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Hong Kong, May 2018 |
It is honestly difficult to contemplate writing up a blog after giving it a title like that one you see above. There is a promise and an aim indicated in it, but I suppose the main justification is just to explore and to learn new things along the way.
To begin with, friends in our close circle already know about an amazing set of texts from old chortens in Matho, Ladakh, that were all scribed prior to the year 1200 or at most a decade or two later.
We’ve blogged on Matho several times before, beginning with this one. Matho has what has to be (one of?) the earliest clearly datable manuscripts of a treasure text, a terma. It has a piece of that redoubtable Dzogchen scripture The All Making King that may be its oldest surviving manuscript evidence. It has an astounding number of fragments pertaining to Padampa Sangyé and the Zhijé School that will eventually prove their worth to researchers in that area. Looking at the Matho texts overall, they present us with a distinctively different image of what was going on in the realm of religion in Ladakh and adjacent areas of Western Tibet in those early centuries. But I would not joke about a thing like this. So just because I put up a crazy title on a day like today doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hear me out.
Dzogchen is a difficult subject to approach, but once you are getting there it is famous for not presenting difficulties. Just the contrary, it often recommends abandoning efforts to get enlightened, as Awakening is already there requiring only immediate recognition. Dzogchen promises that the most obdurate past delusions can be dissolved in an instant, like in the Kāśyapa Parivarta’s statement about how a thousand-year-old darkness can be dispelled by lighting one single lamp in the room. But simplicity can present us with considerable complexity and even perplexity, and the only enlightenment on offer in this modest blog will be on a much smaller scale.
We hope to think about lineage history, routes of migration and influence and even loanwords. These are arguably important issues if we are to begin to understand how one of the most authentic (historically speaking at the very least) systems of Dzogchen, transmitted by Turkish or more specifically Uighur practitioners in the area we would now call Gansu, ended up in pre-Mongol era Ladakh, two places in opposite extremes of the Tibetan Plateau. It may not be a smooth ride, but I think we can get somewhere with what we have.
The text is a rarity among the Matho fragments because it is all there, from title to colophon. This can be said of it despite damage and minor text loss in one corner and in a tear-line. Its smallness belies its high importance for
[1] understanding the general religious situation on the Plateau in the pre-Mongol centuries and more specifically
[2] insight into the historical transmission of Dzogchen.
I would like to claim an ability to go deeply into its content, but there are difficulties in both its language (spelling, syntax, vocabulary) and its references to practice-related issues that can seem, perhaps surprisingly, technical and opaque. So those who feel they have the need and ability can look at the transcription of the text down below in the appendices. Meanwhile, a few observations about its beginning and its end.
The front title is not a true title, more like an introductory statement on the content of the text: “This reasonable presentation of the oral instructions to leave it as it is...” (man-ngag cog-bzhag lung-du bstan-pa ’di). The closing of the text also doesn’t present us with an actual title, once again describing the content: “While you may meditate since bodily exertion will not achieve it, these are the precepts for leaving it as is” (lus rtsal bas ma rnyed pas // sgoms kyang man ngag chog bzhag ma ’o). Nevertheless, we may say “Oral Instructions to Leave It as Is” here looks more like a true text-title just because of the -ma ending.
Now to delve into the content a bit, but only a little bit. It might at first *seem* to cite from a text called Ten Tattvas (de-nyid bcu-pa, there are in truth several works by this title), but then again it looks like part of the shop-talk, the main topic being meditation done without squinting the eyes, here called the Lion’s Gaze. And as it turns out this same quote is quoted in other contexts without ever indicating its source. My hope is to convey the feeling that a lot depends on the living context, and that the text and its writer were not settled comfortably in the literary/learned world, not bound by its rules, its concerns were elsewhere. This impression is confirmed by looking at the Bka'-ma volume that came down to us from pre-Mongol and/or early Mongol era that records Aro Dzogchen precepts. More on that volume in a minute.
Galvanizing as these teachings are, they are after all esoteric, meant only for persons directly engaged in instruction under a master with the necessary wisdom that comes from experiential application. Tibetans repeat such provisos so often we simply must take them seriously, even if (or even especially if) the traditional safeguards have been eroding dramatically in recent decades. Face it, listening to the Beatles song Let It Be* is not the same as receiving this as a meditation precept from an experienced meditator you know and respect at just the right moment in meditation training. And needless to say, it isn’t a game of word-search on the worldwide web, not a problem to be solved by accumulating information and depositing it in robots. Not even remotely. It takes place outside the academy, and gains little from enforced placement in that kind of environment.
(*The story is Paul wrote it after his long-dead mother spoke the words to him in a dream, although it’s recently been argued that instead of Mother Mary, the original set of lyrics had “Maharishi” there in her place, which somehow makes better sense.)
But I do want to point out a philological point as one of its precepts employs the metaphor of the turtle in the bronze basin. We’ve blogged about this before, and even though it might not be presented with precisely the same intended meaning in every context, you do find it deployed in a number of meditation instructions regardless whether the school might be Nyingma, Zhijé, Kagyü or Bön.
Rather than revisit the turtle, let’s look instead at something I myself oddly regard as important, which is that this small text, an untampered-with pre-1200 artifact, clearly testifies that in those times the Aro Dzogchen transmission of Dzogchen was alive and thriving. This same lineage was a topic of special concern in the recent translation of the long Deyu history. As it turns out, the main personalities known to have been involved in the production of the various (now four?) Deyu histories had connections with either the Aro Dzogchen or the Middle Zhijé transmissions of esoteric precepts or even both at the same time. It was in this book, tucked away in an appendix and meant to be ignored by all but the most hardy Tibet specialists, that the identities of two very early successive members of the Aro Dzogchen transmission were revealed as being Turkish, more specifically Uighur Turkish.
This Turkish connection is confirmed in our pre-1200 Matho text, in its first line, where we read, tentatively translated, a sketch history of the early Aro lineage:
“When Bairotsana came from the Indian Country, there was a gathering in Lower Dokham from which this teaching was transmitted to the Great Lama Aro, and from him transmitted [later on] to the Turk[s], and from him [or them] handed on to Kongratso.”
“The Turk” can just as well be translated as a plural. It means both of the Turkish men in the early lineage: Ya-zi Bon-ston and his immediate disciple Dru-gu Glog-’byung. The first was surely Turkish because his surname (or occupational name) is Yazi, a widespread Turkish word for ‘scribe’ or the activity of the scribe. The Bon in his name could mean he had once been a ritual expert in natively Turkish religion, it is difficult to be sure of it. I doubt its use here has much to do with Tibetan Bon religion, although this needs working out further, especially as he makes his appearance in Bon historical sources as well, where we can even find his ordination name Shes-rab-tshul-khrims. His successor is directly called a Turk (Dru-gu), while this disciple’s given name, apparently a shortened version of Glog-gi-’byung-gnas, meaning ‘Lightning Source,’ is not at all a natural sounding Tibetan Dharma name, so my strong suspicion is it is a calque of a name given to him in Turkish, something like *Yıldırım Kaynak (both are indeed common Turkish names).
Did the culture of these two Turkish transmission masters have any impact on the Aro tradition? I do see one small sign of this in a one-volume set of early texts about the Aro that was preserved within the Oral Transmission collection of the Nyingma school called Kama (Bka’-ma). This volume was discussed to a certain degree in the long Deyu translation, page 17, so I won’t repeat myself. I do see one example of what appears to be such an influence. On the arbitrary nature of linguistic signs, a text in that volume (Bka’-ma Shin-tu Rgyas-pa, vol. 100, p. 586) has this to say:
འོ་ན་མིང་ལ་ངེས་སམ། དོན་ལ་ངེས་མིང་ལ་ངེས་ན། མེ་གཅིག་པུ་ལ་བོད་མེ་ཟེར། རྒྱ་གར་ཨག་ནེ་ཟེར། ཧོར་འོད་གཟེར་ཟེར་ཏེ། དེ་ལ་སོགས་པ། སྐད་རིགས་མི་མཐུན་པ་སུམ་བརྒྱ་དྲུག་ཅུ་ལ༑ མིང་མི་གཅིག་པ་སུམ་བརྒྱ་དྲུག་ཅུ་འདུག་པའི་ཕྱིར་རོ། །
“Well then, is it definitive in the vocabulary term or is it definitive in the intended meaning? If it is definitive in the vocabulary term, we could say that while the fire in itself is a single object, Tibet calls it me, India calls it ag-ne, Hor (Uighur) calls it 'od-gzer and so forth and so on for all of the 360 distinct types of languages that have their 360 words for it.”
(*Note there is an oddly similar parallel contained in: Dpa’-ris Sangs-rgyas, Dag-yig Rig-pa’i Gab-pa Mngon-phyung, as we may know from a BDRC search, although the text itself is not made available.)
For my present purpose, what is most significant here is that only three countries’ languages are mentioned by name, and one of the three is Uighur. That the word for ‘fire’ it supplies resembles words in various Turkish languages is already sufficient for my argument. Still, let’s at least look at a few of them. There is a word for fire in several Turkic languages including Azeri variously spelled as od or ot. But among their other common words for fire are atesh and indeed the azer that we find in the ethnonym plus language name Azeri and the country of Azerbaijan due to the famous natural flames found there. That both these last-mentioned terms have Iranic origins is no grounds for denying the Tibetans would have seen it as Uighur Turkish. I believe this is the correct way of reading the Tibetan 'od-gzer, but leave the detailed explanations to the linguistic experts. To me it is interesting to see once again the Tibetanization process that can turn a Turkic word for fire, whichever of the words it may have been, into the Tibet-intelligible word for light ray, which is özer.*
(*But yes, with its typical Old Tibetan spelling employing the g- prefix letter that went silent at one point and went away later on. Then again, there is yet another possible explanation why the syllable-initial g- would have entered into Tibetan transcriptions of Turkish syllables with initial ‘z’, for this see Róna-Tas’s book, p. 106.)
Without a doubt it would be more impressive to be able to find Turkish influences in the core of the Dzogchen meditation teachings themselves. That they once knew a Turkish word or two can’t be all that earth shaking, could it? Of course tangri The Sky is not only a living and responsive, but also an essential character in the cosmology of the early Turks, as it is for the Mongols, so one might be tempting to propose an explanation for why the sky or more abstractly space is the single most central metaphor in Dzogchen precepts. But I would no sooner propose such an idea than take it back again. It actually makes my head hurt thinking about it. I will leave it to keener intellects to work out the pros and cons.
We are accustomed to arguing about just how Indian or how Chinese Dzogchen meditation might be, so much so it sometimes seems little better than a partisan tug-of-war. We also like to discuss how Tibetanized it became, or how Tibetan it may have been even in its origins. The low-hanging evidence seen here might not be overwhelming at the moment, but I believe enough is accomplished if we can use it to persuade other researchers to keep an open mind and stay woke to yet another possible realm of inspiration. The richness of the contemplative tradition will only be enhanced by recognizing its splendid diversity.
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Past blogs on Turkish connections & Dzogchen
*In reversed chronological order.
Thank You for the Light, a Turkic Loanword (December 25, 2024). Both the Tibetan word lcag[s]-mag and the object it names were surely taken from the Turkic world well before the advent of the Mongol era.
Orgyanpa says, “Drum Sherab Monlam received the [esoteric Dzogchen] precepts of Aro.” This is a further piece of evidence associating the transmission of this strain of Dzogchen, its lineage continuing straight through the era of Divided Dominions, with the earliest monks of the Second Spread. This connection is unexpected and, perhaps needless to say, not well known. Okay, but then neither is the associated Turkish connection expected or well known. Two Uighur Turks are listed one after the other in the Aro Dzogchen transmission as seen in an appendix to the Deyu translation (p. 784). The first of the two, Yazi Böntön (ཡ་ཟི་བོན་སྟོན་), is recognized as a monastic ordinand of Gongpa Rabsel (དགོངས་པ་རབ་གསལ་), while the Yazi part of his name, meaningless in Tibetan, could indicate something in local Turkic dialect, likely a word meaning ‘scribe’ (I do think this merits careful consideration). Yazi’s disciple and ordinand Drugu Logjung (དྲུ་གུ་གློགས་འབྱུང་) has a name indicating that he was a Drugu, a Turk.
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Written matter: Books & essays
- I know I will be taken to task for omitting important publications, so I hereby immediately admit my guilt and go on with my life. Thanks anyway to Mike Walter who sent me lots of things to read, not that I could find the energy to read them all.
Erhan Aydın, “Tibet in Old Turkic Texts,” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, no. 46 (October 2018), pp. 90-97. In particular note the Old Turkic inscription with one word borrowed from Tibetan, the word for ‘minister’ (blon).
Louis Bazin, “Pre-Islamic Turkic Borrowings in Upper Asia: Some Crucial Semantic Fields,” Diogenes, no. 171, vol. 43, no. 3 (Fall 1995), pp. 35-44.
Read this readable essay in case you are in doubt about how earlier loans into Central Asian Turkic languages were most likely to be drawn from Persian, while in later times Chinese borrowings increased. Names for trade items are neglected here and instead the following areas are emphasized: religious vocabulary, official titles, tools of literacy, music and musical instruments, geographical terms, and astral sciences. I’m particularly struck by this statement on p. 40:
“It was only in the second half of the eleventh century, in western Turk-Oghuz, that a verb meaning 'to write', yaz, first appeared...”
Perhaps, but only just perhaps, this should influence our idea about Tibetan ya-zi at the head of the name Ya-zi Bon-ston transcribing Turkic yazi, ‘scribe’ since this Ya-zi certainly lived prior to the eleventh century.
A. Bodrogligeti, “Early Turkish Terms Connected with Book and Writing,” Acta Orientalia Hungarica, vol. 18, nos. 1-2 (1965), pp. 93-117. Among the terms discussed is yaz-, a word that was not used in the very earliest documents, although at some point it largely took the place of another verb for writing, biti-, and remains in use in a number of Turkic languages including Anatolian Turkish.
Michael C. Brose, “The Medieval Uyghurs of the 8th through 14th Centuries,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, published online (June 2017). If you find religious and cultural influencers uninteresting, but want to know more about the migrations, struggles, and power elites of the Uighurs, you could easily turn to Wikipedia, or you could read through this single-author survey. You choose.
Bu-ston Rin-chen-grub, The History of Buddhism in India and Tibet [part two], tr. by E. Obermiller, Sri Satguru Publications (Delhi 1986, first published in 1932), p. 210, but be aware that here Ya-zi Bon-ston’s name is given as “Ya-s’i-p’ön-tön.” Notice that the place of meeting is the imperial fortress of Khri-ka, due south of the Kokonor. The words der bas in the Tibetan announce the end of the ordination proceedings, and could be translated as “That does it,” or “That’s all there is.” Obermiller translates it “Be it so.” The Tibetan verb bas is regarded as obsolete, belonging to the imperial era, although you find it in translation literature. My pecha of the Tibetan text reads as follows (proper names in all-caps):
yang 'BRE GZHON TSHUL gyis khams su sdom pa len du phyin pas KHAMS kyi KHRI KHA MKHAR SNAr BLA CHEN [271] PO'i mkhan bu YA ZI BON STON bya ba dang mjal nas bka' drin zhus pas / der bas zer nas sdom pa sbyin long med par 'das pa dang / ngas bsnyen rdzogs kyi sdom pa thob pa yin te khan po na re der bas gsung pa'i phyir ro zhes zer bas der bas kyi bsnyen rdzogs su grags / des RTA NAG PHU'I BYA TSHANG bzung / de nas SHANGS KYI BYE PHUG bzung / BYA TSHANG nas mched pa la 'JAD KYI GNAS BRGYAD byung ste / de tsho la 'BRE TSHO zer ro //
(*I have no time to go into this intriguing narrative in any detail right now, just to say: Ya-zi Bon-ston does appear as a monastic ordinator in ordinary accounts of the first monks who brought their vows back to Central Tibet from the extreme northeast [meaning the area of Amdo south and east/northeast of the Kokonor Lake, nowadays included in Qinghai and Gansu]. In this paragraph, Ya-zi is a direct ordinand of Bla-chen Dgongs-pa Rab-gsal, who is himself sometimes supplied with a Turkic surname, Mu-zi, sometimes Mu-zu, while Mu-zu Ka-ra-'phan can be given as his earlier lay name prior to ordination, and the entire name could very well be Turkic... Another time, another blog. For now I would just like to point out that Central Asians were involved in the preserving and reimporting of “Lowland Vinaya” (སྨད་འདུལ་) monastic vows to Central Tibet during the Era of Fragmentation. It will eventually be recognized that Dzogchen meditation and the Vinaya traditions of both Bon and Chö are interlocked in the late-9th and 10th centuries. Mainstream Tibet historians will look on the very idea with amazement if they agree to see it at all.)
We call this for short the “Long Deyu” even though the work is a post-1261 CE anonymous compilation framed as a commentary on a verse work. It was only this rather short verse work, dating from nearly a century earlier, that was composed by the Zhijé figure named Deyu.
Hayrettin İhsan Erkoç, “Elements of Turkic Mythology in the Tibetan Document P.T. 1283,” Central Asiatic Journal, vol. 61, no. 2 (2018), pp. 297-311.
This has references (in its first footnotes) to earlier publications about that same Dunhuang document that will not be listed here. It appears the unavailable original document may have been made for the benefit of an Uighur king who sent a five-member reconnaissance mission to the Turkish realms further to the north. This report was then, for reasons of ‘intelligence’, translated into Tibetan. Both versions could have been penned during the last half of the 8th century.
Hayrettin İhsan Erkoç, “Pre-Manichaean Beliefs of the Uyghurs I: Celestial and Natural Cults,” Harvard Theological Review, vol. 118, no. 1 (2025), pp. 41-60.
Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche and Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche, Lion’s Gaze: A Commentary on Tsig Sum Nedek, translated from the Tibetan by Sarah Harding, ed., by Joan Kaye, Sky Dancer Press (Boca Raton FL 1998). Here it is possible to find some discussion of the four let it be’s (cog-bzhag) as a part of the Trekchö practices.
Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche and Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche, Pointing Out the Nature of Mind: Dzogchen Pith Instructions of Aro Yeshe Jungne, Dharma Samudra (Sidney Center NY 2012). This is the one and only publication that I know of in any language apart from Tibetan on the specific teachings of the Aro lineage of Dzogchen.
A. Róna-Tas, An Introduction to Turkology, Klára Szönyi-Sándor (Szeged 1991), particularly relevant to us right now is the section on pre-11th-century Turkish language documents written in Tibetan script at p. 95-110. One of the great geniuses of our times in Turkish as well as Tibetan studies, his life is subject for a fascinating video interview in the series Oral History of Tibetan Studies.
Appendix One: Transcription of the Matho text v327
[recto:] man ngag gcog bzhag lung du bstan pa 'di / rgya gar yul nas be ro tsa na 'is 'dos ['ods, ~'ongs?] nas [?] su // 'do khams [~mdo khams] smad du 'dus pa las / bla chen a ro la brgyud pa las / gru gu 'is 'ongs nas / rkong ra 'tsho la gtad pa 'o //
de yang lung de nyid bcu pa* las / dmyig ma btsums kyi rnal 'byor ni / rnal 'byor kun las khyad par 'phags / seng gye 'i lta' stangs zhes su brjod // //
(*I could find the complete two lines beginning "mig ma btsum pa'i rnal 'byor" by searching for it in BUDA (its new version in beta: https://beta.bdrc.io). The three lines of verse appear to be cited several times in more or less the form we have them, without naming any particular source text.)
de la sems bsre' thabs gsum / mkhas pa'i man ngag bzhi [?] / sems 'dul ba 'i man ngag gnyis // gzhag thabs kyi man ngag drug / lus kyi 'khams gso' thabs la lngas gcad do // ~|~ //
de la bsre' thabs gsum la / shes pa dpe ' la bsre' ba dang / rtags la bsre' ba dang / don la bsre' ba dang gsum mo // //
de la dpe' la bsre' ba ni / dang po gnas dben zhing sgra' 'i tsher ma myed pa ru / stan bde' ba la 'dug ste / yan lag bdun pa sngon du btang ste / dmyig mdun gyi nam kha' la 'khru gang tsam la gtad la / mdung btsugs pa 'i [~'am] gzhu brdungs pa lta bu'am khab myig du skud pa 'dzud pa lta bu 'am / dran pa tur re ting nga ba 'i / ting nge 'dzin ma yengs par bya ba ni / thun gsum du bcad la / thun dbugs dgu' pa 'i tshad bzung la / thun thang gyis bskyang zhing bya ba ni / dbugs dbyung gsum pa zhes bya 'o //
rtags la bsre' ba ni / dang po rus sbal 'khar gzhong du brlag pa lta bu 'byung ngo // rgun 'brum la me stag 'phro ba lta bu byung ngo / de nas be phur* la ser bu brgyab pa lta bu 'byung ngo / lcags kyi sbug gus me mnan pa lta bu 'byung ngo / bung ba rtsi la chags pa lta bu 'byung ngo / rtsi shing gi kha' nas rlung 'phyo ba lta bu 'byung ngo / chags pa myed pa 'byung ngo // ~|~ // don la bsre' ba ni / myig phye' btsums myed par don nyid zab mo la chags ste mi tshor bar 'dug pa 'o // ~|~ //
(*Be-phur is replaced by bye phrug, ‘bird chick’, in the modern publication [but the whole passage merits comparison as the set of metaphors are similar but not identical], I noticed this odd word in the early Zhijé Collection, vol. 2, p. 228: spang gi be phur thon. This doesn't especially help me to understand its meaning, although it would seem to be something in a meadow that might be pulled out. The Monlam dictionary says this extremely rare term means ‘oak stake’. This may be correct, I’m just not sure how to understand it if it is.)
mkhas pa bzhi la / lta ba la mkhas pa gnyis su med par mnyan par shes pa 'o / spyod la mkhas pa ci spyod dang sgyu mar shes pa 'o / sgom pa la mkhas pa ni yengs pa myed par shes pa byang sems la blta' bar bya'o
[verso of the folio] sems 'chos pa la mkhas pa bying na lhag mthong bskyed par bya 'o / lus gi khams gso' ba dang / 'phro' 'du' bya' ba dang / rgod na sems stod [~gtod] la gnan par bya'o // dmigs pa sku' gzugs gsam [~bsam, ~sam?] / me long gi gzugs mnyan [~gzugs brnyan] la gzugs pa la / sems brtad la sgom du gzhug / sems 'dul thabs bya' // brlung lam du gjug [~gzhug] pa shes par bya'o //
gzhag thabs drug la / sems mnyam ba la bzhag pa'i dus ni / snang srid thams cad sems nyid yin la // sems chos nyid stong pa'i ngang las // chos nyid du bzhag pa'i rnam par rtog pa dang // mtshan nyid ci ltar ba bkun chos nyid yin par shes par bya'o //
sems ye shes sgyu' ma la bzhag pa ni / snang srid phyi nang snod bcud thams cad rang 'byung gi ye shes su bstogs nas // stog pa'i ngang la bzhag pa'o //
shes pa rang srol [~rdol?] du gzhag pa ni / rigs pa khong nas shar nas ni / dbang po lhug par bzhag pa ni // dbang po sgo' yan du btsug [?] tsam ba // slar log [?] pa 'am // rang bzhin myed par shes pa'o // shes pa lhug par bya' 'o // ngang gis dal gus snyams la // ma yengs tsam du gnas na // rigs pa'i nyi' ma' 'char ste // me long g.ya' dang ba ltab 'u bo [~lta bu'o] //
lus gi khams gso' ba ni // khams dang phyar [~sbyar] la // brid ci bya'o / gnas nyams brga' bar bya' 'o // grogs nyams brga' ba dang 'grogs so // khams log ba byung na mthong stang log pa byung na gseng pa byung na // mthong na / gcig khris pa skye' ba yin pas // gung gi phe' thabs [?] // bsil drig la nyal la bzhag go /
skyugs na bad kan skyes pa yin pas / bcag ran bya'o // lus 'drar [~'dar] zhing skyug pa dang / bgo' bo [~mgo bo] 'khor ba bad kan skyes pa yin ste' sman mar dang zas bcud can btang ngo / dro' sa dang nyi ma la rgyab stan cing sgom du gzhag go // gol [~gos?] mar la dro' ba dar men spu' rlag dgo' ba'o // zas ltogs pa bcud yod pa / sman mar ram / la 'zhi' brlangs mal bya' / 'khor ba ba'i 'du' 'dzi' thag srings phran [~sran?] tshugs par bya' zhing / rang sems dpang por gtsugs la lus dang ngag dang steng chu' bzhin / lus rtsal bas ma rnyed pas // sgoms kyang man ngag chog bzhag ma 'o // //
rdzogs s.ho ithî // // ~|~ // //
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Appendix Two: For comparison, the only known published text
Extract for comparison from BUDA’s etext entitled Rdzogs-chen-gyi Khyad-par-ba Bdun, contained in: Bka'-ma Shin-tu Rgyas-pa, Si-khron Mi-rigs Dpe-skrun-khang (Chengdu 2009), in 133 volumes, at vol. 100, pp. 343-359, at pp. 356-359. I checked the OCR against the published version and found only one tiny inaccuracy, a missing vowel sign, which I have corrected. Comparing the pre-1200 manuscript with this post-2000 publication is very instructive as there are a number of meaningful differences. To judge from my experience, this will always be so.
།། ༈ །།སྙན་ནས་སྙན་དུ་བརྒྱུད་པའི་མན་ངག་འདི་ཡང་།
ལུང་དེ་ཉིད་བཅུ་པ་ལས། དམིག་མ་བཙུམས་ཀྱི་རྣལ་འབྱོར་ནི། རྣལ་འབྱོར་གཞན་ལས་ཁྱད་པར་འཕགས། སེང་གེའི་ལྟ་སྟངས་ཞེས་སུ་བརྗོད།
དེ་ལ་བསྲེ་ཐབས་ཀྱི་མན་ངག་གསུམ། མཁས་པའི་མན་ངག་བཞི། འདུལ་བའི་མན་ངག་གཉིས། གཞག་ཐབས་ཀྱི་མན་ངག་དྲུག །ལུས་ཀྱི་ཁམས་གསོ་བ་དང་ལྔའོ། །
དེ་ལ་བསྲེ་ཐབས་གསུམ་
༼༣༦༧༽
༄༅། །ནི༑ ཤེས་པ་དཔེ་ལ་བསྲེ་བ་དང་། རྟགས་ལ་བསྲེ་བ་དང་། དོན་ལ་བསྲེ་བའོ། །
དེ་ལ་དཔེ་ལ་བསྲེ་བ་ནི། དང་པོ་གནས་དབེན་པ་སྒྲ་བའི་ཚེར་མ་མེད་པར་སྟན་བདེ་བ་ལ་འདུག་སྟེ། མིག་མདུན་གྱི་ནམ་མཁའ་ཁྲུ་གང་ཙམ་ལ་གཏད་དེ་མདུང་བཙུགས་པའམ། གཞུ་བརྡུངས་པའམ། ཁབ་མིག་ཏུ་སྐུད་པ་འཛུད་པ་ལྟར་དྲན་པ་ཏུ་རེ་ཏིང་ངེ་འཛིན་མ་ཡེངས་པར་བྱ་བ་ནི། ཐུན་གསུམ་དུ་བཅད་ལ། ཐུན་དབུགས་ཀྱི་རྒྱུ་བས་ཚད་བཟུང་ལ། ཐུན་ཐང་གིས་བསྒྱུར་ཞིང་། བྱ་བ་ནི་དབུགས་དབྱུང་གསུམ་པ་ཞེས་བྱའོ། །
རྟགས་ལ་བསྲེ་བ་ན། དང་པོ་རུས་སྦལ་འཁར་གཞོང་དུ་བཅུག་པ་ལྟ་བུ་འབྱུང་ངོ༌། །དེ་ནས་བྱེ་ཕྲུག་ལ་སེར་བུ་ཕོག་པ་ལྟ་བུ་དང་། རྒུན་འབྲུམ་ལྟ་བུ་དང་། མེ་སྟག་འཕྲོ་བ་ལྟ་བུ་དང༌། ལྕགས་ཀྱི་སྦུ་གུས་ཆེ་འདྲེན་པ་ལྟ་བུ་དང་། བུང་བ་རྩི་ཆགས་པ་ལྟ་བུ་དང༌། རྒྱ་མཚོའི་གཏིང་ན་ཉ་འཕྱོ་བ་ལྟ་བུ་དང༌། རྩི་ཤིང་གི་ཁ་ན་རླུང་འཕྱོ་བ་ལྟ་བུ་འབྱུང་ངོ༌། །
དོན་ལ་བསྲེ་བ་ནི་མིག་ཕྱེ་བཙུམས་མེད་པར་ཆོས་ཉིད་ཟབ་མོ་ལ་སེམས་ཆགས་ཏེ། དབུགས་རྒྱུ་བ་མི་ཚོར་བར་འདུག་པའོ། །མཁས་པ་བཞི་ལ། ལྟ་བ་ལ་མཁས་པ་སྟེ། གཉིས་མེད་མཉམ་པར་ཤེས་པའོ།།
༼༣༦༨༽
སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་མཁས་པ་ནི། ཅི་སྤྱོད་ཀྱང་སྒྱུ་མར་ཤེས་པའོ། །བསྒོམ་པ་ལ་མཁས་པ་ནི། ཡེངས་པ་མེད་པར་སེམས་ལ་ལྟ་བའོ། །
སེམས་འཆོས་པ་ལ་མཁས་པ་ནི། བྱིང་ན་ལྷག་མཐོང་བསྐྱེད༑ ལུས་བསིང་། ཁྲུས་དང་འཕྲོ་འདུ་ཡང་བྱའོ། །རྒོད་ན་སེམས་གཏོད་པ་ལ་གནན་ཏེ། དམིགས་པ་སྐུ་གཟུགས་སམ། མེ་ལོང་གི་གཟུགས་བརྙན་ལ་གཏད་དོ། །སེམས་འདུལ་ཐབས་གཉིས་ལ། འགྲེང་རྡབས་བྱ་བ་དང༌། རླུང་ལམ་དུ་གཞུག་པ་ཤེས་པར་བྱ་བའོ། །
གཞག་ཐབས་དྲུག་ལ། སེམས་མཉམ་པའི་ངང་ལ་བཞག་པ་ནི། སྣང་སྲིད་ཐམས་ཅད་སེམས་ཡིན་ལ་སེམས་སྟོང་པའི་ངང་ལ་བཞག་པའོ། །
ཆོས་ཉིད་དུ་གཞག་པ་ནི། རྣམ་རྟོག་དང་མཚན་མ་ཆོས་ཉིད་ཡིན་པར་ཤེས་པའོ། །
སེམས་ཡེ་ཤེས་སུ་བསྒྱུར་ལ་བཞག་པ་ནི། སྣང་སྲིད་ཐམས་ཅད་འབྱུང་ཡེ་ཤེས་སུ་བརྟགས་ལ་དེའི་ངང་ལ་བཞག་གོ། །
ཤེས་པ་རང་རྡོལ་དུ་བཞག་པ་ནི། རིག་པ་ཁོང་ནས་ཤར་བའོ། །
དབང་པོ་ལྷུག་པར་བཞག་པ་ནི། དབང་པོ་ཡན་དུ་བཅུག་ལ་གང་ཡང་རང་བཞིན་མེད་པར་ཤེས་པའོ། །
ཤེས་པ་སྨྱུག་མར་བཞག་པ་ནི། ངང་གིས་དལ་བུས་དབུགས་ཆ་བསྙམས་ལ་མ་ཡེངས་ཙམ་དུ་གནས་ན་རིག་པའི་ཉི་མ་འཆར་ཏེ།
༼༣༦༩༽
༄༅། ། །མེ་ལོང་གི་གཡའ་དང་པ་ལྟར་འབྱུང་ངོ༌། །
ལུས་ཀྱི་ཁམས་གསོ་བ་ནི། ཁམས་དང་སྦྱར་ལ་བྲིད་ཅིང་བྱ་སྟེ། གནས་ཉམས་དགའ་བར་བྱ། གྲོགས་ཉམས་དགའ་བ་དང་འགྲོགས་སོ། ཁམས་ལོག་ནས་མཐོང་སྟངས་དམར་པོའམ་སེར་པོ་ནི་མཁྲིས་པ་སྐྱེས་པ་ཡིན་པས་དང་ཀ་དབྱེ། གྲིབ་མ་ལ་བཞག་གོ། །སྐྱུག་ན་བད་ཀན་སྐྱེས་པ་ཡིན་པས་བཅག་རན་བྱའོ། །འདར་ཞིང་སྐྱུག་པ་དང་མགོ་འཁོར་ན་རླུང་སྐྱེས་པ་ཡིན་པས་སྨན་མར་དང་བཅུད་ཅན་བཏང་ལ་བཅོས། ལུས་ཀྱང་ལྡེང་ཆུ་བཞིན་དུ་བཞག་གོ། །མན་ངག་ཅོག་བཞག་མ་རྫོགས་སོ།། །།ཨཱི་ཐཱི།། །།
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Appendix Three: Sources on this Particular Aro Lineage of Dzogchen that Passed through Kong-ram-'tsho (fl. early 11th century?)
Source: The Gsan-yig of Gter-bdag-gling-pa ’Gyur-med-rdo-rje (1646-1714), "reproduced from a manuscript preserved in library of Dudjom Rimpoche," Sanje Dorje (New Delhi 1974), in one volume complete. BUDA no. W30323. I will type out this lineage (at p. 710) for you:
khams lugs kyi brgyud pa ni / thub pa'i dbang po / lha'i bu sems lhag can / dga' rab rdo rje / sha ba ri dbang phyug / mai tri pa / shrî singha / bai ro tsa na / g.yu sgra / gnyags dznyâ na / a ro ye 'byung / ya zi bon ston / gru gu klog 'byung / kong ram 'tsho / bla ma dgon pa ba / bla ma spo 'bor ba / de ba gru skyog pa / zhang zhal dkar ba / 'gos dngos grub rgyal mtshan man 'dra...
In the Thob-yig of the Fifth Dalai Lama, his name is spelled Kong-rab-’tsho. In the Indian publication of the Thob-yig, vol. 4, fols. 232-233:
khams lugs kyi brgyud pa ni / thub pa'i dbang po / lha'i bu sems lhag can / rigs 'dzin dga' rab rdo rje / sha wa ri dbang phyug / rje mee tri ba / mkhas pa shrî sidha / bee ro tsa na / rgyal mo g.yu sgra / gnyags lo ye shes gzhon nu / aa ro ye shes 'byung gnas / ya zi bon ston / gru gu klog 'byung / kong rab 'tshe / bla ma dgon pa ba / bla ma po 'bor ba / de wa gru skyogs [fol. 233r] / / pa / zhang zhal dkar ba / 'gos dngos grub rgyal mtshan man bshad ma thag pa dang 'dra.
Compare lineage found in Bka' ma shin tu rgyas pa, vol. 133:
རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་སེམས་སྡེ་ཁམས་ལུགས་ཨ་རོ་སྙན་བརྒྱུད་ཀྱི་ཁྲིད་ཞྭ་དམར་མཁའ་སྤྱོད་དབང་པོས་མཛད་པའི་མཁའ་དབྱིངས་སྙིང་པོའི་དོན་ཁྲིད་ཀྱི་བརྒྱུད་པ་ནི། ཐུབ་དབང་༑ ལྷའི་བུ་སེམས་ལྷག་ཅན། དགའ་རབ་རྡོ་རྗེ། ཤ་བ་རི། དབང་ཕྱུག་མེ་ཏྲི་པ། ཤྲཱི་སིངྷ། བི་རོ་ཙ་ན། གཡུ་སྒྲ་སྙིང་པོ། གཉག་ལོ་ཡེ་ཤེས་གཞོན་ནུ། སྤྲུལ་སྐུ་ཨ་རོ་ཡེ་ཤེས་འབྱུང་གནས། ཡ་ཟི་བོན་སྟོན། ཅོག་རོ་ཟང་དཀར་བ་བློ་གྲོས་འབྱུང་གནས། ཀོང་རབ་འཚོ་ལྡན་དར་མ་བ། ལྕེ་སྒོམ་ནག་པོ། བླ་མ་བྲག་དཀར་བ། དཔལ་ལྡན་དུས་གསུམ་མཁྱེན་པ༑ འགྲོ་མགོན་རས་ཆེན། རྒྱལ་སྲས་སྤོམ་བྲག་པ། གྲུབ་ཆེན་ཀརྨ་པཀྵི། གཉན་རས་དགེ་འདུན་འབུམ། ཀུན་མཁྱེན་རང་བྱུང་རྡོ་རྗེ། རྟོགས་ལྡན་གྲགས་པ་སེང་གེ། རི་ཁྲོད་པ་དར་མ་རྒྱལ་བ། མཁའ་སྤྱོད་དབང་པོ། བླ་མ་ཤཱཀྱ་གྲགས་པ། ཆོས་དཔལ་ཡེ་ཤེས། འདི་ཡན་ཉམས་ཁྲིད་བརྒྱུད་པ་བར་མ་ཆད་དུ་བྱོན།
The same collection, vol. 100, in a work entitled Snyan-brgyud Gsal-byed:
དུས་དེའི་ཚེ་མངའ་བདག་མེ་ཏྲི་བ་ཞེས་བྱ་བས་ཐོས་བསམ་མང་པོ་བྱས་པ་དང་པཉྩ་བི་ཏ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱི་སྤྱན་སྔར་བྱོན་པ་དང༌། རྣལ་འབྱོར་ཉེར་གཅིག་གི་སྤྱན་སྔར་བྱོན་པས་ཀྱང་
༄༅། །རྫོགས་ཆེན་གྱི་གདམས་ངག་མ་རྙེད་པ་ལ། མཁས་འགྲོ་མ་ལ་ཚོགས་འཁོར་བསྐོར་གྱི་གསོལ་བ་བཏབ་པས། མཁའ་འགྲོ་མས་ལུང་བསྟན་ཏེ། ལྷོ་ཕྱོགས་དང་དཔལ་གྱི་རི་ཞེས་པ། །ཡིད་འཕམ་བྱེད་པའི་གནས་མཆོག་ན། །གྷིར་ཏི་ཨ་པ་ར་ཞེས་པས། །དགའ་རབ་རྡོ་རྗེའི་སྤྲུལ་པའི་སྐུ། །ས་ར་ཧ་ནི་ཆེན་པོ་བཞུགས། །བུ་ཁྱོད་སོང་ཞིག་དེར་སོང་ལ༑ ༑རང་སེམས་སངས་རྒྱས་སྙ་པའི་དོན། །མ་ནོར་བདེན་པའི་གདམས་ངག་སྟེ། །ཞུས་ལ་ཡིད་ལ་དྲན་པར་གྱིས། །ཞེས་ལུང་བསྟན་ནོ། ༈ །ཡང་ལུགས་གཅིག་ཏུ། དམ་པ་ཆོས་ཀྱི་ལོ་རྒྱུས་ལས། བྱང་ཆུབ་ཀྱི་སེམས་གཏན་ལ་ཕེབས་པའི་ཆོས་ནི་ལྷོ་ཕྱོགས་དཔལ་གྱི་རི་ལ་ཡོད་དོ་བར་འདུག་ནས། དེ་ནས་མེ་ཏྲི་བས་ཐང་ཁོབ་ཤིང་མེད་ཆུ་མེད་ཟླ་བ་གཅིག་དང་ཆུ་སྤུས་ནུབ་ཙམ་ཟླ་བ་ཕྱེད་རྒལ་ནས་བྱོན་པས། ཨ་པ་རས། རྩ་བ། ཕྱག་ཆ། སྙན་བརྒྱུད། སེམས་བསྐྱེད་བཞི་གནང་ངོ༌། །དེས་ཤྲཱི་སིང་ལ་བཤད། དེ་ལ་བོད་ཀྱི་ལོ་ཙ་བ་བཻ་རོ་ཙ་ན་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་རྣམ་པར་སྣང་མཛད་ཀྱི་སྤྲུལ་པ། ས་བརྒྱད་ནོན་པ་དེས། དཀའ་བ་དུ་མས་རྒྱ་གར་དུ་བྱོན་ནས། སྔ་འགྱུར་ལྔ་ལ་སོགས་པ་ཞུས་པས། སྒོམ་དཀའ་ཁ་གཡེལ་བར་འདུག་ནས།མཇུག་གསེར་གྱི་པ་ཏྲ་ཅིག་ཕུལ་ནས། བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་གཏན་ལ་འཕེབས་པའི་ཆོས། སྣ་ཉེ་བ། ཁ་རུབ་པ། འགྱུར་བ་མེད་པ་ཅིག་ཞུ་འཚལ་ཞེས་ཞུས་པས། རིགས་ཀྱི་བུ་སྣོད་དང་ལྡན་པ་ཁྱོད་ལ་བཤད་དོ་གསུངས་ནས། ཆོས་སྐོར་འདི་རྣམས་གནང་ངོ༌། །དེས་བོད་དུ་བྱོན་ནས། སྙགས་གཉའ་ན་ཀུ་མ་ར་ལ་བཤད། དེས་ཨ་རོ་ཡེ་ཤེས་འབྱུང་གནས་སྤྲུལ་པའི་སྐུ་དེ་བཤད། དེ་ཡང་རྒྱ་གར་བདུན་བརྒྱུད་ཀྱི་གདམས་ངག་ཡོད་པ། ཧ་ཤང་བདུན་བརྒྱུད་ཀྱི་གདམས་ངག་ཡོད་པ། དམ་པའི་ཆོས་མཐའ་དག་ལ་མཁས་པ། ཤིན་ཏུ་བསྒོམ་ཉམས་དང་ལྡན་པ། མངོན་པར་ཤེས་པ་ལྔ་དང་ལྡན་པའོ། །དེ་ལ་སློབ་མ་མང་ཡང་ཐུགས་ཟིན་པ་བཞི་ལས། ཁམས་ཀྱི་ཡ་ཟི་བོན་སྟོན་ལ་སྐོར་གསུམ་ཀ་བཤད། བྲུ་ཤ་ཟེར་ཀྱང་ཁྱུང་པོ་མདོ་སྟོན་སེང་གེ་རྒྱལ་མཚན་ལ་སྤྲུལ་སྐོར་གཙོ་ཆེར་བཤད། དབུས་ཀྱི་དྲུམ་ཤིང་ཤེས་རབ་སྨོན་ལམ་ལ་གཟེར་ཀ་གཙོ་ཆེར་བཤད། གཙང་གི་ཅོ་རོ་ཟངས་ཀ་མཛོད་ཁུར་ལ་འཁྲུལ་འཁོར་
༄༅།།གཙོར་ཆེར་བཤད་དོ། །དེ་ལྟར་བཞི་ལས་ལས་འདི་ཡ་ཟིས། རྒྱན་གྷོང་གི་གྲུ་གུ་གློག་འབྱུང་ལ་བཤད། དེས་ར་གཟར་ཤར་གྱི་རྐོང་རབ་མཚོ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ཚོང་དཔོན་མི་སྐྱེ་གཅིག་གི་རྐང་གི་འབུལ་ནག་བྱ་བ་ཕུལ་ནས་ཞུས། དེས་ཁྲོ་པ་ལྟམ་དར་མ་ལ་བཤད། དེས་འཚེ་ཆུང་སྟོན་པ་ལ་བཤད་དེ། དེ་ཡང་ཀྱི་མཁར་འབྱིད་ཕུའི་བྲག་ལ་གྲུབ་པ་ ཐོབ་སྟེ། འགྲོངས་ཁར་ཁོང་གི་ཞལ་ནས། ངའི་རོ་འདི་བསྲེགས་ལ་རྟགས་འདྲ་བྱུང་ན་དགེ་སྙོགས་ཀྱིས། མ་བྱུང་ན་ཅི་ཡང་བྱ་མི་དགོས་གསུང་ནས་སྤུར་སྦྱངས་པས། སྒྲ་དང་འོད་བྱུང་། རུས་པ་ཡང་བྱ་འུར་དུ་སོང་ནས་སྙིམ་པ་གང་བ་ཙམ་ལས་མ་བྱུང་སྐད། དེས་ལྕེ་བསྒོམ་དགོན་པ་བ་ལ་བཤད། དེས་སྤོར་ཆུང་སྟོན་པ་ལ་བཤད། དེ་ཡང་སྐུ་ཉན་ཐོས། གསུང་མདོ་སྡེ།ཐུགས་གསང་སྔགས་སུ་བཞུགས། སྐབས་སུ་གསང་སྤྱོད་ཀྱི་ལྡོམ་བུ་བག་རེ་མཛད་པས། དབུས་པ་ལྡོམ་བུ་བ་ཆེན་པོར་ཡང་གྲགས་སོ། །དེས་དམ་པ་ཤག་རྒྱལ་ལ་བཤད་དེ། དེ་ཡང་ཉང་སྨད་སྒྲོ་དར་རེ་བྱ་བ་རྣམ་འཇོམས་དང་ཕུར་པ་མཁས་པ་ཅིག་སྟོན་སྤྱིད་ཆོས་བར་དུ་མི་ཆེན་མང་པོ་འཚོགས་པས་དེར་མཛོམ་ནས་གླེང་བླངས་བྱས་པས་མཉེས་ནས། སོར་ཆུང་ལ་གདམས་ངག་འདི་རྣམས་ཞུས། ཁོང་གིས་ལྷ་རྗེ་ལ་སྒོ་བ་ནག་པོའི་སྐོར་ཚན་ཅིག་ཞུའོ། །དེས་དབོན་པོ་ཇོ་བཙུན་གཟུང་ངེ་གནང་།
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