Toh 1675Untitled

Exposition of Toh 1675 — Tibetan Treatise Collection

Context

Toh 1675 is a work belonging to the Tengyur (Bstan 'gyur), that is, the Tibetan Treatise Collection — a collection of commentaries, treatises, and auxiliary works explaining the Buddha Dharma. In the Northern Mahayana tradition, the Tengyur is regarded as streams of the waters of wisdom from eminent masters, especially the Indian teachers who transmitted the Dharma into Tibet around the 8th-11th centuries.

Although the title is not clearly provided, with this serial number in the Tengyur the work is classified in the Treatise Collection and may be related to teachings on emptiness (śūnyatā), the path of discipline (vinaya), or aspects of Mahayana practice. Such works were often composed by eminent masters in order to explain complex matters of the Dharma Jewel, helping monks and students of the Buddha Dharma gain clearer understanding of theory and practice.

Main Content

In the context of the Northern Mahayana tradition, exegetical works often focus on harmonizing the various aspects of the Dharma Jewel — from theory (parikalpita, reasoning wisdom) to practice (sādhana, methods of cultivation). Their principal purpose is to help practitioners understand the nature of mind and phenomena, and thereby overcome attachments that obstruct the path of liberation.

The Tengyur emphasizes that there is no contradiction among what the different scriptures teach. This reflects the view of the Madhyamaka school (the Middle Way school) or Yogācāra, the major schools of Mahayana, which hold that each scripture has its own audience and distinct pedagogical purpose. An exegetical work may go deeply into the nature of consciousness (vijñapti), the nonexistence of the self of persons and the self of phenomena (pudgala-anātman, dharma-anātman), or the bodhisattva path (bodhisattva-mārga).

The Tibetan approach is synthetic and comprehensive: it does not set aside any scripture, but regards them as gradual steps from elementary teachings to the most profound teachings.