Wylie:Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa'i man ngag gcod kyi gzhung shes rab skra rtse'i sa gzhung spel ba rin po che'i gter mdzod
ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པའི་མན་ངག་གཅོད་ཀྱི་གཞུང་ཤེས་རབ་སྐྲ་རྩེའི་ས་གཞུང་སྤེལ་ ་ ་ ་
shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa'i man ngag gcod kyi gzhung shes rab skra rtse'i sa gzhung spel ba rin po che'i gter mdzod
A Hair’s Tip of Wisdom
Although this text is attributed to Machik Lapdrön and placed among the original texts of Severance in The Treasury of Precious Instructions, in fact it is a commentary on a source text, with the lines of what may have been an autonomous root text entitled A Hair’s Tip of Wisdom found within the commentary. This root text may well have been composed by Machik, as it is similar in content and style to the other sources and retains the beauty and profundity of direct teaching. The commentary itself has no colophon. Kongtrul indicates in his records that it could be by Kunga Paljor (also called Drung Sarupa), who is the author of Pure Honey, the commentary to the main source text by Āryadeva the Brahmin. It is somewhat similar in style to that work. On the other hand, in The Religious History of Pacification and Severance it seems to be attributed to Karmapa Rangjung Dorje.[1] Again it is unclear, as there is no direct statement of authorship but rather an association with another text. Rangjung Dorje seems an unlikely candidate, since the text is not found among his comprehensive collected works, and stylistically it is quite different.
Sometimes the commentary seems to directly contradict the intention in the root text upon which it is commenting. For example, Machik (if she is the author) says that “the meaning . . . is introduced in oneself,” while the comment on that statement advises one to request introduction or pointing-out instruction from the guru. The structural outline superimposed on what would be an inspired spontaneous teaching seems a better fit for a formal treatise. Nevertheless, the comments of this deft scholar clarify and enhance the meaning of the original, and together they make a wonderful exposition on the real meaning of Severance.
- Translator's notes
- Note from Ringu Tulku
- The Earth Increasing Text Called "The Treasure of Jewels" from the Chod Instructions Called "Wisdom at the Tip of the Hair".
- Notes on authorship
- Machik needs to be verified as the author of this text. Dan Martin. A Catalog of the Gdams-ngag Mdzod, 1993. doesn't list an author. Ringu Tulku Contents of the gdams ngag mdzod, 1999. says that the author is not mentioned in this excerpt?, but says that the author is Machik.
However, the translator Sarah Harding says: "The commentary itself has no colophon, and its authorship is uncertain. Kongtrul seems to indicate in his records that it could be by Kunga Paljor (also called Drung Sarupa), who is the author of Pure Honey, the commentary to the main source text by Āryadeva the Brahmin called The Grand Poem. It is somewhat similar in style to that work. On the other hand, in The Religious History of Pacification and Severance it seems to be attributed to Karmapa Rangjung Dorje (f. 69a)."
- Other notes
- The listed colophon needs to be verified.
- Genre from Richard Barron's Catalog
- Instruction manual
- Genre from dkar chag
- yan lag gi chos
- BDRC Link
- VolumeI1CZ3976
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.
