Terma (religion)

Terma (Tibetan: གཏེར་མ, Wylie: gter ma; "hidden treasure") are concealed teachings essential to the Vajrayana of Tibetan Buddhism and the Bon tradition. Within the Nyingma school, teachings are transmitted through two lineages: the oral Kama lineage and the revealed Terma lineage. The terma were originally hidden in the eighth century by the masters Padmasambhava and Yeshe Tsogyal, intended for discovery by special individuals called tertöns when the time was right. This makes terma a form of continuous revelation in Tibetan Vajrayana.

The practice of rediscovering hidden teachings is not exclusive to Tibet. It has Indian precedents, including in Hindu Vaishnavism. The Vaishnava saint Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is said to have recovered a fragment of the Brahma Samhita while in a trance. On another occasion, Chaitanya placed his divine love (prema) for the saint Narottama Dasa in the Padma River in Bangladesh; when Narottama Dasa turned twelve, he retrieved this treasure after a dream revelation. The Mahayana figure Nagarjuna also rediscovered the final part of the "Prajnaparamita Sutra in one hundred thousand verses" from the realm of the nāga, where it had been kept since the time of Gautama Buddha.

In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, a terma can be a physical object—such as a text or ritual tool—buried in the ground, hidden in rock, crystal, a plant, a tree, water, or even in the sky or space. Although "hidden treasure" suggests buried objects, the teachings themselves are understood to be concealed within the guru’s mind; the true hiding place is the tertön’s own nature or essence of mind. If the hidden teaching is a text, it is often written in dakini script, a non-human code that only a tertön can decipher.

According to Fremantle, termas are not always revealed immediately. Conditions may be unsuitable, people may not be ready, or further instructions may be needed to clarify the meaning. Often, the tertön must practice the teaching for many years before sharing it. In this way, the terma and tertön tradition functions like inspiration, providing a legitimate cultural framework to sustain tantric practice and keep Tibetan Buddhism and Bon relevant in a changing world.

The terma tradition is especially important in the Nyingma lineage. Two famous twentieth-century tertöns, Jigdral Yeshe Dorje (2nd Dudjom Rinpoche) and Dilgo Khyentse, were Nyingmapa. Tertöns also appear in Bon traditions, and a few belong to the Kagyu school. Padmasambhava, Yeshe Tsogyal, and their principal students hid religious texts, ritual objects, and relics to be discovered when the time was right. These hidden teachings also protected Buddhism during the persecution under King Langdarma. Some termas have been rediscovered, leading to special terma lineages across Tibet. This gave rise, especially in the Nyingma tradition, to two methods of dharma transmission: the "long oral transmission" through unbroken teacher-to-student lineages, and the "short transmission" of terma. The foremost revealers were the Five Terton Kings and the Eight Lingpas. In the nineteenth century, the three most famous were Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, Jamgon Kongtrul, and Orgyen Chokgyur Lingpa (known as Khyen-Kong-Chok sum). Termas have also been relayed by nāga and dakini—from the underworld and heavens—and hidden by teachers like the translator Longchenpa. Sometimes a master discovers a terma and re-conceals it for a later tertön.

Fremantle writes that termas are of two main types: earth treasures and intention (or mind) treasures. Intention treasures appear directly in the tertön’s mind as sounds or letters, fulfilling the enlightened intention of Padmakara. Earth treasures include texts, sacred images, ritual instruments, and medicinal substances, found in temples, monuments, statues, mountains, rocks, trees, lakes, and even the sky. Texts are not ordinary books; occasionally full-length texts appear, but they are usually fragmentary—sometimes just a word or two—encoded in symbolic script that may change mysteriously or disappear once transcribed. These objects act as triggers to help the tertön reach the subtle level of mind where the teaching is truly concealed. The tertön composes and writes down the resulting text and may be considered its author.

Earth termas are physical objects—either actual texts or items that trigger recollection of the teaching. Mind termas are constituted by space and are received through guru-transmission or realizations in meditation, connecting the practitioner directly with the teaching’s essence in a single simultaneous experience. Once this occurs, the tertön holds the complete teaching in mind and must transcribe it twice from memory in one uninterrupted session. The two transcriptions are compared; if no discrepancy appears, the terma is sealed as authentic. The tertön must realize the essence of the terma before this process.