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PeoplePa tshab lo tsA ba nyi ma grags pa


པ་ཚབ་ལོ་ཙཱ་བ་ཉི་མ་གྲགས་པ་
Patsab Lotsāwa Nyima Drakpa(b. 1055 - )
Buddhist Digital Resource Center

Patsab Lotsāwa Nyima Drakpa was a major translator of Madhyamaka texts into Tibet. A monk of Sangpu Monastery, he traveled in in Kashmir to work with paṇḍitas such as Jñānagarbha and Kanakavarma. Among his translations are Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (D 3824), Āryadeva's Catuhśataka-śāstra (Four Hundred Verses) (D 3846), and Candrakīrti's Madhyamakāvatāra (D 3861). Tibetans consider him the founder of the Prasangika school of Madhyamaka.

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Library Items

Text
Candrakīrti, Candrakīrti: Madhyamakāvatāra
Madhyamakāvatāra. (T. Dbu ma la 'jug pa). In Sanskrit, "Entrance to the Middle Way" (translated also as "Supplement to the Middle Way"); the major independent (as opposed to commentarial) work of the seventh-century Indian master Candrakīrti, who states that it is intended as an avatāra (variously rendered as "primer," "entrance," and "supplement") to Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. The work is written in verse, to which the author provides an extensive prose commentary (bhāṣya). The work is organized around ten "productions of the aspiration to enlightenment" (bodhicittotpāda), which correspond to the ten stages (bhūmi) of the bodhisattva path (drawn largely from the Daśabhūmikasūtra) and their respective perfections (pāramitā), describing the salient practices and attainments of each. These are followed by chapters on the qualities of the bodhisattva, on the stage of buddhahood, and a conclusion. The lengthiest (comprising approximately half of the work) and most important chapter of the text is the sixth, dealing with the perfection of wisdom (prajñāpāramitā). This is one of the most extensive and influential expositions in

Indian literature of Madhyamaka philosophical positions. In it, Candrakīrti provides a detailed discussion of the two truths—ultimate truth (paramārthasatya) and conventional truth (saṃvṛtisatya)—arguing that all things that have these two natures and that conventional truths (which he glosses as "concealing truths") are not in fact true because they appear falsely to the ignorant consciousness. He also discusses the crucial question of valid knowledge (pramāṇa) among the unenlightened, relating it to worldly consensus (lokaprasiddha). The sixth chapter also contains one of the most detailed refutations of Yogācāra in Madhyamaka literature, treating such topics as the three natures (trisvabhāva), the foundational consciousness (ālayavijñāna), and the statements in the sūtras that the three realms of existence are "mind-only" (cittamātra). This chapter also contains Candrakīrti's most famous contribution to Madhyamaka reasoning, the sevenfold reasoning designed to demonstrate the absence of a personal self (pudgalanairātmya). Adding to and elaborating upon a fivefold reasoning found in Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Candrakīrti argues that the person does not intrinsically exist because of it: (1) not being the aggregates (skandha), (2) not being other than the aggregates, (3) not being the basis of the aggregates, (4) not depending on the aggregates, (5) not possessing the aggregates, (6) not being the shape of the aggregates, and (7) not being the composite of the aggregates. He illustrates this reasoning by applying it to the example of a chariot, which, he argues, is not to be found among its constituent parts. The sixth chapter concludes with a discussion of

the sixteen and the twenty forms of emptiness (śūnyatā), which include the emptiness of emptiness (śūnyatāśūnyatā). The work was the most widely studied and commented upon Madhyamaka text in Tibet among all sects, serving, for example, as one of the "five texts" (zhung lnga) that formed the Dge lugs scholastic curriculum. The work is preserved only in Tibetan, although a Sanskrit manuscript of verses has been discovered in Tibet. (Source: "Madhyamakāvatāra." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 489. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)

On the topic of this person

Book
An Early Tibetan Survey of Buddhist Literature
This volume is a study and edition of Bcom ldan ral gri's (1227–1305) Bstan pa rgyas pa rgyan gyi nyi 'od. Likely composed in the last decades of the thirteenth century, this systematic list of Buddhist Sutras, Tantras, Shastras, and related genres translated primarily from Sanskrit and other Indic languages holds an important place in the history of Buddhist literature in Tibet. It affords a glimpse of one Tibetan scholar's efforts to classify more than two thousand titles of Buddhist literature in the decades before the canonical collections known as the Bka' 'gyur and the Bstan 'gyur achieved a relatively stable form. Tibetan historiography traces the origin of the Bka' 'gyur and Bstan 'gyur to Bcom ldan ral gri's efforts, though the unique structure of the Bstan pa rgyas pa rgyan gyi nyi 'od, which differs greatly from available Bka' 'gyur and Bstan 'gyur catalogs, shows that the situation is more complex. Known to contemporary scholars of Tibetan literature for some time through mention in other works, Bcom ldan ral gri's survey has recently become available for the first time in two manuscripts. The present work contains a detailed historical introduction, an annotated edition of the two manuscripts, as well as concordances and appendices intended to aid the comparative study of early Tibetan collections of Indic Buddhist literature. (Source: Harvard University Press)
Schaeffer, Kurtis R., and Leonard W. J. van der Kuijp. An Early Survey of Tibetan Buddhist Literature: The Bstan pa rgyas pa rgyan gyi nyi 'od of Bcom ldan ral gri. Edited by Michael Witzel. Harvard Oriental Series 64. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
Article
Six Tibetan Translations of the Ratnagotravibhāga
No translation of the Ratnagotravibhāga seems to have existed in Tibet before the 11th century, inasmuch as no catalogue of the imperial period (the 9th century) shows any record of one. Although only a single Tibetan translation is extant (that of rNgog Blo ldan shes rab [1069-1109] and Sajjana), ’Gos Lo tsā ba gZhon nu dpal (1392-1481) reports that up to his time six translations had already been made. In the present paper, I will examine what can be learned about the six translations, those of: (1) Atiśa and Nag tsho Tshul khrims rgyal ba, (2) rNgog Blo ldan shes rab and Sajjana (late 11th cent.), (3) Pa tshab Nyi ma grags, (4) Mar pa Do pa Chos kyi dbang phyug (1042–1136), (5) Jo nang Lo tsā ba Blo gros dpal (1299–1353 or 1300–1364), and (6) Yar klungs Lo tsā ba.
Kano, Kazuo. "Six Tibetan Translations of the Ratnagotravibhāga." China Tibetology 23, no. 2 (2014), 76–101.
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