• Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (IKGA)

TIBSCHOL
THE DAWN OF TIBETAN BUDDHIST SCHOLASTICISM (11TH–13TH C.)

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Zhouyang Ma (2025)
Two Early Biographical Accounts of Atiśa Preserved in Tangut Sources

Journal of the American Oriental Society 145.1: 65–90

Publication date: 27.02.2025

DOI:https://doi.org/10.7817/jaos.145.1.2025.ar004

Project:

TibSchol – The Dawn of Tibetan Buddhist Scholasticism (11th-13th c.)

The ERC-funded project TibSchol - The dawn of Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism (11th-13th c.) - will be the first wide-ranging exploration of the formative phase of the Tibetan Buddhist scholastic tradition. Its ground-breaking study of an exceptionally active period of Tibetan scholarly creativity will integrate Tibetan thinkers into world intellectual history and the global history of philosophy. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 101001002). It is hosted at the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

The results published are solely within the author’s responsibility and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Research Council or the European Commission who must not be held responsible for either contents or their further use.

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Two Early Biographical Accounts of Atiśa Preserved in Tangut

    Zhouyang Ma

TibSchol-publication5, pp. 65-90, 2025/03/13

doi: https://doi.org/10.7817/jaos.145.1.2025.ar004


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doi:https://doi.org/10.7817/jaos.145.1.2025.ar004

Abstract

While the extant Tibetan biographies of Atiśa Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna (982–1054) are abundant, most of the datable ones were completed three hundred years after Atiśa’s death. However, two Tangut manuscripts offer early biographical accounts of Atiśa as they were written in the Tangut State (1038–1227). Centering around Atiśa’s life at Vikramaśīla and his journey to Tibet, the narratives within the Tangut texts both resonate with and diverge from the more conventional accounts found in sources like the Extensive Biography (Rnam thar rgyas pa) and the Well-Known Biography (Rnam thar yongs grags). As a result, these Tangut sources emerge as invaluable resources for studying the biographical tradition of Atiśa, as well as the dissemination of his life story in the unique context of the Tangut State during the rise of Tibetan Buddhism therein. This paper introduces and translates two Tangut biographical accounts along with relevant Tibetan textual materials. Its aim is not only to present these new sources but also to utilize them to examine the development of Atiśa’s biographical tradition. Furthermore, it demonstrates how Tibetan and Tangut studies can be methodologically integrated.