A Conch Inscription, Then & Now

I suppose my big interest in conch inscriptions owes a lot to a letter of inquiry passed on to me back in 1984. It was from a person otherwise unknown to me named Carl Szego who at that time lived in Millburn, New Jersey.* These sorts of letters, dozens of them, ended up with me just because I was by then in my 11th year of Tibetan study and also did volunteer work for the Tibet Society. In an effort to embarrass myself and jeopardize what little reputation might remain after my major gaffe a few blogs back, I decided to do the little “comedy of errors” piece you see here. I imagined myself to be advanced in my Tibetan reading skills back in those days, so hold on to your seats and prepare yourselves for some contrary evidence. 

Here I will type in my handwritten response to Mr. Szego, the owner of the conch:

Dear Mr. Szego: 

Prof. B. handed your letter over to me. The reading is difficult but approximately as follows —

A  —  དུང་ནི་ཆོས་ཀྱི་སྒྲ་ཡིན་པས་སྒྲོགས་པའི་ཚལ།། ཡེ་ཤེས་ཆ་མཚོ་འདི་རུ་ངག་གྱུར་ཏེ། ཆོས་རྣམས་ལ་ནོད་དེས་ངོས་[དོས་དོས་?]སུ་སྟོན་པ།  བཀྲ་ཤིས་ངེས་ཀྱང་ཆོས་པ་ཡང་ཐོབ་པ་ཤོག 

B  —  ཅེས་པ་དེ་ནི་སྦྲོ་བོ་[?]དཔོན་སློབས་དགེ་[?]དགེ་སློང་ངག་དབང་སང་ན་ཛི་རོ་ནས་ལྔ་པ་ཚེ་དབང་འབུལ་བ་འཕེལ།།    

Assuming many misspelled and semi-legible words, I interpret as follows —

A  —  “The Conch is the sound of Dharma, so it has the special power of ‘broadcasting.’ The ocean of Total Knowledge is Transmuted into sounds (words) in this. While the good fortune [of meeting] a teacher for a little instruction in the Dharma is inevitable, may the Buddhist as well obtain good fortune.”

And then the final dedication: 

B  —  “This is an offering from Spre-bo Teacher Monk Ngag-dbang-sang-na-dzi-ro to Snga-pa (=Sngags-pa?) Tshe-dbang.”

Based on the names,* I am thinking it comes from the easternmost Tibetan areas. If not, I am completely at loss what origin it may have had. Please let me know if I may be of more assistance. And if you feel the information worthwhile, a donation (and membership!) to the Tibet Society would be greatly appreciated. 

Sincerely, D.

(*An added note from 2017 — I think I was thinking this:  Snga-pa or Lnga-pa is perhaps Ngaba [Ch. Aba] in northern Szechuan? Or is it supposed to be Sngags-pa, or Mantrin?)

Well, where shall we start? First and most importantly for the point I wish to make, Tibetan Studies has gone through a major revolution, along with many other fields of study, on account of the digitization of a huge body of Tibetan texts. We can do things we could hardly hope to do before. Unlike the mid-80’s of the last century, students today can simply feed in a correctly spelled phrase and in this way locate the entire passage, allowing them to fix with ease the odd readings in the text they have on hand. Texts inscribed on metal are especially liable to be riddled with these oddities, given that the artists are not necessarily even literate, and likely to copy more-or-less what they see before their eyes. So let’s try this 21st-century experiment, and see just how rapidly we can search the million-page dataset of the TBRC for the words “dung ni chos kyi sgra.” After a few milliseconds, the first thing to pop up among the 41 “hits” is a consecration text from the Sakya Kambum:

དུང་ནི་ཆོས་ཀྱི་སྒྲ ་རྣམས་སྒྲོགས་པའི་ཚུལ། །
ཡེ་ཤེས་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ཉིད་དུ་དག་གྱུར་ཏེ། །
ཆོས་རྣམས་མ་ནོར་ཡོངས་སུ་སྟོན་པ་ཡི། །
བཀྲ་ཤིས་དེས་ཀྱང་ཚིག་དབང་ཐོབ་པར་ཤོག

“The conch in its way of broadcasting the sounds of Dharma  

has purified into the very ocean of Full Knowledge. 

In its fully indicating with no mistakes the dharmas,  

through this auspiciousness may we obtain mastery of the word.”

Well, I thought that was a nice try, but having a look at Yael Bentor's book, I see on p. 345 what seems to be a better translation:  

“The conch which is the means for proclaiming the sound of the Dharma, purifies into the ocean of enlightened wisdom itself, and expounds the Dharma without mistake. May this auspicious substance also attain the power of speech (for us).”

I’d like to say I’ve solved the riddle of who offered this conch to whom, but I still can’t. The donor’s statement isn’t clear enough, and I don't find any parallels for it right away. Let me know if anything occurs to you.

“The white conch that coils to the right symbolizes the deep, far-reaching and melodious sound of the Dharma teachings that, being appropriate to different natures, predispositions and aspirations of disciples, awakens them from the deep slumber of ignorance and urges them to accomplish their own and others’ welfare.”

§   §   §   §   §

Sources for consultation and consolation:

Yael Bentor, Consecration of Images & Stûpas in Indo-Tibetan Tantric Buddhism, E.J. Brill (Leiden 1996).  

Have some fun and try putting those same words “dung ni chos kyi sgra rnams” into the Google search-box, and one single result appears:  The Italian translation of Dagyab Rinpoche's wellknown popular study on Tibetan artistic symbolism (he wrote a more technical one in German). Try looking here.

Taking this clue from the Italian, I pulled my English version down off the shelf — Buddhist Symbols in Tibetan Culture, Wisdom (Boston 1995), tr. from German by Maurice Walshe, p. 62:  

“...the ruler of the gods, Indra...a right-turning conch shell...   Just as the conch proclaims the sound of the Dharma, one will become pure in the wisdom ocean and proclaim the Dharma without error and completely. Through this good fortune, may eloquence also be obtained.”

Dagyab Rinpoche identifies the ultimate source of this as Ratnaśīla’s Rdo-rje-rnam-par-'joms-pa zhes bya-ba'i [Gzungs] Dkyil-'khor-gyi Lag-len Go-rims Ji-lta-ba.  In what could possibly be the original Sanskrit title, this is: Vajravidāraṇa nāma Dhāraṇī-maṇḍala-prakriyā-yathā-krama.

Here’s another conch inscription drawn from Tibet. Klöster öffnen ihre Schatzkammern, Kulturstiftung Ruhr Essen (Villa Hügel 2006), p. 533:  Inscription on the ‘sleeve’ of a rare right-turning (clockwise spiraling outward) conch shell trumpet.  Transcribed in note 54 on p. 617:

rnam par rgyal ba'i phan bde legs bshad gling pa'i chos dung phun tshogs g.yas 'khyil 'di'i gshog pa gsar bzo'i rgyu rgyal dbang mchog gi sku gzhogs nas phra'i g.yu sbyang gnyis / de las chung chung tsam gnyis / de 'og che chung 'dres ma bco brgyad / chung ba lnga brgya dang dgu bcu thams cad rnams bka' drin bskyangs / mchod dpon blo bzang mthu stobs dang dbu mdzad blo bzang yon tan gnyis kyis gser zho lnga brgya thams pa / grwa tshang spyi so nas dngul srang nyi shu phyed rtsa drug bton pa'i / do dam gnyer pa dge bshes blo bzang sbyin pa dang dge bshes ngag dbang 'phrin las / bzo bo bal po brdung pa dha lam / bkra shis mgon po / 'phul pa shi nyi / dza shing / .da ki .ta / phra pa la na mu ne rnams kyis bgyis te / phur bu zhes pa sa pho spre'u'i lo hor zla bcu gcig pa'i tshes dge bar legs par grub pa sarba mangga lam //.

The authors of this section, Andreas Kretschmar and Geshe Pema Tsering, guess the date of this conch to be ca. 18th century. Even though an Earth Monkey date for making the gold and turquoise sleeve of the conch is given, it is often difficult in such cases to decide which Earth Monkey year that would be.* 

(*Still, I’m thinking it could date even earlier, to the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama. Although it needs a little more study to be sure of it, two of the persons mentioned as donors on the conch sleeve [I’ve highlighted their names in yellow] are also mentioned here** as donors of a copper pot for the use of Namgyal Dratsang. Namgyal Dratsang's lengthier name is given at the beginning of the conch inscription as “rnam par rgyal ba'i phan bde legs bshad gling.”  If this works, then the date of the sleeve works out to 1668 CE.)

(**The link should lead you to a minor piece in the collected works of the Fifth Dalai Lama. When you get there, notice the two names Mchod-dpon Blo-bzang-mthu-stobs and Dbu-mdzad Blo-bzang-yon-tan. These names are key to the  revised dating.)

§   §   §

Postscript on Zhangzhung (ZZ) in a conch inscription:

Once I wrote up a bit on a conch inscription that contains surprising Zhangzhung-language elements in it. This inscription was published by Giuseppe Tucci after he found it in a Sakya Monastery. I put up something about it several years ago in a Bon Studies group on Ning, so I will have to see if I can go there and rediscover it. For me, conch inscriptions are just as interesting as those found on bells. Both bells and conches are clear symbols of the Word of the Buddha, which has always been an inspiration to me personally.

Well, since I managed to locate it I thought I may as well post it here. The Ning posting follows (note that here "ZZ" stands for Zhang-zhung).

Source:  Giuseppe Tucci, Tibetan Painted Scrolls.

On pp. 677, 763, is an inscription, quite a difficult one (as anyway inscriptions tend to be), on a conch shell which begins:  un hing 'dza leng.  These are quite apparently ZZ words, including the ZZ word for conch, which is un.  

This conch shell was kept at Spos-khang, although it doesn't look like Tucci ever made it explicit that this is the same Spos-khang silver conch casing he illustrates in his fig. 82 (see ibid., pp. 202-3).  It's really a magnificent work of metal casting, masterfully done, with dragon, horse, lion & deities included, although I don't see a place for an inscription (perhaps on the back of the sleeve, or 'inside' where the conch itself ought to be, but isn't).

Here's a Romanization of the Tibetan script inscription  (I must emphasize that the script is not Zhangzhung, since people do get confused on this point) as given by Tucci:

un hing 'dza leng rin chen kun krag 'di chu' cin kyi thog la pun mo tsha lha 'gar rgyal mtshan 'i lag rjes na bkris.

No wonder Tucci couldn't make much of what it says, although in his footnote he at least rightly identifies the lha-'gar as an alternative spelling for lha-mgar, or divine smith.  Of course Gyaltsen (Rgyal-mtshan) is the name of this divine smith (or rather, smith who makes divine images) who is further described as a nephew (or grandson) of some "pun-mo," whatever that means (Tucci wants to correct pun mo tsha to read dpon-mo-che, or great chieftainess).

The first four syllables are most definitely Zhangzhung.  I'm also sure of one thing, that the syllable un means conch (not that it's all that simple, since it may also mean dragon or the dragon's sound, which is thunder... just see Haarh's Zhangzhung dictionary).  There are plenty of examples of this. 

It's possible that un hing would be the same as un ting (there is a graphic similarity, especially in cursive script).  Hummel (on what basis I don't know) has defined Zhangzhung un ting as equivalent to Tibetan sgra-dbyangs, or melody.  However, analyzing the two syllables it's likely to mean conch and water, which could mean water-conch I suppose.  "Water-dragon" wouldn't be impossible, I also wonder...

The syllable leng does exist in ZZ, corresponding to Tibetan gling, or island, so perhaps the 'dza is after all just a Zhangzhung-like form for Tibetan 'dzam, and the two syllables together mean Jambu Island?  That means the whole world, or at least the Indian subcontinent.  That's my best guess at the moment.

I'm also thinking that the first four syllables are in Zhangzhung simply because this is the 'personal' name of the conch itself.   Particularly remarkable implements like this one have often gotten personal names (recall King Arthur's sword Excalibur).  This conch already had a name before the artist inscribed it on this conch cover (or conch holder/handle as you prefer).  And that name is a Zhangzhung name.

The next four syllables just mean with all kinds of variegated jewels (you can see the settings for precious stones in the photograph)...

(November 13, 2009 communication with Zhangzhung Studies Forum, by now perhaps no longer in existence, belonging to the Ning Network.)

§ § §

Note: I wish I did, but I don't possess any material copy of Patricia Berger's Empire of Emptiness, pp. 185-186, but I did locate fascinating paragraphs on the Panchen Lama's conch shell there, together with a photo. You might be able to see it at Googlebooks.

Okay, just one more comment and I’ll be quiet. When I visited Sakya Monastery several years ago, I was impressed by a practice of having a monk sound a conch shell in memory of a deceased relative, so I made a small offering and pronounced the name of my grandfather who had died not long before. Mention of this conch is found in Sarat Chandra Das, Journey to Lhasa & Central Tibet, p. 242. I can’t really be sure, since it hardly seems believable, but they said that the conch being used was the same one given in offering to Phagspa Lama by Kublai Khan back in the 13th century. The only published depiction of that famous conch that I know about is in Precious Deposits, vol. 3, p, 11. Das said the minimum donation for having it played was seven ounces of silver. My offering was much less, and while there is no way to be sure the sound of it reached my grandfather in the bardo, I know it did have a strong effect on my heart.

The Micro-Consecration of a Punctuation Mark

 {KHA} ||Yig-ge Sgra-yi Mnga'-dbul bzhugs-s.hô||
Note: Click on the photos and they ought to expand

Every consecration rite of any significant length includes near its end a kind of paying tribute, or royal honors, or enthronement rite. I’m not sure which is the best way to translate it, or if it matters very much. This rite comes near the end because it is connected with the first offerings offered to the newly completed and, in effect, already-consecrated temple, image, book or chörten. I believe that one significance of the consecration is that it makes the work of Buddhist art or architecture into a field of merit, so that when offerings are made to it they actually aid the quest for Enlightenment. Or, to put it another way, they are enabled to serve as bases for the two accumulations: Merit (bsod-nams) is the first of the two accumulations (tshogs gnyis), the other Full Knowledge (ye-shes). These are like the two wings of a bird, both equally necessary for any progress to take place. I hope those are familiar terms, since they are quite basic to understanding Mahâyâna ideas about the Path to Enlightenment. In any case, it is interesting to see that for at least the last thousand years Tibetans of both the Bon and Chos sides are in considerable and substantial agreement when it comes to consecration, and the royal honors is one example of it among others. 

You have seen up above the second title contained in the Bon consecration volume (notice it is marked with the 2nd letter of the Tibetan alphabet kha). It contains a lengthy ritual recitation that goes through, one after the other, all the punctuation marks and letters, treating each one to what I would like to call a micro-consecration, following the pattern of a sâdhana in that it involves visualizing an exalted version of the mark or letter that is then brought down and unified with the lower physical one. It is interesting that this text has no colophon, and no sign of who composed or excavated it, but I suppose it’s just as old as the texts surrounding it and assume it, too, belongs to around the 11th-12th centuries. If you remember, the dang-thog (the word is unique to Bon, but not the thing itself) is that peculiar punctuation mark that appears on the front side of every leaf of a Tibetan text. You can see a rather fancy example here on the first folio verso. The ordinary form looks like this: ༄༅. Many people believe the origins of it lie in the forms the syllable om takes when it appears in Indic scripts, although Bonpos are likely to have a different idea about this. But please, let’s leave those minor controversies behind, and concentrate on the punctuation mark itself, and what this consecration rite does with it. (click on the photos to enlarge them):

To give a sketch of the structure of this passage, with a hope of clarifying what is going on, it brings to mind the ‘past event’ that in some sense preordains and justifies the rite. Later on, when the lights are emitted from the punctuation mark, it looks much like any typical sâdhana. It entails the divinization of a punctuation mark, if you will. The scriptural volume is not only consecrated as a whole, but also consecrated in each of its component elements, in each of its parts all the way down to most minute. The very lines of the letters and punctuation marks inscribed in it are made holy. Then, as is usually the case with mantras, the partially-Sanskritic (or Sanskritized) Zhangzhung mantra found near the end of the passage is resistant to translation, although parts of it are intelligible and so I could offer a half-hearted attempt. The last line of the mantra I haven’t even tried to translate. Some mysteries should remain mysteries, I suppose. Well, in any case they will.

(Today's blog is a continuation of this one, and it will itself be continued: To Bind a Book is to Protect It from the Elements.)

Scriptural Letter Magic

In a story well known to adherents of Bon, the Magic King Kongtse builds the most amazing temple on an island. To build it, Kongtse has to call upon some very dubious characters — a few of them with names that seem to come straight out of Indian epic literature — and these same characters tear it down again...*

(*This story has been told by Karmay Samten Gyaltsen and Gurung Kalsang Norbu, so I won’t repeat it here. Today’s blog is a continuation of this one.)

As part of this narrative of temple building, one of Shenrab’s wives is deluded by a demon into burning the “scriptural to bag” (bka'i gto sgro) that contains the set of scriptures known as the Four Bon Doors and Treasury making Five.* Looking at the consecration literature of Bon, it eventually becomes more and more clear that the temple building of Kongtse and its consecration was the single past event that serves as paradigm for all later performances of consecration rites.

(*Some may want to take the syllable sgro to intend sgrom, meaning box, but no, it does indeed mean a bag or pouch.)

This story, told in all the three major biographies of Lord Shenrab, is also told in the first text that appears in the consecration volume of the Bon Kanjur.  Its title page is the one you see below.

This title conceals within it two texts each with its own colophon. The first of these gives the name of a concealer in the imperial period that you see here below in the 2nd line: De Gyimtsa Machung.

 

I would just like to point out that there is a person with a very similar name in the Old Tibetan Annals entry for the year 653, where one named “Spug Gyim-rtsan Rma-chung” is appointed governor of Zhang-zhung. Here is another one of those Bon connections with Dunhuang documents that needs to be studied and contemplated.* But anyway, as the text was hidden at Sham-po, we may understand that this, along with the other text, was a 12th-century discovery of Matön Sherabsengé, although he is not directly named here in this text.

(*There is the not-so-small problem that the initial syllables, in the position where we would expect a clan name or the like, are different. I don't know enough about Lde and Spug[s] as clan names to make arguments or come to conclusions. The Spug/Sbug[s] clan seems to have existed in imperial times in both Kokonor area and in southwestern Tibet. A figure named Spug Gyim-tang Rmang-bu surfaces three times in a Dunhuang document, PT1287, with the clan name given as both Spug and Spung.)

Out of the ashes of the incinerated scriptures emerge the Five Heroic Letters. These letters transmute into the complete set of scriptures that is then written down in five Volumes. Letter magic of Bon, in some part at least, corresponds with phonetic arrangements of the letters. So I would say their magic is not entirely disconnected with linguistic science. It may even be closely linked together with it. The first chart you see below is based on a passage taken from a relatively recent Bon grammatical text. The Five Heroic Letters are given in the first column, with their elemental correspondences in the 2nd, while columns 3 to 9 are the letters generated from them. The yellow chart beneath it is placed here for comparison. It marks not only the elements, but also the points of articulation. The correspondences between the letters contained in the two charts may be only partial, but I suggest that they share larger ideas in common.

These volumes, as you would expect, are called glegs-bam, but they are, as it says, “bound into glegs-bam”  (gleg-bam-du sbam, and we also find sbams-su sbams, bound into bindings). This active verb that means to bind you do not encounter very often. The sections that involve the punctuation marks and letters in this text are interesting, but I should like to mention a few other things found in it before moving on to the next. One substance that is not used in Chos consecrations, or more particularly in the exorcism rite that forms a part of every consecration ritual, is ephedra (mtshe).  In Chos consecrations gu-gul* and mustard seed are used, while in this Bon text it is ephedra and mustard seed.

 (* Although it does surely come from an Akkadian word for frankincense, in Modern Tibetan it  can mean Google, which is rad or even a bit wack. Ephedra has special usages in early Tibetan rituals that deserve more attention than I can give them here.)

The concealed 2nd title that begins on p. 55 is if anything even more interesting than the first. It is here that we find not only yet another section on the letters of scripture, but some interesting things about pens, ink, and paper. There is even a section that could be regarded as a semi-independent consecration rite specially done for the paper both during and after its making... oddly so, since consecrations are normally done only after the object is fully completed. This is a rarely spoken but hardly ever broken rule. I’ve made a draft translation of this passage, but will save it for another time after I find ways to improve it. 

More unexpected details pop up, even a reference to the two string-hole circles (p. 61) called spyan-skor, or ocular circle. You can see them in this surely pre-Mongol and possibly even late imperial period example:

Folio no. 259 of the 4th volume of a Hundred Thousand
Perfection of Wisdom manuscript

In another blog, we’ll continue taking notes, looking at some of the other texts found in the consecration Volume of the Bon Kanjur.

Next: “The Micro-Consecration of a Punctuation Mark.”

§  §  §

About sources on consecration and so on  

For an extensive bibliography of both Indian Buddhist and Tibetan consecration literature, see Yael Bentor’s book, Consecration. Since it is brief and no more than an outline, we haven’t taken into consideration the text of the Great Translator Rinchenzangpo, although it is frequently cited in the later literature. Atiśa's text was composed in Sanskrit at Vikramaśīla Monastery near the Ganges River. He translated it together with his Tibetan disciple in around 1040 CE and apparently took the only copy with him to Tibet, as I know of no indication that it had any influence in India, no surviving Indian manuscript fragments and so on. The other Indian Buddhist consecration works are detailed in Bentor, Consecration, pp. 349-353.

Not Found! Those Are Not After All the Works of the Deposed Song Emperor.

Break of Dawn

Today's is a guest blog by Rory Lindsay. Although I gave it a title and a frontispiece, everything else is in his words and not mine:

Many thanks to Dan for drawing our attention to the collected works of Grub chen Chos kyi rin chen (BDRC: W3CN2940) and for allowing me to be a guest blogger. This is a fascinating collection that I had not seen until now. It seems, however, that it was not authored by the banished Song emperor (as exciting as that would have been!), but rather by a later Sa skya pa scholar.

The first clue appeared while I was reading through volume three. This volume begins with a text titled Gzhan phan 'od zer gyi ngag 'don lag len gzhan phan gsal ba, which concerns Rje btsun Grags pa rgyal mtshan's (1147–1216) Kun rig gi cho ga gzhan phan 'od zer, an influential work detailing the funerary rites to be performed based on the Sarvadurgatipariśodhana Tantra. Given that my doctoral dissertation examines the Gzhan phan 'od zer and related texts, I started here. I soon discovered that it quotes Ngor chen Kun dga' bzang po's (1382–1456) Dpal kun rig gzhan phan mtha' yas on folio 12a: “gzhan phan mtha' yas las/ de nas phyag rgya bzhi'i rgyas gdab pa ni….” This passage appears (with some variants) on pg. 65 of the Sde dge edition of the Gzhan phan mtha' yas (see volume 4 of Ngor chen's collected works: BDRC: W11577). Since Ngor chen was born after the Gongdi Emperor’s passing, it would seem that we have another author on our hands.

After discussing this with Dan, I found references to a Grub chen Chos kyi rin chen in Jan-Ulrich Sobisch's “The 'Records of Teachings Received' in the Collected Works of A mes zhabs: An Untapped Source for the Study of Sa skya pa Biographies,” which is included in Tibet, Past and Present: Proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the International Association of Tibetan Studies. Sobisch notes on pg. 176 that Chos kyi rin chen (aka Byams pa Chos kyi rin chen) was from Rdza zhul and was the founder of Lo phu dgon. He is included in a line that traces back to the Sa skya pa Rdzong pa Kun dga' rgyal mtshan (1382–1446), though his precise dates are not given.

After speaking further with Dan, he noted that some of the colophons in the collection reference the place name Lo phu, which would appear to confirm that this collection belongs not to the exiled emperor, but to the later Sa skya pa scholar Grub chen Chos kyi rin chen.

––––

Rory Lindsay

PhD Candidate, Department of South Asian Studies

Harvard University