Wylie:'phags pa shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa'i man ngag
This text attributed to Brahmin Āryadeva (Bram ze A rya de ba) is the single Indian source text for the Sutra 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).
There is very little information on the Brahmin Āryadeva, though it is clear that he is not the same person as Āchārya Āryadeva, the famous disciple of Nāgārjuna, since both Āryadevas often appear in the same lineage of Severance. In the many complex lines of transmission, Brahmin Āryadeva is placed variously after Nāgārjuna and Āchārya Āryadeva, after Tārā and Sukhasiddhī, and after Mañjushrī, all indicating his importance as an ancient source. In all cases, however, the direct recipient of his lineage was the Indian Dampa Sangye (d. 1117), who was his maternal nephew. It is Dampa Sangye (also called Pha dam pa, or Father Dampa) who apparently brought the text from India to Tibet, having translated it himself, and gave it to the translator Zhama to edit, as stated in the colophon. Dampa Sangye is sometimes misidentified as the great Indian scholar Kamalashīla (740–795) and even as the Ch’an patriarch Bodhidharma (c. late fourth to early fifth centuries). 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 catalog of The Treasury of Precious Instructions as follows: “Pa Dampa Sangye gave Kyotön Shākya Yeshe and Yarlung Mara Serpo the autonomous Severance of the Sutra tradition, the meaning of Āryadeva’s small Fifty Verse source text, as the instructions of the Six Pieces (gDams ngag brul tsho drug). Kyö gave them to his own nephew, Sönam Lama. He, then, is known to have bestowed four sections to [his disciple] Machik Lapdrön.”[1] 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 sutras.
Notes
- ↑ DNZ, vol. 18, f. 19a.
- Translator's notes
- Note from Ringu Tulku
- The Chod Practice (Cutting the Maras), the Profound Meaning of the Prajnaparamita.
- Notes on the text itself
- 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.
- Notes on authorship
- This text attributed to the Brahmin Āryadeva (Bram ze A rya de ba). 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.
- Other notes
- Genre from Richard Barron's Catalog
- Instruction manual
- Genre from dkar chag
- Yan lag gi chos
- BDRC Link
- VolumeI1CZ3976
- BDRC Content Information
- No note on contents
- 'phags pa shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa tshigs su bcad pa chen po
- Tibetan: འཕགས་པ་ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ་ཚིགས་སུ་བཅད་པ་ཆེན་པོ་
- Sanskrit: Āryaprajñāpāramitā Mahāparipṛccha
- Citation info: Narthang Tengyur, mdo, nyo, ff. 396b4-399a4 (pp. 793-97).
- 'phags pa shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa tshigs su bcad pa chen po
- Tibetan: འཕགས་པ་ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ་ཚིགས་སུ་བཅད་པ་ཆེན་པོ་
- Sanskrit: Āryaprajñāpāramitā Mahāparamata Mahāparipṛccha
- Citation info: (Title page: gcod kyi rgya gzhung Āryade bas mdzad pa'o). Golden Tengyur, nyo, ff. 517a-520a.
- Āryade bas mdzad pa'i shes rab kyi pha rol du pyin pa'i tshigs su bcad pa chen mo
- Citation info: Khamnyön Dharma Senge, The Religious History of Pacification and Severance: A Precious Garland Ornament of Liberation. Zhi byed dang gcod yul gyi chos 'byung rin po che'i phreng ba thar pa'i rgyan In gCod kyi chos skor (CDC), pp. 1-5. Delhi: Tibet House, 1974.
- Other Translations
- Brunnhölzl, Karl, trans. "The Great Stanzas on Prajñāpāramitā." In Straight from the Heart, 88-99. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 2007.
- Commentary(s) of this Text in the DNZ
- Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa'i man ngag gcod kyi gzhung 'grel zag med sbrang rtsi
Information about Unicode Tibetan and the digitization of this text
As the only available unicode Tibetan text at the time, Nitartha International's version of the Paro Edition of the gdams ngag mdzod is provided here. However, note that it has not been thoroughly edited and that there may also be mistakes introduced through the conversion process. Eventually we will provide a fully edited version of the entire Shechen Edition, entered and edited multiple times by Pulahari Monastery in Nepal, but as of fall 2017 that project has not been finished. Note that the folio numbers that appear throughout were added by Nitartha Input Center at the time of input.
Provided by Nitartha International Document Input Center. Many thanks to Lama Tenam and Gerry Wiener for help with fonts and conversion.
