The Tingri Hundred

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Padampa in his Zhijé form (and not the 'Cutting' or Chö form) is, in recent times, mainly depicted with the very interesting gesture shown above. It seems to be unique to him, and I've never been able to locate a reasonable explanation for it that carries with it much conviction. If it was made with the right hand alone it would be the ubiquitous Teaching Gesture. (I think the gesture actually works well for many non-Buddhist Euro-types, too, since it looks like 'putting a fine point' on something, or just making a particular point [a 'micro-grip' for holding tiny objects]. It's not just an 'OK,' even if it does look similar, and even if we might find connections here, too, if we reflect awhile. I don't think it an accident that Europe somehow and somewhat shares this understanding with Tibet... Perhaps another time. Meanwhile, see and compare the picture down below.)

I imagine, although I have no proof for it, that the left hand exactly mirroring the right doubles the emphasis on his role as a teacher. But not only that, it seems to be saying that you receive double the teachings from him. At first you have a superficial understanding, and only later on and gradually, if at all, it hits you that he taught with something deeper in mind than you at first imagined. So to speak, the 'inner guru' kicks in. That is just my thought at the moment, and I may come up with a different explanation tomorrow.

The most famous literary piece by far among all the works associated with Padampa is the one known to every Tibetan as The Tingri Hundred. It exists in quite a few recensions, as often happens with extremely popular works, and not just in Tibet. It was written in verse in the form of couplets, about a hundred of them in this case (there is an obviously somewhat shorter version of this set of couplets called The Tingri Eighty). Each couplet ends with the same three syllables, the exclamatory Tingriwa (Ding-ri-ba). Since I need a term for these, I'll just call them Tingriwa couplets.

One way among others to divide the different recensions is to look at this verse (no. E16) to see if it has the word for 'monkey' (spre'u) or the rather similar, but only in its written form, word for 'rhinoceros' (bse'u, which I take to intend bse-ru) I think the monkey version makes better sense, but that's rather beside the point here.

In the forest fastness the monkey [or rhino] thinks it's happy,

but the edge of the forest is ringed with fire, my Tingrians.

We'll call those the monkey and rhino versions.  I only give this as one example among many others, just so nobody will imagine that the text was ever set in stone for all eternity.  Like texts throughout Eurasia in earlier centuries, the manuscripts were alive and evolving beings.

The earliest English translation of this work has helped to promote a rather unfortunate misconception.  The Evans-Wentz publication has Tingriwa translated as "Tingri folk."  This lends the impression that Padampa's words were addressed to the peasant villagers in Tingri. Actually, if they were spoken by Padampa at all, they were spoken to his meditation disciples at Tingri Langkhor, then and now a hermitage located an uncomfortable distance away from the main town.  They were not spoken to the 'folk' and do not belong in the category of folklore.  Another thing to observe about Evans-Wentz's version is that it attempts to use rather archaic English of the King James Biblical variety, making Padampa sound like the proverbial but eccentric prophet crying in the wilderness.  Well, in a way and to some degree I suppose he was.

I imagine you might have been a little surprised when I suggested, just now, that they might not be by Padampa.  Let me rephrase that.  All the versions that we have today were most definitely inspired by Padampa, who was the first to pronounce verses in the just-described form. Padampa spoke the original Tingriwa couplets. The second person to compose them was Padampa's immediate disciple Kunga, who pronounced no fewer than 118 of them just before his own death only 7 years after Padampa's. The odd and interesting fact is that only a very few of the Tingriwa couplets in the popular collections available today are actually found in the sets pronounced by Padampa and Kunga (these two latter preserved only in the Zhijé Collection). The simple solution to this problem is just to say that it's very likely that the collections we have today were not in fact by Padampa, but appeared at a later date in Tibetan literary history.  This idea might be supported with the information that, to the best of my knowledge, the very first Tibetan-authored work to quote any of the verses from the Tingri Hundred is one by the author of the most famous Tibetan history book, The Blue Annals.  That means Gö Lotsawa, in his commentary on the Ratnagotravibhaga.  You can find the verse Gö Lotsawa quotes at no. E20 in our text of The Tingri Hundred.

Escorted by your Lama you will arrive where you want to go.

As your fee, pay your trust and veneration, my Tingrians.

What that means is that the earliest citation of a couplet resembling any of those we have in our Tingri Eighty or Tingri Hundred collections (both of them include this verse, but the sets of Tingriwa couplets in the Zhijé Collection do not have it) is in a composition dated to 1473 CE.  The other known verse citations date between the 18th century and the present.  There are quite a few of these, testifying to the popularity of our collection in the last three centuries.

When we look at the end of the work, we find a colophon in the form of a stanza which would seem to tell us that some unnamed person 'compiled' or 'arranged' it (if that is the right understanding for the verb bkod in this context, since sometimes it can mean 'composed').

Many verses gently encourage ethical behavior, but some of them are just so blatantly moralizing (particularly some of the verses near the end, which anyway are missing from some of the published versions), I can't believe Padampa actually taught them in Tingri (see couplets E95 through E98). It just wasn't his style. And his students, all serious Buddhist meditators, didn't need to be told to try and be good people.  Or to shun evil companions.  Really not.

The irony is that Padampa's best-known legacy is not our best guide to his actual teachings.  That guide would be the Zhijé Collection itself.  (If it weren't for some other Zhijé collections of comparable age and quality that lie unpublished and inaccessible in Lhasa libraries, we might say with justice that the Zhijé Collection is the only thing there is.)

It shouldn't be cause for any wonder that a recurring theme of the verses is death. It is a Last Will and Testament, after all. I hope that hearing that word won't scare you off. That would be unfortunate.

A flower one moment fine, the next moment all dried out,
there’s no relying on the body, my Tingrians.

– Couplet E30 of The Tingri Hundred.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

  Old Time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today

 Tomorrow will be dying.

The message of this verse that opens Robert Herrick's famous poem "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" — the same verse makes a cameo appearance in that 1989 Robin Williams movie, The Dead Poets Society — is that young people had better hurry up and get laid while they still have it in them. Padampa's verse uses the death imagery of the faded flower to encourage renunciation of worldly life. Herrick equips his verse with the same imagery to encourage young people to dive headlong into it. Same medium, same poetic flower imagery... opposite messages. Which I suppose is one reason Padampa, with his strong-minded advocacy of the life of renunciation, of meditation in solitude, is not likely to find multitudes of ready listeners in our day. My position is that even an imagined renunciation can do much to promote ethical reflection by people who find themselves, willingly or not, caught up in the flow (and of course the ebb) of life. In that spirit, I think anyone can appreciate at least some parts of The Tingri Hundred. I'm not alone here thinking we simply must think more about what we're doing and why. Am I?

And before sending you off to read the translation, assuming you're prepared to do that, I'd like to say that these critical reflections of mine about authorship have no bearing whatsoever on the Buddhist truth and/or spiritual authority of the text itself. It is great Tibetan poetry, a monument to the Tibetan language, a source of wisdom regardless of your ideas about religion, and a trigger for reflection on life, no matter who wrote it when. Feel free to think as you like.

The message as well as the language of this Last Will is naturally a little solemn, and rather unconsciously I have preserved a degree of solemnity in the translation, using words like savor and imbibe instead of taste and drink.  But on occasion there is a breath of lightness and ease, a bit of almost-casual colloquial expression. I've tried to supply some of these moments, too, to the best of my ability, not always in the same places though. Nothing in these translations is final. Like everything else, it's a continuing process.

Perhaps for a later blog I'll try to finish up my translation of Padampa's original set of a dozen or so Tingriwa couplets and give more evidence for, and develop further, the ideas I've put forward here.  Don't neglect to breathe.  I've got a few other things to do meanwhile.

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READ MORE...

Carpe Diem: Poems for Making the Most of Time. Posted at the official website of the Academy of American Poets, here.

'Gos Lo-tsâ-ba Gzhon-nu-dpal, Theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma'i bstan bcos kyi 'grel bshad de kho na nyid rab tu gsal ba'i me long, Commentary on the Ratnagotravibhâgavyâkhyâ, ed. by Klaus-Dieter Mathes, Franz Steiner (Stuttgart 2003), at p. 53 is the quote of Padampa's verse. K-D Mathes' translation of couplet E20 has just been published in his monumental translation of that just-mentioned work under the title A Direct Path to the Buddha Within: Go Lotsawa's Mahamudra Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhaga, Wisdom (Boston 2008), p. 262:

If you commend yourself to the lama, you reach wherever you like.
People of Dingri, show devotion and respect to the lama [who is like your] feet.

Chapter 17, "The Gesture of Thought, the Sign of Logos," contained in: H.P. L'Orange, Studies on the Iconography of Cosmic Kingship in the Ancient World, Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning (Oslo 1953), pp. 171-197.  

"The scroll [or book] in the left hand contains the written speech; the gesture of the right one expresses the realization of the written in the living word."

Portrait of L. Gernier, 
a professor of theology from Basel, 
painted by J.R. Werenfels.

A Few More Early Incidents of Drongjug

Semodo is a sizeable island in Lake Namtso, the 'Heaven Lake' of Vikram Seth fame. It is one of Tibet's largest lakes located several hours drive north of Lhasa at the edge of the Northern Plateau (Changtang), fantastically beautiful and not entirely uninhabitable. Back in the 12th century it was an especially popular place for hermit yogis, who could house themselves well enough in the natural caves, although getting food and fresh water could sometimes be a problem. Once, when Ölkhaba was in a strict meditation retreat with his teacher Gampopa at Semodo, he injected his own consciousness into the body of a dead goose, which flew around the island three times.

There are some other occurrences of Drongjug in the history of the Second Spreading period that begins toward the end of the 10th century. The next is based on the Dharma History by Butön Rinchen Drub, written in 1322, and the somewhat earlier history by Khepa Deu. It goes like this: A Newar named Padmaruci was sent by a Tibetan king to invite two Indian pundits named Trala Ringwa and Smriti to come to Tibet. Unfortunately Padmaruci, who was supposed to serve as their translator, had died of cholera* while waiting for them in the Nepal Valley. Neither of them could speak a single word of Tibetan, so Tibetans had no way of learning just how learned they really were. Smriti — his name means 'memory' as well as 'traditionally transmitted knowledge' — had to work for years as a shepherd in Tanag until he finally picked up the language. Then he wrote and translated a number of Buddhist works and a well-known grammar. His Tibetan got good enough he could do 'solo translations' (rang-'gyur), without any Tibetan assistance. He even founded a school specializing in the study of Abhidharma, which means teachings on cosmology, psychology and other associated Buddhist sciences.

*Of course it's rather beside the point here what Padmaruci died from exactly. Butön says he died of pho-log, but Khepa Deu says pho-lang. Pho-lang looks like pho-long, meaning stomach (pho) and caecum (long). Pho-log is better known as a disease term, but precisely what it might be in modern medical terms is a mystery. It is definitely a type of stomach disorder accompanied by sharp stabbing pains and spasms. That might mean cholera. Or it might mean something else. It could just as well be some serious form of dysentery.

Apparently Trala Ringwa (Phra-la-ring-ba, sometimes re-Sanskritized as Sūkṣmadīrgha, although this seems no better than a guess), whose name means 'fine and long' or perhaps more likely 'thin and tall,' didn't fare as well as his traveling companion. In Öbermiller's translation (p. 215) we read the following, and I quote precisely,

"The Paṇḍit Sūkṣmadīrgha became the curator of Roṅ-pa Chö-s'aṅ and Roṅ-pa came to the knowledge of numerous kanonical texts."

That's right, kanonical. Puzzled by what it might mean to become the curator of a person (perhaps Öbermiller was purposefully using a long-obsolete meaning of the English word that once meant 'caretaker for a young person,' but nowadays it always seems to mean someone who takes care of a collection of things that are meant to be displayed), looking at the original Tibetan text of Butön's Dharma History becomes unavoidable. But what do we find when we do look there?

Paṇḍi-ta Phra-la-ring-bas Rong-pa Chos-bzangs-la grong-'jug byas-pas / Rong-pas chos mang-po tol-shes-su byung-ba yin-no //

Did Öbermiller understand Drongjug to mean 'curator' based on a literal reading 'entering the house'? It looks as if he did. Anyway, what this passage says is more like this:

"The Pundit Trala Ringwa performed Drongjug on Rongpa Chözang, so Rongpa knew many Buddhist teachings naturally, without even trying."

Not much is recorded in the histories about Trala Ringwa. More is known about Smriti (longer name: Smṛtijñānakīrti) because of his literary legacy, especially his grammar, and because he is often considered to be the very last translator of Old Tantras or, according to others, the very first translator of New Tantras. Smriti has a significant and perhaps even pivotal historical role that therefore makes him of more interest to historians. There is much known about Rongzompa (another name for Rongpa Chözang). He is often called a Paṇḍita (which, when used of Tibetans, always denotes knowledge of Sanskrit), and they even say he uttered Sanskrit words as a child. He was a very important figure for the history of the Nyingma school (as the followers of Old Tantras might have been called by his time) and his many compositions, which surely display a good level of Sanskrit learning, may still be read today. But in general there is very little information on this particular incident of Grongjug, so we should just leave it behind to look at a different story.

Tenné was a member of the exceptionally esoteric one-to-one transmission of the Zhijé teachings that descended from Padampa Sanggyé (died 1105) through his immediate disciple Künga and Künga's disciple Patsab. Our source says that Tenné demonstrated his ability to perform Drongjug to a group of people in the 'Dharma Enclosure' (Chos-ra) of Ngog José (Rngog Jo-sras). Tenné lived a long life, from 1127 to 1217, so it isn't sure when this event occurred, and the Blue Annals is lamentably laconic here. I quote the Roerich translation precisely (Blue Annals, p. 936):

"He (Ten-ne) acquired (the power) of the transference of the vital principle (groṅ-'jug, parakāyapraveśa), and made an exhibition of the transference of the vital principle at the religious college (chos-ra) of rṄog Jo-sras."

This name José (no, this is not Spanish, so please don't pronounce it like it is) is not a proper name. It means the son, most likely the eldest son, of a revered spiritual teacher. Here Ngog, without any doubt, refers to the hereditary lineage of tantra teachers who descended from one of the four main disciples of the translator Marpa, namely Ngog Chöku Dorjé (d. 1102). But it isn't sure which member of his later Ngog lineage is the one intended here.

If we look to what is very likely the original source behind this statement in the Blue Annals, we can add a few more details. The source is the Zhijé Collection (vol. 4, p. 415), in the context of the biography of Tenné that forms a part of the Zhijé History by Rog Zhigpo — a direct disciple of Tenné — composed around the first decades of the 13th century. As we learn there, Tenné usually concealed the results of his advanced practices from other people, but one day he took control of the air (meaning the internal bodily prana) and ascended cross-legged into the sky. A local shepherd saw this and ran away in fright. The text immediately continues,

"In Yamda,* while he was studying the tantras of the Marpa school with Ngog José, he demonstrated Drongjug to three brother tantrics who praised him."

Ya[r]-mda'-ru Rngog Jo-sras-la Mar Rgyud mnyan-ba'i dus-su / mched sngags-pa gsum-la grong-'jug-gi ltad-mo bstand-pas sngags-pa dang....

*The text reads Ya-mda', but Yar-mda' ought to be the correct reading. This means the region of the lower (in this case meaning the northern) part of the Yarlung Valley. There are other unusual spellings here, although I haven't 'corrected' them.

It is interesting that this demonstration took place at a religious center belonging to the Ngog family. Probably this was their main center at Treuzhing, the birthplace of Ngog Chöku Dorjé, a place where many generations of Kagyü students, regardless of their differing lineages, went for more specialized studies in Buddhist tantras. (And not only Kagyüpas, Tsongkhapa studied with one of them.) Perhaps further investigation would find that the Ngog family, which carried on teaching lineages directly from Marpa, had a special interest in the practice of Drongjug. True, it is generally believed, despite bits of counter-evidence here and there, that Drongjug practice disappeared from the Kagyü school after Marpa, although a 14th-century treasure revealer by the name of Dungtso Repa may have revived it. It is also interesting that a follower of Padampa's Zhijé lineage is seen here demonstrating it to members of the Ngog lineage. Just one small example of the inter-lineage exchanges taking place in the 12th century, one among many. There is a fantastic and amusing story about how Padampa himself practiced Drongjug, but we'll save that for another posting another day.



Sources:

E. Öbermiller, tr., The History of Buddhisn in India and Tibet by Bu-ston, Sri Satguru Publications (Delhi 1986), reprint of Heidelberg 1932 edition.

Zhijé History — Rog Zhig-po Rin-chen-shes-rab (1171-1245 CE), untitled history of the early Zhijé School, contained in: The Tradition of Pha Dampa Sangyas: A Treasured Collection of His Teachings Transmitted by Thugs-sras Kun-dga', "reproduced from a unique collection of manuscripts preserved with 'Khrul-zhig Rinpoche of Tsa-rong Monastery in Ding-ri, edited with an English introduction to the tradition by Barbara Nimri Aziz," Kunsang Tobgey (Thimphu 1979), vol. 4, pp. 324-432.

Added note (July 12, 2008):

I'd like to add that in the conference of the International Association of Buddhist Studies held this year in Atlanta, Georgia, Daniel Berounsky, Professor in Prague, gave a paper entitled "Entering Dead Bodies and the Miraculous Power of the Kings: Notes on Karma Pakshi's Reincarnation in Tibet."

This article tells of several quite early accounts of Drongjug, but the most remarkable thing about it is that it locates an incident of it precisely at the point in Tibetan history when recognized reincarnations of famous teachers (apparently) originated, that is, 1283 CE when the Second Karmapa incarnated as the Third. Many thanks to Prof. Berounsky for making the unpublished draft of his paper available to me, and for permitting me to mention it here.

Prayer Wheels Came from Where?

It’s such a pleasure to read the essays of Rasé Konchok Gyatso, each one devoted to a subject even more interesting than the last. Now is one of those times I wish I had paid more frequent attention to modern writings, although I refuse to regret all those years I was caught up in the 12th century. Hell, I still am. Anyway, here is my aim today: I just want to draw attention to a brave attempt to ascertain the time and place of origins of what the world knows as Prayer Wheels.

The Prayer Wheel, to call it by its popular-in-English but imprecise name, is one of the objects most associated with Tibetans, a kind of cultural marker of Tibetan-ness, in fact one of the best known such markers. As Rasé starts out his essay (I’m paraphrasing or summarizing in the following paragraph): 

Nowadays one of the special things that marks those who have faith in Tibetan Buddhism is the hand-held Mani Wheel and the more general category of Mani Wheel. There are nowadays, he tells us, even electrically powered Mani Wheels of various sizes, and they are often to be seen in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and areas of China. As possible sources for the earliest history of the object, he turns first to a “table of contents” of Ka-tshal Monastery, which lists one owned by Emperor Songtsen the Wise. He then mentions a story of one brought to Tibet by the Chinese princess Wenching Kongjo, and a Chinese Wheel of the Jowo (Jo-'khor Rgya-nag-ma) kept as one of the chief objects of veneration in Beru Monastery in Nangchen. Then he quotes at some length from a text devoted precisely to the subject, Talk of Immortal Joy: Precepts of All the Victors.* This text with no authorship statement attributes the same origins to the Wheel as is ordinarily given for the Perfection of Wisdom, which is to say that Nâgârjuna brought it to India from the land of the nâgas presumed to be in the ocean’s depths. It then followed the main trunk of the early Kagyu lineage, through Naropa, Marpa, Milarepa and so on. The Talk text says if you want to know more on the subject, look at the works of Karma Pakshi (1204 or 1206-1283 CE).

(*I supply the link to the cursive manuscript of which he speaks at TBRC. I think the printer named in the colophon as Rgyal-sras Rin-chen-rnam-rgyal is likely to be the one and the same as well-known printer Lha-btsun Rin-chen-rnam-rgyal [1473‑1557 CE], although this could benefit from further verification. On 2nd thought, he can't possibly be the Lha-btsun, because it says he was printing on the orders of Dwa-ching Ba-dur, this title, when used on its own, can be nothing except a way of speaking about Khangchenné Sönam Gyelpo, ruling Regent of Tibet until he was murdered by his ministers in 1727 CE. This is very likely some version of the Tibetan text that underlies the translation in Ladner et al., pp. 63-75. See its closing words on p. 75: “[This was written] by Rinchen Nampar Gyalwa in response to the inquiry of Tedai Chingwadur.”)

But then all of a sudden on p. 1383, all this purported evidence starts to lose air. In all the biographies of the early Kagyü masters, he says, and in all the works associated with them, not once does a Wheel make an appearance. It is true that if you inspect the works of Karma Pakshi, you do find out how four Skygoers revealed to him in a dream a melody for the Mani recitation. This initiated the practice of singing it rather than just reciting it, but it has no implications at all for the use of Wheels. Another fascinating and difficult work of the same author — recently studied by Matthew Kapstein* — does mention the turning of wheels, but there is no way this could refer to the Wheels as we know them.

(*See Kapstein’s work listed below. A side issue: If it is so that Tibetans did not do the Wheel turning practice in pre-Mongol times, then it does cast a shadow on Lynne White Jr's idea that the ball-and-chain governor would have been brought to Italy from Tibet via Central Asian slaves in the later days of the Mongol period of Eurasian domination. What would seem to be the case instead  is that both Italians and Tibetans were beneficiaries of a technology that some third party invented. )

The Rasé essay goes on to discuss the Mani Kambum evidence associating the practice with Emperor Songtsen (1st half of 7th century). He finds that when it speaks of the benefits of reciting the Mani, it intends just recitation, not Wheel turning, and likewise one finds no positive evidence in works of Nyangral (1124-1192) and Guru Chöwang (1212-1270). Rasé then concludes that there is absolutely no indication of the existence of the Wheel turning practice in the 14th century or before. To be clear, he isn’t ready to say exactly when or by whom the practice was first done, and finds it sufficient to be a little vague about dates if that’s the best we can do. I agree with that, too. I might not be so convinced that the large Wheels arrived first, and hand-held Wheels later, although I think I can see the logic of believing so, since the latter involves a technological innovation: the ball-and-chain governor.*

(*And, I might add, the early Huayen Chinese temples with their revolving libraries better compare to the large Wheels than to the hand-held ones. For one thing they lack the ball-and-chain governor. Oh, and the Chinese examples weren’t round cylinders, they were octagonal. I have a lot to say about octagons, but I’ll hold off on this for now.)

Then he goes on to some of these later works, including early 19th century works by Gungthangpa and Sengchen Lama already studied over three decades ago,* but newly indicating sources in works by Kagyü authors of the late 15th through early 17th centuries.

(*The footnote got too long, so I moved it to the end.)

It would be the more interesting part of the blog, but for the time being I will stick to the historical question of origins and avoid commenting on the past and contemporary significance of Wheel revolving practices, although the learned Rasé does go into this issue. He believes most people would benefit more if they would do more serious reading, study and reflection on the Buddhist texts and ideas, and less spinning. 

Once as I was traveling in the northern India I stopped in one of those travelers’ cafés for a much-needed tea, I happened to sit across from a young Britisher holding and turning what has to be the largest hand-held wheel I’ve ever seen. It had a huge cylindrical drum and a handle so long you could rest the end of it on the ground even when spinning in a standing position. It did make me curious, so I got into a conversation with him about it. By the time it was done I had the impression he was sincerely involved in the practice, and not just having a bit of fun. Not simply appropriating inappropriately, as we might be more likely to conclude when faced with things of this sort nowadays.

Today our most cosmopolitan convert Buddhists, as well as many young born-Buddhists, attracted as they are to the more cerebral science-like or philosophical types of Buddhism — or targeting what they regard as more profound meditations — almost instinctively disdain the practice. Or, even if they imagine it may be some good to some people some of the time, would never think of engaging in it themselves. People who see the Wheels turning might think it’s superficial when the problem is they are only seeing the surfaces of things. I think Rasé would agree with me that the practice has little or no value if it is in fact done mechanically. It ought to be part of a more general practice that includes actual (not virtual, digital, or mechanical) mantra recitation  and the visualization of divine forms of enlightened wisdom. But then as far as I think I can tell, it always is. So, no problem, is there? Do you see any?

At the Library, on a Cloudy Day

M. Kapstein, “The Dialectic of Eternal Heaven: A Tibetan Defense of Mongol Imperial Religion,” contained in: Matthew T. Kapstein and R. Jackson, eds., Mahāmudrā and the Kagyü Tradition, International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (Andiast 2011), pp. 259-316. 

If you would like to try your hand at this or sharpen your skills, try to find the 2nd Black Hat Karmapa’s work in TBRC. To do this it may help you to know that it bears the title Dam pa'i chos 'dul ba'i gling bzhi [~gleng gzhi] na gos dmar can gyi yul nas 'ongs pa'i mkhas pa yang dag phyi rol nyid bzhugs gsungs te / de la sha na pa'i gos can 'jam dpal dmar po la sogs pa'i tshan 'brug tsam du tha snyad 'dogs shing ngo bo cig la / mthong tshul tha dad pa 'di lta ste / mo gho ding ri'i sgra tshad. Well, on second thought, follow my advice and just search for the last six syllables.

Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), China Illustrata. 

I’m not entirely sure of it, but this work first published in 1667 may be the first ever illustration of a Tibetan Prayer Wheel. A little difficult to make out, you may have to take a second look at p. 60 of Charles van Tuyl’s English translation from the Latin, as published by Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies (Bloomington 1987), on the first page of Part II, Chapter 4. A "Tartar Kalmak Lama,” whatever that is supposed to mean, indicates with his right hand an immobile Wheel on a cubic pedestal below himself. Look closely and you will see that the cylinder is a little too elongated, but the handle is clearly visible, and off to its right you can see the ball-and-chain governor is straight, but angled awkwardly at around 3 o’clock. It looks as if it may have been held in the hand of the figure in the original sketch, but the illustrator took the liberty of portraying it separately. In any case, this visual European evidence doesn’t help us move back the dating of the hand-held Wheel.

L. Ladner, et al., Wheel of Great Compassion: The Practice of the Prayer Wheel in Tibetan Buddhism, Wisdom Publications (Boston 2001).

H. Loveday, “La bibliothèque tournante en Chine: Quelques remarques sur son rôle et son évolution,” T'oung Pao, 2nd series vol. 86, nos. 4-5 (2000), pp. 225-279. 

Loveday believes the building of these revolving libraries in monastery temples was very popular in China between the 11th and 13th centuries. Although only two examples have survived from those early times, we do have clear descriptions of them starting in the 11th. There is more literature on the subject of revolving libraries in China, so I only offer this as a sample, a recent sample. For visuals, try searching the internet for the words "revolving repository" or "revolving library" using the quote marks, and perhaps narrow down your search by adding China or Buddhist.

Ma-ṇi 'Khor-lo'i Phan-yon.  See it here. 

Apart from a partial translation in outline/summary form included in this essay by His Holiness Jigdal Dagchen Sakya entitled The Use and Benefits of Prayer Wheels, I’m not sure if anyone has made use of this text, printed at a Drigung site in Tibet in woodblock form in around mid-20th century. No author is immediately evident. Even if there is a tertön named near the end, he’s only tertön of a brief appended prayer, not of the work proper. Seeing that it hasn’t been completely translated as far as I can tell, I posted my own translation at Tiblical website. I translated this many years ago, and have only now dusted it off and polished it ever so slightly.

D. Martin, “On the Origin and Significance of ‘Prayer Wheels’ According to Two Nineteenth-Century Tibetan Literary Sources,” The Journal of the Tibet Society, vol. 7 (1987), pp. 13-29. Try to get the PDF by tapping twice on the title.

Rasé Konchok Gyatso (Ra-se Dkon-mchog-rgya-mtsho), “Ma-ṇi ’Khor-lo dang Lag-’khor Rigs-kyi Byung-tshul Dpyad-gleng,” contained in the same author's Bod Rig-pa’i Dpyad-rtsom Brgya dang Brgyad-cu-ma, Bod Rang-skyong Ljongs Dpe-skrun Do-dam Khru’u (Lhasa 2016), at pp. 1381-1390.

G. Schopen, “A Note on the ‘Technology of Prayer’ and a Reference to a Revolving Bookcase in an Eleventh-Century Indian Inscription,” contained in: Gregory Schopen, Figments and Fragments of Mahâyâna Buddhism in India, University of Hawai’i Press (Honolulu 2005), pp. 345-349. 

I might point out that if the Tibetan practice as such did not exist in the 11th century, then it might cast doubt on the interpretation of this Indian inscription as an instance of it. But then again, I believe Huayen temples in quite early times, let’s say in the 7th century, and in areas not impossibly far from the Tibetan plateau, did have revolving scriptural bookracks. To this Chinese Buddhist evidence of revolving holy texts our contemporary essayists including Rasé could have given more attention (see the Loveday, listed above).

For your more dedicated Tibeto-logicians, some further complications about sources

For the two compositions by Gungtangpa and Sengchen, both done at the behest of Mongolian disciples, see Martin, listed above, noting that translations of both texts appear in Ladner et al., pp. 53-61, 77-79. Left unnoticed in both Martin and Rasé's essays is yet a 3rd early 19th-century composition, one by the Fourth Panchen Lama (1781/2‑1853/4 CE) translated in Ladner et al., pp. 41-51, and the Kumbum printing of this text can be found here. It could not be immediately located in a listing of titles in the 4th Panchen Lama’s works, although it might have been included in his miscellany (gsung thor-bu), something I haven’t checked yet. Ladner et al., pp. 81-84, also has a briefer work by a Mongolian Lama of Urga: Kyai-rdor Mkhan-po Ngag-dbang-mkhas-grub (1779-1837 CE), on the benefits of turning Wheels. For its Tibetan text, try here.

Illustration from Alphabetum Tibetanum (1762), courtesy of
New York Public Library Digital Collections
If you require a brief introduction to the book itself,
look here.

Additives may be good for you (May 5, 2020):

I learned from an article by Fabio Rambelli I just read that revolving scripture repositories, “normally octagonal,” existed in Japan, too. Although documentation is not available for several more centuries, the Chinese figure credited with their invention was Fu Xi (497-569 CE), aka Fu Dashi. They were brought to Japan by Zen monks in the late 14th century. One of the oldest ones that still exists in Japan, built in 1408, contains a printed edition of the scriptures from Yuan period Hangzhou. This information goes along with a lot of theoretical reflections about culturally differing attitudes toward automation and automatons that often made me think of that old blog about “Dampa’s Droids.” I did wonder how the shakuhachi flute could enter into this kind of discussion (I never heard that Indians, Buddhist or otherwise, ever classified musical instruments as a kind of yantra), but then found myself convinced. Just search the internet for “Dharma Devices, Non-Hermeneutical Libraries, and Robot-Monks: Prayer Machines in Japanese Buddhism,” Journal of Asian Humanities at Kyushu University, vol. 3 (2018), pp. 57-75.  Most of the information I mentioned could also be found, in shorter form, in Rambelli’s book, Buddhist Materiality: A Cultural History of Objects in Japanese Buddhism, Stanford University Press (Stanford 2007), pp. 106-107, in case you have this book or can locate the pages in Kugel Books. And while you are there, see if you can go here.

Leeches & Prapañcas

Yes, I know, it's not a leech.  It's a centipede.  Wondering why?  OK, keep wondering.

In the comments section there was a discussion on the subject of metaphor no. 2 of Padampa's Root Text.  I have now changed my translation, following Early Tibet's correction, to read as follows:

The leech, satiated with blood, doesn't go after meat that is in the water.

The Commentary on no. 2 reads (also changed slightly, adding the words in blue):

Leech — The worm known as the leech is found in narrow places in swamps all over Mon and India. It drinks the blood it sucks from the feet of humans. Until it has had its fill, even if you pull on it you can't remove it. Then it's exhausted, and won't even go after meat that's [been placed] in the water. Likewise when you have ceased the outflows (prapañca) of a mind that has cultivated learning, reflection and meditation, a sense of ease appears.

I believe this is a good instance of how the Tibetan commentator sometimes doesn't exactly give a straightforward interpretation of Padampa's intended meanings.  In his last sentence he does at least supply what looks like it would be an essential clue.  It has to do with those things that I hastily (and, I admit it, badly) translated as 'outflows,' the prapañcas (Tibetan spros-pa).

Perhaps the most popular way to English prapañca is 'conceptual diffusion,' although I don't suppose this will provoke much resonance in most people's minds.  Perhaps that's why I've always been scouting for another way to render it.  I once asked a good Shaivite friend in Nepal what it meant, and was surprised to hear an explanation that generally jibed with what I had largely intuited from Tibetan Buddhist sources.  I don't remember his exact wording, but he told me that it's a function of the mind that ventures out into the world and pushes one thing this way, tucks another thing that way, until the 'world' (or more to the point the individual's perception of the same) better conforms to the person's mentality.

I hope no one will take my word alone for what prapañca means.*** There are basically two writings in existence that I believe cast a significant amount of light on this perplexing Indian idea as it is used in Buddhist sources. One is a 4-page essay by P. D. Premasiri,* which is limited to Pâli sources. The other is an article by Karen Lang.** She ranges over all kinds of Indian sources, including Vedic scriptures, Jain texts, and particularly Pâli scriptures and commentaries (Vedântic treatises and Madhyamaka classics surface only briefly at the end). Like the Tibetan commentator, I don't mean to force upon anyone a particular understanding of how the leech (or the things the leech does) & the prapañca might be analogous, but I imagine that if you were to read these two articles carefully some sense might just pop up like all of a sudden. I'll just hand you a couple of quotes that might hint at what it's about.

Lang nicely summarizes in her introduction the practical meditation concerns within which the term prapañca operates:

"Several Indian religious works... use the expression prapañca (Pâli papañca) to refer to the world perceived and constructed as the result of disturbed mental states.  In order to calm this unquiet world, these works advocate meditative practices that staunch the flow of normal sensory experience."

Even more nicely, Lang says:

"[T]he Buddha, when asked how to realize nibbâna, responded that one must cut off the root of what is called conceptual proliferation, namely the thought "I am" and by remaining mindful control whatever internal desires he has.  In this way, one achieves the goal of inner calm."

And if I may quote from the summary at the end of Premasiri's essay:

"[I]t [papañca] may be interpreted as a psychological term that signifies the internal sub-vocal chatter that goes on in the mind using the prolific conceptual constructions based on sense perception.  This internal chatter feeds and is fed by unwholesome emotions such as craving, conceit and dogmatism and produces the tensions, anxieties and dogmatism that produce the tensions, anxieties and sorrows of the individual. The overt expression of this psychological condition is witnessed in the conflicts and disputes that manifest in society.**** Papañca may be understood as the psychological turmoil to which a person becomes a victim due to the lack of awareness and insight into the realities of the sensory process to which all beings constituted of a psychophysical organism are exposed."

Prapañcas are closely intertangled with conceptual thinking (vitarka, rtog-pa) — both are also intertangled with sense perceptions — but, unlike conceptual thinking, they have an apparently 'outward' interfering function (mind you, they don't really go anywhere). They are driven by irrational cravings, selfish conceit and inflexible views. They in turn result in both individual mental disturbances and social miseries, the latter particularly including conflicts with other people.  Clear?  Hmm. Let me give it one final shot, if you will permit me.

Narcissism as a world-distorting mechanism?

Imagine a big ball of fluffy white cotton appears right there in front of you on your desk. I'm not sure it really is cotton, or anything else for that matter, but it sure looks like it is. It just sits there and you're not sure what to do with it, but somehow it must be dealt with, so you start poking it with a finger from one side and then the other. Getting impatient with this game you take it in both hands. You do your best to stuff the whole thing inside a desk divider or it gets compacted into one big block inside your pencil box. Then you pull it out of the square or round pencil box and it seems to keep the shape of the box, but you pull at it from one side and then the other and it starts to fluff out, but you keep going until little wisps of cotton are decorating your whole room. You pull some of the wisps back together and make little balls and try to bounce them around. Perhaps you try to restore the complete ball, but this ends in frustration.

Now it's necessary to partly deconstruct the analogy.  Just think to yourself that it wasn't your fingers doing all that stuff to the cotton ball. It was your mind in its usual self-cherishing (or egocentric, or narcissistic) condition. And the cotton ball was the world as you perceive it. And you're not normally the least bit aware of it, let alone in control. There you go. I tried. Now you have a mental image — perhaps a useful one, I'm not sure of it — of prapañcas.  But bear in mind that I just made it up to suit myself...  Doing what I do best, making a mess of things.  Confabulating.

†  †  †

The Tibetan text of the commentary (there is only one witness, the one in the Zhijé Collection, vol. 1, p. 432) reads like this:

pad pas zhes bya ba ni / srin bu pad pas bya ba mon nam rgya gar kun na 'dam rdzab kyi gseb na yod par 'dug / /  de myi'i [r]kang pa la khrag 'jib pa'i 'thung bar byed de / ma ngoms par [~bar] du then kyang myi thon pa yin par 'dug / kho rang kho dag chad pa dang chu'i nang nas [~na] sha'i phyi[r] myi 'breng gsung / de bzhin du thos bsam sgom gsum gyi[s?] blo'i spros pa chod nas dal ba'i nyams 'char ro gsung.

**Karen Lang, Meditation as a Tool for Deconstructing the Phenomenal World, contained in: Tadeusz Skorupski & Ulrich Pagel, eds., The Buddhist Forum, Volume III, 1991-1993: Papers in Honour and Appreciation of Professor David Seyfort Ruegg's Contribution to Indological, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (London 1994), pp. 143-159.

*P.D. Premasiri, Papañca, contained in: W.G. Weeraratne, ed., Encyclopedia of Buddhism, vol. 7, Fascicle 2, Government of Sri Lanka (Colombo 2004), pp. 299-303. This important reference work, decades in the making, unfortunately may be hard to locate.  The most likely place is the reference section of a large research library.

****"I heard David Chase [the director] say one time that it's about people who lie to themselves, as we all do. Lying to ourselves on a daily basis and the mess it creates."

— James Gandolfini, the actor who plays Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, interviewed in Rolling Stone in March 2001. Watch this television series with care and you might see and reflect how people can be both true to [what they regard as] themselves and constantly telling lies. (Tony even exploits his sessions with his analyst in order to justify and rationalize to himself doing the [evil] things he would have done anyway, making her complicit in his criminality rather than bettering himself as a human being.) An interesting example of art as metaphor for life, for how art works, and for how art works on us. For this quote and more, look here.

***If you would like to know other ways of defining prapañca, try this short one at Wikipedia or this longer one at Buddhist Door.  You might also want to try here and scroll down to part "a" of section "3."  

For an introduction to the problem of the relationship between psychology and Buddhism (an essential therapy for those who think their concerns are identical written by someone with excellent background in their two cultures), see Luis O. Gómez, Psychology, contained in: Robert E. Buswell Jr., ed., Encyclopedia of Buddhism, MacMillan Reference USA (NY 2004), pp. 678-692.

If you're into comparative linguistics and you actually do give a fig about how to say 'leech' in other Tibeto-Burman languages, link this PDF article by James Matisoff, and then scroll down to page 150.  You'll see that the Monpa for 'leech' is pat-pa, which is closest to the Written Tibetan form pad-pa (and I see this as evidence that the sometimes encountered WT form padma [Skt. 'lotus'] is an ignorant 'correction'... Or should I say an unnecessary correction?  An incorrect correction?  Umm. You know what I mean).

"The Sanskrit term prapañca has a root that connotes multiplicity, variation, etc. As it is used in Buddhist psychology and philosophy of mind, it denotes the mind’s tendency to create ideas and experiences that have nothing to do with reality, to spin out of control, to fantasize, to superimpose its own fantasies on reality. We have chosen to translate this as fabrication, which does a good job of capturing the core idea of creating a falsehood, of making things up."

— Jay Garfield

phyi yi spros pa rang gi sems la bsdus ||

'khyag rom chu ru zhu'o ding ri ba ||

The conceptual elaboration of your external world is subsumed in your own mind.

Frozen blocks of ice melt into water, my Tingrians.

— Padampa Sanggyé