Dorji Wangchuk discerns underlying similarities in the philosophical views of Padmasambhava, Vimalamita, and Rong-zom-pa.
Padmasambhava and Vimalamitra are two of the many towering figures that came to shape the identity of the rNying-ma school. Over the years, it has increasingly seemed that the philosophy of what Rong-zom-pa calls “special Mahāyāna”, which also turns out to be the doxography of Rong-zom-pa’s Sarvadharmāpratiṣṭhānavāda, actually defines the special positions/presuppositions of the early and later rNying-ma philosophy. It seems that later scholars such as Mi-pham and Klong-chen-pa have been essentially orienting themselves according to this special Mahāyāna. How far back can we trace such a philosophy in the rNying-ma school? Dorji Wangchuk attempts to show that Padmasambhava and Vimalamitra (judging, for example, from the former’s lTa phreng and the latter’s Sher snying ’grel) also appear to propose/presuppose this “special Mahāyāna” or “Sarvadharmāpratiṣṭhānavāda,” as defined by Rong-zom-pa. One will certainly find all sorts of accretions and innovations in the rNying-ma school, but its philosophical core, it will be argued, has remained the philosophy of the special Mahāyāna or Sarvadharmāpratiṣṭhānavāda. In short, the point to make is that the early and later rNying-ma philosophy may or may not be genetically linked with the philosophy of Padmasambhava, but at least generically, it seems to be linked with it.
