Mind category

Mind category (Tib. Sem-dé; Wyl. sems sde) - One of the three categories into which Mañjushrimitra divided the Dzogchen teachings he received from Garab Dorje:

History

Khenpo Namdrol says:

"Looking first at the outer category of mind—when the Semdé teachings were translated in Tibet, the land of snows, eighteen ‘mother’ and ‘child’ texts of the mind class were identified, although the Semdé tantras can also be counted as numbering twenty-one. These eighteen ‘mother’ and ‘child’ texts of Semdé consist of the first five to be translated, which were translated by Vairochana, and given the name the ‘Five Earlier Translations’, plus the thirteen texts translated by his disciple Yudra Nyingpo, known as the ‘Thirteen Later Translations of Semdé’. When the ‘Three Major Tantras’ of Semdé are then added, that makes a total of twenty-one.

Vairochana received the cycle of Semdé from the master Shri Singha, and then transmitted it to the great Dharma king Trisong Detsen, Yudra Nyingpo, and others, as a result of which it spread throughout Tibet."