Seventeen tantras

[7][8] Germano also holds that the first historically attested figure connected with these tantras is Chetsün Sengé Wangchuk (lce btsun seng ge dbang phyug, c. 11th century).

[4] Samten Karmay writes that while Vimalamitra is attested in the sources as a Buddhist monk, there is "a fair amount of uncertainty" about this figure (and likewise about his supposed student, Nyangban Tingzin Zangpo).

[9] According to Bryan J. Cuevas, while the traditional Nyingma view is that the Seventeen Tantras were divine revelations received by Garab Dorje, these texts seem to have been "compiled over a long period of time by multiple hands.

[9] The Seventeen Tantras are then said to have been discovered by Dangma Lhungyel (11th century), a caretaker monk of Zha Lhakhang, who then proceeded to transmit these teachings to Chetsün Sengé Wangchuk.

[19][20] According to Hatchell, the Seventeen Tantras "are stylistically quite similar" and all depict themselves as being taught by Buddhas in a question and answer dialogue with their retinue in various settings, such as space, volcanoes and charnel grounds.

The dialogues discuss all the main Nyingthig Dzogchen topics, including the basis, cosmogony, the subtle body, buddha-nature, meditative techniques, mandalas, post-death states or bardos, as well as funerary and subjugation rituals.

[43] These Seventeen Tantras are to be found in the Canon of the Ancient School, the Nyingma Gyubum (Tibetan: རྙིང་མ་རྒྱུད་འབུམ, Wylie: rnying ma rgyud 'bum), volumes 9 and 10, folio numbers 143-159 of the edition edited by Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche commonly known as Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (Thimpu, Bhutan, 1973), reproduced from the manuscript preserved at Tingkye Gonpa Jang (Tibetan: གཏིང་སྐྱེས་དགོན་པ་བྱང, Wylie: gting skyes dgon pa byang) Monastery in Tibet.

According to Germano, Longchenpa integrated the doctrines and practices of the Seventeen Tantras "into the increasingly normative modernist discourses that had taken shape from the contemporary Indian Buddhist logico-epistemological circles, Madhyamaka, Yogacara, and tantric traditions of the late tenth to thirteenth centuries.