The present study is designed to introduce the previously untranslated sDom-gSum Rab-tu dbYe-ba, one of the major works of Kun-dGa' rGyal-mtshan dPal bZan-po (Sapan, 1182-1251 A.D.), the sixth patriarch of the Sa-skya-pa school of Tibetan Buddhism. This particular text has had considerable impact on religious and intellectual developments in Tibet, being one of the first indigenous works to bring together three widely divergent, and often contradictory, codes of Buddhist discipline--Sravakayana prati-moksa, Mahayana bodhisattva-samvara, and Vajrayana vidya-dhara-samvara--for a consideration of their inter-relationship. It also sparked the rise of an entirely new genre of Buddhist literature and generated a number of long-lasting philosophical controversies.
The study was approached by translating the complete text of the sDom-gSum into English, comparing the version found in the 1968 Toyo Bunko edition of the Sa-skya-pa'i bKa'-'bum (Volume 5, p. 297ff.) with a wood-block edition published by the Sa-Nor Monastery at Gangtok, Sikkim. References in the sDom-gSum to Buddhist sutras, tantras, sastras, and other literature were investigated and identified wherever possible. In introductory chapters to the translation and in annotations, research data have been incorporated to identify key concepts and themes in the main text, to compare the theological perspective of its author with other views extant in Tibet at the time it was written, and to describe the historical context in which it appeared.
The role of the sDom-gSum as a seminal work is assessed here in the light of subsequent exegetical, polemical, and imitative literature of the genre. In addition to Sapan's other related works, three commentaries by his principal biographer, Go-rams-pa--the sDom-gSum dGons-gSal, sDom-gSum sPyi-don, and sDom-gSum 'Khrul-spon--have been used as resource materials in clarifying key issues.
