A Nyingma Apologetic by a Renowned Gelugpa

 

In recent times an old polemic text has surfaced. Actually, it has surfaced twice, not that I’ve heard of anyone remarking on it. I haven’t. Because of obscurity in the front title, and because cataloging hasn’t been done yet, it isn’t really possible to locate with a local or www search. That’s one reason why, if it sounds like something you might be interested in, you may need help I can offer you.

It’s a defense of the Nyingma school by none other than Khedrubjé (མཁས་གྲུབ་རྗེ་, 1385-1438), Tsongkhapa’s famously cantankerous yet immensely intelligent student. Although Gandenpa (དགའ་ལྡན་པ་) was the term likely used in his time, he has to be regarded as a very important founding member of the Gelugpa, and one with at best tenuous connections to any of his contemporary Nyingmapas as far as we know. His sharp arguments tended to be aimed toward his Sakyapa contemporaries more than anyone else, remembering that he was originally a Sakyapa himself. ‘Could it really be by him?’ you are likely asking. Wasn’t he known for attacking rather than defending other ways of thinking besides his own?

If you are curious about the title, the front title page is so abraded it is difficult to read, especially the 2nd line, but some help could be gained from hints in the colophon, so I fill in the blanks like this:

sngags rnying ma'i log par rtogs pa'i brtsod spangs (?) gzhan phan nor bu'i phreng ba zhes bya ba bzhugs so // 

rje tsong kha pa'i thugs sras mchog gnyis kyi ya gyal mkhas grub dge legs dpal bzang gi mdzad pa.

Clearing Away Wrongly Made Arguments with Respect to the Old Mantra School: A Necklace of Beneficial Gems.  

The Work of Khedrub Geleg Pelzang, One of the Two Supreme Heart Sons of Lord Tsongkhapa.*

(*The paper appears old and weathered, a little frayed around the edges, with a huge thumbprint on the title page to the left of the title box. The thumbprint was surely deliberate. Perhaps it was placed there by a Rinpoche as a blessing? Both title pages share the same thumbprint, so obviously the very same document was photographed twice. It is as if we have fingerprint evidence.)

The author is given in the colophon as Geleg Pelzangpo (དགེ་ལེགས་དཔལ་བཟང་པོ་), and this is quite a normal name for Khedrubjé to sign with. I don’t see anything there about the place of composition or a date, but that kind of information is not always to be expected. The final verse, a printing colophon, tells us the woodblock prints were kept at Dzogchen Monastery.

Well, the truth is that, contrary to normal philological wisdom, things do indeed emerge from time to time to overthrow our past assumptions (rather than fitting nicely into them as they ought to do), and most of us know life is full of surprises. So we cannot reject his authorship out of hand. Yes, authorship ascriptions for polemical texts are often doubted, doubted on the grounds that the real author might have good reasons to hide her own identity — one possibility: wanting to create maximum impact for her work she might sign the name of a highly respected authority, someone people ought to believe, rather than her own less significant name that would carry less force.* But such rationalizations as these don’t work ahead of time, before doing the necessary hard work of finding out if it’s the case in each case. Otherwise, it’s too much lazy thinking to count as science.

(*Another, very different rationalizing line could be suggested: Names may be added to works that had been transmitted without authorship statements, adding an author that is suggested by the content or style of the work. I also wonder if text ascriptions, disregarding the question of their truth value, may work along the same lines as quote ascriptions in modern-day speechmaking. This phenomenon is sometimes called “Churchillian Drift.”)

This work is not included in the many volumes of his Collected Works.  But inclusion or non-inclusion is not by itself necessarily a reliable criteria for authorship. Compilers of such collections had more than just verifiable authorship in mind when they did their work.

Perhaps a small and, given the dates of the authors, not all that persuasive argument for Khedrubjé's authorship: a search of BDRC reveals that it is cited as his work, “composed by Khedrubjé,” in a writing by Zhabkar Natsokrangdrol (ཞབས་དཀར་སྣ་ཚོགས་རང་གྲོལ་, 1781-1851):

Vol. 10, page 556 of tshogs drug rang grol; gsung 'bum/_tshogs drug rang grol; W1PD45150. mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang, zi ling, 2002.

... ་བོད་མཁས་གྲུབ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱི་དགོངས་པ་བཙལ་ཤེས་ན་ལྟ་བ་ཐམས་ཅད་མི་་་་་་མཐུན་པ་མེད་དེ། མཁས་གྲུབ་རྗེས་མཛད་པའི་ལེགས་བཤད་གཞན་ཕན་ནོར་བུའི་ཕྲེང་བ་ལས། སྔ་འགྱུར་རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་ལྟ་བ་དང་། །འཇིག་རྟེན་གྲགས་སྡེ་སྤྱོད་པའི་དབུ་མ་ཡི། །ལྟ་བ་548

And again in the works of Chökyiwangchuk (1775-1837):

Vol. 12, page 749 of chos kyi dbang phyug; gsung 'bum/_chos kyi dbang phyug; W1KG14557. khenpo shedup tenzin, swayambhunath, kathmandu, 2011.

... ་མ་ཟད་རྙིང་མའི་བསྟན་པ་ལ་དྲང་གཏམ་གྱི་བྱ་བ་ཆེར་མཛད་པའི་བསྟན་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་གསང་སྔགས་སྔ་འགྱུར་ལ་རྩོད་སྤོང་ལེགས་བཤད་གཞན་ཕན་ནོར་བུའི་ཕྲེང་བ་ཞེས་པ་ངོ་མ་བསླད་མེད་བཞུགས་པའི་ནང་དུ་རྒྱས་པར་གསལ་བ། ཕྱིས་

In content, this apologetic work appears to have a lot of its content in common (not that I've noticed exact wording) with the response by Sogdogpa (སོག་བཟློག་པ་) to the anti-Nyingma polemic by Pendzin (དཔལ་འཛིན་). Pendzin’s work seems to have surfaced right around 1400 CE more or less, and that would have been just in time for it to get the attention of Khedrubjé. So could it be Pendzin’s work in particular that both Sogdogpa and our [pseudo-?] Khedrubjé were responding to? Could that explain the similarity of content? 

What do you think? Is it by Khedrubjé or not?

Hoped-for readings

If you are a Tibetan reader and would like to read for yourself, pop “W8LS20153” into BDRC's searchbox. Once you get there, it’s located at pp. 128-143 (in the page numbering of the scan itself).

The second copy can be found at BDRC as part of the 76-volume collection given the title “khams khul nas ’tshol bsdu zhus pa’i dpe rnying dpe dkon” (W3PD982), at vol. 34, pp. 13-28 (in the page numbering of the scan).

I just went to have a look at this text: 'Bri gung dpal 'dzin gyi rtsod zlog.  It was located and photographed in Bhutan by Karma Phuntso’s project with the overall title “Drametse thorbu no. 202.”  You can view the cursive manuscript here: https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP105-1-3-204. But now I see it’s in 7-syllable verse, and the author signs his name as Lha-rje Blo-gros, so it is surely the work by Sokdokpa. On Sokdokpa, you will need to read the dissertation of James Gentry: Substance and Sense: Objects of Power in the Life, Writings, and Legacy of the Tibetan Ritual Master Sog bzlog pa Blo gros rgyal mtshan.

Roger R. Jackson, “Tsongkhapa as Dzokchenpa: Nyingma Discourses and Geluk Sources,” The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies, vol. 21, article 6 (2021), pp. 115-150. This remarkable essay has a lot to say about Tsongkhapa’s Nyingma connections, but not much about Khedrubjé. Tsongkhapa had a well-known disciple relationship with the Nyingma visionary Lhodrak Drubchen (ལྷོ་བྲག་གྲུབ་ཆེན་), although whether or not he received from him or anyone else Nyingma teachings, per se, is another question. It seems as if he never seriously entertained ideas related to Dzogchen. See the most complete and amazing biography of Tsongkhapa ever to appear in English: Thupten Jinpa, Tsongkhapa: A Buddha in the Land of Snows, Shambhala (Boulder 2019), especially pp. 140-151, 346. In a presentation by Michael Ium of Santa Barbara given at the International Association of Buddhist Studies in Seoul earlier this month, some more interesting information was given about Tsongkhapa’s Nyingma teacher and the role that he played in the politics of the time. But I’ll let him have his say about this. It had the title “Tsongkhapa as a Mahāsiddha: A Reevaluation of the Patronage of the Gelukpa in Tibet.” 

Oh yes, if you are not yet ready to tackle James Gentry’s full-lengthed dissertation, a quicker option could be to read this very recent article of his entitled “Tracing the Life of a Buddhist Literary Apologia: Steps in Preparation for the Study and Translation of Sokdokpa’s Thunder of Definitive Meaning.”

Finally, if you would like a swift review of the main points of Khedrubjé’s life, try José I. Cabezón, “A Short Biography of mKhas grub dGe Legs dpal bzang,” contained in the same author’s A Dose of Emptiness, Sri Satguru Publications (Delhi 1992), pp. 13-19. There is also a much briefer sketch by Namdrol Miranda Adams at Treasury of Lives website.

Inward Struggle for Inner Calm - Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, Jewish

Peraldus

“In all my activities may I search my own mind and, as soon as an afflictive emotion arises endangering myself and others, may I firmly face and avert it.”

— Kadampa Geshé Langritangpa’s Eight Verses of Mind Cultivation. 

Civilization means to be made to conform to your social world, it makes you feel more and more a part of your society the more you give in to its demands. Civilization makes the rules. Cultivation, an entirely different story, means working on yourself as a way of aspiring to something higher than your immediate surroundings, something transcendent and sublime. It may well be that society will neither approve nor help you with cultivation, while religions really ought to especially in cases when they don’t.

If you’ve never considered how ethics worthy of the name comes from inner cultivation and not from any outwardly imposed morality, explore some of these published resources. Start from the premise that we are all humans doing our best to be authentic and basically good. Then we might discuss whether there might be more and less effective ways to go about it. And even if generally effective, there are always, in every religious system, efforts that turn out unsuccessful for one reason or another. We might have to admit that, for the time being, alleviation and mitigation are sublime enough aims for us.

I’m not saying the battle metaphor is the ideal one let alone the only one, just that you do find it, and it’s intended as a metaphor when it’s used as one.* It makes clear and prominent appearances in Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism, and those are enough religions for us to think about for now. The use of it does tend to foster an approach to mental turmoil as something to directly confront and do away with (or perhaps retreat from it or block its stimulus). But it may prove more effective (as in the Great Vehicle) to counteract negative emotions with spiritually conducive ones, make use of antidotes, or what is a little different, to transform them. But then transformation is by no means all that straightforward, as it may itself involve more and less effective techniques. One problem is some of our emotional problems rest on the surface, while others are deeply entrenched or invisible to us. When approached from this direction, with klesha-solving objectives, the Vajra Vehicle with its specialized and seemingly counterintuitive techniques begins to make sense. The trouble is so many attempt to sneak through the back door to grab whatever bauble first catches their eye.** Their commitment is selective at best.

(*I have in mind those irritatingly self-promoting academics of our times who are so incognizant of distinctions between metaphors, similes, analogies, parables, fables, plot lines, irony, etc., that they lump them into that nearly meaningless [because overworked] word “trope,” a word they toss off with an insouciant yawn or a snarl of practiced tedium. We may not be all that sure what real intellect is, but we know this is not it. Their assumption they expect us to share in is that plainly literal expository prose is the only language that does anything for us. It’s as if the poetics discussion had never taken place and wouldn’t make sense to any of us if it did. **We could very well expect a ‘What’s in it for me’ attitude, but what is needed is more like ‘How can we go about this the right way?’ and ‘Has this procedure proven to have a good track record?’)

Dalai Lama Tells Muslims Jihad Is Meant to Combat Our Inner Destructive Emotions.

His Holiness in a Mosque
in Leh, Ladakh, 2022

For a useful H.H. Dalai Lama quote, look around a minute and a half into this video, “Do Not Reject Refugees Because They Are Muslims.” But seriously, take the time to listen to the whole seven minutes of the BBC interview. It takes awhile to warm up.

Moshe Idel, “Inner Peace through Inner Struggle in Abraham Abulafia's Ecstatic Kabbalah,” Journal for the Study of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry (March 2009), pp. 62-96.  If the link doesn’t work, you could also try here.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1901-1994), “How to Fight the Evil Inclination” [excerpt from a talk for children]. In Yiddish with clear English subtitles, its main thesis is that rationality springs to the defense of our chief opponent, the negative impulses, or evil inclinations (yetser hara).  But trying to use rationality against them is basically a waste of our time. No sense engaging them in their arguments on their level (although I have to say, in this excerpt it isn’t especially clear what the Rebbe positively prescribes. He appears to say that, given that divine assistance lends us a definite edge, if you just fill your time with ordinary religious practice, thereby ignoring them, victory is assuredly on its way... [Is this a fair assessment?]).

Michael Evans, “An Illustrated Fragment of Peraldus’s Summa of Vice: Harleian MS 3244,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 45 (1982), pp. 14-68.  If you are one of far too many who never heard of Peraldus (ca. 1200-1271), look at this Wiki page.

The British Library website has this nice page of manuscript illuminations from a Peraldus manuscript, with explanations.

I recommend to download at a higher density the illumination of the Christian knight with doves and demons from this page.  There are a lot of surviving manuscripts of Peraldus’s works, so many library and university websites have put up complete or partial scans that you can find if you look.

I don’t seriously expect anyone else to see things the way I do — oh well, I’ve been surprised before — but when I first set eye on the Christian knight of Peraldus,* I could see nothing other than the set of Mental States as described in Buddhist Abhidharma texts. To narrow in a bit and put a name to it: klesha therapeutics.**

(*This happened at an exhibit in the British Museum at the turn of the 3rd millennium. I was so intrigued by that page of Peraldus I had to purchase the heavy catalog and lug it home, where it can still be found: Frances Carey, ed., The Apocalypse and the Shape of Things to Come, British Museum Press [London 1999]. The Christian Knight may be seen in full color on p. 73. **Klesha therapeutics have featured several times in earlier Tibeto-logic blogs, for instance this one.)

Barbara H. Rosenwein, Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages, Cornell University Press (Ithaca 2006). This book makes me think differently, lending me a greater respect for some of the contemporary movements in emotion studies (I already had it for medievalism). All you have to do is see the lists of emotions by Cicero, Seneca, Jerome and many others that can be found in this book to notice that the Mental States ideas of Abhidharma texts (let’s see, we might just as well call it Buddhist emotion theory) can be fitted in well with them. Wherever you look, whether east or west, emotional possibilities are listed, analyzed and charted out as part of this or that program for bettering ourselves. Once a basic emotional commonality (beyond particular and after all mostly slight or language-governed differences) has been established we can go on to commiserate with out fellow humans, and maybe even experience first hand that curious and by all means emotional complex that makes up that compassion Buddhists regard so highly. It’s the pity, the fear and the joy that make us jump in the car and drive to the theater in the first place, isn’t it? Aristotle thought so and I guess he was right, just that he never learned to drive.

Raja Muhammad Mustansar Javaid, “The Merits of the Soul: Struggle Against The Self (Nafs).” There is a lot out there defining what the nafs is in the Quran and in Islamic spiritual psychology. I recommend this recently posted page for its broad compilation of sources that include videos.

On the “Beastie Boys”:  

More laughs were to come when Mike D. shared the story behind the band’s name. It’s an acronym for “Boys Entering Anarchistic States Towards Inner Excellence.” And yes, he admitted, “it was a stupid name.”

No it wasn’t. That said, am I required to like the music?

Johnny Cash, The Beast in Me.   

I was trying to think what direction to take here in terms of a conclusion or even just a parting shot. You tell me. If you’ve looked into and reflected about how to become the better version of your non-self, my work is overly done. And, well... If we can find out how not to be a puppet or slave to impulsive or habitual thought patterns, the struggle is nearly over. And to answer that other thought, No. It doesn’t make sense to talk about mental turmoil without putting some on display. Really, it doesn’t.

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PS: Over a decade ago there was a sharp and edgy blog I enjoyed reading called “Buddhist Jihad.” I thought it was lost forever, but you can still get access to it via the Way Back Machine. It isn’t for the irony-challenged. But that’s not you, not if you’re here.

PPS: Oh wait, the original is still up there. You can find it here. 

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PPPS (September 14, 2022):

For those who want to see the original Tibetan of the verse from Langritangpa (གླང་རི་ཐང་པ་རྡོ་རྗེ་སེང་གེ, 1054-1123 CE) at the head of this blog, here it is:

སྤྱོད་ལམ་ཀུན་ཏུ་རང་རྒྱུད་ལ། །རྟོག་ཅིང་ཉོན་མོངས་སྐྱེས་མ་ཐག །བདག་གཞན་མ་རུངས་བྱེད་པས་ན། །བཙན་ཐབས་གདོང་ནས་བཟློག་པར་ཤོག །

I’d like to underscore the use of the term btsan-thabs, a key word in this context, that might be literally translated forceful method[s], although in general practice it is most likely to be used for physiological or breath exercises of the yogic kinds. In this particular case, it is about dealing with negative emotional events as they arise within us, and have nothing to do with retaliation against external threats. If you need more convincing, just turn to any Stages of the Path (lam-rim) work, and turn to the section on the six Transcendent Perfections (Phar-phyin drug), then narrow in on the part about forbearance (bzod-pa). Then we can talk back all we want about Buddhists who clearly don’t live up to the ethical standards of aspiring bodhisattvas, and when we do, let’s go back to cultivating forbearance before it gets too late.

Pay attention to who is speaking the following words, a political power broker if there ever was one who accepts the label ‘extremism’ with pride:

“I do not respect the Dalai Lama. He’s a political power broker. The Dalai Lama is not honorable to me.”

— Ashin Wirathu

But quickly, before we allow this firebrand ultranationalist anti-Muslim (who has meanwhile been tried for sedition and released ahead of time) put us into a defensive or offensive mood or inspire our anger (or even, over the longer term, hatred), let’s go to the chapter I recommended on forbearance. Best would be the latest translation of Gampopa’s 12th-century Stages of the Path text, the one that has lately appeared under the title Ornament of Precious Liberation, but any of the 3 or 4 earlier published translations could be good enough, I think, for this purpose.

Near the beginning of Chapter 14: The Perfection of Forbearance:

... “Anger that has found a niche inside someone lacking forbearance is like the festering wound of a poisoned arrow. The mind thus afflicted knows no joy, no peace, and in the end the person cannot even find rest in sleep. Thus it is said:

 

 

“The anger dwelling within someone lacking forbearance will also show on the outside as a violent demeanor. Through this, friends, relatives, and employees all become fed up with the angry person...”

I hope that will be enough to get the idea, but really, go and soak up the whole chapter, I urge you. And pay attention to the fact that forbearance (Pâli khanti) is a much-emphasized virtue in Theravâda Buddhism as well. We shouldn’t let the poor Burmese monk off the hook for the wrong reason. 

And rest assured that the universally Buddhist term we translate (regardless of source language), as ‘forbearance’ includes within its definitional boundaries both toleration and patience. Some even render it as ‘long-suffering’ — this rather out-of-date English term is likely to be misinterpreted by our contemporaries. If it were not for that, it could serve just as well.

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PPPPS (September 16, 2022):

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet has just returned from a tour of Ladakh and Zanskar where He addressed and dialogued with primarily Muslim audiences in Shey, Ladakh, and Padum, Zangskar. You can see and hear them by pressing on the links, I hope. The Shey is in English.

Incursions of the Foreign in a 13th-Century History

(Click on the slides if they aren’t large enough for you)

The white beard always gives me away, so no need to confess my age. But I will tell you it was back in 1989 that I first knew of the history book connected with the name Khepa Deyu (མཁས་པ་ལྡེའུ་). At the time I was in Nepal and got the opportunity to study some parts of the text, specific parts that interested me, indirectly with Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche. 

The first part I chose to read was a challenging one, the Fable of the Owl and the Otter, meant to explain why the kheng-log, or revolts of the civilian workers, came about. 

I also worked on the story of the final end of monasticism at the very end of the text. I suppose I was attracted by the apocalyptic tone of it. But with all the hype about the Y2K virus the end of the 2nd millennium did not bring the end of the world with it, and here we are, still going to conferences in Prague two decades later, under threat of a less virtual virus.

Jump ahead 20 years from initial exposure in 1989 to 2009, when I was commissioned by Thubten Jinpa to translate the entire 400-page book for the Library of Tibetan Classics. A three-year project is what I signed up for, but twelve years on I was spending the better part of my time working on it. I received a lot of excellent help even if I won’t name any names right now. You can find those names listed in the acknowledgements when the book is released on the 19th of this month.

To begin with I would like to say some words about the confusing issue of authorship. It is a question of identifying the sectarian entanglements of the three authors that best fits the theme of our panel,* so I will concentrate more on that.

(*The panel was called “Early Religious Networks: Monastic Institutions and Eclectic Traditions in the 11th–15th centuries.’’ This blog is a slightly modified version of the presentation to that panel.)

 

I’ll simplify by stating my conclusions about the identities of three different authors of three distinct historical works. I think some people will be surprised at this news, but in the end I believe there was only one Deyu we need to be concerned about, not two and not three. The one and only Deyu, according to me, is the author of the verse history. This verse history is quoted in both of the published histories we have, the one supposed to be by one Deyu José (ལྡེའུ་ཇོ་སྲས་) that I call “the small Deyu,” and the other longer, and I would say later, one so often attributed to a Khepa Deyu, “the long Deyu”). The two authors, whatever their real names might be, each semi-independently took the verses as their root texts, and composed or compiled their histories after the common pattern of a root text and commentary (རྩ་འགྲེལ་). The text by Deyu (ལྡེའུ་) is the root text for both works, and that is why they both have his name in their titles.

The authorship of the small Deyu is admittedly problematic. He is identified largely based on interpreting a difficult prostration verse in the long Deyu. The long Deyu's author is and probably will remain anonymous even if there are a couple of candidates that show some small promise.

Various forms of the name of the root verse writer Deyu

After a lot of detective work, I could find out the fuller name of the verse-writing Deyu as well as a disappointingly brief biography (located in Bhutan thanks to Karma Phuntsho's Endangered Archives Project grant). The fuller name and the brief biography are the two small things I could add to the sketch given by Chabpel in his preface to the 1987 publication of the long Deyu.

The fuller forms of the name of the verse writer you see here could only be uncovered by comparing a number of lineage lists.

To simplify, the verses by Deyu must date to the main period of his known activity. That means in decades surrounding 1180.

Deyu belonged to one of the several lineages that descended from Padampa Sangye. You can see Padampa here in what is probably his most famous portrait now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It in fact shows him in a form that pertains to the Zhijé school and not to the Gcod or ‘Cutting’ school although those Cutting images with their rattle drums and thigh trumpets are much more commonly seen.

The Zhijé lineages are divided among “Three Transmissions.” They are defined by Padampa’s three different sojourns in Tibet. It was one of the lineages of the Middle Transmissions that took place in Central Tibet during a more-or-less 10-year sojourn in Tibet, let’s say around 1060 or 1070 or so. And among the 6 transmissions that resulted from his teachings in those years, our verse maker belonged to the So tradition, the one with the golden star next to it. I’ve marked with a blue star the (today) much better known tradition of Kunga in the Later Transmission. Kunga’s is the one that continued to grow and form institutions during the next few centuries, and we are much better equipped with information about it. 

The Middle Transmissions are not only a lot more obscure and exclusive to begin with, they were more or less absorbed in the coming 2 or 3 generations under the influence of the Nyingma-leaning Zhijé figure Tenné and three of his disciples named the Rog brothers. Because they were absorbed, they lacked the institutions that could transmit, preserve and elaborate on their historical accounts.

Even if it is scarcely visible in the texts themselves, as they are quite ecumenical and pan-sectarian in their scope, it is likely all three authors had lineage connections with both Nyingma and Zhijé. My hunch is they shared one and only one lineage, even if it might have been a composite lineage. The following chart

shows the relevant spiritual lineage of the Aro Dzogchen lineage that descended from that interesting figure Aro, subject of the dissertation by Serena Biondo that was much help to me in sorting this out.

There are two books that also helped me a lot:

One is José Cabezón's translation of the philosophical history by Rogban that dates to the early decades of the 13th century. It deserves a lot of attention from our panel, and it has very close affinities with the long Deyu. It shares the same Nyingma-Zhijé affiliations, so the many parallels shouldn’t surprise us.

David Pritzker’s Oxford DPhil, is on an earlier history  This untitled anonymous work from the mid-to-late-12th century is more relevant for parallels with the long Deyu when it comes to Tibet’s imperial history.

To end with, and to keep things fast and sweet, as we must, I will highlight two passages from the long Deyu. Both of them can be located in Brandon Dotson’s dissertation with both text and translation. Both are describing the martial exploits of fighters conscripted in a particular region who went on to conquer yet another region. Let me tell you what I see in them, try to support it a little, and then find out if you can see it, too.

རྒྱའི་སོ་མཁར་བྱང་གི་བར་ལ་རྟ་པ་དགུ་སྒྲིལ་རྒྱུག་ཏུ་བཏུབ་པའི་ནང་ན། མི་སྤེ་ཐུང་ཙམ་པས་དགྲ་སྟའི་ཁ་ཁྲུ་རེ་ཙམ་ཐོགས་ནས། འཐབ་པའི་ཚེ། 

The first highlight which I have lit-er-al-ly highlighted in yellow (you can see the actual page number above) evokes two things in my mind. It's northward of China and concerns border posts. This already sounds like the Great Wall of China. And the mention of how many horsemen can ride side-by-side makes us think of modern day tourist brochures that often mention how many horses or men could race side by side on top of it.

Secondly, I see in the short people with their large battle axes an image of the short fighting men known in ancient Greek culture even before Homer, the battle between the pygmies and the cranes. 

Nilotic scene from Sepphoris

This image is commonplace, so well-known in Greek art and literary history that it has a one-word name: ‘Geranomachy.’ Google that.

And if we look for intersections between small humans and the great wall, there is another odd incident of it known from early Chinese sources. At least I know of one source dated 1574 about thousands of tiny corpses housed in 12 & 1/2" coffins that were found during a repair of the Great Wall.* I doubt its relevance, but today practically everyone in the Anglophone world at least believes that workers who died during the building of the Great Wall were buried inside of it. On the other hand: There are said to be plenty of other references to ‘small people’ in Chinese sources before and since, but I will leave it with this for now.

(*Qiong Zhang, Making the New World Their Own, pp. 69-74, & esp. p. 73.)

And if we need more proof, the Chinese Fort Lom-shi mentioned here might stand for Chinese Longshan, or ‘Dragon Mountain,’ and therefore likely the Panlongshan, or ‘Coiling Dragon Mountain,’ today’s name of a section of the Great Wall located 160 kms. northeast of Beijing. Well, I don’t want to get lost in geographical problems and I will defer to experts who could better deny or verify this.

The oddity of this is that I know of no other reference, in any classical Tibetan text, to the Great Wall of China. I imagine someone could enlighten us on this point.

གྲུ་གུ་གསེར་མིག་ཅན་གྱི་ཆུང་མ་ཧོར་མོ་སྤིར་མདུང་ཅན། ནུ་མ་གཡས་པ་མེ་བཙས་བསྲེགས་ནས། མདའ་སྤར་གསུམ་གྱི་མགོ་ཙམ་པ། རྡོ་ཁེབ་ལའང་ཅུར་འབྱིན་(154ན)པ་ལ་་་

The second passage I’ve highlighted is about Turkish, perhaps Uighur women who hold shields and spears. Obviously that means they are women soldiers. But we know they are not just any women soldiers, but specifically Amazons, when we read how they burned off their right nipples. It doesn’t seem to be the case that the breast, let alone a small part of it, would in fact impede the use of arrows and spears. The name “Amazon” itself probably comes from a local Scythian term with another meaning, but the Greeks found their own Greek etymology meaning ‘absent breast’ and then created the story to explain it. The breast burning detail in the Tibetan text demonstrates to us beyond doubt that the influence of the Greeks lies in its background.*

(*All these points have chapters devoted to them in Adrienne Mayer’s 2014 book, The Amazons. About use of magnets in arrowhead extraction, there is a reference to be found in the Rgyud Bzhi medical scripture [Barry Clark’s tr., p. 134] and Suśruta also mentions it as one of 15 extraction methods [Gabriel’s book, p. 132]. I haven’t learned that Amazons knew of this in sources I know of.)

A Tibetan “Amazon” advancing under fire

I suggest that the allusion to the Pygmies, if that is what it is, and the account of the Amazons, which is no doubt there, are both filling a particular task in the context we find them in. 

As I said, Brandon Dotson's dissertation covers the entire catalog of law and administration, including this section on the three main military divisions where we find these accounts. If we look in the most general way into the internal structure of each of the three entries we find that each one may be sub-divided into three sub-sections: 1. The 1st sub-section defines geographical limits of the area from which the soldiers were conscripted. 2. The people they encountered in their foreign excursions. 3. A description of the soldiers and just how heroic and self-sacrificing they were.

Tibet's imperial armies are portrayed as penetrating as far off as they can imaginably go,* and there, in that far distant place, they meet the remarkably small fighting men and the women warriors. These connect to Eurasian lore about Pygmies and Amazons. It’s as if when and if one could go far enough, one might encounter such unusual humans. I’d contend if I had the time that, in the Tibetan accounts, the pygmies and Amazons are continuing the same tasks they had performed for the Greeks long before them: the Pygmies beyond the far side of Egypt, and the Amazons far north beyond the Black Sea in Scythia, or present-day Ukraine. They are the far outlying peoples with special characteristics the soldiers reported about when and if they got back home. In these instances, the incursion of very foreign ideas about Pygmy men and Amazon women is a result of military excursions, or at least appears in accounts of military excursions. The literary incursions of Greek elements, whatever route may have brought them from Greece to Tibet, were found useful in this Tibetan account of military excursions.

(*The histories sometimes say that 2/3rds of the world was conquered during the reign of Emperor Relpachan.)

Franz Kafka's short story called “The Great Wall of China”* is one of his more interesting literary works if you ask me, perhaps the only one where Tibet receives any mention (well, except for one paragraph in his letters to Milena). This story is no more about the Great Wall of China than his Metamorphosis is about waking up as a giant insect. True enough, both stories are about confinement, confinement on various scales, whether voluntary confinement or involuntary containment. Let me quote a few excerpts from it:

"Against whom was the great wall to provide protection? Against the people of the north. I come from south-east China. No northern people can threaten us there. We read about them in the books of the ancients... 

“... When children are naughty, we hold up these pictures in front of them, and they immediately burst into tears and run into our arms. But we know nothing else about these northern lands. We have never seen them, and if we remain in our village, we never will see them, even if they charge straight at us and hunt us on their wild horses. The land is so huge, it would not permit them to reach us, and they would lose themselves in empty air.”

(*Tr. by Ian Johnston, Kartindo Publishing House, print on demand, p. 13.)

 

In a very different context, and from Kafka’s mouth, not his pen... In an interview he tells the interviewer that his school was here, his university over here, and his office over there. He adds:

“My whole life is confined to this small circle.”

As he said so he traced small circles with his finger in the air.

°   °   °

Note: This is a blog version of a Powerpoint presentation at the IATS seminar held in Prague in July 2022. Each participant was limited to 15 minutes, so it was a little hurried, and if it sort of sounds like a talk, it’s because it is. In the course of the conference, Kafka’s birthday took place, but I didn't see any signs of celebration. More attention was paid to which of us had the latest positive test for Covid. So if you were thinking it may be too early to make up for missed conferences, you may very well be right. I shudder to think the press will pick up on a new strain named in honor of the event. The IATS-2022?  

PS: Just today, July 14, I found a strong line below the T and understood that I myself could not escape taking up my part in the pandemic. Very few of the participants dodged this bullet, and then only because they had recently recovered. Premonitions were entirely justified, it was a superspreader event.

Most recommended readings and references

Barry Clark, tr., The Quintessence Tantras of Tibetan Medicine, Snow Lion (Ithaca 1995).

Brandon Dotson, Administration and Law in the Tibetan Empire: The Section on Law and State, and its Old Tibetan Antecedents, Doctoral dissertation, Oxford University (2006).

Richard A. Gabriel, Man and Wound in the Ancient World: A History of Military Medicine from Sumer to the Fall of Constantinople, Potomac Books (Washington D.C. 2012).

Adrienne Mayor, The Amazons: Lives & Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World, Princeton University Press (2014). If you want something reliable and reliably interesting about Amazons, this is at the top of my list, in fact the only book on the subject I found time to read all the way through.

Asher Obadiah and Sonia Mucznik, “Myth and Reality in the Battle between the Pygmies and the Cranes in the Greek and Roman Worlds,” Gerión: Revista de Historia Antigua, vol. 35, no. 1 (2017), pp. 151-166.  “According to some scholars, this folktale...  was conveyed to the Greeks through Egyptian Sources.” Far from battling the very short people, the foreigners/Greeks instead feel pity and advise them on how to better defeat the cranes.

Alex Scobie, “The Battle of the Pygmies and the Cranes in Chinese, Arab, and North American Indian Sources,” Folklore, vol. 86, no. 2 (Summer 1975), pp. 122-132.

Qiong Zhang, Making the New World Their Own: Chinese Encounters with Jesuit Science in the Age of Discovery, Brill (Leiden 2015).

The Firmament, Its Opening, & the Milky Way

photo by Kevin Trotman (
It looks like a Magritte painting, doesn’t it?

Sky doors are not something we often visualize let alone view, and even then they’re not likely to take on the precise image you see here. It’s a little different from something we’re hearing about in recent news stories: the black hole at the middle of our galaxy, the Milky Way. I was thinking about sky doors once again after some photos were made public of that supersized black hole scientists call “Sagitarius A*” Well, it may well be a black hole, but it doesn’t look all that black and anyway, they confess to colorizing for the sake of contrast. I don’t want to overdraw possible analogies, because it is so doubtful anyone living before our times would have had the means of knowing this or any other black hole was out there. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with imagining even when it’s hard.

Not too many are aware of this interesting fact, but Tibetan language has a unique and particular term་for what we know as the Milky Way. The word is dgu-tshigs (དགུ་ཚིགས་), or ‘nine jointed.’ I understand it to be analogous to the Tibetan shamanic implement called the tshigs gsum (ཚིགས་གསུམ་), or ‘three joints,’ a ritual staff with, as you may guess, three joints (or three sections with joints between them?), likely made of cane or willow. This jointed staff may correlate with the notched stick or log used in other Tibetan contexts, or similar objects used in north Asian shamanism. Remember that traditional Tibetan ladders can look a lot like notched logs, logs set at an angle with steps carved into them. Stein (p. 202 and note 56 on p. 334) noticed that dgu-tshigs is a word for Milky Way while discussing the nine levels of the heavens, but does no more than imply there may be some connection between the two sets of nine.*

(*Stein, pp. 183-95, and especially p. 202 and note 56 on p. 334.)

I base my belief in the Tibetan term’s uniqueness on its absence from the six types identified in world mythologies by Michael Witzel (listed below, noting also Gyarmati). Sometimes a longer term for it appears in Tibetan sources, dgu-tshigs skya-mo (དགུ་ཚིགས་སྐྱ་མོ་), where the last word means ‘pale, lightish.’ The paleness in itself accords well with the milkiness in the Milky Way and makes it a little less unique, but just a little. We still have to wonder where the nine jointedness came from.

I’ve turned the problem over and over again and haven't come to any definite rationale let alone a conclusion. Still, my inclination is to connected it with concepts of a nine-tiered (sometimes 13-tiered) reality towering above the earth according to some ideas of inestimable antiquity found throughout Asia, and not only in Tibet (Stein’s book). At least in a poetic sense, the Milky Way can be taken to correspond to the cosmic ladder / rope / stairway of various myths.

I’ve been developing ideas about the various Tibetan words for “sky” and related concepts, but since these are still in seedling stage, I won’t bother you with them just yet. I wanted to make a more limited argument about the Tibetan word gnam as used in particular Tibetan cosmogonical contexts, being understood as the sphere of the fixed stars or the firmament. But first a few words about the use of the word “firmament” in general.

I think if you are fortunate to live in one of those quickly shrinking places where you can still actually see the full set of stars you only need to stay up late to see for yourself what that looks like. It looks like a canopy or an upside-down bowl arching over the earth and ending at the horizons all around you. This kind of view of a starry dome or vault with the immobile stars implanted in it is, by reason of this obviousness, universal among people not well versed in (or not [yet?] entirely immersed in) whatever scientific systems are available in their time and place. And this holds true not only in the past but today. Not only do most people not deny the obvious, they go on to make it a basis for their way of dwelling in a world as rich in symbolism and correspondences as it most surely is.

Anonymous engraving, first published in 1888 by Camille Flammarion
(1842-1925) and later colorized.
This might be what it means to look outside the box. 

Explore some more

For a continuation of the ‘sky’ theme, see now “Nam, an Ancient Word for Sky.”

Anonymous, A History of Buddhism in India and Tibet: An Expanded Version of the Dharma’s Origins Made by the Learned Scholar Deyu, Dan Martin, trans., The Library of Tibetan Classics series no. 32, Wisdom Publications (forthcoming in July 2022), in 952 pages.  Translation of a never before fully translated Tibetan text dated to 1261 CE with introduction, notes and bibliographies. See in particular pages 477-8 on the very early Tibetan cosmology entitled “The Seating Order of Divinities in the Firmament.” Of course the word in the title that I take to be yog, not yo-ga or yi-ge, is with some hesitancy translated as “firmament.” It appears to mean a covering that wraps or envelops (g.yog). See p. 34 — note 58 on Tibetan words for sky — and pages following. On p. 467, when Tibet’s first and future king was still a god in the sky, he had to move up to the oculus of the heavens to get his first glimpse of his future home, “Then the skylight of the sky opened up, the cloud covering cleared away, and he looked down upon the narrow earth below.”

John Vincent Bellezza, Flight of the Khyung (January 2016).  Go to the link and scroll down to the final several paragraphs. 

Philippe Collombert, “The Egyptian Hieroglyph Sign for the Sky ,” Hieroglyphs, vol. 1 (2023), pp. 219-244.

I’ve added this new reference into the bibliography, since its argument is that the ancient Egyptian word for sky is written with a hieroglyph that takes the form of the two floor pivots or “hinges” of a double door. That means the sky is represented by doors that can be swung open. Another cogent and more common argument is that this same hieroglyph represents a tent-like canopy (the top of the tent without its walls).

Ananda C. Coomaraswamy, The Door in the Sky: Coomaraswamy on Myth and Meaning, Princeton University Press (Princeton 1997). Chapter Two is all pertinent, but I regarded as particularly apt and evocative the first pages of Chapter Seven, pp. 179-180 in particular.

David Ebbinghaus and Michael Winsten, “Tibetan dZi (gZi) Beads,” The Tibet Journal, vol. 13, no. 1 (1988), pp. 38-57.  In yet another realm within Tibetan culture, we may see that one popular pattern found in the etched agates called gzi (གཟི་), is the one called “sky door earth door,” in which a square on one side of the bead opposes a circle on the other. The square is the earth door, while the circle is the sky door.

Imre Gyarmati, “The Names of the Milky Way in the Turkic Languages,” Acta Orientalia Hungarica, vol. 46, nos. 2-3 (1992-93), pp. 225-233. As much as one might expect or suspect the contrary, the Turkic languages terms studied here do not appear to have anything in common with the Tibetan dgu-tshigs.

Sarah Harding, tr., Machik’s Complete Explanation: Clarifying the Meaning of Chöd, a Complete Explanation of Casting Out the Body as Food [expanded edition], Snow Lion (Boston 2013). If you were thinking sky doors have nothing to do with Padampa Sangyé, you ought to notice that an important initiatory ritual of the Cutting school is called “Opening the Door of the Sky” (ནམ་མཁའི་སྒོ་འབྱེད་). It is associated with a practice of consciousness transference (འཕོ་བ་) through the fontanelle (ཚངས་བུག་). This brings in a question that needs further reflection. How does the fontanelle in the human body correspond to the door in the atmosphere? It would appear to be another instance of those microcosm-macrocosm relationships we detect so often in human cultures. 

Chris Impey, “Say Hello to Sagitarius A*, the Black Hole at the Center of the Milky Way,” posted May 6, 2022 on Astronomy website.

Petra Maurer, “Landscaping Time, Timing Landscapes: The Role of Time in the sa dpyad Tradition,” contained in: Petra Maurer, Donatella Rossi and Rolf Scheuermann, eds., Glimpses of Tibetan Divination Past and Present, Brill (Leiden 2019), pp. 89-117. The terms sky door and earth door, along with mountain door, have specific meanings within the realm of Tibet’s Chinese-derived system of geomancy (see pp. 109-110 in particular, but also Stein, p. 199).

Hulisani Ramantswana, “Day Two of Creation: Why Is the Râqîa‘ (Firmanent) Not Pronounced Good?” Journal for Semitics, vol. 22, no. 1 (2013), pp. 101-123.  This interprets the Genesis creation account as being scripted in conscious correspondence to the building of a temple: The firmament is the divider between God and creation analogous to the curtain (פָרֹכֶת paroket) dividing the Holy of Holies (the divine throne room) from the rest of the tabernacle or temple.

Paul S. Seely, “The Firmament and the Water Above,” Westminister Theological Journal, vol. 53 (1991), pp. 227-240. Turning on scholarly understandings of the “firmament” (Hebrew רקיע raqia‘) in Genesis, this article argues that indeed a solid dome (and not just an atmospheric expanse) is intended just as the Vulgate’s firmamentum and Septuagint’s στερέωμα imply in their translation choices. In large part this argument is based on the omnipresence of the idea in earlier world cultures. The widespread idea of a window or hole in the sky is brought forward (pp. 229-230) in support of it, and this is clearly relevant to the account of Tibet’s first king (see above). Still, in Biblical mentions of windows in the sky they are likely to allow the upper waters to descend on the earth as rain, not something we have perceived in our Tibetan texts. Actually, if we have any doubts about the solidity of the raqia‘, they will dissolve if we note that the roots of the word indicate a pounding, as in beaten metal, the pounding out of metal on an anvil. This etymological meaning is played upon or perhaps more seriously intended in Job 37:18, “hard as a molten mirror.”

Rolf A. Stein, The World in Miniature: Container Gardens and Dwellings in Far Eastern Religious Thought, translated into English by Phyllis Brooks, Stanford University Press (Stanford 1990), the 1987 French edition had the title Le monde en petit: jardins en miniature et habitations dans la pensée religieuse d'Extrême-Orient. He discusses Tibetan terms for the sky door on pp. 155-6, among them skar-khungs (སྐར་ཁུངས་), or “star hole,” gnam sgo (གནམ་སྒོ་) or “gate of heaven,”  gnam khungs (གནམ་ཁུངས་), “sky hole,” and mthongs (མཐོངས་), a syllable that alone or in various combinations points to the smoke-hole of human domiciles (whether yurt, tent, or cave), but I think more generally and symbolically corresponds to the oculus.  It not only lets smoke out, it lets light come in. Note, too, on p. 184, how the Yakuts locate the hole into Heaven in the Pleiades. The Buryat Mongols locate the smoke hole of the Earth in the north, perhaps at the pole star (p. 187).

H. Torczyner, “The Firmament and the Clouds, Râqîa‘ and Shehâqîm,” Studia Theologica, Nordic Journal of Theology, vol. 1, nos. 1-2 (1947), pp. 188-196. This argues for raqia‘ as meaning patching [of holes in cloth] or plating over [of metal]. I think there is irony here, in the sense that patching over [some level of] the sky would seem to eliminate all the access points, whether doors or windows.

E.J. Michael Witzel, The Origins of the World’s Mythologies, Oxford University Press (Oxford 2012). Figure 2.2 on p. 39 has a global mapping of a variety of terms for the Milky Way. The types are keyed as Way of birds, Ski-track, Dropped straw, River, Serpent or fish, and Sky seam. Prof. Witzel, of Harvard University, has highly relevant discussions about the ways of connecting earth and sky if you want to pursue that aspect. There are cultural concepts to be found about the Milky Way being a kind of prop holding up the sky somehow, or leading up into it.

Benjamin Ethan Zeller, “Scaling Heaven’s Gate: Individualism and Salvation in a New Religious Movement,” Nova Religio, vol. 10, no. 2 (November 2006), pp. 75-102. There is a lot of sensationalist hack-journalism out there on the internet, which is just the reason I steer you instead to a serious academic study of a movement so many made fun of after the tragic suicides of its devoted followers. I suppose everyone remembers how each of them had a five-dollar bill and three quarters in their pockets. I only mention them because they might come to some people’s minds. I think the members of this saucer cult believed a hole would open for them in the train of the Hale-Bopp, a comet that only returns every 2,533 years. That idea makes them special, unlike other ideas of sky openings mentioned here.

,   ,   ,

PS on the number thirteen:  

In my limited experience Tibetans regard as preposterous the very idea that there might be something ill-omened or otherwise bad about the number 13. See these:

Robert B. Ekvall, “Significance of Thirteen as a Symbolic Number in Tibetan and Mongolian Cultures,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 79 (1959) p. 188 ff.

Karl-Heinz Everding, “Herrschaft im Zeichen der Dreizehn. Die Dreizehn als Schüsselelement der tibetischen und mongolischen Herrschaftslegitimation in der Zeit des 13. bis 17. Jahrhunderts,”  Zentralasiatische Studien, vol. 39 (2010).

Penglin Wang, “The Power of Numbers in Shamanism: A Patterned Explanation of Shaman Names in Inner Asia,” Central Asiatic Journal, vol. 55, no. 1 (2011), pp. 91-127.

The Oculus at the Center of the Cement Dome of

The Pantheon in Ancient and Modern Rome