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Prajñāpāramitā). Given that the text does not provide a teaching lineage originating with either Padampa Sangyé or Machik in narrative (although one can use the supplied tables to piece together an unbroken lineage), the characterization of Machik’s teaching as specifically “Mahāmudrā” appears to be somewhat partisan.17 Lodö Rinpoche later repeats the ubiquitous claim that “(w)hile the teachings of the Buddha had been faithfully carried from India to Tibet and elsewhere, never before had any tradition been transmitted from Tibet to India. Machik’s Chöd of Mahamudra transmission was the first time in history that a valid source of Dharma 16 The issue of whether or not Padampa taught Machik directly, and whether or not he taught her Chöd, will be discussed further in later chapters.

17 Lodö Rinpoche himself transmits both the Karmapa and Shangpa Kagyü lineages, according to the Kagyu Droden Kunchab website: www.kdk.org.

went from Tibet to India. Thus, such a great being, Machik Labdrön, was the first lineage holder, and this unbroken lineage continues until the present guru” (2007, 13). As I discuss later in this study, the identification of Chöd with Mahāmudrā does not originate with Machik herself, but is a historical development of the transmission of her teachings.

Several aspects of Lodö Rinpoche’s biographical sketch raise questions and issues that I will be considering throughout my study. First, as in several other biographies of Machik, Lodö Rinpoche reports that Machik’s system of Chöd was paradoxically both originally transmitted by Padampa Sangyé from India and initially transmitted by Machik to India. Concomitant with this apparent contradiction is the paradox that Machik inherited the Chöd teachings from someone— according to various sources this may have been Padampa Sangyé—and that she is the initial lineage holder and genetrix of these teachings. In chapter two on the transmission lineages of Chöd, I address these problems. Assumptions that the system of Chöd that is attributed to

Machik was always characterized as “Mahāmudrā” is a problem I grapple with at the end of this study. This association with Mahāmudrā also invokes the parallel Sūtra and Tantra aspects of Chöd, which I explore in chapter three. Lodö Rinpoche’s text illustrates the prevailing tendency to neglect or gloss over the many distinctions in Chöd transmission lineages, in Chöd teachings, and in Chöd practices, by students and scholars alike. This disregard has not only resulted in undervaluing the role of Machik in the origination of Chöd, but also rendered Chöd’s theoretical, practical and cultural development obscure.

Another problematic development in the recent study of Chöd has been the prevailing insistence on the indigenous Tibetan roots of Chöd and the neglect of its fundamental Buddhist grounds. In her PhD thesis, Lucy A. Jones (1998) puts her study of a Bön Chöd practice text in dialogue with the theory of Georges Bataille and emphasizes the intersections of transgression

and compassion in these two systems. Alejandro Chaoul’s work complements the study of Bön Chöd by Jones; however, his efforts to historicize Bön Chöd as antecedent to Buddhist Chöd is undermined by his dependence on Buddhist Chöd materials for his discussion. In his 1989 article, “Offering the Body: The Practice of Gcod in Tibetan Buddhism,” David Stott makes brief mention of the Indic underpinnings of the Chöd tradition, and he provides a cursory analysis of Jamgon Kongtrul’s Gcod yul rgya mtsho’i snying po stan thog gcig tu nyams su len pa’i tshul according to an oral teaching he received. Stott follows Eliade in suggesting parallels between Chöd and shamanism. As these works by Stott, Jones, and Chaoul indicate, many recent studies

of Chöd associate it with “shamanism.” This tendency is the result of identifying Chöd with its outer ritual practices rather than systemically investigating the lineages of the tradition. Those who have made such connections also generally fail to clearly articulate what they mean by “shamanism.” Early writers drew connections between Chöd and shamanism based on the drumming and movements of some Chöd practices, while contemporary writers refer to recent classificatory systems, such as those proposed by Mumford18 and by Samuel,19 to equate Chöd with shamanism. Chaoul, influenced by such theoretical suppositions, has recently gone so far as to suggest the equation of “shamanism” with “Tantra.” Charles Van Tuyl, in his article on Milarepa and Chöd, not only suggests connections between Chöd and shamanism, but also considers it to be possibly prehistoric. According to Van Tuyl, “The ch’ö ritual is of great importance to the history of religions, in part due to the antiquity of the rite. Since a form of the ch’ö ritual is practised not only in Tibet and North Asia, but also among the Eskimos and some 18 Mumford (1989), influenced by Bakhtin, characterizes the interaction between Buddhist “Lamaism” and Gurung “Shamanism” in Nepal as a “dialogue” with three layers of “temporal identity”: “the ancient matrix”; “the individual life sequence”; and “historical becoming.”

19 Samuel (1993) employs the classificatory dyad of “clerics” and “shamans” to characterize the development of Tibetan Buddhism as a synthesis of the two types of praxis.

of the Indian tribes of North America, this rite appears to date back to the times of the peopling of the Americas by migrations across the Bering Straits, perhaps as early as 25,000 BC. This ritual thus constitutes one of the oldest human possessions and might be accurately described as a living fossil” (1979, 34). There are two important problems in identifying Chöd with shamanism. The first is that if we take a general description of what might be called “shamanic,” it is difficult to see how the adjective applies to Chöd. For example, Chöd contains no communication with supramundane beings, no return from the dead, and no supramundane travel to other realms. The second and more important problem with yoking Chöd to shamanism is that it obscures the Buddhist core of the tradition. Often when this connection is made, it seems that the purpose is to suggest that there is something “non Buddhist,” or “non Indic,” or “indigenously Tibetan” about Chöd. But rather than illuminating the tradition, the term

“shamanic” suggests elements by association that are not present, such as possession. Part of the purpose of my present study is to counter this unfortunate tendency in the study of Chöd by providing an account of the tradition on its own historical and philosophical terms. In addition to the limitations of current scholarship on Chöd, there has been little sustained critical study of the philosophy, praxis and contributions of Machik to the maledominated Prajñāpāramitā commentarial tradition. The reception and canonization of Machik is symptomatic of the production and reproduction of woman through and in Buddhist Tantric traditions. As I explain further in chapter three, Machik is frequently deified as an embodiment of Prajñāpāramitā and thus becomes a static personification of wisdom. In complementary representations of Machik, she stands in for the enlightenment of all women, but as a symbol illustrating the positive valorization of women in Tantra as uneducated helpmates who provide assistance as nurturers and sexual partners, thus eliding female sovereignty and emphasizing the

path to male enlightenment. In order to interrogate these conventional gender constructs, it is crucial to seriously consider Machik’s philosophy and praxis rather than simply emphasizing her lived experience as represented in hagiographies.20

Machik was renowned as a “reader” of the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, texts that articulate the central Mahāyāna Buddhist teaching of emptiness (stong nyid, śūnyatā). Recognizing the ways in which Machik’s Chöd praxis builds on the tradition of the Prajñāpāramitā contests the image of Machik as an uneducated woman. As I have noted, such a reading also counters the typical way in which Chöd is represented in Western studies: as an unduly exotic ritual that advocates the “renunciation” of the body. I would suggest that such representations perpetuate cognitive formulations of the West—particularly a “self” that possesses a mind and a body—as part of a received rational tradition that undervalues the body, embodiment and women's experience. Such rationalism, one might argue, dovetails with hegemonic commentarial

traditions established by men throughout the histories of Buddhism. In Buddhist traditions, the idea of embodiment has often been used to perpetuate regimes of ascetic misogyny grounded in preoccupations with women as objects of desire.21 Subverting such constructs, Chöd refigures the centrality of embodiment in an existential reorientation toward the impermanence of being human—of being subject to death. Chöd meditation techniques assist in cultivating compassion as a complementary experiential process, as a “cognitive responsiveness,” to the teachings of

emptiness and of the Prajñāpāramitā. In Chöd, process is enlightening: cultivating liberative 20 Studies that focus on the biography of Machik include: Elisabeth Benard, “Ma gcig Labs sgron, a Tibetan Saint,” Chö Yang 3 (1990); Massimo Facchini, “The Spiritual Heritage of Ma gcig Lab sgron,” Journal of the Tibet Society 3 (1983): 21-26; Migyur Dorjée Madrang, “A Discussion on Great Women in Tibetan History,” trans. Sonam Tsering, Tibet Journal 2 (1997): 69-90; K. Kollmar-Paulenz, “Ma gcig lab sgron ma: The Life of a Tibetan Woman Mystic Between Adaption and Rebellion,” Tibet Journal 23.2 (1998): 11-32, and “Die biographie der Ma gcig lab sgron ma—Quellenanalytische Vorarbeiten,” XXIV Deutscher Orientalistentag vom 26 bis 30 September 1988 in Koln, ed. Werner Diem (Stuttgart: Abdoldjavad Falaturi, 1990), 372-380; and Adelheid Hermann-Pfandt, “On a Previous Birth Story of Ma gcig Lab sgron ma,” Tibet Journal 25.3 (2000): 19-31. 21 See, for example, Liz Wilson (1996).

techniques (thabs; upāya) with the complements of wisdom (shes rab; prajña) and compassion (snying rje; karuṇā) as generated by the impulse to enlightenment (byang chub sems; bodhicitta).

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

In order to counter some of the prevailing tendencies of current research, such as ahistoricism and exoticization, I present here a study of the development of Tibetan Buddhist Chöd as evidenced in emic materials and my own translations of key early Chöd texts. I hope that this study will provide some resources to develop a “thicker description,” to borrow a methodological trope from Gilbert Ryle (1968),22 in order to enhance our understanding of Chöd. Since recent scholarly studies have largely failed to historicize Chöd, thus broadly misrepresenting its relationship to Buddhist traditions, I endeavor to show how Chöd both situates itself within and adapts traditional Buddhist ideas and practices. To supplement the recent emphasis on yogic practitioners of Chöd in both contemporary scholarship and diasporic practice, I also explain how Chöd has developed its distinctive praxis through a symbiosis

between institutions and individual practitioners. Through analyzing developments in Chöd teachings and shifts in institutional and lineage identities of key figures, I present an account of Chöd as a dynamic tradition that has, from its beginnings, invoked and adapted earlier Buddhist teachings. In each of my chapters, I show how Chöd has both legitimated itself through its association with Buddhist traditions and presented itself as an innovation on those traditions. My discussion of the Chöd tradition is divided into three sections: “Historical Development,” “Philosophical Contexts,” and “Textual Analysis.” The first section on “Historical Development” consists of chapters on “Historical Contexts” and “Transmission and 22 And of course, popularized by Clifford Geertz as a methodology in his ethnographical studies (1973).

Legitimation.” Against the prevailing tendencies among translators of and contemporary commentators on Chöd to treat the tradition as continuous and stable, this part of my dissertation illuminates the changes in Chöd over time. “Historical Contexts” provides the first thorough discussion of the cultural environment in which Chöd developed. I examine the “later spread period” (phyi dar) in Tibet, from the 11th through the 14th centuries, during which historical conditions led to a tension between conservative and innovative impulses in Buddhist teachings. When we understand that Machik’s teachings were developed in this context, we see how she negotiated the tension between the need to authenticate her teachings as Buddhist and the need to present an innovative system in order to distinguish herself in this age dominated by male charismatic teachers.

In “Transmission and Legitimation,” I extend this historical survey to trace how the Chöd tradition was developed and codified by various Tibetan schools. This chapter begins by remarking on how Chöd commentaries associate the tradition with several precursor texts, including the Abhidharmakośa and the Hevajratantra. I then consider the vexed question of the influence of Padampa Sangyé’s Zhijé teachings on Machik’s Chöd. In contrast to many traditional accounts, which position Padampa Sangyé as the “father” of Chöd, 23 I speculate that his influence on Machik may have come through a text by his maternal uncle, The Great Poem by Āryadeva the Brahmin, which has often been cited as the root text (gzhung rtsa) in the transmission of Buddhist Chöd teachings. The remainder of the chapter surveys a wide range of Dharma histories (chos ‘byung) and spiritual biographies (rnam thar) to identify key figures and to trace lineages and traditions in the development and transmission of Chöd in Tibet. As I explain in this chapter, returning to such primary sources as The Great Explanation and the Blue 23 For example, D. I. Lauf, “Die Chöd-Tradition des Dam-pa sang-rgyas in Tibet,” Ethnologische Zeitschrifte Zurich I (1970): 85-98.

Annals has compelled me to reconsider received notions about the identities and roles of persons who have contributed to the transmission of Chöd teachings. In concert with Machik’s own strategies of authentication and innovation, this survey demonstrates how institutions were instrumental in both preserving and transforming the tradition.

The second section of my dissertation on “Philosophical Contexts” contains chapters on “Philosophy and Development,” “Cutting Through the Body,” and “Cutting Through the Mind.” This second part of my dissertation aims to counter exoticizing readings of key Chöd ideas and practices by elaborating the philosophical underpinnings of the Chöd tradition in Indic Sūtra and Tantra materials. Drawing on my research in primary sources, I consider the influences of Buddhist teachings on the theory and praxis of Chöd. In “Philosophy and Development,” I explain how Chöd legitimates its practice and philosophy by explicitly drawing from both Sūtra and Tantra traditions, and also how it innovates in intertwining elements from these two sources. I begin this chapter by considering the influences of the Sūtra Prajñāpāramitā corpus on the development of Chöd, and then I turn my attention to exploring the lesser known Tantric

antecedents and parallels of Chöd. To demonstrate how Chöd developed a more explicit ritual apparatus through its association with established Tantra methods, I explore the resonances between Chöd and Vajrayoginī praxis. This association between Machik and Vajrayoginī helps me to account for the later diminishment of Machik’s role as philosopher and teacher, as she becomes equated with an ahistorical supramundane goddess. In the next section of “Philosophy and Development,” I explain how we can better understand Chöd as a fusion of Sūtra and Tantra elements through an etymological investigation of the Tibetan homonyms “gcod” and “spyod.” Finally, I explore Machik’s own claims about her teachings to demonstrate that she uses a

strategy of “anti-legitimation” to position her teachings as both integrating and transcending their Sūtra and Tantra antecedents.

The next two chapters in the “Philosophical Contexts” section, “Cutting Through the Body” and “Cutting Through the Mind,” are complementary explorations of how Chöd interweaves Sūtra and Tantra teachings in several of its most important practices. Chöd advocates procedures for severing self-attachment and ego-clinging using both Sūtra- and Tantra-based methods with the goal of realizing enlightenment. From the standpoint of the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra teachings, Chöd recommends that the practitioner eliminate mental afflictions (nyon mongs; kleśa) that support the elaboration of the individual ego, with its subjective propensity to discriminate reality into discrete objects. This is done primarily through repeated identification of such afflictions and analysis of their ultimate emptiness of any independent reality. Complementing such strategies, Chöd also advocates various methods for arousing the deeper and more latent egoistical attachments and compulsions for subject/object discrimination through meditative states and environmental contexts; in this Vajrayāna-type practice, the practitioner actively seeks out the cognitive afflictions which might be otherwise suppressed in order to cut the root of what generates one’s sense of self.

In “Cutting Through the Body,” my focus is on the Chöd practices of visualized offerings of one’s body. While these practices are often treated as exotic non-Buddhist elements of Chöd, I explain that they are derived from exoteric Buddhist teachings on attaining wisdom and cultivating compassion. In particular, Chöd’s “gift of the body” practice is a manifestation of a long history of Buddhist dehadāna: the offering of the body as the supreme act of virtue. I examine this practice from within the context of Indic and Tibetan sources, but my discussion is also informed by contemporary Western conversations on concepts of “the body,” “gift” and

“sacrifice.” Drawing on a range of traditional Buddhist ontologies and Western philosophies, I explain that Chöd inscribes itself within the doctrines and discussions of Buddhist practice while also revaluing analyses of the value and utility of the body. Chöd provides a means for practitioners to integrate conflicting Buddhist ideas of the body as useful or useless, as the body becomes both source of suffering and means of liberation from that suffering. Chöd also provides technologies for every practitioner—not just highly realized beings—to make this body offering of supreme virtue.

While “Cutting Through the Body” explores practices that use the body as a focal point, “Cutting Through the Mind” turns to practices that concentrate on the mind. My focus in this chapter is on Machik’s adaptations and revisions of important Buddhist Mahāyāna Buddhist concepts and teachings, particularly her innovative interpretations of the idea of Düd (bdud, māra), which are mentally-fabricated “Negative Forces” that some translators refer to as “demons,” and of the pairing of “Universal Base Consciousness” (kun gzhi rnam par shes pa; ālaya-vijñāna) and “Universal Base” (kun gzhi; ālaya). In the first part of the chapter, I explain how the Chöd practice of “Opening the Gates of Space” allows the practitioner to transform her mundane and karmically defiled consciousness, the Universal Base Consciousness, into the ideal of the supramundane Universal Base in its aspect as Intrinsic Knowledge (rig pa; vidyā). In the second part of the chapter, I discuss how Machik’s discussions of Negative Forces reflect her revision of the Indic Buddhist idea of “māra” as negative forces arising from mental discrimination of experience and resulting in psychic distress and ontological error. Based in their states of fundamental ignorance, sentient beings have propensities for relations of attraction and aversion, which lead to the discrimination of reality into categories of “helpful” and “good” or “harmful” and “bad.” These categories are often further substantiated into “divine” or

“demonic” activities, which are attributed to “gods” or “demons,” according to the positive or negative connotations the subject ascribes to them. Chöd allows the practitioner to see that what appear to be gods or demons are in fact illusory embodiments of one’s own mental discriminations that can be “cut” through practice. By revaluing Chöd practice in “Cutting Through the Mind” and “Cutting Through the Body,” I dispel the prevailing evaluation of Chöd as an exotic and “shamanistic” tradition by explaining how Chöd assimilated itself to and distinguished itself from traditional philosophical discourses of Buddhism. The third part of my dissertation, on “Textual Analysis,” includes a chapter on “Texts” and a conclusion on “Mahāmudrā Chöd.” The “Texts” chapter focuses on six essential Chöd texts attributed to Machik Labdrön and two of the earliest commentaries on Chöd that were composed by Rangjung Dorjé (1284-1339), the Third Karmapa in the Karma Kagyü lineage. I have critically translated and annotated these texts, making all but one of them available to English-language readers for the first time. As I noted above, due to the increased interest in studying the non-Buddhist history of Chöd, particularly in the praxis of Chöd in the Bön lineages, the ways in which Chöd adapts and has been adapted by Buddhist traditions has been underexamined. By examining several key concepts in these seminal texts, including the “Three Bodies,” “gift of the body,” and the “exceptionality of Chöd,” I demonstrate how Chöd developed by consciously positioning itself in relation to Indic sources. This “Texts” chapter also begins an investigation of how Chöd was assimilated by different Tibetan schools. Through close analysis of his commentaries, I argue that Rangjung Dorjé modified Chöd teachings in order to assimilate them to his lineage of Karma Kagyü Buddhism. Rangjung Dorjé’s efforts at making explicit some of the implicit connections between the Chöd root texts and canonical Buddhist literature helps us understand not only the transmission of texts and traditions, but also

the work of interpreting heterodoxy into orthodoxy. Just as Machik adopted and changed traditional Buddhist teachings, so Rangjung Dorjé adopts and changes Machik’s teachings to develop his own Chöd tradition. In the “Mahāmudrā Chöd” conclusion, I continue this process by examining how Rangjung Dorjé was instrumental in transforming Chöd into “Mahāmudrā” Chöd in line with his Karma Kagyü tenets. In this final section, I substantiate claims made in the first and second parts of my dissertation through close readings of primary sources regarding historical patterns in the transmissions and transformations of Chöd.

THE PERIOD OF THE “LATER SPREAD”

In this chapter I will provide a brief survey of the cultural landscape of the period during which Machik Labdrön was active and in which her form of Prajñāpāramitā Chöd was developed. This will provide some background for later discussion of how Machik could participate in the regeneration of canonical Mahāyāna teachings while remaining independent of strict institutional or doctrinal affiliations. The unique and the traditional aspects of Chöd can be better understood in the context of eleventh- to fourteenth-century Tibet, which witnessed both innovative and conservative cultural activities due to the negotiations of political power among various clans on the Tibetan Plateau. Because of conflicts between conservative and innovative impulses, this period supported a variety of new communities with new ideas about authority and legitimation.

The eleventh to fourteenth centuries in Tibet were characterized by scholars, translators and practitioners making a profusion of teachings available in Tibet for the first time. It was a time of cultural change, with ruling clans and classes reimagining themselves through the construction of an indigenous Buddhist identity. Translations, interpretations, disseminations and practice of Buddhist teachings were thus of vital importance. This period, generally referred to as the “Later Spread” (phyi dar), fostered charismatic personalities who promoted particular interpretations of Buddhist philosophy and praxis.24 Machik flourished in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. She developed her ideas alongside the importation and adoption of novel 24 The period of the later spread of Buddhism on the Tibetan plateau has some overlap with the period of the formation of the “New [Translation] Schools” (gsar ma) in the region. The term “New Schools” in this context refers to the Kadam, Kagyü and Geluk traditions, in contrast with the teachings identified as “Nyingma,” or the “older” translation lineages from the snga dar, or “earlier,” period of Dharma transmission and translation. Some of

the translations by the New Schools were of texts previously translated into Tibetan, but many were of texts not previously translated. During the period between the old and new translations, there had been shifts in perspective

and practice in Indic tantric praxis, which might account for the discrepancy between evaluations by the earlier and later schools regarding what teachings were valid.

esoteric and exoteric intellectual and spiritual systems. As Ronald Davidson has noted, during the twelfth century Tibetans had become comfortable enough with their interpretations of imported systems that they considered themselves to be “authentically Buddhist enough to support the process of innovation” (2005, 276). However, during this time there was a struggle over social and spiritual authority between two tendencies of Buddhist ideas and practices in Tibet. On one hand, many teachers emphasized the need for order and control over the plethora of teachings in circulation. On the other hand, many teachers expressed skepticism toward the value of orthodoxies, especially when they served to curtail and devalue supposedly heterodox practices.

The first tendency toward order is represented by the early efforts of the ruler of Mnga’ ris in the western region of the Tibetan plateau, Lha Bla ma Ye shes ‘od (ca. 947-1024 CE). Early in his leadership, Ye shes ‘od supported multiple trips of the great translator Rin chen bzang po (958-1055 CE) to Kashmir for study in Buddhist teachings and the Sanskrit language, with the aim of developing authoritative translations for the transmission of Buddhavacana. Of special concern to Ye shes ‘od were teachings characterized as “Tantra,” which emphasized personal practice over scholarly learning and monastic discipline. Like Ye shes ‘od, many conservative thinkers in this period saw these teachings as corruptions or perversions of the Dharma. Such teachings were not necessarily “new” to the Tibetan region: for example, they included Nyingma teachings (including the practices of Dzokchen) that had been underappreciated, if not suppressed, in various regions of Tibet during the ninth century when Buddhism had lost favor among the ruling classes under Glang dar ma (ca. 863-906 CE). The foundations of what would later be referred to as the “Nyingma” teachings were introduced to Tibet by Padmasambhava several centuries earlier and had been embraced by the ruling classes

as well as certain members of the general population until conflicts occurred during the rule of Glang dar ma.

Later, Ye shes ‘od would invest in sending several missions to bring the great scholar Atiśa25 from the Buddhist center of learning, Vikramaśīla. However, ultimate success in bringing Atiśa from India would not be attained the mid-eleventh century (dates vary from 1041- 1043 for his arrival), after the death of Ye shes ‘od and under the direction of his nephew, Byung chub ‘od (ca. 984-1078 CE). Samten Karmay points out that while Dzokchen was regaining popularity from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, it was precariously situated: key figures such as Gnubs Sangs rgyas Ye shes were losing prominence, while the Kadampa lineage was being defined and gaining support following the arrival of Atiśa in 1042 (Karmay 1975, 150). In addition to these efforts to identify, establish and perpetuate authentic Buddhist teachings through authoritative figures, Ye shes ‘od and his successors, including Zhi ba ‘od (d. 1111), issued written edicts (bka’ shog) expressing their disapproval of particular unorthodox but popular Vajrayāna practices.26 One of Ye shes ‘od’s edicts was directed toward tantric practitioners (sngags pa) in central Tibet sometime in the late 10th century, prior to Rin chen bzang po’s return in 985.27 In addition to claims of rapid attainment of Mahāmudrā realizations and claims of being a fully enlightened buddha due to one’s inherently pure nature, three practices were of especial concern to these political ministers during this time: ritual sexual union (sbyor), ritual murder for the sake of liberation (sgrol), and ritual food offerings (tshogs). 25 Atiśa is also known as Dīpaṃkāraśrījñāna, 982-1054 CE.

26 Vide Karmay 1975, 1980a and 1980b for detailed discussions of these open letters. It is worth noting that “[t]he earliest source found to date which refers to a sngags-log sun-‘byin of Zhi-ba-‘od is DSR of Sa-paṇ Kun-dga’ rgyalmtshan (1182-1251): de’i de’i slob-ma zhi-ba-‘od/ des kyang sngags-log sun ‘byin-pa/ zhes bya’i bstan-cos mdzad ces zer/--“The disciple of him (Lo-tsā-ba Rin-chen bzang-po), Zhi-ba-‘od is said to have written a ‘Refutation of the Perverse Tantras. The next source which mentions a springs-yig of hi-ba-‘od is sngags-log sun-‘byin shes-rab ralgri of Chag Lo-tsā-ba Chos-rje-dpal (1197-1264)’” (Karmay 1980b, 11). See also Davidson 2005, 152-54. 27 Vide in particular Karmay 1980a and 1975.

The ordinance of Ye shes ‘od also mentions the religious practices of sanctified medicine (sman sgrub), an activity called “bam sgrub” which might refer to making effigies, and forms of offering (mchod sgrub) as worthy of concern and possible prohibition (Karmay 1980a, 152ff). Approximately a century later, Zhi ba ‘od would follow his ancestor Ye shes ‘od and issue his own edict denouncing similar practices.28

Atiśa composed a number of teachings reflecting similar anxieties while staying at Mtho lding, a centre of Buddhist learning in Tibet that was home to Rin chen bzang po. While at Mtho lding in the mid-eleventh century, Atiśa composed the Bodhipathapradīpa (and probably the Bodhimārgadīpa-pañjikā, also attributed to him), which discourages practitioners from engaging in erroneous praxes and declares that two of the four *anuttaratantra consecrations are inappropriate for celibate monastics. According to Karmay (1980a, 152), “[a]ll chos-‘byung speak of wrong tantric practices during this period, but none gives any precise account as to which or what kind of tantras were involved,” although he presumes that one of the Tantras being called into question was the Gsang ba snying po from the Mahāyoga cycle of the Nyingmapa.29 Given the profusion of texts and interpretations circulating in Tibet, this heightened concern regarding the authenticity of teachings and the desire to discriminate between exoteric and esoteric teachings is not surprising. Erroneous interpretations of Tantras and the system of Mahāmudrā were of particular concern to many teachers, who strove to exert 28 According to Karmay (1980b, 3; 11), Zhi ba ‘od was probably the younger brother of Byang chub ‘od, and thus also a grand nephew of Ye shes ‘od. Karmay dates this letter to 1092 CE (1980b, 13-14); as he notes, this is a revision of his earlier suggestion of 1032 CE (1975, 151).

29 See also Ruegg 1984, Karmay 1980a and 1980b, and Kapstein 2000. Davidson notes that not only did Zhi ba ‘od’s proscription include later yoginī tantra and tilaka tantra, but even such accepted texts as the Pañcakrama were identified as inauthentic (Davidson 2005, 154). According to Karmay (1980a, 152), the Indic authenticity of the Gsang ba snying po (Guhyagarbha) was questioned until a Sanskrit original was found at Bsam yas in the thirteenth century. The eleventh chapter of this text, “Tshogs kyi dkyil ‘khor,” pertains to the practices of sbyor, sgrol and tshogs, with sgrol part of the tshogs and sbyor ba equivalent to mchod pa (Karmay 1980, 152; 159 n. 33).

order and control in order to avoid dangerous praxes. Matthew Kapstein makes the generalized observation that “[i]n the world of Tibetan Buddhism, as for Indian religious traditions more generally, orthopraxy was crucial, orthodoxy less so” (2000, 119). Yet, given that praxis is often informed by doxa, efforts toward establishing orthodoxa are also in evidence during this period, especially by more conservative interpreters and institutions.

One source of anxiety over doctrine was the difficulty of defining—and thus regulating— Tantra teachings such as the Mahāmudrā and Dzokchen, the latter of which is explicitly referred to in the letter composed by Ye shes ‘od.30 David Ruegg observes that “whereas some Mahāmudrā teachings were fully recognized as genuine and valid, others were rejected either as execrable abominations . . . or as innovations having no canonical foundation” (1994, 376). Even though the principle of justifying authenticity through canonicity is not grounded in Indian Buddhism, Tibetans in this period made efforts to establish the authenticity of teachings through taxonomies of doxa together with hierarchies of categorization and codifications of terminology.31 Jacob Dalton (2005) discusses the range of Indian and Tibetan doxographical 30 “Now as the good karma of living beings is exhausted and the law of the kings is impaired, false doctrines called rDzogs-chen are flourishing in Tibet. Their views are false and wrong”; “da lta las zad rgyal po’i khrims nyams pas / rdzogs chen ming btags chos log bod du dar / lta ba phyin ci log gi sar thogs pa” (Karmay 1980a, 154). Of note is that this section of Ye shes ‘od’s letter laments that “As the ritual of the corpse has become popular the making of offerings in cemeteries is abandoned” (“bam sgrub dar bas dur sa’i mchod pa stong”); it also condemns cremation as an offence to the gods. Karmay (1980a, 160 n. 46) annotates this passage with a reference to the reply by Sogzlog- pa Blo-gros Rgyal-mtshan (1552-1624):

sngags gsar ma las kyang ro langs mkha’ spyod sgrub pa la sogs pa gsungs la / ‘di ni mtshan nyi tshang ba’i bam de dngos grub kyi rdzas su sgrub pa yin la / rot hams cad kyis bam sgrub tu rung ba ma bshad pas skyon de yang mi ‘bab bo / - ‘Even in the New Tantras it is said that there are sādhanas such as Ro langs mkha’ spyod sgrub pa. What is concerned here is that a corpse having the required qualities can be used as the substance for obtaining siddhi. As it is not said that any corpse would be suitable for practicing the bam rite, your charge therefore does not apply to us’. However, in another place (n.d., 437) [Sog-zlogpa Blo-gros Rgyal-mtshan] states that among the New Tantras there is also Bam sgrub ro langs gser grub. Presumably this work and Ro longs mkha’ spyod sgrub pa are identical, but no texts have been found. Bam-sdrub [sic] therefore has the same sense as ro-sgrub of which there is a story of a corpse having turned into gold, see BZ, 33. For another example of a passage in which the term bam-sgrub is used in the same context, see A.W. Macdonald, Matériaux pour l’étude de la literature populaire tibétaine, Paris: 1967, 19. 31 See also Davidson 1990, 2002, 2005 and Doctor 2005.

systems, arguing for a reevaluation of the primacy of the four-fold schema of Kriyā, Caryā, Yoga and *Anuttarayoga or *Niruttarayoga which became paradigmatic in Tibet. He claims that these categories are not only ahistorical, but also conceal competing interests, philosophical views and systems of ritual practice. According to Dalton, the Tibetans strove to homogenize and control the “foreign intrusion of chaotic texts and rituals” that “arrived en masse” from the eighth to tenth centuries (2005, 162). The Tibetan system of codification was in place by the twelfth century and supported the primary doxographical division between “Nyingma” and “Sarma” textual and ritual traditions.

Counter to these efforts to order and regulate newly discovered teachings, this period also evidenced a tendency of skepticism—or even cynicism—toward attempts to formulate scholastic orthodoxies. Proponents of contemplative practices, regarded as heterodox by many conservative systematizers, often subverted attempts at dharma regulation by returning to canonical teachings, such as those contained in the Prajñāpāramitā corpus. For example, the Second Karmapa, Karma Pakshi, argued that the limitations and circumscriptions promoted by 13th-century tenet systems fostered limited realization, myopia and ignorance rather than an understanding of the true nature of actuality (Kapstein 2000, 101-106). Karma Pakshi draws on the authority of the Prajñāpāramitā to support his position: “‘Tenets are like the edge of a sword. Tenets are like a poisonous plant. Tenets are like a flaming pit. Tenets are like the [[[Wikipedia:poisonous|poisonous]]] kimpaka fruit. Tenets are like spittle. Tenets are like an impure container. Tenets are reviled by all.’ Therefore, whatever tenets—whether good, bad, or mediocre—you might harbor are the causes of good, bad, or mediocre [[[conditions]] of] saṃsāra. They are devoid of the life-force of nirvāṇa.”32 As we will see, Karma Pakshi’s iconoclasm echoes key teachings in 32 As cited in Kapstein 2000, 102. Kapstein notes an earlier reference to the same passage made by Sa chen Kundga’ snying po (1092-1158)—a contemporary of Machik’s—in his Rgyud sde spyi rnam gzhag chung ngu; one

works attributed to Machik over a century earlier. In comparison with the snga dar period of the eighth and ninth centuries, the period of the “Later Spread” was both vital and unruly, featuring an unrestricted influx and circulation of teachings and practices. Kapstein characterizes the period as one of “tantric free-for-all” (2000, 61). However, it should be remembered that conservative views on orthodoxy were not necessarily restricted to scholastics (Davidson 2005, 154). The problem of establishing the orthodoxy of teachings was common to many Tibetan Buddhists. Critics of the new scholastic systems argued against regimented practices and for the necessity of individual cultivation of lived experiences in the development of spiritual realizations. But of course, such individual cultivation resisted institutional control, inspiring the efforts of those advocating doxological constraints and appropriate methods for legitimating “Buddhadharma.”