Tibetan Histories, a New Website

Warning: The new edition of Tibetan Histories is on its way very soon. I hope it can be a freely downloadable ebook.  So please don't be surprised if one or two of the links supplied here don't work for you. New links will be provided when the 2nd edition goes up, I promise you. (Dec. 22, 2020)

I'm tickled to announce that the 2nd edition is now up for download at BDRC website. See the announcement by clicking here. (Feb. 10, 2021)

 

I was struggling with it until just a few minutes ago, but now I believe it is all there. I opened one of those new websites that Google supplies for free. As today is the eve of Saga Dawa I wanted to release it on this most auspicious day celebrating the Buddha. The website is the same kind I used for Tibetan Vocabulary, so there weren’t many surprises. Only this time I believe I succeeded in getting it all in one piece, without dividing it up.

What did surprise me on the day I first initiated the website was a visit from a very colorful bird with a distinctive song that descends like it’s running down a long staircase of sound, a Bee Eater. I had scarcely seen this rara avis before, and never outside my window. At first I thought I was seeing a Kingfisher, so I had to hit the reference books. Since then I’ve been hearing its song from time to time, unable to see where the sound is coming from. This could answer a question some people are bound to ask about the header photo you will see if you go to visit the new website.

While everything is already there, there are some more cosmetic types of formatting fixes that still need doing. So you might come back and have a look later on. I plan to work on it from now on online, rather than offline, so it’s likely to evolve by starts and jumps over the years that remain to me. I especially hope to integrate the add-in sections (marked off by bullets as you will see) into the main entries. That will take some time and effort.

Meanwhile I trust I can trust you to pass along the link to anyone you might think is interested in this kind of thing. I have a hope that non-specialists will read the newly added introductory survey of Tibetan historical literature, aimed at anyone who is curious enough to want an overview of what’s out there. I should have written this for the published book that came out over two decades ago. The late Anthony Aris wrote a clause in the contract so that the ownership of the copyright returned to my own hands in 2017, so no problems there. I don’t imagine the introduction by his brother Michael Aris was part of the bargain, so I haven’t included it.

Well, here it is. If you have comments and suggestions, I’d be glad to hear them in the comments section. If you don’t want your comment to be posted, just say so and I won’t post it. Or, if you know my email address you can write to me that way. So, anyway, here you go, just tap on it a time or two for quick results.

Tibetan Histories

https://sites.google.com/view/tibetanhistories/home

WARNING! These links are now dead. Go to the note at the beginning of the blog.

• I've sometimes dreamed about making available a Tibetan-letter version of it — that would make it simpler for many Tibetans to use — and had a few nibbles from interested persons. I'm physically no longer able to do all the keyboard work it would entail, so if you have any ideas let me know. An unrelated dream: I've thought to make this into a website with links directly to online resources, in particular texts of the works that are cataloged in it.

PS: I've stopped trying to edit online, but I do commit myself to 
making it into a real book (or e-book) during the year 2020.

Not a Padampa

As we’re prone to do when trapped in our rooms with nowhere to go, I was wearing out my eyesight for a good cause browsing through some recently posted photos of Tibetan art works at Himalayan Art Resources website. If you are reading Tibeto-logic you no doubt already know that HAR is the best place in the whole universe to see Tibetan art. No museum can compete with it, not even the Newark Museum. I was thrilled to see what did at first seem to me to be a brassy image of our hero Padampa. Have a look at it yourself by tapping on those purple colored words (or are they orange, you decide). I mean, it has one hand raised above the head, the other holding what could very well be a bag, and we know that Padampa’s “Interdependence Bag” does at times occur as part of his iconography, even in his left hand as we see here. And Padampa was well known for practicing yogic gazes out into space, something perhaps indicated by the way the right hand is raised above the head. But when I looked at the back side of the lotus throne, I soon changed my mind. There we can read a inscription very clearly: 

grub thob gling la na mo, or Praise to the Siddha Ling.  

That means Lingrepa Pema Dorjé. On him have a look at the biographical sketch at Treasury of Lives. He may be regarded as the founder of the Drukpa Kagyü order, even if there has been some equivocation on that point. And that means the school affiliation of the image supplied on the website requires emending, too. Lingrepa is normally depicted in his untamable Siddha aspect, and the presence of a bag may just be telling us he was a wandering yogi, one who packed a bit of food for along the way, as yogis had been doing in India and Tibet all along, not just Padampa. I should look into this question, but right off the top of my head I just don’t know of any affinities Lingrepa may have had for Padampa or the Zhijé School. I do know that Lingrepa was often compared to the Indian Mahâsiddha Saraha, the one who made arrows.

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Read more

A fine new essay about Lingrepa has appeared. You may be able to locate a free copy of it on the internet, if not right at this moment in the near future. Here are the details: Marco Walther, “The Development of the Biographies of Gling ras pa Padma rdo rje (1128-1188),” Bulletin of Tibetology, vol. 51 nos. 1-2 (2015), pp. 99-113. It has a bibliography that includes earlier writings you may want to look into.

I guess I had a point to make about iconography here, and never actually made it. Padampa appears in many forms besides the better known ones (try looking here). There are quite a few un-inscribed portrait images that I would regard — because of a cluster of traits associated with him — to be what I call possible Padampas. This image could at first glance qualify as one of them, no doubt, but when we turn it over and find the label we realize our mistake.*

(*We might want to make an argument that labels carved in stone or etched in metal are always correct, but nowadays with the stakes high there is really no limit to the things business people might do to increase the value of their pieces. That said, I hasten to add that there is not any reason to think that is happening in this instance. After all, those particular iconographic features could just as well apply to Lingrepa as far as we can know, and anyway no particular advantage could be expected by altering the identity of the person portrayed. If anything, a depiction of Padampa would have more, and not less, value than one of Lingrepa.)

PS (March 24, 2020)

Since posting this I thought to take a closer look at other Padampa images that are featured on this HAR webpage. I was surprised to see a special category of Padampas in the [right hand] “salute gesture.” This does of course include the very image that contains the inscription identifying it as Lingrepa, and to me this casts in doubt the inclusion of this entire group among the Padampas. Why not call them all Lingrepas on the strength of the inscriptional evidence? Still, there are one or two examples in this group that have enough Padampa characteristics I would still want to call them possible Padampas, this one in particular, although the right hand really isn’t raised high enough to be in the salute gesture. This same one has been published a few times, as for example in D. Weldon & J.C. Singer, The Sculptural Heritage of Tibet, Laurence King (London 1999), plate 31 on pp. 154-55, where it is labelled as “Yogin.” This yogin, along with the nude image that once belonged to  R. H. Ellsworth, I regard as possible or possibly even probable Padampas, as I’ve argued before in the case of the Ellsworth.

PPS (March 26, 2020)

Just to add perplexity to complication, try this experiment. Go to the HAR website’s page about a thangka with Pemakarpo as its central figure. Scroll down the page until you find a detail with the added label “Ling Repa.” Tap it for a closer view (or go here). If it didn’t hit you like a hammer right away, let me tell you, this is a perfectly normal Zhijé form of Padampa, with the mirroring hand gestures unique to Padampa, the loose blanket around the lower part of the body, the earrings, everything. In my mind this is not just a possible Padampa, it’s a definite one. If you would like to have a closer look at the painting as a whole, you can see what I believe are biographical scenes from the life of Pemakarpo, the Fourth Drukchen showing his meditations and visionary experiences. One of these scenes shows what I imagine is the Drukchen himself in a posture of veneration beneath what would have to be a vision of Padampa's presence. Unless there is a label saying Lingrepa somewhere there, and I couldn’t find one, I think that is what we are seeing. Oh, and one more thing, unlike Lingrepa, we know that Pemakarpo had Zhijé teachings, and he composed a respectably lengthy text on the subject (details here).

HAR 65368, detail

PPPS (April 11, 2020)

Here’s another bit of fun with iconography I’d like to share and discuss if you have time for it. Have a look at this all-too-short video that informs us that the thangka, while bearing characteristic marks of an old (perhaps pre-Mongol period) painting, nevertheless has to be dated two centuries later because the curator identified a figure in its upper register as being Pema Lingpa (1450-1521 CE). It’s true that Pema Lingpa is often depicted this way, with an Orgyan hat like that of Guru Rinpoche and the longlife vase held in the palms of hands in meditation gesture, just as you see here. But notice right away in the first seconds of the video the arrow pointing to something the unnamed scholars supposedly missed, an inscription that indeed reads when we standardize the Tibskrit spellings Puṇyamaṅgalaṃ. Okay, but this is a Sanskritized 'name mantra' of a Tibetan (as we can see in the portrait itself) who would have been named Bsod-nams-bkra-shis.  The name Bsod-nams-bkra-shis does not as far as anyone seems to know belong to any set of names given to Pema Lingpa.  We know it *does* belong to a number of other people. So answer this puzzle: Given the fact that it fits the iconography and looks like Pema Lingpa, the label tells us it must be someone else. Is someone overlooking something?*

*(Just now I noticed that HAR has posted a version of this same painting with added English identifications. Have a look.)

Finally, if you went to HAR and liked what you saw there, you might consider a donation by looking at its Go Fund Me page. It's just a suggestion, I mean it's no business of mine what you do with your hard earned money or your ill-gotten gains. Whichever.

A Short Survey of the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path

I found this going though old papers I hadn’t had access to for a few decades. I was initially a little puzzled what it was. I did recognize it as a draft translation. I worked on a lot of those back in the days. But nowadays with such easy ways of searching things out on the internet, it wasn’t long before I was able to tell you it is the beginning of a translation of a work by Śākyaśrībhadra.*

I submit it to your critical eye with the hope that humanity will take advantage of their involuntary isolation to reconsider the wrong paths that have been taken in recent years and contemplate ways to achieve a better future for every last sentient suffering being.

(*Apart from the title itself, the most important clue was the name Byams-dpal. That’s a slightly shortened version of the name of Khro-phu Lo-tsā-ba Byams-pa-dpal (1173‑1225 or 1236?). He was the one responsible for inviting Śākyaśrī to Tibet in the first place.)

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For a biography of Śākyaśrī by Alex Gardner, see this page in Treasury of Lives. When he died in 1225 or 1226 or 1227 his age was either 64 or 99, it isn’t sure which. I hope you can enlighten us.

For a comparative edition of the Tibetan text, see this TBRC link.  This was not the version used for the translation you see here, something that at this point I have no easy way of knowing. Śākyaśrī arrived in Tibet in the company of nine or so “lesser pundits,” among them the famous Vibhūticandra, and he departed via western Tibet to Kashmir in 1218. Here are perhaps the main works written in languages other than Tibetan about his life, in case you are interested to learn more.

•     H. Hadano, Kāśmīra‑mahāpaṇḍita "Śākyaśrībhadra," Tibetto Kinsei Bukkyôshi Josetsu, Hadano Hakuyū Tibetto Indogaku Shūsei (Kyoto 1986), pp. 239‑258.  Originally published in Bunka, vol. 20, no. 5 (1957).

•   David Jackson, Two Biographies of Śākyaśrībhadra: The Eulogy by Khro‑phu Lo‑tsā‑ba and its "Commentary" by Bsod‑nams‑dpal‑bzang‑po, Franz Steiner Verlag (Stuttgart 1990). Not meant for easy popular consumption, this is one of the great works of late 20th-century Tibetology. Seriously, don’t let the thinness fool you.

•     Leonard van der Kuijp, On the Lives of Śākyaśrībhadra (?‑?1225), Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 114, no. 4 (1994), pp. 599‑616. At p. 603, LvdK promised a study on the dates of Śākyaśrī, something we anticipate with ever decreasing patience.

For a published example of the work itself, 
see Śākyaśrībhadra, Bodhisattvamārgakramasaṅgraha (Byang chub sems dpa'i lam gyi rim pa mdor bsdus pa).  Tôh. no. 3962.  Dergé Tanjur, vol. GI, folios 198v.1‑199v.5.  Translated by the author and Byams-pa'i-dpal.  Or just cut-&-paste the entire Tibetan title into the search box at TBRC.

For a resumé of its content, you might look at the entry in Malalasekera's Encyclopedia of Buddhism,  vol. 3, p. 240, or see Dölpa, Gampopa and Sakya Paṇḍita, Stages of the Buddha's Teachings: Three Key Texts, translated by Ulrike Roesler, Ken Holmes and David P. Jackson, Library of Tibetan Classics series no. 10, Wisdom (Somerville 2015), pp. 635-636. If I knew of a complete translation, I would have told you about it.

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Postscript (April 7, 2020): I hardly believe it myself, but I actually did find a translation at BOOTL, an internet resource that will be of special interest to translators and people who read translations. I recommend to have a look at it here.

   

Stone Meditation Seat in Amdo

Our thanks to Katia Buffetrille, who sent us this remarkable sign of Padampa’s presence way up in Amdo to the south of the Blue Lake known under various names, among them Kokonoor.

The full stone inscription, written in widely separated syllables around two sides of the squarish boulder may be roughly phoneticized, Romanized and translated as:

“Gyagar Padampai Gom Tri”

rgya gar pha dam pa'i sgom khri/

རྒྱ་གར་ཕ་དམ་པའི་སྒོམ་ཁྲི།   

[This is a] Meditation Throne of India Padampa.

According to Katia, if I understood her directions correctly, it was in 2011 as they were walking around Nyenpo Yutsé (Gnyan-po G.yu-rtse), near Mâra Lake (Bdud-mtsho, or Sdug-mtsho) in the region now called South of the Lake (Mtsho Lho), meaning below the Blue Lake (Mtsho Sngon), that they encountered this remarkable stone.

Eventually I’d like to put together an inclusive account of Padampa-related sites. Knowing about this seating place in Amdo helps us by adding to what we have already learned about his visits to such places as Yunnan, Wu-tai Shan and the vicinity of Lhasa (Garu Convent).*

(*José Cabezón & Penpa Dorjee, in their brand new book, Sera Monastery, Wisdom (Somerville 2019), do mention, on p. 331, “Garu (Ga-ru), a nunnery, is said to have been founded by Padampa Sangyé in the eleventh century, Panglung (Spang lung) by one of Padampa‘s students in the eleventh century...”  Although such brevity in an otherwise elaborately detailed book might seem excessive, it is more than compensated by the more generous treatment by J.C. in “The Hermitages of Sera” at the THDL website. Go ahead and visit it by tapping here. The historical section that follows this one has the Padampa connections. What is most interesting for today's blog is just that there was once in Garu Convent a square stone throne Padampa sat upon as he was deciding where to site the building, a stone apparently no longer there. It also had letters inscribed on it.)

For fun, double click on Katia's photos to see what sentient beings you can identify.

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Postscript 1 (March 13, 2020):

I’ve been told I may not have gotten the geography quite right, making it sound as if it’s close to the Blue Lake when it’s actually quite far. I’ll look into that some more. And I’m also told that there is more on Padampa associated places in Lhasa and Phanyul areas in a recent publication by Serindia that I do not have at hand at this moment.  I’ll look into that, too, and get back with you. The book I speak of is this one: Matthew Akester, Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo’s Guide to Central Tibet.

Postscript 2 (March 13, 2020):

I sometimes wondered why I even had a copy of  J.F. Rock’s very heavy 1956 book The Amnye Ma-chhen Range and Adjacent Regions, a Monographic Study, published in Rome by the Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente. It could well be nominated for the most unreadable book in the history of Tibetology. I mean overall, since it does have some fascinating paragraphs buried in all the geographical minutiae. And the black-and-white photographs that take up most of the thick volume are really interesting, the pictures of people even more than the landscapes and buildings. My reason for mentioning is that it has a map, sheet 5 of the 5 folded maps inserted in a pocket in the back of the book, of the area “Nyen-po-yur-tse Dza-ra” (གཉན་པོ་གཡུ་རྩེ་རྫ་ར་). Actually, the brief section of prose about this same area is at this very moment of much interest (pp. 129-31). I think Rock didn't go there personally, but relied on information from a non-denominational Christian missionary by the name of William E[kvall] Simpson (1901-1932). Rock even credits him with the discovery of the place, whatever that means (and I guess what Rock does mean is that up until then, the mountain had not been included in any known map). This missionary named Simpson is subject of a 1932 book (or booklet?) given the title A Martyred Missionary, for reasons you may easily discern. I’ve never seen it. Few have.