Thinking about this well structured collection of 108 instructions, I thought to pick a few and post them. Feeling predictable, I wanted to start with what you may expect to find on this blog, the instructions on zhentong (#25). However, as we read through this instruction, its presentation is perhaps less obvious than expected (or maybe not).

What makes this particular instruction so interesting is that it seems to be the only surviving fragment of the writings attributed to the Tibetan master Tsen Khawoché (b. 1021), a major figure in the transmission of zhentong and the Five Treatises of Maitreya.”^[1] Again, we have to thank Kunga Drolchok (1507-1566) for that. Hopefully more of his writings will turn up.

The second set in the Jonang Publication Series (Jo nang dpe tshogs) was recently published (vols. 11-21) in Beijing.^[1] This annual series is dedicated to making select works on sūtra and tantra from the Jonang exegetical tradition available in softcover book form. Each Tibetan text in the series was chosen from the corpus of Jonang Tibetan Buddhist literature, and several of the rare works included in the series have only recently been recovered through our efforts at Jonang Foundation.

Texts were digitally inputted and edited by Tibetan Jonang scholars and monks in China as part of this ongoing publication project. Selections of texts for each set are made by the directors of the Jonang Standing Council, and are being made available via the Jonang Foundation website. Encouraged by Gene Smith, I have sketched a few arbitrary notes on the texts included as redaction prints and the manuscript sources consulted for Series II:

This post is titled, Dolpopa's Elusive Annotations to the Kālachakra Commentary. By Cyrus Stearns, a contributing author to the Jonangpa blog.

Dolpopa's fabled annotations to the Stainless Light commentary on the Kālachakra-tantra remain elusive. An incomplete annotated manuscript of the Stainless Light (missing chapter 5) was reproduced in the Paltseg Kālachakra Commentary Series. This text was mistakenly identified as Dolpopa's annotations, although in the booklet accompanying the collection the publisher does acknowledge the uncertainty of the identification. The manuscript is actually another, somewhat variant, copy of Chogle Namgyal's annotations (also published in vols. 4–5 of the same collection), not those of his teacher Dölpopa. A third computerized edition of Choglé Namgyal’s annotations has also been published as part of the Jonang Publications Series II, using several different manuscripts, one of which concludes with a set of anonymous verses that can be identified as the work of Dolpopa.^[1]