Overview

This anthology contains works that will be of primary interest to those interested in the literature of the Vajrayana, or Tantra. The nature and content of Buddhist Tantric literature, and how it resembles and differs from non-Buddhist Tantra, are discussed by Sachen Kunga Nyingpo (1034-1102) in his Overview of Tantra. There are more specialized accounts in the opening section to his Pearl Rosary Tika: A Commentary on the Sri Cakrasamvara Mula Tantra, a work of 397 Tibetan pages of which I have translated twenty five pages. These are the pages that describe the transmission and literary concerns of interest to general readers. The section that remains to be translated is a detailed, word by word, commentary on the Samvara Tantra itself, suitable for a more detailed study. Readers looking for a clear description of the place of sexuality in Buddhist Tantra will find the sources here translated attractive.

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9781500697969

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Christopher Wilkinson began his career in Buddhist literature at the age of fifteen, taking refuge vows from his guru Dezhung Rinpoche. In that same year he began formal study of Tibetan language at the University of Washington under Geshe Ngawang Nornang and Turrell Wylie. He became a Buddhist monk, for three years, at the age of eighteen, living in the home of Dezhung Rinpoche while he continued his studies at the University of Washington. He graduated in 1980 with a B.A. degree in Asian Languages and Literature and another B.A. degree in Comparative Religion (College Honors, Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa). After a two year tour of Buddhist pilgrimage sites throughout Asia he worked in refugee resettlement programs for five years in Seattle, Washington. He then proceeded to the University of Calgary for an M.A. in Buddhist Studies where he wrote a groundbreaking thesis on the Yangti transmission of the Great Perfection tradition titled Clear Meaning: Studies on a Thirteenth Century rDzog chen Tantra. He proceeded to work on a critical edition of the Sanskrit text of the 20,000 line Perfection of Wisdom in Berkeley, California, followed by an intensive study of Burmese language in Hawaii. In 1990 he began three years' service as a visiting professor in English Literature in Sulawesi, Indonesia, exploring the remnants of the ancient Sri Vijaya Empire there. He worked as a research fellow for the Shelly and Donald Rubin Foundation for several years, playing a part in the early development of the Rubin Museum of Art. In the years that followed he became a Research Fellow at the Centre de Recherches sur les Civilisations de l'Asie Orientale, College de France, and taught at the University of Calgary as an Adjunct Professor for five years. He has currently published eighteen volumes of translations of Tibetan literature, and is currently engaged in further translations of great classics in Buddhist literature.

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