dPal sprul O rgyan ’jigs med chos kyi dbang po (abbr. dPal sprul; 1808–1887) was a siddha (great thinker) and practitioner of rDzogs chen, and a scholar who studied the texts of other sects and wrote three types of commentary (“big”, “middle” and “small”) on the writings of Haribhadra, including the Sher phyin man ngag gi bstan bcos mngon rtogs rgyan (abbr. MNg). dPal sprul was an activist of the Ris med (hypersect) movement, so he respected Tsong kha pa (1357–1419) who wrote the Legs bshad gser phreng (abbr. LS). That is obvious from the colophon of the Sher phyin rgyan gyi spyi don bsgom rim nyung ngu (abbr. GRN), dPal sprul’s “small commentary” on MNg. This paper studies the influences of Tsong kha pa on dPal sprul, with a focus on sbyor bzhi in GRN. It also compares GRN and LS, and finds that dPal sprul followed the conceptual definition used by Tsong kha pa, but that he emphasized rnam kun sbyor ba rather than mthar gyis pa in sbyor bzhi. This makes it clear that GRN conveys a more practical interpretation of Buddhist practices than does LS.
