Red mda' ba gzhon nu blo gros

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PeopleRed mda' ba gzhon nu blo gros


རེད་མདའ་བ་གཞོན་ནུ་བློ་གྲོས་
Rendawa Zhönu Lodrö(1349 - 1412) 

Rendawa Zhönu Lodrö was a highly distinguished Sakya scholar who is credited with reviving Madhyamaka studies in Tibet. A holder of the Kadam teachings, he was a teacher of Tsongkhapa, as well as hundreds of others, and is counted as seventy-fourth in the line of Lamrim lineage.

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Philosophical positions of this person

"As for whether the Uttaratantra is definitive or provisional, Rendawa does not explicitly identify it either as definitive or provisional in the texts that I have consulted. However, Khedrup, a student and a junior contemporary of Rendawa, mentions in his Presentation of the General Tantric Systems (rgyud sde spyi rnam), "Lama Jé [that is, Rendawa] asserts that the Uttaratantra is a commentarial work on last-wheel teachings, explicating the view of the Cittamātra School." Wangchuk, Tsering, The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows, p. 88.

  • "As for whether the Uttaratantra is definitive or provisional, Rendawa does not explicitly identify it either as definitive or provisional in the texts that I have consulted. However, Khedrup, a student and a junior contemporary of Rendawa, mentions in his Presentation of the General Tantric Systems (rgyud sde spyi rnam), "Lama Jé [that is, Rendawa] asserts that the Uttaratantra is a commentarial work on last-wheel teachings, explicating the view of the Cittamātra School." Wangchuk, Tsering, The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows, p. 88.
  • Though Rendawa's personal view is explained by Wangchuk as, "Rendawa argues that only Nāgārjuna's Madhyamaka system presents the correct ultimate view, not Asanga's Cittamātra School." Wangchuk, Tsering, The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows, p. 87.
  • However there is a possibility that he had a change of heart later in life, as Wangchuk sites the Blue Annals as stating, "The Venerable Red-mda'-pa believed at first the Uttaratantra to be a Vijñānamātra work, and even composed a commentary from the standpoint of the followers of the Vijñānamātra school. Later, when he became a hermit, he used to sing: "It is impossible to differentiate between the presence and absence of this our Mind. The Buddha having perceived that it penetrated all living beings, as in the example of a subterranean treasure, or the womb of a pregnant woman, had proclaimed all living beings to be possessed of the Essence of the Sugata." Wangchuk, Tsering, The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows, p. 88.

Affiliations & relations

  • Sakya · religious affiliation
  • Sa bzang ma ti paN chen blo gros rgyal mtshan · teacher
  • Thogs med bzang po · teacher
  • G.yag ston sangs rgyas dpal · teacher
  • Tsong kha pa · student
  • mkhas grub rje · student