The Buddha's Doctrine and the Nine Vehicles: Rog Bande Sherab's Lamp of the Teachings

by Jose Ignacio Cabezon

Overview

Following the fall of the Tibetan empire and the ensuing "period of fragmentation," the twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw tremendous religious efflorescence in Tibet. Although the Tibetan scholars and adepts of this period continued to draw from the texts and practices of Indian Buddhism, they also began to craft distinctly Tibetan intellectual and spiritual traditions. Hundreds of important masters lived and worked during this time, some of whom founded institutions that still exist today. Equally important were the scholars who lived on the margins of institutionalized Buddhism, teachers and meditators whose works, despite their great creativity, have been largely forgotten.

José Cabezón offers a study of the life and most important extant work of one such figure, Rog Bande Sherab, also known as Rogben (1166-1244). Rogben studied under some of the greatest teachers of his day. An itinerant scholar and yogi, he devoted his life to collecting important textual cycles and meditation techniques. Rogben's most important work, The Lamp of the Teachings, cuts across the genres of history, doctrinal studies, and doxography. It is one of the earliest philosophically robust explanations of the "nine vehicle" system of the Ancient or Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. The Buddha's Doctrine and the Nine Vehicles is the first scholarly study of Rog Bande Sherab, a pivotal figure in both the Pacification (Zhiché) and Ancient traditions of Tibet, and one of the most original thinkers in Tibetan intellectual history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199958627
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/10/2013
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

José Ignacio Cabezón is XIVth Dalai Lama Professor of Tibetan Buddhism and Cultural Studies, and Chair of the Religious Studies Department at UC Santa Barbara. He is the author, editor, or translator of a dozen books and numerous articles in Tibetan and Buddhist Studies and in the academic study of religion, most recently Tibetan Ritual (Oxford, 2010), and Meditation on the Nature of Mind (with His Holiness the Dalai Lama).

Table of Contents

Introduction
The Life of Rog Bande Sherab Ö

A Lamp for the Teachings
Part I: The Buddha and His Doctrine, What Is To Be Known
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: How the Buddha Was Enlightened
Chapter Three: How the Dharma Was Taught and Compiled
Chapter Four: The Categorization of the Dharma and the Dissemination of Tantra
Chapter Five: Exoteric Scriptures and Treatises
Chapter Six: The Esoteric Tradition
Chapter Seven: Types of Tantras and Tantric Literature
Chapter Eight: The Differences Between Various Doctrinal Categories

Part II: The Nine Vehicles, Knowing Agents
Chapter Nine: Non-Buddhists
Chapter Ten: The Hinayana
Chapter Eleven: The Mind Only School
Chapter Twelve: The Madhyamaka
Chapter Thirteen: The Outer Tantras
Chapter Fourteen: The Inner Tantras

Part III: The Nonduality of Knowledge and Known Things
Chapter Fifteen: Nonduality and the Buddhist Path

Appendix I: Teachings Rogben Received
Appendix II: The Relationship of Rogben's Lamp to the Two Deu Histories
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Among the teachings of the Nyingma or 'Ancient' school of Tibetan Buddhism, one of the most famous is the nine vehicles to enlightenment. With this translation of an important thirteenth-century Tibetan text, José Cabezón provides the most detailed exposition of the nine vehicles to appear in English. He does so with his characteristic clarity and insight."—Donald Lopez, Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, University of Michigan

From the Publisher