Padmasambhava

Person

Padmasambhava 莲花生大士 (in Tibetan Pad+ma ’byung gnas, Guru Rinpoche; second half of the eighth century or thereabouts; said to be from Oḍḍiyāna, entered Tibet at the invitation of Trisong Detsen, and revered by the Nyingma school as its founding master)

Tradition

Tibetan Buddhism / Nyingma school (Kama and Terma)

Main texts

The Garland of Views: A Pith Instruction (Man ngag lta ba’i phreng ba), said to be composed by Padmasambhava. Supporting evidence: The Jewel Heap: Stages of the Path Common to Outer, Exoteric and Esoteric, titled as by Padmasambhava (a Kama text, which states that translators added material). Biography: Sokdrukpa Lodrö Gyaltsen, Life of Padmasambhava: Dispelling the Darkness of the Mind (sixteenth to seventeenth century). The terma Self-Liberation through Naked Awareness is missing evidence for this archive.

Core-text marks

本来就是现前圆满成佛之自性，不是由道修成的｜以熟习之力现前为果相｜证义是见坛城，证而熟习是入坛城，入而现前是得大成就

it refers specifically to the fact that the completion function in the book’s E-16, “by the power of familiarization the mark of the fruit becomes manifest”, and E-20, “realizing the meaning — familiarization — having entered, becoming manifest is attaining the great accomplishment”, still cannot be deleted. E-15’s rejection of cultivating causes and awaiting fruits and E-17’s calling realizing-knowledge a cause stand in substantive ambiguity between “producing cause / condition of manifestation”, which is not removed by the text being B.

【The ① direction must be retained】E-09’s “not accomplished through the path” and E-18’s “saṃsāra too is the buddha-nature” not only protect original presence, but may also cancel “cultivating causes and awaiting fruits” itself; one must keep asking whether the so-called “mark of the fruit” is in the end a penetration in which the nature merely manifests itself, or a final difference that must occur.

One-sentence placement: the Garland of Views: A Pith Instruction, said to be composed by Padmasambhava, uses “all dharmas of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa are originally unborn … therefore all dharmas are naturally nirvāṇa”, “consciousness is the nature of bodhicitta, Vajra Samantabhadra …

these are originally of the nature of manifest, perfect buddhahood, not accomplished through the path”, and “all dharmas are manifestly and perfectly buddha — this is the Great Perfection” to specify an originally enlightened ground (E-08, E-09, E-11), and with “saṃsāra itself is originally the nature of the unsurpassed buddha” it places saṃsāra too within it (E-18). But the same Garland of Views specifies the completion of the Great Perfection explicitly in three marks: “penetrating the mode of the four kinds of realizing-knowledge is the mark of knowing; familiarizing again and again is the mark of entering; becoming manifest by the power of familiarization is the mark of the fruit” (E-16); “realizing-knowledge that one is originally buddha by nature … is the cause of accomplishing unsurpassed buddhahood” (E-17); and gives “the ultimate meaning of the Great Perfection” in four steps: “hearing is not yet opening; realizing the meaning is seeing the maṇḍala; familiarizing after realizing is entering the maṇḍala; having entered, becoming manifest is attaining the great accomplishment” (E-20). The overall classification is ② “Direct Seeing of the Ground”: the ground is established without awaiting realizing-knowledge, and the cultivation of the path (cultivating causes and awaiting fruits) is dismantled; but completion is explicitly specified by the Garland of Views itself as “realizing-knowledge → familiarization →

becoming manifest”, and realizing-knowledge is a condition of completion, not merely a turning.

Most distinctive: the Garland of Views puts “not accomplished through the path” and “becoming manifest by the power of familiarization” in one and the same structure, and keeps cognition by way of rejecting “cultivating causes and awaiting fruits”: the path is not a cause that produces the fruit, but “oneself realizing it by direct perception and having conviction” (E-15). In this way accomplishment through cultivation is deleted, while realizing-knowledge is established as the path itself and familiarization as the power of becoming manifest. Compared with Longchenpa (No.14), the Garland of Views writes no sentences such as “no one has ever been liberated” or “wishing to be liberated after realizing is the enemy of decline”; its material for the ① direction stops at the ground layer and “not accomplished through the path”, and does not reach the completion layer. (A: stated explicitly in the text; overall structure B)

Final load-bearing point: seen in three layers. (1) The ground layer: all dharmas are originally unborn, naturally nirvāṇa (E-08); originally of the nature of manifest, perfect buddhahood (E-09, E-11); saṃsāra itself is the nature of the buddha (E-18). This layer does not await realizing-knowledge, and the deletion test passes. (2) The dismantling layer: “not accomplished through the path” (E-09);

“not like cultivating a cause and awaiting the arising of the fruit” (E-15); “oneself is originally the deity, not accomplished now” (E-19). What can be deleted is accomplishment through cultivation and cause and effect; the Garland of Views itself has already deleted them. (3) The completion layer: the four kinds of realizing-knowledge (E-12); the awareness of realizing-knowledge is the nature of mind (E-13); the three marks — knowing, entering, fruit (E-16); realizing-knowledge is the cause of accomplishing unsurpassed buddhahood (E-17); the four steps — hearing, realizing, familiarization, becoming manifest (E-20); those of highest capacity are aware of original buddhahood and familiarize with it (E-21). The B inference for ② depends on the third layer, and the third layer is explicit in the Garland of Views.

Most delicate point: the Garland of Views says buddhahood is “not accomplished through the path” (E-09), and also says that realizing-knowledge is “the cause of accomplishing unsurpassed buddhahood” (E-17). ① can say: once “accomplished through the path” is negated, realizing-knowledge is only the manner in which original buddhahood becomes manifest (a turning), not completion itself.

This archive’s judgment is: the Garland of Views itself defines the “fruit” as “becoming manifest by the power of familiarization” (E-16), and defines “the ultimate meaning of the Great Perfection” as “having entered, becoming manifest is attaining the great accomplishment” (E-20). Completion is directly defined as the becoming manifest brought about by the familiarization of cognition, which under v1.3 belongs to the “ending”. The competing interpretation in the ① direction lacks positive sentences at the completion layer in the Garland of Views, and is retained as a local C.

Note on the texts: both Padmasambhava’s historical image and the attribution of his works are highly layered. The earliest extant Tibetan historical sources (such as the Testament of Ba and related records among the Dunhuang documents) have not been checked by this archive and are recorded as missing evidence. The Garland of Views: A Pith Instruction is traditionally attributed to Padmasambhava; this archive follows the ACIP transcription of Nyingma literature; its inclusion in the Tengyur, the commentary by Rongzom Paṇḍita (eleventh century) and modern scholarly discussion of its attribution have not been checked by this archive. The colophon of the Jewel Heap explicitly says that the book contains text added by translators (E-28), and it is listed as T3. Sokdrukpa’s biography appeared more than eight hundred years later and consciously reconciles the accounts of “born from a lotus” and “born from a womb” (E-01);

【Check of the transcription itself】Mechanically converting the ACIP Wylie transliteration into Tibetan script changes the visible word division and punctuation; “word-for-word” verification should be understood as matching the Wylie electronic transcription under the conversion rules, not as first-hand checking of the original form of woodblock prints or manuscripts. The trial translations must be marked as not reviewed by specialists.

Textual levels in this archive:

• T1 = none.
• T2 = the Garland of Views: A Pith Instruction (E-04—E-23): traditionally attributed to Padmasambhava, its content is doctrinal classification and the mode of the Great Perfection; its linguistic style differs from that of later termas, and the tradition and scholarship often regard it as relatively early Nyingma literature; this archive has not independently investigated its attribution.
• T3 = The Jewel Heap: Stages of the Path Common to Outer, Exoteric and Esoteric (E-24—E-28): titled as composed by Padmasambhava; its colophon states that translators added material, and it is corroborated by later termas; supporting evidence only.
• T4 = Sokdrukpa’s Life of Padmasambhava (E-01—E-03): used only to explain the level of the biographical narrative.

• Missing evidence: early historical sources such as the Testament of Ba, and the Dunhuang documents; the termas Self-Liberation through Naked Awareness and the Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo; the Padma Kathang (Padma bka’ thang).

Editions and transcriptions: all three documents used in this archive follow the ACIP Wylie transcription (the BuddhaNexus segmented text), located by segment number; the Tibetan script was mechanically converted by this archive from the transliteration and is listed together with the original transliteration; it has not been read against images or other editions.

Method: under v1.3, three questions are kept apart: (a) whether the ground is established without awaiting realizing-knowledge — all dharmas originally unborn, naturally nirvāṇa, originally manifest and perfect buddhahood: yes; (b) whether cognition and the thought itself can be positively placed in the ground — consciousness is the nature of Samantabhadra, the awareness of realizing-knowledge is the nature of mind: yes, but the placement of speech is weaker (the book is likened to “a blind man gaining eyes”, a tool that brings people to realizing-knowledge, E-23);

1. Doctrinal classification: the views of the world in four kinds; the supramundane path divided into the vehicle of characteristics and the Vajrayāna; the Vajrayāna divided into kriyā tantra, ubhaya tantra and yoga tantra; inner yoga has three modes, generation, completion and Great Perfection (E-04—E-06).
2. Ground: all dharmas are originally unborn, naturally nirvāṇa (E-08); consciousness is the nature of Samantabhadra, originally manifest and perfect buddhahood (E-09); all dharmas do not depart from one’s own mind (E-10); all dharmas being manifestly and perfectly buddha is the Great Perfection (E-11); saṃsāra itself is the nature of the buddha (E-18).
3. Dismantling accomplishment through cultivation: not accomplished through the path (E-09); not like cultivating a cause and awaiting the fruit (E-15); oneself is originally the deity, not accomplished now (E-19).
4. Realizing-knowledge: the mode of the Great Perfection is to realize and then cultivate (E-07); the four kinds of realizing-knowledge (E-12); the awareness of realizing-knowledge is the nature of mind (E-13); realizing by direct perception through one’s own awareness (E-14).
5. Completion: the three marks of knowing, entering and fruit (E-16); realizing-knowledge is the cause of accomplishing unsurpassed buddhahood (E-17);

• The layer of the nature of the maṇḍala: “consciousness is the nature of bodhicitta, Vajra Samantabhadra … these are originally of the nature of manifest, perfect buddhahood, not accomplished through the path” (E-09); “oneself too is originally of the nature of the deity, not accomplished only now” (E-19).
• The layer of one’s own mind: “all conditioned and unconditioned dharmas do not depart from one’s own mind” (E-10).

Hence the ground of the Garland of Views is neither a fruit to be accomplished through cultivation nor an object outside the mind, but the buddha-nature that all dharmas originally have. This layer does not await realizing-knowledge: E-08, E-09, E-11 and E-18 directly support that the ground is originally so. The inference to ② does not come from the ground layer, but from the Garland of Views’ specification of completion.

The differences among all things: the Garland of Views arranges the views of the world and the Buddhist vehicles by way of doctrinal classification (E-04—E-06), and matches the deities of the maṇḍala with the five aggregates, four consciousnesses, four objects and so on (the context passage of E-09). This is a systematic placement of the differences among all things, but it is gathered back into “originally of the nature of the maṇḍala”;

E-09 / E-15 / E-19 precisely support the deletion. The second round keeps the original buddha, saṃsāra as the buddha-nature and the expedient character of the path, but deletes “realizing-knowledge / familiarization / the manifestation of the mark of the fruit”: the knowing — entering — fruit structure of E-16 and the hearing — realizing — entering — attaining the great accomplishment of E-20 would lose their final predicates. Even if “becoming manifest” is only “manifesting what is originally present” and not “creating a new fruit”, the text still specifies it as conditioned by familiarization, so ② (B) is provisionally kept; only if it is proved that becoming manifest is merely a deletable paraphrase or a pure teaching expedient is the whole lowered to C.

Collation note｜The first round deletes only the generative causality of “the path producing the originally present fruit”: the original text of E-09 / E-15 / E-19 itself denies it, and the deletion succeeds. The second round deletes “the function of actual realizing-knowledge / familiarization / becoming manifest” while keeping all dharmas as originally buddha: the three marks of E-16, the cause of E-17, the sequence of the great accomplishment in E-20, and the boundary of E-22, “the mind of realizing-knowledge has not arisen”, all lose their explanation within the text; so at the level of the Garland of Views the provisional judgment is ② (B). Yet ① can argue that “becoming manifest is only removing obscuration from the eyes of the deluded, not adding a further completion”; there is still C-grade competing pressure, which is not automatically excluded by the single word “cause”.

Deletion test: from the complete structure delete only the function of “realizing-knowledge” (the four kinds of realizing-knowledge, realizing by direct perception, familiarization), while keeping all dharmas as originally unborn, naturally nirvāṇa, originally manifest and perfect buddhahood, and consciousness as the nature of Samantabhadra, and keeping the cultivation of the path as a control. Check separately which layer breaks: the specification of the ground, the mark of the fruit, the ultimate meaning of the Great Perfection, unsurpassed buddhahood. One may not declare that realizing-knowledge has been cancelled because of “not accomplished through the path”, nor ignore the Garland of Views’ positive specification of original buddhahood because of the three marks.

(1) The ground is established: all dharmas are originally unborn, naturally nirvāṇa (E-08); originally manifest and perfect buddhahood (E-09, E-11); saṃsāra itself is the nature of the buddha (E-18). Delete realizing-knowledge, and not a word of these specifications changes. The first layer of deletion passes. (A: stated explicitly in the text)

(2) Dismantling and the learner: accomplishment through the path is dismantled (E-09); cultivating causes and awaiting fruits is dismantled (E-15); accomplishing the deity now is dismantled (E-19). What can be deleted is accomplishment through cultivation and cause and effect; the Garland of Views itself has already deleted them.

But it does not delete realizing-knowledge; rather, it establishes realizing-knowledge as the path itself (E-15).

(3) Ultimate completion: the Garland of Views gives the same structure in the same part: “penetrating the mode of the four kinds of realizing-knowledge is the mark of knowing; familiarizing again and again is the mark of entering; becoming manifest by the power of familiarization is the mark of the fruit” (E-16); “realizing … originally buddha by nature … is the cause of accomplishing unsurpassed buddhahood” (E-17); “merely hearing the scriptures and treatises of the method vehicle is not yet opening; realizing its meaning is seeing the maṇḍala; familiarizing after realizing is entering the maṇḍala; having entered, becoming manifest is attaining the great accomplishment. This mode is the ultimate meaning of the Great Perfection” (E-20).

Judgment and breaking point: remove realizing-knowledge and keep the ground, and the first layer is still intact; but the marks of knowing, entering and fruit all lose their content (E-16), “the cause of accomplishing unsurpassed buddhahood” is lost (E-17), and of “the ultimate meaning of the Great Perfection” only the single step “hearing is not yet opening” remains (E-20). The “necessity” here is not a necessity for the ground to be established, but a necessity for “the mark of the fruit” and “the great accomplishment” to be established.

The Garland of Views directly defines completion as “becoming manifest by the power of familiarization”; under v1.3, cognition belongs to the “ending”. B breaks.

The Garland of Views’ own answer to the deletion test: “not accomplished through the path” (E-09) and “not like the time of cultivating a cause and awaiting the arising of the fruit” (E-15) are the Garland of Views’ answer to “can accomplishment through cultivation be deleted”: it can. “Becoming manifest by the power of familiarization is the mark of the fruit” (E-16) and “having entered, becoming manifest is attaining the great accomplishment … the ultimate meaning of the Great Perfection” (E-20) are the answer to “can realizing-knowledge be deleted”: it cannot. The two answers concern different functions and do not conflict.

Independence of evidence and limitations: E-07—E-23 all come from the Garland of Views, consecutive passages of one short treatise; the load-bearing items for ② (E-16, E-17, E-20) and the ground-layer material for the ① direction (E-08, E-09, E-11) are all in this same part. The “recognizing face to face”, “the fruit that becomes manifest when the path is brought to culmination” and “as long as one recognizes, even without meditating one does not depart from dharmatā” of the Jewel Heap (T3) (E-25—E-27) run in the same direction as the Garland of Views, and serve only as supporting evidence.

B rests not on the quantity of evidence, but on the Garland of Views’ direct definition of “the mark of the fruit” and “the ultimate meaning”.

Systematic positive evidence for the ① direction and the deletion test: E-08, E-09, E-11 and E-18 constitute complete evidence for the ground layer in the Garland of Views; E-09 and E-13 have self-inclusion material (consciousness and the awareness of realizing-knowledge are both the nature of the maṇḍala). The strongest version of ① is: “since all dharmas are originally manifestly and perfectly buddha and not accomplished through the path, ‘becoming manifest by the power of familiarization’ is only the manner in which original buddhahood appears to the practitioner (a turning).” This archive accepts this reading’s account of the character of “becoming manifest” (what becomes manifest is not a newly created fruit); but nowhere does the Garland of Views say that “those who have not realized are also already manifest” or “the mark of the fruit does not await familiarization”; on the contrary, with “before the mind of realizing-knowledge has arisen, benefit beings through the lower vehicles” (E-22) it distinguishes people before and after realizing-knowledge. The ① direction lacks positive sentences at the completion layer in the Garland of Views.

What has been withdrawn or de-reified: buddhahood accomplished through the path (E-09); a path of cultivating causes and awaiting fruits (E-15);

It at least answers “what effect does the speech of this book have on the reader”: making the blind gain eyes is an explicit self-reflexive placement of function; but this is still different from the ontological placement “the speech of this book itself is unconditionally placed within the nature of Samantabhadra, the speech of the dharmakāya”. The former can be recorded as “the function of speech has been positively explained (A)”; the latter, “the self-inclusion of speech in the ultimate”, has not yet been stated explicitly (C / missing evidence); the two should not be conflated just because it falls short of No.14’s directness.

Collation note｜E-08 / E-09 / E-18 / E-19 take saṃsāra, mind-consciousness, body, speech and mind, the deity and practice into buddha-nature in advance, giving ① a systematic chain of existence — cognition; E-23’s “the blind gaining eyes” mainly specifies the function of the teaching, not the ontological place of this book’s speech. Hence this archive’s ① self-inclusion falls short of No.14’s direct declaration that “speech is the mind of the dharmakāya appearing as speech”, but this cannot be used to belittle the positive evidence for ①’s original presence.

Collation note｜“Consciousness is the nature of Samantabhadra” is a positive self-inclusion of cognition; taking “letters / pith instructions make the blind gain eyes” as the function of the teaching does not amount to placing the occurrence of this book’s speech within the complete whole. For realizing by the mode of letters (E-13) and the four kinds of realizing-knowledge, one must ask whether language itself is also the nature of the speech of the maṇḍala;

one may not look only at the final simile, nor declare self-inclusion settled on the strength of its instrumental function.

Self-reflexivity: partly holds. The Garland of Views dismantles accomplishment through cultivation (E-09, E-15, E-19) and conviction relying only on words (E-14), but does not dismantle its own framework of doctrinal classification or the tool of “realizing-knowledge”; there is no subtraction toward its own speech of the kind “speech too is a dream”.

Positive evidence of self-inclusion: present, but limited to cognition, not extending to speech. “Consciousness is the nature of bodhicitta, Vajra Samantabhadra” (E-09); “the awareness that realizes in this way — illusory wisdom without edge or centre — is the nature of mind” (E-13). Cognition is positively placed as part of the maṇḍala (the ground). But of this book’s own speech, the Garland of Views says only that it is like “a blind man opening his own eyes and gaining sight” (E-23) — speech is placed as a tool that brings people to realizing-knowledge, not as one appearance of the ground. What v1.3 requires, “the speech of the thought itself is positively placed within a more fundamental structure”, has no direct sentence in the Garland of Views.

The logical limit of self-inclusion: what is placed as the nature of mind is “the awareness of realizing-knowledge”, not “any cognition”; this makes self-inclusion itself conditioned by realizing-knowledge.

Why it looks like ①:

(1) The ground layer: all dharmas are originally unborn, naturally nirvāṇa, originally manifest and perfect buddhahood (E-08, E-11).

(2) Dismantling accomplishment through cultivation: not accomplished through the path (E-09, E-19); not like cultivating a cause and awaiting the fruit (E-15).

(3) Cognitive self-inclusion: consciousness is the nature of Samantabhadra (E-09); the awareness of realizing-knowledge is the nature of mind (E-13).

(4) Saṃsāra is buddha: saṃsāra itself is originally the nature of the unsurpassed buddha (E-18).

Why it is still ②:

(1) The definition of the fruit: “becoming manifest by the power of familiarization is the mark of the fruit” (E-16). Completion is directly defined as the becoming manifest brought about by familiarization.

(2) The definition of the ultimate: “realizing its meaning is seeing the maṇḍala; familiarizing after realizing is entering the maṇḍala; having entered, becoming manifest is attaining the great accomplishment. This mode is the ultimate meaning of the Great Perfection” (E-20).

(3) The definition of the cause: realizing that one is originally buddha by nature “is the cause of accomplishing unsurpassed buddhahood” (E-17).

(4) The scope of “not accomplished through the path”: what E-09, E-15 and E-19 dismantle is all accomplishment through cultivation and cause and effect (the path); none of them dismantles realizing-knowledge; E-15 precisely specifies the path as “oneself realizing by direct perception”.

(5) The boundary in teaching: “before the mind of realizing-knowledge has arisen, benefit beings through the lower vehicles” (E-22); great compassion arises for “those who have not realized” (E-23). People before and after realizing-knowledge are treated as two different kinds.

(6) The deletion test: delete realizing-knowledge and keep the ground, and of the three marks and four steps only “hearing is not yet opening” remains.

Source level and terminological limits: all load-bearing material in this archive comes from the T2 Garland of Views; the Jewel Heap (T3) serves only as supporting evidence; the termas are missing evidence. The “Great Perfection” of the Garland of Views is one “mode” within inner yoga, and cannot be read back through the later Atiyoga system (No.14 Longchenpa).

At present the historical person can only be a ② candidate awaiting support from early sources; the report’s title and the preceding text must say so throughout.

Placement: within the text of the Garland of Views: A Pith Instruction, ② “Direct Seeing of the Ground” (B); the eighth-century Padmasambhava himself only a ② candidate, attribution unconfirmed.

Why ②: the Garland of Views on the one hand specifies that all dharmas are originally manifestly and perfectly buddha, not accomplished through the path; on the other it specifies the completion of the Great Perfection with the three marks of “knowing, entering, fruit” and the four steps of “hearing, realizing, familiarization, becoming manifest”, and takes realizing-knowledge as the cause of accomplishing unsurpassed buddhahood. Completion is directly defined as the becoming manifest brought about by the familiarization of realizing-knowledge. The primary load-bearing items are E-16 and E-20; next come E-17 and E-22.

Why it cannot yet be placed at ①: ① must satisfy all at once: A and B both hold; cognition and speech are self-included; the highest structure is not defined by an undeletable awareness. The Garland of Views satisfies A and has material for cognitive self-inclusion;

but the key condition “after the completion function is deleted the whole still stands” does not yet hold — completion is explicitly specified as the becoming manifest brought about by the familiarization of realizing-knowledge; the self-inclusion of speech also lacks positive sentences.

Why not ③: the Garland of Views is not asking about the ground; it directly specifies the ground and completion.

Why not ④: the Garland of Views has a systematic doctrinal classification, but the endpoint of the classification is the mode of the Great Perfection and its completion, not an explanation of the world.

On the “person’s own primary texts” rule: v1.3 stipulates that the position of completion must be established from the subject’s own core primary texts. Padmasambhava has no undisputed text written by himself; this archive takes the Garland of Views, the work with the most stable traditional attribution, as its main basis, and limits the judgment on Padmasambhava himself to a ② candidate. If the attribution of the Garland of Views is rejected, Padmasambhava should be handled as “the person’s own primary texts are insufficient to establish the completion structure”, and his class must then be reconsidered.

• The Garland of Views’ “originally manifest and perfect buddhahood” runs in the same direction as Longchenpa’s “originally a buddha”; the Garland of Views’ “becoming manifest by the power of familiarization” is almost isomorphic with Longchenpa’s “through familiarization one becomes a buddha again within the original buddha” (No.14 E-24). The difference is that Longchenpa, in the Treasury of the Dharmadhātu, writes sentences in the ① direction at the completion layer (“no one has ever been liberated”, “wishing to be liberated after realizing is the enemy of decline”), while the Garland of Views does not; Longchenpa places the speech of his book as “the mind of the dharmakāya appearing as speech”, while the Garland of Views says only that the book is like “a blind man gaining eyes”. Hence this archive’s competing interpretation in the ① direction for Padmasambhava is weaker than in No.14.
• No.12 Great Master Zhizhe (② 〔B〕): the four steps of the Garland of Views, “hearing, realizing, familiarization, becoming manifest”, are structurally close to Zhiyi’s “identity in name, identity in contemplative practice … ultimate identity”: both take original presence as the starting point and the unfolding of realizing-knowledge as completion.

also seek reliable editions of the termas beyond the low-quality OCR, which should still be classified by the layer of composition and of the treasure-revealer rather than being attributed to Padmasambhava as T1. Specialist checking of the Tibetan translation cannot be replaced by mechanical back-conversion. The relevant missing evidence has been listed as reopening conditions.

• Garland of Views: A Pith Instruction (Man ngag lta ba’i phreng ba): said to be composed by Padmasambhava. This archive follows the ACIP transcription of Nyingma literature (BuddhaNexus segmented-tibetan, NK073(pu)003), located by segment number; the Tibetan script was mechanically converted by this archive from the transliteration. Its Tengyur text, Rongzom Paṇḍita’s commentary, and the other commentaries contained in the same volume (NK073(pu)005—007) have not been checked by this archive.
• The Jewel Heap: Stages of the Path Common to Outer, Exoteric and Esoteric (Phyi chos mdo sngags thun mong gi lam rim rin chen spungs pa): titled as composed by Padmasambhava. This archive follows the ACIP transcription (NK083(’u)002).