Bod Skad Kyi Med Gi Mdzod

"Based on three slightly differently organised manuscripts"--P. [7]

The first comprehensive survey of the important corpus of Indic literature on Sanskrit grammar, extant in Tibetan translation in the Buddhist canon. Core of the study is the description of the forty-seven Sanskrit grammatical treatises covering some two thousand folios in the canon. The contents of these texts and the historical information regarding their Tibetan translators are examined in detail. Further chapters are devoted to the grammatical analysis in an eighth-century Tibetan handbook for translators, and to data from Tibetan historiography. The book offers the first systematic study of the extent and the historical development of the Tibetan expertise in Sanskrit grammar, a central scholastic discipline in Buddhism. It opens up a section of Tibetan literature essential to the understanding of the Indo-Tibetan indigenous grammatical traditions.

The first comprehensive survey of the important corpus of Indic literature on Sanskrit grammar extant in Tibetan translation in the Buddhist canon. A systematic study of the history of the Tibetans' expertise in this central scholastic discipline in Buddhism.

The first complete English translation of an important thirteenth-century history that sheds light on Tibet’s imperial past and on the transmission of the Buddhadharma into Central Asia. Translated here into English for the first time in its entirety by perhaps the foremost living expert on Tibetan histories, this engaging translation, along with its ample annotation, is a must-have for serious readers and scholars of Buddhist studies. In this history, discover the first extensive biography of the Buddha composed in the Tibetan language, along with an account of subsequent Indian Buddhist history, particularly the writing of Buddhist treatises. The story then moves to Tibet, with an emphasis on the rulers of the Tibetan empire, the translators of Buddhist texts, and the lineages that transmitted doctrine and meditative practice. It concludes with an account of the demise of the monastic order followed by a look forward to the advent of the future Buddha Maitreya. The composer of this remarkably ecumenical Buddhist history compiled some of the most important early sources on the Tibetan imperial period preserved in his time, and his work may be the best record we have of those sources today. Dan Martin has rendered the richness of this history an accessible part of the world’s literary heritage.

The Legs bshad mdzod, which is here edited and translated into English for the first time, is a history of Tibetan religion known as Bon. It gives a full account of this ancient religion, its origins and development, its struggles against the later imported Buddhism, and its fight for survival in spite of persecution and even abolition on two occasions. the reassembly of the scriptures dispersed at these times is major object of attention. In his introduction the editor makes an assessment of the historical value of the work and considers the extent of its reliability and factual accuracy. He has also, here and in the footnotes to the translation, indicated its sources which are extremely numerous and varied. The transliteration of the Tibetan text is followed by two indices of names and a short glossary of rare terms.

Jamgön Kongtrul’s encyclopedic Treasury of Knowledge presents a complete account of the major lines of thought and practice that comprise Tibetan Buddhism. Among the ten books that make up this tour de force, Book Six is by far the longest—concisely summarizing the theoretical fields of knowledge to be studied prior to the cultivation of reflection and discriminative awareness. The first two parts of Book Six, contained in this volume, respectively concern Indo-Tibetan classical learning and Buddhist phenomenology. The former analyzes the traditional subjects of phonology and Sanskrit grammar, logic, fine art, and medicine, along with astrology, poetics, prosody, synonymics, and dramaturgy. The principal non-Buddhist philosophical systems of ancient India are then summarized and contrasted with the hierarchical meditative concentrations and formless absorptions through which the "summit of cyclic existence" can genuinely be attained. Part Two examines the phenomenological structures of Abhidharma—the shared inheritance of all Buddhist traditions—from three distinct perspectives, corresponding to the three successive turnings of the doctrinal wheel.

Jamgön Kongtrul’s encyclopedic Treasury of Knowledge presents a complete account of the major lines of thought and practice that comprise Tibetan Buddhism. Among the ten books that make up this tour de force, Book Six is by far the longest—concisely summarizing the theoretical fields of knowledge to be studied prior to the cultivation of reflection and discriminative awareness. The first two parts of Book Six, contained in this volume, respectively concern Indo-Tibetan classical learning and Buddhist phenomenology. The former analyzes the traditional subjects of phonology and Sanskrit grammar, logic, fine art, and medicine, along with astrology, poetics, prosody, synonymics, and dramaturgy. The principal non-Buddhist philosophical systems of ancient India are then summarized and contrasted with the hierarchical meditative concentrations and formless absorptions through which the “summit of cyclic existence” can genuinely be attained. Part Two examines the phenomenological structures of Abhidharma—the shared inheritance of all Buddhist traditions—from three distinct perspectives, corresponding to the three successive turnings of the doctrinal wheel.