Doughballs

Scapegoat - Photo by Natesh Ramasamy

TODAY’S BLOG is about how I found, to my amazement, a very clear and specific ritual practice shared by ancient Mesopotamia and Tibet until modern times. Looking back on it, I shouldn’t have been so surprised since it fits into a tight semantic circle of Tibeto-Mesopotamian word-connections earlier defined as “Bricks, Brilliance and Baking.” But I’m convinced there is one thing that makes this new revelation special: It not only connects a discrete ritual practice in both localities done with closely identical motives, it also goes along with a striking word borrowing. This co-incidence goes far toward confirming a transmission from Iraq to Tibet that may otherwise seem too far fetched to consider.

One Losar (“New Year”) I was celebrating at the home of a Tibetan friend, a layman who was not all that religious, perhaps even borderline agnostic. Still, he served us the Guthuk Soup and “most importantly” (his words) he took our sins outside. ‘How did he do that?’ you may well be thinking. He gave us each a small ball of dough which we rubbed on our necks to pick up some of the filth that does tend to accumulate there and then we handed them back to him. He took them with a small tray holding a rudely fashioned dough figure outside, and even if I didn’t see it done this time, he should have taken the whole lot to a crossroad and set it on fire. I hoped he wouldn’t get caught doing it. It wasn’t exactly a Tibetan cultural crossroad we were living in, after all. People would have looked askance, to say the least, at any bonfires blazing up at a busy traffic interchange.

The scapegoat complex came up in a recent blog, in the comments section, and I may not even need to point out that placing your sins (ethical impurities, pollutions, ills) onto something else that will take it away from you is very much along the lines of what we mean by a scapegoat ritual. The original (?) scapegoat ritual may have involved an actual goat for all we know, but we do use the term for a wider range of ritual actions that work analogously, with or without the goat. Indeed, in the contemporary language of corporate blame assessment, the word scapegoat is used quite a lot... Really, far too much.

Of course, the very term scapegoat puts us to thinking about the Middle East where such complexes are still common enough, and where we popularly imagine it all originated. So I shouldn’t have been too surprised to come across doughballs there. Here is how it happened.

I was reading a chapter from the Cambridge Histories Online, in a volume entitled The Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West from Antiquity to the Present, the first chapter entitled “The Ancient Near East” composed by Daniel Schwemer. Schwemer distinguishes two types of rituals, the first one, ‘witch purifications’ that involves incinerating an effigy of the witch made of clay and wax. This kind of ritual is called maqlû. But the one that concerns us more at this moment is the other, different but related, type of ritual called šurpu. Let me quote p. 35, in the general context of undoing curses by ritual means: 

“Whereas the burning of the witches’ figurines dominates the proceedings of maqlû, the ritual šurpu aims at removing the patient’s impurity that has been caused by his or her own transgressions. It is not figurines representing the patient’s enemies, but the consequences of his or her own actions that have to be eliminated and are destroyed by fire. Thus, the performance of šurpu includes the burning of dough that is applied to and wiped off of the patient’s body. The patient throws various items representing his or her crimes into the fire, among them garlic peels.” [The added emphasis is my own.]

As if the identity of ritual actions, objects and objectives weren’t enough, Tibetan has borrowed this very word šurpu from Akkadian, and it fits into another (similar yet not identical) ritual context done with a different motive — food offerings to hungry ghosts and the spirits of the departed — in which barley flour (perhaps mixed with butter and/or other food substances to make a dough) is singed rather than incinerated.

The Tibetan word (or words) that means to singe or scorch in that ritual by the same name is bshur-ba, with imperative form shur-cig! And it obviously belongs to the same verb group as another verb with similar meaning gsur-ba. I won't bother you with the lexicons and what they say, but save the philological exercises for another time. The gsur ritual itself involves burning grain, but the motive is feeding hungry spirits. It was long ago described by Panglung Rinpoche in a short essay on the subject.

So to sum up, here is why I think here we have an excellent case for Mesopotamia-Tibet transmission. First, an identical object, the doughball, is made use of in closely identical ritual actions, the rubbing and the burning. Secondly, both rites are done out of the same motives, to purify the person of sin and similar blights. Third, we see that a different Tibetan grain burning rite, one with a different aim, bears the name of the very Mesopotamian rite that involves the rubbing and burning of the doughball. And the final blow to skepticism, I think, is the fact that this word that means ‘burning’ in Akkadian and ‘scorching, singeing’ in Tibetan fits seamlessly inside of an already-identified semantic circle of apparent borrowings that include words for blazing (bar|’bar) and brilliance (zil|zil).

§   §   §

Further ruminations, a little bibliography, and a few significant links

Sometimes, in order to switch gears and get a fresh start, we need to clean up some of the messes from the past. Rituals — as well as confession, restitution and reconciliation not accompanied by rituals — can certainly help. Notice how Leviticus 5 is immediately followed by a chapter on actual (not just ritual) restitution.* Apologies done, regrets expressed, while giving people back what is rightfully theirs usually must precede other efforts to smoothe things over between us.

(*The actual annual scapegoat ritual that used a real goat, intended for collective iniquity, is not all that relevant for us right now. For it, see Leviticus 16.)

To see how the very important Bon monastery known as Menri (སྨན་རི་) celebrates New Year, look here. Here they use strings instead of doughballs, but I do remember participating in a community ritual at Dolanji many years ago (not at New Year, n.b.) in which both strings and doughballs were used (everyone holds the same string, which is then cut so that each person is left holding a piece of it).

You can find other elaborate accounts of New Year rituals, including more than one way of using the doughballs, here.

With Rosh Ha-Shana upon us, to some of us it will be of special interest that the traditions of making challah bread for ritual purposes include a step in which a small doughball is taken from the large one and purposely burned. It’s this small doughball that the word challah properly refers to. This post-temple practice is consciously connected with a temple practice of daily incinerating doughballs on the fire altar.

As part of the sin purifying atonement practices leading up to Rosh Ha-Shana, many have the practice of throwing small crumbs of bread into a stream of flowing water while reciting confessional prayers. For more, try Schmoogling for "Tashlich" (send off, dispatch) or have a quick look at this news story. And if you have a little more time a particularly well done essay is this one. It’s a popular practice, and as such it doesn’t receive blanket approval from all religious authorities. It’s interesting how it uses the element of water, not fire, and crumbs instead of dough or grain, but anyway, I think you can sense a connection.

Tibetan names for dough are zan and spag. Uses include as a kind of cotton ball for spreading oil on babies, or animals, especially horses to make their fur coats shine. Also, for divination (or drawing of names from a hat). “Aleuromancy” is a word I wanted to slip into the discussion somewhere, so this is as good a chance as any. It’s supposed to be a type of divination done by slipping inscribed slips of paper into doughballs, kind of like the fortune cookies distributed after meals at Chinese restaurants in the U.S. The Guthuk dumplings of Tibetan New Year have objects, not inscriptions, placed in them.

John V. Bellezza, “Zenpar: Tibetan Wooden Moulds for the Creation of Dough Figures in Esoteric Rituals,” Collector's World. Color illustrations of zan-par. I believe this was also published in Arts of Asia, vol. 47, no. 5 (September 2017), p. 132. There is a bibliography on the subject here: http://www.francobellino.com/?p=2338.

Isabel Cranz, Atonement and Purification: Priestly and Assyro-Babylonian Perspectives on Sin and Its Consequences, Mohr Siebeck (Tübingen 2017). I’d like to say I’ve read this book, since it is precisely on topic, but anyway I hope I can read it soon and get back with you.

Zara Fleming, “An Introduction to Zan par (Tibetan wooden moulds),” Tibet Journal, vol. 27, nos. 1-2 (Spring 2002), pp. 197-216.

Zara Fleming, “The Ritual Significance of Zan-par,” contained in: Erberto F. Lo Bue, ed., Art in Tibet: Issues in Traditional Tibetan Art from the Seventh to the Twentieth Century, Brill (Leiden 2011), pp. 161-170. I’m not sure how these stamped dough figures figure into our discussion, but I imagine they ought to, somehow, if not now, some other time.

Jampa L. Panglung, “On the Origin of the Tsha-gsur Ceremony,” contained in: Barbara N. Aziz and Matthew Kapstein, eds., Soundings in Tibetan Civilization, Manohar (Delhi 1985), pp. 268-271. There is a Tibetan controversy within the Gelugpa school about whether “Hot Sur” (or as Panglung suggests, perhaps “Burnt Food”) ritual offering is Buddhist in its origins or not, with the Fifth Dalai Lama saying it’s not justifiable in Buddhist scripture, while the later Bstan-dar Lha-rams-pa argues it is. The brief essay ends with notice of a Dunhuang text nicely demonstrating that the word and its associated context goes back at least to the Tibetan imperial era.

Erica Reiner, Šurpu: A Collection of Sumerian and Akkadian Incantations, Weidner (Graz 1958). This includes English translations.

Francis James Michael Simons, Burn Your Way to Success; Studies in the Mesopotamian Ritual and Incantation Series Śurpu, doctoral dissertation, University of Birmingham (2017). I list this because of its useful survey of the literature. It doesn’t seem to have anything else specifically relevant for us at the moment. Tibetanists will find instruction in Mesopotamian use of juniper as an incense or fumigant for purifying large areas, just as Tibetans do in bsangs burning rites. The Mesopotamians even had a way of blessing the juniper for use in ritual. This study emphasizes juniper and cedar use for controlling and repelling insects, although this has never, as far as I know, featured in discussions about the Tibetan practice.

Wikipedia has a worthy entry on the Mesopotamian rite that you can see here.

Alexandra Witze, “Barley Fueled Farmers’ Spread onto Tibetan Plateau: Cold-Tolerant Crop enabled High-Altitude Agriculture some 3,600 Years ago,” Nature News, an internet journal. Try this link. Well, I for one regard the knowledge of just when barley cultivation started in Tibet as key to the issue of when grain baking, toasting, barley beer making and the like could have also had their start. I doubt this article will have the final word on the subject, but it does give us food to think about.

The Tibetan conversant can benefit from this video that depicts and interviews people about several of the dough-related parts of Tibetan New Year rituals. Go ahead and click on it:

 

བོད་ཆོལ་ཁ་གསུམ་གྱི་དགུ་གཏོར་ངོ་སྤྲོད།

This video of Gutor (Torma Rite of the Twenty-Ninth Day, just before New Year) shows outstandingly astounding cham dances, but you have to wait to the very last minute to see the torma burning.

+   +   +

Particularly for people who are not confirmed Bible-lovers I recommend, as a friend already recommended to me, to go read Leviticus chapter 5 carefully. There you will see that its sin-dispelling practice had both a bloody meat aspect and a bread-dough/grain aspect. This dyad of red and white elements, the blood and the grain, the wine and the bread, can be traced back to the original sacrifices of Cain and Abel in Bereshit, with Cain representing the preoccupation with field agriculture, and Abel the animal husbandry. There is a lot to puzzle over regardless of your beliefs, but I suggest putting on alien binoculars for a change before switching back to normal setting.

And finally, especially for the Tibeto-theoreticians, I’d like them to observe something. We’ve probably become too comfortable in our view that the ancient blood sacrifices were (entirely or largely) ‘replaced’ by grain and dough sacrifices as time went on, particularly the dough figures of animals and so on that we often see in Tibetan rituals. Even if there may be grains of truth in this common idea, we should permit ourselves to be bewildered by the simultaneous presence of dough and blood sacrifice that we see in Leviticus 5. I mean, the doughballs and dough figures could have been there all along, am I right? One didn’t have to replace or substitute for the other.

PS: These days I have so much tedious work to do I don’t have time to read books much, but before I go to sleep at night I read some pages of two very different books about Genesis: Gary A. Anderson’s The Genesis of Perfection and Catherine L. McDowell’s The Image of God in the Garden of Eden. I’ve already found dozens of subjects for a Tibeto-logician to blog about, but if I don’t promise to write them, I won’t commit any sin if I don’t, will I? Each of the two books is mind-altering in its own way. I’ve always been intrigued by the creation account, so much that I have trouble reaching other parts of the Hebrew scriptures. It doesn’t matter if you think it presents a true history of things, to me it’s more about how it provokes a lot of questions and presents a number of puzzles. Even if you were to read it as the opening of a best-selling novel.

Bagel, Baklava and Bag-leb

 

I suppose this to be the original bagel,
even if in Turkish it’s called simit.

I won’t waste breath apologizing for the frontispiece. Still, I wish I hadn’t put it up there. It’s making me drool... crunchy, salty yet soft inside, and I can’t have one if only because of the gluten. This is, in case you don’t recognize it, a Turkish-style bagel called simit. You probably won’t find them among the items called bagels in your local convenience store. You might have to ask.

You could have already guessed what we’re aiming for when you first glanced at the title of today’s blog, so I’ll keep it short. A bagel is not a baklava, but they could share some etymological roots, it seems to me. Could this also be true of the Tibetan food term bag-leb?

To begin with, as you may know there are several culinary invention myths associated with the Turkish siege of Vienna. Let’s skip over the milk-coffee, the coffee-house, and the croissant — the croissant is supposedly based on the Turkish/Islamic crescent — and go straight to the matters that interest us right now, the bagel and baklava.  It is usual to find a Germanic root meaning 'round' behind bagel, or just to assume the Yiddish origins of the word, an automatic assumption (likely to be accepted without investigation) just because it is so widely regarded as a Jewish food. But legend says it was invented by a Viennese baker to commemorate victory over the Turkish forces, based on the shape of the stirrups of the Polish cavalry. I’m already confused about what counts as real history or not, and in danger of making matters worse, but I believe the bread item itself, or should I say items, were of Turkish origins, the naming based in confusing which of the newly introduced doughy items was which. Tell me if I’m wrong.

Baklava you must know is made of super-thin pastry layers and filled with nuts and honey. It has a clear Turkish name, first borrowed into European languages in the mid-17th century.  But just remember what a huge territory was ruled by the Ottomans then and since and you will know where to find the places where baklava is well known as part of the national cuisine. They have different styles of making them, of course, and tend to pronounce it with an accent on a different syllable. I like to say it with an initial accent. But if the Ottomans donated it to the Austrians at that point, there is still no telling how much history was already behind it. Most think it is quite ancient, guessing it is Roman or even Babylonian, it is difficult to find agreement.

There are even those who argue that the word, if not the sticky sweet itself, goes back to the time when Turkic speakers neighbored Mongolian speakers in the Orkhon River valley of Mongolia, far before the Turkish migrations. I haven’t found any sense of consensus on this.

Then, during the long centuries of emigration and expansion into Asia Minor, the Turkish people absorbed a tremendous number of words from neighboring languages, particularly Arabic and Persian, so much so that Ottoman Turkish got complicated. So it might not be possible to be sure of the word’s ultimate origins. I know I can’t tell you, even if I’m working on expanding my Turkish vocabulary again these days.

So now that we’ve managed to reach so little certainty on those first two words, let’s see what we can do with the third, the common Tibetan word bag-leb for ‘bread’.

Some people think, mistakenly as we will see in a moment, that bag-le-ba is just another spelling (perhaps the more correct spelling?) for Tibetan bag-leb.

A TBRC search of bag-le-ba reveals that in its 6 occurrences it is 5 times used as a regional or country name with its own peculiar script (or is it the script only that has the name?).  In one instance only is it a type of cloth (perhaps a cloth named after the place?). To be safe, I tried searching for bag-le-pa, and the 4 occurrences there point to it being a fabric. And the most likely solution to this, too, is to see it as meaning Pahlava.*

(*There are some country lists contained in Tibetan translations of scriptures where Pahlava appears in the forms Pa-hu-pa and Ba-hu-ba, both of these I think being based on misreadings of a more exact transcription that also occurs: Pa-hla-ba.) 

But, and this seems like a large but, in those cases where a fabric is concerned, it is possible these are all references to cloth made from bark, and this draws us into an Indic/Sanskritic etymology for bag-le-ba that likely has no connection to Pahlava.

Paul Pelliot, in his legendary Notes on Marco Polo, suggests it may be explained by a Prakrit form similar to Bengali bāklā, 'bark.'  The Sanskrit form is valkala. Emeneau wrote a piece on bark clothing, so you can read about that for yourself in case you have trouble believing in it.

In short, we can now forget about bag-le-ba. When you encounter this spelling it never means bread.

So now that we have eliminated this touch of confusion with the Persian realm and its script as well as cloth made of bark, we can settle down to the word bag-leb. Bag-leb is, as we said, the quotidian Tibetan word today for bread. It may be true what Laufer says, I cannot eliminate the possibility that it’s a two-word expression meaning flatbread. Still, I think it could well be another example of what I call a ”Tibetanization,” a borrowing that slowly and unconsciously naturalizes the foreign word by spelling it in a form that lends itself to a Tibetan meaning. And this is especially likely in multisyllabic words in my experience. See our earlier blog about Turkish and Mongolian loans in Tibetan.

Indeed, it is the case that as far as there is such a thing as traditional Central Tibetan bread,* it would to be in the form of approximately three inches in diameter, & maybe 3/4" high, rounds, more along the lines of a thick pancake or flattened roll than a loaf of bread, and usually made with brown wheat flour. In my experience the better ones always were.

(*Not everyone will appreciate the note of skepticism, but I have yet to run into a bona fide pre-20th-century usage of the word bag-leb, and all my searches for early instances have been in vain. You can go to TBRC and try searching for it yourself. But wait,  I spoke too soon. I do seem to find one usage in a medical work preserved for us in the Tanjur written by an Indian physician Raghunātha (Ra-gu-nā-tha/ར་གུ་ནཱ་ཐ་) who visited Tibet sometime after 1656. This is significant! I do wonder if the Indian writer intended an Indian flatbread, roti or chapati or the like, when he used the word. It seems to be difficult to find evidence for these Indian breads in pre-Mughal literature.)

So finally, I ought to be ashamed of myself. After all, I’ve invited you over to visit from a great distance for a much-kneaded discussion over a cup of tea only to offer you an empty, or very nearly empty, plate of answers. So now it’s your turn. Tell me what makes sense to you.

°

Testimonies of some highly reputed scholars of past generations

M.B. Emeneau, “Barkcloth in India—Sanskrit Valkala,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 82, no. 2 (April 1962), pp. 167-170. I believe this is the single best discussion on this important topic, in case you’re as curious as I think you should be. Surely you are thinking, Is it comfortable? Can it breathe?

Berthold Laufer, “Loan-Words in Tibetan,” T'oung Pao, vol. 17, no. 1 (1916), pp. 403-552, at p. 532, footnote 1:  

The Tibetan word pa-le (“bread”), however, which Dalgado (l.c. p. 120) derived from Bell’s Manual of Colloquial Tibetan and with an interrogation-mark placed among the derivatives from Portuguese pão does not belong to the Romance languages. It is written bag-leb, both elements being genuine Tibetan words, bag meaning “flour, pap, porridge” and leb, “flat.”

Paul Pelliot, Notes on Marco Polo, vol. 1, p. 465:

...it shows once more that the translators of the Mahāvyutpatti from Tibetan into Chinese often adopted arbitrary interpretations : hua-mien, ,,cotton”, is given as a translation of Skr. vakkali, Tib. bag-le-ba. But the would-be Skr. vakkali can be nothing else than a Prākrit form of Skr. valkala, ,,bark garment” (cf. Pali vakkala and vakkali), and Tib. bag-le-ba seems to be an adjectival form of bag-le, itself based on a Prākrit form similar to Beng. bāklā, ,,bark” (on which cf. J. Bloch, La formation de la langue marathe, 404; but bag-le-ba may have been contaminated by Bag-le-pa or Bag-le-ba, ,,of Balkh”).  

NOTE of mine: just a comment on those last words, I think Pelliot introduced an unnecessary confusion with Balkh. Balkh is represented in Tibetan sources in the forms Bag-la and Sbal-kha. Heed the metathesis, it happens, especially when liquids are involved.

Stig Wikander, “A Central Asian Loanword in Arthaśāstra,” contained in: J.C. Heesterman et al., eds., Pratidânam: Indian, Iranian & Indo-European Studies Presented to Franciscus Bernardus Jacobus Kuiper on his Sixtieth Birthday, Mouton (The Hague 1968), pp. 270-274. I haven’t made reference to this, and in fact added it here only in July of 2023. I’m not sure of its conclusion, and need to think about it some more. Still in the passage he discusses deer, sable and other skins that might be kept in a royal treasury, and all are qualified as bāhlaveya, or having to do with bāhlava, which S.W. takes to mean ‘from Balkh.’ I’m tempted to think it means cloth made of skin or bark, just that I can’t guarantee it. An Indologist could be helpful here.

On the web

For a discussion on the bagel, look here. Search for yourself and find a lot more. I regret that I didn’t read this book before posting my nonsense: The Bagel: The Surprising History of a Modest Bread, by Maria Belinska. You can see some of it at Googlebooks if you look for it.

For a recipe with clear directions for making bag-leb (བག་ལེབ་), go to this page at Yolangdu website. You should at the very least go there for its photograph of what ordinary Central Tibetan bread looks like. Yolangdu is a commercial site in the sense that they offer travel services as well as a cookbook that can be purchased. I am not advertising their paid services — you are right now reading a non-commercial blog — just linking this particular page with its recipe generously offered to the world without any price attached.

For a trip around the world showing the many forms that bread can take, I think this page is the greatest: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/gallery/worlds-best-breads-travel-photos/?gallery=38. It has photos of every type mentioned in this blog, including Tibetan baleb and Turkish simit.

Some books about Tibetan food

Rinjing Dorje (Rig-’dzin-rdo-rje), Food in Tibetan Life, with illustrations by the author, Prospect Books (London 1985). 

Not just useful for its recipes, this has impressive cultural information on such matters as table manners, joking and swearing. So I recommend reading it even if you don’t like food. My older brother once borrowed the book, and swore that he did his best to follow its directions for making Tibetan beer and nearly died when he tried it, perhaps because he took seriously the suggestion that eagle shit and aconite might be used in the yeast starter. But my dear brother, rest his soul, always had a flair for the dramatic, knew how to embroider his travel stories to ensure maximum impact. I never had that useful ability myself.

Bod-kyi Nyer-mkho'i Zas-rigs Tshig-mdzod (“Tibetan Traditional Food and Drink Dictionary”), Kokonor People's Printing Press (Xining 2000). 

Perhaps you can view it here (www.tbrc.org/#!rid=W20183). The brief introduction and postscript can be read in English. Each entry gives definitions in Tibetan, Chinese and English, although it is often the case that the Tibetan definitions are much longer and more detailed.  Notice that the late famous Namkhai Norbu was involved in the making of this reference work, but his name is given as Mr. Na Ka Nuo Bu, “the famous Tibetan scholar of Italian Oriental University.” The entry for bag-leb defines it as a name for flat go-re, which is interesting, even if the English translates with the technically incorrect “Baked bread.” Looking at the entry for go-re, it says it is the general word for any kind of bread, and then continues with three pages of entries for different types. I think the basic meaning of go-re is simply round, with extended meaning of completeness, while in the kitchen context the best translation might be bun.

Bod Zas Bdud-rtsi’i Bum-pa (‘The Vase of Ambrosia that is Tibetan Food’), Tibet People’s Printing Press (Lhasa 1993). 

Perhaps you can view it here (https://www.tbrc.org/#!rid=W4CZ309050). I wouldn’t much recommend this recipe book for most people. There is hardly anything in it for me since I’ve reverted to the vegetarianism of my younger years and have discovered a need to stay gluten free. Well, there is one very simple recipe for honey bread (sbrang thud) that is sounding good, although I think I’ll make it with teff. You know, I once enjoyed fresh croissants from the French Bakery in Lhasa, proving true that line of a song, “It’s a whole world after all!”

And a final note for myself (July 29, 2021)

I ought to think more about one occurrence of a region called Bag-le. This is in the discussion of earthquakes found in the omens text by Garga (Derge Tanjur, Toh. no. 4321).  It is mentioned just before Persia, and seems to be described as located in Tokharia (the western one no doubt, not the eastern). It’s part of a longer list of countries, and looks like this with country names turned red:  tho gar gyi yul bag le dang  /    bar sig [~par sig] gi yul dang  /... That means that Bag-le probably means Balkh (Skt. Bāhlika), so I should go back and apologize to Pelliot for doubting him.

The Realm of Dharmas, Chapter Three: Metaphors of Bodhicitta

 

CHAPTER THREE

METAPHORS OF BODHICITTA

[Having shown the nature of Bodhicitta, now the nature where all dharmas are gathered into the Great Completion in Bodhicitta’s continuity is explained.]

Absolutely  everything  is  gathered,  subsumed  in  Bodhicitta.

Because no dharma whatsoever is excluded from    Bodhicitta.

all dharmas are of the nature of                                      Bodhicitta.

˚

[These three things are to be known for Bodhicitta— its simile, the significance of its simile, and its signs.  First, the simile—]

The SIMILE of Bodhicitta is “It is like the sky.”

In Citta there is no root cause and nothing that produced it and

so it is unpredictable, beyond communicating, beyond the sphere of thought.

“Sky Realm” is just an illustrative metaphor

which is not to say, “The metaphor itself is it!”

How then would the thought and expression lead to the metaphor’s meaning?

It is to be understood as an illustration of Bodhicitta’s pure nature.

˚

The SIGNIFICATION of the sky-equal self-awareness

   that Bodhicitta is

is   that it is no thing for thought,

       beyond illustration and communication.  It

is   self-luminous,          unmoving—spacious receptive centre

       of Sheer Luminosity.     It

is        Dharmabody—spacious centre of Bodhi Heart.

˚

[Now an uncompromisingly presented statement on the nature of Awareness-Bodhicitta which is sky-like pure, not belittled and devoid of partial definitions.]

Its SIGNS:  From its special powers dawns everything there is.

When they dawn, there is no ground for dawning, no agent of dawning.

Even just the word ‘dawning’, if you think about it,

is sky-like.

When you comprehend the non-preferential Great Levelness

in one fell swoop, precisely

that is the receptive centre of the spread-out-to-the-limit

beyond subject/object dichotomies.

[The manner of dawning in the Awareness continuity is unimpeded like the reflection of the sky in clear waters.  It dawns as various things, but even as they seem to dawn, in truth there is no ground or agent for dawning.  So they dissolve in the Void, pass over the pass into the nonpreferential Dharmabody.  By the statement, “nonpreferential Great Levelness,” the Mind Proper may be understood as sky-like.]

˚

[The significance of that is subsumed in the Dharma Proper without centre or circumference.]

Uncompromisingly presented illustrations are made by way of simile,

significance and signs

all the way up to self-engendered Full Knowledge and Dharma Proper.

In these sky-like Three Great Rays personified,

absolutely everything is included.  Their nature is undifferentiated

and unbreached.

In the Realm womb of the great vast level beam,

everything is totally levelled, with no sooner/later,

no good/bad.

This is the meaning behind Vajra Being and Total Good.

[The All Making King says,

In order to actually realize its meaning…

the simile is to consider it as sky-like;

the significance is the unproduced Dharma Proper;

and the signs are Mind Proper unimpeded.]

˚

[That Awareness is taught to be like the essence of the sun.]

Bodhicitta is like the essence of the sun.    For,

in its own continuity is Sheer Luminosity, totally uncompounded.

No dharmas cloud it.

It is naturally-arrived-at by passing right through.

No dharmas diffuse it.

It is the undistracted Dharma Proper continuity.

˚

[An expansion on the preceding verse.]

The Three Bodies are beyond inclusion and exclusion:

from the Void—the Dharmabody,

from the shining—the Perfect Assets Body,

and the ray-bearing Emanation Body.

When their naturally-arrived-at qualities are totally taken on,

they are unclouded by the darknesses of faults and injuries.  They are

one—no sooner/later, no past/present/future, no transforming/transporting;

one—embracing all Buddhas and sentient beings.  This

one    is called, “self-engendered Bodhicitta.”

[Dharmabody is the void part of Mind Proper.

Perfect Assets Body is the shining part.

Emanation Body is the dawning part.

But even while saying these things, substantially

you get no recognizable dharmas at all…and the underlying meaning of those statements is that past, present & future are naturally-arrived-at without transforming or transporting.  Because, in the manner of an essence   it embraces all sangsara/nirvana,  the Sugata Essence vastly embraces all animate beings.]

˚

[From the same continuity, appearances and becoming are shown to dawn.]

Bodhicitta’s special powers are whatever dawns,

all the various appearances of birth and motion,

material and vital, appearances and becoming,

realization and lack of realization.

[The nature of Awareness is like a mirror, and the special powers in its continuity are like mirrored images.  This is how it is the basis for the dawning of everything.]

˚

[Apart from their mere dawning, they have no nature.]

While all these appear, there are no several natures.

Like mirage water, dreams and echoes;

like phantoms, reflections, Gandharva cities

and faulty vision, they have no existence whatsoever.

There is no basis for their appearances.  They are

mere temporary perceptions

in between which the Dharmabody  may be realized.

[Just as dreams do not come when you have not gone to sleep or after you wake up, but rather in the depths of sleep, even so, the erroneous appearances of sangsara occur neither in the time of the first Dharma Proper nor when the goal of nirvana is achieved in the end.]

˚

[Showing that those appearances are unmoved from Dharma Proper.]

Out of the nature of naturally-arrived-at Bodhicitta

unimpeded play, the sangsara-nirvana magical display, comes.

When all those projections are comprehended in one fell

swoop in the Realm,

you may be sure that they have never ever moved from the primordial

continuity.

˚

[Because everything is completed in the Realm, it is taught to be Dzogchen, the Great Completion.]

Here all is the Bodhicitta continuity.

One complete, all is complete.     The unmade significance is

complete.

The nature naturally completed,

the self-engendered Full Knowledge,     is

complete.

˚

[In the substance of Awareness which is not-at-all-arrived-at, everything dawns.  Therefore, they dawn without impediment out of the continuity of the unproduced.]

Bodhicitta, whether visible or invisible,

isn’t in external/internal or sangsara/nirvana dharmas.

But yet, out of its special powers, by the nature of motion,

appearances/becoming and sangsara/nirvana

dawn as the play of the myriad things.

˚

[Since the substance of Awareness is not-at-all-arrived-at, it is beyond appearances and void.  For what is essentially not a subject for discussion, the occurrence of deceptive appearances arising in its continuity has not been experienced.]

From their mere dawning alone,

forms of void nature appear.

From the birthless they appear to be born.

From the very time of their appearing to be born, there was nothing

birthed.

From the unended things may appear to be ended.

But there is no ending.

Forms of void illusion appear.

From their abiding alone

no dharmas of abiding exist.

There is no basis for making them abide, only

a comingless, goingless continuity.

However things appear, they are not thereby arrived-at.

So it is enough to say just, “They have no nature.”

˚

[The meaning is summed up in the simple fact that no matter how things appear, they have no nature thereby.]

Those appearances may dawn themselves from the special powers,

but “interdependent origination” is an exact term for expressing their

nature.

From the very time they appear to dawn from the special powers,

there are no possibilities for preferences, no side taking as to whether

they do or do not dawn.

So ‘special powers’ itself is a mere term of no substance.

Everything has always never

never moved the least bit away from

the untransformed and untransported

continuity that Bodhicitta is.

 — Return to Chapter One

Puzzle Solved! Another Padampa Metaphor for Counterintuitive Klesha Therapeutics Identified

The White Cliffs of Dover

Photo by Piotr Kuczynski, 2005. Creative Commons.

 

“[There is something that] thoroughly dries out when placed in water.”   

—Padampa.

Sometimes when all your efforts fail, with time and patience the answer can come knocking on your door, dropping by unexpectedly without calling first. If you doubt this could happen, read on...

 

I could easily count the number of times a bit of chemical knowledge has actually helped me in life and in Tibetology on fewer fingers than I have on one hand. If I’m exaggerating, it isn’t by much. Once I was excited to discover that some kinds of adhesives used to glue labels on bottles, bottles that you would like to reuse, can be removed with ease if you rub them with oil. For this knowledge, and of course for a lot more, I am indebted to the love of my life, who once did a master’s thesis in Chemistry before turning to more worthy pursuits in the humanities.  

Another time I was surprised to find out that a verse in a very famous work by Sakya Pandita, in order to achieve the most basic understand of it, requires knowledge of one remarkable chemical reaction marked by a dramaticly unexpected change of color. I talked about that earlier (reference below). 

This time let’s talk about a different example, drawn from a similar genre of Tibetan and Indian Buddhist literature. Somehow the two (or 3) chemistry experiments have a surprising connector running between them that we might someday understand better, if you decide to go into it more deeply. A rougher understanding may suffice for now.

This may beg for a little background. Padampa himself and the Zhijé Collection were frequent subjects of these Tibeto-logic blogs, so I assume you know of them. There is a particular one among the minor dialogues (zhu-lan) of the ZC that never received any attention during the first 36 years after its publication.* Like the others it is supposed to serve as a record of Kunga’s dialogues with Padampa in Tingri in the earliest decades of the 12th century. If it doesn’t truly have the form of a dialogue as many of the others do, it may be due to the reorganization of Kunga’s notes according to subject, done by Kunga’s student Patsab. 

(*We might say that not even in Tibetan sources is it ever mentioned to the best of my ways of knowing, if it were not for one commentarial passage of ca. 1200 by Tenné in the ZC, its content paraphrased in Martin's essay, p. 205).

This minor dialogue was devoted to an immensely intriguing subject: a counterintuitive method employed by Padampa, incidentally making use of an equally intriguing Tibetan term gya-log that can be defined, understood and translated only with difficulty, as it occurs in medical and Dzogchen contexts (with the spelling ja-log) as well.  At the time the article came out, only one version of the text had been made available in published form. However, just a few weeks ago an alternative manuscript version (unpublished!) showed up in BDRC, so now we can at least check and verify the readings in a way that could not be done before (the edited text is appended below).

So let’s go back to those mysterious words of Padampa we opened with:

“[There is something that] thoroughly dries out when placed in water.”

 

Without stalling for dramatic effect, right away I can tell you, and even try to demonstrate my claim, that Padampa is talking about lime, and by lime I mean the mineral, not the fruit. This occurred to me for the first time ever only a few days ago, when my eyes fell on an article by Jürgen Hanneder in the Indo-Iranian Journal (listed below). I am myself 100% sure of it, but since I assume you are not convinced I would first ask you to watch a free online video. It will make you a believer in a minute and a half. Before we are done I expect we will all gain a new respect for the meaning of sub-lime-ation.

Just go here and watch the video entitled 

“Quicklime and Water Reaction.” 

If the link doesn’t work for you do a video search using these or similar words.

The website will immediately suggest more videos about lime, and you might want to watch some of those, too.

Trying to bring this blog to an quick end, I will just give my translations of two verses that may or may not directly foreground Padampa’s mysterious line about counterintuitive methods he calls gya-log. For the first of them, from a work put together by Ravigupta, I’d like to ask you to read Hanneder’s excellent essay. I have no arguments with it worth mentioning, and I much recommend its arguments and translations. If only to avoid the remote possibility of copyright infringement, I give my own very differently sounding translation, emphasizing its Buddhist technical terms as understood in Tibetan Buddhist sources. As a Tibeto-centric eccentric I am unlikely to know better.

 

It is just like the quicklime that becomes slaked lime,

when you sprinkle it with water it bursts into pieces.

So it is when the water of contemplative absorption is sprinkled on

the afflictive emotional states (kleshas) in their latent forms,

incinerated in the fire of transcendent insight.

I’m not very attached to my hasty paraphrase/translation of what has to be regarded as a rather technical (on both Buddhist and industrial sides of the equation) verse, and invite corrections. I was no doubt too much influenced by the Tibetan. I attempt to achieve greater clarity in separating out the object of comparison (my lines 1-2) from the thing to be compared (my lines 3-5). I take the entire verse to be an example of what Indian poetics (kāvya) knows as sahokti (ལྷནཅིག་བརྗོད་པ་) something like two coordinated paralleled passages (A, B and C individually bear comparison with X, Y and Z; i.e., A=X, B=Y, and C=Z). I turned the original order on its head. The quicklime is made by fire to begin with (this part of the process seems to be as missing in the verse as it is presupposed), and fire reappears at the end of the process after mixing with water, although here it is the explosiveness and not the heat that is emphasized in the first place. I take the rdo-bsregs, literally burnt [lime-]stone, to mean the quicklime (calcium oxide), while rdo-thal (Skt. sudhā) means slaked lime (calcium hydroxide), if I’m not entirely confused, if I’ve only succeeded in fomenting confusion in the world, as if that would be a worthy accomplishment in a world so full of it.

Where was I? Not to pretend to do any thinking for you, here is the other verse I promised to supply, one by Āryadeva, although it was supplied already long ago (Martin’s essay, p. 208, with refs. to other translations):

When mustard is mixed with mineral powders

a different color is produced.

In a similar way the wise know the Dharma Realm

through the workings of wisdom and means.

Actually, instead of mustard the translation ought to read curcumin, and in place of mineral powders, slaked lime (or a dilution of the same known as lime water. And do notice that another verse here makes reference to the alchemical aim of aurifaction).

To explain this verse, go to the link by clicking on this title:

Why does turmeric water turn red after adding slaked lime ?

Hint: If the link doesn't work try doing your own video search using some kind of wording like “calcium hydroxide” (or slaked lime) combined with “curcumin” (or turmeric). That should work. If you prefer to read about it, go to Karthikeyan’s article, listed below.

Despite some differences, this chemistry experiment more closely resembles the one in Sakya Pandita’s verse. So arguably we can now point out three distinct chemical processes or experiments used in Buddhist spirituality as symbols or metaphors, call them whichever you like. This ought to carry meaning for Buddhism and science interchanges that are taking place today, you think? What I suppose I mean is, we ought to find out more about how material transformational processes of various kinds — physics, chemistry, you name it — may or may not track with internal psycho-spiritual transformations. The results of such studies ought to be enlightening. 

On the other hand, Padampa in the same text promises, on the premise that internal fixes of the meditative kinds result in “objective” change out there in the world (and vice versa, too; external applications may provoke inner changes):

རིག་པ་དུམ་བུར་མཐུད་ན། ཐ་མལ་སྣང་བ་འགྱུར།

 

which is to say, 

 

“If you piece together the puzzle of awareness,

ordinary everyday appearances are transformed.”

 

§  §  §

Publication Alerts

Dorn Carran, John Hughes, Alick Leslie, & Craig Kennedy, “A Short History of the Use of Lime as a Building Material beyond Europe and North America,” International Journal of Architectural Heritage, vol. 6, no. 2 (2011), pp. 117-146. This is cited in Hanneder's essay, but notice it is available online without payment as a PDF, all you have to do is Schmoogle it.

Michael Hahn, Ravigupta's Āryākoṣa: A Contribution to the Early History of Indian Niti Literature, ed. by Lata Mahesh Deokar & Johannes Schneider, Aditya Prakashan (New Delhi 2019). I haven’t actually seen this yet, although I’ve seen the set of articles that were published during the author’s lifetime and this posthumously published work was based on them.

Jürgen Hanneder, “Lime Burning as a Religious Metaphor in Buddhist India,” Indo-Iranian Journal, vol. 64 (2021), pp. 1-9.  This may be available online through a subscribing institution.

T. Karthikeyan, “Why Does Turmeric Water Mixed with Quicklime Turn Red?” The Hindu (September 9, 2010):

“Quicklime is chemically a strong alkali (base). Hence, exposure of turmeric powder or turmeric water to quick lime neutralizes any of the two phenolic protons and triggers the conversion of the original benzenoid structure with yellow appearance into a quinonoid structure with red colour. Red colour has higher wavelength than yellow. That is why turmeric water, when mixed with quicklime, turns red.”

D. Martin, “Crazy Wisdom in Moderation: Padampa Sangyé”s Use of Counterintuitive Methods in Dealing with Negative Mental States,” contained in: Y. Bentor and M. Shahar, eds, Chinese and Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism, Brill (Leiden 2017), pp. 193-214. Maybe available online.

Negi dictionary — J.S. Negi, Tibetan Sanskrit Dictionary (Bod skad dang legs sbyar gyi tshig mdzod chen mo), Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies (Sarnath 1993-2005), in 16 volumes.

ZCK — Zhi-byed-kyi Chos-skor. TBRC no. W3CN25705, posted in 2021.

Zhijé Collection (ZC) —   Kun-dga', et al., The Tradition of Pha Dampa Sangyas:  A Treasured Collection of His Teachings Transmitted by T[h]ug[s]-sras Kun-dga', Kunsang Tobgey (Thimphu, Bhutan 1979), in 5 volumes, with English preface by Barbara N. Aziz.

•

On the other chemistry experiment found in a Sakya Pandita verse (verse 15 or 17 depending on the edition), see an earlier blog with the title “Tantra's Ineluctible Logic,” posted November 8, 2013.

You can find an even earlier discussion of the same Sakya Pandita verse in “Monkey Paw, Salty River,” posted August 1, 2009, but do pay attention to the comments section.  

The original verse (there really aren’t textual variants worth mentioning) reads like this:

བློ་གྲོས་ལྡན་པ་གཉིས་བགྲོས་ན།།

བློ་གྲོས་ལེགས་པ་གཞན་འབྱུང་སྲིད།།

ཡུང་བ་དང་ནི་ཚ་ལ་ལས།།

ཁ་དོག་གཞན་ཞིག་སྐྱེ་བར་འགྱུར།།

On removing stubborn adhesives with ease, see this:

How to Remove Sticker Residues.

Afterwords

There are two refs. listed under "rdo-thal" in the Negi dictionary, but both use it in the meaning of ‘plaster’.  I have a funny story to tell about plaster from the Gunla month ‘birthday of all the caityas’ celebration in Nepal. We were with our best Newar friend, a real scholar of Buddhism named S.R.S., when a European, another real scholar guaranteed to know a lot about caityas came along. He was there with his Newar assistant. I thought to introduce the two of them, knowing they had interests in common. But that idea was forever abandoned when the European shouted to his assistant, “Stop them! Beat them!” There was really only one person he could have meant, a rather old ethnically Tibetan man was hopping from one stone caitya to the next, anointing each of them with a dollop of whitewash. I assure you, no beating took place, and the old man disappeared as quickly as he had appeared. The European turned to us apologetically, telling us that the Newars take such good care of their stone caityas, but then Tibetans come along and make them dirty. My search for slaked lime (read further on below) turned up one interesting passage that justifies the whitewashing of caityas as an act of reverence, in fact, as a way of keeping them clean. (Tibeto-logicians can check for themselves the Vinaya passage I’ve paste in later, located with the help of a BDRC search, of course.) You can see the whitewash all around the great Stūpa of Swayambhunath in our frontispiece. For such giant stūpas wealthy donors from time to time put up the necessary funding to have this whitewashing done. But if you’ve visited the Newar Bahals in Kathmandu you would also know that some of the smaller sized stone caityas have become like white ghosts, irregularly rounded blobs of white stuff so unrecognizable that some mistake them for Shiva lingams. Since many of these caityas have Buddha Images in niches on their sides, often a lot of trouble is taken to keep them, and only them, from being covered over by the plaster. But I have seen cases where you would need a flashlight, or most of your forearm inserted into the hole, to know anything was there at all. 

+

And another interesting use of plaster for purposes of spirituality is the practice of voluntary solitary confinement. In this form of retreat, the door is supposed to be plastered shut, and only opened when the set period of time for mantra repetition and visualizations of divine forms of Buddha  is completed, often a period of 3 or even 9 years. This has a distinctly different meaning than the English expression ‘getting plastered’ has today.

+

Which reminds me, if you are in an experimental mood, you might try a search of Kanjur and Tanjur texts for “rdo-thal.” When I did this using the Vienna site it revealed about 16 results in the Kanjur, one of them from the Vinaya* passage just mentioned, with lime plaster being used on stūpas as an adornment (Newars apparently still practice this, not just Tibetans). 

(*The Vinaya text is this one:  Vinayottaragrantha ('Dul ba gzhung bla ma).  Tôh. no. 7, vol. NA, folios 1v.1-92r.7; vol. PA, folios 1v.1-313r.5.)

In general, the Kanjur materials seem to know rdo-thal primarily as a substance to be smeared on something as part of the building process, whether on walls, artificial ponds, or stūpas. The Blessed One himself had advice about construction materials used in making stūpas.

Turning to the Tanjur, matters get more complicated as there are 70 results.  So if you are ready to deal with all of that information have an enjoyable time with it.

Note: For what I call the Vienna site (rKTs), check our sidebar under the section entitled "Scriptural Searches." I send you there because it links alternative search sites, and not just the one from Vienna.

rKTs n°: - D3995

རྟེན་ཅིང་འབྲེལ་བར་འབྱུང་བ་དང་པོའི་རྣམ་པར་དབྱེ་བ་བཤད་པ

mdo 'grel (mdo), chi 1b-61a (vol. 115), page. 25B

དེའི་དབང་གིས་ཀྱང་བྱ་བ་དག་ལ་འཇུག་གོ། །དེ་མེད་པར་ཡང་རིས་མཐུན་པ་བཞིན་དུ་མངོན་པར་འགྲུབ་པ་མ་ཡིན་གྱི། གཟུགས་མེད་པར་ཡང་གཟུགས་མེད་པ་དག་ཏུ་མི་མངོན་པར་འགྲུབ་པར་འགྱུར་རོ། །མིང་གི་རྒྱུན་ལ་བརྟེན་ནས་རིས་མཐུན་པ་གཞན་དག་ཏུ་སྔོན་མ་བྱུང་བའི་གཟུགས་ཀྱི་རྒྱུན་ལེན་་པར་བྱེད་ཀྱི། གཟུགས་ཀྱི་རྒྱུན་ནི་སྔོན་མ་བྱུང་བའི་མིང་གི་རྒྱུན་ལེན་པར་བྱེད་པ་མ་ཡིན་ནོ། །གང་ཡང་འབྱུང་བ་རྒྱུར་བྱས་པའི་གཟུགས་སྐྱེས་པ་དག་ཇི་ལྟར་རྣམ་པར་ཤེས་པའི་རྐྱེན་གྱིས་ཡིན་ཞེ་ན། གལ་ཏེ་འབྱུང་བ་དང་འབྱུང་བ་ལ་བརྟེན་པའི་གཟུགས་རྣམས་ལས་ཀྱིས་ཡོངས་སུ་བསྒོས་པའི་་རྣམ་པར་ཤེས་པ་ལ་བརྟེན་ནས་སྐྱེ་ན། འདིར་འགལ་བ་ཅི་ཡོད། འབྱུང་བ་དང་ཐ་དད་པ་མེད་པར་དེ་སྐྱེ་བ་ན་འབྱུང་བ་ལས་གྱུར་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་སྟེ། དེ་འཛིན་པ་དང ། འཕྲོག་པ་དང ། ཡོངས་སུ་གྱུར་ན་དེ་འཛིན་པ་ལ་སོགས་པ་ཡོད་པའི་ཕྱིར་རོ། །རྣམ་པར་ཤེས་པའི་རྐྱེན་གྱིས་མིང་ནི་རེ་ཞིག་རིགས་གྲང་ན། མཚན་ཉིད་མི་མཐུན་པ་དག་རྣམ་པར་ཤེས་པ་ལས་ཇི་ལྟར་སྐྱེ་ཞེ་ན། འདི་ནི་བརྒལ་དུ་མེད་པ་ལ་རྒོལ་བ་ཡིན་ཏེ། འཇིག་རྟེན་དང་བསྟན་བཅོས་ལས་ཀྱང་མཚན་ཉིད་མི་མཐུན་པའི་རྒྱུ་ལས་ཀྱང་འབྲས་བུ་འབྱུང་བ་དེ་དག་གྲུབ་པ་ཡིན་ནོ། །རེ་ཞིག་འཇིག་རྟེན་ན་དབང་པོ་དང་དོན་གཉིས་ལས་བདེ་བ་དང ། སྡུག་་བསྔལ་སྐྱེ་བ་དང ། བརྡབས་པ་ལས་སྒྲ་དང ། རཝ་ལས་འདམ་བུ་དང ། མེ་དང་ཤིང་ལས་དུ་བ་དང ། རྡོ་ཐལ་དང་ཆུ་ལས་མེ་དང ། ཀླུའི་སེམས་ཀྱི་མཐུས་ཆུ་དང་དེ་ལ་སོགས་པའོ། །

rKTs n°: - D3996
རྟེན་ཅིང་འབྲེལ་བར་འབྱུང་བ་དང་པོ་དང་རྣམ་པར་དབྱེ་བ་བསྟན་པའི་རྒྱ་ཆེར་བཤད་པ
mdo 'grel (mdo), chi 61b-234a (vol. 115), page. 140B
འདི་ལ་ཡང་རིགས་ཐ་དད་པ་ཡོད་པ་ཡིན་ཏེ། མེ་ནི་དྲོ་བའི་བདག་ཉིད་ཀྱི་མེ་ཡིན་ནོ། །ཤིང་ནི་དུ་བ་མ་ཡིན་གྱི་དུ་བའི་རིགས་ཡིན་ནོ། རྡོ་ཐལ་དང་ཆུ་ལས་མེ་དང་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ཅི་ཞེ་ན། སྐྱེ་ཞེས་བྱ་བའི་སྐབས་དང་སྦྱར་རོ། །འདི་ལ་ཡང་འབྱུང་བའི་རིགས་ཐ་དད་པའི་ཕྱིར་མཚན་ཉིད་མི་་མཐུན་པ་ཉིད་གྲུབ་པ་ཡིན་ཏེ། །རྡོ་ཐལ་དང་ཆུ་གཉིས་འབྱུང་བ་གཞན་ཡིན་པའི་ཕྱིར་རོ། །ཀླུའི་སེམས་ཀྱི་མཐུས་ཆུ་དང་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ཅི་ཞེ་ན་སྐྱེ་ཞེས་བྱ་བའི་སྐབས་དང་སྦྱར་ཏེ། །ཆུ་ནི་ཀླུ་ལ་སློང་ངོ་ཞེས་བྱ་བར་གྲུབ་པ་ཡིན་ནོ། །

rKTs n°: - D4069

རྣམ་པར་བཤད་པ་རིགས་པའི་བཤད་པ

mdo 'grel (sems tsam), si 139b-301a (vol. 137), page. 287B

ཞེས་བྱ་བ་རྒྱ་ཆེར་བསྟན་པ་ཡིན་ནོ། །གདུལ་བ་བག་མེད་པ་རྣམས་ནི་སྐྱོ་བར་བྱེད་པས་གདུང་བར་བྱེད་པ་ཡིན་ནོ། །རྡོ་ཐལ་གྱི་རྡོ་མེས་བསྲེགས་པ་ནི་ཇི་ལྟར་རྡོ་ཐལ་གྱི་རྡོ་མེས་བསྲེགས་པ་ཆོས་འཇིག་པར་བྱེད་པ་དེ་བཞིན་དུ། ཉོན་མོངས་པའི་བག་ལ་ཉལ་གྱི་རྡོ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ལོག་པའི་ལས་ཀྱི་མཐའ་་དང་རྒྱ་ཆེར་འབྱུང་བ་ཡིན་ནོ། །དེ་བཞིན་དུ་མེལ་ཚེ་བ་སོ་སོར་མི་རྟོག་པ་དང ། རོལ་མོ་མཁན་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་རྒྱ་ཆེར་འབྱུང་བ་ཡིན་ནོ། །འཆོས་པ་ནི་ཚར་གཅོད་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་བའི་ཐ་ཚིག་གོ། །

rKTs n°: - D1180

ཀྱེའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་བསྡུས་པའི་དོན་གྱི་རྒྱ་ཆེར་འགྲེལ་པ

rgyud 'grel, ka 1b1-126a7 (vol. 2), page. 30A

དེ་ལྟར་འཇིག་རྟེན་པའི་ཀུན་རྫོབ་ཀྱིས་རྟེན་ཅིང་འབྲེལ་བར་འབྱུང་བའི་ཚུལ་གྱིས་འདི་ཐོབ་ནས་འདི་འབྱུང་སྟེ།ཡུང་བ་དང་རྡོ་ཐལ་གྱི་སྦྱོར་བ་ལས་དམར་བ་ཉིད་བཞིན་དུ་ལས་ཐམས་ཅད་བསྒྲུབ་པ་ལ་རིག་པར་བྱའོ།།རྣལ་འབྱོར་པ་རྣམས་ཀྱིས་སངས་རྒྱས་སོ་ཞེས་པའི་ང་རྒྱལ་གྱིས་ནི་མ་ཡིན་ནོ་ཞེས་པ་ལས་སྒྲུབ་པའི་ངེས་པའོ་ཞེས་པ་ཀྱེའི་རྡོ་རྗེའི་འགྲེལ་པ་དྲུག་སྟོང་པར་སྔགས་ཀྱི་རིགས་ཀྱི་ལེའུ་ལས་རབ་འབྱམ་སྒྲུབ་པའི་ཡོངས་སུ་བཅད་པ་སྟེ་དྲུག་པའོ།། །། 

A few interestingly relevant vocabulary items to watch out for

སྐྱང་ནུལ་—SKYANG NUL  plaster.  Blaṅ 298.3. zhal ba. Btsan-lha.  gyang sogs la zhal ba byugs pa lta bu.  Utpal 30.4.  Skt. lepa.  Mvy. 6671 (where there are a number of Tibetan equivalents for lepa).  phyags brdar dang bskyang nul legs par byas te.  Zhi-byed Coll. I 115.4.  zhal zhal.  Dbus-pa no. 561.  Lcang-skya.  See rkyang nul, etc.  See rnyeng.

འདག་པ་འབྱར་བ་—'DAG PA 'BYAR BA  to apply plaster, to go into a solitary retreat. Also, 'dag 'byar.  immured.  It literally means that 'plaster' ('dag[ pa]) has been 'applied' to the apertures of the chamber in order to hold a sealed retreat.

ཞལ་ཞལ་—ZHAL ZHAL  zhal ba.  Btsan-lha.  kun la snyoms pa'i zhal zhal bya.  'Jig-rten-mgon-po, Bka'-'bum (2001) I 35.1. Frequent in canonical texts for 'plaster' (presumably of the kind that makes use of slaked lime). The bi-syllabic form zha-la also occurs.

•

Appendix - Text of the Gya log gnad kyi skor.

Gya log gnad kyi skor.  Marked as belonging to the Covering Leaves section.  

A note of explanation: This complete transcription has been corrected against the original cursive manuscript of ZCK as well as against ZC (ZC has two unique lines missing in ZCK). If there are square-bracketed single letters within a syllable, that means you can accept or reject it according to what makes better sense to you. If a full syllable or more appears in square brackets and is marked with "~" ('alternative'), that means one of the two versions of the text has this different reading, which again may be accepted or rejected according to what makes better sense to you. There are no special philological aims in this type of text edition apart from helping the reader understand it better; I do not care to establish which is earlier or better (ZC is no doubt earlier, as the manuscript behind the publication was inscribed in ca. 1245. While pending further investigation my best guess is that the ZCK is 14th century). For present purposes it doesn’t matter which reading belongs to which text. The punctuation has been regularized, with a shad punctuation coming after every conditional clause as I believe this will assist the reader. The “xxx” stands in place of a missing or illegible syllable.

bla ma dam pa rnams la phyag 'tshal lo // 

gya log gnad kyi gd[am]s pa la / 

nad gzhi lus zungs su bsgyur ba la / bskam thag chu nang du gcad pa / 

gsal lo khas [~gsol ba mas] kyi[s] btab na / byin brlabs yas kyi[s] 'jug / 

rang don sngon la byas nas [~pas] / gzhan don rjes la 'byung / 

ma yengs nyams su blang na / yengs med rgyud la 'char / 

rig pa phyi ru brgyang na / gnyis 'dzin nang du 'jig / 

sel rgyu la ma zhugs na / 'bras bu rjes la mi bslu / 

nyon mongs nang du bsal na[s] / sdug bsngal phyi ru skam[s] / 

snang ba sgyu ma[r] go na / bya[r] m[y]ed rgyud las skye / 

rig pa phyi ru gcun [~chun] na / 'du ba nang du sel / 

rang xxx [~bsags] phyi ru bkye [~skye] na / gzhan bsag nang du [b]sdud [~'du] / 

gdam[s] ngag rang la yod na / dam chos gzhan gyi[s] 'char  [~'chad] / 

smra brjod nang du bskung [~skyungs] na / phyi ru skyon dang bral / 

rten 'brel lus la [b]sgrigs na / nyams myong sems la skye / 

phyi ru bden m[y]ed go na / nang du 'dzin byed 'jig / 

rig pa dum bur mthud na / tha mal snang ba 'gyur / 

zhen pa phyi nas log na / rig pa nang nas 'char / 

[following line in ZC only:]

spyod pa btsan dod byas na / nyams myong thog babs 'char /

spros pa phyi ru bcad na / gzung 'dzin nang du grol / 

'du 'dzi phyi ru bsk[y]ung[s] na / dge sbyor nang du 'phel / 

'dod pa yid la zhig na / bde ba rgyud la skye / 

lta rtog[s] phyi ru byas na / go ba nang du [~nas] 'char / 

rig pa rten dang bral na / tshogs drug rang sar grol / 

nyon mongs nang du bcoms na / phyi ru dgra dang bral / 

go cha sems la gon na / brtson 'grus lus la skye / 

rig pa nang du dangs na / rten 'brel phyi ru 'char / 

[the following line in ZC only:]

nyon mongs nang du bcom na phyi ru dgra dang bral /

'khor ba'i mtshang phyi ru go na / zhen pa nang du ldog [~bzlog] / 

byar med rgyud la [b]rten na / snang ba sgyu ma 'char / 

mngon zhen nang du zhig na / dgos m[y]ed phyi ru 'char / 

gnas pa'i 'phro la gshig [~bzhig] na / rjes thob nyam[s] myong[s] bzang / 

dam bca' [~bcwa] phyi ru bsring na / dgos grub nang du [~na] nye / 

rtog pa dum [1v] bur bcad na / dngos grub rims kyi skye / 

nyams myong nang na yod na / gsal rtag[s] phyi ru 'char / 

rigs pa dum bur mthud [~'thud] na / phyi ru snang ba 'jig / 

chos brgyad nang du [b]snyoms na / gnyis bsdus phyi ru 'jig / 

nang du rnam rtog 'gag[s] na / smra ru [~smrar rgyu] phyir mi snyed [~rnyed] / 

nang du 'dzin pa zhig na / bden m[y]ed phyi nas 'char / 

nang du rang bzhin m[y]ed par go na / spang blang[s] phyir mi skye'o //

gya log gnad kyi gdams pa / [b]skam xxx [~thag] chu nang du bcad pa'i

man ngag [~gdam[s] ngag go] /  ithi //

Postscript - June 24, 2021

I just today noticed a new journal of Tibetan Studies field coming out of Columbia University in New York City.  Just go to the sidebar under “Journal Portals” and locate the words “Waxing Moon.” Tap on those words and go there to see what you can find.

Postscript - January 15, 2023

I found two amazing discussions about Roman cement. It was so magical cracks and breaks in it could heal themselves quite quickly, which explains why, for instance, the dome of the Pantheon in Rome could remain standing today. By contrast, modern concrete, when it starts to crack, sucks up more and more liquid leading to more and more degradation.Vitruvius, the Roman architectural writer of the first century BCE, had this to say about it in the context of making the floor for a triclinium, a dining and drinking hall found in homes of the well-to-do for entertaining guests:

“The floor of the triclinium is excavated to the depth of about two feet; and after the bottom is well rammed, a pavement of rubbish or potsherds is spread over it, with a declivity towards the holes of the drain. A composition of pounded coals, lime, sand, and ashes, is mixed up and spread there-over, half a foot in thickness, perfectly smooth and level. The surface being then rubbed with stone, it has the appearance of a black pavement. Thus, at their banquets, the liquor that is spilt, and the expectoration which falls on it, immediately dry up; and the persons who wait on the guests, though barefooted, do not suffer from cold on this sort of pavement.” [added emphasis is my own]

See Markus Vitruvius Pollio: De Architectura, Book VII, chapter 4, paragraph 5 at the end of ch. 4, translation and Latin version in: 

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Vitruvius/7*.html (access: 2023-01-15).

That I could find this quote at all was thanks to a technical yet fascinating book on Himalayan building materials: Hubert Feiglstorfer, Mineral Building Traditions in the Himalayas: The Mineralogical Impact on the Use of Clay as Building Material, De Gruyter, (Berlin 2019), footnote 45 on p. 163.

And, if you can get past the paywall, you might learn about an experimental scientific way of accounting for the durability of Roman cement, a secret that is not just in the lime, but in the volcanic ash.

Ariel David, “Researchers Reveal Why Ancient Roman Monuments Still Stand After Millennia,” Haaretz (January 6, 2023).  “What did the Romans ever do for us? They created a concrete that self-repairs, which today could reduce the massive emissions caused by modern cement production, study finds.”

Or, if that one is unattainable, try this: 

Melanie Lidman, “Still Standing: Researchers Crack the Secret of Ancient Rome's Self-Healing Concrete,” posted on January 12, 2023.

What does this all have to do with counterintuitive therapeutics? You tell me.