to TMNT: 159. The TMZB is in DCNG1, vol. 1: 5–360, DCNG1, vol. 2: 81–
447. According to its colophon, it was indeed written in La phyi in 1494 (a kun dga’
The Aural Transmission of Saṃvara
195
This is the main doctrinal work by Gtsang smyon. It consists of a word-byword commentary on the Aural Transmission’s root-text, thus covering the
whole range of instructions relating to the Three Wish-fulfilling Gems.
This master’s literary activity was driven by the overall project of
bringing together the living Aural Transmission with the more institutional
strands of the Bka’ brgyud tradition, thereby proposing a new ideal foundation
for the school. This is presented in his Lives of the forefathers of the lineage,
Mi la ras pa and Mar pa, figures who are presented as the exemplary Bka’
brgyud masters, and whose yogic and meditative attainements are seen as the
ideal goals of the school’s followers. Fittingly, the Aural Transmission, as the
core of Mi la ras pa’s legacy and higher tantric practice, is put forth as the core
element among the Bka’ brgyud teachings, and hence reinstated as the school’s
most profound transmission.27 Judging from the fame of his works, Gtsang
smyon was successful in this undertaking. And consequently, both Rgod tshang
ras chen and Lha btsun Rin chen rnam rgyal, following their master’s footsteps,
authored and printed biographies of Ras chung pa based on older lineage
year): /’brog la phyi gangs kyi ra bar/ dur khrod myul ba’i rnal ’byor pa du ma’i ming
can gyis/ gzhan phan gyi bsam pa ’ba’ zhig gis kun nas blangs ste| kun dga’i lo la grub
par sbyar ba dge legs su gyur cig|. A dbu med manuscript of this text is preserved in
the IsIAO Tucci Collection (Text no. 1457). Torricelli (1999) deals with fols.1–11 and
13–14 of this manuscript, but successively also folios 15–167 came to light in the Fund
(fol. 12 is lacking).
27
In the works of Gtsang smyon and Rgod tshang ras chen, the Aural Transmission is
generally defined as the heart, core, or essence (snying po/ yang snying) of the Bka’
brgyud teachings, of all the sūtras and tantras. For example: mdo rgyud thams cad kyi
snying po bcom ldan ’das dpal ’khor lo sdom pa’i rgyud kyi yang snying/ mkha’ ’gro
snyan brgyud ’di (TMNT 159): “This Mkha’ ’gro snyan brgyud, which is the essence
of all the sūtras and the tantras, the innermost essence of the Bhagavan-Śri-Cakrasaṃvara-tantra.” See also TMNT: 24, 245; TMZB: 7; GTKC: 14.
196
Marta Sernesi
accounts, and thus promoted wider knowledge of this figure’s deeds and role in
the transmission of Mi la ras pa’s teachings.28
Gtsang smyon eventually compiled an extensive Bde mchog nor bu
skor gsum textual collection. He wished to have three copies of it handwritten
in golden ink, to be offered to the three sites of Rtsa ri, La phyi, and Ti se, and
in 1504, while in Chu dbar, he collected the necessary gold and summoned two
master calligraphers from Sman khab.29 However, this task was never achieved,
since a windstorm scattered the appropriate (dark) paper gathered for the books
(TMNT: 245).30 Following this episode, he printed a few volumes on white
paper and corrected a twelve-volume yig cha of the tradition.
28
These are the longest and most inclusive life-stories of Ras chung pa: Lha btsun Rin
chen rnam rgyal, Tshe gcig la ’ja’ lus brnyes pa rje ras chung pa’i rnam thar rags bsdus
mgur rnams rgyas pa, and Rgod tshang ras pa Sna tshogs ming can, Rje btsun ras
chung pa’i rnam thar rnam mkhyen thar lam gsal bar ston pa’i me long ye shes kyi
snang ba. Both are published in bKa’ brgyud pa Hagiographies. A collection of rnam
thar of eminent masters of Tibetan Buddhism. Compiled and edited by Khams sprul
Don brgyud nyi ma, vol. 1 (1972), pp. 485–833; vol. 3 (1973). On the existing editions
of Rgod tshang ras chen’s work, see Roberts 2007: 44–45.
29
Scribes from this region in Lha stod lho contributed to many prints of Gtsang
smyon’s school. See Ehrhard 2010.
30
It is thus clear that a golden, thirteen-volume collection of the Snyan brgyud was
never achieved, as was asserted by Smith (1969: 12) and often repeated. This is clear
also from another passage (TMNT: 246), translated by M. Stearns (1985: 41) as
follows: “I have dedicated myself fully to the Snyan brgyud and the Reverend Lord
Mi-la’s Life. Now that the texts of the Snyan brgyud are finished, my life is complete.
I, a mendicant yogi, have not done just a little work for the Buddha’s teaching. Other
than not establishing a fund as I had previously intended, for completing a copy in gold
of this Snyan brgyud, and for whitewashing Swayambhūnāth, I have no regrets even if
I were to die. Nor do I know if I will stay a long time.” (de yang rje nyid kyi zhal nas
nga snyan rgyud dang/ rje btsun mi la’i rnam thar ’di’i ched du thod pa skal ba yin/ da
snyan rgyud kyi yig cha rnams tshar na nga’i tshe tshad kyang rdzogs/ kho bo gya (sic!
The Aural Transmission of Saṃvara
197
Unfortunately no complete copy of the collection is known today, only
the two incomplete manuscripts published in Leh in 1971 (DCNG1). A lengthy
index (dkar chag) to Gtsang smyon’s Aural Transmission compendium was
prepared by Rgod tshang ras chen and lists fifty-one texts divided into three
main sections.31 However, the published yig cha does not seem to follow such a
scheme, so that the relationship among it, the major manual in twelve volumes,
and the collection introduced by the dkar chag has yet to be clarified.
Finally, a manuscript published in 1974 as Rare Dkar brgyud pa Texts
from the library of Ri bo che Rje drung of Padma bkod (RKT), must be
mentioned. It is a selection of snyan brgyud texts in dbu med script, including
some well-known texts of the tradition but also some rare ones; among the
latter is the aforementioned dkar chag by Rgod tshang ras chen.32 This
=bya) bral bas sangs rgyas kyi bstan pa la bya ba yang mi chung tsam byas yod/ snyan
rgyud ’di gser ma cig ma grub pa dang/ shing kun la sku dkar gyis bdag rkyen gcig
’dzugs bsam pa sngar ma grub/ ’di tsam cig ma rtogs shi rung yang ’gyod pa med nga
rgyun rings rang e sdod yang mi shes gsung ngo/).
31
The text is entitled The precious Treasury, the Index of the Aural Transmission of
Saṃvara and the ḍākinīs (Bde mchog mkha’ ’gro’i snyan brgyud kyi dkar chag rin po
che’i gter), and is found in RKT: 13–24. In this summary the texts are listed following
the Sanskrit alphabetical order, and are organized into three main sections: 1) the cycle
of necessary fundamental guidance (nyer mkho dmar khrid bkol ba’i skor); 2) the
actual Aural Transmission (snyan brgyud dngos kyi skor); 3) the necessary auxiliary
teachings and appendixes (cha lag kha skong nyer mkho’i skor). Rgod tshang ras chen
discusses also the perceived hierarchy among the different texts, the means of
transmission of the teachings, and what he understands as the unique qualities of the
snyan brgyud tradition (text and translation in Sernesi 2007).
32
Note that some folios of the manuscript have been reproduced in wrong order. As
already noted by Dan Martin (1984: 92) the reproduction of the Phyag rgya chen po yi
ge bzhi pa’i gdams pa is incomplete, ending at p. 82: “...the folio reproduced on pp.
83–84 is from an unidentified text and the folios reproduced on pp. 85–97 continue the
text started on pp. 215–22.”
198
Marta Sernesi
manuscript is a fragmentary section of a collection compiled by Gtsang smyon,
not only because of the presence of the index, but because both Gtsang smyon
He ru ka and Rgod tshang ras chen are frequently mentioned in the colophons
as authors (those who ‘wrote,’ ’bris pa) or editors (those who ‘arranged,’ bkod
pa) of the texts. Among the interesting portions of the manuscript is a brief
account of the snyan brgyud transmission through a lineage descending from
Gtsang smyon (RKT fols. 245–248). It passes through Rgod tshang ras chen
and his successors, until Dam pa Dge’u mchog sprul Rin po che Bka’ brgyud
phrin las dbang phyug (eighteenth–nineteenth centuries), a teacher of Mkhyen
brtse’i dbang po (1820–1892).33 Indeed, this is the transmission-lineage through
which the latter master received the Bde mchog snyan brgyud tradition.34
5 The Wish-fulfilling Gem of the Lineage: Life-stories of the Aural
Transmission
The Aural Transmission tradition not only produced technical texts explaining
tantric practice, but also contributed in a significant way to Bka’ brgyud
hagiographical writing.
Narratives concerning Mi la ras pa’s life and the deeds of the early
masters of the lineage had begun already among Mi la ras pa’s disciples. While
Sgam po pa’s contributions are relatively well-known, accounts from Ras
chung pa’s and Ngan rdzong’s lineages interest us here.35 The earliest
33
On Mkhyen brtse’i dbang po and the so-called Ris med movement, see, for example,
Smith 1970, Cousens 2002, Kapstein 1995.
34
This same lineage succession is listed and praised in a invocation included in ’Jam
dbyangs mkhyen brtse’s Collected works (Gangtok: Gonpo Tseten, 1977–1980, vol. 7,
fols. 17–19) titled Bde mchog mkha’ ’gro snyan brgyud kyi brgyud pa yid bzhin nor bu
la gsol ba ’debs pa byin rlabs dpal ster.
35
The Lives of Tilopa and Naropa (Te lo nā ro’i rnam thar), and the Lives of Mar pa
and Mi la ras pa (Rje mar pa dang rje bstun mi la’i rnam thar), are two brief texts
included at the beginning of Sgam po pa’s Collected Works: Khams gsum chos kyi
rgyal po dpal mnyam med sgam po pa ’gro mgon bsod nams rin chen mchog gi gsung
The Aural Transmission of Saṃvara
199
collection of songs of Mi la ras pa, known as the Bu chen bcu gnyis, which was
greatly influential for all the later compendia, was prepared by Ngan rdzong pa
and eleven other close disciples of the Cotton-clad Yogin.36 Four chapters
recounting the encounter between Mi la ras pa and the goddess of long-life
Tshe ring ma bear an independent colophon, which ascribes them to Ngan
rdzong pa and Zhi ba ’od.37 Moreover, as recorded in Gtsang smyon’s colophon
to his Life of Marpa the Translator, Ngan rdzong pa and Ras chung pa were the
first to write accounts of the deeds of Mar pa, and these were the sources
employed by the Madman of Gtsang for his work.38 Also, the Lives of Ngan
’bum yid bzhin nor bu, ed. by Khenpo S. Tenzin and Lama T. Namgyal, Kathmandu,
2000, fols. 1–46. On the authorship and contents of these texts, see Quintman 2006:
63–73.
36
The Bu chen bcu gnyis is thus called due to its attribution to twelve disciples of Mi
la ras pa, but its title is more properly Bzhad pa rdo rje’i rnam thar. Ngan rdzong pa is
the only one mentioned by name in the colophon of the text: “This life-story was
compiled by the twelve great cotton-clad disciples, led by Ngan rdzong ston pa
Bodhirāja, for the benefit of the fortunate great meditators” (rnam thar ’di skal ldan
bsgom chen rnams kyi don du/ ngan rdzong ston pa bho dhe ra tsa la sogs pa’i ras pa
bu chen bcu gnyis kyi yi ger bskod pa’o/ fol. 191b). This text was identified in the
1990s by Cyrus Stearns and first studied by Tiso (1996) and Roberts (2007)—based on
his thesis defended in 2001—followed by Quintman (2006: 131–60) and myself. At
least three copies of the Bzhad pa rdo rje’i rnam thar exist, but only the one kept at the
Bodleian Library (Microfilm Reel No. SN 1207 ms. Tib. a. 11a) has been so far
available to me. The study of newly revealed sources will permit the evolution of Mi la
ras pa’s hagiographical and poetical tradition prior to Gtsang smyon to be better
evaluated. The reliance of the Madman on earlier materials is evident, and he treated
these with some freedom in the structuring and reorganisation of his work, involving
some rewriting and insertions.
37
38
On the Tshe ring ma chapters, see Van Tuyl 1975, Quintman 2006: 56–62, 376–79.
A comparative study of the Lives of Mar pa the Translator is still lacking, but in the
present context Gtsang smyon’s statement may be taken at face value. See also Sernesi
2010.
200
Marta Sernesi
rdzong pa and of Ras chung pa were recorded at an early time by their
respective disciples, and preserved within the Aural Transmission lineages.39
All these works formed a mass of biographical and poetical materials which
constituted the base and the source for later, more inclusive, compositions such
as those by Gtsang smyon’s school, that directly selected, quoted, and
renarrated stories and songs recorded much earlier.
The tradition’s interest in hagiography arose from devotion and
admiration towards the masters, and had at the same time a precise role in the
spriritual path of the Aural Transmission. Indeed, as is clear from both the late
exegetical tradition and the early sources themselves, narration of and devotion
towards the exemplary Lives of the masters constitutes the Wish-fulfilling Gem
of the Lineage (brgyud pa yid bzhin nor bu), which is, as mentioned above, the
foundational ground of the whole system.
A remarkable example is the Bu chen bcu gnyis, whose colophon ends
with verses unmistakably couched in the rhetoric of the Aural Transmission: in
them the work is explicitly identified with the Lineage Wish-fulfilling Gem of
the Aural Transmission, and they constitute a ‘seal of entrustment’ (gtad rgya),
as is found often in the early snyan brgyud literature.40 This formulary seal
39
The Rje ngan rdzong ras pa’i rnam thar opens the collection of Aural Transmission
teachings of Ngan rdzong pa (NZNG: 1–17), and was originally compiled by his
disciple Dam pa ras chen, to be revised at a later date. The earliest independent
biography of Ras chung pa is found within the Dkar brgyud gser ’phreng composed by
one Rgya ldang pa (or Rgyal thang pa) Bde chen rdo rje, probably a disciple of Rgod
tshang pa mgon po rdo rje (1189–1258). It is also found verbatim in DCNGbio, and
unlike Roberts (2007: 11–17), I believe that it was not originally composed by Rgyal
thang pa, but as part of the Aural Transmission’s gser ’phreng (DCNGbio). I argue
elsewhere in favor of this hypothesis, on the basis of the biography’s structure of
contents and internal evidence (Sernesi 2010).
40
The colophon ends: /snyan rgyud bde mchog ’khor lo yi / / [b]rgyud pa yid bzhin nor
bu ’di / / ma ’ongs gdung rgyud ’dzin ba rnams / / blo dman rjed pas ’jigs pa’i phyir / /
bla ma’i gsung bzhin yi ger bkod / / bla ma mkha’ ’gro la bzod par gsol / / phyi rab
The Aural Transmission of Saṃvara
201
underscores the secrecy of the transmission, and the danger of widely
promulgating its texts or instructions, thereby threatening the wrath of the
ḍākinīs who are guardians of the teachings. The Aural Transmission’s gtad
rgya is found in extensive form in an independent text called the Mi la’i gtad
rgya, believed to record the sealing words sung by Mi la ras pa to Ras chung
pa after the full transmission of the teaching. It has the same style, pattern and
function as does the colophon of the Bzhad pa’i rdo rje rnam thar.41
It is therefore not surprising that Gtsang smyon and his followers, in
the framework of their efforts to revitalize the Aural Transmission tradition and
its ideal foundations, and to codify and transmit its textual heritage, would
dedicate themselves to the narrative task with such energy. That they
considered the writing of these life-stories to be part of the Aural Transmission,
rten gyi gang zag rnams / / dbang bskur byin brlabs tshogs ’khor dang / / dpa’ bo dpa’
mo mchod la sogs / / dgyes shing gnang ba ma gtogs pa / / bla ma rje’i bka’ rgyas btab
/ / gal te bka’ las ’das gyur na/ /mkha’ [’]gro ko longs dam pas na / / yi ge ma spel
gsang bar zhu / / rgyud pa bzhin nor bu ḍa ki sa ma ya / / (fol. 192a): “This Lineage
Wish-fulfilling Gem of the Aural Transmission of Saṃvara is written down according
to the master’s words, in order that future descendants will remember it, [and] in fear
that it may be forgotten by those with inferior minds. I pray that the masters and the
ḍākinīs be forebearing! Grant it to the individuals, future holders [of the lineage], who
rejoice in initiations, blessings, and gaṇacakras, and in making offerings to the heroes
and heroines. Apart from them, this is sealed by the venerable master’s seal of
command. If this command is transgressed, the ḍākinīs’ great wrath [will arise], so do
not spread it, but keep it secret! This is the Lineage Wish-fulfilling Gem, commitment
to the ḍākinīs.” This is translated also in Quintman 2006: 380, and Roberts 2007: 24.
The latter understands the beginning as “The future lineage-holders of this wishfulfilling jewel—the lineage of the Karṇatantra of Cakrasaṃvara,” but this rendering
does nor reflect the explicit mention of the Lineage Wish-fulfilling Gem.
41
For the role of the “seal of entrustment” (gtad rgya) in the Aural Transmission
system, see Sernesi 2004: 255–58, especially n. 19. The Mi la’i gtad rgya is found in
DCNG1, vol. 1: 371–73, DCNG4, vol. 2: 449–54.
202
Marta Sernesi
as the Wish-fulfilling Gem of the Lineage, is also clear from Gtsang smyon’s
commentary on the root-text, the aforementioned Gzhung ’grel nor bu skor
gsum (TMZB). Indeed, the Madman of Gtsang composed a brief Golden
Rosary of the Aural Transmission which is included in this commentary,42
inserted as an elucidation of the verse of the Rdo rje’i tshig rkang devoted to
the Lineage Wish-fulfilling Gem.43 The gser ’phreng thus constitutes a
clarification of the conception of the supreme master, which is exemplified in
the lives of Gtsang smyon’s predecessors.
As may be seen, the narration of the hagiographies is considered to be
an integral part of the tradition’s instructions, as a way of establishing the
qualities of the supreme master, the authority of the lineage as a Wish-fulfilling
Gem, and the effectiveness of the Aural Transmission teachings to bring about
liberation.44 The works composed by the early masters of the Aural
Transmission
greatly
influenced
the
development
of
Bka’
brgyud
hagiographical writing and were later employed by Gtsang smyon and his
disciples for their major, widely known, narrative œuvres.
42
The succession is the same as recorded in Gtsang smyon’s hagiography by Rgod
tshang ras chen (TMNT: 7) and listed by Smith (1969: 4n7). This is the standard
lineage passing through Khyung tshang pa and Zhang Lo tsā ba, and coming down to
Gzi brjid gyal mtshan; six more masters follow, ending with Gtsang smyon’s teacher
Mnyam med Sha ra rab ’byams pa Sangs rgyas seng ge. One of the most interesting
passages of the work is a short paragraph listing some alternative snyan brgyud
lineages received by Sha ra rab ’byams pa (TMZB: 114, on which see Sernesi 2007).
43
The verse reads: bslab gsum rgyan ldan nyams myong bla ma mchog / / dad brtson
shes rab snying rje slob ma’o / / nyes dmigs dran pas tshe ’di’i bya ba btang / / (KT 7–
9). Its commentary is found in TMZB: 17–121, and the gser ’phreng covers fols. 20–
115.
44
More evidence on this topic, and a more extensive discussion of DCNGbio and other
specific hagiographic works of the tradition, is provided in Sernesi (2010).
The Aural Transmission of Saṃvara
203
Conclusions
After even a preliminary and general survey of the Aural Transmission, it may
be clear how rich this tradition is, and how central to the Bka’ brgyud identity.
Because it is the core of Mar pa’s and Mi la ras pa’s practical instructions, and
teaches a complete path of liberation, from the Generation Stage to the Great
Seal and Bar do teachings, its role and legacy must be re-evaluated.
Indeed, the textual tradition of the Aural Transmission is valuable for
the study of the development of both the doctrinal and the hagiographical
literature of the early Bka’ brgyud. The textual compendia compiled in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries preserve a core of instructional texts composed
between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries by the early masters, such as Mar
pa, Mi la ras pa, Ras chung pa, Ngan rdzong ras pa, and Khyung tshang pa,
and codified by Zhang Lo tsā ba. Until now, these texts, when known to
scholars, were hardly put into a perspective that recognised the wider context to
which they belong. They reflect a specific tradition of esoteric knowledge
which preserved the teachings of the Bka’ brgyud forefathers and was
transmitted by hermits and yogins as well as by learned scholars of the school.
It was mainly due to Gtsang smyon He ru ka and Padma dkar po that it was
revitalized and established within—even at the center of—the Bka’ brgyud
ideology and self-representation. This was made possible by means of both
exegetical and hagiographical writing. The former employs doxographical
categories to place the Aural Transmission at the heart of and above all other
tantric teachings, while the works of the latter genre propose an ideal of
religious life modeled upon the careers of the tradition’s masters, and thus on
the Aural Transmission’s values, symbolism, and teachings. These two genres,
in the skilled hands of two of the Bka’ brgyud tradition’s greatest figures, were
successfully employed to give new life to Mi la ras pa’s teachings.
In brief, the study of the Aural Transmission sheds light not only on
the very inception of the Bka’ brgyud school, but also on some of the enduring
later developments within it.
204
Marta Sernesi
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brgyud hagiographical writing. In P. Caracchi, A. Consolaro, A.S. Comba, A.
Pelissero (eds) Tīrthayātrā - Essays in Honour of Stefano Piano. Alessandria:
Edizioni dell'Orso.
Smith, E.G. 1969. Preface. In L. Chandra (ed.) The Life of the Saint of Gtsaṅ. Delhi:
Sharada Rani.
—— 1970. Preface. In Kongtrul’s Encyclopaedia of Indo-Tibetan Culture. New Delhi:
International Academy of Indian Culture.
—— 1970b. Preface. In Dkar brgyud gser ’phreng: A Golden Rosary of Lives of
Eminents Gurus Compiled by Mon-rtse-pa Kun-dga’-dpal-ldan and edited by
Kun-dga’-’brug-dpal. Leh: Smanrtsis Shesrig Spendzod.
Stearns, C. 1996. The life and Tibetan legacy of the Indian Mahāpaṇḍita Vibhūticandra.
Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 19(1), 127–71.
Stearns, M.I. 1985. The Life of gTsang-smyon Heruka: A Study in Divine Madness.
MA thesis. University of Washington.
Tiso, F. 1996. The Biographical Tradition of Milarepa. The Tibet Journal 21(2), 10–21.
Torricelli, F. 1998. The Tibetan text of the Karṅatantravajrapada. East and West 48,
385–423.
—— 1999. Nota su un manoscritto tibetano nel Fondo Tucci dell’IsIAO. Rivista di
Studi Orientali 73(1–4), 149–53.
—— 2000. Padma dkar po’s arrangement of the bDe mchog snyan brgyud. East and
West 50, 359–86.
—— 2002. Zhang Lo-tsā-ba’s introduction to the Aural Transmission of Śaṃvara. In R.
Torella (ed.) Le Parole e i Marmi. Studi in Onore di Raniero Gnoli nel Suo
70° Compleanno. Roma: Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente.
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kyi blo gros. Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives.
Van Tuyl, C.D. 1975. The Tshe riṅ ma account: an old document incorporated into the
Mi la ras pa’i mgur ’bum? Zentralasiatische Studien 9, 23–36.
GURU-DEVOTION IN THE BKA’ BRGYUD PA
TRADITION: THE SINGLE MEANS TO REALISATION*
JAN-ULRICH SOBISCH
1 Introduction
The Bka’ brgyud pa concept of the single means for attaining realisation—the
white panacea (Tib. dkar po gcig thub)—and the subsequent Sa skya pa denial
that a single factor can be sufficient were introduced to us more than a decade
ago through David P. Jackson’s pioneering study, Enlightenment by a Single
Means. In that book, Jackson contrasted the position of Sgam po pa Bsod nams
rin chen (1079–1153)—who held that seeing the nature of mind was in some
sense a self-sufficient remedy, and the related views of some of his followers
who criticised intellectual methods—with Sa skya Paṇḍita Kun dga’ rgyal
mtshan’s principles of scholarship and his critique of the Bka' brgyud pas that
followed from that.1
In the following I would like to outline the position of one of the major
Bka’ brgyud pa masters of the twelfth and thirteenth century, the founder of the
’Bri gung Bka’ brgyud pa tradition, ’Jig rten mgon po (1143–1217), with
particular reference to his idea that devotion functions as the single means for
giving rise to realisation and the integration of this idea into the ’Bri gung pa
practice of mahāmudrā. In regard to these points, I will furnish an outline of ’Jig
rten mgon po’s Fivefold Profound Path of Mahāmudrā (Tib. zab lam phyag chen
lnga ldan), which is the core practice of the ’Bri gung Bka’ brgyud pa, and also
* This paper has benefited from a number of valuable suggestions by David P. Jackson,
and my discussion of a passage of the Hevajra Tantra has been made possible by
Harunaga Isaacson’s kindness in sharing his vast knowledge on the matter. It is (almost)
needless to say that the remaining errors are my own.
1
See also Gold 2007, and my review: Sobisch 2009.
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Jan-Ulrich Sobisch
consider the doctrinal aspect, namely the system of correlations between the
‘four-kāya guru yoga’ of the Fivefold Path on the one hand and a standard
Tibetan classification of the levels of tantric initiations and paths on the other. In
so doing, I will rely on three groups of works, namely the famous Same
Intention (Dam chos dgongs pa gcig pa) of ’Jig rten mgon po and its earliest
commentaries,2 ’Jig rten mgon po’s collected works,3 and later instructions and
explications on the practice of the Fivefold Path. This essay will also briefly
touch upon the discussion of the nature of Sgam po pa’s unique mahāmudrā
teaching—which has previously been described as being a ‘sūtra mahāmudrā,’ a
‘mixture’ of both sūtra and tantra, and “quite outside of both”—from what
appears to be the earliest ’Bri gung pa perspective.
2 ’Jig rten mgon po’s Same Intention on guru-devotion
There can be no doubt that for ’Jig rten mgon po ‘guru-devotion’ was the single
decisive means for someone aspiring to realise mahāmudrā within a single
lifetime. As stated in the Same Intention:
He certainly maintained that devotion alone is the means that makes
realisation arise.4
Here, the Tibetan phrase mos gus kho nar—’devotion exclusively’ or ‘devotion
alone’—leaves no room for doubt that devotion is the means to give rise to
realisation, and not just one of several competing possibilities. In the
commentarial tradition of the Rdo sher ma, each vajra utterance of the Same
On the Same Intention and its commentaries, see Sobisch 2002: 339f. The Rin byang
ma, mentioned there as “probably [being] published within the next years,” has now
2
been published. See bibliography: Rin chen byang chub, Spyan snga.
3
See bibliography: ’Jig rten mgon po, ’Bri gung Chos rje.
rtogs pa skye bar byed pa’i thabs mos gus kho nar nges par bzhed do. This is the sixth
vajra utterance of the sixth chapter according to the Rdo sher ma, and of the first
chapter according to the Rin byang ma, among the commentarial traditions.
4
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
213
Intention is also preceded by a ‘general view,’ which is then juxtaposed with the
special view of ’Jig rten mgon po (which is “one with the intention of all
buddhas,” hence Same Intention), 5 and in the case under investigation the
general view is presented as follows:
The means to make realisation arise are not fixed; they occur variously.6
In contrast to that, ’Jig rten mgon po maintains, as we have seen, that there exist
no other means than guru-devotion. The commentary (Rin byang ma, p. 52)
clarifies that it is in particular not the case that realisation arises through
practices focusing on the channels (Skt. nāḍi, Tib. rtsa), vital winds (vāyu,
rlung), and drops (bindu, thig le) of the body, saying:
Even though indefinite methods of producing realisation in oneself are held
[to be possible] in various ways, if, because one practises resorting to the
channels, vital winds, and drops of one’s body endowed with means, one
has gotten to the heart of the matter, here, through the intention of the lord
and his sons, the systems of instructions of this precious tradition maintains
that ... realisation arises in the mental continuum through devotion to the
qualified guru where the result [realisation] depends upon the cause
[devotion].7
We can also find a statement with a very similar import within the collected
5
6
See my remarks on the title “Same Intention” in Sobisch 2002: n716.
In Tibetan: rtogs pa skye ba’i thabs ma nges pa sna tshogs su ’byung ba yin. See Rdo
rje shes rab, Dgongs gcig yig cha, p. 171.
Rdo sher ma, p. 52: rang lus thabs dang ldan pa’i rtsa rlung thig le gsum la brten nas
nyams su blangs pa / de la gnad du song na, rang la nang du mngon rtogs skye bar byed
pa’i thabs ma nges pa sna sthogs su ’dod par gyur kyang, rje yab sras kyi thugs dgongs
kyis ’dir brgyud pa rin po che ’di’i bka’ srol ni, mtshan nyid dang ldan pa’i bla ma la
mos gus kyis ... rtogs pa rgyud la skye ba rgyu ’bras kyi rten ’brel du bzhed do.
7
214
Jan-Ulrich Sobisch
writings of one of ’Jig rten mgon po’s closest disciples, namely Spyan snga
Grags pa ’byung gnas (1175–1255),8 who related the following words of his
teacher ’Jig rten mgon po, which the latter offered as a farewell advice to a
group of yogins on their way to a retreat at Ti se:
Though [the practices of] nāḍi, vāyu and bindu,
The six yogas and the pith instructions of the old and new [tantra tradition]
Seem to be profound, very profound, and even exceedingly profound
teachings—
Practise them on occasion
As one sometimes fills one’s stomach.
The teaching, however, that always
And at all times is to be practised,
Is the precious, fivefold excellent Dharma.9
The ‘precious, fivefold excellent Dharma’ refers to the Fivefold Profound Path
of Mahāmudrā, which, as will be explained, focuses on guru-devotion in
particular. I will show that these two statements (from the commentary of the
Same Intention and from the ‘farewell instruction’) have the same import,
namely that, concerning the practices of the ‘path of liberation’ (grol lam),
which is the second sequence of the tantric path and follows the ‘path of
ripening’ (smin lam), mere ‘tantric technique’ (as I would like to express it for
the time being)—such as the yogas of the path of means (thabs lam) involving
the practices of the channels, vital winds, and drops of the body—is not seen as
8
Spyan snga Grags pa ’byung gnas was a chief transmitter of the tantric teachings of
’Jig rten mgon po and served as an abbot of both Dwags lha Sgam po and Phag mo gru.
9
Spyan snga Grags pa ’byung gnas, Phyag rgya chen po lnga ldan gyi khrid ti se ba
rnams la gdams pa (S. 108): rtsa dang rlung dang thig le dang / chos drug gsar rnying
man ngag rnams / zab cing rab zab shin tu zab / zab pa’i chos lta yin mod kyis / res ’ga’
lto ’grangs bya na ltar / skabs su bsgom par bya ba yin / dus rnam kun tu rtag par yang /
nyams su blang bar bya ba’i chos / lnga ldan dam chos rin chen lags.
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
215
the most important factor contributing to realisation. Instead the focus is on
guru-devotion, or on the Fivefold Path, whose core is again guru-devotion. In a
more general sense, these statements reflect a position that maintains that
mahāmudrā is not exclusively based on the path of means (thabs lam), but that it
may be presented also in contexts where the path of means is not employed (or
not employed as the principal method), yet (as will be seen) at the same time it
is also not considered to lie outside of the mantra path.10 This is not only so
because the Fivefold Path includes the practice of a tantric deity, but also
because, as will be shown, guru yoga as a tantric path is treated as being
completely equivalent to the practices of nāḍi, vāyu, and bindu.
2.1 ’Jig rten mgon po and Sa paṇ’s critique
At the beginning of this essay I placed this discussion in the context of the
so-called white panacea (Tib.: dkar po gcig thub). The term does not actually
occur in the text passages of the ’Bri gung pa tradition under investigation here,
but it is well documented that Sa paṇ, as an opponent of certain Bka’ brgyud pa
approaches to mahāmudrā, utilised it when he criticised the supposed possibility
of any single factor being sufficient to yield awakening (as Kamalaśīla was
supposed to have done before him in the context of the Bsam yas debate). He
would, to be sure, not have objected to a fivefold path, even if one of the five
elements were the most important or decisive one, such as guru-devotion in the
10
The path of ripening is generally understood to be tantric initiation. The path of
liberation comprises the two stages (of production and completion, utpannakrama and
niṣpannakrama) and yogas, such as “inner heat” (caṇḍalī). Within the path of liberation,
however, the path of means specifically resorts to practices that utilise the channels, vital
wind, and drops of the body, so that liberation is quickly achieved without abandoning
the afflictions (kleśa). At least according to the Rnying ma and Bka’ brgyud tradition of
the teachings, the path of liberation also allows within the stage of completion for other
practices that do not resort to yogas such as “inner heat.” The approach to mahāmudrā
discussed here, therefore, utilises general tantric paths such as that of ripening and
liberation, but not the particular yogas of the path of means.
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Jan-Ulrich Sobisch
case of ’Jig rten mgon po’s Fivefold Path. But a description of that element as
the one that “alone is the means that makes realisation arise” would, in his eyes,
not be tolerable. This raises the double question as to whether ’Jig rten mgon
po’s statement regarding guru-devotion as the only means was actually intended
as maintaining a white panacea (in Sa paṇ’s sense) and how the Fivefold
Path—having more than one element and being the core practice of the ’Bri
gung Bka’ brgyud pa—is compatible with that statement. I cannot treat these
questions exhaustively in the available space, but a few remarks are in order.
Let me first point out in this regard that ’Jig rten mgon po’s emphasis on
guru-devotion as the decisive means and his teaching of a fivefold path cannot
be separated into two different contexts. This will be shown in detail below. The
doctrinal point is, however, even clear in contexts that do not focus primarily on
the Fivefold Path or on guru-devotion. In a pith instruction on practising the two
resolves for awakening, for instance, ’Jig rten mgon po says that even though
there are other systems for realising the unity of the two resolves, “we maintain
that it is realised through devotion alone to the excellent guru” (bla ma dam pa’i
mos gus ’ba’ zhig gis rtogs par bzhed). Thus “the inborn gnosis arises by itself
through devotion to the excellent guru and the previous accumulation of
merit.”11 And immediately after this:
How is that practised? In the beginning, sit down on a comfortable seat in
the correct cross-legged position, remain with the five limbs of dhyāna and
produce first the resolve for supreme awakening, contemplate the body as
the tantric deity, contemplate the excellent guru on the top of your head or
in your heart, and remain then in a state of an unfabricated mind. ... Finally,
or from time to time, dedicate the virtue to great awakening.12
Byang chub sems gnyis nyams su blang ba’i gdams ngag ye shes rtsegs la gnang ba,
Collected Works, vol. 2, pp. 275–80, here p. 278: bla ma dam pa’i mos gus dang, gong
gi bsod nams kyi tshogs bsags pas, ... lhan cig skyes pa’i ye shes rang shar du ’char. The
11
role of merit as a condition is discussed below.
12
In the same text, p. 279: de ji ltar nyams su blang na / dang po stan bde ba’i steng du /
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
217
This is exactly the instruction for the fivefold practice. And, in another
instruction on the inseparability of view, practice, and the realisation of
one-taste, ’Jig rten mgon po says:
Practise at first love, compassion, and the resolve for awakening. Then
contemplate your body, the tantric deity. Recollect the excellent guru in the
center of your heart. Then do not contemplate your mind as existing—that
would be eternalism. Don’t contemplate it as not existing—that would be
nihilism. Don’t contemplate it as mind—that would be mind only. Don’t
contemplate it as the middle [i.e. a Madhyamaka position between extremes
of eternalism and nihilism]—that would be grasping. The practitioner
doesn’t exist, the practice doesn’t exist, the deity doesn’t exist and the
mantra, too, does not exist.13 Completely abide [with] deity and mantra in
the nature that is free from discursive elaboration. [This] was taught by the
Buddha.14
Again this is, from the point of view of practice, the instruction of the Fivefold
Path (with the dedication of merit mentioned later), to which ’Jig rten mgon po
skyil mo krung legs par bca’ / bsam gtan gyi yan lag lngas gnas par byas nas / dang po
byang chub mchog tu sems bskyed / lus yi dam gyi lhar bsgom / bla ma dam pa spyi
bo’am snying gar bsgom / de nas shes pa ma bcos pa’i ngang la bzhag / ... rjes sam yang
na skabs skabs su / dge ba byung chub chen por bsngo.
13
“The practitioner doesn’t exist ... discursive elaboration” is a direct quote from
Hevajra I, v, 11.
14
Bla ma’i thugs dgongs zab mo lta sgom rtogs pa ro gcig dbyer mi phyed pa, Collected
Works, vol. 3, pp. 291–94, here p. 292f.: dang por byams pa dang snying rje byang chub
kyi sems bsgom, de nas lus yi dam gyi lha bsgom, bla ma dam pa snying gi dbus su
bsam, de nas rang gi sems, yod par mi bsgom rtag lta yin / med par mi bsgom chad lta
yin / sems su mi bsgom sems tsam yin / dbu mar mi bsgom ’dzin pa yin / sgom pa po
med sgom pa’ang med / lha med sngags kyang yod ma yin / spros med pa’i rang bzhin la
/ lha dang sngags ni yang dag gnas / bcom ldan ’das kyis gsungs pa dang / ....
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Jan-Ulrich Sobisch
adds the following, pointing out “the meaning of this instruction”:
The precious one maintained that when realisation arises in that [practice],
The complete liberation is the guru’s blessing. ...
The absolute truth of the self-arisen ones [the buddhas]
Is to be realised through devotion.
And since it has been taught in such a way I request you to pay great heed to
[guru] devotion, for realisation arises from devotion. [This] is the supreme
intention of the precious one.15
In other words, ’Jig rten mgon po’s teaching of the Fivefold Path and his
pointing out of guru-devotion as the decisive means are inseparable principles of
tantric practice per se. In which way is guru-devotion therefore “alone ... the
means that makes realisation arise”? Why is it nevertheless embedded in other
practices? Instead of the detailed discussion that these questions deserve, I shall,
due to limitations of space, make only a few short comments:
(1) ’Jig rten mgon po distinguishes cause (the completely pure special
motivation), condition (merit), and means (guru-devotion). Within the Fivefold
Path teachings, the first refers primarily to love, compassion, and the resolve for
awakening, the second to all practices together, and the third to guru-devotion.
This point will receive further attention below.
(2) From this it follows that most disciples have to undergo a gradual
path, culminating, however, in guru yoga. All practices, except for the final
guru-devotion at the culmination of the path, are in that sense preliminaries,
designed to create the necessary causes and conditions, and to remove
impediments from the path.
(3) ’Jig rten mgon po’s foregoing remarks regarding those practices that
In the same text, p. 293f.: de la rtogs pa skye na rnam grol ba / bla ma’i byin rlabs yin
pa rin chen bzhed / ... rang byung rnams kyi don dam ni / dad pa nyid kyis rtogs bya yin.
15
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
219
could accordingly be described as “mere tantric techniques” (such as the yogas
of the path of means) have the intention of eradicating the disciples’ excessive
fixations on such yogas, which, according to another instruction, might turn
them into great meditators (sgom chen), of which there are many in Tibet, but
which will not turn them into siddhas, of which there are only very few.16
(4) Accordingly, mere meditative technique yields only preliminary
results, if any at all. But devotion (sometimes even when practised by an
otherwise unskilled adept) is capable of producing the final result. This seems
also to be the point of so many siddha stories of India: the adept humbly
abandons all pride regarding sometimes advanced tantric achievements,
realising that the instructor (who in many tales appears fortuitously, whether in
the form of a wandering yogin or as an emanation of some sort, for instance, a
beer-servant or a young female companion), indeed possesses the highest
authority; and finally he experiences his final breakthrough on the basis of the
humility and acknowledgment of authority that are the chief ingredients of
devotion.
As these four points suggest, devotion is both the culmination of all
other practices and thus is embedded in them, and it is alone capable of
producing the final result, which can be achieved even when the tantric
techniques of the path of means are not applied, whereas no ultimate result
arises when there is no guru-devotion serving as the culmination of all practices.
In that sense ’Jig rten mgon po certainly maintained a ‘single means theory,’ but
not, however, in the way that was criticised by Sa paṇ, when the latter refuted
the concept of a single sufficient factor—the white panacea (dkar po gcig
thub)—thereby denying the possibility of a completely autonomous means to
realisation.
Such a means is what David Jackson has translated as the ‘singly
efficacious white [remedy]’ or ‘self-sufficient white [simple method]’ (dkar po
Gzhi lam ’bras bu thams cad lnga ldan gyi sgo nas nyams su len par gdams pa,
Collected Works, vol. 5, pp. 409–21, here especially p. 415.
16
220
Jan-Ulrich Sobisch
gcig thub, p. 1) in the context, for instance, of Sa paṇ’s Sdom gsum rab dbye,
where it is said:
Some say that the dedication is needed after cultivating this ‘singly
efficacious’ [practice]. In that case the ‘singly efficacious’ would become
two-fold. If, in addition to that, one requires such things as going for refuge,
the generation of bodhicitta, and meditative practice involving a tutelary
deity, the ‘singly efficacious’ [practice] would be manifold.17
Not only did ’Jig rten mgon po maintain such a (final) single means—the road
that had to be paved with causes and conditions—but Sgam po pa, too,
maintained just that. For although he spoke of acquiring the true nature of the
mind that, when it had arisen, was a self-sufficient white remedy that was
equivalent to full liberation, it nevertheless had to be “acquired through the
sustaining spiritual impulse of the guru,” the disciple’s “reverence and devotion,
and by the power of meditatively cultivating through diligent effort.”18 I do not
know what in Sa paṇ’s understanding might have been the means to achieve the
final breakthrough, whether it was one or many, or whether it was perhaps
always the same for all (such as seeing the nature of mind). He certainly
maintained, however, that before that breakthrough could occur, all causes and
conditions had to be completely cultivated, as expressed in an epistle in the
context of refuting the self-sufficient white remedy:
17
18
Jackson 1994: 165-66.
See the translations of the relevant passages and the Tibetan text in Jackson 1994:
150-52. It must be noted, however, that the term dkar po gcig thub has, as far as we can
see at the moment, only three occurences in Sgam po pa’s teachings, namely in the
replies to the Karma pa’s and Phag mo gru pa’s questions (as documented by Jackson).
Although it seems clear enough that these clarifications were requested by the disciples,
it is by no means clear how these teachings were given. Where they bestowed orally?
Where they actually penned by Sgam po pa himself? Or were they noted down later
from memory, and by whom?
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
221
If all the interdependently connected [causes and conditions] do not come
together, perfectly complete Buddhahood will not arise. Such is my
understanding.19
Yet a very similar view can also be found clearly expressed in ’Jig rten mgon
po’s Same Intention (2.14.):
All the stages of the path are practised in each single session.
The commentary by Rig ’dzin chos kyi grags pa (1595–1659) explains:
Since it is the essence of the profound dharma of the great lord ’Bri gung pa
that the abandoning of each of the subtle mental stirrings of the afflictions
and the accomplishing of each of the subtle virtuous dharmas, too, is
brought out from between the paddles of the Fivefold Path. ...20
As so often, I wonder how far apart these masters really were.
2.2 Sgam po pa on sūtra, tantra, and mahāmudrā
The different positions regarding the basis from which mahāmudrā arises
portrayed by Jackson (1994) are, when categorised, more complex than they
first appear. In any case, it is clear from his discussion that it is not a simple
problem of ‘tantric’ versus ‘non-tantric’ mahāmudrā. Sa paṇ maintained a
position according to which the mahāmudrā of his tradition is a gnosis that
arises from tantric initiation and from the samādhis of the two stages (i.e.
utpannakrama and sampannakrama), a view that he expressed clearly in his
Sdom gsum rab dbye.21 Similar clarity is hard to find in Sgam po pa’s position.
19
Jackson 1994: 171.
Collected Works 3, p. 103: nyon mongs kyi rtog pa phra ba re re spong ba dang, dkar
po’i chos phra mo re re sgrub kyang lam lnga ldan gyi skya ba nas ’don pa ni mgon po
’bri gung pa chen po’i zab chos kyi nying khu yin pas.
21
nged kyi phyag rgya chen po ni / dbang las byung ba’i ye shes dang / rim pa gnyis kyi
20
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Jan-Ulrich Sobisch
A plethora of teachings are attributed to him as his original doctrine (whose
transmission is by no means well established) and there are numerous later
elucidations by his followers through several generations.
According to ’Gos Lo tsā ba (1392–1481), for example, up to Mi la ras
pa the mahāmudrā was only transmitted within the framework of the path of
means (thabs lam), but Sgam po pa transmitted it also outside of that framework
even to those who did not possess tantric initiation.22 Does that, however, mean
that this transmission without tantric initiation is necessarily to be categorised as
a practice according to the ‘system of perfections’ (pha rol tu phyin pa’i lugs) as
claimed by ’Gos Lo?23 The sixteenth century Bka’ brgyud master Dwags po
Bkra shis rnam rgyal denied this and maintained that this was not Sgam po pa’s
terminology; the division into ‘sūtra’ and ‘tantra mahāmudrā’ was introduced by
later followers. Yet Bkra shis rnam rgyal also did not maintain that this
mahāmudrā was based on specifically tantric teachings. Instead, he held that it
belonged to a class of teachings outside of those two classes.24
Indeed, Jackson was able to locate in Sgam po pa’s collected writings
passages that seem to suggest that Sgam po pa saw ‘his’ mahāmudrā as lying
outside of the classes of sūtra and tantra.25 Accordingly, he distinguishes “taking
inference for the path” (rjes dpag lam du byed pa), i.e. the (sūtra) path of the
perfections (mtshan nyid lam pha rol tu phyin pa), “taking (the guru’s) blessings
for the path” (byin rlabs lam du byed pa), i.e. the Mahāyāna-Mantra (theg chen
gsang sngags), and “taking direct perception for the path” (mngon sum lam du
byed pa), i.e. the inborn clear light (lhan cig skyes pa ’od gsal). Yet this is a
presentation of three different approaches to the teachings concerned with either
gradual (or successive, namely the first two paths), or simultaneous (namely the
ting ’dzin las / ’byung ba’i rang byung ye shes yin / (Sdom gsum rab dbye,
3.163b–164d; Jackson 1994, 89n221).
22
23
24
25
’Gos Lo tsā ba, p. 400, Roerich, p. 459-60, Jackson 1994: 11.
’Gos Lo tsā ba, p. 632, Jackson 1994: 19.
Bkra shis rnam rgyal, pp. 99a–101a, Lhalungpa 1986: 110–12, Jackson 1994: 24-28.
Jackson 1994: 25-28.
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
223
third, lhan cig skyes pa ’od gsal). Such a presentation cannot be understood as
denying the existence of a mahāmudrā that is based on the practice of the two
stages of tantra—and how could it, since Sgam po pa himself was introduced to
mahāmudrā by his guru Mi la ras pa through precisely that method? Nor can it
be seen as making a statement about what others sometimes termed ‘sūtra
mahāmudrā.’ Strictly speaking it also does not explicitly state that the third
approach is exclusively non-mantra, but rather stresses the fact that the lhan cig
skyes pa ’od gsal is, by contrast with the usual sūtra and mantra approaches,
‘simultaneous’ instead of gradual. Similarly, in the second example cited by
Jackson,26 a distinction is made from the point of view of the basis (gzhi), which
is to be either eliminated (instructions on the perfections), transformed (mantra),
or known (mahāmudrā, rdzogs pa chen po). When Sgam po pa speaks in these
passages of “our system” (yu phu’i lugs),27 he obviously refers to the lhan cig
skyes pa, but he is not saying that this is the only approach to mahāmudrā, that it
is not classed as mantra (or, for that matter, as sūtra), or that the other categories
(e.g. rim gyis pa, gzhi spong ba, gzhi sgyur ba) could not be approaches to
mahāmudrā. The question, therefore, arises, what would ‘typically mantra’ or
‘typically sūtra’ look like for Sgam po pa? Fortunately we possess a clear
statement from Sgam po pa’s collected writings:
What is the difference between the perfections and mantra [vehicles]? The
[vehicle of the] perfections takes as its object the cognitive image of the
object-universal. The mantra takes the actual, direct object as the path.28
26
27
28
Jackson 1994: 27.
Sgam po pa Bsod nams rin chen, Collected Writings, pp. 440.2, Jackson 1994: 27n63.
Sgam po pa, Collected Writings, 1, 268.1: pha rol tu phyin pa dang gsang sngags kyi
khyad par gang yin [zhe] na, pha rol tu phyin pa ni don spyi’i rnam pa yul du byed pa
yin, gsang sngags ni don [dngos] lam du byed pa yin. Translation by Jackson 1994: 32,
and n. 74) I follow Jackson emending of the text (don [dngos]), which is confirmed at
the end of the same passage: don dngos lam du byed pa thabs ....
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Now, if “taking the actual, direct object as the path” is Sgam po pa’s definition
of mantra, then “taking direct perception for the path” (mngon sum lam du byed
pa), i.e. the inborn clear light (lhan cig skyes pa ’od gsal), and “knowing the
defilements as the basis of the great gnosis” (nyon mongs pa ye shes chen po’i
gzhir shes pa), as cited by Jackson as possible indications in Sgam po pa’s
collected writings of “a Great Seal beyond sūtra and mantra,” 29 cannot,
according to the above definition of mantra, possibly be seen as being outside of
the mantra vehicle.
That Sgam po pa’s lhan cig skyes pa-mahāmudrā is apparently not
outside of the mantra vehicle also fits with Jackson’s observation that the lhan
cig skyes sbyor of Sgam po pa’s Collected Writings (1, 219–24), which is
identified by Samten Karmey as this work, “is explicitly said to be a high
Tantric instruction.”30 And, again as Jackson31 observes, even Sgam po pa’s
otherwise exclusively sūtra-based work, the famous Thar pa rin po che’i rgyan,
takes recourse to quoting from the songs of the great tantric adepts (mahāsiddha)
and from tantras (and “sūtras of a certain orientation”) when it alludes to the
Great Seal near the end of chapter seventeen.
The reason why I summarise and quote here extensively from the first
chapter of Jackson’s excellent study Enlightenment by a Single Means is that I
would, in the present stage of our research, resist ascribing to Sgam po pa
himself the position that the Great Seal is ‘a sūtra method’ (p. 17),
‘sūtra-tradition’ or ‘sūtra-path’ (p. 24), or that it is “quite outside and removed
from that [i.e. the tantric] system” (p. 33). The fact that Sgam po pa’s own
successors differed greatly on this point is another strong indication that we
cannot determine with any degree of certainty Sgam po pa’s own position in this
regard. Later in this essay I will come back to this point by presenting a ’Bri
gung Bka’ brgyud pa solution to this problem, where, in short, mahāmudrā is
29
Jackson 1994: 25–27. This concept of the “Great Seal beyond Sūtra and Mantra” is
one that accords with Dwags po Bkra shis rnam rgyal’s way of thinking.
30
31
Jackson 1994: 11n19; Karmay 1988: 144n39.
Jackson 1994: 20-24.
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
225
achieved outside of the ‘path of means’ (thabs lam), but clearly within the tantric
‘path of liberation’ (grol lam).
Returning to the context of guru-devotion as the single means to
realisation, a number of questions arise. Here I would like to address chiefly two
of them, namely (a) how is this devotion characterised? and (b) why is it
supposed to function as a means to realise mahāmudrā?
3 Identifying the type of devotion through a quotation from the Hevajra Tantra
With regard to the first topic, the characterisation of guru-devotion, while there
is an abundance of Indian and Tibetan literature concerning guru-devotion, in
this particular context, where devotion is taken to be the single means for
realisation, it is my impression that ’Jig rten mgon po centers his explanation on
a famous quote from the Hevajra Tantra (I, viii, 36), which says:
That which is not expressed by others, the inborn, which cannot be found
anywhere,
Is to be known through […] guru attendance and through one’s own merit.
The crucial line is what I have provisionally translated here as “through [...]
guru attendance,” but it is well known that this line is not without problems. In
the Tibetan tradition, we have, as far as I can see, a number of variant readings,32
namely:
(1) bla ma’i dus mtha’ bsten pa yis,
(2) bla ma’i dus thabs bsten pa yis,
(3) bla ma’i dus tshigs bsten pa las,
32
The verse as a whole is also transmitted variously, but for the purpose of the present
article I am focusing exclusively on Hevajra Tantra I, viii, 36c. The following Tibetan
and Sanskrit variants were first presented together in Nihom 1982. I was introduced to
the problems of this verse by Harunaga Isaacson, who kindly shared his vast knowledge
of the subject with me.
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(4) bla ma’i rim pa nyer bsten phyir,
(5) bla ma’i dus tshigs bstan pa las, and
(6) bla ma’i rim pa nyer bstan phyir.33
Not being a Sanskritist, I cannot give this passage the exhaustive philological
treatment that it requires. Instead I would like to discuss a few points strictly
within the framework of the theme of this chapter.
I would like to dismiss, whether it is a simple orthographical error or
not, the reading bstan pa (nos. 5 and 6), although it is attested in Tibetan
translations of Munidatta’s Caryāgīti commentary. As far as I can tell, the
passage is, within the Tibetan discussion of guru-devotion, always rendered
“guru attendance” (Tib. bla ma’i ... bsten pa/nyer bsten). All such versions make
good sense in our context. In the 2001 edition of ’Jig rten mgon po’s Collected
Writings, wherever the verse is quoted, we find invariably the first version (bla
ma’i dus [kyi] mtha’), but in other works of the same tradition I have also seen
the reading bla ma’i dus thabs, which should perhaps be taken as standard.34
Both versions, however, are well attested renderings of guruparvopasevayā. The
term upasevayā is translated into the Tibetan versions as bsten pa yis (“through
attendance”),35 and the core of the problem is the interpretation of the phrase
guruparva. As we have seen above, its Tibetan renderings include:
(1) bla ma’i dus mtha’,
(2) bla ma’i dus thabs,
33
(1) This is the version we find in ’Jig rten mgon po’s writings (e.g. kha 278, ga 301
and 578). It seems to go back to guruparva. (2) Hevajra Tantra I, viii, 36
(guruparvopasevayā). (3 & 5) Yogaratnamāla 110, 27–8 (commenting upon I, i, 31). A
possible translation of parva. (4 & 6) Munidatta’s commentary on the Caryāgīti, where
the Sanskrit is the same as Hevajra Tantra 1.viii, 36 (Kvaerne 1986: 4, 5, 81–86).
34
‘Dus thabs’ can also be found in the works of Sgam po pa and Bla ma Zhang; see
Jackson 1994: 48-50, 150-52.
35
The Sanskrit tradition has also variants of upasevayā, for which see Nihom.
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
227
(3) bla ma’i dus tshigs, and
(4) bla ma’i rim pa.
The variety of translations into Tibetan is understandable in light of the possible
meanings of parvan: ‘occasion, moment; liminal time; sacrifices performed on
the liminal days (such as new moon, the eighth day of a lunar fortnight); joint
(e.g. in a cane); limb, member, section.’ Version (4) seems to reflect the
understanding
‘joint,’
‘limb,’
‘member,’
etc.,
i.e.
“[through
attending/worshiping] the lineage of the guru.” All other variants (1–3) seem
36
to understand guruparvopasevayā along the lines of “through guru attendance
[during the] liminal [points in] time” (translated here according to the Tibetan).37
In effect, the first three Tibetan versions seem to have understood the expression
as “[through] the sacrifices for the guru on the liminal days,” referring to the
right occasions of particular days throughout the month and year, or perhaps to
the different practice sessions of guru worship throughout the day (see also
Jackson 1994: 49, ‘timely sacrifices’).
However that may be, since it is our principal interest to understand ’Jig
rten mgon po’s idea of ‘guru attendance’ as a single means for realisation, let us
now have a look at how he interpreted this passage. At first glance, one might
wonder how the quotation under discussion serves to support the notion of a
single means, for it seems to mention two means, namely guru attendance and
36
I was kindly informed by Harunaga Isaacson that the Sanskrit compound guruparvan
or guruparvakrama appears to have this sense of ‘lineage of the guru(s)’ in a number of
non-tantric works, including non-Buddhist ones, such as Kumārila’s Ślokavārttika
(pratijñāsūtra 23d), which may be one of the earliest texts in which the compound
guruparvan can be found.
37
I have observed that in oral teachings some contemporary Bka’ brgyud pa lamas
interpret dus thabs as “the skill of the teacher to introduce the students at the right time
[to the mind or through initiation, etc.].” Note that this shifts the emphasis from the
disciple’s efforts to the guru’s skills. I have not had the chance yet to search for a textual
basis of such an interpretation.
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merit. But this is only a superficial problem; below it will become quite clear
that ’Jig rten mgon po treats only ‘guru attendance’ as the means and ‘merit’
simply as a basic condition for recognising the guru’s characteristics and
qualities and its accumulation as a way of pleasing the guru. Let us, in order to
outline ’Jig rten mgon po’s position, look at some primary and secondary
sources. Among the first, ’Jig rten mgon po’s Collected Writings, a cursory
reading of just three out of ten volumes reveals how frequently this passage
from the Hevajra Tantra was quoted by him. When the citation occurs in the
context of guru-devotion (bla ma’i mos gus), it is for example explained in the
following manner:
mtshan nyid ldan pa’i bla ma la
dus mtha’ chos sku’i ’du shes bskyed
nges shes skye ba dka’ gyur na
bsod nams tshogs la nan tan bya.38
The first two lines speak of dus mtha’, explained as ‘the notion of dharmakāya,’
which is produced “with regard to a qualified guru.”39 In my brief investigation
of the passage from the Hevajra Tantra above, I concluded that in our context
‘liminal [points in] time’ has been the general Tibetan understanding of dus
mtha’ (Skt. parvan), but what is its sense in the context of this particular verse
by ’Jig rten mgon po? Is this passage—instead of speaking of sacrifice on the
liminal days—perhaps speaking of a final (mtha’) sacrifice, namely, perceiving
the guru as he is in the final analysis, that is, as the dharmakāya? In another
work in the same volume, ’Jig rten mgon po’s remarks in the context of the
38
Collected Writings, vol. ga (pp. 576–79), Snying po don gyi zhus lan gsang chen yi ge
(p. 578).
39
The final two lines of the text may be translated: “If the arising of certainty [with
regard to such a notion] should be difficult, / You should work conscientiously at the
accumulation of merit.” Thus, the accumulation of merit is explained as a secondary
means to provide the necessary conditions for the arising of such a notion.
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
229
Hevajra Tantra passage under discussion can in fact be understood in such a
way:
[This] “culminating [sacrifice] in relation to the guru” (bla ma’i dus kyi
mtha’) does not refer to “making great offerings, performing many services
and attending [the guru] for a long time.” Since beyond seeing the guru as
dharmakāya and the arising of certainty [with regard to that], there is no
occasion of regarding [him] as anything superior to that, this [seeing of the
guru as dharmakāya] is called ‘the final moment.’40
Hence, according to this passage, dus kyi mtha’ means in general: ‘to make
great offerings, to perform many services and to attend [the guru] for a long
time.’ But, according to ’Jig rten mgon po, in the particular context of the
passage quoted from the Hevajra Tantra, this is inappropriate. Such a sacrifice
would not only include common ritual sacrifice, but also the performance of
services for and attendance upon the guru; it seems not only to involve the
notion of ‘at the right time,’ but also ‘intensively’ and ‘for long periods.’ It is,
however, unlikely that ’Jig rten mgon po intended to provide, in his verse cited
above, a lexical definition of the term dus kyi mtha’ as it was generally
understood at his time. He has provided rather a clue when he refers to the
culmination of all practice, namely, to understand ‘culminating sacrifice’ as the
notion that the guru is the dharmakāya. Be that as it may, the passage as a whole
seems to indicate at least that a rendering ‘culminating sacrifice of the guru’ is
not completely off the mark.
The necessity of regarding the guru as dharmakāya seems to have been a
teaching that was handed down to ’Jig rten mgon po by his own teacher, since in
Collected Works, vol. ga (pp. 297–309), Bstan bcos rdo rje ri zhes bya ba rgo na ba
dang shākya dbang phyug gnyis la gnang ba, (p. 301): bla ma’i dus kyi mtha’ ni ’bul ba
che ba dang, zhabs tog mang ba dang, bsten yun ring ba la zer ba min, bla ma chos kyi
skur mthong zhing nges shes skyes pa de las lhag pa gzhan du mthong ba’i dus med pas
dus kyi mtha’ de yin gsungs.
40
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the Rin byang ma commentary of his Same Intention, the ‘Venerable Protector
of Beings (’gro ba’i mgon po),’ which is the usual epithet for ’Jig rten mgon
po’s guru Phag mo gru pa (1110–1170), is quoted in the context of this passage
as having said:
Without the arising of the perception of the guru,
Who is Vajradhara, as being dharmakāya,
One may direct oneself to the realisation of sameness,
But one will be despised by oneself and those who are superior.41
To summarise our findings so far, we may conclude that according to ’Jig rten
mgon po, guru-devotion is the single means for the realisation of mahāmudrā
and the culmination of that attendance upon the guru is to regard him as
dharmakāya.
4 The function of guru-devotion in ’Jig rten mgon po’s Same Intention
Let us now turn to the second question, namely why guru-devotion is supposed
to function as a means for the realisation of mahāmudrā. The aforementioned
Rin byang ma commentary on the Same Intention explains the devotion to the
guru in terms of dependent origination, which is a core theme of that text (Rin
byang ma, p. 52). On the next page (p. 53) it analyses the relation between the
devoted disciple and the qualified guru as being like that between workable clay
and a faultless mould:
Therefore, the condition, i.e. the qualified guru, is like a faultless mould.
The cause, i.e. one’s devotion, is like clay and like [something that is]
workable. It is like [the case where] there is an image in the mould, but if
one has not gathered the cause, i.e. faultless clay, one may put dry earth, (p.
Rin byang ma, p. 53: rdo rje ’chang chen bla ma la / chos sku’i 'du shes ma skyes par /
mnyam nyid rtogs pa kha lta yang / rang dang gong ma rnams kyis khrel.
41
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
231
54) stones, or something like clods [of dirt into the mould], but the image
will not appear.42
The dependent character of this process is also the theme, in the Same Intention,
of the vajra utterance that precedes the one that has been discussed earlier.43
Here, ‘to produce the qualities’ presupposes that one possesses both the cause
and the condition:
[The siddhis] arise from the dependent association of the disciple upon the
guru, where the cause is one’s [i.e. the disciple’s] completely pure special
motivation, and the condition is the qualified guru.44
Apart from the single means of devotion and the condition of merit, we are here
presented with the cause, namely ‘the completely pure special motivation,’45 and
42
Elsewhere in the Rin byang ma (p. 46), the example of the “mould and the lump of
clay” is explained as a relationship of “non-deceiving dependency.”
43
mtshan nyid dang mi ldan pa’i bla mas yon tan bskyed mi nus par bzhed do. “He
maintained that an unqualified guru cannot produce the qualities.” This is the fifth vajra
utterance of the sixth chapter according to the Rdo sher ma, and the first chapter
according to the Rin byang ma commentarial traditions.
Rin byang ma, p. 45-46: rgyu rang gi lhag pa’i bsam pa rnam par dag pa dang, rkyen
mtshan nyid dang ldan pa’i bla ma gnyis kyi dpon slob rten ’brel tshogs pa las ’byung
ste.
44
45
The completely pure special motivation refers to aspiring to the result which is such
that “as long as the beings are not exhausted, the Buddha activity, too, is not known to
be exhausted, [and] the inexhaustible body, speech, and mind [of the Buddha], the wheel
of ornamentation, arises uninterruptedly until saṃsāra is empty” (Rin byang ma, p. 493).
It is possible that such a vast result is achieved because “all the qualities of a Buddha fit
into the mind.” Therefore “it is necessary to engage also in the completely pure conduct
of body and speech, which is blessed with the vast motivation equal to the dharmadhātu.
In short, produce again and again the vast motivation, thinking: ‘All the roots of the
wholesome of all the Noble Ones of the ten directions and three times and of whatever
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Jan-Ulrich Sobisch
with an apparently further condition, namely the ‘qualified guru.’ In ’Jig rten
mgon po’s thought, however, the ‘qualified guru’ and ‘one’s merit’ are
intimately interwoven so that the latter is again the basis for the former.
According to the Rin byang ma (p. 46), the quality of the ‘outer guru,’ i.e. good,
bad, or medium, depends directly on the disciple’s stock of merit. Hence:
The unqualified guru is an appearance achieved by [one’s] inferior roots of
virtue.
In other words, the apparent lack of quality on the part of the guru is nothing but
an insufficient measure of merit on the disciple’s part; hence, the principal
condition is still the disciple’s merit. It follows that the guru in such an impaired
relationship is unable to produce the qualities in the disciple. In sum, realisation
is produced through the cause, namely ‘the disciple’s pure special motivation,’
the condition, namely ‘his merit,’ and the means, guru-devotion. But what is the
‘justification’ of devotion being the single means of realisation? In order to
understand this from the point of view of the ’Bri gung Bka’ brgyud pa tradition
we must turn to its core practice, the Fivefold Profound Path of Mahāmudrā (zab
lam phyag chen lnga ldan), and its commentaries.
5 The guru yoga of the Fivefold Profound Path of Mahāmudrā
The Fivefold Profound Path of Mahāmudrā, which, according to the tradition,
goes back to Sgam po pa, is evident for the first time in the collected works of
Phag mo gru pa Rdo rje rgyal po (1110–1170), the principal guru of ’Jig rten
mgon po. Here, in a short table with seven columns and six lines, the first row
mentions the five limbs of mahāmudrā: the resolve for awakening, the practice
of the tantric deity, the practice of the guru, the practice of mahāmudrā, and
merit dedication. Through these five practices, the five kleśas are abandoned, the
five demons are pacified, the five families of human beings are controlled, and
being exists must be completely achieved by myself alone’” (Rin byang ma, p. 494).
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
233
the five results and the five gnoses are obtained.46 ’Jig rten mgon po composed a
spiritual song of these five limbs, which later became the basis for numerous
commentaries both from within and outside the ’Bri gung Bka’ brgyud pa
lineage:
(1) If the stallion of love and compassion,
Is not made to gallop for the benefit of others,
The applause of gods and men will not resound in the crowd.
Pay great heed, therefore, to this attitude, the preparatory practice.
(2) If with respect to your body, the king, which is the body of the deity,
You do not seize the basis, which is the unchangeable support,
The mothers—the ḍākinī with her retinue—will not gather.
Pay great heed, therefore, to this body, which is the tantric deity.
(3) If the sun of devotion fails to shine
Upon the guru, who is the snow mountain of the four kāyas,
The stream of blessings will not arise.
Pay great heed, therefore, to this mind, devotion.
(4) If the cloud-masses of mental constructions do not disappear
From the expanse of space, the nature of your mind,
The planets and stars of the two wisdoms, will not shine.
Pay great heed, therefore, to this mind, which is free from mental
constructions.
(5) If you do not polish with your aspiration prayers
The wish-fulfilling jewel of the two accumulations,
The necessary and desired results will not arise.
46
The title in Phag mo gru pa’s collected works is Lnga ldan gyi lag len nyi shu rtsa lnga
pa. The first column mentions categories (except in the first line, which express the
homage), namely the five kleśas that are abandoned, etc. The last column provides a
summary for each line. At the core of the table are the middle columns of lines two to
six, which add up to the twenty-five items mentioned in the title of the work. For an
edition and translation of this text, see Appendix C.
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Pay great heed, therefore, to this concluding dedication.47
The culmination of this path, or the point where the essential breakthrough is
experienced, is the practice of the ‘four-kāya guru-yoga.’ Through devoted
visualisations and recitations, the guru is successively identified with the three
buddhakāyas (nirmāṇakāya, sambhogakāya and dharmakāya), and finally also
with the fourth kāya:
I pay homage! To the guru who is the complete purity of everything that
arises
I present the offering of everything that appears as arising on the basis [of
emptiness].
I beseech you: may the three realms be liberated!
Bestow your blessing so that saṃsāra may be uprooted!48
The famed mid-thirteenth-century master Rgyal ba Yang dgon pa (1213–1287),
who was in contact with some of ’Jig rten mgon po’s direct disciples (in
47
The song is quoted here according to Rig ’dzin Chos kyi grags pa’s Phyag rgya chen
po lnga ldan gyi khrid, p. 49f., 70f., 89f., 108, and 155: byams pa dang snying rje’i rta
pho la / gzhan phan gyi dkyus thog ma bcad na / khrom lha mi’i ’or che mi ’byung bas /
sems sngon ’gro ’di la nan tan mdzod / rang lus lha sku’i rgyal po la / gzhi ’gyur med
kyi brtan sa ma bzung na / ma mkha’ ’gro’i ’khor 'bangs mi ’du bas / lus yi dam gyi lha
la nan tan mdzod / bla ma sku bzhi’i gangs ri la / mos gus kyi nyi ma ma shar na / byin
rlabs kyi chu rgyun mi ’byung bas / sems mos gus ’di la nan tan mdzod / sems nyid kyi
nam mkha’ yangs pa la / rnam rtog gi sprin tshogs ma dengs na / mkhyen gnyis kyi gza’
skar mi bkra bas / sems mi rtog ’di la nan tan mdzod / tshogs gnyis yid bzhin gyi nor bu
la / smon lam gyi byi dor ma byas na / dgos ’dod kyi ’bras bu mi ’byung bas / rjes bsngo
ba ’di la nan tan mdzod.
48
Quoted here according to Rig ’dzin Chos kyi grags pa’s Phyag rgya chen po lnga ldan
gyi khrid, p. 103f., who attributes this verse to ’Jig rten mgon po: namo snang srid rnam
dag gi bla ma la / snang srid gzhi bzhengs su mchod pa ’bul / khams gsum yongs grol du
gsol ba ’debs / ’khor ba dong sprugs su byin gyis rlobs.
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
235
particular Spyan snga Grags pa ’byung gnas, 1175–1255), made the following
remarks with regard to the guru-yoga of the Fivefold Path:
The guru, who is the dharmakāya, and the true nature of one’s mind are
inseparable. And since the nature of all phenomena of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa
is the same, to realise that everything that appears is inseparable from the
guru, who is the dharmakāya, [through] devotion in which dualising into
subject and object has ended, that is devotional mahāmudrā.49
The point seems to be that by realising the guru as dharmakāya, one gains
experiential access to the truth that the Buddha, the guru, the dharmakāya, the
nature of one’s mind, and all inner and outer appearances are one and the same
thing, namely emptiness and true reality. And since devotion is the means to
realise the guru as dharmakāya, it is also the means to obtain this realisation.
There also exists, however, a more detailed explanation specifically related to
the practice of the Fivefold Profound Path of Mahāmudrā, which attempts to
explain “the justification that devotion is the essence of all paths.” It is found in
a commentary of the four-kāya guru-yoga of this path, a unique explanation that
will be my topic in the remainder of this essay.50
See Yang dgon pa, Rgyal ba, Lnga ldan, p. 412 f: bla ma chos kyi sku de dang rang gi
sems nyid dbye ba med pa yin la, ’khor ’das kyi chos thams cad de’i rang bzhin ’di gcig
pas, snang srid thams cad bla ma chos kyi sku ru dbyer med par rtogs pa yul yul can gyi
gnyis ’dzin zad pa’i zhen med kyi mos gus ni mos gus phyag rgya chen po’o. This
49
thought reminds one of the famous words found in the first chapter of Sgam po pa Bsod
nams rin chen’s Thar pa rin po che’i rgyan in the context of his teaching that all beings
are possessors of the buddha nature, according to which “Buddha is dharmakāya and
dharmakāya is emptiness (śūnyatā), and since emptiness pervades all beings, all beings
are possessors of the Buddha nature.” Rumtek block print, fol. 3r–v: sangs rgyas ni chos
sku yin la, chos sku ni stong nyid yin te, stong nyid des sems can thams cad la khyab
pa’i phyir na yang, sems can sangs rgyas kyi snying po can yin pa’o.
50
See Lho Dkon mchog ’phrin las rnam rgyal. This author was Rig ’dzin Chos kyi grags
pa’s direct disciple.
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6 The justification (’thad pa) that devotion is the essence of all paths
Having established through quotations from a tantra and from former masters
that a qualified guru and devotion on the part of the disciple are the
preconditions for obtaining realisation, the author of this commentary, Dkon
mchog ’phrin las rnam rgyal (17th c.), proceeds to show that the three baskets of
the sūtra vehicle, and the four classes of the tantras are all combined in the ‘path
of devotion.’ He first argues that the vinaya, sūtra, and abhidharma piṭakas are
combined in the three trainings and that guru-devotion is their essence:
(1) When you supplicate the guru with devotion, it becomes an antidote to
the afflictions, since hatred and so forth do not arise. At that time the
seven [deeds] to be abandoned by body and speech are automatically
stopped, which is the ‘training of the restrictive discipline’ (śīla).
(2) The realisation, through the dharmakāya devotion,51 of your own mind
as free from proliferation is called the ‘training of the vajra samādhi.’
The Lord ’Bri gung pa maintained that one hundred samādhis are
contained in that.
(3) Through the realisation of all apparent objects as the nature of mind, free
from proliferation, by way of the lord’s blessing, misconceptions
regarding all objects of knowledge are clarified and you obtain
empowerment, [which is] the ‘training of discriminating knowledge’
(prajñā).52
51
52
I.e. seeing the guru as dharmakāya.
Lho Dkon mchog ’phrin las rnam rgyal, p. 22f.: dang po bla ma la mos gus kyis gsol
ba ’debs pa’i dus su zhe sdang sogs mi skye bas nyon mongs pa rnams kyi gnyen por
song, de tsam na lus ngag gi spong ba bdun shugs la ’gags pa tshul khrims kyi bslab pa,
gnyis pa chos sku’i mos gyus kyis rang sems spros bral du rtogs pa la rdo rje lta bu’i
ting nge ’dzin gyi bslab pa zer, der ting nge ’dzin brgya rtsa ’du ba mgon po ’bri gung
pas bzhed, gsum pa rje’i byin rlabs kyis yul snang thams cad sems nyid spros bral du
rtogs pas shes bya thams cad kyi sgro ’dogs chod cing dbang bsgyur ba shes rab kyi
bslab pa.
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
237
Dkon mchog ’phrin las rnam rgyal further argues that guru-devotion is the
intention of the four classes of tantra:
(1) Through devotion to the lord and services with body and wealth the
impurity of obscuration is washed away, which is the intention of the
kriyātantras,
(2) to supplicate continuously and to make known the banner of [the guru’s]
fame in the ten directions is the intention of the caryātantras,
(3) the continuous yearning for [the guru] and the arising of all thoughts and
mental stirrings as the guru’s mind is the intention of the yogatantras,
(4) and the arising of all of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa as the inborn gnosis through
the lord’s blessing is the intention of the supreme [class of tantras]
(niruttara).53
Moreover, Dkon mchog ’phrin las rnam gyal continues by explaining the path of
devotion also in the context of the two tantric paths of ripening and liberation.54
Here he employs the well-known scheme of the four initiations with their
respective practices and mudrās, adding, however, the particular perspective of
the path of devotion. The practices connected with the first two initiations are
subsumed under the category of the ‘path of ripening,’ which corresponds to
regarding the guru as sambhogakāya:
path of ripening = regarding the guru as sambhogakāya
- vase initiation55
53
Lho Dkon mchog 'phrin las rnam rgyal, p. 23: rje’i mos gus dang, lus longs spyod kyi
zhabs tog gis sgrib pa’i dri ma ’khru ba bya rgyud, gsol ba rgyun du ’debs shing snyan
pa’i ba dan phyogs bcur sgrog pa spyod rgyud, gdung shugs rgyun ’chad med cing dran
rtogs thams cad bla ma’i thugs su ’char ba rnal ’byor rgyud, rje’i byin rlabs kyis ’khor
’das thams cad lhan skyes kyi ye shes su ’char ba bla med kyi dgongs pa ste.
54
55
The Tibetan text for this passage is given below in Appendix A.
The vase initiation is usually seen as enabling the initiand to achieve the nirmāṇakāya.
It is perhaps here subsumed under “seeing the guru as sambhogakāya,” since it is a
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Jan-Ulrich Sobisch
- stage of production
- samayamudrā
- secret initiation
- practices of nāḍī and vāyu56
- dharmamudrā
The practices connected with the third and fourth initiations are subsumed under
the category of ‘path of liberation,’ which corresponds to regarding the guru as
dharmakāya:
path of liberation = regarding the guru as dharmakāya57
- third initiation
- practices of vāyu and bindu
- karmamudrā
- fourth initiation
- stage of not practising58
- mahāmudrā
He explains that through the realisation of the guru as sambhogakāya, whatever
feature of such initiations to regard the guru as the sambhogakāya Buddha.
56
This is standard tantric theory: the secret initiation enables the initiand to practise with
the skillful means of nāḍī and vāyu and the third initiation (see below) enables him to
work with vāyu and bindu, producing the bliss by relying on the consort. Cf. for
example Bentor 2000: 339.
57
I presume that the final two initiations are correlated with seeing the guru as
dharmakāya, since the notion of dharmakāya is directly linked with the experience of the
bliss as it is produced during the third initiation and as it effortlessly arises as a result of
realising what is communicated through the fourth initiation. Thus, seeing the guru as
sambhogakāya seems to be taught here as being at least equivalent to receiving the first
two initiations and seeing the guru as dharmakāya as equivalent to receiving the third
and fourth initiations, much as the four initiations are often taught as producing the
results of the nirmāṇakāya, sambhogakāya, dharmakāya, and svābhāvikakāya.
58
Cf. Bentor (2000: 339): “The fourth initiation makes the initiand a suitable vessel for
meditation on the instantaneous Great Seal.”
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
239
the guru does is seen as good (ci mdzad legs par bltas), and through supplicating
him, one purifies the obscuration of the body (lus sgrib), thus emerging
embodied as the deity (lha skur shar ba). This corresponds to the vase initiation
(bum dbang) and its path, namely the stage of production (bskyed rim), which in
turn is the samayamudrā (dam tshig gi phyag rgya). To underscore this point,
Dkon mchog ’phrin las rnam rgyal quotes the Trisamayavyūha Tantra:
Even practising for one hundred thousand eons
The deity that is blazing with the major and minor marks
Is not a hundred thousandth fraction of remembering the guru.59
Then, taking whatever the guru says as authoritative (ci gsung tshad mar bzung)
and regarding all phenomena as the wheel of mantra (sngags kyi ’khor lor bltas),
the disciple follows the advice of the master, carrying out whatever the master
prescribes (gsung bzhin bsgrubs). Thereby, says Dkon mchog ’phrin las rnam
rgyal (p. 24), the obscuration of speech (ngag sgrib) is purified, inhalation,
exhalation, and abiding of the breath are realised as vajra-recitation (rlung
’byung ’jug gnas gsum rdo rje’i bzlas par rtogs), and all speech is realised as the
wheel of mantra. This corresponds to the secret initiation (gsang dbang), and its
path, namely ‘[vajra] recitation,’ is the yoga that utilises nāḍī and vāyu (rtsa
rlung gi rnal ’byor), or the dharmamudrā (chos kyi phyag rgya). Thus, this stage
describes the sambhogakāya guru-yoga, whose focus is the supplication of the
guru together with the lineage gurus. This point is underscored when Dkon
mchog ’phrin las rnam rgyal again quotes from the Trisamayavyūha Tantra:
More than one million ritual service recitations [of the tantric deity],
A single guru supplication pleases [the guru].60
59
Peking edition 0134, rgyud, da 166a6-230a5: mtshan dang dpe byad ’bar ba’i lha /
bskal pa ’bum du bsgoms pas kyang / bla ma dran pa ’bum char min.
60
bsnyen sgrub bzlas pa sa ya bas / bla ma’i gsol ’debs lan gcig dga’.
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Jan-Ulrich Sobisch
Next follows the realisation of the guru as dharmakāya, corresponding to the
‘path of liberation.’ When one receives the blessing of the guru’s mind (thugs
kyi byin rlabs), all feelings such as good, bad, or neutral arise as great bliss, the
inborn gnosis (bde chen lhan skyes ye shes). This corresponds to the third
initiation (dbang gsum pa), and since through such a practice of the stage of
perfection all the nāḍīs turn into the central channel (rtsa ba thams cad dbu ma[r]
gyur) and vāyu and bindu turn into gnosis (rlung dang thig le ye shes su gyur),
all appearances that arise emerge as great bliss (bde ba chen po), which is the
karmamudrā. Again Dkon mchog ’phrin las rnam rgyal quotes the
Trisamayavyūha Tantra in order to show that the dharmakāya guru-yoga
matches and in fact surpasses the tantric ‘stage of perfection’ practices:
Practising the stage of perfection,
Having abandoned distractions for an eon,
Cannot surpass even one twenty-thousandth
Of the arising of the guru in the maṇḍala of your mind.61
And finally (p. 25), when one has purified attachment to emptiness as an aspect
of the path (lam gyi stong zhen dag nas) by actualising through the guru’s
blessings the way to abide in the ultimate nature (gnyug ma gshis kyi ’dug
tshul), all activities of the three venues become unforced (shugs bral), which
corresponds to the fourth initiation (dbang bzhi pa), and settling into
effortlessness (rtsol bral tu ’jog pa), not practising (ma bsgom par), in the state
wherein all objects of knowledge arise as the natural luminosity of the four guru
kāyas (bla ma sku bzhi’i rang mdangs su shar ba’i ngang), is the mahāmudrā
(phyag rgya chen po).
rdzogs pa’i rim pa bskal pa’i bar du ni / ’du ’dzi g.yeng ba spangs te bsgoms pa bas /
bla ma rang sems dkyil du shar ba tsam / ’bum phrag nyi shu’i char yang mi phod do.
61
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
241
7 Conclusion
Through the Same Intention, which is the core work of the ’Bri gung Bka’
brgyud pa approach to view, practice, and conduct, and through a variety of
instructions from ’Jig rten mgon po’s collected works, it is clear that for this
‘nephew’ of Sgam po pa the guru-devotion of the last moment (the moment
where the culmination of the path is reached), in which one “sees the guru as
dharmakāya,” is the single means of realisation. It is a ‘single means’ in the
sense that it alone is capable of producing the final result, but without being a
completely isolated means, since ’Jig rten mgon po emphatically teaches that
both a cause, namely the completely pure special motivation, and a condition,
the accumulation of much merit, have to occur before the final moment of the
path can be approached. Both the cause and the condition are to be practised in
the form of the Fivefold Profound Path of Mahāmudrā, where ‘cause’ refers
primarily to the practices of love, compassion, and the resolve for awakening,
‘condition’ to all five practices of merit accumulation (bodhicitta, the
visualisation of the tantric deity, guru yoga, mahāmudrā, and dedication), and
‘means’ (in the final sense described above) to guru-devotion. The latter
certainly has roots also in the preparatory practices of merit accumulation, but
the guru-devotion of the final moment in particular, where the guru is
understood as dharmakāya, is the single means for realisation.
Moreover, even though evidence regarding Sgam po pa’s own
classification of his unique presentation of mahāmudrā remains somewhat
uncertain, I believe that he perhaps did not consider it to belong outside of
mantra, at least if we accept the definition of mantra as “taking the actual, direct
object as the path” to be Sgam po pa’s own teaching. ’Jig rten mgon po’s
opinion in this matter may be deduced from several remarks attributed to him
and from teachings we find in his tradition. Accordingly, while ‘mere tantric
technique,’ such as the yoga of the path of means (thabs lam), may cause the
adept to become a ‘great meditator’ (sgom chen), it will not turn him into a
supremely realised person (or siddha). The final breakthrough can only be
achieved through the guru-devotion of the final moment, which is seeing the
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guru as dharmakāya.
Finally, this particular guru yoga is to be classified as belonging to the
‘path of liberation’ (sgrol lam) of mantra—not only because the Fivefold Path
includes the practice of a tantric deity, but also because the ‘four-kāya guru
yoga’ of the Fivefold Path is treated as being completely equivalent to the
practices of the ‘path of means’ (thabs lam)—and thus the realisation of
mahāmudrā resulting from it, while not depending on the practices of the path of
means, is nevertheless to be understood as belonging to the path of mantra.
Appendix A: The Tibetan text for the paths of ripening and liberation in the
context of the four-kāya guru-yoga62
de’ang smin grol gyi lam gnyis las, bla ma longs skur rtogs pas ci mdzad legs
par bltas shing gsol ba btab pas lus sgrib dag nas lha skur shar ba bum dbang
dang, de’i lam bskyed rim dam tshig gi phyag rgya ste, ... ci gsung tshad mar
bzung ste chos thams cad sngags kyi ’khor lor bltas nas gsung bzhin bsgrubs pas
ngag sgrib dag ste, rlung ’byung 'jug gnas gsum rdo rje’i bzlas par rtogs shing,
ngag thams cad sngags kyi ’khor lor rtogs pa gsang dbang dang, de’i lam bzlas
pa rtsa rlung gi rnal ’byor ram chos kyi phyag rgya ste, ... bla ma chos skur rtogs
pas thugs kyi byin rlabs zhugs nas tshor ba bde sdug btang snyom thams cad bde
chen lhan skyes ye shes su ’char ba dbang gsum pa dang, rtsa thams cad dbu ma
dang, rlung dang thig le ye shes su gyur pas snang bar gang shar bde ba chen por
’char ba las kyi phyag rgya dang zhing sbyong gi rgyal po’ang yin zhing, mdor
na sems dag par byed pa’i grol lam gyi mchog yin te ... bla ma’i byin rlabs kyis
gnyug ma gshis kyi ’dug tshul mngon du gyur pas lam gyi stong zhen dag nas
sgo gsum gyi bya ba thams cad shugs bral du ’gro ba dbang bzhi pa dang, shes
bya thams cad bla ma sku bzhi’i rang mdangs su shar ba’i ngang la ma bsgom
par rtsol bral tu ’jog pa phyag rgya chen po yin te.
62
Without the quotations given in the body of the paper above.
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
243
Appendix B: Outline of a liturgical text of the four-kāya guru-yoga63
(1) Accomplishing the nirmaṇakāya guru
[Visualisation]: I am visible as the tantric deity. In front of me and slightly
above, about a cubit or an arm’s length away, on a lion’s throne, lotus, moon,
and sun, the principal guru sits [in the form of] the lord of the teachings,
Śākyamuni, the nirmaṇakāya [Buddha]. The color of his body is like refined
gold and his uṣnīṣa is invisible. He is sitting in the vajra posture. His right hand
[shows the mudrā] of touching the earth, his left [the mudrā of] concentration,
and he is endowed with a saffron-coloured garments, the threefold Dharma
robes. His major and minor marks are fully complete and upon his radiating
immeasurable lights and rays of light, the gurus of the transmission, buddhas,
bodhisattvas, and the assemblies of the maṇḍalas of the tantric deities surround
him and remain there. ([Recite] the seven-branch prayer. Offer praise through
the extensive prayer of the Twelve Deeds, or):
At the time when you, the supreme among men, were born,
You walked seven steps on this great earth
Declaring “I am the supreme one in this world”—
I pay homage to you, master of this time.
You possess a complete pure body with the supreme forms,
Like an ocean of wisdom, a mountain of gold,
Renowned, outstanding in this world—
I pay homage to you, lord of supreme attainment.
You are endowed with the supreme marks, a face stainless as the moon;
63
This practice has been carried out in recent centuries according to the liturgy by Lho
Dkon mchog ’phrin las rnam rgyal, a disciple of Rig ’dzin Chos kyi grags pa
(1595–1659, see: Chos kyi grags pa, Rig ’dzin, Phyag rgya chen po lnga ldan gyi khrid
kyi zin bris, pp. 90–105). This particular edition of the text, however, is full of scribal
errors and so I rely here on a recently published new liturgy, namely Dkon mchog ratna,
Sgrub grwa’i rgyun ’khyer, pp. 196–206, which is also not without problems, but
generally in a much better state.
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I pay homage to you, [whose body shines] like gold.
Free from stains as you are, the handsome one in this three spheres of
existence,
I pay homage to you, possessor of matchless knowledge.
Supreme among men, guide of disciples,
You cut through the chains of entanglement, Tathāgata,
Capable of appeasing and completely pacifying Indra;
I pay homage to you, who dwell in Śrāvastī.
(Recite the Rigs kun ma,64 and furthermore):
Since you are body, speech, and mind of all the buddhas of the three times,
the spontaneously present sameness, the source of the uninterrupted stream
of qualities, I beseech you to purify the body, speech, and mind of me and of
all ordinary beings of the three realms, and to cause [us] to be inseparable
from the body, speech, and mind of the precious guru.
(And):
I pay homage! Please cause the supreme devotion and realisation of the
dharmakāya that is beyond union and separation to arise at this moment, the
completely pure continuity of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa throughout all times, the
body, speech, and mind of the precious guru, dhamadhātu, the uninterrupted
stream of the spontaneously present gnosis of sameness, from which my
body, speech, and mind are inseparable and not different.
(And):
Lord! Wish fulfilling jewel! Ornament of my crown!
Your victorious mind, which cannot be expressed or thought,
64
The Rigs kun ma is a supplication to the line of abbots of the main seat of the ’Bri
gung Bka’ brgyud pa starting with the words: rigs kun gtso bo rdo rje ’chang.
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
245
Possesses the five cognisant gnoses.
You are endowed with a loving nature and kindness.
Protector of beings! Precious one!
I beseech you from the true nature of my mind:
In the state of dharmadhātu, bless me!
Bless [me] that I realise this mind, which is from the beginning
Unborn and pure, as the dharmakāya, which is beyond imagination.
Finally the gurus of the lineage and so forth [dissolve into] Śākyamuni Buddha
and he turns into a mass of light, which dissolves into me. (Remain in
equipoise).
(2) Accomplishing the saṃbhogakāya guru
[Visualisation]: I am visible as the tantric deity. In my heart, upon a lion’s
throne, on a sun disc at the navel of an eight-petaled lotus, dwells my principal
guru, the saṃbhogakāya Vairocana, the glacier lake, whose body is of white
color, and who is adorned with the precious head ornament, earrings, throat
ornament, necklace, chest ornament, girdle, bracelet, and so forth. He wears
upper and lower garments made of multi-colored silks. His hands remain in the
mudrā of equipoise, holding the begging bowl endowed with lotuses. He dwells
with his legs in the vajra posture. All buddha lands appear in his body65 and he
pervades with his body all buddha lands. In his forehead, which is shining with
light and rays of light, is a white oṃ on a moon, in his throat a red ā on a lotus,
and in his heart a blue hūṃ on a sun. Visualise the hūṃ to be surrounded by the
name mantras of the gurus of the transmission.
[Here follow in the text the outer, inner, and secret offerings and the
offering of true reality. Then follows the recitation of a mantra consisting of the
names of all lineage gurus (in Sanskritised form) from Vajradhara down to the
principal guru. To each name is added oṃ āḥ nāmo guru at the beginning and
65
According to an oral explanation, the Buddhalands exist within each pore of Buddha
Vairocana’s skin.
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Jan-Ulrich Sobisch
mahāmudrā siddhi phala hūṃ at the end. Finally the Sanskritised name of the
disciple’s principal guru, combined with the name of Buddha Vajradhara and the
bodhisattva name of ’Jig rten mgon po (Ratnaśrī), is recited as much as possible
in the same way as explained above. The visualisation for this is the following]:
Light radiates from the name-mantra, which fills the guru’s body. It radiates
again, [presents] offerings to the Noble Ones, gathers their blessings, and
dissolves into the mantra chain. The obscurations of all beings are purified and
the beings are transformed into Vairocanas. [They] fill all spheres of the world
like sesame seeds. Finally, the outer gurus melt into light and dissolve into the
inner guru [at the practitioner’s heart]. [The inner guru] melts into light and
dissolves into the mantra chain; the chain dissolves into the hūṃ at the heart; the
hūṃ dissolves [from below], the foot [i.e. u-vowel] into the body [i.e. the letter
ha], the body into the head [i.e. the letter’s uppermost part], the head into the
moon [i.e. the anusvāra], the moon into the bindu [the drop-like sign above the
ansuvāra], and the bindu into its tip [the nāda]. Remain in the state that is
without fixation on the nāda.
(3) Accomplishing the dharmakāya guru
[Visualisation]: I am visible as the tantric deity. In the space in front of myself,
on a lion’s throne [with] lotus, moon, and sun [seats] dwells my principal guru
[in the form of] the Great Sixth Vajradhara, with his body having the color of
the clear sky, dark blue, with one face, two arms, holding vajra and bell at his
heart, sitting in the vajra posture, ornamented with silken garments and jewels,
possessing all the major and minor marks and radiating rays of light. He is
surrounded by the gurus of the Fivefold Profound Instruction Lineage like
clouds massed together. (Perform the outer, inner, and secret offerings and the
offering of true reality and recite whichever supplication is suitable, such as the
Rigs kun ma. Finally): The gurus of the lineage dissolve into Vajradhara.
[Vajradhara] melts into a heap of light, which dissolves into spot between your
eyebrows.66
66
Other liturgies and commentaries mention that the practitioner should at this point
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
247
(4) Accomplishing the svābhāvikakāya Guru
Having become fully convinced that the guru and your mind are inseparable,
[recite]:67
I pay homage the precious lord,
The nature of mind, the svābhāvikakāya,
Spontaneously established and unproduced,
And beyond all objects of expression or thought.
I fuse all things and non-things and all of saṃsāra and nirvāna
Into oneness with the nature of mind
And
perform
offerings
through
the
unsurpassable
offering
of
Samantabhadra.
I confess erroneously holding
Myself and all others, these complete buddhas,
The spontaneously present three kāyas,
To be ordinary body, speech, and mind.
I rejoice with gladness of my heart
In the nature that is primordial buddhahood,
And in the virtue of the unsurpassable three jewels and all beings.
May the bodhisattvas quickly become buddhas
And may those who have obtained perfect awakening
Turn the wheel of dharma
And cause all beings to become buddhas.
May the great compassionate teachers,
Who have the wish to pass away from misery,
Remember their earlier pledges
And remain without cessation.
May all beings quickly obtain unsurpassable awakening
remain with an uncontrived mind.
67
Both of the following prayers are in Rig ’dzin Chos kyi grags pa’s Phyag rgya chen po
lnga ldan gyi khrid kyi zin bris ascribed to ’Jig rten mgon po.
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Through the virtue that is accumulated in the three times
By myself and all beings without exception,
And through primordially existing virtue.
(And):
I pay homage! To the guru, who is the complete purity of everything that
arises,
I present the offering of everything that arises as established on the basis [of
emptiness].
I beseech you: may the three realms be liberated!
Bestow your blessing that saṃsāra may be uprooted!
The realisation of your own mind and the guru’s as inseparable is “practising the
guru.” The arising of the offering, the one who offers, and [the recipient of] the
offering as the play of the guru of the ultimate reality is ‘offering.’68 Not to
conceive of both the praying and the prayer as separate is ‘praying.’69
68
This is known as “canceling of the [hypostatic entities known as] the three
components” (’khor gsum dmigs med / rnam par mi rtog pa; trimandalaviśuddhi). An
example of such components is “the one who offers” (sbyin pa gtong ba po), the thing
offered (sbyin rdzas = gtong rgyu’i nor), and the recipient of the offering (sbyin yul =
gtong yul slong ba po).
69
This final note is only found in Rig ’dzin Chos kyi grags pa’s Phyag rgya chen po lnga
ldan gyi khrid kyi zin bris, p. 105.
In Collected Works (manuscript edition), vol. 2, fols. 47r-v.
(The Twenty-Five Practices of the Five-fold [Path of Mahāmudrā]).
Appendix C: Phag-mo-gru-pa Rdo-rje-rgyal-po, Lnga ldan gyi lag len nyi shu rsta lnga pa
Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
249
250
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Guru-Devotion in the Bka’ brgyud pa Tradition
251
252
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gung Bka’ brgyud pa Exegesis of the Lnga Ldan Precepts of Mahāmudrā
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zin bris byang chub lam rgyun. In Grub dbang no no dkon mchog bstan pa’i
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school. Delhi: D. Tsondu Senghe (publ.), 1999, pp. 1–72.
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thog gcig tu nyams su len tshul bris gsungs par phul ba’i zin dris by Nyin
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515–23.
Dkon mchog ratna, Bcom ldan ’das dpal ’khor lo sdom pa lhan skyes lha lnga’i sgrub
thabs don gnyis mchog rtsol. In ’Bri gung pa Bka’ brgyud kyi ’don chog skor,
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—— Sgrub grwa’i rgyun ’khyer kun btus ratna’i zhal lung. Dehra Dun: D.K. Institute
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rnams la gdams pa. In Khams gsum chos kyi rgyal po thub dbang ratna shri’i
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’bum, The Collected Works of Grags pa ’byung gnas, A chief disciple of the
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—— Phyag rgya chen po snying po don gyi gdams ngag lnga ldan dan dam tshig brgyad
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instructions on various aspects of Buddhist practice by Karma pa Mi bskyod
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tu byas pa ngo mtshar gyi glegs bam yid bzhin gyi za ma tog chen po. ’Gro
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Bka’ brgyud rin po che’i dgongs rgyan, A detailed exegesis of the Bka’ brgyud
pa highly esoteric Guruyoga. Delhi: D. Tsondu Senghe (publ.), 2004.
Nihom, M. 1982. Studies in the Buddhist Tantra. Dissertation (Proefschrift). Leiden.
Roerich, G.N. trans. 1976. The Blue Annals (reprint). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
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Tsondu Senghe (publ.), 1980, vol. 1, pp. 373–89.
Rdo rje shes rab, Dgongs gcig yig cha. Detailed presentation of ’Bri gung ’Jig rten mgon
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(1698–1755) and others. Gangtok: Dzongsar Chhentse Labrang, 1980.
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1976, pp. 409–14.
III.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE SUCCESSIVE KARMA PAS
THE DIALECTIC OF ETERNAL HEAVEN:
A TIBETAN DEFENSE OF MONGOL IMPERIAL
RELIGION*
MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN
1 Introduction
The doctrinal writings of the second Karma pa hierarch, Chos kyi bla ma (1204
or 1206–83), better known as Karma Pakshi, have so far been available to us
primarily through an incomplete manuscript of the Rgya mtsho mtha’ yas skor
from Rum btegs Monastery in Sikkim, published in India during the late 1970s,
but misattributed, as I have shown elsewhere, to Karma Pakshi’s successor, the
third Karma pa Rang byung rdo rje (1284–1339).1 With the gradual rediscovery
of Tibetan manuscript collections in Central Tibet and Khams, it is now evident
that a number of additional works have been preserved, and scans or photographs of some of these have begun to become available to researchers outside
of Tibet. While it is too early to maintain that Karma Pakshi’s complete Bka’
’bum may be reconstituted—a goal that tradition holds to have been unrealisable even in pre-1959 Tibet2—it appears that the major part of his writings
* The present article is dedicated in friendship to the Ven. Thub bstan nyi ma Rin po
che and to Karma Bde legs, in recognition of their outstanding efforts to locate and to
preserve the surviving literary legacy of Tibet.
1
Kapstein 1985, reprinted, with some revisions, in Kapstein 2000: 97–106.
2
Most of his teachings, which were believed to have exceeded two Bka’ ’gyurs (!),
were said to have been carried off by the ḍākinīs and other spirits and never circulated
among common mortals. See e.g. Sman sdong mtshams pa 1976, pp. 107–108: phyi
nang gi grub mtha’ theg pa sna tshogs pa rnams kyang rdo rje theg pa’i nges gsang
snying po’i don kho na la gzhol zhing ’bab par ’gyur ba’i bstan bcos kyi rim pa’ang
bka’ ’gyur ro ’tshal nyis ’gyur tsam bstan cing de dag gi gleng gzhi dang ’brel ba’i
260
Matthew T. Kapstein
formerly in circulation may be identified once more. 3 As earlier research
suggested, the Rgya mtsho mtha’ yas skor seems in fact to comprise all but a
small part of his production.4
Karma Pakshi’s regular use of the name Rang byung rdo rje, as I have
shown before, means that some texts signed with this name, and even some
apparently belonging to the Rgya mtsho mtha’ yas skor, must be considered
with care. For instance, a work entitled Dam tshig rgya mtsho mtha’ yas has
appeared in the collected writings of the third Karma pa and its actual authorship is, in all probablity, correctly credited to him.5 This text does, however,
rnam thar mang po ’thor nas yod par gsungs pa la / deng sang mi yul du snang ba la
gsung rab po ti drug tsam las / de bying rgyal ba’i gsung rab ltar / dpa’ bo / mkha’ ’gro
/ lha klu gnod sbyin sogs kyis yul du spyan drangs par don gyis gsal ba’i phyir bsam
gyis mi khyab pa’i gnas so //. The notion that Karma Pakshi’s teachings attained some
two Bka’ ’gyurs in volume in fact derived from his autobiographical writings: Karma
Pakshi 1978a, p. 110.
3
Manuscripts containing works by Karma Pakshi have been located, for instance, in the
collection of the ’Bras spungs Gnas bcu lha khang (Lha sa) and at Dpal spungs (Sde
dge). As many as eight po tis of his writings are now known to exist, and one hopes
that they will soon be made available in their entirety. The scanned manuscripts that
have been so far added to the archive of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (TBRC,
New York), together with other available texts, are listed in Appendix III below.
4
It would not be appropriate for me to anticipate those who have been working in Tibet
and Khams on the reconstitution of Karma Pakshi’s œuvre by reproducing here their
lists of titles above and beyond those that have already become available, as given in
Appendix III. The texts now found in the TBRC collection, as might be expected, in
fact mostly belong to the Rgya mtsho mtha’ yas corpus.
5
Full title: Dam tshig rgya mtsho mtha’ yas rnam par snang bar byed pa dri ma med
pa’i snying po, in Karma pa Rang byung rdo rje 2006, vol. 8 (nya), pp. 1–114. The
author in fact gives his name as Rang byung rol pa’i rdo rje (113.2), a form that is not
used, so far as I am aware, by Karma Pakshi. No explicit reference to Karma Pakshi’s
Rgya mtsho mtha’ yas skor appears to occur in the text and there is no sure basis for
supposing it to have been composed as a supplement to it. The title alone seems to have
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
261
problematise the use of the phrase Rgya mtsho mtha’ yas as a signature title.
Only the eventual availability of the entire extant Rgya mtsho mtha’ yas corpus
will permit us to determine whether or not any of the works included within it
may have been similary composed or redacted by Karma Pakshi’s successors.
Among the recent discoveries whose authorship seems secure, however,
one stands out, to my eyes at least, for its remarkable novelty, even in relation
to the originality that characterises the second Karma pa’s writings overall.6
been intended as an allusion to the author’s predecessor. Nevertheless, the published
handlist of the manuscripts that have been discovered in the Gnas bcu lha khang of
’Bras spungs Monastery, does attribute to Karma Pakshi a Dam tshig rgya mtsho’i rang
’grel in 58 folios (Dpal brtsegs 2004, vol. 1, p. 1112, no. 011037). An assessment of
this attribution must of course await that text’s becoming available.
6
As noted already in Kapstein 1985, Karma Pakshi’s writings appear to have been
poorly known even among the Karma Bka’ brgyud, and this no doubt owing to his
pronounced Rnying ma orientations and the remarkable eccentricity of his style of
exposition and argument. A brief note, found accompanying a manuscript of the Zhu
lan rgya mtsho mtha’ yas preserved at Dpal spungs, and transcribed in Appendix III
below (under W22469) reveals for the first time something of the manner in which
Karma Pakshi’s writings were perceived within the tradition. It says in part: “Although
the expressions [in Karma Pakshi’s works] seem as if somewhat misconstrued, they are
the words of a venerable siddha and not in the scope of conventional designation; if one
becomes certain [about them] with discrimination endowed with the four points of
reliance (Tib. rton pa bzhi, Skt. catuḥpratisaraṇa), because there is nowhere greater
development of the essential points of the nine vehicles proceeding from the Śrī-
Guhyagarbha, rather than letting them lie to rot in darkness, I pray a thousand times
that you regard them and know their meaning.” The note is signed by one Dge slong
Bstan pa’i nyi ma, who, given his diction and his audacity in committing to writing the
opinion that the second Karma pa’s writings “seem somewhat miscontrued,” must have
been no ordinary monk. Though I have not so far succeeded in determining his precise
identity, it appears at least possible in this context that it is none other than the great Si
tu Paṇ chen (1699/1700–1774), whose writings are often signed Bstan pa’i nyin byed,
or Bstan pa’i nyi mor byed pa.
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Matthew T. Kapstein
This is the manuscript of a previously unknown work that bears the puzzling
title Mo gho ding ri’i sgra tshad, though the title turns out to be just the first of
the many puzzles to be found therein.7 Here, I wish to suggest that the Mo gho
ding ri’i sgra tshad, in terms of both style and content, is consistent with the
other major writings of Karma Pakshi that have so far come to light, namely
those belonging to the Rgya mtsho mtha’ yas skor.8 However, the Mo gho ding
7
As shown in Appendix III, the same manuscript appears in two separate scanned
versions in the TBRC archive. In addition, I have made use of high quality digital
images of the manuscript, which is preserved at Dpal spungs monastery in the Sde dge
district of Khams (Ganzi zhou, Sichuan).
8
The common authorship is confirmed, moreover, by passages in which the author of
the Mo gho ding ri’i sgra tshad explicitly refers to the Rgya mtsho mtha’ yas skor, for
instance at Mo gho ding ri 20b7–21a1: lung rigs sna tshogs kyis mueț [= mu stegs]
pa’i grub mtha’ bshiț [= bshigs] cing sgrub / ci’i phyir na bstan pa rgya mtsho mtha’
yas nas / ston pa drugis gleng bzhi [= gzhi] gleng lhong mueț kyis grub mtha’ cheno
[= chen po] dang / ’dod pa rgya’o [= rgya mtsho] mtha’ yas dang / khyab ’jug dang /
zhus len rgya’o mtha’ yas rnaṃs kyis shes pa… lung rig sgra tshad (21a) rnam la
mkhas shing rtog par bya’o //: “Various scriptures and reasonings confirm the
refutation of the tīrthikas. How so? In the Limitless Ocean of the Teaching, where the
discourse of six teachers [forms] the narrative frame, there is the Great Siddhānta of the
tīrthikas; and it may be known [too] from the Limitless Ocean of Tenets, the [Limitless
Ocean of] Viṣṇu, and the Limitless Ocean of Dialogue.… One should become learned
and realised in the language and logic of scripture and reason.” The Limitless Ocean of
Viṣṇu (Khyab ’jug rgya mtsho mtha’ yas) is found, with some lacunae, in a scanned
manuscript in the TBRC archive: W22340 (see Appendix III below). Khyab ’jug here
seems to have a double meaning, referring at once to the Hindu divinity Viṣṇu and to
Samantabhadra, the primordial buddha of the Great Perfection (rdzogs chen), who is
sometimes also known as the “Great All-Pervader” (khyab ’jug chen po = Skt.
Mahāviṣṇu). See e.g. Dudjom 1991, vol. 1: 447. Of course, we must await the
opportunity to examine the Khyab ’jug rgya mtsho mtha’ yas in detail before entertaining further conjectures about precisely what Karma Pakshi may have intended.
Note, too, that in citations from the text of the Mo gho ding ri’i sgra tshad, because of
the abundant use of abbreviations and plentiful occurrences of unconventional spellings
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
263
ri’i sgra tshad is distinguished from these latter, and in a sense adopts an
approach that is even more radical than the skepticism of the ’Dod pa rgya
mtsho mtha’ yas,9 in that it offers what at first blush appears to be a robust
defense of Mongol imperial religion; for the mo gho ding ri of the title is none
other than the supreme divinity of Mongol religion, “Eternal Heaven,” Möngke
tengri.10 The term may also have in this case a double signification, however,
for we know that Karma Pakshi’s royal patron was Möngke Khan, and some
passages in our text do seek to underwrite the latter’s sacral status before the
Tibetans.11
(in some cases clearly errors) throughout, I have thought it best not to litter my transcriptions with the notation ‘sic.’ Similarly, I have not attempted to emend within the
texts the indifferent use of the “instrumental” (kyis, etc.) and “genitive” (kyi, etc.) or
other grammatical irregularities.
9
Kapstein 2000: 101–104.
10
Heissig 1973: 403–405, esp. 403: “L’usage constant de la formule mongole
« Möngke tngri-yin küčündür… », « Par la force du Ciel éternel », dans des épitres, des
ordonnances, des panneaux de consignes (p’ai-tzu) et des inscriptions lapidaires de
l’époque mongole (13e-14e siècle) atteste la croyance des Mongols dans l’existence
d’une puissance céleste à laquelle sont soumises toutes les forces supra-terrestres et
terrestres.” The “constant use” of the formula no doubt explains Karma Pakshi’s
familiarity with and interest in it. There is, of course, an excellent English translation of
Heissig’s text (originally in German) by Geoffrey Samuel [The Religions of Mongolia
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980)], but it is unavailable to me at this
time.
11
As is the case, in the preamble of the text translated below (3a.6), where Karma
Pakshi speaks of “the merit of the king of the world, Möngke Khan.” The depth of
Karma Pakshi’s regard for Möngke is very much in evidence in Karma Pakshi 1978a
(see Kapstein 2000: 99n62) and was recalled in later tradition. Dpa’-bo 1986, p. 912,
for instance, states that “in fact, the foremost among his disciples who were vessels
[capable of retaining his teaching] was Möngke Khan, whom he blessed so that his
renunciation and realisation were equivalent to his own” (dngos su snod ldan gyi slob
ma’i gtso bo rgyal po mong gor gan nyid dang spangs rtogs mnyams par byin gyis
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Matthew T. Kapstein
2 Title and preamble
The Mo gho ding ri’i sgra tshad is a substantial work, occupying 149 long
folios of tightly written, and much abbreviated, dbu med. The difficulties in the
interpretation of our text, however, begin even on the title page:
dam pa’i chos ’dul ba’i gling bzhi na gos dmar can gyi yul nas ’ongs ba’i
mkhas pa yang dag phyi rol nyid bzhugs gsungs te / de la sha na’i gos can
’jams dpal dmar po la sogs pa’i tshan ’brug tsam du tha snyad ’dogs shing
ngo bo cig la mthong tshul tha dad pa ’di lta ste / mo gho ding ri’i sgra
tshad bzhugs so //.
The following, very tentative, translation may be proposed based on indications
given elsewhere in the text:
In the frame-narrative (reading: gleng gzhi) of the Vinaya of the True
Dharma, it is said that from the land of the Red-garbed came a paṇḍita who
dwelt genuinely outside. Names (reading: mtshan),12 including Śāṇakavāsin
and Red Mañjusrī,13 were thunderously attributed to him, just as there are
brlabs pa). Note, too, that in Karma Pakshi 1978a, p. 15, Möngke is styled mo ghor
rgyal po, confirming his use of mo gho to transcribe Mongolian möngke.
12
There is some possibility, too, that tshan is used here in an extension of its meaning
“section, segment,” or in the sense of tshan kha. In the latter case the phrase should
mean roughly “powers, including [those of] Śāṇakavāsin and Red Mañjusrī, were
thunderously attributed to him,” though this strikes me as not so plausible as the
proposed emendation to mtshan.
13
The bodhisattva Mañjusrī plays a particularly important role in Karma Pakshi’s
visionary world, and in the redaction of the Rgya mtsho mtha’ yas skor. Dpa’ bo 1986,
p. 888, for instance, tells us that “in Ke-chu he beheld Mañjusrī, yellow with a
thousand hands and a thousand eyes, and this [he took] as a sign of enlightened activity
in both this lifetime and the next” (ke chur ’jam dbyangs ser po phyag stong spyan
stong pa gzigs pa sku tshe phyi ma gnyis kyi ’phrin las kyi brdar ’dug). (Here Dpa’ bo
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
265
various visions of a single essence and hence: here is contained the
Dialectic of Eternal Heaven.
It is not clear, at the outset at least, why the peculiar expression
“genuinely outside” (yang dag phyi rol nyid) should be applied to the arhat
Śāṇakavāsin here; one may think perhaps of his borderline outsider status in the
early saṅgha, an issue discussed at length by John Strong,14 and some of the
legends involved may have inspired Karma Pakshi’s use of yang dag phyi rol
nyid, as will be seen in the text selections given below. It is possible, too, that
Xuanzang’s description of Śāṇakavāsin as having attained the “boundary-limit
samādhi” (ru bianji ding 入邊際定) further contributed to the liminal associations of this arhat.15 What will emerge thoughout the text, however, is that
one of Pakshi’s chief concerns is to engage in debate with the “outsiders”
(tīrthika, phyi rol mu stegs pa), although the connection of this with the famed
arhat remains not altogether clear. In all events, we have already shown in our
earlier study that Karma Pakshi had a special interest in integrating nonBuddhists into the fabric of Buddhist thought, an interest that explicitly stemmed from his involvement in the debates and discussions among representatives
of differing religions sponsored by Möngke Khan in 1256.16 We shall return to
is following the text found in Karma Pakshi 1978a, p. 129.) What’s more, the entire
Zhu lan rgya mtsho mtha’ yas is cast as a dialogue between Karma Pakshi and the
bodhisattva.
14
Strong 1992: 66–74, esp. p. 71: “Śāṇakavāsin … look[s] grubby, [has] long hair, and
appear[s] to be a mahalla [a pejorative term for an uncouth old monk]; but he is
actually enlightened, and he is Upagupta’s master.”
15
Beal 1884, vol. 1: 52–53; Watters 1904, vol. 1: 120. Note, too, that the tradition
reported here by Xuanzang concerning the deep red colour of Śāṇakavāsin’s robe,
preserved as a relic in a monastery described in his chapter on Bamiyan, conforms with
Karma Pakshi’s attribution to him of red garb as well. For the Chinese text, see
Xuanzang 2000, vol. 1 (上), pp. 132–33.
16
Demiéville 1973: 181–82, summarises what is reported of these debates in Chinese
sources (as given in Chavannes 1904), which focus primarily on the censure of the
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consider this point in further detail below. Given Karma Pakshi’s conviction
that the imperial policy of religious tolerance favored by the Khan was correct,
and his conviction, too, that a tacit adherence to Buddhism by the Khan undergirded this policy,17 we may imagine that Karma Pakshi sought to expound a
teaching that was distinctively Buddhist, but at the same time made room for
everyone. This, at least, is what his effort simultaneously to refute and to
authenticate the mu stegs pas seems inevitably to imply.
Pakshi’s use of the term sgra tshad in the title seems to point in the
same direction. The expression literally means “language and logic,” though I
have used “dialectic” as an approximation to save words. The latter, in its
primary sense (given in the Oxford English Dictionary as “the art of critically
investigating the truth of opinions; logical disputation or argument”), may be
close to the author’s intended meaning in any case. In one passage, cited above
(n. 8), he even seems to suggest that the two terms used here in compound
correspond closely to lung rigs, scripture and reason. If so, then sgra tshad,
“language and logic,” may be employed to cover broadly the disciplines
charged with the task of interpretation and judgement in these two domains.
Daoists. The head of the Buddhist party, the Kashmiri monk Na mo, had long-established ties to the Mongol ruling house and was appointed by Möngke in 1252 to direct
Buddhist affairs throughout the empire (Demiéville 1973: 178). Though the Chinese
sources refer also to the presence of the then sixteen-year-old Sa skya pa bla ma ’Phags
pa (1239–80) at these debates, the Chinese transcription of his name as it occurs here—
bahesiba 拔合斯八—is somewhat unusual, leading some to have speculated that
‘Pakshi’ may have been the name intended. (See, for instance, Richardson 1998: 341,
repeated by D. Jackson 2009: 261n185.) It may be noted in passing, too, that the
condemnation of Daoism stressed in the Chinese records stands in apparent contrast
with Möngke’s religious inclusivism as stressed by Karma Pakshi (Kapstein 2000:
244n81) and, sometime earlier, by the Franciscan William of Rubruck (P. Jackson 2009:
236: “But just as God has given the hand several fingers, so he has given mankind
several paths.”).
17
Kapstein 2000: 99.
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
267
The first several paragraphs of the Mo gho ding ri’i sgra clearly
exemplify both the work’s unusual stance and the difficulties involved in seeking to understand it:18
(1b.1) The dialectic of Eternal Heaven is proclaimed to be the measureless, imponderable dialectic, to be discussed and definively established. As
the example of a body [followed by its] shadow, when the proposition
affirmed is measureless and imponderable, the implied conclusion is
measureless and imponderable. (1b.2) For this is evidently valid.19 Hence,
affirming the propositions that saṃsāra and nirvāṇa may be either
measureless and imponderable or delimited and ponderable, they are to be
proclaimed and discussed. So I pray that the Jina, the perfection of the five
kāyas, together with his sons (1b.3), be present as the holy witnesses. I pray
that Viṣṇu and Īśvara, Phywa and Brahmā, along with the eight classes of
deities and demons arrayed throughout the three worlds, who uphold
respectively the outer and inner systems, be present as the holy witnesses.
(1b.4) As for this wheel of swordplay,20 refutation and proof, the
delimited and ponderable dialectic and the measureless, imponderable
dialectic of the Red-garbed Eternal Heaven, it has not come forth
previously here in Tibet, the Glacial Land, nor will it come again. (1b.5) In
18
The Tibetan text is the first given in Appendix I below.
19
Throughout the Mo gho ding ri, Karma Pakshi appears to insist that the sole valid
means of knowledge is the “criterion of perception” (mngon sum tshad ma, Skt.
pratyakṣapramāṇa). He seems to be using this term with a peculiar sense, however, not
precisely limited to ‘perception’ as we are accustomed to regard it, but including what
is ‘intuitive,’ as this is often understood by anglophone philosophers (i.e. as referring to
what is known a priori). The phrase ‘evidently valid’ seems often to correspond, at
least roughly, with Karma Pakshi’s usage and so has generally been adopted here.
20
ral (b)skor. Meaning uncertain, though the usage here and throughout the text
inclines me to take it as referring to exercises in swordsmanship, much as we use
“parry” and “riposte” in English to refer both to the martial arts and to debate.
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debate with others, outer and inner, here is how at first the outer and inner
systems are respectively distinguished:
I affirm the proposition that unknowing is proven to be the
bewilderment and ground for the bewilderment of beings of the six classes.
Do you assent to refute it or not?
(1b.6) I affirm the proposition that the perverse views are the 360
errant views of the tīrthikas and their subdivisions. Do you assent21 to
refute this or not? In assenting, do define your bounds.
Among the inner systems of the Buddhists, (1b.7) the nine vehicles
that are partially realised and egocentric, 22 I affirm the propositions
establishing the teaching of the nirmāṇakāya, that is, the Tripiṭaka. You,
tīrthika, must affirm that you refute this.
I affirm the propositions establishing the teaching of the
sambhogakāya, that is, the three outer tantras. (2a.1) You, tīrthika, must
affirm that you refute this.
I affirm the proposition establishing that the declaration of the
intention of the dharmakāya is the unsurpassed Mahāyoga, [according to]
the ancient and modern [tantras]. You, tīrthika, must affirm that you refute
this.
21
Reading shes for bshig.
22
Karma Pakshi is here following (as he often does) the doctrinal categories elaborated
in connection with the Mahāyoga exegetical tradition of the Guhyagarbha Tantra and
the Anuyoga system of the Mdo dgongs pa ’dus pa. Here, the “nine vehicles that are
partially realised and egocentric” (phyogs rtog(s) ngar ’dzin gyi theg pa dgu) are the
worldly “vehicle of gods and men” (lha mi’i theg pa) together with the first eight of the
nine vehicles (i.e., śrāvakayāna through Aunyoga) of the standard nine-yāna system of
the Rnying ma pa. Many treatments of the highest vehicle, that of the Great Perfection
(rdzogs chen), or Atiyoga, adopt a similar standpoint, charcterising the lower vehicles
as “intellectually contrived” (blos bcos); see, for example, Dudjom 1991, vol. 1: 294–
310.
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
269
(2a.2) As for whether the teaching of the svābhāvikakāya, the
Anuyoga, is the general transmission of all systems, I affirm that to be the
proposition to be established. If you affirm yourself to be clever about all
the systems, then go ahead and refute me!
The self-emergent five bodies are fully (2a.3) realised in the teaching
that is the Great Perfection (rdzogs pa chen po). It is entirely complete,
unmixed with the ostensible outer and inner systems involving lack of
realisation and wrong realisation and so forth. Therefore, I will establish it,
and you, tīrthika, who act as the king of dumb ideas, (2a.4) you must assent
to refute it, and then prove what you may!
What’s more, are you or are you not going to refute or to prove the
subdivisions of the outer and inner systems piece-by-piece? In accord with
your faculties and reason, (2a.5) advice has been given to you; now it is
you who must advise! In all events, because nothing at all is unincluded,
unrealised, or unembraced in the binary division of delimited and
measureless, with respect to the outer and inner systems, (2a.6) all of them,
know that in affirming them to be either delimited or measureless, there is
nothing but refutation or proof. Whatever you proclaim and discuss should
be unabashedly brought forth for discussion, set out without error, one
time, three times, (2a.7) and so ascertained—this is my advice. Such is the
intention of Mañjuśrī, whose samādhi is firm, distinguishing the outer and
inner systems and definitively establishing the abiding nature of reality!
(2b.1) The Lord of Speech, the self-created Lion of Disputants, debates
once, debates twice, debates everything—debate that! Endless debate is like
sword-play. One is proven, two are proven, everything under debate is
decisively proven. Oṃ sarva pratisiddhi hūṃ!
[Addressing] Śākyamuni, (2b.2) Aniruddha entered into an exchange
of questions and answers between master and disciple, [whereby] they
analysed the great cycle, which neither fails to pervade the appearance and
reality of the Three Jewels, the cognitions and cognitive objects of saṃsāra
and nirvāṇa, nor is fixed with respect to any aspect [of them]. (2b.3), Thus
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it is related in the prophetic declaration at the point of Śākyamuni’s
parinirvāṇa: “In the land of Vārāṇasī, one called ‘Śāṇakavāsin’ (2b.4) will
emerge, whose deeds and activities with be the equal of the Buddha’s but
who will not be adorned with the major or minor marks of a buddha. He
will spread and expand my teaching, dividing the outer and inner systems.
He will definitively establish various holy doctrines.” If translated into
Tibetan, he is the Red-garbed One (gos dmar can, Tāmraśāṭiya), while
the ’Bum, (2b.5) concerning the auspicious marks [says] “revealing a red,
red color, like the fabric of Vārāṇasī, or like fabric of majukonaka23 or like
the color of mañjujonaka...” Translated into Tibetan, this is khug chos dar
lo [a type of flower, perhaps saffron?] (2b.6) by name.24
When the holy doctrine of the Vinaya became mixed with tīrthika
systems, so that there were no longer any bounds, the saṅgha implored
Śāṇakavāsin, encouraging him in his vow, at which time, at the Banyan
Temple (2b.7) an emanation of Śāṇakavāsin arrived outside and sat there.25
The functionaries among the saṅgha saw him and invited him in, but the
Red-garbed One remained well stationed outside in the sky, where he had
arrived on being invited. (2b.8) Meeting [him] thus, the sthaviras were
23
The reading of the second syllable, ju, is uncertain.
24
Typically ’Bum, as a title, refers to the Śatasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā. Though there
are some doubts about the interpretation of this passage, khug c(h)os does seem to be a
species of crocus, so that the reference to saffron appears plausible. However, the Indic
terms cited by Karma Pakshi have not yet been identified. Concerning the arhat Śāṇakavāsin’s association with the colour red, see n. 15 above.
25
Here and in the paragraphs that follow, the tale that we find seems an exceedingly
eccentric retelling of the well-known story of Śāṇakavāsin’s appointment as Ānanda’s
successor in the aftermath the first council at the Banyan Tree of Rājagṛha and the
subsequent establishment of the Teaching in Kashmir by Śāṇakavāsin’s successor
Madhyāhnika. For Bu ston’s account, refer to Obermiller 1931–32: 87–91. Of course,
though there is no mention of tīrthikas here, schism within the saṅgha itself is a
prominent theme.
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
271
inspired and rejoiced,26 and he, having made the distinctions,27 turned the
dialectical wheel of the Three Precious Jewels, that is, the dialectic of the
Buddha’s gnosis and all principles of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, so that the
masses of tīrthikas were (2b.9) overcome and rebuked.
With respect to that [dialectic] there is a threefold division of topics
as follows: (i) there is the dialectic affirming the cause with respect to the
Three Precious Jewels, for, among ordinary beings, there emerge various
bewilderments from the ground of bewilderment, the six classes of
destinies; (3a.1) (ii) as the systems of the tīrthikas are erroneous, for they
[do not]28 practise the path with respect to the Three Precious Jewels and
do not delight in the Three Precious Jewels, [and whereas] tīrthikas
including the five fortunate companions [of Siddhārtha] became the
Teacher’s first circle [of disciples], there is (3a.2) the dialectic comprising
the result with respect to the Three Precious Jewels in relation to the
tīrthikas; and (iii) there is the dialectic traversing the path, for the
particulars of the inner Buddhist vehicles, such as the Vinaya of the
genuine doctrine and the Three Precious Jewels are to be obtained. The
wheels [of the doctrine] that [the Buddha] turned (3a.3) are [these].29 [This]
dialectic, which analyses them all in particular and synthesises them, has as
its purpose the analysis of all the particulars, so that there is nothing not
26
Reading gnas brtan rnams dbugs nas dga’ nas. Uncertain.
27
I am reading nang du dbye nas as referring to Śāṇakavāsin’s analytical teaching,
though if we accept the punctuation of the passage, it might alternatively refer to the
divisions among the saṅgha. The text at this point seems in any case not very clear, at
least to this reader.
28
Reading lam ma gom zhing against the ms. I see no other way to make sense of this
sentence without even more extensive emendation.
29
The threefold division proposed here evidently corresponds to the distinctions among
non-realisation (ma rtogs), erroneous understanding (log rtogs), and realised gnosis
(rtogs pa’i ye shes), upon which Karma Pakshi insists elsewhere. See below, Appendix
III, 3.
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embraced thereby. Because [there is such a purpose], 30 Śāṇakavāsin
emerged in the manner of an emanated disciple, (3a.4) as follows:
The
Linen Clad (rad pa’i gos can = Śāṇakavāsin) and
Madhyāhnika,31 numberless emanations, filled Jambudvīpa. In particular, in
the land of Kashmir, Padmo dka’, there is the Kashmiri city called Krigs
brtan,32 (3a.5), as it is famed, where there are known to be 360 million
30
Reading dgos pa yod pa’i phyir na, and taking this as a ‘pivot phrase’ joining the
preceding (where it is translated “has as its purpose”) and the present sentence.
31
I am assuming that one should read nyi ma gung pa for nyi ma ’gyur. It is possible
that Karma Pakshi felt a special affinity with this arhat; a tooth of Madhyāhnika (dgra
bcom pa nyi ma gung pa’i tshems) is reported among the items incorporated into the
central image of the Mtshur phu temple during its consecration in the course of its
expansion under Karma Pakshi’s direction: Dpa’ bo 1986, p. 902.
32
khyad par ga smin gyi yul padmo dka’ / du ba kha che’i grong khyer krigs brten. It is
not at all clear to me how du ba at the beginning of the second phrase is to be construed. If it is used here with its normal Tibetan meaning, “smoke,” perhaps it is
describing the city of Krigs brtan as a smoky or misty place. And if Krig(s) brtan is to
be idenified with Śrīnagara, this would be at times appropriate. (Though given the
likelihood that Karma Pakshi never actually traveled to Kashmir, actual description is
probably irrelevent in any case.) The reference of the toponym ‘Krig(s) brtan’ remains
in any case puzzling. Its occurrence in such works as the rnam thar of Khyung-po rnal
’byor (Shangs pa gser phreng 1996, p. 26) as the name of a region clearly associated in
context with northwest India, and not at all with Central Asia, seems to rule out any
possibility of considering it to be a corruption of the ethnonym ‘Khitan,’ which does
sometimes appear as Khri (br)tan in late Tibetan sources. We may note, though, that
Karma Pakshi did at one point visit the realm of the Khitan, the Western Liao, which
he calls Khyi tan: Karma Pakshi 1978a, p. 19 (khyi tan rgyal po’i dbyar sa). But
consider, as well, n. 39 below, where kha che khri brtan seems surely to refer to
Kashmir and certainly not to the Liao. A plausible solution to the problem has, however, recently emerged: in response to a tentative Sanskrit back-translation of khri brtan
as *Sthirāsana or *Dhruvāsana, which I circulated among Indological colleagues,
Doctor Hartmut Buescher (Copenhagen) perspicaciously suggested that the name
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
273
collections of a hundred thousand tantras, and the arhat Nyi-ma-’bum [i.e.
Nyi-ma-gung, or Madhyāhnika] preserved the scriptural traditions. Outer
and inner learned paṇḍitas and siddhas beyond number (3a.6) always dwell
there, turning the wheel of dialectic, scriptural transmission, and reason.
There, due to the merit of the king of the world, Möngke Khan, I, the
renowned Karma pa, was looked to and acclaimed by the king of Kashmir,
his priests, beings adhering to Buddhism and outsiders, and the outer,
tīrthika (3a.7) paṇḍitas. Protecting them with various transmissions,
emblems, food, and wealth, I resolved doubts with regard to the dialectic of
the Three Precious Jewels. Later, having travelled to Kashmir, (3a.8) I
shared in the honour of the king of Kashmir and others, upholders of the
religious systems, and, by means of the dialectic of the Red-garbed,
purified the assembly—this is evident.
Therefore, this dialectic of the Three Precious Jewels (3a.9) is unlike
that which was translated into Tibetan in fits and starts from [the works of]
Dignāga and others among the six ornaments of Jambudvīpa;33 there is
nothing that it does not embrace. By the distinctions of the great measure
[or ‘logic’], it is rightly implied that the taintless, immeasurable dharmakāya is introduced. But apart from that which is inseparable from the
immeasurable spontaneous presence of the trikāya, the Three Precious
Jewels, you assert tenets, repeatedly turning34 about what is limited (tshad
can). Amen to that!35
represented might be Adhiṣṭhāna, which is in fact one of the old designations of
Śrīnagara. On this usage, refer to Slaje 2005.
33
The six ornaments are usually listed as Nāgārjuna and Āryadeva, Asaṅga and Vasu-
bandhu, and Dignāga and Dharmakīrti.
bskor tse bskor tser. The idiom interestingly occurs as well in the autobiographical
writings: Karma Pakshi 1978a, p. 110: kor tse kor tse yang rnor [= rnal ’byor] rang
byung rdore [= rdo rje] yi rnam thar gleng gzhi rgyas bsdus mang pos yul khaṃs
khyab nas yod pa …: “repeatedly turning, the yogin Rang byung rdo rje has filled the
34
lands with many liberation accounts, expanded and condensed…” It is not entirely
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Matthew T. Kapstein
3 The ‘Red‘Red-Garbed,’ God, and Christianity
The several concrete references found here—to Kashmir, to the red-garbed
Tāmraśāṭiya order, etc.—seem to call for explanation. When did Karma Pakshi
travel to Kashmir? What is known of the Tāmraśāṭiyas there? Unfortunately,
these and other specifications found in the text only deepen, rather than help to
resolve, our puzzlement about it. Concerning Pakshi’s sojourn in Kashmir, for
instance, Dpa’ bo Gtsug lag phreng ba (1504–66) is altogether clear:
From the Tāmraśāṭiya order of Kashmir he miraculously heard the Vinaya,
Pramāṇa and Abhidharma, [due to which he wrote] the Limitless Ocean of
the Vinaya, etc., which are preserved in his Bka’ ’bum.36
clear to me whether “repeatedly turning” should in this case be taken to refer to his
peregrinations, or, as perhaps better accords with the context, to his ceaseless authorial
activity.
35
Following this, the text becomes excessively obscure to me for some lines, and so I
have concluded the ‘preamble’ at this point. One point of interest that may be
mentioned in connection with the immediately subsequent lines 3b.1–2 is a reference to
the “region of Ri bo dgu ’dul [sic = ’dus].” This was a site of major importance for
the 11th century Zur lineage of the Rnying ma pa (see Dudjom 1991, vol. 1: 621–23,
638–39) and as such hallowed within the tradition of Kaḥ thog, in which Karma Pakshi
was educated. One may even begin to wonder whether Karma Pakshi did not in some
sense pave the way for the relations that emerged in the 14th century between the
Mongol court in China and the Zur hierarchs Bzang po dpal and his son Shākya ’byung
gnas (Dudjom 1991, vol. 1: 669–72). It may be noted in this connection that Rnying ma
pa traditional historiography, which maintains that the former undertook the printing of
Rnying ma works with Mongol sponsorship, seems now partially confirmed thanks to
the recent discovery of Bzang po dpal’s 1317 print of the Lam rnam par bkod pa, on
which see Sherab Sangpo 2009: 48.
Dpa’ bo, 1986, p. 885: kha che gos dmar po’i sde pa las rdzu ’phrul gyis ’dul tshad
mngon gsum gsan te ’dul ba rgya mtsho mtha’ yas la sogs pa bka’ ’bum na bzhugs.
36
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
275
In other words, Karma Pakshi never visited Kashmir. 37 This may help to
explain his insistence on the presence of the southern Tāmraśāṭiya order there,
though so little is precisely known of the Tāmraśāṭiya that we cannot altogether
exclude the possibility of their presence in the far north.38 The major city of
Kashmir, called Krigs brtan (or Khri brtan) in Tibetan and probably to be identified with Śrīnagara (usually dpal gyi grong khyer), was already a place of
myth in Pakshi’s time (see n. 32 above): Dpa’ bo Gtsug lag records that
Pakshi’s predecessor, Dus gsum mkhyen pa (1110–93), among his visions of
the past lives of celebrated persons saw that the master Phya pa (Chos kyi seng
ge, 1109–69) had been born there as a paṇḍita.39
Interpreting the Mo gho ding ri’i sgra tshad is further complicated by
the overall pattern of the work; it follows a peculiar course touching upon a
diffuse array of topics—for instance, whether or not the corpus of Buddhist
scriptures known in Tibet is or is not really representative of the entire Indian
corpus, whether or not the Pramāṇa corpus really represents the systems of
logic known in India, just what’s packed into the Tibetan use of the verb thal in
the debate logic,40 etc.—and it does this without a clearly coherent pattern of
37
I thank Mr. Charles Manson (London), who has undertaken to compare the available
accounts of Karma Pakshi’s life, for confirming that his researches so far tend to
support the same conclusion.
38
On the Tāmraśāṭiyas in general, see Bareau 1955: 204. Lamotte 1976: 592, locates
them in Ceylon, and (605), also in Nāgārjunikoṇḍa. But he regards them, too, as being
among those whose views were discussed by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu, which, if
correct, would suggest that there was some knowledge of them in the northwest of
India. Is it possible that the Kashmiri monk “Lama Namu/Namo,” who became established at the Mongol court under Ögedei, and continued to serve the court under Güyük
and Möngke, played a role as Karma Pakshi’s informant?
39
Dpa’ bo 1986, p. 868: slob dpon phya pa kha che khri brtan du paṇḍi tar ’khrungs
sogs dpag tu med pa gzigs.
40
Mo gho ding ri, 82a5-6: bod kyi tshad ma thal ba ’di nyid la yang / thaṃd kyis bshiț
sgrub snoț yod pa’i phyir na/ thal zer ba’i tshig 1 sdu [=mdo] li’i thog du kha rgyal
kha phan [= pham] snogs ’byung ba shes pas mdzod /: “As for ‘implication’ (thal ba)
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Matthew T. Kapstein
development, or at least without a pattern that has as yet disclosed its order to
me. It is possible to imagine, therefore, that möngke tengri, as it is invoked
repeatedly here, is not in fact used to privilege the high divinity of Mongol
religion per se. It seems, rather, that the foreign designation was adopted in the
interest of short-circuiting established expectations. Such a read-ing of the work
brings us back to the remarkable skepticism of the ’Dod pa rgya mtsho mtha’
yas, which I have discussed elsewhere.41 To cite just one doctrinal question
raised in our present text that appears to confirm such a perspective, we may
consider Pakshi’s inquiry as to whether one ought to take one’s refuge in the
beings in hell. No, you say? Well consider this: you take refuge in the Buddhas
of the three times, right? That includes the Buddhas of the future, right? And
you’ve taken your bodhisattva vows so that all beings, especially the tormented
beings in the infernal realms, will be liberated as Buddhas. So they’re the
future Buddhas, right? … 42
in the logic of Tibet, because everyone has it for all sorts of refutations and proofs, you
should know that it is on the palanquin of this one word ‘implies!’ (thal) that all sorts
of victories and defeats in debate are borne.” It may be noted that, although the socalled thal phyir form of argument is universally employed in the practice of Tibetan
monastic debate, literary evidence of it before Karma Pakshi’s time is quite rare.
41
Kapstein 2000: 101–106.
Mo gho ding ri, 4a8-b2: ma rig cing ’khrul gzhi ’khor ba’i ’gro ba rigs drug spyi
khyab du lus ngag yid 3 bye brag so sor yod pa rnam sku gsum ngo sprod kyis cig [=
rig] cing rtoṭ na dkoogs [= dkon mchog] 3 ma ’ong pa’i sangyas thaṃd kyis sku gsung
thuṭ yin pa mngon sum tshad ma / de’i phyir na dmyal ba la soṭ ’gro ba rigs drug la ni
phyag ’tshal zhing skyabsu ’gro bar mi ’dod pa mngon 3 tshad ma / (4b) ma ’ong pa’i
sangyas sku gsung thuṭ dang ldan pa’i dkon mchog 3 skyabsu ’gro bar thal rig / de’i
phyir na khyod bod kyi tshad ma rnams ngan song 3 la soṭ pa seṃn rnam la ni skyabsu
’gro bar mi ’dod cing ma ’ong dkooṭ 3 la skyabs su ’gro ba’i dam bca’ la svā hā //: “It
42
is evident that, in general, if the six classes of beings of saṃsāra, whose ground is
ignorance and bewilderment, become aware by means of the introduction to the three
buddha-bodies (sku gsum, Skt. trikāya) [with respect to], in particular, their body,
speech, and mind, and so realise [the three buddha-bodies], that they are then the Three
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
277
Despite the many uncertainties that attend the reading of the Mo gho
ding ri’i sgra tshad, it is very clear that Pakshi was deeply troubled, as the texts
of the Rgya mtsho mtha’ yas skor already reveal, by the problem posed by the
mu stegs pa. For most Tibetan doctrinal authors, as we know well, the mu stegs
pa had only a theoretical existence; they corresponded to no one you were
likely to meet in real life. As with most strawmen, they were to be disposed of
with a few gestures of facile refutation, before turning to the real beef, the
contests among Buddhist schools. Part of what makes Karma Pakshi’i dialectical universe so strange, by contrast, is that the mu stegs seem to be the dominant pūrvapakṣa. Challenged, reviled, and then revalued as embodying the
Buddhist enlightenment on some hidden level, the mu stegs pa are present in
the Mo gho ding ri’i sgra tshad wherever we turn. But just who were these mu
stegs pa who so exercised the second Karma pa? If we can identify them,
perhaps it will help us to make sense of möngke tengri as well, for in some
respects this latter seems to stand outside of the Buddhist-mu stegs pa
dichotomy altogether.
Karma Pakshi’s references to a “Red-garbed” religious order advocating a novel system of dialectics, together with the knowledge that he had
encountered Christians at the court of the Khan, immediately raises the
question as to whether or not the Karma pa may have been speaking in fact of
Christian clerics in red vestments. Indeed, Leonard van der Kuijp has recently
asserted that “in this context it is perhaps significant to note that Nestorian
Christian patriarchs wore red clothing and that therefore Karma pa II’s repeated
mentions of the Gos dmar can might actually refer to the Nestorian
Precious Jewels, the Body, Speech, and Mind of all the buddhas of the future.
Therefore, [although] it is evident that [you] do not affirm the six classes of beings in
the hells, etc. [as objects of] salutations and refuge, it is rightly implied that one should
go for refuge to the Triple Gem endowed with the Body, Speech, and Mind of all the
buddhas of the future. Therefore, you logicians of Tibet, amen to your assertion not to
affirm going for refuge in the sentient beings of the three evil destinies while going for
refuge in the Three Precious Jewels of the future!”
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Matthew T. Kapstein
Christians.”43 However, although ceremonial vestments in red are current in
both Roman and Orthodox rites, and may have been in the Nestorian rite as
well,44 it is significant that the colour with which the latter were associated in
43
Van der Kuijp forthcoming. During my first presentation of my researches on the Mo
gho ding ri, at the University of Virginia in March 2003, I had already suggested that
the “Red-garbed” might have been inspired by encounters with Christians, but as a
mere hypothesis that had to be treated with considerable caution. Prof. van der Kuijp’s
assertion, quoted here, is presented without a supporting citation—an uncharacteristic
departure from the author’s habitual precision in such matters—and I have not so far
been able to locate a confirming source. The closest I have been able to come is
William of Rubruck’s mention of “a priest from Cataia [i.e. Khitan, Cathay] … dressed
in cloth of the finest red.” In his remarks on this passage, P. Jackson (2009: 202n1)
mentions Rockhill’s proposal “that this must have been a Tibetan (or possibly a
Mongol) lama, since the Chinese Buddhists did not wear red and the Uighurs wore
yellow,” and adds, “we cannot be sure that Rubruck is referring to a lama … and it is
at least as likely that the person in question here was a Christian, like the one
mentioned at p. 152.” On examining this last reference, however, one finds that the
colour red is nowhere mentioned and that it is a question of a “Nestorian priest who
had cone from Cataia,” which is to say that Jackson is addressing solely the bearing of
the priest’s origins in Cataia upon the question of his religious affiliation. In other
words, the red-robed priest may have been Buddhist or Christian; we have no means to
be sure.
44
In the Roman Catholic and Byzantine rites, red vestments are prescribed for a
number of solemn feast days. (In the Byzantine rite, it appears that there is considerable
latitude in actual practice, while the Roman rite is at present stipulated in the Institutio
Generalis Missalis Romani, the text of which is subject to periodic updates and
revisions.) The famous c. 1412 Paris manuscript of the Book of Marco Polo, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms. fr. 2810, executed by the so-called Boucicaut master,
seems to favour white robes in depicting Eastern Christian clerics, but some are also
wearing red. (See, for instance, folio 10v, ‘God moves a mountain for the Christians of
Baghdad,’ reproduced in Baumer 2008: 154.) But the documentary value of this for our
understanding of Christian vestment further (and even nearer!) east remains uncertain.
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
279
China was white.45 Moreover, given Karma Pakshi’s explicit association of the
designation “red-garbed” with the arhat Śāṇakavāsin and the fact, as we have
seen, that this association was well established in earlier Buddhist tradition, we
are left with no real basis to suppose that Karma Pakshi used the term to speak
of Christians.
Although, for these reasons, I do not believe that Karma Pakshi’s “Redgarbed” order can be identified with Nestorian or other Christians he may have
encountered during his travels outside of Tibet, the possibility that Christianity
was among his sources of inspiration cannot be altogether dismissed. Karma
45
As we read in line XXVI of the Xi’an (Chang’an) Nestorian stele of 781, the
Christian priests were “maîtres Radieux aux vêtements blancs” (Pelliot 1996: 178). In
his note on this passage (292n228), Pelliot however explains that “vêtement blanc”
(Ch. baiyi 白衣) may refer in ordinary Chinese usage to persons without official
function, as it does when, in Buddhist contexts, it means ‘laity.’ In the present instance,
nevertheless, there is the possibility that it refers specifically to the Christian priesthood,
or to a part thereof. As Pelliot comments, “une solution s’offre immédiatement à
l’esprit, qui est de retrouver dans le nestorianisme la distinction du clergé ‘blanc’ et du
clergé ‘noir’ qui nous est si familière dans l’église grecque et dans l’église russe.”
Notably, red does not figure among the colours he discusses. Beyond these
considerations, recent correspondence with Professor Mark Dickens (SOAS) and Mr.
Steven Ring (Bristol), both specialists in the study of the Church of the East, has
brought home to me that besides the so-called ‘Nestorians’ (an adjective no longer
much in favour, though retained here for reasons of custom and convenience),
representatives of several other Christian churches were circulating in Möngke’s
domains even after William of Rubruck’s departure, including Armenian Christians and
Roman Catholics (Rubruck’s companion Bartholomew of Cremona had stayed behind).
Moreover, Manichaeans, too, may have been present among the interlocutors at
Möngke’s court. For these and other reasons, we should resist the temptation to assume
too readily that Karma Pakshi’s references to the ‘Red-garbed’ allude to meetings with
‘Nestorian Christian patriarchs [who] wore red clothing,’ though there can be no doubt
that he did, in some manner or another, encounter representatives of the Church of the
East.
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Pakshi, in fact, though everywhere challenging the mu stegs pa to debate, tells
us almost nothing of their actual tenets; his work is far too thin on this score to
allow us to use doctrine to identify his unnamed opponents. However, his
autobiographical writings clarify the matter perfectly. For here he recounts that,
prior to the debates sponsored by Möngke Khan in 1256, the Mongol royal
family, and especially Möngke and Qubilai’s younger brother Ariq-böke, as
well as a noblewoman whose name he gives as E lji ga ma, were especially
devoted to a mu stegs pa faith called e rga ’o that had aspirations of converting
the entire world.46 In this case, e rga ’o is clearly a transcription of Mongol
erke’ün, that is, Christianity, Ariq-böke’s devotion to which was noted by
William of Rubruck in 1254.47
This perhaps helps us to understand just why it is that a noteworthy
feature of the Dialectic of Eternal Heaven is the author’s sustained interest in
addressing the challenge of theism. Tibetan thinkers were, of course, broadly
familiar with the outlines of certain Indian theistic traditions and the Buddhist
critiques of them, above all through the treatment of these matters in the
Pramāṇasiddhi chapter of Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika and its comment46
Kama Pakshi 1978a, pp. 100–101: sngon dus 3 mkhyen pas glang po cher sprul nas
log lta can gyi rgyal po ’khor bcas btul ba de skye ba ’ga’ brgyud nas da ltar ’dzaṃ
gling rgyal po mo ’gor gan du sku ’khrungs shing/ sngon gyi bag chaṭ kyis mu steg er
ga ’o yi grub mtha’ ’dzin cing er ka’i sloon [= slob dpon] mang pos mu steṭ kyi grub
mtha’ ’chad cing/ thya [= mtha’] ’khor nas ’dzam bu gling pa thaṃd mu steṭ kyi bstan
pa la ’jug dgos ’dug pa rgyal bu a ri po ka: dpon mo i lji ga ma soṭ la rgyal rgyud
khaṃs kyi ’bangs thaṃd kyang / sngon mueṭ kyi rgyal po btsun mo sras dang nye du
dmag dpon mi la soṭ pa thaṃd da res ’dir ’khor bcas lhan cig tu skyes pa’i phyir na /
… ming yongs su graṭ pa karmā pa ? mo ’gor rgyal po 1 ? pu’i don du skyes shing
’khor bcas mtho ris thar pa la snoṭ [= sna tshogs] thabs kyis ’god pa dgos par dran
cing / gnam lo rgyal po ’brugi lo la zi ra ’ur rdor rgyal rgyud thaṃd ’tshoṭ pa’i dusu
phyin pa las / … mu steṭ kyi grub mtha’ las rje ’bangs thaṃd bzlog cing / nang pa
sargyas pa’i bstan pa la btsud pa ste. See, too, the summary account in Dpa’ bo 1986,
p. 889.
47
P. Jackson 2009: 212, 223.
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
281
aries.48 However, because the theistic schools in question were not at all active
in Tibet, they were largely a matter of exegetical interest and not of active
polemical or apologetical concern. 49 Karma Pakshi, though addressing the
affirmation of a deity described as Īśvara (dbang phyug), or “Īśvara with
Consort” (dbang phyug yab yum), and clearly conceiving of the theism he
criticises as a variety of the Śaivism well-known from Indian Buddhist sources,
nevertheless seems to speak with an urgency that is not at all characteristic of
Tibetan treatments of the issue. Is it possible that, in meeting representatives of
Christian traditions, he discovered that the theistic views he knew from the
works he had studied had not just a theoretical existence, and that they
presented a genuine challenge to Buddhist positions? Perhaps. In all events, it is
not clear that he grasped the distinctive features of Christian theism in contrast
to the Indian doctrines with which he was familiar. The conceptions of a
necessary being and of creatio ex nihilo are at best somewhat obscurely
suggested in one passage in his text (at 26b.7 in the selection translated below,
on “whether or not there is a self-emergent that has not emerged within the
three realms”), but only to be immediately dismissed, apparently too absurd to
merit further discussion. In short, if Karma Pakshi’s interest in theism was due
to his meeting living Christian theists, his response to their beliefs was firmly
cast in the mould of the Indian Buddhist traditions in which he had been
schooled.50
48
For a useful introduction to Indian Buddhist ‘atheology,’ see Hayes 1988, and for a
thorough study of a major Sanskrit work on the subject, Patil 2009. Aspects of the
Pramāṇasiddhi chapter of the Pramāṇavārttika have been studied by Franco 1997, and,
in the Tibetan context, by R. Jackson 1993.
49
Though see Kapstein 2009 for an example of a Tibetan doxographical work (in this
case by Bya ’Chad kha pa Ye shes rdo rje [1101–75]) prior to Karma Pakshi’s time that
does seek to relate the discussion of the non-Buddhist schools to actual religious
concerns in Tibet.
50
Cf. the responses to Christian argument attributed by Rubruck to the tuin, presum-
ably Chinese Buddhist priests, with whom he debated; P. Jackson 2009: 231–34.
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Matthew T. Kapstein
In this connection, it is striking to note, too, that in his great synthesis
of the Dignāga-Dharmakīrti tradition of Pramāṇaśāstra, the seventh Karma pa,
Chos grags rgya mtsho (1454–1506), refers to his predecessor Karma Pakshi
precisely in connection with the refutation of theism in the Pramāṇasiddhi
chapter, attributing to him a work entitled the Tshad ma rgya mtsho mtha’ yas.
However, no reference to a text with this title has so far been discovered in
Karma Pakshi’s available writings, nor has it yet appeared in any of the lists of
manuscripts in Tibet, so far known to me, in which works by Karma Pakshi
have otherwise been reported. Is it possible that the seventh Karma pa was
inexact in his citation of Karma Pakshi’s title? I believe that this may in fact
have been the case, and for some time worked under the hypothesis that the Mo
gho ding ri’i sgra tshad itself was the text referred to as the Tshad ma rgya
mtsho mtha’ yas. However, although, as will be seen, the Indian Vaiśeṣika
philosophy occupies a particularly important place in Karma Pakshi’s conception of theism, as it does in the description of the Tshad ma rgya mtsho
mtha’ yas, the Mo gho ding ri’i sgra tshad is not plausibly the work that the
seventh Karma pa mentions. It was, rather, Karma Pakshi’s discussion of
Vaiśeṣika thought in a part of the Bstan pa rgya mtsho mtha’ yas that he likely
had in mind. Appendix II below sets forth in detail my reasons for drawing this
conclusion, but here let us return to consider Karma Pakshi’s treatment of
theism in the Mo gho ding ri’i sgra tshad.
It must be stressed at the outset that Karma Pakshi’s argumentation
about this is sometimes very difficult to follow, at least in many precise points,
and it is not at all certain whether this is due to obscurity or confusion in his
own thought or expression, or to problems in the transmission of the text. The
main lines of his argument, however, are often clear enough. The selection that
follows will suffice to introduce his treatment of traditions that assert the
existence of a divine creator:51
51
The Tibetan text is given as the second selection in Appendix I.
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
283
(26a.6) … You tīrthikas hold, (26a.7) do you not, that your source and
culmination is Īśvara with His Consort. Do you affirm or not that
Maheśvara and Consort are the parents of all living creatures? If you do
affirm Maheśvara and Consort to be sentient beings’ parents, because you
[therefore] affirm that there were no sentient beings in the three realms
prior to the emergence of Maheśvara, (26a.8) then did Maheśvara have
parents and ancestors or not? If you hold that he did, you must affirm there
to have been one culminating ancestor. For if there were no such
culmination, then Maheśvara and Consort, would have arisen [fortuitously]
like bubbles in water, without depending upon the aggregations and
continuum of awareness (26a.9) from which they emerge.52 Why so? As it
says in the text of the measureless dialectic:53 these distinctions are resumed
as finite or infinite. Therefore, given that you tīrthikas speak of Maheśvara
and Consort, Phya, Brahmā, (26b.1) etc., and the three teachers or the many
divisions, 54 and because there is a debate between you who evidently
appear as tīrthikas and myself, a Buddhist insider,55 do you hold Maheśvara
and Consort, etc., (26b.2) to have a culmination, or not?
52
I am not entirely comfortable with this interpretation, though I cannot imagine how
else to understand the passage. While the text appears to read rigrgyur, I am taking this
as meaning rig rgyun, the “continuum of awareness” linking one life to the next in a
series of births.
53
Cf. his references to “the measureless, imponderable dialectic of the Red-garbed
Eternal Heaven,” e.g. in 1b.4 of the selection given earlier. It was not clear there,
however, that Karma Pakshi was speaking of a “text” (gzhung). Was the work in
question real, or, like the Red-garbed Kashmiri order, the product of the author’s
visions?
54
It is not clear to me to whom the “three teachers” refer in this context. Is it possible
that, because we know Daoists to have been engaged in the dragon-year debates, that
Karma Pakshi is responding to the Chinese conception of “three teachings” (sanjiao 三
教), i.e. Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism?
55
For want of a better English formula to represent the standard expression nang pa
sangs rgyas pa.
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Matthew T. Kapstein
If you hold that, according to the tīrthikas, the great divinities have
their culmnination in Maheśvara, then I, the Buddhist insider, will assert
that the four teachers are not gathered in one as [their] culmination.56 And
if you tīrthikas assert that Maheśvara is without culmination, (26b.3) I, the
Buddhist insider, will affirm that the Buddha has a culmination. 57 For
example, when the rain falls in torrents on a mountain, because it stops and
dries58 quickly, (26b.4) does not this example, tīrthikas, (26b.4) apply to
Maheśvara whom you hold to have a culmination? [But on the other hand,]
if you hold Maheśvara to be without culmination, does not your assertion
collapse, viz. that “you reach nothing beyond Maheśvara and Consort, that
everything arises from him, and is made by him?”
56
Who are the “four teachers” in this case? If, indeed, the “three teachers” mentioned
just above are the “three teachings” of Chinese tradition, then maybe we have here a
garbled allusion to the notion of the unity of the three teachings (sanjiao he yi 三教和
一), that had become current during the Song. This would perhaps explain Karma
Pakshi’s notion of the several of which he speaks being “gathered in one.” Alternatively, if indeed the Christians are his interlocutors at this point, the “four teachers”
might be the Four Evangelists, and Jesus the “one” in whom they are gathered. Perhaps
more plausibly, Karma Pakshi is following Indian Buddhist doxographical traditions
well known in Tibet (Kapstein 2009) that emphasised the primacy of just four of the
non-Buddhist Indian philosophical traditions: Vedānta, Sāṃkhya, Vaiśeṣika, and Mīmāṃsā, as surveyed in the Tarkajvālā of Bhāviveka. In this case, however, the sense in
which they are supposed to be “gathered in one” is uncertain.
57
This, I think, is less confusing that it seems. We may recall that in the ’Dod pa rgya
mtsho mtha’ yas (Kapstein 2000: 101–106) Karma Pakshi employed a skeptical form of
argument similar to the tenth mode of classical skepticism, according to which an
assertion is placed in doubt by showing its opposite. The goal of the procedure is not,
of course, to prove the opposite, but to engender a doubt, and that is precisely Karma
Pakshi’s strategy here.
58
Reading skam for snyam. (The appearance of this syllable in the ms. is in fact
ambiguous.)
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
285
Why so? Do you affirm, or not, that Maheśvara and Consort have a
sole ancestor? (26b.5) If you do not affirm it, then, even as you adhere to
the tīrthikas’ philosophical system, it is implied that it has emerged from
Buddhism and is Buddhist. For, as for us, the Buddhist insiders, it is
evident that the way in which Samantabhadra, self-emergent gnosis, is
realised and emerges, (26b.6) is a continuous flow, like a stream of water,
immeasurable and imponderable. For you tīrthikas, but for Maheśvara there
is neither an upper culminating limit nor a lower culminating limit, and
hence it is implied that you thus put the pieces in order.59 Why so? (26b.7)
You assemblies of tīrthikas, owing to eternalism, affirm all to be selfemergent, made by no one. To this [one asks] whether or not there is a selfemergent that has not emerged within the three realms. That is, are
Maheśvara and Consort understood to be within the three realms or not?
(26b.8) Therefore, [because] it is evident that everything has emerged from
causes and conditions, does not your affirmation of “made by no one”
collapse? Therefore, your eternalism implies the fault of annihilation.
You tīrthikas who are nihilists say (27a.1) that you have washed
away the plentiful talk of everything’s being made by a creator [such as]
Phya, Maheśvara, or Brahmā, and that you hold to the philosophical system
of nihilism. Do you or do you not? If you do, then, [as for] all the outer
vessel and inner contents [i.e. the world and beings]—none of it has arisen
primordially from the buddhas’ power and blessing. (27a.2) It is not to be
terminated by the efforts of sentient beings, and all the past activities of
study and teaching [on the part] of Buddhist insiders originate and are
destroyed by the collective merits of sentient beings. So they say. …
59
Though the first part of this sentence clearly means something like “without
Maheśvara there is neither beginning nor end,” the last phrase eludes me in this
context. Perhaps it may be taken as an idiom saying, roughly, “your position falls to
pieces.” Elsewhere, the phrase is known in the Rnying ma bka’ ma traditions, early
versions of which were familiar to Karma Pakshi from Kaḥ thog, where it occurs in the
titles of texts that put into order fragmentary instructions (dum dum khrigs su bkod pa).
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Matthew T. Kapstein
That the problems raised by the thesis of divine creation were of sustained concern to Karma Pakshi is further underscored by his repeated rehearsal
of them throughout the Mo gho ding ri’i sgra tshad.60 In sum, though the
identification of the “Red-garbed” with Nestorian Christians seems implausible, Karma Pakshi’s uncommon interest in the refutation of theism seems best
explained by his encounters with actual theists at the court of Möngke Khan.
4 Conclusions
Conclusions
Karma Pakshi’s peculiar dialectical strategy in the Mo gho ding ri’i sgra tshad
seems generally to turn on a distinction between two types of proposition, those
termed “measureless and imponderable” (tshad gzhal med pa) and those that
are “delimited and ponderable” (tshad gzhal yod pa). This distinction
60
For instance, at 72a8ff.: rten ’brel bcuis dang / byed pa’i skyes bu bcuis la soṭ par
bye brag grub mtha’ grangs mtha’ yas par khas blangs zhing dam bcas kyang / khyed
rnams kyi bskyed byed dbang phyug cheno yuṃb dang bcas pa’i yang ma rig rgya’o
cheonr ’khrul pa’i tshad gzhal med pa’i mngon suṃ tshad ma / (72b) de’i phyir na
khyod muegs byed khyad par du khyad lta ba rnams / ma rig log rtogis tshad ma khas
len nam mi len/ khyod thaṃd byed pa pos byas pa yin zer zhing / khyod kyi byed pa
po’i phyug (sic?) phya dang dbyuṃg dang po sus byas pa yin / […] (72b 4) ci’i phyir
na / khyed chad lta ba rnams phya’i phya dang / dbyuṃgis dbyuṃg byed pa po’i gong
nas gong du yod zer ba khas len/ phya dang dbyuṅg phug thug pa medr thal ci’i phyir
na byed pa po’i thog ma’i dusu byas pa ’di yin bya ba khas len zhing da ltar mngon
suṃ du khyod kyis ston nusaṃ mi nus /. The notion of the “twelve fabricants” (byed
pa’i skyes bu bcuis) that we find here, particularly in connection with Karma Pakshi’s
question about who might have made Īśvara, is of some interest in connection with
Rubruck’s report (P. Jackson 2009: 233), that the ‘tuins’ objected to his assertion of a
single supreme God, saying, “On the contrary, there is one supreme god in Heaven, of
whose origin we are still ignorant, with ten others under him and one of lowest rank
beneath them; while on earth they are without number.” The argument opposing the
conception of a single creator god with that of ‘creation by committee’ was much
invoked in Indian Buddhist critiques of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theism, and is well-known to
modern Western philosophy of religion from the Dialogues of David Hume.
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
287
corresponds, very approximately, to the classical division between the two
truths, or, rather, to that between “logic investigating the absolute” (don dam
dpyod pa’i tshad ma) and “logic investigating conventions” (tha snyad dpyod
pa’i tshad ma). Those propositions that are “delimited and ponderable,”
whether Buddhist or mu stegs pa are all subject to “proof and refutation,” but
what is “measureless and imponderable” is what remains when all possibility
of proof and refutation is exhausted. This is the dharmadhātu, Samantabhadra,
Mahāviṣṇu, and, of course, möngke tengri, “eternal heaven.” Regarded in this
fashion, the puzzling dialectic of the Mo gho ding ri’i sgra tshad begins to
emerge as a reflection of the religio-political order of the Mongol Empire, at
least, as Karma Pakshi conceived it to be. For the supreme Khan, Möngke,
regarded by Karma Pakshi as a realised adept of the Mahāmudrā, was the
“measureless and imponder-able” center of gravity around which his
squabbling subjects—Christians, Daoists, and Buddhists alike—were but
“delimited and ponderable” sublunary bodies. Pakshi’s eulogy of the Khan as
at once a fervent Buddhist and yet a protector of his subjects’ varied faiths
seems to accord with just such a perspective.
If the essential point is so simple, however, why does Karma Pakshi
require 149 folios of dense and often confusing argumentation to make it? I am
not at all sure that a clear answer is readily available, but perhaps we can
suggest the direction in which our answer must lie by noting that, for Karma
Pakshi, everything is always multiplied to exhaustion: his visions of divinities
have thousands of arms, multiply themselves billion-fold throughout infinite
reaches of space, blessing numberless beings in countless lands and cosmic
systems. His revelations express themselves as a limitless ocean, surpassing in
its extent even the dimensions of the Bka’ ’gyur. In the words of his Limitless
Ocean of Tenets (’Dod pa rgya mtsho mtha’ yas):
There is a limitless ocean of tenets pertaining to the principles of saṃsāra
and nirvāṇa and to the particular philosophical systems. You must realise it
to be neither conjoined with, nor separate from, the limitless ocean of
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Matthew T. Kapstein
realisation, which is free from all acceptance and rejection, and which is
spontaneously present, pristine cognition.61
Analogously, in debate, one must consider each and every one of the myriad
propositions that may arise in all of their innumerable permutations. As he
himself put it: “Endless debate is like swordplay. One is proven, two are
proven, everything under debate is decisively proven. Oṃ sarva pratisiddhi
hūṃ!”
61
Kapstein 2000: 103.
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
289
Appendix I:
I: Selected passages from the Mo gho ding ri’i sgra tshad
In the following text selections, corresponding to the extended passages
translated above, I provide diplomatic transcriptions of the available manuscript. Hence, I let irregularities of orthography—of which there are many—
stand as they appear in the text, and have attempted to reproduce the frequent
abbreviations found therein as faithfully as is possible. Underlined phrases are
those written in red ink in the original manuscript. Though shad and tsheg are
graphically indiscernable in the manuscript, the shad is represented by tsheg
followed by an extended space, which does not otherwise intervene between
syllables separated by the tsheg. On this basis, I have taken the liberty of
introducing the standard form of the shad in the present transcriptions. Na ro
and ’greng bu are often written in closely similar forms and one must decide
contextually which is appropriate; in a few cases, e.g. khyod/khyed, the
decision is virtually arbitrary.
1. Title page and preamble
ག
(1a.2)
༇། དམ་པའི་ཆོས་འདུལ་བའི་གླིང་བཞི་ན་གོས་དམར་ཅན་གྱི་ཡུལ་ནས་འོངས་
བའི་མཁས་པ་ཡང་དག་ཕྱི་རོལ་ཉིད་བཞུགས་གསུངས་ཏེ།
(1a.3)
དེ་ལ་ཤ་ན་པའི་གོས་ཅན་
འཇམས་དཔལ་དམར་པོ་ལ་སོགས་པའི་ཚན་འབྲུག་ཙམ་དུ་ཐ་སྙད་འདོགས་ཤིང་
ངོ་བོ་ཅིག་ལ་མཐོང་ཚུལ་ཐ་དད་པ་འདི་ལྟ་སྟེ མོ་གྷོ་དིང་རིའི་སྒྲ་ཚད་བཞུགས་སོ།། །།
(1b.1) ༄༅༆།།
།།མོ་གོ་དི་རི་སྒྲ་ཚད་གཞལ་མེད་པའི་སྒྲ་ཚད་ སྒྲོཊ་ཞིང་གླེང་བ་
གཏན་ལ་ཕབ་པ་ཏེ། ལུས་དང་གྲིབ་མའི་་དཔེ་བཞིན་ཏུ། ཚད་གཞལ་མེད་པར་དམ་བཅས་
290
Matthew T. Kapstein
ན། ཚད་གཞལ་མེད་པ་ཤུཊ་ལས་
(1b.2)
འབྱུང་བ་མངོན་སུམ་ཚད་མ་ཡིན་པའི་ཕྱིར་
ན། འཁོར་བ་དང་མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པའི་ཚད་གཞལ་མེད་པ་དང་ཚད་གཞལ་ཡོད་པ་གཉིས་
སུ་དམ་བཅའ་ནས་སྒྲོཊ་ཞིང་གླེང་པ་ཡིན་པའི་ཕྱིར་ན།
སྲས་དང་
(1b.3)
སྐུ་ལྔ་ཡོངས་སུ་རྫོགས་པའི་རྒྱལ་བ་
བཅས་པ་རྣམས་དཔང་པོ་དམ་པར་བཞུགས་སུ་གསོལ། ཁྱབ་འཇུག་དང་
དབང་ཕྱུག༌ཕྱྭ་དང་ཚངས་པ་ལྷ་སྲིན་སྡེ་བརྒྱད་ལ་སོཊ་པ་འཇིག་རྟེན་གསུམ་ན་འཁོད་ཅིང་ཕྱི་ནང་
གི་གྲུབ་མཐའ་སོ་སོར་འཛིན་པ་རྣམས་སྤངས་པོ་དམ་པར་བཞུགས་སུ་གསོལ།
དིང་རི་གོས་དམར་ཅན་གྱི་ཚད་གཞལ་ཡོད་པའི་སྒྲ་ཚད་དང་།
(1b.4)
མོ་འགོ་
ཚད་གཞལ་མེད་པའི་སྒྲ་ཚད་
བཤིག་པ་དང་། སྒྲུབ་པ་རལ་བསྐོར་གྱི་འཁོར་ལོ་འདི། བོད་ཡུལ་ཁ་བ་ཅན་གྱི་བྱང་ཕྱོགས་
འདིར་སྔོན་ཆད་མ་བྱུང་ཕྱིས་མི་འབྱུང་བ་ཏེ་
ལྟར་དུ་ཕྱི་ནང་གི་སྒྲུབ་མཐའ།
(1b.5)
གཞན་དང་རྩོད་ན་ཕྱི་ནང་དང་པོའི་འདི་
སོ་སོར་ས་གཅོད་པ་འདི་ལྟ་སྟཻ།
འགྲོ་བ་རིས་དྲུག་གིས་འཁྲུལ་པ་དང་འཁྲུལ་གཞི་སྒྲུབ་པར་དམ་བཅས།
པར་ཁས་ལེནཾ་མི་ལཻན།
(1b.6)
ངས་མ་རིག་པ་
ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་བཤིག་
གྲུབ་མཐའ་ལོག་པར་ལྟ་བ་མེུཊ་ཀྱི་ལྟ་ལོག་སུམ་བརྒྱ་
དྲུག་ཅུ་བྱེ་བྲག་དང་བཅས་པ་ང་ཡིས་སྒྲུབ་པར་དམ་བཅས་ཁྱེད་ཀྱིས་ཤེས་པར་ཁས་ལེཾ་མི་ལེན།
ས་འཚམས་ཕྱེད་པར་ཁས་ལོང་། ནང་པ་སརྒྱས་པའི་གྲུབ་མཐའ་ཕྱོཊ་
གྱི་ཐེག་པ་དགུ་ལས།
(1b.7)
རྟོག་ངར་འཛིན་
སྤྲུལ་སྐུའི་བསྟན་པ་སྡེ་སྣོད་གསུམ་དང་ངའི་སྒྲུབ་པར་དམ་བཅས།
ཁྱོད་མེུཊ་བྱེད་ཀྱིས་བཤིག་པར་ཁས་ལོང་ཞིང་དམ་ཆོས། ལྱོད་རྫོགས་པ་སྤྲུལ་སྐུའི་བསྟན་པ་
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
ཕྱི་རྒྱུད་གསུཾ་(?)་ངའི་
(2a.1)
291
སྒྲུབ་པར་དམ་བཅས། ཁྱོད་ཀྱི་མེུཊ་བྱེད་ཀྱིས་བཤིག་པར་ཁས་
ལོང་ཤིང་དམ་ཆོས། ཆོས་ཀྱི་སྐུའི་དགོངས་པ་ལུང་བསྟན་རྣོར་ཆཻན་བླ་ན་མེད་པ་གསར་རྙིང་ང་ཡི
ས་སྒྲུབ། མེུཊ་བྱེད་ཡིན་ན་ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་བཤིཊ་པར་དཾ་ (2a.2) ཆོས། ངོ་བོ་ཉིད་ཀྱི་སྐུའི་བསྟན་པ་
ཨ་ནུ་ཡོ་ག་གྲུབ་མཐའ་ཐཾད༌ཀྱིས་སྤྱི་ལུང་ཡིན་ན་ང་ཡིས་སྒྲུབ་པར་དམ་བཅས། ཁྱོད་གྲུབ་མཐའ་
ཐཾད་ལ་མཁས་པར་ཁས་ལེན་ན་བཤིག་པར་དམ་ཆོས། རང་འབྱུང་སྐུ་ལྔ་ཡོངས་
(2a.3)
སུ་
རྟོགས་པའི་བསྟན་པ་རྫོགས་པ་ཆཻན་ཅིག་ཡིན་ཏེ། མ་རྟོག་ལོག་རྟོག་གཉིས་ལ་སོཊ་པ་ཕྱི་ནང་གི་
གྲུབ་མཐའ་འདི་བ་མ་འདྲེས་པ་ཡོངས་སུ་རྫོགས་པའི་ཕྱིར་ན། ང་ཡིས་སྒྲུབ་ཁྱོད་མེུཊ་བྱེད་ཀྱིས་
ཀུན་སྤྱོད་ལོག་པར་རྟོག་ (2a.4) པའི་རྒྱལ་པོ་ཡིན་ན། ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་བཤིག་པར་དམ་ཆོས་བཅའ།
ཁྱོད་ཀྱི་སྒྲུབ་པར་ཁས་ལོང་། ཡང་ན་ཕྱི་ནང་གི་གྲུབ་མཐའི་བྱེ་བྲག་རྣམས་དུམ་བུ་རེ་རེ་ནས་
བཤིག་པ་དང་སྒྲུབ་པར་བྱའམ་མི་བྱ། ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་དབང་པོ་རིཊ་པའི་
བཏུན་ནས་ཁྱོད་ལ་གདམ་ཁ་སྦྱིན་པ་ཏེ།
(2a.5)
བྱེ་བྲག་དང་
ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་འདོམ། འདི་རྣམས་ཀྱང་ཚད་ཡོད་
པ་དང་། ཚད་མེད་པ་གཉིས་སུ་མ་འདུས་པ་དང་མ་རྟོགས་པ་དང་མ་ཁྱབ་པ་གང་ཡང་མེད་པའི་
ཕྱིར་ན། ཕྱི་ནང་གི་གྲུབ་མཐའ་
(2a.6)
ཐཾད་ལ། ཚད་ཡོད་ཚད་མེད་གཉིས་སུ་དམ་བཅའ་ཞིང་
བཤིག་སྒྲུབ་མ་གཏོཊ་པ་གང་ཡང་མེད་པར་ཤེས་པར་མཛོད།
བྱེད་ན་ཡང་འདི་རྣམ་མ་ནོར་བར་འགྲིགསུ་ཚར་ཅིག་གི་ཚར་༣་ཞུམ་
།གང་དང་གང་དུ་སྒྲོཊ་གླེང་
(2a.7) མེད་པར་འདོན་ནས་
སྒྲོ་གླེང་བ་ལ་གོར་བཅུག་ཅིང་གླེང་བ་མན་ངག་ཡིན། དེ་ལྟར་འཇམ་དབྱངས་ཏིང་ངེ་འཛིན་བརྟེན་
292
Matthew T. Kapstein
ཞིང་ཕྱི་ནང་གྲུབ་མཐའ་ཤན་འབྱེད་གནས་ལུག་ཆོས་ཉིད་གཏན་ལ་ཕབ་པའི་དགོངས་པ་
ཡོད་པའོ། །
(2b.1)
ངག་གི་དབང་ཕྱུག་རང་འབྱུང་སྨྲ་བའི་སེང་གེ་༡་རྩོད་༢་རྩོད་ཀུན་རྩོད་
དེ་རྩོད། རྩོད་པ་མཐའ་ཡས་རལ་སྐོར་དཔེ་དང་མཚུངས། ཅིག་སྒྲུབ་གཉིས་སྒྲུབ་རྩོད་པ་
ཐདཾ་བསྒྲུབ་གཅོད།།
།།ཨོཾ་སརྦ་པྲ་ཏི་སིདྡྷི་ཧཱུྃཿ ཤཱཀྱ་ཐུབ་པ་ལ་
(2b.2)
མ་འགཊ་པ་
དཔོན་སློབ་གཉིས་ཀྱིས་ཞུ་བ་ཞུ་ལེན་བསྒྲོཊ་ཞིང་གླེང་བ། དཀཽནགསུམ་གྱི་ཆོས་ཅན་ཆོས་ཉིད་
འཁོར་བ་དང་མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པའི་ཤེས་པ་དང་ཤེས་བྱའི་ཚོགས་རྣམས་ལ་མ་ཁྱབ་ཅིང་གང་
དག་གང་ལ་མི་གནས་པ་
(2b.3)
མེད་པའི་སྐོར་ཆཻན་དབྱེ་བ་ནི་འདི་ལྟ་སྟེ།
མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་ཁར་ལུང་བསྟན་ལས།
ཤཱཀྱ་ཐུབ་པ་
བ་ར་ན་སེའི་ཡུལ་དུ་སངྱས་ཀྱི་མཚན་དང་དཔེ་
བྱད་ཀྱིས་མ་བརྒྱན་པའི་ཡང་མཛད་པ་ཕྲིས་སངྱས་དང་མཉམ་པའི་ཤ་ན་པའི་གོས་ཅན་
ཞེས་བྱ་བ་འབྱུང་སྟེ།
(2b.4)
ངའི་བསྟན་པ་དར་ཞིང་རྒྱས་པར་བྱེད་ཅིང་ཕྱི་ནང་གི་གྲུབ་མཐའ་ཐདཾ་
ཤན་འབྱེད་པ་ཏེ། དམ་པའི་ཆོས་སྣ་ཚོཊ་གཏན་ལ་འབེབ་པར་བྱེད་པ་ཏེ། བོད་སྐད་དུ་བསྒྱུར་ན་
གོས་དམར་པོ་ཅན་ཞེས་བརྗོད་པ་ཏེ། འབུཾ་
(2b.5)
གྱིས་མཚན་བཟང་གི་ཕྱོགས་སྐོར་ན།
ཁ་དོག་དམར་པོ་དམར་པོར་སྟོན་ཞིང་བ་ར་ན་སེའི་གོས་ལྟུ་སྟེ། ཡང་ན་མ་ཛུ་ཀོ་ན་ཀའི་
གོས་ལྟུ་ཏེ། ཡང་ན་མཉྫུ་ཛོ་ན་ཀའི་མདོག་འདྲ་བ། བོད་སྐད་དུ་བསྒྱུར་ན་ཁུག་ཆོས་དར་ལོ་
(2b.6)
མིང་བ་ཏེ། དམ་པའི་ཆོས་འདུལ་བ་མུ་རྟེཊ་ཀྱི་གྲུབ་མཐའ་དང་འདྲེས་ཤིང་ས་མཚམས་
མེད་པའི་གྲངས་སུ་དགེུན་རྣམ་ཀྱི་ཤ་ན་པའི་གོས་ཅན་ལ་གསོལ་བས་བཏབ་ཤིང་ཐུག་དམ་གྱི་རྒྱུད
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
་བསྐུལ་བའི་དུས་སུ་ནེ་ཀྲོ་ཏའི་གཙུཊ་
(2b.7)
293
ལག་ཁང་དུ་ཕྱི་རོལ་དུ་ཤ་ན་པའི་གོས་ཅན་གྱི་
རྣམ་འཕྲུལ་བྱོན་ནས་བཞུཊ་པ་དགེུན་གྱི་ལས་བྱེད་ཀྱི་མཐོང་ནས་ནང་དུ་སྦྲན་ཏེ་གོས་དམར་ཅན་
གྱིས་སྦྲན་ནས་བྱོན་པའི་མཁའ་ལ་ཡང་དག་ཕྱི་རོལ་༢་ན་བཞུཊ་ (2b.8) ཞེས་སྦྲག་པ་ལ།
གནས་བརྟེན་རྣམ་དབུག་ནས་དགའ་ནས་ནང་དུ་དབྱེ་ནས།
སངྱས་ཡཻས་འཁོར་བ་དང་
མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པའི་ཆོས་ཐདཾ་སྒྲ་ཚད་དཀཽནགསུམ་གྱིས་སྒྲ་ཚད་ཀྱི་འཁཽར་བསྐོར་ཞིང་།
མེུཊ་ཀྱི་ཚོཊ་ རྣམ་ཟིལ་ (2b.9) གྱིས་མནན་ཏེ་སུན་ཕྱུང་ཏེ།
དེ་ལ་གསུམ་དུ་དབྱེ་ཞིང་ས་
བཅད་པ་ནི་འདི་ལྟ་སྟེ། སྐྱེ་བོ་ཐ་མལ་པ་ལ་འགྲོ་བ་རིགས་དྲུག་འཁྲུལ་གཞི་ལས་འཁྲུལ་པ་སྣོཊ་
འབྱུང་སྟེ། དཀཽནགསུམ་གྱིས་རྒྱུ་ཡིན་པའི་སྒྲ་ཚད་དང་ (3a.1) མུ་སྟེག་ཀྱི་གྲུབ་མཐའ་རྣམ་
ལོག་ཅིང་དཀཽགསུཾ་ལ་ལཾ་གོམ་ཞིང་དཀཽནགསུམ་ལ་མི་དགའ་བའི་ཕྱིར་ན། ལྔ་སྡེ་བཟང་པོ་ལ་
སོཊ་པ་མེུཊ་རྣམ་ཀྱང་སྟོན་པའི་འཁོར་གྱི་དང་པོར་གྱུར་པ་སྟེ། མེུཊ་ (3a.2) བྱེད་ཀྱི་དཀཽནགསུམ་
གྱིས་འབྲུསའི་བསྡུས་པའི་སྒྲ་ཚད་དང་། དམ་པའི་ཆོས་འདུལ་བ་ལ་སོཊ་པའི་ནང་པ་སངྱས་
པའི་ཐེག་པའི་བྱེ་བྲག་དང་། དཀཽནགསུམ་ཐོབ་པར་བྱ་བའི་ཕྱིར་ལམ་བགྲོད་པའི་སྒྲ་ཚད་ཀྱི་
འཁཽར་བསྐོར་བ་
(3a.3)
ཡིན།
ཐདཾ་སོ་སོར་འབྱེད་ཅིང་ཅིག་ཏུ་སྡོམ་པའི་སྒྲ་ཚད་ཡིས་
ཐདཾ་ལ་མ་ཁྱབ་པ་མེད་པར་བྱེ་བྲག་སོ་སོར་འབྱེད་པའི་དགོས་པ་ཡོད་པ་ཡོད་པའི་ཕྱི་ན་ཤ་ན་པའི་
གོས་ཅན་གྱིས་རྣམ་པར་འཕྲུལ་པའི་སློབ་པའི་ཚུལ་དུ་
(3a.4)
འབྱུང་བ་ནི། རད་པའི་གོས་ཅན་
ཉིད་དང་ཉི་མ་འགྱུར་ལ་སོཊ་པ་རྣམ་པར་འཕྲུལ་པ་གྲངས་མེད་པ་རྣམ་ཀྱིས་འཛམ་བུའི་གླིང་ཁྱབ་
294
Matthew T. Kapstein
པར་མཛད་པ་ཏེ། ཁྱདར་ག་སྨིན་གྱི་ཡུལ་པདྨོ་དཀའ། དུ་བ་ཁ་ཆེའི་གྲཻངར་ཀྲིཊ་བརྟེན་ཞེས་
(3a.5)
བྱ་བར་གྲཊ་པ་ལས། རྒྱུད་འབུམ་ཚོ་བྱེ་བ་སུམ་ཅུ་སོ་དྲུག་ཡོད་པར་གྲཊ་པ་ན། དགྲ་
བཅོམ་པ་ཉི་མ་འབུམ་གྱིས་གཞུང་ལུཊ་བསྐྱང་བ་ཡིན། ཕྱི་ནང་གི་པཎྜི་ཏ་མཁས་པ་གྲུབ་པ་
ཐོབ་པའི་གྲངས་མཐའ་ཡས་པ་རྣམས་
(3a.6) རྒྱུན་ཆད་མེད་པར་བཞུཊ་ཤིང་སྒྲ་ཚད་ལུང་རིགས་
ཀྱིས་འཁཽར་བསྐོར་བ་ཏེ། དེ་ལ་འཛམ་བུ་གླིང་གི་རྒྱལོ་མོ་གྷོ་གན་གྱི་བསོད་ནམས་ལ་གར་སྨིན་
གྱིས་རྒྱལོ་དིང་དེའི་བླ་མཆོད་ནང་པའི་སེནཾ་ཕྱི་པ་རྣམ་དང་།
ཕྱི་པ་མེུཊ་ཀྱི་
(3a.7)
པཎྜི་ཏ་
རྣམས་ངོ་ལྟ་ཞིང་ལུང་བསྟན་དུ་འབྱུང་བ་ལས་མིང་ཡོངས་སུ་གྲཊ་པ་ཀརྨ་པས་བདག་བཟུང་ཞིང་
ལུང་ལག་རྟག་ཟས་ནོར་སྣ་ཚོགས་ཀྱིས་བསྐྱང་ཞིང་དཀཽནགསུམ་གྱིས་སྒྲ་ཚད་ཀྱི་བདར་ཤ་བཅད་
ཅིང་། ཕྱིས་ཁ་ཆེའི་ཡུལ་
(3a.8)
དུ་ཡང་ཕྱིནས་ཁ་ཆེའི་རྒྱལོ་ལ་སོཊ་པ་གྲུབ་མཐའ་འཛིན་པ་
རྣམ་ཀྱི་བཀུར་ཏི་བགོས་ཤིང་གོས་དམར་ཅན་གྱི་སྒྲ་ཚད་ཀྱིས་ཚོགས་ལ་ག་དར་བྱས་པ་མངོན་སུ
མ་ཚད་མ། དེའི་ཕྱིར་ན། དཀཽནགསུམ་གྱིས་སྒྲ་ཚད་ (3a.9) འདི་འཛམ་གླིང་རྒྱན་དྲུག་ཕྱོཊ་
ཀྱི་གླང་པོས་སོཊ་ནས་བོད་ལ་དུམ་དུམ་ཙེ་ཙེ་འགྱུར་བ་དང་མི་འདྲ་ཞིང་ཐདཾ་ལ་མ་ཁྱབ་པ་མེད་
ཅིང་། ཚད་ཆེན་བྱེ་བྲགིས་ཚོགས་རྣམ་ཚད་གཞལ་མེད་པ་ཆོས་སྐུ་དྲི་མ་མེད་པར་ངོ་སྤྲོད་
(3b.1)
ཐལ་རིག དེའི་ཚད་གཞལ་མེད་པའི་དཀཽནགསུམ་སྐུ་གསུམ་ལྷུན་གྱིས་གྲུབ་པའི་
ཐ་དད་མེད་པ་ལས་ཁྱེད་རྣམ་ཚད་ཅན་བསྐོར་ཙེ་བསྐོར་ཙེར་འདོད་པའི་དམ་བཅའ་ལ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ།
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
295
2. On Īśvara
(26a.6)
…
ཁྱོད་མེུཊ་པའི་བྱུང་
འདོད་པ་ཡིནམ་མིན།
དབྱུཾག་ཆཻན་ཡུཾབ་སྐྱེ་འགྲོ་ཡོངས་ཀྱིས་ཕ་མར་ཁས་ལེནམ་མི་ལེན།
དབྱུཾག་ཆཻན་ཡུཾབ་སེནཾ་གྱིས་ཕ་མར་ཁས་ལེན་ན།
སེནཾ་ཁྱོད་
(26a.8)
ཁུང་དང་མཐར་ཐུག་པ་དེ་དབྱུཾག་ཡུཾབ་ལ་
(26a.7)
དབང་ཕྱུག་ཆཻན་མ་བྱུང་བའི་སྔོན་རོལ་དུ་ཁཾསུཾ་
མེད་པར་འདོད་པའི་ཕྱིར་ན།
དབང་ཕྱུག་ཆཻན་ལ་ཕ་མ་དང་ཕ་མྱེས་
ཡོད་དམ་མེད། ཡོད་པར་འདོད་ན་ ཕ་མེས་ཀྱི་མཐར་ཐུག་པ་༡་ཡོད་དགོས་པ་ཁྱོས་ཁས་ལོང་།
མཐའ་ཐུག་པ་མེད་ན་དབྱུཾག་ ཆཻན་ཡུཾབ་འབྱུང་བའི་ཚོཊ་རྣཾས་དང་། རིགརྒྱུར་
ལ་མ་བརྟེན་པར་ཆུའི་ཆུ་བུར་བཞིནྟུ་བྱུང་བར་ཐལ།
གཞུང་ལས། མཐའ་ཐུག་ཡོདཾ།
(26a.9)
གཉིས་
ཅིའི་ཕྱིར་ན་ཚད་གཞལ་མེད་པའི་ཚད་མའི་
ཐུཊ་མེད་དུ་བསྡུས་པའི་བྱེ་བྲག་པ་འདི་རྣཾས་ཡིན་པའི་ཕྱིར་ན།
ཁྱོད་དབྱུཾག་ཆཻན་ཡུཾབ་ཕྱ་དང་ཚངས་པ་
(26b.1)
ལ་སོཊ་པ་རྣམས་དང་། མེུཊ་ཀྱིས་སྟོནཔ་༣་མཾ་
བྱེ་བྲག་མང་དུ་གསུང་པ་རྣམས་དང་། ད་ལྟར་ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་མངོན་སུཾ་ཚད་མར་མེུཊ་པར་སྣང་ཞིང་།
ང་ནང་པ་སངྱས་པ་ལ་ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་རྩོད་པའི་ཕྱིར་ན།
ཁྱོད་དབྱུཾག་ཆཻན་ཡུཾབ་ལ་སོཊ་པ་རྣཾས་
མཐྲུག་ཡོདར་ (26b.2) འདོད་དམ་མེདར་འདོད།
ཁྱོད་མེུཊ་ཀྱིས་ལྷེན་རྣམས་དབྱུཾག་ཆཻན་
ལ་མཐྲུག་ཡོདར་འདོད་ན། ང་ནང་པ་ སངྱས་པས་སྟོན་པ་བཞི་སྟོན་པ་༡་དུ་འདུས་པར་མཐར་ཐུག་
མེད་པར་དཾ་བཅའ། ཁྱེད་མེུཊ་པ་དབྱུཾག་ཆཻན་མཐྲུག་མེདར་དམ་བཅའ་ན།
(26b.3)
ང་ནང་པ་
སངྱས་པས་སངྱས་ལ་མཐར་ཐུག་ཡོད་པར་ཁས་ལེན་ཏེ། དཔེར་ན་རི་ལ་ཆར་དྲག་པོ་འབབ་པའི་
དུས་ན་ལུང་པ་གང་བའི་ཆུ་བྱུང་ན་ཡང་།
མྱུར་དུ་ཆད་ཅིང་སྙཾ་པའི་ཕྱིར་ན་ཁྱེད་མེུཊ་པས་མཐྲུག་
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Matthew T. Kapstein
དབྱུཾག་ཆཻན་ལ་
(26b.4)
འདོད་པ་དེ་ཡང་དཔེ་དེ་དང་མཚུངམ་མི་མཚུང་། ཁྱེད་དབྱུཾག་ཆཻན་
ཐུག་མེད་དུ་འདོད་ན། ཁྱོད་དབྱུཾག་ཡུཾབ་བས་གཏུག་པ་མེད།
ཐདཾ་ཁོ་ལས་བྱུང་། ཁོས་བྱས་
ཟེར་བའི་དཾ་བཅའ་ཉཾ་མཾ་མི་ཉཾས། ཅིའི་ཕྱིར་ན་ ཁྱོད་དབྱུཾག་ཆཻན་ཡུཾབ་གྱིས་ཕ་མྱེས་༡་ཁས་ (26b.5)
ལེན་ནཾ་མི་ལེན།
ཁས་མི་ལེན་ན་
ཁྱོད་མེུགས་པའི་གྲུབ་མཐའ་བཟུང་ན་ཡང་།
དེ་ནང་པ་སངྱས་པ་ལས་བྱུང་ཞིང་སངྱས་པ་ཡིན་པར་ཐལ།
ཀུན་ཏུ་བཟང་པོ་རང་འབྱུང་ཡཻས་རྟོག་ཚུལ་དང་བྱུང་ཚུལ་
མི་འཆད་པ་ཚད་གཞལ་མེད་པའི་མངོན་སུམ་ཚད་མ།
ངེད་ནང་པ་སངས་རྒྱས་པ་ལ་ནི།
(26b.6)
ཆུ་བོའི་རྒྱུན་བཞིན་དུ་རྒྱུན་
ཁྱེད་མེུཊ་པ་ལ་ནི་དབྱུཾག་ཆཻན་མེད་པར་
ཡར་ཕུག་ཐུག་པ་མེད། མར་མཐར་ཐུག་པ་མེད་པའི་ཕྱིར་ན། ཁྱོད་དུམ་དུམ་ཁྲིགསུ་ཐལ་ཅིའི་
ཕྱིར་
(26b.7)
ན།
རང་བྱུང་ཡིས་ཁས་ལེན་པ་ལ།
ཁྱོད་མེུཊ་ཀྱིས་ཚོགས་རྣམ་རྟག་ལྟ་བས་ཐདཾ་སུས་ཀྱང་མ་བྱས་པར་
ཁམ་༣་ན་མ་བྱུང་བའི་རང་འབྱུང་གཞན་ན་ཡོད་དམ་མེད།
དབང་ཕྱུག་ཆཻན་ཡུཾབ་ཡང་ཁཾསུཾ་གྱིས་ཁོངས་སུ་
(26b.8)
རྟོག་གམ་མི་རྟོག དེའི་ཕྱིར་ན་ཐདཾ་
རྒྱུ་རྐྱེན་ལས་འབྱུང་བ་མངོན་སུཾ་ཚད་མ།
ཁྱོད་སུས་ཀྱང་མ་བྱས་ཟེར་བ་ཁས་ལེན་ཉམསཾ་
མི་ཉཾས། དེའི་ཕྱིར་ན་ཁྱོད་རྟག་ལྟ་བའི་འཇིཊ་པའི་སྐྱོན་ཅན་དུ་ཐལ། ཁྱེད་མེུཊ་ཆད་ལྟ་བ་རྣཾས་ན་རེ་
(27a.1)
ཐདཾ་ཕྱ་དང་དབང་ཕྱུག་ཆཻན་ཚངས་པ་བྱེད་པ་པོས་བྱས་ཟེར་ཞིང་གཏཾ་མང་དུ་བྱང་ཞིང་།
མེད་པའི་གྲུབ་མཐའ་འཛིན་པ་ཁྱོད་ཡིནཾ་མིན། ཡིན་ན་ཕྱི་སྣོད་ནང་བཅུད་ཐདཾ། གདོད་མ་ནས་
སངས་རྒྱས་རྣམས་ཀྱིས་མཐོུབས་ (27a.2) བྱིན་རླབས་ལས་མ་བྱུང་། སེནཾ་རྣཾས་ཀྱིས་རྩོལ་བས་
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
297
མི་བཅག་པ་དང་། ནང་པ་སངྱས་པའི་སྔོན་ཉན་བཤད་བྱེད་པ་ཀུན་། སེནཾ་སྤྱི་མཐུན་བསོད་ནམས་
ལས་ཆཊ་འཇིགས་བྱེད་པ་ཡིན་ཟེར་བ་ཡོད་་་་་་།
Appendix II: Karma pa Chos grags rgya mtsho on the Tshad ma rgya mtsho
mtha’ yas
Although, as was documented already in Kapstein 1985, a small number of
later authors—including Dpa’ bo Gtsug lag phreng ba, Sog bzlog pa Blo gros
rgyal mtshan, and Karma Chags med—clearly had some degree of familiarity
with parts of Karma Pakshi’s Rgya mtsho mtha’ yas skor, only one with whom
we are so far familiar actually quotes any of Karma Pakshi’s doctrinal writings.
(The Autobiographical Writings, by contrast, are abundantly cited by Dpa’ bo
and later Karma Bka’ brgyud historians.) This is the seventh Karma pa, Chos
grags rgya mtsho, who reproduces a lengthy passage that he attributes to the
Tshad ma rgya mtsho mtha’ yas in his famous commentary on the works of
Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, the Tshad ma rigs gzhung rgya mtsho (on which see
the contribution to this volume by A. Burchardi). As mentioned earlier, it
seems significant that this citation occurs in the seventh Karma pa’s comments
on the refutation of theism.62 Though none of the works by Karma Pakshi now
known in fact bears the title Tshad ma rgya mtsho mtha’ yas, the passage given
by the seventh Karma pa corresponds almost precisely with a part of the manuscript described in Appendix III, 3 below, and entitled Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i
dbu’ phyogs, a work that evidently belongs to the group of writings called
Bstan pa rgya mtsho mtha’ yas. I reproduce here the passage as given in the
Tshad ma rigs gzhung rgya mtsho, with the differences between this and Karma
Pakshi’s work noted.63 Besides the light that this text sheds on Karma Pakshi’s
62
This is the īśvarāder apramāṇyam section of the Pramāṇasiddhi chapter of the Pra-
māṇavārttika, verses 9–28 in the edition of Miyasaka 1972.
Karma pa Chos grags rgya mtsho 2001, pp. 38–43. In the manuscript of the Bstan pa
rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, the passage in question occupies folio 9a.2–12a.2. In record63
298
Matthew T. Kapstein
interest in theism, it serves also as an example of the evident care with which
he reported doxographical traditions that were available to him in Tibetan
sources (though just what these were remains to be established), despite the
eccentricities that so frequently characterise his writing overall. For, as an
introduction to the refutation of Śaivite theism, the text given here offers a
relatively well delineated survey of the system of the categories (padārtha)
according to the philosophy of the Vaiśeṣika school. The precise circumstances
of Karma Pakshi’s philosophical education, however, remain in most respects
obscure.
*
དབང་ཕྱུག་རྟག་པ་ཚད་མར་འདོད་པ་དགག་པ་ལ་སྤྱིའི་དོན་དང་།
དང་པོ་ནི།
ཚིག་གི་དོན་གཉིས་ལས།
རིན་པོ་ཆེ་ཀརྨ་པཀྵིའི་ཚད་མ་རྒྱ་མཚོ་མཐའ་ཡས་ལས་འབྱུང་བ་ལྟར་ཤེས་པར་
བྱ་སྟེ།* 64 འདི་ལ་ཕྱོགས་སྔ་མ་*དགོད་པ་དང་།* 65 དེ་དགག་པ་གཉིས་ལས།
དང་པོ་ལ།
དབང་ཕྱུག་གི་མཚན་ཉིད་དང་། དེའི་གཞུང་སྨྲ་བ་བྱེ་བྲག་པའི་འདོད་པ་དང་། *རིག་པ་ཅན་པའི་
འདོད་པ་* 66 རྣམ་པར་བཞག་པའོ། །དང་པོ་ནི། དབང་ཕྱུག་ཡོན་ཏན་བརྒྱད་དང་ལྡན་པ་སྟེ།
ཕྲ་བ་དང་། ཡང་བ་དང་། མཆོད་པར་བྱ་བ་དང་། བདག་པོར་གྱུར་པ་དང་། དབང་དུ་གྱུར་པ་
ing differences between the two texts, the phrases concerned being set apart by
asterisks, I am concerned here only with substantive differences and not simple variants
of orthography, particles, or punctuation, or use of abbreviations, etc.
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 9a.2: rtag par smra ba’i sde gnyis pa dbang
phyug pa’i gzhugs dgag pa las /.
65
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 9a.2: dgag pa las /. This seems surely to be
64
merely a copyist’s error, as also do several others among the variants that follow.
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 9a.3: de’i gzhung smra ba rigs pa can gyi khyad
bar.
66
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
དང་།
གར་ཡང་ཕྱིན་པ་དང་།
འདོད་དགུ་ལྡན་པ་དང་།
299
དགའ་མགུར་གནས་པ་སྟེ།
སེམས་ཅན་གྱི་འཇིག་རྟེན་སྐྱེ་འཇིག་བྱེད་པ་དང་།
སྣོད་ཀྱི་འཇིག་རྟེན་སྐྱེ་འཇིག་བྱེད་པ་དང་།
འབྱུང་པོ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱིས་མཆོད་པར་བྱ་བ་དང་།
སྣོད་བཅུད་གཉིས་ཀ་སྐྱེ་འཇིག་བྱེད་པ་དང་།
འབྱུང་པོ་ཐམས་ཅད་ལ་ཕན་གནོད་བྱེད་པའི་དབང་བྱེད་པ་དང་། ཡིད་ཀྱིས་ཐམས་ཅད་འགྲུབ་པ་
དང་།
*
ཡོན་ཏན་ཐམས་ཅད་འདོད་དགུར་བྱེད་པ་དང་།
མཐོ་རིས་དང་ཐར་པ་གང་འདོད་
ཐོས་པ་རྣམས་དང་རིམ་པ་བཞིན་དུ་སྦྱར་རོ།* 67 །ཡོན་ཏན་དེ་དག་མདོར་བསྡུ་ན། གང་ཞིག་ཕྲ་
ཞིང་གཅིག་པུ་སྐྱེ་གནས་འདུག །དེ་ཡིས་འདི་ཀུན་སྐྱེ་ཞིང་འཇིག་པར་བྱེད། །དེ་ནི་དབང་བདག་
མཆོག་*སྦྱིན་*
68
ལྷ་མཆོད་བྱ། །ཡོན་ཏན་བྱེད་པ་ཤིན་ཏུ་ཞི་བ་ཐོབ། །བྱེད་པ་པོ་ལ་ཤེས་པ་
ཡོད་མིན་ཏེ། །བདག་གི་བདེ་སྡུག་ལ་རང་དབང་མེད། །དབང་ཕྱུག་གིས་བསྐུལ་ཡང་ན་གཡང་
སའམ།
།ཡང་ན་མཐོ་རིས་དག་ཏུ་འབྱུང་བར་འགྱུར།
།ཞེས་དང་།
དབང་ཕྱུག་བསྒོམས་
པས་ཐར་པ་ཐོབ་པ་དང་། །ཕྲ་ཞིང་རབ་སྲབ་ཀུན་རིག་བྱེད་པ་ཐམས་ཅད་བྱེད།
གོམས་པས་རྣལ་འབྱོར་པ་ཡི་བསམ་གཏན་ཡུལ།
།ཞི་བའི་བདེ་བ་* 69 འདོད་པ་རྣམས་ཀྱིས་
དབང་ཕྱུག་རྟག་ཏུ་བསྒོམ། །ཞེས་བཤད་པ་ཡིན་ནོ། །
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 9a.6: thob pa dang /.
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 9b.1: bzhin.
69
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 9b.3: inserts dam pa.
67
68
།བསམ་གཏན་
300
Matthew T. Kapstein
*
གཉིས་པ་དེའི་གཞུང་སྨྲ་བ་བྱེ་བྲག་པའི་འདོད་པ་བཤད་པ་ནི།*70
ཤེས་བྱའི་གནས་
ལུགས་ཚིག་དོན་དྲུག་*ཁས་ལེན་ཏེ།*71 རྫས་དང་། ཡོན་ཏན་དང་། ལས་དང་། སྤྱི་དང་།
བྱེ་བྲག་དང་། འདུ་བའོ། །རྫས་ནི་དགུ་སྟེ། ས་དང་། ཆུ་དང་། མེ་དང་། རླུང་དང་།
ནམ་མཁའ་དང་། དུས་དང་། ཕྱོགས་དང་། བདག་དང་། ཡིད་དོ། །དེའང་དང་པོ་བཞི་ནི།
རགས་པ་མི་རྟག་པ་བྱ་བ་དང་བཅས་པ་*ཀུན་ལ་ཁྱབ་པ་*72 འདོད་ཅིང་། ནམ་མཁའ་ལ་སོགས་
པ་གསུམ་ནི་*ཀུན་ལ་ཁྱབ་པ། བྱ་བ་མང་ལ་* 73 བྱེ་བྲག་པ་ཕལ་ཆེ་བས་འདོད་ཀྱང་། ཁ་ཅིག་
གིས་དུས་རྒྱུར་སྨྲ་བས་བྱ་བ་དང་བཅས་པར་འདོད་པའང་ཡོད་དེ། དུས་ཀྱི་སྐྱེ་རྒུ་སྡུད་པར་བྱེད། །
དུས་ཀྱིས་འབྱུང་བ་སྨིན་པར་བྱེད། །དུས་ཀྱིས་གཉིད་ལོག་སད་པར་བྱེད། །དུས་འདའ་བར་ནི་
དཀའ་བ་ཡིན། །ཅེས་དང་།
*
འོབས་*
74
ནི་རྒྱ་མཚོ་བསྲུང་བ་སུམ་བརྩེགས་དང་།
དམག་ནི་སྲིན་པོ་ནོར་སྦྱིན་བྱེད། །དེ་ཡི་བསྟན་བཅོས་*པ་སངས་ཚདམེད་ཉམས།
བུང་བ་* 75 དེ་ལ་དུས་ཀྱི་དབང་གིས་ཉམས།
།ཞེས་བཤད་པ་ཡིན་ནོ།
།
།སྒྲ་སྒྲོག་
།བདག་ནི་རྟག་
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 9b.4: gnyis pa ni mu stegs bye’ brag pa’i lugs
dgod pa la gsuṃ ste /.
71
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 9b.4–5: ngos bzung ba ni/ tshig gi don drug yang
dag par khas len te /.
72
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 9b.6: ma khyab par.
73
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 9b.6: khyab pa/ rtag pa byed pa myed pa.
74
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 10a.2: ngo bos.
75
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 10a.2–3: pa ba sangs tshad mnyam// sgra bsgrogs
bu.
70
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
301
པ་ཐམས་ཅད་དུ་འགྲོ་བ་དགེ་བ་དང་མི་དགེ་བ་ལ་སོགས་པའི་ལས་བྱེད་པ་པོར་རང་ཉིད་སེམས་
མེད་ཀྱང་སེམས་པ་དང་འབྲེལ་བར་འདོད་ཅིང་། ཡིད་ནི་བྱ་བ་དང་བཅས་པས་ཡོངས་སུ་*
མ་ཁྱབ་པར་འདོད་པ་ཡིན་ནོ།
76
།རྫས་དེ་དག་གི་ཡོན་ཏན་ནི་ཁ་དོག་ལ་སོགས་པ་ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་ལྔ་སྟེ།
ཁ་དོག་དྲི་རོ་རེག་བྱ་སྟེ་ལྔ་* 77 ནི་འབྱུང་བ་བཞི་དང་། ནམ་མཁའི་ཡོན་ཏན་*ནི།* 78 མིག་གི་
བློ་ལ་སོགས་པ་བློ་ལྔ་བདེ་བ་སྡུག་བསྔལ་འདོད་པ་།
སྡང་བ་འབད་པ་ཆོས་དང་ཆོས་མ་ཡིན་པ་
དང་འདུ་བྱེད་པ་སྟེ་བཅུ་གསུམ་ནི་བདག་གི་ཡོན་ཏན། གྲངས་དང་བོང་ཚོད་དང་། སོ་སོ་བ་དང་།
*
ཕྲ་རགས་དང་།
དབྱེ་བ་དང་།* 79
དུས་ཀྱི་ཡོན་ཏན་ཏེ་ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་ལྔ།
*
གཞན་དང་།
གཞན་མ་ཡིན་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་བདུན་ནི་
དེ་དག་ནི་ལ་ལ་རྟག་པ་ཡིན་ལ།
ལ་ལ་མི་རྟག་པའོ།
།
ལ་ལ་* 80 ནི་ལྔ་སྟེ། །འདེགས་པ་དང་། འཇོག་པ་དང་། བསྐུམ་པ་དང་། བརྐྱང་བ་དང་
འགྲོ་བའོ། །སྤྱི་ནི་གཉིས་ཏེ། ཁྱབ་པའི་སྤྱི་དང་། ཉི་ཚེ་བའི་སྤྱིའོ། །བྱེ་བྲག་ནི་ཉི་ཚེ་བ་བ་ལང་རྟ་ལས་
ལྡོག་པ་ལྟ་བུའོ། །འདུ་བ་ནི་རྒྱུ་དང་འབྲས་བུ་ཕྲད་པའོ་ཞེས་ཟེར་རོ། །འཇིག་རྟེན་ཆགས་པའི་
ཚུལ་དེ་དག་ཀྱང། འཇིག་རྟེན་སྟོངས་པའི་ཚ་འབྱུན་བ་བཞིའི་རྡུལ་ཆ་ཤས་མེད་པ་སོ་སོར་གནས་
པ་ལས་དབང་ཕྱུག་གིས་འཇིག་རྟེན་སྤྲུལ་པར་འདོད་ལ།
།དེའི་རྗེས་ལ་སེམས་ཅན་གྱིས་ཆོས་
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 10a4: inserts chad pa.
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 10a5: inserts lnga.
78
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 10a5: no //.
79
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 10a6: phrad pa dang bye ba.
80
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 10b1: las.
76
77
302
Matthew T. Kapstein
དང་ཆོས་མ་ཡིན་པས་བདས་པའི་དབང་གིས་འབྱུང་བ་བཞིའི་རྡུལ་འབྱར་བ་ལས།
ཡང་ཞིང་
གཡོ་བ་རླུང་གི་དཀྱིལ་འཁོར་དང་། དེའི་སྟེང་དུ་ཆུ་ཡང་དང་ཡང་དུ་འཁྱིལ་བ་དང་། དེའི་སྟེང་དུ་
སའི་དཀྱིལ་འཁོར་ཆེན་པོ་དང་། དེའི་སྟེང་དུ་མེའི་ཕུང་པོ་ཆེན་པོ་འབར་བ་རབ་ཏུ་འབར་བ་ཀུན་ཏུ་
འབར་བ་མེ་ལྕེ་གཅིག་ཏུ་འབར་བ་ཆགས་སོ། །དེའི་ནང་དུ་དབང་ཕྱུག་ཆེན་པོ་འདོད་པ་ཙམ་ལས་
ཚངས་པའི་སྒོ་ལྔ་ཆེན་པོ་གསལ་ཞིང་རབ་ཏུ་འབར་བར་འདུག་ལ།
དེ་སྨིན་ཅིང་འཁྲུགས་པའི་
ནང་ནས་ཚངས་པ་གདོང་བཞི་པ་རལ་བ་ཅན་པདྨ་ལ་གནས་པ་བྱུང་སྟེ། དེ་འཇིག་རྟེན་གྱི་མེས་པོ་
ཡིན་པས། དེ་སྐྱེ་རྒྱུ་ཐམས་ཅད་བྱས་ནས་འཇིག་རྟེན་ཐམས་ཅད་ཆགས་ཤིང་གནས་པར་འགྱུར་
ལ་། *ཚངས་པའི་ཁ་ནས་བྲམ་ཟེ་དང་། དཔུང་པ་ལས་རྒྱལ་རིགས་དང་། བརླ་ལས་རྗེའུ་རིགས་
དང་། རྐང་པ་ལས་དམངས་རིགས་སྐྱེས་པར་ཁས་ལེན་ཅིང་། རེ་ཞིག་གདོལ་བའི་རིགས་ནི་
གང་ལས་སྐྱེས་མི་ཤེས་སོ་ཞེས་ཟེར་རོ།* 81 །འདིས་འབྲེལ་བ་ནི་ལྔ་ཁས་ལེན་པར་བྱེད་དེ།
མེ་
དང་དུ་བ་ལྟ་བུ་ནི་འབྱོར་བའི་འབྲེལ་བའོ། །ལྡན་པའི་འབྲེལ་བ་ནིམེ་དང་གཟུགས་ལྟ་བུའོ། །
འཕྲོད་པ་འདུ་བའི་འབྲེལ་བ་ནི་མེ་དང་གཟུགས་དང་ལྡན་པ་ཉིད་ལྟ་བུའོ། །འདུ་བ་དང་ལྡན་པའི་
མཚན་ཉིད་ཀྱི་འབྲེལ་བ་ནི་མེ་དང་དུ་བ་ལ་ཡོད་པའི་གཟུགས་ལྟ་བུའོ། །ལྡན་པ་དང་འཕྲོད་པ་འདུ་
81
Not found in the Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs and so perhaps an amplification
on the part of the seventh Karma pa. Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 11a1, at this
point reads ’brel ba dang tshad ma dpyad pa ni, introducing the passage that follows.
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
303
བའི་མཚན་ཉིད་ཀྱི་འབྲེལ་བ་ནི་མེ་དང་དུ་བ་ལ་ཡོད་པའི་གཟུགས་དང་ལྡན་པ་ཉིད་ལྟ་བུའོ། །ཚད་
མ་ནི་ *གསུམ་སྟེ། །འཕྲད་པའི་ཚད་མ། མངོན་སུམ། རྗེས་དཔག་གོ་ཞེས་ཟེར་རོ། །*82
* 83
རིགས་པ་ཅན་པ་ཕལ་ཆེར་བྱེ་བྲག་པ་དང་མཐུན་མོད་ཀྱི། ཚད་མ་ལ་མངོན་སུམ་
དང་། རྗེས་དཔག་དང་། ཉེར་འཇལ་དང་། སྒྲ་ལས་བྱུང་བའི་ཚད་མ་དང་བཞིར་འདོད་ཅིང་།
མངོན་སུམ་ཡང་དོན་ཉེ་བར་ངེས་པའི་རྟོག་པ་ཡིན་པར་འདོད་དོ། །དེའང་ཡོན་ཏན་ལ་དམིགས་
པ་ཁྱད་པར་ཅན་གྱི་ཤེས་པ་ནི་ཚད་མ། རྫས་ལ་དམིགས་པ་ཁྱད་པར་ཅན་གྱི་ཤེས་པ་ནི་ཚད་མའི་
འབྲས་བུ་ཡིན་ནོ་ཞེས་ཟེར་རོ།
།དེ་དག་གིས་ཀྱང་རྡུལ་ཕྲ་རབ་དང་དུས་ལ་སོགས་པ་རྟག་པར་
ཁས་ལེན་པས་འདུས་བྱས་སྐད་ཅིག་མར་མི་འདོད་ལ།
བདག་དང་དབང་ཕྱུག་བྱེད་པ་པོར་སྨྲ་
བས་ཆོས་ཐམས་ཅད་བདག་མེད་པར་ཡང་ཁས་མི་ལེན་ནོ། །
གཉིས་པ་དེ་དགག་པ་*ལ།
བྱེ་བྲག་པ་དགག་པ་དང་།
རིགས་པ་ཅན་པ་དགག་
པའོ། །*84 དང་པོ་ནི། རྡུལ་ཕྲན་རྣམས་སོ་སོར་བརྟགས་ཏེ་ཕྱོགས་ཆའི་དབྱེ་བས་གཞིགས་ནས་
རགས་པར་འགྱུར་བ་མི་སྲིད་ཅིང་།
རགས་པ་ཆ་ཤས་མེད་པར་ཡན་ལག་ཅན་གྱི་རྫས་ཡིན་ན།
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 11a4: gnyis khas len te phrad pa dang mngon
sum dang rtags las/ byung ba rjes su dpag pa ste / phrad pa dang mngon sum ni cig par
bzung ngo /.
83
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 11a4: inserts gsum pa ni.
84
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 11b2: ni gsum ste / bye brag pa’i rdzas dgag pa
dang / tshad ma gsum du ’dod pa dgag pa dang / rig pa can gyi tshad ma dag (sic! =
dgag) pa’o //.
82
304
*
Matthew T. Kapstein
བསྒྲིབས་པའི་ཡན་ལག་དང་། ཁ་བསྒྱུར་བའི་ཡན་ལག་རྣམས་མ་བསྒྲིབས་པ་དང་།
བསྒྱུར་བའི་ཡན་ལག་ཅན་གྱི་རྫས་ཡིན་པས་མ་བསྒྲིབས་པ་དང་།
ཁ་མ་
ཁ་མ་བསྒྱུར་བར་འགྱུར་
རོ། །* 85 ཕྱོགས་དུས་གཉིས་འབྱུང་བ་བཞི་ལས་རྫས་གཞན་ཡིན་ན་ས་ལ་སོགས་པ་འབྱུང་བ་
བཞི་ལ་ཤར་ལ་སོགས་པའི་ཕྱོགས་དང་།
འདས་པ་ལ་སོགས་པའི་དུས་མེད་པར་འགྱུར་
རོ། །རྫས་གཞན་མ་ཡིན་ན། ས་ལ་སོགས་པ་རགས་པ་མི་རྟག་པ་བཞིན་དུ་ཕྱོགས་དང་དུས་ཀྱང་
མི་རྟག་པར་འགྱུར་བས་རྟག་པར་ཅི་ལྟར་རུང་།
རིམ་གྱིས་བསྐྱེད་པའི་རྒྱུར་མི་འགྱུར་ལ།
མི་རུང་ངོ་།
*
ཡང་དབང་ཕྱུག་རྟག་པ་འབྲས་བུ་འགྲོ་བ་
འགྲོ་བ་རིམ་གྱིར་བསྐྱེད་ན་རྟག་པའི་དངོས་པོར་
།ཚད་མས་ཡུལ་འཕྲད་ནས་འཛིན་ན།
བརྒྱུད་ནས་འཕྲད་པས་འཛིན།
དངོས་སུ་འཕྲད་ནས་འཛིན་ནམ།
དང་པོ་ལྟར་ན་གཟུགས་སྒྲ་རྟོགས་པའི་ཚད་མ་མི་སྲིད་པར་
འགྱུར་ལ།*86 གཉིས་པ་ལྟར་ན་མིག་ཤེས་ཀྱིས་ཀྱང་དྲི་ལ་སོགས་པ་རྟོགས་པར་འགྱུར་རོ།
།
Appendix
Appendix III: Recently discovered writings
writings by Karma Pakshi
The following list includes all writings attributed to Karma Pakshi that have so
far become available to me: the 1978 publications of Karma Pakshi’s Auto-
biographical Writings and Rgya-mtsho mtha’-yas-kyi skor, scanned documents
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 11b3–4: bsgribs pa dang ma bsgribs pa dang kha
bsgyur ma bsgyur la sogs pa myed par ’gyur ro //.
86
Bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs, 11b6–12a1: gnyis pa ni phrad pa tshad ma yin
na/ dngos su phrad pa dang dngos kyis ’brel par kho na tshad ma yin nam / brgyud pa’i
phrad pa’ang tshad ma yin / dang po ltar na yon tan gyi chos rtogs pa’i tshad ma myi
srid cing /.
85
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
305
available through the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (TBRC), as well as a
small number of items that are not (yet?) available through TBRC.
My references to page numbers of the TBRC scans are to roman
numerals pasted in the upper right hand corner or left side of each plate, and
these do not necessarily correspond to the Tibetan page numbers. In some of
the scanned texts, moreover, folios are missing, and this in some instances
appears to be due to errors in scanning and not to defects of the original
manuscripts. The present brief and tentative list does not attempt to document
these points in detail.
I am grateful to Charles Manson for sharing with me his notes on
Karma Pakshi’s writings, which I have been able to compare usefully with my
own while completing the present Appendix.
1. The 1978 Gangtok publications
(i) The Autobiographical Writings of the Second Karma-pa
(a) 1–55: grub chen karmā pakśi’i bka’ ’buṃ las / nyid kyi rnam par thar pa
gdug pa tshar gcod gzi brjid ’od ’bar bzhugso //
(b) 57–118: grub chen karmā pakśi’i bka’ ’buṃ las / nyid kyi rnaṃ thar dus
3 dus med gcig tu rtogs shing rtsal cheon rdzoṭ pa’i gleng gzhi
bzhugso //
(c) 119–35: grub chen karmā pakśi’i bka’ ’buṃ las / nyid kyi rnam thar
lhan skyes ye shes dgongs pa lung bstan bzhugs pa’i dbu phyogs so //
(ii) Rgya mtsho mtha’ yas kyi skor
Refer to Kapstein 1985: 359n2, for a discussion of problems in the alphabetical ordering given in the margins. Here, I just list the individual works in
the order in which they appear.
Volume I
(a) 1–9: bshad lung sbyor bkod rgya mtsho mtha’ yas
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Matthew T. Kapstein
(b) 11–208: bstan pa rgya mtsho mtha’ yas kyi spyi gzhung chen mo rtog
pa rab ’byams chos dbyings ye shes lnga ldan (incomplete: missing 11–
24 and 193–206)
(c) 209–470: glegs bam ’dir bstan pa rgya mtsho mtha’ yas kyi bshad pa
phun sum tshogs pa rgya mtsho mtha’ yas
(d) 471–601: bstan pa rgya mtsho mtha’ yas byin gyis brlabs pa’i bka’ chen
(e) 603–37: ’dod pa rgya mtsho mtha’ yas
(f) 639–47: skyes rabs sbas mchod la nyams su blangs pa
Volume II
(g) 1–70: gsar rnying la sogs pa’i bzhed pa so sor ’byed pa gsang ba rgya
mtsho mtha’ yas
(h) 71–221: bya ba’i rgyud dang spyod pa’i rgyud rnal ’byor gyi rgyud
rnams kyi don brtan la ’bebs par byed pa phyi rgyud gsum gyi rgya
mtsho mtha’ yas (note that the title given in the romanised table of
contents was mangled in this case).
(i) 223–34: pha rgyud ma rgyud thabs dang shes rab dbyer med kyi rgyud
la gtogs tshad kyi klad don gyi gzhung
(j) 235–453: gsang sngags rnam par bla na med pa’i rgyud sde chen po
rnams kyi bzhed pa ma hā yo ga gsar pa’i rgya mtsho mtha’ yas
(k) 455–524: mkha’ ’gro yid bzhin nor bu’i gzhung
2. Scanned texts in the TBRC archive
W22466, W22467, W22468, and W22469 appear to be volumes 3–4 (ga–nga)
of a collection of Karma Pakshi’s writings preserved at Dpal spungs Monastery
in the Sde dge district of Khams. W22340 appears to preserve parts of a different set:
W22340:
Including parts of several different volumes; the texts it contains are out of
order and the scanned pages begin with 94a.
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307
(a) From volume ga. 94a: a cover page that is very poorly scanned, the first
syllables not clearly legible. The colophon of this text (120b), however,
establishes that it should read: gsang ba rgya mtsho mtha’ yas bzhugs.
(b) From volume ga. 1a: mdo sde rgya mtsho mtha’ yas bzhugs. Ending on
55b.
(c) From volume ca. The first page, 46a, is the obverse of Tibetan folio 46,
perhaps the second folio of the text. A note at the top of the folio,
written in a fine hand and barely legible due to the poor quality of the
scan, seems to read rdzogs chen dbang gi chu bo bzhugs. The text
concludes on folio 80b.
(d) From volume ca. The first page (81a) gives the title in a fine hand
above the beginning of the text: khyab ’jug rgya mtsho mtha’ yas.
Ending on 120a. All reverse folio sides from 109b through 118b are
unfortunately missing. Folio 120b is laid out to resemble a title page,
but is illegible (though it does appear to contain the syllables khyab
’jug.)
(e) From volume cha. Beginning on folio 1a: dbu’i phyogs lags s+ho.
Above this is a partially illegible note in fine hand: sde (?) X X a nu yo
ga bzhugs. Ending on 94a (94b is blank).
(f) From volume cha. Beginning on folio 95a: a nu yo ga’i chings bzhugs
(written in fine hand above the first line of text). Ending on 123b.
(g) From volume cha. Beginning on folio 124a: dbang gi bstan pa rgya
mtsho mtha’ yas bzhugs (written in fine hand above the first line of
text). Ending on 133b.
(h) From volume cha. Beginning on folio 134a: gsang ba’i (?) ma hā yo
ga’i rgya mtsho mtha’ yas bzhugs (written in fine hand above the first
line of text). Ending on 228a (228b is blank).
(i) An incomplete text, lacking title page, perhaps from another collection
and numbered 102a–125b. The colophon (125a) indicates it to be the
phun sum tshogs pa rgya mtsho mtha’ yas mdor bsdus pa.
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Matthew T. Kapstein
(j) Some miscellanous pages from volume ga (apparently the same volume
as (a) and (b) above): 126a, 127a, 128a. The reverse is blank in each
case and an English label attached to 128a reads “redos.”
(k) The final part of the first volume of an unrelated work, on plates
numbered 449a–477b, and followed (478a) by an interesting note
attributing the text to the eighth Karma pa, Mi bskyod rdo rje stating
that the work was borrowed during the sixth month of an earth tiger
year (sa stag) from the Bla brang dpe mdzod—the library of the bla
ma’s residence—for the purpose of carving blocks for publication (spar
brko). The text is called karma pa’i dgongs pa gsal bar byed pa’i bstan
bcos thar pa’i lam chen bgrod pa’i shing rta, and a ms. containing the
missing first folios of this same volume is given in the TBRC as
W00KG04035. (None of the second volume has yet been located.)
Though the work, a very detailed tantric lam rim, is attributed in the
note just mentioned to the eighth Karma pa, it is clear that it is in fact
based on his oral teaching and that the author of the written text was a
disciple, possibly Dpa’ bo Gtsug lag phreng ba.
W22466:
The mo gho ding ri’i sgra tshad in the same manuscript that I have consulted
here, but missing the title page and beginning on folio 1b. A complete scan of
the same manuscript, however, will be found in W00KG03996 below.
W22467:
Volume nga from a collection of Karma Pakshi’s works, bearing a general title
on p. 1—chos thaṃd gtan la phabsba yongsu mya ngan las ’da’ ka rgya mtsho
mtha’ yas dang / mdoe rgy'o mtha’ yas kyi chings dang / ma rig ’khrul ba’i rtsa
rgyud dang / theg rim dgu’i spyi chings dang / sde snod gsuṃ gyi chings dang /
chos tshan lnga yod— and containing the following individual texts:
(a) 2–219: no title given, though the general title above designates this text
to be the yongs su mya ngan las ’da’ ka rgya mtsho mtha’ yas, and a
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
309
similar title is mentioned passim in the text itself, for instance on p.
153, where we find shākya thub pa’i ’da’ ka ma’i rgya mtsho mtha’
yas, and p. 172, where it is sku gsum rangin [=rang bzhin] gyis gnas
pa’i ’da’ ka ma’i rgya mtsho mtha’ yas.
(b) 221–65: mdo sde’i chings bzhugs so. But called at the conclusion mdo
sde bstan pa rgya mtsho mtha’ yas kyi chings.
(c) 267–70: ma rig ’khrul pa’i rtsa rgyud bzhugs pa’i dbu phyogs lags so.
(d) 271–74: sde snod gsum gyis ching bzhugs pa’i dbu phyogs lags so.
(e) 275–80: theg pa drug kyis ching bzhugs pa’i dbu phyogs lagso.
(f) 281–373: byin gyis brlabs pa’i bka’i bstan pa rgya mtsho mtha’ yas
bzhugs so / byin gyis brlabs pa’i bka’i bstan pa rgya mtsho mtha’
yasrab ’byaṃs chos kyi phung po bka’ gsuṃ bye ba phrag brgya’i rtsa
ba theg pa cheno byuṃb seṃda’i gzhi laṃ bru’i gdaṃs ngag rnaṃs
bzhuṭ so. This last work is not mentioned in the general title of the
volume. Possibly, within the general structure of the Rgya mtsho mtha’
yas skor, (a)–(e) form a distinct subset, while (f) is (or is part of) a
separate section of the cycle.
W22468:
Volume nga from a collection of Karma Pakshi’s works. The layout and calligraphy being closely similar to those of W22467, both of these volumes were
perhaps parts of the same the fourth volume (nga) of a set. The contents of the
present volume are:
(a) 1–23: ’dod pa rgya mtsho mtha’ yas bzhugs so. On this work, given
also in Karma Pakshi 1978a, vol. I, text (e), refer to Kapstein 2000:
101–103.
(b) 25–85: shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa’i rab dbye bzhugs lags so.
W22469:
Cover title, p. 1: ’phaṭ pa ’jaṃ pa (!) dang ’jal nas zhus pa ste / zhu len rgya
mtsho mtha’ yas bzhugso. This is the sole text contained in this volume, the
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Matthew T. Kapstein
last folio of which is (in the Tibetan pagination) 101. The arabic page numbers
are 1–200. The discrepancy (as Tibetan folio 101a–b should be equivalent to
arabic 201–202) is due to a single folio that bears the double numbering 44–45
(arabic 87–88), and apparently not to a missing folio. A series of digital
photographs of the same manuscript, which are in my possession, demonstrate
clearly that the title page bears the label ga; but owing to the somewhat pale
red ink in which this is written, it does not appear in the TBRC scan. Also
missing from the latter is an interesting handwritten note, in a refined cursive
(dbu med) script, preceding the title page, but on paper similar (so far as one
can determine from the photograph) to that used in the preparation of the ms.
itself: rgyal ba kun gyi brtse ba’i thuṭ rje ni // dkar gsal gangs rir sprin gzhon
gyis ’khyud lta’i (?) // ’gro ba’i mgon po spyan ras gziṭ dbang dang // tha dad
mi phyed karma yab sras rgyal // phyag rgya chen po dang rdzoṭ pa chen po la
zhuṭ pa’i gang zag de dag las gsungs pa’i theg rim dgu’i rnam par bzhag pa
rtoṭ ’dod pa rnaṃs kyis bstan pa rgya mtsho mtha’ yas kyi gzhung ’di la gziṭ
shing nan tar du nges pa drangs na don gyi gteng (? or: gting) bsaṃ gyi mi
khyab pa de dag dang / khyad par du’ang ’jaṃ dpal gyi zhu len ’dir shintu zab
pa’i gnad mang po mnga’ bas gal che zhing / tshig ’gaṭ (?) phye mi ’grigs pa
lta’u cung zad snang na yang87 rje grub thob kyi gsung yin pa tha snyad gdaṭ
bya’i yul ma yin cing rton pa bzhi dang ldan pa’i shes rab kyis nges par byas
na dpal gsang ba’i snying po las ’phros pa theg dgu’i gnad ’di ’dra rgyas pa
gang du’ang med pa de’i phyir rul mun gyi gnas su bzhuṭ mi ’jug par gziṭ shing
don shes pa gsol ba lan stong du ’debs // zhes pa’ang dgeong [= dge slong]
chos smra ba bstan pa’i nyi mas so // manggalaṃ //. This is followed by a brief
notation in similar handwriting, but much finer, that I find to be only partially
readable: ’dis snyan rang dgra bcom pa � ung soṭ shes bya mtha’ dag gi steng
nas stong nyid ���’dug //
87
[� = illegible syllable]
Though the reading of the syllable following tshig is uncertain, it is clear that this
clause as a whole means “although the expressions seem as if somewhat misconstrued….” Refer also to n. 6 above.
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
311
W00KG03996:
Under this record number, the TBRC archive includes two volumes from a
single collection:
Volume I is in fact the same manuscript also reproduced as W22469 and
W22466, but missing the title page of the former. Together they formed
volume ga in a collection of Karma Pakshi’s works.
Volume II is in fact the same manuscript also reproduced as W22467, but
the scan here is incomplete and concludes with p. 234. W22467 +
W22468 seem to have been volume nga of the same collection as the
volume ga given here as volume I.
3. Other available manuscripts
A number of high quality digital images of manuscripts containing writings by
Karma Pakshi became available to the present writer some years ago. Three of
the works in question are now available in the TBRC archive as noted above:
mo gho ding ri’i sgra tshad (W22466), mdo sde’i chings (W22467(b)), and zhu
lan rgya mtsho mtha’ yas (W22469). A fourth manuscript included among
them, however, has neither appeared in the TBRC collection, nor, to the best of
my knowledge, elsewhere. In terms of the quality of the calligraphy and the
overall preparation of the manuscript, it is surely the finest of the manuscripts
of Karma Pakshi’s writings to have surfaced so far, though it is by no means
free of apparent errors. Its 257 folios contain one text, the title page of which is
unfortunately worn and not fully legible, in contrast with the almost perfect
clarity of the entire body of the text that follows. Its first line, inscribed in dbu
can script with consonants in red and vowel signs in black, is quite clear for the
first six syllables: bstan pa rgya mtsho’i dbu’ phyogs. The seventh and final
syllable of the title appears rather like begs, which cannot be correct, though
perhaps this should be legs. (I imagine that it may have been originally lags, as
we find so often in the titles given above.) The second line, in black ink in dbu
med, and in a finer hand, cannot be satisfactorily deciphered. The content of the
work, which is clearly related by title to the several sections of the bstan pa
312
Matthew T. Kapstein
rgya mtsho mtha’ yas already known from the first volume of the 1978
Gangtok Rgya mtsho mtha’ yas skor (see above), offers a very detailed survey
of views and paths, beginning with those of the mu stegs pa and culminating
with the Great Perfection, according to the threefold division of non-realisation,
erroneous understanding, and realised gnosis: ma rtogs pa ’gro drug gi ’khrul
gzhi dang, log par rtogs pa mu stegs kyi lta ba…dang, rtogs pa’i ye shes (fol.
2a). This scheme is in turn based on Karma Pakshi’s preferred citation from the
Guhyagarbha Tantra, which he repeats at intervals throughout the Limitless
Ocean Cycle:
Intention, Discipline, and Esotericism,
Non-realisation and mistaken realisation,
Partial realisation and not realising what is genuine
Give rise to doubts about this absolute.88
That the work given here may have been of particular importance within the
structure of the Rgya mtsho mtha’ yas skor as a whole may be gathered from
the seventh Karma pa’s probable use of it, as shown in Appendix II above.
88
Refer to Kapstein 2000: 104–105.
The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven
313
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Shuju.
THE ROLE OF RANG RIG IN THE PRAMĀṆA-BASED
GZHAN STONG OF THE SEVENTH KARMA PA*
ANNE BURCHARDI
1 Introduction
In the present chapter I will discuss how the seventh Karma pa, Chos grags
rgya mtsho (1454–1506), connects rang rig,1 in the sense of tshad ma’i ’bras bu
(San: pramāṇaphala),2 with tathāgatagarbha in his major work, the Rig gzhung
rgya mtsho.3 Si tu Paṇ chen Chos kyi ’byung gnas (1699–1776) has pointed out
that “there were several different brands of gzhan stong, among which he
adhered most closely to that of the Seventh Lord and Zi lung pa, which was
somewhat different than that of Dol po pa.”4 This statement points to the fact
* This is a revised and enlarged version of a paper entitled “Rang Rig and Tathāgata-
garbha,” read at the IATS Conference in Bonn, 2006. I would like to thank Karl Brunnhölzl for his valuable and generous advice on several major points.
1
Skt. svasaṃvitti, or svasaṃvedanā, and variously translated as “self-cognition,”
“apperception,” and “reflexive awareness.”
2
See Dreyfus and Lindtner 1989 for an important analysis of Dignāga’s and Dharma-
kīrti’s presentations of pramāṇa and pramāṇaphala.
3
The full title is Tshad ma legs par bshad pa thams cad kyi chu bo yongs su ’du ba rigs
pa’i gzhung lugs kyi rgya mtsho.
4
Trans. Stearns 1999: 76. The “Seventh Lord” here is the seventh Karma pa and “Zi
lung pa” refers to Shākya mchog ldan (1428–1507). The Tibetan original (from Si tu’s
Chos kyi ’byung gnas Ta’i si tur ’bod pa karma bstan pa’i nyin byed kyi rang tshul
drangs par brjod pa dri bral shel gyi me long, in Autobiography and Diaries of Si tu
Paṇ chen: 267) is given in Stearns 1999, p. 214, note 129, as follows: bdag gis ni gzhan
stong rang la’ang bzhed tshul cung zad mi ’dra ba ’ga’ re yod pa’i nang nas / dol po’i
bzhed pa las thal rang gnyis po’ang rig [sic!] tshogs kyi dgongs pa rma med du ’dod pa
318
Anne Burchardi
that the kind of gzhan stong (“empty-of-other” doctrine) that Si tu Paṇ chen
blended with mahāmudrā and spread throughout the Karma Bka’ brgyud pa
traditions of Khams was derived from the seventh Karma pa.5
The seventh Karma pa also influenced the great Sa skya scholar Shākya
mchog ldan’s later writings. While the seventh Karma pa is remembered as one
of the most outstanding masters of the lineage and the founder of the Karma
bka’ brgyud bshad grwa at Mtshur phu, Shākya mchog ldan is described as
“the most influential advocate of the gzhan stong in the fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries.”6 Both masters are, in their own ways, still sources of the
continued presence of an influential type of modified gzhan stong in the Bka’
brgyud tradition, 7 distinct from Dol po pa’s position.8 The seventh Karma pa’s
Rigs gzhung rgya mtsho was studied at all the bshad grwas of the Karma Bka’
brgyud tradition, with special emphasis on the first and the third part of the
text,9 while Shākya mchog ldan’s writings have played an important role in the
’Brug pa Bka’ rgyud bshad grwa tradition of Bhutan.10
2 The seventh Karma pa’s gzhan stong position
How did the Karma pa’s teaching of gzhan stong differ from others? According
to the following account, given by the Karma pa’s student, Karma ’phrin las pa
ni khyad par dang / rje bdun pa dang zi lung pa’i bzhad pa dang ches nye ba zhig ’dod
pa yin no.
5
6
7
Smith 2000: 250.
Stearns 1999: 60–61.
See Mathes 2004 for a comparison of Shākya mchog ldan and Dol po pa’s views. For
different kinds of gzhan stong see Burchardi 2007.
8
See Kapstein 1992 and 2000a for valuable information about Dol po pa and his work.
See Stearns 1999 for a history of Dol po pa’s life and a translation of his text the Bka’
bsdu bzhi pa. See Hopkins 2006 for a translation of his definitive treatise on
tathāgatagarbha and gzhan stong, the Ri chos nge don rgya mtsho.
9
Personal communication from Thrangu Rinpoche, 2007.
10
See Burchardi 2008.
The Role of Rang rig
319
(1456–1539) in reply to a question posed by Lcags mo dpon po Bsod nams
lhun grub, it derived from the third Karma pa, Rang byung rdo rje (1284–
1339). It not only represented a moderate type of gzhan stong but simultan-
eously a genuine type of rang stong, situated, as it were, as a middle position
between misrepresentations of rang stong on the one hand and a form of
extreme gzhan stong on the other. Karma ’phrin las pa says:11
I will say a bit in reply to the question concerning whether rang stong and
gzhan stong contradict each other or not, seeing that there is some sort of
competitive attachment to this subject.
These days there are some conceited rang stong proponents, who
[claim] the emptiness of phenomena as being an emptiness of true
existence. Through merely refuting true existence in relation to these
phenomena they assert a non-affirming negation as the ultimate truth.
Being attracted towards such a nihilistic view, this is just their own
assertion, but not the genuine rang stong known from learned
Mādhyamika proponents. Through overt attachment to emptiness as a
mere non-affirming negation, one may meditate upon a rabbit-horn-like
absence, but one will not experience the true nature. Since absence is not
an object of experience for valid cognition, how could it be experienced
personally? (Tib. so so rang gis rig par, Skt. pratyātmavid).12
11
The lengthy quotation that follows is from The Songs of Esoteric Practice: Chos kyi
rje Karma phrin las pa’i gsung ’bum las thun mong ba’i dri lan gyi phreng ba rnams
(Replies to Various Doctrinal Questions and Polemics), vol. cha: 88–92. Dri lan yid kyi
mun sel zhes bya ba lcags mo’i dris lan (A reply to a query by Lcags mo dpon po bsod
nams lhun grub written in a hare year [1495, 1507 or 1519, the latter being most likely]
at Zings po ’bum pa sgang). I thank Jan-Ulrich Sobisch for kindly providing me with a
copy of the text.
12
Pp. 90.3–90.5:…rang stong gzhan stong dag / ’gal dang mi ’gal bdag la co ’dri ba /
dri tshig ’di yi zhen pa’i brjod bya ru / mthong nas de lan cung zad smra bar bya / ding
sang rang stong smra bar rlom pa ’ga’ / chos de bden pas stong pa’i stong nyid ces /
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Anne Burchardi
By focusing on rang stong as a nihilistic view, how will one see the
genuine emptiness? “Rang stong” being just a mere name (ming), as such
it is the opposite of the reality (don) of the true nature. The rang stong
explained by previous scholars [stated that] “all phenomena are empty of
an own essence in themselves, like an empty vase that is empty of water,
but not as a non-affirming negation. The vase empty of water is
established. Even though there is an emptiness of the appearances of
apprehended and apprehender, the primordial awareness without the
duality of apprehended and apprehender exists. It is not an emptiness that
is nothing whatsoever. Consider that right after the word “empty” the
affirmative word “ness” is affixed!13 My omniscient lama has taught that
genuine (rnal ma) rang stong is an emptiness wherein phenomena are
empty of an own-essence. It has not been taught that emptiness is a nonaffirming negation.14
These days there are some conceited gzhan stong proponents [who
say] “that which is an ultimate, permanent, eternal, enduring, unchanging,
and truly existent [entity], is profound gzhan stong, since it is empty of an
chos de’i steng du bden grub bkag tsam gyis / med par dgag pa don dam bden par ’dod
/ ’di ’dra chad pa’i lta ba la zhen nas / rang ’dod dbu mar smras kyi mkhas rnams la /
grags pa’i rang stong rnal ma de ma yin / stong nyid med dgag kho nar mngon zhen
nas / ri bong rwa ltar med pa de bsgoms kyang / gnas lugs nyams su myong bar mi
’gyur te / med de tshad ma’i spyod yul ma yin pas / so so rang gis rig par ci ste ’gyur.
13
14
Thanks to Karl Brunnhölzl for deciphering this sentence.
Pp. 90.5–91.1: rang stong chad pa’i lta ba la dmigs pas / yang dag stong nyid mthong
ba lta ci zhig / rang stong zhes pa’ang ming tsam du bas pas / ’di ’dra gnas lugs don
dang rgyab ’gal yin / sngon gyi mkhas rnams bzhed pa’i rang stong ni / bum stong chu
yis stong ltar chos rnams kun / rang rang ngo bos stong yang med dgag min / chu yis
stong pa’i bum pas grub pa yin / gzung dang ’dzin pa’i snang ba ’dis stong yang /
gzung ’dzin gnyis su med pa’i ye she yod / stong pa cang med ma yin stong pa’i mthar
/ nyid ces bya ba’i sgrub tshig gsungs la gsoms [read soms] / rang rang ngo ngos stong
pa’i stong pa nyid / (91) ’di ni rang stong rnal ma de yin mod / stong nyid med pa dgag
par ma smra zhes / bdag gi bla ma thams cad mkhyen pa gsung.
The Role of Rang rig
321
incidental apprehended and apprehender.” Through an attraction towards
such an eternalistic view, they voice an absolute emptiness as profound,
but these are falsifying and untrue words. It is not the genuine gzhan stong
taught in the sūtra collections. Through misunderstanding the teaching of
victorious Maitreya [which describes] “Mind itself, not empty of the
highest qualities,” they depreciate the Buddha [by saying] that gzhan stong
[means that] on the level of the ground the sixty-four qualities [are
present] and there is an absence of incidental impurities. [The implication
of this is that] the perfect Buddha who has exhausted all veils and who has
fully developed primordial awareness, circulates in saṃsāra experiencing
suffering as do the six types of beings, in the hells and so on.15
The gzhan stong taught by Rang byung rdo rje, which follows the
meaning of the Noble Maitreya Teachings, the tantras, the [Bodhi]sattva
commentaries16 and many sūtras, and which I have heard taught by the
Victorious Master [The seventh Karma pa is as follows:]17 “Mind itself is
15
Pp. 91.1–91.4: Ding sang gzhan stong smra bar rlom pa ’ga’ / don dam rtag brtan
ther zug mi ’gyur ba / bden par grub ’di gzung ‘dzin blo bur bas / stong phyir gzhan
stong zab mo ’di yin lo / ’di ’dra rtag pa’i lta ba la dga’ bas / mthar ’dzin stong nyid
zab mor smra byed pa’i / brdzun gyi zol tshig yin gyi mdo sda [read sde] las / gsung
pa’i gzhan stong rnam dag de ma yin / bla med chos kyis sems nyid mi stong zhes /
rgyal ba byams pas gsungs pa la ’khrul nas / gzhi la bzhugs pa’i yon tan drug bcu bzhi
/ blo bur dri mas stong la gzhan stong zhes / sgrib pa kun zad ye shes rab rgyas pa’i /
rdzogs pa’i sangs rgyas dmyal ba la sogs pa / ’gro ba drug gi sdug bsngal myong ba’i
phyir / ’khor bar ’khor zhes rgyal la skur btab bo.
16
Most likely this refers to the Trilogy of Bodhisattva commentaries. These are the
definitive commentaries on the Kālacakra Tantra, the Hevajra Tantra, and the Cakra-
saṃvara Tantra, that is the Vimalaprabhā (Peking 2064) by Kalkin Puṇḍariika, the
Hevajrapiṇḍārthaṭīka (Peking 2310) by Bodhisattva Vajragarbha, and the Lakṣābhidhānād uddhṛtalaghutantrapiṇḍārthavivaraṇa (P 2317) by Bodhisattva Vajrapāṇi, respect-
ively. See Stearns 1999: 178n11.
This citation also appears on pp. kha and ga in the preface of the Dbu ma gzhan
stong skor bstan bcos phyogs bsdus deb dang po.
17
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Anne Burchardi
unconfined and unrestricted. It is natural luminosity, the great bindu of
inseparable space and awareness, ordinary mind. There are no changes
whatsoever to this essence, but, from the perspective of the time when the
incidental impurities have been cleansed, it is purified and unfolded (sangs
rgyas). This is known as gzhan stong. The primordial ground unstained by
veils, this is what should be understood as empty of other (gzhan gyis
stong). When Mind itself, is unaware of itself, this is called ‘incidental
veils.’18 Since [stains] are something separable from mind, when mind is
empty of these it is gzhan stong. Concerning the sixty-four qualities
present in the basic nature, although they can never be removed from
mind, let us say that at the time of the ground, this is an obscured buddha
and at the time of the result this is buddhahood without impurities. The
thirty-two qualities of freedom from obscurations and the thirty-two types
of completely matured [qualities] that unfold as buddha activities are
special characteristics exclusive to perfect buddhahood. They are not
asserted to be present at the time of the ground.
“The sixty-four qualities present at the time of the ground are
covered by obscurations. When these impurities have been overcome, a
Victorious One without impurities comes about. Therefore, the ground of
emptiness in gzhan stong is the sugatagarbha, the natural luminosity of
mind itself. It becomes empty of the incidental impurities to be
abandoned, the mental constructs (rnam rtog) of apprehended and
18
Pp. 91.4–91.6: rgyud dang sems ’grel mdo sde du ma dang / byams chos rjes ’brang
bcas las gsung pa’i don / rang byung rdo rje bzhed pa’i gzhan stong ni / rgyal ba’i
dbang po’i gsung las ’di skad thos / sems nyid rgya chad phyogs lhung dang bral zhing
/ rang bzhin ’od gsal dbyings rig dbyer med pa’i / thig le chen po tha mal shes pa yi /
ngo bo gang du’ang ’gyur ba med pa la / blo bur dri ma dag tshe sangs rgyas su / gyur
pa’i cha nas gzhan stong zhes byar grags / gdod ma’i gzhi la sgrib pas ma gos pa / ’di
ni gzhan gyis stong pa’i go don yin / sems nyid rang gis rang nyid ma rig pa / ’di la blo
bur sgrib pa zhes bya ste. Note the similarity of the passage starting from sems nyid
with the beginning of the first chapter of Rang byung rdo rje’s Zab mo nang don.
The Role of Rang rig
323
apprehender. Therefore, it is said that “nothing but mind itself, free of the
concepts of apprehended and apprehender, is ultimately true. Hence,
natural luminosity, the co-emergent union of inseparable space-awareness,
ordinary mind, is the view of profound gzhan stong. Therefore ‘rang
stong’ and ‘gzhan stong’ do not contradict each other.” This is what my
Lama has explained.19
The gzhan stong that Karma ’phrin las retrospectively attributes to the third
Karma pa must have been implicit, since the term gzhan stong does not appear
in any of the available texts written by the latter.20
3 The seventh Karma pa’s Rigs gzhung rgya mtsho
The Rigs gzhung rgya mtsho is primarily a comprehensive commentary on
Dignāga’s Pramāṇasamuccaya, Dharmakīrti’s seven texts on pramāṇa, and a
number of Indian commentaries on these epistemological source texts. It also
19
Pp. 91.4–91.6: sems dang ’bral du rung ba’i don yin pas / de yis sems nyid stong
phyir gzhan stong yin / gshis la bzhugs pa’i yon tan drug bcu bzhi / de ni nam du’ang
sems dang mi ’bral mod / gzhi yi dus sus grib bcas sangs rgyas dang / ’bras dus dri
med sangs rgyas zhes smros shig / sgrib kun bral ba’i yon tan so gnyis dang / ’phrin
las rgyas pa’i rnam smin sum bcu gnyis / rdzogs pa’i sangs rgyas kho na’i khyad chos
te / ’di ni gzhi la bzhugs par mi ’dod do / gzhi la bzhugs pa’i yon tan drug bcu bzhi /
sgrib pas bsgribs shing dri ma de bcom pas / dri med rgyal bar ’gyur phyir gzhan stong
gi / stong gzhi bde bar gshegs pa’i snying po ni / sems nyid rang bzhin ’od gsal ’di
nyid yin / stong byed spang bya blo bur dri ma de / gzung dang ’dzin pa’i rnam rtog ’di
la zer / de phyir gzung ’dzin rnam rtog dang bral ba’i / sems nyid kho na don dam bden
pas te / rang bzhin ’od gsal zung ’jug lhan cig skyes / dbyings rig dbyer med tha mal
shes pa nyid / gzhan stong zab mo’i lta ba yin zhes gsung / des na rang stong gzhan
stong zhes pa yang / ’gal ba min zhes bdag gi bla ma bzhed /.
20
See Stearns 1999, 52; Mathes 2001: 221, and 2004: 292–94 for discussions about the
third Karma pa and his position. See Schaeffer 1995 for a translation of the third
Karma pa’s text on tathāgatagarbha. Mathes has discussed how Shākya mchog ldan’s
position differs from the Jo nang’s but is similar to Rang byung rdo rje’s: 2004: 292.
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contains a wide array of quotes from, for instance, the five texts of Maitreya, as
well as tantra sources.
Van der Kuijp has identified ’Bri gung ’Jig rten mgon po (1143–1217)
as the earliest Tibetan master whose writings propagated the spiritual-cum-
soteriological significance of tshad ma.21 This trend was later followed by Bo
dong paṇ chen Phyogs las rnam rgyal (1376–1451), who also stressed the
spiritual significance of Buddhist logic.22 The Karma pa’s work clearly belongs
to this soteriologically oriented type of tshad ma commentary in Tibet.
According to a study by Roger Jackson that is of relevance to this chapter, “the
justification for Buddhist soteriology is to be found in basic epistemology”.23
There is no doubt that the tshad ma tradition represented by the Karma pa was
soteriologically motivated. Furthermore the text has been hailed as
“undoubtedly one of the finest monuments to the gzhan stong tradition.”24
Before looking at the way in which basic epistemological definitions
function as a link to ‘higher’ teachings in the Karma pa’s text, let us pause to
recount the story surrounding the composition of the text as retold by Dpa’ bo
Gtsug lag phreng ba (1504–1564) from an account by the eye-witness Dwags
po Rab ’byams Chos rgyal bstan pa:
Among the string of masterful Avalokiteśvara emanations in the land of
snow, [the seventh Karma pa] had the amazing liberating activity of the
two traditions. He liberated and matured countless fortunate students, and
taking the Pramāṇasamuccaya as the basis of explanation, he elaborated
on the Seven Treatises, the extensive Pramāṇavarttika, the intermediate
Pramāṇaviniścaya, and the summary Hetubindu. Also, he explained
completely the difficult points divided among the four branch treatises in a
detailed, intermediary, and summarising manner.
21
van der Kuijp 1987: 59.
22
van der Kuijp 1979: 7
23
24
Jackson 1990: 106.
van der Kuijp 1983: 265n56.
The Role of Rang rig
325
Furthermore, he summarised the Indian commentaries on the Seven
Treatises by Devendrabuddhi and Śākyabuddhi, as well as the
Pramāṇavarttikālaṃkāra [by Prajñākaragupta] and others. All of this he
expressed in the text called Tshad ma’i legs bshad kyi chu bo kun ’dus
rigs pa’i gzhung lugs kyi rgya mtsho, which he composed through his own
power without relying on any Tibetan texts whatsoever. My lama, Rje
Dwags ram pa, told me: “When I requested the text of the ’Jig rten gsum
sgron,25 it was completed quickly, but that was not the case this time. I
requested the composition of the Rigs gzhung rgya mtsho and I was the
secretary writing it down. The omniscient [Karma pa] was not like you or
me. There were no texts on pramāṇa near him. He did not look at books.
The whole time his hands were in the meditation posture. His eyes were
gazing into space and his mind was in samādhi. He spoke the dharma. His
[ways of] sustaining the two traditions through proclamations, etc., knew
no end.
“I sat next to the required table holding the black ink and a pen. After
breaks [the Karma pa] would continue exactly where he had stopped the
composition, without any obstruction, and staring into space he would
give a flowing dictation. When I, with my unbearably fluctuating mind
said, ‘That is not in accordance with the words of present day logicians,’
he would stop the dictation and not say a word. For several days he
stopped the composition. Then he said, ‘One must trust the Lama’s
words.’ After that I did not interrupt again. Whatever he said, I wrote that
down exactly and I gave up debating, and so forth. It was surprisingly
worthwhile!
‘When there was a section on astrology that I had some understanding
of, however, I interrupted. Then he gave many exact reasons why
[whatever I had said] was not the case! He raised his right hand slightly
into the space and said, ‘This is how we discuss!’ while he smiled. At this
25
The seventh Karma pa’s commentary on the first chapter of the Abhisamayālaṃkāra.
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time, when I saw his raised hand in front, I saw perfection! There was no
one around but me.”
When impartial scholars saw this treatise on pramāṇa they said that
such a text had not appeared even in India, much less in Tibet! There were
many commentaries on logic in India and also here in the Snowy Abode,
but only one volume which combines the meaning and words of the
Pramāṇasamuccaya and all the commentaries on the Seven Texts. It is not
too long and not too short. It is not crooked or mistaken. Such an
explanation comes about through the force of the Victorious Ones and
their sons, but otherwise it is not the sphere of activity of an intellect.
(gzhan du blo yi spyod yul min).26
Chos ’byung mkhas pa’i dga’ ston, smad cha, pp. 1107.4–1108.17: de ltar spyan ras
gzigs dbang phyug gangs can gyi rgyud ’dir rim par byon pa de rnams kyi nang na
yang rje ’di kho na lugs gnyis kyi ’phrin las rmad du byung ba ste / skal ldan gyi bu
slob bgrang ba las ‘das pa smin grol mdzad pa dang / tshad ma kun las btus bshad gzhir
mdzad de de la sde bdun mkhan pos tshad ma rgyas pa rnam ’grel ’bring rnam nges
bsdus pa rigs thigs gsum du ji ltar bkral ba dang / zur gyi dka’ gnas gyes pa yan lag gi
bstan bcos bzhis ji ltar bkral ba rnams rgyas ’bring bsuds pa’i gseb tshangs su bshad
cing / sde bdun lha shākya rgyan sogs rgya ’grel du ji ltar bkral ba thams cad mdor
bsdus pas brjod de tshad ma’i legs bshad kyi chu bo kun ’dus rigs pa’i gshung lugs kyi
rgya mtsho zhes bya ba bod gshung gang la yang ma bltos par rang stobs kyis mdzad /
dbag gi bla ma rje dvags ram pa’i zhal nas / ’jig rten gsum sgron ’di la zhu ba po nga
’dra ba zhig yod na myur du ’grub pa yod de de med pas lan / rigs gzhung rgya mtsho
’di la rtsom par yang ngas gsol ba btab / rtsom yig pa yang nga rang gis byas / rje
thams cad mkhyen pa de gzhan dang rang mi ’dra / tshad ma’i gzhung tsam yang sku
’khris na mi bzhugs / phyag dpe ni mi gzigs / dus rtag tu phyag mnyam bzhag spyan lta
stangs thugs ting nge ’dzin dang mi ’bral / gsung chos / lugs gnyis kyi bka’ bkod sogs
gnang skyong zad mi shes pa dgos pa’i gsol cog gi ’khris su bdag gis smyug nag tung
nge bzung nas bsdad / gseng nam byung du thugs rtsom zhus pa na ’phro gang na yod
gsung ba tsam las thogs pa med par spyan lta stangs kyi ngang nas sha ra ra ljags dpod
mzad / deng sang gi tshad ma pa rnams dang sgros mi mthun pa shin tu che ba ’gar
sems kyis ma bzod de zhu pa na ljags dpod ’phro bcad de ci yang mi gsung / zhag ’ga’
26
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327
This story gives a sense of how the Karma pa’s composition was regarded
within the Bka’ brgyud tradition. The text must have been completed around
1502, since it was given to Shākya mchog ldan for proofreading at this time.
Although the history of the text for the next three hundred years remains a
future subject of research,27 we know that the eleventh Si tu, Padma dbang
phyug rgyal po (1886–1952), later printed the text and distributed it to the
bshad grwas at Dpal spungs and elsewhere in Khams.28
yar du thugs rtsom de mi mdzad / phyi nas bla ma’i gsung la yid ’ches dgos pa yin zhes
bka’ gnang / phyi nas de ltar ma zhus par gang gsung de ka bris pas de’i rtsod spang
sogs ha las pa re gnang yod pa yin zhes dang / go la’i rtsis kyi skabs su cung zad go
tshod zhu pa na de ltar min pa’i rgyu mtshan mtha’ dag nges pa dang bcas te bka’
bstsal nas phyag g.yas pa nam mkha’ la cung zad brkyangs nas nged bgro gleng de ltar
byed pa yin gsungs nas zhal ’dzum tsam mdzad byung / drung gi phyag brkyangs pa
rdzogs par mthong ba sku ’khor ba la yang nga las med pa yin gsungs te gzur gnas kyi
mkhas pas bltas na tshad ma’i bstan bcos ’di lta bu bod yul lta zhog ’phags yul du’ang
ma byung ba snyam ste / ’phags pa’i yul dang gangs ri’i khrod ’dir yang / rigs gzhungs
so so’i rnam ’grel mdzad pa mang / mdo dang sde bdun ’grel par bcas rnams kun /
tshig don gnyis car glegs bam gcig nyid du / ha cang mangs dang nyungs sogs skyon
med cing gzhung don ’khyog dang phyin ci log med par / ji bzhin bshad ’di rgyal ba
sras bcas mthus / yin gyi gzhan du blo yi spyod yul min.
27
The colophon tells us that after Mi bskyod rdo rje (1507–1554) had scrutinised and
fixed the text, he endorsed it as a text of great importance that should be viewed as an
unsurpassable explanation. He had blocks for it carved at Dwags po legs bshad gling
grwa tshang. It was the Legs bshad gling blocks which were used as originals when Si
tu had two sets of new blocks carved for it in 1934 at Dpal spungs thub bstan chos
’khor gling, where they also were stored. Furthermore, the colophon states that the Ris
med masters adopted the text and praised it, and Mi pham (1846–1912) in particular
relied on this text when composing his Pramāṇavārttika commentary.
28
Personal communication from Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, 2007.
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4 Basic definitions of rang rig in Karma Bka’ brgyud29
Recently the Rigs gzhung rgya mtsho has been brought into focus in the Karma
bka’ brgyud pramāṇa curriculum in the form of summarised study manuals
written by Mkhan po Tshul khrims rgya mtsho Rinpoche (1934–),30 a Karma
bka’ brgyud scholar who has revitalised the seventh Karma pa’s pramāṇa-based
gzhan stong in our time. Let us look at the way rang rig is presented in his
pramāṇa manuals before looking at its role as tshad ma’i ’bras bu.
The Mkhan po’s study manual series starts with the Rigs bsdus, which
summarises definitions from the sixth chapter of ’Jam mgon Kong sprul’s Shes
bya kun khyab mdzod. 31 Here, the definition of self-awareness is “consciousness of the apprehending [aspect].” 32 The definition of other-awareness is
“consciousness of the apprehended [aspect].”33 The definition of a self-aware
29
Rang rig has been interpreted differently through the ages. For a history of the term
in early Buddhism based on the Sanskrit and Chinese sources see Yao 2003 and 2004.
For a discussion of Tibetan interpretations see Williams 1999 and Kapstein 2000. See
also Ruegg 2002: 220 for a list of references. For a discussion of svasaṃvitti see
Arnold 2005.
30
The Mkhan po’s study manuals include Shes bya kun khyab mdzod kyi sgo ’byed
rigs gzhung rgya mtsho’i rigs bsdus ’phrul gyi lde mig, the Blo rig gi rnam gzhag rigs
gzhung rgya mtsho’i snying po, later reproduced in the Blo rtags kyi rnam gzhag rigs
gzhung rgya mtsho’i snying po, as well as Blo rig gi mtha’ dpyod rigs gzhung rgya
mtsho’i rlabs phreng g.yo ba. They are used in the curricula of Karma Shri Nalanda
Institute at Rumtek monastery, Sikkim, as well as at the Rigpa’i Dorje Institute at
Pullahari, Nepal. Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche has implemented these texts into a
Western academic Shedra curriculum at Nitartha Institute and at Naropa University.
31
A partial draft translation of the Rigs bsdus titled The miraculous key which
condenses the reasoning presented in the Ocean of Reasoning and which opens the door
to the Treasury of Knowledge: A commentary by the author of the text, Khenpo
Tsultrim Gyatso, was prepared by the Nalanda Translation Committee based on
teachings given in 1986. For a later translation, see Goldfield 1997.
32
33
Rigs bsdus, 76.3–4:’dzin pa’i rnam shes rang rig gi mtshan nyid.
Rigs bsdus, 76.4: gzung ba’i rnam shes gzhan rig gi mtshan nyid.
The Role of Rang rig
329
direct perception is “that which exists with all apprehending [aspects of]
consciousness, being focused exclusively inwardly.”34
In the Blo rtags rigs,35 the Mkhan po starts his section on self-aware
direct valid cognition by giving its definition in the form of a syllogism. He
says, “The definition of a self-aware direct valid cognition exists, because it is
an awareness that experiences itself, without mental constructs, non-
mistakenly.”36 [As it says] in the Pramāṇasamuccaya, ‘…desire and so on are
self-awareness without mental constructs’”37 Based on the Rigs gzhung rgya
mtsho, the Mkhan po glosses this in a note as follows: “Concerning the self-
awareness which experiences desire, aversion, ignorance, suffering, and so on,
it enters a lucid experiential state without depending on the form of a sense
organ. It is without mental constructs, because it is self-aware direct [valid
cognition].”38
The Blo rtags rigs continues: “The Pramāṇavārttika says: ‘The nature
of happiness and so on does not depend on [something] other. It is inexpress-
ible. Therefore the self-awareness [experiencing] these is not connected to
expressions.’”39 This is glossed, again in the form of a syllogism, in a note as
follows: “Given the self-awareness experiencing happiness, etc., as the subject,
Rigs bsdus, 77.3: kha nang kho nar phyogs pa’i ’dzin rnam gyi shes pa kun gyi steng
na yod pa rang rig mngon sum tshad ma’i mtshan nyid.
35
The blo rigs section is translated by Brunnhölzl and Zerbini 1996. The rtags rigs
34
section was translated by Goldfield 1998.
Blo rtags rigs, 10: rang rig mngon sum tshad ma’i mtshan nyid yod de / rang myong
rtog bral ma ’khrul ba’i rig pa de yin pa’i phyir.
37
Blo rtags rigs, 10: mdor / chags la sogs / rang rig rtog pa med pa yin.
38
Blo rtags rigs, 46, mchan 8:’dod chags dang zhe sdang dang gti mug dang sdug
bsngal la sogs pa nyams su myong ba’i rang rig pa ni dbang po gzugs can pa la mi
bltos shing gsal bar nyams su myong ba’i rnam pas ’jug pa’i phyir rtog pa med pa yin
la / de’i phyir rang rig pa’i mngon sum yin no.
39
Blo rtags rigs, 10: bde sogs bdag nyid gzhan mi brten / brda byed par ni nus ma yin /
de phyir de dag rang rig ni / brjod dang rjes ’brel can ma yin.
36
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it is not a mental construct connected to expressions. Why? Because, the nature
of the happiness to be expressed at the time does not depend on [something]
other, [such as] conventional expressions which [by definition would be]
subsequent to it in terms of time; therefore, that which is experienced by selfawareness (khyod) is inexpressible as happiness, etc.”40 I take this passage to
imply that since self-awareness by definition is non-conceptual, that which is
experienced by it is also non-conceptual and therefore inexpressible.
Finally, the Blo rtags rigs states: “The Hetubindu says: ‘Mind and
mental events are all self-awareness,’” 41 which is glossed in the note:
“Concerning the main mind merely apprehending the essence of an object and
the mental events apprehending the features of the object, they are all aware of
their own essence. They are direct [valid cognition] because they are without
mental constructs and non-mistaken. In this way, the meaning of the
[Pramāṇasamuccaya] that ‘desire and so on are self awareness without mental
constructs’ has been well explained extensively, in medium length form, and in
a summary.”42
These are the basic definitions of rang rig in the Karma Bka’ brgyud
bshad grwa tradition. To summarise: There exists an inwardly focused
awareness of any given mental state, regardless whether this state is a mentally
constructed state (which includes mental events and inferential valid cognition,
Blo rtags rigs, 47, mchan 9: bde sogs de dag nyams su myong ba’i rang rig ni chos
can / brjod pa dang rjes su ’brel ba can gyi rtog pa ma yin te / gang gi phyir brda dus
kyi bde sogs kyi bdag nyid gzhan tha snyad kyi dus su rjes ’gro byed pa la mi brten pas
khyod kyi myong bya bde sogs la brda byed par ni nus pa ma yin pa de’i phyir.
41
Blo rtags rigs, 10: rigs thigs las / sems dang sems las byung ba thams cad ni rang rig
pa’o.
42
Blo rtags rigs, 47, mchan 10: don gyi ngo bo tsam ’dzin pa’i gtso bo sems dang / don
gyi khyad par ’dzin pa’i sems las byung ba thams cad kyi rang gi ngo bo rig pa ni rtog
pa dang bral zhing ma ’khrul ba’i phyir mngon sum mo / de ltar na rgyas pa dang
’bring dang mdor bsdus pa’i sgo nas chags la sogs rang rig rnam par mi rtog pa / zhes
pa’i mdo’i don legs par bshad zin to.
40
The Role of Rang rig
331
as well as mistaken cognition) or it is a non-constructed or non-conceptual state
(this includes the main minds, sense direct valid cognition, and mental direct
valid cognition). What the self-aware direct valid cognition does is to
experience ordinarily the relative mental events in a non-conceptual, direct
manner. As the following section will show, this capacity is employed for
experiencing extraordinarily the ultimate luminous knowing quality of
consciousness itself in a non-conceptual direct manner.
5 Rang rig as the outcome of pramāṇa
In the section of the Mkhan po’s Blo rtag rigs entitled shin tu gnas tshul la
zhugs pa’i tshad ‘bras, which summarises a section of the Rigs gzhung rgya
mtsho of the same name, 43 we can observe how the principle of rang rig
functions in an ascending scale of analysis. The following presentation can be
seen as a progression or a ladder, but also as revealing different perspectives
possible with regard to a single episode of perception. It furnishes insight into
how the basic pramāṇa teachings are employed here as a bridge to the
teachings on the nature of mind. The account is as follows:
The explanation of the presentation of the outcome of valid cognition44 is
in three [parts]: the outcome of valid cognition when there is no analysis;
43
The Mkhan po’s summarised account has been chosen here for reasons of space and
clarity. The full account is found at pages 667.2–670.3 of the Rigs gzhung rgya mtsho.
44
I have translated tshad ’bras as “outcome of valid cognition” following van der
Kuijp’s interpretation of ’Jig rten mgon po’s phrase “tshad ma’i ’bras bu chos nyid
stong pa nyid ston par bzhed do” (“the result of tshad ma is acknowledged to be a
demonstration of ultimate reality’s emptiness”) on which he comments: “...it should
first be pointed out that the term ‘result’ (’bras bu, *phala) is not used in the technical
sense of the issues raised by Dignāga and Dharmakīrti in their discussion of the
relationship between the cognitive act and its content. Rather, ’Jig rten mgon po intends
it to simply mean something like ‘cash-value,’ the spiritual cash-value of tshad ma, the
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the outcome of valid cognition when there is slight analysis; and the
outcome of valid cognition when there is thorough analysis.
The first:
“In terms of unexamined commonly accepted [understanding],
The outer object itself is asserted to be the object of comprehension,
The apprehended aspect to be a valid cogniser,
And the cognition of the object is the outcome of valid cognition.”
The second:
“In terms of slight analysis,
The apprehended aspect is asserted to be the object of comprehension,
The apprehending aspect to be a valid cogniser,
And self-awareness is the outcome of valid cognition.”
The third:
“When thoroughly analyzed by logic,
Luminous awareness empty of duality is asserted to be the object of
comprehension,
The apprehending aspect to be a valid cogniser,
And self-awareness is the outcome of valid cognition.”45
The first presentation is said to correspond to a general mundane view, the
second to the Sautrāntika view and by extension to the Cittamātra/Yogācāra
extent to which it is conducive to spiritual insight and realization.” See van der Kuijp
1987: 60 and 62.
Blo rtags rigs, pp. 15–16: gsum pa tshad ’bras kyi rnam gzhag bshad pa la / ma
brtags ma dpyad pa’i tshad ’bras / cung zad dpyad pa’i tshad ’bras / shin tu dpyad pa’i
tshad ’bras dang gsum las / dang po ni / ma brtag grags pa’i dbang du ni / phyi rol don
nyid gzhal bya la / gzung ba’i rnam pa tshad ma ste / don rtogs tshad ma’i ’bras bur
’dod / ces pa ltar ro / gnyis pa ni / cung zad dpyad pa’i dbang du ni / gzung ba’i rnam
pa gzhal bya la / ’dzin pa’i rnam pa tshad ma ste / rang rig tshad ma’i ’bras bur ’dod /
ces pa ltar ro / gsum pa ni / rigs pas shin tu dpyad pa na / gnyis stong gsal rig gzhal
bya la / ’dzin pa’i rnam pa tshad ma sted / rang rig tshad ma’i ’bras bur bshad.
45
The Role of Rang rig
333
view, and the third to the gzhan stong Madhyamaka view. On a superficial
level mind perceives an outer object; at the level of slight analysis mind merely
perceives an aspect of itself, i.e. self-awareness of the relative apprehending
aspect of mind, 46 and in the final analysis, mind is experiencing luminous
awareness, empty of duality, i.e. self-awareness of the ultimate nature of mind.
(Refer to the Table on p. 341.)
6 Rang rig and tathāgatagarbha as the basic and ultimate nature of mind
I wish to show now that the seventh Karma pa’s use of rang rig in the context
of tshad ma’i ’bras bu on the third level, the level of thorough analysis,
parallels not only so so rang rig pa’i ye shes (as in ’phags pa so so rang gis rig
pa’i ye shes or rnal byor pa so so rang gis rig pa’i ye shes)47 as a resultant
phase of rang rig, but also tathāgatagarbha. This may be seen with reference to
the passages that follow:
In fact, there is no [separate] object to be fathomed at this time. That
which is to be fathomed is the luminous knowing aspect of a knower free
of the duality of apprehended and apprehender. The apprehending aspect
is pramāṇa and rang rig is the outcome. This presentation of the outcome
of pramāṇa is ultimately established.48
Further on, the seventh Karma pa says:
46
What Paul Williams (1998) calls self-awareness i. This is also the aspect described
when it is said that we are self-aware of our various mental events.
47
See also Brunnhölzl 2004: 860n109 for an elaboration of these terms.
Rigs gzhung rgya mtsho, 668.5–6: yang dag par na gzhal bya ma yin la / de’i tshe
gzung ’dzin gnyis bral gyi shes pa gsal rig gi cha gzhal bya / ’dzin rnam tshad ma /
rang rig ’bras bur byas pa ’di tshad ’bras kyi rnam par bzhag pa mthar thug par grub pa
yin no.
48
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In fact, the essence free of the knower (shes pa) creating the condition for
the duality of perceived and perceiver is emptiness. The expanse of all
phenomena is completely pure of both [aspects of] consciousness—
perceived and perceiver, conditioned and condition—and is luminous. This
is the mirror-like primordial awareness, which essentially is a mind, in
which any form whatsoever can arise. It is that which remains when there
is nothing left in that [essence of mind, sems nyid].49 That is the ultimate
truth.
Therefore, whatever forms arise in this natural luminosity which is
the ultimate truth are not truly established as such, and they are not
different from the luminosity of mind itself. For example, even though
various forms such as mountains, forests, planets, stars, etc., can appear
[as reflections] on the [surface] of a vast ocean, they do not truly exist
[there] and they are not different from the vast ocean itself. Such is the
natural luminosity of mind according to these texts. It says clearly [in the
Pramānavarttika]: “The nature of mind is luminosity, stains are
temporary” and in the Uttaratantra: “The nature of mind is luminosity, it
is unchanging like space.” This is in accordance with the Prajñāpāramitā
Sūtrā: “Mind does not exist as ‘mind.’ The nature of mind is
luminosity.’’50
gang na gang med pa’i lhag ma yod pa. This phrase is sometimes taken as indicating
the definition of gzhan stong.
50
Rigs gzhungs rgya mtsho, 670.3–671.1: (de’i phyir) yang dag par na gzung ’dzin
gnyis kyi rten byed pa’i shes par bcas pa bral ba’i ngo bo stong pa nyid chos thams cad
kyi dbyings gzung ’dzin brtan pa dang rten shes pa gnyis ka’i rnam par dag cing ’od
gsal ba de la me long lta bu’i ye shes kyi ngo bor grub pas rnam pa cir yang ’char rung
gi sems nyid gang na gang med pa’i lhag ma yod pa de don dam bden par grub pa yin
no. des na rang bzhin gyis ’od gsal ba’i don dam pa’i bden pa ’di la gang dang gang gi
rnam pa shar yang de dang der ma grub cing / sems nyid ’od gsal ba de nyid las gzhan
du med do / dper na rgya mtsho chen po’i nang du ri rab dang nags tshal dang gza’
dang skar ma la sogs pa sna tshogs pa’i rnam pa shar yang de dang der ma grub cing /
49
The Role of Rang rig
335
He concludes:
The above explanation of the mind being the ground empty of the duality
of perceived and perceiver is not a phenomenon that can be intellectually
established. It cannot be divided or destroyed by the syllogisms of being
free from one or many, etc., because, if it was a phenomenon that could be
intellectually established, it would be possible to destroy it through the
logic of syllogisms, etc. But it is not intellectually established; it is
beginningless, uninterrupted, and it does not fall into any extreme, because
it is a naturally spontaneous actuality which transcends examples. Since it
cannot be destroyed by anything, it is also called the vajra of mind. It is
furthermore called tathāgatagarbha and dharmadhātu. It is never stained by
the stains of perceiver and perceived, its essence is like the sky free of
clouds. It is the natural prajñāpāramitā which is the field of experience of
the individual reflexive awareness of primordial awareness (so so rang rig
pa’i ye shes), the meaning of which is taught as the ultimate truth in the
tradition of the Great Madhyamaka texts.51
rgya mtsho chen po nyid las gzhan du med pa bzhin no / sems rang bzhin gyis ’od gsal
ba ni gzhung ’di dag las gsung te / sems kyi rang bzhin ’od gsal ba / dri ma rnams ni
glo bur ba / zhes gsal par ’byung ba dang / rgyud bla ma las / sems kyi rang bzhin ’od
gsal gang yin pa / de ni nam mkha’ bzhin du ’gyur med de / zhes dang / sher phyin gyi
mdo las / sems la sems ma mchis pa ste sems kyi rang bzhin ni ’od gsal ba’o zhes pa
rnams mthun no.
51
Rigs gzhung rgya mtsho, 672.5–673.4: de ltar na gong du ji skad bshad pa’i gzung
’dzin gnyis kyi stong gzhir gyur pa’i sems nyid ’di ni blos bzhag pa’i chos ma yin pas /
gcig du bral la sogs pa’i gtan tshigs rnams kyis kyang mi phyed cing gzhig par mi nus
pa yin te / gang gi phyir blos bzhag pa’i chos shig yin na ni gtan tshigs la sogs pa’i rigs
pas gzhig par nus pa yin gyi / ’di blos bzhag pa ma yin pa / thog ma med pa / rgyar ma
chad pa / phyogs su ma lhung ba / dper bya ba kun las ’das pa rang bzhin gyi lhung
gyis grub par gnas pa’i don yin pa’i phyir / gang gis kyang gzhig par mi nys pas ’di
nyid la sems kyi rdo rje zhes kyang bya / de bzhin gshegs pa’i snying po zhes kyang
bya / chos kyi dbyings zhes kyang bya / de la sogs pa’i ming gi rnam grangs sna tshogs
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Anne Burchardi
As these elaborations on rang rig as the outcome of pramāṇa at the level of
thorough analysis show, the seventh Karma pa eliminates the traditional
contextual separation between rang rig and so so rang gis rig pa at this level.52
In Kapstein’s discussion on whether rang rig (Skt. svasaṃvedanā or
svasaṃvitti) and so so rang rig (Skt. pratyātmavid) are close synonyms or
whether they refer to very different concepts,53 he concludes that “the term [so
so rang gis rig par bya ba], therefore, in its original and primary signification
has nothing whatever to do with epistemological theories of reflexive
awareness, or with substantialist metaphysical accounts of the mind, or with
gzhan stong, or with Rdzogs-chen.”54 He concedes that “it may well be that
certain later traditions of Buddhist philosophy and meditation appropriated the
term, but they probably did so in large measure owing to its ancient resonances
and not in the first instance due to any doctrinal novelty.”55 He augments this
point by stating that “it may well be that, although most Tibetan authorities
agree with Tsong-kha-pa and Mi-pham that svasaṃvedana and pratyātmavid
par tha snyad byas kyang / ngag gis smrar med pa / blos bsam du med pa / mig gis
brjod par mi nus pa / ma skyes pa / ma ’gags pa / gzung ba dang ’dzin pa’i dri mas
nam yang gos pa med pa nam mkha’ sprin dang bral ba lta bu’i ngo nor gnas pa so so
rang gi rig pa’i ye shes kyi spyod yul du gyur pa’i rang bzhin gyis shes rab kyi pha rol
tu phyin pa’i don dbu ma chen po’i gzhung lugs rnams nas gsungs pa’i don dam pa’i
bden pa zhes bsgrags pa gang yin pa de ni de yin no.
52
Whether this passage of the Rigs gzhung rgya mtsho represents the seventh Karma
pa’s final position on the question of the relationship between rang rig and so so rang
rig pa’i ye shes remains open for discussion. Incidentally, the eighth Karma pa seems to
portray the seventh Karma pa’s position on this issue somewhat differently. For more
on this see Brunnhölzl’s forthcoming translation of the eighth Karma pa and the fifth
Shar ma pa’s commentaries on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra.
53
54
55
Kapstein 2000b: 112.
Ibid. 113. See also Ruegg 2002: 221n120.
Kapstein 2000b: 113.
The Role of Rang rig
337
cannot be one and the same, the latter cannot be cashed out without reference
to some notion of reflexivity.”56
This seems to be exactly what the seventh Karma pa and the pramāṇa-
based gzhan stong tradition that he initiated is doing in this particular passage.
We can therefore conclude that for soteriological purposes, presentations of
rang rig at the stage of an ordinary being are being employed as a
methodological tool in the progression from an individual’s experience of their
relative mental events up to the transformation of this self-awareness into
wisdom (so so rang rig pa’i ye shes, i.e. rang rig, at the final level of
analysis).57
Furthermore, the link between the cognising luminosity inherent in
ordinary states of consciousness (shes pa gsal zhing rig pa) and non-dual
cognising luminosity (gnyis stong gsal rig) at the third level, of thorough
analysis, which is really a state of “no more analysis,” parallels the descriptions
of tathāgatagarbha as the luminous nature of mind at the level of the ground as
well as at the level of the result. As Jackson says: ‘‘luminosity is the nature of
defiled minds too.”58 What the nature of mind is empty of, is that which is
other than itself, that is to say, it is gzhan stong. I argue that in this context
gzhan stong refers to the gnyis stong of the third level of analysis.
As elaborated by the Karma pa, gnyis stong gsal rig is the absence of
the perceived and perceiving aspect of mind. He quotes Dharmakirti’s
statements in support of this, saying that “stains are temporary.” This parallels
the famous statement from the Uttaratantraśāstra regarding tathāgatagarbha’s
being empty of temporary factors that are characterised as being separable from
it (rnam dbye bcas pa’i mtshan nyid can / glo bur dag gis khams stong gi).
56
57
Ibid. 117.
This progression could be said to parallel the two explanation models mentioned by
Kapstein in this passage: “the relationship, for Mi-pham, between rang rig at the
moment of the introduction and the so so rang rig of enlightenment is precisely similar
to that which obtains between dpe’i ye shes and don gyi ye shes.” Kapstein 2000b: 117.
58
Jackson 1990: 96.
338
Anne Burchardi
These illustrations of how a soteriologically-oriented tshad ma
presentation of rang rig through progressive stages from a basic mental
function to an enlightened wisdom parallels tathāgatagarbha presentations
should be seen in the larger context of the Karma pa’s demonstration that the
“Great Madhyamaka” supersedes the so-called Mind Only tradition. He
employs systematic Mādhyamika syllogisms to prove that perceiver and
perceived, subject and object, cannot be established as truly existent. He states
that the two chariots, i.e. Nāgārjuna’s type of Madhyamaka and Asaṅga’s
tradition, which he also designates as Madhyamaka, are complementary and not
in any way in contradiction. In his own words:
The close transmission of Mahāmadhyamaka from Ācārya Noble Asaṅga
and his brother mainly establishes Dignāga’s and Dharmakīrti’s point of
emptiness as being the mind itself, the natural luminosity. The intention is
that this gives the capacity to realise that forms appearing from the play of
this natural clarity are not truly existent, they are essentially emptiness.
This is a conclusion reached mainly from the point of view of mind.
The Mahāmādhyamikas of the close lineage of Ācārya Noble
Nāgārjuna mainly establish that the appearances, which are the various
forms of mind itself, appear but do not exist, the intention being that this
gives the capacity to realise the emptiness of perceived and perception as
the natural luminosity itself. This is a conclusion reached mainly from the
point of view of emptiness.59
Rigs gzhung rgya mtsho, 675.4–676.1: slob dpon ’phags pa thogs med sku mched nas
nye bar brgyud pa’i dbu ma pa chen po dpal phyogs kyi glang po dang / chos kyi grags
pa rnams kyis stong pa nyid du gnas pa’i sems nyid rang bzhin gyi ’od gsal ba gtso bor
gtan la phab pas rang bzhin gsal pa’i rol pa las rnam pa ci dang cir snang yang de dang
der ma grub par ngo bo stong pa nyid du rtogs par nus pa la dgongs nas gtso bor sems
phyogs gtan la ’bebs par mdzad la / slob dpon ’phags pa klu sgrub nas nye bar brgyud
pa’i dbu ma pa chen po rnams kyis ni / sems nyid rnam pa sna tshogs su snang ba ’di
snang ba ltar du ma grub par gtso bor gtan la phab pas gzung ba dang ’dzin pas stong
59
The Role of Rang rig
339
In other words, the Karma pa maintains that the strategies of both Nāgārjuna
and Asaṅga are comprised of a two-step progression, each system setting up the
conditions for the following realisation, whether it primarily establishes the
emptiness of [so-called] outer phenomena, describing them as the appearances
of mind, and secondarily by extension the emptiness of the mind for whom
these empty phenomena appear; or whether it primarily establishes the
emptiness of the mind, and secondarily by extension the emptiness of
phenomena appearing for it. So it is simply a question of which kind of
emptiness is established first, both systems leading to the same conclusion. This
implies a syncretic approach towards the two traditions.
Finally the Karma pa’s portrayal of the correlation between
tathāgatagarbha as gzhan stong and so so rang rig pa’i ye shes as that which
experiences this nature—as well as Karma ’phrin las pa’s description of the
impossibility of rang stong or an absence being the object of experience for
valid cognition, much less something to be experienced personally (so so rang
gis rig par)—is very much in line with the so-called tantric gzhan stong based
on the Kālacakra. Let the following quotations from Red mda’ ba’s Dpal dus
kyi ’khor lo’i nges don gsal bar byed pa rin po che’i sgron me illustrate this
final point. 60
According to the [Kālacakra] tantra, the phenomena of the incidental
stains representing the relative truth are not the object of perfect gnosis (yang
dag pa’i ye shes kyi yul) because they are empty of self-nature (rang stong),
while the true nature of mind, representing the ultimate truth, is “the object of
non-conceptual perception. It is empty of other (gzhan stong) because the
incidental stains are absent, and it is not a nihilistic emptiness (chad stong) and
an inanimate emptiness [bems stong] because it is experienced through a
pa de nyid rang bzhin gyis ’od gsal ba de nyid rtogs nus pa la dgongs nas gtso bor
stong ba’i phyogs nas gtan la ’bebs par mdzad pa yin no.
60
The following passage is paraphrased from Stearns 1999: 58–59.
340
Anne Burchardi
specific self-cognising intrinsic awareness …”
61
Further, “… only the
emptiness of other [gzhan stong], the true nature of mind, radiant light, an
immutable interior intrinsic awareness experienced through the force of meditation and through a specific self-cognising intrinsic awareness is accepted as
the perfect path.”62
Although the Karma pa’s gzhan stong ultimately echoes the so-called
tantric gzhan stong as shown here, his Rigs gzhung rgya mtsho is unique in
presenting gzhan stong in a pramāṇa context as a rationally structured, logically
argued, moderate form of gzhan stong. Thereby the Karma pa offers a gradual
philosophical and logical path which functions as an important alternative to
the tantric path towards the ultimate goal.
61
Stearns 1999: 59, 2056n61: rnam par mi rtog pa’i spyod yul yin pa’i phyir don dam
pa yin la / glo bur dri mas dben pa’i phyir gzhan stong dang / so so rang rig pa’i tshul
gyis nyams su myong ba’i phyir chad stong dang bems stong min no.
62
Stearns 1999: 59: gzhan stong sems kyi chos nyid ’od gsal bsgoms pa’i stobs kyis so
so rang rig pa’i tshul gyis myong ba’i nang rig ’gyur med kno na yang dag pa’i lam du
gzhed de.
The Role of Rang rig
341
Table
The outcome of valid cognition
<%-<A$-5.-:V?,
I. The level of no analysis
3-2g$
An outer object
is the object of
comprehension
The apprehended aspect
is a valid cogniser
Cognition of the
object is the
outcome
KA-<R=-.R/-$8=-L,
$9%-2:A-i3-0-5.-3,
5.-:V?-.R/-gR$
II. The level of slight analysis
&%-9.-.J.-0,
The apprehended aspect
is the object of
comprehension
The apprehending aspect
ia a valid cogniser
Apperception
is the outcome
$9%-2:A-i3-0-$8=-L,
:6B/-0:A-i3-0-5.-3,
5.-:V?-<%-<A$
III. The level of thorough analysis
>A/-+-.J.-0,
Luminous awareness
empty of duality is the
object of comprehension
The apprehending aspect
is a valid cogniser
$*A?-!R%-$?=-<A$-$8=-L, :6B/-0:A-i3-0-5.-3,
Apperception
is the outcome
5.-:V?-<%-<A$
342
Anne Burchardi
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Brunnhölzl, K. 2004. The Center of the Sunlit Sky: Madhyamaka in the Kagyu
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Jackson, R.R. 1990. Luminous mind among the logicians: An analysis of
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79.
THE EIGHTH KARMA PA’S ANSWER TO
GLING DRUNG PA: A CASE STUDY*
JIM RHEINGANS
1 Introduction
[I] do not keep even the refuge-vows and do not meditate on death and
impermanence for a single session. [But, I] say: “[I] meditate on the Great
Seal right away!” [Lama], please consider foolish me with compassion!1
Though often considered primarily a meditational lineage, the Bka’ brgyud pa
traditions have produced numerous scholars. Among them, the eighth Karma
pa, Mi bskyod rdo rje (1507–1554), was undoubtedly one of the most learned
masters within his Karma Bka’ brgyud school, which enjoyed great support
from the most powerful rulers of Tibet from the late fifteenth until the early
* I would like to thank David Jackson, Klaus-Dieter Mathes, Alexander Schiller,
Mkhan po Nges don, and Ulrich Kragh for helpful suggestions on earlier versions of
this article. It was composed in 2007 in the context of research on the life and Great
Seal interpretation of Mi bskyod rdo rje for my dissertation, completed in 2008: see
Rheingans 2008; and Rheingans 2010 and forthcoming for additional studies of the
eighth Karma pa’s life and teaching. I gratefully acknowledge the support of the School
of Historical and Cultural Studies (Bath Spa University, U.K.) in the course of my
work on the dissertation.
1
The concluding verses of Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Phyag rgya chen po zhi
gnas kyi khrid, fol. 4a: skyabs ’gro tsam gyi bslab bya mi bsrung zhing / ’chi ba mi
rtag thun gcig mi bsgom par/ da lta nyid du phyag chen bsgoms zhes pa / /blun po’i
rang bzhin bdag la thugs rjes gzigs /.
346
Jim Rheingans
sixteenth century (especially from 1498–1517/18).2 The Seventh Karma pa
Chos grags rgya mtsho (1454–1506) had actually initiated an independent sūtra
exegetical tradition within his sect, composing the only Karma Bka’ bgryud
work on pramāṇa.3 The scholastic trend continued with the eighth Karma pa,
whose agenda included commenting on four of the five main non-tantric
subjects.4 Previous academic research on his doctrines has concentrated mainly
on his well-known Madhyamakāvatāra commentary and his rang stong
Madhyamaka philosophical position. His gzhan stong works, such as the
Abhisamayālaṃkāra commentary and the Gzhan stong legs par smra ba’i sgron
me, have been also taken into account.5 But his Great Seal (mahāmudrā)
2
From 1498 to 1518 the Rin spungs pa lords, who were supporters of the Seventh
Karma pa and the Fourth Zhwa dmar pa, had ruled with an iron fist over Dbus and
Gtsang (D. Jackson 1989a: 29ff.). The eighth Karma pa witnessed the transition from
relative peace and strong central rule to increasing instability, especially in Dbus,
culminating in the period of great unrest in the late 1540s.
3
Chos grags rgya mtsho, Karma pa VII, Tshad ma’i bstan bcos. See the article by
Burchardi in this volume.
4
Abhidharma, Madhyamaka, Prajñāparāmitā, and Vinaya (cf. also Brunnhölzl 2004:
19). The fifth was of course Pramāṇa.
5
Mullin (1978) and Richardson (1998) translated very short works. In 1980 a
translation of the Bka’ brgyud mgur mtsho edited by Mi bskyod rdo rje was published
by the Nālandā Translation Committee, which also published very brief prayers in
1997. Karmay (1980) occasionally referred to polemics against the Rnying ma pa.
Williams (1983 a and b) and Ruegg (1988, 2000) have dealt with the eighth Karma
pa´s view on Madhyamaka using the spyi don section of the Dwags. Stearns (1999) has
also used his Gzhan stong, as did Brunnhölzl (2004), who offers the most extensive
study of the eighth Karma pa’s Madhyamaka. Parts of the commentary have been
translated (Mikyö Dorje 2006). Mathes (2008) has, in his recent publication, used the
eighth Karma pa’s Abhisamayālaṃkāra commentary and shown that Mi bskyod rdo
rje’s gzhan stong resembles Rang ’byung rdo rje’s position in his Zab mo nang gi don.
The only academic study of the Karma pa’s life is Verhufen (1995), whose main
reference is to Si tu and ’Be lo’s Kaṃ tshang.
The Eighth Karma pa's Answer
347
instructions in minor works have been neglected so far. Though these teachings
form the heart of his tradition’s religious instructions, no one has investigated
how the eighth Karma pa taught the Great Seal to his various students.
This essay aims to examine his Great Seal teachings, especially as he
expressed them in one of his minor works, the replies to questions (dris lan)
asked by Gling drung A gdong pa.6 In the following brief case study, I shall
look more closely at the recipient, sectarian circumstances, and contexts of his
answers. Works of the dris lan genre are particularly suitable for such an
investigation as they often offer short treatments of doctrinal questions.7 In
addition, some minor commentaries and passages focusing on the Great Seal
will be taken into account. The recent publication of Mi bskyod rdo rje’s gsung
’bum, allows further insights into his life and literary works.8 Given the vast
scope of his writings, the present foray cannot pretend to scratch more than the
surface of this theme.
6
7
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Gling drung la ’dor ba’i dris lan, 3 fols.
The Tibetan genre as such has not yet been studied exhaustively but deserves more
scholarly attention. A related genre, the more polemical “answers to refutations” (dgag
lan), has been examined to some extent (Lopez 1997). The dgag lan, however, respond
to criticism rather than answer a question.
8
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma-pa VIII, Collected Works. For a further survey of the
history and content of his writings, see my PhD thesis (Rheingans 2008: 57–72). The
now-available published collection provides us with two major rnam thar authored by
Mi bskyod rdo rje’s close students as well as different spiritual autobiographies (rang
rnam) containing valuable historical information: Byang chub bzang po, A khu a khrag
Dge slong, Rgyal ba kun gyi dbang (37 fols.), is a source on the Karma pa’s early years
(up to 1513) authored by an attendant. It was also used by Gtsug lag ’phreng ba for his
account of Mi bskyod rdo rje in the Mkhas pa’i dga’ ston. Sangs rgyas Dpal sgrub
attended the Karma pa from 1539 onwards, and his Rgyal ba spyan ras gzigs (90 fols.)
contains additional information. It also enlists two sources that are unavailable to date:
a rnam thar composed by Grub pa’i dbang phyug Sgam po mkhan po Śākya dge slong
bzang po and one authored by Bla ma Dpon yig (ibid., fol. 83b). See Rheingans 2010,
for a further discussion of the rnam thar sources.
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2 The Great Seal in the minor texts
With regard to the theory of the Great Seal, a number of interpretations can be
found in the eighth Karma pa’s minor commentaries, instructions, and dris lan.
Let us briefly locate these sources in his Collected Works. One of his most
important students, the fifth Zhwa dmar, Dkon mchog yan lag (1525–83),
composed a catalogue (dkar chag) of the Karma pa’s collected writings (gsung
’bum).9 The Zhwa dmar pa divided his list of titles into six major sections
(mdor byas), the structure of which was also used as a template for the recent
Lhasa edition of Mi bskyod rdo rje’s literary works.10
The first section of the eighth Karma pa’s œuvre, filling volumes one
and two of the Collected Works, consists of spiritual biographies (rnam thar)
and adamantine songs (rdo rje’i glu). Apart from a few dialogues in a rnam
thar,11 the Great Seal is frequently mentioned in the rdo rje’i glu subsection,
especially in five texts. The second section, making up volume three, contains a
variety of genres: letters (’phrin yig), praises (bstod tshogs), questions and
answers (dris lan), works of advice (bslab bya), and prayers (smon lam). Great
Seal teachings are found here among the bslab bya and especially in the dris
lan. From among the sixteen dris lan (nos. 29 to 44 of volume 3; their length
9
According to his rnam thar in Situ and ’Be lo (Kaṃ tshang, p. 391) the fifth Zhwa
dmar pa met the Karma pa in Tsā ri and received the blessing (byin rlabs) to complete
the collection (bka’ ’bum) of the Karma pa’s writings. He began to compile this table
of contents seven years before the Karma pa passed away in 1547, and completed it in
1555 (Kon mchog ’bangs, Zhwa dmar V, Rgyal ba thams cad, p. 230). For a further
survey of sources about the Great Seal in the eighth Karmapa’s gsung ’bum, see also
Rheingans (2008: 72–76).
10
The Mkhas pa’i dga’ ston (p. 1313) mentions that the bka’ ’bum amounted to
“slightly more than thirty volumes” (sum bcu [sic] lhag). It seems that shortly after the
eighth Karma pa passed away a golden manuscript was compiled under the patronage
of Chos mdzad ma rnam grol, which comprised thirty volumes (ibid.).
11
Byang chub bzang po, A khu a khrag Dge slong, Rgyal ba kun gyi dbang (see also
below).
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varies from two to sixty-nine folios), ten contain major passages or questions
on the Great Seal, though it is not always explicitly mentioned.
The third section contains commentaries on sūtra and mantra. It is by
far the most extensive section, comprising volumes 4 through 16. Included here
are the large commentaries on Madhyamaka and other Indian treatises (rgya
gzhung), along with elaborate material on the ’Bri gung dgongs gcig doctrine
and Buddhist tantra.12 A wealth of material, including shorter commentaries
dealing with the Great Seal, is found in volume 15. Volumes 17 and 18 contain
the texts of section four, rituals (cho ga) and sādhanas (sgrub thabs).
The fifth section contains practical instructions (khrid) and esoteric
precepts (man ngag), and is found in volumes 18–25 of the Collected Works.
Volume 19 contains the previously (1976) published shorter instructions (khrid
thung)13 and consists of precepts on a diversity of topics, some of which deal
with the Great Seal. Finally, volumes 21–25 include occasional commentaries
on the Great Seal, principally in its tantric context. The last section, dedicated
to the “common sciences” (thun mong rig gnas), such as grammar and
linguistics, can be found in volume 26.
Before turning to the dris lan, which are central to this essay, some
passages presenting the non-tantric and tantric Great Seal need to be touched
upon very briefly in order to give an impression of the Karma pa’s teaching
style. These are drawn from a hagiography (rnam thar), a brief advice on
blessing (bslab bya), and a short commentary on the ordinary mind (tha mal gyi
shes pa).14
The earliest documented teachings on the subject ascribed to the eighth
Karma pa are dialogues about meditation found in the rnam thar composed by
12
Three volumes alone (5, 6 and 7) are devoted to the dgongs gcig teaching of the ’Bri
gung pa, which include a rnam thar of ’Bri gung Skyobs pa ’Jig rten gsum dgon (1143–
1217).
13
14
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Gdams khrid man ngag gi rim pa.
Due to the scope of the present essay, these texts are only briefly introduced here.
They contain much more elaborate discussions that cannot be presented in full.
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Mi bskyod rdo rje’s attendant, A khu A khra. While representing a relatively
direct way of teaching without much doctrinal elaboration, they use the specific
doctrine of the Bka’ brgyud Great Seal in teaching about conceptualisation as
dharmakāya.15 In 1513 the young Karma pa travelled around Lho rong and
Khams and met Rgya ston Nang so Seng ge ba:
The next day in Rag yul [at the] bridge, Rgya ston Nang so Seng ge ba
said: “You must grant me a dharma [teaching].”
[Karma pa] said: “In that case, the essence (ngo bo) of conceptual
thoughts (rnam rtog) is the dharmakāya. Therefore, conceptualisation and
absolute awareness (ye shes) being undifferentiated is the ordinary mind
(tha mal gyi shes pa). Much need not be said—that suffices.”16
In the ensuing exchange the next morning, he asked:
“Sir (lags), is there [anything] for accomplishing buddhahood apart from
the ordinary mind?”
[Karma pa] said: “No, there is nothing apart [from it].”
[Rgya ston] asked: “Is there a phenomenon (chos)17 or buddha not
contained (’dus pa) within ordinary mind?”
[Karma pa] said: “Not a single one. If there is, you bring [it] and I
will keep (nya ra) it!”18
15
In what follows, I give just a short excerpt. All four dialogues will be found
translated and studied in Rheingans forthcoming.
Byang chub bzang po, A khu a khrag, Rgyal ba kun gyi dbang po, fol. 28a: phyi nyin
rag yul zam kha na rgya ston nang so seng ge bas nged la chos shig gnang dgos zhus
pas / ’o na rnam rtog gyi ngo bo de chos sku yin pas rnam rtog dang ye shes khyad
med pa de tha mal gyi shes pa yin / mang po brjod mi dgos pas des chog gsungs.
17
Here, chos might also indicate the buddha-qualities (yon tan).
18
Ibid. fol. 28b: lags tha mal shes pa las logs su sangs rgyas sgrub rgyu e yod zhus pas
logs na med gsung / tha mal shes pa la ma ’dus pa’i chos sam sangs rgyas e yod shus
16
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Finally, regarding its cultivation, the Karma pa commented:
[Rgya ston] asked: “Does one need to cultivate (sgom) this ordinary mind
or not?”
[Karma pa] replied: “Beginners need to cultivate it. Then [later]
there is no need [to do so].”19
Also in the other early dialogues the underlying strand in the discussion
is the understanding of mind by comprehending conceptualisation as being, in
essence, dharmakāya. Though formally not even the name ‘Great Seal’ is
mentioned, this direct way of instruction seems to be in line with the path of
direct cognition favoured by Sgam po pa.20
In the Identification of the Blessing of the Great Seal (Phyag rgya chen
po’i byin rlabs kyi ngos ’dzin), a much later text preserved in the bslab bya
section of the Collected Works, the Karma pa emphasises the importance of
blessing (byin rlabs) for training in the practice of the Great Seal.21 How does
one receive the blessing and practise the path? Under the heading of the Great
Seal path (lam phyag chen), he first comments on the correct meditations of
pas gcig kyang med / yod na khyod kyi [read kyis] khyer la shog dang ngas nya ra bya
gsungs.
19
Ibid. fol. 28b: tha mal shes pa de sgom dgos sam mi dgos zhus pas / las dang po pas
sgom dgos gsungs de nas mi dgos gsungs.
20
For Sgam po pa’s Three Paths system see Sherpa 2000: 129–36. For Sgam po pa’s
Great Seal see Kragh 1999: 29–39 and Mathes 2006: 2.
21
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Phyag rgya chen po’i byin rlabs kyi ngos ’dzin,
fol. 2a. The first pages of the text are missing and the second part starts with a
prostration to Sangs rgyas mnyan pa (ibid. fol. 1b: Pha mnyan pa’i chen po’i zhabs la
’dud). In the colophon, the name Mi bskyod rdo rje is not mentioned. This title,
however, is mentioned in both title lists (Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Byang
phyogs ’di na karma pa, fol. 7b; Dkon mchog dbangs, Zhwa dmar V, Rgyal ba thams
cad, fol. 7a). It is thus likely that the eighth Karma pa composed this text.
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śamatha and vipaśyanā, elaborating the proper manner of practice and the
experiences arising from it. He suggests practising them in union (zung ’jug) as
taught in the sūtra way, but immediately goes on to explain:
As for meditation of the Great Seal, it is the path of the unsurpassable
yoga (rnal ’byor bla na med pa’i lam). Therefore, the special features of
the quick path (nye lam) of the Vajrayāna need to be practised in a
complete manner (tshang bar).22
Indeed, for the eighth Karma pa in this text, the Great Seal is both a
method and a goal realised through practice of the Buddhist tantras; the fact
that he comments on the general meditations of śamatha and vipaśyanā
beforehand implies their preliminary value to the actual tantric practice. Here,
the complete practice of Vajrayāna entails receiving the four empowerments
from an authentic teacher and practice of the two stages of tantric meditation,
which the Karma pa shortly describes with various examples. Thus the Great
Seal, the highest accomplishment (siddhi) is achieved. This should be known
from the esoteric precepts (man ngag) of an authentic teacher.23 Quoting
various masters, the Karma pa underlines how important it is to practise under
the guidance of a teacher and in accordance with one’s capacities while not
22
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Phyag rgya chen po’i byin rlabs kyi ngos ’dzin
fol. 3a: phyag rgya chen po’i sgom ni / rnal ’byor bla na med pa’i lam yin pas / rdo rje
theg pa’i nye lam gyi khyad chos rnams tshang bar nyams su len dgos pa yin /.
23
Ibid. fol. 4a (p. 740). The text goes on to quote various masters on the process of
tantric meditation, including Saraha, Nāgārjuna, and Asaṅga (fol. 4a–5b). Finally, the
Karma pa explains the result of the Great Seal, namely the state of a Vajradhara and
the three buddha-bodies (fol. 5b). In the last lines, the eighth Karma pa suggests that
Buddhist practice needs to be done according to the capacities of the individual (fol.
6b).
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forgetting the basic contemplations.24 We have to remember that the context
indicated by the title was the blessing of the Great Seal—this blessing being
connected to the Vajrayāna—and this is exactly the understanding of the Great
Seal he conveys.25 Unfortunately, not much is known about the historical
circumstances or the audience of this work.
In another short commentary, called Avoiding the Mistake of
Explaining Superficial Obscuration as the Ordinary Mind (Glo bur gyi dri ma
tha mal gyi shes par bshad pa’i nor ba spang ba), Mi bskyod rdo rje is
concerned with explaining the correct understanding and cultivation of the
ordinary mind. Here he uses more elaborate terminology than in the previous
dialogues.26 As indicated by the title, the work sets out to defend the Great Seal
and its key term tha mal gyi shes pa against misunderstandings and jealousy.
He consequently praises it as the quick path traveled by all the Indian siddhas
and explains the correct meaning of the ordinary mind using terminology from
both the pramāṇa and phar phyin treatises. Mi bskyod rdo rje then quotes Mi la
ras pa and advises the Great Seal practitioner to avoid the “three delaying
diversions” (gol sa gsum) related to experiences from śamatha, and the “four
occasions for straying” (shor sa bzhi) into a wrong understanding of śūnyatā.27
24
As seen in the introductory quote and from the rnam thar (see note 45 below), Mi
bskyod rdo rje strongly emphasised the graded path of the three kinds of individuals
(see also Rheingans 2008: 156–59).
25
Sgam po pa also labelled the mantra-paths to the Great Seal the “path of blessing”
(cf. Sherpa 2004: 129–37, 142–50).
26
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Glo bur gyi dri ma. This text contains many
interesting definitions and debates, which cannot fully be presented here. It was
requested by the scribe Bod pa rgya bo and was written by the Karma pa in Kong stod
’or shod. It is found in the dkar chag of Dkon mchog dbangs, Zhwa dmar V, Rgyal ba
thams cad, fol. 9a but not in the title list of the eighth Karma pa. It could therefore have
been composed after 1546.
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Glo bur gyi dri ma, fol. 3af. For the gol sa and
shor sa, see also Namgyal 1986: 293–313 and Jackson 1994: 181–85, who translates Sa
27
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He then uses the four-yoga system of the Great Seal, as taught by Atiśa,28 to
explain the graded path (lam rim) of spiritual development. He concludes his
work by saying:
The ordinary mind (tha mal gyi shes pa) explained above was taught by
the incomparable Sgam po pa in different answers, saying “One must
cultivate the essence.”29
3 The Answer to a Question by Gling drung pa
The Answer to a Question Asked by Gling drung pa La ’dor ba (Gling drung
pa la ’dor ba’i dris lan), the main focus of this paper, presents doctrinally and
historically interesting views and stories. To date, only one version of the text
is available: the one published in the Collected Works.30 It is not that easy to
understand the exact context of this work. One encounters difficulties even
paṇ’s criticism in the Thubs pa’i dgongs gsal, which maintains that precisely this
teaching is not from the Buddha. Mi bskyod rdo rje remarks here in the Glo bur gyi dri
ma that Sa paṇ’s critique in the Sdom gsum rab dbye (blun po’i phyag rgya che sgom
pa / phal cher dud ’gro’i gnas su skye) would apply to these delaying diversions (gol
sa) that are tantamount to the danger of getting stuck in śamatha.
28
Bkra shis rnam rgyal also mentions such a system of four yogas in the lhan cig skyes
sbyor as transmitted to Atiśa by Dgon pa ba (Namgyal 1986: 358).
29
Ibid. fol. 4a: mnyam med sgam po pas ngo bo sgom dgos zhes lan du mar gsungs pa
yang gong du bshad pa’i tha mal gyi shes pa de’o.
30
Unfortunately the original manuscript could not be consulted. As has been pointed
out above, the Collected Works contain some misspellings. The supplement to the
Collected Works talks about various sources used for their publication. From among
the seven sources that I have determined were used, the dris lan probably stems from
one of the following: two versions of manuscripts stored in ’Bras spungs (i.a),
manuscripts from the Po ta la (i.b), or the more obscure category of “whatever writings
and prints that were found in Dbus and Gtsang” (v.); (Karma bde legs, Dpe sgrigs gsal
bshad, p. 6: khams dbus kyi bris dpar ci rig rnyed pa rnams ). See chapter three of my
dissertation (Rheingans 2008: 57–72).
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when trying to identify the recipient, whose name appears on the title page as
Gling drung pa La ’dor ba. Whereas the name mentioned in the first lines of
the text reads Gling A mdong Drung pa (fol. 1b), the entry listed in the dkar
chag of the fifth Zhwa dmar reads “Answers to questions of Gling drung A
mdong pa” (Gling drung pa a mdong pa’i dris lan).31
Given the fact that the editors of the modern Collected Works were
imprecise at other times, I suggest that the title in the much older dkar chag is
more reliable, the name being Gling drung A mdong pa. This is further
supported by the first line of the text itself, which is a variation rather than a
misspelling.32
Gling or Gling tshang, the place of the questioner designated by the
name, is the name of an eastern Tibetan kingdom.33 In the rnam thar sources
about the eighth Karma pa, two slightly contradictory references indicate that
the Karma pa travelled there and passed on teachings to members of the Gling
noble family in the year 1519. With regard to major events of the eighth Karma
31
32
Dkon mchog dbangs, Zhwa dmar V, Rgyal ba thams cad, fol. 5b.
The elements of the name are three: (i) place, (ii) title, and (iii) further specification,
probably of place of origin. Looking at the first reading, we find Gling as the place,
Drung as a title, and “One of La ’dor” (la ’dor ba’i) as a further specification. The
third version has as specification “One of A mdong” and thus deviates slightly. The
second version merely applies the title, Drung, to the third element of the name and has
as the second element again “One of A mdong” (A mdong pa). Therefore, the actual
variation is between A mdong ba and La ’dor ba, which are probably two scribal
attempts at writing what was originally a single name (the characters a and la as well as
nga and ra being easily mistaken in cursive script, while the prefix ’ and m are
interchangeable). I follow the dkar chag of the fifth Zhwa dmar pa for the time being.
However, it may be noted that the term la dor ba (according to Zhang Yisun old for
thag gcod pa) seems to be a rare phrase indicating meditative accomplishement in Sa
skya pa lam ’bras-doctrine (Davidson 2004: 297n16).
33
Geographically, it is an older name of what would later become the kingdom of Sde
dge and is still the name of the nomadic areas north of Sde dge. Between 1400 and
1637 the Gling tshang ruled over large areas in eastern Tibet (Kessler 1983: 17).
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pa’s life, this was the last of three years he trained under his revered main
teacher, Sangs rgyas mnyan pa Bkra shis dpal ’byor, and, probably together
with this master, traveled around in eastern Tibet.
The Mkhas pa’i dga’ ston states that he had a vision of Nāgārjuna and
was then “invited by Gling drung pa Ting ’od pa,34 uncle and nephew, and
went to Zil mdar.”35 There he was offered presents, and it is further said that he
gave “prophecies and letters” (lung bstan dang chab shog) to a Lcags mo Kun
ting Go shri as well as “prophecies and instructions” (lung bstan dang gdams
pa) to a Gling drung pa.
A later source, Si tu and ’Be lo’s Kaṃ tshang, recounts the events in a
different manner. It says—at a similar place within the narrative—that the
eighth Karma pa was invited by the Gling tshang ruling family. He then had a
vision of Nāgārjuna in Tsi nang and spent a month in Ba zi mdo.36 Then he
went to the Mgo zi hermitage and imparted many “prophecies” (lung bstan) to
a Gling drung pa Ting ‘dzin bzang po.37
Though in general the Mkhas pa’i dga’ ston is the older and more
detailed source, I assume that Si tu’s statements about geography are more
34
Probably short for Ting [’dzin] ’od [zer] pa.
Mkhas pa’i dga’ ston, p. 1233: gling drung pa ting ’od pa khu dbon gyi spyan drangs
/ zil mdar phebs/ khri rwa can gyi ’bul ba dang dbon gyi thog drangs pa’i gra pa yang
brgya lhag phul / der [p. 1234] lcags mo kun ting go’i sri ’od zer rgyal mtshan pa la
’das ma ’ongs kyi lung bstan chab shog gnang / gling drung pa la lung bstan dang
gdams pa gnang / tsher phur drung pa grub thob pa la dus ’khor ’grel chen gsan pa na
dus kyi ’khor lo dang rje mi la gzigs pa rje grub thob pa la thim par gzigs nas bstod par
mdzad /.
36
This is probably Si tu’s version of the Zil mdar in the Mkhas pa’i dga’ ston.
37
Si tu and ’Be lo, Kaṃ tshang, p. 316: gling tshang gyi gdan drangs / tsi nang du
’phags pa klu grub zhal gzigs / ba zis mdor zla gcig bzhugs / mgo zi ri khrod du phebs
gling drung pa ting ’dzin bzang por lung bstan mang po mdzad.
35
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accurate.38 At least later, Mgo zi (or Guzi) in northwest Sde dge was the site of
a Ngor pa monastery.39 The monastery in Zil mdar or Mgo zi was most likely
the Bkra shis rnam rgyal monastery of the Gling drung pa, mentioned once in a
rang rnam as among the monasteries in which the Karma pa erected buildings.40
The question remains as to whether the two Gling drung pas mentioned in the
two sources, namely Gling drung pa Ting ’dzin bzang po and Gling drung pa
Ting ’dzin ’od zer, are two different persons or whether this is a name
variation. Furthermore, which one can be identified with the Gling drung pa
mentioned a second time in the Mkhas pa’i dga’ ston? Most importantly, who
was Gling drung A mdong pa, the addressee of this text?
While the title of this work is mentioned in the dkar chag of the fifth
Zhwa dmar pa, it is not included in the list of the eighth Karma pa, dated
1546.41 The presence of the title in the list of the fifth Zhwa dmar pa proves
that a text with such a title existed. The colophon of the dris lan itself bears no
date, but indicates that it was probably a written teaching or a letter composed
by the Karma pa and sent to the student (as opposed to notes the student made
in a teaching situation):
38
Looking at the differences in the two sources examined above, it has to be taken into
account that (a) Si tu and ’Be lo may have had access to two early sources, which are
now lost (see note on rnam thar above), and (b) Si tu was from Sde dge and was well
acquainted with this region and its history.
39
The Si tu Sprul sku prior to Si tu Paṇ chen had been born into the family of the Ngor
pa patrons (written communication, Prof. D. Jackson, June 2007). For the Ngor pa, see
also D. Jackson 1989b.
40
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Byang phyogs ’di na karma pa, fol. 10b: gling
drung pa bkra shis rnam rgyal gyi sde.
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Byang phyogs ’di na karma pa, fols. 4a–9b.
41
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[H]e, who only sees a fraction of the Great Seal of Bka’ brgyud Dwags po
Lha rje, Karma pa Mi bsykod rdo rje, sent this to Mdo khams. By virtue of
that may all beings become liberated by means of the Great Seal!42
The traditional deferential, “who only sees a fraction of the Great
Seal,” points to the eighth Karma pa as the author. It also shows that the Karma
pa probably wrote the reply somewhere in Central Tibet and sent it to Mdo
khams. One possibility is that the answer was written after 1546 and therefore
did not find entry into the Karma pa´s title list. Only after the eighth Karma
pa´s passing were all documents related to the teaching of the revered masters
assembled by the fifth Zhwa dmar pa and compiled into a collection.43
We know that the Karma pa first visited Gling drung around 1519, yet
the answer was probably written after he travelled to Central Tibet, maybe as
late as the 1540s. Presuming that there was no thirty-year gap between question
and answer, I assume that the recipient of this text, Gling drung A mdong pa,
came from the milieu of the other Gling drung pa mentioned in the rnam thar,
and is most likely a relative or nephew of those persons mentioned in the
sources. Perhaps by that time the Gling tshang lords were already devoted to
the Ngor pa.44
Neither of the Gling drung pas is mentioned among the lists of students
found in the rnam thars about Mi bskyod rdo rje. It is thus probable that he did
42
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Gling drung pa la ’dor ba’i dris lan, fol. 3b: bka’
brgyud dwags po lha rje ba’i phyag chen gyi phyogs mthong tsam zhig karma pa mi
bskyod rdo rjes mdo khams su brdzangs pa’i dge bas ’gro kun phyag chen gyis grol bar
gyur cig.
43
Another option would be that the text was authored earlier but only inserted into the
collection at a later point by the fifth Zhwa dmar pa.
44
A further indication of Mi bskyod rdo rje’s relation to the Gling tshang lords is the
letter Rgyal chen gling pa ma bu la gnang ba’i chab shog (not containing the name
Gling drung pa). The assumption about the Ngor pa is based on the question asked and
our knowledge of later developments.
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359
not figure among the closest Bka’ brgyud pa students of the eighth Karma pa,
but, as his question will reveal, he had received Sa skya pa and Ngor pa
teachings, and also considered the Karma pa as his teacher, or at least as a
competent scholar. The various rnam thar sources relate that Mi bskyod rdo rje
emphasised the graded path of the “three kinds of individuals” (skyes bu gsum
gyi lam rim) with the aid of Atiśa’s Bodhipathapradīpa.45 It was only from his
twenty-seventh year onwards that he taught the graded tantra path (gsang
sngags lam gyi rim pa) to a restricted number of individuals.46 If we consider
the content of the dris lan as at least in part belonging to this category, we can
assume a teacher-student relationship between Gling drung pa and the eighth
Karma pa.47
Before further speculating on the circumstances of this work, let us
briefly examine its contents. The question directly addresses a key issue in an
old doctrinal debate about the Great Seal:
45
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Pha mi bskyod rdo rje’i rnam thar rje nyid kyis
rnam thos kyi ri bor mdzad pa, fol. 6a. We know from this rang rnam that this was the
command of his root teacher Sangs rgyas mnyan pa. The teaching on the three kinds of
individuals is also part of the topical outline of Sangs rgyas dpal sgrub, Rgyal ba spyan
ras gzigs dbang brgyad pa’i rnam thar, fol. 35aff. Dpa’ bo Rin po che tells us that his
master, when expounding the great treatises of sūtra and mantra, mainly used the
graded path of the Bka’ gdams pa as a means for turning the students’ minds towards
the dharma. To worthy students he taught the extraordinary Vajrayāna instructions,
stages, and visualisations (Mkhas pa’i dga’ ston, p. 1309f.)
46
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Pha mi bskyod rdo rje’i rnam thar rje nyid kyis
rnam thos kyi ri bor mdzad pa, fol. 6a.
The dris lan contains tantric teachings but is mainly about the Great Seal of Sgam po
47
pa. The Great Seal was, as noted above, taught also at an early stage in the Karma pa’s
life and is not considered a tantric exposition. But we may still assume that it was
taught only to worthy students. The question, tone, and content of the dris lan further
support the idea that Gling drung pa was a student of the Karma pa, though—as will be
discussed below—a precise determination of their relationship and of the political
circumstances may substantially contribute to an understanding of the contents.
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I will respond to what Gling A mdong Drung pa from Khams has asked:
“Are the two, the meaning of the fourth empowerment of the
unsurpassable48 mantra as held by the glorious Sa skya pas and the
meaning of the Great Seal as taught by Bka’ brgyud Dwags po Lha
rje, the same or different? Is there a difference between them as to
higher and lower?”49
In his answer,50 the Karma pa first explains the meaning of the fourth
empowerment according to what he had heard from “some lamas” of the Ngor
branch of Sa skya, probably alluding to the questioner’s background. They
would maintain that one blocks out conceptual objects, concentrating on the
self-empty essence of the feeling of joy resulting from the third empowerment.
But he admits that he is not completely sure about their definition.51
The Karma pa then goes on to draw a more general distinction, namely
that, in general (spyir), there are two kinds of empowerment in the *niruttara-
yoga-tantra: “mundane” (’jig rten pa) and “supramundane” (’jig rten las ’das
pa). The Kālacakra would be the only tantra belonging to the supramundane
category:
Because in the father tantras, such as the cycles of Guhyasamāja and
Yamāntaka, and in all the mother tantras, such as Cakrasaṃvara and
48
“Unsurpassable” (bla med) refers to the unsurpassable yoga-tantra, the *niruttara-
yoga-tantra.
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Gling drung pa la ’dor ba’i dris lan, fol. 1b: ’dir
khams nas gling a ’dong [sic!, emended to mdong in the translation] drung pas / dpal sa
skya pas ’dod pa’i sngags bla med kyi dbang bzhi pa’i don dang / bka’ brgyud dwags
po lha rje pa’i bzhed pa’i phyag rgya chen po’i don gnyis gcig gam mi gcig / de la
mchog dman yod med ji ltar yin zhes drir byung ba la / lan brjod par bya ste.
49
50
51
Ibid. fol. 1b.
Ibid. fol. 1b.
The Eighth Karma pa's Answer
361
Hevajra, nothing [else] is taught than the four empowerments of the world,
therefore the Vajradhara who will be accomplished through the creationand completion-stages of these [tantras] is a surpassable (bla bcas pa)
Vajradhara.52
The Karma pa explains53 that the karma- and jñāna-mudrā of the third
empowerment used for achieving the fourth empowerment are those for
52
Ibid. fol. 1b: gsang ’dus ’jigs byed gshed skor sogs pha rgyud / bde dgyes sogs ma
rgyud thams cad nas [fol. 2a] /’jigs rten pa’i dbang bzhi las ma bstan pas / de dag gi
bskyed rdzogs kyi lam gyis sgrubs pa’i rdo rje ’chang yang bla bcas pa’i rdo rje ’chang
yin pa’i phyir te.
53
The Kālacakra is often viewed as the pinnacle of tantra in various traditions (and it
claims so itself; see for example Wallace 2000: 6, who quotes Kālacakratantra, V. 243:
“In every king of tantras, the Vajrī concealed the vajra-word, and in the Ādibuddha, he
taught it explicitly and in full for the sake of the liberation of living beings. Therefore,
Sucandra, the splendid Ādibuddhatantra, a discourse of the supreme lord of Jinas, is the
higher, more comprehensive and complete tantra than the mundane and supramundane
[tantras].”). To determine the precise meaning of the teachings in this passage of the
Karma pa’s dris lan, more specific research is needed, which would exceed the scope
of the present paper. The passage is nevertheless paraphrased roughly so as to give an
impression of the Karma pa’s view in his answer that seems to be in line with some of
his other works (see also Rheingans 2008: 225–31). As a first indication for future
research, similar teachings can be found in the bulky Pointing out the Three Kāyas
(Sku gsum ngo sprod), which the eighth Karma pa began to compose in Mtshur phu in
1548 and completed in the same year in Thob rgyal dgra ’dul gling in Gtsang. Here the
term “surpassable buddha” (bla bcas kyi sangs rgyas) is used to indicate the result of
practising tantras not belonging to the *niruttara class (vol. 21, fol. 236b). The Karma
pa also explains that there are mundane and supramundane empowerments within the
Kālacakra system, leading to different results, again using the same term (vol. 21, fol.
345a). Mi bskyod rdo rje uses a similar line of argument about the mundane and
supramnudane empowerments, quoting Saraha on how the view and realisation (lta ba
dang rtogs pa) of the Great Seal, which is the buddhagarbha, the naturally pure dhātu,
would be beyond those objects known by mundane ultimate awareness (’jig rten pa’i ye
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obtaining the worldly siddhis. What is reached with these mundane
empowerments is also called “inferior Vajrasattva” (rdor sems nyi tshe ba).
Only with the supramundane empowerments from the Kālacakra will one attain
the ultimate goal: the “pervading Vajrasattva” (khyab pa’i rdor sems). In this
system the third empowerment—which brings forth the ultimate wisdom of the
Great Seal, the fourth empowerment—is not mixed with the worldly siddhis.
Through this Great Seal of the extraordinary primordial buddha (dang po’i
sangs rgyas, Skt. ādibuddha),54 the Great Seal itself (phyag rgya chen po nyid)
is brought to accomplishment. He sums up his discussion of the first part of his
answer:
Therefore, concerning the supramundane fourth empowerment which
comes from the Kālacakra and the fourth empowerment which comes from
[tantras] such as Cakrasaṃvara and Guhyasamāja, there is higher (the
former) and lower (the latter); what the authorities on tantra mention (smra
bar byed pa) when speaking thus is that there exists a continuum [of the
tantras] with respect to objects of knowledge in general.55
shes) (cf. Dpal ldan dwags po bka’ brgyud kyi gsung, fol. 45aff.). At the end of his
own ritual for Kālacakra practice, the eighth Karma pa also praises the Kālacakra as the
“ultimate vehicle” (mthar thug gyi theg pa, Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Bcom
ldan ’das dpal dus kyi ’khor lo, fol. 117b). It will also be necessary to evaluate Mi
bskyod rdo rje’s commentary on Kālacakra, Bcom ldan ’das dang po’i sangs rgyas, and
tantric works of the Third Karma pa, Rang byung rdo rje (see also Schaeffer 1995) as
well as Bu ston.
54
Ibid. fol. 2a.
Ibid. fol 2b: des na dus kyi ’khor lo nas ’byung ba’i ’jig rten las ’das pa’i dbang bzhi
pa dang / bde gsang sogs nas ’byung ba’i dbang bzhi pa la mchog dman yod ces rgyud
sde mkhan po rnams smra bar byed pa ni shes bya spyi pa la rgyud yod pa’i de yin.
55
The last passage is slightly ambiguous. The interpretation found in the text above
assumes that just as there are tantras higher with respect to objects of knowledge in
general but still part of the same continuum, there is a disctinction of the tantras as
‘higher’ and ‘lower’ but still part of the same continuum. Alternatively, one may read:
The Eighth Karma pa's Answer
363
Thus, the Karma pa has set out to answer the question by first
specifying how he understands the fourth empowerment, emphasising the
superiority of the Kālacakra. But he has not yet touched upon the main concern
of the questioner, the Great Seal of the Bka’ brgyud pa. In the following
passage, he presents in similar terms the impossibility of discussing the
teachings of Sgam po pa:
The Great Seal of the Bka’ ’brgyud Dwags po Lha rje cannot be
harmonised with the question as either the same as or different from the
supramundane and mundane fourth empowerment from the tantra
scriptures.
The ’Bri khung pa ’Jig rten gsum gyi mgon po has said: “Beyond
the four joys, something different from the clear light (’od gsal), untouched
by the three great ones.”56 The Great Brahmin (Saraha) too has said:57
“… when saying [this] is that which exists for the tantras as conceptual objects of
[verbally expressed] knowledge.” In any case, the statement implies that the Karma pa
and other scholars accept this distinction of the tantras into higher and lower.
56
The three great ones are mentioned in section VI (about view, meditation, and
action), statement 8 of ’Jig rten mgon po’s Dgongs gcig: “realisation that is untouched
by the three great ones“ (Rig ’dzin Chos kyi grags pa, Dam pa’i chos dgongs pa gcig
pa’i dka’ ’grel, p. 444: chen po gsum gyi ma reg pa’i rtogs pa). In his two dgongs gcigcommentaries, Rig ’dzin Chos kyi grags pa (1595–1659) refers here to dbu ma chen po,
phyag rgya chen po, and rdzogs pa chen po (ibid. 444-445 and Rig ’dzin Chos kyi
grags pa, Dam pa’i chos dgongs pa gcig pa’i rnam bshad, p. 276f.; ). See also Ruegg
(1988: 1259 [11]n43), who mentions Dbon po Shes rab ’byung gnas, Dam chos dgongs
pa gcig pa’i gzhung, fol. 5a. Karma pa Mi bskyod rdo rje quotes the same saying by
the ’Bri gung pa in his Dwags (fol. 6b). The chen po gsum can at other times be related
to the three mudrās, i.e. karma-, dharma-, and samayamudrā as opposed to the
mahāmudrā (cf. Rgya gzhung, vol. oṃ, p. 571). See also one of Mi bskyod rdo rje’s
own definitions of chen po within the phyag rgya chen po: Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma
pa VIII, Phyag rgya chen po’i bshad pa rtogs brjod utpal gyi phreng ba, fol. 14a: chen
po ni / las chos / dam tshig las ’das pa: “‘Great’ [means]: beyond karma-, dharma- and
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“The innate natural (gnyug ma lhan cig skyes pa) Great Seal, the meaning
of the dohā, cannot be realised through the fourth empowerment.” And in
the Dmangs dohā [he has said:]
Some have entered the explanation of the sense of the fourth
[empowerment], some understand [it] as the element of space (nam
mkha’i khams),58 others make it a theory of emptiness;59 hence
mostly [people] have entered what is incompatible60 [with it].61
samaya-[mudrā].” That, however, does not indicate them as being beyond the fourth
empowerment, which is then pointed to by the following quotation of Saraha.
57
The whole complex in the dohā is a refutation first of non-Buddhists (1–9), then
Hinayāna (10), Mahāyāna (11) and Mantrayāna (11ff.). See Schaeffer 2000: 303–7
(critical edition lines 1–46).
58
59
Nam mkha’i = āāsa or gaaṇa; khams = bhūa (cf. Tilopa 1, 1a in R. Jackson 2004).
Note the textual variants given by Schaeffer 2000 esp. app. crit. on 48: AA
(=Advaya Avadhūti, Do ha mdzod kyi snying po’i don gyi glu’i ’grel pa): gzhan dang
stong pa nyid lta bar byed pa de; L (Do ha mdzod prepared by Lha btsun pa Rin chen
rgyal mtshan): lta bar byed pa ste.
60
Mi mthun phyogs. This part of the verse is only available in Tibetan. The translation
“contradiction,” favoured by both Schaeffer (2000: 277) and R. Jackson (2004: 12),
could be also understood differently (cf. Shahidullah 1928: 129 ad stanza 11). Because
mi thun phyogs = Old Bengali/Maithili bipakha (cf. Cāryagīṭī 16 [Mahitta], 4d Kværne
1977: 142: re bipakha kobī na dekhi); Munidatta ad loc. punaḥ kleśaṃ vipakṣi-karinaṃ
na paśyati (Kværne 1977: 144 Tib.: mi mthun phyogs byed pa mi mthong ba’o). This
suggests a meaning such as ‘obstacle’; I have translated as “not compatible with it.”
Still vipakṣa could also have the Indian logical meaning of counter-example or counter-
argument: “By maintaining this (emptiness) they provide a counter-argument for the
non-conceptual state of awareness.” Interpreting it as “contradiction,” Shahidullah
(1928) has “propositions contradictoires” and “the contrary” (cf. Udayana [11th
Century CE], Ātmatattvaviveka, Laine 1998: 74). For sapakṣa/vipakṣa as Indian
Buddhist logical terms see Ram-Prasad 2002: 345-46: “homologue”; Ganeri 2003: 38:
“heterologue”; Barnhardt 2001: 557: “example and counter-example/counter-positive
The Eighth Karma pa's Answer
365
Mi bskyod rdo rje avoids classifying Sgam po pa’s Great Seal as tantra
or not. He interprets Saraha’s term “the fourth” (bzhi pa) as the fourth
empowerment, suiting his purpose of proving the fourth empowerment as not
necessarily in accordance with the Great Seal.62 Then, he finally imparts what
he considers the key point of the Great Seal, again putting it forward as that of
Sgam po pa:
In that case, concerning the Great Seal upheld by the Bka’ brgyud Dwags
po Lha rje: In the great timeless (ye) freedom from the impurities of
experiences, realisations, views, and philosophical systems of the four
mundane and supramundane empowerments and so forth, one settles in the
unfabricated oṃ sva re63 while it [the Great Seal] appears spontaneously as
the primordial buddha, the timeless presence itself!64
example”; see Staal 1962 as reviewed by Ram-Prasad 2002: 346: “logical equivalence
through contraposition”; Shaw 2002: 216: pakṣa = “locus of inference.” I would like
to thank Burkhard Scherer for helpful suggestions and related references.
61
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Gling drung pa la ’dor ba’i dris lan, fol. 2b: bka’
brgyud dwags po lha rje ba’i phyag rgya chen po ni rgyud sde las ’byung ba’i ’jig rten
dang ’jig rten las ’das pa’i dbang bzhi pa dang gcig mi gcig bstun tu yod pa min te /
’jig rten gsum gyi mgon po ’bris khung pas / dga’ ba bzhi las ’das pa / ’od gsal las
khyad par du gyur pa / chen po gsum gyis ma reg pa zhes gsungs pa ste / bram ze chen
po sa ra has kyang gnyug ma lhan cig skes pa phyag rgya chen po do ha’i don ni dbang
bzhis pas rtogs par mi nus zhes dmangs do har /la la bzhi pa’i don ’chad pa la zhug /
la la nam mhka’i khams la rtogs par byed/ gzhan dag stong nyid lta bar byed pa ste /
phal cher mi mthun phyogs la zhugs pa yin/ zhes ’byung ba’i phyir /.
62
In this interpretation he follows the 13th century Tibetan writer Bcom ldan ral gri,
alias Rig pa’i ral gri; see Schaeffer 2000: 276.
63
According to Mkhan po Nges don (oral communication August 2007), it is
occasionally used as a colloquialism by lamas even today, meaning: “Leave it as it is/it
is just that.” A second obvious way is to treat is as a Sanskrit expression, reading svare
as locative of svara (“sound”): “in the unfabricated sound oṃ” It is quite likely that the
Karma pa would have been able to form words in Sanskrit, as he had studied Sanskrit
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The strong term “impurities” (dri ma) denotes the meditation or insight
achieved through empowerments, and is juxtaposed with the simple, effortless
resting in the mind’s true nature—a classic example of the rhetoric of
immediacy. In this case, the Karma pa sets the Great Seal of the Bka’ brgyud
apart from the tantric empowerments and their practices. He emphasises the
point with strong anti-ritualistic argumentation:65
in the traditional Tibetan way (e.g. the Kalāpasūtra) with Zhwa lu Lo tsā ba Rin chen
bkra shis (b. 15th century) and made his notes into a commentary (Mkhas pa’i dga’
ston, p. 1243, Kaṃ tshang, p. 337; see also Rheingans 2008: 135). However, for two
reasons this is not the only possibility. (i) This strand of the Great Seal is supposed to
go back to Saraha and one should thus look at his material for an Indian reference to
oṁ as a synonym for the innate. The “unfabricated sound oṃ” may then be an allusion
to Saraha’s Dohākoṣa 90: “I know just a single syllable, but, friend, I don't know its
name” or 90a: “three unconditioned, one syllable (yi ge gcig)” (R. Jackson 2004: 104;
Tib. Schaeffer 2000: 438: for the first mentionting of yi ge gcig with variant ye shes
cig). The Tibetan commentators Bcom ldan Rig pa’i ral khri interprets yi ge gcig as the
“letter of ultimate concern” (trans. Schaeffer 2000: 333) and to 90a he comments “the
singular letter is the innate” (Schaeffer 2000: 391). Rig pa’i ral gri does not mention
any specific syllable in his commentary. R. Jackson (ibid.) assumes the single syllable
to be the “unstruck sound“ (Skt. anāhata) or the famed syllable a. And one indeed
wonders, why the Karma pa does not interpret it similarly if this is a Sanskrit
expression alluding to the innate. Surely, further research has to be done in the area of
Tibetan dohā-transmissions. (ii) In mantric endings, svare is often a prakritic
generalised vocative and not a locative. In Vedic mantras that have a relation to tantra,
svare may also be the dative-form of Skt. svar (= svarga).
64
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Gling drung pa la ’dor ba’i dris lan, fol. 2b: / ’o
na bka’ brgyud dwags po lha rje ba’i bzhed pa’i phyag rgya chen po ni / ’jig rten dang
’jig rten las ’das pa’i dbang bzhi sogs kyi nyams rtogs lta grub kyi dri ma dang ye bral
chen por gdod nas [fol. 3a] / ye bzhugs nyid ye sangs rgyas su lhun gyis grub par ’char
ba la ma bcos oṃ sva re ’jog pa las /.
65
Mathes (2006) has concluded that the Indian material by and on Saraha takes a
sceptical stand towards “traditional forms of Buddhism including Tantra.” See also
Schaeffer 2000: 7 and R. Jackson 2004: 19–20.
The Eighth Karma pa's Answer
367
Apart from that [settling the mind as stated above], there is [no way] that
one will realise the accomplishment of the Great Seal through tiresome
[activities] such as going to ask for empowerment, ringing the bell, reciting
[mantra] while meditating on a buddha aspect, and collecting tamariskwood and making fire offerings; or carrying out an [extensive] meditation
ritual after having collected offering [substances].66
The Karma pa had, however, not yet explicitly answered whether the
fourth empowerment of the Sa skya pas or the Great Seal could be considered
superior. This question is answered by recounting a story from the period of
the twelfth-century masters, a story that also brings the text to an end.
When formerly the glorious Phag mo gru pa went into the presence of the
Sa skya pa Kun [dga’] snying [po], [Phag mo gru pa] acted as local tutor
(gnas slob)67 for Khams pa Sbas mchod and [Phag mo gru pa] attended the
66
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Gling drung pa la ’dor ba’i dris lan, fol. 3a: de la
dbang bskur zhur ’gro ba dang / dril bu ’khrol ba dang / lha bsgoms nas blas pa dang /
yam shing bsags nas sbyin bsreg bya ba sogs dang / ’bul sdud byas nas sgrub mchod
’dzugs pa sogs kyi ngal bas phyag rgya chen po’i dngos grub sgrub pa ma lags /.
67
Zhang Yisun, Bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo: gnas kyi slob dpon = “local teacher”
(also gnas sbyin pa’i slob dpon = “teacher that gives lodging”) – ’dul ba las bshad pa’i
slob dpon lnga’i nang gses / gnas ’cha’ ba’i slob ma la dgag sgrub gnang gsum gyi
bslab bya slob par byed pa’i dge slong. This is one of the five teachers for monks as
mentioned in the Vinaya. Mi bskyod rdo rje himself, in his Vinaya commentary,
considers gnas kyi slob dpon = gnas kyi bla ma one of the five teachers explained in
the Vinaya, his role being to assist the monk in the three trainings and see to his pure
and stable conduct (’Dul ba mdo rtsa rgya cher ’grel, fol. 133b) and to be the one who
directly engages with the student in the dharma (ibid. fol. 191b). The question is (see
the following note, below), whether we are dealing in the formal sense of the word
with a teacher of the newcomer monk or instead with a senior teacher introducing a
visiting monk to a monastery. TSD: gnas byin pa – niśrayadāyakaḥ, from
Mahāvyutpattiḥ, 8731 (also niśrayadāpikaḥ, niśrayadāpakaḥ) “he that gives lodging.”
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Bla ma [Sbas mchod] as not different from [Sa chen] Kun [dga’] snying
[po].68
Later, Phag mo gru pa went into the presence of the Master (rje)
Sgam po pa. He completely let go of the experience of the Great Seal of
the fourth empowerment [which he had received] from the Sa skya pa and
actualised the Great Seal of Dwags po Lha rje and his Bka’ brgyud, the
ordinary mind (tha mal gyi shes pa).
At that time, Sa chen passed away and Khams pa Sbas mchod went
to Khams. The talk of the Sugata Phag gru being fully awakened (sangs
rgyas pa) came up in Khams, and Sbas mchod [went] to Sugata Phag gru
and requested the instructions of the Great Seal, saying:
sngon nas sa skya pa kun snying gi drung du dpal phag mo gru pa byon dus khams
pa spas mchod la gnas kyi slob dpon mdzad / sa skya pa dang khyad med du bla mar
bsten. From the context I would read: “[Sa chen] made Spas mchod the gnas slob [for
68
Phag mo gru pa].” The passage requires some discussion, because the grammar and the
context suggest contradictory readings. Grammatically, it would be most likely that
Phag gru (being in the phrase before, marked with the absolutive as the subject of the
intransitive verb byon), acted as gnas slob for Sbas mchod, who is marked by the la
don. Alternatively, but less likely, Sa chen could have been acting as gnas slob for Sbas
mchod. From the next clause (sa skya pa dang khyad med du bla mar bsten), and
bearing in mind the context of the story (see also the further works by Phag mo gru pa
discussed below), however, it is clear that it was Sbas mchod whom Phag gru attended
as not different from the Sa skya pa. (The gnas slob is normally the monk who
introduces the newcomer to the monastery; see note above and e-mail communication,
D. Jackson 2007). It seems thus that Khams pa Sbas mchod acted as Phag mo gru pa’s
gnas slob; it means he acted as his personal preceptor, the senior monk who takes
responsibility for a junior monk. This is grammatically elliptical (possible with adding
a du = slob dpon du, thinking of the la for Sbas mchod as indicating the object = “[Sa
chen] made Spas mchod the gnas slob [for Phag mo gru pa]” or “[Phag mo gru pa]
made Sbas mchod [his] gnas slob”). As Phag mo gru pa had finished his Vinaya
education by that time (1134; cf. Schiller 2002: 62), there is the possibility of a later
addition to the story (see the following discussion in the main text).
The Eighth Karma pa's Answer
369
“[You] must grant me the instruction that [made] you a buddha, the
Great Seal.”
In answer [to that it says] in the Giving of the Innate Union of the
Great Seal (Phyag chen lhan cig skyes sbyor gnang ba), which is to be
found in the bka’ ’bum of Sugata Phag gru:
“As far as I am concerned, my trust in you and the great Sa skya pa
is the same. Therefore it would not be right if I taught you the Great
Seal; nevertheless, since I cannot bear it if someone like you to falls
into a mistaken path, I must by all means offer69 [you] the Great
Seal—so please excuse me!”
[Phag gru] said [this], and in fact he even did something like
confessing70 [a misdeed].71
69
The polite ’bul is used, which indicates the respect towards Sbas mchod (“offer [you]
the Great Seal [teaching]”); the Tibetan double negation could also be expressed as “I
cannot refuse to.”
Mthol bshags. Literally “to admit [mistakes]”; cf. Zhang Yisun, Bod rgya tshig
mdzod chen mo: mthol bshags – rang gi nyes pa mi gsang bar shod pa / “to declare
70
one’s faults without concealing.”
71
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Gling drung pa la ’dor ba’i dris lan, fol. 3a (p.
315): sngon nas sa skya pa kun snying gi drung du dpal phag mo gru pa byon dus
khams pa spas mchod la gnas kyi slob dpon mdzad / sa skya pa dang khyad med du bla
mar bsten / phyis phag mo gru pa rje sgam po pa’i sku mdun du phyin sngar sa skya
pa’i dbang bzhi pa’i phyag rgya chen po’i nyams de drungs nas ’byin par mdzad / bka’
brgyud dwags po lha rje ba’i phyag chen tha mal gyi shes pa de mngon du mdzad / de
skabs sa chen gshegs / khams pa spas mchod khams su phyin / bder gshegs phag gru
sangs rgyas pa’i skad khams su byung nas spas mchod kyis bder gshegs phag gru’i sku
mdun du khyed sangs rgyas pa’i gdams ngag phyag rgya chen po de la [read: nga or:
de nga la] gnang dgos zer nas phyag chen gyi gdams pa zhus pas / de’i lan du phyag
chen lhan cig skyes sbyor gnang ba bder gshegs phag gru pa’i bka’ ’bum na yod pa de
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Thus, through a story that appears to be somewhat sectarian, the Karma
pa gave his opinion about the main question. Part of this story may reflect the
Karma pa’s attitude toward Gling drung pa. Though we find comparatively
strong language in the statement that the path Khams pa Sbas mchod has
previously practised is a “mistaken path” (lam log pa), this is softened by a
polite strand in the opening, as Phag mo gru pa evidently felt uncomfortable to
teach his former tutor, apologising in the end.72
Upon reading this passage, I am struck by some historical questions.
The story of Sgam po pa’s precepts being more profound to Phag mo gru pa
than anything he had practised before is a well known rhetorical feature of the
Bka’ brgyud pa rnam thar and played a role in the polemical exchange about
the Great Seal.73 But who was Khams pa Sbas mchod? Can the Karma pa’s
alleged source for this story, a text by Phag mo gru pa, be located?
During his stay in Sa skya, Phag mo gru pa Rdo rje rgyal po (1110–
70), later one of the foremost students of Sgam po pa and the source of the
eight minor Bka’ brgyud traditions, also obtained the lam ’bras instructions
from Sa chen Kun dga’ snying po (1092–1158).74 According to some sources,
Phag mo gru pa was one of Sa chen’s closest and most learned students, and
nang na / khyed dang sa skya pa chen po la nga ni dad pa mnyam por yod pas / ngas
khyed la phyag rgya chen po bstan mi rigs [fol. 3b] kyang khyed lta bu lam log par
ltung na mi btub pas phyag chen mi ’bul ka med byung ba yin pas bzod par gsol zhes
don gyis mthol bshags lta bu’ang mdzad gda’ pas /.
72
One may speculate, too, as to whether the Karma pa felt a certain unease upon
writing his reply and therefore ended it with this story and the comment that even Phag
mo gru pa admitted a harmful action.
73
74
Cf. Broido 1987 and D. Jackson 1990.
Stearns (2001) has done excellent research on the early masters of the lam ’bras
tradition, including a section on Phag mo gru pa’s lam ’bras teaching. Schiller (2002)
has worked extensively on the life of Phag mo gru pa. The lam ’bras instructions and
practice are central to the Sa skya tradition, and Sa chen Kun dga’ snying po (10921158) authored eleven explanations of it (Stearns 2001: 16–26).
The Eighth Karma pa's Answer
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had played a major role in the earliest compilation of the lam ’bras.75 The Sa
skya pa sources tell us that he had spent approximately twelve years in Sa skya
(probably 1138–50).76
The figure of Khams pa Sbas mchod surfaces in the Bka’ brgyud pa
rnam thar sources: it seems that Phag gru met a Dges bshes Dbas in Khams
(where he was born and had started his religious career) and Phag gru
apparently accompanied him in 1130/31 to Dbus. However, Dbas eventually
went back to Khams and there is no further trace of him.77 Only later is a Dbas
75
His notes were even considered too clear (which is not recommended for oral
instructions), and were therefore placed in the library by Sa chen and named “The
Library Explication” (Dpe mdzod ma). The Bka’ brgyud pa source authored by Padma
dkar po adds that he was Sa chen’s most learned student; cf. Stearns 2001: 27,
180n133, 181n114. Davidson (2004: 308) doubts Phag mo gru pa’s authorship of the
Dpe mdzod ma, suggesting that the Sga theng ma (which Stearns considers to be
authored by Phag mo gru pa, too) was handed down from Sa chen and has become the
Dpe mdzod ma. Accoding to Davidson (2004: 437n106), Stearns later communicated
that he considers the Sga theng ma authentic and the original Dpe mdzod ma to be
lost, replaced by the Sga theng ma.
76
77
Ibid. 2001: 27, 180n113; Schiller 2002: 66.
Schiller (2002: 59) has discussed various possible dates between 1127 and 1131.
According to Rgyal thang pa, Phag gru accompanied Dges bshes Dbas chen po to Dbus
when he was 29 years old (1138) (Dkar brgyud gser ’phreng, p. 401), whereas Schiller,
using Chos kyi ye shes, translates that he accompanied a Dbas rdo rje chen po when he
was 22 and they went to Stod lung Rgya mar, where Phag gru spent some time with
him, conducting himself in a manner “not different from him” (khyad med du). But
then Dges bshes Dbas wanted to go back to Khams, and Phag gru, because Dbas had
supported him, hesitated but stayed (Chos rje rin po che’i rnam thar, fol. 4af.). Most
sources seem to agree that Phag gru took full ordination in 1134 in Zul phu (cf. Schiller
2002: 62). Later Phag mo gru pa went to Sa skya. But where was Dge bshes Dbas?
That may lend credibility to the interpretation (see note 68 above), namely that Phag
gru might have been in Sa skya before, acting as gnas slob in the sense of assisting Dge
bshes Dbas in the monastery. Otherwise Dbas was his senior. But why does he state
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mchod mentioned among the close students of Phag gru, the only time where
the same name is used as in the dris lan (albeit with a different variant for
Sbas).78
A search for the eighth Karma pa’s alleged source may help to shed
light on some of the issues: the Phyag chen lhan cig skyes sbyor gnang ba is
said to have existed in the gsung ’bum of Phag mo gru pa but did not enter into
any of the published versions or available early dkar chags, nor do we find the
story among related works on lhan cig skyes sbyor.79 But in another section of
Phag mo gru pa’s bka’ ’bum there are three letters or works of advice to a Dge
bshes Spas, also called Spas Dge bshes Byang chub brtson ’grus.80 The Karma
pa’s dris lan had introduced Khams pa Spas mchod as someone Phag mo gru
pa had the same trust in as he did in Sa chen (dad pa mnyam po). Phag gru
that he had the same trust in the Sa skya pa as in Dbas? Are we dealing with the same
person?
78
Schiller 2002: 87, who refers to Dpal chen chos kyi ye shes, Chos rje rin po che’i
rnam thar, fol. 24a. Dbas is an alternative spelling of Sbas (see note 85 below).
79
During his current doctoral research on Phag mo gru, Schiller has surveyed all early
dkar chag and different editions of Phag mo gru pa’s literary works and is certain that
such a title does not occur (oral communication, August 2007). In a 16th century
manuscript from ’Bri gung (Phag gru MS), the lhan cig skyes ’byor section does not
contain the title nor is the content found within these works (Lhan cig skyes sbyor, vol.
2, no. 8. fol. 48b.3–55a.5; Phyag rgya chen po’i ngo sprod, vol. 2, no. 9. fol. 55a.5–
58b.3; Lhan cig skyes sbyor gyi skor, vol. 2, no. 10. fol. 58b.3–66a.6). See also the
same corpus on lhan cig skes sbyor in the 2003 edition: Phag ’gru gsung ’bum, vol. 4,
pp. 255–351.
The Spas dge bshes byang chub brtson ’grus la phag gru pas gdams pa (Phag gru
MS: Dge bshes dbas chen po la [gdams pa], vol. 3, fol. 333b–334b) is most likely
addressed to the same person as Khams pa Sbas mchod. The Byang chub brtson ’grus
la springs pa’i nyams myong gnyis pa (Phag gru MS: Dge bshes dbas chen po la spring
pa, vol. 3, fol. 270b–272a) contains a similar hint in the colophon. The Dge bshes spas
la spring ba (Phag gru MS: Sbas la bskur yig, vol. 3, fol. 274b–274b) does not contain
80
any concrete hint but could have been directed to the same individual.
The Eighth Karma pa's Answer
373
uses similar phrases in the instruction to Spas Dge bshes Byang chub brtson
’grus (in the earlier Phag gru MS referred to as Sbas Dge bshes chen po): Phag
gru mentions that previously this lama has cared for him kindly and he excuses
himself, saying that his devotion towards Sa skya pa and him would be the
same (bla ma sa skya pa dang khyed bzhugs pa la mos gus mnyam par mchis),
and indicates that this Dge bshes had formerly acted as his teacher.81 The
second work also hints at a similar relationship: the work is termed the
instruction Phag gru gave to a former dharma friend (mched grogs), the Dges
bshes Dbas chen po.82 Both works contain meditation instructions, but neither
of them uses explicit phyag chen lhan cig skyes sbyor precepts.
Although the Phyag chen lhan cig skyes sbyor gnang ba quoted by the
Karma pa has not been found, these texts and the rnam thar indicate at least the
existence of a Dge bshes Spas who was Phag gru’s teacher before he met Sgam
po pa. The Dbas dge bshes chen po mentioned in the instruction83 most likely
refers to the very Khams pa Spas/Sbas mchod from the dris lan, who, as his
name suggests, probably came from Khams and belonged to the Spas clan,84 as
did Phag gru himself.85 The issue concerning the gnas slob, however, remains
obscure and may indeed be a later addition to the story.
81
82
83
84
Phag mo gru Rdo rje rgyal po, Spas dge bshes byang chub brtson ’grus, p. 718.
Phag mo gru Rdo rje rgyal po, Byang chub brtson ’grus la springs pa, p. 381.
Phag mo gru Rdo rje rgyal po, Spas dge bshes byang chub brtson ’grus, p. 718.
A fifteenth-century encyclopaedia notes that Spas (variants: Sba, Rba, Sbas, Dba’s) is
a clan among the Rje cig Snyags rje Thog sgrom rje lineage, one of the four princely
lineages of Stong. It was one of the most important in the royal dynastic period (Gene
Smith’s introduction to Don dam smra ba’i seng ge, A 15th Century Tibetan
Compendium of Knowledge, p. 16, and the Tibetan text in ibid. p. 183).
85
It remains to be clarified what exactly their relationship was (for example what the
Karma pa meant with the role as gnas slob), how close Sbas mchod was to Sa chen,
and whether we are dealing with one and the same person as Dges bshes Dbas alias
Khams pa Dbas mchod. To date I have not examined the sources on Sa chen’s life in
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Given the evidence above, it is unlikely that the Karma pa himself
imagined a text called Phyag chen lhan cig skyes sbyor gnang ba without any
literary source.86 It stills puzzles me as to whether the Karma pa referred to the
same instruction to Spas dge bshes byang chub brtson ’grus under a different
title or text, whether he relied on another textual source not yet found, or
whether he knew of the story but phrased it freely.87 As is still typical in the
field of Tibetan studies, many sources have yet to become available.88
4 Concluding Reflections
Though some context remains to be clarified, this dris lan bears testimony to
how the Karma pa approached a polemically loaded Great Seal question
addressed to him by a student with probably a Ngor pa-Sa skya pa background.
Thus, the work presents an historical window onto some of the religious and
political circumstances of the teaching of Great Seal doctrines in this period
and the ensuing tensions: the ambivalence of an enquirer who was probably
detail. C. Stearns (e-mail communication, Sept. 2006) has not come across this name
yet.
86
After all, this was a written answer by a well-informed scholar, who clearly states the
title and source. Mi bskyod rdo rje was also familiar with works of other masters of
that period, for example Bla ma Zhang. The Karma pa transmitted the reading transmission (lung) of Zhang’s bka’ ’bum (Si tu and ’Be lo, Kaṃ tshang, p. 339).
87
Of course there is also always the possibility that the Karma pa’s dris lan has
undergone some editing.
88
It will, in the future, be important to try to validate the authenticity of this text and
the associated story. Apart from the early Bka’ brgyud pa sources, Mi bskyod rdo rje’s
teacher Karma ’phrin las pa could have served as its origin. He transmitted Phag gru’s
lam ’bras instructions to some scholars at Nalendra and must have been knowledgeable
about the history of both the Sa skya and Bka’ brgyud traditions (Stearns 2001: 29).
For the life and works of the first Karma ’Phrin las pa, see my unpublished MA thesis,
Rheingans 2004. Unfortunately his gsung ’bum is not complete (for a catalogue see
ibid. 143–95) and remarks about a Khams pa Sbas mchod could not yet be found in the
available material.
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devoted to two traditions;89 his question, which almost presupposes the answer;
and the anecdote within the dris lan, which—albeit in a sectarian manner—is
utilised by the Karma pa to underline his opinion without expressing it
directly.90
Doctrinally, the dris lan first distinguishes the tantras as mundane and
supramundane, an important point to be followed up in further research. Mi
bskyod rdo rje then puts forward the Great Seal as a teaching impossible to call
“either the same as or different from” the tantras, a feature emphasising its
method as going beyond tantric ritual. Mi bskyod rdo rje does not offer an
argument here (as he does elsewhere)91 or clearly state a path for Great Seal
practice, apart from telling the student to let the mind rest without artifice (ma
bcos). In that, the teaching style resembles that of the Karma pa’s dialogues in
the rnam thar, briefly depicted above.92 He does not further label his approach
in the dris lan, apart from presenting it as that of Sgam po pa and Saraha. It
seems to be in line with the approach of Saraha, and with what is termed the
89
They may have competed in the Gling area. Here, further research will have to
follow up this hypothesis. Mi bskyod rdo rje’s main rivals were apparently the Dge
lugs pa and ’Brug chen Padma dkar po (1527–1592), but his disproportionate influence
is also reported to have caused some unease among the Sa skya pas in Gtsang (cf.
Sangs rgyas Dpal sgrub, Rgyal ba spyan ras gzigs, fol. 38b).
90
As in a narrative text, which works with either showing (by means of metaphor,
images, etc.) or telling (directly relating its message); see Cobley 2001: 19.
91
For example in the Glo bur gyi dri ma and also the Dpal ldan dwags po bka’ brgyud
kyi gsung; not to mention his debates in the Dwags. In fact, his argumentative strategy
is a topic on its own. For a later evaluation of the Karma pa’s doctrines, see also
Rheingans 2008: 217–44; 2009; and forthcoming.
92
This rhetoric of the Great Seal as particular also occurs elsewhere in the instructions
of Mi bskyod rdo rje. See for example Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Phyag rgya
chen po’i bshad pa rtogs brjod, fol. 2b, where it says that the Great Seal forms the base
of cyclic existence and nirvāṇa but not the all-base (kun gyi gzhi) of the pāramitāyāna
nor that of the explanatory tradition (bshad srol) of the general Secret Mantra, this
being the special feature of Nāropa and Maitrī.
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‘path of direct cognition’ by Sgam po pa or ‘essence Great Seal’ in the later
categorisations of Kong sprul Blo gro mtha’ yas and Bkra shis chos ’phel.93 In
a spiritual autobiography (rang rnam) the eighth Karma pa is quoted as
remarking that when teaching he in particular emphasized the Great Seal
traditions of Jo bo Mitrayogin and of the dohās transmitted in India via
Vajrapāṇi.94 Does this mention of the dohās refer to the kind of instruction in
the dris lan?95
93
Saraha has pointed out the possibility of realisation by merely relying on the
kindness of one’s guru (Mathes in the present volume; R. Jackson 2004: 37-40), and we
find the idea of a third path with Sgam po pa (Sherpa 2004: 130; D. Jackson 1994: 25–
28). The 19th century scholars Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas and Karma Bkra shis
chos ‘phel have used this categorisation for the Great Seal that leads to the spontaneous
realisation of the nature of one’s mind. (Mathes 2006: 1 and Mathes in the present
volume).
94
Mi bskyod rdo rje, Karma pa VIII, Byang phyogs ’di na karma pa, fol. 9b. It outlines
the texts that the eighth Karma pa wrote up to his 44th year (fol.4a– fol.9b). For how he
directly expounded (bshad) on these texts, see fol. 9b–10a. The other Great Seal
teachings listed are Karma, ’Brug pa, ’Ba rom pa, ’Bri gung, Mtshal pa, Smar pa, and
Khro phu.
95
Mi bskyod rdo rje considers the teaching on the dohās as transmitted by Vajrapāṇi of
India and A su of Nepal as one of three approaches to Maitrīpa’s amanasikāra-
madhyamaka, calling it alikakāra-cittamātra-madhyamaka (Mi bskyod rdo rje, Dwags,
fol. 6a.). Mi bskyod rdo rje was certainly well acquainted with the collection of Indian
Great Seal works compiled by the Seventh Karma pa (the Rgya gzhung) and had also
studied under Karma ’Phrin las pa (1456-1539), who commented on Saraha’s dohā-
cycles. Karma ’Phrin las pa studied the dohās under the Seventh Karma pa and the Ras
chung Snyan rgyud master Khrul zhig Sangs rgyas bsam grub (15th century) before
authoring his commentary (for Karma ’phrin las pa’s studies and teaching of Mi
bskyod rdo rje see Rheingans 2004: 61–67, 75–85; for the significance of his dohā
commentaries see Schaeffer 2000: 9ff.). There is no explicit mention of Karma ’Phrin
las pa or Sangs rgyas mnyan pa transmitting Saraha’s dohā teachings to Mi bskyod rdo
rje; and the eighth Karma pa—albeit quoting Saraha frequently—did not compose a
formal commentary on any of the dohās.
The Eighth Karma pa's Answer
377
“Great Seal” is used differently in the dris lan than in the
aforementioned Phyag rgya chen po’i byin rlabs kyi ngos ’dzin, where it clearly
designates mantric practices and their result, pointing to the various angles of
explication (not uncommon for other masters, too). In the Glo bur gyi dri ma
presented above, we have seen a more argumentative and elaborate approach,
which basically emphasises the need to avoid any kind of fabrication or
clinging in meditation. What has also become obvious from even the small
number of works examined is the heated atmosphere, as reflected in the need to
defend oneself from the critics.
It should be remembered that the dris lan and also many other minor
instructions were marginal works taught to particular individuals, and thus may
not reflect a standard view. This article is thus a preliminary step towards
coming to terms with just a few of the complex sources, personalities, and
transmissions involved. Only future research into the eighth Karma pa’s life
and works will determine how much his doctrinal presentations depended on
the context of the addressee, and how much on considerations of genre and
historical circumstance.96
It is difficult to come to terms historically with Saraha, let alone find a
coherent system in his teaching.97 It has also been noted of Sgam po pa’s Great
Seal that he was far from presenting a uniform system, and in Sgam po pa’s
case that most of his works were not written by him.98 For the eighth Karma pa,
96
One would need in the future to thoroughly study the Karma pa’s teaching in all
minor commentaries and instructions (such as khrid, man ngag, gdams ngag, and bslab
bya), comparing it with his statements in the larger treatises—especially his Dgongs
gcig and Sku gsum ngo sprod volumes. We also are in need of an exhaustive study of
his life in historical context.
97
98
Cf. R. Jackson 2004: 3–53; Braitstein 2004: 16–39.
Cf. D. Jackson 1994: 10n17; Kragh 2006. In Sgam po pa’s case the first blocks were
carved in 1520, 367 years after his death in 1153. In the case of the eighth Karma pa,
however, the compilation of a manuscript collection was undertaken immediately after
his death.
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however, manifold contemporaneous material is at hand and the authorship is
clearer,99 as indicated by early dkar chags and title lists. This allows various
avenues of research, a few of which have been pointed out in this essay. One
future line of research will certainly be his contribution to the systematisations
of the Ninth Karma pa and Bkra shis rnam rgyal (1513–87).100 Though still a
hypothesis, it seems that the eighth Karma pa was less systematic than his
successors but at times very scholastic in his shorter instructions. But did he,
through his commentaries, his founding of institutes, and his political impact,
prepare the ground for these later approaches to the Great Seal? It will be
fruitful to try to investigate these matters by taking into account as much as
possible the textual genres involved, the concrete teaching situations, and the
identities of the persons addressed.
99
For the concept of authorship in medieval Tibet, see Cabezón 2000.
100
See Kapstein 2006: 58–60, on the systematisation of the siddhas’ teachings in Tibet.
See also Sobisch 2003 on the meditation manuals (khrid yig) of the fivefold Great Seal
of the ’Bri gung pa.
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379
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abbreviations for Primary Sources in Tibetan Language
Collected Works
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Phag gru MS
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Rgya gzhung
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TSD
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The Eighth Karma pa's Answer
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gcad dang ’bru yi don mthar chags su gnyer ba bcas ’dzam bu’i gling gsal bar
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TIBETAN INTEREST IN CHINESE VISUAL MODES:
THE FOUNDATION OF THE TENTH KARMA PA’S
“CHINESE-STYLE THANG KA PAINTING”
KARL DEBRECZENY
1 Introduction
The tenth Karma pa, Chos dbyings rdo rje (1604–74), enjoys a prominent place
in indigenous accounts of Tibetan art history, in which he is renowned as a
great artistic innovator, who is noted for developing, during his twenty-fiveyear long exile (1646/7–1673) in Lijiang 麗江, Yunnan, a unique style of
painting that drew heavily on Chinese models. The vibrant local tradition of
Sino-Tibetan painting, with its thorough mixing of Chinese and Tibetan visual
modes, was already developed and flourishing in Lijiang at the time of Chos
dbyings rdo rje’s arrival in the mid-seventeenth century, and, I will suggest, has
relevance to the transformation of his own painting career. This study will
primarily address questions of the transmission, influence, and adaptation of
Chinese visual modes in the tenth Karma pa’s own unique visual idiom, by
relating his works to specific Chinese painting schools and by exploring
possible local sources for these innovations based on both visual and textual
evidence.
2 Life in Lijiang
According to several prominent modern Tibetan scholars it was during his long
exile in ’Jang Sa tham (Lijiang) that Chos dbyings rdo rje developed his unique
“Chinese style of thang ka painting” (rgya bris thang ka), so it is to Lijiang, in
remote northwestern Yunnan between Tibet and China, that we must look to
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explore the roots of his distinctive style.1 The local inhabitants of the kingdom
of Lijiang, the Naxi 纳西, drew heavily on both Chinese and Tibetan painting
traditions in the development of their own visual culture, and their rulers were
enthusiastic patrons of both Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism, resulting in an
interesting hybrid tradition of painting in terms of both style and subject
matter.2 While ethnically related to the Tibetans, by the Ming dynasty (1368–
1644) the Naxi had closely allied themselves politically and culturally with the
Chinese, depicting themselves as Chinese officials in official portraiture (Fig.
1), and keeping records in Chinese.
In the wake of Güüshi (Gushri) Khan’s (1582–1655) invasion of Tibet
in 1642 at the behest of the Fifth Dalai Lama (1617–1682), Chos dbyings rdo
rje took shelter in Lijiang among the Karma pa’s long-time patrons, the Naxi,
for approximately twenty-five years.3 This Mongol onslaught resulted in the
scattering or slaughter of the entire Karma pa encampment and the almost total
eclipse of the Karma Bka’ brgyud tradition in Central Tibet. The Karma pa
barely escaped with only his faithful attendant Kun tu bzang po, and eventually
fled to Lijiang. The King of Lijiang, Mu Yi 木懿 (ruled 1624–1669, Fig. 1),
took the Karma pa under his protection.4 Mu Yi showed himself to be a staunch
supporter of the Karma pa, fending off pursuing Mongol armies, retaliating
against local Dge lugs pa institutions, and even providing funds to reestablish
1
Shakabpa 1976: vol. 1, 111, and Dkon mchog bstan ’dzin 1994: 111. According to
Dkon mchog bstan ’dzin (personal communication, 1 May 2003), he took the term rgya
bris thang ka from a short history of Tibetan art, the Bod kyi ri mo byung tshul cung
zad gleng ba, written by the court painter to the former Si tu at Dpal spungs Monastery,
Thang bla tshe dbang (1902–89).
2
For a discussion of this local Lijiang painting tradition, see Debreczeny 2007 and
2009b.
3
4
On the history of Naxi-Karma Bka’ brgyud relations see Dy-Liacco 2005.
For Mu Yi’s biography see: Mushi huanpu 木氏宦譜, p. 77 (the official Confucian-
style biographies of the Mu rulers written in Chinese); Rock 1947: 131–36.
Tibetan Interest in Chinese Visual Modes
389
the Karma pa encampment as it had existed in the old days.5 During his long
residency in Lijiang, Chos dbyings rdo rje founded numerous temples, ordained
some one thousand Naxi as monks, and went so far as to recognise a high
incarnation (the Sixth Rgyal tshab, 1659–1698) in the son of a local Naxi
woman, a boy who it seems was in fact his own son, creating even deeper ties
between Lijiang and the Karma Bka’ brgyud.
Fig. 1. The King of Lijiang, Mu Yi (1608-1692), official portrait.
The date of the Karma pa’s arrival in the Kingdom of Lijiang varies
between circa 1642 and 1649 in Tibetan and Chinese sources. However, a
careful comparison of Tibetan and Chinese sources with dateable events, such
5
Gtsang Mkhan chen: 200, 204.
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Karl Debreczeny
as the death of his patron, the local king Mu Zeng 木增, in 1646 just as the
Karma pa approached the Kingdom of Lijiang, places his arrival in 1646/7. The
tenth Karma pa’s impact on Lijiang was significant enough to warrant an
account of his life there in the local Chinese gazetteer, the Lijiang fu zhi lue 麗
江府志略, written in 1742, about seventy years after Chos dbying rdo rje’s
departure:
[His
name]
“Chos
dbyings
rdo
rje”
translates
as
the
words
“Dharmadhātuvajra (vajra of the Dharma realm).” In the ji chou year
(1649) of the Shunzhi reign (1644–61) he arrived from Tibet and lived at
Jietuolin Monastery.6 He preached the dharma to all, [but] in the beginning
[the people] did not believe or admire him. It happened that one night he
disappeared from the place [where he lived], and his disciple followed him
to Xiyuansi. At that place [the disciple found him] discussing the dharma
with a bronze statue of [the arhat] Piṇḍola, each asking the other questions
and answering in turn. [The disciple] was immediately astonished by it.
Later Xiyuan [temple] burnt down, and only the Piṇḍola statue was not
damaged. Wu [Sangui] wanted to rebel.7 He prepared gift(s) to welcome
6
From this account we thus learn that, at least early on in his life in exile in Lijiang,
the tenth Karma pa lived at Jietuolin 解脱林 Monastery, more commonly known as
Fuguosi 福國寺. Jietuolin (Tib: ’Og min rnam gling), was established as the first
Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Lijiang in 1601 by the previous ruler of Lijiang, Mu
Zeng 木增 (ruled 1598–1624/1646), and bestowed the name Fuguosi in the Tianqi
period (1621–27). Jietuolin was located on Zhishan Mountain overlooking Baisha 白沙
village, the location of Xiyuansi, where the incident of talking to the miraculous statue,
recounted in the gazetteer, occurred.
7
Wu Sangui 吳三桂 (1612–1678) ruled Yunnan and Guizhou as one of the “Three
Feudatories,” with his base in Kunming. Wu’s revolt against the Qing was the last
serious internal threat to the establishment of Manchu rule in China. In expanding his
kingdom in Yunnan and Sichuan, Wu Sangui allied with local chieftains and Tibetans
against the Qing government and ordered the Karma pa’s patron Mu Yi to secretly
Tibetan Interest in Chinese Visual Modes
391
[Chos dbyings rdo rje] to come [to Kunming], but [the Karma pa]
resolutely refused [to go, and] returned west [to Tibet].
處音都知,譯言 “法界金剛” 也。順治己丑年,自西藏來,住錫解脫
林。為四眾說法,初未信服。嘗夜失所在,其徒尋至西園寺,方與銅
像賓頭盧尊者談法,彼此互答始驚異之。後西園災,惟賓頭盧像不
燬。吳逆將叛備禮來迎,固卻,西歸。8
It is interesting to note that in this brief Chinese account of Chos dbyings rdo
rje’s twenty-five-year life in Lijiang what is considered worthy of recording is
an account of his relationship with a miraculous image, and specifically an
arhat, a theme that, as we will see, figures prominently in his own artistic
production.
3 The anchor: Securely signed and dated paintings
In the Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum 麗江東巴文化博物館 is a previously
unidentified set of seven paintings of Śākyamuni and the Sixteen Arhats (Plates
1–7,9 Figs. 2-4) executed and inscribed by the tenth Karma pa’s own hand.10
The basis of my identification of this set as being by Chos dbyings rdo rje is—
first and foremost—an inscription in gold clerical script (dbu can) at the top
centre of the central image of Śākyamuni (Plate 1) which makes his authorship
quite clear:
work with the Tibetans, but only Mu Yi remained loyal to the imperial government,
creating great animosity between the two.
8
Lijiang fu zhi lue, p. 180. Since this was written in 1743 by the first Qing governor as
part of a larger project to incorporate Lijiang into the Qing empire, the Karma pa being
depicted as resolutely rejecting the “traitor” Wu Sangui, is part of the project of
asserting Qing legitimacy and should be seen in that light. (See note 7 above.)
9
The accompanying Plates are reproduced in colour at the end of the book.
10
A brief discussion of this set with my initial findings was first published in
Debreczeny (2003). Note that images 8e and 8f were inadvertently switched.
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Karl Debreczeny
At the portentous sign of the time [called] “all-possessing,” the Iron Male
Mouse Year (1660), [concerning] this complete set of seven [paintings] of
the reflected images of the Sixteen Elders, who were commanded by the
Tathāgata Śākyamuni to protect the dharma of the holy teaching of the
Buddha, the Supramundane Victor (Bhagavat), in the glorious field of merit
of all deities and men, and to remain personally in the world without
passing into nirvāṇa, and the principal [image of] the great Śākyamuni: for
the sake of the wishes of the Prince Karma Phun tshogs dbang phyug, who
possesses a wealth of faith, the one practised in the arts who is called
“Lokeśvara,” and who is praised as the tenth to be blessed with the name
“Karma pa,” Chos dbyings rdo rje, painted these in their entirety by his
own hand. Moreover, by this act may unsurpassable benefit and happiness
arise for all beings led by the patron. May it be auspicious!11
The modest phrasing used to refer to the tenth Karma pa here, “praised as the
tenth one blessed with the name ‘Karma pa,’” suggests that the inscription was
indeed written by Chos dbyings rdo rje himself. If this inscription had been
added by someone else later as an attribution to the tenth Karma pa, one would
expect the use of a more honourific address, like those found on the two
inscribed paintings previously published, which both refer to him as the
kun ldan lcag pho byi ba lo’i dus kyi dge mtshan la sangs rgyas bcom ldan ’das kyi
bstan pa dam pa’i chos skyong zhing / lha mi kun gyi bsod nams kyi dpal gyi zhing du
de bzhin gshegs pa shākya thub pas bka’ bsgos te mya ngan las mi ’da’ bar ’jig rten na
mngon sum du bzhugs pa ’phags pa gnas brtan bcu drug / gtso bo thub pa chen po’i
sku brnyan bdun tshar ’di ni dad pa’i nor ldan rgyal sras karma phun tshogs dbang
phyugi (= phug gi) bzhed don du / bzo sbyangs ’jig rten dbang phyug zhes karma
pa’i mtshan gyis byin gyis brlabs pa bcu par bsngags pa chos dbyings rdo rjes ri mo’i
skye mched yongs su rdzogs pa pyag bris su gnang ba ’dis kyang sbyin bdag gi thog
drang ’gro ba kun la phan bde bla na med par ’byung bar gyur cig / maṅgalam /.
11
Tibetan Interest in Chinese Visual Modes
393
“venerable” (rje btsun) Chos dbyings rdo rje.12 Further, ’Jig rten dbang phyug
(Lokeśvara) is how the Tenth Karma pa refers to himself in his autobio-
graphical writings such as the Wish Granting Cow, reaffirming his authorship
of these paintings.
A close examination of both Tibetan and Chinese sources corroborates
that the recipient of the set of paintings named in the inscription was the crown
prince of Lijiang at the time, Mu Jing 木靖 (1628–71).13 While Mu Yi, the
ruler of Lijiang in 1660 when this set of painting was completed, had four sons
(Mu Jing, Mu You 木 繇 (柚), Mu Zhan 木旃, and Mu Xi 木榽),14 the son
referred to here is likely Mu Yi’s eldest son and legal heir, Mu Jing, who is the
only ruler in the official Chinese Confucian-style Mu family histories to be
mentioned for his devotion to Buddhism—remarked upon also in this painting’s
inscription—and specifically his study and mastery of Buddhist classics.15
Mu Jing’s avid patronage of Buddhism is recorded in several other
local Chinese sources, such as the gazetteer for the local pilgrimage site of
Chicken Foot Mountain, the Jizu shan zhi 鸡足山志, where it is recorded that
he built a grand stūpa, the “Zunsheng tayuan” 尊胜塔院, on Wenbi Mountain
文笔山 below the Mu family’s main temple on Chicken Foot Mountain, Xitansi
12
von Schroeder 2001 and Stoddard 1997. David Jackson (1996: 254) provides a
transcription and translates the inscription on the painting published by Stoddard.
13
Listed among the tenth Karma pa’s disciples is a Rgyal sras Kar phun, an
abbreviation of Rgyal sras Karma Phun tshogs dbang phyug, who is immediately
preceded by the Sa tham (that is Lijiang) lha btsun Karma Rin chen, suggesting that
this rgyal sras (or “son of the king”) Kar [ma] phun [tshogs] is also from Lijiang. (Si tu
Paṇ chen, p. 348; and Karma nges don, p. 376.) For a more detailed discussion on the
identity of the prince and circumstances of the bestowal, see Debreczeny 1997: 305–
10).
14
Mu Xi, Mu Ying’s youngest son, became a monk: Sa tham rgyal po’i sras chung ba
karma mi pham bstan pa. Ldan ma ’jam dbyangs tshul khrims, p. 186. Also see p. 8.
15
Mushi Huanpu, p. 37 (xylograph edition pp. 55–56); Rock: 136–37.
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Karl Debreczeny
悉檀寺.16 The crown prince’s generous patronage and favoured status is also
detailed in Tibetan sources such as the Karma pa’s poetical biography, an
important eyewitness account written by the Karma pa’s personal attendant.17
Mu Jing only ruled as king (or tusi 土司 in Chinese records) of Lijiang from
1669 to 1671. He was thrust into office after his father Mu Yi was arrested by
Wu Sangui, but died before his imperial patent of office arrived. In 1660 Mu
Jing would have been the crown prince (rgyal sras) referred to in the painting’s
inscription.18 Thus, it is likely Mu Jing who is depicted kneeling in the bottom
left of the central inscribed painting, where he is seen holding an incense
brazier and dressed in Chinese court robes and silk cap—the same Chinese
Ming-dynasty court attire in which the Mu family had themselves depicted in
their official portraiture (Fig. 1).
The specific circumstances surrounding the bestowal of this set of
paintings can be reconstructed by combining accounts in several of Chos
dbyings rdo rje’s biographies, which record that this set of paintings was given
to prince Karma Phun tshogs as one of many gifts to members of the royal
family and high incarnations attending new year celebrations provided by the
king.19 In the more detailed biography by Si tu Pan cheṇ the actual bestowal of
the paintings is recorded:
16
17
18
Jizu shan zhi, ch. 5, p. 238; ch. 10, p. 473.
For example in Gtsang Mkhan chen, p. 202.
This hypothesis that Prince Karma Phun tshogs dbang phyug is Mu Jing is confirmed
by a recently published biography of the tenth Karma pa that mentions the “King of
Lijiang Karma Phun tshogs” following the “King of Lijiang Karma ’Chi med lha
dbang,” which we know to be Mu Jing’s father Mu Yi. Ldan ma ’jam dbyangs tshul
khrims, pp. 186–87.
19
Karma Nges don’s biography of the tenth Karma pa (pp. 371 & 367) states that in
1658 the Karma pa was living in Lijiang, and two years later, during the Iron Mouse
New Year’s celebration (1660), he was treated to entertainment provided by the king of
Lijiang, suggesting that the tenth Karma pa was in the Kingdom of Lijiang in 1660,
when this set of paintings was done. The Kingdom of Lijiang encompassed a large area
Tibetan Interest in Chinese Visual Modes
395
New Year [of 1661] arrived. To the mother of [his son] the Rgyal tshab
incarnation he gave paintings of the Sixteen Elders painted by his own
hand. He tonsured the king of Lijiang’s youngest son, Karma Mi pham
bstan pa (Mu Xi), into the priesthood. Having thoroughly given him the
“instruction pointing at the nature of mind,” he went on retreat. To the
minister of religious affairs (chos blon), Karma Bstan skyong, he gave a
painting of Cakrasaṃvara in sexual union painted by his own hand and the
visualization and mantra-recitation scriptural transmission of that [deity].
To the minister/supervisor of finance (dngul dbon = dpon?) Karma Bsam
’grub he gave a set of seven paintings of the Sixteen Elders and a guru-
yoga [initiation]. To Prince Karma Tshe dbang rin chen snying po he gave
such things as paintings of the Sixteen Elders and a thang ka of
Vajravārāhī painted by his own hand and the [spiritual] instruction (lha
khrid) of Vajravārāhī. To Prince Karma Phun tshogs dbang phyug (Mu
Jing) he gave paintings of the Sixteen Elders painted by his own hand. To
the [Chinese] monks of Chicken Foot Mountain he made monetary
donations.20
beyond its modern county borders and included Rgyal thang (Zhongdian), where it is
also recorded that the Karma pa spent some time, e.g. in 1658, when he spent a
summer retreat there, and 1660, when he made a number of monumental sculptures.
20
Unpublished biography of Chos dbyings rdo rje, fol. 186b, lines 5–7: lo sar gnang /
rgyal tshab pa’i ma yum la gnas bcu’i sku thang phyag ris gnang / sa tham rgyal po'i
sras chung ba karma mi pham bstan pa'i nyi ma khyim nas khyim med par rab byung
mdzad / sems kyi ngo sprod zhib par gnang nas ri khrod la? nar bzhugs / chos blon
karma bstan skyong la bde mchog lhan skyes kyi sku thang phyag ris dang / de’i sgom
bzlas kyi ljags lung mdzad/ dngul dbon (=dpon?) karma bsam ’grub la gnas bcu bdun
thang phyag ris dang / bla ma’i rnal ’byor gnang / rgyal sras karma tshe dbang rin chen
snying por gnas bcu dang / phag mo’i sku thang phyag ris dang / phag mo lha khrid
sogs gnang / rgyal sras karma phun tshogs dbang phyug la gnas bcu’i sku thang phyag
ris gnang / ri bo bya rkang gi hwa shang rnams la dngul ’gyed (=dngul gyi sku ’gyed)
mdzad /.
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Karl Debreczeny
Also in attendance were other incarnations, such as the Zhwa dmar, Si
tu, Dpa’ bo, Phag mo Zhabs drung, the Rtse lha incarnation, and Zhwa sgom
rin po che, suggesting that the kingdom of Lijiang was indeed both a haven and
centre of activity for the Karma Bka’ brgyud in the seventeenth century. Notice
that in this account the tenth Karma pa gives paintings of this same theme of
the Sixteen Arhats four times on a single occasion, underscoring the importance
of this genre to his artistic production while in Lijiang.
Fig. 2. Viewing Painting, central detail.
Tibetan Interest in Chinese Visual Modes
397
The inscription also names the subject of the set as “Śākyamuni and the
Sixteen Elders” in seven paintings, with Śākyamuni at the set’s centre. Thus we
know that this is a complete set. Unusually for Tibetan painting, the figures of
this inscribed set are arranged into themes, or group social activities: eating and
reading (Plate 2); viewing paintings (Plate 3); composing calligraphy in a
scholarly garden (Plate 5) (notice the servant grinding ink at bottom left while
the arhat sits with brush poised); and most unusual of all in Tibetan painting,
heating tea in a waterscape (Plate 7).
Fig. 3. Rabbit detail.
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Karl Debreczeny
The paintings from the 1660 Lijiang set focus on mundane acts rather
than overt supernatural images, with a special emphasis on food and eating
(Plates 2, 4, 6). One possible model or visual source of inspiration for this
theme of arhats eating is the Snar thang set “The Sixteen Elders Invited to a
Midday Meal by Nam mkha’ grags of Mchims,” which the Karma pa first
copied in 1629;21 however, as this work is not known to survive, we can only
guess at its contents by its suggestive name. This focus on sustenance may also
stem to some degree from Chos dbyings rdo rje’s own experience. The tenth
Karma pa went hungry several times in his life, such as when he fled Mongol
troops in the mid 1640s, and again when traveling in his home country of ’Go
log around 1650, after being robbed of all his possessions and forced to beg.
Sustenance also becomes important in his biographies, where he makes a point
of feeding not only poor people and birds (something, it is said, that he did
daily), but even old dogs and horses, which he sought out for that purpose.22
When closely examining the Lijiang paintings one notices that not only are the
arhats depicted eating, but so too are the animals, such as the monkey eating
rice off a leaf (Fig. 4), or an adorable little rabbit with his own brimming bowl
(Fig. 3). In the background, attendants wash radishes and prepare mushrooms, a
local southwestern summer delicacy. In this set of arhats the tenth Karma pa
breaks away from both the Tibetan iconic formula and from the mix of
supernatural and mundane that characterises the genre in Chinese painting, as
we can see in Ningbo works by such Song painters as Zhou Jichang, “Lohans
Watching Relics Distributed” (in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston), and Lin
Tinggui, “Luohan Laundering” (Plate 8), in the Freer Gallery in Washington,
D.C.).
21
Unpublished biography of Chos dbyings rdo rje, fol. 170b, lines 2–3. Shakabpa
(1976: 111), states that he made a model or pattern (dpe mdzad) of these paintings.
That same year the Karma pa designed the sketch and colour scheme for his own set of
the Sixteen Arhats for the first time. Unpublished biography, fol. 171a, line 1.
22
Gtsang Mkhan chen, p. 110; Dy-Liacco: 2005: 54.
Tibetan Interest in Chinese Visual Modes
399
Fig. 4. Monkey and birds eating, detail.
4 Chinese models
What kinds of Chinese models was the Karma pa attracted to in Lijiang? What
formed the basis of his new style? Local tradition recounts that during the
Tianqi period (1621–27) the local ruler of Lijiang, Mu Zeng, invited a painter
from Ningbo named Ma Xiaoxian 馬肖仙 to paint wall paintings at the local
pilgrimage site at Chicken Foot Mountain, and then to participate in numerous
wall painting projects in Lijiang.23 When the Karma pa arrived in Lijiang, he
saw Ma’s murals, and very much admired their superb artistry. Afterwards Ma
Xiaoxian was invited to the Karma pa’s court, and taken to Tibet to paint wall
paintings at the Karma pa’s seat at Mtshur phu Monastery. Ma is said to have
stayed continuously for over ten years in Tibet, where he presumably served as
a painter in Chos dbyings rdo rje’s court and even visited India before returning
23
Naxizu shi, p. 337; Lijiang Baisha bihua, p. 13; and Mu Lichun (2003): 62.
400
Karl Debreczeny
to Lijiang, where he passed away. Ma Xiaoxian’s biography also appears in the
local Chinese gazetteer, which reads:
Ma Xiaoxian was a native of Jiangnan. He was skilled at depicting
landscapes, which attained the divine class. All of his flowers and figure
paintings are refined and marvelous.
The cognoscenti praised them as
“Ma’s immortal paintings.” He was renowned in the “western regions”
[Tibet] and traveled extensively there for several years, later returning to
Lijiang. The day he died, people saw that his fingers had signs, or so it is
said.
馬肖仙江南人,工圖畫山水,臻神品,花卉人物,靡不精妙,識者称
为馬仙畫。西域聞其名,延去数載,後复歸麗。死之日,人見其指頭
有字云。24
That Ma Xiaoxian was said to be from Ningbo 寧波 is significant, as
that international port city, near Hangzhou in Zhejiang 浙江 on the east coast
of China, is well known to have been a production centre for Buddhist painting
in China, and to have exported a great deal of Buddhist art to Japan and
Korea.25 Ningbo was also an important religious centre, and just to the north is
the popular pilgrimage site Putuoshan 普陀山 , the dwelling place of the
bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. The rulers of Lijiang were patrons of temples on
Putuoshan, and as Ningbo was a way-station on the pilgrimage route to this
famous site, this patronage was perhaps the source of Lijiang’s recruitment of
painters all the way from Ningbo (over 2,000 km away). It is also interesting to
note in this context that the rulers of Lijiang worked closely with the hereditary
military governors of Yunnan, the Mu 沐 family (Mu Sheng 沐晟, not to be
confused with the Mu 木 rulers of Lijiang), who were themselves prominent
patrons of famous professional painters who came from Zhejiang, like Dai Jin
24
25
Lijiangfu zhi lue, p. 181.
On the regional Ningbo tradition see: Lippit 2001, Huang 2002, Seinosuke 2001,
Toshio 1977, and Nara National Museum 2009.
Tibetan Interest in Chinese Visual Modes
401
戴进 (1388–1462), who moved to Kunming to work for them.26 Perhaps their
Chinese governmental superiors provided a model for the importation of
Zhejiang painters to Yunnan.
Since no paintings by Ma Xiaoxian have been reliably identified, and
almost all of the surviving paintings of the Ningbo tradition are from the
Southern Song and Yuan dynasties, it is very difficult to generalize about
Ningbo painting much later in the Ming. That notwithstanding, Ningbo
paintings (Plate 8) tend to be of pigmented figures standing in predominantly
ink monochrome landscapes, with subtle accents of colour in leaves, birds, and
flowers, thus highlighting the figural theme of the paintings. Also a signature of
Ningbo painting was an attention to richness of detail in aspects of the
depiction of elements of seemingly less iconographic importance, such as cloth
patterns or other decorative elements. 27 These same general characteristics
could just as easily be used to describe the signed set of Śākyamuni and the
Sixteen Arhats by the tenth Karma pa considered herein (e.g. Fig. 3), which
suggests that Chos dbyings rdo rje looked to paintings of the Ningbo region—
perhaps through the works of, or even direct instruction by, Ma Xiaoxian—for
his distinctively new Chinese style of painting, which was quite unlike earlier
Tibetan adaptations of this genre.
The compositions of Chos dbyings rdo rje’s arhat paintings closely
resemble those of Ningbo paintings of the same genre, where the figures appear
to interact with each other in social groups—such as those engaged in the
scholarly activity of appreciating art (Plate 3), whereas in Tibetan paintings
they almost always appear as individual iconic presentations, that is, as
iconographically distinct stand-alone figures. Similarly, the tenth Karma pa’s
26
See: Mary Ann Rogers, “Visions of Grandeur: The Life and Art of Dai Jin” in
Barnhart 1993: 147–59.
27
See: Lippit 2001, Huang 2002, Seinosuke 2001, and Toshio 1977.
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Karl Debreczeny
Fig. 5. Lin Liang. “Wild Fowl,” landscape detail.
(After Liu Zhen, fig. 21.)
sparing use of colour (mostly reserved for birds and flowers), in open, largely
monochrome landscapes highlighting his pigmented figures, resonates well with
conventions of the Ningbo tradition, but is a visual strategy largely alien to
Tibetan painting. Furthermore, the sub-genre of waterscapes (Plate 7),
completely unheard of in Tibetan painting, is directly associated with the
Jiangnan region within the larger genre of Chinese landscape painting. The
visual cues alerting us that the landscape in this arhat painting is in fact a
waterscape are numerous: the standing figures hold up their robes with their
feet sunken from view, waterfowl land in the background, and frogs tumble and
cavort among water reeds in the foreground. Lin Liang 林良, famous for the
naturalism of his inky birds, especially in such marshy waterscapes as the
handscroll “Wild Fowl” (Fig. 5), makes a good point of comparison to the
tenth Karma pa’s own adaptation of the genre in his arhat paintings. The short,
lively brushstrokes Lin Liang often employed to animate his paintings also
Tibetan Interest in Chinese Visual Modes
403
suggest another possible model Chos dbyings rdo rje may have looked to in
developing his own hybrid style.
This brings us to the strongest visual evidence linking Chos dbyings
rdo rje’s Chinese style of thang ka painting to the Jiangnan regional traditions:
the appearance of his birds and flowers—one of the most striking features of
his paintings. His handling of the brush in background landscape elements and
birds often makes use of a ‘boneless’ technique, in Chinese mogu 沒骨
(“boneless” being an allusion to its lack of structural outlines), suggesting
familiarity with, or even training in, Chinese painting techniques related to the
Piling 毘陵 tradition. Piling painting was native to Changzhou, in Jiangsu, and
is especially known for its distinctive highly naturalistic depiction of birds and
flowers in a boneless manner. Perhaps this is what attracted Chos dbyings rdo
rje, an avid bird lover, to Jiangnan painting. The tenth Karma pa’s employment
of largely ink monochrome landscapes with touches of brilliant colour,
especially punctuations of a startling opaque white for herons, cranes, and
flowers, is reminiscent of Lü Ji 呂紀 (act. 1475–1503), a Ming dynasty
professional painter from Ningbo who specialized in bird and flower
paintings.28
Within Chinese painting conventions, a group of arhats might be
depicted with a pair of cranes, symbols of longevity borrowed from the Daoist
sage genre, but such a profusion of birds (Plate 7) is unknown in the Chinese
arhat genre, and is a unique innovation by the tenth Karma pa. It would seem
that in his own depictions Chos dbyings rdo rje combined the secular and
religious traditions of art from Jiangnan: the bird-and-flower painting of Piling
and the arhat genre. That Chos dbyings rdo rje chose to depict arhats in birdscapes, when he was so well known for surrounding himself with birds, further
points to an intimate self-identification with his painted subjects. It is recorded
28
See for instance: “Cranes by a Rushing Stream” or “Nine Herons by a Willow Tree”
in Barnhart 1993: Cat. 56 and 60.
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Karl Debreczeny
in his biographies that shortly after
arriving in Lijiang, Chos dbyings
rdo rje “examined many thousands
of [Chinese] paintings on silk” (si
thang) in the extensive
painting
collection in the King of Lijiang’s
palace.
29
The specific kind of
Chinese paintings the tenth Karma
pa might have studied during his
long exile in Lijiang is suggested
by a painting in the Lijiang Dongba
Cultural Museum (Fig. 6) bearing
the signature of none other than the
very same Ningbo bird and flower
painter Lü Ji, with an inscription
stating that this painting had been
collected by the Mu lords of
Lijiang many generations ago. 30
This inscribed Lü Ji painting suggests that the tenth Karma pa may
have
29
had
access
to
models
Unpublished biography, fol. 179b,
line 3: bhā she’i grong gi skyed tshal
du bzhugs sgar phab / ... pho brang
nang gi si thang stong phrag mang po
’dug pa rnams gzigs.
Fig. 6. Lü Ji. “Two Ducks.” Ink and
30
The inscription is dated 1891, and
color on silk; 25 x 52 cm. Lijiang
the painting itself is comparable to Lü
(After Lijiang shu hua xuan, Pl. 21.)
Palace Museum, Taipei (see Barnhart
Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 1115).
Ji’s “Sleeping Ducks” in the National
1993: 214).
Tibetan Interest in Chinese Visual Modes
405
of some of the top Chinese painters of his day through the local rulers’
collection, and thus directly links his work to theirs.
Also, the large and well defined collection of Chinese painting put
together in the Ming period by the Mu 沐 military governors of Yunnan in
nearby Kunming contributed to the larger environment in which ideas about
canonical painting were being formed in Yunnan at that time. This important
local collection, with whose owners the rulers of Lijiang had an official
relationship, likely informed them of proper models for their own collection of
Chinese painting, and gives us some sense of the proximate models to which
the tenth Karma pa might have been exposed. The collection was not only large
but also of very high quality, and contained a substantial number of highly
naturalistic Song-period bird and flower paintings by famous Chinese artists.31
An obvious question is how much the tenth Karma pa understood about
different Chinese artists, styles, and their associations. A sophisticated grasp of
Chinese painting is suggested in the Chinese-style scroll painting of cranes being admired by a pair of arhats (Plate 3), which calls to mind the regal birds of
the early Ming court painter Bian Wenjin 辺文進 (c. 1354–1428). Depicting
arhats in the scholarly pursuit of viewing paintings is not in itself unusual, as
can be seen in a painting from the Daitokuji set of Five Hundred Lohan (Plate
9). However, the Chinese convention is to depict the saints looking at a
religious icon, such as the Guanyin depicted in Plate 9 (a combination to be
expected in Tiantai- and Pure Land-related religious works of the Ningbo
region), and not the secular theme of bird and flower paintings that the Karma
pa chose for his composition. Notice in the Karma pa’s painting (Fig. 2) that
the arhat holding the top of the painting grasps a brush in his right hand,
suggesting that the arhat may in fact be the author of this painting of cranes,
closely identifying the tenth Karma pa, himself a monastic incarnation and
31
On reconstructing the Kunming Mu family painting collection based on collectors’
seals, see Lin Li’na. I would like to thank Jenny Purtle for suggesting this route of
inquiry.
406
Karl Debreczeny
painter of birds, with his arhat figures. As with many incarnation lineages, the
Karma pas trace their previous lives back to an arhat, one of the original
recipients of the Buddha’s doctrine, which contributes to the sense of selfidentification with the tenth Karma pa’s painted subjects. Also notice the
Tibetan-style cap worn by the young boy attendant, giving this otherwise
Chinese-style painting a subtly Tibetan identity. More than a collection of
simple icons, this set of paintings has a very personal feeling in its
idiosyncrasies, and seems reflective of the Karma pa’s own experiences during
his often sad and tumultuous life. It is imbued with a yearning to take refuge in
an idealized simple and bucolic life, far from the war and political chaos in
Central Tibet from which the Karma pa fled. One senses he must have been
close to the recipient of these very personal paintings, which are selfidentifying, almost autobiographical, and so unlike the usual Tibetan
conventions of this genre.
From a formal perspective, one of the most distinctive aspects of the
tenth Karma pa’s painting is in his handling of the brush, where he employs
short, quick, controlled lines to suggest shape and give his forms a lively
feeling, a brush technique known in the Chinese tradition as zhanbi 顫笔, or
“tremulous brush.” This last quality is especially distinctive to Chos dbyings
rdo rje’s hand, and not at all part of typical Tibetan painting conventions,
which tend to emphasize outlining and complete forms. Close observation of
details, such as in the leaves above the rabbit and the knotted wood fence in the
Hwa shang painting (Fig. 3), are clear examples that can aid us in determining
works by his hand.
5 Attributed works: Questions of style vs. authorship
This brings us to the question of style versus authorship. Within different
traditions authorship can mean many things: works by one’s own hand, or in a
style one has invented, or according to one’s design, or even by virtue of one’s
agency in establishing workshops. In art works by a prominent religious figure
notions of authorship can also assume a further complicating sacred dimension,
Tibetan Interest in Chinese Visual Modes
407
much as in Medieval and Byzantine icons identified as “by the hand of Saint
Luke,” where it is often the original prototype or template for a work that is
used as its measure of authenticity, sharing in or even expanding the original
work’s efficacy. The phrase contained in the inscription of the 1660 set in
Lijiang discussed above—yongs su rdzogs pa phyag bris, “painted by his own
hand in their entirety,” that is painted from start to finish, as opposed to just
doing the outlines and then having others fill in the colours and background, a
practice common in Tibetan painting production—suggests that other works by
the Karma pa, maybe many others, were made under collaborative conditions.
Textual evidence supports this reading, as it is recorded in the tenth Karma pa’s
biographies that he set up workshops (las grwa) for the production of images,
including paintings of arhats, and worked with other artists on collaborative
projects several times earlier in his career.32 For instance, in 1637 at Rtse lha
sgang:
He collaborated with several tens of artisans to make images (sku brnyan)
of the holy Sixteen Elders painted by his own hand that had particularly
wonderful local elements (yul nyams); a silk curtain (yol ba) in three parts
(ling tshe); pillar banners (ka rgyan) with such things as the eight
auspicious symbols on them; and thang ka covers (gdung kheb) with the
twelve offering goddesses on them.33
32
In 1637 he also founded a workshop with ten sculptors (bzo bo) in Dga’ ma mo (bzo
bo bcu phrag gcig gis las grwa tshugs). Unpublished biography, fol. 173a. Also cited by
von Schroeder 2001: 801.
33
Unpublished biography of Chos dbyings rdo rje, fol. 174a, lines 6–7:’phags pa’i gnas
brtan bcu drug gi sku brnyan yul nyams khyad par can yod pa phyag ris dang / phyag si
gnang ba’i yol ba ling tshe gsum pa / ka rgyan zung la bkra shis pa’i rtags brgyad sogs
yod pa / gdung kheb la mchod lha bcu gnyis yod pa rnams bzo bo bcu phrag gis phyag
g.yug zhus te bsgubs par mdzad /.
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Karl Debreczeny
While Lijiang is not specifically mentioned in connection with any
workshops, he did establish another one in 1661, the very year he bestowed the
inscribed set, in the nearby town of Rgyal thang (which was under Lijiang
rule), for the building of a temple, and presumably for the making of images to
ornament it: “He established a workshop (las grwa tshugs) for the building of
this Po ta la, the chapel where reside such images as the Buddhas of the Five
Families, now called Chapel of the Buddhas of the Five Families of Rgyal
thang.”34
Specific visual evidence of workshop production in the figural style of
the tenth Karma pa in the paintings themselves can be found in a Śākyamuni
from a set of “Deeds of the Buddha” (Plate 10, Fig. 7) where Tibetan artists’
colour notations are clearly visible (Fig. 7). These colour notations, used by the
master to indicate the colour scheme to the painters working under him, is a
common device used in Tibetan workshop conditions. This, along with the
relatively crude handling of the pigments themselves, suggests that while the
Karma pa may have designed this set, he did not paint them. We also have
supporting textual evidence that he designed paintings on this very theme. For
instance, during the New Year festivities of the Wood Horse Year (1654):
“Once again he began to draw/sketch the Twelve Deeds (mdzad [pa] bcu
[gnyis]) [of the Buddha].” This quote suggests that perhaps this design was in34
Unpublished biography of Chos dbyings rdo rje, fol. 187a, lines 2–4: da lta rgyal
thang rigs lnga lha khang zer ba sogs rgyal ba rigs lnga’i sku sogs bzhugs pa’i gtsug
lag khang po tā la ’di bzhengs pa’i las grwa tshugs /. This chapel was likely built to
house the images of the larger than life-size Kashmiri style Buddhas of the Five
Families he cast the previous year (1660): “His attendant (Kun tu bzang po) urged him,
and, in the particular manner (style) of the land of Kashmir, the Karma pa made images
of the Buddhas of the Five Families a little over human size, Buddhas of the Three
Times, and Cittaviśramaṇa Avalokiteśvara a little over human size.” Unpublished
biography, fol. 186a, line 7–186b, line 1: rim gro pas bskul te rgyal ba rigs lnga’i sku
yul kha che’i bzo khyad ji lta ba mi tshad lhag tsam dang dus gsum sangs rgyas dang
spyan ras gzigs sems nyid ngal bso’i sku yang mi tshad lhag tsam bzhengs /.
Tibetan Interest in Chinese Visual Modes
Fig. 7. Notations detail from Deeds of the Buddha. Dpal-spungs Monastery.
(Photograph courtesy of Matthieu Ricard, Shechen Archives.)
409
410
Karl Debreczeny
tended for others to finish, as in a set of such paintings at Dpal spungs.35 The
need to specify that he alone painted the 1660 set in their entirety, combined
with records of his previously producing images with groups of artists, strongly
implies that such was the case. Chos dbyings rdo rje’s very distinctive
brushwork, identified and isolated here in works painted solely by his hand, is
useful in evaluating other works attributed to him, and invites a classic formal
analysis, using the 1660 set as a basis for comparison.
6 The Lijiang set of seventeen
Another set of “Śākyamuni and the Sixteen Arhats” (Plates 11-15) in the same
Lijiang Museum, which fits Chos dbyings rdo rje’s general visual idiom, raises
these very suspicions of possible workshop production. This set of seventeen
paintings is much more conventional in relation to the Chinese arhat genre than
the inscribed set given to the prince of Lijiang, and includes magical displays,
such as a dragon issuing out of a jar (Plate 12). The interest in animals and
food is still a consistent theme, with a cheeky monkey and his accomplice
taking a mushroom from the arhat (Plate 13), and a tiger being fed an egg.
Also, a wet, inky brush in the handling of the trees and rocks is prominent in
this set. Quite striking, too, is an emphasis on birds (Plates 14 & 15), with one
unusual grouping (Plate 14) bringing to mind compositions by Chinese painters
such as Lü Ji.
35
Unpublished biography of Chos dbyings rdo rje, fol. 184b, line 1: slar yang mdzad
bcu tshar gcig bri ba’i dbu tshugs /. Also, a year earlier, in 1653, “he painted by his
own hand thang ka(s) of the Twelve Deeds of the Buddha (ston pa’i mdzad [pa] bcu
[gnyis]).” Unpublished biography, fol. 184a, line 6: ston pa’i mdzad bcu’i sku thang
phyag ris gnang /. A set of thang ka depicting the Twelve Deeds of the Buddha in
Chinese style in ten paintings (mdzad bcu rgya bris ma thang ka bcu) painted by the
hand of Chos dbyings rdo rje survived at Mtshur phu into the 1920s when Kaḥ thog si
tu visited. Kaḥ thog si tu, p. 95, line 5, cited by Jackson 1996: 250. When Mtshur phu
monastery was destroyed by the Chinese, many personal objects related to the Karma
pa lineage in Mtshur phu were taken to Rumtek (Rum btegs), Sikkim.
Tibetan Interest in Chinese Visual Modes
411
A promising line of inquiry into evidence that the tenth Karma pa
followed specific Chinese models is in the reproduction of Chinese rebuses.
While rebuses have auspicious associations in Chinese culture based on
homophones, they do not carry over into Tibetan conventions. For instance nine
sparrows, which seem to appear in this painting (Plate 15), can be a Chinese
rebus for “to attain rank,” a suitable gift for an official, either to wish him a
good career or congratulate him on a promotion.36 As more paintings by the
Karma pa come to light, the emergence of such patterns would be strong visual
evidence that he was following specific Chinese models.
One of the paintings (Plate 11) shares the same basic figural style and
palette as the 1660 set, but it is immediately obvious that the colours are
brighter and flatter than in the set firmly identified here as by the hand of Chos
dbyings rdo rje. The figures in particular are done in flat, heavy layers of
pigment with especially thick, flat flesh tones. The shadings in the faces of the
flanking arhats are hardened into two-dimensional planes, resembling a sunburn
more than suggesting volume. Detail is still plentiful in Śākyamuni’s throne,
but here a flat, light green with white highlight is used, making the dark, blank
space around Śākyamuni appear awkward. The use of inky clouds to soften the
contrast between the green throne-backing and the blank canvas background in
the 1660 set is dropped in the uninscribed set, making the transition between
mineral pigment and bare canvas seem more stark. Completely gone are the
characteristic short ink “tremulous brush” lines used by the tenth Karma pa to
accent and emphasize shape. This is especially evident when comparing the
Buddha’s hands and feet in these two works, where a red wash has been
applied to model the palms and soles instead of his characteristic brushwork.
All of these characteristics are consistent with workshop production.
36
I would like to thank Stephen Allee for suggesting this line of inquiry. For an
extensive list of Chinese rebuses see Bartholomew 2006.
412
Karl Debreczeny
7 Previously attributed works: The Bordier Śākyamuni
Having examined two sets of paintings on either end of the spectrum between
authenticated authorship and probable workshop production, we may now take
what we have observed of what we might call the Karma pa’s larger painting
circle and turn our attention to other individual attributed works. At first glance
a work in the Bordier collection (Plate 16) is a near-identical match to the
central painting from the 1660 set (Plate 1). It is of high quality, with the
details in the throne impressive and finely painted. Yet upon closer inspection,
we note that the use of colour slightly flattens the painting, and the
characteristic quick, broken lines, or “tremulous brush,” discussed here as
characteristic of the tenth Karma pa’s hand, appears to be absent from both the
throne and the figures. As in the workshop-produced set of seventeen, all use of
ink wash apparent in the 1660 set—such as the clouds behind the throne-back
to soften the transition from pigmented throne to blank canvas—is completely
gone, and the soft, inky clouds framing the figures in the bottom corners of the
composition have become a solid, opaque blue-grey pigment. The red on the
hands and feet also makes a closer comparison to the workshop-produced set of
seventeen than to the 1660 set. Thus, the Bordier painting (Plate 16) seems to
belong somewhere between the inscribed set (Fig. 1), and the probable
workshop production (Plate 11). The existence of a painting such as the Bordier
Śākyamuni, with such overwhelming similarities to the inscribed 1660 work,
also raises the interesting question of whether these paintings were produced in
multiple examples, possibly with other painters filling in colours of Chos
dbyings rdo rje’s original sketches, or followers making copies in workshops.
8 “Writing one’s ideas”
A third incomplete set of ten uninscribed paintings (Fig. 8) is in a very different
Chinese monochrome painting style, but nonetheless resonates with the tenth
Karma pa’s general figural style. The distinctive faces and hands found in these
works are especially in keeping with the tenth Karma pa’s idiom. The short,
quick lines used in defining the hands and ears of the arhat sewing are also
Tibetan Interest in Chinese Visual Modes
413
characteristic of Chos dbyings rdo rje’s brushwork; note especially the
signature handling of the thumb. They are done in a largely monochrome, free
and expressive brush known in Chinese as xieyi 寫意, “writing [one’s] ideas,”
which is, as the term implies, deeply rooted in principles of Chinese
calligraphy. Look, for instance, at the wonderful quality of line in the
brushwork in the handling of the arhat’s robe (Fig. 9). One might associate this
kind of depiction of arhats more with Chinese Chan painters, who made liberal
use of these artistic conventions, than with a Tibetan sprul sku.
Fig. 8. Arhat Sewing. Ink and color on
paper flecked with gold; 30cm x 37cm.
Private collection.
Fig. 9. Arhat with Waterfall. Ink and
color on paper flecked with gold; 30cm
x 37cm. Private collection.
For some of the works in this set (e.g. Fig. 10) the Karma pa seems to
be working from a different Chinese figural model, that of one of the most
widely copied arhat-paintings in Chinese history, Guanxiu’s 貫休 “Sixteen
Luohan” (dating to the late ninth–early tenth century), which were widely
circulating in copies and woodblock prints by the seventeenth century. The
414
Karl Debreczeny
copying of Guanxiu’s arhats in China quickly became as canonical as copying
out the Heart Sūtra.37 Some figures closely resonate with those in Wu Bin’s 吴
彬 painting after Guanxiu, which suggests that the Karma pa may have known
Guanxiu’s set through later copies, like those of his near contemporary Wu Bin
(active ca. 1583–1625). The tenth Karma pa’s switch to paper also seems
significant, as he is otherwise known to have painted only on silk; his use of
this ground indicates that he probably was aware of, and made use of, Chinese
Fig. 10. Arhat on Rock. Ink and color on paper flecked with gold;
30cm x 37cm. Private collection.
37
Berger 2003: 136.
Tibetan Interest in Chinese Visual Modes
415
Fig. 11. The Arhat Nāgasena. Ink on silk; 38 x 19 in. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John C.
Rezk, Collection of the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art [92.062].
cultural and aesthetic conventions associated with this tradition of expressive
brushwork. This set suggests that the tenth Karma pa was conversant with
various professional and literati forms of Chinese painting in his own diverse
artistic career.
416
Karl Debreczeny
9 A monochrome ink set
Another set of arhat paintings (Figs. 11–13) associated with the tenth Karma pa
employs a completely different monochromatic ink style (shui mo hua 水墨畫)
that involves a strong use of shading and ink wash. The figural style is also
unlike that of the paintings considered so far, but reminiscent of luohan
paintings by late Ming–early Qing painters like Ding Yunpeng 丁云鵬 (1547?–
1628).38 While in style and brushwork there is nothing to immediately tie these
paintings to Chos dbyings rdo rje, when one pairs specific paintings from this
incomplete monochrome set (e.g. Fig. 11) with the set of seventeen in the
Lijiang Museum, such as the “The Arhat Nāgasena” (Plate 12), “Monkey
Taking Mushroom” (Plate 9), and so on, one sees that they are closely related,
as many of the paintings are nearly identical in theme and composition, while
others (e.g. Plate 13) borrow more loosely from figurative or landscape
elements. Certain visual clues, such as the enlargement, dispersal, and
schematisation of the pattern of flocking birds in one monochromatic ink
painting (Fig. 13) suggest that the monochrome painting may be a later copy of
an earlier Chos dbyings rdo rje work (Plate 14). In other words, the
monochromatic bird composition (Fig. 13) could be derived from a related
painting in the Lijiang Museum (Plate 14), but not the other way around.
10 Conclusion
As so little is still understood about Chos dbyings rdo rje’s larger artistic
career, and with only one set of firmly identifiable paintings, it is premature to
make final judgments on the exact nature of these attributed works. Can we say
they are ‘by Chos dbyings rdo rje’? Are they merely part of different artistic
phases? How many degrees of separation are they from the 1660 set (Plate 1)
“painted by his hand in their entirety”? Clearly his ‘hand’ is in all of these
works, whether in actual fact (Plate 1), design (Plates 10 & 16), or style (Plate
11). The most significant ramifications of these sets in an art-historical context
38
See Kent 2004, Figs. 7, 9 & 10.
Tibetan Interest in Chinese Visual Modes
417
is that they suggest that, beyond the single figure of the tenth Karma pa, teams
of painters in workshops were trained in this hybrid style of ‘Chinese-style
thang ka painting’ developed by Chos dbyings rdo rje.
Fig. 12. Monkeys Taking Mushrooms
from an Arhat. Dpal-spungs Monastery.
(Photograph courtesy of Matthieu
Fig. 13. Arhat with Flock of Birds. Dpal-
spungs Monastery. (Photograph courtesy of
Matthieu Ricard, Shechen Archives.)
Ricard, Shechen Archives.)
Still, many important questions remain in evaluating the tenth Karma
pa’s place in Tibetan artistic lineages contemporary with him. The
overwhelming majority of paintings so far identified as being in the style of
Chos dbyings rdo rje depict arhats. An examination of textual descriptions of
418
Karl Debreczeny
the tenth Karma pa’s paintings corroborates this extant visual evidence, and
shows that the Sixteen Arhats was in fact the most common theme recorded.39
While arhats are prominent throughout his painting career, more than half
(seventeen of the twenty-seven paintings) were produced during the twentyfive-year period from 1648 to 1673 when he lived in the Kingdom of Lijiang,
suggesting that he became increasingly interested in this theme and the styles
associated with it during his stay in exile there. Beyond the tenth Karma pa’s
self-identification with his subject matter, it may have been the very nature of
the arhat genre within the Tibetan tradition—being Chinese-derived and thus a
rich vehicle of Chinese visual modes—that made it a convenient medium
through which to explore his artistic interests. Indeed, based on the body of
works so far identified, his new style seems intimately linked with this genre.
That the tenth Karma pa’s interest in the arhat does not appear to have been
purely religious in nature is reinforced by the fact that such a production of
arhats is not reflected in the sculpture he is recorded as making.
While I have not provided any definitive conclusions, I hope that I have
demonstrated that the tenth Karma pa’s engagement with, and incorporation of,
Chinese art was a sophisticated and multi-leveled one, and that a deeper
investigation into these works can yield insights into how Chinese painting was
absorbed and transformed by Tibetan painters. Chos dbyings rdo rje did not just
adopt the Chinese genre wholesale, but rather experimented with different
Chinese compositional and figural models, as well as painting styles, even
mixing genres to create a very personal visual idiom.
39
For example, in surveying the biography by Si tu Paṇ chen, which contains the
greatest detail about the Karma pa’s artistic career, arhats are by far the most common
painting theme. They are mentioned twenty-seven times, roughly twice as many as the
next most common theme, Avalokiteśvara, with fourteen occurrences.
Tibetan Interest in Chinese Visual Modes
419
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barnhart, R. 1993. Painters of the Great Ming: The Imperial Court and the Zhe School.
Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art.
Berger, P. 2003. Empire of Emptiness: Buddhist Art and Political Authority in Qing
China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Debreczeny, K. 2003. The Buddha's Law Among the ’Jang: The 10th Karma-pa’s
Development of His ‘Chinese Style Thang-ka Painting’ in the Kingdom of
Lijiang. Orientations 34/4 (April 2003), 46–53.
—— 2007. Ethnicity and Esoteric Power: Negotiating the Sino-Tibetan Synthesis in
Ming Buddhist Painting. PhD thesis, University of Chicago.
—— 2009a. Dabaojigong and the regional tradition of Ming Sino-Tibetan painting in
Lijiang. In M.T. Kapstein (ed.) Buddhism Between Tibet and China. Boston:
Wisdom Publications.
—— 2009b. Bodhisattvas south of the clouds: Situ Panchen’s activities and artistic
influence in Lijiang, Yunnan. In David Jackson. Patron & Painter: Situ
Panchen and the Revival of the Encampment Style. NY: Rubin Museum of
Art, pp. 222-251.
Dkon mchog bstan ’dzin. 1994. Bzo gnas skra rtse’i chu thigs (Water Droplets of the
Arts Collected on the Tips of Hairs). Beijing: Zhongguo Zangxue Chubanshe.
Dy-Liacco, K. 2005. The Victorious Karma-pa Has Come to ’Jang: An Examination of
Naxi Patronage of the Bka’-brgyud-pa in the Fifteenth to Seventeenth
Centuries. MA Thesis, Indiana University.
Ebine, T. 1977. Ninpo butsuga. In Gendai doshaku jinbutsu ga, 113–30. Tokyo: Tokyo
National Museum.
Gao Wengying 高奣映. 2003. Jizu shan zhi 鸡足山志. Kunming: Yunnan Renmin
Chubanshe.
Gtsang Mkhan chen ’Jam dbyangs dpal ldan rgya mtsho. 1982. Poetical Biographies of
Dharmakīrti and the Tenth Karma pa Chos dbyings rdo rje with a Collection
of Instructions on Buddhist Practice. Delhi: Lakshmi Press.
Guan Xuexuan 管学宣. 1991 [1743]. (Lijiang xian Xianzhibian weihui 丽江县县治编
委会, ed.) Lijiang fu zhilue 丽江府志略. Lijiang Naxizu zizhixian.
Guo Dalie 郭大烈 and He Zhiwu 和志武. 1994. Naxizu shi 纳西族史. Chengdu:
Sichuan Minzu Chubanshe.
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Huang, S.S. 2002. The Triptych of “Daoist Deities of Heaven, Earth and Water” and
the Making of Visual Culture in the Southern Song Period (1127–1279). PhD
thesis, Yale University.
Ide Seinosuke. 2001. Nihon no Sogen butsuga. Nihon no bijitsu no. 418.
Jackson, D. 1996. A History of Tibetan Painting: The Great Tibetan Painters and Their
Traditions. Vienna: Verlag Der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Karma Nges don bstan rgyas. 1973 [1891]. Chos rje Karma pa sku ’phreng rim byon
gyi rnam thar mdor bsdus dpag bsam ’khri shing. Delhi: Topden Tsering.
Kent, R. 2004. Ding Yunpeng’s Baimiao lohans: A reflection of late Ming lay Buddhism. Record: Princeton University Art Museum (63), 62–89.
Kaḥ thog Si tu Chos kyi rgya mtsho. 2001. Kaḥ thog Si tu’i Dbus Gtsang gnas yig.
Chengdu: Sichuan minzu chubanshe.
Ldan ma ’Jam dbyangs tshul khrims. 1997. Dpal Karma pa sku phreng rim byon gyi
mdzad rnam. Lanzhou: Gansu Minzu Chubanshe.
Lijiang Naxi zu zizhi xian wenhua ju 丽江纳西族自治县文化局 and Lijiang Naxi
Dongba wenhua bowuguan 丽江纳西东巴文化博物馆. 1999. Lijiang Baisha
bihua 丽江白沙壁画. Chengdu: Sichuan Renmin Chubanshe.
Lijiang xianzhi bangongshi 丽江县志办公室, ed. 1988. Mushi Huanpu 木氏宦谱.
Lijiang Zhiyuan 丽江志苑. no. 2 (August).
Lin Li’na. Mingdai Mushi jiazu zhi shengping ji qi shuhua shoucang 明代沐氏家族之
生平及其書畫收藏. In Gugong wenwu yuekan 故宮文物月刊 101 (August
1991), 48–77.
Lippit, Y. 2001. Ningbo Buddhist painting: A reassesment. Unpublished paper given at
the 2001 meeting of the College Art Association.
Mu Lichun. 木丽春 2003. Lijiang chamagudao shi hua 丽江茶马古道史话. Dehong:
Dehong Minzu Chubanshe.
Nara National Museum 奈良國立博物館, eds. 聖地寧波:日本仏教 1300 年の源流すべてはここからやって来た (Sacred Ningbo, Gateway to 1300 Years of
Japanese Buddhism). Nara: Nara National Museum, 2009.
Richardson, H.E. 1998. Chos dbyings rdo rje, the Tenth Black Hat Karma-pa. In High
Peaks, Pure Earth: Collected Writings on Tibetan History and Culture.
London: Serindia Publications, 499–515.
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Rock, J.F. 1947. The Ancient Na-khi Kingdom of Southwest China vols. I & II.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Schroeder, U. von. 2001. Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet. Hong Kong: Visual Dharma
Publications
Shakabpa, T. 1976. Bod kyi srid don rgyal rabs. Kalimpong, W.B.: T. Tsepal, Taikhang.
Si tu Paṇ chen Chos kyi ’byung gnas and ’Be lo Tshe dbang kun khyab. 1973 [1775].
Bsgrub rgyud karma kam tshang brgyud pa rin po che’i rnam par thar pa rab
’byams nor bu zla ba chu shel gyi phreng ba. New Delhi: D. Gyaltsan and
Kesang Legshay.
Stoddard, H. 1997. The nine brothers of the White High: Mi-nyag and ‘King’ Pe-dkar
revisited. In Samten Karmay and Philippe Sagant (eds.) Les habitants du Toit
du monde: Études recueillies en hommage à Alexander W. Macdonald.
Nanterre: Société d’ethnologie, 75–109.
Unpublished biography of Chos dbyings rdo rje, likely excised from Si tu Paṇ chen's
collected works printed at Dpal spungs Monastery.
Yunnan sheng bowuguan 雲南省博物館. 2001. Mushi huanpu 木氏宦譜 影印本. Kunming: Yunnan Meishu Chubanshe.
IV.
THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF GTSANG SMYON HERUKA
WHAT DO THE CHILDHOOD AND EARLY LIFE OF
GTSANG SMYON HERUKA TELL US ABOUT HIS BKA’
BRGYUD AFFILIATION?*
STEFAN LARSSON
1 Introduction
Gtsang smyon Heruka (1452–1507) is celebrated as an important figure in the
Bka’ brgyud tradition,1 and his version of the life-story of Mi la ras pa—Mi la’i
rnam thar—is probably the best known and most widely read text ever written
in Tibet. By compiling, printing and distributing Mi la ras pa’s life-story (rnam
* All the translations in this chapter are my own and any mistakes are therefore mine.
This being said, I must acknowledge the help I received when translating and reading
the rnam thars. Skal bzang dam chos, a former Tibetan-language teacher, was
particularly important in this regard. A trip to Tibet in May 2006 was made possible
due to a generous grant from the Margot och Rune Johanssons stiftelse, and some
information found during that trip has been incorporated in the chapter. Mr. Alexandru
Anton-Luca, Prof. Franz-Karl Ehrhard, and Mr. E. Gene Smith helped me obtain some
of the rare texts that constitute the main sources for this chapter. Finally, thanks are
also due to Prof. Kurtis Schaeffer, who gave me important advice when I visited
University of Virginia during the spring semester 2007, and to the Swedish Foundation
for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT) and the
Margot och Rune Johanssons stiftelse for the scholarships that enabled me to stay there.
1
It was not until Gtsang smyon Heruka adopted the lifestyle of a mad yogin in his
early twenties that the people of Tsā ri began to call him Gtsang smyon—the madman
from Gtsang (Rgod tshang ras pa Sna tshogs rang grol 1969: 37–38). Heruka is the
Sanskrit equivalent of khrag ’thung. Gtsang smyon received the name khrag ’thung
rgyal po from his yi dam Hevajra (Rgod tshang ras pa Sna tshogs rang grol 1969: 36).
Gtsang smyon had many names but for the sake of convenience I will use only his
sobriquet—Gtsang smyon—in this chapter.
426
Stefan Larsson
thar) and songs (mgur), Gtsang smyon contributed to Mi la ras pa’s popularity,
as will be seen, too, in the chapter that follows. Despite this, Gtsang smyon
himself remains surprisingly little known. Tibetologists and learned Tibetans
have heard his name, and some also are aware that he compiled Mi la’s lifestory and songs, or that he was one of the most famous mad yogins—rnal ’byor
smyon pa—of Tibet. But apart from these basic facts, it is rather hard to find
information about him.
The most important non-Tibetan source about this Bka’ brgyud master
is an article from 1969, written by E. Gene Smith and recently re-published in
his book Among Tibetan Texts. 2 It is to this highly informative text that most
scholars with an interest in Gtsang smyon and the mad yogins of Tibet usually
refer. An excellent, but overlooked, master’s thesis by Ilze Maruta Stearns from
1985 also must be mentioned. Smith’s and Stearns’ main source is a rnam thar
(hagiography) of Gtsang smyon written by one of his main disciples, Rgod
tshang ras pa Sna tshogs rang grol (Rgod tshang ras pa, abbreviated herein as
R, 1482–1559) in the sixteenth century.3 To a lesser degree they also use a
rnam thar by another principal disciple, Lha btsun Rin chen rnam rgyal (Lha
btsun, abbreviated herein as L, 1473–1557).4
2
Some important recent studies that shed light on Gtsang smyon should also be
mentioned. Andrew Quintman has examined Gtsang smyon’s life-story of Mi la ras pa
and its creation (Quintman 2006: 188–279). Kurtis Schaeffer has written about Gtsang
smyon’s death as described by Rgod tshang ras pa Sna tshogs rang grol and compared
it to the death of Mi la ras pa as related by Gtsang smyon himself (Schaeffer 2007).
3
Rgod tshang ras pa Sna tshogs rang grol (R) 1969. Smith’s work naturally focuses on
Rgod tshang ras pa’s text, as his article originally served as an introduction to an
edition of the text (Rgod tshang ras pa 1969). There has been some confusion regarding
the identity and dates of Rgod tshang ras pa, and he has sometimes been conflated with
other masters with similar names who lived in the same period. This has been discussed
by Peter Alan Roberts (Roberts 2007: 44). Franz-Karl Ehrhard has recently more or
less resolved these problems, and he proposes that the dates were 1482–1559 (Ehrhard,
forthcoming).
4
Lha btsun Rin chen rnam rgyal (L) 1971.
The Early Life of Gtsang smyon Heruka
427
Continuing the work started by Smith and Stearns, this chapter will
consider the first part of each of the aforementioned rnam thars and supplement
them with information taken from other sources, the most important being a
rnam thar written by a third disciple of Gtsang smyon, Dngos grub dpal ’bar
(abbreviated herein as D),5 and a short synopsis of Rgod tshang ras pa’s rnam
thar by Thu’u bkwan Blo bzang chos kyi nyi ma (1737–1802).6
These rnam thars give a similar picture of Gtsang smyon. Details differ,
but the chronology and general content are parallel. The different rnam thars
have their own merits and they complement one other in various ways: for
example, Rgod tshang ras pa’s rnam thar is the most extensive, while Lha btsun
supplies more dates. Dngos grub dpal ’bar’s rnam thar is the earliest, completed
only one year after Gtsang smyon’s death. Since several passages are identical
in all of the rnam thars, it seems likely that Lha btsun and Rgod tshang ras pa
used this older rnam thar when writing their own versions. There is also a
collection of songs (mgur ’bum) attributed to Gtsang smyon that belong to the
same edition as the earliest rnam thar.7 These songs were originally issued
separately, but both Rgod tshang ras pa and Lha btsun included the songs in
their versions of Gtsang smyon’s rnam thar.
Based on the information given in these texts, Gtsang smyon’s life can
be divided into three parts:
5
Dngos grub dpal ’bar (D) 1508. This rnam thar, to my knowledge, has not been
studied before.
6
Thu’u bkwan Blo bzang chos kyi nyi ma 1989. Thu’u bkwan Blo bzang chos kyi nyi
ma included this short rnam thar of Gtsang smyon in the beginning of the rnam thar of
his lama, Lcang skya Ye shes bstan pa’i sgron ma, alias Rol pa’i rdo rje (1717–1786).
The reason for this is that Rol pa’i rdo rje himself stated that he was an incarnation of
Gtsang smyon.
7
Listed under Gtsang smyon Heruka in the bibliography. For further bibliographical
details in connection with Gtsang smyon’s tradition, refer to Kurtis Schaeffer’s chapter
that follows.
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Stefan Larsson
1.
The formative period: birth, childhood and early life, lasting until his
early twenties. During this time he became a monk, met his root-lama,
received teachings and empowerments, and studied in a monastic college.
2.
The period when he ‘practised yogic conduct’ (brtul zhugs spyod pa),
lasting from his early twenties to his early thirties. During this time he
wandered around as a mad yogin, meditated in remote caves, and
performed miracles, etc.
3.
The period of fame and influence that lasted from his early thirties
until his death. During this phase he compiled and printed texts, renovated
the Svayaṃbhū Stūpa in Nepal, established meditation centres, gathered
disciples and benefactors, bestowed empowerments and teachings, etc.
Despite the fact that it was for his activities during the second and third
periods of his life that he became famous, this chapter will treat primarily the
first period, from his birth until his early twenties. I also will address his
affiliation with the Buddhist traditions of Tibet—particularly the various Bka’
brgyud branches. In this way, I hope to add to our knowledge of Gtsang smyon,
though a complete picture of this enigmatic master must await further research.8
2 Birth, childhood, and early life
Gtsang smyon was born in upper Myang/Nyang in Gtsang, not far from Rgyal
rtse, in a place called Mkhar kha or Bkra shis Mkhar kha, east of Stag rtse, in
1452.9 According to his disciples, his appearance had been foretold in several
sūtras, tantras and gter mas, particularly in Prajñāpāramitā texts. Before his
8
When I first presented this essay I was working on a Ph.D. dissertation about Gtsang
smyon, which is now completed (Larsson 2009). The dissertation focuses upon how
Gtsang smyon was transformed into a “mad yogin” and it also examines his subsequent
activities as a mad yogin.
9
According to a local informant Bkra shis Mkhar kha is known nowadays as Smin
sgrol gling (not to be confused with the famous Rnying ma pa monastery of the same
name).
The Early Life of Gtsang smyon Heruka
429
birth his mother, Sangs rgyas ’dren, had several auspicious dreams indicating
that her son was an extraordinary being. At the time of his birth a number of
miracles occurred and the name Chos rgyal lhun po was given to him.10 Sangs
rgyas ’dren had five children, three sons and two daughters. The name of the
paternal lineage (gdung) was Myang, a lineage that had produced such famous
saints as Myang Ral pa can.11
Both Gtsang smyon and his mother continued to have dreams that were
considered important by the authors of the rnam thars. One of these dreams,
mentioned in all three texts, occurred when Gtsang smyon was about one year
old. His mother dreamt of a black man with long hair tied up in a knot on his
head, his body adorned with bone ornaments. The yogin cleaved opened the
mouth(s) of the boy(s) and stuffed books into it (them).12 Rgod tshang ras pa
interpreted this dream as a prophecy about one of Gtsang smyon’s most
important exploits, the compilation of a twelve-volume snyan brgyud
collection.13 Rgod tshang ras pa explains that the black man who appeared in
the dream was the Indian siddha Tilopa, the first human guru of the Bka’
brgyud tradition, regarded as an emanation of one of the main Bka’ brgyud yi
dams, ’Khor lo bde mchog (Cakrasaṃvara).14
10
The early part of Gtsang smyon’s life is rendered similarly in the sources, and I have
provided notes only when the rnam thars differ.
11
Myang Ral pa can is probably short for the famous gter ston Nyang Ral pa can Nyi
ma ’od zer (1124–1192).
12
D. 4b–5a, L. 6–7, R. 16, Sangs rgyas dar po: 79. Both D and L use plural/dual (gzhon
dag) and if this is the case perhaps both Gtsang smyon and his brother(s?) had texts
stuffed into their mouths by the mysterious yogin.
13
Unfortunately, only parts of this work have been found and published (Gtsang smyon
1971). On the snyan brgyud traditions of the Bka’ brgyud, refer to Marta Sernesi’s
chapter above.
14
R. 16.
430
Stefan Larsson
Fig. 1. Mkhar kha, Gtsang smyon’s birthplace. (Photo: S. Larsson.)
During his childhood Gtsang smyon’s behaviour and games all
indicated that he was an extraordinary individual, destined for Buddhist
teaching and practice. Lha btsun summarises:
When he was two years old he sometimes stood up, holding his hands in
prayer on the top of his head, and spontaneously, again and again, said: “I
salute the master Mi la! I salute the glorious Phag mo grub (gru) pa! I
salute the victorious Rgod tshang pa!”15
At the age of three, in all his games, he was teaching dharma.
Holding a small copper vase he said: “I will bestow empowerment,” and
he put [the vase] on the heads of all […]. When he was four and five he
was sitting in Vajra-posture most of the time […]. At six he perfected his
reading skill and since he was very diligent in reading the words of the
Buddha he memorized ’Jam,16 Sdud
15
16
17
and Bzang.18 He recited constantly,
Rgod tshang pa Mgon po rdo rje (1189–1258).
’Jam dpal mtshan brjod, Mañjuśrīnāmasaṃgitī.
The Early Life of Gtsang smyon Heruka
431
and when he was seven he thoroughly knew the various writing styles and
letters.19
Gtsang smyon’s natural inclination for, and interest in, Buddhism
became increasingly visible. The rnam thars describe how, with a strong
determination to reach complete liberation from saṃsāra for the sake of all
beings, he decided to become a monk. At the age of seven he received the
vows from a great preceptor (mkhan chen) named Kun dga’ sangs rgyas and
was given the name Sangs rgyas rgyal mtshan, a name that along with, or
instead of, Gtsang smyon is quite often used.20
The following years were probably spent in a small monastery near his
home in Mkhar kha. The rnam thars give no exact information, but it is stated
that he and some other monks visited families in the area to recite scriptures. It
is also mentioned that Gtsang smyon repeatedly had visions of ḍākinīs urging
him to leave home and go to La phyi, in the southern border area, to practice
meditation. Gtsang smyon was not, however, allowed to do as these visionary
females said: he tried to leave but was caught and brought back to Mkhar kha.
Mdo sdud pa, Prajñāpāramitāsañcayagāthā.
Bzang po spyod pa’i smon lam, Bhadracarīpraṇidhānarāja.
19
L. 7. dgung lo gnyis pa’i dus na re ’ga’ bzhengs nas thal mo spyi bor sbyar te / rje
btsun mi la la phyag ’tshal lo / dpal phag mo grub pa la phyag tshal lo / rgyal rgod
tshang pa la phyag ’tshal lo gsung pa yang yang du rang rdol la byung ngo / dgung lo
gsum pa’i dus na byis pa’i rtse mo thams cad chos ’chad nyan dang / zangs kyi bum
chung cig yong pa de thogs nas ngas dbang bskur gyis gsung […] kun gyi mgo bor ’jog
pa mdzad do / dgung lo bzhi pa dang lnga pa la bzhugs pa phal cher rdo rje’i dkyil
dkrungs / […] / drug pa la klog rdzogs par mkhyen te gsung sgrogs la shin du brtson
pas ’jam sdud bzang gsum thugs la bcug ste rgyun du zhal ’don mdzad / bdun pa la
chung ’bris dang srog gzugs la sogs pa’i bri cha rnams mkhyen cing thugs su chud /.
17
18
20
No information is given about Kun dga’ sangs rgyas. My own guess is that he was a
local Sa skya pa lama but this is something that must be investigated further. The
ordination ceremony is rendered in D. 5, L. 8, and R. 17.
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Back in Mkhar kha the young monk became famous for his ability to
recite the Hundred-Thousand-Line Prajñāpāramitā (’Bum) by heart and for
meticulously preserving his Vinaya vows.21 Rgod tshang ras pa describes how
Gtsang smyon at the age of thirteen made a small bag that he filled with deadly
poison and hung around his neck. After that he made a solemn promise to
swallow the poison immediately if he ever violated his monastic vows, adding:
“If swallowing this will not kill me, may the Protector of the Tent (gur mgon)
remove my heart’s blood.”22 Whenever some desire arose in the young monk’s
mind he just touched the bag around his neck and the desire disappeared by
itself. Gtsang smyon’s ability to guard his vows in this way made him a great
example for other monks to follow, and he always “guarded his discipline like
his own eyes.”23
The visions of ḍākinīs urging him to leave Mkhar kha and practice
meditation did not cease. Finally, when in his teens, Gtsang smyon escaped and
headed for Tsā ri, in the southeast.24 On his way he passed through Dwags po,
where he met Sha ra rab ’byams pa Sangs rgyas seng ge (Sha ra ba, 1427–
1470),25 a Dge lugs pa dge bshes who had started to follow the Bka’ brgyud
tradition and was considered to be an emanation of the great Indian siddha
Saraha.26 Since Sha ra ba is largely unknown and his life-story gives some clues
21
22
R. 18–19.
R. 18. ’di ’gams [gams] nas shi mi sdod na gur gyi mgon pos snying khrag phyung
cig gsung.
23
24
R. 18–19. tshul khrims rnam par dag pa mig ’bras bzhin bsrung ba’i […].
According to Lha btsun he was fourteen (L. 9) and according to Rgod tshang ras pa
he was eighteen years old when he escaped (R. 20).
25
I have found two rnam thars of Sha ra ba, a short rnam thar included in Gtsang
smyon’s Bde mchog mkha’ ’gro snyan brgyud (Gtsang smyon 1971: 111–13) and a
more extensive one (26 folios) by Byams pa phun tshogs, executed in Gung thang in
1559 (Byams pa phun tshogs 1976).
26
According to a rnam thar of Shākya mchog ldan (1428–1507), Sha ra ba was a Dge
lugs pa (ri bo dge ldan pa) dge bshes who later became a Bka’ brgyud pa (Dkar brgyud
The Early Life of Gtsang smyon Heruka
433
about the lineage that Gtsang smyon inherited, his life will be described in
some detail.
Sha ra ba was born in a place called Sha ra in ’Phan yul, northeast of
Lhasa.27 He belonged to the Khyung po clan, his father’s name was Rong rta
dpon bsod, his mother’s was Sgrol ma, and he had five siblings. Like other
great masters-to-be, he amazed those who saw him, and at the age of three he
taught the Buddhist doctrine. When older, Sha ra ba felt a need to renounce
saṃsāra, and at thirteen he entered a monastic community. As a young monk he
started to study the Buddhist teachings in a systematic and gradual way.
Starting with the Sde snod gsum (Tripiṭaka)—Mdo (Sūtra), ’Dul ba (Vinaya),
and Mngon pa (Abhidharma)— he soon mastered Tshad ma (Pramāṇa) and
Dbu ma (Madhyamaka) as well. Sha ra ba studied in monastic institutions such
as Se ra, Gsang phu, and ’Bras spungs, and at twenty-five he went to the
teaching convent of Rtse thang. He steadily progressed in learning and finally
attained the rab ’byams degree. From then on he became known as Sha ra rab
’byams pa and became “as famous as the sun and the moon,” to use the
expression of the rnam thar.28 It was at this point that Sha ra ba’s link to the
tantric teachings and the Bka’ brgyud lineage started to manifest. He
encountered several great teachers who bestowed empowerments (dbang and
rjes gnang), reading transmissions (lung) and oral instructions (khrid, gdams
ngag), and started to devote his time to the practice of meditation in solitude.
Among the lamas Sha ra ba met, four became particularly important: Kun
mkhyen Gzhon nu blo gros;29 ’Dul ’dzin pa Ngag gi dbang po; the twelfth
pa) (Kun dga’ grol mchog, Jo nang 1975: 70–71). This is also stated by Stag lung Ngag
dbang rnam rgyal (1992: 451). On his status as an emanation of Saraha, refer to D. 6a,
L. 9, R. 20, Gtsang smyon 1971: 111.
27
This and the following information about Sha ra ba are taken from Byams pa phun
tshogs 1976: 453–466.
28
29
Byams pa phun tshogs 1976: 457.
Lcang gling pa Gzhon nu blo gros in Gtsang smyon 1971: 112.
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Stefan Larsson
abbot of Stag lung, Stag lung rin po che Ngag dbang grags pa (1418–1496);30
and Mkhas grub Bsod nams don grub.31 From these and other teachers he
received different instructions that he later passed on to Gtsang smyon.
Sha ra ba was especially interested in the different aural lineages
(snyan brgyud) of the Bka’ brgyud tradition. The rnam thar mentions that he
received the complete Ngan rdzong snyan brgyud, the complete Dwags po
snyan brgyud, and the complete Ras chung snyan brgyud. This means that he
received all the snyan brgyud transmissions found in ’Jam mgon Kong sprul
blo gro mtha’ yas’s (1813–1899) Gdam ngag mdzod collection. Sha ra ba
became a lineage holder of the Ras chung snyan brgyud—a transmission that
he received in La phyi from the above-mentioned ’Dul ’dzin pa Ngag gi dbang
po. He also received such teachings as the Ro snyoms and Nāro gsang spyod,
Dohā skor gsum, Lhan cig skyes sbyor, Gtum mo, Chos drug, Phyag rgya chen
po yi ge bzhi pa (the Four-Letter Mahāmudrā), and instructions on the nature of
the mind (sems khrid). Besides Stag lung Bka’ brgyud and Ras chung Bka’
brgyud transmissions, Sha ra ba received many different Bka’ brgyud
teachings, including those of the Karma Bka’ brgyud, ’Bri khung Bka’ brgyud,
’Brug pa Bka’ brgyud, and Shangs pa Bka’ brgyud. Besides these Bka’ brgyud
teachings, however, he also received Zhi byed teachings, as well as Sa skya
teachings such as Lam ’bras. After receiving tantric teachings Sha ra ba
practised with great effort and quickly gained realization. The scholar-monk
had become a tantric yogin, and soon became famous and attracted disciples.
During the nine months they spent together, Sha ra ba bestowed
many—perhaps
all—of
the
above-mentioned
esoteric
teachings
and
empowerments on Gtsang smyon, and the latter thus entered the tantric path
and was given yet another name: Chos kyi grags pa. His time with Sha ra ba is
described by Dngos grub dpal ’bar as follows:
30
31
Called Mnyam med Stag lung thang pa by Byams pa phun tshogs (1976: 499).
The four main lamas of Sha ra ba are mentioned by Byams pa phun tshogs (see, for
example, Byams pa phun tshogs 1976: 499).
The Early Life of Gtsang smyon Heruka
435
[Gtsang smyon] listened to profound oral instructions (man ngag) on the
view, i.e. Phyag rgya chen po yig ge bzhi pa (The Four-Letter Mahā-
mudrā),32 and on the path of means, i.e. Nāro chos drug (The Six Dharmas
of Nāro). By means of his own experiences and insights [Sha ra ba also]
taught the Bde mchog snyan (b)rgyud (The Aural Transmission of Bde
mchog) or Ras chung snyan (b)rgyud) (The Aural Transmission of Ras
chung). [These teachings] are like the source or root of all the profound
paths of the precious Bka’ (b)rgyud […].33
Even when this great being [Gtsang smyon] practised for just one
day he completed many [practices] that ordinary persons who practise
meditation for years do not [complete]. It was comparable to taking back
one’s birthright. The emanation body [Sha ra ba] was pleased in his heart
and he felt that they had an excellent connection (rten ’brel).34
Rgod tshang ras pa gives a more detailed account of the instructions,
transmissions, and empowerments that Gtsang smyon received from Sha ra ba.
Just like Dngos grub dpal ’bar, he emphasises the Four-Letter Mahāmudrā
(Phyag rgya chen po yi ge bzhi pa), the aural transmissions (snyan brgyud), and
the Six Dharmas of Nāro (Nāro chos drug), but besides these ‘core teachings’
he provides us with several other titles. Among the reading transmissions (lung)
Gtsang smyon received one finds: Ri chos skor gsum, Thar gru skor gsum,
32
The transmission lineage of these teachings to Gtsang smyon is found in Gdams ngag
mdzod, vol. Nya, 1979–1981: 40–41.
I am reading brgyud (transmission) for rgyud (tantra) as given in the text.
34
D. 6b. zab mo’i man ngag gsan tshul ni / lta ba phyag rgya chen po yig ge bzhi pa /
thabs lam nā ro chos drug / bka’ rgyud rin po che’i zab lam mtha’ dag gi rtsa ba’am /
ma mo lta bur gyur pa / ras chung snyan rgyud dam / bde mchog snyan rgyud du grags
pa nyams khrid du mdzad cing / de’i dus na yang lam rtags dang drod rtags gang zag
gzhan phal gyis lo du mar bsgoms pas mi yong ba / bdag nyid chen po ’di yis zhag re
la’ang du ma zhig rdzogs par mdzad cing / rang gi bcol ba len pa ltar gyur pa na / sprul
sku thugs mnyes te rten ’brel yod pa yin /.
33
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Stefan Larsson
Phyag rgya chen po lnga ldan, Nāro chos drug (according to the traditions of
Karma pa, Yang dgon pa (1213–1258), Urgyan pa (1229–1309), and ’Ba’ ra ba
(1310–1391)), Lhan cig skyes sbyor, Dohā skor gsum, Dohā mdzod drug, Ro
snyoms bgang dril (= Ro snyom skor drug?) and Rdo rje tshig ’byed. Rgod
tshang ras pa also mentions that Gtsang smyon received the Lhan cig skyes ma
empowerment and that Sha ra ba gave Gtsang smyon profound instructions
based on the Four-Letter Mahāmudrā and Nāropa’s Six Dharmas. By practising
what his lama had taught him, Gtsang smyon rapidly progressed in his
understanding and gained spiritual powers.35
According to Rgod tshang ras pa, it was during this time that some
people first started to wonder if Gtsang smyon suffered from madness. These
speculations arose because he repeatedly came late to his lama’s lessons. When
asked about his whereabouts, Gtsang smyon said that he had been to various
pure lands, such as U rgyan, or that he had attended ritual feasts (tshogs ’khor)
in charnel grounds. When they heard his answers, some of Sha ra ba’s disciples
held him to be a fraud, while others thought he had gone mad.36 The reason for
his unusual behaviour was not ordinary madness, however, but rather his
mastery of the rtsa lung practices.37 Before they parted, Sha ra ba advised
Gtsang smyon to abandon the eight worldly dharmas and devote his life to
practice in isolated Bka’ brgyud places of meditation:38
35
36
37
38
R. 22.
R. 24. Stearns 1985: 23.
R. 23.
1) rnyed pa and 2) ma rnyed pa ‘gain and loss,’ 3) bde ba and 4) sdug bsngal
‘pleasure and pain,’ 5) bstod pa and 6) smad pa ‘praise and blame,’ 7) snyan pa and 8)
mi snyan pa ‘fame and infamy.’
The Early Life of Gtsang smyon Heruka
437
Now go elsewhere and accomplish [your] studies in the tantras, such as
the Hevajra Tantra (Brtag gnyis).39 After that, do not look back at this life.
Take the lowest position and wear tattered clothes. Do not care about
food, clothing, and talk. Be a son of the mountains and wear mist for
clothes. By “practising yogic conduct” (brtul zhugs kyi spyod pa) bring
appearing objects to the path. Be free from fear. With your heart, cast
away the eight worldly dharmas and establish the Victory Banner of
Accomplishment in the great pilgrimage places of the Bka’ brgyud pa: the
Tsā ri, Tsa gong, La phyi, Chu bar, Ti se Snow Mountain (i.e. Mt.
Kailash), and the Six Fortresses, and work for the benefit of the teaching
and beings.40
Sha ra ba died shortly after their parting, so Gtsang smyon never saw
him again, but he devoted the rest of his life to practising and teaching what
Sha ra ba had taught him.
After having spent some time meditating in Tsā ri as originally
planned, Gtsang smyon remembered his lama’s instruction and returned home
to Mkhar kha. After he had been in Mkhar kha for about five months, Gtsang
smyon’s mother dreamt of five beautiful girls who said that her son should be
sent to study the tantras. When Gtsang smyon heard about his mother’s dream
39
The Tibetan translation of this text is found in Bka’ ’gyur. The title is an abbreviation
for Kya’i rdor rtsa rgyud brtag pa gnyis pa (Hevajratantrarājanāma). For an English
translation, see Snellgrove 1959.
40
Thu’u bkwan Blo bzang chos kyi nyi ma 1989: 41–42. da gzhan du song la brtag
gnyis sogs rgyud sde’i slob gnyer mthar phyin gyis / de nas tshe ’di la phyi mig ma lta
/ dman pa’i sa zungs / hrul po’i gos gyon / gyong lto gos gtam gsum la thong / ri’i bu
gyis / na bun gos su gyon / brtul zhugs kyi spyod pas yul snang lam du khyer /nyam
nga la thog rdzis gyis / ’jig rten chos brgyad blos thongs la tsa ri tsa gong / la phyi chu
bar / gangs te se dang rdzong drug sogs bka’ brgyud kyi gnas chen rnams su sgrub pa’i
rgyal mtshan tshugs la bstan ’gro’i don gyis shig gsungs /. Similar passages are found
in D. 6b, L. 13 and R. 25–26.
438
Stefan Larsson
Figs. 2, 3. Dpal ’khor chos sde and Gur pa grwa tshang.
(Photos: S. Larsson.)
The Early Life of Gtsang smyon Heruka
439
he remembered his root-lama’s command and it was decided that Gtsang
smyon should study in the famous Dpal ’khor chos sde monastery in Rgyal
rtse.
At Dpal ’khor chos sde Gtsang smyon entered the Gur pa monastic
college, which belonged to the Sa skya tradition.41 There he studied the tantras
and their different commentaries. He also learned how to perform complicated
tantric rituals and became proficient in all the many skills required of a vajra
master (rdo rje slob dpon). Thu’u bkwan summarises:
From G.yu lung pa Yon tan rgya mtsho [he received] empowerments such
as: Dgyes rdor (Hevajra), the Gathering of the Gur Families (Gur rigs
bsdus), and Vajrakīlaya (Rdo rje phur ba) according to the Sa skya
tradition, [and he also] received instructions of the tantras: Brtag gnyis,
Rdo rje gur and Sampuṭa,42 and by listening to the complete explanations
of the Indian and Tibetan commentaries he really understood them.
Moreover, from the master Kun dga’ nyi ma and Paṇ chen Don grub
grags pa et al., he received advice on the development and fulfilment
[stages], tantra explanations, and secret mantra empowerments. [He also]
listened to many [instructions] on the practice of hand-gesture, maṇḍaladrawing, and melodies [for recitation], etc.43
41
I visited Dpal ’khor chos sde in May, 2006, and found that Gtsang smyon was
remembered as a famous monk of the college’s past.
Sambhuṭa, the spelling given in the text, is a variant of Sampuṭa.
Thu’u bkwan Blo bzang chos kyi nyi ma 1989: 42. g.yu lung pa yon tan rgya mtsho’i
drung nas sa lugs kyi dgyes rdor / gur rigs bsdus / rdo rje phur pa sogs kyi dbang rgyud
brtag gnyis rdo rje gur / sambhuṭa / rnams la rgya ’grel dang bod ’grel gyi steng nas
bshad pa mtha’ chos pa gsan / gzhan yang slob dpon kun dga’ nyi ma / paṇ chen don
grub grags pa sogs la gsang snags kyi dbang dang rgyud kyi bshad pa bskyed rdzogs
kyi gdams pa / gar thig dbyangs sogs kyi phyag len mang du gsan no /.
42
43
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Stefan Larsson
After three years of studies, Gtsang smyon started to behave in the way
that later became his trademark. Thus, we are told, he suddenly stopped
following the rules expected of a monk.
One time the provincial ruler and his ministers came to the monastery
from Rgyang rtse (Rgyal rtse). The monks had assembled in a very large
gathering and [Gtsang smyon] went into the rows carrying a skull-cup and
a thigh-bone trumpet. He consumed the tea, soup, and so on in his skullcup. Adding tsam pa and biscuits, he stirred the mixture with his thigh-
bone trumpet and ate. The master of discipline noticed that the monks
around him had started to laugh. He asked: “What kind of behaviour of
monks in the assembly is this?” and prepared to beat [Gtsang smyon] with
a stick.44
After this incident Gtsang smyon remembered his root-lama’s
instructions. Feeling that the time to practise what he had studied had arrived,
he offered his clothes and belongings to the monastery and left.45 The next step
of his spiritual career then began. The monk-scholar became a mad yogin.46
Rgod tshang ras pa, rather poetically, describes Gtsang smyon’s wanderings
after he had left the monastery:
44
R. 28. de nas skabs cig chos sder rgyang rtse (rgyal rtse) nas sde pa dpon slon (dpon
blon) rnams kyang phebs / dge ’dun shin du tshogs pa che ba’i tshogs gral du thod phor
dang rkang dung rnams (bsnams) nas byon / ja dang thug pa sogs ka lir gsol de la tsam
pa (rtsam pa) dang mar thud btab pa’i skyo ma rkang dung gi (gis) krug (dkrugs) cing
gsol bas / gral mdzes (mtshes) kyi dge ’dun rnams gzhad rgad (bzhad gad) du gyur tshe
/ chos khrims pas mthong nas dge ’dun gyi tshogs gral du ’di ’dra byed pa ci yin zhes
rgyug pa sdeg par (rdeg par) rtsams pas / (this section is also translated in Stearns
1985: 27).
45
46
When I visited Dpal ’khor chos sde some monks also reported this incident.
For a thorough investigation of this phase of Gtsang smyon’s life, see Larsson 2009.
The Early Life of Gtsang smyon Heruka
441
Then once again, [Gtsang smyon] departed in the manner of a madman.
Without any provisions whatsoever, he wandered aimlessly, in all
directions, completely fearless like a lion; without doubts like an elephant
craving water; free from clinging like the leaves of a tree agitated by the
wind.47
3 Gtsang smyon’s affiliation with the Bka’ brgyud tradition
Tibetan masters, and indeed Tibetans in general, often receive teachings and
empowerments from lamas of different traditions.48 Although a specific lama
generally belongs to a certain order or lineage, these have always interacted and
it is therefore impossible to make any absolute distinctions between them.
Nevertheless there is an awareness of what tradition a lama or a monastery
belongs to, and one also finds differences in spirit and doctrine among the
various Buddhist schools of Tibet. Another important factor that needs to be
taken into consideration concerns the religious climate during the lifetime of
Gtsang smyon. It seems that a sharp dividing line between the different orders
had not yet been fully developed in fifteenth-century Tibet—particularly among
the various Bka’ brgyud branches. This should be kept in mind when Gtsang
smyon’s relation to, and affiliations with, the Buddhist traditions of Tibet is
explored.
Gtsang smyon was born in an area with strong Sa skya presence, and as
described above, he studied in the Gur pa college of Dpal ’khor chos sde—a Sa
47
R. 41–42. de nas kyang seng ge ltar gang la’ang ’jigs pa med cing / glang chen chu la
snyog pa ltar the tshom dang bral la / shing lo rlung gis skyod pa ltar zhen med phyogs
kun du nges pa med par rgyu zhing / gang la yang phyed ’dzin bza’ gtad dang bral ba
smyon pa lta bu’i tshul gyis gshegs pa las /.
48
By ‘tradition’ I mainly mean the four main traditions (sects, schools, orders, Tibetan:
chos lugs) within Tibetan Buddhism: Bka’ brgyud, Sa skya, Rnying ma, and Dge lugs.
Each of these is divided into several branches and many transmissions or lineages
(brgyud pa) are incorporated within them.
442
Stefan Larsson
skya college—for at least three years.49 It is also likely that he had connections
with the Sa skya tradition during his childhood and youth in Mkhar kha. There
are several indications that this was the case. One indication that Gtsang smyon
indeed was a Sa skya pa at this time is the episode (described above) when
Gtsang smyon made a bag of poison and hung it around his neck. When doing
this he made a solemn oath to Gur mgon, one of the main Sa skya protectors,
something he would likely not have done had he not been a Sa skya pa. Rgod
tshang ras pa describes how Gtsang smyon, shortly after leaving Dpal ’khor
chos sde, changed his protector from Gur mgon to the Four-Armed One (phyag
bzhi pa). This happened while he was meditating in a cave of the Four-Armed
One in Tsā ri. At that time a black man appeared; after a fight with Gtsang
smyon he revealed his identity as the Four-Armed One, the protector of the
Aural Transmission (snyan brgyud), and said that he was destined to be Gtsang
smyon’s protector.50 After this incident the Four-Armed One became Gtsang
smyon’s main protector and the Sa skya connection became less visible.51
Another interesting point, which perhaps reveals a Sa skya influence, is the fact
that Gtsang smyon’s yi dam, Hevajra, is the main yidam of the Sa skya pas.52
Rgod tshang ras pa describes how Gtsang smyon studied the Hevajra root
tantra—Brtag gnyis—and the commentaries by ’Gro mgon ’phags pa (1235–
1280)53 in Dpal ’khor chos sde and how he “put the words and meaning to his
49
According to one rnam thar he stayed in Dpal ’khor chos sde for three years (D. 7a),
and according to another for four years (L. 15).
50
51
R. 38.
It should however be noted that Gur mgon also is an important protector in the Jo
nang school.
52
However, it is important to be aware of the fact that Hevajra was (and still is) a very
important yi dam in the Bka’ brgyud tradition; it was the yidam of Mar pa, for
example.
53
’Gro mgon ’Phags pa Blo gros rgyal mtshan.
The Early Life of Gtsang smyon Heruka
443
heart without leaving anything out.”54 Gtsang smyon’s expertise in the Hevajra
tantra is often mentioned in the rnam thars and he sometimes referred to the
chapter of conduct (spyod pa’i le’u) of Brtag gnyis when questioned about his
unusual behaviour.55 Lha btsun mentions that Gtsang smyon received, and
internalised, the complete Lam ’bras transmission in Dpal ’khor chos sde56 and
we have already seen that Gtsang smyon’s root-lama, Sha ra ba, received these
essential Sa skya teachings as well. If—as I am proposing—Gtsang smyon
really was a Sa skya pa monk before meeting Sha ra ba, this means that he had
been a Sa skya monk for many years before he started to practise in the Bka’
brgyud tradition. After leaving Sha ra ba, he studied for three (or four) more
years at a famous Sa skya college. Since he spent only nine months with Sha ra
ba, he probably had studied and practised according to the Sa skya tradition for
ten to fifteen years57 and Bka’ brgyud for only nine months when, in his early
twenties, he left his monastery and became an itinerant Bka’ brgyud yogin. In
the Gur pa college of Dpal ’khor chos sde, Gtsang smyon studied under at least
three masters, and was formally educated in the Sa skya tradition. This means
that when Gtsang smyon recited, performed rituals and religious dances,
bestowed empowerments, made offerings and gtor mas, and so on, he probably
54
R. 27. / […] gtso bor rtsa rgyud brtag gnyis dang / ’gro mgon ’phags pa’i ’grel pa
rnams tshig don ma lus pa thugs su tshud […] /.
55
56
57
See for example D. 8b–9a, R. 33, 45.
L. 16.
The sources differ here; according to Lha btsun he became ordained at eight (L. 7)
and, according to Rgod tshang ras pa, at seven (R. 16). There are also differences
concerning his age when leaving Mkhar kha and meeting Sha ra ba; according to Lha
btsun he was fourteen (L. 9), and according to Rgod tshang ras pa, he was eighteen (R.
20). The chronological difference is leveled out due to the fact that Lha btsun states
that Gtsang smyon was 17 when entering the monastery and that he studied for four
years (rather than three years) in the monastery (L:15). That means that all three
authors seem to agree that he was in his early twenties when leaving the monastery.
444
Stefan Larsson
Fig. 4. Mar pa, Mi la ras pa, and Ras chung pa. (Photo: S. Larsson.)
sometimes did so according to the Sa skya tradition, or at least under a Sa skya
influence.
Despite Gtsang smyon’s Sa skya background, his later life, aspects of
which are explored in the following chapter, provides substantial evidence of
his Bka’ brgyud pa affiliations. Gtsang smyon’s Bka’ brgyud connection is also
obvious in the descriptions of his childhood and early life. We have already
seen, for example, how the Bka’ brgyud founding father Tilopa appeared in a
dream to Gtsang smyon’s mother when Gtsang smyon was one year old, and
inserted snyan brgyud texts into him. We also saw how Gtsang smyon, at the
age of two, supplicated the Bka’ brgyud masters Mi la ras pa, Phag mo gru pa,
and Rgod tshang pa Mgon po rdo rje. Several other examples are found in the
rnam thars. Dngos grub dpal ’bar, for instance, describes how Gtsang smyon, in
his early teens, offered whatever nice things he saw to Mi la ras pa and Rgod
tshang pa Mgon po rdo rje.58 Another indication of Gtsang smyon’s Bka’
58
D. 5b.
The Early Life of Gtsang smyon Heruka
445
brgyud connection was his urge to go to La phyi and Tsā ri, two of the most
important places of meditation and pilgrimage in the Bka’ brgyud tradition.59
In these ways the disciples of Gtsang smyon show that their lama,
although trained in a Sa skya monastery, was a Bka’ brgyud pa at heart, and
thus his Sa skya link appears to be merely superficial. However, it is not clear
what kind of Bka’ brgyud pa he was. The references to Rgod tshang pa Mgon
po rdo rje, quoted above, give the impression that he belonged to the Stod
branch of the ’Brug pa Bka’ brgyud, but although Gtsang smyon is often
counted as a ’Brug pa Bka’ brgyud pa, there is more to the picture. In order to
understand Gtsang smyon’s connection to the Bka’ brgyud lineage and its many
branches, further sources should be taken into consideration. For instance the
rnam thar of his root-lama, Sha ra ba, and the teachings that Sha ra ba
bestowed upon Gtsang smyon, could be of interest. The problem is that Sha ra
ba is not an easy lama to localize within the Bka’ brgyud context either.60 In the
rnam thar of Sha ra ba it is stated that he had received Bka’ brgyud teachings
from several different lamas, the most important being ’Dul ’dzin Ngag gi
dbang po and the twelfth abbot of Stag lung, Ngag dbang grags pa. From the
former Sha ra ba received the complete Ras chung snyan brgyud transmission,
and he regarded the latter, the Stag lung abbot, as his root lama and received
many teachings from him as well.61 From this account it is clear that Gtsang
smyon, through his root-lama, had connections with both the Ras chung Bka’
brgyud and Stag lung Bka’ brgyud.
Rgod tshang ras pa also mentions that Gtsang smyon received
teachings and empowerments from the second ’Brug chen, Rgyal dbang chos
59
These places are important also for adherents of other traditions but they are
particularly strongly associated with the Bka’ brgyud. Detailed studies of La phyi and
Tsā ri have been carried out by Toni Huber (Huber 1997, 1999).
60
Another problem is that the rnam thar of Sha ra ba was printed after Gtsang smyon’s
lifetime.
61
Byams pa phun tshogs 1976: 461.
446
Stefan Larsson
rje (1428–1476) in Lho brag about a year after he left Dpal ’khor chos sde.62
According
to
this
account
Gtsang
smyon
received
the
permission
empowerment (rjes gnang) of the Four-Armed Wisdom Protector, and
teachings of the ritual practices (sgrub thabs) of the lineage that had been
transmitted from Zhang ’gro ba’i mgon po (1123–1193)63 to Gtsang pa rgya ras
(1161–1211),64 and also of the lineage that had been transmitted from Phag mo
gru pa Rdo rje rgyal po (1110–1170) to Gling ras pa Pad ma rdo rje (1128–
1188). Gtsang smyon also received the longevity empowerment of Tshe dpag
med (Amitāyus) according to Ras chung’s transmission (ras chung lugs).
Finally, it is mentioned that Gtsang smyon was appointed Lord of Dharma
(chos kyi bdag po) by the head of the ’Brug pa Bka’ brgyud tradition.65
Gtsang smyon and the other famous smyon pas are also counted
among the disciples of the seventh Karma pa, Chos grags rgya mtsho (1451–
1502), in the rnam thar of the latter.66 However, the only affirmation of this
found in the rnam thars of Gtsang smyon is mention of a brief meeting with
the Karma pa in the rnam thar by Rgod tshang ras pa.67
Lha btsun relates how Gtsang smyon once was asked: “What lineage
do you follow? Which lama has been kindest towards you? What experiences
and understandings do you have?” Gtsang smyon answered: “My lineage is
renowned as the Dwags po Bka’ brgyud, [my] lama is Sha ra rab ’byams pa,
and I have no experience or realization at all.”68
62
63
R. 40–41; this would mean that he was about twenty-two years old at the time.
Brtson ’grus grags pa alias Zhang ’gro ba’i mgon po (1123–1193) was the first
lineage holder of the Tshal pa transmissions.
64
65
Gtsang pa rgya ras Ye shes rdo rje (1161–1211) was the first ’Brug chen.
R. 41. It should be borne in mind that the meeting between Gtsang smyon and Rgyal
dbang chos rje is not mentioned in the rnam thar by Dngos grub dpal ’bar.
66
See, for instance, Dpa’ bo gtsug lag phreng ba, 2006: 568.
67
R. 214. This meeting is not mentioned by Lha btsun or Dngos grub dpal ’bar.
L. 125. ngas rgyud pa dags po [dwags po] bka’ rgyud [brgyud] du grags pa de yin/
bla ma sha ra rab ’byams pa yin/ nga rang la go myong rtogs pa ci yang med byas bas.
68
The Early Life of Gtsang smyon Heruka
447
This is a very imprecise answer, however, since all of the “four great
and eight small” Bka’ brgyud branches are Dwags po Bka’ brgyud. His answer
does not tell us whether he was a Stag lung Bka’ brgyud, a Karma Bka’
brgyud, or perhaps a ’Brug pa Bka’ brgyud; and if he indeed was a ’Brug pa,
we receive no information regarding the ’Brug pa branch to which he
belonged. To make matters more complicated Gtsang smyon was a lineage
holder of Ras chung Bka’ brgyud, a branch that was transmitted through Ras
chung and not Sgam po pa/Dwags po.69 The more one investigates, the more
difficult it seems to answer the question about Gtsang smyon’s connection to
the various Bka’ brgyud branches.
4 Conclusion
The easiest solution to the problem of localising Gtsang smyon among the many
Bka’ brgyud (and other) traditions is simply to see him as an outsider.
Deliberately standing outside of institutions and monasteries enhanced Gtsang
smyon’s possibilities to gain support. Being an outsider was an important part of
the mad yogin’s lifestyle and the expected position for such a practitioner to
take. It enabled Gtsang smyon to accomplish many things that would have been
difficult for a monk-scholar affiliated with a monastic institution. Gtsang smyon
wandered freely, not only among Buddhist traditions, but also among various
political leaders. For an outsider, Gtsang smyon was very “well connected” and
he eventually obtained influence and power. He skilfully managed to remain
outside conflicts and problems while securing support and funding for his own
projects. His position as an outsider—a wandering mad yogin, not belonging
anywhere—no doubt benefited him.
In a similar manner, Sha ra ba, when asked the same question, said that he had faith in
the Dwags po Bka’ brgyud (Byams pa phun tshogs 1976: 471).
69
The lineage of these teachings transmitted to Gtsang smyon is given by Rgod tshang
ras pa (R. 7), and is also found in Gdam ngag mdzod, vol. Nya 1979–1981: 62–63.
448
Stefan Larsson
The interesting paradox displayed in the person of Gtsang smyon is
that, despite being an outsider with a Sa skya pa background and despite having
a root lama who had been a Dge lugs pa, he stands out as a Bka’ brgyud purist
of sorts.70
Fig. 5. Gtsang smyon He ru ka. (Photo: S. Larsson).
70
It should be noted, however, that he continued to teach Sa skya doctrines to his
disciples. According to a rnam mgur about Lha btsun rin chen rnam rgyal, for example,
Gtsang smyon transmitted the famous Lam ’bras teachings of the Sa skya tradition to
Lha btsun (Dpal ldan bla ma dam pa mkhas grub lha btsun chos gyi rgyal po’i rnam
mgur blo ’das chos sku’i rang gdangs 1976: 305).
The Early Life of Gtsang smyon Heruka
449
He appears almost extreme in his faith and adherence to the ideals and
doctrines of the Bka’ brgyud, practising and disseminating their most
characteristic teachings: Mahāmudrā, the Six Doctrines of Nāropa, and the
aural transmissions (snyan brgyud) of the early Bka’ brgyud masters.
Moreover, he dressed and acted like the Bka’ brgyud forefathers, Tilopa and
Nāropa, and meditated in the same caves as Mi la ras pa. The disciples who
wrote the rnam thars repeatedly state that his seemingly crazy and unorthodox
manner was in reality anything but that. And indeed, seen in relation to the
early Bka’ brgyud pa yogins whose unconventional life-style he both emulated
and propagated, Gtsang smyon Heruka was, in fact, quite orthodox.
Fig. 6. Gtsang smyon’s shoe. (Photo: S. Larsson.)
450
Stefan Larsson
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Byams pa phun tshogs. 1976 [1559]. Mkhas grub Sha ra rab ’jam [sic] pa Sangs rgyas
seng ge’i rnam thar mthong ba don ldan ngo mtshar nor bu’i phreng ba thar
’dod yid ’phrog blo gsal mgul brgyan. In Urgyan Dorje (ed.) Rare Dkarbrgyud-pa Texts from Himachal Pradesh. New Delhi, pp. 451–501.
Dngos grub dpal ’bar. 1508. Rje btsun Gtsang pa He ru ka’i thun mong gi rnam thar
yon tan gyi gangs ril dad pa’i seng ge rnam par rtse ba. Xylograph. NepalGerman Manuscript Preservation Project Reel no. L834/2.
Dpa’ bo gtsug lag phreng ba. 2006. Mkhas pa’i dga’ ston. Rdo rje rgyal po (ed.)
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Dpal ldan bla ma dam pa mkhas grub lha btsun chos gyi rgyal po’i rnam mgur blo ’das
chos sku’i rang gdangs. 1976. In Urgyan Dorje (ed.), Rare Dkar-brgyud-pa
Texts from Himachal Pradesh. New Delhi, pp. 273–379.
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years of rGod-tshang ras-chen (1482–1559). To be published in the conference
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2008.
Gdams ngag mdzod. 1979–1981. ’Jam mgon Kong sprul blo gros mthas yas (compiler),
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Gtsang smyon Heruka. [1508]. Rgod gtsang ras pa and Kun tu bzang mo (eds.) Rje
btsun Gtsang pa he ru ka’i mgur ’bum rin po che dbang gi rgyal po thams cad
mkhyen pa’i lam ston. Xylograph. Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation
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Gtsang smyon Heruka. 1971. Bde mchog mkha’ ’gro snyan rgyud (Ras chung snyan
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He-ru-ka. S.W. Tashigangpa (ed.). Leh: Sman rtsis shes rig spen dzod, vol.11.
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—— 1999. The Cult of Pure Crystal Mountain: Popular Pilgrimage and Visionary
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Kun dga’ grol mchog, Jo nang. 1975. Paṇḍita chen po Śākya mchog ldan gyi rnam par
thar pa zhib mo rnam par ’byed pa. In The Complete Works of gSer mdog Paṇ
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Larsson, S. 2009. The Birth of a Heruka. How Sangs rgyas rgyal mtshan became
gTsang smyon Heruka: A Study of a Mad Yogin. 2009. PhD thesis, Stockholm
University, Stockholm.
Lha btsun Rin chen rnam rgyal (L). 1971 [1543]. Grub thob Gtsang pa smyon pa’i
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Rgod tshang ras pa Sna tshogs rang grol (R). 1969. Gtsang smyon he ru ka phyogs
thams cad las rnam par rgyal ba’i rnam thar rdo rje theg pa’i gsal byed nyi
ma’i snying po. Published as: The Life of the Saint of Gtsang. Śatapiṭaka
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Sangs rgyas dar po. bDe gshegs bstan pa’i gsal byed bka’ rgyud chos kyi ’byung gnas
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Smith, E.G. 2001. Among Tibetan Texts. Boston: Wisdom Publications.
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Stag lung Ngag dbang rnam rgyal. 1992. Stag lung chos ’byung. Gang can rig mdzod
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Stearns, C.M. 1985. The Life of Gtsang-smyon Heruka: A Study of Divine Madness.
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Thu’u bkwan Blo bzang chos kyi nyi ma. 1989. Khyab bdag rdo rje sems dpa’i ngo bo
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su’u mi rigs dpe skrun khang.
THE PRINTING PROJECTS OF GTSANG SMYON
HE RU KA AND HIS DISCIPLES
KURTIS R. SCHAEFFER
If we abide by the hagiographic record, then it would appear that we owe the
ready availability of the Life of Mi la ras pa throughout the world to the dreams
of two Tibetan publishers in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. One
night toward the end of his life (perhaps in the 1550s) Lha btsun Rin chen rnam
rgyal—son of the ruler the Gung thang Kingdom in southwest Tibet—received
a visitation from a woman in a dream. In this dream the woman commanded
Rin chen rnam rgyal to print books. “Human, your previous activities have
been beyond belief,” she began, perhaps alluding to the nearly four thousand
folios of literature that his biographer claims he had printed up to that point.
“Still, if now you were to print whatever texts you have at hand of the life and
songs of Mi la ras pa, this would be your final act.” This nocturnal commission
was not unusual, for his biographer assures the reader that the majority of Rin
chen rnam rgyal’s printing projects were inspired by exhortations from his
patron deity.1 So once more he took this dream vision seriously and prepared to
collect and print an anthology of Mi la ras pa’s songs that had not been
included in the massive Hundred Thousand Songs of Mi la ras pa compiled by
his teacher, Gtsang smyon He ru ka.
* I would like to extend most heartfelt thanks to Dr. Franz-Karl Ehrhard, Dr. Helmut
Eimer, and Dr. Klaus-Dieter Mathes for their generous and patient assistance toward
the research presented here. Portions of the narrative section of this essay (though not
the appendix) are published in Chapter Three of Schaeffer 2009.
1
Author Unknown (but see under Lha btsun Rin chen rnam rgyal in the accompanying
appendix): NGMPP (Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project) Reel No. L456/7:
22b.4.
454
Kurtis R. Schaeffer
In dreaming of the printed word, Rin chen rnam rgyal was in fact
following in the tradition of his teacher, who likewise received exhortations to
print as he slept.2 When Gtsang smyon was in retreat at Grod phug in Nya
nang, an important site for Mi la ras pa, he had a vision—part dream and part
luminous revelation—in which he beheld the Indian adept Nāropa. Nāropa
appeared as a giant, naked and bejeweled, his skin blazing with beautiful light.
He was standing upon a white lion, with his hands in the gesture of instruction,
speaking to innumerable hosts of gods and humans. The vision was the most
wondrous that Gtsang smyon had ever experienced, or had even heard about
happening to someone else. He made an offering and a request for teachings to
the giant Indian, who in return spoke to him—not in Tibetan, but in Sanskrit.
Although it was beautiful, Gtsang smyon did not understand a word of it. He
made another offering, and this time Nāropa spoke in both Sanskrit and
Tibetan. Unfortunately Gtsang smyon still had difficulty getting the point.
Finally an Indian translator emerged from the crowd to assist, and related
Nāropa’s command to Gtsang smyon. “[Nāropa] counseled in Sanskrit,” the
Indian began, “that you should assemble the life and songs of Lord Mi la ras pa
from his birth up to his awakening. You should carve this into woodblocks, and
you should print it. Distributing the prints will bring a prayer for Mi la ras pa to
wherever the teachings of the Buddha have spread.” To this Gtsang smyon
responded, “But I do not have a patron for this.” Nāropa replied, again in
Sanskrit, and faced to point toward the Tibetan regions of Glo bo, Gung thang,
and La stod. The translator interpreted the Indian’s gesture for Gtsang smyon,
saying “He has indicated that they are your patrons.” “But I cannot prepare for
wood, carvers, or scribes,” complained Gtsang smyon again. Again Nāropa
pointed, this time to five women seated nearby, who rose and vowed that they
would aid in the preparations. After listening to songs in Sanskrit for a while
2
This version of the story is based upon Lha btsun pa Rin chen rnam rgyal 1971:
48b.3–50a.3.
The Printing Projects of Gtsang smyon Heruka
455
longer, Gtsang smyon awoke, inspired by this dream to print the life and songs
of Mi la ras pa.
It is clear that Gtsang smyon drew on a rich tradition of hagiographic
materials to create his vision of Mi la ras pa while at the same time adapting
and transforming this tradition for a new audience.3 Yet is not just the new
form of the Mi la ras pa’s biography itself that makes Gtsang smyon’s effort so
interesting, but the extent to which he strategically employed biography—and
especially printed biography—as a means to expand his network of patrons,
disciples, and holy sites. If we can judge from his biographer’s accounts,
Gtsang smyon developed an interest in promoting the tradition of Mi la ras pa
early in life. In his early adulthood Gtsang smyon traveled to Rnga rtsa, the
birthplace of Mi la ras pa in southern Gung thang. He saw a small red temple,
and Mi la’s uncle’s house in ruins, and at a renovated temple containing a
statue of Mi la ras pa he met a steward who asked him to compose verses in
praise of Mi la ras pa’s life. Gtsang smyon thus composed an encomium to Mi
la ras pa in the form of the twelve acts of the Buddha: 1. Descent into the world
from Dga’ ldan; 2. Entry into the womb; 3. Birth; 4. Miracles; 5. Delights with
a wife; 6. Departure; 7. Ascetic practice; 8. Going to the heart of
enlightenment; 9. Becoming Buddha; 10. Turning the wheel of dharma; 11.
Magical apparitions; 12. Death. There are variations on this list.4 In a
fascinating passage, Gtsang smyon’s biographers write of the benefits of Mi la
ras pa’s life story by attributing the following considerations to Gtsang smyon
himself:
If this Life of Mi la ras pa were to be well known, sense pleasures and
things desired in this life would become supports for undertaking ascetic
practice, while entertainments in which one wanders would become
3
For instance, Gtsang smyon styles Mi la ras pa’s final opponent a Buddhist scholar
critical of Mi la ras pa’s anti-scholastic ways rather than the Bon po priest of Rgyal
thang pa’s thirteenth century account. See Tiso 1997: 994.
4
Rgod tshang ras pa Sna tshogs rang grol 1969: 72.6–73.2.
456
Kurtis R. Schaeffer
supports for practicing single-pointedness. [Mi la ras pa’s Life] would
become a perfect example for those who doubt that buddhahood can be
attained in a single lifetime, or [worry] that they are meditating at the
wrong time. They will have faith in the holy dharma of certain meaning,
and will be liberated in this life or in the intermediate state. Even those of
mediocre capacity can have faith in those who are experienced and provide
material support for them. With a pure vow they can go into retreat, gain
meditative experience in the next life, and based on that they may gain
liberation. Even extremists will give up backward views and develop
extraordinary faith, and they will certainly come to the end of samsara.
Thus, printing [Mi la ras pa’s Life] will be of benefit to all beings.5
Here his biographers characterize Gtsang smyon as a reformer using Mi la ras
pa’s Life to counteract hypocrisy and conceit in his day. Mi la ras pa’s life
story should be engaging for different types of people and should encourage
different responses, including everything from patronage to solitary retreat.
Block
printing
is
explicitly
associated
with
mass
dissemination
of
hagiographies, and thus with the goal of “benefiting humanity.” According to
Rgod tshang ras pa the Life of Mi la ras pa experienced unprecedented
popularity due to Gtsang smyon’s efforts. In the years immediately following
the carving of woodblocks of Mi la ras pa’s Life, prints and paintings were
distributed in Mustang, Gung thang, and Central Tibet. Gtsang smyon sent one
close disciple, Bsod nams grub pa, on a tour through Dbus, Gtsang, and Tsā ri
with both paintings and block prints “for the benefit of people”—in other
words to missionize on behalf of Gtsang smyon.6
The hagiographic tradition of Mi la ras pa reached its height with the
redaction of his life story by Gtsang smyon He ru ka, and if we may judge
5
Rgod tshang ras pa Sna tshogs rang grol 1969: 72.6–73.2. See Quintman 2006: 199–
200 for another translation of this passage.
6
Rgod tshang ras pa Sna tshogs rang grol 1969: 161.6.
The Printing Projects of Gtsang smyon Heruka
457
from the immense popularity of Gtsang smyon’s Life of Mi la ras pa, this late
fifteenth century religious leader was arguably the most influential
hagiographer of the Bka’ brgyud schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Not only did he
promote the cult of Mi la ras pa through woodblock printing—a technology
only sixty or so years old in Central Tibet at the time he published the life and
songs of Mi la ras pa—he initiated a tradition of printing that was to continue
for the better part of a century after his death in 1507, and was to be
remembered in southwestern Tibet into the twentieth century. In the late
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Gtsang smyon and his disciples actively
promoted their school by compiling numerous hagiographies of early Bka‘
brgyud masters from the eleventh through thirteenth centuries. In the late 1960s
Gene Smith was able to provide details on some twenty-two works published in
woodblock print by Gtsang smyon and his disciples. Today, thanks largely to
the efforts of the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project, we have
access to approximately fifty-five extant prints from the same group of scholars
and crafstmen (see appendix). The two most important figures in this tradition
are the two principal disciples of Gtsang smyon He ru ka, Lha btsun pa Rin
chen rnam rgyal (1473–1557) and Rgod tshang ras pa Sna tshogs rang grol
(died 1570). Rin chen rnam rgyal was active primarily at Brag dkar rta so, a
hermitage in the Skyid rong Valley at which Mi la ras pa is held to have
achieved enlightenment. Rgod tshang ras pa worked at the place where Mi la
ras pa’s biographer passed away,7 the hermitage of Ras chung phug, situated on
the spur separating the Yar lung and the Phyong rgyas valleys, just south of the
modern city of Tsetang. Rgod tshang ras pa published approximately twelve
works at Ras chung phug, totalling over seven hundred folios. He wrote at Ras
chung phug as well, but he also wrote in Kong po to the southeast and in La
phyi to the southwest. In one case Rgod tshang ras pa composed a work at La
phyi (his history of the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra lineages in India and Tibet), and
later had it printed at Ras chung phug. The works produced by Rgod tshang ras
7
On which see Schaeffer 2007.
458
Kurtis R. Schaeffer
pa are nearly all undated. Most were printed at the hermitage of Ras chung
phug during Rgod tshang ras pa’s lifetime, so the terminus ante quem is 1570.
In terms of a broader history of printing in Tibet, Lha btsun Rin chen
rnam rgyal deserves pride of place over Rgod tshang ras pa. Over the course of
nearly twenty years, Rin chen rnam rgyal published no less than twenty-eight
works, totalling over fifteen hundred folios. Of these fourteen have publishing
dates, ranging from 1538 to 1563 (this is a problematic date for Rin chen rnam
rgyal, who is believed to have died in 1557). The majority of the work was
undertaken during the early to mid 1550s. Biographies of Rin chen rnam rgyal
typically list works that he had printed, though these lists are also usually
incomplete compared to the list we can assemble from presently extant works.
On the other hand, one biography states that he alone produced over four
thousand folios of printed literature, a figure that far exceeds the estimate we
can make based upon currently extant work.8 Writing in the early nineteenth
century, the hermitage’s most prominent historian, Brag dkar rta so Chos kyi
dbang phyug, was clearly proud of the fact that the many editions of the the
biography and the collected songs that had been printed between Gtsang
smyon’s time and his own. According to him the printing house at Brag dkar
rta so was established by Rin chen rnam rgyal, later to be renovated by Karma
Blo bzang in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century.9 Chos kyi dbang
phyug had engaged in a philological study of several blockprint editions of
Gtsang smyon He ru ka’s life of Mi la ras pa from around Tibet. All, he claims,
descended not from the edition produced by Gtsang smyon He ru ka, but from
the edition produced by his student Rin chen rnam rgyal at Brag dkar rta so.
This is an important claim, for it places Brag dkar rta so at the center of one of
8
See Author Unknown (but see under Lha btsun Rin chen rnam rgyal in the
accompanying appendix): 1. See also a reference to printing of Ras chung’s rnam thar
and mgur ’bum at 12a.1. See also 22a.6–22b.
9
On Karma blo bzang see Mathes 2001: 172–74.
The Printing Projects of Gtsang smyon Heruka
459
the most widespread biographical traditions in the whole of the Tibetan cultural
world.10
The publication of Bka‘ brgyud works at Brag dkar rta so in Gung tang
and Ras chung phug in Gtsang was part of a larger rise in printing throughout
central and southwest Tibet, and especially in Mang yul Gung thang.11 What is
unique about the publishing at Brag dkar rta so is Rin chen rnam rgyal’s
distinctive and patient determination over twenty years to build a well-rounded
corpus of Bka’ brgyud pa hagiographies, histories, songs, preaching
guidebooks, and contemplative manuals. Taken together, their publications
include works by and and about more than twenty figures. Indian personalities
include Vajradhāra, Saraha, Tilopa, Nāropa and—though he does not belong to
the lineage made up of the former siddhas, the late Indian yogin Mitrayogin,
who traveled to Tibet in the twelfth century—as well as the great Bka’ gdams
pa preacher Po to ba Rin chen gsal. Among the Tibetan masters represented in
the printed works of Gtsang smyon’s tradition we find Mar pa, Mi la ras pa,
Ras chung pa, Sgam po pa, Phag mo gru pa, Gling ras pa Padma rdo rje,
Gtsang pa rgya ras Ye shes rdo rje, Rgod tshang pa Mgon po rdo rje, Yang
dgon pa, and, somewhat later, the yogin-poet Ko brag pa Bsod nams rgyal
mtshan. Figures from the late thirteenth through the mid-fifteenth centuries are
not represented, and the narratives resume with Gtsang smyon He ru ka’s
teacher, Sha ra rab ’byams pa Sangs rgyas seng ge, and move through Gtsang
10
Brag dkar rta so Sprul sku Chos kyi dbang phyug (comp. 1816): 22b.4–23b.1. See
also, 29b.2, where Rin chen rnam rgyal establishes printing house at Drag dkar rta so,
and 34a.5, where Karma Blo bzang renovates the printing house.
11
Woodblocks were carved for major works in Mang yul Gung thang as early as the
late fifteenth century. See Ehrhard 2000a (especially 13–18) and Ehrhard 2000b: xiv.
Such major works as Klong chen pa’s five-hundred-folio Treasury of the Supreme Way
(Theg mchog mdzod) were printed in the early 1530s: Ehrhard 2000c: xvi. A book of
spells had been printed at the monastery of Dpal ’khor chos sde in Rgyal rtse in 1539,
and Sa skya Paṇḍita’s famous Analysis of the Three Vows (Sdom gsum rab dbye) was
printed near Sa skya in the 1540s: Fushimi 1999: 97–98.
460
Kurtis R. Schaeffer
smyon himself to his two principal disciples, Lha btsun pa Rin chen rnam rgyal
and Rgod tshang ras pa Sna tshogs rang grol, and finally to Sangs rgyas dar po,
whose work of 1568 may be taken as a convient place to draw a close to the
tradition. Sangs rgyas dar po was the tradition’s official historiographer,
composing a history of Bka’ brgyud schools from the time of the Buddha up to
Gtsang smyon He ru ka, Rgod tshang ras pa, and Rin chen rnam rgyal. He was
also a patron of printing, sponsoring such works as the biography of Yan dgon
pa, printed not at one of the two more well-known printing houses, but at Rtsib
ri. It is significant that there are no duplicate works published at both Brag dkar
rta so and Ras chung phug, suggesting that Rgod tshang ras pa and Rin chen
rnam rgyal were aware of each other’s catalog of publications. In the division
of major saints, Rin chen rnam rgyal seems to have secured Mi la ras pa, while
Rgod tshang ras pa worked to a greater extent on the life of Mi la ras pa’s most
famous contemplative disciple Ras chung pa Rdo rje grags pa (Rin chen rnam
rgyal did write two works on Ras chung pa12: see appendix).
Aside from their value as examples of the rich poetic and biographical
literature that had reached a zenith among the Bka’ brgyud schools by the
beginning of the sixteenth century, the prints published by Rin chen rnam rgyal
and Rgod tshang ras pa contain rich colophons authored either by them or a
senior scribe. A full colophon may include reasons for composing or redacting
the work, reasons for printing the work, a list of sponsors, a list of the artisans,
and the date of the creation, carving, and consecration of the printed work. Let
us look briefly at what a few of these important publisher’s postfaces have to
say about the sponsors and what they donated.
For any given major publishing project, there could be more than fifty
sponsors. and occasionally the scribe of the colophon despairs at writing down
all of their names. A broad range of social positions is represented in the
sponsor lists, including such intriguing if otherwise unknowable figues as the
army officer from Mnga’ ris who donated to the publication of the brief
12
See Roberts 2007: 37–38.
The Printing Projects of Gtsang smyon Heruka
461
biography of Ras chung pa produced at Brag dkar rta so. Other types of people
making donations to the publication of Gtsang smyon He ru ka’s life of Mi la
ras pa at Brag dkar rta so included monks, nuns, nomads, noblemen and
noblewomen, hermits, and people from as far west as Mnga’ ris and Dol po. An
extensive donor list is provided in Rin chen rnam rgyal’s reprint of Gtsang
smyon He ru ka’s life of Mi la ras pa, a list that conjurs vivid images of the
rich economic and material life in which woodblock printing was enmeshed.13
Materials donated include butter; Nepalese coins; domestic animals such as
’bri, yak, and mdzo mo; offering scarves; coral; green silk; white silk; Chinese
silk; silver; saffron; cotton cloth in plain, dyed, and printed varieties; molasses;
armour; barley; turquoise; wool cloth; monk’s clothing; medicine; copper pots;
tin plates; amulet boxes; vegetables; rice; tripod stoves; skins from wild goat
and spotted deer (these two types of skin appear only in Ras chung pa’s
biography); yoghurt; tea (which appears only in Rgod tshang ras pa’s biography
of Gtsang smyon He ru ka); conch shells; animal horns; helmets; horses; bells;
knives; sapphires; salt; and—lest we forget that this is for book publishing—
woodblocks for carving and paper for printing.
There is no doubt that the doctrines of karma and merit played an
important role in encouraging people to donate to a printing project—printing
was good Buddhist work, and by the sixteenth century donating to a biography
or collection of poetry authored by a Tibetan saint was every bit as meritorious
as sponsoring a sūtra or a tantra. But people might just as well make an
offering as a memorial to a person now deceased, or wish for the welfare of a
place. The biography of Gtsang smyon He ru ka’s teacher, Sha ra Rab ’byams
pa Sangs rgyas seng ge, was authored and likely printed in 1559 by a student of
Rgod tshang ras pa to fulfill the last wishes of Lha btsun (who died in 1557),
and to prolong the life of Rgod tshang (who would die in 1570). This was not
an uncommon wish for the benefits of publishing. Printing projects undertaken
at Sa skya Monastery in the 1540s were also carried out in accordance with the
13
Gtsang smyon He ru ka: 111a.6–115a.5.
462
Kurtis R. Schaeffer
wishes of the deceased and for the long life of prominent living figures. More
interesting are the several works that are dedicated to the peace and prosperity
of rulers reigning over the region in which the work was printed. Rin chen
rnam rgyal dedicated his 1550 publication of his own life of the Indian adept
Tilopa to the eventual enlightenment of his deceased mother and father, as well
as to the long life of the Gong ma (or leader) and the peace and prosperity of
his kingdom. Although he does not mention this leader’s name, it is likely that
he refers here to the ruler of Mang yul Gung thang, Khri Kun bzang nyi zla
grags pa (1514–1560), who also happened to be his nephew. Thus, the life story
of a tenth-century Indian mystic comes to be dedicated to the proper function of
a sixteenth-century Tibetan principality. Rin chen rnam rgyal dedicated the
publication of the life of Rgod tshang pa to the welfare of Mnga’ ris and to his
mother and father. It is clear from this that regional interests were strongly in
mind when works were printed—a point to which I will return below.
The artisans who carried out the work of printing were, at least in
rhetorical terms, held in high esteem, and are mentioned in many of the
publisher’s conclusions. Scribes are accorded a place of respect in the list, and
sometimes it is only they who are named, while the carvers remain anonymous.
In other cases the carvers are highly praised, and are compared even to
Viśvakarma, the divine architect of Indian mythology. As many as thirteen
carvers could work on a single project (as was the case for the small prayer to
Mi la ras pa carved at Ras chung phug), far fewer than the hundreds that would
work on the massive canonical collections of the eighteenth century, but still a
significant collection of laborers for a small retreat center. Artisans could
participate in printing projects on an ongoing basis, and it is possible that they
remained in residence at both Brag dkar rta so and Ras chung phug. The printer
Chu dbon Rdo rje rgyal mtshan is one example. He worked at Brag dkar rta so
as early as 1538 on Rin chen rnam rgyal’s brief biography of Ras chung pa,
and he appears to have outlived Rin chen rnam rgyal himself, for he worked on
the biography of the master after Rin chen rnam rgyal’s death in 1557 and, as
The Printing Projects of Gtsang smyon Heruka
463
Franz-Karl Ehrhard has shown, worked at other printing houses around the
region.14
Scribes and carvers would work in teams and most likely
simultaneously, each taking responsibility for a portion of the work. Two
experienced scribes might split a work such as Gtsang smyon He ru ka’s
Hundred Thousand Songs of Mi la ras pa, each completing half of the total text.
The carvers would generally take on much less work than the scribes. Ten
carvers worked to complete the two hundred and fifty blocks of Mi la ras pa’s
songs in 1555 at Brag dkar rta so, and their names were listed at the bottom of
the last folio for which they were responsible. In some cases a scribe and a
carver might be one and the same person, as in the case of Bcu dpon Rdo rje
rgyal mtshan, who acted as scribe for the second half of Mi la ras pa’s songs,
and also worked as a carver on the last ten folios. Occasionally a scribe will
refer to himself in the first person in a colophon, thus making it plain that it
was he and not Rin chen rnam rgyal or Rgod tshang ras pa who composed the
printing colophon. So while we often refer to these two prominent figures as
the creators of these printed works, we might better think of the scribes
working under them as the producers or the project managers, and them as the
publishers or the executive producers
The publishers’ concluing remarks are rich in detail, illustrating that
this work was important to publishers, sponsors, and artisans alike. Indeed, one
of the most interesting things about the Gtsang smyon tradition of printing is
not that it happened, but that its members were compelled to record its
occurrence so thoroughly. Clearly the wooblock printing was a self-consciously
significant affair. Yet these publishers rarely speak to the reasons why printing
was important in the first place, as opposed, say, to scribal publication, which
was still a major form of text production in sixteenth-century Tibet. One
obvious reason is to support missionary activities, a rationale laid out in Gtsang
smyon’s long apology to printing the life of Mi la ras pa (as represented in
14
Ehrhard 2000a: 73, 75, 77.
464
Kurtis R. Schaeffer
Rgod tshang ras pa’s biography of his master, translated above), but never
explicitly referred to in the colophons themselves. And missionizing may in
turn have been connected with the growth and reputation of the place of
printing. As the biographies and songs of famous Indian and Tibetan masters
were disseminated from a place of printing such as Brag dkar rta so or Ras
chung phug, these hermitages would become known beyond their local regions
as centers of meritorious activity, places worthy of a trip to pay homage to the
memory of the masters portrayed in the biographies sent from there. The places
are so important that they often receive their own praise as the beneficent lands
that support the printing of Buddhist literature. The colophon to Rgod tshang
ras pa’s life of Ras chung pa offers a good description of Ras chung phug:
“The center of the long Yar lung Valley, a Dharmodaya temple piled five
stories high, with green rice fields at its base, called Lo ma lo ri, with its peak
as if covered with piles of jewels, prophesied by Mi la ras pa, blessed by Ras
chung pa, the place at which Gtsng smyon He ru ka passed into the realm of
reality.” And while Brag dkar rta so is claimed in a geopolitical sense as a
region of Mang yul Gung thang, which is accoding to Rin chen rnam rgyal
itself but a part of Mnga’ ris, it is said in grander terms to be a place that
promotes the dharma in a degenarate time, a location even better for serving
Buddhism than the limitless buddha-fields.
One turn of phrase does hint at the unique ability of printing, however,
a phrase that is used only twice in the nearly sixty works that I have examined.
According to the colophon of Gtsang smyon He ru ka’s famous life of Mi la ras
pa, Gtsang smyon had produced an “inexhaustible print.” This expression, an
“inexhaustible print,” evokes the unique capacity of the printing technology to
reproduce vast quantities of the work, surely print publication’s most obvious
technical and economic advantage over scribal publication. However,
“inexhaustable” is perhaps more evocative than descriptive, for blocks do wear
out. Because Gtsang smyon He ru ka’s blocks had “benefited humanity in such
great measure,” they had become somewhat unclear, and it is for this reason
that, some sixty years after Gtsang smyon produced his, Rin chen rnam rgyal
The Printing Projects of Gtsang smyon Heruka
465
ventured to make a new set of blocks for what had already become a classic of
Tibetan literature. (It appears from the colophon that these in turn wore out due
to extensive use, and a new set of blocks was once again produced by Rin chen
rnam rgyal).
It would appear that printing continued after the death of Rin chen
rnam rgyal, for works such as his own treatise on Great Seal contemplative
practice was printed in 1561, four years after his passing. Yet it also appears
that, though rightly famous for institutionalizing the printing of biographical
and poetic works associated with Mi la ras pa and similar figures, Rin chen
rnam rgyal was not the first person after Gtsng smyon He ru ka himself to
produce a new set of printing blocks for the life and songs of Mi la ras pa. This
honor goes to his contemporary Bsod nams blo gros (c. 1460–1541), a fellow
student of Gtsang smyon. The 1544 biography of Bsod nams blo gros15 states
that he waited on Gtsang smyon for more than fifteen years, from around 1490
until Gtsang smyon’s death in 1507. Bsod nams blo gros had prints made as
early as the 1530s, though certainly no later than 1541, the year of his death.16
His most important contributions were reprints of three of Gtsang smyon’s
works: the life and songs of Mi la ras pa, as well as the biography of Mar pa.
He received offerings of tea, cups, iron, and fabric from disciples in a request
that he produce new blocks of the biography and songs of Mi la ras pa, for the
old blocks had become worn. With donations from the several settlements
around the Gnya’ nang region of southern Tibet he was able to complete more
than one hundred blocks from the Hundred Thousand Songs of Mi la ras pa
initially, and to complete the full work after gathering more donations. Shortly
after that, he completed new blocks for the biography of Mi la ras pa, as well
as a short devotional work. Bsod nams blo gros made sure that the scribes and
carvers were well paid for their work, and as the blocks were consecrated, a
rain of flowers fell—ever a sure sign that the forces of enlightenment are
15
16
Bya bral pa Tshul khrims dpal ldan: NGMPP, L833/3, fol. 53b.
See Schaeffer 2007: 223–24, on which the following paragraph is based.
466
Kurtis R. Schaeffer
looking favorably upon one’s labors. Finally, just after he published the
biography of Mar pa, he had many hundreds of prints made and gave them out
as “dharma gifts” to the faithful around the region.17 The blocks of Mar pa’s
biography seem to have been dear to Bsod nams blo gros, for they are one of
the few items for which he gave specific instructions to his disciples upon his
death. They were to move them to Sgro phug, the old hermitage of Mi la ras
pa. His disciples fulfilled their master’s wish, and moved the blocks to Sgro
phug, back to the same hermitage at which Gtsng smyon He ru ka had received
a visionary command in a dream to publish the life of Mi la ras pa, back to
where this tradition’s dreams of the printed word began.
Appendix: Blockprints of the Gtsang smyon tradition printed at Brag dkar rta so,
Ras chung phug, and elsewhere
This list of blockprints is meant to supplement the list published in 1969 by E.
Gene Smith,18 and to provide a bibliographic reference point for further
specialized studies on printing, of the sort admirably exemplified by Eimer,
Ehrhard, Fushimi, and Roesler (listed in the bibliography), among others. The
majority of newly extant works are those filmed by the Nepal-German
Manuscript Preservation Project (NGMPP). All “L” references (example:
L456/4) and “E” references (example: E2517/6) refer to the catalogue entries
for the reel numbers of the NGMPP microfilms (copies of these films may be
purchased from the Nepal National Archives in Kathmandu). The works are
organized into three broad categories: I. Biographies and poetry collections; II.
Teachings; III. Histories. Within the first section (I) works are organzed
chronologically by biographical subject, under which poetry is included. For
instance, the poems of Saraha are included under “Saraha” and both the
biographies of Gtsng smyon He ru ka and his poetry are included under his
name. A quick glance down the list reveals that the printers in Gtsang smyon’s
17
18
Bya bral pa Tshul khrims dpal ldan: fol. 42b.2.
Reprinted in Smith 2001: 70–79.
The Printing Projects of Gtsang smyon Heruka
467
tradition collectively created a sort of canon of siddha story and song, a gser
’phreng (to use a traditional literary metaphor) spread out over numerous
individual publications and yet forming a coherent whole. The bulk of the
bibliographic work represented here was undertaken in 1998 and 1999 at the
Nepal Research Centre in Kathmandu, time for which I would like to thank Dr.
Klaus-Dieter Mathes, then Director of the Centre. The NGMPP conducted
further filming expeditions for some two years after this work was completed.
New works will surely come to light that should be added to the present list,
and it should be read in concert with the geographically wider presentation of
print-colophons in Franz-Karl Ehrhard’s Early Buddhist Block Prints from
Mang-yul Gung-thang. Eventually one will want to assemble proper
bibliographic records for these works, of the sort exemplified in Peter
Schwieger’s multi-volume work, Tibetische Handschriften und Blockdrucke
(teil 9–12, 1985–99). It may be fruitful for future studies of Tibetan printing to
adapt bibliographic principles such as those formulated in F. Bowers’ Principles
of Bibliographic Description (1949) for use in describing the Mang yul prints.
The following is intended only to contribute to the collection of data for such a
project.
I. Biographies and poetry collections
Vajradhāra
Rdo rje ’chang yab yum gyi rnam thar. Author: Tilopa. L456/4. 11 folios. In
Rare Dkar-brgyud-pa texts from Himachal Pradesh: a collection of
biographical works and philosophical treatises. New Delhi: Urgyen
Dorje, 1976, pp. 85–105. Printed by Rin chen rnam rgyal at Brag dkar rta
so. Print colophon at p. 105.4.
Rdo rje ’chang / rje btsun rdo rje rnal ’byor ma / gsang bdag rdo rje snying po /
grub chen tee lo pa / mkhas dbang grub nā ro pan chen / sgra sgyur mar
pa lo tstsha / rnams kyi rnam thar gsol 'debs las dang por rgyal dbang rdo
rje chang gi bstod pa mi zad rgyad gyi ’khor lo’i rnam rol. L582/9. 16
folios. Margin: Hri. Produced by Rgod tshang ras pa. No location listed,
468
Kurtis R. Schaeffer
but likely Ras chung phug. Interesting epithets of Rgod tshang ras pa.
Colophon 15b.1–16a.3.
Saraha
Bram ze chen pos mdzad pa’i dho ha bskor gsum / mdzod drug / ka kha dho ha
/ sa spyad rnams. L237/13. 37 folios. L456/6. 36 folios. In Rare Dkar
brgyud pa Texts. Compiled by Rin chen rnam rgyal at Brag dkar rta so.
Colophon at p. 179.3.
Mdo (sic!) ha bskor gsum rgyud pa’i gsol ’debs dang bcas pa. (2.) Rje btsun
bzhad pa’i rdo rje la gsol ba ’debs byin rlabs kyi gter. (3.) Shes bya ma.
(4.) Rnal ’byor dbang phyug rgod tshang ras chen gyi rnam thar gsol
’debs. (5.) Chos sku rdo rje ’chang gi rnam thar. L803/5. 33 folios (total
for 7 titles).
(1.) Mdo ha bskor gsum rgyud pa’i gsol ’debs dang bcas pa. L803/5.
Printed by Lodro Namgyal (Blo gros rnam rgyal, identity?),
scribe Rta dga’ rgyal bzang, carver Lha mdun seng bzang. Print
colophon 16a.2
(2[a].) Rje btsun bzhad pa’i rdo rje la gsol ba ’debs byin rlabs kyi gter.
L803/5. Authored by Gtsang smyon, printed at Ras chung phug
by Rgod tshang ras pa using one scribe named Sngags ’chang
Rong lha ba, and eleven carvers. Colophon 4a.6.
(2b.) untitled. L803/5. Composed by Rin chen rnam rgyal in 1522 (?
chu rta) at gnas chen ling ba? grag mar.
(2c.) untitled. Composed by Rgod tshang Ras chen at Tsā ri, likely a
Ras chung phug print. Colophon 1b.
(3.) Shes bya ma. Homage prayer to Sgam po pa composed by Phag
mo gru pa, printed together with the biography and songs of Ras
chung Rdo rje grags at Ras chung phug by Rgod tshang ras pa.
(4.) Rnal ’byor dbang phyug rgod tshang ras chen gyi rnam thar gsol
’debs. Biographical prayer of Rgod tshang ras pa requested by his
The Printing Projects of Gtsang smyon Heruka
469
disciples, delivered in Kong po. Possibly a Ras chung phug print.
Colophon 2b.3.
(5.) Chos sku rdo rje ’chang gi rnam thar. Composed by Skar ma rang
byung rdo rje, printed with the biography of Sgam po pa. Carvers
Gung thang pa Pha lug dkon mchog skyabs and Bya btang ’od
zer. Possibly a Ras chung phug print. Colophon fol. 4a.5.
Tilopa
Rnal ’byor gyi dbang phyug chen po rje btsun ti lo shes rab bzang po’i rnam
thar zab gsal rin chen gter mdzes mthong bas yin smon. Author: Dbang
phyug rgyal mtshan. L36/2. 40 folios. Very poor print. Based on many
biographies, including one by Gtsang smyon He ru ka.
Sangs rgyas thams cad kyi rnam ’phrul rje btsun ti lo pa’i rnam mgur. Author:
Lha bstun rin chen rnam rgyal. E2517/6. 17 folios [folios 13–19 missing].
L1107/4. In Rare Dkar brgyud pa Texts, pp. 37–83. Produced by Rin
chen rnam rgyal at Brag dkar rta so in 1550, dedicated to the long life of
the Gong ma (Kun bzang Nyi zla grags pa according to Franz-Karl
Ehrhard) and the peace and prosperity of the kingdom and to the
realization of his mother and father. Colophon 82.7–83.6.
Nāropa (c. 1016–1100)
Mkhas grub kun gyi gtsug rgyan / paṇ chen nā ro pa’i rnam thar / ngo mtshar
smad ’byung. L36/1. Author/compiler: Lha btsun rin chen rnam rgyal?
Bad print, colophon missing.
Mitrayogin (c. 12th century)
Rje btsun chen po mi tra dzo ki’i rnam thar. L804/3. 26 folios. Margin: Hrī.
Printed at Ras chung phug by Rgod tshang ras pa. Ye dharma prayer at
conclusion. Colophon 25b.7–26a.7.
470
Kurtis R. Schaeffer
Mar pa (1012–97)
Sgra gyur mar pa lo tshtsha’i rnam par thar pa. Author: Gtsang smyon Heruka.
E693/3. 75 folios [f1–62, f63–75 handwritten]. L9/11–L10/1. 70 folios.
[folios 9–11, 21, 25... missing]. Likely a Brag dkar rta so print. Long
praise addressed to Skyid grong and the Wa ti temple, then donor list,
then printers including Bcu dpon Rdo rje gyal mtshan, last page missing.
Colophon 74a.
Sgra bsgyur mar pa lo tsa’i mgur ’bum. Compiled by Gtsang smyon Heruka.
L194/7. E2518/2. 40 folios. Edited by another figure whose name is
illegible. Printed by Lha btsun pa rin chen rnam rgyal in 1552(?) chu pho
byi at Brag dkar rta so. E2518/2 Colophon 40a.7.
Mi la ras pa (1040–1123)
Rje btsun mi la ras pa rnam thar rgyas par phye ba mgur ’bum. Author: Gtsang
smyon Heruka L250/8–L251/1. 250 folios. Printed by Rin chen rnam
rgyal at Brag dkar rta so in 1555. First part written by a scribe from Dol
po named Kun dga’ rgyal po, second half written down by Chu dpon Rdo
rje rgyal mtshan of Gtsang, a craftsman who appears on numerous prints.
There were ten carvers whose names are given at the bottom of the last
folio that they had carved. The carver of the last ten folios was the scribe
for the second half of the work as a whole. Colophon 249a.3.19
Rnal ’byor gyi dbang phyug dam pa rje btsun mi la ras pa’i rnam par thar pa
dang thams cad mkhyen pa’i lam ston. Author: Gtsang smyon He ru ka.
L250/7. 115 folios. Produced by Rin chen rnam rgyal. No place or date
are mentioned, though this is almost surely from Brag dkar rta so.
Rje btsun mi la ras pa’i rdo rje’i mgur drug sogs gsung rgyun thor bu. L251/2.
109 folios. Compiled and printed by Rin chen rnam rgyal in 1550.
Colophon 109a.7.
19
See Eimer 1996’s: 7–19; Eimer 2000; and Ehrhard 2000: 17-18 (note 15) and 78.
More generally, see Eimer and Tsering 1990.
The Printing Projects of Gtsang smyon Heruka
471
Thun mong ma yin pa rdo rje mgur. Author: Mi la ras pa. L477/14. 19 folios.
E1256/1. Printed by Lha btsun pa Rin chen rnam rgyal [likely at Brag
dkar rta so]. No date. Colophon 19a.7.
Ras chung pa Rdo rje grags pa (1083–1161)
Rje btsun ras chung rdo rje grags kyi rnam thar rnam mkhyen thar lam rin po
che gsal ba’i me long ye shes snang ba. Author: Rgod tshang ras pa.
L199/8–L200/1 240 folios. E2080/2. f243. L597/1. E2080/2. Composed
by Rgod tshang ras pa at Ras chung phug. E2080/2 colophon 240a.6–
243a.7. Author’s colophon [240b.1]. Printer’s colophon [241.4]. Long
donor colophon 242–43.
Ras chung pa’i rnam thar mdor bsdus. E908/3. 38 folios. Produced by Rin chen
rnam rgyal in 1538 (sa pho khyi). Difficult print. Printer possibly Bcu
dpon Rdo rgyal. Colophon 38a.5.–.6.
Tshe gcig la ’ja’ lus bsnyes pa’i ras chung pa’i rnam thar rags sdus mgur rnam
rgyas par. E2518/3. 93 folios. Printed by Rin chen rnam rgyal at Brag
dkar rta so in 1563 (chu phag), but perhaps emend to chu stag (1542) or
chu glang (1553) in order to fall before Rin chen rnam rgyal’s date of
death, 1557. Donations include an army officer from Mnga’ ris.
Colophon 93a.5.
Ras chung rdo rje grags pa’i rnam thar gsol ’debs. L621/6. 5 folios. Margin:
HuM. Produced by Rgod tshang ras pa at Ras chung phug. Colophon
5a.5.
Sgam po pa Bstod nams rin chen (1079–1153)
Shes bya ma. Author: Phag mo gru pa Rdo rje rgyal po. L621/6 (text 2). 3
folios. Printed by Rgod tshang ras pa at Ras chung phug while printing
the biography of Ras chung pa. Colophon 3b.6.
472
Kurtis R. Schaeffer
Phag mo gru pa Rdo rje rgyal po (1110–70)
Bde gshegs phag mo gru pa’i rnam thar. Author: Bsod nams dpal. E2518/5.
E693/4. L970/3. In Rare Dkar brgyud Texts, pp. 1–35.18 folios. Printed
by Lha bstun rin chen rnal rgyal at Brag dkar rta so in 1552. Concludes
with the ye dharma prayer. Colophon 18a.4.
Gling ras pa Padma rdo rje (1128–88)
Grub thob gling ras kyi rnam mgur mthong ba don ldan. L12/1. 61 folios.
L194/11. L581/5. Printed at Brag dkar rta so by Rin chen rnam rgyal.
Print colophon 61a.4.
’Brug chen I Gtsang pa rgya ras Ye shes rdo rje (1161–1211)
’Gro ba'i mgon po gtsang pa rgya ras kyi mgur ’bum rgyas pa. L581/4.
E2518/7. 52 folios Printed by Rin chen rnam rgyal at Brag dkar rta so in
1551 for the long life of Mi dbang Khu dbon (Kun bzang Nyi zla grags
pa and his couisin Bkra shis dpal ’bar according to Franz-Karl Ehrhard,
personal communication), and the happiness and welfare of the
government. E2518/7 Colophon 52a.4.
’Gro ba'i mgon po gtsang pa rgya ras pa’i rnam thar ngo mtshar dad pa’i rlabs
phreng. L804/3. 43 folios. Margin: Ta. Printed at La phyi in 1552 (chu
pho byi) by Sangyé Darpo. Print colophon 42b.3–43a.5.
Rgod tshang pa Mgon po rdo rje (1189–1258)
Rje rgod tshang pa’i rnam thar rgya thang pa bde chen rdo rjes mdzad pa.
Author: Rgya thang pa Bde chen rdo rje. L211/3. 42 folios. L969/5–
L970/1. E2518/8. Margin: no. Printed by Rin chen rnam rgyal at Brag
dkar rta so in 1563 (?). Chosen because it was easy to read. Print
dedicated to the welfare of Mnga’ ris and to mother and father. E2518/8
Colophon 42a.2.
Rgyal ba rgod tshang mgon po rdo rje’i rnam par thar pa mthong ba don ldan
nor bu’i phreng ba. Author: Gtsang smyon He ru ka. L978/8–L979/1. 114
The Printing Projects of Gtsang smyon Heruka
473
folios. Composed in 1501 (lcags pho byi) at La phyi. Printed at Ras
chung phug by Rgod tshang ras pa. Scribe Sngags ’chang Rong lha and
ten carvers. Colophon 115a.4–116a.7. Print patrons 115b.1–116a.6.
Yang dgon pa Rgyal mtshan dpal (1213–58)
Rgyal ba yang dgon rje’i rnam thar yid bzhin nor bu. L589/7. 76 folios.
Margin: Ka. Printed at Rtsib ri by Lo pan ’Jam dpal chos lha, funded by
Sangs rgyas dar [po]. Colophon begins 75b.5.
Yang dkon chos rje’i mdzad pa’i bar do ’phrang bsgrol. E2518/9. 38 folios.
Printed by Rin chen rnam rgyal at Brag dkar rta so. Print colophon 38a.8.
Rgyal ba yang dkon pa’i thugs kyi bcud ngo sprod bdun gyi mgur ma. In Rare
Dkar brgyud pa Texts, pp. 381–449. Requested by Nam mkha’ rdo rje,
produced by Rtogs ldan dpal mgon at Bral gnon. Possibly unconnected to
the Gtsang smyon tradition.
Ko brag pa Bsod nams rgyal mtshan (1182–1261)
Khams gsum dran bral grub thob ko rag pa’i mgur ’bum. L970/2. 16 folios.
Printed by Lha btsun rin chen rnam rgyal, likely at Brag dkar rta so.20
Sha ra Rab ’byams pa Sangs rgyas seng ge (fifteenth century)
Mkhas grub sha ra rab ’jam pa sangs rgyas seng ge’i rnam thar mthong ba don
ldan ngo mtshar nor bu’i phreng ba shar ’dod yid ’phrog blo gsal mgul
brgyan. In Rare Dkar brgyud pa Texts, pp. 451–501. Biography of
Gtsang smyon’s teacher, authored (and printed?) by Rab ’byams pa
Byams pa phun tshogs, student of Rgod tshang ras pa, to fulfill the last
wishes of Lha btsun (d. 1557), and to prolong the life of Rgod tshang (d.
1570), completed in lug year (1559). Colophon: 500.7. Ends in ye
dharma prayer.
20
See Stearns 2000: 175 for a translation of the colophon.
474
Kurtis R. Schaeffer
Gtsang smyon He ru ka (1452–1507)
Grub thob gtsang smyon pa’i rnam thar dad pa’i spu slong g.yo ba. Author: Rin
chen rnam rgyal. E2518/10. 65 folios. L12/2. In Bde mchog mkha’ ’gro
snyan rgyud (ras chung snyan rgyuad), Two Manuscript Collections of
Texts from the Yig-cha of Gtsang-smyong He-ru-ka. Leh: S. W.
Tashigangpa, 1971. Two volumes. In Volume 1, pp. 1–129 (folios 1–65).
Printed by Rin chen rnam rgyal at Brag dkar rta so in 1543 (chu mo yos).
Good material on donors, benefits, and artisans.
Gtsang smyon he ru ka phyogs thams cad las rnam par rgyal ba’i rnam thar rdo
rje theg pa’i gsal gyed nyi ma’i snying po. Author: Rgod tshang ras pa
Sna tshogs rang grol. L804/2. 146 folios. In The Life of the Saint of
Gtsaṅ. New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1969. Very
large donor list, yet still according to the colophon’s author “so many
donors that I cannot write all their names!” Print colophon 288.1–292.2.21
Gtsang pa he ru ka’i rnam thar. Author: Dge slong Dngos grub dpal ’bar.
L834/2. 31 folios. Printed in Gnas chen Dgon gsar. Colophon 31a.22
Rje btsun gstang pa he ru ka’i mgur ’bum rin po che dbang gi rgyal po thams
cad mkhyen pa’i lam. Author: Rgod tshang ras pa. L567/2. 28 folios. Not
a Brag dkar rta so print. No date. Colophon 28a.
Gsol ’debs. Author: Rin chen rnam rgyal. L581/6. 4 folios. No margin.
Composed 1522 at Ling ba Brag dmar. Prayer to Gtsang smyon He ru ka.
Colopon 4a.6.
’Brug chen 04 Padma dkar po (1527–92)
Rgyal sras mi pham padma dkar po’i rtogs brjod. L621/6. Folios? Printed by
Sangs rgyas dar po at the same time as a biography (?) of Gtsang pa rgya
ras.
21
This work is, of course, the principal subject of the well-known essay by E. Gene
Smith: Smith 2001: 59–79.
22
A full translation of this work is currently in preparation by Mr. Stefan Larsson,
Stockholm University, Sweden.
The Printing Projects of Gtsang smyon Heruka
475
Lha btsun pa Rin chen rnam rgyal (1473–1557)
Rnal ’byor dbang phyug lha btsun chos kyi rgyal po’i rnam thar gyi smad cha.
L456/7. 32 folios. No author, date, or place of printing. Likely a Brag
dkar rta so print. List of artisans, including Chu dbon Rdo rje rgyal
mtshan. Print colophon begins 32a.3.
Dpal ldan bla ma dam pa mkhas grub lha btsun chos kyi rgyal po’i rnam mgur
blo ’das chos sku’i rang gdangs. L11/20. L477/13. E2251/1. Author? In
Rare Dkar brgyud pa Texts, pp. 273–379. Chu dbon Rdo rje rgyal mtshan
as carver. Colophon pp. 378.6–379.7.
Rgod tshang ras chen Sna tshogs rang grol (1494–1570)
Rnal ’byor gyi dbang phyug rgod tshang ras chen pa’i rnam thar tshigs bcad ma
dngos grub kyi rgya mtsho. L978/7. 8 folios. Likely not Brag dkar rta
so or Ras chung phug. Colophon 8b.5.
Bsod nams blo gros (d. 1541)
Mkhas grub rdo rje ’chang bsod nams blo gros kyi rnam thar yon tan gyi
sbrang rtsi la dad pa’i bung ba rnam par rol pa. Author: Bya bral pa
Tshul khrims dpal ldan. L833/3. 54 folios. Composed in Nyi shar in
1544. Printed in Ma gar phug near Skyid mo lung. Author colophon
53a.3–53b.2. Print colophon 53b.2–54a.7.
II. Teachings
Sgam po pa’i gsung
Chos rje dags po lha rje’i gsung / bstan chos lung gi nyi ’od. E2518/4. 25
folios. Printed by Rin chen rnam rgyal at Brag dkar rta so in 1550. Print
colophon 25a.6.
Dwags po rin po che’i rtogs chos snying po don gyi rnal ’byor bzhi rim.
Author: Rin chen rnam rgyal. L 567/5. 8 folios. Remark on NGMPP
card: “brag dkar fire-dragon year”; me ’brug 1556. Contemplative
instructions according to Sgam po pa. Not seen.
476
Kurtis R. Schaeffer
Phyag rgya chen po
Rgyud kyi dgongs pa gtsor ston pa phyag chen yi ge bzhi pa’i ’grel bshad.
L503/2. 50 folios. L956/8. f87, incomp. L503/2. Composed by Rin chen
rnam rgyal at Brag dkar rta so in 1548 (sa pho sbrel), printed in 1561
(lcags pho bya). Very good illustrations. L503/2 colophon 49a.7.
Phyag rgya chen po yi ge bzhi pa’i sa bcad. Author: Lha btsun rin chen rnam
rgyal. L569/10. 9 folios. Composed by Rin chen rnam rgyal at Brag dkar
rta so. Likely a Brag dkar print. Small print colophon 9a.6–.7.
Phyag rgya chen po rnal ’byor bzhi’i rim pa snying po don gyi gter mdzod.
Author: Yang dgon pa. L194/8. 18 folios. E1784/3. 15 folios. [missing 6,
9, 19 out of 18]. Printed by Rin chen rnam rgyal (likely at Brag dkar rta
so) in 1556 (me ’brug).
Dpe chos
Dpe chos rin chen spungs pa’i gzhung. Author: Po to ba. L10/21. 7 folios. No
print colophon (see next).
Dpe chos rin po che spungs pa’i ’bum ’grel. L813/2. 169 folios [last folio
missing]. E2617/9. 165 folios [missing 1–3, last folios]. L10/22. 169
folios. Patronised by Gong ma Khu dbon for long life and the health and
prosperity of the government. Composed and printed by Rin chen rnam
rgyal at Brag dkar rta so in 1555. Scribes: first half Bcu dbon rdo rgyal
(same as another) and second half Bsod nams ’od zer. Thirteen carvers.
Colophon begins 169b.2.
Cakrasaṃvara
Bcom ldan ’das dpal ’khor lo sdom pa’i spyi bshad theg mchog bdud rtsi’i dga’
ston ye shes chen po’i sman mchog. Delhi: D. Tsondu Senghe, 1982. 127
folios. A general work on the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra. Composed by Rgod
tshang ras pa at Tsā ri. Printed at Ras chung phug. Colophon pp. 250.6–
253. Gene Smith suggests that this work “probably supplements a set of
the Ras chung snyan brgyud which was carved at Ras chung phug. There
The Printing Projects of Gtsang smyon Heruka
477
may have been another set of the Ras chung snyan brgyud prints carved
somewhere in Mang yul” (personal communication), although Franz-Karl
Ehrhard states that he has not seen prints of Ras chung snyan rgyud
works prior to Byams pa phun tshogs (personal communication).
III. Histories
Chos ’byung
Bde gshegs bstan pa’i gsal byed bka’ brgyud chos kyi ’byung gnas rin po che
spung ba mun sel ’od tong ’khyil ba. L833/4. 87 folios. L13/8. f82.
L392/14–L393/1. Composed by Sangs rgyas Dar po in 1568 (sa pho
’brug). Printed at Gnya’ nang in La phyi. No printing date. Extensive
donor list. L833/4 Print colophon 85a.2–87a.6.
Lo rgyus
Dpal ’khor lo sdom pa sngon gyur lo rgyus. L514/8. 21 folios. Margin: O.
Composed by Rgod tshang ras pa at La phyi, printed by Rgod tshang ras
pa at Ras chung phug. Author colophon 22a.5. Print colophon 22b.1–.4.
478
Kurtis R. Schaeffer
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Author Unknown. Rnal ’byor dbang phyug lha btsun chos kyi rgyal po’i rnam thar gyi
smad cha. Kathmandu: NGMPP L456/7. 32 folios.
Bowers, F. 1949 Principles of Bibliographic Description. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Brag dkar rta so Sprul sku Chos kyi dbang phyug (1775–1837). Grub pa’i gnas chen
brag dkar rta so’i gnas dang gdan rabs bla ma brgyud pa’i lo rgyus mdo tsam
brjod pa mos ldan dad pa’i gdung sel drang srong dga’ ba’i dal gtam [comp.
1816]. Kathmandu: NGMPP L940/8. 52 folios.
Bya bral pa Tshul khrims dpal ldan (circa sixteenth c.), Mkhas grub rdo rje ’chang bsod
nams blo gros kyi rnam thar yon tan gyi sbrang rtsi la dad pa’i bung ba rnam
par rol pa [composed 1544]. Kathmandu: NGMPP, L833/3.
Ehrhard, F. 2000a. Early Buddhist Block Prints from Mang-yul Gung-thang. Lumbini:
Lumbini International Research Institute.
—— 2000b. Four Unknown Mahāmudrā Works of the Bo-dong-pa School. Lumbini:
Lumbini International Research Institute.
—— 2000c. The Oldest Block Print of Klong-chen Rab-’byams-pa’s Theg mchog
mdzod. Lumbini: Lumbini International Research Institute.
Eimer, H. 1996. Two blockprint fragments of Mi la ras pa’s Mgur ’bum kept in the
Wellcome Institute, London. Zentralasiatische Studien 26: 7–19.
—— 2000. Welche quelle benutzte Berthold Laufer für die bearbeitung einiger kapitel
aus Mi la ras pas mGur 'bum? In C. Chojnacki, J. Hartmann, and V.M.
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et Tibetica Verlag.
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’bum accessible to Frank-Richard Hamm. In H. Eimer (ed.) Frank-Richard
Hamm Memorial Volume. Indica et Tibetica Verlag.
Fushimi, H. 1999. Recent finds from the old Sa-skya xylographic edition. Weiner
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Gtsang smyon He ru ka, Rnal ’byor gyi dbang phyug dam pa rje btsun mi la ras pa’i
rnam par thar pa dang thams cad mkhyen pa’i lam ston. Kathmandu: L250/7.
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thar dad pa’i spu slong g.yo ba. In Bde mchog mkha’ ’gro snyan rgyud (ras
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chung snyan rgyuad), two manuscript collections of texts from the Yig-cha of
Gtsang-smyong He-ru-ka. Leh: S. W. Tashigangpa, 1971. vol 1, pp. 1–129. 65
folios.
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according to two Tibetan autobiographies. Journal of the Nepal Research
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Corpus. Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan.
Rgod tshang ras pa Sna tshogs rang grol (1494–1570). Gtsang smyon he ru ka phyogs
thams cad las rnam par rgyal ba’i rnam thar rdo rje theg pa’i gsal byed nyi
ma’i snying po. In The Life of the Saint of Gtsaṅ. New Delhi: International
Academy of Indian Culture, 1969.
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Hagiography. London and New York: Routledge.
Roesler, U. 2000. Zusatzbemerkung zu H. Eimer: Welche quelle benutzte Berthold
Laufer für die bearbeitung einiger kapitel aus Mi la ras pas mGur ’bum? In C.
Chojnacki, J. Hartmann, and V.M. Tschannerl (eds.) Vividharatnakaraṇḍaka:
Festgabe für Adelheid Mette. Indica et Tibetica Verlag.
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—— 2009. The Culture of the Book in Tibet. New York and London: Columbia
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PLATES
Plate 1 Chos dbyings rdo rje. “Buddha Śākyamuni.”
Ink and pigment on silk; 68x 42 cm. Dated 1660.
From a set of seven paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 439.1).
483
Plate 2 Chos dbyings rdo rje. “Three Arhats Eating with Peacocks on Scholar’s Rock.”
Ink and pigment on silk; 68 x 42 cm.
From a set of seven paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 439.2).
484
Plate 3 Chos dbyings rdo rje. “Two Arhats and Dharmatāla Viewing Painting.”
Ink and pigment on silk; 68 x 42 cm.
From a set of seven paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 439.3).
485
Plate 4 Chos dbyings rdo rje. “Two Arhats and Hva-shang with Woman
Washing Daikon.” Ink and pigment on silk; 68 x 42 cm.
From a set of seven paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 439.4).
486
Plate 5 Chos dbyings rdo rje. “Three Arhats with Jade Gate.”
Ink and pigment on silk; 68 x 42 cm.
From a set of seven paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 439.5).
487
Plate 6 Chos dbyings rdo rje. “Three Arhats Eating with Monkey and Bamboo Fence.”
Ink and pigment on silk; 68 x 42 cm.
From a set of seven paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 439.6).
488
Plate 7 Chos dbyings rdo rje. “Three Arhats Heating Tea in Waterscape.”
Ink and pigment on silk; 68 x 42 cm.
From a set of seven paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 439.7).
489
Plate 8 Lin Tinggui (act. 1160-1180). “Luohans Laundering.”
Ink and color on silk; 200 x 69.9 cm. Ningbo, dated 1178.
Freer-Sackler Gallery of Art (F1902.224).
490
Plate 9 “Lohans View Painting.”
500 Lohan set. Daitoku-ji, Kyoto.
491
Plate 10 Deeds of the Buddha. Dpal-spungs Monastery.
Photograph courtesy of Matthieu Ricard, Shechen Archives.
492
Plate 11 Śākyamuni Buddha.
Ink and color on silk; 68 x 52 cm.
From a set of seventeen paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 440).
493
Plate 12 Arhat Nāgasena with a Dragon Issuing Out of a Jar.
Ink and color on silk; 68 x 52 cm.
From a set of seventeen paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 440).
494
Plate 13 Arhat with Monkeys Stealing Mushrooms.
Ink and color on silk; 68 x 52 cm.
From a set of seventeen paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 440).
495
Plate 14 Arhat with Flock of Birds.
Ink and color on silk; 68 x 52 cm.
From a set of seventeen paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 440).
496
Plate 15 Arhat Sewing with Birds in Tree.
Ink and color on silk; 68 x 52 cm.
From a set of seventeen paintings, Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum (no. 440).
497
Plate 16 Buddha Śākyamuni. Attributed to Chos dbyings rdo rje.
Ink and pigment on silk; 68 x 44 cm.
Francoise & Alain Bordier Collection. After Jackson (1996), p. 253.
498