Great Perfection.pdf

the legend of vairocana 33
his work in general for promoting Buddhism and particularly his conversion
of the barbaric people of Tsha-ba-rong to Buddhism. He does this,
because he was also formerly born in the royal family of that country. Legsgrub,
having accompanied Vairocana to India, leaves for Tibet alone and
is killed on the way so that he would be born in Tsha-ba-rong as g.Yusgra
snying-po in order to assist Vairocana in his missionary work there.
The inevitable question then arises whether there is any historicity behind
all these legends of Vairocana. In a field such as Tibetan Buddhist
studies one can only talk in terms of textual evidence in such a case as
this. It is therefore a matter of tracing back in time to see from what periods
the texts talk about Vairocana. The ’Dra ’bag is quoted at length in
ChR completed in 1362. 45 The version it contains is identical with the xylographic
edition excepting the section on Vairocana’s trip in China which
is absent there.
The next source which is older and deals with the life story of Vairocana
is MNy by Nyang-ral Nyi-ma ’od-zer (1136–1204). In this work, the ’Dra
’bag is mentioned neither in the section devoted to the story nor in the
epilogue where the author gives a bibliographic list of the historical works
which he consulted for his extremely important historical work. However,
the story, although told in a very condensed form, is essentially the same
as that of the ’Dra ’bag. We have already noted the minor differences. It
seems therefore that the elaboration of the ’Dra ’bag, particularly its early
parts, dates from the late thirteenth century and certainly existed in its
present form before 1362.
The next historical work which gives an important place to Vairocana—one
of the earliest but post tenth century work—is the well known
BZh. Certain authors have recently ascribed it as late as to the fourteenth
century, 46 but it is difficult to reconcile this to the fact that we know that
Sa-pan Kun-dga’ rgyal-mtshan (1181–1282) mentions it by title 47 and
Nyang-ral Nyi-ma ’od-zer (1136–1204) incorporated a long section of it
in his MNy. 48 In BZh, Vairocana is specifically mentioned by his father’s
45 In the colophon of the new edition of this work, a note identifies the author rGyalsras
Thugs-mchog-rtsal with Klong-chen rab-’byams. I pointed out the contradictions which
emerge in the dates if we accept the identification (Karmay 1981, p. 200, n. 30). It is now
certain that rGyal-sras Thugs mchog-rtsal is not identical with Klong-chen rab-’byams. The
Vth Dalai Lama, for example, treats them as different authors (GCh, Vol. 4, p. 409).
46 Imaeda 1975, p. 126.
47 sKyes bu dam pa rnams la springs pa’i yi ge, Sa skya bka’ ’bum, Vol. 5, No. 830, p. 332–1–4:
rgyal bzhed, dpal (sBa) bzhed ’bangs bzhed . . ./
48 Although Nyang-ral does not acknowledge the fact that he has borrowed a long section
of BZh, the section in question can be traced to BZh (MNy f. 462, 1.5–526, 13; BZh
pp. 53, 1.9–86, 1.5).