Tuesday, April 01, 2025

Turkish Dzogchen of Early Ladakh

 


Hong Kong, May 2018   

It is honestly difficult to contemplate writing up a blog after giving it a title like that one you see above. There is a promise and an aim indicated in it, but I suppose the main justification is just to explore and to learn new things along the way. 

To begin with, friends in our close circle already know about an amazing set of texts from old chortens in Matho, Ladakh, that were all scribed prior to the year 1200 or at most a decade or two later. 

We’ve blogged on Matho several times before, beginning with this one. Matho has what has to be (one of?) the earliest clearly datable manuscripts of a treasure text, a terma. It has a piece of that redoubtable Dzogchen scripture The All Making King that may be its oldest surviving manuscript evidence. It has an astounding number of fragments pertaining to Padampa Sangyé and the Zhijé School that will eventually prove their worth to researchers in that area. Looking at the Matho texts overall, they present us with a distinctively different image of what was going on in the realm of religion in Ladakh and adjacent areas of Western Tibet in those early centuries. But I would not joke about a thing like this. So just because I put up a crazy title on a day like today doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hear me out.

Dzogchen is a difficult subject to approach, but once you are getting there it is famous for not presenting difficulties. Just the contrary, it often recommends abandoning efforts to get enlightened, as Awakening is already there requiring only immediate recognition. Dzogchen promises that the most obdurate past delusions can be dissolved in an instant, like in the Kāśyapa Parivarta’s statement about how a thousand-year-old darkness can be dispelled by lighting one single lamp in the room. But simplicity can present us with considerable complexity and even perplexity, and the only enlightenment on offer in this modest blog will be on a much smaller scale. 

We hope to think about lineage history, routes of migration and influence and even loanwords. These are arguably important issues if we are to begin to understand how one of the most authentic (historically speaking at the very least) systems of Dzogchen, transmitted by Turkish or more specifically Uighur practitioners in the area we would now call Gansu, ended up in pre-Mongol era Ladakh, two places in opposite extremes of the Tibetan Plateau. It may not be a smooth ride, but I think we can get somewhere with what we have.

The text is a rarity among the Matho fragments because it is all there, from title to colophon. This can be said of it despite damage and minor text loss in one corner and in a tear-line. Its smallness belies its high importance for 

[1] understanding the general religious situation on the Plateau in the pre-Mongol centuries and more specifically 

[2] insight into the historical transmission of Dzogchen. 

I would like to claim an ability to go deeply into its content, but there are difficulties in both its language (spelling, syntax, vocabulary) and its references to practice-related issues that can seem, perhaps surprisingly, technical and opaque. So those who feel they have the need and ability can look at the transcription of the text down below in the appendices. Meanwhile, a few observations about its beginning and its end.

The front title is not a true title, more like an introductory statement on the content of the text: “This reasonable presentation of the oral instructions to leave it as it is...” (man-ngag cog-bzhag lung-du bstan-pa ’di). The closing of the text also doesn’t present us with an actual title, once again describing the content: “While you may meditate since bodily exertion will not achieve it, these are the precepts for leaving it as is” (lus rtsal bas ma rnyed pas // sgoms kyang man ngag chog bzhag ma ’o). Nevertheless, we may say “Oral Instructions to Leave It as Is” here looks more like a true text-title just because of the -ma ending. Right at the beginning it might seem to cite from a text (?) called Ten Tattvas (de-nyid bcu-pa), but then again it seems to be part of the shop-talk, the main topic being meditation done without squinting the eyes, here called the Lion’s Gaze. And as it turns out this same quote is quoted in other contexts without ever indicating its source.

Galvanizing as these particular teachings are, they are after all esoteric, meant only for persons directly engaged in instruction under a master with the necessary wisdom that comes from experiential application. Tibetans repeat such provisos so often we simply must take them seriously, even if (or even especially if) the traditional safeguards have been eroding dramatically in recent decades. Face it, listening to the Beatles song Let It Be* is not the same as receiving this as a meditation precept from an experienced meditator you know and respect at just the right moment in meditation training. And needless to say, it isn’t a game of word-search on the worldwide web, not a problem to be solved by accumulating information and depositing it in robots. Not even remotely. It takes place outside the academy, and gains little from enforced placement in that kind of environment.

(*The story is Paul wrote it after his long-dead mother spoke the words to him in a dream, although it’s recently been argued that instead of Mother Mary, the original set of lyrics had “Maharishi” there in her place, which somehow makes better sense.)

But I do want to point out a philological point as one of its precepts employs the metaphor of the turtle in the bronze basin. We’ve blogged about this before, and even though it might not be interpreted in precisely the same way in every context, you do find it deployed in a number of meditative contexts regardless whether the school might be Nyingma, Zhijé, Kagyü or Bön.

Rather than revisit the turtle, let’s look instead at something I myself oddly regard as important, which is that this small text, an untampered-with pre-1200 artifact, clearly testifies that in those times the Aro Dzogchen transmission of Dzogchen was alive and thriving. This same lineage was a topic of special concern in the recent translation of the long Deyu history. As it turns out, the main known personalities involved in the production of the various (now four?) Deyu histories had connections with either the Aro Dzogchen or the Middle Zhijé transmissions of esoteric precepts or very likely both at the same time. It was in this book, tucked away in an appendix and meant to be ignored by all but the most hardy Tibet specialists, that the identities of two very early successive members of the Aro Dzogchen transmission were revealed as being Turkish, more specifically Uighur Turkish.

This Turkish connection is confirmed in our pre-1200 Matho text, in its first line, where we read, tentatively translated, a sketch history of the early Aro lineage:

When Bairotsana came from the Indian Country, there was a gathering in Lower Dokham from which this teaching was transmitted to the Great Lama Aro, and from him transmitted [later on] to the Turk, and from him handed on to Kongratso.
“The Turk” could just as well have been translated as a plural. It means both of the Turkish men in the early lineage: Ya-zi Bon-ston and his immediate disciple Dru-gu Glog-’byung. The first was surely Turkish because his surname (or occupational name) is Yazi, a widespread Turkish word for ‘scribe’ or the activity of the scribe. The Bon in his name could mean he had once been a ritual expert in natively Turkish religion, it is difficult to be sure of it. I doubt its use here has much to do with Tibetan Bon religion, although this needs working out further, especially as he makes his appearance in Bon historical sources as well, where we can even find his ordination name Shes-rab-tshul-khrims. His successor is directly called a Turk (Dru-gu), while this disciple’s given name, apparently a shortened version of Glog-gi-’byung-gnas, meaning ‘Lightning Source,’ is not at all a natural sounding Tibetan Dharma name, so my strong suspicion is it is a calque of a name given to him in Turkish, something like *Yıldırım Kaynak (both are indeed common Turkish names).

Did the culture of these two Turkish transmission masters have any impact on the Aro tradition? I do see one small sign of this in a one-volume set of early texts about the Aro that was preserved within the Oral Transmission collection of the Nyingma school called Kama (Bka’-ma). This volume was discussed to a certain degree in the long Deyu translation, page 17, so I won’t repeat myself. I do see one example of what appears to be such an influence. On the arbitrary nature of linguistic signs, a text in that volume (Bka’-ma Shin-tu Rgyas-pa, vol. 100, p. 586) has this to say:

འོ་ན་མིང་ལ་ངེས་སམ། དོན་ལ་ངེས་མིང་ལ་ངེས་ན། མེ་གཅིག་པུ་ལ་བོད་མེ་ཟེར། རྒྱ་གར་ཨག་ནེ་ཟེར། ཧོར་འོད་གཟེར་ཟེར་ཏེ། དེ་ལ་སོགས་པ། སྐད་རིགས་མི་མཐུན་པ་སུམ་བརྒྱ་དྲུག་ཅུ་ལ༑ མིང་མི་གཅིག་པ་སུམ་བརྒྱ་དྲུག་ཅུ་འདུག་པའི་ཕྱིར་རོ། །

“Well then, is it definitive in the vocabulary term or is it definitive in the intended meaning? If it is definitive in the vocabulary term, we could say that while the fire in itself is a single object, Tibet calls it me, India calls it ag-ne, Hor (Uighur) calls it 'od-gzer and so forth and so on for all of the 360 distinct types of languages that have their 360 words for it.”

(*Note there is an oddly similar parallel contained in: Dpa’-ris Sangs-rgyas, Dag-yig Rig-pa’i Gab-pa Mngon-phyung, as we may know from a BDRC search, although the text itself is not made available.)

For my present purpose, what is most significant here is that only three countries’ languages are mentioned by name, and one of the three is Uighur. That the word for ‘fire’ it supplies resembles words in various Turkish languages is already sufficient for my argument. Still, let’s at least look at a few of them. There is a word for fire in several Turkic languages including Azeri variously spelled as od or ot. But among their other common words for fire are atesh and indeed the azer that we find in the ethnonym plus language name Azeri and the country of Azerbaijan due to the famous natural flames found there. That both these last-mentioned terms have Iranic origins is no grounds for denying the Tibetans would have seen it as Uighur Turkish. I believe this is the correct way of reading the Tibetan 'od-gzer, but leave the detailed explanations to the linguistic experts. To me it is interesting to see once again the Tibetanization process that can turn a Turkic word for fire, whichever of the words it may have been, into the Tibet-intelligible word for light ray, which is özer.* 

(*But yes, with its typical Old Tibetan spelling employing the g- prefix letter that went silent at one point and went away later on. Then again, there is yet another possible explanation why the syllable-initial g- would have entered into Tibetan transcriptions of Turkish syllables beginning with initial ‘z’, for this see Róna-Tas’s book, p. 106.) 

Without a doubt it would be more impressive to be able to find Turkish influences in the core of the Dzogchen meditation teachings themselves. That they once knew a Turkish word or two can’t be all that earth shaking, could it? Of course tangri The Sky is not only a living and responsive, but also an essential character in the cosmology of the early Turks, as it is for the Mongols, so one might be tempting to propose an explanation for why the sky or more abstractly space is the single most central metaphor in Dzogchen precepts. But I would no sooner propose such an idea than take it back again. It actually makes my head hurt thinking about it. I will leave it to keener intellects to work out the pros and cons.

We are accustomed to arguing about just how Indian or how Chinese Dzogchen meditation might be, so much so it sometimes seems little better than a partisan tug-of-war. We also like to discuss how Tibetanized it became, or how Tibetan it may have been even in its origins. The low-hanging evidence seen here might not be overwhelming at the moment, but I believe enough is accomplished if we can use it to persuade other researchers to keep an open mind and stay woke to yet another possible realm of inspiration. The richness of the contemplative tradition will only be enhanced by recognizing its splendid diversity.

Past blogs on Turkish connections & Dzogchen

*In reversed chronological order.

Thank You for the Light, a Turkic Loanword (December 25, 2024). Both the Tibetan word lcag[s]-mag and the object it names were surely taken from the Turkic world well before the advent of the Mongol era.


Turtle in a Bronze Basin (May 10, 2024). Although no Turkish connection is implied here, the same Dzogchen metaphor is found in the Matho text. There is a response by Jean-Luc Achard that clarifies matters considerably.


A Gift of Tibet’s History for Qubilai Khan (May 30, 2023). The Uighur lineage holders of Aro Dzogchen were discussed here. Let me extract from it:
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 (ཡ་ཟི་བོན་སྟོན་), is recognized as a 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 and ordinand Drugu Logjung (དྲུ་གུ་གློགས་འབྱུང་) has a name indicating that he was a Drugu, a Turk.
Bagel, Baklava and Bag-leb (June 28, 2021). Turkic connections are drawn here, although these date to a later period.

Great Balls of Iron (January 18, 2020). The word thu-lum, like lcags-mag, is to my mind without the least room for doubt a pre-Mongol era loan from old Turkic languages that lay to the north of Tibet. But is nice to see that both words remain in use today in Anatolian Turkish.


Turkish & Mongolian Loanwords (December 10, 2014).

Bird Dogs of Tibet (March 10, 2014).

Kashgar Tiger (October 20, 2012). On Vairocana and the Indian Dzogchen transmission account. See also the blog for June 30, 2018, listed above.

From Gesar: The Place This Time (February 19, 2010).

Written matter: Books & essays

  • I know I will be taken to task for omitting important publications, so I hereby immediately admit my guilt and go on with my life. Thanks anyway to Mike Walter who sent me lots of things to read, not that I could find the energy to read them all.

Erhan Aydın, “Tibet in Old Turkic Texts,” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, no. 46 (October 2018), pp. 90-97. In particular note the Old Turkic inscription with one word borrowed from Tibetan, the word for ‘minister’ (blon).

Louis Bazin, “Pre-Islamic Turkic Borrowings in Upper Asia: Some Crucial Semantic Fields,” Diogenes, no. 171, vol. 43, no. 3 (Fall 1995), pp. 35-44. 

Read this readable essay in case you are in doubt about how earlier loans into Central Asian Turkic languages were most likely to be drawn from Persian, while in later times Chinese borrowings increased. Names for trade items are neglected here and instead the following areas are emphasized: religious vocabulary, official titles, tools of literacy, music and musical instruments, geographical terms, and astral sciences. I’m particularly struck by this statement on p. 40: 

“It was only in the second half of the eleventh century, in western Turk-Oghuz, that a verb meaning 'to write', yaz, first appeared...”

Perhaps, but only just perhaps, this should influence our idea about Tibetan ya-zi at the head of the name Ya-zi Bon-ston transcribing Turkic yazi, ‘scribe’ since this Ya-zi certainly lived prior to the eleventh century.

A. Bodrogligeti, “Early Turkish Terms Connected with Book and Writing,” Acta Orientalia Hungarica, vol. 18, nos. 1-2 (1965), pp. 93-117. Among the terms discussed is yaz-, a word that was not used in the very earliest documents, although at some point it largely took the place of another verb for writing, biti-, and remains in use in a number of Turkic languages including Anatolian Turkish.

Michael C. Brose, “The Medieval Uyghurs of the 8th through 14th Centuries,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, published online (June 2017). If you find religious and cultural influencers uninteresting, but want to know more about the migrations, struggles, and power elites of the Uighurs, you could easily turn to Wikipedia, or you could read through this single-author survey. You choose.

Bu-ston Rin-chen-grub, The History of Buddhism in India and Tibet [part two], tr. by E. Obermiller, Sri Satguru Publications (Delhi 1986, first published in 1932), p. 210, but be aware that here Ya-zi Bon-ston’s name is given as “Ya-s’i-p’ön-tön.” Notice that the place of meeting is the imperial fortress of Khri-ka, due south of the Kokonor. The words der bas in the Tibetan announce the end of the ordination proceedings, and could be translated as “That does it,” or “That’s all there is.” Obermiller translates it “Be it so.” The Tibetan verb bas is regarded as obsolete, belonging to the imperial era, although you find it in translation literature. My pecha of the Tibetan text reads as follows (proper names in all-caps):

yang 'BRE GZHON TSHUL gyis khams su sdom pa len du phyin pas KHAMS kyi KHRI KHA MKHAR SNAr BLA CHEN [271] PO'i mkhan bu YA ZI BON STON bya ba dang mjal nas bka' drin zhus pas / der bas zer nas sdom pa sbyin long med par 'das pa dang / ngas bsnyen rdzogs kyi sdom pa thob pa yin te khan po na re der bas gsung pa'i phyir ro zhes zer bas der bas kyi bsnyen rdzogs su grags / des RTA NAG PHU'I BYA TSHANG bzung / de nas SHANGS KYI BYE PHUG bzung / BYA TSHANG nas mched pa la 'JAD KYI GNAS BRGYAD byung ste / de tsho la 'BRE TSHO zer ro // 
(*I have no time to go into this intriguing narrative in any detail right now, just to say: Ya-zi Bon-ston does appear as a monastic ordinator in ordinary accounts of the first monks who brought their vows back to Central Tibet from the extreme northeast [meaning the area of Amdo south and east/northeast of the Kokonor Lake, nowadays included in Qinghai and Gansu]. In this paragraph, Ya-zi is a direct ordinand of Bla-chen Dgongs-pa Rab-gsal, who is himself sometimes supplied with a Turkic surname, Mu-zi, sometimes Mu-zu, while Mu-zu Ka-ra-'phan can be given as his earlier lay name prior to ordination, and the entire name could very well be Turkic... Another time, another blog. For now I would just like to point out that Central Asians were involved in the preserving and reimporting of “Lowland Vinaya” (སྨད་འདུལ་) monastic vows to Central Tibet during the Era of Fragmentation. It will eventually be recognized that Dzogchen meditation and the Vinaya traditions of both Bon and Chö are interlocked in the late-9th and 10th centuries. Mainstream Tibet historians will look on the very idea with amazement if they agree to see it at all.)
Long Deyu — Anonymous, A History of Buddhism in India and Tibet: An Expanded Version of the Dharma’s Origins Made by the Learned Scholar Deyu, translated and introduced by Dan Martin, The Library of Tibetan Classics series no. 32, Wisdom Publications (Somerville MA 2022), with the most relevant being p. 784. The corresponding Tibetan-language volume in the series is at this time downloadable at BUDA no. MW3KG158. It uniquely provides an introduction written by Geshé Thupten Jinpa, Ph.D.

We call this for short the “Long Deyu” even though the work is a post-1261 CE anonymous compilation framed as a commentary on a verse work. It was only this rather short verse work, dating from nearly a century earlier, that was composed by the Zhijé figure named Deyu.

Hayrettin İhsan Erkoç, “Elements of Turkic Mythology in the Tibetan Document P.T. 1283,” Central Asiatic Journal, vol. 61, no. 2 (2018), pp. 297-311. 

This has references (in its first footnotes) to earlier publications about that same Dunhuang document that will not be listed here. It appears the unavailable original document may have been made for the benefit of an Uighur king who sent a five-member reconnaissance mission to the Turkish realms further to the north. This report was then, for reasons of ‘intelligence’, translated into Tibetan. Both versions could have been penned  during the last half of the 8th century. 

Hayrettin İhsan Erkoç, “Pre-Manichaean Beliefs of the Uyghurs I: Celestial and Natural Cults,” Harvard Theological Review, vol. 118, no. 1 (2025), pp. 41-60.

Hayrettin İhsan Erkoç, “Pre-Manichaean Beliefs of the Uyghurs II: Other Religious Elements,” Journal of Religious History, vol. 47, no. 4 (December 2023), pp. 586-603.

Todd GibsonInner Asia and the Nyingmapa Tradition: the Case of Shri Singha. This forthcoming book, on topics especially relevant to our sets of questions, is bound to be a game changer.

Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche and Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche, Lion’s Gaze: A Commentary on Tsig Sum Nedek, translated from the Tibetan by Sarah Harding, ed., by Joan Kaye, Sky Dancer Press (Boca Raton FL 1998). Here it is possible to find some discussion of the four let it be’s (cog-bzhag) as a part of the Trekchö practices.

Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche and Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche, Pointing Out the Nature of Mind: Dzogchen Pith Instructions of Aro Yeshe Jungne, Dharma Samudra (Sidney Center NY 2012). This is the one and only publication that I know of in any language apart from Tibetan on the specific teachings of the Aro lineage of Dzogchen.

A. Róna-Tas, An Introduction to Turkology, Klára Szönyi-Sándor (Szeged 1991), particularly relevant to us right now is the section on pre-11th-century Turkish language documents written in Tibetan script at p. 95-110. One of the great geniuses of our times in Turkish as well as Tibetan studies, his life is subject for a fascinating video interview in the series Oral History of Tibetan Studies.



Appendix One: Transcription of the Matho text v327

[recto:] man ngag gcog bzhag lung du bstan pa 'di / rgya gar yul nas be ro tsa na 'is 'dos ['ods, ~'ongs?] nas [?] su // 'do khams [~mdo khams] smad du 'dus pa las / bla chen a ro la brgyud pa las / gru gu 'is 'ongs nas / rkong ra 'tsho la gtad pa 'o //

de yang lung de nyid bcu pa* las / dmyig ma btsums kyi rnal 'byor ni / rnal 'byor kun las khyad par 'phags / seng gye 'i lta' stangs zhes su brjod //  //

(*I could find the complete two lines beginning "mig ma btsum pa'i rnal 'byor" by searching for it in BUDA (its new version in beta: https://beta.bdrc.io). The three lines of verse appear to be cited several times in more or less the form we have them, without naming any particular source text.)

de la sems bsre' thabs gsum / mkhas pa'i man ngag bzhi [?] / sems 'dul ba 'i man ngag gnyis //  gzhag thabs kyi man ngag drug / lus kyi 'khams gso' thabs la lngas gcad do // ~|~ //

de la bsre' thabs gsum la / shes pa dpe ' la bsre' ba dang / rtags la bsre' ba dang / don la bsre' ba dang gsum mo //  //

de la dpe' la bsre' ba ni / dang po gnas dben zhing sgra' 'i tsher ma myed pa ru / stan bde' ba la 'dug ste / yan lag bdun pa sngon du btang ste / dmyig mdun gyi nam kha' la 'khru gang tsam la gtad la / mdung btsugs pa 'i [~'am] gzhu brdungs pa lta bu'am khab myig du skud pa 'dzud pa lta bu 'am / dran pa tur re ting nga ba 'i / ting nge 'dzin ma yengs par bya ba ni / thun gsum du bcad la / thun dbugs dgu' pa 'i tshad bzung la / thun thang gyis bskyang zhing bya ba ni / dbugs dbyung gsum pa zhes bya 'o //

rtags la bsre' ba ni / dang po rus sbal 'khar gzhong du brlag pa lta bu 'byung ngo // rgun 'brum la me stag 'phro ba lta bu byung ngo /  de nas be phur* la ser bu brgyab pa lta bu 'byung ngo / lcags kyi sbug gus me mnan pa lta bu 'byung ngo / bung ba rtsi la chags pa lta bu 'byung ngo / rtsi shing gi kha' nas rlung 'phyo ba lta bu 'byung ngo / chags pa myed pa 'byung ngo // ~|~ // don la bsre' ba ni / myig phye' btsums myed par don nyid zab mo la chags ste mi tshor bar 'dug pa 'o // ~|~ // 

(*Be-phur is replaced by bye phrug, ‘bird chick’, in the modern publication [but the whole passage merits comparison as the set of metaphors are similar but not identical], I noticed this odd word in the early Zhijé Collection, vol. 2, p. 228:  spang gi be phur thon. This doesn't especially help me to understand its meaning, although it would seem to be something in a meadow that might be pulled out.  The Monlam dictionary says this extremely rare term means ‘oak stake’. This may be correct, I’m just not sure how to understand it if it is.)

mkhas pa bzhi la / lta ba la mkhas pa gnyis su med par mnyan par shes pa 'o /  spyod la mkhas pa ci spyod dang sgyu mar shes pa 'o / sgom pa la mkhas pa ni yengs pa myed par shes pa byang sems la blta' bar bya'o 

[verso of the folio] sems 'chos pa la mkhas pa bying na lhag mthong bskyed par bya 'o / lus gi khams gso' ba dang / 'phro' 'du' bya' ba dang / rgod na sems stod [~gtod] la gnan par bya'o //  dmigs pa sku' gzugs gsam [~bsam, ~sam?] / me long gi gzugs mnyan [~gzugs brnyan] la gzugs pa la / sems brtad la sgom du gzhug / sems 'dul thabs bya' // brlung lam du gjug [~gzhug] pa shes par bya'o //  

gzhag thabs drug la / sems mnyam ba la bzhag pa'i dus ni / snang srid thams cad sems nyid yin la // sems chos nyid stong pa'i ngang las // chos nyid du bzhag pa'i rnam par rtog pa dang // mtshan nyid ci ltar ba bkun chos nyid yin par shes par bya'o //  

sems ye shes sgyu' ma la bzhag pa ni /  snang srid phyi nang snod bcud thams cad rang 'byung gi ye shes su bstogs nas // stog pa'i ngang la bzhag pa'o //  

shes pa rang srol [~rdol?] du gzhag pa ni / rigs pa khong nas shar nas ni / dbang po lhug par bzhag pa ni // dbang po sgo' yan du btsug [?] tsam ba // slar log [?] pa 'am // rang bzhin myed par shes pa'o // shes pa lhug par bya' 'o // ngang gis dal gus snyams la // ma yengs tsam du gnas na // rigs pa'i nyi' ma' 'char ste // me long g.ya' dang ba ltab 'u bo [~lta bu'o] // 

lus gi khams gso' ba ni // khams dang phyar [~sbyar] la // brid ci bya'o / gnas nyams brga' bar bya' 'o // grogs nyams brga' ba dang 'grogs so // khams log ba byung na mthong stang log pa byung na gseng pa byung na // mthong na / gcig khris pa skye' ba yin pas // gung gi phe' thabs [?] // bsil drig la nyal la bzhag go /  

skyugs na bad kan skyes pa yin pas / bcag ran bya'o // lus 'drar [~'dar] zhing skyug pa dang / bgo' bo [~mgo bo] 'khor ba bad kan skyes pa yin ste' sman mar dang zas bcud can btang ngo /  dro' sa dang nyi ma la rgyab stan cing sgom du gzhag go // gol [~gos?] mar la dro' ba dar men spu' rlag dgo' ba'o // zas ltogs pa bcud yod pa / sman mar ram / la 'zhi' brlangs mal bya' / 'khor ba ba'i 'du' 'dzi' thag srings phran [~sran?] tshugs par bya' zhing / rang sems dpang por gtsugs la lus dang ngag dang steng chu' bzhin / lus rtsal bas ma rnyed pas // sgoms kyang man ngag chog bzhag ma 'o //  //

rdzogs s.ho ithî //  //   ~|~  //  //

Appendix Two: For comparison, the only known published text

Extract for comparison from BUDA’s etext entitled Rdzogs-chen-gyi Khyad-par-ba Bdun, contained in: Bka'-ma Shin-tu Rgyas-pa, Si-khron Mi-rigs Dpe-skrun-khang (Chengdu 2009), in 133 volumes, at vol. 100, pp. 343-359, at pp. 356-359. I checked the OCR against the published version and found only one tiny inaccuracy, a missing vowel sign, which I have corrected. Comparing the pre-1200 manuscript with this post-2000 publication is very instructive as there are a number of meaningful differences. To judge from my experience, this will always be so.

།། ༈ །།སྙན་ནས་སྙན་དུ་བརྒྱུད་པའི་མན་ངག་འདི་ཡང་། 

ལུང་དེ་ཉིད་བཅུ་པ་ལས། དམིག་མ་བཙུམས་ཀྱི་རྣལ་འབྱོར་ནི། རྣལ་འབྱོར་གཞན་ལས་ཁྱད་པར་འཕགས། སེང་གེའི་ལྟ་སྟངས་ཞེས་སུ་བརྗོད། 

དེ་ལ་བསྲེ་ཐབས་ཀྱི་མན་ངག་གསུམ། མཁས་པའི་མན་ངག་བཞི། འདུལ་བའི་མན་ངག་གཉིས། གཞག་ཐབས་ཀྱི་མན་ངག་དྲུག །ལུས་ཀྱི་ཁམས་གསོ་བ་དང་ལྔའོ། །

དེ་ལ་བསྲེ་ཐབས་གསུམ་

༼༣༦༧༽

༄༅། །ནི༑ ཤེས་པ་དཔེ་ལ་བསྲེ་བ་དང་། རྟགས་ལ་བསྲེ་བ་དང་། དོན་ལ་བསྲེ་བའོ། །

དེ་ལ་དཔེ་ལ་བསྲེ་བ་ནི། དང་པོ་གནས་དབེན་པ་སྒྲ་བའི་ཚེར་མ་མེད་པར་སྟན་བདེ་བ་ལ་འདུག་སྟེ། མིག་མདུན་གྱི་ནམ་མཁའ་ཁྲུ་གང་ཙམ་ལ་གཏད་དེ་མདུང་བཙུགས་པའམ། གཞུ་བརྡུངས་པའམ། ཁབ་མིག་ཏུ་སྐུད་པ་འཛུད་པ་ལྟར་དྲན་པ་ཏུ་རེ་ཏིང་ངེ་འཛིན་མ་ཡེངས་པར་བྱ་བ་ནི། ཐུན་གསུམ་དུ་བཅད་ལ། ཐུན་དབུགས་ཀྱི་རྒྱུ་བས་ཚད་བཟུང་ལ། ཐུན་ཐང་གིས་བསྒྱུར་ཞིང་། བྱ་བ་ནི་དབུགས་དབྱུང་གསུམ་པ་ཞེས་བྱའོ། །

རྟགས་ལ་བསྲེ་བ་ན། དང་པོ་རུས་སྦལ་འཁར་གཞོང་དུ་བཅུག་པ་ལྟ་བུ་འབྱུང་ངོ༌། །དེ་ནས་བྱེ་ཕྲུག་ལ་སེར་བུ་ཕོག་པ་ལྟ་བུ་དང་། རྒུན་འབྲུམ་ལྟ་བུ་དང་། མེ་སྟག་འཕྲོ་བ་ལྟ་བུ་དང༌། ལྕགས་ཀྱི་སྦུ་གུས་ཆེ་འདྲེན་པ་ལྟ་བུ་དང་། བུང་བ་རྩི་ཆགས་པ་ལྟ་བུ་དང༌། རྒྱ་མཚོའི་གཏིང་ན་ཉ་འཕྱོ་བ་ལྟ་བུ་དང༌། རྩི་ཤིང་གི་ཁ་ན་རླུང་འཕྱོ་བ་ལྟ་བུ་འབྱུང་ངོ༌། །

དོན་ལ་བསྲེ་བ་ནི་མིག་ཕྱེ་བཙུམས་མེད་པར་ཆོས་ཉིད་ཟབ་མོ་ལ་སེམས་ཆགས་ཏེ། དབུགས་རྒྱུ་བ་མི་ཚོར་བར་འདུག་པའོ། །མཁས་པ་བཞི་ལ། ལྟ་བ་ལ་མཁས་པ་སྟེ། གཉིས་མེད་མཉམ་པར་ཤེས་པའོ།།  

༼༣༦༨༽

སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་མཁས་པ་ནི། ཅི་སྤྱོད་ཀྱང་སྒྱུ་མར་ཤེས་པའོ། །བསྒོམ་པ་ལ་མཁས་པ་ནི། ཡེངས་པ་མེད་པར་སེམས་ལ་ལྟ་བའོ། ། 

སེམས་འཆོས་པ་ལ་མཁས་པ་ནི། བྱིང་ན་ལྷག་མཐོང་བསྐྱེད༑ ལུས་བསིང་། ཁྲུས་དང་འཕྲོ་འདུ་ཡང་བྱའོ། །རྒོད་ན་སེམས་གཏོད་པ་ལ་གནན་ཏེ། དམིགས་པ་སྐུ་གཟུགས་སམ། མེ་ལོང་གི་གཟུགས་བརྙན་ལ་གཏད་དོ། །སེམས་འདུལ་ཐབས་གཉིས་ལ། འགྲེང་རྡབས་བྱ་བ་དང༌། རླུང་ལམ་དུ་གཞུག་པ་ཤེས་པར་བྱ་བའོ། །

གཞག་ཐབས་དྲུག་ལ། སེམས་མཉམ་པའི་ངང་ལ་བཞག་པ་ནི། སྣང་སྲིད་ཐམས་ཅད་སེམས་ཡིན་ལ་སེམས་སྟོང་པའི་ངང་ལ་བཞག་པའོ། །

ཆོས་ཉིད་དུ་གཞག་པ་ནི། རྣམ་རྟོག་དང་མཚན་མ་ཆོས་ཉིད་ཡིན་པར་ཤེས་པའོ། །

སེམས་ཡེ་ཤེས་སུ་བསྒྱུར་ལ་བཞག་པ་ནི། སྣང་སྲིད་ཐམས་ཅད་འབྱུང་ཡེ་ཤེས་སུ་བརྟགས་ལ་དེའི་ངང་ལ་བཞག་གོ། །

ཤེས་པ་རང་རྡོལ་དུ་བཞག་པ་ནི། རིག་པ་ཁོང་ནས་ཤར་བའོ། །

དབང་པོ་ལྷུག་པར་བཞག་པ་ནི། དབང་པོ་ཡན་དུ་བཅུག་ལ་གང་ཡང་རང་བཞིན་མེད་པར་ཤེས་པའོ། །

ཤེས་པ་སྨྱུག་མར་བཞག་པ་ནི། ངང་གིས་དལ་བུས་དབུགས་ཆ་བསྙམས་ལ་མ་ཡེངས་ཙམ་དུ་གནས་ན་རིག་པའི་ཉི་མ་འཆར་ཏེ།  

༼༣༦༩༽

༄༅། ། །མེ་ལོང་གི་གཡའ་དང་པ་ལྟར་འབྱུང་ངོ༌། །

ལུས་ཀྱི་ཁམས་གསོ་བ་ནི། ཁམས་དང་སྦྱར་ལ་བྲིད་ཅིང་བྱ་སྟེ། གནས་ཉམས་དགའ་བར་བྱ། གྲོགས་ཉམས་དགའ་བ་དང་འགྲོགས་སོ། ཁམས་ལོག་ནས་མཐོང་སྟངས་དམར་པོའམ་སེར་པོ་ནི་མཁྲིས་པ་སྐྱེས་པ་ཡིན་པས་དང་ཀ་དབྱེ། གྲིབ་མ་ལ་བཞག་གོ། །སྐྱུག་ན་བད་ཀན་སྐྱེས་པ་ཡིན་པས་བཅག་རན་བྱའོ། །འདར་ཞིང་སྐྱུག་པ་དང་མགོ་འཁོར་ན་རླུང་སྐྱེས་པ་ཡིན་པས་སྨན་མར་དང་བཅུད་ཅན་བཏང་ལ་བཅོས། ལུས་ཀྱང་ལྡེང་ཆུ་བཞིན་དུ་བཞག་གོ། །མན་ངག་ཅོག་བཞག་མ་རྫོགས་སོ།། །།ཨཱི་ཐཱི།། །།

Appendix Three: Sources on this Particular Aro Lineage of Dzogchen that Passed through Kong-ram-'tsho (fl. early 11th century?)

Source: The Gsan-yig of Gter-bdag-gling-pa ’Gyur-med-rdo-rje (1646-1714), "reproduced from a manuscript preserved in library of Dudjom Rimpoche," Sanje Dorje (New Delhi 1974), in one volume complete. BUDA no. W30323. I will type out this lineage (at p. 710) for you:  

khams lugs kyi brgyud pa ni / thub pa'i dbang po / lha'i bu sems lhag can / dga' rab rdo rje / sha ba ri dbang phyug / mai tri pa / shrî singha / bai ro tsa na / g.yu sgra / gnyags dznyâ na / a ro ye 'byung / ya zi bon ston / gru gu klog 'byung / kong ram 'tsho / bla ma dgon pa ba / bla ma spo 'bor ba / de ba gru skyog pa / zhang zhal dkar ba / 'gos dngos grub rgyal mtshan man 'dra...  

In the Thob-yig of the Fifth Dalai Lama, his name is spelled Kong-rab-’tsho.  In the Indian publication of the Thob-yig, vol. 4, fols. 232-233: 

khams lugs kyi brgyud pa ni  /   thub pa'i dbang po  /   lha'i bu sems lhag can  /   rigs 'dzin dga' rab rdo rje  /   sha wa ri dbang phyug  /   rje mee tri ba  /   mkhas pa shrî sidha  /   bee ro tsa na  /   rgyal mo g.yu sgra  /   gnyags lo ye shes gzhon nu  /   aa ro ye shes 'byung gnas  /   ya zi bon ston  /   gru gu klog 'byung  /   kong rab 'tshe  /   bla ma dgon pa ba  /   bla ma po 'bor ba  /   de wa gru skyogs [fol. 233r]  /   /   pa  /   zhang zhal dkar ba  /   'gos dngos grub rgyal mtshan man bshad ma thag pa dang 'dra.  

Compare lineage found in Bka' ma shin tu rgyas pa, vol. 133:  

རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་སེམས་སྡེ་ཁམས་ལུགས་ཨ་རོ་སྙན་བརྒྱུད་ཀྱི་ཁྲིད་ཞྭ་དམར་མཁའ་སྤྱོད་དབང་པོས་མཛད་པའི་མཁའ་དབྱིངས་སྙིང་པོའི་དོན་ཁྲིད་ཀྱི་བརྒྱུད་པ་ནི། ཐུབ་དབང་༑ ལྷའི་བུ་སེམས་ལྷག་ཅན། དགའ་རབ་རྡོ་རྗེ། ཤ་བ་རི། དབང་ཕྱུག་མེ་ཏྲི་པ། ཤྲཱི་སིངྷ། བི་རོ་ཙ་ན། གཡུ་སྒྲ་སྙིང་པོ། གཉག་ལོ་ཡེ་ཤེས་གཞོན་ནུ། སྤྲུལ་སྐུ་ཨ་རོ་ཡེ་ཤེས་འབྱུང་གནས། ཡ་ཟི་བོན་སྟོན། ཅོག་རོ་ཟང་དཀར་བ་བློ་གྲོས་འབྱུང་གནས། ཀོང་རབ་འཚོ་ལྡན་དར་མ་བ། ལྕེ་སྒོམ་ནག་པོ། བླ་མ་བྲག་དཀར་བ། དཔལ་ལྡན་དུས་གསུམ་མཁྱེན་པ༑ འགྲོ་མགོན་རས་ཆེན། རྒྱལ་སྲས་སྤོམ་བྲག་པ། གྲུབ་ཆེན་ཀརྨ་པཀྵི། གཉན་རས་དགེ་འདུན་འབུམ། ཀུན་མཁྱེན་རང་བྱུང་རྡོ་རྗེ། རྟོགས་ལྡན་གྲགས་པ་སེང་གེ། རི་ཁྲོད་པ་དར་མ་རྒྱལ་བ། མཁའ་སྤྱོད་དབང་པོ། བླ་མ་ཤཱཀྱ་གྲགས་པ། ཆོས་དཔལ་ཡེ་ཤེས། འདི་ཡན་ཉམས་ཁྲིད་བརྒྱུད་པ་བར་མ་ཆད་དུ་བྱོན།

 The same collection, vol. 100, in a work entitled Snyan-brgyud Gsal-byed:  

དུས་དེའི་ཚེ་མངའ་བདག་མེ་ཏྲི་བ་ཞེས་བྱ་བས་ཐོས་བསམ་མང་པོ་བྱས་པ་དང་པཉྩ་བི་ཏ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱི་སྤྱན་སྔར་བྱོན་པ་དང༌། རྣལ་འབྱོར་ཉེར་གཅིག་གི་སྤྱན་སྔར་བྱོན་པས་ཀྱང་

༄༅། །རྫོགས་ཆེན་གྱི་གདམས་ངག་མ་རྙེད་པ་ལ། མཁས་འགྲོ་མ་ལ་ཚོགས་འཁོར་བསྐོར་གྱི་གསོལ་བ་བཏབ་པས། མཁའ་འགྲོ་མས་ལུང་བསྟན་ཏེ། ལྷོ་ཕྱོགས་དང་དཔལ་གྱི་རི་ཞེས་པ། །ཡིད་འཕམ་བྱེད་པའི་གནས་མཆོག་ན། །གྷིར་ཏི་ཨ་པ་ར་ཞེས་པས། །དགའ་རབ་རྡོ་རྗེའི་སྤྲུལ་པའི་སྐུ། །ས་ར་ཧ་ནི་ཆེན་པོ་བཞུགས། །བུ་ཁྱོད་སོང་ཞིག་དེར་སོང་ལ༑ ༑རང་སེམས་སངས་རྒྱས་སྙ་པའི་དོན། །མ་ནོར་བདེན་པའི་གདམས་ངག་སྟེ། །ཞུས་ལ་ཡིད་ལ་དྲན་པར་གྱིས། །ཞེས་ལུང་བསྟན་ནོ། ༈ །ཡང་ལུགས་གཅིག་ཏུ། དམ་པ་ཆོས་ཀྱི་ལོ་རྒྱུས་ལས། བྱང་ཆུབ་ཀྱི་སེམས་གཏན་ལ་ཕེབས་པའི་ཆོས་ནི་ལྷོ་ཕྱོགས་དཔལ་གྱི་རི་ལ་ཡོད་དོ་བར་འདུག་ནས། དེ་ནས་མེ་ཏྲི་བས་ཐང་ཁོབ་ཤིང་མེད་ཆུ་མེད་ཟླ་བ་གཅིག་དང་ཆུ་སྤུས་ནུབ་ཙམ་ཟླ་བ་ཕྱེད་རྒལ་ནས་བྱོན་པས། ཨ་པ་རས། རྩ་བ། ཕྱག་ཆ། སྙན་བརྒྱུད། སེམས་བསྐྱེད་བཞི་གནང་ངོ༌། །དེས་ཤྲཱི་སིང་ལ་བཤད། དེ་ལ་བོད་ཀྱི་ལོ་ཙ་བ་བཻ་རོ་ཙ་ན་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་རྣམ་པར་སྣང་མཛད་ཀྱི་སྤྲུལ་པ། ས་བརྒྱད་ནོན་པ་དེས། དཀའ་བ་དུ་མས་རྒྱ་གར་དུ་བྱོན་ནས། སྔ་འགྱུར་ལྔ་ལ་སོགས་པ་ཞུས་པས། སྒོམ་དཀའ་ཁ་གཡེལ་བར་འདུག་ནས།མཇུག་གསེར་གྱི་པ་ཏྲ་ཅིག་ཕུལ་ནས། བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་གཏན་ལ་འཕེབས་པའི་ཆོས། སྣ་ཉེ་བ། ཁ་རུབ་པ། འགྱུར་བ་མེད་པ་ཅིག་ཞུ་འཚལ་ཞེས་ཞུས་པས། རིགས་ཀྱི་བུ་སྣོད་དང་ལྡན་པ་ཁྱོད་ལ་བཤད་དོ་གསུངས་ནས། ཆོས་སྐོར་འདི་རྣམས་གནང་ངོ༌། །དེས་བོད་དུ་བྱོན་ནས། སྙགས་གཉའ་ན་ཀུ་མ་ར་ལ་བཤད། དེས་ཨ་རོ་ཡེ་ཤེས་འབྱུང་གནས་སྤྲུལ་པའི་སྐུ་དེ་བཤད། དེ་ཡང་རྒྱ་གར་བདུན་བརྒྱུད་ཀྱི་གདམས་ངག་ཡོད་པ། ཧ་ཤང་བདུན་བརྒྱུད་ཀྱི་གདམས་ངག་ཡོད་པ། དམ་པའི་ཆོས་མཐའ་དག་ལ་མཁས་པ། ཤིན་ཏུ་བསྒོམ་ཉམས་དང་ལྡན་པ། མངོན་པར་ཤེས་པ་ལྔ་དང་ལྡན་པའོ། །དེ་ལ་སློབ་མ་མང་ཡང་ཐུགས་ཟིན་པ་བཞི་ལས། ཁམས་ཀྱི་ཡ་ཟི་བོན་སྟོན་ལ་སྐོར་གསུམ་ཀ་བཤད། བྲུ་ཤ་ཟེར་ཀྱང་ཁྱུང་པོ་མདོ་སྟོན་སེང་གེ་རྒྱལ་མཚན་ལ་སྤྲུལ་སྐོར་གཙོ་ཆེར་བཤད། དབུས་ཀྱི་དྲུམ་ཤིང་ཤེས་རབ་སྨོན་ལམ་ལ་གཟེར་ཀ་གཙོ་ཆེར་བཤད། གཙང་གི་ཅོ་རོ་ཟངས་ཀ་མཛོད་ཁུར་ལ་འཁྲུལ་འཁོར་

༄༅།།གཙོར་ཆེར་བཤད་དོ། །དེ་ལྟར་བཞི་ལས་ལས་འདི་ཡ་ཟིས། རྒྱན་གྷོང་གི་གྲུ་གུ་གློག་འབྱུང་ལ་བཤད། དེས་ར་གཟར་ཤར་གྱི་རྐོང་རབ་མཚོ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ཚོང་དཔོན་མི་སྐྱེ་གཅིག་གི་རྐང་གི་འབུལ་ནག་བྱ་བ་ཕུལ་ནས་ཞུས། དེས་ཁྲོ་པ་ལྟམ་དར་མ་ལ་བཤད། དེས་འཚེ་ཆུང་སྟོན་པ་ལ་བཤད་དེ། དེ་ཡང་ཀྱི་མཁར་འབྱིད་ཕུའི་བྲག་ལ་གྲུབ་པ་ ཐོབ་སྟེ། འགྲོངས་ཁར་ཁོང་གི་ཞལ་ནས། ངའི་རོ་འདི་བསྲེགས་ལ་རྟགས་འདྲ་བྱུང་ན་དགེ་སྙོགས་ཀྱིས། མ་བྱུང་ན་ཅི་ཡང་བྱ་མི་དགོས་གསུང་ནས་སྤུར་སྦྱངས་པས། སྒྲ་དང་འོད་བྱུང་། རུས་པ་ཡང་བྱ་འུར་དུ་སོང་ནས་སྙིམ་པ་གང་བ་ཙམ་ལས་མ་བྱུང་སྐད། དེས་ལྕེ་བསྒོམ་དགོན་པ་བ་ལ་བཤད། དེས་སྤོར་ཆུང་སྟོན་པ་ལ་བཤད། དེ་ཡང་སྐུ་ཉན་ཐོས། གསུང་མདོ་སྡེ།ཐུགས་གསང་སྔགས་སུ་བཞུགས། སྐབས་སུ་གསང་སྤྱོད་ཀྱི་ལྡོམ་བུ་བག་རེ་མཛད་པས། དབུས་པ་ལྡོམ་བུ་བ་ཆེན་པོར་ཡང་གྲགས་སོ། །དེས་དམ་པ་ཤག་རྒྱལ་ལ་བཤད་དེ། དེ་ཡང་ཉང་སྨད་སྒྲོ་དར་རེ་བྱ་བ་རྣམ་འཇོམས་དང་ཕུར་པ་མཁས་པ་ཅིག་སྟོན་སྤྱིད་ཆོས་བར་དུ་མི་ཆེན་མང་པོ་འཚོགས་པས་དེར་མཛོམ་ནས་གླེང་བླངས་བྱས་པས་མཉེས་ནས། སོར་ཆུང་ལ་གདམས་ངག་འདི་རྣམས་ཞུས། ཁོང་གིས་ལྷ་རྗེ་ལ་སྒོ་བ་ནག་པོའི་སྐོར་ཚན་ཅིག་ཞུའོ། །དེས་དབོན་པོ་ཇོ་བཙུན་གཟུང་ངེ་གནང་།


Sunday, March 23, 2025

Mandala Architecture, the Top of the Wall

 

Diagram of the mandala portal and wall, with labels
courtesy of Yael Bentor


I suppose I ought to go into a long-winded preamble before getting to the point. But first of all let me state the point, or the first point, I want to make. Nearly all of the Tibetan terms for the parts of the mandala have proven difficult for translators. After all, so many of them are technical terms of architecture. We as translators may not be architectural historians, but we could do better.

Architects, the people ancient Greeks called Mechanikos (Μεκανίκος) and Bharata’s Sūtradhāra (Tibetan translation: Mdo-’dzin-pa, ‘Thread Holders’), were a very select group, an exclusive guild that largely kept their secrets to themselves. Traditional architecture, all architecture in fact, has as its prime goal protecting its inhabitants from uncomfortable and potentially harmful environmental elements, but also, as part of that aim, protecting itself from the same. Defense against potential damage by fire, earth, wind and moisture as well as by external attacks of other kinds needs to be built into the design. Although we shouldn’t ever do it, let’s forget decoration and beauty for now.

Architecture? The mandala is, after all, in its overall structure, a building or rather a fortified domicile for divine forms of Buddha (lha-yi pho-brang). Seeing this may prove shocking to the systems of the Jungian and transpersonal psychologists who see in it archetypal imagery or human transformational potential. Others see it as representing order in the universe, as a cosmogram, or just a scientific diagram. Some would regard it as a memory palace, an object to gaze at in meditation practice, a kind of centering device, wholistic mind-body medicine, and so on. I personally hold that each view is correct in its own way to some degree. I could even, at times, consider going for a sociopolitical reading of mandalas as long as it doesn’t end up being too reductive. The mandala is capable of sustaining an array of ideas about it, and so should we.

Whatever our views may be, we ought to consider what it is and how it proves itself of use in Tibetan (and Japanese Shingon) Buddhist cultures where it has an overwhelming presence in ritual, as a liturgical object deployed in esoteric rituals of initiation. We should stop speaking about it with imperial confidence and instead make a bold and well informed attempt to hear what those cultures are saying for a change. That said, I will go against my own good advice, neglect all these large issues in order to narrow in on a few rather small philological points imbricated with art and architecture. We’ll leave wholism far behind and zero in on a few specifics.

Philologists are notoriously picky, slow and laborious. Some place a pleasant spin on this with catchy phrases like “the art of slow reading.” Philology’s bookish narrowness and insignificant aims are obvious to everyone except the philologist. I won’t harp on this today, just send you to the library for a fresh new essay by Peter Machinist that shows very nicely that philology’s aims haven’t always been so ascetically or narrowly defined, and can indeed be made to bring into its circle of evidence works of art and architecture (and of course natural sciences) when it makes sense.

For a few weeks now I have been slowly savoring a book by Fabio Barry. I had been looking forward to reading it for a very long time. Entitled Painting in Stone, it is a remarkably learned and informative history of the architectural use of colored stones, marble in particular, in the classical world as well as medieval and, to a lesser degree, modern Europe. It has beautiful photos — this alone is enough to recommend it to anyone — but the text isn’t always the easiest to read. Take the following example. At page 73 he discusses an architectural detail called guttae with illustration on page 75:

Guttae are normally interpreted as skeuomorphs of the hardwood trunnels that were driven through the mutules (triglyph soffits) to clamp the rafters onto the beams of the putative timber prototypes of the Greek temple... the conical shape of the gutta served as a water-repellant, a ‘drip detail’ that stopped the capillary infiltration of rainwater. In Latin “gutta” does, in fact, mean “droplet” ...

Their Greek name isn’t known with certainty, but they make their material appearance on Greek temples that are described in Latin by using this name guttae that means something like ‘drippers’. Viliouras does give a Greek word ςταλαγμoí, that looks like nothing so much as our English stalagmites / stalactites, with an etymology that also indicates dripping. I’d love to hear more expert ideas about this than I can offer, but this does lead me to look back at Barry’s discussion in his Chapter Three of caves and nymphaei, and classical beliefs about the ways water and stone interact and even trade places with each other. The water feeds the stone, and thanks to this nourishment, the stones grow. Minerals can liquefy and liquids can calcify, this is true.

The evident task of the drippers is to micromanage the moisture that falls from above, help wick it away from the walls, and make it drip down where it can be easily drained away. I see an analogue in the human eyebrows and eyelashes that perform the useful task of keeping the sweat of our brows from flowing over our eyes. Without the help of the guttae the building could, over time, suffer structural damage due to seeping. I see practical purposes defining the drippers’ shapes and placement.

Why did the passage in Barry’s book impress me so much? It’s because there is indeed an element of Tibetan mandalas described as a “dripper” named shar-bu. The word looks like a diminutive of shar meaning east, and shar-ba meaning dawning, appearing, arisingShar-bu could easily appear pronounced and/or spelled as shar-ru, but none of this takes us anywhere near any convincingly meaningful etymology.*

(*Such changes as this happen with diminutives in general, for instance thor-bu can appear as tho[r]-ru, chol-bu as cho[l]-lu and we do find an instance of shar-ru in a ca. 1300 CE inscription in the essay of Tropper listed below. Sha-ru can mean ‘stag antler’, but no, that really goes too far toward the end of the limb, so let’s not go there. Although I haven’t found any source to collaborate it apart from my own guesswork, shar might conceivably be a form of gsher-ba, with the meaning ‘to moisten, make damp.’)

There •is• a Sanskrit word of corresponding meaning used in the Sanskrit works that were translated: sūcikā. Most usually that Sanskrit means ‘needle’, although it can be applied to other things with sharp points, elephant tusks and the like. As the Tibetan doesn’t yield the same literal meaning as the Sanskrit, it cannot be explained away as a calque, leaving us free to account for the Tibetan word in other ways.

The two-dimensional Tibetan mandalas often show it as three or more horizontal lines that get shorter as you go down, so that it looks kind of like an inverted pyramid or ziggurat, in 3-dimensional mandalas they may look similarly like inverted stepped pyramids. Then again, in some painted mandalas they could be said to look like inverted milk bottles. In the following not all that typical example, they have long skinny necks.

Sample showing the three ranks of the upper wall

Here the shar-bu are sandwiched in between the level of the “full and half festoons” (drwa-ba drwa-phyed) below and the “arrow covers” (mda’-yab) above.* I am now convinced the correct architectural term for these last mentioned is merlon. A merlon is what distinguishes a battlement from a mere parapet.** Surely what we are seeing in this particular mandala (sampled from Leidy’s book, p. 94) visually mimics a battlement of a medieval Indian fort, as you can see in the next illustration.

(*The syllable yab that forms part of the word should probably be taken as short for yab-sa, a general word for any covered or sheltered area. It occurs also in the term bsil-yab (or bsil-g.yab), for a shelter from cold wind, although confusingly it may also mean a fan. **In my present understanding a parapet is the railing around an open-air walkway meant to indicate a danger of falling. If this railing includes merlons, it is no longer a parapet, but a battlement. To be clear, as this is very often misunderstood, crenellation more correctly refers to the gaps between the merlons, the gaps being the crenels. Merlons are the standing structures meant to shield the defenders from arrows flying up at them from below. Merlons may take quite a range of shapes, see below in the reading list under Bounni, Deloche, Khan and Micale. They very often include, at their centers, a slot for firing arrows back at the enemy.)

Agra Fort merlons, from a photo by Umesh Baghel

Another nondescript example from a recent painting, notice the lotus-petal-like shape of the merlons, although we ought to emphasize that they are absolutely not the lotus petals you are thinking they are:


Does Tibet actually have on its fortified buildings crenellated battlements of any kind? No. Not really, not as far as I can see.*

(*The stepped tops of walls such as those that ascend the hill of the Potala, walls that continue up steep inclines, often have what we would most correctly call the crowstep, or corbiestep. But as these do not actually function as battlements and look differently, they aren’t very relevant to our discussion. If I remember right, the Feiglstorfer book has some discussion about this issue.)

But the items in the 2nd rank do not always, or even all that often, look like inverted bottles. As said above, very often they are made up of three simple horizontal lines, each one shorter than the one above it, lending the impression of an inverted pyramidal structure, kind of like this:

———

——

There is yet another visually related (possibly in some sense identical) type with a pattern exactly like the stepped crenellations we are likely to see only in Mesopotamia (with a few neighboring instances). Here are our three wall elements from a random ceiling mandala in Bhutan. A lot more examples could be supplied:



Following is a photo of the famous Ishtar Gate from Babylon. Its rubble was salvaged, shipped off, reconstructed, and put on display at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. It is truly a wonder to see, as I can say with the relatively secure certainty of direct perception.



Even if the pattern and the colors are strikingly similar, we have to say that where Babylon has blue merlons rising skyward, Tibetan mandala makers are seeing white drippers pointed earthward. It is a foreground-background switching illusion in more than one way.

While I do not feel confident enough to press down on the point very hard at this time, a Mesopotamian connection is plausible. In Mesopotamia, with only one serious downpour a year to deal with, they do not often feel the need to protect their buildings from rain damage (okay, floods, but that’s an entirely different story). That would explain why the use of those architectural drippers doesn’t seem to be known there. So it is at least worthy of noting another possible connection. I have to thank Mesopotamianist Uri Gabbay for correspondence on this issue. For today it will have to suffice to say that there is a Sumerian verb sur meaning ‘to press, drip.’ And there is an Akkadian verb ṣarāru meaning ‘to flow, drip.’ A derived adjective ṣarru means, ‘flowing, leaking.’ I do think the possible word-connection bears enough promise to merit further consideration. These words do resemble Tibetan shar-bu, a word that (as already mentioned) is sometimes spelled shar-ru, including the earliest epigraphical instance I know of. Put together with that undeniable visual correspondence with the dark blue and white crenellation pattern in the Tibetan mandala walls does raise the possibility of one day giving substance to a historical connection that may grow out of this seed.

The merlon protects from opponents, while the stalactite-like dripper protects the wall from damage by the element of water, so it might be that there is some deeper significance or symbolism to be seen in what would, in ordinary architecture, serve a practical function. As part of the mandala palace’s wall, there can be no doubt that it communicates the inviolability of the sacred space with all the beauty, compassion and peace it embraces. Because in the end it isn’t so much about the protection that the wall provides as it is about what we think requires its protection.

  • Do with it as you will. And if you can find it in your heart to be so kind, help us out with the puzzles. There could be conclusions for these more-and-less insignificant questions in our future so long as there will be a future. I see grounds for ominous optimism.


§   §   §


Written Matter and Illustrative Art

Note: I have been extremely selective in my listing of mandala publications, ignoring the earliest and perhaps best known ones as well as the coloring books while emphasizing those that have something to say about the architecture. With thanks to the several persons in both Tibetan and Mesopotamian Studies, who conversed or corresponded with me on this subject during recent times (they won’t be named unless they want me to). 
Anastasia Amrheim, Clare Fitzgerald, Elizabeth Knott, eds., A Wonder to Behold: Craftsmanship and the Creation of Babylon’s Ishtar Gate, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University (New York 2019).

Fabio Barry, Painting in Stone: Architecture and the Poetics of Marble from Antiquity to the Enlightenment, Yale University Press (New Haven 2020).

Blo-bzang-klu-sgrub, Librarian of the Upper Tantra College, et al., Gsang-chen Rgyud-sde Rgya-mtsho'i Dkyil-'khor 'Bri Bzhengs-la Nye-bar Mkho-ba'i Dkyil-'khor-gyi Mtshan-ma'i Bris-dpe Dr-med Chu-shel Me-long, Rgyud-stod Dpe-mdzod-khang (Dharamsala 2016). This book is mainly a pattern book for drawing different parts of the mandala. At p. 16, we see as part of a quote from a work of Tsongkhapa the following: 

ཤར་བུ་དང་མདའ་ཡབ་ཀྱི་གཞི་ནག་པོ་ལ་ཤར་བུ་དཀར་པོ་མདའ་ཡབ་པདྨ་འདབ་མ་ཕྱེད་པའི་དབྱིབས་ཅན་དཀར་པོ། རྟ་བབས་ཀྱི་ཀ་བ་དང་གླང་རྒྱབ་ཀྱི་ནང་རྣམས་ཕྱོགས་མདོག ...

The drippers and merlons are against a black ground, the drippers being white. The merlons, with the shapes of half lotus petals, are white as well. The gateway pillars and the insides of the ‘bull back’* are the colors of the directions [in which the gateway is located].

(*The ‘bull back’ is the name of one of the levels in the dome area of the gateway.)

Adnan Bounni, “Couronnement des sanctuaires du Proche-Orient hellénistique et romain : origine et développement du merlon,” Topoi, vol. 9, no. 2 (1999), pp. 507-525. Available at the Persée website. This discusses quite a large number of examples of types of merlons, with useful visual material.

Martin Brauen, The Mandala: Sacred Circle in Tibetan Buddhism, translated from the original German edition of 1992 by Martin Willson, Serindia Publications (London 1997). The particular details that most interest us at the moment are both covered by the label “end of the roof” in the chart on p. 72.

Barry Bryant, in cooperation with Namgyal Monastery, The Wheel of Time Sand Mandala: Visual Scripture of Tibetan Buddhism, Harper San Francisco (New York 1992).

Here there are labeled diagrams (on pp. 203, 207 & 212) marking the wall elements of “parapet of half-lotus petals,” and “downspouts.” There is also a brief interpretation of their purpose and meaning on p. 205. Here it is very clear, as we see in other mandala systems as well, that the white side of the stepped merlon design is taken to be the shar-bu or the ‘drippers.’ This is still more obvious in the three-dimensional mandalas illustrated in Bentor.

Christoph Cüppers, Leonard van der Kuijp, Ulrich Pagel, eds., with introduction by Dobis Tsering Gyal, Handbook of Tibetan Iconometry: A Guide to the Arts of the 17th Century, Brill (Leiden 2012), p. 345. Here shar-bu appears as part of a letter-mandala description. There is no discussion of its meaning.

Jean Deloche, “Études sur les fortifications de l'Inde I. Les fortifications de l'Inde ancienne,” Bulletin de l'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, vol. 79, no. 1 (1992), pp. 89-131. I find particularly remarkable the Sanskrit literary sources tell us of merlons shaped like “tambours et de têtes de singe” — drums and monkey heads.

Hubert Feiglstorfer, Material Aspects of Building and Craft Traditions: A Himalayan Case Study, Austrian Academy of Sciences Press (Vienna 2022). The book is much recommended even if not so much is relevant to our particular subject. The chart on p. 62, showing how rooves in Ladakh are protected from leakage and wall seepage, is particularly germane and fascinating.

Anja Fügert & Helen Gries, “The Men Who Wrought the Baked Brick, Those Were Babylonians: A Brief History of Molded and Glazed Bricks,” contained in: Amrheim, A Wonder to Behold, pp. 40-53.  According to this, the Babylonians favored a deep blue color for their glazed bricks made with cobalt oxide. However, inscriptional evidence from the time of Nebuchadnezzar II (reigned 604-562 BCE) tells us that the crenations on walls of the adjacent Northern Palace (as well as the nearby temple on top of the ziggurat) were colored with the darker blue of lapis-lazuli. Here on p. 49 is a reconstruction of the entrance to the Sin Temple in the palace-temple complex of Sargon II at Dur-Sharrukin, showing walls with stepped merlons decorated with lapis-lazuli-glazed brickwork. On the same page we read:

“From Nebuchadnezzar II’s inscriptions, we know that the crenellations of the Northern Palace (Hauptburg) as well as the temple on top of the ziggurat, were also clad in lapis lazuli-blue glazed bricks.”

Giovanni Garbini, “The Stepped Pinnacle in Ancient Near East,” East and West, vol. 9, nos. 1-2 (March 1958), pp. 85-91.

Cyril M. Harris, Illustrated Dictionary of Historic Architecture, Dover (New York 1977). 

The entry for gutta is on p. 270: “One of a series of pendant ornaments, generally in the form of the frustum of a cone, but sometimes cylindrical, usually found on the underside of the mutules and regulae of Doric entablatures.” There are relevant illustrations on the same page as well as on pp. 172-173.

Edward Henning, “Maṇḍala Literalism.” Leaving Tibetan-language literature aside for the moment, this is surely the most advanced discussion on the mandala and its architectural details to be found on the internet or anywhere else for that matter. It has many illustrations. I quote the most relevant section:

“From the underside of the flat roofing hangs a fascia (shar bu, bakuli) which can take several forms. The most common (but not the only form, as is sometimes suggested) is of white water pipes. These are in the shape of upturned little bottles which would channel water from the flat roof that would collect when rain falls. Finally, on top of the flat roof is the parapet (mda' yab, kramaśīrṣa), which can also take more than one form. The most traditional is of battlement-style merlons (btag so/stag so ?), either flush with the edge of the flat roof or set back a little. In the Gelug tradition, the merlons are commonly in the form of half-lotus petals, flush with the edge of the roof.”

M. Ashraf Khan and Qurat-ul-Ain, “Art and Architecture of Pharwala Fort, Islamabad,” FWU Journal of Social Sciences, vol. 11, no. 1 (Summer 2017), pp. 1-17. 

This is my main reference on the common shapes of the merlons in Mughal India: 1. bud-like, 2. lobe-shape, 3. upside down tear drop shape, and 4. flame like shape. But he adds that the typical form of merlons during India’s medieval period was “semicircular in shape, pointed at the top.” For earlier artistic representations of battlements with merlons, see Deloche.

Khedrup Jé (མཁས་གྲུབ་རྗེ་), Ocean of Attainments: The Creation Stage of the Guhyasamāja Tantra (རྒྱུད་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱི་རྒྱལ་པོ་དཔལ་གསང་བ་འདུས་པའི་བསྐྱེད་་རིམ་དངོས་གྲུབ་རྒྱ་མཚོ་), translated by Yael Bentor and Penpa Dorjee, Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, Wisdom (New York 2024). Definitely have a look at the three-dimensional mandalas illustrated in color, plates 5-6, and the labelled chart on p. 105 (our frontispiece is a somewhat different, pre-published version).

R[ichard J.] Kohn, “The Ritual Preparation of a Tibetan Sand Maṇḍala,” contained in: A.W. Macdonald, ed., Maṇḍala and Landscape, D.K Printworld (New Delhi 1997), pp. 364-405. Notice the labelled diagrams on p. 390. Quotes from p. 389:

“The pha gu ‘diamond band’, dra phyed ‘garlands’, and shar bu ‘water pots’ are details of the wall treatment... The term ‘garlands’, which is sometimes etymologically translated as ’half-nets’, refers to necklaces of jewels hung about the upper part of the wall and the dark band against which they are set off. Many of these features are common in Tibetan religious architecture. The diamond band and garland, for example, can be seen on monastery walls throughout Tibet and Nepal.

“The shar bu is a series of pots that hang below the eaves of the maṇḍala. Although easily identified as pots in many three-dimensional maṇḍala, they appear as an inverted pyramid of horizontal lines in painted examples. The pots are used for air-conditioning and the lines presumably represent dripping water.”

Denise Patry Leidy and Robert A.F. Thurman, Mandala: The Architecture of Enlightenment, Asia Society Galleries (New York 1997). There are a number of good examples here, including the one on pp. 94-95, dated late 14th to early 15th centuries and kept in the MET. Page 126 has a clear representation of the guttae in the shape of inverted white stepped merlons against a dark blue background.

Oded Lipschits, Yuval Gadot, Benjamin Arubas & Manfred Oeming, “Palace and Village, Paradise and Oblivion: Unraveling the Riddles of Ramat Rahel,” Near Eastern Archaeology, vol. 74, no. 1 (March 2011), pp. 1-49. 

Turn to page 19 for the photo of a stepped stone pyramid crenellation (described on p. 21). Located close to Jerusalem, this would date to the 2nd building phase sometime between late-7th to end of 4th centuries BCE, when the region was occupied first by the Babylonians and then the Persians.

Christian Luczanits, “On the Earliest Mandalas in a Buddhist Context,” contained in: Darrol Bryant and Susan Bryant, eds., Mahayana Buddhism: History and Culture, Tibet House (New Delhi 2008), pp. 111-138. We need better early examples to work with if we hope to write a history of the mandala’s architectural elements. This essay helps. For another early example, painted on wood, see under Samosyuk, below.

Peter Machinist, “Philology: Past, Present, and Prospects (Presidential Address),” Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 144, no. 4 (October 2024), pp. 711-739.

My notes: Delivering a jocular take on commonly held views — we could say that philology means first and above all grammar and secondly lexicography. Third and lastly? Even more grammar. During the Mediterranean classical era, in its original meaning, philology was broadly understood to mean the pursuit of knowledge, period. It has often gone through contractions and expansions in its meanings over the centuries. The idea of slow and/or close reading of texts is often regarded as the defining essence of the scholarly discipline, the critical text edition being its ultimate realization. This essayist argues for the inclusion of oral literature as well as “nonwritten material objects like works of art and architecture, particularly as these interweave with and illuminate written texts.”

Dan Martin, “Earth and Wind, Water and Fire: Book Binding and Preservation in Pre-Mongol Bon Ritual Manuals for Consecrations,” contained in: Agnieszka Helman-Ważny and Charles Ramble, Bon and Naxi Manuscripts, Studies in Manuscript Culture series no. 28, De Gruyter (Berlin 2023), pp. 87-106. An “open access” publication.

The traditional Tibetan book binding methods are also ‘housings’ for books with a kind of architecture that evolved in order to better protect the inscribed content from loss due to environmental elements.

Maria Gabriella Micale, “Framing the Space: On the Use of Crenellation from Architecture to the Definition of Pictorial Spaces,” contained in: Marta D'Andrea et al., Pearls of the Past: Studies on Near Eastern Art and Archaeology in Honour of Frances Pinnock, Marru series no. 8, Zaphon (Münster 2019), pp. 601-631.

Michael Pfrommer, Metalwork from the Hellenized East: Catalogue of the Collections, J.Paul Getty Museum (Malibu 1993). 

Several silver pieces from the Hellenistic Period Middle East have continuous bands of stepped merlons as part of their decoration (they can be difficult to see unless you look closely). In general the specifically Mesopotamian stepped merlon is not at all common in the rest of Eurasia, even if examples may be found, if rarely, for example on the battlements of a few Irish towers dating from post 1400 CE (these merlons, although similar, have a sloping feature that distinguishes them from the Babylonian).

David Reigle, “The Kālacakra Tantra on the Sādhana and Maṇḍala: A Review Article,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 22, no. 2 (April 2012), pp. 439-463. On pp. 443-445 are some pertinent discussions on architectural elements of the mandala.

Rong-tha Blo-bzang-dam-chos-rgya-mtsho, The Creation of Mandalas: Tibetan Texts Detailing the Techniques for Laying Out and Executing Tantric Buddhist Psychocosmograms, illustrations by Don-'grub-rdo-rje, Dondrub Dorjee (Delhi 1999). The title Dkyil-’khor Tshig-rtsa appears on the outer cover as well as on an inside title page.

K.F. SamosyukBuddhist Painting from Khara-Khoto XII-XIVth Centuries: Between China and Tibet [in Russian], State Hermitage Publishers (St. Petersburg 2006). On pp. 290-291 find illustrated two remarkably well preserved early (12th-13th century) mandalas painted on wooden boards. The 2nd rank drippers are not visible in either one, although the festoons and merlons are quite clear.

Tanaka Kimiaki, An Illustrated History of the Mandala, from Its Genesis to the Kālacakratantra, Wisdom (Somerville 2018). 

My notes: The Sanskrit for the mandala’s arrow covers is kramaśīrṣa, ‘head of the steps’ (?). The Sanskrit corresponding to shar-bu is vakulī (or bakulī), ‘she who has fragrant flowers of the bakula tree (?).’ The bakula, identified with Mimusops elengi, blooms only when wine or nectar is sprinkled from the mouths of maidens, or so it is said. I suppose there is some sense to be made in this, I’m just not sure how. Perhaps it has to do with the shapes of its flowers?

Mimusops elengi

——, “The Measurement of the Maṇḍala According to Nāgabodhi’s Guhyasamāja-maṇḍalopāyikā-viṃśati-vidhi [in Japanese],” Mikkyo Zuzo, vol. 23 (2004), pp. 26-39. Even if you don’t read Japanese, this is worth searching out because of the labeled charts and Sanskrit equivalents according to one very influential source.

Tathāgatavajra (De-bzhin-gshegs-pa'i-rdo-rje - དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་),་Sambaram Maṇḍala Vidhi (Dpal Bde-mchog-gi Dkyil-’khor-gyi Cho-ga - དཔལ་བདེ་མཆོག་གི་དཀྱིལ་འཁོར་གྱི་ཆོ་ག). Tôhoku no. 1511. Dergé Tanjur, vol. ZHA, folios 308v.3-334r.3. Translated by Vibhūticandra. 

There are two informative passages here. The first tells us what the order of the wall elements in the powder mandala needs to be, starting at the lower ranks and moving upward: 1. Jewels. 2. Festoons. 3. Half festoons. 4. Jewel-like drippers (rin-chen shar-bu). 5. Merlons (mda'-yab). The other passage tells us the background colors: The dance frieze (snam-bu, literally 'blanket') is red. The jewel frieze has various jewels with red background (literally, 'basis'). The festoons and half festoons are on a black background. The jewel-like drippers and white merlons are against blue background. The hooves and ba-ran can be any color that is pretty. The passages  may be compared with what a modern author, Blo-bzang-klu-sgrub (q.v.), says.

Location: fol. 319a5 —

ལོགས་ཀྱི་ཀ་བ་ནི་རྟ་བབས་རྣམས་ཁོ་ནའིའོ། །རྡུལ་ཚོན་གྱི་རྩིག་པ་ལ་ནི་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་དང་། དྲ་བ་དང་། དྲ་བ་ཕྱེད་པ་དང་། རིན་ཆེན་ཤར་བུ་དང་། མདའ་ཡབ་རྣམས་རིམ་གྱིས་སྟེང་ནས་སྟེང་དུ་གནས་པའོ། །

logs kyi ka ba ni rta babs rnams kho na'i'o/ /rdul tshon gyi rtsig pa la ni rin po che dang / dra ba dang / dra ba phyed pa dang / rin chen shar bu dang / mda' yab rnams rim gyis steng nas steng du gnas pa'o/ /

This following indicates that the two elements that most concern us are both white against a blue background.

Location: fol. 322a4 —

གར་གྱི་སྣམ་བུ་ནི་དམར་པོའོ། །རིན་ཆེན་སྣམ་བུ་ནི་ས་གཞི་དམར་པོ་ལ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་སྣ་ཚོགས་པའོ། །ས་གཞི་ནག་པོ་ལ་དྲ་བ་དང་དྲ་བ་ཕྱེད་པའོ། །ས་གཞི་སྔོན་པོ་ལ་རིན་ཆེན་ཤར་བུ་དང་མདའ་ཡབ་དཀར་པོའོ། །རྨིག་པ་དང་བ་རན་ནི་ཇི་ལྟར་མཛེས་པའོ། །

gar gyi snam bu ni dmar po'o/ /rin chen snam bu ni sa gzhi dmar po la rin po che sna tshogs pa'o/ /sa gzhi nag po la dra ba dang dra ba phyed pa'o/ /sa gzhi sngon po la rin chen shar bu dang mda' yab dkar po'o/ /rmig pa dang ba ran ni ji ltar mdzes pa'o/ /

Kurt Tropper, “The Historical Inscription in the Gsum brtsegs Temple at Wanla, Ladakh,” contained in: Deborah Klimburg-Salter, Kurt Tropper & Christian Jahoda, eds., Text, Image and Song in Transdisciplinary Dialogue, Brill (Leiden 2007), pp. 105-150, at p. 137 is quite a long discussion of the word. This Wanla inscription, using the spelling shar-ru, dates from the vicinity of 1300 CE.

Dimitris Viliouras, Architecture & God: Typological Overview of the Ancient Greek Architecture and Its Sources [extract from an as yet unpublished book], posted at academia.edu.

My notes: According to this fantastically detailed and technical source on the Parthenon of Athens, the Greek equivalent for guttae is given as ςταλαγμoí, or stalagmites (we might argue they have to be stalactites, but both terms have the notion of ‘dripping’ behind them). The projecting horizontal slabs they are suspended from are called the mutule in Latin. The Parthenon is basically built according to the Doric order, although it does include some Ionic elements, and as this source says, the Doric represents the masculine and the sky, while the Ionic represents the feminine and the earth. Although this author shows no awareness that mandalas exist, he includes architectural diagrams of the proportional relations underlying its floor plan that do indeed look quite mandala-like.

Vitruvius Pollio, The Ten Books on Architecture, ed. by Morris Hicky Morgan. Website version here. Scroll down a bit to the lower search box on your right and insert the word “guttae.” I have a handy Dover Publications paperback version (New York 1960) of the same, and prefer it over the website even if it is not so easily searchable.

More resources

For more on Mesopotamian connections, see this blog of fifteen years ago.

We’ve brought up the subject of the mandala before, particularly in two blogs about how it (both the word and the ritual object), starting about a millennium ago, made its appearance in Islamic and Jewish magical texts and practices, and from there entered Europe and much more recently the Americas where, whether for good or ill, occultists continued to experience its powerful effects.

For words in the languages of Mesopotamia, most available and easy to use is the Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary.

On Ishtar Gate, watch the Khan Academy’s brief “Smart History” presentation on YouTube.

For a Latin dictionary definition of gutta, look here.

For a useful listing of entries on shar-bu, look here. Of the twelve definitions given, a few are correct, some simply repetitive, others misleading, even confusing the shar-bu with the “full and half festoons” (drwa-ba drwa-phyed).

ཤར་བུ་ ——— I searched TLB with every which spelling and found nothing, even though it ought to be in some of the texts included there.  RKTS has quite a few examples, just that it doesn’t make it easy to determine the Sanskrit. I recommend looking in Negi and searching THL and of course BUDA.

Although I suppose it isn’t particularly relevant, we might go ahead and say that at Nabataean Petra (now in Jordan) and sites of equivalent age in northern parts of the Arabian Peninsula, especially in Hegra, we can see something resembling the stepped merlon, yet not only is it inverted, it is hollowed into the rock rather than rising out in relief, and it has many more steps — one single “merlon,” if we may call it that, covers the entire width of the entranceway. 

Still, crenellation patterns of the true Mesopotamian type may also be found at Petra (and Hegra, too), as you see here below. These clones of merlons obviously cannot serve their original function, but then how could battlements be of use on a tomb?



So, in short, the only true stepped merlon crenellations we are able to find in Tibet are to be seen in second-rank position near the top of the wall in some mandalas, where they are bound to be identified as drippers, not merlons. I think their absence in Tibet otherwise, and their apparent rareness (?) or absence in India, may help argue for a Mesopotamian cultural transfer.


 
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