Kai lord wrote: ↑Fri Jun 24, 2022 2:04 pm
Malcolm wrote: ↑Thu Jun 23, 2022 5:17 pm
We don't know. We know for sure he was a contemporary of Trisrong Detsen. We know for sure that some of his associates are associated also with Padmasambhava. One can guess that those two ran in the same circles. We can be fairly confident that Vimalamitra was also his student, who arrived in Tibet around 800.
For example, there are three completely different accounts of the origin of Garab Dorje, with the sems sde and klong sde accounts being the closest, but also distinct.
So by historical estimation, Sri Sangha probably lived between the late 7th century to late 8th century?
Since its well known that Mañjuśrīmitra wrote commentaries on Mañjuśrīnāmasaṃgīti , I went back to dig out my old and dusted copy of Mañjuśrīnāmasaṃgīti to check out the scholarly estimation for its dating. Its presumed that since the two first volumes of the Kriya tantra, manjushri-mula-kalpa along with some of the early Tathāgatagarbha sūtras must predate Mañjuśrīnāmasaṃgīti, so its very likely to have been in circulation during the late sixth to seventh century. this matches Mañjuśrīmitra timeline very well with Sri Sangha. And Mañjuśrīmitra might even be a contemporary of Dharmakirti at Nalanda.
So lets say if Mahayoga was in oral circulation (Not written down) during the sixth century and Garab dorje was to have a normal human lifespan and meet his Mahayoga guru, Kukuraja. Is it reasonable to estimate Garab Dorje's timeline to sixth century and perhaps mid seventh century where he would have met Mañjuśrīmitra ?
as Malcolm pointed out, the original form is a Tibetan one =
dpal gyi seng ge - reconstructed as
śrīsiṁha
the datation of earlier Tantric masters is a risky business, be they of nyingma or sarma translation periods
Trisong De'utsen dates are possibly (742-797?)
As Malcolm also pointed out also, lineages stories may vary, often written much later, and we should never forget this: in the origin not with an historiographical goal, and at times with a complete disregard for such an historicist approach - but reworked as such much later
As for the diffusion of (tantric) teachings, one should always remember (the diffusion of termas in Tibet is a good model) that novelty was quite welcomed, so disciples may have had the same age as the master (and not from the next generation) and the master was at time
younger that the students (Maitripa is a good example, or, much latter, Namchö Mingyur Dorjé)
Otherwise, using one human generation of about 25 years between master and disciples works well.
Through the centuries, names may have dropped from the original (often quite dry) list, mis-spelled (quite common), conflated, or assimiliated to comparable names (by contamination with a comparable list)
As well, masters with similar names but distant are often mistaken ... we'll be always left with approximations.
But this is a good (intellectual) and it helps, at least to eliminate too obvious mistakes