Journalofthe InternationalAssociation …...•TheMushroomingFungiMarketinTibetExemplifiedbyCordycepssinensisand Tricholomamatsutake(47pages) –DanielWinkler • InterpretingUrbanizationinTibet

Journal of theInternational Association

of Tibetan Studies

Issue 4 — December 2008

ISSN 1550-6363

An online journal published by the Tibetan and Himalayan Library (THL)

www.jiats.org

http://www.jiats.org

Editors-in-Chief: José I. Cabezón and David GermanoGuest Editors: Ken Bauer, Geoff Childs, Andrew Fischer, and Daniel Winkler

Book Review Editor: Bryan J. CuevasManaging Editor: Steven Weinberger

Assistant Editors: Alison Melnick, William McGrath, and Arnoud SekreveTechnical Director: Nathaniel Grove

Contents

Articles

• Demographics, Development, and the Environment in Tibetan Areas (8 pages)– Kenneth Bauer and Geoff Childs

• Tibetan Fertility Transitions: Comparisons with Europe, China, and India (21 pages)– Geoff Childs

• Conflict between Nomadic Herders and Brown Bears in the Byang thang Regionof Tibet (42 pages)

– Dawa Tsering and John D. Farrington

• Subsistence and Rural Livelihood Strategies in Tibet under Rapid Economic andSocial Transition (49 pages)

– Andrew M. Fischer

• Biodiversity Conservation and Pastoralism on the Northwest Tibetan Plateau (Byangthang): Coexistence or Conflict? (21 pages)

– Joseph L. Fox, Ciren Yangzong, Kelsang Dhondup, Tsechoe Dorji and CamilleRichard

• Nomads without Pastures? Globalization, Regionalization, and Livelihood Securityof Nomads and Former Nomads in Northern Khams (40 pages)

– Andreas Gruschke

• Political Space and Socio-Economic Organization in the Lower Spiti Valley (EarlyNineteenth to Late Twentieth Century) (34 pages)

– Christian Jahoda

• South Indian Tibetans: Development Dynamics in the Early Stages of the TibetanRefugee Settlement Lugs zung bsam grub gling, Bylakuppe (31 pages)

– Jan Magnusson, Subramanya Nagarajarao and Geoff Childs

• Temporary Migrants in Lha sa in 2005 (42 pages)– Ma Rong and Tanzen Lhundup

• Exclusiveness and Openness: A Study of Matrimonial Strategies in the Dga’ ldanpho brang Aristocracy (1880-1959) (27 pages)

– Alice Travers

ii

• The Mushrooming Fungi Market in Tibet Exemplified by Cordyceps sinensis andTricholoma matsutake (47 pages)

– Daniel Winkler

• Interpreting Urbanization in Tibet: Administrative Scales and Discourses ofModernization (44 pages)

– Emily T. Yeh and Mark Henderson

Text Translation, Critical Edition, and Analysis

• The Sweet Sage and The Four Yogas: A Lost Mahāyoga Treatise fromDunhuang (67 pages)

– Sam van Schaik

A Note from the Field

• Population, Pasture Pressure, and School Education: Case Studies from Nag chu,TAR, PRC (21 pages)

– Beimatsho

Book Reviews

• Review of A History of Modern Tibet, Volume 2: The Calm before the Storm,1951-55, by Melvyn C. Goldstein (10 pages)

– Matthew Akester

• Review of Rulers on the Celestial Plain: Ecclesiastic and Secular Hegemony inMedieval Tibet. A Study of Tshal Gung-thang, by Per K. Sørensen and GuntramHazod, with Tsering Gyalbo (7 pages)

– Bryan J. Cuevas

Abstracts

Contributors to this Issue

iii

The Sweet Sage and The Four Yogas:-

A Lost Mahāyoga Treatise from Dunhuang

Sam van SchaikThe British Library

Abstract: This article presents a previously unknown tantric treatise from theDunhuang collections. Dating to the ninth or tenth century, the treatise is an earlyand important example of the Tibetan assimilation of Indic tantric Buddhism, inparticular the form known as Mahāyoga. The treatise is especially interesting forshowing how Mahāyoga and Great Perfection (Rdzogs chen) or Atiyoga wereclosely associated with each other during this early stage in their development.The treatise, which is based on the work of a previously unknown Indic teachercalledMadhusādhu, is translated here in full, along with an annotated transcription.

Tibetan Buddhism in the Tenth CenturyTibet’s Buddhist histories speak of a time of strife that falls between the initialperiod in which Buddhist scriptures were systematically translated into Tibetan inthe eighth and ninth centuries and the later appropriation of Indic texts and teachinglineages from the eleventh century onward. Often, western accounts of Tibet borrowthe term “dark age” from European history to characterize this period in Tibet.Yet, while historical sources are indeed sparse for Tibet in the tenth century, thisage was not entirely dark. Although revolutions or civil wars were by all accountscommon during this time, careful attention to historical sources and manuscriptshows that there was in fact a great deal of political and religious activity in Tibet’ssmall kingdoms and clan holdings. The traditional name for the era in Tibetanhistories, the “period of fragmentation” (sil bu’i dus), seems a more appropriateappellation.1

1 For a discussion of traditional and modern strategies in the periodization of Tibetan history seeBryan Cuevas, “Some Reflections on the Periodization of Tibetan History,” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines,no. 10 (2006): 44-55. It has been argued that the traditionally accepted assassination that brought aboutthe end of the early diffusion (snga dar) – King Glang dar ma’s persecution of Buddhism – may neverhave occured; see Zuihō Yamaguchi, “The Fiction of King Dar-ma’s Persecution of Buddhism,” in Dudunhuang au Japon: Études chinoises et bouddhiques offertes à Michel Soymié, ed. Jean-Pierre Drège(Geneva: Droz, 1996), 231-58. There is an excellent overview of the age of fragmentation based on

Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, no. 4 (December 2008): 1-67.http://www.thlib.org?tid=T5564.1550-6363/2008/4/T5564.© 2008 by Sam van Schaik, Tibetan and Himalayan Library, and International Association of Tibetan Studies.Distributed under the THL Digital Text License.

http://www.thlib.org?tid=T5564

http://www.thlib.org/tools/licenses.php#essay=/thl/text-license/

That the fragmentation of the previous political and religious establishmentsdid not stop the development of Buddhism in Tibet is shown by the strong evidencefor a vibrant Buddhist community in one of the fragmented segments oftenth-century Tibetan culture: the Tibetans of the Hexi corridor. This region joinsthe northeastern end of the Tibetan cultural area, now known as A mdo, with thewestern limit of the Chinese cultural sphere. Passing through it were a number ofthe trans-Asian trade routes popularly known today as the Silk Road.2

After the fall of the Tibetan Empire in the mid-ninth century, there was indeeda fragmentation of Tibetan power in the Hexi corridor. Yet the small Tibetankingdoms and principalities that established themselves in the region weresurprisingly robust, establishing diplomatic relations with the short-lived Chinesedynasties of the tenth century and subsequently with the Song dynasty. Thehistorical records also indicate the growing importance of Buddhist monks in thepolitical events of this period.3

From the hiddenmanuscript cache of the Dunhuang caves we have documentaryevidence of the Tibetan forms of Buddhism practiced in the Hexi corridor. TheTibetan manuscripts that were found in the cave date from the ninth and tenthcenturies, with the majority of the tantric manuscripts dating from the latter end

Tibetan historical sources and recent research in Ronald Davidson, Tibetan Renaissance: TantricBuddhism in the Rebirth of Tibetan Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 86-92. Inthe Tibetan language, a recent and extensive study of this period is found in Nor brang o rgyan, Bodsil bu’i byung ba brjod pa shel dkar phreng ba [The Garland of White Crystals] (Lha sa: Bod ljongsmi dmangs dpe skrun khang, 1991).2 The name “Silk Road” is of course the relatively recent coinage of Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen,

but remains a useful shorthand for the trade routes that passed through Central Asia.3 See Tsutomu Iwasaki, “The Tibetan Tribes of Ho-hsi and Buddhism during the Northern Sung

Period,” Acta Asiatica, no. 64 (1993): 17-37. See also Luciano Petech, “Tibetan Relations with SungChina and the Mongols,” in China Among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10th-14thCenturies, ed.Morris Rossabi (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), 173-79;Ruth Dunnell, “The Hsi Hsia,” in The Cambridge History of China 6, Alien Regimes and Border States,ed. H. Franke & D. Twitchett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 173-76; and Davidson,Tibetan Renaissance, 86-92. The Tibetans occasionally appear in the Chinese historical literature fromthis period; see Ouyang Xiu and Richard L. Davis, Historical Records of the Five Dynasties (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 2004), 29, 59-62, 79, 97, 179, and 276. In addition, there is animportant Tibetan source on the Tibetans in this region that has not yet been properly studied. Thescroll IOL Tib J 754 contains a series of letters of passage for a Chinese monk passing through theTibetan regions of Tsong kha and Liangzhou on his way to India in the late 960s. The letters are evidenceof thriving Tibetan monastic communities during this period, as well as the merging of the roles oftemporal leader and spiritual teacher among those communities. A detailedmonograph on this manuscriptby the present author and Imre Galambos will be published in the near future.

2van Schaik: The Sweet Sage and The Four Yogas

of this period.4 The manuscripts show that here Tibetan forms of Buddhism werenot just subsisting, but actively flourishing throughout the tenth century.5

In fact, recent research has shown that it is during this very period that muchof what we think of as specifically Tibetan Buddhism was coming into being. TheDunhuangmanuscripts from the tenth century show us, for example, the developingcultural importance of the deity Avalokiteśvara (spyan ras gzigs dbang po) andthe master Padmasambhava (padma ’byung gnas). The manuscripts also presentus with several organizational rubrics that came to characterize the Rnying maschool of Tibetan Buddhism, including the nine-vehicle hierarchy of Buddhistteachings and the group of twenty-eight tantric samaya vows.6

The specific focus of this article is the approach to tantric practice that becamefundamental to Tibetan Buddhism during this time (and later in the Rnying malineages) under the name of Mahāyoga. During the ninth and tenth centuriesMahāyoga came to signify for Tibetans a particular approach to tantric practicebased on a group of eighteen tantras, a group overlapping significantly with thelater Rnying ma lists of eighteen Mahāyoga tantras. We know this because we arefortunate to have a number of texts which define Mahāyoga and the other tantricvehicles from the Dunhuang manuscript cache.7

4 On the dating of many Tibetan tantric texts from Dunhuang to the latter part of the tenth centurysee Tsuguhito Takeuchi, “Old Tibetan Buddhist Texts from the Post-Tibetan Imperial Period (mid-9C. to late 10 C.),” in Proceedings of the 10th Conference of the International Association of TibetanStudies (forthcoming). On the dating of Dunhuang manuscripts by paleographic methods, see JacobDalton, TomDavis, and Sam van Schaik. “BeyondAnonymity: Paleographic Analyses of the DunhuangManuscripts,” Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, no. 3 (2007): 1-23,http://www.thlib.org?tid=T3106.5 For a full descriptive catalogue of the Tibetan tantric manuscripts from the Stein Collection of

Dunhuang manuscripts, see Jacob Dalton and Sam van Schaik, Tibetan Tantric Manuscripts fromDunhuang: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Stein Collection at the British Library (Leiden: EJ Brill,2006).6 On the early cult of Avalokiteśvara see Sam van Schaik, “The Tibetan Avalokitesvara Cult in the

Tenth Century: Evidence from the Dunhuang Manuscripts,” in PIATS 2003 vol. 4, ed. ChristianWedemeyer and Ronald Davidson (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 55-74. On Padmasambhava in the Dunhuangmanuscripts, see Jacob Dalton, “The Early Development of Padmasambhava Legend in Tibet: A Studyof IOL Tib J 644 and Pelliot tibétain 307.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 124, no. 4 (2004):734-63. On the nine vehicles in the Dunhuang manuscripts see Samten Karmay, The Great Perfection:A Philosophical and Meditative Teaching of Tibetan Buddhism (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 172-73 and JacobDalton, “A Crisis of Doxography: How Tibetans Organized Tantra during the 8th-12th Centuries,”Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 28, no. 1 (2005): 115-82. On the twenty-eightsamaya (dam tshig) vows ofMahāyoga, see Sam van Schaik, “The Limits of Transgression: The SamayaVows of Mahāyoga,” in Aspects of Esoteric Buddhism at Dunhuang: Rites and Teachings for This Lifeand Beyond, ed. Matthew Kapstein and Sam van Schaik (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).7 I discuss the Dunhuang sources for a definition of Mahāyoga at length in Sam van Schaik, “A

Definition of Mahāyoga: Sources from the Dunhuang Manuscripts,” Tantric Studies, no. 1 (2008):45-88. This article is a study of the most important text for understanding the way Mahāyoga wasdefined in this period, A Summary of the View of Mahāyoga According to Scripture (IOL Tib J 436).In addition the two doxographical texts IOL Tib J 644 and Pelliot tibétain 656 briefly define the three“inner” yogas of Mahāyoga, Anuyoga, and Atiyoga. These are discussed and translated in Dalton, “ACrisis of Doxography.” Among the longer Mahāyoga treatises from Dunhuang, the most important areprobably the one that is the subject of this article and The Questions and Answers on Vajrasattva (Rdorje sems pa’i zhus lan). The latter is the subject of a study and translation by Kammie Takahashi

3Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, no. 4 (December 2008)


Thismaterial provides us with a clear view of the wayMahāyogawas understoodand practiced in the tenth century. I have discussed this in detail elsewhere, so abrief summary will suffice here. Meditative practice included the different stylesof the development and perfection stages and the three absorptions (ting nge ’dzin),as well as the transgressive practices of union and liberation (sbyor sgrol). Thephilosophical basis or “view” (lta ba) behind these practices was expressed interms of nonduality and nonconceptualization, as the following passage from oneDunhuang manuscript attests:

The view ofMahāyoga: Phenomena are neither existents nor non-existents. Havingrenounced purity and impurity, “not renouncing” and “not obtaining” are one inspace. Whoever understands the true state of Vajrasattva (rdo rje sems dpa’)becomes him. Since one’s own mind is the path to liberation, nothing will comeof seeking it anywhere else.8

This way of formulating the philosophical approach to Mahāyoga practice wassometimes called “the mode (tshul) of the Great Perfection (Rdzogs chen).”9 Thisapproach to tantric practice, which has clear precedents in Indic works like theGuhyagarbha Tantra, was of great interest to the Tibetan interpreters of tantricliterature. We find the Great Perfection approach firmly embedded in Mahāyogatreatises like The Questions and Answers on Vajrasattva (Rdo rje sems pa’i zhuslan), which includes the following explanation of the mode of Great Perfection:

When, as in the example of a king appointing a minister,The accomplishments are granted from above, this is the exoteric mode.When the kingdom is ruled having been offered by the people,This is the mode of the unsurpassable, self-arisen Great Perfection.10

In addition to these works, the Great Perfection “mode” is also found in briefinstructional texts that completely reformulate the ritual framework of Mahāyoga,permitting only a discourse on the spontaneously present state of enlightenment.This approach can be seen in two Dunhuang manuscripts: Buddhagupta’s TheSecret Handful (Sbas pa’i rgum chung; IOL Tib J 594) and the unascribed

(forthcoming). Variant versions of The Questions and Answers on Vajrasattva exist in the Bstan ’gyurand in three different Dunhuang manuscripts. Of these three, Pelliot tibétain 837 and IOL Tib J 470are almost identical, and the latter appears to be a copy of the former. The third, Pelliot tibétain 819,which is not complete, differs from the other two, and is generally closer to the version found in theBstan ’gyur (Q.5082; Snar thang Rgyud ’grel vol. ru, ff.121a-27a).8 IOL Tib J 508/8 v5.2-v6.1: / rnal ’byor chen po ’i lta ba la// dngos po dngos po myed pa’i chos// dag

cing ma dag rnams spang nas ma spangs ma blangs dby-ings su gcig// rdo rje sems dpa’i ngang nyid la gangshig shes pa der ’gro ’o// bdag sems thar pa’i lam las ni gzhan las btsal bar myi ’byung ’o/.9 For example, in The Rosary of Views we have the following triad (i) development stage (bskyed

rim), (ii) perfection stage (rdzogs rim), and (iii) Great Perfection (Rdzogs chen). Each of these aredescribed as modes in the view of esoteric yoga (rnal ’byor). See Karmay, The Great Perfection, 155,165.10 IOL Tib J 470, section 9: / dper na rgyal pos blon por bskos pa ltar na/ / grub pa gong nas byin ba

phyi’i tshul lo/ / ’bangs kyis rgyal ba’i srid phul nas dbang bsgyur ltar/ / rang ’byung rdzogs chen bla na medpa’i tshul/.


http://idp.bl.uk/database/oo_loader.a4d?pm=IOL%20Tib%20J%20470


commentary to the Cuckoo of Awareness (Rig pa’i khu byug; IOL Tib J 647).11Some other dateable early texts in the same spirit can be found in the Tibetancanon, in particular the Six Lamps (Sgron me rnam drug) of Gnyan dpal dbyangs,and Mañjuśrīmitra’sMeditation on the Awakened Mind (Byang chub sems bsgompa).12 These are the forerunners of the later Great Perfection traditions. The rhetoricof nonduality and nonactivity found in such texts might be taken to imply a rejectionof all practice, but treatises like The Questions and Answers on Vajrasattva suggestotherwise.

In short, we find both Mahāyoga and Great Perfection being interpreted byTibetans in the tenth century in very close association with each other. This closerelationship might surprise those who see the separation of these two as an earlieror “original” state. This opinion is sometimes found in the history of the exegesisof the Guhyagarbha Tantra, which is traditionally distinguished into the Zurtradition (zur lugs) and the tradition of Rong zom pa and Klong chen pa (rongklong lugs). The latter tradition employs the terminology of Great Perfection inexplicating the tantra, while the former tends to avoid such terminology, and ispresented as a “pure” Mahāyoga approach. For this reason the Zur commentariesare sometimes characterized as more conservative or more authentic.13 On thecontrary, our Dunhuang manuscripts show that Mahāyoga was from an early stageapproached through the view of Great Perfection understood as a mode (tshul) ofMahāyoga practice, and that the hardening of doxographical categories whichseparated Anuyoga and Atiyoga from Mahāyoga as vehicles per se was not itselfgenerally accepted until at least the eleventh century.14

This paper presents a translation of a previously unknown Dunhuang treatisewhich promises to contribute much to our understanding ofMahāyoga and Atiyogain ninth and tenth century Tibet. This is an extensive treatise based on the work ofan Indic master known as Madhusādhu, which (for reasons that will become clearlater) I will call The Four Yogas. This work is, I will argue, one of the mostimportant early Tibetan tantric treatises.15 The Four Yogas is pervaded by the

11 See Karmay, The Great Perfection, 43-78.12 On Gnyan dpal dbyangs, see Karmay, The Great Perfection, 67-69 and Sam van Schaik, “The

Early Days of the Great Perfection,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 27,no. 1 (2004): 190-95. Mañjuśrīmitra’s text (listed in the early 9th century Ldan dkar ma) is translatedin Namkhai Norbu and Kennard Lipman, Primordial Experience: An Introduction to Rdzogs-chenMeditation (Boston: Shambhala, 2001).13 I have come across statements to this effect in two recent unpublished doctoral dissertations. Rather

than criticising these otherwise excellent works specifically, I would like merely to indicate the presenceof an assumption that might otherwise go unchecked, and ought to be questioned in the light of ourincreasing knowledge of the Dunhuang material.14 I return to this issue in Section 4.15 Also worthy of note here are two commentarial works attributed to Padmasambhava. The first is

The Rosary of Views, a commentary on the thirteenth chapter of theGuhyagarbha Tantra (see Karmay,The Great Perfection, 137-74). The attribution to Padmasambhava is not certain but seems entirelypossible. The second is a commentary on the Upāyapāśa Tantra, which is preserved in the Dunhuangmanuscript IOL Tib J 321, as well as in the Bstan ’gyur (Q.4717). It is not clear in either case whether


themes of nonduality (gnyis su med) and spontaneous presence (lhun gyis grub),while at the same time displaying a distinctly philosophical agenda, which maybe briefly characterized as the attempt to resolve apparent contradictions arisingfrom the application of tantric practices in the content of normative Mahāyānadoctrines. For example, in the context of deity meditation, the text attempts toresolve the question of how phenomena can be produced from the ultimate stateof reality (the dharmadhātu); a long section grapples with the relationship betweenthe mind and the appearances it perceives; and the text ends with a detaileddiscussion of the three Buddha bodies (sku; kāya) and their relationship to eachother.16

The Four Yogas is situated at a pivotal point in the development of TibetanBuddhism. Drawing the central theme of nonduality, it is an expression of an Indictantric tradition based on the Mahāyoga tantras in general and the GuhyagarbhaTantra in particular, that flourished from the mid-eighth to mid-ninth centuries.At the same time The Four Yogas contains a complex of themes that would bepicked up and developed much further in the evolving Tibetan literature of GreatPerfection. Thus The Four Yogas is situated at the end of an Indic tradition – sincethe Guhyagarbha Tantra and its related texts seem to have been largely forgottenin India by the time Tibetan translators returned at the end of the tenth century –and at the beginning of the specifically Tibetan tantric traditions that came to becalled Rnying ma and were expounded within the three vehicles of Mahāyoga,Anuyoga, and Atiyoga.

The Four Yogas and MadhusādhuThe Four Yogas is found in a scroll in the British Library’s Stein Collection: IOLTib J 454. For the reasons outlined above, the text promises to contribute much toour understanding of the way Tibetans interpreted the Mahāyoga tantras andsādhanas and put them into practice in the ninth and tenth centuries. Yet there arefrustratingly few clues to its identity. It lacks a title or colophon (breaking off ratherabruptly at the end), although the scroll on which it is written appears to becomplete. Yet it seems to have been considered of some importance by the scribeor patron who is responsible for this copy, for it is written in clear headed script(dbu can) on a new scroll. The scribe himself was Chinese and held an officialrank (see below). This single scroll contains the only extant copy of The FourYogas, which was not preserved in any of the Tibetan canonical collections.

The authorship of The Four Yogas seems a mystery, but thanks to a couple ofclues, it is perhaps a solvable one. The first clue comes from another Dunhuangmanuscript, IOL Tib J 508. This fragment of a scroll contains a series of scribblednotes discussing different Vajrayāna themes. The only tantramentioned as a subjectof these discussions is the Guhyasamāja Tantra. Manuscripts like IOL Tib J 508

these texts were translated into Tibetan or composed in Tibetan. In either case, if we accept the attributionto Padmasambhava these are not yet the first truly Tibetan treatises on Mahāyoga.16 See ll.40ff, 72ff and 160ff, respectively.




may be notes taken down from oral teachings, and this particular one may be notesfrom a series of discussions of theGuhyasamāja Tantra.17 The fifth passage in thisseries of scribbled notes discusses the interpretations of a master called Ma du sandu. The text is frustratingly incomplete but there is enough here to show that thesenotes deal with exactly the same topics, and in the same order, as The Four Yogas.Perhaps IOL Tib J 508 represents notes taken during a teaching of The Four Yogas,or an attempted summary of its contents.

The second clue comes from A Lamp for the Eyes of Contemplation (Bsamgtan mig sgron) by Gnubs chen sangs rgyas ye shes, the most important treatiseto come out of Tibet’s dark age. Written in the late ninth or early tenth century, itpresents a fourfold doxography of Buddhism: (i) the approaches of the gradualpath of Indic scholastic Buddhism, (ii) the Chinese system of Chan, (iii) Mahāyoga,and (iv) the Great Perfection.18At the very beginning of the section on Mahāyoga,Gnubs chen cites a certain master called Ma du sa du. This citation defines theword inside as meaning “assembled inside the circle of reality.”19 The very sameline appears in The Four Yogas, where it is subjected to several differentinterpretations.

Thus it seems that in this Ma du sa(n) du we have a possible author for TheFour Yogas. The name itself may be a rendition of the Sanskrit nameMadhusādhu,the extra n being a plausible Prakrit transformation of the long vowel.20 The nameappears in this very form (Madhusādhu) in Lo chen dharma shrī’s commentary tothe Guhyagarbha Tantra called The Oral Teaching of the Lord of Secrets (Gsangbdag zhal lung). In this work Lo chen dharma shrī took the line “assembled insidethe circle of reality” along with its attribution to Madhusādhu from A Lamp forthe Eyes of Contemplation.21 Thus we have a plausible Indic name meaning sweetor pleasant (madhu) sage (sādhu), not a specifically Buddhist name, but that in

17 I have discussed the issue of manuscripts written from oral sources in Sam van Schaik, “OralTeachings and Written Texts: Transmission and Transformation in Dunhuang,” in Contributions to theCultural History of Tibet, ed. Matthew Kapstein and Brandon Dotson (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 183-210.18 Traditional sources usually ascribe a very long lifetime to Gnubs chen sangs rgyas ye shes (9th-10th

century), no doubt the result of a need to place him in the reign of Khri srong lde btsan. In fact, asRoberto Vitali has shown, he was probably born in the year 844, and was involved in the revolution(kheng log) of 904. Four of Gnubs chen’s sons are said to have died in the revolution. See RobertoVitali, The Kingdoms of Gu.ge Pu.hrang. (Dharamsala: Tho.ling gtsug.lag.khang lo.gcig.stong ’khor.ba’irjes.dran.mdzad sgo’i go.sgrig tshogs.chung, 1996).19 A Lamp for the Eyes of Contemplation: 187.5: de yang slob dpon ma du sa dus su bshad pa las/ nang

zhes bya ba ni chos nyid kyi ’khor lo kha nang du ’dus pa’o/ zhes ’byung.20 My thanks to Ronald Davidson for confirming this.21 The context is a discussion of the Sugātagarbha (Bde gshegs snying po). The complete passage

is as follows: de yang snying po’i don nang rig ’gyur med la bzhed pa’i phyogs legs te/ mgon po byams pas/rigs khams sbrang rtsi ’dra ba ’di gzigs nas/ / zhes dang / slob dpon dur khrod bde bas kyang / / bde gshegssnying po rang rig la/ / zhes dang / slob dpon ma dhu sā dhus/ nang zhes bya ba ni chos nyid kyi ’khor lo khanang du ’dus pa’o/ zhes mig sgron du drangs pa dang / sngar gyi/ gdod nas dag pa’i rig pa ni/ / zhes sogskyis kyang ston pa’i phyir ro/. An electronic file was created by the Shechen Input Project; contact THLfor details.


itself was not unusual in Indic Buddhist tantrikas.22 Therefore this Madhusādhuwould probably have been an Indic, rather than Tibetan, teacher.

A Lamp for the Eyes of Contemplation gives us one more clue aboutMadhusādhu. He is mentioned in the enumeration of different ways of presentingthe Mahāyoga view. According to the interlinear notes, the view of sameness(mnyam nyid) was the speciality of Padmasambhava and Madhusādhu:23

According to some spiritual guides (themasters Padmasambhava andMadhusādhu)the view of Mahāyoga is sameness. They (the arguments, scriptural sources, andesoteric instructions on sameness) say that there is sameness in ultimate, inconventional, in the nonduality of the truths, that the five great elements are thesame as the five tathāgatas, and that the eight consciousnesses are the same asthe five wisdoms. To go into the arguments for these at length would exhaustbeings with a multitude of words.24

It is indeed the case that The Four Yogas makes extensive use of the idea ofsameness (mnyam nyid), along with synonymous terms like nonduality (gnyis sumed), inseparability (dbyer med), and single taste (ro gcig pa). More importantly,we have an exact correlate to Gnubs chen’s description in one passage of The FourYogas which is attributed merely to “the commentary”:

Ultimate and conventional truth are inseparable and of one taste. Ultimate truthis one because it is uncreated. Conventional truth is one because it is illusory.Furthermore, ultimate and conventional truth are one because they are inseparable.It is like the rosary having a single string.25

This passage looks like it could well have been exactly the one that Gnubs chenhad in mind when writing of the “sameness in ultimate, in conventional, in thenonduality of the truths.” There are frequent citations throughout The Four Yogasfrom this unnamed commentary. In all likelihood the unnamed commentary is thework of Madhusādhu, with The Four Yogas being a treatise based on thecommentary.

22 For example, the Bstan ’gyur contains Kālacakra texts authored by a Sādhuputra (Q.2069, 2075and 2076) and a Sādhukīrti (Q.2096).23 Gnubs chen is probably responsible for the interlinear notes in his own text; in both the main text

and interlinear notes, the writer refers to himself with the same epithet: ban chung. This note raises theintriguing possibility of a historical connection between Padmasambhava and Madhusādhu, but in theabsence of any other evidence to substantiate such a connection, and it may just be that Gnubs chenhad noticed this similarity in their approaches.24 A Lamp for the Eyes of Contemplation: 210.5-211.1: dge bshes (slob dpon padma dang ma du sa

du’i bzhed) kha cig ni mahā yo ga’i lta ba ni mnyam pa nyid du bzhed de/ de (mnyam pa’i gtan tshigs pa lungman ngag gsum) yang don dam par mnyam pa dang / kun rdzob du mnyam pa dang / bden pa gnyis su medpar mnyam pa dang / chen po lnga de bzhin gshegs pa lngar mnyam pa dang rnam par shes pa brgyad yeshes lngar mnyam pa dang lngar gsungs na/ de dag gi gtan tshigs rgyas par ni yi ge mangs te ’gro bas mabgod do/.25 IOL Tib J 454, l.132: / ’grel las don dam pa dang kun rdzob du dbyer myed par ro gcig pa dang zhes

pa ni/ [133] don dam par ma skyes pas gcig/ kun rdzob du sgyu mar gcig/ don dam pa dang kun rdzob duyang dbyer myed par gcig pa [134] ni/ lha’i ’phreng ba rgyu gcig pa lta bu lags/.



The Four Yogas itself could only have been written by Madhusādhu if he waswriting in Tibetan, for the text contains etymological discussion of yoga (rnal’byor) and maṇḍala (dkyil ’khor) that rely on the Tibetan syllables, and could nothave been composed in any other language. Though it is not impossible that anIndic master could have written a treatise onMahāyoga in Tibetan, it is more likelythat The Four Yogas is a Tibetan treatise making extensive use of a translated Indiccommentary by Madhusādhu. The author of The Four Yogas remains unknown,but considering Gnubs chen’s familiarity with the work ofMadhusādhu, we shouldat least consider him among the plausible authors.

Any date for Madhusādhu must be based on the fact of his appearance in ALamp for the Eyes of Contemplation, which, as we have already said, was writtenin the late ninth or early tenth century. It is possible that Madhusādhu’s work hadpassed directly to Gnubs chen, perhaps in a master-disciple relationship, althoughno extant sources mentionMadhusādhu amongGnubs chen’s teachers. This wouldplaceMadhusādhu in the second half of the ninth century. If there were interveningfigures in the lineage between Gnubs chen and Madhusādhu, this date could bemoved back. On purely doctrinal evidence, however, it seems unlikely that hisworks were written before the ninth century. Thus the period around the mid-ninthcentury seems the most likely for the transmission of Madhusādhu’s teachings toTibet.26 This would also place him in the same period as Gnyan dpal dbyangs,whose works have a very similar doctrinal content. Furthermore, a later date maybe considered less likely when we consider the absence (with a few minorexceptions) among the Dunhuang manuscripts of Indic tantras or commentariespost-dating the mid-ninth century.27

If, as I have suggested, The Four Yogas is a Tibetan work based on acommentary byMadhusādhu, then it could be later than the dates for Madhusādhuhimself which we have been discussing, as late as the closure of the Dunhuanglibrary cave at the beginning of the eleventh century. However, since it is likelythat The Four Yogas, like Gnyan dpal dbyangs’s The Questions and Answers onVajrasattva, was composed and became popular in more central Tibetan regionsbefore arriving in Dunhuang, the date for its composition should be somewhatearlier – between the mid-ninth and mid-tenth centuries seeming most likely.

Along with the citations from an unnamed commentary that may have been thework of Madhusādhu, The Four Yogas cites an unattributed root text at several

26 As David Germano has pointed out, other Indic figures whose tantric lineages came to Tibet inthis period (such as Prajñāvārman and Dānaśīla) remained obscure compared to earlier figures likeVimalamitra, even though their lineages survived. He also mentions the almost completely forgottenmid-ninth century figure Guhyeśvara (David Germano, “The Seven Descents and the Early History ofrNying ma transmissions,” in The Many Canons of Tibetan Buddhism, ed. Helmut Eimer and DavidGermano [Leiden: Brill, 2002], 225-59).27 Adelheid Herrmann-Pfant has written: “So we can expect, and that expectation is fulfilled in

practice at least concerning the tantra texts, that Tibetan Dunhuang manuscripts containing translationsfrom Sanskrit as a rule were not made later than in the 8th/9th centuries” (Adelheid Herrman-Pfant,“The Lhan kar ma as a Source for the History of Tibetan Buddhism,” in PIATS 2000, ed. Henk Blezer[Leiden: Brill, 2002], 134; her italics).


points, presumably a tantra. The identity of this root text is unknown. Thereferences in IOL Tib J 508 to the Guhyasamāja Tantra suggest that Madhusādhuand The Four Yogas might be connected with a lineage of Guhyasamāja Tantraexegesis, and The Four Yogas does cite the Guhyasamāja at one point. However,as the root text cited throughout The Four Yogas is always unattributed, so the factthat the Guhyasamāja Tantra is cited by name indicates that it is not the root text.Confirming this, I have not found any of the unascribed citations in theGuhyasamāja Tantra.

A credible alternative is that our text is based on the Māyājāla teachings. Thisseems plausible considering the coalescence of Great Perfection discourse aroundtheGuhyagarbha Tantra and other tantras of theMāyājāla cycle. There is certainlyan overlap of terminology between The Four Yogas and various Māyājāla tantras,as I will discuss in the following section. We also have the fact (noted earlier) thatthe line, “assembled inside the circle of reality,” is quoted in Lo chen dharma shrī’sGuhyagarbha Tantra commentary. Furthermore, when it appears in Gnubs chen’sA Lamp for the Eyes of Contemplation it is immediately followed by a similar linefrom the Guhyagarbha itself: “Totally internalized, without inner or outer.”28However, I have not found the unascribed citations in The Four Yogas in any ofthe extant Māyājāla tantras, and if there is a lineage of a particular tantra behindThe Four Yogas it remains obscure.29

Let us turn then to the names of the named tantras which are cited by the authorof The Four Yogas. They are:

1. The Tantra of the Union with All Buddhas (Sangs rgyas thams cad dangmnyam par sbyor ba’i tan tra; Sarvabuddhasamāyoga Tantra).30

2. The Tantra Encompassing the Great Empowerments (Dbang chen bsduspa’i tan tra).31

3. The Tantra of the Primal Supreme Glorious One (Dpal mchog dang po’itan tra; Śrīparamādya Tantra).32

4. The Tantra of the Secret Assembly (Gsang ba ’dus pa’i tan tra;Guhyasamāja Tantra).33

5. The Tantra of the Mountain Peak (Ri bo’i [rtsegs pa’i] tan tra).34

28 Tb.417: 154.1: phyi dang nang med pa/ kun tu yang nang du gyur pa/. This line is commented uponby Vilāsavajra (Q.4718: 137a.3) and Sūryasiṃhaprabha (Q.4719: 226a.1) in their Guhyagarbhacommentaries, but neither uses the same terms as The Four Yogas.29 I would like to give heartfelt thanks to Márta Matkó who painstakingly checked many tantras for

the root text and, more fruitfully, located most of the citations found in The Four Yogas.30 The citation appears in Tb.404.31 Though this name could refer to Tb.445, 462, 557 or 595, the citation is not found in any of these

texts.32 Tb.412.33 Tb.409, Q.81.34 This should be Tb.411, but the citation is not found there.


6. The Tantra Proceeding from the One (Gcig las phros pa’i tan tra).357. The Noose of Method (U pa ya pa sha; Upāyapāśapadmamālā Tantra).36

All seven cited titles appear in at least one of the various lists of eighteenMahāyoga tantras enumerated in the Rnying ma tradition.37 It is significant thatno tantras outside of this group are cited, even The Symposium of Truth (Sarvatathāgata-tattvasaṃgraha), which was well-known and influential amongTibetan tantrikas of this period. Thus the textual affiliations of The Four Yogasmay be considered sufficient to place it in the context of Mahāyoga, as it wasknown to the later Tibetan tradition.

Another approach to the question of the doxographical orientation of our textis its ritual and doctrinal content. The Four Yogas does not discuss the ritualpractices particularly associated with Mahāyoga, like the practices of union andliberation, nor is there any discussion of specific ritual practice. In this it is similarto A Lamp for the Eyes of Contemplation, which discusses Mahāyoga mainly interms of philosophical doctrine rather than ritual practice. It is to these doctrineswe now turn.

Themes in The Four Yogas

The Four Yogas ThemselvesThe Four Yogas begins with the explication of four kinds of yoga from which Ihave taken the name of the text as a whole. They are:

(i) The yoga of the nature(ii) The yoga of accomplishment(iii) The yoga of abiding by the oaths(iv) The yoga subsequent to accomplishing the samaya.I have not seen this enumeration of yogas anywhere except for IOL Tib J 508,

which, as mentioned above, is either based on this text or has a common source.38The yoga of the nature (rang bzhin gyi rnal ’byor) is mentioned alone in Pelliottibétain 283,39 and also appears alone in the title to the first chapter of one of the

35 A Gcig las ’phros pa’i rgyud is mentioned in some later lists of eighteen tantras, but I have notlocated an extant version of this tantra.36 Tb.416, Q.458.37 See the discussion of these in Dan Martin, “Illusion Web—Locating the Guhyagarbha Tantra in

Buddhist Intellectual History,” in Silver on Lapis: Tibetan Literary Culture and History, ed. C. I.Beckwith (Bloomington: The Tibet Society, 1987), 175-220. On the overlap between the lists of eighteentantras in the Rnying ma sources and the tantras attested in the Dunhuangmanuscripts, see van Schaik,“A Definition of Mahāyoga.”38 There are two texts in the Bstan ’gyur dedicated to the topic of four yogas (Q.2881 and 3222) but

they bear no relation to the set of four yogas discussed in our text.39 Final panel, ll.19-20: rang bzhin gyi rnal ’byor gi dbang phyug che [sic] po la/ sngags gyi yig ’bru bkod

de/.


later Māyājāla tantras.40 The content of this yoga is analogous to Great Perfectionmeditation instructions, especially those of the Mind Series (Sems sde):

It does not matter whether all of the phenomena of mind and mental appearances,or affliction and enlightenment, are understood or not. At this very moment youshould remain in the spontaneous presence of the body, speech, and mind ofprimordial buddhahood, without achieving it through a path or fabricating it withantidotes.41

Here we have the first appearance of the term spontaneous presence (lhun gyisgrub), an important theme in The Four Yogas. As we see here, “spontaneouspresence” refers to the presence of the enlightened state (expressed as the Buddha’sbody, speech, and mind) prior to, and independent of, any attempt to reach thatstate. Elsewhere in the text it is explicitly defined as the absence of effort (brtsal).42While the term “spontaneous presence” appears in several sūtras (such as theLaṅkāvatāra Sūtra) and many tantras, it is probably used most extensively in theMāyājāla tantra group. In later Tibetan literature even that context wasovershadowed by the popularity of the term in Great Perfection literature where,as here, it was specifically associated with the absence of effort.43

The remaining three yogas concernmaintaining the state of realization expressedin the first yoga, binding spririts by oath, and keeping the samaya vows. The authorof The Four Yogas seems to want to dissociate this presentation of four yogas fromany kind of graduated practice. He cites from an unnamed commentary a discussionof a meditation called the unsurpassed concentration (bla ma’i ting nge ’dzin),which entails the simultaneous accomplishment of all four stages of absorption.This unsurpassed concentration appears in another Māyājāla tantra and is linkedto the maṇḍala of spontaneously present body, speech, and mind (sku gsung thugslhun kyis grub pa’i dkyil ’khor); such spontaneously present maṇḍalas appear inmost Māyājāla tantras, including the Guhyagarbha.44

40 The Guhyagarbha Tantra in One Hundred Chapters known as the Gsang ba’i snying po de khona nyid nges pa sgyu ’phrul brgya pa (Tb.421). The first chapter is entitled: “Rdzogs pa chen po’i tshulrang bzhin gyi rnal ’byor.”41 IOL Tib J 454, l.1: rang bzhin gyi rnal ’byor ni/ / sems dang sems snang ba’i chos thams cad dam/ /

kun nas [2] nyon mongs pa dang / rnam par byang ba’i chos thams cad rtogs kyang rung ma rtogs kyangrung / ’phral la lam [3] gy-is ma bsgrub gnyen po ma bcos te/ ye nas sangs rgyas pa sku gsung thugs lhunkyis grub par gnas pa la bya/.42 IOL Tib J 454, l.179: de brtsal ba myed par [180] lhun kyis grub/.43 Here I would disagree with Samten Karmay’s statement that spontaneous presence (lhun gyis

grub) “may be considered as rDzogs chen’s own terminology” rather than “conveying tantric notions.”(Karmay, The Great Perfection, 119). This is, however, often the impression conveyed by the laterTibetan tradition.44 This is The Guhyagarbha Tantra in Thirteen Chapters known as the Gsang ba’i snying po de kho

na nyid nges pa sgyu ’phrul dra ba bla ma chen po (Tb.419: 365.5). For the spontaneously presentmaṇḍala see Tb.417, 193.2 and throughout chapter 6.




The Superiority of the Secret VehicleAfter these four yogas have been discussed, our text moves on to another fourfoldset, the four greatnesses. The greatness in question is that of the Vajrayāna (or asit is known here, Guhyayāna, the secret vehicle) over the other methods of Buddhistpractice. This is a theme that was popular in Indic tantric treatises, and was laterrevived by Tibetan exegetes, a well-known example being the Sa skya patriarchBsod nams rtse mo’s General Presentation of the Tantric Canon (Rgyud sde rnamgzhag).45 In any case, the four greatnesses are:

(i) The great result: this is a discussion of the differences between the result ofpracticing the causal vehicle, that is, the ordinaryMahāyāna, and the secret vehicle,or Vajrayāna.

(ii) The great accomplishment: under this heading the causal and secret vehicles,are distinguished in terms of their methods. The causal vehicle rejects the fivedesirable objects, while the secret vehicle utilizes them.

(iii) The great merit: an assertion that the meditation practice of the secret vehicleis the most meritorious activity.

(iv) The great wisdom: under this heading we find an argument for thesuperiority of the secret mantra (gsang sngags) path, based on the assertion thatthe spontaneously present wisdom is greater than the wisdom of non-self realizedby śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas and the non-self of phenomena realized bybodhisattvas.

The Nature of Buddhas and Yi damsThe author of The Four Yogas takes some trouble to explain the relationshipbetween the unproduced realm of the deities and the experience of phenomenawith perceptual characteristics (mtshan ma; nimitta). The question is howsomething existent (dngos po; vastu, bhavanā) can be produced from somethingnonexistent. The answer is by analogy: it is like the way a baby lacks distinct sensefaculties while inside the mother, but possesses them after birth.

The background to this issue is the practice of seeing all phenomena as thedisplay of the yi dam deity. The author goes on to advise that it is not necessaryto meditate on the identity of each and every existent with the deity – rather themeditation on a single deity accomplishes this automatically. The reason for thisis that one’s own deity is no more or less than the true nature of one’s mind.

45 Davidson, Tibetan Renaissance, 339-40, characterizes Bsod nams rtse mo’s defenses of the tantrictradition to his experience of the reformist ideals of the Bka’ gdams pas at Gsang phu. He writes: “...theextraordinary emphasis on the hermeneutics of esoterism (bshad thabs) found throughout SönamTsémo’s esoteric works, particularly in the chapter in his General Principles of the Tantric Canondevoted to the topic, was derived in part from his need to explain esoterism to monks devoted toBuddhist philosophical exegesis and scandalized by the tantric vocabulary.” It is interesting to note thesame tendencies in The Four Yogas, although whether the same motivations lie behind them mustremain an open question.


Mind and AppearancesAfter explaining these four, The Four Yogas goes on to discuss at length the topicof meditation on the nature of mind (sems), and the distinction between the mindand appearancess (snang ba). This section begins with the line, “Assembled insidethe circle of reality,” which was quoted in A Lamp for the Eyes of Contemplation.The commentary on this line contains a pseudo-etymology of the word maṇḍala,in which the two elements of the Tibetan term dkyil ’khor are explained as wisdom’sawareness encircling (’khor) a center (dkyil) of non-elaboration. This sectioncontains the strongest statement that the Buddhas and buddhahood are identicalwith the mind:

It is this very realization that the reality of your own mind is completely pure thatis known as “the Buddha.” Your own mind is primordial purity and buddhahood,and to comprehend that mind is primordial purity and buddhahood is to beaccomplished as a Buddha, to see the face of a Buddha, and to hold a Buddha inyour hand. Therefore, it is sufficient to realize mind’s reality. It is not necessaryto seek buddhahood anywhere other than in the mind.46

A close scriptural parallel is found in the Guhyagarbha Tantra, where we havethe lines:

The mind itself is the perfect Buddha;Do not search for the Buddha anywhere else.47

The discussion in The Four Yogas then turns to the question of whether themind (sems) and mind’s appearance as phenomena (sems snang ba’i chos thamscad) can be distinguished or not. The conclusion is that they are nondual in thatboth are empty.

Awareness and WisdomThe author of The Four Yogas relies heavily on the concept of an inherentlyenlightened mind, which is mind’s true nature. This true nature of mind is mostcommonly referred to in the text as “mind’s reality” (sems kyi chos nyid). It is alsocalled “mind itself” (sems nyid) and “the awakened mind” (byang cub kyi sems;bodhicitta); these terms became popular in the Great Perfection tradition, especiallyin the Mind Series literature, but they are also very well-attested in the Mahāyogasādhanas that we find among the Dunhuang manuscripts.48

46 IOL Tib J 454, l.53ff: rang gyi sems kyi chos nyid rnam par dag par rtogs pa de nyid sangs rgyas yinpas zhes bya ba ’am/ yang na rang gy-i sems ye nas rnam par dag cing sangs rgyas pa yin dang / sems yenas rnam par dag cing sangs rgyas pa yin pa’i don rtogs pa ni sangs rgyas su grub pa ’am/ sangs rgyas kyizhal mthong ba ’am/ sangs rgyas lag tu ’ongs zin pa yin pas/ sems kyi chos nyid rtogs pa kho nas chog/ semsla gzhan du sangs rgyas btsal myi dgos/.47 Tb.417, 191.4-5: / sems nyid rdzogs pa’i sangs rgyas te// sangs rgyas gzhan du ma tshol cig//.48 For mind itself see for example the sādhana (sgrub thabs) IOL Tib J 331/1 (1r.3) which is attributed

to Mañjuśrīmitra; the awakened mind (byang chub kyi sems) appears in most Mahāyoga sādhanas,



The most frequently used term for the enlightened mind in The Four Yogas isnone of the above however; it is awareness (rig pa). “Awareness” here embracesall the manifestations of buddhahood, as the following passage makes clear:

Accordingly, the dharmakāya (chos sku) without characteristics and the rūpakāyawhich is the manifestation of characteristics are nondual within awareness.49

Interestingly, a passagemaking exactly the same point appears in the influentialSeminal Heart (Snying thig) scripture titled the Tantra of Self-Arisen Awareness(Rig pa rang shar gi rgyud), which appeared in Tibet in the eleventh century.Ronald Davidson has argued that the use of the term “awareness” (rig pa) in theTantra of Self-Arisen Awareness represents a new reworking of Indic materials byTibetans, so that awareness as the primordially enlightened mind is stripped of itsprevious perceptual baggage represented by the philosophical term “self-referentialawareness” (rang gi rig pa; svasaṃvedana).50

In fact, this way of understanding awareness seems already to be present in TheFour Yogas, where the term “self-referential awareness” does not occur at all. Hereawareness is freed of any association with ordinary mental functioning, andrepresents the enlightened nature of one’s mind. In fact, the simple term “awareness”in The Four Yogas seems to be the short form of another term, “bodhicittaawareness” (byang chub kyi sems kyi rig pa). The latter appears frequently in TheFour Yogas as a synonym for the true nature of reality (chos nyid) of one’s ownmind; for example:

Your own deity means the reality of your own mind, the very being of thedharmakāya endowed with the bodhicitta awareness.51

And:

When you do not err from the reality of your ownmind, your mind is the bodhicittaawareness.52

These passages suggest that it might be fruitful to look for a different sourcefor the use of “awareness” in the Great Perfection texts. Some of the earliest GreatPerfection texts use “bodhicitta” as a synonym for the primordially enlightenedmind, and the exact phrase “bodhicitta awareness” itself appears in Great Perfection

where it can indicate both the drop of sexual fluids used in the higher initiations, and the enlightenednature of mind itself.49 IOL Tib J 454, l.193ff: de ltar chos kyi sku mtshan ma myed pa dang/ gzugs kyi mtshan mar snang ba

nyid gnyis su myed par r-ig pa.50 Davidson, Tibetan Renaissance, 236-39. The usual Sanskrit forms are svasaṃvedana and

svasaṃvitti. Davidson locates the original source for these terms in the works of Dignāga.51 IOL Tib J 454, l.53ff: rang gyi lhar ni/ rang gy-i sems gyi chos nyid nyid chos kyi sku’i bdag nyid byang

chub kyi sems kyi rig pa dang ldan pa.52 IOL Tib J 454, l.219ff: rang gyi sems kyi chos nyid ma nor par/ rig pa’i byang cub kyi sems dang ldan

pas/ bdag mchod pa yin la/.





texts.53 Indeed, the source of much early Great Perfection terminology can be foundin the perfection stage sādhanas of Mahāyoga where, as I have previouslysuggested, the term “great perfection” itself probably originates.54 In these sādhanasbodhicitta is a multivalent term that includes the pure aspect of mind.55 For example,the sādhana in Pelliot tibétain 245, closely based on the Guhyagarbha Tantra,invokes the bodhicitta as the mental state at the end of the perfection stage practiceof union:

Having practiced union in nonduality, consciousness is the bodhicitta of thenondual father and mother.56

Since, then, the term “bodhicitta” bridges the gap between the Mahāyogasādhanas and the early Great Perfection texts of the Mind Series, we shouldseriously consider the term “bodhicitta awareness” as a source of the GreatPerfection’s “awareness.”57

SamenessThe final thematic section of The Four Yogas is a discussion of the result of thepractice (or non-practice), which is explained in terms of sameness (mnyam panyid) with the Buddhas. As we saw in Section two above, Madhusādhu seems tohave been known for his position that the view of Mahāyoga is characterized assameness, as that view is associated with him (along with Padmasambhava) in ALamp for the Eyes of Contemplation. Sameness is undoubtedly the central themeof The Four Yogas, along with numerous synonyms including nonduality (gnyis

53 The early Great Perfection text Meditation on Bodhicitta (Byang chub sems bsgom pa, Q.3418)appears in the Ldan dkar ma, where it is attributed to Mañjuśrīmitra. The Dunhuang Great Perfectiontext IOL Tib J 594, attributed to Buddhagupta, is categorized as “The Transmitted Precepts of bodhicitta”(1r.1: Byang chub sems kyi lung). An example of the specific phrase “bodhicitta awareness” (byangchub sems kyi rig pa) can be found in the Great Perfection tantra, The Great Perfection of All PhenomenaEqual to the Ends of the Sky (Tb.83:Chos thams cad rdzogs pa chen po nammkha’i mtha’ dang mnyampa’i rgyud chen po), in the title of chapter 22. In addition, the appearance of this phrase in Bon po GreatPerfection sources is discussed in Karmay, The Great Perfection, 44-45.54 Great Perfection is here the culmination of the perfection stage (rdzogs rim). See van Schaik, “The

Early Days of the Great Perfection,” 167-69.55 Of course, one of the most important sources of the meaning of bodhicitta here is the “ultimate

bodhicitta” of the Mahāyāna commentarial tradition, which is essentially the realization of emptiness.However, this concept may have also come to The Four Yogas and the Great Perfection texts via theGuhyagarbha Tantra, the second chapter of which is dedicated to a discussion of the two types ofbodhicitta as a context for the whole of the tantra.56 Pelliot tibétain 245, 12r.4ff: gnyis su myed par sbyor ba mdzad nas/ rnam par shes par ni yab yum

gnyis su myed pa’i byang chub gyi sems te//.57 Note that the term “bodhicitta awareness” does not appear in A Lamp for the Eyes of Contemplation,

where Gnubs chen seems to use “awareness” and “self-referential awareness” interchangeably. Suchis also the case in many later Great Perfection texts (for example the hidden treasure [gter ma] of ’Jigsmed gling pa — see Sam van Schaik, Approaching the Great Perfection: Simultaneous and GradualApproaches to Dzogchen Practice in the Longchen Nyingtig [Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004]).Since a multitude of sources and allusions are the norm in Great Perfection literature, trying to find asingle definitive source for any Great Perfection terminology is probably a fruitless task.


su myed), oneness (gcig pa), inseparability (dbyer med), and single taste (ro gcigpa). An important passage defines the nature of nonduality thus:

Because the phenomena of nirvāṇa (mya ngan las ’das pa) and saṃsāra (’khorba) manifest depending on whether there is realization or non-realization, theyare nondual. Therefore they are called the single basis (gzhi gcig) or the singletruth.58

The concept of a basis (gzhi) as the source of either nirvāṇa or saṃsāradepending on whether the nature of mind is realized or not, became very importantin the later Great Perfection tradition, especially as it was developed in the SeminalHeart texts.59As for the specific phrase “single basis,” though it appears in A Lampfor the Eyes of Contemplation, it is in the context of the Mahāyoga chapter, andnot the Atiyoga chapter.60 Later, by the time we reach the earliest Seminal Hearttexts, the so-called Seventeen Tantras (Rgyud bcu bdun), the term “single basis”is being used in the context of the Great Perfection.61

The nonduality of nirvāṇa or saṃsāra is also expressed as the identity of thepractitioner and the Buddhas. This state of being is called “great sameness” (mnyamnyid chen po):

This is different from renunciation of the three realms or three worlds. In the pureland there is no distinction between an object and its antidote, for the three worldsare themselves the Buddha realms. This is the state of great sameness which wasdiscussed earlier. It is the state of the yogin (rnal ’byor pa) who is thepersonification of all the Buddhas, which is to be the same as all the Buddhas.62

“Sameness” and “great sameness” are important concepts in the GuhyagarbhaTantra and most other Māyājāla tantras.63 In fact, the entire discussion of the threeBuddha bodies in The Four Yogas seems to be indebted to theGuhyagarbha Tantra.According to the author of The Four Yogas, the dharmakāya is the nonduality ofspace and wisdom, the saṃbhogakāya is themantra (sngags) and the nirmāṇakāya

58 IOL Tib J 454, l.103: rtogs ma rtogs kyi khyad par gyis [104] ’khor ba dang mya ngan las ’das pa’ichos su snang bas gnyis myed de/ gzhi gcig pa ’am don gcig pa zhes bya/.59 On the basis as presented in A Lamp for the Eyes of Contemplation, see Karmay, The Great

Perfection: 107-20. On the presentation of the basis in the Seminal Heart tradition, see David Germano,“Architecture and Absence in the Secret Tantric History of the Great Perfection (rdzogs chen),” Journalof the International Association of Buddhist Studies 17, no. 2 (1994): 203-335 and Jean-Luc Achard,“La base et ses sept interpretations dans la tradition rDzogs chen,” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, no. 1(2002): 44-60.60 A Lamp for the Eyes of Contemplation, 194.3.61 The “single basis” is discussed in the Six Spaces Tantra (Seventeen Tantras vol. 2, 166), The

Tantra of the Lion’s Perfect Dynamism (Seventeen Tantras vol. 2, 268) and The Garland of PreciousPearls Tantra (Seventeen Tantras vol. 2, 520, 525, 529).62 IOL Tib J 454 l.145: khams gsum ’am/ srid pa gsum po ’di spangs pa’i pha rol [146] na/ zhing dag pa

bya ba zhig gnyen ris su bcad pa myed de/ srid pa gsum nyid zhing dag pa yin/ mnyam nyid sbyor nyid cheba’-i zhe ba [147] gong du bstan pa’i gnas de nyid/ sangs rgyas thams cad mnyam sbyor ba’i/ sangs rgyasthams cad kyi bdag nyid chen po’i [148] rnal ’byor pa’i/ gnas yin pa ’am/.63 Tb.417, 163.3, 168.5, and elsewhere.




is the mudrā (phyag rgya). The discussion of the last of these is closely based onthe discussion of mudrās in the Guhyagarbha Tantra, distinguishing between thenonexistent (dngos med)mudrā and the existent (dngos po)mudrās that are derivedfrom it.64

The Result: Lions and GaruḍasThe other important aspect of the way the result is presented in The Four Yogasis the simile of the lion and the garuḍa, which is used to explain the way in whichthe qualities of buddhahood appear when the realized yogin passes away.65According to the simile, these powerful creatures do not display their qualitieswhen in the womb or the egg, but embody those qualities as potentials. It is thesame for the yogin who has realized sameness; his qualities are present but willonly fully manifest when he attains buddhahood. One early source for this simileappears in a passage from an unidentified Māyājāla tantra cited in A Lamp for theEyes of Contemplation.66 The simile played an important role in later Tibetanintellectual history, being prominent in the polemics between the Bka’ brgyud andSa skya schools.67 Within the Rnying ma tradition it appears in at least one GreatPerfection tantra, and was utilized in Great Perfection apologetics.68

Mahāyoga and Atiyoga in The Four Yogas and BeyondAs we have seen, The Four Yogas is based on the themes developed in theMahāyoga tantras, especially the Māyājāla group. At the same time, the text’sparticular focus on the themes of nonduality and spontaneous presence is quiteconsistent with the early Great Perfection literature. This confluence of Mahāyogaand Atiyoga should not be surprising, first because most aspects of the early GreatPerfection are all present to a greater or lesser extent in the Mahāyoga tantras ingeneral, and theGuhyagarbha Tantra in particular, and secondly becauseMahāyogaliterature from the ninth century, such as Padmasambhava’s Garland of Views(Man ngag lta ba’i phreng ba) and Gnyan dpal dbyangs’ The Questions andAnswers on Vajrasattva, makes it clear that the Great Perfection was consideredat that time to be a “mode” (tshul) of approaching the meditative techniques of theMahāyoga sādhanas.

64 This discussion appears in Chapter 5 of the Guhyagarbha Tantra (Tb.417).65 I have translated the Tibetan khyung as garuḍa here, although it is not clear that there is an exact

match with the Indic mythological bird. See the discussion of this in David Jackson, “Birds in the Eggand Newborn Lion Cubs: Metaphors for the Potentialities and Limitations of ‘All-at-once’Enlightenment,” in Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 5th Seminar of the International Associatonfor Tibetan Studies (Narita 1989), ed. Ihara Shoren (Tokyo: Naritasan Shinshoji, 1992), 95-114.66 A Lamp for the Eyes of Contemplation: 40.5ff.67 See David Jackson, “Birds in the Egg,” 104-110.68 See Sam van Schaik, Approaching the Great Perfection, 124-27, where I discuss the simile in the

context of the works of Klong chen pa and ’Jigs med gling pa.


Another quotation from The Questions and Answers on Vajrasattvamight helpto make this point. In answer to the question of how one should perform ritualservice (bsnyen pa) to the deity:

In ultimate service no subject or object is perceived,Because there is no toil or effort this is the supreme service.69

Here again we see the rhetoric of non-effort, and in the manuscript copy writtenby the same scribe who copied out The Four Yogas we find the following notewritten underneath the words no toil or effort: “This is considered the view ofAtiyoga.”70 Elsewhere in The Questions and Answers on Vajrasattva Gnyan dpaldbyangs specifically addresses the issue of how to apply the mode of non-activityto Mahāyoga practices, writing:

With effort, one meditates over and over again,By cultivating this gradually, entering the expanse,Till it arises spontaneously without effort.71

And here again the words without effort are glossed in the interlinear notes as“the meaning of Atiyoga.”72 Although the author of The Four Yogas does notmention Atiyoga or the Great Perfection, we have seen that the text, with itsemphasis on sameness and spontaneous accomplishment belongs to the samemilieuof Mahāyoga exegesis as The Questions and Answers on Vajrasattva, and can betaken as another example of what was meant by the application of the Atiyogaview to Mahāyoga practices.

Even the early doxographical texts found in the Dunhuang manuscripts, whichseem to reflect developments from the tenth century standardizing the distinctionsbetween the esoteric tantric frameworks of Mahāyoga, Anuyoga, and Atiyoga, donot designate these three as “vehicles” per se. Rather they continue to presentAnuyoga and Atiyoga as modes of approach to deity practice, without anymeditative content of their own. Thus it appears that Anuyoga and Atiyoga werenot, until the eleventh century, widely considered to be independent vehicles withtheir own distinctive practices.

The early Great Perfection texts clearly fulfill the role of being an interpretativeframework forMahāyoga practices, reformulating the key themes of theMahāyogatantras – including the deity, the experience of bliss, and transgressive activity –

69 IOL Tib J 470, question 13: / bsnyen pa don dam par bya ba dang byed pa myi dmyi[g]s na/ / tshegsdang ’bad pa myed pas bsnyen pa’i mchog go/.70 IOL Tib J 470, question 13, interlinear note: a ti yo ga’i lta ba’i bzhed.71 IOL Tib J 470, question 31: / rtsol bas yang nas yang du mnyam bzhag ste// goms pas klung du gyur

pas khad gyis ni// rtsol ba myed pas lhun kyis grub par ’gyur/.72 IOL Tib J 470, question 31, interlinear note: a ti yo ga’i don. Note that the root text does not use

the term Atiyoga, but refers to the mode of the Great Perfection (see the citation in Section 1 of thepresent article). I have suggested elsewhere that the appearance of Atiyoga as a correlate for the GreatPerfection seems dates from the time of Gnubs chen sangs rgyas ye shes (late ninth and early tenthcenturies). See van Sam van Schaik, “The Early Days of the Great Perfection,” 188-89.






in terms of nonduality and spontaneous presence.73 There are essentially twodifferent ways in which this approach is applied to Mahāyoga. At one end of thescale we have texts like Padmasambhava’s Garland of Views andSūryasiṃhaprabha’s commentary on the Guhyagarbha Tantra, which address theissues arising out of deity yoga in Great Perfection terms. At the other end we havebrief poetic texts, like Mañjuśrīmitra’s Meditation on the Awakened Mind andBuddhagupta’s Secret Handful, which communicate the Great Perfection approachwithout explicit ritual or meditative instruction.74 The latter are of the type thatcame to be classified under the Great Perfection’s Mind Series. At an early stagemost of them were classed as transmitted precepts (lung) and esoteric instructions(man ngag) and seem to have lost their authorial associations in the process oftransmission, yet the authors who did remain associated with such texts, like thetwo above, were generally also authors of Mahāyoga commentarial and sādhanaliterature.75

Furthermore, if we consider these two texts in the wider context of the Dunhuangmanuscript collection, they must be understood alongside the much greater numberof sādhanas and other ritual material in the collection dating to around the sameperiod. Given this context, it is difficult to justify a position that the reformulationof Mahāyoga terminology in these Great Perfection texts entails a rejection ofmeditative and ritual practice. Rather, the milieu in which we find these early GreatPerfection texts, and the use they make of Mahāyoga terminology, indicates a roleas instructional works that contextualize Mahāyoga practice.

For all the above reasons I think we should be wary of the characterization ofthe earliest phase of Great Perfection texts as “pristine Great Perfection” as opposedto later developments of “tantric Great Perfection.”76 The Great Perfection is

73 See especially Mañjuśrīmitra’s Meditation on the Awakened Mind and Buddhagupta’s SecretHandful.74 It is possible that these short texts entail a kind of technique-free meditation technique. The earliest

description of such practices that I am aware of is in Gnubs chen’s Armor against Darkness, the Sunof Yoga that Clears the Eyes: A Commentary on the Sūtra of the Enlightened Intention of All Buddhas(Sangs rgyas thams cad kyi dgongs pa ’dus pa mdo’i dka’ ’grel mun pa’i go cha lde mig gsal byed rnal’byor nyi ma; vol. 1, 511-12, vol. 2, 25-26, 34), a commentary on the Sūtra Gathering All Intentions(Dgongs pa ’dus pa’i mdo), probably written toward the end of the ninth century. Here these practicesare characterized as the “gradual” aspect of the mode of Great Perfection. Note however that thesepractices are not really free of technique, and resemble more Chan meditation techniques to identifyand settle in the genuine nature of the mind. It is conceivable that the appearance of these techniquesrepresents Chan-based practices appearing under the banner of Atiyoga. Gnubs chen distinguishedChan from Atiyoga (and Mahāyoga) at length in his A Lamp for the Eyes of Contemplation, but this inin terms of view rather than technique, and the treatment also shows that Gnubs chen’s knowledge ofChan was extensive. I would like to thank Jacob Dalton for making available to me his unpublisheddissertation on the Sūtra Gathering All Intentions and Gnubs chen’s commentary.75 van Schaik, “The Early Days of the Great Perfection,” 173, and for a complete translation of The

Questions and Answers on Vajrasattva, see Kammie Takahashi, “Ritual and Philosophical Speculationin The Rdo rje sems dpa’i zhus lan,” in Aspects of Esoteric Buddhism at Dunhuang: Rites and Teachingsfor This Life and Beyond, ed. Matthew Kapstein and Sam van Schaik (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).76 Germano, “Architecture and Absence,” 13. I would like to make it clear that this article is a

groundbreaking investigation into the historical analysis of the Great Perfection traditions, and mycomments here relate only to this specific point of terminology and its potential misinterpretation.


fundamentally “tantric” in the earliest texts known to us, in that it arose from, andserved to contextualize, the discourses and practices ofMahāyoga. David Germano,who coined the term “pristine Great Perfection,” was careful to define it as a literarycharacterization, leaving aside the question of what was actually practiced.77

The sources we have been examining call into question the idea of an earlyGreat Perfection “pristine” in practice as well as rhetoric. Nevertheless, we mightbe led to such an idea through two factors: (i) the fact that the rhetoric ofnonconceptuality, nonduality and the spontaneous presence in the early GreatPerfection texts could be interpreted as an injunction to forgo any kind of practice,and (ii) the development of Atiyoga as an independent vehicle from the tenthcentury onward. When the idea that Atiyoga comprises an independent vehicle isprojected back upon the early stratum of Great Perfection literature, the idea of atradition eschewing all ritual and meditative practices arises. But such an idea is,I would suggest, anachronistic.

I have examined elsewhere the historical process behind the separation of theGreat Perfection fromMahāyoga (in the form of the vehicle of Atiyoga), and arguedthat Gnubs chen sangs rgyas ye shes (a strong influence on the Zur tradition) wasinstrumental in this movement.78 The earliest reliable source for the idea thatMahāyoga and Atiyoga are each independent vehicles with their own scripturesand their own formulations of the view is Gnubs chen’s A Lamp for the Eyes ofContemplation.79 Gnubs chen, as I have previously suggested, presented in thiswork a somewhat artificial corpus of Atiyoga scripture, both describing and perhapscreating an emergent scriptural category. Gnubs chen’s use of the term “vehicle”in rather haphazard in this work, and it is interesting that in his other extant majorwork, Armor against Darkness (Mun pa’i go cha), Gnubs chen treats Mahāyoga,Anuyoga, and Atiyoga as “modes” within a single vehicle, intended for traineesof low, middle, and high capacities respectively.80

77 Germano, “Architecture and Absence,” 3, 12.78 See van Schaik, “The Early Days of the Great Perfection.”79 There is one ostensibly early source defining Mahāyoga, Anuyoga, and Atiyoga as vehicles per

se in the manner of the later Rnying ma tradition. This is the Esoteric Instructions on the Stages of theView (Lta ba’i khyad pa’i man ngag), attributed to the eighth-century translator Ska ba dpal brtsegs.However, there are many reasons for doubting the authorial attribution and early date of this text.Samten Karmay has discussed Bu ston’s questioning of the authorship (Karmay, The Great Perfection,149), and elsewhere I have noted the text’s absence from Gnubs chen’s A Lamp for the Eyes ofContemplation, despite the inclusion of other works by Dpal brtsegs (van Schaik, “The Early Days ofthe Great Perfection,” 188). Furthermore, Matthew Kapstein has noted that this text containsdevelopments in doctrinal matters that bear comparison with works produced in the early secondmillennium transmitted scripture (Bka’ ma) lineages, notably the Definition of the Vehicles (Theg paspyi bcings kyi dbu phyogs) of Kaḥ thog dam pa bde gshegs (personal communication).80 Armor against Darkness, the Sun of Yoga that Clears the Eyes: A Commentary on the Sūtra of

the Enlightened Intention of All Buddhas (Sangs rgyas thams cad kyi dgongs pa ’dus pa mdo’i dka’’grel mun pa’i go cha lde mig gsal byed rnal ’byor nyi ma), vol. 1, 509. Note that the root text of whichArmor against Darkness, the Sun of Yoga that Clears the Eyes: A Commentary on the Sūtra of theEnlightened Intention of All Buddhas is a commentary, the Sūtra Gathering All Intentions characterizesthese three not as mahā, anu, and ati but as development (bskyed pa), perfection (rdzogs pa), and totalperfection (yongs su rdzogs pa).


By the later tenth century we see the ninefold doxographical system becomingincreasingly popular, although as the Dunhuang manuscripts show, there were stillseveral variants of this scheme, and the members of the esoteric class of tantra(Mahāyoga, Anuyoga, andAtiyoga) were not generally known as “vehicles.” Thusthe fully developed nine-vehicle system does not seem to have becomewidespreadbefore the eleventh century.81 It is this development, I would argue, that led toAtiyoga (and thus Great Perfection) finally being cut loose from its originalgrounding in Mahāyoga.

Now, it is very interesting that this very same period sees the appearance of theearliest Seminal Heart texts, found among the Seventeen Tantras. These texts bringMahāyoga practices and deities (especially the peaceful and wrathful deities of theGuhyagarbha Tantra) back into the new vehicle of Atiyoga. It seems that the spacecreated by the eventual separation of Atiyoga from Mahāyoga was filled, almostinstantly, by elements drawn from Mahāyoga sources, but now recategorized asAtiyoga.82

Thus the existence of a Great Perfection tradition with no ritual content seemsto have been untenable. In fact, we have some evidence of an unsuccessful attemptto create such a tradition. The Crown Pith (Spyi ti) texts of the twelfth-centurytreasure revealer Nyang ral nyi ma ’od zer rejected the Seminal Heart developmentsin Atiyoga that had been becoming popular in the previous century, in favor of arhetoric of nonduality and original purity. The difference from the earlier stratumof Great Perfection (which was a mode of deity yoga practice) is that with Atiyoga’snew status as an indepedent vehicle, the Crown Pith texts had no ritual context atall. In this they were anomalies, and they seem to have had little success or influenceon the later development of Great Perfection.83Certain collections of early material,especially the Collected Tantras of Vairocana (Bai ro’i rgyud ’bum), may derivefrom a similar motivation, probably among the Zur lineage, of creating an Atiyoga

81 Further research to identify the source of this doctrinal development should probably be focusedon the activities of the Zur and Kaḥ thog lineages during the eleventh and twelfth centries. For example,an important early text on the nine vehicles is the Definition of the Vehicles of Kaḥ thog dam pa bdegshegs mentioned earlier.82 The simultaneity of the widespread categorization of Atiyoga as an independent vehicle and the

appearance within this new vehicle of meditative practices drawn from Mahāyoga and “new” (gsarma) tantric traditions may go some way to answering the questions posed at the end of Germano, “TheFunerary Transformation of the Great Perfection (Rdzogs chen),” Journal of the International Associationof Tibetan Studies, no. 1 (October 2005): 28, http://www.thlib.org?tid=T1219: “Why did the GreatPerfection prove to be such a popular category of indigenous literary production in Tibet among thegroups that gradually evolved into the Ancients and Bon pomovements in the ninth and tenth centuries?Assuming that one of the chief sources of later transformations of the Great Perfection is the dominanttantric movements of those times, why did the Great Perfection prove to be such a popular category ofliterature among Ancients and Bon po groups for the creative assimilation of new Indian and Tibetandevelopments under the guise of treasure revelation in the eleventh through thirteenth centuries?”83 Germano, “Funerary Transformation,” 27. However, I would disagree to some extent with the

statement that “the Crown Pith’s reactionary orientation failed ultimately because the incorporation oftantra into Great Perfection was too popular and powerful,” because it implies the existence of anearlier form of Great Perfection that was independent of tantra.



vehicle entirely free of Mahāyoga, but again, these collections were of littlesignificance to the later tradition compared with the Seminal Heart material.

In effect, even the old role of Great Perfection as an approach to Mahāyoga,which we have seen here in The Four Yogas, was not abandoned, but flourishedin the Guhyagarbha commentarial tradition of Rong zom pa, Klong chen pa, andthose who followed their examples. This again may be contrasted to thecommentarial approach of the Zur lineage, which strenuously avoided theapplication of Great Perfection language to Mahāyoga material. In this way, TheFour Yogas is a vital context for the work of the scholars who shaped the Rnyingma tradition, suggesting how they may have drawn on early currents of exegesisas they formed a distinctive interpretation of the Vajrayāna.

The Manuscript (IOL Tib J 454)The Four Yogas is written in a carbon-based ink on a good quality scroll. Unusuallyfor a Tibetan tantric work from Dunhuang, the scroll appears to have been madespecifically for this text. Many of the tantric texts from Dunhuang are written onthe versos of Chinese scrolls, or on small Tibetan po ti pages, indicating a scarcityof paper. In this case, somebody was able to obtain, or willing to pay for a finecopy of the text. Thus its incompleteness is rather mysterious. Perhaps the completetext was written in several scrolls, the rest of which were lost, or perhaps the textwas considered important despite not being available in full.

The handwriting is a neat and fluid headed script that will be familiar to anyonewho has looked at the Aparamitāyurnāma-mahāyāna-sūtra (tshe dpag tu med pazhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo) and Śatasāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā (shes rabkyi pha rol tu phyin pa stong phrag brgya pa) manuscripts mass-produced inDunhuang. The scribe made only a few mistakes, and most of these were noticedand corrected at the time. The scroll does not contain the scribe’s name, butfortunately we have another scroll in the same hand that does give a name.Interestingly enough, this other scroll is one of the three copies of The Questionsand Answers on Vajrasattva, IOL Tib J 470. The paper of the two scrolls IOL TibJ 454 and 470 is very similar to that used in the hundreds of sūtra scrolls producedin the mid-ninth century in Dunhuang. This is a strong, buff-coloured paper thatwas produced locally at Dunhuang during and after the period of Tibetan rule inDunhuang. Perhaps the availability of this kind of paper may be in someway linkedto the scribe’s official status.84

84 Regarding this type of paper, a recent project by Agnieszka Helman-Wazny has found thesemanuscripts to be primarily composed of mulberry fibers, a locally available source of pulp. All suchscrolls were made on a paper mould with a moveable bamboo mesh, allowing paper to be removedbefore drying. In contrast, papermaking technique in Tibet and other Himalayan countries did notdevelop the removeable mesh, so that paper was always dried in its frame. The measurements of theIOL Tib J 454 and 470 are identical. Both have a panel height of 30.5 centimeters and length of 33.5centimeters. Both have laid lines at 11-12 / 3 centimeters and 7.5 / panel. As such, they are likely tohave come from the same papermaking apparatus. The height of the scrolls matches that of AkiraFujieda’s Type D, dating from the early ninth century onwards (see Akira Fujieda, “Chronological








IOL Tib J 470 (The Questions and Answers onVajrasattva).IOL Tib J 454 (The Four Yogas). All images

reproduced by kind permission of The BritishLibrary.

I have identified these of the two hands based on the forensic method ofhandwriting analysis adapted to the conventions of Tibetan manuscripts, which Ihave discussed elsewhere.85 In brief, the method involves breaking down thehandwritings into units of individual graphs (the written letters that appear on thepage) and identifying sufficient similarities at the graph level to produce aconvincing identification. The identification of such similarities is experience-basedin that the examiner must know which graphic forms are likely to be idiographic,and which allographic. While allographic forms are learnt variations in writingstyles, idiographic forms are those that are specific to a given writer, and not underhis or her conscious control. A series of benchmarks may then be established as abasis for comparing one example of handwriting with another.86

The scribal colophon in IOL Tib J 470.

In IOL Tib J 470 the scribe hassigned his name as Phu shi meng hwe’i’gyog. This is clearly a Chinese name.The first part of the name (phu shi) is

an official rank (fu shi,副使), the name for the third highest ranking official in adistrict called a zhen (鎮).87 This is very interesting. Firstly, since this is a Chinese

Classification of Dunhuang Buddhist Manuscripts,” in Dunhuang Manuscript Forgeries, ed. SusanWhitfield [London: The British Library, 2002], 103-14).85 See Dalton, Davis, and van Schaik, “Beyond Anonymity,” 1-23.86 The benchmarks shared by both IOL Tib J 454 and 470 include: (i) the reverse curl at the beginning

of the text; (ii) two forms of the shad, one curving slightly to the left, and a less common variant witha slight “s” shape curving to the right; (iii) two forms of the zhabs kyu vowel, one a simple curve andthe other ending in an extended horizontal line; (iv) a marked tendency not to connect the ra btagsstroke to the bottom of the root letter; (v) an unusual form of the graph mya, where the ya btags andthe right side of the ma are not joined to the left side of the graph.87This rank, as it appears in another Tibetan Dunhuang document (Pelliot tibétain 1124), is discussed

in Akihiro Sakajiri, “Kigigun jidai no Chibetto bun bokuchiku kankei monjo” [A Post-Tibetan PeriodTibetan Document on Stock-Breeding from Dunhuang], Shigaku zasshi 111, no. 11 (2002): 69-71.Géza Uray has a different interpretation of phu shi, but Sakajiri has convincingly argued for fu shi (副使). See Uray, Géza, “New Contributions to Tibetan Documents from the post-Tibetan Tun-huang,”in Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 4th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies








official title not in use during the Tibetan occupation of Dunhuang (or Shazhou,as the town was then known), we can be sure that the manuscript was written afterthe occupation, which ended in 848. The use of Tibetan by Chinese officials afterthe Tibetan occupation is a well-documented fact.88 Secondly, the scribe’s ranksuggests an interest in Tibetan Mahāyoga among the Chinese officialdom ofShazhou. The title is followed by the scribe’s family name,Meng (孟), a commonfamily name in the Dunhuang documents. The last part, the personal name, can betentatively reconstructed asHuai Yu (壞玉), though a search through the colophonsof the Tibetan Dunhuang manuscripts yields no other instances of this particularname.89

As mentioned above, the IOL Tib J 454 and 470 scrolls appear very similar tothose containing the Aparamitāyurjñāna Sūtra, which are usually dated to the endof the Tibetan occupation of Dunhuang, the mid-ninth century. It would be unusual,though not impossible, for a Dunhuang Mahāyoga text to date from as early as themid-ninth century. Since, as we have seen, the scribe’s Chinese official rank dateshim after the Tibetan occupation of Dunhuang, the manuscripts should be datedto somewhere between the mid-ninth century and the end of the tenth century. Adate toward the later part of that period is suggested by the cursive interlinear notesin IOL Tib J 470, and a few interlinear corrections in IOL Tib J 454. These werecertainly written at the same time as the main text.90 The cursive style in theinterlinear notes is similar (though not, I think, in the same hand) to that found inthe scroll Pelliot tibétain 849, which can be dated with certainty to the late tenthor early eleventh century.91

Schloss Hohenkammer – Munich 1985, ed. Helga Uebach and Jampa Panglung (Munich: Kommissionfür Zentralasiatische Studien Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1988), 522.88 See Uray, “NewContributions,” and Tsuguhito Takeuchi, “AGroup of Old Tibetan LettersWritten

Under Kuei-I-Chün: A Preliminary Study for the Classification of Old Tibetan Letters,” Acta OrientaliaAcademiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 44, nos. 1-2 (1990): 175-90.89 We do have a Meng hwa’i kyim, whose signature appears in three manuscripts: IOL Tib J 109.21

(a copy of the Śatasāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā Sūtra), IOL Tib J 548 (an Uṣniṣasitātapātra Dhāraṇī)and Pelliot tibétain 982 (a letter). The hand seems to differ somewhat however from the hand in ourtwo scrolls. Additionally, we have a Hwa’i ’gog who worked as a proofreader in the scriptorium whichproduced copies of the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, probably in the first half of the eighth century: IOL TibJ 107.1, Pelliot tibétain 1382, 1452. A variant of the name appears in the Chinese manuscripts as well;for example in Or.8210/S.1067 (a copy of the Prajñāpāramitā-hṛdaya Sūtra) somebody, either thescribe or the owner, has written the name: Meng Huai (孟壞 / 懷玉). I would like to thank KazushiIwao for help with the Tibetan transcription of Chinese names, although the reconstructions offeredhere are entirely my own responsibility.90 In IOL Tib J 470 long interlinear notes sometimes take up a line where the main text should be,

and the main text carries on on the line below. The image here is an example of this. This indicatesthat the scribe was writing the interlinear notes at the same time as the root text, based on the exemplarfor this manuscript, Pelliot tibétain 837.91 Pelliot tibétain 849 was apparently written by a Tibetan scribe; it is signed by a ’Bro dkon mchog

dpal. See Joseph Hackin, Formulaire Sanskrit-Tibétain du Xe siécle (Paris: Libraire Orientaliste PaulGeuthener, 1924), and Matthew Kapstein, “New Light on an Old Friend: PT 849 Reconsidered,” inTibetan Buddhist Literature and Praxis, ed. Christian Wedemeyer and Ronald Davidson (Proceedingsof the Tenth Seminar of the IATS, Oxford 2003), vol. 4 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 9-30.







Cursive corrections in IOL Tib J 454.

Cursive interlinear notes in IOL Tib J 470.

TranslationThe beginning of a panel in the original scroll is indicated in square brackets, forexample, [panel 2] and so on. The occasional interpolations which I have thoughtnecessary appear in square brackets. I have also added a few general headingswhich appear here as an aid to reading the text, but they are not in the original,which has no architectural scheme. Some parts of the text are difficult to decipher,and this may be in part due to textual corruption. The text often lacks the usualsigns that close a citation (zhes or ces), so in some cases it is a matter of guessworkwhere the citation ends and the treatise picks up again.

The Four Yogas[i] The yoga of the nature.

It does not matter whether all of the phenomena of mind andmental appearances,or affliction and enlightenment, are understood or not. At this very moment youshould remain in the spontaneous presence of the body, speech, and mind ofprimordial buddhahood, without achieving it through a path or fabricating it withantidotes.

[ii] The yoga of accomplishment.Having unerringly realized what the nature is, you become accustomed to that

state. This brings together all of the Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and vidyādharas. It isalso known as arising naturally.

[iii] The yoga of abiding by the oaths.This concerns the lords and mistresses of the spirits who have previously been

tamed by the Bhagavan and entrusted with the samaya. You should make themobey your orders to do this or that activity, and make sure that they do not transgresstheir oaths and promises.

[iv] The yoga for accomplishing the samaya.Even if you are not endowed with the higher qualities of our forefathers, you

should maintain [the samaya] and achieve [the results] in the same way that theydid.




The unsurpassed concentration means not gradually developing the four stagesof absorption, but practicing absorption in total perfection.92 Meditation on allphenomena as the maṇḍala of spontaneously present body, speech, and mind iscalled resting (rnal), and means resting in the space of reality.

We call it space because space is the condition for the arising of all phenomena.It has no center or periphery. According to the causal Mahāyāna this is a merenothingness. The space of reality is beyond existence and nonexistence and all ofthe limits of nihilism; therefore it is limitless. At the center of the limitless thereis no center. Yet the essence of that lack is not perceived as non-accomplishmentor nothingness. Therefore resting is not created by wise Buddhas or fabricated byclever sentient beings.

In its profound sense, restingmeans resting in the space of reality. Being withoutcenter or periphery means that [resting] is beyond the limit of being truly existentbecause it is not present in any of the three times, and that it is free from the limitof nonexistence because it manifests as various characteristics, and different aspectsof it can be distinguished. Therefore it is limitless.

Not fixating means nonduality. The space of reality, not being present in anyof the three times, is unwavering. Its various characteristics manifest withoutobstruction. Mere manifestation itself is without characteristics, and does not moveaway from the space of reality. Having characteristics and being withoutcharacteristics are nondual. Seeing the nonduality of existence and non-existenceis what is meant by resting. This nonduality, not created by wise Buddhas norfabricated by clever sentient beings, is what is meant by resting.

Union (’byor) is a nondual realization without characteristics.When all internaland external phenomena endowed with the causes and effects of saṃsāra andnirvāṇa are of one taste in the space of reality or of one taste in nonduality, this isresting in union (rnal ’byor). [panel 2]

The Fourfold GreatnessThe realization of [i] the great result according to the non-secret vehicle is asfollows. According to the scriptures of this vehicle, the great result is to becomean unsurpassed Buddha, not a śrāvaka or a pratyekabuddha. Indeed, if thesefollowers of the causal Mahāyāna wish to achieve buddhahood, they will not failto attain it. However, despite spending a long time purifying and purifying,accomplishing and accomplishing, the followers of the causal vehicle will notrealize the truth of this secret vehicle. Therefore they will not attain buddhahoodin a lifetime. There is nothing greater than the result which comes from havingachieved primordial buddhahood through realizing the truth of this [secret vehicle].

92 Note that “total perfection” (yongs su rdzogs pa) is the third element of triad of development,perfection, and total perfection in Sūtra Gathering All Intentions, where it is explained as the “spaceof wisdom” (ye shes dbyings). In his commentary, Gnubs chen treats it as a synomym for Atiyoga (seeArmor against Darkness, vol. 1, 511).


Regarding [ii] the great accomplishment: The followers of the Mahāyāna usegreat effort, yet they achieve buddhahood only after three uncountable eons. Thisis the lesser accomplishment. One attains what is known as the greataccomplishment by achieving unsurpassable buddhahood in one lifetime, or in thisvery lifetime, when the meaning of sameness and nonduality is realized.

It is also [known as the great accomplishment] because [the secret vehicle] isnot like the causal vehicle, in which the factors of enlightenment and the perfectionsare accomplished with difficulty and suffering. When one understands the fivetypes of sensual pleasure as ornaments of reality, one becomes accomplishedthrough the experiences of joy and pleasure.

It is also [known as the great accomplishment] because, according to the causalvehicle, the five afflictions and the five desirable objects are the causes of saṃsāra,and there is nothing greater than the accomplishment which comes from examiningfaults and abandoning them based on antidotes. In the latter [the secret vehicle]one does not abide in duality and never wavers from the space of reality. It is taughtthat out of this nondual meditation Conquerors are created and arise, or are born.

Alternatively, [in the phrase] created by the Conquerors, the variouscharacteristics are taught to be created or to arise from the unproduced space ofreality. “Who taught this?” It was taught by the Conquerors themselves. Thecondition of all phenomena is like the birth of a baby from inside the mother.93“But is it not contradictory to teach that various existents come forth from somethingnon-existent? Where is there an example analogous to this?” It is like the way thatthe baby lacks of distinct sense faculties while inside the mother, but afterwardsthe distinct sense faculties come forth.

From the commentary on this text:

The blessings of wisdom... The blessings are the maṇḍala of the mudrās and theemanations. Meditation refers to nondual meditation. If you ask where is therean example of this means, “Is there any example in harmony with this?” [panel3] It is like the development of a baby’s distinct sense faculties coming after thebaby’s lack of distinct sense faculties while inside the mother. In exactly that waythe various existent things come forth from reality without existence; there is nocontradiction.

“Accepting this analogy of non-contradiction, should we practice this bymeditating to establish all the various existents as the deity, or is everythingaccomplished by meditating on the single deity of our practice?” It is not necessaryto meditate that each and every existent thing is the display of a deity. Bymeditatingon the single deity that is your practice, you meditate on everything.

“Where is this said?” It is taught in the Tantra of the Union with All Buddhas,in verses such as:

93 Note that the Tibetan text here has bu mo and later bo mo. Both words usually mean “daughter”or “young woman,” but here the required meaning is clearly “mother.”


If you unify yourself with your own deity...94

Your own deity means the reality of your own mind, the very being of thedharmakāya endowed with the bodhicitta awareness. This is the nature of the deity,which we call your own deity. Realizing awareness in this way is known as unifyingyourself [with the deity]. It is known as entry into all maṇḍalas. If you have realizedreality of the mind in this way, and you possess the bodhicitta awareness, you haveentered into the maṇḍalas of the three empowerments, of vajra space, of tamingbeings and of accomplishing all truths, and all the rest.95

“How is this so?” Bodhicitta is the root of all maṇḍalas. It is the nature. It isthe entry into the middle (dkyil). Therefore bodhicitta is the means to realization.This is not about trying to attain anything. It is known as utter immediacy.

Unification means to comprehend bodhicitta, the reality of mind.By perfecting means that in comprehending the reality of the mind, the great

qualities such as the accumulation of merit and wisdom are purified and perfected.This not like the lesser merit gained little by little through discipline and difficulty.Buddhahood is achieved without the need for benefit and assistence by such[methods]. If you unify symbolically [with the deity], then in this context theexperience [indicated by] the words if you unify yourself with your own deity isexplained as a joyful dance.

Regarding [iii] great merit: The pure roots of virtue such as the factors ofenlightenment and the perfections are vastly meritorious. Howmuchmore so whenyou meditate on the body, speech, and mind of all appearances as the mudrā; allcauses and effects are then meritorious. At this time there is nothing greater thanthe merit of perfecting [this meditation].

Regarding [iv] great wisdom: The śrāvaka comprehends non-self. Thepratyekabuddha comprehends non-self and on top of this comprehends phenomenaone-sidedly as a self, the aggregate of form. The bodhisattva comprehends thenon-self of the person and phenomena. [panel 4] If these [kinds of comprehension]are vast wisdom, howmuchmore so is the comprehension of spontaneously presentwisdomwhich is a realizationwithout characteristics or duality? There is no wisdomgreater than this.

Meditation on the Nature of Mind

Assembled inside the circle of reality...96

94 Tb.404: 118.5. The lines that follow the above citation in this edition are as follows: / rang gi lharni bdag sbyor na’ang / / bsod nams chung yang ’grub par ’gyur/ / de nyid rnal ’byor ’dis yis ni/ / thams cad’grub par byed pas na/ / ngan ’gro ngan sbyong thams cad kyis/ / nyes pa dag tu yongs mi ’gyur/ / bskal pabye bar mi thob pa’i/ / sangs rgyas dam pa thams cad de/.95 These are the four main maṇḍalas of the Sarvatathāgata-tattvasaṃgraha Tantra.96 See A Lamp for the Eyes of Contemplation: 187.5.


Reality, mind itself and space become one. This is the reality of mind. The circle(’khor) means the center (dkyil). If you comprehend the mind’s reality, then theunelaborated center is surrounded by the circle of the wisdom’s awareness.Therefore this is known as encircling the center (dkyil ’khor). If you do notcomprehend [the mind’s reality], then the ignorant center is surrounded by a circleof misapprehension. This is also encircling the center.

The phrase assembled inside indicates the sentient beings who are outside. Theyare those who understand that all appearances are the appearances of mind, but donot understand that [mind] is nonexistent. This is an indication of being outside.The phrase assembled inside also means that the ones said to be assembled insideare those who understand that all appearances are the appearances of mind, andalso comprehend that the fundamental mind and the appearances contained withinit are not existent phenomena.

The phrase assembled inside also means that when the mind’s reality iscomprehended, it is like swallowing after having chewed the food in one’s mouth.97Characteristics and existents are like the food. The mouth that swallows is therealization of the reality of mind, and because that is the gate to complete purity,it is called a gate. Because one enters into nonabiding nirvāṇa this is known asentering. Thus entering the gate of the mouth indicates that all activities areencompassed by the qualities inside of the unerring realization of mind’s reality.

“Should yogins accomplish and pursue [this realization]? Should they attain itor find it? If this is true buddhahood, then where is this buddhahood found?” Itwill not be encountered in any of the ten directions through being summoned, orfound, or arising of itself. It is to be sought and found in the mind.

“Where this is said?” As it is said in The Tantra Encompassing the GreatEmpowerments:

Know that the realization of mind itself is the Buddha.98

It is this very realization that the reality of your own mind is completely purethat is known as “the Buddha.” Your own mind is primordial purity andbuddhahood, and to comprehend that mind is primordial purity and buddahood isto be accomplished as a Buddha, to see the face of a Buddha, and to hold a Buddhain your hand. Therefore, it is sufficient to realize mind’s reality. It is not necessaryto seek buddhahood anywhere other than in the mind.

“If buddhahood is to be found in the mind, what about [the distinction between]the mind and all of the phenomena that are mind’s manifestation – are they asingularity or are they different?” They are taught as [non]dual. Where is this said?In The Tantra of the Primal Supreme Glorious One:

97 This passage employs a Tibetan pun. “Inside” (kha nang) can also be read as within (nang) themouth (kha). A reference to the ritual consumption of sacred substances is probably intended here.98 Not found in Tb.595, or in the following tantras with similar titles: Tb.445, 462, 557 and 595.


All dharmas have the characteristic of the skyHowever the sky has no characteristics.99

Basic mind and all phenomena which are mind’s manifestation have thecharactistic of being empty and without a self, like the empty sky. [panel 5] Thesky has the characteristic of being without characteristics. Thus this mind existsonly insofar as it is a sky-like emptiness. But the sky is not to be defined as a lackof characteristics; it is to be defined as that itself, meaning mind’s reality itself.

That itself is the world’s variety.

When mind’s reality itself is meditated upon with the methods of nescience,there will be no realization. In this case all of the phenomena of saṃsāra, theinternal and external worlds, manifest. On the other hand, if you do comprehendmind’s reality then all of the phenomena of nirvāṇa, such as the great accumulationsof the mudrās of body, speech, and mind, will manifest. When you comprehendmind’s reality, that itself will manifest.

The meaning of this is that when you have no realization, all the appearancesof saṃsāra, such as the ordinary body and the afflictions, manifest like illusoryhorses, elephants, and so on appearing one after the other. On the other hand, whenyou have realization then you have all the phenomena of nirvāṇa, such as theBuddha bodies, wisdoms, and pure lands. Because the phenomena of nirvāṇa andsaṃsāra manifest depending on whether there is realization or non-realization,they are nondual. Therefore they are called the single ground or the single truth.

From the commentary on the previous text:

In that very lack of characteristics there is manifestation.

As explained earlier, depending on whether mind and phenomena are realizedas being without characteristics, phenomenamanifest as either saṃsāra or nirvāṇa.It is taught that all of these [phenomena] are a multitude of illusions, or a singleillusion. But it is also taught that they are ultimately the same.

“If thusness is manifest everywhere, what is the difference between achievingand not achieving? And is achievement involved with characteristics or not?”When that which is formless manifests as appearance with characteristics, thecharacteristics are themselves uncreated and nondual.

Where is this said? In Guhyasamāja Tantra:

99 Tb.412: 477.1-478.1: / thams cad nam mkha’i mtshan nyid de/ / nam mkha’ la yang mtshan nyid med// nam mkha’ dang mnyam sbyor ba yis/ / kun mchog mnyam pa nyid du gsal/ / zhes bya ba’i shes rab kyi pharol to phyin pa’o/. The tantra attributes these lines to the Prajñāpāramitā, and they are indeed to be found(with minor variations) in the Prajñāpāramitānaya-adhyardhaśatika, but not in the canonical version(Q.121). They appear in the Dunhuang version IOL Tib J 97: 53v.2-54r.1: / thams cad nam mkha’-imtshan nyīd de/ / nam mkha’ la n-i mtshan ny-id myed/ / nam mkhar mtshan nyid sbyor bas na/ / kun mchogmnyam ba nyid rdzogs ’gyur/.


Uncreated phenomena...100

Without moving from the space of reality in which all phenomena are uncreated,the mudrā of body, speech, and mind manifests as the various characteristics.Within mere manifestation itself, the characteristics are already accomplished asoneness. This is known as a rain of flowers upon the deity to be accomplished.And becoming the deity to be accomplished, which has been prophesied in visionsor dreams, is known as the intrinsic deity. Once you have realized the equality andunreality in body, speech, and mind between the deity and the practitioner, andattained union [with the deity] in meditation, then the maṇḍala will be displayedeverywhere.

“How is this so?” Because whether [you meditate upon] a single deity or alldeities, they have a single nature. When you meditate only on the deity to beaccomplished, the maṇḍala is everywhere. Totally means in one lifetime. Byextension, the sameness discussed above also applies to unifying lesser objects ofcontemplation with the truth.

“What about the perceptions of the senses and their objects?” The five sensesare the five Buddha-families, and each one of them is distinctly pure. Distinctlymeans separate and without similarity. The sense-faculties are not similar to theirobjects. Furthermore, the sense-faculties are not similar to each other, and thedifferent kinds of objects are not similar with each other.

With total equanimity

[panel 6] Total means fully manifest. Equanimity means that the fivesense-faculties are the Buddhas of the five families, and the five sense-objects arethe five consorts. The maṇḍala of the Buddhas and consorts of the five families isprimordial equanimity. When this is where you abide, you attain absorption insameness through your own power. When this is where you abide, you rest at thissite without mental activity. In the maṇḍala of the deities, you are blessed so thatthe means remain the means and the forms remain the forms. Meditation is apermanent state. This is also known as total one-pointedness.

Resting in equanimity

Having comprehended that the body, speech, and mind of the deity to beaccomplished, and the body, speech, and mind of the yogin are inseparably thesame, you should meditate. When you settle in equanimity in the mudrā of thebody, speech, and mind of the deity, this comprises the five empowerments, thefive Buddha families, the five objects, and the five consorts. You are always inmeditation in the maṇḍala of the deities and consorts of the five families.

From the commentary:

100 Tb.409: 823.4: / ma skyes pa yi chos rnams ni/ / ngo bo nyid kyis khyad par can/ / rnam par mi rtogyang dag las/ / ye shes ’byung bar rab tu bsgrags/.


In brief, do not become distracted from the nature of the Noble Ones by otherforms of mind itself. To sum up, whatever appears in the objective aspect andwhatever mental concepts arise, do not let them distract you from the Noble Ones:the Buddhas and consorts of the five Buddha-families.

“Is the achievement of this non-distraction by objects other than the nature ofthe Noble Ones an incidental benefit, or the result itself?” This is the bursting forthof the result, buddhahood itself.

“Where is this said?” The Tantra of the Union with All Buddhas says:

It is not easy to write about the source. Through causes and conditions the resultis accomplished as buddhahood.101

Sameness with the BuddhasFrom the commentary:

Ultimate and conventional truth are inseparable and of one taste. Ultimate truthis one because it is uncreated. Conventional truth is one because it is illusory.Furthermore, ultimate and conventional truth are one because they are inseparable.It is like the rosary having a single string.

Eventually the nature of the tathāgatas is realized. “Where is this oneness?” Inbuddhahood, you merge with oneness. “If body, speech, and mind are possessedby the Buddha, then how are body, speech [andmind] revealed?” They are revealedby wisdom. Ultimate truth is speech: the uncreated a. The illusory manifestationsof conventional truth are the body: o. The nonduality of these two is the mind: ō.This is how to merge with realization through the method of the syllables.

“Where is the abode of these yogins?” Wherever the tathāgatas abide, that isalso the place for the yogin. The abode of the tathāgatas is where, having fullycomprehend the space of reality with their great wisdom, they reside in a state ofsameness within the space of reality, where the accumulations of merit are gatheredwithout limit, in the celestial palace of manifold jewels created by the power ofspontaneously present merit. This is also the yogi’s abode.

Where is this said? It is taught in [scriptures] like Tantra of the Mountain Peak:

In essence, the three worlds are the Buddha realms, space itself.102

This transcends renunciation of the three worlds. In the space of reality thereis no such thing as a bad deed. There is no need to accomplish the three worlds asthe genuine essence, for the three worlds are themselves the space of reality. [panel7] They are not to be transformed into purity, for the vision of pure objects is itself

101 This passage was not found in any of the relevant texts in the Rnying ma rgyud ’bum and Bka’’gyur.102 Not found in Tb.411 or Bg.188.


pure. Because the vision of a Buddha is pure, the Buddha realms are also totallypure.

This is different from renunciation of the three realms or three worlds. In thepure land there is no distinction between an object and its antidote, for the threeworlds are themselves the Buddha realms. This is the state of peace in greatsameness which was discussed earlier. It is the state of the yogin who is thepersonification of all the Buddhas, which is to be the same as all the Buddhas. TheBuddhas also manifest as the pure lands, the Buddha bodies, gestures, mansions,celestial palaces, ornaments, music, and thrones. Thus the wisdom of the Buddhasmanifests in this way: nothing is bad, for whatever manifests, manifests withwisdom. This very place is the abode of the great personification of sameness andnonduality with the Buddhas.


By the power of aspiration. Due to having made aspirational prayers for the purerealm of a Buddha, you arrive at the place to which you have aspired. Due to thespontaneously present power of aspirational prayer, the pure realm has featuressuch as a ground of manifold jewels.


The palace comes first. To take a worldly example: when holding a party, it isfirst necessary to prepare the venue. Similarly, when meditating on the deity’smaṇḍala, it is first necessary to prepare the celestial palace. Thus the palace comesfirst.

“What are the enlightened activities of these yogins?”Whatever the enlightenedactivities of the tathāgatas may be, these are also the enlightened activities of theyogins.

“Where is this said?” It is in the Tantra Proceeding from the One:

In as many worlds as there are grains of sand.103

The worldly realms above and below us are layered as in the golden astrologicaldiagrams, like a tent and its carpet. At the moment that noble Vajrapāṇi firstdeveloped bodhicitta, he threw one of the two vajra boulders upwards, and theother one downwards. In a moment, quick as a snap of the fingers, he stretchedout and held them.When Vajrapāṇi achieved the perfect buddhahood of a thousandBuddhas, with his distant reach he perfected enlightened activites and the acts oftaming and wrathful subjugation. The fully enlightened Vajrapāṇi is known asVajraviśkambhana. When he gazes with his eyes of wisdom, then vajra boulders

103 The Gcig las ’phros pa’i rgyud is mentioned in some lists of the eighteen Mahāyoga tantras, butI have not located an extant version of the tantra.


shake, and he acts for the benefit of beings in the multiplicity of worlds throughvarious enlightened activities.104

How do the saṃbhogakāya-like forms of these yogins manifest? However thesaṃbhogakāyas of the tathāgatas manifest, the saṃbhogakāya of yoginmanifestsin the same way. [panel 8] The saṃbhogakāya of the tathāgatas is the experienceof the spontaneous presence of body, speech, and mind. It is also the experienceof the yogin.

As for the dharmakāya of the Buddhas, the dharmakāya is the nonduality ofspace and wisdom. The dharmakāya is not limited to a single Buddha; however,it is not [to be identified with] the bodhisattvas residing on the bhūmis, nor to theśrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and all of the worldly deities. According to the divisionof buddhahood into the different Buddha bodies, the dharmakāya is called Buddha,and because of the blessings of the dharmakāya, or because it possesses infinitesaṃbhogakāyas, it performs the activites of the saṃbhogakāyas.

The power of mantras.

The saṃbhogakāya is themantra. The [Sanskrit] term isman tra. The meaningof ma is as follows. Not moving from the dharmakāya without characteristics, thedharmakāya without characteristics itself manifests as the Buddha body withparticular characteristics, the manifest saṃbhogakāya. The characteristics are meremanifestation in itself, yet they do not move a particle away from the dharmakāyawithout characteristics. They should be understood as nondual. The meaning ofthe syllable tra is protection. Because it protects you from falling into the twoextremes, the mantra is the saṃbhogakāya. It has the power of being endowedwith two aspects: worldy and transworldly; and it creates wealth (saṃbhoga)because it is endowed with infinite wealth.

The nirmāṇakāya is the mudrā. It has the power of the mudrās of method, andcreates wealth because it is endowed with infinite blessings. “When the benefit ofbeings is accomplished by the nirmāṇakāya, how is it done?” [The nirmāṇakāyas]

104 This dense passage characterizes Vajrapāṇi (phyag na rdo rje) as the axis mundi that holds theupper realms and lower realms in place. There seems to be a symbolic reading of this onto the structureof the stūpa (mchod rten), with its base, dome, and central pillar. These elements in turn derive fromIndic architectural symbolism. The cosmological meaning of viśkambhana in Vedic literature is translatedby Coomaraswamy as a “pillaring apart” of the two realms, a symbolic function of the central pillar ofIndian domed constructions, including the dome of the stūpa; see A. K. Coomaraswamy, The Door inthe Sky: Coomaraswamy on Myth and Meaning (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 204-9.In Purāṇic cosmologies it is Indra who takes the role of separating and stablizing the two realms. AmongTibetan sources, the term “vajra boulder” (rdo rje pha bong) also appears, in an entirely differentcontext, in the Testament of Ba (Dba’ bzhed); see Pasang Wangdu and Hildegard Diemberger, dBa’bzhed: The Royal Narrative Concerning the Bringing of the Buddha’s Doctrine to Tibet (Wien: Verlagder Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2000), 100/28b. Note also that another Dunhuangmanuscript, IOL Tib J 338, provides an extensive discussion of the stūpa, including a differentcosmological reading of much greater complexity than the one found here (see Jacob Dalton and Samvan Schaik, Tibetan Tantric Manuscripts from Dunhuang: A Descriptive Catalogue of the SteinCollection at the British Library [Leiden: EJ Brill, 2006], 67-68).


are endowed with provisions in proportion to their pure aspirations. This isspontaneously present without effort.

The dharmakāya too is essentially unaccomplished.

The dharmakāya is without characteristics. Essentially unaccomplishedmeansthe same as empty or without characteristics. It is because it is unaccomplishedthat [the dharmakāya] can bring about infinite saṃbhogakāyas. The saṃbhogakāyasbring about the wondrous benefit of self and others. The nirmāṇakāyas are endowedwith the qualities necessary for the training of beings. Furthermore, although itmay emanate for sentient beings in the form of a Noble One, its qualities set itapart from other beings such as gods and kings. The accomplishment of the benefitof beings is its wealth.

There are three kinds of training. [i] The training of the śrāvaka refers to thetathāgatas teaching Lord Śākyamuni renunciation and ascetic discipline. [ii] Thetraining of the Mahāyāna refers to their teaching meditative absorption to thesaṃbhogakāyaVairocana on the tenth bhūmi. [iii] The training of the secret vehiclewas taught to Vajrapāṇi, who then remained on the peak ofMount Sumeru carryingout the activities of vanquishing and subduing. Furthermore, [the nirmāṇakāyas]are magical emanations of merit and awareness which bring together the fouractivities.

Whatever the entourage of the tathāgatas may be, that is the entourage of theyogin as well. [panel 9] The entourage of the tathāgatas comprises all the worldlyand trans-worldly [beings]. Therefore this is also the entourage of the yogin. Eventhough all phenomena are inseparable, awareness is the greatest of them all. Becauseawareness manifests as everything yet it is not an agent, it is taught to be theentourage.

The mudrā’s characteristics refers to the mudrā without characteristics and theexistent mudrās that derive from it. The mudrā without characteristics is thedharmakāya, and existent [mudrās] are the rūpakāya. Accordingly, in awarenessthe dharmakāya without characteristics and the rūpakāya as the manifestation ofcharacteristics are nondual. This is known as holding the victory banner aloft.

[From] the commentary:

Methods means the existent mudrās. The insight of the two kinds of rūpakāyahas its cause in the space of the dharmakāya.

Not fixating means the dharmakāya. The space of reality pervades allphenomena, and in that they are pervaded by space, they are nondual with thewisdom of awareness. Not fixating on existents and characteristics is to bepervaded by the dharmakāya.

Sameness means not being distinct from the dharmakāya. The manifestationof the dharmakāya is the saṃbhogakāya, which does not move away from thedharmakāyawithout characteristics. Although the different kinds of characteristicsof the saṃbhogakāya come forth and manifest, they are empty in their very


manifestation. They do not move away from being without characteristics. Thisnonduality is the meaning of sameness.

In its pervasion of everything, the dharmakāya also pervades the saṃbhogakāyaendowed with worldly and transworldly wealth. All pervading refers to the radiantBuddha bodies. The nirmāṇakāya is also all-pervading, or to put it another way,it is generally pervaded: it is pervaded by the dharmakāya without fixation, and itis also pervaded by the saṃbhogakāya. Thus the nirmāṇakāya is also pervasive.

“When the realized yogin attains full buddhahood, how does his accomplishmentof buddhahood manifest?” The difference between a yogin and a Buddha is thesame as the difference between the fully-formed garuḍa and the baby garuḍa inthe egg, or between the lioness and the lion in the womb.

“Then where is this said?” See the following:

The power to become the adversary. The baby garuḍa has the power to becomethe adversary which conquers the serpent demons; this is its nature. The baby lionhas the power to become the adversary which defeats the elephants. The two areto be understood causally. The baby garuḍa which has not yet emerged from theegg will not be born as a crow or a magpie; it will definitely be born as a truegaruḍa. Once it is born it will become the adversary which conquers the serpentdemons. Likewise the baby lion which has not yet come forth from the wombwill not be born as a fox, weasel, or badger; it will be born as a true lion. Once itis born it will definitely become the adversary which defeats the elephants.

In a similar way, the yoginwho has realized sameness – if he has spontaneouslyaccomplished the activities of a genuine Buddha and has realized the samenessof all phenomena – will not be born as a śrāvaka or a pratyekabuddha. He willbecome a Buddha. After he has become a Buddha, he will conquer Māra and theheretics, turn the wheel of the dharma, and so on. [panel 10]. His perfect graspof the enlightened mind of a Buddha will never falter. This is illustrated by theteachings above.

“What is the correct way for these yogins to make offerings?” Having realizedthat the object of the offering and the offerings made according to the differentways of offering are inseparable, they offer self to self. “How is this offeringmade?” When self is offered to self, all of the Noble Ones are pleased, and allsentient beings are guided [to liberation] and satisfied. “Where this is said?” In theUpāyapāśapadmamālā Tantra.

Offering to oneself...105

When you do not err from the reality of your own mind, your mind is thebodhicitta awareness. This is offering to oneself. This is an activity which pleasesthe tathāgatas. “Why?” Because the tathāgatas are the reality of the minds ofsentient beings. Or alternatively they are the act of comprehending sameness. The

105 Tb.416: 126.1: / bdag mchod kun mnyes thams cad bgrang /


van Schaik: The Sweet Sage and The Four Yogas 38

realization of nondual sameness by an unerring yogin is also known as the bodhicitta awareness.

TranscriptionThe text is quite clean, and most mistakes have already been corrected. I have marked these corrections with light blue text with underline for interlinear additions and red text between dashed lines for deletions. For the few obvious mistakes I have made my own suggestions for correct readings in the footnotes. I have not corrected the differences from Classical Tibetan that are common in the Dunhuang manuscripts, such as las bstsogs for Classical Tibetan la sogs, byang cub sems for byang chub sems, or lhun kyis grub for lhun gyis grub. The ya btags appended to the syllable ma (in myed for example) has been retained, and I have transcribed the reverse gi gu with a lower case -i.106-

Transcription

[panel 1][line 1]༆། །རང་བཞན་ག་རལ་འབ�ར་ན། །ས�མས་དང་ས�མས་སང་བའ་ཆ�ས་ཐམས་ཅད་དམ། །ཀན་ནས་[line 2]ཉ�ན་མ�ངས་པ་དང། རམ་པར་བང་བའ་ཆ�ས་ཐམས་ཅད་ར�གས་ཀང་རང་མ་ར�གས་ཀང་རང། འཕལ་ལ་ལམ་[line 3]གས་མ་བསབ་གཉ�ན་པ�་མ་བཅ�ས་ཏ�། ཡ�་ནས་|ང|སངས་རས་པ་ས་གསང་ཐགས་ལན་ཀས་གབ་པར་གནས་པ་ལ་བ། [line 4]།གབ་པའ་ར|མ|ལ་འབ�ར་ན། །རང་བཞན་ད�་ཇ་ལ་བཞན་མ་ན�ར་པར་ར�གས་ནས། ད�འ་ངང་ད་ག�མས་པར་གར་བ་ན། སངས་

[line 5]རས་དང་བང་ཆབ་ས�མས་པ་དང། རགས་འཛན་ལས་བས�གས་ཏ�། ད�་ན་རང་བཞན་ད་བང་བ་ཞ�ས་ཀང་བ། །སད། །དམ་ལ་[line 6]གནས་པའ་རལ་འབ�ར་ན། ས�ན་བཅ�མ་ལན་འདས་ཀས། དབང་ཕག་དང་མ་ལས་བས�གས་པ་དབང་ད་བསས་ཤང་བཏལ་ནས།

[line 7]དམ་ཚག་ཕ�ག་ས�། ལས་འད་དང་འད་བ�ས་ཤག་ཅ�ས་བཀས་བས�ས་པ་བཞན་ད་བག་བར་སན་ཁས་བངས་དམ་བཅས་པ་[line 8]ལས་མ་འདའ་བར་བ�ད་པ་ལ་བ། །དམ་ཚག་ར�ས་ས་བསབ་པའ་རལ་འབ�ར་ན། ག�ང་མའ་ཡ�ན་ཏན་དང་མ་ལན་ན་ཡང། [line 9]ད�་དང་ཅ་མཐན་ད་སང་ཤང་སབ་པ་ལ་བ། །བ་མའ་ཏང་ང�་འཛན་ཏ�་ཞ�ས་བ་|བ་|ན། ཏང་ང�་འཛན་རམ་བཞ་རམ་པས་བས�ད་པ་

[line 10]ལ་མ་བགའ�། །ཡ�ངས་ས་ར�གས་པའ་ཏང་ང�་འཛན་ལ་བག། །ཆ�ས་ཐམས་ཅད་ས་གསང་ཐགས་ལན་ཀས་གབ་པའ་[line 11]དཀལ་འཁ�ར་ད་བས�མ་པ་རལ་ཞ�ས་པ་ན། ཆ�ས་ཀ་དབངས་ལ་རལ་ཞ�ས་བ་ས�། །དབངས་ལས་ཡ�ན་ཏན་ཐམས་ཅད་[line 12]འབང་བའ་རར་གར་བས། དབངས་ས�། དབས་དང་མཐའ་མ�ད་པ་མ་དམགས་པ། མཚན་ཉད་ཐ�ག་པ་ཆ�ན་པ�་དང་མཐན་པ་106 In accordance with THL and JIATS protocols, the reverse gi gu, which is commonly

transliterated as a capital “I,” is rendered as a lower case “i” preceded by a dash, that is, “-i.”

Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, no. 4 (December 2008) 39

[line 13]ལར་ཕང་གཅད་ན། ཆ�ས་ཀ་དབངས་ཡ�ད་མ�ད་དང། རག་ཆད་ཀ་མཐའ་ཐམས་ཅད་དང་བལ་བས་མཐའ་མ�ད། མཐའ་[line 14]མ�ད་སའ་དབས་ཏ�་དབས་ཀང་མ�ད། །མ�ད་ད�་གང་ག་ང�་བ�ར་ཡང་མ་གབ་ཅང་མ་དམགས་པས། །སངས་རས་བསམས་[line 15]པས་མ་མཛད། ས�མས་ཅན་སOན་པ�ས་མ་བཅ�ས་ཅ་བཞན་བ་ལ་རལ་ཞ�ས་བ། ཟབ་མ�་ལར་ན་རལ་ཞ�ས་བ་བ་ན། ཆ�ས་[line 16]ཀ་དབངས་ལ་རལ་ཞ�ས་བ་ས�། དབས་དང་མཐའ་མ�ད་ཅ�ས་པ། ཆ�ས་ཀ་དབངས་དས་གསམ་ད་འདས་མ་བས་པས་ཡ�ད་[line 17]ཡ�ད་པའ་མཐའ་དང་ཡང་བལ་ལ། མཚན་མ་ས་ཚགས་པར་སང་ཞང་ས�་ས�ར་བ་བ་བ�ད་པས་ན། མ�ད་པའ་མཐའ་དང་ཡང་[line 18]བལ་བས་མཐའ་ཡང་མ�ད། མ་དམགས་ཞ�ས་པ་ན། གཉOས་ས་མ�ད་པ་ལ་བ་ས�། །ཆ�ས་ཀ་དབངས་དས་གསམ་ད་འདས་མ་[line 19]|མ|བས་པ་ལས་མ་གཡ�ས་བཞན། །མཚན་མ་ས་ཚགས་པར་མ་འགགས་པར་སང་ལ། སང་ཙམ་ཉད་ན་མཚན་མ་[line 20]མ�ད་པ་ཆ�ས་ཀ་དབངས་ཀང་མ་གཡ�ས། ཏ�། །མཚན་མ་དང་མཚན་མ་མ�ད་པ་གཉས་མ�ད། པས། །ཡ�ད་[line 21]མ�ད་གཉས་ས་མགས་པ་ལ་རལ་ཞ�ས་བ་ས�། གཉས་ས་མ�ད་པ་ད�་ན་སངས་རས་བསམ་པ�ས་མ་མཛད། [line 22]ས�མས་ཅན་སན་པ�ས་མ་བཅ�ས་པ་ལ་རལ་ཞ�ས་བ་ས�། །འབ�ར་ཅ�ས་བ་བ་ན། མཚན་མ་མ�ད་པ་དང་གཉས་ས་[line 23]མ�ད་པར་ར�གས་པ་ལ་འབ�ར་|པ་|ཅ�ས་བ་བ་འམ། ཡང་ན་ཕ་ནང་ག་ཆ�ས་འཇག་ར�ན་དང་འཇOག་ར�ན་ལས་[panel 2][line 24]འདས་པའ་ར་དང་འབས་བར་བཅས་པའ་ཆ�ས་ཐམས་ཅད་མཚན་མ་མ�ད་པ་ཆ�ས་ཀ་དབངས་ས་ར�་གཅག་པ་[line 25]འམ། །གཉས་ས་མ�ད་པར་ར�་གཅག་པ་ལ་རལ་འབ�ར་ཞ�ས་བ། འབས་བ་ཆ�ན་པ�་ན་གསང་བའ་ཐ�ག་པ་[line 26]འདའ་ད�ན་ར�གས་ཏ�། འདOའ་གཞང་ལས་|འ|བང་བ་བཞན་བསབས་ན། ཉ�ན107་ཐ�ས་དང་རང་སང་རས་ས་མ་འགར་ག། [line 27]བ་ན་མ�ད་པའ་སངས་རས་ཉད་ད་འགར་བས་འབས་བ་ཆ�་བ་འ�། །སངས་རས་ས་|ཆ�་|ན་མཚན་ཉད་ཀ་ཐ�ག་[line 28]པ་ཆ�ན་པ�འ་ས�་ནས་ཞགས་པ་རམས་ཀང་འགབ་པར་འད�ད་ན། ད�་དག་ཀས་སངས་རས་གཏ�་མ་ར་བ་ན་[line 29]མ་ཡན་ན། ཡན་རང་པ�ར་སང་སང་བསབ་བསབ་ནས་གསང་བའ་ཐ�ག་པ་འདའ་ད�ན་མ་ར�གས་པར་མཚན་ཉད་[line 30]ཀ་ཐ�ག་པ་ཉད་ཚས་སངས་རས་མ་ར། འདOའ་ད�ན་ར�གས་ནས་གད�ད་སངས་རས་པར་འགར་བས་འབས་བ་[line 31]ཡང་འད་ལས་ཆ�་བ་མ�ད། གབ་པ་ཆ�ན་པ�་ན། །མཚན་ཉད་ཀ་ཐ�ག་པ་ཆ�ན་པ�འ་ས�་ནས་ཞགས་པ་བར�ན་པ་རབ་དང། [line 32]ལན་བས་ཀང་སལ་པ་གངས་མ�ད་པ་གསམ་ཀས་སང་ར་|བ་|ད�་ཡང་གབ་པ་ཆང་བ་ན་མ་ཡན་ཏ�་ཆ�་ན། ད�་བས་ཀང་[line 33]འདO་ད�ན་མཉམ་པ་ཉད་གཉས་མ�ད་པར་ར�གས་ན། ཚ་གཅག་གམ། ཚ་འད་ཉད་ཀས་བ་ན་མ�ད་པའ་སངས་རས་ས་[line 34]འགབ་པས་གབ་པ་ཆ�ན་པ�་ཞ�ས་བ་བ་འམ། ཡང་ན་མཚན་ཉད་ཀ་ཐ�ག་པ་ལར། ཕ�གས་དང་ཕ་ར�ལ་ཏ་ཕན་[line 35]དཀའ་ཐབ་དང་སག་བསལ་གས་འགབ་པ་ལ་བ་མ་ཡན་ག། འད�ད་ས�ད་པ་རམ་ལ་ཆ�ས་ཉད་ཀ་རན་ད་

107 read ཉན་.


[line 36]རག་ནས། དགའ་བད�་བའO་ལ�ངས་ས�ད་དང་ལན་བས་གབ་པ་འམ། ཡང་ན་མཚན་ཉད་ཀ་ཐ�ག་པ་ལར། ཉ�ན་[line 37]མ�ངས་པ་ལ་དང་འད�ད་པའ་ཡ�ན་ཏན་ལ་འཁ�ར་བའO་ར་འམ། །ས�ན་བལས་ནས་གཉ�ན་པ�་བས�ན་ནས་|ས|། [line 38]|གཉ�ན་པ�་|སངས་ནས་འགབ་པས་གབ་པ་ཡང་ད�འ་ལས་ཆ�་བ་མ�ད་ཅ�ས་ཕ་མ་གཉས་གནས་མ་མ�ད་པ་ཆ�ས་[line 39]ཀ་དབངས་ལས་ཀང་མ་གཡ�ས་ཏ�། གཉས་ས་མ�ད་པར་བས�མས་པ་ལས་རལ་བ་རམས་ས�ས་ཤང་འབང་[line 40]བ་འམ། འཁངས་པར་བསན། ཡང་ན་རལ་བ་རམས་ཀས་ས�་བར་པ་ཞ�ས་བ་ས�། མ་ས�ས་པ་ཆ�ས་ཀ་དབངས་ལས་[line 41]མཚན་ས་ཚགས་པ་ས�ས་ཤང་བང་བར་བསན། སས་བསན་ཞ�་ན་རལ་བ་རམས་ཀས་བསན། ཆ�ས་ས�་ཆ�ག་ག་ངང་[line 42]བཞན་ན་བ་མ�འ་ནང་ནས་ཁ�འ་ས�ས་བཞན། ཤ�ས་པ་ལ་ར�ལ་ཚག་ཞག་འབང་ས�། དང�ས་པ�་མ�ད་པ་ལས་དང�ས་[line 43]པ�་ས་ཚགས་འབང་བར་བསན་པ་|ལ་|མ་འགལ་འམ། མཐན་པའO་དཔ�་ཅ་ཡ�ད་ཅ�་ན། བ�་མ�་ལ་ཁ�འ་ག་དབང་པ�་[line 44]མ�ད་ད�་མ་འད་བ་ལས། ཁ�འ་ག་དབང་པ�་ཡ�ད་པ་མ་འད་བ་འབང་བ་བཞན་ན�། ད�་ཉད་ཀ་འག�ལ་ལས་ཡ�་ཤ�ས་[line 45]ཀ་བན་རབས་ཤ�ས108་པ་ལ། བན་རབས་ན། ཕག་རའ་དཀལ་འཁ�ར་འམ་སལ་པ་ལ་བ། བས�མ་མ�་ཞ�ས་པ་[line 46]ན་། གཉས་མ�ད་པར་བས�མ་ཞ�ས་བ། དཔ�་ཅ་ལ་བ་ཞ�་ན་ཞ�ས་བ་བ་ན། མཐན་བའ་དཔ�་ཅ་ཡང་ཡ�ད་ཅ�་ན་ཞ�ས་[panel 3][line 47]བའ�། བ�་མ�་ལ་ཁ�འ་ག་དབང་པ�་མ�ད་པ་ལས། ཁ�འ་ག་དབང་པ�་ཡ�ད་པ་མO་འད་བ་འབང་བར་གར་པ་དང་འད་[line 48]བར། དང�ས་པ�་མ�ད་པའ་ཆ�ས་ཉད་ལས། དང�ས་པ�་ས་ཚགས་པར་འབང་བ་མO་འགལ་ཏ�། མ་འགལ་བའ་དཔ�འ་[line 49]གཏན་ཚགས་ཀས་གབ་ན། ད109་བསབ་ན་དང�ས་ས་ཚགས་ད�། ད�་ནས་ལར་བཀ�ད་ད�་བས�མ་པ་འམ། བསབ་པར་བ་བའ་[line 50]ལ་གཅག་བས�མས་པས་ཀན་འགབ་ཅ�་ན། དང�ས་པ�་ར�་ར�་ནས་ལར་བཀ�ད་ནས་བས�མས་མ་དག�ས། བསབ་པར་བ་བའ་[line 51]ལ་གཅག་བས�མས་པས། ཀན་བས�མས་པར་འགར་ར�། ད�་ལར་ཡང་ཅ་མང�ན་ཞ�་ན། སངས་རས་ཐམས་ཅད་[line 52]དང། མཉམ་པར་ས�ར་བའ་ཏན་ཏ་ལས། རང་ག་ལར་ན་བདག་ས�ར་ན། ཤ�ས་པ་ལས་བས�གས་པས་བསན་ཏ�། [line 53]རང་ག་ལར་ན་ཤ�ས་པ་ལས་བས�གས་པ། ད�ན་དང་རགས་གཉOས་ས་སར། ད�ན་ནO་རང་ག་ལར་ན། རང་གO་ས�མས་[line 54]ག་ཆ�ས་ཉད་ཉད་ཆ�ས་ཀ་སའ་བདག་ཉད་བང་ཆབ་ཀ་ས�མས་ཀ་རག་པ་དང་ལན་བ། ལའ་རང་བཞན་ཡOན་པ་ལ་[line 55]རང་ག་ལ་ཞ�ས་བ། རག་པས་ད�་ལར་ར�གས་པ་ལ|ས|་བདག་ས�ར་བ་ཞ�ས་བ། དཀOལ་འཁ�ར་ཀན་ད་ཞགས་པ་ཡOན་[line 56]ཞ�ས་བ་བ། ད�་ལར་ས�མས་ཀ་ཆ�ས་ཉད་ར�གས་ཏ�། བང་ཆབ་ཀ་ས�མས་ཀ་རག་པ་དང་ལན་|བ་|ན། དབང་ཆ�ད་གསམ་[line 57]པ་དང། ར�་ར�་དབངས་དང། འག�་བ་འདལ་བ་དང། ད�ན་ཐམས་ཅད་གབ་པ་ལས་བས�གས་པའ་དཀལ་འཁ�ར་|ལ་|ད་[line 58]འཇག་པ་ཡན་ཏ�། ཅOའ་ཕར་ཞ�ས་ན། བང་ཆབ་ཀ་ས�མས་ན་དཀལ་འཁ�ར་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀ་ར་བ་ཡང་ཡན། རང་108 read ཞ�ས་.109 read ད�་.


[line 59]བཞན་ཡང་ཡན། དཀལ་ཏ་ཞགས་པ་ཡང། བང་ཅབ་ཀO་ས�མས་ཏ�་ར�གས་པར་བ་བའ་ཐབས་ཀང་ཡOན་པའ་[line 60]ཕར་ར�། ད�་ཡང་ཡག་ག�་ཡག་ག�་སག་ག�་སག་ག�་ལ་བ་མ་ཡན་ག། མང�ན་ད་གར་པ་ལ་ཤན་ཏ་ཞ�ས་བ། མཉམ་[line 61]ས�ར་ག་ཤ�ས་110པ་ན། ས�མས་ཀ་ཆ�ས་ཉད་བང་ཅབ་ས�མས་ར�གས་པ་ལ་བ། ར�གས་པས་ན་ཞ�ས་པ་ན། ས�མས་ཀ་ཆ�ས་[line 62]ཉད་ར�གས་པ་ལ་བས�ད་ནམས་དང་ཡ�་ཤ�ས་ཀ་ཚགས་ལས་བས�གས་པ་ཆ�་བའ་ཡ�ན་ཏན་ཐམས་ཅད་ཚང་ཞང་[line 63]ར�གས་པས་ན། ད�་ལ་བརལ་ཞགས་དང་དཀའ་ཐབ་བས�ད་ནམས་ཆང་ཆང་འད་ཡང་མ་ཆང་ས�། ད�་དག་ཀས་བསང་[line 64]ཞང་ག�གས་བ་མ་དག�ས། པར། སངས་རས་ས་གབ། རགས་ས་སར་ན། རང་ག་ལར་ན་བདག་ས�ར་ན་ཞ�ས་[line 65]པ་སབས་ཀས་ཉམས་ལ་གར་བད�ར་བཤད། བས�ད་ནམས་ཆ�ན་པ�་ན་བང་ཆབ་ཀ་ཕ�གས་དང་ཕ་ར�ལ་ཕན་[line 66]པ་ལས་བས�གས་པ་དག�་བའ་ར་བ་རམ་པར་དཀར་བའ་ཕ�གས་ཀང་བས�ད་ནམས་ཆ�་ན། ད�་བས་ཀང་ཇO་[line 67]ལར་སང་བ་ཐམས་ཅད་ལའ་ས་གསང་ཐགས་ཀང་ཕག་རར་བས�མས་ན་ར་དང་འབས་བ་111བས�ད་ནམས་[line 68]ས་བ་བ་ཐམས་ཅད། ད�ང་ཚང་ར�གས་པས། བས�ད་ནམས་ཀང་ད�་ལས་ཆ�་བ་མ�ད། ཡ�་ཤ�ས་ཆ�ན་པ�་ན། ཉན་[line 69]ཐ�ས་གང་ཟག་ལ་བདག་མ�ད་པར་ར�གས་པ་དང། རང་སངས་རས་ཀས་གང་ཟག་ལ་བདག་མ�ད་པར་ར�གས་[line 70]པའ་ས�ང་ད་ཆ�ས་ལ་ཆ�ས་ཀ་ཕ�གས་གཅག་ཏ་གཟངས་ག་ཕང་པ�་བདག་པར་ར�གས་པ་དང། བང་ཅབ་ས�མས[panel 4][line 71]པས་གང་ཟག་དང་ཆ�ས་གཉས་ཀ་ལ་བདག་མ�ད་པར་ར�གས་པ་ཡང་ཡ�་ཤ�ས་ཆ�་ན། ད�་བས་ཀང་མཚན་མ་མ�ད་[line 72]པ་གཉས་མ�ད་པར་ར�གས་པའ་ཡ�་ཤ�ས་ལན་ཀས་གབ་པར་ར�གས་པ་འད་ལས་ཡ�་ཤ�ས་ཆ�་བ་མ�ད། ཆ�ས་[line 73]ཉད་ཀ་འཁ�ར་ལ�་ཁ་ནང་ད་འདས་པ་ཞ�ས་བ་བ་ན་ཆ�ས་ཉད་དང་ས�མས་ཉད་དང་དབངས་བ་བ་ཀན་གཅOག་[line 74]ས�། ས�མས་ཀ་ཆ�ས་ཉད་ལ་བ། འཁ�ར་ལ�་ན་དཀལ་བ་ས�། ས�མས་ཀ་ཆ�ས་ཉད་ར�གས་ན་ན། ས�ས་པ་མ�ད་[line 75]པའ་དཀལ་ལ་རག་པའ་ཡ�་ཤ�ས་ག་འཁ�ར་གས་བས�ར་པས་དཀལ་འཁ�ར་ཞ�ས་བ། མ་ར�གས་ན་ན་མ་རག་པའ་[line 76]དཀལ་|བ|། ལ། །ཕན་ཅ་ལ�ག་ག་འཁ�ར་དང་ལན་པས་དཀལ་འཁ�ར་ར�། ཁ་ནང་ད་འདས་ཞ�ས་པ་ན། ས�མས་[line 77]ཅན་ག་ཁ་ཕར་ལས་པ་ཡན་ཏ�། སང་བ་ཐམས་ཅད་ས�མ་སང་བར་ཤ�ས་བ་ཡན་བ་ལས། དང�ས་པ�་མ�ད་པར་ཡང་མ་ཤ�ས་པ་[line 78]ན། ཁ་ཕར་ལས་པ་ཡན། ཁ་ནང་ད་འདས་ཞ�ས་བ་བ་ན། སང་བ་ཐམས་ཅད་ས�མས་སང་བར་ཤ�ས་ལ། །ར་བ་ས�མས་[line 79]དང་ས�མས་སང་བས་འདས་པས་ཆ�ས་ཐམས་ཅད་དང�ས་པ�་མ�ད་པར་ཤ�ས་ཤང་ར�གས་པ་ན་ཁ་ནང་ད་འདས་པ་འ�། །་[line 80]ཁའ་ནང་ད་འདས་པ་ཞ�ས་ཀང་བ་ས�། ས�མས་ཀ་ཆ�ས་ཉད་ར�གས་པའ་འདས་ན། དཔ�ར་ན་ཁར་ར�་ཟས་ཟ�ས་ནས་མད་པར་[line 81]གར་པ་དང་འད་བར། དང�ས་པ�་དང་མཚན་མ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཟ�ས་པ་དང་འད་བར། མད་གར་པར་ཁ་ཞ�ས་ཀང་བ། ས�མས་

110 read ཞ�ས་.111 read བ་.


[line 82]ཀ་ཆ�ས་ཉད་ར�གས་པ་ད�་རམ་པར་བང་བའ་ས�ར་གར་པས་ས�་ཞ�ས་ཀང་བ། མ་གནས་པའ་མ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པ|འ|ར་[line 83]འཇག་པས་ཇག་པ་ཞ�ས་ཀང་བ། ད�་ལར་ཁ་ས�ར་འཇག་པ་ས�། ས�མས་ཀ་ཆ�ས་ཉད་མ་ན�ར་བར་ར�གས་པའ་ནང་[line 84]ད་ཡ�ན་ཏན་ད་བ་བ་ཐམས་ཅད་འདས་འ�། རལ་འབ�ར་པ་རམས་ཀས་བསབ་ཅང་ད�ན་ད་གཉ�ར་བར་བ་བ་འམ། ཐ�བ་པར་[line 85]བ་བ་འམ་བཙལ་བར་བ་བ་ན། སངས་རས་ཉད་ན། སངས་རས་ད�་གང་ནས་བཙལ་ཞ�་ན། ཕ�གས་བཅ་གང་ནས་བ�ས་པ་[line 86]འམ། བཙལ་བ་འམ། རང་འབང་ད་ད�་བས་ར�ད་པར་མ་གར་ག། ས�མས་ལ་བཙལ་དང་ར�ད་པར་གར་ཏ�། ད�་ལར་ཡང་[line 87]ཅ་མང�ན་ཞ�་ན། དབང་ཆ�ན་བསས་པའ་ཏན་ཏས་ལས་ཞ�ས་པའ་ས�མས་ཉད་ར�གས་པ་སངས་རས་ཏ�་ཤ�ས་པ། །རང་ག་ས�མས་

[line 88]ཀ་ཆ�ས་ཉད་རམ་པར་དག་པར་ར�གས་པ་ད�་ཉད་སངས་རས་ཡན་པས་ཞ�ས་བ་བ་འམ། ཡང་ན་རང་གO་ས�མས་ཡ�་ནས་[line 89]རམ་པར་དག་ཅང་སངས་རས་པ་ཡན་དང། ས�མས་ཡ�་ནས་རམ་པར་དག་ཅང། སངས་རས་པ་ཡན་པའ་ད�ན་ར�གས་པ་[line 90]ན་སངས་རས་ས་གབ་པ་འམ། སངས་རས་ཀ་ཞལ་མཐ�ང་བ་འམ། སངས་རས་ལག་ཏ་འ�ངས་ཟན་པ་ཡན་པས། ས�མས་[line 91]ཀ་ཆ�ས་ཉད་ར�གས་པ་ཁ�་ནས་ཆ�ག། ས�མས་ལ་གཞན་ད་སངས་རས་བཙལ་མ་དག�ས། སངས་རས་ས�མས་ལས་[line 92]བཙལ་ན། ས�མས་དང་ས�མས་སང་བའ་ཆ�ས་ཐམས་ཅད་ཅ་ལ་བ་ཡན། གཅག་པ་ཞག་ཡན་ནམ། འ�ན་ཏ�་ཐ་དད་པ་ཞག་[line 93]ཡན་ནམ་ཞ�་ན། གཉས་པ་ཡན་པར་བསན་ཏ�། ད�་ལར་ཡང་ཅ་མང�ན། དཔལ་མཆ�ག་དང་པ�འ་ཏན་ཏ་ལས། ཆ�ས་ཀན་ནམ་

[line 94]ཀའ་མཚན་ཉད་ད�། ནམ་ཀ་ལ་ཡང་མཚན་ཉད་མ�ད་ཅ�ས་པ། ར་བ་ས�མས་དང་ས�མས་སང་བའ་ཆ�ས་ཐམས་ཅད་ས�ང་[line 95]ཞང། བདག་མ�ད་པ་ནམ་ཀ་ས�ང་པ་ལ་བའ་མཚན་ཉད་ཡན་ཏ�། ནམ་ཀ་ན་མཚན་ཉད་མ�ད་པའ་|མ�ད་|མཚན་ཉད་ཅན་[panel 5][line 96]ཡན་བས། ས�མས་ད�་ན་ནམ་ཀ་ས�ང་པ་བ་བ་ཙམ་ད་ཡང་གབ་པས། ནམ་ཀ་ལ་ཡང་མཚན་ཉད་མ�ད་མ�ད་ཅ�ས་བ། །

[line 97]ད�་ཉད་ཆ�ས112་བ་བ་ན་ས�མས་ཀ་ཆ�ས་ཉད་ད�་ཉད་ཅ�ས་བ། བ། །ད�་ཉད་འཇག་ར�ན་ས་ཚགས་ས�་ཞ�ས་པ། ས�མས་ཀ་ཆ�ས་ཉད་[line 98]ད�་ཉད་མ་རག་པའO་བང་ཐབས་ཀས་བས�མས་ས�་མ་ར�གས་པ་ནO། ས�ད་བཅག113་ག་འཇག་ར�ན་འཁ�ར་བའ་ཆ�ས་ཐམས་ཅད་ད་སང་

[line 99]ལ། ས�མས་ཀ་ཆ�ས་ཉད་ར�གས་ན། ཕག་རའ་ཚགས་ཆ�ན་ཞ�ས་མད�་ལས་འབང་ས�། ས་གསང་ཐགས་ག་ཕག་རའ་ཚགས་[line 100]ཆ�ན་པ�་ལས་བས�གས་པ་མ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པའ་ཆ�ས་ཐམས་ཅད་ད་སང་བ་ཡང། ས�མས་ཀ་ཆ�ས་ཉད་ར�གས་པ་ད�་ཉOད་

112 read ཅ�ས་.113 read བཅད་.


སང་ང�། [line 101]ད�ན་ཤ�ས་པ་ན། དཔ�ར་ས་མའ་ར་དང་གང་པ�་ཆ�་ལས་བས�གས་པ་གཅག་ལ་གཅག་ཚང་བ་དང་འད་བར། མ་ར�གས་པའ་དས་ན།

[line 102]ལས་དང། སག་བསལ་ལས་བས�གས་པ་འཁ�ར་བའ་ཆ�ས་ས་སང་བ་ཐམས་ཅད་ར�གས་པའ་ཚ། ས་དང་ཡ�་ཤ�ས་དང་ཞང་[line 103]ཁམས་དག་པ་ལས་བས�གས་པ་མ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པའ་ཆ�ས་ཐམས་ཅད་ད་ཡང་བས། ར�གས་མ་ར�གས་ཀ་ཁད་པར་གས་[line 104]འཁ�ར་བ་དང་མ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པའ་ཆ�ས་ས་སང་བས་གཉས་མ�ད་ད�། གཞ་གཅག་པ་འམ་ད�ན་གཅག་པ་ཞ�ས་བ། ད�་ཉད་ཀ་[line 105]འག�ལ་འཇག་ནས་མཚན་ཉད་མ�ད་པ་ད�་ལར་སང་བ་ཡན་ཏ�། ཤ�ས114་པ། ས�མས་དང་ཆ�ས་ཐམས་ཅད། མཚན་ཉད་མ�ད་པར་

[line 106]ར�གས་མ་ར�གས་ཀ་ཁད་པར་གས། འཁ�ར་བ་དང་མ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པའ་ཆ�ས་ཐམས་ཅད་ག�ང་ད་བསན115་པ་ད�་ལར་སང་བ་ཡOན་

[line 107]ན�། ད�་དག་ཀན་ཡང་ས་མང་ང�་གཅག་ག�་ཞ�ས་པ་ཡང་ར་བ་ལས་ད�ན་ཞ�ས་འབང་བ་ལར་བཤད། ད�་བཞན་ཉད་ཅང་ཡང་སང་[line 108]ཡན་ན། ད�་བསབ་མ་ཅ་ལར་བསབ། མཚན་མ་མ�ད་པ་བསབ་པ་འམ། མཚན་མ་བསབ་ཅ�་ན། ནམ་མ�ད་པ་ཉད་མཚན་མས་[line 109]སང་ལ་སང་ན། མཚན་མ་ཉ|ད|ས་116་མ་ས�ས་ཏ�་གཉས་མ�ད་ད�། ད�་ལར་ཡང་ཅ་མང�ན་ཞ�་ན། གསང་བ་འདས་པའ་ཏན་ཏ་ལས་མ་

[line 110]ས�ས་པའ་ཆ�ས་རམས་ལས་བས�གས་པས་བསན་ཏ�། ལས་ཤ�ས་པ། ཆ�ས་ཐམས་ཅད་མ་ས�ས་པའ་ཆ�ས་ཀ་དབངས་ལས་[line 111]མ་གཡ�ས་བཞན་ས་གསང་ཐགས་ཀ་ཕག་ར་མཚན་མ་སང117་ཚགས་པར་སང་ལ། སང་ཙམ་ཉད་ན་མཚན་རམ་གཅག་ཏ་[line 112]ས�ན་བསབ་བསབ་པའ་ལ་ལ་མ�་ཏ�ག་བབ་པ་འམ། ཡད་ད་འ�ང་བ་དང། ར་ལས་ས་བསན་པའ་བསབ་པའO་[line 113]ལར་གར་པ་ལ་ངང་ག་ལ་ཞ�ས་བ། ལའ་ས་གསང་ཐགས་དང་བསབ་པ་པ�་ལས་ངན་ཡད་གསམ་མཉམ་[line 114]ཞང་དབ�ན118་མ�ད་པར་ར�གས་ནས་བས�མ་པ་ལ་བདག་ས�ར་ན། དཀལ་འཁ�ར་གང་ད་བསན་པ་ལ་བས�གས་པ་ཀན་ཏ་[line 115]ཞགས་པ་ཡན་ན�། ཅ་ས�་ཞ�་ན། ལ་གཅOག་ལ་ཐམས119་ཀང་གཅག་ཀ་རང་བཞན་ནས་བསབ་པའ་ལའ་ཕག་རར་མཉམ་[line 116]བར་བཞག་པ་ཁ�་ནས། དཀOལ་འཁ�ར་ཀན་ཏ་ཞགས་པ་ཡན་ན�། ཤན་ཏ་ནO་ཚ་གཅག་པ་ལ་བ། མཉམ་ས�ར་ག�ང་མས་འག�། 114 read ཞ�ས་.115 read བསན?116 read གཉས་.117 read ས་.118 read བད�ན་.119 read ཐམས་ཅད་.


[line 117]ར�གས་བ་བ་མན་ཅད་ཀང་ད�ན་ལ་ས�ར་བ་ད�ས་འག�། དབང་པ�་དང་ཡལ་ག་དམགས་པ་ཅ་ལ་བ་ཞ�་ན། དབང་པ�་ལ་ན་རགས་[line 118]ལ། ད�་དང་ད�འ་རམ་པར་དག་ཅ�ས་ན། རམ་པ་ཞ�ས་པ་ན་བ�་བག་མ་མཐན་པ་ལ་བ་ས�། དབང་པ�་དང་ཡལ་ཡང་མ་མཐན། [line 119]དབང་པ�་ཡང་ནང་མ་མཐན། ཡལ་ག་རམ་པའ་བ�་བག་ཀང་ནང་མ་མཐན་བ་ལ་བ། ཤན་ཏ་མཉམ་པར་བཞག་པས་[panel 6][line 120]ཞ�ས་པ་ལ། ཤན་ཏ་ནO་མང�ན་ད་གར་པ་ཞ�ས་བ། མཉམ་པར་བཞག་པས་ན་ཞ�ས་བ་བ་ནO། དབང་པ�་ལ་ན་རགས་ལའ་

[line 121]སངས་རས། ཡལ་ལ་ན་ཡལ120་ལ་ས�། རགས་ལ་ཡབ་ཡམ་ག་དཀལ་འཁ�ར་ཡ�་ནས་མཉམ་པར་བཞག་ས�། གནས་པ་[line 122]ཡན་བས་ནས་རང་ཤགས་|པ་|ཀས་མཉམ་པར་བཞག་ས�། གནས་པ་ཡན་པས་ན། ད�་ཡང་ཡན་ན�་བའ་སར་མ་ས�མས་[line 123]བཞན། གཞག་པར་|ལ་|ལའ་དཀལ་འཁ�ར་ད་ཐབས་ལས་ཐབས་ས་གར་ར�། གཟགས་ལས་གཟགས་ས་གར་པར་བན་

[line 124]གས་བརབས་ཏ�། དས་རག་པར་བས�མ་མ�། །ཡང་ན་ཤན་ཏ་ར�་གཅག་ཞ�ས་བ། མཉམ་པར་བཞག་པས་ན་ཞ�ས་པ་ན་[line 125]བསབ་པར་བ་བའ་ལའ་ས་གསང་ཐགས་དང། རལ་འབ�ར་པའ་ལས་ངག་ཡད་གསམ་མཉམ་ཞང་དབ�ར་མ�ད་པར་ར�གས་ནས།

[line 126]བས�མ་བ་ལ་བ་ས�། ལའ་ས་གསང་ཐགས་ག་ཕག་རར་མཉམ་པར་བཞག་པས་ན། དབང་པ�་ལ་རགས་ལ་ཡལ་ལ་ཡམ་ལ་ས�། རགས་

[line 127]ལ་ཡབ་ཡམ་ཀ་དཀལ་འཁ�ར་ད་དས་རག་པར་བས�མ་མ�། འག�ལ་ལས་མད�ར་ན། འཕགས་པའ་རང་བཞན་ལས་ས�མས་ཉད་[line 128]གཞན་ད་མ་གཡ�ང་བའ�་ཞ�ས་པ་ན། མད�ར་འབ་ཀས་བསས་ན་ཡལ་ག་རམ་པར་གང་ད་སང། ས�མས་ཀ་ར�ག|ས|་པ་ཅ་ས�་|བ་|ཡང་

[line 129]འཕགས་པ་རགས་ལའ་སངས་རས་རགས་ལའ་ཡབ་ཡམ་ད་མ་ཡ�ངས་པར་བས�མ་མ�། འཕགས་པའO་རང་བཞན་ལས་ཡལ་[line 130]གཞན་ད་མ་གཡ�ང་བར་བསབས་ན། ཕན་ཡ�ན་ནམ་འབས་བ་ཅ་ཡ�ད་ཅ�་ན། འབས་བ་སངས་རས་ཉད་འབབ121་པའ་ཕར་ར�། ད�་ལར་

[line 131]ཡང་ཅ་མང�ན་ཞ�་ན། སངས་རས་ཐམས་ཅད་དང་མཉམ་པར་ས�ར་བས�ར་122བའ་ཏན་ཏ་ལས། འབང་ར་བ་ན་ག�་ས་བས་མ་བས་ཏ�་ར་

120 read ཡམ་.121 read འགབ་.122 read ས�ར་.


[line 132]ར�ན་ཀས་འབས་བ་སངས་རས་ས་འགབ། འག�ལ་ལས་ད�ན་དམ་པ་དང་ཀན་ར�བ་ད་དབ�ར་མ�ད་པར་ར�་གཅག་པ་དང་ཞ�ས་པ་ན།

[line 133]ད�ན་དམ་པར་མ་ས�ས་པས་གཅག། ཀན་ར�བ་ད་ས་མར་གཅག། ད�ན་དམ་པ་དང་ཀན་ར�བ་ད་ཡང་དབ�ར་མ�ད་པར་གཅག་པ་[line 134]ན། ལའ་འཕ�ང་བ་ར་གཅག་པ་ལ་བ་ལགས། དཀས་ལས་ད�་བཞན་གཤ�གས་པའ་རང་བཞན་ད་ར�གས་པས་ཞ�ས་པས་ན། [line 135]གཅག་ན་གང་གཅOག་ཅ�་ན། སངས་རས་པར་གཅག་ཅ�ས་པ་དང་སར། སངས་རས་ལ་ས་གསང་ཐགས་མངའ་ལ། ས་གསང་

[line 136]གང་གས་ས�ན་ཞ�་ན། ཡ�་ཤ�ས་ས�ན་ཏ�། ད�ན་དམ་པར་ན། མ་ས�ས་པ་ན་ཨ་ས�་གསང་གསང123་། ཀན་ར�བ་ད་ས་མར་སང་བ་ན་ཨ་ས�་

[line 137]ས གཉས་མ�ད་པས་ན་ཨ་ས�་ཐགས། ད�་ན་ཡ་ག�་འབའ་ཚལ་ད་ར�གས་པ་དང། སར། །རལ་འབ�ར་པ་ད�་དག་ག་གནས་ཇ་ལ་བ་

[line 138]ཞ�་ན། ད�་བཞན་གཤ�གས་པའ་བཞགས་གནས་གང་ཡན་པ། །རལ་འབ�ར་པའ་གནས་ཀང་ད�་ཡན་ཏ�། ད�་བཞན་གཤ�གས་པའ་

[line 139]བཞགས་གནས་ན། ཡ�་ཤ�ས་ཆ�ན་པ�ས་ཆ�ས་ཆ�ས་ཀ་དབངས་ཐགས་ས་ཆད་ནས། ཆ�ས་ཀ་དབངས་མཉམ་པ་ཉད་ཀ་ངང་ལ་བཞགས་

[line 140]པ་དང། བས�ད་ནམས་ཀ་ཚགས་དཔག་ཏ་མ�ད་པས་བསགས་པ་དང། བས�ད་ནམས་ལན་གས་གབ་པའ་དབང་གས་རན་པ�་ཆ�་ས་

[line 141]ཚགས་ལས་གབ་པའ་གཞལ་ཡས་ཁང་བཞགས་གནས་ཡན་ནང། རལ་འབ�ར་པའ་གནས་ཀང་ད�་ཡན་ན�། ད�་ལར་ཡང་ཅ་[line 142]མང�ན་ཞ�་ན། ར་བ�འ་ཏན་ཏ་ལས། སད་གསམ་ང�་བ�ར་དབངས་ཉད་ཞང་ཞ�ས་པ་ལ་བས�གས་པས་བསན། སད་པ་གསམ་[line 143]སངས་པའO་ཕ་ར�ལ་ན། ཆ�ས་ཀ་དབངས་བ་བ་ལ�ག་ཤག་ན་མ�ད་ད�། སད་པ་གསམ་ཉད་ཡང་དག་པའ་ང�་བར་མ་འགབ་ས�། [panel 7][line 144]སད་པ་གསམ་ཉད་ཆ�ས་དབངས་ཡན། ད�་ན་དག་པར་མ་གར་ཀང། དག་པ་རམས་ཀO་མཐ�ང་པ་དག། སངས་རས་གཟགས་པ་རམ|ས|།

[line 145]དག་ཕར། སངས་རས་ཞང་ཡང་རམ་པར་དག་ཅ�ས་འབང་ས�། ཁམས་གསམ་འམ། སད་པ་གསམ་པ�་འད་སངས་པའ་ཕ་ར�ལ་

[line 146]ན། ཞང་དག་པ་བ་བ་ཞག་གཉ�ན་རས་ས་བཅད་པ་མ�ད་ད�། སད་པ་གསམ་ཉད་ཞང་དག་པ་ཡན། མཉམ་123 Scribal error.


|ཉ�་|ས�ར་ཉད་ཆ�་བའO་ཞ་བ་[line 147]ག�ང་ད་བསན་པའ་གནས་ད�་ཉད། སངས་རས་ཐམས་ཅད་མཉམ་ས�ར་བའO། སངས་རས་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀ་བདག་ཉད་ཆ�ན་པ�འ124་

[line 148]རལ་འབ�ར་པའ། གནས་ཡན་པ་འམ། ཡང་ན་སངས་རས་ན་ཞང་ཁམས་དག་པ་དང། ས་དང་ཕག་ར་དང་ཕ�་བང་དང་གཞལ་མ�ད་ཁང་དང།

[line 149]རན་དང་ར�ལ་མ�་དང་གདན་ཁད་ལས་བས�གས་པར་སང་བས། ཡང། །སངས་རས་ཀ་ཡ�་ཤ�ས་ཉད་ད�་ལར་སང་ས�། ལ�ག་ཤOག་ན་མ�ད་ད�།

[line 150]ཅར་སང་ཡང། ཡ�་ཤ�ས་དང་སང་བས། གནས་ད�་ཉད་སངས་རས་དང་མཉམ་པར་ས�ར་བ་སངས་རས་དང་གཉས་ས་མ�ད་པའ་བདག་ཉད་ཆ�ན་

[line 151]པ�འ་གནས་ཡན། འག�ལ་ལས་ས�ན་ལམ་ག་དབང་གས་ཞ�ས་པ་ན། སངས་རས་ཀ་ཞང་དག་པར་ས�ན་ལམ་བཏབ་པས། [line 152]སན125་ལམ་གནས་མཐར་ཕན་ཅང། ས�ན་ལམ་ལན་གས་གབ་དབང་གས། རན་པ�་ཆ�་ས་ཚགས་གཞ་ལ་བརགས་པའ་ཞང་

[line 153]དག་པར་འགར་ར�། འག�ལ་ལས་དང་པ�འ་ཕ�་བང་ཞ�ས་པ། དཔ�ར་འཇག་ར�ན་ན་ས�ན་མ�་ཞག་བ་ས�། མག�ན་བས�གས་ན་

[line 154]དང་པ�ར་བཀ�ད་ས་བཤམ་དག�ས་པ་དང་འད་བས། ལའ་དཀལ་འཁ�ར་བས�མ་ན། དང་པ�ར་གཞལ་ཡས་ཁང་བས�ད་དག�ས་

[line 155]པས། དང་པ�འ་ཕ�་བང་ཞ�ས་བ། རལ་འབ�ར་པ་ད�་དག་ག་ཕན་ལས་ཅ་ལ་ཞ�་ན། ད�་བཞན་གཤ�གས་པའ་ཕན་ལས་གང་[line 156]ཡན་བ། རལ་འབ�ར་པའ་ཕན་ལས་ཀང་ད�་ཡན་ན�། ད�་ལ་ཡང་ཅ་མང�ན་ཞ�་ན། གཅOག་ལས་ཕས126་པའ་ཏན་ཏ་ལས་[line 157]འཇག་ར�ན་ག་ཁམས་མང་པ�་རལ་ར�ད་ད་ཞ�ས་བ། འཇག་ར�ན་ག་ཁམས་ཡན་མན་ད་ན་གས�ར་གབ་ཙ་བར�|ཨ|གས་[line 158]པ་འད་ལ། ཕན་ཚན་ད་ན། གར་བཏང་བ་འད་ས�། ད�་ཡང་དཔལ་ཕག་ན་ར�་ར�་དང་པ�་བང་ཆབ་ཀO་ས�མས་བས�ད་ཙམ་ན། [line 159]ར�་ར�་ཕ་བ�ང་གཉས་ལས་གཅག་ཡར་ཕངས། གཅག་མར་ཕངས་པ་ད�། ས�་ག�ལ་གཏ�གས་པའ་ཡད་ཙམ་ལ། བརང་[line 160]གགས་གཅག་ཙམ་ད་ཕOད་པ་ད�། ཕག་ན་ར�་ར�་སངས་རས་ས�ང་མང�ན་པར་ར�གས་པར་སངས་རས་པ་རངས་པར་[line 161]ག་གཏགས་འདལ་བ་དང། དགས་པ་འཇ�མས་པ་ལ་བས�གས་པའ་མཛད་ས�ད་དང། ཕOན་ལས་ར�གས་པར་མཛད། 124 Manuscript has one blank line after this syllable.

125 read ས�ན་.126 read ཕ�ས་.


[line 162]ནས། །གད�ད་ཕག་ན་ར�་ར�་མང�ན་པར་སངས་རས་ས�། ད�་བཞན་གཤ�གས་པ་ར�་ར�་རམ་པར་གན�ན་པ་ཞ�ས་བ་བར་གར་[line 163]པའO་ཡ�་ཤ�ས་ཀ་སན་གས127་གཟགས་ནས། ད་དང་ར�་ར�་ཕ་བ�ང་པO་ལ་ལ།128་འག�་བ་ལ་མཐའ་ཐག་པ་ད�་ས�ད་ཀ་འཇOག[line 164]ར�ན་ག་ཁམས་མང་པ�་རལ་ས�ད་ད་ཕOན་ལས་ས་ཚགས་|ཆ་|ཀས་འག�་བའ་ད�ན་མཛད། རལ་འབ�ར་པ་ད�་དག་ཀO་ལ�ངས་[line 165]ས�ད་ལ་བ་དག་འབང་ཞ�་ན། ད�་བཞན་གཤ�གས་པའ་ལ�ང་ས�ད་གང་ཡན་པ། རལ་འབ�ར་པའ་ལ�ང་ས�ད་ཀང་ད�་[panel 8][line 166]ཡན་ན�། ད�་བཞན་གཤ�གས་པའO་ལ�ངས་ས�ད་ན་ས་གསང་ཐགས་ལན་གས་གབ་པ་ལ། ལ�ངས་ས�ད་དང་རལ་འབ�ར་

[line 167]པའ་ལ�ངས་ས�ད་ཀང་ད�་ཡན་ན�།སངས་རས་པ་ཆ�ས་ཀ་ས་ས�། ཆ�ས་ཀ་ས་ན་དབངས་དང་ཡ�་ཤ�ས་གཉས་མ�ད་པ་ལ་[line 168]བ་བ་དང། ཆ�ས་ཀ་ས་ན་སངས་རས་ཉག་ཅག་ལ་མཐའ་བ་མ་གཏ�གས་པ། ས་ལ་གནས་པའ་བང་ཅབ་ས�མས་པ་[line 169]མན་ཅད་ནས། ཉན་ཐ�ས་དང་རང་རལ་བ་དང། ལ་དང་བཅས་པའ་འཇག་ར�ན་གང་ལ་ཡང་མ�ད་ད�། སངས་རས་[line 170]ན་སས་ཕ�་བས། ཆ�ས་ཀ་ས་ལ་སངས་རས་ཞ�ས་བ། ཆ�ས་ཀ་སའ་བན་རབས་སམ། ལ�ང་ས�ད་བསམ་གཉOས་གOས་མ་[line 171]ཁབ་པ་དང་ལན་པས། ད�་ལ་ལ�ང་ས�ད་པར་མཛད་ད�། སགས་ཀ་མཐ་ཡང་ཞ�ས་པ་ན། ལ�ང་ས�ད་ར�གས་པའ་ས་ས�། [line 172]སགས་ཀ་ས་ན་མན་ཏ་ས�། མ་མ་ན་ས་ལས་དངས་ན་ཤ�ས་པ་ས�། ཆ�ས་ཀ་ས་མཚན་མ་མ�ད་པ་ལས་མ་གཡ�ས་བཞན་[line 173]ཆ�ས་ཀ་ས་མཚན་མ་མ�ད་པ་ཉད། སང་བའ་ལ�ང་ས�ད་ར�གས་པའ་ས་མཚན་མའ་བ�་བག་འགགས་པར་སང་ལ། [line 174]མཚན་མར་ན|ཨ་|སང་ཙམ་ཉད་ན། མཚན་མ་མ�ད་པ་ཆ�ས་ཀ་ས་ལས་རལ་ཙམ་ཡང་མ་གཡ�ས་ཏ�། གཉས་ས་མ�ད་པ་ཤ�ས་

[line 175]པས། ཏ་ཏ་ནO་ས་ལས་དངས་ན། ས�བ་པ་ས�། མཐའ་གཉས་ས་མ་ལང་བས་ས�བ་པས། སགས་ན་ལ�ངས་ས�ད་ར�གས་[line 176]པ་ས�། འཇགས་ར�ན་དང་འཇག་ར�ན་ལམ129་འདས་པའ་ལ�ང་ས�ད་རམ་གཉས་དང་ལན་པའO་མཐ་འམ་ལ�ང་ས�ད་བསམ་[line 177]གས་མ་ཁབ་པ་དང་ལན་པ་ལ་ལ�ངས་ས�ད་པར་མཛད་ད�། ཕག་རའO་ཞ�ས་པ་ན་སལ་པའ་ས་ས�། ཐབས་ཀ་ཕག་རའ་[line 178]མཐ་འམ། བན་ཀ130་རབས་ཀང་བསམ་གས་མ་ཁབ་པ་དང་ལན་པ་ལ་ལ�ངས་ས�ད་པར་མཛད་ད�། སལ་པའ་སས་འག�་བའ་

127 read གཉས་.128 པ་ལ་ལ་ (pri li li) here belongs to a family of poetic sound-phrases characteristic of Old Tibetan poetry, and is

particularly reminiscent of the syllables ས་ལ་ལ་ (si li li) repeated several times in the Old Tibetan Chronicle (Pelliot tibétain 1287, ll.420–422). On these syllable groups, see Géza Uray, “Queen Sad-mar-kar’s Songs in the Old Tibetan Chronicle,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, no. 25: 31–32. Although the exact phrase པ་ལ་ལ་ has not been found elsewhere, other syllable groups ending ལ་ལ་ (li li) generally seem to

indicate the visual and aural imagery of the thunderstorm: rumbling, rattling, rolling, flickering, or flashing.

129 read ལས་.130 read གས་.


[line 179]ད�ན་མཛད་པ་ཡང། འག�་བ་ཅ་ལར་འདལ་བ་འམ། ཇO་ལར་དག་པ་ཡད་བཞན་ད་འབ�ར་ལན་ཏ�། ད�་བརལ་བ་མ�ད་པར་[line 180]ལན་ཀས་གབ། ཆ�ས་ཀ་སའ་རང་ཀ་ར�131་བ�ར་ཡང། མ་གབ་ཅ�ས་པ། ཆ�ས་ཀ་ས་མཚན་མ་མ�ད་པ་ཡན་དང། རང་ག་ང�་བ�ར་

[line 181]མ་གབ་ཅ�ས་པ། མཚན་མ་མ�ད་ཅ�ས་བ་བ་འམ། ས�ང་བ་བ་བ་ཙམ་ད་ཡང་མ་གབ་པའ་ཕར། བསམ་གས་མ་ཁབ་[line 182]པ་དང་ལན་བ་ལ་ལ�ངས་ས�ད་པར་མཛད་ད�། ལ�ང་ས�ད་ར�གས་པའ་ས་ན། བདག་དང་གཞན་ག་ད�ན་ཕན་སམ་ཚགས་[line 183]པར་མཛད་ད�། སལ་པའ་ས་ན་འག�་བ་འདལ་བའO་ཡ�ན་ཏན་དང་ལན་པ་འམ། ཡང་ན་ཕགས་པའ་ས་དང། ས�མས་ཅན་

[line 184]ད་སལ་ན་ཡང་ལ་དང་མOའ་རལ་པ�ར་ལས་བས�གས་པ་གཞན་ལས་ཁད་པར་ད་གར་པའ་ཡ�ན་ཏན་དང་ལན་པས། འག�་བའ་[line 185]ད�ན་མཛད་པ་ཉད་ལ�ངས་ས�ད་པ་ཡན། འདལ་བ་རམ་གསམ་ན། ཉན་ཐ�ས་ཀས་འདལ་བ་ལ་བཅ�མ་ལན་འདས་ཤག་ཀ་ཐབ་

[line 186]པ་རབ་ཏ་བང་བ། དཀའ་ཐབ་མཛད་པར་ས�ན། ཐ�ག་པ་ཆ�ན་པ�ས་འདལ་བ་ལ། རམ་པར་སང་བ་མཛད་ལ�ངས་ས�ད་ར�གས་པའ་

[line 187]ས་ས་བཅ་པ�་ད�་ལ་ཏང་ང�་འཛན་ཀ་ཆ�ས་ས�ན་པར་མཛད། གསང་བའ་ཐ�ག་པས་འདལ་བ་ལ། དཔལ་ཕག་ན་ར�་ར�ར་བསན་[line 188]ནས། ར་རབ་ཀ་ཟ�མ་ལ་བཞགས་ས�། བདད་འདལ་ཞང་དགས་པར་འཇ�མས་པར་མཛད་ད�། ཡང་ན་རག་པ་བས�ད་ནམས། ར་ཕལ་

[line 189]མང�ན་སམ་ས�ད་པ་བཞར་སར་ད་རང། ད�་བཞན་གཤ�གས་པའ་འཁ�ར་གང་ཡན་བ། རལ་འབ�ར་པའ་འཁ�ར་ཡང་ད�་ཡན་ཏ�། ད�་བཞན་

[panel 9][line 190]གཤ�གས་པའ་འཁ�ར་ན་འཇག་ར�ན་དང་འཇག་ར�ན་ལས་འདས་པ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཡན་པས། རལ་འབ�ར་བའ་འག�ར132་ཡང་

[line 191]ད�་ཡན་ན�། ད�་ཡང་ཆ�ས་ཐམས་ཅད་དབ�ར་མ�ད་པར་རག་པ་ན་གཙ་བ�་ཡན། རག་པ་ཐམ་ཅད་ད་སང་ཞང་བ། མ�ད་པས་[line 192]ན་འཁ�ར་ཡན་པར་ས�ན། ཕག་རལ133་མཚན་ཞ�ས་པ་ན། མཚན་ཉད་མ�ད་པའ་ཕག་ར་དང། ད�་ལས་དང�ས་བང་ག་ཕག་

[line 193]ར་ས�། མཚན་ཉད་མ�ད་པའ་ཕག་ར་ན་ཆ�ས་ཀ་ས། དང�ས་བང་ན་གཟགས་ཀ་ས། ད�་ལར་ཆ�ས་ཀ་ས་མཚན་མ་131 read ང�་.132 read འཁ�ར་.133 read ར་.


མ�ད་པ་དང། [line 194]གཟགས་ཀ134་མཚན་མར་སང་བ་|ཉད་|གཉས་ས་མ�ད་པར་རག་པ་ན་རལ་མཚན་དང་ལན་པ་ལ་ཆང་ཞ�ས་བ། འག�ལ་པ་[line 195]ཐབས་ན་དང�ས་བང་ག་ཕག་ར། གཟགས་ཀ་ས་རམ་གཉས་ག་ཤ�ས་རབ་ན་ཆ�ས་ཀ་ས་དབངས་ལ་ར་ཞ�ས་བ། མ་དམOགས་[line 196]ཞ�ས་པ་ན། ཆ�ས་ཀ་ས་ས�། ཆ�ས་ཀ་དབངས་ཀས་ཆ�ས་ཅན་ཐམས་ཅད་ལ་ཁབ་པ་དང། དབངས་ཀས་གར་ཁབ་པར་རག་[line 197]པའ་ཡ�་ཤ�ས་|ཀས་|གཉས་མ�ད་པ། དང�ས་པ་དང་མཚན་མར་མ་དམགས་པ་ཆ�ས་ཀ་སས་ཀང་ཁབ་བ�། མཉམ་ཉད་ཞ�ས་

[line 198]པ་ན། ཆ�ས་ཀ་ས་ལས་མ་གཞན་བ། ཆ�ས་ཀ་ས་ཉད་སང་བའ་ལ�ང་ས�ད་ར�གས་པའ་ས་ས�། ཆ�ས་ཀ་ས་མཚན་མ�ད་པ་[line 199]ལ་མ་གཡ�ས་བཞན། ལ�ངས་ས�ད་ར�གས་པའ་ས་མཚན་མའO་རམ་པར་ཡང་འབང་ཞང་སང་ལ། སང་བཞན་ད་ས�ང་ས�། [line 200]མཚན་མ�ད་པ་ལས་གཡ�ས་ཏ�། གཉས་ས་མ�ད་པ་ན་མཉམ་པ་ཉད་ཅ�ས་བ་ས�། ཆ�ས་ཀ་སས་གར་ཁབ་པར་འཇག་ར�ན་དང།

[line 201]འཇག་ར�ན་ལས་འདས་པའ་ལ�ངས་ས�ད་དང་ལན་པའ། ལ�ངས་ས�ད་ར�གས་པའ་ས་ཀང་ཁབ། ཀན་ཏ་ཁབ་པ་ན་སལ་[line 202]པའ་ས་ས�། སལ་པའ་སས་ཀང་ཀན་ཁབ་བ�། ཡང་ན་ཁབ་པ་སར་གཏང་ས�། མ་དམགས་པ་ཆ�ས་ཀ་སས་ཀང་ཁབ། [line 203]ལ�ངས་ས�ད་ར�གས་པའO་སས་ཀང་ཁབ། ཀན་ཏ་ཁབ་ས�། སལ་པའ་ས་ཀང་ཁབ་ཅ�ས་བ། ད�་ལར་ར�གས་པའ་རལ་[line 204]འབ�ར་པས། སངས་རས་བཞན་མང�ན་སམ་འགར་ཞང། སངས་ར|ཨ|ཨས་ས་གབ་པར་ཅ|ག་|་མང�ན་ཞ�་ན། སངས་རས་

[line 205]དང་རལ་འབ�ར་པའ་ཁད་ན། རལ་ར�གས་པའ་ཁང་དང། ས�ང་འག�འ་|མ་|མ�་དང། མངལ་ས�་ས�་ང་ན་གནས་པའ་འཕ་གའ135་ཁད་

[line 206]བར་ཙམ་ཡ�ད་ད�། ད�་ལར་ཡང་ཅ་མང�ན་ཞ�་ན། །གཉ�ན་པ�ར་འགར་པའ་མཐ་ས�བས་ན། ཞ�ས་པ། ཁང་ག་འཕ་ག་ལ་རང་[line 207]བཞན་ག་ཀ་འདལ་བའ་གཉ�ན་པ�ར་གར་པའ་མཐ་ས�བས་ཡ�ད། ས�ང་འག�་འཕ་ག་ལ་ན་གང་པ�་ཆ�་འདལ་བའ་གཉ�ན་[line 208]པ�ར་གར་པའ་མཐ་ས�བས་ཡ�ད། ཉད་ཀ་ར་ལ་ཤ�ས་པ། ཁང་ཀ་ཕ་ག་ཡང་ས�་ང་ནས་མ་འཕགས་ན་ཡང། ཁ་དང་[line 209]ས|ཡ|་ཨ136་གར་མ་ས�འ། ཁ་ཉད་ད་ས�་བར་ང�ས། ས�ས་ནས་ཀང་ཀ་འདལ་བའ་གཉ�ག137་པ�ར་འགར་བར་ང�ས། ས�ང་འག�འ་ཕ་ག་

134 read གཟགས་ཀ་ས་.135 read གའ་.136 read ས་.137 read གཉ�ན་.


[line 210]ཡང་མངལ་ནས་མ་བང་ན་ཡང་ཝར་ས�ས་དང། ས�་མ�་དང་གམ་པར་མ་ས�འ། ས�ང་འག�་ཉད་ད་ས�། ས�ང་འག�ར་ས�ས་ནས་[line 211]ཀང། གང་པ�་ཆ�་གད་པ་འག�མས་པའO་གཉ�ན་པ�ར་འགར་བར་ཉ�ས། ད�་དང་འད་བར་མཉམ་པ་ཉད་ད་ར�གས་ར�གས་པའ་[line 212]རལ་འབ�ར་པ|འ་|ཡང། སངས་རས་ཁ�་ན་བཞན་འཕན་ལས་ལན་ཀས་གབ་པ་|ན་|ཡང། ཆ�ས་མཉམ་པ་ཉད་ད་ར�གས་

[line 213]ན་ཡང། ཉན་ཐ�ས་དང་རང་རལ་བར་མ་ས�ས་ཏ�། སངས་རས་ས་འགར། སངས་རས་ཉད་ད་གར་ནས་ཀང། བདད་དང་མ་ས�གས་འདལ་བ་དང་

[panel 10][line 214]ཆ�ས་ཀ་འཁ�ར་ལ�་བས�ར་བ་ལས་བས�གས་པ། སངས་རས་ཀ་དག�ངས་པ་ར�གས་པར་འཛན། ཡ�ང་ཆད་མ་ཟ་[line 215]བ་ལ་ཡང། །ག�ང་མའ་ད�ན་གས་བཤད། །རལ་འབ�ར་བ་ད�་དག་ག་མཆ�ད་པའ་ཚལ་ཡ�ང་ཅ་ལར་མཆ�ད། [line 216]མཆ�ད་པའ་གནས་དང། མཆ�ད་པའ་ཐ་དད་པའ་ཚལ་གས་མཆ�ད་དམ། དབ�ར་མ�ད་པར་ར�གས་ནས། བདག་ལ་[line 217]|མ་|བདག་མཆ�ད་དམ། ཚལ་ཅ་ལར་མཆ�ད་ཞ�་ན། །བདག་ལ་བདག་མཆ�ད་པས། འཕགས་པ་ཀན་མཉ�ས་ལ། [line 218]ས�མས་ཅན་ཀན་འདངས་ཤང་ཚམ་མ�། བལར་ཅ་མང�ན་ཞ�་ན། །ཨ་པ་ཡ་པ་ཤ་ལས། བདག་མཆ�ད་ཞ�ས་པ། [line 219]རང་ག་ས�མས་ཀ་ཆ�ས་ཉད་མ་ན�ར་པར། རག་པའ་བང་ཅབ་ཀ་ས�མས་དང་ལན་པས། བདག་མཆ�ད་པ་ཡན་ལ། [line 220]ད�་བཞན་གཤ�གས་པ་ཀན་ཡང་མཉ�ས་པར་བས་པ་ཡན་ན�། ཅ་ས�་ཞ�་ན། ད�་བཞན་གཤ�གས་པ་རམས་ན། ས�མས་[line 221]ཅན་ག་ས�མས་ཀ་ཆ�ས་ཉད་དམ། མཉམ་པ་ཉད་ར�གས་བ་བ་ལས་ཐགས་ཁལ་མ་མངའ་བ་དང། རལ་འབ�ར་[line 222]པ་དར་|བཞན་|ཞག་གOས་མཉམ་ཉད་གཉས་ས་མ�ད་པར་ར�གས་འམ། །རག་པའ་བང་ཅབ་ས�མས་པ།

Appendix: The Shorter Madhusādhu TreatiseThe treatise found in IOL Tib J 508/5 (ll.32-52, fragmentary at the end) is, asdiscussed above, clearly related thematically and structurally to The Four Yogas.It is the fifth and last text on a fragmentary scroll. The handwriting is fairly crude,and variations in orthography suggest that the texts may be notes taken from oralteachings.

TranslationHomage to Glorious Vajrasattva, the vast Buddha body which comprises all of thetantras of Mahāyoga, the esoteric tantra [class] of method. This was made bymaster Madhusādhu. It was made by the power of the yoga of the nature and theyoga of accomplishment – from the four yogas. Also, the unsurpassed concentration– from the four absorptions. Thus resting (rnal) is the reality, free from logicaljustification and without reference points, while union (’byor) means that allworldly and transcendent phenomena are of one taste in space.

The four great accumulations are [i] the great result, [ii] the greataccomplishment, [iii] the great merit, and [iv] the great wisdom. All phenomenaare in reality the nature of the tathāgatas, and from this the world’s variety, theconsorts themselves, are emanated.

This is gathered from the tantras of the [esoteric] tantra [class], not created bythe master as his own fabrication. It is gathered from the oral teachings. Just as thetwelve parts of the body, thirteen with the head, make up the complete body, thethirteen sections make up the complete meaning of the tantra.138 WhichBuddha-bhagavanwas this spoken by? From The Tantra Encompassing the GreatEmpowerments:

In any of the worlds of the ten realmsYou won’t find the Buddha.Mind itself is the perfect Buddha;Don’t look for the Buddha elsewhere.

As it says, you won’t find the Buddha-Bhagavan in any of the ten directions orthe three times. Look in your own mind and you will find him. If the nature ofyour own mind is realized without mistake, all inner and outer phenomena havethe significance of the two aspects of sameness. This occurs through realizing themeaning of abiding in buddhahood.

When you find the Buddha in the mind, what then are the natures of mind andphenomena? From The Tantra of the Primal Supreme Glorious One:

Everything has the characteristics of the sky,

138While this line may be a clue to the identity of the root tantra behind this text and The Four Yogas,an examination of the feasible Mahāyoga tantras containing thirteen chapters for the root text of TheFour Yogas yielded no candidates.



And the sky itself is without characteristics.That itself is the world’s [variety]...

Transcription

༆།�།རལ་འབར་ཆ�ན་པ་ནང་པ་ཐབས་ཀ�་རད་ཀ�་ཏན་ཏ་ལས་ཀན་ཀ�་ནང་ནས་བསས་པའ�་ལས་ཚད། དཔལ་ར་ར�་ས�མས་འཔའ་པ་ལ་ཕག་འཚལ་ལ། སབས་པན་མ་ད་སན་དས་མཛད་ད�། ད�་ཡང་རལ་སར139་རམ་བཞ�་ལས། །རང་བཞ�ན་ག�་རམས་འབར་དང། ། གཔ་པའ�་རལ་སར140་ག�་དབང་ད་མཛད་ད། །ཏ�ང་ང�་འཛན་རམ་བཞ�་ལས་ཀང་བ་མ་འ�་ཏ�ང་ང�་འཛན་ཏ�། །ད�་ལ་རལ། འབར་ཞ�ས་བ་བ་ན�་ཆས་ཀ�་དབ�ངས། � །དབང་ཐའ་མ�ད་པ་མ�་དམ�གས་ལས་བའ། འབར། ཞ�ས་བ་བ་ན�་འཇ�གས་ར�ན་དང་འཇ�གས་ར�ན་ལས་འདས་པ་འ�་ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད། ། དབ�ངས་ས་ར། གཅ�ག་པ་ལ་བའ། །ཚགས་ཆ�ན་པ་བཞ�ན�་141། འབས་བ་ཆ�ན་པ་དང། གབ་པ་ཆ�ན་པ་དང་བསད་ནམས་ཆ�ན་པ་དང། ཡ�་ཤ�ས་ཆ�ན་པ་དང། ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་ད�་བཞ�ན་གཤགས142་པའ�་རང་བཞ�ན་ཆས་ཉ�ད་ལས། ཐབས་མཆག་ཉ�ད་ས་ཚགས་ས་སལ་པ་འ། ། འད�་དག་རད་ཀ�་ཏན་ཏ་ལས་བཏས་པ་ན�། སབས་པན143་ཀ�ས་རང་བཟར་བམས་མ་ཡ�ན་ག�།� །ཞལ་ནས་གསངས་པ་ལས་བཐས་ཏ�། ལས་ཀ�་ཚད། ལ་བཅ་གཉ�ས་མག་དང་བཅ་གསམ་ཀ�ས་ལས་ཀ�་ཡན་ལག་རགས་པ་བཞ�ན་ད། ཚག །ས །བཤད144་བཅ་གསམ་ཀ�ས་ཏན་ཏ་འ�་དན་རགས་པའ�་ཕ�ར་ར། །སངས་རས་བཅམ་ལན། འདས་གང་ནས་བཙལ་ཞ�་ན། དབང་ཆ�ས་བསས་པ་འ�་ཏན་ཏ་ལས་ཕགས་བཅ་འ�་འཇ�ག་ར�ན145་གང་ནས་ཀང། །སངས་རས་ར�ད་པར་ཨང146་མ�་འགར། །ས�མས་ཉ�ད་རགས་པ། སངས་རས་ཏ�། སངས་རས་གཞན་ད་མ་ཚལ་ཞ�ག་ཟ�ས་གསངས་ཏ�། སངས་རས་བཅམ། ལན་འདས་ཕགས་བཅ་དས་གསམ་གང་ནས་ཀང་ར�ད་པར་མ�་འགར་ག�། རང་ག�་ས�མ། བཙལ་དང་ར�ད་པར་འགར་ཏ�། ས�མས་ཀ�་རང་བཞ�ན་ཕ�ན་འཆ�་མ་ལག་པར་རགས་ན། ཕ�་ནང། ག�་ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀ�་རང་བཞ�ན་ཡང་མཉམ་བ་ཉ�ད་རམ་གཉ�ས་ཀ�་དན་ཀ�ས་ � །སངས་རས་པར་གནས་པའ�་དན་རགས་པས་འགར་ར། །སངས་རས་ས�མས་ལ་བཙལ་ལ། །ས�མས་དང་ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་ག�་རང་བཞ�ན་ཅ�་ལ་བ་ཞQ་ན། � །དཔལ་མཆག་དང་པ་འ�་ཏན་ཏ་འ�་ནང་ནས། ཐམས་ཅད་ནམ་ཀ་འ�་མཚན་ཉ�ད་ད�། ནམ་ཀ་ལ་ཡང་མཚན་ཉ�ད་མ�ད། །ད�་ཉ�ད་འཇ�ག147

139 read འབར་.140 read འབར་.141 read བཞ�ན་.142 read གཤ�གས་.143 read དཔན་.144 read བཅད་.145 read ར�ན་.146 read འང་.147 read འཇ�ག་.

GlossaryNote: these glossary entries are organized in Tibetan alphabetical order. All entrieslist the following information in this order: THL Extended Wylie transliterationof the term, THL Phonetic rendering of the term, the English translation, theSanskrit equivalent, the Chinese equivalent, other equivalents such as Mongolianor Latin, associated dates, and the type of term.

Ka

TypeDatesOtherEnglishPhoneticsWylie

OrganizationKatokkaḥ thog

AuthorKatokDampaDeshekkaḥ thog dam pa bdegshegs

PersonLongchenpaklong chen pa

Termcenterkyildkyil

TextualCollection

Kangyurbka’ ’gyur

OrganizationKagyübka’ brgyud

OrganizationKadampabka’ gdams pa

DoxographicalCategory

transmittedscripture

Kamabka’ ma

AuthorKawa Peltsekska ba dpal brtsegs

Termmaṇḍala ofspontaneouslypresent body,speech, and mind

kusungtuk lhüngyidruppé kyinkhor

sku gsung thugs lhunkyis grub pa’i dkyil’khor

Termdevelopmentkyepabskyed pa

Termdevelopment stagekyerimbskyed rim

Kha


Termmouthkhakha

Terminsidekhanangkha nang

Termrevolutionkhenglokkheng log

PersonTrisong Detsenkhri srong lde btsan

Termencirclingkhor’khor

Ga


Termgigugi gu

PersonLangdarmaglang dar ma

TextSūtra Gathering AllIntentions

Gongpa Düpé Dodgongs pa ’dus pa’imdo

TextThe Commentaryon theGuhyagarbhaTantra

Gyükyi GyelpoChenpo Pel SangwéNyingpö Drelpa

rgyud kyi rgyal pochen po dpal gsangba’i snying po’i ’grelpa


tantric commentaryGyündrelrgyud ’grel


http://www.thlib.org/reference/transliteration/#essay=/thl/ewts/

http://www.thlib.org/reference/transliteration/#essay=/thl/phonetics/

Textual GroupSeventeen TantrasGyü Chupdünrgyud bcu bdun

TextGeneralPresentation of theTantric Canon

Gyüdé Namzhakrgyud sde rnam gzhag

Textual GroupSix LampsDrönmé Namdruksgron me rnam drug

Nga


Termnonexistentngömédngos med

Termearly diffusionngadarsnga dar

TermSan. mantrangaksngags

Ca


Terma sign that closes acitation

chéces

Termonenesschikpagcig pa

TextTantra Proceedingfrom the One

Chiklé Tröwé Tantragcig las phros pa’i tantra

TextThe TantraProceeding fromthe One

Chiklé Tröpé Gyügcig las ’phros pa’irgyud

Cha


Termtrue nature ofreality

chönyichos nyid

TextThe GreatPerfection of AllPhenomena Equalto the Ends of theSky

Chö Tamché DzokpaChenpo NamkhéTadang Nyampé GyüChenpo

chos thams cad rdzogspa chen po nammkha’i mtha’ dangmnyam pa’i rgyudchen po

Ja


PersonJikmé Lingpa’jigs med gling pa

Nya


AuthorNyangrel NyimaÖzernyang ral nyi ma ’odzer

PersonNyen Pelyanggnyan dpal dbyangs

Termnondualitynyisumégnyis su med

Termsamenessnyamnyimnyam nyid

Termgreat samenessnyamnyi chenpomnyam nyid chen po

Termsamenessnyampanyimnyam pa nyid

OrganizationNyingmarnying ma

TextNyingma KamaGyepa

rnying ma bka’ margyas pa

TextualCollection

Nyingma Gyübumrnying ma rgyud ’bum


Seminal HeartNyingtiksnying thig


Termritual servicenyenpabsnyen pa

Ta


Termabsorptiontingngendzinting nge ’dzin

Termviewtawalta ba

TextEsotericInstructions on theStages of the View

Tawé KhyepéMenngak

lta ba’i khyad pa’iman ngag

TextualCollection

Tengyurbstan ’gyur

Termhidden treasuretermagter ma

Tha


TextDefinition of theVehicles

Tekpa ChichingkyiUchok

theg pa spyi bcingskyi dbu phyogs

TextTekpa ChichingTsadrel

theg pa spyi bcingsrtsa ’grel

Da


Author1122-1192Dampa Deshekdam pa bde gshegs

Termvajra boulderdorjé pabongrdo rje pha bong

TextThe Questions andAnswers onVajrasattva

Dorjé Sempé Zhülenrdo rje sems pa’i zhuslan

TextDenkarmaldan dkar ma

Na


Termwithinnangnang

AuthorNordrang Orgyannor brang o rgyan

AuthorNupchengnubs chen

Author9th-10thcentury

Nupchen SanggyéYeshé

gnubs chen sangsrgyas ye shes

Termrestingnelrnal

TextNeljor Mikgi Samtenrnal ’byor mig gibsam gtan

Termappearancesnangwasnang ba

Pa


Termpotipo ti

TextThe ExtensiveCommentary on theGuhyagarbhaTantra

Pel Sangwé NyingpöGyacher ShepéDrelpa

dpal gsang ba’isnying po’i rgya cherbshad pa’i ’grel pa


Crown PithChitispyi ti


Pha


TermTibetantransliteration of theChinese fu shi

pushiphu shi

AuthorPushiMenghwéGyokphu shi meng hwe’i’gyog

Ba


Termbenchungban chung

AuthorButönbu ston

Termusually “daughter”or “youngwoman”;“mother”

bumobu mo

TextualCollection

Collected Tantrasof Vairocana

Bairö Gyübumbai ro’i rgyud ’bum

Termusually “daughter”or “youngwoman”;“mother”

bomobo mo

PublisherBöjong MimangPetrünkhang

bod ljongs mi dmangsdpe skrun khang

TextThe Garland ofWhite Crystals

Bö Silbü Jungwa JöpaShelkar Trengwa

bod sil bu’i byung babrjod pa shel dkarphreng ba

OrganizationBönpobon po

Termawakened mindjangchupkyi sembyang cub kyi sems

Termjangchupsembyang cub sems

Termbodhicittaawareness

jangchupkyi semkyirikpa

byang chub kyi semskyi rig pa

Termjangchupsembyang chub sems

Termbodhicittaawareness

jangchup semkyirikpa

byang chub sems kyirig pa

TextMeditation on theAwakened Mind

Jangchup Semgompabyang chub semsbsgom pa

Termunsurpassedconcentration

lamé tingngendzinbla ma’i ting nge’dzin

TextThe TantraEncompassing theGreatEmpowerments

Wangchen DüpéTantra

dbang chen bsdus pa’itan tra

TextTestament of BaWazhédba’ bzhed

Termheaded scriptuchendbu can

Terminseparabilityyermédbyer med

unionjor’byor

PersonDro Könchokpel’bro dkon mchog dpal

TextTestament of BaBazhésba bzhed

TextThe Secret HandfulBepé Gumchungsbas pa’i rgum chung

Termunion and liberationjordrölsbyor sgrol


Ma


AuthorMadusaduma du sa du

AuthorMadusanduma du san du

TextBrief Precepts ofMahāyoga

Mahayogé LungduDüpa

ma ha yo ga’i lung dubsdus pa

Termesoteric instructionsmenngakman ngag

TextGarland of ViewsMenngak TawéTrengwa

man ngag lta ba’iphreng ba

Termmantraman tra

TextArmor againstDarkness

Münpé Gochamun pa’i go cha

PersonMeng Hwekyimmeng hwa’i kyim

Tsa


PlaceTsongkhatsong kha

Termefforttselbrtsal

Tsha


Termmodetsültshul

Dza



Great PerfectionDzokchenrdzogs chen

Termperfectiondzokpardzogs pa


Great PerfectionDzokpa Chenpordzogs pa chen po

Termperfection stagedzokrimrdzogs rim

Zha


Termzhapkyuzhabs kyu

Terma sign that closes acitation

zhézhes

Termbasiszhigzhi

Termsingle basiszhichikgzhi gcig

Za


ClanZurzur

LineageZur traditionZurlukzur lugs

Ya


Termyatakya btags

Termyidamyi dam

Termspace of wisdomyeshé yingye shes dbyings

Termtotal perfectionyongsu dzokpayongs su rdzogs pa


Ra


Termratakra btags

Termyoga of the naturerangzhingyi neljorrang bzhin gyi rnal’byor

TextTantra of theMountain Peak

Riwö Tsekpé Tantrari bo’i rtsegs pa’i tantra

Termawarenessrikparig pa

TextTantra ofSelf-ArisenAwareness

Rikpa RangshargiGyü

rig pa rang shar girgyud

TextCuckoo ofAwareness

Rikpé Kujukrig pa’i khu byug

TextRinpoché Parkhaprin po che spar khab

Termsingle tastero chikro gcig

Termsingle tastero chikparo gcig pa

LineageRong-Longtradition

Ronglong lukrong klong lugs

PersonRongzomparong zom pa

La


Termlasokla sogs

Termletsoklas bstsogs

Termtransmitted preceptslunglung

AuthorLochen Dharmashrilo chen dharma shrī

Sha


Termshéshad

Termshetapbshad thabs

Sa


OrganizationSakyasa skya

TermSan. guhya mantrasecret mantrasangngakgsang sngags

MonasterySangpugsang phu

TextArmor againstDarkness, the Sunof Yoga that Clearsthe Eyes: ACommentary on theSūtra of theEnlightenedIntention of AllBuddhas

Sanggyé TamchekyiGongpa Düpa DöKandrel MünpéGocha Demik SeljéNeljor Nyima

sangs rgyas thams cadkyi dgongs pa ’dus pamdo’i dka’ ’grel munpa’i go cha lde miggsal byed rnal ’byornyi ma

PublisherSitrön MirikPetrünkhang

si khron mi rigs dpeskrun khang

Time rangePeriod ofFragmentation

Silbü Düsil bu’i dus

Termmindsemsems


Termmind’s realitysemkyi chönyisems kyi chos nyid

Termmind itselfsemnyisems nyid


Mind SeriesSemdésems sde

Termmind’s appearanceas phenomena

sem nangwé chötamché

sems snang ba’i chosthams cad

TextThe Oral Teachingof the Lord ofSecrets

Sangdak Zhellunggsang bdag zhal lung

TextThe GuhyagarbhaTantra in OneHundred Chapters

Sangwé NyingpoDekhonanyi NgepaGyuntrül Gyapa

gsang ba’i snying pode kho na nyid ngespa sgyu ’phrul brgyapa

TextThe GuhyagarbhaTantra in ThirteenChapters

Sangwé NyingpoDekhonanyi NgepaGyuntrül DrawaLama Chenpo

gsang ba’i snying pode kho na nyid ngespa sgyu ’phrul dra babla ma chen po

Termnewsarmagsar ma

TextA Lamp for theEyes ofContemplation

SamtenMikgiDrönmébsam gtan mig gisgron me

TextA Lamp for theEyes ofContemplation

Samten Mikdrönbsam gtan mig sgron

AuthorSönam Tsemobsod nams rtse mo

Ha


PersonHwegokhwa’i ’gog

Termspontaneouspresence

lhünkyi druplhun kyis grub

Termspontaneouspresence

lhüngyi druplhun gyis grub

A


PlaceAmdoa mdo

Sanskrit

TypeDatesSanskritEnglishPhoneticsWylie

Termanu


Anuyoga

TextAparamitāyurnāma-mahāyāna-sūtra

Tsepaktu MepaZhejawa TekpaChenpö Do

tshe dpag tu med pazhes bya ba theg pachen po'i mdo

Termati


Atiyoga

Buddhist deityAvalokiteśvaraChenrezikspyan ras gzigs

Buddhist deityAvalokiteśvaraChenrezik Wangpospyan ras gzigs dbangpo

Buddhist deityBhagavan


Termbhavanāexistentngöpodngos po

Termbhūmi

Termbodhicitta

Termbodhisattvajangchup sempabyang chub sems dpa’

Buddhist deityBuddha

AuthorBuddhagupta

PersonDānaśīla

Termdharmadhātuspace of realitychökyi yingchos kyi dbyings

Termdharmakāyachökuchos sku

AuthorDignāga

TermGaruḍakhyungkhyung

TextGuhyagarbha

TextGuhyagarbhaTantra

TextGuhyasamāja

TextGuhyasamājatantra

The Tantra of theSecret Assembly

Sangwa Düpé Tantragsang ba ’dus pa’i tantra


Guhyayāna

PersonGuhyeśvara

Non-Buddhistdeity

Indra


Kālacakra

TermkāyaBuddha bodykusku

TextLaṅkāvatāra sūtraThe Sūtra of theMission to Laṇka

Langkar Shekpé Dolang kar gshegs pa’imdo

Termmadhusweet or pleasant

PersonMadhusādhu

Termmahā


Mahāyāna


Mahāyoga

Termmaṇḍalakyinkhordkyil ’khor

PersonMañjuśrīmitra

Non-Buddhistdeity

Māra

Textual GroupMāyājālaIllusion WebGyuntrülsgyu ’phrul

Termmudrā

Termmudrāchakgyaphyag rgya

Termnimittaperceptualcharacteristic

tsenmamtshan ma

Termnirmāṇakāyatrülkusprul sku

Termnirvāṇanyangenlé depamya ngan las ’das pa

PersonPadmasambhavaPema Jungnépadma ’byung gnas


TextPrajñāpāramitā

TextPrajñāpāramitā-hṛdaya Sūtra

TextPrajñāpāramitānaya-adhyardhaśatika

TextPrajñāpāramitāSūtra

Paröltu Chinpé Dopha rol tu phyin pa’imdo


PrajñāpāramitāSūtra

PersonPrajñāvārman

Termpratyekabuddharangsanggyérang sangs rgyas

Termrūpakāya

Termsamayadamtsikdam tshig

Termsaṃbhogawealth

Termsaṃbhogakāyalongchökulongs spyod sku

Termsaṃsārakhorwa’khor ba

TextSarvabuddhasamāyogatantra

Tantra of the Unionwith All Buddhas

Sanggyé TamchéDang Nyampar JorwéTantra

sangs rgyas thams caddang mnyam parsbyor ba’i tan tra

TextSarvatathāgata-tattvasaṃgraha

The Symposium ofTruth

Dezhin ShekpaTamchekyiDekhonanyi Düpa

de bzhin gshegs pathams cad kyi de khona nyid bsdus pa

TextSarvatathāgata-tattvasaṃgrahaTantra

The Symposium ofTruth Tantra

Dezhin ShekpaTamchekyiDekhonanyi Düpé Do

de bzhin gshegs pathams cad kyi de khona nyid bsdus pa’imdo

Termsādhanadruptapsgrub thabs

Termsādhusage

PersonSādhukīrti

PersonSādhuputra

Termstūpachötenmchod rten

TextsugātagarbhaDeshek Nyingpobde gshegs snying po

PlaceSumeruRirapri rab

Author9th c.?Sūryaprabhasiṃha

Author9th c.?Sūryasiṃhaprabha

Termsūtradomdo

Termsvasaṃvedanaself-referentialawareness

ranggi rikparang gi rig pa

Termsvasaṃvittiself-referentialawareness

ranggi rikparang gi rig pa

TextŚatasāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitāSūtra

Sherapkyi ParöltuChinpa TongtrakGyapa

shes rab kyi pha rol tuphyin pa stong phragbrgya pa

PersonŚākyamuni

Termśrāvakanyentöpanyan thos pa

TextŚrīparamādyatantra

The Tantra of thePrimal SupremeGlorious One

Pelchok DangpöTantra

dpal mchog dang po’itan tra

Termtantra


Termtantrika

Termtathāgatadezhin shekpade bzhin gshegs pa

TextUpāyapāśapadma-mālā Tantra

The Noose ofMethod

Upayapashau pa ya pa sha

TextUpāyapāśa Tantra

TextUṣniṣasitātapātraDhāraṇī

PersonVairocana

Buddhist deityVajrapāṇiChakna Dorjéphyag na rdo rje

Buddhist deityVajrasattvaDorjé Sempardo rje sems dpa’

Buddhist deityVajraviśkambhanaDorjé Nampar Nönpardo rje rnam par gnonpa


Vajrayāna

Termvastuexistentngöpodngos po

Author8th c.?Vilāsavajra

PersonVimalamitra

Termviśkambhana“pillaring apart” ofthe two realms

Termyogayoganeljorrnal ’byor

Termyogi

Termyoginneljorparnal ’byor pa

Chinese

TypeDatesChineseEnglishPhoneticsWylie

PlaceDunhuang

Termfu shi

PlaceHexi

AuthorHuai Yu

PlaceLiangzhou

AuthorMeng

AuthorMeng Huai

AuthorOuyang Xiu

PlaceShazhou

Termzhena district


Bibliography

Dunhuang Manuscripts

IOL Tib J 436:Ma ha yo ga’i lung du bsdus pa [Brief Precepts of Mahāyoga].

IOL Tib J 454: The Four Yogas. http://idp.bl.uk/database/oo_loader.a4d?pm=IOL%20Tib%20J%20454.

IOL Tib J 470, Pelliot tibétain 819, 837: Rdo rje sems pa’i zhus lan [The Questionsand Answers on Vajrasattva]. http://idp.bl.uk/database/oo_loader.a4d?pm=IOL%20Tib%20J%20470.

IOL Tib J 508: Various notes on the Guhyasamāja and matters related to TheFour Yogas.

IOL Tib J 583: Notes on Mahāyoga.

IOL Tib J 594: Sbas pa’i rgum chung [The Secret Handful] ascribed toBuddhagupta.

IOL Tib J 647: Rig pa’i khu byug [The Cuckoo of Awareness] and commentary.

Pelliot tibétain 283: Vajrasattva sādhana.

Pelliot tibétain 337: Treatise on tantric rituals.

Pelliot tibétain 626, 634: Mahāyoga sādhanas.

Other Tibetan Language Sources

Anonymous. Rgyud bcu bdun [Seventeen Tantras]. In Rñiṅ ma’i rgyud bcu bdun:Collected rnying ma pa Tantras of the Man ṅag sde class of A TI YO GA(RDZOGS CHEN), edited by Sanje Dorje. New Delhi, 1977.

Dam pa bde gshegs (1122-1192). Theg pa spyi bcings kyi dbu phyogs [Definitionof the Vehicles]. In Theg pa spyi bcings rtsa ’grel, 1-32. Chengdu, Sichuan:Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1997.

Gnubs chen sangs rgyas ye shes (9th-10th century). Bsam gtan mig gi sgron me[A Lamp for the Eyes of Contemplation]. In Rnal ’byor mig gi bsam gtan.Ladakh: S.W. Tashigangpa, 1974.

———. Sangs rgyas thams cad kyi dgongs pa ’dus pa mdo’i dka’ ’grel mun pa’igo cha lde mig gsal byed rnal ’byor nyi ma [Armor against Darkness, the Sunof Yoga that Clears the Eyes: A Commentary on the Sūtra of the EnlightenedIntention of All Buddhas]. In Rnying ma bka’ ma rgyas pa, vols. 50-51.

Lo chen dharma shrī. Gsang bdag zhal lung [The Oral Teaching of the Lord ofSecrets]. An electronic file was created by the Shechen Input Project; contactTHL for details.






Nor brang o rgyan. Bod sil bu’i byung ba brjod pa shel dkar phreng ba [TheGarland of White Crystals]. Lha sa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang,1991.

Padmasambhava. Man ngag lta ba’i phreng ba [Garland of Views]. Translationand critical edition in Karmay, The Great Perfection, 137-74.

Sūryaprabhasiṃha. Dpal gsang ba’i snying po’i rgya cher bshad pa’i ’grel pa[The Extensive Commentary on the Guhyagarbha Tantra]. Q.4719.

Vilāsavajra. Rgyud kyi rgyal po chen po dpal gsang ba’i snying po’i ’grel pa [TheCommentary on the Guhyagarbha Tantra] / Rin po che spar khab [TheCommentary on the Guhyagarbha Tantra]. Q.4718.

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