366 sven bretfeld
several other schools and especially became part of the ritual repertoire
of the bKa’-brgyud-pa order; even the dGe-lugs-pa school had their
own tradition of gcod (the latter fact is mainly due to the sympathy of
the 2nd and 5th Dalai Lamas for the gCod tradition). Thus, gcod is one
of the examples for the side by side existence of harsh criticism on one
hand and high reputation on the other. This ambiguous attitude towards
teachings and practices of other school traditions is quite typical for
Tibetan Buddhism and holds also true for the Mahmudr practice as
interpreted by some teachers of the bKa’-brgyud-pa lineages as well
as for the rdzogs-chen system of the rNying-ma-pas, which brings us to
the next section.
4.3.2. The rNying-ma-pas
As already mentioned above, the rNying-ma-pas rose about the eleventh
century apparently out of a liaison of several traditions based on the
so-called “old tantras”, which are believed to have been introduced to
Tibet by Padmasambhava and other tantric masters of the “earlier
spread”.^52 Their name—rNying-ma-pa, the “Old Ones”—is derived
from this connection to a tradition older than the other Tibetan schools,
which are, in turn, referred to collectively as the “new schools” (gsar-
ma). Hence, the formation of the rNying-ma-pas as a distinct Buddhist
school tradition was a reaction to the school systems emerging with the
“later spread” and propagating “new tantras”. A major step in bring-
ing these “old” traditions together into a more or less uni ed school
tradition seems to have been made by the scholar Rong-zom Chos-kyi
bzang-po (1012–1088), who was a proponent of the “old tantras” as
well as a translator of “new tantras”. He wrote several treatises in order
to synthesise the teachings of the “old tantra” tradition into a coherent
doctrinal system. All in all, he held the “old tantras” to be superior to
the “new” ones in several respects. One of the reasons for this judge-
ment was the view that the “old tantras” were a rare revelation of the
Buddha transmitted secretly by small circles of initiated people, and
against its doctrine (among others) in his Theg-chen-gyi mngon-pa’i sde-snod-las byung-ba’i
dbu-ma’i skor-gyi ming-gi rnam-grangs 52.
The history and literature of the rNying-ma-pa tradition was subject to a num-
ber of studies during the last decades. Among them only a few may be mentioned
for further reference: Dargyay 1977, Karmay 1988, Ehrhard 1990, Achard 1999; see
also the articles on the rNying-ma canon in Eimer & Germano 2002. A chos-’byung
from the rNying-ma-pa perspective is available in an excellent English translation by
Dudjom 1991.