By Kurtis Schaeffer (University of Virginia, 2009)
The section on Tantra (རྒྱུད་, rgyud, D.1190-D.3812) is a major portion the Tengyur, its 2623 titles in 78 volumes comprising more than a third of the Tengyur’s total 210 volumes.
As in the Kangyur, the Tantra section here in the Tengyur is arranged according to the “Four Classes of Tantra,” from highest to lowest: Highest Yoga Tantra (བླ་མེད་རྣལ་འབྱོར་རྒྱུད་, bla med rnal ’byor rgyud, anuttarayogatantra, D.1190-D.2517), Yoga Tantra (རྣལ་འབྱོར་རྒྱུད་, rnal ’byor rgyud, yogatantra, D.2518-D.2548), Performance Tantra (སྤྱོད་རྒྱུད་, spyod rgyud, caryātantra, D.2682-D.2690), and Action Tantra (བྱ་རྒྱུད་, bya rgyud, kriyātantra, D.2691-D.3162).
This tidy structure, however, accommodates only about three-fourths of the works in the Tantra section; more than 600 more works (D.3163-D.3812) are loosely grouped at the end of the Tantra section. In general, these miscellaneous works are organized as follows: author, chronology, genre, minor canons (such as Advayavajra’s collected works, and Padampa Sanggyé’s [ཕ་དམ་པ་སངས་རྒྱས་, pha dam pa sangs rgyas] poetry anthologies), and finally late and difficult to classify works at the end.
Note that here in the THL catalog, the Tantra section runs from D.1190-D.3812, which amounts to 2623 titles. Zhuchen’s catalog, however, mentions that the section should contain 2781 titles. One reason for the difference is that many titles listed by Zhuchen are not included in the actual canon because they were not extant at the time of compilation. In Zhuchen’s listing, such titles are usually marked “not extant” (མ་བྱུང་, ma byung) written in smaller letters.
Literature:
Davidson, Ronald. Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
Davidson, Ronald. Tibetan Renaissance: Tantric Buddhism in the Rebirth of Tibetan Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.