The ''Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgraha sutra'' (

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

, ''Compendium of the Reality of All Tathāgatas''), also known as the ''Tattvasaṃgraha Tantra'', is an important seventh century Indian Buddhist tantric text.Silk, Jonathan A. (editor) ''Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism Volume I: Literature and Languages,'' p. 373. Although the scripture refers itself as a Mahayana sutra, the content is mainly tantric in nature and thus is sometimes called a

tantra Tantra (; ) is an esoteric yogic tradition that developed on the India, Indian subcontinent beginning in the middle of the 1st millennium CE, first within Shaivism and later in Buddhism. The term ''tantra'', in the Greater India, Indian tr ...

. This work is an important source for the Chinese Esoteric Buddhist and

Shingon is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asian Buddhism. It is a form of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism and is sometimes called "Tōmitsu" (東密 lit. "Esoteric uddhismof Tō- ...

tradition. This text was very important for the development of the

Vajrayana ''Vajrayāna'' (; 'vajra vehicle'), also known as Mantrayāna ('mantra vehicle'), Guhyamantrayāna ('secret mantra vehicle'), Tantrayāna ('tantra vehicle'), Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, is a Mahāyāna Buddhism, Mahāyāna Buddhis ...

Yoga tantra Classes of Tantra in Tibetan Buddhism refers to the categorization of Tantras (Buddhism), Buddhist tantric scriptures in Tibetan Buddhism, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism inherited numerous tantras and forms of Tantra, tantric practice from ...

traditions in India, Tibet, China, Japan and Sumatra, amongst others. The ''Tattvasaṃgraha'' is extant in Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese. Weinberger (2003: p. 4) holds:

The ''Compendium of Principles'' marks the emergence of mature Indian Buddhist tantra at the end of the seventh century, and it immediately spawned a body of literary progeny that has played a central and enduring role in the development of tantric Buddhism in India, Tibet, China, and Japan. Consolidated over time into traditions known in some Indian circles as Yoga Tantra, they spread as widely as Śrı Lanka, Southeast Asia, Khotan, Mongolia, and Sumatra.

Etymology

Tattvasaṃgraha may be

parse Parsing, syntax analysis, or syntactic analysis is a process of analyzing a string of symbols, either in natural language, computer languages or data structures, conforming to the rules of a formal grammar by breaking it into parts. The term ''pa ...

d into 'tattva'+'saṃgraha'.

Tattva According to various Indian schools of philosophy, ''tattvas'' () are the elements or aspects of reality that constitute human experience. In some traditions, they are conceived as an aspect of the Indian deities. Although the number of ''tat ...

may be parsed into 'Tat'+'tva' and may also be orthographically rendered in English as Tattwa and means 'thatness', 'principle', 'reality' or 'truth'. 'Saṃgraha' may be parsed into 'saṃ'+'graha'. 'Saṃ' may be spelled as either 'sam' or 'san' as the anunasika ṃ indicates a nasalization of the preceding vowel before unpronounced "m" or "n". sam refers to origin, birth or dependent origination; sambodhi, sambhava. Graha (Devanagari: ग्रह) means 'seizing', 'laying hold of', 'holding'.

History and dissemination

Tucci inaugurated scholarship in a western language on the ''Tattvasaṃgraha'' with his exploration on the Maheśvara subjugation myth it holds. Snellgrove continued to stake a foundation of western scholarship in both his publication of the facsimile reproduction of one of the extant Sanskrit manuscripts, a publication opened by a scholarly introduction and also his presentation of tantra in volume one of '' Indo-Tibetan Buddhism''.Snellgrove, David (1987). ''Indo-Tibetan Buddhism: Indian Buddhists and Their Tibetan Successors.'' Volume One: pp.117-330 Boston, USA: Shambhala Publications, Inc. (v.1). Todaro has provided a translation of the first section of the tantra, accompanied by a study of the role of the ''Tattvasaṃgraha'' and associated texts in the tradition of

Kūkai , born posthumously called , was a Japanese Buddhist monk, calligrapher, and poet who founded the Vajrayana, esoteric Shingon Buddhism, Shingon school of Buddhism. He travelled to China, where he studied Tangmi (Chinese Vajrayana Buddhism) und ...

, founder of Japanese

Notes

References

*Weinberger, Steven Neal (2003). ''The Significance of Yoga Tantra and the Compendium of Principles (Tattvasaṃgraha Tantra) within Tantric Buddhism in India and Tibet''. Dissertation. University of Virginia, USA: Department of Religious Studies. Source
Internet Archive
*{{cite journal, last1=Weinberger, first1=Steven Neal , title=The Yoga Tantras and the Social Context of Their Transmission to Tibet, journal=Chung-Hwa Journal of Buddhist Studies, date=2010, volume=23, pages=131–166, url=http://chinesebuddhiststudies.org/previous_issues/chbj2306Steve%20131-166.pdf Buddhist tantras