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.
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