Rin chen bzang po

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PeopleRin chen bzang po


རིན་ཆེན་བཟང་པོ་
Rinchen Zangpo(958 - 1055) 
Buddhist Digital Resource Center

Rinchen Zangpo was one of the most important translators in Tibetan history. Working under the sponsorship of the kings of Guge, he was responsible for the translation of many of the texts of the Second Propagation of Buddhism in Tibet. Seventeen volumes of his translations are in the Kangyur, and thirty-three volumes in the Tengyur. He is credited with one hundred and eight volumes of tantric translations, as well as numerous volumes of texts relating to science and medicine. Rinchen Zangpo is also considered responsible for the construction of numerous temples across western Tibet and the Northwest Indian Himalaya, although almost all of the attributions are tenuous. He was the first to introduce the Cakrasaṃvara tantra and the cult of the deity Mahākāla to Tibet, and was responsible for translations of several important Prajñāpāramitā scriptures. Many of the lineages he introduced, particularly those of the Yogatantras, are maintained in the Sakya tradition.

... read more at The Treasury of Lives

Library Items

Text
Candrakīrti: pradīpodyotananāmaṭīkā
A commentary on the Guhyasamāja Tantra attributed to Candrakīrti. This extensive commentary on Guhyasamāja Tantra discusses the six hermeneutic strategies of provisional and ultimate meaning, literal and non-literal reading, and interpretable or non-interpretable meaning. It also highlights the natural state of all phenomena such as five aggregates and five elements as enlightened buddhas, and described the innate mind as luminous and endowed with qualities of enlightenment. The commentary is said to have been written relying on instructions passed down from Nāgārjuna who is said to have been prophesied in the Descent to Laṅka Sūtra to be a promoter of the higher yoga tantras. If one accepts the author of this text to be Candrakīrti, who is the Mādhyamika author of the Madhyamakāvatāra, as tradition has it, then it is evident he adopted here a position on buddha-nature which is different from the one in Madhyamakāvatāra, where his focus is on establishing all things as emptiness, and he argues the sūtras advocating buddha-nature are provisional teachings to lead those beings scared of non-self. In this text, the author accepts the nature of all things to be enlightened, and he argues that 'sentient beings are the base of all buddhas because they possess buddha-nature'(རྒྱལ་བ་ཀུན་གྱི་གནས་ནི་སེམས་ཅན་ཐམས་ཅད་དེ། དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་ཅན་ཡིན་པའི་ཕྱིར་རོ། །). Traditional scholars would generally explain such a shift in philosophical stance as context-based and not see it as a contradiction or inconsistency. In the context of Guhyasamāja tantra, Candrakīrti could be said to have accepted the concept of buddha-nature as innate enlightenment.

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.

Other names

  • ལོ་ཙཱ་བ་རིན་ཆེན་བཟང་པོ་ · other names (Tibetan)
  • lo tsA ba rin chen bzang po · other names (Wylie)

Affiliations & relations

  • Kadam · religious affiliation
  • Jo bo rje a ti sha · teacher
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