TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION
TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION
CHOYING TOBDEN DORJE was born in 1785 at Zho’ong in the Sermojong area of Repkong, within the Ponru clan. During his early, formative years, he joined the nearby spiritual community at Shelgon Dechen Chokyi Podrang (also known as Chuchik Shelgyi Gonpa), which is one of the eight renowned hermitages for spiritual practice in Repkong (reb kong gi grub pa thob pa’i gnas brgyad).5 After gradually receiving monastic vows, along with the bodhisattva vows and the commitments of secret mantra, he studied, pondered, and experientially cultivated the profound and extensive oral teachings (bka’ ma), spiritual revelations (gter ma), and pure visionary teachings (dag snang) of the ancient Nyingma tradition.
Then, traveling south into Golok, he studied for some five years as a simple monk at Rabgya Gonpa, on the banks of the Yellow River.6 In that revered center of Kadampa learning, he attended upon many spiritual masters, headed by Shingza Paṇḍita Lobzang Dargye Gyatso, while studying and reflecting upon the canonical scriptures and cultivating the three trainings (bslab pa gsum).7 Subsequently, he frequented mountain hermitages in unknown locations, where he practiced meditation. On one such occasion, as he was inspired by a prophetic declaration given by deities and his teachers, there arose within him a firm determination to set out to find an extraordinary teacher, in the manner of the proverbial bodhisattva Sadāprarudita who had sought Dharmodgata. His purpose above all was to receive profound instruction associated with the level of the primordial buddha Samantabhadra.
Journeying further south from Golok, he eventually arrived at Dzogchen Monastery in Dzachuka, where he received maturational empowerments and liberating guidance for the extensive sūtras and tantras from Dzogchen IV Migyur Namkha Dorje and his nephew Pema Kundrol, among others.8 From there, he proceeded to the teaching encampment (chos sgar) of Dodrubchen Rinpoche Jigme Trinle Ozer at Yarlung Pemako in Sertar,9 where he remained for some years. It was Dodrubchen Rinpoche whom he revered and served as his extraordinary root teacher. In that location, he was given the maturational empowerments, liberating guidance, and supporting transmissions for the profound doctrines of the sūtras and mantras in general, and the inner tantras of the Nyingma tradition in particular, so that he came to resemble a vase that has been filled to the brim. Consequently, his view of reality expanded and he actualized the pristine cognition associated with the path of no-more-learning. Realizing that he would become illustrious among disciples of the future and that he had good fortune, Dodrubchen Rinpoche granted him the profound wrathful mantras of the ancient Nyingma tradition, including the crucial points of the four pulverizing rites (thal ’byin rnam pa bzhi) of Vajrakumāra, the cycles of Yamāntaka headed by the four wheels of Mañjuśrī (’jam dpal ’khor lo rnam bzhi), and the imprecations of the mātaraḥ, along with many profound instructions through which mantrins may attain buddhahood on the basis of burnt offerings, combined with rites of suppression, incineration, and bombardment. Consequently, all dualistic thoughts that arose in his mind were infinitely transformed as the display of pristine cognition, meditational deities, and mantra, and he grew confident that he had unimpededly mastered the enlightened activities of wrath.
At that point, Dodrubchen Rinpoche conferred upon him the name Longchen Choying Tobden Dorje, “Unvanquished Conqueror of All Directions, Holding the Descent of the Oceanic Wrathful Mantras,” and made prophetic declarations, adding, “Now the time has come for you to liberate your own mind through realization and compassionately liberate the minds of others. Therefore, you should return to your native Repkong, nurture students, and care for the well-being of the Buddhist teachings and sentient beings.”
Choying Tobden Dorje then returned home to Repkong in Amdo, where, in recognition of his masterly attainments, his resources and entou-rage increased. About eight kilometers southwest of Rongpo Gyakhar, near modern Chuku township, he established the monastery of Ko’ude Gon Dzogchen Namgyeling (Ch. Gude Si).10 This institution had been affiliated with the Kadam lineage since the fourteenth century, but he was instrumental in transforming it into a center of learning for the traditions of Rigdzin Jigme Lingpa and Orgyan Mindroling. In this way, he ensured that the community of mantrins there, headed by his successive emanations, would maintain their allegiance to the Nyingma lineage.
Among the four main disciples of Dodrubchen Rinpoche with the name Dorje, who were likened to supporting beams (gdung bzhi), transmitting his teachings in the four cardinal directions, Choying Tobden Dorje is renowned as the “supporting beam in the north.” By means of skilled teaching, debate, and composition, and the four rites of pacification, enrichment, subjugation, and wrath, training each according to need, he took innumerable students into his following and established them on the path of maturational empowerment and liberating guidance. At Ko’ude, he impartially promoted all the Buddhist teachings in general and the Innermost Spirituality of Longchenpa in particular, ensuring that these traditions would not decline. His followers became renowned as the “nineteen hundred lineage bearers of the ritual spike,” and they have exerted great influence throughout Repkong. Consequently, following his death in 1848, his transmission has manifestly survived until the present day. Prior to its destruction in 1958, Ko’ude had eight incarnate lamas presiding over a community of 160 mantrins. Rebuilding has been taking place since the 1980s.11
THE PRECIOUS TREASURY OF SŪTRA AND TANTRA
Although there are other extant works by Choying Tobden Dorje concerning the application of wrathful mantras, his magnum opus is undoubtedly The Precious Treasury of Sūtra and Tantra (mDo rgyud mdzod)—presented in translation here as The Complete Nyingma Tradition from Sutra to Tantra—which elucidates the meaning of all the classical sciences and the Buddhist vehicles of spiritual development. He began writing and compiling this treatise in 1836 (fire monkey year) and completed it in 1838 (earth dog year) at the age of fifty-four. The Autobiography of Zhabkar Tsokdruk Rang-drol mentions that in 1841, at a festival commemorating the new year of the iron ox, Zhabkar (1781–1851) offered him a letter, along with a gift of long-life pills and sacramental substances. Following an exchange of correspondence, that same year, Choying Tobden Dorje, then aged fifty-seven, was invited to Gartse Monastery,12 where he extensively bestowed the transmission and guidance of the root verses and commentary of his Precious Treasury of Sūtra and Tantra upon Zhabkar and others.
The Precious Treasury of Sūtra and Tantra is extant in thirteen large traditional volumes, although the woodblocks from which it was printed were destroyed by fire in 1938. The work is in six sections: (i) the contents entitled The Golden Key (dKar chag gser gyi lde mig); (ii) the actual root verses (rtsa ba) entitled The Precious Treasury of Sūtra and Tantra; (iii) the synoptic outline entitled A Creeping Plant That Brings Forth Wishes (bsDus don dpag bsam ’khri shing); (iv) the concise commentary entitled A Noble Vase of Nectar (’Bru ’grel gter chen bum bzang); (v) the extensive commentary entitled A Beauteous Ornament of the Aeon of Mighty Brahmā (rGyas ’grel tshangs chen bskal pa’i mdzes rgyan); and (vi) the illustrated version entitled Garland of the Moon (dPe ris zla ba’i phreng ba).13 The golden key and the root verses are in metrical verse, while the other sections are written in prose or in the form of captions. The root verses themselves number 984, mainly in nine-syllable lines, with their introductory and concluding verses in thirteen-syllable lines. The synoptic outline sets the structure of the text within 100 main topics and 2,179 subtopics. The extensive commentary is drawn principally from the writings of celebrated Nyingma masters, such as Ngari Paṇchen and Longchen Rabjam, while the first four sections are Choying Tobden Dorje’s particular arrangements and synopses of the same works.
Among the thirteen volumes, volume 1 (KA) contains the golden key, the root verses and the outline. Volume 2 (KHA) contains the concise commentary. The next nine volumes from 3 (GA) to 11 (DA) contain the extensive commentary. Among them, the sūtra section comprises two volumes; the subjects of Indo-Tibetan classical learning (shes bya) comprise two volumes; the tantra section comprises two volumes; and the Dzogchen section comprises three volumes. The last two volumes, 12 (NA) and 13 (PA), both contain the drawings that illustrate the text.
The content of each of the six sections is also subdivided according to twenty-five books (skabs nyi shu lnga). Of these, the first thirteen fall within the scope of the sūtras, covering topics such as the role of the spiritual teacher; the requisite changes of attitude from mundane to spiritual life; the taking of refuge; the ground, path, and result established through practice of the sūtras; and related themes such as cosmology, Indo-Tibetan classical learning, and the analysis of the Buddhist vehicles. The remaining twelve books concern the tantras—their general framework along with exegeses of the essential tantra texts of Mahāyoga, Anuyoga, and Atiyoga.
During the 1990s, Zenkar Rinpoche managed to retrieve the extant printed version from Repkong, which was then published in modern book form by the Sichuan Nationalities’ Publishing House in 2000. Subsequently, scans of the original text were obtained and, with the support of the Tsadra Foundation, the late Tharchin Rinpoche in the United States prepared a digital version of the entire work, which was then edited by Zenkar Rinpoche. It is a long-term objective of the Tsadra Foundation to publish this entire work in traditional dpe cha format and in modern book form, alongside its English translation.
The 2000 edition comprises five volumes. Among them, the golden key, the root verses, the outline, and the concise commentary are all contained in volume 1, while the extensive commentary is found in volumes 2 to 4 and the illustrations in volume 5. Within the extensive commentary itself, the sūtra section, the subjects of Indo-Tibetan classical learning, and the section on Buddhist phenomenology are all found in volume 2, while the tantra section including Mahāyoga and Anuyoga is found in volume 3, and Atiyoga in volume 4.
The ordering of these sections is significant in that the author evidently conceived of The Precious Treasury of Sūtra and Tantra as an unfolding package, commencing with his own pithy golden key and root verses, continuing through the outline and concise commentary, and culminating in the elaborate extensive commentary and the illustrations. For the sake of the modern reader who may find this structure overly repetitive, the present translation series gives precedence to the extensive commentary, with the root verses, outline, and concise commentary placed after it.
The present volume contains an English translation of Books 15 to 17 of the extensive commentary, which concern the essential tantras of Mahāyoga.14 The reader should note that although the root verses are repeated throughout the extensive commentary as well, their wording most closely matches that of the concise commentary and sometimes varies markedly from that of the extensive commentary. The outline, which presents in detail the framework of the text, was adapted by the author chiefly from Longchen Rabjam’s Synoptic Outline of the Secret Nucleus Entitled Dispelling All Darkness of Fundamental Ignorance.
MAHĀYOGA IN THE CONTEXT OF THE THREE INNER CLASSES OF TANTRA
The term “tantra” (rgyud) suggests a “thread,” “continuity,” or “continuum,” primarily with reference to the threefold continuum of the ground (gzhi’i rgyud), the path (lam gyi rgyud), and the result (’bras bu’i rgyud), which respectively demarcate the unrealized abiding nature of reality (gnas lugs), the means by which it is realized (thabs), and the fruitional buddha body (sku) and pristine cognition (ye shes) resulting from that realization. It is this structure of ground, path, and result around which the scriptures of tantra are developed.
Second, tantra implies the requisite inclusion of the ten elements or aspects (daśatattva, de nyid bcu) characteristic of tantra scripture. As outlined in the writings of Lochen Dharmaśrī, Mipham Namgyel Gyatso, and indeed Choying Tobden Dorje, these comprise view, conduct, maṇḍala, empowerment, commitment, enlightened activity, spiritual attainment, meditative stability, offering, and mantra recitation combined with gestures of sealing.
Third, tantra denotes the four classes of scripture that assume the threefold structure of ground, path, and result. These comprise the literary works of Action Tantra (kriyātantra, bya ba’i rgyud), Conduct Tantra (caryātantra, spyod pa’i rgyud), Union Tantra (yogatantra, rnal ’byor gyi rgyud), and Unsurpassed Union Tantra (yoganiruttaratantra, bla med rgyud). According to the Nyingma school, the last of these subdivisions further comprises the tantras of Great Union (mahāyoga, rnal ’byor chen po), Subsequent Union (anuyoga, rjes su rnal ’byor), and Highest Union (atiyoga, shin tu rnal ’byor)—the last of which is also known as the Great Perfection (rdzogs pa chen po).15 The voluminous tantra texts contained in the various editions of the Kangyur and the Ancient Tantra Collection invariably follow this doxography.
When the three classes of the inner tantras are contrasted, Mahāyoga is said to emphasize the ground or basis of the realization of buddhahood—the abiding nature of reality. Anuyoga emphasizes the path or skillful means that bring about this realization, and Atiyoga emphasizes the result itself, the full-fledged presence of buddha body (sku) and pristine cognition (ye shes). Alternatively, from the standpoint of meditative stability (samādhi), Mahāyoga focuses on the generation stage of meditation (utpattikrama, bskyed rim), Anuyoga on the perfection stage (sampannakrama, rdzogs rim), and Atiyoga on the Great Perfection (rdzogs chen).16 Longchen Rabjam in his Great Chariot offers a further elaboration:
The father tantras of Mahāyoga are the natural expression of the skillful means of appearance, intended on behalf of those requiring training who are mostly hostile and possessed by many ideas; the mother tantras of Anuyoga are the discriminative awareness of the perfection stage which is the reality of emptiness, intended for the benefit of those who are mostly desirous and delight in the tranquillity of the mind; and the nondual tantras of Atiyoga are revealed as the natural expression of their nonduality, intended for the benefit of those who are mostly deluded but who are energetic.17
Among them the present volume concerns Mahāyoga, which Lochen Dharmaśrī has summarized as follows.18 The essence of Mahāyoga is that liberation is obtained through union with the indivisible superior truth (lhag pa’i gnyis med bden pa) by relying emphatically on the generation stage of meditation in which skillful means is employed (thabs kyi bskyed rim). The Sanskrit term mahāyoga is defined as the “great union” of the mind with nondual truth. The classification includes the following topics of empowerment (dbang bskur) and engagement (’jug pa), view (lta ba), discipline (tshul khrims), meditation (sgom), conduct (spyod pa), and result (’bras bu).
Once the empowerments of beneficence, ability, and profundity have been conferred, the practice of Mahāyoga is engaged through three successive phases of meditative stability, namely, great emptiness (stong pa chen po), which purifies death; great compassion (snying rje chen po), which purifies the intermediate state after death; and the seals and attainment of the maṇḍala clusters (phyag rgya dang tshom bu tshogs sgrub), which purify the three phases of life by establishing the practitioner’s true nature to be the assembly of deities. The view maintained by Mahāyoga practitioners holds ultimate truth (don dam bden pa) to be spontaneous awareness without conceptual elaboration, relative truth (kun rdzob bden pa) to comprise the ideas or mental energy of that awareness manifesting as buddha body and pristine cognition, and the superior indivisible truth to be the unity of these two—emptiness and pure appearance. Discipline in the context of Mahāyoga refers to specific commitments that are upheld in relation to meditative practice, renunciation, and attainment. Meditation comprises both nonsymbolic meditative stability in the nature of ultimate reality and the symbolic meditations of the generation and perfection stages. In the generation stage, the meditational deities are gradually visualized through the aforementioned meditative stabilities, in which deity and thought processes are indivisible. In the perfection stage, the visualization then emphasizes the control of the energy channels, winds, and vital essences, either within the meditator’s own subtle body (rang lus steng sgo) or else when in union with a yogic partner (gzhan lus ’og sgo). The conduct observed by practitioners of Mahāyoga implies that the defilements and afflictive mental states of cyclic existence, as well as the rites of liberation (sgrol) and union (sbyor), can be engaged without attachment because they are retained as skillful means. Lastly, the result attained by practitioners of Mahāyoga is the actualization of the five buddha bodies in this very lifetime or in the intermediate state after death.
The texts representing the genre of Mahāyoga are voluminous—the Derge woodblock edition of the Ancient Tantra Collection contains almost two hundred works. Most of these are allocated to the secondary practice section (sgrub sde), while eighteen texts and their branches are assigned special status within the primary tantra section (rgyud sde).19 The most prestigious of the latter is the Net of Magical Emanation (māyājāla, sgyu ’phrul drva ba), a cycle containing nineteen distinct texts that are all extant in the various recensions of the Ancient Tantra Collection.20 It includes three versions of the Tantra of the Secret Nucleus (Guhyagarbha Tantra) in twenty-two, forty-six, and eighty-two chapters respectively. The shortest and longest of these are also found in the rNying rgyud section of the Kangyur. Among them, the shortest version—in twenty-two chapters—is translated in the present volume. The profusion of extant Indic and Tibetan commentaries on this influential tantra text is testament to the importance of its exegetical transmission within the Nyingma school. Another text within the cycle—the Tantra of the Litany of the Names of Mañjuśrī—is also presented here as an addendum. It may be justifiably asserted that among all the tantras contained in the Ancient Tantra Collection, for the Nyingmapa, these two essential texts of Mahāyoga uniquely maintain extensive commentarial lineages, whereas many of the others retain only their empowerments and transmissions.21
THE TANTRA OF THE SECRET NUCLEUS
The cycle of the Net of Magical Emanation and especially the Tantra of the Secret Nucleus within it crystallize the dynamic of the tantras, whereby the psychophysical aggregates, the material elements, the modes of consciousness and their sense objects, and so forth are all naturally identified in their pristine state with the assemblage of the forty-two peaceful deities and transformed as such through the agency of the fifty-eight wrathful deities. This maṇḍala of the Secret Nucleus is also well known from later gter ma compilations, such as Karma Lingpa’s Peaceful and Wrathful Deities: Natural Liberation of Enlightened Intention, although there are important icono-graphical distinctions—the most obvious being that the peaceful buddhas of the Secret Nucleus have three faces and six arms, whereas those of Karma Lingpa’s tradition have but a single face and two arms.22 Elsewhere I have made a comparative analysis of the content of the three extant versions of the Secret Nucleus and shown how the maṇḍala of the fifty-eight wrathful deities reaches its fullest expression in the longest version, while all three versions differ far less in their presentation of the maṇḍala of peaceful deities.23 The fact that the short version was most widely disseminated in Tibet may corroborate the assertion made by Longchen Rabjam in Dispelling the Darkness of the Ten Directions that the fully elaborate wrathful rites were carefully guarded and not considered advantageous for the majority of practitioners.24
THE TIBETAN TRANSLATIONS OF THE SECRET NUCLEUS
Rigdzin Jigme Lingpa, in his Catalog of the Ancient Tantra Collection,25 informs us that the Tantra of the Secret Nucleus was definitively translated into Tibetan from Sanskrit by Vimalamitra, Nyak Jñānakumāra, and Ma Rinchen Chok. Previously, it had been translated by Buddhaguhya and Vairocana, and in an intervening period by Padmasambhava and Nyak Jñānakumāra. In Dispelling the Darkness of the Ten Directions, Longchen Rabjam notes that the definitive version contains certain additional passages (’phyong) that are conspicuous by their absence in the earlier translations. He attributes these discrepancies to variations in the original Sanskrit manuscripts, while acknowledging that some polemicists have referred to them as the interpolations inserted into the tantra by Ma Rinchen Chok from other works within the cycle of the Net of Magical Emanation.26 Much later, the Sanskrit manuscript was retranslated by Tarlo Nyima Gyeltsen and Go Lotsāwa Zhonupel in the fifteenth century. Their version is styled the “creative translation” (rtsal ’gyur) because they had no supervising paṇḍita and it reputedly had an addendum comprising two further chapters.
THE COMMENTARIAL TRADITION OF THE SECRET NUCLEUS
The extensive Indic commentaries on the Secret Nucleus and related tantras within the cycle of the Net of Magical Emanation, which were composed by Indrabhūti, Kukkurāja, Līlāvajra, Buddhaguhya, Padmasambhava, Sūryaprabhasiṃha, and Vimalamitra, are extant in Tibetan translation; the indigenous Tibetan commentarial literature of the Zur and Kham traditions is also abundant. All these texts are contained in the Extensive Oral Teachings of the Ancient School (sNga’ bsgyur rnying ma’i bka’ ma rgyas pa)—an anthology published in 120 volumes—while most of the Indic commentaries are also found in the Tengyur (dpe bsdur ma, vols. 43–44).27
Where, one might ask, does the Secret Nucleus find itself within the classification of the inner tantras? This is an important matter for discussion within the Nyingma commentarial tradition, because the text has been interpreted from divergent Mahāyoga and Atiyoga perspectives.28 With this in mind, Mipham Namgyel Gyatso, in his Overview Entitled Nucleus of Inner Radiance,29 remarks that the extensive and common exegetical method of Mahāyoga is associated with the Zur commentarial tradition, culminating in the writings of Lochen Dharmaśrī, whereas the profound and uncommon expository method of Atiyoga follows the tradition of Rongzom Paṇḍita Chokyi Zangpo and Longchen Rabjam. The various Indic and Tibetan commentaries are therefore generally recognized to reflect one or another of these approaches. However, Mipham concludes that these two exegetical traditions do not uphold contradictory dogmas but rather indicate a subtle difference of emphasis. In the words of Lochen Dharmaśrī:
Mahāyoga realizes all things to be the miracle of mind’s true nature in which appearance and emptiness are indivisible . . . while Atiyoga realizes all things to be manifest naturally as mind’s true nature, the naturally present pristine cognition, which is present atemporally, without creation or cessation.30
There is no doubt that the basic techniques of Mahāyoga, stressing the nature of the ground and the gradual visualizations of the generation stage, are present in the Tantra of the Secret Nucleus, but the work equally demonstrates the integration of both the generation and perfection stages of meditation and the self-manifesting nature of mind and pristine cognition, which are associated with Atiyoga. Indeed, the text comprises the generation and perfection stages, as well as the seeds of Great Perfection, suggesting that there is no fundamental contradiction between these exegetical approaches.31 It can therefore be said that the root tantra lends itself to both interpretations—the first tending toward reductionism and classification with emphasis on the structural basis of Mahāyoga, the second elaborating the essential, often covert meanings.
Again, one might ask where Choying Tobden Dorje—the author of our present text—stands in relation to these two commentarial approaches. Here he appears to adopt an integrated approach. For the extensive inter-linear commentary closely follows the interpretation of Longchen Rabjam’s Dispelling the Darkness of the Ten Directions—almost verbatim—while the introductory remarks concerning the framing narrative, the meaning of the term tantra, and the ten aspects of tantra are drawn from both Longchen Rabjam’s Overview of the Secret Nucleus Entitled Dispelling Mental Darkness and Lochen Dharmaśrī’s Oral Transmission of the Lord of Secrets. His classification of the twenty-two chapters of the Secret Nucleus, on the other hand, accords more with the view of Longchen Rabjam, in contrast to that found in Lochen Dharmaśrī’s Ornament of the Enlightened Intention of the Lord of Secrets.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE TEXT
As mentioned above, Choying Tobden Dorje’s extensive commentary on the Secret Nucleus occupies almost three complete books of The Treasury of Sūtra and Tantra.
Specifically, Book 15, entitled The Inception, begins with a discussion of the framing narrative and a general analysis of the Secret Nucleus based on its title and content, including the three continua of ground, path, and result and the ten aspects of tantra. It then proceeds to the interlinear commentary of the first three chapters of the text, which respectively concern (i) the introductory narrative; (ii) the initiation of the discourse; and (iii) the establishment of all phenomena. Longchen Rabjam refers to these three chapters as the continuum of the ground, which is to say, the natural spontaneous maṇḍala of the ground from which arises the buddhas’ compassionate spirituality.32 Lochen Dharmaśrī refers to them as the continuum of the ground pertaining to the maṇḍala of peaceful deities.
Book 16, Part 1, entitled The Ground of the Peaceful Deities, includes the interlinear commentary of the next seven chapters of the text (chs. 4–10), which respectively concern (i) the cyclical array of the garland of letters; (ii) the meditative stabilities that attain the Net of Magical Emanation; (iii) the diffusion of the maṇḍala; (iv) the absorption of the maṇḍala and the secret mantras; (v) the consecration of all limbs as the maṇḍala and the subsequent diffusion of the sealing hand gestures; (vi) the secret commitment of the indestructible array; and (vii) the conferral of the empowerments. Longchen Rabjam refers to these seven chapters as the continuum of the ground pertaining to the maṇḍala of peaceful deities, while for Lochen Dharmaśrī they comprise the continuum of the path pertaining to the maṇḍala of peaceful deities.
Book 16, Part 2, is entitled The Path and Result of the Peaceful Deities. It includes the interlinear commentary on the next four chapters of the text (chs. 11–14), which respectively concern (i) the maṇḍala of the communion; (ii) the attainment of the communion; (iii) the nucleus of most secret pith instructions; and (iv) the eulogy which pleases. Longchen Rabjam refers to the first three of these chapters as the continuum of the path pertaining to the maṇḍala of peaceful deities and the last as the continuum of the result pertaining to the maṇḍala of peaceful deities. Lochen Dharmaśrī also includes the first three of these along with the earlier chapters 4 to 10 within the continuum of the path, and he designates the last as the continuum of the result.
Book 17, Part 1, entitled The Wrathful Deities and the Colophon, includes the interlinear commentary on the last eight chapters of the text (chs. 15–22), along with the colophon. These respectively concern (i) the cloud-like diffusion of the natural maṇḍala of wrathful deities; (ii) the diffusion of the maṇḍala of buddha speech of the great assembly of wrathful deities; (iii) the revelation of the maṇḍala of wrathful deities; (iv) the revelation of genuine offerings and generosity; (v) the commitments; (vi) the consecration of spontaneous enlightened activity; (vii) the eulogies to the wrathful deities; and (viii) that which is pleasing and retained. Longchen Rabjam refers to the first of these chapters as the continuum of the ground pertaining to the maṇḍala of wrathful deities, the second to sixth as the corresponding continuum of the path, the seventh as the corresponding continuum of the result, and the eighth as the overall continuum of the result, that is to say, the methods of teaching and entrusting this entire tantra text for the benefit of posterity. Lochen Dharmaśrī concurs with this classification.
Whichever of these two structures is adopted, it is clear that the relationship between the three continua and the various topics of the peaceful and wrathful maṇḍalas subsumed by them reveals a dynamic momentum, extending from the latent potential for buddhahood inherent in all beings to the proclamation of fully manifest buddhahood that is the conclusive result.
Book 17, Part 2, presents Choying Tobden Dorje’s rewriting of Candragomin’s inspirational Extensive Commentary on the Sublime Litany of the Names of Mañjuśrī. Among its fourteen chapters, the central eulogies contained in the core chapters 4 to 10 correlate diverse aspects of Mañjuśrī to the five pristine cognitions.
THE SOURCE OF THE EXTENSIVE COMMENTARY
Longchen Rabjam (1308–1363), a native of Nganlam in Dranang, is renowned without doubt as the greatest philosopher within the Nyingmapa tradition. In his youth, he studied the oral teachings of the Ancient Translation School and the Ancient Tantra Collection under four teachers, including Den Phakpa, Zhonu Dondub, and Nyotingmawa Sangye Drakpa.33 Among his many compositions that firmly established the terminology of the Great Perfection system,34 there is the Trilogy Dispelling Darkness (Mun sel skor gsum). This corpus comprises the synoptic outline entitled Dispelling All Darkness of Fundamental Ignorance, which in 14 folios provides an analysis of the chapter divisions of the Secret Nucleus; the Overview Entitled Dispelling Mental Darkness, which in 89 folios analyzes the scope and structure of the Buddhist and non-Buddhist teachings; and the interlinear commentary Dispelling the Darkness of the Ten Directions, which in 313 folios provides general overviews of each section of the Guhyagarbha, interspersed with a detailed interlinear commentary of its lemmata, or “vajra verses” (vajrapada, rdo rje’i tshig). The last of these has been translated into English twice.35
Although the root verses of the present work and their concise commentary were composed by Choying Tobden Dorje, the extensive commentary—drawing upon the inspiration of Dispelling the Darkness of the Ten Directions—more closely follows the wording of the latter’s interlinear sections (gzhung don), with few variations. That said, some of the original citations have been dropped, and the author has also dispensed with most of the general overviews (spyi don), which introduce the individual sections of interlinear commentary.
CITATIONS
The citations that have been retained are all found in Dispelling the Darkness of the Ten Directions. Most of these ultimately derive from other tantras within the cycle of the Net of Magical Emanation and from renowned classical treatises of Indian origin. The only Tibetan authors cited in this work are Rongzom Paṇḍita and Nubchen Sangye Yeshe, for whose writings Longchen Rabjam shows respect. I have endeavored, with limited success, to identify the citations by chapter and verse, utilizing the texts in my private collection and the online search facilities available at the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center and Asian Classics Input Project. In some cases, the original sources cannot be identified at present, but in many other instances citations are worded slightly differently in the original texts or are found in completely different texts. Most likely this is because some of the manuscript sources to which Longchen Rabjam had access in the fourteenth century are no longer extant and differ from those that have come down to us today, but there are no doubt some instances where scribes in later centuries unwittingly introduced corruptions into the text.
In the endnotes, I frequently consulted the Tibetan edition of Dispelling the Darkness of the Ten Directions whenever the readings of our 2000 publication require correction; readers are also referred to relevant sections found in the English translations,36 particularly with regard to those overviews that have been omitted. Some references are also made to the writings of Rongzom Paṇḍita and Lochen Dharmaśrī and to relevant secondary sources.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Although the translations contained in the present volume were prepared between 2011 and 2013, I had the advantage of being able to consult my PhD dissertation, which concerns Longchen Rabjam’s Dispelling the Darkness of the Ten Directions—the primary source for Choying Tobden Dorje’s presentation of Mahāyoga.37 Therefore, my gratitude to all those who contributed to the original research, undertaken during the early 1980s, can never be forgotten. It was while working on the translation and editing of Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche’s The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism between 1971 and 1991 that I became increasingly aware of the central importance of the Guhyagarbha Tantra and the esteem in which it is held by the Nyingmapa. Indeed there is a whole section of Dudjom Rinpoche’s work that could not have been properly translated without thorough investigation of this primary text. The goal of my dissertation was to establish a critical edition of the root tantra, juxtaposed with a translation of Longchen Rabjam’s interlinear commentary and annotations derived from other sources. Before I commenced the project in 1983, Kyabje Rinpoche himself advised that the undertaking would be difficult and that it would be easier to translate, for example, Longchen Rabjam’s Wish-Fulfilling Treasury (Yid bzhin mdzod). While revising the translation, I had the great fortune to receive precious words of advice from Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche in Dordogne during the summer of 1986. Specific linguistic and technical problems in the text were also addressed by Rahor Khenpo Thubten, Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche, Tulku Pema Wangyal, and Dr. Phillip Denwood. Illustrative material was provided by Khenchen Pema Sherab. On that occasion, the dissertation remained unpublished—following heartfelt advice that the appearance of this text in an English translation would be untimely, although His Holiness the Dalai Lama and a number of important Nyingma teachers, in the course of conversation, had suggested various reasons it could be published. I am therefore relieved that, some twenty-seven years later, the dissertation has not vanished pointlessly in the cyberspace of obsolete word-processing formats but instead has contributed significantly to this new derivative publication—Books 15 to 17 of Choying Tobden Dorje’s Treasury of Sūtra and Tantra.
The translation and publication of this work have been made possible through the generous support of the Tsadra Foundation. I am grateful to those who have offered assistance over the last three years while I was working on this project, particularly to Ngawang Zangpo, who has been meticulously translating other volumes in the series, and Dr. Martin Boord, who carefully read through my translation during the summer of 2013, as well as Eric Colombel at the Tsadra Foundation and Christopher Fynn, who assisted with the conversion of the romanized version of the Guhyagarbha and Mañjuśrīnāmasaṅgīti root tantras to Jomolhari font. Illustrative materials were generously provided by Matthieu Ricard, Gretchen Groth, Chris Banigan, and Gero Garske. Finally, thanks are due to Nikko Odiseos of Shambhala Publications, and to our editors, Susan Kyser and Tracy Davis, who not only worked through the manuscript, prior to publication, but helped establish the guidelines and format for this new series.
Crieff
October 2013
