Theg chen rgyud bla ma'i don bsdus pa

ཐེག་ཆེན་རྒྱུད་བླ་མའི་དོན་བསྡུས་པ།

Condensed Meaning of the "Ultimate Continuum of the Mahāyāna"

Commentary of Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra

SOURCE TEXT

The first Tibetan commentary written on the Uttaratantra by the translator of the only extant Tibetan translation of the treatise. Furthermore, since the author is also the namesake of the Ngok tradition (rngog lugs) of exegesis of the Uttaratantra, known for its analytic take on the work, this text was highly influential in the conception of a uniquely Tibetan approach to the Uttaratantra and the notion of buddha-nature.

Relevance to Buddha-nature

This is an essential text for the study of buddha-nature teachings in Tibet as its author and his teachings formed the basis for one of the two major schools of thought on Maitreya's teachings.

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Philosophical positions of this text

Text Metadata

Text exists in	~ Tibetan ~ English
Literary Genre	~ Commentary Synoptic - bsdus don 'grel pa
Commentary of	~ RKTST 3363

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People/Rngog blo ldan shes rab

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Book

Buddha-Nature and Emptiness

An essential study of a key text that presents buddha-nature theory and its transmission from India to Tibet, this book is the most thorough history of buddha-nature thought in Tibet and is exceptional in its level of detail and scholarly apparatus. It serves as a scholarly encyclopedia of sorts with extensive appendices listing every existent commentary on the Ratnagotravibhāga (Uttaratantraśāstra), as well as covering Ngok Lotsawa's commentarial text and his philosophical positions related with other Tibetan thinkers.

Kano, Kazuo. Buddha-Nature and Emptiness: rNgog Blo-ldan-shes-rab and A Transmission of the Ratnagotravibhāga from India to Tibet. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 91. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 2016.

Kano, Kazuo. Buddha-Nature and Emptiness: rNgog Blo-ldan-shes-rab and A Transmission of the Ratnagotravibhāga from India to Tibet. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 91. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 2016.;Buddha-Nature and Emptiness;Buddha-nature as Emptiness;History;History of buddha-nature in Tibet;Madhyamaka;Ngok Tradition;Textual study;The doctrine of buddha-nature in Tibetan Buddhism;Theg chen rgyud bla ma'i don bsdus pa;Sajjana;Rngog blo ldan shes rab;Geluk;Maitrīpa;Jñānaśrīmitra;Ratnākaraśānti;Prajñākaramati;Vibhūticandra;Kazuo Kano; Ngok Lotsāwa Loden Sherab;རྔོག་བློ་ལྡན་ཤེས་རབ་;rngog blo ldan shes rab;rngog lo tsA ba;lo chen blo ldan shes rab;blo ldan shes rab;རྔོག་ལོ་ཙཱ་བ་;ལོ་ཆེན་བློ་ལྡན་ཤེས་རབ་;Ngok Lotsāwa;Ngok Loden Sherab;Lochen Loden Sherab;Loden Sherab;Buddha-Nature and Emptiness: rNgog Blo-ldan-shes-rab and A Transmission of the Ratnagotravibhāga from India to Tibet;rngog blo ldan shes rab

Article

RNgog blo ldan shes rab's Topical Outline of the Ratnagotravibhāga Discovered at Khara Khoto

1) Among the fifty or so compositions of Rngog lo, most are still unavailable and only nine works have so far been published. To these works we can add our topical outline of the RGV (rgyud bla ma’i bsdus don) preserved in a folio discovered at Khara Khoto, which originally consisted of two folios. Its authorship could be confirmed from its colophon as well as by comparing its contents to another lengthy RGV commentary (the Essential Meaning) ascribed to Rngog lo. Our manuscript is thus the earliest Tibetan text that systematically outlines the RGV, and it has made a fundamental contribution to the development of the Tibetan exegetical tradition of the RGV.

2) Rngog lo seems to have used the term bsdus don (or its equivalents) to refer to two kinds of works, namely “topical outline” and “essential meaning,” for he composed two works on the RGV―a brief topical outline and a lengthy essential meaning―which bear titles containing the term bsdus don and its equivalent don bsdus pa, respectively. Among Rngog lo’s available writings, our Khara Khoto manuscript and the Byang chub sems dpa’i spyod pa la ’jug pa’i don bsdus pa offer the only testimony that bsdus don (and its equivalent don bsdus pa) refers to a “topical outline,” as he often uses the term bsdus don to indicate a lengthy “essential meaning” in his other commentarial works. The first usage was common among Tibetan masters during the early and middle phyi dar period, whereas the latter was generally rare. This rare usage is most likely influenced by the piṇḍārtha sub-genre of Indian commentaries.

3) Our manuscript has some serious textual problems, such as missing words, illegible words, syntactic ambiguity, and a missing folio. However, we can solve many of those problems by referring to corresponding sentences in the other two works on the RGV, namely, Rngog lo’s Essential Meaning and Phywa pa’s Topical Outline.

4) The colophon of our manuscript does not tell us when the work was composed or copied. We can only deduce an approximate date of the manuscript to be some time between ca. 1092 (a possible terminus post quem of the composition of the work) and 1374 (the year of the destruction of Khara Khoto). The contents of our manuscript and other relevant works discovered at Khara Khoto show that the Tibetan scholastic tradition of the

Bka’ gdams pa had spread there. (Kano, conclusion, 170)

Kano, Kazuo. "rNgog blo ldan shes rab's Topical Outline of the Ratnagotravibhāga Discovered at Khara Khoto." In Contributions to Tibetan Buddhist Literature. PIATS 2006: Proceedings of the Eleventh Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Königswinter, 2006, edited by Orna Almogi, 127–94. Halle (Saale), Germany: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies GmbH, 2008.

Kano, Kazuo. "rNgog blo ldan shes rab's Topical Outline of the Ratnagotravibhāga Discovered at Khara Khoto." In Contributions to Tibetan Buddhist Literature. PIATS 2006: Proceedings of the Eleventh Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Königswinter, 2006, edited by Orna Almogi, 127–94. Halle (Saale), Germany: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies GmbH, 2008.;RNgog blo ldan shes rab's Topical Outline of the Ratnagotravibhāga Discovered at Khara Khoto;Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra;Rngog blo ldan shes rab;Theg chen rgyud bla ma'i don bsdus pa;Kazuo Kano

Translations & Scholarship

Book

Buddha-Nature and Emptiness

An essential study of a key text that presents buddha-nature theory and its transmission from India to Tibet, this book is the most thorough history of buddha-nature thought in Tibet and is exceptional in its level of detail and scholarly apparatus. It serves as a scholarly encyclopedia of sorts with extensive appendices listing every existent commentary on the Ratnagotravibhāga (Uttaratantraśāstra), as well as covering Ngok Lotsawa's commentarial text and his philosophical positions related with other Tibetan thinkers.

Kano, Kazuo. Buddha-Nature and Emptiness: rNgog Blo-ldan-shes-rab and A Transmission of the Ratnagotravibhāga from India to Tibet. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 91. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 2016.

Kano, Kazuo. Buddha-Nature and Emptiness: rNgog Blo-ldan-shes-rab and A Transmission of the Ratnagotravibhāga from India to Tibet. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 91. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 2016.;Buddha-Nature and Emptiness;Buddha-nature as Emptiness;History;History of buddha-nature in Tibet;Madhyamaka;Ngok Tradition;Textual study;The doctrine of buddha-nature in Tibetan Buddhism;Theg chen rgyud bla ma'i don bsdus pa;Sajjana;Rngog blo ldan shes rab;Geluk;Maitrīpa;Jñānaśrīmitra;Ratnākaraśānti;Prajñākaramati;Vibhūticandra;Kazuo Kano; Ngok Lotsāwa Loden Sherab;རྔོག་བློ་ལྡན་ཤེས་རབ་;rngog blo ldan shes rab;rngog lo tsA ba;lo chen blo ldan shes rab;blo ldan shes rab;རྔོག་ལོ་ཙཱ་བ་;ལོ་ཆེན་བློ་ལྡན་ཤེས་རབ་;Ngok Lotsāwa;Ngok Loden Sherab;Lochen Loden Sherab;Loden Sherab;Buddha-Nature and Emptiness: rNgog Blo-ldan-shes-rab and A Transmission of the Ratnagotravibhāga from India to Tibet;rngog blo ldan shes rab

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