Jacob Dalton's book, The Gathering of Intentions: A History of Tibetan Tantra, is, despite the ambitious subtitle, a study focusing on a single scripture. Noting this is not to belittle this work. Tibetan Buddhist tantric traditions are extremely complex, and still not very well understood. By focusing on a single root scripture and exploring the development of the tradition surrounding it in Tibet, Dalton makes a major contribution to our understanding of Tibetan Buddhism by focusing on commentary and ritual texts as a primary way in which traditions adapt over time.
The work on which he focuses is The Gathering of Intentions, which is arguably a singular work. Its colophon claims that it was translated into Tibetan from the Burushaski language; apparently it is the only work in the Tibetan Buddhist canon to make this claim. Dalton surveys previous scholarship and suggests that the work centers around an older narrative core, the myth of the subjugation of Rudra, embedded in doctrinal chapters that appear to be later additions to the text composed in Tibetan. Dalton analyzes the Rudra narrative contained within this work, and its relation to earlier tantric Buddhist subjugation myths. Here this work complements Dalton's earlier study of this myth.Footnote 1
As this work is a diachronic study of this text and the development of a commentarial and practice tradition surrounding it, Dalton moves on to explore the monumental commentary on it composed circa the late ninth century by Nupchen Sangyé Yeshé (b. 844 CE). He introduces Nupchen's comments on the nine vehicles doxography that is featured in the root text, with particular focus on the three highest vehicles, Mahāyoga, Anuyoga, and Atiyoga. He emphasizes Nupchen's contributions to Tibetan understanding of the vast array of tantric literature and practices, which presented a major challenge to Tibetan religious scholars from the ninth through twelfth centuries.
Dalton segues to the Zur tradition, formed during the eleventh century. This tradition was responsible for the compilation of the Nyingma “Spoken Teachings” (bka’ ma) canon, consisting largely of translations made during the imperial period. The Zur tradition featured The Gathering of Intentions in a trio of texts that also included the *Guhyagarbha Tantra and All-Creating King. This was known as the “triad of sūtra, tantra, and mind.” This tradition considered The Gathering of Intentions to be the paradigmatic Anuyoga text, a status that it has retained in the Nyingma tradition. As all three of these scriptures were labeled apocryphal by critics of the Nyingma tradition, Dalton relates the efforts of the twelfth-century Zur scholar Dampa Deshek to construct lineages for these works, attributing their origins to authoritative South Asian masters. In so doing, he illuminates the creative process by which Tibetans developed and legitimated new scriptural and practice traditions during the formative period for the development of these traditions, the period circa the tenth through fifteenth centuries. Dalton's focus on the development of a single tradition helps us better understand this important era of Tibetan religious history.
Dalton argues that, within the Nyingma School, The Gathering of Intentions was both a great success and a failure. Two of its great contributions, the Rudra subjugation myth and the nine vehicles doxography, were appropriated and adapted by other Nyingma traditions. As this happened, however, the text itself fell into obscurity. One of its unique elements, which has been preserved in a fragile lineage, is a complex initiation ritual into the nine vehicles, which is known as the Sūtra initiation tradition. Preservation of this ritual tradition was essential, given the importance of this work in the Nyingma canon. Dalton shows how the history of particular scriptural and practice traditions is not necessarily linear. In focusing on a tradition that was once extremely influential, but later sunk into obscurity, Dalton makes an important contribution to the study of Tibetan religious history, since the majority of past studies have focused on works and practice traditions that are currently popular.
As the seventeenth century was a pivotal era for this tradition, Dalton next explores the efforts of Pema Trinlé (1641–1717) to establish a new Sūtra initiation lineage, a move that was linked to his efforts to make his Dorjé Drak monastery a major center of learning. To do this, he composed new ritual manuals and a new Sūtra initiation lineage transmission history. Dalton shows how this was a politically fraught move, motivated in part by Pema Trinlé’s relationship with the Fifth Dalai Lama, and the latter's conflict with the Kings of Tsang, who patronized Nyingma masters who were rivals of Pema Trinlé. He argues that Pema Trinlé’s revisions to the ritual practices and the lineage transmission were designed to downplay the contributions of rival Nyingma masters aligned with his patron's enemies.
Dalton then explores another attempt to revise this tradition that occurred a few decades later in an entirely different political environment, following the victory of the Fifth Dalai Lama. He discusses the efforts of Lochen Dharmaśrī at Mindröling Monastery to integrate rival textual and ritual traditions into a comprehensive Spoken Teachings canon, complete with the associated ritual practices, including a revised Sūtra initiation practice tradition. He argues that this reflects the more inclusive post-conflict political environment in late eighteenth-century central Tibet.
In conclusion, with this book Dalton makes another important contribution to the field of Tibetan studies. This work, a focused study on a single tradition, weaves its history into the larger tapestry of Tibetan religious and political history. In so doing, it makes a serious contribution to our understanding of Tibetan religious history by demonstrating the relevance of what was until recently a poorly understood textual tradition, and showing the surprising ways it impacted Tibetan history.
