Monthly Archives: March 2025

A Critical Remark about Misleading Polemical Amalgamations: “emptiness-of-other,” “subitism” and “practice linages”

Stéphane Arguillère (IFRAE / Inalco)

Much has been written about the debate on “emptiness-of-other,” “subitism” and “practice linages,”1 to the extent that some may have presented it as something that became central as early as the 14th century and remained so for the rest of Tibetan intellectual history. At some point, such an ideological device was constructed, but it actually became central as a commonly shared doxographical framework only in the nineteenth century with the “non-sectarian” (ris med) masters of eastern Tibet in their struggle for life against Gelug hegemony. In historical research, it is important to deconstruct false historiography—that is to say, to understand these late narratives as an ideological product of their own time, expressing the power games of that period, and basically irrelevant to the era we are studying.

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  1. The full history of the fabrication of these amalgamations and stereotypes has not yet been written. The fact that they cannot be used as a frame of reference for serious history would not prevent them from being good objects of study for the historian. The purpose of inserting these explanations is merely to exorcise them so that we can appreciate the actual facts without the superimposition of irrelevant ideology. []

The History of the Transparent Contemplation of Samantabhadra as Portrayed in Jamyang Sönam Gyeltsen’s Garland of Jewels — Part I — The Contemplative Transmission of the Buddhas

Jean-Luc Achard
(CNRS, CRCAO)

Edited by Marianne Ginalski

The first volume of the Compilation of Northern Treasures (Byang gter phyogs bsgrigs) contains an interesting proto-historical work dealing with the origins, early transmission, and revelation of the central treasure cycle of Jangter known as The Transparent Contemplation of Samantabhadra (Kun bzang dgongs pa zang thal). This text has been composed by Jamyang Sönam Gyeltsen1 and is entitled The History of the Lineage, the Garland of Jewels (brGyud pa’i lo rgyus nor bu’i ‘phreng ba).2 The narrative given in the text is rather classical but it is also a departure from similar works in terms of several details and transmission schemes. In general, the history of cycles belonging to the Precepts Section (Man ngag sde) is organized according to three main lineages of transmission:

  1. the Contemplative Transmission of the Victorious Ones (rgyal ba dgongs brgyud),
  2. the Symbolic Transmission of Knowledge-Holders (rig ‘dzin brda rgyud), and
  3. the Oral Transmission of Great Beings (gang zag snyan brgyud).3

This of course also applies to the present text except that these lines of transmission are not precisely defined and do not follow with accuracy the details of the traditional history as for instance recorded in other Heart Drops (sNying thig) cycles. There are also several elements that will certainly seem unusual to readers reasonably accustomed to the “standard” histories of the Precepts Section (Man ngag sde) as we shall see below. Continue reading

  1. On this personage, see Achard, “A Line of Transmission of the dGongs pa zang thal according to the History of the Lineage known as the Garland of Gems (brGyud pa’i lo rgyus nor bu’i ‘phreng ba)”. The identification with the well-known sa skya master of the same name is problematic since the dates that are traditionally attributed to him (1563–1617) conflict with the chronology he himself introduces at the end of his work. []
  2. See the bibliography in fine under the name of ‘Jam dbyangs bSod nams rgyal mtshan. []
  3. This is the scheme followed by Klong chen pa (1308–1364), in several of his works. See inter alia, his Lo rgyus rin po che’i phreng ba, in the Bla ma yang tig. It is the same in the dGongs pa zang thal: see for instance, Rig ‘dzin rgod ldem, Yid ches brgyud pa’i lo rgyus stong thun gyi spyi chings chen mo, p. 6. According to Düdjom Rinpoche (and the sources he uses), the three transmissions respectively correspond to the lineages of Victorious Ones, bodhisattvas, and yogins (see Düdjom Rinpoche, The Nyingma School, p. 447). The first line of transmission is defined as “Contemplative” because it was given through the state of Contemplation (dgongs pa), without uttering a single word. The second line is described as “Symbolic” or transmitted through symbols (brdas brgyud pa) because Knowledge-Holders (rig ‘dzin, corresponding to the category of bodhisattvas in Düdjom Rinpoche’s The Nyingma School referred to above) used specific symbols to illustrate the natural state and transmit the knowledge associated with it. Then, the third line is that of “individuals” (gang zag) who used oral transmission (snyan brgyud) to communicate that knowledge and all its related secret precepts. We will see below that other modes of transmission are used in the revealed literature. See Tulku Thondup, Hidden Teachings of Tibet, p. 102 et seq. []