Wylie:'brog mi lo tsA bas mkhas pa sgo drug la gsan pa'i sgo drug chos 'brel du grags pa'i khrid yig
འབྲོག་མི་ལོ་ཙཱ་བས་མཁས་པ་སྒོ་དྲུག་ལ་གསན་པའི་སྒོ་དྲུག་ཆོས་འབྲེལ་དུ་གྲགས་པའི་ཁྲིད་ཡིག་
'brog mi lo tsA bas mkhas pa sgo drug la gsan pa'i sgo drug chos 'brel du grags pa'i khrid yig
The Manual Known as The Dharma Connection with the Six Gatekeepers Received by Drokmi Lotsāwa from the Six Paṇḍita Gatekeepers
The Dharma Connection with the Six Gatekeepers is a fascinating cycle, as it is one of the few texts we have in the Sakya tradition that records Drokmi’s personal interactions with his gurus at Vikramaśīla. In order, the six paṇḍitas are Ratnākaraśānti, Prajñākaragupta, Jñānaśrīmitra, Ratnavajra, Vāgīśvarakīrti, and Naropa (all late tenth to mid-eleventh centuries). The Dharma Connection with the Six Gatekeepers includes four sections: (1) Ratnākaraśānti’s Merging Sutra and Tantra and instructions, (2) The Trio for Removing Obstructions by Prajñākaragupta, Jñānaśrī, and Ratnavajra, (3) Vāgīśvarakīrti’s Clear Mindfulness of the Innate and instructions, and (4) Naropa’s Mahāmudrā That Removes the Three Sufferings. There appear to be no Tibetan commentaries on them, other than the summaries by Kunga Drölchok.2
Ameshap’s Ocean That Gathers Excellent Explanations relates that when Drokmi is studying Sanskrit in the Katmandhu Valley, he requests the empowerments of Hevajra, Cakrasaṃvara, Guhyasamāja, Bhairava, and Mahāmaya from the Nepali paṇḍita, Śāntibhadra. Drokmi studies with Śāntibhadra for one year, excelling in his studies and earning the title “translator.” Preparing to leave for India, Śāntibhadra encourages Drokmi and his companions to head for Vikramaśīla after they pay respects at Bodhgaya. He tells them there are six gatekeepers (sgo srung) at Vikramaśīla:
- Five hundred paṇḍitas who have received royal parasols are at that place. Foremost among them is Guru Śantipa, the one with the twofold omniscience in the age of degeneration. Śantipa is the eastern gatekeeper of Vikramaśīla, charged with debating grammar and epistemology. Vāgīśvarakīrti is the southern gatekeeper, charged with debating scriptural dharma. Since these two are equals, they also guide students together. The western gatekeeper is Prajñākaragupta of Oḍḍiyāna, charged with debating non-Buddhist systems. His special expertise is the view, meditation, conduct, and result of equipoise. The northern gatekeeper is Lord Naropa, charged with debating mantra. These two are considered equals. Jñānaśrīmitra of Kashmir and Ratnavajra are the so-called two great pillars in the center. However, they are not considered to have qualities greater than the others, and these five do not have less knowledge than Śantipa. Also, you should request dharma connections with the others.3
Amezhap tells us that Drokmi studied under Śantipa for a total of eighteen years, receiving teachings in Vinaya and Prajñāparamitā, including Śantipa’s own commentary on the Perfection of Wisdom in Twenty-Five Thousand Lines.4 After these studies, Drokmi received Cakrasaṃvara and other empowerments from Śantipa as well as the special instruction, Merging Sutra and Tantra. Drokmi then makes dharma connections with the other five masters listed above and receives instruction from them.
Ratnākaraśānti’s Merging Sutra and Tantra is exactly what it sounds like, a text on how to practice sutra and tantra in union. It recounts a conversation between Śantipa and Drokmi, and then provides a method of practice for the verse that Ratnākaraśānti utters. Amezhap furthers notes that Ratnākaraśānti explains his view according to the path of the Mind Only school and he practices the creation stage according to the Buddhajñāpāda system. The person who authored the attached meditation instruction as well as the remaining texts is not recorded, but it resembles the style of the eight ancillary path cycles.
The rest of the cycle begins with an interlude and a title list of the five paṇḍitas with whom Drokmi makes dharma connections. While Naropa’s and Vāgīśvarakīrti’s texts are listed first, they actually come last. First is The Trio for Removing Obstructions by Prajñākaragupta, Jñānaśrī, and Ratnavajra.
We know very little about Prajñākaragupta of Oḍḍiyāna, Jñānaśrīmitra of Kashmir, and Ratnavajra other than their works in the Tengyur. These three texts are quite brief and their titles are self-explanatory. The thing of note here is that it appears that the person who put these three texts into writing is Chöje Zhönu Drup, a Sakya master of the thirteenth century.
The next section is devoted to an instruction of Vāgīśvarakīrti, related to Mahāmudrā without Syllables, with two parts. The first part of the text is directly attributed to Vāgīśvarakīrti; the second part is a somewhat detailed description of how to meditate in connection with the pledged deity, Hevajra. Notable in the lineage is the presence of Khyungpo Naljor, the founder of the Shangpa Kagyu.
The final section in this cycle is Naropa’s Mahāmudrā That Removes the Three Sufferings. Naropa himself needs no introduction. Like the Ratnākaraśānti text that begins the cycle, this text also presents a dialogue with Drokmi. No author is given for the final text, but there is a note that the original text was somewhat unclear, and this text represents a reorganization of the original text on behalf of an aristocratic woman named Trinle Kyi.
- Translator's notes
- Note from Ringu Tulku
- The Instructions Received by Drogmi Lotsawa From the Six Great Panditas Called "The Teachings from the Six Doors".
- མདོ་རྒྱུད་ཀྱི་དོན་ཉམས་སུ་ལོངས་གསུངས། 1b1-3a5.
Wylie: mdo rgyud kyi don nyams su longs gsungs/ 290-293. - ཤེས་རབ་འབྱུང་གནས་སྦས་པ། ཛྙཱ་ན་ཤྲཱི། རིན་ཆེན་རྡོ་རྗེ་གསུམ་གྱི་བར་ཆད་གཟུམ་སེལ་ལོ། 3a5-4a7.
Wylie: shes rab 'byung gnas sbas pa dz+nyA na shrI rin chen rdo rje gsum gyi bar chad gzum sel lo/ 293-295. - །ངག་དབང་གྲགས་པའི་གཉུག་མ་དྲན་གསལ།, by སློབ་དཔོན་ངག་གི་དབང་ཕྱུག་གྲགས་པ་ 4a7-4b6.
Wylie: /ngag dbang grags pa'i gnyug ma dran gsal/, by slob dpon ngag gi dbang phyug grags pa 295-296. - །དབང་བཞིའི་ལམ་སྟན་ཐོག་གཅིག་ཏུ་བསྒོམ་པའི་རྣལ་འབྱོར་པས། 4b6-6b5.
Wylie: /dbang bzhi'i lam stan thog gcig tu bsgom pa'i rnal 'byor pas/ 296-300. - དཔལ་ནཱ་རོ་པའི་ཕྱག་ཆེན་པོ་སྡུག་བསྔལ་གསུམ་སེལ།, by རྗེ་ནཱ་རོ་པ་ 6b5-8a1.
Wylie: dpal nA ro pa'i phyag chen po sdug bsngal gsum sel/, by rje nA ro pa 300-303.
- Other notes
- Genre from Richard Barron's Catalog
- Instruction manual
- Genre from dkar chag
- grol byed khrid
- BDRC Link
- VolumeI1CZ3968
- BDRC Content Information
- No note on contents
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.
