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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 Germano

Guest Editors: Ken Bauer, Geoff Childs, Andrew Fischer, and Daniel Winkler

Book Review Editor: Bryan J. Cuevas

Managing 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

• Conict between Nomadic Herders and Brown Bears in the Byang thang Region

of Tibet (42 pages)

– Dawa Tsering and John D. Farrington

• Subsistence and Rural Livelihood Strategies in Tibet under Rapid Economic and

Social Transition (49 pages)

– Andrew M. Fischer

• Biodiversity Conservation and Pastoralism on the Northwest Tibetan Plateau (Byang

thang): Coexistence or Conict? (21 pages)

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

Richard

• Nomads without Pastures? Globalization, Regionalization, and Livelihood Security

of Nomads and Former Nomads in Northern Khams (40 pages)

– Andreas Gruschke

• Political Space and Socio-Economic Organization in the Lower Spiti Valley (Early

Nineteenth to Late Twentieth Century) (34 pages)

– Christian Jahoda

• South Indian Tibetans: Development Dynamics in the Early Stages of the Tibetan

Refugee 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’ ldan

pho brang Aristocracy (1880-1959) (27 pages)

– Alice Travers

ii
























































• The Mushrooming Fungi Market in Tibet Exemplied by Cordyceps sinensis and

Tricholoma matsutake (47 pages)

– Daniel Winkler

• Interpreting Urbanization in Tibet: Administrative Scales and Discourses of Modernization (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 from

Dunhuang (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 in

Medieval Tibet. A Study of Tshal Gung-thang , by Per K. Sørensen and Guntram

Hazod, 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 Schaik The British Library

Abstract: This article presents a previously unknown tantric treatise from the

Dunhuang collections. Dating to the ninth or tenth century, the treatise is an earlyand important example of the Tibetan assimilation of Indic tantric Buddhism, in

particular the form known as Mahāyoga. The treatise is especially interesting for showing 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 teacher called Madhusādhu, is translated here in full, along with an annotated transcription.

Tibetan Buddhism in the Tenth Century

Tibet’s Buddhist histories speak of a time of strife that falls between the initial period 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 manuscript

shows 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 Reections 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 never have occured; see Zuihō Yamaguchi, “The Fiction of King Dar-ma’s Persecution of Buddhism,” in Du

dunhuang 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.
































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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 of

tenth-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 of the 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. The

historical records also indicate the growing importance of Buddhist monks in the political events of this period.3

From the hidden manuscript 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: Tantric Buddhism in the Rebirth of Tibetan Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 86-92. In

the Tibetan language, a recent and extensive study of this period is found in Nor brang o rgyan, Bod sil 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 SungPeriod,” 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 of temporal leader and spiritual teacher among those communities. A detailed monograph on this manuscript by 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 ourishing throughout the tenth century.5

In fact, recent research has shown that it is during this very period that much

of what we think of as specically Tibetan Buddhism was coming into being. TheDunhuang manuscripts 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 specic 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 practice

based on a group of eighteen tantras, a group overlapping signicantly with thelater Rnying ma lists of eighteen Mahāyoga tantras. We know this because we arefortunate to have a number of texts which dene 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, Tom Davis, and Sam van Schaik. “Beyond Anonymity: 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 from Dunhuang: 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 theTenth Century: Evidence from the Dunhuang Manuscripts,” in PIATS 2003 vol. 4, ed. Christian

Wedemeyer 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-eight samaya (dam tshig ) vows of Mahāyoga, 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 denition of Mahāyoga at length in Sam van Schaik, “A

Denition 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 wasdened 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 briey dene 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 are probably 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

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





This material provides us with a clear view of the way Mahāyoga was understoodand practiced in the tenth century. I have discussed this in detail elsewhere, so a

brief summary will sufce here. Meditative practice included the different styles

of the development and perfection stages and the three absorptions (ting nge ’dzin),as well as the transgressive practices of union and liberation ( sbyor sgrol ). The philosophical 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 of Mahāyoga: 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 come

of 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 nd the Great Perfection approach rmly 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 brief instructional 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 The

Secret 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 ’gyur and 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 gang

shig 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 med pa’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).11

Some 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’s Meditation on the Awakened Mind ( Byang chub sems bsgom pa).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 nd 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 earlier or “original” state. This opinion is sometimes found in the history of the exegesis

of the Guhyagarbha Tantra, which is traditionally distinguished into the Zur tradition ( zur lugs) and the tradition of Rong zom pa and Klong chen pa (rong klong lugs). The latter tradition employs the terminology of Great Perfection inexplicating the tantra, while the former tends to avoid such terminology, and is

presented 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 ) of Mahāyoga practice, and that the hardening of doxographical categories which

separated Anuyoga and Atiyoga from Mahāyoga as vehicles per se was not itself generally 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 of Mahāyoga and Atiyogain ninth and tenth century Tibet. This is an extensive treatise based on the work of an Indic master known as Madhusādhu, which (for reasons that will become clear later) 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-chen Meditation (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 specically, I would like merely to indicate the presenceof an assumption that might otherwise go unchecked, and ought to be questioned in the light of our increasing 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 rst is

The Rosary of Views, a commentary on the thirteenth chapter of the Guhyagarbha Tantra (see Karmay,The Great Perfection, 137-74). The attribution to Padmasambhava is not certain but seems entirely possible. 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 may

be briey characterized as the attempt to resolve apparent contradictions arising

from 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 Indic

tantric tradition based on the Mahāyoga tantras in general and the GuhyagarbhaTantra in particular, that ourished from the mid-eighth to mid-ninth centuries.At the same time The Four Yogas contains a complex of themes that would be

picked 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 specically 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 Madhusādhu

The 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 and

sādhanas 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 rather

abruptly 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 ofcialrank (see below). This single scroll contains the only extant copy of The Four Yogas, 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 of clues, it is perhaps a solvable one. The rst clue comes from another Dunhuangmanuscript, IOL Tib J 508. This fragment of a scroll contains a series of scribbled

notes discussing different Vajrayāna themes. The only tantra mentioned 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 rst 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 the Guhyasamāja Tantra.17 The fth passage in thisseries of scribbled notes discusses the interpretations of a master called Ma du san

du. 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 ( Bsam gtan 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, it

presents a fourfold doxography of Buddhism: (i) the approaches of the gradual path of Indic scholastic Buddhism, (ii) the Chinese system of Chan, (iii) Mahāyoga,

and (iv) the Great Perfection.18 At the very beginning of the section on Mahāyoga,Gnubs chen cites a certain master called Ma du sa du. This citation denes 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 The Four Yogas. The name itself may be a rendition of the Sanskrit name Madhusādhu,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 (Gsang bdag 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 for the Eyes of Contemplation.21 Thus we have a plausible Indic name meaning sweetor pleasant (madhu) sage ( sādhu), not a specically 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-10thcentury), 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.linggtsug.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 conrming 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 gshegs snying 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 le 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 about

Madhusādhu. 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 (the masters Padmasambhava and Madhusādhu)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 ve great elements are thesame as the ve tathāgatas, and that the eight consciousnesses are the same asthe ve wisdoms. To go into the arguments for these at length would exhaust

beings with a multitude of words.24

It is indeed the case that The Four Yogas makes extensive use of the idea of sameness (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 Four Yogas which is attributed merely to “the commentary”:

Ultimate and conventional truth are inseparable and of one taste. Ultimate truth

is 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 textand 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 lung man ngag gsum) yang don dam par mnyam pa dang / kun rdzob du mnyam pa dang / bden pa gnyis su med par mnyam pa dang / chen po lnga de bzhin gshegs pa lngar mnyam pa dang rnam par shes pa brgyad ye shes 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 du yang 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 not

have been composed in any other language. Though it is not impossible that anIndic master could have written a treatise on Mahāyoga 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 of Madhusādhu, we shouldat least consider him among the plausible authors.

Any date for Madhusādhu must be based on the fact of his appearance in A Lamp 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 had

passed directly to Gnubs chen, perhaps in a master-disciple relationship, althoughno extant sources mention Madhusādhu among Gnubs chen’s teachers. This would

place Madhusādhu in the second half of the ninth century. If there were interveninggures 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 may

be considered less likely when we consider the absence (with a few minor exceptions) among the Dunhuang manuscripts of Indic tantras or commentaries

post-dating the mid-ninth century.27

If, as I have suggested, The Four Yogas is a Tibetan work based on acommentary by Madhusādhu, 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 regions before 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 gures whose tantric lineages came to Tibet inthis period (such as Prajñāvārman and Dānaśīla) remained obscure compared to earlier gures likeVimalamitra, even though their lineages survived. He also mentions the almost completely forgotten

mid-ninth century gure Guhyeśvara (David Germano, “The Seven Descents and the Early History of rNying 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 fullled in practice at least concerning the tantra texts, that Tibetan Dunhuang manuscripts containing translations from 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 Tantra

exegesis, 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.Conrming 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 aroundthe Guhyagarbha Tantra and other tantras of the Māyājāla 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’s

A Lamp for the Eyes of Contemplation it is immediately followed by a similar linefrom the Guhyagarbha itself: “Totally internalized, without inner or outer.”28

However, I have not found the unascribed citations in The Four Yogas in any of the 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 author of The Four Yogas. They are:

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

2. The Tantra Encompassing the Great Empowerments ( Dbang chen bsdus pa’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 upon by 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).35

7. 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 signicant thatno tantras outside of this group are cited, even The Symposium of Truth (Sarvatathāgata-tattvasaṃgraha), which was well-known and inuential amongTibetan tantrikas of this period. Thus the textual afliations of The Four Yogasmay be considered sufcient 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 ritual

practices particularly associated with Mahāyoga, like the practices of union andliberation, nor is there any discussion of specic ritual practice. In this it is similar to 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 Themselves

The 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.38

The 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 rst 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 Dunhuang manuscripts, see van Schaik,“A Denition of Mahāyoga.”

38 There are two texts in the Bstan ’gyur dedicated to the topic of four yogas (Q.2881 and 3222) butthey 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 bkodde/.




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 afiction and enlightenment, are understood or not. At this very moment youshould remain in the spontaneous presence of the body, speech, and mind of

primordial buddhahood, without achieving it through a path or fabricating it withantidotes.41

Here we have the rst appearance of the term spontaneous presence (lhun gyis grub), an important theme in The Four Yogas. As we see here, “spontaneous presence” refers to the presence of the enlightened state (expressed as the Buddha’s body, speech, and mind) prior to, and independent of, any attempt to reach that

state. Elsewhere in the text it is explicitly dened as the absence of effort (brtsal ).42

While the term “spontaneous presence” appears in several sūtras (such as the Laṅkāvatāra 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 specically associated with the absence of effort.43

The remaining three yogas concern maintaining the state of realization expressedin the rst yoga, binding spririts by oath, and keeping the samaya vows. The author of 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 rst 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 kyang rung / ’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 later Tibetan tradition.

44 This is The Guhyagarbha Tantra in Thirteen Chapters known as the Gsang ba’i snying po de khona 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 Vehicle

After 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 Buddhist

practice. This is a theme that was popular in Indic tantric treatises, and was later revived by Tibetan exegetes, a well-known example being the Sa skya patriarchBsod nams rtse mo’s General Presentation of the Tantric Canon ( Rgyud sde rnam

gzhag ).45 In any case, the four greatnesses are:

(i) The great result: this is a discussion of the differences between the result of practicing the causal vehicle, that is, the ordinary Mahāyāna, 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 vedesirable 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 nd 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 realized

by śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas and the non-self of phenomena realized bybodhisattvas.

The Nature of Buddhas and Yi dams

The author of The Four Yogas takes some trouble to explain the relationship between 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 Appearances

After 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 that

is 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 sufcient 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 that

both are empty.

Awareness and Wisdom

The 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 Mahāyoga

sādhanas that we nd 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 yin

pas 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 kyi zhal 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 passage making exactly the same point appears in the inuentialSeminal 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 its

previous 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 The Four 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 The

Four 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 own mind, 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 uids 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 banyid 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 sādhanas

bodhicitta 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 Mahāyoga sādhanas 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

Sameness

The nal thematic section of The Four Yogas is a discussion of the result of the practice (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 as

sameness, as that view is associated with him (along with Padmasambhava) in A Lamp 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 specic phrase “bodhicitta awareness” (byang chub sems kyi rig pa) can be found in the Great Perfection tantra, The Great Perfection of All Phenomena

Equal to the Ends of the Sky (Tb.83: Chos thams cad rdzogs pa chen po nam mkha’i mtha’ dang mnyam pa’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, “TheEarly Days of the Great Perfection,” 167-69.

55 Of course, one of the most important sources of the meaning of bodhicitta here is the “ultimatebodhicitta” 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 of bodhicitta 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 Gradual Approaches 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 nd asingle denitive source for any Great Perfection terminology is probably a fruitless task.




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

Because the phenomena of nirvāṇa (mya ngan las ’das pa) and saṃsāra (’khor ba) 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.59 As for the specic phrase “single basis,” though it appears in A Lamp

for the Eyes of Contemplation, it is in the context of the Mahāyoga chapter, and

not 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 the practitioner 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 worlds

are 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 the

personication 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 the Guhyagarbha Tantra.According to the author of The Four Yogas, the dharmakāya is the nonduality of space and wisdom, the saṃbhogakāya is the mantra ( sngags)andthe 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),” Journal of 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), TheTantra of the Lion’s Perfect Dynamism (Seventeen Tantras vol. 2, 268) and The Garland of Precious Pearls 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 pabya 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 derived

from it.64

The Result: Lions and Garuḍas

The 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.65

According 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 unidentied Māyājāla tantra cited in A Lamp for the

Eyes 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 Beyond

As 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’s

particular focus on the themes of nonduality and spontaneous presence is quiteconsistent with the early Great Perfection literature. This conuence of Mahāyogaand Atiyoga should not be surprising, rst because most aspects of the early GreatPerfection are all present to a greater or lesser extent in the Mahāyoga tantras ingeneral, and the Guhyagarbha Tantra in particular, and secondly because Mahāyogaliterature from the ninth century, such as Padmasambhava’s Garland of Views( Man ngag lta ba’i phreng ba) and Gnyan dpal dbyangs’ The Questions and

Answers 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 Associaton for 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 Vajrasattva might 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 written by the same scribe who copied out The Four Yogas we nd the following notewritten underneath the words no toil or effort : “This is considered the view of Atiyoga.”70 Elsewhere in The Questions and Answers on Vajrasattva Gnyan dpaldbyangs specically 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 same milieu

of 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 reect developments from the tenth century standardizing the distinctions

between 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 were

not, until the eleventh century, widely considered to be independent vehicles withtheir own distinctive practices.

The early Great Perfection texts clearly fulll the role of being an interpretativeframework for Mahāyoga practices, reformulating the key themes of the Mahāyogatantras – 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 usethe term Atiyoga, but refers to the mode of the Great Perfection (see the citation in Section 1 of the present 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 and

Sūryasiṃhaprabha’s commentary on the Guhyagarbha Tantra, which address theissues arising out of deity yoga in Great Perfection terms. At the other end we have brief 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 classied 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 of transmission, yet the authors who did remain associated with such texts, like the

two 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 number of sādhanas and other ritual material in the collection dating to around the same

period. Given this context, it is difcult to justify a position that the reformulationof Mahāyoga terminology in these Great Perfection texts entails a rejection of meditative and ritual practice. Rather, the milieu in which we nd these early GreatPerfection texts, and the use they make of Mahāyoga terminology, indicates a role

as instructional works that contextualize Mahāyoga practice.For all the above reasons I think we should be wary of the characterization of

the 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 Secret Handful .

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 these practices 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 of Chan was extensive. I would like to thank Jacob Dalton for making available to me his unpublished

dissertation 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 TheQuestions 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 Teachings for 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 agroundbreaking investigation into the historical analysis of the Great Perfection traditions, and mycomments here relate only to this specic 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 of Mahāyoga. David Germano,who coined the term “pristine Great Perfection,” was careful to dene it as a literary

characterization, 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 might

be led to such an idea through two factors: (i) the fact that the rhetoric of nonconceptuality, 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 is

projected back upon the early stratum of Great Perfection literature, the idea of a

tradition 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 from Mahāyoga (in the form of the vehicle of Atiyoga), and arguedthat Gnubs chen sangs rgyas ye shes (a strong inuence 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 of Contemplation.79 Gnubs chen, as I have previously suggested, presented in thiswork a somewhat articial 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 major work, 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 dening 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 of Contemplation, despite the inclusion of other works by Dpal brtsegs (van Schaik, “The Early Days of the 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 Denition of the Vehicles (Theg pa

spyi 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 which Armor against Darkness, the Sun of Yoga that Clears the Eyes: A Commentary on the Sūtra of the Enlightened 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 total perfection ( 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, and Atiyoga) were not generally known as “vehicles.” Thusthe fully developed nine-vehicle system does not seem to have become widespread before the eleventh century.81 It is this development, I would argue, that led toAtiyoga (and thus Great Perfection) nally 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 space

created by the eventual separation of Atiyoga from Mahāyoga was lled, 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 inuenceon the later development of Great Perfection.83 Certain 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 Denition 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 theappearance within this new vehicle of meditative practices drawn from Mahāyoga and “new” ( gsar ma) 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 po movements 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 of literature 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 thestatement that “the Crown Pith’s reactionary orientation failed ultimately because the incorporation of tantra 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 littlesignicance 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 ourishedin 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, The

Four 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 madespecically 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 necopy 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 text

was considered important despite not being available in full.The handwriting is a neat and uid headed script that will be familiar to anyone

who has looked at the Aparamitāyurnāma-mahāyāna-sūtra (tshe dpag tu med pa zhes 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 Questions

and 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 some way linkedto the scribe’s ofcial status.84

84 Regarding this type of paper, a recent project by Agnieszka Helman-Wazny has found thesemanuscripts to be primarily composed of mulberry bers, a locally available source of pulp. All such

scrolls were made on a paper mould with a moveable bamboo mesh, allowing paper to be removed before 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 imagesreproduced by kind permission of The British

Library.

I have identied these of the two hands based on the forensic method of handwriting 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 the

page) and identifying sufcient similarities at the graph level to produce aconvincing identication. The identication 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 specic to a given writer, and not under his or her conscious control. A series of benchmarks may then be established as a

basis 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 rst part of the name ( phu shi) is

an ofcial rank ( fu shi, 副使), the name for the third highest ranking ofcial in a

district called a zhen (鎮).87 This is very interesting. Firstly, since this is a Chinese

Classication of Dunhuang Buddhist Manuscripts,” in Dunhuang Manuscript Forgeries, ed. SusanWhiteld [London: The British Library, 2002], 103-14).

85 See Dalton, Davis, and van Schaik, “Beyond Anonymity,” 1-23.86 The benchmarks shared by both IOLTibJ454 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 and

the right side of the ma are not joined to the left side of the graph.87 This rank, as it appears in another Tibetan Dunhuang document (Pelliot tibétain 1124), is discussedin 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
















ofcial 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 after the occupation, which ended in 848. The use of Tibetan by Chinese ofcials after

the Tibetan occupation is a well-documented fact.88

Secondly, the scribe’s rank suggests an interest in Tibetan Mahāyoga among the Chinese ofcialdom of Shazhou. 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 as Huai Yu (壞玉), though a search through the colophonsof the Tibetan Dunhuang manuscripts yields no other instances of this particular name.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 ofcial 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, “New Contributions,” and Tsuguhito Takeuchi, “A Group of Old Tibetan Letters WrittenUnder Kuei-I-Chün: A Preliminary Study for the Classication of Old Tibetan Letters,” Acta Orientalia Academiae 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 our two scrolls. Additionally, we have a Hwa’i ’gog who worked as a proofreader in the scriptorium which produced copies of the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, probably in the rst 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 exemplar for this manuscript, Pelliot tibétain 837.

91 Pelliot tibétain 849 was apparently written by a Tibetan scribe; it is signed by a ’Bro dkon mchogdpal. 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.

Translation

The beginning of a panel in the original scroll is indicated in square brackets, for example, [panel 2] and so on. The occasional interpolations which I have thought

necessary 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 difcult 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 guesswork where 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 and mental appearances,

or afiction and enlightenment, are understood or not. At this very moment youshould remain in the spontaneous presence of the body, speech, and mind of

primordial 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 beentamed 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, youshould 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 all

phenomena as the maṇḍala of spontaneously present body, speech, and mind is

called 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 of the 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, resting means resting in the space of reality. Being withoutcenter or periphery means that [resting] is beyond the limit of being truly existent

because 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 xating 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 without

characteristics are nondual. Seeing the nonduality of existence and non-existenceis what is meant by resting . This nonduality, not created by wise Buddhas nor fabricated 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 Greatness

The 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 having

achieved 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 (see Armor 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 great

accomplishment 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 difculty and suffering. When one understands the vetypes 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 ve afictions and the ve 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 of reality. “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?” [panel

3] It is like the development of a baby’s distinct sense faculties coming after the baby’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. By meditatingon 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 the

dharmakāya 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 unifying yourself [with the deity].Itisknownas 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 taming

beings 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.

Unication 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 puried and perfected.This not like the lesser merit gained little by little through discipline and difculty.Buddhahood is achieved without the need for benet 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 of enlightenment and the perfections are vastly meritorious. How much more 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. The pratyekabuddha 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, how much more so is the comprehension of spontaneously presentwisdom which is a realization without 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 lhar ni 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 within

it are not existent phenomena.The phrase assembled inside also means that when the mind’s reality is

comprehended, it is like swallowing after having chewed the food in one’s mouth.97

Characteristics 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 nd 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, or found, 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 Great Empowerments:

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 and buddhahood, 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 sufcient 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 dened as a lack of characteristics; it is to be dened 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, the

internal 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 afictions, 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 and

saṃsāra 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, phenomena manifest as either saṃsāra or nirvāṇa.It is taught that all of these [phenomena] are a multitude of illusions, or a single

illusion. 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 mchog mnyam 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 owers 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 all

deities, 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 of contemplation with the truth.

“What about the perceptions of the senses and their objects?” The ve sensesare the ve Buddha-families, and each one of them is distinctly pure. Distinctlymeans separate and without similarity. The sense-faculties are not similar to their objects. 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 vesense-faculties are the Buddhas of the ve families, and the ve sense-objects arethe ve consorts. The maṇḍala of the Buddhas and consorts of the ve families is

primordial 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 that

the means remain the means and the forms remain the forms. Meditation is a permanent 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 the

body, speech, and mind of the deity, this comprises the ve empowerments, theve Buddha families, the ve objects, and the ve consorts. You are always inmeditation in the maṇḍala of the deities and consorts of the ve 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 rtog yang dag las/ / ye shes ’byung bar rab tu bsgrags/ .




In brief, do not become distracted from the nature of the Noble Ones by other forms 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 ve Buddha-families.

“Is the achievement of this non-distraction by objects other than the nature of the Noble Ones an incidental benet, 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 Buddhas


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?” In

buddhahood, you merge with oneness. “If body, speech, and mind are possessed by the Buddha, then how are body, speech [and mind] revealed?” They are revealed by 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 of sameness within the space of reality, where the accumulations of merit are gatheredwithout limit, in the celestial palace of manifold jewels created by the power of spontaneously 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 totally pure.

This is different from renunciation of the three realms or three worlds. In the

pure 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 the

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

rst.

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

yogins.

“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 rstdeveloped bodhicitta, he threw one of the two vajra boulders upwards, and theother one downwards. In a moment, quick as a snap of the ngers, 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 of taming and wrathful subjugation. The fully enlightened Vajrapāṇi is known as

Vajraviśkambhana. 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 benet of beings in the multiplicity of worlds throughvarious enlightened activities.104

How do the saṃbhogakāya-like forms of these yogins manifest? However the

saṃbhogakāyas of the tathāgatas manifest, the saṃbhogakāya of yogin manifestsin 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 of space and wisdom. The dharmakāya is not limited to a single Buddha; however,it is not [to be identied with] the bodhisattvas residing on the bhūmis, nor to the

śrāvakas, 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 innite

saṃbhogakāyas, it performs the activites of the saṃbhogakāyas.

The power of mantras.

The saṃbhogakāya is the mantra. The [Sanskrit] term is man tra. The meaningof ma is as follows. Not moving from the dharmakāya without characteristics, thedharmakāya without characteristics itself manifests as the Buddha body with

particular characteristics, the manifest saṃbhogakāya. The characteristics are mere

manifestation in itself, yet they do not move a particle away from the dharmakāyawithout characteristics. They should be understood as nondual. The meaning of the 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 innite wealth.

The nirmāṇakāya is the mudrā. It has the power of the mudrās of method, andcreates wealth because it is endowed with innite blessings. “When the benet of

beings 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 translated by Coomaraswamy as a “pillaring apart” of the two realms, a symbolic function of the central pillar of Indian 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 unaccomplished means

the same as empty or without characteristics. It is because it is unaccomplishedthat [the dharmakāya] can bring about innite saṃbhogakāyas.The saṃbhogakāyas

bring about the wondrous benet 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 benetof 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 the

saṃbhogakāya Vairocana on the tenth bhūmi. [iii] The training of the secret vehiclewas taught to Vajrapāṇi, who then remained on the peak of Mount Sumeru carryingout the activities of vanquishing and subduing. Furthermore, [the nirmāṇakāyas]are magical emanations of merit and awareness which bring together the four activities.

Whatever the entourage of the tathāgatas may be, that is the entourage of the yogin 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 of characteristics 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 xating means the dharmakāya. The space of reality pervades all phenomena, and in that they are pervaded by space, they are nondual with thewisdom of awareness. Not xating on existents and characteristics is to be

pervaded by the dharmakāya.

Sameness means not being distinct from the dharmakāya. The manifestationof the dharmakāya is the saṃbhogakāya, which does not move away from thedharmakāya without 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 xation, 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 denitely be born as a true

garuḍa. 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 it

is born it will denitely become the adversary which defeats the elephants.In a similar way, the yogin who has realized sameness – if he has spontaneously

accomplished the activities of a genuine Buddha and has realized the samenessof all phenomena – will not be born as a śrāvaka or a pratyekabuddha. He will

become 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 satised. “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 the

bodhicitta awareness. This is offering to oneself. This is an activity which pleasesthe tathāgatas. “Why?” Because the tathāgatas are the reality of the minds of sentient 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.

Transcription

The text is quite clean, and most mistakes have already been corrected. I havemarked these corrections with light blue text with underline for interlinear additions and red text between dashed lines for deletions. For the few obviousmistakes 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-

Tr anscription

[panel 1][line 1]༆། །རང་བཞན་ག་ལ་འར་ན། །སམས་དང་སམས་ང་བའ་ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་དམ། །ཀན་ནས་

[line 2]ཉན་མངས་པ་དང། མ་པར་ང་བའ་ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་ས་ང་ང་མ་ས་ང་ང། འཕལ་ལ་ལམ་

[line 3]གས་མ་བབ་ཉན་པ་མ་བཅས་ཏ། ཡ་ནས་|ང|སངས་ས་པ་་ང་ས་ན་ས་བ་པར་ནས་པ་ལ་།

[line 4]།བ་པའ་|མ|ལ་འར་ན། །རང་བཞན་ད་ཇ་་བཞན་མ་ནར་པར་ས་ནས། དའ་ངང་་མས་པར་ར་བ་ན། སངས་

[line 5]ས་དང་ང་བ་སམས་པ་དང། རས་འཛན་ལས་བསས་ཏ། ད་ན་རང་བཞན་་ང་བ་ཞས་ང་། །ད། །དམ་ལ་

[line 6]ནས་པའ་ལ་འར་ན། ན་བཅམ་ན་འདས་ས། དབང་་དང་མ་ལས་བས་པ་དབང་་བས་ཤང་

བལ་ནས།

[line 7]དམ་ཚ་་། ལས་འད་དང་འད་ས་ཤ་ཅས་བས་བས་པ་བཞན་་བག་བར་ན་ཁས་ངས་དམ་བཅས་པ་[line 8]ལས་་འདའ་བར་ད་པ་ལ་། །དམ་ཚ་ས་་བབ་པའ་ལ་འར་ན། ང་མའ་ཡན་ཏན་དང་་ན་ན་ཡང།

[line 9]ད་དང་ཅ་མན་་ང་ཤང་བ་པ་ལ་། །་མའ་ཏང་ང་འཛན་ཏ་ཞས་བ་| ་|ན། ཏང་ང་འཛན་མ་བཞ་རམ་

པས་བད་པ་

[line 10]ལ་་བགའ། །ཡངས་་ས་པའ་ཏང་ང་འཛན་ལ་བག། །ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་་ང་ས་ན་ས་བ་པའ་

[line 11]དལ་འཁར་་བམ་པ་ལ་ཞས་པ་ན། ཆས་་དངས་ལ་ལ་ཞས་་། །དངས་ལས་ཡན་ཏན་ཐམས་ཅད་[line 12]འང་བའ་ར་ར་བས། དངས་ས། དས་དང་མཐའ་ད་པ་་དས་པ། མན་ཉད་ཐ་པ་ཆན་པ་དང་མན་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]ར་ང་ཅད་ན། ཆས་་དངས་ཡད་ད་དང། ་ཆད་་མཐའ་ཐམས་ཅད་དང་ལ་བས་མཐའ་ད། མཐའ་[line 14]ད་འ་དས་ཏ་དས་ང་ད། །ད་ད་ང་ག་ང་བར་ཡང་མ་བ་ཅང་་དས་པས། །སངས་ས་བམས་[line 15]པས་མ་མད། སམས་ཅན་Oན་པས་མ་བཅས་ཅ་བཞན་བ་ལ་ལ་ཞས་། ཟབ་མ་ར་ན་ལ་ཞས་་བ་ན། ཆས་[line 16] ་དངས་ལ་ལ་ཞས་་། དས་དང་མཐའ་ད་ཅས་པ། ཆས་་དངས་ས་མ་་འས་མ་ས་པས་ཡད་[line 17]ཡད་པའ་མཐའ་དང་ཡང་ལ་ལ། མན་མ་་ས་པར་ང་ཞང་ས་སར་་བ་ད་པས་ན། ད་པའ་མཐའ་དང་ཡང་[line 18]ལ་བས་མཐའ་ཡང་ད། ་དས་ཞས་པ་ན། ཉOས་་ད་པ་ལ་་། །ཆས་་དངས་ས་མ་་འས་མ་

[line 19]|མ| ས་པ་ལས་མ་ཡས་བཞན། །མན་མ་་ས་པར་མ་འས་པར་ང་ལ། ང་ཙམ་ཉད་ན་མན་མ་[line 20]ད་པ་ཆས་་དངས་ང་མ་ཡས། ཏ། །མན་མ་དང་མན་མ་ད་པ་ཉས་ད། པས། །ཡད་[line 21]ད་ཉས་་ས་པ་ལ་ལ་ཞས་་། ཉས་་ད་པ་ད་ན་སངས་ས་བམ་པས་མ་མད།[line 22]སམས་ཅན་ན་པས་མ་བཅས་པ་ལ་ལ་ཞས་་། །འར་ཅས་་བ་ན། མན་མ་ད་པ་དང་ཉས་་

[line 23]ད་པར་ས་པ་ལ་འར་|པ་| ཅས་་བ་འམ། ཡང་ན་་ནང་ག་ཆས་འཇ་ན་དང་འཇO་ན་ལས་[panel 2][line 24]འདས་པའ་་དང་འས་ར་བཅས་པའ་ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་མན་མ་ད་པ་ཆས་་དངས་་ར་ཅ་པ་[line 25]འམ། །ཉས་་ད་པར་ར་ཅ་པ་ལ་ལ་འར་ཞས་། འས་་ཆན་པ་ན་སང་བའ་ཐ་པ་

[line 26]འདའ་དན་ས་ཏ། འདOའ་ང་ལས་|འ| ང་བ་བཞན་བབས་ན། ཉན107་ཐས་དང་རང་སང་ས་་་འར་ག།[line 27]་ན་ད་པའ་སངས་ས་ཉད་་འར་བས་འས་་ཆ་བ་འ། །སངས་ས་་|ཆ་|ན་མན་ཉད་་ཐ་[line 28]པ་ཆན་པའ་་ནས་ས་པ་མས་ང་འབ་པར་འདད་ན། ད་ད་ས་སངས་ས་ཏ་་་བ་ན་

[line 29]མ་ཡན་ན། ན་རང་པར་ང་ང་བབ་བབ་ནས་སང་བའ་ཐ་པ་འདའ་དན་མ་ས་པར་མན་ཉད་[line 30] ་ཐ་པ་ཉད་ས་སངས་ས་་། འདOའ་དན་ས་ནས་དད་སངས་ས་པར་འར་བས་འས་་[line 31]ཡང་འད་ལས་ཆ་བ་ད། བ་པ་ཆན་པ་ན། །མན་ཉད་་ཐ་པ་ཆན་པའ་་ནས་ས་པ་བན་པ་རབ་དང།

[line 32]ན་བས་ང་ལ་པ་ངས་ད་པ་མ་ས་སང་་|བ་|ད་ཡང་བ་པ་ང་བ་ན་མ་ཡན་ཏ་ཆ་ན། ད་བས་ང་[line 33]འདO་དན་མཉམ་པ་ཉད་ཉས་ད་པར་ས་ན། ་ཅ་མ། ་འད་ཉད་ས་་ན་ད་པའ་སངས་ས་་

[line 34]འབ་པས་བ་པ་ཆན་པ་ཞས་་བ་འམ། ཡང་ན་མན་ཉད་་ཐ་པ་ར། ས་དང་་རལ་་ན་[line 35]དའ་བ་དང་་བལ་གས་འབ་པ་་་མ་ཡན་ག། འདད་ད་པ་མ་་ཆས་ཉད་་ན་་

107 read ཉན་.




[line 36]ར་ནས། དའ་བད་བའO་ལ ངས་ད་དང་ན་བས་བ་པ་འམ། ཡང་ན་མན་ཉད་་ཐ་པ་ར། ཉན་

[line 37]མངས་པ་་དང་འདད་པའ་ཡན་ཏན་་འཁར་བའO་་འམ། །ན་བས་ནས་ཉན་པ་བན་ནས་|ས|།[line 38]|ཉན་པ་|ངས་ནས་འབ་པས་བ་པ་ཡང་དའ་ལས་ཆ་བ་ད་ཅས་་མ་ཉས་ནས་མ་ད་པ་ཆས་[line 39] ་དངས་ལས་ང་མ་ཡས་ཏ། ཉས་་ད་པར་བམས་པ་ལས་ལ་བ་མས་ས་ཤང་འང་[line 40]བ་འམ། འངས་པར་བན། ཡང་ན་ལ་བ་མས་ས་་བར་པ་ཞས་་། མ་ས་པ་ཆས་་དངས་ལས་[line 41]མན་་ས་པ་ས་ཤང་ང་བར་བན། ས་བན་ཞ་ན་ལ་བ་མས་ས་བན། ཆས་ས་ཆ་ག་ངང་[line 42]བཞན་ན་་མའ་ནང་ནས་་ས་བཞན། ཤས་པ་ལ་ལ་་ཞ་འང་། དངས་པ་ད་པ་ལས་དངས་

[line 43]པ་་ས་འང་བར་བན་པ་|ལ་|་འལ་འམ། མན་པའO་དཔ་ཅ་ཡད་ཅ་ན། བ་མ་ལ་་ག་དབང་པ་[line 44]ད་ད་་འ་བ་ལས། ་་དབང་པ་ཡད་པ་་འ་བ་འང་བ་བཞན་ན། ད་ཉད་་འལ་ལས་ཡ་ཤས་[line 45] ་ན་བས་ཤས108་པ་ལ། ན་བས་ན། ་འ་དལ་འཁར་འམ་ལ་པ་ལ་། བམ་མ་ཞས་པ་[line 46]ན་། ཉས་ད་པར་བམ་ཞས་། དཔ་ཅ་་་ཞ་ན་ཞས་་བ་ན། མན་བའ་དཔ་ཅ་ཡང་ཡད་ཅ་ན་ཞས་[panel 3][line 47]

འ། བ་མ་ལ་་ག་དབང་པ་ད་པ་ལས། ་ག་དབང་པ་ཡད་པ་O་འ་བ་འང་བར་ར་པ་དང་འ་[line 48]བར། དངས་པ་ད་པའ་ཆས་ཉད་ལས། དངས་པ་་ས་པར་འང་བ་O་འལ་ཏ། ་འལ་བའ་དཔའ་[line 49]ཏན་ཚས་ས་བ་ན། ད109་བབ་ན་དངས་་ས་ད། ད་ནས་ར་བད་ད་བམ་པ་འམ། བབ་པར་་བའ་[line 50]་ཅ་བམས་པས་ཀན་འབ་ཅ་ན། དངས་པ་ར་ར་ནས་ར་བད་ནས་བམས་་དས། བབ་པར་་བའ་[line 51]་ཅ་བམས་པས། ཀན་བམས་པར་འར་ར། ད་ར་ཡང་ཅ་མངན་ཞ་ན། སངས་ས་ཐམས་ཅད་[line 52]

དང། མཉམ་པར་ར་བའ་ཏན་་ལས། རང་་ར་ན་བད་ར་ན། ཤས་པ་ལས་བས་པས་བན་ཏ།[line 53]རང་ག་ར་ན་ཤས་པ་ལས་བས་པ། དན་དང་ས་ཉOས་་ར། དན་ནO་རང་ག་ར་ན། རང་གO་སམས་[line 54]ག་ཆས་ཉད་ཉད་ཆས་་འ་བད་ཉད་ང་བ་་སམས་་ར་པ་དང་ན་བ། འ་རང་བཞན་ཡOན་པ་ལ་

[line 55]རང་ག་་ཞས་། ར་པས་ད་ར་ས་པ་ལ|ས|་བད་ར་བ་ཞས་། དOལ་འཁར་ཀན་་ས་པ་ཡOན་[line 56]ཞས་་བ། ད་ར་སམས་་ཆས་ཉད་ས་ཏ། ང་བ་་སམས་་ར་པ་དང་ན་|བ་|ན། དབང་ཆད་མ་

[line 57]པ་དང། ་་དངས་དང། འ་བ་འལ་བ་དང། དན་ཐམས་ཅད་བ་པ་ལས་བས་པའ་དལ་འཁར་|ལ་| ་[line 58]འ་པ་ཡན་ཏ། ཅOའ་ར་ཞས་ན། ང་བ་་སམས་ན་དལ་འཁར་ཐམས་ཅད་་་བ་ཡང་ཡན། རང་

108 read ཞས་.109 read ད་.




[line 59]བཞན་ཡང་ཡན། དལ་་ས་པ་ཡང། ང་བ་O་སམས་ཏ་ས་པར་་བའ་ཐབས་ང་ཡOན་པའ་[line 60]ར་ར། ད་ཡང་ཡ་་་་་་་་་་མ་ཡན་ག། མངན་་ར་པ་ལ་ཤན་་ཞས་། མཉམ་[line 61]ར་ག་ཤས་110པ་ན། སམས་་ཆས་ཉད་ང་བ་སམས་ས་པ་ལ་། ས་པས་ན་ཞས་པ་ན། སམས་་ཆས་[line 62]ཉད་ས་པ་ལ་བསད་ནམས་དང་ཡ་ཤས་་ས་ལས་བས་པ་ཆ་བའ་ཡན་ཏན་ཐམས་ཅད་ང་ཞང་[line 63]ས་པས་ན། ད་ལ་བལ་ས་དང་དའ་བ་བསད་ནམས་ང་ང་འ་ཡང་་ང་། ད་ད་ས་བང་[line 64]ཞང་ས་་་དས། པར། སངས་ས་་བ། ས་་ར་ན། རང་་ར་ན་བད་ར་ན་ཞས་[line 65]པ་བས་ས་ཉམས་ལ་ར་བདར་བཤད། བསད་ནམས་ཆན་པ་ན་ང་བ་་ས་དང་་རལ་ན་[line 66]པ་ལས་བས་པ་ད་བའ་་བ་མ་པར་དར་བའ་ས་ང་བསད་ནམས་ཆ་ན། ད་བས་ང་ཇO་[line 67]ར་ང་བ་ཐམས་ཅད་འ་་ང་ས་ང་་ར་བམས་ན་་དང་འས་བ་111བསད་ནམས་[line 68]་་བ་ཐམས་ཅད། དང་ང་ས་པས། བསད་ནམས་ང་ད་ལས་ཆ་བ་ད། ཡ་ཤས་ཆན་པ་ན། ཉན་[line 69]ཐས་ང་ཟ་ལ་བད་ད་པར་ས་པ་དང། རང་སངས་ས་ས་ང་ཟ་ལ་བད་ད་པར་ས་[line 70]པའ་ང་་ཆས་ལ་ཆས་་ས་ཅ་་ངས་ག་ང་པ་བད་པར་ས་པ་དང། ང་བ་སམས[panel 4][line 71]པས་ང་ཟ་དང་ཆས་ཉས་་ལ་བད་ད་པར་ས་པ་ཡང་ཡ་ཤས་ཆ་ན། ད་བས་ང་མན་མ་ད་[line 72]པ་ཉས་ད་པར་ས་པའ་ཡ་ཤས་ན་ས་བ་པར་ས་པ་འད་ལས་ཡ་ཤས་ཆ་བ་ད། ཆས་[line 73]ཉད་་འཁར་ལ་ཁ་ནང་་འས་པ་ཞས་་བ་ན་ཆས་ཉད་དང་སམས་ཉད་དང་དངས་་བ་ཀན་ཅO་[line 74]། སམས་་ཆས་ཉད་ལ་། འཁར་ལ་ན་དལ་་། སམས་་ཆས་ཉད་ས་ན་ན། ས་པ་ད་[line 75]པའ་དལ་ལ་ར་པའ་ཡ་ཤས་ག་འཁར་གས་བར་པས་དལ་འཁར་ཞས་། མ་ས་ན་ན་མ་ར་པའ་

[line 76]དལ་| |། ལ། །ན་ཅ་ལ་ག་འཁར་དང་ན་པས་དལ་འཁར་ར། ཁ་ནང་་འས་ཞས་པ་ན། སམས་[line 77] ཅན་ག་ཁ་ར་ས་པ་ཡན་ཏ། ང་བ་ཐམས་ཅད་སམ་ང་བར་ཤས་བ་ཡན་བ་ལས། དངས་པ་ད་པར་ཡང་་ཤས་པ་[line 78]ན། ཁ་ར་ས་པ་ཡན། ཁ་ནང་་འས་ཞས་་བ་ན། ང་བ་ཐམས་ཅད་སམས་ང་བར་ཤས་ལ། །་བ་སམས་[line 79]དང་སམས་ང་བས་འས་པས་ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་དངས་པ་ད་པར་ཤས་ཤང་ས་པ་ན་ཁ་ནང་་འས་པ་འ། །་[line 80]

ཁའ་ནང་་འས་པ་ཞས་ང་་། སམས་་ཆས་ཉད་ས་པའ་འས་ན། དཔར་ན་ཁར་་ཟས་ཟས་ནས་ད་པར་[line 81]ར་པ་དང་འ་བར། དངས་པ་དང་མན་མ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཟས་པ་དང་འ་བར། ད་ར་པར་ཁ་ཞས་ང་། སམས་

110 read ཞས་.111 read ་.




[line 82] ་ཆས་ཉད་ས་པ་ད་མ་པར་ང་བའ་ར་ར་པས་་ཞས་ང་། ་ནས་པའ་་ངན་ལས་འདས་པ|འ|ར་[line 83]འ་པས་་པ་ཞས་ང་། ད་ར་ཁ་ར་འ་པ་། སམས་་ཆས་ཉད་མ་ནར་བར་ས་པའ་ནང་[line 84] ་ཡན་ཏན་་་བ་ཐམས་ཅད་འས་འ། ལ་འར་པ་མས་ས་བབ་ཅང་དན་་ཉར་བར་་བ་འམ། ཐབ་པར་[line 85] ་བ་འམ་བཙལ་བར་་བ་ན། སངས་ས་ཉད་ན། སངས་ས་ད་ང་ནས་བཙལ་ཞ་ན། ས་བ་ང་ནས་བས་པ་[line 86]འམ། བཙལ་བ་འམ། རང་འང་་ད་བས་ད་པར་་ར་ག། སམས་ལ་བཙལ་དང་ད་པར་ར་ཏ། ད་ར་ཡང་[line 87] ཅ་མངན་ཞ་ན། དབང་ཆན་བས་པའ་ཏན་ས་ལས་ཞས་པའ་སམས་ཉད་ས་པ་སངས་ས་ཏ་ཤས་པ། །རང་ག་སམས་

[line 88] ་ཆས་ཉད་མ་པར་ད་པར་ས་པ་ད་ཉད་སངས་ས་ཡན་པས་ཞས་་བ་འམ། ཡང་ན་རང་གO་སམས་ཡ་ནས་[line 89]མ་པར་ད་ཅང་སངས་ས་པ་ཡན་དང། སམས་ཡ་ནས་མ་པར་ད་ཅང། སངས་ས་པ་ཡན་པའ་དན་ས་པ་[line 90]ན་སངས་ས་་བ་པ་འམ། སངས་ས་་ཞལ་མཐང་བ་འམ། སངས་ས་ལ་་འངས་ཟན་པ་ཡན་པས། སམས་[line 91] ་ཆས་ཉད་ས་པ་ཁ་ནས་ཆ། སམས་ལ་ཞན་་སངས་ས་བཙལ་་དས། སངས་ས་སམས་ལས་[line 92]བཙལ་ན། སམས་དང་སམས་ང་བའ་ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་ཅ་་་ཡན། ཅ་པ་ཞ་ཡན་ནམ། འན་ཏ་ཐ་དད་པ་ཞ་[line 93]ཡན་ནམ་ཞ་ན། ཉས་པ་ཡན་པར་བན་ཏ། ད་ར་ཡང་ཅ་མངན། དཔལ་མཆ་དང་པའ་ཏན་་ལས།ཆས་ཀན་ནམ་

[line 94] འ་མན་ཉད་ད། ནམ་་ལ་ཡང་མན་ཉད་ད་ཅས་པ། ་བ་སམས་དང་སམས་ང་བའ་ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་ང་

[line 95]ཞང། བད་ད་པ་ནམ་་ང་པ་་འ་མན་ཉད་ཡན་ཏ། ནམ་་ན་མན་ཉད་ད་པའ་|ད་|མན་ཉད་ཅན་[panel 5][line 96]

ཡན་བས། སམས་ད་ན་ནམ་་ང་པ་་བ་ཙམ་་ཡང་བ་པས། ནམ་་ལ་ཡང་མན་ཉད་ད་ད་ཅས་། །[line 97]ད་ཉད་ཆས112་་བ་ན་སམས་་ཆས་ཉད་ད་ཉད་ཅས་། བ། །ད་ཉད་འཇ་ན་་ས་་ཞས་པ། སམས་་ཆས་ཉད་[line 98]ད་ཉད་མ་ར་པའO་ང་ཐབས་ས་བམས་་མ་ས་པ་ནO། ད་བ113་ག་འཇ་ན་འཁར་བའ་ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་་ང་

[line 99]

ལ། སམས་་ཆས་ཉད་ས་ན། ་འ་ས་ཆན་ཞས་མད་ལས་འང་། ་ང་ས་ག་་འ་ས་[line 100]ཆན་པ་ལས་བས་པ་་ངན་ལས་འདས་པའ་ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་་ང་བ་ཡང། སམས་་ཆས་ཉད་ས་པ་ད་ཉOད་

112 read ཅས་.113 read བད་.




ང་ང།[line 101]དན་ཤས་པ་ན། དཔར་་མའ་་དང་ང་པ་ཆ་ལས་བས་པ་ཅ་ལ་ཅ་ང་བ་དང་འ་བར། མ་

ས་པའ་ས་ན།[line 102]ས་དང། ་བལ་ལས་བས་པ་འཁར་བའ་ཆས་་ང་བ་ཐམས་ཅད་ས་པའ་། ་དང་ཡ་ཤས་དང་ཞང་[line 103]ཁམས་ད་པ་ལས་བས་པ་་ངན་ལས་འདས་པའ་ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་་ཡང་བས། ས་མ་ས་་ད་པར་གས་[line 104]འཁར་བ་དང་་ངན་ལས་འདས་པའ་ཆས་་ང་བས་ཉས་ད་ད། ཞ་ཅ་པ་འམ་དན་ཅ་པ་ཞས་། ད་ཉད་་[line 105]འལ་འ་ནས་མན་ཉད་ད་པ་ད་ར་ང་བ་ཡན་ཏ། ཤས114་པ། སམས་དང་ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད། མན་

ཉད་ད་པར་[line 106]ས་མ་ས་་ད་པར་གས། འཁར་བ་དང་་ངན་ལས་འདས་པའ་ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་ང་་བན115་པ་ད་ར་ང་བ་ཡOན་

[line 107]ན། ད་ད་ཀན་ཡང་་མང་ང་ཅ་་ཞས་པ་ཡང་་བ་ལས་དན་ཞས་འང་བ་ར་བཤད། ད་བཞན་ཉད་ཅང་ཡང་ང་[line 108]ཡན་ན། ད་བབ་མ་ཅ་ར་བབ། མན་མ་ད་པ་བབ་པ་འམ། མན་མ་བབ་ཅ་ན། ནམ་ད་པ་ཉད་མན་མས་

[line 109]ང་ལ་ང་ན། མན་མ་ཉ|ད|ས་116་མ་ས་ཏ་ཉས་ད་ད། ད་ར་ཡང་ཅ་མངན་ཞ་ན། སང་བ་འས་པའ་ཏན་་ལས་མ་

[line 110]ས་པའ་ཆས་མས་ལས་བས་པས་བན་ཏ། ལས་ཤས་པ། ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་མ་ས་པའ་ཆས་་དངས་ལས་[line 111]མ་ཡས་བཞན་་ང་ས་་་་མན་མ་ང117་ས་པར་ང་ལ། ང་ཙམ་ཉད་ན་མན་མ་ཅ་་[line 112]ན་བབ་བབ་པའ་་ལ་་ཏ་བབ་པ་འམ། ཡད་་འང་བ་དང། ་ས་་བན་པའ་བབ་པའO་[line 113]ར་ར་པ་ལ་ངང་ག་་ཞས་། འ་་ང་ས་དང་བབ་པ་པ་ས་ངན་ཡད་མ་མཉམ་[line 114]ཞང་དབན118་ད་པར་ས་ནས་བམ་པ་ལ་བད་ར་ན། དལ་འཁར་ང་་བན་པ་ལ་བས་པ་ཀན་་[line 115]ས་པ་ཡན་ན། ཅ་་ཞ་ན། ་ཅO་་ཐམས119་ང་ཅ་་རང་བཞན་ནས་བབ་པའ་འ་་ར་མཉམ་[line 116]བར་བཞ་པ་ཁ་ནས། དOལ་འཁར་ཀན་་ས་པ་ཡན་ན། ཤན་་ནO་་ཅ་པ་ལ་། མཉམ་ར་ང་མས་འ།

114 read ཞས་.115 read བན?116 read ཉས་.117 read ་.118 read བདན་.119 read ཐམས་ཅད་.




[line 117]ས་་བ་མན་ཅད་ང་དན་ལ་ར་བ་དས་འ། དབང་པ་དང་ལ་ག་དས་པ་ཅ་་་ཞ་ན། དབང་པ་་ན་རས་[line 118]། ད་དང་དའ་མ་པར་ད་ཅས་ན། མ་པ་ཞས་པ་ན་་་་མན་པ་ལ་་། དབང་པ་དང་ལ་ཡང་་མན།[line 119]དབང་པ་ཡང་ནང་་མན། ལ་ག་མ་པའ་་་ང་ནང་་མན་བ་ལ་། ཤན་་མཉམ་པར་བཞ་པས་[panel 6][line 120]ཞས་པ་ལ། ཤན་་ནO་མངན་་ར་པ་ཞས་། མཉམ་པར་བཞ་པས་ན་ཞས་་བ་ནO། དབང་པ་་ན་རས་འ་

[line 121]སངས་ས། ལ་་ན་ལ120་་། ས་་ཡབ་མ་ག་དལ་འཁར་ཡ་ནས་མཉམ་པར་བཞ་། ནས་པ་

[line 122]ཡན་བས་ནས་རང་ས་|པ་| ས་མཉམ་པར་བཞ་། ནས་པ་ཡན་པས་ན། ད་ཡང་ཡན་ན་བའ་སར་་སམས་[line 123]བཞན། ཞ་པར་|ལ་|འ་དལ་འཁར་་ཐབས་ལས་ཐབས་་ར་ར། ས་ལས་ས་་ར་པར་ན་

[line 124]ག ས་བབས་ཏ། ས་་པར་བམ་མ། །ཡང་ན་ཤན་་་ཅ་ཞས་། མཉམ་པར་བཞ་པས་ན་ཞས་པ་ན་[line 125]བབ་པར་་བའ་འ་་ང་ས་དང། ལ་འར་པའ་ས་ང་ཡད་མ་མཉམ་ཞང་དར་ད་པར་ས་ནས།

[line 126]བམ་བ་ལ་་། འ་་ང་ས་ག་་ར་མཉམ་པར་བཞ་པས་ན། དབང་པ་་རས་་ལ་་མ་་། ས་

[line 127]་ཡབ་མ་་དལ་འཁར་་ས་་པར་བམ་མ། འལ་ལས་མདར་ན། འས་པའ་རང་བཞན་ལས་སམས་ཉད་

[line 128]ཞན་་་ཡང་བའ་ཞས་པ་ན། མདར་བ་ས་བས་ན་ལ་ག་མ་པར་ང་་ང། སམས་་|ས|་པ་ཅ་

་|བ་|ཡང་[line 129]འས་པ་རས་འ་སངས་ས་རས་འ་ཡབ་མ་་་ཡངས་པར་བམ་མ། འས་པའO་རང་བཞན་ལས་ལ་[line 130]ཞན་་་ཡང་བར་བབས་ན། ན་ཡན་ནམ་འས་་ཅ་ཡད་ཅ་ན། འས་་སངས་ས་ཉད་འབ121་པའ་ར་ར། ད་ར་

[line 131]ཡང་ཅ་མངན་ཞ་ན། སངས་ས་ཐམས་ཅད་དང་མཉམ་པར་ར་བར་122བའ་ཏན་་ལས། འང་་བ་ན་་

་བས་མ་ས་ཏ་་

120 read མ་.121 read འབ་.122 read ར་.




[line 132] ན་ས་འས་་སངས་ས་་འབ། འལ་ལས་དན་དམ་པ་དང་ཀན་བ་་དར་ད་པར་ར་ཅ་པ་དང་ཞས་པ་ན།

[line 133]དན་དམ་པར་མ་ས་པས་ཅ། ཀན་བ་་་མར་ཅ། དན་དམ་པ་དང་ཀན་བ་་ཡང་དར་ད་པར་ཅ་པ་[line 134]ན། འ་འཕང་བ་་ཅ་པ་་་ལས། དས་ལས་ད་བཞན་ཤས་པའ་རང་བཞན་་ས་པས་ཞས་པས་ན།[line 135]ཅ་ན་ང་ཅO་ཅ་ན། སངས་ས་པར་ཅ་ཅས་པ་དང་ར། སངས་ས་ལ་་ང་ས་མངའ་ལ། ་ང་

[line 136]ང་གས་ན་ཞ་ན། ཡ་ཤས་ན་ཏ། དན་དམ་པར་ན། མ་ས་པ་ན་ཨ་་ང་ང123་། ཀན་བ་་་

མར་ང་བ་ན་་་[line 137] ཉས་ད་པས་ན་་་ས། ད་ན་ཡ་་འའ་ལ་་ས་པ་དང། ར། །ལ་འར་པ་ད་ད་ག་ནས་ཇ་་་

[line 138]ཞ་ན། ད་བཞན་ཤས་པའ་བས་ནས་ང་ཡན་པ། །ལ་འར་པའ་ནས་ང་ད་ཡན་ཏ། ད་བཞན་ཤས་པའ་

[line 139]བས་ནས་ན། ཡ་ཤས་ཆན་པས་ཆས་ཆས་་དངས་ས་་ད་ནས། ཆས་་དངས་མཉམ་པ་ཉད་ ་ངང་ལ་བས་

[line 140]པ་དང། བསད་ནམས་་ས་དཔ་་ད་པས་བསས་པ་དང། བསད་ནམས་ན་གས་བ་པའ་དབང་གས་རན་པ་ཆ་་

[line 141]ས་ལས་བ་པའ་ཞལ་ཡས་ཁང་བས་ནས་ཡན་ནང། ལ་འར་པའ་ནས་ང་ད་ཡན་ན། ད་ར་ཡང་ཅ་[line 142]མངན་ཞ་ན། ་བའ་ཏན་་ལས། ད་མ་ང་བར་དངས་ཉད་ཞང་ཞས་པ་ལ་བས་པས་བན། ད་པ་མ་[line 143]ངས་པའO་་རལ་ན། ཆས་་དངས་་བ་ལ་ཤ་ན་ད་ད། ད་པ་མ་ཉད་ཡང་ད་པའ་ང་བར ་མ་འབ་།[panel 7][line 144]ད་པ་མ་ཉད་ཆས་དངས་ཡན། ད་ན་ད་པར་མ་ར་ང། ད་པ་མས་O་མཐང་པ་ད།

སངས་ས་ཟས་པ་མ|ས|།[line 145]

ད་ར། སངས་ས་ཞང་ཡང་མ་པར་ད་ཅས་འང་། ཁམས་མ་འམ། ད་པ་མ་པ་འད་ངས་པའ་་རལ་[line 146]ན། ཞང་ད་པ་་བ་ཞ་ཉན་རས་་བཅད་པ་ད་ད། ད་པ་མ་ཉད་ཞང་ད་པ་ཡན། མཉམ་

123 Scribal error.




|ཉ་|ར་ཉད་ཆ་བའO་ཞ་བ་[line 147]ང་་བན་པའ་ནས་ད་ཉད། སངས་ས་ཐམས་ཅད་མཉམ་ར་བའO། སངས་ས་ཐམས་ཅད་་བད་

ཉད་ཆན་པའ124་[line 148]ལ་འར་པའ། ནས་ཡན་པ་འམ། ཡང་ན་སངས་ས་ན་ཞང་ཁམས་ད་པ་དང། ་དང་་་དང་་ང་དང་ཞལ་ད་ཁང་དང།

[line 149]ན་དང་རལ་མ་དང་དན་ད་ལས་བས་པར་ང་བས། ཡང། །སངས་ས་་ཡ་ཤས་ཉད་ད་ར་ང་། ལ་ ཤO་ན་ད་ད།

[line 150] ཅར་ང་ཡང། ཡ་ཤས་དང་ང་བས། ནས་ད་ཉད་སངས་ས་དང་མཉམ་པར་ར་བ་སངས་ས་དང་ཉས་་ད་པའ་བད་ཉད་ཆན་

[line 151]པའ་ནས་ཡན། འལ་ལས་ན་ལམ་ག་དབང་གས་ཞས་པ་ན། སངས་ས་་ཞང་ད་པར་ན་ལམ་བཏབ་པས།[line 152]ན125་ལམ་ནས་མཐར་ན་ཅང། ན་ལམ་ན་གས་བ་དབང་གས། རན་པ་ཆ་་ས་ཞ་ལ་བས་པའ་ཞང་

[line 153]ད་པར་འར་ར། འལ་ལས་དང་པའ་་ང་ཞས་པ། དཔར་འཇ་ན་ན་ན་མ་ཞ་་། མན་བས་ན་

[line 154]དང་པར་བད་ས་བཤམ་དས་པ་དང་འ་བས། འ་དལ་འཁར་བམ་ན། དང་པར་ཞལ་ཡས་ཁང་བད་དས་

[line 155]པས། དང་པའ་་ང་ཞས་། ལ་འར་པ་ད་ད་ག་ཕན་ལས་ཅ་་ཞ་ན། ད་བཞན་ཤས་པའ་ཕན་ལས་ང་[line 156]ཡན་བ། ལ་འར་པའ་ཕན་ལས་ང་ད་ཡན་ན། ད་་ཡང་ཅ་མངན་ཞ་ན། ཅO་ལས་ཕས126་པའ་ཏན་་ལས་

[line 157]འཇ་ན་ག་ཁམས་མང་པ་ལ་ད་་ཞས་། འཇ་ན་ག་ཁམས་ཡན་མན་་ན་སར་བ་་བ| |ས་[line 158]པ་འ་ལ། ན་ན་་ན། ར་བཏང་བ་འ་། ད་ཡང་དཔལ་་ན་་་དང་པ་ང་བ་O་སམས་བད་ཙམ་ན།[line 159]་་་བང་ཉས་ལས་ཅ་ཡར་ངས། ཅ་མར་ངས་པ་ད། ས་ལ་ཏས་པའ་ད་ཙམ་ལ། བང་[line 160]

ས་ཅ་ཙམ་་Oད་པ་ད། ་ན་་་སངས་ས་ང་མངན་པར་ས་པར་སངས་ས་པ་རངས་པར་[line 161]ག་ས་འལ་བ་དང། ས་པ་འཇམས་པ་ལ་བས་པའ་མད་ད་དང། ཕOན་ལས་ས་པར་མད།

124 Manuscript has one blank line after this syllable.

125 read ན་.126 read ཕས་.




[line 162]ནས། །དད་་ན་་་མངན་པར་སངས་ས་། ད་བཞན་ཤས་པ་་་མ་པར་ནན་པ་ཞས་་བར་ར་[line 163]པའO་ཡ་ཤས་་ན་གས127་ཟས་ནས། ད་ང་་་་བང་O་་ལ།128་འ་བ་ལ་མཐའ་་པ་ད་ད་་འཇO

[line 164]ན་ག་ཁམས་མང་པ་ལ་ད་་ཕOན་ལས་་ས་|ཆ་| ས་འ་བའ་དན་མད། ལ་འར་པ་ད་ད་O་ལངས་[line 165]ད་་་ད་འང་ཞ་ན། ད་བཞན་ཤས་པའ་ལང་ད་ང་ཡན་པ། ལ་འར་པའ་ལང་ད་ང་ད་[panel 8][line 166]ཡན་ན། ད་བཞན་ཤས་པའO་ལངས་ད་ན་་ང་ས་ན་གས་བ་པ་ལ། ལངས་ད་དང་ལ་འར་

[line 167]པའ་ལངས་ད་ང་ད་ཡན་ན།སངས་ས་པ་ཆས་་་། ཆས་་་ན་དངས་དང་ཡ་ཤས་ཉས་ད་པ་ལ་[line 168] ་བ་དང། ཆས་་་ན་སངས་ས་ཉ་ཅ་ལ་མཐའ་བ་མ་ཏས་པ། ས་ལ་ནས་པའ་ང་བ་སམས་པ་[line 169]མན་ཅད་ནས། ཉན་ཐས་དང་རང་ལ་བ་དང། ་དང་བཅས་པའ་འཇ་ན་ང་ལ་ཡང་ད་ད། སངས་ས་[line 170]ན་ས་་བས། ཆས་་་ལ་སངས་ས་ཞས་། ཆས་་འ་ན་བས་སམ། ལང་ད་བསམ་ཉOས་གOས་་[line 171]བ་པ་དང་ན་པས། ད་ལ་ལང་ད་པར་མད་ད། ས་་མ་ཡང་ཞས་པ་ན། ལང་ད་ས་པའ་་།[line 172]ས་་་ན་མན་་། མ་མ་ན་་ལས་ངས་ན་ཤས་པ་། ཆས་་་མན་མ་ད་པ་ལས་མ་ཡས་བཞན་[line 173]ཆས་་་མན་མ་ད་པ་ཉད། ང་བའ་ལང་ད་ས་པའ་་མན་མའ་་་འས་པར་ང་ལ།

[line 174]མན་མར་ན|་|ང་ཙམ་ཉད་ན། མན་མ་ད་པ་ཆས་་་ལས་ལ་ཙམ་ཡང་མ་ཡས་ཏ། ཉས་་ད་པ་ཤས་

[line 175]པས། ་་ནO་་ལས་ངས་ན། བ་པ་། མཐའ་ཉས་་་ང་བས་བ་པས། ས་ན་ལངས་ད་ས་[line 176]

པ་། འཇས་ན་དང་འཇ་ན་ལམ129

་འདས་པའ་ལང་ད་མ་ཉས་དང་ན་པའO་མ་འམ་ལང་ད་བསམ་[line 177]གས་་བ་པ་དང་ན་པ་ལ་ལངས་ད་པར་མད་ད། ་འO་ཞས་པ་ན་ལ་པའ་་། ཐབས་་་འ་[line 178]མ་འམ། ན་130་བས་ང་བསམ་གས་་བ་པ་དང་ན་པ་ལ་ལངས་ད་པར་མད་ད། ལ་པའ་ས་འ་བའ་

127 read ཉས་.128 ་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 ་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]དན་མད་པ་ཡང། འ་བ་ཅ་ར་འལ་བ་འམ། ཇO་ར་ད་པ་ཡད་བཞན་་འར་ན་ཏ། ད་བལ་བ་ད་པར་[line 180]ན་ས་བ། ཆས་་འ་རང་་ར131་བར་ཡང། མ་བ་ཅས་པ། ཆས་་་མན་མ་ད་པ་ཡན་དང།

རང་ག་ང་བར་[line 181]མ་བ་ཅས་པ། མན་མ་ད་ཅས་་བ་འམ། ང་བ་་བ་ཙམ་་ཡང་མ་བ་པའ་ར། བསམ་གས་་བ་[line 182]པ་དང་ན་བ་ལ་ལངས་ད་པར་མད་ད། ལང་ད་ས་པའ་་ན། བད་དང་ཞན་ག་དན་ན་མ་ས་[line 183]པར་མད་ད། ལ་པའ་་ན་འ་བ་འལ་བའO་ཡན་ཏན་དང་ན་པ་འམ། ཡང་ན་ས་པའ་་དང།སམས་ཅན་

[line 184] ་ལ་ན་ཡང་་དང་Oའ་ལ་པར་ལས་བས་པ་ཞན་ལས་ད་པར་་ར་པའ་ཡན་ཏན་དང་ན་པས། འ་བའ་[line 185]དན་མད་པ་ཉད་ལངས་ད་པ་ཡན། འལ་བ་མ་མ་ན། ཉན་ཐས་ས་འལ་བ་ལ་བཅམ་ན་འདས་ ཤ་་བ་

[line 186]པ་རབ་་ང་བ། དའ་བ་མད་པར་ན། ཐ་པ་ཆན་པས་འལ་བ་ལ། མ་པར་ང་བ་མད་ལངས་ད་ས་པའ་

[line 187]་ས་བ་པ་ད་ལ་ཏང་ང་འཛན་་ཆས་ན་པར་མད། སང་བའ་ཐ་པས་འལ་བ་ལ། དཔལ་་ན་་ར་བན་[line 188]ནས། ར་རབ་་ཟམ་ལ་བས་། བད་འལ་ཞང་ས་པར་འཇམས་པར་མད་ད། ཡང་ན་ར་པ་བསད་ནམས། ་ལ་

[line 189]མངན་མ་ད་པ་བཞར་ར་་ང། ད་བཞན་ཤས་པའ་འཁར་ང་ཡན་བ། ལ་འར་པའ་འཁར་ཡང་ད་ཡན་ཏ། ད་བཞན་

[panel 9][line 190]ཤས་པའ་འཁར་ན་འཇ་ན་དང་འཇ་ན་ལས་འདས་པ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཡན་པས། ལ་འར་བའ་འར 132་ཡང་

[line 191]ད་ཡན་ན། ད་ཡང་ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་དར་ད་པར་ར་པ་ན་་བ་ཡན། ར་པ་ཐམ་ཅད་་ང་ཞང་། ད་པས་[line 192]ན་འཁར་ཡན་པར་ན། ་ལ133་མན་ཞས་པ་ན། མན་ཉད་ད་པའ་་་དང། ད་ལས་དངས་ ང་ག་་

[line 193]་། མན་ཉད་ད་པའ་་་ན་ཆས་་། དངས་ང་ན་ས་་། ད་ར་ཆས་་་མན་མ་

131 read ང་.132 read འཁར་.133 read ་.




ད་པ་དང།

[line 194]ས་134་མན་མར་ང་བ་|ཉད་|ཉས་་ད་པར་་པ་ན་ལ་མན་དང་ན་པ་ལ་ཆང་ཞས་། འལ་པ་[line 195]ཐབས་ན་དངས་ང་ག་་། ས་་་མ་ཉས་ག་ཤས་རབ་ན་ཆས་་་དངས་ལ་་ཞས་། ་དOས་[line 196]ཞས་པ་ན། ཆས་་་། ཆས་་དངས་ས་ཆས་ཅན་ཐམས་ཅད་ལ་བ་པ་དང། དངས་ས་ར་བ་པར་ར་

[line 197]པའ་ཡ་ཤས་| ས་|ཉས་ད་པ། དངས་པ་དང་མན་མར་་དས་པ་ཆས་་ས་ང་བ་བ།མཉམ་ཉད་ཞས་

[line 198]པ་ན། ཆས་་་ལས་་ཞན་བ། ཆས་་་ཉད་ང་བའ་ལང་ད་ས་པའ་་། ཆས་་་མན་ད་པ་[line 199]ལ་མ་ཡས་བཞན། ལངས་ད་ས་པའ་་མན་མའO་མ་པར་ཡང་འང་ཞང་ང་ལ། ང་བཞན་་ང་།[line 200]མན་ད་པ་ལས་ཡས་ཏ། ཉས་་ད་པ་ན་མཉམ་པ་ཉད་ཅས་་། ཆས་་ས་ར་བ་པར་འཇ་ན་དང།

[line 201]འཇ་ན་ལས་འདས་པའ་ལངས་ད་དང་ན་པའ། ལངས་ད་ས་པའ་་ང་བ། ཀན་་བ་པ་ན་སལ་[line 202]པའ་་། ལ་པའ་ས་ང་ཀན་བ་བ། ཡང་ན་བ་པ་ར་ཏང་། ་དས་པ་ཆས་་ས་ང་བ།[line 203]ལངས་ད་ས་པའO་ས་ང་བ། ཀན་་བ་། ལ་པའ་་ང་བ་ཅས་། ད་ར་ས་པའ་ལ་

[line 204]འར་པས། སངས་ས་བཞན་མངན་མ་འར་ཞང། སངས་ | |ཨས་་བ་པར་ཅ|་|་མངན་ཞ་ན། སངས་ས་

[line 205]དང་ལ་འར་པའ་ད་ན། ལ་ས་པའ་ང་དང། སང་འའ་|མ་|མ་དང། མངལ་་་ང་ན་

ནས་པའ་འ་འ135

་ད་[line 206]བར་ཙམ་ཡད་ད། ད་ར་ཡང་ཅ་མངན་ཞ་ན། །ཉན་པར་འར་པའ་མ་བས་ན། ཞས་པ། ང་ག་འ་་ལ་རང་[line 207]བཞན་ག་་འལ་བའ་ཉན་པར་ར་པའ་མ་བས་ཡད། སང་འ་འ་་ལ་ན་ང་པ་ཆ་འལ་བའ་ཉན་[line 208]པར་ར་པའ་མ་བས་ཡད། ཉད་་་ལ་ཤས་པ། ང་་་་ཡང་་ང་ནས་མ་འས་ན་ཡང། ་དང་

[line 209]|ཡ|་136་ར་་འ། ་ཉད་་་བར་ངས། ས་ནས་ང་་འལ་བའ་ཉ137་པར་འར་བར་

ངས། སང་འའ་་་134 read ས་་་.135 read འ་.136 read ་.137 read ཉན་.




[line 210]ཡང་མངལ་ནས་མ་ང་ན་ཡང་ཝར་ས་དང། ་མ་དང་མ་པར་་འ། སང་འ་ཉད་་། སང་འར་ས་ནས་[line 211] ང། ང་པ་ཆ་ད་པ་འམས་པའO་ཉན་པར་འར་བར་ཉས། ད་དང་འ་བར་མཉམ་པ་ཉད་་ས་ས་པའ་

[line 212]ལ་འར་པ|འ་|ཡང། སངས་ས་ཁ་ན་བཞན་འཕན་ལས་ན་ས་བ་པ་|ན་|ཡང། ཆས་མཉམ་པ་ཉད་་ས་

[line 213]ན་ཡང། ཉན་ཐས་དང་རང་ལ་བར་་ས་ཏ། སངས་ས་་འར། སངས་ས་ཉད་་ར་ནས་ང།བད་དང་་ས་འལ་བ་དང་

[panel 10][line 214]ཆས་་འཁར་ལ་བར་བ་ལས་བས་པ། སངས་ས་་དངས་པ་ས་པར་འཛན། ཡང་ད་་ཟ་[line 215]བ་ལ་ཡང། །ང་མའ་དན་གས་བཤད། །ལ་འར་བ་ད་ད་ག་མཆད་པའ་ལ་ཡང་ཅ་ར་མཆད།[line 216]མཆད་པའ་ནས་དང། མཆད་པའ་ཐ་དད་པའ་ལ་གས་མཆད་དམ། དར་ད་པར་ས་ནས། བད་ལ་

[line 217]|མ་|བད་མཆད་དམ། ལ་ཅ་ར་མཆད་ཞ་ན། །བད་ལ་བད་མཆད་པས། འས་པ་ཀན་མཉས་ལ།[line 218]སམས་ཅན་ཀན་འངས་ཤང་ཚམ་མ། བར་ཅ་མངན་ཞ་ན། །་པ་ཡ་པ་ཤ་ལས། བད་མཆད་ཞས་པ།[line 219]རང་ག་སམས་་ཆས་ཉད་མ་ནར་པར། ར་པའ་ང་བ་་སམས་དང་ན་པས། བད་མཆད་པ་ཡན་ལ།[line 220]ད་བཞན་ཤས་པ་ཀན་ཡང་མཉས་པར་ས་པ་ཡན་ན། ཅ་་ཞ་ན། ད་བཞན་ཤས་པ་མས་ན། སམས་[line 221] ཅན་ག་སམས་་ཆས་ཉད་དམ། མཉམ་པ་ཉད་ས་་བ་ལས་ས་ལ་་མངའ་བ་དང། ལ་འར་

[line 222]པ་དར་|བཞན་|ཞ་གOས་མཉམ་ཉད་ཉས་་ད་པར་ས་འམ། །ར་པའ་ང་བ་སམས་པ།



Appendix: The Shorter Madhusādhu Treatise

The 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 fth 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.

Translation

Homage 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 the

yoga of accomplishment – from the four yogas. Also, the unsurpassed concentration – from the four absorptions. Thus resting (rnal ) is the reality, free from logical justication 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-bhagavan was this spoken by? From The Tantra Encompassing the Great

Empowerments:

In any of the worlds of the ten realmsYou won’t nd the Buddha.Mind itself is the perfect Buddha;

Don’t look for the Buddha elsewhere.

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

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

Everything has the characteristics of the sky,

138 While 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 The Four Yogas yielded no candidates.





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

Transcription

༆།།རལ་འབ་ཆན་པ་ནང་པ་ཐས་ཀ་ད་ཀ་ཏན་་ལས་ན་ཀ་ནང་ནས་ས་པའ་ས་ཚད། དཔལ་་་སམས་

འཔའ་པ་ལ་ཕག་འཚལ་ལ། ས་པན་མ་་སན་ས་མཛད་ད། ད་ཡང་རལ་ 139་རམ་ཞ་ལས། །ང་ཞན་ག་

རམས་འབ་དང། ། པ་པའ་རལ་ 140་ག་དང་་མཛད་ད། །ཏང་ང་འན་རམ་ཞ་ལས་ཀང་་མ་འ་ཏང་ང་འན་

ཏ། །ད་ལ་རལ། འབ་ཞས་བ་་ན་ཆས་ཀ་དབངས། །དང་ཐའ་ད་པ་་དགས་ལས་བའ། འབ། ཞས་བ་་

ན་འཇགས་ན་དང་འཇགས་ན་ལས་འདས་པ་འ་ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད། ། དབངས་་། གཅག་པ་ལ་བའ། །གས་ཆན་པ་ཞན་141། འས་་ཆན་པ་དང། ་པ་ཆན་པ་དང་སད་ནམས་ཆན་པ་དང། ཡ་ཤས་ཆན་པ་དང། ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་

ད་ཞན་གཤགས142་པའ་ང་ཞན་ཆས་ཉད་ལས། ཐ་མཆག་ཉད་་གས་་ལ་པ་འ། ། འད་དག་ད་ཀ་

ཏན་་ལས་ས་པ་ན། ས་པན143་ཀས་ང་ཟ་བམས་མ་ཡན་། །ཞལ་ནས་གངས་པ་ལས་ས་ཏ། ས་

ཀ་ཚད། ་་གཉས་མག་དང་་གམ་ཀས་ས་ཀ་ཡན་ལག་གས་པ་ཞན་། ག །ས །ཤད144་་

གམ་ཀས་ཏན་་འ་དན་གས་པའ་ཕ་། །སངས་ས་ཅམ་ན། འདས་གང་ནས་ཙལ་ཞ་ན། དང་ཆས་ས་

པ་འ་ཏན་་ལས་ཕགས་་འ་འཇག་རན145་གང་ནས་ཀང། །སངས་ས་ད་པ་ཨང146་་འ། །སམས་ཉད་

གས་པ། སངས་ས་ཏ། སངས་ས་གཞན་་མ་ལ་ཞག་ཟས་གངས་ཏ། སངས་ས་ཅམ། ན་འདས་ཕགས་

་ས་གམ་གང་ནས་ཀང་ད་པ་་འ་ག། ང་ག་སམ། ཙལ་དང་ད་པ་འ་ཏ། སམས་ཀ་ང་ཞན་

ཕན་འཆ་མ་ལག་པ་གས་ན། ཕ་ནང། ག་ཆས་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀ་ང་ཞན་ཡང་མཉམ་་ཉད་རམ་གཉས་ཀ་དན་

ཀས་ །སངས་ས་པ་གནས་པའ་དན་གས་པས་འ་། །སངས་ས་སམས་ལ་ཙལ་ལ། །སམས་དང་ཆས་

ཐམས་ཅད་་ང་ཞན་ཅ་་་ཞQ་ན། །དཔལ་མཆག་དང་པ་འ་ཏན་་འ་ནང་ནས། ཐམས་ཅད་ནམ་་འ་མཚན་ཉད་ད།

ནམ་་ལ་ཡང་མཚན་ཉད་ད། །ད་ཉད་འཇག147

139 read འབ་.140 read འབ་.141 read ཞན་.142 read གཤགས་.143 read དཔན་.144 read ཅད་.145 read ན་.146 read འང་.147 read འཇག་.



Glossary

Note: 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

OrganizationKatok kaḥ thog

Author KatokDampaDeshek kaḥ thog dam pa bde gshegs

PersonLongchenpaklong chen pa

Termcenter kyildkyil

TextualCollection

Kangyur bka’ ’gyur

OrganizationKagyübka’ brgyud

OrganizationKadampabka’ gdams pa

DoxographicalCategory

transmittedscripture

Kamabka’ ma

Author Kawa Peltsek ska ba dpal brtsegs

Termmaṇḍala of spontaneously

present 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

Termrevolutionkhenglok kheng log

PersonTrisong Detsenkhri srong lde btsan

Termencirclingkhor ’khor

Ga


Termgigu gi gu

PersonLangdarma glang dar ma

TextSūtra Gathering All Intentions

Gongpa Düpé Dodgongs pa ’dus pa’imdo

TextThe Commentaryon theGuhyagarbhaTantra

Gyükyi GyelpoChenpo Pel Sangwé Nyingpö Drelpa

rgyud kyi rgyal pochen po dpal gsang ba’i snying po’i ’grel pa


tantric commentaryGyündrelrgyud ’grel


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

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

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

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



Textual GroupSeventeen TantrasGyü Chupdünrgyud bcu bdun

TextGeneral Presentation of theTantric Canon

Gyüdé Namzhak rgyud sde rnam gzhag

Textual GroupSix LampsDrönmé Namdruk sgron me rnam drug

Nga


Termnonexistentngömédngos med

Termearly diffusionngadar snga dar

TermSan. mantrangak sngags

Ca


Terma sign that closes acitationchéces

Termonenesschikpa gcig pa

TextTantra Proceeding from the One

Chiklé Tröwé Tantra gcig las phros pa’i tantra

TextThe Tantra Proceeding fromthe One

Chiklé Tröpé Gyü gcig las ’phros pa’irgyud

Cha


Termtrue nature of realitychönyichos nyid

TextThe Great Perfection of All Phenomena Equal to the Ends of theSky

Chö Tamché DzokpaChenpo NamkhéTadang Nyampé GyüChenpo

chos thams cadrdzogs pa chen po nammkha’i mtha’ dang mnyam pa’i rgyud chen po

Ja


PersonJikmé Lingpa’jigs med gling pa

Nya


Author Nyangrel Nyima Özer nyang ral nyi ma ’od zer

Person Nyen Pelyang gnyan dpal dbyangs

Termnondualitynyisumé gnyis su med

Termsamenessnyamnyimnyam nyid

Termgreat samenessnyamnyi chenpomnyam nyid chen po

Termsamenessnyampanyimnyam pa nyid

Organization Nyingmarnying maText Nyingma Kama

Gyeparnying ma bka’ margyas pa

TextualCollection

Nyingma Gyübumrnying ma rgyud ’bum


Seminal Heart Nyingtik snying thig




Termritual servicenyenpabsnyen pa

Ta


Termabsorptiontingngendzinting nge ’dzinTermviewtawalta ba

Text Esoteric Instructions on theStages of the View

Tawé Khyepé Menngak

lta ba’i khyad pa’iman ngag

TextualCollection

Tengyur bstan ’gyur

Termhidden treasureterma gter ma

Tha


Text Denition of theVehicles

Tekpa ChichingkyiUchok

theg pa spyi bcingskyi dbu phyogs

TextTekpa Chiching Tsadrel

theg pa spyi bcingsrtsa ’grel

Da


Author 1122-1192Dampa Deshek dam pa bde gshegs

Termvajra boulder dorjé pabongrdo rje pha bong

TextThe Questions and

Answers onVajrasattva

Dorjé Sempé Zhülenrdo rje sems pa’i zhus

lan

Text Denkarmaldan dkar ma

Na


Termwithinnangnang

Author Nordrang Orgyannor brang o rgyan

Author Nupchen gnubs chen

Author 9th-10thcentury

Nupchen SanggyéYeshé

gnubs chen sangsrgyas ye shes

Termrestingnelrnal

Text Neljor Mikgi Samtenrnal ’byor mig gibsam gtan

Termappearancesnangwa snang ba

Pa


Term poti po ti

TextThe ExtensiveCommentary on the

GuhyagarbhaTantra

Pel Sangwé NyingpöGyacher Shepé

Drelpa

dpal gsang ba’i snying po’i rgya cher

bshad pa’i ’grel pa


Crown PithChiti spyi ti




Pha


TermTibetantransliteration of theChinese fu shi

pushi phu shi

Author Pushi Menghwé Gyok phu shi meng hwe’i’gyog

Ba


Term benchungban chung

Author Butönbu ston

Termusually “daughter”or “young woman”;

“mother”

bumobu mo

TextualCollection

Collected Tantrasof Vairocana

Bairö Gyübumbai ro’i rgyud ’bum

Termusually “daughter”or “young woman”;“mother”

bomobo mo

Publisher Böjong MimangPetrünkhang

bod ljongs mi dmangsdpe skrun khang

TextThe Garland of White Crystals

Bö Silbü Jungwa JöpaShelkar Trengwa

bod sil bu’i byung babrjod pa shel dkar phreng ba

OrganizationBönpobon po

Termawakened mind jangchupkyi sembyang cub kyi sems

Term jangchupsembyang cub sems

Term bodhicittaawareness

jangchupkyi semkyirikpa

byang chub kyi semskyi rig pa

Term jangchupsembyang chub sems

Term bodhicittaawareness

jangchup semkyirikpa

byang chub sems kyirig pa

Text Meditation on the Awakened Mind

Jangchup Semgompabyang chub semsbsgom pa

Termunsurpassedconcentration

lamé tingngendzinbla ma’i ting nge’dzin

TextThe Tantra Encompassing theGreat Empowerments

Wangchen DüpéTantra

dbang chen bsdus pa’itan tra

TextTestament of BaWazhédba’ bzhed

Termheaded scriptuchendbu can

Terminseparabilityyermédbyer med

union jor ’byor PersonDro Könchokpel’bro dkon mchog dpal

TextTestament of Ba Bazhé sba bzhed

TextThe Secret Handful Bepé Gumchung sbas pa’i rgum chung

Termunion and liberation jordröl sbyor sgrol




Ma


Author Madusaduma du sa du

Author Madusanduma du san duText Brief Precepts of

Mahāyoga Mahayogé Lungdu Düpa

ma ha yo ga’i lung dubsdus pa

Termesoteric instructionsmenngak man ngag

TextGarland of Views Menngak TawéTrengwa

man ngag lta ba’i phreng ba

Termmantraman tra

Text Armor against Darkness

Münpé Gochamun pa’i go cha

PersonMeng Hwekyimmeng hwa’i kyim

Tsa


PlaceTsongkhatsong kha

Termefforttselbrtsal

Tsha


Termmodetsültshul

Dza



Great PerfectionDzokchenrdzogs chen

Term perfectiondzokpardzogs pa


Great PerfectionDzokpa Chenpordzogs pa chen po

Term perfection stagedzokrimrdzogs rim

Zha


Termzhapkyu zhabs kyu

Terma sign that closes acitation

zhé zhes

Term basiszhi gzhi

Termsingle basiszhichik gzhi gcig

Za


ClanZur zur

LineageZur traditionZurluk zur lugs

YaTypeDatesOtherEnglishPhoneticsWylie

Termyatak ya btags

Termyidam yi dam

Termspace of wisdomyeshé ying ye shes dbyings

Termtotal perfectionyongsu dzokpa yongs su rdzogs pa




Ra


Termratak ra btags

Termyoga of the naturerangzhingyi neljor rang bzhin gyi rnal ’byor

TextTantra of the Mountain Peak

Riwö Tsekpé Tantrari bo’i rtsegs pa’i tantra

Termawarenessrikparig pa

TextTantra of Self-Arisen Awareness

Rikpa RangshargiGyü

rig pa rang shar girgyud

TextCuckoo of Awareness

Rikpé Kujuk rig pa’i khu byug

Text Rinpoché Parkhaprin po che spar khabTermsingle tastero chik ro gcig

Termsingle tastero chikparo gcig pa

LineageRong-Longtradition

Ronglong luk rong klong lugs

PersonRongzomparong zom pa

La


Termlasok la sogs

Termletsok las bstsogsTermtransmitted preceptslunglung

Author Lochen Dharmashrilo chen dharma shrī

Sha


Termshé shad

Termshetapbshad thabs

Sa


OrganizationSakya sa skya

TermSan. guhya mantrasecret mantrasangngak gsang sngags

MonasterySangpu gsang phu

Text Armor against Darkness, the Sunof Yoga that Clearsthe Eyes: ACommentary on theSūtra of the Enlightened Intention of All

Buddhas

Sanggyé TamchekyiGongpa Düpa Dö Kandrel MünpéGocha Demik Seljé Neljor Nyima

sangs rgyas thams cad kyi dgongs pa ’dus pamdo’i dka’ ’grel mun pa’i go cha lde mig gsal byed rnal ’byor nyi ma

Publisher Sitrön Mirik Petrünkhang

si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang

Time rangePeriod of Fragmentation

Silbü Dü sil bu’i dus

Termmindsem sems




Termmind’s realitysemkyi chönyi sems kyi chos nyid

Termmind itself semnyi sems nyid


Mind SeriesSemdé sems sde

Termmind’s appearanceas phenomena

sem nangwé chötamché

sems snang ba’i chosthams cad

TextThe Oral Teaching of the Lord of Secrets

Sangdak Zhellung gsang bdag zhal lung

TextThe GuhyagarbhaTantra in One Hundred Chapters

Sangwé Nyingpo Dekhonanyi NgepaGyuntrül Gyapa

gsang ba’i snying pode kho na nyid nges pa sgyu ’phrul brgya pa

TextThe Guhyagarbha

Tantra in ThirteenChapters

Sangwé Nyingpo

Dekhonanyi NgepaGyuntrül Drawa Lama Chenpo

gsang ba’i snying po

de kho na nyid nges pa sgyu ’phrul dra babla ma chen po

Termnewsarma gsar ma

Text A Lamp for the Eyes of Contemplation

Samten MikgiDrönmébsam gtan mig gi sgron me

Text A Lamp for the Eyes of Contemplation

Samten Mikdrönbsam gtan mig sgron

Author Sönam Tsemobsod nams rtse mo

Ha


PersonHwegok hwa’i ’gog

Termspontaneous presence

lhünkyi druplhun kyis grub

Termspontaneous presence

lhüngyi druplhun gyis grub

A


PlaceAmdoa mdoSanskrit

TypeDatesSanskritEnglishPhoneticsWylie

Termanu


Anuyoga

Text Aparamitāyurnāma-mahāyāna-sūtra

Tsepaktu Mepa Zhejawa TekpaChenpö Do

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

Termati


Atiyoga

Buddhist deity AvalokiteśvaraChenrezik spyan ras gzigs

Buddhist deity AvalokiteśvaraChenrezik Wangpo spyan ras gzigs dbang po

Buddhist deity Bhagavan




Termbhavanāexistentngöpodngos po

Termbhūmi

Termbodhicitta

Termbodhisattva jangchup sempabyang chub sems dpa’ Buddhist deity Buddha

Author Buddhagupta

Person Dānaśīla

Termdharmadhātuspace of realitychökyi yingchos kyi dbyings

Termdharmakāyachökuchos sku

Author Dignāga

TermGaruḍakhyungkhyung

TextGuhyagarbha

TextGuhyagarbhaTantra

TextGuhyasamāja

TextGuhyasamājatantra

The Tantra of theSecret Assembly

Sangwa Düpé Tantra gsang ba ’dus pa’i tantra


Guhyayāna

PersonGuhyeśvara

Non-Buddhistdeity

Indra


Kālacakra

TermkāyaBuddha bodyku sku

Text Laṅkāvatāra sūtraThe Sūtra of the Mission to Laṇka

Langkar Shekpé Dolang kar gshegs pa’imdo

Termmadhusweet or pleasant

Person Madhusādhu

Termmahā

Doxographical

Category

Mahāyāna


Mahāyoga

Termmaṇḍalakyinkhor dkyil ’khor

Person Mañjuśrīmitra

Non-Buddhistdeity

Māra

Textual Group Māyājāla Illusion WebGyuntrül sgyu ’phrul

Termmudrā

Termmudrāchakgya phyag rgyaTermnimitta perceptual

characteristictsenmamtshan ma

Termnirmāṇakāyatrülku sprul sku

Termnirvāṇanyangenlé depamya ngan las ’das pa

Person PadmasambhavaPema Jungné padma ’byung gnas




Text Prajñāpāramitā

Text Prajñāpāramitā-hṛdaya Sūtra

Text Prajñāpāramitānaya-adhyardhaśatika

Text PrajñāpāramitāSūtra

Paröltu Chinpé Do pha rol tu phyin pa’imdo


PrajñāpāramitāSūtra

Person Prajñāvārman

Term pratyekabuddharangsanggyérang sangs rgyas

Termrūpakāya

Term samayadamtsik dam tshig

Term saṃbhogawealth

Term saṃbhogakāyalongchökulongs spyod sku

Term saṃsārakhorwa’khor ba

TextSarvabuddhasamāyogatantra

Tantra of the Unionwith All Buddhas

Sanggyé Tamché Dang NyamparJorwéTantra

sangs rgyas thams cad dang mnyam par sbyor ba’i tan tra

TextSarvatathāgata-tattvasaṃgraha

The Symposium of Truth

Dezhin ShekpaTamchekyi Dekhonanyi Düpa

de bzhin gshegs pathams cad kyi de khona nyid bsdus pa

TextSarvatathāgata-

tattvasaṃgrahaTantra

The Symposium of

Truth Tantra

Dezhin Shekpa

Tamchekyi Dekhonanyi Düpé Do

de bzhin gshegs pa

thams cad kyi de khona nyid bsdus pa’imdo

Term sādhanadruptap sgrub thabs

Term sādhusage

PersonSādhukīrti

PersonSādhuputra

Term stūpachötenmchod rten

Text sugātagarbha Deshek Nyingpobde gshegs snying po

PlaceSumeru

Rirapri rab

Author 9th c.?Sūryaprabhasiṃha

Author 9th c.?Sūryasiṃhaprabha

Term sūtradomdo

Term svasaṃvedanaself-referentialawareness

ranggi rikparang gi rig pa

Term svasaṃvittiself-referentialawareness

ranggi rikparang gi rig pa

TextŚatasāhasrikā- prajñāpāramitā

Sūtra

Sherapkyi ParöltuChinpa Tongtrak

Gyapa

shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa stong phrag

brgya paPersonŚākyamuni

Term śrāvakanyentöpanyan thos pa

TextŚrīparamādyatantra

The Tantra of the Primal SupremeGlorious One

Pelchok DangpöTantra

dpal mchog dang po’itan tra

Termtantra




Termtantrika

Termtathāgatadezhin shekpade bzhin gshegs pa

TextUpāyapāśapadma-

mālā Tantra

The Noose of

Method

Upayapashau pa ya pa sha

TextUpāyapāśa Tantra

TextUṣniṣasitātapātra Dhāraṇī

PersonVairocana

Buddhist deityVajrapāṇiChakna Dorjé phyag na rdo rje

Buddhist deityVajrasattvaDorjé Sempardo rje sems dpa’

Buddhist deityVajraviśkambhanaDorjé Nampar Nönpardo rje rnam par gnon pa

Doxographical

Category

Vajrayāna

Termvastuexistentngöpodngos po

Author 8th c.?Vilāsavajra

PersonVimalamitra

Termviśkambhana“pillaring apart” of the two realms

Term yogayoganeljor rnal ’byor

Term yogi

Term yoginneljorparnal ’byor pa

Chinese

TypeDatesChineseEnglishPhoneticsWylie

Place Dunhuang

Term fu shi

Place Hexi

Author Huai Yu

Place Liangzhou

Author Meng

Author Meng Huai

Author Ouyang Xiu

PlaceShazhou

Term zhena 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 The

Four 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 [Denition

of 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’i go 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 Enlightened

Intention 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 of

Secrets]. An electronic le 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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Cuevas, Bryan J. “Some Reections on the Periodization of Tibetan History.” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, no. 10 (2006): 44-55.

Dalton, Jacob. “The Early Development of the Padmasambhava Legend in Tibet:A Study of IOL Tib J 644 and Pelliot tibétain 307.” Journal of the AmericanOriental Society 124, no. 4 (2004): 734-63.

———. “A Crisis of Doxography: How Tibetans Organized Tantra during the8th-12th Centuries.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 28, no. 1 (2005): 115-82.

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Dalton, Jacob, and Sam van Schaik. Tibetan Tantric Manuscripts from Dunhuang: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Stein Collection at the British Library. Leiden:EJ Brill, 2006.

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———. “The Seven Descents and the Early History of rNying ma transmissions.”In The Many Canons of Tibetan Buddhism, edited by Helmut Eimer and DavidGermano, 225-59. Leiden: Brill, 2002.

———. “The Funerary Transformation of the Great Perfection (Rdzogs chen).” Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, no. 1 (October 2005): 1-54. http://www.thlib.org/?tid=T1219

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Herrman-Pfant, Adelheid. “The Lhan kar ma as a Source for the History of TibetanBuddhism.” In The Many Canons of Tibetan Buddhism (PIATS 2000), edited

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Northern Sung Period.” Acta Asiatica, no. 64 (1993): 17-37.Jackson, David. “Birds in the Egg and Newborn Lion Cubs: Metaphors for the

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———. Enlightenment by Single Means. Vienna: Der Österreichischen Akademieder Wissenschaften, 1994.

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