Old Age: Gradual Path Teachings of an Early Dzogchen Master

Old man look at my life,

I’m a lot like you were.

— Neil Young, 1972

I have to say, the unexpected happens to students of Tibet with such frequency it feels normal. Once I spotted Rampa in the Topkapi in Istanbul. Another time, high in the Alps, I encountered this mural painting on the exterior of a guesthouse, a ski lodge in fact, by the name of “Tenne.” There were only two, including myself, who could see the humor in it. Yes, I admit, this is plain silliness. Hardly anyone in their right mind would see the name of a 12th-century Zhijé teacher in a Swiss hotel sign. Or would they? Connections both real and apparent do pop up in unexpected places, don’t they? Perhaps even more so for those who delve into obscure corners of the universe of possible knowables (shes-bya) like us Tibeto-logicians love to do.

First let’s take a quick overall snapshot of Tenné’s immense commentary* on one of the original Padampa texts. This commentary was written roughly between the late 12th and the 2nd decade of the 13th, preserved in a circa 1245 manuscript. Its title is translatable as Great Commentary on the Dialog called Mirror of the Heart.* There are some interesting quotations he makes use of, sparingly. Not least among those he cites is a work of the founder of the Aro tradition of Dzogchen.** Oddly it seems not to be particularly about Dzogchen. In fact the passages from it very much belong to the prerequisite (sngon-’gro) contemplations of the Gradual Path (Lam-rim) teachings, teachings generally associated with Atiśa and the Kadampa school that followed after him.*** 

(*The title page reads: Zhu-lan Thugs-kyi Me-long-gi Bshad-’bum Chen-mo / Bla-ma Rje-btsun-gyis Yi-ger Bkod-pa'o. Lama Jetsun is just a reverential way to refer to Tenne [Rten-ne] as its author.  Do take notice of the use an obsolete term bshad-’bum, used in pre-Mongol era in place of the ultimately victorious word ’grel-ba. This takes up the entire fifth volume of the first modern Zhijé Collection [ZC] in published form. **If you are not yet familiar with the Aro tradition, I recommend flipping back to our April Fools’ Day blog — Turkish Dzogchen of Early Ladakh — to have a look. Then come back here. ***A moot yet somehow significant point is that the Kadampa writers called such texts Stages of Teachings [Bstan-rim] rather than Stages of the Path [Lam-rim], moot because they amount to the same thing.)

Who was Tenné? Arguably the most pivotal figure in the earlier centuries of Zhijé’s Later Transmission. For the times he lived in, Tenné had an unusually long life, living to be 91 or maybe even 95 years old. Sources differ on whether he died in 1217 or 1221 CE. As he grew older his sight began to fail him and he relied more and more on the assistance of his daughter. He did have a son he hoped would be his successor in the lineage. When we dig into the middle of the huge commentary we realize, sharing in the inevitable sadness, that he had meant to write the commentary for the use of his son, but his son died young, much too young. To be clear his elder son Namkha Özer (Nam-mkha’-’od-zer) was expected to be his successor in the one-to-one transmission, but he contracted a mortal disease. Tenné then wanted to give it to his younger son Yangtsé (Yang-rtse) but he was ‘swept up by a wind’ and moved to Kongpo where he finally died.* When Tenné instead passed on his teaching to the Rog Brothers it turned out to be for the best after all, since they may be credited with bringing the Zhijé to the peak of its historical influence. Not incidental to our present purposes, the Rog Brothers continued Tenné’s tendency to pursue, and to a certain degree integrate, Nyingma Mahāyoga and Dzogchen teachings.

(*See ZC, vol. 5, pp. 416-417. If you prefer English, see Roerich’s Blue Annals, p. 936, in a passage that echoes and surely descended from the ZC.)

The middle brother, Rog Zhigpo, met Tenné when Tenné was in his 70’s, in around 1196 CE. Zhigpo invited the cranky old spiritual master to come and dwell with him in the Inner Dra (Grwa-nang) Valley. Yes, his demands could at times be difficult to endure (Blue Annals, p. 937) — after all he was suffering from old age and slowly but surely going blind — but Zhigpo not only indulged him, he treated him with the highest honor and respect. After Tenné’s death, his body was enshrined within an elaborate Chorten in that same Inner Dra Valley. Inner Dra is on a south tributary of the Brahmaputra, it’s the river valley just west of the valley of Outer Dra where Mindroling Monastery is still today.

One of those Aro quotes included in Tenné’s Great Commentary is this disturbingly accurate list of horrors old age brings. From its context it is clearly presented as part of a plan to instill in disciples a strong dedication to spiritual practice by provoking a sharp aversion to sangsara and all its bitter shortcomings. I’ve attempted to capture its spirit rather than its letter (the transcribed Tibetan texts are all placed in an appendix below): 

To quote Exhorting People to Virtue by Aro:

An old man in this stage of life is a fright, a bundle of white hair and wrinkles, his body all falling apart. When he sits down his butt hits hard, to get up again he plants down all four limbs. He paces and cannot stand still, his skeleton, his creaking joints and bones, tottering, hunched over and falling apart. His face is drained of color, the flesh of his eyelashes brimming with tears. His flesh dissolving, his skin dried up, his web of veins is plain to see. Nothing is clear to his eye and ear, the teeth drop out of his mouth. He talks a lot, but babbles nonsense. He is forgetful, his memory unclear, cognitions failing. So pitiful is the body at the end of life, more like a grim ghost or rakshasa. With death so near it will be hard for him to accomplish the practices.*

 (*Transcribed in Text A, Appendix One below.)

One reason this quote aroused my interest is because some of it sounded familiar, the reason being several years ago I translated a similar passage in the long Deyu history. It even has some phrases in common. It is part of a story of Four Encounters known to every Buddhist. Young pre-renunciation Prince Siddhārtha is on one of his four chariot trips to the four gateways of his palace when he an old man catches his eye.

On another occasion they arrived at the southern gate, where they encountered a very old and wretched man with a hunched back. The Bodhisattva remarked,

‘What is this? His hair white, his body all wrinkled, his limbs shaking?

When the town children see him they’ll think him better off dead.

He wheezes through his mouth. His body has no strength.

His flesh is dried up, his sinews and skin all twisted up. Who is he?’*

(*This English is from the translation of the long Deyu History, p. 138. For the Tibetan see Text B.) 

According to the so-far untranslated and somewhat earlier (ca. 1220’s) small Deyu History:

The Prince said, 

‘A mass of wrinkles and white hair, 

all his limbs are shaky.

The town’s children see him thinking 

he’d be better off dead.

His flesh and blood are wasted away. 

Who is this bone wrapped in skin?’

These three examples are not the only ones that share the initial statement about wrinkles and grey hair. But before going on to these further examples, I must give all credit due to a masterful thesis from Hamburg by Katya Thiesen. She focussed her study on a text by the founder of the Aro Dzogchen tradition, one on the subject of the preliminaries. We are thoroughly justified in expecting it to be the very same text quoted by Tenné. (Okay, the two titles differ, but titles of Tibetan compositions in pre-Mongol era were hardly fixed if they were present at all.) She finds the source of much of his material in an Indian Buddhist scripture, a sutra called Precepts for a King.  First the passage from Aro’s text on the preliminaries with the title Distinguishing the Ways of Gaining Entry to the Yoga of the Mahāyāna:

Now for the sufferings due to old age, they are these:

A mass of white hair and wrinkles, people can’t stand the sight of them.

Liquids drip from mouth and nose, their limbs all quaking.

What they think of doing they have no strength to accomplish.

All the children think they are as good as dead.

You may command them, but they hear nothing, their sense faculties lost.

Some say, ‘This old rakshasa has passed its expiry date.’

Some take up sticks and give them a beating.

Learning about and witnessing such things they want to die but are unable.

An early work by Mchims included in the Snar-thang Gser-'phreng (section NGA, fol. 151r.1) has Atiśa, in the first half of the 11th century, telling his student Dromtön how much he appreciated Aro’s work. We read that the only Tibetan-composed treatise Atiśa appreciated was in fact Aro’s Theg-chen Rnal-’byor,* a work that pleased him for its high poetry, its fine treatment of karma and causation, its depth of understanding and its overarching sublimity. There are other sources telling us that Atiśa appreciated writings by Rongzompa, so we may need to ratchet down the word “only.”

(*This is just a shortened title for the work studied by Thiesen. On this passage, see also Thiesen, p. 52. It is possible the sources have over time confounded two distinct works with similar-sounding titles, one by Rongzompa and the other by Aro.)

As Thiesen demonstrates beyond any doubt this particular work by Aro very surely drew upon a scripture translated well before his time, during the last decades of the 8th century or first decades of the 9th. This is the Mahāyāna Sūtra known as Rājādeśa, or Precepts for a King, where this close-to-identical passage is found:

Similarly the sufferings of old age are as follows:

People who see them cannot believe it,

a mass of wrinkles and white hair,

mouth and nose dripping with fluids.

Every last limb is shaking. What comes into their minds

they haven’t the physical strength to do.

All the children who see them think them better off dead.

They hear none of your instructions, their hearing lost.

Some say, ‘This old rakshasa is too old to die.’

Some take up sticks and beat them.

Learning how this is they may want to die,

but find themselves incapable of doing so.

We want to conclude from comparing these passages that Aro Yeshé Jungné wrote not just one but two texts on the preliminaries (or if you prefer prerequisites) to the Gradual Path, one quoted by Tenné with the title Exhorting People to Virtue, a title otherwise not available to us, and a second one, the one studied by Thiesen, with the title Distinguishing the Ways of Gaining Entry to the Yoga of the Mahāyāna. In order to pin things down a little further, we may want to compare other versions of the Bodhisattva’s encounter with the old man in scriptures like the Play in Full and the Great Departure (these were the chief sources for the Deyu histories retelling of the life of the Buddha). We might also want to compare another early Tibetan composition by Pagmodrupa (Phag-mo-gru-pa Rdo-rje-rgyal-po, 1110-1170). Last but not least, we ought to see how the other passages that Tenné cited from Exhorting the People to Virtue might stack up (for them, see Appendix Two). Yes, there is more to do, but I hope you will excuse me from going even further into a subject that is already growing old with me.

Conclusion?  My initial motive in writing this was to support a longterm argument of mine that the Early Zhijé had a strong interest in the Aro Dzogchen lineage. This was important to me back in those 12-odd years I worked on the Deyu histories, trying to learn more about their elusive authors. While I think this aim has been well served when put together with still other evidence, after all is said and done it turns out to be more about old age than anything else. I suppose there is a much broader human interest in this subject, even among people who are not particularly interested in Tibetan Studies. Still I should be sorry about posting this since it concerns something nobody, least of all myself, wants to hear... but, well, no, I’m not.

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Reading list 

Anonymous, A History of Buddhism in India and Tibet: An Expanded Version of the Dharma’s Origins Made by the Learned Scholar Deyu, Dan Martin, tr., The Library of Tibetan Classics series no. 32, Wisdom Publications (Somerville 2022). We call this for short the “long Deyu.” We do this even though it is actually a post-1262 CE anonymous compilation framed as a commentary on a verse work by a different author. It was the verse work alone, dating from nearly a century earlier, that was composed by the Zhijé figure named Deyu (Lde’u). That means the authorship listing authorized by the Library of Congress is incorrect and requires fixing. The authorship of the long Deyu History will remain anonymous until we find good reasons to say otherwise.

G.R. Coffman, “Old Age from Horace to Chaucer: Some Literary Affinities and Adventures of an Idea,” Speculum, vol. 9, no. 3 (1934), pp. 249–277. If you were thinking to compare and contrast Tibetan literature’s portrayals of old age with sources from the other side of Eurasia, this could be a good place to start. Of course there is a lot more out there, so I recommend you get your research started while you still have the energy of youth at your command.

Robert B. Ekvall, “The High Pasturage Ones of Tibet Also Grow Old,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 124, no. 6 (1980), pp. 429-437. 

Ronald E. Emmerick, “rGas-pa Gso-ba,” contained in: Tadeusz Skorupski, ed., Indo-Tibetan Studies, Institute of Buddhist Studies (Tring 1990), pp. 89-100.  Text and translation of Chapter 90, ‘On Geriatrics,’ of the 3rd book of the Four Medical Tantras (Rgyud-bzhi).

Gampopa (Sgam-po-pa Bsod-nams-rin-chen, 1079-1153), Ornament of Precious Liberation, tr. by Ken Holmes, Wisdom (Boston 2017). At pages 71-72 of this Stages of the Path classic by a well known Kagyü master is a different way of characterizing old age in the form of a ten-fold list, its content well worth comparing. Although this well polished translation is most highly recommended, there are others out there. If you have Herbert Guenther’s The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, you can find it on pages 66-67.

Mchims Nam-mkha’-grags, Snar-thang Gser-’phreng [a descriptive rather than an actual title, with works of varying authorship and dating], a manuscript supplied at BDRC no. W2CZ7888.

S. Musitelli, “Senility, Illness and Death in Açvaghosa’s Buddhacarita; The Feats of Buddha,” The Aging Male, vol. 6, no. 4 (2003), pp. 264–274.

Patrul Rinpoche (Dpal-sprul O-rgyan-’jigs-med-chos-kyi-dbang-po, 1808-1887), The Words of My Perfect Teacher, tr. by the Padmakara Translation Group, Harper Collins (San Francisco 1994). Just to supply yet another example of an old age description in a Stages of the Path context, have a look at pp. 82-83, with its particularly remarkable quotation from Milarepa. This text is a quite recent one, of course, but I did search through the very lengthy Stages of the Teachings text by the Kadampa teacher Drolungpa (Gro-lung-pa Blo-gros-’byung-gnas, late-11th to 12th centuries) and could find nothing particularly relevant, even if mentions of old age are frequent.

Rājādeśa nāma Mahāyāna Sūtra (Rgyal-po-la Gdams-pa zhes bya-ba Theg-pa-chen-po’i Mdo).  Tôhoku no. 214.  Dergé Kanjur, vol. TSHA, folios 207r.1-210r.3.  Translated by Dānaśīla and Ye-shes-sde. The immediately following scripture, Tôhoku no. 215, has exactly the same title. Both are available in translation at 84000. The king in the title is Bimbisāra. If comparative translation studies gives you odd pleasure, compare this:

The sufferings of the elderly are like this:
White hair, gathering wrinkles, being ignored by others,
Dribbles of spittle and snot at the mouth and nose,
Trembling hands, and unsteady legs.
The body becomes too feeble to do what the mind intends.
Relatives all consider you better off dead;
Your advice is not heeded and your authority is lost.
Some may even say, ‘That old monster should have died long ago.’
Some may even threaten to beat you with cudgels and sticks.
Seeing and hearing this, you may want to die, but die you cannot. 

Alexander von Rospatt, “Negotiating the Passage beyond a Full Span of Life: Old Age Rituals among the Newars,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, vol. 37, no. 1 (2014), pp. 104-129.  See also this online resource at the Rubin site.

Elliot Sperling, “Old Age in the Tibetan Context,” Saeculum, vol. 30 (1979), pp. 434-442. It may be true that Tibetans do not have the same ways of paying respect to elders in the form of well-established religious rituals that neighboring Chinese and Newars have. The main message is that Tibetan people in earlier historical eras never had to face a retirement age. To the contrary, they continued doing useful work with a strong sense of independence. Tragically, the author of this essay, written in his youth, never got to make use of his own ‘retirement’ years even though he had great plans he surely would have carried out.

Katja Thiesen, A-ro Ye-shes-’byung-gnas: Leben, Werk und Tradition eines tibetischen Gelehrten – Mit einer Übersetzung seines Theg pa chen po’i rnal ’byor la ’jug pa’i thabs bye brag tu byed pa (Eine detaillierte Analyse [der] Methode für den Eintritt in den Yoga [entsprechend] der Mahāyāna-Tradition), Master’s thesis, University of Hamburg (2009).

Tsongkhapa, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, tr. by the Lamrim Chenmo Translation Committee, Snow Lion (Ithaca 2000), in 3 volumes. In volume one, at pages 275-276, are Tsongkhapa’s 1402 CE poetic evocations of the sufferings of age. My favorite bit: 

“Physical strength and vigor deteriorate: for example, when you sit down, you drop like a sack of dirt cut from a rope; when you rise up, it is like uprooting a tree...”

Zhijé Collection. To get access, try this link, or if that doesn’t work, try this one — https://library.bdrc.io/ — and type “W23911” in their search box. 

• Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it you’ve got to start young.

— Quote attributed to both Theodore Roosevelt and Fred Astaire

Appendix One — Tibetan texts in transcription

Text A — Zhijé Collection, vol. 5, p. 239, line 2:

a ro'i skye bo dge bskul las / na tshod gyurd pa'i rgad po 'jigs rung ba // 'go dkar snyer 'dus lus kun zhig // sdod na 'phongs sdebs langs na sug bzhi 'dzugs // gom ba mi bstand lus 'khyor dbyigs sgur zhing // 'jigs pa'i brang skas tshigs rus krog sgrar bcas // byad kyi mdog nyams rdzi sha myig chu can // sha zhu pags skams rtsa'i dra ba mngon // mig dang rna ba myi gsal kha so brul // ngag nas cal col smra zhing brjod la dga' // rjed ngas dran pa mi gsal shes pa nyams // rab 'jigs 'dre srin gzugs su mthong 'gyur ba'i // tshe'i mthar phyind snying rje'i gnas 'gyur ba / 'chi dang nye bas bsgrub pa mthar phyind dka' //  // 

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Text B — From the long Deyu History (Lhasa ed.), p. 54:

de nas lho’i sgor byon pa dang rgad po shin tu rgas pa sgur ba nyams thag pa gcig dang ’phrad nas ’di ci yin dris / mgo dkar gnyer lus rkang lag kun kyang ’dar // grong pa’i bus pas [~byis pas] mthong na shi na rung snyam sems // kha nas shus ’debs lus kyi stobs dang bral // sha skams rgyus dang paṭ pas dkris ’di su // zhes smras pas /...

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Text C — From the small Deyu History, p. 24:

rgyal bus gsungs pa / mgo dkar gnyer ’dus rkang lag kun kyang ’dar / grong pa’i bus bas mthong na shi na rung snyam sems / sha khrag nyams te rus lpags dkris pa su / 

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Text D — BDRC no. W25983, vol. 59, p. 12, line 2:

• Note: This is based on a single text, for critical text edition see Thiesen, p. 174, with German translation on p. 115.

rgas pa yang ni 'di ltar sdug bsngal te // 

skra dkar gnyer 'dus gzhan gyis mthong mi thos (~thub?) //

kha sna'i chu zag rkang lag kun kyang 'dar //

sems kyis dran yang lus la nyams stobs med //

bu tsha kun kyang shi na rung snyams sems // 

zhal lta byas kyang mi nyan dbang yang shor //

kha cig srin rgan shi mchis (~'phyis?) shes kyang zer //

kha cig ber dbyug thogs nas rdung bar byed //

de ltar mthong thos shi 'dod shi mi btub //

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Text E — Dergé Kanjur, Tôh. no. 214, vol. TSHA, fol. 209r, line 6:

rgas pa yang ni 'di ltar sdug bsngal te // mgo dkar gnyer 'dus gzhan gyis mthong mi mos // kha sna chu 'dzag rkang lag kun kyang 'dar // sems kyis dran yang lus la nyam stobs med // bu tsha kun kyang shi na rung snyam sems // zhal ta byas kyang mi nyan dbang yang shor // kha cig srin rgan shi 'phyis zhes kyang zer // kha cig ber dbyug thogs nas rdung bar byed // de ltar mthong thos shir 'dod shir ma btub //

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Appendix Two — A cursory excursus on other citations in Tenné’s commentary

We find in Tenné’s commentary several quotations from the Aro text of our chief interest, an apparently unavailable text called [Slob-dpon Chen-po] A-ro’i Skye-bo Dge-bskul or in the shortened form A-ro’i Dge-bskul. The quotes appear in the first-published version of the Zhijé Collection, vol. 5, at the following pages: 

Page 210, line 1: a ro'i skye bo dge skul las / snang ba 'brid mkhas 'khruld pa 'dris par sla // bag chags tshan che nyon mongs skye 'drungs 'phel // 'dod pa 'phro gshin zhen chags 'bral bar dka' // bdag 'dzin 'phrang dam le lo gzhi che bas // 'gro ba 'di dag srid pa'i brtson ra nas // thard med sdug bsngal 'bha [~'ba'] zhig gis mnar ba // nyes byed gzhan na yod pa ma yin rang gis lan // snying rus gal che 'di myed thar lam bral skad // //

Page 213, line 4: slob dpon chen po a ro'i skye bo dge skul bas / 'khor ba 'di ni bde ba med // sdug bsngal gnas su ma rig pa'i // rten des dam pa'i chos mi grub // 'jig rten bya ba 'khrul pa la // bden par bzung ba log pa'i lam // byas pa don med tshe 'di'i ched // da lta'i grabs dang phyi ma'i tshis // 'di gnyis 'tshogs pa lhan cig min skad.

Page 235, line 4: a ro'i dge bskul las / rin chen gling nas ded dpon gyis // stong par log pa bde mod kyi // chos med mi lus de lta min // shi nas ngan 'gror skye ba'i // 'khor los sgyur rgyal de bas ni / phyi ma bde 'gro thob pa'i // mdze rgan long ba khyad par 'phags // ri rab dang ni rdul phran las // dam chos yod med khyad par 'phags skad.  

Page 239, line 2:  See Text A.

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We also find cited a not further specified on worldly wisdom (Lugs-kyi Bstan-bcos).

Page 101, line 7: de skad du yang lugs kyis bstand chos las / gzhon ba'i dus su pha mas bsrungs / lang tsho'i dus su khyo yis bsrungs / rgas pa'i dus su bu tshas bsrungs / bud myed rang dbang thob ma yin zhes pa'o.

Page 217, line 7: lugs kyi bstan chos las / shind tu drang por myi bya ste / nags su song la ltos cig dang // der ni yon po bsdus 'gyur la // drang po thams cad cod par byed // bzang po'i rlod yangs stond pa la // ngan pa glags cher lta ba yod // mi ngan rnams la phan btags pas // sa rdo nam du stor ba yin gsung skad.

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Gdams-ngag Sems-kyi Sgron-ma is cited on p. 282, line 2. It might be a similarly titled Padampa dialog text, I haven’t looked into it yet.  

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Snyan-bsngags Za-ma-tog-gi ’Phreng-ba, which may stand for a Sanskritic title *Kāvyakaraṇḍamālā, or something like that, is cited at least twice.

218.2 snyan bsngags za ma tog gi 'phreng ba las /

chog shes gong na nor gzhan med //

'dod pa spangs pa bde ba'i mchog //

phung 'drer grogs ngan rten pa che //

mdza' bo ngan pa thabs kyis spang //

rdong [~gdong] pa dam tshig med pa ni /

yon tan klug [~blug] pa'i snod ma yin //

ma brtags pa dang 'brel mi bya //

grogs kyi dri ma ngan 'go bar rkyen skad.

220.2 snyan sngags za ma tog gi 'phreng ba las /

mdza' bo snying la bab pa'i //

rang dang 'dra ba'i grogs po ni //

nor bu rin chen lta bur dkon //

de'i legs spyad snying gi tshig //

phan par smra ba dkon pa ste //

de bas de la nyan ba skon [~dkon] //

byams pa'i zhal ta mi nyan ba /

ru rbal [~rus sbal] kha nas shing shor 'dra skad.

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At page 309, line 3, is a recommendation to consult the Dpe-chos of “Spu-to-ba” [~Po-to-ba Rin-chen-gsal, 1031-1105], who was, by the way, a teacher of Tenné’s Zhijé lineage teacher Patsab (Pa-tshab). Tenné once more mentions the Dpe-chos of “Pu-do-ba,” on page 54, line 5. The spelling Spu-to-ba may also be noted in Rog’s Zhijé History. It is at least worthy to see that this Kadampa classic was known to Tenné and his followers.

• I would like to dedicate today’s blog to one of my older brothers. Today would have been his birthday.

Macrocosmic Man in the Kālacakra Tantra

Well, Leonardo’s Vesuvian man it is not. I am not and never have been an artist. I drafted the drawing you see here above decades ago, in the early ’80’s, as part of an attempt to understand the first chapter, “On Cosmology,” of the Kālacakra Tantra. A group of us read it together outside of regular school hours for a few hours every week, taking advantage of our varying levels of Sanskrit and Tibetan knowledge. This was how I met my life-long love and ended up where I am today. 

At the time I had no idea that very similar such body charts of the universe might have been done before. The most remarkable of them all was put on display at the Rubin Museum in New York City. It is now on view at their website,* although you might prefer this scan at Himalayan Art Resources. Still, these digital scans are not sufficiently dense to allow us to see the Tibetan inscriptions clearly, which is a pity.

(*There is an interactive version with labels by Elena Pakhtouva in Spiral magazine, you only need to tap HERE.)

Although I will not go into it very much right now, these Kālacakra charts might very well bear comparison in both structure and content with Kabbalistic ‘trees’ (ilanot).  But I think you can do the comparison on your own without even cracking open the cover of Yossi Chajes’s book, The Kabbalistic Tree. I do think it should be cracked open. But if you prefer you can see it in a brief video review. In it the reviewer kindly flips through the pages so you can get a glance at the illustrations. You will understand why they would require profound contemplation and study. Not just a flip-through.

As if that were not enough, you could also compare it to a very curious early (11th century?) Tibetan example of a body mandala of Vajravārāhī displayed and discussed in an essay by Amy Heller. As usual, Tibeto-logic leaves you with many more questions than it can possibly answer, and quite a bit more material to explore (listed below) than could be crammed into any known blogosphere without the help of Alien Intelligence.

Alert! 

Tibeto-logic is a human-made blog. So while it does make use of digital resources wherever useful, it is not and never will be a product of generative A.I. or A.I. editorial tools. I cannot abide their tyranny. Neither should anyone.

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Literature you might want to see or even read

Paramādibuddhoddhṛta Śrīkālacakra-nāma-tantrarāja (Mchog-gi Dang-po’i Sangs-rgyas-las Phyung-ba Rgyud-kyi Rgyal-po Dpal Dus-kyi-’khor-lo).  Tôhoku no. 362.  Dergé Kanjur, vol. KA, folios 22v.1-128v.7.  Tr. by Somanātha and ’Bro Shes-rab-grags.  Revised by Shong-ston Rdo-rje-rgyal-mtshan. For blogs on early woodblock printings of this scripture, see this and this and this. For translations of parts of it, continue to scroll down.

Yael Bentor, The Cosmos, the Person, and the Sādhana, a Treatise on Tibetan Tantric Meditation with a Translation of Master Tsongkhapa’s ‘Fulfilling the Bee’s Hope’, University of Virginia Press (Charlottesville 2024).

J.H. Chajes, The Kabbalistic Tree  [האילן הקבלי], Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park 2022).

Amy Heller, “Two Early Tibetan Ritual Diagrams for Cakra Meditations,” Tibet Journal [Dharamsala], vol. 34, no. 3 to vol. 35, no. 2 (Autumn 2009 to Summer 2010), pp. 59-70.

S.K. Heninger Jr., “Some Renaissance Versions of the Pythagorean Tetrad,” Studies in the Renaissance, vol. 8 (1961), pp. 7-35, at p. 15:

“Pythagoras was the first man in western culture to propose a persistent pattern that prevails throughout each level of creation—which is, of course, the ideological basis for the entire microcosm-macrocosm analogy. This integrated system provided a basis for scientific hypothesis and for optimistic philosophical speculation. As [André] Dacier [in his Life of Pythagoras, p. 74] said: ‘He first call’d the Universe κόσμον, Mundum, to mark the Beauty, the Order and the Regularity that reign thro’ all its Parts.’ It was recognized that κόσμος means ‘embellishment’ as well as ‘order’.”

If it is true as is often said that Pythagoras was the inventor of the concept ‘cosmos’, and if as this paper by Heninger maintains this cosmos concept largely means the quaternity of the elements, and then if we add in Empedocles’ dynamic dialectic of love and hate, then we would seem to have located a Greek source for the heart and core of the Buddhist maṇḍala idea. (That Pythagoras is said to have visited India might also be brought into the argument, perhaps even in favor of overturning it.) But the modernistic caricature of the cosmos idea as something static and uninteresting, or as an eternal symmetry, needs to be set aside.

And if it is the case that the Pythagorean tetraktys (1+2+3+4=10) underlies the Ten Powers of Aristotle (supposed to supply coverage for ten possible ways to apply predicates to a noun in subject position) that entered the Middle East within logic textbooks in the form of the Tree of Porphyry then we might be able to identify the Greek sources underlying the Kabbalistic tree, the ten Powers of the Kālacakra, as well as the cosmological use of ‘ten’ in the writings by the Basran Brotherhood of Purity.* I am by no means insisting on a Greek origin, but I do believe entertaining the idea may lead us into historical truths we would never be able to come up with unless we try to prove or disprove it. 

(*For some efforts along these lines see our previous blog, “Three Traditions of Ten Powers: In Judaism, Buddhism, Islam.”)

Moshe Idel, Enchanted Chains: Techniques and Rituals in Jewish Mysticism, Sources and Studies in the Literature of Jewish Mysticism series no. 16, Cherub Press (Los Angeles 2005). This book may be difficult to obtain, but I cannot suggest any better discussion of something this book (p. 41 ff.) calls continua, symbolic entities that link between divine and human worlds, and between macrocosm and microcosm. These links are inevitably, given the Judaic contexts, mainly restricted to the forms of letters and words, although there is a particularly interesting appendix on a different type involving colors. And they largely explain why ritual and meditation techniques can do their work. The concept of continua (Hebrew shalshelet) might with profit be placed alongside the Tibetan Buddhist ideas of rgyud (“continuity”) and more specifically Tsongkhapa’s ideas about effective correspondences. See Bentor’s book, p. 60: 

“[Tsongkhapa] distiguishes between mere similarities and the correspondences that entail a continuity. For Tsongkhapa, only the latter can achieve purification of impure grounds by means of the sādhana—in other words, are of soteriological value. Thus, in his view, only in the case of continuity—and not of connections—can there be grounds of purification and their purifiers that are beneficial to yogis...” 

Idel bears reading in connection with the anthropomorphic images often used to mediate between realms in Kālacakra and Kabbalah (forms made visible or semi-visible in many Ilanot), particularly pp. 51-52 where the author points to the “chain of Holy Forms” referring to the supernal anthropos, and the “chain of the image or likeness” or “enchainment of divine faces.” Here “chain” carries no sense of bondage, but rather of links or linkages, or if you prefer, connectedness.

See both books for much more along these lines.*

(*And for all those who might otherwise continue to mindlessly back-translate rgyud as ‘tantra’ without fail, I must urgently recommend the translated passages and discussions in van der Kuijp’s essay, pp. 103-108.)

Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp, “The Bird-Faced Monk and the Beginnings of the New Tantric Tradition, Part Two,” Journal of Tibetology, vol. 19 (December 2018), pp. 86-127.

•

Translations of the Kālacakra Tantra into English, Primarily

The same text is frequently referred to as Laghukālacakra Tantra. I haven’t yet seen a recently published translation by Niraj Kumar, The Kālacakra Tantra, Translation, Annotation and Commentary, Vol. 1, DK Printworld (New Delhi 2022), in 651 pages. It is possible to find interviews with the author on YouTube, and from these I conclude the first volume must correspond to the first chapter of the tantra (four further volumes are announced as forthcoming), and that its 5 volumes will encompass a complete translation.

Translations of Chapter 1:   B. Banerjee, Über das Lokadhātu Paṭala I. Kapitel des Laghu Kālacakra tantra rāja, dissertation (Munich 1959). 

On Chapter 1:  Winfried Petri, Indo-tibetische Astronomie, Habilitationsschrift (München 1966), in 151 pages.  This was never properly published, and I have never seen it.

Partial translation of Chapter 1: John Ronald Newman, The Outer Wheel of Time: Vajrayāna Buddhist Cosmology in the Kālacakra Tantra, University Microfilms International Dissertation Information Service (Ann Arbor 1987).  Doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin, Madison. 

Translation of Chapter 2:  Vesna Acimovic Wallace, The Inner Kālacakra: A Buddhist Tantric View of the Individual, University Microfilms International Dissertation Services (Ann Arbor 1995); doctoral dissertation, University of California at Berkeley.  This contains the Mongolian text of Chapter Two.  The dissertation has now been published in two parts:  Vesna A. Wallace, The Inner Kālacakra: A Buddhist Tantric View of the Individual, Oxford University Press (Oxford 2001); Vesna A. Wallace, The Kālacakratantra: The Chapter on the Individual together with the Vimalaprabhā, American Institute of Buddhist Studies, Columbia University (New York 2004). 

Translation of Chapter 3:  Jensine Andresen did a preliminary translation of this chapter as part of her dissertation (listed below) that is due to be published with the expected title The Kālacakra Tantra: The Initiation Chapter with the Vimalaprabhā Commentary. In her dissertation, this translation is Appendix A with unnumbered pages, although we may count 219 in all.

Translation of Chapter 4:  Vesna A. Wallace, The Kālacakra Tantra: The Chapter on Sādhanā together with the Vimalaprabhā Commentary, Translated from Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Mongolian, Introduced and Annotated, The American Institute of Buddhist Studies (New York 2010). Reviewed by David Reigle, The Kālacakra Tantra on the Sādhana and Maṇḍala: A Review Article, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, series 3, vol. 22, no. 2 (2012), pp. 439-463.

Translation of Chapter 5: A translation is included within a very lengthy dissertation: James Francis Hartzell, Tantric Yoga: A Study of the Vedic Precursors, Historical Evolution, Literatures, Cultures, Doctrines, and Practices of the 11th Century Kaśmīri Śaivite and Buddhist Unexcelled Tantric Yogas, doctoral dissertation, Columbia University (New York 1997), chapters 11-13, pp. 1057-1395.

•

More Kālacakra-related literature in English, German, Italian etcetera (an impartial but decidedly partial list)

Jensine Andresen, Kālacakra: Textual and Ritual Perspectives, doctoral dissertation, Harvard University (Cambridge 1997).

Edward A. Arnold, ed., As Long as Space Endures: Essays on the Kālacakra Tantra in Honor of H.H. the Dalai Lama, Snow Lion (Ithaca 2009).

S.S. Bahulkar, “The Lokadhātupaṭala of the Kālacakra Tantra,” Dhīḥ, vol. 19 (1995), pp. 163-182.

Biswanath Bandhyopadyaya (aka Biswanath Banerjee), “A Note on the Kālacakratantra and Its Commentary,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (Letters), vol. 18, no. 2 (1952), pp. 71-76.  This reference may need checking.

——, “A Note on the Kālacakrayāna of Tantric Buddhism,” Proceedings and Transactions of the All India Oriental Conference: Eighteenth Session, Annamalainagar, December 1955 (Annamalainagar 1958), pp. 219-221.

——, “Some Aspects of the Kālacakra School of Buddhism,” International Congress of Orientalists: Proceedings (1973), pt. 1, pp. 41-45.

Biswanath Banerjee, “The Kālacakra School: The Latest Phase of Buddhism,” contained in: N.N. Bhattacharyya, ed., Tantric Buddhism: Centennial Tribute to Dr. Benoytosh Bhattacharyya (Delhi 1999), pp. 263-267.

Gilles Béguin, “Un grand mandala de Kālacakra au Musée Guimet,” La Revue du Louvre et des musées de France, no. 2 (1978), pp. 113-121.

Alexander Berzin, Introduction to the Kalachakra Initiation, Snow Lion (Ithaca 1997/2010). Much of this author’s work has been made freely available in a variety of languages at this website.

——, Kalachakra and Other Six-Session Yoga Texts, Snow Lion (Ithaca 1998). Translations of several brief texts for use in daily meditation practice.

——, Taking the Kalachakra Initiation, Snow Lion (Ithaca 1997). For more of Alex Berzin’s essays and translations, there is a listing in the back of the book (for an online version of the same listing go here).

Barry Bryant, in cooperation with Namgyal Monastery, The Wheel of Time Sand Mandala, Harper San Francisco (New York City 1992).

Mario E. Carelli, Sekoddeśaṭīkā of Naḍapāda (Nāropā), Being a Commentary of the Sekoddeśa Section of the Kālacakra Tantra, The Sanskrit Text Edited for the First Time with an Introduction in English, Oriental Institute (Baroda 1941).

Claudio Cicuzza and Francesco Sferra, “Brief Notes on the Beginning of the Kālacakra Literature,” Dhīḥ, vol. 23 (1997), pp. 113-126.

Damdinsüren, “A Commentary on Kalacakra or Wheel of Time,” Tibet Journal, vol. 6, no. 1 (1981), pp. 43-49.

Sarat Chandra Das, “On the Kālachakra System of Buddhism, which Originated in Orissa,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, n.s. vol. 2 (1907), pp. 225-227.

Ngawang Dhargyey (Ngag-dbang-dar-rgyas), A Commentary on the Kālacakra Tantra, tr. by Alan Wallace, Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (Dharamsala 1985). This is marked as being restricted to initiates.

——, “Introduction to and an Outline of the Kalacakra Initiation,” Tibet Journal, vol. 1, no. 1 (1975), pp. 72-77. Translated by members of the Translation Bureau of the Tibetan Works and Archives, including Sherpa Tulku, Alexander Berzin and Jonathan Landaw, in preparation for the initiation in Bodhgaya in India, in January 1974.

Herbert Fux, “Sambhala und die Geschichte des Kālacakra - Ein lamaistisches Thaṅ-ka aus dem Österreichischen Museum für angewandte Kunst,” Alte und moderne Kunst, vol. 107 (1969), pp. 18-24.

Geshe Drakpa Gelek (Dge-bshes Grags-pa-dge-legs), “Dissolution and Emptiness Meditation in the Kālacakra Six Session Guru Yoga Sādhana,” contained in: Arnold, As Long as Space Endures, pp. 449-455.

Gen Lamrimpa, Transcending Time:: An Explanation of the Kālacakra Six-Session Guru Yoga, tr. by B. Alan Wallace, Wisdom (Somerville 1999). The author is also known as Lobsang Jampal Tenzin (Blo-bzang-’jam-dpal-bstan-’dzin).

B. Ghosh, “Emergence of Kalacakratantra,” Bulletin of. Tibetology [Sikkim Research Institute of Tibetology, Gangtok], no.2 (1985), pp. 19-31. Available online.

David Gist, “But Why the Kālacakra?” Tibet Journal, vol. 25, no. 3 (Autumn 2000), pp. 32-38.

Raniero Gnoli and Giacomella Orofino, Nāropā. Iniziazione Kālacakra, Biblioteca Orientale, Adelphi Edizioni (Milan 1994).

——, ed., La realizzazione della conoscenza del Supremo Immoto (Paramākṣarajñānasiddhi of Puṇḍarīka), Supplemento no. 1 alla Rivista degli Studi Orientali vol. 70, Bardi Editore (Rome 1997). Italian translation of the commentary on verse 127 of chapter 5 of the Kālacakra Tantra.

——, “La Sekoddeśaṭippaṇī di Sādhuputra Śrīdharānanda: Il testo sanscrito,” Rivista degli Studi Orientali, vol. 70, fasc. 1-2 (1996), pp. 115-146.

——, “The Sekoddeśaṭippaṇī: A Brief Commentary on the Summary of the Initiation by Sādhuputraśrīdharānanda,” translated from Italian by Phillip Lecso, contained in: Arnold, ed., As Long as Space Endures, pp. 51-92.

David B. Gray, “The Influence of the Kālacakra: Vajrapāṇi on Consort Meditation,” contained in: Arnold, As Long as Space Endures, pp. 193-202.

Günther Grönbold, “Heterodoxe Lehren und Ihre Widerlegung im Kālacakra-Tantra,” Indo-Iranian Journal, vol. 35 (1992), pp. 273-297.

——, “Kreigsmaschinen in einem buddhistischen Tantra,” contained in: Friedrich Wilhelm, ed., Festschrift Dieter Schlingloff, Dr. Inge Wezler Verlag für Orientalistische Fachpublikationen (Reinbek 1996), pp. 63-97. On the devices (yantra), including war machines, described neaer the end of Chapter One of the scripture.

——, “Materialien zur Geschichte des Ṣaḍaṅga-Yoga I. Der Ṣaḍaṅga-Yoga im Hinduismus,” Indo-Iranian Journal, vol. 25 (1983), pp. 181-190.

——, “Materialien zur Geschichte des Ṣaḍaṅga-Yoga II. Offenbarung des Ṣaḍaṅga-Yoga in Kālacakra-System,” Central Asiatic Journal, vol. 28 (1984), pp. 43-56.

——, “Materialien zur Geschichte des Ṣaḍaṅga-Yoga III. Die Guru-reihen im buddhistischen Ṣaḍaṅga-yoga,” Zentralasiatische Studien, vol. 16 (1982), pp. 227-347.

——, “Materialien zur Geschichte des Ṣaḍaṅga-Yoga IV. Tibetische Literatur zum Ṣaḍaṅga-Yoga,” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens und Archiv für Indische Philosophie, vol. 27 (1983), pp. 191-199.

——, Ṣaḍ-aṅga-yoga: Raviśrījñāna's Guṇabharaṇī nāma Ṣaḍaṅgayogaṭippaṇī mit Text, Übersetzung und literarhistorische Kommentar, Dissertation Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität (Munich 1969).

——, “Der Sechsgleidrige Yoga des Kālacakra-Tantra,” Asiatische Studien, vol. 37, no. 1 (1983), pp. 25-45.

——, ”Vom Zähneputzen zur Unsterblichkeit. Medizin und Alchemie im Kālacakra-Tantra,” contained in: C. Chojnacki et al., eds., Vividharatnakaraṇḍaka. Festgabe für Adelheid Mette, Indica et Tibetica no. 37 (Swisttal-Odendorf 2000), pp. 283-296.

——, “Weitere Ādibuddha-Texte,” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens, vol. 34 (1995), pp. 45-60.

——, The Yoga of Six Limbs: An Introduction to the History of Ṣaḍaṅgayoga, Robert L. Hütwohl, tr., Spirit of the Sun Publications (Santa Fe 1996).  English translations of most or all of his German articles on the subject of Ṣaḍaṅgayoga.

——, “Zwei Ādibuddha-Texte,” contained in: Jens-Uwe Hartmann et al., eds., Sanskrit-Texte aus dem buddhistischen Kanon: Neu-entdeckungen und Neueditionen II (Göttinge 1992), pp. 111-161.

Gungbar Rinpoche, “Shri Kālachakra,” Dreloma, vol. 6 (1982), pp. 9-15.

K.N. Gyatso, Ornament of Stainless Light: An Exposition of the Kālacakra Tantra (Boston 2004).

Ernst Haas and Gisele Minke, “The Kālacakra Initiation,” Tibet Journal, vol. 1, nos. 3-4 (Autumn 1976), pp 29-31.

Hadano Hakuyû, “Fundamental Study on the Formation of the Kālacakra-tantra” [in Japanese], Mikkyô Bunka, vol. 8 (1950), pp. 18-37. This and the next require verification.

——, “The Influence of Hinduism on Buddhism: The Formation of Kālacakra as a Counter Measure Against Islam” [in Japanese], Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies, vol. 1 (1953), pp. 356-357.

Urban Hammar, “The Concept of Ādibuddha in the Kālacakratantra,” contained in: Arnold, As Long as Space Endures, pp. 203-218.

——, “The Kālacakra Initiation by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama in Amaravati, January 2006,” Orientalia Suecana, vol. 58 (2009), pp. 40-59.  Try downloading it here. This may or may not be identical to yet another online publication on the same subject but a different title.

——, Studies in the Kālacakra Tantra: A History of the Kālacakra Tantra in Tibet and a Study of the Concept of Ādibuddha, the Fourth Body of the Buddha and the Supreme Unchanging, doctoral dissertation (Stockholm 2005). Download the entire book in your preferred format here.

Laura Harrington, “Exorcising the Mandala: Kālacakra and the Neo-Pentecostal Response,” Journal of Global Buddhism [online journal], vol. 13 (2012), pp. 147-171. Check this author’s academia.edu page here.

——, “Like a Buddha Jewel-Casket Thrown Open: Selected Excerpts from Dge ’dun rgya mtsho’s Mtshan yang dag par brjod pa’i rgya cher bshad pa’i rdo rje’i rnal ’byor gyi de kho na nyid snang bar byed pa’i nyi ma chen po (The Great Sun Illuminating the Reality of Vajra Yoga: An Extensive Explanation of The Ultimate Names of Mañjuśrī,” contained in: Arnold, As Long as Space Endures, pp. 127-143.

Edward Henning, Kālacakra and the Tibetan Calendar, The American Institute of Buddhist Studies (New York 2007).

——, The Kālachakra Mandala: The Jonang Tradition, Treasury of the Buddhist Sciences, American Institute of Buddhist Studies and Wisdom (New York 2023). Not yet seen.

——, “The Six Vajra Yogas of Kālacakra,” contained in: Arnold, As Long as Space Endures, pp. 237-258.

Michael Henss, Der Kalachakra Tantra (Zurich 1985). Not seen.

Helmut Hoffmann, “Buddha's Teaching of the Kālacakra Tantra at the Stūpa of Dhānyakaṭaka,” German Scholars on India, vol. 1 (1973), pp. 136-140.

——, “Das Kālacakra, die letzte Phase des Buddhismus in Indien,” Saeculum, vol. 15, no. 2 (1964), pp. 125-131.

——, “Kālacakra Studies I: Manicheism, Christianity and Islam in the Kālacakra Tantra,” Central Asiatic Journal, vol. 13 (1969), pp. 52-73.

——, “Kālacakra Studies II,” Central Asiatic Journal, vol. 15, no. 4 (1972), pp. 298-301.

——, “Literarhistorische Bemerkungen zur Sekoddeśaṭīkā des Naḍapāda,” Beiträge zur indischen Philologie und Altertumskunde. Festschrift Walther Schubring (Hamburg 1951), pp. 140-147.

——, “Manicheism and Islam in the Buddhist Kālacakra System,” Proceedings of the IXth International Congress for the History of Religions (Tokyo 1958), pp. 96-99.

Jeffrey Hopkins, tr., The Kālacakra Tantra, Rite of Initiation for the Stage of Generation: A Commentary on the Text of Kay-drup-ge-lek-bel-sang-bo by Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, and the Text Itself, Wisdom (London 1985).

Roger Jackson, “The Kalachakra Generation-Stage Sadhana,” contained in Sopa, Wheel of Time, pp. 119-138.

——, “Kalachakra in Context,” contained in: Sopa, Wheel of Time, pp. 1-49.

Jhado Rinpoche (Bya-rdo Rin-po-che), “Essence of the Kālacakra Six Session Guru Yoga Practice,” contained in: Arnold, As Long as Space Endures, pp. 457-463.

Thubten Jinpa (Thub-bstan-sbyin-pa), “Rendawa and the Question of Kālacakra’s Uniqueness,” contained in: Arnold, As Long as Space Endures, pp. 317-330.  Red-mda’-ba Gzhon-nu-blo-gros (1349-1412).

Kalu Rinpoche, The Kālacakra Empowerment Taught by the Venerable Kalu Rinpoche, tr. by Nalanda Translation Committee, Karma Kagyu Kunchab (San Francisco 1982).

Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche, “Purifying the Inner and Outer Wheels: Remarks from Venerable Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche on the Significance of the Kālacakra for Times of Conflict,” contained in: Arnold, As Long as Space Endures, pp. 465-472.

Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp, The Kālacakra and the Patronage of Tibetan Buddhism by the Mongol Imperial Family, The Central Eurasian Studies Lectures series no. 4, Department of Central Eurasian Studies (Bloomington 2004). 

Joseph Loizzo, “Kālacakra and the Nālandā Tradition: Science, Religion and Objectivity in Buddhism and the West,” contained in: Arnold, As Long as Space Endures, pp. 333-366.

Kameshwar Nath Mishra, “Vimalaprabhā on the Laghukālacakratantra 2.7.161-180,” Indologica Taurinensia, vol. 28 (2002), pp. 163-178.

Glenn H. Mullin, The Practice of Kalachakra, including Translations of Important Texts on the Kalachakra Tantra, Snow Lion (Ithaca 1991).

John Newman, “A Brief History of the Kalachakra,” contained in: Sopa, Wheel of Time, pp. 51-90. Check this author’s academia.edu page here.

——, “Buddhist Sanskrit in the Kālacakra Tantra,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, vol. 11 (1988), pp. 123-140.

——, “Buddhist Siddhānta in the Kālacakra Tantra,” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens, vol. 36 (1992), pp. 227-234.

——, “‘Developmental’ versus ‘Revelatory’ Soteriology in the Kālacakra Tantra,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, vol. 40 (2017), pp. 209-224.

——, “The Epoch of the Kālacakra Tantra,” Indo-Iranian Journal, vol. 41 (1998), pp. 319-349. 

——, “Eschatology in the Wheel of Time Tantra,” contained in: Donald Lopez, ed., Buddhism in Practice, Princeton University Press (Princeton 1995), pp. 284-289. 

——, “Islam in the Kālacakra Tantra,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, vol. 21, no. 3 (1998), pp. 311-371.

——, ”Itineraries to Sambhala,” contained in: J.I. Cabezón and R. Jackson, eds., Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre, Snow Lion (Ithaca 1996), pp. 485-499. 

——, “The Paramādibuddha (The Kālacakra Mūlatantra) and Its Relation to the Early Kālacakra Literature,” Indo-Iranian Journal, vol. 30, no. 2 (April 1987), pp. 93-102.

——, “Vajrayoga in the Kālacakra Tantra,” contained in: David White, ed., Tantra in Practice, Princeton University Press (Princeton 2000), pp. 587-594.

Khedrup Norsang Gyatso [Mkhas-grub Nor-bzang-rgya-mtsho, 1423-1513], Ornament of Stainless Light: An Exposition of the Kālacakra Tantra, tr. by Gavin Kilty, The Library of Tibetan Classics series no. 14, Wisdom (Boton 2004). This is Gavin Kilty’s award winning translation of the work of Mkhas-grub Nor-bzang-rgya-mtsho entitled Phyi Nang Gzhan Gsum Gsal-bar Byed-pa Dri-med ’Od-kyi Rgyan.

Giacomella Orofino, “Apropos of Some Foreign Elements in the Kālacakratantra,” contained in: Helmut Krasser, Michael T. Much, Ernst Steinkellner, Helmut Tauscher, eds., Tibetan Studies I and II: Proceedings of the 7th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Graz 1995, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Wien 1997), vol. 2, pp. 717-724.

——, “Divination with Mirrors: Observations on a Simile Found in the Kālacakra Literature,” contained in: Per Kvaerne, ed., Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 6th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Fagernes 1992, The Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture (Oslo 1994), pp. 612-628.

——, “The Mental Afflictions and the Nature of the Supreme Immutable Wisdom in the Sekoddeśa and Its Commentary by Nāropa,” contained in: Arnold, As Long as Space Endures, pp. 27-49. 

——, “On the Ṣaḍaṅgayoga and the Realisation of Ultimate Gnosis in the Kālacakratantra,” East and West, vol. 46, nos. 1-2 (June 1996), pp. 127-143.

——, Sekoddeśa. A Critical Edition of the Tibetan Translations, Serie Orientale Roma no. 57, Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente (Rome 1994).

Winfried Petri, “Die Astronomie im Kālacakralaghutantra,” contained in: Helga Uebach and Jampa L. Panglung, eds., Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 4th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Schloss Hohenkammer, Munich 1985, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Munich 1988), pp. 381-385.

Katja Rakow, “Kālacakra in Transition: From the Apocalypse to the Promotion of World Peace,” contained in: István Keul, ed., Transformations & Transfer of Tantra in Asia and Beyond, De Gruyter (Berlin 2012), pp. 413-433. Look here.

David Reigle, Kalacakra Sadhana and Social Responsibility, Spirit of the Sun (Santa Fe 1996). This author’s publications are all downloadable here.

——, The Lost Kālacakra Mūla Tantra on the Kings of Śambhala, Kālacakra Research Publications, no. 1 (Talent. Oregon 1986).

——, “Sanskrit Mantras in the Kālacakra Sādhana,” contained in Arnold, As Long as Space Endures, pp. 301-322.

Jean M. Rivière, Kalachakra. Initiation tantrique du Dalaï-Lama, Robert Laffont (Paris 1985). Note that the author, aka Jean Marquès-Rivière (1903-2000), was an anti-Masonic and anti-Semitic propagandist working in France for the Vichy government of Nazi collaborationists during World War II. He had started publishing fictional books based in Tibet already in 1930. (This just-given information should have been included in the biographical sketch in the inside back cover of the book.)

George N. Roerich, “Studies in the Kālacakra,” Journal of the ‘Urusvati’ Himalayan Research Institute of the Roerich Museum, vol. 2 (1932), pp. 11-23, plus plate. Try here.

M.S. Saccone, “The Wheel of Time (Kålacakra): A Survey and Bibliography of Previous Research and Forthcoming Works,” contained in: Dramdul & S. Sferra, eds., From Mediterranean to Himalaya: A Festschrift to Commemorate the 120th Birthday of the Italian Tibetologist Giuseppe Tucci (Beijing 2014), pp. 503-551. Not yet seen. 

Francesco Sferra, “Constructing the Wheel of Time: Strategies for Establishing a Tradition,” contained in:  Federico Squarcini, ed., Boundaries, Dynamics and Construction of Traditions in South Asia, Firenze University Press (Florence 2005), pp. 253-285. Check this author’s academia.edu page here.

——,  “The Elucidation of True Reality: The Kālacakra Commentary by Vajragarbha on the Tattvapaṭala of the Hevajratantra,” contained in: Arnold, As Long as Space Endures, pp. 93-126. 

——, “Fragments of Puṇḍarīka’s Paramārthasevā,” contained in: K. Klaus & J.-U. Hartmann, eds., Indica et Tibetica. Festschrift für Michael Hahn zum 65. Geburtstag von Freunden und Schülern überreicht, Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien (Vienna 2007), pp. 459-476. 

——, “Kālacakra,” contained in: Jonathan A. Silk et al., eds., Brill’s Encyclopaedia of Buddhism, Volume One, Brill (Leiden 2015), pp. 341-352. A very useful survey.

——, “The Last Stanzas of the Paramārthasevā,” Tantric Studies, vol. 1 (2008), pp. 209-214.

——, “Newly Discovered Stanzas of the Paramārthasevā by Puṇḍarīka,” Newsletter of the Nepal-German Manuscript Cataloguing Project, vol. 5 (2007), pp. 9-12.

——, ed. & tr., The Ṣaḍaṅgayoga by Anupamarakṣita with Raviśrījñāna's Guṇabharaṇī nāma ṣaḍaṅgayogaṭippaṇī: Text and Annotated Translation by F. Sferra, Serie Orientale Roma series no. 85 (Rome 2000).

——, “Sekoddeśaṭīkā: The Paramārthasaṃgraha by Nāropā (Sekoddeśaṭīkā): Critical Edition of the Sanskrit Text by F. Sferra and Critical Edition of the Tibetan Translation by S. Merzagora, Serie Orientale Roma (Rome 2006).

——, “Textual Criticism Notes on the Vimalaprabhā by Puṇḍarīka,” East and West, vol. 45 (1995), pp. 359-362.

Michael R. Sheehy, “A Lineage History of Vajrayoga and Tantric Zhentong from the Jonang Kālacakra Practice Tradition,” contained in: Arnold, As Long as Space Endures, pp. 219-235.

Geshe Sopa, “An Excursus on the Subtle Body in Tantric Buddhism (Notes Contextualizing the Kālacakra),” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, vol. 6, no. 2 (1983), pp. 48-66. Try here.

——, “The Kalachakra Tantra Initiation,” contained in: Sopa, Wheel of Time, pp. 91-117.

——, “The Subtle Body in Tantric Buddhism,” contained in: Sopa, Wheel of Time, pp. 139-158. 

Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Roger Jackson, and John Newman, The Wheel of Time: The Kalachakra in Context, Deer Park Books (Madison 1985).

Surya Deep Prasad Shrestha, “The Origin and Development of the Kālacakra Tradition in Nepal,” Research Nepal Journal of Development Studies, vol. 6, no. 1 (2023), pp. 107-122. Available online.

Sofia Stril-Rever, Tantra de Kālacakra - Le livre du corps subtil (Paris 2000). Although I haven’t yet seen it, this apparently translates the entire Sanskrit text of the scripture into French. I have only seen it at this commercial site. Check the author’s academia.edu page here.

 ——, “Vibrating in Splendor, the Source Experience of Kālacakra’s Maṇḍala,” contained in: Arnold, As Long as Space Endures, pp. 399-413. 

Vesna A. Wallace, “The Body as a Text and the Text as the Body: A View from the Kālacakratantra’s Perspective,” contained in: Arnold, As Long as Space Endures, pp. 179-191. Check this author’s academia.edu page here.

——, “Buddhist Tantric Medicine in the Kālacakratantra,” Pacific World, nos. 11-12 (1995-6), pp. 155-174.

——, “A Convergence of Medical and Astro-sciences in Indian Tantric Buddhism: A Case of Kālacakratantra,” contained in: A. Akasoy et al., eds., Astro-medicine, Sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo (Florence 2008). Not yet seen.

——, “Medicine and Astrology in the Healing Arts of the Kālacakratantra,” contained in: Arnold, As Long as Space Endures, pp. 276-300.

Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim, “The Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s Oral Teachings on the Source of the Kālacakra Tantra,” Pacific World, 3rd series, no. 6 (Fall 2004), pp. 229-244. Check this author’s academia.edu page here.

——, “The Kālacakra Empowerment as Conducted by Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche,” contained in: Arnold, As Long as Space Endures, pp. 415-448. Kīrti Mtshan-zhabs Rin-po-che Blo-bzang-’jigs-med-dam-chos (1926-2006). 

§  §  §

Notes on Cosmic Man 

Contributed by John Newman, on 11th of May 2025.

Dan, as a fellow American, I might say, “Cosmic, man.” No, you are no da Vinci, but your diagram is nevertheless a work of art, and I love the anecdote of how you met your “life-long love and ended up where I am today” while puzzling over the arcana of the Kālacakra. Karma works in mysterious ways.

If I may beat my own drum a bit: The locus classicus for your diagram is Śrī Kālacakra 1.10–25 & Vimalaprabhā 1.8.10–25, which are translated in my 1987 dissertation The Outer Wheel of Time: Vajrayāna Buddhist Cosmology in the Kālacakra Tantra on pp. 471–530. (A PDF of this ancient and obscure work is available, warts and all, on my academia.edu page.) If I was to suggest any modification of your diagram, I might shorten the face a bit and put an uṣṇīṣa on top of the head (25k leagues on top of Meru, 6 fingerbreadths in the body) [cf. my diss. pp. 478–479], similar to the Tibetan painting scan you posted. But I was delighted to see your calculation of “1 yojana = 9.0909 miles.” Who’s fingerbreadth did you use to establish the length of the cubit? In any case, that is pretty darn close to the crude 9 [U.S.] miles estimate for the Kālacakra yojana I came up with in my diss. p. 487n16. In terms of translation, I might suggest something like “the single void” or “void alone” (śūnyam ekam) in place of “simply nothing” (cf. my diss. p. 479, esp. n.9), but the Tibetans vociferously argued about the meaning of this term.

Another quibble: I would rather designate this diagram “The Measurements of the Body and the Cosmos.” This layout homologizes the cosmography of a single lokadhātu and the physiognomy of a single human body. In the Kālacakra cosmology there are limitless trichiliocosms (1000³ lokadhātus) throughout the limitless expanse of the universe, sort of like the way there are billions of galaxies in our dinky little modern “scientific” universe and multitudes of human bodies on our puny little earth. As Carl Sagan used to intone: “Billions and billions.” Again, like totally cosmic, dude.

For similar diagrams I recommend Collette Caillat & Ravi Kumar, The Jain Cosmology (Basel: Harmony Books, 1981) [a PDF of this is currently viewable on Internet Archive (archive.org)]. See, for example, pp. 52–53. Note that the names of the hells there are related to the names used in the Kālacakra, which are quite different from the layout of the hells in general Buddhist usage, e.g. Abhidharmakośa 3.58–59. Way back in the last millennium David Reigle pointed out to me that the Kālacakra hells scheme is almost identical to that found in the Jaina Tattvārthādhigamasūtra 3.1 [cf. my diss. p. 478n8], and there are other Jaina elements found in the Kālacakra. It may be the case that the Kālacakra cosmos/body homology is to some degree inspired by Jaina doctrine. However, the basic idea “embodied” in the slogan you used as a caption on your diagram (“As the external world is, so is the body”) [cf. my diss. p. 472n1: yathā bāhye tathā dehe = Śrī Hevajra 2.4.49c] has a long history in Buddhism, not to mention non-Buddhist traditions like the Vedic Puruṣasūkta. If I was to speculate, I would speculate that in India this idea is pre-historic. I suspect that people were thinking about this in Mohenjo-Daro, and even then the idea was already very old.

So Primitive Man may not have been so primitive after all. And lest the ladies think that they have been left out of this discussion, it should be strongly emphasized that in the Kālacakra Tantra Cosmic Man (the mahāpuruṣapudgala)—like everything else—is born from the Mother of the Universe (Viśvamātā), and She is the Matrix within which everything arises and disappears. So think of your Mother on this U.S. Mother’s Day holiday.

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Added note (May 24-26, 2025)

I already recognized as I was putting it up it was a poor attempt if my plan was to supply a reasonably full bibliography of works about the Kālacakra, so I’ve already updated it a few times. Unfortunately, until today I was unaware of the Saccone bibliography and still haven’t seen it. If you notice any mistakes or omissions major or minor I would appreciate hearing about them. I’ve almost entirely omitted publications focusing on Sambhala (Shambhala), thinking they would deserve a bibliography of their own. For knowledge of the very latest books, I recommend a search of the internet or of particular websites such as Amazon.