Lamp of Assurance, a Very Nearly Lost Bon History

 

“Bon-byung Yid-ches Sgron-ma [b]zhugs.” 
Endangered Archives Project EAP687/1/19

I see no need to overplay that old scenario of the precious object lost and unknown suddenly revealed to the world. It isn’t exactly cognitive science, or is it? Is it a question of ‘Who is paying attention to what?’ or ‘What’s out there that could be seen?’ Surely there must be a handful of learned people in the hills of Himachal, not to mention the high Himalayas who are aware of this historical work in some degree, some may even have read it for all we know. However, Tibetan Histories bibliography, in both its editions (1987 & 2020), has no listing for it, and a search of the worldwide web (including TBRC/BDRC/BUDA) came up with no knowledge of its existence. Search engines are not the solution to every problem, and neither is AI. I hope we know that.

The one exceptional bit of knowledge on this particular subject is in a book published earlier this year, a history of Bon dubbed Drenpa’s Proclamation. In it you can see that, in a brief passage about the ancient Tibetan Emperor Drigum, the title Bon History: Lamp of Assurance (བོན་བྱུང་ཡིད་ཆེས་སྒྲོན་མ།) is cited twice (once with variant spelling). However, this passage exists in only one of its several manuscript versions, the one called Manuscript C, from Nakchu. As the Nakchu Manuscript appears to expand on pericopes found in the other versions, we tend to think it a later recension. So even if the history translated in Drenpa’s Proclamation dates to the late 12th century as we think it does, the title of the lost history may have been written into it in a later century. Knowing this doesn’t help us very much in trying to decide questions of authorship and definitive dating. These mysteries remain.

What was not known when the book was released was that the title mentioned there does indeed belong to an identifiable and physically present text, even if that text is only made available in the form of a title page with the title on its front side (our frontispiece) along with the introduction on its back side. Given no alternative we will have to be satisfied with this fragment, so I’ve simply typed its content at the end of this file, hoping that this may bear information that will eventually allow us to find the missing pages.

But before doing that, let’s invent a brand new entry for Tibetan Histories that ought to look something like this:

 - 1195a - 

— [no dating possible]

Bon-byung Yid-ches Sgron-ma. The title is once given with this spelling, and once immediately afterward with the probably less acceptable spelling Bon-chung Yid-ches Sgron-ma. It seems it would have contained an account of the assassination of Emperor Gri-gum by Lo-ngam. This we may know from only one of the manuscripts of the Grags-pa Rin-chen Gling-bsgrags. See Per Kværne and Dan Martin, Drenpa’s Proclamation: The Rise and Decline of the Bön Religion in Tibet, Vajra Books (Kathmandu 2023), at p. 212. Although unknown to the authors at the time, a title page for this work, its original kept by TBMC, has been digitally preserved at the British Library's online Endangered Archives Programme, no. EAP687/1/19, at scan nos. 489-490, where the title reads Bon-byung Yid-ches Sgron-ma, and on fol. 1v likewise, only with the word lo-rgyus inserted thus: Bon-byung-gi [Lo-rgyus] Yid-ches Sgron-ma. A three-fold general outline is at least supplied here: Firstly, how it [the Bon religion] was promulgated with compassion; in the meantime, how it was made to decline due to happenstances; and finally, how it was spread once more through aspiration prayers.

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Transcription of the title page

Note: I have tacitly resolved abbreviations and accepted all inserted corrections. I ignore the penmanship practice in the bottom margin. Quotes from scriptures are in red, their titles in italics. I've created the paragraph formatting to suit my whims. The scripture cited by its short title as mdo would be the Gzer-mig, the medium-lengthed biography of Lord Shenrab.

[1r] bon byung yid ches sgron ma [b]zhugs /

[1v] sna tshogs thabs kyi[s] 'gro ba 'dren mdzad pa'i ston mchog sprul pa'i sku la phyag 'tshal lo //

'dir bon byung gi lo rgyus yid ches sgron ma la / don gsum ste / dpa'o [~dang po?] thugs rjes dar tshul / bar du rkyen gyis bsnubs tshul / tha ma smon lam gyis rgyas tshul /

dang po dar tshul la gnyis / spyir sangs rgyas kyi; gos [~dgos?] ston pa'i / [b]stan pa'i dar tshul dang po ni / sems can gyi ji ltar khyab pa bzhin / sangs rgyas kyi bstan pas dang khyab ste / 

mdo las / snod bcud ting nge 'dzin mtha' yas la /

nam mkha' ji bzhin thugs rjes khyab / ces dang /

klu 'bum las / sems can gyi las ni / bsam gyis mi khyab / gsam ba'i [~bsam pa'i] tshad las 'das / de [b]stan cing drang ba'i phyir / ston pa'i bka' yang bsam gyi[s] mi khyab / gsam ba'i [~bsam pa'i] tshad las 'das / ces so /

de yang bsdus na / phyogs bcu dus gsum gyi sangs rgyas so // 

phyogs bcu'i sangs rgyas ni / bon nyid snying... [the remainder of the text is lacking].

•

བོན་བྱུང་ཡིད་ཆེས་སྒྲོན་མ་[བ]ཞུགས།

[1v] སྣ་ཚོགས་ཐབས་ཀྱི[ས]་འགྲོ་བ་འདྲེན་མཛད་པའི་སྟོན་མཆོག་སྤྲུལ་པའི་སྐུ་ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ༎

འདིར་བོན་བྱུང་གི་ལོ་རྒྱུས་ཡིད་ཆེས་སྒྲོན་མ་ལ། དོན་གསུམ་སྟེ། དཔའོ་[~དང་པོ་?]ཐུགས་རྗེས་དར་ཚུལ་། བར་དུ་རྐྱེན་གྱིས་བསྣུབས་ཚུལ། ཐ་མ་སྨོན་ལམ་གྱིས་རྒྱས་ཚུལ།

དང་པོ་དར་ཚུལ་ལ་གཉིས། སྤྱིར་སངས་རྒྱས་ཀྱི༏ གོས་[~དགོས་?]སྟོན་པའི། [བ]སྟན་པའི་དར་ཚུལ་དང་པོ་ནི། སེམས་ཅན་གྱི་ཇི་ལྟར་ཁྱབ་པ་བཞིན། སངས་རྒྱས་ཀྱི་བསྟན་པས་དང་ཁྱབ་སྟེ།

མདོ་ལས། སྣོད་བཅུད་ཏིང་ངེ་འཛིན་མཐའ་ཡས་ལ།

ནམ་མཁའ་ཇི་བཞིན་ཐུགས་རྗེས་ཁྱབ། ཅེས་དང་།

ཀླུ་འབུམ་ལས། སེམས་ཅན་གྱི་ལས་ནི། བསམ་གྱིས་མི་ཁྱབ་།་གསམ་བའི་[~བསམ་པའི་]ཚད་ལས་འདས། དེ་[བ]སྟན་ཅིང་དྲང་བའི་ཕྱིར་།་སྟོན་པའི་བཀའ་ཡང་བསམ་གྱི[ས]མི་ཁྱབ། གསམ་བའི[~བསམ་པའི་]་ཚད་ལས་འདས། ཅེས་སོ།

དེ་ཡང་བསྡུས་ན། ཕྱོགས་བཅུ་དུས་གསུམ་གྱི་སངས་རྒྱས་སོ༎་

ཕྱོགས་བཅུའི་སངས་རྒྱས་ནི། བོན་ཉིད་སྙིང་ ...

§   §   §

Books mentioned

Per Kværne and Dan Martin, Drenpa’s Proclamation: The Rise and Decline of the Bön Religion in Tibet, Vajra Books (Kathmandu 2023). This is only made available in hardbound book format from the publisher. The internet monopolists have not yet listed it, so you may need to pick up a copy on your next trip to Kathmandu.

Dan Martin, Tibetan Histories: A Bibliography of Tibetan-Language Historical Works, Serindia Publications (London 1997). In collaboration with Yael Bentor. Foreword by Michael Aris. The original book is now out of print. A revised and expanded version was posted on the internet on December 21, 2020, in both Word and PDF formats that may be downloaded for free at the following URL: https://www.bdrc.io/blog/2020/12/21/dan-martins-tibetan-histories/.

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Postscript

A local search of BDRC revealed more than one occurrence of that quote from the Gzer-mig. Here is a good example:

Khri Bsod-bstan, Bon-dpyad Spyi Rgya Rlabs Gcod, Kan-su'u Mi-rigs Dpe-skrun-khag (Lanzhou 2015), TBRC no. W8LS20516. As the page no. is not supplied I can’t tell you what it is. (I find that Shardza has the same quote near the beginning of his own history.)

མདོ་གཟེར་མིག་ལས། 

སྣོད་བཅུད་འཇིག་རྟེན་མཐའ་ཡས་ལ།། 

ནམ་མཁའ་ཇི་བཞིན་ཐུགས་རྗེས་ཁྱབ།།

Notice that here ting-nge-'dzin, meaning contemplative absorption or samâdhi, is replaced by 'jig-rten, the world with its inhabitants (like Sanskrit loka). I have to say, the reading meaning “world” suits the context a lot better. It’s a beautiful way of saying that the compassion of the Enlightened Ones extends to distant-most extremes of the environmental-biological universe just like space does.

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Another Postscript (May 13, 2024):

I can't begin to explain why, but the very same title page (to see its verso, you need to scroll back to the preceding scan no. 489) is photographed once again at the very end of EAP687/1/55.  Here you can see it:

Scan no. 490 of EAP687/1/55.