Tibetan Texts > Bka’ ’gyur > Bka’ ’gyur Master Doxographical Categories > Tantras that Primarily Teach Methods

(2.2.1) Tantras that Primarily Teach Methods

By Steven Neal Weinberger

This section contains the Yoga Tantras that Situ’s catalog classifies as focusing on “methods” (ཐབས་, thabs, upāya), rather than on “wisdom” (ཤེས་རབ་, shes rab, prajñā). These are organized according to a threefold scheme also used by Butön Rinchendrup (བུ་སྟོན་རིན་ཆེན་གྲུབ་, bu ston rin chen grub, 1290-1364) in his discussions of the Yoga Tantras:

1. Root Tantra (རྩ་རྒྱུད་, rtsa rgyud),
2. Explanatory Tantras (བཤད་རྒྱུད་, bshad rgyud), and
3. Concordant Tantras (ཆ་མཐུན་པའི་རྒྱུད་, cha mthun pa’i rgyud).