Ye shes sde

Yeshe De

ཡེ་ཤེས་སྡེ་

mid-8th century - early 9th century

Yeshe De (ye shes sde) was born into the Nanam clan (sna nam) and became one of the three foremost translators of the imperial era. He is counted among the twenty-five disciples of Padmasambhava.

As a young monk his scholarship earned him the title of 'bande' (teacher). He was perhaps the most prolific Tibetan translator in history, with hundreds of translations. Scholar Sherab Rhaldi lists 347 translations in collaboration with fifteen Indian paṇḍitas. [He] is also credited with translating the Nyingma tantras.

He is said to have taught the Abhidharma to Lhalung Pelgyi Dorje (lha lung dal gyi rdo rje).

According to Nyingma legend, he was a master of the Vajrakīlaya tantra, and is said to have realized the illusory nature of phenomena and cut the cord of mind-made karmic conditioning, which left him free to soar in the sky like a bird.
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Other names

• སྣ་ནམ་ཡེ་ཤེས་སྡེ་ · other names (Tibetan)
• ཞང་བནྡེ་ཡེ་ཤེས་སྡེ་ · other names (Tibetan)
• sna nam ye shes sde · other names (Wylie)
• zhang ban+de ye shes sde · other names (Wylie)

Affiliations & relations

• Nyingma · religious affiliation
• Pad+ma 'byung gnas · teacher

Nyingma - The Nyingma, which is often described as the oldest tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, traces its origin to Padmasambhava, who is said to have visited Tibet in the eighth century. Tib. རྙིང་མ་

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abhidharma - Abhidharma generally refers to the corpus of Buddhist texts which deals with the typological, phenomenological, metaphysical, and epistemological presentation of Buddhist concepts and teachings. The abhidharma teachings present a meta-knowledge of Buddhist sūtras through analytical and systemic schemas and are said to focus on developing wisdom among the three principles of training. The Abhidharma is presented alongside Sūtra and Vinaya as one of the three baskets of the teachings of the Buddha. Skt. अभिधर्म Tib. ཆོས་མངོན་པ། Ch. 阿毗达磨

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tantra - Tantra, when juxtaposed with Sūtra, generally refers to the scriptures and texts which discuss esoteric topics. While the term is used to refer to texts on other topics, it is mostly used to refer to the genre of scriptures and texts on themes and topics associated with Vajrayāna Buddhism. Skt. तन्त्र Tib. རྒྱུད། Ch. 密宗

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