Rinchen Terdzö

Jamgön Kongtrul.

Rinchen Terdzö (T. rin chen gter mdzod རིན་ཆེན་གཏེར་མཛོད་), aka Treasury of Precious Termas, is a collection of termas from the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.

This collection is one of the Five Treasuries of Jamgön Kongtrul the Great. It is a compilation drawn from all the termas that had been discovered up to his time, including Chokgyur Lingpa's treasures.

Background

The Tsadra Editors state:

The Rinchen Terdzö Chenmo is the largest of the Five Treasuries that Jamgön Kongtrul the Great ('jam mgon kong sprul blo gros mtha' yas, 1813-1899) compiled throughout his life. This extraordinary collection is comprised of the main Rediscovered Treasures (gter ma) of Tibetan Buddhism and the texts necessary to bestow the related empowerments and explanations to practice them. Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo traveled for thirteen years throughout Central and Eastern Tibet in order to collect the texts and receive the transmissions for the many lineages that had become almost extinct and held by only a few people. The actual redaction and editing of the Rinchen Terdzö was accomplished by Jamgön Kongtrul at the monastery-hermitage of Dzongshö Deshek Dupa, a secluded mountain retreat located between Dzongsar and Kathok, where Khyentse Wangpo had revealed a set of termas related to the Eight Herukas (grub pa bka' brgyad). Wooden-blocks were then carved at Palpung Monastery creating a 60-volume edition. From this edition, another set of wooden-blocks was carved at Tsurphu Monastery with three additional volumes. These three included the Döjo Bumzang, which was compiled by Minling Terchen Gyurme Dorje (1646-1714) and is considered to be the "seed" of the Rinchen Terdzö, the autobiography of Jamgön Kongtrul, and the root text of Chogyur Lingpa’s Lamrim Yeshe Nyingpo with a detailed commentary by Jamgön Kongtrul.

Editions

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche published an edition in 111 volumes, which was based on the Tsurpu edition as supplemented with blockprints from Palpung and other great monasteries of Kham. Of the various editions, the Palpung edition has the greatest reputation for accuracy.

Further reading

• Rinchen Terdzö Chenmo, Rinchen Terdzö: A Tsadra Foundation Project
• rin_chen_gter_mdzod, Rangjung Yeshe Wiki
• Rinchen Terdzö, Rigpa Shedra Wiki
• Schwieger, P. "Collecting and Arranging the gTer ma Tradition: Kong sprul’s Great Treasury of the Hidden Teachings" in Anne Chayet, Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, Françoise Robin & Jean-Luc Achard, eds., Edition, éditions: l’écrit au Tibet, évolution et devenir München: Indus Verlag, 2010.
• Tulku Thondup, Hidden Teachings of Tibet (Boston: Wisdom, reprint edition 1997), 'Appendix 5: Categories of Texts in The Precious Treasury of Termas'.