Discusses an essential Tibetan Buddhist work that shows how Noble Beings progress toward enlightenment.

James B. Apple examines one of the formative subjects in traditional Buddhist studies, the Twenty Varieties of the Sa?gha. The Sa?gha (community) is one of the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sa?gha) universally revered by all Buddhists. While the Sa?gha is generally understood as the community of Buddhist ordained monks and nuns, along with lay adherents, the Twenty Varieties of the Sa?gha concerns an exemplary community of the twenty types of Noble Beings (?rya-pudgala) who embody the Buddha's teachings. Focusing on the interpretation of the Sa?gha given by the fourteenth-century Tibetan scholar Tsong kha pa, Apple provides a comprehensive typology and analysis of the stages through which Noble Beings pass in their progress toward enlightenment through multiple lifetimes in various cosmological realms. He explains the cosmographic formations and complex structures of Buddhist spiritual cultivation, illustrating how Tibetan and Indian Buddhists conceptualize all possible states on the path to enlightenment.

James B. Apple is a professor of Buddhist studies at the University of Calgary. He received his doctorate in Buddhist studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His current research focuses upon the critical analysis of Mahayana sutras and topics within Indian and Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism. He has published over seventy-five articles in the study of Buddhism. His books include Stairway to Nirvana (2008), A Stairway Taken by the Lucid: Tsong kha pa’s Study of Noble Beings (2013), Jewels of the Middle Way: The Madhyamaka Legacy of Atisa and His Early Tibetan Followers (2018), Atisa Dipamkara: Illuminator of the Awakened Mind (2019), and An Old Tibetan Dunhuang Manuscript of the Avaivartikacakrasutra (2021).

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"Dealing with an interesting and understudied topic, Apple displays a thorough mastery of the Sa?gha in the Abhisamay?lamk?ra and its surrounding literature." — Roger R. Jackson, translator of Tantric Treasures: Three Collections of Mystical Verse from Buddhist India