That Tibetan Bell in Armenia Once More

What do we do with matter out of place? Do we ignore, reject it? Or do we find ways to accommodate it? Is it the exception that only serves to prove the rule? Or does it break and in doing so invalidate the rule? The existence of a bell with a Tibetan inscription in the heart of Armenia is so worthy of comment, we might wonder why it isn’t mentioned much more. But what ought to pique our interest instead risks embarrassing our grand sweeping theories, risks getting swept aside in the Big Sweep of historical narrative.

Map to show the distance the bell would have travelled.    

If you find it disconcerting that a Tibetan bell could possibly pop up in Armenia you should not for that reason feel lonely. After all, the distance "as the crow flies" from Lhasa to Yerevan is 4358 km, or about 2,700 miles, much further than the width of the contiguous-states part of the United States of America. In terms of long-distance horse-back riding, that would mean around 135 days of travel, more than 4 months, carrying an extraordinarily heavy object that would slow down even our hypothetical horse averaging 20 miles a day. Adjusting for the weight of the load and the indirectness of the routes, I’d say we’re talking at least 200 days of travel, perhaps even a year. Today, with two stopovers in Kathmandu and Qatar, you can do it in 17 hours.

Holy Etchmiadzin, the Mother Cathedral of Armenia.

The truth is that this bell has been discovered over and over again for a couple of centuries now, and each time people who hear about it find it surprising news. If you have a short memory, as we tend to, you likely forgot the 2006 blog on the subject called “The Mysterious Whitehead.” What I have to say today is yet another sounding of an alarm clock set at regular intervals in order to tell the world, Yes, what you’ve heard is true, no matter how unbelievable it may sound. But then people say, Okay, now I’m convinced, I can believe it’s there, but that only makes me want to ask you more questions about the hows, the whens and the whys.

Today I’m going to suggest some ideas from a Tibetocentric perspective, naturally, about how those questions might possibly be answered. I’ll supply some probable scenarios in terms of time and place. But regardless of the near impossibility of fully satisfying solutions, we ought to be able to find significance in our failures. So I don’t believe our time dwelling on this fascinating topic will go to waste.

 Two views of Etchmiadzin’s exterior.

The First Christian building was placed there in around 302-303 CE on the site of an ancient fire temple. Here Gregory the Illuminator beheld a vision of Christ descending from heaven.

   
Etchmiadzin in central position in a floor mosaic in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. 

Views of the bell towers.

Photo from a Bell Consecration 

This shows a bell consecration ritual for newly constructed St. Gevorg Church of Berd, in Armenia in 2014. This helps to demonstrate the importance of bells in Armenian Christianity, as objects worthy of their own consecration rituals. The Armenian “Book of Rituals” includes a special rite for the anointment and consecration of bells. Sometimes, on special occasions, divine service (or “mass”) was performed in the bell towers rather than in the main part of the church.

Now that the Armenian side has been introduced, I’d like to go with some care through the bits of evidence about the Tibetan bell in 19th-century, primarily western European publications. 

Title page of Frédéric Dubois de Montpéreux.

As far as I know right now, this is the first notice of the bell within the context of a published book. It is based on the author’s own visit to Etchmiadzin in 1831.

The author in the footnote makes reference to the Mani Mantra as if it were relevant to the inscription on the bell, a misunderstanding that took on a life of its own, as confusions tend to do.

Dated 1837 — A notice by Brosset and Schmidt in St. Petersburg, based on the finding of Dubois.

“The bell of the convent of Edchmiadzin carries a Tibetan legend repeated three times on the outer edge: ôm â houm.

“M. Schmidt, in giving us the reading of this inscription, which was collected by the seasoned traveler M. Dubois, in 1831, has communicated to us the following note:” 

The same, continued

“In the Tibetan grammar of Csoma of Körös we find among the interjections* the three mystical characters of the bell of Etchmiadsin explicated as follows: oṃ is the symbol of the substance or the person of Buddha or of a divinity in general, aḥ is the symbol of the word of Buddha etc. and hûṃ the symbol of his grace and mercy. This all together forms the idea or symbol of the Buddhist trinity, commonly called the three precious ones, whose representatives are: Buddha or his image, sacred books and the clergy.”

(*My note: I find in the Csoma de Körös grammar [1834], p. 105 on internet, heading the class of interjections, "oṃ, a mystical interjection, denoting the essential body or person of a Buddha or any other divinity. aḥ, ditto, denoting the word or doctrine of ditto. hûṃ, ditto, denoting the mind or mercy of ditto.”)

(Another note:  The script is here actually metal type for Tibetan that Schmidt himself developed in just about this same time. This same type would continue to be used in St. Petersburg publications for the following century.)

“The religious of Edchmiadzin do not know when and by what route this bell has been brought into their convent. It can hardly be doubted that it dates back to the Mongol era.”

Everybody knows Helena Blavatsky as a founder of the Theosophical Society. Long before that, in 1849, she had a very brief, eventful and unconsummated marriage with a Russian vice-governor of Yerevan Province in Armenia. It would have been after their supposed honeymoon, or around the end of August of that year when she visited Etchmiadzin Cathedral. For some time I was fooled by a passage in the book by Marion Meade, Madame Blavatsky, theWoman behind the Myth, that seems to imply that she had taken note of the Tibetan bell during this trip, but further investigation led nowhere, so I’ve abandoned the idea. I think the modern biographer simply slipped in this bit of interesting information for the benefit of her readers. Searching through the 15 volumes of Blavatsky’s online Collected Works, she displays no interest at all in Christian Armenia, only in its pagan and Zoroastrian past, and with only a few mentions of Etchmiadzin, there is nothing to find about any bell there.

She also mentions “Chaldean” inscriptions. As background, we may say that Friedrich Schultz had discovered what we now know to be Urartian inscriptions near Lake Van in 1826. These began being deciphered only in the 1850’s, with success reported in 1882. The oldest inscription in Urartian dates to 9th century BCE. This does help us with the context for understanding why the monks proffered the idea that the bell inscription was Chaldean. But honestly, there is no way Tibetan script resembles Cuneiform. Not to my eyes, but well, you know, there are people who look at the Voynich Manuscript and see Tibetan there, too.*

(*There’s a 58-page pamphlet made available through commercial outlets on the internet entitled, The Voynich Manuscript: The Tibetan Bible. I haven’t worked up the courage to order it yet. If you think it’s worthwhile, write and tell us what you find out.)

James Bryce account.

As you see there is a bare mention only in Bryce’s book on his 1876 travels.

Chart of 19th-century sources on the inscription on the bell. 

To continue reading click here.

Please leave a comment and join the discussion.

§   §   §

Blogography

For background, as if you needed any, have a look at these back blogs:

The Mysterious Whitehead, Tibeto-logic blog, December 21, 2006. Notice also, “Renewed Bell Appeal,” May 15, 2007; and “Bell Envy,” June 15, 2009. Also on bells is “Another Disquieting Bell and Its Inscription.”

Star Water

“I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous winding labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future and in some way involve the stars.”

—Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths (1942)

Almost ten years ago, our friend Malcolm at Bhaisajya blog, wrote about the therapeutic use of star water. If you don’t believe me, have a look here.* At the time I was so taken aback — really, star water was something I had never even heard of before — I whipped off a comment to the author asking him if this was indeed a thing, and he wrote back to assure me it was. Okay, I can no longer deny it. Star water is a thing. A remarkable thing, in my opinion.

(*If you read Malcolm’s blog, you will find there wasn’t much reason for me to write this reblog.)

So maybe you would expect my surprise at encountering something like this star water in quite a different context, this time in the much-deciphered yet undecipherable Voynich Manuscript purchased in 1912 from a Jesuit college outside Rome by a rare book dealer named Wilfrid M. Voynich. There have been many ideas about who the author of the book was, but all of them have been overthrown by carbon dating of the parchment. Now we can say with some certainty that it dates to around the year of the death of Tsongkhapa.* Look here to find out what some may have considered its first successful decipherment, but along the way see how stars might have something to do with water for use in bathing. Witness what the author Nicholas Gibbs says in the article:

The position of the Pleiades, the Dog star, and the Arc of Arcturus, along with the most favourable days of the month – known as “the critical days” – were all-important. Such astrological observations were inextricably bound up with the quest for a successful medicinal outcome. And that quest included bathing.

(*Thanks to Edward Proctor for his email with a link to the TLS story.)

Well, if nothing else, the Voynich would seem to agree with the idea that medicinal bathing needs to be done under the right stars, and ideas along these lines are traced back to the classical Graeco-Roman masters of medicinal arts.

If you are getting ahead of me, or if you already had a look at Malcolm’s blog, you might be wondering if star water of the therapeutic kind has a direct or indirect connection with the Tibetan bathing festival that takes place in late summer or early autumn, when the star Riji rises in the sky.* Well, now that I’ve gotten you wondering about it, I can say I’m sure the connections are there. In Buddhist India the rise of a southern star marked the end of the rainy season that meant the release of the monks from their annual retreat. The rains ended, the Indian Ocean becalmed, and one more thing we might think to be indigenous to Tibet turns out to come from India. What is, in fact, the Kumbha Mela, an event sometimes said to be the largest gathering of humans on earth? Among other ways it might be described, one is this: a collective bath with its date determined by the positions of the stars.

(*This Riji, Ri-byi in the Wylie, is a highly peculiar Tibetanization of Sanskrit ṛṣi, or [Vedic] sage, generally translated as drang-srong in Tibetan. It would seem on the face of it to mean ‘mountain mouse,’ although that is absurd, I know. The Vedic sage alluded to is supposed to be Agastya, and the associated star then would be the Canopus Star, the second brightest star in the night sky, and the star that India knew by the name Agastya in very early times. Canopus is actually a southern hemisphere star that only appears above the horizon for a short period each year, but being an exceptionally bright one, Tibetans would be bound to notice it, especially since in my experience, the stars are nowhere brighter or clearer or more splendid than in Tibet’s higher altitudes.)

But enough of these ruminations, I trust you will be so kind as to excuse me. The water has almost filled up the tub, and soon the stars will be out in their full autumnal splendor. See you again soon, friends. Meanwhile, treat yourself to some water, water with stars in it. Because you know, if you can’t see the puzzling interconnections in your life, you’re not quite living it. The same goes for seeing the beauty and the sadness.

Explorable literature on therapeutic star water:

If you are interested in the Voynich manuscript (Beinecke 408) — and who isn’t? — your optional first stop if you’re a beginner may be this Ted Talk. That finished, go to this page, then click on either the words “View a detailed description” or “View a digital version,” depending which you would like to do. There have been so many vainly heroic attempts to decipher it, it can be difficult to believe that this newly proposed one of Nicholas Gibbs is at long last the final word. Indeed some experts have been quick to call it rubbish (look here, too). It is proposed to read the whole of Beinecke 408 as a medical text primarily about astrology in relation to women’s health and medicinal baths, and as written in a shorthand version of Latin in which the consonants of each word (or the beginning and end of each word, rather like Tibetan cursive abbreviation practices) are combined into what looks like a single letter (but the Tibetan kind is not really shorthand, even if it shares shorthand's motives of making things faster and saving space). Meanwhile, looking around the internet, I found something really interesting: Nicholas Gibbs wasn't the first to find abbreviated or shorthand Latin in Beinecke 408. I believe it was first proposed by William Newbold in 1921 (see Brumbaugh, p. 92). And have a look at this 2012 blog by Nick Pelling, without neglecting the lengthy comment by Helmut Winkler you can find there. Some of the comments bring up the subject of balneology, too!* My take on this is that while Gibbs may not supply the definitive solution, there are good reasons to think his ideas are on track, just that those ideas are not his alone, but were suggested at least as far back as 2012, if even as far as 1921.

(*Just as there is a series of starmaps, there is also a series of illustrations showing women bathing together or separately in tubs linked together with bizarre tubes, the idea of the spa comes immediately to mind. In another of Pelling's blogs you can find "The Zodiac Bath Hypothesis," which is very relevant.)

Beinecke 408, fol. 70 verso:
Women Bathing in Half-Barrel Tubs Holding Stars

Robert S. Brumbaugh, “The Voynich Cipher Manuscript: A Current Report,” The Yale University Library Gazette, vol. 61, nos. 3-4 (April 1987), pp. 92-95. There is so much more literature out there, I balk at the idea of trying to list everything. For what may be the most reasonable, interesting and extensive website on the subject, look here.

Olaf Czaja, in his article “The Administration of Tibetan Precious Pills: Efficacy in Historical and Ritual Contexts,” Asian Medicine, vol. 10 (2015), pp. 36-89, at p. 50, note 39. The context is a broad discussion of the ideal astrological conditions for taking medicines:

The sage Agastya, in Tibetan Ri-shi or Ri-byi, is based on Indian astrological lore that was also transmitted in Indian Ayurvedic treatises, such as Vāgbhaṭa’s Aṣṭāṅga-hṛdaya-saṃhitā, that were translated into Tibetan; see, for instance, Vogel 1965, pp. 164f. Agastya is the bright southern star Canopus. In medical texts, as well as in classical poetry, it is said that the waters are cleaned with the rise of this star Agastya, ibid.; Mythrey et al. 2012, p. 770. Its rise occurs on the seventh day of the second half of the Bhādra month in Indian astrology, and on the seventh day of middle autumn month Mon-gru in Tibetan astrology, respec-tively. Rain that falls on that day is said to be endowed with the eight qualities.

Sde-srid Sangs-rgyas-rgya-mtsho, Gso-ba Rig-pa'i Bstan-bcos Sman-bla'i Dgongs-rgyan Rgyud Bzhi'i Gsal-byed Bai-ḍūr Sngon-po'i Ma-lli-kā (reproduced from a print of the 1888-1892 blocks preserved in the Lha-sa Lcags-po-ri Rig-byed 'Gro-phan-gling), SSS series no. 51, T. Y. Tashigangpa (Leh 1973), in 2 vols.  Volume 1, chapter 20 (pp. 393-547) is on materia medica. At p. 526, line 3, is this brief entry on star water:  

skar chu la spyi dang 'dir ming gcig / de'ang skar mar btang ba'i chu lus la bran pas tsha ba 'joms shing smin tshad lam nas bzlog.   

“For star water in general and in this particular context one name is used. When water that has been left out in the stars is soaked into the body it overcomes fevers and even ripened fevers are reversed from their course.”

Practically every Tibetan-Tibetan medical dictionary has an entry on skar-chu (སྐར་ཆུ་), but I won’t go to them right now.

I searched through the full texts of the Tanjur medical works translated from Indian languages, and found not a single bona fide occurrence of the term skar-chu. Searching the Vienna site covering the entire Kanjur and Tanjur, I only found one bona fide usage, in a magical recipe contained in the rgyud (tantra) section of the Lhasa Kanjur (perhaps this would repay closer investigation, but really, it’s just part of a list of ingredients).

For an entry to star water in the dictionary of Sarat Chandra Das, p. 86, go to this link, and find the 3rd entry in the left-hand column. And notice Das's entry for ri-byi on p. 1177, top of the right-hand column: “a corruption of the word ri-shi, a sage, and applied to the name Agastya.”

Bkra-shis-bzang-po, “May All Good Things Gather Here: Life, Religion & Marriage in a Mi nyag Tibetan Village.”  This is same as volume 14, of Asian Highlands Perspectives. See if this link will take you to the exact page (p. 98) about star water used for Losar / New Year preparations.

On Tibet’s autumn swimming festival, you can read short descriptions in English in Hugh Richardson's book Ceremonies of the Lhasa Year, p. 109, and in Tsepak Rigzin, Festivals of Tibet, p. 54.

Agastya drinking up the entire sea.
This happened recently with hurricane Irma in the Caribbean.

Watch this video!  Added on May 8, 2018.