In a previous essay we have outlined the turbulent circumstances that served as the backdrop to Kamalasīla's missionary activity. To what has already been said, we wish to add here only a few lines about the place occupied in this historical picture by the short work whose translation we offer below and for the first time to the Western reader. The
Bhāvanāyogāvatāra is a work of synthesis that brings together the salient points of three other works by Kamalasīla, the
Bhāvanākramas. Although it is not easy to determine whether the
Bhāvanāyogāvatāra served as an introduction to these or whether it was composed as a recapitulation of them, a careful examination of the four essays, especially of the
Bhāvanāyogāvatāra, seems to suggest that the latter contains one of the first, if not the first, of Kamalasīla's lectures in Tibet and serves as an announcement of the other three. It is probably an inaugural sermon in which the Indian missionary outlines the plan of his future sermons and apologetic writings. This hypothesis seems confirmed by the brevity and lapidary style of the
Bhāvanāyogāvatāra. If our interpretation is correct, this short work conveys one of the first public and formal explanations of Buddhism in Tibet. Perhaps we can also suppose that the
Bhāvanākramas were composed (perhaps as summaries of lectures) to fulfill the promise made at the end of the
Bhāvanāyogāvatāra to consider on another occasion the meaning of "resources" and "conviction." But clearly only the first two
Bhāvanākramas fulfill this function. The third would have to be understood as a basically polemical work in which the explanation of practice serves a fundamentally critical purpose.
Moreover, since we have no documentation from that period to help us specify the exact circumstances of the composition of these works, we must consider the possibility that the Bhāvanāyogāvatāra was dictated to the translators (Prajñāvarman and Ye-ses-sde) as a lesson to be submitted to the king as a sample. The work would in that case be a private document, an "introduction" (avatāra) for the exclusive use of the king or his family. The three Bhāvanākramas could then be seen as so many personal communications, as tradition has understood them. But this explanation seems improbable since it is rare that none of the colophons makes reference to the illustrious recipient of the documents.
It should be noted that the Bhāvanāyogāvatāra is not a polemical essay, although the last verses of the stanzas that conclude the work seem to allude to one of the themes of the Lhasa controversy. The short work is, as its title indicates, a practical introduction: literally, an introduction (avatāra) to the practice (yoga) through which the Buddhist ideal is made real (bhāvanā).
The work is preserved only in Tibetan; no Sanskrit version exists. Due to the circumstances described above, it is very likely that there never was a Sanskrit original. Our translation is based on the Sde-dge recension, compared with those of Cone, Peking, and Snar-than. In these last two collections the Bhāvanāyogāvatāra appears twice, in the Dbu-ma section and in the appendix called Jo-bo'i chos chun. (In Spanish. English translation by Claude.ai)
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