Jiang, B.

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Marty Bo Jiang

Marty Bo Jiang is a research fellow at the American Institute of Buddhist Studies, Columbia University Center for Buddhist Studies. He received his PhD from Columbia University in 2008, writing a dissertation entitled "Cataphatic Emptiness: rGyal-tshab on the Buddha-Essence Theory of Asaṅga's Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā." He is also known for his work The Sublime Continuum and Its Explanatory Commentary (Columbia University Press, 2017).

Library Items

PhD Diss
Jiang, B.: Cataphatic Emptiness: rGyal-tshab on the Buddha-essence Theory of Asaṅga's Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā
Abstract


This doctoral dissertation studies the Ratnagotravibhāga (Uttaratantra), the only surviving Indian Buddhist treatise on the Buddha-essence doctrine, by way of one of its major Tibetan commentaries, rGyal-tshab Dar-ma-rin-chen (1364-1432)'s Theg pa chen po rGyud bla ma'i ṭīkā. This project consists of three parts: a special edition of the first chapter of the Theg pa chen po rGyud bia ma'i ṭīkā, an English translation of the selected sections of that commentary, and a comparative analysis which follows six distinct lines of inquiry.
      The six lines are: rGyal-tshab's doctrinal classification of the text; his critiques of absolutism, skepticism, and quietism in connection with diverse interpretations of the Buddha-essence doctrine in Tibetan traditions as well as a tentative comparison with critiques of the theory of "Original-enlightenment" in modern Chinese Buddhism; his analysis of the title of Tibetan version and the structure of the text; rGyal-tshab's

philosophical positions on reality, Element, and natural luminosity of the mind; his expositions of the tripartite Buddha-essence, its ten aspects, and the eighteen similes; and the notion "spiritual gene" understood by dGe-lugs-pas.
      This comparative approach will provide a broader synthetic understanding of the role that Buddha-essence played as a doctrinal genre in Tibetan intellectual history.
Jiang, Bo. "Cataphatic Emptiness: rGyal-tshab on the Buddha-Essence Theory of Asaṅga's Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā." PhD diss., Columbia University, 2008.
Book
The Sublime Continuum and Its Explanatory Commentary
The original Sublime Continuum Explanatory Commentary was written by Noble Asaṅga to explain the verses by the bodhisattva Maitreyanātha around the 4th CE century in North India. Here it is introduced and presented in an original translation from Sanskrit and Tibetan, with the translation of an extensive Tibetan Supercommentary by Gyaltsap Darma Rinchen (1364–1432 CE), whose work is considered to follow the view of his teacher, Tsong Khapa (1357–1419 CE).


Contemporary scholars have widely mis-understood the Buddhist Centrist teaching of emptiness, or selflessness, as either a form of nihilism or a radical skepticism. Yet Buddhist philosophers from Nāgārjuna on have shown that the negation of intrinsic reality affirms the supreme value of relative realities if accurately understood. Gyaltsap Darma Rinchen, in his Supercommentary, elucidates a highly positive theory of the “buddha-nature,” showing how the wisdom of emptiness empowers the compassionate life of the enlightened, as it is touched by its oneness with the truth body of all buddhas. With his clear study of Gyaltsap’s insight and his original English translation, Bo Jiang, Ph.D. completes his historic project of studying and presenting these works from Sanskrit and Tibetan both in Chinese and, now, English translations, in linked publications.

Marty Bo Jiang is a research fellow at the American Institute of Buddhist Studies at the Columbia University Center for Buddhist Studies. (Source: AIBS)
Jiang, Bo, trans. The Sublime Continuum and Its Explanatory Commentary. By Maitreyanātha and Noble Asaṅga. With The Sublime Continuum Supercommentary by Gyaltsap Darma Rinchen. Treasury of the Buddhist Sciences. New York: American Institute of Buddhist Studies, Columbia University Center for Buddhist Studies, and Tibet House US, 2017.

Affiliations & relations

  • American Institute of Buddhist Studies, Columbia University Center for Buddhist Studies · workplace affiliation
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