THE JO-NAN-PASWhile underlining this remarkable and rather extreme position amongst Bud-
dhist schools occupied by the Jo nan pas, it is also necessary to consider them
both as one of the most renowned and as one of the most controversial of the
Tibetan schools during a period of several centuries.
As the author of the Grub mtha ' sel gyi me /on informs us, at first, in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries, they appeared closely linked with the Sa skya
pas, only becoming clearly distinct after their doctrines had become the object of
a formal philosophical presentation, for which Dol bu pa was chiefly respons-
ible. But since both the Sa skya pa and Jo nan pa schools had their centres in
gTsan province and since at this time the Sa skya pas were perhaps the dominant
force in Tibet (though very closely rivalled by some of the bKa' brgyud pa
sects), this connexion may have even earlier been above all geographical and
due to the fact that the Jo nan pa masters had usually studied in the chief monas-
tic colleges which belonged to the Sa skya pas. This is the impression conveyed
at least by the passage from the Kha skon of the Nor pa chos 'byun quoted
below. At all events, theories accepted by the Jo nan pas were rejected by Sa
skya pao<;lita in his sDom gsum rab dbye.
A connexion also existed between the Jo nan pas on the one side and on the
other Bu ston (1290--1364) and the Za lu pa school owing no doubt in part to
their common interest in the Kiilacakra; in fact, according to the ThG, the Jo nan
pa master Phyogs las mam rgyal studied under Bu ston. But from the point of
view of mtshan iiid or philosophical method their doctrine of the gian ston and
of the tathiigatagarbha was refuted both by Bu ston and his great disciple sGra
tshad pa Rin chen mam rgyal. It is nevertheless to be noted that in his mDses
rgyan they are not attacked by name; and if Padma dkar po states in his Chos
'byun that Bu ston refused to discuss publicly with Dol bu pa when the latter
came to see him for that purpose, this may have been because he did not wish to
engage in open controversy with teachers who were regarded with great respect.
A Sa skya pa authority, Nag dban chos grags, states that whereas Bu ston held
that the dharmadhiitu though real is non-existent in reality (bden par med), Dol
bu pa proposed the thesis: The dharmadhiitu as the subject of the proposition
will exist in reality because it is real.^3
Reference has furthermore sometimes been made to a connexion between the
Jo nan pa and bKa' brgyud pa schools.^4 This does not appear to be clearly borne
out by the present chapter of the ThG, though this text does indicate that the
gian ston and the mahiimudrii are in certain respects comparable. Certain
teachers of the Karma pa sect of the bKa' brgyud pas however proposed an
interpretation of the sunyatii, the absolute Gnosis and the tathiigatagarbha that
was close to the Jo nan pa doctrine.^5
While the question of the affiliations of the Jo nan pas with the other Tibetan
schools clearly requires much further study, it thus seems correct to say that they
were to begin with closely connected with the Sa skya pas; however, their doc-
trines differed from those of most of the Sa skya pa doctors. An exception was
Sakya mchog ldan, whose theory of the sunyata agreed with the Jo nan pa