mkhyen brtse'i bka' babs
The Khyentse Kabab collection, in twenty-two volumes, is structured around the notion of the seven types of authoritative transmission (bka' babs bdun) that were considered an essential aspect of Khyentse Wangpo's unique endowment as a highly influential promulgator of the Buddhist teachings. In his biography of Khyentse Wangpo, Jamgön Kongtrul mentions an early reference to this set of seven in an unnamed work by Thangtong Gyalpo that prophesied the arrival of Khyentse Wangpo, referring to him as "bka' babs bdun ldan mdo sngags gling," which references his treasure revealer (gter ston) title, Pema Ösel Dongak Lingpa (Pad+ma 'od gsal mdo sngags gling pa), along with the epithet "Possessor of the Seven Authoritative Transmissions." However, one of the most commonly cited references to these seven comes from another prophecy (lung bstan) found in the treasure revelation of Chogyur Lingpa, the The Sacred Teachings of the Three Series of the Great Perfection (Dam chos rdzogs pa chen po sde gsum), which states:
- བཀའ་ནས་བཀར་བརྒྱུད་བར་མ་ཆད༔
- ཟབ་མོ་དངོས་དང་དགོངས་པའི་གཏེར༔
- ཡང་གཏེར་རྗེས་སུ་དྲན་པའི་གཏེར༔
- དག་སྣང་སྙན་དུ་བརྒྱུད་པ་ཡི༔
- བཀའ་ནས་བཀར་བརྒྱུད་བར་མ་ཆད༔
- བཀའ་བབས་བདུན་གྱི་ཆུ་བོ་ནི༔
- མངའ་བདག་ཡབ་སྲས་སྐལ་བར་བབས༔
- སྙིགས་དུས་བསྟན་པའི་བཙས་ཆེན་བྱེད༔
- ཟབ་རྒྱས་ཉི་འོད་ལྷག་པར་བརྡལ༔
- བཀའ་བབས་བདུན་གྱི་ཆུ་བོ་ནི༔
- The unbroken lineage passed down orally,
- Profound treasures revealed physically and from the mind,
- Treasures discovered again and recollected from the past,
- Pure visions and aural lineages,
- The unbroken lineage passed down orally,
- As a great river, those seven authoritative transmissions,
- Shall descend to the king and heir who shall have their share.
- They will perform great deeds to protect the doctrine in dark times,
- And the sunlight of the profound and vast will shine pervasively.
- As a great river, those seven authoritative transmissions,
The "king and heir" refers to the past life attributions of Khyentse Wangpo and Chogyur Lingpa, whom were believed to have been the Dharm King Trisong Deutsen (chos rgyal khri srong lde'u btsan) and his son Lhase Damdzin Murub Tsenpo (lha sras dam 'dzin mu rub btsan po), respectively. It should also be noted that these seven, as they apply to this collection, are categorized according to Khyentse Wangpo's role as a conduit of a particular teaching or practice rather than being indicative of the nature or origins of the teachings themselves. In other words, these categories are demonstrative of how Khyentse Wangpo received a certain set of teachings. These seven, in the order that they are presented within this collection, are: 1) the Oral Tradition (bka' ma or bka' nas bkar brgyud), 2) Earth Treasures (sa gter), 3) Rediscovered Treasures (yang gter), 4) Mind Treasures (dgongs gter), 5) Recollections (rjes dran), 6) Pure Visions (dag snang), and 7) the Aural Lineages (snyan brgyud). Of these seven only the first, the Oral Tradition consisting of the verbal explanations and initiations passed down in a succession of teachers and their students, applies to a somewhat commonplace type of transmission that would be accessible to ordinary individuals. The remaining six involve the more extraordinary aspects of transmission that are the purview of only the most accomplished or karmically destined practitioners. The first three of these are related to the revelation of types of treasures (gter ma), namely those revealed from the earth, the practitioner's mind, and the rediscovery of previously revealed treasures, the latter being a particular speciality of Khyentse Wangpo whom revived numerous treasure revelations whose lineages of transmission had faded over the centuries. Recollection refers to the ability to access memories from previous lives, while the final two involve new visionary encounters with enlightened beings and the accomplished masters of the past.
