The Twenty Varieties of the Samgha is a special topic within the Tibetan monastic curriculum and is considered by Indo-Tibetan commentators of the Abhisamayalamkara (AA) tradition to be one of most difficult topics to comprehend. Its importance as a system reveals not only a soteriological world-view, but also relates the hermenutical and exegetical strategies that native authors utilize to bring coherence to cryptic, terse verses found in Indian sastras such as the AA. The Twenty Samghas in the AA represents an extension of terminology and doctrinal principals found in the sravaka vehicle employed as a skiful heuristic device to generate awareness of the Mahayana Samghas, particularly as exhibited by the savant Tsong khapa (1357-1419), demonstrates a unity in diversity between the vehicles of sravakas, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas in regards to the abstract ideal of the Samaghas, analyze its traditional exegesis, and provide the necessary background that will demonstrate (in Part II) how Tsong kha pa constructs a structural system of Mahayana scholasticism that presents the Twenty Samghas coherently from various perspectives.
目次
Introduction 503 The Topic of the Twenty Samgas 504 Methodological and Hermeneutical Considerations 505 Analysis of the Twenty Samghas 512 The Foundational Texts 513 Exegesis of the Twenty Samghas 517 Concluding Remarks 581 Abbreviations 583
