ʼJam-mgon ʼJu Mi-pham-rgya-mtsho - The wisdom chapter : Jamgön Mipham’s commentary on the ninth chapter of The way of the bodhisattva

The textual outline of the Norbu Ketaka given in the preceding pages is a translation of what in Tibetan is called a sabch (sa bcad, division of the ground). It is an analytical tool, first devised, it is said, in the schools of Sangpu, as a means of clarifying and reducing to order the contents (not always systematic) of the translated Indian texts, thereby acting as the first step in the composition of commentary. Of proven usefulness, it quickly became a permanent feature of Tibetan scholastic method.

Traditionally, the sabch is embedded within the Tibetan text to which it belongs, and learning to identify and negotiate it is one of the first tasks of the student reader. Once mastered, however, it gives quick and easy access to both an overall and a detailed comprehension of a text. Its usefulness, moreover, becomes even more evident when, as here, it is extracted and presented as a separate document, thereby providing the reader not only with a succinct overview of the text that is to follow but also with a convenient device for reviewing, and committing to memory, the contents of the book once it has been studied.

As the Tibetan term suggests, the sabch proceeds by the division and subdivision of the text, revealing the hierarchical arrangement of its subject matter by means of successive textual levels, which, in the present case, have been indicated by a corresponding figure at the left of each entry.

The careful reader will see that the textual outline divides the entire commentary into two main sections: 1. The need for generating wisdom, the principal aspect of the path and 1. An explanation of the perfection of wisdom. These two entries constitute the primary division of the commentary. They correspond to the first textual division or level and are therefore marked by the figure 1. Whereas the first entry corresponds to a comparatively simple statement, the second is the main body of the commentary itself, and is subsequently divided and subdivided into many different sections. To begin with, it is divided twofold with subheadings that, belonging to the second textual level, are indicated accordingly: 2. Positing the ground: the emptiness of true existence and, further down, 2. Establishing the path: the nonexistence of the self. The first of these two secondary headings is again divided twofold into 3. The statement of our position and 3. A refutation of objections. Of these, the first is divided into three sections that, belonging to the fourth level, are marked accordingly: 4. Identifying what is to be understood: the two truths, and so on, while the second of the third-level subdivisions divides into subheadings at a fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh textual level.

The basic rule of thumb, which it is important to grasp, is that entries of any given level are directly subordinate to the last occurring entry of the preceding level. Thus the entries