Wylie:Rje btsun chen po mi la ras pas mdzad pa'i snyan brgyud gsal bskor gsum sogs
རྗེ་བཙུན་ཆེན་པོ་མི་ལ་རས་པས་མཛད་པའི་སྙན་བརྒྱུད་གསལ་བསྐོར་གསུམ་སོགས་
rje btsun chen po mi la ras pas mdzad pa'i snyan brgyud gsal bskor gsum sogs
The Three Cycles of Illumination and Other Instructions: Aural Transmissions Composed by Jetsun Milarepa
This text is composed of four sections, or short texts: “The Illumination of Entities,” “The Clarification of Ignorance,” “The Purification of Thoughts,” and “Mahāmudrā: Pointing-Out Instructions Illuminating Wisdom.”[1] The fourth is an abbreviated version of The Root Text for Mahāmudrā: The Illumination of Wisdom (DNZ 7:12).
The first three sections draw on Tilopa’s Truly Valid Words, quoting (without attribution) at least forty-one lines either verbatim or closely enough to consider Truly Valid Words to be the source, or inspiration, of Milarepa’s lines. There is not, however, a sequential correspondence between the two texts, and the majority of the “quoting” is done in the first two sections, “The Illumination of Entities” and “The Clarification of Ignorance.” As discussed above, much of Nāropa’s Authoritative Texts in Verse is drawn from Truly Valid Words, and therefore there is a corresponding overlap with Milarepa’s text, with (at least) two lines in Milarepa’s text being found only in Nāropa’s Authoritative Texts.[2]
The first two sections of The Three Cycles—“The Illumination of Entities” and “The Clarification of Ignorance”—end with colophons stating that they were passed from Milarepa to Gampopa, referring to him by his family name Nyiwa, while the other two sections make no mention of their transmission or circumstances. The first colophon also states that “The Illumination of Entities” was passed from Gampopa to Lhopa Rinpoche (also known as Layakpa Jangchup Ngödrup),[3] and then to “me,” with an interlinear note indicating that “me” refers the first Karmapa, Dusum Khyenpa.
No other editions of this text specifically have been located. However, a nearly identical text called the Eighteen Questions is found in the Drukpa Kagyu tradition, preserved in three collections: Old Texts of Mixing and Transference compiled by Pema Karpo and the two editions of the Drukpa Kagyu Great Treasury of Dharma. The Eighteen Questions contains instructions given by Milarepa to Rechungpa called “Clarification of Ignorance,” “Extracting the Nails That Are Vital Points,” and “Clarification of Delusion.”[4]
Based on the overall similarity of The Eighteen Questions and The Three Cycles, we can say that The Eighteen Questions must represent a different transmission of almost identical teachings. Nevertheless, there are some significant differences between the two texts. Structurally, although the colophon of The Eighteen Questions says it contains three sets of instructions, the text is not divided into sections like The Three Cycles (which could be considered four separate texts under one collection title). Other differences are that The Eighteen Questions begins with the occasion and location of the teachings and a list of the eighteen questions asked to Milarepa; the line order of the two texts is very different; and The Eighteen Questions contains quotations from other texts, mainly tantras, something not found in The Three Cycles. Both texts contain teachings that the other does not.
Transmission lineage received by Jamgön Kongtrul. Vajradhara to Jñānaḍākinī, Vajrapāṇi, Tilopa, and then the same as previously stated for the Ganges Mahāmudrā.[5]
{{#cargo_store: _table=WyliePageContent |TextAuthor=mi la ras pa |VolumeNumber=7 |TextNumber=019 |PageNumbers=109-113 |FolioNumbers=55a6 - 57a4 |TibTitle=རྗེ་བཙུན་ཆེན་པོ་མི་ལ་རས་པས་མཛད་པའི་སྙན་བརྒྱུད་གསལ་བསྐོར་གསུམ་སོགས་ }}
- Other notes
- Genre from Richard Barron's Catalog
- Instruction manual
- Genre from dkar chag
- gzhung rtsa 'grel
- BDRC Link
- VolumeI1CZ3969
- BDRC Content Information
- No note on contents
- Other Translations
- Morrell, Jerry, trans. The Life of Tilopa and the Ganges Mahamudra. Auckland, New Zealand: Zhyisil Chokyi Ghatsal Trust, 2002. (translation of "phyag chen gang+gA ma")
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 Gdams ngag mdzod 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 Person:Namdak, Tenzin and Person:Wiener, G. for help with fonts and conversion.
{{#cargo_query: tables=WyliePageContent |fields=_pageName,TextAuthor,VolumeNumber,TextNumber,PageNumbers,FolioNumbers,TibetanContent |where=_pageName="Wylie:Rje btsun chen po mi la ras pas mdzad pa'i snyan brgyud gsal bskor gsum sogs" |format=json }}
{{#cargo_query: tables=WyliePageContent |fields=_pageName,TextAuthor,VolumeNumber,TextNumber,PageNumbers,FolioNumbers,TibetanContent |where=_pageName="Wylie:Rje btsun chen po mi la ras pas mdzad pa'i snyan brgyud gsal bskor gsum sogs" |format=exhibit |view=tabular }}