GROUNDING TANTRIC PRAXIS IN THE MAHĀYĀNA MEANING AND MODES: AN EXOTERIC DOXOGRAPHY CONTAINED IN THE TANGUT WORK NOTES ON THE KEYPOINTS OF MAH Ā MUDR Ā AS THE ULTIMATE 1

This paper explores a sūtra-based doxography contained in the 12th-century Tangut Mahāmudrā work Notes on the Keypoints of Mah ā mudr ā as the Ultimate . It employs the doctrinal complex of the doxography to demonstrate the common Mahāyāna discursive framework within which the tantra-originated Mahāmudrā has grounded its meaning. It further argues that the doxography integrates the Yogācāra-Madhyamaka and Buddha-nature currents of thought as the philosophical ground for Mahāmudrā.

Xixia Buddhist literature 2 concerning Tibetan Buddhist subjects contains a variety of tantric and yogic teachings 3 in combination with a range of doctrinal composi-tions. 4 It provides a window into the 12th-century Tibetan attempts to assimilate and systematise the yogic, ritual, and philosophical currents that represent the latest developments of Indian Buddhism.Nikolai Nevskij (1892-1937) was the first to identify two major constituents of Tangut Buddhism, the Sinitic and the Tibetan. 5This line of work was later followed by Nishida Tatsuo 西田龍雄 (1928-2012) and Evgenij Kychanov (1932-2013).Based on their initial cataloguing of Tangut Buddhist literature, the two scholars identified important aspects of Tibetan Buddhism present within the corpus. 6In the 21st century, scholarly knowledge of various Indo-Tibetan Buddhist yogic transmissions which ended up in Xixia has advanced thanks to the discovery of the importance of the Dasheng yaodao miji 大乘要道密集 (The secret collection of works on the essential path of Mahāyāna; 'DYM').This collection of Tibetan tantric Buddhist works in Chinese translation was compiled throughout the 13th and 14th centuries. 7he paper investigates a doxographical fragment 8 which serves as the philosophical ground for a Mahāmudrā system that embraces both the sūtric and tantric paths to ultimacy.The doxography is found in the Khara Khoto Tangut work Notes on the ----Mahāyāna lies in the former's predominant claim to ritual and yogic implementations as a means towards the ultimate goal of awakening.Here 'yogic' is used to reference one manipulating his/her own psycho-physiological processes so as to reveal a divine subtle body form and a blissful, luminous, and non-conceptual gnosis. 4See Solonin 2011Solonin , 2012Solonin , 2015Solonin and 2016. 5 . 5 See Nevskij 1960. 6Nishida and Kychanov have identified the titles and authors of a good number of Khara Khoto Tangut Buddhist works; see Nishida 1977 and1999;Kychanov 1999. 7 Attributed to the Sa skya patriarch 'Phags pa Blo gros rgyal mtshan (1235 -1280) as the compiler, the DYM contains a substantial number of works affiliated with Tibetan Buddhist traditions other than the Sa skya sect.For instance, approximately one third of the collection concerns the Mahāmudrā teaching transmitted through bKa' brgyud teachers.Back in the early 20th century, Lü Cheng 呂澄 (1896 -1989) was the first one to apply an academic historical-philological approach to studying the DYM; see Lü 1942.Christopher Beckwith introduced the collection to the English academic world; see Beckwith 1984.Chen Qingying 陳慶英 first noted an intimate connection with the Tangut Xixia in the DYM; see Chen 2003.Shen Weirong 沈衛榮 further builds a textual connection between the DYM and Chinese translations of Tibetan tantric texts from the Khara Khoto collection and ascribes most of the DYM titles to translations completed under the Xixia and Yuan; see Shen 2007.For more detailed examinations of the transmission history of these Tibetan tantric teachings from Tibet to Xixia based on both the Khara Khoto Buddhist texts pertaining to Tibetan subjects and the DYM Chinese translations, see Dunnell 2011, Sun 2014and Solonin 2015. 8 The term 'doxography' as it was applied in its original context referred to the collected summaries of different Greek philosophical views.Wilhelm Halbfass's (1988: 263 -286, 349 -368)  usage follows the sense of 'the collection of philosophical views' and explores the roots of Indian doxographic thinking.Recently, quite a few Buddhist studies scholars have found the term useful, using it to label the Buddhist genre of doctrinal classification literature.Jacob Dalton (2005) applies 'doxography' to the tantric Buddhist classification schemes which mainly concern the difference in ritual and yogic practices.In this paper, I use 'doxography' to describe a particular type or genre of Buddhist writing characterised by the siddhānta (grub mtha') paradigm.The Buddhist siddhānta work sets forth the philosophical views of various schools-Buddhist and non-Buddhistin a systematic fashion, usually with an agenda of demonstrating the superiority of the author's own philosophical position.
The Keypoints-Notes cluster survives only in Tangut versions in the Khara Khoto collection.Tang.345 contains the Keypoints in xylography (Inv.2526) and manuscript (Inv.824), and the first (Inv.2858 and Inv.7163) and final (Inv.2851) volumes of the Notes in manuscript.A separate copy of the Keypoints is found in Inv.2876, and the Notes in Tang.#inv.427#3817 (Vols.1&2).Discussions here will be based on the Keypoints (Tang.#inv.345#2526) and the Notes (Tang.#inv.345#2858).Solonin (2011) provides a preliminary study of the Keypoints-on the basis of Tang.#inv.345#2526-in terms of its textual form, transmission lineage, formulaic framework for a philosophical narrative, and doctrinal connections with other Tangut Mahāmudrā texts.The work presents a twofold paradigm of Causal and Resultant Vehicles (i.e., sūtric and tantric) 9 -each in nine stages-converging in their respective eighth stages of non-conceptuality (ljɨ̱ r tśio̱ w  * 無念; Skt.nirvikalpa) and culminating in the ninth, the Mahāmudrā. 10he Keypoints not only reveals the Tangut interpretive agency in mapping the path of recognising the nature of reality and the mind, but also unpacks in contextually nuanced ways the multi-layered and diversely constituted topography of Indian Buddhist Tantra and scholasticism.The work represents one of the first attempts at a Mahāmudrā architecture which organises Buddhist thoughts and practices in a progressive 'path stage' (lam rim) structure.Initially a gnostic index of ultimacy derived from Buddhist Tantra, the term mahāmudrā gradually rose to act as an overarching rubric beyond both sūtra and tantra, a paradigm traceable in both Indian and Tibetan works (e.g.Maitrīpa's and sGam-po-pa's) as early as the 11th or 12th century. 11It was 19 The Keypoints explains that the distinction between the resultant and causal vehicles is only a matter of whether the practitioner disengages (via the causal vehicle) or engages (via the resultant vehicle) with sensual desires (ŋwə kiẹj nu dzjɨj  * 離合五欲) to align him-/herself with suchness (lew ɣiej śjwi̱  * 合一真), that is, non-conceptuality; see the Keypoints (15b7 -16a3): ，。。。，  (彼樂信因乘者，離五欲而和順一真。。。此樂信果乘者，合五欲而隨顺一真; 'those of the causal vehicle disengage themselves from the five sensual desires to align with suchness … these of the resultant vehicle engage themselves with the five sensual desires to align with suchness').This is the typical parameter adopted to distinguish between the sūtric and tantric modes of praxis.It is also found in the DYM.For instance, it is stated in the Guangming ding xuanyi 光明定玄義 (GDX) that 'one who practices through abandoning kleśa practices the sūtric path, while one who practices without abandoning kleśa practices the tantric path' (若棄捨煩惱而修道者是顯教道，不 捨煩惱而修道者是密教道); c.f. Shen 2017: 208.In terms of the Tibetan attitude towards the sūtratantra distinction, see Germano and Waldron 2006: 51 -52;Almogi 2009: 76 -77, Note 103. 10 See Solonin 2011: 288 -295. 11 Roger Jackson (2005 and 2011) traces the semantic evolution of mahāmudrā along the development of Indian Buddhist Tantra.According to Jackson, mahāmudrā has undergone semantic ZHANG LINGHUI Acta Orient.Hung.72, 2019   not until the 16th century that Tibetan bKa' brgyud teachers (e.g.Dwags po bKra shis rnam rgyal and Padma dkar po) started to present this paradigm in such systematic and structured ways.Nonetheless, we find an early Tangut instance in our Keypoints which dates to the mid-12th century.
Furthermore, the Notes doxography which serves as a commentary on the Keypoints' opening verses allows deeper insights into how Mahāmudrā was accorded a traditional Mahāyāna philosophical ground.In the later phase of Indian Buddhism, as there were mutual processes of appropriation between tāntrikas seeking theoretical grounds for practices and monastics appropriating yogic ritualism, 12 traditional Mahāyāna scholastic models and hermeneutics were adopted to engage the philosophical questions of tantra.It was in this context that tantric theorists read Mahāyāna sūtric philosophy and exoteric scholasticism into Mahāmudrā-a discourse highly charged with tantric connotations-on the basis of shared experiential grounds on non-conceptual realisation of the nature of the mind. 13The Notes doxography represents a 12th-century Tangut continuation of this Indo-Tibetan process of philosophising Mahāmudrā.Its systematic and structured presentation of philosophical threads drawn from the Buddhist scholastic pool again reflects the Tangut interpretative agency in deploying the discursive sources at their disposal for a philosophy for and of Mahāmudrā.

The Lineage of the Keypoints-Notes Cluster
The Xixia Mahāmudrā corpus consists of Tangut texts and fragments scattered across approximately 15 inventory numbers of the Khara Khoto collection (kept in the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences), and Chinese ones-most of which have Tangut equivalents-included in the DYM. 14The entire corpus can be divided into two major clusters in terms of transmission lineage.The Keypoints-Notes ---shifts from a ritual gesture in earlier Buddhist tantras, through one 'sealing' process of spiritual attainments in the more inward-oriented Mahāyoga-and Yoginī-tantras, to an index of ultimacy featured by the luminous and empty nature of the mind in the more gnostic siddha writings.Towards the final phase of Indian Buddhist Tantra, the usage of mahāmudrā became evocative of philosophical themes resonant with Mahāyāna scholasticism.
12 One remarkable phenomenon concomitant to this process was the tendency among Mahāyāna teachers to lay dual claims to both Vajrayānist and scholarly identities.For a sketch of the Vajrayānist appropriation of the Madhyamaka philosophy, see Ruegg 1981: 104 -108.Worthy of note is the tendency of name appropriation Ruegg (1981: 105 -106) has observed inside Vajrayāna Buddhist circles, that is, the retroactive projection of the identities of tantric masters onto earlier Mādhyamika teachers.
13 See, for instance, Mathes 2006, 2007and 2009. 14 Solonin (2011) gives a detailed overview of the Tangut Mahāmudrā textual tradition and devotes lengthy discussions to the transmission and doctrine of the Keypoints.Shen (2007: 280 -289) makes a descriptive catalogue of the DYM Chinese Mahāmudrā texts.Sun (2014) makes a comparative study of several Mahāmudrā texts between Tangut and Chinese recensions.For a recent publication containing the transliteration, translation and DYM Chinese equivalent (if available) of the Tangut Mahāmudrā texts, see Sun and Nie 2018.cluster presents a line starting from the Buddha, continuing through the Indian patriarchs Vimalakīrti (wji mo  * 維摩), Saraha (sja rjar xa ), Nāgārjuna (we phu  * 龍樹), Śavaripa (ŋər la  * 山墓, Tib.Ri khrod pa), Maitrīpa (ŋwej dzji̱ j  * 慈師), Jñānakīrti (sjịj dźjwow  * 智稱), and Vāgīśvara (ŋwu̱ dzju  * 語主), down to a Tibetan teacher named *brTson 'grus (khu dju  * 精 進). 15 The Tangut śramaṇa Dehui (tśhja źjɨr  * 德慧) compiled *brTson-'grus's teachings into the text Keypoints after his encounter with the master probably during the mid-12th century. 16Without a direct mention of its authorship, the Notes was probably produced by Dehui's circle (if not directly by Dehui himself), as the work contains Dehui's own accounts of his learning experiences with *brTson 'grus.17Those having Chinese translated titles in the DYM-no matter whether the corresponding Tangut edition is extant or not-emerged somewhat later, and were transmitted by State Preceptor Xuanzhao 玄照 at the turn of the 13th century.The lineage goes through Saraha, Śavaripa, and Maitrīpa in its Indian component, then proceeds to the Tibetan bKa' brgyud patriarchs Mar pa (1012-1097) and Mi la ras pa (1028/40-1111/23), and finally reaches Xuanzhao. 18longside the classical Saraha-Maitrīpa line, the presence of Vimalakīrti, Jñānakīrti, and Vāgīśvara in the Keypoint-Notes lineage is not typical of a Mahāmudrā transmission.The curious placement of the mythological figure Vimalakīrti as the first patriarch adds to the sūtric tone of the lineage presentation. 19Jñānakīrti who succeeds Maitrīpa, despite the two Mahāmudrā-related works he left in the Tibetan bsTan-'gyur (canonical collection of translated treatises), 20 is barely seen in Indo-Tibetan Mahāmudrā lineage accounts.The last Indian personality Vāgīśvara-attributed by the Keypoints as a Nepalese expert in the sixty-two deities Cakrasaṃvara maṇḍala praxiscan almost certainly be identified with the 11th-century Nepalese Thang chung pa who ZHANG LINGHUI Acta Orient.Hung.72, 2019   later acquired the name 'Vāgīśvara' and played an instrumental role in the Cakrasaṃvara transmission from India to Tibet. 21s such, unlike Xuanzhao's lineage, whose Indo-Tibetan section is attested in Tibetan historiographical accounts, the Keypoints-Notes lineage is more of an ahistorical linking of diverse selected lineal segments into a structured totality through a distinctively Xixia mode of recognition and imagination.Moreover, it is interesting to note that the succession from Śākyamuni through the eight patriarchs traces a descending arc of spiritual accomplishments, possibly intent on a Buddhist eschatology.22

The Notes Doxography: A Fourfold Presentation of Stages
Before consecutively presenting the biographies of eight patriarchs, the Keypoints opens with a versified account of Śākyamuni's teaching career wherein he is shown teaching that 'both object and consciousness exist' (mjɨ̱ sjij zjɨ ̣ dju  * 境識二 有), 'both object and consciousness are empty' (mjɨ̱ sjij lọ ŋa  * 境識雙空), 'object dissolves and consciousness remains' (mjɨ̱ ˑjijr sjij tji  * 境泯識留), and 'one returns to the source [of the mind]' (mər lhji̱ ɣjow lhjwo  * 歸本 還源): 23 The root teacher Śākyamuni (1) illuminated the world of the five-evil eon, dispelling the darkness of six gatis; (2) purified those possessed of three poisons, filling [the world] with the perfume water of eight qualities; (3) taught the Dharma according to his disciples' capacities, in full accord with the way of the three capacities; and (4) demonstrated reality through the mind, sealing his single mind with non-conceptuality.
As such, he explained that both object and consciousness exist, then uttered that both are empty, elucidated that object dissolves and consciousness remains, and concluded by pointing to the moment when one returns to the source [of the mind].
In his great samādhi, he passed on this quintessential teaching (upadeśa) to the Great Being Vimalakīrti.
The Notes commentary on this paragraph takes the form of a doxography based on the doctrinal hierarchy of the four teachings, with the order of the second and third teachings reversed. 24he first three teachings in the Notes explication correspond respectively to the Hīnayāna (ˑụ tsəj  * 小乘), Vijñānavāda (lew sjij  * 唯識) and Madhyamaka (gu tśja  * 中道) systems, each building upon and transcending the prior system all the way to the non-conceptual realisation characterised by the fourth level where 'one returns to the source [of the mind]'.Table 1 briefly presents the doctrinal architecture of the four progressively advancing stages of teaching structured by a syncretic Mahāyāna hermeneutics which combines classical Madhyamaka and Yogācāra models-that is, the three natures (sọ tsji̱ r  * 三性; Skt.trisvabhāva), the two truths (njɨ̱ khã  * 二諦; Skt.satyadvaya) and the middle way free from reification and over-negation (dju mjij rjir ka gu tśja  * 離有無中道): 24 Notes I: 9a1 -12b5.As explained in the Notes (I: 9b4 -10a7), the Buddha taught 'object and consciousness are empty' in order to counter the substantialist adherence to both object and consciousness, an ill-conceived position potentially argued by his disciples leaning on his first teaching that 'both object and consciousness exist'.As 'object and consciousness are empty' would again lead to an attachment to emptiness, the notion that 'consciousness is real' is used in the formulation 'object dissolves and consciousness remains' to counter that fallacy.This is the order in which the Buddha taught.However, according to the Indian tradition of canonical arrangement, both 'object and consciousness exist' and 'object dissolves and consciousness remains' are provisional teachings, whereas 'object and consciousness are empty' is the root which counts as Madhyamaka established through pramāṇas.As such, 'object and consciousness are empty' is explicated right after 'object dissolves and consciousness remains'.

One returns to the source [of the mind]
the source which is the non-conceptual dharmadhātu ( * 本源無念法界) The doctrinal complex presented above maps out a path whereby one (1) first establishes the existence of object and consciousness upon subatoms and realises selflessness in the person, (2) then eliminates conceptuality toward object and abides in the status of consciousness-only, (3) then dissolves the attachment to consciousness and abides in Madhyamaka, and (4) finally returns to the source of the mind, or dharmadhātu.These hermeneutical devices provide scaffolding for the entire doctrinal architecture through progressive levels of negation and affirmation, that is, to establish each level's ultimate truth upon the negation of the one posited on the previous level.

Mahāyāna Philosophical Formulae: to Map out a Cognitive Modality
The Notes' presentation of the first three levels of teachings-those of Hīnayāna, Vajñānavāda, and Madhyamaka, respectively-is echoed in the 8th-or 9th-century Tibetan doxographical tradition informed by Śāntarakṣita's (725-788) Yogācāra-Madhyamaka current.The fourth level shows new doctrinal developments within the Mahāyāna scholastic milieu, namely the rise of the Buddha-nature doctrine now occupying the position of ultimacy in the traditional Madhyamaka and Yogācāra frameworks.
The Buddhist doxographical practice of exegetical identification and classification of intellectual currents along a hierarchy took place within syncretistic traditions such as Bhavya's (c.500-570) and Śāntarakṣita's lines of Madhyamaka, 25 and was continued by a long line of Tibetan scholars starting from Ye shes sde and dPal brtsegs (both fl.late 8th or early 9th century).More than a polemical presentation of philosophical schools, Buddhist doxography instead presents progressive practical stages leading up to an ultimate end.As indicated by its emic expression siddhāntaor grub mtha' in Tibetan-the doctrinal hierarchy sketches different layers of accomplishment (siddha, grub pa), the end or limit (anta, mtha') of each to be surpassed by its succeeding stage. 26he fundamental point of dissent between Madhyamaka and Yogācāra was how the view of the phenomenal world as illusory can be accounted for in multiple layers.An early syncretic attempt can be found in Bhavya's works.To balance an overly transcendent Madhyamaka metaphysics with concerns about immanence, Bhavya assimilated all Buddhist scholastic schools (including Yogācāra) into Madhyamaka. 27Accepting the relative reality of external objects while still rejecting the Vijñānavādin reflexive awareness (svasaṃvedana), he understood cittamātra (mindonly) in the nominalist sense of svacittamayamātra-that is, the external world originated from the mind (citta) which is in itself insubstantial (adravyasat). 28ontinuing Bhavya's inclusive Madhyamaka line, Śāntarakṣita in his Madhyamakālaṃkāra admitted the mind-only (sems tsam) notion at the samvṛti level. 29Like 25 Bhavya's Madhyamakahṛdayakārikā and Śāntarakṣita's Tattvasaṃgraha can be understood as the Indian precedents of the Buddhist doxographical tradition; see Tam and Shiu 2012:  10 -11.For a brief introduction of these two works, see Ruegg 1981: 62 -63, 89 -90. 26 See Tam and Shiu 2012: 47 -56.Lindtner (1997: 199) notes: 'Bhavya is the first, for all we know, to attempt to reduce svabhāvatraya to satyadvaya on a grand scale.He picks up the old distinction of saṃvṛti-satya into the correct and wrong types, mainly to enable himself to reduce parikalpita-and paratantra-to those two forms of saṃvṛti-satya.' This, however, has inflicted on Bhavya criticisms from the Vijñānavādin camp.
28 See Lindtner 1997: 187 -189. 29 See the MA (verses 92 -93); sems tsam la ni brten nas su | phyi rol dngos med shes par bya | tshul 'dir brten nas de la yang | shin tu bdag med shes par bya || tshul gnyis shing rta zhon ZHANG LINGHUI Acta Orient.Hung.72, 2019   Bhavya, Śāntarakṣita assigned the Yogācāra parikalpita-and paratantra-svabhāvas to wrong and correct conventional truths (mithyā-saṃvṛtisatya and tathya-saṃvṛtisatya), respectively.Unlike Bhavya, he accepted the self-luminous svasaṃvedane (rang rig rang gsal) as a true conventional truth leading to the Madhyamaka goal of establishing non-origination (anutpāda) free from the four extremes (catuṣkoṭi). 30s shown in both Ye shes sde's lTa ba'i khyad par and dPal brtsegs's lTa ba'i rim pa bshad pa, Tibetans first perceived Śāntarakṣita's and Bhavya's Madhyamaka traditions as superior to Hīnayāna and Vijñānavāda, labelling each as 'Yogācāra-Madhyamaka' (rnal 'byor spyod pa'i dbu ma) and 'Sautrāntika-Madhyamaka' (mdo sde spyod pa'i dbu ma), respectively.Whereas both Sautrāntika-and Yogācāra-Mādhyamikas share in common the paramārtha postulation of emptiness (śūnyatā) and non-origination (anutpāda), they differ in their conventional-truth descriptions about cittamātra-that is, while the former frames its understanding within a pratītyasamutpāda (conditioned origination) ontology, the latter subscribes to a mental idealism of svasaṃvedana in achieving the same end. 31However, it seems Ye shes sde has accorded Sautrāntika-Madhyamaka a superior status at the saṃvṛti level. 32owever, while the presence of Sautrāntika-Madhyamaka in Tibetan scholarly exegesis seems to be only doxographical, Yogācāra-Madhyamaka came to prominence in Tibet as a scholastic tradition thanks to the proselytising activities of Śāntarakṣita and his disciple Kamalaśīla (c.740-795). 33Thus, we have reason to believe that it was in reality Śāntarakṣita's doctrinal system that informed the early Tibetan doxographical practice, and the presence of Bhavya's stemmed largely from the intellectual continuity between these two Madhyamaka currents which, however, were only doxographically distinguished in retrospect.
Let us now return to our Notes doxography.The first three levels of teaching envision a progressive model philosophically informed by Ye shes sde's doxography whereby one ascends the spiritual ladder consecutively through svasaṃvedana idealism and pratītyasamutpāda ontology. 34The Notes doxography progresses from the ---nas su | rigs pa'i srab skyogs 'ju byed pa | de dag de phyir ji bzhin don | theg pa chen po pa nyid 'thob ||; for an English translation, see Ichigō 1989: 221, 223. 30 Śāntarakṣita's teacher Jñānagarbha (c.700 -760), while inheriting Bhavya's system without much innovation, departed from the latter in embracing Dharmakīrti's style.It is in Śāntarakṣita that the assimilation of Yogācāra into Madhyamaka reaches its culmination whereby Dharmakīrti's self-luminous svasaṃvedana is accepted as the true saṃvṛti-satya; see Lindtner 1997: 199 -200;Ruegg 1981: 90 -92. 31 See the lTa khyad (180 -186) and the lTa rim (260). 32See the lTa khyad (188). 33The major works belonging to Śāntarakṣita's Yogācāra-Madhyamaka circle were translated into Tibetan around the turn of the 9th century.As for Bhavya's work, only the Prajñāpradīpa was translated during the same period.See Ruegg 2000: 12 -13. 34 The existence of a Tangut hagiography of the 8th-century Great Perfection (rDzogs-chen) teacher Vairocana alludes to the possible presence of Ye shes sde in the Tangut collection.The Tangut text is titled 'A General Presentation of the Five-cycle Dharmadhātu' (tsji̱ r kiẹj ŋwə djịj •jij gu bu  * 法界五部總序, *Chos dbyings sde lnga spyir bstan pa).Only the second half of the work has survived.The extant part is concerning Vairocana's study journey to India.I thank Professor Kirill Solonin for exposing me to the existence of this text.Solonin's transcription of the Hīnayānist selflessness in the person, through the Vijñānavādin self-luminous svasaṃvedana, up to the Mādhyamika emptiness which is free from four extremes.This is a Yogācāra-Madhyamaka depiction.Moreover, in addition to establishing the selfluminous svasaṃvedana as conventional truth, the third level leaves room for Sautrāntika-Madhyamaka in positing a conventional truth of 'miraculous manifestation', under the rubric of 'transcending the over-negation', which corresponds exactly with the pratītyasamutpāda ontology.
Then what about the fourth level, 'returning to the source [of the mind]'?Tackling this question entails looking at the last centuries of the first millennium when the Mahāyāna doctrinal synthesis extended to-or subsumed-Buddhist tantric circles.Adding on to the traditional syncretic picture of Madhyamaka and Yogācāra, the Buddha-nature (Tathāgatagarbha) current was granted import as a discursive thread which gave expressions to the newly flourishing tantric gnoseology. 35atnākaraśānti (fl.c. 1000)-a great systematiser of tantric philosophy from the perspective of Mahāyāna scholasticism-put forth a fourfold yoga-bhūmi path (rnal 'byor gyi sa bzhi po) for the progressive refinement of one's cognitive object (ālambana, dmigs pa): one first apprehends on external object (dngos po), then on mind-only (cittamātra, sems tsam), on suchness (tathatā, de bzhin nyid), and finally perceives the mahāyāna (theg pa chen po). 36The fourth stage, transcending the imagefree (nirābhāsa, snang ba med pa) status of the third, directly perceives the mahāyāna without any ālambanas.Ratnākaraśānti seems to have unpacked Śāntarakṣita's paramārtha-which is postulated as existing beyond the Vijñānavādin svasaṃvedana-into two stages, namely ālambana on tathatā and perception of the mahāyāna.Accordingly, it is legitimate to speculate that the Notes doxography overlaps with Ratnākaraśānti's philosophical arrangement in that the third level of Madhyamaka corresponds to the ālambana on tathatā and the fourth level to the perception of the mahāyāna.
Moreover, combining both apophatic and cataphatic approaches in describing the experiential domain of ultimate reality (a direct perception of the mahāyāna built upon nirābhāsa), Ratnākaraśānti allowed room for the positive aspect of Buddhahood-characteristic of the Buddha-nature current-to unfold.A possible parallel of this in the Notes doxography is found in the expression 'source' ( * 本 or  * 源) contained in the name of the fourth level.
An example institutionally and temporally more immediate to our Notes doxography is found in the Assembly Teaching (tshogs chos) collections of sGam po pa bSod nams rin chen (1079-1153) who drew exoteric doctrinal inspiration mainly from Atiśa (982-1054), 37 a disciple of Ratnākaraśānti.In the Tshogs chos legs mdzes ma, sGam po pa sketched a fourfold scheme for the fundamental reality (gnas lugs gtan la phab) by progressively eliminating conceptualisation (rnam par rtog pa thams cad gcod par byed pa). 38The ontological status of being (yin lugs) one has to undergo across the four stages includes that of appearance (snang ba) to be recognised as mind (sems), of mind to be recognised as the nature of reality (chos nyid), of the nature of reality to be recognised as the inexpressible (brjod du med pa), and of the inexpressible to be recognised as the Dharmakāya (chos kyi sku).It is therefore obvious that sGam po pa's scheme agrees perfectly with both Ratnākaraśānti's and that of the Notes doxography in terms of both meditative content and progressive structure. 38See the Tshogs legs (ff.57a3 -60a1). 39The graphic correspondence is only rough and for heuristic purposes.The typological parallels among systems do not necessarily imply historical inheritance.

Concluding Remarks
As much as philosophical insight lays a claim to universality across time and place, its discursive form is historically and culturally conditioned.In the Buddhist case, philosophical thinking and scholastic writing, including its soteriology and gnoseology, are structurally entwined with a consideration of spiritual praxis. 40The Notes doxography mirrors not so much a chronological and comparative presentation of different doctrinal schools as a scheme assigning teachings to rungs on a ladder leading to non-conceptual realisation.It sketches a fourfold scheme whereby a progressively deeper degree of reality unfolds in the practitioner's experiential domain.In its specifically Tangut expression, an orderly exposition of Hīnayāna, Vijñānavāda and Madhyamaka, shows a continuation with Ye shes sde's and dPal dbyangs's Tibetan doxographies informed by Śāntarakṣita's Yogācāra-Madhyamaka tradition.Meanwhile, placing 'returning to the source [of the mind]' atop the ladder represents a tantric emphasis of the Buddha-nature doctrine which transcends the image-free cognitive status, a practice also adopted by Ratnākaraśānti and sGam po pa.However, it is perhaps more of the Notes' innovation that the Mahāyāna hermeneutical devices of three natures, two truths, and the middle way free from reification and over-negation are combined to scaffold the entire doctrinal architecture.
I conclude the article with some complementary information regarding the doxographical schemes at work in the discursive pool of the Tibetan-inspired collection of Tangut Buddhist texts.A dilapidated text titled Notes on the Keypoints Explicating the Two-truth Theory of Various Schools (tsji̱ r kiẹj ŋwə djịj •jij gu bu   * 諸宗二諦義釋要集記; 'Notes on the Two-truth') bears witness to a doxography different from that of the Notes.According to the Notes on the Two-truth, the causal vehicle (i.e., the sūtric or pāramiā mode) of Mahāyāna is divided into Yogācāra and Madhyamaka.While Yogācāra is further subdivided into the Sākāra and the Nirākāra types, Madhyamaka is subdivided into the Mayopama and the Apratiṣṭhāna types. 41This Mayopama-Apratiṣṭhāna division of Madhyamaka, which was not as well received as its Sautrāntika-Yogācāra equivalent during the snga dar (earlier transmission) phase of Tibetan Buddhism (7th-9th century), was confined to a small circle of tantric practitioners in India and therefore never had the chance to systematise properly.Thus, Tibetans inherited this scheme only in a very rudimentary form.

Table 1 .
Four progressive teachings as charted out by the Notes doxography 1.Both object and consciousness exist Parikalpita Saṃvṛti-satya non-Buddhist substantialist view of a self within the collection of five aggregates ( * 五蘊無我體上我執) Paratantra [sub]atom ( * 極微塵) and conscious continuum ( * 識相續) and the conscious continuum are cognitive objects of saints ( * 聖者境界), but not of ordinary beings Middle way Transcend over-negation the subatom enables phenomena to arise ( * 依極微能生一切法) and the conscious continuum lasts unbroken through numerous kalpas (，, * 識無始 生，劫劫相續不斷)
ALMOGI, Orna 2009.Rong-zom-pa's Discourses on Buddhology: A Study of Various Conceptions of Buddhahood in Indian Sources with Special Reference to the Controversy Surrounding the Existence of Gnosis (jñāna: ye shes) as Presented by the Eleventh-century Tibetan Scholar