Seven Women, a Unique Padampa Text from Bhutan

Guru Rinpoche, with Nyangrel and so on
(see below) HAR 160.

 

• I’ve written before about how there were in the 11th-12th centuries, several popular Buddhist movements that virtually disappeared from history, yet may have had some impact. Led by laypeople, including laywomen, their memory has survived in what amounts to little more than lists, lists that represent different ways of grouping them. Despite or because of the fact that their Buddhist orthodoxy was and still could be framed in different ways, they become all the more important for historians in our contemporary world. I mean in particular historians who need to factor them into some broader understanding of the emergence of the Buddhist schools or sects that were at that very time beginning to take shape and eventually gaining broader social recognition.  And they demonstrate that women could indeed achieve leadership roles in those times.

   

While in Rome last winter, one of the Tucci Collection’s Tibetan texts seized my attention more than any other. It contained Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava’s individual teachings to seven different women.* It took me some time before I remembered that I had already encountered another text that similarly contained answers to questions asked by a set of seven women. Only in that case it was not Padmasambhava, but Padampa in the role of Teacher. It looks as if this Padampa work uniquely survives in two sets of Cutting and Zhijé teachings transmitted by Drubtob Ngödrub (Grub-thob-dngos-grub) to Nyangrel Nyima Özer and preserved in manuscripts kept at Tsakaling and Drametsé in Bhutan. Knowing that the two persons just named are the very same ones commonly awarded the lion’s share of responsibility for revealing the Mani Kambum, we might expect to find a thing or two in common.**

(*I talked about this Tucci manuscript and its parallel in Mani Kambum in a very recent blog entry, “Seven Women: The Padmasambhava Text from Rome.” **A parallel passage was found by simply searching for "bu khyo" in BUDA etext repository, nothing more mysterious than that.  Bu khyo means ‘child[ren] & husband[s].’)

The two seven-fold sets of Tibetan women have no members in common, as you may observe in this chart allowing you to compare their names with ease and to observe the total mismatch. Well, one thing that does match, and I believe this is significant, is the sevenness of the women.

Chart for comparing the names of the seven women in
the Padampa and the Padmasambhava texts

As I said, there are two existing manuscripts of the Padampa Seven Women text. Neither has been published in any form to the best of my knowledge, although both have been posted on the world-wide web (the specific titles were not cataloged or otherwise listed there, and for that reason are not accessible through any internet search tool; I've listed those titles below in Appendices A & B). Both were preserved in the eastern half of Bhutan, one in the Nyingma monastery of Drametsé, the other in Tsakaling. Here is the one from Drametsé:

The Drametsé manuscript. Full transcription appended below

The Drametsé colophon you see here below belongs to the text that comes immediately before the one on the women. 

I put it on display here because it states clearly the names of those two Buddhist masters traditionally known for revealing the Mani Kambum, but also because it says its scribing took place at the main site of Nyangrel’s activity in his later life, Mabochok ( སྨྲ་བོ་ཅོག ). I suppose this information ought to apply to all the texts in the set. As I said, complete title outlines for both of the Bhutan collections are appended below for the sake of Tibetan readers curious about what else may be found in them. Also, the seven women texts from both the Drametsé and Tsakaling manuscripts have been typed in Roman transcription below. I placed them in adjacent paragraphs for ease of comparison. I haven’t managed to supply full English translations, and I apologize for that. I hope to return to this task another time. In the meantime, feel free to try your hand at it. Or, if you believe it will return a good enough result, try the automated translation service of Dharmamitra.

Right now I will limit myself to the second of the seven women, Gyatingma, the most interesting and useful figure for making some significant points. Her name, meaning ‘China Blue,’ is listed among all the groupings of leaders of popular movements active in Tibet during the post-imperial pre-Mongol era. This lends her a special significance, even if she is scarcely traceable in the literature otherwise (try conducting a BUDA etext search for her if you like). And, as we’ll show, the teachings given to her by Padampa in this early text do indeed closely echo teachings attributed to those popular movements in subsequent polemics. Here is the passage, translated with the help of both Bhutanese manuscripts (I added underlining for emphasis):

To Zhangmo Gyatingma he said, “The view is free of expectations. Free yourself of the bondage of your thoughts. Meditate, but do it without any mental focus. Don’t settle your attention on a mental object. The conduct is free of lust and compulsion. Perform crazy actions, and abandon the social mind. The goal means to have no connection between thoughts and things. Recognize sangsara as a label, act without anxiety over outcomes, while rightly dividing thoughts and things. Persist in your Dharma practice and regardless of being a woman don’t get lost in the dharma, you need to divorce from desire and thoughts. When you become a yogini you need to do without ordinary friends. To create a rift with sangsara, you need to leave children behind and leave. A warrior woman entering the occupied zone must have cut loose all modesty and shame. If she does so, Gyatingma will become a sterling yogini.”

The most pertinent thing to observe about this passage, for present purposes, is the idea to entirely separate thoughts and things. This passage could have really served as the reference point for the 13th-century polemical passage from the Single Intention. Two of the Four Children of Pehar were women, and notice that it attributes the “disconnection of thoughts with things” idea not to Gyatingma, but to the other woman, Gyacham. We may accept that this is a simple confusion of identities, as we are so used to such switching of identities of women in these early centuries. Simply put, the Padampa Seven Women text is very likely a source for the polemic. It’s the only possible source I know of.

•

If you are interested in the broader question of popular lay Buddhist movements in pre-Mongol era Tibet, I have a few essays I could recommend. I cannot cover all of that now, so give this chart a quick look:

 

 

By tossing my various sources together I deliberately made the chart look messy hoping to reflect the uncertainty we face in dealing with such an under-documented phenomenon. I admittedly tend toward accepting the categorizations of Nyangrel, as his is the only somehow sympathetic source. Each in its own way, all the others place them outside the pale of Buddhist orthodoxy. Well, our Seven Women text, in the case of only one of the Four Children of Pehar, gives support to his positive valuation, and this may not be unexpected, knowing that all the Seven Women texts were in some way produced or transmitted by him and his circles.

Here is a translation of the passage on the Four Children of Pehar from the Single Intention:

There were four people captured by spirits by the names Shel-mo Rgya-lcam, Zhang-mo Rgya-'thing, 'O-lam Bha-ru and Bso Kha-'tham. Each of these four had their own particular philosophical claims.

The first believed that thoughts and objects are not interconnected. When Shel-mo’s husband was killed by another man, she felt great grief but did not want to weep in front of others. So she went to a cave with people carrying tsha-tsha and remained there for a long time crying. When she got exhausted, Pe-kar came from the sky and said to her,

“Do not cry. There is absolutely no connection between your thoughts and external objects. If there were, since you cry thinking about your husband, he ought to return to you as before; you cried and called out, but still no husband.”

Hearing these words, she thought about them and decided they were true. She went into a meeting at the lower end of that same valley, where a teacher was explaining Dharma to five hundred students and started dancing.

“Thoughts and things have no connection. 

The very idea must be rejected—

by teacher, student and teaching three—

that they are the least bit interconnected.”

she said as she danced, and everyone, teacher and students included, got up and started dancing all at once. They became her followers, calling the cave where she had stayed Prophecy Relic Cave.

Now I fully realize that the identities of the two women among the Four Children have been exchanged, and the teaching about thoughts and things having no connection is ascribed first to one and then the other. We just have to learn to live with this kind of problem. It’s something we see quite often in accounts of Tibetan women, the confusion between Zhama and Labdrön being only the best-known example (see Lo Bue’s essay), and these are by far the two most prominent women religious leaders of the time.

It would make sense, as much as it might seem unnecessary, to underline that what we have here are very significant early documents for women’s studies that have so far been unknown or unrecognized.* This neglect is not at all surprising, since their manuscripts have never been edited or published in ways that would have made them accessible to researchers. That’s no longer true, as of today.

(*Of course they were well hidden in monastic collections in eastern Bhutan with very limited access, and Karma Phuntso deserves the lion’s share of the credit for bringing these rare and precious texts out of their retirement.)

A lot of issues are tugging at us from the peripheries but we ought to overlook them and finish up for now. My main aim has been to point out the various “Seven Women” texts as a type of small sub-genre of early Tibetan literature. I have and will put the material out there for further study as it has significance for future histories of women and popular religious movements. I haven’t “mastered” it or analyzed it in detail, I leave the main part of that for others. 

I believe I’ve been able, in recent blogs, to demonstrate previously undetected textual relations between the Nyingma and Zhijé schools in the 12th century, and more specifically relations implicating the revealers of the Mani Kambum. I’ve suggested a few lines of research that might prove worthwhile to pursue, avenues that with luck will see their way clear to brighten our shared Tibeto-logical future of burgeoning knowledge and personal fulfillment for all...

and to all a good night.

Suggested reading

Cathy Cantwell, “Myang ral Nyi ma ’od zer (1134-1192): Authority and Authorship in the Coalescing of the rNying ma Tantric Tradition,” Medieval Worlds, vol. 12 (2020), pp. 68-79.

Daniel Hirshberg, Remembering the Lotus Born: Padmasambhava in the History of Tibet’s Golden Age, Wisdom (Somerville 2016). If you are too pressed for time to read entire books, read Cantwell’s essay or Hirshberg’s own “Nyangrel Nyima Wozer” in Treasury of Lives website.

Erberto Lo Bue, “A Case of Mistaken Identity: Ma-gcig Labs-sgron and Ma-gcig Zha-ma,” contained in: Per Kvaerne, ed., Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 6th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Fagernes 1992, The Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture (Oslo 1994), pp. 481-490. Look here if you need a good example of women’s identities getting mixed around.

Dan Martin, “Lay Religious Movements in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Tibet: A Survey of Sources,” Kailash (Kathmandu), vol. 18 (1996), pp. 23-55.

——, “The Star King and the Four Children of Pehar: Popular Religious Movements of Eleventh- to Twelfth-century Tibet,” Acta Orientalia Hungarica (Budapest), vol. 49, pts. 1-2 (1996), pp. 171-195.

Nyangrel’s History:  Nyang Nyi-ma-’od-zer, Chos-’byung Me-tog Snying-po Sbrang-rtsi’i Bcud, Gangs-can Rig-mdzod series no. 5, Bod-ljongs Mi-dmangs Dpe-skrun-khang (Lhasa 1988). TBRC no. W7972. 

Here is the passage relevant to China Blue at p. 494:

དུས་དེ་ཙ་ན་ཟར་སྟག་སྣའི་ཞང་པོ་རྒྱ་འཐིང་ལས་རྣལ་འབྱོར་སྨྱོན་ཚོ་དང་། རྩི་རིའི་འོ་ལ་འབའ་སུ་ལས་རྣལ་འབྱོར་བྱར་མེད་དང་། རུ་མཚམས་ཀྱི་རྒྱལ་བ་སྲོ་ཁ་འཐམས་ལས་མེ་ཆུ་གོ་ལོག་པ་དང་། དབུས་ཀྱི་ཤེ་མོ་རྒྱ་ལྕམ་ལས། གློང་ནག་པོ་རྒྱ་འཛམ།〔དེ་〕ལ་འཕུར་ཚོ་ཞེས་ཟེར་ཏེ། ཤངས་ཀྱི་རྣལ་འབྱོར་སྟག་ཚོ་དང་། རྫི་ལུང་གི་མགོས་ཚོས་ཁ་བསྐངས་པ་འདི་རྣམས་ལ། རྣལ་འབྱོར་ནག་པོ་དྲུག་ཟེར། ཁོང་རང་གིས་སྒྲུབ་བརྒྱུད་བཟང་པོར་བྱེད། ལོ་པཎ་གྱི་རྗེས་སུ་འབྲེང་བ་རྣམས་ནི་ཁོང་གི་དེ་རྣམས་རྡོལ་ཆོས་སུ་བྱེད། གཞན་ཡང་བོད་ཡུལ་འདིར་མཁས་པ། བཟང་བ། གྲུབ་ཐོབ། འཁྲུལ་ཞིག རྟོགས་ལྡན་ཇི་སྙེད་བྱོན་ན་ཡང་། རྣམ་ཐར་རྣམས་བྲིས་ན་སྤྲོ་བ་སྐྱེ་བར་འགྱུར་མོད་ཀྱི། བསམ་གྱིས་མི་ཁྱབ་པས་འདིར་སྤྲོས་ན་ཡི་གེ་མང་བར་འཇིགས་པས་མ་བྲིས་སོ། བསྟན་པ་ཕྱི་དར་གྱི་ལོ་རྒྱུས་ཞབས་སུ་བཏགས་པའོ།།

• I lament — and apologize for — the momentary unavailability of the Endangered Archives Programme’s texts from Bhutan. This is due to a widely-reported Cyber Incident that created much hardship and wasted energy for so many around the globe, not only the many employees of the British Library.

§   §   §

The Frontispiece  

Said to belong to the 13th century, as it very well might, this painting has the Precious Teacher Padmasambhava as its central figure flanked by his Tibetan and Indian wives (practically mirror images of each other). The somewhat smaller figure beneath them is surely Nyangrel Nyima Özer, and if you look up in the upper right corner there is a set of three figures. The middle of the three is Padampa, with only a minimum of doubt in my mind, making it a very probable Padampa.

§   §   §

The Two Bhutan Manuscripts of the Seven Women

Note: Below please find the Drametsé manuscript typed out in black, while the Tsakaling manuscript is in blue and indented. This was done to make it easy to check one against the other (tables formatting could not be used here). I have put the women’s names in dark red for emphasis (in the Drametsé only). Both transcriptions have been checked a second time for accuracy. Abbreviated spellings have mostly been tacitly resolved, although misspellings were supposed to be given as is (notice bu-med for bud-med and the like), without always pointing them out. Occasionally corrected spellings are suggested in square brackets.

The word cho-lu, or chol-bu in the title is especially significant, as it suggests it belongs to the earliest collection of Padampa texts that was made, the no longer extant collection (called Cho[l]-lu'i skor) by Kunga done in circa 1100 CE. The Drametsé is supposed to be part 16 (as indicated by the keyletter MA) of the larger collection of Padampa-related texts.

The folios of the Tsakaling are marked with the six-syllable mantra instead of folio numbers.  The Tsakaling has a very significant colophon [6r.2] informing us it was scribed by Teacher Sengé based on the personal copy of the Great Nyang (bud med la gdams pa cho lu'i skor / rdzogs so // phyi rabs rjes 'jug la phan par gyur cig / nyang chen po'i phyag yig steng nas / ston seng ges bris / cig zhu). The Great Nyang is of course the famous Nyangrel Nyima Özer. Who else could it be?

The differences between the two manuscripts are mostly minor (they even share some otherwise very unusual misspellings). My reason for respecting the autonomy of the two texts rather than crafting a single critical edition out of them is to try and understand what the two otherwise uniquely existing texts have to do with each other. I suspect that the Drametsé was directly copied to create the Tsakaling, but may need to give the problem more thought. If so, the personal copy of the Great Nyang mentioned in the Tsakaling would be none other than the Drametsé. I’d like to know your thoughts on this problem if anything occurs to you.

 

•

 

TITLE:  MA - Dam pas bu med bdun la gdams pa'i chol lus skor bzhugs.ho [=Bud med bdun la gdams pa'i cho lu'i skor].

[scan photo no. 93, or fol. OM recto, title page] Dam pas bu med bdun la gdam pa'i chol lu'i skor bzhugs s.ho mangga lam [~Dam pas bud med bdun la gdams pa'i cho lu'i skor]. 

[1v] bla ma dam pa rnams la phyag 'tshal lo //

bla ma dam pa rnams la phyag 'tshal lo /

dam pa rgya gar de gang zag rang rgyud pa men ste // sprul pa'i sku byang chub sems dpa' yin ste / skal ldan rnams la thugs rjes gzigs pas 'gro ba'i mgon po // rnal 'byor pho mo lnga bcu tsa bzhi'i grub thob kyi bsnyan rgyud kyi gdams pa mnga' ba / 'jam dpal sgra ba'i seng ge [~smra ba'i seng ge] dang zhal mjal bas / sangs rgyas gnyis pa'i sras su gyurd pa / sgron ma [~sgrol ma] dang rje btsun ma rnal 'byor ma la rtsog pa'i mkha' 'gro ma'i lung bstan thob pa /  [2r]  mchog thun mong gi dngos grub gnyis la mnga' mnyes pa / 'dzam bu gling gi rgyan gcig po // lhag par du bod la bka' drin che ba / a tsa ra nag po chen po gzi mdangs can / chos la bar na lo tsha'i lhad med pa / rang skad du ston pa / dam pa thugs rje can de / las stod ding ri na bzhugs pa'i dus su / bud med las khyad du 'phags pa bdun /

dam pa rgya gar de gang zag rang rgyud pa men ste / sprul pa'i sku byang chub sems dpa' yin ste / skal ldan rnams la thugs rjes gzigs pas 'gro ba'i mgon po / rnal 'byor pho mo lnga bcu tsa bzhi'i grub thob kyi bsnyan rgyud yi gdams pa mnga' ba / 'jam dpal sgra ba'i seng ge [~smra ba'i seng ge] dang zhal mjal bas / sangs rgyas gnyis pa'i sras su gyurd pa / sgron ma [~sgrol ma?] dang rje btsun ma rnal 'byor ma la rtsogs pa'i mkha' 'gro ma'i lung bstan thob pa / mchog thun mo[ng] gi dngos grub gnyis la mnga' mnyes pa / 'dzam bu gling gi rgyan gcig po / lhag par du bod la bka' drin che ba / a tsar nag po chen po gzi mdangs can / chos la bar na lo tsha ba'i lhad med pa / rang skad du ston pa / dam pa thugs rje can de / la stod ding ri na bzhugs pa'i dus su / bud med las khyad du 'phags pa bdun / 

tsi mo rnam kha' gsal [~tsi mo nam mkha' gsal] /

tsi mo rnam kha' [fol. MA] gsal /

zhang mo rgya mthing ma /

zhang mo rgya mthing ma / 

jo zhwa chung ma /

ma jo zhwa chung ma / 

ma jo rje chung ma /

ma jo rje chung ma / 

ma jo rong chung ma /

ma jo rong chung ma / 

ma jo glan chung ma /

ma jo glen chung ma / 

ma jo zhang chung ma /

ma jo zhang chung ma /

skye ba sman kyang mtshan ldan mkha' 'gro mas byin gyis brlabs pa bdun gyis / gser gyi man rdal phul tshogs kyi 'khor lo mdzad nas / dam pa la phyag dang skor ba byas nas zhus pa /

skye ba sman kyang mtshan ldan mkha' 'gro mas byin gyis brlabs pa bdun gyis / gser gyi man rdal phul tshogs kyi 'khor lo mdzad nas / dam pa la phyag dang skor ba byas nas zhus pa /  ±  /  

rje rin po che sprul pa'i sku / a li ka li'i gsung / rig pa'i ye shes kyi thug[s] / bdag cag bu med 'dra ba skye ba sman pas snying rus med / [2v] las ngan pas lus la dgra yod / bya ba mang la g.yeng ba che bas / chos mi khom / 'on kyang dam pas gdam ngag tshig bzhis grol nus pa ci zhu dgos pas / gnang par mdzod ci zhes bu med bdun gyis 'grin ci du [~mgrin gcig tu] zhus pas / dam pas gdams pa re re snang pa'o //

rje rin po che sprul pa'i sku / [insert here? a li ka li'i gsung] rig pa'i ye shes kyi thug / bdag cag bu med 'dra ba skye ba sman pas snying rus med / las ngan pas lus la dgra yod / bya ba mang la g.yeng pa che bas / <chos mi khom> 'on kyang dam pas gdam ngag tshig bzhi bzhis grol nus pa gcig zhu dgos pas / gnang par mdzod cig zhes bud med bdun gyis mgrin gcig tu zhus pas / dam pas gdams pa re re snang pa'o //

tsi mo nam mkha' gsal la / lta ba phyogs lhung mtha' bral yin no // rig pa rten dang phrol la blo'i snems thag chod / sgom pa rang gsal 'dzin med yin no // 

§§  tsi mo nam kha' gsal [~nam mkha' gsal] la / lta ba phyogs lhung mtha' bral yin no / rig pa rten dang phrol la [fol. MA verso] blo'i snyems thag chod / sgom pa rang gsal 'dzin med yin no // 

sems nyid lhug pa ngos zung gcig / spyod pa shugs byung 'gag med yin no // shes pa la 'khris ma bzhag gcig / 'bras bu rang byung ye gnas yin no //

sems nyid lhag pa ngos zung cig / spyod pa shugs byung 'gag med yin no //  shes pa la 'khris ma bzhag cig / 'bras bu rang byung ye gnas yin no // 

re dogs kyi blo sol gcig / chos byed na khyim thab kyi blo ma bstang na sdug bsngal gyi brtson ra las mi thar / 'dod pa'i blo ma bstang na zas nor la chog shes med / gdung sems kyi blo ma bstang na / [3r]  bu khyo'i 'khri ba mi chod / ngo tsha dang khrel 'dzem gyi blo ma bstang na / nam mkha' gsal la rnal 'byor ma dka' por mchi 'o gsung // 

re dogs kyi blo sol cig / chos byed na khyim thab kyi blo ma bstang na sdug bsngal gyi brtson ra las mi thar / 'dod pa'i blo ma bstang na zas nor la chog shes med / gdung sems kyi blo ma bstang na / bu khyo'i 'khris mi chod / ngo tsha dang khrel 'dzem gyi blo ma bstang na / nam mkha' gsal la rnal 'byor ma dkar por mchi'o gsung //  

zhang mo rgya mthing la / lta ba 'dod pa dang bral ba yin no // blo yi 'ching pa khrol gcig / bsgom pa dmigs pa dang bral ba yin no / blo yi yul du ma bzhag gcig / spyod pa chags zhen med pa yin no // 

§§  zhang mo rgya mthing la / lta ba 'dod pa rang bral ba yin no // blo yi 'ching pa khrol cig / bsgom pa dmigs pa dang bral ba yin no / blo yi yul du ma bzhag cig / spyod pa chags zhen med pa yin no // 

smyon spyod gyis la mi'i blo thong / 'bras bu blo dngos 'brel med yin no // 'khor ba ming du shes par gyis la blo dngos gyi shan phye la re dogs med par gyis / nan tar chos byed na bud med yin yang chos la mi sto ste / 'dod pa dang blo 'brel dgos / rnal 'byor ma byed na tha' mal gyi grogs dang 'bral dgos / 'khor ba dang dbyes byed na bu tsha rgyab du 'bor dgos / dpa' mo khrom shog pa gcig byed na / ngo tsha dang khrel shor ba gcig dgos /  [3v] de tsho byas na rgya mthing ma la / rnal 'byor ma gsha' ma gcig 'ong gsung ngo //

smyon spyod gyis la mi'i blo thong / [fol. NI recto] 'bras bu blo dngos 'brel med yin no // 'khor ba ming du shes par gyis la / blo dngos gyi shan phye la re dogs med par gyis / rgyor ma byed na tha mal // nan tar chos byed na bud med yin yang chos la mi lto ste / 'dod pa dang blo 'brel dgos / rnal 'byor ma byed na tha' mal gyi grogs dang 'bral dgos // 'khor ba dang dbyes byed na bu tsha rgyab tu 'bor dgos // dpa' mo khrom shog pa cig byed na / ngo tsha dang khrel shor ba cig dgos / de tsho byas na rgya mthing ma la / rnal 'byor ma gsha' ma cig 'ong gsung ngo // § //

dam pas ma cho zhas chung ma la gdams pa / lta ba mtha' bral rten med yin no // stag chad kyi mtha' la ma bskur gcig / bsgom pa rang gsal rang 'byung yin no // bying rgod kyi dgra la ma bskur gcig / spyod pa rang shar rang grol yin no // tshul 'chos kyi skyon la ma bskur cig / 'bras bu ma bsgrubs rang 'byung yin no  // 

§§ dam pas ma cho zhas chung ma la gdams pa / lta ba mtha' bral rten med yin no / stag chad kyi mtha' la ma bskur cig / bsgom pa rang gsal rang 'byung yin no / bying rgod kyi dgra la ma bskur te / spyod pa rang shar rang grol yin no / tshul 'chos kyi skyon la [fol. NI verso] ma bskur cig / 'bras bu ma bsgrubs rang 'byung yin no / 

'dod pa'i blo ma bstang cig / chos byed na rnam rtog tsad bcad na / rig pa'i zhal mthong ste bu med rnam rtog mang / nyon mongs tsad bcad na rang grol gyi zhal mthong te / bud med nyon mongs pa rag / snang ba'i tshad bcad na / stong pa'i zhal mthong ste / bu med mngon zhen che / sems nyid tsad chod na chos sku'i zhal mthong ste / bu med bsam bsno mang / chos byed na bya mthong la [4r] bla ma'i thad du sgoms / sangs rgyas de khad kyis zhal mthong gcig gsung ngo //

'dod pa'i blo ma bstad cig / chos byed na rnam rtog tsad bcad na / rig pa'i zhal mthong ste bud med rnam rtog mang / nyon mongs tsad bcad na rang grol gyi zhal mthong te / bud med nyon mongs pa rag snang pa'i tsad bcad na / stong pa'i zhal mthong ste / bud med mngon zhen che / sems nyid tsad chod na chos sku'i zhal mthong ste / bud med bsam bsno mang / chos byed na bya mthong la bla ma'i thad du sgoms / sangs rgyas de khad kyis zhal mthong 'ong gcig gsung ngo /

dam pas jo mo rje chung ma la gdams pa / lta ba rang 'byung ye shes yin no // rang gsal sems kyi me long ltos gcig / bsgom pa 'od gsal lhan skyes yin no // rang dang lhan skyes 'grogs / spyod pa rang 'byung rgyun gnas yin no shes pa'i rtsi yis zung / 'bras bu lhan gcig skyes sbyor yin no rang ngo shes par gyis / 

§§ dam pas jo mo rje chung ma la gdams pa / lta ba rang 'byung ye shes yin no / rang gsal sems kyi me long ltos cig / bsgom pa 'od gsal lhan skyes yin no / rang dang lhan skyes 'grogs / spyod pa rang 'byung rgyun gnas yin [fol. PAD recto] no shes pa'i rtsa yis zung / 'bras bu lhan cig skyes sbyor yin no rang ngo shes par gyis / 

rje chung ma nan tar chos byed na / bu g.yas su sod na zhe sdang rtsad chod / bu mo g.yon du sod la 'dod chag[s] kyi gshis phyung / snang ba la med chug la 'dod yon rlung la skur / shel rgong glang la skor la sems la nyon mongs pa ma 'jog / nam mkha'i mthongs su sdod la / stong nyid ngang la nyol / skye rgas na 'chi'i chu bo bzhi la skyel ma tshol de [4v] ltar byas na bu med kyi lus 'di bor nas nub phyogs padma can du skye bar gda'i gsung ngo // 

rje chung ma nan ltar chos byed na / bu g.yas su sod la zhe sdang rtsad chod / bu mo g.yon du sod la 'dod chag kyi gshis phyung / snang ba la med chug la 'dod yon rlung la skur / shel rgong glad la skor la sems la nyon mongs pa ma 'jog / nam mkha'i mthongs su sdod la / stong nyid ngang la nyol / skye rgas na 'chi'i chu bo bzhi la skyel ma tshol de ltar byas na bud med kyi lus 'di bor nas nub phyogs pad ma can du skye bar gda'i gsung ngo //

dam pas ma jo rong chung ma la gdams pa / lta ba 'gyur med sdeng ldan yin no // nyam nga med par khyer / sgom pa rang 'byung rgyun gnas yin no // bying sgod grogs su khyer / spyod pa cir snang grogs shar yin no // 'gro nyal 'dug sdod skyongs / 'bras bu spangs thob med pa yin no // rang la gnas pas chog / 

§§ dam pas ma jo rong chung ma la gdams pa / lta ba 'gyur med sdeng ldan yin no / nyam nga med par khyer // sgom pa rang 'byung rgyun gnas yin no // bying rgod grogs su khyer / spyod pa cir snang grogs shar yin no // 'gro nyal 'dug sdod [fol. PAD verso] skyongs // 'bras bu spangs thob med pa yin no / rang la gnas pas chog / 

rong chung ma snying gi dkyil na 'od me long tsam gcig gda'o // de la lta nus na bla ma gcig nang nas 'char ste / bu med gti mug che / mdun gyi nam mkha' la shel gyi mchod rten gda' ste / de la lta nus na bla ma gcig phyi nas ston te / bu med mngon zhen che / byung tshor gyi rtog pa la ngos bzung 'dug gam mi 'dug bltas na / rang grol gyi slob dpon gcig 'ong bar gda' ste / bu med yab  [5r]  yeb che / bya ba thong la lta stog thong dang / bu med yin yang grol te 'ong gis gsung ngo //

rong chung ma snying gi dkyil na 'od me long tsam gcig gda'o // de la lta nus na bla ma gcig nang nas 'char ste / bud med gti mug che / mdun gyi nam mkha' la shel gyi mchod rten gda' ste / de la lta nus na bla ma gcig phyi nas ston te / bud med mngon zhen che / byung tshor gyi rtog pa la ngos bzung 'dug <gam mi 'dug> bltas na // rang grol gyi slob dpon gcig 'ong bar gda' ste / bud med yab yeb che / bya ba thong la lta stog thong dang // bud med yin yang grol te 'ong gis gsung ngo //

dam pas ma jo glan chung ma la gdams pa / glan chung ma lta ba 'gyur med sdeng ldan yin no // rig pa gtsal phyung / bsgom pa smyug ma rang gnas yin no // rnam rtog 'gag du chug / spyod pa skyes grol dus mnyam yin no // nyon mongs pa brtsan chod gyis / 'bras bu sku gsum rang gnas yin no // rang la rang ngo rtogs / 

§§ dam pas ma jo glan chung ma la gdams pa / glan chung ma lta ba 'gyur med sdeng ldan yin no / rig pa gtsal [~rtsal] phyung / bsgom pa smyug ma rang gnas yin no /  rnam rtog 'gag du chug / spyod pa skyes grol dus mnyam yin no /  nyon mongs pa brtson chod gyis [fol. ME recto] 'bras bu sku gsum rang gnas yin no / rang la rang ngo rtogs / 

glan chung ma / tshe srog tswa kha'i zil pa 'gra ba la / bu med kun chos mi dran par / 'chi bas mi 'jigs pa dpe med / sgyu lus mi stag na bun 'dra ba la / g.yu nor go log la tshis byas nas lus la stag par 'dzin pa dpe med / mi stag pa 'chi bas 'jigs pa myur 'ong pa la / las dang bya ba la yen nas / dge sbyor le lo  [5v]  'jog pa dpe med / 'jig rten 'khor ba'i sdug bsngal mthong tsam na / zhen pa rang log du mi 'gro ba / bu tsha'i sdug bsngal la rgyun du mthong ba dpe med /  rdzogs pa'i sangs rgyas rang la yod pa la / bla ma'i gdam ngag mi nyan par / bu med kyis chos mi 'ong zer ba'i dpe med / de ltar ma byed par bu med la gros thob dang / glan chung ma gsung ngo //

glan chung ma / tshe srog tswa kha'i zil pa 'gra ba la / bud med kun chos mi dran par / 'chi bas mi 'jigs pa dpe med / sgyu lus mi stag na 'un [~na bun?] 'gra ba la / g.yu nor go log la tshis byas nas lus la stag par 'dzin pa dpe med // mi stag pa 'chi bas 'jigs pa myur du 'ong pa la / las dang bya ba la yen nas / dge sbyor le lo 'jog par dpe med / 'jig rten 'khor ba'i sdug bsngal mthong tsam na / zhen pa rang log du mi 'gro ba / bu tsha'i sdug bsngal la rgyan du mthong ba dpe med / sdzog pa'i sangs rgyas rang la yod pa la / bla ma'i gdams ngag mi nyan par / bud med kyis chos mi 'ong zer ba'i dpe med [fol. ME verso] de ltar ma byed par bud med la gros thob dang / glan chung ma gsung ngo //

dam pas ma jo zhang chung ma la gdams pa / lta ba rang lugs chen po yin no // gnas lugs rang la 'dug pa ltos cig / sgom pa rang shar rten med yin no //  rig pa rten med ltos cig / spyod pa ma 'gags zhen med yin no // chags zhen btsan thab[s] su chod cig / 'bras bu ye dag ye grol yin no / rig pa'i rten phur phyung cig / 

§§  dam pas ma jo zhang chung ma la gdams pa / lta ba rang lugs chen po yin no / gnas lugs rang la 'dug pa ltos cig / sgom pa rang shar rten med yin no / rig pa rten med ltos cig / spyod pa ma 'gags zhen med yin no /  chags zhen btsan thab su chod cig / 'bras bu ye dag ye grol yin no / rig pa'i rten phur phyung cig / 

zhang chung ma 'chi ba la dad pa'i bya ra [byar?] zhog / chi 'khar [~'chi khar] 'gyod pa'i zol sog spongs / dge sbyor la  [6r]  brtson grus kyi lcag gis brobs / nam 'chi cha med 'chi khar mi 'tsher rtsi byed gos / dam tshig la rang sems la spang po tshud / dmyal bar ltung dog med / nyon mongs pa rang dgar ma gtang rdzos thob dbang po tshud / bla  ma'i gdam ngag la the tshom ma za / yid ches mos gus kyi dbang po tshud / de ltar byas na 'gyod med bder bde phyi mar kyid de / grag mo tsho chos dang 'gal ba kha na mang bar khyed par mthong na / zhang chung ma bu med kyi khang dpon gyis dang ste / nyan pa dka' bar 'ong pa 'dra na gsung ngo // 

zhang chung ma 'chi ba la dad pa'i bya ra zhog / 'chi khar 'gyod pa'i zol sog spongs / dge sbyor la brtson 'grus kyi lcag gis brobs / nam 'chi cha med 'chi khar mi 'tsher rtsi byed gos / dam tshig la rang sems la spang po tshud / dmyal bar ltung dog med / nyon mongs pa rang dgar ma gtad rjes thob dbang po tshud / bla ma'i gdam ngag la the tshom ma za / yid ches mos gus kyi dpang po tshud / de ltar byas na 'gyod med bder bde [~'di?] phyi mar [s]kyid de / [fol. HUM recto] grag mo tsho chos dang 'gal ba kha na mang bar khyed par mthong na / zhang chung ma bud med kyi khad dpon gyis dang ste / nyan pa dka' bar 'ong ba 'gra na gsung ngo //  //

bu[d] med bdun la gdams pa cho lu'i skor rdzogs s.ho // dge'o // 

bud med la gdams pa cho lu'i skor // rdzogs sho // phyi rab rjes 'jug la phan par gyur cig / nyang chen po'i phyag yig steng nas / ston seng ges bris / cig zhu /

( • | • | • )

Appendix One: Titles in the Tsakaling Manuscript Set

Tsakaling Manuscript (Tsakka glang snag tshang),

Tsakaling Thorbu 005. I don’t believe this has been made available on the website of the Endangered Languages Archive, at least not yet.

KA   Dam pa'i sku'i zhus lan me long rnam par snang ba.  fols. 1-39.  

Col. [39r.3]: e ma 'dzam gling skyes mchog rgya gar rin po che'i / sku'i zhus lan me long rnam par snang / bdud rtsi lta bu dri med zab don 'di / snying po shes rab skal ldan dbang phyug zhes /dus gsum mtshan 'dzin gangs khrod ras pa yi / phyug dpa'i steng nas rgya'i rnal 'byor pa / chu sbrul lug gi zla ba'i yar ngo la / gnam mchog seng ge'i gzims khang chen por bris / mkha' mnyam tshe cig sangs rgyas thob par shog.

BAG [? 'ig?  Vak!]   Dam pa'i gsung gi zhus lan rnam par dag pa.  fols. 1-17.  

GHUN [Guṇa]  Dam pa'i yon tan gyi zhus lan shing lo rgyas pa.  fols. 1-36.  

Col. [fol. 35v.5]: dris lan thun tshogs kyi dum bu zhes bya ba las / yon tan gyi zhus lan / dpag bsam shing gi 'dab ma nam mkha' la rgyas pa lta bu'i gdams pa / bla ma byang chub sems dpa' kun dgas zhus te / byin brlab kyi gnas mchog dpal gyi ding rir yi ger bkod pa // rdzogs so // lan cig zhu dag /

KARMA Dam pa'i 'phrin las kyi zhus lan / gags sel sgron me.  fols. 1-19.  

— Bla ma brgyud pa'i rim pa'o / bla ma brgyud pa'i rim pa'o.  fols. 1-9.

KA  Gnad kyi zhus lan man ngag 'dus pa me long rnam par gsal ba.  1-18.  

KA Zhus lan rnad sel rnad kyi sgron me [Zhus lan gnad sel gnad kyi sgron me].  fols. 1-24.   [photo no. 93]

OM  Dam pas bu med bdun la gdam pa'i chol lu'i skor [Dam pas bud med bdun la gdams pa'i cho lu'i skor]. fols. 1-6 (in place of fol. nos. we get the six syllable mantra).  

Col. [6r.2]: bud med la gdams pa cho lu'i skor / rdzogs so // phyi rabs rjes 'jug la phan par gyur cig / nyang chen po'i phyag yig steng nas / ston seng ges bris / cig zhu.  NOTE: Cho lu'i skor is the name of the original collection of Kunga.

— Rje dam pa'i skye bdun rnam thar ma la ngo mtshar gtam bdun dang bcas pa.  fols. ka-nga [using letters in place of numbers].  

—  Brul tsho drug pa'i lo rgyus.  fols. 1-8.  [at photo no. 129!]

— Gcod brul tsho drug pa.  fos. 9-32.  

Col. [fol. 32.6]: zhes pa gcod kyi gdams pa / rje dam pa rgya gar gyis / yar lungs kyi smag ra ser po can la gnang pa'o // iti / dang po gdams pa 'di la dpe med / phyis [32v] mdzad par gda'o //  // [an interesting lineage follows, in smaller letters]

— 'Dzam gling skyes mchog rgya gar rin po che'i thugs kyi zhal chems pad ma rtseg pa'o.  fols. 1-9.  

— Zhi byed snga phyi bar gsum gyi dkar chag.  fols. 1-10  [photo no. 155]

— Dam pa la pha rol tu phyin pa bcu'i go nas bstod pa.  fols. 1-3.

— Dam pa'i gsung ['Dzam gling mi'i skyes mchog gsung yin no].  fols. 1-3.

— Dam pa'i zhal thems bcu gnyis.  fols. 1-6. Is this a version of the Zhal chems?

— Brul tsho drug pa'i zhal gdams.  fols. 33-37.  

— Dam pa'i gsung rtsad po la gsungs pa.  fols. 1-4 (words in place of numbers).  Text granted by Rten ne (1127-1221) to Myang Ral pa can at Smra'o cog.  

•

Appendix Two: Titles in the Drametsé Manuscript Set

EAP105/1: Drametse Monastery Collection >

EAP105/1/3: gSung thor bu - Miscellaneous titles >

EAP105/1/3/72: dam pa'i zhus len me long rnam par snang ba

http://eap.bl.uk/database/overview_item.a4d?catId=189691;r=12237

KA - Dam pa'i sku'i zhus lan me long rnam par snang ba.  fols. 1-34 (photos 1-23).  

KHA - Bla ma brgyud pa'i rim pa.  fols. 1-9.  

Cololophon at fol. 9r.1:  i ti / nad pa la byin brlabs byed na dam po gtor ma gtang / de nas skyabs 'gro sems skyed bya / de nas gsol ba btab / de nas nad pa mi dmigs / nad mi migs 'dre mi migs / byin brlabs mi dmigs par stong pa nyid do // gang na ba'i sar shing 'am rdo'am gang yang rung ba cig gis cab / cab bya'o / des bzhi bar 'gyuro // i ti /

GA - Brul tsho drug pa'i lo rgyus.  fols. 1-8.

NGA - Gnad kyi zhus lan man ngag 'dus pa me long rnam par gsal ba.  fols. 1-18.  

Colophon fol. 18v.5: gnad kyi zhus lan man ngag 'dus pa me long rnam par gsal ba zhes bya ba / sdzogs s.ho //  //

CA - Zhi byed snga phyi bar gsum gyi dkar chag.  fols. 1-8 (but there are 2 marked fol. 2).  

CHA - Zhus lan rnad sel rnad kyi sgron me.  fols. 1-16.  

Colophon fol. 16r.1: rje btsun dam pa rgya gar gyi zhal nas legs par gsungs pa / rnad sel rnad kyi sgron me ces bya ba / bka' rgya dang bcas pa'i zab don rdzogs so / /

JA - Dam pa'i gsung gi zhus lan rnam par dag pa.  fols. 1-18.  

Cololophon fol. 16v.3: gtsung gi zhus lan rnam par dag pa zhes bya ba khyad nas 'phags pa rdzogs so //

NYA - Dam pa'i 'phrin las kyi zhus lan / gags sel sgron me.  fols. 1-18.  

Colophon fol. 18v.2: gags sel 'phrin las kyi zhus pa lan dang bcas pa rdzogsho / / mangga lam //

TA - Dam pa la pha rol tu phyin pa bcu'i [s]go nas bstod pa.  fols. 1-4.

THA - Dam pa'i gsung bzhugs s.ho / 'dzam gling mi'i skyes mchog gsung yin no.  fols. 1-3.  

Colophon: rje dam pa rgya gar gyis bon po khra tshang 'brug la gnang pa'o // a ti /   A yantra of letters is illus. on a following folio.

DA - Dam pa'i zhal thems bcu gnyis.  [Zhal chems?]  fols. 1-5.  

Colophon: rje btsun dam pa rin po che smon lam bdag gi pha mas gtso byas khams gsum 'gro ba rigs drug sems can thams cad kyi ji ltar gsung ba bzhin grub par gyur cig / bdag sogs dam pa'i drung du skye bar shog /

NA - Gcod brul tsho drug pa.  fols. 1-23.  Precepts given by Dam pa Rgya gar to Smag ra Ser po can [Sma ra Ser po] of Yar lungs.

PA - 'Dzam gling skyes mchog rgya gar rin po che'i thugs kyi zhal chems padma brtsegs pa.  fols. 1-8.  This is the well-known Ding ri brgya rtsa.

PHA - Dam pa'i yon tan gyi zhus lan shing lo rgyas pa.  fols. 1-36 (the order of fols. 12 & 13 is switched).  As you may see in the listing that follows, some of these answers were to questions asked of Padampa by women.

10r.1 rgya'i sgom ma [~rgya sgom ma]. 10r.5 ston ma dar rgyan.  11v.1 'bro lo tsha [~'bro lo tshâ ba].  11v.3 bla ma ram dge ba'i seng ge. 11v.5 rje khri pa. 15v.5 te tshems chung pa.  16r.3 dam pa phyar chung.  16r.6 ston ma byang chub dge.  17v.2 bla ma grub chung pa.  18v.1 ston pa chos kyis seng ge [~chos kyi seng ge].   22r.3 yon bdag mo rgyan ne.  24v.5 ma jo snang gsal.  26r.1 bla ma zhang gsor 'od [~gser 'od?].  

Colophon fol. 36r.5: dris lan thun tshogs kyi dum bu zhes bya ba las / yon tan gyi zhus lan dpag bsam shing gi 'dab ma mkha' la rgyas pa lta bu'i gdams pa / bla ma byang chub sems dpa' kun dgas zhus te  byin brlabs kyi gnas mchog [36v] dpal gyi ding rir yi ger bkod pa rdzogs so / /

BA - Dam pa'i gsung rtsad po la gsungs pa gcig.  fols. 1-4.  Includes a story about how the king of Purang by the name of Brtsad po Khri btsan battled the King of Bri sha (Bru sha!). They fired a catapult at the palace when a nâga tree got broken. The king came to Padampa complaining of being troubled by spirits giving him leprosy (read nad mdze in place of nas 'dze).  

[4v] Dam pa Phyar chung put this text into writing. This ends the Gdams pa Cho lu'i skor. The teacher Grub thob Dngos grub granted these teachings to Myang Ral pa can. It was scribed at Smra'o cog po. It’s especially remarkable for having the giving [to the spirits] as food practice (gcod kyi gzan skyur), a practice not known to the ZC.

MA - Dam pas bu med bdun la gdams pa'i chol lus skor [Bud med bdun la gdams pa'i cho lu'i skor].  fols. 1-6.  

§   §   §

This blog is dedicated to both my sister and her happiness on her birthday.

Recovered Connections 2 - Interdependent Emergence of Tibetan Buddhist Schools

• Continued from Recovered Connections 1.

It is surprising to see just how prominent the Zhijé school is within the early Matho fragments. Fewer are identifiable with other schools like Sakya, Kagyu and even Nyingma.  Bon does show up twice, but there isn’t even one bit of a text I’ve noticed that can be assigned directly to a Bon religious source. This may indicate that the pre-Mongol* religious situation, in this part of the Plateau at least, was not like we have been thinking it was.

(*Please don’t misunderstand me, I mean by pre-Mongol the era before the Mongols appeared on the world stage [the Xixia invasion of 1205] and in just a couple of decades took over the better part of Eurasia.)

These other schools can wait until later. First, I’d like to direct attention to the Padampa and Zhijé texts. I estimate for now that there are about 25 such Zhijé fragments among the Matho, and will not try to cover them all just yet (some of them will feature in future blogs no doubt).  Right now I will limit myself to a question about early Zhijé art in Ladakh, more on Padampa’s women disciples,* and early lay religious movements: 

The cane flute in Padampa icons

Have a look at this photo, see how Padampa in a relatively large size (compared to nearby painted figures on the robes) is hovering there between the shins of the Bodhisattva of Wisdom and Science. Above him are the robes populated with images of the Great Siddhas (rather generic and difficult to identify individually, as Rob Linrothe has noted in his study).  He has a meditation belt around his knees and his characteristic white blanket loosely hanging behind him, otherwise unclothed.  Difficult to make out what he has in his right hand, but in his left he is holding a kind of white tube pointed downward.

I could show a lot of Ladakhi examples, for instance in the caves of Saspola, and in other sites in Alchi. Earlier Ladakhi sites all tend to have Padampa holding the white tube.  

Click here

It was Sarah Harding who noticed the connection and sent me the text, a Shangpa Kagyü text that she was working on. Tibeto-logicians should go here to view the text, while I suppose the rest of you will have to go to her new book that I don’t yet have on hand. The resulting blog can be seen just above.

So after those earlier revelations about the Shangpa connection had been sealed and settled, or so I thought, I was shocked and perplexed to find just a few years later this Matho fragment with the word “flute” right there on the first line. In the continuation you can see that the wording and the practice are both parallel with the Shangpa Kagyu text, one associated with Sukhasiddhi that Sarah Harding published very recently. So as it turns out we don’t need to imagine that Shangpa Kagyupas were active in Ladakh. This purely Zhijé text existing in Matho quite early on can explain the iconography without their help.

This hardly effects the other points made in the earlier blog. On the Sumtsek temple in general, I most highly recommend the central part of the following book: Peter van Ham with Amy Heller and Likir Monastery, Alchi, Treasure of the Himalayas: Ladakh's Buddhist Masterpiece, Hirmer (Munich 2018). However, there is hardly anything said there about the Padampa painting in question (most of it on page 53), and it differs profoundly with what I would say. For one thing, I don’t believe it is a later addition motivated by Drigungpa interests. I do believe it reflects a very early (ca. 12th century) iconography of Padampa, even if it may have benefitted from some later touchups. While Padampa was still alive there was no concept of any group of precisely 84 Mahâsiddhas, that only started to emerge as far as Tibet is concerned in the mid decades of the 12th century. Still, there are a lot of reasons why he might be associated with or even included within that group, so his portrait is by no means irrelevant in the place where it is found, it is hardly out of place. Of course, there will have to be more discussions on these points, but the newly emerging literary evidence practically hands us the reason why the painting is where it is on a silver platter.

Yuthokpa, HAR no. 185

Teachings found in the Yuthok Nyingtig may also have something about healing nectar being transferred by means of a flute.  Here in this slide you see two flute-playing goddesses dancing on either side of Yuthokpa the Elder. The cycle of medical teachings would have been emerging just around the first decades of the 13th century. We see opening up yet another avenue for  investigation even if we won’t go any further in that direction right now.

Carla Gianotti’s book on the subject of Padampa’s women disciples.
In Italian, an English version ought to be forthcoming.

Padampa’s women disciples

One of the biggest surprises in the Matho was to find fragments of a version of Kunga’s text on Padampa’s women disciples. Owing to its importance and difficulties this deserves more research and, before too much time goes by, an independent blog or two of its own. I mention it here because it connects to the discussion that lies ahead of us.

Here you can see a sample of the fragment about the women, women who went on to be spiritual leaders after scattering all over the Himalayan plateau in the early 12th century.

Lay religious movements

To begin with what may or may not be a remarkable point, these lay religious movements appear to have left hardly a trace if any in the Matho and other caches.

Over 25 years ago I did my best to find out about what may be the most obscure religious movements in 11th to 12th century Tibetan history, or in all of Tibetan history for that matter. That means I was keen to find something about them in the Four Caches.

The sources we do have are scattered and difficult to piece together. The earliest of the them that supplies a general coverage, and by far their most sympathetic witness, is in the appendix to the Chöjung history by Nyangrel Nyima Özer.  

In this slide I’ve made a kind of composite of various sources, all charted out in detail in the Kailash essay. No particular source has everything, but there is a great deal of overlap. You can find women leaders associated with Padampa among the Four Children, the Six Yogis, and particularly the Four Tirthika Dakinis. It is said the latter were originally teaching something contrary to Buddhism, but were then in some way corrected or converted by Padampa. But these are later and very possibly motivated narratives I hesitate to accept as historical reporting.

The first one listed, Karudzin, is mentioned in a couple of 13th century sources, such as Sakya Pandita and the ca. 1260’s author of the Single Intention (Dgongs-gcig Yig-cha) associated with the Drigung Kagyü.  

The second one, Sangyé Kargyal, was said to be a heretical teacher in the form of a spirit pretending to be a Buddha. Despite his initial success in winning a following, he was brought to ground by the Great Translator Rinchenzangpo. You learn about him in the Great Translator's biography, but he is only rarely mentioned otherwise.

Latö Marpo, or Dampa Marpo, is a particularly interesting figure because of his role in popularizing the recitation of the Mani Mantra. He is mentioned a little more often than the preceding ones.

But let’s stop there, I don’t have time to go into the details or supply anything like full coverage right now.  Just to say that I have long been on the lookout for any kind of written trace of them, and particularly useful would be any type of self-representation. This is because all we have available otherwise are external testimonies of varying levels of hostility often with the misunderstandings and the polemical distortions that are likely to accompany that emotion. So far I haven’t noticed anything obvious about them in the Four Caches, but I suppose this doesn’t have to mean much, particularly if these movements were not producing literature, a real possibility.

One other matter of considerable interest is that the Matho cache includes fragments from some relatively rare Padampa transmissions (see the chart above for the overall picture). Of course most fragments are from the Kunga (བྱང་སེམས་ཀུན་དགའ་) lineage belonging to the Later Transmission. Still, Middle Transmissions texts related to both the Rma and Skam lineages can be identified among them as well.*

(*The author of the root verses of the long Deyu history, the so-called “Khepa Deyu” [as distinguished from the Deyu José] that I spent 12 years of my life translating belonged to a third major lineage of the Middle Transmission, the So.)

Other religious schools

I’ll close by saying not nearly enough about other schools represented in the Matho.  Firstly the Kagyü: Specifically Kagyü texts are decidedly less well represented than the Zhijé.  That fact already gives some cause for reflection, but these were days before the flood of Kagyü contemplatives in the Kailash area that began to form a steady stream late in the life of Jigten Gönpo (འབྲི་གུང་ཆོས་རྗེ་འཇིག་རྟེན་མགོན་པོ་རིན་ཆེན་དཔལ་, 1143-1217 CE). It is by now well known among Ladakh historians that the Drigungpa school held prominence in Ladakh before it was virtually eclipsed by the Drukpa, as it is today.

The split between the Drigung and Taglung lineages, both of them Kagyü lineages, would not have taken place if it hadn’t been for a dispute about where donated books were supposed to be kept (“The Book Moving Incident of 1209”). Again, we would invoke the same passage at the end of the history by Nyangrel we mentioned before. Of course it is quite strange to our contemporary minds to see both the Zhijé teachings of Padampa and the Kagyu school as a whole placed together with other popular laypeople-based movements. 

When the Nyangral appendix was written in around 1200, at most one or two decades later, the public consciousness of Kagyu subsect identities was at its beginning. When Nyangrel discusses the Kagyü, for most part he just lists a wide variety of students and students-of-students of Milarepa. The only distinction he observes is in recognizing the existence of a “Tshal Circle” and a “Tshur Circle.” That means, of course, what we would call the Tselpa Kagyü, a lineage instituted by Zhang Yudrakpa Tsondrüdragpa, and the Karma Kagyü (with its main monastery at Mtshur-phu) instituted by The First Black Hat incarnate.  I believe that by the term circle he is referring to two mother monasteries while intending to include smaller affiliated retreat caves, temples and monasteries. 

Up to this point none of the eight subschools of the Kagyü that split off from Pagmodrupa were known, meaning to say there was no public awareness of any Drukpa, Drigung, or Taglung Kagyü existing in that time, not yet.  And this is borne out by the contents of the Matho and the other caches. We do find a text associated with Pagmodrupa, and a mention of his name in a small birchbark fragment you will see in a moment, still no inkling of any identifiable subsect of the Kagyü.

The Pagmodrupa-related text is the one illustrated at the end of the published Khyunglung facsimiles, a single folio with atrociously abnormal spelling, but at least it has colophon information. Because of this colophon we are tempted to move the date of the Khyunglung chorten closure to a century later than the others, sometime up to as late as 1300. It will repay closer study, as if that needed saying. I do find it remarkable that, in all the Four Caches, this would be the only Cutting/Gcod-related text.*

(*But then it’s peculiar, when I searched in “Mon-ban and List” I found that teaching entitled Ku-su-lu’i Tshogs-gsog has a lineage through Atisha that does not include Pagmodrupa. I must search also in The Record of Teachings Heard of the Great Fifth Dalai Lama.)

Pagmodrupa (note the spelling Phag-mo-grub-pa!) makes his appearance in the birchbark fragment you see just above.  This doesn’t mean much for our dating of the manuscripts. Of more significance is the absence of the names of any of his disciples in the all Four Caches, with the one exception of the Khyunglung colophon we just mentioned. The odd thing is that this Khyunglung colophon title does after all belong to a known title of a work of Pagmodrupa, one found in his Collected Works (as was normal in those days, his was a Kambum, not a Sungbum), and that work is not about the elephant-hook-equipped Mahākāla as the published version says. This is incorrect. It’s about the practice of Cutting usually believed to have been originated with Machig Labdrön.* But really, this is the one and only text, in all of the caches, on the subject of Cutting practice, and it dates later than all the rest. That could mean something eventually, once it is found to lend its weight to a larger discussion. Our most significant point at the moment is that a prominent Kagyüpa gets to be the author of that one-and-only Cutting text, and he was not a member of any discrete Cutting school.**

(*I do think regarding her as originator makes sense so as long as we don’t allow ourselves to get too doctrinaire about it. Nothing is really ever the work of a single genius working alone, regardless of what some hopeless romantics like to imagine. **More discussion is appended below.)

Now what about the school purportedly founded by the Noble Lord Atisha of Bengal?  The Kadam school can be understood to have its beginning during Atisha’s visit to Tibet of 1042, but came to be known by this name only some decades later. Let’s just say there are four texts that are clearly and unambiguously enclosed within the Kadam realm. At the same time there  any number of scriptural and Indic commentarial texts that were supposed to be studied by Kadampas.* We could say almost the same about the Sakya school, that there are many scriptures and commentaries that Sakyapas may have used, but how many texts could I find that are directly related to the Sakya or to Sakya figures? Not one.**

(*It seems the name of Kadam only became widely known as the name of a distinct school in around 1075, while public knowledge is quite well demonstrated later on, in dialogues that took place during the two decades Padampa spent in Tingri. **Leaving the Four Caches aside for the moment, this silence might yet contribute to a future assessment on the pre-1200 level of prominence, even while their post-1200 prominence is not in the least in question. While there are clear signs that Sakya figures in the 12th century, in particular Dragpa Gyaltsen, were aware of the Kagyü school, the reverse doesn’t seem to be the case, and we ought to look into this. Well, on second thought, what I just said is contradicted by Pagmodrupa, who studied Lamdré with an early Sakya master before meeting Gampopa...)

I should go on and on to speak about the Nyingma content in the Four Caches, but these have featured already in some earlier blogs, so I’ll send you back to them* if you want to hear more and we’ll say farewell for now.

(*The All Making King’s Earliest Fragment.  

The Only Terma in the Matho Termas.)

Well, sorry to hold you at the door just as you were ready to leave, but I suppose I ought to come to some kind of conclusion. I believe we are still far from understanding the era of Tibetan history that preceded the Mongol conquest of Eurasia. That holds true for its religious history, as well as other areas of research. That this time was crucial for the emergence of most of the sectarian affiliations known to us today goes without saying. But there were also movements afoot in those times, of various kinds, that have faded or disappeared from our history books. And these movements and supposed “foundings” were interlinked in ways that slowly come into view. 

That we now have these Four Caches of manuscripts with a quite well established cutoff date of 1200 opens a lot of new avenues of research that could bring much needed light. I realize that some will want to call the result “revisionist” history, so I would like to remind them in advance that history has always been revising itself. It is the history of that revisionism that we most need. Keener knowledge of it could enable us to see with greater clarity, to see through it and achieve greater surety about events and processes that took place in their own time and in their own terms, not ours. We would make ourselves dictators if we pretended to set the past in stone as a monument to our own self-serving concepts.

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For a limited time only, you might be able to find a video of most of the talk here (the opening words were not recorded). The oral and written versions are definitely not identical:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fQpmJcKfUgP1RpRAcp6aqVfXzkOUg4CX/view

• Appendix on the Problematic Pagmodrupa Text in the Khyunglung Cache

Mgon po gru gug skor gyi yig rnying thor bu is the title given at p. 211 of the published book in the upper right hand margin (gru gug should have been spelled gri gug). Here we find a single folio, but it appears as if it could be a complete text, or at least the final folio of one.

At p. 212 line 9 (or 213 line 19) the following title:  Ku-su-lu'i Tshogs-gsog. I found among the works of Phag-mo-gru-pa a text with exactly this title:  Ku-su-lu'i Tshogs, or, Ku-su-lu'i Tshogs-gsog (just search BDRC for it).  The texts need comparing closely, as I see parallels in the last parts.

Colophon: phung po gzan du sgyur ba’i mchod pa phag mo grub pas spa’ ldan lum / gnyan sgom ras pa la [/] des ya’ chung gseng ge rgyal tshom la bla ma bdag la... I’d say the author is tracing the teachings that came from Phag-mo-gru-pa up through his own teacher named Seng-ge-rgyal-mtshan (?). What looks like Dpal-ldan Lum might actually be Dpal-ldan Ldum, and therefore this person: Chos-rje Ldum, a disciple of Phag-mo-gru-pa. See Blue Annals, p. 563.  Probably equals Chos-rje Bum known elsewhere. I couldn’t find any Gnyan-sgom-ras-pa, although one named Gnyan-ras-pa or Gnyan-ras Dge-’dun-bum was teacher of The Third Black Hat Karmapa incarnate (1284-1339), so this would bring us up to around 1300! In any case such a date would make sense for the activities of a spiritual grandchild of Phag-mo-gru-pa.

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Email from John Bellezza (May 3, 2024):

Dear Dan, I don't want to be a bug-bear but when you compare the Gathang Bumpa mss. with the Toling ms., which I just downloaded, there are significant differences in the scripts used. On paleographic grounds, I think this comparative exercise justifies dating the GB mss. to before the 11th century. One must do the legwork still, but grammatical and orthographic analysis are likely to bear this out too.

Ph Kh

My answer (May 4, 2024):

Dear J, Yes, I know those captchas are often impossible even for young people with sharp eyes, but I have to allow them, otherwise we’d be swamped with enhancement and disfunction ads. I don't myself doubt the Gathang could very well go back to the late 10th century as physical manuscripts, I just don't know. The one thing I am relatively certain about is that all of the Four Caches were closed at about the same time in around 1200 (the Khyunglung perhaps a century later, but anyway). By Toling I take it you mean the history book, since the cache as a whole is not yet out there for downloading. Or is it?  If you think about the Matho, there are quite a lot of them that based on their content could be dated at earliest to mid-11th or mid-12th centuries. That would go for all the Zhijé fragments that had to have been inscribed during the long 12th century, definitely not before the 12th.  The history book from Toling, too, by its content, has to be mid- or late-12th-century (detailed discussion in D. Pritzker's dissertation).  All that is fine by me, since the 12th century is the very time I'm interested in knowing more about.

Yours, D.

A video on the Gatang cache:  

If there were a bibliography, I should have included a 2019 video of a lecture in the Khyentse Lecture series by Toni Huber of Humboldt University entitled “Recently Discovered Ancient Tibetan Manuscripts and What They Reveal about Old Cultures of Ritual and Some Tibetan Buddhist Innovations.” Tap on the title and you will be there.