Abstract
The disagreement regarding the correct size of a Buddha image between the Kālacakra tradition (Dus ’khor lugs) and the Saṃvarodaya tradition (sDom ’byung lugs) is a significant and recurring theme in the history of Tibetan Thangka painting. While the latter specifies 120 fingers as the correct height of a Buddha image, the former claims that it should be 5 fingers more. Taking as a departure point two and a half verses from the Laghukālacakratantra that are quoted by sMan bla don grub (15th century), arguably one of the most prominent trailblazers of Tibetan styles of Thangka painting, we observe: firstly, that in his De gshegs yid nor (a revised and more developed version of bDe gshegs yid nor) sMan bla don grub quotes verses 5.171‒173ab of the Laghukālacakratantra; secondly, Laghukālacakratantra 5.172a as attested in De gshegs yid nor may have been quoted from the new Jo nang translation of the Laghukālacakratantra, although this particular pāda offers the philologically insupportable and hermeneutically inconsistent reading of 125 fingers; and thirdly, in India, the divergent iconometric systems found in the Laghukālacakratantra and the Saṃvarodayatantra had already reached a compromise, and so the discrepancy between the Kālacakra tradition and the Saṃvarodaya tradition as reflected in the Tibetan materials may in fact have been introduced by the new Jo nang translation of LKCT 5.172a, presumably, in much the same way as the gzhan stong versus rang stong controversy was motivated by the new religious term (chos skad) gzhan stong.
Highlights
As a first attempt to deal with this issue, taking as our departure point two and a half verses from the LKCT quoted by sMan bla, we shall demonstrate that finding a compromise for this disagreement was probably long a concern of the exegetes north of the Himalayas
The arguments and the unspecified yet apparent counter-arguments attested in the treatises of sMan bla as well as those of later Tibetan scholars feature indigenous peculiarities that are well worth a first investigation, one that can be deepened in the future
When listing the texts cited by Klong rdol bla ma (1719‒1805), Tucci remarked on the discrepancies between the rDzogs pa’i sangs rgyas mchog gi sprul pa’i sku’i phyag tshad, which he considered a fragment of the Legs bshad ’od zer brgya phrag written by sMan bla,15 and a book entitled bDe bar gshegs pa’i sku gzugs kyi tshad kyi rab tu byed pa yid bzhin gyi nor bu, which, though ascribed to dPal blo bzang po, he took to be a later revised version of sMan bla’s Yid bzhin nor bu
Summary
When listing the texts cited by Klong rdol bla ma (1719‒1805), Tucci remarked on the discrepancies between the rDzogs pa’i sangs rgyas mchog gi sprul pa’i sku’i phyag tshad, which he considered a fragment of the Legs bshad ’od zer brgya phrag written by sMan bla, and a book entitled bDe bar gshegs pa’i sku gzugs kyi tshad kyi rab tu byed pa yid bzhin gyi nor bu, which, though ascribed to dPal blo bzang po, he took to be a later revised version of sMan bla’s Yid bzhin nor bu. It is unlikely that the Fifth Dalai Lama was personally involved in the process of reproducing and redacting the text, but as the chief patron de nom, his opinion or penchant may in all likelihood have been the reason for the new edition of Yid bzhin nor bu.20 This may be true in the case of the variant reading of the LKCT 172a we shall discuss . We shall first trace the source of the 172a quotation in De gshegs yid nor and explain the exceptional reading that occurs in U, since these two matters are related to each other
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