āgantukamala

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Glossaryāgantukamala

Sanskrit Noun

āgantukamala

adventitious stains
आगन्तुकमल
གློ་བུར་གྱི་དྲི་མ་

Basic Meaning

Mental stains that are not inherent to the nature of the mind but are temporarily present as the residue of past actions or habitual tendencies. It is sometimes iterated as adventitious defilements (Skt. āgantukakleśa, Tib. glo bur gyi nyon mongs), which references the fickle and temporary nature of disturbing emotions that lack an ultimately established basis for existence.

Simplified English Usage

Even though defilements exist, they are adventitious [to the buddha-element, because the buddha-element] is naturally pure.

Sangpuwa Lodrö Tsungme, Wangchuk, Tsering trans. The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows (2017), page 32.

Read It in the Scriptures

All beings are buddhas,
But this is obscured by adventitious stains.
When those are removed, they are buddhas at once.
 
~ Adapted from Snellgrove, The Hevajra Tantra: A Critical Study, 1959, page 107
On this topic
Term Variations
Key Term āgantukamala
Topic Variation Adventitious stains - defilements
Tibetan གློ་བུར་གྱི་དྲི་མ་  ( lobur kyi drima)
Wylie Tibetan Transliteration glo bur gyi dri ma  ( lobur kyi drima)
Devanagari Sanskrit आगन्तुकमल
Romanized Sanskrit āgantukamala
Buddha-nature Site Standard English adventitious stains
Karl Brunnhölzl's English Term adventitious stains
Richard Barron's English Term adventitious distortions, superficial distortions
Jeffrey Hopkin's English Term adventitious defilements
Ives Waldo's English Term adventitious defilement, temporary stains
Term Information
Usage Example Sanskrit:
sattvā buddhā eva kiṃ tu āgantukamalāvṛtāḥ
tasyāpakarṣanāt sattvā buddhā eva na saṃśayaḥ
Hevajra Tantra, Part II 4.69

Tibetan:

སེམས་ཅན་རྣམས་ནི་སངས་རྒྱས་ཉིད། །
འོན་ཀྱང་གློ་བུར་དྲི་མས་བསྒྲིབས། །
དེ་ཉིད་བསལ་ན་སངས་རྒྱས་ཉིད། །
དཔལ་ཀྱེའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་རྒྱུད་ཀྱི་རྒྱལ་པོ།
Source Language Sanskrit
Basic Meaning Mental stains that are not inherent to the nature of the mind but are temporarily present as the residue of past actions or habitual tendencies. It is sometimes iterated as adventitious defilements (Skt. āgantukakleśa, Tib. glo bur gyi nyon mongs), which references the fickle and temporary nature of disturbing emotions that lack an ultimately established basis for existence.
Related Terms āgantukakleśa, glo bur gyi nyon mongs, āgantukāvaraṇa, glo bur gi sgrib pa, āvaraṇa, sgrip pa
Term Type Noun
Definitions
Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism See page 19 (entry for āgantukakleśa): In Sanskrit, “adventitious afflictions” or “adventitious defilements”; indicating that the kleśa are accidental and extrinsic qualities of the mind, rather than natural and intrinsic. This notion builds on an ancient Strand in Buddhist thought, such as in the oft-quoted passage in the Pāli Aṅguttaranikāya: “The mind, O monks, is luminous but defiled by adventitious defilements.” Since defilements are introduced into the thought processes from without, the intrinsic purity of the mind (citta) can be restored through counteracting the influence of the kleśa and overcoming the inveterate tendency toward attachment and its concomitant craving (lobha) and ill will (dveṣa), which empower them.This concept of āgantukakleśa is critical to the Mahāyāna doctrine of tathāgatagarbha (embryo of buddhahood), where the mind is presumed to be innately enlightened, but that enlightenment is temporarily obscured or concealed by defilements (kleśa) that are extrinsic to it.
Tshig mdzod Chen mo nyon mongs pa dang shes bya'i sgrib pa gnyis ni sems kyi rang bzhin la ma zhugs par sems dang 'bral rung du yod pas na glo bur gyi dri ma zhes bya'o