རྟོགས་པ་བརྗོད་པ། | Glossary of Terms

Ninth of the twelve branches of the scriptures.

Ninth of the twelve branches of the scriptures.

One among the twelve sections of scripture.

As one of the twelve aspects of Dharma, it means stories of previous lives of beings.

See also “twelve wheels of the Dharma.”

A popular genre of Buddhist literature; the Sanskrit has been translated as “heroic action” by Léon Feer. With regard to structure, avadānas are similar to the jātakas, with the difference that the protagonist of an avadāna usually is not the Buddha (with the exception of Kṣemendra’s Bodhisattvāvadānamālā). They often present moral tales or illustrations of the law of karma.

One of the twelve branches of Buddhist scriptures.

One of the twelve branches of Buddhist scriptures.

One of the twelve types of the Buddha’s teaching (dvādaśāṅga). As such, the Sanskrit word avadāna means “exceptional feat” or “magnificent deed,” but in the context of the twelve types of buddhavacana the term came to refer to the narrative accounts of such deeds, as reflected in the Tibetan rendering rtogs pa brjod pa, “realization account.” Hence the English rendering “magnificent account.”

One of the “twelve branches of excellent speech.”