The Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s Oral Teachings on the Source of the Kālacakratantra

THIS PAPER WILL PRESENT some rhetorical and discursive elements in oral versions of the history of the Kālacakratantra as currently presented by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Focusing on the definition of the Kālacakra’s “word of the Buddha” (buddha vacana), the paper will show how the Fourteenth Dalai Lama constructs an innovative version in his teachings, manifesting the relations between the esoteric tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and its contemporary religious milieux as it is being defined in exile. These relations are apparent both in the information that is being taught and in the argumentation that constructs it.