The Door to the Dharma

Chos la ʼjug pa’i sgo

This is a short text written by bSod nams rtse mo (1142–1182), a Buddhist scholar of the Khon clan, who is regarded as one of the founding fathers of the Sakya (Sa skya) tradition. The text was completed in 1167/68. It serves as an introduction to Buddhism and deals mainly with the life of the Buddha. It contains a passage giving a brief reference to Songtsen Gampo’s (Srong brtsan sgam po) law-making.

 

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Sources

sDe dge edition. 1736. A scanned xylograph copy can be found in the Sa skya bka’ ʼbum, vol. 4 (Nga), Chos la 'jug pa'i sgo zhes bya ba'i bstan bcos. TBRC: W22271.

"Chos la ’jug pa’i sgo zhes bya ba’i bstan bcos". 2007. In Sa skya gong ma rnam lnga'i gsung 'bum dpe bsdur ma las bsod nams rtse mo'i gsung. Beijing: Krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang, v.3, pp.389–496. TBRC: W2DB4568. [Modern edition]

 

 

 

Sonam Tsemo

© Museum Rietberg Zurich

References

van der Kuijp, Leonard W.J. 1996. "Tibetan Historiography". In J.I. Cabezón and R.R. Jackson (eds), Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre. Ithaca: Snow Lion, pp. 39–56.
Stein, R.A. 1986. "Tibetica Antiqua IV: La tradition relative au début du Bouddhisme au Tibet".  Bulletin de l'Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient 74: 169–96, at p. 86.
__. (A. P. McKeown, trans.) 2010. Rolf Stein’s Tibetica Antiqua: with Additional Materials. Leiden: Brill, at p. 217.

 

Extract

[From the Modern edition, p. 486]

དེ་ནས་གདུང་རབས་བདུན་ནས་འཕགས་པ་སྤྱན་རས་གཟིགས་ཀྱི་རྣམ་འཕྲུལ་གྱིས་རྒྱལ་པོ་སྲོང་བཙན་སྒམ་པོ་ཞེས་བྱ་བར་སྤྲུལ་ཏེ་བྱོན་ནས། དགེ་བ་བཅུ་ལས་བརྩམས་ཏེ་ཁྲིམས་བཅས། སྒྱུར་བྱེད་དམ་པ་སམྦྷོཊ་ཞེས་བྱ་བས་བོད་ཀྱི་སྐད་དང་མཐུན་པར་ཡི་གེའང་བྱས་ཏེ། མདོ་དཀོན་མཆོག་སྤྲིན་ལ་སོགས་པ་འགའ་ཞིག་ཀྱང་བསྒྱུར་རོ།

Then, after seven generations of the lineage, ʼPhags pa spyan ras gzigs (Ārya Avalokiteśvara) incarnated as the one called King Songtsen Gampo. After he arrived, he made laws based on the ten virtues. The noble translator named Sambhota created script in accord with the Tibetan spoken language and translated several works, such as the The Cloud of Jewels Sūtra (mDo dkon mchog sprin).