‘flow of the River Gangā’: the Gsan-yig of the Fifth Dalai Bla-ma and Its Literary Sources*

It has been observed that from the eleventh century onwards one main concern of Tibetan authors to was determine the authenticity of the Buddhist texts received from India and thereby establish different lineages of transmission, by which means they were able to trace back any specifi c teaching either to the historical Buddha or to such representatives of Buddhahood as Vajradhāra or Samantabhadra. These efforts resulted in a specifi c literary genre known as the “record [of teachings] heard” (gsan yig) or “record [of teachings] obtained” (thob yig). The term gsan-yig seems to have made its appearance in the thirteenth century. One crucial source for an investigation into these lines of transmission is the enormous gsan-yig of the Fifth Dalai Bla-ma Ngag-dbang Blo-bzang rgya-mtsho (1617-1682), consisting of four volumes from among his collected writings. Besides the great number of individual texts and lineages it mentions, this work is of particular importance for its references to earlier texts of the same genre and its discussion of divergent views on specifi c textual transmissions. The Great Fifth was thus actively engaged in what has been called “comparative gsan yig-ology.” 1 In the following I shall give an overview of the structure and content of this fascinating work of Ngagdbang Blo-bzang rgya-mtsho, and then look into the literary sources he used for its composition. My special interest is the treatment of the rNying-ma-pa school and the transmission of the Tantra collection known as rNying ma rgyud ’bum.