Six Yogas vs. Six Dharmas

sbyor drug vs. chos drug

Six Yogas (the perfection process meditations of the Kalacakra system): these are often confused with the Six Dharmas of Nāropa (nā ro'i chos drug, the perfection process meditations most commonly practiced by the various Kagyu schools), which are often called, quite wrongly, the Six Yogas of Nāropa. Wikipedia, for example, calls them this, and very bizarrely used to have that the "Tibetan term choe or chos is often translated as 'dharma'", and that they are "also called the six dharmas of Naropa". This is getting it completely the wrong way around. The Tibetan terms for both the Six Yogas and the Six Dharmas are translations from the Sanskrit. The original Sanskrit term for Nāropa's system is dharma, and it is quite silly to translate the Tibetan translation of this (chos) back into Sanskrit as yoga. An authority? In the short instruction text on these Six Dharmas, written by Tilopa and translated into Tibetan by Nāropa and Marpa, the practice is referred to in the title as the ṣaḍdharma (six dharmas) – ṣaḍdharmopadeśa, chos drug gi man ngag. QED! [TSD]