Nam, an Ancient Word for Sky

When you hear the word shaman [1] what does it evoke, and [2] where do you think the word came from? Ignoring the first, something only you can answer, and going on to the second, something we are supposed to agree upon by now — it isn’t a borrowing but a local Siberian (Evenki or some other kind of Tungusic) term with one or another internal etymology that makes some kind of sense (this last part of the puzzle not at all settled or solved yet as far as I can tell).

In Fuente’s review of a recent booklet on the subject, he makes a clear plea for the nativist theory of the origins of the word shaman as against the Indological theory, the one that derives it from Sanskrit śramaṇa. To simplify Fuente’s argument, if we discover that Portuguese is employing a Hungarian borrowing in its word for car, then we shouldn’t settle for that, but look into the other languages that would have passed the word along. We should not assume that a Hungarian motorist airdropped directly into Portugal and spread the word around. Fuentes says that those who defend the Indic origins of shaman haven’t done their homework on intermediaries, and since no mediating language terms have stepped forward to help out over the years that’s good reason to drop the whole idea about its Sanskrit derivation. 

Well, okay... If you reflect on it a bit, in long bygone centuries Indian Buddhists and Siberian Tungus were just too far apart to comfortably exchange vocabulary as if they were sharing an apple. The Buddhists in the geographical regions between them, says Fuente, tended to translate Buddhist terms like this into their own languages for the most part (དགེ་སྦྱོང་ / ‘Gejong’ in Tibetan, is an example I could have offered to help his case). I’ll have more to say on that below.

And then, a more convincing argument I think, there is also the uncomfortable fact that — given Indian śramaṇas are, like shamans, human beings of a certain respected status — they are, after all is said and thought about, two quite distinct types of human beings, following professions with scarce similarities. Seeing one doesn’t make you think of the other.  Their ways of acting, their ritual activities, their modes of dress, their aims in life? Finding resemblances is just too tough. In India, the śramaṇas, both the Buddhists and pre-Buddhists who went by that name, renounced home and worldly business to wander and live out their lives as hermits in the wilderness. Tungusic shamans did nothing of the sort. Well, even if their pre-shaman phase known as ‘shaman sickness’ might have meant a temporary (renunciatory ?) isolation, they spent the rest of their careers entangled in village and household life (see for instance Meng), as highly valued lay members of their communities.

I would say that two things unite all eastern Eurasian shamans (and I’ll go on to use that term as if it is a good one). One of these is their veneration of the sacred sky. That sacred sky may be peopled by divinity-like figures, while the sky itself would be the more sacred object. The other is the role of the shamans themselves. Likely elected by the sacred sky, they undergo a crisis period that may include isolation in a wild and remote setting before undertaking their socially significant roles of presiding over healing, divination, crisis management, life-bringing, and funerary rites. Making such generalizations is a danger and difficult, but my aim is just to have a simple staging ground for what I have to say about the sacred sky.

I believe there is an argument to be made for nam (and gnam) being the more ancient Tibetan word for sky. By ancient, we mean the period preceding the early 7th-century (?) introduction of Buddhism and extending into the indefinite past. I mean to say it is more ancient than the bisyllabic nam-mkha’ that over time became the most-used word for both sky and [the more scientific or philosophical] space.  (But not heaven so much, for that we have other words.)

What is more, the same word of same or very nearly identical meaning shows up in other languages outside, even far outside, the Tibeto-sphere as ordinarily conceived. This makes it particularly fascinating to contemplate just how far back the connection might go, along with the related question of how it traveled from one place to the other, if that is indeed what happened. It is here that I think I have something to report that might impress those who are interested.

When we search through the online database of Old Tibetan texts called OTDO, it shows zero results for "nam-mkha’.” The reason is that in those days it was spelled “nam-ka,” with about 30 occurrences including a few instances of “gnam ka.” At the same time there are about a dozen occurrences of “mkha'” (and “mka'”  not even once).

By contrast gnam occurs over 250 times, and occurrences of “nam” seem equally many, just that it frequently forms part of a proper name making it difficult to give an exact count.

What we can probably conclude from this is that the syllable mkha' that is so familiar to us now is represented by ka in Old Tibetan, and as such it is a borrowing of Sanskrit kha. After Buddhist scriptures entered Tibet, the native syllable [g]nam got transformed into a compound incorporating the Indic word: Tibetan nam meaning sky plus Indic-derived [m]kha[’] meaning sky equals nam-mkha' (a synonym compound) meaning sky. Why not just use one or the other? Why both together? The Tibetan nam was needed, at least at first, for its recognition value even though its non-Buddhist associations were no longer wanted, explaining why it had to be dashed together with the Indic term to make a new hybrid term twice as lengthy as necessary. It was regarded important to dissociate Buddhist sky/space from earlier notions of sky’s meanings, and this because that pre-Buddhist notion must have figured powerfully in Tibet-local ideas, ideas that the Buddhists found to be at variance with or even in opposition with their own.

You may or may not agree with my proposed argument, but please notice that there is another part to it, which is that nam held, and in some degree continued to hold, associations with a religiously significant concept of sky by both Tibetans and their more and less distant neighbors.*

(*See Kvaerne, where early Bon sources inform us that Turco-Mongolic peoples worship the ‘sky’ — gnam is the Tibetan word they choose to translate tengri and the like, including divine appointment of rulers. Look, too, at the Tibetan banknotes from the first half of the 20th century with their inscription that begins with gnam bskos, ‘sky appointed.’)

We ought to say, out of a sense of duty if nothing else, that Tibetan has several terms that might be rendered as ‘sky.’ They are not really synonyms, as their usage can be quite different. To give two examples: I would say that [1] mtho-ris, etymologizable as lofty region, is better translated by heaven (it’s often used to translate Skt. svarga, and both are mostly used for a/the celestial dwelling place of divine beings) and [2] bar-snang as atmosphere (it’s used to translate Skt. antarikṣa, and both mean a middling level of space or sky, evidently a space that lets the light shine through it if we take the syllable snang seriously). I think mtho-ris and bar-snang can be left out of our discussion for the time being. And I’d like to save words like firmament, [expanse of] space, and aether with the idea they might prove useful for one or another word in one context or another. I trust you aren’t looking forward to a quick resolution, since I’m not aiming to bring thinking to an end today. I not only think there were phases in the historical gerrymandering of meanings and definitions, I assume this. The truth is we’re still doing it. Doesn’t it sound a touch more poetic if you say the heavens when you just mean the sky?

One problem is that choosing a word like firmament would immediately implicate strong Judaeo-Christian associations that should not be assumed.  Not everyone agrees that the word used in Genesis ought to be translated as firmament or vault (as a sphere or dome of fixed stars), some preferring to translate it in a manner that emphasizes spatiality rather than solidity: as expanse. And notice that this expanse is, unlike all the other creation events, not blessed by the words “and it was good.” It implicates a division between the upper and lower waters, a strongly Middle Eastern concept since very ancient times. In Mesopotamia the abzu or apsu* is a ritual tank that has to combine the water from the sky with the water from under the ground (from springs or perhaps cisterns). In fact, some are of the belief that the Hebrew word shamayim contains in itself the word for waters, mayim, and this word contains in itself a dual ending implying that at one time two types of waters were involved. Although hardly the first to have this strange idea, Milton located a watery orb beyond the fixed stars, as if the least crack in heaven’s vault would result in our instant inundation. Well, I guess you get my point that while we may never get to the bottom of all this, let alone to the top, there are good reasons to be cautious about using words like firmament or atmosphere to translate classical Tibetan. The first sounds Biblical, while the second sounds like the nightly weather report.

(*Am I the only one who sees the Sanskrit word ab for 'water' and the Turkish word su for water in it? [The common Tibetan word is chu.] I hope you won't take me too seriously on this point, but I can’t help seeing what I see, can I?)

I had reasons, not that I think they are 100% solid ones mind you, to choose the word firmament in translating one early Tibetan cosmogony text.  It is part of a very difficult early (at the very least 9th-century) account bearing the title Splitting Off from the Gods of the Firmament,* encased and preserved in a mid-13th-century history. Until near the very end there is no hint of Abhidharma-type Buddhist influence in it, so I presume, given its anchoring in the time of Ralpacan, it's an early post-Buddhist text that preserves a pre-Buddhist narrative on the origins of the Tibetan royal line. That means I’m ready to accept that the lion’s share of it goes back some centuries earlier, even so far as whatever we might mean by ancient times.

(*Based on numerous variants of the title, I reconstructed what I think is the most likely and authentic one Yog-lha Gyes-can, ཡོག་ལྷ་གྱེས་ཅན་. I derive the meaning of yog as being “firmanent” even while being aware of other interpretations, based on my understanding of the context, and for arguments I’ll send you to the book itself.)

Now, to wind this down for now, I think I can say at least one thing I think will be intriguing. The Nenets are a people living close to the arctic circle in Russia. They speak a Uralic, more specifically Samoyedic language. Their word num and Tibetan nam or gnam were and are likely pronounced in an identical manner.* They mean the same thing, sky as part of a larger context that may be defined as shamanic. Not in a philosophical space or religious “heaven” or scientific sense. As to the larger historical picture that could have served as setting for this connection, we can try and hammer this out some time even if we fall short of accomplishing it now. 

(*The medial vowels of both are pronounced “uh” while the ‘g’ in Tibetan gnam is now a silent prescript letter even if it once had a sound.)

I do have a timid suggestion to put forward. It may not finally fly, but it does seem worthwhile to consider it: The shamanic concept of a nam sky-god or sky-as-god, or what I want to call sacred sky, was once so widespread it encompassed both places. The two of them preserved the word with its associated concept while the places in between underwent transformations and substitutions. So one place wouldn’t need to influence the other, nothing had to travel.* Both places stayed right where they were. Or, then again, maybe not. Could it be that one or both peoples migrated (or absorbed migrating populations)?

(*Not to underestimate the distances involved, let’s say about 5000 kms as the crow flies, directly over the skies of Kazakhstan, and landing not all that far to the east of Lapp Land and the shamans of the Saami. Researchers have, based on mitochondrial DNA evidence, postulated that at some undetermined ancient date, Tibetans migrated from northern Asia and Siberia [see Aldenderfer's 2004 essay, p. 20, but there is some more recent literature on this subject that could be taken into account], and in more recent times it is clear that, in around the 4th century CE, the Tuyuhun who would be known as ’A-zha in Tibetan migrated from an area close to the northern borders of North Korea into the heartland of Amdo. The ’A-zha identity eventually faded until they dissolved into the category of Tibetans.)

Our chief alternative is surely the least interesting one, which is to let coincidence be coincidence and regard this fact that a word for ‘sky’ is shared between early Tibetans on one side and the Samoyedic and Ob-Ugric languages on the other as being of no significance at all. That would also be fine with me, the earth is unlikely to shake one way or the other in anticipation of our at long last settled thinking. In the mean time, it’s something to think about.

•

Reading list

See also, “The Firmament, Its Opening, & the Milky Way.”

Mark Aldenderfer & Zhang Yinong, “The Prehistory of the Tibetan Plateau to the Seventh Century A.D.: Perspectives and Research from China and the West since 1950,” Journal of World Prehistory, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 2004), pp. 1-55.

James Apple, “The Knot Tied with Space: Notes on a Previously Unidentified Stanza in Buddhist Literature and Its Citation,” Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies, vol. 17 (2016), pp. 167-202.  PDF.  

Well, how *do* you tie space into knots? A question worthy of contemplation. The relevance of this fascinating article right now is in its discussion of Indian and Buddhist usages of space or sky as a philosophical or scientific concept. In all these contexts it is nam-mkha’, not gnam, that is used.

Robert Austerlitz, “Num,” an entry in Encyclopedia.com; click here. There is a different Wikipedia entry “Num (god)” that may repay a quick glance, although I wouldn’t rely on it too much.

Brian Baumann, “By the Power of Eternal Heaven: The Meaning of Tenggeri to the Government of the Pre-Buddhist Mongols,” Extrême-Orient, Extrême-Occident, vol. 35 (2013), pp. 233-284.  Fascinating discussions of Tengri, sky, and heaven, as well as ecumenicalism  Mongol style.

John Bellezza, Zhang Zhung: Foundations of Civilization in Tibet, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Vienna 2008), pp. 307-308, note 312.

W. South Coblin, “A Note on Tibetan Mu,” Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, vol. 10, no. 1 (Spring 1987), pp. 166-168. On a different ancient Tibetan (and proto-Tibeto-Burman) word for ‘sky’ in the forms of mu, dmu, rmu and more rarely smu. For still more on this widespread Himalayan sky word, see the STEDT database #2473 PTB *r-məw SKY / HEAVENS / CLOUDS.

Arthur Bernard Cook, “The European Sky-God,” Folklore, vol. 15, no. 3 (September 29, 1904), pp. 264-315.

A.K. Coomaraswamy, “Kha and Other Words Denoting Zero in Connection with the Metaphysics of Space,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. 7 (1933/5), pp. 487-497. 

There are newly revived discussions about the history of the “zero” concept we might talk about another time. I do enjoy witnessing the puzzlement on some innocent people’s faces when I tell them there was no year zero, and that the year before 1 CE was 1 BCE. They seem to take it as a kind of Zen koan when they don’t put on a look of total disbelief. This came up a lot during the media hoopla over the boundary-point between the 2nd and 3rd millennia just 22 years ago. It’s known that zero came to Europe via the Islamic world from India. In India it goes back at least to around 300 CE and the Bakhshali birchbark manuscript. In it zero was represented by a dot rather than a circle. That’s an interesting point.

Ioan Petru Culianu, “Sky: The Heavens as Heirophany.” Written in 1978, this online resource on encyclopedia.com is bursting with thought provoking generalities from a History of Religions perspective.

Robert B. Ekvall, Religious Observances in Tibet: Patterns and Function, University of Chicago Press (Chicago 1964).  At pp. 36-38 are some interesting comments on sky in Tibetan culture, particularly this quotable quote about oaths: 

Throughout Tibet, but particularly in Amdo and Khams, one oath, gNam (“sky”), or more impressively, gNam sNGon Po (“the blue sky”), or sometimes, gNam rTag Pa (“sky eternal”), outranks all others as being the most frequent and binding. This is not a Buddhist oath and certainly points back to the heavens or sky as the central, or at least, an important, concept of pre-Buddhistic Tibetan religion.

Dmitri Ermakov, Bo and Bon: Ancient Shamanic Traditions of Siberia and Tibet in Relation to the Teachings of a Central Asian Buddha, Vajra Publications (Kathmandu 2008), in 828 pages. 

This fantastic work offers numerous ideas that merit much more research and discussion. For now I will only point to p. 229, where the suggestion is that primordial religions of Buriat Mongolians and Tibetans shared a special focus on the sky, that they were “essentially the same religion in the very remote past.” The author has his own website: http://www.boandbon.com.

Arnaud Fournet, “The Three Skies of the Indo-Europeans,” Archaeoastronomy and Ancient Technologies, vol. 7, no. 2 (2019), pp. 79-92. An interesting argument in favor of a three-levelled sky cosmology for the early Indo-Europeans, the topmost being the stars, the intermediate the celestial bodies that change positions in our sky, and lowermost the part where lightning rules. Different sets of gods dwell in each level.

José Andrés Alonso de la Fuente, “Flying with the Shaman Once Again [review of Michale Knüppel, Zur Herkunft der Terminus Šamāne — etymologie-historische Betrachtungen],” International Journal of Eurasian Linguistics, vol. 3 (2021), pp. 301-322. 

There is a definite problem with Fuente’s argument, which is that in fact quite a few intermediaries can be found that might be both temporally and spatially relevant for the possible origins of the term in the Indic śramaṇa. These include 3rd Century Shanshan in Central Asia where the Buddhist term appeared in the form ṣamaṃṇa, while there was an early Chinese word for Buddhist monastics in general 沙門 that may have been pronounced *ṣaimən, derived from Gāndhārī *ṣəmən[ə]. All of these just-mentioned seem to approach our form ‘shaman,’ and indeed could have served as intermediaries during its postulated travels from India through Central Asian and Chinese-speaking realms to Manchuria and Siberia.*

(*I derived all of these forms from a presentation by Diego Loukota entitled “Finding the Missing Nuns of Nuava,” presented at the IABS conference in Seoul in 2022. Most of them could be known, too, by reading Berthold Laufer’s 110-year-old article on the subject.)

Gao Jingyi, “On Etymology of Finnic Term for ‘Sky’,” Archaeoastronomy and Ancient Technologies, vol. 7, no. 2 (2019), pp. 5-10.

This article's thesis, which I wouldn't pretend to judge, is that against all other ideas that have been put forward, the Finnish word for “sky” or taivas, not fitting with other Uralic languages, is best explained as stemming from a quite ancient Sino-Uralic background. The Samoyedic language words for ‘sky’ never even enter into the discussion, so it’s all of questionable relevance. But then again the Samoyedic (etc.) word num doesn’t fit with Uralic languages, either, as far as I’ve been able to learn. You can see some proposed proto-Uralic language reconstructions (like *ilma) with the meaning ‘sky’ HERE. It is of even more interest to see that a more distant language, Khanty, appears to dash a normal Uralic word for ‘sky’ together with the num found in Samoyedic in the name of their sky father (also look here).  If you are feeling adventurous, I could suggest using the search boxes of an online resource for Uralic linguistic data called https://starlingdb.org. It’s especially interesting to search for English “sky” to see what pops up.

Péter Hajdú, The Samoyed Peoples and Languages, Indiana University (Bloomington 1963), at p. 32: 

“According to Nenets concepts, the World was created by the Highest god, Num (Sel'kup: Nom). Num also denotes the concept of ‘sky,’ however, this god rules not only in the sky, but he has also extended his power over the earth. The welfare of men depends on him.”

Jaehee Han, “The Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā and the Sky as a Symbol of Mahāyāna Doctrines and Aspirations,” Religions, vol. 12, article 849 (October 2021), in 19 pages. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12100849. 

This article concerns the Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā Mahāyānasūtra (འཕགས་པ་ནམ་མཁའ་མཛོད་ཀྱིས་ཞུས་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་མདོ། 'Phags pa nam mkha' mdzod kyis zhus pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo).  Tôh. no. 148.  Dergé Kanjur, vol. PA, folios 243r.1-330r.7.  Tr. by Vijayaśīla, Śīlendrabodhi and Ye-shes-sde. Apart from some brief quotations, this text has not survived in an Indic language, but there are two Chinese translations in addition to this Tibetan one.

Per Kvaerne, “Mongols and Khitans in a 14th-Century Tibetan Bonpo Text,” Acta Orientalia Hungarica, vol. 34 (1980), pp. 85-104. This includes much on what I call the sacred sky. For further thinking around the same issues, see Bellezza.

Leonid Lar, “Education of the Shamans of Nenets People: Stages of the Process of Shamanic Initiation at Nenets (Siberia),” posted on January 14, 2004.  www.taraka.pl/education_of_the_shamans. Much recommended.

Dan Martin, tr., A History of Buddhism in India and Tibet: An Expanded Version of the Dharma’s Origins Made by the Learned Scholar Deyu, The Library of Tibetan Classics series no. 32, Wisdom Publications (Somerville 2022), “Splitting Off from the Gods of the Firmament,” on pp. 436-464, and “The Seating Order of Divinities in the Firmament,” on pp. 477-478.

Meng Huiying, et al., “Characteristics of Shamanism of the Tungusic Speaking Peoples,” contained in: Ma Zixia and Meng Huiying, eds., Popular Religion and Shamanism, Brill (Leiden 2011), pp. 374-422, at p. 383:

“Ordinarily, the shaman was the clan doctor, prophet, and conflict manager. The shaman also drove away spirits that sought to menace the lives of individuals and the community. The shaman would indicate the location of good hunting ground. When the available game animals proved scarce it was up to the shaman to find out why. When the clan was faced with a crisis, the shaman would perform ceremonies on behalf of the people.”

A. Perry, “The Myth of the Solid Dome.” An essay in two parts posted on the internet for free download. Reading this discussion might help to convince Tibetanists that a study of sky and space concepts in Tibetan religion is bound to be equally contentious and complex, not intending by this to suggest it would not be worth our while.

G. Prokofjew, “Proto-Asiatic Elements in Ostyak-Samoyed Culture,” American Anthropologist, n.s. vol. 35, no. 1 (January 1933), pp. 131-133. This includes some remarkable photographic documentation.

Hulisani Ramantswana, “Day Two of Creation: Why Is the Rāqīa‘ (Firmament) Not Pronounced Good?” Journal for Semitics, vol. 22, no. 1 (2013), pp. 101-123.

Jean-Paul Roux, “L'Origine céleste de la souveraineté dans les inscriptions paléo-turques des Mongolie et de Sibérie,” contained in: La Regalitá Sacra / The Sacral Kingship, Brill (Leiden 1959), pp. 231-241.

—— “Tängri: Essai sur le ciel-dieu des peuples altaïques,” Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, vol. 149 (1956), pp. 49-82, 197-230; vol. 150 (1956), pp. 27-54, 173-212.

R.A. Stein, The World in Miniature: Container Gardens and Dwellings in Far Eastern Religious Thought, Stanford University Press (Stanford 1990). The last half of the book is particularly relevant.

Giuseppe Tucci, Tibetan Painted Scrolls, p. 719, has a discussion about Tibetan sky terms, but nothing comparable in breadth and depth to Stein’s.

The First King Steps Down from the Sky

A Note to End on for Now

I think it’s worth noticing that the Innermost Treasury (མཛོད་ཕུགས་), the Bon religion’s most primary Abhidharma-like text, the 17-chapter bilingual Tibetan/Zhanghung text dating back more than a millennium at the very least, uses the gnam (གནམ་) form only in its Chapter One.*  The form nam-mkha' (ནམ་མཁའ་) is in fact used once in the opening lines of Chapter One, and twice more later in that chapter. Throughout the later chapters the form nam-mkha'  (ནམ་མཁའ་) is the only one used. I believe this is a further sign, among many, that those later chapters are largely derived from and reproduce Abhidharma (ultimately Indic) rather than natively Tibetan conceptions. Now the Innermost Treasury’s first chapter is taken up by a cosmogony and divine genealogy, both probably genuinely of considerable age, while the remaining chapters 2 through 17 were subsequent additions. There are a number of language clues that something like this is what happened, and these confirm a general impression based on contrasting subject matter.

(*Not all that relevant to our present discussion, still I ought to mention that the corresponding Zhangzhung for gnam is mu-la or dmu [མུ་ལ་ or དམུ་]. Whoever has trouble believing me can go check for themselves by word-searching in the digital version of the text I first made a few decades ago.  The dmu could be one of those Tibetanizing spellings, since prefix letters are rare in real Zhangzhung. Still, it’s interesting that the Tibetan meaning of mu is is edge, horizon. Be well advised: it has nothing at all to do with the Lost Continent of Mu.)

____________________

PS (September 24, 2022)

My attention was drawn to a Khanty song Ily Vukhalty Ar about the son of Torum, the god of the sky (num). 

• This forms a bizarre partial parallel up to a point with the Tibetan account of kingship origins, in that the divine son descends to earth from the sky (num) in order to dwell among the dangerous humans and rule them. But instead he takes the form of an awesome bear who is then slain by human hunters.  It starts out similarly, but then takes a very different turn. The myth serves in a different context, instead of dynastic origins, the ritual cult of the bear.

An impressive electric version of the Khanty song, with jawharp accompaniment, by the band H-Ural you can hear here, for the most part in English:  Ily Vukhalty Ar.

PPS (December 11, 2022) on documentaries

I heartily recommend this short video for some impressions and insights into the Samoyedic (Nganasan) forms of shamanism. Pay close attention, and be assured there are subtitles in English. Go here when you are ready. Tibetans and Tibetanists alike will be shocked or at least surprised by the use of eyeshades in ritual (look here). If the link isn’t working anymore, try doing a video search for “The Shaman (Šamaan).”  For Khanty bear rites, there is this video entitled “The Sons of Torum (Toorumin pojat).” Both of these videos were made by the ethnographic filmmaker Lennart Meri, who took a step down to become president of Estonia.

A Nyingma Apologetic by a Renowned Gelugpa

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hoped-for readings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peraldus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His Holiness in a Mosque
in Leh, Ladakh, 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the “Beastie Boys”:  

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

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

Johnny Cash, The Beast in Me.   

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

§   §   §

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

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

§   §   §

PPPS (September 14, 2022):

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

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

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

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

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

— Ashin Wirathu

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

§   §   §

PPPPS (September 16, 2022):

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

Incursions of the Foreign in a 13th-Century History

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

Various forms of the name of the root verse writer Deyu

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are two books that also helped me a lot:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nilotic scene from Sepphoris

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Tibetan “Amazon” advancing under fire

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

°   °   °

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

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

Most recommended readings and references

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

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

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

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

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

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

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