The Treasury of Lives

Born into a family of religious teachers, Rongzom Chokyi Zangpo (rong zom chos kyi bzang po) is presumed to have flourished in the second half of the eleventh century and to have lived a long life. Although there is little evidence to date Rongzom with precision, there are several competing dates in published accounts: Tarthang Tulku, for example, gives 1012-1088,[1] dates used by both Hirshberg and Jackson,^[2] Dudjom Jikdrel Yeshe Dorje (bdud 'joms 'jigs bral ye shes rdo rje, 1904–1987), calculates Rongzom’s life-span to be 119 years,^[3] a number that neatly coincides with the number of years occurring between 1012 and 1131, which Bradburn gives for Rongzom’s date of birth and death.^[4] Further, several sources, including the Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC), date Rongzom from 1042 to 1136. The publisher's colophon of the 1999 edition of Rongzom's Collected Works, however, which was compiled and edited by as given by Ju Mipam Gyatso ('ju mi pham rgya mtsho, 1846–1912) and published by Zengkar Tulku, names the iron-dragon year––1040––as Rongzom’s date of birth.^[5] Thus, while some academics, as well as some Tibetan Buddhist scholars,^[6] continue to repeat the 1012 date of birth, some have adopted the BDRC dates.^[7]

A text in Rongzom's collected works, entitled The Charter of Mantrins (sngags pa'i bca' yig), describes Rongzom as an established teacher of Buddhism in Tibet with his own community of lay and ordained disciples during "a dragon year." Eleventh-century dragon years correspond to the earth-dragon year in 1028; the iron-dragon year in 1040; and the wood-dragon year in 1064. Rongzom would presumably have been an adult by one of these three dates. If we stipulate either 1040 or 1042 as his date of birth, which is plausible if The Charter of Mantrins dragon year is the wood-dragon year of 1064, another potential problem arises. Rongzom's traditional biography describes his meeting Atiśa Dipamkara Śrījñāna (982–1055), who resided in Tibet from 1044 until his death in 1055. According to the story, Atiśa, a conservative Indian master invited to Tibet out of concern for the corrosion and corruption of true religion in Tibet, was asked to discuss the Buddhist teaching with Rongzom. Instead, Atiśa identified Rongzom, a child at the time, as the incarnation of an Indian scholar, a story we return to below.

A 1012 date of birth is plausible insofar as it helps account for Rongzom meeting Tibetan translators, such as Marpa Dowa Chokyi Wangchuk (mar pa do ba chos kyi dbang phyug, 1042–1136), among others (the encounter is recounted below). However, there are also reports that suggest Rongzom's teaching career flourished well into the twelfth century. For example, the famed fourteenth-century chronicle of Tibetan religious history, The Blue Annals (deb ther sngon po), by Go Lotsāwa Zhonnu Pel ('gos lo tsA ba gzhon nu dpal, 1392-1481) reports that Kharakpa (kha rag pa), who lived from the mid-twelfth century to the mid-thirteenth, had a student named Lhopa Darma Kyab (lho pa dar ma skyabs) who received teachings from Rongzom. Lhopa is known to have requested and recorded The Jewel Ornament of Liberation (thar pa rin po che'i rgyan) from Gampopa Sonam Rinchen (sgam po pa bsod nams rin chen, 1079–1153), the close disciple of Milarepa (mi la ras pa, 1040–1123). Moreover, while The Blue Annals gives no date of birth for Rongzom, it does state that Lharje Dawe Wozer (lha rje zla ba'i 'od zer, 1123–1182) studied with Rongzom in 1139.[8]

For reasons such as these we find Rongzom's dates spanning many years. At present, perhaps the most judicious course for dating Rongzom based on the available evidence remains the presumption that he flourished in the late eleventh century––indeed, perhaps even into the mid twelfth century. Hopes for more precise dating, moreover, remain a possibility. According to Ju Mipam Gyatso, there are more accounts of Rongzom's interactions with other Tibetans sprinkled throughout the biographies of eleventh century Sanskrit-Tibetan translators.^[9]

The most influential sources for information about Rongzom's life come from three biographies,  two of which were composed by direct disciples of Rongzom––Yol Genyen Dorje Wangchuk (yol dge bsnyen rdo rje dbang phyug) and Yak Dorje Dzinpa Chenpo (g.yag rdo rje 'dzin pa chen po)––whose own dates are unknown. A third biographical narrative, a synthetic account of these earlier two with some additional details, is found in The Blue Annals. Two biographies crafted in the sixteenth century by Kunga Drolchok (kun dga' grol mchog, 1507–1566) and Sokdokpa Lodro Gyeltsen (sog bzlog pa blo gros rgyal mtshan, 1522–1624); another was produced in the eighteenth by Jigme Lingpa ('jigs med gling pa, 1729–1798). All three are largely based on the account in The Blue Annals. A nineteenth century biography by Guru Tashi (gu ru bkra shis) reproduces Jigme Lingpa's account almost verbatim. The biography composed by Ju Mipam in 1904, which is recorded in Rongzom’s collected works, closely follows that which is found in The Blue Annals, as well, which closely follows the narratives given by Rongzom's direct disciples. Mipam's account, however, does add some anecdotes. The final Rongzom biography of note, which follows Jigme Lingpa's account while largely ignoring Mipam's, comes from Dudjom Rinpoche in 1962. The following account incorporates those of Yol, Yak, Go Lotsawa, Mipam, and Dudjom unless otherwise noted.^[10]

Rongzom was born into a religious family, the son of Rongben Rinchen Tsultrim (rong ban rin chen tshul khrims), who was the son of Rongben Pelgyi (rong ban dpal gyi). He lived with a wife, of whom we know nothing, in Narlungrong (snar lung rong), a district in Rulak (ru lag) in the western Tibetan region of Lower Tsang (gtsang smad). They had three children: two boys named Zijil Bar (gzi brjid 'bar) and Bumbar ('bum 'bar), who would receive and transmit the religious lineage of their father.

Rongzom also had a daughter. While his father and sons, like himself, had public roles in religion and are known to history, her story is more mythic in scope. Born when Rongzom was near the end of his life, she was said to have been a wisdom ḍākinī (ye shes mkha' 'gro ma)—a fully-enlightened being who took the form of a human girl. From her very first words, this Tibetan child spoke only in the Sanskrit language of India, and her father transmitted to her a full regime of tantric instruction in that medium. At sixteen, at the naturally-formed stone throne      in Narlungrong where Rongzom gave tantric teachings, she was seen ascending into the heavens and vanishing into a pure land. While in flight, a drop of her menstrual blood (gsang mtshal) fell from the sky and was absorbed into the ground in front of the throne. A bush of medicinal flowers (sman se sdong po) not unlike roses bloomed there afterwards, first in five different colors, and later in only gold and white.                                       

Although exact dating for Rongzom remains impossible to fix with certainty, it is clear he was a renowned (and controversial) figure in a fluid era of significant socio-political and cultural transformation. His place among the greatest intellectuals in Tibetan history is undisputed; he is often regarded as the Tibetan personification of India's Buddhist masters' transcendent virtues. Rongzom is described as embodying the transformative insight of Dignāga, the erudition of Vasubandhu, the dulcet timbre of Candragomin, the dialectical acumen of Dharmakīrti, and poetical style of Āryaśūra.^[11] For a man who never traveled outside of Tibet, his constant and intimate association with the great figures of classical Indian Buddhism remains a striking feature of his biography, emphasizing his unimpeachable bona fides.

According to Rongzom's hagiographies, he exhibited a remarkable, almost spontaneous intelligence and aptitude for both language and scholarship from a very young age. Rongzom's aptitude for languages was so remarkable, it is said his abilities to speak other languages extended to that of animals. From his intelligence and ability to learn and memorize the details of his subjects, he earned the recognition of being an emanation of the bodhisattva of wisdom, Mañjuśrī.

From his father Rongzom received his initial instruction in the Buddhist religion, which included the transmission of exoteric and esoteric teachings stemming from the Indian master Padmasambhava. He then went to study in the Lower Tsang region of central Tibet with Garton Tsultrim Zangpo ('gar ston tshul khrims bzang po) until the age of thirteen. In The Blue Annals, the child is described as soaking up his teacher's instruction almost instantly. After class, he would recite the day's lesson from memory as he frolicked in play, seemingly unburdened by intellectual effort. In this manner, he mastered the major and minor domains of classical knowledge, such as language, grammar, medicine, technology, logic and epistemology, and Buddhist doctrine. He is said to have completed his study of dialectical philosophy by age eleven, and a comprehensive course of Buddhist studies by thirteen. This reputation for precocity, however, did not prevent young Rongzom from gaining a reputation as quite the rowdy boy. When word of his unruly reputation reached his father, the man sheepishly approached Garton Tsultrim Zangpo about removing his mischief-making boy from the school. The teacher replied, however, that the boy's outstanding intellect meant no removal would be considered.

A man named Yazi Bonton (ya zi bon ston) who was a student of Aro Yeshe Junge (a ro ye shes 'byung gnas) transmitted to Rongzom the lineages of the translator Vairocana and other teachings from south and east Asian Buddhist traditions—the latter being the so-called seven Chinese lineages (rgya nag bden brgyud). Another teacher, Doton Sengge Gyeltsen (mdo ston seng ge rgyal mtshan), instructed him in Mahāyoga tantra. It is said that upon hearing a report of one of young Rongzom's seemingly prophetic dreams––one in which Rongzom consumes the Guhyagarbha and Buddhasamāyoga tantras as nourishment––Doton Sengge encouraged the child to compose commentaries on those esoteric scriptures, which he did––the latter being his Commentary On the Difficult Points of the Sarvabuddhasamāyogaḍākinījālasaṃvaratantra.

As a young man, Rongzom was said to have relished the company of itinerant Indian pandits wandering in and out of central Tibet from Kashmir and Nepal. It is from these masters––Buddhākarabhadra, Mañjuśrīvarman, Upāyaśrīmitra, Mañjuśrījñāna, Devākaracandra, Parameśvara, and Amoghavajra, among others––that Rongzom learned the Sanskrit language. According to tradition these Indian paṇḍitas encouraged him to write texts on Buddhism.

Rongzom eventually collaborated with several of his Indian teachers on translations of tantric literature from Sanskrit into Tibetan. Upāyaśrīmitra, Mañjuśrījñāna, and Parameśvara worked with Rongzom translating texts such as Kurukullāsādhana, Kṛṣṇayamāritantrapañjikā, Śrīyamāntakamūlamantrārthavajraprabheda, and Gaṇapatiguhyasādhana. One of Amoghavajra's compositions was translated by the great Bengali master Atiśa along with Naktso Lotsāwa Tsultrim Gyelwa (nag 'tsho lo tsA utraul khrims rgyal ba, 1011–1064) when Rongzom was still a child. Rongzom himself, working again with Mañjuśrījñāna, translated another of Amoghavajra's works, Śrīvajrabhairavasādhanakarmopacāravidhisattvasaṃgraha. Parameśvara, for his part, translated other texts with both Rongzom and the eleventh century Tibetan translator and conservative intellectual Go Khukpa Lhetse ('gos khug pa lhas btsas).

Rongzom's rather astonishing mastery of the Sanskrit language later led to his being reputed to be the Tibetan reincarnation of the first two Indian pandits invited to Tibet by Lha Lama Yeshe Wo (lha bla ma ye she od, 947-1019/1024): the Indian Buddhist masters, Smṛtijñānakīrti and Ācārya Trala Ringwa (a tsa ra phra la ring ba). Adding to this otherwise mystical connection is the fact that Rongzom wrote a commentary on Smṛtijñānakīrti’s important Tibetan grammar, entitled Vacanamukhāyudhopama.

Rongzom's association with Indian Buddhist luminaries and saints continues with revisiting the story of his childhood meeting with Atiśa, which is recorded in a biography written by Rongzom’s direct disciple.[12] Upon meeting Rongzom, Atiśa was said to be so impressed as to wonder aloud what advice he could possibly have for the remarkably learned young man. Instead of discussing dharma with him, Atiśa pronounced him the incarnation of the great Indian master, Kṛṣṇapāda—also sometimes identified as Kṛṣṇācārya, Kṛṣṇācārin, or Kāṇha/Kāṇhapāda––who was an important figure in the lineages of the Cakrasaṃvara and Hevajra tantras and is counted among the so-called eighty-four mahāsiddhas of Indian Buddhism.

Rongzom's translations and commentaries played a significant role in making Vajrayāna Buddhism and tantric philosophy truly Tibetan—a point emphasized by his being considered the reincarnation of multiple Indian masters, as though he personally embodied their authority. Over the centuries, scholars of both Old and New traditions have described Rongzom's compositions as masterworks of penetrating analyses authored in the distinctive style of classical Indian literature. Go Lotsawa describes Rongzom as a unique figure whose theories were different from, and superior to, all others.^[13] Commenting on Rongzom's many textual exegeses, the twentieth century master Dudjom Rinpoche distinguishes him as a deft hermeneutician capable of drawing out the most subtle of philosophical distinctions.

Perhaps no story sums up Rongzom's pioneering role in Tibetan religious life better than the famous narrative of the conference of his would-be censors found in the third chapter of Go Lotsawa's chronicle of Tibetan religious history, The Blue Annals. Rongzom lived at the beginning of the era known as the second propagation of Buddhism in Tibet, a period that ended the so-called "age of fragmentation" when monastic Buddhism had lost state support and the teachings were disseminated in lay communities. Rongzom himself was not ordained, but was a lay authority with a large following of disciples flourishing in a decentralized religious and political environment. Such teachers and communities were objects of concern for an ascendant political faction in Guge, in western Tibet, where figures such as Yeshe Wo called for a return to monasticism and a rejection of the lay teachings that he believed to have been corrupted. According to Yeshe Wo and a scion of his royal house, Podrang Zhiwa Wo (pho brang zhi ba 'od), some Tibetans also engaged in the worst type of fabrication by composing their own religious texts during the dark age in order to offer scriptural justification for their wrong views and behaviors, which were said to be mistaken at best and violent and licentious at worst. In order to establish authoritative lines of religious dispensation, Yeshe Wo and Zhiwa Wo sponsored new translations and issued formal ordinances outlining illegitimate religion and criticizing village religious communities such as Rongzom's.

Keen to claim the mantle of the arbiters of true religion in Tibet, a position that would no-doubt enhance the effort of those in Guge to extend centralized control over a wider domain, the ordinances championed a conservative style of institutional monasticism as the remedy for the disparaged lay-based tantric circles. This neoconservative attitude among Tibetan proponents of the New Schools held that "anything un-Indian was by definition un-Buddhist, so that all innovations in doctrine, ritual, behavior, or meditation instructions were, prima facie, illegitimate, simply because they could not be tied to an Indic text or Indian tradition."^[14] With the rebirth of institutional religion, lay communities such as Rongzom's thus came in for sanction and censure. Rongzom himself was not spared criticism, and the ordinances assert that a number of scriptures he championed were fabrications.

The Blue Annals narrates the events of a conference of Tibetan scholars from the Four Horns (ru bzhi) (i.e. regions) of central Tibet called to survey the received Buddhist scriptures and evaluate their authenticity one by one. The attendees agreed to censure Rongzom for his original works. No person born in Tibet, they argued, should be so bold as to compose Buddhist treatises. Yet, the story goes, after reading and discussing each treatise with Rongzom, the initially hostile cadre became so impressed by Rongzom's erudition and mastery of Buddhism that subsequently they requested to be his disciples. Among those who did so were Marpa Dowa, a disciple of Marpa Chokyi Lodro (mar pa chos kyi blo gros, c.1012-c.1097); the famed translator and Nyingma critic Go Khukpa Lhetse; and Gorub Lotsāwa Chokyi Sherab (go rub lo tsA ba chos kyi shes rab).

The fact that so many of these would-be censors changed their views of Rongzom's work only after reading and discussing each treatise suggests just how hostile the environment was toward Tibetan composition. Considering that Tibetans, including many among Rongzom's would-be censors, became prolific authors of a wide variety of authoritative Buddhist texts, this episode illustrates the outsized role that Rongzom played in fostering the robust Tibetan Buddhist intellectual culture that has thrived for a thousand years.

At one time, Rongzom's catalog of compositions was said to have numbered sixty volumes and three hundred works, including commentarial treatises on the Vedas that are no longer extant. In the current edition of his collected works, which was initially compiled by Gyelse Zhenpen Taye (rgyal sras gzhan phan mtha' yas, 1800-1855/69), the founder of Dzogchen Monastery's Śrī Siṃha College and later completed by Mipam, there are thirty-two texts, only twenty-three of which are attributed to Rongzom himself. These include his Ratnaṭīka: A Commentary on the King of Tantras, Guhyagarbha (rgyud rgyal gsang ba snying po dkon cog 'grel); his Threefold Explanation: A Commentary on the Proper Recitation of the Names [of Mañjuśrī] (mtshan yang dag par brjod pa'i 'grel pa rnams gsum bshad pa); his Commentary on [Padmasambhava's] Pith Oral Instructions [Entitled] A Garland of Views (man ngag lta phreng gi 'grel pa); and a collection of thematic essays (gsung thor bu) on a variety of topics, ranging from a survey of Buddhist philosophical controversies to meta-theoretical assessments of the nature and scope of language and logic and epistemology, to the Fundamentals of Consecration Rites (rab gnas kyi rtsa ba).

Although he was one of the first Tibetan to gain acceptance as an author of Buddhist works, his compositions nevertheless maintain a highly formalized Indic style. All of his literary works are said to be qualified by their refined language, refined meaning, and incomparable style (rtsom gshis), which is always compared to the classics of Indian exegesis. In fact, Ju Mipam Gyatso, who was in no small part responsible for compiling, editing, and revising the extant works of Rongzom, suggested that some of Rongzom's compositions may have been inserted, as anonymous Indian works, into the Buddhist canon, so thoroughly Indian in style as to make them impossible to identify as the composition of a Tibetan.

His writings on tantra are considered so powerful that anyone merely looking at them is said to receive a profound blessing as a result—even if they have not received the proper transmission, which is considered the imprimatur of the tradition. Moreover, Rongzom’s work has become vital to the curriculum of the Nyingma. His commentary on the tantric pledges (samaya), his commentary on the most important tantra in the Nyingma, Guhyagarbha, and, arguably his most important work, his seminal defense of the Dzogchen entitled, Entering the Way of the Great Vehicle, form key portions of in the current Nyingma course of study. This text, in particular, which has been described by figures such as Dudjom Rinpoche as "inexpressibly profound and of vast significance," marks the distinctive role Rongzom plays in Tibetan history: a translator and exegete of new tantras pens a scholastic polemical defense of Dzogchen, which was criticized by prominent proponents of the later traditions. No other Nyingma figures at the time were composing this type of literature.

Although Rongzom rejected the neoconservative conception of Indian lineage as the sole criterion of Buddhist authenticity, he was in fact the recipient and conduit of religious lineages critical to both New and Old Schools. In terms of the Nyingma tradition, he received several systems that traditionally claimed Indian roots: Guhyagarbha, Vajrakīla/Vajrakilāya, Semde or "Mind Class" traditions stemming from Vairocana and Yudra Nyingpo (g.yu sgra snying po); the Kham system of Dzogchen transmitted via Vimalamitra and his chief disciples Nyangben Tingdzin Zangpo (myang ban ting 'dzin bzang po), Ma Rinchen Chok (rma rin chen mchog) and Nyak Jñānakumāra (gnyags dz+nyA na ku mA ra).

Aside from these details of his family, his compositions, and his teachers, nothing else is known about his life.