Draft:Pure Honey: A Commentary on Aryadeva's Grand Poem on Severance/Introduction

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Introduction to Āryadeva's Grand Poem on Severance and its commentary Pure Honey

This text attributed to the Brahmin Āryadeva (Bram ze A rya de ba) is the single Indian source text for the sūtra tradition of Severance, which is based entirely on the perfection of wisdom. The text appears in several editions of the Tengyur, as well as in collections on Severance. It was known as the Fifty-Verse Poem (Tshigs su bcad pa lnga bcu pa), or the Grand Poem (Tshigs bcad chen mo). Apparently the name that we find here, Esoteric Instructions on the Perfection of Wisdom, was attached by a later editor. There is very little information on the Brahmin Āryadeva, though it is clear that this is not the same person as Ācārya Āryadeva, the famous disciple of Nāgārjuna, since both Āryadevas often appear in the same lineage of Severance. In the various complex lines of transmission, Brahmin Āryadeva is placed variously after Nāgārjuna and Ācārya Āryadeva, after Tārā and Sukhasiddhī, and after Mañjuśrī, all indicating his importance as an ancient source. In all cases, however, the direct recipient of his lineage is Dampa Sangye, said to be his nephew. It is Dampa Sangye (also called Pa Dampa, or "father" Dampa) who apparently brought the text from India to Tibet, having himself translated it, and gave it to the translator Zhama to edit, as stated in the colophon. Dampa Sangye is often identified as the great Indian scholar Kāmālaśīla, and even with the Ch'an patriarch Bodhidharma. In any case, it is Dampa Sangye who is considered the forefather of the system of Pacification (zhi byed) and its subsidiary Severance (gcod). The actual lineage of Āryadeva's teaching, known as the "male Severance" (pho gcod), is presented in Jamgön Kongtrul's catalogue, Ocean of Auspicious Renown, as follows: "Pa Dampa Sangye gave Kyotön Shakya Yeshe and Yarlung Mara Serpo the autonomous severance of the sūtra tradition, the meaning of Āryadeva's small Fifty Verse source text, as instructions in six portions (gdams ngag brus tsho drug). Kyö gave them to his own nephew, Sönam Lama. He, then, is known to have bestowed four portions to [his disciple], Machik Lapdrön" (f. 19a). Many of Machik's own compositions show the influence of this source text, which had joined with her own realizations derived from her readings of the perfection of wisdom sūtras.

The author of Pure Honey, the commentary to Āryadeva's Grand Poem, is given in the colophon as Kunga Paljor. In the Record of Teachings Received, Kongtrul gives his full name as Drung Sarupa Kunga Paljor (Drung sa ru pa Kun dga' dpal 'byor). It is stated there that he received the cycle of empowerments and transmissions of all the source scriptures directly from Machik Lapdrön in a visionary experience (p. 778). "Drung" may indicate the Trungpa lineage, and "Saru" appears to be a place name, since his immediate predecessor given in the lineage of transmission of Āryadeva's text in Kongtrul's catalogue is called the Great Adept of Saru, Sönam Paljor (Sa ru grub chen bSod rnam dpal 'byor, f. 71b). The latter was active in the 15^th century (TBRC), which gives us an approximate date for Kunga Paljor. Other than this, and that according to Kongtrul he also authored the commentary to an important text attributed to Machik called A Hair's Tip of Wisdom, not much information is available. Yet these two commentaries together provide important supplemental material to the source texts of Severance collected in the Treasury of Precious Instructions.

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