TECHNICAL NOTE

THIS TRANSLATION is based on the version of the Tibetan text found in the first part of the eighteenth volume (tsha) of the Shechen edition of The Treasury of Precious Instructions (gDams ngag rin po che’i mdzod), pp. 1–380. The page numbers in curly brackets {} throughout this book indicate the arabic page numbers of that particular edition. The earlier Kundeling and Palpung editions of the same anthology were also occasionally consulted when specific passages or terms appeared to be unclear. In addition, there were instances where typographical errors and obscurities found in all these anthologies were resolved through consultation with the 1984 reproduction of a rare manuscript of the One Hundred and Eight Guidebooks of Jonang (Jo nang khrid brgya), from the library of His Holiness Sakya Trizin, published by Migmar Tseten in Dehradun, India.

Throughout this book, any text found in square brackets [] has been added to aid the reader’s comprehension. The sources from which many of these inserts derive are mentioned in the corresponding endnotes. The preambles to each of the twelve chapters, written by the translator, are formatted differently than the main text.

With a few exceptions, Tibetan and Sanskrit technical terms have been rendered into English. To assist general readers and scholars alike, there are trilingual concordances of terminology and of personal and place names, all of which follow the last chapter of the translation. In these concordances and in the back matter as a whole, Tibetan words are transliterated according to a widely accepted variant of the extended Wylie system. In the main text, however, the Tibetan names of persons, deities, and places appear in a simplified phonetic system that makes use of the acute and umlaut accents above the vowels e and o, and that takes elision into account.

In the case of Sanskrit terms and names, the traditional system of transliteration using diacritics, universally accepted in academic circles, has been employed. Though this needs no introduction to scholars, for the benefit of the general reader the following guidelines will be useful: Among the short vowels, a, i, u, e, and o are pronounced as in Italian, while ṛ is pronounced like the ri sound of the English word brick, and the rarely found ḷ is pronounced as the li sound in click. Among the long vowels, most of which employ the superscript macron (-), ā, ī, and ū are respectively pronounced like the a in father, the ea in seat, and the oo in boot. Other long vowels include ai, which resembles the y sound in by; au, which resembles the ow sound in now; and the long versions of ṛ and ḷ, which respectively resemble the rea sound in reach and the lea sound in leach. Vowels may also be followed by ṃ and ḥ, which respectively indicate their nasalization and aspiration. As far as the Sanskrit consonants are concerned, c is pronounced as the ch sound in church but without strong aspiration. The consonants th and ph are respectively pronounced like t and p with strong aspiration, and never like the th in that and the ph in phone. Retroflex consonants with a subscript dot—ṭ, ṭha, ḍ, ḍha, and ṇ—indicate that they are pronounced with the tongue striking the roof of the mouth, while the corresponding dental set, without the subscript dot, indicates that they are pronounced with the tongue striking the upper incisors. The nasal consonants ṅ and ñ are respectively pronounced like the ng in king, and the ny in canyon. Finally, ś and ṣ are variants of the English sh sound, but with the tongue positioned forward in the former case and backward in the latter case. Throughout this text, mantra syllables are transliterated in small caps, their font size smaller than that of the surrounding text.

Most references to primary and secondary sources in the bibliography and endnotes are identified by abbreviations indicating the collections to which they belong or their catalog numbers in the indispensable digital library at the Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC, formerly TBRC). For a complete listing, see the list of abbreviations, which precedes the notes.