Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Thayé - Shangpa Kagyu: The Tradition of Khyungpo Naljor: Essential Teachings of the Eight Practice Lineages of Tibet, Volume 11

T HE TITLE for the following collection of twelve Shangpa source textsVajra Lines of the Six Dharmas of Niguma, kin of Timeless Awareness: The Roots of the Golden Dharmas of the Shangpaapplies literally to only the first six that concern the Six Dharmas of Niguma. The whole work as it is reprinted in the Shechen edition of The Treasury of Precious Instructions contains six more ancient works covering the other four Golden Dharmas, yet all under this title. It is interesting that this text is missing entirely from the Kundeling printing of The Treasury, and the editor comments in his table of contents on this peculiarity, since Kongtrul clearly lists it in his Catalog. But there are a number of other sources from which it might have been retrieved to restore the order here. A source of this small collection may be in the seventy-seventh to eighty-first guidebooks of Jonang by Samdingpa Zhnu Drup.

The Six Dharmas hold a central place in the teachings of Niguma. They were given by her to Khyungpo Naljor a total of four times during his encounter with the kin and, by her own testament, were held only by herself and her master Rhula in all of India (making them distinct from the Six Dharmas of Nropa). Khyungpo Naljor then wrote them down, presumably in some Indian language, and brought that text back to Tibet, stopping at Toling Monastery where the great master Jowo Je Atia compared it to his own copy (and where did that come from?) before approving it. The great translator Rinchen Zangpo also verified it, or even edited it, as stated in the colophon.

From there the practices of the Six Dharmas were passed on in the lineage in Tibet and became known as the roots of the tree of the Five Golden Dharmas. Teachings on the Six Dharmas ultimately derive from the completion-phase practices (rdzogs rim) in the major yoga tantras, which concern the manipulation of the subtle energies of the body. There are any number of influences on the six as a whole and on each individual dharma, which are often attributed to separate sources. Sangye Tnpa Tsndru Senge (12071278), the seventh and last jewel of the Shangpa one-to-one lineage, states that they are directly based on the ever-elusive source of all Shangpa teachings: the Jewel Ocean Tantra.

The Vajra Lines of the Six Dharmas, like all vajra lines (rdo rje tshig rkang), are very ancient, a millennium old or more, and sourced in oral instructions. Written down by Khyungpo Naljor or revealed in visions to such masters as Tangtong Gyalpo, they may be the original words of the kin, but they are nevertheless (or therefore) very cryptic. The quatrains are quoted here and there in many other places, but generally the practitioner must rely on later commentaries. The following five texts in this section represent the earliest attempts to clarify them, written down by Khyungpo Naljor based on Nigumas words.

In addition to those clarifications, the vajra lines themselves have been overlaid with a jumble of interlinear notes and additions. But who wrote those notes? According to the note appended to the text (which itself has an interlinear note attached to it!), the actual (