Tag Archives: Do Khyentse

More on Dola Jigme Kalzang (and Do Khyentse)

dola-jigme-kalzang-bwIn an earlier post, I mentioned that a text commonly attributed to Do Khyentse Yeshe Dorje (mDo mkhyen brtse ye shes rdo rje, 1800–1866) is actually the work of Dola Jigme Kalzang (rdo bla ‘jigs med skal bzang, b. 1789). The purpose of that post was to discuss the nature of authorship more generally, so I did not go into detail as to why the text might have been misattributed. Now that my biography of Dola Jigme Kalzang is online at Treasury of Lives, it might be a good time to return to this question and address it in more depth.

As I mentioned previously, the colophon to bsKyed rdzogs kyi zin bris blun gtam de nyid gsal ba (Foolish Babble Clarifying Reality: Notes on the Generation and Perfection Stages, or Foolish Babble for short) gives the author as Zhönnu Yeshe Dorje (gzhon nu ye shes rdo rje). This is one of the many names of Dola Jigme Kalzang, but is not attested elsewhere as a name of Do Khyentse — not to my knowledge, at least. Do Khyentse is called Yeshe Dorje, or even Kyebu Yeshe Dorje (skyes bu ye shes rdo rje), but not Zhönnu Yeshe Dorje.

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Whose Text Is It Anyway? (And Does It Really Matter?)

Dola Jigme Kalzang blog

Dola Jigme Kalzang

Several years ago I added a note to the Rigpa Wiki entry on Do Khyentse Yeshe Dorje (1800–1866) pointing out that a text commonly attributed to Do Khyentse is in fact by Dola Jigme Kalzang (b. 1789). The text in question is Foolish Babble Clarifying Reality: Notes on the Generation and Perfection Stages (bskyed rdzogs kyi zin bris blun gtam de nyid gsal ba). In English it appears interwoven with Ringu Tulku’s commentary in Daring Steps Toward Fearlessness (Snow Lion, 2005). Any confusion surrounding the text’s attribution seemingly stems from the fact that Dola Jigme Kalzang is also known as Zhönnu Yeshe Dorje,[1] the name that appears in Foolish Babble‘s colophon, but which is unattested in any other work by Do Khyentse. The case for the revised attribution was made even clearer in 2010 when the text was included among the collected writings of Jigme Kalzang (there referred to as Derge Jigme Kalzang) published by the Ngakmang Institute.[2]

You might well ask whether it really matters who wrote this (or any other) work. After all, it has little bearing on the actual content. It certainly matters more to the biographer or historian than it does to the average student. But association with a highly revered — and, in the case of Do Khyentse, highly unconventional — character inevitably influences how a work is perceived. And while much is known about events in the life of Do Khyentse Yeshe Dorje, biographies of Jigme Kalzang offer no more than scanty bits of information. Until recently, for example, the year of his birth was unknown, while the year of his death still remains unclear.[3]  (Incidentally, Tulku Thondup Rinpoche’s brief account of the circumstances of his death by torture in place of a condemned thief in China surely ranks among the most moving passages in Masters of Meditation and Miracles.)

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