Talk:Naropa

Hi Kent,

as you might have noticed, I moved 'jigs med grags pa, who is noone else but "Phamtingpa" to Naropa's students. TBRC wrongly lists him as one of Naropa's teachers (already the dates given there make that obvious). He was one of his Newar disciples who lived in Pharping, near Kathmandu. He was one of the first masters whom Marpa met on his first trip south. Phamtingpa then strongly advised him to go to India and meet his own guru Naropa...

Best, TSD

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Interesting, as http://www.tbrc.org/cgi-bin/tbrcdatx?do=so&resource=P3085 shows 'jigs med grags pa as a teacher of Naropa. I'm not sure which of the two brothers (of the four) this actually is, myself... Maybe someone should also contact TBRC and ask them to correct their entry. Kent 03:53, 13 September 2006 (EDT)

..hmmm, I'll check his out with Gene and have him refer us to the folks in charge of their "history dept.". Will be interesting to see what they say... TSD

Re: Phamtingpa...

Hi Kent,

I sent an email to TBRC and got a rather lengthy reply from Gene himself. Apparently it is very difficult to ascertain which of them "Phamtingpas" is which. Tibetan sources are rather hazy about the matter (we're not surprised, are we?!). See my update to the 'jigs med grags pa entry. When back in Kathmandu (in late Oct.) I will check this with a good friend who is very knowledgable about Newar buddhist history...

TSD

Thanks, did you also check with him why 'jigs med grags pa was listed as one of the teachers of Naropa? --Kent 13:32, 14 September 2006 (EDT)

I also think the Red or Blue Annals has some more information about hte Phamtingkha brothers, especially about one of them who actually practiced as a yogi close to the Tibetan/Chinese brother later in life. According to tradition, the house where the Phamthingkha brothers practiced is still in Parping, btw... --Kent 13:33, 14 September 2006 (EDT)

...no, Gene didn't go into any details as to why they listed 'jigs med grags pa as a teacher of Naropa's. The TBRC folks are just in the midst of a major switch over to a new XML based database, so they are too busy momentarily to do any revision. Incidentally, when they go online with this on Oct. 1st, all our links to them will go to hell says Gene. However, I was just on the road with Ven. Tenga Rinpoche and had a chance to ask him about this. While he said that I (we!) will of course have to consult some of the histories to make sure about this, he expressed great doubt that any of the Phamting brothers was a teacher of Naropa. There are definite differences in the representation of Naropa and his teachers and students in the better known standard bka' brgyud traditions and the snyan brgyud traditions. I don't think we can rely entirely on the relatively late deb ther sngon po by gos lo tsA ba gzhon nu dpal. I was pointed to some interesting bka' brgyud gser 'phreng collections, mainly of one or another of the various 'brug pa bka' brgyud lineages. Lots of reading to be done... ;-) TSD

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Thanks for looking into this. We should maybe make the definite Phamtingkha brothers article in rywiki. I will take Lama Kunga Rinpoche for lunch and ask questions, there might be some more autobiography material in the Sakya collections, for example in the lam 'bras, not that they are not part of the lam 'bras lineage, or then the Sakya Naro Khachod collection might have info.

As for the broken links, thx, good to know, we might need to revisit them one at a time.

--Kent 13:17, 19 September 2006 (EDT)

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I just did some more "looking into", but presently I have only Tsang Nyön's Marpa biography at hand. As "Phamting brothers", there are only two masters named - "spyi ther pa" and "pen da pa". Our friend "'jigs med grags pa" is merely mentioned once, as the chantmaster at Chitherpa's funeral or anniversary celebrations which Marpa attended on his return to Tibet from his third trip to India. Then, towards the end of the Marpa rnam thar, there appears a list of thirteen masters under whom Marpa studied, mentioning the two - "spyi ther pa" and "pen da pa". But it says nothing about their relationship to Naropa. Oh well, I'll have to consult that long Naropa rnam thar that sits on my bookshelf back home in Kathmandu. I'll return there in about a month...

--TSD