This Is That Long Lost Buddhist History

Buddha Miniature from the Gondhla Kanjur

I hope to better demonstrate the truth of it to you if you have a little time for it, but I can tell you one thing right away. I am ready to swear that the lion’s share of the over-600-year-old history composed by Üpa Losel (Dbus-pa Blo-gsal / དབུས་པ་བློ་གསལ་), has at long last emerged into the public record and is available to readers of Tibetan language. It should prove to be of use to all who ever felt the need to make histories out of the histories of the past. I guess that means historians, or them primarily. So if that label in some way fits you let’s get straight to it. Well, as straight as possible and with a straight face.

Just this year a very interesting set of 10 volumes was published. It may be a set, or it may be a series — books published in the PRC often seem to defy those distinctions. I’ll give the details later on. Its second volume bears the cover title Rgyal-rabs Chos-'byung Khag Drug, རྒྱལ་རབས་ཆོས་འབྱུང་ཁག་དྲུག, or “Six Distinct Dynastic and/or Buddhist Histories,” and it is here among those six things we must look to find it. One drawback: it has no title page as the first parts of the work are missing. Another drawback: in place of the final colophon identifying the author that we hoped to find, the editor copied only the first and last few words of it, and then comments that of the words that come in between the only thing legible is the name Üpa Losel.*

(*You have to bear in mind that this is an edited version of the text, in computerized script, and not a facsimile, as this may prove worth knowing for other reasons.)

All this is discussed by the editor in his introduction to the volume, and I can’t really add to it. Or if I can, I guess it would be by looking at the end of the chronological section near its end, where the author seems to identify himself as well as the date of his work.

The recent Tibeto-logic blog on chronology has had (according to Blogger's own inbuilt statistics) the lowest number of readers ever, so it looks as if I may be digging my own blog grave by doing it, but here goes :

Although he mentions other ideas, Üpa appears to go along with the idea found as well in the anonymously compiled Khepa Deyu (མཁས་པ་ལྡེའུ་) history of 1261* that Buddha Dharma will endure for 5,000 years (meaning 10 periods of half a millennium each) starting from the Parinirvana date. 

(*I’m happy to report that an English version will appear in print in May July of next year. I see it’s already listed at this commercial site as forthcoming.)

He starts the discussion with Chömden Rigral (Bcom-ldan Rig-pa'i-ral-gri / བཅོམ་ལྡན་རིག་པའི་རལ་གྲི) who 

in a Hen year said that 2,093 years had passed since the passing of the Teacher according to the Kālacakra system.*

(*This must mean Rigral's 1261 history with the title Flowers Ornamenting the Sage’s Teachings [ཐུབ་པའི་བསྟན་པ་རྒྱན་གྱི་མེ་ཏོག], a work dated to 1261, an Iron Hen year. It is known to exist in manuscript form, but has not been published to the best of my knowledge, not even in his published collected works. Check BDRC to be sure, since there are by now at least three published sets of his compositions.)

(It is important to note that I follow Schaeffer & Kuijp’s dates for Rigral, meaning 1227-1305, and these agree with those supplied by BDRC, person ID no. P1217. It is clear that copies of his history work have been made available to some people somewhere. For a solid clue, try this link for example.) 

Then, in the Fire Female Pig year, Sönam Tsemo (Bsod-nams-rtse-mo / བསོད་ནམས་རྩེ་མོ་) did his calculations at Na-la-rtse Gnas-po-che saying that 3,300 years had passed.*

(*This must refer to the chronological section that ends Sönam Tsemo's most famous work, Entrance Gate to the Dharma, dated 1167, a Fire Pig year.)

Then, in a Fire Mouse year, at the death of the Great Jetsun (Rje-btsun Chen-po / རྗེ་བཙུན་ཆེན་པོ), Sakya Pandita (Sa-skya Paṇḍi-ta / ས་སྐྱ་པཎྜི་ཏ་) claimed that 3,347 years had passed.*

(*This means Sapan's calculation done upon the death of Dragpa Gyeltsen [Grags-pa-rgyal-mtshan / གྲགས་པ་རྒྱལ་མཚན་] in 1216.) 

Then, in the time of the rainy season retreat at Sakya Monastery, Śākyaśrī made his calculations in an Iron Male Horse year in which he said that according to the Sen-dha-pa system, 1,753 years had passed.

And in the Fire Female Ox year the Lama Chökyi Gyelpo (Bla-ma Chos-kyi-rgyal-po / བླ་མ་ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྒྱལ་པོ་) did calculations at Long Spring (Chu-mig Ring-mo / ཆུ་མིག་རིང་མོ་) in Tsang Province concluding that 3,110 years had passed. 

Hmm... That's a very interesting reference to the meeting known to history as the Dharma Convocation at the Spring (Chu-mig Chos-'khor / ཆུ་མིག་ཆོས་འཁོར་) that Pagpa ('Phags-pa / འཕགས་པ་) presided over in 1277 during his 2nd return visit to Tibet. Now I’ll understand if you need to check to make sure, but 1277 was in fact a Fire Ox year, so there is no reason for doubt, and the Lama Chökyi Gyelpo isn’t really a name but a respectful epithet used for Pagpa during his lifetime, usually in the slightly longer form Lama Dampa Chökyi Gyelpo, ‘Holy Lama Dharma King.’

Okay, I’m having fun with this, but it’s becoming evident from the look on your face that you are not. So despite myself I’ll stop here although I have to say, the list does keep getting so much more interesting with complications galore. That way we can jump forward two pages to the bit that is most relevant to us at the moment (starting at p. 225, the final paragraph):

Then, in the Iron Male Dragon year, in the Great Dharma College of Chomden Raldri (Bcom-ldan Ral-gri, i.e. Rigral), Üpa Losel did calculations finding that 3,316 years had passed. That means 1,680 years remain, and we are in the 500-year period of mere tokens.*

(*Earlier on in Üpa’s text as well as in the long Deyu history “mere tokens” (རྟགས་ཙམ་) means the 10th and final of the 500-year-long phases in Dharma's decline, at the end of which human lifetimes will be 50 years, and thereafter continue to decrease. Üpa had detailed this prophetic setup immediately before (at pp. 222-223), so it's a mystery why he thinks mere tokens is the phase he finds himself in, when it seems obvious that he is writing in what he himself ought to regard as the phase of Abhidharma (མངོན་པ་), the 7th of the 10 phases.)

Right now the Dharma phase is the one in which the life expectancy of the inhabitants of Jambu Island is 60 years, and in the phase of 50-year life expectancy the holy Dharma will decline, it is taught.

This means Üpa in his dating of Buddha’s death way back in 1977 BCE, was agreeing to disagree with Śākyaśrī, subject of that widely unread Tibeto-logic blog we mentioned before. Leaving the mildly complicated discussion aside for now, we take Üpa's dates to be ca. 1265-1355, so we have little choice but to date the history he wrote to the Iron Dragon year of 1340, even if the modern author of the introduction to the published volume, in his preface (p. 6), gives it a date of 1280. Your older hands in the realm of Tibet Studies will right away recognize how it is that this 60-year difference tends to happen with some regularity.

Now the updated Tibetan Histories book posted for download just before the holiday season last year needs updating now that this date is known. Finally, I have to say, if any readers have followed along this far, I commend your patience and admire your assiduity. As for me, it’s way past time for lunch.

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Literature

It’s important to remember that the title given it in the book is not an actual title of the history, it’s simply descriptive. With neither title page nor colophon we cannot know what the title was intended to be:

Dbus-pa Blo-gsal, “Chos-’byung Skabs-bdun-ma” [‘Dharma Origins History in Seven Chapters’], contained in: Hor-dkar No-mo (Hor-shul Mkhan-sprul Dge-dpal), chief editor, Bod Rang-skyong-ljongs Rtsa-che’i Gna’-dpe’i Dpar-mdzod [‘A Print Treasury of Highly Esteemed Ancient Texts in the Tibet Autonomous Region’], Bod-ljongs Gna’-dpe Srung-skyob Mu-’brel Dpe-tshogs (Lhasa 2017), in 10 volumes, at vol. 2 (Rgyal-rabs Chos-'byung Khag Drug), pp. 175-227. 

Üpa Losel’s very valuable list of archaic words, with the title Brda Gsar-rnying-gi Rnam-par Dbye-ba, has been studied in two important articles by Professor Emeritus Mimaki Katsumi, a member of The Japan Academy:

Mimaki Katsumi, “Index to Two brDa gsar rñiṅ Treatises: The Works of dBus pa blo gsal and lCaṅ skya Rol pa'i rdo rje,” contained in a special issue of the Bulletin of the Narita Institute for Buddhist Studies (Naritasan Bukkyôkenkyûjo kiyô), vol. 15, no. 2 (1992), pp. 479-503. 

Mimaki Katsumi. “dBus pa blo gsal no "Shin Kyu Goi Shu" — Kôtei bon Shokô [The brDa gsar rñiṅ gi rnam par dbye ba of dBus pa blo gsal — a First Attempt at a Critical Edition],” contained in: Asian Languages and General Linguistics, Festschrift for Prof. Tatsuo Nishida on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday (Tokyo 1990), pp. 17-54.  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).

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Two volumes worth of Üpa Losel's works have been made available, with public access, by BDRC. Have a look and if you can find the history book anywhere among them do let us know.

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David Wellington CHAPPELL, “Early Forebodings of the Death of Buddhism,” Numen, vol. 27, no. 1 (June 1980), pp. 122-154. 

This discussion can help people who have trouble imagining how much Buddhism’s sense of history turns around its inevitable decline and disappearance. Of course differing dates and rates of decline do  provoke discussions and continuing differences. If today there are some who would call themselves Buddhist progressivists, that would just serve as another sign of decline, am I right? I’m asking.

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Dan MARTIN in collaboration with Yael Bentor, Tibetan Histories: A Bibliography of Tibetan-Language Historical Works, Serindia Publications (London 1997).  

This by now out-of-print bibliography listed the then-lost history like this:  

 

-80-

mid 1300’s ?

Dbus-pa Blo-gsal, Chos-’byung. Evidently a history of Buddhism. Ref.:  MHTL, no. 10845.  K. Mimaki, “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, at p. 592. On the author, see Blue Annals, pp. 337-338.

The revised and expanded version of the book, dated December 21, 2020, may be freely downloaded here. Its entry no. 127 looks like this:

 - 127 - 

mid 1300’s ?

Dbus-pa Blo-gsal (ca. 1265-1355), Chos-’byung. Evidently a history of Buddhism. Bio.: On the author, see Blue Annals, pp. 337-338. TBRC no. P3090. Lit.: Another work by this author is subject of Katsumi Mimaki, Blo gsal grub mtha’: Chapitres IX (Vaibhāṣika) et XI (Yogācāra) édités et Chapitre XII (Mādhyamika) édité et traduit, Zinbun Kagaku Kenkyusyo, Université de Kyoto (Kyoto 1982). Ref.: MHTL, no. 10845. K. Mimaki, ‘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, at p. 592. See BLP no. 102. BLP no. 0421 lists what is apparently a description of the contents rather than a particular title for this work: Glang-dar-mas bstan-pa bsnubs rjes slar-yang bstan-pa dar-tshul, ‘The Way the Teachings Spread Once Again after Glang-dar-ma Put Them into Decline.’ BLP no. 1991 gives an even longer description: sangs-rgyas bstan-pa bod-du byung-tshul le-tshan gnyis dang glang-dar-mas bstan-pa bsnubs rjes slar-yang bstan-pa dar-tshul. Dung-dkar, pp. 164-165, identifies this as a rare Bka’-gdams Chos-’byung. This history is mentioned in Khri-chen Bstan-pa-rab-rgyas, Sog-yul Sogs-nas Mdo-sngags-kyi Gnad-rnams-la Dri-ba Thung-ngu Byung Rigs-rnams-kyi Dri-ba dang Dri-lan Phyogs-gcig-tu Bsdoms-pa, contained in: Blo-bzang Dgongs-rgyan Mu-tig Phreng-mdzes, Drepung Loseling Educational Society (Mundgod 1999), vol. 35, pp. 24-41, at p. 32: “Dbus-la Blo-gsal-gyi Chos-’byung-na / sngon-gyi rgyal-po-rnams-kyi mtshan / Deng-khri-btsan-po sogs rgyal-po mang-po-zhig-gi mtshan yang / deng-sang-gi Bod-skad-du ci zer?”

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Kurtis R. SCHAEFFER and Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp, An Early Tibetan Survey of Buddhist Literature, the Bstan pa rgyas pa rgyan gyi nyi 'od of Bcom ldan ral gri, Harvard Oriental Series, Harvard University Press (Cambridge 2009). 

This book is all about a canon catalog with a historical preface by Rigral. Although said to be known by the alternative title Bstan-pa Rgyas-pa Rgyan-gyi Me-tog, I do not believe it can be identified with the similar title given above, Thub-pa'i Bstan-pa Rgyan-gyi Me-tog (observe that almost all of Rigral's titles end with the same ‘poetic’ ending Flowers Adorning...). The most important information for us at this moment is found on p. 93 of Schaeffer and Kuijp’s book, where we see that the Thub-pa'i Bstan-pa Rgyan-gyi Me-tog (or a very similar title) exists in three (?) manuscript copies kept in various libraries and archives.

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