Bird Dogs of Tibet

Yes, I know there are a lot of examples of hybrid animals in Tibetan lore, like combinations of sea creatures and mammals, carp-headed otters and the like, not all of them nearly as cute as what you see above. Some of them like the makara, in Tibetan the chusin (ཆུ་སྲིན་), come from India, true enough. But I really didn’t intend to talk about them today; I’m looking in a different direction altogether. I just came back from what may be the most impressive bird sanctuary in the world, so you may understand I’m still under the spell. What I do want to talk about are dogs raised (and perhaps also hatched) in bird nests. To put it another way, the scene would have to look a lot more like this:

Something I read in an article by Antonio Terrone perked my interest when it came out not so long ago. It’s about one of the most famous Lamas in the Tibetan plateau in recent decades, the much-respected and now sadly departed Khenpo Jigpun་༼མཁན་པོ་འཇིགས་ཕུན་༽. Terrone quotes from Gyurme Dorje’s much-used travel guide, Tibet Handbook, at p. 611.  However, my edition of that book must be a different one, because I found it on page 620 in mine:

"Khenpo Jikpun is well-known for obtaining the ‘bird-dogs’ of Tibet, a tiny dog which is reputably* found in the nest of cliff-nesting birds, and has the power to detect poison in food! He presented one to the Dalai Lama on a recent visit to India. He has also travelled widely in Europe and North America."

(*I guess he means reputedly. I should email the author to be sure.)

I was surprised once again a few weeks ago when I came across another quote, this one by the 11th-century Turkologist Kashgari as translated by the modern Turkologist Robert Dankoff in an oldish article of his.  

“Perhaps,” says Dankoff, “the strangest lore in the Diwan concerns baraq, the shaggy dog (kalb ahlab),” 

Kashgari says: 

“The Turks claim that when the vulture grows old it lays two eggs and then hatches them. From one emerges this dog, called Baraq — it is the swiftest of running dogs and the most reliable in the hunt; from the other emerges a chick, the last of its chicks.”

Well, I wager you’ve already admitted that the ideas are similar. Yes of course, apart from the difference that while one has the ability to detect poison the other can run like the wind. Several Turkic groups were living in close proximity to Tibet for quite a long time, not to mention Kashgari himself. So I don’t know if there is enough chance of finding an answer to justify placing the question how and where the bird-dog exchanges may have come about. I’m afraid I know little more than what I’ve told you already. Still, I somehow regard it as impressive enough to warrant a short blog like this one you see hanging in front of your glazed-over eyeballs, wearily rolling backward in their sockets in utter disbelief at this late-night shaggy dog story. All I can say in my defense is that the dog might not be all that shaggy after all. Go on and stick that in your pipe and smoke it, esteemed professors.

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You must surely be demanding to see sources of authority for these amazing claims. Well, here you go:

Robert Dankoff, “Kâsgarî on the Beliefs and Superstitions of the Turks,”  Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 95, no.1 (January 1975), pp. 68-80, at p. 79.*

(*There are quite a few other things in Dankoff’s article suggesting some remarkably deep Tibeto-Turkic relations. I’m sure you already know that the oldest Tibetan texts display knowledge of the Turks they know as དྲུ་གུ་ or གྲུ་གུ་. I hate to be the bearer of difficult truths, but this dru-gu can in real instances be collapsed into the single syllable drug (དྲུག་), and this unwary translators are bound to render as the number six.  And གྲུ་གུ་?  It can also mean a ball of string.  Well, before I get tooo deep into the labyrinth, I think I’ll save that Turkic connection talk for another time, one more convenient to me.)

Gyurme Dorje, Tibet Handbook with Bhutan, Passport Books (Lincolnwood 1996), at p. 620.

Antonio Terrone, “Visions, Arcane Claims and Hidden Treasures: Charisma and Authority in a Present-day Gter-ston,” contained in: P. Christiaan Klieger, ed., Tibet, Self & the Tibetan Diaspora: Voices of Difference, Brill (Leiden 2002), pp. 213-228, at p. 222.

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PS: Googlebooks tells me there is something about a man nicknamed Shaggy Dog Shaman in Julian Baldick's book Animal and Shaman.  His somewhat more proper name was Baraq Baba. He was a Turkish Muslim and he lived in around the year 1300.

“We are told that Baraq Baba and his followers were beardless, but with long moustaches, and wore felt hats with two horns. Around their necks hung cows’ knuckle bones painted with henna, crooked sticks and little bells. They would beat drums and play other instruments...”

This is complete news to me, but he sure sounds like an entertaining guy to invite to your next party.

If you read Turkish better than I do, have a look at this Vikipedia entry. To believe the entry about him in Encyclopaedia Iranica* as I tend to do, Baraq Baba’s nickname means just the opposite of shaggy dog; it means hairless dog. To tell the truth, disregarding the hair problem for now, he resembles more than a little the young Götsangpa. Maybe it’s just the horned hat* and the showbiz attitude. Hmm... they lived at nearly the same time, didn’t they? 

(*I’m not sure you can get there, but give it a try here.)
(*For more on the horns see the blog on Birdhorns.)

PS:  There is further information of extraordinary interest in the comments section, a comment by "lovesong," so I think you ought to have a look right about now.

PPS: This just in (June 26, 2020):

Source: Peter B. Golden, Studies on the Peoples and Cultures of the Eurasian Steppes, ed. by Catalin Hriban, Editura Academiei Române (Bucharest 2011), p. 372:

baraq: At-Tuḫfat, 30a/ Fazylov, 167 “лохматая собака,” Clauson, 360 “a long-haired dog” glossed as a “sheep dog” in our source. It is noted in Kâšġarî as a “shaggy dog.” This is a famous animal in Turkic folklore, the “hairy dog” born of eagles. In Yakut and Turkmen it is a bird. One may also note the Qıl Baraq (probably standing for the Pečenegs) and their chieftain It-Baraq of the Oğuz legend preserved in Rašîd ad-Dîn. The term probably entered Turkic from Iranian, cf. Sogd. β‘r‘k, Saka bârgya “rider,” Pahl. bârak the horse of Ahriman.

The Tibetan Invention of the Cell Phone

Sure, I think I can recognize the likely sources of your hesitancy. You’re thinking to yourself, ‘What? Not another rave about ancient Tibetan technology and out-of-place artefacts!’ Well, yes, I guess it is, sort of. I know you’ve been bamboozled before, and that’s what makes it hard for you to trust other people with their strange ideas ever again. But I do plan to have a look into the sources of authority, and the authority of that authority, if I have time for it. Before that I want to quote from something you will have to agree is a most impressive testimony to Tibetan knowledge of the cell phone long before it became the quotidian headache it is today. The source is a very reputable one. In fact, it’s the Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, volume 26, part 2 published in the year 1940, in an article by Captain V. d'Auvergne, M.C., D.C.M., M.S.M., entitled “My Experiences in Tibet.” Notice that date nearly 75 years ago when your grandparents were mere saplings. Now go ask them what kind of phones they were using way back then. I’m sure they’ll still remember if they remember anything at all.

Another thing you should notice is that right in the title, we already know that it isn’t just some official talking head or armchair observer... No, this person was there and personally experienced what he’s talking about. There, on pages 109 through 111, you may read, and I quote:

“While staying at the Moru-amo Lhaga, seated one afternoon in the Zug-kang with Pezu Lama, who on account of his great age went by the simple name of Goppoo (which means — old man), he suddenly stopped talking and held himself as if to listen — then from the breast of his tin-lo (robe) withdrew a small metal cylinder-shaped article about 8" in length by 2" in diameter, from one end of which he removed a cover, and held the open end to his ear for a moment, then reversed it and opened the other end, into which he spoke a sentence or two in a whispering voice, after which he closed the instrument and returned it to his robe. On seeing my astonishment and curiosity that I could not hide — he calmly informed me that he was talking to his young brother who was a lama away north in the Tzagan Ora Mountains, over 200 miles from Moru-amo. I felt so confused on hearing this, that the only remark I could manage to think of was to ask him what might be the age of his young brother?  ‘Oh!’ he replied in a slighting manner, ‘he is not 120 as yet.’ I thought it best not to ask any more questions, but during the months of my convalescence with the Dzurmo, I mentioned this matter. He smilingly informed me that it was a simple little convenience called the L'en sang-wa (or secret messenger) at one time extensively in use with the ancient Gyal-Dzom. The little instruments were made in pairs only, and by some process—en rapport—with each other in such a manner that certain very delicate vibratory action was set up by the voice on the fine tissues of the other. An instrument was no use without its particular pair. The chemical from which the tissues were prepared was of some kind of composite mineral, and vegetable extraction, the secret of which was jealously guarded by the ancient Gyal-Dzom, but it appears that the secret leaked out and seems to have filtered down the ages, but still carefully guarded by a few of the elect. I learned later that the tissues of the instruments deteriorated after a certain time, but could always be renewed by chemical treatment. Here again is interesting work for research.”

The Tibetan name the Captain gives for the secret messenger is l'en sang-wa. I guess that is likely to be Tibetan lan gsang-ba, and that it means something more like secret response.  

Did you ever hear of the Baghdad battery? The Dendera lightbulbs? Well, if you haven’t, you ought to look into it. I see that our trusty Captain also found lightbulbs in Tibet.

“Approaching one of the lights, I found that it was but a lump of common stone-crystal about 4" in diameter placed on a plate of some kind of metal, grey in colour, about half an inch thick and one foot in diameter, all of which was hung by bronze wire loops from an arm at right angles from a wooden upright. Over and around the plate ran an ornamental tracing in thin lines of gold hieroglyphics resembling the characters on the cave writings. Needless to say, I was keen to get an explanation...”

Keen is the word for you, too, if you are like me. In case you need this reassurance, everything does have a reasonable explanation. Whether you’ll be ready to accept it or not, I’m not so ready to say.

“The Che-sho willingly informed me that the sound of the gong penetrated the metal plate from which a vibrating force emanated, that had the effect of infusing to the crystal particles a bright luminous glow that gradually grew to a certain intensity in accordance with the volume of vibratory sound. If the gong was struck with a metal hammer, the glow would be so great that the human eye could not stand it without a head covering of thick cloth—and still neither the crystal or plate had a particle of heat.

“Che-sho said that he had no knowledge of what kind of metal the plate or the gong was made of, as they were received in his Monastery hundreds of years ago. He could not say from where or from whom; but personally, I have no doubt that it is another of the ancient Gyal-Dzom's scientific secrets.”

As if we hadn’t had our fill of amazing information, the Captain tells us about the dong-are Kong-mi, his Tibetan name for the Abominable Snowmen.  I’m guessing there is a small fault in the typography, and emend it to dong-dre Kong-mi; then it comes closer to meaning what he says it means, which is devil snowmen. Still, I’d prefer the translation bear snow men, assuming the true spelling to be dom-dred gangs-mi. That much seems reasonable. I also liked the vines that were made to grow so rapidly — ten feet in one day — they could be made to form bridges. That sounds very useful, so long as it’s not the dreaded kudzu vine. Forget about cell phones; I’d be overjoyed to learn that Tibetans never invented anything so harmful.

If you want to know when the first real walky-talky was invented, look here.  Interesting...

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I don't know much about the author, except that he wrote two books (or would that be just one book?) that are still available from used book dealers:

Zindari A daughter of the Indian Frontier and other Thrilling Tales of the Indian Frontier by Captain V. D'Auvergne (1939).

Folk-Tales of the Indian Frontier  I’m not so sure if this title isn’t just one of the many reprints of the title just listed.

I guess I should have included sound-activated light switches among the subjects of today’s blog. Next time maybe I’ll go into the issue of when the first Tibetan man-lifting kites may have been invented. If you are like me — and I guess you are like me more or less — I know you won’t want to miss it.  Now you can find it here.