The Dharma’s Gatekeepers

The Dharma's Gatekeepers offers an incisive analysis of one of the most important works in Tibetan Buddhist intellectual history: Sakya Paṇḍita's Gateway to Learning (Mkhas pa 'jug pa'i sgo). Writing in a time when a distinctively Tibetan tradition of Buddhism was first emerging, Sakya Paṇḍita wanted to present Tibetan intellectuals with what he took to be an authentically Indian (and therefore, authentically Buddhist) understanding of the nature and tasks of intellectual life—with a view of how scholarship was understood and practiced in the great monastic colleges of India.

InThe Dharma's Gatekeepers, we see Sakya Paṇḍita building the intellectual foundation for Tibetan scholasticism through a series of subtle, brilliant, and quintessentially Buddhist arguments about the nature of learning itself, with his elaboration of a model of scholastic education skillfully drawing together ideas in Buddhist epistemology, philosophy of language, translation theory, hermeneutics, and literary theory. In this study of Sakya Paṇḍita's remarkable work, Jonathan C. Gold shows that the Gateway to Learning addresses issues that remain of concern to contemporary intellectuals; this thirteenth-century work has much to contribute to our understanding of such issues as translation and translatability, theories of reading and authorship, the connections between religious values and academic institutions, and theories of language and literary aesthetics. The book includes a translation of significant parts of Sakya Paṇḍita's text.

Preface
Acknowledgments

1. The Lion’s Roar in the Assembly:  Sa-pan’s Scholarly Ideal

Introduction
The Gateway in the History of Tibetan Learning
Śākyaśrībhadra and the Indianization of Tibet
The Five Sciences and the Goal of Scholarly Perfection

2. Beware of the Dharma in Translation:  A Warning to Interpreters

Introduction: Translation in Tibet and in the Gateway
Obscure Vocabulary
The Techniques of Translators
Translation Mistakes
Unintelligible Context
Untranslatability Denied

3. The Dharma Is Only Words:  A Philosophical Authorization of the Linguist

Introduction
Skill in Means in the Gateway
The “Term Generality” at the Foundation of Grammar
The “Term Generality” in Sakyapa Epistemology
Sa-pan and Saussure on the Conceptuality and Conventionality of Language
Sa-pan and Sönam Tsemo on the Dharma as Language
Linguistics as the Study of Convention: The “Speech Intention”

4. The Expert Knows the Context:  Sa-pan’s Appeals to Buddhist Hermeneutics

Introduction: Sa-pan’s Contribution to Buddhist Hermeneutics
Tantric Hermeneutics in the Background of the Gateway
How Words Get Their Meaning
Sa-pan’s Previous Position: Linguistic Analysis in the Treasury
Sa-pan’s Predecessors on “Well Known in the World” and “Well Known in Treatises”
Well-known Terminology and Linguistic Convention
Sa-pan’s General Theory of the “Well Known”  and Tantric Hermeneutics
Which Scholars Form the Community of Interpreters?
Conclusion

5. The Message in the Medium:  Intellectual Norms and Protocols

Introduction
The Three Kinds of Meaning in a Good Verse of Reverence
Introductory Verses and the Social Function of Rhetoric
Synopsis as a Display of Mastery
Ensuring Excellence by Declaring a Legitimate Purpose
How to Make Meaning Evident
Conclusion

6. Appealing to the Translocal:  Sanskrit Poetics for a Tibetan Buddhist Elite

Introduction
Sa-pan’s Buddhicization of the Rasas
Applying the Rasas
Poetics in Defense of the Dharma
Introducing Poetics to Tibetans
Conclusion: Who Benefits from Aesthetic Cultivation?

7. Conclusion: Thoughts on a Future Comparative Intellectual History

Appendixes:

A: Outline
B: The Gateway to Learning

Notes
Tibetan Orthographic Equivalents
Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index