The Buddhaʼs Single Intention: A Core Teaching of the Kagyü Tradition

• Applicant: Dr. Jan-Ulrich Sobisch
• Subject Area: Religious Studies and Jewish Studies
• Term: from 2019 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 430272093

With the publication of this book, for the first time, a comprehensive view of the early consolidation phase of a crucial tradition of the second spread of teaching in Tibet is made possible. This tradition - the Kagyüpas - has been characterized by a high degree of skepticism towards those traditions of Buddhism which to a significant extent based themselves on the writings of Indian scholars. So far, this skeptical tradition has been made visible only as an "anti-intellectual movement", especially in David Jackson's groundbreaking book Enlightenment by a Single Means. With the forthcoming publication, the tradition now speaks for the first time with its own voice and program, covering all aspects of Buddhism.The book offers a translation of the basic text of the Single Intention (dGongs gcig) from the early 13th century and a translation of a commentary of 1633. The extensive annotation also includes two early commentaries from the 1260s. This not only presents the later perspective in which the Kagyüpas defended their tradition against the scholarly traditions of the Sakyapa and Gelugpa but also for the first time provides a thorough insight into an early phase that is not yet characterized by apologetics. This is to be emphasized above all because academic research has so far dealt predominantly with the Indian precursors of this tradition as well as with the later Tibetan phase of the beginning apologetics from the late 14th century onwards. The time of the first monastic foundations and the early consolidation phase, on the other hand, are still largely a blank sheet with regard to the Kagyüpa tradition.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants