[page 70] Sacred texts or scriptures, transmitted either orally or in written form, are common to all the world's religious traditions. In some traditions these texts are relatively brief and unitary, like the Koran, for example. In others they are longer and spring from various sources, but are brought together in a single compilation, as in the case of the Christian Bible. In such instances the resulting collection is known as a canon, which is not one book, but many. These many books, however, share a common identity by virtue of the particular sanctity or authority attributed to them, which sets them apart from other books. Not every work of religious literature is scripture, after all, but only that which for some reason is thought to be especially sacred. For Buddhists, whose canonical literature is extraordinarily prolific, the sacredness of their scriptures depended originally on their utterance by the Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama. Insofar as we can determine it, the canon1 transmitted by Gautama's followers after his death consisted of two principal sets of texts, the Dharma or Sūtras (discourses delivered by the Buddha, or in some cases by his disciples, but with his blessing) and the Vinaya (the corpus of monastic regulations, with the various traditions relating to their original promulgation).[page 71] Later most schools added a third collection of summaries and systematic restatements of doctrine, the Abhidharma. These three collections or "baskets" (piṭaka) were passed down orally for several centuries, and as the Buddhist community split into different ordination lineages and schools, the Buddhist canon or Tripiṭaka ("Three Baskets"), which can hardly have been fixed even in the lifetime of the founder, diverged correspondingly, so that by the beginning of the Common Era there were various "canons" in existence. (Of these only one has survived to the twentieth century relatively complete, but with later modifications that scholars are now beginning to address: the Pāli Canon of the Theravādin school, which was committed to writing in the first century B.C.E.) We are unsure precisely to what extent these collections were ever considered "closed," setting the texts in them apart from others in circulation, but we know that Buddhists worked with very definite ideas about authenticity, about what could be accepted as the word of the Buddha (buddhavacana) and what could not (see Lamotte; Ray; Davidson). And we also know that Buddhists of all "Mainstream" schools (on this term see Harrison, 1992b: 45, n. 8) continued to produce works of literature, which caused no problems as far as the borderline between the canonical and the non-canonical was concerned, as long as they were not attributed to the Buddha.

This situation changed around the beginning of the Common Era with the advent of the Mahāyāna, a loose pan-Buddhist movement which, while it may have found more favorable conditions for growth within some Mainstream schools than others, soon overran their sectarian boundaries. To promote the various doctrinal and cultic innovations which were their characteristic concern, the followers of the Mahāyāna produced an enormous number of new texts claiming the status of buddhavacana. These then circulated in an uneasy relationship with the canons of the traditional schools, which had in many cases furnished the raw materials for their composition. Although this was in one sense an "anti-canon," co-existing with the Mainstream collections in India while challenging their claims to exclusive authenticity and completeness, this alternative set of scriptures was itself never "closed." Rather, it remained an "open canon," a contradiction in terms evidently occasioned by the need to assign the texts a certain primacy and yet not close the door on further creativity.2 As for the contents of this "canon," we can only speculate as to what[page 72] texts were available at any given time or place,3 but we may assume that most Mahāyānists can hardly have had at their disposal the huge collections of their scriptures we now possess. It is much more likely that, in addition to the traditional canons of the schools they belonged to, they had access to a limited number of Mahāyāna texts, in some cases perhaps to compendia of them. We know of two of these major sūtra collections, the Mahāsaṃnipāta and the Ratnakūṭa, the compilation of which poses difficult historical problems, although some of the texts in them are known to date back to the beginnings of the Mahāyāna. Alongside them we might also place "mega-scriptures" like the Avataṃsaka and the various longer versions of the Prajñāpāramitā ("Perfection of Wisdom"), one of the most philosophically important productions of the Mahāyāna. Such longer texts and text-compendia may well have done duty as a type of Mahāyāna Buddhist canon.

This situation was further complicated when a new movement known as the Vajrayāna or Tantric Buddhism began to take shape towards the middle of the first millennium. In fact the production of sacred literature simply continued unabated, while the themes addressed changed to suit the needs and tastes of the times. In this new wave of works, which are known as tantras, the ritual and iconographical repertoire of Mahāyāna Buddhism was extended, while its doctrines were stretched and remolded so as to harness the power of sexual desire and the potency of sexual symbolism (among other things) in the service of the quest for liberation. Although the tantras do indeed qualify as scriptures, given the circumstances of their production and use, a tantric canon was even less likely to emerge than a Mahāyāna canon. By the close of the first millennium, then, towards the end of its life in its homeland, Indian Buddhism was a complex amalgam of three strains—Mainstream, Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna—and it is this multi-layered tradition and its equally complex scriptural heritage which the Tibetans have inherited and passed down to the present day. Without some appreciation of this background, it is impossible to understand the canon which the Tibetans developed.

Tibetan translations of Buddhist scriptures, mostly Mahāyāna texts, began to be made in the seventh century C.E.; this is the beginning of the snga dar, the period of the first diffusion of Buddhism[page 73] in Tibet. Initially the production of these translations seems to have been a haphazard and irregular business, but significantly the central political authority soon moved to take control of the process. At the beginning of the ninth century, on the instructions of the Tibetan king, a group of Indian and Tibetan scholars devised a new set of guidelines and a new terminology for translating Buddhist texts, intended to be binding on all future translators. Some of the results of this remarkable attempt at literary standardization survive in the bilingual (later multilingual) glossary known generally as the Mahāvyutpatti,4 and in its accompanying volume, the sGra sbyor bam po gnyis pa (see Ishikawa). At the same time that new texts were being translated, previous translations were collected and revised by the committee, so that their wording could be brought into line with the new terminology. Lists of works so revised were made, one of which, the catalogue known as the lDan (or lHan) kar ma, has survived.5 The lDan kar ma provides no evidence that there was any move at this time towards setting limits to a Tibetan canon as such, presumably because no Mahāyāna or Vajrayāna canon existed in India. What it does show, however, is that even at this early stage Tibetans were beginning to classify Buddhist literature according to certain principles; and as we shall see, it is this attempt to order the scriptures, rather than to circumscribe them, which is most constitutive of Tibetan canon formation. Thus the lDan kar ma starts with sūtras, those of the Mahāyāna being followed by those of the "Hīnayāna." The Mahāyāna sūtras, which are much more numerous, begin with the Prajñāpāramitā texts, then the works making up the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, the Ratnakūṭa texts, various individual Mahāyāna sūtras, the Mahāsūtras, and lastly texts translated from Chinese. The sūtras are followed by a small number of treatises, then by tantras (gsang sngags kyi rgyud) and dhāraṇīs (gzungs), hymns of praise (stotra, bstod pa), prayers (praṇidhāna, smon lam) and auspicious verses (maṅgalagāthā, bkra shis tshigs su bcad pa). Next comes the Vinaya-piṭaka,6 followed by sūtra commentaries and treatises of various kinds, finishing up with works on logic and revisions and translations in progress. Anticipating subsequent developments, then, we could say that the lDan kar ma foreshadows the basic bKa' 'gyur/ bsTan 'gyur division of later times—that bka' (the sacred word) comes before bstan bcos (the treatises) is after all only logical—and that its "bKa' 'gyur section" follows the basic order Sūtra, Tantra, Vinaya.7 Within each category works are arranged according to length, with the[page 74] longer first. Over 700 titles are listed, testifying to the extraordinary level of activity at this time.

This efflorescence of scholarship, the precision and thoroughness of which has rendered the Tibetan translations so valuable to modern Buddhist scholarship, was eclipsed for some time by the political disturbances following the death of King Glang dar ma in 842 and the subsequent collapse of the Tibetan empire, but resumed eventually in the late tenth century with the translation work of Rin chen bzang po (958-1056) and others. Thus began the so-called second diffusion of Buddhism (phyi dar), which continued for many centuries, during which translations continued to be made, especially of tantric scriptures, which were still being produced in India. At the same time older versions from the snga dar period went on being copied and circulated throughout the greater Tibetan cultural sphere.

Although none of them has survived, catalogues like the lDan kar ma continued to be made, and it was only a matter of time before one of them came to be regarded as definitive, that is, moved from being descriptive—a simple inventory of the holdings of a particular monastery or palace library—to being prescriptive. We can say, in fact, that the formation of the Tibetan canon, or at the very least its shape, can be traced back to the work of cataloguers grappling with the task of imposing some kind of order on the sheer mass of Buddhist literature available to them. When that endeavor was combined with the editorial response provoked by the huge number of copies of individual texts in circulation, each carrying its own peculiar readings, the canon as we know it today was born. It is, however, also likely that the Tibetans were inspired by the Chinese example to attempt a definitive edition of their sacred texts. At any rate we know that at the beginning of the fourteenth century a decisive step was taken at the bKa' gdams pa monastery of sNar thang in gTsang near gZhis ka rtse. An account of this is found in the Deb ther sngon po ("The Blue Annals"), written by gZhon nu dpal (1392-1481) in 1476-1478, less than two hundred years after the event. In his sketch of the sNar thang scholar bCom ldan rigs (or rig) pa'i ral gri, gZhon nu dpal tells us (DTNP: 410-412) that his accomplishments were such that:

[page 75] ...he had many pupils who were fine scholars, and it is said that two thirds of the canon specialists (piṭakadhara, sde snod 'dzin pa) gathered at sNar thang. The great scholar 'Jam pa'i dbyangs was also one of his pupils, but because he once dressed up as a demon and menaced his teacher in the sacred courtyard (?),8 he was severely reprimanded and no longer allowed to stay with him. Having as a result taken up residence at Sa skya, he received an invitation from the Mongols and became the court chaplain of Buyantu Khan,9 where he composed a ṭīkā on the Pramāṇavārttika with a summary appended. No matter how many times he sent gifts to bCom ldan through the imperial messengers, the latter displayed no pleasure at all. Finally he sent him a small chest full of ink, with which he was very pleased. bCom ldan also composed sixteen volumes of treatises. The great scholar known as dBus pa Blo gsal was also a pupil of bCom ral and the Reverend 'Jam dbyangs. bCom ral verified the number of sections, the colophons and so on of the sacred word (bka') of the Sugata and also classified the treatises (bstan bcos) and then wrote the bsTan pa rgyas pa, a treatise which puts them together in their various categories.10 Later, the Reverend 'Jam dbyangs sent copious quantities of materials. In accordance with his request to dBus pa Blo gsal and others that they make copies of all the sacred word and the treatises in translation (bka' dang bstan bcos 'gyur ro cog) and keep them at sNar thang Monastery, dBus pa Blo gsal Byang chub ye shes, the translator bSod nams 'od zer and rGyang ro Byang chub went to great pains to find original exemplars (phyi mo) of the sacred word in translation (bka' 'gyur) and of the treatises in translation (bstan 'gyur)11 and make good copies of them, after which they were kept in the monastery known as 'Jam lha khang. From these, many copies spread to other places: in Upper Tibet they spread to such places as Grom pa Sa skya and Khab Gung thang, while in Lower Tibet too three copies went also to 'Tshal Gung thang, and three copies to sTag lung and its environs.12 Bringing the bsTan 'gyur from sNar thang, Bu ston Rin po che13 removed the duplicates, since the sNar thang one, being the very first, was a collection of whatever exemplars were to be had,14 arranged in proper order what had not been in any order, and added over a thousand new religious texts, after which it was kept in the monastery of Zha lu. Taking that as his exemplar the teacher Nam mkha' rgyal mtshan15 made a copy at gZhis kha Rin spungs, which was kept in the Dharma college of rTses thang.16 This supplied the exemplar for those kept at Gong dkar and gDan sa Thel.17 All the innumerable copies produced thereafter—the separate copies which Khams pas made and took to Khams, the copies which[page 76] were made using these as exemplars in Khams itself, the copy made by the Chos rje mThong ba don ldan,18 the copy made in dBus by the Du dben sha ba,19 the copy made from precious substances at 'Tshur phur by the Chos rje Rang byung ba,20 the copy made at Byams pa gling by Yar rgyab dPon chen dGe bsnyen pa,21 the copy in 180 volumes made by gZi Kun spangs pa,22 right down to when sTag rtse ba,23 built a fine monastery and made a copy which includes many exemplars obtained later, in addition to the former bKa' 'gyur and bsTan 'gyur—these also came into existence thanks to the Reverend 'Jam pa'i dbyangs, the pupil of bCom ldan rigs pa'i ral gri, and these two in the final analysis owed it all to the grace of rNgog lo tsā ba, who owed it to the grace of the scholars of Kashmir, and ultimately to the grace of the Buddhas.24

This account is worth quoting in full for a number of reasons, not least because of the light it throws on the motivation for the compilation of the sNar thang "edition."25 As gZhon nu dpal tells the story, this particular collection was made only in response to the request, and with the substantial material assistance of 'Jam pa'i dbyangs, whose contribution was therefore pivotal.26 There is thus a strong suggestion of Chinese influence, since working at the Yuan court 'Jam pa'i dbyangs would no doubt have been influenced by his Mongol patrons' sense of the importance of previous editions of the Chinese Buddhist canon produced under imperial sponsorship, and by their desire to add lustre to this tradition.27 We know too that sNar thang, like Sa skya, had very close connections with the Mongol rulers of China.28 Thus the initial compilation of the Tibetan canon may be seen as a distant echo of that well-known process by which the Chinese culturally subverted foreigners who had conquered them by force of arms, and its political implications merit attention. But what is equally interesting about gZhon nu dpal's account, on a more personal and human level, is the implied additional motivation for 'Jam pa'i dbyangs's initiative. Practical jokes often backfire on their perpetrators, but this hair-raising schoolboy prank had spectacular consequences. bCom ral must have given his hapless student such a severe dressing-down that the poor man smarted from it for the rest of his life, engaging in pathetically extravagant attempts to win back his teacher's favor. In this way a brief moment of boyish fun can be seen as the starting point for centuries of sober scholarly activity.29

[page 77] gZhon nu dpal also paints a vivid picture of the veritable explosion of bKa' 'gyur and bsTan 'gyur copies from sNar thang in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as Tibet was swept by what we might call a "bKa' 'gyur craze." But he tells us little about the corresponding flow of copies towards that center which preceded the compilation of the "edition." Fortunately the details of that are preserved in the section colophons to the Tshal pa bKa' 'gyur (see below) which have been carried over into the Li thang and other editions.30 These are documents of capital importance. From them we learn that the Sūtra section of the Old sNar thang was based on over a dozen different sūtra collections (mdo mangs) from the libraries of Sa skya, gTsang Chu mig ring mo, Shog chung, sPun gsum, Zha lu, and other monasteries, together of course with those held at sNar thang itself. The Tantra section was based on at least five exemplars from Sa skya, Thar pa gling, and sPun gsum, and was arranged according to catalogues compiled by Grags pa rgyal mtshan (1147-1216), 'Phags pa (1235-1280), Rigs pa'i ral gri and others. The Vinaya was based on a manuscript edition compiled by mChims ston Nam mkha' grags pa, abbot of sNar thang from 1250 to 1289, compared against the Vinaya texts of Rung klung shod grog Monastery and others. Nam mkha' grags pa's text had itself been based on the edition made at La stod 'Ol rgod Monastery by Dharma seng ge using copies obtained from bSam yas mChims phu and other monasteries in dBus and gTsang with the help of the teacher and Vinaya specialist (vinayadhara, 'dul ba 'dzin pa) Zhing mo che ba Byang chub seng ge during the time of the Vinaya specialist of rGya, dBang phyug tshul khrims 'bar (1047-1131). We see then from these colophons that the sNar thang "edition" was the result of the gathering in of texts from various monastic libraries in gTsang and surrounding areas,31 and at the same time the culmination of several centuries of collecting and cataloguing activity at a number of centers, including Sa skya.

On some points, however, the testimony of these sources is frustratingly vague. In particular, we do not know whether the scholars of sNar thang took the original manuscripts of all these collections back to sNar thang, or returned home with complete copies of them, or, working from one of their catalogues, copied only those individual works not already in their possession. The DTNP gives the impression that bCom ral and his disciples had first worked on the translations of sūtras and śāstras held at sNar thang,[page 78] and had written several catalogues, before the collection process began, so it is quite possible that they collected selectively and to order. With two or more teams working concurrently, such a procedure is bound to have produced multiple copies of some texts. The DTNP enumerates three significant features of the copy of the sNar thang bsTan 'gyur which Bu ston worked on: it was incomplete, it was not in order (at least not to Bu ston's satisfaction), and it contained duplicates. What was true of the bsTan 'gyur is equally likely to have been true of the bKa' 'gyur; it is quite possible that it too contained multiple copies of texts, either different translations of the same text,32 or different recensions of the same translation. This means that both the sNar thang bKa' 'gyur and bsTan 'gyur may simply have been better arranged collections of high-quality copies, rather than editions in our sense of the word, and that therefore they still required editorial attention.

It is my belief that the initial collection of copies which took place at sNar thang was soon followed by a second phase in the production of the bKa' 'gyur and bsTan 'gyur collections that we know today, and that this phase was carried through in at least two different places.33 One of these places was Tshal (or 'Tshal) Gung thang Monastery in dBus, where a new edition of the bKa' 'gyur was produced during the years 1347-1351 under the sponsorship of the local ruler, Tshal pa Kun dga' rdo rje, also known as dGe ba'i blo gros (1309-1364). Since the original section colophons of this edition have survived we know a great deal about it. We know, for example, that the texts of the sNar thang "edition," of which three copies were employed, were substantially revised (using the Mahāvyutpatti and other such works to standardize the wording), and that their order was also rearranged, with a number of titles being deleted from the bKa' 'gyur because they were deemed to belong to the bsTan 'gyur.34 A three-volume set of tantric texts translated during the early period (rNying rgyud) was also added. The result is known as the Tshal pa edition. The second center of editorial activity was Zha lu in gTsang. We cannot yet be sure that Bu ston carried out a complete revision of the bKa' 'gyur (as well as the bsTan 'gyur) at Zha lu, but there are indications that he did edit both collections, even though gZhon nu dpal mentions only his bsTan 'gyur edition.35 However, we have firm evidence that Bu ston worked on substantial portions of the bKa' 'gyur, and that this editorial work was continued by his successors[page 79] at Zha lu and rGyal rtse (see Harrison, 1994). This aspect of the history of the bKa' 'gyur is rather problematic, but there are good reasons for believing that at some time in the first half of the fourteenth century a Zha lu bKa' 'gyur also came into existence, and that this edition may have been closer to the Old sNar thang than its Tshal pa counterpart, at least in terms of organization. I shall call this edition the *Zha lu ma, using an asterisk to mark its hypothetical status.36 Both the Tshal pa and Zha lu editions may well have been based on the same raw materials, but especially in the matter of the deletion of duplicates, different decisions could easily have been arrived at, which would account for much that was to follow.

From this point on our discussion concerns the bKa' 'gyur rather than the bsTan 'gyur, although we should note that the evolution of a basically bipartite canon seems to be a peculiarly Tibetan innovation.37 (This scheme was also adopted by the Bon pos, whose own canon, divided into bKa' 'gyur and brTen 'gyur, appears to have been systematized in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries (see Kvaerne: 38-39) in imitation of the Buddhist model.) The bKa' 'gyur section of the Tibetan Buddhist canon has in its turn three major divisions: 'Dul ba (Vinaya), mDo (Sūtra) and rGyud (Tantra), thus making it a kind of tripiṭaka in itself, arranged according to the three "vehicles" or three different levels of religious avocation (sdom gsum): 'Dul ba for "Hīnayāna" (i.e., Mainstream Buddhism), mDo for Mahāyāna, and rGyud for Vajrayāna. To put it like this, however, oversimplifies the picture, because although the 'Dul ba section is comparatively clear-cut, the other two are not. Thus the mDo section, broadly conceived, is broken down into Sher phyin (Prajñāpāramitā texts), Phal chen (the Avataṃsaka Sūtra), dKon brtsegs (Ratnakūṭa texts), Myang 'das (Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra) and mDo sna tshogs or mDo mang(s) (miscellaneous sūtras) sections, while the rGyud texts are divided, following the classification scheme promoted by Bu ston and others, into four main classes, supplemented in some editions by the rNying rgyud ("Old Tantras") and gZungs 'dus ("Dhāraṇī collection") sections.38 These sections and subsections do not appear in the same order in all editions, partly because of different schemes for classifying the sequence of the Buddha's teachings (see, e.g., Skorupski: xiv-xvii). The same holds true for the order of the individual texts within the sections, especially in the rGyud, where[page 80] the placing of particular tantric cycles often indicates sectarian preferences.39 The study of the complicated issues involved here is one way of determining the affiliations of the editions. However, repeated re-arrangements of the bKa' 'gyur make it difficult for us to determine the original order of the Tshal pa and *Zha lu ma editions on the basis of their descendants.

The Tshal pa and the *Zha lu ma manuscripts are the twin fonts from which most of the later standard editions of the bKa' 'gyur appear to flow, hence the division of the bKa' 'gyur tradition as we now know it40 into what have been called the "Eastern" and "Western" branches. Identifying this bifurcation, and making a start at sorting out the twists and turns on both sides of the tradition has been the major achievement of recent bKa' 'gyur scholarship, above all that of Eimer (see especially Eimer, 1992), followed more recently by several other scholars. This scholarship brings three basic methods to bear on the problem of determining the affinities of the various accessible editions. The first is to examine Tibetan histories, biographies and the catalogues of these editions (dkar chag; see Martin, in this volume) for information relating to their creation; the second is to note carefully the order of sections and individual titles within the editions, since this can also indicate affinities; and the third is to apply classical text-critical technique to the problem, by editing individual texts, i.e., collating as many editions as possible and noting patterns of variants. Given the vastness of the bKa' 'gyur tradition, it is little wonder that these methods have not yet yielded all the answers, and that many problems remain unsolved. At the same time, some progress has been made. What follows is, I hope, a reasonably accurate and reliable reflection of our present state of knowledge.

On the so-called "Western" side of the picture the *Zha lu ma passes from the realm of hypothesis into that of historical fact in the form of the manuscript bKa' 'gyur which was made in 1431 on the order of the ruler Rab brtan Kun bzang 'phags pa (1389-1442) and deposited in the dPal 'khor chos sde Monastery at rGyal rtse.41 This is known as the Them spangs ma Manuscript. Complete in 111 volumes, it did not include the rNying rgyud collection. There is no doubt that some of its sections were edited by Bu ston and[page 81] his successors at Zha lu, but the provenance of others is not yet known. Whether the original still exists is a matter of some uncertainty, but there are still several old manuscripts at rGyal rtse, and one of these could be it. The Them spangs ma is extremely important, for it was much copied; during the reign of the fifth Dalai Lama alone (1617-1682), over a hundred copies were made. One such copy was presented to the Mongols in 1671, and now rests in the State Library at Ulan Bator.42 Another was made during the years 1858-1878 and later donated to the Japanese monk and traveller Kawaguchi Ekai; this is now in the possession of the Tōyō Bunko, Tokyo. These are two recognized copies of the Them spangs ma, but we also have to reckon with the many others which were made, and the copies which were made from them. Into this category fall the London Manuscript bKa' 'gyur, which derives from a manuscript held at Shel dkar chos sde,43 and the sTog Palace bKa' 'gyur, which was copied from a Bhutanese exemplar (Skorupski).44 No doubt many more of these copies will eventually come to light. The best general term for all these manuscripts is "the Them spangs ma tradition."

On the other ("Eastern") side of the picture the Tshal pa manuscript provided the basis for the first xylographic or woodblock print of the bKa' 'gyur, the Yongle edition made in Beijing in 1410. At this point the printing technology first invented by the Chinese largely for the purposes of propagating Buddhist literature was enthusiastically adopted by the Tibetans, who were to continue to use it up to the twentieth century, not least to produce ever more editions of the bKa' 'gyur (cf. Snellgrove and Richardson: 160). In Beijing new impressions continued to be taken from the Yongle blocks, and when they wore out, new blocks were prepared, using prints struck from the old blocks as masters. Minor alterations were sometimes made when this was done. In this way were produced the Wanli impression of 1605, the Kangxi impressions of 1684/92, those of 1700, 1717-1720, the Qianlong impression of 1737, and at least one further impression after 1765.45 But these are not the only offspring of the Tshal pa, for a copy of it kept at the castle of 'Phying ba sTag rtse in 'Phyong rgyas, a copy which must have received further editorial attention, was the basis for the 'Jang Sa tham or Li thang edition in 110 volumes of 1609-1614, which has only recently become available in the West.46 The same 'Phying ba sTag rtse Manuscript must also have been the basis for some of the sNar thang blockprint of 1730-1732 (on[page 82] which see below).47 The Li thang was in its turn the basis for the Co ne edition (107 volumes) of 1721-1731. A convenient term for all these editions is "the Tshal pa tradition."

So far all this looks relatively neat, but in fact we have as yet made no mention of the whole question of what is technically known as "contamination." Contamination occurs when one text is not copied from another in a simple linear progression, but instead mixes readings from two or more exemplars, or "conflates" them. In such a situation parentage is often difficult to trace. The later bKa' 'gyur tradition is in fact bedeviled by contamination, due in part to the great pains the compilers of new editions took to ensure that their text was as sound as possible, which they did by consulting as many reputable old editions as they could lay their hands on. Thus the block-print edition in 104 volumes produced in 1733 at the Sa skya pa monastery of sDe dge, which took as its base text the Li thang, also borrowed readings from the lHo rdzong bKa' 'gyur, a descendant of the Them spangs ma, as well as from a bKa' 'gyur produced by A gnyen pa kshi. The sDe dge xylograph thus represents a conflation of the two main branches of the tradition, as do its later offshoots, the Ra rgya (1814-1820), the Urga (1908-1910) and the Wa ra editions (twentieth century).48 Similarly, later reprints of the Peking edition often altered the text of the blocks with reference to the Li thang, while the modern Lhasa edition, produced in 1934, is widely known to be a conflation of sDe dge and sNar thang.49 The sNar thang blockprint edition of 1730-1732, however, is the most unusual case of mixed parentage, since although it takes its texts from at least two separate editions, it does not apparently conflate their readings: text by text, it seems to follow one edition or the other scrupulously. Text-critical research by Eimer and others has only recently enabled us to identify the sNar thang xylograph's two sources: one of them is the 'Phying ba sTag rtse manuscript of the Tshal pa edition,50 and the other is the Shel dkar copy of the Them spangs ma, on which the London Manuscript was based.51 What remains to be worked out is which texts it took from which sources, and whether we can identify the point where it switched from one to the other. At this stage it appears that the 'Dul ba section follows the Them spangs ma, while most of the mDo follows the Tshal pa (making the sNar thang in this respect a sister of the Li thang). Evidence for the rGyud section is sparse. We should note, however, that the sNar thang follows the basic order of the Tshal pa editions. The way in which[page 83] this edition was produced is a good illustration of the care the Tibetan editors took over their work, and of the sophistication of their approach. The same is true of sDe dge. Using these bKa' 'gyurs to edit texts ourselves, we are impressed by the extremely small number of errors which they introduced into the tradition, even though they have complicated our task somewhat by conflating their sources. One other point which needs to be noted in connection with these later printed editions is that the Tibetan canon was never entirely "closed," and that editors of the bKa' 'gyur seem to have had few qualms about adding recently translated or discovered works to existing editions. Texts were still being translated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, albeit not at the prodigious rate of earlier periods.

This picture of the history of the bKa' 'gyur, as complex as it is, may soon need to be revised and elaborated. First of all, new bKa' 'gyurs continue to come to light, some of which do not fit at all well into this scheme. This is, for example, the case with the most recent arrival in the West, the Phug brag (also spelled Phu brag, sPu brag, sPud tra, etc.).52 In terms of organization this edition, produced ca. 1700, follows neither the Thems spang ma nor the Tshal pa traditions, it contains texts found in no other bKa' 'gyur, and it carries multiple translations of works. Since it has only recently become available, not much text-critical work on individual titles within this collection has been done, but what little research there is suggests an independent tradition, which is sometimes closer to the Them spangs ma, sometimes to the Tshal pa editions.53 In the second place, studies of the Tibetan sūtra translations found at Dunhuang, which date from the eighth to the eleventh centuries, are showing us that at its very beginnings the tradition which was later to become known as the bKa' 'gyur was not at all uniform, but highly contaminated. The Dunhuang collection is in fact a confusing mixture of crude archaic versions and later revised translations, together with texts standing somewhere in between, which must be either half-revised versions or conflations of old and new. If the situation frozen in time by the virtual sealing off of the Dunhuang collection was repeated at other Tibetan book repositories, then it would be surprising if the later history of the bKa' 'gyur did not turn out to be vastly more complicated than this survey might suggest. After all, we must remember that from the earliest times most Buddhist monasteries in Tibet would have possessed their own collections of scriptures, their own Sher[page 84] phyins, mDo mangs, rGyud 'bums, 'Dul bas, and so on, and that eventually many of these collections must have interacted in one way or another with the systematized bKa' 'gyur tradition sketched in this paper, which was itself derived from various monastic holdings of this type. The resulting pattern of criss-cross lines of descent, mutual influence and exchange is undoubtedly complex in the extreme.54

The historical and text-critical considerations raised above point up some divergences between the modern Western and the traditional Tibetan approach to sacred texts. While there is no denying the great skill and care with which many of the editions of the bKa' 'gyur were produced, the Tibetan editors approached their task from a rather different standpoint. Thus while the sDe dge edition, for instance, was in a loose sense critical, in that it attempted to establish the best text on the basis of at least three witnesses, it lacks the most essential attribute of a proper edition in the Western sense: it has no critical apparatus, by which we mean a set of footnotes recording the variant readings of all the copies of the text used. The sDe dge editors reproduced what they considered to be the best reading, and consigned the rest to oblivion, while a Western critical edition would record every variant of significance, enabling the reader to check the work of the editor, and occasionally to improve upon it. In this respect the bKa' 'gyurs are more like, say, the editions of Shakespeare produced for the popular market, which give their readers no idea at all of the intricate textual problems which underlie them; in both cases the evidence is, as it were, suppressed. Naturally Tibetan scholars were not unaware of the importance of variant readings in bKa' 'gyur editions—there are several works in existence which record them—but in creating new editions they were performing an act of piety as well as scholarship, and piety requires no critical apparatus.55 Similar considerations apply to their use of the scriptures.

Most modern Western scholars, trained as they are in an academic or scientific approach to texts, view the translations preserved in the bKa' 'gyur (and bsTan 'gyur) as a series of windows through which the historical development of Buddhist thought and practice can be glimpsed. In these translations many texts have been captured which would otherwise have disappeared forever.[page 85] They contain information, meanings and messages which Western scholars are concerned to extract and use in the pursuit of their own purposes; they have a content which can be appropriated intellectually. Tibetans are also capable of reading in this fashion, as the prolific nature of Tibetan scholarship indicates, yet at the same time they also believe the texts to be "meaningful" in a further sense. That is to say, they both contain meanings within themselves—in particular, the teachings relating to liberation from suffering—and have meaning or significance in their own right, as symbols of that liberation, the latter sense clearly being dependent on the former. Thus, as complete entities the texts of the bKa' 'gyur are thought to be powerful and transformative, as physical objects when seen or touched or as sounds when uttered or heard, whether or not intellectual understanding takes place. And if one text can be powerful, then the complete set of them, the entire canon, represents a total power source of considerable importance.

This attitude to the bKa' 'gyur is of course linked to tantric notions of sound, to the Buddhist identification of the Buddha with the Dharma, and to ancient Indian beliefs about the magical power of speech which represents the truth. It is the primary force which drives the whole history of the Tibetan canon, rather than any scholarly quest for accuracy, or for the definitive text. Indeed, it renders marginal questions as to the meaning of particular words on a particular page or the relationship between various editions, however important these might be to "those whose burden is books," be they Tibetans or Westerners. How else could one explain the extraordinary proliferation of bKa' 'gyur editions, each one of which consumed substantial resources in the making? It was no small thing to keep an army of calligraphers and carvers at work for years on end, or to furnish them with even the basic materials required for a new woodblock edition, to say nothing of supplying the gold, silver and other precious substances often used to adorn the title pages, covers and bindings of the prints, or to write the manuscript editions in their entirety. In fact, however, the more lavish the resources expended, the greater the merit which accrued to the sponsor of the edition, for naturally the sacred power of the bKa' 'gyur was conceptualized in terms of the Buddhist ideology of merit (puṇya, bsod nams). Nor are the political aspects of this ideology and its application any less relevant to the Tibetan situation than they are elsewhere in the Buddhist world. It is no accident that many of the editions we have[page 86] reviewed were produced by some of the most powerful players in Tibet's turbulent history: Kun dga' rdo rje, Byang chub rgyal mtshan, the fifth Dalai Lama and Pho lha bSod nams stobs rgyal were all important political figures; even 'Jam pa'i dbyangs, whose sponsorship initiated the whole process of systematization, must ultimately have been representing his Mongol patrons. In supplying the funds to create new editions of the bKa' 'gyur on which they could set their own seal, these rulers were no doubt pursuing less "transcendental" purposes as well.

Produced at the behest of the wealthy and powerful, the editions of the canon continued to provide Tibetans from all social strata with a source of merit. To this day, in monastery chapels all over Tibet (if they have been fortunate enough to survive the depredations of the twentieth century), sets of the bKa' 'gyur often flank the central images, with an ambulatory set up beneath them so that, simply by passing under one and around the other, the faithful can worship the books and the images at the same time—the former being a repository of the voice (gsung rten), the latter of the body (sku rten) of the awakened ones. Indeed, the books are often more worshipped than read, as the thick layers of dust which coat them testify. On special occasions, however, the texts may be recited, teams of readers going through the entire collection, or the bKa' 'gyur of the local monastery may be borne in procession around the fields, so that its power may be applied to the health of the community. This kind of ritual activity, then, is far more common than the kind of reading for sense with which Westerners are familiar (which is of course also practiced in Tibet), yet it is to the attitude which informs it, this intense feeling for the sacredness and power of the bKa' 'gyur as a whole, that we owe the survival of this precious historical resource.

Bethlenfalvy, Géza

1982A Hand-list of the Ulan Bator Manuscript of the Kanjur Rgyal-rtse Them spaṅs ma. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.

Davidson, Ronald M.

1990An Introduction to the Standards of Scriptural Authenticity in[page 92] Indian Buddhism. In Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha, pp. 291-325. Ed. by Robert E. Buswell. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Eimer, Helmut

1983Rab tu 'byuṅ ba'i gzi: Die tibetische Übersetzung des Pravrajyāvastu im Vinaya der Mūlasarvāstivādins. Asiatische Forschungen82. 2 vols. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.

1989Der Tantra-Katalog des Bu ston im Vergleich mit der Abteilung Tantra des tibetischen Kanjur.Indica et Tibetica17. Bonn: Indica et Tibetica Verlag.

1992Ein Jahrzehnt Studien zur Überlieferung des tibetischen Kanjur.Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde28. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für tibetische und buddhistische Studien Universität Wien.

Ferrari, Alfonsa

1958Mk'yen Brtse's Guide to the Holy Places of Central Tibet.Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente.

Grönbold, Günter

1984Der Buddhistische Kanon: Eine Bibliographie.Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.

gZhon nu dpal

DTNPDeb ther sngon po. 2 vols. Chengdu: Sichuan minzu chubanshe, 1984, 1985.

Hadano, Hakuyū

1966Chibetto-daizōkyō engi [A History of compiling and editing of the Tibetan Buddhist Scriptures, 'Bkaḥ-ḥgyur and Bstan-ḥgyur'], [1].Annual of Oriental and Religious Studies/ Suzuki Gakujutsu Zaidan Kenkyu Nempō3: 35-83.

Harrison, Paul

1992aDruma-kinnara-rāja-paripṛcchā-sūtra: A Critical Edition of the Tibetan Text (Recension A).Studia Philologica Buddhica, Monograph Series7. Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies.

1992bIs the Dharma-kāya the Real 'Phantom Body' of the Buddha?Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies15/1: 44-93.

1992cMeritorious Activity or Waste of Time? Some Remarks on the Editing of Texts in the Tibetan Kanjur. In Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 5th Seminar of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, Narita 1989, pp. 77-93. Ed. by Ihara Shōren and Yamaguchi Zuihō. Narita: Naritasan Shinshoji.

1994In Search of the Source of the Tibetan Kanjur: A Reconnaissance Report. In Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 6th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Fagernes 1992,[page 93] Vol. 1, pp. 295-317. Ed. by Per Kvaerne. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture.

Ishihama, Y. and Y. Fukuda

1989A New Critical Edition of the Mahāvyutpatti: Sanskrit-Tibetan-Mongolian Dictionary of Buddhist Terminology.Studia Tibetica16, Materials for Tibetan-Mongolian Dictionaries, vol. 1. Tokyo: Tōyō Bunko.

Ishikawa, M.

1990A Critical Edition of the Sgra sbyor bam po gnyis pa: An Old and Basic Commentary on the Mahāvyutpatti. Studia Tibetica18, Materials for Tibetan-Mongolian Dictionaries, vol. 2. Tokyo: Tōyō Bunko.

Kvaerne, Per

1975The Canon of the Tibetan Bonpos.Indo-Iranian Journal 16: 18-56, 96-144.

Lalou, Marcelle

1953Les textes bouddhiques au temps du Roi Khri-sroṅ-lde-bcan.Journal asiatique 241: 313-353.

Lamotte, Etienne

1947La critique d'authenticité dans le bouddhisme. In India Antiqua, pp. 213-222. Ed. by F. D. K. Bosch et al. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Ray, R.A.

1985Buddhism: Sacred Text Written and Realized. In The Holy Book in Comparative Perspective, pp. 148-180. Ed. by F. M. Denny and R.L. Taylor. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press.

Roerich, George

1976The Blue Annals. Second edition. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass [originally published in two parts, Calcutta, 1949-1953].

Ruegg, David Seyfort

1966The Life of Bu ston rin po che. Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente.

Sakaki R.

1962Honyaku myōgi taishū/Mahāvyutpatti. Reprint ed. in 2 vols. Tokyo: Suzuki Research Foundation [lst ed. 1916, 1936].

Samten, Jampa, translated with Jeremy Russell

1987aNotes on the Lithang Edition of the Tibetan bKa'-'gyur.Tibet Journal 12/3: 17-40.[page 94]

1987bOrigins of the Tibetan Canon with Special Reference to the Tshal-pa Kanjur. In Buddhism and Science, pp. 763-781. Seoul: Tongguk University.

Skorupski, Tadeusz

1985A Catalogue of the Stog Palace Kanjur. Bibliographia Philologica Buddhica, Series Maior4. Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies.

Snellgrove, David and Hugh Richardson

1968A Cultural History of Tibet.London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Tucci, Giuseppe

1949Tibetan Painted Scrolls. 2 vols. Rome: La Libreria dello Stato.

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[page 95] It was due to certain historical factors1 and to the formative stages of the Tibetan canon or bKa' 'gyur2 that some tantric texts came to be treated as canonical or authentic and some texts, of uncertain origin, as unauthentic. The tantric texts that were eventually included in the bKa' 'gyur are considered to be authentic or canonical by the new schools (gsar ma pa), which began to dominate Tibetan Buddhism from the late tenth century onward. A decisive criterion of textual authenticity was a strict but rather arbitrarily imposed reliance on approved translations of tantric texts executed on the basis of attested Sanskrit or other Indian original sources. Thus, those tantric texts whose Indian origins were unattested or in doubt were excluded from the bKa' 'gyur. A considerable number of such "unauthentic" texts were, however, cherished by the adepts of the Ancient School (rNying ma pa), as is explained in Janet Gyatso's essay in this volume. The present article is concerned mainly with the tantric literature included in the bKa' 'gyur.

[page 96] The tantric division comprises several hundred titles in some twenty-two of the 108 volumes of works included in the bKa' 'gyur.3 These tantric texts represent a variety of works that are different in both length and content, and have diverse titles. The overall length of tantric texts varies considerably. Some are very short, comprising a few folios or even less, but on the whole their length varies between twenty and over one hundred folios, with only a few texts extending over two hundred. Like the sūtras the tantric texts are written in the form of dialogues or instructive expositions which are in prose or verse, but most frequently in mixed prose and verse. The tantras usually have an opening scene describing the setting and the general assembly surrounding the principal deity. Then, there follow individual sections or chapters that deal with specific topics. There seems to be no apparent logical arrangement within individual texts. Some tantras appear to be composed according to a preconceived structure, but in many instances the material is clearly put together in a somewhat disordered manner with the same topics being treated in different sections of the whole text. The principal tantras deal with a wide range of subjects that provide the essential instructions for the practice of tantric methods of liberation. Some texts deal with specific topics; others serve as branches, subtexts or elaborations of the major tantras. In principle, the totality of esoteric texts is referred to in Sanskrit as tantra (Tib. rgyud), a term which, like sūtra, and having similar literal meaning, came to be employed to distinguish this literary tradition from other Buddhist texts included in the early Tripiṭaka collections or among the Mahāyāna sūtras. However, in reality the matter is more complex. The tantric texts bear a number of qualifying terms in their titles. Different texts are named variously as Tantra, "Great Tantra" (mahātantra, rgyud chen po), "Root Tantra" (mūlatantra, rtsa ba'i rgyud), "Tantra King" (tantrarāja, rgyud kyi rgyal po), or again as "Ordinance" (kalpa, rtog pa), "Discourse" (sūtra, mdo),4 "Magical Formula" (dhāranī, gzungs), and "Heroine of Magical Power" (vidyārājñi, rig pa'i rgyal mo).5 These are the most frequently employed terms, but there are several others that are also used in the titles of tantric works. Some of these terms were in existence for a long time before the efflorescence of esoteric literature proper in the eighth and ninth centuries.[page 97]

The whole Tantra section as such, depending on the particular bKa' 'gyur edition referred to, is named simply "Tantra" (rGyud) or "Tantra Collection" (rGyud 'bum). However, it is often divided into two major groups called the "Tantra Collection" (rGyud 'bum) and the "Formula Collection" (gZungs 'dus).6 Whenever a particular bKa' 'gyur contains only one Tantra section, this single section includes all categories of tantric texts. When it is divided into the two "Collections" noted, the "Tantra Collection" comprises all tantric texts that belong to the four classes of Tantra (see below), those Mahāyāna sūtras that are recognized as tantric, magical formulas and all the remaining categories included in the Tantra section of the bKa' 'gyur editions that are not subdivided. The "Formula Collection" comprises over two hundred dhāraṇīs and similar texts, including some sūtras, that were gathered together because of their particular importance for ritual. The majority of texts included in this collection are also found among the texts in the "Tantra Collection."

The tantric texts contained in the bKa' 'gyur are arranged in a certain (sequential) order which seems to be quite deliberate, but difficult to ascertain with accuracy. However, on the whole the arrangement of individual texts follows the classification of tantric texts into the four classes. Thus, the Tantra section begins with works belonging to the Highest Yoga, followed by those of the Yoga, and finally those of the Action and Performance classes. There also exist further stratifications of works that appertain to a particular group of texts within each Tantra class, but the actual arrangement and sequence of tantric texts are not consistently the same in all editions of the bKa' 'gyur. Furthermore, in some bKa' 'gyur collections, the tantras are arranged at the beginning, as the first collection, because they are considered more important than other canonical works, such as the Vinaya or Sūtra collections. In some bKa' 'gyur collections they are placed at the end, as the last collection, which is more in accordance with the historical formation of Buddhist texts.

It is possible to discuss tantric literature without making any particular reference to the bKa' 'gyur. However, since so much effort has been invested by the Tibetan savants in the classification and arrangement of tantric literature in some meaningful manner, it is of importance to the understanding of the complexity and variety of tantric works to be aware of the bKa' 'gyur as the largest repository of such texts.[page 98]

The tantric texts included in the bKa' 'gyur represent translations predominantly from the Sanskrit but also from the Prakrit, Apabhraṃśa and other Indian languages. A certain number of such texts were translated into Tibetan during the first propagation (seventh-ninth centuries C.E.) of Buddhism in Tibet, and the majority during the second propagation (tenth century C.E. onward).7 The translation work was done by a number of well-trained Tibetan experts assisted by Indian masters such as Gayādhara, Advayavajra, Jayasena and others. Among the Tibetan translators Rin chen bzang po became the most renowned. But there were many other competent people such as Śākya ye shes or 'Gos lhas btsas who are also ranked very high.

The earliest evidence for the existence of texts with a tantric flavor is frequently sought in the texts of Indian Mahāyāna literature that have sections containing magical formulas. The presence of these formulas, spells and incantations, endowed with certain efficacious powers for the achievement of both worldly and supramundane results, is attested in all periods and forms of Buddhism. However, it is in the late Mahāyāna that such texts began to acquire an important position and serve as inspirations for various practices distinctly different from those of the traditional Mahāyāna. It is not so much the literary genre of the magical texts as such that should be seen as the precursor of tantric texts proper, but rather their spirit and tendency towards magic and occult practices. The exact time, place, and circumstances in which the first tantric texts were produced remain fundamentally unresolved. There exists much speculation and a variety of opinions on the origin of the tantras. It is, however, generally assumed and supported by Tibetan sources such as Tāranātha that the tantric texts and practices initially remained a very closely guarded secret in limited circles for several centuries, most likely as an oral transmission, before they became diffused and more readily acceptable to a wider audience of adepts in the eighth-ninth centuries. Such an assumption is further supported by the fact that it was also during that period that numerous commentaries on the tantras were written and their authors named.

Tibet was more spiritually inclined toward the tantric tradition than China or Japan, countries in which only selected tantric texts[page 99] were translated and practiced. The Tibetan tradition received the largest collection of tantric texts and practices, becoming thus the most prominent inheritor in Asia of tantric literature produced in India. A great variety of tantric texts and practices were carried over to Tibet, some surviving both as texts and living traditions, and some only as literary documents. There still continue to exist some salient disagreements in interpretation and precise grading of those texts within individual schools and among the different schools.8

The tantric texts themselves do not provide any specific information with regard to the categories or divisions in which they are to be placed, but they were eventually classified in several different ways, not so much in terms of their literary nature, but rather with regard to the various teachings and spiritual methods advocated for different spiritual adepts or with regard to different Buddha families. One of the common characteristics of all tantric texts is that they focus on one particular deity or groups of deities and incorporate a body of ritual and meditative instructions necessary to achieve spiritual realization in conjunction with those deities. A particular tantric tradition that follows a specific tantra or a group of related tantric texts and practices is often referred to as a tantric cycle. There is no clear evidence from Indian sources that the tantric texts were originally classified or grouped in any particular manner. They seem to have been written or compiled in a haphazard manner in different places by individuals or groups of yogins who made use of the appropriate mythological and literary lore, and of the various yogic practices that were available to them. In Tibet itself, one of the most widely recognized classifications of the tantras accepted by the New Schools is that into four classes. This classification is based on the deliberately stratified levels of spiritual and yogic practices that relate to particular deities and aim to assist the practitioner according to his or her spiritual disposition and aptitude. The four classes of tantras are named in ascending order of importance as Action or Ritual (kriyā, bya), Performance (caryā, spyod), Yoga (yoga, rnal 'byor), and Highest Yoga (anuttara, bla na med pa). Although there exists evidence that the tantric literature evolved in stages and in different religious centers, and that it contains certain common characteristics—for instance[page 100] ritual—and although the differentiations among the tantras are rather subtle and refined, this classification does serve as a useful point of reference.

In the works of the Action Tantra, the focus is on a wide range of externally performed ritual activities, more so than on internal spiritual exercises. The texts of this class provide instructions on various ritualized activities that are often accompanied by symbols and diagrams. They are predominantly concerned with the worship of deities, offerings and praises, the procurement of worldly and spiritual benefits, the appeasement of diseases and demonic powers, the blessing of images, and the consecrations of their adepts. They also contain instructions for painting deities. The longest text in this class is the "Ordinance of Mañjuśrī" (Mañjuśrīmūla-kalpa [or -tantra], 'Jam dpal gyi rtsa ba'i rgyud). Its structure and content contain literary and historical indications that it was compiled over a period of several centuries, with its oldest sections belonging probably to the earliest tantric period. In many ways, it represents a transition between the Mahāyāna sūtras and the tantras. It contains a mine of information on ritual, the production of images, astrology and some historical events. It also contains long sections that are concerned with Brahmanic deities and magical formulas.

Among the texts included in the Performance Tantra, which focuses on ritual activities in balance with meditative practices, the "Perfect Enlightenment of Mahāvairocana" (Mahāvairocanābhisambodhi, rNam par snang mdzad chen po mngon par rdzogs par byang chub pa) is the longest and most important. It is generally considered to be the root text of this class. It provides a fairly coherent and comprehensive exposition of tantric practices in relationship to a set of deities, with Vairocana as the central deity.

The Yoga Tantra texts, which represent an advanced and perfected system of tantric teachings, are predominantly oriented towards meditative and yogic practices. Ritual instructions are also present, but they are not considered essential for the attainment of spiritual perfection. Here, it is a particular set of internal—but also externally ritualized—meditational practices and consecrations that occupy the central position. Within this class, the "Compendium of the Essence of All the Tathagātas" (Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgraha, De bzhin gshegs pa thams cad kyi de kho na nyid bsdus pa) is the longest and most comprehensive. It comprises a[page 101] whole range of expositions concerned with the various sets of mystic circles (maṇḍala, dkyil 'khor), consecrations and instructions on the stages leading towards enlightenment.

The Highest Yoga Tantra attaches the greatest importance to the control and purification of the mind (citta, sems) as the chief agent of all human activities. Among this class, there are several important texts which are particularly valued and followed in Tibet. They are the "Secret Assembly" (Guhyasamāja, gSang ba 'dus pa), the "Hail Vajra" (Hevajra, Kye'i rdo rje), the "Wheel of Time" (Kālacakra, Dus kyi 'khor lo), the group of texts centered on the deity rDo rje 'jigs byed (Vajrabhairava), and the texts belonging to the 'Khor lo sdom pa (Cakrasaṃvara) cycle of which the principal text is the "Short Saṃvara" (Laghusaṃvara, bDe mchog nyung ngu).9 In fact, it is this Tantra class that is recognized among Tibetan new schools as setting forth the most adventurous and efficacious path towards spiritual perfection.

Among the four classes of Tantras, the Action, Performance and Yoga Tantras are also referred to jointly as the lower Tantras. However, it should be remembered that each Tantra category claims superiority for itself in the sense of providing a distinct and complete body of teachings and practices adequate, and indeed unique, for the attainment of the perfect state of enlightenment.

Taking into account the doctrinal elements, literary presentation and the nature of the presiding deities, it is also possible to divide the tantras into two major categories, namely those related to the Mahāyāna discourses and those with strong non-Buddhist associations. Since in some tantras the literary presentation clearly resembles and overlaps with the later Mahāyāna texts, it is reasonable to assume that such tantric texts, especially those belonging to the first three classes of tantras, came into existence in the same or similar religious milieu. It is also among the Mahāyāna texts that some of the earliest literary evidence for the existence of tantric works is to be found. The names of the buddhas and bodhisattvas in such texts are manifestly Buddhist and similar to those in the Mahāyāna discourses. There is, of course, a progressive assimilation of non-Buddhist Indian deities into the Buddhist pantheon, but in a conspicuously subservient role. Among the second category, in particular among the texts belonging to the Highest Yoga Tantra, the non-Buddhist setting and elements predominate. Here, the mythological and literary elements betray strong[page 103] associations with the Śaivite tantric texts and practices. The buddhas in such texts have little in common with Śākyamuni or his hypostases. They are usually fierce and awe-inspiring manifestations, variously referred to as bDe mchog (Śaṃbara), rDo rje mkha' 'gro (Vajraḍāka), Sangs rgyas thod pa (Buddhakapāla) or 'Jigs byed (Bhairava) and are usually accompanied by attendants of equally terrifying appearances.

The tantras, although manifestly apocryphal, are accepted as canonical or "revealed" by the adepts of tantric practices. They constitute the foundation, and indeed, justification for the Buddhist tradition or vehicle known as Mantrayāna, Tantrayāna or Vajrayāna. The term Mantrayāna represents historically an earlier alternative name for Vajrayāna and has closer links with the traditional Mahāyāna. The authorship of tantric texts is attributed to Śākyamuni Buddha himself or, more frequently, to various Buddha manifestations who preside as chief deities over their appropriate assemblies and enunciate their particular teachings. So far as the places of such discourses are concerned, the texts belonging to the Action Tantra are said to have been delivered in different localities associated with the mystical families of deities that occupy central positions in particular texts. The Performance Tantra is said to have been enunciated in the Akaniṣṭha heaven and the Yoga Tantra on Mt. Meru. The texts belonging to the Highest Yoga Tantra do not claim for themselves any particular locality, although occasionally the place of enunciation is given. The Kālacakra Tantra, for instance, is said to have been disclosed a year or so after the Buddha's enlightenment at a locality called Dhānyakaṭaka. The most frequent location for the discourses of the various wrathful Buddha manifestations is given as the vagina (bhaga; usually not translated into Tibetan) of the Vajra-Lady (Vajrayoṣid, rDo rje btsun mo) which is often explained as the Vajra-sphere (vajradhātu, rdo rje dbyings) or Wisdom (prajñā, shes rab). The justification for the validity and variety of the tantric texts is largely derived from the tantric reinterpretation of the Buddha's enlightenment and is based on the understanding that buddhahood can manifest itself in many different forms, both peaceful and wrathful. It is the Compendium of the Essence of All the Tathāgatas that provides a detailed description of how Śākyamuni attained the state of the tantric enlightenment[page 103] through instructions and meditative trances (abhisambodhi, mngon par 'tshang rgya ba), accompanied by consecrations bestowed by all the buddhas (see Skorupski, 1985).

As already indicated above, the subject matter of tantric texts encompasses a wide range of topics which deal with tantric theory and practice. In essence, the basic doctrinal assumptions are those of the Mahāyāna as propounded by the Madhyamaka and the Yogācāra systems, and in particular the assumption that phenomenal existence (saṃsāra, 'khor ba) and the absolute state of spiritual perfection (nirvāṇa, mya ngan las 'das) are not two separate entities but rather two contrasting ways in which the mind perceives the nature of things. This dualistic way of perceiving the world is due to the fact that the mind is imperfect and imbued with intellectual and moral impurities.

Taking for granted the doctrinal expositions of the Mahāyāna, the tantric texts represent, however, a radical departure from mere intellectual discourses and traditional practices. They may be viewed to some degree as a mode of protest against, or a reaction to, both speculation and logic as means of explaining and rectifying the human situation. Their main thrust is to provide concrete practical steps towards one's personal deliverance. In order to achieve such a goal, they unveil their own particular methods of meditational and yogic practices, which are cast not as systematic and rationalized expositions, but rather as mystical visions and encounters, and as ritualized and magical activities that are geared towards the inducement of inner experience.

Tantric teachings and practices frequently represent transpositions from the rational expositions of Buddhist doctrines into personified and graded divine manifestations corresponding to various concepts and interacting with phenomena, or into ritualized activities which usually center on cosmic diagrams or mystic circles (maṇḍala) in which the deities and ritual implements are given symbolic values. One is to enact such spiritual encounters and ritual exercises in order to gain simultaneously both an insight into the true state of things and spiritual freedom. The encounter with and merging of the phenomenal and transcendental elements is often presented in terms of the cosmic manifestations and activities of buddhahood assumed as being pervasive of all spheres[page 104] of existence. The steps leading to such an encounter are expressed in terms of particular types of meditation, visualization, tantric vows and consecration performed in connection with a variety of mystic circles, replete with appropriate sets of deities, or by making use, within the body, of the various psychic channels, called veins (nādi, rtsa) and nerve-centers, called wheels (cakra, 'khor lo) or lotuses, that serve as the foundation for one's spiritual reintegration10 with the absolute. Tantric practice is thus a particular type of meditation in which one visualizes individual buddha manifestations or sets of deities with whom one attempts to achieve spiritual identity. The visualization of deities can be supplemented by concentration on the movement of trance-inducing winds within the psychic channels of one's body which are guided into the central vein, inducing thus a meditational ecstasy, styled as merging of the winds. Similarly, the practice can focus on the journey of the yogic drop (bindu, thig le), most frequently identified with the semen, which represents the thought of enlightenment and gradually descends and ascends through the stratified nerve-centers within the body, culminating its movement in a similar experience of ecstasy.

Along with the specifically tantric types of meditation, which aim not just to eliminate moral and intellectual imperfections but specifically to achieve identification with the absolute, the texts set forth a great number of other important and essential devices, such as bodily postures and hand gesture (mudrā, phyag rgya), verbal utterances, a variety of ritual implements, empowerments (adhiṣthāna, byin gyis brlabs pa) and initiations (abhiṣeka, dbang bskur ba), all of which are to help in accelerating the progress towards enlightenment.

The essential tantric practices are often conceived and devised in relationship to the three fundamental aspects or functions of human beings, namely the body, speech and mind. The physical postures and gestures relate to the body. The verbal utterances of different kinds, but in particular the great variety of mantras and seed syllables (bīja, sa bon) of the visualized deities, relate to the speech faculty, and meditational states correspond to the state of the mind. These three functions are correlated with similar but perfect functions of buddhahood personified and manifested as different Buddhist deities. It is the perfect fusion of the two that leads to the apotheosis of the human. Tantric initiations may be performed as meditational self-consecrations11 or as externally[page 105] performed rituals combined with meditation, in which the tantric masters bestow upon their disciples certain esoteric skills. These initiations are said to be endowed with inherent and efficacious powers that are considered essential to the practice and eventual attainment of the final goal.12 Furthermore, use is made of astrology, magic and any other source of power that can help to advance one's spiritual progress.

The main textual symbology employed in the tantras often centers on sets of pairs that represent not just the apparent polarity of phenomenal existence and transcendent reality, but also, and principally, their fundamental nondual (advaya, gnyis su med) union. These two factors of spiritual reintegration are referred to as wisdom (prajñā, shes rab) and means (upāya, thabs), which in tantric texts are often represented as female and male deities embraced in sexual union (yab yum). This union may be experienced in meditational visualizations or practiced ritually through the union of the yogin(ī) with a human partner. It is also expressed through several other appropriate symbolic pairs, such as emptiness (śūnyatā, stong pa nyid) and compassion (karuṇā, snying rje), the moon and the sun, the vowels and the consonants, the left and the right psychic veins, the vajra and the bell, and so on.

The actual settings for tantric practices are described as solitary places, isolated trees or forests, temples, haunted cemeteries and various places of tantric power (pītha, gdan). The tantras do not hesitate to make use of any practice, whether seemingly moral or immoral, that is considered to be conducive to the achievement of a speedy spiritual realization. The lower tantras stress morality but occasionally instruct the disciple to contravene conventional morality in order to protect the tantric secrets. The Highest Yoga Tantra makes frequent use of the three fundamental obscurations, namely desire, hatred and delusion, as means of achieving deliverance. The various rituals, consecrations and initiations serve as powerful aids to breaking through the law of moral cause and effect (karma, las). The tantras assume that apart form the superficial body consisting of the five aggregates, one possesses a subtle body that should be fully developed in order to achieve a perfected buddha-body endowed with all the buddha attributes. It is the achievement of such a body through meditational, yogic and ritual devices that enables one to gain buddhahood speedily, even within a single lifespan.

[page 106] As already stated, the tantric texts do make use of Mahāyāna terminology, but in general they tend to express their teachings through the use of their own symbols and enigmatic phraseology, which often require special interpretation and the aid of commentaries; this is particularly true of the texts belonging to the Highest Yoga class. The most problematic area for the study of the tantras is not so much their general theories and practices, but the language they employ.13 The technical term for the literary language used by the tantras is variously translated as secret, enigmatic, esoteric or more often as intentional or twilight language (sandhābhāṣā, dgongs pa'i skad).14 As already noted, the fundamental difficulty associated with such language is its interpretation. Since it makes use of analogy, double meanings, and rich, and at times far-fetched, symbology, it is difficult to establish the exact significance and meaning of words and whole passages. The deliberate use of intentional language is often justified on the grounds of preserving the secrecy of tantric teachings. It is possible, however, to explain its use as a peculiar mystical language whose intention is not to provide literal and concrete expositions, but to indicate or evoke particular psychic and spiritual trances that are to be attained. The language employed in the three lower tantras is fairly comprehensible, although its symbology remains complex. In the case of the Highest Yoga class, the language as such presents a major difficulty. It is in this category that extensive use is made of sexual language and symbology. There is no doubt that sexual symbology serves as a powerful method to express tantric intentions, whether or not the "Western mind" finds such extensive and often very graphic descriptions of sexual activities acceptable in a religious context.

The Highest Yoga Tantra met with little success in China and Japan, whereas in Tibet itself, the tantras in general, and the Highest Tantra in particular, were and are highly appreciated. However, it was only after the various objection-inspiring misconceptions were removed and a proper interpretation based on learned commentaries was worked out that they gained widespread acceptance in Tibet.

Bharati, Agehananda

1975The Tantric Tradition.New York: Samuel Weiser.

Ch'en, Kenneth K. S.

1945-47The Tibetan Tripitaka.Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 9: 53-62.

Conze, Edward

1978The Prajñāpāramitā Literature.Tokyo: The Reiyukai.

Eimer, Helmut

1983Some Results of Recent Kanjur Research.Sankt Augustin: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag.

Fremantle, Francesca

1971A Critical Study of the Guhyasamāja Tantra. Ph.D. dissertation. London: University of London.

George, Christopher S.

1974The Caṇḍamahāroṣanatantra, Chs I-VIII. [Sanskrit and Tibetan Texts with English Translation.] New Haven: Oriental Society.

Imaeda, Y.

1977Mise au point concernant les éditions chinoises du Kanjur et du Tanjur tibétains. In Essais sur l'art du Tibet, pp. 23-43. Ed. by A. Macdonald and Y. Imaeda. Paris: Librairie d'Amérique et d'Orient.

1981Note sur le Kanjur de Derge.Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques 20: 227-236.

Karmay, Samten G.

1980The Ordinance of Lha bLa-ma Ye-shes-'od. In Tibetan Studies in Honour of Hugh Richardson, pp. 150-162. Ed. by M. Aris and A. S. Suu Kyi. Warminster: Aris and Phillips.[page 110]

Kvaerne, Per

1975On the Concept of Sahaja in Indian Buddhist Tantric Literature.Temenos 11: 88-135.

Lalou, Marcelle

1953Les textes bouddhiques au temps du roi Khri-sroṅ-lde-bcan.Journal asiatique 241: 313-353.

Macdonald, A.

1962Le maṇḍala du Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa.Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve.

Simonson, N.

1957Indo-tibetische Studien, die Methoden der Tibetischen Übersetzer untersucht im Hinblick auf die Bedeutung ihrer Übersetzungen für die Sanskritphilologie.Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells Boktryckeri.

Skorupski, Tadeusz

1983The Sarvadurgatipariśodhana Tantra: Elimination of All Evil Destinies. [Sanskrit and Tibetan Texts with Introduction, English Translation and Notes.] Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

1985Śākyamuni's Enlightenment According to the Yoga Tantra.Saṃbhāṣā 6: 87-94.

Snellgrove, David L.

1959The Hevajra Tantra. [Sanskrit Text, Tibetan Version and Commentary, and English Rendering.] 2 vols. London: Oxford University Press.

1987Indo-Tibetan Buddhism: Indian Buddhists and Their Tibetan Successors.London: Serindia.

Tajima, R.

1937Étude sur le Mahāvairocanasūtra.Paris: Maisonneuve.

Tsuda, Shinichi

1974The Samvarodaya-tantra (Selected Chapters).Tokyo.

1978A Critical Tantrism.Memoirs of the Research Department of the Tōyō Bunko 36: 167-231.

Tucci, Giuseppe

1961The Theory and Practice of the Maṇḍala.London: Rider.

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[page 111] Tibetans translated into Tibetan more than one hundred sūtra commentaries. In this essay, we shall make observations about this genre of literature and give some indication as to its value and significance to the Buddhist tradition. For specific examples, we shall refer primarily to the three Indian commentaries to the Śālistamba Sūtra (SJD). We shall limit our observations to commentaries translated into Tibetan, largely excluding from consideration those written by Tibetans, with the exception of a few of historical importance from ancient Tibet. The sūtra genre itself will be mentioned here primarily to contrast Buddhist sūtra commentaries with ritual and grammatical sūtra commentaries in India. Information derived from this contrast will help us to appreciate the relation of sūtra commentaries to sūtras in the Buddhist tradition.

In India, Buddhist and Jain sūtras formed a distinct genre of literature. This can best be seen by contrasting them with ritual, grammatical, and philosophical sūtras. The latter types of sūtras, often called "aphorisms," are a prose literature characterized by conciseness of formulation, mnemonic arrangement, and the fact that they are descriptive in nature. They are intended to present succinctly the rules or tenets of a discipline. Because of these sūtras'[page 112] conciseness, commentaries are generally required to make sense of them. Sūtras and their commentaries probably began as part of an oral tradition of learning and were later written, though the question is undecided (Gonda: 648). Ritual and grammatical sūtras also had rules of interpretation called paribhāṣā, which, along with the careful ordering of the sūtras, contributed to their brevity. Finally, this literary genre is recognized to be unique to India.

Buddhist and Jain sūtras may be called "discourses." Leaving aside the Jain sūtras, those of the Buddhists bear little resemblance to ritual and grammatical sūtras. Although there do exist philosophical aphorisms in the Buddhist tradition, these are for the most part not known as sūtras. Instead, sūtras, or in Pāli, suttas, are considered by the Buddhist tradition to be the discourses of the Buddha, or at least inspired by the Buddha. These sūtras can and do mix verse with prose and, with the development of the Mahāyāna vaipulya sūtras, can be vast in size. Each Mahāyāna sūtra typically has four parts: a prologue (nidāna, gleng gzhi) with an opening formula that gives the time, place, and retinue of the Buddha when the discourse was spoken; an introduction of the topic of the discourse; a discourse or narration containing the bulk of the sūtra; and a formulaic conclusion. Because, unlike the ritual and grammatical sūtras, Buddhist sūtras are not exceedingly concise nor composed primarily for their mnemonic value (though they do contain features suggestive of an oral tradition—formulae and repeating structures), they do not require commentaries, but are more or less in the language of everyday discourse. They are meant as authoritative teachings of Buddhist doctrine that were spoken on a particular occasion, not as systematic summaries of a discipline. Thus, they are intended to be intelligible by themselves.

Therefore, whereas the ritual and grammatical sūtras are considered to have had commentaries from their beginning, the same cannot be said for Buddhist sūtras. Gonda observes that most ritual sūtras have commentaries and that their origin derives from "direct personal instructions of teachers who lived in close community with their pupils"(648). Compare this situation to Vasubandhu's urging anyone who wishes to comment upon a sūtra to greatly study, base oneself on study, and to accumulate learning (29a).1 Vasubandhu, who wrote in the fourth or fifth century C.E., seems to be urging the would-be commentator to become broadly knowledgeable in Buddhist doctrine before writing any[page 113] commentaries to sūtras. In that case, the sūtra commentary would not be based upon specific instructions about the sūtra passed down from teacher to student, but upon knowledge the commentator has been able to acquire through study, whether in an oral or written tradition, or some combination of both. In such a scenario, the commentary to a sūtra could be written any time after the sūtra came into existence, but would not accompany the sūtra from its origin.

Given the difference between the ritual and grammatical sūtras on the one hand and the Buddhist and Jain sūtras on the other, we well may wonder how the two literary genres could have the same name. Renou suggests the Buddhist use of the term sūtra may derive from the brief phrases that announce a dominant thesis, which is expanded upon and returned to in the large Buddhist sūtras (174). For example, the SJD begins with Śāriputra asking Maitreya the meaning of the following sūtra (and Śāriputra does indeed call the following statement a sūtra [mdo]) spoken by the Buddha: "Bhikṣus, he who sees dependent arising (pratītyasamutpāda, rten cing 'brel par 'byung ba) sees the Dharma. He who sees the Dharma sees the Buddha" (116a). The rest of the SJD is devoted to answering Śāriputra's question, with primary emphasis on describing dependent arising. In this way the SJD, when taken as a whole, can be seen to combine a sūtra, the Buddha's brief enigmatic statement, with its commentary, Maitreya's response to Śāriputra's question.

Now let us turn our attention to Tibet. Sūtra commentaries were among the early translations into Tibetan. We know this from early catalogues such as the Lhan (or lDan) kar ma (LKM), which is preserved in the bsTan 'gyur, "translated treatises," which constitutes one half of the Tibetan Buddhist canon (the other half is the bKa' 'gyur, "translated word [of the Buddha]"; see Harrison and Martin, in this volume). This catalogue, compiled in a Dragon year such as 800, 812, or 824 C.E., after approximately one hundred and fifty years of Tibetan translations of Buddhist texts, is an inventory of treatises stored in the Lhan kar ma Palace in Tibet. Lalou, who has transcribed and indexed the LKM, records 736 titles2 in thirty sections. Section twenty (nos. 514-564) contains the "Commentaries[page 114] on Mahāyāna Sūtras"; section twenty-one (nos. 565-572) contains the "Sūtra Commentaries Translated from Chinese" (318). Of these sixty recorded in the LKM, approximately3 half have been preserved in the bsTan 'gyur while the other half have been lost. Thus, fifty percent of the sūtra commentaries recorded in the LKM did not survive during the dark ages (ca. 840-1040 C.E.) between the early and later propagations of Buddhism in Tibet.

Eventually, Tibetan savants preserved translated sūtra commentaries in the bsTan 'gyur. The original Old sNar thang bsTan 'gyur dates back to the early fourteenth century. Bu ston Rin chen grub of Zhwa lu Monastery copied and expanded the bsTan 'gyur in 1335. All of the extant bsTan 'gyurs are descended from the Zhwa lu Monastery bsTan 'gyur and all of them have divided the sūtra commentaries into two sections: Prajñāpāramitā (Sher phyin), containing commentaries on the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, and Sūtra Commentary4 (mDo 'grel), containing commentaries on non-Prajñāpāramitā sūtras. Although the LKM did not divide the Mahāyāna sūtras into these same two sections, it did place the Prajñāpāramitā commentaries first among sūtra commentaries. Likewise, the LKM placed the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras before all other sūtras, a tradition continued in many of the extant bKa' 'gyurs.

Each of these two sections of the bsTan 'gyur contains about forty sūtra commentaries. However, not all sūtra commentaries are found in the Prajñāpāramitā and Sūtra Commentary sections; seven more can be found in the Tantra (rGyud),5 Cittamātra (Sems tsam),6 and Miscellany (sNa tshogs) sections. Three of the four sūtra commentaries in the Miscellany section are by Tibetans, for this section is reserved for writings of ancient Tibetans, and the fourth lists no author.7 The compilers of the LKM included four or five (see the previous note) of these seven texts among the sūtra commentaries, but the editors of the bsTan 'gyur decided to place them in these other sections. Their placement in the Tantra and Cittamātra sections highlights the occasionally arbitrary nature of the classification of treatises as commentaries of sūtra, tantra, or Cittamātra treatises. For the most part, the Peking and sDe dge bsTan 'gyurs have the same sūtra commentaries, with some minor differences as to placement and total number. When the thirty sūtra commentaries lost since the compilation of the LKM are added to the ninety preserved in the bsTan 'gyur, we get a total of 120. Thus, of the more than one hundred sūtra commentaries translated into Tibetan, fewer than one hundred still exist.[page 115]

One-tenth of the sūtras in the bKa' 'gyur, a mere thirty-four, have extant commentaries in the bsTan 'gyur. Eight Prajñāpāramitā sūtras have extant commentaries (a ninth whose commentary is lost is recorded in the LKM)8; approximately twenty-five non-Prajñāpāramitā sūtras have commentaries. The non-Prajñāpāramitā sūtras include four spells (dhāraṇī, gzungs),9 three cherished recollections (anusmṛti, rjes su dran pa),10 one verse (gāthā, tshigs su bcad pa) entitled Ekagāthā, one prayer (praṇidhāna, smon lam) entitled Bhadracaripraṇidhāṇarāja, and sixteen sūtras proper, for a total of twenty-five. Thus, sūtra in this context seems to mean "the word of the Buddha" (buddhavacana) rather than the genre of sūtras that have prologues, introductions, lengthy discourses, and conclusions. Seven sūtras that received one-third of the extant commentaries include some of the most famous, popular, or important. These are the Hṛdaya (with seven commentaries), Vajracchedikā (three), Saddharmapuṇḍarīka (one), Bhadracaripraṇidhāna (six), Laṅkāvatāra (two), Saṃdhinirmocana (five), and Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā (six). Although all of these sūtras have been translated into Western languages, only some of these sūtras' commentaries have been analyzed with the results published. One example is Donald Lopez's study of Indian and Tibetan commentaries on the Heart Sūtra in which he summarized the seven Indian commentaries and translated two Tibetan commentaries.

Now let us take a closer look at the sūtra commentaries themselves. They range in length from several volumes (Haribhadra's Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, vols. ga to ca) to less than a folio (Asaṅga's Dharmānusmṛtivṛtti); some are in verse (Śālistamba[ka]kārikā [SJT]) while most are predominantly prose (Kamalaśīla's Śālistambaṭika [SJGG]); some discuss several immense sūtras (Smṛtijñānakīrti's*Śatasāhasrikāpañcaviṃśatisāhasrikāṣṭādaśasāhasrikātrayasamānārthāṣṭabhisamayaśāsanā), others only a single verse (Vasubandhu's Ekagāthābhāṣya). Some comment upon entire sūtras (any of the SJD commentaries) and others only on parts of a sūtra such as the prologue (Śākya'i blo's *Daśabhūmisūtranidānabhāṣya) or a chapter (Ye shes snying po's *Saṃdhinirmocanasūtre ṭryamaitreyakevalaparivartabhāṣya). Thus, the commentaries are not homogeneous.

One sūtra commentary has been the subject of more commentaries than any one of the sūtras themselves. The Abhisamayālaṃkāra, a systematic exposition in verse of the Mahāyāna path of deliverance based on the doctrines of the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras [page 116] (in particular, on the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, according to ṭrya Vimuktisena) has inspired at least twenty commentaries. Tradition includes the Abhisamayālaṃkāra, which has been translated into English by Edward Conze, as one of the Five Treatises of Maitreya, a heavenly bodhisattva, but many scholars attribute the work to Asaṅga, fourth-fifth century C.E. The text has eight chapters, one for each of its eight subjects, which also become the organizing principle for most of its commentaries. The first and dominant subject is the Buddha's omniscience. Because the treatise is very concise, it is difficult to understand without its commentaries, not unlike the ritual sūtras of the non-Buddhists. In fact, it has more features in common with the ritual sūtra genre than with other Buddhist sūtra commentaries: Stcherbatsky describes the Abhisamayālaṃkāra as descriptive, summarizing Prajñāpāramitā doctrine and its practice; concise, requiring commentary to be understood; and mnemonic in arrangement (vi, viii). It has also had the most lasting impact of any sūtra commentary; it serves as a gateway for the study of Prajñāpāramitā sūtras by Tibetan Buddhists of all schools, whose savants have amply added over the centuries to the number of its commentaries. One noteworthy example is gYag ston Sangs rgyas dpal's (1348-1414) eight volume gYag Tik for the study of the Prajñāpāramitā.

The other sūtra commentaries exhibit various commentarial techniques. (Indigenous Tibetan typology of commentary includes, but is not limited to, the tshig 'grel, mchan 'grel, don 'grel, and dka' 'grel; see Wilson, in this volume.) Versifications such as the SJT summarize their sūtras and require commentaries to explain both sūtra and versification. Prose commentaries invariably explain the words and phrases of their sūtras, again to lesser and greater degrees. Kamalaśīla's SJGG comments upon the opening phrase of Buddhist sūtras, evaṃ mayā śrutam ekasmin samaye:

In that [connection], by the expression "THUS" ('di skad; evaṃ), the compiler, having been supplicated, indicates all the contents of the sūtra that come below, in order to avoid disparagement (skur pa; *apavāda) and false attribution (sgro 'dogs pa; *samāropa).

These two [words], "I HEARD" (bdag gis thos pa; mayā śrutam), indicate that I directly heard [the sūtra from the Buddha] and did not understand [its meaning]; I myself heard but [what was heard] is not hearsay coming through a lineage from one [person] to another. [It] was merely heard and not understood, because it is impossible that another besides the Buddha [could][page 117] understand a matter such as this. That also is a cause for inducing belief; otherwise, if an impossible matter were stated, it would not be believed.

"ON ONE OCCASION" (dus gcig na; *ekasmin samaye) is joined to the above "heard"; "occasion" [means] either "time" or "gathering [of] the retinue," because of the great difficulty to hear such a precious sūtra anytime, anywhere. Also, "on one occasion" is joined to the following "the Blessed One resided"; this indicates that for the sake of infinite disciples, at other times the Blessed One resided at other [places]. (146b)

The next level of organization is for a commentary to follow its sūtra's chapter arrangement or a set of topics for its organizing principle. A twofold example of this is Haribhadra's Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitāvyakhyābhisamayālaṃkārālokā, which includes the eight subjects from the Abhisamayālaṃkāra and follows the thirty-two chapters from the Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā. More than thirty commentaries are organized along similar principles.

Many sūtra commentaries employ five terms in order to introduce their exposition: the "purpose" (prayojana, dgos pa), the "text" (abhidhāna, rjod pa), the "subject matter" (abhidheya, brjod par bya ba), the "connection" (sambandha, 'brel pa), and the "purpose of the purpose" (prayojanaprayojana, dgos pa'i dgos pa). Broido characterizes these terms as describing "the connection between the whole work and the general purposes for which it was written and is to be studied" (6). As far as he knows, the Indians had no single word for these terms whereas the Tibetans called them dgos 'brel ("purpose-connection") (6). Any number of the five terms may be found in a sūtra commentary, and they can be found in twenty-five of the commentaries, most often using four of the terms.

The relation of the five terms to the four anubandhas, which Huparikar describes as the four requisites at the beginning of a text that explain its purpose, may be quite simple. The Buddhists use the five introductory terms called dgos 'brel and certain non-Buddhists use the four anubandhas in order to introduce a text and its purpose. Three terms are similar: subject matter (viṣaya [non-Buddhist], abhidheya [Buddhist]), connection (sambandha), and purpose (prayojana) (121-122). Not surprisingly, in connection with the five terms, no Tibetan translation of the term anubandha is found in any of the sūtra commentaries.

Four of the five terms are used in the SJGS, a commentary to both the SJT and the SJD. After quoting and commenting on the[page 118] verses (kārikās) as well as on many of the sūtra's passages, it interprets both texts according to Yogācāra doctrine, thus bringing into question its traditional attribution to Nāgārjuna, who is credited with founding the Madhyamaka in approximately the second century C.E. The SJGS, whose organizing principle is the quoted verses from the SJT, is, however, encyclopedic in its descriptions of the Eightfold Path and its antithesis, the various realms, their inhabitants, the many localities of rebirth, the five aggregates, the Four Noble Truths, and so forth.

The SJGS gives us more information about its four introductory terms than most of the other commentaries that use them. It discusses at some length these four: the connection, the purpose, the text, and the subject matter. The commentary can be said to have a "connection" because it will explain the SJD and its kārikā; also, it is "connected" with the Buddha and not the works of non-Buddhists. Its "purpose" is—by understanding the meaning of causes and conditions, by realizing that persons and the factors of existence are selfless, and by realizing the absence of grasped and grasper—to become free of the obscurations of defilement and knowledge and so attain the supreme, truly complete buddhahood. Its "text" is the Śālistamba, which uses the example of a young rice plant (śālistamba, sā lu ljang pa) to link inner and outer dependent arising. Its "subject matter" is dependent arising, which is devoid of an agent and so forth, the understanding of which leads to the abandonment of defilement, the arising of wisdom, and the attainment of the Dharma Body (dharmakāya, chos kyi sku) (21b-22b). The omitted term is the "purpose of the purpose." It might also be translated as the ultimate purpose. It is the deeper purpose of the work and, according to Broido, is often more important than the purpose, though dependent upon it (7). However, the SJGS appears to combine the "purpose" with the "purpose of the purpose," since the stated "purpose" is so long and concludes with the attainment of buddhahood, a typical "purpose of the purpose."

Another commentarial system is explained in Vasubandhu's Vyākhyāyukti (NR), a treatise on how to explain and comment upon sūtras. He sets out five components to be included in a sūtra commentary: the purpose (prayojana, dgos pa), concise meaning (piṇḍārtha, bsdus pa'i don), meaning of the words (padārtha, tshig gi don), connections (anusaṃdhi, mtshams sbyar ba), and objections and answers (codyaparihāradvaya, brgal ba/dang lan gnyis) (30b). The[page 119] "purpose" points to the goal or result of the treatise, the "concise meaning" to the meaning and subject of the treatise, the "meaning of the words" explains the concise meaning and so forth, the "connections" explains the order of the words, and the "objections and answers" uphold the treatise's logical and internal consistency. Even though Vasubandhu composed a number of sūtra commentaries, Kamalaśīla (late eighth century C.E.) is the author who most explicitly follows Vasubandhu's instructions. The best example is the SJGG, in which Kamalaśīla introduces the treatise according to the NR's five components. He organizes the commentary according to a sevenfold concise meaning that conforms to Vasubandhu's directives in the NR. Eleven commentaries in all either mention or actually employ this fivefold method. Kamalaśīla wrote three of them: the SJGG, the Avikalpapraveśadhāraṇīṭīkā, and the Vajracchedikāṭīkā.

As recorded by the Tibetan tradition, the authors of the sūtra commentaries include the greatest luminaries of India: Maitreya, Nāgārjuna, Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, Dignāga, and Śāntideva. However, the authenticity of the authorship of the first two authors is not accepted unequivocally, making Asaṅga the most venerable of the sūtra commentary authors credible to most modern scholars. The next oldest author, and most prolific in this category, is Vasubandhu, with nine commentaries. Some of the other authors of sūtra commentaries have only a single surviving work: ṭrya and Bhadanta Vimuktisena, Dharmakīrtiśrī, Dharmamitra, Kumāraśrībhadra, Jaggatatālar gnas pa, Praśāstrasena, Śrīmahājana, Jñānadatta, Guṇamati, Śīlabhadra, Nyi ma grub, mDzes bkod, rGyan bzang po, and Yuan ts'e (Wen tshegs). Little is known about them. The authenticity of the attribution to later figures from the eighth and ninth centuries C.E. such as Kamalaśīla, Haribhadra, and Vimalamitra, who could have been alive when their works were translated into Tibetan, is more likely.

The LKM clearly identifies eight commentaries as translations from Chinese (332). Of these eight texts, only three survive in the bsTan 'gyur: the Saṃdhigambhīranirmocanasūtraṭīkā (= Lalou 565 according to Steinkellner [234]), Saddharmapuṇḍarīkavṛtti (= Lalou 567), and Laṅkāvatāravṛtti (= Lalou 568). Oddly, neither of the authors of the first two commentaries is Chinese: the first is Korean, Yuan ts'e (613-696 C.E.), according to Inaba (105), and the other, Pṛthivībandhu, Sinhalese, according to the colophon.11 Steinkellner observes that these two treatises display the analytical system used[page 120] by Tibetans of all epochs to structure their texts, the "divisions" or "sections" (sa bcad), a technique he has not been able to find in treatises of Indian origin; he concludes they are of Chinese origin (235).

According to the sDe dge catalogue, important translators of the sūtra commentaries include dPal brtsegs rakṣita and Ye shes sde (ca. 812) from the early spread of Buddhism in Tibet. Important translators of the Prajñāpāramitā sūtra commentaries include rNgogs lo tsā ba bLo ldan shes rab (1059-1109) and Rin chen bzang po (958-1055) from the later spread. More than forty paṇḍitas and translators translated sūtra commentaries.

What does a commentary tell us about its sūtra? On the one hand, in a direct manner, it interprets its sūtra, the meaning of its words, its purpose, and in some cases its perceived underlying organization. The commentary defends the statements of its sūtra or reframes them in a logically defensible manner. It may advance doctrinal positions not explicitly stated in its sūtra or be used to debate doctrinal points with contemporaries. Gómez has described a controversy between the proponents of sudden and gradual enlightenment that found expression in Kamalaśīla's Avikalpapraveśadhāraṇīṭīkā. Thus, the commentaries give us insight into the thoughts and contexts of their immediate authors and into the larger tradition of which they are a part. Because sūtra commentaries are written after the sūtra, not along with it, Eckel's comments on the Heart Sūtra commentaries are quite appropriate when he says they do not "yield the 'original' meaning" of the sūtra so much as "what a distinctive group of commentators thought it meant" (69). That is not to say that the commentaries are of no value for understanding their sūtras. They indeed help the reader to gain an understanding of their sūtras, but how are we to know that the understanding gained corresponds to that of the original meaning or that that was the commentator's purpose? We can count far more upon learning about the commentator and the meaning he (all the sūtra commentators are men) wished to convey (i.e., his interpretation as we interpet it) as well as the doctrinal issues and the received views of the tradition at his time.

In the relatively unstudied area of sūtra commentary, many problems still remain. For example, what was the relationship of the[page 121] sūtras to their commentaries: what determined which sūtras received commentaries and which did not? What was the role of sūtra commentaries in the Buddhist world: were they written primarily in order for the authors to express their doctrinal views, to explain the sūtras, or for some other reason, and who was their audience? How innovative were the commentaries: to what extent did they rely on traditional interpretations of the sūtras? How did the Tibetans decide which commentaries to translate?

To summarize, Buddhist sūtras and their commentaries preserved in the bsTan 'gyur did not originate contemporaneously; the sūtra commentaries came later than their respective sūtras. Approximately one-tenth of the sūtras in the bKa' 'gyur have commentaries in the bsTan 'gyur, and the bsTan 'gyur has placed them in two sections: Prajñāpāramitā and Sūtra Commentary. The Sūtra Commentary section, which includes commentary upon spells, cherished recollections, and so forth, uses a broad definition of "sūtra." From among all the sūtra commentaries, the Abhisamayālaṃkāra is preeminent; in Tibetan Buddhism it has become the gateway for the study of Prajñāpāramitā. The commentaries employ different commentarial methods, and the authors, though primarily from India, include a Korean, a Sinhalese, and a few Tibetans. Finally, the genre is at least as valuable for what it indirectly tells us about the later tradition and the role of sūtra in it as for its interpretations of the sūtras themselves.

Broido, Michael M.

1983A Note on dgos-'brel.Journal of the Tibet Society.35-19.

Eckel, Malcolm D.

1987Indian Commentaries on the Heart Sūtra: The Politics of Interpretation.Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 10/2: 69-79.

Gómez, Luis O.

1983Indian Materials on the Doctrine of Sudden Enlightenment. In Early Ch'an in China and Tibet, pp. 393-434. Ed. by W. Lai and L. R. Lancaster. Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press.

Gonda, Jan

1977The Ritual Sūtras.A History of Indian Literature. Vol. 1: Veda and Upanishads. Fasc. 2. Ed. by Jan Gonda. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.

gYag ston Sangs rgyas dpal

1985g.Yag Ṭīk: The Complete Yig cha for the Study of the Prajñāpāramitā[page 123] Literature. 8 vols. Manduwala, Dehra Dun: Pal Ewam Chodan Ngorpa Centre.

Huparikar, G. S.

1949 The Problem of Sanskrit Teaching. Kolhapur City (India): Bharat Book-stall.

Inaba, Shōju

1977On Chos-grub's Translation of the Chieh-shên-mi-ching-shu. In Buddhist Thought and Asian Civilization: Essays in Honor of Herbert V. Guenther on His Sixtieth Birthday, pp. 105-113. Ed. by Leslie S. Kawamura and Keith Scott. Emeryville: Dharma Publishing.

Kamalaśīla

SJGGŚālistambaṭīkā; Sā lu ljang pa rgya cher 'grel pa. In the sDe dge bsTan 'gyur, facsimile edition published in Delhi, vol. ji, Toh. no. 4001, ff. 145b-163b.

Lalou, Marcelle

1953Les texts bouddhiques au temps du roi Khri-sroṅ-lde-bcan.Journal asiatique 241/3: 313-354.

LKM

Pho brang stod thang lhan dkar gyi chos 'gyur ro cog gi dkar chag. In the sDe dge bsTan 'gyur, facsimile edition published in Delhi, vol. jo, Toh. no. 4364, ff. 294b-310a.

Lopez, Donald S., Jr.

1988The Heart Sūtra Explained: Indian and Tibetan Commentaries.Albany: State University of New York Press.

Renou, Louis

1963Sur le genre du sūtra dans la littérature sanskrite. In Journal asiatique 251/2: 165-216.

SJD

Śālistambanāmamahāyānasūtra; Sā lu ljang pa zhes bya ba'i theg pa chen po'i mdo. In the sDe dge bKa' 'gyur, facsimile edition published in Delhi, vol. tsha, Toh. no. 210, ff. 116a-123b.

SJT

Śālistamba[ka]kārikā; Sā lu ljang pa'i tshig le'ur byas pa. In the sDe dge bsTan 'gyur, facsimile edition published in Delhi, vol. ngi, Toh. no. 3985, ff. 18a-20b.

SJGS

Śālistamka[ka]mahāyānasūtraṭīkā; Sā lu ljang pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo'i rgya cher bshad pa. In the sDe dge bsTan 'gyur, facsimile edition published in Delhi, vol. ngi, Toh. no. 3986, ff. 20b-55b.

Stcherbatsky, Th.

1929Abhisamayālankāra [sic] prajñāpāramitā-upadeśaśāstra: The Work of Bodhisattva Maitreya.Fasc. 1. Bibliotheca Buddhica 23. Co-authored with E. Obermiller. Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag, 1970.[page 124]

Steinkellner, E.

1989Who is Byaṅ chub rdzu 'phrul? Tibetan and non-Tibetan Commentaries on the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra—A Survey of the Literature.Berliner Indologische Studien 4/5: 229-251.

Tohoku

1934A Complete Catalogue of the Tibetan Buddhist Canons (Bkaḥ-'gyur and bstan-ḥgyur) . Ed. by Hakuju Ui, Munetada Suzuki, Yenshō Kanakura, Tōkan Tada. Sendai: Tōhoku Imperial University.

Vasubandhu

NRVyākhyāyukti; rNam par bshad pa'i rigs pa. In the sDe dge bsTan 'gyur, facsimile edition published in Tokyo, vol. shi, Toh. no. 4061, ff. 29a-134b.

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Blondeau, Anne-Marie

1971Le Lha-'dre bka'-thaṅ. In Études tibétaines dédiées à la mémoire de Marcelle Lalou, pp. 29-126. Ed. by A. Macdonald. Paris: Maisonneuve.

1990Identification de la tradition appelée bsGrags-pa Bon-lugs. In Indo-Tibetan Studies, pp. 37-54. Ed. by T. Skorupski. Buddhica Britannica, Series Continua2. Tring: The Institute of Buddhist Studies.

Francke, A. H.

1924-49gZer-myig, A Book of the Tibetan Bon pos.Asia Major1: 243-346; 3 (1926): 321-339; 4 (1927): 161-239; 481-540; 5 (1928): 7-40; 6 (1930): 299-314; New Series 7 (1949): 163-188.

Hoffman, Helmut

1961The Religions of Tibet. London: Allen and Unwin. Translation of Die Religionen Tibets. Freiburg: Karl Alber Verlag, 1956.

Karmay, Samten G.

1972The Treasury of Good Sayings: A Tibetan History of Bon. London Oriental Series26. London: Oxford University Press.

1977A Catalogue of Bon po Publications. Tokyo: TōyōBunko.

1989The Great Perfection. A Philosophical and Meditative Teaching of Tibetan Buddhism. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

1990aTwo Eighteenth Century Xylographic Editions of the gZi-grjid. In Indo-Tibetan Studies, pp. 147-150. Ed. by T. Skorupski. Buddhica Britannica, Series Continua2. Tring: The Institute of Buddhist Studies.

1990bThe Decree of the Khro-chen King.Acta Orientalia51: 141-159.

Kun grol grags pa

ZBKKZab dang rgya che g.yung drung bon gyi bka' 'gyur gyi dkar chag nyi ma 'bum gyi 'od zer. Ms., N.p., n.d., 197 ff.

Kvaerne, Per

1971A Chronological Table of the Bon po. The bstan rcis of Ñi ma bstan 'jin.Acta Orientalia33: 205-282.

1974The Canon of the Tibetan Bon pos.Indo-Iranian Journal16/1: 18-56; 16/4: 96-144.

1986Peintures tibetaines de la vie de sTon-pa-gçen-rab.Arts asiatiques41: 36-81.[page 146]

1988A New Chronological Table of the Bon Religion. The bstan-rcis of Hor-bcun bsTan-'jin-blo-gros (1888-1975). In Tibetan Studies. Proceedings of the 4th Seminar of the International Association of Tibetan Studies. Ed. by Helga UebachJampa L. Panglung. Studia Tibetica Quellen zur tibetischen Lexicographie Band 2. Munich: Kommission für zentralasiatischen Studien der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

1990A Bon po bsTan-rtsis from 1804. In Indo-Tibetan Studies, pp. 151-169. Ed. by T. Skorupski. Buddhica Britannica, Series Continua2. Tring: The Institute of Buddhist Studies.

Nyi ma bstan 'dzin

KTDGbKa' 'gyur brten 'gyur gyi sde tshan sgrigs tshul bstan pa'i me ro spar ba'i rlung g.yab bon gyi pad mo rgyas byed nyi 'od. Śata-Piṭaka Series37, Part II. New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1965.

Orofino, Giacomella

1990Sacred Tibetan Teachings on Death and Liberation. Bridgeport: Prism Press. Translation and revision of Insegnamenti tibetani su morte e liberazione. Rome: Edizioni Mediterranee, 1985.

Rock, J. F.

1952The Na-khi Nāga Cult and Related Ceremonies, Part I. Serie Orientale Roma4/1. Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente.

Roerich, George

1931Trails to Inmost Asia. Five Years of Exploration with the Roerich Central Asian Expedition.New Haven: Yale University Press.

Schuh, Dieter

1976Tibetische Handschriften und Blockdrucke. Teil 6. (Gesammelte Werke des Koṅ-sprul Blo-gros mtha'-yas).Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in DeutschlandBand XI, 6. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.

Snellgrove, D. L.

1967The Nine Ways of Bon. London Oriental Series 18. London: Oxford University Press.

Smith, E. Gene

1970 Introduction to Kongtrul's Encyclopaedia of Indo-Tibetan Culture, pp. 1-87. Ed. by Lokesh Chandra. Śata-Piṭaka Series50. New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture.

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[page 125] ...while it is not accurate to say that an interpretation is helplessly dependent on the generic conception with which an interpreter happens to start, it is nonetheless true that his interpretation is dependent on the last, unrevised generic conception with which he starts. All understanding of verbal meaning is necessarily genre-bound.

—E. D. Hirsch1

This paper begins an exploration of the application of genre analysis to Tibetan commentaries on Indian exegetical works (śāstras). Although here only philosophical works will be considered, the śāstras, as extant in translation in the Tibetan Buddhist canon (see below), cover—in Western terms—not only traditional philosophical areas such as metaphysics, epistemology, logic and rhetoric, and cosmology, but also poetics, grammar, monastic discipline, and medicine. (For a more complete discussion, see Bu ston, DTSCB: 17a.) Tibetan scholars have been prolific writers of commentaries on the śāstras, explaining works such as Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośa, Dharmakīrti's Pramāṇavārttika, and Candrakīrti's Madhyamakāvatāra. This trend is seen most readily in Sa skya and dGe lugs writers, and less so among bKa' brgyud and rNying ma authors.2[page 126]

It has been argued that Buddhism does not have a canon in the sense that canon is understood in the Abrahamic religions (Corless: 212-215). It is certainly the case that the Mahāyāna canon was an open one even in India and continues to be so in the Tibetan tradition (Lancaster: 505); this is especially the case in terms of the gter ma ("treasure texts"; see Gyatso, in this volume). It is also the case that the Buddhist canon is not seen as an exclusive revelation granted to humans by an extra-human divine being, as is the canonical literature of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The principal dissimilarity with the Abrahamic sense of canon, however, stems from the central hermeneutical principle of Buddhism—that the ultimate significance of a scriptural text lies neither in its literal meaning nor in the person from whom it comes, but rather in its ability to generate an awakening to reality (Thurman, 1978; Gómez: 535-536). As Roger Corless succinctly puts it, "The center of Buddhism is not the word of the Buddha, nor even the Buddha. It is bodhi, the enlightened mind.... The text is, in the final analysis, expendable in favor of the practitioner's own bodhi" (213). Corless encapsulates the principle behind the well-known four reliances (rten pa bzhi) that are the foundation of Tibetan Buddhist hermeneutics—to rely on doctrines and not on persons, on the meaning of those doctrines in preference to the words, on the definitive meanings in preference to those requiring interpretation, and on nonconceptual wisdom in preference to conceptual knowledge (Thurman, 1978; Hopkins: 425; Thurman, 1984: 113ff.; Gómez: 535-536). This must nonetheless be balanced with the observation that an appeal to a scripture's provenance has been very important, both in India and Tibet. Later Indian and Tibetan Buddhists justified the claim that the Mahāyāna sūtras and tantras were canonical by citing the claim (made in the texts themselves) that they were the actual teachings of Buddha.

With this in mind, let me offer the following as a tentative minimal definition of "canon": a list or group of texts that are accorded special status because of their perceived authority, an authority attributed either to their source(s) or their transformative ability, but most often to both. Such "transformative ability" in the ultimate sense (in Buddhism) would be salvific: the ability of a text to enable one who hears or reads it to successfully engage in the practice[page 127] of meditation leading to nonconceptual wisdom realizing emptiness (śūnyatā). Less ultimate aims would be the successful practice of morality or the development of compassion. In terms of texts that deal with philosophical issues, a more mundane sort of transformative ability is seen in the explicatory power of an exegetical treatise. In a more traditionally ritual sense, transformative ability may also be seen in the recitation of a text, for example a Prajñāpāramitā sūtra, for the sake of alleviating illness.

There was, in Indian Buddhism, a three-part canon, the Tripiṭaka or "three baskets" (see Harrison, in this volume) consisting of the Sūtras (the discourses given by Śākyamuni Buddha during his forty-five year teaching career), the Vinaya (rules of conduct for the monastic community extracted from Śākyamuni's teachings), and the Abhidharma (the "higher teaching," systematic presentations and analyses of Buddha's teachings). Of these two categories of texts, only the first two are actual buddhavacana or "words of the Buddha" (see Hirakawa: 509ff.). Thus, even within the most basic canon, the three baskets, there is a hierarchy of privilege, with the Sūtras being accorded more authority than the Abhidharma.

With the rise of Mahāyāna Buddhism, even more buddhavacana was recognized—beginning with the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras and continuing in the tantras—and these were accorded an even higher status than the earlier sūtras by followers of the Mahāyāna (see Skorupski, in this volume). Additionally, texts explaining the Sūtra and Vinaya texts were written—the śāstras or "exegetical works"—and these also attained canonical status, not only through their explicatory power but also through their authorship by writers remembered by later Buddhists not only as philosophers but also as meditation masters. It is these texts—those current in later Indian Buddhism—that became the basis of the canon of Tibetan Buddhism. Buddhavacana became the bKa' 'gyur (literally "Word-translation") and the śāstras became the bsTan 'gyur ("teaching/ treatise-translation").

It is, therefore, inappropriate to maintain that some of these texts are canonical whereas others are "quasi-canonical." It is more accurate to say that there is a hierarchy of canonical texts in Tibetan Buddhism, with the status of individual less-privileged, lower-ranked texts (for example, the śāstras) shifting in dependence on who is doing the ranking.[page 128]

Although sūtras are at the core of the scriptural dimension of Chinese Buddhism, this is not the case in Tibetan Buddhism. First, by far the greatest amount of literature is on the tantras. Secondly, the literature that is not explicitly tantric is not principally an attempt to explicate the sūtras per se, but rather their Indian exegeses (which are included among the śāstras; see Schoening, in this volume). Thus, instead of writing commentaries on the Perfection of Wisdom sūtras themselves, in most cases Tibetan expositions of the path to awakening as seen in these sūtras (an area called by the name "Perfection of Wisdom"—phar phyin [prajñāpāramitā]) are commentaries on Maitreyanātha's Abhisamayālaṃkāra which is itself a commentary on the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras. One can thus argue that a typical Tibetan commentarial treatise is actually a sub-commentary, or even a commentary on a sub-commentary.

A look at the Collected Works (gsung 'bum) of 'Jam dbyangs bzhad pa (1648-1721) is instructive in this regard. There are many commentaries on tantras, none on sūtras, and about half of the total number of pages are on non-tantric philosophical subjects, including free-standing works on individual issues and on tenets, and commentaries on Indian śāstras. 'Jam dbyangs bzhad pa is a scholar known for his extremely complex Grub mtha' chen mo (or "Great Exposition of Tenets")—in which he attempts to avoid the over-generalization characteristic of the tenets (grub mtha') literature through carefully examining his Indian sources book-by-book (instead of school-by-school) and in some cases in terms of the development of an author's thinking from youth through maturity (see Hopkins, in this volume). An examination of his collected works yields the following breakdown. Of a total of 143 separately titled works, 50 are on śāstras or tenets, with the remainder covering monastic discipline and monastery regulations, practice of the path to enlightenment, prayers, rituals, liturgies, meditation on the guru as Buddha (guru yoga), poetry, lexicography, grammar, history, visionary experience, and biography. There are 26 separately titled commentaries on the tantras of Guhyasamāja, Cakrasaṃvara, and Vajrabhairava, not including his two-part, 400-folio commentary on Vajrabhairava. Of a total of 6,343 folios, only about half are found in non-tantric commentaries on Indian texts. His śāstra commentaries include major analyses of Dharmakīrti's[page 129] Pramāṇavārttika, the Abhisamayālaṃkāra (attributed to Maitreyanātha), Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośa, and Candrakīrti's Madhyamakāvatāra. Additionally, he wrote a major commentary on meditation theory (the dhyānas and samāpattis), a work on the four truths, a work on interdependent arising (pratītyasamutpāda)—all part of the perfection of wisdom curriculum—as well as books on hermeneutics and a number of introductory textbooks on philosophy, logic, and allied subjects.

'Jam dbyangs bzhad pa's works provide a general overview of the concerns of many Tibetan authors who have devoted themselves, at least in part, to writing on śāstras. In his autobiographical Lectures on Tibetan Religious Culture, Geshe Sopa speaks of his education at the Byes College of Se ra Monastery near Lhasa. He lists there the five major areas of study—Perfection of Wisdom (Prajñāpāramitā), Middle Way Philosophy (Madhyamaka), Monastic Discipline (Vinaya), Advanced Doctrine (Abhidharma), and Epistemology (Pramāṇa)—and the texts that he studied (Sopa: 42-43; see also Rabten: 47-49):

1. (1) Maitreyanātha's Abhisamayālaṃkāra on Perfection of Wisdom, pertaining to which there are twenty Indian commentaries (the chief of which is by Haribhadra);
2. (2) Candrakīrti's Madhyamakāvatāra on Middle Way philosophy and ontology in general, as well as the works of Nāgārjuna;
3. (3) Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośaon "advanced doctrine" (although the most accurate doctrine, as perceived by most Tibetans, is that of Candrakīrti's Madhyamakāvatāra);
4. (4) Dharmakīrti's Pramāṇavārttika on epistemology.

These texts are at the core of the dGe lugs pa study of śāstra literature.

A different set of texts forms the basis of the recent śāstra curriculum of the schools of the rNying ma Order: the thirteen great texts (gzhung chen) (Tulku Thondup: 81-82).3 Two are on Vinaya and so will not be treated in this study of śāstras on philosophical subjects. The remaining eleven of the great texts are the following śāstras:[page 130]

1. (1-2) Asaṅga's Abhidharmasamuccaya and Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośa—on advanced doctrine;
2. (3-5) Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Candrakīrti's Madhyamakāvatāra, and Āryadeva's Catuḥśataka—on the philosophy of Madhyamaka;
3. (6) Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra on bodhisattvas' practice;
4. (7-11) the five books attributed to Maitreya: theAbhisamayālaṃkāra, Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra, Madhyāntavibhaṅga, Dharmadharmatāvibhaṅga, and Uttaratantra (also known as the Ratnagotravibhāga).

There are modern commentaries (of the mchan 'grel or annotation type) on some of the thirteen great texts by Mi pham Phyogs las rnam rgyal (1846-1912) and on all thirteen by gZhan phan chos kyi snang ba (1871-1927).4

Note that both lists include the Abhidharmakośa, the Madhyamakāvatāra, and the Abhisamayālaṃkāra. Additionally, the Bodhicaryāvatāra is a work whose study is important to all lineages of Buddhism in Tibet, although it is not always explicitly included in scholastic curricula.

The category of Tibetan philosophical commentaries is too extensive to be considered a genre—in much the same way as theological and philosophical literature in the West: such commentaries comprise a type of literature only in the broadest sense, and those who are unaware of the many significantly different genres seen among commentarial works risk misreading those texts. There are three basic criteria for genre difference in Tibetan commentarial literature, all of which are usually operative in any given text.

(1) Genre in a more clearly literary sense is defined by the style, or format, of the commentary. Three of the more frequently seen formats are annotation commentaries (mchan 'grel), critical analyses (mtha' dpyod), and general expositions (spyi don).

(2) If we define "genre" (following E. D. Hirsch) as "that sense of the whole by means of which an interpreter can correctly understand any part in its determinacy" (86), it is not trivial to say that it is necessary to know, when one is reading a commentary on the Pramāṇavārttika, that one is reading an analysis or exposition of that work and not an explanation of the Abhidharmakośa. The philosophical jargon of Indian Buddhism is relatively homogeneous,[page 131] with innovation occurring more often in the interpretation of extant terms than in the coining of new ones. Thus, even simple terms (perhaps especially simple terms) such as dravya (Tib. rdzas, "substance" or "substantial entity"), bhava (dngos po, "thing, phenomenon"), and nairātmya (bdag med, "lack of self, selfless") are, in important ways, used differently by Dharmakīrti and Vasubandhu, the authors of the above texts.

(3) Finally, and in a sense as a corollary to the second defining criterion, genres are also delimited by perceptions about the primary text brought to it by the author (and the reader, if the reader is a Tibetan who is part of the oral tradition of explication based on that commentary). For better or worse, Tibetan Buddhist philosophers (influenced by tendencies already present in Indian Buddhism) have seen Indian texts not only as products of their authors, but also as the products of normative views of reality associated not only with those authors but with an entire school. The verses of Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośa are thus read as a presentation of the tenets of the Vaibhāṣika school, whereas his autocommentary (that is, the rang 'grel—a generic name for a commentary composed by an author upon a text of which he is also the author) is read as a subtle Sautrāntika critique of the Vaibhāṣika position. Thus, from the point of view of a reader who is part of a Tibetan tradition of exegesis (which, historically, have combined both written and oral explanation), a Tibetan commentary on the Abhidharmakośa must be read with Sautrāntika and not Mādhyamika expectations.

Thus, the genre of a commentary is defined by (1) the format in which the commentary is written, (2) the basic text upon which it is a commentary or subcommentary, and (3) the school(s) of doctrine associated (by Tibetan writers and readers) with commentary on that basic text.

The first criterion—the style of the commentary—will be discussed in the next section. The second criterion, that the basic text which a commentary explains helps to define the genre into which that commentary should be classified, has three facets. First, as mentioned, whereas the technical language of Buddhist philosophy has, in a relatively conservative way, remained stable, the meanings of the terms have changed over time. (It is an awareness of differences in the application of terminology—that is, in definition [mtshan nyid, which, thus, also means "philosophy"]—that is at the basis of the Tibetan taxonomy of Indian Buddhist[page 132] and non-Buddhist philosophies invoked in the third criterion for genre.) Even such a basic distinction as that between existence as a substantial entity (dravya) and existence as an imputation (prajñapti) was construed in different ways by Nāgārjuna in the second century, Vasubandhu in the fourth century, and Haribhadra in the eighth century. Secondly, Buddhist writers did utilize different terminology in their works. Some of the terminology that Nāgārjuna inherited from the philosophers of his day was rejected by later writers such as Vasubandhu, along with belief in the existence of the phenomena which that terminology was constructed to describe. Finally, different Indian texts (the bases of the Tibetan commentaries) have different agenda. One of the primary concerns of Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośa, for example, is to locate phenomena according to the "level" at which they are found (that is, in the kāmadhātu, rūpadhātu, or ārūpyadhātu—the Desire, Form, or Formless Realms) and to criticize what it perceives as an over-proliferation of substances in earlier Abhidharma literature. Haribhadra's Abhisamayālaṃkārāloka, on the other hand, is concerned primarily with the systematic analysis of paths to enlightenment. Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā tends to accept without criticism many of the phenomena that Vasubandhu came to question two centuries later, but engages in a radical critique of their mode of existence. Thus, this criterion for defining commentarial genres suggests that the reader ought to approach the commentary in question with an awareness of the agenda of the Indian text that is its basis and of the terminology employed. This is not only a necessary condition for "correct understanding" of the commentary in Hirsch's sense, but is also necessary for recognition of those instances in which Tibetan authors are modifying the agenda and bringing in issues and terminology of their own.

The third criterion for genre implies that a dGe lugs pa commentary on Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, for example, should be read—barring internal evidence to the contrary—with the assumption that Candrakīrti's Prāsaṅgika interpretation of Nāgārjuna's Mādhyamika is its normative stance (rang lugs, literally "own system"). A Tibetan commentary on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra, on the other hand, will normally be based on the interpretive viewpoint of the most influential later Indian commentary on that treatise, the Abhisamayālaṃkārāloka, a work written by Haribhadra from what is known in the Tibetan tradition as the Yogācāra-Svātantrika Mādhyamika standpoint.[page 133]

This is not to say that the twentieth-century reader should uncritically assume that Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā is, in fact, a work written from the Prāsaṅgika viewpoint. (If nothing else, this is anachronistic, given that the Prāsaṅgika philosophy was constructed by Candrakīrti as a critique of Bhāvaviveka's sixth-century interpretation of Nāgārjuna.) That notwithstanding, the genre consisting of Tibetan commentaries on early Indian Mādhyamika texts such as the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā is made of works which, typically, are themselves identified as being written from a Prāsaṅgika standpoint. Likewise, the genre of Tibetan commentaries on Prajñāpāramitā—that is, on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra—is made up of texts which, at least heuristically, assume a Yogācāra-Svātantrika perspective.

The first criterion for recognizing a genre within commentarial works is the style or format in which such a work is written. Bu ston, in his Chos 'byung ("History of Buddhism") enumerates five main types of subcommentaries (bka' la mi brten pa'i bstan bcos) (DTSCB: 22a.4-7): (1) extensive commentaries (rgya cher 'grel ba) in which both the words and the meaning of the basic text are elaborated; (2) word commentaries (tshig 'grel) in which the lexical components of a text (that is, the words or syllables) are explained; (3) commentaries on difficult points (dka' 'grel) in which the points in the basic text that are difficult to understand are explicated; (4) commentaries in which the topics of the basic text are condensed into an abbreviated format (bsdus don gyi 'grel pa); (5) commentaries merely on the verbal significance of a basic text (ngag don tsam gyi 'grel pa).5 His taxonomy of commentaries (bka' la brten pa'i bstan bcos) seems more theoretical and less helpful (DTSCB: 22a.7-22b.1): (1) commentaries (such as the Abhisamayālaṃkāra) completely presenting the meaning of a single scripture; (2) commentaries which explicate systematically what is scattered (Obermiller: 58); and (3) commentaries (such as Śāntideva's Śikṣāsamuccaya) which explicate the meaning of many scriptures.

Bu ston is really speaking of canonical Indian commentaries, whereas our concern is with Tibetan literature. However, there are some clear parallels between genres of Tibetan commentaries and Bu ston's list of subcommentaries. If Tibetan commentaries on Abhidharma (especially on the Abhidharmakośa) are examined,[page 134] examples of four of the five types may be found.

(1) Extensive commentaries are quite common in Tibet; some are called such, while others (at least among the dGe lugs pa) are included in the genre of critical analyses (mtha' dpyod). An example of the first is the lengthy two-volume commentary on the Abhidharmakośa by the eighth Karma bKa' brgyud patriarch Mi bskyod rdo rje (1507-1554) which is labelled a 'grel pa rgyas par spros pa ("extensively elaborating commentary") (CNDGDP). An example of the second is 'Jam dbyangs bzhad pa's 675-folio commentary on the Kośa (CNDGZK).

(2) Bu ston's term, "word commentary," is sometimes used by Tibetan writers, but more often seen is the mchan 'grel (commentary of annotations). These are commentaries in which the words of a basic text are printed either with small circles under them or in a larger size than the surrounding text, that surrounding text being an expansion on the words and/or syllables of the basic text. gZhan phan's thirteen annotation commentaries have already been noted.

(3) Commentaries on difficult points (dka' 'grel) are sometimes seen in Tibetan literature; an Abhidharma example is bSod nams grags pa's (1478-1554) commentary on Asaṅga's Abhidharmasamuccaya (CNKKYP).

(4) Commentaries which focus on the main points of a text are fairly common. One type is the spyi don (presentations of the "general significance" of a basic text). These are not actually abbreviations or condensations of the basic text, however; what makes them "general" is that they do not for the most part engage in the detailed polemical critique seen in their critical analysis counterparts. Thus, rJe btsun pa's spyi don on the Kośa (CNDKLS—labelled in the Library of Congress description a "general introduction") expands considerably on the basic verses of the Kośa; rJe btsun pa's textbooks serve as the core of the curriculum of Byes College of Se ra Monastery.

(5) Another type of general commentary is a true condensation of the meaning of the basic text. An example is one of the textbooks used in the sMad College of Se ra Monastery, rGyal dbang chos rje Blo bzang 'phrin las rnam rgyal's verse condensation (sdom tshigs or sdom gyi tshigs su bcad pa) presentation of the basic verses and autocommentary on the Kośa (CNDMSG).[page 135]

I have, in this brief essay, attempted to indicate how genre analysis might be applied to Tibetan commentaries on Indian exegetical works. Such an analysis might include an examination into the ways in which commentaries belonging to different genres elucidate one uncomplicated but significant passage from a basic text. What would need to be examined is the extent to which later commentaries build on earlier works, the extent to which novelty is seen in later commentaries, and—especially—the extent to which application of the three criteria for genre definition is actually necessary for a valid interpretation of the text.

Blo bzang 'phrin las rnam rgyal, rGyal dbang chos rje

CNDLNNChos mngon pa mdzod kyi dgongs don gsal bar byed pa'i legs bshad snying po'i snang ba. Delhi: Mongolian Lama Gurudeva, 1982.

CNDMSGDam pa'i chos mngon pa mdzod kyi rtsa 'grel gyi gnas 'ga' zhig phyogs gcig tu bsdebs pa'i sdom gyi tshig su bcad pa rmongs mun sel ba'i sgron me. Delhi: Mongolian Lama Gurudeva, 1982.

bSod nams grags pa

CNKKYPChos mngon pa kun btus kyi dka' ba'i gnad dgrol ba'i dka' 'grel mkhas pa'i yid 'phrog. Buxa: Shes rig 'dzin skyong slob gnyer khang, 1964.

Bu ston Rin chen grub

DTSCBbDe bar gshegs pa'i bstan pa'i gsal byed chos kyi 'byung gnas gsung rab rin po che'i mdzod. In The Collected Works of Bu-ston, vol. 24. New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1971.

mChims Nam mkha' grags

CNDNGChos mngon mdzod kyi tshig le'ur byas pa'i 'grel pa mngon pa'i rgyan. Buxa, India edition of 1967.

Corless, Roger J.

1989The Vision of Buddhism: The Space under the Tree. New York: Paragon House.

Gómez, Luis O.

1987Buddhist Literature: Exegesis and Hermeneutics. In The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 2, pp. 529-540. New York: Macmillan.

Gyatso, Janet

1986Signs, Memory, and History: A Tantric Buddhist Theory of Scriptural Transmission.Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 9/2: 7-35.

gZhan phan chos kyi snang ba

CNDSMChos mngon pa'i mdzod kyi tshig le'ur byas pa'i mchan 'grel shes bya'i me long. Sides 7-257 in Gźuṅ chen bcu gsum gyi mchan 'grel.Dehra Dun: D. G. Khocchen Tulku, 1978.

Hirakawa, Akira

1987Buddhist Literature: Survey of Texts. In The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 2, pp. 509-529. New York: Macmillan.

Hirsch, E. D.

1967Validity in Interpretation. New Haven: Yale University Press.[page 137]

Hopkins, Jeffrey

1983Meditation on Emptiness. London: Wisdom.

'Jam dbyangs bzhad pa Ngag dbang brtson grus

CNDGZKDam pa'i chos mngon pa mdzod kyi dgongs 'grel gyi bstan bcos thub bstan nor bu'i gter mdzod dus gsum rgyal ba'i bzhed don kun gsal. In The Collected Works of 'Jam-dbyaṅs-bźad-pa'i-rdo-rje, vol. 10. New Delhi: Ngawang Gelek Demo, 1972.

Lancaster, Lewis R.

1987Buddhist Literature: Canonization. In The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 2, pp. 504-509. New York: Macmillan.

Mi bskyod rdo rje

CNDGDPChos mngon pa mdzod kyi 'grel pa rgyas par spros pa grub bde'i dpyid 'jo. New Delhi: Taikhang, 1975.

Mi pham rgya mtsho, 'Jam mgon 'Ju

CNDGGGDam pa'i chos mngon pa mdzod kyi mchan 'grel rin po che'i do shal bla gsal dgyes pa'i mgul rgyan. Dehra Dun: 1971.

Obermiller, E.

1931History of Buddhism (Chos-hbyung) by Bu-ston: The Jewelry of Scripture.Heidelberg: Otto Harrassowitz.

Rabten, Geshé

1980The Life and Teaching of Geshé Rabten. London: George Allen & Unwin.

Se ra rje btsun Chos kyi rgyal mtshan

CNDKLSChos mngon pa mdzod kyi spyi don dka' gnad legs par bshad pa. Buxa, India edition of 196?

Sopa, Geshe Lhundup

n.d.Lectures on Tibetan Religious Culture. Department of Indian Studies, University of Wisconsin.

Thurman, Robert A. F.

1978Buddhist Hermeneutics.Journal of the American Academy of Religion 46/1: 19-35.

1984Tsong Khapa's Speech of Gold in the Essence of True Eloquence. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Tulku Thondup

1987Buddhist Civilization in Tibet. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

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[page 147] The rubric gter ma, or "Treasure," cannot properly be characterized as representing a genre of Tibetan literature. Texts classified as Treasure are of many different genres; in fact, the range of Treasure genres almost repeats that of Tibetan literature as a whole. Rather, the term Treasure refers figuratively to the place from which such a text was drawn. Or more precisely, Treasure means that which was drawn from such a place. The place is a treasure cache (sometimes distinguished in Tibetan as gter kha, which we may translate as "treasury"); the Treasure is the product extracted. This product is most notably text, but there are also a variety of material objects (gter rdzas) which are purported to have been extracted from such treasuries as well.1 The following, however, will focus upon those Treasures which are textual.

The fact that the range of Treasure genres competes in breadth with that of Tibetan literature as a whole alerts us to a critical feature of the tradition that needs to be noted from the outset. The various Treasure "cycles" (skor) that have been discovered by the Tibetan "Treasure discoverers" (gter ston) often constitute complete ritual and doctrinal systems which in an important sense stand on [page 148] their own. Such cycles of related texts function in their religious milieu as authoritative sets of teachings which amount to challenging alternatives to existing textual systems.

Treasure discovery is still practiced in the twentieth century by contemporary Tibetans in exile, such as Dil mgo mKhyen brtse Rin po che (1910-1991), and even in occupied Tibet, as seen in the outstanding Treasure career of mKhan po 'Jigs med phun tshogs (b. 1933). The tradition seems to have begun in Tibet in the tenth century C.E.2 The practitioners of this mode of introducing texts have been primarily rNying ma pas and Bon pos; these two groups had much overlap in their Treasure activity.3 The newer (and, it will be noted, more politically powerful) gSar ma pa schools tend to doubt the Treasures' authenticity (Kapstein, 1989), although there have been discoverers there too (Smith: 10). We need hardly note that Western scholars have also been dubious concerning Treasure claims (Aris, 1989).

The two primary modes of Treasure discovery are the unearthing of what is usually a fragmentary text buried in the ground, statue, or monastery wall (sa gter); and the finding of such a text buried in one's mind (dgongs gter). In both cases, the discoverer claims that the item found had previously been hidden in that very place at some point in the past. This claim concerning the past is another critical feature of the Treasure tradition, which strictly speaking distinguishes it from the other visionary modes of revealing text in Tibet such as "pure vision" (dag snang) and secret oral transmission (snyan brgyud) (though not infrequently these labels are used loosely to characterize Treasure as well).

Once discovered, many of the buried Treasure cycles came to be compiled into canons of their own. The early Bon po Treasures were incorporated into the Bon po bKa' 'gyur and brTen 'gyur, which together fill approximately 300 volumes; in fact, Treasures make up nearly all of the former and much of the latter parts of this collection.4 Per Kvaerne (1974: 39) estimated that the Bon po canon was assembled ca. 1450, approximately 150 years after the compilation of the Tibetan Buddhist canon of the new schools, the bKa' 'gyur and bsTan 'gyur.5 The Buddhist Treasures were not compiled into a collection of their own until the nineteenth century, when Kong sprul bLo gros mtha' yas edited the Rin chen gter mdzod (RT), a collection of cycles which in its current edition numbers over one hundred volumes. There are, however, a considerable [page 149] number of Buddhist Treasures not included in the RT, such as the two well-known "historical" cycles, the Maṇi bka' 'bum and the bKa' thang sde lnga, as well as some of the esoteric sNying thig ("Heart-Sphere") Treasures, some of which came to be classified as Atiyoga tantras of the "key instruction class" (man ngag sde) and included in the rNying ma'i rgyud 'bum.6 Also not included were cycles that were not available to Kong sprul, as well as some that were not deemed worthy of inclusion.

The subject matter of the Treasure texts, as was already indicated concerning genre, is as broad as that of the rest of Tibetan literature. For the sake of summary, the principal Treasure subjects may be distinguished into two main types: those that purport to recount history and/or hagiography; and those that present religious teachings and practices. In the case of history, the Treasure mode of textual generation performs the important function of offering an arena to recount competing versions of past events, i.e., versions that differ from orthodox or generally accepted versions. As would be expected, such Treasure histories are vulnerable to a charge of forgery; on the other hand, if the conceit of discovery is granted, then the purported age of the text and the status of its original author function to lend authenticity and legitimacy to its narratives.

In the case of religious teachings, legitimacy is claimed by characterizing the "core" of the cycle as a revelation. The Bon po Treasures are often identified as teachings of the founder of Bon, gShen rab mi bo (see Kvaerne, in this volume). In the Buddhist case, Treasure revelations are placed explicitly on a par with the sūtras and tantras of the more conventional Buddhist canon, and are said to be, in one sense or another, the "word of the Buddha." We shall see below that the very mode in which the Buddhist Treasures are transmitted is characterized as being in consonance with the mode in which the more well-known and accepted teachings of the Buddha were transmitted. The Buddhist Treasures gain legitimacy in particular by explicitly linking themselves with the texts and practices of the "Old Tantras" said to have been translated from Sanskrit, and compiled into what is called the rNying ma'i rgyud 'bum, itself a challenging alternative canon to the more conventional canon, the Buddhist bKa' 'gyur with its "New Tantras."7 In most cases, the Buddhist Treasures are distinct from the Old Tantras in that they present different texts and different visions, but rather [page 150] than competing with the Old Tantras they complement them, and thus stand together with the Old canon as a joint challenge to the New canon. However, the Buddhist Treasures still maintain an advantage over the canonical Old Tantras by virtue of the position of their discoverer: since the Treasures are received in a "close transmission" (nye brgyud), their discoverer has greater proximity to (and by implication, mastery of) the source of his teachings than does a master of the Old Tantras, who has received the texts he is teaching from a "long transmission" (ring brgyud), i.e., a succession of masters that stretches back into the distant past.

We have already suggested at least three ways in which the religious Treasure lays claim to authenticity: the exalted status of its original expounder, such as the Buddha; the nature of its doctrines, practices and mode of transmission, which are similar to the more well-known and accepted doctrines, practices and mode of transmission of canonical materials; and the special powers of the Treasure's discoverer. That the powers of the discoverer are of critical concern in the Treasure tradition may be seen particularly in the biographical, and sometimes autobiographical, accounts of the individual discoverers' visionary quests for Treasure. In a series of articles focusing on such accounts from the Buddhist Treasure tradition (1986, 1993, and n.d.), I have shown that the personal struggle to develop the power to find a Treasure, the difficulty in deciphering the cryptic codes and "ḍākinī language" in which the Treasure is originally revealed, and the discoverer-to-be's many self-doubts are all necessitated by the nature of the Buddhist myth of the Treasures' previous concealment (see, e.g., Tulku Thondup Rinpoche). Interestingly, this myth makes two legimating moves at once: it harkens back to the authoritative past, and simultaneously sheds positive light on the discoverer in the present.

The Buddhist Treasure myth has come to center upon the activities of Padmasambhava, the eighth-century Indic master credited with introducing tantric Buddhism into Tibet, even though there were a number of earlier traditions regarding the concealings of Treasures in Tibet, most notably those associated with the rDzogs chen teachings of Vimalamitra, another Indian teacher in Tibet during the same period.8 But by the time of discoverer Nyang ral Nyi ma 'od zer (1124-1192), the myth of the Treasures' origin that stars Padmasambhava and his Tibetan consort Ye shes mtsho rgyal began to dominate the Buddhist Treasure tradition. The predominance of Padmasambhava is probably attributable to the fact that[page 151] his image as a princely but lay tantric master reflected well the style of the very Tibetans—themselves often lay teachers of the aristocratic class—who were developing what we might call the full-blown Treasure tradition.9 Nonetheless, in this myth, Padmasambhava is still but a middleman in the dissemination of Treasure, if a very central middleman. The Treasure is most basically transmitted by a primordial buddha in a primordial pure land (rgyal ba'i dgongs brgyud). Secondarily it is transmitted in signs by the tantric "knowledge holders" (rig 'dzin brda'i brgyud), the Indian patriarchs of the rNying ma pa school. Only tertiarily is it taught in verbal form by Padmasambhava, in the eighth-century Tibetan court, "into the ears of persons" (gang zag snyan khung du brgyud) (Gyatso, 1986, 1993). Padmasambhava then proceeds to prepare the Treasure teaching for burial. He transmits the teaching in an empowerment ceremony (smon lam dbang bskur), during which he specially commissions certain disciples to rediscover it in a future incarnation at a specified time, a commissioning that is assured of fulfillment by virtue of a prophecy Padmasambhava utters to that effect (bka' babs lung bstan). Then he appoints powerful protectors to conceal the Treasure from everyone else until the right discoverer comes along at the right time (mkha' 'gro gtad rgya). The point is that the wrong person must not discover the Treasure; if he or she does, death will be imminent.10

Thus the crucial element in Buddhist Treasure discovery is that the discoverer must prove both to himself and to the world that he is indeed the previously commissioned individual. This is accomplished in a variety of ways, one of which is through signs which demonstrate the blessings of the exalted previous expounders of the Treasure, and another of which is by the discoverer's own spiritual accomplishments, which demonstrate that he or she already mastered the Treasure teachings while studying with Padmasambhava in a past lifetime.

The roots of this complex and arcane process of textual transmission may be recognized in the earlier and quite pragmatic Tibetan custom of burying politically sensitive items underground as a means of preventing their destruction. Tibetan histories state, for example, that because of repressive measures taken by anti-Buddhist ministers after the death of the king Mes ag tshoms (ca. 750 [page 152] C.E.) certain Buddhist texts newly introduced in Tibet such as the Vajracchedikā Sūtra were hidden underground, and later retrieved when the next Buddhist king, Khri srong lde btsan, took the throne (KG: 308-309; BC: 882). But this and other such incidents are not considered to be instances of Treasure transmission.

In some accounts of early Treasure concealment in the Bon po tradition, the reason for hiding texts is also primarily practical. The two principal moments of Bon Treasure burial occur in the wake of the persecutions of Bon during the reigns of (1) the prehistoric Tibetan king Gri gum bTsan po, and (2) Khri srong lde btsan.11 That this pragmatic view of the need for Treasure burial is still operative in the Bon po tradition may be seen from a recent comment by the contemporary Bon po master bsTan 'dzin rnam dag, who characterized the concealment of texts and objects after the Chinese invasion of Tibet in the 1950s as a third Treasure concealment, on the same order as the previous two (private interview, 1989).

However, at some yet undetermined moment in the development of both the Buddhist and Bon po Treasure traditions, the reasons given for concealment become grounded in the mantic powers of the concealer: rather than trying to protect texts from present adverse conditions, the concealer of Treasure is concerned with the future, which he perceives will be difficult, with special teachings needed. The Treasures that he then hides are specifically formulated to benefit the beings in that future moment. This future-determined motive is especially characteristic of the Buddhist Treasure myth that stars Padmasambhava, although early Bon po sources refer to prophecies of the future as well.12 In addition to the motive for concealment, the mode of discovery also changes. Rather than digging up an object based on a simple memory or notation of the hiding place, or indeed by accident, as is the case in some accounts of early Bon Treasure discoveries,13 the act of discovery becomes dependent upon visionary inspiration, the memory of past lives, and especially the compulsion exerted by the prophecy.14 The contemporary Buddhist Treasure tradition even goes so far as to disallow the accidental discoveries that are sometimes reported in the Bon po Treasure tradition (see Tulku Thondup Rinpoche: 103).

It is also the Buddhist Treasure tradition that, in elaborating the need for, and the mode of, Treasure transmission, was able to utilize incidents in the Indian Buddhist tradition as authenticating [page 153] precedents. The Buddhist Treasure tradition thereby claims that the mode of Treasure transmission is ultimately to be traced to Indian Buddhism. Indeed, at an early point Buddhism had already allowed the preaching of authentic "buddha-word" by individuals other than the Buddha, based either upon the Buddha's inspiration or on those individuals' own realizations (MacQueen). The Tibetan Buddhist expounders of Treasure theory can even cite statements in the sūtras that the bodhisattva will hear Dharma teachings from the sky, walls, and trees (NC: 511; Dudjom Rinpoche: 743). Buddhist legends concerning visionary receipt of scripture often cited as precedents by the Treasure proponents are Maitreya's revelation of Buddhist philosophical texts to the fourth-century Asaṅga, and Nāgārjuna's retrieval of the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras from a nāga realm under the ocean. Also noted was the Buddha's prophecy in the thirteenth chapter of the Pratyutpannasamādhi Sūtra that this text will "go into a cave in the ground" and 500 years later, in degenerate times, a few beings who have studied with former buddhas and who have "brought wholesome potentialties to maturity and planted seeds" will propagate the sūtra again (Harrison: 96-108; YM: 223-224; GT, vol. 2: 448). Further, well known to the Treasure tradition is the rNying ma pa account of the Indian transmission of the Old Tantras of the Mahāyoga bKa' brgyad class, which involves their concealment and later revelation from the caitya at Śītavana (NC: 111-112; Dudjom Rinpoche: 482-483). In fact, as early as the thirteenth century, the Treasure apologist Guru Chos dbang is finding analogues to Treasure concealment/revealment in virtually the entire history of the Buddhist scriptures, from the transmission of versions of the Vinaya, to that of certain sūtras, all classes of the Old Tantras, and even the textual transmission of several Mahāyāna śāstras (GC: 89-95).

Never mentioned by the Treasure tradition to my knowledge is its close affinity to accounts of text concealment and revelation in Chinese Ling-pao Taoism. For example, the third- to fourth-century "Grotto Passage" tells that Celestial Officials, out of compassion for the suffering beings in a degenerate age, granted special books written in a celestial script which came to be hidden in a casket in Mount Chung to await a future sage. These texts are said ultimately to have been recovered by a Taoist adept (Bokenkamp). We may also note that another frequently mentioned feature of earth Treasure revelation, namely, that it is recovered from the ground in the form of a paper scroll (shog dril), suggests Chinese [page 154] influence as well. Further, the doctrinal and meditative teachings of the rDzogs chen, which many Buddhist and Bon po Treasures propagate, have certain connections with Chinese Ch'an, even if the two are not to be equated (Karmay, 1988: 86-106; Kvaerne, 1983). In particular, the presence of Ch'an passages in the Blon po bka' thang (Tucci, 1958; Ueyama) suggests that Treasure may have offered a convenient means to reintroduce Ch'an teachings in Tibet. Such a theory is also implied by Bu ston Rin chen grub, the fourteenth-century scholar and historian who would have been critical of the Treasure tradition and its teachings; he states that when Hva shang Mahāyāna was sent back to China after his loss in debate to the Indian master Kamalaśīla, his books were "hidden as treasure" (BC: 890) .

If the Buddhist Treasure tradition itself locates its source in India, and the historian of religion can recognize influences from China as well, the phenomenologist of religion will notice the indigenous Tibetan elements operative in Treasure. We have already noted above that the practice of burying objects in the ground has early Tibetan roots. The significance of retrieving a text out of the Tibetan earth (or mind) should also not be lost on us. This is particularly evident in the Buddhist case, where Indic origin was a critical criterion for a text's inclusion in the bKa' 'gyur and bsTan 'gyur, the Buddhist canon with which Treasure competes. If we bracket, for a moment, the Treasure tradition's own construction of Indian precedent, we may note the thorough-going Tibetanness of the eidos of Treasure, i.e., the essentially Tibetan character, or thrust, of a Treasure's claim to fame and importance at the moment it is being presented into the Tibetan world. A Treasure is a text that has not been propagated in India; it was concealed during the period of the Tibetan nation's apogee of military might and golden age of Buddhist practice; it was formulated specifically for this particular moment in Tibetan history; its prophecies in fact describe this moment pointedly; and now this particular Tibetan master has revealed it to Tibet at the proper time.

Whether drawn out of the Tibetan ground or a Tibetan mind, the Treasure stands as a Tibetan product, in this important sense independent of Buddhist and other traditions of Tibet's neighbors. This independence is repeated on the smaller scale, too, within the dynamics of Tibet's internal scene. On this scale, the Treasure is an alternative, and challenge to the religious teachings being propagated in institutionalized, monastic circles. The discoverer [page 155] himself is an autonomous, maverick figure, typically declaring his independence from received tradition and study; rather, the discoverer focuses on his own mind, his own visions, his own memory of a previous life as Padmasambhava's disciple, his own predestined revelation that he propagates to his own circle of disciples. This recourse to the independent master facilitated by the Treasure tradition underlines the creativity that is thereby made possible. The Treasure itself describes a new vision, and a new system of meditation or ritual. The fact that innovation is made possible by Treasure means that vitality, flexibility, and responsiveness to new situations and needs are maintained in Tibetan religion.

Here we can only sketch out some of the general features of an enormous landscape. Further, this overview is limited to Buddhist Treasure; a full study of the Bon Treasure literature, especially when the Bon po canon becomes more readily available, will surely add much to our understanding of the Treasure tradition.

As already indicated, we may make a basic distinction between two major types of Treasure subject matter: (1) the "historical," which in the Buddhist case concerns the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet during the Yar lung dynasty, and (2) religious doctrine and practice.

Again, the first type exemplifies the Treasure tradition's focus upon primarily Tibetan matters. Tibetologists have long recognized that despite certain genuine ancient passages preserved therein, the Treasure narratives are greatly overlaid with myth and fantasy, and are not to be considered as providing historical information (Vostrikov). Nonetheless, the Treasure accounts of the events of the Yar lung dynasty are critical for our understanding of the way that period was retrospectively romanticized and glorified in Tibetans' views of their country's past, as well as the implications of that period for the place of Buddhism in Tibetan society altogether. The Treasures offer some of the most detailed stories of the seventh-century King Srong btsan sgam po, who builds many Buddhist temples to subdue the wild indigenous "demoness" of Tibet, and whose two wives from Nepal and China bring statues of the Buddha; of King Khri srong lde btsan, who invites the Indian Buddhist philosopher Śāntarakṣita and the tantric master Padmasambhava, and builds bSam yas Monastery; of [page 156] Padmasambhava, who introduces tantric Buddhism in Tibet, and brings under submission Tibet's demons who are transformed thereby into protectors of Buddhism; of the Tibetan teacher Vairocana, who is instrumental in the introduction of rDzogs chen in Tibet; of the great debate between the Indian master Kamalaśīla and the Chinese master Hva shang; and of many other matters at the heart of the founding of Buddhism in Tibet.15

The Buddhist Treasures that present these stories, along with much other material, date primarily from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. The Maṇi bka' 'bum is one of the few Buddhist Treasures that does not deal with Padmasambhava and the period of Khri srong lde btsan, but rather with the hagiography and purported teachings of Srong btsan sgam po. It also presents sādhanas for Avalokiteśvara as well as several Indic Buddhist canonical texts connected to the cult of Avalokiteśvara (Macdonald; Aris, 1979: 8-12; Kapstein, 1991; Blondeau, 1984). The bKa' thang sde lnga Treasure has five books: the rGyal po (Kings), bTsun mo (Queens), Blon po (Ministers), Lo paṇ (Translators and Pandits), and Lha 'dre (Gods and Ghosts), and was discovered in stages by O rgyan gling pa in the latter third of the fourteenth century (Blondeau, 1971: 42). These texts focus on the events surrounding Padmasambhava, but contain many other legends as well as passages with historical value, along with such diverse materials as an elaborate and lengthy description of the treasuries of the gYar lung kings in the rGyal po, and the Ch'an materials in the Blon po, already mentioned.16 As for the Treasures devoted solely to the hagiography of Padmasambhava, they have been analysed by Blondeau (1980), who found that the Treasure traditions of Padmasambhava's life portray his "miraculous birth" while non-Treasure renditions of his life speak of his "womb birth." The earliest of the Treasure hagiographies of Padmasambhava is the Zangs gling ma, discovered by Nyang ral Nyi ma 'od zer (ZL); the two best known are the Shel brag ma, discovered by O rgyan gling pa (1329-1367) (translated by Toussaint), and the gSer phreng, discovered by Sangs rgyas gling pa (1340-1367), which both contain a separate chapter of prophecies of Treasure discoverers. Another major "historical" Treasure is the hagiography of Padmasambhava's Tibetan consort Ye shes mtsho rgyal, discovered by sTag sham rdo rje in the seventeenth century, which recently has been translated into English twice (Dowman; Nam mkha'i snying po).

[page 157] The second type of subject matter, that which presents religious teachings, sādhanas, and rituals, constitutes the content of the majority of Treasure cycles. Once again, let us note that since most Treasures are purported to have been preached by Padmasambhava, these cycles too contain "historical" passages concerning the Yar lung period as well. But the bulk of the cycle is devoted to teachings and practices.

With the exception of several hagiographies of Padmasambhava, biographies of the Treasure discoverers, and texts relating to the structure of the collection, the one hundred plus volumes of the RT are comprised of these sādhana/ ritual cycles. The RT's editor, Kong sprul, has arranged much of the Treasures in this collection according to the nature of the central visualized figure of the sādhana/ritual. And since most of the Treasure cycles include several sections which focus upon different figures, Kong sprul saw fit to break these cycles up and insert the parts into their appropriate volumes so as to fit into the general structure according to which he arranged the collection as a whole. Thus the Rig 'dzin 'dus pa section of the famed Treasure cycle Klong chen snying thig will be found in volume 14 of the RT along with sections of other Treasure cycles that focus on a visualization of the interior guru in "peaceful form" as a nirmāṇakāya; the Bla sgrub thig le'i rgya can section of that same cycle is in volume 17 along with other Treasures presenting gurusādhanas; and the rDzogs chen sections of the cycle are in volume 89, in the rDzogs chen portion of the RT.

The main organizing principle of the RT is the group of the three "inner tantras" of the Old canon: the Mahāyoga, Anuyoga, and Atiyoga. The predominance of the first group, the Mahāyoga, in Treasure cycles may be seen from the fact that it occupies volumes 3 to 85 of the RT. The Anuyoga is represented by but a few cycles in volumes 85 and 86, and the Atiyoga occupies volumes 86 to 91.17

The deities of the Mahāyoga are organized in the RT under the three headings of guru, yi dam (the practitioner's principal deity; Skt. iṣṭadevatā), and ḍākinī. These headings are further broken down into such standard categories as the external/internal dyad, and the fourfold peaceful/extensive/powerful/wrathful typology of deities. The gurusādhanas are exceedingly numerous, occupying fourteen volumes of the RT. The yi dams, Treasures concerning whom fill thirty-two volumes of the RT, are primarily the eight who are classed together in the Mahāyoga tantras as the bKa'[page 158] brgyad. The ḍākinīs, comprising five volumes of the RT, include a variety of female deities. The Atiyoga Treasures also use some of the same deities in their practices, but there is more emphasis in these cycles on meditative techniques that focus on the nature of the mind. A large variety of techniques are introduced in the Treasures for recognizing that nature, and separate texts that focus on such practices are again organized taxonomically.

When one examines an individual Treasure in one of these categories, one finds that it too is divided into sections, but now at this closer level the organizing principle is no longer deity, and rather is literary genre. This genre-based organization is never strictly determined, but the ideal pattern, if one may say so, consists in what I have called a "core text," and its "surrounding" subsidiary commentarial and ritual texts (Gyatso, 1991). The core text may be couched as a tantra or other sort of "root text" (mūla; rtsa ba), and it is most likely to represent the revealed Treasure vision or philosophical teaching itself. As such, it will be anonymous, or couched as the words of Padmasambhava, or a buddha, or deity. It is also recognizable by the orthographical device of the gter shad—aseparating each line instead of the standard /, used in other forms of Tibetan literature. However, sometimes the gter shad is used improperly to mark the subsidiary commentaries and associated rituals as well.

The authorship of the subsidiary texts is often explicitly attributed to the discoverer, or even to a disciple; thus many of the texts included in the RT are strictly speaking not revealed Treasures but rather merely based upon them. The principal subsidiary texts are either descriptions of how to perform the empowerment ritual whereby disciples are initiated into the practices of the root text and/or its associated deity, or are sādhanas describing how to identify oneself as the deity in visualization meditation (see Cozort, in this volume). But then again, sometimes the revealed core text is itself an empowerment or sādhana.

The many other subsidiary genres present the many other types of rituals and liturgies associated with the core revelation, to the point that a typology of Treasure genres will be a typology of Tibetan rituals. Some of these rituals are placed close to their core texts in the RT, but others have been gathered in the last portion of the Mahāyoga section, in volumes 64 through 84, which becomes a virtual catalogue of the Treasure rituals that the practitioner of a given cycle may employ as needed or desired. A sampling of some [page 159] of the genres/rituals included here: construction of maṇḍalas; manufacture of ritual hats and costumes; geomantical analysis of a place for its spiritual properties (sa dpyad); rituals to appease the human and non-human "owners" of a place in which one intends to practice (sa chog); methods to ascertain the disposition of the large being that constitutes the entirety of a place (sa bdag lto 'phye); invocation of blessings (byin 'bebs); general meritorious rituals performed between more complex rituals (chos spyod); additional rituals to compensate for ritual transgressions (bskang bzhags); techniques for eating bits of paper inscribed with therapeutic mantra letters (za yig sngags 'bum); construction of offering cakes (gtor ma); mass offering-feast liturgies (tshogs mchod); consecration of icons (rab gnas); rites for the dead; burnt juniper offerings (bsang); construction of thread-crosses (mdos); uses of effigies (glud); crop cultivation; weather control; turning back of armies; protective devices against weapons; curing of physiological and psychological disease; extending of lifespan (tshe sgrub). Surveying this literature, one realizes how much a Treasure revelation is a starting point for the colorful tantric dramaturgy for which Tibetan religion is so well known. Each discoverer introduces new styles, images, and techniques; many have been accomplished choreographers, painters, sculptors, costume designers.

Several genres that are to be found at some point in the Treasure cycle are a function of the special features that distinguish Treasure from other forms of tantric literature. Most important is the prophecy (lung bstan) text, in which Padmasambhava predicts the future discoverer and the moment in history when the Treasure will be revealed. This text (or passage embedded in another text) is the central legitimating device of the Treasure; it proves, or attempts to prove, that the cycle was not authored by the discoverer but rather was formulated by Padmasambhava in the past. It also proves that the discoverer is in fact the person who was designated by Padmasambhava for the revelation of this Treasure. A related, distinctive Treasure genre is the certificate (byang bu; see Gyatso, n.d.), a curious mini-Treasure discovered prior to the Treasure proper, which may also include prophecies as well as explicit directions on how to find the rest of the cycle. Both the prophecy and certificate are part of the visionary "core" of the Treasure; they inevitably are marked with the gter shad device, and are presented as the words of Padmasambhava.

[page 160] Another important legitimating genre within the religious Treasure is the history of the cycle (sometimes called lo rgyus) which may or may not be part of the visionary core. I have identified two main types, one which recounts the transmission of the cycle from its origin in a buddha-land up to its concealment by Padmasambhava, and the other which narrates the events of the discovery (Gyatso, 1993). The account of the transmission of the cycle is often incorporated into the core, and functions to legitimate in much the same way as the prophecy and certificate just discussed.

The second, the account of the discovery, is of particular interest, since it too is meant to legitimate, or to "engender confidence" (nges shes bskyes pa) in the Treasure, but it does so on entirely different grounds than do the references to Padmasambhava and his buddha predecessors. Here the reader is presented with an individualistic account of the discoverer's trials and struggles in realizing the revelatory vision. The text recounting this visionary process is often authored by the discoverer. In some instances it is detailed enough to constitute the discoverer's autobiography, or "visionary autobiography," in that what is of concern is the discoverer's visionary career and development as a whole, as well as the events following the climactic revelatory episode, such as his decision to teach and publish the Treasure. Reading these accounts, we can observe quite concretely that the Treasure argument for legitimation is not based solely upon the invocation of the Treasure myth and the discoverer's purported role in the burial of the Treasure centuries earlier. Rather, there is an equal, if not greater, emphasis placed upon a show of honesty and an admission of inadequacies and error, as if such candor and display of self-doubt would also, ironically, engender confidence in the discoverer. The Treasure tradition understands the discoverer ultimately to become a highly realized meditation master capable of "owning" and "controlling" the powerful and esoteric teachings that the Treasure presents; he is not simply Padmasambhava's mailman or delivery boy, as one representative of the Treasure tradition recently put it.18 The painting of the visions, dreams, and personal qualities in the discoverer's autobiography gives us a picture of an idiosyncratic personality on the way to such mastery, and a sense of the importance of the charismatic individual in the Treasure tradition overall. Here the virtue of creativity reigns supreme.

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De bzhin gshegs pa thams cad kyi ting nge 'dzin dngos su bshad pa ye shes 'dus pa'i mdo theg pa chen po gsang ba bla na med pa'i rgyud chos thams cad kyi 'byung gnas sangs rgyas thams cad kyi dgongs pa gsang sngags gcig pa'i ye shes rdzogs pa chen po don gsal bar byed pa'i rgyud rig pa rang shar chen po'i rgyud. In The Tibetan Tripitaka, Taipei Edition, vol. 56, pp. 46-100. Taipei: SMC Publishing, 1991.

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Zab bu gdan sa pa Karma mi 'gyur dbang gi rgyal po

SBgTer bton brgya rtsa'i mtshan sdom gsol 'debs chos rgyal bkra shis stobs rgyal gyi mdzad pa las de'i 'brel pa lo rgyus gter bton chos 'byung. Darjeeling: Taklung Tsetrul Rinpoche Pema Wangyal, 1978.

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