The Dharma's Gatekeepers: Sakya Pandita on Buddhist Scholarship in Tibet. By Jonathan C. Gold

Abstract

Jonathan C. Gold's The Dharma's Gatekeepers: Sakya Paṇḍita on Buddhist Scholarship in Tibet examines the first two chapters of Sakya Paṇḍita's (Sa skya paṇḍi ta kun dga' rgyal mtshan, 1182–1251; henceforth, Sa-paṇ) Gateway to Learning (mkhas pa 'jug pa'i sgo), the seminal Tibetan treatise on scholarly mores. Sa-paṇ's work has formed the basis for several western-language studies, most notably David Jackson's 1987 The Entrance Gate for the Wise. Whereas Jackson's book focused on the work's third and final chapter, on monastic debate, Gold investigates the chapters on scholarly composition and textual exposition (and, in an appendix, includes a translation of a significant portion of the composition chapter), thereby dovetailing with Jackson's opus. Gold's stated purpose “is to explain the philosophy of scholarship embedded within [these] first two chapters” (7), a purpose that he fulfills admirably. Through a careful examination of this difficult text, Gold offers the reader Tibetan theories of translation, linguistics, hermeneutics, and poetics and places the first three of these theories in conversation with western notions of the same. The philosophy of scholarship that Gold uncovers successfully draws Sa-paṇ's technical composition into dialogues of interest to a wide range of humanistic inquiry.