By Steven Neal Weinberger
This section contains the Yoga Tantra works that are considered to be “concordant” with the root text The Compendium of Reality of All Thus-Gone Ones (D.481), in the sense that they accord with the Compendium, while not directly commenting or expanding on it. Situ Penchen’s catalog here lists four works as concordant tantras, though there are other presentations of this class. Butön Rinchendrup (བུ་སྟོན་རིན་ཆེན་གྲུབ་, bu ston rin chen grub, 1290-1364), for example, in his Ship for Launching onto the Ocean of Yoga Tantra (རྣལ་འབྱོར་རྒྱུད་ཀྱི་རྒྱ་མཚོར་འཇུག་པའི་གྲུ་གཟིངས་, rnal ’byor rgyud kyi rgya mtshor ’jug pa’i gru gzings), lists eight concordant tantras (which correspond to catalog numbers D.487 – D.495).
Situ’s group of concordant tantras here in the Kangyur contains two versions of the major Yoga Tantra work Purification of All Bad Transmigrations Tantra (ངན་སོང་ཐམས་ཅད་ཡོངས་སུ་སྦྱོང་བའི་རྒྱུད་, ngan song thams cad yongs su sbyong ba’i rgyud, sarvadurgatipariśodhana-tantra). The earlier of these (D.485) appears to have been translated into Tibetan by the end of the eighth century, though controversy remains about the identity of the translator. The later version (D.487) is a thirteenth-century translation, by Chak Lotsawa Chöjepel (ཆག་ལོ་ཙཱ་བ་ཆོས་རྗེ་དཔལ་, chag lo tsA ba chos rje dpal), and is also known under the name Nine Crown Protuberances Tantra (གཙུག་དགུའི་རྒྱུད་, gtsug dgu’i rgyud, *navoṣṇiṣa-tantra). The two versions are substantially similar, though they do contain important differences; the earlier version, for instance, contains what commentarial traditions refer to as a root tantra (རྩ་རྒྱུད་, rtsa rgyud), while the later version replaces this with a different text. The central figure in the first maṇḍala presented in both the earlier and later version is Sarvavid Vairocana (ཀུན་རིག་རྣམ་པར་སྣང་མཛད་, kun rig rnam par snang mdzad).
We also find here a brief text called Violent Activities (མངོན་སྤྱོད་ཀྱི་ལས་, mngon spyod kyi las, *abhicāra-karma, D.486), which is a short five lines of verse, giving instructions on the performance of black magic.
Finally, there is the Abbreviated Consecration Tantra (རབ་ཏུ་གནས་པ་མདོར་བསྡུས་པའི་རྒྱུད་, rab tu gnas pa mdor bsdus pa’i rgyud, supratiṣṭha-tantra-saṃgraha, D.488), a short work on issues dealing with consecration.
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