The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism

·期刊原文
The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism: Its Fundamentals and History, 2 vols.
reviewed by Davidson, Ronald M.
Parabola
Vol.18 No.1
P.p.102-104
Spring 1993
COPYRIGHT Society for the Study of Myth and Tradition 1993

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Widely regarded as the supreme teacher of the Nyingma tradition in
the very difficult period following the Chinese occupation of Tibet,
Dudjom Rinpoche was uniquely qualified to formulate the identity of
his school of Buddhism in diaspora. The result of his efforts at
codifying that identity are set forth in two works translated into
English by the collaborative effort of two of his students who knew
him well. These two works, Fundamentals of the Nyingma School and
History of the Nyingma School, are to be found in Volume One. They
present in a grand schematism the doctrine and history of the
Nyingma in a manner reflective of traditional values and
scholarship.
Of the four living traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, the Nyingma is
one of the least understood. Far better identified is the Geluk-pa,
one of the reformed schools of Tibet. The Gelukpa is headed by the
Dalai Lama and has been the dominant religious tradition since the
Fifth Dalai Lama took power in Tibet in 1642. In distinction, the
Nyingma represents the oldest Buddhist system, tracing its origin
back to the Royal Dynastic Period (617-845 A.D.). It did not
cultivate the development of enormous monastic enclaves, the largest
of Nyingma monasteries having perhaps a thousand religious, as
opposed to the ten thousand found in the largest Geluk-pa convents.
Instead, the Nyingma considered itself closer to the traditions of
Tibetan village life and attempted to develop its scholarly
traditions in an environment which fostered contemplative life as
well as learning.
Preeminent in the wealth of Nyingma lore is the position played by
Padmasambhava, the legendary Indian master who visited Tibet at the
end of the eighth century, and from whom issued two streams of
religiosity. The first, "Distant Lineage of the Transmitted
Precepts," represents the doctrines, rituals, and meditative
practices continually transmitted from master to disciple since the
eighth century; and the second, the "Close Lineage of the
Treasures," represents revealed materials buried by Padmasambhava,
either physically in the Tibetan earth or physically in the
mentalities of his reincarnating disciples. Dudjom Rinpoche, in
grand Nyingma tradition, is considered the reincarnation of one of
Padmasambhava's twenty-five disciples, and so was identified as one
of the great culture bearers of the Nyingma.
These works are not for the faint of heart. Excellent antidotes to
the popular perception of Tibet or Buddhism, Dudjom Rinpoche's texts
put forth the ideals of traditional scholarship. As such, they are
twentieth-century versions of medieval formulae. The Fundamentals,
for example, is cast in a mold which was initially a response to
fourteenth-century attacks on the Nyingma by those of the reform
systems. The least empowered of the traditions, the Nyingma was
frequently the brunt of assaults, either physical -- as in 1717 A.D.
when two of its greatest monasteries were destroyed by Dzungar
Mongols -- or polemical, as in the Geluk-pa castigations of the
Nyingma system of religiosity. The History is not critical history
in the manner of the post-Enlightenment West. Rather it is a
traditional defense of the Nyingma, recording legends and
hagiographic materials into an authoritative statement about the
lineal development of the current system.
In both of these works, Dudjom Rinpoche's method has been
straight-forward and unabashedly conservative. He has maintained
traditional categories and relied on prior doctrinal compendia for
his vocabulary and formulations. In his Fundamentals, for example,
he has adopted theoretical categories largely codified in the
fourteenth century by Longchen-pa, the greatest Nyingma thinker.
Likewise, for the History, his method has been to use the standard
hagiographical sources for the figures in whom he is interested.
The traditional nature of the texts has been extended to their
dedicatory and graphic treatments as well, in the vivid red of the
binding and the gold ink on the cover. The translators have clearly
attempted to cater to a wider audience by their employment of
phonetic spelling in Volume One, as opposed to standard scholarly
orthography.
Volume Two, however, is qualitatively different, with its repository
of learned notes, extensive bibliography, and very valuable maps. In
this regard, Gyurme Dorje's training at the University of London and
Professor Kapstein's excellence in scholarship in his position at
Columbia University have served the reader well. Those familiar with
Tibetan traditional learning will appreciate to what lengths the
translators went in order to identify the enumerations mentioned in
the text, often an extraordinarily difficult task, given Dudjom
Rinpoche's deep scholarship. Equally valuable are the excellent
notes to the translations, which discuss some of the more difficult
aspects of Tibetan understanding. Modern researches are noted and
differences between traditional and modern scholarship are
addressed. The excellence of the bibliography can be fully
appreciated only by specialists -- it is a resource which will
reward those taking time to pursue avenues indicated by the
translators.
The juxtaposition of traditional idioms of effusive honorifics,
brilliant graphics, difficult structure, and excellent scholarly
apparatus begs the question: for whom was this translated?
Tibetologists, like myself, may be initially dissuaded from a close
examination of the work because of the dharma center aesthetics and
phonetic transliteration. A wider readership will, on the contrary,
have great difficulty with the content -- it is neither easy reading
nor intuitively accessible. Both, however, will greatly profit from
a close perusal of the work, the first complete translation of the
modern self-assessment of any of the four Tibetan traditions.
Ronald M. Davidson, Ph.d., Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
and Director of the Program of Asian Studies at Fairfield
University, is the co-editor of Tibetan Buddhism: Reason and
Revelation (SUNY Press, 1992).