Stéphane Arguillère (IFRAE/Inalco)

rGyud kyi rgyal po pad sdong brtsegs pa rtsa ‘grel sogs
(gTer ston sangs rgyas gling pa. rGyud kyi rgyal po pad sdong brtsegs pa rtsa ʼgrel sogs. gSer thang bla rung lnga rig nang bstan slob gling. Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC), purl.bdrc.io/resource/MW3CN4603. Accessed 1 May 2025. [BDRC bdr:MW3CN4603])
Sangs rgyas gling pa’s account of his own treasure discoveries (2006a: gTer ’byung chen mo) is surprisingly poor in elements (especially names of people or teachings) that would allow ut to connect him to both known earlier and contemporary figures. The mention of the mKha’ ’gro snying thig seems to be the only detail that could allow us to locate him somewhere in the network of contemporary gter stons. We read in a passage of the text (2006a, pp. 51-52):
དེའི་དུས་སུ་མཁའ་འགྲོའི་སྙིང་ཐིག་ལ་ཤིན་ཏུ་ [52] མོས་པར་བྱུང་བས། བླ་མ་ཤེས་རབ་མགོན་པོ་བྱ་བས་མཁའ་འགྲོ་སྙིང་ཐིག་གི་ཁྲིད་མཛད་པར་ཡོད་ཟེར་བ་ཐོས་པས།, etc.
Unfortunately, Shes rab mgon po, the person that is named as Sangs rgyas gling pa’s master for this cycle, is not a known figure in the mid-14th century mKha’ ’gro snying thig specialists. However, this is as such an interesting hint to the fact that the mKha’ ’gro snying thig spread broader and quicker and faster than we could imagine. Revealed in 1313, it seems that it had already become quite widely available in the mid-fourteenth century, at least in the milieus of treasure discoverers.
Although the gTer ’byung chen mo is somewhat disappointing for historical research, such is not the case of the Lung bstan bka’ brgya ma (Sangs rgyas gling pa 2006b), a very extensive collection of prophecies also belonging to the Bla ma dgongs ’dus. This text should be read very carefully as it is full of predictions related to figures that were recent or contemporary of Sangs rgyas gling pa, but quite often alluding to them in the form of riddles that are not entirely transparent and would require some reflection.
Be that as it may, two passages of Sangs rgyas gling pa 2006b are of direct interest to us: one about sNa nam rDo rje bdud ’joms and his future incarnations and the other one alluding to Rig ’dzin rGod ldem (1337–ca. 1401).
Formally, the context is a long discourse in which Padmasambhava successively addresses his disciples, telling each of them about their future lives.

The reader may remember that sNa nam rDo rje bdud ’joms is a more or less legendary figure of the court of King Khri srong lde’u btsan in the 8th century and that Rig ’dzin rGod ldem identified himself as his reincarnation, most probably because in the grand unified narrative about Padmasambhava revealed by Nyang ral Nyi ma ’od zer (ca. 1124–1192, bKa’ thang zangs gling ma), rDo rje bdud ’joms is presented as the heir of Padmasambhava’s teachings about Vajrakīla, a practice of which rGod ldem was a specialist.
The relevant passage (image above) concerning sNa nam rDo rje bdud ’joms is somewhat puzzling, in that it points to rGya ston Kun dga’ brtson ’grus of Ru msthams, a figure active in the early 14th century and better know as a specialist of Rwa lo tsā ba’s Vajrabhairava system as a reincarnation of sNa nam rDo rje bdud ’joms. We do not know the dates of rGya ston Kun dga’ brtson ’grus and he may have died early enough for rGod ldem to be his immediate reincarnation.

However, this is not what the Lung bstan bka’ rgya ma says. in fact, the passage (image above) occurs in the context of Padmasambhava telling gNubs chen Sangs rgyas ye shes about his future rebirths. Although this part the prophecy is globally very obscure, giving the impression of a very confuse knowledge of the matter, one element is recognizable: the Zang zang lha brag cave, a place where no other Buddhist gter ston than rGod ldem is known to have excavated a gter ma.
Obviously, the simplest conclusion that we can draw from this text is that Sangs rgyas gling pa was only vaguely aware, from hearsay, of the existence of Rig ‘dzin rGod ldem. This, however, cannot be interpreted as a sign of Sangs rgyas gling pa’s own isolation: like rDo rje gling pa (1346–1405), he has at least heard of Klong chen pa (Dri med ’od zer, 1308–1364), although what he says of him does not show a very deep knowledge either, as proved by this passage of the Lung bstan bka’ rgya ma (p. 301) :

The identification of Rig ’dzin rGod ldem as an incarnation of gNubs chen Sangs rgyas ye shes, although quite uncommon, is not devoid of meaning in a rNying ma context. Sangs rgyas ye shes was perceived, at least from the time of Nyang ral Nyi ma ’od zer’s bKa’ thang zangs gling ma, as one of Padmasambhava’s tewenty-five disciples. In this context, he was regarded (not without reason) as the one whose legacy was the traditions of Yamāntaka. Whatever the historical value of this idea, all the rNying ma Yamāntaka literature presents him as a disciple of a Nepalese master called Vasuddhara (Bha su dha ra) and as the main translator of all the main Yamāntaka tantras of the Earlier Spread of Buddhism in Tibet. If the idea that Rig ’dzin rGod ldem is a later rebirth of gNubs chen Sangs rgyas ye shes may mean anything (which does not have to be the case, as we can wonder what Sangs rgyas gling pa may have known of him), it would be that rGod ldem was thought of as a master of the Yamāntaka rites, an aspect that is not widely documented by the oldest biographic document, the Ray of Sunlight by Se ston Nyi ma bzang po, except for a short note about him obtaining signs of accomplishment as a teenager in a cycle connected to Yamāntaka.
Another curious feature of Sangs rgyas gling pa’s revelations is that despite the fact that the Lung bstan bka’ rgya ma shows that he is not completely unaware of Rig ’dzin rGod ldem’s existence, still rGod ldem does not show up in the series of prophecies about the main gter stons included in his revealed biography of Padmasambhava, the bKa’ thang gser phreng. These prophecies, for the 14th century, name, in this order (1985: pp. 627-628): Rin chen tshul rdor (Padma las ’brel rtsal, 1291–1319), Tshe brtan rgyal mtshan, Sangs rgyas gling pa, Rin chen gling pa, O rgyan gling pa, Dri med ’od zer (Klong chen pa), and then, with Ratna gling pa, the text jumps to the 15th century.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Nyang ral Nyi ma ’od zer, 1989. bKa’ thang zangs gling ma: Slob dpon padma ‘i rnam thar zangs gling ma. Chengdu: Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang.
Nyi ma bzang po, Se ston, 2015. The Ray of Sunlight: Rig ’dzin dngos grub rgyal mtshan gyi rnam thar nyi ma’i ’od zer, in sNga ’gyur byang gter chos skor phyogs bsgrigs (vol. 1-63), vol. 59, pp. 1-75.
Sangs rgyas gling pa 1985: bKa’ thang gser phreng: O rgyan gu ru pad ma ‘byung gnas kyi rnam thar rgyas pa gser gyi phreng ba thar lam gsal byed. Thimphu: National Library of Bhutan.
Sangs rgyas gling pa 2006, Bla ma dgongs ’dus: gTer chen sangs rgyas gling pa’i bla ma dgongs pa ‘dus pa, vol. 1-14. Parphing (Nepal): Khenpo Namdrol Rinpoche / Palri Parkhang.
Sangs rgyas gling pa 2006a: Sangs rgyas gling pa’i gTer ’byung chen mo, in Sangs rgyas gling pa 2006, vol. 1, pp. 23-114.
Sangs rgyas gling pa 2006b: Lung bstan bka’ brgya ma or Bla ma dgongs pa ’dus pa las : ma ’ongs lung bstan gsang ba’i dkar chag bkod pa, in in Sangs rgyas gling pa 2006, vol. 6, pp. 69-654.
Secondary Sources
Arguillère, Stéphane, 2022. “The First Practice in which Rigdzin Gödem Obtained Signs of Accomplishment as a Teenager.” Northern Treasures Histories. Retrieved May 12, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/opef.
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Stéphane Arguillère (January 13, 2026). A preliminary Survey of Sangs rgyas gling pa’s (1340–1396) Autobiographical Sketch and Prophecies in Search of Elements Relevant to the Northern Treasures. Northern Treasures Histories. Retrieved April 12, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/15hnx
