476 ruth dunnell
Xuanmi Imperial Preceptor, whatever his nominal ethnic origin, was
promoted from the position of state preceptor at the end of the twelfth
century; his career at the Xia court (and perhaps in Tibet) overlapped
that of Gtsang-po-pa Dkon-mchog seng-ge and Ti-shri Ras-pa. A Chi-
nese skeptic suggests that the title of “imperial preceptor” was posthu-
mously awarded to Huicheng and perhaps others too (Nie 2005).
Later Tibetan sources describe three lamas who occupied high
positions in the Xia Sangha: (1) Gtsang-po-pa Dkon-mchog seng-ge
(d. 1218/19), who was dispatched by Dus-gsum mkhyen-pa to Ren-
zong and presumably became an imperial preceptor; (2) ‘Gro-mgon
Ti-shri Ras-pa (Ti-shri sangs-rgyas ras-chen, 1164/65–1236), who
spent roughly thirty years from 1198 to 1226 in Xia, succeeding Dkon-
mchog seng-ge as imperial preceptor; and (3) the latter’s successor
Gsang-ba ras-pa dkar-po Shes-rab byang-chub (the Huijue who
helped to reprint a Tangut edition of the Jinguangming zuishengwang
jing in 1247 and became a Yuan state preceptor (Shi
1988; Dunnell 1992; Sperling 1987, 1994, 2004a). One might hypoth-
esize the identity of the Baoshizi mentioned in seven items
in the Khara Khoto archive with Gtsang-po-pa Dkon-mchog seng-ge.
Baozhizi (*Dkon-mchog seng-ge) was active in Xia in the late twelfth
and early thirteenth centuries, around the time that we might date
Gtsang-po-pa’s career, though Baozhizi’s name never occurs with such
an exalted title. In some texts he appears as Tibetan Dharma Precep-
tor, Enlightened Master of the Three Vehicles Baozhizi
(in Tangut texts the phrase rendered with the
Chinese graphs refers to Tibet, not China). In another instance
the epithet ( da xi zhi) is added in front of his name, a tantric
version of the epithet bestowed on the Tang-era translator of esoteric
texts, Amoghavajra ( da guang zhi). The two main works that
Baoshizi introduced, edited, and saw translated appear to be closely
related to the lam ‘bras teachings being developed by Sa-skya and
‘Bka-brgyud lamas at this time (Kychanov 1999; Dunnell 2008).
Two more candidates have joined this crowded gallery of presumed
Xia imperial preceptors: Xinyuan Zhenzheng Imperial Preceptor
and Zhenguo Miaojue Jizhao Imperial Preceptor
, recorded in the colophon to a 1641 edition of a Chinese
Huayan text in forty-two chapters, Da fang guangfo huayan jing hai-
yin daochang shi chong xingyuan chang bianti chanyi