Nelug Dzö - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

' Nelug Dzö' is a poetic

Poetic

Poetic may refer to:* Poetry, or a relation thereof.* Too Poetic, a deceased rapper and hip hop producer....

Vignette (literature)

In theatrical script writing, sketch stories, and poetry, a vignette is a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, an idea, or a setting and sometimes an object...

written in Classical Tibetan

Classical Tibetan

Classical Tibetan refers to the language of any text written in Tibetan after the Old Tibetan period and before the modern period, but in particular refers to the language of early canonical texts translated from other languages, especially Sanskrit...

and one of the Seven Treasuries
Seven Treasuries
The Seven Treasuries are a collection of seven works, some with auto-commentaries, by the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Longchenpa.-Texts of the Seven Treasures:...

of Longchenpa

Longchenpa

Longchen Rabjampa, Drimé Özer "Longchenpa" was a major teacher in the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. Along with Sakya Pandita and Je Tsongkhapa, he is commonly recognized as one of the three main manifestations of Manjushri to have taught in Central Tibet...

. Longchenpa wrote 'Desum Nyingpo' (Wylie: sde gsum snying po), a prose

Prose

Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...

autocommentary to this work. Dowman (2006: p.xxiii) considers it a "magical psychotropic poem".

Nomenclature, orthography and etymology

Sanskrit title in IAST

IAST

The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts as employed by the Sanskrit language.-Popularity:...

: Tathātva-ratna-koṣa-nāma

Importantly, the Tibetan Wylie

Wylie transliteration

The Wylie transliteration scheme is a method for transliterating Tibetan script using only the letters available on a typical English language typewriter. It bears the name of Turrell V. Wylie, who described the scheme in an article, A Standard System of Tibetan Transcription, published in 1959...

"ngas lugs" is the analogue of the Sanskrit IAST

IAST

The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts as employed by the Sanskrit language.-Popularity:...

"Tathātva". The online dictionary of the Tibetan and Himalayan Library (refer: http://www.thlib.org/) identifies "Tathātva" (which is a Sanskrit contraction or compound of "Tathātā" and "Tattva

Tattva

Tattva is a Sanskrit word meaning 'thatness', 'principle', 'reality' or 'truth'. According to various Indian schools of philosophy, a tattva is an element or aspect of reality conceived as an aspect of deity. Although the number of tattvas varies depending on the philosophical school, together they...

") as synonymous with Tathātā and Dharmatā.

Outline of text

Rigpa Sheda (August 2009) provide the English text outline following Barron, et al. (1998) from whom the Tibetan was sourced as follows:

The Theme of 'Ineffability'
The Theme of 'Openness'
The Theme of 'Spontaneous Presence'
The Theme of 'Oneness'
The Individuals to Whom These Teachings May Be Entrusted

'Spontaneous Presence'

Klein

Anne C. Klein

Anne Carolyn Klein is Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University in Houston, Texas and founding director and resident teacher at Dawn Mountain, a Tibetan temple, community center and research institute....

(2002: p. 353) provides a suite of English glosses for 'lhun grub' thus:

"The term lhun grub can be rendered as spontaneous presence, spontaneous occurrence, spontaneous accomplishment, spontaneous performance, spontaneous complete perfection, or spontaneity."

Intertextuality and themes

The majority of quotations cited by Longchenpa in the Desum Nyingpo are drawn from the tantras of the 'The Collected Tantras of the Ancients' the 'Nyingma Gyubum

Nyingma Gyubum

'Nyingma Gyubum' is the 'Collected Tantras of the Ancients', that is the Mahayoga, Anuyoga and Atiyoga Tantras of the Nyingma.-Canonization:The Nyingma Gyubum of the Nyingma was a dependent arising resulting from the 'normalization' of the Kangyur and Tengyur by the Sarma traditions which for the...

' . Out of the Nyingma Gyubum the most quoted tantra in the Desum Nyingpo is the 'Kunjed Gyalpo' the principal tantra of the 'Mind Series' of Dzogchen. Sixteen of the Seventeen Tantras

Seventeen tantras

In Tibetan Buddhism, specifically in the literature and practice of Dzogchen, the seventeen tantras of the esoteric instruction cycle are a suite of tantras belonging to the textual division known as the "esoteric instruction cycle" .-History and tradition:The seventeen tantras, though not...

of the Upadesha-varga are quoted at least once on the Desum Nyingpo and the most cited is the principal tantra of this class, the 'Drataljur' or 'Reverberation of Sound
Reverberation of Sound
The Reverberation of Sound, or Drataljur , is the root tantra of the Seventeen Tantras of the Upadesha-varga.These Seventeen Tantras are to be found in the Canon of the Ancient School, the 'Nyingma Gyubum' , volumes 9 and 10, folio numbers 143-159 of the edition edited by 'Jamyang Khyentse...

' .

English translations

Barron

Richard Barron

Richard Barron is a Canadian-born translator who specializes in the writings of Longchenpa. He has served as an interpreter for many lamas from all from all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism, including his first teacher, Kalu Rinpoche...

, et al. of Padma Translation Committee (1998) opened the discourse into English with their translation of the Nelug Dzö in free verse with the Tibetan verse on the facing page for probity along with its prose autocommentary by Longchenpa the Desum Nyingpo , housing both works within the one bound volume. Dowman (2006) has also tendered an English rendering. The numerous embedded quotations from the Seventeen Tantras
Seventeen tantras
In Tibetan Buddhism, specifically in the literature and practice of Dzogchen, the seventeen tantras of the esoteric instruction cycle are a suite of tantras belonging to the textual division known as the "esoteric instruction cycle" .-History and tradition:The seventeen tantras, though not...

were referenced and checked by Barron, et al. of Padma Translation Committee (1998: p. 269) against the collection enshrined in the edition printed at Adzom Chögar in eastern Tibet. This Adzom Chögar edition of the versions of the Seventeen Tantra were supplied to Barron, et al. of Padma Translation Committee (1998: p. 269) by Jim Valby who transcribed these texts into Wylie transliteration

Wylie transliteration

and these selfsame texts (though revised and more recent versions) have been uploaded onto Wikisource.

Exegesis

Hillis (2002) of the University of Virginia

University of Virginia

The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...

dedicated a thesis to the work. Hillis, in his rhetorical analysis of the Nelug Dzö --defines 'rhetorical' in his usage as both techniques of literary persuasion and literary stylistics—declares his orientation within modern and post-modern literary criticism

Literary criticism

Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...

and discourse. Hillis critiques the penchant of Foucault

Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...

and Barthes

Roland Barthes

Roland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, anthropology and...

to engage texts by deprecating or completely removing the role of the author from their reading and engagement of a text and instead foregrounding the socio-political context of the text's arising in the experience of the audience, the reader. Hillis, mentions Barthes' famed essay 'Death of the Author

Death of the Author

The Death of the Author is a 1967 essay by the French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes. Barthes's essay argues against traditional literary criticism's practice of incorporating the intentions and biographical context of an author in an interpretation of a text, and instead argues that...

' amongst other narratives of post-modern literary criticism, and that he will be employing the socio-political history and biography of Longchenpa (as he understood it within the texts available to him) with his engagement of the Nelug Dzö and thereby reimbodying the text proffers:

"In fact, The Treasury of Abiding Reality is a remarkable text that instantiates many biographical tensions, which the author, Longchenpa, then works through within the medium of a dense intellectual religious system."

Happenstances in Longchenpa's embedded socio-political context of salience to the Nelug Dzo

Hillis holds that the changing political fortunes of Longchenpa's times and locality, in particular the demise of the political hegemony of the Sakya

Sakya

The Sakya school is one of four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the others being the Nyingma, Kagyu, and Gelug...

-Mongol alliance over Central Tibet with the waning of the Mongol Yuan Dynasties

Yuan Dynasty

The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...

influence in internal Tibetan politics with the ascendancy

Ascendancy

Ascendancy is a 4X science fiction turn-based strategy computer game. It was originally released for MS-DOS in 1995 and was updated and re-released for iOS in 2011 by The Logic Factory. Ascendancy is a galactic struggle to become the dominant life force; hence the title. The game's introductory...

of the Phakmodrupa

Phagmodrupa dynasty

The Phagmodrupa dynasty or Pagmodru of Tibet was established by Tai Situ Changchub Gyaltsen at the end of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. Tai Situ came from the monastic fief Phagmodru , which was originally founded as a hermitage in 1158 by the famous Kagyu scholar Phagmo Drupa Dorje Gyalpo...

sect impacted both Longchenpa and informed the Worldview enshrined within the Nelug Dzö :

"This development is of crucial importance to our consideration of The Treasury of Abiding Reality since the social and political upheaval that accompanied these events had a dramatic impact on Longchenpa and his view of the world."

Happenstances in Longchenpa's personal life of salience to the Nelug Dzo

Hillis also foregrounds two saliences within the experience of Longchenpa and therefore for the Nelug Dzo: the importance of the circumstances around Longchenpa's departure from 'Sangphu Neutok' (Wylie: gsang phu ne'u thog), a monastery famed for its strong scholarship and ascendant tradition of Buddhist Logic

Buddhist logic

Buddhist Logic, the categorical nomenclature modern Western discourse has extended to Buddhadharma traditions of 'Hetuvidya' and 'Pramanavada' , which arose circa 500CE, is a particular development, application and lineage of continuity of 'Indian Logic', from which it seceded...

and Longchenpa's subsequent view of scholars; "...and his time traveling, studying, and practicing with his 'root guru' (rtsa ba'i bla ma) Kumaradza."

Janchub Gyaltsän, "...the most formidable political and military figure of the day..." and Longchenpa had a "problematic relationship" and Hillis noting the linguistic leitmotif of incarceration and themes of the judicature evident in the Nelug Dzo, holds:

"...that the text was most likely written during the last ten years of Longchenpa's life, and within that, most likely during his period of self-imposed exile in Bhutan
Bhutan
Bhutan , officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked state in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the People's Republic of China...

...dating of this text is important since it so clearly seems to be playing on themes of legal procedures and punishments that may well have been inspired by Longchenpa's problematic relationship with Jangchup Gyaltsen."

Primary resources

English translations

External references

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.