ABSTRACT
A thob yig (“manual of what was received”) is a work in which the author sets forth the lineages of the various doctrines and practices in which he has become learned or skilled. The East Asiatic Library, University of California, Berkeley, California, possesses a four-volume thob yig by the Dzaya-paṇḍita Bio bzan ṣphrin las, 1 entitled Zab pa dan rgya che baṣi dam paṣi chos kyi thob yig gsal baṣi me loṅ, “The ‘Bright-mirror’ thob yig of the profound and far-reaching illustrious Law”. This is a well-printed Peking block-print. The same library also has this author’s Ṅag rnams phyogs su bsgrigs pa—his minor essays. The latter were quite populār among the Lamas, especially the essay Ma-ṇiṣi phan yon sogs ston paṣi/byin rlabs myur ṣjug ces bya, on the celebrated formula Oṃ maṇi padme hüṃ, and hence were sometimes separately printed. These are in two volumes in a Peking block-print which has been run off from blocks damaged in part. Both sets were brought to that University by Professor F. D. Lessing. Using the colophon of the thob yig and his autobiography among the nag phyogs, I have already pointed out that he was born chu pho rta (1642 a.d.) and was 61 years old when the Sixth Dalai Lama was 19 years old (i.e. in a.d. 1702) and that he may have been the teacher of the Sixth Dalai Lama. 2
