“Removal of Wrong Views: A General Synopsis of the ‘Introduction to the Middle’ and Analysis of the Difficult Points of Each of its Subjects (Lta ngan sel)” — Gorampa Sönam Senge, c. 1470s.
Provenance
Translation by Ven. Dr. Tashi Tsering and Jürgen Stöter-Tillmann (International Buddhist Academy, Kathmandu; first print 2005, free distribution edition by The Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation, Taipei). Translated from the CIHTS Tibetan edition; the bracketed numbers in the body of the translation refer to that edition’s pagination. The colophon names Gorampa’s monastery “Complete Victorious Teaching of the Mighty One” but does not date the text; conventionally placed in the productive 1470s–80s period together with the Lta ba’i shan ‘byed (1469).
This is the second Gorampa text now primary-grounded in the wiki, alongside gorampa-distinguishing-views-1469. Whereas Distinguishing the Views is a thematic polemic organised by Gorampa’s threefold taxonomy, Removal of Wrong Views is a verse-by-verse spyi don (general-meaning commentary) on the entire Madhyamakāvatāra, eleven chapters and conclusion, with 59 numbered “moot-points” (dka’ gnas) at which Gorampa explicitly engages identified or unnamed opponents — overwhelmingly Tsongkhapa (named once outright at the Tibetan-text apparatus level as “the Geshe Bio (Bzang Grags pa)”, and addressed throughout via the convention “somebody has written” / kha cig).
Thesis / main argument
Candrakīrti’s Madhyamakāvatāra, read directly and stanza-by-stanza without overlay from later scholastic systematisation, itself negates Tsongkhapa’s signature positions — most decisively at MA VI.23 (the two truths cannot be “a single nature with distinct conceptual identities”), MA VI.24–25 (the Prāsaṅgika–Svātantrika division does not run between two terminologies for the conventional), MA VI.28 (samvṛti as objective obscuration, not only subjective truth-habit), and the Cittamātra refutation MA VI.34ff (whose opponent is genuinely the Cittamātra, not — as Tsongkhapa reads — a covert Svātantrika strawman). The Sakya tradition descending from Atiśa, Zang Thang Sag pa, Pa Tshab Nyi ma Grags, and Sakya Paṇḍita is the proper reading line; the Geluk innovations are textually unsupported.
Chapter-by-chapter walk-through: see gorampa-removal-wrong-views-summary.
Key claims
MA VI.23 — the two truths and Tsongkhapa’s “single nature” reading
This is the most important section of the text for the wiki’s purposes. Gorampa quotes verbatim ([Tib. 113–114]) the Tsongkhapa passage that the two truths are “one in nature but aspectively separate, like being produced and being impermanent,” with its supporting citation from Nāgārjuna’s Bodhicittavivaraṇa. He then refutes it on five interlocking grounds (Removal, pp. 173–175):
- Reductio 1 (collapse of the truths): if the two truths are a single nature, then “the nature found by a delusive perception is the nature found by an authentic perception.”
- Reductio 2 (collapse of the cognitions): “what is found by a delusive perception is found by an authentic perception… there can be no difference between the procedures whereby these two find the nature of the object.”
- Reductio 3 (designative basis): if both natures inhere in one entity (e.g. a sprout), “the meditative balance of the holy perceives the very basis which is found by a delusive perception, and a delusive perception… causes the establishment of the very basis found by an authentic perception.”
- Reductio 4 (the bden grub qualifier becomes mandatory and self-defeating): “in order to establish the emptiness of an intrinsic essence, it is necessary that one add the qualification ‘in the ultimate sense’ to the negatee, because as conventions the two truths are not empty of an intrinsic essence.” This is precisely the bden grub qualifier Tsongkhapa’s whole system requires — Gorampa derives its necessity as a consequence of the single-nature thesis, treating both as a single coordinated error.
- Re-reading the Nāgārjuna citation: “what ‘produced’ and ‘impermanent’ epitomize is the non-existence of separate natures, but not (the existence of) a single nature, for a Centrist Consequentialist accepts neither a single nature nor separate natures in things established in contingency upon each other.”
Gorampa then ([Tib. 125], commenting on MA VI.29, p. 188) appeals to MA itself as primary witness: “This text [i.e. MA] also negates that the two truths are a single nature, because the two — the absence and the presence of hairs in a dish of bell-metal — are impossible in a single nature.” The hairs/bell-metal image is Candrakīrti’s own from the Madhyamakāvatārabhāṣya on VI.29.
MA VI.24–25 — “authentic / false superficial” is not a Svātantrika tag
Citation of an unnamed “later scholar” ([Tib. 116], p. 178) holding that “the terms ‘authentic superficial’ and ‘false superficial’ are the tradition of the Own-Continuum school whereas the Consequentialist school accepts a ‘superficial that is true for the world alone’ and a ‘superficial that is false for the world alone’.” Gorampa rejects: “Earlier great experts in the Consequentialist tradition, such as Atisha and his followers, Zang Thang Sag pa and his followers… set up their systems without drawing a separating distinction in terms of a right and wrong designation between the Consequentialist school and the Own-Continuum school. Therefore, in keeping with them, we should accept that there is no difference.” Direct primary-text rejection of one of the markers Tsongkhapa uses to draw the Prāsaṅgika–Svātantrika divide on the conventional side.
MA VI.28 — samvṛti and objective obscuration; arhat selflessness
[Tib. 122, p. 185] On samvṛti as “obscuring the authentic” Gorampa insists the term applies both to the subjective truth-habit and to the “objective aspects, (or) the compositional factors, which to the three holy persons appear in their post-meditational state” — because these “having emerged on the strength of residues of duality appearance, obscure the appearance-free meditative equipoise.” Same passage [Tib. 122–123] then sharply attacks the Geluk position that “the eighth ground functions as the lowest limit for Bodhisattvas who have given up nescience along with the emotional afflictions” — calling it an “aspersion on the path of the Universal Vehicle” and listing the inconsistencies: hearer-arhats can eliminate the truth-habit in three lives, but Mahāyānists cannot in one countless eon. This is the Removal’s primary-text touchpoint on the MA 1.8 / dharma-nairātmya dispute already catalogued at tenpa-tibetan-battleground-notes.
MA VI.34 ff. — the Cittamātra refutation is genuinely against the Cittamātra
[Tib. 130–131, p. 196] Moot-point 26: “Somebody, ignorant of this meaning, identifies the exponent of the preceding position with an Own-Continuum Centrist.” Tsongkhapa’s reading — that the opponent of MA VI.34 ff. is in part a covert Svātantrika — is rejected as inconsistent with the autocommentary’s own statement that “an exponent of the Own-Continuum school does not accept an arising in the ultimate sense, after all.” Throughout the long Cittamātra-refutation section (MA VI.45–97; Removal pp. 195–254 [Tib. 130 onwards]) Gorampa preserves Candrakīrti’s own polemical target rather than re-routing it to fit Tsongkhapa’s grub mtha’ hierarchy.
MA VI.27 — “stainless mind” is not validating rational cognition
[Tib. 121, p. 184] Moot-point 23: “Somebody, while he himself has also accepted this, employs the term ‘validating rational cognition’ [pramāṇa] in this context. However, such a presentation is not appropriate, because a validating rational cognition is an inference based upon reason.” Direct rejection of the pramāṇa-saturated reading of the post-meditational state of the holy ones — i.e. of the Geluk method of using Dharmakīrtian pramāṇa terminology to describe āryan cognition. Coheres with Atiśa’s anti-pramāṇa Madhyamaka recovered by apple-jewels-middle-way-2018.
MA VI.32+ — zhig pa dngos po and the inversion of the negation
[Tib. 127, p. 191] Moot-point 25: in commenting on MA VI.33 (freedom from the two extremes via the seed-sprout), Gorampa says that “all other teachers who insist that through the absolute negation of one inconsistent thing the other, (the opposite) one, is positively established” produce the consequence “that a seed exists at the time of its sprout, because it is not non-existent.” This is the Geluk med dgag / “destruction-as-real-entity” (zhig pa dngos po) thesis already documented at gorampa-distinguishing-views-1469 .1 — Removal shows it being attacked at the level of the actual MA verse rather than only as a thematic position.
MA XI.34 ff. — Buddha-nature without Dolpopa
[Tib. 283–284, pp. 435–436] On the eternity of the dharmakāya and the cause of the appearance of the nirmāṇakāya: “the sphere of Reality, naturally completely pure, is at present covered by adventitious stains. Therefore, a Buddha is not manifest. However, at the time when the adventitious stains are extinguished, Reality, or Buddha, is directly seen. Thus, there is no beginning of it… no new Buddha to be attained beyond the bare exhaustion of the adventitious stains.” Cited via the nine examples of the Uttaratantra and identified as a “secret” not to be revealed without preparation. This is a positive Sakya-Gorampa reading of tathāgatagarbha that is structurally distinct from Dolpopa’s gzhan stong (no truly-existent ground is posited; it is the dispelling of stains, not a positive substance) yet equally distinct from a deflationary Geluk reading. Important third data point for Tathāgatagarbha alongside Dolpopa and Tsongkhapa.
Conclusion (XI.43+) — the lineage and the Atiśa connection
[Tib. 291–292, pp. 446–447] Colophon and epilogue place Gorampa’s reading explicitly in the Pa Tshab Nyi ma Grags translation lineage descending through Putoba, Zhang Thang Sag pa, Gtsang pa Ser po, and Rma Bya — and through Sakya Paṇḍita and Atiśa back to Candrakīrti. The “(present) Centrists who aver a destroyed existence” enumerated in the epilogue’s three-extreme list (alongside non-Buddhist eternalists and Sophists) are unambiguously the Geluk.
Methodology
Verse-by-verse spyi don on the entire MA in eleven chapters plus conclusion and colophon, organised by an embedded sa bcad (logical outline) of the kind preserved in the printed table of contents (pp. 2–8 of the translation). Sixty numbered “moot-points” (dka’ gnas / “difficult points”) are inserted as polemical excursuses at points of textual disagreement; these constitute roughly a quarter of the total bulk of the text and are where the cross-school argumentation lives. The opponents are addressed by indirection (“somebody has written,” “later scholars”), but the textual apparatus and translator’s notes identify them — Tsongkhapa’s dGongs pa rab gsal, Gyaltsap, and Khedrup are the principal targets. References to Indian sources (Nāgārjuna’s MMK, Yuktiṣaṣṭikā, Bodhicittavivaraṇa, Catuḥśataka; Candrakīrti’s autocommentary; Aṣṭasāhasrikā and Saṃcaya; the Daśabhūmika; the Uttaratantra) are constant. Tibetan predecessors invoked positively are Atiśa, Pa Tshab, Zang Thang Sag pa, Sakya Paṇḍita, and Drakpa Gyaltsen.
Notable verbatim quotations (≤30 words each)
- On MA VI.23 single-nature: “A Centrist Consequentialist accepts neither a single nature nor separate natures in things established in contingency upon each other.” (p. 175 [Tib. 115])
- On MA VI.29 against the single-nature reading: “This text [MA] also negates that the two truths are a single nature.” (p. 188 [Tib. 125])
- On MA VI.28 against the eighth-ground-only-arhat reading: “He thus casts aspersion on the path of the Universal Vehicle.” (p. 185 [Tib. 122])
- On MA XI.34: “There is no new Buddha to be attained beyond the bare exhaustion of the adventitious stains.” (p. 435 [Tib. 283])
Connections
- Direct primary-text complement to gorampa-distinguishing-views-1469 — same author, same period, distinct genre (verse commentary vs systematic polemic). Together these two texts give Gorampa primary-grounded coverage on both axes.
- Direct counterpart on the Geluk side: tsongkhapa-illuminating-intent-1418 — Gorampa’s Removal and Tsongkhapa’s dGongs pa rab gsal are the two principal Tibetan verse-by-verse commentaries on the MA, written within fifty years of one another, and they disagree at almost every philosophically charged stanza.
- Karmapa side: karmapa-feast-fortunate-1578 — the Ninth Karmapa’s commentary post-dates both and engages both. The three texts together constitute the canonical Tibetan three-way conversation on the MA.
- Modern analytic counterpart: westerhoff-candrakirti-2024 — Westerhoff cites Gorampa among the four Tibetan commentators at parity but draws on Jinpa’s translation of Tsongkhapa as the default English working text. Removal now provides the Gorampa side at the same level of granularity as Westerhoff’s verse-by-verse reading.
- Contemporary oral transmission: dzongsar-khyentse-madhyamakavatara-2003 follows Gorampa’s sa bcad — Removal is the historical anchor of that sa bcad.
- Atiśa lineage continuity: apple-jewels-middle-way-2018 (Atiśa’s pre-Tibetan reception) and atisha-key-instructions — the Removal epilogue’s invocation of Atiśa, Pa Tshab, Zang Thang Sag pa, and Rma Bya places Gorampa explicitly in the lineage Apple recovers from the Kadampa manuscripts.