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This thesis is a study of Nartang monastery in the Tsang region of Central Tibet. Nartang monastery was founded in 1153 and was one of the most influential monastic institutions of the Kadam school until the fifteenth century. In its initial construction, Nartang monastery was a small enclave with limited members. By the mid-thirteenth century the place had significantly grown in physical size, membership, and reputation. This study explores the steady growth and decline of the monastery by examining the lives of the people in charge and their real and symbolic relations within and without the monastic community.

This thesis begins with the Kadam school in the Penyül valley of Central Tibet. Here Nartang’s founder Tumtön Lodrö Drakpa (Gtum ston blo gros grags pa, 1106-1166) was educated and inspired to return to his native land in Tsang to build Nartang monastery. I then turn to the effective campaign strategies of Nartang’s fourth, fifth, and sixth abbot, who traveled throughout Central Tibet to raise funds for the monastery and to acquire new monastic recruits. Nartang monastery was at its best during the tenure of the seventh abbot Chim Namkha Drak (Mchims nam mkha’ grags, 1210-1285). It was during his tenure that the political events on the Eastern Steppe could no longer be ignored in Central Tibet. I show how Chim Namkha Drak and the Nartang community effectively navigated through the Mongolian (re)organization of Central Tibet. I also trace how the Nartang abbots, specifically the eight abbot Kyotön Mönlam Tsültrim (Skyon ston smon lam tshul krims, 1219-1299), projected and guided the increasing importance of their monastery at the center of the Buddhist world. I then study the life of Nartang’s tenth abbot, his time spent at the Mongol court and his eventual return to Nartang. Finally, I look to Nartang when Gendün Drupa (Dge ’dun grub pa, 1391-1474), posthumously the First Dalai Lama, entered the monastery at the age of seven in 1398. By this time Nartang monastery had well established a standardized curriculum and built a reputation for itself as a preeminent Kadam scholastic institution. I also explore the various factors that left Nartang monastery in a precarious state by the fifteenth century, such as the burgeoning reformist movement in Central Tibet lead by Tsongkhapa Lozang Drakpa (Tsong kha pa blo bzang grags pa, 1357-1419), the building of Tashi Lhünpo monastery by Gendün Drupa in 1449, and a decline in Sakya power and the rise of the Pakmodrupa. (Source: UVa Online Archive)

This study examines The Seven Siddhi Texts, a short corpus of tantric Buddhist works that the Tibetan tradition identifies as the mahāmudrā transmission from the famed semimythical land of Oḍiyāna. Owing to the nature of the corpus itself, this study is best characterized as properly Indo-Tibetan in its scope. The Seven Siddhi Texts are first examined here as independent treatises that reflect the development of Vajrayāna Buddhism in its Indic cultural and historical contexts between the eighth and tenth centuries. They are then approached as a means for examining the formulation of Vajrayāna institutions and their attendant corpora in Nepal. Finally, they provide a case study in the phenomenon of practical canonicity in their employment in mahāmudrā polemical literature in Tibet from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries.

Part I argues for the adoption of a demonological paradigm in the study of South Asian religions. Using data from The Seven Siddhi Texts in dialogue with the  yurvedic discipline of demonology (bhūtavidyā), it highlights that Vajrayāna Buddhist traditions maintained a dual apotropaic-soteriological goal in their conception of the practice of yoga.

Part II addresses the sociological implications of sect and sectarian identity in The Seven Siddhi Texts. It presents the phenomenon of dissimulative asceticism in Vajrayāna Buddhism as a potential social context for the highly Śaiva-Buddhist hybrid forms of ritual that emerged with the Buddhist yoginītantras. It then addresses the issue of inclusivist and exclusivist expressions of sectarian identity from the authors of The Seven Siddhi Texts.

Part III discusses the formulation and transmission of The Seven Siddhi Texts as a corpus of mahāmudrā works in light of the broader phenomenon of practical canonicity in Buddhist traditions. It presents philological evidence that The Seven Siddhi Texts were part of a known mahāmudrā practical canon in Nepal prior to their transmission to Tibet. It then discusses historical data and Tibetan historiography on their transmission to Tibet beginning in the eleventh century. It concludes with a discussion of The Seven Siddhi Texts' incorporation into two Kagyü mahāmudrā practical canons in Tibet at the turn of the sixteenth century, and the role that The Seven Siddhi Texts played in a number of mahāmudrā polemical works composed by the subsequent generation of Kagyü authors.

Abstract

This dissertation studies the role purity (dag pa) plays in 14th-century Longchen Rabjam’s (klong chen rab 'byams) presentation of the Great Completeness (rdzogs chen). In service of this aim, I rigorously consider the semantic field of purity and its impact on our contemporary understanding of the Great Completeness. I specifically consider four major themes related to purity: space, non-change, luminosity, and effort. In doing so, my analysis builds on existent scholarship on the Great Completeness, highlighting how understanding Longchen Rabjam’s usage of purity elucidates often misunderstood elements of this contemplative system. Taken comprehensively, the semantic field of purity consists of a broad and remarkably diverse spectrum of attributes, each of which are employed by Longchenpa in service of describing the Great Completeness. In this way, I contend that purity is a vital lens for understanding Longchenpa’s presentation of the Great Completeness and its critical shift in emphasis from the ethical to the epistemological.

Abstract

The thesis concerns the recent debate in Thailand over the nature of nibbāna (nirvāṇa), the unconditioned, whether it is attā (self) or anattā (not-self).
      Western Buddhist studies, especially of recent years, have assumed that Theravāda Buddhism staightforwardly teaches the doctrine of anattā: that Theravāda Buddhism rejects attā in all respects, including in the ultimate sense. However, as the well-known debate in Thailand, which reached its zenith in 1999, has shown, there appears to be a significant minority of Theravāda monks, respected by significant numbers of Theravāda laity, arguing that nibbāna is attā.
      This debate can be seen as a manifestation of the Buddhist controversies over the understanding and implications of the anattā doctrine, but argued in the perspectives of contemporary Thai Theravāda Buddhism. As it was carried out mainly in Thai language publications of various sorts and makes extensive references from Thai version of the Pāli Tripiṭaka, this thesis is therefore intended to make use of my fluency in Thai language to bring to light and present something of the history and arguments that inform this debate. What I have chosen to do is to present in summary, with comment, two important Thai contributions to the debate, namely, Dhammakāya Case by P.A. Payutto, which argues that nibbāna is anattā, and, The Principle of Examination of Nibbāna-dhātu According to the Words of the Buddha and the Aṭṭhakathā by Phutthathamprathip, which argues that nibbāna is attā.
      After comparing this debate to the Tibetan Rang Stong and Gzan Stong dispute, it is concluded that they reveal two similar trends found in the history of Buddhist thought, one positing a substantial absolute beyond all conceptualization, and the other rejecting all kinds of substantial absolute. Both trends are found at various points in the history of Buddhism in different traditions.

Abstract

The Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā is the eighth chapter of one of the great canonical collections of Mahāyāna Buddhism, the Mahāsaṃnipāta, but it also acts as an individual text, or sūtra. As such, it is a dharmaparyāya, which dates back to the first or second century CE. The original Sanskrit has been lost, but there are three full-length translations in Tibetan and Chinese.
      This text is regarded as an important canonical scripture throughout the history of Buddhism, playing an important role in the development of the Mahāyāna Buddhist ideas. This is clearly documented by the fact that the Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā was translated into Tibetan (about 800 CE), and at least twice into Chinese (421 and 757 CE), and the sūtra was quoted by many of the great ācāryas of in India, Tibet, China, Korea and Japan. However, the text has received little scientific attention in modern times, and one of the reasons for this is that there is no full Sanskrit text available, only fragments from various later commentaries.
      The purpose of this study is, therefore, to carry out a basic research project consisting of making an English translation of the text, as well as examining its intertextuality and metaphorical implications. For this purpose, the dissertation has collected all available sources, including various versions of Tibetan, Chinese and fragmentary Sanskrit quotations. The primary text of the English translation is the Derge edition of the Tibetan Kanjur. The English translation, the Tibetan and the two Chinese texts are arranged as a parallel edition. As for the translation, the hypothetical Sanskrit passages is to some extent reconstructed.
      In the introduction, all the sources have been historically and critically evaluated. The introduction also contains a treatment of the main ideas of the text and their contextual position within the Mahāyāna Buddhist literature. In this way, the study shows that the philosophy and history of the Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā are related to other important texts from the Mahāyāna Buddhism, among them the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā and the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa, and thus that Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā is closely related to these two works and a number of others.

Abstract

By comparing the instances of the Māra mytheme in the narratives of the prajñā-pāramitā-sūtras with those found in non-Mahayana texts, this thesis explores how this vitally important persona, one central to the narrative account of the bodhisattva quest for awakening, developed from earlier mythic prototypes. Pali sources identify a number of alternative identities for Māra the most significant of which being Namuci, an asura who took control over the mind of Indra. Using linguistic ideas originally developed by Saussure, the storylines of the Māra and Namuci myths can be reduced to a simple, common narrative statement or syntagm. Adopting this approach demonstrates how apparently new narratives can be derived through the application of paradigmatic changes within that syntagm. Furthermore, drawing upon the findings of historical linguistics, it was possible to interpolate potential Proto-Indian-European origins for the Māra mytheme. Rather than supporting the traditionally accepted view of Māra as an allegory for death, this enabled the signification of the actual name Māra to be seen as pointing towards a 'grinding-away' or oppression of the mind. This was achieved by relating the Māra of Buddhist mythology with the mare-hag common to a number of IndoEuropean folklores. Support for this argument is also found in Pali narratives which depict Māra entering the thoughts of others engaged in meditation during the night in order to induce feelings of fear and uncertainty. Finally, based upon these findings, it was possible to scrutinize the narrative and nested tales of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā-prajñā-pāramitā-sūtra in its earliest recension, the Dàoxíng Bōrě Jīng, and identify how the original Māra myth underwent structured, paradigmatic modifications that reflect a bodhisattva's progress towards final awakening.

Abstract

This thesis aims to provide a comprehensive study of the Bodhisattvapiṭaka with specific emphasis on the bodhisattva ideal. The content of the Bodhisattvapiṭaka indicates that its exposition belongs to the earliest treatises on the bodhisattva. The practices and doctrines that are expounded are invariably rudimentary and show little of the complexities that characterise their discussions in later bodhisattva literature. The Bodhisattvapiṭaka's inclusion into the Mahāratnakūṭa rested probably on its pioneering account of the bodhisattvacaryā. Being by far the longest work on the bodhisattva in the whole collection, it expounds important practices and constitutes the hub for the remaining bodhisattva writings in the Mahāratnakūṭa.
      The study falls into five parts. The first chapter considers the position of the Bodhisattvapiṭaka in Mahāyāna literature. It investigates the various usages of the term Bodhisattvapiṭaka, it considers the relationship between the Bodhisattvapiṭaka and Akṣayamatinirdeśa and discusses the scholastic affiliation of the Bodhisattvapiṭaka. In addition, exploring the contents and evolution of the Mahāratnakūṭa collection, it establishes the scriptural context in which the Bodhisattvapiṭaka is placed. The second chapter provides an analysis of the Bodhisattvapiṭaka. It examines the structural and literary traits of the Bodhisattvapiṭaka, its chapter organisation and some aspects of the bodhisattva path in the Bodhisattvapiṭaka. Chapter three discusses the bodhisattva ideal in the Mahāratnakūṭa collection. It distinguishes between the various categories of bodhisattva sutras in the Mahāratnakūṭa, it examines the bodhisattva practices and investigates whether there is evidence of a premeditated design that might have influenced the compilation of the Mahāratnakūṭa sūtras into one collection. Chapter four considers the bodhisattva doctrine as it is propounded in the Bodhisattvapiṭaka within the context of other scriptural traditions. It discusses the evolution of the concepts of the cittotpāda, apramaṇa, pāramitā and saṃgrahvastu and assesses the contribution of the Bodhisattvapiṭaka to that process. Chapter five consists of a translation of the eleventh chapter of the Bodhisattvapiṭaka.

Abstract

The Bodhisattvapiṭaka-sūtra is a work included in the large sutra collection, the Mahāratnakuṭa, compiled by Bodhiruci in the beginning of the eighth century. The history of the Ratnakuṭa collection is obscure, but a review of available evidence seems to indicate that the collection was compiled no earlier than the fourth century and no later than the sixth century. The translation of the Bodhisattvapiṭaka-sūtra into Chinese was done by Hsüan-tsang in 645 from a Sanskrit manuscript brought with him from India. A second version was done by the later Dharmarakṣa between 1004 and 1053. The Hsüan-tsang version is considerably longer than the Dharmarakṣa version, to which it is superior. The difference in length, however, is accounted for by a wordier style and the use of introductory, recapitulative and concluding phrases in the longer version which do not significantly alter the contents of the sutra, if we base our judgement on comparison of the dhyāna chapters of the two versions.
      The term "Bodhisattva-piṭaka" has a wide currency in Mahāyāna Buddhist literature, and is thought by some scholars to refer to a collection which actually existed in early Mahāyāna of works concerned with the Bodhisattva practice. There are instances of the term which support this view, but the term "Bodhisattva-piṭaka" is also often used simply to indicate scriptures of the Mahāyāna.
      The dhyāna chapter of the Bodhisattvapiṭaka-sūtra begins with a formulaic passage on the four dhyānas and then deals at length with the five abhijñās or supernormal faculties. This description comprises about half of the chapter. The remainder praises the dhyāna of the Bodhisattva, his aid of sentient beings and his spiritual knowledge, and ends with a verse section. Translations of both versions of the chapter, with notes, form Part Three of the dissertation. The Chinese texts, reproduced from the Taisho Tripiṭaka, are furnished in an Appendix.
      A number of texts on dhyāna were examined for purposes of comparison with the dhyāna chapter of the Bodhisattvapiṭaka-sūtra. These were Saṇgharakṣa's Yogacarabhūmi, Asaṅga's Śrāvakabhūmi, and Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga, as "Hinayana"-oriented treatments of dhyāna, and as works which included a treatment of dhyāna within that of the group of pāramitās, the verses on dhyāna of the Ratnaguṇasamcayagatha and the Dharmasamuccaya, the dhyāna chapters of Āsaṅga's Bodhisattvabhūmi, Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra, and Ārya-Śūra's Pāramitāsamāsa, and portions of Śāntideva's compendium, the Śikṣāsamuccaya.
      This comparison showed a great variety in treatments of dhyāna in Buddhist literature, which we have roughly categorised as "Hinayana" and "Mahayana" in style. The "Hinayana" approach, is technical and expository, explaining methods of dhyāna for the practitioner, while the "Mahayana" approach emphasises the fact that the Bodhisattva practices dhyāna in order to aid sentient beings, and in extolling the Bodhisattva path may say relatively little about the practice of dhyāna as such. These two "phases" of the treatment of dhyāna occur together in certain works, and it seems that Buddhist writers did not feel them to be mutually inconsistent. The dhyāna chapter of the Bodhisattvapiṭaka-sūtra is almost entirely Mahayana in the style of its treatment of dhyāna. An assessment of its distinguishing qualities and its position in Buddhist tradition awaits further comparison with Mahayana sutra literature as well as commentarial and verse works such as those discussed here.

Abstract

This dissertation is a comparative analysis of compassion cultivation in Indo-Tibetan Mahāyāna Buddhist contexts and the recent phenomenon of secular, Buddhism-derived compassion training in North America, exemplified by one of the most prominent programs to date, the Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) developed at Stanford University.
      This dissertation makes a contribution to the little-studied field of Buddhist compassion cultivation by tracing the transformations of important key concepts throughout Indian and Tibetan Buddhist intellectual history, highlighting the ways in which these transformational processes have enabled the contemporary secularization of compassion training. The study also clarifies conceptual discrepancies between traditional Buddhist and secular approaches to compassion training, particularly focusing on the compassion culture in which the respective training methods are embedded. The study thereby raises awareness of the scope and limitations of the secularization of Buddhist contemplative practices.
      The critical comparative analysis is based on textual interpretation of relevant texts from various genres, such as Indian Mahāyāna sūtra, Abhidharma, Tathāgatagarbha, Yogācāra and Madhyamaka śāstra, Tibetan commentarial texts and practice manuals of the Lojong (blo sbyong) and Lamrim (lam rim) traditions, as well as recent scientific studies of mindfulness and compassion. The choice of textual material is determined by its relevance for the evolution of compassion cultivation, culminating in its secularization in contemporary North America.
      The study begins with a broad overview of etymologies, definitions and ideas pertaining to compassion in canonical Mahāyāna literature, which are contrasted with definitions drawn from contemporary secular compassion science literature, thereby setting the stage for a comparative analysis. Then I discuss compassion didactics in sūtra and śāstra literature and propose a systematization of three didactic approaches, namely, constructive, deconstructive and cognitive-analytic. I argue that these three didactic styles must be understood as embedded in a contextual framework, a “compassion culture.” The study then focuses on the specific method of tonglen, which is the formal contemplative method in both, Tibetan Lojong and secular CCT. I trace its philosophical roots to the principle of “equalizing and exchange of self and other” (Skt. svaparasamatā parātmaparivartana, Tib. bdag gzhan mnyams brje), which has been extensively developed by the seventh-century Indian master Śāntideva in his Bodhi(sattva)caryāvatāra. The analysis of various Tibetan interpretations thereof shows how this meditation was progressively transformed and popularized, thereby paving the way for its secularization in CCT. After a detailed presentation of the secular program of CCT, I discuss the complex relationship to its Buddhist roots and conclude with a critique of the recent phenomenon of secularized Buddhist contemplative practice.

Abstract

This dissertation presents, in two parts, a study of the life and works of the Indian Buddhist philosopher, teacher and litterateur Candragomin, and the study and translation of his own and associated treatises on the bodhisattva vow.
      Taking the divisions in order: Part One is concerned with the life and works of Cg, beginning with a chapter on his date. Adducing new evidence and applying modern methodology to this controversial topic, it is determined that Cg, the University of Nalanda philosopher known to Tibetan and Chinese traditions, lived in the last three quarters of the seventh century, and that all the sixty-odd works attributed to him in the Tibetan canon may in fact be his, with the important exception of the Candra system of Sanskrit grammar.
      Chapter Two studies the role played by Cg, in the traditional Tibetan accounts of his life, as exponent of Yogācāra philosophy and personification of the lay bodhisattva ideal. Chapter Three is a translation of Cg's fifty-one verse Praise in Confession (Deśana-stava) with its commentary (vṛtti) by Buddhaśānti , from the Tibetan translation. Semi-autobiographical in nature, this poem surveys the standard doctrines and practices of Buddhism in one of its most productive eras, an unusually candid and informative account of the problems encountered by a layman in his attempts at religious practice. Working in the high poetic (kāvya) style, Cg and his commentator apply, to his own life, the theoretical principles set forth in his Twenty Verses on the Bodhisattva Vow. The introductory remarks and annotation examine the methods of Rin-chen bzang-po (958–1055), dean of Tibetan translators, and the English rendering is a prototype for the translation of kāvya from a Tibetan version.
       Part Two consists of a translation from the Tibetan (with reference to the parallel Sanskrit passages of Asaṅga) of Cg's didactic and historically important work on the bodhisattva vow (the Bodhisattva-saṁvara-viṁśaka)—a mnemonic condensation of the Chapter on Morality (śīla-paṭala) of the Bodhisattva-bhūmi—with the commentary upon it by the ninth century philosopher Śāntarakṣita. An introductory essay probes the bodhisattva figure as described in these and in later exegetical and synoptic treatises—especially in the "Three Vows" genre developed in Tibet upon late Indian models—the bodhisattva's aspirations and his means of fulfilling them, as distinguished from the aspirations and methods of "lesser vehicle" Buddhism. The importance of these works in understanding the ideals of the Greater Vehicle, as expressed in the moral code of the bodhisattva and the definition of his social relationships, cannot be underestimated. This dissertation is the first extensive study of bodhisattva morality, and of the ceremony for taking the bodhisattva vow, as it is elaborated in Yogācāra literature. The introductory essay also explores the role of the Viṁśaka and its commentary in the introduction of Buddhism into Tibet by Śāntarakṣita.
      Detailed annotation to the translation incorporates bibliographical data and exegetical material drawn chiefly from scriptural (sūtra ) sources of the Chapter on Morality, commentaries to it by Guṇaprabha, Jinaputra and Samudramegha, and commentaries to the Twenty Verses itself by Bodhibhadra and Grags-pa rgyal-mtshan. The Byang-chub gzhung-lam of Tsong-kha-pa (1357–1419) has been quoted at length for its lucid and comprehensive account of reasoning upon these subjects by the various authors, teachers and schools of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.
      Seven appendices to the dissertation include edited Tibetan texts and the translation of subsidiary literature on the bodhisattva vow.

No abstract given. The following are the first relevant paragraphs:

The Buddhist canon contains a substantial amount of material that treats the subject matter of ethics. Topics addressed in these texts include how we should live our lives, how we should treat others, classifications of right and wrong actions, and the articulation of virtues to be cultivated and vices to be avoided. The abundance of Buddhist material treating ethical issues even led O.H. de A. Wijesekera (1971) to make the grandiose claim, "It is universally recognized that Buddhism can claim to be the most ethical of all religio-philosophical systems of the world" (p. 49). Charles Goodman (2009) describes Buddhist ethics with its emphasis on non-violence and compassion as one of most appealing parts of the teachings of Buddhism. He writes, "Many people have drawn inspiration from Buddhism's emphasis on compassion, non-violence, and tolerance, its concern for animals, and its models of virtue and self-cultivation" (p. 1). Damien Keown (1992) even argues that Buddhism itself is foremost an ethical project: "Buddhism is a response to what is fundamentally an ethical problem—the perennial problem of the best kind of life for a man (sic) to lead" (p. 1).
      It should be no surprise that ethics plays an important role in Buddhism, given its soteriological goal of an ideal state. Like many other religions, Buddhism calls for ethical conduct as a requirement for attaining its soteriological goal. The Buddhist canon includes extensive guidelines for conduct that foster the move from an ordinary state to an ideal state. Buddhist ethics, however, is not based on a theistic model: No omnipotent creator decrees what constitutes good and evil. Instead, I will argue that common themes underlying Buddhist ethical works are nested in the larger Buddhist project that sees suffering and its causes as the primary human existential problem. The distinction between good and bad, I will argue, depends entirely on the analysis of suffering and its causes. The Buddha explained in what Buddhists take to be his first teaching upon attaining enlightenment that it is confusion about ourselves and the world we live in that causes us to suffer, and that only knowledge of the reality of our world removes this confusion and frees us from suffering. The good, I will argue, is linked with this knowledge; the Buddhist soteriological goal of liberation from suffering is achieved not through faith, but through reason. Liberation is not a reward for ethical conduct, but is, as I aim to demonstrate in the coming chapters, the state of the morally mature person who experiences the world mediated by an accurate metaphysical understanding. (Aitken, general introduction, 1–2)