As a named genre the mental purification literature appears to be a genuinely Tibetan innovation, although its contents are firmly anchored in Indian Buddhist tradition. The Tibetan compound blo sbyong, translated here as mental purification, means literally "[the] purifying [i.e., purification] (sbyong [ba]) of the mind (blo)." As a stereotyped phrase this does not, however, appear in the standard Tibetan-Sanskrit lexicon of Buddhist terminology, the Mahāvyutpatti (MVYT), nor apparently is it to be found in the translation of any text with a confirmed Sanskrit original. In addition, none of the texts with blo sbyong in their title found in the earliest collection of such works, the fifteenth-century Blo sbyong glegs bam ("Mental Purification Collection") (LBLB),1 bears a Sanskrit title along with the Tibetan one, the standard practice for texts actually or purportedly translated from an Indian original.

Nevertheless, even if this compound is not, strictly speaking, a loan translation, its meaning is quite clear in light of the compounds and phrases in which its components and their analogues appear. Tibetan blo is used primarily to render the Sanskrit buddhi, which in a non-technical sense has the meaning of "mind" in general; as a technical term it means the intellectual faculty, a sense that Buddhism shares with the other religio-philosophical systems of India. sByong is the present root of the Tibetan verb whose primary signification is "to purify" or "cleanse." As such it is used in rendering the action noun derivative (śodhana) of the Sanskrit root śudh, "to purify," and so we find it at MVYT 600 where it translates the Sanskrit [pari] śodhana as [yongs su] sbyong ba. The Sanskrit and Pāli citta (sems), which is virtually synonymous with buddhi, is often met with in analogous compounds and phrases throughout Indian Buddhist literature. A very close parallel appears in the most important source for the mental purification literature, Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra ("Introduction to Bodhisattva Practice") (BCA). In BCA 5, v. 97 we find the compound sems sbyong ba2 (cittaśodhana; "mental purification") in the line "One should always observe the practice [leading to] the purification of the mind."3 Similar compounds are found elsewhere, such as the Sanskrit cittapariśuddhi, "purification [or purity] of the mind" (Abhidharmakośa 8:1; Vasubandhu: 130), and Pāli phrases such as "to purify the mind" (cittam parisodheti) are common in the Theravāda literature (see PTSD, PTC). Many further examples might be cited.4[page 246]

Moreover, such compounds and phrases are expressive of their origins in the earliest and most fundamental Buddhist practices, all of which "aim(s) at purifying the citta" (Johansson: 23). As an important Mahāyāna scriptural quotation puts it: "Beings become soiled by the soiling of the mind; they are purified by the purification of the mind."5 Perhaps most importantly, the generation of universal love and compassion through empathic identification with all living beings, which similarly belongs to the most ancient stratum of Buddhist teachings (e.g., the Aṅguttara and Majjhima nikāyas, quoted in Vetter: 26-28; Buddhaghosa: 321-353), is, according to the great philosopher-saint sGam po pa (1079-1153), the very means by which the purification of the mind (sems sbyang ba) is brought about (Guenther: 144-146; sGam po pa: 92a2-94a6).