Toh 1309Untitled

Exposition of Tengyur Scripture Toh 1309

Mahayana Tradition — Northern Transmission Canon

Context

This scripture comes from the Northern Transmission Canon, preserved in the Tengyur, the collection of scriptural commentaries of Tibetan Buddhism. The Tengyur is the Treatise Canon (Śāstras), consisting of profound commentaries by bodhisattva scholars and renowned arahants of Mahayana Buddhism.

Toh 1309 represents one of the highly systematic works, reflecting the Mahayana philosophical foundation with an integration of epistemology or Buddhist logic, the study of mind (cidmātrā), and the bodhisattva path of liberation. The context of its composition is closely related to the Mahayana schools that developed from the 4th to the 7th century in India, when bodhisattva scholars such as Vasubandhu, Dharmakīrti, and earlier masters synthesized the Dharma methods into complete systems of logic and metaphysics.

Main Content

Although the scripture’s title has not yet been fully translated from the descriptive information, based on the structure of the Toh treatises of the same period, this work surely discusses one of the central themes of the Mahayana: (1) the nature of mind (citta) and the way it gives rise to phenomena (dharmas); (2) the theory of empty nature (śūnyatā) and the absence of independent self-existence in things; or (3) the bodhisattva path of cultivation directed toward Buddhahood.

In the context of the Northern Transmission Canon, scriptures such as this often follow an interpretive method that the later Gelug school developed into the “two truths” (dvaya-satya): conventional truth (sammuti-satya) and ultimate truth (paramartha-satya). This mode of explanation does not deny worldly phenomena, but points out their conditioned and impermanent nature.

The scripture may also mention the perfections (pāramitās), that is, the six or thirteen great virtues of the bodhisattva, such as giving (dāna), morality (śīla), patience (kṣānti), vigor (vīrya), meditation (dhyāna), and wisdom (prajñā).