Sakya
Sakya
Basic Meaning
The Sakya tradition developed in the eleventh century in the Khön family of Tsang, which maintained an imperial-era lineage of Vajrakīla and which adopted a new teaching from India known as Lamdre.
- Supplement to Rongtön's Commentary on the Ultimate Continuum
Tibet. Particularly, it relates to Tibetan commentary on Abhisamayālaṃkāra (AA) I:39, in which it is taught that the foundation (pratiṣṭhā) for religious practice is the dharmadhātu and that since the dharmadhātu is undifferentiated (asaṃbhedā), there are ultimately no distinct gotras corresponding to the three vehicles. This teaching is usually interpreted as a Mādhyamaka justification for one final vehicle, as opposed to the three-vehicle theory, attributed to Cittamātra/Vijñaptimātratā, and which is closely related to the doctrine of three gotras found in sutras such as Saṃdhinirmocana and Laṅkāvatāra and śāstras such as Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra. However, there are some Tibetan writers outside the influential Gelug tradition who see the equation of gotra with dharmadhātu as an essentially Yogācāra doctrine. This alternative viewpoint implies that Yogācāra and Cittamātra are not, as is commonly held to be the case, the same thing and brings to the fore the question of whether Yogācāra is better understood as a tradition that transcends traditional doxographic categories. Through an analysis of Śākya-mchog-ldan’s explanation of AA I:39, which includes a differentiation of two other terms that are also often held to be synonymous, namely gotra and buddha-essense (or tathāgatagarbha), I aim to highlight some of the ways in which his ‘reformulation’ of Yogācāra implies a reformulation of certain Cittamātra doctrines. Finally, I conclude the paper with a brief discussion on the extent to which doxographical discourse
both restricts and allows for the formulation of an individual point of view. (Gilks, introduction, 1)Term Variations | |
---|---|
Key Term | Sakya |
Topic Variation | Sakya |
Tibetan | ས་སྐྱ་ ( sa kya) |
Wylie Tibetan Transliteration | sa skya ( sa kya) |
Buddha-nature Site Standard English | Sakya |
Term Information | |
Source Language | Tibetan |
Basic Meaning | The Sakya tradition developed in the eleventh century in the Khön family of Tsang, which maintained an imperial-era lineage of Vajrakīla and which adopted a new teaching from India known as Lamdre. |
Term Type | School |
Definitions |