The Treasury of Lives

Rinchen Gyeltsen was a fourteenth-century monk and translator. There are at least nine texts in the Tantra section of the Tengyur that list him as a translator. He worked with Buton Rinchen Drub (bu ston rin chen grub, 1290-1364) on the translation of the Ārya-advayasamatāvijayākhyāvikalpa-mahārāja (D0452), an incomplete manuscript of which was located at Zhalu (zhwa lu) in the early twentieth century by Gendun Chopel (dge 'dun chos 'phel, 1903-1951) and the Bengali paṇḍita Sāṅkṛtyāyana. He translated two texts ascribed to Nāropa: Paramārthasaṁgraha-nāma-sekoddeśaṭīkā (D1351), in collaboration with the paṇḍit Dharmadhara and the Tibetan Drakpa Gyeltsen (grags pa rgyal mtshan), and the Ratnaprabhā-nāma (D1342) with the paṇḍit Vajraguṇabhadra. He translated two texts by Indrabhūti with the paṇḍit Prajñāśrīgupta: Śrī-ānandapuṣpamālā (D1336) and Śrītattvāmṛitopadeśa (D1337). He assisted Prajñāśrīgupta again in the translation of Sambhogavajra's Śrīmahājñānaḍākeśvarasādhanopāyikā (D1334), and again on that paṇḍita's own composition, the Ānandacakṣu-nāma-ṭīkā (D1201). Finally, he is credited with the translation of Abhayākaragupta's Jñānaḍākinīsādhana (D1618).

Alexander Gardner is Director and Chief Editor of the Treasury of Lives. He completed his PhD in Buddhist Studies at the University of Michigan in 2007. He is the author of The Life of Jamgon Kongtrul The Great.

Published January 2020

དཔྱད་གཞིའི་ཡིག་ཆ་ཁག།