Fifty Stanzas on Following a Teacher
Fifty Stanzas on Following a Teacher (Skt. Gurupañcāśikā; Tib. བླ་མ་ལྔ་བཅུ་པ་, Wyl. bla ma lnga bcu pa), also known as the Fifty Stanzas on Guru Devotion, is a text that explains how to relate to one's guru. Despite its brevity the text has played a crucial role in the history of the Vajrayana. It was widely cited and debated in several important commentaries written in the tenth and eleventh centuries.
Although the text, composed in Sanskrit, has often been attributed to an Ashvaghosha in the Tibetan and Chinese translations, a newly found Sanskrit manuscript has the author as a certain Vapilladatta (Skt. Vāpilladatta). This closely echoes the name Tsongkhapa has given: Bhabilha.
Text
The text is available partly in Sanskrit and in its entirety in Tibetan and Chinese.
The Tibetan translation is found in the tantra section of the Tengyur, Toh 3721.
Tibetan Commentaries
- Tsongkhapa, Fulfillment of All Hopes
- English translation: Tsongkhapa, The Fulfillment of All Hopes: Guru Devotion in Tibetan Buddhism (Somerville: Wisdom Publications, 1999)
Further Reading
- Peter-Daniel Szanto, Minor Vajrayāna text II. A new manuscript of the Gurupañcāśikā (available here)