Nyingma - Tantra and Dzogchen Texts and Praxis in The Nyingma Tradition

Tantra and Dzogchen Texts and Praxis in The Nyingma Tradition

With the advent of the transmission of Sarma traditions into Tibet, various proponents of the new systems cast aspersions on the Indic origins of much of the Nyingma esoteric corpus. Indic origin was an important component of perceived legitimacy at the time. As a result, much of the Nyingma esoteric corpus was excluded from the Tengyur, a compilation of texts by Buton Rinchen Drub that became the established canon for the Sarma traditions.

In response, the Nyingmapas organized their esoteric corpus, comprising mostly Mahayoga, Atiyoga (Dzogchen) Mind class Semde and Space Class (Longde) texts, into an alternate collection, called the Nyingma Gyubum (the Hundred Thousand Tantras of the Ancient School, Wylie: rnying ma rgyud ‘bum). Generally, the Gyubum contains Kahma (Wylie: bka' ma) and very little terma (Wylie: gter ma). The third class of Atiyoga, the Secret Oral Instructions (Menngagde), are mostly terma texts.

Various editions of the Gyubum are extant, but one typical version is the thirty-six Tibetan-language folio volumes published by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche in New Delhi, 1974. It contains:

• 10 volumes of Ati Yoga (Dzogchen)
• 3 volumes of Anu Yoga
• 6 volumes of the tantra Section of Mahayoga
• 13 volumes of the sadhana Section of Mahayoga
• 1 volume of protector tantras
• 3 volumes of catalogues and historical background