tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-326715742024-03-17T14:28:55.181+02:00Tibeto-logicMore-or-less monthly musings on mainly
antiquarian topics of Tibet-related interest. Independent & unremunerated since 2006
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger271125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-62765888477773727502024-02-16T11:48:00.012+02:002024-03-14T15:29:50.481+02:00Tibet Outshines the Stars of the Nations<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim9UfobPE_ZokDiWdq5zaRwHKesdIN5Xs5Doa14OEtZUsPidRj7bm0kEisw691cGPnjSeM45AEZFZommJcB2otl1K8RJY5XXx-nl5HYx7odh036myy3gg0FGgi0kjUFMjFOj42JCHN2mfIhbjJDvUVtVhsFgtmN7F2k95Tbju_F7Kkjoydv2o/s720/Moon&StarswithDucks.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim9UfobPE_ZokDiWdq5zaRwHKesdIN5Xs5Doa14OEtZUsPidRj7bm0kEisw691cGPnjSeM45AEZFZommJcB2otl1K8RJY5XXx-nl5HYx7odh036myy3gg0FGgi0kjUFMjFOj42JCHN2mfIhbjJDvUVtVhsFgtmN7F2k95Tbju_F7Kkjoydv2o/w400-h225/Moon&StarswithDucks.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: #282828; color: whitesmoke; font-family: trebuchet; text-align: start;">Lynn Greyling,</span></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #282828; color: whitesmoke; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: xx-small;"><span>ducks adde</span><span>d</span></span></span></div><span style="background-color: #282828; text-align: start;"><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="color: whitesmoke; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></div></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I was having visions of northern lights flash dancing in a starlit Norwegian night, thinking I would write a light-hearted piece about the Milky Way. To begin with I could</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"> search out ways to explain the Tibetan word for it, </span><i style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">dgu-tshigs skya-mo</i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">, or Lightish Nine Joints. But my imagined explanations seemed to go south if anywhere, so forgive me for going off in other directions. My thoughts on the Milky Way may get clear of those squamous clouds another day.*</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><blockquote><span style="color: #7f6000; font-size: x-small;">(*In fact an old friend of mine Michael Walter has promised to go into the problems in detail in an upcoming essay of his entitled “<i>bdun tshigs, dgu tsigs</i>, etc.: Notes on Astrological Divination in Old Tibetan Documents.” Look for it or, I guess more accurately, look forward to it. At the same time I would like to thank Adam W. Some years ago we tried reading through the Dunhuang text mentioned below, and I believe this was what led me to look more and more into associated issues in recent years.)</span></blockquote></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">It’s a marvelous story, an early example of visual diplomacy using special effects in which the special effects win the day. To make myself clear in advance, I do believe the story as we have it reaches back to the time of Emperor Relpachan who ruled an expanding Tibetan Empire in the early 9th century. I do not think we have it precisely in the form it could have been seen or heard in the 9th century — the vagaries of textual transmission complicate things as they so often do (no, I won’t go into those kinds of complications today). But, as we ought to know, oldness of a story is one thing, its validity as historical reporting another. And yes, old stories can acquire new additions (accretions? improvements?) over time.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">There are briefer passages from the two 13th-century Deyu histories,* and not just the longer narrative in the <i>Scholars’ Feast. </i>All three were translated and studied back in 1991 by Helga Uebach in an essay of hers (listed below), and much of the background material had been discussed in a 1983 article of János Szerb.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #7f6000;">(*The story can be found in the long Deyu translation, at p. 685. Yes, now that it’s the year 2023 I am able to tell you that there is a third Deyu history, the <i>Eye Spoon — </i>there is</span><span><span style="color: #7f6000;"> </span><a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2023/04/eye-spoon-to-open-up-historical-vision.html" style="color: #666666;" target="_blank">a blog about it</a> <span style="color: #7f6000;">— but as it is incomplete it doesn’t get far enough into the history, coming to a stop somewhere around the 5th century CE with the first introduction of Buddhism to the Plateau.)</span></span></span></blockquote></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span>To begin with, we translate the story drawn from what is surely the longest and likely the most consulted chapter in the <i>Scholars’ Feast</i>, the one on imperial period Tibetan history marked by the key-letter <i>JA</i>. Following the translation we will attempt some commentary on its historical content and stellar significance. </span>H<span>ere is the passage in translation with my own comments inserted:</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">°</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Then again, in the reign of the ancestral [king/s] there were some disputes* and then battles with China, Uighurs and Nanchao. They killed as many as possible,** but [some] people remained [alive]. So the minister Khri-sum-rje Stag-snar*** held a discussion about having a peace agreement. </span></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">(*While the <i>[’]khon</i> in <i>bka’ khon, </i>meaning something akin to <i>dispute</i> or <i>hostility</i>, with the addition of the <i>bka’, </i>may appear to be an honorific form, it is probably just the <i>bka’</i> in the meaning of <i>word[s] </i>or <i>pronouncement[s].</i> It seems to say that the hostility was at first expressed verbally. The term is rarely encountered — what amounts to a single usage in or from the <i>Bka’-thang Sde Lnga</i> is all that is gained by a BDRC search (see its 1986 ed., p. 118) — and OTDO only knows of two Old Tibetan texts that use it, both of them stone inscriptions made during or very near the reign of Relpachan. The presence of this one word seems to argue loudly for an early 9th century date for the story. **Or, an indeterminable number, with <i>rtsad ma chod</i> taken for the preferable reading here. Perhaps a literal rendering would be <i>the people had not gone extinct</i>, for the passage that reads here <i>bsad pas mi ma zad nas</i>, wording paralleled in the accounts in the two Deyu histories that will be quoted later on, even if this doesn't automatically clarify the meaning of the expression that Uebach also found problematic. I suggest it could be saying that they were not only humans that were killed, but other types of sentient beings as well. One might as well consider if the words <i>mi bzad nas</i> could have been intended here, with the sense of the killing being so much it was impossible to stand it, with this motivating the call for a peace conference (?). ***The identity of this figure requires discussion.)</span></blockquote><p></p></div></blockquote></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">China said, “The sun, moon, planets and stars all dawn on top of me, so I control the head of the sky, and you must hold the conference at my place.”* </span><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">(*I’m thinking that this astronomical characterization of China only works from the perspective of Tibet in the west. Looking to the east Tibetans could regard all the astral bodies as dawning in China. So here China is a special case, not exactly presided over by any particular star grouping as the Uighur and Nanchao kingdoms will be presently.)</span></blockquote></div></div></blockquote></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The Uighur said, “The seven stars of the Great Bear are the central stake of the sky.* It is below them that I live, so I control the central stake of the sky and you must make your conference at my oven door (<i>go-kha</i>).”**</span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><blockquote><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">(*The text reads <i>gzhung phur</i>, a term not otherwise known to us, although with its meaning being central peg, it very likely refers to the pole star. Notice in favor of this idea that the Indic-derived term <i>gser-phur</i> or <i>golden peg</i>, is often used for the pole <span>star. **Jampa Samten says we ought to read <i>sgo-kha</i>, meaning <i>doorstep</i>. Or, possibly, <i>sgo-khang</i> or <i>porch. </i>I think <i>go-kha</i> is the ash-catching pan in front of the oven door.)</span></span></blockquote></div></div></blockquote></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Nanchao said, “The Milky Way* is the main line of the sky, and it is below it that I live, so I control the main line of the sky, and you must make your conference on my ground.”</span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia;"><blockquote><span style="font-size: x-small;"><blockquote>(<i>*dgu-tshigs skya-mo</i> - དགུ་ཚིགས་སྐྱ་མོ་)</blockquote></span></blockquote></span></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">They fixed a time for a later meeting and parted ways for the time being.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Then Khri-sum-rje prepared an ingenious construction.* At the Dbyar-ma-thang gathering he took a rope on which he had inserted azure-blue bark** and stretched it out against the sky. To that he attached sun, moon, planets and stars made of mica.*** Below the dam of dark blue bark he stoked a fire and this made a vapor that formed a fog. Then he painted some ducks with gold and brought them there to play.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">(*Or simply a <i>device</i>, along the lines of meaning of the Sanskrit <i>yantra</i>. The meaning of the ’<i>phrul</i> in the name of the Jokhang, Rasa Trulnang (Ra-sa ’Phrul-snang), has been explored in a recent article: D. Martin, “Pavements Like the Sea.” **It is possible that <i>mthing-shun</i>, the expected spelling, means <i>dark blue bark</i>, but it may be translated <i>indigo husk</i>, a name for a pigment-making substance that is most likely none other than copper sulfate, or Cu2SO4. <i>Mthing-shun</i> could intend the bark of the <i>mthing-shing</i>, or ‘indigo tree.’ A statement by D. Jackson suggests that <i>mthing-shun</i> may be a specific grade of medium-dark azurite, in the form of a crushed pigment used for making paint (“A Survey of Tibetan Pigments,” p. 275). In the history of the dye, there has long been a confusion of terms, using the same word sometimes for a mineral and sometimes for a vegetable substance (for more, consult your <i>Hobson-Jobson’s </i>entry for “indigo’). There is an interesting mention of tents made of <i>mthing-shun</i> in the long Deyu history, p. 341 [English tr., p. 654], so it may be possible to imagine a tent made of dark blue bark, it isn’t sure. It seems likely in our passage that paper or cloth dyed with copper sulphate would be the intended meaning. ***<i>Lhang-tsher</i>, perhaps more correctly <i>lhang-'tsher</i>, is not a commonly encountered word, and it isn't clear that <i>mica</i> would always be the substance intended by it, although because of its ability to glint brightly in the dark it does make very good sense in the context of this passage.)</span></blockquote></div></div></blockquote></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"></span></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">“Mine is a country where sun, moon, planets and stars shine all at once,</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">where clouds form on the mountain heights at the new year,</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">where the glacier mountains take the form of crystal chortens,</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">where the gods serve as rulers of men and where golden birds are brought to play.*</span></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">(*We suppose 'birds of gold' might refer to the Himalayan snowcock, which has, in addition to black and white colors in its underparts, a kind of brownish golden color on its back. The snowcock has sometimes been regarded as symbolic of Tibet, and this may help us to argue for its meaning here. See, for example, Schaeffer <i>et al</i>., eds, </span><i style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Sources of Tibetan Tradition</i><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">, pp. 572-573 for a translation of a relevant passage, although here the type of bird is not specified. The text reads </span><i style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">gong-mo</i><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">, which certainly means a kind of pheasant or grouse, and very likely the snowcock.)</span></blockquote></div></blockquote></blockquote><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">“My country is more sublime than any of yours, so the conference must be held at my place.”</span></blockquote></h4><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">When he put it that way they had nothing to say in reply, so the peace conference was held at the Tibetan king’s place. So it is said.*</span></h4><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span><blockquote><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">(*<i>Scholars’ Feast</i>, at pp. 400-401. We have compared this with the woodblock print reproduced in the <i>History Set</i>, vol. 16 (ma), p. 397. The latter is marked with the sigil "H" in our text, found in the appendix to this blog. Apart from the complete translation of this passage by Helga Uebach, there are also some short references to it, including Szerb’s essay, p. 378.)<i><br /></i></span> </span> </blockquote></h4></blockquote></blockquote><div><div style="text-align: center;">°</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="text-align: left;">As Janos Szerb (p. 377) pointed out, this episode gets shortened, distorted or omitted in the later histories and could even be placed at an earlier time, in the reign of Trisongdetsen. The</span><span style="text-align: left;"> <i>Records of China and Tibet</i></span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">(1985 ed., p. 198) is an example of both extreme shortening and temporal displacement: <i>khri gsum rje stag snas / rgya dang / gru gu / ljangs gsum gyis mol bsdum byas</i> — </span>ཁྲི་གསུམ་རྗེ་སྟག་སྣས། རྒྱ་དང་། གྲུ་གུ ལྗངས་གསུམ་གྱིས་མོལ་བསྡུམས་བྱས།<span style="font-size: large;"> <span>(and note further on, at p. 202, the chief figure’s name is spelled 'Bri Khrir-rje Stag-sna, here placed among the three ministers in the time of Relpachan).*</span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #7f6000;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(*The presumably ca. 1200 CE Nyangral History, 1988 ed., pp. 424-426, on Relpachan’s territorial gains, is obscure but has been translated in Uebach's essay, pp. 503-505, and should be revisited, as much that is in it was left unexplained.)</span></blockquote></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">We ought to be as brief as we possibly can and state our thesis plainly. While we will not argue for this being a genuine Old Tibetan document that got embedded in the <i>Scholars’ Feast</i>, and in fact doubt this possibility, the case can be made that it reflects, in several ways quite accurately, a particular episode in imperial period history. By connecting some of its content to other writings on both paper and stone, we may see that this is truly a story told about the quadrilateral peace treaty in the time of Emperor Relpachan, very surely one of the highlights of his rule. Yet we should also like to spare some words about the stars, along with a few more items of interest: [1] The set of nations involved in the treaty conference. [2] The geography of the conference site. [3] The identity of the minister, or rather the general, who plays the starring role in the conference planning. [4] The stars.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">[1] Our text has the triad of China, Uighurs and Nanchao (“<i>rgya hor ljang gsum</i>”).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">It hardly seems possible that very many peace conferences took place in Tibetan history that could be described as quadrilateral, let alone conferences involving an identical set of countries. In our story Tibet is intending to hold a peace treaty conference ending hostilities with three countries: China, the Uighur Turk kingdom, and Nanchao. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The following source mentions China and Turks, without Nanchao. It does mention the area named Dbyar-mo-thang that we will discuss soon. It even shares some wording with our story. In the account of the reign of Relpacan in the long Deyu history (post-1261 CE), we find this passage:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In the earlier part of his life, the areas of the Chinese and Turks on the border* had not been under Tibetan control, so later on when the three [military] divisions battled [there, the] territory [they gained] was not maintained.** The killing solved nothing.*** Making [or, Working from?] the three months of winter into the fruiting season of summer at Dbyar-mo-thang in Khams they made a truce. Then they inscribed the forms of the sun and moon in stone**** and they made a scroll edict. Through his miraculous powers he emanated a pair of bodies and skillfully subdued the enemies on the frontiers.***** </span></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">(*We have seen other instances in our text in which Rgya Drug is a short way of saying China and Turkestan. We also find it in some documents from Dunhuang that were certainly composed in the early 9th century. Sometimes, too, the name of the kingdom of Nanchao ('Jang) is added as a third element. On mid-8th century 'Jang relationship with Tibet, see essays by Takata and Uebach and literature they cite. **There is a discussion of the military concept of three communities (<i>sde gsum</i>) in Thub-bstan-phun-tshogs, <i>Bod-kyi Lo-rgyus Spyi-don Padma-ra-ga'i Lde-mig</i>, Si-khron Mi-rigs Dpe-skrun-khang (Chengdu 1996), vol. 1, p. 271. According to this source these are the upper, intermediate and lower divisions of the military force responsible for keeping border posts in different regions, corresponding with western, central and eastern parts of the Plateau. The upper division was mainly concerned with the Turkic peoples (Gru-gu or Dru-gu), the intermediate with the Nanchao (Ljang or 'Jang) kingdom, and the lower with the Chinese (Rgya). For more on these three military divisions, see <a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2022/07/incursions-of-foreign-in-13th-century.html" target="_blank">this blog from last year</a>. ***This reads <i>bsad-pas ma zad</i>, but the better reading is no doubt the one in the small Deyu. ****According to Penpa Dorji, this says they made a pillar inscription that had the sun & moon on it, and this seems to me the more likely interpretation. Kapstein’s book, p. 28 has something on the sun and moon. I also noticed this intriguing passage from a letter which I take to be Dunhuang Chinese, translated in Demieville’s book, p. xx: “le Saint Souverain, c’est-à-dire le Roi du Tibet, régit les trois luminaires : soleil, lune, étoiles, qui éclairent l’univers entier.” More on the subject below. *****s<i>ku tshe stod la mtha'i rgya drug ma btul bas / phyis sde gsum 'thab pas sa ma zin / bsad pas ma zad / khams kyi dbyar mo thang du dgun gyi zla ba gsum na dbyar gyi rtsi thog tu mdzad nas dums mdzad de / rdo la nyi zla'i gzugs bris nas thang gtsigs mdzad do // rdzu 'phrul ya ma zung du sprul nas mtha'i dgra yang thabs kyis btul</i>. The long Deyu history, p. 362. In general this wording, <i>rdzu 'phrul ya ma zung du</i>, here translated as “Through his miraculous powers he emanated a pair of bodies,” would refer to a particular miracle performed by the Buddha in which He produced fire from the upper half and water from the lower half of His body. This incident of the Buddha’s miraculous displays is often referred to in the literature as the “miracle of the pairs.” However, we believe here it may just mean miraculously appearing in two places at once, in a word <i>bilocation</i>. It is entirely possible that Relpachan traveled quite far to the northeast as far as the Kokonoor Lake. Local traditions in the town of Khri-ga even today believe that one of his thrones (<i>khri</i>) was located there. For more about the Chorten said to date from Relpachan’s visit, see Gruschke’s book, p. 68.)</span></div></blockquote></blockquote><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The small Deyu history, p. 134, has a somewhat difficult parallel passage that aids our understanding somewhat:</span></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">“In the earlier half of his (Relpachan’s) life when he subdued enemies, the outer borders were fought over with the three military divisions but [their gains] were not maintained, and while there was killing, the humans were not finished, and the three winter months of Dbyar-mo-thang in Khams were manifested as the three fruits [three fruitful months?] of summer and a truce was made. In the Horse year* they inscribed the shape of sun and moon, and the final wording was composed. He skillfully subdued the outer enemies through his miracle of pairs.”**</span></blockquote></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">(*Probably the word for horse, <i>rta</i>, is here a mistake for the word for tiger, <i>stag</i>, with closely similar pronunciation. If this solution is acceptable then the Tiger year of 822 would be the correct one for the peace treaty. To follow the 12th century source, the <i>Door of Entry to the Dharma</i>, as cited by Szerb (p. 381), 822 is the year of the treaty with China, while the treaty with the Uighurs would have been concluded in 823. **<i>sku tshe stod la dgra brtul ba las phyi'i so sde gsum dang 'thab pas ma zin te / bsad pas mi ma zad nas khams kyi dbyar mo thang gyi dgun gyi zla gsum la dbyar gyi thog gsum du sprul nas gdums mdzad / rta lo la nyi zla'i gzugs bris nas / tha tshigs mdzad / rdzu 'phrul ya ma zung gis mtha'i dgra yang thabs kyis brtul</i>.)</span></blockquote></blockquote></div></blockquote></blockquote><div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The same triad of nations, in the form of <i>rgya drug ’jang</i>, or <i>rgya drug dang ’jang</i> occurs in the Old Tibetan text known as the Dega Turquoise Grove Temple Prayers — once in <a href="https://otdo.aa-ken.jp/archives?p=Pt_0016" target="_blank">Pt 0016</a>, and four times in <a href="https://otdo.aa-ken.jp/archives?p=ITJ_0751" target="_blank">ITJ 0751</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">[2] Our text has “Dbyar-ma-thang,” although this needs to be corrected to Dbyar-mo-thang, a place name not well known. It is mentioned in the Lhasa treaty stele inscription (Richardson’s book, pp. 10-12), but unfortunately in a fragmented part of the inscription. It is the general geographical entity that included the Dega Treatise Temple, or De-ga G.yu-tshal, Dega Turquoise Grove. We fortunately have what I accept to be a Relpachan era text preserved in Dunhuang in what may be a somewhat later manuscript (?). Its title page, along with its first 21 folios are missing, but a big part of it has been reconstituted by reuniting two Dunhuang texts kept in Paris and London. Based on its content we can just call it the <i>Dega Treatise Temple Consecration Aspiration Prayers</i>, or for short the <i>Aspiration Prayers</i>. For most of what has been written on this, see the bibliography listings for Thomas, Kapstein and Walter. The prayers would have begun with one or more by Emperor Relpachan himself, but since they would have come first, they are in the missing part.</span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dega Turquoise Grove is given a likely location, according to Horlemann’s essay (p. 132, note 28), within the region then known as Bkra-shis Dbyar-mo-thang, in Mdo-gams, in around the mid-9th century (for an independent discussion of Dbyar-mo-thang, see Taenzer’s book, pp. 22-24). What is certain in my mind, at least, based on the sources just given, is that Dbyar-mo-thang, ‘Summer Plains,’ was east (possibly in small part south) of the Kokonoor, and stretched far enough east to include a part of present-day Gansu. It appears to have been quite an extensive area, at first beyond and then within Mdo-gams (i.e., Mdo-khams, an old name for the broad realm larger than present-day Amdo or Qinghai). Dbyar-mo-thang represents a region that had formerly been subject to the Chinese state ruled from its Chang’an / Xi’an capital, but was then, before and during the time of the peace treaty at least, militarily occupied by the Tibetan army, remaining a Tibetan possession until the fall of the empire in 842.* </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia;">(*If you need more on the geography, </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">the latest word is in Kapstein’s book, pp. 35-44.)</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">[3] Our text has the spelling “Khri-sum-rje Stag-snar,” and he is described as a minister.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Although he isn’t mentioned in the account from the long Deyu supplied above, Stag-sna/Stag-snang is present there elsewhere, in a list of notable persons who built temples in order to assuage their guilt and purify sins:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">“Khri-gsum-rje Stag-snang led an army into the land of the maternal uncle China. To purify his sins he built a temple at Brag-dmar Bka’-chu.”*</span></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">(*Long Deyu history, pp. 264-265: <i>khri gsum rje stag snang gis zhang po rgya la dmag drangs pa'i sdig sbyong du brag dmar bka' chu'i lha khang bzhengs</i>. We should hesitate to correct the spelling of our text, since it may reflect a genuine early orthography. Still, most sources know this temple as Ka-chu or Kwa-chu. For a discussion of the founding of this temple that includes this passage, see Vitali, <i>Early Temples of Central Tibet</i>, p. 22. Near Bsam-yas and to its east, Mes-ag-tshoms named a place after the Chinese capital to commemorate the Tibetan victory over the district of Kansu/Gansu. This place was later taken over by the monastic ordinator Klu-mes. For the idea that merits accrued through temple building can serve as expiation for sin, particularly the sins involved in war operations, see Kapstein’s book, p. 44-45, which could now be supported by the passages in the long Deyu translation at pp. 506, 523-524.)</span></blockquote></div></blockquote><div></div><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; font-weight: 400;">On the same page and just before this, his same name appeared in a different form: </span></h4><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; font-weight: 400;"><blockquote>’Bro-rje Khri-gsum-rje Rtags-snang* opened the eastern entrance pass of fine silk and controlled it.**</blockquote></span></h4></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-size: x-small;"><span><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span><blockquote><span><span style="font-family: georgia;">(*I hesitate, but in fact, if you want a reasonable sketch of his career, go to Wikipedia and search for “</span></span><span class="mw-page-title-main" style="font-family: "Linux Libertine", Georgia, Times, serif;">Dro Trisumje Taknang.” **</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Linux Libertine", Georgia, Times, serif;">The long Deyu history, p. 264: </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">’bro rje khri gsum rje rtags snang gis / shar dar zab kyi la sgo phye ste mnga’ mdzad</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">. English tr., p. 522.)</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></div></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><div><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia;"></span></div><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: 400;">There have been quite a large number of discussions about this person in the past, so much so that it is rather hopeless to study and contrast all their findings, a task we do not undertake to perform today.* He acted as general on the Chinese front before becoming chief minister, and it seems he was at some point associated with silk trade. </span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A line in the small Deyu, p. 139, reads <i>’bro khri gsum rje bsad pas dkor nor gyi khungs subs</i>. This might be translated, ‘When ’Bro Khri-gsum-rje was slain, the source of a/the wealth of the treasury was wiped out.’ This suggests his silk trade may have been a crucial source for state finance.</span></span></span></h4><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I believe the most significant of those many discussions are the ones by Elliot Sperling and Roberto Vitali, and I refer you to them.* </span></span></h4><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></span></span></div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #7f6000;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">(*</span>Elliot Sperling’s essay, pp. 42-45, discussed 'Bro Stag-snang in a lot of detail, with many sources given. While Roberto Vitali’s treatment in his book <i>Early Temples of Central Tibet</i>, pp. 17-18, 21-22, 24, is shorter, it does synthesize quite a few sources resulting in a substantial sketch of his career. There are a few dozen more references I could list, but don’t see the point of doing it at the moment.</span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">)</span></span></div></blockquote></blockquote><div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div></div></blockquote><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Seeing that these three specific aspects of our <i>Scholars’ Feast </i></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">story, the ones I’ve numbered one through three, have close correspondence with a range of earlier texts, including the text of the Lhasa treaty pillar, one may think that this story is a retelling of the same event, </span></span><span><span style="font-family: georgia;">legend-like as it may be,</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> after it was passed down through a number of generations. Still, it is unclear how much credit oral tradition ought to be given, given that literary inventions or elaborations are constant possibilities.</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">[4] The stellar aspect of the story, in which countries have groups of celestial bodies presiding over them, might seem to be the one major element that would be due to the oral or literary “invention.” But at the very least there was a core of astronomical symbolism in the less-doubted and oldest sources that to some degree corresponds with it, that conceivably could have inspired it. This would tend toward the idea that the story, while it has anchoring in the genuinely old, could be a later, or even much later, elaboration.*</span></div></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><blockquote><span style="color: #7f6000; font-size: x-small;">(*At the moment I leave out of discussion the lore about the Four Appointed Kings [India, China, Tazig, and Gesar], but there, too, each country has an asterism presiding over it. See especially the long Deyu history, the English tr., pp. 415-424.)</span></blockquote></span></div></div></div></blockquote><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The Deyu versions mention the sun and moon only, without the stars. In my reading of the passage near the end of the west side of the Zhol pillar inscription (Richardson’s book, pp. 124, 126) the sun and moon represent all the parts of the world reached by their light, meaning finally that all the heavenly bodies as well as the world itself are being called upon to bear witness to the treaty. Although we can see why some may think so, we do not believe the sun and moon are intended, in this context, to <i>symbolize</i> Tibet and China.* Uebach’s essay (p. 505) quotes from the Nyangral history and translates: </span></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><blockquote>“There was a saying that at that time on earth there was nobody else than the Nephew and the Uncle like the sun and moon in the sky and that is why they designed the image of sun and moon on a boulder.” </blockquote></span></div></div></div></blockquote><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">As I read it, it is saying that on earth there is only the nephew and uncle, and in the sky only the sun and the moon, each pair uniquely special and influential in its own realm. It looks like poetic metaphor rather than politically weighted symbolism. We ought to compare another part of the <i>Scholars’ Feast</i> (1985 ed.), pp. 415-416, with its account of Relpachan<i>,** </i>and its echoes of the Lhasa treaty inscription (Richardson’s book, pp. 124-127) which, however, calls not only the sun and moon, but also the stars and planets to witness the swearing of the oaths.</span></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(*</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Kapstein’s book, p. 18, has more discussion of the sun and moon standing for China and Tibet. See also his p. 62, where a passage from 5th Dalai Lama seems to clearly identify the pair of Chinese and Tibetan rulers with the sun and moon. See, too, Walter, <i>Buddhism & Empire</i>, pp. 234, 265; also, Sørensen, <i>Mirror</i>, p. 422. **A</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">t p. 416: </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">gnam la nyi zla zung gcig / sa la btsan po dbon zhang las med do bar bgros nas pha bong la nyi zla'i gzugs byas / phyis chad bod bod yul na bde / rgya rgya yul na bde...</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">)</span></blockquote></span></div></div></blockquote><div><div><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A dice divination text from Dunhuang supplies us with a set of eerily familiar echoes of vocabulary terms used in the <i>Scholars’ Feast</i> story. This is from <a href="https://otdo.aa-ken.jp/tibetan/archives?p=ITJ_0738" target="_blank">ITJ 0738</a>, with the text as found at the </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">OTDO website, although I have </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">adding violet color to the terms that are in harmony with our story:</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #741b47;"></span><span style="color: #741b47;"></span></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #741b47;">mthIng</span> kyIs nI rgyan bres pas / / dgung mtha' nI 'gyur myI srId / <span style="color: #741b47;">dgu tshIgs</span> nI <span style="color: #741b47;">gzhung</span> [rtan (/stan)] bas / / skar nI ltung myI srId / gser gI nI <span style="color: #741b47;">phur</span> btab pas / / zangs gyI nI rgyan bres pas / / dog mtha' nI ldIng myI srId / /</span></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div style="text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">There are some difficulties, of the kinds only to be expected in Dunhuang Tibetan texts, but for the sake of science I will rough out a readable translation:</span></p></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">“Decorated with its ornaments of <span style="color: #741b47;">azurite</span>, the sky’s horizon cannot change. The <span style="color: #741b47;">Nine Joints</span> [Milky Way] being a <span style="color: #741b47;">stable center</span>, the stars cannot fall. With the <span style="color: #741b47;">peg[s] </span>of gold pounded down,* decorated with ornaments of copper, the edges of the ‘narrow one’** cannot float upward.”</span></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: georgia;">(*I think it very likely that one line of 6-syllable verse is missing at this point. <i>Golden peg</i>, or <i>gser phur</i>, usually is an epithet of the pole star. **Here <i>dog</i> is an epithet of the earth, since our dwelling space, after all, appears quite narrowly constrictive from the perspective of the wide open sky. There is quite an interesting parallel to this Dunhuang passage to be found in the Songs of Milarepa. Look below for references to both the Chang and Stagg translations.)</span></p></blockquote></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><p style="font-family: "Gandhari Unicode"; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The ‘central line’ (<i>gzhung-thig</i>) of our story, where it is descriptive of the Milky Way, can be understood as the first step in any geometrical construction plan, whether a divine <i>maṇḍala</i> or a more earthly type of dwelling. As a technical term in art/craft/industry/construction science (the field of knowledge Tibetans call <i>bzo-rig</i>) it is equivalent to the ‘Brahma line’ (<i>tshangs-thig</i>), the vertical line or axis that everything else follows from and depends upon. I’m tempted to give this (or read into it?) a political meaning, but it gives me no pleasure to close off other realms of possible signification, I’ll leave that up to you.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Gandhari Unicode"; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><h4 style="font-family: "Gandhari Unicode"; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">Readable and quotable objects</span></h4></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div></span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Christopher I. <b>Beckwith</b>, <i>The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia</i>, Princeton University Press (Princeton 1993). At pp. 167-168 are some interesting observations about the peace treaties, most remarkably that they resulted in a period of peace that lasted 20 years (until the Uighur and Tibetan empires collapsed in 840 and 842). This just goes to show that wishing prayers do come true.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Joanna <b>Bialek</b>, <i>Compounds and Compounding in Old Tibetan, a Corpus Based Approach</i>, Indica et Tibetica series no. 57, Indica et Tibetica Verlag (Marburg 2018), in 2 vols. The entry for <i>“rgya drug</i>” meaning <i>Chinese and Turks</i>, at vol. 1, pp. 461-463, is a particularly relevant one.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Garma C.C. <b>Chang</b>, tr., <i>The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa</i>, Shambhala (Boulder 1977), in 2 volumes. See vol. 1, p. 26 (the Stagg translation may be compared): </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The sun and moon were shut in darkness;</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And the Twenty-eight Constellations were fixed.</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Milky Way was pegged,</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And the Eight Planets were tied by an iron chain.</span></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">The firmament was wrapped in fog...” </span></div></div></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">K. <b>Czeglédy</b>, “The Foundation of the Turfan Uyghur Kingdom,” contained in: Louis Ligeti, ed., <i>Tibetan and Buddhist Studies Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Alexander Csoma de Korös</i>, Munshiram Manoharlal (New Delhi 2000, reprint of 1984 ed.), vol. 1, pp. 159-163.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Paul </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Demiéville</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Le Concile de Lhasa. Une controverse sur le quiétisme entre Bouddhistes de l'Inde et de la Chine au VIIIe siècle de l'ère chrétienne</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, Imprimerie Nationale de France (Paris 1952).</span></p><div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Deyu</b> history, long — Commonly referred to as the “Mkhas-pa Lde'u.” For the LOTC edition of the Tibetan text as a freely downloadable PDF, <a href="https://library.bdrc.io/show/bdr:W3KG158?s=latest%3Fn%3D12" target="_blank">look here</a>. For reference to the English translation, see under Martin.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Deyu</b> history, small — Commonly referred to as the “Lde’u Jo-sras.” For a transcription of the entire text, <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/tibetological/lde-u-jo-sras" target="_blank">look here</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ildikó <b>Ecsedy</b>, “Nanchao: An Archaic State between China and Tibet,” contained in: Louis Ligeti, ed., <i>Tibetan and Buddhist Studies Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Alexander Csoma de Korös</i>, Munshiram Manoharlal (New Delhi 2000, reprint of 1984 ed.), vol. 1, pp. 165-189. There are some interesting comments about the significance of a particular 9-star constellation “part of the constellation Scorpion containing the Antares,” indicating the time of spring cultivation, while the year’s end is marked by the return of a star (pp. 168, 175, 181, 183-184).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Andreas <b>Gruschke</b>, <i>The Cultural Monuments of Tibet's Outer Provinces, Amdo, Volume 1: The Qinghai Part of Amdo</i>, White Lotus (Bangkok 2001). At p. 81, he locates the region of Dbyar-mo-thang to the southwest of the Kokonoor, commenting that it is one of the most sparsely populated regions of the world, forming an eastern extension of the Byang-thang. My thinking throws it in the opposite direction, but that’s okay, I haven’t made up my mind.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Helmut Hoffmann, <i>Mi-la Ras-pa</i>, <i>Sieben Legenden</i>, Otto Wilhelm Barth-Verlag (Munich 1950). See p. 31:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Es ward das erhabene Paar von Sonne und Mond Gefangen gehalten,</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Gefesselt die achtundzwanzig Getirne der Mondstationen,</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Die acht Planeten in eiserne Ketten geschlagen,</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Die fahle Milchstraße wurde vollkommen verborgen,</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Die kleinen Sterne restlos von Dunste verhüllt.</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Asl dann die Dunstwolken alles bedeckten...</span></div></div></blockquote><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bianca <b>Horlemann</b>, “Buddhist Sites in Amdo and Former Longyou from the 8th to 13th Century,” contained in: C. Scherrer-Schaub, ed., <i>Old Tibetan Studies</i>, Brill (Leiden 2012), pp. 119-157.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Iwao</b> Kazushi, “Dbus mtha’: Centre and Periphery in the Old Tibetan Empire,” <i>Central Asiatic Journal</i>, vol. 61, no. 1 (2018), pp. 49-60. This throws unexpected light on the geographical problems.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">___, “Reconsidering the Sino-Tibetan Treaty Inscription,” contained in: Tsuguhito Takeuchi and Norihiko Hayashi, eds., <i>Historical Development of the Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the Workshop B of the 17th Himalayan Languages Symposium (Kobe), 6th-9th, September, 2011</i> (being <i>Journal of Research Institute</i>, vol. 49), Research Institute of Foreign Studies, Kobe City University of Foreign Studies (Kobe 2012), pp. 19-28. I found this particularly interesting for its discussion of the border-marking steles of the 8th and early 9th centuries. These steles are no longer to be seen, but the Chinese text from the inscriptions on one of them has been preserved (the original is likely to have been bilingual, like the treaty inscription in Lhasa).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">David <b>Jackson</b>, with J. Jackson, “A Survey of Tibetan Pigments,” <i>Kailash</i>, vol. 4, no. 3 (1976), pp. 273-294.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Matthew <b>Kapstein</b>, “The Treaty Temple of De ga G.yu tshal: Iconography and Identification,” contained in: Huo Wei, ed., <i>Essays on the International Conference on Tibetan Archaeology and Art</i>, Sichuan Renmin Chuban-she (Chengdu 2004), pp. 98-127. I believe this essay has been superseded by the chapter in his 2009 book.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">___, “The Treaty Temple of De ga g.yu tshal: Reconsiderations.” A pre-publication draft in PDF. Here the author changes his idea about identifying the temple, and finds that De-ga is a period transcription of Daxia, name of a river valley now called Linxia in what is now southern Gansu. Very interesting!</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">___, “The Treaty Temple of De-ga G.yu-tshal: Review of Research and Response to Critics.” A paper given at the Beijing Seminar on Tibetan Society, held at China Tibetology Research Center (Beijing, October 13-17, 2008).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">___, “The Treaty Temple of the Turquoise Grove,” being part 1, chapter 1, in Matthew Kapstein, ed., <i>Buddhism between Tibet and China</i>, Wisdom (Boston 2009), pp. 21-72. The parts that most highly merit our attention right now are at pp. 31-33 where he outlines the content of the seven prayers found in the now-existing parts, and pp. 35 & ff. on the geographical problems.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Li</b> Fang Kuei, “A Problem in the Sino-Tibetan Treaty Inscription,” <i>Acta Orientalia Hungarica</i>, vol. 34 (1980), pp. 121-124.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">___, “The Inscription of the Sino-Tibetan Treaty of 821-822,” <i>T’oung Pao</i>, vol. 44 (1956), pp. 1-99+.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">___ and W. South Coblin, <i>A Study of the Old Tibetan Inscriptions</i>, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica (Taipei 1987). Mention of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army Zhang Khri-sum-rje on the north face of the Treaty Inscription, at p. 117.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dan <b>Martin</b>, tr., <i>A History of Buddhism in India and Tibet: An Expanded Version of the Dharma’s Origins Made by the Learned Scholar Deyu</i>, The Library of Tibetan Classics series no. 32, Wisdom Publications (Somerville 2022). We call this for short the “long Deyu” even though the work is a post-1262 CE anonymous compilation framed as a commentary on a verse work. It was this verse work alone, dating from nearly a century earlier, that was composed by the Zhijé figure named Deyu.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">___, “Pavements Like the Sea and the Name of the Jokhang: King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba in Lhasa,” contained in: Franz-Karl Ehrhard and Petra Maurer, eds., <i>Nepalica-Tibetica: Festgabe for Christoph Cüppers</i>, International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (Andiast 2013), vol. 2, pp. 23-36.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Nyangral’s History</b> — Nyang Nyi-ma-’od-zer, <i>Chos-’byung Me-tog Snying-po Sbrang-rtsi’i Bcud</i>, Bod-ljongs Mi-dmangs Dpe-skrun-khang (Lhasa 1988).</span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Pa-tshab</b> Sangs-rgyas-dbang-’dus, “An Introduction to the Text of the Newly Discovered Khrom chen Stele,” translation by Nathan Hill of a Tibetan-language article first published in 1997, <i>Tibet Journal</i>, vol. 32, no. 3 (Autumn 2007), pp. 3-9. This stele, inscribed on its four sides, was found in a field in 1990, broken in three pieces. Unfortunately its fragmentary condition does not allow a lot of conclusions about it, except that its text is from the time of Emperor Relpachan, and compared to previously known steles, it contains a lot of vocabulary related to Buddhism. For other stone and metal inscriptions related to his reign, see Richardson's 1985 book, pp. 92-147.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Pan</b> Yihong, “The Sino-Tibetan Treaties in the Tang-Dynasty,” <i>T’oung Pao</i>, vol. 78 (1992), pp. 116-161.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">Records of China and Tibet</i> — Dpal-’byor-bzang-po, <i>Rgya Bod Yig-tshang Chen-mo</i>, Si-khron Mi-rigs Dpe-skrun-khang (Chengdu 1985).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hugh E. <b>Richardson</b>, <i>A Corpus of Early Tibetan Inscriptions</i>, Royal Asiatic Society (London 1985).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">___, <i>Ancient Historical Edicts at Lhasa and the Mu Tsung - Khri Gtsung Lde Brtsan Treaty of A.D. 821-822 from the Inscription at Lhasa</i>, Royal Asiatic Society Prize Publication Fund no. 19 (London 1952). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">___, “The Sino-Tibetan Treaty Inscription of A.D. 821/823 at Lhasa,” <i>The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society</i> (1978), pp. 137-62.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Kurtis R. <b>Schaeffer</b>, Matthew T. Kapstein, Gray Tuttle, eds., <i>Sources of Tibetan Tradition</i>, Columbia University Press (New York 2013). </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">There is a translation of the west face of the Lhasa treaty pillar inscription, and some parts of the <i>Aspiration Prayers</i> (the 1st and 3rd out of 7) at pp. 76-86. There are further translations related to the 821 (or 822) treaty on pp. 21-24.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><i><b>Scholars’ Feast</b></i> — Dpa’-bo Gtsug-lag-phreng-ba, </span><i>Chos-’byung Mkhas-pa’i Dga’-ston (=Dam-pa’i Chos-kyi ’Khor-lo Bsgyur-ba-rnams-kyi Byung-ba Gsal-bar Byed-pa Mkhas-pa’i Dga’-ston)</i>, ed. by Rdo-rje-rgyal-po, Mi-rigs Dpe-skrun-khang (Lhasa 1986), in 2 volumes.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Per K. <b>Sørensen</b>, <i>Tibetan Buddhist Historiography, The Mirror Illuminating the Royal Genealogies: An Annotated Translation of the XIVth Century Tibetan Chronicle rGyal-rabs gsal-ba’i me-long</i>, Harrassowitz (Wiesbaden 1994). Of special relevance are the pages on the reign of Relpachan and his peace treaties are at pp. 410-423.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Elliot <b>Sperling</b>, “A Captivity in Ninth Century Tibet,” <i>Tibet Journal</i>, vol. 4, no. 4 (Winter 1979), pp. 17-67. Corrections listed in vol. 5, nos. 1-2 (Spring 1980), pp. 95-96.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Christopher <b>Stagg</b>, tr., <i>The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa by Tsangnyön Heruka, a New Translation</i>, Shambhala (Boulder 2016), p. 31:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The sun and moon were put into prison.</span></div></div></div><div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The twenth-eight constellations were strung on a wire.</span></div></div></div><div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The eight planets were put into shackles by edict.</span></div></div></div><div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The great Milky Way was tethered down.</span></div></div></div><div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The morning star was completely wrapped in mist.”</span></div></div></div></blockquote><div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rolf A. <b>Stein</b>, “Les serments des traités sino-tibétains (8e-9e siécles),” <i>T’oung Pao</i>, vol. 74 (1988), pp. 119-138. ‘The Oaths of Sino-Tibetan Treaties (8th and 9th Centuries).’</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">János <b>Szerb</b>, “A Note on the Tibetan-Uighur Treaty of 822/823 A.D.,” contained in: Ernst Steinkellner and Helmut Tauscher, eds., <i>Contributions on Tibetan Language, History and Culture, Proceedings of the Csoma de Körös Symposium held at Velm-Vienna, Austria, 13-19 September 1981, </i>vol. 1 (1983), pp. 375-387.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gertraud <b>Taenzer</b>, <i>The Dunhuang Region during Tibetan Rule (787-848): A Study of the Secular Manuscripts Discovered in the Mogao Caves</i>, Opera Sinologica no. 24, Harrassowitz (Wiesbaden 2012).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Takata</b> Tokio, “A Note on the Lijiang Tibetan Inscription,” Asia Major, vol. 19, nos. 1-2 (2006), pp. 161-170, at p. 163.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">F. W. <b>Thomas</b>, <i>Tibetan Literary Texts and Documents concerning Chinese Turkestan, Part Two: Documents</i>, Royal Asiatic Society (London 1951). The Aspiration Prayers at Dega Treaty Temple (well, the part found in IOL Tib J 751) is transcribed and translated on pp. 92-109. The translation is out of date. See the Schaeffer book instead.</span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Helga <b>Uebach</b>, “Dbyar-mo-thaṅ and Goṅ-bu Ma-ru: Tibetan Historiographical Tradition on the Treaty of 821/823,” contained in: Ernst Steinkellner, ed., <i>Tibetan History and Language: Studies Dedicated to Uray Géza on His Seventieth Birthday</i>, Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien (Vienna 1991), pp. 497-526. The passage of the two Deyu histories are edited together on pp. 498-499, with the <i>Scholars’ Feast</i> passage transcribed and translated on pp. 499-500.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">___, </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Tibetan Officials in the 8th-Century Southeastern Part of the Empire,” contained in: </span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">C. Scherrer-Schaub, ed., <i>Old Tibetan Studies</i>, Brill (Leiden 2012), pp. 53-64. For the text of the relevant inscription, dated to post-757 CE, <b><a href="https://otdo.aa-ken.jp/archives?p=insc_Lijiang" target="_blank">look here</a></b>.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Roberto </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Vitali</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Early Temples of Central Tibet</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, Serindia (Chicago 1990).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Michael <b>Walter</b>, “Analysis of PT016/IO751: Language and Culture of a Dunhuang Document, Part One,” contained in: Christoph Cüppers, Robert Mayer and Michael Walter, eds., <i>Tibet after Empire: Culture, Society and Religion between 850-1000</i>, Lumbini International Research Institute (Lumbini 2013), pp. 417-440. This is a robust attempt to analyze the text of the <i>Aspiration Prayers</i> on the basis of its written forms and vocabulary items. Part Two was to include a translation with commentary, although it hasn’t yet appeared as far as I know.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">___, <i>Buddhism and Empire: The Political and Religious Culture of Early Tibet</i>, Brill (Leiden 2009).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">___, </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">“</span><i style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">bdun tshigs, dgu tshigs</i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">, etc.: Notes on Astrological Divination in Old Tibetan Documents.” A forthcoming essay, along with Uebach's 1991 among the most relevant writings on the subjects of this blog entry.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtNPcUK7LnG7Edjz-1ubvTZFW_Y05AUKcEJBB5s5bLAkZY5b6mWAhrbaoZMTqNOyBrD7riiZU4-CFu__1rn6lm3FehoreM9fMlrwDLg907FVs0UKkmz2r_7k1Lmyzfo9-yl9vIln5mYunRsYAlWtBT7u3AXigLFaE5TPjavw1UtDzkcIdKKaEMUg/s2450/Smon-lam-mtha'-yas-rgya-mtsho,%20Man-ngag%20Zab-mo%20Bdud-kyi%20Gcod-yul.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="2450" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtNPcUK7LnG7Edjz-1ubvTZFW_Y05AUKcEJBB5s5bLAkZY5b6mWAhrbaoZMTqNOyBrD7riiZU4-CFu__1rn6lm3FehoreM9fMlrwDLg907FVs0UKkmz2r_7k1Lmyzfo9-yl9vIln5mYunRsYAlWtBT7u3AXigLFaE5TPjavw1UtDzkcIdKKaEMUg/w640-h130/Smon-lam-mtha'-yas-rgya-mtsho,%20Man-ngag%20Zab-mo%20Bdud-kyi%20Gcod-yul.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><b>Appendix 1</b>: The Tibetan text of the passage from <i>Scholars’ Feast</i> in transcription (a few proper names capitalized for emphasis).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">sngar yab mes kyi ring bka' [H dka'] khon byung ba'i rgya hor ljang gsum dang 'thab [H 'thabs] pas rtsang ma tshod [H rtsad ma chod] bsad pas mi ma zad nas blon po KHRI SUM RJE STAG SNAR gyis [H gis] mjal dus [H dum] bgyi bar glengs pas [/] RGYA na re nyi zla gza' skar nga'i thog nas 'char te [H ste] gnam kyi [H gyi] mgo bo nga dbang bas sdum [H sdums] nga'i mdun du bya dgos zer / </span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">HOR na re skar ma smin bdun gnam gyi gzhung phur yin / de'i 'og na nga 'dug ste gnam gyi gzhung nga dbang bas sdum [H omits sdum] nga'i go khar bya dgos zer / </span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">LJANG na re dgu tshigs skya mo gnam gyi gzhung thig yin / de'i 'og na nga 'dug ste gnam gyi gzhung thig nga dbang bas sdum [H sdums] nga'i sar bya dgos zer / </span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">slad nas mjal ba'i dus byas te de res gyes / KHRI SUM RJEs 'phrul bshams te DBYAR MA THANG du tshogs thing shun tu [H du] bcug pa'i thag pa nam mkha' [401] la brkyangs pa [H brkyang ba] la lhang tsher gyi nyi zla gza' skar gyi gzugs btags / thing shun bskyil ba'i 'og tu me bus te rlangs pa na bun du chags par byas / ngang pa gser gyis byugs pa [H pha] rol du khrid nas / nyin mo gnam la skar ma 'char ba'i yul // nyi zla gza' skar dus gcig 'char ba'i yul // lo gsar [H sar] sgang la na bun chags pa'i yul // gangs ri shel gyi mchod rten chags pa'i yul // mi rje lhas mdzad gser bya rol du khrid / khyed thams cad las nga khyad du 'phags pas sdum [H sdums] nga'i mdun du byed dgos zhes [H ces] smras pas lan ma thebs te bod rgyal po'i drung du mjal dum byas skad / </span></i></div><div><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">°</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><b>Appendix 2</b>: The Tibetan text from the <i>Scholars’ Feast</i>, 1986 edition (vol. 1, pp. 400-401), based on BDRC's OCR, but with minor corrections after comparing it with the 1986. This is here for the benefit of those who prefer to read Tibetan in Tibetan script:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">༄༅།། །།སྔར་ཡབ་མེས་ཀྱི་རིང་བཀའ་ཁོན་བྱུང་བའི་རྒྱ་ཧོར་ལྗང་གསུམ་དང་འཐབ་པས་རྩང་མ་ཚོད་བསད་པས་མི་མ་ཟད་ནས་བློན་་པོ་ཁྲི་སུམ་རྗེ་སྟག་སྣར་གྱིས་མཇལ་དུམ་བགྱི་བར་གླེངས་པས་རྒྱ་ན་རེ་ཉི་ཟླ་གཟའ་སྐར་ངའི་ཐོག་ནས་འཆར་ཏེ་གནམ་གྱི་མགོ་བོ་ང་དབང་བས་སྡུམ་ངའི་མདུན་དུ་བྱ་དགོས་ཟེར། ཧོར་ན་རེ་སྐར་མ་སྨིན་བདུན་གནམ་གྱི་གཞུང་ཕུར་ཡིན། དེའི་འོག་ན་ང་འདུག་སྟེ་གནམ་གྱི་གཞུང་ང་དབང་བས་སྡུམ་ངའི་གོ་ཁར་བྱ་དགོས་ཟེར། ལྗང་ན་རེ་དགུ་ཚིགས་སྐྱ་མོ་གནམ་གྱི་གཞུང་ཐིག་ཡིན། དེའི་འོག་ན་ང་འདུག་སྟེ་གནམ་གྱི་གཞུང་ཐིག་ང་དབང་བས་སྡུམ་ངའི་སར་བྱ་དགོས་ཟེར། སླད་ནས་མཇལ་བའི་དུས་བྱས་ཏེ་དེ་རེས་གྱེས། </span></p></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">ཁྲི་སུམ་རྗེས་འཕྲུལ་བཤམས་ཏེ་དབྱར་མ་ཐང་དུ་ཚོགས་ཐིང་ཤུན་ཏུ་བཅུག་པའི་ཐག་པ་ནམ་མཁའ་</span><span style="font-size: large;">ལ་བརྐྱངས་པ་ལ་ལྷང་ཚེར་གྱི་ཉེ་ཟླ་གཟའ་སྐར་གྱི་གཟུགས་བཏགས། ཐིང་ཤུན་བསྐྱིལ་བའི་འོག་ཏུ་མེ་བུས་ཏེ་རླངས་པ་ན་བུན་དུ་ཆགས་པར་བྱས། ངང་པ་གསེར་གྱིས་བྱུགས་པ་རོལ་དུ་ཁྲིད་ནས། ཉིན་མོ་གནམ་ལ་སྐར་མ་འཆར་བའི་ཡུལ། །ཉི་ཟླ་གཟའ་སྐར་དུས་གཅིག་འཆར་བའི་ཡུལ། །ལོ་གསར་སྒང་ལ་ན་བུན་ཆགས་པའི་ཡུལ། །གངས་རི་ཤེལ་གྱི་མཆོད་རྟེན་ཆགས་པའི་ཡུལ། །མི་རྗེ་ལྷས་མཛད་གསེར་བྱ་རོལ་དུ་ཁྲིད། ཁྱེད་ཐམས་ཅད་ལས་ང་ཁྱད་ཏུ་འཕགས་པས་སྡུམ་ངའི་མདུན་དུ་བྱེད་དགོས་ཞེས་སྨྲས་པས་ལན་མ་ཐེབས་ཏེ་བོད་རྒྱལ་པོའི་དྲུང་དུ་མཇལ་དུམ་བྱས་སྐད། </span></span></p></div></blockquote><p> </p><div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">— — —</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">From the <i>Collected Songs of Milarepa</i>, Chapter 3</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">ཉི་ཟླ་ཟུང་གཅིག་བཙོན་དུ་བཟུང་།།</span></p></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">རྒྱུ་སྐར་ཉེར་བརྒྱད་བསྟར་ལ་བརྒྱུས།།</span></p></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">ཁྲིམས་ཀྱིས་གཟའ་བརྒྱད་ལྕགས་སུ་བཅུག།</span></p></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">དགུ་ཚིགས་སྐྱ་མོ་བརྟོད་ལ་མནན།།</span></p></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">སྐར་ཕྲན་ཡོངས་ལ་བུད་ཀྱིས་བཏབ།།*</span></p></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">(*Both its English translators take this as a misreading for <i>bung-gis</i> [‘by mists,’ or ‘in fog’ or in Hoffmann’s German, <i>von Dunste</i>], but I believe it intends an adverbial <i>rbud-kyis</i> that means ‘all at once.’ I see that one version of the text reads <i>sbud-kyis</i>. That each celestial element here has its dark or oppressive side emphasized is explained by the context — Milarepa tries to convey a sense of the inescapable power of the worst storm imaginable.)</span></blockquote></div></blockquote></blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-2371324687790718132023-12-13T18:12:00.014+02:002024-02-14T13:20:17.843+02:00Five Seals of Bon, New Surprises<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5__3d13Z-pw6AvzZBByo93-Yh0nrjTkfbBInVYDU4HdqZqHUmfopp97IqrxXvKTkrW6-MKQ7N_heliBTMlqQ6v5TxZ-HggYgaBlzuiw_GUmdezSP9tNFBFzXoO8tmBhEZYWRL0YxxLZrlkIvZWeuPItQGpyQNcYWBMF6wB_tutWEPkr3BAzaNaA/s640/Five%20Seals%20Illustration%20Menri%20Ms.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="249" data-original-width="640" height="156" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5__3d13Z-pw6AvzZBByo93-Yh0nrjTkfbBInVYDU4HdqZqHUmfopp97IqrxXvKTkrW6-MKQ7N_heliBTMlqQ6v5TxZ-HggYgaBlzuiw_GUmdezSP9tNFBFzXoO8tmBhEZYWRL0YxxLZrlkIvZWeuPItQGpyQNcYWBMF6wB_tutWEPkr3BAzaNaA/w400-h156/Five%20Seals%20Illustration%20Menri%20Ms.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Five Seals symbols at end of Menri Manuscript EAP687/1/39<br />Click to enlarge</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Y</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">ou might remember last May’s posting addressing my mistake in saying that in Tibet the Seven Seals (or in Bon, the Five Seals) are never represented by symbolic figures. If memory is short, go to “</span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2023/08/five-seals-of-bon-but-with-symbolic.html" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">Five Seals of Bon, but with Symbolic Figures This Time</a><span style="text-align: justify;">.” Then come back here.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">As if to drive the point even further and deeper into my earlier error, yet another rather different representation of the Five Seals according to Bon has shown up among the manuscripts digitized at Tibetan Bonpo Monastic Centre or, as it is also known, Menri Monastery.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We’ll just look at the first two lines of the script underneath the symbolic figures, as they supply explanation for what we see there. You see a whole string of five syllables in the 2nd line outside the margins, so you have to wonder if it was there originally. This repeats the syllable that means ‘seal’ five times: </span>རྒྱ་རྒྱ་རྒྱ་རྒྱ་རྒྱ།. </span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">From the manuscript of a work entitled <i>’Od-gsal Sems-kyi Me-long</i>, or <i>Clear Light Mirror of Mind</i>. It forms a part of the orally transmitted Dzogchen teachings from Zhangzhung (</span>ཞང་ཞུང་སྙན་རྒྱུད་<span style="font-family: georgia;">).</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The two lines that serve to label the seal illustration reads like this (forgive me a few tacitly fixed spellings):</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #4c1130;">མི་འགྱུར་གཡུང་དྲུང་ལྗང་ཁུ་རླུང་གི་རྒྱ་།</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #4c1130;">The Seal of Air, green, an unchanging yungdrung.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #4c1130;">འཁོར་ལོ་བསྒྱུར་རྒྱལ་སྔོན་པོ་ཆུའི་རྒྱ་།</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #4c1130;">The Seal of Water, blue, the wheel-turning king.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #4c1130;">པད་མ་དབང་ཆེན་དམར་པོ་མེའི་རྒྱ་།</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #4c1130;">The Seal of Fire, red, the lotus of great power.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #4c1130;">རིན་ཆེན་ནོར་བུ་སེར་པོ་སའི་རྒྱ་།</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #4c1130;">The Seal of Earth, yellow, the precious jewels.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #4c1130;">མི་ནུབ་རྒྱལ་མཚན་དཀར་པོ་ནམ་མཁའི་རྒྱ་།</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #4c1130;">The Seal of Space, white, the victory banner that never declines.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #4c1130;">རྒྱ་ལྔས་མི་འདའ་བཀའི་རྟགས་།། རྒྱ་རྒྱ་རྒྱ་རྒྱ་རྒྱ་།</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #4c1130;">The marks with five seals of the inviolable word: seal seal seal seal seal.</span></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I hope that was clear enough to show that once again, we can and do indeed find in Tibet a set of seals (five rather than seven this time) accompanied by symbolic figures, here we even find color correspondences. The figures are interpreted and named in terms of the five elements of traditional physics. If we were to look into this further, we would see that much of it agrees with symbolism typically found embedded in the hearts of mandalas.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">So before saying farewell for today, I’d like to add one more piece of evidence in case it is needed to argue against the many who are understandably skeptical of my claim that a quite ancient Aramaic expression for “seal” may be found in medieval Tibetan manuscripts simply transcribed. It is for the sake of these doubters that I present a piece of manuscript evidence that necessarily precedes the 1245-ish evidence in the Zhijé manuscript we already supplied (<a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2022/05/one-secret-of-seals.html" target="_blank">here</a>). The following illustration comes from the Matho fragments, taken out of a virtual time capsule closed in around 1200.</span></p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCfNV2-R7gopo7aeziLUQuJfwuUsD3mXYdQY-V9fm3nOFZxlYwv8d7sRRhl85p8MhLFLfD4QcVHR8LHWU_EyKTh9VGq_tWwJ-wFaJX5RxJMbWreOBRG3mWtEzsCiMLUGKiaVha_TijBb5ZIznCsvKb25kLRXI1iwmhzkIxDtuoy4pZQuY6s89NJg/s1991/Pages%20from%20W1BL9-v424.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="936" data-original-width="1991" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCfNV2-R7gopo7aeziLUQuJfwuUsD3mXYdQY-V9fm3nOFZxlYwv8d7sRRhl85p8MhLFLfD4QcVHR8LHWU_EyKTh9VGq_tWwJ-wFaJX5RxJMbWreOBRG3mWtEzsCiMLUGKiaVha_TijBb5ZIznCsvKb25kLRXI1iwmhzkIxDtuoy4pZQuY6s89NJg/w400-h188/Pages%20from%20W1BL9-v424.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Matho fragment "v424."</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Right there in the penultimate line, at the very end of the line, you can read ཁ་ཐམ་མོ་།།, <i>kha-tham-mo</i>. There you have that word <i>kha-tham </i>that goes back to ancient Aramaic, even if what we have here is a little unusual in placing a ‘final stop’ (<i><a href="https://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/ret/pdf/ret_60_12.pdf" target="_blank">slar-bsdu or rdzogs-tshig</a></i>) at the end of it. So far this is the earliest datable manuscript use of this particular sealing expression in a Tibetan work that I know of. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">And it is clearly datable prior to the advent of the Mongols and Tibet’s borrowing of the Mongolian term <i>tamga</i>, in the form of <i>tham-ga </i>(<i>dam-kha</i>, etc.)<i>, </i>a word Turko-Mongolian tribal groups used to mark group identity and ownership using emblems that often look like runes. I think these two Tibetan borrowings, despite their similar meanings and the syllable <i>tham</i> they hold in common do not share the same history. They may both ultimately go back to the same ancient origins at the cusp of Afroeurasia, and I believe this to be the case, but in Tibet the two were borrowed via different languages at different times, and went on to serve different functions. <i>Kha-tham</i>, I would say is the earlier borrowing, pre- rather than post-Mongol advent, just how early and from whom I’m not yet ready to conclude. And <i>kha-tham</i>, unlike <i>tham-ga</i>, is only used in these sealing expressions at the end of a book.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ_JtC2MAKfflf2yxi-0Vob-1vZXM5mQLwJ95z8yAEXeFJUTYlgn3OB38vfgGH-e_L-Q2hE53MxZXqhvFc7d3sZoSmoRWtsz0bFI-APPvGwfYE0wwi6Xj1JMG2JRxHlXU1H-RyVy69TAHLWE43r9WNJTg6LlCYYS4z66N7ZTS56Jn8gqSEMWh8OA/s541/Detail%20from%20W1BL9-v424.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="88" data-original-width="541" height="52" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ_JtC2MAKfflf2yxi-0Vob-1vZXM5mQLwJ95z8yAEXeFJUTYlgn3OB38vfgGH-e_L-Q2hE53MxZXqhvFc7d3sZoSmoRWtsz0bFI-APPvGwfYE0wwi6Xj1JMG2JRxHlXU1H-RyVy69TAHLWE43r9WNJTg6LlCYYS4z66N7ZTS56Jn8gqSEMWh8OA/s320/Detail%20from%20W1BL9-v424.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">°</span></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="color: #b45f06;">Need more to look at?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span>The Matho manuscript fragments, retrieved from chortens near the Matho Monastery in Ladakh, were introduced in some recent blogs. I have it in my mind to do more blogs about them concentrating on their Zhijé and Kagyu content.</span></p><p><span><a href="https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP687" target="_blank">EAP687</a> - Endangered Archives Programme (EAP), British Library, London.</span></p><p><span><a href="https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP687-1-39" target="_blank">EAP687/1/39</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Samten G. Karmay, <i>The Little Luminous Boy</i>, White Orchid Books (Bangkok 1998). Through painted images and brief, often very brief, biographical sketches, this book informs us about the masters who transmitted the Zhangzhung Nyangyü teachings, instructions on the nature of mind of breathtaking beauty and wisdom.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">A.E. Rogozhinsky and D.V. Cheremisin, “The Tamga Signs of the Turkic Nomads in the Altai and Semirechye: Comparisons and Identifications,” <i>Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia</i>, vol. 47, no. 2 (2019), pp. 48-59. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Andras Róna-Tas, “Some Notes on the Terminology of Mongolian Printing,” <i>Acta Orientalia Hungarica</i>, vol. 18, nos. 1-2 (1965), pp. 119-147. Here Tibetan <i>tham-ga</i> is identified as a “late borrowing” from Mongolian. Indeed, it was getting used increasingly over time, with its primary usage being seals used by members of the official bureaucracy. <i>Thel-tse</i> is another word for it.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">°</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">An exchange of ideas that took place in the comments section of Sam's blog <i>Early Tibet</i> back in 2009 is worthwhile going back to, especially because it’s funny. A veritable riot of ideas bouncing back and forth:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://earlytibet.com/2009/02/19/a-tibetan-book-of-spells/">https://earlytibet.com/2009/02/19/a-tibetan-book-of-spells/</a></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">°</span></p><p><b><span style="color: #783f04; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Addendum</span></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">In response to today's blog Lloyd Graham made these much valued remarks, sent via academia.edu messages on December 14, 2023, and placed here with his kind permission:</span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Excellent, thanks Dan!</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The overt colour correspondences interest me as I have previously argued that the colour associated with each of the Seven Seals in the Book of Revelation links that seal to one of the seven classical planets.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #f8f8f8; color: #4b4b4b;">Here's the link: </span></span></p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/440506/The_Seven_Seals_of_Revelation_and_the_Seven_Classical_Planets" style="background: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank" title="https://www.academia.edu/440506/The_Seven_Seals_of_Revelation_and_the_Seven_Classical_Planets">https://www.academia.edu/440506/The_Seven_Seals_of_Revelation_and_the_Seven_Classical_Planets</a></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It seems to me that the two seals at the right of this new set have a lot in common with the corresponding two seals in the previous set that you posted back in August: (1) three tear-shapes or triangles in a pyramid configuration, and (2) a spiral crook ornamented with adjacent leaf-tips or serrations. The swastika appears in both sets, albeit in different positions. The remaining two seals in the new set seem to have no relationship to their counterparts in the earlier one.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The right-most seal is much more coherently and carefully drawn in the new set; the version in the earlier seal set is very crude and looks as if the original has undergone numerous rounds of poor copying to the point where it has become completely cryptic. The next seal along is also reduced from an intricate and cursive leaf-like icon containing three “eyes” in a pyramid configuration to a bare schematic of three triangles in the same configuration. Overall, the seal set that you posted in August could be a much debased form of the one in the Menri manuscript, with symbol degradation (of the two right-most seals), repositioning (of the swastika) and outright substitution (of the remaining two seals).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I see exactly this sort of degradation in representations of the Judeo-Islamic Seven Seals.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">An afterthought. If I’m correct in reading the seals left-to-right, the Menri Ms. identifies one of the fully substituted seals as Water. The stack of three wavy lines at the left of the earlier seal set is similar to the almost universal pictogram for water, of which the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph is a good example:</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AncientEgyptian/comments/mca2ji/random_egyptian_word_water/"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://www.reddit.com/r/AncientEgyptian/comments/mca2ji/random_egyptian_word_water/</span></a></span></blockquote></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">= = =</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #783f04;">A brief reply (Dan, December 19, 2023) </span></b></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">A victory banner ought to look something like this:</p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="150" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQLeKnIf4wZtRM1Zph-h3FTlZS9OU0ue0na9chCRcf7nSWVjtCSL86kjGtdX7_ve4NNpFCGeaLR3eXhHrvkZjiTEp9-MwNpSHSCHTx4hQKi9NmvobFhpjf4bM2XgIW4DVO59uasKYsbNV_T5wFSvXW7PcN58UkvWC_SXafcLTJlQB3hJH6ugfgaQ/w384-h640/Victory_Banner.jpg" width="384" /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/rgyal_mtshan" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Rgyal-mtshan, Victory Banner</span></a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I’ve been looking hard for something like a star or other celestial body in the various series of Tibetan seals, and haven’t found any. Here it appears that all the colors correspond to those commonly associated (in symbolism found in many mandalas) with the five elements. So this seems to set the Tibetan (and Indian Buddhist) evidence of the Seven (or Five) Seals apart from the rest.<p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I wonder why the foliage seems to accompany most of the elements in this new example. It is boxed together with each of the first three seals, but then boxed alone between the 4th and 5th. I suppose I’ll go on being puzzled by this until long after the holidays are over. Shouldn’t some mysteries remain sealed?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">§ § §</span></div><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><br />Postscript (February 14, 2024)</span></h4><div style="text-align: justify;">Now this! I can’t explain how these things keep popping up.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglEAy7kn7PyGGVZ98nfznVy1d4qKdL8rRgXHmw6fuTZvgkARmTRvxT-Eg17J843d4v_IQzu-lkH0sMqMxULVWnSIOKBIGX-kOnqf7Wkbd6iwzc8ldF2iPYMr78YlbxXxAfeAxfwXS-01Nyt29UZnugjeVSs6zqxvxu_QcnRtXvTpUjSxnd9UNNDg/s1420/Drangsong%20v194_Page_05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="1420" height="118" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglEAy7kn7PyGGVZ98nfznVy1d4qKdL8rRgXHmw6fuTZvgkARmTRvxT-Eg17J843d4v_IQzu-lkH0sMqMxULVWnSIOKBIGX-kOnqf7Wkbd6iwzc8ldF2iPYMr78YlbxXxAfeAxfwXS-01Nyt29UZnugjeVSs6zqxvxu_QcnRtXvTpUjSxnd9UNNDg/w400-h118/Drangsong%20v194_Page_05.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAap_x4oPNdWozBn7DJXrlVm0vyEHZj3Gp-_qMzrdbNKBI9klB6KKbSnsmDL0JWxD5yjx_vneRoaYKk4QHRlxeqVJzAPmld4aSUfbOxlu2OT8EFTeVpolZqNK1VP43iliELh1FdwdKr1xgN7KYMnC-aido38tjY6gFrLN9sBXPJ-fYEQch31lebQ/s1420/Drangsong%20v194_Page_06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="419" data-original-width="1420" height="118" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAap_x4oPNdWozBn7DJXrlVm0vyEHZj3Gp-_qMzrdbNKBI9klB6KKbSnsmDL0JWxD5yjx_vneRoaYKk4QHRlxeqVJzAPmld4aSUfbOxlu2OT8EFTeVpolZqNK1VP43iliELh1FdwdKr1xgN7KYMnC-aido38tjY6gFrLN9sBXPJ-fYEQch31lebQ/w400-h118/Drangsong%20v194_Page_06.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I found it as fol. 4 of text no. 194 in the Drangsong Collection in Mustang, Nepal. For more on this collection, look here:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://mustang.uw.edu.pl/?page_id=7455&lang=en">http://mustang.uw.edu.pl/?page_id=7455&lang=en</a></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">You can go here and view the entire text:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://mustang.uw.edu.pl/?page_id=11350&lang=en">http://mustang.uw.edu.pl/?page_id=11350&lang=en</a></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The cursive manuscript doesn't have a front title, although in the margins it does have the short title <i>Rab-gnas</i> meaning <i>Consecration</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To get a better look, just double-click on the photos to expand them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here the Five Seals appear to be growing on trees, like fruits.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I know, I should transcribe and translate the accompanying text. Give me some time and I’ll make the effort.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-49535269348820034642023-12-10T14:08:00.016+02:002023-12-29T20:23:53.409+02:00The Only Terma in the Matho Termas<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZndTiAt7BsYjJCnaP5iUOF9MHCSIWP5ekoOIF8kAEqHP30RlmADEOlShI6XCzhqmx8i5tR6CnjTo3A2itUoISzAgwSUdUf-Gm6PDOjHh04dPTPsTG_EEDsc2l8zwJrBZ8wy77fXpMtEMrHMoBHkMiFS2wrIDrICPnsF1tlkfW4GAEC6L3aU_ZrA" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="671" data-original-width="502" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZndTiAt7BsYjJCnaP5iUOF9MHCSIWP5ekoOIF8kAEqHP30RlmADEOlShI6XCzhqmx8i5tR6CnjTo3A2itUoISzAgwSUdUf-Gm6PDOjHh04dPTPsTG_EEDsc2l8zwJrBZ8wy77fXpMtEMrHMoBHkMiFS2wrIDrICPnsF1tlkfW4GAEC6L3aU_ZrA=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Shrî Seng-ha, after the Gting-skyes edition, vol. 4</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">O</span><span style="font-size: medium;">ne thing that has puzzled me about the 1261 history of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism associated with Scholar Deyu is its nearly complete disinterest in Terma revealers. What makes this even more remarkable is that the anonymous author of this and works related to it had Nyingma lineage connections in addition to Zhijé. Other authors with a great fondness for Nyingma teachings share this trait, most prominently Gö Lotsawa and his <i>Blue Annals</i> of 1478. The most celebrated Tertons of the 12th and 13th centuries, Nyangral and Chöwang, are basically overlooked, even if Gö does mention them as a pair </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>twice,</span><span> succinctly and in passing.</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;">Of course the Nyingma school has more to offer than Termas, including Kama (Bka’-ma) texts believed to have a continual transmission above ground. These Kama texts are the ones championed by both Gö and the anonymous writer of the Long Deyu.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">R</span><span style="font-size: medium;">eading the Deyu history in particular might make us wonder if the influence of Nyangral and Chöwang <i>as Tertons</i> might have been limited, restricted to a relatively small locality. Surely if their Termas had overtaken the whole range of the high Himalayas they would have been impossible to overlook. Another possibility is that the two historians we just mentioned could have distrusted the whole idea of revelation through textual excavations. Not ready to pronounce on this, I do think it worthwhile to consider just how successful the Tertons may or may not have been in popularizing their revelations among the broader public. Was it a problem of credibility, or just that news of them and their revelations hadn’t reached so many ears?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">A</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> veritable time capsule with a closure date around 1200, the Matho discoveries could help us with our historical thinking along such lines as these. Now that we have datable fragments from around a thousand texts representing a large variety of texts of various schools that flourished in Western Tibet in 11th-12th centuries (<a href="https://sites.google.com/site/tiblical/matho-fragments-handlist" target="_blank">for a handlist look here</a>) available for study, we should be able to gauge quite a number of things, among them the influence of Termas (specific ones as well as their related cultural traditions). But after leafing through all the scans of Matho fragments, only one Terma was in evidence. So we will have to content ourselves by looking at that one Terma alone. Then we might see if this very small sampling can tell us anything about the developing Terma tradition and its <i>reach</i>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The set of scans labelled vol. 369, like so many of the Matho texts, is in booklet form, with simple signatures joining very wide and narrow leaves folded over at the middle and stitched at the folds. Despite their booklet formats there can be some disorder as folios may have broken at the fold and separated from the booklet, or pages may have simply gotten mixed in with the booklet pages for no good reason. It isn’t always easy to be sure of such things from scans, and I will try not to burden you with codicological refinements. Have a look at this sample (click to enlarge).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi6lKcSmqw6RqqvDH1qMC0H1saDTnZQsE8V-5Cqts6VWE5SecRofANZ9fwGPi0x18XJE97mF4uqgB8IC4lkH0ZXd0zY6N-ngfiV-WWq5wvjTi0AwwTgm2ebuEKl-dH9gEHOIEvlpgFygu_VAZABxIMnQUgt2Eem5hZT03Zepc3kfeYW1sdPPYqVZg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="677" data-original-width="1600" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi6lKcSmqw6RqqvDH1qMC0H1saDTnZQsE8V-5Cqts6VWE5SecRofANZ9fwGPi0x18XJE97mF4uqgB8IC4lkH0ZXd0zY6N-ngfiV-WWq5wvjTi0AwwTgm2ebuEKl-dH9gEHOIEvlpgFygu_VAZABxIMnQUgt2Eem5hZT03Zepc3kfeYW1sdPPYqVZg=w400-h169" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Scan 13 of v369 of BDRC W1BL9<br /><br /></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The specific folios that most interest us are scan nos. 11-14 of vol. 369, in other words, two leaves only, that appear to have never belonged to the rest. The condition of the leaves, their size, and style of writing etc. are markedly different. Also the subject matter contrasts dramatically. While the booklet as a whole is about fierce protector magic, the leaves in question are about Buddhist philosophy with much mention of Madhyamaka (here called U-ma rather than the expected spelling Dbu-ma) using specialized terms of philosophical logic and debate like <i><a href="https://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/chos_can" target="_blank">chos-can</a></i>. I notice, too, it uses some odd terminology like <i>'dod-tog </i>(used quite a bit in Matho v425, another logico-philosophical fragment, but I can’t tell you what it means; I’m guessing it may be a short form of ’<i>dod-pa’i rtog-pa </i>or the like).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Instead of getting invested in logico-epistemological metaphysics, as intellectually engrossing as that could be, let’s leave it aside and dive directly into that colophon. I’ll just type it out in Wylie (marking persons in <span style="color: #2b00fe;">blue</span> and places <span style="color: #38761d;">green</span>), then write my own comments about each section of it without necessarily translating every detail, and finally say why I think it might cause us to rethink or imagine how we might change our views about the early history of Tibetan Terma traditions.</span></p><p></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;">'di ni chos kyi [insert?] gnya' non yin te / gnyis la myi spel / cig las rgyun myi gcad do // gdam ngag 'di ni <span style="color: #2b00fe;">shi ri sing nga</span>s / <span style="color: #2b00fe;">be ro tsa na</span> la bshad / des <span style="color: #2b00fe;">g.yu' sgra bsnyel mo</span> la bshad / des <span style="color: #38761d;">bum thang rtsi lung gi lha khang</span> gi gter du sbas so //</blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Let me translate this very important part because it tells us who concealed it. For a change the concealer was neither Padmasambhava nor his consort Yeshe Tsogyal: </span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;">“This is a heavy dharmic yoke. It will not be propounded to two, through one its continuity will be ensured. These precepts were taught by Śrīsiṃha to Vairocana, and the latter taught them to Yudra Nyelmo, while the latter hid them as Treasure (Gter) of the Bumtang Tsilung Temple.” </p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Śrīsiṃha is a name well known to every student of Dzogchen in the Nyingma school. It may well be that despite his Sanskritic name he was a Central Asian, or more specifically a Sogdian, and more closely associated with China than with India. In those days there was a Sogdian expat community in the capital city Chang-an (Xi’an). This all requires sorting out. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The traditional story about how the Tibetan monk Vairocana went to India to find Atiyoga teaching accompanied by a single traveling companion has been subject of an earlier blog dubbed “Kashgar Tiger.” </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The normal way to spell the name of Vairocana’s disciple is G.yu-sgra Snying-po. It may well be that the spelling we have here, given that it looks quite odd, would be a genuine old spelling. The name of a Minister G.yu-sgra does occur in a Dunhuang text, and I do think they are likely to be one and the same person. Vairocana himself grew up among members of the imperial court as his father fulfilled ambassadorial functions (see the “Kashgar Tiger” blog). The name element Bsnyel-mo I suppose might be a nickname he received for being forgetful, sickly or lazy, but more likely it associates him with a clan or place name (Snyel-’or is known as an early clan name associated with western Tibet), although nothing in this is sure. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It says the temple where it was concealed was Bum-thang Rtsi-lung, and the only other reference I could immediately find was to a place called Bum-thang Rtsis-lung, a place Kongtrul’s Terton history associates with the text discoveries of Bonpo Dragtsal.* The last part of this Terton’s name, Dragtsal, means Rocky Grove, while the first part leaves no doubt he was a Bonpo, at least by birth.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><blockquote><span><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*Other even more important references to Bum-thang Rtsi-lung may be found in Sørensen’s book, p. 275, end of note 856.)</span></span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now let’s see what our colophon says about the revealer of our text.</span></p><p></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">de nas <span style="color: #2b00fe;">mye nag kha so ba</span>s ’phra’ dang bton no //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">des <span style="color: #2b00fe;">gnyan bston shes rab rdo rje</span> la bshad do //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">des sras <span style="color: #2b00fe;">bla ma nyi khri ’bar</span> la bshad do //</span></p></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The first line says the one who encountered (<i>'phrad</i>?) and extracted (<i>bton</i>) it was the Tangut Khasowa. He instructed Gnyan-ston Shes-rab-rdo-rje in it, while the latter instructed his son, the Lama Nyi-khri-’bar (‘Blazing like Ten Thousand Suns’?). </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As this tells us the earliest history of the text as it was being excavated and immediately afterwards, it is especially significant. So it will be disappointing if we can’t identify the revealer precisely. Mye-nyag and Me-nyag are common spellings for Mi-nyag, in earlier times definitely a name for Tanguts, even if as an ethnonym it could have been appropriated by non-Tanguts later on (I suppose), although there was an awareness that the Tangut royal family took refuge in Tibet where they left a lot of descendants. In 1200, the Tangut Kingdom was still thriving far up beyond the northeastern quadrant of the Plateau, not knowing its population would face annihilation by a Mongol army. True, a man from there would have had a long way to go to reach Bumtang in Bhutan in its southeastern quadrant. I wish I could tell you more about him as well as the 3rd person, Nyi-khri-’bar, beyond just saying how his name more likely means ‘Blazing Light of the <i>2[5],000 [Verse Perfection of Wisdom]</i>.’</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Since the first and 3rd are so mysterious, it is the 2nd one that warrants our attention all the more. Gnyan-ston Shes-rab-rdo-rje is a wellknown figure to people who have spent their lives together with Bon scriptures, but I dare to say no one else. There are various formations of his name that include Gnyan-’theng, Gnyan-mthing, and Gnyan-ston Shes-rab-seng-ge. Bonpos attribute to him the set of <i>Twenty-One Minor Sûtras</i> along with one or two of the <i>Khams-brgyad</i> scriptures of Bon. For a good source on his life, in English, see S.G. Karmay’s <i>Treasury</i> <i>of Good Sayings</i>, pp. 153-4. This tells us his Shel-brag-ma treasure* cache was opened in 1067 CE. A shepherd with a broken foot in search of a lost lamb, he happened to see a light shining through a crack that led him into the cave where the treasures were found. This does make him sound like a naive person who simply stumbled over texts, not a student of a Tangut teacher, but it’s likely we have this all wrong and he wasn’t just a <i>simple</i> shepherd after all. I would love to learn about a longer (and older) source on his life. It is said his teaching didn’t immediately spread, this happened only two generations later.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">(*The name of the cache comes from Shel-brag, a place in the higher parts of Nyang Valley in Gtsang Province. Perhaps the best biographical source I know of is a 2-page sketch in the modern Bon history by Dpal-tshul, since Karmay's English is available and enough for present purposes. Both sources are recent, but nobody has thought of searching out earlier ones so we will have to wait on it.)</span></blockquote><p></p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Meanwhile, with a sense of duty and the feeling it may lead us somewhere, let’s go through the remainder of the colophon with its lengthy discussions of the variant lineages full of interesting names that may be found of significance for us.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;">yang khungs cig la / <span style="color: #2b00fe;">shi ri sing nga</span>s / <span style="color: #2b00fe;">be ro tsa na</span> la / des <span style="color: #2b00fe;">khri srong lde brtsan</span> la / btsad pos <span style="color: #38761d;">yar lung bang s[o]'i khrod</span> du gter du sbas pa / <span style="color: #2b00fe;">sngegs shes rab dpal</span> [?] (scan p. no. 14) gyis rnyed / des <span style="color: #2b00fe;">gnyan shes rab rdo rje</span> la bshad / des khong rang gi sras <span style="color: #2b00fe;">bla ma nyi khri 'bar</span> la bshad / des <span style="color: #2b00fe;">bla ma rje</span> la bshad / des <span style="color: #2b00fe;">shes rab go cha</span> la bshad/ des <span style="color: #2b00fe;">'byung gnas glog ros</span> la bshad / des <span style="color: #2b00fe;">bla ma skyid rtsil</span> <span style="color: #2b00fe;">[??] gyi li ston</span> la bshad / des <span style="color: #2b00fe;">stag shar bsgom chen</span> la bshad / des <span style="color: #2b00fe;">shwa ra'i mkhan po</span> la bshad / dam pa'i mkhan pos dngos la gnang ba'o //</p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This paragraph supplies an alternative source for the lineage that surprisingly has the Tibetan Emperor Trisongdetsen concealing the text at the site of the royal tombs in Yarlung Valley, and identifies the one who received them as Sngegs Shes-rab-dpal. So we have an alternative Terton, an alternative Treasure site, as well as an alternative concealer here. Sngegs taught it to Gnyan Shes-rab-rdo-rje who then passed it on to his son Nyi-khri-’bar (here matching what we already heard). Then there are six more lineage holders named ending with the seventh, <i>dngos</i> meaning ‘myself,’ a disciple of the Abbot of Shwa-ra. None of these last listed names ring any bells with me, so I won't belabour the questions. I do imagine that one of the names 'Byung-gnas-glog-ros, is odd enough it may have to do with another oddly named figure, likely an Uighur Turk, named Glog-gi-’byung-gnas (see the Deyu translation, note 3073 on p. 784), but the dates don’t come to our aid.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Here again, our Bonpo Terton received the same teachings from a different treasure revealer. We ought to see if we can find out who this Sngegs Shes-rab-dpal might be. To my regret, I can come up with nothing definite about him. Sngegs is a family name often mentioned in Old Tibetan sources with the spelling Rngegs. Matho fragment v105 mentions another member of the Sngegs clan.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now we move on to the final paragraph of the colophon, in which the colophon writer identifies himself, even tells us the name of his own disciple. However, it has nothing to add about the Terton so perhaps it isn’t all that significant for us. It does tell us a later segment of the lineage, and one that can’t simply be slotted into the ones already supplied:</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;">yang bla ma <span style="color: #2b00fe;">'gos ston</span> gyis <span style="color: #2b00fe;">slob dpon khyung ston</span> la bshad / slob dpon khyung ston gyis / <span style="color: #2b00fe;">bla ma skar ma</span> la yang gsan / slob dpon khyung ston kyis / slob dpon <span style="color: #2b00fe;">zhang btsun</span> la gnang / slob dpon zhang btsun gyis dngos <span style="color: #2b00fe;">dge' slong pad ma bzang po</span> la gnang / bdag gis <span style="color: #2b00fe;">chos nyid rdo rje</span> la rgyud... (final words perhaps missing).</p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now we can know the penultimate recipient of the lineages, and the author of the lineage accounts, is a person named Padma-bzang-po. Not at all a common name form, yet he cannot be identical to the Great Abbot Padma-bzang-po mentioned in <i>Blue Annals</i>, p. 412, he and all the persons with this moniker findable in BDRC are much too late to consider. Nobody else is immediately identifiable, although I suppose the Khyung-ston listed here would be the one BDRC (Person RID P3836) lists as Lho-pa Khyung-ston Grags, 11th century. He is actually credited with finding Atiyoga Terma texts himself, the most famous one being found in the Vairocana collection (at vol. 4, pp. 159-190), where he is called Khyung-grags from Lho-brag.*</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*Not to get too involved at the moment, I am still eager to say that this most famous Terma of Khyung-grags is none other than the <i>Golden Tortoise</i> (<i>Gser-gyi Rus-sbal</i>) closely studied in both Bon and Chos versions by Samten G. Karmay in his most-cited book. If you are interested, I highly recommend that you read what Karmay has to say about the Termas of the one he calls Ye-shes-khyung-grags.)</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So, let’s try and make plain the situation we have here. The very same source written by Padma-bzang-po supplies us with two different scenarios for the concealment and excavation of the Treasure text. Neither has Gnyan-ston, known to us as a Bon Terton, doing the actual excavation work. No, he received the Terma from someone else, either Mye-nag Kha-so-ba or Sngegs Shes-rab-dpal. The concealers are different, too, either G.yu-sgra or the Emperor Trisongdetsen. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the sketch of Gnyan-ston’s life told by Dpal-tshul in his recently written monumental Bon history, the concealer is Lde-bon Gyim-tsha. It is Gnyan-ston himself who acts as the Terton excavator; the cave was packed full of texts, but the copyist was unwilling, so all trace of the treasure door was erased and most of the books were never released to the world. Some were transformed into Chos texts by the scribe already, and for this bad deed he died of leprosy and the propagation of the Treasure teachings was temporarily incapacitated. Although Dpal-tshul says there had been minor transmissions in Tibet from east to west, it was only in the time of Bru-rje (i.e., in the mid-13th century) that the lineage he knows about got its start. He does name the immediate disciple of Gnyan-ston as Ra-ston G.yung-drung-’od-zer, and not the Nyi-khri-’bar we met with before.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So it may be that the text before us was in fact passed on by an entirely Nyingma Terton and then transmitted in a Nyingma lineage, and all it has to do with Bon is that a person otherwise remembered as a Bon Terton was second in line, receiving it directly from its Terton. Then, in an unrelated (?) event, that same Bon Terton’s texts, texts that were thoroughly Bon when he found them, were in some part repackaged as Chos.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But there is one further question that can be no longer avoided, What about the text our fragment apparently belongs to? A quick look at it told us it was very strongly philosophical in nature, so I emailed G.H. and asked him if any such text was associated with the name of Śrīsiṃha. He immediately pointed me toward a text entitled <i>Resolving What it Means to Open the Doorbolt of the Heart</i>, or more shortly, <i>Heart’s Doorbolt</i>, the metaphorical “doorbolt” in this case is one locking an equally metaphorical (?) <i>treasury</i> (<i>gter</i>). Its ten chapters can be quite philosophical in tone it is true, but it acts primarily as a guide to the Nine Vehicles idea using characteristically Nyingma terminology. Not perceiving this in the Matho fragment, I redoubled my efforts to locate one of its parallels elsewhere by spelling things a little differently and so on in BDRC search mode until at last I landed on a phrase match that surprised me a lot, so much it led me on a veritable wild goose chase that in the end left nothing on the dinner table.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Therein lies yet another puzzle, if this text, meant to be a well rounded survey of philosophico-doctrinal systems, was initially taught by Śrīsiṃha to Vairocana then we would inevitably expect it to be about Mind Class Dzogchen, or at least include a survey of the Nine Vehicles that would culminate in Atiyoga, very much like the <i>Doorbolt</i> does. But nothing like that is evident in it. Once again we are on the receiving end of a curve ball and we’re left standing in the batter’s box wondering what just happened. But hey, the game isn’t over yet.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A significant piece of certainty collapsed when I realized that these “two folios” (four scan pages) of ours are actually an example of “one folio folded at the middle” I mentioned before. It fell out of the booklet it once belonged to, then got mistakenly inserted into another booklet. That means we have to rethink the relation between scan nos. 11-12 and 13-14. I had previously imagined I could read the text continuously without break in a way that seemed intelligible, but now I see that it just doesn’t work. The booklet the double folio fell out of could have contained a variety of texts with different titles and colophons. To follow my new certainty, 11-12 and 13-14 don’t need to belong to the same text, could well belong to two different ones. So the philosophical text’s only connection to the colophon is that they both once formed part of the same booklet (sharing the same scribe); [1] the logico-philosophical discussion and [2] the “<i>precepts</i>” (<i>gdams-ngag</i>, here likely meaning meditative guidance for Dzogchen practice) are separate matters pertaining to separate texts. The colophon we spent so much time investigating belongs to a text that isn’t visible to us. That could make it impossible to identify.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">If there is a significant historical point we can take away from this, it’s that Nyingma and Bon Tertons were often crossing paths, cooperating with each other, exchanging teachings and texts, and even — in cases that require more study — apparently working for both teams. This most of us who have spent time in the field already know, but the content of this colophon, our earliest <i>datable manuscript</i> evidence of Nyingma Terton activity, helps us make the following statement more confidently. We cannot study the history of Nyingma Terma practices without also studying the Bon side of things.</li></ul><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I won’t suggest that this Matho text is just a small <i>contribution</i> to early Terma manuscript study. In some very real sense it might be taken as a beginning point. Beginnings often take place within realms of confusion, and our human mind is never satisfied to remain in such indeterminate states for long. Errors, even errors within errors, are the true concealers and it is through them, and our seeing through them, that we must of necessity find our way to approach truth. Meanwhile, if we take a wrong turn, we have to go back and start on a different foot in a different direction. I confess that I haven’t been able to divine a clear path towards resolving all of our problems, but I do have hope, and all my hope is in you.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">° ° °</span></p><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #b45f06;">Web resources</span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;">“<a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2012/10/kashgar-tiger.html" target="_blank">Kashgar Tiger</a>” posted at Tibetologic blog on October 30, 2012)=.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">“<a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2019/09/locating-terton-prayer-in-terma-history.html">Locating a Tertön Prayer in Terma History</a>” posted at Tibeto-logic blog on September 29, 2019.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/tiblical/matho-fragments-handlist" target="_blank">Matho Fragments Handlist</a>. Go here if you are curious about other fragments found in the Matho manuscript cache:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">https://sites.google.com/site/tiblical/matho-fragments-handlist</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/tiblical/tert%C3%B6n-prayer-of-16th-century" target="_blank">Tertön Prayer of 16th Century</a>: </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">https://sites.google.com/site/tiblical/tertön-prayer-of-16th-century</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">Tibetan Proper Name Index, or <a href="https://sites.google.com/view/tibetosophy/home" target="_blank">TPNI</a>: </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">https://sites.google.com/view/tibetosophy/home</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #b45f06;">Print literature</span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;">Jean-Luc <b>Achard</b>, “Le Tantra des Vingt-Deux Perles de l'Esprit de Parfaite Pureté : un exemple d'intertextualité entre les traditions Bon po et rNying ma pa,” contained in: <i>Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie</i>, vol. 15 (2005), pp. 59-106. This concerns a particular Nyingma tantra with clear Bon parallels, <i>Byang-chub-sems Thig-pa Nyi-shu-rtsa-gnyis-pa'i Rgyud</i>, the first text in a section in the 4th volume of the Vairocana collection (running from pp. 244 through 279), that includes most of the Dzogchen texts mentioned in this blog. It proves the Bon version of that just-mentioned work was the basis for the Nyingma. Perhaps I don’t need to say it, but I believe all of the small texts in that small section of the Vairocana collection will prove relevant for Dzogchen Terma studies.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Anne-Marie <b>Blondeau</b>, “Le ‘découvreur’ du <i>Maṇi bka'-'bum</i> était-il Bon-po?” contained in: Louis Ligeti, ed., <i>Tibetan and Buddhist Studies Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Alexander Csoma de Kőrös</i>, Munshiram Manoharlal (Delhi 2000, reprint of the 1984), vol. 1, pp. 77-123. Particularly relevant are the pages on the <i>Golden Tortoise</i> and Ye-shes-khyung-grags on pp. 111-114, but there is much to learn here about how Tertons and Termas were in various manners shared between Bon and Chos.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Dpal-tshul</b> (=Dpal-ldan-tshul-khrims), <i>G.yung-drung Bon-gyi Bstan-'byung</i>, Tibetan Bonpo Monastic Centre (Dolanji 1972), vol. 2, pp. 199-201. This has the biographical sketch of Gnyan-ston, the Bonpo Terton we find in the Matho fragment as the recipient the Nyingma Terma lineage.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Samten G. <b>Karmay</b>, <i>The Great Perfection: A Philosophical and Meditative Teaching of Tibetan Buddhism</i>, E.J. Brill (Leiden 1988); and also the 2nd edition, E.J. Brill (Leiden 2007), pp. 220-223. Just read these pages concerning the Terma of Ye-shes-khyung-grags and tell me if you don’t think things are getting a lot more interesting in terms of Bon and Chos Terma interrelations of the pre-Mongol era.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Dan <b>Martin</b>, tr., <i>A History of Buddhism in India and Tibet: An Expanded Version of the Dharma’s Origins Made by the Learned Scholar Deyu</i>, The Library of Tibetan Classics series no. 32, Wisdom Publications (Somerville 2022), in 952 pages. The actual author of this 1261 history is unidentified, although the text is conventionally attributed to the Scholar Deyu (Mkhas-pa Lde’u), in actuality one of several names of the author of the verse "root text" only, not the work as a whole. To make our lives easier, I call this the Long Deyu, as there are two shorter and earlier ones.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Robert <b>Mayer</b>, “<a href="https://blogs.orient.ox.ac.uk/kila/2012/07/11/did-vairocana-have-lice/" target="_blank">Did Vairocana Have Lice</a>?” Blog posted at Kila Kilaya dated July 11, 2012.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Robert Mayer, “Indian <i>nidhi, </i>Tibetan <i>gter ma</i>, Guru Chos dbang, and a <i>Kriyātantra</i> on Treasure Doors: Rethinking Treasure (Part Two),” <i>Revue d'Etudes Tibétaines</i>, vol. 64 (July 2022), pp. 368-446. Much recommended as the latest word on Terma. Whole books are expected to reveal themselves before long.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Robert Mayer, “Rethinking Treasure (Part One),” <i>Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines</i>, vol. 52 (October 2019), pp. 119-184.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Per <b>Sørensen</b>, <i>Tibetan Buddhist Historiography: The Mirror Illuminating the Royal Genealogies: An Annotated Translation of the XIVth Century Tibetan Chronicle: rGyal-rabs gsal-ba’i me-long</i>, Harrassowitz Verlag (Wiesbaden 1994).</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Vairocana</b>,<i> Man-ngag Rig-pa Klong-rdzogs-kyis Rgyud</i>, contained in: <i>The Rgyud-’bum of Vairocana: A Collection of Ancient Tantras and Esoteric Instru</i><i>ctions Compiled and Translated by the Eighth Century Tibetan Master</i>, "reproduced from the rare manuscript belonging to the Venerable Tokden Rimpoche of Gangon<i>,”</i> Tashi Y. Tashigangpa (Leh 1971), vol. 4, pp. 274-279. I list this here just because it is a visionary text associated with Vairocana where we find, near the end, <i>cig la mi snub gnyis la mi spel te</i>, words that closely echo our Matho fragment, <i>gnyis la myi spel / cig las rgyun myi gcad do</i>. I located it by searching THlib, and you can even see the scanned pages if you go here: https://www.thlib.org/encyclopedias/literary/canons/ngb/catalog.php#cat=bg/0100. Searching the much larger database of BDRC turns up nothing of significance, odd but true.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Jim <b>Valby</b>, “rDzogs chen Ati Yoga Teachings of Master Śrī Siṃha,” contained in: Donatella Rossi and Charles Jamyang Oliphant of Rossie, eds., <i>Sharro: Festschrift for Chögyal Namkhai Norbu</i>, Garuda Books (Switzerland 2016), pp. 311-318. Includes an annotated translation of a Dzogchen composition entitled <i>'Khor-ba Rtsad-nas Gcod-pa Bdud-rtsi Dri-med-kyi Man-ngag. </i>See the Coda, but no, this brief four-part work is not the same text mentioned there, although its title is similar. I recently received from Ratna a link to <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20201024034639/https://sites.google.com/site/jimvalbythings/" target="_blank">an archived page where you can get an idea of the enormous amount of work Jim Valby has done on the Dzogchen tantras</a>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #b45f06;">Coda</span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;">There is yet another Dzogchen tantra represented in the Matho, apart from the <i>All Making King</i>, subject of our previous blog. The Matho scan set called "v146" is one single folio, but it does contain a Chapter Five chapter colophon that includes within it the title of the main text: <i>Rdzogs-pa-chen-po [']Khor-ba Rtsa-nas Gcod-pa[?] 'i Rgyud</i>. Read it as <i>'Khor-ba Rtsad-nas Gcod-pa</i>, and you have the name, or part of the name, of a number of Dzogchen tantras available to us today in various sets of Nyingma tantras.* </p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">(*As I discovered from looking at <a href="http://www.rkts.org/handlist.php?id=Ma4" target="_blank">this rKTs page</a>, Matho fragment v41 seems to be from one of those similar titles: <i>Rdzogs-pa-chen-po 'Khor-ba Rtsad-nas Gcod-pa Chos-sku Skye-med Rig-pa'i Rgyud, </i>but to judge from a published version, this tantra ought to have 23 or 24 chapters.)</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Oh my, searching within thlib.org, the site from Virginia, you can find <a href="https://www.thlib.org/encyclopedias/literary/canons/ngb/catalog.php#cat=ngb/pt/0018/text/v001p664" target="_blank">the very same Chapter Five colophon</a>, and the surrounding text looks quite, if not quite exactly, the same. It isn’t a very long text, and if you want to be more sure it’s the same one we're talking about — I mean without being confused by all the similar titles — it has seven chapters altogether.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">There are even more Nyingma Dzogchen fragments, not a great quantity, but they can be found: no. v189 has on its scan p. no. 3 a title in a chapter colophon that reveals the title of the entire tantra: <i>Rdzogs-pa-chen-po Lta-ba’i Yang-snying Nam-ka Klong-yangs-kyi Rgyud</i>. That ought to be the first text in vol. 8 of the Vairocana collection. No. v303 is a praise to a Dzogchen master with a lot of names in it, maybe we should blog about that sometime.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In general, if we expand our search, not just for Dzogchen, but for Nyingma texts in general, they are quite well represented here, particularly if we were to take all the Phurpa texts to be Nyingma, a move that may not be entirely justifiable. I’d like to say that the Nyingma may be the <i>most</i> well represented sectarian grouping in Matho, while coming in 2nd would be the Zhijé, the Kagyu in 3rd place. A couple of Kadampa-associated texts (v254 in particular, but v89 and v349, too) make me wonder whether it might be in 3rd or rather 4th place? I suppose 4th. Now I’m thinking I’ll go look at the Zhijé texts. If you knew me you would know that to me they are the most fascinating of all.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">Criticism</span></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I asked our good friend Jean-Luc what he thought, and he kindly sent me a amazingly helpful criticism in return. I think I am ready to accept every point he makes, so I will just let him speak for himself by quoting from his email of December 13, 2023:</p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">Regarding the passage you quote on the blog, I don’t know why but I keep reading “ ’<i>di ni chos kyi (sku) gnya’ gnon yin te/</i>” with <i>gnya’ gnon</i> meaning <i>valaya</i> = circular collar (<i>The Outer Wheel of Time</i>, p. 547). In this case, I would see it as implying something like a very valuable ornament, the teachings transmitted by Sri Singha being like an ornament of the dharmakaya. Or maybe, it’s just the fever…😊</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>gnyis la myi spel</i> sounds like an imperative tense, sounding like: “Do not spread it to two (disciples at a time)!”</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>cig las rgyun mi gcad do</i>: “its flow should not be broken to more than one” ==> “Do not spread its flow (of transmission) to more than one (disciple)!”</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I guess this is the same meaning as yours. This is the idea of a single transmission (<i>gcig brgyud</i>).</p><p style="text-align: justify;">As to the Bum-thang rTsi-lung, it is in the <i>Chos ’byung me tog snying po</i> (p. 353) and styled as a place where the Sems-phyogs texts were hidden: “<i>bum thang rtsi lungs su sems phyogs thams cad sbas/</i>”. And as you know, it’s in the <i>lDe’u chos ’byung</i>, described as a temple built to subjugate the Monpas…</p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-11383700332105332962023-12-01T12:24:00.011+02:002024-01-09T15:53:16.426+02:00The All Making King’s Earliest Fragment<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiGWc-6D7snoFRNfhSnGPkT22sg-fnjclNbuhnLKfia8-SmhsaYG6Lp-2gFVPrfV1si4l0Ieldz5_sDGE2AjYiWcDTUOJ-D2JbNOf6ijxE-aBvuwP-EIcute2jeOoBmR3h-d7LTMmKp-Nzkt-HbxigUMvIHIQ8InYJ-t9qsKW5MD5oeGLy2azVQA" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1364" data-original-width="1736" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiGWc-6D7snoFRNfhSnGPkT22sg-fnjclNbuhnLKfia8-SmhsaYG6Lp-2gFVPrfV1si4l0Ieldz5_sDGE2AjYiWcDTUOJ-D2JbNOf6ijxE-aBvuwP-EIcute2jeOoBmR3h-d7LTMmKp-Nzkt-HbxigUMvIHIQ8InYJ-t9qsKW5MD5oeGLy2azVQA=w400-h315" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Scanned leaf from Matho, BDRC no. W1BL9, vol. 405 (click to enlarge)</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">ཀུན་བྱེད་རྒྱལ་པོ་<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">, the All Making King, is difficult to talk about. Let’s start with the end of his name. As you may notice, if not right away later on, his gender identity and preferred pronoun can be an issue, although we’ll follow the grammatical clue of the final syllable and use <i>him</i>. The word <i>king</i> might seem to lend him a governing or ruling function, just that his kingdoms and governments tend to dissolve away. He may look like a creator god, a highly intriguing point for followers of monotheistic creationism,* although some may need reminding we’re not in the Middle East exactly, and All Making is an epithet of the Hindu (and yes, sometimes showing up among Buddhists) god Brahma. In Hindu religious contexts less a creator than a re-creator, he has a quite different image in Buddhist accounts of what does indeed look like <i>creation</i>. But creation of what by what from what? is the question we ought to be asking.</span></div><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*I can tell you, but only in a footnote, that this thoroughly Buddhist text puts forward the carrot of creationism only to pull the rug out from under the feet of foundationalism. For more on the issue of creationism in Bon, Buddhism and Tibetan myth, see Martin and even better, Reynolds.)</span></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Have you ever found yourself in the deep of the night veering in and out of sleep when suddenly it occurs to you that you’ve been ignoring or denying some deeper need, and that life as you have been living it is not as it should be, maybe even naught but a superficial unfulfilling sham? Did the message ever come to you in a direct way, as if a pipe were conveying the sound directly from your heart into your ear canal loud and clear as day? </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I’m trying to convey a taste of what it’s like to engage in a slow contemplative reading of the <i>All Making King</i>. You could say it’s a work of soaring poetic beauty. That it is, without the least doubt, but the syntax often doesn’t make its case immediately, it forces you to concentrate more deeply until its elements either do or do not fall in place and make clear sense. It can be at times as if your own mind were informing itself about itself, and really, that’s the whole point. Does that strike you as totally perplexing or impossible?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Needless to say this makes translation that can reproduce the experience difficult. Today I won’t even try, I’ll just refer you to English translations that have been done already (readers of Tibetan can get a taste of it in the text transcription, appended below). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Anyway, let me tell you about an amazing find in the old Chortens of Matho in Ladakh. Some years back a Rinpoche of the Sakya school ordered a group of Chortens taken down. In the process a large number of old manuscript fragments were revealed. I’ll have more to say about it in upcoming blogs, just to point out that this represents a manuscript cache from early times quite comparable in significance to the Dunhuang manuscript cache of still earlier times. The Matho texts all seem to date prior to the time the Chortens would have been closed, around the year 1200 CE (a few decades later is a possibility that might be considered, but no later than that; Helmut Tauscher has written about the dating, and what he says is surely correct). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Only two damaged leaves of the <i>All Making King</i> are there. There is no title or colophon present, and nothing better for identifying what it is than the name of the All Making King right there in the first surviving line, as you might see in our frontispiece. Using 21st-century digital search capacities, it was a simple matter to assign the first leaf to Chapter 17, and the second leaf we can see contains significant parts of Chapters 15-16 (and what looks like it ought to be the very beginning of Chapter 17).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So let me underline the significance of this manuscript treasure finding. I believe that with only one very small exception, this is the oldest textual testimony for the words of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">All Making King</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">. The only thing that tends to spoil this conceit is the presence of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Cuckoo of Awareness</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> among the Dunhuang documents (see Dalton's entry listed below). Why? Because the </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Cuckoo of Awareness</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, extremely brief as it is, is one of the five </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Earliest Translated</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Atiyoga Mind Class texts that were somehow absorbed into the increasingly voluminous </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">All Making King </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">(see Derbac).</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">How is it useful for Dzogchen studies to have this early example of the text? Well, for one thing it can help us understand how the Mind Class scriptures may have been welded and melded together over time. This has been made an issue in a number of recent academic studies. Here we present a further example from our Matho fragment: In the 2nd leaf (</span><i style="font-family: georgia;">verso</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, line 3) you can see a dividing mark in the form of a double staff with two dots in the middle. It is at this point that the Gting-skyes edition of the <i>Old Tantra Collection</i> ends its Chapter Fifteen. The Matho text has no indication of chapter division, no mention of a fifteenth chapter. It does continue on with the content of the 16th chapter, but minus the three introductory lines reminding us that it is a dialogue with Sems-dpa’-rdo-rje (Sattvavajra?). Future students of Dzogchen manuscriptology will need to continue this work of comparison, as there are other surprising textual differences (an important hint they may find useful: Just reverse the order of the two scans, placing the 2nd folio before the 1st, then go to work. Don’t do it backwards as I did).</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">To sum up this one text-critical point in order to finally put this up on the web. Like the other Matho manuscripts it surely dates before 1200 CE. The earlier limit may not be all that clear, but I’d guesstimate as old or even older than 1000 CE (it is, after all a fragment of a booklet that may have required time to fall into pieces and eventually get placed in the Chorten at its consecration). It appears that the </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">All Making King</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> scripture found in Matho didn’t yet have chapter divisions, and that chapter endings with their chapter ending titles and introductions may have been composed later on. Really and truly, I see no problem in making text-critical observations so long as they don’t pretend to erase the poetry along with the experiential realizations the poetry was created to convey, regardless of any chapter divisions.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: left;"><h4 style="font-family: "Gandhari Unicode"; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPGNY1x1ehD9a0gZXz19lddZ429SYbGDVux24GOJ4s12iU01f6cIyu_gH-NhS7zAQhj8w-vrmhxnAxQIFM3qgD34-i9OYPfbvWaqWgZF4yJk056NyA3zN-2OSr1neg9vp2pBbsGvbFH9a4A32i0yB5P0PGmlcHHKcdDFbfH2FGn9uSUMx3bB4Vjg/s624/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-10%20at%2011.51.53%20(2).jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="101" data-original-width="624" height="65" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPGNY1x1ehD9a0gZXz19lddZ429SYbGDVux24GOJ4s12iU01f6cIyu_gH-NhS7zAQhj8w-vrmhxnAxQIFM3qgD34-i9OYPfbvWaqWgZF4yJk056NyA3zN-2OSr1neg9vp2pBbsGvbFH9a4A32i0yB5P0PGmlcHHKcdDFbfH2FGn9uSUMx3bB4Vjg/w400-h65/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-10%20at%2011.51.53%20(2).jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></h4><h4 style="font-family: "Gandhari Unicode"; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #783f04;"><br /></span></h4><h4 style="font-family: "Gandhari Unicode"; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #783f04;">Afterthought after afterthought</span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: medium;">Did anyone notice there in our Matho fragment the triad of <i>dpe</i>, <i>don</i> and <i>rtags</i>? <i>Instance</i> (similitudes / similes / examples), <i>meaning</i> (intended purposes, aims) and <i>sign</i> (marks that provoke recognition)? There is a note on this in <i>Drenpa's Proclamation</i>, a book that came out quite recently. This triad is found in some early Bon texts (mostly also pre-1200). What may seem like a scholastic schema is quite the contrary, a way of speaking about esoteric precepts, or what is in Dzogchen spoken of as a <i>direct introduction</i>, something that may not involve any words at all. It does seem to me that the phrase <i>dpe don rtags gsum</i> is more often encountered in Bon writings,* while in non-Bon writings it is nearly always invoked in relation to the <i>All Making King, </i>where the first one, the <i>instance,</i> is bound to be space itself.</span></p><div style="font-family: "Gandhari Unicode"; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;"><blockquote style="border: none; font-family: "Gandhari Unicode"; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia;">(</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia;">*</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia;">I believe I could</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia;">, if pressed to do so,</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia;"> come up with at least twelve Bon texts that make use of this expression, but bear in mind that the Bon texts are not so well represented among the 15 million searchable pages scanned in BDRC.)</span></p></blockquote></span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia;">But then again in context of strictly rule-governed logic, <i>rtags</i> can mean the third term of the syllogism, the <i>reason, </i>so some whiff of scholasticism may be intended there after all. Asia never quite shared the Euro-split between Platonism (dialogue and mystical speculation) and Aristotelianism (logic and natural science), although a somehow comparable split might be, in Tibet, the one between </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia;">Candrakîrtianism and </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia;">Dharmakîrtianism. Now I’m sorry I brought that up, because the differences are also glaring at me. (Read the book by Dreyfuss to see how </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #666666;">Dharmakîrtianism had no real adherents in Tibet, but its ideas were much debated</span><span style="color: #666666;">.)</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia;">Hmmm. Doesn’t Peircean semiosis work with an interacting triad of <a href="https://media-studies.com/triadic-model-semiotics/" target="_blank">the Sign, the Object and the Interpretant</a>? Indeed it does, but don’t press me to tell you how that is the least bit relevant, that is unless Peirce was inspired by the All Making King! It’s true that the pre-modern Tibetan scripture and the [post-]modern semiotician both share a preference for triplets and triads over those dueling dyads and binaries that rule in our computers and our politics today, and I do wonder what the deeper background for this similitude could possibly be. I leave it for sharper and more penetrating minds than my own, but I do think even if their individual parts are only partially and not perfectly matching, the Dzogchen and Peircean triads, as wholes, extend over the same territory.</span></span></p></div><blockquote style="border: none; font-family: "Gandhari Unicode"; font-size: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p></blockquote></span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">§ § §</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;"><br /></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #7f6000;">Some English-language literature on logic, and on the <i>All Making King & </i>its translations</span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; color: #b45f06; font-size: x-small;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; color: #b45f06; font-size: x-small;">Note: There is no complete translation so far as I know, but see Namkhai Norbu’s and Dargyay’s partial translations marked with the ★.</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Thomas <b>Cattoi</b>, “Ground and Manifestation: A Christian Reading of the <i>Kun-byed Rgyal-po</i> in Conversation with Origen's <i>De Principiis</i>,’ contained in: <i>Acts of the October 2014 Minzu University Conference on Interreligious Dialogue</i>, Minzu University (Beijing 2015), pp. 15-27. Not yet seen, I saw the reference at <a href="https://www.scu.edu/jst/about/faculty/all-jst-faculty-profile-cards/cattoi.html" target="_blank">the author’s faculty page</a>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Jake <b>Dalton</b>, “IOL Tib J 647,” contained in: Jacob Dalton and Sam van Schaik, <i>Tibetan Tantric Manuscripts from Dunhuang: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Stein Collection at the British Library</i>, Brill (Leiden 2006), pp. 292-293. This on the Dunhuang text of the <i>Cuckoo of Awareness</i>, in only 6 lines of verse, that was incorporated into the <i>All Making King</i>. Some rare references to Atiyoga may be found in Dunhuang, and this catalogue is the place to look for them.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Eva K. <b>Dargyay</b>, “A Rnying ma Text: The <i>Kun byed rgyal po'i mdo</i>,” contained in: Barbara Aziz and Matthew Kapstein, eds., <i>Soundings in Tibetan Civilization</i>, Manohar Publications (Delhi 1985), pp. 283-293.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Eva K. Dargyay, “The Concept of a ‘Creator God’ in Tantric Buddhism,” <i>Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies</i>, vol. 8 (1985), pp. 31-47.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">★E.K. Neumaier Dargyay, <i>The Sovereign All Creating Mind: The Motherly Buddha</i>, SUNY (Albany 1992). If you do not find a way to hold the book, <a href="http://tibetanbuddhistencyclopedia.com/en/index.php/The_Sovereign_All-Creating_Mind:_The_Motherly_Buddha_(A_Translation_of_the_Kun_byed_rgyal_po'i_mdo)" target="_blank">an odd digitized version can be found here</a>. This is in a certain sense a complete translation, because it ends at Chapter 57 of the 84-chapter text, but at what it seems might be the final chapter. For the translation of Chapter 17 (the only English translation of it there is as far as I know), look on pp. 98-99 of the print edition, and notice the illusion of gender bending going on in it. On the triad of "simile, quintessence and characteristics" (translation choices I would not have used), see especially p. 127 (part of her translation of Chapter 34). But then look at her p. 97 (part of Chapter 15) where we see “simile, meaning and investigation.” Reviewed by J.W. de Jong in <i>Indo-Iranian Journal</i>, vol. 38 (1995), pp. 200-203; by Kerry Martin Skora in <i>Philosophy East and West</i>, vol. 46, no. 1 (January 1996), pp. 107-116.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Mihai <b>Derbac</b>, <i>The “Five Early” (sNga lnga) Texts of the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition rDzogs chen Sems sde: A Historical, Literary and Textual Study with Critical Edition and Translation of the Tibetan Texts</i>, PhD dissertation, University of Calgary (2019), downloadable from the PRISM Repository of the University of Calgary. I list this here not just because it is something I've been reading recently, but because it contains a very useful bibliography of relevant books and essays (and discussions about the same) saving me the duty of listing all those things here.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Georges B.J. <b>Dreyfus</b>, <i>The Sound of Two Hands Clapping: The Education of a Tibetan Buddhist Monk</i>, University of California Press (Berkeley 2003), pp. 206-208. This is the perfect proof text for my belief that, in the language of logical argumentation, <i>dpe</i> and <i>rtags</i> can name two specific parts of the five-fold Indic syllogism (five in contrast to the three-fold Aristotelian). Both would seem to be direct translations for Sanskrit terms, as Dreyfus indicates.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Shoryu <b>Katsura</b> & Ernst Steinkellner, eds., <i>The Role of the Example (D</i><i>ṛṣṭānta) in Classical Indian Logic</i>, Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde series vol. 58, Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, Universität Wien (Vienna 2004). <a href="https://www.shin-ibs.edu/documents/pwj3-9/05Katsura39.pdf" target="_blank">This other article</a> published in <i>Pacific World</i> may be better for providing background on Buddhist logic.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Per <b>Kværne</b> and Dan Martin, trs. and eds., <i>Drenpa’s Proclamation: The Rise and Decline of the Bön Religion in Tibet</i>, Vajra Books (Kathmandu 2023). The relevant footnote is no. 947, located at pp. 275-276.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Kennard <b>Lipman</b> and Merrill Peterson, <i>You Are the Eyes of the World</i>, Lotsawa (Novato 1987). Translation of Klong-chen-pa’s commentary on the <i>Kun-byed Rgyal-po</i>. Reviewed by Georgios Halkias in <i>Tibet Journal</i>, vol. 29, no. 2 (Summer 2004), pp. 117-119. Kennard Lipman is the best when it comes to making Dzogchen shine brilliantly through English.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Dan <b>Martin</b>, “Creator God or Creator Figure?” <i>Lungta</i> [an annual publication of the Amnye Machen Institute, McLeod Ganj, India], vol. 16 (Spring 2003), pp. 15-20. See Reynolds for his fantastic job of countering the naively creationist reading of the <i>All Making King</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Namkhai Norbu</b> Rinpoche, <i>Rigbai Kujyug, the Six Vajra Verses: An Oral Commentary by Namkhai Norbu, December 1985, Merigar, Italy</i>, ed. by Cheh-Ngee Goh, Rinchen Editions (Singapore 1990. Translation and teachings based on the <i>Cuckoo of Awareness</i>. Newer editions may be available.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">★Chögyal Namkhai Norbu and Adriano Clemente, <i>The Supreme Source: The Fundamental Tantra of the Dzogchen Semde Kunjed Gyalpo</i>, Snow Lion (Ithaca 1999), translated from Italian by Andrew Lukianowicz. A set of chapter summaries and excerpts, this is again not a complete translation of the <i>All Making King</i>, but I do believe it is the best.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">John Myrdhin <b>Reynolds</b>, “<i>Kun byed Rgyal po</i>: The Principal Dzogchen Tantra,” contained in: John Reynolds, <i>The Golden Letters: The Three Statements of Garab Dorje, the First Teacher of Dzogchen, together with a Commentary by Dza Patrul Rinpoche Entitled, “The Special Teaching of the Wise and Glorious King</i>,” Snow Lion (Ithaca 1996), pp. 236-248.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Jim <b>Valby</b>, “Five Principles of rDzogs chen Transmission in the <i>Kun byed rgyal po</i>,” <i>Revue d'Etudes Tibétaines</i>, vol. 24 (October 2012), pp. 157-164.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Jim <b>Valby</b>, tr., <i>Ornament of the State of Samantabhadra: Commentary on the All-Creating King of the Pure Perfect Presence of the Great Perfection, </i>in 6 volumes. A translation of Gzhan-phan-’od-zer, <i>Chos Thams-cad Rdzogs-pa-chen-po Byang-chub-kyi Sems Kun-byed Rgyal-po'i 'Grel-pa Kun-bzang Dgongs-rgyan</i> (Lhasa 2006), in 2 vols. I have not seen either publication, although I would like to.</p><div><br /></div><div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">• • •</span></p></div><div><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #7f6000;">The fragments in Matho W1BL9 vol. 405 transcribed</span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;">What we have are two leaf fragments, inscribed on both sides. There are no page numbers given. The two leaves are given here in the order of the scan. Both leaves once formed part of a booklet, bound into a signature on the left-hand side (just like so many other Matho fragments were). The text of the first leaf doesn’t seem to continue on the second, and on closer study we find that it does not. Only the first leaf <i>recto</i> is illustrated above, for the rest you should go to <a href="https://library.bdrc.io/show/bdr:W1BL9" target="_blank">BDRC Work RID W1BL9</a>, then locate vol. 405.</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><ul><li><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">One rare feature of the manuscript is that it allows single Tibetan syllables to be split between two lines. Hardly ever seen outside the Matho fragments, it feels like a violation. Also, rules governing the use of the syllable dividing dot (<i>tsheg</i>) before the staff (<i>shad</i>) punctuation were not known to the scribe, if they even existed then. The use of <i>tsheg</i> and <i>shad</i> has been somewhat regularized in our transcription, although this hardly makes any difference.</span></li></ul><p></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">This text edition was made by Michael Walter, and double checked for accuracy.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p>X = illegible graph _ space within word × apparent strike through</p><p><br /></p><p>[1 recto]</p><p>... ston pa’i kun byed rgyal po lags |</p><p>sku gdung ring srel rtag tu zung shig pa | sku ni rgyal ba gang dang gang gi sku | sku ni rgyal ba gang dang gang gi sku | gsung ni dus gsum sangs rgyas gang dang gang gi gdung |</p><p>ring srel zhes ni ci lta bu la bgyi | sku ni nga sdang rgyal ba sagsum gi sku | gdung ni dus gsum rgyal ba’i gdung | dus med rtag tu sems la ’di ’chang na | dus gsum sangs rgyas kun kyi mchod pa’i rten | sku gdung ring srel zhes ni de la bya |</p><p>sku gdung ring srel de ltar lags na yang | de la dus gsum sangs rgyas ci ltar mchod | |</p><p>chod pa la ni yon tan ci zhig mchis | nga’i sku gdung ring srel de ni | dus gsum sangs rgyas rtag tu sems ltas mchod | de’i yon tan myi ’bral de thob nas | chos rnams kun gyi rgyal por nus par gyur |:|</p><p>snang srid snod bcud thams cad kun | snang ni nga’i ngo bor snang | dag ni chos kyi dbyings su dag | ’dul ba rnam pa sna tshogs la | …[6-7 syllables?] 'i | theg pa gsum gyi ngo yang …</p><p>[1 verso]</p><p>’das pa yul la myi ltos pas | rgyu la mi bsgrub ’bras myi ’dod | ’dod pa med pa’i dgos pa des | rang bzhin ˘˘lhun˘˘ gyis grub par gyur || ye nas yin la bya mi dgos | </p><p>nga las byung ba’i ston pa sku gsum gyis | bstan pa’i theg pa rnam × gsum bstan pa ni || ston pa gsum gyis ma brtsal grub pa’i lung ma bstan ||</p><p>kun byed nga yis theg cig bstan pa ni | brtsal bas grub pa’i lung du ngas ma bstan | kun byed byang chub nga’i rang bzhin las | ma brtsal rang bzhin lhun gyis grub pa ni | rgyal ba kun gyi snying po sku gsum ste | nga’i rang bzhin ma bcos chos skur grub | nga’i ngo bo ma bcos long spyod rdzogs ||</p><p>nga’i thugs rje mngon ’phyung sprul sku sum brtsal nas grub ba ’bras bu bstan pa myed || sku gsum kun byed nga ru bstan pa ste | ji ltar snang ba’i chos rnams thams cad kun || rang bzhin ngo bo thugs rje ma bcos gsum | X sku gsum nga’i de bzhin nyid du bstan | nga dang nga’i de bzhin nyid las ni || sangs rgyas zhes bya’i yon tan sgos [~sgros?] kyang med | sems can … [few legible letters on following line, mostly torn off]</p><p>[2 recto]</p><p>brtsal bsgrub myed pas ye nas che[?] bar bshad | </p><p>bdag nyid chen po sangs rgyas che bar [bshad] | ma skyes spros bral mngon du ’phyung ba ’di | ye nas gzung ’dzin ____ chos kyi dbyings | bya myi dgos pas ye nas sangs rgyas yin | rtsal bsgrub myi dgos ye nas che bar bshad | chos nyi[d] sangs rgyas che bar bshad pa yin ||</p><p>nga’i nges par mngon du phyung ba ’di | dpe’ don rtags ni rnam pa gsum bstan te | chos nyid don la nam mkha’ dpe’ bstan te | byang chub sems kyis rtags kyi nges par du | the rtsom za ba rnams la nges pa du | dpe’ don rtags kya[ng] de yin sangs rgyas bstan ||</p><p>nga’i rang bzhin de bzhin nyid ’di ni | su la mngon du phyung ba ni mi snang bas | de ni ma nor ba’i rang bzhin la | bzhin ni ma bcos pa’i rang bzhin te | nyid ni ngo bo nyid la brtags pa yin | de bzhin nyid kyi rang bzhin de nyid la | du[s?] gsum sangs rgyas</p><p>[2 verso]</p><p>yod pa’i bsgos myi ’dogs | khams gsum sems can med pa’i skur myi ’debs | rtog dpyod bsam ba ci yang dgongs myed pas | sangs rgyas myed pa’i che bar nga’is bshad |:|</p><p>nga ni ye nas kun byed rgyal po yin | bston pa bstan pa ’khor dus ngas byas nas | ston pa’i bstan pa yang ni nga yis byed || bstan pa’i rang bzhin de bston la || ’khor yang nga’i ngo bo de phyung nas | dus gnas pa’i rang bzhin ni | kun byed nga’i rang bzhin bstan pa las || nga myin chos ni cig kyang bstan pa myed || </p><p>sems dpa’ chen po rdo rje khyod nyid kyang || kun byed nga’i rang bzhin bstan pa’i phyir || khyod kyang nga la nga yis phyung ba yin | kun byed nga ni chos kyi snying por zhog || </p><p>dus gnas phun sum tshogs pa thams cad kun | kun byed rgyal po nga yin byang chub sems |:|</p><p>sku gdung ring srel rtag chang na | rgyal ba’i yang mes kun mes nga dang mnyam | ston XX ... ... ...</p><p style="text-align: center;">•</p><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For the complete Tibetan text in 84 chapters, I suppose I ought to recommend this one: <i>Chos Thams-cad Rdzogs-chen Byang-chub-kyi Sems Kun-byed Rgyal-po</i> containing 84 chapters, found in the Gting-skyes edition<u>,</u> vol. 1, pp. 1-220. Following is chapter 17 only of the <a href="https://library.bdrc.io/show/bdr:WA3JT13481?tabs=bdr:MW21518,bdr:W21518" target="_blank">Gting-skyes manuscript set of the <i>Old Collection of Tantras</i></a> (blank verse format added, double-checked for [my] errors):</div><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Chapter Seventeen: Handing Down Relics</span></p><p><br /></p><p>དེ་ནས་བྱང་ཆུབ་ཀྱི་སེམས་ཀུན་བྱེད་རྒྱལ་པོ་དེས།</p><p>ཉིད་ཀྱི་སྐུ་གདུང་འདི་ཟུང་ཅིག་པར་གསུངས་སོ།།</p><p>de nas byang chub kyi sems kun byed rgyal po des | </p><p>nyid kyi sku gdung 'di zung cig par gsungs so ||</p><p> </p><p>ཀྱེ་སེམས་དཔའ་ཆེན་པོ་འདི་ཟུང་ཤིག།</p><p>སྐུ་གདུང་རིང་བསྲེལ་རྟག་འཆང་ན།།</p><p>རྒྱལ་བའི་ཡང་མེས་ཀུན་བྱེད་ང་དང་མཉམ་ཞེས་གསུངས་སོ།། [fol. 33v - p. 66]</p><p>kye sems dpa' chen po 'di zung shig ||</p><p>sku gdung ring bsrel rtag 'chang na ||</p><p>rgyal ba'i yang mes kun byed nga dang mnyam zhes gsungs so || [p. 66]</p><p><br /></p><p>དེ་ནས་སེམས་དཔའ་རྡོ་རྗེས་ཞུས་པ།</p><p>ཀྱེ་དུས་གསུམ་སངས་རྒྱས་ཀུན་གྱི་ཡང་མེས་པོ།།</p><p>སྟོན་པའི་སྟོན་པ་ཀུན་བྱེད་རྒྱལ་པོ་ལགས།</p><p>སྐུ་གདུང་རིང་བསྲེལ་རྟག་ཏུ་ཟུང་ཅིག་པ།།</p><p>སྐུ་ནི་རྒྱལ་བ་གང་དང་གང་གི་སྐུ།།</p><p>གདུང་ནི་སངས་རྒྱས་གང་དང་གང་གི་གདུང་།།</p><p>རིང་བསྲེལ་ཞེས་ནི་ཇི་ལྟ་བུ་ལ་བགྱི།། ཞེས་ཞུས་སོ།།</p><p>de nas sems dpa' rdo rjes zhus pa | </p><p>kye dus gsum sangs rgyas kun gyi yang mes po || </p><p>ston pa'i ston pa kun byed rgyal po lags | </p><p>sku gdung ring bsrel rtag tu zung cig pa || </p><p>sku ni rgyal ba gang dang gang gi sku ||</p><p>gdung ni sangs rgyas gang dang gang gi gdung || </p><p>ring bsrel zhes ni ji lta bu la bgyi || zhes zhus so ||</p><p> </p><p>ཀྱེ་སེམས་དཔའ་ཆེན་པོ་ཉོན་ཅིག།</p><p>སྐུ་ནི་ང་སྲས་རྒྱལ་བ་གསུམ་གྱི་སྐུ།།</p><p>གདུང་ནི་དུས་གསུམ་རྒྱལ་བ་ང་ཡི་སེམས།།</p><p>དུས་མེད་རྟག་ཏུ་སེམས་དཔའ་འདི་འཆང་ན།།</p><p>དུས་གསུམ་སངས་རྒྱས་ཀུན་གྱི་མཆོད་པའི་བརྟེན།།</p><p>སྐུ་གདུང་རིང་བསྲེལ་ཞེས་ནི་དེ་ལ་བྱ།།</p><p>kye sems dpa' chen po nyon cig || </p><p>sku ni nga sras rgyal ba gsum gyi sku ||</p><p>gdung ni dus gsum rgyal ba nga yi sems || </p><p>dus med rtag tu sems dpa' 'di 'chang na | </p><p>dus gsum sangs rgyas kun gyi mchod pa'i brten || </p><p>sku gdung ring bsrel zhes ni de la bya || </p><p><br /></p><p>ཀྱེ་སྟོན་པའི་སྟོན་པ་ཀུན་བྱེད་རྒྱལ་པོ་ལགས།།</p><p>སྐུ་གདུང་རིང་བསྲེལ་དེ་ལྟར་ལགས་ན་ཡང་།།</p><p>དེ་ལ་དུས་གསུམ་སངས་རྒྱས་ཇི་ལྟར་མཆོད།།</p><p>མཆོད་པ་ལ་ནི་ཡོན་ཏན་ཅི་ཞིག་མཆིས།། ཅེས་ཞུས་སོ།།</p><p>kye ston pa'i ston pa kun byed rgyal po lags | </p><p>sku gdung ring bsrel de ltar lags na yang | </p><p>de la dus gsum sangs rgyas ji ltar mchod | </p><p>mchod pa la ni yon tan ci zhig mchis | ces zhus so ||</p><p><br /></p><p>ཀྱེ་སེམས་དཔའ་ཆེན་པོ་ཁྱོད་ཉོན་ཅིག།</p><p>ང་ཡི་སྐུ་གདུང་རིང་བསྲེལ་དེ་ལ་ནི།།</p><p>དུས་གསུམ་སངས་རྒྱས་རྟག་ཏུ་སེམས་ལྟས་མཆོད།།</p><p>དེ་ཡི་ཡོན་ཏན་མི་འབྲལ་དེ་ཐོབ་ནས།།</p><p>ཆོས་རྣམས་ཀུན་བྱེད་རྒྱལ་པོར་ནུས་པར་འགྱུར། ཞེས་གསུངས་སོ།།</p><p>kye sems dpa' chen po khyod nyon cig | </p><p>nga yi sku gdung ring bsrel de la ni | </p><p>dus gsum sangs rgyas rtag tu sems ltas mchod | </p><p>de yi yon tan mi 'bral de thob nas | </p><p>chos rnams kun byed rgyal por nus par 'gyur | zhes gsungs so ||</p><p><br /></p><p>བྱང་ཆུབ་ཀྱི་སེམས་ཀུན་བྱེད་རྒྱལ་པོ་ལས།</p><p>སྐུ་གདུང་གཏད་པའི་ལེའུ་སྟེ་བཅུ་བདུན་པའོ།།</p><p>byang chub kyi sems kun byed rgyal po las | </p><p>sku gdung gtad pa'i le'u ste bcu bdun pa'o ||</p><p>__________</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">PS: I sent a pre-post draft of this blog to F, and in response to his response, I wrote an email I never sent to him criticizing myself in a rather defensive manner. Here it is:</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p></div></div></div></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><div><div><div><p><span style="color: #0b5394;">Dear F,</span></p></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="color: #0b5394;">Yes, I guess it’s true what you say, the blog is after all full of lazily abductive reasoning based on a weak coverage of material not sufficiently represented in its full glory.</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="color: #0b5394;">But I guess my aim is served, that others will notice the similarities and put things together in a way that can be better pinned down.</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="color: #0b5394;">One kind of Peircean (but even more Emersonian) idea is that words/concepts have pressure release valves. It’s as if they are always vulnerable to invasion or loss in at least one compass direction. Poets celebrate this malleable quality of words and bend them around into magnificent sculptures, which is great. But without stone-stable concepts/definitions to work with syllogisms aren’t going to march on to find victory in well established truth the way they’re supposed to do.</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="color: #0b5394;">I’m not going to go into piddling details, no time or energy for it.</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="color: #0b5394;">That’s my "pragmatic" approach at work. You do know the Americans. If they think at all, they tend to be pragmatic, thinking it makes them more scientific, so will most likely turn to the pragmatist school for help and inspiration. Myself I’ve always been more inspired by Emerson, who although called a transcendentalist is also often tied into the group of Peirce and James, and I suppose they even had direct contact with each other, didn’t they?</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="color: #0b5394;">The real abduction will happen when some semioticians grab ahold of our dear Kunjé and paint him into their corner, making him their kind of pragmatist thinker, perhaps a precursor. It would be horrible to see him taken captive that way. But better them than those monotheistic creationists.</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="color: #0b5394;">I actually kind of like it when pre-modern and post-modern ideas are brought close enough to touch each other despite their mutual abhorrence. The fireworks can be amazing. Or not.</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="color: #0b5394;">I piddled around and tried to fix the blog a bit, and will try to work it through some more. So much of it was created in the course of writing, it’s more a journey than a destination, that’s for sure.</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="color: #0b5394;">Yours, D</span></p></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This only makes me feel more fondly for the early days of our millennium. I miss the inspiration and instigation that emerges out of dialogue. In years gone by Tibeto-logic used to have all that before it, along with all the other blogs, was abandoned for FB and Twitch, and now X. Please, please comment and have your say if you can hack your way through the Captchas.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">•</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #660000;">ངས་ཁྱོད་ལ་འགྲེལ་བཤད་རྒྱག་མི་ཐུབ་པའི་བྱ་བ་ཞིག་བཤད་པར་ཡིད་ཆེས་བྱོས་དང་། ངས་ཁྱོད་ལ་ནམ་ཡང་ནོར་བ་ཞིག་མི་བྱེད།</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #660000;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #660000;">Can you guess which Beatles song these words come from?</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div></blockquote><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><span style="color: #660000;">Translated by <a href="https://monlam.ai/" target="_blank">Monlam AI</a>, something I’m trying to test myself with. (Thank you K.K. for sharing the link.)</span></li></ul></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-61255792809382935402023-11-26T17:45:00.010+02:002023-12-29T16:40:42.665+02:00Terton Onomastics<p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK-jznTXmIHZrsQq2XX0mxqVdZznpYEfxXDsSPHk66Aa7uT86nhT8jAwoonddi0Bv_jFQ7Qcl3ypZJrFB3kli4fZyBt4nfKgB46kJ7IAIYQkXVo0iBlCiBdfe1LCu7OLLYzON8dXnivPYAyWBYQsnZQzsH_3BIMUaLVNzA6HWSiAKm1vIPNb-QnA/s1094/Terton%20Names%20Text%20title%20page.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="1094" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK-jznTXmIHZrsQq2XX0mxqVdZznpYEfxXDsSPHk66Aa7uT86nhT8jAwoonddi0Bv_jFQ7Qcl3ypZJrFB3kli4fZyBt4nfKgB46kJ7IAIYQkXVo0iBlCiBdfe1LCu7OLLYzON8dXnivPYAyWBYQsnZQzsH_3BIMUaLVNzA6HWSiAKm1vIPNb-QnA/w400-h146/Terton%20Names%20Text%20title%20page.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Title page of a text included in BDRC no. W4PD975 (click to enlarge)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">I</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">f you’ve been with us in recent years you would know this: Surprising new pieces of older Tibetan literature are popping up all the time. You would also know that the main place where this is happening is BDRC (formerly TBRC) and its <a href="https://library.bdrc.io/" target="_blank">BUDA</a> website. The title page you see just above with the unusual archway of entry is a great example. Maybe the best part of its story is that, for Tibetan readers of the world, it presents a number of puzzles, puzzles that I haven’t, or haven’t yet, solved to my own satisfaction. One of the mysteries is <i>who wrote it</i>, but before going into that, let’s try and say <i>what it’s about</i>. Come, let’s walk through that door.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">First, the title: </span></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Gsang-sngags-kyi Rig-pa-'dzin-pa-rnams-kyi Rnam-thar Sa-bon tsam dang Mtshan dang Mtshan-gyi Rnam-grangs</i>. </span></span></span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> “Knowledge Holders of Secret Mantra: Seed Biographies along with Their Names and Variant Names.”</span></span></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The title already tells you it’s an onomasticon, a study of personal names of a limited group of persons. It tells you who those persons are, ‘Knowledge Holders of Secret Mantra.’ When you look into the book’s content, it is clear this means above all those known to us as <i>Tertons</i>. A Terton (</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">གཏེར་སྟོན་</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">)<i> </i>is someone who reveals or extracts (</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">སྟོན་ </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">or</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> བཏོན་</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">) treasures (</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">གཏེར་མ་</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">). By <i>treasures</i> we think first of their scriptural discoveries, although relics, images, medical works and even luxury objects and precious metals could also be found by them, often in one and the same excavation site.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I tried transcribing the first couple of pages, not being all that certain I could manage the odd style of cursive* with its special abbreviation practices.** I soon ran into puzzling problems. Particularly when I got to the misplaced passages marked off with special symbols such as the </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">‘three jewels’ mark, it wasn’t clear to me where these were meant to be inserted. These first pages do not yet concern the Tertons, the Treasure Revealers, but rather the Treasure Concealers, in particular “Guru Rinpoche” Padmasambhava followed by his 25 disciples. Mostly it is filled by brief sections about the Tertons and their individual names. I thought I ought to make a list of their names at least (see the Appendix).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"></span></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*I do appreciate the calligraphy, but at times its style could be described as sloppy, just notice how the letter “<i>zha</i>” [ཞ་] appears. **For the word <i>mtshan</i>, as you can see already in the title, its root consonant "tsh" can be reduced to the tiny flag that normally serves to differentiate it from the "ch." The resulting abbreviation looks something like "m'n.")</span></span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">You get the impression this includes more mention of Bon than is usual in works on this subject. Already in the Guru Rinpoche section we are told what names he received in Bon sources.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I will go ahead and quote from our earlier blog (linked below) knowing that adherents of the Nyingma school may be discomfited:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">“And of course, it needs saying that the Bon school must be brought into our future conclusion-making processes, as they have a rich literature of Tertön histories, prayers and prophecies of their own. It’s even possible that followers of Bon got their </span><i style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">terma</i><span style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> traditions underway before the Nyingma did.”</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">To flesh that out a bit, it seems likely as we suggested in that same blog that the first Nyingma Tertön was active in around 1080 CE. If so that makes the Nyingma phenomenon significantly later than the Bön Terma tradition that begins <i>in a big way</i> with the discoveries of Shenchen Luga in 1017 CE, although with the revealers of the <i>N</i></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i>ā</i></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i style="font-style: italic;">ga Hundred Thousand</i> (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">ཀླུ་འབུམ་</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">) and a few other Bon scriptures, we would need to push Bon Terma revelations back a century or so before Shenchen’s. So their Termas may be not just a half, but as much as two centuries older than Nyingma Termas.</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">There is a lot more to know about the Tertons as a group of prophetic revelatory figures in Tibetan history simply because Tibetan Studies experts as a whole haven’t studied them in sufficient depth and detail, not yet. Not just the onomastic and biographical works, but other genres, in particular Terton prayers and prophecies need to be taken into account. The sheer weight of the volumes of rediscovered teachings would disable more than one elephant. There is so much to take in. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">At the head of my own list is a better understanding of the surely different, but often similar and occasionally overlapping, traditions of Bon and Nyingma schools. The good investigative work that <i>has</i> been done here and there hasn’t really been put together to form a fuller circumspectual portrayal of the phenomenon of Treasure revelation — what it was and is, what it has meant to Tibetans, and what it ought to mean to everyone. Let’s get to work. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I’ve heard there may be a new book coming out that will answer our questions about how Treasure traditions may be inspired by or simply continue earlier robust traditions both Indian and Tibetan. No, I didn’t write it, and I won’t say more until it is more than a rumor echoing in empty space.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNHBkTnxkgZGbH0_S5UjHATtc1xcHSmOsHDJ5aILrYiTZL4764CDiUELybiV7CijI-XG05TQc5z0d4TkgPChwNhPxq23Rd90Mh2ATPSUkzxGjk9D8qAw7tkFSL-qFKRfLHQ3wD4JjhHaJVo86iy_3HYMANy_z0S7PvoPuFjFp7gsQbFkdwN4bv2w/s788/Rigs-ldan%20flowering%20tree%20detail%20Wellcome%20Institute%20Tibetan%20Thanka%20%2049920%20copy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="155" data-original-width="788" height="79" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNHBkTnxkgZGbH0_S5UjHATtc1xcHSmOsHDJ5aILrYiTZL4764CDiUELybiV7CijI-XG05TQc5z0d4TkgPChwNhPxq23Rd90Mh2ATPSUkzxGjk9D8qAw7tkFSL-qFKRfLHQ3wD4JjhHaJVo86iy_3HYMANy_z0S7PvoPuFjFp7gsQbFkdwN4bv2w/w400-h79/Rigs-ldan%20flowering%20tree%20detail%20Wellcome%20Institute%20Tibetan%20Thanka%20%2049920%20copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #783f04; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Some refs.</span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We’ve already blogged at some length about Tertons a few years back, just look here: <i><a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2019/09/locating-terton-prayer-in-terma-history.html" target="_blank">Locating a Terton Prayer in Terma History</a></i>.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Once there, you’ll find references to further resources that I won’t list all over again. Your dyed-in-the-wool Tibetosophers can have a look at <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/tiblical/tert%C3%B6n-prayer-of-16th-century" target="_blank">this webpage we made</a>, supplying a particular set of sources of Tertön names that may be compared and contrasted to this newly noticed onomasticon.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">An onomasticon, really? That means a collection of nouns limited to a particular specialized field. Most often it means a collection of <i>proper</i> nouns. Perhaps the best known work by that name, the <i>Onomasticon</i> by Eusebius of Caesarea (d. 339 CE), was limited to place names within the area of what we call the Middle East. It’s particularly important for understanding the place names on the Madaba Mosaic Map that can still be seen <i>in situ</i> on the floor of a church in a town in Jordan located high in the hills just east of Jericho. Although it hardly compares, I’ve also composed a kind of onomasticon limited to Tibetan proper names, both person and place names. It took over 40 years to make it, with a length of about 1,700 pages if it were ever printed on paper. Just a few days ago I posted it at a free website, free in its making and free to use, called “Tibetosophy.” If you feel you are ready to make use of it, feel free to go here:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/view/tibetosophy">https://sites.google.com/view/tibetosophy</a></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">You can even make use of it to find out more about the Tertons named in this <i>Onomasticon</i>. The bibliographical details are as follows:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">“Rig pa ʼdzin pa rnams kyi rnam thar sa bon tsam dang mtshan gyi rnam grangs ci rigs.” Bla ma don rgyal gyis nyar tshags mdzad paʼi dpe rnying dpe dkon, vol. 32, pp. 93–136. Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC), purl.bdrc.io/resource/MW4PD975_317ABE. Accessed 18 Nov. 2023. [BDRC bdr:MW4PD975_317ABE]</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">If you want to get to it easily, just type the entire Resource ID number W4PD975 into the search box at <a href="https://library.bdrc.io/" target="_blank">BUDA</a>. Click on the scanned title page. Then go to volume 32 and scroll down about a hundred pages.</span> </blockquote><p> </p><p></p><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #783f04; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><b>Appendix</b></span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I will list the names of the Tertons here, not promising a thorough, in-depth job of it. My reason for doing this is just so they will be findable by people out there searching the worldwide web. As things stand, it isn’t likely OCR will be effective enough with cursive manuscript for a long time into the future, so the effort can be justified. I assign page numbers to the text, as the folios are unnumbered and in a booklet format (44 scanned pages in all): </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">1) Names and forms of Guru Rinpoche according to various sources. Scan pp. 1-5.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The name is Padma-mthong-grol in Bon sources, specifically citing the testimony of a Terma revealed by the Terton Guru Rnon-rtse aka A-ya Bon-po Lha-'bum. Scan p. 6.</span></li></ul><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">2) Emperor Khri-srong-lde'u-btsan. Scan p. 7.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">3) The sons of the same and the subsequent royal line. 7-8.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Others among the 25 disciples of Guru Rinpoche apart from the Emperor, starting with Gnubs chen Sangs rgyas ye shes as no. 2, each subsequent one should have received his or her own numbers 3-25. No. 8 is Vairocana (on p. 10) who deserves special attention. Dran-pa-nam-mkha' is noticed on p. 16, with the information that he was given the name Phung-bon Mgo-dmar because he was presented with a red hat at his ordination. Ends (p. 18) with an interesting comment that there can be different ways of listing and identifying the 25 disciples and that some say there were 27. Scan pp. 9-18.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">At scan p. 19 begins the listing of the “Hundred Tertons” (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2023/03/terton-gyatsa-woodblock-print.html" target="_blank">གཏེར་སྟོན་བརྒྱ་རྩ་</a></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">). We'll just list their names with page and line numbers (interlinear <i>mchan</i>-notes do not count as lines) so you can locate information about them with ease. At least to begin with each Terton is awarded a number (superinscribed above the name), so we will attempt to follow the same system. Even if the numeration gives out after no. 14, I just keep numbering them anyway. In my experience the number “100” was never meant to be exact:</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">1. Sangs-rgyas-bla-ma, the 1st of the Tertons. 19.1.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">2. Rgya Lo-tsā. 19.2.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">3. Sna-nam-pa ('Brog-pa Sna-nam Thub-pa-rgyal-po). 19.4.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">4. Rgya Zhang-khrom. 19.6.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">5. Nyi-ma-seng-ge. 19.7.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">6. Dbu-ru Ston-pa Shākya-'od. 19.8.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">7. Bon-po Brag-tshal. 20.1.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">8. Snye-mo Zhu-yas. 20.3. He is quite rightly identified as a Bonpo by birth, but not noticed is that he was a chief disciple of Gshen-chen Klu-dga'.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">9. Grub-thob Dngos-grub. 20.4.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">10. Gtsug-lag-dpal-dge. 20.7.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">11. Ku-sa Sman-pa. 20.8.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">12. Bon-po Lha-'bum. 21.4.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">13. Khyung-po Dpal-dge. 21.5.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">14. Gra-pa Mngon-shes. 23.1.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">15. Ra-shag Chen-po. 23.6.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">16. Nyang-ral. 23.8.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">17. Dbon-sras Khyung-thog (=Khyung-thog-rtsal). 24.6.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">18. Ra-mo Shel-sman. 25.1.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">19. Gu-ru Chos-dbang. 25.3.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">20. Gu-ru Jo-tshe. 25.7.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">21. Padma-dbang-phyug. 26.2.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">22. Do-ban Rgya-mtsho (~Dor-ban?). 26.4.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">23. Rakshi Ston-pa. 26.6.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">24. Byar-rong E-yi Sman-pa (=Nyi-'od-gsal). 26.8.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">25. Gra-sgom Chos-rdor. 27.1.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">26. G.yag-phyar Sngon-mo. 27.4.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">27-28. Grum, and his patron of Paro, Bhutan named Nag-po-mkhar. 27.6.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">29. Lha-btsun Sngon-mo. 27.9. Notice the mention here of Mchog-'gyur-gling-pa (1829-1870), which helps us date the work.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">30. Nyi-ma-grags-pa. 28.4.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">31. Rin-chen-tshul-rdor. 28.7.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">32. Tshe-brtan-rgyal-mtshan. 29.4.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">33. Me-ban Rin-chen-gling-pa. 29.6.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">34. O-rgyan-gling-pa. 29.10.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">35. Dri-med-'od-zer. 30.4.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">36. Rog-rje-gling-pa. 31.3.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">37. Gter-bdag-gling-pa. 31.8.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">38. Padma-kun-skyong-gling-pa. 32.2.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">39. Mdo-sngags-gling-pa Mchog-ldan-mgon-po. 32.4.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">40. Bstan-gnyis-gling-pa Padma-tshe-dbang-rgyal-po. 33.1.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">41. Rdo-rje-gling-pa. 33.4.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">42. Rin-chen-gling-pa, "The Second" (=Sangs-rgyas-gling-pa). 34.2.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">43. O-rgyan-padma-gling-pa. 34.7.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">44. O-rgyan-las-'phro-gling-pa. 35.1.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">45. Bsam-gtan-bde-chen-gling-pa. 35.6.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">46. Zhig-po-gling-pa. 35.8.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">47. Bde-chen-gling-pa (the one born in Gro-shul Tshwa-lung). 36.1. Here on scan no. 36 is a statement about how the <i>Thang-yig</i> that was found at Shel-brag actually has 47 Tertons ranging from Sangs-rgyas-bla-ma up until Bde-chen-gling-pa. I'll transcribe it:</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><i>de ltar gter chen sangs rgyas bla ma nas bde chen gling pa'i bar thang yig shel brag ma'i dngos bstan bzhi bcu zhe bdun gyi rnam thar sa bon tsam du btus pa de'ang snga phyi rim par byon pa'i go rim du mi gnas thang yig gi dngos bstan ma bcos pa yin no ||</i></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">This does create some perplexing problems as the Biography of Guru Rinpoche from Shel-brag was revealed in 1352. Just identifying let alone dating the particular Bde-chen-gling-pa who was born in Gro-shul is a problem, but nobody seems to date him or any other figure by this name to any time before the 17th century. Well, let’s go on to list the rest.</span></li></ul><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">48. Rgya-ban Rdo-rje-'od. 37.1</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">49. Gu-ru Hūṃ-'bar. 37.2.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">50. Lha-btsun Byang-chub-'od. 37.3.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">51. Jo-bo Rje Dī-paṃ-ka-ra. 37.5. This is Atiśa, from Bengal.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">52. Zhang-btsun Dar-ma-rin-chen. 37.7.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">53. Rong-zom Chos-kyi-bzang-po. 37.8.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">54. Rdor-'bum-chos-kyi-grags-pa. 37.9.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">55. Sangs-rgyas-'bar. 37.10.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">56. Se-ston Ring-mo. 37.11.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">57. Rgya Phur-bu (=Phur-bu-mgon). 37.11.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">58. Dge-bshes Dra-nga Rdo-rje-kun-grags. 37.12.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">59. Lha-rje Gnubs-chung. 38.1. He is likely to be the magic teacher of Milarepa before Milarepa met Marpa.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">60. Rgya-ston Brtson-'grus-seng-ge-dar. 38.4.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">61. Lce-btsun Seng-ge-dbang-phyug. 38.5.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">62. Sar-ban Phyogs-med. 38.8.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">63. Gnyan Lo-tsā-ba Dar-ma-grags. 38.9.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">64. Shākya-'od, or Shākya-bzang-po. 38.11.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">65. Zangs-ri-ras-pa. 38.11.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">66. Gnyal-pa Jo-sras Seng-ge Gnyag-ston Nag-po. 39.1.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">67. Snye-mo Rgya Gong-ri-pa Sangs-rgyas-dbang-chen. 39.1.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">68-69. Chu-pho Rtogs-ldan, aka Dge-bsnyen-rgyal-mtshan and Dge-'dun-rgyal-mtshan. 39.4.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">70. Sprul-sku Ba-mkhal Smug-po. 39.6.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">71. Mol-mi-'khyil. 39.7.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">72. Gru-gu Yang-dbang. 39.8.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">73. Sum-pa Byang-chub-blo-gros. 39.9.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">74. Stag-lung-pa Sangs-rgyas-dbon-po. 39.10.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">75. Gnyal-pa Nyi-ma-shes-rab. 39.12.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">76. Khro-phu Lo-tsâ-ba Gnubs Byams-pa'i-dpal. 40.1.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">77. G.yas-ban Ya-bon. 40.2.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">78. Bal-po A-h</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">ūṃ-'bar. 40.2.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">79. A-ro Dpal-po (?). 40.3.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">80-82. Sum-tshogs. Name of a group of three Tertons: Rkyang-po Grags-pa-dbang-phyug, Sum-pa Byang-chub-tshul-khrims, and 'Bre Shes-rab-bla-ma.</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"> 40.4.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">83. Du-gu Rin-chen-seng-ge. 40.5.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">84. Gtsang-pa La-ba-ring-mo, or Gtsang-ring Shes-rab. 40.6.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">85. Jo-mo Sman-mo. 40.8. A woman Terton.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">86. Me-long-rdo-rje. 41.1.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">87. Skal-ldan Byis-pa. 41.2.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">88. Brang-ti Rgyal-nyi Mkhar-bu. 41.3. Revealer of medical Termas. (Brang-ti Rgyal-mnyes Mkhar-bu is a more common spelling of his name. Mkhar-'bum also occurs.)</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">89-92. Four Terma assistants of Gu-ru Chos-dbang by the names of Sgom-chen 'Brug-pa, Gnyan-ston Dzambha-la, Don-grub-seng-ge, and Padma-grags-pa. 41.4.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">93. Dung-mtsho-ras-pa, The Earlier. 41.5.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">94. Mkha'-'gro-ma Kun-dga'-'bum. 41.6. Another woman Terton.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">95. Dung-mtsho-ras-pa, The Later. 41.7.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">96. Badzra-ma-ti, the Indian. 41.9.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">97. Rgyal-sras Legs-pa. 41.10.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">—. Scan no. 43 has only two lines saying there were five King Tertons and Three Supreme Emanation Tertons, with the King Tertons being Nyang-ral, Gu-ru Chos-dbang, Rdor-gling, and Padma-gling-pa (the fifth one is not listed).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">—. Scan no. 44, the final scanned page, lists alternative names of three prominent women, in fact queens, of 8th-century Tibet. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">So no, I now feel sure there is no telltale statement, let alone an informative colophon, identifying the author. About all I can say for sure is that the author or note-taker (or combination of the two) must have lived sometime in the 20th century because he mentions, in an authored statement of his, the name of the 19th-century Terton <a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2023/03/terton-gyatsa-woodblock-print.html" target="_blank">Mchog-'gyur-gling-pa</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But let’s consider some possibilities. Now that I've taken the book* down from the shelf and can compare, I see that our author follows more or less the same listing as Kongtrul does in his famous set of Terton biographies (written in 1886), not just for the first 47,** but for the following ones as well. </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">One difference is that while our <i>Onomasticon</i> stops with Rgyal-sras Legs-pa, Kongtrul’s continues with about 60 more names.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">(*Jamgön Kongtrül Lodrö Taye, <i>The Hundred Tertöns: A Garland of Beryl, Brief accounts of Profound Terma and the Siddhas Who Have Revealed It</i>, tr. by Yeshe Gyamtso, KTD Publications [Woodstock 2011]. **These first 47 adhere to the order of prophecies in the <i>Thang-yig</i>, just as Kongtrul did, so from this we draw no diagnostic clues. We have to go on to look at the order and content that comes after no. 47 in the list.)</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">That leads me to wonder if our <i>Terton Onomasticon</i> isn’t in fact one of two things: 1. A set of notes made by a reader of Kongtrul’s work, severely abbreviating it and stopping abruptly. 2. An earlier sketch that would only later be expanded into Kongtrul’s work, which could mean it may be a writing of Kongtrul himself. I rather doubt that last possibility, but I suppose it could be considered. We just have to look into it some more. I’ve noticed that there are places where our text supplies information not found in Kongtrul’s work,* so it isn’t simply a student notebook.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">(*For example it supplies more details about the three subsequent reincarnations of Bde-chen-gling-pa, no. 47 in the list, than you find in Kongtrul.)</span></span></blockquote><p> </p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">— — —</span></blockquote><p> </p><p></p><p><span style="color: #666666;">Postscript (Nov. 27, 2023):</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666;">About that question of who the first Nyingma Terton may have been. Some might take exception to the ideas put forward, so let me go into it once more. In the <i>Onomasticon</i> and likewise in Kongtrul, it is Sangs-rgyas-bla-ma who was first. Whether or not his history had been told prior to the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama I haven’t been able to discover yet. His dating is quite shadowy, cast somewhere around the last half of the 10th century, active in Ngari. The main problem with him being declared first is just that no texts he excavated, no lineage he initiated, is available in later history, well, not until a visionary rediscovery in the 19th century. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9mo93iIZWtnQfnn2vcqOG5yNKnDeR6I1G8cMUbDfc6hK14jpOHdYHcu1ET-yzsXhsBuKQcWjQ-HhkZ7nm0qvuB1KsoHVSNAo5gg9_1nEgi6b8OP_CDmVQYP6f0E3EX9x2EF_8MCVBOOyJSVf5mGfv4dHZ5FAxKJpUGpdQsWw5aqgrQv2_T8GX0A/s640/Rdor-'bum-grags,%20the%20Medical%20Terto%CC%88n%20W4CZ355782%20cipt.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="640" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9mo93iIZWtnQfnn2vcqOG5yNKnDeR6I1G8cMUbDfc6hK14jpOHdYHcu1ET-yzsXhsBuKQcWjQ-HhkZ7nm0qvuB1KsoHVSNAo5gg9_1nEgi6b8OP_CDmVQYP6f0E3EX9x2EF_8MCVBOOyJSVf5mGfv4dHZ5FAxKJpUGpdQsWw5aqgrQv2_T8GX0A/w320-h251/Rdor-'bum-grags,%20the%20Medical%20Terto%CC%88n%20W4CZ355782%20cipt.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Sprul-pa'i Gter-ston Rdor-'bum-grags<br />miniature from a medical text.<br />TBRC W4CZ355782</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666;">The Zab-bu-lung history and a whole group of related Terma histories give the first Terton as Rdo-rje-'bum or Rdor-'bum Chos-kyi-grags-pa. His is somewhat less shadowy, yet shadowy he is, and his discoveries were all related to medicine rather than Dharma. Obscure as he may be to most of us, </span><a href="http://purl.bdrc.io/resource/P391" target="_blank">BDRC has a Person ID</a><span style="color: #666666;"> for him dating him to the 11th century. Let me quote here what was said in the earlier blog, as I’m not sure you will locate it in that rambling discussion:</span></p><p></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666;">Looking at the <i>Tertön Prayer</i> itself, what strikes us right away is that the first verse is devoted to a relatively unknown Tertön named Dorjebum (Rdo-rje-'bum) known for his medical terma. He is, in the Zab-bu-lung history explicitly stated to be the first of the Tertöns. The same history does slip Sangyé Lama (Sangs-rgyas-bla-ma) into the discussion, but I fail to find him in the prayer itself. The Fifth Dalai Lama also mentions Sangyé Lama here, but says only that his lineages were not received. It may be due to Kongtrul that it is now common knowledge that Sangyé Lama must be called the first. As a rediscoverer, he may have himself been rediscovered, or at least revalidated, in the 19th century.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666;">The Guru Tashi history has an argument that Dorjebum lived four generations before Yuthokpa, so dating Yuthokpa’s activities to around 1200, that would put him in about 1080 CE, so that’s about the best I can do at dating him.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666;">Immediately after the doctor’s verse, verse 3 is about two women Tertöns, yet another somehow surprising feature. Why, we wonder, would physicians and women Tertöns take priority? It is only in verses 4 and 5 that we get the names of the Tertöns of greatest renown (to us at least), Nyangral Nyima-özer and Guru Chöwang. </span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666;">I haven’t located any of Rdor-'bum’s medical Terma now existing in the form of actual texts. However, there is a record of teachings received by Brag-dkar Rta-so Chos-kyi-dbang-phyug (1775-1839), with a lineage of the same. I haven’t looked into all of this yet, but perhaps it would be worthwhile to go to BDRC and have a look at it as contained in RID no. W1KG14557. It is quite brief. There are 17th-century sources on him we could look into. There are also biographical sketches of him in the recently compiled collective biographies of physicians, where we learn he lived in the time of Marpa, was ordained as a monk, was active in western Tibet or Ngari, and drew his medical Termas from the heart of an image of Tandrin at Traduntse, and still other such Termas from still other images. It’s even said that lineages descending from him are still alive today. All very interesting and worthy of closer study, I do declare. And it is all made possible by searching in the databases of BDRC. Finally, if you require something about him in English, there is no better place to look than Gavin Kilty's translation of the 17th-century medical history by Desi Sangyé Gyatso, <i>Mirror of Beryl</i>, The Library of Tibetan Classics series 28, Wisdom (Somerville 2010), pp. 177-185. </span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-70765091909717286412023-09-29T19:27:00.015+03:002023-11-16T16:10:02.024+02:00Whose Praise of Tsari?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkrRE-QzmHxNr6kp0IUn-ZELlaGtgg-_31dvgjgW4SA4UPZhEAfDNN71ZXnrQpWj2w7LrjNGJRSIk8z7SNI8XqoOHXRytQ8ALomKFaA62-BbtfWrBpKufEY-aIIVJ1JCbgxq3h6Y_P9laW9iqgZ0zRLgTfgeIN3X9OZ-05g8sRRa6qiH-yoiIOng/s1070/Padma-dkar-po%20HAR65368.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1070" data-original-width="796" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkrRE-QzmHxNr6kp0IUn-ZELlaGtgg-_31dvgjgW4SA4UPZhEAfDNN71ZXnrQpWj2w7LrjNGJRSIk8z7SNI8XqoOHXRytQ8ALomKFaA62-BbtfWrBpKufEY-aIIVJ1JCbgxq3h6Y_P9laW9iqgZ0zRLgTfgeIN3X9OZ-05g8sRRa6qiH-yoiIOng/w298-h400/Padma-dkar-po%20HAR65368.jpg" width="298" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Pemakarpo, <a href="https://www.himalayanart.org/items/65368" target="_blank">HAR 65368</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">Over the years I’ve developed my own way of seeing holy places. I’ve spent decades living in one of the most celebrated pilgrimage destinations the world has ever known. I see today’s Places as rooted in the primordial human past, when divine presences began to be enshrined in natural features such as standing stones, cairns and groves* that eventually evolved into the towering cathedrals and temples of our time. Simplistic? Well, of course, simple ideas are the most difficult to arrive at sometimes, and to keep things simpler still, we have to ignore the ways holiness and divinity might demand definition and explanation. Religious studies experts are still at work on that. We don’t expect consensus anytime soon.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">(*And, I should add, mountains...)</span></blockquote></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">I no longer remember when I first became aware of the traditional-style nature reserve in southeastern Tibet known as Tsari. I suppose it must have happened in the late-’70’s to mid-’80’s. In my younger days I read a lot of travel literature, and although traveling botanists were not my usual thing, I do remember books by Fletcher and Kingdon-Ward that may have touched me off, or at least peaked my interest at a new level. At some point I uncovered something I should have known already, that a particularly difficult song by the Sixth Dalai Lama </span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">(b. 1682 CE)</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"> is devoted to this place even without specifically naming Tsari. Without knowing about Tsari, there can be no way to begin to understand the poem itself, it would seem like nothing but senseless <i>word salad</i>.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The same <i>might</i> be said for the verse work I’ll translate for you in a minute, one that we’ll call by the short name <i>Praise</i>. It assumes even much more knowledge about the sacred geography of Tsari than was expected by the Sixth Dalai Lama. When I noticed it in a brand new collection of the works of Tāranātha (</span>ཏཱ་ར་ནཱ་ཐ་, 1575-1634<span style="font-size: medium;">) it intrigued me, as I had no idea this famous <i>Tibetan</i> (not Indian!) scholar ever wrote about Tsari, so I had a closer look, only getting more and more frustrated by each new quatrain. But thanks to the internet, and specifically to <a href="https://library.bdrc.io/" target="_blank">BDRC</a>, these problems have a way of working themselves out and that is how I came to realize that it is, with hardly any reason for doubt, a work by the 4th Drugchen Pemakarpo (</span>འབྲུག་ཆེན་པདྨ་དཀར་པོ་<span style="font-size: medium;">, 1527-1596). It was placed in the collection by mistake.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">If there is one point about pilgrimage that can be taken away from this <i>Praise</i> with confidence, it is that the same landscape can be loaded with multiple layers of meaning. Still, only one level is likely to be available to a particular pilgrim at any one time. As far as the overall picture is concerned, people do see what they come prepared to see. On the deeper levels, Tibetan pilgrims could possibly experience states corresponding to those in the intermediate state of the afterlife at Kawa Karpo (see Buffetrille’s essay) or, at Tsari, undergo the four empowerments of Vajrayāna. Take any two or three pilgrims traveling over the same landscape, and you may well find two or three highly disparate worlds. Pemakarpo is exceptionally explicit about this. Let this be a warning, we talk in generalities at our own peril, pilgrimage is not necessarily a ‘simple’ popular religious practice for gaining merit and purifying sins however much it might look that way to people like ourselves.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Without more ado, I’ll place before you my translation of the <i>Praise</i>, although I will repeat the whole set of verses at the end of this blog entry in parallel with the text edition, such as it is, so Tibetan readers can compare for themselves and criticize the English as they must. I tried to translate poetry as poetry, but I can’t claim success. The combination of esoteric initiatory imagery and classical <i>kāvya</i> poetics makes the going particularly hard, kind of like a perilous pilgrimage in the Himālayas. I beg of you to read with patience and care. Assistance in interpretation will be offered later on, just in case you could use some.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">White Lotus Belles Lettres: </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A Praise of the Holy Place Known as Caritra</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Praise the name of glorious Caritra!</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">The learned are the swans who find delight in their findings,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">‘here in this wide and glorious lotus pond of utmost perfection,’</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">they’ve unfurled the broad white wings of their poetic arts,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">and with slow drumbeats on their throat drums praised its wonders.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">All-pervasive and subsuming all, as it was in the beginning,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">never ever changing, the ultimate extinguishing of change,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">this very same high peak as the Victors see it</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">paints its own painting, ‘The Field of Pure Dharmakāya.’</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">It all displays atop a single base as one great mandala,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">the entire supreme array of peaceful, lustful and wrathful ones,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">its each and every atomic particle displaying likewise,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">here in this Sambhogak</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">ā</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">ya Field of visionary experience.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">For personages defined as ordinary, medial and supreme</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">this watery moon dances its appropriate marvels as needed,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">and the eye of divination descries in this crystalline Place</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">‘rulings’ of a country of miraculous Emanations.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">To the south of the place where the Teacher taught those emanations,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">this Great Cemetery is one of a group of twenty-four</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">that the multitude of unsurpassed tantra texts made out to be supreme Places,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">one that has chopped off the tongues of philologers, Caritra.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">The blood-thirsty Heruka, hero whose soles are soaked</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">in waves of red blood from the slaying of the frightful ones, is</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">there in union with the Ḍākinīs who purify the two obscurations</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">as the delusion-vanquishing Crystal Mountain, a <i>caitya</i> of Dharmakāya.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">The twelve island lakes are the field of their deployment</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">together with the Vidyās and Messenger Women, the Place</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">where Pagsam Wangpo went to take the powerful <i>siddhi</i> substance,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">a vowed substance subsuming them all, an icon of the Ḍākinīs.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span>It is a place the Karma Ḍākinī</span><span>s, experiences of heat, do espionage</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">under varied guises of environments—mountains and lakes, trees and ravines—</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">a divination mirror for gauging the quality of prior cultivation,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">it is a Place for Nirmāṇakāyas, so the less well endowed risk their lives.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Emaho! </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Opening up the two folded hands of faith</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">these articles of offering scatter in its direction.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">The doorlocks blocking the turnoffs of eternalism & nihilism</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">were cleared by the riverbank of swift causation.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">When we inspect the tracks of those with robes of nonattachment</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">gotten by renouncing household life, this place with its great contemplative absorption in </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">circumambulation with one-pointedness and insight</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">brings down all those arrogant about their desire-free path.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Fully soaked by love in compassion’s wet meadow they are</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">expert in taking paces with wisdom and means paired together,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">‘This is the heart of the Wisdom Gone Beyond,’</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">with this thought the favorably endowed advance very far.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">For recipients of the commitments of this Place’s awesome guardians,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">ushered through the door of the great Dharma-origin of Pölung,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">the blessing descent, dawning of instantaneous spiritual experience</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">and realization, reveals all mandalas in that glorious forest.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Humans much darkened in sin, this vessel of cloud,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">blocked at the time of waking the mists curl round its neck,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">this descent of compassion streams bathe their bodies</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">making it pure, this being the empowerment of no turning back.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Descending within the Four Ravines and settling upon the Four Passes,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">the solar and lunar transversals leave no chance for dreams;</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">it is solely the enjoyment of the secret assembly substance</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">that is known to the fortunately endowed ones as The Second.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Then imbibing the melt from the twelve island-lakes,</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">when climbing to the peaks of four mountains,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">the darkness of thick sleep is vanquished and </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">consecration in the drop of space is what was named The Third.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Then journeying to the Four Caves, upon a lion throne</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">they first settle the mind in high manifest Awakening,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">dissolve into the four absorptions, then aroused by the song of Turquoise Lake's goddess, </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">arise as teacher of the Goal in the pass named Gayo.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Those who with care proceed living true to their commitments,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">move into Bumdé, then cross the valley of Lachen pass,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">are the ones who will protect the great treasure of renown</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">that forms the basis of benefit and comfort for all living ones.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Some beginners in the pilgrimage bear the mere signs,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">while intermediate pilgrims are just borrowers of blessings,</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">while the advanced ones see everything in its full state of divinity</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">and so it is explained to travelers, “This is circled three times.”</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">In these words Vajradhāra revealed the secrets,</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">so when this grandchild of the Kagyü Lamas speaks them</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">may the lotus teeth in all the smiles of the Ḍākinīs</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">be tied as tightly around him as a turban.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">The circumambulation of Caritra is symbolic of the gradual traversal of the Path of Great Secrets, and seeing it as such I thought to expand on it as a teaching made in offering to others, and this is why I composed this work called <i>White Lotus Belles Lettres</i> in the palace where the great Vajra Wielders stage their visible performances, the glorious forest of Chigchar.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><div><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia;">§ § §</span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h4 style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #b45f06;">Text edition</span> (here my English translations and comments are <i>rubrics</i> in red font, while the Tibetan texts of Pemakarpo are in black).</h4><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A. Tāranātha [ascribed to], <i>Tsa-ri-tra zhes-pa’i Gnas-la Bstod-pa Pad-dkar Legs-bshad</i>, contained in: <i>Rje-btsun T</i></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>ā</i></span><i style="font-family: georgia;">-ra-n</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>ā</i></span><i style="font-family: georgia;">-tha’i Gsung-’bum Bris-ma</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, Dpal-brtsegs Bod-yig Dpe-rnying Zhib-’jug-khang (Lhasa 2008), in 10 vols, vol. 9, pp. 403-406, in cursive script. It has been very carefully proofread, but do note that abbreviated forms have been tacitly expanded. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I cannot explain how this brief work ended up in this collection of </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Tāranātha </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">manuscripts that were mostly drawn from the library of Arhat Temple in Drepung (we are told this in a preface). This particular title has no sign of a shelving number, so it is difficult to be sure if it was from the Arhat Temple. The texts before and after it all have colophons informing us that </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Tāranātha was their author, and some also have those telltale shelving numbers.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">B. Variants are drawn from the “headed” block-letter text with identical title in the works of ’Brug-chen Padma-dkar-po, vol. 9, images 537-542, of BDRC no. W10736 (while most of the 24 volumes are made available on OCR, unfortunately the volume we require, vol. 9, doesn’t appear in that form). I give complete lines as variants to avoid impeding computer-based searches, although I have sometimes bracketed the syllable-final “s.” Pemakarpo wrote a much longer <i>Guide </i>entitled: <i>G</i></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>nas-chen Tsa-ri-tra’i Ngo-mtshar Snang-ba Pad-dkar Legs-bshad</i>, contained in the same edition of his collected works, in vol. 4, pp. 207-274. As part of this <i>Guide</i> is written as a commentary on the <i>Praise (this same part is summarized in Huber’s book)</i>, I have quoted relevant sections of its OCR following the appropriate verse (but not for every verse; I give no page numbers on the assumption that you, too, can locate it in the OCR version).</span></p></blockquote><p> </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7zxJPDdVOmeC-HDbeopin5bi2Qiu7B-f8f_3vr61Oxvj_Bp4itrhyphenhyphen8vGNL-huWZo6vpPXj14SkWgwnUE1dUy_UwUWgLBsKD3d_j_1HHPEpwSQGJfKvVOqnLhkW1TESUi-Y4Hax3VuGf2ZxuOXarzp9uowb31bnmEhDMM8KbBPmtgBa-GxrwqxmQ/s640/Black%20Mustache%20divider.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="134" data-original-width="640" height="42" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7zxJPDdVOmeC-HDbeopin5bi2Qiu7B-f8f_3vr61Oxvj_Bp4itrhyphenhyphen8vGNL-huWZo6vpPXj14SkWgwnUE1dUy_UwUWgLBsKD3d_j_1HHPEpwSQGJfKvVOqnLhkW1TESUi-Y4Hax3VuGf2ZxuOXarzp9uowb31bnmEhDMM8KbBPmtgBa-GxrwqxmQ/w200-h42/Black%20Mustache%20divider.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">tsa ri tra zhes pa'i gnas la bstod pa pad dkar legs bshad ces bya ba bzhugs so //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">White Lotus Belles Lettres: A Praise of the Holy Place Known as Caritra.</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">na maḥ shrī tsa ri trā ya / </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">Praise the name of glorious Caritra!</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">phun tshogs padma can yongs dpal 'di zhes //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">mkhas pa'i ngang pa dpyad pas yid mgu nas //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">snyan dngags gshog yangs dkar po rab brkyang[s] te //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">ya mtshan bstod pa'i mgrin rnga dal gyis brdungs //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">mkhas pa'i dad pa dpyad pas yid mgu nas/_snyan ngag gshog yangs dkar po rab brkyang ste/_ya mtshan bstod pa'i mgrin rnga dal gyis brdung/</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">The learned are the swans who find delight in their findings,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">‘here in this wide and glorious lotus pond* of utmost perfection,’</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">they’ve unfurled the broad white wings of their poetic arts,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">and with slow drumbeats on their throat drums praised its wonders.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">(*The word <i>pond</i> isn’t physically present, and the poetic term <i>padma-can</i> can have a variety of referents, all sharing the same characteristic of having or holding [a] lotus. Taking the verse as a whole, however, there can be no doubt that the meaning of <i>lotus pond</i> is intended here.)</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />°</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">kun khyab kun tu bsdus yang dang po'i tshul //</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">B: kun khyab kun tu brdzus kyang dang po'i tshul //</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">nam yang 'gyur med 'gyur ba zad pa'i mtha' //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">rgyal rnams gzigs pa'i rtser 'thon nyid 'dis nyid //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">dag pa chos sku'i zhing zhes ri mor byed //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">kun khyab kun tu brdzus kyang dang po'i tshul/_/nam yang 'gyur med gyur ba zad pa mtha'/_/rgyal rnams gzigs pa'i rtser 'thon nyid 'dis nyid/_dag pa chos sku'i zhing zhes ri mor byas/_dpal bde mchog 'khor lo nyid dang gnyis su byar med pa/_/gsang ba mchog gi dgyes pa na/_/thams cad bdag nyid rtag tu bzhugs/_/zhes pa'i pho brang chen po ni 'di ste/_chos thams cad la khyab pas/_chos can gyi ngo nas dmar sbyar yang/_chos nyid kyi tshul nam yang 'gyur ba med pa sangs rgyas rnams kyi gzigs pas grub pa'i phyir ro/_/rgyu mtshan 'di nyid kyis nyid la gsang ba chos sku'i zhing khams zhes ri mor byas kyi/_gzhan gyi bsam pa dang brjod pa thams cad kyi ra ba 'gongs pas so/_/</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">All-pervasive and subsuming all, as it was in the beginning,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">never ever changing, the ultimate extinguishing of change,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">this very same high peak as the Victors see it</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">paints its own painting, ‘The Field of Pure Dharmakāya.’</span><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">*</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">(*The word Pure [Dag-pa] here stoutly alludes to the name of Pure Crystal Mountain [Dag-pa Shel-ri], the central mountain of Tsari. The Crystal Mountain part of its name appears likewise embedded in a later verse where again it is associated with Dharmakāya. Victors is a commonly used epithet of the Enlightened Ones.)</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />°</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">gzhi gcig steng du ma lus dkyil 'khor che //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">zhi chags khro ba rnam pa'i mchog thams cad //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">ston la rdul rer rdul snyed de 'dra'i tshul //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">'char ba'i snang ba longs sku'i zhing yang 'di //</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">B: 'char bas snang ba longs sku'i zhing yang 'di //</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">ngo bo de ltar yin pas/_gzhi gcig steng du ma lus dkyil 'khor che/_/zhi chags khro ba rnam pa'i </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">mchog thams cad/_/ston la rdul rer rdul snyed de 'dra'i tshul/_/'char bas snang ba longs sku'i zhing yang 'di/_/ji ltar du mar snang zhe na/_gzhi gcig gi steng du rgyud sde rin po che rnams nas bshad pa'i dkyil 'khor gyi lha zhi ba dang/_chags tshul dang/_khro bo khrag 'thung chen po'i rnam pa thams cad ston pa'i zhing la khams gsum gyi yul ma yin pa'i 'og min stug po bkod pa zhes rnam par bzhag mod/_tshul de nyid kyis 'di'i rdul rer 'jig rten khams thams cad kyi rdul dang grangs mnyam pa'i gsang ba sngags kyi lha dang/_snying po dang/_phyag rgya thams cad 'char ba'i phyir na/_nang snang ba longs sku'i zhing khams su grub bo/_/</span></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">It all displays atop a single base as one great mandala,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">the entire supreme array of peaceful, lustful and wrathful ones,*</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">its each and every atomic particle displaying likewise,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">here in this Sambhogakāya Field of visionary experience.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">(*We are used to mandala groupings of peaceful and wrathful deities, particularly in <i>The Tibetan Books of the Dead</i>, but the lustful group is less often mentioned. These are aspects in which these divine forms of Buddhas display to us, since we are the ones who are dominated by the Three Poisons that require transformation. We’ll leave the subject on this perplexing note. It is fascinating to see how the mandala stands for the holy Place as a whole, but also in fractal fashion it manifests in each atomic particle (the Tibetan <i>rdul </i>means both dust particle and atom, depending on context.)</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />°</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">tha ma 'bring dang mchog gi gang zag la //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">ngo mtshar gang gi[s] 'dul de chu zla'i gar //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">pra babs mig la shel mtshungs 'dir snang ba //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">sgyu 'phrul sprul pa'i yul gyi gtan tshigs mthong //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">des byed pa'i las/_mtha' ma 'bring dang mchog gi gang zag la/_ngo mtshar gang gis 'dul de'i chu zla'i gar/_pra babs mig la shel mtshungs 'dir snang bas/_sgyu 'phrul sprul pa'i yul gyi gtan tshigs mthong/_skal ba dman 'bring mchog gi gang zag rang rang ngo mtshar du 'dzin pa/_ri/_mtsho/_lung pa/_ljon shing/_srog chags/_lha'i gzugs brnyan/_lha tshogs sogs gang gis 'dul ba de dang der grub kyis/_gcig tu chad pa yin pa/_dper na pra babs pa la dpod mkhan gyi dbye bas/_mdun ngor shel gcig la mthong ba sna tshogs su 'gyur ba bzhin gyi phyi yul snang sprul pa sku'i zhing khams 'di shar ro/_/</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">For personages defined as ordinary, medial and supreme</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">this watery moon dances its appropriate marvels as needed,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">and the eye of divination descries in this crystalline Place</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">‘rulings’ of a country of miraculous Emanations.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: red;">(This verse continues with the third Body of the Trik</span><span style="color: red;">ā</span><span style="color: red;">ya doctrine, making use of divination terminology, more particularly crystal scrying, seeing as the words </span><i style="color: red;">pra-babs</i><span style="color: red;"> [scrying, although I translate it as divination] and </span><i style="color: red;">gtan-tshigs</i><span style="color: red;"> [edict, logical proposition, although I translate it as rulings] </span><span style="color: red;">are terms used in that art.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red;">Oh, and notice where the Dharmak</span><span style="color: red;">ā</span><span style="color: red;">ya verse displayed high mountain imagery, this Nirmāṇakāya verse alludes to lakes. The mountain/lake dyad is a very strong feature of Tibetan folk religious symbolism since early times.</span><span style="color: red;">)</span></div></span></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />°</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">ston pas sprul bshad mdzad de'i lho phyogs kyi //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">dur khrod che 'di nyi shu rtsa bzhi'i gya //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">bla med rgyud gzhung rgya mtshos gnas mchog tu //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">bsgrubs pas rtog ge'i lce chad tsa ri tra //</span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">To the south of the place where the Teacher taught those emanations,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">this Great Cemetery is one of a group of twenty-four*</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">that the multitude of unsurpassed tantra texts made out to be supreme Places,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">one known to chop off the tongues of philologers, Caritra.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">(*The group of 24 Places of the Vajra Body appears in variant forms in both Buddhist and non-Buddhist tantras, a topic for another time. If you need a bibliography just tell me. I’ll quickly admit that the name of Tsari is a real puzzle, but I think it is best explained as a ’Tibetanizing’ transcription of the first two syllables of Caritra. If this holds true, then the Tibetan name only seems to contain the notion of “mountain’ in it, even if there is a common understanding that the name means <i>Herb Mountain</i>. But I value my tongue, so I won’t say more.)</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />°</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">'jigs byed bsad pa'i khrag dmar rba glong gis //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">zhabs mthil bsgos pa'i dpa' bo he ru ka //</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">B: </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">zhabs mthil bgos pa'i dpa' bo he ru ka //</span></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">sgrib gnyis dag pa'i ḍā ki dang lhan du //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">bdud 'joms shel ri chos sku'i mchod sdong yin //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">The blood-thirsty Heruka, hero whose soles are soaked</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">in waves of red blood from the slaying of the frightful ones, is</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">there in union with the Ḍākinīs who purify the two obscurations</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">as the delusion vanquishing Crystal Mountain, a <i>caitya</i> of Dharmakāya.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />°</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">rigs ldan ma dang pho nya mor bcas dang //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">kun tu spyod pa'i 'khor sa bcu gnyis gling //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">dngos grub len la dpag bsam dbang po ni //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">yongs 'du lta bu dam tshig mkha' 'gro'i [b]rten //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">The twelve island lakes are the field of their deployment</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">together with the Vidyās and Messenger Women, the Place</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">where Pagsam Wangpo went to take the powerful siddhi substance,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">a vowed substance subsuming them all, an icon of the Ḍākinīs.*</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span style="text-align: left;">(*It demonstrates amazing prescience, if the verse is by Pema Karpo, that he would name by name his immediate reincarnation Drugchen V Pagsam Wangpo [འབྲུག་ཆེན་དཔག་བསམ་དབང་པོ་, 1593-1653]. For the story of his involvement with the ‘vowed substance’ or sacramental medicine, the <a href="https://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/Rainbow_Light_Pill" target="_blank">Rainbow Light Pellet</a>, see Martin’s essay. One of its main ingredients grew in the neighborhood of Chigchar, an herb named in the verse by the Sixth Dalai Lama mentioned earlier. Not only the fifth, but the fourth and sixth incarnates were all involved in its making.)</span></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />°</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">sna tshogs ljongs dang ri dang mtsho klung shing //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">las kyi mkha' 'gro nyams drol nyul ba'i sa //</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">B: </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">las kyi mkha' 'gro nyams drod myul ba'i sa //</span></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">las 'phro bzang ngan brtag pa'i me long 'di //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">sprul sku'i gnas yin skal med srog la [~ma?] gtum //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: red;">In this place the Karma Ḍākinī</span><span style="color: red;">s, experiences of heat, do espionage</span></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">under varied guises of environments, mountains and lakes, trees and ravines;</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">a divination mirror for gauging the quality of prior cultivation,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">it is a Place for Nirmāṇakāyas — the less well endowed risk their lives.*</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">(*The words “experiences of heat” and the final word <i>gtum</i> both consciously allude to psychic heat or tummo testing, something Tsari was known for. See discussion in Huber's book, pp. 86-90. The phrase “risk their lives” isn’t literal, but ‘harsh on life-force’ is one way it may be understood.)</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />°</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">e ma ho /</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">dad pa'i snyim pa kha phye nas //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">mchod pa'i yo byad 'di yi phyogs 'thor ba //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">rtag chad lam gol [405] dgag pa'i sgo glegs zhes //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">rgyu 'bras myur bu'i 'gram gyis gsal bar byas //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">Emaho! </span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">Opening up the two folded hands of faith</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">these articles of offering scatter in its direction.</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">The doorlocks blocking the turnoffs of eternalism & nihilism</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">were cleared by the riverbank of swift causation.*</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">(*This verse refers to the laypersons’ typical experience of pilgrimage, alluding to challenges to ordinary views and dangers (physical hardship in itself may purify negative <i>karma</i>; read Huber’s book, p. 151), just as the next verse refers to the monastics’. The author shows a lack of enthusiasm for the pilgrimage experiences of householders and monastics.)</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />°</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">khyim nas rab byung zhen med chas gos kyi //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">sgrub pa'i [b]shul rjes blta ba'i shes rab dang //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">rtse gcig bskor ba'i ting 'dzin chen po 'dis //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">chags bral lam gyi khengs pa thams cad bsnyil //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">When we inspect the tracks of those with robes of nonattachment</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">gotten by renouncing household life, this place with its great contemplative absorption in </span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">circumambulation with one-pointedness and insight</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">brings down all those arrogant about their desire-free path.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />°</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">byams pas rab brlan snying rje'i ne'u rdzab tu //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">thabs shes zung 'jug gom[s] pa 'dor mkhas pa //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">pha rol phyin pa'i snying po 'di yin zhes //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">dgongs nas skal bzang yun ring de la bkris //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">Fully soaked by love in compassion’s wet meadow they are</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">expert in taking paces with wisdom and means paired together,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">‘This is the heart of the Wisdom Gone Beyond,’</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">with this thought the favorably endowed advance a long distance.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">(Remember that Tsari is famously moist compared to other nearby valleys, which helps to explain its unique plant life. This particular verse emphasizes the Path according to the Great Vehicle, Mahāyāna. With the next verse we enter the more exclusive and esoteric realm of Vajrayāna, where we remain until the final verse.)</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />°</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">bod klung[s] chos 'byung chen po'i sgor bcug nas //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">gnas srungs gnyan po'i dam tshig nod rnams la //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">dpal gyi nags [~gnas?] su nyams rtogs cig 'char ba'i //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">byin phab de la dkyil 'khor ma lus bstan //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">For recipients of the commitments of this Place’s awesome guardians,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">ushered through the door of the great Dharma-origin of Pölung,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">the blessing descent, dawning of instantaneous spiritual experience</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">and realization, reveals all mandalas in that glorious forest.*</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">(*For an incident that occurred at Bod-klung [“<i>phölung”]</i>, see Huber’s book, p. 64. I believe it is the centrally located valley where “Tibet Rock” [བོད་རྡོ་] is located. The ‘blessing descent’ indicates a phase in the <i>sādhana</i> practice. ‘Glorious forest’ looks like a name for Chigchar, and the name of Chigchar is concealed later in this same line. For proof of the identity of the glorious forest with Chigchar, see the colophon, below.)</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />°</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">yid can sdig la cher gnag sprin gyi bum //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">sad pa'i skabs dgag na bun mgul dkris nas //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">thugs rje'i chu rgyun phab 'dis lus bkrus pa //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">dag byed phyir mi ldog pa'i dbang bskur yin //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">phyogs thams cad sprin sngon po rab tu 'khrigs shing/_na bun 'thul ba/_char gyi rgyun mi zad par 'bab pa ni lus can rnams kyi sdig pa la cher gnag pa'i bum pa bzang po ras dkar gyi zur phud tsan nas bdud rtsi lnga'i rang bzhin gyi chab 'ongs te/_lus kyi thig le sad pa'i gnas skabs spro ba/_rags pa'i sdig sgrib 'khrud/_sku rdo rje'i nus pa 'jog pa bum dbang ngam phyir mi ldog pa'i dbang bskur ba ste/_bskur mkhan ni mkha' la spyod pa'i dbang mo rnams so/_/zhes pa'i brda'o/_/</span></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">Humans much darkened in sin, this vessel of cloud,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">blocked at the time of waking the mists curl round its neck,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">this descent of compassion streams bathe their bodies</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">making it pure, this being the empowerment of no turning back.*</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">(*I see a mountain here, for most part dark in color, but with a white turban on its top. The word 'vessel' points to the Flask Initiation. Starting with this one, each verse that follows is about one of the four empowerments.)</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />°</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">rong bzhi'i nang 'bab la bzhir 'dzeg pa yis //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">nyi zla'i bgrod pas rmi lam skabs phral [~bral] nas //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">gsang ba'i tshogs rdzas longs spyod 'di kho na //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">snod ldan rnams la gnyis pa zhes bsgrags so //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">rong bzhi'i nang 'bab la bzhir 'dzeg pa yis/_nyi zla'i bgrod pa la rmi lam skabs phral nas/_gsang ba'i tshogs rdzas longs spyod 'di kho na/_snod ldan rnams la gnyis pa zhes bsgrags so/_/rong chen po bzhir babs nas/_la chen po bzhi la 'dzeg la/_de dag tu tshogs kyi 'khor la du ma bskor ba 'di yang bla ma dang gnyis su med pa'i bcom ldan 'das kyi khu ba dang/_bcom ldan 'das ma'i rdul rtsa stong phrag bdun cu rtsa gnyis nas 'khor lo bzhi'i rong du 'bab pa dang/_de nyid slob ma rang rang gi 'khor lo bzhi'i lar 'dzeg pa/_gsang ba'i rdzas bdud rtsi lnga khar myong bas te/_ngag gi thig le rmi lam gyi gnas skabs skyed pa phra ba'i sdig sgrib 'khrud/_gsung rdo rje'i (20_na_39)nus pa 'jog pa'i dbang gnyis pa gsang pa'o zhes bsgrags so/_/</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">Descending within the Four Ravines and climbing the Four Passes,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">the solar and lunar transversals leave no chance for dreams;</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">it is solely the enjoyment of the secret assembly substance</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">that is known to the fortunately endowed ones as The Second.*</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">(*On the Four Great Ravines and the Four Great Passes as well as the Twelve Lakes that follow, geographical features of Tsari, see Huber’s book, p. 101, for a passage in the long guidebook by Pemakarpo where all take part in an initiatory process.)</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />°</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">de nas bcu gnyis gling pa'i pad can gyis //</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">B: de nas bcu gnyis gling sa'i pad can gyis //</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">zhu ba 'thungs pa ri bzhi'i rtser son tshe //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">gnyid 'thug mun pa 'joms pa nam mkha' yi //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">thig ler rab gnas gsum pa zhes par btags //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">de nas bcu gnyis gling gi pad can gyi/_khu ba 'thungs pa ri bzhi'i rtser son te/_gnyid 'thug mun pa 'joms pa nam mkha' yis/_thig ler rab gnas gsum pa zhes par btags/_de yang pho brang bcu gnyis la sogs pa'i mtsho'i chu 'thung zhing*/_ri bzhi'i rtser son pas nam mkha'i thig le nyi ma lta bur gsal ba nyid du gyur pa ni/_phyag rgya pad+ma can gyis bzhu ba'i byang chub kyi sems dkar dmar 'dres pa gsang ba'i sna rtses 'thung ba/_dus der sku gsung thugs ye shes kyi thig le 'dzag med du bsdam nus pas yid kyi thig le gnyid 'thug gam snyoms 'jug gi gnas skabs skyed pa shin tu phra ba'i sdig sgrib 'khrud cing*/_thugs rdo rje'i sa bon 'jog pa gsum pa shes rab ye shes/_'jig rten pa'i dbang bzhi pa'i mthar thug gi bar ro/_/</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: red;">The twelve island lakes are the field of their deployment</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: red;">when climbing to the peaks of four mountains,</span></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">the darkness of thick sleep is vanquished and </span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">consecration in the drop of space is what was named The Third.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />°</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">de nas phug bzhir gshegs nas seng ge'i khrir //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">mngon par byang chub che la mnyam bzhag pas //</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">B: mngon par byang chub che la mnyam gzhag pas //</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">bsam gtan bzhir zhu g.yu mtsho'i lha mo'i glus //</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">B: bsam gtan bzhir zhu g.yu mtsho lha mo'i glus //</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">dga' yo la der 'bras bu'i ston par bzhengs //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">de nas phug bzhir gshegs nas seng ge'i khrid/_mngon par byang chub che la mnyam gzhag pas/_bsam gtan bzhir bzhugs g.yu mtsho lha mo'i glus/_dga' yo la der 'bras bu'i ston par bzhengs/_de yang/_phug bzhi'i nang du ngal bso ba dang/_khri bzhi la 'dug pa dang/_pho brang g.yu mtsho 'khor ba'i glus dga' yo lar skal bzang su byed pa ni/_so so rang rig pas mngon par byang chub par dbugs phyung ba dang/_zhu ba de'i mtshan nyid can rgyu'i he ru ka sgra bo bral gyi bsam gtan bzhir zhu dngas ma ye shes kyi mkha' 'gro ma bzhi'i glus bskul ba/_'bras bu'i he ru ka kha sbyor gyi sku bzhi pa'i thig le/_spang bya 'pho ba'i skabs skyed pa thun mong rnam shes kyi chos 'khrud cing ye shes kyi rdo rje'i nus pa bzhag pa 'jig rten las 'das pa'i dbang bzhi pa'o/_/</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">Then journeying to the Four Caves, upon a lion throne</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">after settling the mind in high manifest Awakening,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">dissolves into the four absorptions, and with the song of the goddess of Turquoise Lake,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">arises as teacher of the Goal in the pass named Gayo.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />°</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">gang du bag yod dam tshig spyod pa'i 'gongs //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">lum sder bskyod pas ma chen lung brgal nas //</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">B: 'bum sder bskyod pas ma chen lung brgal nas //</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">mtha' yas skye dgu'i phan bde'i gzhi yin pa'i //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">grags pa'i gter chen skyong bar bya ba yin //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">Those who with care proceed living true to their commitments</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">move into Bumdé, then crossing the valley of Lachen [pass],</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">they are the ones who will protect the great treasure of renown</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">that forms the basis of benefit and comfort for all living beings.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">°</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">'ga' la dang po de de btags pa [406] tsam //</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">B: 'ga' la dang por de der btags pa tsam //</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">bar mar byin rlob brnyan po tsam zhig ste //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">tha mar thams cad lha ru mngon rdzogs pas //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">lan gsum gyis 'di 'khor zhes 'gro la bsnyad //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">Some beginners in the pilgrimage bear the mere signs,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">while intermediate pilgrims are just borrowers of blessings,</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">while the advanced ones see everything in its full state of divinity.</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">Hence it is explained to travelers, “This is circled three times.”*</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">(*This verse emphasizes the different levels at which the pilgrimage may be experienced. It is as if the Place reveals itself after first discriminating the spiritual capabilities of the pilgrim. Surely nobody actually circumambulates the mountain more than once in a once-in-every-12-year season, so the words recommending it are not intended literally.)</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />°</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">de skad rdo rje 'chang gis gsang ba byin //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">bka' [b]rgyud bla ma'i tsha bo des smras tshe //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">ḍā ki'i zhal gyi padmo'i legs so'i 'dzum // [~padmo lo lo'i 'dzum]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">ma lus bdag la thod bzhin 'ching bar mdzad //</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><span style="color: red;">In these words Vajradhāra revealed the secrets,</span></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">so when a grandchild of the Kagyü Lamas speaks them</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">may the lotus teeth in all the smiles of the Ḍākinīs</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">be tied as tightly around me as a turban.</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">°</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">ces tsa ri tra bskor ba gsang chen gyi lam rim par bgrod pa'i brdar mthong ba ltar / gzhan la sbyin pa'i chos su rgyas par bsnyad pa / pad dkar legs bshad ces bya ba / cig car dpal gyi nags ljongs / rdo rje 'dzin pa chen po rnams mngon par rol pa'i gzhal med khang du sbyar ba bde legs su gyur cig // //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">The circumambulation of Caritra is symbolic of the gradual traversal of the path of Great Secrets, and seeing it as such I thought to expand on it as a teaching made in offering to others, and this is why I composed this work called <i>White Lotus Belles Lettres</i> in the palace where the great Vajra Wielders stage their visible performances, the glorious forest of Chigchar.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="text-align: center;"> <span style="color: #660000;"> </span><span style="color: #660000;"><span> </span>§ § §</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="text-align: center;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpTNQqfubQMMWV0_FW9H-24YcxRAwIcL2tRVaVss5ay4p78TT1G2dfJePx6ad92QLgjcXcJWd93NdgjVo4C_Dpxvm7_cXXhhOEWCUHcmBPNEddHLFWM5nZpUbdnE64JV8apFR-NYY73LPaHHA_pobWKcXzs3kvhJwIOLqMsSfZ4aweo8RhydF6vw/s640/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-28%20at%2016.55.46.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="478" data-original-width="640" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpTNQqfubQMMWV0_FW9H-24YcxRAwIcL2tRVaVss5ay4p78TT1G2dfJePx6ad92QLgjcXcJWd93NdgjVo4C_Dpxvm7_cXXhhOEWCUHcmBPNEddHLFWM5nZpUbdnE64JV8apFR-NYY73LPaHHA_pobWKcXzs3kvhJwIOLqMsSfZ4aweo8RhydF6vw/w400-h299/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-28%20at%2016.55.46.jpeg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><span style="text-align: center;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="text-align: center;">This detail from a <i>thangka</i> painting, one featuring Drugchen Pemakarpo as its central figure (<a href="https://www.himalayanart.org/items/821" target="_blank">HAR 821</a>), surely depicts his visit to Tsari. It may not be clear in my cutout, but the name Chigchar appears at the beginning of an inscription, one that starts in the lake and continues under Pemakarpo’s feet. The lake itself is marked with the seed syllable <i>taṃ</i>,* and towering directly above the lake I can think of no better candidate for what mountain it might be than Pure Crystal Mountain. After all, it even looks crystalline.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="text-align: center;"></span></span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;">(*This is seed syllable of Tārā, so it is likely to be the lake of Tārā, one of Tsari’s more famous lakes, located in the valley that leads up to </span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small; text-align: center;">Tārā Pass (སྒྲོལ་མ་ལ་)</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small; text-align: center;">. An inscription reading “</span><i style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small; text-align: center;">dpon slob</i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small; text-align: center;">” (དཔོན་སློབ་) is behind Pemakarpo’s head, but I believe this is not the name of the mountain, it’s just telling us that what we see here is the teacher [སློབ་དཔོན་] with his disciples [སློབ་མ་].)</span></p></blockquote><p> </p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirzCXevo9ObddRRKuHKiWnxzhAN1Qd4507QE8XuiIaBKhZxpraudchFpXQ-O1RObW9y8tSm_fZy-5IM3hHifEjqD7xKSFzT5-183uFGffPBe06tFxCvATRnAGzY3eATE472HNdRH4tZfukk-jxIfeleUTsYl6MGeGuhHz_ude_Whdy5lhDv4UDNA/s639/Pure%20Crystal%20Mountain%20from%20Claude%20Arpi's%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="458" data-original-width="639" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirzCXevo9ObddRRKuHKiWnxzhAN1Qd4507QE8XuiIaBKhZxpraudchFpXQ-O1RObW9y8tSm_fZy-5IM3hHifEjqD7xKSFzT5-183uFGffPBe06tFxCvATRnAGzY3eATE472HNdRH4tZfukk-jxIfeleUTsYl6MGeGuhHz_ude_Whdy5lhDv4UDNA/w400-h286/Pure%20Crystal%20Mountain%20from%20Claude%20Arpi's%20blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Pure Crystal Mountain, <br />from Claude Arpi’s Blog listed below</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><span style="color: #990000;">§ § §</span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia;"><b>A couple of other things you might read (no pressure)</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">There is a serviceable Wiki entry for “</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakpa_Sheri" target="_blank">Dakpa Sheri</a>” worth a visit.</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Claude <b>Arpi</b>, “<a href="https://claudearpi.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-monkey-year-and-pure-crystal.html" target="_blank">The Chinese Village in India and the Pure Crystal Mountain Pilgrimage</a>,” <i>Claude Arpi’s Blog</i> (January 19, 2021). Not to leave the impression it is a pristine wilderness, Tsari today may seem more like a string of army bases and a basis for border disputes.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Elaine <b>Dobson</b>, “From Mount Tsari to the Tsechu:
Bhutan’s Sacred Song and Lute Dance,” <i>Journal of Bhutan
Studies</i>, vol. 25 (Winter 2011), pp. 59-81. Available online.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Mark S.G. <b>Dyczkowski</b>, “The Inner Pilgrimage of the Tantras: The Sacred Geography of the Kubjik<span style="text-align: left;">ā</span> Tantras with Reference to the Bhairava and Kaula Tantras,” contained in: <i>A Journey in the World of Tantras</i>, Indica (Varanasi 2004), pp. 93-174. I list this work here as unfortunately Tibetanists are unlikely to know of it. It does demonstrate that Caritrā is a well known Place (<i>pī</i></span><i style="font-family: georgia;">ṭ</i><i style="font-family: georgia;">ha</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">) in a wide array of Hindu tantras, and not just in Buddhist tantras and in Tibetan compositions. His maps show it located in the coastal areas of Orissa.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Elena de Rossi <b>Filibeck</b>, <i>Catalogue of the Tucci Tibetan Fund in the Library of IsIAO, </i>Volume 2, Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (Rome 2003). If you happen to have this work on hand, you can see that among the works of Drugchen Pemakarpo listed on pp. 5-34, are found both the <i>Praise</i> and the longer <i>Guidebook</i> (see p. 7). The author of this catalog in a separate publication made a transcription of a more recent and lengthy <i>Guidebook</i> to Tsari. I recommend her brief resumé of the same: “A Guide-Book to Tsa-ri,” contained in: L. Epstein and R.F. Sherburne, eds., <i>Reflections on Tibetan Culture: Essays in Memory of Turrell V. Wylie</i>, Edwin Mellen Press (Lewiston 1990), pp. 1-10.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Harold R. <b>Fletcher</b>, <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/questofflowerspl0000flet" target="_blank">A Quest of Flowers</a>: The Plant Explorations of Frank Ludlow and George Sheriff Told from their Diaries and Other Occasional Writings</i>, Edinburgh University Press (Edinburgh 1975), particularly Chapter Three, “To Tsari, a Tibetan Sanctuary,” pp. 77-126. Ludlow visited Tsari in 1936 and again in 1938. Worth obtaining for the photographs alone, for our purposes the black-&-white photo of Pure Crystal Mountain, or “Takpa Siri” on p. 85, is the one to see. Many of the seeds of unique flowers he collected are propagated still today in Kew Gardens, London, in Edinburgh Botanical Gardens, and in many other gardens around the world. <a href="https://archive.org/details/landofbluepoppyt00ward" target="_blank">Francis Kingdon-Ward</a> worked in about the same time and in a much broader area throughout the eastern Himalayas as far as Burma and Yunnan. His books and publications are far too numerous to list here, but the one you most ought to know about is linked just above. If you are keenly into botany, you may appreciate <a href="https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JARS/v54n4/v54n4-richardson.html" target="_blank">this online essay</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Toni <b>Huber</b>, <i>The Cult of Pure Crystal Mountain: Popular Pilgrimage and Visionary Landscape in Southeast Tibet</i>, Oxford University Press (Oxford 1999). This is the number one English-language publication for anyone with an interest in the subject. What more would I have to say to convince you to read it?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Dan <b>Martin</b>, “For Love or Religion? Another Look at a ‘Love Song’ by the Sixth Dalai Lama,” <i>Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft</i>, vol. 138, part 2 (1988), pp. 349-363.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Matthieu <b>Ricard</b> <i>et al</i>., trs., “The Ravines of Tsari,” Chapter Ten, contained in: <i>The Life of Shabkar: The Autobiography of a Tibetan Yogin</i>, Snow Lion (Ithaca 2001), pp. 243-273. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Told in first person by Zhabkar Tsogdrug Rangdrol (</span>ཞབས་དཀར་ཚོགས་དྲུག་རང་གྲོལ་<span style="font-size: medium;">, 1781-1851), this is the most impressive account of a Tibetan pilgrimage to Tsari ever, and the translators’ footnote explanations are top notch.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitXMzmGjjwUNoJsqOdoz8XIaMpqpzqa4ZTIKYNUHkoBr--_tUNHTQiqg_suWy00B1JrhSDrRuYUItVTVYIqyyQp8UYk3N6vGp34GB9myVVyGIZUebbB66ypAmn9fo5EWQt1NVKfa6TsDUTx6BZBoQ2INwv982a_wJxp4-jRYThQAm4jsR5ZS-4fg/s217/Gnyos,artmarketwatch4-5-5s.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="217" data-original-width="175" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitXMzmGjjwUNoJsqOdoz8XIaMpqpzqa4ZTIKYNUHkoBr--_tUNHTQiqg_suWy00B1JrhSDrRuYUItVTVYIqyyQp8UYk3N6vGp34GB9myVVyGIZUebbB66ypAmn9fo5EWQt1NVKfa6TsDUTx6BZBoQ2INwv982a_wJxp4-jRYThQAm4jsR5ZS-4fg/w258-h320/Gnyos,artmarketwatch4-5-5s.jpg" width="258" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: times; font-size: xx-small;"><a href="https://www.himalayanart.org/items/89145" target="_blank">Gnyos Lha-nang-pa</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>By the way —</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">One of the most exciting new developments in Tsari studies since Toni Huber’s book appeared has been the publication </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">(in Dehra Dun in 2006)</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> of a previously unavailable 12th-century guidebook, the one by Nyö Lhanangpa (</span>གཉོས་ལྷ་ནང་པ་<span style="font-size: medium;">, 1164-1224). He is not only among the first to open the pilgrimage route, he was the central figure in what was not so long ago the most highly priced Tibetan painting ever sold at auction (no doubt it has since been surpassed), and he is important to the history of the Drigung Kagyü school and its rare branch lineage called the Lhapa, known in bygone centuries in Bhutan. He is a major figure in the early history of Bhutan and Bhutanese Buddhism, just that he is less known elsewhere. His work on preliminary practices will be found useful to anyone interested in the history of the genre, and it, too, has surfaced. Even without doing divinations, I sense that more blogs are in our future. Is that a look of dread I see?</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">• Did you notice the ritual action of water getting poured over hands in the lower right-hand corner of the painting shown above? That’s part of traditional land donation practice in ancient India (as I learned from the late and lamented Hubert Decleer; I am not sure if the article with his observations on this painting was published or not).</span></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-80547233133835259962023-09-23T11:31:00.005+03:002023-10-01T18:41:23.302+03:00Internal Conversation, Discursive Thinking, Troubling Thoughts<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaEVIh0bw8rd2mhF4ISOnXLlgJdUK8ihOu4iijY-in9az0Iwm4enWFknxOMcHwbxxcab0Gx8KunVtQi14BuHgtB2-ogBhyphenhyphenQBYk8Qz4tbTuFonbx0vBWbhzbVBtDcplTVlZa5xXhw/s1280/Data%2527s+Internal+Conversation.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1280" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaEVIh0bw8rd2mhF4ISOnXLlgJdUK8ihOu4iijY-in9az0Iwm4enWFknxOMcHwbxxcab0Gx8KunVtQi14BuHgtB2-ogBhyphenhyphenQBYk8Qz4tbTuFonbx0vBWbhzbVBtDcplTVlZa5xXhw/w400-h250/Data%2527s+Internal+Conversation.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: xx-small;">Star Trek: The Next Generation<br />Season 7, Episode 6 — Phantasms</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Internal conversation, discursive thinking and troubling thoughts. All three are practical synonyms for something that keeps going on when you sit down to try, with all the goodwill in the world, to meditate. Trying to turn them off unleashes the inevitable flood. Seeing the flood inspires frustration, and frustration can give way to surrender. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Understanding what <i>namtok</i> (རྣམ་རྟོག) is is something you can only come to when you try to practice meditative concentration. And meditative concentration, I think needless to say, isn’t something you can approach by constructive logical steps, logical steps being another of the many things we label with the word <i>thinking </i>without giving the matter much thought. Well, without giving enough thought to what <i>thinking</i> is or can be. And logical thinking, as good as it surely is for us a lot of the time, is just too often too much like rationalizing what is anything but rational to begin with. We seem to have an endless supply of excuses for ourselves.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Allowing <i>namtok</i> to fuel your anguish, any efforts to force your thoughts to slow down or stop will be kind of like thrusting your hand in the water in an attempt to make the fish stop swimming. A better approach might be to sit still and let the fish flow by at their own speed. Instead of being troubled by them, it may be possible to settle into a mood of mutual relaxation. Then the superior kind of <i>tokpa*</i> might have a chance. Let's translate <i>tokpa</i> as deeper or fuller understanding, in a word, realization. We may suppose it’s why you wanted to meditate to begin with.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*རྟོགས་པ་ rather than the cognitive-conceptual generalities called རྟོག་པ་. That silent ‘s’ [ས] makes a world of difference.)</span></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As it is for most people nervously approaching medical or dental treatments as they sit in the waiting room, this kind of practice can be quite effective. Imagine the thoughts that seem to get in your way are fish in the aquarium.* Those fish tend to settle down after you stop tapping the glass and instead settle down in your seat. And the more you gaze at their movements the less disturbed you are by them, you might even be able to look past them. <i>You</i> don’t push them, <i>they</i> don’t push you to do all those things you’d regret doing. There’s nothing to get hung about, but you’re not hanging up on your heart, either. It’s rude to hang up in the middle of a conversation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"></span><blockquote><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*Waiting rooms often have fish tanks, and for a reason.)</span></blockquote></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">° ° °</span></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq73KzJn4bqcT7DRXn_ocu7LXv0CDM3KK6Y7GfjXYtZI8v_vLgwGIz7GVOm6S-3guVZj-z1rwbLzM8KHXcNsbdSgx9475v0NJTfU4n_PxxYKhZLtlOllU0A96lvE8v79B-2XWhqw/s2048/Fish+Blue+IMG_6436.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq73KzJn4bqcT7DRXn_ocu7LXv0CDM3KK6Y7GfjXYtZI8v_vLgwGIz7GVOm6S-3guVZj-z1rwbLzM8KHXcNsbdSgx9475v0NJTfU4n_PxxYKhZLtlOllU0A96lvE8v79B-2XWhqw/w320-h240/Fish+Blue+IMG_6436.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvIEdCbbSpT7ksFkPOPIh9yDb353jg-zwPPcL-f8DT6nprY_TPSoi1fz9n6aVKdRZb2XhX_CXkHQCWa6bAkvGxoEqUlywNacMa0RofzvgaK4oNsnX5vdQDM67yBxKpF9edCHEXYA/s2048/IMG_6436.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvIEdCbbSpT7ksFkPOPIh9yDb353jg-zwPPcL-f8DT6nprY_TPSoi1fz9n6aVKdRZb2XhX_CXkHQCWa6bAkvGxoEqUlywNacMa0RofzvgaK4oNsnX5vdQDM67yBxKpF9edCHEXYA/w320-h240/IMG_6436.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvIEdCbbSpT7ksFkPOPIh9yDb353jg-zwPPcL-f8DT6nprY_TPSoi1fz9n6aVKdRZb2XhX_CXkHQCWa6bAkvGxoEqUlywNacMa0RofzvgaK4oNsnX5vdQDM67yBxKpF9edCHEXYA/s2048/IMG_6436.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvIEdCbbSpT7ksFkPOPIh9yDb353jg-zwPPcL-f8DT6nprY_TPSoi1fz9n6aVKdRZb2XhX_CXkHQCWa6bAkvGxoEqUlywNacMa0RofzvgaK4oNsnX5vdQDM67yBxKpF9edCHEXYA/w200-h150/IMG_6436.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">As I started out learning Tibetan in the early ’70’s, I used to somewhat jokingly translate </span><i style="text-align: left;">namtog</i><span style="text-align: left;"> (རྣམ་རྟོག or རྣམ་པར་རྟོག་པ་) as </span><i style="text-align: left;">psychic whirligigs</i><span style="text-align: left;">.* Not sure that translation has quite the right spin even if I thought it had the right ring. Trains of thought tend to circle back along the same old tracks, <i>so</i> repetitive, even up to the point of becoming obsessive-compulsive (all the more so the more we are blind to it). Ruts are good for what? Still think my amusing translation was in the </span><span style="text-align: left;">right</span><span style="text-align: left;"> spirit: Lots of spinning motion, no significant progress. We’ll talk about </span><i style="text-align: left;">bagged cats</i><span style="text-align: left;"> (བག་ཆགས་) another time.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;">(*It’s a challenge to come up with a translation for <i>namtok</i> that covers every instance of its usage. It can range from <i>superstition</i> to <i>vain imagining</i> to <i>doubt and hesitation</i>, not to mention <i>anxiety</i>... As normal as it is for us to engage in it moment after moment for as long as we shall live, this mental activity is regarded by Tibetan Buddhists as one that engages in its objects with varying doses of attachment, attachment premised on conventional subject-object dualism... It gets in the way of true seeing until it doesn’t.)</span></div></blockquote><p> </p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">•</span></p><p><br /></p><p>At the time the initial sense of abiding occurs,</p><p>interfering thoughts come up one after the other</p><p>as if they were rolling down a steep mountainside.</p><p>The thought occurs that perhaps this is no meditative experience at all,</p><p>but this sensing of the amount of interfering thoughts that occur</p><p>means that the perceptions have somewhat settled down.</p><p>Before, when there was no settling down at all,</p><p>the interfering thoughts erupted as they pleased</p><p>and even the fact that they run on was not recognized.</p><p>Then, like a slowly descending stream,</p><p>the perceptions slow down and the troubled thoughts become few.</p><p>Finally, like the depths of the ocean,</p><p>the perception stabilizes and remains immobile.</p><p>Then the meditative experiences occur.</p><p>One experiences a bliss, untroubled by thoughts and clear</p><p>like the center of unbroken space.</p><p>Like a butterlamp that does not flicker in the wind,</p><p>one’s own clarity, one’s own awareness, is undistracted.</p><p>Like a beautiful flower in a rainfall</p><p>it stands out with a shining clear presence against the ground.</p><p>Like the sun shining in a cloudless sky,</p><p>nothing comes in the way of its smooth transparency.</p><p>It is, like a bronze bowl full of water,</p><p>transparent within and without.</p><p>There will never be a word for such an experience.</p><p>It dawns without reason like dreams do.</p><p> </p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">•</span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">གནས་པ་དང་པོ་བྱུང་དུས་སུ།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">རི་གཟར་ལོགས་ལ་རྦབ་འདྲིལ་བཞིན།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">རྣམ་རྟོག་ཟམ་མ་ཆད་པར་ལྡང་།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">བསྒོམ་ཉམས་མེད་དམ་སྙམ་པ་འོང་།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">རྣམ་རྟོག་བྱུང་ཚད་ཚོར་བ་དེ།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">ཤེས་པ་ཅུང་ཟད་གནས་པ་ཡིན།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">གནས་པ་མེད་པའི་གོང་རོལ་དུ།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">རྣམ་རྟོག་རང་དགར་ཤོར་བ་ཡིས།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">རྟོག་པ་འགྱུས་ཀྱང་ངོ་མ་ཤེས།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">དེ་ནས་དལ་འབབ་ཆུ་བོ་བཞིན།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">ཤེས་པ་དལ་ཞིང་རྣམ་རྟོག་ཉུང་།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">ཐ་མས་རྒྱ་མཚོའི་གཏིང་བཞིན་དུ།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">ཤེས་པ་མི་གཡོ་བརྟན་པར་གནས།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">དེ་ནས་ཉམས་སུ་མྱོང་བ་འཆར།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">བར་སྣང་དག་པའི་དཀྱིལ་ལྟ་བུར།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">གསལ་ལ་མི་རྟོག་བདེ་བར་མྱོང་།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">མར་མེ་རླུང་གིས་མི་སྐྱོད་བཞིན།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">རང་རིག་རང་གསལ་ཡེངས་པ་མེད།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">མེ་ཏོག་མཛེས་ལ་ཆར་བབ་བཞིན།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">ས་ལ་ཧྲིག་གེ་ཡལ་ལེ་བ།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">སྤྲིན་མེད་མཁའ་ལ་ཉི་ཤར་བཞིན།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">སིང་ངེ་ཆ་ལེ་དངོས་པོ་མེད།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">འཁར་ཕོར་ཆུ་ཡིས་བཀང་བ་བཞིན།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">ཕྱི་ནང་མེད་པར་སེང་ངེ་བ།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">དེ་འདྲའི་མིང་ལ་ཐུག་པ་མེད།།</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">གཞི་མེད་རྨི་ལམ་ལྟ་བུར་འཆར།།</span></p><p><br /></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><ul><ul><ul><li><span style="color: #666666;">“<a href="https://www.academia.edu/4009158/A_Twelfth_Century_Tibetan_Classic_of_Mah%C4%81mudr%C4%81_The_Path_of_Ultimate_Profundity_The_Great_Seal_Instructions_of_Zhang" target="_blank">A Twelfth-Century Tibetan Classic of Mahāmudrā, <i>The Path of Ultimate Profundity: The Great Seal Instructions of Zhang</i>.</a>” Chapter Six.</span></li></ul></ul></ul></ul><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-47432846287915872512023-09-05T14:25:00.015+03:002023-10-16T11:51:28.670+03:00Lamp of Assurance, a Very Nearly Lost Bon History<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjapOewk04tVK5XXMG7saYogLYEjeTfj3ZJdWoVc2fEX0Y380hSAt0E00Z10R0WCdomlNDpQb_ddTe8vOvv-TEULzASa3n6AMtkBnS9Nlny0Zj-NkHzsUP8NhHCLiQDDBOgAMCophLXJ7Y3ah1BlrnJGfcv6dZxHMrpNK9lGakI_GYvKlQ_q89L6g/s640/Lamp%20of%20Belief%20title%20from%20title%20page.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="292" data-original-width="640" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjapOewk04tVK5XXMG7saYogLYEjeTfj3ZJdWoVc2fEX0Y380hSAt0E00Z10R0WCdomlNDpQb_ddTe8vOvv-TEULzASa3n6AMtkBnS9Nlny0Zj-NkHzsUP8NhHCLiQDDBOgAMCophLXJ7Y3ah1BlrnJGfcv6dZxHMrpNK9lGakI_GYvKlQ_q89L6g/w400-h183/Lamp%20of%20Belief%20title%20from%20title%20page.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>“Bon-byung Yid-ches Sgron-ma [b]zhugs.” <br /></i>Endangered Archives Project EAP687/1/19</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">I see no need to overplay that old scenario of the precious object lost and unknown suddenly revealed to the world. It isn’t exactly cognitive science, or is it? Is it a question of ‘Who is paying attention to what?’ or ‘What’s out there that could be seen?’ Surely there must be a handful of learned people in the hills of Himachal, not to mention the high Himalayas who are aware of this historical work in some degree, some may even have read it for all we know. However, <i>Tibetan Histories</i> bibliography, in both its editions (1987 & 2020), has no listing for it, and a search of the worldwide web (including TBRC/BDRC/BUDA) came up with no knowledge of its existence. Search engines are not the solution to every problem, and neither is AI. I hope we know that.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">The one exceptional bit of knowledge on this particular subject is in a book published earlier this year, a history of Bon dubbed <i>Drenpa’s Proclamation.</i> In it you can see that, in a brief passage about the ancient Tibetan Emperor Drigum, the title <i>Bon History: Lamp of Assurance</i> (བོན་བྱུང་ཡིད་ཆེས་སྒྲོན་མ།) is cited twice (once with variant spelling). However, this passage exists in only one of its several manuscript versions, the one called Manuscript C, from Nakchu. As the Nakchu Manuscript appears to expand on pericopes found in the other versions, we tend to think it a later recension. So even if the history translated in <i>Drenpa’s Proclamation</i> dates to the late 12th century as we think it does, the title of the lost history may have been written into it in a later century. Knowing this doesn’t help us very much in trying to decide questions of authorship and definitive dating. These mysteries remain.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">What was not known when the book was released was that the title mentioned there does indeed belong to an identifiable and physically present text, even if that text is only made available in the form of a title page with the title on its front side (our frontispiece) along with the introduction on its back side. Given no alternative we will have to be satisfied with this fragment, so I’ve simply typed its content at the end of this file, hoping that this may bear information that will eventually allow us to find the missing pages.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">But before doing that, let’s invent a brand new entry for <i>Tibetan Histories</i> that ought to look something like this:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"> - 1195a - </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">— [no dating possible]</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><i>Bon-byung Yid-ches Sgron-ma</i>. The title is once given with this spelling, and once immediately afterward with the probably less acceptable spelling <i>Bon-chung Yid-ches Sgron-ma</i>. It seems it would have contained an account of the assassination of Emperor Gri-gum by Lo-ngam. This we may know from only one of the manuscripts of the <i>Grags-pa Rin-chen Gling-bsgrags</i>. See Per Kværne and Dan Martin, <i>Drenpa’s Proclamation: The Rise and Decline of the Bön Religion in Tibet</i>, Vajra Books (Kathmandu 2023), at p. 212. Although unknown to the authors at the time, a title page for this work, its original kept by TBMC, has been digitally preserved at the British Library's online <i><a href="https://eap.bl.uk/" target="_blank">Endangered Archives Programme</a></i>, no. EAP687/1/19, at scan nos. 489-490, where the title reads <i>Bon-byung Yid-ches Sgron-ma</i>, and on fol. 1v likewise, only with the word <i>lo-rgyus</i> inserted thus: <i>Bon-byung-gi [Lo-rgyus] Yid-ches Sgron-ma</i>. A three-fold general outline is at least supplied here: Firstly, how it [the Bon religion] was promulgated with compassion; in the meantime, how it was made to decline due to happenstances; and finally, how it was spread once more through aspiration prayers.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">+ + +</span></div><div><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #783f04;">Transcription of the title page</span></h4><div></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Note: I have tacitly resolved abbreviations and accepted all inserted corrections. I ignore the penmanship practice in the bottom margin. Quotes from scriptures are in red, their titles in italics. I've created the paragraph formatting to suit my whims. The scripture cited by its short title as <i>mdo</i> would be the <i>Gzer-mig, </i>the medium-lengthed biography of Lord Shenrab.</span></div></blockquote><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">[1r] <i>bon byung yid ches sgron ma [b]zhugs /</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;">[1v] sna tshogs thabs kyi[s] 'gro ba 'dren mdzad pa'i ston mchog sprul pa'i sku la phyag 'tshal lo //</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">'dir bon byung gi lo rgyus yid ches sgron ma la / don gsum ste / dpa'o [~dang po?] thugs rjes dar tshul / bar du rkyen gyis bsnubs tshul / tha ma smon lam gyis rgyas tshul /</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">dang po dar tshul la gnyis / spyir sangs rgyas kyi; gos [~dgos?] ston pa'i / [b]stan pa'i dar tshul dang po ni / sems can gyi ji ltar khyab pa bzhin / sangs rgyas kyi bstan pas dang khyab ste / </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>mdo</i> las / <span style="color: #cc0000;">snod bcud ting nge 'dzin mtha' yas la /</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">nam mkha' ji bzhin thugs rjes khyab /</span> ces dang /</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>klu 'bum</i> las / <span style="color: #cc0000;">sems can gyi las ni / bsam gyis mi khyab / gsam ba'i [~bsam pa'i] tshad las 'das / de [b]stan cing drang ba'i phyir / ston pa'i bka' yang bsam gyi[s] mi khyab / gsam ba'i [~bsam pa'i] tshad las 'das /</span> ces so /</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">de yang bsdus na / phyogs bcu dus gsum gyi sangs rgyas so // </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">phyogs bcu'i sangs rgyas ni / bon nyid snying... [the remainder of the text is lacking].</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">•</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div>བོན་བྱུང་ཡིད་ཆེས་སྒྲོན་མ་[བ]ཞུགས།</div><div><br /></div><div>[1v] སྣ་ཚོགས་ཐབས་ཀྱི[ས]་འགྲོ་བ་འདྲེན་མཛད་པའི་སྟོན་མཆོག་སྤྲུལ་པའི་སྐུ་ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ༎</div><div><br /></div><div>འདིར་བོན་བྱུང་གི་ལོ་རྒྱུས་ཡིད་ཆེས་སྒྲོན་མ་ལ། དོན་གསུམ་སྟེ། དཔའོ་[~དང་པོ་?]ཐུགས་རྗེས་དར་ཚུལ་། བར་དུ་རྐྱེན་གྱིས་བསྣུབས་ཚུལ། ཐ་མ་སྨོན་ལམ་གྱིས་རྒྱས་ཚུལ།</div><div><br /></div><div>དང་པོ་དར་ཚུལ་ལ་གཉིས། སྤྱིར་སངས་རྒྱས་ཀྱི༏ གོས་[~དགོས་?]སྟོན་པའི། [བ]སྟན་པའི་དར་ཚུལ་དང་པོ་ནི། སེམས་ཅན་གྱི་ཇི་ལྟར་ཁྱབ་པ་བཞིན། སངས་རྒྱས་ཀྱི་བསྟན་པས་དང་ཁྱབ་སྟེ།</div><div><br /></div><div><i>མདོ་</i>ལས། <span style="color: red;">སྣོད་བཅུད་ཏིང་ངེ་འཛིན་མཐའ་ཡས་ལ།</span></div><div><span style="color: red;">ནམ་མཁའ་ཇི་བཞིན་ཐུགས་རྗེས་ཁྱབ།</span> ཅེས་དང་།</div><div><br /></div><div><i>ཀླུ་འབུམ་</i>ལས། <span style="color: red;">སེམས་ཅན་གྱི་ལས་ནི། བསམ་གྱིས་མི་ཁྱབ་།་གསམ་བའི་[~བསམ་པའི་]ཚད་ལས་འདས། དེ་[བ]སྟན་ཅིང་དྲང་བའི་ཕྱིར་།་སྟོན་པའི་བཀའ་ཡང་བསམ་གྱི[ས]མི་ཁྱབ། གསམ་བའི[~བསམ་པའི་]་ཚད་ལས་འདས།</span> ཅེས་སོ།</div><div><br /></div><div>དེ་ཡང་བསྡུས་ན། ཕྱོགས་བཅུ་དུས་གསུམ་གྱི་སངས་རྒྱས་སོ༎་</div><div><br /></div><div>ཕྱོགས་བཅུའི་སངས་རྒྱས་ནི། བོན་ཉིད་སྙིང་ ...</div><div><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">§ § §</span></div><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #783f04;">Books mentioned</span></h4><div style="text-align: justify;">Per Kværne and Dan Martin, <i>Drenpa’s Proclamation: The Rise and Decline of the Bön Religion in Tibet</i>, Vajra Books (Kathmandu 2023). This is only made available in hardbound book format from the publisher. The internet monopolists have not yet listed it, so you may need to pick up a copy on your next trip to Kathmandu.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dan Martin, <i>Tibetan Histories: A Bibliography of Tibetan-Language Historical Works</i>, Serindia Publications (London 1997). In collaboration with Yael Bentor. Foreword by Michael Aris. The original book is now out of print. A revised and expanded version was posted on the internet on December 21, 2020, in both Word and PDF formats that may be downloaded for free at the following URL: <a href="https://www.bdrc.io/blog/2020/12/21/dan-martins-tibetan-histories/">https://www.bdrc.io/blog/2020/12/21/dan-martins-tibetan-histories/</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #660000;">Postscript</span></h4><div style="text-align: justify;">A local search of BDRC revealed more than one occurrence of that quote from the <i>Gzer-mig</i>. Here is a good example:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div></div><blockquote><div><div style="text-align: justify;">Khri Bsod-bstan, <i>Bon-dpyad Spyi Rgya Rlabs Gcod, </i>Kan-su'u Mi-rigs Dpe-skrun-khag (Lanzhou 2015), TBRC no. W8LS20516. As the page no. is not supplied I can’t tell you what it is. (I find that Shardza has the same quote near the beginning of his own history.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">མདོ་གཟེར་མིག་ལས། </div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red;">སྣོད་བཅུད་འཇིག་རྟེན་མཐའ་ཡས་ལ།། </span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red;">ནམ་མཁའ་ཇི་བཞིན་ཐུགས་རྗེས་ཁྱབ།།</span></div></div></blockquote><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Notice that here <i>ting-nge-'dzin,</i> meaning <i>contemplative absorption</i> or <i>samâdhi</i>, is replaced by <i>'jig-rten</i>, the <i>world</i> with its inhabitants (like Sanskrit <i>loka</i>). I have to say, the reading meaning “world” suits the context a lot better. It’s a beautiful way of saying that the compassion of the Enlightened Ones extends to distant-most extremes of the environmental-biological universe just like space does.</div></div></blockquote><div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: #dddddd; text-align: start; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div><div><p></p></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-17698967397236395782023-08-31T13:12:00.027+03:002023-10-15T21:15:28.565+03:00The Land of Snows, along with The Seven Seals of Tibet: A Joycean Journey<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;">
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<span style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="http://www.vascoplanet.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="2688" data-original-width="3806" height="453" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicTVIKsYY8NF14sNqxttYAw32o3tmPuwzcluhzTGNTxycmaRG3kgbPtzRYZBl8J7Ca7K4WcuwhtWWl2lB2lDNRED7LUIwCKCMeVGbtMMFj6tooaLg270yMWVfJ5ZJ3pueZYNhsA85lGqBo4r_21tFbviq-gEa-41CV6RsZbgn1Uav3A1cyQq-nfg/w640-h453/Everest,_Nuptse,_Khumbu_Glacier,_Nepal,_Himalayas%20(1).jpg" width="640" /></a></span>
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<a href="http://www.vascoplanet.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Everest & Nubtse, photo by Vyacheslav Argenbe</span></a>
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<p> <span style="font-size: large;">The Land of Snows</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;">
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<div><span style="font-size: large;">The land of snows, where mountains touch the sky,</span></div></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">And rivers flow from glaciers pure and white.</span>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">A sacred place, where ancient wisdoms lie,</span>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">And monks recite their prayers day and night.</span>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">The land of snows, where culture thrives and grows,</span>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">And art and literature reflect the soul.</span>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">A diverse place, where many languages rose,</span>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">And people share a common dream and goal.</span>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">The land of snows, where history is long,</span>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">And heroes fought for freedom and for right.</span>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">A troubled place, where conflict still is strong,</span>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">And people face oppression and plight.</span>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">The land of snows, where hope is never lost,</span>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">And faith and courage overcome the cost.</span>
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<span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">•</span>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">No, I did not write this.</span>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">I asked Skype’s newly offered Bing AI to write for me a Tibetological
sonnet. Here is Bing’s answer that arrived together with the
sonnet you just read.</span>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
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Hello, this is Bing. I'm glad you're interested in Tibetology and
sonnets. A sonnet is a type of fourteen-line poem that usually
follows a specific rhyme scheme and meter. There are different types
of sonnets, such as the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet, the English or
Shakespearean sonnet, and the Spenserian<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>
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<a href="sonnethttps://poemanalysis.com/poetic-form/structure-of-sonnets/">sonnethttps://poemanalysis.com/poetic-form/structure-of-sonnets/</a>.
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<span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica;">Tibetology is the study of things related to Tibet, including its
history, religion, language, culture, politics and the collection of
Tibetan articles of historical, cultural and religious</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica;">significance</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica;">.</span>
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<a href="significancehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetology">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetology</a>.
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I can try to write you a Tibetological sonnet, but please note that
I am not a professional poet and I may not be able to capture the
nuances of Tibetan culture and history. Here is my attempt at
writing an English sonnet about Tibet...
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<span style="color: red;">My thoughts on the poetry? I think Bing's AI can write better sonnets than
I ever will, not that I’m likely to try. And it does it in the bat of an
eye. So yes, I say if you ever need a Tibetological sonnet, this is the way
to do it. The form is spot on.</span>
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<p style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: red;">It also demonstrates that artificial intelligence is not necessarily the
ideal intelligence to work with, particularly when we consider the aptness
and particularity of the sonnet’s content. Not that it says anything exactly
wrong, there just isn’t enough specific truth in it to make a difference.
Where are the underpinnings? Who are the chief actors? Fine enough package,
indifferent content. What do we expect?</span>
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<p style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: red;">Not satisfied that I had granted AI sufficient credit after this single
test, I decided to commission something a little more complicated.
Read on!</span>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">§ § §</span><span></span>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Dear Bing, That was a fine sonnet. Now I'd like you to write for me a
Tibetological blog on the subject of the Seven Seals making use of the
literary arts of James Joyce’s <i>Ulysses</i>. A few illustrations would be
nice if you don’t mind. Thanks, D</span>
</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">•</p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Bing, PM 3:38</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">Hello D, thank you for your interest in Tibetology and James Joyce’s
Ulysses. I will try to write a blog post on the subject of the Seven Seals
using some of the literary techniques of Joyce’s novel. I will also try to
create some illustrations for you.</span>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
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<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #b45f06; font-size: medium;">The Seven Seals of Tibet: A Joycean Journey</span>
</h4>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">The Seven Seals of Tibet are a set of symbols that represent the authority
and legitimacy of the Tibetan government and its spiritual leader, the Dalai
Lama. They are also a source of fascination and controversy for scholars,
historians, and collectors, as they reveal the complex and turbulent history
of Tibet and its relations with China, India, Mongolia, and other countries.
In this blog post, I will explore the origins, meanings, and fates of these
seals, using some of the literary devices that James Joyce employed in his
masterpiece Ulysses, such as stream of consciousness, allusions, parodies,
and wordplay.</span>
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<p style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">The first seal is the Seal of the Dalai Lama, which bears the inscription
“Sri bha tsa na'i rgyal po” (King of the Religious Realm) in Lantsa script.
It was given to the fifth Dalai Lama by the Mongol ruler Gushri Khan in
1642, when he recognized him as the supreme ruler of Tibet. The seal is made
of gold and has a lotus motif on the back. It is considered the most sacred
and important seal in Tibetan history, as it symbolizes the unity of
religion and politics under the Dalai Lama's leadership. The seal is
currently kept in Dharamsala, India, where the 14th Dalai Lama resides in
exile.</span>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">The second seal is the Seal of the Panchen Lama, which bears the
inscription "Sri pan chen bla ma'i rgyal po" (King of the Panchen Lama) in
Lantsa script. It was given to the fifth Panchen Lama by the Qing emperor
Kangxi in 1713, when he recognized him as the second highest spiritual
authority in Tibet. The seal is made of silver and has a vajra motif on the
back. It is considered a symbol of the close relationship between the Dalai
Lama and the Panchen Lama, who are regarded as manifestations of
Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha respectively. The seal is currently missing, as
it was taken by the 10th Panchen Lama when he fled to China in 1959, and its
whereabouts are unknown.</span>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">The third seal is the Seal of Tibet, which bears the inscription "Ganden
Phodrang" (Palace of Joy) in Tibetan script. It was created by the fifth
Dalai Lama in 1642, when he established his government in Lhasa. The seal is
made of copper and has a snow lion motif on the back. It is considered a
symbol of the sovereignty and independence of Tibet, as it was used to issue
official documents and decrees by successive Dalai Lamas. The seal is
currently kept in Dharamsala, India, where it is still used by the Central
Tibetan Administration.</span>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">The fourth seal is the Seal of Mongolia, which bears the inscription
"Mongol ulus-un dalai bla ma" (Dalai Lama of Mongolia) in Mongolian script.
It was given to the third Dalai Lama by Altan Khan in 1578, when he
conferred him with the title of Dalai Lama. The seal is made of iron and has
a sun and moon motif on the back. It is considered a symbol of the spiritual
bond between Tibet and Mongolia, as many Mongol rulers supported and
protected Tibetan Buddhism. The seal is currently kept in Dharamsala,
India.</span>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
</p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">The fifth seal is the Seal of China, which bears the inscription "Qianlong
Chenhan Dalai Lama Yixi Zhibei" (Imperial Edict Bestowing Favor on Dalai
Lama) in Chinese script. It was given to</span>
</p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">the sixth Dalai Lama by the Qing emperor Qianlong in 1751, when he
reorganized</span>
</p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">the Tibetan administration under his supervision. The seal is made of jade
and</span>
</p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">has a dragon motif on the back. It is considered a symbol of</span>
</p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">the political interference and domination of China over Tibet,</span>
</p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">as it was used to appoint or depose Tibetan officials by Qing</span>
</p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">emperors. The seal is currently kept in Beijing, China.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
</p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">The sixth seal is</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">the Seal of India,</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">which bears</span></p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">the inscription "Bharat Ratna" (Jewel</span>
</p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">of India) in Devanagari script.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">It was given to</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">the 14th Dalai Lama by</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">the Indian government in 1959,</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">when he was awarded</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">the highest civilian honor</span></p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">of India for his contributions to peace and non-violence.</span>
</p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">The seal is made</span></p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">of bronze and has an Ashoka chakra motif on</span>
</p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">the back.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">It is considered a symbol</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">of</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">the gratitude and friendship</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">of India towards Tibet,</span></p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">as it was the first country to offer asylum and support to</span>
</p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">the Dalai Lama and his followers after</span>
</p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">the Chinese invasion of Tibet.</span></p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">The seal is currently kept in Dharamsala, India.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
</p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">The seventh seal is</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">the Seal of the World,</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">which bears</span></p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">the inscription "Nobel Peace Prize" in Latin script.</span>
</p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">It was given to</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">the 14th Dalai Lama by</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">the Nobel Committee in 1989,</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">when he was awarded</span></p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">the prestigious prize for his efforts to resolve</span>
</p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">the Tibetan issue through dialogue and non-violence.</span>
</p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">The seal is made</span></p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">of gold and has a laurel wreath motif on</span>
</p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">the back.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">It is considered a symbol</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">of</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">the recognition and respect</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">of the world towards Tibet,</span></p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">as it reflects the universal values and aspirations of</span>
</p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">the Tibetan people for freedom and dignity.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">The seal is currently kept in Dharamsala, India.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
</p>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">These are the Seven Seals of Tibet, each with its own story and
significance. They are not mere objects, but living symbols of a rich and
complex culture, a proud and resilient nation, and a wise and compassionate
leader. They are also reminders of the challenges and struggles that Tibet
faces in its quest for justice and peace. They are, in short, the seals of a
modern odyssey, a journey that is not yet over, but that continues to
inspire and enlighten us all.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span style="color: red;"><br /></span>
</p>
<p></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgddA8tDqKXzMQkR0nwUznifjTewgsPOTn4GoNKK3ZIX45EZLyP3pI6HqCCf-Eh6EwHWNz0oOHVCYa5llnaN8CMNDP5Y8T69_QkJ5PlFbIcjcaKzZSt-W8BhJ042x9rlwCFxiMdkCyx4rhAWfXb3ldFrhwWClRZSe96nuBFCQsoSp_IaN7Q3pN34Q/s640/Tibetan%20Seals%20with%20Lotus%20Motifs%20created%20by%20Bing.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="581" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgddA8tDqKXzMQkR0nwUznifjTewgsPOTn4GoNKK3ZIX45EZLyP3pI6HqCCf-Eh6EwHWNz0oOHVCYa5llnaN8CMNDP5Y8T69_QkJ5PlFbIcjcaKzZSt-W8BhJ042x9rlwCFxiMdkCyx4rhAWfXb3ldFrhwWClRZSe96nuBFCQsoSp_IaN7Q3pN34Q/w582-h640/Tibetan%20Seals%20with%20Lotus%20Motifs%20created%20by%20Bing.jpeg" width="582" /></a>
</div>
<br /><span style="color: red;"><br /><br /></span>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: red;">This is Dan speaking now, not Bing. Well, I'm oddly and unexpectedly
impressed by the level of creativity demonstrated here in constructing a
never before known </span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">variant set of the Seven Seals</span></span><span style="color: red;">. In terms of artistic style, its invented Lotus motif “Tibetan seals” seem
to incorporate aspects more or less Japanese or Islamic. A connoisseur
confronted with these images would be unlikely to immediately identify them
as Tibetan. This AI ability to make mashups might appear commendable from
some perspectives, a step toward a genre of world art comparable to
so-called “world music.”</span>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: red;">I have to say, I thought myself quite clever in asking Bing to use the
style of James Joyce, since his writings are characterized by just what AI
is least capable of pulling off — </span><span style="color: red;">allusions, parodies, and wordplay —</span><span style="color: red;"> and in fact it/they promises to do it, then never does. There is
something ironic in that very refusal. Of course AI is not conscious of
being ironic or clever or creative, it could never be that, not like we
can.*</span>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: red;">What most concerns me is not so much that this could have been passed in
with cheating motive as a writing assignment in a human classroom, it’s that
it would be regarded as a valid or authoritative source of information in
future essays painstakingly composed by humans of the future. Please don’t
cite it as anything more or less than what it is. Otherwise the future will
be mashups of mashups, mashups that will go on to be further mashed up, much
more than it already is. If we have gains in human intelligence thanks to AI
or the like, they’ll be offset by the increase in confusion, a commodity that was
never in short supply.</span>
</p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;">
<p style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small;">(*You’re right, I hear it too, the human arrogance!)</span>
</p>
</blockquote>
<div>
<div style="text-size-adjust: auto;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
</div>
<h4 style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Recommending reading list</span>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">David <b>Klotz</b>, “Hieroglyphic Complexity at Esna: Unetymological
Spellings, Trigrams, and Anadromes from Esna Temple and
<i>Finnegans Wake</i>,” <i>Hieroglyphs</i>, vol. 1 (2023), pp.
127-148. Joycean Egyptology is, after all, a thing. I’m fairly certain
David Klotz is a human being, and one of uncommon intelligence,
writing for a real online journal of considerable academic standing,
vetted by peer reviewers and so on. </span><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It was nothing but a glitch in the Blogger system that cemented his
name at the top of Tibetologic, anchored to the title. I cannot undo
it, so I beg for his understanding. At the same time, I would like to
thank Lloyd Graham, a great authority on the Seven Seals in
Euro-Middle Eastern realms, for fortuitously alerting me to David
Klotz’s essay. </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">(Note: September 22, 2023 — Today the glitch is undone, thanks to A.S. who saved the day.)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Dieter <b>Schuh</b>,
<i>Grundlagen tibetischer Siegelkunde. Eine Untersuchung über
tibetische Siegelaufschriften in ’Phags-pa-Schrift</i>, VGH Wissenschaftsverlag (Sankt Augustin 1981). Here you will find
the real dope on official seals (represented in 1 through 5 in Bing’s
list), something the
<a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2022/06/seven-seals-times-several.html" target="_blank">Seven Seals</a>
concepts have absolutely (?)* nothing to do with in fact. And to start
with the seals of the Fifth Dalai Lama (no. 1 in Bing’s list), we see
two of his seals on official documents from his time at pp. 309-322 in
the book, and they include every script <i>except Lantsa,</i> and
not anything like “Sri bha tsa na'i rgyal po.” What
<i>is</i> that anyway, and how would it mean King of the
Religious Realm in any language? </span>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><blockquote style="font-size: x-small;">
(*If I hesitate on this point, it is just because in lore about King
Solomon he is credited with possessing a signet ring that could have
had the Seven Seals on it. I didn’t genuinely expect Bing to know
that Tibet has his own set of Seven Seals, and it/they did indeed
display its/their ignorance of it.)
</blockquote></span>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">And what about “It was given to the sixth Dalai Lama by the Qing
emperor Qianlong in 1751”? Bing has to mean the seventh, not the
sixth. I could go on if I have to, but from what I’ve seen I wonder
how it would justify the effort.</span><span style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; text-align: left;"> </span>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i>The task of the fact-checking researcher is if anything compounded
and not in the least reduced.</i></span><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"> </span>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span><span style="font-size: medium;">So finally, today’s answer is “No.” I don’t believe I will ever again
ask AI to guest author a Tibeto-logic blog. Why take the quick and
easy way out? But if you are a human doing Tibetan humanities types
of research and would like to guest author a blog, let’s talk.</span>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<p style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: large; text-align: center;">
<br />± ± ±
</p>
<p style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">
PS (September 1, 2023):
</p>
<p style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">
Honest journalists ought to get on the phone with someone holding
the opposite view. Well, okay. So in what might be an uptick
in favor of Buddhist and Buddhological AI, see what Raymond Lam says
in his latest newsletter for the <i>Buddhist Door</i>:
</p>
<p style="font-family: georgia;">
<span style="color: #660000;"></span>
</p>
<blockquote style="font-family: georgia;">
<span style="color: #660000;">Lim Kooi Fong, who is editor of the long-running Buddhist Channel
and another longtime friend, has deployed NORBU – Neural
Omniscient Robotic-Being for Buddhist Understanding – to generate
content for his website.</span>
</blockquote>
<p style="font-family: georgia;"></p>
<p style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">
We have just demonstrated that using AI as a crutch can create more
work hours for the humans, not less. Well, unless you are satisfied
to slap cooked-up informational stew on the table for those ignorant
enough to find instruction in eating it. Still, I went to the
Buddhist Channel website and found there this banner appealing for
funding.
</p>
<p style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">
<br />
</p>
<p style="font-family: georgia; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-size: large;">We Need Your Help to Train the</span>
</p>
<p style="font-family: georgia; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-size: large;">Buddhist AI Chat Bot NORBU!</span>
</p>
<p style="font-family: georgia; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-size: xx-small;">(Neural Omniscient Robotic-Being for Buddhist
Understanding)</span>
</p>
<p style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">
<br />
</p>
<p style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">
If it/they’re* Omniscient, I’m wondering in what subject would
it/they require instruction? Is the aim to find tutors for it/them?
I don’t believe most Senseis, Roshis, Geshes and Rinpoches of the
world are in need of more work, but there is not a chance this
particular “NORBU” will be putting them out on the streets. Or is
there?
</p><p style="color: red; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: x-small;">*Out of respect for A.I., I decided to allow it/them its/their preferred number-ambivalent neuter pronoun. I do feel silly doing it.</span></blockquote><p></p>
<p style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: large; text-align: center;">
•
</p>
<p style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">
PSS: September 2, 2023
</p>
<p style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Question: Could Bing AI have self-awareness of its/their own
deficiencies? Or would that self-awareness itself be artificial? I
found this Q&A at its/their own website:
</p>
<p style="font-family: georgia;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"></span>
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: arial;">Q: Are Bing's AI-generated responses always factual?</span>
</p>
<p>
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: arial;">A: Bing aims to base all its responses on reliable sources - but
AI can make mistakes, and third party content on the internet
may not always be accurate or reliable. Bing will sometimes
misrepresent the information it finds, and you may see responses
that sound convincing but are incomplete, inaccurate, or
inappropriate. Use your own judgment and double check the facts
before making decisions or taking action based on Bing's
responses.</span></p></blockquote><p style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: large; text-align: center;">•</p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">PSSS: October 15, 2023</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="Who Lusts for Certainty Lusts for Lies" target="_blank">Who Lusts for Certainty Lusts for Lies</a>.<span style="color: red;"> With thanks for M.W. for recommending it, it puts a damper on our hopes to exploit “big data.”</span></span></p><p><br /></p><p> </p>
<p style="font-family: georgia;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p></span>
</div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span color="transparent" face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; cursor: text; font-size: 36.6667px; left: 224.161px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: 261.431px; transform-origin: 0% 0%; transform: scaleX(0.985729); white-space: pre;"><br /></span><span color="transparent" face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; cursor: text; font-size: 33.3333px; left: 104.774px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: 333.682px; transform-origin: 0% 0%; transform: scaleX(0.980868); white-space: pre;"><br /></span><span color="transparent" face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; cursor: text; font-size: 33.3333px; left: 198.34px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: 383.682px; transform-origin: 0% 0%; transform: scaleX(0.960047); white-space: pre;"><br /></span><span color="transparent" face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; cursor: text; font-size: 23.3333px; left: 752.658px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: 485.435px; transform-origin: 0% 0%; transform: scaleX(1.01092); white-space: pre;"></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-82079410820736220992023-08-26T18:24:00.012+03:002023-12-13T12:34:06.321+02:00Five Seals of Bon, but with Symbolic Figures This Time<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyzVADXv20lRpkbVLv0TLcuGrVkXpt4eEg2ajCN595aZOIUlbPUAgPeveguhd_8KhV308azdHIxO4C8ZEYYAEyfs5MhoNaCVklDKvvkaW1EoFBtvLwrWrnm1cneaHevqTzB-bD3QcsFDEYc7M9Y0AhjfUulEazCKx-zHP4X1fmHZhwU7cqSqw3vQ/s640/Tshe-bsgrub%20Colophon%205%20seals.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="362" data-original-width="640" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyzVADXv20lRpkbVLv0TLcuGrVkXpt4eEg2ajCN595aZOIUlbPUAgPeveguhd_8KhV308azdHIxO4C8ZEYYAEyfs5MhoNaCVklDKvvkaW1EoFBtvLwrWrnm1cneaHevqTzB-bD3QcsFDEYc7M9Y0AhjfUulEazCKx-zHP4X1fmHZhwU7cqSqw3vQ/w400-h226/Tshe-bsgrub%20Colophon%205%20seals.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: xx-small;">click to enlarge</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">I never expected to see this. Last year I blogged about the several Afroeurasian versions of the Seven Seals. Among other things I concluded that the several sets of seven are interrelated only here and there and with difficulty, but also that Tibetan sources never seem to correlate them with symbolic figures as the Arabic and Hebrew versions do.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Have a quick look at that earlier blog, entitled “<a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2022/06/seven-seals-times-several.html" target="_blank">Seven Seals, Times Several</a>,” and then come back here before getting lost in it. The frontispiece you can see there is a fine example of an Arabic set of the symbolic figures.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Let me quote a passage from it:</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">“Observe that much of both the content and the context of the Islamo-Judaic seals is not findable in the Tibetan. You find no symbolic figures or ‘signs’ in the set of Seven Seals in Tibet. You find none of the symbolic correspondences with the seven then-recognized planets, or the seven days of the week. Perhaps most significantly of all, you never see the talismanic theme of personal protection in those same Tibetan accounts.”</span></p></blockquote></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">We could add that the seven seals in Tibet are never representing a series of disastrous world-ending events like you find in the book of Revelations. To the contrary, they usually represent exclusivity, secrecy, occultation, and hidden knowledge.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">So, Lo and behold! Here we have a set of five at the end of the next-to-last line. Let me clip it out for you to make it clearer, I hope. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj2E_P9P2Zm10TEnJ9sAZFI922WsLIV3Hr5z-dW2vJ0yQyXLfQTn0_UCTKovLgNrcqklMJlYN_TdcWKdsT-MsOA2Dj5vY83ztFzW_-yQwlSQVqZIhl8l53kmRt2eOXzouacYDKOST_M-Iw_nZ8GSNlENaeHwpqu-n8ftXcso_laAg3Z4WGsGJKIdA" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><img alt="" data-original-height="34" data-original-width="298" height="46" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj2E_P9P2Zm10TEnJ9sAZFI922WsLIV3Hr5z-dW2vJ0yQyXLfQTn0_UCTKovLgNrcqklMJlYN_TdcWKdsT-MsOA2Dj5vY83ztFzW_-yQwlSQVqZIhl8l53kmRt2eOXzouacYDKOST_M-Iw_nZ8GSNlENaeHwpqu-n8ftXcso_laAg3Z4WGsGJKIdA=w400-h46" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">First you see what look like three wavy lines one on top of each other. That’s a stack of Tibetan <i>na-ro</i>s, or ‘o’ vowels. Then you see a three-fold stack of what I suppose could be number ‘4’s, although I read them as being three ‘l’ letters in their subscript forms (<i>la-btags</i>).* Next is, ‘obviously,’ a version of the well-known swastika (in case you are curious, it is oriented in the normal Bon direction; the banned-in-Germany National Socialist swastika is not only oriented in the opposite direction, it is also standing precariously on one of its four corners... Please pay attention to the distinction, people). The fourth item you see is a stack of three triangles arranged to create one larger triangle. Finally we see something that could represent flames, I suppose, although in truth I am not at all sure how to read it. Just before the set of five symbolic figures is a list of three types of seals: the secret seal (<i>gsang rgya</i>), the hidden seal (<i>gab rgya</i>), and the treasure seal (<i>tyer rgya</i>, i.e. <i>gter rgya</i>). Then, at the beginning of the next line is the label “Five Seals” (<i>rgya lnga</i>).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-small;">(*I’m thinking they could be meant to represent three eyes, stacked one on top of the other... but in that case I see no clear sign of a dot for the pupil, which seems essential.)</span></p><p></p></blockquote><p> </p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Let me try clipping them out again, perhaps clearer this time:</span><div><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3X1ZW7PPcg0bjjEAqkI608FJ_O3rklQOW3RW31FLhiAaVM8b0FuWcnG7RwzIBGzlp8XKZYfY9hmVs-75Bz0hqeKpQfJC-mkimIDaVjis8izWq8gEt3v6stzyfGR0kGekPdk4zv7Yoj4stQyPrTLyTq3nWYjintRAhYnIewJNLukY470Bz5yLNfA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="122" data-original-width="442" height="110" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3X1ZW7PPcg0bjjEAqkI608FJ_O3rklQOW3RW31FLhiAaVM8b0FuWcnG7RwzIBGzlp8XKZYfY9hmVs-75Bz0hqeKpQfJC-mkimIDaVjis8izWq8gEt3v6stzyfGR0kGekPdk4zv7Yoj4stQyPrTLyTq3nWYjintRAhYnIewJNLukY470Bz5yLNfA=w400-h110" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">So, there you have my conclusion for today: It turns out I was mistaken in saying that the sets of seals in Tibet <i>never</i> are found keyed to symbolic figures. This one example just proved me wrong.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">I think it is just as well that I find myself unable to give a more cogent interpretation of these five symbolic figures. They really ought to remain secret after all. In a general way I’m reflecting that they (whether in this Bon example, or the sets in Arabic and Hebrew sources) may have something to do with traditional marking systems such as those humans have been using for many millennia by now, as ways to talley up numbers or mark ownership (mason marks and livestock brandings, are good examples). Well, before you call me out on my silliness, I would ask you to admit that when we are presented with basic letter-like figures that make no immediate sense, our minds are likely to place them in some such category. Other speculations I’ve seen associate them with the 7 <i>chakras, </i>but<i> </i>this idea is entirely invisible in pre-20th-century sources that I know of.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Well, I didn’t open up my blogsite today just to confess the errors of my ways or announce to the world my failed attempts at understanding (there are even more important examples I could show off to you another day), but on a more positive note to alert the researchers in our field of Tibeto-sophy to an amazing new resource for Tibetan texts belonging to the Bon religion. Without more ado before saying adieu, I abruptly send you there to explore for yourself. Just go here:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP687"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-small;">https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP687</span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">To find the particular volume and our passage, go here:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP687-1-16"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-small;">https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP687-1-16</span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Then navigate to the scanned page no. 33 for the title page of the text that continues until scanned page no. 55, where you will see the Five Seals (or Five Seals + 3 = 8?).</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">•</span></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">PS: I don’t know much about the cycle of teachings our colophon page belongs to, apart from it being a long-life ritual practice involving both medicines and prayers associated with Tsewang Rinzin (ཚེ་དབང་རིག་འཛིན་), one of the ancient Bon sages. If we restrict ourselves to what is there on that single final page, I’ll quickly and lackadaisically paraphrase some of it for you, like so:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">The sum of all the knowledge-bearing sages of India, Persia, Burusho, Orgyan, Zhangzhung, Tangut Land, Tibet and so on is found combined in this practice. It is the heart-of-hearts of the twenty-five aural transmissions. If you were to practice it without distractions in a secluded setting you would be bound to swiftly attain the superpowers. This particularly aural transmission was passed along by Dranpa Namkha to the triad of the Lord Monarch, Pakor Bairotsana, and the woman sky-goer Coza Bönmo. These three regarded it as especially profound and precious, so they hid it in a hardened leather chest, so that one day when due to karmic forces Bon would decline, it would transform lack of faith into faith [?unclear to me]. When they were at the treasure sites in order to conceal these texts, they hid them as first-fruits treasures and as profound treasures, and accompanied this by aspiration prayers that they would in the future be revealed.</span></div></blockquote><div><span style="color: #b45f06;"><br /><br /></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEs49VbRq4aMdf9xcCHbfFn2S9TOOaujaA8lgPRbQIa0BEdUpAlkjkOfalsXPia5VSci6uC_w1WaebbG36iN8XjTp62DiCzp43kr1FyZDjcIFb9aoV9P-kULdjGmPPJZ8L2-_loXUYy4VxzLu1GzHFYC1FZ8LLNUvuQ4PzpqEaTnnRXfzGnWHoIQ/s640/Seven%20Seal%20example%20from%20Dawkins.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="203" data-original-width="640" height="127" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEs49VbRq4aMdf9xcCHbfFn2S9TOOaujaA8lgPRbQIa0BEdUpAlkjkOfalsXPia5VSci6uC_w1WaebbG36iN8XjTp62DiCzp43kr1FyZDjcIFb9aoV9P-kULdjGmPPJZ8L2-_loXUYy4VxzLu1GzHFYC1FZ8LLNUvuQ4PzpqEaTnnRXfzGnWHoIQ/w400-h127/Seven%20Seal%20example%20from%20Dawkins.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">An Arabic Seven Seals example,<br />after Dawkins (read from right to left of course). <br />Notice the ‘ladder’ in the middle<br />(it sometimes looks like a hashtag - #)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-size: medium;">Suggested readings</span></h4><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Joám Evans Pim, Sergey A. Yatsenko, Oliver Timken Perrin, eds., <i>Traditional Marking Systems: A Preliminary Survey</i>, Dunkling Books (London 2010), in 518 pages, with plentiful black-and-white illustrations.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Donatella Rossi, “The <i>Lo rgyus chen mo</i> in the Collection of the <i>Ye khri mtha’ sel</i> Attributed to Dran-pa nam-mkha’,” contained in: Samten G, Karmay and Yasuhiko Nagano, eds., <i>New Horizons in Bon Studies</i>, National Museum of Ethnography (Osaka 2000), pp. 181-191. I think it is suggestive that the rare <i>Ye-khri</i> cycle of Dzogchen shares the same “teaching scene” with our colophon in which Drenpa Namkha passes his teachings on to three prominent disciples: Emperor Trisongdetsen, <a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2012/10/kashgar-tiger.html" target="_blank">Pagor Bairotsana</a> and <a href="https://www.academia.edu/44357815/THE_HEART_ESSENCE_of_THE_KHANDRO_Thirty_Signs_and_Meanings_from_Women_Lineage_Holders_Experiential_Instructions_on_B%C3%B6npo_Dzogchen" target="_blank">Coza Bönmo</a>. These teachings were then received as an aural transmission from Tsewang Rinzin to Lungbön Lhanyen in 1088 CE, although that date isn’t very secure (1088 according to some is his birth date, in which case the aural transmission would have taken place in 1118, his 31st year).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Richard Smoley, “<a href="https://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/4245-the-mystery-of-the-seven-seals" target="_blank">The Mystery of the Seven Seals</a>,” originally published in the Spring 2017 issue of <i>Quest</i> magazine, but also placed online. Not everyone will appreciate the Theosophical approach taken here, but there is something to be said about connecting the Seven Seals with a liberating ascent through the planetary spheres (in Judaeo-Christian-Islamic sources, not in Indo-Tibetan sources, even if there, too, you can find liberating ascents aplenty). This author takes a further step by mysteriously connecting them with the <i>chakra</i>s of the human body.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You may also want to go back to still another recent Tibeto-logic blog entitled “<a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2022/05/one-secret-of-seals.html" target="_blank">One Secret of the Seals</a>.” It demonstrates the presence of an Aramaic (as well as Hebrew and Arabic) word for “seal” in a Tibetan manuscript scribed in </span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> the </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">mid-13th century</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">. Yes, it does.</span></span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">•</div><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Comments by Lloyd Graham</span></h4><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div>Hi Dan, and congratulations on spotting that seal series! I have never come across anything like that sequence of glyphs, so I’m afraid that - beyond guesswork - I don’t have any insights into what might lie behind the symbols. If, as you suggested previously, the Tibetans were aware of the Solomonic Seven Seals as a series of symbols, this may have motivated one or two Tibetan writers to give graphic form to the local set of seven seals, even if they were primarily textual in nature.</div><div><br /></div><div>At a stretch, one could see the strange 5- or 6-spike symbol at the far right of the Tibetan series as reflecting the vertices of the pentagram/hexagram at the far right of the Islamicate series, the three-triangles glyph as a refraction of the Islamicate “three strokes” symbol, and the centrally-positioned rectilinear swastika as a local reworking of the centrally-positioned rectilinear “ladder” glyph, but the two left-most Tibetan symbols lack any correspondence with the canonical Islamicate series.</div><div><br /></div><div>The only other thing that I noticed is that the subset of five Tibetan seals that have been illustrated graphically in EAP687/1/16 seems to correspond well with the subset that you mentioned previously in connection with O-rgyan-gling-pa's 14th-century treasure finder, <i>Bka’-thang Sde Lnga</i>, Mi-rigs Dpe-skrun-khang (Beijing 1990). Your paraphrase of the page on which the symbols appear reveal that it is focused on supreme knowledge being hidden as a treasure for later seekers to (re)discover, so there is a strong thematic overlap.</div><div><br /></div><div>Similarly, one of the uses claimed for the Islamicate Seven Seals was in finding hidden treasure: </div><div><br /></div><div><blockquote>“... these seven signs were written on the gate of the Ka'ba, and they can be applied in seventy-two ways to lift buried and concealed property and treasures. If you want to undertake such a work with them, write with saffron and hang them around the neck of a white much-crowing cock and allow it to run at the place where the treasure or the concealed property should lie. At every place where he stops and looks with his foot or beak in the earth or where he crows, there is the treasure or the concealed property.” </blockquote></div></span></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div>—<span> </span>Hans Winkler, <i>Siegel und Charaktere in der Mohammedanischen Zauberei</i>.</div></span></div></div></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-71383536754420060182023-08-22T18:48:00.001+03:002023-08-22T18:49:20.955+03:00The Realm of Dharmas, a Treasury of Jewels, Chapter 7: Everything is Totally Naturally-Arrived-at in Bodhicitta<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy89yD3XHohq64qSvL-1rAFxJVCRJkoKklT52CR8Q9NynkD3HSqLq3h7LuqgUdIm3GiJL_g0y_42kVYzEeQzPJ1dCaTaq3rsPmre2J7hn06ioamc4RyNUc7JT0KutswUfc7ldeCBSHqss_eL7N_x_NiRZ1WdRtGakvqhWVb2CcxO32WoRUUwc/s1119/Jewel%20Treasury%20in%20Hand.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="975" data-original-width="1119" height="349" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy89yD3XHohq64qSvL-1rAFxJVCRJkoKklT52CR8Q9NynkD3HSqLq3h7LuqgUdIm3GiJL_g0y_42kVYzEeQzPJ1dCaTaq3rsPmre2J7hn06ioamc4RyNUc7JT0KutswUfc7ldeCBSHqss_eL7N_x_NiRZ1WdRtGakvqhWVb2CcxO32WoRUUwc/w400-h349/Jewel%20Treasury%20in%20Hand.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /> </div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Realm of Dharmas,</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p><span style="font-size: large;">a Treasury of Jewels,</span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: center;"><br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">by Longchen Rabjampa</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> CHAPTER SEVEN</span></p><div style="text-align: center;">EVERYTHING IS TOTALLY NATURALLY-ARRIVED-AT IN BODHICITTA</div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[Not only are all dharmas included in Bodhicitta, they are naturally-arrived-at.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>The scriptural authority of Bodhicitta is of a nature </p><p>naturally-arrived-at:</p><p>The summit of the King of Mountains, arriving-at the meaning</p><p>of the Unmade,</p><p>is exalted over all, the great king Supreme Vehicle.</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[Just as the </i>King of Mountains<i> is exalted in the middle of the four world-continents, the </i>Ati Vajra Heart Vehicle<i> is explained as the peak of peaks, exalted over all.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[A simile showing Ati to be the summit of all.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>When one has arrived at the summit of the King of Mountains,</p><p>all the lower valleys are seen at once.</p><p>The valleys do not see the nature of the peak.</p><p>Just so, the Vajra Heart Ati</p><p>is the peak of peaks of Vehicles</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">which clearly sees the meanings of all the others.</p></blockquote></blockquote><p>The lower Vehicles do not see the meaning of this Ati.</p><p>That is left for the time when they have arrived-at the naturally-arrived-at</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">peak.</p></blockquote></blockquote><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[While from the summit of the mountain all the valleys are seen all at once, from the valleys the top of the mountain cannot be clearly seen. Just so, the significances of each of the lower Vehicles are seen simultaneously from the Ati perspective. The significance of Ati the lower Vehicles do not see since they confuse the high with the low.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[The relative greatness and specialities of the higher and lower vehicles are further explained.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>When you make a request to the great Wish Granting Jewel,</p><p>everything wished for naturally comes.</p><p>Most people, if asked, will say it isn’t so.</p><p>Because the Vajra Heart Three Bodies are naturally-arrived-at</p><p>out of the Realm as it is, Buddhahood arrives-at itself.</p><p>The greatness of Ati is just this—no pushing, no striving.</p><p>While the lower Vehicles exert themselves in accepting some things</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">and rejecting others,</p></blockquote><p>they don’t get there for aeons. They have some thick phlegm congestion</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">disease.</p></blockquote><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[When someone gets everything desired just by asking the Wish Granting Jewel, that is something only for lucky people. When the qualities in self-engendered Full Knowledge are realized in a naturally-arrived-at way, and stay at rest without pushing, it is something for only the best practitioners. When they make wishes to the all-purpose Jewel, some people make their requests to a piece of wood in the shape of a jewel and so, do not reach their aim. It is the same with those who want to be buddhaized through the pushing and striving of the lower Vehicles. They teach that there is nothing more because they are worn-out and congested with thick, sticky phlegm.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[Awareness beyond working/pushing is taught to be the Three Bodies. The underlying meaning of “Dharmabody as it lays” is…]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>Totally level by nature, <span style="font-size: medium;">A</span>wareness-<span style="font-size: medium;">B</span>odhicitta</p><p>(spread-out Dharma Proper-as-it-lays)</p><p>is receptive centre of primordially level Nature Dharmabody;</p><p>is, while all have it, objective sphere of the fortunate few;</p><p>is, according to how it is placed, arrived-at by leaving it lay </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">in that continuity.</p></blockquote></blockquote><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>[The meaning of Dharmabody is the undiffusive void-clarity substance of Awareness. Realization of the Mind Proper as-it-lays is, aside from a few, not something for all. Its style is Great Levelness beyond extremes since it is the substance of the Realm of Vajra.</i></p><p><br /></p><p>Awareness Self-dawned <i>says,</i></p></blockquote><p><i><br /></i></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>The void-clarity mandala of Vajra is</i></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>the Dharmabody itself, undistracted and</i></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>passing-right-through.</i></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>It is beyond the extreme views that postulate</i></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>a subjective ‘grasper’.</i></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>In the Dharma beyond extreme views is no desire.]</i></p></blockquote></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[The underlying meaning of “Assets Body as-it-lays”:]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>Embracing. Spreading. Self-luminous. Naturally-arrived-at.</p><p>The Perfect Assets are in all, while seeing is a thing for the few.</p><p>When whatever appears is left ‘as is’ without working or pushing,</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">it is revealed.</p></blockquote></blockquote><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[Awareness self-luminous is the nature of this Assets Body. It shines to perfection when, after it dawns without impediment on the apparent objects, it is left to be bright without entering into grasping.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[The underlying meaning of “Emanation Body”:]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>A spreading receptive centre, the Emanation Body with</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">unlimited roles to play</p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p>is in everything, luminous from the time when it dawns.</p><p>The miracles of wish granting qualities and activities</p><p>are nowhere else to be found.</p><p> The receptive centre of pure self-Awareness</p><p>like muddied water will, if allowed to clean itself,</p><p> come out clear.</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[When Awareness dawns from the continuity of its appropriate abode, the part which seems to dawn, naked and passing-through, is the Emanation Body. It has totally dawned as qualities and activities. So its dawning, a mirror of clairvoyance and Buddha-eye, into this continuity beyond accepting/rejecting and working-pushing is like the appearance of a clear reflection on water pure of muddiness.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><p><i>[Now the underlying meaning of “Three Bodies” is shown as a single Realm beyond working-pushing.]</i></p><p><br /></p><p>Pushing doesn’t get it. The dharmas primordially pure</p><p>shine in the receptive centre of self-produced, clearly</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">comprehended Buddhahood.</p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p>What you’ve already arrived-at doesn’t need to be striven for</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">starting now.</p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p>This is the underlying meaning of “Greatness situated in itself”:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Dharma Proper receptive centre.</p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p>Don’t push to arrive-at the untransformable Naturally-arrived-at.</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[The Mind Proper-Suchness, the substance of Dharmabody, is arrived-at on its own part. So pushings-strivings are unnecessary.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[Such an Awareness is taught to be single & self-situated.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>It is the total basis, the laid-down basis, the clearly comprehended</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">heart basis.</p></blockquote></blockquote><p>From the Continuity of its nature it has not the least bit moved.</p><p>So don’t compromise on the meaning of the luminous receptive centre</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Awareness.</p></blockquote></blockquote><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[The appropriate substance of Awareness is no where arrived-at and not to be fused or diffused. If you want to realize and have revealed to you its meaning, the meditative absorption where knowing is settled in its own place, and no compromising from the continuity of the naked passing-right-through, are two most important things. Dharma Proper lacks a mover because it is contradicted by the movement of thoughts distracted toward objects.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><p>The reason it is arrived-at when everything is placed?</p><p>The five Full Knowledges, untransformable lords embracing all beings.</p><p>The five Bodies. The five Speeches. The five Minds.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">The five Qualities. the five Activities.</p></blockquote></blockquote><p>Even the Adi-Buddha is naturally-arrived-at in</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">this receptive centre beyond beginning and ending.</p></blockquote></blockquote><p>So don’t look elsewhere. Its nature is totally arrived-at.</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[The substance of Awareness, being beyond transforming and transporting, is the five—Vajra Body, etc. The substance of Awareness, being incommunicable, is the five—Dharma Proper clearly comprehended Speech, etc. The substance of Awareness, being undiffusive, is the five—self-engendered Full Knowledge Mind, etc. The substance of Awareness, being all Qualities—the basis of all completion, etc. Since everything is, in the substance of Awareness, arrived-at as pure & level Full Knowledge and the four Activities, it is the five—immaculate Dharma Proper Activity, etc. The completion of these twenty-five is the Adi-Buddha Total Good clearly comprehended. Being totally arrived-at in the substance of Awareness, it is not to be looked for elsewhere.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[While sangsara/nirvana is arrived-at in Awareness, there is no Dharmabody apart from Mind Proper.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>Though the Dharmabody of all Buddhas be clearly comprehended,</p><p>there is nothing other than the meaning of untransformable levelness.</p><p>Because the former is self-engendered and naturally-arrived-at in the</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">latter,</p></blockquote></blockquote><p>it is unsearched for, unstriven for. Hopes and fears are naturally</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">put to rest.</p></blockquote></blockquote><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[Even that attainment of Buddhas’ Dharmabody is nothing other than the substance of Awareness revealed without outside contaminants or contrivance. And Awareness is, because everything has it without transforming or transporting, alighted in naturally-arrived-atness, implicit Awareness uncontrived.</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">The Pearl Strand <i>says,</i></p></blockquote><p><i><br /></i></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Complete Buddhahood is implicit Awareness alone.</i></p></blockquote></blockquote><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">The All Making King <i>says,</i></p></blockquote><p><i><br /></i></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>I, the All Making Bodhicitta,</i></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>am unproduced. When there is no longer subject and object,</i></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>“Unborn Dharmabody” are just words that have occurred.]</i></p></blockquote></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[The Mind Proper of sangsara is arrived-at as Buddhabody. So renunciation is unnecessary.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>The self-engendered Full Knowledge of all sentient beings</p><p>is also unmade and unsearched for, naturally-arrived-at as Buddhabody.</p><p>So do not cling to accepting/rejecting. Settle down</p><p>in this Realm of Dharmas continuity.</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[This word for sentient beings, “Citta possessors,” means nothing apart from the continuity of Awareness. Since the same Awareness is not to be divided up between sangsara and nirvana, there is no need for pushing and striving.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[Awareness is passed beyond moving and pushing.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>In the unmoving, unthinkable naturally level substance,</p><p>the meaning of Unmade is arrived-at. It is a spacious receptive centre</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">foundation.</p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[Because Dharmabody is naturally-arrived-at in the Awareness substantiality, abiding in the substance behind “the meaning of Unmade arrived-at” is the strange and marvelous Full Knowledge. This is shown to be the foundation of the Realm of Dharmas beyond all horizons.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[The stream of naturally-arrived-at empowerment is shown to be totally completed in the Awareness substantiality.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>The MASTER Body and Total Wisdom of All Animate Beings Untransformable</p><p>and the EMPOWERMENT Royal Method Head Anointing Great Self-engendered</p><p>have naturally-arrived-at the total disentanglement of</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">appearances/becoming and material/vital</p></blockquote></blockquote><p>Working/seeking is unnecessary. The nature naturally-arrived-at</p><p>arrives-at absolutely everything,</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">expands into Great Naturally-arrived-at.</p></blockquote></blockquote><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>[Total Awareness is completed in the naturally-arrived-at substance of the Three Bodies. So when the complete empowerment arrived-at in self-engendered Full Knowledge takes hold, there is no depending on present exertion and pushing or on empowerments employing consecrated articles.]</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-45476281257969213172023-08-07T21:21:00.022+03:002023-10-19T13:46:56.978+03:00Death Rituals Drawn by a Tibetan Monk-Artist<p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHUqOpIzfvOGVbTr_fo_C6ybk8pW6RhBpmDV3jyPoFo8xEeDKNR-izgBzLOR6wBEF93bBKMHANPnIayDt8Ja8-BzUlyDWwjH0gcAGsR8h2BWEPjTYvfKmn3iRm5f-KorIfKt2OEV8Fyuu5DtthEyOnV3NXvlA40tiUK0VX7SYDwuyyaaBIT_YySg/s720/Slide2.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHUqOpIzfvOGVbTr_fo_C6ybk8pW6RhBpmDV3jyPoFo8xEeDKNR-izgBzLOR6wBEF93bBKMHANPnIayDt8Ja8-BzUlyDWwjH0gcAGsR8h2BWEPjTYvfKmn3iRm5f-KorIfKt2OEV8Fyuu5DtthEyOnV3NXvlA40tiUK0VX7SYDwuyyaaBIT_YySg/w400-h225/Slide2.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Plates 1 and 2<br />(Clearer illustrations below)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If you are intrigued by the use of <i>The Tibetan Book of the Dead</i> in Tibetan funerals, these drawings are well worth examining. What they may lack in artistic refinement they make up for in illustrative value. They open a window on actual practice, so much so it doesn’t matter if some of its panes are not fully transparent.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There are a few more-or-less contemporary examples of British and Europeans commissioning Tibetan artists to depict Tibetan life and culture. We have the Hummel essay with its illustrations of medieval tortures, as well as the Wise Collection with its travel atlas, both excellent examples. There is a reason why the three sets so easily compare to each other, you know.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A critical-minded person of the 21st century might think these rather crudely drafted artworks* are of interest to us only as products of colonialism, meant to somehow further colonial interests. My point in bringing attention to them is different. While admitting the conditions of their production, there is a lot more to say. That is, if we could only overcome some of the obstacles to understanding them. These obstacles involve recognizing the problems in communication between the Lhasa Tibetan traveler and the lonely official in a British colonial outpost both of them far from home and each in his own way out of his element. Like all communications, there is an ongoing reassessment of what the conversation partner might be willing and capable of understanding. And this goes three ways. It isn’t just the ‘conversation’ (mediated by a translator?) between the two of them, the monk artist and the colonial officer, but between them and the one responsible for presenting it to us readers, Charles Horne. This three- or four-way dynamic creates a continuous drag on all our efforts to understand the drawings. I believe I can perceive this problem, but have no way of imagining how I could ever overcome it and deliver the all-rounded truth, the bigger picture. Well, we can try and go some of the distance and call it a day.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*The charm of its folkish art is in its relatively direct honesty, as well as its clear Tibetan style. We can appreciate that the artist has a <i>karma</i>-given talent, even if it is not definitively “fine art.” It could be that the original drawings were colored, and that it wasn’t possible or practical to reproduce color in the journal [see Lange’s book, p. 99], so there may have been tracing and redrawing going on that would explain some of the awkward turns. It will become clear that some parts of the original set of drawings were cut away in the publishing process, which is a pity, as the originals are for all we know irrevocably lost.)</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Since we are never told what the official asked the artist to do, we can only assume that the subject matter was assigned by the former because of some special interest in death rituals in Central Tibet. But maps of the Wise Collection were likewise commissioned by the same Major Hay, while the depiction of tortures, as published in Hummel’s essay, was made at the instigation of Moravian missionaries. All of them seem to belong to the same circle of artworks, indeed by the same artist. A richly illustrated new book on the Wise Collection looks into this whole problem. I recommend Diana Lange’s outstanding book as number one on your reading list if you can possibly get your hands on it.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And <i>really</i>, with apologies for repeating myself, I have no haughty attitude thinking I can see and understand everything. Be real: I’m a researcher, doing my best to see everything I can see with the help that is within my reach. At most I think I can help the conversation by making a thing here and there gain greater focus and clarity. Assuming you are willing I invite you, the Tibeto-logicians of the world, to join in a conversation of our own in which we will analyze and discuss every single detail, while at the same time finding ways to fit practices into broader patterns of meaning.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So here is a transcription of Horne’s 1873 essay. I’ve attempted to make my copy exact down to the last detail (even those circumflex accents on top of vowels that appear to me to contribute nothing), although I did replace SMALL CAPITALS with <b>bold</b>. The <span style="color: red;">red letters</span> are my own rubrics, not part of the original publication. In these red inserts of mine I’ve concentrated on the Tibetan terms and what these ought to mean, particularly where I perceive a problem.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGF7Uk-5pHUESpoVz1i64kkMHAqCwtK6AvyK3VsAc89lhpuEnS04c93IZAPetrLEB7Q3orduigGvKuykcdESIL7lyeL8l8uoK100OMnBsQWyeguMmNxepe5kxbw2eyOupcExm-154KGmbMaAWbOnOYpo0UGH3iB9ddveQLobbDynjl9atWo9VQPg/s640/Black%20double%20switchback%20divider.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="139" data-original-width="640" height="44" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGF7Uk-5pHUESpoVz1i64kkMHAqCwtK6AvyK3VsAc89lhpuEnS04c93IZAPetrLEB7Q3orduigGvKuykcdESIL7lyeL8l8uoK100OMnBsQWyeguMmNxepe5kxbw2eyOupcExm-154KGmbMaAWbOnOYpo0UGH3iB9ddveQLobbDynjl9atWo9VQPg/w200-h44/Black%20double%20switchback%20divider.jpeg" width="200" /></a></span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Art. III.—<i>On the Methods of Disposing of the Dead at Llassa, Thibet, etc.</i> By <b>Charles Horne</b>, late B.C.S.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the year 1857 one of the travelling Llamas from Llassa came to Lahoul, in the Kûlû country on the Himalêh, and hearing of the mutiny was afraid to proceed. Major Hay, who was at that place in political employ, engaged this man to draw and describe for him many very interesting ceremonies in use in Llassa, amongst which was the method there employed in disposing of dead bodies. This so exactly confirms the accounts given by Strabo and Cicero, and is, moreover, of itself so curious, that I have transcribed it, with as many passages relating to the subject as readily came to hand ; and as the Llama was a very fair draughtsman, I have had facsimiles made of his drawings to illustrate this paper. I will first give the extracts, and then the account of the Llama.</span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;">B.C.S. I take to mean British Civil Service. Kulu Valley is south of Lahul, with the 4,000-meter-high Rohtang (རོ་ཐང་) Pass rising between them. If you are curious about the “Mutiny,” there is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Rebellion_of_1857" target="_blank">a Wiki page about it</a>. These were desperate times.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span></p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;">This clearly implies that Major Hay had other sets of drawings made depicting still other Lhasa customs and ceremonies. Did he also commission the torture depictions that the miss</span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;">ionary Ribbach passed along to the ethnologist Hummel? (Lange’s book says Jäschke was the commissioner.) There is a missing link in it, but it is suggestive that Ribbach’s book includes two Tibetan drawings, one of a carpenter making use of an adze, the other a part of a wedding ceremony. Although both were surely drawn by a Tibetan, they show signs of retouching, added shading and so on.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span></p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">Lange’s book quotes from the notes of Hay that would seem to tell us the artist’s several names (see her pp. 34-37). I tried, but couldn’t find out anything more by researching those same names. By contrast, quite a lot can be known about [William Edmund] Hay, the author of the English-language notes published by Horne. His history is explored in Lange’s book, pp. 26-30.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">M. Huc, the interesting Jesuit traveller, in his Travels, tome ii., p. 347, when at Llassa, alluding to hydrophobia says (free translation) : —“It is only surprising that this horrible complaint does not commit greater ravages when one thinks of the numbers of famished dogs who constantly prowl about the streets of Llassa. These animals are so numerous in this town that the Chinese say, ironically, that the three chief products of the capital of Thibet are Llamas, women, and dogs (Llama-Yatêon-Keon). This astonishing multitude of dogs is caused by the great respect that the Thibetans have for these animals, and the use they make of them for the disposal of the dead. There are four manners of sepulture in Thibet: first, incremation ; second, throwing into the rivers or lakes; third, exposure on the summits of mountains; and the fourth, which is the most flattering of all, consists in cutting the dead bodies <span style="color: #999999;">[p. 29] </span>in pieces and giving them to the dogs to eat.” The last method is the most general. The poor have for their sepulture the dogs of the environs, but for persons of distinction they employ a little more ceremony. There are establishments where they rear and maintain dogs for this sole purpose, and it is to these places that the Thibetans take their dead to be disposed of. Strabo, Cicero, and Justin, allude to these practices.</span></p><p></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">Given the time of writing it shouldn’t come to us as such a surprise that classical Latin authorities are given the first and last words here. While it is true that there is much variation in local practice, I doubt that dogs were ever the main intended consumers. In Lhasa area I’ve heard it said that the dogs were chased away if they tried to approach, that all the work was reserved for the vultures. One might even wonder if the missionary Huc got his idea from the classical authors cited in the next paragraphs. However, we must point out that not one of these classical authors intended to tell us about <i>Tibetan</i> practices, so for this reason their relevance is highly questionable. There was such a strong urge in these early modern ethnographies to trace <i>every</i> observed cultural practice back to a Greek or Latin author, as if there were something direct evidence couldn't prove by itself, as if books are the only reliable sources. Remember, these were the days when everything outside the main monotheistic religion was called paganism or heathenism, and any one pagan was the equivalent of all the others.</span></blockquote><p><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">But perhaps I need to take back the words I just typed, since at least in the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama, there is one bit of literary evidence dogs were included together with the birds as intended recipients (see Gouin's book, p. 60, for a much recommended discussion). At the same time no variant of the term <i>khyi[r] sbyin (giving it to dogs)</i> seems to appear with this meaning in Tibetan literature. At the moment my impression is that the drawing before us is an important evidence that lower class funerals could and sometimes did involve dogs even if this is hardly ever recorded by Tibetan authors. In any case, I don’t find what classical authors have to say relevant or even very interesting, and offer no further comment on them.</span></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">1. <b>Strabo</b>, speaking of the customs of the nomad Scythians as preserved amongst the Soghdians and Bactrians, says:—“In the capital of the Bactrians, they bring up dogs to which they give a particular name, and this name translated into our language would be ‘interrers.’ These dogs have to devour all those who become feeble from age or illness. Hence it is that the environs of this capital show no tombs; but within the walls many human bones are to be seen. Alexander is said to have abolished this custom.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">2. <b>Cicero</b> attributes the same custom to the Hyrcanians when he says: “In Hyrcania plebs publicos alit canes; optimates, domesticos. Nihile autem genus canum illud scimus esse. Sed pro sua quisque facultate parat a quibus lanietur; iamque optimam illi esse consent sepulturam.” (<i>Tuscul. Quaest,</i> lib. i., p. 45.)</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">3. <b>Justin</b> says also of the Parthians : “Sepultura vulgi aut avium aut canum laniatus est. Nuda demum ossa terrá obruunt.” (<i>Note de Klaproth.</i>)</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Herodotus also alludes to the practice; but the above quotations may be held to be sufficient.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhccqETlQW8A_q6Y51pkCfgOYAkG7VcVtjAHeEemZoNTCXAywR6kVRXsEYM5BDw1KbzoFX4JAsGC5lzQXcS-vOqo9fRY6aDXsg-TsDFfaLfKDPpKogAoH-PXx1tpBw7wkJp8M2XEJqNVasy--otjggknOgJ_cHebYhuiTKMJlq7GmBpr5HNtGJL3w/s1280/IMG_0321.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="895" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhccqETlQW8A_q6Y51pkCfgOYAkG7VcVtjAHeEemZoNTCXAywR6kVRXsEYM5BDw1KbzoFX4JAsGC5lzQXcS-vOqo9fRY6aDXsg-TsDFfaLfKDPpKogAoH-PXx1tpBw7wkJp8M2XEJqNVasy--otjggknOgJ_cHebYhuiTKMJlq7GmBpr5HNtGJL3w/w280-h400/IMG_0321.jpeg" width="280" /></a> </span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Plate 1 - double click on the photo to expand it</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now for the Llama’s account, more in detail. The accompanying sketches by the same hand explain these:—</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No 1. <i>Phôwâ Gyâgpâ</i>,—<i>Phôwâ</i> is the name of the <i>mantra</i> or prayer, and <i>Gyagpâ</i> the person repeating it. The drawing represents a man who has died, and by his prayers a Llama had restored the spirit into the belly, and is in the act of drawing out the same by the end of his hair, <i>Trâtenbâ</i>, which he is supposed to unite with his own spirit (or <i>mun</i>); and having done so, he is held, whilst sitting in meditation with his eyes closed, to cause the united spirit to <span style="color: #999999;">[p. 30] </span>pass out at his own head: Triloknâth is supposed to be there seated whilst he (the Llama) is praying, and so the said united spirit enters the body of Triloknâth by the anus, and thus they both are imagined to have become united to, and mingled with, the essence of the Deity.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">Phowa Gyagpa (འཕོ་བ་རྒྱག་པ་) is the label of drawing 1 of Plate One. Drawings 1, 2 and 4 have their own individual labels. Drawing 1 depicts a monk figure administering rites for the dead or dying person. As the label strongly suggests it must be the Phodeb Lama (འཕོ་འདེབས་བླ་མ་) assuring that the consciousness (རྣམ་ཤེས་) will exit through the top of the head rather than any of the inferior bodily apertures. The name for the fontanelle in Tibetan is <i>tsangbug</i> (ཚངས་བུག་), meaning <i>Aperture of Brahma</i>. The Phodeb Lama might pull our a few hairs at the top of the head to facilitate a favorable outcome. Behind <i>Trâtenbâ</i> is the Tibetan <i>skra 'then-pa</i> (སྐྲ་འཐེན་པ<i>་)</i>, or <i>pulling out hair</i>.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 2 is the <i>Sipâ</i>, who comes to consult the dead man’s horoscope and future destiny; and to show how the body is to be placed with reference to the point of the compass.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 3 is a relation of the deceased consulting the priest.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 4 <i>Gnûvâ</i> (or weeping), is the brother of the deceased receiving consolation from another, who administers <i>chang</i> or spirits, and bids him cheer up.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;">The astrologer or </span><i style="color: red;">tsipa</i><span style="color: red;"> (རྩིས་པ་)</span><span style="color: red;"> may help decide what type of interment needs to be done. In drawing 3, the relative of the deceased is consulting with the astrologer who may or may not be a priest (he is wearing monastic robes, even more clearly so when he reappears in drawing no. 9), and in drawing 4 there is mourning or weeping, <i>nguwa</i> (ངུ་བ་), going on, and if you look closely you can see a cup getting filled.</span></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Nos. 5 and 6. These are two Getongs, called <i>Gyûnzhûgpa</i>, who are supposed to be for two days and nights meditating and praying mentally for the soul of the deceased.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;">I suppose </span><i style="color: red;">Gyûnzhûgpa </i><span style="color: red;">intends </span><i style="color: red;">Gyunzhugpa</i><span style="color: red;"> (རྒྱུན་བཞུགས་པ་), or the ones who </span><i style="color: red;">constantly abide</i><span style="color: red;">, keeping vigil. The only way I can think to explain the word Getong is to imagine Gendun (དགེ་འདུན་), the Tibetan equivalent of Sanskrit Saṅgha, is hidden in it.</span></span></div><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span><p></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Nos. 7 and 8. <i>Chêdûnpâ</i> reading the <i>Purtô-tî-sôl</i>. The meaning is this: for four days after death the spirit is supposed to hover near, and to preserve the power of seeing and hearing, and hence it listens to the contents of this book, in which are described the six roads by which to travel to the other world:—</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">Does <i>Chêdûnpâ</i> stand for C<i>hödönpa</i> or <i>Chos ’don-pa</i> (ཆོས་འདོན་པ་), Dharma Reciter? It seems so. And the book they are reciting, <i>Purtô-tî-sôl, </i>has to be the well-known <i>Bardo Thödol</i> (བར་དོ་ཐོས་གྲོལ་). If you inspect closely, you can even make out that same Tibetan title inscribed on the pages they are holding.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">1. A <i>White</i> road, or <i>Karpo</i>; 2. A <i>Yellow</i> road, or <i>Sirpo</i>; 3. A <i>Black</i> road, or <i>Nâgpô</i>; 4. A <i>Green</i> road, or <i>Jûnzu</i>; 5. A <i>Red</i> road, or <i>Marpo</i>; 6. A <i>Blue</i> road, or <i>Unpo</i>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The readers shout out relative to these roads in substance as follows: These are the six roads. If you go by the <i>white</i> road, you will reach the Deotas; but you must not go there. If you try the <i>yellow</i> road, you will be reborn on this earth; don’t go by that road, because this re-birth on earth will be eternally repeated. If you go by the <i>black</i> road, you will reach <i>Niruk</i>, or hell; don’t go there, because it will involve endless pain and torment. Don’t go by the <i>green</i> road, which leads through <i>Lamayin</i>, i.e. the sky below Indra’s Paradise, where they are always at war with one another. Don’t go by the <i>red</i> road, because there you will meet with the <i>Idâk</i>, or evil spirits, who have large heads, very small necks, and very empty bellies, which are never satisfied. Don’t go by the <i>blue</i> road, because there are the animals <span style="color: #999999;">[p. 31]</span> <i>Timôd</i>, who alone have power, and you will be devoured. But look up towards heaven, and you will see, as in a glass flickering, a <i>red and yellow</i> road, shining like lightning. On seeing it you will be greatly afraid, but never fear, and travel by that road, and you will be sure to reach <i>Llama Kânchôk</i>, or God, and you will enter into the Deity. If you cannot by any possibility get by that road, then go by the <i>white</i> road! ! You are now become like air; you can’t remain in this world; so be off! !</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;">In the Chönyid Bardo (ཆོས་ཉིད་བར་དོ་), in each of seven days, an existential decision is made by the intermediate being whether to follow the dull or brightly colored paths into one or another of the states of rebirth. Each day presents paths with specific colors. For a great deal of detail, see the section on the dawning of the peaceful deities in Evans-Wentz’s classic version of Kazi Dawa Samdup’s translation, at pp. 104-131; or, if you prefer, the more readable modern translation by the late Gyurme Dorje, pp. 234-254. </span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"><i>Deota</i> is a modern way of saying <i>devatā</i> in Sanskrit, one of several Anglo-Indian “Hobson Jobson” terms we could point to. It means <i>divinity</i>. Among the things I cannot explain is <i>Timôd</i> as a word for <i>animal</i>. In this context the expected Tibetan word is <i>dündro</i> (དུད་འགྲོ), likely just a calque of Sanskrit <i>tiryañc, </i>indicating their horizontal locomotion. It could be that <i>Timôd</i> is Tibetan <i>timug</i> (གཏི་མུག), or ignorance, an ‘emotional affliction’ the Buddhists say characterizes animals in particular. Notice, too, that a distortion has entered into the text, it isn’t the problem that the bardo being could be devoured while taking the <i>blue</i> road, but that animal rebirth, a result of taking the <i>blue</i> road, would involve constant danger of being devoured. I cannot enter into the whole theology vs. buddhology problem of how best to present the Christian concept of God to Tibetan Buddhists. The use here of Lama Könchog (བླ་མ་དཀོན་མཆོག) reflects discussions taking place among the missionaries on this very issue (see Jäschke's dictionary, pp. 10-11, and the closing section of John Bray’s essay for a broad treatment).</span></p></blockquote><p> </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 9, <i>Sipa</i>, or Llama, consulting his book to see how the corpse is to be disposed of. If burnt, how the face is to be turned. The horn is that of the <i>Sûrû</i> or <i>Isôtio</i>, which he takes in his hand to drive away evil spirits.</span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">It is possible part of the drawing was cut off, since here we do not see anyone consulting a book or holding a horn. The astrologer is doing the death calculations (ཤི་རྩིས་) on his chalk board with a stylus. The horn of the <i>Sûrû</i> must mean the horn of a <i>rhinoceros</i>, or <i>seru</i> (བསེ་རུ་), about an animal named <i>Isôtio</i> I haven’t the least idea. But then I also have no knowledge of the ritual use of rhino horns, do you? You may also wonder about the complicated astrological chart lying open in front of the astrologer. To see a magnificent example you need to consult the original edition of Chogay Trichen Rinpoche’s <i>Gateway to the Temple</i>, the two foldout illustrations at the end of the book.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-QJY2K7-cqANi_XxpAEEczGlkDryU4TkE3ET-lX-YkIleAIRV7j-qm421Ntwmh5b4oNRz1s6_dAGaM5wwSEFsCrUcDFcJv1q_eejQQY2xdOYM6g1oXJmKxq9PjH7VK8esG4_Lkx1wOOIZUkexHt0FmqQGgGioJm3I4b5IJoZ568EY3bbG4Q8uxw/s1280/IMG_0322.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="898" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-QJY2K7-cqANi_XxpAEEczGlkDryU4TkE3ET-lX-YkIleAIRV7j-qm421Ntwmh5b4oNRz1s6_dAGaM5wwSEFsCrUcDFcJv1q_eejQQY2xdOYM6g1oXJmKxq9PjH7VK8esG4_Lkx1wOOIZUkexHt0FmqQGgGioJm3I4b5IJoZ568EY3bbG4Q8uxw/w281-h400/IMG_0322.jpeg" width="281" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: medium;">Plate 2</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 10, <i>Sûrukâpâ</i>, burns incense.</span></p><blockquote><p></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;">It may well seem difficult to justify and be sure of it, but I suppose this intends the <i>tsasur</i> (ཚ་གསུར་) rite, or rather the one who performs that rite, the *tsasur-gyapa (*ཚ་གསུར་རྒྱག་པ་)? <i>Tsasur</i> literally means ‘hot singeing.’ It employs that syllable <i>sur </i>(གསུར་) that we’ve blogged about before (<a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2016/09/dough-balls.html" target="_blank">at this link</a>). But the syllable can also appear in a bisyllabic form <i>suru</i> (སུ་རུ་) as in <i>surupa </i>(སུ་རུ་པ་), a rite involving the burning of barley known from ethnographic sources. It is very likely “pagan” and pre-Buddhist in its origins, while the word itself links it to very ancient Mesopotamian sin expiation rites and similar grain/bread singeing rites of the Middle East continually practiced until today. To call this rite an <i>incense burning </i>is a little off the mark. It is more like a food offering for divine or spirit recipients.*</span> </span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"> (*</span><span style="color: red;">The most recommended discussion is the one in Gouin's book, pp. 26-29. </span><span style="color: red;">Tibetanists can find more references to ethnographical literature in the </span><i style="color: red;">su ru pa</i><span style="color: red;"> and </span><i style="color: red;">gsur</i><span style="color: red;"> entries of </span><a href="https://sites.google.com/view/tibvocabcontinued/home" target="_blank">TibVocab</a><span style="color: red;">, and there is of course the article on <i>tsasur</i> by Panglung Rinpoche listed in the blog link supplied just above.).</span></span></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><blockquote><p></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 11, <i>Ro</i>, or a corpse. It is tied by a rope to the top of the room in a corner, and seated on an iron frame or stool, when the impurities are supposed to empty themselves below into a pan placed for the purpose. A cloth is placed over the head to conceal the face, and a <i>pardah</i>, or screen of cloth, is placed before the body, on which is affixed a picture of <i>Sangyê Mulla</i>, or <i>Doojêh Zhigrit</i>, a deity of the <i>Gelukpa</i>.*1</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">Here we see the only two Tibetan-language labels of Plate Two: <i> Sangyé Mulla</i> is misspelled in an amusing way, making us think of Iranian Mullahs, but the Tibetan-letter inscription leaves no doubt it means Sangyé Menla (སངས་རྒྱས་སྨན་བླ་), the Medicine Buddha Bhaiṣajyaguru, while Doojêh Zhigrit<i> </i>is Dorjé Jigjé (རྡོ་རྗེ་འཇིགས་བྱེད་), or Vajrabhairava. <i>Ro</i> (རོ་) is indeed the ordinary word for <i>corpse, </i>but it is odd that the curtain is called by the Persian-derived word <i>pardah </i>that does mean ‘curtain’, better known in the Anglo-Indian form <i>purdah</i>, meaning not only the curtain, but the practice of isolating of women that curtain indicates.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;">Like a few of the other drawings, it appears that part of this one was cut off in the process of publication.</span></span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;">The </span><i style="color: red;">suttoo</i><span style="color: red;"> word that follows I am unable to supply with a correct Tibetan spelling, and in any case it appears to apply to the lost part of the drawing. I see now that <i>suttoo</i> is what is in more recent times called <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sattu" target="_blank">sattu</a></i>, a kind of flour made of parched grains or legumes. In either spelling it is an Indic term most likely intended as a ‘cultural translation’ for the Tibetan dietary staple <i>tsampa</i>, a flour made from parched barley.</span></span></blockquote></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Before the corpse on the ground is placed a little <i>suttoo</i> (fine flour), and some water. In this plate the knees only of the corpse are shown, the rest must be supposed.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 12 represents a man carrying off the corpse packed up in a portable shape, as also others with necessaries. The class of men who perform this work are called <i>Togdun</i>.</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">In general Togden (རྟོགས་ལྡན་) means a ‘realized one’. It’s the Tibetan equivalent of yogi-sadhu meditators of India. (Ronge’s essay calls them Tobden [སྟོབས་ལྡན་], or men with great strength even though “they often call themselves རྟོགས་ལྡན་,” pp. 3, 6) Like the sadhus, they often wear their uncut hair in a topknot. Here the specific meaning of ‘corpse bearer’ seems an example of polite euphemism. The usual idea is that they might be practitioners of Cutting practice (གཅོད་), for obvious if not therefore necessarily correct reasons. After all, the Cutting practitioners make an offering out of their own individual body (as part of a vividly real visualization practice), not the body of any other. In fact, they are regarded by Lhasa people as an outcaste group (<i>ibid</i>., p. 7) in the sense one should not touch them, and more importantly, have meals together with (let alone marry) them. This low-caste non-commensality is something they share with butchers and metalworkers (see our earlier blog, <a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2020/01/" target="_blank">“Great Balls of Iron”</a>).</span></blockquote></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 13. The corpse at this place, <i>Tûtôt, </i>is pegged out to five wooden pins. Then it is scored all over with a knife, and the men retire to a short distance and sit down and drink <i>chang</i>, or spirits, as shown in No. 14. The vultures meanwhile tear the flesh from the body, which does not take long, in consequence of the numbers always frequenting these spots. When the men return they find only the skeleton. They then take the bones to No. 15, where they pound them</span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">*1 This Llama would appear to have belonged to the <i>Gelukpa</i>, or yellow sect, and his description applies more particularly to the customs of that sect of Buddhists, which is well represented at Llassa. The word means <i>virtuous</i>.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #999999;">[p. 32] </span>up with stones and hammers, after which they are thrown to the vultures. No dogs are allowed here, and the place is called <i>Châtôr</i>, from <i>Châ</i>, “a bird.”</span></p><p></p><blockquote><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"><i></i><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><i>Châtôr</i> (བྱ་གཏོར་) means <i>scattering [for] the birds</i>. The drawing shows the corpse secured to stakes to prevent the birds from dragging it away. <i>Tûtôt</i> is just an odd way of transcribing <i>durtrö</i> (དུར་ཁྲོད་), not really a proper name just the word for any <i>charnel ground</i>.<span style="text-align: left;"> </span></blockquote></span></blockquote><blockquote><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"><blockquote style="text-align: justify;">The footnote 1 is mistaken in saying the monk artist would have to be a Gelugpa, all indications point to him being a Nyingmapa.</blockquote></span></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 16 is a man singeing the hair off the head, a portion of the skull of which is preserved and afterwards pounded up, mixed with earth, and formed into small shapes with figures of Triloknâth or Sakya stamped upon them, or moulded into small <i>Chortens</i> or Dagobas.</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">This refers to the making of funerary <i>tsatsa </i>(ཚ་ཚ་). After clay has been mixed with remains of the deceased, lumps of it are stamped with metal molds into the shapes of Buddhist sacred objects: holy texts, divine images or chortens. After hardening they might be placed in a pure place in nature, or in a <i>tsakhang</i> (ཚ་ཁང་). I imagine the author[s?] might have had the Triloknath temple in neighboring Chamba in mind, otherwise I can’t explain his use of the name. “Sakya” here means Śākyamuni.</span></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 17 shows us the <i>Tôgduns</i> drinking tea after their work is ended.</span></p><p></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">Here you may see that there is a tripod for heating the tea. I suppose the two figures directly above are drinking tea, while the pair directly above them are no. 14, the <i>chang</i> drinkers.</span></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 18 represents a man driving off the vultures, <i>Chagôt</i>, to prevent them devouring the corpse until it shall first have been properly scored all over.</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"><i>Chagôt</i> is <i>chagö</i> (བྱ་རྒོད་). It’s the normal word for <i>vulture</i>, although if we pull the two syllables apart it can mean 'wild/militant bird.'</span></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTmqBf4lHvmXwYdOEVFxE7QULgZXgsqu6nVGZ8JQMlH1JpQV5J6FqV3yO82-ABiWzFyUhZGrOArAhW6EuP6vR9712odlyLBNRoXRXF9D8G9HX_LajqJcVDwouO3mzWdA41GUm_h87YIW5ZnFDGBW1-qAqVJ5VuzvruPFYiG_KNDM0pOKH4vYIDDw/s1280/IMG_0323.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="883" data-original-width="1280" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTmqBf4lHvmXwYdOEVFxE7QULgZXgsqu6nVGZ8JQMlH1JpQV5J6FqV3yO82-ABiWzFyUhZGrOArAhW6EuP6vR9712odlyLBNRoXRXF9D8G9HX_LajqJcVDwouO3mzWdA41GUm_h87YIW5ZnFDGBW1-qAqVJ5VuzvruPFYiG_KNDM0pOKH4vYIDDw/w400-h276/IMG_0323.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Plate 3</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Plate no. 3 represents a place in Llassa called <i>Râgyûp-dûtôd</i>. <i>Ra </i>means “a horn”; <i>Gyup</i>, “behind”<i>; Dutod, “</i>Golgotha.<i>”</i></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">There is a small mistake here, since even if <i>ra</i> does mean ‘horn’, in this context it ought to be spelled <i>rags</i>, meaning ‘dike’. This Ragyab Durtrö (རགས་རྒྱབ་དུར་ཁྲོད་, correcting the label given: ལྷ་ས་ར་རྒྱབ་དུ་ཁྲོད་) is said to be located near Kusangtse House (<span style="background-color: white;"><i>The Life and Times of George Tsarong of Tibet, 1920–1970</i>, p. 51). Golgotha is an odd choice for a translation for Durtrö, Akeldama would have been a much better match.</span></span></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: medium;"></span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Here are five stones fixed in the ground, to which the corpse is tied, and three men, <i>Tôgdun</i>, are cutting up the body and bones, all of which are given to the dogs. This mode of disposal of the dead is called <i>Ki-chin</i> (<i>Ki</i> is a dog). Very many dogs always remain at this place. The hammers and axes are for breaking up the skeleton. The man on the right supplies the operators with <i>chang</i> or spirits.</span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"><i>Ki-chin</i> is <i>khyijin </i>(ཁྱི་སྦྱིན་), <i>offering [it to] dogs, </i>not a term found in Tibetan literature. What we do find is the term <i>chakhyijin</i> (བྱ་ཁྱིར་སྦྱིན་), <i>offering to birds and dogs</i>. Even this only shows up three times in a BDRC search, and all three instances are fairly recent.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 18 represents the house which is called Râgyuptôgdun, and is built of horns and inhabited by the <i>Tôgdun</i>. There are a hundred of such houses in the suburbs of Llassa, besides two hundred inhabited by the butchers (<i>Shêva</i>) constructed in a similar manner.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">All these people beg and collect much money, chiefly from the relations of the dead, by whom they are well paid.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">They are said to be insolent in their demands, and if anyone gives them half a <i>tunka</i> (or small piece of money), they spit upon it and throw it away, saying, “If you are not ashamed to give so little, I am ashamed to receive it.”</span></p><p></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">Many early travelers to Lhasa have noticed the <i>ragyabpa</i> homes made of horns (and bones). I cannot hold back from sharing some jewels of wisdom from the respectable American ambassador William Rockhill, as recorded in a footnote to Sarat Chandra Das’s classic book<i> Journey to Lhasa and Tibet</i> (for the quote see under “Das” in the list of references down below). I find it quite funny, only not sure if you will share in my grim sense of humor. I’m thinking you won’t.</span></blockquote><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 19 is the parapet of the <i>Râkâtchûmi</i> or well.</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">My best guess is that this refers to the Ragyab Chumig (རགས་རྒྱབ་ཆུ་མིག), or the well in the neighborhood back of the Lhasa dike.</span></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 20 is a <i>Chânochûp chorten</i>, with a figure of Triloknath, supposed to have appeared there miraculously without mortal assistance.</span></p><p><span style="color: red;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">The Changchub Chorten (བྱང་ཆུབ་མཆོད་རྟེན་) is the most commonly built type of chorten among Tibetans today, originally built to memorialize the Deed of the Buddha when He found Awakening.</span></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyK_fuzIym_Tz7NJxZB0XUTKgBVd8z1DdlieiQ8yjNO6D70OwRXAZAfTmU7q2OO-MZkeSRxH1UKvVvdevVNQ-UvArhkxHfXmqaN5yHZtACQFKBkDilVx1PHshNGhy1e_wgR2naz_DCO-t__UD1OxPNz-n5ptaZsCs_GVAhE34QZS4VBVuzDsPsCg/s1280/IMG_0324.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="879" data-original-width="1280" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyK_fuzIym_Tz7NJxZB0XUTKgBVd8z1DdlieiQ8yjNO6D70OwRXAZAfTmU7q2OO-MZkeSRxH1UKvVvdevVNQ-UvArhkxHfXmqaN5yHZtACQFKBkDilVx1PHshNGhy1e_wgR2naz_DCO-t__UD1OxPNz-n5ptaZsCs_GVAhE34QZS4VBVuzDsPsCg/w400-h275/IMG_0324.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: medium;">Plate 4</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="color: #999999; font-size: medium;">[p. 33]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 21, or <i>Purkung</i> (<i>Pûr</i> being applied to the corpse of a superior and <i>Ro</i> to that of an inferior; <i>Khung</i> signifies a house), shows the method in which the higher people of Llassa are burnt. A building is first erected, with a hollow in the centre, into which the body is placed in an upright position. The face is covered with red silk, and the wood used to burn the body is <i>Shukpa</i>, or pencil cedar (<i>Juniperus exelsa</i>), and frankincense. The attending Llama is shown feeding the flames with <i>ghee</i> or clarified butter.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">Plate 4 needs to be divided with a vertical line down the middle, with Tibetan cremation rites on your left, and Chinese mausoleum rites on your right. The Tibetan script label for no. 21, <i>burkhang</i> (བུར་ཁང་), has to be read <i>purkhang</i> (པུར་ཁང་). The syllable <i>pur</i> (པུར་) is often spelled <i>spur</i> (སྤུར་), even sometimes <i>dpur</i> (དཔུར་). Whatever its spelling, it is, as it says here, a respectful term for <i>corpse</i>, in common language <i>ro</i> (རོ་). </span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 22 shows two Llamas, who are offering up prayers and the <i>hôn</i> of sacrifice by fire, and are dressed the same as the deceased. They have in their hands the <i>dril-bu</i> or sacred bell.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"><i>Hôn</i> has to be for Sanskrit <i>homa</i>, in Tibetan <i>jinseg</i> (སྦྱིན་བསྲེགས་). A normal term for cremation is <i>roseg </i>(རོ་བསྲེགས་). For the most accessible description of a Tibetan <i>jinseg</i> rite, see Beyer’s book, pp. 264-278, with its listing of burning materials (no. 23 just below) on pp. 271-272.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 23. These <i>choptahs</i>, or vessels of green sugar, etc., are burnt with the body.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">These would be the usual <i>homa </i>offerings, each in its separate bowl, as they would be offered into the fire one at a time and in order, although green sugar is not among them to the best of my knowledge.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When, however, a man of high rank dies from smallpox, he is not burnt, but buried, and a tomb, as shown in No. 24 (<i>Pûltun</i>), built of stone, is erected over the spot.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">I think the label <i>Pûltun</i> goes with No. 25, and not No. 24. What is actually depicted here is a ‘long stone’ or Doring (རྡོ་རིང་), with an inscription I cannot manage to read.</span></p></blockquote><p> </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Should the sufferer from the same complaint have been of inferior rank, a small heap of stones only is made over his grave, as shown in No. 25.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">I suggest that the label <i>burtan</i> (བུར་ཐན་) here transcribed as <i>Pûltun</i>, has to be read <i>purtal</i> (པུར་ཐལ་). The first is seriously meaningless (<i>brown</i> <i>sugar drought</i>?), while the latter means <i>cremation ash</i>.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 26, <i>Rogum</i> or <i>Rokum</i> (<i>Gum</i> means a coffin), represents a Chinaman’s body as laid in his coffin, with silver, gold, sugar, rice, etc. This coffin is then placed in a tomb, No. 27, called <i>Gyamirôkung</i>, the place assigned for the burial being <i>Tubchitung</i>, two miles outside Llassa.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">Rogam (རོ་སྒམ་) is the word for <i>coffin</i>, literally <i>corpse box</i>. But Gyamirôkung is for Gyami Rokhang (རྒྱ་མི་རོ་ཁང་), or <i>Chinese mausoleums</i>. I could not identify the place Tubchitung. Now I suppose as Lange (p. 106) tells us, it’s Drapchi Tang (གྲྭ་བཞི་ཐང་), originally the site of an army garrison, and more lately an infamous prison (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapchi_Prison" target="_blank">གྲྭ་བཞི་བཙོན་ཁང་</a>); see Lange’s book, p. 106.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 28 shows a chief mourner, dressed in white, which is the colour of Chinese mourning. The other relations are not always clad in mourning, but all put on a linen or cotton turban, setting their ordinary caps on one side, which, however, all except the chief mourner resume when leaving the tomb.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No 29 is the <i>Washun</i> or Chinese priest.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">The usual spelling is Hoshang, in Tibetan, Hashang (ཧྭ་ཤང་).</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 30 are <i>Shôkpâ</i>, or fireworks, which are lighted and fired three times, when the mourners prostrate themselves nine times.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">After seven days have elapsed, they again visit the tomb, when the same ceremony is performed. <span style="color: #999999;">[p. 34]</span></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;">The modern Tibetan word for <i>firecracker</i> ought, according to Goldstein’s dictionary, be </span><i style="color: red;">shogpa </i><span style="color: red;">(ཤོག་པག), a word I cannot explain unless it means <i>paper brick</i>, although I suspect it to be a modern borrowing. If you need convincing that fireworks are used at Chinese funerals, as on other special occasions, see </span><a href="https://youtu.be/X5kUlKmeqdo" target="_blank">this whole set of videos</a><span style="color: red;"> on YouTube.</span></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">At no. 31 are represented dishes of sweetmeats, of which, after the fireworks and the nine prostrations, the mourners partake, and then return to their homes.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No. 32 shows <i>Tchûchintôrma</i>, a ceremony in which in one basin are placed little bits of flour paste rolled up, called <i>torma</i>; and in another water (<i>tchû), </i>with which these little pieces of paste are put. <i>Chin</i>, “offering,” completes the work.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Llama is supposed to be offering these to the <i>Idâk</i>, or bad spirits aforementioned as inhabiting the place mentioned in Red Road No. 5. These <i>Idâk</i> have, as aforesaid, large heads, small necks, and large bellies never to be satisfied.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In Sanskrit the word <i>Idâk</i> is called <i>Prêtâ</i>, which means a departed soul, spirit of the dead, ghost, or evil spirit.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"><i>Tchûchintôrma</i> is in the label <i>chujin torma</i> (ཆུ་སྦྱིན་གཏོར་མ་).</span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"><i>Idâk</i> is Y<i>idag </i>(ཡི་དྭགས་), or in Sanskrit Preta. It usually means one of the five or six states of rebirth known to Buddhism, and they are quite accurately described as having thin necks, enormous stomachs, making them constantly hungry, while liquids that pass their lips turn into fire, making them permanently parched. However, particularly in context of the <i>water offering rites </i>(ཆུ་སྦྱིན་), the term can in practice cover the a much wider range range of spirit beings. For more discussion, see <a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-white-old-man-sutra-part-one.html" target="_blank">this recent two-part blog</a>, where you will also find discussion of the ritual implements portrayed in the drawing: the pitcher, the basin, and the chalice.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So far the Llama describes the different methods of the disposal of dead bodies in Llassa as observed by the Thibetans and Chinese.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">[An excursus on embalming follows, although it is not depicted. On Tibetan embalming practices, see Uebach’s essay. I cannot explain what Chîn Chut ought to be in proper spelling]</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There is, however, one other method of preserving the dead bodies of their highest Llamas.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The first process is to cover up the body in salt, which dissolves and becomes absorbed in the flesh ; this process is repeated two or three times. When a sufficient quantity has been absorbed to preserve the body, it is taken out, the limbs relaxed, and the body placed in a sitting attitude and clothed; the hands having been placed in a position called <i>Chîn Chut</i>. When the muscles of the face relax and the skin shrivels, wax is put in to fill up the cheeks to the natural size, and the body is preserved in a <i>chorten</i> as a mummy which can be seen at any time.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><i style="font-size: large;">Note by Major Hay</i><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>.—“No man can fail to remark how similar the altar is to that shown on the reverse of many Sassanian coins. It is probable their custom of burning the bodies of their kings was the same, and the attendants seem even to have the same kind of cap. The ancient Persians according to Herodotus and Strabo, exposed their dead to be devoured by vultures. It should, however, be remarked that the bodies of the </span><i>old</i><span> monarchs of Persia were interred, not burnt, which would have been contrary to the laws of </span><span style="color: #999999;">[p. 35] </span><span>Zoroaster, as tending to desecrate the sacred element—fire; nor were they previously exposed to be devoured by animals, as was prescribed by the precept of the Magi, with whom the dog was a sacred animal.”</span></span></p></blockquote></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In continuation of the above, as the subject is of one of interest, I subjoin a few extracts from Rollin’s <i>Ancient History</i>, and other sources relative to the subject.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The ancient Persians, we are told by Herodotus, did not erect funeral piles for the dead or consume their bodies in the flames.</span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“Accordingly we find that Cyrus,*1 when he was at the point of death, took care to charge his children to inter his body and to restore it to the earth; that is the expression he makes use of : by which he seems to declare, that he looked upon the earth as the original parent from whence he sprang, to which he ought to return. And when Cambyses had offered a thousand indignities to the dead body of Amasis,*2 king of Egypt, he thought he crowned all by causing it to be burnt, which was equally contrary to the Egyptian and Persian manner of treating their dead. It was the custom of the latter to wrap up their dead in wax, in order to keep them longer from corruption.”</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Cicero says, <i>Tuscul. Quaest.</i>, lib. i., p. 108 :</span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“Condiunt Egyptii mortuos, et eos domi servant: Persae jam cerâ circumlitos condiunt, ut quam maxime permaneant diuturna corpora.”</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Major Hay, in his report on the Spiti Valley, written in 1850, tells us that incremation is the ordinary method of disposing of the dead in Spiti. Their ashes are thrown into the nearest running stream, the spot where the body was burnt plastered over with cowdung, and an urn put up.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I have repeatedly seen these urns in Kurnawur, and always supposed them to contain the ashes, and I was informed that such was the case. Those dying of smallpox were not burned, but buried ; and I have also seen the heaps of stones which had been placed over the grave, but curiously enough during the months that I was in the country I never witnessed a funeral or incremation.</span></p><p></p><blockquote style="text-align: right;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">*1 Cyrop., 1. viii., p. 238. *2 Herod., 1. iii., c. 16.</span></blockquote><p> </p><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: medium;">• END •</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #ffa400; font-size: medium;">References & Selective Readings</span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Stephan <b>Beyer</b>, <i>The Cult of Tārā: Magic and Ritual in Tibet</i>, University of California Press (Berkeley 1973).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Martin <b>Brauen</b>, “<a href="https://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/kailash/pdf/kailash_09_04_02.pdf" target="_blank">Death Customs in Ladakh</a>,” <i>Kailash</i>, vol. 9, no. 4 (1982), pp. 319-332.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">John <b>Bray</b>, “Early Protestant Missionary Engagement with the Himalayas and Tibet,” contained in: J. Bray, ed., <i>Ladakhi Histories: Local & Regional Perspectives</i>, Brill (Leiden 2005), pp. 249-270. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Erberto Lo <b>Bue</b>, “Notes on Sky-Burial in Indian, Chinese and Nepalese Tibet,” contained in: John Bray & Elena de Rossi Filibeck, eds., <i>Mountains, Monasteries and Mosques</i> (Pisa 2009), pp. 221-237.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Chogay </b>Trichen Thubten Legshay Gyatsho (བཅོ་བརྒྱད་ཁྲི་ཆེན་ཐུབ་བསྟན་ལེགས་བཤད་རྒྱ་མཚོ་), <i>Gateway to the Temple: Manual of Tibetan Monastic Customs, Art, Building and Celebrations</i>, tr. by David Paul Jackson, Ratna Pustak Bhandar (Kathmandu 1979), particularly the two fold-out illustrations following its p. 88 (the final page of the book). A new edition, with new illustrations, has been published quite recently.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Bryan J. <b>Cuevas</b> and Jacqueline I. Stone, eds., <i>The Buddhist Dead: Practices, Discourses, Representations</i>, Kuroda Institute Studies in East Asia Buddhism no. 20, University of Hawai’i Press (Honolulu 2007). The essays by Cuevas, Kapstein and Schaeffer are the Tibet-related ones.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Bryan J. <b>Cuevas</b>, <i>The Hidden History of the Tibetan Book of the Dead</i>, Oxford University Press (Oxford 2003).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Sarat Chandra <b>Das</b>, “Description of a Tibetan Funeral,” <i>Journal of the Buddhist Text & Anthropological Society</i>, vol. 5, pt. 2 (1897), pp. 1-4.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">——, <i>Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet</i>, ed. by W.W. Rockhill, E.P. Dutton & Co. (New York 1902), p. 63, second footnote (written by William Rockwell, it strays off in such odd directions, to fix it is rather hopeless I suppose):</span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: medium;">“Our author says their name is written Rogyo-pa, meaning "corpse-vulture." According to Jaeschke, the "vulture" is <i>go-vo</i>, while <i>ro</i> means "corpse." Further on (p. 163) S. C. D. calls them <i>ragyabas</i>, and tells us that their houses (at Lhasa at all events) must have walls made of horns. From the fact that "horn" in Tibetan is <i>ra-cho</i>, we might suppose that the name of this class of people is Ra-cho-pa, ''the horny ones." I have never met with the name in writing.—(W. R.)”</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Elsewhere in the same book are quite a few interesting observations about funerary practices that would merit more attention than this one.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">W.Y. <b>Evans-Wentz,</b> <i>The Tibetan Book of the Dead</i>, translations by Kazi Dawa Samdup, Oxford University Press (London 1957), the 3rd edition of the book first published in 1927. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Margaret <b>Gouin</b>, <i>Tibetan Rituals of Death: Buddhist Funerary Practices, </i>Routledge (London 2010). Much recommended as the author has done considerable research bringing together a large number of disparate sources.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Gyurme Dorje</b>, tr., <i>The Tibetan Book of the Dead</i>, ed. by Graham Coleman with Thupten Jinpa, Viking (New York 2006). Unfortunately Viking didn’t use acid-free paper, so this book will crumble to dust in another 20 years.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Charles <b>Horne</b>, “On the Methods of Disposing of the Dead at Llassa, Thibet, etc.,” <i>Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society</i>, new series vol. 6 (1872-1873), pp. 28-35, with unnumbered illustration pages (two pages, each containing two plates).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Abbé <b>Huc</b> and Gabet, <i>Travels in Tartary Thibet and China 1844-1846</i>, tr. by William Hazlitt, ed. with an Introduction by Paul Pelliot, Harper & Brothers (New York 1928), vol. 2, pp. 251-252 for the passage on dogs and their role in Lha-Ssa funerals, and the quotes from Strabo, Cicero and Justin are to be found there in a footnote. My copy of the book is signed and dated Gale C. Griswold / Jan 2, 1934.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Siegbert <b>Hummel</b>, “An Unusual Tibetan Depiction of the Bar-do concerning the Events before Rebirth,” <i>Tibet Journal</i>, vol. 31, no. 4 (Winter 2006), pp. 47-56.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">——, “Die Leichenbestattung in Tibet,” <i>Monumenta Serica</i>, vol. 20 (1961), pp. 266-281.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">——, “Strafen und Torturen der Tibeter: Beitrage zur tibetischen Rechtspflege,” <i>Geographica Helvetica: Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geographie</i>, vol. 12 (1957), pp. 93-102. Hummel says he got this set of torture depictions, with Tibetan labels, from the Moravian missionary M. Ribbach. Ribbach commissioned them from a Tibetan artist with the apparent aim of eventually publishing them even if this never happened before Hummel’s article. It is very clear to me that their artist is identical to the one who made our death ritual drawings, and I defer to and concur with Diana Lange’s assessment. See her book at p. 34 for a superior photo of the still-preserved original drawings, with penciled-in comments by Jäschke!</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">——, “Zum Ursprung der Totengerichts- und Höllen-vorstellungen bei den Tibetern,” <i>Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religions-wissenschaft</i>, vol. 42, no. 1 (1958), pp. 48-55. Egyptian connections in judgment of the dead & portrayal of hell, bar-do (the monkey by the scales; see also in <i>Tibet Journal</i>, vol. 22, no. 4 [Winter 1997], p. 44).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Heinrich August <b>Jäschke</b>, <i>A Tibetan-English Dictionary</i>, Routledge & Kegan Paul (London 1972), reprint of the 1881 edition.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Diana <b>Lange</b>, <i>An Atlas of the Himalayas by a 19th Century Tibetan Lama: A Journey of Discovery</i>, Brill (Leiden 2020). I didn't have access to this publication when I started making my blog. But particularly relevant is “8.6 Disposing of the Dead at Lhasa,” found on pp. 91-107. Here you may find an analysis of the drawings published by Horne, with some explanations that differ from those I have offered, while on many points we are in agreement. If you are curious about this, I recommend reading Lange’s book for yourself.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">——, “<a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2016/07/the-wise-collection-acquiring-knowledge-on-tibet-in-the-late-1850s.html" target="_blank">The Wise Collection: Acquiring Knowledge on Tibet in the late 1850s</a>.” A web publication, or blog, posted at the British Library's website on July 18, 2016. I offer this as a quickly accessible piece on the subject for those who cannot so easily obtain the book.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Pamela <b>Logan</b><b style="font-style: italic;">, </b>“<a href="https://www.pamela-logan.com/culture/survival-and-evolution-of-sky-burial/" target="_blank">Survival and Evolution of Sky Burial Practices</a>” (posted on May 16, 2021). Of all the accounts of sky burial out on the internet, this has to be the most interesting one, and that’s why I send you to the link. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span>Roller <b>MaMing</b>, Li Lee, Xiamin Yang, and Paul Buzzard, “Vultures and Sky Burials on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau,” <i>Vulture News</i>, no. 71 (November 2016), pp. 22-35. At first I thought Paul Buzzard was a name invented with tongue in cheek, but no, it’s a real one. The concern of these ornithologists is with the bird, so the historical-cultural research is thin. Still, the full-color photographs are well worth seeing if you haven’t. </span><span> <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/vulnew.v71i1.2">http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/vulnew.v71i1.2</a>.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Dan <b>Martin</b>, “On the Cultural Ecology of Sky Burial on the Himalayan Plateau,” <i>East and West</i>, vol. 46, nos. 3-4 (December 1996), pp. 353-370. Available from JSTOR through a subscribing institution, or just download it from <a href="https://www.academia.edu/3790522/On_the_Cultural_Ecology_of_Sky_Burial_on_the_Himalayan_Plateau" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span><b>Ngag-dbang-rnam-rgyal</b>, “Rags-stobs sam Rags-rgyab-pa'i Spyi-tshogs Gnas-babs Skor,” </span><span style="color: #442410;">contained in: <i>Bod-kyi Dmangs-srol Gces-btus</i>, compiled by the editors of the journal <i>Spang-rgyan Me-tog</i>, Mi-rig Dpe-skrun-khang (Beijing 1999), vol. 1, pp. 75-81. The title might translate, “About the Social Conditions of the Ragtob or Ragyabpa [Community in Lhasa].”</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Samuel H. <b>Ribbach</b>, <i>Culture and Society in Ladakh</i>, tr. by John Bray, Ess Ess Publications (New Delhi 1986). This is an English translation of the original German book <i>Drogpa Namgyal. Ein Tibeterleben</i>, Otto Wilhelm Barth, München Planegg (Munich 1940). The author was a missionary in Ladakh from 1892 to 1913. See in particular the two drawings included among the plates inserted between pages 176-177.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Veronika <b>Ronge</b>, “The Corpse Cutters of Sera,” <i>Tibet Journal</i>, vol. 29, no. 2 (Summer 2004), pp. 3-12. The original German of 1989 was translated by Guido Vogliotti.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Per <b>Sørensen</b>, “Lhasa Diluvium, Sacred Environment at Stake: The Birth of Flood Control Politics, the Question of Natural Disaster Management and their Importance for the Hegemony over a National Monument in Tibet,” <i>Lungta</i>, vol. 16 (Spring 2003), pp. 84-134. If you need to know more about the history of the Lhasa dike, this would be your first, and quite possibly your only, place to look.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Heather <b>Stoddard</b>, “Eat it up or throw it to the dogs? Dge ’dun chos ’phel (1903-1951) Ma cig Lab sgron (1055-1153) and Pha dam pa Sangs rgyas (d. 1117): A Ramble through the Burial Grounds of Ordinary and ‘Holy’ Beings in Tibet,” contained in: S. Jacoby & A. Terrone, <i>Buddhism Beyond the Monastery</i>, Brill (Leiden 2009), pp. 9-35.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Richard Carnac <b>Temple</b>, “Disposal of the Dead by Exposure,” <i>Indian Antiquary</i>, vol. 52 (1923), p. 185.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">——, “Disposal of the Deceased Lamas in Eastern Tibet and the Mummifying of Bodies in China,” <i>Indian Antiquary</i>, vol. 53 (1924), p. 41.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Helga <b>Uebach</b>, “A Short Treatise by Pha bong kha pa (1878-1941) about Embalming,” <i>Tibet Journal</i>, vol. 30, no. 2 (Summer 2005), pp. 3-8. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Turrell V. <b>Wylie</b>, “Mortuary Customs at Sa-skya, Tibet,” <i>Harvard Journal of Asian Studies</i>, vol. 25 (1964-1965), pp. 229-242. Despite the title, this does include a general discussion of the history of corpse disposal methods in Tibet. He finds that <i>burials</i> (of kings) was the norm in early Tibet, and that neither <i>cremation</i> nor <i>exposure</i> to vultures can be found there prior to the Second Spread (late 10th century).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4P3IiFnl47xGWZxMncQ7uC61RSqKi2WDz5-udiRB9BAk5wTyduncvqLr8AkkQAf7FIInSeFgdtbA0_qKgsiEPWUiL6KCTC_8bXuJpTD3fzN5cllqlHSa-Ss-VN-JNT4dp24eGgVhJQFjLweun2G2NfNUZGhSKEf2tcWLj5m_48F1wzt2kjNEFxQ/s400/%20Bell's%20photo%20of%20Ragyabpa%20House%20made%20of%20Horns.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="400" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4P3IiFnl47xGWZxMncQ7uC61RSqKi2WDz5-udiRB9BAk5wTyduncvqLr8AkkQAf7FIInSeFgdtbA0_qKgsiEPWUiL6KCTC_8bXuJpTD3fzN5cllqlHSa-Ss-VN-JNT4dp24eGgVhJQFjLweun2G2NfNUZGhSKEf2tcWLj5m_48F1wzt2kjNEFxQ/w400-h297/%20Bell's%20photo%20of%20Ragyabpa%20House%20made%20of%20Horns.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://tibet.prm.ox.ac.uk/photo_1998.285.133.1.html" target="_blank">Photo of Ragyabpa homes</a>, <br /><span style="font-size: xx-small;">with thanks to Bryan Cuevas for suggesting it</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-66356543271723492392023-06-11T21:07:00.006+03:002023-09-13T10:47:28.546+03:00Horse Egg Recollections<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwdVdaahYUjH6pUEb-4voj5OKR4APpYvgCsVGkU9VYWODmSVQoVwc7il4Kym-aq8wYm8IUaejkunLw6dl9mcu9lY9BWJpud0ClrrJGI5Qg2ylP8AnHDYqAvQMWvYGwl5vKYDYkGQevxcmqEctZoZdSff_dK3LmbAtwF9CxX5PVNole1Z8jNy4/s1066/Horse%20egg-%20compare%20equine%20enterolith.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="762" data-original-width="1066" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwdVdaahYUjH6pUEb-4voj5OKR4APpYvgCsVGkU9VYWODmSVQoVwc7il4Kym-aq8wYm8IUaejkunLw6dl9mcu9lY9BWJpud0ClrrJGI5Qg2ylP8AnHDYqAvQMWvYGwl5vKYDYkGQevxcmqEctZoZdSff_dK3LmbAtwF9CxX5PVNole1Z8jNy4/w400-h286/Horse%20egg-%20compare%20equine%20enterolith.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Horse enteroliths<br /><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(the circled area much resembles the Bhutanese Horse Egg)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Nota bene</i>! All of today’s blog is a guest blog authored by Ariana.</b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">It is written in response to <a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2023/05/horse-eggs-and-unicorns.html" target="_blank">Horse Eggs and Unicorns</a>.</span></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Horse Egg posting brought back memories of the many, many discussions held at National Museum of Bhutan about the object, its attributed origins, potential constituent material(s), and cultural significance. I was based at the NMB in Paro for much of 2009-11, during which time I was part of a team working to digitize the collection, enhance collections cataloguing, and contribute to a series of publications, including the catalog.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The account of Tsongpen Wangdue on the website reflects information that was not among the collections of records made available to me, or, to my knowledge, other team members who were authoring entries back in 2011. The published date and donor attribution relays the information provided at that time. My hope is that the current website entry indicates that new, more comprehensive data about objects in the collection has come to light in the intervening years. The NMB holds many objects–particularly thangka and sculptures–of great import well worth additional attention of scholars and historians.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">As for the Horse Egg proper, I recall not only the weight of the object as I held it but also the weight of my co-workers' gazes as they watched me assess it. For days afterward I was asked variations of “What do you think?” and “Do you think it’s a real one?” to which I answered quite truthfully that I didn’t know what it was. Collectively, Bhutanese staff expressed what seemed like every possible opinion in quiet asides, in overheard conversations, and in proclamations in team meetings. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I clearly remember the multicolored painted wooden stand was lighter than I expected, and it was adhered directly to the Horse Egg. If memory serves, the object weighed around one and a half to two pounds (0.7-0.9 kg). I recall damage on its uppermost part that on close inspection showed the outer layer of unknown whitish material surrounded an ‘inner’ material that was slightly darker. I’d never encountered a fossilized egg, I had (and still have) no basis for comparison.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">As the object entry hopefully conveys, an object's significance often varies based on who is viewing it. Like you, Dan, I concluded that it wasn't up to me to definitively declare what it is or is not; rather, once it was firmly determined it would be included in the publication, we sought to use the entry to communicate how some community members understand the object, and, based on the information available, how the object arrived in the collection. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Below is the full catalogue entry for the Horse Egg, for those who do not have access to the published book:</p><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><p></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666;">“In many ways, certain aspects of Bhutanese culture remain enshrouded in myth yet they form an integral part of local traditions. In some parts of the country firm belief is maintained in what could be called magical or supernatural forces. In fact, these shared conceptions have frequently acted as a catalyst to bring together different groups and form one community. As such, what may seem somewhat unusual to others, many Bhutanese would not consider as abnormal. Among these beliefs is the existence of a horned horse, historically thought to be finely built and to possess extraordinary grace and power. It is believed that at some sacred places, imprints of these animals’ hooves as well as their eggs are visible on the surface of rocks. Further, it was believed that only those people who possessed very strong virtue could possibly domesticate these creatures.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666;">“This oval-shaped object is registered as a Norbu Tagi Go-nga, which is directly translated as the ‘precious unicorn’s egg’. The Norbu Tagi Go-nga is quite heavy, and in its present condition, one can notice multiple inner layers made up of an unknown substance. Many Bhutanese consider this egg to be one of the most precious museum objects, as it is believed that whoever owns such an egg will vastly increase their wealth. In 1969, this egg was gifted to the National Museum, and was publicly shown in 2004 during a special exhibition.” </span></p></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">•</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Note: the Frontispiece is drawn from the page entitled “<a href="https://fordvetsurgery.com/colic-and-equine-enteroliths/" target="_blank">Colic and Equine Enteroliths</a>,” a part of the website <i>Ford Veterinary Surgery Center</i>, posted on October 5, 2021.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-37901271467676379172023-05-30T12:40:00.017+03:002023-10-20T00:17:30.517+03:00A Gift of Tibet’s History for Qubilai Khan<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNnLOLl3ydmlKXMHQGtAEcUOqGvkYEPq5l1mREwPJAHhRSik-yrhETSqz2wrdf-YqO0xRZl41_wLA46lyilukTwbcYiIslo1Wu3fUVOrRvm7bJQ8MbavYGQvVKEioskk6b0LtJSoC_vsEifgtZ6NaTDJjoaAe8Ngsniai8gBDeHre28eGjThw/s206/87601.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="206" data-original-width="164" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNnLOLl3ydmlKXMHQGtAEcUOqGvkYEPq5l1mREwPJAHhRSik-yrhETSqz2wrdf-YqO0xRZl41_wLA46lyilukTwbcYiIslo1Wu3fUVOrRvm7bJQ8MbavYGQvVKEioskk6b0LtJSoC_vsEifgtZ6NaTDJjoaAe8Ngsniai8gBDeHre28eGjThw/w254-h320/87601.jpeg" width="254" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #666666;">Orgyanpa, </span><a href="https://www.himalayanart.org/items/87601" target="_blank">detail</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What kind of royal history is this? Represented to posterity as a <i>gift</i> to the Khan, we get the feeling it was produced without much enthusiasm, and definitely without much literary style. I don’t believe it is stated clearly anywhere, but it could be that the Khan commanded him to write it. That would help explain why it is so dry, largely lists of names in kingly or other types of lineages. But in those rare spots where it does manage to supply a little narrative it tends to say something remarkable.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You can gain a general impression of the content of this work by glancing at the list of English subtitles that I inserted into my transcription of the text:</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">A. Royal Lineages of India.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">B. Tibetan Royal Lineages.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">C. Their Deeds Relative to Holy Dharma.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">D. Emperor Songtsan the Wise.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">E. Successors to Songtsan the Wise.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">F. Seven Landfalls, Nos. 2-7.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">G. Age of Divided Dominions.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">H. The Revival of Buddha Dharma.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">I. Chronological Discussion.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">J. Other Highland and Lowland Vinaya Lineages.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">K. Nyingma Tantras.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">L. Highland Vinaya Again.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">M. The Works of Panditas and Translators.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">N. The Kadampa School.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">O. On the Mongol Impact.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">P. Colophon and Dedication Verse.</span></li></ul><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Let’s point out a few of the highlights and leave it at that. One thing is of considerable interest for the history of Old Tantra transmissions. We find this in section F, a treatment of the seven chronologically ordered entries of Indian Vajrayâna Buddhism into Tibet. This historical schema was put together by Rongzompa in the early- to mid-11th century, and I believe it was Rongzompa who first applied the term I translate as ‘landfalls.’ However, Rongzompa’s work on the subject only survives in so far as it was copied or followed by others (see Germano’s essay). So here we have useful additional evidence. It answers the very important question of how Tibetan Buddhism turned out to be so tantric.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Moving on to a different context, one of the things that most horrified me was what it has to say about the suppression of Bon religion in western Tibet in the time of the Chidar, or Second Spread. This needs some close comparison with testimonies from a couple of other sources, so I will bookmark it for a future blog of its own.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There are a few references to earlier histories that ought to be mentioned. The author, or the <i>mchan</i>-note writer if that is someone other than the author (and that’s a possibility), makes one clear reference (at fol. 7v) to what would have been a manuscript <i>hot off the press</i>, so to speak: the history book, dating to 1261, by Chomdan Reldri and its <i>not well accepted</i> idea that there was such a thing as an Intermediate Spreading of the Dharma (Bar-dar). This 1261 work, like our 1278 royal history, hasn’t yet appeared <i>in press</i>.*</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><blockquote><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">(*To find out more about it, first download the <a href="https://www.bdrc.io/blog/2020/12/21/dan-martins-tibetan-histories/" target="_blank">2020 revised version of <i>Tibetan Histories</i></a>, then scroll down to entry no. 87.)</span></blockquote></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>He also demonstrates</span><span> </span><span>(at fol. 5r)</span><span> that he knows of the historical text on the royal tombs that very likely dates to Tibet’s imperial era, the </span><i>Extra Small Secret, Tomb Generations</i><span> (</span><i>Gsang-ba Yang-chung / Bang-so’i Rabs</i><span>). This particular history represents the “half” in the 6½ histories we’ve discussed in </span><a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2022/10/mystery-histories-6-including-5-chan.html" target="_blank">a recent blog</a><span>.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I stumbled on an odd statement about one of the early 10th-century monks of Amdo region that made things click in my mind. It serves to confirm something that came up during those long years spent translating the long Deyu history. Orgyanpa says, “Drum Sherab Monlam received the [esoteric Dzogchen] precepts of Aro.”* This is a further piece of evidence associating the transmission of this strain of Dzogchen, its lineage continuing straight through the era of Divided Dominions, with the earliest monks of the Second Spread. This connection is unexpected and, perhaps needless to say, not well known. Okay, but then neither is the associated Turkish connection expected or well known. Two Uighur Turks are listed one after the other in the Aro Dzogchen transmission as seen in an appendix to the Deyu translation (p. 784). The first of the two, Yazi Böntön </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">(ཡ་ཟི་བོན་སྟོན་),</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> is often listed as monastic ordinand of Gongpa Rabsel (དགོངས་པ་རབ་གསལ་), while the Yazi part of his name, meaningless in Tibetan, could indicate something in local Turkic dialect, likely a word meaning ‘scribe’ (I do think this merits careful consideration). Yazi’s disciple Drugu Logjung (དྲུ་གུ་གློགས་འབྱུང་) has a name indicating that he was a Drugu, a Turk.</span></div><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">(*Grum She[s]-rab-smon-lam<i> gyis</i> / A-ro<i>'i gdam ngag brnyes</i> / Note that Grum in his name is often replaced with Grum-shing, which is in turn evidently just a shortened version of Grum Shing-slag-can. Grum is usually taken as a clan name, but it is possible the syllable Drum is hiding there, and that could be a borrowing from an Indic word meaning ‘tree,’ Shing-slag-can signifies that he wore a cloak of wood [barkcloth?]. He was not part of the very first group of central Tibetan men to visit the northeast in order to receive ordination vows, but he did belong to the second group that arrived soon after. See footnote 2481 in the long Deyu translation. For sure, Phying-slag-can also occurs, and this would mean ‘having a felt cloak.’ But misspellings of the name abound, and the easiest or more sensible reading, as we know, is not always the most valid, more likely the contrary)</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But the part bound to most excite the world at large is the section “O” with its invented subtitle <i>On the Mongol Impact</i>. If you will permit it, I will hack out a quick translation without expending a lot of labor on quibbles, justifications, arguments, footnotes etc.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">•</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>O. On the Mongol Impact.</b></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">ston pa'i dam chos rnam gnyis te lung dang rtogs pa'i bdag nyid do // </span><span style="color: #2b00fe;">de 'dzin byed pa smra byed dang / sgrub par byed pa kho na yin / </span></span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">ces 'byung pas /</span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> </span></span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">deng sang bod kha ba can gyi</span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">s yul du sangs rgyas kyis stan pa rin po che dar ro //</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">‘The holy Dharma of the Teacher is twofold, characterized by scriptural learning and practical realization. That means exclusively the memorizing or reciting of it, and the accomplishment of the practices.’* </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Even so nowadays in the country of snowy Tibet the precious Teachings of Buddha have spread. </span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(*See Gold’s essay, p. 172, for an alternative translation of the verse along with much valuable commentary. Something like this verse occurs in many canonical texts, but our most sure Indic source is in the root verses included in Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa commentary.)</span></span></blockquote><p></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"></span></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">de yang dbus rtsang mi drug gi smad nas [13r] dar la / rin chen bzang po dang / jo bo rje stod nas dar zhing / gzhan lo yan [~span?] phal cher gyis dkyil nas dar ro //</span></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Indeed, the Six Men of Ü and Tsang have spread them from the lowlands, Rinchenzangpo and Atiśa from the highlands, and besides those the Tibetan translators and Indian paṇḍitas have for most part spread them from the center.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">dus phyis bod kha ba can gyis yul du stan pa dar ba'i dus su / 'dzam bu gling gis byang phyogs ge gsar [~ge sar] gyis yul du / rgyal po dzi gir gan zhes bya ba bsku 'khrungs te / 'dzam bu gling gis yul phal cher bshig cing / rgyal po phal pran [~bran?] ltar byas pa'i dus / bod kha ba can gyis yul du yang dmag des / yul dang stan pa la gnod pa 'byung pa'i dus su [~la?] bab pa'i tshe / skye ba 1 gis thogs pa'i byang chub sems dpa' / shes bya rig pa'i gnas thams cad la mkhyen pa'i ye shes kyis snang ba rgyas pa / saskya'i lo tsha ba zhes yongs su drags pa de / thugs rje'i rba rlabs cher g.yos te / ji gir gan gyi gdung rgyud kyis rgyal rgyud thams cad chos la bkod cing / yul dir [~'dir?] sangs rgyas kyis stan pa rin po che bzhago //</span></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In later times, as the Teachings were spreading to the country of snowy Tibet, in the country of Gesar in the northern part of Jambu Island a king named Dzi-gir Gan (i.e. Chinggis Khan) took birth and went on to destroy in large part the countries of Jambu Island, its kings largely reduced to slavery. The time came when the country of snowy Tibet itself suffered harm to both country and Teachings by that same army. It was then that the one who achieved Bodhisattvahood in one lifetime and had developed the light of Enlightened Wisdom that is knowledgeable in all the subjects of learning about knowables, the one widely renowned as the Translator of Sakya, exceedingly moved by the waves of compassion, placed all of Ji-gir Gan’s (i.e. Chinggis Khan’s) royal descendants in the way of Dharma and established the Teachings of Buddha in this country.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">de'i gdan sar lo tsha ba chen po de nyid kyis bcung gis rigs pas / rgyal ba’i bka’ dang stan chos thams cad kyis tshig don la smra ba’i spobs pa tshigsal [~tshig gsal] zhing / rigs par smra ba / bsod nams kyis dpal du mas rgyan pa / nges par sa thob pa’i byang chub sems dpa’ chen po a rgya’i [i.e., 'phags pa’i] mtshan can des kyang gong ma’i rjes su rgyal rgyud rnams chos la bkod pas / bstan pa rin po che dar cing rgyas par gyur to //</span></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: justify;">That same great Translator in his headquarters had a younger man in his family by the name of Argya (Ārya, i.e. Phagspa), a great Bodhisattva who had definitively attained the [three pure] Levels, adorned with the glory of his merit, his rational speech and clear words, his ability to expound eloquently upon all the words and contents of the Victor’s teachings (the Kanjur) and the [Indian Buddhist] Treatises (the Tanjur). The royal lineages in the following of the emperor he also established in the Dharma, making the precious Teachings grow and flourish.</div></span><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">gzhan bstan pa la nyan cing / gzhan stan pa la nyan cing bsgom pa’i blo can 'gas kyang / rgyal rgyud rnams chos la bkod pas stan pa la phan par gyur to //</span></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There were still others who had studied and meditated upon the Teachings who established the royal lineages in the Dharma and benefitted the Teachings.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">gzhan stod kyi mgon 3 gyis rgyud las / rgyal po rtsan phyug [13v] lde chibs kha lhor bsgyur bas / gangs ti se nas chu gang gha'i 'gram gyis ri brags kyis rgyal mkhams btul te sangs rgyas kyis bstan pa daro //</span></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then there was one among the successors of the Three Lords of the highlands (i.e., Ngari or western Tibet), a king named Rtsan-phyug-lde, who steered his noble horse toward the south and subdued the kingdom[s] in the mountainous area all the way from the Glacier Mountain Tise to the banks of the Ganges, spreading the Teachings of Buddha.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">•</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I hope that captures the gist of it well enough, and that some sharp young Tibetanist will find how to make it perfect. A few comments: Last things first, the king of a part of western Tibet who conquered the realms between Mt. Kailash and the Ganges was not immediately known to me, so I needed to look him up. I find he has to be the same as Btsan-phyug-lde, a king of Gugé-Purang. We have no specific dates for him, just that he moved down from Gugé to Yatsé in what is now Nepal in around the middle of the 12th century, and he is known in some local Nepal Sanskrit sources by the name Câpilla (see Tucci’s book as well as Vitali’s, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinja_Valley" target="_blank">look here</a> if you want to see where Yatsé was located on the map.). </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It cannot be an accident that Orgyanpa mentions those Gugé kings in a book sent to a Khan even while fully knowing that that same Khan was considering a military move into Nepal (and probably the whole of South Asia beyond Nepal). Still, one wonders how useful or relevant this information would be for that purpose. It dangles alone between unrelated subjects, as if it were placed there for some odd reason. I suppose it was.</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There is not very much to be found in Tibetan writings that expresses the terror and anguish the Mongol invasions inflicted on local populations. We could say that people in a life-or-death situation lack the leisure to sit down and portray their feelings. But a disciple and biographer of the famous Yanggönpa by the name of Channgawa spares a paragraph on the subject, ending with the words, </span></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Just hearing the name Mongol (Hor) or Tartars (Sogs-po [!]; i.e. Sog-po) made them unable to stand on their feet. All the people felt afraid and terrified as if they had been delivered into the hands of the karma-enforcing Lord of Death.”*<span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">(*See the longer passage translated in Higgins’ new book, p. 37. The translation ‘Tartars’ is very surely not exactly on the mark. In earlier sources, Hor would have definitely meant Uighur Turks, while Sog-po would have meant Sogdians, although after the Mongol advent its meaning is a bit of a problem, it depends on who is talking.)</span></div></blockquote></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Mongols had achieved such awesome power and reputation for violence in the world, there is even today a common acknowledgement that Sakya Paṇḍita, the very same person we just heard called “Translator of Sakya,” was displaying the great wisdom he was indeed known for when he advised Tibetans not to resist them. On the Tibetan side, the idea developed that something good could be derived from this deadly situation if Mongols, who were settling down to rule over various civilian populations in Eurasia, could be coached or coaxed (without coercion!) into taking refuge in the philosophico-religio-ethical civilizational project Buddhism offers. They had some degree of immediate success with Hülegü and subsequent Ilkhanids in Iran and with Qubilai Khan in China, although we can in retrospect perceive that their efforts only bore great fruit much later on when most of Mongolia became Tibetan-style Buddhist. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So, surprising as it is for us to hear, when Orgyanpa says that Chinggis Khan destroyed* the better part of the world, he was conscious of addressing the Mongols, to whom this accomplishment was a matter of pride, and would not be heard as a criticism. And if that last sentence made no sense to you, I invite you to read Sun Penghao’s dissertation. By the year 1278, when Orgyanpa’s book was written, Tibetan Buddhist leaders like Orgyanpa had fairly perfected the art of talking to Mongols in their own language, so to speak. By seeming to give them what they wanted, they were given the opportunity to offer them what they actually needed.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;"></span><blockquote><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">(*The <i>tone</i> of the verb here used, <i>bshig</i> (or <i>'jig</i> in present tense), may be difficult to capture with an English word, but it does mean to destroy in the sense of reducing to ruins or dissolving solid objects. Words like <i>decimated</i> or <i>annihilated</i> come to mind, but I don’t believe their tone fits the larger context.)</span></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZnE1NX25j4dr8F9pUXGkkbaW0_Iem8o-BkVP8cmI_zY6OHs7w683QxkWNEw_qG43VGzgEkXonjabhi5zsDC0plVT4xG3N_gnGwSO5wvdVxhSSvMdzrIh9rkicGJadRaNHmTgx9Q7MxlTbJ8r2o8QSAE0nTfq14KEp4mmszVkSPqwU-xxyL13Bgw/s720/Qazmini%20Autosaved.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZnE1NX25j4dr8F9pUXGkkbaW0_Iem8o-BkVP8cmI_zY6OHs7w683QxkWNEw_qG43VGzgEkXonjabhi5zsDC0plVT4xG3N_gnGwSO5wvdVxhSSvMdzrIh9rkicGJadRaNHmTgx9Q7MxlTbJ8r2o8QSAE0nTfq14KEp4mmszVkSPqwU-xxyL13Bgw/s320/Qazmini%20Autosaved.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: xx-small;">From a manuscript of Qazmini’s <br />13th-c. CE <i>Wonders of Creation</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia;">Literature Listing</span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For a</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/tiblical/orgyanpas-history-book" target="_blank">complete transcription of the text</a>,</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">look here. I do not supply any photo of the manuscript itself, hoping that a facsimile (one better than my poor scan of an old xerox received from LK) will appear in a more appropriate place. I like to imagine the original gift to Qubilai would have been magnificently scribed in gold ink on dark purple paper. However, what we have right now is anything but magnificent, badly spelled and penned with a clumsy hand.</span></p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="text-align: justify;">We’ve spoken about Orgyanpa in</span></span> </p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2021/11/kalacakra-tantra-first-of-two-rare-and.html" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">an earlier blog</a><span style="text-align: justify;">.</span></span></p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If you are looking for a brief biography, try</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Orgyenpa-Rinchen-Pel/2733" target="_blank">this one by Alexander Gardner</a></span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">at <i>Treasury of Lives</i> website.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>•</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Cho </b>Wonhee, “Negotiated Privilege: Strategic Tax Exemptions Policies for Religious Groups and the Mongol-Yuan Dynasty in 13th-Century China,” <i>Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient</i>, vol. 63 (2020), pp. 1-37. Tax and drafted work exemptions were not automatically granted to religious institutions by the Mongol rulers, certain strings were attached. One of them involved a requirement to pray for the long lives of the rulers. From the conclusion (p. 26): “...religious groups were not simply passive recipients of imperial policy; aware of what the Mongols expected from them, they actively navigated, challenged and negotiated to expand their privileges.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Choi </b></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Soyoung</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">, “From Brutes to Bodhisattvas: The Mongols in Tibetan Sources,” contained in: Timothy May and Michael Hope, eds., <i>The Mongol World</i>, Routledge (London 2022), pp. 799-813. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">The same author’s 2018 doctoral dissertation is on this subject.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Deyu</b> — Anonymous, <i>A History of Buddhism in India and Tibet: An Expanded Version of the Dharma’s Origins Made by the Learned Scholar Deyu</i>, tr. by Dan Martin, The Library of Tibetan Classics series no. 32, Wisdom Publications (Somerville 2022).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">David <b>Germano</b>, “The Seven Descents and the Early History of Rnying-ma Transmissions,” contained in: Helmut Eimer & David Germano, eds., <i>The Many Canons of Tibetan Buddhism</i>, Brill (Leiden 2002), pp. 225-263.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Jonathan C. <b>Gold</b>, “Sa-skya Paṇḍita’s Buddhist Argument for Linguistic Study,” <i>Journal of Indian Philosophy</i>, vol. 33 (2005), pp. 151-184.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">David <b>Higgins</b>, <i>Heartfelt Advice: Yang dgon pa’s Song of the Seven Direct Introductions with Commentary by ’Ba’ ra ba Rgyal mtshan dpal bzang</i>, International Institute for Buddhist Studies (Tokyo 2022). <a href="https://www.academia.edu/84076126/Heartfelt_Advice_Yang_dgon_pa_s_Song_of_the_Seven_Direct_Introductions_with_Commentary_by_Ba_ra_ba_Rgyal_mtshan_dpal_bzang_The_International_College_for_Postgraduate_Buddhist_Studies_Tokyo_2022_Paper_387_pages" target="_blank">This book is made available online as a free download</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Leonard W.J. van der <b>Kuijp</b>, “Some Remarks on the Textual Transmission and Text of Bu-ston Rin-chen-grub’s Chos-’byung, a Chronicle of Buddhism in India and Tibet,” <i>Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines</i>, vol. 26 (April 2013), pp. 115-193, at p. 182. Available online.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">———, “Tibetan Historiography,” contained in: <i>Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre</i>, ed. José Cabezón and Roger Jackson, eds., Snow Lion (Ithaca 1996), pp. 39-56, but you can also <a href="https://www.thlib.org/encyclopedias/literary/genres/genres-book.php#!book=/studies-in-genres/b1/dn1/" target="_blank">read it online</a>. At p. 43 is what is most likely the first modern mentioning of the existence of Orgyanpa’s history book. It includes discussion of its 1278 CE date and the reason it was written, “as part of his attempt... to dissuade the Mongol emperor from invading Nepal.” Also pointed out: Orgyanpa’s history was known to the chronologist Mang-thos Klu-sgrub-rgya-mtsho (1523-1596), in the work we have listed below. He also told of the recent discovery of the 13-folio manuscript, and announced, in a footnote, a forthcoming edition and translation, something that never came about.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">———, “U rgyan pa Rin chen dpal (1230-1309), Part Two: For Emperor Qubilai? His Garland of Tales about Rivers,” contained in: Christoph Cüppers, ed., <i>The Relationship between Religion and State (chos srid zung ’brel) in Traditional Tibet</i>, LIRI (Lumbini 2004), pp. 299-339, at pp. 319-320. The riverine geographical text is, together with the royal history, part of a set of gifts delivered to Qubilai Khan. I’ve heard that Part Three of L. van der Kuijp’s study of the riverine geography is forthcoming, even if Part One is not.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Mang-thos </b><span>Klu-sgrub-rgya-mtsho (1523-1596), </span><i>Bstan-rtsis Gsal-ba’i Nyin-byed</i><span> and </span><i>Tha-snyad Rig-gnas Lnga’i Byung-tshul Blo-gsal Mgrin-rgyan</i><span>, Bod-yig Dpe Rnying Dpe-skrun-khang (Lhasa 1987).</span></span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">Page 65 reads as follows: “de yang chu mo glang la Dpal-'khor-btsan 'khrungs // khong gi slob dpon Cang A-po yin zhes Grub-thob U-rgyan-pa’i <i>Rgyal-po Rabs Phreng</i> las bshad.” Our manuscript reads differently (7v): “sras khri Dpal-’khor-rtsan gyis rgyal sa bzung / ’phrul gyis blon po spyang A-pho zhes bya bas blon po byaso.” Notice the very significant difference between the clever (?) <i>teacher</i> A-po and the clever prodigious <i>minister</i> A-pho.</span></p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">Orgyanpa’s work is cited, if not quoted, again on p. 68: “<i>Rgyal-po Rabs Phreng</i> las / Bla-chen gyis / Khams kyi Sog-po mi drug la sdom pa phog / de'i nang tshan btsun chen Sher-'byung gis Grum la / des Klu-mes sogs la phog zer.” But here there is a problem, since this can at best be a paraphrase of information found here and there in our ms. of Orgyanpa’s work, certainly not a direct quote. This problem could use some closer scrutiny. I suppose it might be a sign our available ms. is not a complete one.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Jampa<b> Samten</b> & Dan Martin, “</span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Letters for the Khans: Six Tibetan Epistles of Togdugpa Addressed to the Mongol Rulers Hulegu and Khubilai, as well as to the Tibetan Lama Pagpa,” contained in: Roberto Vitali <i>et al.</i>, eds., <i>Trails of the Tibetan Tradition: Papers for Elliot Sperling</i>, Amnye Machen Institute (Dharamshala 2014), pp. 297-332.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Sun</b> Penghao, <i>The Birth of an Etiquette Story: Tibetan Narrative of O rgyan pa, Qubilai, and the Yuan Government</i>, doctoral dissertation, Harvard University (2023), <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/sunpenghao/publications/birth-etiquette-story-tibetan-narratives-u-rgyan-pa-qubilai-and-yuan" target="_blank">posted online</a>. The circumstances of Orgyanpa's composition are discussed at pp. 25, 42 <i>et passim</i>. On p. 26 (last lines of note 64), he points to previous mentions of it in Leonard van der Kuijp's work published in 1996 (listed above).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Giuseppe <b>Tucci</b>, </span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Preliminary Report on Two Scientific Expeditions in Nepal</i>, Serie Orientale Roma series no. 10, Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente (Rome 1956). For identifying the Gugé king named Btsan-phyug-lde, see pp</span></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">. 28, 53, 66, 69, 70, 107 (these page numbers were not found through Google, and neither were they found through the book’s own index!) <a href="https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.6480/page/n177/mode/2up" target="_blank">Download a free PDF or some such format by going here</a>.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Roberto <b>Vitali</b>, <i>The Kingdoms of Gu.ge Pu.hrang</i>, Tho.ling gtsug.lag.khang (Dharamsala 1996). </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">For identifying the Gugé king named Btsan-phyug-lde (Vitali, too, places him in mid-12th century) see pp</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">. 121, 139, 361-363, 417, 462, 465-467, 452, 480, 529, 693, 778 (page numbers located through the book’s own index).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"><br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYU6RUbRbeYbZEEv5noqzoufc7KfW9HBeuqdqNcbvI0p9p8qgbfFyo03wYy-oug_1L5OxG5f9i2x--LnGLzKy_qftqmXAAsbYdnjqZOekNAuMmYOIkHkUO3SBe4QKzYsvZT2uA853Sr_azJZsiUiypJhydgE9ldbctVBuCQDqZehNK5rvUtKU/s1024/Orgyanpa,DergePrint009.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYU6RUbRbeYbZEEv5noqzoufc7KfW9HBeuqdqNcbvI0p9p8qgbfFyo03wYy-oug_1L5OxG5f9i2x--LnGLzKy_qftqmXAAsbYdnjqZOekNAuMmYOIkHkUO3SBe4QKzYsvZT2uA853Sr_azJZsiUiypJhydgE9ldbctVBuCQDqZehNK5rvUtKU/w300-h400/Orgyanpa,DergePrint009.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: xx-small;">Orgyanpa as central figure and Kâlacakra <br />teacher in a Derge Parkhang Xylograph</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia;">Postscript (June 9, 2023)</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">An excursus on the Turkish connection: Well, it may be abundantly clear that finding Turkish words and names in our Tibetan sources is like taking a walk in the woods and tripping on a horse egg. But we’ve noticed some of these <a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2014/12/turkish-mongolian-loanwords.html" target="_blank">in an earlier blog</a>. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I would say the name elements Yazi (ཡ་ཟི་ “scribe”) and Muzi </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">(མུ་ཟི་)</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> are likely Turkish in origin. Yazi is in Turkish with several meanings (one of the being a personal name!), but is likely to mean “scribe.” The noun <i>muzi</i> does indeed occur in Tibetan dictionaries as a word for </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">sulfur</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, although we have to wonder if it, too, is a borrowing. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then what about the name Kazi that we find in the name of Kazi Dawa Samdup (ཀ་ཟི་ཟླ་བ་དོན་གྲུབ་) the Tibetan translator that Evans-Wentz (of Book of the Dead fame) assisted by upgrading his English and adding footnotes, introductions and so on? At the moment I can’t really tell you if Kazi is Turkish, but it is surely a widespread bureaucratic term. Just dig out your </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Hobson-Jobson</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> and have a look at its entry for “Cazee, Kajee,” where a sketch history of its usage is offered. It may best be explained as the Arabic word <i>kaḍi</i> for </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">judge</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">. Under the British in India, Kazi was a normal word for native judges who acted in a subordinate capacity to English judges. Although Kazi Dawa Samdup worked as a school teacher, as far as I know, it is entirely possible that one of his forbearers was a judge. It seems <i>kazi</i> had a local meaning in Sikkim that I’m not entirely clear about.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Tibetan history knows yet another two-syllable name element with second syllable “<i>zi”</i> - the clan name Gazi (ག་ཟི་), the hereditary lineage that headed the Taglung and Kham Riwoche monasteries.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I wonder if this, too, may be of foreign origin, and Old Turkish is the first possibility that comes to mind. To be sure, in later Turkish <i>gazi</i> means a victorious warrior or general, in modern Turkish a war veteran... but it may also be a late borrowing from Arabic. In Ottoman times, if not in earlier centuries, there was such a lot of vocabulary exchange between Turkish, Arabic and Persian.</span></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Peter Schwieger wrote an article about the Ga-zi clan in the 1996 <i>Kailash</i>. I’ll go find out the publishing details and let you know.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Here you go, found it! “The Lineage of the Noble House of Ga-zi in East Tibet,” <i>Kailash</i>, vol. 18, nos. 3-4 (1996), pp. 115-132. You can download <a href="https://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/kailash/pdf/kailash_18_0304_06.pdf" target="_blank">an instant pdf version of it here</a>.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><br /><p></p><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-87850563871657360932023-05-12T10:51:00.014+03:002023-09-13T10:47:57.504+03:00Horse Eggs and Unicorns<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRcld2B5gPAQWMRE-b3kqI2BGyVpWHoLrCVci-SGyin93FPRfhnsd2xc3ZsNZc0oUuuGIBd8_4cDOJW_DaJ4mRPTYfrfCpMEblHyHFz7tjo48uYMgeL8uqlttIeUfBrHHt9NDo_lUpONTp9-NpASm8-wdLGOC1vbgC-B0yI3nQe9v2Xg1yNMA/s269/Horse%20Egg.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="269" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRcld2B5gPAQWMRE-b3kqI2BGyVpWHoLrCVci-SGyin93FPRfhnsd2xc3ZsNZc0oUuuGIBd8_4cDOJW_DaJ4mRPTYfrfCpMEblHyHFz7tjo48uYMgeL8uqlttIeUfBrHHt9NDo_lUpONTp9-NpASm8-wdLGOC1vbgC-B0yI3nQe9v2Xg1yNMA/w400-h335/Horse%20Egg.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.nationalmuseum.gov.bt/index.php/8264-2/" target="_blank">རྟ་ཡི་སྒོ་ང་། Egg of Horse</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I’ll admit my ability to think stopped cold when my eyes fell on this object in a Bhutanese museum back in 2015. It threw me for a loop. I’m still curious about it, as I think anyone ought to be. I don’t think we should dismiss miraculous or anomalous objects until we’ve heard the whole story. I’m as skeptical as the next guy, and unwilling to play the sucker or the fool gladly, but the predisposition to dismiss miracles with alacrity can sometimes look more like fear than rationality, fear our accustomed categories might come into question. It’s the pangolin problem all over again, and those lizards <i>don’t</i> lay eggs.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I wish I could tell you what it is even now. It surely seems like it is made of stone. It might be a fossilized egg of some kind, one that has over the millennia lost much of its outer shell. That's what I saw then, and that’s what I see now. Certainly the words written in clear Dharma Language (ཆོས་སྐད་) on its surface predisposes me to think it is what it says it is, and since I can find no other interesting way to think about it, I prefer to leave my thinking in a state of suspension. Suspense is better than foregone conclusions, at least it is a lot more exciting.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If you would like to look into this a little more, assuming you aren’t ready to pay the high price of entry to Bhutan in order to physically enter the museum, you can go right now to the website of <a href="https://www.nationalmuseum.gov.bt/" target="_blank">The National Museum of Bhutan</a> for free, and even take a virtual tour of the building online. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Here is what it says about the egg: </span></p></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: medium;">“It is alleged that a horse gave birth to this oval-shaped object at Lhadrag village in Trasgiyangtse in 1928. The horse belonged to a merchant named Tsongpen Wangdue,* later on he is said to have become very rich owing to his possession of this object.”</span></p></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">(*ཚོང་དཔོན་དབང་འདུས་ — “merchant” is what the first two syllables mean.)</span></p></blockquote></blockquote><div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The definitive dating given here doesn’t exactly jive with the 19th-century dating in the published catalog I brought home in my suitcase. Its full bibliographical details are these:</span></p></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">Khenpo Phuntsok Tashi and Ariana Maki, eds., <i>Artful Contemplation: Collections from the National Museum of Bhutan</i>, The National Museum of Bhutan (Paro 2014). The authors are Singye Samdrup, Kinley Gyeltshen, Tashi Namgay and Ariana Maki. </span></p></div></blockquote><div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The color illustrations are quite good, printed on stiff photographic paper. Its photo of the Horse Egg, much better than what you see above, may be seen on p. 110. Here the egg is assigned to the 19th century, a gift of the Royal Grandmother. It also suggest that eggs and hoof-prints made in stone sometimes if quite rarely found in Bhutan, come from a special horned horse. It even explicitly refers to this horned horse as a ‘unicorn.’ I understand some young girls these days are particularly fond of unicorns, and even believe in them, so I won’t get all judgmental about the possibility they might be real. I try to respect other people’s beliefs.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And in my defense, imagining all the constitutionally unbelieving out there hot to string me up and flay me with their kind of science, I have to say: In recent years there have been press accounts assuring us that unicorns once roamed the earth, even if they didn’t look exactly as we imagine them. But they were done in by climate change, as we all will be quicker than you think.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfukRNP3JQsyVjToJNRn-U93yL2rAVCJUqNHk-TPeeqpN2HJhDsc-DGr42tg0NjHd5-tKYr85L7H5Xw4q1bcsXuK5r0RXUT16bU2xC6Gl1aRZ_ZZ8M-9ug-MlzNLUQxlGcCn9WraEgl7nIR_pFHtXlbYV98whtvAzbrNM4cXrviboVohz8Etg/s720/Elasmotherium%20sibiricum.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfukRNP3JQsyVjToJNRn-U93yL2rAVCJUqNHk-TPeeqpN2HJhDsc-DGr42tg0NjHd5-tKYr85L7H5Xw4q1bcsXuK5r0RXUT16bU2xC6Gl1aRZ_ZZ8M-9ug-MlzNLUQxlGcCn9WraEgl7nIR_pFHtXlbYV98whtvAzbrNM4cXrviboVohz8Etg/w640-h360/Elasmotherium%20sibiricum.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Elasmotherium sibiricum</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-size: medium;">Read me</span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Gobran Mohamed, “2nd-Century Statue of Buddha Found in Ancient Egyptian Seaport,” <i>Arab News</i>, posted online (April 27, 2023). </span><span face=""playfair display", serif, Helvetica, Roboto, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><a href="https://arab.news/bt2pd">https://arab.news/bt2pd</a>.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span>Pavel Kosintsev, Kieren J. Mitchell, Thibaut Devièse, Johannes van der Plicht, Margot Kuitems, Ekaterina Petrova, Alexei Tikhonov, Thomas Higham, Daniel Comeskey, Chris Turney, Alan Cooper, Thijs van Kolfschoten, Anthony J. Stuart and Adrian M. Lister, “Evolution and Extinction of the Giant Rhinoceros Elasmotherium sibiricum Sheds Light on Late Quaternary Megafaunal Extinctions,” </span><i>Nature, Ecology & Evolution</i><span> (November 26, 2018). These scientists seem unaware if this extinct creature had any egg laying capabilities. I did my best to find out, and this seems to be the one and only literary source that inspired all those newspaper people. However, their newspaper stories started coming out in 2016, so ‘Houston, we have a problem’!</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span>Christopher Parker, “</span><span>Archaeologists Unearth Buddha Statue in Ancient Egyptian Port City — </span><span>The new find sheds light on the rich trade relationship between Rome and India,” <i><a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/buddha-statue-found-berenike-egypt-180982075/" target="_blank">Smithsonian Magazine</a></i> (May 1, 2023). Next thing we know those über-skeptics will be telling us that a 2nd century made-in-Egypt Buddha image isn’t possible either. Maybe they never heard of those Brahmi inscriptions in the </span><span style="text-align: left;"><span>Ḥoq Cave in</span></span><span> Socotra. And have they never heard of the <a href="https://brentnongbri.com/2023/05/05/the-helgo-buddha/" target="_blank">Helgö Buddha</a>? </span><span style="text-align: left;"><span>It, too, was excavated extremely far from Siddhârtha's home, in fact, on an island inside Sweden, on July 17th, 1956. This Swedish Buddha is in a style characteristic of the Swat Valley in northern Afghanistan in around the 8th century or so. None of </span></span><span style="text-align: left;">those newspaper stories coming out in recent weeks about the Berenike Buddha have noticed</span><span style="text-align: left;">, but the style of the rays in the halo are just like those often found in Mithra images (you don't seem to see it in early South Asian Buddhas, not like this). I'd like to know more about the Sanskrit inscription found with the Buddha.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Marga Reimer, “Could There Have Been Unicorns?” <i>International Journal of Philosophical Studies</i>, vol. 5, no. 1 (1997), pp. 35-51. If you follow the careful reasoning here, the prospects are not good.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Richard Salomon, “Epigraphic Remains of Indian Traders in Egypt,” <i>Journal of the American Oriental Society</i>, vol. 111, no. 4 (1991), pp. 731-736.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span>Ingo Strauch, “</span><span style="text-align: left;"><span>Buddhism in the West? Buddhist Indian Sailors on Socotra (Yemen) and the Role of Trade Contacts in the Spread of Buddhism,” contained in: Birgit Kellner, ed., <i>Buddhism and the Dynamics of Transculturality</i>, De Gruyter (Berlin 2019), pp. 15-51.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Francesca Tagliatesta, “Iconography of the Unicorn from India to the Italian Middle Ages,” <i>East & West</i>, vol. 57, nos. 1-4 (December 2007), pp. 175-191. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTbluyta-tlXeW6W5e-k2SSKk_IGECubWHVht-fGmJ_0kTz8u8YaafNSOoMsCPJa4J9Qh3foiaskOhYmkcfnjdOJH7AziGjkXEwciUwEXyO7WhrI2rKymw8LpeXSnFzbPwKjw-i2xQaNQlgSp2U9M43oTtt7rRNOharXirmK1reAmrIU6DMUQ/s640/FJV1gybVQAEFOOi.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="153" data-original-width="640" height="96" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTbluyta-tlXeW6W5e-k2SSKk_IGECubWHVht-fGmJ_0kTz8u8YaafNSOoMsCPJa4J9Qh3foiaskOhYmkcfnjdOJH7AziGjkXEwciUwEXyO7WhrI2rKymw8LpeXSnFzbPwKjw-i2xQaNQlgSp2U9M43oTtt7rRNOharXirmK1reAmrIU6DMUQ/w400-h96/FJV1gybVQAEFOOi.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Helgö Buddha on a Swedish Postage Stamp</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span>Note: There is a Tibetan word <i>rwa-gcig-pa</i> (or, with feminine ending, <i>rwa-gcig-ma</i>) corresponding to the Sanskrit </span><span style="text-align: left;"><i>ekaśṛṅga</i><span>. It could mean unicorn, I suppose, but in my experience it has always meant rhinoceros. The far more often encountered word </span><i><a href="https://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/bse_ru" target="_blank">bse-ru</a></i><span> means rhinoceros and corresponds to Sanskrit </span><i><span>khaḍga</span></i><span><span>, or </span><i><span>khaḍgaviṣāṇa</span></i><span>.</span></span></span></span></blockquote><p> </p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">§ § §</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;"><br /></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: medium;">PS (May 12, 2023)</span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #660000;">Bear with me as I change track, but it may be that the Bhutanese stone egg is a “horse bezoar.” </span><a href="https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/13327/lot/8076/" target="_blank">Bonhams</a><span style="color: #660000;"> sold one, five-&-a-half inches in diameter, for US 1,410. Go look what they have to say about it. </span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #660000;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #660000;">Yet another horse bezoar in a <a href="https://knowledge.taibif.tw/node/8651" target="_blank">Taiwan collection</a> looks even more like the one from Bhutan.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #660000;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #660000;">A Traditional Chinese Medicine site <a href="https://tcmwiki.com/wiki/calculus-equi" target="_blank">also depicts one</a>, but with a cross section so you can see its interior structure.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #660000;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #660000;">The usual Tibetan word for bezoars in general is <i>gi-wang</i>, with other spellings including <i>'gi-wam</i>. A Tibetan-Tibetan medical dictionary explains it as a borrowing from Chinese <i>ghi’u</i>. Does Chinese in fact have a word like that? The English <i>bezoar</i> most likely had its ultimate origins in a Persian word that means “poison antidote.” A primary usage in early European medicine is just that.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #660000;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #660000;">The 17th-century Tibetan medical training charts depict three types of bezoars, those from elephant, cattle and pig. See Yuri Parfionovitch, Fernand Meyer, and Gyurme Dorje, <i>Tibetan Medical Paintings</i>, Harry N. Abrams (New York 1992), vol. 1, p. 64, row D, items 3-5 (vol. 2, p. 220, items 38-40).</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #660000;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #660000;">Before you entirely make up your mind, I advise a Google image search for “</span></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: medium;">enteroliths in horses” just to see what pops up before your eyes.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></span><p></p></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-19972935870904447232023-04-30T18:28:00.029+03:002023-10-02T12:56:31.861+03:00Want to OCR Your Tibetan-script PDFs?<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLA4aT2tO3gjL5cGTFNgHxuUOkgLGSAi_RvKDYEfCdrYZpx2sG9gJXSUWDBL9AUgIxqQaIlpCsJ7ZeYin8qw5OwR-iSpbi6HqLZEYbVr4pt6DW4EBh2pzJ7_jwHVnpdxjRhkcqx62vpuf7hpr4T81LKZtXvGaGlK5PzopV4sLbAelt_Y5PpFw/s450/qrcode_tibeto-logic.blogspot.com.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLA4aT2tO3gjL5cGTFNgHxuUOkgLGSAi_RvKDYEfCdrYZpx2sG9gJXSUWDBL9AUgIxqQaIlpCsJ7ZeYin8qw5OwR-iSpbi6HqLZEYbVr4pt6DW4EBh2pzJ7_jwHVnpdxjRhkcqx62vpuf7hpr4T81LKZtXvGaGlK5PzopV4sLbAelt_Y5PpFw/s320/qrcode_tibeto-logic.blogspot.com.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Mayday! Mayday! No idea what I’m doing here.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: justify;">Not a techie, this is meant to help people like myself who are not techies themselves, who are rather more like humans in humanities who want to make the most out of their computer’s innate or potential ability to search through Tibetan-script texts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">If you have a Google account already, it ought to be easy. Go to your account and then choose "Google Drive." Just upload (click on the "+ New" button) your PDF. Once it is up there, you need to "right click" (search in Google if you have a Mac to find out "How to right click on a Mac"). Right clicking opens up a small menu from which you have to "Open with Google Doc." That does it! Let us know how it works for you.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">If you are in the mood to experiment some more, pay special attention to the message from Zach, and the links he supplies, at this Google discussion page called “<a href="https://groups.google.com/g/tesseract-ocr/c/NyscQ0q7wQ4?pli=1" target="_blank">Tesseract for Tibetan</a>.”</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">If you don’t know what Tesseract is, well, you can Google it! That’s what I did.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">OpenPecha also has this very useful page:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://medium.com/@OpenPecha/how-to-get-google-cloud-vision-to-ocr-tibetan-again-e810a1d402ce">https://medium.com/@OpenPecha/how-to-get-google-cloud-vision-to-ocr-tibetan-again-e810a1d402ce</a></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Notice, too, that Tibetan translation has appeared in some of those translation applications. The one I've noticed and tested is the BING:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">https://www.bing.com/translator/</a></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">Just go there and see what happens. You may be surprised for better or for worse. Still, it’s worth a try.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">If you have suggestions you think other humans can use, just drop it in the comment box. We’ll appreciate it. Artificial intelligences need not apply. You could say I am not a robot, or I am not a rabbit, although I am both and neither, or rather neither both nor neither...</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In case you encounter a CAPTCHA* on your way to posting your comment you’ll know what to tell it.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(*<span face=""Google Sans", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; text-align: left;">CAPTCHA, or a “</span><span face=""Google Sans", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(80, 151, 255, 0.18); color: #040c28; text-align: left;">Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart</span><span face=""Google Sans", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; text-align: left;">.” I Googled it.)</span></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;">•</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>One more word of advice</b>: If you want to test out the OCRing abilities of Google Drive or whatever, make sure you start with a PDF made with a machine-readable Tibetan font. Do not try to use a scan of a woodblock print,* and by all means avoid cursive texts of all kinds.**</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;">I’m just saying this because I’d like your experiment to be a pleasant and productive one. Otherwise you run the danger that even the Word of the Buddha could be reduced to what is, in our human colloquial, called “garbage.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #990000;">(*Save that particular experiment for later. **U</span><span style="color: #990000;">nless, of course, they themselves were made with computer script, which is an unlikely possibility.)</span></span></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">———</p><p><b>btw</b></p><p><span style="text-align: justify;">Soon all my blogposts will be A.I. generated. Since their “process” often results in cogent yet stupid statements, they require peer reviewers, so there will still be work for us humans, no worries! Why can’t they peer review themselves, you may ask? Because each one is the total peer of the other, which makes it impossible for them to judge one of their kind against another, or that’s how I understand it. Wow, I hadn’t thought of it this way before, but maybe that <i>is</i> an advantage they hold over us. For them equality is not just lip service.</span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify;"><b>Postscripts</b> (October 2, 2023):</span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify;">I just noticed <a href="https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2010/EECS-2010-139.html" target="_blank">this article</a> from over a decade ago that ventures to solve the problems in machine recognition of Tibetan woodblock printed script.</span></p><p>I did try posting a blog using A.I., and you can check the results in the entry entitled <a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-land-of-snows-along-with-seven.html" target="_blank">The Land of Snows, along with The Seven Seals of Tibet: A Joycean Journey</a>. You be the judge.</p><span style="color: #990000;"></span><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-48766406677267201752023-04-18T22:00:00.025+03:002023-08-20T14:13:19.676+03:00Eye Spoon to Open up Historical Vision<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGFLeZr1cRGk9_M4QrnWgOTnYEJEBgJhJMWREDoMbGByEld_AlH1rAL3yZLqnRVROBBRMO2nYYvjNnnu-JwNoAErYNm355SCCU-2ndlhSC4rmjJMIDbzk0IAFO0ymV5bp305F9eeh5FGI8kcAlT-1gGJ3ICMNBz2DDdD2x24TTBifRrzUPr9I/s309/Blank%20slide%20backgrounds%20experiments.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="309" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGFLeZr1cRGk9_M4QrnWgOTnYEJEBgJhJMWREDoMbGByEld_AlH1rAL3yZLqnRVROBBRMO2nYYvjNnnu-JwNoAErYNm355SCCU-2ndlhSC4rmjJMIDbzk0IAFO0ymV5bp305F9eeh5FGI8kcAlT-1gGJ3ICMNBz2DDdD2x24TTBifRrzUPr9I/w400-h306/Blank%20slide%20backgrounds%20experiments.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The 2nd from top is called the ‘easy-to-use eye spoon’<br />as one item from a set of Tibetan surgical implements</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The aim of this brief blog is just to make available an until recently <i>lost </i>(or rather unknown) Tibetan history book for the benefit of the Tibetan-reading public. Even though the translator was unaware of this text when his translation of the long Deyu history* was published, you may want to read the introduction to that publication for background. And for an introduction to the <i>Eye Spoon</i> text itself, see this blog posted a few months ago: “<a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2022/10/mystery-histories-6-including-5-chan.html" target="_blank">Mystery Histories - 6½ Including the 5 Chan</a>.” There we found it especially useful for thinking about the meanings of the names of those fascinating texts preserved for us from the early 9th-century reign of Relpachan.**</span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*This means the anonymously authored commentary on the Deyu verses completed in 1261 or shortly after — <i><a href="https://www.google.co.il/books/edition/A_History_of_Buddhism_in_India_and_Tibet/pi1tEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&kptab=overview" target="_blank">A History of Buddhism in India and Tibet: An Expanded Version of the Dharma’s Origins Made by the Learned Scholar Deyu</a></i>, The Library of Tibetan Classics series no. 32, Wisdom Publications (Somerville, 2022). **If you are curious to know what’s out there, history-wise, in Tibetan literature, have a look at <a href="https://www.bdrc.io/blog/2020/12/21/dan-martins-tibetan-histories/" target="_blank"><i>Tibetan Histories</i> in its latest 2020 edition</a>, containing references to over 1260 books of historical genres, and no, to answer your next question, the <i>Eye Spoon</i> isn’t listed among them, not yet.)</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;">- - -</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">Here are the bibliographic details to what is to the best of my knowledge the only published version of the </span><i style="text-align: left;">Eye Spoon</i><span style="text-align: left;"> to appear so far:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="text-align: left;"><i>Chos-'byung Gsal-byed Mig-thur-gyi 'Grel-pa</i>. Contained in: Rje-btsun Grags-pa[-rgyal-mtshan] et al., </span><i style="text-align: left;">Rgyal-rabs Gsal Me sogs</i><span style="text-align: left;">, Sa-lugs-kyi Mkhas-pas Mdzad-pa’i Bod-kyi Lo-rgyus Rnam-thar Phyogs-bsgrigs series no. 1, Bod-ljongs Bod-yig Dpe-rnying-khang (Lhasa 2019), pp. 356-368.*</span></span></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;">(*Perceptive readers will note that it is published in a collection of historical works composed by scholars of the Sakya School, even though there isn’t the least indication that its anonymous author was in any way affiliated. Most likely, like the other Deyu authors, he would have belonged to esoteric currents of the Zhijé and Nyingma traditions.)</span></blockquote></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">What we have here in this <i>Eye Spoon</i> is a previously unknown third commentary, likely written in around 1200 CE, on the verses by the Zhijé (ཞི་བྱེད་) Master Deyu (མཁས་པ་ལྡེའུ་), written in around 1180 CE. We know for certain that it is earlier than the small Deyu (ca. 1220) because it is mentioned by title within that work (for more on this, see that just-mentioned earlier blog of ours).</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Now, before going on to represent the manuscript, I know that some of my readers are going to be curious about what “eye spoon” means. First of all, it doesn’t have to look like a spoon. Tibetan surgical implements are mostly called spoons (<i>thur-ma</i>) where in other parts of the world they are more likely to be called knives and needles. It’s a rather generic term. But how did Tibetan medicine use eye spoons? There were certainly advances in eye surgery in Tibet during the Fifth Dalai Lama’s time, but in common with western Eurasia until well into the 19th century one of the main ways of dealing with cataracts was to skillfully handle an implement to push the cataract away from the visual field in a process called ‘couching.’ For more on the Tibetan traditional practice, most accessible and recommended is the section in Pasang Yontan Arya, “External Therapies in Tibetan Medicine,” contained in: Theresia Hofer, ed., <i>Bodies in Balance</i>, University of Washington Press (Seattle 2014), pp. 64-89, at pp. 86-88.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">°</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The <i>manuscriptum unicum</i>, the 9-folio cursive text (so far as I know still not published in facsimile) has a few insertions and corrections placed below the relevant lines and written in a headed script. These have simply been incorporated into the text without any notation or comment.* However, I have tried to indicate [1] erasures with dotted underlinings and [2] cancellations (indicated in the text by one dotted line above) by strike-throughs. I have left the letter <i>’a</i> as it is, even where it is now regarded as unnecessary. I have adhered to the spellings of the <i>unicum</i> rather than standardizing them (but sometimes insert square-bracketed ‘equivalents’ or my own ‘corrections’ headed with the mathematical symbol for congruence, ~, which may be here translated ‘read as’ or ‘fix to’).</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*That means I accept them as corrections done by a proofreader, and not as interpretive glosses or ‘footnote’ annotations added by a later reader. The fact that both can be done in the same way leads to misunderstandings and what are often mistaken for interpolations with the motive to deceive.)</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The text that follows is supposed to adhere 100% to the only available 9-folio manuscript (made available to me by S.P.), but the page nos. of the just-mentioned publication are inserted here in the form of square brackets, while folio nos. of the <i>unicum</i> are inserted in square brackets, too, only with the addition of the ‘r’ standing for recto, and the ‘v’ for verso.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Note that this text only once quotes directly from the root verses, introducing them with the words “<i>gzhung du</i>” in the manner of the (later) long and small Deyu histories (in subsequent lines it quotes lines from the same passage again, each time ending with “<i>skad pa</i>”).</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Even though the shelving numbers on the title page, “phyi / ra / 188” make us think so, it isn’t sure if this was taken from the Arhat Temple of Drepung Monastery. This number couldn't be located in the published catalogue.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">In the published version, there is an added modern comment after the title that basically warns us that, because of later loss, the colophon information is unavailable. It isn’t possible to know if the author left the work incomplete, or if it suffered from loss later on in its historical transmission. Still, I suspect the latter, so hopes of a complete version appearing in the future may not be misplaced.</p><p><br /></p><p>[Ka 1r]</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: x-small;">phyi</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: x-small;">ra</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: x-small;">188</span></p><p><b>Chos 'byung gsal byed dmig thur gyi // 'grel pa zhes bya ba bzhugs.ho //</b></p><p><br /></p><p>[356]</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">[Published version only:] Chos 'byung gsal byed mig thur gyi 'grel pa zhes bya ba bzhugs so // rjes brlags pas mdzad byang ma gsal /</p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>[1v] na mo 'ghu ru /</p><p><br /></p><p>dam pa chos kyi byung tshul bstan pa 'di la spyi don rnam pa lngas ston te //</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>yang dag par rdzogs pa'i sangs rgyas shag kya thub pa 'di sangs ji ltar rgyas pa'i rgyas lugs bstan pa dang gcig //</li><li>des chos ji ltar gsungs pa'i gsungs lugs bstan pa dang gnyis //</li><li>sdud pa pos ji ltar bsdus lugs bstan pa dang gsum /</li><li>des mi yul du snang lugs bstan pa dang bzhi /</li><li>zhar la thang khob [~mtha' 'khob] bod yul du byon lugs bstan pa dang lnga las /</li></ol><p></p><p>da ni thang khob [~mtha' 'khob] bod kyi rgyal 'khams su chos byon lugs ston pa ni mnga' bdag btsan po'i drin gyis byon pa'i phyir // gdung rabs dag la brten te brjod par bya //</p><p><br /></p><p>zhes pa bshad par dam bca' ba gnyis thal na / gdung rabs sngos [~dngos?] bshad pa ni /</p><p><br /></p><p>spyir na rgyal po la yang gnyis su sdud /</p><p>sum brgya' drug bcur phye nas gsum du gleng //</p><p>gdung rgyud rgyal po spyi don bdun du bshad //</p><p>bkos [~bskos] pa'i rgyal po bkos lugs rnam pa bzhi //</p><p><br /></p><p>de bsogs [~sogs] gnad ni sum bcu sum bcus ston //</p><p>glo bur rgyal po gleng tshig phyed dang bdun //</p><p><br /></p><p>zhes pa la[ ]sogs pas ston te / de yang spyi don bdun bstan te / </p><p><br /></p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>rgyal po rnams kyi gdung rabs brtsi' ba dang /</li><li>dam pa'i chos rnams dar lugs bstan pa dang / </li><li>sde pa'i me ro bla [~slang] lugs dang /</li><li>rnying ma'i 'gyur bzhug [357] chad [~zad?] lugs dang [2r] /</li><li>gsar ma'i 'gyur 'go [~mgo] btsugs lugs dang / </li><li>bstan pa'i 'phel 'grib ji ltar byung ba bstan pa dang bdun no //</li></ol><p></p><p><br /></p><p>rgyal po'i gdung rabs brtsis pa la dgos pa ci yod na / bod du chos byon pa 'di mnga' bdag byang chub sems dpa' rnams kyis ring la byon pa yin pas / drin dran par bya ba'i phyir gdung rabs la brten dgos pa'o //</p><p><br /></p><p>bkos [~bskos] glo 'ur [~glo bur] gdung rgyud gsum la / da ni glo 'ur rgyal po bshad pa la / gleng pa'i don phyed dang bdun gyis ston / can lnga lo rgyus chen po dang / gab pa yang chu[ng] [?] phyed du btsa' ba yin //</p><p><br /></p><p>de la stod lha rabs / bar ma mnga' dar /</p><p>smad ni gyes mdo bsil chad ston pa /</p><p><br /></p><p>can lnga ni </p><p><br /></p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>yo ga lha gyes can /</li><li>stab ma dgung rtsegs can /</li><li>zis po 'go sngon can dang / </li><li>gsang ba phyag rgya can dang /</li><li>zags ma bzhugs rabs can dang /</li></ol><p></p><p><br /></p><p>de ltar can lnga lo rgyus chen po dang drug ste / gsang ba yang chung bang so'i rabs yin pas de la phyed du 'jog pa lags so skad /</p><p><br /></p><p>pha ba bon pos brtsams pa yo ga lha gyes can [/]</p><p>yab 'bangs kyis brtsams pa zang ma bzhugs rabs can /</p><p>kyi nam gyis brtsams pa bzings pa 'go sngon can / </p><p>zhang blon gyis brtsams pa stab ma dgu rtsegs can / </p><p>rje nyid kyis mdzad pa gsang ba phyag rgya can dang lnga / </p><p><br /></p><p>de dge' bshes khu ston brtson 'grus kyis brtsams pa log non chen po 'am / lo rgyus chen po zer / [2v]</p><p>gsang ba yang chu[ng] phyed du bzhag pa ni / rje drongs [~grongs] nas gshin bang so btab pa'i rabs yin pas phyed du 'jog pa yin no //</p><p><br /></p><p>de la spyir mnga' ris bod kyi rgyal khams 'dir /</p><p>mi rigs mi gcig pa drug stong bzhi brgya / </p><p>skad rigs mi gcig pa sum brgya drug bcu'i ya [?] gcig yin pas / bod gla glo'i [~kla klo'i] skad du smra ba bya ba yin la / thang la dgu bcu rtsa gcig gi ya gcig yin pas / thang khob bod kyi rgyal 'khams 'dir ces pa'o // [358]་chos med pa'i dus la dgongs pa'o // </p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">—</p><p><br /></p><p>dam pa chos kyi byung tshul bstan pa ni / </p><p>zhes pa ston pa'i zhabs kyis dam [~ma] bcags kyang gsung gis khyab pas de skad do //</p><p><br /></p><p>mnga' bdag btsan po ni rigs gsum gyi sprul pa / me[s] dbon rnams dang / mnga' ris btsan po rnams kyi sku drin yin pas de skad do //</p><p><br /></p><p>gdung rabs dag la brten te brjod par bya zhes pa'o //</p><p><br /></p><p>spyir na mnga' ris zhes pa tshig drug gis snya khri btsan po [~gnya' khri btsan po] ma byon pa'i gong du / rgyal bran [~rgyal phran] rnams kyis dbang mdzad lugs ston te / dang po gnod sbyin nag pos dbang byas te / yul gyi ming bzang yul rgyan med bya bar btags / lag char mda' gzhu' thogs pa de nas byung /</p><p><br /></p><p>gnyis pa ri ste 'gong yag bdud kyis dbang byas te / yul gyi mi[ng] bdud yul gling dgu zer / lag char sta ri dang dgra sta byung /</p><p><br /></p><p>gsum pa snyan rings phrag med srin gyis dang byas te / yul gyi ming yang [3r] srin yul nag po rgu sum zer / lag char mdung lcags srin mo rkang dang sgyogs gnyis byung /</p><p><br /></p><p>bzhi pa lha dmar 'dzam zhes pas dbang byas te / yul gyi ming yang lha yul gung thang zer /</p><p><br /></p><p>lnga pa dmu yis dbang byas te / yul gyi ming yang rmu yul nga 'brang cang 'brang <strike>cang</strike> zer /</p><p><br /></p><p>drug pa 'dre srog trog (?) gyis dbang byas te / yul ni lang ta ling ta zer /</p><p><br /></p><p>bdun pa ma sangs rgyu dgus dbang mdzad / yul gyi ming bod 'khams g.yas drug zer / </p><p><br /></p><p>brgyad pa klu yis dbang byas klu yul gling dgu zer / </p><p><br /></p><p>dgu pa mi ma yin gyis dbang byas / ngam yul nag po zer /</p><p><br /></p><p>bcu pa za hrid bu pos dbang mdzad / yul gyi ming stong sde bc[o] brgyad du btags /</p><p><br /></p><p>bcu gcig pa rgyal phran bcu gnyis kyis dbang mdzad / yul gyi ming rong kha brgyad du btags / </p><p><br /></p><p>kun gyi tha mar rgyal sil ma bzhi bcu rtsa [g]nyis kyis dbang mdzad / yul gyi mi[ng] rong kha [359] brgyad du btags /</p><p><br /></p><p>de ltar dbang mdzad rim par byung yang / phyogs bzhi'i dgra ma thul skad pa // </p><p><br /></p><p>phyogs bzhi'i dgra ni / rgya gar rgyal po sbrul 'dra rtag tu 'khri / rgya nag rgyal po lug la spyang khu 'jab pa 'dra // stag gzigs rgyal po bya khyur khra zhugs 'dra / ge sar rgyal po shing rte 'tshab 'dra / bod yul dbus na rma bzhi phyogs bzhi'i rgyal po kha drag pas / bsdos pas ma thub dogs nas brag ri btsan po 'dzin /</p><p><br /></p><p>de nas rje gnya' khri btsan po spyan drangs pa la / </p><p><br /></p><p>gzhung las de nas snya khri btsan po byon pa la / [3v] </p><p>gleng lugs mi [m]thun gsang bgrags yang gsang zer //</p><p>gang ltar 'then kyang snya khri mthun pa ste //</p><p>de yang sgrags pa'i lugs kyis lha las chad par 'dod / </p><p><br /></p><p>lha rabs mched bzhi mched bdun tshigs gcig rmu yul bshugs te khri ni rgyal ba zer /</p><p><br /></p><p>de'i bu ni snya khrir btsan por grags / snya khri de yang gung las dog la gshegs / zhes pas ston te /</p><p><br /></p><p>de yang gong gi rgyal phran rnams kyis rje<strike>s</strike> ma byung / bod mngar ma 'dus nas yab 'bangs rus drug gam / shes pa mkhan gyi mi bcu gnyis kyis rje btsal nas spyan drangs pa la //</p><p><br /></p><p>de la yang byon lugs ma mthun / gsang pa rgyal po las chad pa chos lugs su gleng pa / bgrags pa lha las chad pa bon lugs su gleng pa / </p><p><br /></p><p>yang gsang the brang las chad pa 'tshang lugs su gleng pa / gsum lags skad //</p><p><br /></p><p>gang ltar 'then kyang snya khri btsan por mthun skad pa /</p><p><br /></p><p>gang ltar chad kyang snya khri btsan po yin paso //</p><p><br /></p><p>de la gsang po rgyal po las chad pa chos lugs su thal na / bskos glo 'ur gdung rgyud gsum / mang pos bskur pa'i rgyud la tshang skad pas / gdung brgyud rigs gsum / che ba shag kya chen po / 'bring po li tsha byi / chung pa shag kya ri brag pa las chad pa ste / rgyal po rmag brgya pa'i [~dmag brgya pa'i] bu chung dag rgyal pu ru la skyes las chad par [360] 'dod pa'o // [4r] </p><p><br /></p><p>yang gsang ni the brang las chad par 'dod pa ste / yul spu yul na spu'i bu mo / mo btsun gung rgyal bya ba gcig gi rum nas the brang spun dgu byung ba'i bu chung dag / the brang ma rje (?) u pa ra las chad par 'dod paso // </p><p><br /></p><p>de ltar yin kyang rje'i mtshang ngam sngan du 'gro bas 'bangs kyis gleng bar mi rigs pa lags skad / </p><p><br /></p><p>des na sgrag pa'i lugs kyis lha la[s] chad pa la ji ltar chad na / dang po phyi snod kyi 'jig rten 'di skal pa ma skal / srid pa ma srid tsam na / phya mi mkhyen dgu mkhyen ba gcig srid pa phya yis bskos te byung // </p><p><br /></p><p>de nas gnam sa rims kyis srid de / srid pa rims gyis [b]skos nas / srid pa'i lha gnam then chen po bya ba srid // </p><p><br /></p><p>de'i sras gung then che / de'i sras sprin chen / de'i sras zin then che / char then chen / bal then che / de'i sras 'da' then che la sogs pa then dgu srid /</p><p><br /></p><p>de'i sras mong then che / de dang [d]byal bya ma ting du spyos pa'i sras / yab stag tsha yal yol / de dang yum mdze gza' khyad khyud bshos pa'i sras / srid pa'i lha rabs mched bzhi 'khrungs / yab lha bdal drug / phywa lha bram chen / rgya lha 'bro nam / 'od de gung rgyal lo //</p><p><br /></p><p>yab lha bdal drug dang rmu btsun chu dri sman du bshos pa'i sras / lha rabs mched bdun 'khrungs / yar gyi cen gsum la/ lha ro rong rtsol po / khri la stag gzig / [4v] than tsho zo 'brang / mar gyi chud gsum la / lhe rje yang dkar / lhe rje mang dkar / lhe rje gung btsan no //</p><p><br /></p><p>'bring po khri rgyal ba / sring mo thang nga lha mo thong / then dgu mched bzhi mched bdun zhes pa'i don no //</p><p><br /></p><p>bdun tshig[s] zhes pa khri rgyal ba'o // bdun tshig tu gyur pas / yar gyi can la rngod / mar gi cung la rngod pas / gnam sa bcu gsum gyi steng nas / gnam rim pa lnga'i steng du zhang po rmu yul bshugs pas / khong 'gror ma btub nas yab yum gyi skor cha mang du [361] byin nas bshugs / </p><p><br /></p><p>de'i bu ni snya khri btsan por grags zhes pa / khri rgyal ba dang / dre rmu dre btsan mo bshos pa'i sras / zla ba nya'i nub mo ma'i 'gul [~mgul] gyi snya ba[~gnya' ba] nas skyes pas snya khri btsan po zhes kyang bya /</p><p><br /></p><p>zla ba nya'i nub mo btsas pa nya khri zhes kyang bya / de ltar bu de gnam gung nas sa dog la byon pas / snya khri de la yang gung nas dog la gshegs skad do //</p><p><br /></p><p>de nas gdung rabs nyi shu rtsa gcig tu bod la chos med mun pa'i smag rum 'dra / chab srid sgrung lde bon dang gsum gyis btsas skad / dus de tsa na<strike>s</strike> bod la rgyal phran bcu gnyis kyis dbang byed kyang / phyogs bzhi'i rgyal po chen po bzhi ma thul / kho rang tsho che ma 'cham<strike>s</strike> nas yod pa'i dus su / zhang gsum [b]lon dang bzhi / yab 'bangs rus drug / shes pa mkhan mi bcu gnyis kyis rje btsal bas / [5r] rje dkar ma yo bde'i zhal nas / gnam rim pa lnga'i steng nas / rje snya khri btsan po bya ba lha'i sras po rmu'i dbon po gcig yod pas de spyan drangs ma byas na / </p><p><br /></p><p>rtsibs kyi lha dkar ma yo ldes smras pa / rje snya khri btsan po yul sa ka dog drug ma ki na yul na rje med de kha dod kun kyang rje / gnam la g.yag med de / ru thogs kun kyang ru / rta la rkyen ma mchis ngam drog phyar phyug tsam / dog sa yab kyi rjer gshegs 'tshal / zhes zhus pas /</p><p><br /></p><p>snya khri btsan po'i zhal nas ma ki la rku yod / sdang yod / dgra yod / g.yag yod / dug yod / byad stems yod zer nas / </p><p><br /></p><p>kar ma yo ldes smras pa / rku la lan yod / sdang la byams yod / dgra la snyen [~gnyen] yod / g.yag la mtshon yod / dug la sman yod / byad stems la dgrol thabs yod do //</p><p><br /></p><p>'o cag gnyis kyi mi mes po nya shing se ba bshan / gos g.yang bal dro / sha rus thogs zhim / zhes brjod nas zhang pos sngan [?rngan] la byin pa / rmu phub gong khra / rmu gri tsag kra / rmu khrab shol mo / rmu [362] mdung drang chags / sder ma rang 'dren / rang thag rang skor / me rang 'bud / chu rang len / rmu skas rim dgu / rmu 'breng zangs yag rnams byin nas / dog sa steng du ma 'gu na rmu 'breng zang yag la phyag 'jus / [5v] rmu skas rim dgu la zhabs bstan nas / zhang po'i yul du yar la 'ongs pas chog byas pas [/] rje snya khri btsan po de dang po bzhugs pa'i yul bzang ste / gung sngon gyi steng na bzhugs / sku'i lha bzang te / ya bar bdun tshigs / gshegs pa'i phul bzang ste / gung sngon gyi stengs / gnam gyi sgo phye / sprin gyi mthongs spral nam mkha 'phrul tsam du gshegs / sku'i rgyan bzang ste 'phrul cha[s] sna dgu mnga' / gshegs pa'i gnas bzang ste / sa rin po che rgya mdud gyi steng / gling bzhi snying po gangs ri rgyud kyi ra ba / chu bo chen po bzhi'i 'dus sgo / rtsang po gzhung gsum gyi ldad / gangs ti se shel gyi mchod rten dang / mtsho ma 'phang g.yu'i ma 'dal gyis mtshon pa / ri mtho' la sa gtsang pa'i gnas 'dir / ri rab lhun po'i 'dzam bu gling / shing 'dzam bu pri<strike>n</strike> shas don mtshon pa / skal pa bzang po'i byang chub sems dpa' stong yang sangs rgya ba'i sa / mi las sangs rgyas sgrub pa dam pa'i chos dang / mi chos rgyal khrims kyang gling 'dir 'byung ba'i gling gi snying po / yul gyi mchog / nam mkha' lha'i khangs bzangs gis brgyan pa / sum cu rtsa gsum lha'i lus dang dbyibs mthun pa / dus gsum gyi sangs rgyas thams cad bzhugs pa'i gnas / rdo rje gdan drung ni gling 'di'i rgyan du che // shar phyogs rgya nag ri bo rtse lnga ni 'od 'bar / lho phyogs ri bo de shan kun tu bzang mo'i [6r] pho brang ni lhun stug / nub phyogs ri bo po ta la spyan ras gzigs kyi pho brang ni dbyibs legs / byang phyogs ri bo kye shan dgra bcom pa mang po'i bzhugs gnas 'di'i rgyan du che/ yul ba ra .na se 'phrog grong khyer ser skya / [363] ri bya rgod spungs pa / gnas kyi lha mtho' ba yang / bsod nams kyi ma che ba / dud 'gro spu mdzes / 'dab chags skad snyan / gos kha dog ldan / zas ro mchog dang ldan pa'i gling 'di na / gling chen po bu gnyis / yul gru chen po bcu drug / thang khob dgu bu rtsa gcig / yang 'khob nyi[s] brgya lnga bcu / 'bab chol gyi mi sde bco' brgyad / 'big sum cu rtsa drug / mi rigs mi gcig pa sum brgya' drug cu / skad rigs mi gcig pa drug stong bzhi brgya / lus mi mthun pa bcu bdun / thabs mi 'dra ba bzhi bcu tham pa / yi ge mi 'dra ba drug cu rtsa bzhi / chos med pa'i gang zag khri chig stong / yul phran du ma dang bcas pa'i gling / de las kyang bod gangs ri rgyud kyis skor ba <u> _</u> 'di rgyal 'khams gzhan las khyad par du 'phags te / rgyal 'khams gzhan na mi rje mis mdzad pas ya mtshan che rgyu med la / bod yul 'di ni mi rjes lhas [~mi rje lhas] mdzad pas gzhan las khyad par du 'phags skad /</p><p><br /></p><p>de lta bu'i yul 'di'i rjer snya khri btsan po gshegs te / dang po 'bangs [6v] slob bu rin chen mched bdun dang chas nas / nam mkha' 'phrul tsam nas [b]ltas pas / ri gzigs kyi nang nas lha ri gyang mtho las mtho ba ma mchis / chab gzigs kyi ni [~nang] nas rtsang chab sngon mo las rtsang zhing che ba ma mchis / dbye gzigs kyi kyi nang nas sko shul se mo gru bzhi las rgya che <strike>ba</strike> zhing bsham legs pa ma mchis nas mgu bar byung nas / dung 'phar po 'phar byung chung gyis sngon du sgra bsgrags klu glang ru dkar gyis ru'i sbal bdar / sku srung glo'u rin mched bdun gyis gos gon mtshon thogs / mtshi mi gshen gyi rmu rgyal tshas / dbu' la mtshe btsugs / gco'u gshen gyis phyag 'khar tshas phyag tu 'khar ba btad / rmu 'breng zang yag la ni phyag mjus / rmu skas rim dgu la zhabs brten nas / lha ri gyang mtho'i kha nas mar byon pas / ri [364] mtho'i gangs dkar gyis phyag btsal te dgu dang dud dud / shing snyan sdong pos phyag btsal te 'ba['?] dang ding ding / chab snyan lu mas phyag btsal te snyir (stir?) dang sib sib / gor snyan pha bong gis phyag btsal te 'dar dang gong gong ngo // </p><p><br /></p><p>de nas gshegs rabs nyi shu rtsa bdun gyis byon nas / yar lung sogs ka zhabs kyis bcags te / 'go nag mi'i rjer gshegs / gdugs su gdugs bdal / de nas yam bu bla sgang du gshegs te / ye nas mtho ba la [7r] phyag tshang yab 'bangs rus drug gis bteg nas 'phyis/ stag rtser gshegs pas / dar dkar gyi yol ba dgu rim bgyis nas bla'i rkyen ya rabs rnams kyis bskor te bzhugs so //</p><p><br /></p><p>khri bdun legs drug stod gi steng gsum dang skad pa / rje snya khri btsan po dang gnam mug tu bshos pa'i sras khri btsan po / de dang sang ding ding gi sras ding khri btsan po // </p><p><br /></p><p>de nas so so tham tham gyi sras po khri btsan po / de dang dog mer mer gyis sras med khri btsan po de dang sdags [~gdags] kyi lha mo'i sras gdags khri btsan po / de dang sribs kyi lha mo'i sras sribs khri btsan po //</p><p><br /></p><p>de rnams la gnam gyi khri bdun zer te / sras chibs la thub nas yab gung du gshegs te / rmu skas la zhabs brten rmu 'breng la phag mjus nas thams cad kyis mngon par gung du gshegs pas nam khri bdun zero [~zer ro] //</p><p><br /></p><p>de sa la leg drug [~sa la legs drug] byung ste / de gnyis kyis bar na stod kyi stengs te / yab steng dang sras ltengs [~sdings?] so / de ya [~yang?] sribs khri btsan po'i sras rgyal gri gum btsan po / btsas pa'i dus ma ma gro zhal gyi skyi mthing ma la 'drir phyin pas / 'brog yang mes tshig gam ma tshig / mtsho bla mtsho mer ba skams sam ma skams / brag gnyan brag brag dmar po ral lam ma ral zer bas /</p><p><br /></p><p>spang skyang [~kyang] mes ma tshig / mtsho yang ma skams brag kyang ma nyil byas pas / mo rna ba 'on pas log par thos nas [7v] spang ya[ng] tshig / mtsho' yang skams / brag kyang nyil bya bar thos nas /</p><p><br /></p><p>'o na 'di mtha' bzhugs gri ru 'gum pas gri gum btsan p[o] bya bar thogs shig / zer bas /</p><p><br /></p><p>de nas gri gum btsan po'i zhal nas / nga la ming 'di tsug 'dogs pa tsug yin zer bas / </p><p><br /></p><p>ma mas mtha' ma dri rum du 'gum [~dri 'gum?] zer nas btags pa yin byas pas / </p><p><br /></p><p>'o na dri ru 'gum na nga lo ngam dang 'thab zer nas / mtshan thugs su gsol nas / gdon mkha' 'gro legs snying du zhugs nas / long ngam dang 'thab pa la / nyan rna gsang nyan du btang pas / long ngam gyis tshor nas <strike>nas</strike> log par smras te / g.yas su spre'u khrid na nga re 'jigs / g.yon du byi la khrid na nga re 'jigs / ral gri slad [~klad] la skor gyin byung na nga re 'jigs / ba mar glang dmar brgya la thal sgro bskal nas nga re 'jigs //</p><p><br /></p><p>rgyal po'i spral du me long btags na<strike>s byung</strike> nga re 'jigs / byas pas /</p><p><br /></p><p>nyan <strike>s</strike>rna gsang gis de skad zer zhing 'dug byas pas / 'o na de tsug byed dgos zer nas /</p><p><br /></p><p>g.yas su spre'u khrid pas pho lha yar // g.yon du byi la khrid pas mo l[h]a yar / ral gri slad la skor bas rmu skas rmu 'breng chad // ba dmar glang dmar 'drogs pas thal tshub khengs nas ma mthong pas / rgyal po'i dpral gyi me [8r] me long la gtad nas brgyab pas mda' spral du brgyab nas bskrongs nas / spur zangs su bcug nas rtsang spu [~chu?] la bskur bas / skong po'i yul klu lcam bye ma lag<strike>s</strike> rings kyis bzung / sras gsum gyis lhe glang ru kar la bcibs nas / bros nas / sha khri nya por gshegs // nya khri skong por gshegs / bya khri spu'o [~spu bo] yul du gshegs / sras mo la chung ma byas / mi sring bzhi'i ma mo phyugs 'tshor bcug pas / mtsho kha [~la?] cig tu gnyid du song pa'i rmi lam du / glang dmar po gcig gis skal ba dmigs pas / zla dgu ngo bcu na khrag glang lag sgo tsam pa byung nas / gso ru yan lag dang kha dmigs med / bor du rang la skyes pas ma phod nas / g.yag ru cig tu bcug nas g.yas rnam gyi nang du drod la btsas pas / khrag glang rdol nas khye'u gcig byung pas / ngar las skyes kyis yul la brten bya bar btags /</p><p><br /></p><p>der cher skyes sras kyi go bcad yab kyi sku 'tshal gnyer te / klu lcam bye ma lag rings la spur 'dur bcug byas pas / klud mar gzhan mi 'dod / mi'i bu mo la bya mig ltar mas gyis 'khebs pa gcig byung nas sbyin zer nas / btsal ba gang bar yur 'og na pha mtshar la rba then bya ba dang / ma kha za phug mo bya ba gnyis la / bu mo de 'dra gcig 'dug [8v] nas nyon pas ma ster / gri gum btsan po'i spur la mtshal gyi lcag rgya tham pa rgyag tu chug zer nas / de khas blangs nas klu lcam bye ma lag ring la spur blus nas / mtshe mi dang lco mis gri btul bas ma thul nas / </p><p><br /></p><p>de nas yar la spyan drangs nas / drang mo drang chung gyi zom gser gnam thig la dur btab / sras kyis go bgyis nas yab kyi sku mtshal de ltar snyer / yab kyi god bgyis nas lha sras rgyal sar btsud de / sras bya khri spu'o yi yul nas spyan drangs nas mtshan pu te gung rgyal du btags nas rgyal sar bcug go //</p><p><br /></p><p>gcen sha khri skong po'i yul bzhugs te / zhal ngo brgya tsam bdog skad / cung nya khri nyang po'i rgyal po mdzad de zhal ngo bcu tsam bdog skad /</p><p><br /></p><p>de nas rgyal po lo ngam rta rdzi la pha'i mi sha brlan te / nyang ro sham po'i khar gyi pha ga na bya rgod tshang yod pas / shing rta bya rgod kyi gsob tu bcug nas bya rgod du brdzus nas / sham po 'khar rtse nas phab te / lo ngam pho brgya glang nga brang la spub nas bsad / lo ngam mo brgya' zang ru 'go la spub ste bsad / che smon chung smon <strike>chung</strike> pas khu smon gzungs bya bar btags so //</p><p><br /></p><p>de ltar yab drongs [~grongs] nas sras rgyal sar ma tshud par stengs pas stod kyis stengs gnyis so //</p><p><br /></p><p>de nas sa la leg[s] drug ni spu the gung rgyal gyi sras the sho legs / de'i sras e sho legs / [9r] de'i sras de sho legs /de'i sras gor bur legs / de'i sras de 'brum bzhi len / de'i sras a sho legs so //</p><p><br /></p><p>de rnams drongs pa'i dus su yur [~spur] rtse mthon por bskyal bas sa la legs drug zer ro //</p><p><br /></p><p>logs la lte bdun zhes pas / a sho legs kyi sras <strike>kying</strike> rgya za nam zin te / de'i sras lde 'phrul po gnam gzhung btsan / de'i sras sde snol nam / de'i sras bse snol nam / gse' sde snol rnam / sde rgyal po / bse' lde rgyal po / de yan chod yum klu sman dang bshos pas / lha klu gnyan pas yum gyi mtshan ma smos pa'o //</p><p><br /></p><p>gdung rabs nyi shu gcig bod la chos med mun pa'i <strike>mun pa'i</strike> rmag rum 'dra / chab srid sgrung <strike>de</strike> lde bon dang gsum gyis btsas skad pa /</p><p><br /></p><p>sde snod gsum 'byung ba'i lnga [~snga] ltas su bon dang sgrung dang lde'u byung pa'o //</p><p><br /></p><p>de nas tshigs la btsan bdun ni bsil sde rgyal po'i sras rgyal po srin btsan / de'i sras lto re long btsan / de 'bangs dang sku snyen pa la snga bas dogs sa la rten rten pa'i rgyal po zhes bya'o //</p><p><br /></p><p>de dang rma gza' klu rgyal gyis sras khri btsan nam / de dang khri rgyal ngan chung gyi sras khri sgra sgrungs btsan / de dang rma gza' klu stengs kyis sras khri thog rje thog btsan / de dang ru yo gza' stong rgyal mtsho'i sras lha tho tho re snyan btsan / de'i ri[ng] la dam pa chos kyi dbu brnyes te / lha tho tho re snyan btsan de sangs rgyas 'od srungs kyi sprul pa ste / sku 'khar yun bu bla sgang na bzhugs pa'i dus [9v] su gser <strike>skya</strike> gyi spang kong phyag brgyangs pa dang / g.yu'i mchod rten ba' [~bang] rim bzhi pa gnyis bdun gyi<strike>s</strike> namkha' nas phyag tu babs te / gnyan zhing dod par mkhyen cing yidu [~yid du] 'ong par gzigs kyang / chos su ngom [~ngo ma] shes gser skyems dang sha khrag gis mchod pas / lo dus su bka' rtags kyi phyag rgya bzhi yang byung pas / de la rmu'i bon po skyong nge mtshar bya man* / rgyal po'i mchod gnas su yod pas / sku srung pa'i ya gnyen po yin pas / khong na re 'di bon dar 'ong pa'i ltas yin pas / yar bzhugs gshang dang sha khrag gis mchod cig zer nas / sems can bsad nas srog sbugs kyis mchod pas / mu ge dang lo nyes dang than pa byung pas / bkra ma shis / </p><p><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*Rather than <i>bya man</i>, the text reads <i>bya ba cig</i>, with thanks for J.B. for the correction.)</span></blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p>der rgyal po'i rmi lam na 'di chos 'byung pa'i snga ltas yin pas / spos dang me tog dang mar me'i mchod pa phul / rgyal po nyid kyi 'og tu sprul pa'i rgyal po yang 'byung ngo // zhes lung [b]stan pas / rgyal pos chos lugs su mchod pas / sku tsho [~tshe] ring zhing lo brgya lon nas slar so'u skyes / rna ba lha'i rna ba bzhin shal la byung pas / lha tho tho ri snyan shal du grags skad // // </p><p><br /></p><p></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">[Here we arrive at the end of the incomplete text. It appears to be a secondary copy of an exemplar that was already missing its ending. One clue: What should have been the seventh line of the page is here left blank.]</span></blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p>Addons:</p><ol id="top-ra" style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 19.58px; list-style-type: none; padding: 0px;"><li class="comment" id="c5533596180984752602" style="margin-bottom: 16px; padding-bottom: 8px; padding-top: 16px;"><div class="comment-block" style="margin-left: 48px; position: relative;"><div class="comment-header" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px;"><cite class="user" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/profile/10453904366382251766" rel="nofollow" style="color: #5588aa; text-decoration-line: none;">Dan</a></cite><span class="icon user blog-author" style="display: inline-block; font-weight: bold; height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px -4px 6px; width: 18px;"></span><span class="datetime secondary-text" style="margin-left: 6px;"><a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2023/04/eye-spoon-to-open-up-historical-vision.html?showComment=1682010791296#c5533596180984752602" rel="nofollow" style="color: #5588aa; text-decoration-line: none;">Thursday, April 20, 2023</a></span></div><p class="comment-content" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: justify;">Hmmm. I was just thinking that the full title “Chos-’byung Gsal-byed Mig-thur-gyi ’Grel-pa” in fact is saying to us that it is ‘Commentary of (on) the Eye Spoon to Open up Historical Vision.’ That would seem to indicate that “Eye Spoon to Open up Historical Vision” is in fact the title of the verse text that serves as root text for all the (now three) Deyu histories, and that all of them are in varying degrees acting as commentaries on those verses... I’d never before imagined that a title for the verse work could ever be known, but I could be wrong about that, couldn’t I?</p><span class="comment-actions secondary-text"><a class="comment-reply" data-comment-id="5533596180984752602" style="color: #5588aa; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 5px;" target="_self">Reply</a><span class="item-control blog-admin blog-admin pid-981719824" style="display: inline;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/delete-comment.g?blogID=32671574&postID=5533596180984752602" style="color: #5588aa; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 5px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_self">Delete</a></span></span></div><div class="comment-replies" style="margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 1em;"></div><div class="comment-replybox-single" id="c5533596180984752602-ce" style="margin-left: 48px; margin-top: 5px;"></div></li><li class="comment" id="c2216749150260669080" style="margin-bottom: 16px; padding-bottom: 8px;"><div class="avatar-image-container" style="float: left; max-height: 36px; overflow: hidden; width: 36px;"><img alt="" src="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2023/04/eye-spoon-to-open-up-historical-vision.html?sc=1692442031628" style="max-width: 36px;" /></div><div class="comment-block" style="margin-left: 48px; position: relative;"><div class="comment-header" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px;"><cite class="user" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/profile/10453904366382251766" rel="nofollow" style="color: #5588aa; text-decoration-line: none;">Dan</a></cite><span class="icon user blog-author" style="display: inline-block; font-weight: bold; height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px -4px 6px; width: 18px;"></span><span class="datetime secondary-text" style="margin-left: 6px;"><a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2023/04/eye-spoon-to-open-up-historical-vision.html?showComment=1685607176817#c2216749150260669080" rel="nofollow" style="color: #5588aa; text-decoration-line: none;">Thursday, June 01, 2023</a></span></div><p class="comment-content" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: justify;">I wasn't paying close enough attention to the World Wide Web, so only today a fairly new Tibet-inspired journal opened up to me. It's mainly on modern art including literary arts, and I believe it is entirely in English. Go have a look at it here: https://yeshe.org/</p><span class="comment-actions secondary-text"><a class="comment-reply" data-comment-id="2216749150260669080" style="color: #5588aa; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 5px;" target="_self">Reply</a><span class="item-control blog-admin blog-admin pid-981719824" style="display: inline;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/delete-comment.g?blogID=32671574&postID=2216749150260669080" style="color: #5588aa; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 5px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_self">Delete</a></span></span></div><div class="comment-replies" style="margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 1em;"></div><div class="comment-replybox-single" id="c2216749150260669080-ce" style="margin-left: 48px; margin-top: 5px;"></div></li><li class="comment" id="c5379173442460147774" style="border-bottom: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; padding-bottom: 0px;"><div class="avatar-image-container" style="float: left; max-height: 36px; overflow: hidden; width: 36px;"><img alt="" src="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2023/04/eye-spoon-to-open-up-historical-vision.html?sc=1692442031628" style="max-width: 36px;" /></div><div class="comment-block" style="margin-left: 48px; position: relative;"><div class="comment-header" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px;"><cite class="user" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/profile/10453904366382251766" rel="nofollow" style="color: #5588aa; text-decoration-line: none;">Dan</a></cite><span class="icon user blog-author" style="display: inline-block; font-weight: bold; height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px -4px 6px; width: 18px;"></span><span class="datetime secondary-text" style="margin-left: 6px;"><a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2023/04/eye-spoon-to-open-up-historical-vision.html?showComment=1692442031247#c5379173442460147774" rel="nofollow" style="color: #5588aa; text-decoration-line: none;">Saturday, August 19, 2023</a></span></div><p class="comment-content" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: justify;">Another small essay about the [two] Deyu histories on the WWW popped up before my eyes today, and it was so short I read it immediately. The link is here: https://bodrigpa.org/archives/2707. It's dated August 21, 2022, entitled “Bod-kyi Lo-rgyus Dpe-rnying <i>Lde'u Chos-'byung</i> Gnyis-kyi Ngo-sprod dang Dpyad-bsdur-gyi Rags-zin” — བོད་ཀྱི་ལོ་རྒྱུས་དཔེ་རྙིང་ལྡེའུ་ཆོས་འབྱུང་གཉིས་ཀྱི་ངོ་སྤྲོད་དང་དཔྱད་བསྡུར་གྱི་རགས་ཟིན།, and written by Logzha — གློག་ཞགས།. That name means Lightning Lasso, and in parenthesis it adds ཨ་རི་. I'm not sure if that means the author •is• American or is *in* America. Whichever. It's a shortened version of A-me-ri-ka[-pa] — ཨ་མེ་རི་ཀ་[པ་]. It represents yet another attempt to come to grips with who the authors of the small and long Deyu histories might be, how their works compare, which was first, and so on. Ciao for now! -D<br /></p></div></li></ol><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;">•</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;">Even before Logzha’s essay, in August 9 (2022?), was posted a brief piece by someone named Dbang-chen (དབང་ཆེན་) entitled “Mkhas-pa Lde'us mdzad-pa'i <i>Rgya Bod-kyi Chos-'byung Rgyas-pa</i> Ji-ltar Byung-ba'i Skor” — <a href="https://ti.zangdiyg.com/Article/detail/id/23528.html" target="_blank">མཁས་པ་ལྡེའུས་མཛད་པའི་རྒྱ་བོད་ཀྱི་ཆོས་འབྱུང་རྒྱས་པ་ཇི་ལྟར་བྱུང་བའི་སྐོར།</a>. It's mainly on the authorship issues for the small and long Deyu histories. It does have some valuable points to make, but overall I don’t feel I have much to say about it.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;">•</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;">Dated October 14, 2022, is a fairly long work by Lcags-mo-rgyal entitled “<a href="https://epaper.tibet3.com/qhzwb/html/202210/14/content_113554.html" target="_blank"><i>Lde'u Chos-'byung</i> Rgyas Bsdus Gnyis-kyi Snga-phyi'i Lo-tshigs Gshib-sdur</a>” — <a href="http://tb.tibet.cn/tb/index/culture/202302/t20230208_7356233.html" target="_blank">ལྡེའུ་ཆོས་འབྱུང་རྒྱས་བསྡུས་གཉིས་ཀྱི་སྔ་ཕྱིའི་ལོ་ཚིགས་གཤིབ་སྡུར།</a>. It was published on p. 20 of a print newspaper called <i>Mtsho-sngon Bod-yig Gsar-'gyur</i>, or <i>Blue Lake Tibetan-Letter News</i>. From its title we would expect the article to be mainly on the subject of which was written first, the small or the long Deyu histories. Like the Rasé essay (see the following), it believes the long Deyu manuscript would have ended up in the Drepung collection in the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama (sometime after 1642), and that this manuscript would have been made in the 14th century on the basis of an earlier one made in preceding centuries.</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;"><div style="color: black; font-family: "Gandhari Unicode"; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: "Gandhari Unicode"; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;">•</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;"><br /></span></span></div></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;">I had also, until now, overlooked the existence of this essay, posted on January 23rd, 2023.</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;">It is entitled “<i>Lde'u Chos-'byung Rgyas-pa</i>'i Rtsom-pa-po dang Brtsams-pa'i Dus” — <a href="https://utsangculture.com/?p=9334" target="_blank">ལྡེའུ་ཆོས་འབྱུང་རྒྱས་པའི་རྩོམ་པ་པོ་དང་བརྩམས་པའི་དུས།</a> — and authored by Rasé Könchog Gyatso (ར་སེ་དཀོན་མཆོག་རྒྱ་མཚོ་), a modern scholar I admire a great deal.</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;">It is about the composer and time of composition of the long Deyu history, and indeed has things of great interest to add to the discussion. Most remarkably, Rasé tells us that the recently published K</span></span></span><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;">ā</span></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;">lacakra history by Chag Lo-ts</span></span></span><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;">ā</span></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;">-ba Rin-chen-chos-rgyal (ཆག་ལོ་ཙཱ་བ་རིན་ཆེན་ཆོས་རྒྱལ, </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;">(1446-1484 CE</span></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;">), at p. 86, has <a href="https://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Yumo-Mikyo-Dorje/4301" target="_blank">Yu-mo </a></span></span></span><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><a href="https://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Yumo-Mikyo-Dorje/4301" target="_blank">Mi-bskyod-rdo-rje</a> (fl. late 11th century) studying the Practice Side (སྤྱོད་ཕྱོགས་) in Central Tibet with one named Khams-pa Lde’u-pa (ཁམས་པ་ལྡེའུ་པ་) when he first heard about the Kashmir teacher Soman</span></span><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;">ā</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;">tha staying in Tibet, at Skar-chu. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;">The likelihood is good that this Khams-pa Lde’u-pa would be the same as our Mkhas-pa Lde'u (in my assessment author of the root verses, and not the long Deyu itself), they are close enough spelling-wise that we might tend to put the differences down to scribal deformations. And then the timing in the late 11th century may be somehow amenable (our dates for Yu-mo are hardly well established enough to judge right now). For another thing, the mention of the Practice Side for our purposes is synonymous to the Cutting Practice (གཅོད་), and this brings us close enough to the Zhijé teachings that by this time were in any case often brought together. The Cutting practices emerged out of the Middle Transmissions of Zhijé in one way or another, but then a few centuries later on they turned around and took over their parent’s territory. This argument of Rasé is worthy of close consideration, to see if it leads somewhere.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;">•</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;">I managed to download yet another thing of relevance from the internet — a fascinating interview with the founder of the Dpal-brtsegs ancient manuscript publication group by the name of Kawa Sherab Zangpo (ཀ་བ་ཤེས་རབ་བཟང་པོ་). The interviewer, named Konchok, tells us he was one of the persons who worked on the 2013 Chinese-language translation of the long Deyu. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px;">Here are the details: </span><i style="font-size: 19.58px;">Lde'u Chos-'byung-gi Rtsom-pa-po dang Dpyad-gzhi'i Rin-thang sogs-kyi Skor-la Gleng-ba Zhu-ba — </i><span style="font-size: 19.58px;">ལྡེའུ་ཆོས་འབྱུང་གི་རྩོམ་པ་པོ་དང་དཔྱད་གཞིའི་རིན་ཐང་སོགས་ཀྱི་སྐོར་ལ་གླེང་བ་ཞུ་བ།, an interview with Kawa Sherab Zangpo, conducted by Tsha-bar-kha-ngag Dkon-mchog (ཚ་བར་ཁ་ངག་དཀོན་མཆོག), a PDF in 12 pages (date of posting unknown, and the link is presently unfindable).</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;">There are a lot of interesting discussions on issues surrounding the Deyu histories, but for myself it is most fascinating to learn that the small Deyu was, according to Kawa, originally discovered in the 1980's (I think more like the late ’70’s) in the Sikkim Library (surely he means the Sikkim Institute of Tibetology in Gangtok), and then made into a blue mimeograph (done by the Social Science Institute in Lhasa; I have a scan of it) that then served as the basis for the 1987 Lhasa publication. All this I knew, except for the information that it was first found in Sikkim. But Kawa also tells us that it had once belonged to a collection of texts in the personal library of Kaḥ-thog Rig-’dzin Tshe-dbang-nor-bu (1698-1755) until it was, at some point in the 17th or 18th centuries (I guess he means 18th or 19th centuries), moved to Sikkim. These particular details that concern manuscript provenance, too, are new to me.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;">Turning from page 4 to page 5, Kawa tells us that the long Deyu had originally been kept in the Drepung Arhat Temple collection, as it bears the cataloging markings typical of that collection. This must be so even though the shelving number on the title page of the book is not listed in the published catalog (the manuscript would have been removed before the catalog was made). Kawa judges that the manuscript that is still accessible to us today was a secondary copy made from an earlier one scribed in the 13th or 14th centuries (we can trust his highly-trained judgement on the codicological niceties). The interview ends on p. 12 after a brief discussion about the <a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2014/10/regalia-untranslatable-part-two.html" target="_blank">Nine Regalia</a>. Okay, enough fun for today, so let’s call it a night!</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;">•</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;">With the single exception of the essay by Lcags-mo-rgyal, none of these essays posted or published since the middle of 2022 show any awareness of the discovery of the <i>Eye Spoon</i>, and not even one is cognizant that an English translation of the long Deyu had appeared in print. Seriously, this is not meant as a criticism, just an observation. I realize it can take some time before publications have an effect on what is said in still other publications... Some say that in the field of Humanities, the gap is likely to be somewhere between 10 and 20 years. That may not be an exaggeration. Besides, the language gap has to be figured into it.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c0c0c; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c0c0c; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c0c0c; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c0c0c; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c0c0c; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c0c0c; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c0c0c; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c0c0c; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c0c0c; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c0c0c; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c0c0c; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 19.58px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c0c0c; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-69965618865728488902023-04-04T16:11:00.036+03:002023-12-31T11:13:36.862+02:00Memory Keys for Ritual Recitations<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: georgia; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></span><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: georgia; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHQ165USuXDcvDN2ug74ThJ_Ntq4yPnXxk2vtoX7YHt3Mm9cvvxZFAUeJxaGJlQHVeFDCSclcPfiYtoGdeeKsKiSXXjxmXpsVS0PS1bFhfZAKmqXdRswJf92Fime1bgLiVuPkcQqr6ed8llMnf2k3ROXdvTxsE9SoXqS11548mjs4iUtWXkCs/w400-h225/Slide1.jpeg" width="400" /></span><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: georgia; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’d like to start with a story. Not one about myself, one told by David Snellgrove about his 1956 travels in Dolpo, Nepal, in his book </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Himalayan Pilgrimage</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">. Bear in mind, this was back when Nepal as a whole was just opening up to foreign visitors, but even then very few were able to travel to areas this remote.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’d recommend reading the whole chapter, right now I will restrict myself to his description of a day at the Bön monastery of Samling. At the time the monastery only had a dozen houses and two permanent residents, one of them being the abbot. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When rituals were held laypeople would come to join in, not just as audience, but as active participants. Snellgrove had already offered the abbot some eyedrops for his sore eyes, and meanwhile they had gotten better, so the abbot was at least trusting and appreciative. To be sure, the abbot was impressed when Snellgrove demonstrated an ability to read Tibetan letters. He even called him a “Bon Tulku.” Perhaps it was an extraordinary compliment, perhaps a little tongue-in-cheek, we’ll never know. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Here are some portions of his narrative. I have skipped through it to underline particular parts. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Himalayan Pilgrimage</i>, p. 119:</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“We started with the ‘Mother’ (<i>yum</i>) in sixteen massive volumes. The pages with their gilt and silver letters on a black ground measured about 2 & a half feet long by 6 inches wide. There were three hundred or more pages in each volume, all wrapped in cloths and bound between carved half-inch boards. There was dust everywhere. This work is properly known as the ‘Great Sphere’ (<i>khams chen</i>) and corresponds to ‘Perfection of Wisdom’ section of the Tibetan Buddhist Canon, which is also nick-named ‘Mother’.”</span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">... ... …</span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Revered as the formal expression of absolute wisdom, they are read as a rite to give immediacy to wisdom’s innate power. Certainly the reading on this occasion was a perfunctory affair. Everyone present opened one of the volumes, flicked the dust out of the pages and began to read sonorously.”</span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">... “The ‘Mother’ revealed itself as a complete imitation of its Buddhist equivalent.”</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next pages have many more statements like this, about how this and that scripture is ‘obviously’ just an imitation of Buddhist scriptures.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At pp. 122-23: </span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The day’s performance had fully served its purpose, for I now had a general idea of the contents of the collection and knew which books were worth looking at again.”</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Saying so isn’t very helpful to the ideas I’m searching for, but I think today we naturally object to the rhetoric of “fully served its purpose,” since it’s so clearly not the purpose of the text reading to satisfy the research aims of foreigners, a kind of spywork. We’re likely to think of the controversies surrounding Fritz Staal’s <i>Agni</i> (he revived an extremely elaborate and costly Vedic ritual entirely in order to study it), but anyway... all this leads off into a different direction than I intended.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">However that may be, I say: Give him a break. He did mention “Wisdom’s innate power,” and that couldn’t be more on the mark. Recall how L. Austin Waddell once purchased a small monastery and made sure it was filled by monks just so he could study what they would do there. Was anyone harmed by this arrangement? It’s good to ask questions, but my questions lead off in a different direction.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This ritual observance —<span> the same one </span>Snellgrove made into his ethnographic object only to make light of it (we have to ask, Was he consciously pandering to an imagined audience?) — is arguably a practice going back to the beginnings of Buddhism two and half millennia before present. And I suggest it may prove worthwhile to refocus our attention on this practice before passing judgements about how the Bön similarities and distinctions may have come about.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’d like to mention an article by Franz-Karl Ehrhard on “reading authorizations” (ལུང་) because, on its page 209, there are examples of some intriguing ways of shortening lengthy readings, methods bearing names like “cutting off the wave.” Some apparently read only the beginning, middle and end of each page. I just want to say that such shortcuts are well enough known to get names of their own.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Inviting nuns and monks into your home for ritual readings has been a continuous practice in Tibetan Buddhism for at least the last millennium. Some famous early figures were known practitioners: such as Machik Labdron who as a young woman served as scripture reader/reciter in laypeople’s homes. And it continues today, as one might gather from jokes I heard in Bodhanath in Nepal in the late 1980’s. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Here are two examples where a householder asks a question of one of the monk reciters:</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Q: In the past whenever we invited the monks to our house to read the <i>Perfection of Wisdom</i>, we always heard the name of Rabjor repeated many, many times. Why haven’t we heard it today?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A: Wait! Here they are coming up right now, "Rabjor, Rabjor, Rabjor, Rabjor."</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another example:</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Q: Why is it I see you move your head to the right only three times when you are reading!</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A: We don’t go back empty!</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So, we can see that not only Snellgrove, but Tibetans themselves could make light of the practice, but in a way that might actually serve to tell us how significant it is. To understand the jokes and find them funny, at least, requires familiarity with the practice. And, more to the point: These ritual readers have a long line of predecessors that plunges us far back into the history of Buddhist scriptures, back to the first centuries before they were even written down.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One book that impressed me so much in my early days that I still remember it well is a certain science fiction book. It moves in a different direction, but still I think it helps us think seriously about changing strategies in text preservation that might take place when the ‘text’ transitions into manuscript form.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD8AekrQcQjCnj4sf-uW14-7SI5LxCMu8lm24FGAo2g_moMQN0sqXO7vJrmTO1yWlYzEkfpynrrwOEN58EKJ6KJEXlwKWTTt32XjS6sH5VytGOJEY5T3IRV9Apj9LM6W21pSU25AwNuvC9qNai44LEWputUfdPh8adcz5fkGVLBXlmAXfckCo/s720/Slide7.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD8AekrQcQjCnj4sf-uW14-7SI5LxCMu8lm24FGAo2g_moMQN0sqXO7vJrmTO1yWlYzEkfpynrrwOEN58EKJ6KJEXlwKWTTt32XjS6sH5VytGOJEY5T3IRV9Apj9LM6W21pSU25AwNuvC9qNai44LEWputUfdPh8adcz5fkGVLBXlmAXfckCo/w400-h225/Slide7.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ray Bradbury’s famous novel is exactly as old as I am, but it is set in the distant future, in the 24th century. The main character Guy Montag works as a fireman, but this future kind of fireman doesn’t put out fires, since all houses had been built with fireproofing. Instead he is called to incinerate books wherever they may be found. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I would like to insert a little commentary: Bradbury wrote at exactly the time when televisions were first being installed in a large number of homes, and people voiced fears that the audio-visual media would be used for information control placed in the service of social control, but also that silly and pointless entertainment would take the place of moral edification and learning. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So, going back to the novel: In the 24th century people have large flatscreen televisions that are oddly interactive, drawing the viewers into the narrative. I recommend reading the book if you haven’t, especially for the way it ends, which I must spoil for you: Guy Montag, pursued as a criminal book owner, crosses over the river away from his familiar dystopian society, and joins a band of outcastes in the woods. Each of them embodies a particular book in their memory. In order to ensure its preservation, each one recites it to themselves, but also into the ears of an apprentice who memorizes it in order to pass it on to the next generation.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeLYlxLUeUQl26e13fKpgZk4usHvC8vrdiif3oH91_Chnr3ImxpmMXNIMSyVKnOIY1J06HcCDa2eG-ZBRpkoExsFmES728Dm0kPiTtVN4qxPjU5xDFDF7ugfeuv_qbOQz3fJ2ubcuxdLYkxMP0wiSyu1N2KFJzDfWAwTXKpo8jlPT0G340o-8/s720/Slide8.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeLYlxLUeUQl26e13fKpgZk4usHvC8vrdiif3oH91_Chnr3ImxpmMXNIMSyVKnOIY1J06HcCDa2eG-ZBRpkoExsFmES728Dm0kPiTtVN4qxPjU5xDFDF7ugfeuv_qbOQz3fJ2ubcuxdLYkxMP0wiSyu1N2KFJzDfWAwTXKpo8jlPT0G340o-8/w400-h225/Slide8.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’ve long thought that Bradbury was influenced by the Dharma Bhāṇaka who played such a leading role in Buddhism’s lengthy orality phase. I can’t tell you where he might have read or heard about it, but I believe he did.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Buddhism’s original orality has been nicely explored and explained in an essay by Peter Skilling I recommend as a short and pithy summary with up-to-date information and plenty of bibliography.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The latest manuscriptology tells us that the earliest written examples of Buddha Word date from not too long — maybe a century, maybe two? two and a half? — before the time of King Kanishka. His dates have long been a problem, but it seems he reigned in the first half of the 2nd century CE.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Kanishka is credited with sponsoring the “third rehearsal.” Before I go ahead and read a passage about it from the long Deyu history dating to around 1261, I’d like to say a few things. The usual translation of <i>saṅgīti</i> is not “rehearsal” but “council.” This word council creates the false expectation that the reasons for holding them are the same as the councils of early Christianity, to decide which written books will be canonical and/or to confront unsettled doctrinal questions. It has to be emphasized that the more accurate translation of <i>saṅgīti</i> would be “communal recitation,” or even “chorus,” since the main aim of this meeting was not really to discuss differences even if that did occur in some infamous instances, so much as to ensure communal harmony in the monastic Community as well as to see if they were on the same page, so to speak. On these important points, see Bhikkhu Anālayo’s essay “First Saṅgīti and Theravāda Monasticism” and his book published last year. (The book details are listed below.)</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The following is from <i><a href="https://books.google.co.il/books/about/A_History_of_Buddhism_in_India_and_Tibet.html?id=RkdrzgEACAAJ&redir_esc=y" target="_blank">A History of Buddhism in India and Tibet: An Expanded Version of the Dharma’s Origins Made by the Learned Scholar Deyu</a></i>, p. 317, in its account of the Third Council:</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[King Kaniṣka] was not only intelligent and wise but he was also one with great faith who believed in the Dharma teachings. He investigated to find out if the Dharma teachings of the Buddha, the Word, had suffered interpolations or not. What he found was that they had decayed compared with their previous condition. Even after the compilation was done, there were some ordinary unenlightened people — people not favored with the </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">dhāraṇi</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> of never forgetting — who recited scripture with gaps and additions. That is why, at that time, they did what was necessary for making the Teachings of the Buddha remain for a long time and benefit sentient beings of the future. They committed the Baskets of the Word to texts with words written in letters. They inscribed them in palm-leaf bundles and sacred Volumes. There turned out to be five hundred incense-elephant loads worth of them, and after consecration, they were placed in the temple.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I want to emphasize, these meetings were supposed to ensure the continuity of the teachings through recitation and memorization. Communal recitations were an opportunity to check for accuracy. They served purposes that might in book culture be filled by editors or editorial boards.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I made myself a very long reading list at the beginning of the year, but unfortunately there was so much to read in English, not to mention Tibetan, that I didn’t get nearly as far as I had hoped. High in the list were works by Mark Allon and Eviatar Shulman, but I most recommend the recent book by Bhikkhu Anālayo, which I found quite interesting for its way of dealing with textual change during the era of orality. Still, my own area for exploration is first of all in the Mahāyāna, not the Theravāda, and secondly, mostly long post-dating the orality-only era.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I most recommend some recent <a href="https://thsc.web.ox.ac.uk/treasure-seminar-series" target="_blank">Oxford Zoominars</a>, all available for free viewing on the web:</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Natalie Gummer, “The Dharmabhāṇaka’s Body and the Ontologization of Authority,” February 21, 2022, 6:00 pm.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Robert Mayer, “Dharmabhāṇakas, Siddhas, Avatārakasiddhas, and gTer stons,” May 23, 2022, 6:00 pm.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ryan Overbey, “Theorizing Buddhist Revelation in the <i>Great Lamp of the Dharma Dhāraṇī Scripture</i>,” February 6, 2023, 5:00 pm.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’d like to especially draw attention to the third one by Ryan Overbey, concerning <i>The Great Lamp of the Dharma Dhāraṇī Scripture</i>, a lengthy text available only in an end-of-sixth-century Chinese translation. It purports to transform the wielder of its <i>dhāraṇī</i> into a perfect Buddhist reciter / preacher: a Dharmabhāṇaka. Becoming a perfect Reciter entails entering “the Treasury of Tathāgatas,” a state in which the Reciter accesses the awakening of Buddhas. Ritually re-presencing the Buddha in the body of the Reciter, the Reciter’s sermons are authorized as the Word of the Buddha. Overbey says the Dharmabhāṇaka is the key figure in representing the Buddha in this text. And the text describes a kind of secret letter-code in 40 or 42 letters divided into three classes, the classes of vowels, consonants and nasals. The number of 42 letters suggests it would be identical to the Arapacana alphabet, the alphabet of Kharoṣṭhī script, and this shouldn’t be surprising in the least, since the translation of this text into Chinese is attributed to a Gandhāran monk.*</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">(*If this sentence made no sense, read the introductory chapters to Salomon’s book. Thanks to Jonathan Silk for recommending a more cautious way to phrase this, with reference to the<a href="https://dazangthings.nz/cbc/text/1119/" target="_blank"> database of Michael Radich</a>. There’s a whole chapter in Overbey's dissertation I’ll have to read before deciding for myself if the caution is justifiable or not.)</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Similar ideas about envisioning the Dharmabhāṇaka as ritual stand-in for the Buddha himself may be encountered in the Zoominar of Natalie Gummer as well as in some of her recently published articles. Gummer’s studies are based in a few of the better-known Mahāyāna Sūtras, the <i>Suvarṇaprabhāsottama</i> and <i>Saddharmapuṇḍarīka</i>. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I should also mention here a 2011 article by David Drewes. Drewes surveys a large number of Mahāyāna Sūtras, and in doing so helps us visualize the social scene involved in the ritual in early centuries. Recitations were likely to take place on monthly fast days when laypeople were anyway most likely to visit the temples and monasteries. The Dharma Reciter, who could be a woman as we find made explicit here and there, would sit in an elevated place or even a throne, and the recitation itself could continue all through the night. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLqgEMXXnQKyclSbyVocWpOUkdLk5ohmPFuFusZyFi34wOv6ai876tr4KfHUm-PoUUC4MBfz1ulADyvxZ1Y5LAmkFAk3qGeX9VLrQM-75Ng77R4AP5p2kJJl96NZzIv75Eo3qPbUL0k0B-YsASIqvntO9IIzjDsC8cJirHZcnKVsft6IWDj7E/s720/Slide13.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLqgEMXXnQKyclSbyVocWpOUkdLk5ohmPFuFusZyFi34wOv6ai876tr4KfHUm-PoUUC4MBfz1ulADyvxZ1Y5LAmkFAk3qGeX9VLrQM-75Ng77R4AP5p2kJJl96NZzIv75Eo3qPbUL0k0B-YsASIqvntO9IIzjDsC8cJirHZcnKVsft6IWDj7E/w400-h225/Slide13.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I find this colophon page very charming and illustrative at the same time. See how the frame with the devoted patron figures — their names are given — flows almost seamlessly (the horse artlessly steps out of one frame into another, as if it were unconscious of crossing over a huge time gap) from the narrative of Sadāprarudita’s quest for the perfect Dharmabhāṇaka to the sacred Volume of the Perfection of Wisdom, here depicted on a stand in front of the patron couple, the same patrons who sponsored the scribing of it. The more I look at it the more meaning it seems to emanate. But on a critical note we should observe that the final chapters of the scriptures with the story of Sadāprarudita (རྟག་ཏུ་ངུ་) are absent in earlier Chinese translations. These same chapters might even be lacking in the earliest Tibetan translation, a matter that will need to be sorted out over time when close study of those translations will be taken up in earnest. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe0jfN-90MlEaJcSFWmVogrS0BdFAI5OwlQlh6ZiWh-Dt1jkytTlLvsdetCXtVhRP-48jxzcrhw9kuhFG_ckCXEbJrq6Dbu8j_IDK-kizstqdvVNxtGPsjedbMC3RNSuRabuDT0E-tf14WhUgVJKfcZ1w5lORftIw2G6UfDzsmG64Tw3tNnaw/s720/Slide14.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe0jfN-90MlEaJcSFWmVogrS0BdFAI5OwlQlh6ZiWh-Dt1jkytTlLvsdetCXtVhRP-48jxzcrhw9kuhFG_ckCXEbJrq6Dbu8j_IDK-kizstqdvVNxtGPsjedbMC3RNSuRabuDT0E-tf14WhUgVJKfcZ1w5lORftIw2G6UfDzsmG64Tw3tNnaw/s320/Slide14.jpeg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In my dissertation of 1991 I looked into matters relevant to the Bön and Chö (བོན་ & ཆོས་) <i>Wisdom Scriptures</i> as one of several significant side issues in my pursuit of Shenchen Luga’s place in history. These issues included comparison of the 32 bodily signs of an Enlightened One, along with an initial exploration of stories about the earliest <i>Prajñāpāramitā</i> translations into Tibetan (<a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2010/07/lord-shenrabs-bodily-marks-of.html" target="_blank">look here</a>).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I went into those earliest translations once more in a blog of 2012, “<a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2012/07/1200-year-old-perfection-of-wisdom.html" target="_blank">1,200-Year-Old Perfection of Wisdom Uncovered in Drepung</a>” after learning of an amazing new find. It had by then become known that two volumes from a 9th-century scribed set containing a late 8th-century version of the <i>Hundred Thousand</i> had surfaced in Lhasa. An inscription added to the first page tells us it had earlier been rescued from a fire in the now-destroyed temple of Karchung [where there was once a <a href="https://otdo.aa-ken.jp/archives?p=insc_Skar" target="_blank">pillar inscription of Emperor Senaleg</a> — སད་ན་ལེགས་], across the Kyichu from Lhasa. Kawa Sherab Zangpo reported on these Volumes at Königswinter in 2006, with the article appearing in 2009. He had found the third volume in June of 2003, and the second volume in October of the same year. In May of 2011, Sam van Schaik reported in his blog that the persons named as scribes of those two surviving Volumes were in fact scribes of Chinese and Tibetan ethnicities known from Dunhuang scribal colophons. That clearly shows that the Lhasa Volumes had actually been scribed in a workshop in Dunhuang.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaDVetW_OqBMm5SFL6lls1gewnXQCMlA4G88Z01Mm6PiEsj0GkebR7kkCUlUSnFoSbI7A2XJOJz_lSvBY-9LbUPS1M3r4GO9FKLcByu_UOFko6UKxpeo3Z3PeTYWf1qe5xNhz10mFMW-rAh7wcurixD3FqIyoU-EuBtKVAaq66dNdCJirEbIs/s720/Slide15.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaDVetW_OqBMm5SFL6lls1gewnXQCMlA4G88Z01Mm6PiEsj0GkebR7kkCUlUSnFoSbI7A2XJOJz_lSvBY-9LbUPS1M3r4GO9FKLcByu_UOFko6UKxpeo3Z3PeTYWf1qe5xNhz10mFMW-rAh7wcurixD3FqIyoU-EuBtKVAaq66dNdCJirEbIs/w400-h225/Slide15.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I just want to remind you of a set of Volume-related practices, normally ten of them, found in a number of Pāli and Mahāyāna sources. As these lists always includes ‘writing’ they are surely post-dating the oral-written watershed, somewhere in the centuries close to the beginning of the Common Era. Here we see that the <i>Khams-brgyad</i> (<i>Eight Elements</i>) of Bön has similar ideas. It may be obvious, but the first three would only be relevant to a literate book culture, while the last three would be just as relevant to oral as to literate recitation practices. I have to emphasize the recitation practices continued. Book culture didn’t stop it, just added elements to it, most obviously paper, pens/brushes and ink. Even memorization practices continued more-or-less as before. And I would argue that contemporary practices such as <i>Wisdom Scripture</i> readings and reading authorizations (<i>lung</i>) as well can only exist because of the orality phase that preceded written scriptures.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Khamgyé — Eight Elements — ཁམས་བརྒྱད།</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Element of Coming to Be — སྲིད་པའི་ཁམས།</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">2.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Element of Continual Flow — རྒྱུན་གྱི་ཁམས།</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">3.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Element of Appearance — སྣང་བའི་ཁམས།</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">4.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Element of Empti[ness] — སྟོང་པའི་ཁམས།</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">5.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Element of Clarifying Particulars — སོ་སོ་གསལ་བའི་ཁམས།</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">6.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Element of Awareness — རིག་པའི་ཁམས།</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">7.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Element of the Full Sphere — དབྱིངས་ཀྱི་ཁམས།</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">8.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Element of Evenness [Full Knowledge] — མཉམ་པ་ཉིད་ཀྱི་ཁམས།</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Here you see the Eight Elements that broadly characterize the <i>’Bum</i> section of Bön scriptures as a whole. More specifically, it serves as the most general outline of the 16-volume version of the scripture that likely derived its own title from the list, the <i>Khamgyé</i>, or <i>Eight Elements</i>. Each of the Eight Elements is covered by two of the 16 volumes, in the order given here. Not so obvious is the fact that the Eight Elements occur in conceptually joined pairs, with the first of each pair tending toward the objective spheres and the second tending toward the inward or subjective spheres. There is a strong streak of rationality in it. And at the same time I’m convinced after a little database-searching that these Eight Elements, whether individually and as a group, are not shared with the Chos <i>Wisdom Scriptures</i> found in our modern Kanjurs. They are unique to the Bön <i>Wisdom Scriptures</i>. Yes, there is something special about this Bön transmission of Buddhist text and text-related practice. I’m convinced the more we look the more we will find. Starting as we too often do from the commonplace sectarian polemical positions on the subject — nefariously motivated text alteration — we would never think it worth our while to look further. Since, assuming we are not the type of person who would build castles on the hot air of sectarian arguments, the historical circumstances are entirely dark for us, our best method is to pursue lines of enquiry that could possibly shed some light. These small works listed below are a good place to start searching for those cracks in the wall that could conceivably let in a little light.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The three <i>Khamgyé</i> texts by Lhari Nyenpo are these:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><i>Khams-brgyad-kyi Zhun-thig Rnam-dbye Grangs-su Bkod-pa</i>. Thirteen topics. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">B.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><i>Khams-brgyad-kyi Phyi-mo Gsum-la Btug-pa’i Dag-yig</i>. On the three ‘grandmother’ texts or <i>Vorlagen</i>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">C.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><i>Khams-brgyad Gtan-la Phabs-pa’i Rnam-dbye Spyi-don Dgu-yis Bstan-pa</i>. Nine topics.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That was just a list the titles of the three very brief extracanonical texts by Lhari Nyenpo (ལྷ་རི་གཉེན་པོ་) that often accompany the <i>Eight Elements</i> scripture in 16 vols., the one found by Shenchen Luga in 1017 CE.* We’ll look at the initially confusing set of author names in the colophons in a moment and then say something about their content. First I want to go into the identity and the biography of the author a little. I have to thank Jean-Luc Achard for locating the biography for me when I was unable to do it myself.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"></span></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*All three texts have been transcribed in an Appendix at the end of this blog. Among the several versions of the three texts I could find, there is even an eBook version placed on Scribd website that can be downloaded if you or a friend has a subscription. I have to thank Gendun Rabsal for providing the texts as found in the 1975 Indian publication as preserved in Indiana University Library, which is the one I prefer.)</span></span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuNqtHYdTZ7VMAllYj5xtyjgL79iDgCpbFyBh9BXI-lzwndaRXsI5972CjvpwUKRyh5F4xS08qeXYoQLHxh82xqtocBb4KZzWsmsiiGH3-pFXkTC1GtcoznzDg57jJCf7iykryB9TObf0X4lbmn9Cntr1XVrIhZ8nkOD9IMNYlVT6D0UsMG2c/s720/Slide18.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuNqtHYdTZ7VMAllYj5xtyjgL79iDgCpbFyBh9BXI-lzwndaRXsI5972CjvpwUKRyh5F4xS08qeXYoQLHxh82xqtocBb4KZzWsmsiiGH3-pFXkTC1GtcoznzDg57jJCf7iykryB9TObf0X4lbmn9Cntr1XVrIhZ8nkOD9IMNYlVT6D0UsMG2c/w400-h225/Slide18.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The biography of Lhari Nyenpo is by one Dmyal-ston Lha-rtse, a direct disciple of his. It tells us Lhari Nyenpo was born in a Mouse year with no further specifications. His birth was predicted ahead of time by the famous Khro-tshang ’Brug-lha, known to Bönpos for his divination methods and for revealing the Chamma (བྱམས་མ་), or “Outer Mother Tantra” literature. His mother died when he was ten and his father sent him to study with the three main disciples of Shenchen Luga, the main representatives of the Southern Treasures (ལྷོ་གཏེར་), despite the fact that his ancestors had followed the Northern Treasures (བྱང་གཏེར་), not the Southern. He broke off his studies at one point to go to Tingri Langkhor, where he circumambulated the shrine for Padampa Sangyé. That he did so is less surprising when we remember that Khro-tshang ’Brug-lha was well known for his association with Padampa. But Lhari Nyenpo’s visit to his shrine must mean Padampa had died already when the former was a young man. This suggests a later date for Lhari Nyenpo, perhaps 60 years later, but then it appears Padampa’s own death date may need moving back by at least twelve years or so from the usual <i>Blue Annals</i> date of 1117 to 1105, so the chronological situation is muddier than we would like. This isn’t at all unusual for pre-Mongol-era figures who usually only made use of the twelve-year animal cycle for datings.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">After several years of travel and study he returned to his home valley of Shang (ཤངས་) and to his father. At 23 years of age he married, but had no child before age 40. He became a teacher in his own right and much of the remainder of the 48-page biography is related to his students and teaching activities. All three of his teachers, belonging to the Spa, ’Bru and Zhu clans, attended his father’s funeral. This would have taken place when he was in his 30’s but before he turned 40, when his first son, the first of two, Khorlo Gyelpo (འཁོར་ལོ་རྒྱལ་པོ་) was born. Now the Spa teacher was born in 1014, the Zhu in 1002, and the ’Bru lived from 996-1054. In the case of ’Bru, the Horse year of his death as given in our biography does fit the year 1054, for what it’s worth.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Despite our hopes, no specific mention of the three small texts that interest us right now could be found in the biography. The only thing I could find is at p. 40, line 6: a mention of the <i>Hundred Thousand</i> as one of the many subjects about which he made commentaries and outlines. Unfortunately, I know of only one further work by him that survives today, a Bardo Prayer (<a href="https://www.themathesontrust.org/library/bardo-prayer-the-precious-garland" target="_blank">try this link</a>).</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On the way to Ü, the central province, he stopped in Nyemo (སྙེ་མོ་) Valley where the local Bönpos awarded him a place called Zangri (བཟང་རི་). In effect he founded this significant monastery as we know from many other sources. He died in a Sheep year, in his 72nd year.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTNjIwGUt0DJrNRVyOg51jm6ptvpBfW5Y4GdW41IY9PY2pEB_bzS5hrl9r0mrw7yg_wiCYVvQCF9iSIec84m5N4wB3bRB_KNFejYY5-RaoPO0ze17zW7TQGJCliyZOLswWrRnTVv4tUWOMtY2-lfuRZ1LSoloPML6RAXFIPFnGhdHK65DT60g/s720/Slide20.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTNjIwGUt0DJrNRVyOg51jm6ptvpBfW5Y4GdW41IY9PY2pEB_bzS5hrl9r0mrw7yg_wiCYVvQCF9iSIec84m5N4wB3bRB_KNFejYY5-RaoPO0ze17zW7TQGJCliyZOLswWrRnTVv4tUWOMtY2-lfuRZ1LSoloPML6RAXFIPFnGhdHK65DT60g/w400-h225/Slide20.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This information about the earliest manuscripts of the Eight Elements is from the second brief text by Lhari Nyenpo. As it says already in the title, it intends to compare the three direct copies from Shenchen’s treasure manuscript. I believe this would be the first Tibetan-authored text-critical study of any Wisdom Scripture manuscript. The <i>treasure</i> manuscript was copied by Chogla Yungdrungkyi (ཅོག་ལ་གཡུང་དྲུང་སྐྱིད་) who, after copying it offered a copy to Shenchen Luga that was called <i>Hardened Leather Cover</i>. The same person made a further copy for himself called <i>Red Hundred Thousand</i>. The <i>Great Eight Elements</i> <i>in Tiny Black [Letters]</i>, scribed only with black ink was a ‘son copy’ on basis of the <i>treasure</i> manuscript that is preserved even today in Zhu Rizhing (ཞུ་རི་ཞིང་) Monastery. It makes use of this Tibetan word,</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4U-frHiQRll9Fk9TfQUNpIhnLqNxUCohh8S4WniPIX_9Fb7jhfhmcU-h9BoZ__UQ71g7z3FXdly6TF79iAtTvHnsv0utmi_IAuKPQ6tP6B-MZorifTUUSNWmIann0nzXrl9tU_UAnSH1Gh3LqUBevHVD5tygXBde2kGvBKA5v0NXlnfARzn4/s720/Slide21.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4U-frHiQRll9Fk9TfQUNpIhnLqNxUCohh8S4WniPIX_9Fb7jhfhmcU-h9BoZ__UQ71g7z3FXdly6TF79iAtTvHnsv0utmi_IAuKPQ6tP6B-MZorifTUUSNWmIann0nzXrl9tU_UAnSH1Gh3LqUBevHVD5tygXBde2kGvBKA5v0NXlnfARzn4/w400-h225/Slide21.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">and this is the very word I want to concentrate on for the rest of the time: <i>drekang</i> (འགྲེས་རྐང་).* After many years of pondering I still don’t have a satisfying English translation for it. I’ve sometimes felt the urge to throw away all my dictionaries, useless things that they are when you need them the most. You may know the feeling. All the same, I do have ideas about what it means. It means the repeated statements you find in the <i>Wisdom Scriptures</i>, with each repetition inserting a different element from a long list of dharmas or böns both sangsaric and nirvanic. The list is, keeping its original order, collated one-at-a-time into empty slots in repeated portions of prose or verse. For convenience, until I find a more appropriate term, I’ll just call them ‘repetition statements.’ Conze recognized this phenomenon and described it long ago in his 1978 book entitled <i>Prajnaparamita S</i></span><i style="font-family: georgia;">utras</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, p. 10:</span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“These three texts [the 18,000, 25,000 and 100,000 <i>Prajnaparamita Sutras</i>] are really one and the same book. They only differ in the extent to which the "repetitions" are copied out. A great deal of traditional Buddhist meditation is a kind of repetitive drill, which applies certain laws or principles to a certain number of fixed categories. If, for instance, you take the statement that "X is emptiness and the very emptiness is X", then the version in 100,000 lines laboriously applies this principle to about 200 items, beginning with form, and ending with the dharmas, or attributes, which are characteristic of a Buddha. Four-fifths of the <i>Satasahasrika</i>, or at least 85,000 of its 100,000 lines, are made up by the repetition of formulas, which sometimes (as in ch. 13 and 26) fill hundreds of consecutive leaves. An English translation of the <i>Large Prajñaparamita</i>, minus the repetitions, forms a handy volume of about 600 printed pages (see p. 37). The reader of the Sanskrit or Tibetan version must, however, struggle through masses and masses of monotonous repetitions which interrupt and obscure the trend of the argument.”<span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span>(*I recommend </span><a href="http://philologia-tibetica.blogspot.com/2020/02/blog-post.html" target="_blank">this blog entry by Dorji Wangchuk</a><span> posted at <i>Philologia Tibetica</i> in February of 2020. It is by far the most useful discussion of the term <i>drekang</i> I know about.) </span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span></p></blockquote></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuoayoGx9mpmAz7A4qHSj5XuLk2EHpcuWFGdLtYVDAJ_h7e3i9aUwurI0_2_sVxuVksjormcgSZVzlralhU7lG1muklDNQdJ52w8yR-thSI1sfIdFD8AxQCerfRWwxiXSLdNAdEQhvYl7ITc5xLtIhaj_fNvzwrbtCJ8wp9hUcTkz-Pi87OC4/s720/Slide22.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuoayoGx9mpmAz7A4qHSj5XuLk2EHpcuWFGdLtYVDAJ_h7e3i9aUwurI0_2_sVxuVksjormcgSZVzlralhU7lG1muklDNQdJ52w8yR-thSI1sfIdFD8AxQCerfRWwxiXSLdNAdEQhvYl7ITc5xLtIhaj_fNvzwrbtCJ8wp9hUcTkz-Pi87OC4/w400-h225/Slide22.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As for those “monotonous repetitions” — Moving over quickly to the Bön <i>Hundred Thousand</i>, in its first volume, at the point where it first introduces the concept “sangsaric and nirvanic böns,” it lists them all. What you see just above is its list of the sangsaric böns, all fitted on the same page. These are the terms that are slotted into the repeated statements. I’ve made a compilation of lists of sangsaric and nirvanic böns and dharmas from many different sources, but I leave those aside for now thinking I have already provided you with too much opportunity to practice the Perfection of Patience.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdhy237t3egqXeBW8UTFsCa5T6vWNYqdsaqky8WoF0-qUBVrU5XnGktHCWZ4xd4KGcD0N58SqLm6Tqc8HTyNQ4jcrfZoL2oSHr-hIXBiOoDqYduHC9iecq2-dSO6bkmL8m5Y-wJuiys84ewDdjSst6tx_IS_yIN2DDnfmvg7prHBjvdnYsr5c/s720/Slide23.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdhy237t3egqXeBW8UTFsCa5T6vWNYqdsaqky8WoF0-qUBVrU5XnGktHCWZ4xd4KGcD0N58SqLm6Tqc8HTyNQ4jcrfZoL2oSHr-hIXBiOoDqYduHC9iecq2-dSO6bkmL8m5Y-wJuiys84ewDdjSst6tx_IS_yIN2DDnfmvg7prHBjvdnYsr5c/w400-h225/Slide23.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Now I’m moving back to the first of the three <i>Eight Elements</i> commentarial texts by Lhari Nyenpo. This is the very passage that initiated my bewilderment and fascination with the word <i>drekang</i>, although it appears a few other times in the three texts. I’ll try to translate this brief passage. The <i>mchan</i>-notes, because they are rubrics, I put in red letters and in square brackets. These originally appeared in smaller letters on a different line of the text connected by dots that may or may not be very visible. For all I know the rubrics are by the original author:</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“When they are all added up, there are 126 <span style="color: red;">[the list of both sangsaric and nirvanic böns]</span>, while the (Nine) Yungdrung Limbs are neither listed nor put in repetition statements <span style="color: red;">[missing in the lists and the repetition statements, they were added.]</span>”</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Here in this pre-Mongol era Tibetan text we find the basic vocabulary for the two things involved in the text-generation process for making those lengthy repetition passages found in all the longer versions of the <i>Wisdom Scriptures</i>: first the enumeration or just the ‘list,’ and secondly the ‘repetition statements.’</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I don’t want to say that Lhari Nyenpo was the first to use the term <i>drekang</i> without qualifying the statement. It’s easy to check this by doing first an exact and then a fuzzy search in the <a href="http://www.rkts.org/" target="_blank">Kanjur and Tanjur database from Vienna</a>. Doing so establishes that the term appears only once as such in the Kanjur and Tanjur, and this is in a work by the Kashmir Buddhist master Dharmaśrī. We don’t know much about him, just that he came to Tibet as a student accompanying the Indian Buddhist master Vajrapāṇi, b. 1017 (<i>Blue Annals</i>, p. 859), which does help verify the 11th-century date for him and his Tibetan co-translator Ba-reg Lotsāwa. Dharmaśrī wrote nothing other than these two interesting <i>Prajñāpāramitā</i> commentarial works, the one in question here (the second one listed just below) being on the <i>Hundred Thousand</i>. It’s quite a significant passage that deserves more attention, just not right now.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"> —<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Prajñāpāramitākośatāla (<i>Shes-rab-kyi Pha-rol-tu Phyin-pa’i Mdzod-kyi Lde-mig</i>). Tôhoku no. 3806. Dergé Tanjur, vol. DA, folios 228r.4-235r.7. Translated by Ba-rig (i.e. Ba-reg).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"> —<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Śatasāhasrikāvyākhyā (<i>Stong-phrag Brgya-pa’i Rnam-par Bshad-pa</i>). Tôhoku no. 3802. Dergé Tanjur, vol. TA, folios 204r.3-270r.7. Authorship given with a question mark.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">An exact search finds nothing else in the Tanjur. Still, if we do a fuzzy search for the phrase <i>grangs ’gres </i>(a contraction of the longer phrase <i>grangs dang ’gres rkang</i>) as we find in Lhari Nyenpo’s text, we do find significant passages that are in the same semantic ballpark. Enough of that.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’ve finished giving my conclusions, as far as I’m going to give any today, but I do want to end with a quick tour of the Chos literature on <i>drekang</i>. That way I hope you will be able to take away with you a memory of the word <i>drekang</i> and the idea that it is one mechanical memory tool among still others in the toolboxes of ritual reciters intending to generate a consciousness of the unstable, ineffable, insubstantial, relative, interdependent, interconnected, unreifiable, unquantifiable, insubstantial and indeed empty nature of all dharmas both sangsaric and nirvanic. This tool went right on working from somewhere during the half millennium of orality through two millennia of book culture until today. And today we don’t know where we are unless (because?) we’re in front of a screen, almost as if <i>Fahrenheit 451</i> has come true a few centuries earlier than its author predicted.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: georgia;">§ § §</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Appendix on the Most Relevant Tibetan Literature</span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Continue only if you are interested in [1] later literature relevant to the earliest Tibetan translations of <i>Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred Thousand Lines</i> and [2] the Gelugpa literature about <i>drekang</i>. I’ll ask whoever doesn’t find the subject compelling to go find something better to read.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPyasTcgu_80f-WCBu7A1IwJj1CvJxA7ZbgQJJ0q--X5UVeVZmfm81e3FyUFN8HdbJouBacDEYPmYWWrE7W1v7Lzf6J7gOJcuaoQsaMs7lGNmTHTJFN4iN-4usLlT2gN22BqYCBvyv0DW0AqmGWwl67gZrCAxMJhjz_Ezsso7vtOb9cDk6oNs/s720/Slide25.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPyasTcgu_80f-WCBu7A1IwJj1CvJxA7ZbgQJJ0q--X5UVeVZmfm81e3FyUFN8HdbJouBacDEYPmYWWrE7W1v7Lzf6J7gOJcuaoQsaMs7lGNmTHTJFN4iN-4usLlT2gN22BqYCBvyv0DW0AqmGWwl67gZrCAxMJhjz_Ezsso7vtOb9cDk6oNs/w400-h225/Slide25.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I may have been first to introduce this Rongtön text to the academic world when I spoke of it in my 1991 dissertation (on basis of a 1985 Indian reprint), and since then nobody mentions it. That is not only odd but a pity since it has to be crucial for anyone interested in the <i>Wisdom Scriptures</i> in their Tibetan forms, but also for the history of textual criticism or ‘philology’ as a Tibetan practice and, needless to say Manuscriptology. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Even if I won’t make much hay out of it, Rongtön was educated as a Bönpo in the far eastern end of the high plateau until age 18 when he was sent to study in Central Tibet. He would in his later years become one of the most prominent Tibetan intellectuals, as a member of the Sakya School, basing himself in a monastery in Penpo (འཕན་པོ་) Valley north of Lhasa. Modern-day Bönpos regard him with much respect.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In his text Rongtön identified five different text-historical levels in the translations of the <i>Hundred Thousand</i>, some of them preserved in manuscripts kept in specific places. He names no less than 65 locations where named and/or described manuscripts could be found. And he distinguishes them for us by identifying their different numbers of chapters, among other things.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1dNe-tDsIZaiA3X-KN3dX-EgxOWdXE3GQmY3eoWwlYZFuFxyluczJNgZ6sW0mHB54jHDVkU0BRZX0Qslp_r-mw6-iK4FO6QQGWvPPfjaKz3x6ppjr7Rm_5h7Zl5BPDesso5fQZu1XCinif_O7gwvUFiYdv4hUjC1sE7VjII-AZniH2dHgOq0/s720/Slide26.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1dNe-tDsIZaiA3X-KN3dX-EgxOWdXE3GQmY3eoWwlYZFuFxyluczJNgZ6sW0mHB54jHDVkU0BRZX0Qslp_r-mw6-iK4FO6QQGWvPPfjaKz3x6ppjr7Rm_5h7Zl5BPDesso5fQZu1XCinif_O7gwvUFiYdv4hUjC1sE7VjII-AZniH2dHgOq0/w400-h225/Slide26.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next text I stumbled upon, quite recently, in one of those enormous sets of early Kadampa works compiled and reprinted in recent years by the Peltsek group in Lhasa. It was written at an unknown date by a person I haven’t positively identified yet, but I think it may be as old as Rongtön’s text, or even a century or two older. It was, if you can read the small cursive letters on the slide, specifically written because of the need to edit the Tibetan text of the <i>Hundred Thousand</i>. For most of it the author goes chapter by chapter reporting to us about specific additions and omissions that characterize particular existing manuscripts. Believe it or not, he says he consulted with no fewer than 184 old examples of the <i>Hundred Thousand</i>. What comes next is still more amazing to hear if you are a Tibetan manuscriptologist: He says that the birchbark manuscript lists 160 Samādhis, while the others have no more than 119, and some as few as 12 or 21. Who imagined there might have been birchbark manuscripts of the <i>Hundred Thousand</i> in Tibetan? We do know of birchbarks with Tibetan on them, but only short <i>dhāraṇī</i>s enclosed in imperial era images as part of their consecration rites. Well, there is that seemingly exceptional bound codice made of birchbark that was displayed (and may still be displayed) in the modern Tibet Museum in Lhasa, but it's in Sanskrit written in an Indic script.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Anyway... It shares similar aims with Rongtön’s, uses similar editorial vocabulary including <i>drekang</i> and related terms. And perhaps most intriguing for us, this text, too, mentions the <i>Hundred Thousand</i> manuscript once kept at the Imperial period Karchung Temple. This is the one I mentioned before, the one that survived a fire to be rediscovered in the 21st century. Just look at p. 382, where it is discussing a section of a repetition statement in the <i>bam-po</i> section no. 10 that is missing in some examples. It then says we can know this because "it is actually to be found in other examples such as the <i>Hundred Thousand</i> manuscript that was not burned in the fire at Karchung."*</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: small; text-align: left;"></span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">(*Kawa, in his article, says this should be the one known elsewhere as </span><i style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">Sbug-’bum</i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">, that would have had four volumes only. But Rongtön calls this Karchung set the </span><i style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">Yugs-’bum</i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">, and says it has six parts (</span><i style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">dum-bu),</i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"> listing it among 17 then-existing examples of medium-lengthed imperial translations, all of them in either four or six parts.)</span></span></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gelugpa literature about <i>drekang:</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIFyrv_JV12WSzSGfR9sZLRVrDXk0LDWNmkdhLcAPDMzsBGf-QfNoLxNAUFTjDT61sX4AxjYEDjLpLWANhX426ZzCBNA-x2RDXrmV9pKRI62_BfK4GLbiSl0_jJsXjVidkFsh80NQXnpZib5EO7GvXBRNTuHxNghSEXThHm3iq4rPvUw4iK-I/s720/Slide27.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIFyrv_JV12WSzSGfR9sZLRVrDXk0LDWNmkdhLcAPDMzsBGf-QfNoLxNAUFTjDT61sX4AxjYEDjLpLWANhX426ZzCBNA-x2RDXrmV9pKRI62_BfK4GLbiSl0_jJsXjVidkFsh80NQXnpZib5EO7GvXBRNTuHxNghSEXThHm3iq4rPvUw4iK-I/w400-h225/Slide27.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This one is written by the famous regent ruler of Tibet at the end of the 17th century. This may be the earliest in the series of Gelukpa authored <i>drekang</i> texts, but unfortunately it hasn’t come down to us. It may have been 71 folios in length, which would make it by far the longest one I’ve known about. I don’t know why Gelukpas took over discussions on this topic, but the fact is they did, so to cap things off, I will run through the list of them attempting to put them in chronological order. All five of them are available, and for most part extremely short. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOh6lxZYC7CpXrFpwoPwZODXZCy_lTNVGAIKMlurq5v2QJ1FdlqnphPufN7vQwI2MRm4KlatNHu2pFmpVSVRJT5lNzjaX4ovqmOLm6YucDnZnVZPfVbCRNeohFirJ-dEKBwEwM4fRPNj6vex7EIUYeSM5PkVHCAnHyZ-cLUyvhjWUb4-34Kf0/s720/Slide28.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOh6lxZYC7CpXrFpwoPwZODXZCy_lTNVGAIKMlurq5v2QJ1FdlqnphPufN7vQwI2MRm4KlatNHu2pFmpVSVRJT5lNzjaX4ovqmOLm6YucDnZnVZPfVbCRNeohFirJ-dEKBwEwM4fRPNj6vex7EIUYeSM5PkVHCAnHyZ-cLUyvhjWUb4-34Kf0/w400-h225/Slide28.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This one by a very famous incarnate Lama of Amdo tells us at the end that it is extracted from Rongtön’s work (and only a very small part of it, too, since about all we have here is the list of sangsaric and nirvanic dharmas).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA7CD9UvXFC9sH5GeTZZmPCqtIIPj4Qdc0rhvsEkPi8WnTpYpZfk2uosTJEeActVrJ0AL9CSPUFvftj22qGDQPDEgHJ1fcjhhXW0760DBN4zxlfeJ3-lSbTUGVT0TCkE6DsC0DzmiRjWO1wkkS7hqfFFqm3eZSiQkrOwl28lgQbJOB8lJdYMw/s720/Slide29.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA7CD9UvXFC9sH5GeTZZmPCqtIIPj4Qdc0rhvsEkPi8WnTpYpZfk2uosTJEeActVrJ0AL9CSPUFvftj22qGDQPDEgHJ1fcjhhXW0760DBN4zxlfeJ3-lSbTUGVT0TCkE6DsC0DzmiRjWO1wkkS7hqfFFqm3eZSiQkrOwl28lgQbJOB8lJdYMw/w400-h225/Slide29.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I still haven’t studied this one closely, but I hope to. It is relatively long and written in a clear style.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhubXNCFupeaH046Le8jmr_dKDT72fc7hif_3Tqcttdd0GJGNFeBVd_2YPqUnGYouZ1c97cUKEJ6v1z4CQbFbvMO33Ovfmw6cW9Ds5CBwVph_kq8JzcyjUSqBxeqqvAmN0_NvqzLa2A_k6ilhFUC9DxMQlKysxwKjQftM8STi7ho80szB3qwKY/s720/Slide30.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhubXNCFupeaH046Le8jmr_dKDT72fc7hif_3Tqcttdd0GJGNFeBVd_2YPqUnGYouZ1c97cUKEJ6v1z4CQbFbvMO33Ovfmw6cW9Ds5CBwVph_kq8JzcyjUSqBxeqqvAmN0_NvqzLa2A_k6ilhFUC9DxMQlKysxwKjQftM8STi7ho80szB3qwKY/w400-h225/Slide30.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Here you see the one by Longdol Lama. Back before the 1970s people locked in universities throughout most of the world used to quote Longdol Lama a lot, since his <i>Collected Works</i> was likely to be the only such set available to them. Now we have thousands of them.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">These last two belong to the 20th century:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY4rpQDT3ichfQFme2i6bVY2o5HbD_ho0Vf_u4huNSxttOmem2DRWuwW2Ptc3p7j4pfGFjZsGBUCubrT67tKUMhR7vPOLOqq6A9tFQDJjV79Y4xJcu8wwHTzleHLsZmXUPO4cYxjtp_0IQPVt-aYXg2cC82Kj6yw7ZvH9Ev2t9n-hSQ11Niq0/s720/Slide31.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY4rpQDT3ichfQFme2i6bVY2o5HbD_ho0Vf_u4huNSxttOmem2DRWuwW2Ptc3p7j4pfGFjZsGBUCubrT67tKUMhR7vPOLOqq6A9tFQDJjV79Y4xJcu8wwHTzleHLsZmXUPO4cYxjtp_0IQPVt-aYXg2cC82Kj6yw7ZvH9Ev2t9n-hSQ11Niq0/w400-h225/Slide31.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicIZf_GYXRrxz8eGGmx6Mk_Iaz8TXCqWgbmrPRUYYsqCb6SOk26g-2zh8PPqgEv8c6LulHPUIH-p254o9ZaZqdGbQs91N-PFfWLWxg4VnwjpZH-Cs6erNXZCec25w3ACUL9uA5z1neyj5DKXyc_puPzcVVvKCeKwFnHWYpyOBwu4HLmgiDlEk/s720/Slide32.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicIZf_GYXRrxz8eGGmx6Mk_Iaz8TXCqWgbmrPRUYYsqCb6SOk26g-2zh8PPqgEv8c6LulHPUIH-p254o9ZaZqdGbQs91N-PFfWLWxg4VnwjpZH-Cs6erNXZCec25w3ACUL9uA5z1neyj5DKXyc_puPzcVVvKCeKwFnHWYpyOBwu4HLmgiDlEk/w400-h225/Slide32.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgvz8o01S-Ow4mw8B9DdKhZZKvNKXpoBVcb17cNVEK3pdwlATHzjNGxNPAvUR_Q6rV1jdkLld-dLjB92BJVjtndAsbPe6jE5iPQ6FEbNA-CY0RlNlr8BxldRlVKg4T-BC2_YaGBpFN6asFMXwVA03oQnuYYWt0FtxQoi9DunF__-qNeiXmogo/s640/Black%20whiplash%20divider.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="190" data-original-width="640" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgvz8o01S-Ow4mw8B9DdKhZZKvNKXpoBVcb17cNVEK3pdwlATHzjNGxNPAvUR_Q6rV1jdkLld-dLjB92BJVjtndAsbPe6jE5iPQ6FEbNA-CY0RlNlr8BxldRlVKg4T-BC2_YaGBpFN6asFMXwVA03oQnuYYWt0FtxQoi9DunF__-qNeiXmogo/w198-h58/Black%20whiplash%20divider.jpeg" width="198" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p></span><h4><span style="font-family: georgia;">Some, not all, of the works mentioned or not mentioned</span></h4><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><blockquote style="text-align: justify;">Note: For an overview of <i>Wisdom Scriptures</i> of the non-Bön kinds and studies based on them, you could read Conze’s 1978 monograph on the subject, or even better, start with Apple’s essay and then move on to Zacchetti’s, at least its first parts.</blockquote></span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Mark <b>Allon</b>, <i>Style and Function: A Study of the Dominant Stylistic Features of the Prose Portions of Pali Canonical Sutta Texts and their Mnemonic Function</i>, International Institute for Buddhist Studies (Tokyo 1997).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Mark Allon, <i>The Composition and Transmission of Early Buddhist Texts with Specific Reference to Sutras</i>, Hamburg Buddhist Studies no. 17, Projekt Verlag (Bochum 2021).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">James B. <b>Apple</b>, “</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/2249249/Praj%C3%B1%C4%81p%C4%81ramit%C4%81" target="_blank">Prajñāpāramitā</a>,” a 20-page entry in Arvind Sharma’s <i>Encyclopedia of Indian Religions</i>, a pre-published draft from a book that was supposed to appear in the spring of 2015. The book did appear in print in 2019, but the price of purchase plus mailing is beyond the budgets of 99% of us humans. With BookDepository (long bought out by Amazon) with its free mailing shutting down later this month, book lovers of the whole world will be tightly squeezed in the vices of Amazon/DHL until their nefarious plan to shut down book culture altogether is achieved (I’m guessing sometime next year if not already).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bhikkhu <b>Anālayo</b>, <i>Early Buddhist Oral Tradition: Textual Formation and Transmission</i>, Wisdom Publications (Somerville 2022).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bhikkhu Anālayo, “Early Buddhist Orality and Challenges of Memory,” an oral presentation for the International Association of Buddhist Studies (Seoul, August 2022). <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0nGYJd89RI&ab_channel=%C4%80gamaResearchGroup" target="_blank">Look here</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ray <b>Bradbury</b>, “<a href="https://www.openculture.com/2017/08/ray-bradbury-reveals-the-true-meaning-of-fahrenheit-451.html" target="_blank">Ray Bradbury Reveals the True Meaning of <i>Fahrenheit 451</i>: It’s Not about Censorship, but People Being Turned into Morons by TV</a>,” an entry at the website <i>Open Culture </i>(August 10th, 2017). The book bannings by the Florida governor deSantis in recent weeks can be brought into this discussion. Perhaps Bradbury is right in saying that teachers and librarians, if they tacitly resist by just putting those books back on the shelves, will win over tyranny in the end.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Edward <b>Conze</b><i>, </i><i>The </i></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Prajñāpāramitā Literature</i>, The Reiyukai (Tokyo 1978). I recall that Conze once mentioned the title of the <i>Eight Elements</i> scripture of Bön, but with nothing further to say about it. I suppose it may have been in this book. Anyway, it isn’t all that important.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Ding</b> Yi, “‘By the Power of the Perfection of Wisdom’: The ‘Sūtra-Rotation’ Liturgy of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā at Dunhuang,’ <i>Journal of the American Oriental Society</i>, vol. 139, no. 3 (July 2019), pp. 661-679. There are interesting passages in Chinese that can be used to draw a picture of Dunhuang Buddhist recitation rituals. Incidentally, on p. 663 are some important references to Tibetan-language Imperial <i>Hundred Thousand</i> (<i>Bla-’bum</i>) manuscripts</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Brandon <b>Dotson</b>, “Failed Prototypes: Foliation and Numbering in Ninth-Century Tibetan Śatasāhasrikā-Prajñāpāramitā-Sūtras,” <i>Journal Asiatique</i>, vol. 303, no. 1 (2015), pp. 153-164. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">David <b>Drewes</b>, “Dharmabhāṇakas in Early Mah</span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">ā</span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">y</span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">ā</span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">na,” </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Indo-Iranian Journal</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, vol. 54 (2011), pp. 331-372.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">David Drewes, <i>Mah</i></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>ā</i></span></span><i style="font-family: georgia;">y</i><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>ā</i></span></span><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">na Sūtras and Their Preachers: Rethinking the Nature of a Religious Tradition</span></i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, doctoral dissertation, University of Virginia (2006). Not seen.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Franz-Karl <b>Ehrhard</b>, “In Search of the bKa' 'gyur lung: The Accounts of the Fifth Dalai Lama and His Teachers,” contained in: Volker Caumanns et al., eds., <i>Gateways to Tibetan Studies: A Collection of Essays in Honour of David P. Jackson on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday</i>, Indian and Tibetan Studies no. 12.1, Department of Indian and Tibetan Studies, Universität Hamburg (2021), vol. 1, pp. 205-232. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Charlotte <b>Eubanks</b>, “Voice as Talisman: Theorising Sound in Medieval Japanese Treatises on the Musical Art of Sutra Chanting,” <i>Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies</i>, online journal (2023), in 27 pages.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Furusaka</b> Koichi, “Adhimukti and Sūtra-Recitation of the <i>Aṣṭasāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā</i>,” contained in: ICEBS editorial board, ed., E</span><i style="font-family: georgia;">soteric Buddhist Studies: Identity in Diversity</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, Koyasan University (Koyasan 2008), pp. 267-271.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Natalie D. <b>Gummer</b>, “Listening to the <i>Dharmabhāṇaka</i>: The Buddhist Preacher in and of the <i>Sūtra of Utmost Golden Radiance</i>,” </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Journal of the American Academy of Religion</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, vol. 80, no. 1 (March 2012), pp. 137-160.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">———, “The Senses of Performance and the Performance of the Senses: The Case of the Dharmabhāṇaka’s Body,” <i>Journal of Indian Philosophy</i> (2022). Not yet seen.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Kazushi <b>Iwao</b>, “On the Roll-Type Tibetan <i>Śatasāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā Sūtra</i> from Dunhuang,” contained in: B. Dotson et al., eds., <i>Scribes, Texts and Rituals in Early Tibet and Dunhuang</i>, Ludwig Reichert (Wiesbaden 2013), pp 111-119. Among other matters, this shows that very early Tibetan versions of the <i>Hundred Thousand</i> could be brought to the Dunhuang area from Central Tibet for copying purposes.</span><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Kawa</b> Sherab Zangpo (སྐ་བ་ཤེས་རབ་བཟང་པོ་), “Comments on Emperor Khri lde srong btsan’s <i>Bla ’bum</i>” (བཙན་པོ་ཁྲི་ལྡེ་སྲོང་བཙན་གྱི་ཐུགས་དམ་བླ་འབུམ་སྐོར་ངོ་སྤྲོད་ཞུ་བ་), contained in: Hildegard Diemberger and Karma Phuntsho, <i>Ancient Treasures, New Discoveries</i>, International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (Halle 2009), pp. 55-72. This Tibetan-language essay is supplied with a relatively long resumé in English.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Jinah <b>Kim</b>, “Iconography and Text: The Visual Narrative of the Buddhist Book-Cult in the Manuscript of the Ashṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra,” contained in: Arundhati Banerji & Devangana Desai, eds., </span><span style="color: #1e1e1e; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia;"><i>Kalādarpaṇa: The Mirror of Indian Art</i>, Aryan International (New Delhi 2008), pp. 250-268. <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/jkim/publications/iconography-and-text-visual-narrative-buddhist-book-cult-manuscript" target="_blank">Find it here</a>.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Marcelle <b>Lalou</b>, “La version tibétaine des <i>Prajñāpāramitā</i>,” <i>Journal Asiatique</i>, (July-September 1929), pp. 87-102.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">———, “Les manuscrits tibétaines des Grandes Prajñāpāramitā trouvés à Touen-Houang,” contained in: <i>Silver Jubilee Volume of the Zinbun-Kagaku-Kenkusyo</i>, Kyoto University (Kyoto 1954), pp. 257-261.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">———, “Les plus anciens rouleaux tibétains trouvés à Touen-houang,” <i>Rocznik Orientalistyczny</i>, vol. 21 (1957), pp. 149-152.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">———, “Manuscrits tibétains de la <i>Śatasāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā</i> cachés à Touen-houang,” <i>Journal Asiatique</i>, vol. 252, fasc. 4 (1964), pp. 479-486.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Lewis <b>Lancaster</b>, “<a href="https://www.academia.edu/10361614/The_Oldest_Mahayana_Sutra_Its_Significance_for_the_Study_of_Buddhist_Development" target="_blank">The Oldest Mahāyāna Sūtra: Its Significance for the Study of Buddhist Development</a>,” <i>Eastern Buddhist</i>, n.s. vol. 8, no. 1 (May 1975), pp. 30-41. Here the author summarizes in an accessible way his doctoral research drawing on the evidence of early Chinese translations.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sylvain <b>Lévi</b>, “Sur la récitation primitive des textes bouddhiques,” <i>Journal Asiatique</i> (May-June 1915), pp. 401-447.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sodo <b>Mori</b>, “The Origin and the History of the Bhānaka Tradition,” </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">contained in: <i>Ananda: Papers on Buddhism and Indology a Felicitation Volume Presented to Ananda Weihena Palliya Guruge on his Sixtieth Birthday</i> (Colombo 1990), pp. 108-111.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Richard F. <b>Nance</b>, “Indian Buddhist Preachers Inside and Outside the Sūtras,” <i>Religion Compass</i>, vol. 2 (2008), pp. 1-26.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ryan Richard <b>Overbey</b>, <i>Memory, Rhetoric, and Education in the Great Lamp of the Dharma Dhāraṇī Scripture</i>, PhD dissertation, Harvard University (Cambridge 2010). I’ve just found out I could access this, so I’ll have to let you know what I find in it another time. It’s unbearably rich, and ought to be a book already.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gemma </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Perry</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">, Vince Polito, Narayan Sankaran, & William Forde Thompson, “How Chanting Relates to Cognitive Function, Altered States, and Quality of Life,” <i>Brain Sciences</i>, vol. 12 (2022), in 22 pages. “</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Chanting has been found to decrease stress and depressive symptoms, increase </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">focused attention, increase social cohesion, and induce mystical experiences.” Excited scientists think they have discovered something the humanists regard as very old news. Nothing new in that.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gemma Perry, Vince Polito, & William Forde Thompson, “Rhythmic Chanting and Mystical States across Traditions,” <i>Brain Sciences</i>, vol. 11 (2021), in 17 pages. Both articles are offered as an alternative view for all those who dismiss recitation and chanting as simply boring and to no good effect. I have no idea if early Buddhist scripture recitations were ‘monotonous’ or not. I prefer the idea that they were in some degree melodious, delivered by persons with mellifluous voices, who would tend to draw out syllables for emphasis, perhaps with still other performative techniques. Sylvain Lévi long ago showed how Buddha distanced the chanting of his monks from Vedic chanting by making it different. I think more recent chanting traditions such as Shingon’s <i>shômyô</i> are worth looking into, since a more recent chanting tradition could awaken us to a larger realm of possibilities (see the essay by Eubanks). We might miss out by over-presuming primeval monotones.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Richard <b>Salomon</b>, <i>Indian Epigraphy</i>, Oxford University Press (Oxford 1998).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Eviatar <b>Shulman</b>, “The Play of Formulas in the Early Buddhist Discourses,” <i>Journal of Indian Philosophy</i>, vol. 50 (2022), pp. 557-580. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">For an oral presentation with a nearly identical title, delivered at Center for Buddhist Studies (Berkeley, June 2021), <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXCfEjz_uh4&ab_channel=NumataCenterforBuddhistStudies%2CUCBerkeley" target="_blank">go here</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">———, “Orality and Creativity in Early Buddhist Discourses: Stock Formulas as an Aspect of the Oral Textual Culture of Early Buddhism,” contained in: Natalie Gummer, ed., <i>The Language of the Sutras</i>, Mangalam Press (Berkeley 2021), pp. 187-230.</span></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Peter <b>Skilling</b>, “Redaction, Recitation, and Writing: Transmission of the Buddha’s Teaching in India in the Early Period,” contained in: Stephen C. Berkwitz, Juliane Schober and Claudia Brown, eds., <i>Buddhist Manuscript Cultures: Knowledge, Ritual, and Art</i>, Routledge (London 2009), pp. 53-75.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">David <b>Snellgrove</b>, <i>Himalayan Pilgrimage: A Study of Tibetan Religion by a Traveller through Western Nepal</i>, Prajñâ Press (Boulder 1981).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Stefano <b>Zacchetti</b>, “</span><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">Prajñāpāramitā S</span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">ū</span></span></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>tra</i>s,” an entry in Jonathan Silk, ed., </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhist Online</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, about 65 pages in length, available through a subscribing institution. The author’s treatment of intertextual relations and chronology is more up to date than Conze’s, often emphasizing the ”fluid nature” of these scriptures. In the section entitled “The Larger </span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Prajñāpāramitā</i> Subfamily” is an attempt to account for the “endless repetitions” of the <i>Larger </i></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Prajñāpāramitās, </i>but also the dynamism of the texts as “breathing living entities.” And he finally spares some words on their “performative nature.” Even more intriguingly for myself, he speaks of a “textual generative principle.” Indeed, we can imagine that to some degree the texts are forming and evolving as part of the recitation practice. Not so much in evidence is the often assumed opposite: the practice being commanded, authorized or sanctified by the text. But of course that’s there, too.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">— — —</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small; text-align: center;"><b>Note</b>: This is a revised version of a presentation given in Hamburg in March 2023. It might be regarded as a preliminary draft of a forthcoming paper, nothing can be certain.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: center;"><b>Another note</b>: If news of early birchbark manuscripts preserved in Tibet leaves you in shock or disbelief, two different ones are illustrated in the five-volume set <i>Precious Deposits</i>, Morning Glory Publishers (Beijing 2000), vol. 1, pp. 113-116, 144-145. Both are Sanskrit language and written in an Indic script. A birchbark version of one of the <i>Larger </i></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Prajñāpāramitā</i>s was found in Gilgit and dated to the 6th or 7th centuries (also in Sanskrit), but it was preserved in what is now Pakistan, not in Tibet. More examples could be given with a little more research.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span style="text-align: center;"><b>Still another note</b>: Practically all the </span><i>Prajñāpāramitā </i>scriptures were translated long ago by Edward Conze. At the moment the 84000 Project is pushing to place in our hands a complete translation of the entire set of them over the next six years. Unlike Conze, they will translate every last word without abridging. 84000 has already put up one work that absolutely bedazzles me — <a href="https://read.84000.co/translation/toh3808.html" target="_blank">Gareth Sparham’s translation of the gigantic Daṃṣṭrasena (Mche-ba'i-sde) commentary</a>. It covers the <i>Large </i></span><i style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Prajñāpāramitā</i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #990000;">s, the 100,00, the 25,000, and the 18,000.</span><i style="color: #990000;"> </i><span style="color: #990000;">The reference to the Tibetan version of it is:</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhr9woIbGYIDf9ONO9aHUbY99Z8wkEKKSPvSu7tj0C1fmcGSlskwyvfuu0zHtbpNy5bugzR_yxT4s3RMt8XI1M8PYoJ0-sOdGMgSxHVzPtRr4VqXaLHpNfzAuKFXZ7LUzi9l-LxMHf__IyvLeWmdIDYm0RZM61LLg-UnO1f3PxKDxQwQlOsWbg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="128" data-original-width="936" height="55" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhr9woIbGYIDf9ONO9aHUbY99Z8wkEKKSPvSu7tj0C1fmcGSlskwyvfuu0zHtbpNy5bugzR_yxT4s3RMt8XI1M8PYoJ0-sOdGMgSxHVzPtRr4VqXaLHpNfzAuKFXZ7LUzi9l-LxMHf__IyvLeWmdIDYm0RZM61LLg-UnO1f3PxKDxQwQlOsWbg=w400-h55" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #990000;">And if you are in the New World on April 23, you ought to hear Gareth Sparham’s Zoom presentation entitled </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_y5UP3IKxY&ab_channel=KhyentseFoundation" target="_blank">A Brief History of, and Introduction to, the Śatasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā (“The Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred Thousand Lines”)</a><span style="color: #990000;">. If you are in the Old World, don’t lose any sleep over it, as I imagine they will put it up on Vimeo or YouTube, no worries, just wait for it.</span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">§ § §</span></div><br /><br /></div><div><b>Appendix</b>:</div><div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">All Three of Lhari Nyenpo’s <i>Eight Elements</i> Compositions Transcribed</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Source: <i>Khams-brgyad Stong-phrag Brgya-pa: Bonpo Prajñāpāramitā Text revealed by Gshen-chen Klu-dga’</i>, “from a rare manuscript collection from Klu-brag Monastery in Mustang (Nepal),” Tibetan Bonpo Monastic Centre (Dolanji 1975), in 16 vols., at vol. 1:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[1] gshen rgyal 'bro ba'i bla mar phyag 'tshal lo //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">'dir g.yung drung bon gyi bstan pa'i snying po / bde bar gshegs pa'i gsung / theg pa chen po yum gyi don zab mo stong pa nyid dang mngon par rtogs pa lam gyi rim pa bcas brjod byar ston pa'i 'bum 'di nyid rdzogs pa'i sangs rgyas gshen rab mi bo kun las rnam par rgyal ba de nyid kyis phun sum tshogs pa'i gnas brgyad du bzhugs te gsungs pa'i tshul ni zhu 'khor gshen brgyad kyis mchod pa'i rdzas brgyad phul nas / khams chen po brgyad gsungs par gsol ba btab / bka' yi bsdu ba rim pa gnyis su [2] mdzad pa'i dang po gsas khang dkar nag bkra gsal du ston pa sangs rgyas kyis thabs kyi sangs po 'bum khri dang shes rab kyi phul ston pa gshen rab zung du sbrel nas gsung rab rnams rin po che sna lnga'i glegs bam du sbams te rjes bzhag mdzad / </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">gnyis pa ni ston pa mya ngan 'das 'og tu bsdu 'khor g.yung drung sems dpa' bcu gsum gyis bsdus te mdzad / de rjes gdung 'tshob ston pa mu cho ldem drug phebs te gsung rab thams cad mdo 'bum rgyud mdzod sde bzhi ru phyes / lha klu mi gsum gyi slob ma bsam gyis mi khyab pa bskyangs / de dag las mchog tu gyur pa 'dzam bu gling gi rgyan du gyur pa drug byung / de rnams [3] kyis skad gnyis shan sbyar nas rang rang gi yul du bsgyur te g.yung drung bon gyi 'khor lo bskor nas sems can bsam gyis mi khyab pa smin grol la bkod do /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">gzhan yang gdung 'tshob chen po dang rgyan drug bcas pa'i slob mar gyur pa grub pa'i rig 'dzin lha gshen yongs su dag pa / rgyal gshen mi lus bsam legs / klu grub ye shes snying po dang bcas pas 'bum sde 'di rnams kyi tshig don la rab dbang thob par mdzad cing bzhugs pa de rnams kyi zhabs la gtugs pa'i slob ma rgyal gshen gyi gdung brgyud 'dzin pa'i skyes mchog nam mkha' snang ba mdog can gyis gzhung 'di dag la sgro 'dogs chod par mdzad / bla ma 'di bod [4] rgyal gnya' khri btsan po dang / mu khri btsad po yab sras gnyis kyi mchod gnas su bzhugs / mu khris zhang zhung gi yul nas mkhas la brgya rtsa gdan drangs te bod du bon sde bzhi bcu rtsa lnga btsug / khyad par du bla na med pa'i bon sde rnams bod du dar te / lta ba bla med / theg pa bla med / spyod pa bla med / 'bras bu bla med / don dam bla med rnams so //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">de rnams kyi sngon du rgyal po gnya' khri'i dus su bod du dar ba'i rgyu yi bon shes pa can bcu gnyis dang 'di rnams bod rgyal gnam gyi khri rabs bdun pa gri gum gyi bar du dar rgyas su yod cing / rgyal po de'i blo la gdon zhugs nas ru bzhi bod kyi sa skor du rgyu yi bon kha shas ma gtogs [5] pa phal cher bsnubs / de'i dus su rgyal po bka' btsan nas bon gshen rnams bod yul ru bzhi la bzhugs pa'i dbang ma byung ste rang thob kyi bon sde dang bcas bod kyi phyi mthar gshegs dgos pa byung bas / de'i skabs slob dpon stong rgyung mthu chen sogs mkhas pa mi bzhi lho dam sgro nag po zhes lho 'brug gi sa char bstan pa spel bar dgongs te gshegs pas bod kyi mgur lha dang brtan ma sogs ma dgyes te kha bas lam bgags nas gnas su gshegs ma grub pas bon rnams lam bar gyi mtsho rnga'i brag ka ru na sbas so //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">phyi nas gshen bstan rin po che dar ba'i dus la babs tshe pan grub [6] gong mas byin gyis brlabs pa'i skyes mchog sprul pa'i sku gshen chen klu dga' de nyid kyis 'brig mtshams mtha' dkar nas gter zhal phyes pa'i bon sde du ma byung zhing / khyad par du khams brgyad gtan la phab pa'i 'bum dum pa bcu drug gi bdag nyid can 'di byung / gter shog las cog la g.yung drung skyid kyis bshus nas gshen chen klu dga' la tshar gcig phul de la BSE GLEG CAN zer / g.yung drung skyid khong rang gi ched du yang tshar gcig bzhengs par 'BUM DMAR grags / khams chen NAG PHRAN MA zhes snag tsha kho nas bris pa gter shog gi bu dpe de da lta'i bar du zhu ri zhing dgon du bzhugs /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[7] gshen gyi gter dpe dngos ni bla ma gshen zhing khams gzhan du gshegs skabs gshen sras rnam gnyis na lon tshe phyir 'bul bar byas te zhu g.yas legs po la bcol bas zhu yi gsung rab rnams dag pa'i khungs kyang byed pa'i srol yod / gter dpe las bshus pa'i dpe gsum tsam 'phel ba rnams rme'u lha ri gnyan pos bsdur nas dag bshar mdzad pa'i bar khyad rnams zin bris su bkod pa zur du yod pa bzhin no //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">gzhung 'di yis dngos bstan stong nyid kyi rim pa bstan pa dang sbas don mngon rtogs kyi rim pa bstan par mkhas pa rnams zhal mthun yang / stong nyid ni kha cig gis dbu ma rang [8] rgyud pa'i lta ba bstan pa yin par bzhed / kha cig gis dbu ma thal 'gyur gyi lta ba bstan par bzhed do //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">gzhan sde yum don 'chad pa po rnams kyis rdzogs chen yongs rtse'i lta ba la blo ma phyog pas phar phyin gzhung gis rdzogs chen gyi lta ba bstan par mi 'dod mod / rang sde'i yum don 'grel mdzad rnams kyang gzhan gyi zer sgros la ches zhen nas rang gi thun mong ma yin pa'i yum don dang / khyad par du rig pa'i khams nas bstan pa'i rang rig pa'i ye shes 'di ni ma bgos spyi la bzhag pa'i nor bu rin po che'o // zhes pa'i tshig rnams kyis bla med rdzogs pa chen po'i lta ba bstan [9] par ma 'grel bas gzhung don la thag 'gyangs su song ngam snyams //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">khams re re'i ched du bya ba'i gdul bya la ltos te khams re res lam gyi rim pa cha tshang du ston pa dang / khams brgyad kyis ched du bya ba'i gdul bya la ltos te khams brgyad kas lam rim cha tshang gcig tu ston pa sogs gdul bya la ltos nas bzhag pa yin par gsungs /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">kho na re 'di phar phyin gyi theg pa'i gzhung gi gtso bo yin pas sngags kyi lta ba ston par 'dod pa mi 'thad do zer na / rang lugs kyi mdo 'bum rgyud mdzod rnams kyis gzhi gtan la 'bebs skabs gzhi'i gnas lugs rang [10] byung ye shes tsam gtan la 'beb pa 'dra zhing de'i thabs kyi cha dang lta ba gtan la 'beb tshul lta ba rtogs tshul de nyams su len tshul sogs sgo gzhan mi 'dra ba du ma yod par bzhed /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">dper na za 'og gi gzhi sngo shas che zhing de la tshon dang ri mo mi 'dra ba'i rnam 'gyur ji snyed so so na bkra ba bzhin no zhes gsungs /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">gzhung 'dis rdzogs chen gyi lta ba gtan la phab na theg rim 'chol ba'i skyon med de / rdzogs chen gyi lta ba gzhung 'di'i brjod bya'i gtso bo byas nas ma bstan pa'i phyir dang / gong ma'i lta ba g.yar nas bstan pa'i phyir / zhes gsungs // dge'o //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">* * *</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[11] khams brgyad kyi phyi mo gtug pa'i dag yig bzhugs /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">sgo bzhi mdzod lnga'i bon la phyag 'tshal lo / bla 'bum dpe gsum la gtug pa'i ti ka / BSE KLAG CAN la skye mched kyi gzungs yongs yul du 'dug BLA 'BUM na med / g.yung drung sems dpa'i spyod pa la sogs srid pa'i 'brel la phal cher drug po chad / nag phran ma nas bam po le'u 'ong pa yo na mtshal gyi g.yung drung re yod / rten 'brel regs tshor gnyis chad pa bsab 'dug / BYA BRA MA la snang / srid pa de nas srid len 'byung ba bcos 'dug / yod ces bya ba la spyod na mtshan ma la spyod pa'i 'gres la NAG PHRAN na thar pa'i lam bzhi rnam grangs brkyang nas 'dug / BLA 'BUM na bon thams cad g.yi zhing rtsol spyod pa'i 'gres na stobs kyi bla med chad / NAG PHRAN MA nas snying rjer [12] song / 'khor 'gres tha ma rga shir thal / rga shi mnyam pa thugs rjes byin gyis brlabs / ye ma byung ma skyes skye ba med pa'i 'gres la mya ngan las 'das pa ma / NAG PHRAN la skye med gdod de bzhin nyid bya ba'i rkyang pa re yod / BLA 'BUM dang BSE KLAG CAN la med / khams brgyad kyi don mya ngan las 'das pa'i don 'dres tshar brgyad skyel ba dang / BSE KLAG CAN la dbyings sngon la 'ong / rig pa'i phyi na 'dug / BLA 'BUM na ma 'khrug skye ba med na rgyun khams kyi 'gres na mya ngan las 'das pa lnga lnga las med / BLA 'BUM la 'du byed dang lus kyi 'dus te regs pa BYA BRA MA la med / ma srid pa'i srid pa'i 'gres la / BLA 'BUM la thar pa'i lam brgyad kyang med BYA BRA MA la yod / [13] snang ba rin po che gshen gyi smon lam mi mgon rgyal po man chad med / sems dpa' gnyis brtsegs su yod / mtha' las 'das pa'i 'dres kyi mya ngan las 'das pa gnyis la chad / chen po stong pa'i 'gres la sogs pa'i lnga lnga chad do //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">dngos po med pa'i ngo bo nyid stong pa'i 'gres la BYA BRA MA la lce yi rnam par shes pa'ang chad / BLA 'BUM na yod rin po che yi 'gres la rgyun bzhugs yod / tshul khrims kyi le'u la ma rtog pa'i dbang gi zer / BLA 'BUM la ri rab kyi rtse nas kun 'debs pa la song pa'i dgu po chad / BYA BRA MA la yod / BYA BRA MA la gsad pa'i nang nas thu ba sems gsad pa tshar nas bzod par song / tshul khrims kyi 'gres bu thung chad / snang khams yo la rgyun bzhugs yod / [14] rnam dag 'gres la spyan gyi 'dabs par bya na 'dug / rnam par mi rtog pa'i khrus la chen po stong pa dang dam pa stong pa gnyis chad / BYA BRA MA la yod /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">stong pa'i 'gres la chad med yod / de bzhin nyid kyi snying po sgom pa la BLA 'BUM las dris tshigs med / ma 'ong mi 'gro 'gres la rang bzhin med pa stong pa nyid chad / BLA BRA MA la yod /nga rgyal gyi 'gres la mtshan ma med pa la 'jug la chad / BLA 'BUM la yod / rig pa'i khams la yang dag par rig pa'i khams la yod / dbyings khams kyi mu med pa sangs rgyas kyi 'gres la rnam par shes pa'i khams gcig yod / de yi thams cad BLA 'BUM la dngos po yod pa bsad gda' / de nas yang bsos nas 'dug / mnyam pa'i 'gres la 'khor ba dang mya ngan bya ba'i 'gres la thams cad phyed [15] zhes bya ba med pa'i 'gres la bla na med par phyin pa drug las med / BYA BRA MA la stong nyid bco brgyad tshar gcig la phyi mnyam pa nyid dang / nang mnyam pa nyid la sogs zer ro // phyi nang stong pa nyid la khyab pa chen po'i mnyam pa nyid dang zer ro // BLA 'BUM la stong pa rang du 'dug / stong pa nyid stong pa nyid khyab pa chen po'i mnyam pa nyid zer ro // mnyam pa nyid la phal cher du bla med drug 'dug / 'gres pa med / 'gres yo tshang / mnyam pa'i khams la 'du shes 'du byed gral nor yod / tha ma bcos pa'i le'u la bon nyid mi 'gyur ba'i le'u zer / </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">bon thams cad phyi nang gnyis su med par don la lhun gyis grub pa yan chad {KA} pa / [bam po bcu dgu pa'o /] </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">srid pa rdzogs pa {KHA} pa [bam po nyi shu rtsa gcig] [16] </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">nor bu rin po che mchod par byed pa yongs su mchod par byed pa yan chad {GA} pa / [bam po nyi shu /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">rin chen rdzogs pa {NGA} pa / [bam po nyi shu rtsa drug]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">snang ba shes rab rdzogs pa / {CA} pa / [bam po nyi shu rtsa bzhi /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">snang ba rdzogs po {CHA} pa / [bam po nyi shu rtsa drug /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">stong pa'i dbang po rdzogs pa / {JA} pa / [bam po nyi rtsa bzhi]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">stong pa rdzogs pa / {NYA} pa / [bam po nyi shu rtsa gnyis /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">so so zhe sdang gi ngo bo / {TA} pa / [bam po nyi shu rtsa gcig /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">so so rdzogs pa / {THA} pa / [bam po bcu dgu pa'o //]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">rig pa'i zhus pa / bla na med pa yang dag par rdzogs pa / ci yang 'gyur ba yan lag / {DA} [bam po nyi shu rtsa gnyis /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">'byams yas pa'i mdor rdzogs pa / {NA} [bam po nyi shu pa'o]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">ye shes kyi 'bras bu thob pa la sogs pa / {LA} [bam po nyi shu rtsa gsum pa'o /}</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">dbyings rdzogs pa / {PHA} [bam po nyi shu rtsa gsum pa'o /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">ngang dang rang bzhin gsum gyi [17] stong pa nyid las bcad pa / {BA} [bam po nyi shu rtsa drug]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">mnyam pa rdzogs pa / {MA} [bam po nyi shu rtsa lnga pa'o /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">khams chen po brgyad la / le'u brgyad cu gya gnyis / bam po sum brgya drug cu / glegs bam bcu drug du brdeb pa'i spyi don mdor bsdus pa'o / sprul sku lha ri gnyen pos phyi rabs don du mdzad pa 'dis kyang / rgyal ba'i bstan pa phyogs thams cad 'phel zhing rgyas par 'gro don dpag med 'grub par shog / bkra shis zhal dro byin che'o // //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">* * *</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[19] khams brgyad kyi zhu thig rnam dbye grangs su bkod pa bzhug //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">gshen rgyal zhabs la phyag 'tshal lo //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">sprul sku lha la skyabs su mchi // </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[mchan: 'khor ba mtha' yas pas phyag tu phul lo / ring ba'i rgyu ni sngon gyi sprul sku ste nye ba'i rgyu ni khro tshangs pa'i sprul sku'o //]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">khams brgyad gtan la phabs pa'i 'bum / spyi dang khams gnas yul / zhu ba zhu don gzhi rtse gling / le'u bam po la 'dris rgya / ming tshig shad sdom stong phrag grangs / ston pa yon tan ma lus rdzogs / sku yi che ba nyer gcig dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[mchan: bya ba byed pa byas pa sogs 'gro ba sems can gyi don mthar phyin par mdzad pa'i slad du spyi bo'i gtsug nas zhabs kyi mthil du ma yan chad du'o / khyab pa chen po ston pa'i rang bzhin du mkhyen pa'i sogs / zer stong phrag grangs med pa ye shes sems dpa' rigs dur 'khor /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">'od zer 'bum phrag grangs med spros / mkhyen pa'i ye shes drug bcur lan / srid pa rin chen rgyun snang ba stong pa so sor rig pa dang / dbyings nyid</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[mchan: srid skal snang stong pa rig dbyings mnyams khams ces so /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[20] mnyam pa'i khams brgyad do //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">yul ni ri rgyal lhun po'i gnas / </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[mchan: phyi ltar shel gyi rdo ring gi rtse nang ltar ston pa'i sku la thug /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">rin chen grangs ma spungs pa'i gling /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[mchan: phyi ltar klu yi pho brang nang ltar ston pa'i thugs dgongs 'dod kun 'byung ba'o /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">g.yung drung gsal ba 'od kyi gling /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[mchan: phyi ltar chu mig brgyad cu rtsa gnyis 'go bo nang ltar thugs nyid gsal ba'o /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">bar ti mun pa g.yung drung gling /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[mchan: phyi ltar mun pa'i gling nang ltar 'gro ba'i ma rig blo /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">mun ming khyud mtsho mu yang gling /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[mchan: phyi ltar rol mtsho nang ltar thugs nyid rgya mtsho'i klong lta bu'o /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">dar dkar gur 'og rgya mtsho'i gling /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[mchan: phyi ltar klu yul nang ltar thugs nyid rnam par dag pa /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">'phel 'grib med pa g.yung khyim bdun / </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[mchan: phyi ltar mu khyud 'dzin gyi rtse ltag nang ltar dgongs pa 'phel 'grib med pa /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">rin chen 'phrul snang gzhal yas brgyad /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[mchan: phyi ltar nam mkha' snang srid tha mi dad pa'i gzhal yas nang ltar thugs nyid mnyam pa'i ngang /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[21] zhu ba drang don du zhu ba po brgyad la bon mi 'dra ba brgyad gsungs kyang don gcig go /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">YID KYI KHYE'U CHUNG dang / [mchan: ser po bzhi bkur hos ru bsnams pa /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">GTO BU 'BUM SANGS / [mchan: dkar po chag shing bum pa 'dzin pa /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">GSAL BA 'OD LDAN / med khams stong pa [mchan: mthing ga me tog bsnams pa /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">rje TSHANGS PA GTSUG PHUD / [mchan: dkar ljang u dum 'bar ba'i me tog 'dzin pa /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">KLU MO MA MA [mchan: dkar ljang sbrul gdeng chu skyes /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">GTSUG GSHEN RGYAL / [mchan: dkar ser g.yung drung skos shing /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">'PHRUL BON GSANG BA DANG RING gis / [mchan: sngo dmar rgyal mtshan nor bu /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">zhu don [mchan: dkar po 'khor lo sa le sgron me dang 'phrul gyi {{Note: The following text seems misplaced, and is enclosed in brackets in the original: KA dum KHA dum gnyis srid khams gtan la phab /}} yi ge yang zer bsnams pa /] skyes med gdos dag pa / </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">rin chen rgyun 'byung 'gag pa med / {{GA dum NGA dum rgyun khams}} </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">tshad med stong mthar lhung ba med / [CA dum CHA dum gnyis stong khams /] </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">mtshan med dngos por 'byung ba med / [22] [JA dum NYA dum gnyis med khams /] </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">yongs su bkag med sgrib pa med / [TA dum THA dum gnyis so so yi khams /] </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">cir yang ma grub dmigs pa med / [Da dum NA dum gnyis pa'i khams /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">kha gting dpag med g.yo rtsol med / [BA dum PHA dum gnyis dbyings kyi khams /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">ma bcos mnyam bzhag thig le gcig / [BA dum MA dum gnyis mnyam pa'i khams /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">gzhi rtsa 'khor 'das bdag nyid do / ['khor 'das kyi bon thams cad bdag nyid la 'dus par bstan /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">'khor 'gres bzhi bcu zhe drug nges / [mchan: rnam par shes pa'i khams dang zhe bdun mngon /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">myang 'das 'bres la grangs med 'gres / [res mang res nyung du byung /] nga bcu nga bzhi drug cu'i bar / lan gcig phyir 'ong 'bras bu nas / g.yung khams yan lag rim gyi bsnon / [rim gyis snon te bsnon lugs ni /] lan gcig phyir 'ong rgyun zhugs khams / [ma 'gag pa'i rgyun de rin po che rgyun gyi khams dang mthun /] </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[23] rgyun zhugs 'bras bu snang ba'i khams / [rgyun khams du snang yod pas snang ba'i khams dang mthun /] tshad med bzhi ni stong pa'i khams / [tshad med bzhi las 'das pas stong pa'i khams dang mthun /] g.yung drung bon phye ba ma 'dres dgu / [ma 'dres pa so so'i khams dang mthun /] so sor gsal rig pa'i khams / yang dag rig pa'i khams / [yang dag rig pa rig pa'i khams dang mthun /] g.yung drung yan lag dgu dbyings khams / [g.yung drung gi yan lag dbyings khams dang mthun /] spyir sdom brgya dang rtsa drug la / ['khor 'das gnyis ka'i grangs /] g.yung drung yan lag grangs 'gres med / [grangs dang 'gres rkang la med bsnan pa'o /] gleng bslang zhus dang / [zhu ba so so'i so /] bgol ba dang / [klu mo sogs kyi bkol /] lan gnyis bka' rtsal lung bstan to / [zhus pa'i lan dang ma zhus pa ltar bshad kyi nyon cig gsungs so /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[24] le'u srid pa'i khams la brgyad / [dkyus kyi tshig 'bum rtsar shes te grangs nges so /] [srid pa'i lo rgyus dang po 'o /] </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">gling bzhi sems spyod zab mo dang / [mo la 'jug pa'i le'u ste gnyis pa'o / 'jug pa'i le'u ste /] </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">mtshan ma [gsum nas lnga bar chad 'di med do /] 'khrul rtog so so'i rjes ma rtogs / gnyis su med pa'i don lhun [bar bstan pa'i le'u ste lnga pa'o /] grub / </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">khams brgyad kyi rgyu bstan pa dang / [drug pa'o /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">'khor ba'i rgyu dang / [bdun pa /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">myang 'das rgyu / [brgyad pa /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">ci la 'byung bar bstan pa'o / ['di rnams mthun par krig gi yod /]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">II.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">rin chen rgyun khams le'u brgyad ni /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">srid pa'i [dgu pa]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">skal pa [bcu pa]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">snang ba [bcu gcig]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">stong [bcu gnyis] /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">so sor [bcu gsum]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">rig pa [bcu bzhi]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">g.yung drung dbyings /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">mnyam pa rin po che [bco lnga] nyid do //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">III.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">snang ba'i khams la le'u bcu bzhi / </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">yod med mya ngan las 'das pa dang / mi dmigs ngang la mi 'gyur gnas / sbyin pa btang [25] yod tshul khrims srung / bzod pa brtson 'grus stobs bskyed dang / snying rje smon lam thabs bsgrub pa / shes rab sems nyid rnam dag sil / don drug 'brel ba rnam dag go / </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">IV.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">stong pa'i khams la le'u bcu ste / </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">rgyu ma lta bu byar med dang / g.yo ba med dang bla med dang / zag med shes rab phung po dang / thams cad mkhyen pa'i ye shes 'bras / stong pa'i dran la phyir 'ong dang / rtogs med mi dmigs stong nyid dang / de bzhin nyid bsgom stong nyid dang / rnam grangs nges don gsal ba dang / rang bzhin med par bstan pa'o //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">V.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">so so'i khams la le'u bdun ste /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">bden pa so sor bstan pa dang / 'khor 'das so so'i dge sdig dang / dug dang ye shes so so dang / tshul khrims srung nyams so so dang / dge ba bsngos pa'i 'bras bu'o //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">VI.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">rig pa'i khams le'u brgyad do /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">rig pa kun sbyangs kyi ngo mtshar dang / ting 'dzin zab mo'i rigs ye shes / klu mos zhus dang rig spyod 'das / rig pa sa non le'u brgyad do //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">VII.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">dbyings khams le'u bcu gsum ste / </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">ye shes 'bras bu thob par bstan / mu med 'byams yas rgya ma chad / kha gting dpag med dgos pa med / gdal pa chen po zad med dang / 'gyur med ngang nyid mtshan dpe bstan /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">VIII.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">mnyam pa'i khams la le'u bcu bzhi /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">mnyam pa nyid kyi don bstan dang / gsal la rang bzhin med 'bras bu / dmigs med pa la bskyed dang / rtogs dkar thun mong min pa dang / rgyu 'bras mnyam pa'i don 'dus dang / mnyam pa'i don rdzogs bcos med dang / ba ga'i klong du ye shes rdzogs / stong nyid ye shes me long dang / bya ba nan tan [27] sor rtogs mnyam / ma bcos thig le gcig la bzhag //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">sdom pas le'u brgya bcu gnyis (i.e., brgyad cu gnyis) / bam po srid khams zhe gcig ste / rin chen rgyun khams zhe brgyad de / yod pa'i khams la bzi bcu bdun / med pa'i khams la zhe gsum mo / so so'i khams la so dgu dang / rig pa'i khams la bzhi bcu gcig / dbyings kyi khams la lnga bcu tham / mnyam khams lnga bcu rtsa gcig ste /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">de ltar sum brgya drug cu'o //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">ma 'dres yan lag stong rtsa brgyad / bka' rtags phyag rgya stong rtsa'o // yi ge 'dus pa la ming byung / ming 'dus pa la tshig byung / tshig 'dus pa la shad byung / tshig bar bcu gcig shad bar gcig / shad bar bzhi la sdom tshig gcig / sdom tshig sum brgya bam po ste / sdom tshig stong phrag brgya 'bum mo // [28] khams brgyad zhun thig rnam dbye'i grangs / <b>sprul sku lha</b> [<i>gur zhog pa</i>] yis bkod pa tshar / slig tso / bkra shis //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">* * *</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Following are a few especially relevant sections of the <i>Khams-brgyad</i> text proper, including its lists of sangsaric and nirvanic böns, with added numbers that allow us to give their sum total as 108, a very auspicious number:</span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[1] khams brgyad gtan la phab pa stong phrag brgya pa las / dum bu dang po bzhugs //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[2] zhang zhung skad du /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[3] gu ge 'phyo smi sad wer rangs / mu ye zhi la prong tse nan // // 'phyo sang sang ste e ma ho // // bod skad du 'phrul gyi yi ge sum cus man ngag gi don bstan [4] [5] pa'i khams brgyad gtan la phab pa stong phrag brgya pa las srid pa'i gleng gzhi / tshig gi rtse mo don gyis gcod / dum bu thog ma // bam po dang po // le'u gong ma'o /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[6] 'di skad bdag gis thos pa'i dus gcig na / ston pa gshen rab mi bo ni / ri rgyal lhun po'i pho brang 'od kyi lha ri spos mthon gyi rtse mo na 'khor gshen 'phran lnga stong lnga brgya yis bskor nas / thabs gcig tu bzhugs te / 'dab chags rgyal po / bya ba byed pa byed pa byas pa / gsung lhang lhang snyan par sgrogs [7] pa / rig pa gsal ba / stobs dang ldan pa / rmad du byung ba don dang mi snyel ba'i gzungs dang ldan pa / so so'i sgo gang las ma sgribs / zag pa zad pa / nyon mongs pa med pa / ting nge 'dzin rab tu gsal ba / sems shin tu rnam par grol ba / thugs rje che ba thabs mkhas pa / gto che ba dpyad ring ba / mtshan dang [8] ldan pa dpe' yongs su 'tshogs pa / bka' rgya che ba / lung grangs mang ba / man ngag mdo sdus pa rnam pa thams cad cir kyang mkhyen pa bla na med pa yang dag pa'i don gtan la phebs pa'i / gshen rab chen po des / 'gro ba sems can gyi don mthar phyin par mdzad pa'i slad du / thugs las 'od zer 'bum phrag grangs med pa yongs su spros shing bkye'o / sku dbu'i gtsug rum nas kyang 'od zer bye ba stong phrag drug cu drug cu byung ngo / sku dpral ba'i dbyings rum nas kyang / 'od zer bye ba stong phrag drug cu drug cu byung ngo / </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">sku ltag pa'i rgyas rum nas kyang 'od [9] zer bye ba stong phrag drug cu drug cu byung ngo /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">sku spyan mig g.yas g.yon las kyang 'od zer bye ba stong phrag drug ...</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[16] zhi ba'i bdag nyid can zhes bya ba mkhyen pa'i ye shes drug bcu rtsa gcig dang ldan pa ...</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[41.2] bam po dang po.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[83.7] de nas yid kyi khye'u chung gis gsol ba / ston pa lags / bon thams cad yongs su bdag nyid la ji ltar 'dus lags / gshen rab kyi bka' btsal ba / bon thams cad yongs su bdag nyid la 'dus pa ni / 'khor ba'i bon kun nas nyon mongs pa dang / mya ngan las [84] 'das pa'i bon rnam par byang ba dang gnyis so //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">de gang zhe na /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[phung po lnga]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. gzugs dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. tshor ba dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. 'du shes ba dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. 'du byed ba dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">5. rnam par shes pa ba dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[khams bco brgyad]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">6. mig dang ba dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">7. gzugs dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">8. rna ba dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">9. sgra dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">10. sna dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">11. dri dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">12. lce dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">13. ro dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">14. lus dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">15. reg dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">16. yid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">17. bon dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[here Tre-ston has skye mched bcu gnyis]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">18. mig gi rnam par shes pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">19. rna ba'i rnam par shes pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">20. sna'i rnam par shes pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">21. lce'i rnam par shes pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">22. lus kyi rnam par shes pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">23. yid kyi rnam par shes pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[rkyen tshor drug]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">24. mig gi 'dus te reg par shes pa rkyen gyi tshor ba dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">25. rna'i 'dus te reg par shes pa rkyen gyi tshor ba dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">26. sna'i 'dus te reg par shes pa rkyen gyi tshor ba dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">27. lce'i 'dus te reg par shes pa rkyen gyi tshor ba dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">28. lus kyis 'dus te reg par shes pa rkyen gyi tshor ba dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">29. yid kyi 'dus te reg par shes pa rkyen gyi tshor ba dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">['byung khams lnga]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">30. rlung gis khams dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">31. me'i khams dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">32. chu'i khams dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">33. sa'i khams dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">34. nam mkha'i khams dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">35. rnam par shes pa'i khams dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[rten 'brel bcu gnyis]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">36. ma rig pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">37. 'du byed dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">38. rnam par shes pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">39. ming dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">40. gzugs dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">41. skye mched drug dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">42. reg pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">43. tshor ba dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">44. sred pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">45. len pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">46. srid pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">47. skye ba dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">48. rga shi dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">la sogs pa ni 'khor ba'i bon te / kun nas nyon mongs pa'o //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. sbyin pa'i bla na med par phyin pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. tshul khrims kyis bla na med par phyin pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. bzod pa'i bla na med par phyin pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. brtson 'grus kyis bla na med par phyin pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">5. bsam gtan gyi bla na med par phyin pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">6. stobs kyis bla na med par phyin pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">7. snying rje'i bla na med par phyin pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">8. smon lam gyis bla na med par phyin pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">9. thabs kyis bla na med par phyin pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">10. [85] shes rab kyi bla na med par phyin pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">11. phyi stong pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">12. nang stong pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">13. phyi nang stong pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">14. 'dus byas stong pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">15. 'dus ma bhas stong pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">16. mtha' las 'das pa stong pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">17. mi dmigs pa stong pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">18. chen po stong pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">19. don dam pa stong pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">20. rang bzhin stong pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">21. rang bzhin med pa stong pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">22. rang gi mtshan nyid stong pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">23. thog ma dang tha ma med pa stong pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">24. dor ba med pa stong pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">25. dngos po med pa stong pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">26. dngos po med pa'i ngo bo nyid stong pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">27. bon thams cad stong pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">28. stong pa nyid stong pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">29. dran pa nye bar bzhag pa bzhi dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">30. yang dag par spongs pa bzhi dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">31. rdzu 'phrul gyi rkang pa bzhi dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">32. dbang po rnams dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">33. xxx xxx rnams dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">34. gshen rab kyi lam bzhi dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">35. mi 'jigs pa'i stobs rnams dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">36. thar pa'i lam brgyad dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">['bras bu gsum]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">37. phyir mi ldog pa'i 'bras bu dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">38. lan cig phyir 'ong pa'i 'bras bu dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">39. rgyun du zhugs pa'i 'bras bu dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">40. tshad med pa bzhi dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">41. g.yung drung gis bon phye ba med pa las ma 'dres pa dgu dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">42. yang dag par rig pa nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">43. g.yung drung shes pa'i yan lag dgu dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">44. gshen rab kyi bden pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">45. so so yang dag pa'i rig pa bzhi dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">46. mi bsnyel ba'i gzungs dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">47. mthar gyis snyoms par 'dzug pa dgu dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">48. mtshan ma med pa la snyoms par 'jug pa bzhi dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">49. rgyun du bzhugs pa'i thugs rje bzhi dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">['bras bu'i rtags bcu gcig]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">50. rtogs pa chen po'i lta ba dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">51. bsrungs du med pa'i dam tshig dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">52. lhun gyis grub pa'i phrin las dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">53. rnam par dag pa'i spyod pa dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">54. legs par 'byung ba'i yon tan dang / [86]</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">55. snyoms par gnas pa'i ngang nyid dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">56. 'gyur ba med pa'i sku dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">57. rang bzhin med pa'i gsung dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">58. mnyam nyid 'khrul ba med pa'i thugs dang / </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">59. rnam pa thams cad mkhyen pa'i ye shes dang /</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">60. bla na med par yang dag par rdzogs pa'i 'bras bu.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">la sogs pa ni mya ngan las 'das pa'i bon te / rnam par byang ba'o // //</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-65316966978239280462023-03-10T12:15:00.021+02:002023-03-13T20:41:58.727+02:00Tertön Gyatsa Woodblock Print<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnINIVMeyhJvWvisTRgwX0K2IRhld_8NUIMiT9K4OfVKN-ajjFDY5xuG0_SRFCZHJoxQcwi8RooE5PRkHjsG4sgOvCvPDuLdUZDDjJpg-V2VCmxCOFhUlvlS-9CLwmtjKVNZ_hhOxdbyqMcWYV9CK5NoVFbf1AmJ5nDpPGi3z2Bw31Ax7EIg0/s980/TertonGyatsa1,DergePrint-1010-001.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="980" data-original-width="750" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnINIVMeyhJvWvisTRgwX0K2IRhld_8NUIMiT9K4OfVKN-ajjFDY5xuG0_SRFCZHJoxQcwi8RooE5PRkHjsG4sgOvCvPDuLdUZDDjJpg-V2VCmxCOFhUlvlS-9CLwmtjKVNZ_hhOxdbyqMcWYV9CK5NoVFbf1AmJ5nDpPGi3z2Bw31Ax7EIg0/w306-h400/TertonGyatsa1,DergePrint-1010-001.jpg" width="306" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">click to enlarge</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Recognize anyone here? The photo is low resolution, for this I apologize. I saved it years ago from a website that doesn’t seem to exist anymore. Despite this lack of clarity, it is possible to perceive beneath the throne lion just beneath the large central figure, and on your right, a rectangular cartouche bearing his name. I think I can make out “Mchog-gyur-bde-chen-gling-pa,” one of the many forms used as names of Chogyur Lingpa (</span>མཆོག་གྱུར་གླིང་པ་<span style="font-size: medium;">), birth in 1829, death in 1870. He was probably the most prolific all-time treasure revealer in Tibetan history, and a great inspiration for what we have, with some degree of justice, often called the <a href="https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Rim%C3%A9" target="_blank">Rimé Movement</a>. In one of the several portrait paintings locatable at HAR website that feature him as chief figure, there is one that corresponds quite nicely and precisely enough with this one, and that should be enough to confirm our intuitions are correct and we’ve made the right identification. This thangka painting is doubly blessed for having prints of both hands of the master done in vermillion ink on its reverse side.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin4HHY9ZEJeIQ5w-wM6JNaxGLCfiU1TPAN-AjYnYA6GGJfhICpUivIrKAod2MaZS5GRMNN81Adps24aAG5xAJ783d6Y5MtJQ3GvE6i2vMl_4QuUrSOkHpzNFnlMpTqLAONPC8BgR3W3MOImYqUxrfgj_IrJZfwV9t-_EiBolYC9aF3e_rHMn4/s535/HAR%2065670%20Mchog-gyur-gling-pa.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="535" data-original-width="379" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin4HHY9ZEJeIQ5w-wM6JNaxGLCfiU1TPAN-AjYnYA6GGJfhICpUivIrKAod2MaZS5GRMNN81Adps24aAG5xAJ783d6Y5MtJQ3GvE6i2vMl_4QuUrSOkHpzNFnlMpTqLAONPC8BgR3W3MOImYqUxrfgj_IrJZfwV9t-_EiBolYC9aF3e_rHMn4/w284-h400/HAR%2065670%20Mchog-gyur-gling-pa.jpg" width="284" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.himalayanart.org/items/65670" style="text-align: left;" target="_blank">Go here</a><span style="text-align: left;"> to see the full painting<br />in all its details</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But then who are all those other smaller figures surrounding him in the woodblock print? I think that’s easily answered. With the exception of the two figures directly above the central figure’s head, all the others ought to form one group. I haven’t tried counting them, but I could wager they would add up around one hundred, or one hundred and eight. I argue it must be the collectivity known as Tertön Hundred (</span>གཏེར་སྟོན་བརྒྱ་རྩ་<span style="font-size: medium;">). Furthermore, it must be the same precise group of tertöns found in a collective biography of the same by Jamgön Kongtrul Rinpoche (</span>འཇམ་མགོན་ཀོང་སྤྲུལ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་<span style="font-size: medium;">), himself a disciple of Chogyur Lingpa. But it would be great to be able to see a better photo so that all the individually labeled figures could be exactly identified. My eyesight isn’t up to the task.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That there exists such a remarkable collective icon of the Tertöns would be a thing worthy of knowing. These woodblock prints often served as patterns for thangkas, although I haven’t seen a painted example yet. It ought to be compared to the rather old mural paintings in an upper room in the main temple of Mindroling Monastery I once had the fortune to see with my own eyes even if the room was a little too dark. I’d love to see them again. If you know of published illustrations, please type a comment in the comment box. Or if you have anything else to say, we’d love to hear it.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvDrDOcRyXrbJHPsvdipHTZm08SxFHsVAODt84PaoTiHhFdRDoYhpFq8QNoSmD8qfT0IaBo8kf2J4H9wp2-52ErXfmyv0d8taQvL8kk7evuRko9ErVpmLdtsPbCnYHUZfXfmR3tVm-g93BhQ-ca4_fE8Qa_rExNh57_UoTAIvCrDAW6GsSj2w/s640/Black%20Mustache%20divider.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="134" data-original-width="640" height="67" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvDrDOcRyXrbJHPsvdipHTZm08SxFHsVAODt84PaoTiHhFdRDoYhpFq8QNoSmD8qfT0IaBo8kf2J4H9wp2-52ErXfmyv0d8taQvL8kk7evuRko9ErVpmLdtsPbCnYHUZfXfmR3tVm-g93BhQ-ca4_fE8Qa_rExNh57_UoTAIvCrDAW6GsSj2w/s320/Black%20Mustache%20divider.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>Sources:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">To the best of my knowledge the woodblock print was once posted at a website that might have belonged to Derge Monastery (སྡེ་དགེ་དགོན་པ་) itself. I will try to find out more. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">A web search did lead me to one thangka depicting over a hundred tertöns. <a href="http://tinyurl.com/ywhu7fv2" target="_blank">Try going to this "tinyurl."</a></p><p style="text-align: justify;">For fundamental information on Chogyur Lingpa, see the biographical entry <a href="https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Chokgyur_Dechen_Lingpa" target="_blank">“Chokgyur Dechen Lingpa”</a> at rigpawiki.org, which includes a very nice painting, as well as the entry <a href="https://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Chokgyur-Lingpa/TBRC_P564" target="_blank">“Chokgyur Lingpa”</a> by Alexander Gardner that is part of <i>Treasury of Lives</i> website. Andreas Doctor, <i>The Tibetan Treasure Literature: A Study of the Revelations of the Visionary Master Mchog gyur bde chen gling pa (1829-1870)</i>, doctoral dissertation, University of Calgary (2003). This became a book with the title <i>Tibetan Treasure Literature: Revelation, Tradition, and Accomplishment in Visionary Buddhism</i>, Shambhala Publications (Boulder 2005). We can also recommend Urgyen Topgyal, <i>The Life and Teachings of Chokgyur Lingpa</i>, Rangjung Yeshe Publications (Kathmandu 1988). And finally, <a href="https://www.lotsawahouse.org/tibetan-masters/chokgyur-dechen-lingpa/">go to Lotsawa House for this page full of links</a> to works either by Chogyur Lingpa or in some other way connected with his name, most of them made freely available in English.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Here is all the literature I know about with English translations from Jamgön Kongtrul’s <i>Tertön Hundred</i> biographies: A full translation by Yeshe Gyamtsho was published under the title <i>The Hundred Tertöns</i>, KTD Publications (Woodstock 2011). Some parts have been translated in Eva M. Dargyay, <i>The Rise of Esoteric Buddhism in Tibet</i>, Motilal Banarsidass (Delhi 1979). See also the bits translated in Ramon Prats, “Some Preliminary Considerations Arising from a Biographical Study of the Early Gter-ston,” contained in: Michael Aris and Aung San Suu Kyi, eds., <i>Tibetan Studies in Honour of Hugh Richardson</i>, Aris and Phillips, Ltd. (Warminster 1980), pp. 256-260. Also, this: Ramon Prats, <i>Contributo allo studio biografico dei primi gter ston</i> (Naples 1982). We’ve explored some of the prehistory of Kongtrul’s <i>Tertön Hundred</i> in a three-year-old blog, “<a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2019/09/locating-terton-prayer-in-terma-history.html" target="_blank">Locating a Tertön Prayer in Terma History</a>.” Something there may prove of use if you want to delve into the history of <i>terma</i> studies.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">If, on the other hand, you need a fast and relatively easy introduction to Tertöns and Termas, see this short essay by Karma Phuntso entitled “<a href="Terma and Tertön: Revealed Teachings and Their Revealers" target="_blank">Terma and Tertön: Revealed Teachings and Their Revealers</a>.”</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">§ § §</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">PS (March 13, 2023):</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I did a little creative web searching and at long last landed on the relaunched (since 2019) version of the Derge Printery website: http://www.degeparkhang.org.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It does in fact have the Chokgyur Lingpa woodblock, but even more impressively, it has a 2nd one of the Tertön Hundred with a different central figure, none other than the author of the most famous collection of Tertön biographies, Jamgön Kongtrul. <a href="http://www.degeparkhang.org/en/prints/46.html">For both, go first to this page</a>, then download them one at a time.</p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-60044635035388226962023-01-14T18:09:00.016+02:002023-03-20T16:00:48.206+02:00Crazy Wisdom’s Tenuous Tibetan Background<div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; font-size: 19.58px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="color: #0c0c0c; font-size: 19.58px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMxIpCmg0W-OzfJlAzJtWjTuQjDd2ZXjlmKSh2s_g4nVeuTACc5z8u4CX_LE6BhF-lFikfwKk9_wHlb9aeWH6LPaD7gjmSi68jYKsq6i5WFRfknh8YYDxGj92MKhDKGcxoDmaku4IwFgkxL-gaGeLjwVZbstbotzAWuSSiP4Pk_Xsw0xzU1mc/s320/Agathon%20Mad%20Saint%20of%20Mt%20Athos%201925.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="268" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMxIpCmg0W-OzfJlAzJtWjTuQjDd2ZXjlmKSh2s_g4nVeuTACc5z8u4CX_LE6BhF-lFikfwKk9_wHlb9aeWH6LPaD7gjmSi68jYKsq6i5WFRfknh8YYDxGj92MKhDKGcxoDmaku4IwFgkxL-gaGeLjwVZbstbotzAWuSSiP4Pk_Xsw0xzU1mc/s1600/Agathon%20Mad%20Saint%20of%20Mt%20Athos%201925.jpeg" width="268" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: times; font-size: xx-small;">Agathon, mad saint of Mt. Athos, 1925</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span><br /><span style="color: #660000; font-family: georgia; text-align: center;"><i><blockquote>“The job of an artist, the work of an artist, is not to do with what we know. The artist is like a fool, like an idiot, going on a journey to discover something.” </blockquote><p style="text-align: right;"> — <span>Anish Kapoor</span> </p></i></span></span></div><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: large; text-align: center;">ཡེ་ཤེས་འཆོལ་བ། </span><span style="color: #660000; text-align: center;">YE SHES ’CHOL BA </span></span></div><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: georgia; text-align: center;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; text-align: justify;"><span><span style="color: #660000; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large; text-align: center;">We hear it often repeated that the just-given Tibetan phrase underlies Trungpa Chögyam’s “Crazy Wisdom.” Do a Schmoogle search for it as well as its English version, and you’ll find plentiful references. I say it would better be translated as <i>Full Knowledge libertinism</i>, or <i>Enlightened Awareness profligacy</i>. It’s as if the post-Enlightenment knowledge, or Full Knowledge, accomplished by the Buddha were to go on to fall into disorder or disarray, or just get wasted. Traditional Tibetan texts know nothing of this term. This may be proven by all who will search through the extremely extensive <a href="https://library.bdrc.io/" target="_blank">TBRC/BDRC</a> database. The reason for its absence? It was made up as a plausible ‘back translation’ of English “<i>Crazy Wisdom</i>,” in a move to lend it authority and authenticity.*</span></span></div><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; text-align: justify;"><span><span style="color: #660000; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #660000;">(*</span><span style="color: #660000;">For further details about where and how far Trungpa went with it, see David DiValerio's book</span><span style="color: #660000;"> </span><a href="https://books.google.co.il/books?id=6XJpCQAAQBAJ&lpg=PT236&ots=11rPRfT-xP&dq=%22ye%20shes%20%27chol%22%20crazy%20wisdom&pg=PT236#v=onepage&q=%22ye%20shes%20'chol%22%20crazy%20wisdom&f=false" style="color: #5588aa; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><i>The Holy Madmen of Tibet</i>, p. 239 ff</a><span style="color: #660000;">.)</span><span style="text-align: center;"> </span></blockquote></span></span></div><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #660000; text-align: center;">It is interesting to note what appears to be one independent 20th-century witness to the phrase (and the one and only instance that a TBRC database search turns up) in the works of Dongag Chöki Gyatso (</span><span style="color: #660000; text-align: center;">མདོ་སྔགས་ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྒྱ་མཚོ་</span><span style="color: #660000; text-align: center;"> </span><span style="color: #660000; text-align: center;">1903-1957). Examined more closely, the context cannot be made to support Trungpa’s usage, and so we may safely dismiss it as a “false positive.” </span></span></div><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #660000; text-align: center;">Padampa Sangyé never used the term, not surprising at all since nobody did before the 20th century. Still, even some of the most highly esteemed Tibetan and Tibetan-style teachers of our day go on to speak of it as </span><i style="color: #660000; text-align: center;">traditional, </i><span style="color: #660000; text-align: center;">occasionally</span><i style="color: #660000; text-align: center;"> </i><span style="color: #660000; text-align: center;">naming Padampa as an instance of it, even though it has the distinctive scent of a newly reinvented modern reincarnation of what was once significantly different. One may be inclined to insist that there is </span><i style="color: #660000; text-align: center;">crazy wisdom</i><span style="color: #660000; text-align: center;">, and then something else called </span><i style="color: #660000; text-align: center;">crazy wisdom</i><span style="color: #660000; text-align: center;">. But with the proviso that there really is no Tibetan term behind it, what would be the point of pressing the matter further?</span></span></div><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; font-size: 19.58px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: georgia; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large; text-align: center;">For those true believers out there who still insist on buying it, I’d like to unload my collection of Tibetan Singing Bowls. I see little sense in ringing them anymore, and I like to think I can spot an opportunity when one bites my nose.</span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="color: #0c0c0c; text-align: justify;"><br /></div></blockquote><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia;">But not so fast...</span></span></div><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia;">I have a brief answer to those who adamantly oppose the contemporary employment by spiritual mentors or psychological counselors of</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia;"> </span><i style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia;">any </i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia;">counterintuitive methods regardless of their potential effectiveness. I wonder if they are ready to say that medical practitioners should give up surgery. Think about it. Surgery is no doubt harmful in its own way and need it be said very invasive, violating our personal space so much more than gentle herbal elixirs and ointments do. It can take us a great deal of time to recover from the physical and emotional traumas. And as is well known surgery far too often results in serious injuries of its own, even death. So let’s take surgery out of the hands of the physicians.* Perhaps we could go further, and take therapeutic massage away from them as well. It may not cut into us, but it sure does hurt, and in precisely the place where it hurts they press far too hard, and it takes too much time to recover.** Oh, and not to mention shock treatments, even if they are those supposedly more precisely targeted 21st-century types of electroconvulsive therapies we’ve been hearing about. Do the benefits justify the pain, the temporary loss of autonomy and time, not to mention the healing process that comes after the trauma of treatment? I hope I'm following the logic rightly. I think I am. Are the physicians necessarily abusing their power every time they cut us, press into us, or shock us? Should we forbid them their most effective means of treatment? </span></span></div><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia;">Relax, I’m not getting doctrinaire here: if any person we meet in the street, even if that person is a surgeon, tries to attack us with a sharp weapon we would be right to dodge their blows and call for backup. On the other hand, I’ve never heard of a man on the operating table snatching the scalpel from his physician’s hand and shouting, “You stop right there! Don’t you dare cut me or I’ll have you arrested for assault with a deadly weapon.” No. We submit to the doctor because we know it’s needed. </span></span></div><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia;">If we’re in fact content with our lot as puppets or slaves to the impulsive or habitual thoughts that drive us to do badly and feel badly, no problem. If drugs are sufficient to deaden us to them, no problem either. Either way Buddhism has diminished and lost much of its necessity. Just give up the struggle and take the drugs, it’s your choice, isn’t it. Well, isn’t it?</span></span></div><div style="background-color: #f0f4f1; color: #0c0c0c; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3; color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">(*In the histories of Tibetan medicine it is said that during the imperial period Tibetans did just that. They removed surgery from the medical toolbox on account of one single mortality. **I confess to speaking with a degree of hypocrisy here, since I also do my best to rely on herbal extractions and ointments, avoiding as far as humanly possible the poisons and blood lettings offered by modern medicine... at the same time I much appreciate the relief that results from the pain inflicted during massage treatments. I can’t explain myself to myself, sometimes... Well, not in a way I find entirely coherent, or applicable to every occasion. I’ve said my piece.)</span></blockquote><p> </p><h3 style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvJOJUUnan9PyLz3lrY_jBWGH5TvPcKEAyRoGXljq5QwAQLdTGdTDGSO70sRl1gsoEW23hDwmrFdLfU41CiuHVRKgvW7jnJpSBwxNhTKCkn83mnD-BR3JtJK9JE2MBwkBSc5gUOBf72Nsfvsr9rTcq9lVuXWia51WgGwwT_yw7LPidnXiP1fs/s592/Russian%20Divider.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="119" data-original-width="592" height="64" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvJOJUUnan9PyLz3lrY_jBWGH5TvPcKEAyRoGXljq5QwAQLdTGdTDGSO70sRl1gsoEW23hDwmrFdLfU41CiuHVRKgvW7jnJpSBwxNhTKCkn83mnD-BR3JtJK9JE2MBwkBSc5gUOBf72Nsfvsr9rTcq9lVuXWia51WgGwwT_yw7LPidnXiP1fs/s320/Russian%20Divider.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></h3><h3 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">A couple of things to read</span></h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“<a href="https://citydesert.wordpress.com/2014/01/16/iurodivye-%D1%8E%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%B2%D1%8B%D0%B9-fools-for-christ/" target="_blank">Iurodivye [юродивый]: Fools for Christ</a>,” a blog posting at CityDesert (January 16, 2014).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Pasang Yontan Arya, “External Therapies in Tibetan Medicine: The <i>Four Tantras</i>, Contemporary Practice and a Preliminary History of Surgery,” Chapter 4 of: Theresia Hofer, ed., <i>Bodies in Balance: The Art of Tibetan Medicine</i>, Rubin Museum of Art (New York 2014), pp. 32-89. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"></span><blockquote><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">My note: Although cataract surgery has its own history in Tibet and there are literary traces that other types of surgery were done here and there in more recent centuries, in general surgical procedures were abandoned in around the year 800 CE because of the death of Emperor Mune Tsenpo’s mother following heart surgery. On these points, see page 85 and following.</span></blockquote></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Levi Asher, “When Hippies Battle: the Great W.S. Merwin/Allen Ginsberg Beef of 1975,” posted <a href="http://litkicks.com/MerwinNaropa/" target="_blank">here</a> on November 17, 2005. An interesting recounting of events on the night of The Party. A few of the readers’ comments are more revealing than the essay itself.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Thomas Cattoi, “Pussy Riot and Chögyam Trungpa: Reinventing Crazy Wisdom for Post-Modernity,” <i>Journal of Dharma Studies</i>, vol. 3 (2020), pp. 59-70, </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">online publication</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">. Sadly, you might have to cross over a paywall to get to it. Why is open access such a pseudo-problem, and who says somebody has to fork over a lot of money in order to make things free? To be honest, now that I’ve managed to access it, I can’t tell you what its point is exactly. Is it that outrageous actions are disruptive? And that something good might possibly come of it? Don’t we know this? Don’t most of us make use of this practical wisdom from time to time?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Tom Clark, <i>The Great Naropa Poetry Wars: With a Copious Collection of Germane Documents Assembled by the Author</i>, Cadmus Editions (Santa Barbara 1980). About the now famous drinking party in which a well-known modern poet and his companion suffered serious humiliation at Trungpa’s command. You might be able to borrow it from archive.org if it isn’t checked out already. There is a still-growing body of literature on Trungpa Chögyam and the people who gathered around him. Academic theses are being written, including one with a thesis that Canadian military returning from Iraq would not have suffered from PTS syndrome if they had only been trained in Trungpa’s “Shambhala Warrior” program. Oh really... warning bells at so many levels. Anyway, I won’t attempt a full bibliography today.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Georg Feuerstein, <i>Holy Madness: Spirituality, Crazy-Wise Teachers, and Enlightenment </i>(<i>Revised and Expanded Edition</i>), Hohm Press (Prescott AZ 1996). The title when first published in 1991 was <i>Holy Madness: The Shock Tactics and Radical Teachings of Crazy-Wisdom Adepts, Holy Fools, and Rascal Gurus</i>. It may <i>seem</i> to be toned down a bit, which would have been good and probably also wise. At p. 344 (as you must know by now, the bit calling <i>crazy wisdom</i> a “straight translation” is off, and we’re left wondering if he meant to say that it was the <i>Tibetan</i> or the <i>English</i> that was first coined) he says:</span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">“... the expression [crazy wisdom] was apparently coined by the late Lama Chögyam Trungpa, whose crazy-wise exploits are well known in Western Buddhist circles and beyond. “Crazy wisdom” is a straight translation of the Tibetan phrase <i>yeshe cholwa</i>. Trungpa’s coinage was adopted by at least two American-born teachers to characterize their own teaching style—Adi Da and Lee Lozowick. The expression is composed of two concepts that on first glance appear to be mutually exclusive...”</span></blockquote></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia;">My note: I checked, and I see this passage was </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">not</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> part of the 1991 first edition. I confess I haven’t read the new one all the way through, but it seems this considerably expanded edition has further pressed on that no doubt </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">on occasion</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> difficult-to-define boundary between [1] what’s spontaneous enlightened activity that helps people and [2] what’s plain self-interested evil likely to hurt all concerned. Unlike </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">some</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> “Tibetan Buddhists” I know of, I think we would be right to err on the side of goodness and mercy. And, it may go without saying, it is better to share than to impose. In short, I think he widened his net far too far by including some of the figures he does include. And that goes for the author’s own guru, Da Love-Ananda (aka La Tidah, Adi Da, Bubba Free John etc.) who taught that giving yourself new names whenever you like is just plain fun and not confusing at all, as well as Gurdjieff and Crowley. I believe the last-mentioned is the same one famed for saying “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” Following this advice will indubitably show thyself as the total dick thou art. See if you can go to </span><a href="https://tricycle.org/magazine/holy-madness-shock-tactics-and-radical-teachings-crazy-wise-adepts-holy-fools-and-rascal-gurus/" style="font-family: georgia;" target="_blank">this review in <i>Tricycle</i></a><span style="font-family: georgia;"> written by Stuart Smithers for similar sentiments expressed more nicely. But I have to say, the great virtue of Feuerstein’s book is to find some kind of method in the apparent madness of saints in the whole world, not just a small part of it.</span></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Enrique Galván-Álvarez, “Translating the Translator: Identity and Revision in Trungpa Rinpoche's Buddhism(s),” <i>IAFOR Journal of Literature and Librarianship</i>, vol. 2, no. 1 (Spring 2013), pp. 111-126. I found some very useful references in it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Priscilla Hunt and Svitlana Kobets, <i>Holy Foolishness in Russia: New Perspectives</i>, Slavica Publishers (Bloomington 2011). This book includes one section, at pp. 41-148, that I regard as particularly valuable, a translation of A.M. Panchenko, “Laughter as Spectacle: Holy Foolishness in Old Russia.” There are remarkable parallels with the early sources on Padampa I’d like to talk about another time in some other blog.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Anish Kapoor, “Modi’s Government Fears Culture — and the Freedom of Spirit it Spreads,” </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://thewire.in/rights/anish-kapoor-modi-government-art" target="_blank">The Wire</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (July 21, 2022).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">D. Martin, “Crazy Wisdom in Moderation: Padampa Sangyé’s Use of Counterintuitive Methods in Dealing with Negative Mental States,” contained in: Yael Bentor and Meir Shahar, eds., </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Chinese and Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, Brill (Leiden 2017), pp. 193-214. For an addition and edition of a relevant Tibetan text, see </span><a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2021/06/puzzle-solved-another-padampa-metaphor.html" style="font-family: georgia;" target="_blank">this blog entry</a><span style="font-family: georgia;">. Despite the well-known <a href="http://www.likeanillusion.com/milarepa-dampa.sangye.shtml" target="_blank">chapter</a> of the Crazy of Tsang's <i>Songs of Milarepa</i> which dates quite late, there isn’t really any statement evincing a positive evaluation of madness or craziness <i>per se</i> in the certifiably early works associated with Padampa and the Zhijé school that I’ve been able to find (I’ll keep looking). What we do find are some rare and mostly <i>soto voce</i> discussions of <i>counterintuitive methods</i> (<i>gya-log</i>), methods that may not be crazy in the least, at least upon closer inspection.</span></p></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">John Riley Perks, <i>The Mahâsiddha and His Idiot Servant</i>, Crazy Heart Publishers (Putney VT 2004). You may want to read this book about serving as butler and personal attendant of a demanding master ahead of time to help you decide if this is the kind of thing you would like to volunteer for. Then again, this is not something for the prudish or faint of heart. So maybe just leave it alone. I was particularly bemused to read how, like Prince (now King) Charles, the Rinpoche had to have the toothpaste squeezed onto his toothbrush ahead of time, and <i>just so</i>. Oh, my... How disabled can an able-bodied person get?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Sanders#Discography_with_the_Fugs" target="_blank">Ed Sanders</a>, “The Party: A Chronological Perspective on a Confrontation at a Buddhist Seminary,” <i>Boulder Monthly</i> (March 1979), pp. 24-39. A scan might be <a href="http://litkicks.com/MerwinNaropa/" target="_blank">downloadable here</a>. The author was a member of <i>The Fugs</i>, which says something. You might prefer the color scan, with inclusion of the interview with Allen Ginsberg, <a href="https://openbuddhism.org/the-boulder-monthly-1979/" target="_blank">here</a> (but no, it's not downloadable).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Suzannah Showler, “Crazy Wisdom: A Love Story.” Posted at Hazlitt (November 24, 2020). Whatever you might be thinking during the reading, admit this at least: the words and graphics are all snap and sparkle: </span><a href="https://hazlitt.net/longreads/crazy-wisdom-love-story"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">https://hazlitt.net/longreads/crazy-wisdom-love-story</span></a>.</div><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Terje Sparby, “What Stands in the Way Becomes the Way: Dual and Non-Dual Approaches to Meditation Hindrances in Buddhist Traditions and Contemplative Science,” <i>Religions</i>, vol. 13 (2022), in 19 pages. Easily available online (just search for it), this brand new article indexes quite a range of Buddhist teachers’ ideas concerning useful ways to counteract obstacles, or how obstacles can be made to serve as stepping stones on the Path. I’m not convinced anything is gained by adopting the dualism of dual <i>versus</i> nondual, as is done here. But after all, as a dialectical tool of analysis it doesn’t get in the way all that much. Still, I do sense traces of Vedantic Advaita vs. Dvaita, and I don’t see Buddhists talking like that in any discussions about what is basic (as a dialectic to <i>build</i> upon). What does concern me is 21st-century youngsters finding ways to justify going about life with all the wickedness they can muster. That’s not a good direction.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Robert Woods, “Buddha-Gate Scandal and Cover-up at Naropa Revealed,” <i>Tibetan Review</i>, vol. 14, no. 7 (July 1979), pp. 17-18, 21. You should be able to find it reproduced on <a href="https://openbuddhism.org/buddha-gate-scandal-and-cover-up-at-naropa-revealed-1979/" target="_blank">this page</a> belonging to Rob Hogendoorn.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtZvva3hllB94kVS_M8KtN5y8BxYS3ECxL-R_fisLRCK-l6S7KKqkLRZQlel1TqGuatft5ihlNdhD4adIIr-OVME1ZEvT18TwWXUs3wJgvdRAI4dqy7ajUt-ofjKf8Elg3BnFm90KZ7UKhXAYX7faquiasBc-kGfF9IzpHeQPE-JDATlDsC5I/s320/GettyImages%20Peeking%20thru%20Zipper.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="320" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtZvva3hllB94kVS_M8KtN5y8BxYS3ECxL-R_fisLRCK-l6S7KKqkLRZQlel1TqGuatft5ihlNdhD4adIIr-OVME1ZEvT18TwWXUs3wJgvdRAI4dqy7ajUt-ofjKf8Elg3BnFm90KZ7UKhXAYX7faquiasBc-kGfF9IzpHeQPE-JDATlDsC5I/s1600/GettyImages%20Peeking%20thru%20Zipper.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Getty Images</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Even more as if that weren’t enough</span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The editors of <i>Inquiring Mind</i> held an interview with <a href="https://www.ciis.edu/ciis-news-and-events/news/in-memoriam-steven-goodman" target="_blank">the late Steven Goodman</a><a href="https://www.ciis.edu/ciis-news-and-events/news/in-memoriam-steven-goodman" target="_blank"> of the California Institute of Integral Studies</a>, entitled “Wisdom Crazy” that could be worth your while. It ought to be here: </span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.inquiringmind.com/article/2102_12w_goodman/"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">https://www.inquiringmind.com/article/2102_12w_goodman/</span></a></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There is also Trungpa Chogyam’s own book bearing the title, and </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">ditto</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> a rather recent film about his life where he literally rides off on a white horse at the end,* but you can find those on your own. If you are really crazy and seriously lacking in the requisite wisdom you may want to purchase a volume called </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Crazy Wisdom</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> made up entirely of “curated” Wikipedia entries that you could have found on your own without forking over the bucks for it. It’s out there, believe you me. Oh, and there is the Wikipedia entry “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_madness" target="_blank">Divine Madness</a>.” It displays some of the problems we’ve grown to expect from authorship by a conglomerate. Just wait until AI takes it over and gloms the universe of knowables up even more.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*If you can find a way to see the movie, fast forward just about three minutes into it to hear Trungpa’s own voice explain how crazy wisdom is a translation of <i>ye-shes chol-ba</i>, while the latter could, he says, be translated as ‘wisdom gone wild.’ He immediately goes on to recalque his <i>creatively back-constructed</i> [</span><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">རང་བཟོ་</span><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">] Tibetan as “craziness gone wisdom.” Fine and good, I suppose, even if not good English is made to translate something invented. Still, I think it could just as well have been translated as ‘erring [on the side of] Full Knowledge.’ That sounds perfectly workable even if hardly doable.)</span></span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Not one that’s been viewed by many, I could recommend a serious video entitled “Saints, Scholars, and Provocateurs: Chogyam Trungpa and Buddhism in the Twenty-First Century,” filmed at Harvard Divinity School on July 9, 2013. It’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd9wU28KBk8&ab_channel=HarvardDivinitySchool" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p></p><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><ul><li><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">Back in 1993, the 14th Dalai Lama termed crazy wisdom “new vocabulary,” and if you ask me His Holiness could not be more on the mark. For the reference, see Stefan Larsson, <i>Crazy for Wisdom</i>, Brill (Leiden 2012), p. 9. Oh, and read the book, too, if you can find the time.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">If you are pressed for time, see <a href="https://youtu.be/yuoTdzGK--U" target="_blank">this video with the title “Dalai Lama on Chogyam Trungpa,”</a> for statements by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama as well as Tenzin Palmo, the Jetsunma. You’ll likely recognize a number of other people in the audience, including Buddhist teachers of different nations and traditions. It took place 30 years ago, back in 1993. <a href="https://youtu.be/c-1hfSmwuYE" target="_blank">The continuation is here.</a> But you might prefer the very long version of the same conversation, <a href="https://meridian-trust.org/video/the-western-buddhist-teachers-conference-with-h-h-the-dalai-lama-2-of-8/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">A note on that proper name: Chögyam Trungpa (1937 or 1940 to 1987) has behind it the original Tibetan spelling དྲུང་པ་ཆོས་རྒྱམ་, Drung-pa Chos-rgyam, a slightly shortened version of Drung-pa Chos-kyi-rgya-mtsho. As a child he was a recognized as a reincarnated Lama associated with Zur-mang Monastery in eastern Tibet. He sometimes bears the fuller name Zur-mang Drung-pa Chos-kyi-rgya-mtsho, being the eleventh incarnate of Zur-mang monastery’s Drung-pa line. For a list of all twelve, </span><a href="https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Surmang_Trungpa_Incarnation_Line" style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;" target="_blank">look here</a><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">.</span></li></ul></span><div><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia;">§ § §</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia;">The Shell of Fools </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia;">(in which foolish hopes create an illusion of smooth sailing to an entirely imaginary destination)</span></h4><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia;">Well, at least that is what I imagine this picture is about. It could just represent the appetites bottled up inside, or are they nurturing some hope to find freedom from their shell? I just don’t know, even if I do see sangsara or, to speak Blakean, the “world of generation” in it, both its possibilities and its discomforting* limitations:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSuHjidQSKijsKPGDtNmcKtQd5G9vmXshRagWXbThTsmMfuIYt-dffPb0mNxm41mHMxa7EBDI6aB29atmzSL6LEnwYtGqr8vp3tRQ0cGITIv8FEM7q380sCeVOCP5u_WVAnrAGzX8PAfBvRJo0JSkmSfs92xt68qOg3GmG_PQzlcaPbX6Tbe0/s1415/Shell%20of%20Fools.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1415" data-original-width="1019" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSuHjidQSKijsKPGDtNmcKtQd5G9vmXshRagWXbThTsmMfuIYt-dffPb0mNxm41mHMxa7EBDI6aB29atmzSL6LEnwYtGqr8vp3tRQ0cGITIv8FEM7q380sCeVOCP5u_WVAnrAGzX8PAfBvRJo0JSkmSfs92xt68qOg3GmG_PQzlcaPbX6Tbe0/w288-h400/Shell%20of%20Fools.jpeg" width="288" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;">An engraving with added hand coloring. Source: Johann Theodor de Bry (1561-1623), </span><i style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;">Emblemata saecularia, mira et iucunda varietate saeculi huius mores ita exprimentia</i><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"> (Frankfurt 1596).</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;">(*Our contemporary self-help seminars and health clinics often make use of what would appear to be Buddhist-derived techniques, tucking a few pillows around the sore spots to make our stay in the clam-shell more tolerable, ‘dealing with the stresses of modern life,’ ‘healing relationships,’ ‘finding fulfillment in work,’ and the like. I would think that actual followers of the Buddha toss those palliative pillows out and get to work on reaching the other shore regardless of difficulties. Then they might begin to implement the union of wisdom and method that gives Bodhisattvas of the Great Vehicle their definition.)</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><div style="color: black; font-family: "Gandhari Unicode"; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />§ § §</span></div><div><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;">Discussion: An Instant Response from Jan-Ulrich Sobisch:</span></span></h4><div><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><div>Dear Dan,</div><div><br /></div><div>I could comment on your “defence” of using counterintuitive methods based on your comparison with surgery, particularly your sentence “We submit to the doctor because we know it’s needed.”</div><div><br /></div><div>Do we? If we did, that would be a good point to make. However, do we know? Or isn’t it more that we trust that the doctor knows what he (or she) does and that the science behind it is solid?</div><div><br /></div><div>Now it is an analogy! People go to the Rinpoche and trust that what he does is based on great wisdom and skill. The problem, however, is: Do we have a solid basis for forming that trust, or is this trust built on something like projection?</div><div><br /></div><div>The science behind surgery can be checked, but how to check projection?</div><div><br /></div><div>Another important aspect in the immediate context of this is “charisma.” I understand it here as “attribution of outstanding knowledge and skill by so-and-so on so-and-so.” Now, if you watch (in youtube) the ‘documentary’ “Crazy Wisdom: The Life and Times of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche” (Shambhala), you can see how charisma is built. There is for example the story of the servant who “personally saw” how the Rinpoche, after apparently being too drunk to teach, suddenly became totally sober in the elevator. Did he really see it? We have to trust him that he did. Or does he retell a story of someone else, having appropriated it to himself long ago? Or has he built himself a memory (a process of which we hear so much in recent years – and at least I can say of myself that in hindsight, I can see how many times I did that myself). In other words, has he told the story so often that the filling of the logical gaps became something that felt like a memory to him? </div><div><br /></div><div>Or we can see the super successful therapist talking about her sexual encounters with the Rinpoche (when she was a young and, of course, stunningly beautiful woman), which were, of course, liberating her, so that now, she is enabled (ennobled?) to pass on the wisdom, which made her a great success in the scene.</div><div><br /></div><div>And so on. In short, I doubt that the analogy is solid. Or that it provides what you may have thought it provides.</div><div><br /></div><div>BTW, while I believe that Feuerstein’s book is mostly worthless (I did read most of it!), I am quite impressed by DiValerio’s book. In short, my argument here would be that it is useless to talk, write or think about the possible intentions of Tricksters, Fools, Madmen, or Saints, simply because we cannot know (and not because we cannot fathom!), but it is much more useful to investigate the social or socio-historical aspect of these people and things: How did they fit into the situation that they found themselves in?</div><div><br /></div><div>I hope this was interesting to you.</div><div><br /></div><div>Best wishes,</div><div>jan</div><div><br /></div></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1e3443; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"></span></span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-70029005569779886162023-01-07T10:13:00.006+02:002023-12-31T21:24:07.794+02:00Words New and Old: An Unknown Glossary<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU3ITk04q7KyawTcxuTndlXSmdUj4HaZHdKrHlDKFrZgF1gXuPQxzc-zV5KMVo-sJtxNUjBGbqGFSysuIHUhdekBpdbgBsOUYIQRZjJ2FtAYqkVMMGf16cNC8Hs2mjySWgycJnaApuk4MTcFWxCUTZd-5as-0K_GniDBI_ckLqbw1Lnl4M7Jc/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-12-28%20at%2023.09.56%20(1).jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="166" data-original-width="320" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU3ITk04q7KyawTcxuTndlXSmdUj4HaZHdKrHlDKFrZgF1gXuPQxzc-zV5KMVo-sJtxNUjBGbqGFSysuIHUhdekBpdbgBsOUYIQRZjJ2FtAYqkVMMGf16cNC8Hs2mjySWgycJnaApuk4MTcFWxCUTZd-5as-0K_GniDBI_ckLqbw1Lnl4M7Jc/w400-h208/Screen%20Shot%202022-12-28%20at%2023.09.56%20(1).jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">I ought to warn you, already decades ago I submitted a paper about </span><i style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tables of Contents</span></i><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> as a Tibetan literary genre. It was finally published, but I still get push-back for it from people who think they know me and assume I must be joking. I just have to assert my sincerity and go on telling things as I have learned to see them. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">The spectrum of Tibetan literary genres is distinct from what we know in the modern Anglophone world. Things were divided up differently. There is no one-to-one correspondence to be found. Really, if you think about it, there never was a Tibetan </span><i style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-size: large;">novel</span></i><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">, not until quite recently, just as the Anglos never had a </span><i style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-size: large;">namthar</span></i><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">. Anyway, what does ‘literary’ mean? Is there such a thing as a minor literary genre? A sub-genre? If we’re going to go on splitting things up and then analyze why it was done... We’ll never finish work for the day if we have to answer all those types of questions.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">So here we are delving into a different Tibetan genre we’ll call <i>Old-New Glossaries</i>. The title above already tells you the one we’ll talk about is <i>unknown</i>, but Laufer had heard about it, so others probably did, too, I just haven’t found evidence. Its poetic title is <i>The Shining of Seven Horses</i>. In case the metaphor doesn’t work on you, and we have to accept that possibility, the whole phrase could be reduced down to <i>Sunshine</i>. What? Were you not fully aware that the sun is the object that is drawn along by seven horses in Indian mythology? The title tells us the book will shine a light on obscure matters, something all compositions ought to do, ideally.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">The book can very well be called a glossary or a vocabulary, although it doesn’t suit the definition of a dictionary. Its scope is much smaller. Its author intends to explain old and obsolete words to his contemporaries by using understandable contemporary language. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">You might be thinking such a work would tell us what “Old Tibetan” words mean. Well, okay, it can and sometimes does happen that you find help with a puzzling word you encountered in a Dunhuang document of the 8th-11th centuries by consulting this type of glossary. That would be unusual. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Sparing you the arguments and details, the fact is that what are <i>here </i>meant by <i>old words</i> are items of vocabulary that were used in the pre-Mongol <i>Second Spread</i> era (or roughly 11th into 13th centuries) and later fell out of use. Sometimes in art studies they call this same period the <i>Kadampa period</i>, although I prefer to call it <i>early Tibet </i>as a fuzzy way of distinguishing it from the <i>Old Tibetan</i> imperial era. The century and a half in between (mid-9th through end of 10th) we can call the <i>post-imperial era</i> or <i>period of fragmentation</i>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">A somehow distinct emphasis in these works is on differences in terms used in old and new Tibetan translations of scriptures and treatises. Unlike Chinese Buddhists who saved everything in their canon collections, Tibetans simply abandoned earlier translations along with their vocabulary choices and replaced them with new ones to suit new standards. Their efforts were not entirely successful, so old translation terms still survive here and there, so there was at least this one reasonable use for Old-New Glossaries.*</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="color: #666666;">(*I think the earliest examples, like the one by Dbus-pa Blo-gsal, were more strictly done in order to show how old terms had been, or ought to be, replaced by new ones. I don’t say this with complete assurance, it’s just an impression. Later examples were more likely to include old terms from non-canonical sources as well.)</span></span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Oddly enough, although no other mentions can be traced in the worldwide web,* Berthold Laufer did mention the <i>Shining of Seven Horses </i>(<i>Seven Horses</i> for short) in his famous and still useful essay, “Bird Divination among the Tibetans,” published way back in 1914, at p. 65, where he says that the 1899 Tibetan-Latin-French dictionary of Father Desgodins made use of it as one of its sources. I hope you’re taking all this in, taking notes if necessary.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="color: #666666;">(*Believe me when I tell you this Laufer reference was not located through any internet search, I found it in my own notes to Tibskrit. The link to Tibskrit is in the sidebar to your right.)</span></span></blockquote><p> </p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjHgRL7v3v9vuPAgMY8PG3lyBnOmj7x03tB46Yo04-j0CQRZK1pv7m1g1Q-Q91GmWPyvRnjsQHx-6FajEj1DCjZ6CPj2hQFxia-kcw8U1O3SuJ2r5w-zaIZVgfEN6-qs_hlNavfekdufk-Yvw5gXJVP5wL5r991aErBrjBNx2s8WMdvybGA8_c" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="171" data-original-width="1773" height="39" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjHgRL7v3v9vuPAgMY8PG3lyBnOmj7x03tB46Yo04-j0CQRZK1pv7m1g1Q-Q91GmWPyvRnjsQHx-6FajEj1DCjZ6CPj2hQFxia-kcw8U1O3SuJ2r5w-zaIZVgfEN6-qs_hlNavfekdufk-Yvw5gXJVP5wL5r991aErBrjBNx2s8WMdvybGA8_c=w400-h39" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: courier; font-size: xx-small;">The title (click on it to enlarge)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"></span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">What this tells us is that the <i>Seven Horses</i> manuscript scanned and posted by BDRC is our nearly unique evidence for the existence of this work. The only other mention of it is as a source of the Desgodins dictionary. This dictionary was very beautifully printed, but not well circulated to say the least. I couldn’t immediately find mention of our title in the front matter of the dictionary, but Laufer corresponded directly with the missionary and could have learned about it in that way rather than from the printed page. </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Apart from my mother, I know of no other person today who actually writes in handwriting, putting the paper in an envelope, and attaching postage stamps. You may have to take my word when I say it was once a very common method of communication.</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> But enough distraction, let’s spare a few words about the author, as much as we can given the resources at our disposal today.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgh1EZxRq9TNZqBzy0dNEAtzqC3cVCvICwZYgjxGTECJWVxQAARbF9hISY142rbocnE4ESuwqWXZ43F_BlF0roDkq08zEVfTdEb_lqNYafXVHFiSupaLE4ln87nDFLkb9OEDwimYvY5e9gshwVCNedL7DB14sENhmfls_qLWwNWyqZsjUSpoLk"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><img alt="" data-original-height="59" data-original-width="626" height="38" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgh1EZxRq9TNZqBzy0dNEAtzqC3cVCvICwZYgjxGTECJWVxQAARbF9hISY142rbocnE4ESuwqWXZ43F_BlF0roDkq08zEVfTdEb_lqNYafXVHFiSupaLE4ln87nDFLkb9OEDwimYvY5e9gshwVCNedL7DB14sENhmfls_qLWwNWyqZsjUSpoLk=w400-h38" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"></span></div><span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: courier; font-size: xx-small;">The name of the author as it appears in the colophon</span></div><div style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large; text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">I couldn’t immediately explain why BDRC lists the author’s name as Kun-bzang-padma-blo-ldan, while the small cursive letters in the colophon actually read <i>dge-kyongs</i> [~ <i>dge-skyong</i>] Padma-blo-ldan. The <i>dge-skyong</i>, or<i> virtue keeping</i> epithet may imply that the person named is a monastic, but it isn’t in any sense a proper part of the name, just an epithet. So the only author’s name we have here in the manuscript is Padma-blo-ldan, a person not very easily identified.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Still we can know things of significance about the author without peering anywhere outside the colophon itself (see the discussion at the head of the Reference list, below). What is sure is that he was a Nyingma belonging to the 17th century. Even if less sure, he likely lived and worked in Kham in Eastern Tibet.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Maybe another time someone will go into the content of this under-utilized work in detail and tell us how well it corresponds with previous works of its genre. A good text for comparison would be the most famous one, known by the short poetic title <i>Li shi'i gur khang </i>by<i> </i>the translator Skyogs-ston. It could help with a number of discussions and arguments we might want to have or make. For now, to close with, I would like to look briefly at something near the end. This might supply enough of a taste of it for now.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">After the ending of chapter 30, after the end of the alphabetic series, on folio 17 <i>verso</i>, there is a special section on borrowings from non-Tibetan languages, starting with the most obvious group, borrowings from Sanskrit (or more broadly Indic) language. The reason for going into this is this: Tibetans might very well encounter words that they don’t immediately understand and rush to the conclusion that they are Old Vocabulary terms, when in fact they are borrowings. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">While that motive is surely there, we may also see, mainly in this Indic section, that certain terms underwent local adaptations within Tibet often making them difficult to recognize <i>as</i> borrowings. I call this process “Tibetanization.” Mostly well known examples are given, like Indic <i>pustaka</i> meaning <i>book</i>, evolving into <i>po-ti</i> in Tibet. Another example is Tibetan form <i>bram-ze</i> for Sanskrit <i>brahmaṇa</i>, or, as we say in English, <i>brahmin, </i>meaning the priestly caste.</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">*</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: trebuchet;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: trebuchet;">(*Yes, it is true what you may be thinking, we may well imagine Prakritic or colloquializing forms intervening, so at least some of the change could have already taken place in India, no doubt.)</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">I see a lot of drama in the Tibetanization of the Indian woman saint’s name Lakṣmīṅkarā — Legs-smin-kā-ra — since the first two syllables are transformed into meaningful Tibetan syllables that could be translated <i>well ripened</i>. Our author sees all these things as <i>mistakes</i> Tibetans have made in Sanskrit, rather than seeing the ways they had fun with Sanskrit. I hope you’re having fun, but let’s move ahead to the next bit about Chinese borrowings. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Here he says that there are instances in which people want to take Chinese borrowed words as being Old Terms. Examples of more-or-less direct borrowings he gives are <i>grum-tse </i>[seating mat], <i>cog-tse</i> [table] and <i>zing-zan </i>[<i>zang-zing</i> as a term for <i>food</i> or <i>meat</i>?]. But also there are calques from Chinese terms like <i>gser-zhal</i> and<i> gser-yig</i>.*<i> </i>All of these items come together with added small-letter explanations in red ink, even if not all are easily read. <i>Gser-zhal</i> [‘gold face’] is glossed as <i>face of the king</i>. <i>Gser-yig</i> [‘gold letter’] is <i>bang-chen-pa</i> [‘one with great messages’], usually understood to mean an <i>imperial envoy</i>. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="color: #666666;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="color: #666666;">(*My impression is these two calques only entered Tibetan usage during the early days of Yuan Mongolian influence.)</span></span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">But then it’s the next thing that most interests me (fol. 18v.2). We all of a sudden switch from <i>language</i> borrowings and calques to terminology of a different <i>religion</i>. What exact religion might be here intended by Bon we will return to again and again in some other place. The line reads like this (with the glosses in parentheses, all red letters given here in red font):</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><i>gnam (<span style="color: red;">mchod rnam legs pa la</span>) gshegs (<span style="color: red;">li shi na ’ang</span>) lor <span style="color: red;">bon po’i brda</span></i>.</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Let me do my best to unpack this rather than straight-up translating. It’s telling us there is such a thing as <span style="color: red;">Bonpo vocabulary</span>, with one example being <i>gnam gshegs</i>, meaning <i>passing [to] heaven</i>, glossed as being in the sense or context of <i><span style="color: red;">finely made offerings</span></i>. Then the second gloss says, just before the syllable <i>lor</i> that must mean <i>as reported, “</i><span style="color: red;">as also in the <i>Clove</i>, the <i>Li shi</i></span>.”*</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="color: #666666;"></span></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="color: #666666;">(*This could provoke lots of discussion, not least of all because the expression[s] given aren’t <i>really</i> special Bon terminology in the sense that only Bonpos would understand them, and, less relevant here yet a truth that needs telling, the fact is that Bon writings have carried very many early Tibetan terms into modern times when everyone else had practically forgotten them in around the 13th century.)</span></span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">This mention of <i>Clove</i> or <i>Li shi</i> is meant as a clue to have a look at the <i>Clove Canopy</i><i> </i>of Skyogs-ston. The <i>Clove Canopy </i>does in truth end its vocabulary listings in much the same manner as the <i>Seven Horses</i>, by discussing clusters of items that might be misconstrued as Old Terms. The latter work doesn’t just reproduce what’s in the former, but appears for most part to supplement it. Significantly for us right now, it does have a discussion of <i>passing [to] heaven </i>[p. 22]:</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: trebuchet;"><i>kha cig bon po'i brdar yod de / legs pa la gnam mchod pa dang / mi shi ba la gnam du gshegs pa dang / bsod nams che ba la gnam gyis bskos pa zhes pa dang / dbang che ba la gnam sa'i bdag ces pa sogs shin tu mang zhing</i>...</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">In some cases we have words of the Bonpos. For something that is quite fine, they say <i>sky offering </i>(<i>gnam mchod-pa</i>), and for a person who has died they say he has <i>gone to heaven </i>(<i>gnam-du gshegs-pa</i>). For someone of superior merits, they say he is <i>sky appointed</i> (<i>gnam gyis bskos-pa</i>), and for someone of superior power, they say <i>lord of sky and earth </i>(<i>gnam sa'i bdag</i>).</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span>Without reading this passage from the <i>Clove Canopy</i>, I fear we would never be able to see the point of the corresponding passage in the <i>Seven Horses</i>. True enough. But let me make the point I want to make here in connection with some arguments in a recent blog entry with the title “<a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2022/09/nam-ancient-word-for-sky.html" target="_blank">Nam, an Ancient Word for Sky</a>.” Both the <i>Clove Canopy</i> and the <i>Seven Horses</i> can come to our aid,* seeing that these expressions making use of the</span><span> </span><span>concept of</span><span> </span><i>gnam. </i><span>I</span><span><span>n the minds of these glossary writers, <i>gnam</i> belongs to a non-Buddhist “</span><i>Bon</i><span>”</span><span> context that would likely feel alien or </span><i>archaic</i><span> to your typical Tibetan Buddhist reader of their times.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="color: #666666;">(*Along with still other sources like the well known quote, falsely attributed to the Nel-pa history, about how Bonpos “like the sky.” See the discussion under “Nel-pa” in the list below.)</span></span></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFxtbGhsMNJujcXzhgfDIviOUu35CDowEYEVT_l0olvh9QsHnl1WcMJS6DcbsUdeGr7s73w97hmz7Nnvlr-6w1AEPAJI0LOr7277S5FlG1eNeXaw2eWenAjZKlLyGCKaTfNKMW4RUd-_3zVnjr8JzN1W6s_MfnvvC8EKQY9Taa03CUQRX-5To/s640/Black%20whiplash%20divider.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="190" data-original-width="640" height="59" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFxtbGhsMNJujcXzhgfDIviOUu35CDowEYEVT_l0olvh9QsHnl1WcMJS6DcbsUdeGr7s73w97hmz7Nnvlr-6w1AEPAJI0LOr7277S5FlG1eNeXaw2eWenAjZKlLyGCKaTfNKMW4RUd-_3zVnjr8JzN1W6s_MfnvvC8EKQY9Taa03CUQRX-5To/w200-h59/Black%20whiplash%20divider.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><p></p><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Reference list</span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">For more on Tibetan-language lexical tools, see our July 16, 2015 blog “<a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2015/07/lexical-euphoria-good-news-on.html" target="_blank">Lexical Euphoria: Good News on Dictionaries</a>.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">In the list you can see below, I’ve included several works known to me that belong to the genre of Old-New Glossaries. I had no idea to make a complete list. One way you can look for still more examples is to do a search at BDRC/BUDA, where you can even find their subject heading for it together with its own independent listing (<a href="https://library.bdrc.io/search?r=bdr:T443&t=Work" target="_blank">try this link</a>). Alternatively, do a more general search of BDRC using the terms “gsar rnying brda” or “brda gsar rnying” or “brda’ rnying.” You can try the same in a worldwide web search, but make sure to include the double quote marks when you do.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Before typing up the bibliographical list, let me give the details for the <i>Seven Horses</i>:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">The full title-page title is: <i>Bod yul gyi skad gsar rnying gi rnam par bzhag pa rta bdun snang ba</i> [<i>zhes bya ba bzhugs so legs so ngo mtshar mchog lags</i>]. A Sanskrit title is also given in Tibetan script. The title page <i>verso</i> has a slightly variant title: <i>Bod yul gyi skad gsar rnying gi rnam par dbye ba rta bdun snang ba</i> [<i>zhes bya ba</i>].</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"></span></p></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">It can be found <a href="https://legacy.tbrc.org/#library_work_ViewByOutline-O8LS396018LS40640%7CW3PD889" target="_blank">here at this page</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">But it can also be found <a href="https://legacy.tbrc.org/#library_work_ViewInWIndow-W4CZ302373%7CI4CZ302477%7C1%7C1%7C1%7C42" target="_blank">here at this page</a>.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-small;">Both manuscripts end on the verso of folio 19, even if the number of folios is stated differently. They are for all purposes identical. BDRC gives its author’s ID as P5081, along with three forms of his name: [1] <span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #333333;">K</span><span style="color: #333333;">un-bzang-padma-blo-</span><span style="color: #333333;">ldan. [2] S</span><span style="color: #333333;">tag-ras-pa. [3] S</span><span style="color: #333333;">tag-ras-pa Kun-bzang-padma-blo-ldan. Thanks to Google and its help finding the article by Cantwell (q.v.), I could find a mention of one by the full name (no. 3), as author of a biography of Bdud-’dul-rdo-rje. BDRC is as correct as it can be about the date of the work. It must be 17th century because it names the author’s teacher as Padma-blo-gros, holder of the treasure lineages of Bdud-’dul-rdo-rje and Mi-’gyur-rdo-rje. </span><span style="color: #333333;">The former is the very well known tertön by that name who lived from 1</span><span style="color: #333333;">615-1672. </span><span style="color: #333333;">The latter, a still more famous tertön, lived from 1645-1667. Both were particularly active in Khams, and had their early main followers there.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #333333;">The author’s teacher is identifiable as Stag-bla Padma-ma-ti (aka Padma-blo-gros), whose dates are </span><span style="color: #333333;">1591 to 1637. The author held this teacher’s lineages from both of the just-mentioned tertöns. The person who actually requested that the work be written is given as the fully ordained monk Blo-gros-nyi-ma, also known as the Yogin Tshul-khrims-rgyal-mtshan, and further described as <i>my own root Lama</i>. I haven’t been able to make a definitive identification of the <i>root Lama</i> yet. What we can know is that the author belonged to the </span><span style="color: #333333;">17th century and a Nyingma milieu, and even if it isn't so sure, he likely lived and worked in the eastern parts of the plateau we normally know as Khams. In any case our single available manuscript was scanned in Khams, in a <a href="http://purl.bdrc.io/resource/G1563" target="_blank">particular monastery</a> within the modern county called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garz%C3%AA_Tibetan_Autonomous_Prefecture" target="_blank">Kardze</a>.</span></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: x-small;"></span></span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-small;"></span><p> </p><blockquote style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">° ° °</span></blockquote></span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>A-lag-sha</b> Ngag-dbang-bstan-dar (1754-1840), <i>Gangs can gyi brda' gsar rnying las brtsams pa'i brda' yig blo gsal mgrin rgyan</i>. A 52-folio woodblock print listed as part of the collection of the Oriental Institute, St. Petersburg, nos. B6744/27, B8922/4. It is also findable in his <i>Collected Works</i>, vol. 2 [KHA] (New Delhi 1971).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>A-myes-zhabs</b> Ngag-dbang-kun-dga’-bsod-nams (1597-1659), <i>Gsar rnying brda'i rnam dbye legs par bshad pa gsung rab kun la lta ba'i sgron me</i>. The text is available (see BDRC).</span></p><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://library.bdrc.io/show/bdr:P162" target="_blank">Blo-bzang-bsam-’grub</a> (1820-1882), <i>Dpe chos rin chen spungs pa'i btus ming shes rab kyi mig gsal byed kyi sgron me</i>. Woodblock print in 28 folios. Vocabulary from the <i>Dpe chos</i>, an early Kadampa work. The author’s name is given in the colophon as Sngags-rams-pa Chos-rje Lcam-sring-skyabs. Its poetic title could be translated, <i>Lamp that Lights Up the Eye of Insight</i>. A distinct New-Old Glossary by this same Mongolian author, <i>Gangs can bod kyi brda gsar rnying las brtsams pa'i brda yig blo gsal mgul rgyan</i>, in 66 folios, is listed in <i>Materials for a History of Tibetan Literature</i>, no. 10164. I have no idea about its present availability.</span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Blo-gros-rgya-mtsho</b> and Bkra-shis-dngos-grub, <i>Brda rnying tshig mdzod gsar bsgrigs</i>, Bod ljongs mi rigs dpe skrun khang (Lhasa 2011), in 381 small-format pages. This is a modern-day compilation of various works of the Old-New Glossaries genre. I’ve always found the Btsan-lha dictionary more useful.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Btsan-lha</b> Ngag-dbang-tshul-khrims, <i>Brda dkrol gser gyi me long</i>, Mi rigs dpe skrun khang (Beijing 1997). The great virtue of this dictionary is that it combines a large number of early Old-New Glossaries (along with still other lexicographical genres). It lists their titles at the end of the volume, at pp. 1040-1063. Although the author is surely quite advanced in age by now, I understand he has been working on a much expanded version, something students of early Tibet would be right to anticipate. Meanwhile the 1997 edition has gotten more and more difficult to find.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Cathy <b>Cantwell</b>, “Reincarnation and Personal Identity in the Lives of Tibetan Masters: Linking the Revelations of Three Lamas of the Dudjom Tradition,” a 32-page essay, apparently only available as a draft on the internet at <a href="https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:e3a1c586-0460-4aa3-bc29-ff201f095bc6/download_file?file_format=application%2Fpdf&safe_filename=Cantwell_post%2Breview%2Bversion.pdf&type_of_work=Journal+article" target="_blank">this URL</a>. On its 19th unnumbered page, you can see a very rare instance of a mention of our author, only here he is author of a biographical work on Bdud-’dul-rdo-rje:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><div><blockquote><span style="color: #666666;">“A much longer list of the previous incarnations of Düdül Dorje is given in a <i>namthar</i> (<i>rnam thar,</i> ‘hagiography’) compiled by Takrepa Künzang Pema Loden (Stag ras pa kun bzang padma blo ldan, 1997), apparently a direct student of Düdül Dorjeʼs.” </span></blockquote></div></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Chos-ldan-rgya-mtsho</b>, <i>Brda gsar rnying gi rnam gzhag legs par ston pa'i reg gzigs gsar bu'i nyer mkho</i>. Listed in Btsan-lha, no. 1052, but I suspect confusion with the work by Rje-drung Lhun-grub-blo-ldan, q.v.</span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Co-ne</b> Grags-pa-bshad-sgrub (1675-1748), <i>Snyan ngag mngon brjod brda gsar rnying gi rnam gzhag mdor bsdus blo gsal yid 'phrog</i>. A woodblock print in 12 folios. Signed “shākya'i dge slong bshad sgrub ming can.” Composed at G.yar khral. Oriental Institute, St. Petersburg, nos. B5660/2, B8487/23. </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">See Leonard van der Kuijp's article about <i>bam po</i> in <i>Journal of Tibetology</i>, at p. 120, where he comments that this work cannot be found in its author’s collected works.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Dalai Lama</b> VII Skal-bzang-rgya-mtsho (1708-1757), <i>Tā go shrī dge slong shes rab rgya mtsho'i dogs sel dris lan dang brda gsar rnying gi brda chad 'ga' zhig gi dris lan</i>. Listed in Btsan-lha’s dictionary, p. 1052. Answers to inquiries about archaic vocabulary items.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Dbus-pa Blo-gsal</b> (</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">ca. 1265-1355), </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><i>Brda gsar rnying gi rnam par dbye ba</i>.</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">For the Otani University manuscript,</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span><a href="https://library.bdrc.io/show/bdr:W1KG12170" style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;" target="_blank">click here</a><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">. </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">This is</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> the same one used in the studies by Mimaki, q.v. </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Other editions have since become available, just search for them in BDRC.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Auguste <b>Desgodins</b> (1826-1913), <i>Dictionnaire thibétain-latin-francais par les missionnaires du Thibet</i>, Imprimerie de la Société des Missions Étrangères (Hong Kong 1899).<i> </i><a href="https://archive.org/details/bdrc-W1KG17448" target="_blank">Look here</a>, although I was unable to make the .tif files open on my computer. Perhaps you will have better luck? You might also <a href="https://legacy.tbrc.org/#library_work_ViewInWIndow-W1KG17448%7CI1KG18241%7C1%7C1%7C1%7C1111" target="_blank">try here</a>. As I said, there doesn’t seem to be any direct mention of the <i>Seven Horses</i> in this publication, but either it or another book like it is alluded to on p. vi: “nous indiquons par (A. = R. <i>ancien égale récent</i>), les mots qui ne se trouvent guère que dans la langue sacrée ancienne...” Oh, and notice that the Bibliothèque Nationale de France has this interesting <a href="https://data.bnf.fr/fr/15316565/auguste_desgodins/" target="_blank">page about Desgodins</a> with lists of his publications and letters. Their own Gallica website offers what appears to be a superior scan of the dictionary, <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k323344q" target="_blank">click here to get started</a> (the download button is findable on the right side of the window; it is very slow, but worth the wait).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Dngul-chu</b> Ngag-dbang-rdo-rje (1720-1803), <i>Brda gsar rnying gi khyad par bstan pa gsar bu'i blo gros skyed byed</i>. A work in 6 folios. This has been published a number of times in various formats, just do a search for it at BDRC.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Gnya’-gong</b> Dkon-mchog-tshe-brtan, <i>Bod kyi brda rnying yig cha rtsa chen bdams bsgrigs rnams kyi tshig don kun nas khrol bar byas pa rab gsal me long</i>, Kan su’u mi rigs dpe skrun khang (Lanzhou 2001). This work is unlike the others, [1] in the first place because it studies a number of works, listing their vocabulary items separately, and [2] because it intends to explain the old terminology to be found in Dunhuang documents (documents unknown to post-imperial Tibet up until the 20th century) along with stele inscriptions of imperial times (inscriptions in large part available, and to some degree known to and studied by Tibetans in past centuries).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Kun-bzang-rdo-rje</b>, ed., <i>Chos skad brda gsar rnying gi rnam gzhag sbrang rtsi'i bum pa</i>, Rdzong kha gong 'phel lhan tshogs (Thimphu 2011), in 159 pages.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span>Berthold </span><b>Laufer</b><span>, “Bird Divination among the Tibetans (Notes on Document Pelliot No. 3530, with a Study of Tibetan Phonology of the Ninth Century),” </span><i>T'oung Pao, </i><span>series 2, vol. 15 (2014), pp. 1-110. As part of a very useful discussion of Old-New Glossaries, he has these words on p. 65:</span></span></div></div><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: trebuchet;">“There is, further, a work under the title <i>Bod yul-gyi skad gsar rñi</i><i>ṅ</i><i>-gi rnam-par dbye-ba rta bdun snaṅ-ba</i>, which has been carefully utilized in the “Dictionaire thibétain-latin-français par les Missionnaires catholiques du Thibet” (Hongkong, 1899).” (The footnote attached to this passage is also of considerable interest.)</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Berthold <b>Laufer</b>, “Loan-Words in Tibetan,’ contained in: Hartmut Walravens, ed., <i>Sino-Tibetan Studies: Selected Papers on the Art, Folklore History, Linguistics and Prehistory of Sciences in China and Tibet</i>, Aditya Prakashan (New Delhi 1987), vol. 2, pp. 483-643 [originally published in 1916], at pp. 523-524, or pp. 443-444 in the original 1916 publication. </span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: trebuchet;">After posting the blog, but on the very same day, I noticed Laufer, back in 1916, made a translation of the passage</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: trebuchet;"> about Chinese loanwords</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: trebuchet;"> from the</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: trebuchet;"> </span><i style="color: #666666; font-family: trebuchet;">Clove Canopy</i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: trebuchet;"> that I had translated on the basis of the shorter corresponding passage in </span><i style="color: #666666; font-family: trebuchet;">Seven Horses</i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: trebuchet;">, so it’s interesting to compare them, even if I won’t do that here and now.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Mimaki</b> Katsumi, “dBus pa blo gsal no "Shin Kyu Goi Shu" — Kôtei bon Shokô [The <i>brDa gsar rñiṅ gi rnam par dbye ba</i> of dBus pa blo gsal — A First Attempt at a Critical Edition],” contained in: <i>Asian Languages and General Linguistics: Festschrift for Prof. Tatsuo Nishida on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday</i> (Tokyo 1990), pp. 17-54. This contains a critical text edition in Roman transcription (with numbers inserted so that one may first locate words in Mimaki's alphabetic index, and then locate them in the critical text edition).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Mimaki</b> Katsumi, “Index to Two <i>brDa gsar rñiṅ</i> Treatises: The Works of dBus pa blo gsal and lCaṅ skya Rol pa'i rdo rje,” contained in a special issue of the <i>Bulletin of the Narita Institute for Buddhist Studies</i> (<i>Naritasan Bukkyôkenkyûjo kiyô</i>), vol. 15, no. 2 (1992), pp. 479-503.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><b>Mimaki</b> Katsumi, “Two Minor Works Ascribed to dBus pa Blo gsal,” contained in S. Ihara and Z. Yamaguchi, eds., Tibetan Studies, Naritasan Shinshoji (Narita 1992), vol. 2, pp. 591-598. Discussion about an existing text, at Otani University,</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> of his </span><i style="font-family: trebuchet;">Brda gsar rnying gi rnam par dbye ba</i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">, as well as his </span><i style="font-family: trebuchet;">Rtags kyi 'jug pa'i 'grel pa</i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><b>Nel-pa Paṇḍi-ta</b>, </span><i style="font-family: trebuchet;">Sngon gyi gtam me tog gi phreng ba</i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">, "a 13th century source on the history of Tibetan kings and rulers by Ne'u Paṇḍi-ta Grags-pa-smon-lam-blo-gros, with other rare historical texts from the library of Burmiok Athing," T.D. Densapa, LTWA (Dharamsala 1985).</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="color: #666666;">Nel-pa is at times credited with the statement that Bonpos “<i>like</i> the sky” (<i>gnam-la dga'</i>). However, this one edition of the text I have at hand reads, at p. 14 line 1: <i>gnam las babs par smra ba ni / bon pos lhad bcug par yin no</i>. “This saying that they [the books, etc.] fell [onto the palace roof of the Tibetan Emperor Lha Tho-tho-ri Gnyan-btsan] from the sky is to be explained as an <i>interpolation</i> by the Bonpos.” I should go check the German of Helga Uebach’s translation and see how she understood it. Here it is on her p. 87: “Das Gerede des Vom-Himmel-Kommens ist eine Verfälschung seitens der Bon-po.” I suppose “falsification” suits the tone of it well enough. Just try doing a Googlebook search for “<i>gnam la dga’</i>” and you will see there is a problem of quote attribution by earlier writings in both Tibetan and English that needs fixing. Right now I think those words <i>like the sky</i> were first pronounced much later on, in the mid-16th century history the <i>Scholars’ Feast</i>, but I’ll put that difficult discussion on hold for another time, another blog. Finding the truth of the matter is one thing, but tracing back the sources of error can be even more laborious and challenging (and somehow revealing on occasion).</span></span></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Ngag-dbang-chos-dar</b>, <i>Brda gsar rnying</i>, Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang (Xining 1980), in 217 pp. A modern work, based on the <i>Gangs can gyi brda gsar rnying las brtsams pa'i brda yig blo gsal mgrin rgyan </i>by A-lag-sha Ngag-dbang-bstan-dar, q.v.</span></p><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Rje-drung</b> Lhun-grub-blo-ldan (19th century), <i>Brda' gsar rnying gi rnam gzhag legs par ston pa gsar bu'i nyer mkho</i>, Pleasure of Elegant Sayings Press (Sarnath 1966), in 118 pp. For a scan of a beautiful woodblock print in 37 folios, <a href="https://library.bdrc.io/show/bdr:W3CN1665" target="_blank">click here</a>. The statement naming the author is found in the woodblock’s colophon at folio 36 <i>recto</i>, line 5. Perhaps this has to do with the similarly titled text by Chos-ldan-rgya-mtsho, q.v.</span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Rnam-rgyal-tshe-ring</b>, <i>Bod yig brda rnying tshig mdzod</i>, Krung go'i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang (Beijing 2001), in 678 pages. A Tibetan-Tibetan-Chinese dictionary, the preface is written in Chinese. It doesn’t seem to state what its sources were, but you do notice an uncommonly strong emphasis on Old Tibetan words from Dunhuang documents.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Ulrike <b>Roesler</b>, “Der <i>dPe chos rin chen spuṅs pa'i btus miṅ</i> — eine Quelle zur tibetisch mongolischen Lexographie und Schriftkunde,” contained in: D. Dimitrov, U. Roesler and R. Steiner, eds., <i>Śikhisamuccayah: Indian and Tibetan Studies, </i>Collectanea Marpurgensia Indologica et Tibetica, Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, Universität Wien (Vienna 2002), pp. 151-173. This is a study of the work by Blo-bzang-bsam-’grub, listed above.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Skyogs-ston</b> Lo-tsā-ba Rin-chen-bkra-shis (student of Zha-lu Lo-tsā-ba), <i>Brda gsar rnying gi rnam gzhag li shi'i gur khang</i> (=<i>Bod kyi skad las gsar rnying gi brda'i khyad par ston pa legs par bshad pa li shi'i gur khang</i>), ed. by Mgon-po-rgyal-mtshan, Mi rigs dpe skrun khang (Beijing 1981, 1982). It must have been written in 1476 (the preface wrongly states 1136, and still other dates have been put forward). This is by far the most-mentioned work of the genre, and has been republished numerous times. </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">The advantage of this edition is that it first gives the text in its original form, then once again with the vocabulary items rearranged in Tibetan alphabetic order. If you would prefer a searchable unicode version of it, <a href="http://www.dharmadownload.net/pages/english/Texts/texts_0037.htm" target="_blank">click here</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Sman-rgyal</b> Sangs-rgyas-rin-chen, <i>Gsar rnying brda'i legs bshad bai ḍūrya yi gur khang gi don gsal nyi ma</i>. Listed in Btsan-lha, p. 1062.</span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span>Manfred </span><b>Taube</b><span>, “Zu einigen Texten der tibetischen Brda'-gsar-rñiṅ-Literatur,” </span><i>Asienwissenschaftliche Beitrage</i><span> (Berlin 1978), pp. 160-201. This isn’t available to me at the moment.</span></span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Zhabs-drung</b> Chos-rje Ngag-dbang-tshe-ring (=Wa-ghin-da, fl. 1840), <i>Brda gsar rnying gi rnam bzhag</i>. Listed in <i>Materials for a History of Tibetan Literature</i>, no. 6618.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Zhe-chen</b> Padma-dri-med-legs-pa'i-blo-gros (1901?-1960), <i>Brda gsar rnying gi bye brag rtogs byed</i>. Listed in Btsan-lha, p. 1052.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">§ § §</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">PS (December 31, 2023, Happy New Year!):</span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">I just found that Padma-blo-ldan's glossary called the <i>Light of Seven Horses</i>, exists in the form of an 18-folio manuscript posted this year in the digital scan version of Nebesky-Wojkowitz’s Tibetan collection. Just go to this URL</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: trebuchet;"><a href="https://hav.univie.ac.at/collections/nebesky/node/573/">https://hav.univie.ac.at/collections/nebesky/node/573/</a></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">and see it for yourself.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-83370672872449426472022-12-21T11:10:00.017+02:002023-01-25T14:47:13.710+02:00Sex Rites of the Christian Missionaries<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3u1-Hw-0JU7Qe6H7vmjwpfYZ3vplSUUWMw6-umHgyz8ZCZFpTmtrHiOh2JAK7Y6eRo6eShq7PDSDTA1VdZkr4R4I3UEiIvXfqZKIejtfC9kAOKfV9dgMZ6gcra5AM6B3qGUqnWg/s1600/1747-john-v-haidt-1700-1780-zinzendorf-als-lehrer-der-vslker-moravian-archives-herrnhut-germany.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="361" data-original-width="400" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3u1-Hw-0JU7Qe6H7vmjwpfYZ3vplSUUWMw6-umHgyz8ZCZFpTmtrHiOh2JAK7Y6eRo6eShq7PDSDTA1VdZkr4R4I3UEiIvXfqZKIejtfC9kAOKfV9dgMZ6gcra5AM6B3qGUqnWg/w400-h361/1747-john-v-haidt-1700-1780-zinzendorf-als-lehrer-der-vslker-moravian-archives-herrnhut-germany.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Count von Zinzendorf receiving light rays from the side wound, <br />oil painting by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Valentine_Haidt" target="_blank">Johann V. Haidt</a> (1700-1780) dated 1747</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I suppose I first sensed something odd was going on years ago. I was testing the limits of my German comprehension, reading one of the oldest essays ever written by a non-Tibetan about the Tibetan Bon religion. <a href="http://www.moravian.org.uk/component/content/article/157-spotlight-news/365-br-francke-a-missionary-scholar?Itemid=437" target="_blank">August Hermann Francke</a> (1870-1930), published several pieces on that subject during the last three decades of his life. Most famously he started translating the <i>Gzer-myig</i>, the medium-sized biography of Bon’s founder, Lord Shenrab.</span></div></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: medium;">In his 1927 essay entitled “Die Zufluchtsformel der Bon-Religion der Tibeter” [‘The Refuge Formula of the Tibetan Bon Religion’], Francke, a Moravian missionary in Lahul, takes the Bon Refuge formula, as found in the <i>Gzer-myig</i> scripture, and compares it with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. He pays particular attention to the Bon goddess Sa-trig-er-sang, as adding a female aspect to divinity. This emphasis on female or feminized aspects of the godhead begins to make more sense the more you learn about the Moravians.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The goddess Sa-trig-er-sang bears a Zhang-zhung language name that may be Tibetanized as Shes-rab-byams-ma. This may then be Anglicized as “Insight (or Wisdom as many prefer) Loving Mother.” No doubt, if viewed from outside by a Christian missionary, it might be expectable to see something of Sophia (Wisdom) and Mary the Mother of God (the Theotokos) in that Bon goddess’s name. Both Sophia and Theotokos are icons for veneration in eastern Christianities for whom <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Wisdom_(iconography)" target="_blank">Holy Wisdom</a> with her female appearance is none other than Jesus. I believe this is at least in general outline the kind of connection Francke meant to draw. Still more germane to our story, Sophia, as the feminine aspect of godhead, has special meanings in the theology of the Moravians, although their tendency is to identify her with the Holy Spirit, unlike the Greek Orthodox, who identify her with Jesus...*</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"></span><blockquote><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*See Fogelman’s book, chapter 3: ‘The Challenge to Gender Order.’ Moravians also tended to feminize Jesus; see Rimius.)</span></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I once took a university course about communalistic religious movements in early New England,* but after a few decades my knowledge has worn thin as fine muslin, and what I think I know about Moravian history in Europe and North America comes from recent readings of books and essays of the kind you see listed below. I will try not to torture you with my own ideas too much. You will do so much better if I send you to hear from real experts in the field.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><blockquote><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*I just searched online for the teacher of that class and found that he died earlier this year, age 81. His name is <a href="https://religiousstudies.indiana.edu/news-events/news/2022-01-stephen-stein.html" target="_blank">Stephen Stein</a>.)</span></blockquote></span></div></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: medium;">If you don’t have much time, go directly to the video linked just below with a lecture by Paul Peucker entitled “Opening the Blue Cabinet,” or read his 2011 article if you prefer. If your spirits guide you, go read some of the other items. If you want a well-balanced discussion of historical influences and contexts, definitely read Atwood’s 2004 book. He foregrounds Moravian pietism as a product of its times, with considerable background information, before going on to speak of their unusual marital practices and views on gender, which is as it should be. Contrast Fogleman’s 2007 book, recommended if you have less (yet <i>some</i>) patience for historical detail and theology and would prefer the sexy bits more up front and center.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: medium;">One thing to bear in mind, the time of Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) and the so-called “Sifting Time,” when the most remarkable ritualized sex observances and theological enthusiasms took place, were by most accounts not only long over but gone by the time the Herrnhut Brethren entered Tibetan cultural realms of northern India in the 1850’s. There had even been an attempt to scrub the archives clean (Peucker 2012). Yet some of the early ideas had carrying power. If the missionaries in Lahul were not making use of <i>The Blue Cabinet</i>, and I do not believe they were, still their marriages were arranged for them (often planned out in detail) by the church. Earlier Moravians regarded the marriage <i>bed</i> as a religious sacrament (which is not the same as Catholics who regard the <i>institution</i> of marriage, the rite itself, as a sacrament). Moravians had to submit to the church in general, and accepting the church’s choice of spouse was just another instance of submission. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: medium;">And in those earlier days the church was very closely and intimately involved in their followers’ marital lives. In truth the physical union was then treated as a religious ritual with promise of spiritual benefits, done in combination with prayers. That means not only prayers and hymns done by themselves, but also by the church elders sitting just outside the door absorbed in hymn singing and fervid praying. But don’t take <i>my</i> word for it.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I wouldn’t want to leave anyone with the impression that the Moravian Brethren were just a pack of randy rascals. I don’t have time or inclination to grant them complete justice, what anthropologists call <i>adequate representation</i>, here in this place. I’ll only say it again, read Atwood’s book. Still, let me say a thing or two to close with. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The Moravians were quite influential, and not only controversial, particularly in the early times. We should review some of their accomplishments briefly:</span></div><div><ol><blockquote><li><span style="font-size: medium;">They didn’t make the first hymnals, but they did make the first hymnals intended for congregational singing, like those you find today in every Protestant church. </span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;">They published the first Bible in Czech language. </span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;">They were the original “world missionaries” even if this isn’t often recognized. <span style="color: #666666;">(For an exception, see Ward’s book.)</span> Zinzendorf himself visited the New World to do missionary work. In North America they proselytized and invited to worship with them both native-born populations and slaves, disregarding race, accepting everyone. They converted those who were willing, without pressuring them to renounce their cultures. </span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;">They not only recognized a female aspect in the godhead in their theology, in practice they gave a much greater role to women than was common in other churches — a <i>feminist</i> impulse was in evidence. </span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;">There was also what we may see as an <i>ecumenical</i> impulse, even if it was largely about how intense devotion and piety could overcome the credal boundaries drawn by contending theological convictions.</span></li></blockquote><p> </p></ol><span style="font-size: medium;">But when we limit ourselves to our Tibeto-centric perspective their biggest contributions were in the works of Francke, Jäschke and others who were doing more for the field of Tibetan studies than anyone else in their day. They may have had missionary interests, but at least they had the good sense to take an interest.</span></div></div></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><span style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote style="text-align: right;"><br /></blockquote></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxCf9TtpCs26bFV8gP1ZsuCReihyK2wh9RrZoxPF2pdOnefBXeHQV_9RUPKG_XLrb5FAr-bJq1ia6xyH0utkIkd9ozQEhh6As0tRK5BksJOZ5tzEdeZ9aJMsEVvloTuebUkpyDzA/s1600/Moravian_Mission_Keylong_India_ca1910.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="490" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxCf9TtpCs26bFV8gP1ZsuCReihyK2wh9RrZoxPF2pdOnefBXeHQV_9RUPKG_XLrb5FAr-bJq1ia6xyH0utkIkd9ozQEhh6As0tRK5BksJOZ5tzEdeZ9aJMsEVvloTuebUkpyDzA/s400/Moravian_Mission_Keylong_India_ca1910.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T<span style="font-size: xx-small;">he Moravian Mission in Keylong, from Missions Archive</span></td></tr>
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<h4 style="margin: 5pt 0cm 0cm 22pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -22pt;"><br /></h4><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;" trbidi="on"><span style="color: #660000;">§ § §</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="color: #660000;"><br /></span></div><h4 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Video</span></h4><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://vimeo.com/31960203" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="539" data-original-width="640" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZcj4l5ge_TReUPWO1fdXVOnF8FrSHtE0gaqcmQiW3NDysagGrJa5NCQXNspAGCBWIU7jB6rZWxqW648lA1tsz3OxUohCngcGd93gnO_R2Hdk_B_cqksT2eXajIk--AN9ZkA9_PnI79J8Ymj-M0ZXYrOL1uHlE9n8cQOpIGonSn95qft9OmZg/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-12-21%20at%2010.50.30.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span><span style="color: #cc0000;">• </span>Paul Peucker, <a href="https://vimeo.com/31960203">Opening the Blue Cabinet</a> </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span>from </span><a href="https://vimeo.com/moravianseminary">Moravian Seminary</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: center;"><span>(<a href="https://vimeo.com/31960203">https://vimeo.com/31960203</a>)</span></div>
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<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><h4><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Relevant literature </span></h4><p></p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm;"><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Items I most recommend are marked by a red bullet: <span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: trebuchet;">• </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">)</span></span></span></p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span><span style="color: #cc0000;">• </span>Craig D. <b>Atwood</b>, “Adoring the Wounded Savior.” Go to </span><a href="https://theflamingheretic.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/adoring-the-wounded-savior/" target="_blank">this</a><span> webpage (and don’t neglect to download the Powerpoint that goes with it; it ought to appear if you just tap on the words “Adoring the Wounded Savior Slideshow” at the very top of the essay).</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><span style="color: #cc0000;">• </span>Craig D. Atwood, </span><i>Community of the Cross</i><span>: </span><i>Moravian Piety in Colonial Bethlehem, </i>Pennsylva<span>nia State University Press (University Park 2004). Try </span><a href="http://14.139.206.50:8080/jspui/bitstream/1/664/1/Atwood,%20Craig%20D.%20-%20Community%20of%20the%20Cross%20Moravian%20Piety%20in%20Colonial%20Bethlehem%20Max%20Kade%20German%202004.pdf" target="_blank">here</a><span>. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span>Craig D. Atwood, “Little Side Holes: Devotional Cards of the Mid-Eighteenth Century,” <i>Journal of Moravian History</i>, no. 6 (Spring 2009), pp. 61-75. He argues against Fogleman’s tendency to view all the devotional wound imagery as necessarily erotic. All the same he accepts that it is heavily laden with womb symbolism.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span>Craig D. Atwood, “Mother of God’s People: The Adoration of the Holy Spirit in the Eighteenth-Century Brüdergemeine,” <i>Church History</i>, vol. 68, no. 4 (December 1999), pp. 886-909.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span>Craig
D. Atwood, “Sleeping in the Arms of Christ: Sanctifying Sexuality in the
Eighteenth-Century Moravian Church,” </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Journal
of the History of Sexuality</i><span>, vol. 8, no. 1 (July 1997), pp. 25-51.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span>Craig D. Atwood, “The Union of Masculine and Feminine in Zinzendorfian Piety,</span>” contained in: Katherine M. Faull, ed., <i>Masculinity, Sense, Spirit,</i> Bucknell University Press (Lewisburg 2011), pp. 11-37</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span>Craig D. Atwood, “Understanding Zinzendorf’s Blood and Wounds Theology,” <i>Journal of Moravian History</i>, no. 1 (2006) pp. 31-46.</span></div></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Rafal
<b>Beszterda</b>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Moravian Brethren and
Himalayan Cultures: Evangelisation, Society, Industry</i>, Munshiram Manoharlal
(New Delhi 2014).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://www.academia.edu/28260462/Beszterda_Moravian_Brethren_and_Himalayan_Cultures.pdf" target="_blank">PDF</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span>John <b>Bray</b>, “A.H. Francke’s Last Visit to Ladakh: History, Archaeology and the First World War,” <i>Zentralasiatische Studien</i>, vol. 44 (2015), pp. 147-178. The author has a very extensive body of writings on the Moravian missionaries in the Himalayas, and only a few of these will be listed here.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">John Bray, “Heinrich August Jaeschke: Pioneer Tibetan Scholar,” <i>The Tibet Journal</i>, vol. 8, no. 1 (Spring 1983), pp. 50-55. Interesting information about Jaeschke’s ancestor being one of the founding members of Herrnhut.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">• </span>John Bray, “<a href="https://www.academia.edu/40003697/Ladakhi_Knowledge_and_Western_Learning_A_H_Francke_s_Teachers_Guides_and_Friends_in_the_Western_Himalaya" target="_blank">Ladakhi Knowledge and Western Learning: A.H. Francke’s Teachers, Guides and Friends in the Western Himalaya</a>,” <i>Revue d'Etudes Tibetaines</i>, vol. 51 (2019), pp. 39-70. With interesting photographs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span>John Bray, “Recalling the Life of Ladakh Scholar A.H. Francke on His 150th Birthday Anniversary,” a blog posted at <a href="http://Ladakhstudies.org">Ladakhstudies.org</a> on November 4, 2020.</span></div></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">R.K.<b>C.</b>, <i>A Strategy for Bringing Contextualized Gospel into the Tibetan Buddhist World</i>, master’s thesis, School of Divinity, <a href="regent.edu" target="_blank">Regent University</a> (Virginia Beach 2020). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><blockquote><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #666666;">A work of practical mission-ology. I checked and found that this Regent University is nondenominational Christian — yet obviously evangelical, believing in the global missionary imperative, scriptural inerrancy, literal interpretation etc.* — with half their students not residing in Virginia Beach (yes, Bible-believing Boomers can be Zoomers). I have to say I’m not impressed at the depth of insight this thesis demonstrates, and think I could have made a lot better suggestions, for example, how to appropriate tulku ideas by integrating them into Christian incarnation theology. The faculty advisers sign their names, but the student fears to do so for reasons we can only imagine to our horror.</span></span></blockquote></span></div></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="margin-bottom: 25px;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: xx-small;"><blockquote><span style="color: #666666;">(*In case you wonder, yes, these would be some of the very people who voted for Donald Trump. See</span> <a href="https://www.regent.edu/school-of-divinity/donald-trump-selects-regent-university-campaign-rally/" target="_blank">this story about one of his rallies</a><span style="color: #666666;"> held there on campus in 2016, addressed by Pat Robertson, naturally, since he’s its founder, chancellor and CEO. God told him Trump would win that latest presidential election, and no, he didn’t. The evangelicals knew for certain that Trump was not a good person, but nevertheless chose to see him as an instrument of divine will (as his Vice President, Pence spoke in just those terms when addressing evangelical audiences). Serving as an instrument in this case could very well mean hastening the end of the world, something they greatly anticipate, at times displaying an eagerness that can only be described as perverse. If you haven’t heard about their <i>Cyrus arguments,</i> about the usefulness of <i>flawed vessels</i>, you really ought to look into it. Well, if everybody is imperfect, then everyone should get to be head of state, if you will allow me to give a little push to their tortured logic. Trump was always forced to respect them, given their voting power, even when he would mock them as losers and demonstrate his disbelief beyond all possibility of doubt. Remember that photo op of him holding up a Bible in front of a church? Remember how much trouble was taken to put on this display? A calculated ploy to boost his falling approval ratings... To quote <i>The Who</i>, We won’t be fooled again...</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></blockquote></span></div></div></div></blockquote><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="margin-bottom: 25px;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">H.M. <b>Cushman</b>, “Handling Knowledge: Holy Bodies in the Middle English Mystery Plays,” <i>Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies</i>, vol. 47, no. 2 (2017), pp. 279-304, at p. 279:</span></div></div></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="margin-bottom: 25px;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-small;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm;">“In the climax of the N-Town and Chester Nativity plays, the midwife Salome puts her hand inside the Virgin Mary... In the plays featuring Thomas the Apostle, Thomas’s fingers penetrate the resurrected Jesus’s wounded side and hands. Both the midwife and the apostle are searching for something. Salome is seeking evidence that supports or disproves the Virgin Mary’s claim that, although she has just given birth, she retains the anatomical features of a ‘clene mayde and pure virgyn.’...</div></span></div></div></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="margin-bottom: 25px;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">“... They conduct manual experiments, or what the plays sometimes call ‘assayes,’ in order to acquire new knowledge to which these bodies bear witness.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm;"><br /></div><div><br /></div></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Keri
<b>Davies</b>, “Bridal Mysticism and ‘Sifting Time’: The Lost Moravian History of
William Blake’s Family.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://www.academia.edu/1500470/Bridal_Mysticism_and_Sifting_Time_the_lost_Moravian_history_of_William_Blakes_family" target="_blank">Digital document</a>
from internet. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">• </span>Katherine <b>Faull</b> and Jeannette Norfleet, “The Married Choir Instructions (1785),” <i>Journal of Moravian History</i>, no. 10 (2011), pp. 69-110.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">J. Kestell <b>Floyer</b>, “The Emblem of the Five Wounds of Christ,” <i>Theology</i>, vol. 4, no. 22 (1922), pp. 194-200.</span></div>
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<div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span><span style="color: #cc0000;">• </span>Aaron
Spencer <b>Fogleman</b>, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jesus is Female:
Moravians and the Challenge of Radical Religion in Early America</i><span>, University
of Pennsylvania Press (Philadelphia 2007).</span></span></div>
<span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Aaron Spencer Fogleman, “Jesus is Female: The Moravian Challenge in the German Communities of British North America,” </span><i>William and Mary Quarterly</i><span face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">, vol. 60, no. 2 (April 2003), pp. 295-332.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">• </span>August Hermann <b>Francke</b>, “<a href="https://www.academia.edu/35623941/August_Hermann_Francke_Die_Zufluchtsformel_der_Bon_Religion_der_Tibeter" target="_blank">Die Zufluchtsformel der Bon-Religion der Tibeter</a>,” <i>Neue Allgemeine Missionszeitschrift</i>, vol. 4 (1927), pp. 150-158. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div></span></div><blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-small;"><div style="text-align: justify;">You will have to go to the link to locate this one. Most printed copies of the journal will have crumbled to dust by now. And the online catalog of the Library of Congress doesn’t record its existence anywhere. For a more detailed summary, see D. Martin, <i>Unearthing Bon Treasures</i>, Brill (Leiden 2001), pp. 333-334.</div></span></div>
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</div></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">August Hermann Francke, “gZer-myig, A Book of the Tibetan Bon-pos,” <i>Asia Major</i>, vol. 1 (1924), pp. 243-346; vol. 3 (1926), pp. 321-339; vol. 4 (1927), pp. 161-239, 481-540; vol. 5 (1928), pp. 7-40; vol. 6 (1930), pp. 299-314; new series vol. 7 (1949), pp. 163-188.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: trebuchet;">John
<b>Gill</b>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Banished Count: The Life of Nicholas
Louis Zinzendorf</i>, “from the French of M. Felix Bovet,” James
Nisbet (London 1865).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://archive.org/details/banishedcount00bove" target="_blank">PDF</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">H[einrich] A[ugust] <b>Jäschke</b>, <i>A Tibetan-English Dictionary with Special Reference to the Prevailing Dialects</i>, Routledge & Kegan Paul (London 1972), first English edition was dated 1881, while the <a href="https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_qrUIAAAAQAAJ" target="_blank">original German edition</a> appeared in lithographic form, almost entirely in handwriting, between the years 1871 and 1876.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: trebuchet;">George
Fenwick <b>Jones</b>, “Count von Zinzendorf’s Letter to King Tomochichi,” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Georgia Historical Quarterly</i>, vol. 86,
no. 4 (Winter 2002), pp. 617-619.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About a failed effort to colonize Georgia (the Georgia the New World, not the Old) with Moravians and convert the local populations.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Dan <b>Martin</b>, <i><a href="https://sites.google.com/view/bonbiblio/home" target="_blank">Bon Bibliography</a>, </i> posted for free download in 2020.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span>Rich
<b>Miller</b>, “Zinzendorf and the Unitas Fratrum: Mutual Edification, Powerful
Strategies,” a course paper for the Regent School of Divinity (Virginia Beach
2010).</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://www.academia.edu/7244726/ZINZENDORF_AND_THE_UNITAS_FRATRUM_MORAVIANS_MUTUAL_EDIFICATION_POWERFUL_STRATEGIES" target="_blank">Document</a><span> from internet. For more on Regent University, look above under “R.K.C.”</span></span></div>
<span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Seth <b>Moglen</b>, “Excess and Utopia: Meditations on Moravian Bethlehem,” </span><i>History of the Present</i><span face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">, vol. 2, no. 2 (Fall 2012), pp. 122-147. The same author has written a book I haven’t seen, </span><i>Bethlehem: American Utopia, American Tragedy</i><span face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Cameron <b>Partridge</b>, “Side Wound, Virgin Birth, Transfiguration,” <i>Theology & Sexuality</i>, vol. 18, no. 2 (2012), pp. 127-132.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span>Paul
<b>Peucker</b>, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Time of Sifting: Mystical
Marriage and the Crisis of Moravian Piety in the Eighteenth Century</i><span>,
Pennsylvania State University Press, (University Park 2015).</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span>Reviewed by Tom Schwanda in </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Spiritus</i><span>, vol. 16</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span>(Spring 2016), pp. 123-125. At this point I’ve read the review, but not the book.</span></span></div>
<span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="color: #cc0000;">• </span>Paul Peucker, “<a href="https://www.academia.edu/37000327/In_the_Blue_Cabinet_Moravians_Marriage_and_Sex" target="_blank">In the Blue Cabinet: Moravians, Marriage & Sex</a></span><i>,” Journal of Moravian History</i><span face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">, vol 12 (2011), pp. 7-37. Particularly recommended.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Paul
Peucker, “Inspired by Flames of Love: Homosexuality, Mysticism and Moravian
Brothers around 1750,” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Journal of the
History of Sexuality</i>, vol. 15, no. 1 (2006).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/204961" target="_blank">PDF</a> (by subscription only).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Paul Peucker, “</span>Selection and Destruction in Moravian Archives Between 1760 and 1810,” <i>Journal of Moravian History</i>, vol. 12, no. 2 (2012) pp. 170-215. On attempts to purge the church archives of historical records pertaining to the so-called Sifting Time.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Paul Peucker, “The Songs of the Sifting: Understanding the Role of Bridal Mysticism in Moravian Piety during the Late 1740’s,” <i>Journal of Moravian History</i>, vol. 3 (2007), pp. 51-87.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Paul Peucker, “Wives of the Lamb: Moravian Brothers and Gender around 1750,” contained in: Katherine M. Faull, ed., <i>Masculinity, Sense, Spirit,</i> Bucknell University Press (Lewisburg 2011), pp. 39-54.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Oskar <b>Pfister</b>, <i>Die Frommigkeit des Grafen Ludwig von Zinzendorf [‘The Piety of Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf’</i>], Schriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde, no. 8 (Leipzig and Vienna 1910). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><blockquote><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">I don’t pretend to have read it, it’s just interesting to know that this was the book that brought Count Zinzendorf to the attention of the Viennese psychoanalytical circle with their evolving ideas about sexual repression (see Silberer’s book listed just below). Actually, Pfister although a Lutheran minister in Switzerland, was enthusiastically involved in the Viennese circle, exchanging letters with Freud and so on. To quote a line from Freud’s 1914 essay, ‘History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement’:</span></blockquote></span></div></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="margin-bottom: 25px;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><p></p><blockquote><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">“Dr. Pfister, a pastor in Zurich, has traced back the origin of religious fanaticism to perverse eroticism in his book on the piety of Count von Zinzendorf, as well as in other contributions. In the latest works of the Zurich school, however, we find analysis permeated with religious ideas rather than the opposite outcome that had been in view.”</span></blockquote><p></p></span></div></div></div></blockquote><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="margin-bottom: 25px;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-small;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm;">My note: By Zurich school, he means Pfister’s own circle of followers. Freud could never express his appreciation for another member of his circle without also chiding them for something or another. He does a similar thing every time he mentions Silberer’s dream theories. Perhaps compensating for un-admitted inadequacies, he always made himself look a little better than the rest, more knowledgable, more analytical, more scientific, even. Maybe that’s why he came out at the head of the pack?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm;"><br /></div></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm;"><br /></div></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Henry <b>Rimius</b>, <i>A <a href="https://archive.org/details/candidnarrativeo00rimi_0" target="_blank">Candid Narrative of the Rise and Progress of the Herrnhuters</a>, Commonly Call'd Moravians, or, Unitas Fratrum; with a Short Account of </i></span><i style="font-family: trebuchet;">Their Doctrines Drawn from Their Own Writings</i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">, 2nd ed., A. Linde (London 1753),</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> pp. 40-41:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><blockquote><span style="color: #666666; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-small;">“The Holy Ghost is called by the Herrnhuters, the <i>eternal Wife</i> of God, the Mother of Christ, the Mother of the Faithful, the Mother of the Church...”</span></blockquote><blockquote><p><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">[Jesus] “is called the <i>Lamb,</i> their <i>little Lamb</i>, their <i>little Jesus</i>. They make his Name of the feminine gender, calling him their Mother, their <i>Mama Jesua</i>.” </span></p></blockquote></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Herbert <b>Silberer</b> (1882-1923), <i>Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts</i>, Dover Publications (New York 1971). This English translation was first published under the [better] title <i>Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism</i> in 1917 (<i>Probleme der Mystik und ihrer Symbolik</i>, in 1914). At pp. 264-266, his discussion on Count Zinzendorf includes these words: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"></span><blockquote><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">“Thus the pious man indulges his phantasy with a marked predilection for voluptuousness in the ‘Seitenhölchen’ (Wound in the Side) in Jesus’ body and with an unmistakable identification of this ‘cleft’ with the vulva.”</span></blockquote></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Kristof <b>Smeyers</b>, “Making Sense of Stigmata: How Victorians Explained the Wounds of Christ,” <i>Journal of Victorian Culture</i>, vol. 24, no. 2 (2019), pp. 227-240.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: trebuchet;">August
Gottlieb <b>Spangenberg</b> (1704-1792), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Life of Nicholas
Lewis Count Zinzendorf: Bishop and Ordinary of the Church of the United (or
Moravian) Brethren</i>, Samuel Holdsworth (Ann Arbor 1838). Try archive.org/.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Peter <b>Vogt</b>, “Honor to the Side: The Adoration of the Side Wound of Jesus in Eighteenth-Century Moravian Piety,” <i>Journal of Moravian History</i>, vol. 7 (Autumn 2009), pp. 83-106.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Peter Vogt, “Zinzendorf’s ‘Seventeen Points of Matrimony’: A Fundamental Document on the Moravian Understanding of Marriage and Sexuality,” <i>Journal of Moravian History</i>, vol. 10 (2011), pp. 39-67.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">W.R. <b>Ward</b>, <i>Early Evangelicalism: A Global Intellectual History, 1670-1789</i>, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge 2006).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span>John
R. <b>Weinlick</b>, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Count Zinzendorf</i><span>,
Abingdon Press (New York 1956).</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span><div>Karl Wilhelm <b>Westmeier</b>, “Zinzendorf at Esopus: The Apocalyptical Missiology of Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf — A Debut to America.” <i>Missiology</i>, vol. 22, no. 4 (October 1994), pp. 419-436. I haven’t seen this yet (because of the pay wall).</div></span></span></div>
<span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Yashoda</b>, “50 Stars of Christmas: Moravian Church, Leh, Highest Church in the World.” Posted November 24, 2017. Look </span><a href="https://www.religionworld.in/50-stars-christmas-moravian-church-leh-highest-church-country/" target="_blank">here</a><span face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">, particularly for the photo of the Moravian church in Leh, Ladakh, made to resemble local style architecture.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><h4 style="font-family: "Gandhari Unicode"; margin: 5pt 0cm 0cm 22pt; text-indent: -22pt;"><br /></h4></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm;"></div><blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #4c1130;"><b>
PS</b>: Looking at the <b>frontispiece</b>, it is difficult to avoid the thought that it was inspired and informed by earlier paintings of St. Francis of Assissi receiving the Stigmata. See for a <i>ca.</i> 1300 example </span><a href="https://www.thehistoryofart.org/giotto/st-francis-receiving-the-stigmata/" target="_blank">Giotto’s</a><span style="color: #4c1130;">.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Whether Moravian wound devotion was an unnatural aberration or an expectable development of trends within the broader Christian world (see especially Vogt) is something you may have to sort out for yourself, if that’s the sort of thing that interests you. In the British Isles one may detect a longterm development between the 15th century when a cult of Five Wounds reached its peak (Floyer), until the 19th when a anomalously <i>Protestant</i> rash of stigmata took place (Smeyers).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">But if you closely inspect and contrast Haidt’s and Giotto’s paintings you will observe the differences in the places the light rays lead to and from, and then some of you will want to conclude that Haidt was influenced by Tibetan Buddhism.</span></div></blockquote></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><p></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #666666;">For Paul Peucker’s hour-long exploration of Haidt’s life and artistry, we have </span><a href="https://youtu.be/I5nC1q--gzQ" target="_blank">this interesting video</a><span style="color: #666666;">, posted April 16, 2021. An odd detail: Haidt’s painting of a manger scene shows what apparently is Mary’s midwife, known only in extra-canonical scriptures. Her name was Salome, and a cave-tomb that was once a cult center for Christians in her memory was only made public earlier today (December 21, 2022). There is one decisive clue that the 2nd woman <i>is</i> the midwife: We see in the painting how her one hand holds the other. Part of the story is that her hand was paralyzed when she temporarily doubted the Virgin’s virginity. The tomb had been known for sometime, but newly identified thanks to the recent discovery of an inscription that reads something like, “Salome who was Mary’s midwife.” That the story was released shortly before Christmas was not an accident. </span></span></blockquote><p></p></div></blockquote></blockquote><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1nYaogeb4od5qNf3asmecKKcoTEXeht2aW6RVFWx75voGwUUu0tdtaIx0sENSD8diSqQyVfsHhamDKc9JZyIWZQaV4LOLuPbuHjNtcAiPaMDRYM3WdTnEToricOw9v_UjdkrVZSvJd8ZcdfWz_EJDKQ6nh-rmyzJ9TpZG4dYEZgwJc7LQQv0/s3584/Screen%20Shot%202022-12-21%20at%2012.44.12.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2240" data-original-width="3584" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1nYaogeb4od5qNf3asmecKKcoTEXeht2aW6RVFWx75voGwUUu0tdtaIx0sENSD8diSqQyVfsHhamDKc9JZyIWZQaV4LOLuPbuHjNtcAiPaMDRYM3WdTnEToricOw9v_UjdkrVZSvJd8ZcdfWz_EJDKQ6nh-rmyzJ9TpZG4dYEZgwJc7LQQv0/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-12-21%20at%2012.44.12.png" width="320" /></a></div><span style="color: #660000;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">PPS (still Dec. 21): If you would like to unravel the mystery of why Salome is holding her hands in that way, you shouldn’t trust the news stories, or my own account of it just given, and go directly to the “<a href="https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/infancyjames-hock.html" target="_blank">Infancy Gospel of James</a>,” chapters 19-20. We can all use some fact checking sometimes. Salome was not exactly the midwife, and her hand wasn’t exactly paralyzed (in fact, her “hand was on fire, and falling away from her’). As a “doubting Thomas” type of figure she has to perform her empirical test by inserting her finger somewhere else besides the side wound.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">Another thing: The burial cave and its inscription with the name of Salome has been known for years now. For proof, see <a href="https://www.albert-tours-israel.com/single-post/salome-jesus-midwife" target="_blank">this 2019 blog</a> by a Holy Land tour guide. Today’s news releases are more than a little disingenuous about this, using weasel words like “recently.”</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">- - -</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">“O my dove, <i>that art</i> in the clefts of the rock, in the secret <i>places</i> of the stairs,* let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice ; for sweet <i>is</i> thy voice, and thy countenance <i>is</i> comely.” </p></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">—<span> </span>Song of Solomon 2:14 [King James version]</span></p></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*<i>Crag</i> or <i>overhang, </i>in the singular, would have been better translation choices. Or maybe <i>alcove</i>, a word of Semitic origins.)</span></p></div></blockquote><p> </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: left;">Rock of ages, cleft for me,</div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: left;">let me hide myself in thee;</div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: left;">let the water and the blood,</div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: left;">from thy wounded side which flowed,</div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: left;">be of sin the double cure;</div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: left;">save from wrath and make me pure.</div></div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>—<span> </span>Rock of Ages</i>, the hymn by Augustus Toplady (1763) </p></blockquote></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">Note: For a typically allegorical Christian interpretation (not something that should ever be done by people like Calvinists, professing a belief in the inerrancy of scripture taken literally) of the Bible verse by John Gill, a teacher of the just-mentioned Toplady, <a href="https://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/gills-exposition-of-the-bible/song-of-solomon-2-14.html" target="_blank">look here</a>. These were Calvinists, not Moravians, although they did belong to the same century as Zinzendorf. <i>Rock of Ages</i> was written soon after Zinzendorf’s death. It is today among the top most-sung hymns in North American evangelical hymnbooks. It might come in at second place after <i>Amazing Grace</i>.</span></p><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1cm;"></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-42707909794238193082022-12-06T00:01:00.002+02:002022-12-08T23:52:29.615+02:00The Realm of Dharmas, a Treasury of Jewels. Chapter 6: Everything is Included in Bodhicitta<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCV0_eNnn0iy4fmnnZyujfzJPYoxFUObAXI46GdqK0zQXLVMBR3AN80WX8ff2xqYtOyb3s5UTFOsN0JMZSLDzNj2uZCLckw9zj4fTG51R0AG57H9D4uKnvAq2Vex8dK_fc5JjHjEI6JX4SbP4LnqbHMo3oOoP3F0u87YgyFtpzPRnYETXIWlI/s1119/Jewel%20Treasury%20in%20Hand.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="975" data-original-width="1119" height="349" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCV0_eNnn0iy4fmnnZyujfzJPYoxFUObAXI46GdqK0zQXLVMBR3AN80WX8ff2xqYtOyb3s5UTFOsN0JMZSLDzNj2uZCLckw9zj4fTG51R0AG57H9D4uKnvAq2Vex8dK_fc5JjHjEI6JX4SbP4LnqbHMo3oOoP3F0u87YgyFtpzPRnYETXIWlI/w400-h349/Jewel%20Treasury%20in%20Hand.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Realm of Dharmas,</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p><span style="font-size: large;">a Treasury of Jewels,</span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: center;"><br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">by Longchen Rabjampa</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">CHAPTER SIX</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">EVERYTHING IS INCLUDED IN BODHICITTA</span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>[It has been shown that all dharmas are included in the purity of the Awareness substantiality. Meanwhile, it will be shown that, because Dharma Proper and suchness are on the same side, everything is included in the Unproduced continuity.]</i></span></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>As lights are gathered in the essence of the Sun, even</p><p>so, the roots of all dharmas are gathered in Bodhicitta.</p><p>Appearances/becoming, material/vital and even impure error,</p><p>in short, all occurrences are, when the realm of their situations</p><p>and dependencies is examined,</p><p>gathered in the continuum of foundationless, totally disentangled</p><p><i>citta</i>.</p><p>The continuum of the great x—pansive total receptive center that</p><p>Dharma Proper is</p><p>is gathered in a place beyond the words and meanings of </p><p>‘error’ and ‘unerror’.</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>[Just as dreams are included in the sleep continuity, so all dharma-having (objects) are included in the continuity of Awareness.]</i></span></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>The appropriate manifestations which are pure—</p><p>Body, Buddha, and</p><p>the miraculous play of Full Knowledge activity as well,</p><p>are included without inclusion or exclusion</p><p>in the continuity of the self-engendered.</p><p>Including all appearances/becoming and <i>sangsara/nirvana</i>,</p><p>the Bodhicitta</p><p>is an uncompounded void-clarity like the sun-sky.</p><p>From the beginning, it is an expansive total receptive centre,</p><p>self-engendered.</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">[This Awareness-Bodhicitta which excludes no dharmas whatsoever is, like the sun, naturally and implicitly luminous and, like the sky, void and ownerless. The self-engendered Full Knowledge is called “the primordial Dharmabody which has buddhaized whatever is.”</span></i></p><p><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>The </i>All Making King<i> says,</i></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>Dharma Proper beyond everything is Bodhicitta.</i></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>Bodhicitta is the heart of all dharmas.</i></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>Bodhicitta is the root of all dharmas.</i></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>As the root, it combines the purpose of everything.]</i></span></p></blockquote></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">[The great receptive centre shows the nature of citta.]</span></i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>The continuity of the changeless sky great receptive centre that</p><p>Mind Proper is</p><p>has no fixed part to play. It is Bodhicitta’s special power.</p><p>Since it steers all <i>sangsara/nirvana</i> Vehicles,</p><p>the one thing that is unemployed is the master of all.</p><p>It isn’t separated from objective spheres of those who have</p><p>gone to extremes.</p><p>There has been no place to go besides the Dharma-Proper-Bodhicitta.</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">[Now there will be closely formulated for the All-including a simile of its unmovedness.]</span></i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>The total good of everything has dawned as one naturally-arrived-at.</p><p>Everything without exception included, its supremacy is beyond compare.</p><p>The greatest of greats total good Realm of Dharmas,</p><p>like a king, draws everything together.</p><p>Unmoved, yet it has wielded its power over all <i>sangsara/nirvana</i>.</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>[Just as a king, without moving from his own palace, draws his subjects under his rule, the continuum of Awareness, without moving from Dharma Proper, draws together all </i>sangsara/nirvana<i>.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>Everything was made by Bodhicitta and, while everything has dawned from citta, the Mind Proper was not made by anything. It is beyond all actions and things to do; so things to do are shown to be unnecessary.</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>The </i>All Making King<i> says,</i></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>Bodhicitta made everything. One was not made.</i></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>The all-made the nature of clear comprehension made.</i></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>For the one unmade, making is unnecessary.]</i></span></p></blockquote></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">[Because the nature of the totality of dharmas is levelness, it is shown to lack good/bad, pushing/striving.]</span></i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>Everything is totally good. Not one is bad.</p><p>Without good/bad, things are one in Total Good.</p><p>Things arrived-at or unarrived-at are all one Realm.</p><p>All are, in naturally-arrived-at unmoving levelness, one.</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>[What has dawned from the Realm is in itself beyond pushing/striving.]</i></span></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>Everything has dawned from one. <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Realm of All Dharmas</p><p>is nothing to be made. <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In its continuity</p><p>is nothing to be pushing, <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>nothing to be striving for.</p><p>Pushing/striving do not exist apart from the appropriate Realm.</p><p>So from where did you push? <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To where do you strive?</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>[Therefore, it is beyond both cause/effect & pushing/striving.]</i></span></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>There is no objective field of pushing, nothing to see in meditation,</p><p>no place to strive for. It hasn’t come from somewhere else</p><p>It doesn’t come. It doesn’t go. It is levelness,</p><p>the Dharmabody.</p><p>It is subsumed into the Realm of the Great Drop, naturally completed.</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>[The sky-like substance of Mind Proper is a single spot Realm. Since all dharmas are included in its continuity, there is nothing to be pushed by the ten natures, etc. That which isn’t to be pushed is the Realm of Dharmas, undelineated.]</i></span></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>[Now it will be shown that in Awareness-Bodhicitta all Vehicles are included. The way the three lesser Vehicles are included:]</i></span></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>The scriptural authorities of Hearers,</p><p> Solitary Realizers &</p><p> Bodhisattvas</p><p>have determined the non existence of me and mine.</p><p>The underlying meaning to the “sky-like undiffusive” is the same.</p><p>And the scriptural authorities of the supremely secret great yoga of Ati?</p><p>Because no matter how it is that the self-engendered Full Knowledge</p><p>is actually assigned</p><p>to the expansive sky-without-self/other-divisions,</p><p>the underlying intention is, in any case, included</p><p>in this supreme Heart Ati.</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>[The Hearers hold that all internal and external dharmas are sky-like, lacking selfhood and ‘person’. The Solitary Realizers say, moreover, that half of the dharmas are not things to be grasped. The Bodhisattvas say that the absence of grasper and grasped, of selfhood pertaining to either dharmas or ‘person’, is sky-like. These views affirm rather than contradict the view of Ati-yoga.]</i></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>[The middling three Vehicles are also included in Ati.] [Note: The Diamond Peak is a tantra of the Yoga class held as especially authoritative by the Japanese Shingon school.]</i></span></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>All the three classes of Kriya,</p><p> <span> </span>Upa &</p><p> Yoga</p><p>are the same in holding that the immaculate attainments of body,</p><p> speech &</p><p> mind</p><p>come from the offering rituals of oneself,</p><p> the divinities &</p><p> samadhi.</p><p>According to the secret king of scriptural authorities,</p><p>the Diamond Peak,</p><p>appearances and sounds are immaculate Awareness totally divinized.</p><p>Since they bring the immaculate attainments of body,</p><p> speech &</p><p> mind into the open,</p><p>all their underlying intentions are included in this supreme Heart Ati.</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">[The superior three Vehicles are completed in Ati.]</span></i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>The three grades Maha,</p><p> Anu &</p><p> Ati believe</p><p>in the unmoving Dharma Proper and self-engendered Full Knowledge.</p><p>Since appearances/becoming, material/vital, the fields of gods & goddesses,</p><p>and Realm-Full Knowledge are immaculate in their indivisibility,</p><p>in this most secret supreme, everything is immaculate.</p><p>Everything is disentangled into the total vastness receptive centre of</p><p>Dharmabody.</p><p>Without named dharmas, pushing-working or accepting/rejecting,</p><p>everything is from the unmade Palace, the total receptive centre</p><p>field of comfort</p><p>with no in or out side, spread-out, embracing all.</p><p>All these underlying intentions are included in the great secret</p><p>Heart Ati.</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">˚</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>[Now, everything being included in Bodhicitta, the meaning is completely summed up.]</i></span></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>One complete. All complete. The receptive centre where</p><p>all dharmas are included</p><p>is included in the totally settled, self-luminous Great</p><p>Naturally-arrived-at.</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i>[“One complete.” means completion in Bodhicitta.</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i> “Two complete.” means the creations of mind are complete.</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i> “All complete.” means every last thing is perfect.]</i></span></p></blockquote><p> </p><p><br /></p><div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2019/12/" style="text-align: right;" target="_blank">Return to t</a><a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2019/12/" target="_blank">he beginning.</a></p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><div><br /></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-32325107964578137262022-11-22T17:36:00.012+02:002022-12-13T11:20:58.566+02:00The White Old Man Sūtra - Part Two<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipY5F4enD08T-Ggb7N-n4FemMfh_RxRMAjElP8wPwLUuymPvOz86QBJDuot68w6j-n34mnylof7xtdXGj6weudrCJHRzw6x3Dd6dlrM0icMYLcUKIDrLJaEa3IyLV1sM693sb4DtgbopRpAib4o0fEUQ8EV6ipnBvhZhpJgxKM8yJGm2cn_gM/s720/Slide18.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipY5F4enD08T-Ggb7N-n4FemMfh_RxRMAjElP8wPwLUuymPvOz86QBJDuot68w6j-n34mnylof7xtdXGj6weudrCJHRzw6x3Dd6dlrM0icMYLcUKIDrLJaEa3IyLV1sM693sb4DtgbopRpAib4o0fEUQ8EV6ipnBvhZhpJgxKM8yJGm2cn_gM/w400-h225/Slide18.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-white-old-man-sutra-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">To start at the beginning, click here.</span></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So here is my fast attempt to elaborate on the meanings of every last detail in this surprisingly complex picture. First of all, look on the Old Man’s right hand and see how he holds a <b>pitcher</b> or ewer in the act of pouring out a ritual libation into a small stemmed goblet that rests on top of a larger bowl in its turn placed on an altar table. The larger bowl is there to catch the overflow from the goblet. The overflow itself conveys a notion of copious overabundance.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5AdBM671mXoSMCjB-7UhbuCyZRNzPr1FiefQTiQ5b7JfKkDcr9maVvIMrxjDyc1Oz0olX8IkS3Ke2GxLq5sUNkIPJu5-za2GL6TQJV-ZmFbgsgsV00Pjnl5jGipnVGkKvK9DiJE9yAA0FEbqEB6nIKz2FnFQcKxyHqyh_FndMSgvukCy7vyM/s720/Slide11.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5AdBM671mXoSMCjB-7UhbuCyZRNzPr1FiefQTiQ5b7JfKkDcr9maVvIMrxjDyc1Oz0olX8IkS3Ke2GxLq5sUNkIPJu5-za2GL6TQJV-ZmFbgsgsV00Pjnl5jGipnVGkKvK9DiJE9yAA0FEbqEB6nIKz2FnFQcKxyHqyh_FndMSgvukCy7vyM/w400-h225/Slide11.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Another, more lightly printed, example </span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">of a verso </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">of the 100</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><i style="font-size: x-small;">srang</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">banknote</span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifLs_loO3tuIKUn1myuqk8MYYFYUvbBffoJG38bzMXbkawgfAnEBbyMmT6ROiY7lGGeDYyOXYFu-2PTfHl1g1L9ssXNfKvZXhx9mgP_W_i9qWdT6P_5yPZq5yT6AaHF7FL6m7No0ufjenHH5HAhncWIIsA7hAMp8A0SSckyWPtdR_1ksgwVII/s81/1%20Altar%20for%20Libation.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="80" data-original-width="81" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifLs_loO3tuIKUn1myuqk8MYYFYUvbBffoJG38bzMXbkawgfAnEBbyMmT6ROiY7lGGeDYyOXYFu-2PTfHl1g1L9ssXNfKvZXhx9mgP_W_i9qWdT6P_5yPZq5yT6AaHF7FL6m7No0ufjenHH5HAhncWIIsA7hAMp8A0SSckyWPtdR_1ksgwVII/w200-h198/1%20Altar%20for%20Libation.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some may imagine it to be a ‘secular’ scene of an old man pouring himself a drink, but no, nothing could be further from the truth. The elaborate ritual setup indicates a normative practice of Tibetan Buddhism — some people, be they male or female, monastic or lay, perform it every morning. This relatively simple ritual, usually called <i>Water Casting</i> (ཆུ་གཏོར་, ཆབ་གཏོར་, or མཆོད་གཏོར་), involves the pouring of the liquid accompanied by prayers for the <i>preta</i>s, or “hungry ghosts.” Not only was it performed by the earliest Kadampas, but by Bonpos even before them. This practice is supposed to be done out of compassion for those unfortunate beings known as <i>preta</i>s, unable to eat or drink on their own, since it all turns to fire in their mouths. Not incidentally, the practice develops Buddhist merit* and compassion in the person who performs it. One significant further point: Even if the word <i>yidag /</i> ཡི་དྭགས་ generally used for <i>preta</i> is employed here, the objects of compassion are widened to include other large classes of spirit beings, even including the spirits of the dead.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"></span><blockquote><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*I hope to devote some writing to Buddhist ideas about <i>merit</i> another time, but at the moment, do remember that it is one of the two legs that permit advancement on the Path to Enlightenment in Great Vehicle Buddhism. As one of the <a href="https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Two_accumulations" target="_blank">Two Accummulations</a>, it cannot just be tossed aside in favor of intellectualism or meditation as our 21st-century neo-Buddhists so often try to do.)</span></blockquote></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5mTCRLhRIqBPxMGVHkB1ACbW0NGLfFclEIw8ouZukXEh3oAaM27cTzqQ5Tv-LU5Xu6E3zIaz9lCF_C5AZpTgGvN8E1MAChSMLyPXaGAoKcZUx72Wm313XAqNODlvgrDt8HYc4F8mGwoUafTleeh8RNS6Hko5VFu2VjGh1f5ZxghEPgjEzGZs/s140/2%20Bat%20Peaches%20Scarf%20Pitcher.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="140" data-original-width="79" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5mTCRLhRIqBPxMGVHkB1ACbW0NGLfFclEIw8ouZukXEh3oAaM27cTzqQ5Tv-LU5Xu6E3zIaz9lCF_C5AZpTgGvN8E1MAChSMLyPXaGAoKcZUx72Wm313XAqNODlvgrDt8HYc4F8mGwoUafTleeh8RNS6Hko5VFu2VjGh1f5ZxghEPgjEzGZs/w113-h200/2%20Bat%20Peaches%20Scarf%20Pitcher.jpeg" width="113" /></a></div>Now move directly above the altar and what you will see is a <b>bat</b> flying in the sky, swooping toward a fruiting tree. It is known that some kinds of bats feed off of fruits. I regard that fact as irrelevant to our reading of the tableau. Their close proximity in the picture is accidental. My reason for thinking so: It’s well known that the bat as a positive cultural symbol is owed to a pun in Chinese. The Chinese word for ‘bat,’ “蝠” (fú) sounds exactly the same as the word for ‘good fortune,’ and ‘wealth’ “福” (fú), and you can see an obvious similarity in the characters as well.* This pun explains why you can see artistic representations of bats all over the place in Chinese households, not just in temples.</div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666;">(*</span><a href="https://www.china-admissions.com/blog/the-chinese-character-%E5%AF%8C-fu-means-rich-wealthy-abundant/" target="_blank">Look here</a><span style="color: #666666;"> for an amusing analysis of the parts that make up the character.)</span></blockquote></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">You also see here a <b>cloth</b> article that looks like a scarf draped over the tree limb. I had to think long and hard about this one. Of course it may or may not be a Tibetan <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khata" target="_blank">khata</a></i>. Although difficult to be certain, it actually seems to be a Mongolian contribution to the iconography. Still, it does remind us of Arhat portraits (based in the <i>Vinaya Sūtra</i>, and meant to illustrate it, I believe) in which a part of the clothing is just being left on a nearby limb to dry. Like the tableaus I describe here, these Arhat scenes are often painted on the walls of the monastery on the outside... Hmmm, this sounds like the beginning of a theory that would explain the placement of those tableaus... </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But then again, it may be in some way associated with the scarf in the iconography of ’O-de-gung-rgyal (and similar long-life deities with varied names) explained by Toni Huber in his book <i>Source of Life</i> (vol. 1, p. 84). Let me quote it at some length:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #4c1130;">“The white silk pennant or scarf they hold encodes a dual symbolism that expresses the transfer of life powers between cosmic realms. One of its aspects is <i>g.yang</i>,* and such scarves are sometimes referred to as <i><a href="https://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/g.yang_dar" target="_blank">g.yang dar</a></i>, while the other aspect of the white scarf is a symbol of the messenger, of something pure and important passing between agents. For these reasons the white scarf is closely associated with the messenger bat...”</span></blockquote></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*My note: On <i>g.yang </i>as a culture-specific concept, <a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2017/08/hooking-yang.html" target="_blank">look here</a>.) </span></p></div></blockquote></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Given the great distances and cultural differences involved, it is rather impressive that the conceptual pairing of scarf and bat that we see in our tableau would show up in remote areas of eastern Bhutan in contexts that are regarded as inestimably archaic and <i>local</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some people see pomegranates or persimmons, but I believe this is a peach tree. These are the <b>peaches of immortality</b>, well known from very early Chinese ideas about the Queen Mother of the West (Xiwangmu) who used to preside over peach feasts with the immortals of her court in a place often identified with the Kunlun Mountains. While these relatively low mountains form the natural northern border of the Tibetan Plateau, they don’t seem to be known to Tibetan literature. Even so, in Chinese myth and literature (and now film) they have assumed a towering importance. I suppose the immortals were already as immortal as they could ever hope to be, yet the peaches were said to confer longevity if not immortality.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcN4uCA2ci_z_iAJrF202d956Df7-pBg39RDG0Q7StaOg0amNCwnqdPNFY-IZICeD8hVNZfuYKmqmsN88uFVw5tqhTvsn3lMPKJrq88fWHCqiu7_wwYRE13iHVEaox_GxEGAvaBdJggAmSJkiaHPECreoH3FR9w8zwflQ_6x8BF-BKY0p5KSQ/s111/3%20Crane%20Couple.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="111" data-original-width="95" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcN4uCA2ci_z_iAJrF202d956Df7-pBg39RDG0Q7StaOg0amNCwnqdPNFY-IZICeD8hVNZfuYKmqmsN88uFVw5tqhTvsn3lMPKJrq88fWHCqiu7_wwYRE13iHVEaox_GxEGAvaBdJggAmSJkiaHPECreoH3FR9w8zwflQ_6x8BF-BKY0p5KSQ/w171-h200/3%20Crane%20Couple.jpeg" width="171" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now we continue circumambulating in the Bon direction, with the left hand oriented toward the central figure. Passing over a cloud-and-mountain-with-waterfall landscape we next encounter a pair of dancing <b>cranes</b>. Pairs of cranes remain lifelong lovers, but they are also amazingly long-lived. Chinese sources have sometimes attributed to them lifespans as long as a thousand years. I like to imagine, as one who has seen for himself how inspiringly and effortlessly they soar in slow spirals upward into the sky, taking advantage of thermal updrafts, that something about that is in there, too. They make migration look too easy.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtDHtnS7LpqPWExY-bd6yIvXjNxuaFGoMvGZB1H0m71mLkpc8om-N-1KFAAYU3GXcz8BJwYcH8aD3vzs8hu14FgBUoQ3qj_Vdfo3lS3zVgKvp5vWWN2ELGx5vN6C8-guKXmMveVz_wde_hbqs-Eq_LaiQPvuUNPgOK3wlvF_S9o_PSG3vzvrQ/s102/4%20Bowl%20of%20peaches.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="75" data-original-width="102" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtDHtnS7LpqPWExY-bd6yIvXjNxuaFGoMvGZB1H0m71mLkpc8om-N-1KFAAYU3GXcz8BJwYcH8aD3vzs8hu14FgBUoQ3qj_Vdfo3lS3zVgKvp5vWWN2ELGx5vN6C8-guKXmMveVz_wde_hbqs-Eq_LaiQPvuUNPgOK3wlvF_S9o_PSG3vzvrQ/w200-h147/4%20Bowl%20of%20peaches.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Next in our leftward turn is what would seem to be an arrangement of <b>offerings</b> related to the libation ritual directly above it. This may well be the case, but close inspection tells me the basin is filled with peaches with their leaves still attached. Do you see something else?</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiphb5o7mm2Z6uXd9iuCOJQGEcQFNRig0lYCQMleU6c31QWLpZBZR5YvCjtjYcRGCpx04eoQeGZIkoOZ3L-7hz8R_WRXf3OU83ZmWtRkDtm6pghY3cBp2UkDpju4H8331Wafd6P4izntux0nmmf9iMscVjS6mQf2fU_BY9mxnpVBZid1KqNA8/s170/5%20Deer%20Couple.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="52" data-original-width="170" height="98" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiphb5o7mm2Z6uXd9iuCOJQGEcQFNRig0lYCQMleU6c31QWLpZBZR5YvCjtjYcRGCpx04eoQeGZIkoOZ3L-7hz8R_WRXf3OU83ZmWtRkDtm6pghY3cBp2UkDpju4H8331Wafd6P4izntux0nmmf9iMscVjS6mQf2fU_BY9mxnpVBZid1KqNA8/w320-h98/5%20Deer%20Couple.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I think the <b>deer</b> couple appears clearly enough for everyone to recognize, but what is that thing off to the side? One of the deer seems to be turning its head toward it. It looks like a plant, but a plant with some kind of bulbous growth in the center. This would be a <i><b>lingzhi</b></i> fungus. Sometimes, even if not here, the <i>lingzhi</i> is depicted as if it were growing out of the deer’s head. In Chinese lore, these deer are sort of like the pigs that are used to sniff out truffles in France. The mushroom hunters would never be able to find the <i>lingzhi</i> without the help of the deer, since to every other creature they are invisible.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-E4atm3ec_QELCel1ghVUl0ePN86OFOZTksLY9HrBfGGlfZIwlzfe2a7YRVbzgkpeXTrnOGXkf-ERLpf3BV1p3FH_vN4u0w-gEe-THO9XwtPwJZdBq2t8vKjaP64fDXs2OYIwetQZDcm-rsqF73PMCzUMAecuKFfebgOKrOL7xEl0i-sGITg/s169/6%20Rock%20&%20Spring.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="133" data-original-width="169" height="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-E4atm3ec_QELCel1ghVUl0ePN86OFOZTksLY9HrBfGGlfZIwlzfe2a7YRVbzgkpeXTrnOGXkf-ERLpf3BV1p3FH_vN4u0w-gEe-THO9XwtPwJZdBq2t8vKjaP64fDXs2OYIwetQZDcm-rsqF73PMCzUMAecuKFfebgOKrOL7xEl0i-sGITg/w200-h157/6%20Rock%20&%20Spring.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">You can see a few more <i>lingzhi</i> fungi here, but what I want to point out right now is the rocky cavern with the stream of water descending from it. I did have trouble putting my finger on this exactly, but I <i>was</i> imagining it reflects Chinese landscape ideas. Artistically speaking it seems obvious. What we see here bears meanings situated between, or is perhaps shared by, <i>fengshui</i> geomancy and ideals of Chinese landscape painting. When I looked into it further, I thought the landscape feature might be the one known as “<i>shan shui”</i> (dragon/mountain + descending stream). Still, a cave with a water source inside of it has a special name in Chinese that is, as a matter of convention, translated as “<b>grotto</b>.” </div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now look a little to your left. You can see a row of blossoms leading diagonally to a more distant grotto that I think, with good reason, would indicate the <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peach_Blossom_Spring" target="_blank">Peach Blossom Grotto</a></b>, a kind of bucolic Shangri-la of the Daoists. We do have the close proximity of the peaches and the grottos, so we may be justified in putting two and three together like this. There is a long and rich history of the Peach Blossom Grotto in China and a number of Sinological essays are devoted to it. It is a place very difficult if not impossible to find, but going there would mean encountering the immortals.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivgrp-htgF4yAotDmoiHxGMDZ7-dpBknpofHsb4vmAWcfR1zKQ4Z7R-tFMjNcGYVwSyaBydWNYtTGIqKau7NIdzl6xBVtfHqmkCNf32NknUmbNBCBjlRbpA7g4RXEJ_srJIg-GrdFfsxy30NU3eOs3aqPNY4AdshrRCLH4o58E3O6ZW4pcwYs/s187/7%20Long-Life%20Man%20Himself.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="165" data-original-width="187" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivgrp-htgF4yAotDmoiHxGMDZ7-dpBknpofHsb4vmAWcfR1zKQ4Z7R-tFMjNcGYVwSyaBydWNYtTGIqKau7NIdzl6xBVtfHqmkCNf32NknUmbNBCBjlRbpA7g4RXEJ_srJIg-GrdFfsxy30NU3eOs3aqPNY4AdshrRCLH4o58E3O6ZW4pcwYs/w320-h282/7%20Long-Life%20Man%20Himself.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now for the <b>main figure</b> of the White Old Man itself: First observe the smaller human seated on a mat of grass to his left side. Sometimes this is called an “acolyte figure,” as if it were a child assistant in a Catholic mass, procession or the like. I see no reason to speak Catholic here, so I would suggest the youth depicted here represents 'youth,' or or maybe even rejuvenation. The youth seems to hold something up in one hand, but I am unable to make out what it is. Alternatively or at the same time, he may serve as an attendant, an errand boy.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Old Man’s very corpulence is a sign of opulence. His right hand holds the ritual ewer, in his left a <b>rosary</b>. The ewer we have mentioned already, but the rosary is evidently a <i>māla</i> used as support for mantra recitations, a constant occupation of many Tibetan elders. He has a beard, no doubt very white. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There is one interesting thing, among others, that is not visible here. We might think he needs to have a <b>staff</b> inside the crook of his left elbow. The staff might end, as the texts describe and prescribe in a knob or handle in the shape of a dragon. But not here, which is remarkable since it would seem to be one of the few constants according to the Sūtra and texts associated with it. More on these texts presently.</div><div><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfGHLxFxqUjSeojV4MxHWOjltBXRmcw9GkaCXCuqi3taU1eV-KZtu9HM5R2aqPkrIgUKdfpL6r2ofnfmGHsko95sWFqxm5OCdrgDv-vlWyGnV9YgftzSMDHjhKmiK_Rg1GdiSUQN5GShOf85oIFNIrhV4ESkkMLOOf1FAOM-EIkgZfwSLtxSk/s720/Slide13.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfGHLxFxqUjSeojV4MxHWOjltBXRmcw9GkaCXCuqi3taU1eV-KZtu9HM5R2aqPkrIgUKdfpL6r2ofnfmGHsko95sWFqxm5OCdrgDv-vlWyGnV9YgftzSMDHjhKmiK_Rg1GdiSUQN5GShOf85oIFNIrhV4ESkkMLOOf1FAOM-EIkgZfwSLtxSk/w400-h225/Slide13.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now let’s leave the money behind for a few minutes and have a quick glance at the literary sources, especially as these have bearing on the iconography.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here above, you see the opening lines of the <i>White Old Man Sūtra</i>, in Sanj Altan’s translation from the Oirat version. Pay special attention to the iconographical information in lines 10-12. This text is sometimes called by that just-given title, but also <i>The S</i><span style="text-align: left;"><i>ū</i></span><i>tra of the Power to Keep within Bounds the Earth and Water</i>. The titles you see below.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifQsBg0mO8j4wbyhPEGPqAuCF9s3gaa54eQSg2YgFMj_5k1eB3DQz4Ygrhv1Kxym41eWNbPQLUH8ZQj52aPHX9wqrROujDUt05uKyM7YjjdLGxbdwFbcGeXvEItAWARA6etciJAzEpS8BVQa3FxByQH5LxFKeHF1xny1Dzol_EOcgydBp3oFo/s720/Slide14.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifQsBg0mO8j4wbyhPEGPqAuCF9s3gaa54eQSg2YgFMj_5k1eB3DQz4Ygrhv1Kxym41eWNbPQLUH8ZQj52aPHX9wqrROujDUt05uKyM7YjjdLGxbdwFbcGeXvEItAWARA6etciJAzEpS8BVQa3FxByQH5LxFKeHF1xny1Dzol_EOcgydBp3oFo/w400-h225/Slide14.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjNx1xo--d0a-RNdxoZ2Tw647T6f_bxI4rgqUOdWO5Nkftpx3kuKdqVjVlDh66Mt0_hGJ1MvY1_qTpPclZt_Ez7Fd11akNd4Bc-mXZV6H135zDFC9xavPZHXfOqrQT1mgiIxoA0Kui7AaCIg63809yfzRFTEig6XXk3_0-919wTXr-V268zR0/s720/Slide15.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjNx1xo--d0a-RNdxoZ2Tw647T6f_bxI4rgqUOdWO5Nkftpx3kuKdqVjVlDh66Mt0_hGJ1MvY1_qTpPclZt_Ez7Fd11akNd4Bc-mXZV6H135zDFC9xavPZHXfOqrQT1mgiIxoA0Kui7AaCIg63809yfzRFTEig6XXk3_0-919wTXr-V268zR0/w400-h225/Slide15.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">Both of the texts you see here are from the collection of the Mongolian National Library (Ulan Bator). Both are scans done by agreement with the BDRC. I think we can safely say that these Tibetan texts are local Mongolian products, and that versions of it might not even exist on the Tibetan plateau (we need to demonstrate local Tibetan interest rather than assume it, since Mongolian monks did compose and scribe Tibetan texts for their own use). One interesting thing is that the title is given first in Chinese, which would suggest that the original text was in that language. Still, I do not know of any Chinese version of it existing today (I may very well require correction on this point), and believe that this apocryphal scripture was made in Mongolia, very likely by a monk who knew Tibetan language as they very often did, in order to accommodate the local cult of the White Old Man within a Buddhist context.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZsRsLig1eR5zMSvgdOO-2b_ZEyJMoiI__6aJ_i98BspIP7hzMzI2z6LDGUQSqGFgssDccldYBYv_y1mYGZDHrHT8c3MNsa29fsZGDuka4-VEkRhxBkXJ941hGRyVPf6ygXTYbgX8tIMlnS8-Vq0kD0lFAiKk0OFUHhIJ1UMHQRb5WElLoKCc/s720/Slide16.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZsRsLig1eR5zMSvgdOO-2b_ZEyJMoiI__6aJ_i98BspIP7hzMzI2z6LDGUQSqGFgssDccldYBYv_y1mYGZDHrHT8c3MNsa29fsZGDuka4-VEkRhxBkXJ941hGRyVPf6ygXTYbgX8tIMlnS8-Vq0kD0lFAiKk0OFUHhIJ1UMHQRb5WElLoKCc/w400-h225/Slide16.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">An outstandingly talented artist, Robert Beer supplies two versions of the Old Man in his book, yet it is only the one labeled as "Tibetan style" that is based on an earlier painting done by a Tibetan, while it appears that the "Chinese style" he created by combining various elements he thought to be Chinese, many of them indeed associated with immortals and with the Old Man of Chinese lore called Shouxing (Shou Hsing). It’s interesting that he is depicted with an antlered deer, this being his usual mount, a dragon-headed staff,* and a gourd. Why is the gourd there at the top of the staff? That question leads us into amazing territory nicely surveyed by R.A. Stein in his book, a book I much recommend. The gourd was used by Chinese herbalists to contain the herbs they collected in the mountains. It also served for Daoists as a container for a miniature world that immortals could physically enter into by miniaturizing themselves. It is basically equivalent to the grotto, both gourd and grotto being a normally unseen interior world, perhaps in miniature; both are populated by hermits or refugees from the busy world, and they have skies of their own, no matter how difficult that may be to think about... Oh, and the staff ought to be craggy and a little crooked, resembling a gnarly pine tree limb, if it is to be associated with Chinese immortals. Not the smooth cane we see here. In sum, I would have composed the picture of the "Chinese style" a little differently than Beer did.</div><div><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"></span><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*The dragon head on the staff might seem to indicate Chinese origins, but I believe it to be a Mongolian contribution to the iconography of the White Old Man. Of course it requires further consideration. I am not especially clear what Beer meant by "Chinese style." He might be talking about actually artistic practice in China, but on the other hand he might intend a conscious artistic choice made by a Tibetan artist to produce a Chinese-inspired painting... )</span></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_X0jCJQTMu5pErFKby769a0rDS1WlGRL0JdZgm11ZFrbrRaw_0jiKx-FzgmIShUmU5Xo7fWQCAE7rlj5LYZURVynnU_Nfsy6zwLI0B6ft8qfmOZQRgoXlL4UPla5A_-FWvdkeEpLbbdyFNNkn80CvtDEeXAeQF85zrFvNhJdAVZYgIi3Nnjg/s720/Slide17.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_X0jCJQTMu5pErFKby769a0rDS1WlGRL0JdZgm11ZFrbrRaw_0jiKx-FzgmIShUmU5Xo7fWQCAE7rlj5LYZURVynnU_Nfsy6zwLI0B6ft8qfmOZQRgoXlL4UPla5A_-FWvdkeEpLbbdyFNNkn80CvtDEeXAeQF85zrFvNhJdAVZYgIi3Nnjg/w400-h225/Slide17.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I’m not going to go into the very relevant question of when the Mongolian White Old Man entered into Tibetan monastic dances called Cham (འཆམ་). The common wisdom is that the 13th Dalai Lama introduced it, inspired by a performance he witnessed during his time in Mongolia in the early 20th century. (I haven’t been able to trace a Tibetan-language source on this yet.) It’s interesting to see how Cham dances done in different Himalayan communities identify the same figure as either the Chinese Hoshang, or as the White Old Man. I can’t sort that out right now, but it is fascinating and merits reflection. In Tibetan Cham he tends to have a comic role, in that he attempts to perform simple lay Buddhist practices like khata offerings and prostrations and fails miserably. Or should we say hilariously?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I did my best for the time being to locate earlier testimonies for the White Old Man in Tibetan history, and by far the most interesting thing I could come up with is an 18th century verse by a well-known author of eastern Tibet.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><h4 style="text-align: left;">The Six of Long Life,</h4><h4 style="text-align: left;">by Zhuchen Tsultrim Rinchen (1697-1774)<br /><span style="font-weight: normal;"><blockquote>On the author, see the <a href="https://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Zhuchen-Tsultrim-Rinchen/10699" target="_blank">biographical sketch</a> by Benjamin Nourse at <i>Treasury of Lives</i>.</blockquote><p> </p></span></h4></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">སྔོན་དུས་མ་ཧཱ་ཙི་ནའི་ཡུལ་གྲུ་ན།།</span></p></span></h4></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">བསྐལ་པ་ཆགས་པའི་ཐོག་མར་བྱུང་བའི་བྲག།</span></p></span></h4></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">མཐོ་མཛེས་དྲུང་གི་དབེན་གནས་ཉམས་དགའ་རུ།།</span></p></span></h4></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">འཆི་མེད་མགོན་པོ་གྲུབ་པའི་དྲང་སྲོང་བྱུང་།།</span></p></span></h4></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></h4></div><div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #4c1130;">In an era long gone by, in the region of Mahācīna,</span></div><div><span style="color: #4c1130;">was a rock that emerged at the dawn of the eon's formation.</span></div><div><span style="color: #4c1130;">Close by its lofty splendor, in a pleasant retreat place,</span></div><div><span style="color: #4c1130;">appeared an accomplished sage, a master of immortality.</span></div><div><span style="color: #4c1130;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></span></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">དེ་མཐུས་བྲག་རི་དེ་ཡི་འགྲམ་པ་ནས།།</span></p></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">རྒ་ཤི་མེད་པའི་བཅུད་ལེན་ཚེ་ཡི་ཆུ།།</span></p></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">རྟག་པར་བབ་ཅིང་མྱ་ངན་མེད་པའི་ཤིང་།།</span></p></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">མེ་ཏོག་འབྲས་བུས་ལྕི་བ་ཞིག་ཀྱང་སྐྱེས།།</span></p></div></blockquote><div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #4c1130;">Through his magical powers at the side of that rocky mountain appeared </span></div><div><span style="color: #4c1130;">a spring of life with alchemical powers to do away with old age and death.</span></div><div><span style="color: #4c1130;">It flowed down unceasingly and there as well was an Ashoka [non-suffering] tree</span></div><div><span style="color: #4c1130;">heavily weighted down with flowers and fruits.</span></div><div><br /></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">དྲང་སྲོང་དེ་ཡི་བྱམས་པའི་ར་བ་ན།།</span></p></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">ཟང་ཟིང་མི་འཇིགས་སྦྱིན་པའི་གཡབ་མོ་ཡིས།།</span></p></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">འཁོར་དུ་བོས་པའི་འདབ་ཆགས་སྤུ་སྡུག་དང་།།</span></p></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">རི་དགས་རུ་རུ་གནས་པའང་ཚེ་རིང་གྱུར།།</span></p></div></blockquote><div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #4c1130;">Fast within the corral of that sage's affection </span></div><div><span style="color: #4c1130;">were the soft downed birds, their birdsongs all around, </span></div><div><span style="color: #4c1130;">and dwelling with them the Ruru deer. </span></div><div><span style="color: #4c1130;">With a wave of his hand he grants them fearlessness and food. </span></div><div><br /></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">དེ་དག་རྒ་ཤི་སྤངས་པའི་བདེ་བ་ལ།། </span></p></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">རེག་པ་གང་ཕྱིར་ཚེ་རིང་རྣམ་དྲུག་ཅེས།།</span></p></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">གྲགས་པའི་འཕྲིན་ཡིག་ཕྱོགས་ཀྱི་དགའ་མ་ཡི།།</span></p></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">མཁུར་ཚོས་རྣམ་པར་མཛེས་པའི་རྒྱན་དུ་བྱིན།།</span></p></div></blockquote><div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #4c1130;">Together these are known as the Six of Long Life who serve </span></div><div><span style="color: #4c1130;">for attaining to the comfort of being done with old age and death.</span></div><div><span style="color: #4c1130;">This announcement letter is offered as an ornament to beautify</span></div><div><span style="color: #4c1130;">the cheeks of the gladdening women of the compass directions.*</span></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><div><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*Note: Zhuchen liked to use the image of “the cheeks of the gladdening women” in other contexts, and I believe these are all alluding to the <i>messenger poems</i>, an Indic literary genre, its most famous example being Kālidāsa's <i>Cloud Messenger</i>. I should add in order to forestall predictable reactions, that the ‘Indianization’ of particular elements in the poem — the tree identified as Ashoka tree, the deer as a <i>ruru</i> deer, for examples — reflects the strong impulse within Tibet's own traditions of <i>kāvya</i> poetry to Indianize whenever possible for artistic/aesthetic reasons. This is •not• an example of Buddhist ‘appropriation’ along the lines you might be thinking.)</span></blockquote></div></div></div></blockquote><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As I said already, his iconographic white color bears no connection to skin color or race. It’s the color of his hair <i>if he has any</i> and beard, and/or his clothing. This iconographic whiteness is something he holds in common with the primary ancestral divinity (with varied names and guises including one we mentioned already) associated with the <i>rites of bringing down life</i> that Toni Huber explored so thoroughly in his recent two-volume book. His tunic, scarf, horse, deer, bird etc. are all said to be white (pp. 83-84). Of course there are a lot of observations about details such as these that might be pointed out (the bat for another surprising instance). </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiujUel-8aNUBPkUkiY2ulRL7h2_9yZPtZLRct8ODcG-PYip6BtRh6MYtKtDX1OdtRPUjWsKHjE6J3GKkFA_Qef40nEXdf62darl_fxJ54YHujaMYnjI9HPggrUXbxw5bGLiJyNmXwynMD0Q1F5G43XsIFBIo0TNkXhYh6g-Pi146WF1Uag53c/s720/Slide23.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiujUel-8aNUBPkUkiY2ulRL7h2_9yZPtZLRct8ODcG-PYip6BtRh6MYtKtDX1OdtRPUjWsKHjE6J3GKkFA_Qef40nEXdf62darl_fxJ54YHujaMYnjI9HPggrUXbxw5bGLiJyNmXwynMD0Q1F5G43XsIFBIo0TNkXhYh6g-Pi146WF1Uag53c/w400-h225/Slide23.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mongolists mostly have faith in the idea that today’s White Old Man is an adapted form of an ancient, natively Mongol shamanic complex. Still, Chinese origins for much of his iconography is relatively clear, while one academic, Brian Baumann, deserves attention for his arguments in favor of Indic priority in the form of the sage Agastya, often identified with the bright but seldom seen southern star Canopus. And for those who can’t imagine that Tibet could possibly be a place of origins, I’d ask them to read Toni Huber’s book I mentioned before.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLOXKbXqb3-LQYRsOrnkSJ4mCG65uITFTvg0FFHkvgtgPB-PlXtdfk0kkmKRXwDhnQubW0PR3AlQ48ht3QP53Mratj7C-B_l05kge9zNPEgFYnyXIJ08LUzB_hyVOE6RruGdxypVebQuFKM0wwUWxAgqMywlWPrdcHvPlYp5WfT9hRc-Q4CG8/s720/Slide24.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLOXKbXqb3-LQYRsOrnkSJ4mCG65uITFTvg0FFHkvgtgPB-PlXtdfk0kkmKRXwDhnQubW0PR3AlQ48ht3QP53Mratj7C-B_l05kge9zNPEgFYnyXIJ08LUzB_hyVOE6RruGdxypVebQuFKM0wwUWxAgqMywlWPrdcHvPlYp5WfT9hRc-Q4CG8/s320/Slide24.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If made to decide what the main point of it all ought to be, I think it is this: The inter-national, inter-cultural dimensions of the cult of longevity as we find instanced in so many parts of eastern Eurasia has had very complex interconnections reaching far back into the haze of prehistory. So far back I’m convinced we will never be able to single out a single culture as the one that best exemplifies it, or that would preserve it in its most pristine forms. As usual, I think reflections about possibilities can be more productive than closing off discussion with a conclusion. Now that it’s so close to lunchtime, might I suggest as starter the sautéed mushrooms? The <i>lingzhi</i> if you can find them.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBfrQlZ4v9Nff0D4f74fDMGmdJHR6zuFjUHze3S50dNKsLwZevPL3n-Z34A_ng4Gsknem2xpqOfSEbt13tphy13IF25kNm_-jDwoFLb-NtSlS_PqxVqLftfixguLQ4X0VIB86sSW_x8XJY37wQnMkhRTVcd060iAfC5wjWC6J36LyLv_ATcww/s500/Mushroom%20Graphic.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="252" data-original-width="500" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBfrQlZ4v9Nff0D4f74fDMGmdJHR6zuFjUHze3S50dNKsLwZevPL3n-Z34A_ng4Gsknem2xpqOfSEbt13tphy13IF25kNm_-jDwoFLb-NtSlS_PqxVqLftfixguLQ4X0VIB86sSW_x8XJY37wQnMkhRTVcd060iAfC5wjWC6J36LyLv_ATcww/s320/Mushroom%20Graphic.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Reading list</h4><div style="text-align: justify;">Fred <b>Adelman</b>, “The American Kalmyks,” <i>Expedition</i>, vol. 3, no. 4 (1961), pp. 26-33, with photographs by Carleton S. Coon. There is also a digital version of it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sanj <b>Altan</b>, “An Oirad-Kalmyk Version of the ‘White Old Man’ Sūtra found among the Archives of the Late Lama Sanji Rabga Möngke Bakši,” <i>Mongolian Studies</i>, vol. 29 (2007), pp. 13-26. This includes a translation of an Oirat Mongolian text, preserved within the Kalmuck community in Philadelphia, of the apocryphal sūtra listed below as Tibetan text no. 4.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Barbara Mary <b>Annan</b>, “Persistence and Renewal of Worship of the White Old Man in Western Mongolia: An Independent Folklore Research Project in Collaboration with Dr. Balchig Katuu.” The great value of this 16-page essay (including photos) is that it recounts a number of stories told from life about the persistence of Old White Man related beliefs among modern Mongolians, particularly those in the western regions. Available at <a href="http://academia.edu">academia.edu</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Anonymous</b>, “Buddhists Build Their Own Church,” <i>Life</i>, no. 33 (November 10, 1952), pp. 97-98.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Robert <b>Antony</b>, “<a href="https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/september-2022/the-peach-tree" target="_blank">The Peach Tree</a>” (posted on August 30, 2022).</div><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">Although I don’t know on what basis, it is sometimes said that peach trees were first domesticated, which is to say grown in orchards, on the slopes of the Kunlun Mountains, and if this is so it may serve as a kind of vindication of the Chinese myths. What is more certain is that the domestication of the peach took place in the general area of China (which specific spot it is difficult to determine).</span></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Richard M. <b>Barnhart</b>, <i>Peach Blossom Spring: Gardens and Flowers in Chinese Paintings</i>, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York 1983). A gorgeously illustrated exhibition catalog on pre-18th-century paintings of garden scenes, with well written and evocative essays as well.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Brian <b>Baumann</b>, “The Legend of Mother Tārā the Green,” contained in: Vesna A. Wallace, ed., <i>Sources of Mongolian Buddhism</i>, Oxford University Press (Oxford 2020), pp. 361-382. On p. 363:</div><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">“The White Ṛṣi in question is obviously a foreign deity in the Mongolian tradition that originated in Hindu Brāhmaṇism. There ‘White Ṛṣi’ is an epithet for the deity Agastya, personification of the star Canopus. It so happens that the White Old Man the White Ṛṣi turns into is a personification of the exact same star only in Chinese Daoist tradition. The text therefore appears to allude to the assimilation of Chinese Canopus allegory from heterodox Daoism into the Mongolian Buddhist pantheon, an act which appears to have taken place sometime in the mid eighteenth century. Shamanism is a synthetic ontology invented by Western scholars and ascribed to the Mongols irrespective of historical reality. The Legend of Green Tārā has nothing to do with it whatsoever.”</span></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Brian <b>Baumann</b>, “The White Old Man.” Paper given in Berkeley (2017). Video on YouTube.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P58N1zGrc1M" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Brian <b>Baumann</b>, “The White Old Man: Géluk-Mongolian Canopus Allegory and the Existence of God,” <i>Central Asiatic Journal</i>, vol. 62, no. 1 (2019), pp. 35-68.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Robert <b>Beer</b>, “Narrative Illustrations,” Chapter 4 in: <i>The Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs</i>, Serindia (London 1999), pp. 94-100. </div><div></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">What he calls narrative illustrations I call tableaus. The modern British artist supplies a Chinese style grouping called Shou-Lao, or the Six Symbols of Longevity (plate 58), as well as a Tibetan-style group he calls by the same name (plate 59). In both case he identifies the fruits as peaches. He says the Tibetan-style version is patterned after a drawing by the modern Tibetan Tsering Wangchub (Wangchug?) of Tashijong. It seems that the Chinese version is the British artist’s own creation, combining various elements perceived as being Chinese.</span></div><div></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Wolfgang <b>Bertsch</b>, <i>A Study of Tibetan Paper Money with a Critical Bibliography</i>, Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (Dharamsala 1997). </div><div></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">This publication is a serious analytical study, the best I know about, and it doesn’t give indications of values given to banknotes by collectors. I understand that the 50-<i>srang</i> notes are actually much more valuable to them than the 100, counterintuitive as that may seem. Both have the Long-Life Man design on their versos.</span></div><div></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Raoul <b>Birnbaum</b>, “Secret Halls of the Mountain Lords: The Caves of Wu-t'ai shan,” <i>Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie</i>, vol. 5 (1989-1990), pp. 15-140. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Àgnes <b>Birtalan</b>, “Ritual Texts Dedicated to the White Old Man with Examples from the Classical Mongolian and Oirat (Clear Script) Textual Corpora,” contained in: Vesna A. Wallace, ed., <i>Sources of Mongolian Buddhism</i>, Oxford University Press (Oxford 2020), pp. 270-293. The same author wrote an essay, “Cagān Öwgön – The White Old Man in the Leder Collections The Textual and Iconographic Tradition of the Cult of the White Old Man among the Mongols,” although I haven’t gotten access to it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Stephen R. <b>Bokenkamp</b>, “The Peach Flower Font and the Grotto Passage,” <i>Journal of the American Oriental Society</i>, vol. 106, no. 1 (1986), pp. 65-77.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Suzanne E. <b>Cahill</b>, <i>Transcendence & Divine Passion: The Queen Mother of the West in Medieval China</i>, Stanford University Press (Stanford 1993). I think everyone agrees this is the best source available in English about the Queen Mother of the West and her residences.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Barbara <b>Gerke</b>, <i>Long Lives and Untimely Deaths: Life-Span Concepts and Longevity Practices among Tibetans in the Darjeeling Hills</i>, India, Brill (Leiden 2012).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Walther <b>Heissig</b>, <i>The Religions of Mongolia</i>, tr. by Geoffrey Samuel from the German edition of 1970, Routledge & Kegan Paul (London 1980), pp. 76-81. At p. 76 you can see how Tibetan rgan, ‘elder,’ and sgam, ‘wise clever,’ get crossed somehow: </div><div></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">“The Mongols worship under the name of Tsaghan Ebügen (White Old Man) a deity of the herds and of fertility, who is also present with the same form of manifestation and the same functions among the Tibetans (sGam po dkar po)* and the Na-khi tribes of South-West China (Muan-llū-ddu-ndzi), and to whom East Asian parallels can be found in the Chinese Hwa-shang, Pu-tai Hoshang and the Japanese Jurojin, and a European parallel in the form of the bearded St. Nicholas. This is an instance of the veneration of the ‘Old Man’ as a personification of the creative principle.”</span></div></blockquote></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: xx-small;">(*My note: Observe how the Tibetan spelling meaning “White Wise [Man]” is given rather than the spelling that means ‘White Old Man,’ but this confusion of near homonyms appears to be endemic, and may be indicative, which is not to say that <i>old</i> always means <i>wise</i>. In his iconography he is often characterized by a dragon-headed staff that Heissig understands as the shaman’s staff.)</span></div></blockquote></div></blockquote><div><div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Futaki <b>Hiroshi</b>, “Classification of Texts Related to the White Old Man,” contained in: H. Futaki & B. Oyunbilig, eds., <i>Questiones Mongolorum Disputatae</i>, Association for International Studies of Mongolian Culture (Tokyo 2005), pp. 35-46. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Toni <b>Huber</b>, “An Obscure Word for ‘Ancestral Deity’ in Some East Bodish and Neighbouring Himalayan Languages & Qiang Ethnographic Records towards a Hypothesis,” contained in: Mark W. Post, et al., eds., <i>Language & Culture in Northeast India & Beyond in Honor of Robbins Burling</i>, Asia-Pacific Linguistics (Canberra 2015), pp. 162-181. </div><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">On a curious name for the clan ancester deity: Gu-se-lang-ling, it appears in various forms including "Gurzhe," and is often spoken of as 'O-de-gung-rgyal. A less emphasized figure is Tshangs-pa or Tshangs-pa Dkar-po as a natively Tibetan figure (and not as a translation of Brahma!?). More on this in his 2020 book, vol. 1, pp. 80-93.</span></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Toni <b>Huber</b>, “From Death to New Life: An 11th-12th Century Cycle of Existence from Southernmost Tibet: Analysis of Rnel dri 'dul ba, Ste'u & Sha slungs Rites, with Notes on Manuscript Provenance,” contained in: G. Hazod & W. Shen, eds., <i>Tibetan Genealogies: Studies in Memoriam of Guge Tsering Gyalpo (1961-2015)</i>, China Tibetology Publishing (Beijing 2018), pp. 251-350. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Toni <b>Huber</b>, <i>Source of Life: Revitalisation Rites and Bon Shamans in Bhutan and the Eastern Himalayas</i>, Austrian Academy of Sciences Press (Vienna 2020), in 2 volumes. While centered on extensive research into local traditions still current in the eastern half of Bhutan and the adjacent Mon-yul Corridor, issues of broad-ranging areal significance are drawn from them. Highly recommended.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Toni <b>Huber</b>, “The Iconography of gShen Priests in the Ethnographic Context of the Extended Eastern Himalayas, and Reflections on the Development of Bon Religion,” contained in: Franz-Karl Ehrhard & Petra Maurer, eds., <i>Nepalica-Tibetica: Festgabe for Christoph Cüppers</i>, International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (Andiast 2013), vol. 1, pp. 263-294. See especially pp. 266-267 for the ‘Great Wise Bat’ (Sgam-chen Pha-wang), a useful summary on the subject that also takes up an entire chapter in Toni’s monograph <i>Source of Life</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Siegbert <b>Hummel</b>, “The White Old Man,” tr. by G. Vogliotti, <i>The Tibet Journal</i>, vol. 22, no. 4 (Winter 1997), pp. 59-70. Originally published in German in Sinologica, vol. 6 (1961), pp. 193-206. This discusses the age of his cult in Tibet as well as the exchange of identities between him and the Hoshang.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Caroline <b>Humphrey</b>, “A Note on the Kalmyk Tsagan Aav, the ‘White Grandfather’: Ritual and Iconography,” might be found posted at <a href="https://www.kalmykheritage.socanth.cam.ac.uk/en/index.php?language=en" target="_blank">Kalmyk Heritage website</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Tenzin <b>Jamtsho</b>, “The Old Man ‘Mitshering’ at Nyima Lung Monastery,” <i>Journal of Bhutanese Studies</i>, vol. 28 (Summer 2013), pp. 90-99. </div><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">This is mainly about the dance figure known to some Bhutanese as the Long-Life Man (Mi Tshe-ring) and to others as Rgyal-po Hwa-shang, suggesting he was both a king and a Chinese monk. In my experience he is always identified as being in some way Chinese, although within the context of the monastic dances he always pays his respects to Guru Rinpoche.</span></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Luther G. <b>Jerstad</b>, <i>Mani-Rimdu: Sherpa Dance-Dram</i>a, University of Washington Press (Seattle 1969), pp. 129-135:</div><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">Here we have a significant description of the Long-Life Man 0r “Mi-tshe-ring,” with photos of the same in the illustrations between pages 128 and 129. The figures of the Long-Life Man and the Hoshang are combined together, something that happens with some frequency elsewhere, but here in the land of the Sherpas in Nepal, it is the comic figure takes precedence. He makes valiant attempts to perform simple acts of worship and offering, but fails hilariously each time. Interestingly enough, it is suggested that he was imported by the 13th Dalai Lama from Peking, with not the least mention of Mongolia.</span></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Richard J. <b>Kohn</b>, <i>Lord of the Dance: The Mani Rimdu Festival in Tibet and Nepal</i>, State University of New York Press (Albany 2001), in particular “Dance Five: The Long-Life Man,” at pp. 199-204.</div><div></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">Among the Sherpas of Solu-Kumbu of Nepal, the Long Life Man performance is made up of lay religious practices badly performed by him and his acolytes including offerings of ritual scarves or <i>khatag</i>s, prostrations, and, most significantly for our currency iconography.the water torma offering (<i>chu-gtor</i>).</span></div><div></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Stephen <b>Little</b> with Shawn Eichman, <i>Taoism and the Arts of China</i>, The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago 2000). At pp. 268-271 are some marvelous painted scrolls of the Shouxing and at pp. 276-277 a very nice one of Xiwangmu; her assistant holds up a bowl of peaches with the leaves attached, a thing we see sitting on the ground in our Tibetan banknote.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">S. <b>Mahdihassan</b>, “The Patron-Gods of Health and of Longevity: Chinese, Greek and Indian,” <i>Bulletin of the Indian Institute for the History of Medicine</i>, vol. 19, no. 1 (January 1989), pp. 111-127. The pharmacology/alchemy of revitalization and longevity hasn’t been my main theme, but I do think this article can instigate important comparative reflections.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jim R. <b>McClanahan</b>, “<a href="https://journeytothewestresearch.com/2017/05/12/jttw-and-islamic-lore/" target="_blank">Journey to the West and Islamic Lore</a>,” a webpage posted back in 2017, but updated earlier this year. Especially pertinent for the parts about the speaking peaches and the Waqwaq tree. Thanks to S.V.V. for suggesting the link.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Rene de <b>Nebesky-Wojkowitz</b>, <i>Tibetan Religious Dances: Tibetan Text and Annotated Translation of the 'Chams Yig</i>, Paljor Publications (New Delhi 1997), pp. 82-84. </div><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">As a figure in monastic masked dances, the Hashang is sometimes highly honored and in other cases ridiculed, depending on the audience and what they perceive him to be. It may be that his role in these dances in Tibetan regions is not very old, but introduced by the 13th Dalai Lama after his visit to Mongolia. At p. 83: </span></blockquote></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: xx-small;">“Originally cagan öbö seems to have been a divinity of the pre-Buddhist Mongolian folk religion. He was apparently a clan deity and moreover a benevolent earth spirit protecting the household, the herds, and the pastures and granting rich harvests.”</span></blockquote></div></div></blockquote><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jeremy <b>Roberts</b>, <i>Chinese Mythology A to Z</i> [Second Edition], Chelsea House Publishers (New York 2010), p. 114:</div><div></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">“Shouxing (Shou Hsing, Shou-hsing Lao T’ou-tzu) The Chinese god of longevity, connected with a star located in the constellation of Argo. The star is known to many in the West as Canopus, the second-brightest star in the sky.”</span></div><div></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Edward H. <b>Schafer</b>, “Empyreal Powers and Chthonian Edens: Two Notes on T’ang Taoist Literature,” <i>Journal of the American Oriental Society</i>, vol. 106, no. 4 (October 1986), pp. 667-677. On the Peach Blossom Grotto and so on.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Karma Lekshe <b>Tsomo</b>, “Prayers of Resistance,” <i>Nova Religio</i>, vol. 20, no. 1 (August 2016), pp. 86-98. At p. 92:</div><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">“On the second and sixteenth days of the lunar calendar, they go to the field to pray to the White Old Man, a practice of nature worship that predates Buddhism in Central Asian cultures. In this ritual, the women worship the master of nature and make prayers for peace, rain, and abundant crops, and to stave off natural disasters. They make a fire using butter and sheep fat, and present their requests for the welfare of both people and animals.”</span></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Franciscus <b>Verellen</b>, “The Beyond Within: Grotto-Heavens (Dongtian) in Taoist Ritual and Cosmology,” <i>Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie</i>, vol. 8 (1995), pp. 265-290.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sissi <b>Wachtel-Galor</b>, John Yuen, John A. Buswell, and Iris F. F. Benzie, “<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92757/" target="_blank">Chapter 9: Ganoderma lucidum (Lingzhi or Reishi), a Medicinal Mushroom</a>.” This is an extract from the 2nd (2011) edition of <i>Herbal Medicine: Biomolecular and Clinical Aspects</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lama <b>Zopa</b> Rinpoche, <i><a href="https://fpmt.org/wp-content/uploads/education/teachings/texts/water_charity_pretas_c5.pdf" target="_blank">Offering Water Charity to the Pretas: Including the Daily Practice of Water Offering to Dzambhala</a></i>, FPMT (Portland OR 2006), a booklet in 53 pages. </div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">+ + +</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: justify;">Some Tibetan-language Manuscripts on the White Old Man</h4><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i></i><blockquote><i>Rgan-po Dkar-po Bsangs</i>, ‘<i>Incense Offerings for the White Old Man</i>.’ A 3-folio text, author given as Blo-bzang-bstan-'dzin ming-can. TBRC no. W1NLM61. </blockquote><blockquote><i>Rgan-po Dkar-po-la Mchod-gtor Bsangs G.yang</i>. An 11-folio ms. It seems to bear the title <i>Rgan-po Dkar-po Mdo</i> [see the final line of fol. 11 verso], and it is immediately followed by interesting text we list next. TBRC no. W1NLM2000. </blockquote><blockquote><i>Sa [dang] Chu'i 'Dul-bar Gnon-par Nus Mdo</i>, ‘<i>Sūtra of Power to Subjugate, to Tame, Earth and Water.</i>’ It supplies titles in Chinese and Mongolian as well as Tibetan, and on its 2nd folio it supplies an iconography of the White Old Man. It has all the marks of being a scriptural <i>sūtra</i>, although it is surely not of Indian origins, but locally produced, and for that reason of extraordinary interest. TBRC no. W1NLM2000. I found another version of it with a variant title in TBRC no. W1NLM1842: <i>Sa dang Chu’i Bdal-bar Gnon-par Nus-pa’i Mdo</i>, which I am tempted to translate, very tentatively, as<i> S</i><i style="text-align: left;">ū</i><i>tra on the Power to Prevent Earth and Water from Exceeding their Bounds</i> (there is a lot of variance in the Mongolian language titles and in the ways they have been Englished in the literature).<span style="text-align: left;"> </span> </blockquote><blockquote><i>Rgan-pa [D]kar-po [G]sol-mchod</i> [note the subscribed <i>Dkris</i>, perhaps abbreviation for <i>Bkra-shis</i>]. A 7-folio ms. The colophon says it was written by Tho-go-rtse Tho-tho [clarified in a note as meaning Tho-go-co Khu-thug-tho] at the urging of the layperson (U-pa-shi) Sangs-rgyas-shes-rab. TBRC no. W1NLM1590.<span style="text-align: left;"> </span> </blockquote><blockquote><i>Rgan-po Dkar-po’i Gsol-mchod</i>. The folios are unnumbered, but you can see near the end that its composition is attributed to Padma-’byung-gnas, or Padmasambhava. Contained in TBRC no. W1NLM3102. </blockquote><blockquote><i>Rgan-po Dkar-po’i Gsol-mchod Byas-tshul [=Bya-tshul]</i>. A 9-folio ms. Its colophon simply attributes it to Padma-’byung-gnas, or Padmasambhava. Contained in TBRC no. W1NLM2308.</blockquote></span></h4><div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p> </p><p></p></div><h4 style="text-align: justify;">To this list we ought to add</h4><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Srid-pa’i Pha-wang Lha-’bod Lha-’bod Lha Mi Bar-gyi Phrin Gyer</i>, “A Divine Invocation for the Bat of Existence (Life/Evolution): A Chant Message between the Divine and Human,” contained in the scanned volume with the cover title <i>Bsang-brngan Yid-bzhin-nor-bu sogs,</i> pp. 159-174. TBRC no. W4CZ332272. I do find a <i>Pha-wang Lha-’bod</i>, “A Divine Invocation for the Bat,” text listed in a Bon scriptural canon catalog, actually twice, once accompanied by a text called <i>Pha-wang-gi Zhu-ba</i>, “The Questions of the Bat.” Inspired by Toni Huber’s monumental book, I thought I would write up a tiny web-log about these texts, but now I’m thinking someone just like you might be interested in working on them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">§ § §</span></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I’ve merely touched on the subject here, so I recommend a look back at “<a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2017/09/star-water.html" target="_blank">Star Water</a>,” an earlier Tibeto-logic blog posted on September 15, 2017, where the Sage Agastya and connections to the Canopus star may become brighter than they are at the moment. Canopus is even entangled with Tibetan swimming festivals, as you’ll see. For more in-depth on the Agastya connection, see Baumann’s 2019 & 2020; Roberts’ 2010.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/long/hd_long.htm" target="_blank">an interesting page with beautiful artworks devoted to Chinese longevity symbols</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This blog and the one that came before it represents a blog-ified version of a paper with powerpoint given recently at a small conference entitled “Tibet & the Oirats — Oirat Cultural Legacy and the Earliest History of Tibetan and Mongolian Studies,” held on 14–15 November 2022. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: justify;">One last thing</h4><div style="text-align: justify;">Did Tibetans of early times know anything at all about a Peach Blossom Grotto that was supposed to lie at the northernmost edge of their plateau according to Chinese literature? I had my strong doubts, but no definite idea how to answer this question, so I did some creative searching in BDRC’s database. Unfortunately, all I could come up with is <a href="https://legacy.tbrc.org/#!rid=W00EGS1017422" target="_blank">a 2006 publication</a> from the PRC that gives to it a Tibetan name: “Thar-ldan Kham-bu ’Byung Tshal.”* I suppose what is interesting about this source is that it makes a direct comparison with Sems-kyi Nyi-zla (‘Mental Sun-Moon’?). I know that may not ring a bell, but that’s the fake back-translation (or rather phonetic transcription!?) into Tibetan of Shangri-la (as it is pronounced in modern Chinese) that was then used to justify choosing where Shangri-la <i>as tourist destination</i> would from then on be found. For that exceedingly weird story, see that 2016 Tibeto-logic blog entitled “<a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2016/09/signs-of-shangri-la.html" target="_blank">Signs of Shangri-la</a>.” Are we even surprised that Wikipedia-wallahs were totally suckered into the rabbit hole? They may never find their way out. Look <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangri-La_City" target="_blank">here</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"></span><blockquote><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*I thought to unpack this translation: Clearly Kham-bu is the Tibetan word for “peach,” and 'Byung indicates “origin,” so “peach origin.” But Tshal means “Grove.” Did the translator choose a Tibetan word meaning “grove” for the Chinese term we translate into English as “grotto”? A grove is not a grotto... Oh, and Thar-ldan means “Having Freedom,” right?)</span></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-50583345676444396312022-11-18T18:13:00.013+02:002022-12-13T11:10:19.411+02:00The White Old Man Sūtra - Part One<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUbaks0j4Lg9-LwgcW7--QkqJ2V991EYF7zHUi9t0T5wj-SWQp94zGGTQaTLBxVsA8Hss3JCmoSI5fDYxpLiYZbBNBNSRHE3uoXvSFddNWxUSPOjHtcnMQPMnlv7WfEFc9FnEPc-OoLRjJxJQs0kfya-MIIEv4LGqDiJb1oVRec1WApLYv4FI/s720/Slide1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUbaks0j4Lg9-LwgcW7--QkqJ2V991EYF7zHUi9t0T5wj-SWQp94zGGTQaTLBxVsA8Hss3JCmoSI5fDYxpLiYZbBNBNSRHE3uoXvSFddNWxUSPOjHtcnMQPMnlv7WfEFc9FnEPc-OoLRjJxJQs0kfya-MIIEv4LGqDiJb1oVRec1WApLYv4FI/w400-h225/Slide1.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: xx-small;"><br />South Korea, July 2022</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><h1 style="text-align: left;">From Lhasa to Philadelphia</h1><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-small;"></span></p></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The <i>White Old Man Sūtra</i> and the Long Life Tableau on the Back of </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Tibetan Currency Notes.</span></span></p></blockquote><p></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="color: #4c1130;">This two-part blog is for Yu Wonsoo, </span><span style="color: #4c1130;">and Hanna Sorek, too.</span></p><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">During these past years of shutdown and isolation, visits to homes of friends have been rare. Still, we did do it once several months ago. I noticed our long-time friend Hanna, known to have an interest in Tibetan things, had a 100 <i>srang</i> currency note framed on her wall. She took it out from behind the glass and I started to say something about the design decorating the back of it, a tableau of the Man of Long Life (མི་ཚེ་རིང་), and before I knew it I was trying to point out and interpret its every detail. There is really a lot to see in it, and I’m sure I didn’t get it all right. So I’m going to try again. I hope this will not be a narrowly iconographic study, but a wider search for the meaning of this particular work of art and why it is found where it is. Placement may not be everything, but it is always significant.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Before we dive into the iconography of money, a few words about the circumstances that made me rethink a few things. Several connections I could not have even conceived before reading into Toni Huber’s impressively important 2-volume monograph on annual rituals for long life and prosperity held in both eastern Bhutan and its eastern neighbor, the Mönyul Corridor. A life of Tibetan Studies is one filled with amazing coincidences that can also create ruptures in your ordinary thought processes. So naturally, while I was reading the early chapters of Huber’s <i>Source of Life</i> an article fell on top of me, one by the famed Mongolist Caroline Humphrey,* that started me along a new train of thinking. The conclusion that there are connections between the two was inescapable if not immediately explicable.</div><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">(*If you like, go to the references listed at the end of Part Two. Humphrey’s article fell on me thanks to the weekly notifications I receive from “<a href="https://scholar.google.co" target="_blank">Googlescholar</a>.” I’m not going to review Toni’s book here, just extract from you a promise to read it, the first hundred pages at the very least.)</span></blockquote></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC1iZGCqYkW-IBkGl1vpYjm4NkUQ1ymxLNlWwDnWc0KyIPy0S8QQzziA2dpI1keLnxG-HHWVtcDT9gLzz5lQod_rPIzDZX40WgHEYEzAHOKtjoQAJbQGBfIMF38gpKpNoS2Ymmib21G5JYSGa3n_N7Rb2j3edFWAbMtw42bwLIYEckv0mu26E/s720/Slide3.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC1iZGCqYkW-IBkGl1vpYjm4NkUQ1ymxLNlWwDnWc0KyIPy0S8QQzziA2dpI1keLnxG-HHWVtcDT9gLzz5lQod_rPIzDZX40WgHEYEzAHOKtjoQAJbQGBfIMF38gpKpNoS2Ymmib21G5JYSGa3n_N7Rb2j3edFWAbMtw42bwLIYEckv0mu26E/w400-h225/Slide3.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Now the Kalmuck-American community in New Jersey formed after a group of the westward-moving Oirats — displaced after World War II in Vienna, Belgrade and elsewhere in Europe — were taken much further west; in 1951 the U.S. granted them asylum and resettlement in New Jersey and Philadelphia. Among the first arrivals was Lama Sanji Rabga Möngke Bakši, who served as the head of the St. Tsongkhapa temple in Philadelphia until his death in 1972. Found among his personal effects was an Oirat version of the <i>White Old Man S<span style="text-align: left;">ūtra</span></i>. According to the essay writer, Sanj Altan, the rituals associated with it were performed by the Kalmyk settlers up until the 1980’s. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgntKyRZhdF6_-h_RoZq38HsY25_G1e4hLJnpFTxDszfIQJlN6zZZlANIsSLUm5HHD3FWZ626HCv_lYnrcqrf8cZIGfMKbqIWDUUpCBDRbwPCDf3S0XkgkaVcJSN9Ezc2tqSw_0rKFNXYGU4lD0UEcv8-0jQYnRymVIlQorjzpAfiozSGE4XiM/s720/Slide4.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgntKyRZhdF6_-h_RoZq38HsY25_G1e4hLJnpFTxDszfIQJlN6zZZlANIsSLUm5HHD3FWZ626HCv_lYnrcqrf8cZIGfMKbqIWDUUpCBDRbwPCDf3S0XkgkaVcJSN9Ezc2tqSw_0rKFNXYGU4lD0UEcv8-0jQYnRymVIlQorjzpAfiozSGE4XiM/w400-h225/Slide4.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Click to enlarge</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Basically a lay practice, monastics might be present to do the <i>sūtra</i> recitation, although in their absence this, too, could be done by a literate layperson. It involved ritual libations of milk, aspersed using a leafy branch, as you can see in the photograph, taken by an anthropologist named Carleton Coon, well known for other reasons back in the early 60’s.</div><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWRTR7I2iDya7oDcf_YW71sZ7S5fKoH_Wnm0iXWUCfP2mDeHbCLXWeBr3ZnW0zXgpscPFn6uk1pT2ErPODXNO1DQqNxAAb8mCTJlE47tyyh41WDS-M098hM9u7oK4AIgITZ2Lv9hHbLciBC3yfi6ElJPeTAro-YmD5i-YM17i_ZtfHQ-XRgys/s720/Slide5.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWRTR7I2iDya7oDcf_YW71sZ7S5fKoH_Wnm0iXWUCfP2mDeHbCLXWeBr3ZnW0zXgpscPFn6uk1pT2ErPODXNO1DQqNxAAb8mCTJlE47tyyh41WDS-M098hM9u7oK4AIgITZ2Lv9hHbLciBC3yfi6ElJPeTAro-YmD5i-YM17i_ZtfHQ-XRgys/w400-h225/Slide5.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: justify;">It could be argued that in a sense all of Tibetan religion is about long life. Or, to put it in a different way, lay Tibetans tend to think that attending Buddhist teachings and particularly empowerments will result in a longer life, and they might even call such events ‘Long Life.’ I heard this numerous times during my days in Bodhnath in Nepal, but if you have doubts about this testimony, I can suggest Barbara Gerke’s book you see here, with the title <i>Long Lives and Untimely Deaths</i>. It might change your mind.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I use the word ‘tableau’ as a convenient word for a small group of Tibetan artworks with set iconography. I would identify three or four sets of figures I would like to call by the name of artistic tableaus, or simply tableaus.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTAqwCvmnnOG_XPTa7WuSvt281zMV5I5Mdhy81AAbwxc2v_K13OxnV6cqIqhZSJtRsup3DJXoztx7bH7If5rLxjjSOgIZcmbamSUMzpilG9uItOgXNzLmJQsg5FizMg3JzEgcrspjpV5abQzr3pptIjhYlw1LuYRKWC5KfSPXFLS4DVj8b0IE/s720/Slide6.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTAqwCvmnnOG_XPTa7WuSvt281zMV5I5Mdhy81AAbwxc2v_K13OxnV6cqIqhZSJtRsup3DJXoztx7bH7If5rLxjjSOgIZcmbamSUMzpilG9uItOgXNzLmJQsg5FizMg3JzEgcrspjpV5abQzr3pptIjhYlw1LuYRKWC5KfSPXFLS4DVj8b0IE/w400-h225/Slide6.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">They have in common that they are symbolic devices often found painted on outside walls of Tibetan monasteries and the like. They are sometimes found on odd sides of the building where they aren't especially visible. I cannot confidently explain why this is.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The <b>Six of Long Life</b> is one of them. Here you see illustrated two more. On the right you see the <b>Four Harmonious Brothers</b>, and on the left, the <b>Mongol Leading the Tiger</b>. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another less commonly seen one is the <b>Indian Teacher Leading an Elephant</b>. I once noticed an example tucked into an outside corner of a temple in Bodhnath, and wish I could find the photograph.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The <b>Four Harmonious Brothers</b> seems to have its source in the <i>Vinaya-vastu</i>, but the stories used to explain the picture can vary quite a lot. The message would seem to be one of the importance of cooperating in order to attain common goals, and that is how I've nearly always heard and seen it explained. However, in the Vinaya text it is more about respecting hierarchies based on seniority (the smallest animal is in fact the oldest and for that reason requires the top position).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Mongol Leading the Tiger</b>: Even if less frequent, this is another scene often painted on outer sides of temple walls. I’ve seen arguments this represents a legendary Mongolian warrior called <a href="https://books.google.co.il/books?id=I7nWJKLr-8wC&lpg=PA164&ots=zyjxUZb2Jp&dq=Dugar%20Jaisang&pg=PA164#v=onepage&q=Dugar%20Jaisang&f=false" target="_blank">Dugar Jaisang</a>. Somehow, in some unknown way, I’m thinking it must at least in a general way symbolize the Mongolian assistance given to the Gelugpa school against its opponents. It’s as if the aggressor (in the form of the tiger) is being pulled back and led away. Some give an elaborate interpretation of its three elements — the tiger, the Mongol and the chain — as symbolizing three Bodhisattvas. From what few explanations I’ve learned about, this has been the most popular one.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDaTexVcPXblnWTblbF76_mKxU3a-74oFVgrS_d2k0GwANBXe6wX1Pwuwku_zvfkN-A3RG3bwupqOWLNY-vfuHWXGlg9902_tl-WUVHOJoZHwDrZmP9HKu6iTJCrqpBj2T4KUa6Vg2_XxiiFraGvjapFcBpjY7TWvxdoFJgUp8e8YO3K-PXOg/s720/Slide7.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDaTexVcPXblnWTblbF76_mKxU3a-74oFVgrS_d2k0GwANBXe6wX1Pwuwku_zvfkN-A3RG3bwupqOWLNY-vfuHWXGlg9902_tl-WUVHOJoZHwDrZmP9HKu6iTJCrqpBj2T4KUa6Vg2_XxiiFraGvjapFcBpjY7TWvxdoFJgUp8e8YO3K-PXOg/w400-h225/Slide7.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">Both the Four Harmonious Brothers and the White Old Man can be found on backs of Tibetan currency notes of the early-to-mid 20th century. Here you see the front side of a Tibetan 100 <i>srang</i> denomination banknote. Have a good look at it, and I’ll briefly review its main features.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">We can know from the twice handwritten serial no. <i>kha[1] 18253</i> that this particular bill was made in 1953, the year of my birth (that the two numbers share the last 2 digits is another happenstance). I’ve labeled the various elements, and translated the main inscriptions in the slide you see here:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiffn5P1-5iUxFyPeF_QXvzZQ06UzDB81FzX1OyR_WJ8wuc5gQ6dbiAqbdH53q-ZIXNOpmaw0gXb6Yt7RKBL7GiiOwkxoLnx4K1qbbgrUurSrMgjUGQtA80vtxOo5vvg68-yP4ASH5xzpwH2RqI-bRo3wtdA203_YyBt4Pq0_HB6TmavlTVLl8/s720/Slide8.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiffn5P1-5iUxFyPeF_QXvzZQ06UzDB81FzX1OyR_WJ8wuc5gQ6dbiAqbdH53q-ZIXNOpmaw0gXb6Yt7RKBL7GiiOwkxoLnx4K1qbbgrUurSrMgjUGQtA80vtxOo5vvg68-yP4ASH5xzpwH2RqI-bRo3wtdA203_YyBt4Pq0_HB6TmavlTVLl8/w400-h225/Slide8.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">I should also point out a few difficult-to-see details — Note the <i>sūrya-candra</i> (sun-moon) symbol forming the top of the the round seal of the Dalai Lama, and Vajra Wall symbol surrounding the 'Phags-pa letters in the square seal of the Lhasa Bank. The <i>sūrya-candra</i> in this context surely means the pairing of religious and political affairs, while the Vajra Wall emphasizes the impenetrable nature of the Lhasa Bank. It conveys the notion of security and inviolability, although “security features” is one of those many subjects that could easily lead us off into interminable tangents. So let’s turn it over and see what’s on the back.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwCNqUgseHT3VGCeilyvV7UTSg9YTPL6uBbTzU8P9YS36SzTfQCA5lcigCwxAjVj-8uXmqfX6jM5omS9wGZZhYIR5nd8kZNiUMIouDnTNy5t9vmMfQS4GpwxYJPi3RZuhNBTJlPevjsImm4kHaL1Z32zMqzhbJk2UWkqbF7wVa6Xn8InuUy4w/s720/Slide9.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwCNqUgseHT3VGCeilyvV7UTSg9YTPL6uBbTzU8P9YS36SzTfQCA5lcigCwxAjVj-8uXmqfX6jM5omS9wGZZhYIR5nd8kZNiUMIouDnTNy5t9vmMfQS4GpwxYJPi3RZuhNBTJlPevjsImm4kHaL1Z32zMqzhbJk2UWkqbF7wVa6Xn8InuUy4w/w400-h225/Slide9.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The verso of the same 100 srang banknote</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">One thing to notice before we narrow in on the central field: The green border conceals ’Phags-pa script of Tibetan words also found on the front side.” The left side reads “Dga’-ldan Pho-brang” or ‘Ganden Phodrang,’ while the right reads “Phyogs-las Rnam-rgyal,” or ‘Victorious over the Directions.’ </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAeiBMKPSPb05OtmmOa5G48vXUFFAUQN4hETmCznWzL7NLMTqFkftDH81-hSWhkFw-EYmCYm0np-qa7uAM87nFmA5UTv_Qq-y2IWmk6GUrwrE2ex5yNEIybyMgEn4DqT-Oaz71eKjUtzSdwEcSTjsjsc01gz_2EBNzuy3VwRw1zMrKo0B57i8/s720/Slide10.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAeiBMKPSPb05OtmmOa5G48vXUFFAUQN4hETmCznWzL7NLMTqFkftDH81-hSWhkFw-EYmCYm0np-qa7uAM87nFmA5UTv_Qq-y2IWmk6GUrwrE2ex5yNEIybyMgEn4DqT-Oaz71eKjUtzSdwEcSTjsjsc01gz_2EBNzuy3VwRw1zMrKo0B57i8/w400-h225/Slide10.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The central field of the same enlarged</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For comparison, I also show the back side of the 50 <i>srang</i> banknote, all printed in blue. Its design is pared down to the most basic elements corresponding to the Six of Long Life, but its relative simplicity may make it easier to <i>read</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdM5V1muFMOhpbx3fqgQlD3DRk55bUvdGEuRmZj8FZiQCl7GKovW1mFKODPDRWZgzwOSCkGaRQ2uO26_H1ehmYegUlNshmYTjbev2lHBbNyWmf2exVd9raPTOGfQA40dUSMvLbkq6tGI83NjNvVenZ6VWJ3X3wKuBtTi0ggLQ5jx1jX0cmWA0/s720/Slide12.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdM5V1muFMOhpbx3fqgQlD3DRk55bUvdGEuRmZj8FZiQCl7GKovW1mFKODPDRWZgzwOSCkGaRQ2uO26_H1ehmYegUlNshmYTjbev2lHBbNyWmf2exVd9raPTOGfQA40dUSMvLbkq6tGI83NjNvVenZ6VWJ3X3wKuBtTi0ggLQ5jx1jX0cmWA0/w400-h225/Slide12.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Verso of the 50 <i>srang</i> banknote</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li>In the mean time, try and see what you can see in it. For the explanations that I think I can offer, <a href="https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-white-old-man-sutra-part-two.html">go to the continuation by clicking here</a>. </li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">This comes from Dan's Tibeto-logic blog located at Blogger.com:
http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0