History and Myth: Mahāmudrā Lineage Accounts in the 12^th-Century Xixia Buddhist Literature

Abstract

Mahāmudrā—an Indo-Tibetan phenomenon of Buddhist spirituality—constitutes in its systematic presentation a path that maps out the mystical quest for direct experience of ultimate reality. Despite the post-15^th century bKa’-brgyud attempts at a codified Mahāmudrā genealogy, the early Tibetan sources speak little with regards to how the different Indian Mahāmudrā threads made their way over the Himalayas. To fill this gap, the article investigates, via philological and historical approaches, the lineage accounts in the 12^th-century Xixia Mahāmudrā materials against the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist landscape. Three transmission lines are detected. Among them, two lines are attested by later Tibetan historiographical accounts about Mahāmudrā, and thus belong to an Indo-Tibetan continuum of the constructed Buddhist yogic past based upon historical realities—at least as understood by Tibetans of the time. The third one is more of a collage patching together different claims to spiritual legacy and religious authority—be they historically based or introspectively projected. Not only does the Mahāmudrā topography, jointly fueled by these three transmissions, reveal the Xixia recognition and imagination of the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist legacies, it also captures the complexities of the multi-faceted picture of Mahāmudrā on its way over the Himalayas during the 11^th/12^th century.

1. Introduction

Mahāmudrā (Great Seal) constitutes in its mature and systematic presentation a Buddhist path that maps out the mystical quest for direct experience of ultimate reality. To trace mahāmudrā back through a chronology of Indian Buddhist Tantra, one observes a semantic line towards interiorization and gnostication coupled with an increasingly soteriological and ontological valence. A topic of analysis rhetorically detached from—yet practically indebted to—the tantric matrices, Mahāmudrā came to be received in the Buddhist siddha environment as a gnostic index of ultimacy defined by the luminous nature of the mind. In Roger Jackson’s terms, mahāmudrā “had become a crucial Buddhist term that could describe the nature of reality and of the mind, a ritual or meditative procedure for seeing the nature, and the enlightenment ensuing from that realization.” (Jackson 2005, p. 5597).

Up to the 11^th century, Indian tantric Buddhists—yogic and monastic—had devised and articulated a variety of approaches to the realization of Mahāmudrā. A number of such threads came to be known and received by Tibetans roughly around the same time, along with the tide of the most cutting-edge yogic techniques and tantric doctrines flooding over the Himalayas. In Tibet, Mahāmudrā is most closely associated with the bKa’-brgyud tradition, whose founding father sGam-po-pa (1079–1153) is shown to have taught Mahāmudrā approaches either rooted respectively in sūtra and tantra, or beyond both (Jackson 1994, pp. 14–28). sGam-po-pa’s multi-faceted picture of Mahāmudrā was systematized by later bKa’-brgyud teachers into more coherent presentations. A classic example is Kong-sprul Blo-gros-mtha’-yas’s (1813–1899) threefold classification of Mahāmudrā into the sūtra, mantra, and essence modes (mdo sngags snying po’i lugs) (Mathes 2015, pp. IX–X).

As much as we should be cautious against reading too much later taxonomy and interpretations back into earlier doctrinal layers, Kong-sprul’s scheme indeed reveals three major strands of inspiration bKa’-brgyud teachers had drawn from the India Buddhist tantric and siddha discourses in crafting their Mahāmudrā edifice. In short, the bKa’-brgyud Mahāmudrā topography is primarily made up of the tantric mode represented by the Six-Teaching (ṣaḍdharma, chos drug) praxis traced to Tilopa (988–1069), the sūtric mode by the Sahajayoga (lhan cig skyes sbyor) praxis of four yogas (rnal ’byor bzhi) traced to Atiśa (982–1054), and the essence mode by the dohā and Amanasikāra (yi la mi byed pa) cycles traced to the Saraha-Maitrīpa circle. Weaved together by the unifying thread of Mahāmudrā, all the three interconnected strands combined to make the core of the bKa’-brgyud curriculum.

Of the three Mahāmudrā strands already present in sGam-po-pa’s collected works,1 only the tantric Mahāmudrā lineage was emphasized at the start of the bKa’-brgyud institution. The orthodox bKa’-brgyud lineage accounts tended to valorize the Six-Teaching transmission in combination with the Mahāmudrā content as its primary experiential referent. The normative succession runs from Vajradhara through Tilopa, Nāropā (1016–1100), Mar-pa (1012–1097), Mi-la-ras-pa (1028/40–1111/23), and sGam-po-pa, and then branches into subsectarian descents.2 It was only after the 15^th century that the Saraha-Maitrīpa branch of essence Mahāmudrā came to be reinforced along the bKa’-brgyud lines, probably as a response to criticisms leveled against the Mahāmudrā beyond the tantric context initially advocated by early patriarchs such as sGam-po-pa and Bla-ma Zhang (1123–1119) (Jackson 1994, pp. 82–83; Zhang 2016, pp. 598–99). It remains in scholarly debate whether it was a genuine rediscovery of Maitrīpa’s importance in sGam-po-pa’s non-tantric Mahāmudrā teaching or merely a retroactive projection of the later bKa’-brgyud outlook back onto their predecessors.3

As such, despite the post-15^th century attempts at a codified Mahāmudrā genealogy, the extant early bKa’-brgyud materials remain vague with regards to their specific transmissions—that is, how each Indian thread made its way over the Himalayas and tangled with each other. To fill this gap, the article investigates the Mahāmudrā lineage accounts preserved in the Xixia Buddhist literature pertaining to the Tibetan subject matter,4 a corpus of Tangut and Chinese texts which constitutes a window into the 12^th-century Tibetan attempts to assimilate and systematize the latest Indian Buddhist thoughts and praxes through the tantric axis. The Mahāmudrā lineages contained in the Xixia materials sheds new light on the Tibetan recognition of the Saraha-Maitrīpa branch in that it presents a case as early as the 12^th century.

2. An Overview of the Xixia Mahāmudrā Materials

A geographical nexus in which multiple vectors of cultural influences intersect, the Hexi Corridor has facilitated transfers of Buddhist teachings and praxes in a complex web of historical dynamics and cross-cultural exchanges.5 As the area came under the Tangut Xixia domination (1038–1227), the Buddhist religion continued to impact and shape the local religio-cultural landscape of both intra- and inter-national levels. By the turn of the 12^th century, Tibetans had begun to institutionalize their own Buddhist systems and initiate international outreach to secure patronage and extend institutional networks. As such, in an effort to build spiritual and political connections with the Tangut royal house, Tibetan masters brought to the Xixia Kingdom the cutting-edge yogic techniques of Buddhist Tantra and advanced Mahāyāna doctrinal developments.6

Embracing a variety of Buddhist yogic transmissions as well as a range of doctrinal topics imported from Tibet, the Tibetan-inspired Xixia Buddhist corpus of Tangut- and Chinese-language texts span the Vajravārāhī, Cakrasaṃvara, Six-Teaching (chos drug), Mahāmudrā, and Lam ’bras systems and topics.7 Scholarly knowledge of these yogic transmissions had advanced thanks to the rediscovered Xixia importance evinced by the Dacheng yaodao miji大乘要道密集 (The Secret Collection of Works on the Essential Path of Mahāyāna, “DYM” hereafter), a collection of Chinese translated texts of Tibetan tantric teaching compiled no earlier than the late-14^th century.8

The Xixia Mahāmudrā collection comprises Tangut-language texts and fragments scattered across approximately 15 inventory numbers originally assigned by the Institute of Oriental Studies to the Khara Khoto collection, and Chinese ones—most of which have Tangut equivalents—included in the DYM.9 Presented below is a collated list of Xixia Mahāmudrā titles provided in sequence and clusters as reflected in the bibliographical organizations shared by both the Khara Khoto collection and the DYM (Tibetan equivalent title will be provided if located):

#1. The Keypoints-Notes cluster:10

• #1.1. Keypoints of Mahāmudrā as the Ultimate (*Phyag rgya chen po mthar thug gi gnad bsdus; “Keypoints”):
  • Khara Khoto: *大印究竟要集 (345#824, 345#2526, #2876), Agent: compiled by Dehui 德慧
• #1.2. Notes on the Keypoints of Mahāmudrā as the Ultimate (*Phyag rgya chen po mthar thug gi gnad bsdus kyi zin bris; “Notes”):
  • Khara Khoto: *大印究竟要集记 (I: 345#2858, 345#7163, 427#3817; II: 427#3817; X: 345#2851)

#2. Upadeśa on the Uncommon Meaning of Mahāmudrā in Accordance with Scriptural Instructions (*Phyag rgya chen po thun mong ma yin pa’i don lung dang mthun pa’i man ngag; “Uncommon”):

• • DYM: Xinyi dashouyin bugongyi peijiao yaomen 新译大手印不共义配教要门, Agents: compiled by Maitrīpa; narrated by Huixian 惠贤, i.e., State Preceptor Xuanzhao 玄照; translated by Huichuang 惠幢

#3. Guided Meditation (*定引导):11

• #3.1. Upadeśa on the Immediate Approach to Mahāmudrā (*Phyag rgya chen por cig car ’jug pa’i man ngag; “Immediate Approach”):
  • Khara Khoto: *大手印顿入要语 (297#2530, 346#892, 346#7216)
    DYM: Xinyi dashouyin dunru yaomen 新译大手印顿入要门, Agents: narrated by Huixian; translated by Huichuang
• #3.2. Direct Guidance on the Mahāmudrā (*Phyag rgya chen po’i dmar khrid; “Direct Guidance”):
  • Khara Khoto: *大手印赤引导 (297#2530, 346#7216)
    DYM: Dashouyin yin ding/chiyindao 大手印引定/赤引导
• #3.3. Transmission of the Mahāmudrā Upadeśa (*Phyag rgya chen po’i man ngag gi brgyud pa; “Transmission”):
  • Khara Khoto: *大手印要语师次 (346#7216)
    DYM: Dashouyin jiatuozhi yaomen 大手印伽陁支要门
• #3.4. Upadeśa on the Gradual and Immediate Approaches to Mahāmudrā (*Phyag rgya chen por rim gyis ’jug pa dang cig car ’jug pa’i man ngag; “Gradual and Immediate Approaches”):
  • Khara Khoto: *大手印依次入等时入要语 (346#7216)
    DYM: Dashouyin jianru dunru yaomen 大手印渐入顿入要门

#4. Fourteen titles plus the preceding introduction to Lazheng’s 辢征 Mahāmudrā teaching by Imperial Preceptor Xuanmi 玄密 (“fourteen-title constellation”):12

• • Khara Khoto: fourteen titles plus the preceding passage “上师曰则我师辢征云...” (348#2841, 477#4977)
    DYM: fourteen titles plus the preceding passage “玄密帝师云吾师辢征做如是说”

#5. Four upadeśas including the Newly Translated Golden Garland of Mahāmudrā (Xinyi dashouyin jinyingluo deng sizhong yaomen 新译大手印金璎珞等四种要门; “four-upadeśa repertoire”):

• #5.1. Upadeśa on the Golden Garland (“Golden Garland”):13
  • DYM: Jinyingluo yaomen 金璎珞要门 (“Jinyingluo”)
    bsTan-’gyur: dPal udiyanar tshogs ’khor byas pa’i dus su rnal ’byor pa grub pa thob pa bzhi bcus rdo rje’i mgur bzhengs pa nyams kyi man ngag thig le gser gyi phreng ba (“Nyams kyi man ngag thig le”, D 2449)
• #5.2. Ritual of Offering the Gaṇacakra to Teachers of the Lineage (*brGyud pa’i bla ma rnams la tshogs’khor ’bul ba’i cho ga; “Offering the Gaṇacakra”):
  • DYM: Shicheng dengchu feng jilunyi 师承等处奉集轮仪
• #5.3. Upadeśa on the Quitessential Meanings of Mahāmudrā (“Quintessential Meanings”):14
  • DYM: Dashouyin zuanji xin zhi yilei yaomen 大手印纂集心之义类要门
    sGam po gsung ’bum: sNying po’i don lnga ldan (sGrub snying: 5b4–6b5)
• #5.4. The Quartet Upadeśa of Ḍombi’s Intention (“Ḍombi’s Intention”):15
  • DYM: Nami zhenxin siju yaomen 那弥真心四句要门
    sGam po gsung ’bum: Slob dpon ḍoṃ bhi he ru ka’i dgongs pa (gNas go: 29a1–b2)
    Sa skya bka’ ’bum: Slob spon chen po ḍoṃ bi he ru ka’i thugs kyi man ngag yi ge bzhi pa (Phyag gces, ff. 7b4–8a3)

#6. Contemplating the Mind (*观心):16

• #6.1. Upadeśa on the Mahāmudrā (*Phyag rgya chen po’i man ngag):
  • Khara Khoto: *大手印要语 (167#6775), by Great Master from Tibet (*中国大师)
• #6.2. Upadeśa on Aspiring for the Yoga (*rNal ’byor ’dod pa’i man ngag):
  • Khara Khoto: *瑜伽仰渴要语 (167#6775)
• #6.3. Upadeśa on the True Meaning of the Cognitionless (*Sems med snying don gyi man ngag):
  • Khara Khoto: *无心真义要语 (167#6775), Bla-ma Sangs-rgyas (*明满上师)
• #6.4. Upadeśa on the Immediate Approach to the Mind-Nature of Samādhi (*Ting nge ’dzin gyi sems nyid la cig car ’jug pa’i man ngag):
  • Khara Khoto: *静虑心性顿入要语 (167#6775), by Great Master from Tibet (*中国大师)
• #6.5. Summarized Guidance on the Mahāmudrā (*Phyag rgya chen po’i dmar khrid don bsdus; “Summarized Guidance”):
  • Khara Khoto: *大手印定引导略文 (167#6775, 347#875)

#7. Zhang’s Upadeśa on the Ultimate of the Profound Path of Mahāmudrā (“Ultimate”), Ch. 8–13:17

• • Khara Khoto: *śja̱-ŋə-ˑju-pjɨ-rjar-pja (g.yu brag pa) 师所作《道究竟要语》 (450#4806)
    Zhang gsung ’bum: Phyag rgya chen po lam zab mthar thug zhang gi man ngag (Phyag lam: 61b–74b)

The DYM ordering of Chinese titles preserves in one way or another the manner in which their Tangut equivalents were put together and organized. The DYM listing of titles reproduces the textual order of the two Tangut clusters—the Guided Meditation (#3) and fourteen-title constellation (#4)—the latter immediately succeeding the former through the intermediary passage of Xuanmi’s introduction to his master’s teaching. Thus, we have a reason to deduce that the DYM four-upadeśa cluster headed by the Jinyingluo (#5) also preserves the original organization of how the Tangut equivalents were wrapped into a textual composite, though they are unfortunately missing from the Khara Khoto collection.

3. A Chronology Inside the Xixia Mahāmudrā Materials

A rough chronology in this textual corpus can be established based on the colophonic information. The Keypoints-Notes cluster (#1) was produced during around the mid-12^th century. It presents a line starting from the Buddha through a list of Indian teachers down to a Tibetan person named brTson-’grus (*精进).18 It was brTson-’grus’s disciple Dehui (德慧) who—after attending his master’s Dharma lectures in 1152—compiled the teachings into the text Keypoints.19

Those having Chinese translated titles in the DYM—no matter whether the corresponding Tangut edition is extant or not—came up a bit later towards the end of the Tangut Xixia regime. Both the Guided Meditation (#3) and the four-upadeśa constellation (#5) clusters contain complete lineages ending with State Preceptor Xuanzhao who, at the same time, taught the Uncommon (#2) to its translator Huichuang. The short piece Transmission (#3.3) under the Guided Meditation records a lineage through the Saraha-Maitrīpa line as well. After Maitrīpa, it proceeds to the Tibetan bKa’-brgyud patriarchs Mar-pa Chos-kyi-blo-gros (1012–1097), Mi-la-ras-pa (1028/40–1111/23), and probably sGam-po-pa (1079–1153).20 Entering the Xixia domain, the line then reaches Imperial Preceptor Xuanmi 玄密, Master Dabao 大宝, and State Preceptor Xuanzhao.21 Xuanmi could be a Tibetan residing in Xixia.22 The Chinese translated text Jinyingluo under the DYM four-upadeśa constellation preserves a slightly divergent lineage which bypasses the bKa’-brgyud patriarchs after Maitrīpa, but in its Xixia part reaches Xuanmi and ends with Xuanzhao as well.23 The Offering the Gaṇacakra within the same constellation of texts records the identical line of figures, except the substitution of Xuanmi for Master Zhan 喇嘛瞻 and the omission of Xuanzhao in the end.24

Probably having risen from the position of state preceptor (国师), Xuanmi obtained his imperial preceptor (帝师) title no earlier than 1194,25 which dates this textual group produced through Xuanzhao possibly to the turn of the 13^th century. The fourteen-title constellation (#4), though without any colophonic information, should be considered to belong to the same textual group in terms of transmission since it preserves Xuanmi’s introduction to his master’s teaching.

From among the texts and textual constellations charted above, the Keypoints-Notes (#1) represents an earlier layer of Xixia Mahāmudrā works produced by Dehui during the mid-12^th century, while the Uncommon (#2), the Guided Meditation (#3), the fourteen-title constellation (#4), and the four-upadeśa constellation (#5) belong to the relatively later textual production by Xuanzhao at the turn of the 13^th century. An interesting connection between these two textual groups lies in the recorded collaboration between Dehui and Xuanmi towards the last decades of the 12^th century. As shown in the colophonic information from the Khara Khoto collection, Dehui had translated at least two tantric texts of the Cakrasaṃvara and Six-Teaching praxes taught by Xuanmi.26 In the notation, Xuanmi holds his imperial preceptor title and Dehui bears the title “State Preceptor Zhizhao from Mountain Lan” (*兰山智昭国师), which he started to hold around the 1180s.27 This again dates the texts to the turn of the 13^th century.

Besides the two textual groups produced through Dehui and Xuanzhao, respectively, the composite Contemplating the Mind (#6)—which contains a few titles either containing “Mahāmudrā” therein or pointing to the Mahāmudrā subject matter—and the Tangut translated work Ultimate (#7) originally authored by Bla-ma Zhang’s (1123–1193), however, lack verifiable information for proper dating.28 Nonetheless, the date of the Contemplating the Mind might be proximate to that of the Guided Meditation since the former contains a summary of the Direct Guidance (#3.2), while the Ultimate should date to no earlier than 1164, supposedly the time around which its Tibetan original was composed.

Another issue concerns the Tibetan original. Although the Tibetan originals of the Golden Garland, the Ḍombi’s Intention, and the Ultimate still exist, it still remains uncertain whether all of the Tangut texts were direct translations from Tibetan, or indigenous composition based on orally received Tibetan teachings, as well as whether each of the DYM Chinese texts directly translated from Tibetan or Tangut. To solve the issue requires closer historical-philological analyses of the relevant texts in the immediate temporal context of their production at both intra- and inter-corpus levels.

4. The Mahāmudrā Transmissions from the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Landscape to the Tangut Xixia

I chart below the three different, yet related, complete lines of Mahāmudrā transmission extracted from the Xixia materials (

Table 1. Mahāmudrā transmissions in Xixia.

Keypoints (#1.1)	Transmission (#3.3)	Jinyingluo (#5.1)
Śākyamuni	Samyaksaṃbuddha
Vimalakīrti	Bodhisattva Matiratna
Saraha
Nāgārjuna
Śavaripa
Maitrīpa
Jñānakīrti	Bla-ma Mar-pa	Vajrapāṇi
Vāgīśvara	Mi-la-ras-pa	Bal-po Asū
brTson-’grus	Bla-ma Lha-rje	Vajraguru
Dehui	Imperial Preceptor Xuanmi
	Master Dabao	*Jñānavajra
	State Preceptor Xuanzhao
	State Preceptor Xuanzhao

):

It is obvious that all the three lines—no matter what mythological origins each appears to have—share claims to descent from the Saraha-Matrīpa circle, one arriving at the person of Dehui and the other two at Xuanzhao.

4.1. The Mahāmudrā Transmission in Tibetan Accounts

The Blue Annals (comp. 1476–1478) seems to be the earliest extant historiographical source to sketch a Mahāmudrā transmission initiated in India by this Saraha-Maitrīpa circle. The line started off with Saraha, the Great Brahman (bram ze chen po), and then reached consecutively through Śavaripa and Maitrīpa. Maitrīpa had received a multitude of disciples, including the four senior (che ba bzhi), seven medium (’bring bdun), and ten junior (chung ba bcu) ones. The four senior disciples include Sahajavajra (lhan cig skyes pa’i rdo rje), Devākaracandra (alias Śūnyatāsamādhi), Rāmapāla (dga’ ba skyong ba), and Vajrapāṇi (phyag na rdo rje).29 The Blue Annals further notes that the transmission of Mahāmudrā from India to Tibet had undergone three lines of translation activity during the early, the middle, and the late periods (snga phyi bar gsum). The early translation (snga ’gyur) was carried out by Nirūpa who obtained the teaching from Kāropa. The middle translation (bar ’gyur), branching into the upper and lower transmissions (stod smad gnyis), was carried out by Vajrapāṇi and the Neplese Asū, respectively. The late translation (phyi ’gyur) was undertaken by a mNga’-ris-pa Nag-mo-sher-dad, who had obtained the teaching during his encounter with the old Vajrapāṇi in India. In addition, there was Mar-pa’s side transmission (zur ’gyur), which entered Tibet slightly earlier than these three transmission lines. This side transmission actually was initiated by Atiśa (jo bo chen po rje lha gcig), who allegedly studied the Uttaratantra treatises and the dohās with Maitrīpa. Temporally mediating between Mar-pa’s side transmission and Nirūpa’s early transmission was Paṇḍita Vairocanarakṣita, who is said to have translated Saraha’s “Three Cyles of Dohā” (do hā skor gsum) and received Bla-ma Zhang as his disciple.30

4.2. The Transmission (#3.3) Lineage

Among the three Mahāmudrā lineages extracted from the Xixia materials, the Transmission lineage in its Indo-Tibetan part parallels what was meant by the Blue Annals as “Mar-pa’s side transmission.” Its extension from Mar-pa down through Mi-la-ras-pa and sGam-po-pa is shown in Mi-bskyod-rdo-rje’s bKa’-brgyud Madhyamaka lineage as belonging to the Maitrīpa-Marpa line.31 Moreover, the Uncommon (#2), allegedly compiled by Maitrīpa and belonging to the same Xuanzhao-produced textual group as the Transmission (#3.3)—though remaining silent as regards descent from any bKa’-brgyud patriarchs—contains a threefold path structure into the provisional meaning (fangbian yi 方便义, drang don/neyārtha) of pāramitā, the definitive meaning (jueding yi 决定义, nges don/nītārtha) of tantra, and the quintessential meaning (zhenxin yi 真心义, snying po’i don) of Mahāmudrā. 32 This is in line with sGam-po-pa’s threefold path division into the sūtric, the tantric, and the Mahāmudrā modes. 33

4.3. The Jinyingluo (#5.1) Lineage

The Jinyingluo lineage represents another line recorded in the Blue Annals. Vajrapāṇi is listed by the Blue Annals as one of the “four senior disciples” of Maitrīpa, and his disciple the Neplese Asū (bal po skye med) had received gYor-po rLung-ston rDo-rje-bla-ma (i.e., Vajraguru in the Jinyingluo lineage) as a disciple when Asū was residing in Tibet.34 This line is associated with the Zhi-byed tradition attributed to Pha-dam-pa Sangs-rgyas (d. 1117) in that the Zhi-byed edition of the Nyams kyi man ngag thig le reveals a closer proximity to its DYM Chinese equivalent Jinyingluo than the bsTan-’gyur edition.35 According to the Blue Annals, Pha-dam-pa—one of the “ten junior disciples” of Maitrīpa—and Asū had overlapped in their sojourns in Tibet, during which both were visited by a rMa-sgom Chos-kyi-shes-rab.36

4.4. The Keypoints (#1.1) Lineage

Now, we are left with the last one of the three lineages present in the Xixia Mahāmudrā materials, that which is borne by the Keypoints-Notes cluster (#1). The Keypoints presents a line of eight patriarchs after Śākyamuni which traces a descending arc of spiritual accomplishments, possibly intent on a Buddhist eschatology. Below is a chart presenting the spiritual status assigned by the Keypoints’ accounts to Śākyamuni and each of the patriarchs (

Table 2. Spiritual status of patriarchs in the Keypoints lineage

Name	Spiritual Status
Śākyamuni	Buddha
Vimalakīrti	10th bhūmi Dharmameghā (chos kyi sprin), *十地法云
Saraha	8th bhūmi Acalā (mi g.yo ba), *八地不动
Nāgārjuna	6th bhūmi Abhimukhī (mngon du ’gyur ba), *六地现前
Śavaripa	4th bhūmi Arcismatī (’od ’phro ba), *四地焰慧
Maitrīpa	2nd bhūmi Vimalā (dri ma med pa), *二地离垢
Jñānakīrti	1st bhūmi Darśanamārga (mthong lam), *初地见道
Vāgīśvara	Prayoga-mārga: the ūṣma (drod), mūrdha (rtse) and kṣānti (bzod) stages, *暖顶忍位
brTson-’grus	Saṃbhāra-mārga (tshogs lam), *资粮道

):37

The Keypoints lineage departs from the other two Xixia Mahāmudrā transmissions by its generally—thought not entirely—“sūtric” or exoteric tone. Transmissions oriented towards exoteric philosophy or non-tantric praxes tend to locate their origin in Śākyamuni—the historical, or so-called emanation body (sprul sku), Buddha—but this is quite rare in Buddhist yogic lineage accounts. Right after Śākyamuni, the curious placement of the mythological figure Vimalakīrti as the first patriarch further adds to the sūtric tone in the lineage presentation.38 Moreover, the “Nāgārjuna” inserted between Saraha and Śavaripa might be read as the tantric “Nāgārjuna” who had studied with Saraha and was at the same time a Guhyasamāja expert.39 However, the versified biography accorded to Nāgārjuna in the Keypoints only presents the master’s activities as a Madhyamaka philosopher, while remaining silent in regards to the yogic episodes later accrued in the tantric context.40

Appearing like a patchwork of discrete personalities nested within a complex of interconnected transmissions, the patriarch line does, however, find itself based in the Tibetan tantric historiographical tradition. The succession from Saraha through Nāgārjuna, Śavaripa to Maitrīpa in the Keypoints is paralleled by Tāranātha’s (1575–1634) presentation of the Mahāmudrā lineage as one of the seven yogic transmissions in the bKa’ babs bdun ldan. According to Tāranātha, the Mahāmudrā transmission started with Rāhula (i.e., Saraha) and then proceeds through Nāgārjuna to Śavaripa. Śavaripa first received Lūyipa as his disciple and later Maitrīpa.41

Jñānakīrti, who succeeds Maitrīpa in the Keypoints, is a little-detailed figure in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist yogic lineage accounts.42 The currently available sources at my disposal show that only Tāranātha’s bKa’ babs bdun ldan places this figure in a Tantra exposition lineage (rgyud kyi bshad pa’i brgyud pa) ahead of Ratnākaraśānti.43 If Tāranātha’s account is reliable, the only possible connection Jñānakīrti has with Maitrīpa—his predecessor in the Keypoints lineage—is the latter’s experience of studying with Ratnākaraśānti before meeting Śavaripa.44

The last Indian personality Vāgīśvara, attributed by the Keypoints as a Nepalese (*pja-po国人, bal po) expert in the sixty-two deities (*六十二佛) Cakrasaṃvara maṇḍala praxis, could almost certainly be identified with the 11^th-century Nepalese Thang-chung-pa (who later acquired the name “Vāgīśvara” because of his spiritual accomplishment). He was born into the Pham-thing family and, together with his elder brother Abhayakīrti (’jigs med grags pa), played an instrumental role in the Cakrasaṃvara transmission from India to Tibet.45 Based on the fifth Dalai Bla-ma Ngag-dbang Blo-bzang-rgya-mtsho’s (1617–1682) recorded list of teachings (thob yig) Gaṅgā’i chu rgyun, Vāgīśvara, and Abhayakīrti had acted as the nexus where multiple Indian lineages of Cakrasaṃvara teachings converged and further made their ways into Tibet.46 Among the nine lines of lineage from the Lūipa tradition of the Sixty-two Deities Cakrasaṃvara maṇḍala praxis which purifies the egg-born proclivity (rnal ’byor dbang phyug lu hi pas sbyang gzhi sgong skyed sbyong byed ltar legs par ’gal ba’i he ru ka’i rigs dpal ’khor lo sdom pa lha drug cu rtsa gnyis kyi ris bris kyi dkyil ’khor chen po), the Sa-skya line (sa lugs) and Mar-pa line (mar lugs) overlap in terms of lineage segment from the originator Vajradhara through the Pham-thing brothers (pham thing sku mched) Vāgīśvara and Abhayakīrti. Both lines in their shared part reproduce the Saraha-Nāgārjuna-Śavaripa succession between Bodhisattva Vajrapāṇi and Lūipa.47 In this way, our Keypoints lineage is echoed by at least one branch of the Cakrasaṃvara transmissions mediated by the Pham-thing family from India through Tibet.

5. Conclusions

Not only does the Mahāmudrā topography, jointly fueled by these three transmissions, reveal the Xixia recognition and imagination of the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist legacies, it also captures the complexities of the multi-faceted picture of Mahāmudrā on its way over the Himalayas during the 11^th/12^th century. Both the Transmission and the Jinyingluo lineages are attested by later Tibetan historiographical accounts about Mahāmudrā, and thus belong to an Indo-Tibetan continuum of the constructed Buddhist yogic past as based upon historical realities—at least as understood by Tibetans of the time. Unlike these two, the Keypoints lineage represents an ahistorical linking of diverse selected lineal segments into moments of a “structured totality” through a distinctively Xixia recognition and imagination.48 More of a collage than a homogeneous line of reality, it patched together different Indo-Tibetan claims to spiritual legacy and religious authority—be they historically based or introspectively projected. Primarily based on the classical Saraha-Maitrīpa Mahāmudrā line, the Keynotes lineage appropriated a Cakrasaṃvara succession of the Lūipa tradition. The addition of the personality Jñānakīrti—unseen elsewhere in other Mahāmudrā lineages—is probably due to considerations of both the teacher’s expertise in the Mahāmudrā thoughts and his potential overlap with Maitrīpa, which again reinforces the constructed nature of the lineage. Meanwhile, in situating the succession of eight patriarchs into a spiritual hierarchy structured by both the Five Paths (pañca-mārga, lam lnga) and Ten Grounds (daśa-bhūmi, sa bcu) schemes, the lineage accounts do not so much simply paraphrase the pre-existing legends relating the masters’ religious activities and spiritual accomplishments as give expressions to a structured path of Buddhist soteriology across both the sūtric and tantric registers.