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| | #REDIRECT[[Books/The_Uttaratantra_in_the_Land_of_Snows]][[Category:Redirects]] |
| |BookParentPage=Research/Secondary Sources
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| |PersonName=Tsering Wangchuk
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| |PersonPage=Wangchuk, T
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| |PersonImage=https://research.tsadra.org/index.php/Wangchuk,_Tsering#/media/File:Wangchuk_tsering_U_San_Francisco.jpg
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| |BookEssay=Tsering Wangchuk's The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows is a clear and concise introduction to the history of the Uttaratantra and buddha-nature theory in pre-modern Tibet. It is an ideal introduction for anyone not yet familiar with the buddha-nature debate in Tibet. Wangchuk summarizes the writings and views of several of the most important Tibetan philosophers who weighed in on buddha-nature between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries from Ngok Lotsāwa through Sakya Paṇḍita to Dolpopa and Gyeltsabje.
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| The book is divided into three main sections: early Kadam thinkers who attempted to fold the Uttaratantra's positive-language teaching on buddha-nature into mainstream Madhyamaka doctrine of non-affirming negation. They did so by asserting that buddha-nature was in fact a synonym of emptiness, and was therefore a definitive teaching. The second stage was reactions during the thirteenth century. Sakya Paṇḍita, for example, rejected the conflation of buddha-nature and emptiness and declared the teaching to be provisional; early Kagyu thinkers revived the positive-language teachings and asserted that such statements were definitive; and Dolpopa taught "other-emptiness," the strongest expression of positive-language doctrine ever advocated in Tibet. Finally, in the fourteenth century a number of mainly Geluk thinkers such as Gyeltsabje reacted against Dolpopa and all synthesis of Yogacāra and Madhyamaka thought, relegating the Uttaratantra again to provisional status.
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| The advantage of Wangchuk's historical frame is that all assertions are placed in easy context of an opponent or supporter's writing, thus reminding the reader that buddha-nature theory in Tibet is an ongoing conversation, a debate between the two fundamental doctrinal poles of positive and negative descriptions of the ultimate.
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