Title : The Origins of the Dzogchen Eleven Words and Meanings Comparing Nyima Bum, Longchenpa and Rikzin Gödemchen
From : Vol. 2 No. 2 (2023): Journal of Tibetan Literature Table of Contents
Despite the reputation of Longchenpa’s work, however, Nyima Bum’s Great Perfection: Eleven Words and Meanings, which dates from an earlier century, is also comprised of eleven chapters bearing the same titles in the same order as Longchenpa’s work. It also uses the same sources as its principal references, i.e., the Seventeen Tantras, which constitute the canonical core of Dzogchen’s Pith Instructions Series, and in particular the Unlocking through Sound Tantra (Sgra thal ’gyur), which is considered the root tantra of the Seventeen Tantras, and the Precious Pearl Garland (Mu tig phreng ba), another of the seventeen. Based on all these similarities, it is evident that Longchenpa based his Treasury of Words and Meanings on Nyima bum’s Eleven Words and Meanings which came five generations earlier. Both Nyima Bum’s and Longchenpa’s eleven topics pose eleven questions that Nyima Bum extracts from the Unlocking through Sound Tantra, which has six chapters within which 168 philosophical and practice-related questions are posed. Thus, for example, in the first chapter of Nyima Bum’s Great Perfection: Eleven Words and Meanings, he asks how the innate nature of the Ground abides before there are any realized buddhas or non-realized beings. The same question is also found in chapter two of the Unlocking through Sound, along with twenty-eight other questions. The idea that Longchenpa just happened to select exactly the same eleven questions out of the 168 questions in the Unlocking through Sound is impossible to believe. Clearly, Longchenpa duplicated Nyima Bum’s earlier work without giving due credit to the original authorship (a common practice among Tibetan authors). Similarly, Jean-Luc Achard’s findings on the implicit use of sections from the Bönpo Dzogchen text, Yang rtse klong chen, within Longchenpa’s Bla ma yang tig, parallel the given situation. Given Nyima Bum’s central place in the development of Dzogchen thought, the present project represents an initial study of his philosophical approach and historical influences.
Oh, it’s a “work in progress”, that, if I have the “spare time”, will come back to later on, but for now, it’s a sort of note-to-self AS it details a fairly definitive conclusion concerning Longchenpa, of whom I have spent much time and effort on (over some years), thus it brings-to-mind, I’d say, the central importance of “transmisssion” over-and-above authorial expression eh ? 🧐