Rnying-ma; Tibetan Buddhism; Dgongs pa 'dus pa'i mdo; China
摘要
The Sūtra of the Gathered Intentions of All the Buddhas (Tib. Sangs rgyas thams cad dgongs pa 'dus pa'i mdo) is a canonical work recognized by both western scholars and today's Rnying-ma-pa as the fundamental tantra of the anuyoga class of teachings. Apart from this simple fact, however, it remains almost completely unknown. This dissertation traces the life of the Sūtra, from its ninth century origin through the present day. Each chapter examines, in chronological order, how the Sūtra was used in a series of arenas. What emerges is an alternative history of the Rnying-ma school, one in which the Sūtra plays a vital role.
Chapter One argues that the Sūtra, through a variety of interwoven strategies, provided Tibetans with a comprehensive system for organizing the flood of Buddhist teachings arriving from India. Chapter Two follows the Sūtra into the twelfth century, when it was used in the codification of a new “Spoken Teachings” ( bka' ma) curriculum for Kah&dotbelow;-thog monastery in eastern Tibet. Chapter Three looks at how, upon entering the canon, the Sūtra became less an active teaching system than an icon, worshipped only through its elaborate empowerment ritual. Chapter Four focuses on how, in the politically tumultuous years of the seventeenth century, a new lineage was constructed at Rdo-rje Brag monastery to replace the two already existing. Chapter Five looks at the Sūtra's role in the project carried out at Smin-grol-gling monastery at the turn of the eighteenth century to reformulate the Rnying-ma school through large-scale public rituals. Chapter Six reviews several attempts over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to revive or preserve the practice and study of the Sūtra. Chapter Seven considers how a text that has been so influential in the formation of the Rnying-ma school could have become invisible to the modern observer.
