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"A detailed, beautifully illustrated presentation of the construction and symbolism of the famed Kalachakra mandala, the crown jewel of the Indo-Tibetan tantric traditions. This volume contains an extensive analysis of the construction and symbolism of the mandala of the Kalachakra tantric system, the most intricate and explicit of the Indian Buddhist unexcelled yoga tantras, the most advanced teachings within the Indo-Tibetan tradition. Indo-Tibetan tantric traditions, particularly the unexcelled category, depend on imagery and visualization for the processes of purifying cyclic existence, and Kalachakra is the most detailed. The late scholar-practitioner Edward Henning, one of the earliest Western specialists on this material, offers this labor of love as a testament to the genius of the Tibetan tradition in preserving and transmitting these teachings over a thousand years. Well known internationally now due to the Dalai Lama's many public initiations, the Kalachakra mandala serves as a primary focal point for meditators both new and seasoned. Henning draws primarily from the Jonang tradition of Kalachakra practice, particularly the modern master Banda Gelek, to elucidate and clarify inconsistencies across traditions and literature, including the authoritative Indian commentary Stainless Light (Vimalaprabha), regarding the construction and visualization of the three-tiered mandala with its hundreds of deities. In addition to providing detailed information on the images to be visualized, Henning provides in the final chapter a clear and extensive explanation of the symbolism of the habitat and inhabitants that are to be animated during the meditation session"--

A masterful translation of classic scholar Buddhapalita’s breakthrough elucidation of Nagarjuna’s famous Middle Way text, which has profoundly influenced generations of Buddhist philosophers.This “Buddhapalita” commentary on Nagarjuna’s famous first-century text Wisdom: Fundamental Middle Way Verses has been considered for over a thousand years by Indian and Tibetan philosophers to be the special key that best unlocks the deep philosophical freedom from confusion and perplexity that the Middle Way (or Centrist) school seeks to provide for its students. Chandrakirti (seventh century) defended Buddhapalita’s elegant approach as most effective in opening the Middle Way for the inquiring mind to find the liberating experience of reality. Atisha (eleventh century) brought Buddhapalita’s and Chandrakirti’s transformative critical method to spread widely in Tibet, and Tsongkhapa (fifteenth century) provided a clarification of this philosophical work that was so rigorous and crystal clear that it opened the minds of Tibetan philosopher scientists of all schools until today. Ian Coghlan’s masterful translation makes Buddhapalita’s breakthrough elucidation of the Wisdom Verses clearly accessible. The translator’s unique education combines the Indo-Tibetan geshé curriculum with the modern doctoral training that adds comparative text-critical analysis and comparative language research in Sanskrit as well as Tibetan. This intellectual and experiential education enabled him to produce this reliable translation for the philosophical seeker to fully engage with Buddhapalita’s richly transformative, liberating work.

A new presentation of Tantra with its most renowned commentary by one of the foremost translator/scholar teams of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism.This volume is a translation of the first twelve chapters of The Glorious Esoteric Community Great King of Tantras (Sri Guhyasamaja Maha-tantra-raja), along with the commentary called The Illuminating Lamp (Pradipoddyotana-nama-tika), a commentary in Sanskrit on this tantra by the seventh-century Buddhist intellectual and tantric scholar-adept Chandrakirti. Regarded by Indo-Tibetan tradition as the esoteric scripture wherein the Buddha revealed in greatest detail the actual psycho-physical process of his enlightenment, The Esoteric Community Tantra is a preeminent text of the class of scriptures known to Indian Buddhist scholar-adepts as great yoga tantra, and later to their Tibetan successors as unexcelled yoga tantra. The Illuminating Lamp presents a system of interpretive guidelines according to which the cryptic meanings of all tantras might be extracted in order to engage the ritual and yogic practices taught therein. Applying its interpretive strategies to the text of The Esoteric Community Tantra, The Illuminating Lamp articulates a synthetic, “vajra vehicle” (vajrayana) discourse that locates tantric practices and ideals squarely within the cosmological and institutional frameworks of exoteric Mahayana Buddhism.

The most important commentary on Vajrayana from the founder of the Dalai Lama's school of Buddhism.The Brilliantly Illuminating Lamp of the Five Stages (rim lnga rab tu gsal ba'i sgron me) is Tsong Khapa's most important commentary on the perfection-stage practices of the Esoteric Community (Guhyasamaja), the tantra he considered fundamental for the practice of the "father tantra" class of unexcelled yoga tantras. It draws heavily on Nagarjuna's Five Stages (Pañcakrama) and Aryadeva's Lamp that Integrates the Practices (Caryamelapaka­pradipa), as well as a vast range of perfection-stage works included in the Tibetan canonical (Kangyur and Tengyur) collections. It is an important work for both scholars and practitioners. A reader of this work will find in it convincing evidence for Tsong Khapa's own yogic experience and attainment, in coordination with his better-known philosophical and scholarly achievements. The present revised edition of the work is a cornerstone of the Complete Works of Jey Tsong Khapa and Sons collection, a subset of the Treasury of the Buddhist Sciences series. Comprised of the collected works of Tsong Khapa (1357-1419) and his spiritual sons, Gyaltsap Darma Rinchen (1364-1432) and Khedrup Gelek Pelsang (1385-1438), the numerous works in this set of Tibetan treatises and supercommentaries are based on the thousands of works in the Tibetan Buddhist canon.