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Tshad ma'i skyes bu
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also studied U yug pa's commentary on the Pramāņavārttika, with special emphasis on the second chapter, as noted by one biography. 32 U yug pa Rigs pa'i sen ge, the pupil of the Sa skya Pandita, seems to have written the first Tibetan commentary on the Pramāņavārttika in the middle of the 13th century, but there is nowhere a hint to be found, that Tson kha pa, besides studying it, has been particularly influenced by this explanation, which almost certainly must have been written in the secularistic mode generally attributed to the earlier Sa skya pas.
Of course, such cummulative evidence would be superflous if only we had access to one of Red mda' ba's tshad ma-works. It is one of the odd features of the Tibetan literary history that most of the works of one of their supposedly important and perhaps original minds are lost or forgotten, although he has been truly esteemed by the founder of the de lugs pa-tradition and his immediate disciples, and although as Tson kha pa's teacher and friend he has been always highly venerated - at least verbally - by this tradition until today.
The following three tshad ma-works of Red mda' ba are known from A khu Rinpoche's Tho-yig. Nr. 11820: rNam 'grel gyi spyi don ("The general meaning of the Pramāņavārttika"), Nr. 11822: r Nam 'grel ţikk, Rigs pa'i 'dod 'jo ("Pramāņavārttika tikā, Wishing cow of arguments"), and Nr. 11821: rNam 'grel rgyan gyi 'grel bśad chen mo ("Great subcommentary on the Pramāņavārttikālamkāra"), i.e. Prajñākaragupta's commentary which is famous for its elaborate development of the theme of the second chapter.
None of these works seems to be extant nowadays, although not everything Red mda' ba wrote is lost. His commentaries on the Madhyamakāvatāra, on the cat uḥśataka, and on the Suhrllekha were recently published in India. 33 Could it be that other texts of this important Tibetan master and evidently original thinker have been kept in Sa skya pa circles? Let us hope that these works of Red mda' ba are not irretrievably lost, and will eventually be recovered and published.
Non est in verbo, quod non est in cogitatione!
SA The three are mentioned as rare works in the Tho yig of the A khu Rinpoche (Lokesh
Chandra, Materials for a History of Tibetan Literature, New Delhi 1963, Vol.3) as Nrs. 11820-22; cf. below.
32 R. Kaschewsky, loc.cit., 86.; the text mentioned there is a rNam 'grel gyi rnam bśad
rigs md zod which is probably no mistake as Kaschewsky thinks (note 102), but rather
the same as A khu rin po che's Nr. 11814, rNam 'grel rigs mdzod chen mo. 33 dBu ma la jug pa'i rnam bśad de kho na ñid gsal ba'i sgron ma reproduced from an
example of the sDe-dge xylographic print by Ngawang Topgay, Delhi 1974. dBu ma bãi brgya pa'i 'grel pa. Sakya Student's Union, Sarnath 1974. bệes pa'i sprins yig gi 'grel pa dongsal. Tibetan Foundation Press, Darjeeling 1960.
