The Path of Compassion: A Biography of Hor shul Khenpo Gelek Palsang Rinpoche — Part One: An Introduction to the Lineage of the Nyingma Tradition — Texts of the Sūtra Section

The scriptures, liturgies, explanatory treatises, and related instructions concerning the Sūtra, Illusory, and Mind sections were gradually compiled, accumulated, and disseminated. The expansion of these Dharma texts began in the Fire Snake Year of the eleventh Tibetan sixty-year cycle, 1677 CE, when the brothers Gyurme Dorje, a treasure revealer of Mindrolling Monastery, and the great translator Dharmaśrī commented upon the root texts of the Sūtra Section and also composed practice and recitation liturgies and outlines. Thus the complete thirteen great Sūtra Section practice-and-recitation liturgies took shape. Later, Venerable Gyalse Zhenpen Thaye collected and organized the liturgies of the Sūtra Section and carved woodblocks in nine volumes for printing. This marked the beginning of the collected Dharma texts. Gyatrul Pema Doha Tenzin then supplemented the nine liturgical volumes with their root texts, increasing the Sūtra Section to twenty-five volumes of woodblock texts. From that time onward, monasteries including Kathok, Palyul, Dzogchen, and Shechen began holding assemblies for teaching, practice, empowerment, transmission, and ritual practice of the Sūtra Section. Later, Dudjom Rinpoche collected and organized the material again in India, dividing it into the two broad classes of root tantras and liturgies, and explanations and commentaries. The Sūtra Section thereby expanded to fifty-eight volumes.