Great Balls of Iron

It’s one of those oddly interdependent co-incidents that now and then show up to remind you the Enlightened Ones got it right. In the last couple of days a whole lot of clues about this subject have been falling at my feet from out of the blue and from different directions in space. This augury leaves me with little choice but to blog about it. Who am I to question when the world conspires against me? Wait, that was a question, wasn’t it? Well, it was, wasn't it...

It may have started last night when to pass the time on the train home from the airport I was reading Charles Ramble's article about a 20th-century novel, Vicissitudes of a Ordinary/Commoner Family.

That novel brings back old and odd memories of my first time in Lhasa. I was in a bookstore and had spent half the afternoon making a pile of Tibetan books, mostly about Buddhism, to mail home to myself when our minder (if you have been there in those days you probably know what I mean), a quite young Tibetan speaker, pretending to interest himself in books for himself as well as the books I was choosing, finally turned to me and told me that there is only one book worth reading, that same Vicissitudes book just mentioned. Of course I put it on top of my pile, mainly out of curiosity why he thought I should forget all those Buddhist books. I never understood where exactly he was coming from, perhaps in some part because I shelved the book and hardly looked at it again.

The famous professor’s book review started me thinking when I reached the part where he tells how Tibetan commoners couldn’t possibly share drinks or dine with metal smiths.* What I was thinking, first of all, was just how different that makes Tibetans from their northern neighbors, the Mongols and Turks. Why are Tibetans so hard on people who smelt?

(*Commoners and smiths do not share a ‘mouth’ [kha] connection.)

It’s well known that the Mongols as they extended their empire in the Middle East & Eastern Europe — even in cities that had resisted the siege and were for this reason subjected to their over-depopulation policy — spared the lives of artisans, especially the smiths, and above all the goldsmiths... 

Do you remember the story from an earlier blog of that French goldsmith taken captive in Hungary, the one who ended up making a giant wine & kumis dispenser for the Khan in his capital Karakoram, its ruins visitable in today’s Mongolia?* Smiths were so greatly valued by the Mongols they went out of their way to procure them so they could put them to work doing what they do best. Go have a look at the blog with the verses “In Praise of Beer,” written by Pagpa. But do come back, since I haven’t said anything yet.

(*The ruins of the city. Of the wine dispenser there is not the least remaining trace, although one small tourist hotel had put up a weak facsimile of it, and that was fun to see.)

For months now I’ve been watching a 300-plus-episode epic on the rise of the Ottoman Dynasty, and particularly the father of its founder, a contemporary of Pagpa by the name of Ertugrul. The latest episode I’ve seen shows the Seljuk princess Halime making a perilous journey together with an unrelated old blacksmith they called Wild Demir.* Quite a contrast with the blacksmith Lhakpa in Vicissitudes.

(*See Diriliş: Ertuğrul, series 2, episode 41, or episode 117 overall. That demir is just the Turkish word for ‘iron’. He belonged to the Tayi tribe, that may have been the tribe of origin of the Ottoman rulers. Things are never all that simple, but even if it were, some say that the Tayi tribe was of Mongolic not Turkic origins. Perhaps they gained Turk/Turkoman identity when they converted to Islam? I’m not nearly half way through the episodes of the Ertugrul TV serial, but already I know a lot more Turkish than I ever did before, and yes, a lot more about the history of the Ottoman Empire. Watching the largely fictional show has made me search out more reliable sources of knowledge.)

Oh, and another thing, yesterday morning I was looking through the recently published collection of essays by one of the most interesting of early 21st century Tibetan authors, a scholar of the ’Bri-gung school by the name of Rasé Konchok Gyatso. Among those essays I found one about Tibetan society’s negative attitudes toward blacksmiths, not just them but also butchers and women. He gets discussion started with a quote from the French author Ru’u-su’u (རུའུ་སུའུ་) about human equality, making use of a modern Tibetan term ’dra-mnyam (འདྲ་མཉམ་) for equality. 

And to think that the Mgar Ministers of the Old Tibetan era, who were practically running the Empire for a very long time, were smiths in their family origins if their name is any guide. Tibetans picked out for special contempt artisans of all types. Of course farmers and nomads were the most normal things you could possibly be in those days all over Eurasia, not just Tibet, but the Tibetan commoners’ tendency to hold prejudices against suppliers of objects they need in order to do their work requires explanation.

Rasé explains that Buddhism itself (along with parts of Indian culture that came with it that may have roots outside of Buddhism) is to blame. How so? Buddhism has strong ethical arguments against taking life, any life. Butchers are directly involved in the business of killing, but smiths produce the instruments butchers need for their work, along with tools of warfare that entail killing done from other motives. Rasé at one point adds in the categories of hunters (among them, the pika eaters) and potters, although he doesn't discuss prejudicial attitudes against them any further.  I’m not familiar with the term ya-bo that he uses here, although it occurs in a legal code he later quotes from, and he glosses it as anyone who makes a living from the hunting of animals. The legal code makes a triad of ya-bo with smiths and butchers.  If I could be allowed to attempt a translation of this passage, from the Legal Code of the Roaring Turquoise Dragon (གཡུ་འབྲྲུག་སྒྲོག་པའི་ཞལ་ལྕྕེ་):

“When the A-tse King of Upper Tibet was slain by the Mongols (Hor), for the indemnity they weighed an equal measure of gold. In case of ya-bo, smiths and butchers, when they are killed the indemnity is one jute rope.”  

སྟོད་ཨ་ཙེ་རྒྱལ་པོ་ཧོར་གྱིས་བསད་། སྟོང་ལ་གསེར་དང་མཉམ་འདེགས་བྱས། ཡ་བོ་མགར་བ་བཤན་པ་གསུམ། བསད་ཀྱང་སྟོང་ལ་དྲེས་ཐག་གཅིག

(My note: I suppose by A-tse King is meant the Ya-tse King in the area of Gugé; to locate it just go to the extreme northwestern corner of modern Nepal and you will be in the right neighborhood. I suppose what is meant here is that they measured out an amount of gold equal to the weight of the king's body. Hor originally named the Uighur Turks, but was applied to the Mongols after their emergence in the early 13th century.)

Reflecting on a reading of Rasé's essay, which deserves more attention than I’m giving it, I have to say I do agree with much of his critical argument. He says that thinking of metal smiths as “dirty” and polluting is “brainless ignorant superstition” (ཀླད་མེད་གཏི་མུག་རྨོངས་དད་པ་). And now that I’m a vegetarian again, I do think, as Rasé says in his own way, there is a contradiction in condemning or looking down on butchers when the ones doing this condemning are enjoying eating the meat they provide. They supply a demand, and the ones doing the demanding despise them for supplying it? What could make that right?

And finally, just a few mornings ago I opened an email from my long-time friend R.M. that linked me to an article more or less directly about thu-lum — a word you may remember from an earlier blog here at Tibeto-logic. If you don’t remember it, and who could blame you since it was half a decade ago, you might like to have a look here, then scroll down toward the bottom of the page.  The article by Joseph Marino, details below, is all about descriptions of Buddhist hells, and one of them in particular where its denizens are made to swallow flaming hot balls or ingots of iron. I won’t go further into this hell right now, just to say that the blazing ingots, whatever their origins, were represented in Tibetan translations with a word borrowed from the Turkish tongues (perhaps via Mongolian?).* This word thu-lum has quite an old history in Tibetan, as far as I can tell first appearing in a translation of a portion of the story of Rāma of Indian epic fame (ITJ 0737-1). That means likely 10th century or earlier, making a Turkish borrowing the more likely.**

(*A global search of the Derge canon yields nearly 60 instances of usage for the word thu-lum, and by far most of these contexts have to do with iron ones that are or would be hot and painful when swallowed. Some day when the Buddhist scriptures among the Tibetan Dunhuang documents will be digitized, and there is some movement right now to do this, we may be able to say more about the earlier history of the Tibeto-Turkish-Mongol word.  **If you are interested to know more about the fates of Rāma  stories in Tibet, I recommend the essay by Roesler listed below.)

In earlier centuries in Tibet, the first person brought to mind when you hear the word ‘iron’ is Tangtong Gyalpo, the well-known builder of chain suspension bridges on the Plateau. So there can be no doubt that, at least when done with altruistic or at least public-minded purposes, metal working could, even if only in this one rare case, be regarded as good and noble. An exception can prove a rule.  And rules can be improved upon, especially when they involve socially engrained injustices that so many centuries of Buddhism failed to find ways to overcome. Living traditions always have changed, and we may hope they can find and compassionately promote the right methods to change for the better without trying to fix whatever it is that was already right.

Bits of bibliography

Peter H. Hansen, “Why Is There No Subaltern Studies for Tibet?” Tibet Journal, vol. 28, no. 4 (Winter 2003), pp. 7-22. As if in answer to the question after a decade-long wait, see the book edited by C. Ramble et al., below.

Joseph Marino, “From the Blacksmith’s Forge to the Fires of Hell: Eating the Red-Hot Iron Ball in Early Buddhist Literature,” Buddhist Studies Review, vol. 36, no. 1 (2019), pp. 31-51. 

Leonard Olschki, Guillaume Boucher, a French Artist at the Court of the Khans, John Hopkins Press (Baltimore 1946). A number of articles on the Karakorum fountain have appeared of late on the internet, particularly well written is this one by Devon Field. 

Fernanda Pirie, “The Turquoise Dragon: Symbol of Political Status?”  See this page at TibetanLaw.org.

Charles Ramble, “The Tibetan Novel as Social History: Reflections on Trashi Palden's Phal pa'i khyim tshang gi skyid sdug,” Revue d'Etudes Tibétaines, no. 49 (May 2019), pp. 149-191.

Charles Ramble, Peter Schwieger, Alice Travers, ed., Tibetans Who Escaped the Historian’s Net: Studies in the Social History of Tibetan Societies, Vajra Books (Kathmandu 2013).

Rasé Konchok Gyatso (Ra-se Dkon-mchog-rgya-mtsho), “Bod-kyi Sems-khams-kyi Snang-tshul-las Mgar Bshan Bud-med-la Mthong-chung Byed-pa'i Lam-srol-gyi 'Byung-khungs Bshad-pa,” contained in the same author's Bod Rig-pa'i Dpyad-rtsom Brgya dang Brgyad-cu-ma, Bod Rang-skyong Ljongs Dpe-skrun Do-dam Khru'u (Lhasa 2016), at pp. 1160-1167.  The two types of discrimination against smiths that he mentions are described in the phrases kha-phor mi bsre-ba, and gnyen-sgrig mi chog-pa, that I take to mean not putting together the [personal] bowl [for both food and drink], and not allowing marriage. The non-commensal and unmarriagable do fit together, in the sense that married people have to also be fed by their in-laws. Most marriage rites include somewhere within them the act of eating together.

Hugh Richardson, “Further Fragments from Tun-huang,” contained in: High Peaks, Pure Earth, Serindia (London 1998), pp. 28-36.  On p. 35 you can see a number of comments about how, at least in post-imperial times, Tibetans despised smiths, even while other Central Asian peoples held them in very high esteem.

Ulrike Roesler, “The Adventures of Rāma, Sītā and Rāvaṇa in Tibet,” contained in:  John Brockington, et al., eds., The Other Rāmāyaṇa Women: Regional Rejection and Response, Routledge (London 2016), pp. 44-70.

Cyrus Stearns, tr. King of the Empty Plain: The Tibetan Iron Bridge Builder Tangtong Gyalpo, Snow Lion (Ithaca 2007).  This is a complete translation of the life of Thang-stong Rgyal-po Brtson-’grus-bzang-po (1361?‑1485), often known as Lcags-zam-pa, which is to say, the Iron Bridge [Builder]. As a translation, it is an outstanding accomplishment deserving of the highest praise.

§   §   §

Looking for something to read in English on Tibetan smithing?  There is an essay on ironworking by John Clarke contained in Donald J. LaRocca, Warriors of the Himalayas, Metropolitan Museum of Art & Yale University Press (New York & New Haven 2006), pp. 20-33.

Or would you prefer something in German about Tibetan metalworking?  Try Hanna Rauber-Schweizer, Der Schmied und sein Handwerk im traditionellen Tibet, Tibet-Institut (Rikon 1976).

If you are looking for something in classical Tibetan language, matters are more complicated, although I have noticed a short treatise about metalworking for image making in The Collected Writings (Gsung-'bum) of 'Bri-gung Chos-rje 'Jig-rten-mgon-po Rin-chen-dpal (New Delhi 1971), vol. 2 (Kha), pp. 10.5-14.6. It has its difficulties for even more seasoned Tibeto-logicians, but part of its attraction is precisely because this 12th-century work has interesting words for files, awls and engraving tools, but more to the point a few things to say about choosing good quality metal and the smelting of it.

Notice the iron chain links in his hand,
a wall painting photographed in Bhutan

PS (February 5, 2020):

I noticed on p. 203 of an essay by Peter Jackson (I'll give you its reference in a minute) the story of how Hülegü extracted a promise to spare the lives of the inhabitants of Harim if they would yield to his army.  They hesitated and asked for assurances from the Muslim ruler of Aleppo. But these supposed assurances were only meant to lure them out of the city to their immanent slaughter. Only a blacksmith, an Armenian, was spared. The Syriac historian and Jacobite Christian Bar Hebraeus tells this story that you can find here, also. So this one further example is offered just to show it wasn't only in Budapest that the lives of smiths were spared.*

(*The moral to the story from the Mongol invader viewpoint is just this: Those who fail to submit to us immediately are already sentencing themselves to die by our hands. If the Harimites didn’t quite understand this, seeing what happened to them might be effective in preventing such misunderstandings in the future.)

Peter Jackson, “Hülegü Khan and the Christians: The Making of a Myth,” contained in: P. Edbury & J. Phillips, eds., The Experience of Crusading 2. Defining the Crusader Kingdom, Cambridge University Press (2003), pp. 196-213.

PSS (July 16, 2020): 

It just occurred to me that I had forgotten about the fact that one of the most illustrious treasure revealers, one named Pema Lingpa, was famous for his skill in metalworking. He should at least be mentioned as a person so well respected in other areas that his dabbling in smithing did nothing to lower him in the eyes of the Buddhist community. In fact, metal objects made by his hand are regarded as relics in Bhutan today. I remember a photo of a coat of mail he is said to have made in one of those Bhutan photo books, Maybe the Olschak book.  Let's see, here it is, plate no. 55 in Blanche C. Olschak, Bhutan: Land of Hidden Treasurers, Geo. Allen & Unwin Ltd. (London 1971). Once I had a dream of flying over Thimphu in a glass airplane, so the very next morning I went out and bought this book, ignoring the significant dent it made in my limited budget. It was not until over 40 years later that my dream to see Thimphu was finally fulfilled, but you know some things are worth the wait.  I count myself fortunate that in recent decades I was able to visit some of the most fantastically interesting parts of Eurasia, all the more so now that we’re all locked in.

See the entry “Pema Lingpa” by Ariana Maki in Treasury of Lives.

PSSS (March 17, 2022):

I recently started reading Toni Huber’s amazing new two-volume Source of Life: Revitalisation Rites and Bon Shamans in Bhutan and the Eastern Himalayas, Austrian Academy of Sciences Press (Vienna 2020), and there in vol. 1, pp. 219-223, are some pertinent observation about the abysmally low status of metal workers in most of the Himalayan regions most of the time, Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike, but he also brings to light a very unusual text that values them very highly. Called the Lcags rabs, or ‘Generations of Iron,’ I suppose we could equally, if less literally, read it as meaning “Narrative on the origins of metal and metalworking for ritual purposes.” I much recommend it. Whatever is the exception is exceptionally interesting most of the time.