Nine Yanas

Nine yānas (Tib. ཐེག་པ་དགུ་, Wyl. theg pa dgu) or nine successive vehicles (Tib. ཐེག་པ་རིམ་པ་དགུ་, Wyl. theg pa rim pa dgu) — within the Nyingma tradition, the full spectrum of spiritual paths is divided into nine yanas, a system of practice bringing together all the approaches of the Buddha’s teaching into a single comprehensive path to enlightenment.

Origin

The nine yanas are referred to in the Kulayaraja Tantra (Kunje Gyalpo) and in the General Sutra of the Gathering of All Intentions (Düpa Do), which is the central scripture of Anuyoga.

Subdivision According to the Three Kayas

• Dharmakaya teachings refer to the teachings of Atiyoga
• Sambhogakaya teachings refer to the teachings of the three outer yanas, as well as Mahayoga and Anuyoga
• Nirmanakaya teachings refer to the teachings of the three causal vehicles

The Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism has nine yanas, a list made by combining the first type of three yanas, and adding the six classes of tantras.

• Hīnayāna
  • 1. Śrāvakayāna
  • 2. Pratyekayāna
• Mahāyāna consisting of:
  • 3. Bodhisattvayāna
• Vajrayāna, consisting of:
  • Outer Tantras
    • 4. Kriyatantra
    • 5. Upatantra (Tibetan spyod rgyud) ‘practice tantra’ and the Ubhayatantra (gnyis ka’i rgyud), ‘dual tantra’, because it practices the view of the next vehicle, Yogatantra, together with the action of the former.
    • 6. Yogatantra
  • Inner Tantras
    • 7. Mahāyoga
    • 8. Anuyoga
    • 9. Atiyoga (also Dzogchen)

It is important to note that there are numerous untranslated portions of the Vima Nyingthig, Gongpa Sangtal, etc. that place the most secret unsurpassed cycle of Menngagde as a totally independent Buddhist vehicle outside the nine yanas.

The Nine Yanas
sutrayana			tantrayana
the three outer yanas leading from the origin, i.e. the three yanas related to the outer vehicle of leading from the origin [of suffering] and the three pitakas of characteristics			the three yanas of vedic asceticism, i.e. the three yanas related to the inner vehicle of Vedic asceticism and the three outer classes of tantra			the three yanas of powerful transformative methods, i.e. the three yanas related to the secret vehicle of powerful transformative methods and the three inner classes of tantra
basic vehicle		mahayana	vajrayana
path of renunciation			path of purification		path of transformation			path of self-liberation
1. the shravaka yana ཉན་ཐོས་ཀྱི་ཐེག་པ་	2. the pratyekabuddha yana རང་རྒྱལ་གྱི་ཐེག་པ་	3. the bodhisattva yana བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་ཐེག་པ་	4. the yana of kriya tantra བྱ་རྒྱུད་ཀྱི་ཐེག་པ་	5. the yana of charya tantra སྤྱོད་རྒྱུད་ཀྱི་ཐེག་པ་	6. the yana of yoga tantra རྣལ་འབྱོར་རྒྱུད་ཀྱི་ཐེག་པ་	7. the yana of mahayoga རྣལ་འབྱོར་ཆེན་པོའི་ཐེག་པ་	8. the yana of anuyoga རྗེས་སུ་རྣལ་འབྱོར་གྱི་ཐེག་པ་	9. the yana of atiyoga ཤིན་ཏུ་རྣལ་འབྱོར་གྱི་ཐེག་པ་

Source

Wikipedia:Nine Yanas

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