An Unknown Master of Rig ‘dzin rgod ldem: Sba ston/rGa ston dpal ba and Mañjuśrī’s Dzogchen

Rigdzin Gödem – Unknown source.

An Unknown Master of Rig ‘dzin rgod ldem: Sba ston/rGa ston dpal ba and Mañjuśrī’s Dzogchen: Rig ’dzin rGod ldem in the ’Jam dpal rDzogs chen lineage stemming from Sar ban phyogs med (XIth century) and its possible connections with ’Jam dpal tshe bdag

During my preliminary investigation in the fifth Dalai Lama’s Record of Teachings Received (gSan yig), I spotted the presence of Rigdzin Gödem in the context of a little-known lineage, that of ’Jam dpal rdzogs chen. There is actually no doubt about his identity, as the next figures in the lineage are very well-known masters of the Northern Treasures.

Here is the main lineage as it appears in the gSan yig (1971: vol. 3, p. 182):

  • chos sku kun tu bzang po| 
  • longs sku ’jam dpal rigs lnga| 
  • sprul sku śākya thub pa| 
  • rdo rje Ḍāki| 
  • rin chen Ḍāki| 
  • padma Ḍāki| 
  • karma Ḍāki| 
  • de bzhin Ḍāki| 
  • o rgyan Ḍāki| 
  • ‘jam dpal dbyangs| 
  • rdo rje ‘chang | 
  • ‘jam dpal bshes gnyen| 
  • Śrī Siṅha| 
  • o rgyan chen po| 
  • rje khri srong lde btsan| 
  • jo mo she bza’ sgron| 
  • gter ston chen po sar ban phyogs med
  • lung zin sar ban nyi ma’i snying po|
  • sngags ’chang dbang dar| 
  • mgar ston rin chen ’bum| 
  • ri pa sangs rgyas dpal| 
  • rgya ban bla ma| 
  • bla ma sba ston dpal| 
  • rig ’dzin rgod kyi ldem phru
  • sngags ’chang rdo rje mgon po| 
  • mtshan ldan ngag dbang grags pa| 
  • drin can sangs rgyas dpal bzang | 
  • thugs sras nam mkha’ rgyal mtshan| 
  • dran mchog dpal ldan blo gros| 
  • chos rgyal bkra shis stobs rgyal| 
  • rig ’dzin ngag gi dbang po| 
  • klong chen rab ’byams gsum pa sha gzugs pa bkra shis rnam rgyal| 
  • sngags ’chang karma gsang sngags pa| 
  • rig ’dzin ’phrin las lhun grub| 
  • zur thams cad mkhyen pa chos dbyings rang grol| 
  • des bdag za hor bande la’o|

The aspects of this lineage that are the most interesting for us is the identification of the gter ston from whom this cycle appeared in the human world–Sar ban phyogs med–and then the line of five individuals–Sar ban Nyi ma’i snying po, sNgags ’chang dBang dar, mGar ston Rin chen ’bum, Ri pa Sangs rgyas dpal and rGya ban bla ma–ending with one who is presented as one of Rigdzin Gödem’s direct teachers: Bla ma sBa ston dpal, not mentionned (at least under this name) in Rigdzin Gödem’s known biographies.

This lineage is found exactly in the same form and with similar spellings in gTer bdag gling pa’s gsan yig (gTer bdag gling pa’i bka’ ’bum (1998) vol. 1 [bdr:I2195],  p. 236-237), with the only difference that gTer bdag gling pa is found instead of Chos dbyings rang grol and that nothing comes after. 

We know very little of Sar ban Phyogs med. Gu ru bKra shis (Chos ’byung, 1990: p. 596) vaguely situates him “in the time of rJe btsun Mi la and rNgog lo [tsā ba].” It is difficult to derive factual information from the prophecies about him and his discoveries. The 17th Century commentary by Karma mi ’gyur dbang rgyal on Byang bdag bKra shis stobs rgyal’s Prayer to the one hundred treasure-discoverers contains less than one line about him; the most developed extant account might well be the 5th Dalai Lama’s gsang yig, but even this is quite devoid of historical elements, though the author devotes some pages to the texts discovered by Sar ban Phyogs med and their posterity (including a list of texts written about ’Jam dpal rdzogs chen by Byang bdag bKra shis stobs rgyal about them, which, to date, seem to be lost).

Nothing seems to be still extant of the ’Jam dpal rdzogs chen cycle except one text preserved in the Rin chen gter mdzod(1976: vol. XXV, p. 249-301, plus a short tantra that may or may not belong to this cycle, but anyway does not bring any useful piece of information). This seems to be a writing of the fifth Dalai Lama based upon a prior one (lost?) by Byang bdag bKra shis stobs rgyal. This text includes an account of the lineage (p. 251-253) which simply confirms what we find the 5th Dalai-Lama’s gsan yig. This corpus would definitely require a closer examination, as it is pretty uncommon–but as it does not exhibit obvious similarities with Rigdzin Gödem’s Dzogchen cycles, this inquiry has been postponed for the moment.

Now, this same lineage also appears in a less expected context: a lineage prayer found in vol. XXII of the Byang gter phyogs bsgrigs (pp. 391-393)–that is, in the 5th of the 10 volumes this compilation devotes to ’Jam dpal tshe bdag, and more specifically among the collection of Mi pham’s writings about this Yamāntaka cycle. It is an appendix to a quite large text by this author–the dPal tshe bdag gi bsnyen yig lhan thabs dngos grub sgo byed (pp. 325-390)–and I suppose Mi pham is also the author of this appendix, as the lineage ends up with mKhyen brtse’i dbang po. sBa ston dpal appears here with another spelling as rGa ston dPal ba

Here is the human part of the lineage: 

  • (1) ’Jam dpal bshes gnyen; 
  • (2) Śrī Siṃha; 
  • (3) Padma ’byung gnas; 
  • (4) Khri srong lde’u btsan; 
  • (5) Shel bza’ sgron gcig mtshan ldan gsang ba’i yum; 
  • (6) gTer ston Sar ban phyogs med; 
  • (7) (g)Sar ban Nyi ma’i snying po; 
  • (8) sNgags ’chang dBang dar; 
  • (9) ’Gar ston Rin chen ’bum; 
  • (10) Ri pa Sangs rgyas byams pa dpal; 
  • (11) rGyal ban bla ma 
  • (12) rGa ston dPal ba; 
  • (13) Rig ’dzin chen po rGod kyi ldem ’phru can; 
  • (14) rDo rje mgon po; 
  • (15) Ngag dbang grags pa; 
  • (16) Sangs rgyas dpal bzang; 
  • (17) Thugs sras Nam mkha’ mtshan; 
  • (18) dPal ldan Blo gros; 
  • (19) Dran mchog chos kyi rje; 
  • (20) Yongs ’dzin dam pa; 
  • (21) dBang po’i sde; 
  • (22) Ngag gi dbang po;   
  • (23) Klong chen rab ’byams gsum pa… Karma gsang sngags rje; 
  • (24) Phrin las lhun grub; 
  • (25) [Zur chen] Chos dbyings rang grol; 
  • (26) Za hor bzhad pa rtsal [DL 5]; 
  • (27) Padma ’phrin las; 
  • (28) Padma theg mchog; 
  • (29) ? sKal ldan dri med; 
  • (30) bsTan ’dzin dpal ’bar; 
  • (31) Sangs rgyas kun dga’; 
  • (32) ’Gyur med bstan ’phel; 
  • (33) Padma gar gyi dbang; 
  • (34) mKhyen brtse’i dbang po.

The source of the first part of this lineage prayer from which I extracted this list of names seems to be the aforementioned ’Jam dpal rdzogs chen text by the 5th Dalai Lama preserved in the Rin chen gter mdzod, as the very same phrases occur in both texts.

Now, what is interesting is that ’Jam dpal rdzogs chen is not mentioned at all in this context, and that the text to which the lineage prayer is appended covers most aspects of the practice of of ’Jam dpal tshe bdag. I would suggest that this may be understood as a lineage of the « Pad lugs » (‘Padmasambhava tradition’) of ’Jam dpal tshe bdag

This matters to us because besides making Rigdzin Gödem a master of ‘Mañjuśrī’s Dzogchen’ (which we already new from the time of our preliminary exporation of all that is related to the Byang gter in the 5th Dalai Lama’s gsan yig), it may also imply that there was a tradition of  ’Jam dpal tshe bdag in the Byang gter tradition much prior to what appears in the most common accounts of this tradition, which make the line coming from Se ston Rin chen rgyal mtshan merge in a common Byang gter / ’Bri gung line in the 16th Century. This would explain much of the very central role that this a priori non-Byang gter cycle (revealed by rGya zhang khrom and not at all by rGod ldem) has taken in the rDo rje brag lugs. However, it remains to be understood what may have been this secondary line of ’Jam dpal tshe bdag revealed by Sar ban phyogs med.

An objection might be raised on the basis of a found in the gTer ston brgya rtsa (pp. xxx-xxx): 

བར་སྐབས་ནས་ཚེ་བདག་མཁན་པོ་རྣམས་ཀྱིས་འཇམ་དཔལ་ཞི་སྒྲུབ་ཀྱི་རྩ་བར་བཞག་པས་དར་རྒྱས་ཆེ་བ་ལས་ཁོ་བོས་ཀྱང་དབང་རྒྱུན་ཙམ་ཞིག་ཐོབ་བོ། 

This sentence is found in more or less the same form in various of the sources about this lineage. It seems to mean that part of Sar ban’s cycle was later appended to Tshe bdag in the manner of an inheritance capture by the masters of this system. Thus, Sar ban Phyogs med’s revelations would have only very extrinsic connections with ’Jam dpal tshe bdagand Yamāntaka materials in general. 

But this is clearly not what is suggested by Mi pham’s text, which takes this lineage as one for the whole ’Jam dpal tshe bdag cycle (it is appended to a text about the practice of the whole system). I may be mistaken and maybe the « appendix » is in fact an autonomous text intended for only the ’Jam dpal rdzogs chen, but that is not either what is suggested by its inclusion in the ’Jam dpal tshe bdag collection of the Byang gter phyogs bsgrigs. it is unlikely that Mi pham, who, besides his well-known qualities as a universal scholar, was himself a practitioner of ’Jam dpal tshe bdag, was completely mistaken or wrote randomly about such a matter as the lineage of this tradition.

Bibliography:

  • Karma mi ’gyur dbang rgyal. 1978. gter bton brgya rtsa’i mtshan sdom gsol ’debs chos rgyal bkra sis stobs rgyal gyi mdzad pa’i ’grel pa lo rgyus gter bton chos ’byung. Darjeeling: Kargyud Sungrab Nyamso Khang (Taklung Tsetrul Rinpoche).
  • Gu ru bkra shis. 1990. Gu bkra’i chos ’byung. TBRC W20916. Pe cin: Krung go’i bod kyi shes rig dpe skrun khang. 
  • Ngag dbang blo bsang rgya mtsho, Dalai Lama V. 1971. Record of Teaching Received–The gSan yig of the Fifth Dalai Lama Ngag-dbang-blo-bzan-rgya-mtsho. Delhi: Nechung and Lakhar.
  • ’Jam mgon Kong sprul. 1976. Rin chen gter mdzod – A Reproduction of the sTod lung mTshur pu redaction…, vol. XXV. Delhi: Ngodrup & Sherab Drimay. 
  • gTer bdag gling pa. 1998.  sMin gling gter chen rig ’dzin ’gyur med rdo rje’i gsung ’bum– The collected works (gsun ’bumof sMin-gliṅ gter-chen rig-’dzin ’gyur-med-rdo-rje, vol. 1Dehra dun: d.g. khochhen tulku.
  • Byang gter phyogs bsgrigssNga ’gyur byang gter chos skor phyogs bsgrigs. 2015. bdr:W2PD17457.

OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Stéphane Arguillère (January 22, 2023). An Unknown Master of Rig ‘dzin rgod ldem: Sba ston/rGa ston dpal ba and Mañjuśrī’s Dzogchen. Northern Treasures Histories. Retrieved May 13, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/opel


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