Rongzom Chökyi Zangpo
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Rongzom Chökyi Zangpo (), widely known as Rongzom Mahapandita, Rongzom Dharmabhadra, or simply as Rongzompa, was one of the most important scholars of the
Nyingma Nyingma (, ), also referred to as ''Ngangyur'' (, ), is the oldest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The Nyingma school was founded by PadmasambhavaClaude Arpi, ''A Glimpse of the History of Tibet'', Dharamsala: Tibet Museum, 2013. ...
school of
Tibetan Buddhism Tibetan Buddhism is a form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet, Bhutan and Mongolia. It also has a sizable number of adherents in the areas surrounding the Himalayas, including the Indian regions of Ladakh, Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, D ...
. Together with
Longchenpa Longchen Rabjam Drimé Özer (), or simply Longchenpa (1308–1364, "The Great One Who Is the Vast Cosmic Expanse") was a Tibetan scholar-yogi of the Nyingma school, the 'Old School' of Tibetan Buddhism. According to tibetologist David German ...
and
Ju Mipham JU may refer to: Names and people * Joo (Korean name), surname and given name (including a list of people with the name) * Jū (鞠), Chinese surname * Ru (surname), romanized Ju in Wade–Giles * Ji Ju, a semi-legendary ancestor of the Zhou d ...
, he is often considered to be one of the three "omniscient" writers of the school. His elder contemporary
Atiśa Atish Dipankar Shrijnan (Sanskrit transliteration: Atiśa Dipankara Shrijnana) (c. 982–1054 CE) was a Bengalis, Bengali Buddhist religious teacher and leader. He is generally associated with his body of work authored at Vikramashila, Vikram ...
(980–1054) considered Rongzompa to be an incarnation of the Indian ācārya Kṛṣṇapāda, the Great. The Tibetan historian Gö Lotsawa (1392–1481) said of Rongzom that no scholar in Tibet was his equal. A.W. Barber writes that Rongzom was the first to receive the entire
Dzogchen Dzogchen ( 'Great Completion' or 'Great Perfection'), also known as ''atiyoga'' ( utmost yoga), is a tradition of teachings in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and Bön aimed at discovering and continuing in the ultimate ground of existence. The goal ...
teachings of both
Vimalamitra Vimalamitra () was an 8th-century Indian Buddhist monk. His teachers were Buddhaguhya, Jnanasutra, Jñānasūtra and Sri Singha, Śrī Siṃha. He was supposed to have vowed to take rebirth every hundred years, with the most notable figures bein ...
and
Vairotsana Vairotsana () was a lotsawa or "translator" living during the reign of King Trisong Detsen, who ruled 755-97 CE. Vairotsana, one of the 25 main disciples of Padmasambhava, was recognized by the latter as a reincarnation of an Indian pandita. ...
after the time of those two masters. According to the Blue Annals, Rongzom Chokyi Zangpo ... received the
Semde Semde (; Sanskrit: , "mind division", "mind class" or "mind series" is the name of one of three scriptural and lineage (Buddhism), lineage divisions within the Dzogchen (Great Perfection) tradition. The Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism tradition ...
(sems sde) teachings of the Dorje Dudjom transmission line. David Germano writes "In the eleventh century, Rongzom Chokyi Zangpo was without doubt the greatest Nyingma author, with extensive exoteric and esoteric commentaries."


Positions

Rongzom held that the views of sutra such as Madhyamaka were inferior to that of tantra, as Koppl notes:


Writings

According to a catalog of the commentaries he codified, the collected works of Rongzompa amounted to over 100 volumes, the majority of which are no longer
extant Extant or Least-concern species, least concern is the opposite of the word extinct. It may refer to: * Extant hereditary titles * Extant literature, surviving literature, such as ''Beowulf'', the oldest extant manuscript written in English * Exta ...
. In the 19th century,
Ju Mipham JU may refer to: Names and people * Joo (Korean name), surname and given name (including a list of people with the name) * Jū (鞠), Chinese surname * Ru (surname), romanized Ju in Wade–Giles * Ji Ju, a semi-legendary ancestor of the Zhou d ...
, who was particularly influenced by Rongzompa's writings,Ju Mipham also wrote a short Guru Yoga practice focusing on Rongzom attempted to gather the surviving works together. Important surviving works of Rongzom Chokyi Zangpo include: *''Entering the Way of the Great Vehicle (Mahayana)'' () – presents a defense and explanation of the Dzogchen tradition in the context of the Mahayana. This text has been translated into English: ''Entering the Way of the Great Vehicle: Dzogchen as the Culmination of the Mahāyanā'', translated by Dominic Sur ( Snow Lion, 2017, Pages: 272, ) * A commentary on Padmasambhava's ''Key Instructions: A Rosary of Views'' () – presents the view of the Nyingma school's nine yanas. * A commentary on the Manjusrinama-Samgiti (). This has been translated into English in The Wisdom of Manjushri (Sherdor, 2012). * A commentary on the Guhyagarbha Tantra () *''Establishing the Divinity of Appearances'' () – a short text that presents the logical grounds for the pure view of Buddhist tantra. This text has been translated into English (by Heidi Köppl, in Establishing Appearances as Divine, 2008). * ''The Great Stage of Buddhahood'' (Sangs rgyas kyi sa chen mo, Skt. Mahābuddhabhūmī), translated in Rong-zom-pa's discourses on buddhology: a study of various conceptions of buddhahood in Indian sources with special reference to the controversy surrounding the existence of gnosis (jñā-na : ye shes) as presented by the eleventh-century Tibetan scholar Rong-zom Chos-kyi-bzang-po, by Orni Almogi as Volume 24 of Studia philologica Buddhica: Monograph series, The International Institute for Buddhist Studies of the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies, 2009. Herein, Rongzom argues that on the level of the Buddha, gnosis does not exist, meaning that everything has been transcended and sublimated.


Notes & references


Sources

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External links


Peer-reviewed biography of Rongzom Chokyi Zangpo on The Treasury of Lives Rongzom Chökyi Zangpo TBRC P3816 chos kyi bzang po
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zangpo, Rongzom Chokyi Nyingma lamas Scholars of Buddhism from Tibet Tibetan Buddhists from Tibet Tibetan philosophers 11th-century Tibetan people 11th-century lamas