rNgog Io-tsa-ba Blo-ldan-shcs-rab (1059-1109) was more than anyone else responsible for the establishment of Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism.
[1] He founded in Tibet not only the main enduring lineages of logic and epistemology (
Tshad-ma:
Pramāṇa) studies but also of two other major branches of
Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy and doctrine—those of the Five Dharmas of Maitreya (
Byams chos sde Inga) and of the Svātantrika
Yogācāra-
Madhyamaka.
[2] rNgog-lo furthermore trained virtually the entire next generation of important Tibetan scholastics, his "four chief spiritual sons" being: (1) Zhang Tshe-spong-ba, (2) Gro-lung-pa Blo-gros-'byung gnas, (3) Khyung Rin-chen-grags, and (4) 'Bre Shes-rab-'bar.
[3] Yet in spite of rNgog's central position in the history of Tibetan philosophical and doctrinal studies, until recently only a very small number of his works were known to survive, and of these the two most extensive and important have remained for decades largely inaccessible outside of Tibet, existing only as isolated xylographs in private collections.
[4] Now, however, with the reprinting of two of his major works by the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, including his very important commentary on the
Ratnagotravibhāga described here, some of the seminal contributions of rNgog-lo can at last be easily assessed in the original.
[5]
Both of these major works of rNgog-lo were commentaries on fundamental works of the Maitreyanātha tradition within the Yogācāra branch of Mahāyana Buddhism,[6] namely on the Ratnagotravibhāga and Abhisamayālaṃkāra.<ref>Besides these two commentaries, just two other works of his—very minor and brief ones—had become accessible. One is his versified epistle sPring yig bdud rtsi thig pa, for which there exists the commentary by Shākya-mchog ldan, sPring yig. (See for instance D. Jackson 1987; 167 and 179, note 9.) And as previously reported in D. Jackson 1987: 148, n. 8, one brief worlc is a tlJllsfld.£ f.l!""'l.GJhPrd lJ£.dan, preserved in an anthology of bKa'-gdams-pa --=,. writings edited by Don-gruh-rgyal-mtshan, Legs par bshad f'S bks 'gdsms rin po chc 'i gsung gi gees btus nor bu·;
bang mdzud(£11cw.~lbi ... 14ll5.), as Leonard van der Kuijp informed me long ago. To date, no work on Buddhist
logic-epistemology (Tshad-ma ), one of his main scholastic interests, has yet been published, though a copy of his
Pmmiina viniicnl(ll commentary is known to survive.The works thus reflected another aspect of his illustrious career, for in addition to—and indeed in tandem with—his importance as a great teacher, he was also of crucial significance as a composer of commentaries on the works he expounded. (Jackson, "rNgog lo-tsa-ba's Commentary of the
Ratnagotravibhāga," 339–340)
