Preface

Over several years. while working on the translation and edition of the late bDud-'joms Rin-po-che's Nyingma School Tibetan Buddhism; Its Fundamentals and History. I became increasingly aware of the central importance of the Guhyagarbhatantra and the esteem in which it is held by the rNying-ma-pa. In order to open up and consolidate our understanding of that eighth century tradition. clearly this basic text would have to be established in a critical edition alongside its commentaries. and. as more primary sources are published in India, it would be an essential task for Tibetologists to make some of them accessible to western scholarship for the first time. This would also give some impetus to the current revival of the rNying-ma communities in Nepal, India, and indeed Tibet, where the tradition Itself has been made aware of the value of western scholarship, largely through the efforts of E. Gene Smith. It is therefore with these two aims that I embarked on the present study. Each chapter of the roottantra is accompanied by kLong-chen Rab-'byams-pa's interlinear commentary, and in the course of annotation, his interpretations are juxtaposed with those of Lo-chen Dharmaśrī. Between them, these commentators represent the two major exegetical traditions of the Guhyagarbha in Tibet. Of course, this study is by no means the definitive statement on the Guhyagarbhatantra. Only when all extant commentaries have been fully translated and compared could such a conclusive treatise ever be written. In the meantime, it is hoped that the Intricacies of kLong-chen-pa's exegesis will augment our understanding of the relationship between Mahāyoga and Atiyoga, and open up further avenues for research In this field.

The problems involved in the interpretation of tantra-texts like the Guhyagarbha are immense, and errors are virtually unavoidable. Quite apart from the absence of the original Sanskrit manuscripts, there are linguistic obscurities in the Tibetan which even the surviving oral tradition is unable to resolve. This has been explicitly stated by Dingo Khyentse Rinpoche, who is revered as the greatest living authority on the rNying-ma school. I would therefore ask those responsible for maintaining this tradition to understand the underlying motivation and not to look too harshly on my errors or omissions. Many of these problems will be confronted in the course of the annotations, and I wish, at this point, to acknowledge the assistance of all those scholars who devoted time and energy to the task.

Firstly, my thanks are due to Phillip Denwood, Lecturer in Tibetan at SOAS, who supervised the research in a methodical, sympathetic and supportive manner and offered much sound advice on problems relating to language and the architecture of the vimāna in particular. Humble thanks are also due to H.H. Dingo Khyentse Rinpoche who gave much of his precious time to my tiresome questions during his sojourn in the Dordogne, in June, 1986. Others scholars who assisted at that time were Dzokchen Khenpo Thupten, Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche, Tulku Perna Wangyal, and Konchok Tenzin. Khenpo Thupten In particular addressed himself to the linguistic and technical problems with great enthusiasm. I am also indebted to the library of SOAS, University of London, for access to library and microfiche facilities, to Lama Chime of the British Library Oriental Manuscripts Division, to Michael O'Keefe of the India Office Library, and to Christian Bruyat at the Tibetan library of the Association de Chanteloube in the Dordogne for making source materials available. Additional thanks are due to Dr Tadeusz Skorupski of SOAS, who kindly offered advice on certain Indic source materials, and to Matthew Kapstein of the University of Chicago who in past years worked with me to construct the technical English vocabulary employed in this and other studies. Above all. X wish to express my gratitude to the British Academy for their generous studentship awarded from 1983-1986, to SOAS for the Millicent Harrington Award covering the same period, and to Dr John Brockington, Senior Lecturer in Sanskrit at Edinburgh University, and Dr Michael Aris of Wolfson College, Oxford for supporting my initial application to the Academy. Finally, thanks are due to Mike Farmer who provided word-processing facilities, without which the project would never have been completed in three years.

Gyurme Dorje