[image error]Who gets to be omniscient in Tibetan Buddhism? More to the point, who gets to be called omniscient or all-knowing (kun mkhyen), an epithet more readily associated with the Buddha himself?[1] This question surfaced while reading Achim Bayer’s carefully researched, recently published monograph on Khenpo Shenpen Nangwa, alias Khenpo Shenga—The Life and Works of mKhan-po gZhan-dga’ (1871–1927).

Bayer introduces a citation (p.108) that appears in Shenga’s treatise The Mirror that Clearly Reveals the Knowable (Shes bya gsal ba’i me long) where it is credi...(Shes