The Sa-skya Pandita, the White Panacea, and Clerical Buddhism's Current Credibility Crisis

by Robert Mayer. Tibet Journal 22(3): 79-105, 1997

Review Articles
The Sa-skya Pa-/:uJita, the White Panacea, and Clerical
Buddhism's Current Credibility Crisis
Robert Mayer

Enlightenment by a Single Means: Tibetan Controversies on the

"Self-Sufficient White Remedy" (dkar po chig thub) by David Jackson, Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,
Vienna, 1994. 220pp.
This excellent book comprises a study of one of the more notorious disputes within Tibetan Buddhist history, namely the fierce criticisms levelled by the Sa-skya Pandita Kun-dga' rgyal-mtshan (1182-1251) against
certain bKa' -brgyud-pa teachings, especially those formulated by Mi-Ia raspa's spiritual successor sCam-po-pa bsod-nams rin-chen (1079-1153). This
dispute was one of the more significant wrangles within Tibetan ecclesiastical history, and even now can occasionally arise as a cause of mental
anguish and turmoil for bKa' -brgyud-pa and Sa-skya-pa devotees alike.
What distinguishes David Jackson's treatment of this sensitive subject is
the meticulous precision and accuracy of his scholarship, which succeeds
in yielding a superb economy and clarity of presentation even while
marshalling a great number of different primary sources. Consistent with
his previous published offerings, Jackson's ethos is always to inform his
readers of important issues within Tibetan Buddhism, never merely to
impress and overawe them with any magisterial displays of his own scholarly virtuosity. As before, Jackson succeeds impressively in his genuinely
scholarly purpose.
The structure and layout of the book is characteristically well-planned.
The very useful and comprehensive table of contents at the front of the
book is reminiscent of a traditional Tibetan sa-bead in the exactness of its
tabulation. The actual subject matter is initially approached with Jackson'S
introduction to the book (pp.1-8); this is followed by seven chapters of
Jackson's analysis, each chapter being subdivided into a number of short
sub-sections (pp.9-146); finally, Jackson'S analysis is followed by extensive
presentations of primary texts and translations representing both sides of
the dispute (pp.147-188). The bibliography and indexes make up the remainder of the book (pp.190-220). There are also five full-page line drawings and a number of smaller illustrations.

80 THE TIBET JOURNAL

THE QUESTIO:\, OF REFLEXIVITY

In his introduction to the book, Jackson explains that his purpose is to

expand on the partial knowledge of this issue already presented by previous recent studies, through a systematic presentation of all the relevant
primary sources from three of the main protagonists, namely sGam-po-pa,
the bKa'-brgyud-pa master Zhang Tshal-pa (1123-1193), and the Sa-skya
Pandita himself. These important primary sources have never before been
systematically presented. Laudably, Jackson also comments at the outset
(p.6) that since his own attention has for so many years now been devoted to the person of the Sa-skya Pandita Kun-dga' rgyal-mtshan, despite
his best efforts he cannot confidently claim to have done full justice to the
position of the Sa-skya Pandita's bKa'-brgyud-pa opponents. Thus Jackson gives discreet but unambiguous warning to his readers that he maintains particular affiliations and loyalties to the figure of Sa-pan, and that
his readers should take heed of this fact as they study his book. SUch
reflexivity is very much in line with general methodological developments
within the broader contemporary academic world. To such contemporary
thinking, the claim to a completely "objective" standpoint on such predominantly ideological matters is highly problematic; a methodologically
sounder and intellectually more honest strategy is to know one's own
ideological predispositions, and build a general awareness of them into
one's analysis. In my view, this more contemporary approach constitutes
a great improvement on the sometimes implausible claims to a "totally
detached objectivity" still implicitly or even explicitly made by some other
Buddhological authors, whose ideological biases (whether Buddhist,
Christian or whatever) are nonetheless quite transparent to their more
learned readers at least, even if not to the general public (who might
therefore be deceived). Perhaps in this context the reviewer should. also
warn his readers that while, like David Jackson, he has affiliations to the
Sa-skya-pa school, he also has an interest in the other schools of Tibetan
Buddhism, particularly the rNying-ma-pa and the Ris-med movement,
thus including also the bKa' -brgyud-pa.
SA-PAN'S CRITIQUE

In Chapter One, Jackson sets out some of the key offending items from
sGam-po-pa's writings, most notably from the chapter on Perfect Wisdom
(Ch.17) in his Thar-pa rin-po-che'i rgyan (translated into English by H.V.
Guenther as The Jewel Ornament of Liberation). This famous text comprises
a systematic stages of the path (lam-rim) type of presentation of the basic
Mahayana Buddhist teachings drawn mainly from the old bKa'-gdams-pa
tradition of Atisa, most of it quite uncontroversial; it is only one subsection within its Ch.17 that contains some ideas which were castigated

REVIEW ARTICLES 81

by Sa-pan as heretical. In fact, Sa-pan not only believed these ideas were
wrong in themselves: he also thought they represented the views of the
Chinese Buddhist master Ho-shang Mo-ho-yen, and for Sa-pan any
Buddhist doctrine of Chinese origin must be heretical by definition. In
other contexts, Sa-pan also accused sCam-po-pa of introducing substantial
doctrinal innovations: again, for Sa-pan, all substantial doctrinal innovations were heresy by definition. In general, Sa-pan thought that sCampo-pa had repeatedly transgressed boundaries between the distinctive
methods appropriate to the causal vehicle (rgyu mtshan-nyidlphyi'i theg-pa)
of sutra and those appropriate to the fruitional vehicle Cbras-bu theg-pa) of
tantra (d. Bentor 1992). These boundaries and distinctions were held to
be inviolable within Sa-pan's particular scholastic system. In Chapter 2,
Jackson illustrates how sCam-po-pa and his school of meditators maintained a somewhat rhetorical critique of any purely intellectual path to
enlightenment, and how this critique was sometimes prone to err into a
vulgar and provocative disparagement of Buddhist scholarship as a whole.
In Chapter 3, Jackson describes the figure of Zhang Tshal-pa, a more
controversial bKa' -brgyud-pa master who is often seen as a particular
target of Sa-pan's criticisms.
THE BKA'-GOAMS-PA QUESTION
The arguments given in the context of sCam-po-pa's treatment of Perfect
Wisdom in his Thar-rgyan are important for the entire dispute, and Jackson describes them in detail. On the one hand, Sa-pan has no quibble
with sCam-po-pa's main presentation on how to cultivate Perfect Wisdom,
where sCam-po-pa follows the standard Mahayana causal vehicle methods. The subsection Sa-pan objects to is the one concerned with rjes-thob
or post-meditation, i.e., the one which gives instruction on how the bKa'brgyud-pa meditator who has already achieved some direct insight into
reality should sustain that realisation after or in between periods of formal
practice. An interesting aspect of this dispute which (quite understandably) falls outside Jackson's remit is the question of the possible significance of bKa'-gdams-pa ideas within this controversy. So, although
Jackson had no need to deal with this topic in his book, and although I
am a non-specialist in this field, I would like to raise the issue here in a
highly preliminary fashion (even if with such little erudition), because I
suspect it might in due course transpire to be an issue of some interest
that will eventually need to be addressed comprehensively.
In his treatment of rjes-thob in Ch.17 of the Thar-rgyan,sCam-po-pa seems
on the face of it to give a somewhat similar instruction to those found in
surviving traditions descending from the old bKa'-gdams-pa tradition,
such as the Seven Points of Mind Training (blo-sbyong don-bdun). However,

82 THE TIBET JOURNAL

sGam-po-pa seems to add something that I have not found in the Seven
Points of Mind Training (although, in the face of conflicting evidence and
with poor library facilities, I am not yet clear if it occured in other bKa'_
gdams-pa teachings or not). sGam-po-pa advises, " ... [between sessions],
by seeing all things as enchantment, merits such as liberality are accumulated
to the best of our power," compared with the Seven Point Mind Training,
which reads, more simply, "In between sessions, consider yourself a child
of illusion."l Of course, it is the additional gloss expressed in the second
part of sGam-po-pa's sentence which Sa-pan finds particularly dangerous.
Sa-pan is aware that sGam-po-pa evidently sees this context of rjes-thob
as one in which his students could or should move entirely beyond the
causal vehicle point of view, in which deliberate efforts are made to cultivate virtue. Rather, sGam-po-pa implies that during rjes-thob, they should
take up a truitional vehicle point of view, in which no such deliberate
efforts at cultivating virtue are made, but in which such virtues will arise
spontaneously as epiphenomena of absorption in the absolute. In keeping
with this view, then, sGam-po-pa quite explicitly identifies the meditation
on emptiness to be done during rjes-thob as meditation on the true nature
of mind (sems-nyid), which for him signifies the highest reality, or, more
importantly, which he sees as synonymous with the absolute bodhicitta.
Later on, this standpoint of avoiding deliberate efforts in the cultivation
of virtue during rjes-thob became even more vehemently supported by
later commentators of sGam-po-pa's school, such as Dwags-po bKra-shis
rnam-rgyal (1512-1587) (Lhalungpa 1986: 252).
So here we can discern the crux of the doctrinal dispute: in line with
the Tibetan yogic or meditational traditions in general (sgrub-brgyud), but
in sharp contrast to many of the more scholarly traditions such as Sapan's, sGam-po-pa believes that relative bodhicitta and absolute bodhicitta
(i.e., compassion and wisdom) are, from the fruitional point of view at
least, to be considered aspects or parts of a single undivided reality, an inherently indivisible union of wisdom and means, primordially united and
impossible to separate. Hence it is that sGam-po-pa concludes that from
direct absorption within emptiness in this fruitional context, which he sees
as identical to dwelling in the absolute bodhicitta or the nature of mind
(sems-nyid), all the virtues of the relative bodhicitta, such as generosity
etc., will emerge spontaneously. This is of course a view similar to that of
the tathagatagarbha doctrine, which sGam-po-pa strongly emphasises in the
opening chapter of his book. Thus sGam-po-pa believes that this absorption within emptiness from a strictly fruitional point of view (which is of
course made possible only in the context of the post-meditation experience
already having arisen), can become a self-sufficient practice within that
context (and that context alone): by maintaining this single practice of

REVIEW ARTICLES 83

continually dwelling within the absolute bodhicitta during rjes-thob, all

necessary spiritual developments for that phase of practice will spontaneously arise. Presumably, however, sCam-po-pa does not hold this to
be true when meditation on emptiness is done at other times, and especially when it is done from the causal point of view (i.e., for those
minds that have not yet attained the ability to dwell continuously and
directly upon or within non-conceptual absolute bodhicitta through the
power of yogic practices but which still rely on conceptual analyses of
emptiness), d. his own previous analysis of Perfect Wisdom earlier on in
Chapter 17 that Sa-pan accepts.
To my mind, one can easily see how Sa-pan came to see sCam-po-pa's
statements as potentially dangerous. Sa-pan did not share sCam-po-pa's
view of tathagatagarbha (which, as far as I know, was broadly in accord
with the later gzhan-stong interpretation), nor sCam-po-pa's closely related
view that wisdom and compassion are inherently inseparable. On the
contrary, like many other later Mahayana commentators of more scholarly
and less yogic outlook, Sa-pan favoured a much more apophatic description of emptiness. Because it placed little emphasis on the notion of an
immanent absolute, this apophatic stream of thought within later Mahayana had inevitably become highly sensitive to the notion that the sixth
paramita of wisdom was self-sufficient, and that the other five perfections
need not be deliberately cultivated, since they would all follow spontaneously from the practice of wisdom (Williams 1989: 44). Moreover, such
apophatic thinkers usually favoured the Perfection of Wisdom literature
as paradigmatic within Buddhism; and while there are indeed some passages in the voluminous Prajntiptiramita slltras and in Nagarjuna's writings
that can be construed as describing meditation on emptiness alone as a
completely self-sufficient practice,2 nevertheless the broader thrust of the
Prtijntiparamitti tradition is more usually seen as "perfecting" the first five
paramitas with the sixth (i.e., the view of emptiness), and this process
clearly implies that definite efforts must be made in generosity, patience,
morality etc., which are then to be joined with Wisdom. Civen such doctrinal presuppositions, then, Sa-pan presumably feared that to advocate
taking meditation on the Perfection of Wisdom alone as a single selfsufficient spiritual panacea, might undermine the very foundations of the
altruistic bodhisattva path so fundamental to the teachings of the Prtijntiparamita literature itself.
But was sCam-po-pa really advocating any such abandonment of altruism? Manifestly not: his description of meditation on emptiness was made
within a very specific context of rjes-thob, and the entirety of his Tharrgyan is devoted precisely to a most exhaustive exposition of the bodhisattva's altruism, explaining how one can and must make supreme,

84 THE TIBET JOURNAL

deliberate efforts in love, compassion, generosity, patience, morality etc.

Does that imply Sa-pan's critique was merely quixotic or worse? Although
I feel that his different doctrinal presuppositions put Sa-pan at cross
purposes to sCam-po-pa in important respects, nevertheless, like Jackson,
I believe his critique was not futile: precisely by making his critique so
forceful, Sa-pan effectively closed the door to any later misunderstandings
of sCam-po-pa's teachings that might seek to extend them and apply them
out of the context of rjes-thob (it is a fact that to this day, bKa' -brgyud-pa
masters still invariably find themselves compelled to respond to Sa-pan's
criticisms!).
To better understand the deeper significance of Sa-pan's polemics, one
can look at a historical example: the marriage of the military arts in Japan
(such as swordsmanship) with the Zen cultivation of Mahayana emptiness
alone, unaccompanied by any deliberate cultivation of compassion, or
Tantric transmission. In medieval Japan, the purpose of Zen swordsmanship and the other Zen martial arts for their samurai exponents was generally little more than an attempt to maximise the fighting man's effectiveness, to train a warrior through Zen meditative techniques to become a
fearless, unthinking and spontaneously effective killing machine. In this
training, compassion was apparently not a central value; on the contrary,
its predominant feature was that the Japanese warrior ethos of blood and
honour (bushido) comprehensively clothed itself in the language of Buddhist Emptiness (Hoover 1978: 57-67). To my mind, this seems to afford an
illustration of how, under extreme duress, teachings on emptiness as a
self-sufficient panacea are probably more easily prone to a misconstrual
that can subvert the compassionate ethos central to the Prajnaparamita
tradition. 3
In this context, it is also noteworthy that Jackson follows several later
Tibetan sources which suggest that the actual occasion of Sa-pan's critique
was his personal encounter with the thriving spiritual heritage of Curu
Zhang, founder of the Tshal-pa tradition, an allegedly eccentric bKa'brgyud-pa siddha who had led his followers in military battles and skirmishes with nearby princes, bandits and brigands, in his attempts to bring
order to the lawless lands around sKyid-chu. Zhang is said to have further developed and extended sCam-po-pa's self-sufficient panacea teachings, and was also (in)famous for teaching the battlefield situation as a
meditation. The saintly Karma-pa Dus-gsum mKhyen-pa (1110-1193) is said
to have eventually persuaded Zhang to adopt a more peaceful style. 4
sCam-po-pa presents his views on rjes-thob with a long string of quotations from a variety of sources including both sutras and tantras, but gives
the last word to Atisa: "And Atisa declared, 'When the mind is composed
and centred on the one, there is no need to work for the good with body

REVIEW ARTICLES 85

or ~peech'" (trans. Guenther 1971: 224). 5 It is interesting how sGam-po-pa's

interpretation of Atisa seems to be so normative within the sgrub-brgyud
traditions of Tibetan Buddhism although r am not clear if dGe-Iugs-pa
sources accept this. For example, a more modern author such as dPal-sprul
(1808-1887), in his Kun-bzang bla-ma'i zhal-Iung, reports a question-andansv,;er session between Atisa and his leading Tibetan disciple, 'Brom-ston
(1005-1064), which likewise puts the dkar-po chig-thub position expounded
by sCam-po-pa directly into the mouth of Atisa himself. 6 The context is
dPal-sprul's discussion of the perfection of wisdom, but specifically within
the rubric of training in the bodhicitta of application (which traditionally
implies training in the six paramitas: bodhiprasthanacitta, d. Sik$asamuccaya
8.15 and Bodhicaryavattira 1.15; Dayal 1978: 62). Note also that sCam-po-pa's
own sa-bead to the Thar-rgyan likewise places his own dkar-po chig-thub
passages within the practice of perfect wisdom as a subsection of bodhiprasthtinacitta. In his book, dPal-sprul categorises training in perfect wisdom according to the three standard types of hearing, reflection and
meditating (srutamayf, cinttimayf, bhtivanamayf). The relevant passages attributed to Atisa occur in dPal-sprul's section on bhtivanamayf. It is worth
quoting in full because it underlines how the Tibetan sgrub-brgyud traditions, who of course in key contexts tend to interpret emptiness as a
synonym for the absolute bodhicitta, will thereby often tend to link the
"emptiness as a dkar-po chig-thub" discourse with their often bKa'-gdamspa-derived teachings on bodhicitta in general. Now, what Jackson does
not mention (this is not a fault, it falls beyond the scope of his undertaking) is that a characterisation of the bodhicitta in more general terms
as a universal panacea is manifestly not limited to these Tibetan sgrubbrgyud traditions alone: Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara (1.10 & 26) and the
Muhayanusutralanzkara (16), for example, also liken bodhicitta to a universal
panacea (Dayal 1978: 62; Williams 1989: 198)? while passages from the
Ak$ayamatinirdesa said to be cited by Atisa give paeans of praise to bodhidtta that might easily be interpreted as amounting to the same thing. 8
Unsurprisingly, dGe-lugs-pa teachings on bodhicitta pick up this theme,
for example the present Dalai Lama writes of the bodhidtta that "indeed
it is the sale universal panacea" (Tenzin Gyatso 1979: 112),9 here in apparent disagreement with Sa-pal~, who rejected any sort of "Sole Universal
Panacea."
From a historical point of view, then, the question arises, did some of
the sgrub-brgyud traditions in general, or at least sGam-po-pa's, first adopt
or adapt by extension the single self-sufficient remedy imagery from the
bKa' -gdams-pa teachings on the cultivation of bodhicitta? Might it still be
the case that meditations on emptiness are in general only secondarily
called a self-sufficient remedy, i.e., when they are subsumed within a prior

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rubric of meditation on bodhicitta, or, perhaps, where meditation on

emptiness might be analysed as the highest phase of the training in application bodhicitta involving direct meditation upon sems-nyid? Thus the
underlying logic of the sgrub-brgyud position might be as follows:
1) Scriptural sources describe bodhicitta as a self-sufficient remedy;
2) Meditation on emptiness as sems-nyid [from a strictly resultant
point of view] is identical to dwelling within absolute bodhicitta
[and absolute bodhicitta inherently subsumes relative bod hicitta];
3) therefore such meditation on emptiness is a self-sufficient
remedy.
But let us return to dPal-sprul's citation of Atisa, within dPal-sprul's
presentation of meditating on "emptiness of which compassion is the very
essence" as the quintessence of the practice of application bodhicitta:
Drom Tonpa once asked Atisha what was the ultimate of all teachings. "Of all
teachings, the ultimate is emptiness of which compassion is the very essence,"
replied the Master. "Realization of the truth of emptiness, the nature of reality,
is like a very powerful medicine, a panacea which can cure every disease in
the world. It is the remedy for all the different negative emotions."
"Why is it then," Drom Tonpa went on, "that so many people who claim
to have realized emptiness have no less attachment and hatred?"
"Because their realization is only words," Atisha replied. "Had they really
grasped the true meaning of emptiness, their thoughts, words and deeds
would be as soft as cotton wool or tsampa soup laced with butter. The Master
Aryadeva said that even to wonder whether or not all things were empty by
nature would make samsara fall apart. True realization of emptiness, therefore,
is the ultimate panacea which includes all the elements of the path."
"How can every element of the path be included within the realization of
emptiness?" Drom Tonpa asked.
"All the elements of the path are contained in the six transcendent perfection. Now, if you truly realize emptiness, you become free from attachment.
As you feel no craving, grasping or desire for anything within or without, you
always have transcendent generosity. Being free from grasping and attachment, you are never defiled by negative actions, so you always have transcendent discipline. Without any concepts of T and 'mine' you have no anger, so you always have transcendent patience. Your mind made truly joyful
by the realization of emptiness, you always have transcendent diligence. Being
free from distraction, which comes from grasping at things as solid, you always have transcendent concentration. As you do not conceptualize anything
whatsoever in terms of subject, object and action, you always have transcendent wisdom."

REVIEW ARTICLES 87
"Do those who have realized the truth become Buddhas simply by meditating on the view of emptiness?" Drom Tonpa asked.
"Of all that we perceive as forms and sounds there is nothing that does not
arise from the mind. To realize that the mind is awareness indivisible from
emptiness is the view. Keeping this realization in mind at all times, and never
being distracted from it, is meditation. To practice the two accumulations as a
magical illusion from within that state is action. If you make a living experience
of this practice, it will continue in your dreams. If it comes in the dream state,
it will come at the moment of death. And if it comes at the moment of death
it will come in the intermediate state. If it is present in the intermediate state
you may be certain of attaining supreme accomplishment" (PatruI1994: 255-6).

Summing up this long quote from Atisa, dPal-sprul concludes that all
84,000 doors to the dharma taught by the Buddha" are all skilful means
to cause the bodhicitta-emptiness of which compassion is the very
essence-to arise in us." (Patrul 1994: 256). Obviously, the nub of dPalsprul's (and sGam-po-pa's) position is that wisdom and compassion are,
from the resultant perspective! indivisibly inseparable.
Within the generality of Buddhist doctrine, to see bodhicitta as having
the nature of both emptiness and compassion is not unusual, but the
sgrub-brgyud tradition of emphasising the absolutely inalienable and indivisible inseparability of wisdom and compassion within absolute bodhicitta might historically derive less from the earlier Prajnaparamita scriptures
than from tathtigatagarbha doctrine, or else from texts such as the Samdhinirmocana Satra, the original source of the distinction between ultimate
and relative bodhicittas, which defined ultimate bodhicitta as the radiant
mind of an enlightened being! possessed of compassion. As the Yoga carin
Sthiramati saw it (following the Samdhinirmocana SIUra), "bodhicitta is
equal to the dharmakaya as it manifests itself in the human heart" (Williams
1989: 203). Later, the understanding of absolute bodhicitta as the ultimate
nature of mind primordially complete with all enlightened qualities,
became one of the fundamental metaphors of early rDzogs-chen writings;
for example, the Sems-sde series is precisely named after such meditation
on bodhicitta as the absolute (sems = byang-chub sems);10 and of course,
the similarities of such Sems-sde doctrines to sGam-po-pa's teachings on
sems-nyid was not lost upon Sa-pan, who held the rDzogs-chen tradition
as deeply suspect in lacking an Indic pedigree.
The belief in the absolute indivisible unity of wisdom and means from
the point of view of ultimate truth, then, is what underpins the belief of
the sJs"fub-brgyud traditions that when yogins have developed through
intensive meditation enough realisation to actually practise from the fruitional point of view, then they are best advised to simply dwell continuously within sems-nyid (the absolute bodhicitta) during rjes-thob; this is

88 THE TIBET JOURNAL

understood to be the true nature of mind, which is emptiness. From this

single practice of dwelling within absolute bodhicitta, it is believed all
other qualities of the relative bodhicitta will arise spontaneously. They
often add that the best way to meditate on sems-nyid or the absolute
bodhicitta is through merging one's mind with the guru, because the
enlightened mind of the guru is absolute bodhicitta, a belief apparently
espoused also by Tsongkhapa (Williams 1989: 203). That a scholarly figure
like Sa-pan objected to these meditator's views is entirely predictable:
what we have here is one more instance of the perennial Buddhist conversation between yogins and scholars, between what Geoffrey Samuel
has termed the" clerical" and "shamanic" currents within Buddhism, between those who think in terms of an immanent absolute and those who
think in terms of a more apophatic understanding of emptiness; in short,
a conversation which is usually friendly, but which can, under certain
historical circumstances, become quite abusive.
Now, it is clear that the above views attributed by dPal-sprul to Atisa
are identical to those views of sGam-po-pa attacked by Sa-pan. My question is, in criticising the bKa'-brgyud-pas, to what extent was Sa-pan also
implicitly attacking the bKa' -gdams-pas, or their teachings on bodhicitta?
Of course, I cannot say if dPal-sprul's attribution of these views to Atisa
and 'Brom-ston is historically accurate, alth.ough there is some independent evidence that Atisa accepted an indivisible continuity of absolute and
relative bodhicitta, in this perhaps following some of the Yogacara traditions. ll However, it is fascinating to see that, as Jackson reports (p.1l8,
n.275 and p.87, n.215), Sa-pan did undoubtedly reject the bKa'-gdams-pa
tradition as inauthentic (along with the rDzogs-chen, the gCod-yul etc.),
because it had no proper Indian pedigree, being merely a tradition invented by the "[Tibetan) old-timers" (rgan-po), or "elders of Tibet" (bod
bgres-po).12 To hold such inauthentic non-Indic traditions as supreme, SapaJ) wrote, "is the conduct of the ignorant," as foolish as being a follower
of "the non-Buddhist Indian sectarians" (p.1l8). Perhaps this is one area
where more research is still required: we need to know to what extent Sapan's attack on sGam-po-pa was in part founded on his disapproval of the
old bKa' -gdams-pa tradition.1 3 We also need to ascertain, of course,
whether Atisa's views, or those of the later bKa'-gdams-pa tradition, were
indeed as dPal-sprul and sGam-po-pa suggest, especially since other
sources (such as the dGe-Iugs-pa) might attribute quite different (i.e., less
gzhan-stong-congruent) views to him and to 'Brom-ston-pa!
SG/\M-PO-PA AND MO-HO-YEN

Be that as it may, Sa-pan apparently saw sGam-po-pa's move into such

fruitional contemplative methods within chapter 17 of the Thar-rman as

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a heresy based on the proscribed views of the Chinese master MO-ho-yen.

For Sa-pan, it seems that fruitional meditations like this had little or no
place at all in a stltrayana context: as I understand it, he seems to have felt
that once one admits a fruitional-vehicle method into a stltrayana context,
the basic distinction between stltrayana and tantrayana becomes eroded
(p.88-90) (again, d. Bentor 1992). From Sa-pan's perspective, then, it was
surely little wonder that sGam-po-pa ended up making two innovative
developments that Sa-pan most vehemently condemned, not only because
Sa-pan disapproved all doctrinal innovations whatsoever, but also because
these two developments so flagrantly transgressed what Sa-pan saw as
the proper boundaries between Stltra and Tantra: sCam-po-pa first started
talking about a Stltra Mahamudra as opposed to the Tantra Mahamudra
inherited from the Indian siddhas, and then even of an Essence Mahamudra beyond any yana! (1 shall turn to Sa-pan's views on innovation
presently).
Jackson suggests some interesting justifications for Sa-pan's charge that
sGam-po-pa was reviving Mo-ho-yen's "heresy." Jackson uses modern
philological research to argue that sCam-po-pa is indeed in Ch.17 of the
Thar-rgyan quoting (inter alia, it has to be admitted, among many other
Indic materials), from Mahayana stltra texts which, while already listed in
the state-approved IOan-kar-rna catalogue of the early translation period,
and which were also in due course to be accepted by the Tibetan Kanjurmakers, (who of course only finalised their work much later), nevertheless
had entered Tibet from Chinese sources. Not only that, but these texts
were indeed used by the very Ch'an traditions (such as Mo-ho-yen's) once
active in Tibet (p.22-23). Since sCam-po-pa's quotations formed a coherent
sequential list of pre-prepared quotes taken from a group of these sources,
Jackson argues that sGam-po-pa could only have got such a list of quotations from what Sa-pan saw as "heretical" textual sources, either from
"illicit" literature left behind by Chinese masters such as Mo-ho-yen in the
8th century that had somehow survived being purged, or (as I believe
more likely), from what Sa-pan saw as equally "heretical" writings such
as those of the early rNying ma-pa master gNubs Sangs-rgyas ye-shes
(p.24). Jackson's argument is philologically reasonable: one might question
if sGam-po-pa put the list together himself by browsing through the
Sutra-pitaka even granted that proto-canonical collections were probably
available to him.
Later (p.140), Jackson supports Sa-pan once more when he concludes
that the mere existence of these quotations from Chinese-originated texts
within the Thar-rgyan must create difficulties even for sGam-po-pa's own
followers, i.e., that this must render sGam-po-pa unsound even by the
criteria of his own followers. This might be true for some of sGampo-pa's

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followers, but it certainly need not be for all of them: not only were these
texts included in the Kanjur but, as several authors including David
Snellgrove (1987: 436) and David Seyfort Ruegg (1989: 137) have pointed
out, not all Tibetan traditions have adopted such a uniformly hostile
attitude to Chinese Buddhism or even to Mo-ho-yen as Jackson's reasoning presupposes. On the contrary, writes Seyfort Ruegg, some "adopted
a noticeably more conciliatory stance toward the teachings they connected
with the Hva san." Could it not be that in using a token percentage of
Chinese-originated Buddhist sources in his Thar-rgyan (albeit sources
widely accepted in Tibet especially by rDzogs-chen-pas), sGam-po-pa was
consciously seeking both to associate himself with rNying-ma-pa colleagues, and to distance himself from what he saw as vulgar religious
bigotry? Certainly, several rNying-ma-pa masters have taken quite tolerant
positions towards Chinese Buddhism: while proudly identifying themselves as the heirs of Santaraksita and Kamalaslla,l'! they nevertheless
found the courage to defy the belligerence of popular prejudice by representing the Chinese Buddhist traditions as a partial virtue rather than
an absolute evil. Such a stand was for them a consciously adopted ideological position. Perhaps sGam-po-pa thus saw important spiritual reasons
to align himself with his rDzogs-chen-pa spiritual friends, who probably
regarded the traditions of Mo-ho-yen as possessing some definite worth,
even if much less than those of their own Indian masters, and who probably deplored as the sin of slandering bodhisattvas the unthinking and
unmitigated contempt widely levelled at Chinese Buddhism as a whole
and Mo-ho-yen in particular.
MEDITATORS AND SCHOLARS

Some of the most useful sections of this excellent book are Chapters Four
and Five, where Jackson sets out Sa-pan's precise criticisms of the bKa'- '
brgyud-pa, and what he calls Sa-pan's "principles of critical doctrinal
scholarship." Here we find a fascinating manifesto for Tibetan (or even
Buddhist) clericalism as a whole. As one might expect, the contrast with
sGam-po-pa's practice lineage is stark. While Sa-pan the statesman and
logician applies the law of the excluded middle to construct an invariable
set of rules about Buddhist doctrine which he aspires to see applied
globally, sGam-po-pa the hermit and spiritual physician is a pragmatist
who cares little for logical inconsistencies or academic categories, so long
as his remedies work for his own disciples locally. Once again, we have
a classic confrontation of the contrasting value systems of "respectability"
and "reputation" (d. Wilson 1973), which Geoffrey Samuel has so convincingly linked to what he terms the "clerical" and "shamanic" currents that

REVIEW ARTICLES 91

pervade all of Buddhism (Samuel 1993: 215-217). In this case, the confrontation was rendered more acute by historical factors: Sa-pan and
sCam-po-pa are widely seen as culture-heroes around whom were formed
(to a substantial extent) the clerical and shamanic poles of subsequent
Buddhism in Tibet. As prime exemplars for their currents, a degree of
polarisation in their self-representations was predictable, and (arguably)
even historically useful for Buddhism as a whole. Yet it is significant how
quickly the" contradictory" elements between the Sa-skya-pa and bKa'brgyud-pa paths (as expressed by these founding figures), were subsumed
within the much greater complimentarities which they offered each other:
unsurprisingly, it was not very long before most lamas following these
traditions transmitted teachings from both sides. Jackson graphically
alludes to such underlying complimentarities with his postscript, in which
he describes the interconnected legends of two Indian siddhas, the "mattock-man" Kotali and the great scholar Santipa.

A COr\TEMPORII..RY CRISIS FOR CLERICAL BUDDHISM

jackson's discussion of Sa-pan's underlying principles are admirably lucid.
However, by setting out Sa-pan's concerns so clearly, Jackson's book also
exposes, perhaps ominously, how the whole edifice of Buddhist clericalism
is currently facing a crisis of credibility that does not currently threaten
the sgrub-brgyud traditions such as sCam-po-pa's to the same extent. I feel
this crisis is of more than localised importance, and will comprehensively
affect the way in which figures such as Sa-pan and Tsong-kha-pa will
come to be seen in future years.
There are several aspects to this crisis, but here I shall focus solely on
the issue of canonicity. In general terms, Tibetan clericalism is so highly
rationalised, so deeply committed to logic, that it cannot easily defy the
dictates of evidence and sound reasoning and still survive with its prestige and self-confidence intact. Not only that, but the Tibetan clerical
tradition, for so long cocooned in its pre-modern world-view, has never
sensed any dangers in founding itself upon a set of fundamental axioms
or "metanarratives" that quite frequently take the form of empirically
falsifiable propositions. Now, precisely such falsifiable propositions have
been employed as the basis upon which to establish and maintain the
criteria of a universal and normative Buddhist canonical orthodoxy; this
was an undertaking which clerical Buddhism has consistently seen as one
of its most important functions and responsibilities, and which was so
overwhelmingly important to Sa-pan.
The problem is, however, that many of these key logical underpinnings
for the clerical interpretation of canonical orthodoxy now appear to have
been irrevocably falsified by modern learning. To make matters worse, the

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centralising aspirations of Buddhist clericalism, its very wish to impose

universally its views of canonical orthodoxy, are nowadays all too easily
interpretable as a morally dubious religious hegemonism or intolerance.
This negative interpretation is particularly exacerbated when the hegemonistic aspirations of clerical Buddhism are seen to be based on manifestly untrue axioms, i.e., upon criteria of canonical orthodoxy that now
appear to have been merely ideological rather than based on empirical
fact, (d. Foucault and his analysis of "discourses of power").
Conversely, the practice lineages have usually taken lightly or even
explicitly repudiated these clerical concerns with canonical purity, instead
taking a view (perhaps fortuitously?) much closer to that of modern textual historians. Above all, in basing themselves mainly on more pragmatic,
flexible (and unfalsifiable!) principles of spiritual efficacy, they are currently gaining in relative prestige. Not only is their intense, direct version
of spirituality feeding a modern spiritual hunger, but they can also increasingly claim the contemporary moral high-ground, appearing as Buddhism's unjustly maligned, non-political mystics in contrast to the hectoring, political clerics.
To illustrate, let us look at three specific key points in Sa-pan's writings:
1) firstly, there is the strongly held notion that the complete
buddhavacana in its entirety had already been expounded in

India by the historical Buddha in person, who had taught his

doctrine both well and completely; and that moreover, the
various ramifications of this buddhavacana had already been
comprehensively expounded by the great masters of India
through the different Indic commentarial traditions (p.99ff);
2) consequently, Sa-pan rejected all fresh canonical revelation and
doctrinal innovation; rather, he believed it was of overwhelming
importance that each valid tradition inherited from India should
remain intact, carefully preserved as in aspic without any
innovations or changes being made to it in Tibet;
3) thirdly, he held that the legitimacy of any disputed doctrine
must be established in debate by "sound reasoning grounded in
objective fact" (p.92ff).
Now, it was precisely by applying these three principles that Sa-pan
rejected sGam-po-pa's two main innovations, the Sutra Mahamudra and
the Mahamudra "beyond any yana.,,15 Sa-pan argued against sGam-po-pa
that:
1) it was an incontrovertible, objective fact that the historical

Buddha himself had taught the MahamuClra tradition inherited

REVIEW ARTICLES 93

by sGam-po-pa solely and exclusively within the canonical

tantras, in this case, those of the Cakrasamvara cycle; (i.e.,
Mahamudra had never been taught in the sutras);
2) ergo it can be inferred by valid reasoning that sGam-po-pa
contradicted his own authentic received canonical tradition of
the Buddha's teachings, when he introduced the innovation of
divorcing Mahamudra from the tantric context and introducing
a Sfltra Mahamudra.
But modern scholarship turns Sa-pan's world inside out and upside
down in ways he could never have expected. Far from being taught by
the historical Buddha as Sa-pan believed, we now perceive the "incontrovertible, objective fact" to be that the Cakrasamvara tantras in question
were produced 12 centuries or more after the Buddha's passing; not only
that, but we also believe that they comprised predominantly Saiva materials, adapted to its own use by Buddhism. 16 Moreover, we also know that
virtually none of the multitude of other scriptures so revered as "authentically canonical" by Sa-pan could ever have been uttered by the historical
Buddha at all, as he thought: on the contrary, they were all later "innovations." Nor were they necessarily even Indic: recent research (Jan Nattier,
JIABS 15: 2, 1992) suggests that even the Heart Sutra, arguably the most
heavily-commentated upon of all Mahayana scriptures in India, was probably redacted in China. Thus it is quite clear that virtually the entirety of
Sa-pan's zealously established canon of valid scripture in truth fell well
outside of Sa-pan's own criteria of "canonical authenticity," and for
exactly the same reasons as the gter-ma and Chinese-originated texts he so
deplored! So if we take Sa-pan seriously, (rather than patronising him as
a quaint medieval for whom we have to make allowances), and examine
his own canon according to his own criteria, in the light of modern knowledge it is now the entire edifice of his own construction of canonical
scriptural orthodoxy which is utterly and totally shattered.
Yet ironically the same is not true of the sgrub-brgyud traditions he criticised: here, modern scholarship vindicates their position after alL A great
many or even most voices within the rNying-ma-pa tradition have consistently maintained (often in the face of fierce criticism from the likes of Sapan) that the Mahayana and Vajrayana scriptures arose out of ongoing
revelation and innovation after the death of the historical Buddha (Dudjom 1991: 441, 456; Gyatso 1994; Mayer 1996: 51-55). These rNying-ma-pa
voices have maintained that systematic methods of ongoing revelation and
innovation were taught as an inalienable aspect of the Mahayana dispensation in the earliest Mahayana sutras such as the Pratyutpannabuddhasamukhtivasthita-sutra, that these systems were historically practised in

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India, Central Asia and China, and that the rNying-ma-pa uphold these
traditions within Tibet into the present day (gter-ma and dag-snang). In
general, the rNying-ma-pa found support and protection among the bKa'brgyud-pas. Now, modern philology powerfully supports their claims as
well. 17 Far from being the unreasonable and inauthentic Buddhist fringe
that Sa-pan portrays, to the modern sensibility they might increasingly
appear as Buddhism's still, small voice of truth about the real origins of
its own canonical scriptures, that somehow withstood centuries of propaganda and even occasional persecution from the more powerful and political clerics such as Sa_pan. 18 So the question must be addressed: if so
many rNying-ma-pa authors (including Sa-pan's contemporaries) correctly
understood the later, revealed nature of the Mahayana and Vajrayana
scriptures, by what special pleading must we make allowances for Sapan's error in attributing these texts to the mouth of the historical
Buddha, and moreover using this false claim as the main basis of his
attack upon the hapless but more correct rNying-ma-pa?
As well as putting an entirely different perspective on the principle of
ongoing scriptural revelation that Sa-pan rejected in the name of canonical orthodoxy, modern knowledge can also put a different colouration
on sGam-po-pa's specific doctrinal innovations that Sa-pan had singled
out for criticism. We cannot, of course, be certain if sGam-po-pa was
aware of the intertextuality of the scriptures he inherited from India with
particular Saiva traditions}9 but his introduction of Slltra and Essence
Mahamudra systems can nevertheless be seen as historically appropriate,
in that it completed the Mahayanisation and Buddhicisation of the Saiva
materials which in some respects remained as yet somewhat ill-digested
in the Indic Cakrasamvara source texts. The Essence Mahamudra in particular comprises a simple synopsis of basic Buddhist teachings, drawing
together the central doctrines of Hinayana, Yogacara and Madhyamaka in
a simple and uncontroversial way;20 by establishing this Essence Mahamudra fair and square at the heart or apex of the otherwise uncomfortably
Saiva-derived set of tantric methods taught in the Cakrasamvara cycle
(such as gtum-mo), sGam-po-pa and his followers can be seen as having
reinforced and completed the final historical Mahayana Buddhist overcoding of this otherwise potentially ambivalent Indic Tantric tradition (cf.
"taming," 'dul-ba). Especially for a sgrub-brgyud lineage that did not envisage years of training in Mahayana tenets before approaching tantric practice, such further Buddhicisation can be seen as a praiseworthy historical
achievement by sGam-po-pa's tradition.
Do the above observations mean that the central clerical Buddhist concern so ardently pursued over so many centuries by so many great figures
such as Sa-pan and Tsong-kha-pa, namely the quest to establish correct

REVIEW ARTICLES 95

parameters for a Buddhist canonical and doctrinal orthodoxy, must now

be discarded as an outmoded absurdity because it is based on fallacious
historical understandings? I hope and believe not: hope, because I strongly suspect that without a healthy clerical current to act as a stabilising
force, the Buddhist dispensation will tend towards a quite unbeneficial
disintegration;21 believe, because I fully expect that the clerical Buddhism
(of Tibet at least) will increasingly manage to reassert itself in new and
historically more appropriate ways. Perhaps what clerical Buddhism must
do to adequately meet contemporary conditions, however, is to dig deep
and rediscover its underlying first principles, to enter into a self-reflexive
re-appraisal of what its fundamental concerns actually are, to begin a fresh
analysis that looks (as did Sa-pan) more historically, more globally, more
wholistically, than has been customary at less critical times. Perhaps controversially, my own view (and here I seem to differ diametrically from
the major academic apologists for Buddhist clericalism such as David
Seyfort Ruegg and David Jackson), is that such a regeneration of clerical
Buddhism can only be achieved if clerical Buddhism is to come out and
frankly admit that its role is (in part at least) inherently a political one,
albeit in the most virtuous sense of that much-misunderstood and complex
term. To illustrate: clerical Buddhism does and should aspire (inter alia)
to put intelligent and reasoned restraints on doctrinal and canonical
innovations, but there is no point in trying to deny that the exercise of
restraint on such a broad scale is necessarily a political enterprise, that is,
within the full sociological meaning of the term "political," rather than in
its naive popular usage. 22
To my mind, the genius of Tibetan Buddhism's great clerical figures has
usually been distinguished by precisely such an appreciation of a political
aspect to their task: to be a major clerical figure implies a role in Buddhist
social leadership, which in turn implies an acceptance of the responsibility
to engage virtuously in religious politics. Historically, such responsible
Buddhist leadership has above all been concerned with maintaining a correct balance between what Geoffrey Samuel has called the "clerical" and
"shamanic" currents within the Buddhist dispensation, making sure that
the pendulum of Buddhist culture avoids swinging too far in one direction or the other. Thus Sa-pan, faced simultaneously with the catastrophic
destruction of the Buddhist tradition in India on the one hand and the
proliferation of "shamanic" doctrinal innovation in Tibet on the other
hand, valiantly struggled to preserve what little was left of the Indic
"clerical" heritage in his time, to the immense benefit of subsequent
generations. Likewise, Tsong-kha-pa achieved a refocusing on central
BUddhist values and ethics much needed in his time, while more recently
mKhyen-brtse dbang-po and 'Jam-mgon Kong-sprul (the great clerical

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figures of Ris-med) achieved the successful regeneration of the "shamanic"

current and a dissolving of clerical" ossification and sectarianism that was
so urgently required in their time. Most recently, we have the contempo_
rary figure of the 14th Dalai Lama, whose (to my mind entirely virtuous)
religious-political purpose has been two-fold: internally, within Tibetan
Buddhism, he has achieved a reconciliation between the dGe-Iugs-pa and
Ris-med-pa traditions (which has required a politically fraught repudiation
of rDo-rje Shugs-Idan), while externally, on the world stage, he has
sought to establish the universally comprehensible and attractive doctrines
of compassion and the Bodhisattva conduct as the contemporary parameters of Buddhist orthodoxy, in place of any remote and abstruse formulations of the doctrine of emptiness.
Thus many of the seminal clerical figures of the past have expounded
different or even conflicting doctrines and tenets and have pursued differing agendas, but all alike have been motivated with the same, central,
unavoidably political concern of the clerical Buddhist leader: to steer the
Buddhist culture of their time away from potentially dangerous or extreme trajectories, and to help it retain a stable balance. In that respect,
their views are to some degree historically contingent, uttered for a certain time to achieve certain results in the context of specific conditions,
and might therefore eventually become anachronistic, for example, as I
believe, some of Sa-pan's ideas on canonicity have become. On the other
hand, their deeper, underlying inspiration remains the same: to employ
skilful means (upaya) to sustain the well-being of the Buddhist sasana
through the vicissitudes of history. As with all skilful means, however,
one must know when the time has come to relinquish them and take up
a different upaya.
II

Notes
1. Neither sGam-po-pa's Chapter 17, nor the various surviving versions of the
Seven Point Mind Training available to me, give any additional instruction
for the rjes-thob other than these. Unfortunately, Jackson does not quote the
Tibetan text of sGam-po-pa's opening keynote phrase that sums up and
introduces this sub-section on rjes-thob, nor do I currently have the Tibetan
text available; hence I can only quote Guenther's translation above (Guenther
1971: 218).
The equivalent phrase from the only Tibetan version of the Seven Points
of Mind Training available to me is: thun mtshams sgyu ma'i skyes bur bya I, "In
between sessions, consider yourself a child of illusion." dGe-'dun grub (Dalai
Lama I, 1391-1474), glosses this as follows: "In those times when you have
arisen from your meditation cushion, and consciousness and its objects seem
to truly exist, meditate on the thought, 'They seem to exist, yet they are like
an illusion and like things seen in a dream'." (trans. Mullin 1993: 134). Geshe

REVIEW ARTICLES 97
Rabten and Ceshe Ngawang Dhargyey give the same advice, adding that to
meditate on all phenomena as empty during the rje-thob phase protects the
mind against emotional afflictions (Rabten & Dhargyey 1977: 45-46). It seems,
then, that these dCe-Iugs-pa sources agree with sCam-po-pa that meditation
on emptiness is sufficient for rje-thob, while they do not say, as does sCam-popa, that generosity etc. are thereby spontaneously accomplished.
2. For example, Ratnagunasamcayagiitha 3.7-8; 4.5-7; 25.4-5; Astasahasrika. 3.4; 25.
3; Conze's The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom, Chapter 59, page 470, here
quoting the Cilgit ms. of the Astadasasahasrika-prajr1aparamita (=Abhisamayalaqlkara V 5).
3. There is, however, a certain historical irony here: it is widely believed that the
long-lasting marriage of Zen with the samurai military arts might never have
happened, but for the extreme national trauma occasioned by the Mongol
attempts to invade Japan (Hoover 1978: 60). Yet at the very time of the
Mongol attempts on Japan (between 1268 and 1281), it seems to have been
none other than Sa-pan's direct successor and nephew 'Phags-pa (1235-1280)
who held the role of Qubilai's main tantric siddha or priest; and, as Sperling
has shown, a central part of this position lay in the propitiation of Mahakala
to assist the purposes of the state or monarch, be they military or otherwise!
This role had been taken over by the Sa-pan and 'Phags-pa from the
bKa' -brgyud-pas, in this specific instance quite possibly from the Tshal-pa
subsect (see next note; d. Sperling 1990: 147-148). The changeover was probably not entirely without acrimony, since there exists literary evidence indicating that some bKa'-brgyud-pas saw it as an unwelcome usurpation of an
important position that was to some degree the possession of the bKa'brgyud-pas by right (Sperling 1994: 806). The position of imperial priest had
originally been held by a succession of bKa' -brgyud-pa siddhas, at first on
behalf of the Buddhist Tangut empire, and then on behalf of its more warlike
Mongol successor state under Kaden (Sperling 1994), from where Qubilai
later adopted the institution into Chinese court circles too.
Be that as it may, we know beyond doubt that one of 'Phags-pa's official
dulies was to propitiate Mahakala in support of Mongol military and political
objectives (Sperling 1994: 805). It is therefore highly possible that 'Phags-pa
was requested by Qubilai to do Mahakala sadhanas to assist his invasion of
Japan, although 'Phags-pa had presumably already died before the catastrophic destruction of the Mongol fleet by the legendary kamikaze typhoon
in the early summer of 1281. Nevertheless it was this invasion which possibly
contributed to precisely the kind of distortion within Japanese Buddhism that
Sa-pan had apparently sought to prevent in Tibet.
4. Seyfort Ruegg, however, mentions sources that suggest the 'Bri-gung-pa's
dGongs-gcig teachings as well as Guru Zhang's tradition as being the target
of Sa-pan's critique (Ruegg 1989: 109), while Dan Martin sees the sDom-gsum
as more concerned to refute bKa'-gdams-pa doctrines than bKa'-brgyud-pa
(personal communication, 30/9/96. There is a little external evidence suggesting that the 'Bri-gung connection might be more significant than Jackson indicates. While the notorious revolt (gling-log) of 'Bri-gung against Sa-skya-pa

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rule leading to the sack of 'Bri-gung in 1290 came four decades after Sa-pan's
time, nevertheless, according to a recent communication from Elliot Sperling,
there is one historical tradition indicative of earlier tensions or conflicts
between Sa-pan in person and some individual 'Bri-gung-pas. Sperling has
told me that there survives a somewhat convoluted narrative of 'Bri-gung-pa
yogins en route for Kailash, who angered Sa-pan by being, as he thought,
arrogant towards him. The narrative is problematic in that it involves definite
historical anachronisms, but it does seem to speak of tensions between 'Brigung and Sa-skya at the time of Sa-pan. The narrative is reported in the
Tibetan version of Shakabpa's political history (pp.304-305), but does not
appear in the English version although a translation appears in Dan Martin
1992: 185.
It is also very noteworthy in this context that a division of Mongol
patronage between various bKa'-brgyud-pa groups and the Sa-skya-pas was
already well in place by the 1250's, i.e., quite shortly after Sa-pan's death in
1251 (personal communication, Elliot Sperling, 8/8/96). There was an inherently political dimension to these alignments: they functioned as the
Mongol method of administering Tibet in such a way that allowed each
Mongol prince to enjoy a share of the spoils. Sperling explains: "These were
not nominal alignments". Each [Mongol] prince is said to have become the
overlord of certain territories in Tibet as a result of a common agreement
between all of them. By extension these lands fell under the sway of the
subsects they patronized" (Sperling 1990: 147). Thus a highly reliable source,
Ta'i Situ Byang-chub rgyal-mtshan (1302-1364), relates in his bKa'-chems that
in the period following the enthronement of Mangke in 1251, Kaden took his
priest from the Sa-skya-pa, Mangke took his priest from the 'Bri-gung-pa,
Hulegu took his priest from the Phag-mo gru-pa, Arig Bake took his priest
from the Stag-Iung-pa and, most significantly, Qubilai, who was to emerge
supreme from the dynastic competitions and rule his great empire from
China from 1260-1294, took his priest from the Tshal-pa, i.e., the lineage of
Guru Zhang (Sperling 1990: 148). Ta'i Situ adds that each Mongol prince sent
a lieutenant (yul-bsrungs) to live at the monastery of the subsect through
whom they administered their share of Tibet. The Fifth Dalai Lama's history
of Tibet apparently drew upon Ta'i Situ's, and thus gives the same set of
alignments between princes and subsects (Sperling 1990: 147).
But these arrangements were short-lived: after the Mongol dynastic
succession was resolved in favour of Qubilai (who, according to Tibetan
sources, was backed by Kaden), the consequence was that all the other
Mongol princes (save Qubilai's other more distant ally Hulegu, 1215-1265)
had to withdraw their lieutenants or representatives from Tibet, with Qubilai
taking effective control of the whole country through his client Tibetan
subsect. Thus it followed that whichever Tibetan subsect was serving as
Qubilai's priests, was thereby due to take over rulership of virtually all of
Tibet (save those areas which Hulegu administered through his clients, the
Phag-mo gru-pa and 'Bri-gung-pa of later gling-Iog fame). So, if we are to
believe Ta'i Situ Byang-chub rgyal-mtshan and the Fifth Dalai Lama, the

REVIEW ARTICLES 99
Tshal-pa tradition founded by Guru Zhang might at one stage have had a
very real chance of inheriting the coveted r61e of supreme patronage by
virtue of their association with Qubilai! However, this was not to be. Kaden,
who had a key r61e in placing Qubilai on the throne, seems also to have sent
'Phags-pa to live at Qubilai's court even before Qubilai's reign actually began
(Sperling 1994: 805); could the Tshal-pa have been displaced as Qubilai's main
priests at this juncture? Or were they displaced even earlier? I am unclear of
the chronology. Nevertheless, it follows that if Jackson is correct that Guru
Zhang's tradition was the specific target of Sa-pan's polemic, an interesting
political dimension emerges: the Sa-skya-pas of that period, with the help of
Kaden (Sperling 1994: 80S), seem to have succeeded in ensuring that 'Phagspa was able to take over the incomparably politically desirable job as Qubilai's chief priest, with all the privilege and patronage it implied, precisely from
the followers of Guru Zhang, the principal target of Sa-pan's polemic, written
so shortly before!
Perhaps it is also worth mentioning that it seems to me (at first glance at
least) that if one looks at Sa-pan's polemic from a strictly Chinese point of
view, one sees that the gist of his critique coincides very closely with the
stringent bibliographic criteria of Buddhist heresy (i.e., non-Indic origins) that
had become increasingly well established and normative within the successive Chinese states from the time of Emperor Liang Wu-ti (502-549) (Strickmann 1990, Buswell 1990: 1; Mayer 1996: 12-14). Of course, I am not at all
suggesting that Sa-pan inherited these criteria from China: rather, that the
criteria coincided for doctrinally similar reasons inherent to a certain strand
of Mahayana Buddhist thinking. Nevertheless such reasons might have
looked even more persuasive from a Chinese perspective than they did in
Tibet, and this might have reinforced Sa-skya-pa prestige at Qubilai's court.
In other words, Sa-pan's critique of the bKa'-brgyud-pa and rNying-ma-pa
alike as non-Indic was one eminently comprehensible to the official Chinese
Buddhist establishment. This might have made difficulties for figures such as
Karma Pakshi, depending as they did in almost equal measure on the traditions of both sGam-po-pa and of the rNying-ma-pa.
Thus, while I have no doubt at all that Sa-pan's motives in writing his
polemics were religiously sincere, I nevertheless feel that the important and
complex political dimensions to his struggles with the Tshal-pa (and other
subsects) do need investigation and clarification.
5. Once again, I regret not having the' Tibetan text available, and so I must rely
on Guenther's translation.
6. These statements attributed to Atisa are here introduced by dPal-sprul to
enlarge upon briefer previous quotations of similar sentiment attributed to
Naga~una and Saraha (Patrul 1994: 255).

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7. For example, Williams quotes Santideva on bodhicilla thus: "How can I
fathom the depths of the goodness of this jewel of the mind, the panacea that
relieves the world of pain?"
8. I regret that I do not have any primary materials for this sutra available to me
at the moment; see Sherburne 1983: 46-49. Despite this usage of quotations
from the s!.ltra, it nevertheless seems that the main gist of this famous scrip_
ture is in reality very much more in accord with the conventional Perfection
of Wisdom doctrines, in which compassion and wisdom are cultivated separately.
9. However, I am not aware of these latter types of sources (which might be
intended as more literary than literal) further transferring the panacea imagery onto meditation on emptiness because they categorise emptiness as
identical to the absolute bodhicitta. For Sa-pan, on the other hand, it was
quite axiomatic that in the final analysis there could be no sole universal
panacea at all, not even bodhicitta, and let alone emptiness (Jackson p.72).
10. See, for example, the Byang-chub-kyi sems bsgom-pa, often called the rDo-la gserzhun, attributed to Manjusrlmitra and found in the Tenjur, studied in Norbu
& Lipman 1987.
11. The Byang-c/wb lam-gyi sgron-ma'i dka'-'grel, Ch.2, (which is traditionally held
to be Atisa's own autocommentary on the Bodhipathapradfpa, although I have
no idea if it is really by Atisa), generally recognises the plurality of the Buddhist traditions on such matters (d. Sherburne 1983: 44), and tends to prefer
a remarkably undogmatic and non-committal stance. However, it does apparently make the following point: "The Thought of Enlightenment itself,
both at the time of its cause and at the time of its result, is altogether one and
the same reality" (as translated in Sherburne 1983: 61; I regret I have no
primary sources available). The text continues with a description of differing
analyses of bodhicitta according to the triad of Ground, Path and Fruit, all in
the form of exegeses upon the Abhisamaylilamklira's famous 22 similes of
bodhicitta (earth, gold, moon, fire, treasury, etc., which list, of course, is the
one that famously likens the sixth pliramitti., i.e. Perfect Wisdom, to a remedy).
According to Sherburne (p.63, n.34), the Mahliylinasiltrlilamklira, its Bhlisya by
Asari.ga, and a short work by ]fi.anaklrti are the exegetical texts being alluded
to here.
12. In this context, these terms seem to be derogatory. Dan Martin observes that
other authors of the period such as Chag Lo-tsa-ba and Shes-rab 'byung-gnas
use these terms in the same way. Personal communication, 30/9/96.
13. Yael Bentor (1992) has made an excellent start, examining Sa-paD's critique of
bKa' -gdams-pa consecration rites. In this context, it might be worth bearing
in mind that while the rNying-ma-pa, bKa' -brgyud-pa and dGe-Iugs-pa
schools alike all rely on the bKa' -gdams-pa mind-training (blo-sbyong) traditions deriving from AtisLl, the Sa-skya-pas alone rely upon their own: the
Zhen-pa-bzhi bral, revealed by the Bodhisattva Mat1.jusri to the 12 year-old Sachen Kun-dga' snying-po in the first decade of the 12th century.
14. Conventionally, the I'Nying-ma-pa refer to themselves as the tradition of
mkhan-slob-chos-gsum: the mkhan-po (abbot) Santarai<sita, the slob-dpon ([VajraJ

REVIEW ARTICLES 101

master) Pad makara, and the chos-rgyal (Dharma-king) Khri-srong Ide'u-btsan.
15. See Jackson p.17 -28. I am not aware of the first of these continuing as a major
tradition among the bKa'-brgyud-pa (although the dGe-Iugs-pa might still
sustain a tradition), and its doctrines seem very vague and ill-defined, but the
latter is probably what is known in subsequent bKa' -brgyud-pa literature as
"Essence Mahamudra" (snying-po'i phyag-chen). Despite Sa-pan's criticisms, it
continues to this day as a flourishing tradition.
16. I deal with this complex topic at several points in my recent book (Mayer
1996). I cannot review all the issues here, but perhaps it is useful to present
one brief quotation in which I review the research of Alexis Sanderson:
With the advent of modern rationalised scholarship, thee centuriees
of silence on this issue too has inevitably been brokeen. A contempo
rary Indologist, Alexis Sanderson, has already identified (through textual criticism) a good quarter of all the verses in the long and important Laghusamvara as having been adapted or borrowed virtually unchanged word-by-word from earlier Saiva texts such as the Picumata/
Brahmaytimala, the Siddhayogesvarfmata, and the Yoginfsamctira[prakarana] (which latter appears in the third Satka, or section of 6000
verses, of the composite Jayadrathaytimala). This is remarkable for several reasons. Firstly, the Laghusamvara is often considered the single
most important text of the Cakrasamvara cycle. Secondly, the quarter
of the text so far demonstrably incorporated from Saiva sources might
not reveal the full extent of the dependency, since not all the corpus
of relevant Saiva texts survive; for example, the *Yoginijtilasarrwara and
thee *Sarvavfrasamtiyoga are two lost Saiva texts that were influential in
the eighth century, a period when a matrix of Buddhist YoginItantras
were produced whose very names may have been calques on the
Saiva texts (Otikinijtilasamvara and Sarvabuddhasamtiyoga). Thirdly, a
good part of the Laghusamvara consists of Mantroddharas and the like
that are written very much in the manner of a Saiva text, but which
obviously could not be lifted in directly from Saiva sources, given the
important function of mantras as a text's unique signatures. Since the
important Cakrasamvara vyakhyatantra (explanatory tantra), the Abhidhtinottara, seems to draw on similar materials to the [proto-] Laghusamvara, a quantity of the same Saiva materials is found there as welt
probably in an earlier form than the Laghusamvara as we have it now
(Sanderson 1990; 1993; 1995). Among other shared materials are the
all-important samayah (tantric vows of conduct). A more wdl~digest
cd, fluent and systematized if egually lexical dependency on Saiva
materials is also evidenced by the Ktilacakratanlra in particular. For example, the famous root mantra of Kalacakra (om ksa ma la va ra ya)
is calqued upon the "nine-fold" (Navatma-) Mantra which appears
throughout the Saiva tradition, both in the systems of the ordinary or
fundamental scriptures known as the Siddhantas, and, in modified

102 THE TIBET JOURNAL

17.
18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

forms, in those of the extraordinary or esoteric scriptures that constitute the Bhairava, Kaula and Trika divisions of the canon; see, e.g.,
Somasambhupaddhati (Brunner-Lachaux 1977: 130); Abhinavagupta,
Tantrtiloka 31.l1c-12b; Sanderson 1988, p.687 (p.155); Goudriaan and
Schoterman 1994, p.73, n.3. Phem, which is the seed-syllable of Kalacakra's consort Visvamata, is, with many variants and elaborations,
that of the Mothers in Esoteric Saivism; see, e.g., Tantrtiloka 31.45c-49
and -viveka ad lac. (phem, phrem, khphrem, hshrphrem) (thanks to
Alexis Sanderson for these references) (Mayer 1996: 59-60).
For a comprehensive review and analysis of this, see Mayer 1996: 1-153.
Of course, such a popular modern perception of the rNying-ma-pa can be
seen as containing an element of romanticism: notwithstanciing the truth of
their historical understanding, it is also relevant that the rNying-ma-pa gterstan culture had an obvious vested interest in promoting the ongoing-revelation model of Buddhist scriptural history.
A number of Indic Tantric texts, both Buddhist and Saiva, do indicate an
awareness of such intertextuality (Sanderson 1991, 1995; Mayer 1996). More
specifically, the well-known story of Rechungpa's third visit to India gives
some indication that an awareness of the problem existed in early bKa'brgyud-pa circles in Tibet. In this story, Milarepa burns some scriptures
brought back from India by Rechungpa on the grounds that they are in fact
non-Buddhist mantra texts, and not Buddhist ones as Rechungpa had supposed. The implication is that the difference between the two is not obvious
even to an advanced yogin like Rechungpa.
For a useful English-language expositions of Essence Mahamudra, see Kongtriil: 1992. Sa-pan specifically objected to the methodolOgical conflation of
Mahayana and Vajrayana this system implies, especially to sGam-po-pa's
application of the yogic methods of "introduction to the nature of mind"
(sems-kyi ngo-sprod) within a sutra context, but I doubt if he could have had
any objection to the rather elementary and uncontroversial doctrinal statements contained in most formulations of this synthesis.
.
My understanding of the importance of the clerical current is also strongly
supported by Geoffrey Samuel's analysis of the interdependence of "clerical"
and "shamanic" Buddhism. One can also look at supporting evidence from
various states in contemporary Asia: where modernisation and secularisation
have eroded or reduced the traditional gravitas of clerical Buddhism, a plethora of sectarian developments have occurred, not all of which can be seen as
useful (d. several developments in modern Japan, or Sri Lanka as described
in Gombrich & Obeyesekere 1988).
David Jackson seems to take a different position, which I think hinges on his
unprotesting deference to the popular misperception that to be "political"
within the religious sphere is necessarily to be ethically suspect. In his book,
Jackson thus entirely omits any mention whatsoever of the political aspects
of bKa' -brgyud-pa/Sa-skya-pa relations (see notes 3 & 4 above), as though it
were established a priori that these could have no possible bearing whatsoever on the dkar-po chig-thub debate. Presumably, Jackson hopes this strategy

REVIEW ARTICLES 103

will enable him to sidestep the inevitable but meaningless, crass and vulgar
accusations that Sa-pan's critique of sGam-po-pa's tradition was "merely
political." However, my own feeling is that Jackson is being theoretically
naive in this respect, and that he ought to take a perspective better informed
with basic understandings from the social sciences, in other words, a perspective that presents a deeper appreciation of the relations between ideology
and politics within a social context.
To take a Western example: nearly all historians agree that Sa-pan's
famous European contemporary, (St.) Dominic Guzman (1172-1221), was a
man of great piety, unimpeachable integrity, and devoutly Christian motivation, notwithstanding his some-time role as diplomatic envoy on behalf of
the Spanish monarch. Yet who could possibly maintain that his life-work of
eradicating the Albigense (i.e., Cathar) "heresy" and restoring Papal authority
in Languedoc, was not frankly political? Even his founding of a clerical Order
of Preachers (i.e., the Dominicans) was quite unambiguously political, designed as it was for the express purpose of overcoming the Albigense. Thus
the original Dominican mission was to lend close idealogical support (through
public debate and doctrinal disputation) to the military crusade against the
Albigense which came under the generalship of Simon de Montfort, Earl of
Leicester, a famous crusader and international statesman with whom and
with whose family Dominic came to enjoy very close friendship and association (the Crusade as a whole was of course authorised by Pope Innocent
III). Clearly, one cannot fully understand St. Dominic's major and long-lasting
contribution to Western Christendom without understanding his passionate
and sincere involvement in the politics of Languedoc and the gruesome
Albigense wars, a point not lost on his traditional hagiographers. Similarly,
Sa-pan, perhaps even more than Dominic Guzman, was a figure of historic
political significance, a famous statesman as well as a great Buddhist scholar
(although being a Buddhist scholar, he was, as far as I know, never involved
in warfare or military crusades). Thus I feel it would serve Jackson's own
purposes better if Jackson were to explore the nature of Sa-pan's complex,
interesting and no doubt virtuous political life, rather than so studiously
ignoring it.
Another study which similarly excludes political factors and which was
probably influential on Jackson's volume, is David Seyfort Ruegg'S learned
description of the "Great Debate of bSam-yas," the debate within Tibet which
famously involved protagonists of Chinese and Indian Buddhism (Ruegg
1989). In this otherwise impressively erudite account, Seyfort Ruegg simply
does not discuss (to give but one example) the well-known fact that at the
time of the debate (780's and 790's), the Tibetan Empire and China had for
many years been in the throes of a long military conflict, which concurrently
had become particularly bitter, involving acts of treachery on both sides
(Beckwith 1987: 149ff). Some (such as myself) would have welcomed within
Ruegg'S account an adequate or at least cursory description of the extremely
important and complex political contours of this "Debate of bSam-yas": the
fact that the Tibetan Emperors' great rivals and enemies, the Chinese

104 THE TIBET JOURNAL

Emperors, normally directly patronised Chinese Buddhism, the fact that
Chinese Buddhism was at the time still enjoying a powerful and productive
phase of its history, the effect that all of this might have had on later Tibetan
constructions of the figure of Mo-ho-yen, the various other political concerns
of the Tibetan Emperors, internal Tibetan politics, etc. etc. etc. Yet Seyfort
Ruegg's account apparently recoils from too much discussion of actua!iU, as
though it might detract from a true appreciation of la pensee, as though these
two were necessarily to be separated, or were already inherently separate.
Clearly, Seyfort Ruegg and I stem from somewhat incommensurable intellectual cultures (my typically Anglo-Saxon empiricism vs. his possibly more
Gallic intellectualism). My own perception is that a more wholistic approach,
which encompasses and interconnects historical realities and intellectual ideas,
is self-evidently more informative and more instructive than any attempt to
dichotomise them. I am not sure where Jackson stands on these issues, but
I suspect his position is closer to Ruegg's than to mine.

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