Matthew T. Kapstein Selected Articles on Tibetan Religion During the 9th-10th centuries All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced in any form without prior permission of the author. The present selection includes the following articles: 2009 “The Treaty Temple of the Turquoise Grove,” in Buddhism Between Tibet and China, ed. Matthew T. Kapstein. Boston: Wisdom, pp. 21-72. Forthcoming. “The Treaty Temple of De ga g.yu tshal: Reconsiderations.” 2007a “Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell: A Chinese Tale of Parental Death in Its Tibetan Transformations.” In Bryan J. Cuevas and Jacqueline I. Stone, eds. The Buddhist Dead: Practices, Discourses, Representations. Studies in East Asian Buddhism 20. University of Hawai’i Press, pp. 345-377. 2007b “The Tibetan Yulanpen jing 佛說盂蘭盆經.”. In Contributions to the Cultural History of Early Tibet. Matthew T. Kapstein and Brandon Dotson, eds. Leiden : Brill, 2007, pp. 211-237. 2006. “New Light on an Old Friend: PT 849 Revisited.” In Tibetan Buddhist Literature and Praxis: Studies in Its Formative Period, 900-1400. Ronald Davidson and Christian Wedemeyer, eds. Leiden: Brill, pp. 930. 2010 “Between Na Rak and a Hard Place: Evil Rebirth and the Violation of Vows in Early Rnying ma pa Sources and Their Dunhuang Antecedents,” in M. T. Kapstein and S. van Schaik, eds., Esoteric Buddhist at Dunhuang: Rites for this Life and Beyond, pp. 163-203. 2008 “Tibetan Tibetology? Sketches of an Emerging Discipline.” In Monica Esposito, ed., Images du Tibet aux XIX-XXe siècles. Etudes thématiques 22. Paris: EFEO, vol. II, pp. 799-815. The last, though concerning contemporary Tibetan issues, reviews recent Tibetan-language work in the study of early Tibet, for which reason it is included here. 1: he Treaty Temple of the Turquoise Grove* Matthew T. Kapstein Buddhism Between Tibet and Tang T he rise of the Tibetan empire during the irst half of the seventh century corresponded closely to that of the Tang dynasty in China (618–907). With the expansion of their respective realms, it was not long before the two powers became rivals, particularly in Gansu and Xinjiang, in which both sought to control the routes and realms linking China to the West.1 he opposition of China and Tibet, however, served at the same time to strengthen cultural relations between them. Tibet, like many other Inner Asian powers, found resources in Chinese material and spiritual culture that contributed to its own civilization-building project, while China for its part made strategic use of cultural diplomacy as a means to domesticate the surrounding peoples, who so oten threatened China’s northern and western frontiers.2 Buddhism, due in large measure to its place in the international culture of the time, came to play a distinctive role in the process of bilateral “conidence-building” such as this was pursued according to the diplomatic codes of the day. Tibetan traditional accounts, of course, lay greatest stress in this context upon the religious activities of the Chinese princesses sent to Tibet.3 It was the princess Wencheng (in Tibet from 641, d. 680), the bride of the Tibetan monarch, or tsenpo, Songtsen Gampo (ca. 605–650), who most fascinated the later Tibetan imagination, and to whom was attributed the Tibetan adoption of Buddhism in large measure. Nevertheless, current scholarship has not supported the elaborate legends that were built around her and her marriage to Songtsen Gampo.4 hough, like other Tang princesses who were sent to wed foreign rulers, she may be considered as a cultural emissary whose mission was conceived as a type of sot diplomacy, the extant record does not indicate that religious afairs, or political developments relating to religion, were strongly 21 22 buddhism between tibet and china inluenced by her. In 648, some years ater her arrival in Tibet, the Tibetan military intervened in support of the Tang envoy to India, Wang Xuance, who had come under attack by an usurper to the throne of Magadha. As Wang’s mission in India involved visits to the major sites associated with the Buddha’s life, this perhaps suggests that Buddhism was not altogether overlooked in Sino-Tibetan relations during Wencheng’s lifetime. But she had no discernable role in connection with these events and the Tibetan action is reported without any reference to religion at all.5 During the last decades of Princess Wencheng’s life, when as queen dowager she apparently was still involved in oicial correspondence with the Tang court,6 Tibet entered into direct competition with China for the conquest and control of the strategically vital regions that are today Xinjiang and Gansu provinces. It was Tibet’s expansion in these territories, where Buddhism had been long established, that intensiied its contact with the Indian religion, while simultaneously creating an ongoing pressure on Tang China to come to terms with a neighbor that aggressively threatened its prerogatives to the West.7 If Wencheng remains an elusive igure, her “niece,” Princess Jincheng (in Tibet from 710, d. 739) let a more clearly deined imprint upon the early religious history of Tibet.8 Married to the tsenpo Tri Detsukten (704–755) when he was a six-year-old child, she is credibly recorded to have energetically promoted Buddhism among the Tibetan nobility, inviting monks from Khotan (which by this time was a Tibetan colonial territory) to found the irst sangha in Central Tibet. his endured until her death during a plague epidemic, one of the results of which was a reaction against the presence of the foreign religion and the expulsion of the Khotanese monks. During the middle decades of the eighth century, Buddhist activity in Tibet was reduced to the point that it all but vanished.9 Buddhism therefore, despite its presence in cultural afairs, played no appreciable role in Tibet-Tang relations during the period preceding the rebellion of An Lushan (755–757), nor did it enter into diplomacy proper, speciically the management of matters of war and peace between the two states. he imperatives that periodically drove Tibet and China to the bargaining table to discuss prisoner exchanges, the adjudication of frontiers, and the cessation of hostilities, did not, up to this point, involve the Buddhist religion so far as the extant record allows. hough a partial exception might be made for the expedition of 648 on behalf of Wang Xuance, even here it is not at all clear that the Tang emissary’s mission to tour the Indian Buddhist sites inluenced the Tibetan decision to lend him armed support. Buddhism, in fact, entered into Tibeto-Chinese formal relations The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 23 only during the last quarter of the following century, at some point following the tsenpo Tri Songdetsen’s 762 conversion and subsequent adoption (ca. 779) of it as the Tibetan state religion. As this prima facie suggests, it was the transformation of the Tibetan religious constitution that drove subsequent changes in diplomatic practice. his, at least, is the conclusion that may be drawn from the two versions of the Tang shu (“Tang Annals”), in their reports of the treaties negotiated by China with Tibet in 762, 783 and 821/822 respectively.10 Concerning the irst, the Old Tang Annals ( Jiu Tang shu) ofers this account: In the irst year of the reign of Suzong (756),11 in the irst month, on the jiachen day, a Tibetan mission arrived at the court to ask for peace. he Emperor ordered the ministers of state, Guo Ziyi, Xiao Hua, Zhang Zunqing, and others to entertain them at a banquet, and to proceed to the Guangzhaisi [a Buddhist temple], to conclude a treaty, to be sworn by sacriicing three victims and smearing the lips with the blood. As it had never been customary to conduct afairs in a Buddhist temple, it was proposed that on the morrow, at the Honglusi [the Foreign Afairs Bureau], the rite of smearing blood on the lips be accomplished in accordance with the rites of the Tibetans. his was allowed.12 It is notable here that, while the possibility of swearing to the treaty in a Buddhist temple is mentioned, it is explicitly refused. And that this incident occurred in the atermath of the Tibetan coup d’état of 755, in which Tri Detsukten was deposed and assassinated, the succession passing to his thirteen-yearold son Tri Songdetsen, is signiicant as well. hese events, which unfolded during the same tumultuous years as did the An Lushan rebellion in China, marked the culmination in Tibet of a ministerial rejection of the Buddhism that the former Tibetan ruler had favored. So it is perhaps not surprising, under the circumstances, that during the period still prior to Tri Songdetsen’s rehabilitation of Buddhism, the Tibetan nobles charged with negotiations would not have displayed a particular ainity with the foreign faith.13 Although Tri Songdetsen may have been personally drawn to Buddhism as early as 762, it was not until his promotion of it as a state religion during the late 770s that China seems to have taken notice of its growing role in Tibet. he irst reference to this in Chinese records dates to 781, when the decision was made to dispatch what was envisioned as a regular embassy of Buddhist missionaries to Tibet.14 his corresponds to the apparent upsurge 24 buddhism between tibet and china of interest in Chinese Buddhism shown by the Tibetan court following the conquest of Dunhuang.15 An oath-taking ceremony that accompanied the treaty of 783 unambiguously included a Buddhist rite, although the program overall remained primarily a sacriicial covenant. As the description that we ind in the Old Tang Annals provides us with one of the best general accounts of Tang-Tibetan diplomatic usage, it merits citation at length: In the irst month of the fourth year (February–March 783), the imperial decree was issued that Zhang Yi and Shang Jiezan should make a sworn compact at Qingshui. . . . It had at irst been agreed that the Chinese should sacriice an ox, the Tibetans a horse, but Yi, ashamed of the alliance with the Tibetans, wished to depreciate the rites, and said to Jiezan: “he Chinese cannot cultivate the ground without oxen, the Tibetans cannot travel without horses, I propose therefore to substitute a sheep, pig and dog as the three victims.” Jiezan consented. But there were no pigs outside the barrier, and Jiezan determined to take a wild ram, while Yi took a dog and a sheep. hese victims were sacriiced on the north of the altar, the blood mingled in two vessels and smeared on the lips. he sworn covenant [in the Chinese text] was: “he Tang possess all under heaven, wherever are the footprints of [Emperor] Yu, and as far as boats and chariots can go there is no one that does not obey them. Under successive sovereigns their fame has increased, and its years have been prolonged, and the great empire of its sovereigns extended, till all within the four seas listen to its commands. With the Tibetan tsenpo it has made matrimonial alliances to strengthen the bonds of neighborly friendship and unite the two countries, and the sovereigns have been allied as uncle and nephew for nearly two hundred years. Meanwhile, however, in consequence of minor disagreements, their good relations have been broken of by war, so that the borderland has been troubled and without a quiet year. he Emperor on his recent accession compassionated his blackhaired people, and sent back the enslaved captives to their own country, and the Tibetan nation has exhibited good feeling and agreed to a mutual peace. Envoys have gone and returned, carrying in succession sovereign orders, putting a stop to secret plotting or the dispatch of chariots of war. hey have, with the view of making the covenant of the two countries lasting, proposed to use the ancient sworn treaty, and the government, resolved to give The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 25 rest to the natives on the border, have alienated their ancient territory, preferring good deeds to proit, and have made a solemn treaty in accordance with the agreement. [he text at this point includes a geographical description of the frontiers.] With regard to the places not included in the covenant, wherever the Tibetans have garrisons the Tibetans shall keep, wherever the Chinese have garrisons the Chinese shall keep, each retaining its present possessions, and not seeking to encroach on the other. he places that heretofore have not been garrisoned shall not have troops stationed in them, nor shall walled cities be built, nor land cultivated. Now the generals and ministers of the two countries having been commissioned to meet, and having fasted and puriied themselves in preparation for the ceremony, proclaim to the gods of heaven and earth, of the mountains and the rivers, and call the gods to witness that their oath shall not be broken. he text of the covenant shall be preserved in the ancestral temple, with a duplicate in the oicial archives, and the oicers in charge according to the regulations of the two nations shall always keep it.” Jiezan also produced a sworn covenant which he did not put into the pit where only the victims were buried. Ater the conclusion of the sworn ceremony, Jiezan proposed to Yi to go into a tent of the Buddha at the southwest corner of the altar to burn incense and make oath. When this was inished, they again ascended the altar, when they drank wine and both gave and received ceremonial presents, each ofering the products of his country, as a mark of liberal friendship. Finally they returned home.16 Signiicantly, it is the Tibetan Shang Jiezan17 who in this narrative proposes that the oath be sworn in a “tent of the Buddha” located to the southwest of the altar (a placement that seems intentionally homologous with the geographical position of India relative to China). In all events, as Imaeda suggests, the refusal of the Tibetan to deposit his copy of the covenant in the sacriicial pit may imply a disinclination toward this rite, for which the oath sworn before the Buddha was intended to compensate.18 In sum, during the inal decades of the eighth century, though China may have to some degree supported Buddhist missionary activity in Tibet, in the context of more formal diplomatic practice a distinction was emerging between adherence to a sacriicial covenant, which had been the ancient practice of both the Chinese and the Tibetans, and an oath sworn before the Buddha, the practice to 26 buddhism between tibet and china which the Tibetans increasingly adhered. Be this as it may, none of the treaties forged between Tibet and China succeeded in interrupting their hostilities for very long, and only with a treaty forged in the years 821–822 would a lasting peace be realized. he relevant background can be reconstructed on the basis of the Chinese and Tibetan sources:19 Tibet, as we have seen above, had begun to seize control of parts of what is today China’s Xinjiang province during the midand late seventh century, and by stages came to hold sway over several of the important stations of the Silk Road, including the city-state of Khotan. By the late eighth century Dunhuang and neighboring territories in the Gansu Corridor, where the trade routes converged before entering China proper, had fallen to Tibet. he Tibetans were thus planted between China and those western powers with which China might become politically or commercially engaged, whether Arab, Iranian, Turk, or other.20 hroughout the irst decades of the ninth century, events in the region thus came to be punctuated by shiting alliances and warfare among the Tibetans, Uighur Turks, and Chinese. During this period, the Uighur Empire repeatedly petitioned the Tang court for a princess to marry their Khan, and thereby to seal an accord between the two realms. In his study of Tang relations with the Uighurs, Colin Mackerras summarizes the course of events leading up to the marriage-alliance: here was one faction at court which advised the emperor to grant the marriage in the interests of the state’s security. his clique was led by Li Jiang (764–830), chief minister from 811 to 814. Shortly ater he resigned, he sent memorial to the emperor setting forth in detail the reasons for his view. He pointed out the inadequate defenses of the borders and believed that it would be inviting trouble under these circumstances to irritate the Uighurs. He also raised the possibility that by refusing their request, the emperor would drive them into the arms of their traditional enemies the Tibetans, which could well result in an alliance between the two states against China. On the other hand, to grant the Uighurs a bride would intensify the Tibetan hostility towards the Uighurs by arousing their jealousy. . . . [he Emperor] Xianzong was unmoved by these arguments. . . . Early in 820 a third mission arrived to make a further petition for the marriage. his time Xianzong at last gave his consent. he situation had indeed changed since 817. . . . Li Jiang’s arguments The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 27 about the Tibetans made much better sense now, for in 818 they had broken a lull of over a decade and begun making raids against China’s borders. . . .21 he emperor’s acceptance of the proposal was quickly interpreted by the Tibetans—no doubt correctly—as ratifying a strategic partnership whose aim was primarily to force them out of the Gansu corridor by exerting pressure from both the east and west simultaneously. he response was fast and furious, and the “paciied West” (Hexi) and adjacent areas were soon plunged into intensive warfare. As Mackerras continues: Li Jiang’s suggestion that the marriage would inlame UighurTibetan hostility proved justiied. No sooner had the Princess of Taihe been ordered to marry the khaghan, than the Uighurs announced that they had sent forces to the far western districts of Beiting and Anxi to ward of the attempts the Tibetans were making, or might make, to prevent the Princess of Taihe from reaching Karabalghasun. Although in the irst instance China also sufered renewed Tibetan raids on her borders owing to the marriage, a Sino-Tibetan peace agreement was reached soon ater and the hostilities were discontinued. From a political point of view, the marital alliance with the Uighurs had deinitely worked to China’s advantage.22 Accordingly, beginning in 821, when the Tibetan tsenpo was Tri Tsukdetsen, who is better known to posterity as Relpachen (806–838), a series of treaties between China and Tibet, and between Tibet and the Uighurs, was negotiated, aiming primarily to stabilize and reairm the integrity of the frontiers, and to restore harmonious relations between the Tibetan and Tang courts.23 he treaty of 821/822 is well known through the celebrated bilingual “unclenephew pillar inscription” (dbon zhang rdo ring) in Lhasa, the contents of which, like those of the treaty of 783, demonstrate the importance to the parties of the adjudication of borders.24 Despite uncertainties surrounding points of detail, these events would be generally remembered in later Tibetan historiography. he Fith Dalai Lama, for instance, refers to them in his famous Chronicle,25 and they may be seen accordingly depicted in murals in the Potala Palace, which show how the frontier wars of the early ninth century were rendered by seventeenth-century painters, as well as the dedication of a version of the “uncle-nephew pillar inscription” at Gongbu Maru (ig. 1), 28 buddhism between tibet and china said to mark the frontier between the two empires.26 he latter panel makes a visual allusion to the famous metaphor comparing the Chinese emperor and the Tibetan tsenpo to the sun and moon, together holding dominion over all under heaven. he metaphor was employed in the west face of the treaty inscription of 821/822 itself, where it is written that the newly established peace between China and Tibet shall be such that “the report of its fame will embrace all that is touched by sun or moon.”27 Fig. 1 he bilingual treaty inscription on the border between Tibet and China, lanked by the emblems of the sun and moon. From a series of murals illustrating the Fith Dalai Lama’s Chronicle in the Potala Palace. (Ater A Mirror of the Murals in the Potala [Beijing: Jiu zhou tushu chubanshe, 2000].) he treaty was ratiied in separate ceremonies in the Chinese and Tibetan courts, in connection with the irst of which the record makes no mention whatsoever of Buddhism, but alludes only to a sacriicial rite such as we have seen earlier.28 Concerning the oath taken in Tibet in 822, however, the New Tang Annals (Xin Tang shu) provides a remarkable account, derived certainly from the report of the Chinese ambassador Liu Yuanding:29 he valley to the north of the Tsang river is the principal summer camp of the tsenpo. It is surrounded by [a fence of ] staves attached together. At an average distance of ten paces [one from the other] 100 long lances are arranged. here are three gates, with a great standard planted before each,30 at 100 paces from one another, The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 29 with armored soldiers guarding the gates. Sorcerers with headdresses of bird[-feathers] and belts of tiger[-skin] beat drums. Whoever entered was searched before he was allowed to go in. In the middle [of the camp] there was a raised platform, surrounded by a rich balustrade. he tsenpo was seated in his tent. [here, there were] dragons with and without horns, tigers, and panthers, all made of gold. [he tsenpo] was clothed in white wool; a red muslin [turban] was tied so as to cover his head.31 He wore a gold-inlayed sword. Pelchenpo32 was standing to his right. he ministers of State were stationed at the foot of the platform. Since the arrival of the Tang ambassador, the jishezhong,33 minister Xidaruo, came to deliberate with him regarding [the ceremony of ] the oath. here was a great feast to the right of the tent. he serving of the dishes and the circulation of the wine there were roughly of the same order as in China. he band played the air “he Prince of Qin defeated [the enemy] ranged in battle,” and other diverse airs . . . all of the musicians being Chinese. he altar for the oath was ten paces wide and two feet high. he ambassador and more than ten great ministers of the Tibetans34 faced it. More than 100 chiefs were seated below the altar. On the altar, they had arranged a great banquet. Pelchenpo ascended upon it and announced the alliance [to the gods]. A man stationed beside him translated [his words] to communicate them to those below. When Pelchenpo had inished, [those assembled] smeared their lips with blood. Pelchenpo did not smear his lips with blood. he oath being completed, one swore once again before the Buddha, and they brought safronated water that one drank. Congratulations were exchanged with the ambassador and one descended [from the altar].35 he Tibetan ecclesiastical igure named here as Pelchenpo is certainly to be identiied with one of the most powerful personages of early-ninth-century Tibet, Trenka Pelgi Yönten.36 He had risen to prominence already during the reign of Relpachen’s father, Tri Desongtsen (r. 804–815), dominating ecclesiastical afairs, and he came to assume a legendary status in later Tibetan tradition.37 As Relpachen was perhaps just sixteen years of age at the time that the treaty of 821/822 was enacted, we may assume that Trenka Pelgi Yönten still played a determining role in the afairs of his court. It was the inluential position of the Buddhist monk, no doubt, that impelled the intensive religious orientations for which Relpachen’s reign would be later remembered. 30 buddhism between tibet and china he insistence upon a key role for Buddhist ritual in the context of TangTibetan diplomacy, a development that was due primarily to the emergence of Buddhism as the Tibetan state religion, was in evidence not only in court ceremonial. It had notable ramiications, too, for the conduct of afairs along the frontiers. he invocation of the Buddha’s august presence by the Tibetan colonial administration in order to guarantee the peace in these regions will illustrate something of the extent to which religious change came to penetrate political afairs. he Temple of the Treaty Among the early sources of information concerning the issues discussed in the present chapter, some of the most valuable are known thanks to the Taoist priest Wang’s revelation at the beginning of the twentieth century of the hidden text chamber in Dunhuang Mogao cave 17. His discovery brought to light roughly 4,000 Tibetan texts and documents dating to the last centuries of the irst millennium, of which many stem from the period of the Tibetan occupation of Dunhuang and the surrounding regions. hese materials, whose value for historical scholarship was irst recognized by M.A. Stein and Paul Pelliot, remain the bedrock for all study of dynastic and early postdynastic Tibetan culture and history, and, a full century ater their discovery, there remain plenty of surprises for us within them. Nevertheless, investigations of these texts have generally lagged behind the study of the larger corpus of Chinese-language manuscripts also revealed in cave 17.38 One area in which this is quite conspicuous involves the use of Dunhuang manuscript sources in connection with the interpretation of other types of material evidence from Dunhuang and elsewhere: whereas the Chinese documents have sometimes been found to refer to speciic, identiiable sites, temples, icons, and so forth, relatively little progress has been made in locating convincing correlations between Tibetan Dunhuang texts and other archeological and art historical remains.39 One of the most famous of these Tibetan documents is an incomplete manuscript, roughly the last half of which is preserved in two separate sections, catalogued respectively as PT 16 in the Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France and IOL Tib J 751 in London’s British Library.40 (As the text has come to be known conventionally as the “Prayers of Dega Yutsel,” this is the usage that we shall follow here.) he portions available to us provide a highly formalized series of prayers and memorials, celebrating the establishment of The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 31 a temple, known as the “Temple of the Treaty” (gtsigs kyi gtsug lag khang), at a place called Dega Yutsel, the “turquoise grove of Dega.” he text was irst studied, and parts of it translated, by F.W. homas in his pioneering researches, Tibetan Literary Texts and Documents Concerning Chinese Turkestan.41 Since his time, valuable comments on it have been presented in the writings of Ariane Macdonald and Rolf Stein;42 and additional contributions of geographical importance, to be considered in some detail below, are found in the remarks of Hugh Richardson and Géza Uray, among others. As the narration of the text itself makes clear, the Temple of the Treaty was founded during the reign of the Tibetan tsenpo Tri Tsukdetsen, i.e. Relpachen,43 famed in later Tibetan historiography for his lavish patronage of Buddhism.44 Following the traditions codiied by his father Tri Desongtsen, he was raised under the tutelage of Buddhist monks, no doubt including Pelgi Yönten.45 he foundation of the Temple of Treaty was intended to commemorate the council and subsequent treaty concluded between Tibet and the powers of China, the Uighurs, and possibly Nanzhao, during the irst years of the 820s.46 he religious solemnity of the treaty was no doubt underscored by the construction of a temple in its honor, for the very name by which it is designated means literally the “temple of the treaty-edict.”47 he location for the temple’s construction, moreover, is described as the “plain of the peace council” (mjal dum thang). In the following sections, I shall attempt to ofer some suggestions regarding where precisely this is, and to suggest further that the temple in question may in fact still exist. he “Prayers of Dega Yutsel,” as it has been preserved, consists of a series of benedictions honoring the foundation of the temple, beginning on the numbered folio 22 of the manuscript. While we have no evidence as to what may have occupied the missing folios 1–21—further benedictions, selections from appropriate scriptures, or perhaps even a detailed narrative account of the temple’s creation and the events surrounding it—given the careful preparation of the work, it is most unlikely that materials not related in some way to Temple of the Treaty would have been included therein. Of the seven surviving benedictions, the sources of ive may be identiied and these were all explicitly ofered by prominent parties in the Tibetan colonial administration of what is today Gansu. A general outline of the portions of the manuscript that have been preserved runs as follows: (1) “Ofered as a prayer . . .” (PT 16, 22a1–32b4: smon lam du gsol ba//). As the title in this case evidently began on the now missing folio 21, we have no way of knowing just who presented this prayer. It is by far the 32 buddhism between tibet and china (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) most elaborate of the group, and, given the apparent arrangement of the collection according to descending hierarchical rank-order, must have emanated from among the highest echelons of Tibetan civil or religious authority.48 We shall return to this issue in discussing this remarkable text in greater detail. “Ofered as a prayer, and presented as a donation, by the domain of the great military headquarters49 of Yarmotang, on behalf of the hree Jewels in connection with the ediication of the most famous Temple of the Treaty concluded at the great council with China, the Uighur, etc.” (PT 16, 33a1 - IOL Tib J 751, 35a3: rgya drug las stsogs pha mjal duṃ chen po mdzad pa’ï gtsïgs gyï gtsug lag khang grags pha chen po bzhengs pa’ï dkon mchog gsum la dbyar mo thang khrom chen po khaṃs nas smon lam du gsol ba dang/ yon du dbul ba’//). he identity of the place called Yarmotang, which is of central importance in the present context, will be the subject of further discussion. “Ofered as a prayer by50 the Paciication Minister on the occasion of the consecration of the Temple of the Treaty of Dega” (IOL Tib J 751, 35a3–38b2: de ga gtsïgs kyi gtsug lag khang zhal bsro ba’ï tshe bde blon gyï smon lam du gsol ba’//). he “Paciication Minister” (bde blon) was among the highest ranked of the Tibetan colonial oicers and seems to have been, in efect, the governor of Tibet’s conquests in Gansu and adjacent territories.51 “Ofered as a prayer by the great military headquarters of Khartsen on behalf of the Temple of the Treaty of the Turquoise Grove of Dega” (IOL Tib J 751, 38b2–39b1: de ga g.yu tshal gtsigs gyï gtsug lag khang du mkhar tsan khrom chen pos smon lam du gsol ba//). he toponym “Khartsen” may have been applied at various points to several diferent locations, but in our present context, as will be seen momentarily, it can only refer to Liangzhou, to the northeast of Kokonor in Gansu.52 “Ofered as a prayer by the great military headquarters of Guazhou on behalf of the Temple of the Treaty of the Turquoise Grove of Dega” (IOL Tib J 751, 39b1–40a2: de ga g.yu tshal gtsigs kyï gtsug lag khang du kwa cu khrom chen po nas smon lam du gsol ba//). he Tibetan transcription of Guazhou (kwa cu) is unambiguous and corresponds to the well-known region of Anxi in northwestern Gansu, to the immediate east of Dunhuang. “Ofered as a prayer by the chiliarch of Chuktsam and his servitors” (IOL Tib J 751, 40a2–41a1: phyug tsams stong pon dpon g.yog gï smon The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 33 lam du gsol ba’//). hough the location of Chuksam is uncertain, references in other Dunhuang texts, to which we shall have occasion to return, suggest that it was also in the vicinity of present day Anxi.53 (7) “Ofered as a prayer by Drom Pékhongma (?)” (IOL Tib J 751, 41a2– 41b4: ’brom ?spe khong ?ma’ ï smon lam du gsol ba’//). he reading of several syllables of the donor’s name is in this case uncertain.54 In sum, the provenance of the manuscript in Dunhuang comports closely with the geographical frame of reference that is represented within it, that is, far western Gansu. As will emerge, however, though I am in favor of regarding matters from this angle, it is a conclusion that will prove in some respects problematic once the sum of the evidence is reviewed. he “Prayers of Dega Yutsel” includes, in addition to the formal features of Buddhist dedicatory texts—salutations, praises, aspirations on behalf of living beings, etc.—a considerable amount of historical detail concerning the circumstances under which the temple came to be established by two very prominent ministers, Zhang Trisumjé and Zhang Lhazang. he historical narrative is repeated in longer or shorter form in several of the prayers,55 which reproduce essentially the same account with the addition or subtraction of some elements of information. In the irst and fullest of the surviving prayers, the foundation of the temple is related as follows: 25b3 . . . he divine tsenpo of Tibet, the lord of men appointed by the gods, Tri Tsukdetsen, like a body magically emanated by his ancestors, 25b4 is inscrutable56 and revered, like heaven and earth. Upright and equanimous, he commands all creatures. Open and expansive, his religious and political wisdom are reined in accordance with custom.57 His governance, sagacious and irmly crowned,58 26a1 is of great splendor so that [all] under the sun59—even the kingdoms of the south, north, east, and west—receive his order with respect, and are gathered under his sway,60 wherefore all of his undertakings are altogether realized as he intends. 26a2 he great ministers of [his] governance [as it has been just described] are the great minister Zhang Trisumjé and the great Zhang Lhazang, who, owing to the excellence of their intelligence are like precious wish-granting gems. hrough their heroic labors61 the Chinese, Uighurs, 26a3 and others who were inlated with their own pride, having become objects of wrath, due to [their] enmity were defeated, their splendor 34 26a4 26b1 26b2 26b3 26b4 27a1 27a2 buddhism between tibet and china annulled and the source of their cunning efaced. heir weapons of enmity were laid down, and great idelity then followed.62 As for the increase of the good, having enthroned the best, nobility and honor may be irmly upheld.63 Being without conlict, having treated [one another] as dear,64 the one kingdom of Tibet, for both its high and low subjects, both its great and small, enjoys the pervasive grace of happiness, for each at his own door. Having established Great Tibet, China and the Uighurs, etc., in an age of happiness in each of their respective countries, the Chinese and Uighurs, moreover, requested that there be a governmental peace council, and, as if among men of a single household, a treaty for a common peace with the powers of China and the Uighurs was made in the auspicious land, Dega Yutsel, the peace-council plain. hereupon, as a sign of [its] truth, so that the limits of government would be perpetually unshaken and irm, and forever trusted by the many, it was inscribed upon a stone pillar. And aterward, this shrine of the hree Jewels was established in accord with the transmission of the sūtra—“When someone establishes a temple in the world, as an image of that great merit a gods’ mansion arises in the Akaniṣṭha heaven”— declared by the Buddha. he great benefactors who have established the Temple of the Treaty-Edict (gtsigs kyi gtsug lag khang) are the great minister Zhang Trisumjé and the great Zhang Lhazang. Several benefactors, rejoicing in this, joined the efort with faith and devotion. he expressed motivations of the two ministers, however, extended beyond their urge to celebrate the peace, honor their lord, and make merit. Contrition for the damage wrought by war is a further theme of importance in these prayers, contributing to the exceptional value of their testimony. his is most clearly evident in the prayer of the Paciication Minister, who writes: 38a2 . . . Formerly, when we did not convene with China and the Uighurs in governance, and there were hostilities between us, the Divine Son of irm crown, and the heroic and intelligent ministers, 38a3 skilled in the ways of war,65 assaulted the enemy and with the steady The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 35 power of many armies brought down the enemy’s fortresses, defeated them in battle, conquered the land, cut of their supplies,66 38a4 etc. Many of the enemy’s men and beasts were deprived of life, and what was not given [to us] was taken [by us]. We pray that all of these sins, by the splendor and brilliance of this great merit [derived from the foundation of the temple], be overcome and puriied.67 It is perhaps here, above all, that we remark the depth to which Buddhist sentiments and values had penetrated the discourse of these servants of the tsenpo, for the rhetoric of earlier Tibetan martial culture seems to have let little place for relection upon the horrors of war.68 Finally, we may note that although the kingdom of Nanzhao is mentioned on four separate occasions in the prayers,69 it is omitted from all references to the battles preceding the peace-council. One can imagine that, although Nanzhao may not have been a party to the hostilities that necessitated the negotiation of the treaty, it was invited nevertheless to dispatch an emissary. Perhaps it was the case that those responsible for the security of the Tibetan empire along its eastern borders, tired of wars that were proving costly and indecisive, wished to settle its frontiers once and for all. In all events, of the seven treaties that we know Tibet to have negotiated with Tang China, the treaty of 821/822 was the only one that ever held.70 Where Is Dega Yutsel? We are now faced with the question of whether or not it is possible to determine just where the “peace-council plain” may have been located and the Temple of the Treaty established. In order to address this adequately, it will be necessary in the present section to examine some ine points of historical geography and linguistics. he location at which the Temple of the Treaty was founded is referred to in full as the “peace-council plain of Dega Yutsel” (de ga g.yu tshal mjal dum thang). In this expression, the “plain of the peace-council” is a descriptive phrase and not a proper geographical name. Dega, which is repeated several times in conjunction with Yutsel, has not so far been satisfactorily interpreted, though I shall propose an explanation below. he second element, Yutsel, by contrast is unambiguously a toponym meaning the “turquoise wood.” Indeed, it would be diicult to imagine a more characteristically Tibetan designation, or one more auspicious from the perspective of a Tibetan cultural framework.71 As I hope 36 buddhism between tibet and china to suiciently demonstrate later in this chapter, this is no doubt precisely what the authors of PT 16 - IOL Tib J 751 intended. he exact identity of the location of the “turquoise wood,” however, has proven deeply problematic. As our texts refer frequently to identiiable places to the far northeast of Tibet, places located mostly in the Gansu corridor, such as Guazhou, Ganzhou, and Liangzhou, it seems reasonable to begin our search in this area. Besides this, we ind one further geographical speciication, which some have thought might be the key to the exact location of Dega Yutsel: it is said to be situated in Yarmotang.72 Taking in turn, then, the puzzles surrounding the identities of the three key toponyms that concern us—Yarmotang, Yutsel, and Dega—we shall attempt to establish, at the least, a range of possible interpretations. Yarmotang his geographical term, which is encountered many times in Old Tibetan documents, has been discussed by a noted scholar of early Tibetan history, Géza Uray: he location of the region dByar- (or g.Yar- or g.Yer-) mo thang (which frequently occurs not only in the ancient records but also in the geographic literature, and, especially, in the religious and heroic epic) was at all times thought to be found in the neighbourhood of Lake Ch’ing-hai; it was, however, only recently that Richardson recognized the importance of the Zhol inscription in Lhasa for a more exact location of dByar-mo-thang in the 8–9th centuries. Since, in the description of the conquest of Chinese territories between 758 and 763 this inscription mentions among others rGya’i/ kha[ms]-su [gto]gs-pa dByar-mo-thang, ‘the dByar-mo-thang belonging to the Chinese country’ (south side, ll. 32–33), there can exist no doubt, even given the incompleteness of the text, that dByar-mo-thang should be located east or northeast of Lake Ch’ing-hai.73 By contrast, Helga Uebach has noted an important reference from the thirteenth-century writings of Chögyel Pakpa Rinpoché that supports a location in the Luchu region, that is, in what is today the southwest of modern Gannan prefecture in Gansu Province, not far from the area that includes the famous monastery of Labrang Trashikyi.74 If we follow, as Uebach proposes, indications that Yarmotang was the “region where the Vihāra De-ga The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 37 Fig. 2 he Tibetan Empire and its neighbors, ca. 820 ce. gYu-chal and a stone-pillar had been erected in commemoration of the treaty of 821/823,”75 then we will seek to locate the temple somewhere in the southern Gansu-Qinghai frontier. Although, for reasons that will become clear below, I do not believe that this hypothesis can be altogether ruled out, taking Uray’s and Uebach’s suggestions together, it is at once evident that we must not restrict too narrowly the limits of the area to which the designation Yarmotang may have applied at one time or another. he most we can say with assurance on the basis of their arguments is that it embraced areas beyond Kokonor (from the Central Tibetan perspective), was considered by the Tibetans to have formerly been Chinese territory, and extended into southern Gansu. It may be helpful at this point, then, to ask, just what did “Yarmotang” signify generally in traditional Tibetan geographical literature? Although an answer can only be gleaned from relatively late sources, it will be seen that this will nevertheless help us to clarify earlier references. he great nineteenth-century history of Amdo, the Doctrinal History of Domé (Mdo smad chos ’byung) by Könchok Tenpa Rabgyé (b. 1801), lists Yar- or Yermotang among the three gang (“highlands”) or kham (“realms”) into which eastern Tibet is divided, and holds the term to be synonymous with Domé 38 buddhism between tibet and china itself.76 his latter designation is however problematic, for some hold it to mean Amdo generally, while others prefer to limit it to the Yellow River basin in southern Amdo, and the regions to the west and southwest of the Kokonor. As the Tsongkha region of Amdo, to the east of the Kokonor, is identiied in the Doctrinal History of Domé as a separate gang or kham,77 it is the latter usage that must be preferred in the present context. he Luchu valley, favored by Uebach as the location of Yarmotang, may thus perhaps be included in that region by extension, but cannot be taken to delimit its full extent. he identiication of Yarmotang with the upper Yellow River basin is conirmed by contemporary geographical nomenclature, for we ind a location in the “source area of the Yellow River”—to the south of the Ngoring lake in Qinghai province situated at approximately 34.7°N, 98° E—called in Chinese “Yematang.”78 he suspicion that this is in fact a transcription of a Tibetan toponym is increased by the occurrence of a second, identically named location further to the north, roughly 100 km to the west of the Kokonor at 37.4° N, 98.3° E.79 he continuing use of these designations suggests that, as traditional Tibetan geography maintains, Yarmotang embraced the regions to the south of the Kokonor, and was extended to the west as well. hat this usage is not of very recent vintage is demonstrated by the Yuan-period toponym “Yemotang,” found in close proximity to the second modern “Yematang” just noted.80 It is evident, therefore, that the toponym Yarmotang was applied, at one time or another, to the immense stretch of territory extending from southern Gansu to the northwest of Lake Qinghai. Additionally, if we continue further to the northwest, adopting a trajectory that runs directly from the Kokonor to Dunhuang, we ind that upon crossing the modern border from Qinghai into Gansu we traverse the mountain ranges Yema Nanshan and Yema shan.81 Given that we have now seen that yema, “wild horse,” is the modern Chinese transcription of Tibetan yarmo/yermo, it is not impossible that these ranges owe their names, too, to the earlier Tibetan designation for the entire region. If the term Yarmotang had been at one time extended to include Chinese territories in Gansu brought under Tibetan rule, then there is no reason to assume, with Uray, that only locations to the northeast of the Kokonor would have been so designated; for, indeed, the regions of Dunhuang and Anxi, to the northwest of the Kokonor, are clearly contiguous with areas included under the traditional designation. I take it that the term was extended to embrace these “new territories” because they fell within the same Tibetan imperial administrative division, namely, the province of the chief colonial oicer in the northeast, the governor known as the “paciication minister,” or delön.82 The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 39 Interestingly, the association of Yarmotang with the eminent Tibetan ministers mentioned in PT16 - IOL Tib J 751, Zhang Trisumjé and Zhang Lhazang, would be recalled in later legends. One of these, illustrated in a mural in the Potala, depicts Zhang Lhazang’s meeting there with the armies of the god Kubera. Unfortunately, however, these legends do not appear to convey additional geographical information.83 Finally, we should note that the relationship between Yarmotang, as a general geographical designation, and the “great military headquarters of Yarmotang,” from which prayer (2) emanated, is not altogether clear. he latter was no doubt somewhere within, or in close proximity to, the former, but it is probably not warranted to identify it with the former tout court. Yulin Among the prayers ofered in honor of the temple’s founding, there is one sent from the “great military headquarters” (khrom chen po) of Kwa cu. his is one of the places mentioned in the prayers that can be identiied with exactitude, for Kwa cu is certainly a transcription of Guazhou, that is to say, the prefecture of the region immediately to the east of Dunhuang and now known as Anxi. If we assume that the place we are seeking might be in the general vicinity of Anxi it becomes plausible to suggest that yutsel (g.yu tshal), the “turquoise wood,” might be none other than one of the most renowned temple complexes in that region, Yulin. Rolf Stein, to be sure, raised this possibility some two decades ago, but did not seem to believe that his hypothesis could be rigorously defended.84 I think, however, that it is probably correct, though there are some problems that must be addressed. To begin, Tibetan tshal is an exact translation of Chinese lin, so that the second syllable poses no diiculty whatsoever. he irst syllable of the Chinese, yu, however, refers to the elm tree, so that we must explain the irst syllable of the Tibetan, g.yu, “turquoise,” now pronounced yu, not as a translation in this case, but as a transcription. In principle, of course, there is no objection to a Tibetan binomial phrase consisting of a transcription of Chinese in compound with a properly Tibetan syllable. An example in Old Tibetan is the term hen khang, occurring in the Testament of Ba (Sba bzhed) and referring to a Buddhist temple.85 Nevertheless, g.yu is not precisely a transcription of the Chinese in this case either. Even ater taking into account the reconstructed Tang-period pronunciation of the Chinese yu, we are at a loss to explain the Tibetan preinitial g-, which was no doubt still pronounced when our texts were written. 40 buddhism between tibet and china he suspicion that Tibetan g.yu cannot be an exact transcription of Chinese yu is strengthened by the observation that Tibetan Dunhuang manuscripts (e.g. PT 997 and PT 2122) do exist that refer to temples at a place called yu lim.86 his looks to be a very close transcription of the medieval pronunciation of Yulin. (Middle Chinese inal -m usually becomes -n in modern Mandarin.) If this is correct, then it is virtually certain that the Tibetan word for “turquoise” is not being used here to transcribe the Chinese for “elm.” he sole resolution that seems to me plausible, without sacriicing the possible identiication of yutsel with Yulin, is to regard the Tibetan place-name as inspired by the Chinese, but adjusted so as to suit the religio-political concerns represented in PT 16 - IOL Tib J 751. Given the importance of the site in relation to the negotiation of the treaty, and the later construction of a commemorative temple there, it makes good sense to suppose that the Tibetan imperial administration would have wished to designate the place in Tibetan, and to do so auspiciously. he elm tree, though mentioned in later Tibetan materia medica, where it is called yombokshing,87 does not appear to have had very notable cultural connotations; and we know nothing so far of the signiicance of the elm tree in ninth-century Tibet. (A place called yomboktang, “elm plain,” is referred to in central Tibet,88 but in this case the name seems purely descriptive, with no remarkable connotations attached to it.) My supposition, therefore, is that, in seeking to coin a suitable Tibetan name for Yulin, *yu tshal (which if read as purely Tibetan rather than Chinese + Tibetan would mean the “grove of the handle”) and *yo ’bog tshal would have both been ruled out as unsuitable in the rather exalted context of the commemorative dedication. he Chinese syllable yu, however, was phonetically suggestive of one of the most auspicious terms in Tibetan, g.yu, the talismanic stone par excellence, the turquoise. he authors of PT 16 - IOL Tib J 751 (or those who created the designations they employed), sought, in my view, to accentuate at once the importance of the formerly Chinese territory of Yulin as now a true part of Tibetan geography and its auspicious connotations within that geography; but they sought to do this in a manner that did not altogether erase its established identity. Still, as Stein has pointed out, there were several locations in regions where the Tibetans were active during this period that were all called Yulin.89 Do we have any further grounds to hold that it is indeed Anxi Yulin that was intended? We shall return to this question later, but here we may note one further item that contributes to a response: the chiliarch of Chuktsam, to whom the sixth of the “Prayers of Dega Yutsel” is attributed, is also mentioned in the Dunhuang Tibetan inventory of Yulim (PT 997).90 Given the organization of the “Prayers” according to the ranks of the donors, it seems The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 41 most unlikely that an oicial of this grade would have been included here had the domain of his responsibilities not been closely tied to Dega Yutsel itself. he clearest way to account for his presence in our texts, therefore, is to assume that Yutsel is none other that Yulim. If this is so, however, we are still let with the thorniest geographical and lexical question of all. Dega hough varied interpretations of Yarmotang and Yutsel have been discussed in the literature, “Dega” has been generally ignored. homas understood there to be some possibility that this is merely a pronominal expression, but that, given the syntax of the phrases in which it occurs, it seems to make better sense if taken as part of a toponym.91 Noting the frequent occurrence of the suix -ga/-ka in northeastern Tibetan place-names (e.g., Khri ga, Tsong k(h)a, Byang ka, etc.), he suggested that De ga might be another example adhering to the same pattern.92 If this were the case, however, then either we have an odd orthography for a Tibetan place name (which homas artfully sought to derive from bde ga 93), or if not, then without prejudice to the form of the suix, we should see here instead the transcription of a non-Tibetan term. his latter hypothesis is, I think, certainly the more likely, as the manuscript in question was prepared with painstaking attention to Tibetan grammar, orthography, form, and penmanship, as beitting an oicial document emanating from the upper echelons of the Tibetan imperial administration.94 And, although many languages were in use among various peoples throughout the Sino-Tibetan marches of Gansu, the most prominent candidate as the source for a borrowed term in this context is certainly Chinese. If Dega transcribes a Chinese toponym, however, it is one that has eluded those who have examined the relevant texts to date. We have earlier met the Tang envoy Liu Yuanding, who was dispatched to Central Tibet in connection with the treaty of 822. An interesting story is related in the New Tang Annals in connection with his return journey to China: When [Liu] Yuanding was on his way back, the supreme commander of the slaves, Shang Tazang, received him in the valley of Daxia, ofered him a residence, and convened an assembly of the various generals of the administrative commission of the eastern region, numbering more than a hundred. [Shang Tazang] placed the text of the treaty upon a raised platform, and made its contents known to all. hen he advised all [the generals] to protect 42 buddhism between tibet and china their respective territories, without engaging in aggressions and mutual incursions.95 Demiéville long ago suggested that the Shang Tazang mentioned here might be identiied with Zhang Trisumjé, one of the important igures we have seen referred to in connection with the “Prayers of Dega Yutsel.”96 However, it seems far more plausible to hold him to be the latter’s colleague Zhang Lhazang, whose name is in this case the better phonetic match.97 Curiously, this would correspond closely with the legend concerning his encounter with Kubera that, as we have seen earlier, remained in circulation in Tibet in later times. In the legend, the meeting of the minister with the god took place in Yarmotang, but here the location is said to be Daxia. If my hypothesis is correct, this is none other than Dega. he linguistic arguments for maintaining that the two are equivalent are best summarized in a note at this point.98 he phonological considerations that are presented there may be supplemented by noting that, as Daxia literally means “great summer” in Chinese, so the Tibetan Yarmotang signiies “summer plain,” Chinese xia and Tibetan yar being precise synonyms.99 In the light of Uebach’s citation of Chögyel Pakpa’s mention of a Yarmotang in southern Gansu, the correspondence of Daxia with that region, and the suggestive convergence of the New Tang Annals with Tibetan legend, it may seem that we are entitled to cut to the chase and conclude that the Temple of the Treaty must have been located in or around the area that is now well-known for the great monastic complex of Labrang, itself signiicantly considered as marking a cultural frontier (as will be examined in chapter 5). Although this conclusion cannot, I think, be altogether excluded, there are nevertheless several diiculties that accompany it. To begin, given the concentration of references in PT 16 - IOL Tib J 751 to places in and around far northwestern Gansu, and the provenance of the manuscript in Dunhuang, southern Gansu seems somewhat far aield in relation to the geographical frame of reference. he probable equivalence of Yutsel and Yulin, together with the occurrence in both the “Prayers of Dega Yutsel” and the Dunhuang “Inventory of the Yulin Temple” of references to a Chuktsam that can only have been in the vicinity of Anxi Yulin, further argue against a location roughly 1000 km to the southeast. And although the Daxia in southern Gansu mentioned in New Tang Annals was the location for a rehearsal of the treaty, it was not, as the “Prayers” airm that the “peacecouncil plain” was, the site of its negotiation. he toponym Daxia, inally, has also been used to name many diverse locations to China’s west or northwest, The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 43 including Bactria, parts of northern India, possibly Tokharia, and later the Xi Xia realm, together with numerous more minor localities.100 It is this last consideration that, when taken together with the synonymity of xia and yar, “summer,” suggests a possible resolution to the diiculty of inding a satisfactory synthesis of the apparently conlicting information that we now have before us. For it is possible that the Tibetans took “Daxia” to be precisely a synonym of “Yarmotang,” and thus applicable to all those regions covered by this designation in Tibetan. his would permit all the data we have examined to cohere in a single explanation, though it may appear at this point to be still speculative. Is there, then, any additional evidence that would contribute to our assessment? It is time to return to the text of the “Prayers.” Dega Yutsel Discovered? he conclusions of the foregoing discussion are less decisive than we may prefer. Nevertheless, a number of points have been clariied and a range of possibilities comes into view: (1) he designation yutsel, “turquoise grove,” occurring in the name of the temple possibly is used in our texts for Chinese yulin, “elm grove.” hough this names several places during the Tang, it applies most plausibly in the present case to Anxi Yulin, the site of the famed cave-temple complex to the southeast of Dunhuang. Indeed, one of the “Prayers of Dega Yutsel” was ofered by a local oicial, the Chuktsam chiliarch, who, on the basis of other Dunhuang documents, is known to have been particularly connected with a temple complex at Yulim (Yulin). (2) he Tibetan toponym Yarmotang, which properly refers to the upper basin of the Yellow River (Tib. Rma chu) to the south and west of the Kokonor, has been extended at one time or another to include neighboring territories, at least as far east as what is today southern Gansu, and in the northwest to the Gansu-Qinghai frontier. In the context of the “Prayers of Dega Yutsel,” taken alone, reference to the northwest seems more plausible, given the frequent mention there of districts that can all be identiied as lying within that part of the Gansu corridor that is to the north of Qinghai. (3) he third term used to situate the temple, Dega, has hitherto proven the most resistant to satisfactory interpretation. Nevertheless, it is quite likely that it can be explained as a straightforward transcription of Chinese Daxia, which, among other places, names a well-known river valley in southern Gansu. his identiication seems most plausible in the light of the 44 buddhism between tibet and china description, in the New Tang Annals, of a meeting there, following the ratiication of the treaty of 821/822, of a Chinese envoy with Zhang Lhazang or Zhang Trisumjé, the igures prominently mentioned in the “Prayers” as the founders of the Treaty Temple. A solution to the diiculty that these conlicting observations present is possible if we imagine that, because Chinese “Daxia” and Tibetan “Yarmotang” were nearly equivalent place-names, associating the locations to which they referred with the summer (Ch. xia, Tib. dbyar), the Tibetan authors of the “Prayers” were in fact using them as synonyms. To determine whether or not this is plausible, however, we shall have to take additional evidence into account. We may therefore turn now from the linguistic and geographical data to another important clue as to the identity of the temple given in the text of PT 16 - IOL Tib J 751, for its iconography is described there in some detail. his occurs in the irst of the “Prayers.” To place the iconographical passage contained here in its proper context, let us begin by reviewing the structure of the text overall. he prayer begins with an elaborate statement of the services performed at the commencement of Mahāyāna Buddhist rituals in general: salutations (vandana, 22a1–23b1), rejoicing in the good done by others (anumodana, 23b1–24a1), worship with oferings (pūjā, 24a1–24b1), confession of sins (pāpādeśana, 24b2–25b1), and going for refuge (śaraṇagamana, 25b1–25b2). he irst and fourth of these require some comment. he salutations are extremely ornate, and demonstrate at once that their author has a sophisticated command of both Buddhist doctrine and Tibetan rhetoric. In addition to the salutations to each of the hree Jewels of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, we ind here a fourth: a salutation to the wrathful embodiments, “who do not rest in the ways of those tamed by the vows of the Vinaya, who by their beauty tame heedless beings inlated with pride, who express the wrath and gladness of their compassionate nature but at the same time put down pride because they are emanated from the body of the Tathāgata, who are skilled in training all beings while neither purposing to enter into careless sin nor transgressing the bounds of sin, who radiate light rays so as to overwhelm the three realms, and who in an instant [throughout] the world-ocean cause all worlds to prosper by the emanations of their body, speech, and mind. . .” (23a2–b1). It is certain that the cult of the tantric wrathful deities was already associated with the martial ethos of the old Tibetan monarchy during the reign of Tri Songdetsen. he exaltation of the empire’s conquering prowess throughout the “Prayers of Dega Yutsel” seems to ofer further conirmation of this association. The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 45 he violence of worldly power, however, was not rendered unproblematic just by assimilating it to the image of divine wrath. It is in this regard that the confessional passage of the prayer we are considering is of great interest; for here, for the irst time in the prayer, the formulae of the service explicitly include reference to the agents of the empire: the confession is performed to expiate the sins of all sentient beings beginning with “the lord of Tibet, his ministers and entourage” (bod rje blon ’khor dang bcas pa). he signiicance of this, as we have seen, is underscored elsewhere in the “Prayers,” above all in those ofered by the Paciication Minister, wherein the merit of the edifying of the temple is called upon to purify especially the sins of battle during the period preceding the peace. Later Tibetan historical tradition would also recall that a temple was built in connection with the treaty enacted at this time.101 Following the conclusion of the opening services, the long prayer we are considering enters into the extended narration concerning the circumstances of the temple’s foundation that is translated above. he act of constructing the temple is treated here as a precise analogue to the karmic construction of a divine mansion in heaven. Insomuch as this relates to the person of the tsenpo himself, a prayer is later ofered that, as a result of this merit, he become a Cakravartin, and eventually a Buddha (28b3). Any doubts that one may have harbored regarding the “ideology of Cakravartin kingship” should be dispelled by this remarkably clear statement. he prayer for the king is followed by prayers speciically dedicated to the two ministers (28b3–30a1), and then, for the remainder of the text, prayers ofered collectively on behalf of the tsenpo and his court, the two ministers, and sentient beings in general. he entire work is brought to a conclusion with the aspiration to realize the wisdom of Mañjuśrī, the vows of Samantabhadra, the compassion of Avalokiteśvara, the power of Vajrapāṇi, and the skillful means of Vimalakīrti (32b1–32b4). his last recalls in some respect the close contact with Chinese Buddhism during this period, for Vimalakīrti did not enjoy the great popularity in later Tibetan Buddhism that he did in China.102 Let us recall, too, in this regard, that the celebrated portrait of a Tibetan tsenpo in Dunhuang Mogao cave 159 places the monarch in the entourage of the bodhisattva Vimalakīrti.103 With this framework in mind, we may turn now to examine the passage describing the construction of the temple itself: 27a2 . . . Because it is said, “as for those who give aid, the fruit of merit will be like that of the master of the undertaking,” 46 buddhism between tibet and china 27a3 for all those who have given precious aid, [their merit] will not go to waste, but an image of that great merit will arise in the heavens of the gods. he causes and conditions for [the arising of this image] are: the construction of the temple, 27a4 the bodily image of Vairocana installed in its center. His body, achieved through inconceivable accumulations of merit and gnosis, teaches the enjoyment of the doctrine by means of the three secrets to bodhisattvas of the tenth level, 27b1 and thus removes and puriies in an instant the obscuration of the knowable. By means of the emanational body he thoroughly matures sentient beings of the world-realms of the ten directions. 27b2 Installed, too, is the bodily image of buddha Amitābha, whose ield is best among those of all buddhas, where even the names of the three evil destinies and eight obstacles are unknown. Dwelling there, adorned with all the ornaments of 27b3 divine enjoyment, so that there cannot even be the name of nirvana, in that ield adorned with all perfect, world-transcending happiness, 27b4 he acts on behalf of sentient beings. Because his compassion is especially great, just by calling his name all sins are puriied and one is blessed to be born in that buddha-ield. 28a1 Installed, too, is the bodily image of Buddha Maitreya, who now, in the Tuṣita heaven, in a jeweled mansion adorned with all divine ornaments, matures all the ofspring of the gods (devaputra), 28a2 and so abides, never straying from that single mode of conduct, turning the wheel of the doctrine. Nevertheless, by means of light-rays of great compassion and instantaneous omniscient gnosis 28a3 he abides delighting in the bliss of divine attributes throughout the ocean of world-systems. hat Buddha Maitreya, in future time, will encourage the wishes and aspirations of all, and his name will accord with its meaning, 28a4 so that by the power of great compassion all will be embraced by love. Also installed is the retinue of eight great bodhisattvas, the two wrathful [deities, i.e. Acala and Trailokyavijaya],104 etc. 28b1 Also installed are the shrines that have been established of the lords and protectors of the four directions, of the eight classes of gods and nāgas, etc. Having done so, and having ofered donations of mounts and walkways and groves and all pure 28b2 requisites, by the merits of the authority thus determined,105 we pray that the countenance of the tsenpo Tri Tsukdetsen, enjoy limitless The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 47 longevity, great power, and the achievement of all his intentions, so that, 28b3 like a Cakravartin emperor, he exercise authority over the four continents and other kingdoms as well, and in the end achieve unsurpassed buddhahood! Signiicantly, there is a temple conforming to this description located among the Yulin cave temples, and dating to the period of the Tibetan rule of the Dunhuang region, whose iconography closely matches that which is described in the prayer. I am speaking of Anxi Yulin 25, one of the most famous of the caves owing to the surpassing quality of its murals, its exceptional size, and the geometric precision of its excavation. (It was owing to these remarkable aesthetic qualities that it was chosen as one of the four caves reproduced according to its actual dimensions in the National Historical Museum in Beijing as part of the Dunhuang exposition there in 2000.106) he sole statue in the cave, it may be noted, dates to the Qing-period—or at least has a Qingperiod head—and so our only concern here will be with the murals.107 It is possible of course that some of the igures mentioned in our text were once realized sculpturally, but if so they are now altogether lost. Fig. 3 Plan of Anxi Yulin, cave 25. (Ater Anxi Yulinku.) We may begin by noting the icons, among those listed above, that are represented in Yulin cave 25: 48 buddhism between tibet and china Figs. 4–5 he guardian kings Virūpākṣa and Virūḍhaka. (Lo Archive, Princeton.) ○ Line 28b1: “lords and protectors of the four directions.” he kings of the directions (tianwang in Chinese) are represented both in the antechamber, and in the retinues of the Buddhas in the main hall. he reinement of the dratsmanship and painting is particularly clear in the images of Virūḍhaka and Virūpākṣa in the antechamber (igs. 4–5). ○ Line 27a4: “the bodily image of Vairocana” (ig. 6), and line 28a4: “the retinue of the eight great bodhisattvas” occupy the east and central wall of the main chamber, and hence are preeminent in its composition overall. At the present time only the four bodhisattvas to the let remain (ig. 8), though photographs taken during the 1940s, and preserved in the Lo Archive in Princeton, show that the right hand portion of the wall, though already crumbling, was still extant at that time ( ig. 9). Recent photographs demonstrate that the right half of the wall has been replastered in recent years.108 The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 49 Fig. 6 (top let) At the center of the east wall: Buddha Vairocana. (Lo Archive, Princeton.) Fig. 7 (top right) Tibetan imperial bronze (ca. ninth century) of the Buddha Vairocana. (Bodhicitta Collection, courtesy Namkha Dorje.) Fig. 8 (bottom let) Four bodhisattvas to Buddha Vairocana’s right. (Lo Archive, Princeton.) Fig. 9 (bottom right) Four bodhisattvas to Buddha Vairocana’s let. he panel no longer exists and was clearly already deteriorating at the time the photograph was taken (c. 1943). (Lo Archive, Princeton.) 50 buddhism between tibet and china Fig. 10 Detail of the Amitābhavyūha, south wall. (Lo Archive, Princeton.) Fig. 11 he dance of the bodhisattva, miraculously born in Amitābha’s realm. (Lo Archive, Princeton.) The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 51 Fig. 12 Detail of the Prophecy of Maitreya, north wall. (Lo Archive, Princeton.) ○ 27b2: “the bodily image of buddha Amitābha” is represented on the south wall (ig. 10), by a mural devoted to the Amitābhavyūha, that is, the Sukhāvatī paradise. he wonders of rebirth there are represented in ine detail, in accordance with the descriptions given in the Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra, as seen here in a detail, depicting a heavenly neonate dancing for joy following his miraculous appearance on a lotus before the eyes of Buddha Amitābha (ig. 11). ○ 28a1: “the bodily image of Buddha Maitreya.” he north wall is dedicated to the future paradise of Maitreya, as revealed in the Maitreyavyākaraṇa, and illustrates the marvelous forms of happiness that, according to this prophecy, beings will enjoy when that Buddha appears (ig. 12). For instance, even in later life, when persons in our era can think only of aging and death, women will still have the vitality to marry.109 One of the remarkable features of this scene is that it is in fact a Tibetan wedding that is illustrated, as proven b y the clothing depicted (ig. 13).110 he old man before the tomb (ig. 14), a motif encountered elsewhere in Dunhuang painting, is perhaps also a visual reference to the great longevity promised to inhabitants of Maitreya’s world. he Maitreya panel also includes the sole Tibetan inscription in cave 25, probably a late graiti, of which I shall 52 buddhism between tibet and china Fig. 13 (let) A Tibetan wedding in Maitreya’s world. (Lo Archive, Princeton.) Fig. 14 (right) An old man enters the tomb. (Lo Archive, Princeton.) have more to say in the appendix below. he delicate illustrations of everyday occupations are among the more critically renowned features of Anxi Yulin cave 25 (ig. 15). hough other divinities mentioned in our text—for instance, the two wrathful [deities, i.e. Acala and Trailokyavijaya] and the eight classes of gods and nāgas—have not so far been identiied in the surviving murals, there is, nevertheless, a strikingly high correspondence, which suggests to me, in conjunction with the geographical arguments reviewed above, that Anxi Yulin 25 is in fact none other than Dega Yutsel. What is initially most remarkable is the distinct presence of two very diferent iconographic programs, one following the conventions of “sūtra-painting,” as is well known from murals executed throughout the Tang-period at Dunhuang,111 the other, represented by the east wall, clearly adhering to the principles of the esoteric Buddhist maṇḍala. We would be wrong to assume that these two programs can in general be related to distinctively Chinese and Tibetan approaches respectively, but, nevertheless, in this case there may be some reason to consider matters in just this way. The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 53 Fig. 15 Harvest scene. (Lo Archive, Princeton.) he centrality of Vairocana and the eight bodhisattvas, as well as the actual conventions of their representation, relate Anxi Yulin 25 to a widespread group of early-ninth-century Tibetan icons that have been the object of ongoing study by Amy Heller.112 More broadly speaking, it also relates this temple to the wide-ranging association between Vairocana and the royal cult that we see represented during the ninth century at sites as far aield as Barabudur, Todai-ji (Kyoto), and Famensi (Xi’an).113 However, the Vairocana and eight bodhisattvas at Anxi Yulin are remarkable for the degree to which these images are consistent with other known Tibetan depictions during this period, including even such details as the draping of the robes and their patterns, the manner in which their hair is arrayed, their ornaments, etc. his may be seen in comparing the Anxi Yulin Vairocana with the stunning Tibetan imperial bronze from a private collection, shown beside it above (ig. 7). And, as I have argued elsewhere, the form of Vairocana in question is intended to represent the imperial presence of the Tibetan monarch whose maṇḍala was none other than the Tibetan empire itself.114 Nevertheless, because ninth-century Tibetan icons of Vairocana and the eight bodhisattvas are now known from a number of locations throughout eastern Tibet, their occurrence alone by no means establishes a unique connection between Anxi Yulin and Dega Yutsel. It is, rather, the totality of the iconographic program, especially in light of earlier suggestions regarding the name of the place, that seems to warrant this conclusion. he extraordinarily 54 buddhism between tibet and china high quality of the murals in cave 25, certainly on a par with the best of midTang-period painting at Dunhuang, underscores the special care that was lavished on this commission, something that we would expect in the case of an important imperial project like the temple of Dega Yutsel.115 We should note, too, that although the east wall, depicting Vairocana and the bodhisattvas, seems stylistically almost altogether distinct from the north and south walls, showing the paradises of Maitreya and Amitābha, there is no reason to suppose that these were executed during diferent periods or by diferent ateliers.116 A close stylistic comparison—focusing upon such details as hair styles, garments, and brush strokes—suggests quite the opposite.117 It is more plausible to hold that what we see here is the product of one and the same group of artists struggling to execute a commission requiring the representation of a somewhat unfamiliar type of composition, one based upon the organization of the maṇḍala rather than upon that of the Buddha-ield. In both iconography and style, Anxi Yulin 25 thus expresses the coexistence of the Tibetan and Chinese Buddhist worlds. On the surface at least, it seems an especially itting memorial to a peace-accord between the two powers. hese appearances notwithstanding, however, the record as a whole suggests that it was primarily the Tibetan administration, and not the Chinese, that was eager to establish an enduring place for Buddhism in the bilateral diplomacy linking the two powers. Individual Chinese oicials, and certainly important constituencies within the local populations of modern Gansu, Sichuan and, in general, the Sino-Tibetan frontiers, no doubt oten viewed an explicit allegiance to Buddhism favorably as well. Nevertheless, the relatively restricted role of Buddhism in the Chinese oicial record of relations with Tibet demands further relection. In part, the diminished signiicance of the foreign religion may be due to the general tendency, underscored by Tansen Sen, for the later Tang court to have backed away from the robust commitment to Buddhism that it had shown during the seventh century. In the course of this shit, moreover, the Tibetans may have appeared as an obstacle to, and not a facilitator of, Tang China’s relations with Buddhist India.118 What is clear is that so long as Buddhism still lourished in India, and while the Tibetans were viewed as dangerous and largely uncivilized rivals, Tibetan interest in Buddhism would not have been felt as more than a minor theme in the Tang court’s relections on its foreign afairs. In the two centuries that followed, however, the picture began to change. Despite a brief and intense revival of Chinese interest in Indian Buddhism under the Song,119 during the early second millennium Buddhism in India was in sharp decline. At the same time, post-imperial The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 55 Tibet, no longer capable of threatening China directly, was beginning to emerge as India’s successor in terms of spiritual authority throughout much of the Inner Asian Buddhist world. So it was, therefore, that the subtle seed planted during the time of the Tibetan empire and the Tang, and nurtured too by the Tibetan frontier regime, eventually yielded the stout vine of religiopolitical order that bound Tibetan-Chinese relations for the greater part of the next thousand years. Appendix: Some Objections Considered As a coda to this chapter, I wish to review briely some of the objections that my hypothesis may evoke, together with the sole alternative to it that seems to me viable, though I think less credible than what I have proposed. In all events, I remind my readers that what I ofer here is strictly an hypothesis, and that without further evidence forthcoming it will be diicult to present a case that amounts to certain proof. Although there is no doubt that the iconographic program described in the “Prayers” does conform with remarkable exactitude to that of Anxi Yulin cave 25, the signiicance of this observation is diminished if it proves to be the case that the program in question was relatively widespread. As we know that Vairocana with the eight major bodhisattvas became the objects of a long-sustained and very widely distributed cult, that may be traced to western India beginning in about the sixth century, and that inspired the production icons at various places in Tibet, as well as in China and Japan, are there clear reasons to associate the “Prayers” directly with the particular cave under discussion here? In response, and without returning to the issue of the toponyms, we must stress once again that it is not only the presence of Vairocana and the eight bodhisattvas that is of concern, for this is indeed too common to serve as a sole index. It is rather the presence of Vairocana in direct proximity to the ields of Amitābha and Maitreya that seems a decisive characteristic. he only other contemporary example of these three Buddhas depicted together in a Tibetan-period (mid-Tang) temple of which I am aware is the “Zhai-family Temple,” i.e., Dunhuang Mogao cave 220.120 In this case, however, the eight bodhisattvas are absent, the Vairocana image does not conform to the iconographic speciications of the known Tibetan models, and Amitābha and Maitreya are solitary, without their surrounding retinues and ields. While it is possible that the Zhai family, as important administrators in Dunhuang, 56 buddhism between tibet and china were inspired by the example of their Tibetan lords to include in their family shrine the same three Buddhas as those adorning the Temple of the Treaty, there can be no question that anything more than very rough imitation was involved in this case. It therefore in no way refutes my proposals with respect to Anxi Yulin cave 25. A more delicate problem is posed by the sole Tibetan inscription in the cave, located on the north wall in the mural of Maitreya’s earthly paradise. It is not the only inscription in the ediice, but the others—Chinese donor inscriptions relating to later restorations and Uighur graiti of the tenth century—are generally agreed to post-date the temple’s foundation by several decades and more.121 While the Tibetan inscription, from the perspective of Tibetan paleography, gives the impression that it too dates to the period following the Tibetan occupation of the Dunhuang region, when Tibetan was still in use as a lingua ranca in the region,122 it is only thanks to a recent discovery on the part of Yoshiro Imaeda that it has become decisively clear that it cannot date to the period of the temple’s construction.123 For Imaeda has convincingly demonstrated that, under the Tibetan occupation, the cartouches for the inscriptions accompanying murals were characteristically provided in the form of a capital “T”: the upper bar in these cases is used for the horizontally written Tibetan script, surmounting a vertical bar for Chinese. In Anxi Yulin cave 25, the central mural of Vairocana and the eight bodhisattvas is thus appropriately accompanied by T-shaped cartouches (igs. 8–9). In the Maitreya panel, however, only vertical cartouches for Chinese are present, one of which was rather awkwardly employed by the author of the Tibetan inscription. To all evidence, therefore, this individual was not familiar with the earlier convention; his words accordingly must be considered to be late graiti. Despite this, two Tibetanists in China, Xie Jisheng and Huang Weizhong, have recently argued that the Tibetan inscription refers to the original donor.124 While, on the basis of the foregoing observations, I cannot concur, their arguments do require some further comment. he inscription in question reads: // dze’u/ de’i cung gis/ phags pa’ khor cig/ bgyis pa’/ ’di shang she’i/ sku yon du/ bsngas pa’/ lags so//. his means: “his circle of āryas, which Dze’u De’i cung enacted, is dedicated as a pious donation to Shang she.”125 he meaning of “enacted” (bgyis pa), the honoriic past stem of “to do,” in this context is not entirely clear. It most likely refers to the act of commissioning or sponsoring the paintings or their restoration. he names of the donor and recipient, in any case, are clearly Chinese. In their reading, Xie and Huang are surely correct to hold that Dze’u is a The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 57 transcription of the name of the important Dunhuang family Cao, but they implausibly go on to hold that de’i cung is to be derived from the Tibetan phrase de’i gcung, “his little brother.”126 It is clear, however, that Dze’u De’i cung is to be read as a single Chinese name, of which Dze’u is the xing and De’i cung the ming. Taken thus as a whole, it partially resembles the name of one of the igures named in the Chinese donor inscriptions, Cao Yuanzhong,127 though I see no way to reconcile the de’i of the Tibetan with yuan in Chinese, even taking into consideration the reconstructed Tang-period pronunciations. (Cao Yuanzhong is well known as the “king of Dunhuang,” during whose reign [944–974] the oasis was virtually an independent city-state.128) More plausible is the possibility that Dze’u De’i cung is a transcription of Cao Yangong (originally Yanjing), Yuanzhong’s successor whose brief reign spanned only two years (974–976).129 In any event, there can be no basis for arguing that the inscription pre-dates the inception of the rise of the Cao to power in the region during the early tenth century. Regarding the name Shang she, Xie and Huang ofer a number of suggestions without arriving at any deinite conclusion. While acknowledging that any irm identiication is doubtful, they dwell at length on the resemblance between this name and that of a famous personage of mid-eighth-century Tibet, Ba Sangshi.130 hey overlook, however, Tucci’s important observation, following Demiéville, that this name, attributed to an individual said to have been a proponent of Chan Buddhism in Tibet, closely resembles the transcription shan(g)/shen(g) shi found frequently in Dunhuang Tibetan Chan documents and used to transcribe the Chinese title “dhyāna master” (Ch. chanshi).131 hough no deinite conclusion about the interpretation of Shang she seems to be thereby warranted, the arguments of Xie and Huang, to the efect that the inscription refers to the early ninth century and alludes to the original donation, cannot be accepted on the basis of their suggestions regarding either of the names mentioned in it. It is a tenth-century addition, probably dating to the period of the Cao-family restoration of the cave, possibly (though this remains quite uncertain) referring to a grant in favor of one or more local chan-practitioners. We have seen, too, in connection with the toponym Daxia, that we faced some interpretive diiculties, and that, on the basis of Chögyel Pakpa’s testimony, Uebach had located Yarmotang close to Daxia in southern Gansu. Would it not be preferable, then, to hold that Dega Yutsel was in fact located in that region, and, while accepting the general drit of the interpretation advanced here, to consider that Anxi Yulin cave 25 was more likely created in imitation of it? his, of course, is the best alternative theory, and, though 58 buddhism between tibet and china I cannot exclude it altogether, it seems unlikely to be true. he geographical frame of reference of PT 16 - IOL Tib J 751 has been already discussed, including the important evidence provided by the Chuksam chiliarch, whose presence points directly to Anxi Yulin. he exceptional quality of the artistry of cave 25, and especially its strict adherence to early-ninth-century Tibetan iconographic codes in its depiction of the central Vairocana and eight bodhisattvas, points to Tibetan involvement of a very high order, such as would accord with a commission from the upper echelons of the colonial administration. he major objections to this thesis that have come to my attention so far have been answered above. In sum, then, in the “Prayers of Dega Yutsel,” and at Anxi Yulin cave 25 which likely corresponds to the Temple of the Treaty described therein, together with the Chinese record of the ceremonies surrounding the ratiication of the treaty of 822 in Lhasa, we ind clear evidence for the beginnings of the process whereby Buddhism assumed a position of centrality in Sino-Tibetan relations overall. As would continue to be the case down through the centuries, diplomacy, ritual, and icon were interwoven in the tissue of events, places, and texts according to the ideal of a sublime, transcending plan. Notes * I am grateful to many colleagues, students, and friends for their responses to this chapter, on the several occasions when I presented earlier formulations of it to them. In particular, I wish to thank Karl Debreczeny, Brandon Dotson, Yuesan Gao, Robert Gimello, Phyllis Granof, Amy Heller, Bianca Horlemann, Huo Wei, Yoshiro Imaeda, Kuo Liying, François Martin, Christine Mollier, Ulrich Pagel, Tsuguhito Takeuchi, Katherine R. Tsiang, Helga Uebach, Wang Yudong, Dorothy Wong, Wu Hung, You Hong, and Zhang Changhong for their varied contributions to the development of this research. Above all, I am indebted to Mrs. Lucy Lo and the Lo Archive (Princeton) for generous permission to reproduce here photographs from their invaluable visual record of Anxi Yulin cave 25, made during the course of James and Lucy Lo’s documentation of the Dunhuang grottoes during the 1940s. A preliminary account of this research appeared in “he Treaty Temple of De ga g.Yu tshal: Iconography and Identiication,” in Essays on the International Conference on Tibetan Archeology and Art, ed. Huo Wei (Chengdu: Sichuan Renmin Chubanshe, 2004), pp. 98–127. he present chapter may be considered to supercede that version. 1 Christopher I. Beckwith, he Tibetan Empire in Central Asia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), provides the major study to date of Tibet’s rivalry with China in regions to China’s west. he essentials are summarized in brief by Denis Twitchett, ed., he Cambridge History of China, Volume 3, Sui and T’ang China, 589– The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 2 3 4 5 6 7 59 906 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 35–36: “Tibet suddenly grew into a powerful united kingdom and embarked on a career of aggressive expansion. From their original centre in southern Tibet the Tibetans expanded westward toward the Pamirs, eastward toward Yunnan, and northward to impinge upon China’s fresh conquests in the Tarim, where they threatened China’s trade routes to the west. hen, during Kao-tsung’s reign, the Tibetans destroyed the T’u-yü-hun kingdom in modern Ch’ing-hai province, which had previously formed a bufer between them and the Chinese territories in Kansu. From this time onward the Tibetans constantly threatened the Chinese both in the Kansu corridor and in the region around Lan-chou, in which regions the T’ang was forced to maintain huge permanent armies. When, ater 755, the An Lu-shan rebellion forced the government to withdraw these garrisons for the defence of the capital, the Tibetans occupied most of modern Kansu province where they remained from 763 until the 840s. he Chinese outposts in the Tarim and Zungharia were cut of from metropolitan China, and they too were later overrun by the Tibetans.” For a sustained overview of China’s relations with Tibet, the Uighurs, and others during the mid-irst millennium, see Pan Yihong, Son of Heaven and Heavenly Qaghan: Sui-Tang China and its Neighbors (Bellingham, Washington: Western Washington University, 1997). Hugh E. Richardson, “Two Chinese Princesses in Tibet: Mun-sheng Kong-co and Kim-sheng Kong-co,” in High Peaks, Pure Earth: Collected Writings on Tibetan History and Culture, ed. Michael Aris (London: Serindia Publications, 1998), pp. 207– 215. Per K. Sørensen, Tibetan Buddhist Historiography: he Mirror Illuminating the Royal Genealogies (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1994), translates one of the fullest elaborations of the legend. Aspects of its development are studied in my he Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism: Conversion, Contestation and Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), ch. 8. Sylvain Lévi, he Mission of Wang Hiuen-ts’e in India, trans. S.P. Chatterjee, ed. B. C. Law (Calcutta: Indian Geographical Society, 1967). he original version of this article appeared in the Journal Asiatique in 1900. She appears to have played some sort of ongoing role in correspondence between the powers. In 679, shortly before her death, she is recorded as having solicited the Tang court, requesting that a princess be sent to wed the btsan-po ’Dus-srong. Refer to Paul Demiéville, Le concile de Lhasa: une controverse sur le quiétisme entre bouddhistes de l’Inde et de la Chine au VIIIe siècle de l’ère chrétienne, Bibliothèque de l’Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, vol. VII (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale de France, 1952), p. 3. hus, referring to the situation in 670, Beckwith, he Tibetan Empire, p. 37, writes: “he Tibetans had now conquered a fairly large expanse of territory in eastern Central Asia. he region straddled the main East-West transcontinental trade routes, and was then a dynamic, integral part of the highly civilized Buddhist heartland of Eurasia. hus, the loss of this proitable and most strategic part of their colonial empire was a shock to the T’ang Chinese. . .” See also Pan, Son of Heaven, pp. 243–247. It should be recalled that the Tibetans were also exerting pressure at the same time to the southwest of China, in Nanzhao, where Buddhism was also prominent. 60 buddhism between tibet and china 8 Richardson, “Two Chinese Princesses,” pp. 211–214; Kapstein, he Tibetan Assimilation, ch. 2. For her place in the history of Khotan, see Ronald Eric Emmerick, Tibetan Texts Concerning Khotan (London: Oxford University Press, 1967). 9 Nevertheless, the traditions of the Dba’/Sba bzhed do hold a Chinese Buddhist monk to have still been active in Lhasa: Pasang Wangdu and Hildegard Diemberger, dBa’ bzhed: he Royal Narrative Concerning the Bringing of the Buddha’s Doctrine to Tibet (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaten, 2000), p. 39; Kapstein, he Tibetan Assimilation, p. 39. 10 he New Tang Annals and Old Tang Annals document altogether seven treaties, or “sworn covenants,” between China and Tibet, ofering some description of the ceremonial arrangements in three cases. For a thorough survey, see Yihong Pan, “he Sino-Tibetan Treaties in the Tang Dynasty,” T’oung Pao 78 (1992): 116–161. Earlier, R.A. Stein had examined the oath-taking ceremonies that these involved in “Les serments des traités sino-tibétaines (8e–9e siècles),” T’oung Pao 74 (1988): 119–138; and Yoshiro Imaeda has treated the same subject matter, challenging aspects of Stein’s indings, in “Rituel des traités de paix sino-tibétaines du VIIIe au IXe siècle,” in JeanPierre Drège, ed., La Sérinde, terre d’echanges: Art, religion, commerce du Ier au Xe siècle (Paris: La Doumentation française, 2000), pp. 87–98. 11 Stein, “Les serments,” pp. 134 and 136, argues that the date 756 given in the Jiu Tang shu is erroneous and must be corrected on the basis of other sources to 762. Pan and Imaeda have both followed him on this point. 12 Ater S.W. Bushell, “he Early History of Tibet,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, new series 12/4 (1880): 479. I have modiied Bushell’s now dated translation somewhat, taking account of Paul Pelliot, Histoire ancienne du Tibet (Paris: AdrienMaisonneuve, 1961), p. 29, as well as the translation of this passage in Imaeda, “Rituel des traités,” p. 92. 13 On the Tibetan rebellion of 755, see Christopher I. Beckwith, “he revolt of 755 in Tibet,” in Contributions on Tibetan Language, History and Culture, ed. Ernst Steinkellner and Helmut Tauscher, Vol. 1 of the Proceedings of the Csoma de Kőrös Symposium held at Velm-Vienna, Austria (Vienna: Arbeitskreis fur Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 1983), pp. 1–16. here has been some disagreement over the interpretation of the 762 treaty between Tibet and China, R.A. Stein seeking to ind here the evidence of a double rite—sacriicial and Buddhist— despite the explicit refusal of the Buddhist rite. While Pan Yihong, “he SinoTibetan Treaties,” follows Stein about this, Imaeda, “Rituel des traités,” has rejected this interpretation, and argues for adhering to a more straightforward reading of the text. he anti-Buddhist nature of the 755 Tibetan rebellion has not previously been taken into account, but I think that it does support Imaeda’s perspective. Nevertheless, a well-known early Tibetan history, the Sba bzhed, does have Tibetan Buddhist ministers traveling to China during this period, in part to escape the reaction against their religion: he Tibetan Assimilation, pp. 71–72. In the account found in the Dba’ bzhed, however, the mission takes place at a later date, when Khri Srong lde’u btsan is already interested in Buddhism: Wangdu and Diemberger, dBa’ bzhed, pp. 47–52. he Tibetan envoys are not recorded, however, to have participated speciically in treaty negotiations while there. All in all, it seems to me that the reference to Buddhism in the Tang Annals’ account of the treaty of 762 prob- The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 61 ably relects the vogue that the religion, particularly in its esoteric form, was enjoying in the Tang court during this period. See Twitchett, ed., he Cambridge History, Volume 3, pp. 576–580. Demiéville, Le concile de Lhasa, pp. 183–184. hough Demiéville speaks here of a permanent Chinese Buddhist mission established by the Tang in Tibet in 781, it is not entirely clear for how long the project was actually continued. For the most recent review of the problem of dating the Tibetan occupation of Dunhuang, arguing that the hitherto accepted dates (781 or 787) are too late, see Bianca Horlemann, “A Re-evaluation of the Tibetan Conquest of Eighth-century Shazhou/ Dunhuang,” in Henk Blezer, ed., Tibet, Past and Present: Tibetan Studies I, PIATS 2000 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), pp. 49–66. he correspondence of a Tibetan ruler, probably Khri Srong lde’u btsan, with the Dunhuang-based monk Tankuang well illustrates the interest of the Tibetan court in Chinese Buddhism at this time. See W. Pachow, A Study of the Twenty-two Dialogues on Mahāyāna Buddhism (Taipei, Taiwan: [s.n.], 1979). Bushell, “he Early History,” pp. 487–490. Edited on the basis of Pelliot, Histoire ancienne, pp. 43–45. His title and name in Tibetan may perhaps be reconstructed as *Zhang Skyes bzang. hough no person of precisely this appellation is known from Old Tibetan sources, the Old Tibetan Annals (PT 1288) does mention several individuals of ministerial rank (blon) named Skyes bzang under the years 729, 734, 737, 746 (Skyes bzang ldong tsab); 744, 761 (Skyes bzang); 746, 758, 759 (Skyes bzang stag snang); and 756, 757 (Skyes bzang rgyal kong). Perhaps one of the latter was granted the title of Zhang blon later in his career, although, because the personal name seems rather common, Shang Jiezan may have been another individual altogether. Alternatively, Jiezan may represent *Rgyal btsan/mtshan. Imaeda, “Rituel des traités,” pp. 93–94. he history that concerns us here, and the previous research devoted to it, is surveyed in Pan, Son of Heaven, ch. 9–10. Beckwith, he Tibetan Empire, pp. 151–152, for instance, cites the Chinese minister Li Mi as advising the emperor during the autumn of 787: “I would like His Majesty to make peace with the Uyghurs in the north, come to terms with Nan-chao in the south, and unite with the Arabs and Hindustan in the West. In this way the Tibetans would themselves be in trouble, and horses would be easy [for us] to obtain.” Colin Mackerras, he Uighur Empire According to the T’ang Dynastic Histories: A Study in Sino-Uighur Relations 744–840. (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1973), pp. 44–46. I have taken the liberty of substituting, here and in the following quotation, Pinyin transcriptions for the Wade-Giles used by Mackerras. Mackerras, he Uighur Empire, pp. 46–47. I speak here of a “series of treaties” with some hesitation, for, with the exception of the 821/822 treaty between China and Tibet, our evidence for Tibet’s treaties with the Uighurs and, in particular, Nanzhao is rather hazy. For a review of the problem, see J. Szerb, “A Note on the Tibetan-Uigur Treaty of 822/823 A.D.,” in Contributions on Tibetan Language, History and Culture, pp. 375–387. Editions and studies of the “uncle-nephew pillar inscription” include: Bsod nams skyid, Bod kyi rdo ring yi ge dang dril bu’i kha byang (Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1984), pp. 21–58; Hugh E. Richardson, A Corpus of Early Tibetan Inscriptions 62 25 26 27 28 29 30 buddhism between tibet and china (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1985), pp. 106–143; Dkon mchog tshe brtan, Dbon zhang rdo ring dang thang bod bar gyi ’brel ba (Lanzhou: Kan su’u mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1986); Li Fang Kuei and W. South Coblin, A Study of the Old Tibetan Inscriptions, Institute of History and Philology, Special Publications No. 91 (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 1987); Go shul Grags pa ’byung gnas, Bod btsan po’i skabs kyi gna’ rtsom gces bsdus slob deb (Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2001), pp. 1–12 (Tibetan text only); and four studies of the text in Kha sgang Bkra shis tshe ring, ed., Bod kyi yig rnying zhib ’jug (Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2003), pp. 8–40. My references to the inscription here will be to Richardson’s edition. Rgyal ba Lnga pa chen mo (Dalai Lama V) Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho, Bod kyi deb ther dpyid kyi rgyal mo’i glu dbyangs (Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1988), p. 73: “At this time, China and Tibet being in disaccord, a great [Tibetan] army, ferocious and awesome, waged war upon the land of China, vanquishing many Chinese iefs [lit. ‘principalities’], and killing numerous lords and heroic warriors, so that they were brought to defeat. hen, the Chinese monk(s) and the Tibetan translators and paṇḍitas interceded and by their verbal admonitions they made the uncle [the Chinese emperor] and nephew [the Tibetan btsan-po] come to an accord. At Gung gu rme ru in China a pillar was erected, which was determined to be the China-Tibet boundary, whereupon [they agreed] not to let their armies transgress these frontiers so as to make war upon one another, etc. With the stern gods and nāgas bearing witness, they swore an oath to this, which was inscribed in writing upon three pillars: in Lhasa, the palace of the Chinese emperor, and Gung gu rme ru. At that time, because there was harmony between China and Tibet and their relations were good, it was said that ‘in the heavens there is the single pair of sun and moon, while on earth, the btsan-po, uncle and nephew.’” (’di’i dus su rgya bod gnyis ma mthun par/ gtum drag rngam brjid dang ldan pa’i dmag gi dpung tshogs chen po rgya nag po’i yul du g.yul bshams te/ tsi na’i rgyal khams du ma bcom zhing/ mi dpon dang/ dpa’ bo stag shar mang du bsad de cham la phab/ de nas rgya’i hwa shang dang bod kyi lo paṇ rnams kyis bar du bzhugs te tshig gi sbyang bshad kyis dpon [read: dbon] zhang mthun par mzdad/ rgya’i gung gu rme rur rdo ring zhig btsugs te rgya bod kyis sa mtshams su bcad nas phan tshun gnyis kas sa mtshams las phyi rol tu bsgral ba’i dmag gi g.yul bshams pa sogs mi byed pa’i dpang du lha klu gnyan po bzhag ste bro bor ba’i yi ge lha sa/ rgya rje’i pho brang/ rme ru gsum gyi rdo ring la bris/ dus der rgya bod gnyis mthun zhing ’brel bzang bar byung bas/ gnam la nyi zla zung gcig dang/ sa la btsan po dpon [read: dbon] zhang zhes gleng skad do//.) A Mirror of the Murals in the Potala (Beijing: Jiu zhou tushu chubanshe, 2000), pp. 80–82. Dbon zhang rdo ring, west face, lines 56–58 (Richardson, A Corpus of Early Tibetan Inscriptions, pp. 124–125). Pelliot, Histoire Ancienne, pp. 72–74. Once again, Stein, “Les serments,” p. 128, goes to lengths to ind a trace of a Buddhist rite in the ceremony performed in Chang’an, while Imaeda, “Rituel des traités,” p. 94, prefers to adhere to the explicit statements of the primary source, the Jiu Tang shu. Liu Yuanding is also mentioned as a participant in the Dbon zhang rdo ring, south face, lines 39–40 (Richardson, A Corpus of Early Tibetan Inscriptions, pp. 142–143). Pelliot translates, “au milieu d’elles [the lances], était planté un grand étendard,” but The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 63 I prefer to follow in this case the Tibetan translation of Don grub rgyal and Khrin Chin dbyin [Chen Qingying], trans., hang yig gsar rnying las byung ba’i bod chen po’i srid lugs (Xining: Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1983), p. 105, according to which a standard was raised at each of the three gates. Again, Pelliot’s translation, “une mousseline rose était nouée pour lui couvrir la tête,” seems to me less plausible that that of Don grub rgyal and Chen Qingying, who, quite in accord with the iconographic tradition, represent the Btsan po as wearing a red turban. he description of Khri Gtsug lde btsan’s costume given here corresponds with remarkable precision to the depiction that we ind of a Tibetan Btsan po in the entourage of Vimalakīrti in the murals of Dunhuang Mogao cave 159, where he is shown with white robes and a red turban. Refer to Heather Karmay, “Tibetan Costume, Seventh to Eleventh Centuries,” in Ariane Macdonald and Yoshiro Imaeda, eds., Essais sur l’art du Tibet (Paris: Jean Maisonneuve, 1977), pp. 73–75. In his text, Pelliot let this in the transcription po-tsh’ö-pou, but in his “Index des noms tibétains,” p. 146, gives po-tch’an-pou, which he elsewhere (Index général, p. 159) treats as synonymous, as equivalent to Dpal chen po in Tibetan. his suggestion was subsequently adopted by Demiéville, Le concile, pp. 228–230, and by Stein, “Les serments,” p. 129. he identiication is conirmed by the occurrence in the Dbon zhang rdo ring, north face, line 9, of the ban de chen po dpal chen po yon tan, “the great monk [minister] Dpal chen po yon tan” (Richardson, A Corpus of Early Tibetan Inscriptions, pp. 128–129). his title, which is recorded three times in Pelliot’s text (pp. 9, 106, 131) has not to my knowledge been satisfactorily explained. Don grub rgyal and Chen Qingying (p. 106) interpret the name of the minister who held it, Xidaruo, as a transcription of the Tibetan Stag bzher, a name that is indeed known from the Dbon zhang rdo ring, north face, line 35 (Richardson, A Corpus of Early Tibetan Inscriptions, pp. 132–133). As a minister belonging to the same Bran ka clan from which the monk-minister Dpal gyi yon tan hailed, he was no doubt in a position of considerable authority. Pelliot translates “esclaves.” Pelliot, Histoire ancienne, pp. 130–131. Don-grub-rgyal and Chen Qingying, trans., hang yig gsar rnying, pp. 105–106. Refer to Richardson, “Great Monk Ministers of the Tibetan Kingdom,” in High Peaks, Pure Earth, pp. 145–148. See my he Tibetans (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 80–82. he generally useful bibliography by Michela Bussotti and Jean-Pierre Drège, “Essai de bibliographie des travaux sur Dunhuang en langues occidentales,” in Jean-Pierre Drège, ed. De Dunhuang au Japon: Études chinoises et bouddhiques ofertes à Michel Soymié, Hautes Études Orientales 31 (Geneva: Droz, 1996), pp. 411–454, neglects a considerable portion of work on the Tibetan materials, a preliminary bibliography of which may be found in: Yoshiro Imaeda, Tsuguhito Takeuchi, et al., eds., Tibetan Documents rom Dunhuang kept at the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the British Library, Old Tibetan Documents Online Monograph Series Vol. 1 (Tokyo: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, 2007), pp. xxi–xxx. his may be supplemented by consulting the bibliographical notes in J. Dalton and S. van Schaik, Tibetan Tantric Manuscripts rom Dunhuang: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Stein Collection at the British Library, Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library 12 (Leiden: Brill, 64 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 buddhism between tibet and china 2006); and M.T. Kapstein and B. Dotson, eds., Contributions to the Cultural History of Early Tibet, Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library 14 (Leiden : Brill, 2007). For a general survey, see Susan Whitield, ed. he Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith (London: Serindia, 2004). Among recent studies in which the relation between text and artistic production at Dunhuang igures prominently, note in particular: Sarah E. Fraser, Performing the Visual: he Practice of Buddhist Wall Painting in China and Central Asia, 618–960 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004); Ning Qiang, Art, Religion and Politics in Medieval China: he Dunhuang Cave of the Zhai Family (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004); and Eugene Wang, Shaping the Lotus Sutra: Buddhist Visual Culture in Medieval China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005). PT, “Pelliot tibétain,” is used to denote Tibetan Dunhuang manuscript holdings of the Bibliothèque nationale de France that were collected by Paul Pelliot, while IOL Tib J is the British Library’s designation for the Tibetan documents brought from Dunhuang by Marc Aurel Stein and long kept at the India Oice Library (London). he sections of the manuscript preserved separately in Paris and London were reunited in the facsimile reproduction given by Ariane Macdonald and Yoshiro Imaeda in the irst volume of Choix de documents tibétains, and later edited by Imaeda and Tsugohito Takeuchi in the third volume of the same series: Ariane Macdonald and Yoshiro Imaeda, Choix de documents tibétains, vol. I (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1978); Yoshiro Imaeda and Tsuguhito Takeuchi, Choix de documents tibétains, vol. 3 (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1990). All subsequent references to the text of PT 16 - IOL Tib J 751 will be to the latter edition. F.W. homas, Tibetan Literary Texts and Documents Concerning Chinese Turkestan, Part II: Documents, (London: Luzac and Company, 1951), pp. 92–109; idem, Tibetan Literary Texts and Documents Concerning Chinese Turkestan, Part III: Addenda and Corrigenda (London: Luzac and Company, 1955), pp. 4–5, 42–46. Ariane Macdonald, “Une lecture des Pelliot tibétain 1286, 1287, 1038, 1047, et 1290: Essai sur la formation et l’emploi des mythes politiques dans la religion royale de Sroṅ-bcan sgam-po,” in Ariane Macdonald, ed., Études tibétaines dédiées à la mémoire de Marcelle Lalou (Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve, 1971), pp. 190–391; Rolf A. Stein, “Tibetica Antiqua I: Les deux vocabulaires des traductions Indo-tibétaine et Sino-tibétaine dans les Manuscrits de Touen-houang,” Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient (BEFEO) LXXII (1983): 149–236; idem, “Tibetica Antiqua III: A propos du mot gcug-lag et de la religion indigène,” BEFEO LXXIV (1985): 83–133; idem, “Tibetica Antiqua IV: “La tradition relative au début du Bouddhisme au Tibet,” BEFEO LXXV (1986): 169–196. homas mistakenly identiied the monarch concerned as Khri Lde gtsug btsan/ brtan (r. 710–755) and therefore incorrectly dated the foundation of the temple to the early eighth century. he error was noticed and corrected by Demiéville (Le concile, pp. 362–364) and subsequently acknowledged by homas. An example may be found in Dudjom Rinpoche, Jikdrel Yeshe Dorje, he Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism: Its Fundamentals and History, trans. Gyurme Dorje and Matthew Kapstein (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1991), vol. 1, pp. 521–522. he entrustment of royal education to the Buddhist clergy is speciically ordained in the Skar chung inscription of Khri Sde srong btsan. See my he Tibetans, p. 76. The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 65 46 Refer to Szerb, “A Note on the Tibetan-Uigur Treaty.” Although Nanzhao is certainly mentioned in the text of PT 16 - IOL Tib J 751 (’jang 33b3, 36b2, 38b3, 39b2), suggesting that it was a party to the treaty or treaties at issue, it is not quite clear to me that it is mentioned as anything more than one of the lands that was in some sense a beneiciary of the peace, whose representatives may have participated in some ceremonies. 47 he meaning of gtsigs in the present document has been discussed at length in Stein, “Les serments,” pp. 122–123. On his reading, my phrase “treaty-edict” is somewhat inexact, at least in relation to the primary and original meaning of the word, which referred to an orally sworn oath. he most pertinent passages for an interpretation of the term in our text are: PT16, line 34a1: myï ’gyur ba’ï gtsigs kyï rdo rings btsugs, IOL Tib J 751, 39b3: gtsigs bka’ stsald to ’tsal du mnos pa, and 40b2–3: mjal dum gyi gtsigs bcas nas rdo rings la brïs (cf. PT16, 26b2–3: tshigs bcas nas . . .). here is no question but that the gtsigs was considered to be a written edict here. 48 Szerb, “A Note on the Tibetan-Uigur Treaty,” p. 376, erroneously considers the irst part of the manuscript preserved in PT 16 to have emanated from Dbyar mo thang, though in fact it is only prayer (2) that did. Perhaps prayer (1) was presented by representatives of the court. his, at least, is what may be suggested by a phrase from the Bde blon’s prayer (3), IOL Tib J 751, 38b2: smon lam gzhan yang/ bla nas mdzad pa dang mthun bar smond to//, “as for other prayers, I pray in conformity with what was done from above,” where “from above” (bla nas) likely refers to the court. If this is so, then it can only refer to the irst surviving prayer (1), or perhaps to a lost text that occupied part of the missing portion of the manuscript. 49 khrom. hough oten translated as “market,” “city,” or even “fortiied city,” the khrom of the old Tibetan empire correspond more closely to the administrative center of a prefecture in Chinese practice, though, as Uray has shown, with a clearer accent on its role as a center for the military administration. It thus resembles a cantonment in Indian English usage. See Géza Uray, “Khrom: Administrative units of the Tibetan Empire in the 7th–9th centuries,” in Michael Aris and Aung San Suu Kyi, eds., Tibetan Studies in Honour of Hugh Richardson (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1980), pp. 310–318. 50 Here and in (6) and (7) below I have interpreted the genitive g(y)ï/’ ï as agentive g(y)is/’ is. 51 Refer to Richardson, “he Province of the Bde-blon of the Tibetan Empire, Eighth to Ninth Centuries,” in High Peaks, Pure Earth, pp. 167–176. 52 As Stein notes, “Tibetica Antiqua I,” p. 216, the Japanese historian of early Tibet, Z. Yamaguchi, believed that Mkhar btsan (= Leng cu) should refer here to Lingzhou (Lingwu) in modern Ningxia province, which was the northwestern frontier of the Tibetan empire at the beginning of the ninth century (Tan Qixiang 寕℞橏, ed., he Historical Atlas of China ᷕ⚳㬟⎚⛘⚾普, volume V [Beijing: China Cartographic Publishing House, 1996], map 76–77). However, as Beckwith, he Tibetan Empire, p. 167, shows, Lingwu was likely lost to the Tibetans sometime before our texts were produced. (Refer to Pelliot, Histoire ancienne, p. 74, which does mention a negotiation over boundaries immediately following the Tibetan defeat by the commissioner of Lingwu.) Given therefore its proximity to the other regions in Gansu mentioned in the prayers, and the fact that it had been irmly under Tibetan command since 808 66 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 buddhism between tibet and china (Beckwith, p. 163), Liangzhou seems the more probable identiication. his was also the conclusion of Uray, “Khrom,” p. 314. Helga Uebach, “An 8th Century List of housand-Districts in Ne’i Paṇḍita’s History,” in B.N. Aziz and M. Kapstein, eds., Soundings in Tibetan Civilization (New Delhi: Manohar, 1985), pp. 147–151, records a phyugs mtshams in Central Tibet (dbu ru), but this seems surely not to be identiied with the location mentioned here. homas, Tibetan Texts II, p. 104, reads “the district hBrom khoṅ,” but this seems doubtful. Refer to the translations of homas, Tibetan Texts II, pp. 99–104. hough now dated in terms of many particulars, these still provide an adequate view of the general contents of IOL Tib J 751. dgab, lit. “hidden, concealed.” chos gtsug nï/ lugs kyïs bzang/. With the exception of the grammatical particles nï and kyïs, all of the terms used in this phrase are dense with meaning, and no translation can hope to achieve its semantic richness while preserving its concision. he term gtsug, in particular, which Ariane Macdonald regarded as the ancient name of the Tibetan royal religion, following further contributions by Stein is now generally agreed to refer to the particular wisdom that characterizes just rulership. (See n. 42 above for their principal discussions of this issue.) he etymology of the word is brilliantly analyzed in Michael Hahn, “A propos the term gtsug lag,” Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the Seventh Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, ed. Ernst Steinkellner et al. (Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1997), vol. 1, pp. 347–354. thug skam dbu rmog btsan pa’ï chab srid. Again, this is a stock characterization of the merits of the Tibetan Btsan po. Cf. the colophon cited in he Tibetan Assimilation, pp. 231–232, n. 64. nyï ’og. Like tianxia, “under heaven,” in Chinese, this probably means here “the whole world.” I do not believe that it should be taken in this context as naming a particular country, i.e. Bactria (Skt. Aparāntaka), as it apparently does in the introduction to the Sgra sbyor bam po gnyis pa, referring to the homeland of the “Indian” ācārya-s at the court of Khri Lde srong btsan: refer to Mie Ishikawa, A Critical Edition of the Sgra sbyor bam po gnyis pa, An Old and Basic Commentary on the Mahāvyutpatti, Studia Tibetica 18 (Tokyo: he Toyo Bunko, 1990), p. 1, para. 2. A translation of this passage will be found in my he Tibetans, pp. 76–77. chag ’og tu ’dus phas. . . he meaning is clear enough, though chag perhaps is err. for chab. dpa’ ba’ï la bor bas. I have not succeeded in ascertaining the precise signiicance of la bor ba, though it is reminiscent of expressions such as la zlo ba, “to ascertain,” or of mna’ bor ba, “to swear an oath.” Perhaps it means roughly “commitment, decision.” In the absence of a sure interpretation, I have allowed the fortuitous circumstance that the English homonym of the irst two syllables yields an intelligible translation to suggest a tentative rendering. gna’ï chos chen po nï bstud. Here, gna’ should perhaps be read mna’. In any event, the parallelism in the phrases dgra chos “enmity” and gna’ï chos is unmistakable, so that the translation of the latter as “idelity” seems certain. If interpreted according to the classical Tibetan orthography it would mean roughly “traditions of yore,” which, though not impossible, seems not to make good sense here. The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 67 63 rabs khrïr bzhag nas chu gang khrel ltas nï brlïng du btsugs. My translation of this passage is tentative. 64 gces par byas nas. I.e., having made (ourselves) dear (to our former enemies), or having made (our former enemies) dear (to ourselves). Perhaps the lack of speciication should be taken to suggest that the new-found cherishing is (or at least is conceived to be) expressly mutual. 65 dgra thabs mkhas pa’ï skyims kyïs. he precise meaning of skyims is unclear to me and my translation omits it. 66 mnangs bcad pa. “Plundered” is perhaps what is meant. Refer to the deinitions of this and related terms in Rnam rgyal tshe ring, Bod yig brda rnying tshig mdzod (Beijing: Krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang, 2001), p. 289. 67 Cf. homas, Tibetan Texts II, pp. 101–102. 68 he Old Tibetan Chronicle (PT 1287) may be taken as a case in point. 69 See above, n. 46. 70 But consider the comments of Pan, “Sino-Tibetan Treaties,” pp. 147–148, who remarks that “peace . . . prevailed most of the time from 822 to 847,” while calling into question “whether this period of peace was maintained solely as a result of the 821/822 treaty.” While Pan invokes the Tibetan ruler’s commitment to Buddhism as an additional factor, I am skeptical of this explanation and believe that the economic decline of the Tibetan empire more likely restrained Tibetan aggression toward its neighbors. See he Tibetans, pp. 77–83. 71 On the talismanic role of the turquoise in Tibetan religious culture, see in particular Samten G. Karmay, “he Soul and the Turquoise: A Ritual for Recalling the bla,” in his he Arrow and the Spindle: Studies in History, Myths, Rituals and Beliefs in Tibet (Kathmandu: Mandala Book Point, 1998), pp. 310–338. 72 IOL J Tib 751, folio 41b1–2: yul bkra shïs dbyar mo thang de ga g.yul * g.yu tsal du/ / blon chen po zhang khrï sum rje dang zhang chen po lha bzang dang/ bka’ [b2] ’khor dang bdag cag las stsogs phas gtsug lag khang brtsïgs . . . 73 Uray, “Khrom,” p. 313. 74 Helga Uebach, “Dbyar-mo-thaṅ and Goṅ-bu ma-ru: Tibetan Historiographical Tradition in the Treaty of 821/823,” in E. Steinkellner, ed., Tibetan History and Language: Studies Dedicated to Géza Uray on his Seventieth Birthday (Vienna: Arbeitskreis fur Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 1991), p. 522. Richardson, “he Province of the Bde-blon,” pp. 174–175, has also suggested that the southern Gansu area may have been of importance in the administration of the Tibetan “Paciication Minister.” his would perhaps explain the background for ’Phags pa’s use of the designation Dbyar mo thang to refer to the Klu chu region. We shall return to this issue in discussing the toponym Dega below. 75 Uebach, “Dbyar-mo-thaṅ and Goṅ-bu ma-ru,” p. 502. 76 Brag dgon pa Dkon mchog bstan pa rab rgyas, Mdo smad chos ’byung (Lanzhou: Kan su’u mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1982), p. 1: sgang gsum la byed tshe mdo khams la smar khams btags pa khams gcig/ mdo smad la g.yer mo thang btags pa khams gcig/ tsong kha la gyi thang btags pa khams gcig tu byed. . . 77 here may be some ambiguity about this, however. Despite the apparently clear classiication of the three sgang, or khams, as presented in the preceding note, the same work, p. 53, says: tsong chu’i gdags srib dang/ tsong la ring mo lho byang gi sa’i 68 78 79 80 81 82 83 buddhism between tibet and china khams kyi g.yer mo thang ngam/ shar mdo smad tsong kha sprul pa’i zhing zhes yongs su grags. . . his clearly suggests that g.yer mo thang designates Mdo smad including Tsong kha. In Zhang Yisun ⻝⿉周 et al., eds., Bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo (Zanghan dacidian 啷㻊⣏录℠; he Great Tibetan-Chinese Dictionary) (Beijing: Minzu chubanshe, 1985), p. 2627, g.yer mo thang is deined as a former designation for Mdo smad. he uncertainty as to whether the term embraces Tsong kha or not seems to be relected in the work of R.A. Stein. In his Les tribus anciennes de marches sino-tibétaines: Légendes, classiications et histoire, Bibliothèque de l’Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, vol. XV (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1961), he identiied g.yar mo thang as Mdo smad and as the “plaine du Kokonor.” Accordingly, it is clearly indicated as the vast territory to the southwest of the Kokonor on the accompanying map. And elsewhere (Recherches su l’épopée et le barde au Tibet [Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959], p. 207, n. 11) he has written that it refers to “la grande plaine du nord renfermant le lac Kokonor,” which on p. 294 he identiies as the location of De ga g.yu tshal (though without mentioning the temple by name). In the map of early Tibet given in his La civilisation tibétaine, 2nd ed. (Paris: le Sycomore-l’Asiathèque, 1981), pp. 58–59, however, it has been moved to the east of the Kokonor and runs north-south to include Tsong kha and A myes rma chen. For geological remarks on this location, see Cheng Jie, Zhang Xujiao, Tian Mingzhong, Yu Wenyang, and Yu Jiangkuan, “Ice-wedge Casts Showing Climatic Change Sine the Late Pleistocene in the Source Area of the Yellow River, Northeast Tibet,” Journal of Mountain Science 2/3 (2005): 193–201. Although not immediately relevant to our present subject matter, it is not without interest that these China-based scientists refer to the region they are studying in Qinghai as “Northeast Tibet.” Refer to the Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Fen Sheng Dituji (Hanyu Pinyinban) (Beijing: Ditu Chubanshe, 1983 [1977]), map 28 “Qinghai Sheng.” Both of the two “Yematang” mentioned here are indicated on this map. I am grateful to Biancha Horelmann for sharing with me the drats of her forthcoming article “Buddhist Sites in Eastern A mdo/Longyou from the 8th to the 13th Century,” through which I learned of the Yuan-period Yemotang. It denotes the valley of the Buh He, which enters the Kokonor from the northwest. See Tan Qixiang 寕 ℞橏, ed., he Historical Atlas of China ᷕ⚳㬟⎚⛘⚾普, volume VII (Beijing: China Cartographic Publishing House, 1996), map 36–37. hese ranges are indicated on both the Qinghai and Gansu sheets (27–28) of the Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Fen Sheng Dituji. Cf. Richardson, “he Province of the Bde-blon.” Uebach, “Dbyar-mo-thaṅ and Goṅ-bu ma-ru,” surveys these legends and their literary sources in considerable detail. In connection with the tale of Zhang Lha bzang’s meeting with Kubera (Vaiśravaṇa, Rnam thos sras) in Dbyar mo thang, we ind a seventeenth-century mural illustration of the scene in the Potala: A Mirror of the Murals in the Potala, p. 88. Ironically, the English caption in this case falls into unnecessary geographical confusion, owing perhaps to the proximity of the painting with an illustration of Bsam yas Monastery. Whereas the Tibetan caption correctly names Dbyar mo thang as the site of the encounter, the English version reads: “In the time of the Tibetan King Trisong Detsen, at a visit to Samye by God Namse and The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 69 entourage, a minister called Lhasang managed to see in front a massive force numbering 440,000 bird-faced, horse-legged, mouse-tailed, and donkey-eared freaks marching towards them.” Rolf A. Stein, 1983, “Tibetica Antiqua I: Les deux vocabulaires des traductions Indotibétaine et Sino-tibétaine dans les Manuscrits de Touen-houang,” BEFEO LXXII: 216. Stein’s perplexity stemmed from his identiication of several locations named Yulin in Tang times, which, besides Anxi Yulin, include two occurrences in the Ordos and one near Turfan. In this case this represents Chinese fan, “Brahman, Buddhist” + Tibetan khang, “house.” he term was no doubt modelled on a Chinese binome such as fangong, meaning a Buddhist monastery or temple. Refer to my he Tibetan Assimilation, p. p. 221, n. 3. Richardson, “he Inventory of Yu-lim Gtsug-lag-khang,” in High Peaks, Pure Earth, pp. 279–285. Zhang Yisun et al., Bod rgya tshig mdzod, p. 2599, deines yo ’bog as equivalent to Ch. yu, “elm.” Bdud-’joms Rin-po-che ’Jigs-bral-ye-ses-rdo-rje, Bod kyi rgyal rabs ’dus gsal du bkod pa, in he collected writings and revelations of H.H. Bdud-’joms Rin-po-che ’Jigs-bralye-ses-rdo-rje (Kalimpong: Dupjung Lama, 1979–1985), vol. 2, p. 260, line 4. See n. 84 above. Richardson, “he Inventory of Yu-lim,” pp. 281–282. he designation as given here, phyug mtshams btsan la snang dpon g.yog, difers somewhat from the form we ind in the “Prayers of De ga g.yu tshal,” phyug tsams stong pon dpon g.yog. homas, Tibetan Texts II, p. 108. homas, Tibetan Texts III, pp. 5, 46. homas, Tibetan Texts III, p. 5, suggests that we can account for the pre-initial b- of bde being dropped by the same principle that applies to the simpliication of certain numerals, gnyis > nyi (e.g., in nyi shu), etc. He ofers no clear account, linguistic or otherwise, of this otherwise undocumented transformation, which seems altogether arbitrary. Richardson, High Peaks, Pure Earth, p. 78, approvingly cites homas’s description of the diction of these texts as “magniloquent,” suggesting that this may be “the product of a colonial frontier régime,” something of which he had, of course, considerable personal experience. Pelliot, Histoire ancienne, p. 131. My translation. Demiéville, Le concile, pp. 266, 283. In this he was no doubt trying to reconcile the passage from the Xin Tang shu with the parallel passage in the Jiu Tang shu (Pelliot, Histoire ancienne, p. 75) that has Zhang Khri sum rje meeting Liu Yuanding in He Zhou, adjacent to Daxia. However we explain the discrepancy between the two accounts though, for the reasons given in the following note I believe that Shang Tazang is most likely a transcription of Zhang Lha bzang. Demiéville also proposed that Shang Tazang might be Zhang Stag bzang, though this seems unlikely in view of other known Tang-period Chinese transcriptions of stag, which are in two syllables so as to conserve both the pre-initial s- and the radical t-. Because the Tibetan syllable lha is oten transcribed luo in the Tang shu, e.g., in Luosuo (Lha sa), Demiéville and others may have drawn the conclusion that this is a 70 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 buddhism between tibet and china “standard” transcription. However, the Tibetan initial lh-, which does not correspond precisely with any phoneme in modern or medieval Chinese, has not been interpreted uniformly in all contexts. Consider, for instance, the current situation, in which Lha sa is rendered Lasa, but Lha sgang (in Mi nyag lcags la, Sichuan) is Tagong. Assuming that the situation in earlier times was in some respects similar, Shang Tazang appears to be a relatively straightforward rendering of Zhang Lha bzang. Following Bernard Kalgren, Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese (New York: Dover Publications, 1991 [1923]), Daxia in “ancient Chinese” (ca. sixth century) was d‘âi/t‘âi-γa’ (dai/tai-ka in Japanese), which very plausibly would have been transcribed as de ga in Tibetan. he reinements of E.G. Pulleyblank, Middle Chinese: A Study in Historical Phonology (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1984) do not seem to me to substantially alter this impression. For da he proposes Early Middle Chinese t‘ajh/daăh (p. 157), and for xia γεrh in Early Middle Chinese and xɦjaa in Late Middle Chinese (p. 186). Tibetan uses three spellings of this word—dbyar, g.yar, and g.yer—of which only the irst in fact means “summer.” In modern pronunciation, however, all three are near homonyms throughout a broad range of dialects. One wonders if the last two, g.yar and g.yer, might not have arisen as transcriptions of Chinese xia, particularly in the light of Pulleyblank’s reconstructions given in the preceding note. See, for instance, the article in Morohashi Tetsuji 媠㧳廵㫉, ed., Dai Kan-Wa jiten ⣏㻊␴彆℠ (“Comprehensive Chinese-Japanese Dictionary”), 13 vols, 1955–1960, Revised and enlarged ed. (Tokyo: Taishukan, 1984–1986). Oten two temples, one Chinese and one Tibetan, are referred to. he sources are surveyed in Uebach, “Dbyar-mo-thaṅ and Goṅ-bu ma-ru.” Nevertheless, he was not altogether forgotten either. he extant Sanskrit text of the Vimalakīrtinirdeśasūtra (Tokyo: Taisho University Press, 2004) was preserved thanks to a copy made on behalf of a certain Śīladhvaja (p. 511), who is no doubt to be identiied as the well-known twelth-century Tibetan visitor to India and translator Tshul khrims rgyal mtshan, a student of the mahāpaṇḍita Abhayākaragupta at Vikramaśīla. Refer to n. 31 above. My assumption that “two wrathful” (khro bo gnyïs) refers to Acala and Trailokyavijaya in this context is based on Khri Srong lde btsan’s own homage to these divinities following the eight bodhisattvas, in his Bka’ yang dag pa’i tshad ma (Toh 4352, P 5839). For translation and discussion of the verses in question, see my he Tibetan Assmilation, pp. 61–62. mnga’ rïs bcad pa’ï bsod nams kyïs. Zhang Wenbin ⻈㔯⼔, ed., Dunhuang: jinian Dunhuang zangjingdong faxian yibai zhounian 㔎䃴: 䲨⾝㔎䃴啷乷㳆⍹䍘ᶨ䘦␐⸜ (Beijing: Chaohua Chubanshe, 2000), pp. 31–39. For recent color photographic documentation, see Duan Wenjie 㭝㔯‹, ed., Yulinku di’erwuku fu diyiwuku (zhongtang) 㤮㜿䩇䫔ḴḼ䩇旬ġ 䫔ᶨḼ䩇(ᷕⒸ), in the series Dunhuang shiku yishu 㔎䃴䞛䩇喅埻 (Jiangsu Meishu Chubanshe, 1993); and Dunhuang Yanjiuyuan 㔎䃴䞼䨞昊, comp., Anxi Yulinku ⬱大㤮㜿䩇, in the series Zhongguo shiku ᷕ⚥䞛䩇 (Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 1997), plates 12–43. he latter also includes historical commentary, pp. 162–167. For example, Anxi Yulinku, plates 37 and 39. The treaty temple of the turquoise grove 71 109 Maitreyavyākaraṇam, v. 12, in Nalinaksha Dutt, ed. Gilgit Manuscripts (Calcutta 1959, rprt. Delhi: Sri Satguru, 1984), vol. IV, p. 190. 110 Refer to H. Karmay, “Tibetan Costume, Seventh to Eleventh Centuries.” 111 Refer to the contributions of Fraser, Ning, and Wang in n. 39 above, and to Tan Chung, ed., Dunhuang Art through the Eyes of Duan Wenjie (New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, 1994). 112 Amy Heller, “Ninth Century Buddhist Images Carved at Ldan-ma-brag to Commemorate Tibeto-Chinese Negotiations,” in Per Kvaerne, ed., Tibetan Studies, 2 vols. (Oslo: he Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture, 1994), vol. 1, pp. 335–349, and appendix to vol. 1, pp. 12–19; and idem, “Early Ninth Century Images of Vairochana from Eastern Tibet,” Orientations 25/6 (1994): 74–79. 113 Geri H. Malandra, Unfolding a Maṇḍala: he Buddhist Cave Temples at Ellora (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993) examines the sculptural evidence for the emergence of the cult of Vairocana and the eight bodhisattvas in India during the mid-irst millennium. he study of its difusion in much of east, central, and southeast Asia during the following centuries remains a desideratum. An interesting example from Central Asia is studied in Phyllis Granof, “A Portable Buddhist Shrine from Central Asia,” Archives of Asian Art (1969): 80–96. On Famensi, in particular, see now Wu Limin ⏜䩳㮹 and Han Jinke 枑慹䥹, Famensi Digong Tangmi Manchaluo Zhi Yanjiu 㱽斐⮢⛘⭓Ⓒ囄㚤勞仿ᷳ䞼䨞ġ (Hong Kong: Zhongguo Fojiao Wenhua Chubanshe, 1998). 114 he Tibetan Assimilation, pp. 60–65. 115 his may be seen at once in comparison with some of the clearest iconographical comparisons of the period, e.g., in Dunhuang Mogao cave 220: Ning Qiang, Art, Religion and Politics in Medieval China: he Dunhuang Cave of the Zhai Family (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004), p. 73, igure 2.7. 116 his is not to say, however, that the cave was not subject to restorations, with some additions, during the centuries following its original construction. 117 I am indebted here to the observations of Karl Debreczeny, who has been able to study the painting in cave 25 at irst hand. 118 Tansen Sen, Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: he Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600–1400 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003), p. 25: “Hostilities between China and Tibet, which resurfaced in the late 660s, the Sino-Tibetan war that followed in 670, and the Tibetan incursions into the Gangetic basin of India in the last quarter of the seventh century, reduced the traic between India and China through the Tibetan route. By the late seventh or early eighth century, as Yijing suggests, the Tibetans seem to have completely blocked the road that passed through their territory linking India and China.” Although I rather doubt that “the traic between India and China through the Tibetan route” was very substantial during the period concerned—Chinese travelers to India certainly preferred the routes that circumvented Tibet—Sen’s characterization of the situation seems generally correct. For, from the late seventh century on, though Tibet itself might be avoided, Tibetan-ruled territory could not be so easily bypassed. 119 Sen, Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade, ch. 3. 120 In the mural mentioned in n. 115 above. 121 he Chinese inscriptions are recorded in Lo Chi-mei 伭⭬㠭, “he Mural Paintings 72 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 buddhism between tibet and china of the Yu-Lin Cave at Anshi” ⬱大㤮㜿䩇䘬⡩䔓, in Annual Bulletin of the China Council for East Asian Studies, no. 3 (June 1964), pp. 21–23. he use of Tibetan among sinophone communities in the Dunhuang area is treated at length by Tokio Takata, “Bouddhisme chinois en écriture tibétain: le Long Rouleau chinois et la communauté sino-tibétaine de Dunhuang,” in Fukui Fumimasa and Gérard Fussman, eds., Bouddhisme et cultures locales: Quelques cas de réciproques adaptations, Études thématiques 2 (Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1994), pp. 137–144; idem, “Multilingualism in Tun-huang,” Acta Asiatica 78 (2000): 49–70. Yoshiro Imaeda, “T-shaped Inscription Frames in Mogao (Dunhuang) and Yulin Caves,” Report of the Japanese Association for Tibetan Studies 53 (June 2007): 89–99. Xie Jishengġ 寊亏傄 and Huang Weizhong 湬亜⾈, “Yulinku di 25 ku bihua zangwen tiji shidu” 㤮㜿䩇䫔25䩇⡩䓣啷㔯桀存慲宣, in Wenwu 㔯䈑 (2007/4): 70–78. For an excellent reproduction of the inscription, see Imaeda, “T-shaped Inscription Frames,” p. 99. Imaeda, “T-shaped Inscription Frames,” p. 91, translates: “May the act of Dze’u Dei’cung joining the holy clergy be transfered to the merit of Shang she,” and adds: “It is a graito which was added later, like all other graiti inscriptions in Tibetan, Uighur and Chinese in other parts of the cave.” Xie and Huang, “Yulinku di 25 ku bihua zangwen tiji shidu,” p. 72. Lo Chi-mei, “he Mural Paintings,” p. 21. For an introduction to the history of Dunhuang during this period, see Rong Xinjiang, “Oicial Life at Dunhuang in the Tenth Century: he Case of Cao Yuanzhong,” in Whitield, ed., he Silk Road, pp. 57–62. Rong, op. cit., p. 58. Following Kalgren (p. 95), the irst syllable of his given name, yan, is reconstructed as iän, but derived from an archaic form beginning in d-. Might this explain the syllable de’i in the Tibetan transcription? As gong (ancient kiwong according to Kalgren, p. 158) might readily have come to be represented in Tibetan as cung, it seems possible that Dze’u De’i cung is indeed Cao Yangong. I concede at once, however, that as one not specialized in the relevant domains in historical linguistics, I ofer this only as a layman’s guess. Xie and Huang, “Yulinku di 25 ku bihua zangwen tiji shidu,” pp. 74–75. Giuseppe Tucci, Minor Buddhist Texts, Parts 1 and 2, Serie Orientale Roma IX (Kyoto: Rinsen Book Company, 1978 [1956–1958]), p. 334. The Treaty Temple of De ga g.yu tshal: Reconsiderations Matthew T. Kapstein Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris) and The University of Chicago In a brief article published in 2004,1 I advanced the hypothesis that the Treaty Temple of De ga g.yu tshal, which was well known from the Tibetan documents PT 16 (Paris) and IOL Tib J 751 (London) found in the “hidden library” of Cave 17 in the Dunhuang Mogao grottoes, might be none other than the beautiful and famous cave-temple, Anxi Yulin 25. The reasons that led me to this conclusion were: (1) the remarkable correspondence between the iconographic program of the Treaty Temple, as described in the “Prayers of De ga g.yu tshal,” and the actual iconographic program preserved at Anxi Yulin 25; (2) the high probability that Anxi Yulin 25 could be dated to about the third decade of the ninth century, close to 822/3, when De ga g.yu tshal was constructed; and (3) the likelihood that Tibetan g.yu tshal was equivalent to Chinese yulin, by the principle of transcribing the first syllable phonetically while translating the second. My hypothesis, though welcomed by some scholars, generated quite a lot of controversy among colleagues in China. In 2009, I published a much expanded version of the original article,2 in which I sought to establish the historical context in detail and to answer critics of my original hypothesis. In addition to the three points mentioned above, I also noted there the remarkable reference that we find in the “Prayers of De ga g.yu tshal” and the “Inventory of Yulim” (PT 997) to the important role of the lord of Phyug mtshams in both; for “Yulim” can only be identified with Yulin. As I was concluding my work on this article, however, I made an important discovery: the term de ga in the Tibetan name of the Treaty Temple, a term which had not be previously understood, was nothing other than a transcription of the Chinese toponym Daxia 大夏, whose pronunciation in Middle Chinese had been, roughly, d‘âi-γa’ (using Kalgren’s now dated approximation, which is, however, adequate for present purposes).3 Daxia, of course, is best known as the area of southern M. Kapstein Reconsiderations 2 Gansu Province now known as Linxia 臨夏,where the major waterway is still known as the Daxia River 大夏河. Although the 2009 article detailed this finding, I nevertheless sought to reconcile it with my hypothesis, and continued to argue that De ga g.yu tshal was to be identified with Anxi Yulin 25. I did, however, admit that my theory, in the light of this new data, was less sure than I had earlier thought, and so I raised the question, “Would it not be preferable, then, to hold that Dega Yutsel was in fact located in that region [of southern Gansu], and, while accepting the general drift of the interpretation advanced here, to consider that Anxi Yulin 25 was more likely created in imitation of it?”4 Having continued to reflect upon this, and having at last had the good fortune of visiting Anxi Yulin and Dunhuang in August 2013, I now believe that De ga/Daxia can only refer to the region that is now Linxia in southern Gansu, where the Daxia River preserves the earlier name. In other words, Anxi Yulin 25 cannot be the Treaty Temple of De ga g.yu tshal. Nevertheless, I believe that my second hypothesis, or something similar to it, must still hold, that is, that Anxi Yulin 25 must be presumed to have had some relationship with the Treaty Temple. Given the physical situation of the cave, which dominates the entire Anxi Yulin complex, the considerable excellence of the excavation and the artwork, and the continued likelihood, in my view, that it dates to the third decade of the ninth century (or perhaps a few years before or after), and given, too, the involvement of the Phyug mtshams lord in connection with both Yulin and De ga g.yu tshal, together with the iconographical program common to both temples, it seems impossible that the one was created in complete ignorance of the other. According to my alternative theory, Anxi Yulin 25 may have been therefore an imitation of De ga g.yu tshal, but I now think it equally possible that it preceeded the Treaty Temple by some years, and that it dates to the reign period of Khri Lde-srong-btsan (r. 805-815). In that case, the temple of De ga g.yu tshal, constructed during the reign of Khri Gtsug-lde-btsan, also known as Ral-pa-can (r. 815-838), consciously mimicked and thus honored a major edifice from the time of his father. M. Kapstein Reconsiderations 3 Of course, these points must remain speculative in the absence of further evidence. Some day, we may hope, the foundations of De ga g.yu tshal may yet come to light near Linxia in Gansu. And perhaps continuing examination of the physical evidence that is conserved at Anxi Yulin 25 will clear up lingering uncertainties regarding its precise dating as well. In closing, I wish to thank my colleagues and friends in China—especially Huo Wei 霍巍 (Chengdu), Xie Jisheng 谢继胜 and Huang Weizhong 黄维忠 (Beijing), and Liu Yongzeng 刘永 增 and Sha Wutian 沙武田 (Lanzhou/Dunhuang)—for the interest they have shown over the years and for the opportunity they have given to me to discuss the interpretation of Anxi Yulin 25 with them. Matthew Kapstein, “The Treaty Temple of De ga g.Yu tshal: Iconography and Identification.” In Essays on the International Conference on Tibetan Archeology and Art, ed. Huo Wei. Chengdu: Sichuan Renmin Chubanshe, 2004, pp. 98-127. 2 Matthew Kapstein, “The Treaty Temple of the Turquoise Grove.” In Buddhism Between Tibet and China, ed. Matthew Kapstein. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2009, pp. 21-72. 3 It seems that scholars in China came to recognize this fact also, at about the same time as well. 4 Ibid., p. 57. 1 11 Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell A Chinese Tale of Parental Death in Its Tibetan Transformations Matthew T. Kapstein I had never seen anyone use a lanyard. Or wear one, if that’s what you did with them. But that did not keep me from crossing strand over strand again and again until I had made a boxy, red and white lanyard for my mother. She gave me life and milk from her breasts, and I gave her a lanyard. She nursed me in many a sick room, lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips, set cold facecloths on my forehead then led me out into the airy light and taught me to walk and swim and I in turn presented her with a lanyard. ‘‘Here are thousands of meals’’ she said, ‘‘and here is clothing and a good education.’’ ‘‘And here is your lanyard,’’ I replied. —Billy Collins, ‘‘The Lanyard’’ They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. —Philip Larkin, ‘‘This Be the Verse’’ Pity the parents. In our contemporary cultural imagination, they are inevitably the companions of irredeemable debt, guilt, and 345 (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 345) Matthew T. Kapstein 346 error. Though we tend to associate the precise modalities of our anguished relations to our forebears with the historical specificities of our own version of modernity, our poets, in their chants of familial discomfort and pain, have touched a sore nerve that is as close to a cultural universal as ever you’ll find. It is in virtue of this ineluctable vein of common experience that the Chinese tales with which I shall be concerned in this chapter struck a chord in Tibet, where they continued to resonate through the generations in Tibetan narrations of the tribulations of parental death. To elucidate this in our present context, I will have to begin with a bit of literary history, but it will be seen that this history is of interest to us precisely for what it discloses of the absolutes of clannish conviction underlying the relative appearances of Buddhist belief. Mulian in the Land of Snows It is well known that there was a considerable transmission of Buddhist learning and tradition to Tibet during the period of the old Tibetan empire in the seventh through ninth centuries CE, corresponding to the era of the Tang dynasty in China.1 But with the exception of the interesting questions surrounding the spread of Chan Buddhism to Tibet, the Chinese contribution to the formation of Tibetan Buddhism has been little studied to date.2 Rolf A. Stein, to be sure, demonstrated the importance of certain Chinese Buddhist apocryphal scriptures for our understanding of the early development of Tibetan Buddhism and pioneered the investigation of the Dunhuang Tibetan documents in this context.3 In its texthistorical dimension, my concern in this chapter is to extend this line of research, both by bringing to light one group of Chinese popular Buddhist traditions in Tibetan translation that was not considered by Stein and by attempting to trace the legacy of these works in later Tibetan writings. The elaboration of the legend of the arhat Maudgalyāyana (Ch. Mu[qian]lian) during the course of Buddhism’s progression from India through Central Asia to China has long fascinated students of Chinese literature and Buddhism in East Asia. Two of the most famous products of the legend’s development are the Yulanpen jing (the ‘‘Sūtra of the Yulan Vessel,’’ T no. 685) and the Damuqianlian mingjian jiumu bianwen, often referred to in English as the Transformation Text on Mulian Saving His Mother from Hell (henceforth (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 346) Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell 347 the Transformation Text).4 Both of these works derive their inspiration from the ancient but originally quite separate tales of Maudgalyāyana’s visionary journeys to the hells and of his ignorance of the realm of his mother’s rebirth, and both explore the soteriological crisis that arises when the arhat discovers that contrary to all expectation, she has been born in a miserable state, either as a hungry ghost (in the Yulanpen jing) or as a denizen of hell (according to the Transformation Text).5 The Chinese stories of Mulian put into sharp relief the conflict between the properly Buddhist ethic of world renunciation and the claims of family and clan for the filial provision of perpetual material or ritual support. During the Tang dynasty, when they were at the height of their popularity, these Chinese Buddhist works came to be known in Tibet, where they influenced later Tibetan literary accounts of the life of the Buddha and his disciples and, as I shall argue, Tibetan folklore and literature more broadly. Nevertheless, the Tibetan versions of the Mulian legends have remained obscure. This is due in large part no doubt to the rarity of the texts concerned, though, as will be seen below, there is also evidence that some Tibetan savants did recognize them to be Chinese apocrypha and condemned them as such. The apparent marginality of the Tibetan Mulian traditions may reflect as well their unimportance for actual religious practice, including in particular rites intended to benefit the deceased. There was never, as far as we know, an institution in Tibet of the ‘‘ghost festival’’ of the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, which is promoted in these works as a ritual means for liberating fallen parents and ancestors from evil rebirth. This festival assumed considerable importance in Tang-period China and throughout later Chinese history.6 The annual Tibetan Yoghurt Festival (zho ston), which, like the ghost festival, marks the conclusion of the monks’ summer retreat, does seek to appease Māra and his host, for the desequestering of the religious is a time thought to be particularly prone to demonic disturbance.7 This flows structurally from its being a liminal period characterized by the resumption of interaction between monks and laity after a hiatus of several months, with the attendant moral peril that this entails for weaker or novice monks, as well as for laypersons who may unwittingly or otherwise contribute to the corruption of the clergy. Those familiar with the Chinese ghost festival will perhaps regard this to be a notable point of simi- (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 347) 348 Matthew T. Kapstein larity. Nevertheless, the Tibetan Yoghurt Festival has none of the explicit concern for the salvation of deceased parents and lineal ancestors that is central to its Chinese counterpart. By contrast, the regular Tibetan Buddhist festival that is most pertinent to the theme of repaying maternal kindness, the Festival of the Descent from the Heavens (lha babs dus chen), which falls on the twenty-second of the ninth lunar month, does not revolve around the salvation of parents condemned to infernal abodes but rather commemorates the Buddha’s mission to teach his late mother in heaven and his subsequent return to the human world.8 In the Tibetan ritual cycle, the feeding of hungry ghosts is addressed primarily in the regular—for many devout lay and monastic practitioners, daily—rite of water offering (chu gtor) and to varying degrees also in other widely practiced offering rites, such as incense fumigation (bsang) and ‘‘severance’’ (gcod).9 Przyluski suggested long ago that the water offering might be related to the Indian ritual background of the Chinese ghost festival, but however that may be, the canonical Indian and later Tibetan rituals of the water offering are not at all related to the tales of Maudgalyāyana that concern us here.10 The legacy of the Mulian narratives in Tibet has been, as far as I have been able to determine, solely within the sphere of literature and not at all that of religious practice (though, as will be seen below, some types of Tibetan bardic performance may be very distantly related to the Mulian traditions, even if not directly traceable to them). What is certain, nevertheless, is that ritual and practical religious concerns did indeed motivate some of the Tibetan literature with which we shall be concerned, just as they did the earlier Chinese narratives. The Tibetan version of the Yulanpen jing is so far known from just three of the manuscript versions of the Tibetan Buddhist canon, where it is titled ‘‘The Sublime Sūtra entitled Vessel of Complete Protection’’ (’Phags pa yongs su skyobs pa’i snod ces bya ba’i mdo);11 it is not found in the printed editions. According to the colophon, it was translated from the Chinese by Gö Chödrup (’Gos Chos grub), the renowned ninth-century translator based in Dunhuang, who is also well known in Chinese as Facheng, a master of both Sanskrit and Chinese Buddhist textual traditions. His extensive corpus of translations and writings includes materials as diverse as a version of the Avalokiteśvaraguna-kārandavyūha sūtra, ˙ ˙˙ the Korean master Wŏnch’ŭk’s great commentary on the Samdhi˙ (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 348) Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell 349 nirmocana sūtra, and an opuscule explaining the uses of the Sanskrit noun cases.12 The translation of the Yulanpen jing corresponds closely to the Chinese version of the text as given in the Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, though it is clear that (to borrow the catagories employed by Stein) Chödrup chose to translate this sūtra using a Tibetan vocabulary that had been coined to render Indic rather than Chinese Buddhist works.13 Only a few subtle hints, besides the colophon that plainly states the text to have been translated from the Chinese, suggest that the Yulanpen jing in its Tibetan guise is anything but an originally Indian scripture.14 It is of considerable interest, too, that in the M. A. Stein collection of Tibetan documents from Dunhuang in London, we find a short verse narrative composed by the same Chödrup that is devoted to the story of Maudgalyāyana and that this work is clearly based not on the Yulanpen jing but on the Transformation Text.15 Both the Tibetan version of the Yulanpen jing and the Dunhuang Tibetan synopsis of the Transformation Text are, therefore, attributed to one and the same individual, Gö Chödrup, a.k.a. Facheng. Though many of his translations found their way into the later printed editions of the Tibetan Buddhist canonical collections, other writings and translations by Chödrup were never included therein. The texts considered here are to be found among this latter category. The origins of the Yulanpen jing itself remain mysterious, and it has been proposed that it is a Chinese apocryphon of about the fifth or early sixth century.16 The mysteries surrounding the sūtra begin with the title, which is based on a term, yulan or yulanpen, that does not make good sense in Chinese and so has often been interpreted as a foreign—Sanskrit, Pāli, or Iranian—loanword. The Sanskrit avalambana, ‘‘pendant, hanging down,’’ has been the most frequently suggested source and has been explained in this context as referring to rites for the salvation of souls ‘‘hanging downward’’ in hell. Indeed, it is sometimes assumed that this explanation is so highly plausible, despite the absence of evidence supporting such a use of avalambana in known Indic contexts, that writers on East Asian Buddhism have often written of the ‘‘Avalambana,’’ using the Sanskrit to the exclusion of the Chinese, as if this were the established, proper name of the ghost festival. The Tibetan translation of the Yulanpen jing is of interest to us in the first instance, therefore, because it provides some indication of the manner in which (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 349) Matthew T. Kapstein 350 the title was understood by a prominent Tang-period translator who was familiar with contemporary Chinese and Sanskrit Buddhist usage. Chödrup’s rendering of the title in Tibetan is ’Phags pa yongs su skyob pa’i snod ces bya ba’i mdo, ‘‘The Sublime Sūtra entitled Vessel of Complete Protection.’’ It is quite clear that the derivation from avalambana in the meaning posited for that term does not at all cohere with this interpretation.17 The Tibetan in this case accords quite well with the overall purport of the sūtra, which teaches that a vase or vessel should be filled with lavish offerings to the saṅgha as a means for assuring the ritual redemption of parents who have been karmically condemned to an evil rebirth, a key theme throughout the textual corpus that concerns us.18 In contrast with Chödrup’s synopsis of the Transformation Text, which clearly states that the text was composed in connection with the festival of the fifteenth day of the seventh month (see below), there is no similar information accompanying the Tibetan Yulanpen jing that would help us to establish the context for its production. We can only imagine that given the considerable popularity that the text and the festival associated with it enjoyed in Tang-period Dunhuang, its translation would have appealed to local Tibetan Buddhists who knew of it through their Chinese correligionists, as well as to Tibetophone Chinese Buddhists, regarding whom something more will be said below. In any event, its occurrence in three widely dispersed manuscript collections stemming from a perhaps fourteenth-century central Tibetan redaction of the Tibetan Buddhist canon demonstrates that its geographical distribution in the Tibetan world was extensive, even if only three examples of the Tibetan Yulanpen jing have so far come to light. Though we are therefore certain that this sūtra was sometimes copied, we cannot affirm with similar assurance that the text was ever read. The Chinese Mulian legend in this particular version, though clearly available to Tibetans, remained to all intents and purposes unknown among them. Transformations of the Transformation Text Given the attention that Sinologists have devoted to the literary genre of transformation texts (bianwen), a genre studied largely on the basis of the Chinese Dunhuang documents, it is perhaps surprising that Tibetanists have not yet inquired as to whether or not bian- (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 350) Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell 351 wen were known in Tibet and, if so, what influence they might have had there.19 On the surface, at least, it would be surprising if the Tibetans were not familiar with bianwen. After all, Dunhuang itself was held by the Tibetan empire for a period of some seven decades or more, and Dunhuang was a center for the production of both Chinese transformation texts and Tibetan translations from Chinese. Moreover, the connection of bianwen with oral narration accompanied by paintings of the events described reminds us that such picture tales had a much elaborated tradition in Tibet, a topic to which we shall have occasion to return. Nevertheless, until now, no Tibetan translations have been discovered of Chinese works characteristically identified as bianwen. The most that one can say, perhaps, is that there are some early Tibetan writings that, in virtue of their content and form, appear possibly to have have been composed on the model of bianwen: the History of the Cycle of Birth and Death, studied by Imaeda, might be such an instance.20 In the case of the Transformation Text of Mulian Saving His Mother, however, we are now able to demonstrate Tibetan familiarity with precisely such a work and its contents.21 Our earliest example, mentioned above, is the short Dunhuang manuscript in the Stein collection (IOL J Tib. no. 686) written by Gö Chödrup, who provides here a much abbreviated verse summary of the tale of Mulian’s rescue of his mother from hell—that is, the story as found in the Transformation Text. It is notable that this text, written in the Tibetan language, was composed on behalf of a Chinese devotee, whose name is given as ‘‘Hur Sun-cı̈.’’22 As the heading of the manuscript specifies, moreover, the work was commissioned in connection with the ghost festival of the fifteenth day of the seventh month. It therefore contributes to the available evidence concerning the use of Tibetan among Chinese in and around Dunhuang, besides its specifically Tibetological interest.23 As it provides an essential plot summary of our tale, it may be useful to reproduce it here in full: The Story Recounted in Brief, Composed on Behalf of Hur Sun-cı̈ for the Full Moon of the First Autumn Month There was a great land famed as Nyamka (Mnyam dka’), Whose king was Bimbasāra. His great minister, the admirable Me’ungelya (Me’u-[d]gal ya), Dwelt in the town of Shı̈ngtak (Shı̈ng thags). (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 351) Matthew T. Kapstein 352 He had a son called Koleta (Ko le ta).24 Once upon a time, when the great Teacher Śākyamuni Was awakened as Buddha in Rājagrha, ˙ Sublime Aśvajit, at the Teacher’s command, Converted Me’ungel’s son, who became a renunciate monk. As he practiced with great perseverance, He put an end to sorrow, attained corruption’s cessation. Among the śrāvakas, he became the most excellent miraclemaker. Mahā-Maudgalyāyana, To repay the kindness of his parents, Well expounded virtue and evil to them both. Though he preached the doctrine, teaching and making them receptive, Maudgalyāyana’s mother, named Bluish Black Hue,25 Was heedless of karma and really devoted to sin. Desiring others’ [possessions], she was stingy and very much envious. She was dishonest to her son and deceptive. Without faith in the Three Gems, she blasphemed. To those who were kind, spiritual friends and preceptors, She did no honor and turned her mind against them. Then, when she died and transmigrated, Driven on by the wind of unvirtuous karma, She came to experience sorrow in the Avı̄ci domain. At that time Mahā-Maudgalyāyana Wondered, ‘‘Into which realm of heavenly bliss Has my mother been born?’’ Examining the realms of heavenly bliss in turn And not finding his mother among them, He asked the best of men, the Teacher, all about it: ‘‘My mother, her karma exhausted, has transmigrated; If she is not among the blissful realms of gods and men, In which destination has she been born? Omniscient Great Teacher! I pray for your declaration!’’ At that, the Teacher, best of men, Spoke to Mahā-Maudgalyāyana: ‘‘Because your mother practiced unvirtuous deeds, She has come to experience grief in the Avı̄ci realm. (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 352) Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell 353 By my power you must go there And well assuage your mother’s pain!’’ Then Maudgalyāyana, by the power of the Teacher, Miraculously journeyed to the Avı̄ci realm. At that time mother and son met together, Embraced one another and wailed. Maudgalyāyana, seeing his mother’s suffering, Gave varied food and drink to his mother, But by the power of karma it turned into fire and pus. Then Maudgalyāyana described his mother’s sufferings To the Teacher in detail. At that time the Teacher said to Mahā-Maudgalyāyana: ‘‘If you wish to eliminate your mother’s pain, Then, the saṅgha of śrāvakas fully assembled, At the time of the full moon of the first autumn month, Worship the Three Gems and make merit! Thereby, mother’s pain will subside, And she’ll be born in the realm of gods and men.’’ That being so, O you who are intelligent and learned, Should you wish to abandon the pain of the evil destinies and to have bliss, Then you must very much strive to abandon forever The ten unvirtuous deeds and the deeds bringing immediate retribution, And to preceptors, teachers and parents Do appropriate service, honor and respect. Finis. Composed by the bhiksu Chödrup. ˙ Chödrup’s interpretation of the Damuqianlian mingjian jiumu bianwen deserves some attention. Modern commentators have sometimes regarded the Transformation Text as emphasizing conceptions of magical saving power, embodied in the quasi-shamanic figure of Mulian, as well as in the rituals of the ghost festival, which are quite contrary to characteristically Buddhist notions of the infallible causal operation of karma.26 For Chödrup, any such conclusion would have seemed an unacceptable concession to wrong views. In fact, he explicitly warns his readers to avoid any such reading of the story—which is to say that he does clearly see that it may be interpreted as affirming the ritual annulment of karma— (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 353) Matthew T. Kapstein 354 and he insists that the tale should be treated above all as an exhortation to adhere to normative Buddhist values. This is quite evident in his closing verses: Should you wish to abandon the pain of the evil destinies and to have bliss, Then you must very much strive to abandon forever The ten unvirtuous deeds and the deeds bringing immediate retribution, And to preceptors, teachers and parents Do appropriate service, honor, and respect. We can imagine that Chödrup, as a learned and sophisticated Buddhist monk, was well aware that the ghost festival and the scriptural and literary traditions associated with it did not represent the mainstream of Buddhist scholastic doctrine in all respects. In retelling the story of the Damuqianlian mingjian jiumu bianwen, therefore, he attempted to harmonize it with a more orthodox ethical perspective. Though Chödrup’s summary version of the Transformation Text had no direct legacy in later Tibetan literature of which we are now aware, it does establish that the Transformation Text was known among those literate in Tibetan in Dunhuang. Given that, as we have seen above, the Yulanpen jing was also translated into Tibetan there, it seems plausible to hold that later Tibetan knowledge of the Mulian stories was largely derived from ninth-century translations and accounts composed in and around Dunhuang, though we cannot exclude the possibility that some of the materials to which we shall now turn were derived from Chinese works transmitted to Tibet at different times, via different routes. Unlike the Yulanpen jing, the Transformation Text was relatively well known in later Tibetan literature, and we can be certain that besides the summary given in the short Dunhuang manuscript considered above, a translation of an extended Chinese version of the tale was produced during the Tang period or soon after and that this work probably still exists. A reference in the writings of the great Sakyapa (Sa skya pa) scholar Pökangpa Rinchen Gyentsen (Spos khang pa Rin chen rgyal mtshan), dated 1427, confirms that there was still knowledge in his day of a scripture entitled The Sūtra of Maudgalyāyana’s Salvation of His Mother from the Hell Realm (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 354) Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell 355 (Maudgal gyi bus ma dmyal ba nas drangs pa’i mdo) and that this was regarded as a Chinese apocryphon.27 It is significant, too, that in the popular life of the Buddha authored by Pökangpa’s contemporary Nanam Tsünpa (Sna nam btsun pa, exact dates unknown), the account of the legend of Maudgalyāyana includes the tale of his salvation of his mother and is clearly based upon an elaborate narration of the Damuqianlian mingjian jiumu bianwen, though the text is not mentioned there by name. (Nanam Tsünpa’s retelling is translated in the appendix below and affords a useful point of comparison with the properly Tibetan stories to be discussed shortly.) The researches of Jampa Samten confirm, moreover, that a version of the Transformation Text, entitled The Sūtra of Maudgalyāyana’s Salvation of His Mother from Hell (Me’u ’gal gyi bu ma dmyal khams nas drangs pa’i mdo) and so probably closely similar, if not identical, to the scripture reported in 1427 by Pökangpa, is preserved in the manuscript Kanjur of Orgyen Ling (O rgyan gling) in Tawang.28 Finally, a detailed verse summary of the story found in the Transformation Text is given in an early twentieth-century anthology of délok (’das log, ‘‘return from death,’’ or, as we might now say, ‘‘near death’’) tales preserved in the Bacot collection in Paris.29 The stories contained in this compilation, like those highlighted by Bryan Cuevas in this volume, concern those who passed into the world of the dead and then were reanimated or else, like Mulian, marvelously were able to voyage among the shades. Significantly, such ‘‘returnees from the beyond’’ typically assume a somewhat shamanic role in Tibetan society, frequently serving as healers and spirit mediums, and thus incarnating some of the very powers attributed to Mulian himself.30 When we consider the contents of this anthology of délok narratives, it is plausible to suggest that the Mulian Transformation Text is in the background of several of these stories. The best example is the tale of Guru Chöwang (Chos dbang), the renowned thirteenthcentury ‘‘discoverer of spiritual treasure’’ (gter ston/bton), who in general is not considered a délok at all but who is included here as the hero of an episode in which he journeys to the hells to rescue his mother.31 As Guru Chöwang is a figure closely associated with thaumaturgy in the hagiographical literature, it is evident that he is being cast here in some respects as a Tibetan analogue to Maudgalyāyana, the ‘‘best in miraculous abilities’’ among the Buddha’s immediate disciples.32 The probability that the story of Chöwang’s sal- (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 355) 356 Matthew T. Kapstein vation of his mother from hell is modeled upon the tale of Mulian indicates that the influence of the Transformation Text was wider than the relative rarity of the Tibetan version of that work would itself appear to suggest.33 The episode takes for its point of departure, just as does the Chinese Transformation Text, the contrast between the hero’s virtuous father and sinful mother, who in particular hates all that is connected with charity and religion. Following his father’s death and several failed attempts to change his mother’s views of religious practice, Chöwang departs to visit Lhasa on a journey of trade and pilgrimage, much as Mulian, in the Transformation Text, undertakes a business trip as the story unfolds.34 In the Tibetan tale, however, his mother’s decease occurs before the hero returns home. As will be seen below, this reflects widespread Tibetan anxiety about filial absence on the occasion of parental death, an anxiety that Chöwang expresses in demanding of his boyhood friend Dawö (Zla ’od) whether or not, in his absence, proper funeral rites were held. Dawö assures him that his ‘‘mother’s bones were not allowed to fall into the mouths of dogs.’’35 Chöwang now takes leave of his friend in order to search for his mother. Entering into a trance, he ascends to heaven, where he meets the god Indra, considered here, in accord with the scheme of the ‘‘six sages’’ (thub pa drug) of the Tibetan Nyingmapa (Rnying ma pa) tradition, to be the actual presence of the Buddha among the gods.36 Responding to Chöwang’s search, the god declares that although his mother had put in a brief appearance among the gods, owing to her arrogant hatefulness and greed, she had quickly fallen into the realm of the combatative asuras. Chöwang next encounters his father, who has been graced with a more enduring heavenly station; his father affirms that ‘‘when she was in the world, your mother and I were in disaccord in both view and conduct. So now she’s gone off to experience the sufferings of the six classes of beings.’’37 Here there is an almost verbatim correspondence with the Transformation Text.38 Realizing that his mother is to be found nowhere but in the hells, Chöwang crosses the Buddhist Styx to meet with Yama himself.39 The lord of death urges him to give up his quest: ‘‘We all enjoy slaughter and butchery! King Chöwang,40 you’d better be gone from here.’’41 But the hero persists and, once more in the manner of Mulian, expresses his determination to take his mother’s suffer- (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 356) Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell 357 ings upon himself so that she may be released.42 He is told, however, that in effect the policy of the shop permits neither exchanges nor refunds. The infallible workings of karma are then made clear through a series of judicial proceedings that unfold before his eyes in Yama’s court: a virtuous man who had sinned but slightly—with three companions he had once stolen and slaughtered a yak—is mercifully sentenced to a succession of human lives; a young woman who had taken advantage of her husband’s trade as a diviner in order to profit from those in distress, particularly in connection with funerals, is condemned to a sealed iron chamber in the nadir of hell; a preacher of Avalokiteśvara leads numbers of female disciples to higher rebirths, while their husbands for the most part descend; and the virtuous wife of a doctor is sentenced to just a week in the poisonous waters of purgatory in order to expiate her husband’s crime of imprudently bleeding (in the medical sense) his patients.43 After witnessing all this, Chöwang resumes his demand to be reunited with his mother, and after further hesitation on the part of Yama, it is finally revealed to him that she has been consigned to the sealed iron chamber in the very subbasement of hell. The hero manages to penetrate even this dungeon; his appearance there causes the demon-guardians to drop their weapons and faint, but at last he does manage to find his mother among the shades. By reciting Avalokiteśvara’s six-syllable mantra, he begins to secure the release of tens of thousands, but his mother proves to be an exceptionally hard case. Coercing her consciousness (rnam shes bkug), he elevates her to the realm of the hungry ghosts and from there into the womb of an ass in the possession of a rich Tibetan. Following this, just as in the tale of Mulian, she is condemned to take birth once again, this time as a bitch. In this form, she becomes receptive to her son’s teaching of the dharma, and in the end, after returning with him to their ancestral home at Layak in Lhodrak (Lho brag La yag), she gives up her canine form to be reborn in the heavens where her former husband resides.44 Throughout most of this, the inspiration of the Transformation Text is quite clear. We may ask just what, then, was accomplished by the transposition of the story into a Tibetan setting? Of course, there is much to be said for the merits of retelling a tale in such a way that it seems, for its audience or readership, closer to home than the original; in all cultures, at all times, this has been a hal- (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 357) Matthew T. Kapstein 358 lowed literary device. But it will be noted that in this instance, a Chinese story of Indian inspiration has also been used as a vehicle for addressing some specifically Tibetan concerns. This is clearest in the judgment scene, in which otherwise virtuous Tibetan carnivores are reassured that the butchery of the occasional yak will be treated lightly in Yama’s court but that defrauding the public through the divinatory arts is altogether out of bounds.45 Of particular interest is the treatment of the doctor’s wife, who, though herself unimpeachable, must nevertheless suffer a bit on her husband’s account. This may only reflect a realistic assessment of the moral complications of marriage, but I think that the apparent exception to the karmic rule in fact speaks to deeper Tibetan concerns. Just what these are will become clearer as we proceed. At this juncture, however, it may be affirmed that the Transformation Text in its Tibetan incarnation became naturally assimilated to the genre of délok narratives and that, further, it may well have contributed to the very constitution of the genre itself. King Gesar in Hell The real impact of the Mulian legend upon Tibetan narratives of parental death and untoward rebirth was, I believe, considerably deeper than even the materials we have examined so far suggest. The proof text for this proposition is none other than the Tibetan national epic, the Epic of Ling Gesar (Gling Ge sar). I have stated above that there seems to have been no legacy of the Chinese Mulian traditions in Tibetan ritual or performing arts, despite the strong association of the bianwen with both of these dimensions of Chinese culture. This seems certainly to be true for the materials we have considered above—in these cases, the evidence we have gathered stems exclusively from the literary tradition. There may, however, have been one significant exception to this representation— that is, one area in which the Mulian tales did enter into Tibetan performance. The hero, however, is no longer named Mulian, or even Maudgalyāyana, but rather Gesar. The particular type of performance through which the bianwen and the Tibetan epic may be related is the picture recitation, in which the bard makes use of a painting depicting scenes from his story in order to guide his audience through the action as it unfolds. The researches of Victor Mair convincingly demonstrate that the (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 358) Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell 359 Transformation Text of Mulian was one of the main subjects for such performances in medieval China.46 Similarly in Tibet, picture recitation became an important vehicle for the diffusion of the Gesar epic, together with délok tales and and a number of other narrative cycles, all of whose bards, as Stein has shown, have pronounced affinities with the singers of Gesar. In our context, what must be stressed above all is that in these traditions the visionary journey through hell occupies a principal place, whether it be the voyage of the hero or of the bard (and in the lives of the délok the two are in fact identical).47 The concluding episode of the Gesar epic is called the ‘‘Dominion of Hell’’ (Dmyal gling), and in many recensions it is elaborated so as to constitute (as do most of the principal episodes of the epic) an epic tale unto itself. Its enduring popularity may be gauged by its broad geographical distribution no less than by its inclusion in a ‘‘young readers’’ version of the epic recently published in China.48 Significantly, it is in the ‘‘Dominion of Hell’’ episode of the epic that the resonance of the tale of Mulian for Tibetan mortuary belief and practice is at last fully clarified. Here, Gesar confronts the lord of death himself in order to free his mother—or, according to some accounts, his wife—from the infernal realm into which she has fallen. It is possible to argue, perhaps, that this is simply an instance of a widespread heroic theme in its Tibetan iteration and that it therefore may have no connection with the Chinese story of Mulian. I believe, however, that the similarities between Gesar’s and Mulian’s interventions in a peculiarly Buddhist hell are far more striking than any resemblance they may both also bear to more generalized narratives of the hero’s (or god’s) descent into hell.49 The ‘‘Dominion of Hell,’’ too, is known to have been a subject of picture recitation.50 The main version of the ‘‘Dominion of Hell’’ to which I refer here was redacted by one Rikdzin Draktsel Dorjé (Rig ’dzin Drag rtsal rdo rje), perhaps during the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, and seems to have enjoyed an unusually wide circulation.51 The main narrative elements may have derived from an older tradition, and in his colophon Rikdzin Draktsel Dorjé claims only to have rediscovered an earlier work authored and then concealed by a certain Den Lama Chökyi Wangchuk (’Dan bla ma Chos kyi dbang phyug), who, significantly perhaps in this context, is described as having made use of Chinese paper and ink for his composition.52 (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 359) Matthew T. Kapstein 360 By both title and content, the work is firmly in line with the great body of far eastern Tibetan recensions of the epic that have been produced during the past few centuries and bear the unmistakable imprint of the ‘‘great perfection’’ (rdzogs [pa] chen [po]) teaching of the Tibetan Nyingmapa Buddhist tradition. According to the tale that we find here, Gesar receives a prophetic injunction from the dākinı̄s to travel to India. His mother, ˙ Gokza Lhamo/Gokmo (’Gog bza’ lha mo/’Gog mo), however, has received prognostications of her impending death and implores her son to stay with her. In connection with the Chinese materials we have surveyed above, it is of some interest that filiality is explicitly invoked here, though in distinctively Tibetan Buddhist terms: If my son does not guide me with the powa (’pho ba) blessing, When powerless I struggle in the hells, It will be difficult to lead me forward.53 Gesar, though much affected by his mother’s words, nevertheless receives a renewed prophecy from Ma Drupé Gyelmo (Ma Grub pa’i rgyal mo, ‘‘Mother Siddharājñı̄’’), the yoginı̄ particularly associated with the rites of longevity,54 who declares to him that: When it comes time to die, A thousand buddhas can’t turn things around. But if it’s untimely death, I can fix it.55 Accordingly, Gesar takes his leave and sets off for India. His mother passes away soon after, ironically owing to exhaustion brought on by the numberless prostrations she has performed in the direction of his departure. (‘‘She gave me life and milk from her breasts,/and I gave her a lanyard.’’) This tragedy—filial absence during the death of a parent—is one that is encountered frequently in Tibetan literature: an excellent example may be found in the splendid autobiography of Shabkar (Zhabs dkar, 1781–1851).56 Given the relatively large numbers of men who were removed from their parental homes—whether owing to religious vocation, trade, or nomadic movements—this was no doubt a common occurrence, and in suffering the loss of his mother in this way, Gesar exemplifies his role of Tibetan Everyman. In all events, the people of Ling (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 360) Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell 361 undertake lavish funeral ceremonies on Gesar’s mother’s behalf, during which the great lamas of Ling seek to secure her rebirth in a pure land. Nevertheless, they are unable to prevent her fall into hell. She is dispatched there, says the text, to offer the means whereby Gesar himself will eventually liberate the infernal realms.57 A messenger is sent to Gesar with the news of his mother’s passing, including a complete inventory of the rites performed and offerings made as part of her funeral. Thousands of stūpas have been consecrated on her behalf, fresh prayer flags adorn the entire kingdom, and bountiful donations have been distributed among the monks and the entire population, in accord with each one’s rank and merit.58 Of course, by now it should be clear that in accord with the belief system that is in fact represented here, one’s rebirth is determined, not as normative Tibetan Buddhist scholastic doctrine would have us imagine, according to the moral weight of one’s personal deeds—that is, according to one’s own merits—but rather according to the merit that is ritually amassed on one’s behalf, particularly by one’s descendants. Contemporary Tibetan society offers a clear reflection of the moral universe described in the epic. Thus, in Tibetan families of my acquaintance, parental funerals have always been as enthusiastically documented in photography and video as are weddings, first communions, and bar mitzvahs in American Christian and Jewish culture. The response I have always received on inquiring about this is that ‘‘people should know that we have done well by our parents.’’ His burden thus lightened, Gesar implores his tutelary deities to escort him to the heavens to visit his mother, and he is horrified to learn that she cannot be found in Sukhāvatı̄ or in any other paradise. The search, like Mulian’s, takes a descending path through the cosmos, until the hero discovers that his mother has been consigned to the deepest pit in the bottom of hell. Gesar then travels through the infernal regions to confront Yama himself, who proves to be immune to his weapons and threats, for, like Gesar, Yama is an emanation of Mañjuśrı̄—their meeting is thus a meeting of doubles.59 Gesar protests that, as his mother was sinless, ‘‘If you’ve sent my mother to hell, it matters not whether there’s dharma.’’ Significantly, in this context, he enumerates among his mother’s merits the funerary offerings that were made on her behalf.60 Yama responds that in fact it is not her karma, but instead his karma, that (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 361) Matthew T. Kapstein 362 counts: his mother is surrounded by all the heroes and warriors Gesar and his armies have slaughtered in battle, and if he wishes to liberate her, he must free them first. Though Gesar may be a buddha, the wars fought by Ling have purposelessly brought death to many, who have fallen into the hells or have continued to wander in the bardo between lives. Owing to such conditions, mother Gokmo has also fallen into hell, and the accounting of karma has thus proceeded according to a calculation so fine that one mustard seed may be weighed against a hundred karmic causes and effects.61 Gesar and Yama continue to spar in a competition of song, only after the conclusion of which does Yama finally teach Gesar a special technique of yoga, a sort of high-powered powa in fact, to liberate beings from hells. He assigns one of his assistants, Tiger Head (stag gi mgo can), to guide Gesar through the hells. Led on by this strange Virgil, Gesar descends through the cold hells, one by one, and is told of the sins that have led to rebirth in such conditions. Performing the rite Yama has taught him, he liberates the cold hells successively but never finds his mother. The process is repeated through the hot hells, until Gokmo is finally found, like Qingti, Mulian’s mother, in Avı̄ci, where she is surrounded by all the enemies her son has slain in battle. It is clear that unlike Qingti, she has fallen into hell owing not to her own sins but rather to those of her son. Gesar performs the rite one last time, liberating both his former enemies and his mother. It is here that the tale of Mulian merges fully with the Tibetan epic—the shamanic journey to the hells to free a fallen parent becomes a martial conquest of the underworld on behalf of all who are imprisoned within it. The narrative thus takes a markedly eschatological turn; the ‘‘Dominion of Hell’’ episode might well have been entitled the Apocalypse of Gesar. Parental Death and the Limits of Renunciation Though the Chinese ghost festival had no direct legacy, as far as we know, in the ritual life of Tibet, the tales of Mulian that formed a large part of their background nevertheless resonated well with Tibetan anxieties regarding the manner in which the merit and demerit of descendants may affect the status of ancestors—in this moral cosmology, the sins of the children are visited upon the par- (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 362) Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell 363 ents. These concerns found their sharpest literary expression, however, not in the borrowed Chinese narratives insofar as these were known in Tibet, but in an indigenous Tibetan literature—and in the epic literature above all—in which earlier Chinese sources of inspiration were assimilated and transformed. The representations we find here may be thought to doubly contradict Buddhist doctrinal norms; on the one hand, karma is now subordinate to genealogical and ritual orders, while on the other, the continuing role of descendants in maintaining the status of ancestors implies that renunciation can never be perfectly realized. Kinship and the entire nexus of relationships implied by kinship, inclusive of the parental legacy to the progeny and the obligations of successive generations to their forebears—all of this forms a skein from which even the arhat (Maudgalyāyana), even the tantric adept and visionary (Guru Chöwang), even the divinely emanated conqueror of the world (Gesar) can never quite extricate themselves as long as their parents remain bound to the evils of the world. In the system that is implied here, the would-be renunciate has as much chance to be rid of his own shadow as he does of the apparently endless superaddition of debts running up and down the generational chain. This, however, suggests an alternative way of regarding the matter, one that prima facie is more congenial to the views associated normatively with Mahāyāna Buddhism. For it may be held that the impossibility of completely renouncing the world while those to whom one is related remain unfree entails—because in the final analysis all beings have been our mothers at some time or another—an obligation to secure the freedom of all. This, of course, is just what Gesar accomplishes. Read in this manner, the impossibility of perfect renunciation is no longer a source of bondage but rather the very condition enabling universal salvation. What at first seemed a Buddhist concession to naive worldly interests, underwriting the claims of family, honor, and ritual power over and against the billiard ball precision of karmic causation, turns out, on this account, to be an instance of remarkable skill-in-means. And the trick works precisely because the authors of our tales determined to focus our attention upon one familiar but difficult truth: parental death is the oracular mirror in which we presage our own mortality as well. (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 363) Matthew T. Kapstein 364 Appendix: Nanam Tsünpa’s Retelling of the Transformation Text When, for the sake of his parents, Maudgalyāyana became an arhat by striving in absorption, he went everywhere [to find their rebirths] and met his father, who had become a Brahma-king. Father and son embraced, and the son asked, ‘‘If Father is so happy, wherever can Mother have gone to?’’ ‘‘I was never without the sūtras in hand and practiced virtue; hence, I was born here. But, because she sinned, she was born in hell.’’ With that, round midnight, Maudgalyāyana went to the realm of hell for the sake of his mother. On the way, he met up with a rich man named *Zhang Shanhua (Tib. Cang zhan hwa) who had eaten mutton, drunk ale, killed [by hunting] with falcons and dogs, blasphemed the saṅgha, and shouted the command, ‘‘Kill!’’ On the fifteenth of the previous month, he had died, but only after Yama’s armies twice attacked. He was surrounded by a thousand yamas bearing pitchforks, a rope was tied about his waist, and before him there were five hundred fox-headed [demons] howling. Blood oozed from each one of his pores, and smoke poured out of his mouth. With blood spurting from his nose like an arrow in flight, he cried as he was being led away. Continuing his descent, [Maudgalyāyana] encountered yamas with oxheads and horseheads, but, though he asked them, he could not find his mother. Finally, he met Yamarāja, who sent him to the side of the Lord Who Commands the Five Paths, Wudao Jiangjun (Tib. Mgo de tsang kun).62 He was wearing golden armor, held a sword, and roared with his eyes bulging. He was terrifying to behold, and surrounded by a company of five hundred, he killed, beat and hacked to pieces beings of human form. Seeing this, [Maudgalyāyana] asked, ‘‘Have you seen my mother, Maudgalā?’’ When [the Commander] passed the inquiry on to his scribe, [the latter responded,] ‘‘A certain ‘Maudgalā’ passed this way three human years ago and is now in Avı̄ci.’’ Grieving, he proceeded there, but a rāksasa king blocked the ˙ way and said, ‘‘The Avı̄ci hell is terrifying! Bottom to top, it’s made of iron and copper all aflame. Hadn’t you better go elsewhere?’’ Maudgalyāyana replied, ‘‘Who can open its portals?’’ (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 364) Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell 365 He said, ‘‘Just three can open it: Yama, Wudao Jiangjun, and the Blessed Lord Śākyamuni!’’ Delighted, Maudgalyāyana took up in an instant the Blessed Lord’s robes, almsbowl and staff, and before the door of Avı̄ci he thrice shook the rattle of the staff, whereupon the door spontaneously opened. As he shook it again, the watchtower of the iron fortress, together with the key, fell to the ground. From within the door that had spontaneously opened, oxheaded rāksasas with iron ˙ pitchforks came out. ‘‘I have come here to find my mother.’’ ‘‘She’s in Avı̄ci,’’ they said. Then, when he passed through that door, some five hundred rāksasas refused to let him go on. At this, Maudgalyāyana focused ˙ his gaze and while saying, ‘‘If I make my home here, what power do you have?’’ he rattled his staff, whereupon their pikes and pitchforks fell from their hands, and they were unable to stop him. When he arrived before the gate of the iron fortress and again rattled his staff, the sword and spear grove, the mountain of blades, and the needles and thorns on which [the damned] were impaled, continually vomiting flames, disappeared by themselves. But then numberless rāksasas arrived and there was an exchange of ques˙ tions and answers as before, after which the rāksasas led Maudgalā ˙ out and brought her beside her son. Her head was the size of a mountain and her throat thin as a thread. She was unable to walk and her body was pierced with 360 nails. When he saw her like this, he spoke choked with tears, ‘‘My mother! Formerly you were happy, but now you suffer with blood pouring from the seven orifices. Did you get the things I sent from home?’’ His mother replied, ‘‘My son! Whatever you send, it’s of no use. But if you can, copy the scriptures for my sake. There’s no greater benefit than that.’’ The guards shouted, ‘‘Lead her here and put a thousand nails into her body!’’ When he heard this, Maudgalyāyana beat himself until blood poured from his mouth and eyes, and he said to the guards, ‘‘I will take on my mother’s suffering!’’ They replied, ‘‘How can you change karma?’’ With that, they led his mother away, and Maudgalyāyana fell to the ground. The Blessed Lord, who was residing in Sakarjen (Sa dkar can) during the summer retreat and was occupied in taming the evil (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 365) Matthew T. Kapstein 366 destinies, knew [what had occurred]. He dispatched Ānanda, who travelled to hell in an instant and raised Maudgalyāyana, who was on the verge of expiring. When [the latter] came before the Blessed Lord, he said, ‘‘I pray that you liberate my mother from the sufferings of hell.’’ The Blessed Lord then projected light into the infernal realms. Indra took hold of a parasol and led the way, while Brahmā followed, holding on to [the Buddha’s] golden robes. As soon as they arrived at the gates of hell, the portals all opened by themselves. Iron hammers became jewels, while molten copper cooled, and the denizens of hell took rebirth in the heavens. But despite this, Maudgalā alone was not freed from the sufferings of the evil destinies and instead was reborn as a hungry ghost, pained with great hunger and thirst. Maudgalyāyana thereupon took his mother to Rājagrha, where ˙ he begged for alms and gave her whatever he received. She greedily stuffed her mouth with food, but it turned into blazing coals, so that she could not eat it. When Maudgalyāyana tried to feed her with a golden spoon, fire poured out of her nose and mouth, and she could not eat. Then, [wandering] in all directions, many tens of thousands of yojanas, he led her to a riverbank and bade her drink, while [at the same time] the Blessed Lord projected emanations of some five hundred hungry ghosts, who appeared to be drinking the water of the river. [Seeing them,] Maudgalā ran all about, trying to prevent the hungry ghosts from drinking, owing to which the water, too, turned into blazing coal, so that she could not drink. Her son said, ‘‘Mother! Why have you prevented the hungry ghosts from drinking the river water? If, thanks to your desire and greed, you’re still unsatisfied, when will you ever be reborn in the higher abodes?’’ At this, she became embarrassed before her son. As soon as pangs of regret arose in her mind, she became able to drink the water. She then died right there, on the bank of the river, and took birth in Rājagrha as an untamable, black, yellow-eyed bitch. ˙ Seeing Maudgalyāyana passing by on his alms round, she licked his robes and shed tears. He said to her, ‘‘Mother! What’s the matter with you that, even though you’ve become a dog, you can’t abandon evil conduct?’’ And he wept as well. Maudgalyāyana then went before the Blessed Lord: ‘‘As my mother has now become a bitch, what can I do so that she will be free?’’ (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 366) Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell 367 [The Blessed Lord] declared: ‘‘If you invite the sublime ones (ārya) to recite the scriptures continuously for forty-nine days, she will be liberated.’’ He did just this, whereupon she transmigrated and was born as a fine young girl in the worldly realm of Light Rays.63 When the Blessed Lord traveled to Lomachen (Slo ma can), he came to Anavatapta, where Maudgalyāyana saw him and knew that his mother had been tamed by the Blessed Lord. For this reason, he prayed once again and his request was granted: ‘‘By whose miraculous power may I be confident of success?’’ ‘‘By my miraculous power!’’ This said, Mahā-Maudgalyāyana planted a step on the summit of Mt. Meru and, carried by the miraculous power of the Blessed Lord, he travelled on, arriving in Light Rays in a week. When that fine girl saw Maudgalyāyana from a distance, she exclaimed, ‘‘I see my son!’’ The assembled crowd demanded proof, and Maudgalyāyana affirmed that she had been his mother in a former life. After the Blessed Lord, too, had expounded the doctrine, they saw the truth, expressed their acclaim, and offered alms to the Blessed Lord and Maudgalyāyana, which were accepted. Maudgalyāyana then led his mother to the world of Brahmā, where he entrusted her to his father. Afterwards, the Blessed Lord said, ‘‘Was Maudgalyāyana confident of success?’’64 ‘‘The Blessed Lord made the journey!’’ ‘‘By whose miraculous power?’’ ‘‘By that of the Blessed Lord!’’ ‘‘Now, think on the Jetavana!’’ ‘‘Blessed Lord! Shall we go there?’’ ‘‘Maudgalyāyana himself has already gone; he may be called the ‘Miracle Quick Wit.’ ’’ So saying, he dwelt in Jetavana.65 Notes For their critical and constructive comments on this chapter, in its various versions presented as talks during the long course of its evolution, beginning in autumn 2000, I extend thanks to Anne-Marie Blondeau, Kuo Liying, Françoise Pommaret, and Geoffrey Samuel. I am grateful to the British Library, London, and to the Société Asiatique, Paris, for making unique documents from their collections available to me in connection with this research. Stephen F. Teiser kindly read the penultimate draft of the essay, providing me with helpful suggestions for its final revision. (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 367) 368 Matthew T. Kapstein 1. See my Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism: Conversion, Contestation, and Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), chaps. 2–5, for general background. 2. Useful orientations to the now extensive literature on the spread of Chan Buddhism to Tibet will be found in Jeffrey L. Broughton, The Bodhidharma Anthology: The Earliest Records of Zen (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); Paul Demiéville, ‘‘L’introduction au Tibet du bouddhisme sinisé d’après les manuscrits de Touen-houang: Analyses de récents travaux japonais,’’ in Contributions aux études sur Touen-houang, ed. Michel Soymié (Geneva and Paris: Librairie Droz, 1979), 1–16; Kapstein, The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism, chap. 5; Lewis Lancaster and Whalen Lai, eds., Early Ch’an in China and Tibet, Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series 5 (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1983); and Guilaine Mala and Kimura Ryūtoku, Un Traité tibétain de Dhyāna chinois (Chan), Bulletin de la Maison Franco-Japonaise, nouvelle série 12/1 (Louvain: Peeters, 1988). Demiéville’s Le concile de Lhasa: Une controverse sur le quiétisme entre bouddhistes de l’Inde et de la Chine au VIII e siècle de l’ère chrétienne, Bibliothèque de l’Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, vol. 7 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale de France, 1952), and Giuseppe Tucci, Minor Buddhist Texts, parts 1 and 2, Serie Orientale Roma 9, (1956 and 1958, reprinted Kyoto: Rinsen Shobō, 1978), remain the fundamental points of departure for the study of Chan in Tibet. 3. Rolf A. Stein, ‘‘Tibetica Antiqua I: Les deux vocabulaires des traductions Indo-tibétaine et Sino-tibétaine dans les manuscrits de Touenhouang,’’ Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient 72 (1983): 149–236. 4. For background, see Arthur Waley, Ballads and Stories from Tunhuang (New York: Allen and Unwin, 1960); Victor Mair: Tun-huang Popular Narratives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), and T’ang Transformation Texts: A Study of the Buddhist Contribution to the Rise of Vernacular Fiction and Drama in China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989); and Stephen F. Teiser, The Ghost Festival in Medieval China (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988). A discussion of the tale of Mulian in relation to the cult of Ksitigarbha may be found in ˙ Françoise Wang-Toutain, Le Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha en Chine du V e au ˙ XIII e siècle (Paris: Presses de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1998), 132–35. It should be noted that the Yulanpen jing has often been treated as an authentic Indian work or as one of Central Asian Indo-Iranian Buddhist origin. The canonical Chinese version attributes its translation to the Indian Dharmaraksa (Ch. Zhu Fahu, 266–317 CE). It seems to me rather ˙ more likely, however, that this sūtra is indeed a Chinese apocryphon, though perhaps one that reflects elaborations of the Maudgalyāyana legend that were transmitted via Central Asia. Note that in using the Chinese Mulian to refer on occasion to Tibetan materials concerning Maudgalyāyana in (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 368) Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell 369 this chapter, I am taking some liberty (though not too much, as Mu[qian]lian, like Tibetan Mo’u/Me’u dgal gyi bu, is based on the transcription of the Indic). In the present context, this is simply a convenient device to emphasize that the tales here considered are derived from Chinese and not Indian sources. 5. See J. J. Jones, trans., The Mahāvastu, vol. 1, Sacred Books of the Buddhists 16 (London: Luzac, 1949), 6–21, for Maudgalyāyana’s journeys to the hells, and 22–52, for his peregrinations in other realms. The versions of these episodes known in Tibet, however, were derived from the Mūlasarvāstivādavinaya. On his ignorance of his mother’s birth in the divine Marı̄cilokadhātu, refer to Louis de La Vallée Poussin, L’Abhidharmakośa de Vasubandhu (reprint, Brussels: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1971), 1:2n3; and comments of Yaśomitra on Vasubandhu, Abhidharmakośam, ed. Swāmı̄ Dvārikādāsaśāstrı̄ (Varanasi: Bauddha Bharati, 1970–72), 1:7. 6. The ghost festival is studied in detail in Teiser, The Ghost Festival in Medieval China. 7. On the zho ston, as traditionally conducted, see Thupten Sangay, Bod kyi dus ston: Festivals of Tibet [in Tibetan] (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1974), 50–54, and Hugh E. Richardson, Ceremonies of the Lhasa Year (London: Serindia Publications, 1993), 99–107. It is not clear that the festival was originally connected strictly with the close of the summer retreat, and it may have at first just marked the close of the summer herding season, when dairy production is at its peak. In Lhasa at the present time, the authorities of the Tibetan Autonomous Region have made every effort to transform the zho ston into a tourist event exemplifying Tibetan folklore. It seems, therefore, that ‘‘demonic disturbance’’ has at last gained the upper hand. 8. Thupten Sangay, Bod kyi dus ston, 58; Richardson, Ceremonies of the Lhasa Year, 109. 9. Donald S. Lopez, Jr., ed., Religions of Tibet in Practice (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), chap. 15, by Richard Kohn, and chap. 26, by the Nālandā Translation Committee, provide examples of rites of the first two of these categories. On the gcod, refer to Giacomella Orofino, Contributo allo studio dell’insegnamento di Ma gcig lab sgron (Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1987), and Jérôme Edou, Machig Labdrön and the Foundations of Chöd (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1996). It is not without interest in this context to note that the Bacot Collection ms. 110, discussed in greater detail below (see note 29), includes a particularly wellknown version of the incense fumigation practice, the Ri bo bsang mchod of Lha btsun Nam mkha’ ’jigs med (1597–1652), as its principal ritual component. 10. Jean Przyluski, ‘‘Les rites d’Avalambana,’’ in Mélanges chinois et (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 369) 370 Matthew T. Kapstein bouddhiques 1 (1931–32): 221–25. The proposal that the yulan ritual might be related to the class of offerings known in Tibetan as gtor ma (Skt. bali) goes back at least to Ernest J. Eitel, Handbook of Chinese Buddhism, 2nd ed. (Hong Kong, 1888; reprint, New Delhi: Cosmo, 1981), 185–86, sub ‘‘ullambana.’’ 11. It is no. 266 in vol. 79 of The Tog Palace Manuscript of the Tibetan Kanjur, Sherig Dpemzod Series (Leh, Ladakh: C. Namgyal Tarusergar, 1975–80), 109 vols., as catalogued by Tadeusz Skorupski, A Catalogue of the Stog Palace Kanjur, Bibliographia Philologica Buddhica, Series Maior 4 (Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1985), 144. Géza Bethlenfalvy, A Hand-List of the Ulan Bator Manuscript of the Kanjur Rgyal-rtse Thems Spaṅs-ma (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1982), lists it as Ulan Bator no. 314 and as Tokyo no. 266, following the handlist prepared by Kōjun Saitō. As the Yulanpen jing was never included in the printed Tibetan canons, its occurrence in these three manuscripts (though no doubt there are others as well), all ultimately derived from the fourteenth- or fifteenthcentury Rgyal rtse Them spangs ma manuscript, raises some interesting questions in connection with Tibetan canonical transmission. The text of the Stog Palace Kanjur is, however, the only one that I have actually been able to consult to date, so my remarks are necessarily based on it alone. I have prepared a bilingual Chinese and Tibetan edition of the text, to be published with more detailed philological commentary on a later occasion. 12. On ’Gos Chos grub, or Facheng, see Demiéville, Le concile; Shōju Inaba, ‘‘On Chos-grub’s Tibetan Translation of the Chien-chen-mi-chungshu,’’ in Buddhist Thought and Asian Civilization: Essays in Honor of Herbert V. Guenther on His Sixtieth Birthday, ed. Leslie S. Kawamura and Keith Scott (Emeryville, CA: Dharma Publishing, 1977), 105–13; Daishun Ueyama (with reference to his more detailed work in Japanese) in Lancaster and Lai, eds., Early Ch’an in China and Tibet; and Pieter C. Verhagen, ‘‘A NinthCentury Tibetan Summary of the Indo-Tibetan Model of Case-Semantics,’’ in Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 5th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Narita 1989, ed. Ihara Shōren and Yamaguchi Zuihō (Narita: Naritasan Shinshoji, 1992), 833–44. 13. Refer to note 3 above. 14. Thus, for example, the Chinese daoyan, ‘‘eye of the path,’’ is literally rendered here in Tibetan as lam gyi mig. The sense of the term as it is used in the Yulanpen jing, however, seems that of the Sanskrit divyacaksuh, the ˙ ˙ ‘‘divine eye,’’ or clairvoyance, translated in standard Tibetan Buddhist terminology as lha yi mig. Chos grub, perhaps not entirely sure of the Chinese usage in this case, probably opted to play it safe by calquing the Chinese. Elsewhere we find the Chinese xiao, ‘‘filial piety,’’ translated as sri zhu, a word meaning roughly ‘‘courteous behavior, etiquette,’’ without the very precise connotations of the Chinese. (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 370) Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell 371 15. IOL J Tib. no. 686, as listed in Louis de La Vallée Poussin, Catalogue of the Tibetan Manuscripts from Tun-huang in the India Office Library (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), 221. For a transcription of the text, see my ‘‘A Dunhuang Tibetan Summary of the Transformation Text on Mulian Saving His Mother from Hell,’’ in Dunhuang wenxian lunji, ed. Hao Chunwen and Zhu Bian (Shenyang: Liaoning Renmin Chubanshe, 2001), 235–47. I should note that because the Tang-period translator Chos grub was well aware that ‘‘Mu(qian)lian’’ was simply a transcription of the Sanskrit ‘‘Maudgalyāyana,’’ he used only the Tibetan rendering of the Sanskrit name in his writings—i.e., Mo’u/Me’u dgal gyi bu. 16. Teiser, The Ghost Festival in Medieval China, 48. 17. Indeed, the Tibetan version of the sūtra actually begins with an illformed ‘‘Sanskrit’’ title: Ārya-pariśaranibhañja[sic!]-nāmasūtra, though the ˙ colophon assures us that the text was in fact translated from the Chinese. The pseudo-Sanskrit in this instance is thus best explained as a calque, whether due to Chos grub himself or (as seems far more likely) to some later scribe or editor attempting to supply a Sanskrit equivalent to Chos grub’s Tibetan. This in itself, therefore, provides no reliable evidence concerning the interpretation of the meaning of the title in Chinese, for it merely confirms what Chos grub’s Tibetan already tells us—namely, that he understood yulanpen to mean a ‘‘vase of complete protection.’’ Though not at all supporting the derivation of the term from avalambana, Chos grub’s rendering is nevertheless broadly consistent with another of the proposed Indic etymologies, which holds that the source word might be the Pāli or Buddhist Sanskrit ullumpana, ‘‘saving, pulling out [of evil circumstances].’’ It is not clear, however, that Chos grub was himself aware of this explanation. Moreover, for phonological reasons, the transcription of ullumpana as yulanpen (substituting the short u of the second syllable with a/e) seems implausible. All in all, it seems more prudent to hold that ’Gos Chos grub understood yulanpen as a set expression and translated accordingly. 18. Though I speak of parental death—and indeed the Chinese texts in question do promulgate their rituals for the benefit of one’s parents and ancestors ‘‘to the seventh generation’’—the emphasis is nevertheless clearly on the mother’s passing. When both parents are explicitly mentioned, the father is usually depicted as virtuous and therefore reborn in paradise thanks to his own positive karma, without requiring the special ritual intercession needed to save the mother from the fruits of her evil ways. While this gender asymmetry is of considerable interest and merits further reflection, particularly in connection with the image of mother-son relations in the societies with which we are concerned, it is not in itself the main topic of this chapter and so has been left relatively unexplored herein. It is, however, studied with reference to Chinese sources in Alan Cole, Mothers and Sons (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 371) 372 Matthew T. Kapstein in Chinese Buddhism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), where chaps. 5 (‘‘Mothers and Sons in the Ghost Festival’’) and 8 (‘‘Mu Lian and the Ten Kindnesses of the Mother’’) are particularly pertinent to our present subject matter. 19. On transformation texts, see especially Mair: Tun-huang Popular Narratives and T’ang Transformation Texts. Mair’s translation of the Damuqianlian mingjian jiumu bianwen, given in the former work with copious annotation, has been usefully republished, though without the full apparatus, in Victor Mair, ed., The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 1093–1127, to which I refer here for reasons of convenience. 20. Yoshiro Imaeda, Histoire du cycle de la naissance et de la mort (Geneva and Paris: Librairie Droz, 1981). See, too, the comments on this work in my ‘‘Indian Literary Identity in Tibet,’’ in Literary Cultures in History, ed. Sheldon Pollock (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 762–67. 21. A fully detailed comparison between the Transformation Text and its several available Tibetan retellings must be deferred for another occasion, though a solid beginning, with reference to one of the Tibetan versions, may be found in the contribution of Takasaki Jikidō, cited in note 29 below. This important article is the partial exception to the general Tibetological neglect of bianwen. Takasaki, however, considered the Transformation Text to be just an extracanonical sūtra (J. kyō), without reference to the genre of bianwen. 22. Though hur has been documented as transcribing fo, ‘‘buddha,’’ in Old Tibetan documents (refer to my Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism, 200n65), in the present case this is improbable. It could be used to render any one of several characters whose present readings are fu, hu, etc. 23. Takata Tokio, ‘‘Bouddhisme chinois en écriture tibétaine: Le Long Rouleau chinois et la communauté sino-tibétaine de Dunhuang,’’ in Bouddhisme et cultures locales: Quelques cas de réciproques adaptations, ed. F. Fukui and G. Fussman (Paris: Presses de l’École Française d’ExtrêmeOrient, 1994), 137–44. 24. I.e., Kolita, Maudgalyāyana’s proper name as given in Buddhist Sanskrit sources. In Chinese, this was usually rendered Luobo, ‘‘Turnip,’’ though the basis for this interpretation remains unclear. Kola- in Sanskrit refers to the jujube. In any event, it is not without interest that Chos grub chose to use the transcription of the Indic in this context. 25. Sngo nag mdog ¼ Ch. Qingti. Because the second syllable of the Chinese makes no sense, Mair speculates that this may be an instance of a meaning þ phonetic compound, representing an Indic name that he gives as Nı̄ladhi. It seems to me no less plausible, however, to suppose that the second syllable was added just to give the name an exotic, foreign ring, (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 372) Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell 373 much as we find in the plentiful pseudo-Sanskrit expressions with which both Chinese and Tibetan tantric apocrypha are liberally peppered. Note that in contrast with his treatment of the name Turnip, Chos grub has not adopted an Indic usage here. 26. As Teiser, The Ghost Festival in Medieval China, 202, puts it, ‘‘A strict reading of the doctrine of karma throws into question the efficacy of traditional ancestral offerings.’’ Consider, too, chap. 5, where his theme is ‘‘Mu-lien as Shaman,’’ and 203–8, where he takes up the ritual and ascetic power attributed to the monks. Despite the sharp dichotomy between rational and magical sources of agency that seems at play here and that, in my view, must be underscored in analyzing the traditions under discussion, Teiser interprets these and other structural oppositions in terms of what he calls the ‘‘ ‘total’ socioreligious system’’ (209), which is held together through interaction, reciprocity, and exchange, whereby, in effect, the hard edge of the law is softened in its applications. 27. Jared Douglas Rhoton, trans., A Clear Differentiation of the Three Codes (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), 196n103. 28. Jampa Samten, ‘‘Notes on the Bka’-’gyur of O-rgyan-gling, the Family Temple of the Sixth Dalai Lama (1683–1706),’’ in Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 6th Seminar of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, Fagernes 1992, ed. Per Kvaerne (Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture, 1994), 393–402; cf. 395–96. I have not, however, been able to verify his identification of this text with the Rgyal bu kun tu dge zhes bya ba’i mdo as given in the Stog Kanjur, no. 268. 29. Bacot ms. 110 in the collection of the Société Asiatique, Paris. The tale of Maudgalyāyana is here given as the ninth fascicle (Tibetan marginal siglum ta) in eleven folios. As Takasaki Jikidō has shown, this text corresponds very closely to the Transformation Text and may in fact be substantially identical to its Tibetan translation: Indogaku Bukkyōgaku ronshū: Takasaki Jikidō Hakushi kanreki kinen ronshū (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1987), 427–45. I am grateful to Yao Zhihua for having brought this interesting study to my attention. Françoise Pommaret, Les revenants de l’au-delà dans le monde tibétain: Sources littéraires et tradition vivante (Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1989), 25–29, provides a discussion of Bacot ms. 110 (referred to as ‘‘Le Xylographe Ka shod’’) in the context of her investigation of the ’das log as a living tradition in eastern Bhutan. See, further, the same author’s contribution to Lopez, ed., Religions of Tibet in Practice, and Bryan Cuevas’ chapter in this volume. 30. Pommaret, Les revenants de l’au-delà dans le monde tibétain, 123–61, offers a valuable ethnography of a number of such practicing ‘‘returnees.’’ 31. Bacot ms. 110, tenth fascicle (Tibetan marginal siglum tha) in fourteen folios. Dudjom Rinpoche, Jikdrel Yeshe Dorje, The Nyingma School of (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 373) 374 Matthew T. Kapstein Tibetan Buddhism: Its Fundamentals and History, trans. Gyurme Dorje and Matthew Kapstein (London: Wisdom Publications, 1991), 1:760–70, supplies a summary version of Guru Chos dbang’s traditional hagiography. The story of his salvation of his mother is not mentioned therein. 32. Reginald A. Ray, Buddhist Saints in India: A Study in Buddhist Values and Orientations (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), surveys many of the pertinent Indian sources. 33. An obvious objection here is that the tale of the hero’s descent into hell is a near universal motif of mythology and folklore—consider Dionysius and Orpheus—so that to assume genetic connections among its various instances is therefore questionable. While this is no doubt generally correct, I will be arguing in what follows that there are in fact some very precise indications, above and beyond very general thematic similarities, that demonstrate that the Tibetan story of Guru Chos dbang’s rescue of his mother was directly inspired by a version of the Transformation Text. If this is right, then it becomes more plausible to consider other Tibetan representatives of the same theme as stemming ultimately from the same source. 34. Mair, The Columbia Anthology, 1094. 35. Bacot ms. 110, tenth fascicle, fol. 7a4: a ma’i rus pa khyi khar ma shor ba. 36. The ‘‘six sages,’’ through whom the Buddha is present in each of the six classes of sentient existence, belong to the Rnying ma pa mandala ˙˙ system of the Peaceful and Wrathful Divinities of the Magical Net (sgyu ’phrul zhi khro), which informs, for instance, the Bar do thos grol, the socalled Tibetan Book of the Dead. The scriptural source from which they are derived is the third chapter of the Guhyagarbha-tantra (Rgyud gsang ba snying po), cited in Dudjom Rinpoche, The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, 1:414. See also 129 of the same work. 37. Bacot ms. 110, tenth fascicle, fol. 8a1. 38. Mair, The Columbia Anthology, 1099: ‘‘Your mother’s activities while she was alive were different from mine. . . . If you search for your mother among the infernal paths of Jambudvı̄pa, you’ll soon find out where she has gone.’’ 39. Unnamed in the Tibetan but clearly the Whathellwedo River of Mair’s translation. 40. Chos dbang rgyal po. The phrase in fact abbreviates the verse chos kyi dbang phyug chos kyi rgyal, from the Mañjuśrı̄nāmasamgı̄ti, verse 55, ˙ which is always cited in explanation of Chöwang’s name. See Dudjom Rinpoche, The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, 761, and Bacot ms. 110, tenth fascicle, fol. 2b4. 41. Bacot ms. 110, tenth fascicle, fol. 8b5. 42. Ibid., fol. 9a1–2: bdag gi a ma btang du gsol, a ma’i las ngan bdag gi khur lags so; cf. Mair, The Columbia Anthology, 1116: ‘‘My only wish, war- (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 374) Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell 375 den, is that you release my mother,/and I myself will bear the endless suffering for her.’’ 43. Bacot ms. 110, tenth fascicle, fol. 9a3–11b6. 44. Ibid., fol. 11b6–13b4; cf. Mair, The Columbia Anthology, 1126. 45. It must be stressed that Tibetan moral sensibilities were sorely piqued by animal slaughter. Comments on this, based on ethnographic observation and literary historical study respectively, may be found in Robert B. Ekvall, Fields on the Hoof: Nexus of Tibetan Nomadic Pastorialism (New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1968), 46–51, and my ‘‘The Sprul-sku’s Miserable Lot: Critical Voices from Eastern Tibet,’’ in Proceedings of the 9th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies: Amdo Tibetans in Transition, ed. Toni Huber (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 99–111. The qualified reassurance offered by our present text, therefore, may be regarded as addressing a real source of anxiety. 46. Refer to the contributions of Mair cited above in note 4. The Indian background of Chinese picture recitation, together with much on its broad distribution, is studied at length in Mair’s Painting and Performance: Chinese Picture Recitation and Its Indian Genesis (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1988). See in particular 116–18 on picture recitation in Tibet. 47. Rolf A. Stein, Recherches sur l’épopée et le barde au Tibet (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959), 322–27. 48. A stag lha mo, in the series Gling Ge sar sgrung gi byis pa’i rtsom rig dpe tshogs (The children’s literary collection of stories of Ling Gesar) (Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1998). 49. Though it is of course possible that other Tibetan versions of the tale, such as that of Guru Chos dbang, played an intermediate role here. 50. Stein, Recherches sur l’épopée et le barde, 324. 51. The text has been published many times in recent years, and the comparison of its several editions remains a desideratum. In the present research I have referred to Gling rje Ge sar rgyal po’i sgrung dmyal gling rdzogs pa chen po (Chengdu: Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1987) and Rig ’dzin Drag rtsal rdo rje, Dmyal gling: The Legend of Ge-sar King of Gling’s Conquest of Hell (Thimphu: Damchoe, 1979), referred to respectively as Chengdu and Thimphu in the notes that follow. Other editions include vol. 19 of The Epic of Gesar: ’Dzam gling Ge sar rgyal po’i rtogs brjod sna tshogs gtam gyi phreng ba, 31 vols. (Thimphu: Kunsang Tobgyel, 1979–84), with Tibetan introduction by Lopon Pemala and English introduction by R. A. Stein; Gling rje Ge sar rgyal po’i mdzad sgrungs las Dmyal ba’i le’u: An Episode from the Gesar Epic Cycle Recounting the King of Ling’s Conquest of Hell (New Thobgyal, H. P.: Monastic Centre, 1973); and ’Dzam gling Seng chen Nor bu dgra ’dul gyi rnam thar las Dmyal gling rdzogs pa chen po: The Dmyal Gling Episode of the Gesar Epic Recounting the Conquest of the Realm of the Dwellers of Hell (Dehra Dun, U.P.: D. G. Khochen Tulku, 1977). Li- (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 375) 376 Matthew T. Kapstein brary of Congress listings for the last two attribute its authorship to ’Dan Bla ma Chos kyi dbang phyug. Stein, Recherches sur l’épopée et le barde, 54, shows that the same version of the episode formed part of the Gesar cycle as known at pre-1947 Rwa sgreng, and on p. 66 Stein mentions a Sde dge xylograph of the same. Note, too, that the possible connection of this episode with the tale of Mulian was first proposed, but left undeveloped, by Stein in the same work (45, 323). As his remarks here show, however, he was inclined to see this as an instance of a widespead shamanic motif; cf. note 33 above. Besides the Dmyal gling rdzogs pa chen po, other recensions of the episode that have been published in recent years include Kha-gling and Dmyal-gling: Two Episodes from the Gesar Epic Cycle Recounting the King of Ling’s Conquest of the Khache and of Hell (New Delhi: B. Jamyang Norbu, 1971), and ’Dzam-gling Ge-sar rgyal po’i sgrung: Dmyal gling mun pa rang gsal (Xining: Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1997). 52. Dmyal gling (Chengdu), 351. 53. Dmyal gling (Chengdu), 142; Dmyal gling (Thimphu), 160–61. On the ’pho ba rite, used to project the consciousness of the deceased swiftly into a favorable rebirth, see my ‘‘A Tibetan Festival of Rebirth Reborn: The 1992 Revival of the Drigung Powa Chenmo,’’ in Buddhism in Contemporary Tibet: Religious Revival and Cultural Identity, ed. Melvyn Goldstein and Matthew Kapstein (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). 54. She may in fact be the apotheosis of a historical personnage, discussed in Miranda Shaw, Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 117–25. 55. Dmyal gling (Chengdu), 144; Dmyal gling (Thimphu), 163. 56. Matthieu Ricard et al., trans., The Life of Shabkar: The Autobiography of a Tibetan Yogin (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 200–3. 57. Dmyal gling (Chengdu), 146; Dmyal gling (Thimphu), 166. 58. Dmyal gling (Chengdu), 150–54; Dmyal gling (Thimphu), 170–77. 59. The phenomenon of the double as it occurs here merits further consideration. On the double as a widespread theme in Indian and Greek mythologies, see Wendy Doniger, Splitting the Difference: Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). 60. Dmyal gling (Chengdu), 155–56; Dmyal gling (Thimphu), 179–80. 61. Dmyal gling (Chengdu), 156–57; Dmyal gling (Thimphu), 181–82. 62. The Tibetan here pleonastically supplies a Tibetan translation of the title together with the transcription from the Chinese. The representation of Chinese wu, ‘‘five,’’ as mgo is common in Tibetan transcriptions of Middle Chinese and so supports the assumption that the translation of the Transformation Text, like the Tibetan Yulanpen jing and Chos grub’s summary, was a work of the Tang period or very shortly thereafter. 63. This is of course the Marı̄cilokadhātu mentioned in the Abhi- (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 376) Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell 377 dharma (note 5 above). The account we find here thus in effect seeks to reconcile this with the Transformation Text. 64. From this point on, the exchange is rather elliptical and its meaning less than perfectly clear. 65. Sna nam btsun pa Skal bzang chos kyi rgya mtsho, Sangs rgyas bcom ldan ’das kyi rnam par thar pa rmad du byung ba mdzad pa ’khrul pa med par brjod pa bde bar gshegs pa’i spyod pa mchog gi gter [¼ Sangs rgyas mdzad rnam], Sde dge xylographic edition (Delhi: Tashi Dorje, 1973), fols. 114b–116b (¼ plates 228–32). A modern typeset edition is given in Ston pa’i rnam thar chen mo (Xining: Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1994), 219–23. (AutoPDF V7 3/11/06 11:10) UHP (6"
9") NAster J-1631 Cuevas PMU:(CKN[A])2/11/2006 pp. 345–377 1631_11 (p. 377) THE TIBETAN YULANPEN JING 佛說盂蘭盆經 Matthew T. Kapstein The present is the third (and presumably the last) in a series of articles consecrated to the study of Chinese traditions concerning the arhat Mulian, that is, Mah -Maudgaly yana (Ch. (Da)mu(qian)lian 大目乾連), as these are known in Tibetan sources. The first (KAPSTEIN 2001) offered an introduction to the subject, together with a transcription and translation of the Dunhuang manuscript IOL Tib J 686, in which we find a verse summary of the celebrated ‘transformation text’ on Mulian’s salvation of his mother from hell, the Da muqianlian mingjian jiumu bianwen 大目乾連冥間救母變 文. This was followed by a more detailed study (KAPSTEIN 2007) that attempted to trace the influence of the Mulian tales in later Tibetan Buddhist literature. In both of these essays, I referred briefly to the existence of a Tibetan version of the well-known Chinese Buddhist apocryphon, the ‘Sūtra of the Yulan vessel’, Yulanpen jing (T 685), that had been translated during the early ninth century by the Dunhuang-based master ’Gos Chos-grub (Ch. Facheng 法成), who seems to have been also the author of the abbreviated retelling of the transformation text.1 Here, I present a more detailed account of the Tibetan text of the sūtra, followed, in the appendix, by an improved edition of the abridgement of the bianwen given in IOL Tib J 686. The interest of the Tibetan Yulanpen jing stems in part precisely from the apocryphal status of the Chinese original. 2 Though a thorough inventory of Chinese apocryphal scriptures in Tibetan translation has never been undertaken, it is safe to say that only a small fraction of such works was ever translated and that, for reasons that are not yet well understood, the Tibetans in general seem to have 1 On this figure see DEMIÉVILLE 1952, INABA 1977, UEYAMA 1983, and VERHAGEN 1992. 2 BUSWELL 1990 provides as excellent survey of the apocryphal scriptures as a key issue in the study of Chinese Buddhism. See, too, KUO 2000 for a useful review of the topic and the present state of research. 212 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN intentionally avoided these texts. Although efforts were made to translate Buddhist literature from Sanskrit virtually in its entirety, the Tibetan project of translating Buddhist Chinese was remarkably restrained, so that it seems fair to ask of any given Chinese apocryphon that we find in Tibetan, just what may have motivated its translation? The question is easiest to answer with respect to relatively late translations, for instance, those of the Beidou jing (‘Sūtra of the Northern Dipper’, T 1307, Foshuo beidou qixing yanming jing 佛說 北 斗 七 星 延 命 經 ) realized under the Yuan dynasty, or of the apocryphal ūraṃgamasam dhisūtra (‘Sūtra of the Heroic March’, T 945, Shoulengyan jing 首楞嚴經) and the Sishi’erzhang jing (‘Sūtra in Forty-two Sections’, T 784, 四十二章經) both commissioned in the Qianlong era (1735-1796) during the Qing.3 In these cases, the interests of the court required the imperial promulgation of particular scriptures: the cult of the Northern Dipper came to play a role in Yuan rites of royal protection, while the last two scriptures mentioned occupied so central a place in the Qing-period conception of Chinese Buddhist teaching that their apocryphal origins were frankly unimaginable. For this reason, it was deemed necessary to incorporate them into the Tibetan scriptural corpus as well, as if they were authentic Indian sūtras.4 The Tang-period translations are more difficult to assess. R. A. Stein has argued that some of the Tibetan translations of Chinese Buddhist works, including both Chan texts and various apocrypha, as well as certain Confucian writings, make use of a vocabulary (Stein’s ‘Chinese’ vocabulary) based on direct translation of Chinese that so closely resembles indigenous Tibetan usage that translations and 3 For the Tibetan versions of these three apocrypha, see, respectively, FRANKE 1990, STAEL-HOLSTEIN 1936, and FEER 1868. It may be noted that Stael-Holstein, while very much aware that the authenticity of the larger ūraṃgamasam dhisūtra is questionable, considers the work not to have been in toto a forgery, on the grounds that it incorporates some elements of Indian origin. Part of the larger ūraṃgamasam dhisūtra, moreover, had been translated into Tibetan already during the eighth or ninth century. As for the last mentioned sūtra, Feer does not seem to have entertained the thought that the Sishi’erzhang jing might be inauthentic. 4 This is made quite explicit in the emperor’s preface to the ūraṃgamasam dhisūtra, translated in STAEL-HOLSTEIN 1936. In this connection, an amusing anecdote, for which I am grateful to Professor Raoul Birnbaum (UC Santa Cruz), relates that one of the later Lcang-skya khutughtus was asked by a Chinese devotee whether or not this sūtra was to be considered an apocryphal work. Of course not, the hierarch replied, one finds it after all in the Tibetan Bka’-’gyur! (Though this work was included in the Snar-thang Bka’-‘gyur, the Sishi’erzhang jing, though published xylographically, seems not to have entered into any edition of the Tibetan canon.) THE TIBETAN YULANPEN JING 213 autochthonous works may be on occasion confused. 5 Though the evidence is unsure, tradition holds Chinese Buddhist and nonBuddhist works to have been first introduced during the time of Khri Lde-gtsug-btsan (r. 712-755), thanks to the influence of his Tang royal bride, the princess of Jincheng 金城公主 (d. 739). At the same time, however, it is certain that many of the extant Tibetan translations from Chinese were produced far from the center, that is in Dunhuang, and date only to the first half of the ninth century. Contrasting with the ‘Chinese’ vocabulary, we often find in use here the standard ‘Indian’ translation lexicon, even in cases where the source language was in fact Chinese. Moreover, in some instances we find multiple translations of one and the same Chinese work— even examples in which versions using the Chinese and Indian conventions, respectively, are known—that were no doubt produced under differing circumstances and may have been destined for differing audiences. 6 These and other variable factors caution us against hastily adopting any specific covering explication for Tang Sino-Tibetan translation. In the particular instance with which we are concerned here, however, we are in the fortunate position of being able to situate the work with relative precision, for the colophon is signed by the noted ninth-century translator ’Gos Chos-grub of Dunhuang. But, as the œuvre of this translator includes a related text, the summary of the transformation tale given below in the appendix, that was clearly intended for tibetophone Chinese use in the region of Dunhuang,7 it seems plausible that the translation of the Yulanpen jing was similarly conceived and so not in the first instance intended to augment the Tibetan translation canon at all.8 Just how it came to be transmitted to central Tibet, where it was in a sense canonized by its inclusion in the manuscript Bka’-’gyur-s as noted below, remains a mystery. 5 STEIN 1983: 209: ‘Le vocabulaire des traductions du chinois est souvent le même que le vocabulaire indigène traditionnel (archaïsant). Si le titre ou le sujet d’un texte donné n’est pas précisé, on ne peut pas dire avec certitude s’il s’agit d’un écrit indigène ou d’une traduction du chinois.’ 6 Particularly noteworthy in this respect is the Bayang jing (八陽經, T 2897) on which see STEIN 1983: 156-59 and passim; and EIMER 2002. 7 On the use of Tibetan by Chinese Buddhists as evidenced in the Dunhuang documents, see especially TAKATA 1994. 8 Refer to the ‘notes and comments’ on paragraph 28 below. Note, too, that our text is not mentioned in either of the surviving imperial period scriptural catalogues, the Ldan kar ma (LALOU 1953) and the ’Phang thang ma (RTA-RDO 2003). 214 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN TEXT AND TRANSLATION The Tibetan Yulanpen jing is so far known only from three of the manuscript versions of the Tibetan Buddhist canon, where it is entitled ’Phags pa yongs su skyobs pa’i snod ces bya ba’i mdo. It is text number 266 in volume 79 of the Stog Palace Bka’-’gyur manuscript, 9 as catalogued by Tadeusz SKORUPSKI (1985: 144). Géza BETHLENFALVY (1982) lists it as Ulan Bator no. 314, and as Tokyo no. 266 following the handlist prepared by Kōjun Saitō. As the Yulanpen jing was never included in the printed Tibetan canons, its occurrence in these three manuscripts (though no doubt there are others as well), all ultimately derived from the 14th or 15th century Rgyal-rtse Them spangs ma manuscript, raises some interesting questions in connection with Tibetan canonical transmission, especially in regard to the possibility that our text was to be found in the Them spangs ma itself. The reproduction of the Stog Palace manuscript is, however, the only one that I have actually been able to consult to date, so that my edition and comments are necessarily based on it alone.10 The Chinese text of the Yulanpen jing reproduced here follows the Taishō edition and my division of the work into numbered passages is strictly a matter of convenience, in order to facilitate the comparison of the two versions considered. While the punctuation of the Taishō has been left as is, it should be noted that this is often not reliable. The translation follows the Tibetan, though in one passage (no. 2), I translate also the Chinese, as the two texts are entirely independent of one another in this instance. The relationship between the Chinese and Tibetan texts, and the conventions adopted by ’Gos Chos-grub in his translation, will be discussed in the following section. For an English translation based on the Chinese text, interested readers may find it convenient to consult the work of TEISER (1988: 48-54). As STEIN (1983) has observed, Buddhist works were translated into Tibetan following two quite different types of conventions, which may be termed Indian and Chinese respectively. The former is of course better known, generally regarded as the standard, and its 9 In The Tog Palace Manuscript of the Tibetan Kanjur, Sherig Dpemzod Series (Leh, Ladakh: C. Namgyal Tarusergar, 1975-1980), 109 vols. 10 As Paul Harrison notes (correspondence, 5 February 2007), ‘Judging by the numbers of the Stog, Tokyo & Ulan Bator mss, this text must have been in Vol. Sa of the Shel dkar (London) Kanjur, which is unfortunately now missing.’ THE TIBETAN YULANPEN JING 215 lexicon, representing the Sanskrit Buddhist vocabulary, is in large measure canonized in the two great glossaries of the early ninth century, the Mah vyutpatti and its companion, the Madhyavyutpatti, or Sgra sbyor bam po gnyis pa. The Chinese translation conventions, by contrast, frequently deviate from Indian-inspired usage and appear to be less thoroughly standardized. Among Buddhist texts, this approach to translation is represented primarily in a variety of Chan documents, as well as apocryphal or popular scriptures, many preserved at Dunhuang but some known from the canonical collections as well. An additional feature of the old translations to which Stein called attention is of particular pertinence here: the so-called ‘Indian’ and ‘Chinese’ translation conventions do not strictly correspond, in the case of originally Chinese works, to the source language. In other words, some Chinese Buddhist texts were translated into Tibetan adhering closely to the ‘Indian’ system of conventions. This may be seen in certain well-known canonical works such as the Tibetan translation of Yijing’s version of the Suvarṇaprabh sottama-sūtra (NOBEL 1958), to mention just one example. 11 In some cases, as Stein also noted, we even find doublets, the same text being found in Tibetan in both ‘Indian’ and ‘Chinese’ versions, e.g., the Bayang jing, referred to earlier (n. 6). In connection with our present text, ’Gos Chos-grub’s translation of the Yulanpen jing, Stein’s findings permit us to specify that, while Indian conventions were quite closely adhered to throughout, lending to the work much the appearance of a sūtra of bona fide Indian origin, at a number of key points concessions were nevertheless made to elements of characteristically Chinese usage. 12 In one instance, the literal rendering of Ch. daoyan 道眼 ‘eye of the path’ as lam gyi mig, this may reflect the translator’s hesitation over a term that seemed not to be part of the standard Indian Buddhist vocabulary. In another case, we find egui 餓鬼, equivalent to Skt. preta, translated as yi dags ltogs po. Here, though yi dags alone 11 Of course, in this case one might argue that the adherence to the ‘Indian’ conventions is fully warranted by the fact that the text in question is in most respects of genuine Indian (or, perhaps in some passages, Central Asian Indic) origin. While this is quite true, the point is rather that here and in other, similar cases, without regard to the question of authenticity, the translators of these works into Tibetan were entirely aware of the trilingual system of equivalencies, and so were quite capable of translating Buddhist Chinese so as to convey the look and feel of a text rendered directly from Sanskrit. 12 STEIN (1983: 160) remarks that ‘Čhos-grub … emploie toujours le voc[abulaire] ind[ien].’ MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN 216 would have fulfilled the normal requirements of translation, ltogs po ‘hungry’ has been added in order to retain explicitly the connotations of the Chinese term. Fuller reflections on these and other philological details will be found in the notes and comments given below. The transcription of the text that I provide here is by no means to be regarded as a critical edition. With only one of the three known manuscript versions of the Tibetan at my disposal, my aim has been only to reproduce its contents with accuracy. For the Chinese, similarly, I have copied the text as given in the Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, without regard to different editions (with the exception of a single character in passage 12). As will become clear in my remarks, however, although the Tibetan does correspond closely to the text found in the Taishō, the Chinese version upon which Chos-grub based his translation nevertheless differed from it in some notable respects. 1. [a25] 佛說盂蘭盆 經 [a26] [258a3] $ /rgya gar skad du/ a’arya pa ri sha ra Ni bha nydza n’a ma s’u tra/ bod skad du/ ’phags pa yongs su skyob pa’i snod ces bya ba’i mdo / / In the language of India: ryapariśaraṇibhañja-n ma-sūtra In Tibetan: ’Phags pa yongs su skyob pa’i snod ces bya ba’i mdo (‘The Sublime Sūtra entitled, The Vessel of Universal Protection’) 2. [a27] 西晋月氏三藏 竺法護譯 sangs rgyas dang byang chub sems dpa’ thams cad la phyag ’tshal lo / / Ch. Translated by the Yuezhi Tripiṭaka [master], the Indian Dharmarakṣa, of the Western Jin dynasty. Tib. Homage to all buddhas and bodhisattvas! THE TIBETAN YULANPEN JING 3. [a28] 聞如是 ｡ 一時 佛在舎衛國祇樹給 孤獨園 ｡ 217 ’di skad bdag gis thos pa dus gcig na / bcom ldan ’das yul mnyan yod na rgyal byed kyi tshal mgon med zas sbyin gyi kun dga’ ra ba na bzhugs te/ Thus have I heard: at one time the Lord dwelt in r vasti, in the Jetavana, the garden of An thapiṇḍada. 4. 大 [a29] 目乾連始得 六通 ｡ 欲度父母 報乳哺之恩 ｡卽 [b1] 以道眼觀視世 間 ｡ de’i tshe tshe dang ldan pa mo’u ’gal gyi bu chen po mngon par shes pa drug thob nas / pha ma gnyis gdul zhing/ drin bsab par ’dod pa’i phyir / lam gyi mig gis ’jig rten rnams la rnam par bltas na / At that time, yuṣman Mah -Maudgaly yana, having obtained the six super-cognitions, desiring to convert [his] two parents and to repay [their] kindness, inspected the worlds with the eye of the path. 5. 見其亡母生餓鬼 中 ｡ 不見 [b2] 飲食 皮骨連立 ｡目連悲 哀 ｡ 卽鉢盛飯往 [b3]其母 ｡ bdag gis ma dus las ’das te/ yi dags ltogs po’i nang du skyes te / zas dang skom bza’ zhing btung ba med pas / pags pa dang rus pa ’ba’ zhig phan tshun ’brel bar mthong nas/ mo’u ’gal gyi bu yongs su gdung bas ngus te / lhung bzed zas [258b] kyis bkang ste ma’i drung du song ngo / / Thereupon, seeing that his mother was deceased and born among hungry ghosts, without food or drink, only skin and bone hanging together, Maudgaly yana wept in total misery. Filling his begging bowl with food, he went before his mother. MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN 218 6. 母得鉢飯 ｡ 便以 左手障飯右手博飯 [b4] 食未入口化成 火炭 ｡ 遂不得食 ｡ de’i ma lhung bzed kyi zas thob pa / lag pa g.yon pas ni zas g.yogs / lag pa g.yas na zas blangs te / bza’ bar bya ba las / zas khar ma phyin par me lce ’bar bar gyur pas zas thob par ma gyur to / His mother got the food in the bowl, covering the food with her left hand, while taking it up in her right. As she was about to eat, before the food reached her mouth, it changed into blazing tongues of flame, so that she did not obtain any food. 7. 目連大叫悲 [b5] 號 啼泣 ｡ 馳還白佛 ｡ 具陳如此 mo’u ’gal gyi bu yongs su gdung bas ngus te / myur du slar log nas don ’di zhib tu bcom ldan ’das la gsol pa dang/ Maudgaly yana wept in total misery, and quickly returned to present these facts to the Lord in detail. 8. [b6] 佛言 ｡ 汝母罪 根深結 ｡ 非汝一 人力所奈何 ｡ bcom ldan ’das kyis bka’ stsal pa / khyod kyi ma’i sdig pa’i rtsa ba shin tu zab cing / mdud par gyur / khyod gcig pu’i mthu’i stobs kyis ci byar yang med la / The Lord said: ‘Your mother’s sinful roots are very profound and entangled [lit. ‘knotted’]. There is nothing at all you can do by your power alone. 9. 汝 [b7] 雖孝順聲動 天地 ｡ 天神地神邪 魔外道 ｡ 道 [b8] 士 四天王神 ｡ 亦不能 奈何 ｡ Khyod sri zhu smre bas / gnam sa ’gul kyang / gnam gyi lha dang / sa’i lha dang / bdud dang mu stegs can lam la gnas pa’i skyes bu dang / rgyal chen bzhi’i lha dag gis kyang ci byar med pas / THE TIBETAN YULANPEN JING 219 ‘Even if you, with pious conduct and lamentations, should move heaven and earth, there is nothing at all that can be done by even the gods of heaven, or the gods of earth, or the M ras, tīrthakas, and persons who abide on the path, or the deities [in the realm] of the four great kings. 10. 當須十方衆僧成 神之力 ｡ 乃得 解脫 [b9] phyogs bcu’i dge ’dun gyi mthu stobs kyis gdod de grol bar ’gyur te / ‘Therefore, it is by the power of the saṃgha of the ten directions that she will come to be liberated. 11. [b10] 吾今當為汝說 救濟之法 ｡ 令 一切 難皆離優 [b11] 苦罪 障消除 ngas de ’dir yongs su skyob pa’i chos bstan pa nyid kyis bgegs thams cad spong zhing sdug bsngal gyi phung po bzlog par bya’o / ‘I shall teach here the doctrine that will entirely protect her, whereby all obstacles will be abandoned and the mass of suffering will be stopped.’ 12. [b12] 佛告母連 ｡十 方衆僧於七月十五 日僧自恣 [b13] 時 ｡ 當為七世父母 ｡ 及現在父母厄難中 者｡ 具 [b14] 飯百 味 五果汲灌盆器 ｡ 香油錠燭 13 床敷臥 bcom ldan ’das kyis / mo’u ’gal gyi bu la bka’ stsal pa / phyogs bcu’i dge ’dun ston zla ra ba’i nya la dgag dbye byed pa’i tshe / rabs bdun tshun chad kyi pha ma dang / da ltar gyi pha ma bgegs kyi gnas dang / gnas pa dag gi phyir / ro brgya dang ldan pa’i zas dang / ’bras bu lnga dang / snod 13 Taishō gives the character zhu 燭 in a more complex form composed of radical 火 + phonetic 屬. I follow here the Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text 220 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN 具 ｡ [b15] 盡世甘美 以著盆中｡供 十 方大德衆 僧 ｡ yongs su bkang ba dang / spos mar gyi sgron ma dang / [259a] $ / / mal cha dang/ ’jig rten pa’i zas mngar zhing zhim pa ji snyed pa dag snod bkang ste / phyogs bcu’i dge ’dun yon tan chen po dang ldan pa rnams mchod cig dang The Lord [then] said to Maudgaly yana: ‘On the full moon of the first autumn month, when the saṃgha of the ten directions perform the separation from the prohibitions [i.e., the Prav raṇ ceremony which closes the summer retreat], then, on behalf of parents [i.e. ancestors] down to the seventh generation and of one’s present parents, in order to purify the obstructed abodes and those who abide in them, a vessel should be filled with all sorts of foods of a hundred flavours and the five fruits, overflowing vessels, fragrant oil lamps, bedding, and sweet and delicious worldly foods; and thereby do worship the saṃgha of the ten directions, those endowed with great virtues! 13. 當 [b16] 此之日 ｡ 一切聖衆或在山間 定或得四道 [b17] 果 ｡ 或樹下經行 ｡ 或六通自在教化聲 聞緣 [b18] 覺 ｡ 或 十地菩薩大人權現 比丘 ｡ 在大衆中 皆 [b19] 同一心受鉢 和羅飯 ｡ de’i nyin par ’phags pa’i dge ’dun brag phug na bsam gtan la mnyam par gzhag na/ ’bras bu bzhi thob pa dang / nags tshal dag na ’chag pa dang / mngon par shes pa drug la dbang thob pas don byed pa dang / nyan thos dang/ rang sangs rgyas thams cad dang / sa bcu’i byang chub sems dpa’ skyes bu chen po thabs kyis dge slong lta bur ston pa dag ’khor mang po der ’dus te / sems rtse gcig tu dgag dbye’i zas blangs te / Association in giving just the common form. The use of the simpler variant is warranted by note 17 of the Taishō edition. THE TIBETAN YULANPEN JING 221 ‘On that very day, when the sublime saṃgha settles into balanced absorption in rock caves, and the many assemblies gathered together there [include] those who have attained the four goals, those who roam in the forest, those who have become empowered in the six super-cognitions and so act beneficially, and all the r vakas and pratyekabuddhas, and those great persons, the bodhisattvas of the ten planes, who skilfully manifest themselves as bhikṣus, then, with mind onepointed, they partake of the food [offered] during the ceremony of the separation from the prohibitions. 14. 具清淨戒聖衆之道 其 [b20] 德汪洋｡ 其有供 此等自恣 僧者 ｡ 現在父 [b21] 母七世父母六種親 屬 ｡ 得出三途之 苦 ｡ 應 [b22] 時解 脫衣食自然 ｡ tshul khrims yongs su dag pa phun sum tshogs par byed par ’gyur te/ ’phags pa’i dge ’dun gyi lam gyis ni de lta bu yin pas / gang gis dgag dbye byed pa’i dge ’dun ’di lta bu zhig de dag la mchod pa byed na da ltar gyi pha ma dang / rabs bdun tshun chad kyi pha ma dang / nyes par ngan song gsum gyi sdug bsngal las nges par ’byung zhing rnam par grol nas / gos zas dang ldan par ’gyur ro / / ‘They come to practice pure and perfect discipline, and then, because it is so owing to the path of the sublime saṃgha, whoever worships such a saṃgha that thus performs the separation from the prohibitions, [may be assured that] their present parents and ancestors down to the seventh generation will emerge from the sufferings of the three sinful and evil destinies and having been freed will have clothing and food. 15. 若復有人父母現在 者福 [b23] 樂百 年 ｡ da ltar gyi pha ma gang yin pa de dag ni bsod nams kyis lo brgya’i bar du bde bar gnas par ’gyur ro / / MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN 222 ‘Those who are their present parents will abide in bliss, owing to [that] merit, for a century. 16. 若已亡七世父母生 天 ｡ 自在化生入 [b24] 天華光 ｡ rabs bdun gyi pha ma gang yin pa de dag ni / ji ltar ’dod bzhin du lha’i gnasu skye bar ’gyur bas / lha’i me tog ’od can du rdzus te skye bar ’gyur ro// ‘Whoever were their parents [ancestors] throughout the seven [previous] generations will be born as they desire in the abodes of gods, and so will be born miraculously in luminous, divine flowers.’ 17. 受無量快樂時佛勅 十方衆僧 ｡ 皆 [b25] 先為施主家呪 願 ｡ 七世父母 ｡ 行禪定意然 [b26] 後 受食 ｡ de nas bcom ldan ’das kyis phyogs [259b] bcu’i dge ’dun rnams la / dge ’dun thams cad kyi ma yon bdag gi khyim du rabs bdun gyi pha ma’i ched du smon lam btab ste / / bsam gtan sgom pa’i bsam pa yid la byas nas de’i ’og tu zas blang bar bya’o / / Then the Lord [continued] discoursing to the saṃghas of the ten directions: ‘The entire saṃgha should pray, in the homes of their mothers and patrons, on behalf of the parents throughout seven generations. And, having formed an intention to cultivate contemplative absorption, they should afterwards partake of the food. 18. 初受盆時 ｡ 先安 在佛塔前 ｡ 衆僧 呪 [b27] 願意 ｡ 便 自首食 zas dang po len pa’i tshe / sngar de bzhin gshegs pa’i mchod rten gyi mdun du bzhag ste / dge ’dun gyis smon lam btab zin nas bdag nyid zas blang bar bya’o zhes bka’ stsal pa dang/ THE TIBETAN YULANPEN JING 223 ‘On taking the first of the food, it should be placed beforehand in front of a stūpa of the Tath gata, and, after the saṃgha have completed their prayers, they should partake of the food themselves.’ 19. [b28] 爾時目連比丘 及此大會大菩薩 衆 ｡ 皆大 [b29] 歡 喜 ｡ 而目連悲啼泣 聲釋然除滅 ｡ de’i tshe dge slong mo’u ’gal gyi bu dang / dge ’dun mang po dang / byang chub sems dpa’i dge ’dun chen po rnams rab tu dga’ zhing dge slong mo’u ’gal gyi bu yongs su gdung bas ngu ba’i sgra yang zhi bar gyur to / At that time, the bhikṣu Maudgalyāyana and the manifold saṃgha and the great saṃgha of the bodhisattvas rejoiced, and the cries of lamentation of the bhikṣu Maudgalyāyana were stilled. 20. 是時目 [c1] 連其 母 ｡ 卽於是日得 脫一劫餓鬼之苦 de’i tshe mo’u ’gal gyi bu’i ma yang bskal pa gcig gi bar du yi dags ltogs pa’i sdug bsngal myong ba las thar par gyur to / / At that time, Maudgaly yana’s mother, too, was released from the experience of an æon of suffering as a hungry ghost. 21. [c2] 爾時目連復白 佛言 ｡ 弟子所生父 母 ｡ 得蒙 [c3] 三寶 功得之力 ｡ 衆僧威 神之力故 ｡ 若未來 世 [c4] 一切佛第 子 ｡ 行孝順者亦應 bcom ldan ’das la / mo’u ’gal gyi bus yang ’di skad ces gsol to / / bskyed pa’i ma yin na / dkon mchog gsum gyi yon tan gyi mthu dang / dge ’dun gyi mthu byin gyi rlabs kyi stobs kyis der thar te / slad ma’i tshe dus kyi sangs rgyas kyi slob ma sri zhu spyod pas thams cad dang / sri zhu MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN 224 奉此盂蘭盆 ｡ [c5] 救度現在父母乃至 七世父 母 ｡為可爾 不 dang bcas pa su’ang rung ba de dag kyang / da ltar gyi pha ma dang / rabs bdun gyi pha ma yongs su skyob pa’i slad du yongs su skyob pa’i snod kyis mchod par bgyid rung lags sam / Maudgaly yana then petitioned the Lord as follows: ‘As it is the mother who has given one birth who is freed there by the power of the Three Jewels’ attributes and by the blessed force of the saṃgha, therefore, in the future, ought not all disciples of the Buddha who practice pious conduct, and all those others who are endowed with pious conduct, worship by means of the vessel of complete protection in order to entirely protect present parents and parents throughout seven generations?’ 22. [c6] 佛言 ｡ 大善快 問 ｡ 我正欲 說 ｡汝 今復問 ｡ bcom ldan ’das [260a] $ / / kyis bka’ stsal pa / ngas yang dag par bshad par bya ba las deng khyod kyis legs par zhu ba zhus pa shin tu legs so / / The Lord declared: ‘In respect to what I am about to well explain, you have now made an excellent request and that is very good. 23. 善男 [c7] 子｡ 若有 比丘比丘尼 ｡ 國王 太子王子大臣 [c8] 宰相 ｡ 三公百官萬 民 庶 人 ｡ 行孝慈 者 ｡皆應 [c9] 為所 生現在父母 ｡ 過去 七世父母 ｡ 於七月 rigs kyi bu dge slong ngam / dge slong ma’am / rgyal po’i bu ’am / rgyal po’am / blon po rnams sam / dmangs kyang rung ste / gang sri zhu spyod cing snying brtse ba dang bcas pa de dag gis kyang / da ltar gyi pha ma dang / rabs bdun tshun chad kyi pha ma’i ched du ston zla ra ba nya la / de bzhin THE TIBETAN YULANPEN JING 十 [c10] 五日 ｡佛歡 善日 ｡ 僧自恣日 ｡ 以百味飲食安 [c11] 盂蘭盆中 ｡ 施十方 自恣僧 ｡ 乞願便使 現在 [c12] 父母壽命 百年無病 ｡ 無一切 苦惱之 患 ｡ 乃至 [c13] 七世父母離餓 鬼苦 ｡ 得生天人中 福樂無 [c14] 極 225 gshegs pa rnams dgyes shing/ dge ’dun dgag dbye byed pa’i tshe ro brgya dang ldan pa’i zas rnams snod du bkang ste / phyogs bcu’i dge ’dun dgag dbye byed pa’i mchod nas / da ltar gyi pha ma lo brgya’i bar du na ba med cing sdug bsngal gyi mi bde ba rnams med pa dang / rabs bdun tshun chad kyi pha ma yang yi dags ltogs pa’i sdug bsngal dang bral te / lha dang mi’i nang du skyes nas / bsod nams kyi bde ba thug pa med pa myong bar smon lam gdab par bya’o// ‘O noble son! whether one be a bhikṣu or a bhikṣuṇī, a prince, a king, ministers, or even a commoner, whosoever is possessed of pious conduct together with loving kindness, [that person, who] on behalf of present parents and parents down to the seventh generation, on the full moon of the first autumn month, delighting the Tath gatas at the time when the saṃgha parts from the prohibitions, fills a vessel with hundred-flavoured foods and so performs the worship of the saṃgha of the ten directions who are parting from the prohibitions, should pray that their present parents will be free from illness and discomfort for a century, and their parents down to the seventh generation will be free from the sufferings of the hungry ghosts, and that, having been born among gods and men, they will experience meritorious bliss without limit. 佛告諸善男子 善女人是佛弟子修 孝順者 ｡[c16] 應念 念中常憶父母供 24. [c15] sangs rgyas kyi nyan thos gang sri zhu bsgrub pa / da ltar gyi pha ma dang / rabs bdun tshun chad kyi pha ma rtag tu rjes su dran pa de dag gis kyang / lo re bzhin du ston zla ra ba nya la rtag par MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN 226 乃至七世父母 ｡ 年 [c17] 年七月十五 日 ｡ 常以孝順慈憶 所生父母 ｡[c18] 乃 至七世父母為作盂 蘭盆施佛及僧 ｡ 以 報 [c19] 父母長 慈 愛之恩｡ sri zhu dang / snying brtse bas da ltar gyi pha ma dang / rabs bdun tshun chad kyi pha ma’i ched du / yongs su skyob pa’i snod bshams te / de bzhin gshegs pa dang dge ’dun mchod nas / pha ma’i snying brtse [260b] ba’i byams pas rnyed pa’i drin bsab par bya’o / / ‘As for the service to be accomplished [for] the Buddha’s r vakas, those [who do so] always recollecting present parents and parents down to the seventh generation, and annually, on the full moon day of the first autumn month, perform a perpetual service, with love on behalf of present parents and parents down to the seventh generation, must arrange a vase of protection. Having worshipped the Tath gata and the saṃgha, they should repay the kindness obtained through parental loving kindness. 25. 若一切佛弟子 ｡應 當奉 [c20] 持是法 de bzhin gshegs pa’i nyan thos thams cad kyis kyang/ gus pas chos ’di yongs su gzung bar bya’o zhes gsungs pa dang / ‘All of the Tath gata’s r vaka-s, too, must respectfully accept this Dharma.’ 爾時目連比 丘 ｡ 四輩弟子 ｡ 聞佛所說歡喜[c22] 奉行 26. [c21] de’i tshe tshe dang ldan pa mo’u ’gal gyi bu dang / ’khor bzhi po rnams shin tu dga’ bas / bcom ldan ’das kyis gsungs pa la mngon par bstod do / / THE TIBETAN YULANPEN JING 227 So he spoke, and at that time yuṣman Maudgaly yana and the four assemblies rejoiced greatly, so that they manifestly praised what the Lord had said. 27. [c23] 佛說盂蘭盆經 ’phags pa yongs su skyob pa’i snod ces bya ba’i mdo rdzogs so / / / / The Sublime Sūtra of the Vase of Complete Protection is completed. 28. zhu chen gyi lo tsa ba dge slong ’gos chos grub kyis rgya’i dpe las bsgyur cing zhus te gtan la phab pa’o / / / / The translator-in-chief bhikṣu Chos-grub has translated this from the Chinese exemplar, and has corrected and redacted it. NOTES AND COMMENTS 1. The Tibetan translation begins, surprisingly, with an ‘Indian’ version of the title, despite the clear indication in the colophon (no. 28) that the text is translated from the Chinese. The title as given, ryapari araṇibhañjan ma-sūtra, is clearly a calque, in Tibetan pidgin Sanskrit (e.g., pidgin bhañja for Skt. bh jana), of the Tibetan version of the title, ’Phags pa yongs su skyob pa’i snod ces bya ba’i mdo. There can be little doubt that a later copyist or editor was responsible for this addition and that only the Tibetan title was due to ’Gos Chos-grub’s original. The most important question raised by the title concerns Chosgrub’s treatment of the problematic expression yulanpen 盂蘭盆, rendered here as yongs su skyob pa’i snod. As is well-known, the title of this sūtra is based on a term, yulan or yulanpen, that does not make good sense in Chinese. Therefore, it has often been interpreted as a foreign—Sanskrit, Pali, or Iranian—loanword. The Sanskrit avalambana, ‘pendant, hanging down’, has been the most frequently suggested source, and is thought to refer here to rites for the 228 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN salvation of souls ‘hanging downward’ in hell. 14 Indeed, it sometimes seems assumed that this explanation is so highly plausible, despite the absence of evidence supporting such a use of avalambana in known Indic contexts, that writers on East Asian Buddhism have on occasion written of ‘Avalambana’ as if it were an established fact that this is the true proper name of the ghost festival. The Tibetan translation of the Yulanpen jing is of interest to us in the first instance, therefore, because it provides some indication of the manner in which the title was understood by a prominent Tangperiod translator in Dunhuang, who was familiar with both contemporary Chinese and Sanskrit Buddhist usage. Chos-grub’s rendering of the title may be translated The Sublime Sūtra entitled, The Vessel of Complete Protection. It seems quite clear that the derivation from avalambana in the meaning of ‘hanging down’ does not at all accord with this interpretation. Given the literalness with which Chos-grub translated the sūtra overall, it seems implausible that he would have provided a paraphrase or approximate rendition of the title, if a Sanskrit term such as avalambana were clearly in the background. Though not therefore supporting the derivation of yulan(pen) from avalambana, Chosgrub’s interpretation of the title is nevertheless consistent with another of the proposed Indic etymologies, which holds that the source word might be the Pali and Buddhist Sanskrit term ullumpana, ‘saving, pulling out [of evil circumstances]’. (Scholars of Chinese Buddhism have often mistranscribed this as ullampana, ullambana, or even ullambhana, thereby avoiding the phonological problem posed by the replacement of the short u of the second syllable with the short a of yulanpen.) It is not at all clear, however, that Chos-grub was himself aware of this explanation; for the phrase yongs su skyob pa is used a total of four times in the text (in passages 11, 21, 24), twice as part of the phrase yongs su skyob pa’i snod = yulanpen, but twice (nos. 11 and 21) to render jiu 救 ‘to save, liberate, deliver (from distress)’. All in all, it seems more prudent to hold that ’Gos Chos-grub understood yulanpen as a set expression, referring to a vase or vessel used for rites of protection. Though this is semantically consistent with a hypothetical derivation from ullumpana, it does not confirm the fact of such a derivation. 2. The Chinese and Tibetan of the second passage are altogether independent of one another, as it is merely a question in both cases 14 See, e.g., EITEL 1981 [1888]: 185-186, sub ‘ullambana’. THE TIBETAN YULANPEN JING 229 of conventions used for introducing canonical scriptures. The Chinese attributes the purported translation of the work to the famous Dharmarakṣa of the Western Jin dynasty (265-317 C.E.), an attribution whose origins remain obscure. The Tibetan inserts the standard formula of homage to the buddhas and bodhisattvas that, following a convention said to have been adopted by the translation committees of the monarch Ral-pa-can (reigned 815-841), was to be used to introduce all Mahāyāna sūtras. It is of course impossible to know whether it was Chos-grub or a later editor who added it in this case. 3. The opening nid na well exemplifies Chos-grub’s general strategy of employing standard expressions used for the translation of Indic Buddhist works to represent the Chinese. Thus, for instance, fo 佛 ‘Buddha’ is rendered here as bcom ldan ’das ‘Bhagav n’ in accord with the usage generally adopted for the text as a whole (see also paragraphs 7, 8, 12, 17, 21, 22, 26), though there is some alternation with de bzhin gshegs pa as well (see §18 below).. Note, too, that if one strictly follows the Tibetan punctuation, which is not always a good idea, the beginning may be read ‘Thus have I heard at one time…’ It is out of place here to enter into the old dispute as to whether ekasmin samaye is better construed with the preceding or following phrase. 4. Similarly, the phrase de’i tshe ‘at that time’, though not at all found in the Chinese, is added at the beginning of the narrative apparently just in order to conform to normal stylistic conventions. So, too, Damuqianlian 大目乾連, Mah -Maudgaly yana, is granted the title tshe dang ldan pa ‘ yuṣman’, as would be expected in a genuine Indic text. As mentioned earlier, a peculiar element in this passage is the expression lam gyi mig ‘eye of the path’, a precise rendering of Ch. daoyan 道眼. In Indic Buddhist usage we might expect divyacakṣuḥ in this context, Tib. lha’i mig. Chos-grub, however, chose not to interpret the text at this point and so favored instead an exact representation of the Chinese term. On the equivalence Ch. dao = Skt. m rga = Tib. lam, refer to STEIN 1983: 168. 5. Note that egui 餓鬼, Skt. preta, is here translated yi dags ltogs po, the final ltogs po/pa being unnecessary except insofar as it specifies the sense of the Chinese. Thus usage was adopted by Chos-grub throughout: see also passages 20 and 23. 230 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN 6. For Ch. 火炭 ‘flaming coals’, Tib. freely translates me lce ’bar ba, ‘blazing tongues of flame’. 7. Ch. 具陳如此 ‘laid out everything as it had happened’ (TEISER 1988: 50). Tib. don ’di zhib tu … gsol pa, ‘to present these facts … in detail’. 9. We find here the first of five occurrences of the character xiao 孝 ‘filial piety’ (cf. paragraphs 21, 23, 24), translated in all cases as sri zhu, for which I give ‘pious conduct’ in English, though ‘respect’ or ‘honour’ are equally satisfactory. Although the equivalence of Ch. xiao and Tib. sri zhu has been accepted for lexical purposes down to the present day (e.g., Bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo, 2973, which gives xiaojing 孝敬), it is clear that the Tibetan does not have the pronounced connotations of filiality that are regularly associated with the corresponding Chinese. Sri zhu pertains rather, to the proper behavior due to social superiors in general. Where Tibetan specifies filial piety in particular, some such locution as pha ma la sri zhu, ‘pious conduct toward parents’, is often employed. The translation of Ch. waidao 外 道 by Tib. mu stegs can, ‘tīrthaka’, is typical of what STEIN (1983: 155, 187) holds to be the ‘Indian’ usage. In translations adhering to the Chinese conventions, we find mur ’dug pa (in later usage mur stug/thug pa), a distnction which gave rise, in Rnying ma pa literature, to two distinct types of ‘heretics’, mu stegs and mur stug. See, for example, DUDJOM RINPOCHE 1991: I.63ff. 11. This is the first occurrence of the phrase yongs su skyob pa’i chos, ‘doctrine of complete protection’ (Ch. 救濟之法) that no doubt supplies the basis for Chos-grub’s interpretation of the text’s title. See §1 above. 12. The Chinese and Tibetan translations of Prav raṇ , as 自恣 and dgag dbye, respectively, though strictly synonyms, are interestingly different in their emphasis. The former, as TEISER (1988: 32) suggests, can be taken to mean ‘following one’s bent’, whereas the latter strictly denotes ‘separation from prohibition’. 13. Ch. 或六通自在教化聲聞緣覺, Tib . mngon par shes pa drug la dbang thob pas don byed pa dang / nyan thos dang/ rang sangs rgyas thams cad. TEISER (1988: 51) reads the Chinese here as saying, THE TIBETAN YULANPEN JING 231 ‘those who use the six penetrations to be free; those who convert others, hear preaching, and awaken to causality’, while the Tibetan has, ‘those who have become empowered in the six super-cognitions and so act beneficially, and all the r vakas and pratyekabuddhas’. However, ‘hear preaching’ and ‘awaken to causality’ are perhaps best taken in this context as literal renderings on Teiser’s part of the Chinese terms for r vaka and pratyekabuddha. For bo 鉢 = Skt. p tra, ‘bowl’, Chos-grub specifies dgag dbye’i zas, ‘food [offered] for the Pravāraṇā’. 14. The Tibetan omits Ch. 六種親屬 ‘six kinds of relatives’. 16. Ch. 自 在 化 生 ‘born freely through transformation’ (TEISER 1988: 52), Tib. ji ltar ’dod bzhin du … skye ba, ‘born as they desire’. The Tibetan recovers the sense of ‘transformation birth’ (化生) in the following rdzus te skye ba, ‘born miraculously’. 17. The first five characters of the Chinese text of this passage 受無 量快樂 are not at all represented in the corresponding Tibetan, as indeed they are not in the ‘Three Editions’ of the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, and in the Old Song Edition (1104-1148 C.E.) ‘belonging to the Library of the Imperial Household’ (Taishō n. 25). TEISER (1988: 52) rightly ignores the punctuation of the Taishō here and, construing this phrase with the preceding sentence, translates ‘and receive unlimited joy’. 18. For fo 佛, Chos-grub here uses de bzhin gshegs pa, ‘Tathāgata’, instead of bcom ldan ’das. Interestingly, there does appear to be a precise semantic shift involved here, besides a mere preference for variation for stylistic reasons. The use of bcom ldan ’das appears to be restricted to occasions when the text is referring to the particular Buddha (i.e., ākyamuni) who is Mulian’s interlocutor. De bzhin gshegs pa, on the other hand, as employed here (and in §§23, 24, 25) may be interpreted as referring to any Buddha. So, too, the two occasions (§§21, 24) on which fo is translated using the standard Tibetan rendering of buddha, i.e., sangs rgyas. These distinctions, of course, are not at all in evidence in the Chinese. 21. Here, and at §§23, 24, we find the only instances in which the expression 盂蘭盆 is actually used within the body of the text. Chosgrub translates it as yongs su skyob pa’i snod at the first and last occurrences, but uses snod alone at §23. In the present paragraph, the 232 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN second repetition of yongs su skyob pa (without the snod) expresses jiu 救 ‘to save’. 22. The Tibetan here is a paraphrase of the Chinese, not a precise rendering. TEISER (1988: 53) reads: ‘Excellent! This question pleases me very much. It is just what I would like to preach, so listen well!’ 23. 國王太子王子大臣 宰相 ｡ 三公百官萬 民 庶 人 ｡ 行孝慈者 ｡ ‘Kings of states, princes, sons of kings, great ministers, counselors, dignitaries of the three ranks, any government officials, or the majority of the common people who practice filial compassion…’ (TEISER 1988: 53). Chos-grub, in reading rgyal po’i bu ’am / rgyal po’am / blon po rnams sam / dmangs kyang rung ste / gang sri zhu spyod cing snying brtse ba dang bcas pa de dag, ‘a prince, a king, ministers, or even a commoner, whosoever is possessed of pious conduct together with loving kindness…’, is no doubt abbreviating the text for convenience, though Taishō n. 43 shows wangzi 王子 ‘sons of kings’ to have been omitted from the ‘Three Editions’ (§17 above) as well. 24. The first nine characters of the Chinese 佛告諸善男子善女人 are not translated in Tibetan and, following Taishō n. 52, are absent from the same four editions of the Chinese Tripiṭaka mentioned in §17 above. TEISER (1988: 53) translates, ‘The Buddha told all of the good sons and good daughters…’ 26. The translation bcom ldan ’das kyis gsungs pa la mngon par bstod do, ‘they manifestly praised what the Lord had said,’ for 聞佛 所說歡喜奉行, ‘upon hearing what the Buddha preached … [they] rejoiced and put it into practice’ (TEISER 1988: 54, italics added), probably illustrates once more Chos-grub’s effort to conform the work to relatively standard conventions for the translation of Indian Buddhist sūtras, and not an actual variant in the Chinese text at this point. (The only variant recorded here, in Taishō n. 57, is the omission of the characters 聞佛所說, ‘upon hearing what the Buddha preached’, from the four editions mentioned earlier: §17, §24.) 27. Here, of course, there is no question of direct translation, but only of the respective Chinese and Tibetan formulæ for the close of sūtra texts. STEIN (1983: 159-60) suggests that the Tibetan phrase meaning completed rdzogs so may be distinguished from a more archaic rdzogs s+ho, but, as he admits, the evidence is not entirely THE TIBETAN YULANPEN JING 233 consistent. In any event, as our present text is so far known only from the late Stog copy, we cannot rely upon it for an exact record of the orthographical conventions of Chos-grub’s ninth-century text. 28. The translator’s colophon here follows the standard format and closely resembles Chos-grub’s usage elsewhere, e.g., at the close of the Yijing version of the Suvarṇaprabh sottamasūtra: ‘zhu chen gyi mkhan po dang lo tstsha ba bcom ldan ’das kyi ring lugs ban de ’gos chos grub kyis rgya’i dpe las bsgyur cing zhus te gtan la phab pa’. (NOBEL 1958: II.334, with italics added to indicate the differences from our text.) The formal titles of mkhan po and, especially, bcom ldan ’das kyi ring lugs, reflect Chos-grub’s status in the monastic hierarchy recognized by the Tibetan imperial government and his role as a member of official translation committees. Does the absence of these titles in the colophon of the Yulanpen jing suggest, perhaps, that its translation was undertaken as an extracurricular activity? APPENDIX CHOS-GRUB’S SUMMARY OF THE TRANSFORMATION TEXT, IOL TIB J 686 The text of one folio given below is transcribed from a microfilm copy of the manuscript held in the Stein collection of the British Library. The original is written in a generally legible, but rather unattractive, cursive script. The reading of just one syllable (underlined and followed by a question mark in the transcription below) is doubtful. An additional syllable, intercalated in line a7, is printed here in small, subscript letters. The present transcription supercedes that given in KAPSTEIN 2001, the publication of which included a number of printing errors and did not distinguish gi-gu (‘i’) and reverse gi-gu (‘I’). As a translation may be found in both in the aforementioned article and in KAPSTEIN 2007, it is not repeated here. It is likely that the Chos-grub who composed this short verse summary of the transformation text on Mulian’s salvation of his mother is indeed none other than the translator of the Yulanpen jing, ’Gos Chos-grub. Although this suggests that he played a rather strong role in the transmission of the Chinese Mulian traditions to Tibet, it should be emphasized that this brief epitome was written on 234 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN behalf of a Tibetophone Chinese patron and that as yet we know very little regarding the place of the Tibetophone Chinese of Dunhuang in the transmission of Buddhism to Tibet itself. It would help if we had more precise knowledge than currently seems available concerning the circumstances of the translation and transmission history of the longer Tibetan versions of the transformation text, on which see TAKASAKI 1987 and KAPSTEIN 2007. However, the versions of that work which have become available to date offer no concrete indications regarding its provenance and the period of its composition. It seems most plausible that it is, like the present text, a mid- or late-Tang work from the region of Dunhuang. [a1] $ / / ston zla ra ba nya la hur sun cI’I phyir byed pa’I lo rgyus mdo tsam du bstan pa / / / / yul chen mnyam dka’ zhes ni rnam grags pa/ / de’i rgyal po gzugs can snyIng po’i / / blon po [a2] chen po gces phan me’u gal lya / / grong khyer shIng thags na ni gnas pa ste / / de’i bu mying ko le ta zhes bya / / nam zhig ston pa chen po shag kya thub / / rgyal po’i khab tu mngon bar sangs rgyas tshe / / [a3] ston pa’I bka’ yis ’phags pa rta thul gyis / / me’u dgal bu nI btul nas rab tu byung / / des ni nan tan chen po spyad pas na / / sdug bsngal mthar byas zag pa zad pa thob / / nyan thos [a4] nang na rdzu ’phrul mchog tu gyurd / / ’phags pa me’u dgal bu nI chen po yis / / pha ma’I drin nI yongs su glan pa’I phyir / / pha ma gnyis la legs nyes rab bshad de / / bslabs te [a5] gnas la bkod byas chos bstan kyang / / me’u dgal yum gyi mying nI sngo nag mdog / / las la myi ’dzem sdig la shin du mos / / gzhan gyi ’dod cing sar sna phrag [a6] dog che / / bu la drang po myi smra g.yo sgyu byed / / dkon mchog gsum la ma dad skur pa ’debs / / dge bshes mkhan po drin gnas la / / rim gro med cing yid dang ’gal bar byed / / [a7] de nas ’chI ba’i dus byas tshe ’phos nas / / myi dge las kyi rlung gis rab bda’s te / / mnar myed gnas su sdug bsngal myong bar gyurd / / de tshe me’u dgal bu nI chen po yis/ / bdag ma mtho ris bde gnas [a8] gang dag du / / skyes par gyurd ces rnam par rab brtags na / / mtho ris bde gnas de dang de dag du / / bdag gI ma ni mthong bar ma gyurd nas / / ston pa myi mchog la nI yongs zhus pa / / bdag gi ma nI [a9] las zad tshe ’phos te / / lha myi bde gnas na nI myi gda’ na / / ’gro ba gang dag du nI skyes par gyurd / / thub pa chen po kun mkhyen lung bstan gsol / / de nas ston pa myi mchog gis / / THE TIBETAN YULANPEN JING 235 [b1] me’u dgal chen po la nI bka’ stsald pa / / khyod ma myi dge las rnams spyad pas na / / mnar myed gnas su sdug bsngal myong bar gyurd / / nga’I mthu yIs khyod ni der song la / / ma’i sdug bsngal ra mda’ rab tu byos / / de nas me’u dgal bu nI ston pa’I [b2] mthus / / rdzu ’phrul gyI nI mnar myed gnas phyin te / / bu dang ma nI de tshe phrad par gyurd / / gcig la gcig gI rab ’jus cho nges btab / / me’u dgal ma’i sdug bsngal mthong nas nI / / ma la zas skom sna tshogs byin gyurd kyang / / [b3] las kyi dbang gIs mye dang rnag du gyurd / / de nas me’u dgal ma’i sdug bsngal rnams / / ston pa la ni zhib du gsol pa dang / / de tshe ston pas me’u dgal chen po la / / khyod kyis ma’i sdug bsngal zad ’dod na / / [b4] nyan thos dge ’dun tshul nI rab tshang ste / / ston zla ra ba nya la ’chung [?] ba’i tshe / / dkon mchog gsum la mchod la bsod nams byos / / des nI ma’i sdug bsngal rab zhI ste / / lha myi’i gnas su skye bar ’gyur zhes [b5] gsungs / / de lta bas na blo ldan mkhas pa dag / ngan song sdug bsngal spong zhing bde ’dod na / / myi dge bcu’i las dang mtshams myed las / / shin tu bsgrims te gtan nas rab spongs la// [b6] mkhan po slobs dpon pha ma la / / bsnyen bkur rim gro zhe sa tshul bzhin byos / / rdzogs so / / [b7] $ / / dge slong chos grub kyis bgyis / / BIBLIOGRAPHY BETHLENFALVY, G. 1982. A Hand-List of the Ulan Bator Manuscript of the Kanjur Rgyal-rtse Thems Spangs-ma. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. BUSWELL, Robert E., Jr., (ed.). 1990. Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. DUDJOM RINPOCHE, Jikdrel Yeshe Dorje. 1991. The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism: Its Fundamentals and History. Translated and annotated by Gyurme Dorje and Matthew Kapstein. 2 vols. London: Wisdom Publications. EIMER, H. 2002. Das Sūtra der ‘Acht Erscheinungen’: Bemerkungen zu den tibetischen Versionen. In W. GANTKE, K. HOHEISEL and W. KLEIN (eds), Religionsbegegnung und Kulturaustausch in Asien: Studien zum Gedenken an Hans-Joachim Klimkeit. Studies in Oriental Religions 49. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 63-71. EITEL, Ernest J. 1981 [1888]. Handbook of Chinese Buddhism, 2nd ed. Rprt. New Delhi: Cosmo, 1981. 236 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN FEER, L. 1868. Le Sûtra en Quarante-deux Articles. Textes Chinois, Tibétain et Mongol. Paris: Maisonneuve. FRANKE, H. 1990. The Taoist elements in the Buddhist Great Bear Sūtra (Pei-tou ching). Asia Major 3(1), 75-111. INABA, S. 1977. On Chos-grub’s Tibetan translation of the Chien-chen-michung-shu. In L.S. KAWAMURA and K. SCOTT (eds), Buddhist Thought and Asian Civilization: Essays in Honor of Herbert V. Guenther on His Sixtieth Birthday. Emeryville, California: Dharma Publishing, 105-113. KAPSTEIN, M.T. 2001. A Dunhuang Tibetan summary of the transformation text on Mulian saving his mother from hell. In HAO CHUNWEN 郝 春 文 (ed.), Dunhuang wenxian lunji 敦 煌 文 獻 論 集 . Shenyang: Liaoning Renmin Chubanshe, 235-47. ———. 2007. Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in hell: A Chinese tale of parental death in Its Tibetan transformations. In B.J. CUEVAS and J.I. STONE (eds), The Buddhist Dead: Practices, Discourses, Representations. Kuroda Institute Series in Buddhist Studies. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 345-77. KUO Liying. 2000. Sur les apocryphes bouddhiques chinois. Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 87(2), 677-705. LALOU, Marcelle. 1953. Les textes bouddhiques au temps du roi Khri-sroṅlde-bcan. Journal Asiatique 241(3), 313-53 NOBEL, J. 1958. Suvarṇaprabh sottamasūtra. Das Goldenglanz-sūtra: Ein Sanskrittext des Mah y na-Buddhismus. I-tsing’s chinesische Version und Ihre tibetische Übersetzung. Leiden: E. J. Brill. 2 vols. RTA-RDO (ed.). 2003. Dkar chag ’phang thang ma. Sgra sbyor bam po gnyis pa. Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang. SKORUPSKI, T. 1985. A Catalogue of the Stog Palace Kanjur. Bibliographia Philologica Buddhica, Series Maior IV. Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies. STAEL-HOLSTEIN, A. von. 1936. The emperor Ch’ien-lung and the larger ūraṃgamasūtra. In Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 1, 136-46. STEIN, R.A. 1983. Tibetica antiqua I: Les deux vocabulaires des traductions Indo-tibétaine et Sino-tibétaine dans les manuscrits de Touen-houang, Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient 72, 149-236. TAKATA, T. 1994. Bouddhisme chinois en écriture tibétaine: le Long Rouleau chinois et la communauté sino-tibétaine de Dunhuang. In F. FUKUI and G. FUSSMAN (eds), Bouddhisme et cultures locales: Quelques cas de réciproques adaptations. Paris: École Française d’ExtrêmeOrient, 137-144. TAKASAKI, J. 1987. Indogaku Bukkyōgaku ronshū: Takasaki Jikidō Hakushi kanreki kinen ronshū インド学仏教学論集: 高崎直道博士還曆記念 論集. Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 427-45. THE TIBETAN YULANPEN JING 237 TEISER, S.F. 1988. The Ghost Festival in Medieval China. Princeton: Princeton University Press. UEYAMA, D. 1983. The study of Tibetan Ch’an manuscripts recovered from Tun-huang: A review of the field and its prospects. In L. LANCASTER and W. LAI (eds). Early Ch’an in China and Tibet. Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series V. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 327-49. VERHAGEN, P.C. 1992. A ninth-century Tibetan summary of the IndoTibetan model of case-semantics. In S. IHARA and Z. YAMAGUCHI (eds), Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 5th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, NARITA 1989. Narita: Naritasan Shinshoji, vol. 2, 833-44. NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD FRIEND: PT 849 RECONSIDERED MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN (PARIS AND CHICAGO) The Dunhuang manuscript now known as Pelliot tibétain 849 has the distinction of having been both one of the last of the Tibetan documents to have entered Mogao Cave 17 before its closure at some point during the early eleventh century and one of the first to have been examined in the West in fair detail. Joseph Hackin’s 1924 study of the text was in many ways a pathbreaking contribution to Tibetology and, given the resources available at the time it was written, a work of outstanding excellence.1 Indeed, we may still envy Hackin the altogether exceptional living resources he enjoyed in the form of the teachers and colleagues whose aid he acknowledged: Jules Bloch, Louis Finot, Sylvain Lévi, Paul Pelliot and, in Tibetan Studies, Jacques Bacot. Nevertheless, in the light of the development of the field during the eight decades that have followed its first publication, it may be appropriate to return to PT 849 once again: what secrets does it contain that could not yet be unlocked when Hackin investigated it so long ago? The manuscript is in the form of a scroll of 201 lines, composed of seven sheets pasted together, and measuring 3.08 metres in length. The text includes both purely Tibetan passages as well as some that are set down in Sanskrit (or in a later variety of Indo-Aryan) transcribed in the Tibetan dbu med script, together with Tibetan annotations (mchan bu) providing glosses upon them.2 These interlinear comments are more finely written than the main text. (Hackin, in fact, counted 131 lines instead of 201, numbering the lines of annotation together with the 1 Hackin 1924. The entire scroll has since been photomechanically reproduced in Macdonald and Imaeda 1978, vol. I, plates 232-239. In referring to the text herein, I give line numbers following the latter source, adding Hackin’s numbering as required in parentheses or notes. I wish to thank my colleague at the EPHE, Mme. Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, for kindly sharing with me her reflections on the history of this remarkable document. 2 Although the dbu med transcriptions of Indic languages in PT 849 reflect the author’s aural comprehension of Indic phonetics, and so are often erroneous when compared either to Sanskrit orthography or to the phonology of Indo-Aryan languages, it may be noted that the dbu med script would later be used for the exact transcriptions of Sanskrit texts. For examples, see Yonezawa 2001. 10 MATTHEW KAPSTEIN more boldly written lines they gloss.) The bilingual sections of the text, which predominate overall, give the impression that the document is to all intents and purposes a sort of glossary and Hackin treated it as such. The contents and organisation of the scroll, however, suggest that this is at best a very rough description.3 A somewhat different understanding of the manuscript will emerge in the course of the present discussion. PT 849 IN ITS PLACE AND TIME As Hackin well understood, PT 849 provides the reader with a number of important suggestions regarding the circumstances of its composition. In fact, the scroll concludes with a remarkable historical note, relating the background for the preparation of the work by a certain ’Bro Dkon mchog dpal: rgya gar chos kyi rgyal po’i sras / de ba pu tra chos ni ma bslabs par rang shes / ’phags pa spyan ras gzig kyi dbang phyug kyi dngos sgrub ni brnyes // bod yul du gshes te / bod kyi lha btsan po thams cad la / chos bshad cing dbang bskurs // gangs ti se la bsnyen bsgrub zab mor bgyis // mtsho ma ’phang la ’khrus brgyis nas // chos ’khor bsam yas su gdan gshags / bcom ldan ’das kyi ring lugs dang // dbas rgyal ba ye shes dang / mkhas btsun mang po gis // dge ’dun sde gnyis gis / mchod gnas cher mzdad/ bang chen dang / rim ’gro’ bgyis nas // rgya yul du bskyal // rgya rje dang / rgya blon mang pos mchod gnas cher bgyis // ri bo rtse lnga la / ’phags pa ’jam dpal gi zhal mthong // slar rgya gar yul du gshags pa’i shul kar // sug cur gdan gshags / yul dpon dang / dge ’dun sde gnyis dang // rnal ’byor ’phreng thogs gi sde dang // sug cu yon bdag thams cad kyis / mchod gnas cher bgyis // slobs dpon thugs dges nas // theg pa chen po ’i chos bka rtsal // glang gi lo dpyid sla ra ba’i tshes nyi shu gsum gi gdugs la // ’bog rdo rje rgyal po dang // skya phud yang a dgi dang // rnal sbyor slobs dpon sde la // rdo rje rgyal po’i dbang lung rdzogs par stsal / // sngags dang phyag rgya man ngag gtan la phab pa // rdzogs// // ’bro dkon mchog dpal gis bris pa // 4 The son of the Indian king of the doctrine, Devaputra, knew the doctrine by himself, without lessons. He obtained the accomplishment of the sublime Avalokiteśvara. Travelling (gshes for gshegs) to Tibet, he explained the doctrine to all the divine Btsan po-s of Tibet and he 3 Scherrer-Schaub and Bonani (2002: 188) call it “a kind of minimal compendium of Buddhist religion”, but as will be seen below, further specification seems possible. 4 PT 849, lines 187–201; Hackin 1924: 117–31. NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD FRIEND 11 empowered them. He practised the profound rites of service and attainment at Mt Ti se, and performed ablutions in Lake Ma ’phang. Then he went (gshags for gshegs) to the seat of Bsam yas. The Transcendent Lord’s Lineage Heir (bcom ldan ’das kyi ring lugs),5 Dbas Rgyal ba ye shes, and many who were learned and dignified, greatly honoured him with the worship of the two sections of the sa!gha [of monks and laymen]. After providing him with an escort and hospitality, he was accompanied to China. The Chinese emperor and many Chinese ministers greatly honoured him with worship. On Mt Wutai he beheld the visage of sublime Mañjuśrī. Later, when he was en route to India (gshags), he travelled (gshags) to the seat at Sug cu [that is, Suzhou, to the east of Anxi in Gansu],6 where he was greatly honoured with worship from the lord of that land, the two sections of the sa!gha, the company of yogins bearing rosaries, and all the patrons of Sug cu. The master was delighted at heart and discoursed on the doctrine of the Greater Vehicle. In the year of the ox, during the morning7 of the twenty-third day of the spring month Ra ba, he bestowed the complete empowerment and scriptural transmission of the Vajrarāja upon ’Bog Rdo rje rgyal po, Skya phud yang a dgi and the company of yogins and teaching masters.8 The mantras, mudrās and esoteric instructions9 were definitively established. Following the final statement of completion, the text is then signed by ’Bro Dkon mchog dpal. As I shall argue below, the events described here likely took place toward the end of the third or the beginning of the last quarter of the 5 This phrase, now known to be the standard designation for the head of the Tibetan sa!gha in imperial and early post-imperial times, was obscure to Hackin (1924: 40), who, despite his own hesitation, was largely correct in his rendering: “l’école (?) de Bhagavat, son chef (?)”. Given the peculiarities in the usage of the conjunction dang in the present text, it is possible that Dbas Rgyal ba ye shes is the proper name of the bcom ldan ’das kyi ring lugs mentioned. 6 P. Pelliot clearly recognised this identification and communicated it accordingly to Hackin (1924: 82). 7 Gdugs may mean either ‘morning’ or ‘daytime’. Hackin understood it to mean ‘midday’. 8 In this sentence, I differ from Hackin’s interpretations in several respects: rdo rje rgyal po is, I believe, ’Bog’s proper name and not, pace Hackin, a title designating him to be the vajrarāja of ’Bog. I take skya phud yang a dgi (or perhaps dge) to be a single name and not two persons’ names linked by yang used as a conjunction. The phrase rnal ’byor slobs dpon sde was interpreted by Hackin (following correspondence from S. Lévi; see p. 56) as yogācārya, by analogy to the Chinese rendering of yogācāra as yuqieshi. This cannot be altogether ruled out, but I think it rather less plausible in this context than the translation I have adopted, given the clear reference to a community of yogins just above. 9 Hackin (1924: 40, 56) suggests that this might be the title of a particular text, which he calls Mantramudropadeśa, rather than simply an enumeration of some of the key elements of the teaching, as I think is more likely. MATTHEW KAPSTEIN 12 tenth century. Assuming, for the moment, that this is indeed the case, a number of points may be noted at once: • Devaputra clearly travelled in regions in Tibet ruled by a number of local successors to the Tibetan empire, some of whom continued to use the old imperial title of btsan po. This, of course, confirms affirmations found within the later Tibetan historical record regarding the status assumed by some of the post-imperial princes.10 • Though his travels took him to regions that fell within the kingdom of Gu ge, there is no particular evidence within PT 849 that pertains to Gu ge as a political realm.11 Pilgrimage to Kailash and Manosarovar, in any case appear to have already been active concerns (as they may well have been for some centuries). • A century or more after the fall of the Tibetan empire, there was a monk resident at Bsam yas bearing the imperial ecclesiastical title, bcom ldan ’das kyi ring lugs. Was this a product of the beginnings of the bstan pa phyi dar? or was it, as seems more likely, due to a real continuity (though perhaps one much attenuated) of monastic life in Central Tibet, despite the insistence of the later historical record that this had been brought to an end due to the persecutions lanced by Glang Dar ma? • As an abundance of evidence from Dunhuang suggests, our text con- firms the ongoing presence of a Tibetophone Buddhist religious community in the region of the Gansu corridor, long after this region had been freed from Tibetan imperial administration.12 • Pilgrimage routes linking Gansu both with Tibet and with northern China, in particular with Wutaishan, continued to be active. In brief, in contrast with the perspective that was to dominate later Tibetan religious historiography, depicting post-imperial Tibet as a religious wasteland withdrawn into self-isolation, PT 849 suggests that on the cusp of the phyi dar there was an active legacy, political as well as religious, reaching back to the imperial age, and that circulation was possible on routes linking India, West and Central Tibet, Gansu and China proper. All of this, however, presupposes that we are correct in our assumptions regarding the period in which the text was composed. 10 For a summary of the question, see Petech 1994. As will be seen below, the proposal that the Btsan po A tsa ra of our text is to be identified with Lha Bla ma Ye shes ’od cannot be sustained. The absence of any mention of that royal monk or his line suggests either that PT 849 was redacted prior to his floruit, or that ’Bro Dkon mchog dpal, working presumably near Dunhuang, was simply too far distant from events in Gu ge to have given them much thought. 12 Cf., in particular, the conclusions of Takata 1994. 11 NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD FRIEND 13 Accordingly, the rather problematic evidence about this must now be considered. The “year of the ox” (glang gi lo) mentioned toward the end of the colophon is not, of course, very helpful to us as matters stand. Without being able to assign the work with some assurance to a period of a few decades, there is really nothing that can be inferred on the basis of the animal sign alone. If our general assumptions are correct, 965 or 977 seem the most plausible C.E. equivalents, but little that we have said up to now can be put forward as evidence for this. Only one passage in the text seems to offer information that can help determine the proper periodisation and so resolve the issue, namely, the list of the empowered rulers of the past (theg pa chen po’i dbang thob pa), given in lines 116–121 (Hackin 65–71), which we find only in Tibetan. The text reads: bod ’phrul gï rgyal po dmyïg gsum pa dang / srong brtsan sgam po / dang // btsan po khri srom ldem brtsan dang // btsan po khri gtsug lde brtsan // btsan po ral pa can dang / de dag thams cad kyang theg pa chen po’i chos spyod pa / btsan po khris kyi ling dang sras che ba pal byin mgon dang // bkra shis mgon dang / leg gtsug mgon dang // btsan po bkra shis rtsags pa dpal dang // dpal lde dang / ’o lde dang // ’khri lde dang // btsan po bkra shis mgon po dang // tsan po a tsa ra dang // ’khri lde mgon dang / lha cig cag she dang / de dag thams cad kyang theg pa chen po ’i dbang thob pa yin no // As for the marvellously sagacious king of Tibet [endowed with] the third eye: Srong btsan sgam po, and Btsan po Khri Srong lde btsan, and Btsan po Khri Gtsug lde btsan, Btsan po Ral pa can were all practitioners of the Mahāyāna. Btsan po Khris kyi ling and his eldest son Dpal byin mgon, Bkra shis mgon, Legs gtsug mgon, Btsan po Bkra shis brtsegs pa dpal, Dpal lde, ’Od lde, Khri lde, Btsan po Bkra shis mgon po, Btsan po A tsa ra, Khri lde mgon, and Lha cig Cag she—all of these, too, obtained the empowerment of the Mahāyāna.13 The first group of rulers mentioned is apparently unproblematic. As Hackin (p. 68) clearly recognised, Btsan po Khri Gtsug lde btsan and Btsan po Ral pa can are two designations for one and the same individual. Hence, the first three kings listed correspond to those known throughout the later historiography as the chos rgyal mes dbon rnam gsum. (Perhaps, in fact, we should interpret the “three eyes” of the first 13 For convenience, and to better exhibit the correspondences among differing lists in the discussion that follows, I have employed here the standard classical transcriptions (wherever these are clearly identifiable) in favour of the orthographies found in PT 849. I offer my apologies to those who favour perfect philological purity. 14 MATTHEW KAPSTEIN line to be a reference to this royal triad.)14 Neither Khri Lde srong btsan (reigned 804–815), nor U’i dum btsan (i.e., Glang Dar ma) is known to our text. Given the absence of the former, there would seem to be no warrant for assuming that the latter was deliberately excluded in a tacit reference to his supposed persecution of Buddhism.15 It is probably better to assume that the author of PT 849 was familiar with a stock list of the three major Tibetan dharma-kings, which he repeated before moving on to list the Central Tibetan post-imperial dynasty with which he apparently had more immediate familiarity: 4. Btsan po Khris kyi ling [1st generation following Dpal ’khor btsan] 5. Sras che ba (d)Pal byin mgon [2nd generation] 6. Bkra shis mgon 7. Leg(s) gtsug mgon 8. Btsan po Bkra shis rtsa(e)gs pa dpal 9. Dpal lde 10. ’O lde 11. ’Khri lde [1st generation] [2nd generation] 12. Btsan po Bkra shis mgon po 13. Tsan po A tsa ra 14. ’Khri lde mgon 15. Lha cig Cag she [= 6. Bkra shis mgon] [3rd generation] Hackin assumed that the last three mentioned, who were not at all known from other sources available to him, must have been the sons or successors of Btsan po Bkra shis mgon po (no. 12), and that he in turn had to be identified with Bkra shis mgon (no. 6), whom he considered to be the second son of Khris kyi ling (no. 4).16 If we assume that this is likely to be correct, and that, as Hackin supposed, Khris kyi ling is to be identified with Skyid lde Nyi ma mgon, the son of Dpal ’khor btsan,17 then we can use the Sa skya master Bsod nams rtse mo’s dat14 The phrase is in fact somewhat puzzling. Does it refer to the Tibetan dharmakings in general? Or to the trio mentioned? Or does it serve here, as Hackin (1924: 36) thought, as a qualifier of Srong btsan sgam po alone? 15 It is of course also possible that the enumeration of Btsan po Khri Gtsug lde btsan and Btsan po Ral pa can as if they were distinct figures is due to an error regarding the correct name of Khri Lde srong btsan. Whether or not the exclusion of Glang Dar ma should be taken as suggesting that he was indeed responsible for a persecution of monastic Buddhism depends of course on the overall assessment of the evidence in this regard. For a review of the question, refer to Kapstein 2000, ch. 4. 16 Hackin’s generally sound judgments regarding the interpretation of the list of kings were primarily based on the work of Schlagintweit 1866. 17 The plausibility of this assumption stems from the identical names of the sons of Khris kyi ling and of Skyid lde Nyi ma mgon. See Hackin 1924: 76. NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD FRIEND 15 ing of the latter’s consecration of his father ’Od srung’s memorial to 905 in order to arrive at an approximate chronology.18 If we assign twenty-five years to each generation after 905, Btsan po A tsa ra and his siblings must have been active circa 980 or sometime before (905 + 25 + 25 + 25 = 980). In an important contribution to the religious history of Western Tibet, Samten G. Karmay posited that the Btsan po A tsa ra of our list might be identified with none other than the celebrated Gu ge prince Lha bla ma Ye shes ’od,19 a proposition that for a time was widely accepted. After all, who else among the rulers of the period with whom we were familiar seemed better to merit the sobriquet of ācārya? However, as Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, following the suggestions of Luciano Petech, has rightly noted, Btsan po A tsa ra is no doubt the same as the A tsa ra now known from several versions of the list of the successors of Glang Dar ma’s (possibly fictitious) second son, Yum brtan.20 Here, of course, we must tread carefully, for as has been apparent now for some time, the variant geneologies of the successors to the old Tibetan empire that have become available contain many contradictions and inconsistencies, frustrating at points even the most cautious interpreters.21 The Central Tibetan ruler named A tsa ra22 is mentioned in the histories of Nyang Nyi ma ’od zer (1124–1192), Lde’u Jo sras, Mkhas pa Lde’u, and Tshal pa Kun dga’ rdo rje.23 The last of these, the celebrated Deb ther dmar po dating to the late fourteenth century, provides an enumeration of eight generations from Yum brtan to A tsa ra, thus: 1. Yum brtan 2. Khri lde Mgon nyin 3. Khri lde Rig pa mgon 4. Rdo rje ’bar 5. Khri Dbang phyug btsan 18 Kapstein 2000, ch. 1, n. 51. Karmay 1980: 150–62. 20 Scherrer-Schaub and Bonani 2002: 213, n. 18. See further Hazod 2000. For a skeptical view of the Yum brtan tradition, see, especially, Richardson 1971. 21 Cf. Petech 1994 and van der Kuijp 1992. 22 Scherrer-Schaub and Bonani 2002, read A tsa rya, but this is surely a hypercorrection. 23 Nyang Nyi ma ’od zer, Chos ’byung me tog snying po sbrang rtsi’i bcud; Lde’u Jo sras, Lde’u chos ’byung; Mkhas pa Lde’u, Mkhas pa Lde’us mdzad pa’i rgya bod kyi chos ’byung rgyas pa; Tshal pa Kun dga’ rdo rje, Deb ther dmar po rnams kyi dang po 19 16 MATTHEW KAPSTEIN 6. Tsha lan Ye shes rgyal mtshan 7. Khri pa 8. A tsa ra.24 This was the genealogical list referred to by Scherrer-Schaub, who proposed on this basis that this would push the dating of A tsa ra well into the mid-eleventh century if not later, a far-reaching conclusion that, if correct, might even require a reassessment of our suppositions regarding the period in which Dunhuang cave 17 was sealed.25 Nevertheless, I believe that such a radical proposal is not in fact warranted. The Deb ther dmar po is the latest of the four histories noted and the genealogy that it offers for A tsa ra is altogether exceptional; the three remaining works, all dating to the twelfth–thirteenth centuries, concur perfectly in their enumeration of this royal line: 1. Yum brtan 2. Khri lde Mgon snyan 3.a. gcen Rig pa mgon b. gcung Nyi ’od dpal mgon 4. (from 3.a.) Khri lde 5. ’Od po 6.a. Khri lde A tsa ra b. Khri lde Mgon btsan c. Khri lde Mgon brtsegs.26 The three concur, moreover, in placing the prince Tsha la (s)na Ye shes rgyal mtshan, considered by the Deb ther dmar po as an ancestor of A tsa ra, in the line of Rig pa mgon’s younger brother Nyi ’od dpal hu lan deb ther. As van der Kuijp 1992 has argued, there are problems regarding theattributions of authorship of the two Lde’u chos ’byung. Here I retain the conventions of the publications in question as only a matter of convenience. There are also difficulties regarding their dating, though I think that van der Kuijp is correct in holding that they were likely redacted (in roughly the form in which we have them) during the second half of the thirteenth century. 24 Deb ther dmar po, pp. 40–41. 25 Scherrer-Schaub and Bonani 2002: 188: “The list [of kings in PT 849] ends with three scions of the Yum brtan lineage, who might have been active in the mid-eleventh century or even later. If we accept that the provenance of Pelliot 849 is Cave 17 at Dunhuang then the date of the sealing of this cave must be put back”. Of course, this conclusion does not really follow, even if PT 849 is as late as here proposed. It is well known that some of the documents discovered in Dunhuang Cave 17 do indeed postdate the presumed period of its sealing: a number of post-sixteenth century Mongolian manuscripts, some even on Russian manufactured paper, were among the Cave 17 findings. As András Róna-Tas, however, has plausibly argued, these were most likely detritus from renovations in neighboring caves deposited in Cave 17 by the daoshi Wang prior to Stein’s arrival there in 1907. 26 Mkhas pa lde’u, p. 388; Lde’u jo sras, p. 152; Nyang ral, p. 449. NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD FRIEND 17 mgon.27 According to these same sources, the son of this Tsha la (s)na Ye shes rgyal mtshan was one Khri pa, whose son was Dge ba ra tsa. It is not impossible to imagine that a careless scribe might have miswritten the last as A tsa ra, yielding the last part of the genealogy of the Deb ther dmar po. Ignoring now the questions surrounding Yum brtan’s historicity, let us for the sake of the argument adopt 860 as an estimation for the beginning of Yum brtan’s reproductive years.28 Following the same principle of assigning 25 years to each generation, and adhering to the generational count given in the sources just mentioned, we arrive at 985 as an approximation of the period in which A tsa ra and his brothers flourished, a remarkable coincidence, given the rough date of 980 calculated on the basis of PT 849 itself. Hackin’s conclusion, that “les derniers bcan po mentionnés régnaient encore dans la 2e moitié du Xe siècle de notre ère” may therefore, I think, be allowed to stand. These rough calculations support the general hypothesis that the ox-year empowerment mentioned in the colophon of PT 849 may have taken place in 977 (or perhaps as early as 965) and that the text was written at some point later in the tenth century. For simplicity, we may consider the last quarter of the tenth century as a plausible time-frame for its composition. QUESTIONS OF STRUCTURE AND GENRE Lines 1–14 (Hackin 1–7) of the text are bilingual, giving a list of epithets of Buddha, followed by some broad doctrinal and textual categories, ending with the enumeration of the nine sequences, or vehicles (na ba kra ma, theg pa rim pa dgu), and the thirty-six yogatantras (tsha 27 Mkhas pa lde’u, pp. 388–89; Lde’u jo sras, p. 153; Nyang ral, p. 449. If, however, Yum brtan was a fictitious personage, then we are presented with just two alternatives: (1) assuming the name Yum brtan to have indeed arisen, as Richardson proposed, as a deformation of Glang Dar ma’s proper name, U’i dum brtan, and assuming too that the genealogical information given is otherwise correct, then we might hold Khri lde Mgon snyan to have been a son of none other than Glang Dar ma, in which case A tsa ra would have lived a generation earlier than we are here arguing that he did. (2) If, on the other hand, Yum brtan is a pure fiction, invented to create a tie to the royal clan by some assuming princely prerogative following the dynasty’s fall, but not actually descended from the main imperial line, the implications for the royal chronology will have to be resolved solely with reference to the relative chronology of the parallel princely lines during the post-imperial period. 28 18 MATTHEW KAPSTEIN ti sha zo ga tan tra, rgyud chen po sum cu rtsa drug).29 The passages that immediately follow offer detailed explanations of these two categories: lines 15–20 (Hackin 8–13) present the nine yānas and their subdivisions, in a mixture of Sanskrit and Tibetan; while lines 21–37 (Hackin 13–23) provide a partially bilingual list of tantras, the Tibetan being included only through the twenty-first of the thirty-three items actually listed. In Hackin’s day, of course, the problematic early history of Tibetan tantrism was to all intents and purposes unknown. As the list of the yānas given in our text makes clear, the nine-fold division associated with the doctrinal categories of the Rnying ma pa and Bon po was already in play, though the enumeration found here cannot be precisely identified with any of the known versions of these latter.30 And as concerns PT 849’s inventory of tantras, we find here confirmation not only that some of the major Mahāyogatantras of the Rnying ma tradition, including the Guhyagarbha and the eight-fascicle Vajrām$tatantra, were in circulation at the time the text was composed, but also that some of the characteristic Anuttarayogatantras associated with the 29 Note that even here the translations are not quite exact; the Tibetan adds theg pa in the first case, and substitutes chen po for zo ga (= yoga, cf. Bengali joga) in the second. 30 Refer to Kapstein 2000, Assimilation, ch. 1, for a brief comparison of the nine vehicle systems of PT 849, the Man ngag lta ba’i phreng ba attributed to Padmasambhava, and the Bon-po Central Treasure (dbus gter). The discussion in PT 849 reads as follows: theg pa rim pa dgu gang la bya zhe na // mi ’i theg pa dang // lha’i theg pa dang / nyan thos kyi theg pa dang // rang sang rgyas kyi theg pa dang // mdo sde’i theg pa dang / byang chub sems pa’i theg pa dang // mdzo ga dang / kyïr yā dang / u pa ya dang / de rnams ni theg pa rim pa dgu la bya // ’dzo ga la yang rnam pa bzhi / ’dzo ga dang/ ma ha ’dzo ga dang / a nu ’dzo ga dang / a ti ’dzo ga dang / bzhi / kïr ya la rnam pa bzhi ste / nyan thos ki kir ya dang // rang sangs rgyas kï kïr ya dang // mdo sde ’i kir ya dang // byang chub sems pa’i kiri ya dang / bzhi // u pa ya rnam bzhi la / nyan thos kyi ’bras bu thob pa dang / rang sangs rgyas kyi ’bras bu thob pa dang // byang chub kyï ’bras bu thob pa dang / mdo sde’i ’bras bu dang bzhi // If one asks, to what does “nine sequential vehicles” refer? The nine vehicles are the vehicle of men, the vehicle of gods, the vehicle of pious attendants, the vehicle of the self-awakened ones, the vehicle of the sūtra, the vehicle of the bodhisattva, yoga, kriyā and upaya. Yoga also has four aspects: the tetrad of yoga, mahāyoga, anuyoga and atiyoga. Kriyā also has four aspects: the tetrad of the kriyā of the pious attendants, the kriyā of the self-awakened ones, the kriyā of the sūtra, and the kriyā of the bodhisattvas. The four aspects of upaya are the tetrad of the pious attendants’ fruition, the self-awakened ones’ fruition, the bodhisattvas’ fruition and the sūtras’ fruition. Note that in the later Rnying ma pa tradition upaya in this context is interpreted as equivalent not to the Skt. term for ‘means’ (thabs), but to Skt. ubhaya, “both,” referring to the intermediacy of caryātantra between kriyātantra and yogatantra. NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD FRIEND 19 translation activity of Rin chen bzang po and his Gsar ma successors were now known at least by name, such as the Vajracatu%pī'ha.31 Still other titles are of texts that span the Rnying ma-Gsar ma divide, such as the Guhyasamāja (which seems to be listed twice), the Mañjuśrīmāyājāla, and the Amoghapāśa. One surprising inclusion is the “La(kāvatāratantra”.32 The bilingual passage that now follows begins an entirely new sec31 The catalogue of tantras found here is thus quite different from the imperial period lists known from the Ldan kar ma and Phang thang ma dkar chag-s. Refer to Lalou 1953; and Rta-rdo (ed.) Dkar chag ’phang thang ma. Sgra sbyor bam po gnyis pa. A preliminary perusal of the latter suggests that, though the introduction (pp. 2–3) and conclusion (pp. 66–67) may have been modified by post-imperial copyists, the actual inventory of texts (pp. 3–65) appears to be authentic. Although tantric materials are more amply represented here than in the Ldan kar ma (see especially pp. 61–65), it conforms with the latter in that no texts of the anuttarayoga-tantra class are mentioned (with the possible exception of the ’Jam dpal gshin rje gshed kyi rtog pa phyi ma’i yang phyi ma, listed on p. 61). 32 For convenience I provide here the list of tantras recorded in PT 849, lines 21–37 (Hackin 13–23), a list that must certainly count as one of the earliest rgyud sde dkar chag. The identifications of the texts mentioned are by no means secure in all cases; and in a few instances categories (e.g. nos. 8, 12, 24, 26), rather than text titles, seem at issue. In many instances, Hackin’s interpretations of the underlying Sanskrit were sound, though he erred at points in this as well as in his understanding of just how the text is to be divided. I have translated only the Tibetan glosses, which sometimes do not correspond exactly with the Sanskrit. Tsha ti sha zo ga tan tra. rgyud chen po sum cu rtsa drug gang la bya. To what does “thirty-six great tantra” refer? [They are enumerated as follows:] [1] Tan tra ma ya ’dza la. rgyud sgyu ’phrul dra ba dang. The Tantra of the Magical Net (Māyājālatantra). [Note that on all occurrences of the word sgyu ’phrul, rdzu ’phrul was originally written, with the first syllable struck out and corrected to sgyu by the same scribal hand.] [2] Sri sma dza tan tra. dpal thams cad ’dus pa’ï rgyud. The Glorious Tantra of the Universal Gathering (*Śrīsamājatantra). [3] Be ro dza na ma ya dzwa la tan tra. rnam par snang mdzad rgyud sgyu ’phrul dra ba dang. The Magical Net of Vairocana (Vairocanamāyājālatantra). [4] Man dzu sri ma ya dzwa la tan tra. ’jam dpal ye shes sems pa’i rgyud sgyu ’phrul dra ba dang. The Magical Net of Mañjuśrī-Jñānasattva (Mañjuśrīmāyājālatantra). [5] Lo ke shwa ra ma ya dzwa la tan tra. spyan ras gzig dbang phyug gi rgyud sgyu ’phrul dra ba dang. The Magical Net of Avalokiteśvara (Avalokiteśvaramāyājālatantra). [6] Ba dzra swad twa ma ya dzwa la tan tra. rdo rje sems pa’i rgyud sgyu ’phrul dra ba dang. The Magical Net of Vajrasattva (Vajrasattvamāyājālatantra). [7] De bye ma ya dzwa la tan tra. lha mo rgyud sgyu ’phrul dra ba dang. The Magical Net of the Goddess (Devīmāyājālatantra). [8] Ga ya ba ga tsid da tan tra. sku gsum (sic!) thugs gï rgyud gsum dang. The Three Tantra of Body, Speech and Mind (Kāyavākcittatantra). [This category pertains to nos. 9–11 as follows:] [9] Ga ya tan tra sa rba ’bu ta sa ma dzo ga. sku’ï sbyor ba thams cad sangs rgyas 20 MATTHEW KAPSTEIN tion of the work, as is clearly indicated by both conventions of punctuation and the phrase, “in the language of India” (rgya gar skad du), with which this part of the text opens. The first lines here (38–41, kï rnam sbyor gi rgyud. The Tantra of the Bodily Yoga, the Conjunction of All Buddhas (Kāyatantra-Sarvabuddhasamāyoga). [10] Ba ga tan tra. ’Gu ya ti la ka. gsung gi ’gel (’gel for ’grel?) pa zla gsang thïg le rgyud. The Speech Commentary: the Tantra of the Hidden Point of the Moon (Vāktantra-Candraguhyatilaka). [Hackin treated this as two distinct works.] [11] Tsid ta tan tra. ’Gu dzya sa ma dza. thugs kyï thigs pa rgyud gsang ba ’dus pa dang. The Tantra of the Mind-Drop: the Gathering of Secrets (CittatantraGuhyasamāja). [11´ or 12] Mu la tan tra. rtsa ba’i rgyud dang. The Root Tantra (Mūlatantra). [Hackin considered this the closing part of the title of the Guhyasamāja, which is certainly possible, though he treated Cittatantra as a separate entry.] [13] A mo go pa sa tan tra. rgyud thabs kyï zhags pa. The Tantra of the Lasso of Means (Amoghapāśatantra). [14] ’Gu yya kar rba tan tra. rgyud gsang ba’ï snyïng po. The Tantra of the Secret Nucleus (Guhyagarbhatantra). [15] Ba dzre am ’brï ta tan tra. bdud rtsi’i rgyud bam po brgyad pa dang. The Eight Volumes of the Tantra of Nectar (Vajrām$tatantra). [16] Ba dzre cha tu sprï sti tan tra. rdo rje gdan bzhï ’ï rgyud dang. The Tantra of the Four Vajra-Seats (Vajracatu%pī'hatantra). [Hackin read Vajracaturb$+itantra!] [17] He ru ka a pu tha tan tra. he ru ka thams cad ’byung ba’i rgyud dang. The Tantra of the Emergence of All Herukas (Herukābhyudayatantra). [18] Ma ri dzi kal pa tan tra. lha mo ’od zer can ’byung ba’ï rgyud dang. The Tantra of the Emergence of the Goddess Marīci (Marīcikalpatantra). [19] Lag khyi mi sha da na tan tra. yang dag grub pa’i rgyud dang. The Tantra of Excellent Attainment (Lak+mīsādhanatantra). [20] Pan tsa skan da’ byi ca ra na tan tra. phung po lnga’i grub pa’ï tan tra dang. The Tantra of the Attainment of the Five Bundles (Pañcaskandhavicara,atantra). [21] ’Bu ta na ma ra tan tra. ’byung po ’byung ba’ï rgyud dang. The Tantra of the Emergence of Spirits (Bhūta-āmaratantra). [22] A ba da ra tan tra (Avatāratantra). [23] Tad twa sang kra tan tra (Tattvasa!grahatantra). [24] ’Zo go ’o tro tan tra (Yogottaratantra). [25] Zo go nyi rod tan tra [Uncertain. Hackin suggested Yoganirodhatantra, but perhaps *Yoganiruttaratantra may be also proposed]. [26] Zo gi ni tan tra (Yoginītantra). [27] O li pad ti tan tra [Uncertain. Hackin left this uninterpreted. Oli (perhaps < Skt. āvalī) occurs in the formation of certain technical terms of ha'hayoga, e.g., vajrolimudrā, referring to the yogic practice of sexual congress. A possible interpretation might therefore be *(Vajr)olipaddhatitantra]. [28] Ad dwa shin ti tan tra (Advayasiddhitantra). [29] Sha ma ya sid ti tan tra (Samayasiddhitantra). [30] Lang ka a ba da ra tan tra (La(kāvatāratantra). [31] Rad na a ba li tan tra (Ratnāvalītantra). [32] Ga ra ni byu tan tra (Kara,-avyūhatantra). [33] Shu ga ta ti la ka tan tra (Sugatatilakatantra). NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD FRIEND 21 Hackin 24–25) enumerate the three sādhana of ma%&ala, divinity, and attainment.33 The Indic text in this case is notably laconic in comparison to its Tibetan gloss: the syntactically detached word thar ma ra dza (l. 39, Hackin 25) that completes these lines, for example, is explained with the clause, “… [these sādhana] were taught by Dharmarāja of India” (rgya gar chos kyi rgyal pos bstan pa yin no), a reference, no doubt, to the “Dharmarāja’s son Devaputra” whose exploits are described in the scroll’s colophon as discussed above. The relatively detailed description of the Mt. Meru world-system and its principal inhabitants (lines 42–88, Hackin 26–50) in the succeeding section seems to offer a précis of abhidharma cosmology and Hackin read it as such. I would suggest, however, that, following the apparent logic of the text—which moves from tantric textual categories, to types of sādhana, through the present ‘abhidharma’ passage, to the enumeration of those kings and past dharma-masters who were empowered, and then to the special attainments, mantras, and fruits of tantric empowerment34—that it may be equally related to the esoteric teaching of Dharmarāja just mentioned. Thus, the full enumerations we find incorporated here of the “eight great gods”, “eight planets”, and “eight nāga kings” (ll. 59–70, Hackin 35–41; the last two groups being listed solely in Sanskrit without Tibetan translation), recall the importance of these and other similar eight-fold groups for the tantric ma%&ala-systems that were current in Tibet at the time, for instance, the ma%&ala detailed in another late Dunhuang Tibetan document, the “memorandum on arranging the divinities on the hundred-eight-petalled lotus” (padma ’kha brgya rtsa brgyad la lha bkod pa’ï brjed byang), preserved as IO 318 in the collection of the British Library.35 Given the identity of Devaputra with the Dharmarāja to whom the 33 man dal la no phyi ka / ’de ba no pyi ka / sa da na no pyi ka // The unusual term no p(h)yi ka, which persists in Rnying ma pa gter ma literature at least through the fourteenth century, may be explained as derived from the last four syllables of Skt. sādhanopāyika. 34 Detailed discussion of all these matters must await another occasion. Given, however, what has already been said regarding PT 849’s apparent connections with aspects of proto-Rnying ma pa traditions—e.g., in its references to the system of nine yānas and to a number of tantras that came to be thought of as characteristically Rnying ma pa—it is of interest to note the occurrence here of the term rdzogs pa chen po (line 144, Hackin 1924, p. 87) as an attribute of the highest attainment. The Indic equivalent is given as pa rï pu ru na, i.e., Skt. paripūr,a. 35 An edition and study of this short but highly interesting text has been prepared by 22 MATTHEW KAPSTEIN doctrines discussed in this passage are attributed, are we entitled to assume that the work is in its entirety to be taken as a sort of record of this person’s teaching? On this point we must urge some caution. Though some portions of the text certainly do appear to attempt the transcription of an Indian teacher’s words, and to interpret them in Tibetan, this is not always the case. The digressive enumeration of the Tibetan dharma-kings, for instance, as well as the final account of Devaputra himself, are certainly due to the scroll’s Tibetan author. The summary of the sequence of the nine yānas, given in a mixture of Tibetan and Sanskrit, seems at least to be open to question. And what of the extremely heterogenous (and incomplete) list of the “thirty-six yogatantras”, with its mixture of Rnying ma and Gsar ma titles? Is it imaginable that, in these cases, Indian master and Tibetan disciple were together trying to fill out the categories in question with a combination of fragments from memory and guesswork? Let us recall, too, that the Tibetan glosses on the Indic passages given throughout the text are sometimes inexact, or add material that is not at all present in the Indic version. At the same time, we also find on occasion Indic material that is left uninterpreted in Tibetan. The generally careful standard of the Tibetan orthography throughout suggests that the author of PT 849, ’Bro Dkon mchog dpal, was a relatively well-educated man. However, the Sanskrit we find here is never transcribed on the basis of a literary knowledge of that language. That the principles for exact literary transcription were well established during the eighth and ninth centuries is, of course, quite certain: this is proven, for instance, by the Dunhuang manuscript fragments of the Sgra sbyor bam po gnyis pa.36 And the use of the dbu med script as a medium for written Sanskrit is now also confirmed by palm leaf manuscripts in this script that have recently become objects of intensive study (see n. 2 above). The orthographical peculiarities of PT 849, however, including the absence of distinction between long and short vowels, and frequent confusions of voiced with unvoiced, and aspirated with unaspirated consonants leave little doubt but that what we have here is the transcription of medieval spoken Indic as it sounded to an Indologically untrained Tibetan ear: buddha, for instance, is transcribed the present author as part of an essay entitled “Between Na-rak and a hard place: evil rebirth and the violation of vows in early rNying-ma-pa sources and their Dunhuang antecedents”. 36 For an edition that takes account of the Dunhuang fragments, refer to Ishikawa 1990. NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD FRIEND 23 in no less than six different ways (’bu tha, bu tha,’bu tha’, ’bu da’, ’bu da, ’bu ta) in the first five lines of Tibetan text alone. At the same time, we must note that some of the orthographic variants are certainly due to Dharmarāja’s own way of speaking: the use of ja or za for ya, for example, suggests that he was an easterner, while some pecularities are best explained with reference to NIA rather than Sanskrit vocabulary, for instance, tsha ti sha, for Sanskrit +a'tri!śat, “thirty-six”, certainly derives from an NIA form of the word (compare, e.g., Bengali chatriś). To the extent that PT 849 offers a Buddhist lexicon, it is one composed without a firm basis in the Tibetan traditions of Indian lexical science that had been introduced to Tibet much earlier.37 In sum, it seems plausible to take PT 849 not as a straightforward record of Devaputra’s teaching, but rather as the product of his interaction with his Tibetan disciples. PT 849 may thus be seen not precisely as a glossary, but rather as something resembling a dharma-student’s notebook, containing elements of a lexicon, but also lists of teachings and texts, historical notes, and so on. And, just as we often find in Western dharma-centres today, the student here attempts to transcribe the master’s words using the informal tools offered by the spelling conventions of his own language, without reference to phonological science. Nevertheless, as we also find in the case of studious dharma-students today, the disciple, though not an accomplished translator, is nevertheless familiar with many common bilingual equivalencies. ECHOES OF INDIA If in the foregoing remarks I have to some degree problematised the status of PT 849 as an authentic witness to an Indian master’s teachings in the late tenth century Tibetan world, I believe nevertheless that we may at points discern Devaputra’s own voice. This much is warranted by our conclusions regarding the elements of NIA speech that ’Bro Dkon mchog dpal’s inexact phonetic transcription scheme seems surely to 37 Hackin (1924: 95 ff) was content to lump all of the Indic peculiarities of PT 849’s phonetic representation together as ‘prakritisms’. It seems clear, however, that wherever Sanskrit is not the source language, some variety of early NIA is, and that the Prakrits, properly speaking, play no role here at all. A new phonological analysis of the entire text is clearly called for; the few remarks on this topic offered in the present discussion are intended to do no more than to signal the need for such research. 24 MATTHEW KAPSTEIN have recorded. There is, however, one key point about which Hackin, significantly, had nothing at all to say, where I believe that we do hear Devaputra speak across the centuries with relative clarity. One of the more puzzling passages in the text is the strange series of verses given in lines 172–186 (Hackin 109–116), describing the condition of the realised tantric adept. These are transcribed in Indic throughout, with incomplete Tibetan glosses that sometimes offer paraphrases and not exact translations. Following the Tibetan, these twenty-two lines say: 1. Sometimes like a school-child, 2. Sometimes like a brahman, 3. Sometimes like a monk, 4. Sometimes a blabbermouth, 5. Sometimes saying nothing, 6. Sometimes dwelling in one place, going nowhere, 7. Sometimes wandering all about, 8. Sometimes variously smearing the body, 9. Sometimes bathing in perfume, 10. Sometimes eating varied foods, 11. Sometimes eating many delicacies, 12. Sometimes crying,38 13. Sometimes singing and playing instruments, 14. Sometimes like the demon lord of death, 15. Sometimes loving all with compassion, 16. Sometimes acting as a blindman, 17. Sometimes with the taintless eye at peace, all three realms clearly manifest, 18. Sometimes as if dumb, 19. Sometimes like the lord of speech, 20. Sometimes one abides as if deaf, 21. Sometimes as if hearing various languages of the gods: 22. The conduct of yoga is entirely uncertain; sometimes one abides pervading all space. 38 Hackin read here res ga ni ru, which he left untranslated for the very good reason that this phrase means nothing whatsoever. However, his reading of ru must be emended to ngu; for ra and nga, particularly with the addition of the zhabs kyu ligature, resemble one another closely in the cursive script that is used here. The reading of ngu, ‘to cry’, moreover, is clearly supported by our interpretation of the accompanying Indic text (see below). NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD FRIEND 25 Hackin translated these verses, so far as he could, and attempted to reconstitute the Sanskrit, but otherwise left them altogether without comment, which may seem odd, given his remarks on all but a very small number of passages throughout the whole extent of the text. (It is difficult to imagine, however, in the light of the research on esoteric Buddhism available in the early 1920s, just what one could have said about this section of the text at that time.) Only recently it has become clear that these unusual verses can be for the most part identified with some lines from a particular Indian Buddhist tantric text, the Vyaktabhāvanānugata-tattvasiddhi% (Tattvasiddhi hereinafter) attributed to the yoginī Cintā, who is sometimes identified as the consort of the siddha Dārikapāda. The work was edited on the basis of four manuscripts not long ago in Guhyādi-a+'asiddhisa!graha.39 The Tibetan translation of the text that is preserved in the extant versions of the Tanjur was done by ’Gos Khug pa Lhas btsas in collaboration with the mahāpa%&ita Śāntibhadra, and thus perhaps dates to the third quarter of the eleventh century, that is, perhaps as much as a century after the composition of our Dunhuang manuscript. Roughly contemporaneously with ’Gos, the same text was also transmitted in Tibet by the celebrated Newari mahāmudrā adept Vajrapā%i (Blue Annals 857). The correspondences between this work and PT 849 merit consideration in full detail. In the present collation, an asterisk (*) indicates that the line in question is reconstructed here solely on the basis of the transcription given in PT 849. Sanskrit verse numbers following the abbreviation ‘TS’, where provided, refer to the Sarnath edition of the Tattvasiddhi. In these cases, the sign ‘=’ indicates a recognisable relationship between the two texts, even where this is less than exact equivalence, whereas the notation confer (‘cf.’) calls attention to less direct semantic or phonetic resemblances, the value of which is open to question. 1. ka tsid ta tsa ta. res ga yig phrug dang ’dra. Sometimes like a school-child, (*kvacic chāttra%) 39 Vyaktabhāvānugatatattvasiddhi% attributed to Yoginī Cintā in Guhyādi-a+'asiddhisa!graha, pp. 165–179. The Tibetan translation, by Pa%&ita Zhi ba bzang po and ’Gos Lhas btsas, is included in the same volume, pp. 252–71. The text has been discussed briefly in a rather different context by Shaw (1994: 182), whose efforts to find here evidence of proto-feminism have been criticised (correctly, I believe) by Davidson (2002: 97). MATTHEW KAPSTEIN 26 2. ka tsid ta pha’ tra. res ga bram ze dang ’dra. Sometimes like a brahman (Skt. worthy-person), (*kvacit pātram) (cf. TS 11.c. kvacid api pavitra% śucitānu%) 3. ka tsid ta bra bad ’dzï to na ra. res ga dge slong dang ’dra. Sometimes like a monk (Skt. renunciate), (*kvacit pravrajito nara%) (cf. TS 16.b. kvacid bhik+ādak+a%) 4. ka tsid ba dza me kra ya. res ga gtam mang du smra. Sometimes a blabbermouth, (= TS 9.b. kvacid api ca maukharyam asamam) 5. ka tsid ta me’u na ga da’. res ga cang myi smra. Sometimes saying nothing, (= TS 9.b. kvacin mauna!) 6. ka tsid ta e ka nyi la ya. res ga ni sa cig na ’dug. gar yang myi ’gro. Sometimes dwelling in one place, going nowhere, (= TS10.b. kvacid api virāgaikanilaya%) 7. ka tsid tsan tsa la ka ti. res ga kun tu ’khyab par ’gro. Sometimes wandering all about, (= TS 10.d. kvacid api ta-iccañcalagati%) 8. ka tsi ta thu’u li ma la na. res ga sna tshogs lus la sku. Sometimes variously smearing the body, (= TS 13.b. kvacid dhūlīmlāna%) 9. ka tsid ta sï’u tsi sna na. res ga ni dri zhim po la khrus byed. Sometimes bathing in perfume, (= TS 13.b. kvacid api sukhasnānasubhaga%) 10. ka tsid ta byid tya si. res ga za ba sna tshogs gsol. Sometimes eating varied foods, (cf. TS 11.c. kvacid vi+'ā-sīna%/śīla%, for, perhaps, *vi+'āśana%, “eating shit”. The Tib. trans. of Tattvasiddhi reads here la lar ni mi gtsang bas gnas pa’o. It is possible to imagine, too, that the Skt. underlying PT 849 in this verse would have been *viśvāśana%, “eating variously”.) 11. ka tsid ta myi cha dzï byid ti. res ga drï zhim rgu za. Sometimes eating many delicacies, (= TS 10.a. kvacit tu+'o mi+'āt) 12. ka tsid ta kan ’ar na lo na. res ga ni ngu.40 Sometimes crying, (= TS 12c. kvacid api mahākrandanapara% + 9.c. kvacit t$+,ālola%) 13. ka tsid ta ’gi ti ka ba tsa na. res ga ni dbyangs dang rol mo byed. Sometimes singing and playing instruments, (= TS 12.c. kvacid gītotkar+ī) 40 On this reading, see n. 38 above. NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD FRIEND 27 14. ka tsi ta ra kha sa sa ma. res ga gshin rje srin po dang ’dra. Sometimes like the demon lord of death, (= TS 9.a. kvacid api mahārāk+asasama%) 15. ka tsid ta ka ru na ad ma ka. res ga snying rje kun la byams. Sometimes loving all with compassion, (= TS 9.a. kvacit kāru,yātmā) 16. ka tsid ta an ta ba ta. res ga long ba’i tshul du ston. Sometimes acting as a blindman, (*kvacid andhavat) 17. ka tsid ta ’gya ni e ka tsa bya ma la sha trï sha. res ga dri myed spyan cig bzhi. kha!s gsum kun kyang sa ler snang. Sometimes with the taintless eye at peace (reading zhi for bzhi), all three realms clearly manifest, (*kvacid jñānī ekaca(k+u%) vimala sad$śa. There seems little point in attempting to reconstruct a grammatically coherent (not to say “correct”) Sanskrit phrase on the basis of the badly garbled transcription in this case.) 18. ka tsid ta ’ba he ra bad ta. res ga gdïg pa dang ’dra. Sometimes as if mute, (*kvacid badhiravat, “…as if deaf”) 19. ka tsid ta ba gi sva ra sa ’dri sha. res ga gsung gi dbang phyug ’dra. Sometimes like the lord of speech, (*kvacid vāgīśvarasad$śa%) 20. ka tsid ta kā la ba ta. res ga ’on pa’ï tshul du gnas. Sometimes one abides as if deaf, (*kvacit kā,avat, “…as if oneeyed”) 21. ka tsid ta ’dï pi sro tra sha ’di sa. res ga lha’i sgra skad sna tshogs thos pa ’dra. Sometimes as if hearing various languages of the gods: (*kvacid devaśrotrasad$śa%) 22. ka tsid ta na na ru pa tha ra ’dzo gi pa ri tsa ra na ti, ma hi ta li. rnal sbyor spyod pa cïr yang ma nges ste. res ga gnam ka kun tu khyab par gnas. The conduct of yoga is entirely uncertain; Sometimes one abides pervading all space. (*kvacin nānārūpadharayogī paricaranti (sic!) mahitale) (cf. TS 16.c. kvacid yogānanda% kvacid api p$thak prā,isad$śa%) It is of course quite evident that the general correspondence of PT 849 with the Tattvasiddhi is very imperfect. Besides the verses with which I am concerned, there is no other discernible connection between the two texts, whether of subject-matter or of actual wording. The transla- MATTHEW KAPSTEIN 28 tion of the verses we find in PT 849, moreover, is quite distinct from the translation found in ’Gos Lhas btsas’s version, so there is no reason to posit a genetic relationship between the former and the latter. Finally, we must note that only some eleven of twenty-two among the lines of verse found in the Dunhuang text can be securely related to those given in the available Sanskrit. Another four exhibit either semantic or phonological similarities that seem to merit comparison. If we grant to these latter the benefit of the doubt, we have fifteen apparent correspondences in all, or about 67%. This is, of course, significant, but by no means a perfect match. How are we to understand the relationship between them? To begin, on comparing the Sanskrit text with the ’Gos Lhas btsas translation, we find that, in the verses with which we are concerned, the correspondence between the two texts is much poorer than it is in other sections of the Tattvasiddhi: six lines found in the Sanskrit are absent in the Tibetan; two given in the Tibetan are missing from the Sanskrit; and a further three are found to occur in different places in the two versions. This is therefore the least stable portion of the Tattvasiddhi as a whole. It is possible to imagine that it originated as an altogether separate text, or as a part of some other work that is either lost or that I not yet encountered. If this were the case, then Devaputra might not be quoting the Tattvasiddhi at all, but rather the common source-text. However this may be, if we assume that he dictated the passage from memory, and did not have a manuscript at his disposal during his travels in Tibet and China, then it is also possible that what we have here is a partially improvised version of the text, whether derived from the Tattvasiddhi or a presumed common source. This might explain why some lines exhibit such a poor correspondence with lines in the extant Sanskrit text with which they otherwise seem plausibly related. During the last few years some of those working on the history of Tibetan Buddhism during the early phases of the ‘later diffusion’ have noticed evidence of a class of literature produced at the very margins of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, ‘grey texts’ that represent an ‘IndoTibetan’ Buddhism in the most literal sense, and whose exact origins are often obscure.41 In PT 849, I believe, we find conserved a remarkable example of the grass-roots interaction between an Indian master and his Tibetan disciples that became in some respects definitive of 41 See, in particular, the contributions of Davidson 2002b and Martin 2002. NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD FRIEND 29 very widely ramified developments during the tenth through twelfth centuries and perhaps even for some time beyond. A comparison with the transmission of teachings in contemporary dharma-centres seems, once again, altogether appropriate. With the linguistic tools enabling communication between master and disciple only imperfectly refined, a type of Buddhist instruction may be nevertheless elaborated within the shared space of a common enterprise in which the truth of the Dharma, it is assumed, will sooner or later disclose itself despite the small obstacle of verbal misunderstanding. BIBLIOGRAPHY Aris, Michael (ed.) 1998. High Peaks, Pure Earth: Collected Writings on Tibetan History and Culture. London: Serindia Publications. Davidson, Ronald M. 2002a. Indian Esoteric Buddhism: a Social History of the Tantric Movement. New York: Columbia University Press. ––––2002b. Gsar ma Apocrypha: the Creation of Orthodoxy, Gray Texts, and the New Revelation. In Eimer and Germano 2002, 203–24. Eimer, Helmut, and David Germano (eds) 2002. The Many Canons of Tibetan Buddhism. PIATS 2000: Proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the IATS, Leiden 2000. Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library, vol. 2/10. Leiden: Brill. Hackin, Joseph. 1924. Formulaire sanscrit-tibétain du Xe siècle. Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner. Hazod, Guntram. 2000. The Yum-brtan Lineage. In Tsering Gyalbo, Guntram Hazod and Per K. Sørensen. Civilization at the Foot of Mount Sham-po: the Royal House of lHa bug-pa-can and the History of g.Ya’-bzang. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 177–91. Ishikawa, Mie. 1990. A Critical Edition of the Sgra sbyor bam po gnyis pa, an Old and Basic Commentary on the Mahāvyutpatti. Studia Tibetica 18. Tokyo: The Toyo Bunko. Kapstein, Matthew. 2000. The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism: Conversion, Contestation and Memory. New York: Oxford University Press. Karmay, Samten Gyaltsen. 1980. The Ordinance of Lha Bla-ma Ye-shes-’od. In Michael Aris and Aung San Suu Kyi (eds) Tibetan Studies in Honour of Hugh Richardson. Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 150–62. van der Kuijp, Leonard W. J. 1992. Dating the Two Lde’u Chronicles of Buddhism in India and Tibet. Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques XLVI(1) 468–91. Lalou, Marcelle. 1953. Les textes bouddhiques au temps du roi Khri-sro(-lde-bcan. Journal Asiatique 241(3), 313–53. Lde’u Jo sras. 1987. Lde’u chos ’byung. Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang. Macdonald, Ariane and Yoshiro Imaeda (eds) 1978. Choix de documents tibétains. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale. Martin, Dan. 2002. Gray traces: tracing the Tibetan teaching transmission of the Mngon pa kun btus (Abhidharmasamuccaya) through the early period of disunity. In Eimer and Germano 2002, 335–57. 30 MATTHEW KAPSTEIN Mkhas pa Lde’u. 1987. Mkhas pa Lde’us mdzad pa’i rgya bod kyi chos ’byung rgyas pa. Gangs can rig mdzod Series 3. Lhasa: Bod ljongs bod yig dpe rnying dpe skrun khang. Nyang Nyi ma ’od zer. 1988. Chos ’byung me tog snying po sbrang rtsi’i bcud. Gangs can rig mdzod Series 5. Lhasa: Bod ljongs bod yig dpe rnying dpe skrun khang. Petech, Luciano. 1994. The Disintegration of the Tibetan Kingdom. In Per Kvaerne (ed.) Tibetan Studies. Oslo: The Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture, vol. 2, 649–59. Richardson, Hugh E. 1971. Who was Yum brtan? In Ariane Macdonald (ed.) Études tibétaines dédiées à la mémoire de Marcelle Lalou. Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve. Reprinted in Aris 1998. Rta rdo (ed.) 2003. Dkar chag ’phang thang ma. Sgra sbyor bam po gnyis pa. Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang. Scherrer-Schaub, Cristina and George Bonani. 2002. Establishing a typology of the Old Tibetan manuscripts: a multidisciplinary approach. In Susan Whitfield (ed.) Dunhuang Manuscript Forgeries. London: The British Library. Schlagintweit, Emil. 1866. Die Könige von Tibet. Munich: Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Shaw, Miranda. 1994. Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Takata, Tokio. 1994. Bouddhisme chinois en écriture tibétain: le Long Rouleau chinois et la communauté sino-tibétaine de Dunhuang. In Fukui Fumimasa and Gérard Fussman (eds) Bouddhisme et cultures locales: quelques cas de réciproques adaptations. Études thématiques 2. Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 137–44. Tshal pa Kun dga’ rdo rje. 1981. Deb ther dmar po rnams kyi dang po hu lan deb ther. Dung dkar Blo bzang ’phrin las (ed.) Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang. Vyaktabhāvānugatatattvasiddhi% attributed to Yoginī Cintā. 1987. In Samdhong Rinpoche and Vrajvallabh Dwivedi (eds) Guhyādi-a+'asiddhisa!graha. Sarnath: Central Institute for Higher Tibetan Studies, 165–79. Yonezawa, Yoshiyasu. 2001. Introduction to the Facsimile Edition of a Collection of Sanskrit Palm-leaf Manuscripts in Tibetan dBu med Script. Tokyo: Taishō University, The Institute for Comprehensive Studies of Buddhism. BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE: EVIL REBIRTH AND THE VIOLATION OF VOWS IN EARLY RNYING MA PA SOURCES AND THEIR DUNHUANG ANTECEDENTS Matthew T. Kapstein THE LOST MURALS OF ’UG PA LUNG In the histories of the Rnying ma pa tradition, we find a notable record of the iconographic program of the eleventh-century temple of ’Ug pa lung, founded by one of celebrated masters of the period, Zur po che Shākya ’byung gnas. 1 The passage, which has been faithfully reproduced in a succession of historical writings down through the centuries, is translated in the late Dudjom Rinpoche’s compilation as follows: Zurpoche installed images of the peaceful deities, of whom VairocanaSamantamukha (kun tu zhal) was foremost, in the four-pillared upper shrine of the temple; images of Hayagr va and Amṛtakuṇḍalin as the door-keepers of the upper court, which had eight pillars; and in the shrines of the north and south wings, he installed images of the Great Mother [Prajñāpāramitā] and D paṃkara, each surrounded by four offering goddesses. In the protectors’ shrine, he made images of Bhagavat, ridev , Brahma, and akra. Frescoes of the gurus of the lineage were painted in the eight-pillared upper court, and those of twenty-three maṇḍalas, such as the ‘Hundred-petalled Lotus’, on its surrounding wall. In the lower court, which had twenty pillars, there were frescoes of the Thousand Buddhas; the Buddhas of the Ten Directions; Amitāyus surrounded by the [Eight] ‘Closest Sons’; the Seven Generations of Buddhas; the twelve deeds; the bodhisattva 1 ’Ug pa lung was located south of the Gtsang po, some 30 kilometres to the east of Gzhis ka rtse. If the traditional dates given for Zur po che’s main successor, Zur chung Shes rab grags (1014-1074), are correct, its foundation may be assigned very roughly to ca. 1040. This is further supported by indications that Zur po che was a junior contemporary of ’Brog mi Shākya ye shes (993-1050); see DUDJOM RINPOCHE 1991: I.633. 160 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN Dharmodgata; Tārā, who protects from the eight fears; the Lords of the Three Families; the Malaya Buddha-field; the wheel of life; et cetera.2 The text seems to suggest that in the scheme of twenty-three maṇḍalas painted in the upper court, the so-called ‘Hundred-petalled Lotus’ (padma brgya ldan) was particularly important, at least sufficiently so that it was the sole maṇḍala in the group to be recalled by name. But just what was the maṇḍala of the ‘Hundred-petalled Lotus’? And why was it so esteemed? As the temple of ’Ug pa lung seems to have been already in ruins during the nineteenth century, there is no possibility of answering these questions by research at the site, or even through available testimony concerning it. 3 2 DUDJOM RINPOCHE 1991: I.623-624. The same passage is found, for example, in GU RU BKRA SHIS 1990 [1807-13]: 256. However, it is quite certain that it was derived from an earlier collection of Zur lineage rnam thar-s, which has not so far been discovered, but which is referred to in KLONG CHEN 1991: 430, and which no doubt also served as the basis for the summary accounts given in the Blue Annals: ’GOS LO 1984 [1476]: 142ff.; trans. ROERICH 1976 [1949]: 110ff. As VAN DER KUIJP 2007 has now convincingly shown, the history attributed to Klong chen Rab ’byams pa was in fact by Rgyal sras Thugs mchog rtsal and likely composed in 1422. 3 ’Jam dbyangs Mkhyen brtse’i dbang po (1820-92), who visited the region in the 1840s, briefly mentions ’Ug pa lung in his famous guidebook, stating: ‘In the upper part of sPan t‘ag ma of this region [downstream from Gzhis ka rtse to the south of the Gtsang po] there is the place called Zur ’Ug pa luṅ, which was formerly a great residence of the rÑiṅ ma pa of the earlier period. Although today it is merely a village, there are still some chapels and blessing-bestowing sacred objects’. (’JAM DBYANGS MKHYEN BRTSE 1989: 306; trans. FERRARI 1958: 70.) Elsewhere, in his record of tantric monasteries (Gangs can bod yul du byon pa’i gsang sngags gsar rnying gi gdan rabs mdor bsdus ngo mtshar padmo’i dga’ tshal), he specifies that: ‘Zur seats at ’Ug pa lung and Gsang sngags chos gling, etc., though they were formerly greatly expanded, do not appear nowadays to have much teaching or practice, except for just the continuous familial lineage of Gsang sngags chos gling’. (’JAM DBYANGS MKHYEN BRTSE 1989: 4: zur gyi gdan sa ’ug pa lung dang/ gsang sngags chos gling pa sogs sngar dar rgyas ha cang che yang/ deng sang gsang sngags chos gling pa’i gdung brgyud ma chad tsam las bshad sgrub sogs rgya cher mi snang ngo.) KA THOG SI TU 1999: 350-351, recounting a visit to the region in 1919, informs us that: ‘At ’Ug pa lung, in the upper valley of Thag in Pan, about one generation has passed since the whole temple was [or: all the temples were] destroyed, for which reason I did not go there’. (pan gyi thag gi ’ug pa lung lha khang thams cad ’jig nas mi rabs gcig tsam song bas der ma song). Elsewhere (291-292), he provides a remarkable description of a statue of Yang dag he ru ka, said to have been constructed under Zur chung Shes rab grags at Zur lung dpal chen lha khang. While it is therefore possible that some artefacts stemming from the early Zur lineages survived into the twentieth century, there is no hint, of which I am aware, of material remains that would shed light on our present topic. BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE 161 At the time that Gyurme Dorje and I were completing work on the first edition of Dudjom Rinpoche’s book some two decades ago, the ‘Hundred-petalled Lotus’ was one of the residue of outstanding points that we did not have the opportunity to resolve in consultation with the author. 4 Not long afterwards, however, it became clear that it in fact designates one of the two major maṇḍalas of an unstudied, but by no means unimportant, ritual cycle belonging to the so-called ‘oral’ (bka’ ma) tradition of the Rnying ma pa (Rnying ma bka’ ma hereafter), and entitled Na rak dong sprugs, the ‘Churner of the Depths of Hell’. This cycle, found in the thirteenth volume of the Rnying ma bka’ ma rgyas pa collection (see Appendix), is among those held to have been transmitted early on through the Zur lineage. 5 Can this then be taken as settling the matter with regard to the iconography of Zur po che’s temple? Although, in a very broad sense, perhaps it does, we must remain a bit cautious in our assumptions regarding the Na rak cycle as known to the Zur masters of the eleventh and twelfth centuries; for the ritual manuals that are now at our disposal are compositions stemming from the great efforts to redact the Rnying ma bka’ ma traditions that were undertaken at the Central Tibetan monastery of Smin sgrol gling during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries under Gter bdag gling pa ’Gyur med rdo rje (1646-1714) and his brother Lo chen Dharma r (1654-1717). 6 That they sought to be faithful to the earlier traditions as known to them is certain, but at the same time they were seeking to bring order to diverse oral and textual materials derived from the several different lineages to which they had access. 7 What 4 Our last meetings with the author to discuss the work occurred in 1983, four years before H. H. Dudjom Rinpoche’s passing. 5 Refer to the Rnal ’byor gyi spyi khrus dong sprugs kyi brgyud ’debs by Gter bdag gling pa, supplemented by ’Jigs bral ye shes rdo rje (i.e. Bdud ’joms Rin po che). This is text B. of the cycle, as listed in the Appendix. 6 Their role in the redaction of the Na rak dong sprugs cycle will be evident on consulting the Appendix below. 7 Though the brgyud ’debs referred to in n. 5 above and similar materials present the illusion of a clear and direct, linear transmission, this evidently was not the case. As Lo chen Dharma r frankly states in a note at the conclusion of the Khrom dkrugs cho ga (text C., p. 239): “The ritual arrangements in the old texts were exceedingly condensed and hence unclear, and, among the compositions of the scholars of intervening periods, stemming from differing traditions, there appear to be some admixtures; and some, too, are exceedingly expanded and combine together many various writings so that the essential points are obscured—for these and other reasons I did not see much of benefit to the beings of these late times…”. (las khrigs gzhung 162 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN the Smin sgrol gling tradition gives us, therefore, is an ideal reconstruction and not a simple reproduction of an eleventh-century ritual corpus. fig. 1 The Na rak dong sprugs maṇḍala used during purificatory and funerary rites at Smin sgrol gling Monastery. Photographed by the author on site, June 2002. The Na rak cycle has long played a significant role in Rnying ma pa confessional and mortuary ritual, though this is somewhat obscured because its presence in Rnying ma pa practice is evident primarily through the revealed gter ma cycles it inspired, rather than through direct practice of the Rnying ma bka’ ma rituals themselves. The celebrated thirteenth-century treasure-revealer Guru Chos dbang (1212-1270) is counted among those inspired by this cycle, and the Nara (< na rak) festival stemming from his lineage occupies a major place in the ritual calendar of the people of Yol mo, Nepal, even rnying rnams ni ha cang bsdus shing mi gsal ba dang/ bar skabs su byon pa’i mkhas pa dag gis mdzad pa yang lugs srol tha dad pa’i nang gses cung zad ’dres pa ltar snang ba dang/ ’ga’ zhig ni ha cang rgya ches pa dang yig sna mang du bsdus pas snying po’i don la sgrib pa sogs dus mtha’i ’gro ba la phan pa che bar ma mthong… .) BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE 163 today. 8 One of the most popular of Rnying ma confessional litanies, the Nyams chag sdig sgrib thams cad bshags pa’i rgyal po na rag dong sprugs, derived from both Chos dbang’s and the fourteenthcentury ‘Northern Treasure’ (byang gter) traditions, is clearly, both by title and contents, indebted to the same cycle. 9 It is evident, too, that the zhi khro maṇḍala of the famous eighteenth-century revelation, the Klong chen snying thig, is based primarily upon the Na rak dong sprugs rites. 10 For the tradition of Smin sgrol gling, however, the Na rak dong sprugs itself, as given in the Rnying ma bka’ ma collection, continues to occupy a major place in mortuary ritual. Considered primarily as general rite of purification, it is regarded as providing particularly efficacious means for expiating the violation of tantric vows (samaya), identified as a primary cause of infernal rebirth. 11 Hence, in relation to the Na rak dong sprugs cycle, contrition for transgressions and the purification of evil rebirths are but the two sides of one and the same medallion. As noted, there are in fact two versions of the maṇḍala transmitted at the present time, both of which involve the configuration of the entire group of one hundred peaceful and wrathful divinities into a single concentrically arranged maṇḍala. At the outset, this distinguishes it from many of the other Rnying ma pa cycles based upon the same pantheon, such as the better-known sgyu ’phrul zhi khro, in which the peaceful and wrathful divinities are divided into two complementary maṇḍalas of forty-two peaceful and fifty-eight (or 8 CLARKE 1991. BLEZER 1997: 56-60 briefly surveys works from the Rin chen gter mdzod and elsewhere involving the Na rak dong sprugs rituals. 9 This short text is included in many collections of regular Rnying ma pa prayers and practices (chos spyod), and also frequently issued as a separatum. The colophon states that it combines the confessional litanies of the Bka’ brgyad gsang ba yongs rdzogs revelations of Guru Chos dbang together with those of the Byang gter bka’ brgyad drag po rang byung rang shar, the latter having been revealed by Rig ’dzin Rgod kyi lde ’phru can (1337-1409). 10 The Zhi khro ngan song sbyong ba will be found in any complete edition of the Klong chen snying thig or of its sādhanas. In the appended volumes of the Rin chen gter mdzod (’JAM MGON KONG SPRUL 1976) it appears in vol. 107. Its affinity with the Na rak dong sprugs is seen in the common arrangement of the maṇḍala. 11 Its role in the purification of the tantric vows is very widely extolled. ’JAM MGON KONG SPRUL 2002: 398, for instance, writes that owing to its great purificatory power, when practised on the full moon, new moon and eighth of the month, “it is fitting to take an oath” (g.yar dam bya ba) to so practise it. Refer to VAN SCHAIK’s chapter above for a detailed discussion of samaya. 164 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN sixty) wrathful divinities respectively. 12 The distinction between the two versions of the Na rak dong sprugs maṇḍala, however, is appar- fig. 2 Blue Vajrasattva with consort, surrounded by the eight major bodhisattvas. Central Tibet, ca. thirteenth century. Musée Guimet, Paris. Photo credit: © Photo RMN. MA 1089. ently a unique feature of this tradition, and seems to conserve a remarkable snapshot of the early evolution of Tibetan maṇḍala systems. The first version of the maṇḍala, the one referred to as the ‘Hundred-petalled Lotus’, is said to be related to the tantras of the Mahāyoga class. (The schematic and simplified maṇḍala shown in 12 This division of the pantheon into two maṇḍalas is perhaps best known, in fact, from the Kar gling zhi khro, the ritual system of which the Bar do thos grol is part. Cf. the preceding chapter by IMAEDA and, for a thorough analysis of the zhi khro pantheon, BLEZER 1997. BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE 165 Fig. 1 is the one currently used for funerals at Smin sgrol gling.) The second maṇḍala is arranged upon the concentric hubs of a great wheel, and is qualified as belonging to the Anuyogatantra. 13 In both maṇḍalas, the central divinity is the blue Vajrasattva, accompanied by his consort Vajradhātv var . While the pantheon in both cases is essentially similar, the ‘Mahāyoga’ maṇḍala, our ‘Hundred-petalled Lotus’, expressly places the female divinities to the side of their male consorts. 14 It is a distinct possibility, in fact, that the several exceptional early thangkas depicting a blue Vajrasattva with consort, as in the magnificent example from the collection of the Musée Guimet (Fig. 2), are to be related to the Na rak rituals. 15 That this arrangement 13 This is the rite called the Khrom dkrugs cho ga as given in text C. of the Bka’ ma collection. It is perhaps notable that the arrangement of the maṇḍala upon a wheel, in contrast to the lotus, seems to be the pattern preferred throughout the Sarvadurgatipariśodhanatantra. 14 Thus, in the Spyi khrus cho ga (i.e., the Padma brgya ldan, text E.), we are told (p. 286) that, following the generation of the central Vajrasattva, Vajradhātv var is to be generated ‘to the left of the father[-consort], beside his lap … embracing him with her right hand that holds a bell, her left holding a vajra to her heart, and her legs wrapped around him in *vratāsana’ (yab kyi g.yon phyogs nye ba’i ’phang [sic! read: phang] du yum rdo rje dbang phyug ma sngon mo phyg g.yas dril bu ’dzin pa yab la ’khyud cing/ g.yon rdo rje thugs kar ’dzin pa/ brtul zhugs kyi skyil mo krung gis ’khril ba). The *vratāsana (meaning something like the ‘posture of yogic discipline’) is unfamiliar to me, but, given that the goddess clearly must be placed to the central figure’s side, it probably resembles the pose of Vajrasattva’s consort in the Musée Guimet’s thang ka in figure 2. The same posture is assumed by the consorts of the Jinas of the five families (ibid, p. 303). 15 On this work, attributed to the thirteenth century and inventoried as MA 1089 in the Musée Guimet collection, see BÉGUIN 1995: 76-78. (The thang ka was acquired in southern Tibet by Pt. Rahula Sankrtyayana and was presented to the Musée Guimet by Giuseppe Tucci, who had also published it in TUCCI 1949: vol. 3, plate F, described in vol. 2, p. 332.) It is possible that this thang ka was commisioned for rites performed in accord with the Na rak cycle of the Zur or other early Rnying ma pa lineages. However, blue forms of Vajrasattva are also known from Gsar ma sources (DE MALLMAN 1986: 419-420) and it would be imprudent to exclude these from consideration. Nevertheless, in reference to another striking example, now in the collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts but also formerly in the possession of Tucci (and similarly reproduced in TUCCI 1949: vol. 3, plate 1, with description in vol. 2, pp. 331-332), HUNTINGTON AND HUNTINGTON (1990: 309-313) demonstrate the Zur lineage provenance quite conclusively. In this painting, dating probably to the late eleventh or early twelfth century, blue Vajrasattva, with Vajradhātv var posed at his side, is surmounted by seven identified members of the lineage beginning with Vimalamitra, and the patron depicted in the lower right corner is a direct disciple of Zur chung Shes rab grags, Glan bla ma Shākya byang chub. Significantly, the 166 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN of the male and female divinities was typical of early Mahāyoga is, incidentally, suggested too by the Musée Guimet’s exceptional Dunhuang maṇḍala of the forty-two peaceful deities (Fig. 3), a group that as a whole is incorporated within the inner circles of the maṇḍalas that concern us here. 16 fig. 3 The maṇḍala of the forty-two peaceful deities. Dunhuang, ca. tenth century. Musée Guimet, Paris. Photo credit: © Photo RMN. EO 1148. The Anuyoga maṇḍala, by contrast, places the male and female divinities in full union, as is familiar from the yab yum iconography that we often associate with the so-called ‘Anuttarayogatantras’ in general. 17 Though this version of maṇḍala of the peaceful and wrathbrgyud ’debs noted above (n. 5) also makes Glan to be Zur chung’s successor in this lineage. 16 The painting is numbered EO. 1148 in the collection of the Musée Guimet. See VANDIER-NICOLAS and HAMBIS 1974-76: 62-66 and plate 29. Recent discussions of it include TANAKA 1992 and idem in GIÈS and COHEN 1995: 396-398. 17 Thus, the generation of the deity in this case states that the central goddess (here Samantabhadr ) is posed not beside, but in the lap (de’i phang du) of the father- BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE 167 ful divinties is mentioned just to illustrate this difference and will be of no further concern to us here, it seems nevertheless worthwhile to note that the explicit difference in the two maṇḍalas’ depictions of the deities with their consorts raises a general question of some importance for the study of Tibetan religious art: should ritual stipulations or artistic practices be regarded as the primary sources of agency in any given case in which similar discrepancies are noted? Were the rituals, in other words, driving the development of iconographic features, or were the rites themselves sometimes redacted in response to variations that had been explored first in art? While there was no doubt a mutual feedback relation obtaining between the two over the long term, in connection with the issue at hand, that is, the pose of male and female divinities, Tibetan Buddhist tradition by and large privileged ritual in its expositions of the relations of divine consorts. Summarizing Indian sources, Sa chen Kun dga’ snying po (1092-1158), for instance, writes: Based upon the Paranirmitava avartin deities, a species of divinity in the realm of desire, whose males and females gaze upon one another, one satisfies the torment of entanglement in desire by mutual gazes, and in that way there is a path of perfect enlightenment without renunciation. Because this is taught, there is the Kriyātantra, which grants just so much bliss. […] Again, among some there is the desire to laugh, so that to teach them that there is a path that does not renounce that, there is the Caryātantra, which permits just so much bliss. […] Some have the desire to embrace, so that in order to teach them that there is a path in which that is not renounced, there is the Yogatantra, which permits just so much bliss as comes from embraces. […] Similarly, some have the desire of a couple copulating, and there is a path of perfect enlightenment that does not abandon them. In order to teach this, the Highest Tantra permits just so much bliss. […] Thus, there are four divisions of degree among the passions of the beings of the realm of desire, wherefore, in order to indicate that without renouncing them, there are the paths of perfect enlightenment whose significance is taught [in the four classes of tantra]—this is held to be so by master Kaṇha, Padmavajra and their followers, following the Dvikalpa [i.e., the Hevajratantra], the Saṃpuṭa, etc. 18 consort Samantabhadra. (Text C., p. 155). Recently, several scholars have pointed out that the source term for rnal ’byor bla med found in available Sanskrit texts is in fact niruttarayoga and not *anuttarayoga, though the term anuttara figures prominently in the Śaiva tantrism of Kashmir. 18 SA CHEN 1968: 5-6. 168 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN The maṇḍalas of the Na rak dong sprugs thus appear in their iconography to capture one aspect of the passage from Yogatantra to Highest Tantra as this was understood here and in similar works. Though we may regard the presentation we find in Sa chen’s text as being somewhat fanciful, it is clear that ritual and icon were evolving throughout the late first and early second millennia, and that traditional authors drew upon the narratives available within the traditions with which they were familiar to describe and to explain the changes that were taking place around them. Let us return now to our main topic and briefly summarize the pantheon surrounding (A. 1-2) the central Vajrasattva and his consort Vajradhātv var in the Mahāyoga maṇḍala of the hundred-petalled lotus: (B. 3-6) First are four divinities: Vajrākṣobhya and Samantabhadra and their consorts. (C. 7-14) Around them are eight: the Tathāgatas of the four families and their consorts. (D. 15-30) These are surrounded in turn by sixteen: the eight bodhisattvas and eight offering-goddesses. (E. 31-62) Following is a heterogenous group of thirty-two: the four wrathful gate-protectors with their consorts, the six sages (thub pa drug), the herukas of the five families with their consorts and finally the eight Gaur s. (F. 63-102) The outer circle of forty divinities is populated by the rabble of animal-headed ḍ kinīs. In short, the pantheon of the peaceful divinities occupies the center and inner circles (A.-D.), including gate-protectors and sages of the circle of thirty-two (E. 31-44); while the wrathful pantheon takes up the remainder of that circle and the outer periphery of the maṇḍala (E. 45-F. 102). THE LOTUS MA ALA AT DUNHUANG It would appear that the ‘Hundred-Petalled Lotus’ as known to the later Rnying ma bka’ ma tradition is to be identified straight away with the maṇḍala of the Zur temple, were it not for the fact that lotus maṇḍalas of various descriptions are legion throughout Tantric milieux. From Hindu diagrams such as the r yantra, to the Garbha- BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE 169 maṇḍala of Japanese Shingon, the lotus serves as an ubiquitous template for the layout and design of sacred realms. At Dunhuang, accordingly, lotus maṇḍalas are very well represented in both the Tibetan and Chinese collections. A particularly striking example is Stein painting 172 (Fig. 4), with its intricate concentric series of petals. Most noteworthy in the present context is, however, a short fig. 4 Stein painting 172 (British Museum no. 1919,0101,0.172). Dunhuang, ca. tenth century. This image is reproduced by kind permission of © The British Museum. Dunhuang Tibetan manuscript, IOL Tib J 318, that was first noted in L. de la Vallée Poussin’s catalogue of the India Office Library collection: a “memorandum for arranging the divinites in a maṇḍala of 108 lotus petals” (padma ’kha brgya rtsa brgyad pa la lha bkod pa’i brjed byang). 19 A glance at the actual content of this short text (edited 19 LA VALLÉE POUSSIN 1962: Refer now too to the entry in DALTON and VAN SCHAIK 2006: 49-50. The text, three folios in length (and numbered ka, ’kha, ga), is in fact in two parts: the first (lines ka.a1-ka.b6) provides instructions for the general layout of the maṇḍala (referred to hereafter as maṇḍala followed by the numbering of the deities concerned), mentioning groups of deities without enumerating them individually, while the latter (lines ka.b6-ga.b5) names the divinities in each group and 170 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN and translated below) immediately suggests a pronounced morphological relationship between it and the Hundred-Petalled Lotus maṇḍala of the Rnying ma bka’ ma tradition. We find here the following arrangement: (A. maṇḍala 1-2) Center: Prajñāpāramitā and Vairocana. (B. maṇḍala 3-10) Eight white petals: the eight means and wisdom divinities of the four families. 20 (C. maṇḍala 11-26) Sixteen red petals: ten p ramit goddesses 21 and six offering goddesses. 22 (D. maṇḍala 27-42) Sixteen yellow petals: two remaining offering goddesses, 23 ten directional buddhas, 24 four foremost arhats. 25 specifies their appropriate mudr s (referred to hereafter as mudr followed by the numbering of the deities concerned). As is typically the case in tenth-century Dunhuang tantric texts, the Sanskrit is quite poorly transcribed and sometimes unrecognizably so. For examples of this, see especially n. 32 below. 20 Mudr s 3-10: Akṣobhyavajra, Ratnasambhava, Amitābha, Amoghasiddhi; Buddhalocanā, Māmāk , Paṇḍaravāsin , ryatārā. 21 The list of the p ramit s is defective: mudr s 11-17 are given as Dānapāramitā, Jñānapāramitā, Prajñāpāramitā, Balapāramitā, Upayapāramitā, Praṇidhānapāramitā, and Jñānapāramitā. The repetition of Jñāna is clearly in error, and the list is missing four of the perfections: la, Kṣānti, V rya and Dhyāna. In the Sarvadurgatipariśodhana (SDP hereafter) the p ramit s are assimilated to the offering goddesses and only eight are listed (SKORUPSKI 1983: 8). 22 Mudr s 57-62: Vajralāsyā, Vajramālā, Vajrag tā, Vajranṛtyā, Vajradhūpā, Vajrapuṣpā (though our text suggests rather Vajraphullā). These are of course identical in the SDP (SKORUPSKI 1983: 8). 23 Mudr s 63-64: Vajrālokā and Vajragandhā. 24 It has not so far been possible to establish a clear correlation between the list of the Buddhas of the ten directions given here and any other known enumeration. Although all ten are named in our text— r kānti, Ratnaloka, Prajñābhadra, pa ra ba myu ka, r ba ra ma, r a oka, r jñāna, r bhadravajra, Ratnaṃ pa ra ma, Jñānacakra—and despite the fact that the underlying Sanskrit is clear in all but three among them (as indicated by the use of italics), the group as a whole remains puzzling. The elements found in these names, however, are frequently met with in other lists—in particular, śrī, aśoka, ratna, and bhadra—though perhaps these are generally so common that this in itself is of little significance. Correspondence with several colleagues has in any case revealed that, while inventories of the direction Buddhas are well-known from a variety of sources, they diverge considerably from one another. Though it is not precisely my present topic, for convenience of reference I summarise elements of this correspondence here. I thank Hartmut Buescher, Paul Harrison, Inoue Takami, Peter Jilks, Hudaya Kandahjaya, Leslie Kawamura, Christian Luczanits, Jan Nattier, Jonathan Silk, Jacqueline Stone, and Nobuyoshi Yamabe for their learned remarks and observations. BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE 171 (E. maṇḍala 43-58) Sixteen green petals: sixteen inner bodhisattvas. 26 (F. maṇḍala 59-76) Sixteen black petals: eight great wrathful deities 27 and eight great gods. 28 (Two additional wrathful deities, above and below, are to be added in samādhi.) 29 (G. maṇḍala 77-92) Sixteen rose-colored petals: eight great n gas 30 and eight great ṛṣis. 31 An early list of the Buddhas of the ten directions is given in the “ProtoBuddhāvataṃsaka” translated by Lokakṣema (or immediate members of his school) in the late 2nd century (T 280, Dousha jing 兜沙經). (This work is the object of a studyin-progress by Harrison and Nattier.) Also early is the naming of the Buddhas of the six directions found in the Mah vastu (I.123-25; JONES 1949: 97-98). A variety of lists may be found elsewhere in the Mahāyāna sūtra literature: in a series of g th s from the Foming jing (佛名經, T 440 and 441) and some versions of the Larger Sukh vatīvyūha (on this conundrum, see HARRISON et al. 2002); in the Pañcaviṃśatis hasr Prajñ p ramit , the apparent source of inscriptions referring to the ten Buddhas in the early West Tibetan temple of Tabo, Himachal Pradesh (PETECH and LUCZANITS 1999: 126-135); and in the Ratnacandraparipṛcch sūtra, cited in the Abhisamay laṃk ravṛtti of rya-Vimuktisena (PENSA 1967: 27). On the Buddhas of the directions in Chinese Buddhist visualisation practices, refer to WILLIAMS 2005. 25 The arhats are included in the basic maṇḍala of the SPD as elaborated by Buddhaguhya (SKORUPSKI 1983: 313n). Their precise enumeration is not, however, quite the same as we find here. For our present text, the first four arhats are mudr s 97-100: Kā yapa, āriputra, Subhūti, and Maudgalyāyana, among whom the third is not found in Buddhaguhya’s list. The remaining four arhats are listed as mudr s 101-104, but there may be some conflation here of arhats and ṛṣis, concerning which refer to n. 31 below. 26 The sixteen “inner bodhisattvas” (nang gi sems dpa’), or “Vajrasattvas,” are well known throughout the Yogatantras. For their description in SDP, see SKORUPSKI 1983: 41-42, 312. Their variants are tabulated by DE MALLMAN 1986: 396-400. For their precise enumeration here, refer below to mudr s 31-46 and the accompanying notes. 27 Mudr s 47-54: Acala, Yamāntakṛt, Hayagr va, Amṛtakuṇḍalin, Aparājita, N ladaṇḍa, Ṭakkirāja, Mahābala. Buddhaguhya’s list (SKORUPSKI 1983: 313n) is identical with the exception of Ṭakkirāja, instead of whom we find Trailokyavijaya. Variant enumerations of the ten wrathful deities are given by DE MALLMAN 1986: 219-222. 28 Mudr s 65-72: Mahe vara, Mahādeva, Rudra, Viṣṇu, Mahākāla, Daṇḍin, Kārtikeya, Bhṛṇgiriṭi. The list is idiosyncratic; cf. SKORUPSKI 1983: 61n53. 29 Mudr s 55-56: Hūṃkara and Padmakuṇḍalin. 30 Mudr s 73-80: Karkoṭa, aṅkhapāla, Kulika, Ananta, aṅkara, Vāsuki, A bran ta (?), Takṣaka. The list in the SDP (SKORUPSKI 1983: 57), is similar, but has Padma and Varuṇa in place of aṅkara and the otherwise unidentified A bran ta. 31 The ṛṣīs have apparently dropped out of the list of mudr s altogether, though the mudr s include eight arhats whereas the maṇḍala counted only four. It seems plausible, therefore, that the author has confounded these two categories. In Buddhaguhya’s commentary on SDP (SKORUPSKI 1983: 313n) both the eight śr vakas and eight great ṛṣīs are indeed included in the maṇḍala, though only the first group 172 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN (H. maṇḍala 93-108) Sixteeen light green petals: eight asura generals 32 and eight yakṣa generals. 33 As seen in the notes, though several of the groups of divinities listed here are known from various well-studied maṇḍalas, there is a distinct, though imperfect, correspondence with the maṇḍala system of the SDP, as it was elaborated by Buddhaguhya in particular. This suggests that it may be plausible to think of the maṇḍala described in IOL Tib J 318 as an iteration of the maṇḍala-system of the SDP. For the indications regarding the forms of the maṇḍalas given in the SDP itself are sufficiently varied so that we can imagine our Dunhuang document as emerging from the many changes that may be rung upon the instructions provided within the tantra. 34 However, one also finds a striking correlation between certain of the lists found in our text and the groups of deities mentioned in the Mah vyutpatti. While the general morphology of the maṇḍala may therefore have been inspired by traditions related to the SDP, its actual population seems to have been filled in part from other sources, including perhaps generic inventories of divine figures. are actually named. The Mah vyutpatti (SAKAKI 1916-1925: no. 3447-3472) lists twenty-five great ṛṣīs, but this does not permit us to establish just who are the eight at issue here. 32 Several of the asuras listed here (mudr s 81-88) may be clearly identified among the eleven asuras of the Mah vyutpatti (SAKAKI 1916-1925: nos. 3391-3402): Vemacitra (no. 3393), ambara (no. 3394), Vairocana (no. 3396), and Bṛhadāra (no. 3399). Padma r sambhava (86) is perhaps an error for Vatsa r sambhava (no. 3401). Su pra ti rtsa ri (87) is probably to be explained by Suvratasvara (no. 3402). La pe pu sa ri (86) may have its origin in a severely mangled transmission of Balavipulahetumati (no. 3400). No. 81, Kra hi sa ti, eludes me altogether. Two of the asuras, Vemacitra (82) and Vairocana (84), are mentioned also in the Niṣpannayog vali among the emperors of the asuras (DE MALLMAN 1986: 105). 33 The eight yakṣa generals (mudr s 89-96) may be all identified among the thirteen yakṣa lords of the Mah vyutpatti (SAKAKI 1916-1925: no. 3366-3379): Mahāghoṣe vara (no. 3368), Mahāmati (no. 3370), Arcinetra[-adhipati] (no. 3371), Pañcika (no. 3379), ṭavakayakṣa (no. 3377), Merubala[-pramard ] (no. 3375), Vajradṛḍhanetra (no. 3372), Suv ra (= Agrav rabāhu, no. 3373). This list corresponds not at all with any of the groups of eight yakṣas tabulated by DE MALLMAN 1986: 460. 34 The SDP itself contains descriptions of ten maṇḍalas that have been further elaborated within its commentarial traditions. These began to become known in Tibet during the eighth century. DALTON and VAN SCHAIK 2006: index pp. 372-373 note ten Tibetan Dunhuang manuscripts in relation to the SDP; TANAKA 2000, ch. 5, provides a detailed study of IOL Tib J 579, an important ritual manual setting forth the consecrations of the SDP. BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE 173 What then of the relation, if any, of our maṇḍala to the “Hundredpetalled Lotus” of the Na rak cycle? In general terms, it appears the latter might have been derived from something like the former through a development entirely consistent with the passage from Yogatantra to Mahāyogatantra maṇḍala systems as has by now been well established in several contexts. Accordingly, the worldly divinities of the Yogatantra system, as seen in our Dunhuang maṇḍala, were replaced by the Herukas, Gaur s, and var s, etc., of the Mahāyoga and Anuyoga systems, as found in the Na rak dong sprugs and elsewhere. 35 This, however, is a morphological transformation of such generality that it probably does not argue for a strict relationship between our maṇḍalas. Considered together with the fact that the designation “lotus maṇḍala” occurs elsewhere in the Dunhuang Tibetan corpus, for instance, in IOL Tib J 507, as S. van Schaik has kindly called to my attention, and there in a context that superficially, at least, seems to have little relationship to the materials we are here examining, the relation of the “Hundred-Petalled Lotus” of the Na rak cycle to IOL Tib J 318 would appear to be quite weak. Let us recall, however, that there is some reason to think our Dunhuang maṇḍala to be related to the SDP. If we were to show the Na rak “Hundred-Petalled Lotus” to share a similar origin, this might put matters into another perspective. To begin, let us note that the expression Na rak dong sprugs can be interpreted as nothing other than a paraphrase of the title SDP; for na rak embraces all evil destinies, and their churning is but a metaphorical designation for their purification. Functionally, too, the Na rak cycle, with its role in mortuary rites, seems a Rnying ma pa analog to the SDP. But beyond these rough indicators, there is one striking aspect of the maṇḍala itself that seems surely to argue for a direct, genetic connection between the two. At the beginning of the third chapter of the SDP, the instructions for the creation of the Cakravartin maṇḍala start with a list of options for the choice of the central divinity: In the centre he should draw Vajra… or Vajrasattva or Samantabhadra the Great Bliss… 36 35 TANAKA 1992: 276 considers the 58 wrathful deities of the Rnying ma pa maṇḍalas to have originated specifically from Sarvabuddhasam yogatantra and the Sarvatath gatatattvasaṃgrahatantra. 36 SKORUPSKI 1983: 74. 174 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN If we turn now to the “Hundred-Petalled Lotus” of the Na rak dong sprugs, we find remarkably that the center of the maṇḍala includes all three of these options: at the center itself we find Vajrasattva and consort, surrounded by Vajrākṣobhya and Samantabhadra, with their consorts. This inner group seems distinctive of the Na rak cycle, among the major Rnying ma pa maṇḍala systems, and I do not think that it can have originated accidently. What we may hold, therefore, is that our Dunhuang maṇḍala and the Na rak cycle are related as paradigms of two stages in the general transformation from Yoga to Highest Yoga (rnal ’byor bla med), 37 but that at the same time they both seem to reflect Tibetan adaptations of the maṇḍala systems derived from the SDP. This is not to say that there is a linear connection between them—not one that can be demonstrated, at least. It is nevertheless remarkable that we do find, among the Dunhuang Tibetan documents, some rather precise evidence that elements of the Na rak cycle were already beginning to assume their characteristic form before the sealing of Mogao Cave 17 toward the beginning of the eleventh century. The foremost tantra of the Na rak cycle is a peculiar work entitled in brief the Dri med gshags rgyud, the Taintless Tantra of Contrition (Dam tshig thams cad kyi nyams chag skong ba’i lung/ bshags pa thams cad kyi rgyud dri ma med pa’i rgyal po). It occupies a singular place in Rnying ma pa liturgy and includes several chapters that even today are known by heart by virtually every Rnying ma pa monk or tantric adept. Now, one of the Dunhuang texts in London, IOL Tib J 584, provides a short litany of tantric confession that may be found to be entirely embedded within the Dri med gshags rgyud as we know it today. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it seems likely that the tantra evolved directly as the elaboration of the text we find in IOL Tib J 584, or from some now missing source of the latter. Besides this, there may now be some reason to posit a genuine connection between our two Dunhuang texts, IOL Tib J 318 and 584, for the paleographic researches of DALTON, DAVIS and VAN SCHAIK (2007) have suggested that one and the same scribe may have produced both manuscripts. They may thus have been regarded as in some sense belonging together, even if their association was originally only fortuitous. In sum, therefore, I believe that they do have something to 37 In the developed Rnying ma pa systems of the late-tenth or eleventh century on, ‘Highest Yoga’ is taken as embracing Mahāyoga, Anuyoga and Atiyoga. BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE 175 tell us of the emergence of the Na rak dong sprugs cycle and, by analogy, that of many other parts of the Rnying ma bka’ ma collections. 38 A careful reading of the traditional account of the transmission of the Na rak lineage, as given in the Smin gling recension, demonstrates not a singular line through which a unique body of ritual lore was passed down, but rather the aggregation of a ritual corpus on the basis of fragments derived from many differing sources. 39 If we assume now that early Rnying ma pa masters, for instance the patriarchs of the Zur line, were confronted with materials that resembled more the Dunhuang documents than they did the modern Rnying ma bka’ ma materials, we can also imagine that disparate documents, like IOL Tib J 318 and 584, might have been sometimes grouped to form the basis for common liturgical compilations. In this way, the Na rak cycle arose not as the linear development from an Ur-Na rak corpus, but from a process of on-going bricolage and refinement, drawing upon a wide range of available texts, fragments, and oral traditions. TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS I offer here transcriptions and interpretations of the two principle texts from Dunhuang that I have discussed above. Although neither of these manuscripts provides any precise data that would permit us to establish their provenance, their form and contents suggest that they may be assigned to the middle or late tenth century. Both adhere closely to the conventions of orthographically ‘correct’ classical Tibetan and so seem to support an argument that I have advanced elsewhere, concerning ‘literacy and learning in a dark age’, the century and a half following the collapse of the Tibetan empire. 40 At 38 Refer to our discussion in the Preface. See especially, in the Rnying ma bka’ ma collection, text C., pp. 238-40, which begins by stating that ‘this ritual has a few different traditions depending upon the respective tantras and instructional texts…’ (cho ga ’di la rgyud dang man ngag gi gzhung so so la brten pa’i lugs srol tha dad pa ’ga’ zhig mchis te). The conclusion of this same passage (n. 7 above) only serves to reinforce the impression that we are in fact dealing with a construction based on disparate fragments. 40 KAPSTEIN: 2000: 12: ‘As the historiography of the Nyingmapa tradition underscores, the persecution [of Buddhism by Glang Dar ma] is not supposed to have much affected lay adherents of tantric Buddhism, and other sources, too, emphasize familial lineages of tantric practioners active during this time. Many of the Dunhuang Tibetan tantric manuscripts probably are also to be attributed to the period intervening be39 176 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN the same time, Sanskrit usage is based on approximate phonetic equivalents, as these would appear to an untrained Tibetan ear, and not on the system of exact transcription that was standardized by the translation committees of the imperial period. In this respect, too, our texts resemble other documents of the tenth century, such as the famous PT 849. 41 IOL Tib J 318: Text The following transcription was initially achieved on the basis of a microfilm of the original manuscript. A subsequent cross-check that became possible thanks to the finely scanned image posted on the website of the International Dunhuang Project (http://idp.bl.uk) permitted the clarification and resolution of many points of detail. The excellent digital research tool now made available by the IDP is an exceptional contribution to the field, and all of those involved in Dunhuang Studies must count themselves in their debt. However, it must be noted that even with the finest images, it remains difficult to be certain of the readings of signs that are not clearly distinguished in the scribe’s own hand. Thus, in the present case, we find frequent ambiguities in the representation of such pairs as d/t, p/s, b/c, i/e, and e/o, among others. Though context often permits one to judge which of two alternatives is preferable in any given case, this procedure seems particularly ad hoc in respect to Sanskrit phrases, given the very imprecise conventions in use. Nevertheless, as it would just clutter the text beyond practicality to mention every graphic ambiguity that occurs, I provide here only my best assessment, noting just those cases that appear to require special comment, or adding a question mark immediately following a syllable whose reading is doubtful. Readers tween the fall of the dynasty and the cultural renaissance in western Tibet towards the end of the first millenium. However we interpret reports, beginning as early as the late-10th century, that the Tibetan tantrism of this period had grown degenerate, we may nevertheless attribute to tantric circles some role in maintaining basic skills of alphabetization. Just as the Japanese kana syllabary is supposed to have been derived from principles used in the phonetic representation of Buddhist mantras, so in the Tibetan case the ritual requirements of esoteric Buddhism, though not involved in the initial formation of the script, may well have contributed to its maintenance and promotion’. 41 On PT 849, see HACKIN 1924 and KAPSTEIN 2006. See, too, DALTON, DAVIS and VAN SCHAIK 2007. BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE 177 interested in the paleographical fine points may find it profitable to consult the scanned manuscript referred to above. The text of IOL Tib J 318 consists of three folios, ‘numbered’ in the left hand margin of the obverse of each with the syllables ka, ’kha, and ga. Despite the uncertainies referred to above, the handwriting is neat and regular, with few corrections. These are mostly syllables that had been omitted and were added later in fine characters beneath the point at which they were to be inserted, as indicated here by the use of subscript print. (ka.a1) (ka.a2) (ka.a3) (ka.a4) (ka.a5) (ka.a6) (ka.a7) (ka.a8) (ka.b1) @ /pad ma ’kha brgya rtsa brgyad pa la lha bkod pa’I brjed byang /pad ma’i snying po la/ yum shes rab kyi phyin pa’i mdun du rnam par snang mdzad/ pad ma dkar po lce brgyad la/ rigs bzhi thabs dang shes rab brgyad/ de ’i phyi rim pad ma dmar po ’kha bcu drug pa la/ pha rol du phyin pa bcu ’I lha mo dang/ phyi nang kyi mchod pa’i lha mo drug/ de ’i phyi rim pad ma ser po kha bcu drug la/ nang du ma gstsol ba’I chod pa’i lha mo gnyis dang/ phyogs cu ’i sangs rgyas dang/ ’od srungs las stsogs pa nyan thos dgra bcoM ba chen po bzhi bkod/ de ’i phyi rim pad ma ljang ku la/ nang kyi sems pa bcu drug bkod/ de ’i phyi rim pad ma nag po kha bcu drug la/ khro bo chen po brgyad dang lha chen po brgyad spel te/ bkod/ steng ’og kyI khro bo ting ’dzIn gyIs bkod/ de ’i phyi rim pad ma dmar skya kha bcu drug la/ klu chen po brgyad dang drang srong chen po brgyad spel te bkod/ de phyi rim pad ma ljang skya kha bcu drug la/ lha ma yin kyi sde dpon chen po brgyad dang/ gnod sbyin gyi sde dpon chen po brgyad spel te bkod/ de ’i phyi rim sgyamthso ’i pad ma bzhi la gang po la stsogs pa dgra bcoM ba chen po bzhi bkod/ skal bzangs dang phyogs skyong la stsogs pa dkyil ’khor thams cad ni/ pad ma’i phyi rim man chad ting nge ’dzin kyis bkod/ dgra bcoM ba dag gyi sku mdog/ rab ’byord gang po/ kun rga bo skra gcan ’dzin dag ni ser/ gzhan ni dmar/ kun kyang 178 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN (ka.b2) (ka.b3) (ka.b4) (ka.b5) (ka.b6) (ka.b7) (ka.b8) (’kha.a1) (’kha.a2) chos gos gsum pa/ thub pa la chos nyan ba’i tshul du thal mo sbyar te ’god do/ pad ma ’dab ma stong pa’i lha ’god pa yang/ don ’di nyid du zad de/ ’dod ’khaMs kyi lha rIgs drug dang/ gzugs ’khaMs gyi lha’i gtso bo/ tshangs pa chen po la stsogs pa gzhung gzhan dang sbyar te pad ma la bkod/ gza’ dang rgyu skar dang skal bzangs dang/ rgyal chen dang phyogs skyong bcu gcIg la bstsogs pa dam tshig can dang/ dkyil khor thaMs chad pa ni pad ma’I lce la/ drngos su bkod do/ byaMms pa la stsogs pa rnams ni/ phyogs bcu ’i sangsrgyas kyi khor du byung te/ byaMms pa dang ’jam dpal dang/ phyag na rdo rje la stsogs pI’ bskal bzangs brgyad ni/ dmyigs gyis kyang shag gya thub pa byang shar gyi mtshams du ’byung ba’i khor du bkod// ! //dkyil ’khor kyi lha rnams gyi sngags dang phyag rgya’i brjed byang la/ oM prad nya pa ra myi ta ti hi shri man swa ha/ sor mo nang du bcings te/ ’dzub mo bshags te bsgreng/ oM be ro tsa na oM 42 / byang chub mchog kyi phyag rgya ni/ oM ag sho bya ba dzra swa ha/ sa gnon gyi phyag rgya/ oM rad na saM bha bha traM hu’M/ rin po che ’bar ba/ om a myi da be swa ha/ pad ma kha ma bye ba/ oM a mo ki si di a/ skyabs sbyin/ oM ’bu da lo tsa ne oM/ spyan gyi phyag rgya/ @ / oM rad na ma ma ki hu’M/ ud pa la/ oM pan da ra bha si ne hu’M/ pad ma kha ’byed pa/ oM a rya da ra hu’M / ral gri/ pha rol du phyin pa bcu ’i phyag rgya la/ oM da ra bha ra mi ta swa ha/ khu tshur spi bor bcing/ gya na bha ra myi ta swa ha/ chos chad pa’i tshul/ 42 Reading doubtful. In the ms. we find two forms for the Tibetan a: one is much like the standard form in the dbu can script; the second resembles this, but with the stroke at left bent downward to the left, instead of rising vertically as in the common form. It is most plausible to read the ming gzhi of this final syllable as a variant of the latter, though formed somewhat irregularly, in which case the syllable reads oM. BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE (’kha.a3) (’kha.a4) (’kha.a5) (’kha.a6) (’kha.a7) (’kha.a8) (’kha.a9) (’kha.b1) (’kha.b2) (’kha.b3) 179 prad nya pa ra myi ta swa ha/ khu tshur ’dzub rtse sbrel/ oM bha la’ bha ra myi ta swa ha/ sor mo phyIr bskor te pang par bzhag/ oM u ba ya ba ra myi ta swa ha/ g.yon pa’i mthe bo dang/ g.yas pa’i mthe’u chung sbrel/ oM pra ni da ye pa ra myi ta swa ha/ thal mo zur sbyar/ theb ’dzub rtse sbrel/ oM nya na pa ra myi da ye swa ha/ thal mo snying kar bzung/ phyogs bcu ’i ’bu ta’i phyag rgya la/ oM shri kan te ye swa ha/ rdo rje rtse lnga pa/ oM rad na lo ki hu’M/ rin po che ’bar ba’/ oM prad nya a ba dra (?) sa hu’M / pad ma kha ’byed pa’/ oM pa ra ba myu ka hu’M / rdo rje rgya gram/ oM shri ba ra ma huM/ khor lo/ oM shri a sho ka hu’M/ thal mo gnyis bzung ba’/ oM shri nya na huM/ ral gri ’i phyag rgya/ oM shri ba dra ba dzra huM/ khor lo/ oM rad naM pa ra ma huM/ sdam pa’i khu tshur/ oM nya na ca kru huM/ ral gri’i phyag rgya// ! // sems dpa’ bcu drug rgyud gzhan bzhIn brtag/ khro bo chen po brgyad gyi phyag rgya la/ a rya a ca la huM ’dza’/ a a ral gri/ oM ya man da krid huM/ gtun kyi phyag rgya/ oM ha ya ’gri huM huM ha/ khu tshur ’dzub rtse sbrel/ oM a mra ta gun da li huM a/ bdud rtsi thal mo/ oM a ba ra tsid ta huM a/ ral gri shubs nas phyung ba/ oM ni la dan da huM na’/ dgra sta/ oM ta gi ra tsa huM ta/ ral gri/ oM ma ha pa la huM/ thal mo sbyar ba/ oM huM ka ra huM/ ta ka’i phyag rgya/ oM pad ma kun da li huM/ khor lo/ ! / mchod pa’i lha mo brgyad gyi phyag rgya la/ oM ba dzri la sye huM/ phyag bkur brtan/ oM ba dzra ma le tram/ phreng ba thogs/ pa/ oM ba dzra ’gir te huM/ bi wang brdung ba’/ oM ba dzra nir tre a/ gar byed/ du pe la bstsogs pa mchod pa’i lha mo bzhi rgyud gzhan bzhin brtag/ lha ched po brgyad gyi phyag rgya la/ oM ma ha shwa ra ya swa ha/ g.yas gyi mthe bo bsgreng/ oM ma ha de ba ye swa ha/ g.yas gyi ’dzub mo 180 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN (’kha.b4) (’kha.b5) (’kha.b6) (’kha.b7) (’kha.b8) (’kha.b9) (ga.a1) (ga.a2) (ga.a3) (ga.a4) 43 bsgreng/ om ru tra ye ra/ khu tshur phyar ba/ oM bhi snu ba/ mthe’u chung g.yas lce la reg pa/ oM ma ha ka la ye swa ha/ khu tshur gnyis snying ka/ oM tan ti na’/ khu tshur/ oM kar ti ka ta/ gyas kyi srin la ○ g 43 mthe bos gnan/ oM ’bring kyi ri tra ri/ thal mo spi bor bzha[g] 44 // : 45 //klu chen po brgyad kyi phyag rgya la/ oM kar ta ki to huM phu/ g.yon kyi mthe bo sbrul mgo/ g.yas skyabs byed/ oM sha ka pa le huM phaT/ thal mo g.yas sbrul mgo/ g.yon dung phor/ oM ku lu huM phu/ mthe’u chung gnyis ka rtse sbrel sbrul mgo/ oM a tan ta pem/ g.yas gyi gung mo sbrul mgo/ oM shang ka re huM phya/ g.yas kyi ’dzub mo sbrul mgo/ oM ba su ka huM phyi/ thal mo g.yas sbrul mgo/ oM a bran ta pheM/ g.yas kyi gung mo mgo/ oM da sha ya ku hum pho/ sor mo bcu 46 @ /sbrul mgo/ : /lha ma yin brgyad gyi phyag rgya la/ oM kra hi sa ti/ mthe’u ’dzub bzhi sbrel/ yang na rdo rje rtse gsum/ oM bye ma tsi ta ri/ dri shu la/ oM sham ’ba ri/ g.yas gyi ’dzub mo bsgreng/ dmyig g.yon du bri/ oM be ro tsa na ka ri/ khu tshur mchan khung du gzugs/ oM bri ha da ta ri/ ’khor lo/ oM la pe pu sa ri/ rdo rje ku tshur phyar ba/ oM pad ma shri sam bha ba’/ mthe’u chung gnyis sbrel/ oM su pra ti rtsa ri/ ral gri rtse sprad/ : /gnod sbyin gyi sde dpon chen po brgyad gyi phyag rgya la/ ma go she shwa ra ya/ thod pa’i phyag rgya/ oM ma ha ma dri ya/ thal mo snying kar glan/ There is a small hole in the page intervening between la and g. There is some smudging around the hole in the page at the syllable that I read as spi. The following bor has, above the na ro, an additional mark that appears rather like a gi gu (perhaps in fact the final –g of bzha[g]?). The reading I have adopted, though not perfectly certain, represents what seems the best of the available alternatives; the characters here very closely resemble spi bor in line ga.a5, where this reading seems quite certain. 45 The punctuation here changes from the snake-like design used earlier (and indicated by the exclamation point) to two small circles, placed one above the other and resembling the gter shad. 46 This line is written to the extreme right, in the lower right hand corner. 44 BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE (ga.a5) (ga.a6) (ga.a7) (ga.a8) (ga.a9) (ga.b1) (ga.b2) (ga.b3) (ga.b4) (ga.b5) 47 oM e tse na dra y’e/ ’dzub mo gnyis bsgreng/ oM pan tsa la mo/ thal mo spi bor bsnol/ oM a tha ba ka ya sha ya/ thal mo gnyis ’gram par glan/ bruM me ru ba la ya/ thal mo mchan khung du sba/ bruM ba dzra rta dra ne tra ya’/ khu tshur gung mo sbrel/ bruM su byi ra ya/ khu tshur g.yas bsgreng/ g.yon bkur brtan/ : /nyan thos chen po brgyad la/ laM ga sha pa’/ ’od srungs laṃ bha shu (?) ri pu tra oM su pu ti/ rab ’byor/ oM med ka la ya na/ me’u ’gal gyi bu/ muM pu rna me 47 dri ya ni pu tra/ byams pa’i bu gang po/ bruM ma ha ka la ya na/ ka’o bran chen po/ sa u nan/ ta/ kun rga 48 bo/ oM ra hu la sgra gcan ’dzin/ : / nang gyi sems pa bcu drug gyi phyag rgya la/ oM ba dzra sa twa hu’M /rdo rje rtse lnga pa/ oM ba dzra ra ga huM/ rdo rje mda’ gzhu’/ oM ba ra dza huM/ rdo rje lcags kyo/ saM ba dzra sa du huM/ rdo rje se gol snol ma/ oM ba dzra rad na traM/ rin po che ’bar ba/ oM ba dzra ke tu traM/ rgyal mtshan phyar ba/ oM ba dzra su rya traM/ nyi ma’/ oM ba dzra ha sa tram/ bzhad pa’i phyag rgya/ bruM ba dzra da rma hri 49 / pad ma/ bruM ba dzra tig sna hri/ ral gri/ oM ba dzra ra tsag kra hri/ khor lo/ oM ba dzra pa sha hri/ rdo rje/ oM ba dzra kar ma ha/ rdo rje rgya gram/ oM ba dzra ya ho/ go cha/ oM ba dzra ra ha/ mche ba’/ oM ba dzra mu she ha/ khu tshur/ mchod pa’i lha mo bzhi ’i phyag rgya la/ bruM ba dzra du pe/ pog por/ bruM ba dzra pu la/ men tog ma/ bruM ba dzra a lo ka/ mar me ma/ bruM ba dzra gan de/ dri chab ’thor ba’// : //rdzogs s+hauM// : // The character here is smudged, but must be read mi, me, or possibly mai. Read: dga’ 49 Here and in the following mantra this appears almost as rhri. 48 181 182 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN IOL Tib J 318: Translation (ka.a1) (ka.a2) (ka.a3) (ka.a4) (ka.a5) (ka.a6) (ka.a7) (ka.a8) 50 A memorandum on the array of deities upon the hundred-and-eight petalled lotus. In the heart of the lotus: Mother Prajñāpāramitā, before whom is Vairocana. On the white lotus[’s] eight petals: the means and wisdom of the four families, eight [in all]. On the sixteen-petalled red lotus surrounding that [white lotus]: the goddesses of the ten perfections (p ramit ), and the outer and inner offering goddesses [who number] six. On the sixteen-petalled yellow lotus surrounding that: the two offering goddesses who were not included within, and the buddhas of the ten directions, and Kā yapa et cetera, [i.e.,] the four great rāvaka-arhats, are arrayed. On the green lotus surrounding that: the sixteen inner [bodhi]sattvas are arrayed. On the sixteen-petalled black lotus surrounding that: the eight great wrathful [deities] and the eight great gods are arrayed together. The wrathful of the zenith and nadir are arrayed by sam dhi. 50 On the surrounding pink lotus with sixteen petals: the eight great n gas and the eight great ṛṣis are arrayed together. On the surrounding sixteen-petalled pale green lotus: the great commanders of the asuras [numbering] eight and the eight great commanders of the yakṣas are arrayed together. On the four lotuses in the ocean surrounding that, the great arhats, beginning with Pūrṇa, [numbering] four are arrayed. [The thousand buddhas of] the Fortunate Æon (Bhadrakalpa) and the protectors of the cardinal directions (Dikp la), etc., all [the inhabitants of] the maṇḍala, are arrayed by sam dhi around the outer periphery of the lotus. [As for] the arhats’ Cf. the indications concerning the placement of the daśakrodha summarized by 1986: 219-222. DE MALLMAN BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE 183 (ka.b1) colours: Subhūti, Pūrṇa, nanda, and Rahula are yellow; the others are red. All, moreover, [wear] the three religious robes and, in the manner of hearing the Dharma before the Sage, their palms (ka.b2) are pressed together—thus they are arrayed. Even if one were to array the deities of the thousand-petalled lotus, the meaning is subsumed in this. The six classes of deities of the Kāmadhātu, the foremost deities of the Rūpadhātu, Mahābrahma, (ka.b3) etc., are arrayed on lotuses, having juxtaposed [the present text] with other texts. 51 The planets, constellations, [buddhas of] the Fortunate Æon, and the eleven protectors of the cardinal directions and other oath(ka.b4) bound [deities]—all those [belonging to] the maṇḍala—are actually arrayed on the petals of the lotus. As for Maitreya, etc., those belonging to the retinue of the buddhas of the ten directions: Maitreya, (ka.b5) Mañju r , and Vajrapāṇi, etc., among the eight of the Fortunate Æon, 52 may be visualized, too, at the northeastern boundary, where ākyamuni is present, (ka.b6) arrayed among [his] retinue. A memorandum of the mantras and mudrās of the deities of the maṇḍala. (1) Oṃ prajñāpāramitā ti hi r mān svāhā. Fingers bound within, (ka.b7) the [index] finger separated and extended. (2) Oṃ vairocana oṃ. The mudr of supreme enlightenment, indeed. (3) Oṃ akṣobhyavajra svāhā. Bhūmi-spar amudrā. (4) Oṃ ratnasambhava traṃ hūṃ. (ka.b8) Blazing gem. (5) Oṃ amitābha svāhā. Unopened lotus. (6) Oṃ amoghasiddhi a. Granting refuge. (7) Oṃ buddhalocane oṃ. Eye-mudr . (’kha.a1) (8) Oṃ ratna māmāk hūṃ. Blue lotus (utpala). (9) Oṃ paṇḍaravāsin hūṃ. Opened lotus. (10) Oṃ āryatārā hūṃ. Sword. (11-20) As for the mudr s of the ten Perfections: 51 52 Cf. SDP and the elaborations of Buddhaguhya, in SKORUPSKI 1983: 75, 313n. This would appear to refer to the eight major bodhisattvas. 184 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN (’kha.a2) (’kha.a3) (’kha.a4) (’kha.a5) (’kha.a6) (’kha.a7) (’kha.a8) 53 (11) Oṃ dānapāramitā svāhā. Fist joined to the crown of the head. (12) jñānapāramitā svāhā. In the manner of expounding the Dharma. (13) prajñāpāramitā svāhā. Fist with the tips of the fingers interlocked. (14) Oṃ balapāramitā svāhā. The fingers revolve outwardly and are poised in the lap. (15) Oṃ upayapāramitā svāhā. Left thumb and right little finger interlocked. (16) Oṃ praṇidhānapāramitā svāhā. Palms joined at the edge, tips of thumbs and index fingers joined. (17) Oṃ jñānapāramitaye svāhā. Palms held at the heart. (21-30) As for the mudr s of the Buddhas of the ten directions: (21) Oṃ r kāntaye svāhā. Fivepronged vajra. (22) Oṃ ratnāloke hūṃ. Blazing gem. (23) Oṃ prajñābhadra sa hūṃ. 53 Opened lotus. (24) Oṃ pa ra ba myu ka hūṃ. Crossed vajra. (25) Oṃ r ba ra ma hūṃ. 54 Wheel. (26) Oṃ r a oka hūṃ. Clasping the two palms. (27) Oṃ r jñāna hūṃ. Sword-mudr . (28) Oṃ r bhadravajra hūṃ. Wheel. (29) Oṃ ratnaṃ pa ra ma hūṃ. Clenched fist. (30) oṃ jñānacakra hūṃ. Sword-mudr . (31-46) As for the sixteen sattva-s, examine them according to another tantra. 55 (47-56) Now, as for the mudr s of the eight 56 great wrathful ones: (47) rya acala hūṃ ja . A a sword. 57 (48) Oṃ yamāntakṛt hūṃ. Pestle-mudr . (49) Oṃ hayagr [va] hūṃ hūṃ hā. Fists with thumb- I am supposing that in the phrase prad nya a ba dra sa the syllable a represents in fact the final long vowel of prajñā. As for the sa, it may be that the scribe started to write swa ha (= svāhā), but then switched to a closing huM, without deleting the sa. These suppositions are, of course, quite open to question. 54 ba ra ma might represent any of several Sanskrit words: Varman, Brahman, parama, etc. 55 They are in fact enumerated below, lines ga.a8-b3. 56 Actually ten are listed. The scribe perhaps had in mind the earlier indication (line ka.a5) that eight wrathful are to be actually placed in the maṇḍala, with the two of the zenith and nadir only visualised. 57 The syllables a a should perhaps better be construed as completing the preceding mantra. BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE (’kha.a9) (’kha.b1) (’kha.b2) (’kha.b3) (’kha.b4) (’kha.b5) (’kha.b6) (’kha.b7) 185 tips joined. (50) Oṃ amṛtakuṇḍali hūṃ a. Nectarpalm. (51) Oṃ aparājita hūṃ a. Drawing a sword from the sheath. (52) Oṃ n ladaṇḍa hūṃ nā. Battle-axe. (53) Oṃ ṭakkirāja hūṃ ta. Sword. (54) Oṃ mahābala hūṃ. Palms joined. (55) Oṃ hūṃkara hūṃ. Mudr of ta ka. 58 (56) Oṃ padmakuṇḍali hūṃ. Wheel. (57-64) As for the mudr s of the eight offering-goddesses: (57) Oṃ vajralāsye hūṃ. Hand placed above the hip. (58) Oṃ vajramāle traṃ. Holding a garland. (59) Oṃ vajrag te hūṃ. Playing a lute. (60) Oṃ vajranṛtye a. Dancing. (61-64) As for Dhūpā and the other four offering-goddesses, examine them according to another tantra. 59 (65-72) As for the mudr s of the eight great gods: (65) Oṃ mahe varāya svāhā. Extend the right thumb. (66) Oṃ mahādevāya svāhā. Extend the right forefinger. (67) Oṃ rudrāya ra. Raise the fist. (68) Oṃ viṣṇu va. Touch the right little finger to the tongue. (69) Oṃ mahākālāya svāhā. Two fists at the heart. (70) Oṃ daṇḍ nā. Fist. (71) Oṃ kārtikeya. The right ring finger pressed by the thumb. (72) Oṃ bhṛṇgiriṭi ri. Palm placed on the crown. (73-80) As for the mudr s of the eight great nāgas: (73) Oṃ karkoṭa 60 hūṃ phu. The thumb of the left a snake-head, the right offers refuge. (74) Oṃ aṅkhapāla hūṃ. The right palm a snake-head. The left a conch vessel. (75) Oṃ kulika hūṃ phu. The tips of the two little fingers joined [to form] a snake-head. (76) 58 Ta ka might transcribe tarka, though I think it rather more likely that it abbreviates Trailokyavijaya, the epithet of Hūṃkara that often also names his distinctive mudrā, formed with fists crossed before the chest. Refer to DE MALLMANN 1986: 381 and plate XX-2. 59 In fact, they are listed below, lines ga.b3-5. 60 Though kar ta ki to only roughly resembles Karkoṭa, this seems to be what context requires. Possibly the scribe mixed this up with kar ti ka ta (Kārtikeya) from the preceding line. 186 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN Oṃ ananta peṃ. The right middle finger a snake-head. (77) Oṃ aṅkara hūṃ phya. The right (’kha.b8) forefinger a snake-head. (78) Oṃ vāsuki hūṃ phyi. The right palm a snake-head. (79) Oṃ a bran ta pheṃ. The right middle finger a [snake-]head. (80) Oṃ takṣa(’kha.b9) ka hūṃ pho. The ten fingers (ga.a1) snake-heads. (81-88) As for the mudr s of the eight asuras: (81) Oṃ kra hi sa ti. Thumb and four fingers joined. Or again, three-pronged vajra. (82) Oṃ vemacitra ri. Trident. (ga.a2) (83) Oṃ ambara. Right forefinger extended. Gaze to the left (?). (84) Oṃ vairocana ka ri. Fist pressed into the armpit. (85) Oṃ bṛhadāra ta ri. Wheel. (86) Oṃ la pe (ga.a3) pu sa ri. Brandishing the vajra-fist. (87) Oṃ padmar sambhava. Two little fingers connected. (88) Oṃ su pra ti rtsa ri. Touching a sword-tip. / : / (89-96) As for the eight great Yakṣa generals’ (ga.a4) mudr s: (89) mahāghoṣe varāya. Skull-mudr . (90) Oṃ mahāmataye. 61 Press the palm(s) at the heart (91) Oṃ arcinetrāye. Two forefingers extended. (92) Oṃ pañcikāya. 62 (ga.a5) Palms crossed at the crown. (93) Oṃ āṭavakayakṣā-ya. Two palms pressed to the jaw. (94) Brūṃ merubalāya. Palms hidden in the armpits. (95) Brūṃ vajradṛ(ga.a6) ḍhanetrāya. Fists with middle fingers connected. (96) Brūṃ suv rāya. 63 Right fist extended, left planted on the thigh. (97-104) As for the eight great śr vakas: (97) Laṃ kā yapa. Kā yapa. 61 The correspondence between ma ha ma dri and Mahāmati (SAKAKI 1916-1925: no. 3370) is made problematic by the unusual transcription of t by dr, but nevertheless this seems the most plausible interpretation. 62 pan tsa la mo is perhaps to be read as a Sanskrit-Tibetan hybrid: p ñcika la namo. 63 Suv ra is no doubt equivalent to Agrav rabāhu in the Mah vyutpatti’s list (SAKAKI 1916-1925: no. 3373). BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE (ga.a7) (ga.a8) (ga.a9) (ga.b1) (ga.b2) (ga.b3) 64 187 (98) Laṃ bha āriputra. 64 (99) Oṃ subhūti. Subhūti. (100) Oṃ maudgalyāyana. Maudgalyāyana. (101) Muṃ pūrṇamaitrāyaṇ putra. Maitrāyaṇ ’s son Pūrṇa. (102) Bruṃ mahākātyāyana. Mahākātyāyana. (103) sa ānanda. nanda. (104) Oṃ rāhula. Rāhula. (31-46) As for the mudr s of the sixteen inner sattvas: 65 (31) Oṃ vajrasattva hūṃ. Five-pronged vajra. (32) Oṃ vajrarāga hūṃ. Vajra-bow and -arrow. (33) Oṃ vajrarāja hūṃ. Vajra-hook. (34) Saṃ vajrasādhu hūṃ. Vajra-fingers-poised-to-snap. 66 (35) Oṃ vajraratna traṃ. Blazing gem. (36) Oṃ vajraketu traṃ. Hoisting a victory-banner. (37) Oṃ vajrasūrya 67 traṃ. Sun. (38) Oṃ vajrahāsa traṃ. Mudr of laughter. 68 (39) Bruṃ vajra-dharma hri. Lotus. (40) Bruṃ vajrat kṣṇa hri. Sword. (41) Oṃ vajracakra hri. Wheel. (42) Oṃ vajra-bhāṣa 69 hri. Vajra. (43) Oṃ vajrakarma ha. Crossed-vajra. (44) Oṃ vajraya[kṣa] ho. Armour. (45) Oṃ vajrara[kṣa] ha. Fangs. 70 (46) Oṃ vajramuṣṭi 71 ha. Fist. (61-64) As for the four offering goddesses’ Though the reading of the second and third syllables of this line is somewhat uncertain, there can be no doubt that āriputra is intended. āriputra’s name is not repeated in Tibetan as are those of the other arhats. 65 One may compare the SDP’s descriptions of the sixteen Vajrasattvas, SKORUPSKI 1983: 41-42, 312n. In the notes that follow I mention only significant points of discrepancy from the names and attributes as we find them recorded there. 66 SKORUPSKI 1983: 312n has Vajrasādhu holding a five-tipped vajra, but the corresponding mudr , p. 41, n. 18, describes one as “putting together the finger nail and the first joint of the thumbs, [and] press[ing] the tips of the thumbs to form a square.” 67 To be identified with Vajratejas in the tradition of the SDP. As DE MALLMAN 1986: 400 shows, this variant is met with in other sources as well. 68 SKORUPSKI 1983: 312n gives Vajrahāsa’s attribute as an ivory rosary, but the mudr , p. 41, n. 18, requires “the middle fingers … stretched out, bent and positioned so as to point towards the face.” 69 Or: vajrapā a. Vajrabhāṣa is, however, the form given in SDP, where the attribute is properly a “vajra tongue-tip” (SKORUPSKI 1983: 312n). 70 According to Buddhaguhya (SKORUPSKI 1983: 312n), it is Vajrayakṣa who is characterized by fangs, and Vajrarakṣa by armour. 71 SDP has Vajrasandhi, but, as DE MALLMAN 1986: 499 shows, Vajramuṣṭi is a well-known variant. 188 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN (ga.b4) (ga.b5) mudr s: (61) Bruṃ vajradhūpe. Incense vessel. (62) Bruṃ vajraphullā. 72 Flower-girl. (63) Bruṃ vajrālokā. Lamp-girl. (64) Bruṃ vajragandhe. Scattering perfumed water. Finis. IOL Tib J 584: Text and Translation I have divided this short text into twelve sections, I-XII, in each of which are given a transcription of the Tibetan, an English translation, and, in italics, the parallel passage(s) located in the Dri med bshags rgyud (DMShG, in Rnying ma bka’ ma rgyas pa, vol. 13). Note that chapter four of the DMShG (Ye shes lha dang ’khon gcugs bshags pa ste le’u bzhi pa’o, but always referred to in popular contexts as the Brjod med don gyi bshags pa), is among the best known Rnying ma pa liturgical texts, and occupies pages 68.4-72.4 in the Rnying ma bka’ ma edition. It will be seen that most of our parallels occur just here. A portion of the DMShG transcribed with single underline is one that appears similar to the section of IOL Tib J 584 under which it is given; one marked by a double underline has its parallel in another section, as indicated by the superscript roman numeral. I. Invocation (line 1) (2) (3) $$ // : //kun bzangs ye nas bdal pa la/ /snang srid rnam ’dag lha dang lha mo ’i tshogs/ cir yang sprul pa gter cen g.yung ’drung lha/ mnyes bzhed dam *** tsig ldan ma chos rnams dang/ dbang bsgyur rgya mtsho thams cad dgo’ngs su gsol/ In the primordial expansion of Omnibeneficence, the pure range of possible appearance, the assembly of gods and goddesses, emanating in all sorts of ways, the great treasure, the eternal divinity—please attend to the dharmas endowed with the pleasing commitments, and to the whole ocean of empowerments! 73 72 For Vajrapuṣpā. following the Dri med bshags rgyud, we emend dbang bsgyur to read dpang gyur, it would be preferable to translate: ‘… may the eternal divinity, with those 73 If, BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE 189 DMShG 69.5-70.4: kun bzang rdzogs chen ye nas brdal pa la// phyi nang gsang ba bkod pa’i dkyil ’khor ni// snang srid rnam dag lha dang lha mo’i dbyings// byung dang ’byung ’gyur yab yum lhun rdzogs rnams// gsang chen rab dgyes gzugs can bdag nyid ma// mkha’ dbyings klong yangs padmo ’khyil ba las// gnyis med thig le chen por ’od gsal zhing// ma bcos spros med byang chub snying po’i sku// cir yang snang ba bde chen g.yung drung lha// ’du ’bral med pa gsang ba’i dkyil ’khor (III.) ’dir// bdag nyid chen po rigs lnga yab yum dang// byang chub lcam dral (XII.) khro bo khro mo’i tshogs (IV.) // rdo rje lha mo tshogs rje tshogs kyi bdag (VIII.) // rigs lnga dpal chen (V.) khro rgyal yab yum bcu// gnas dang yul gyi phyag rgya (VII.) sgo ma bzhi (IX.)// ye shes sprul pa’i lha tshogs mang po dang// ma ltar byams shing sring ltar gdung la sogs // legs nyes stangs ’dzin dam tshig rjes gcod ma// phyi nang mkha’ ’gro rnal ’byor ma yi tshogs// dpang gyur rdo rje dam can dgongs su gsol// II. Confession of faults due to contact with those who have fallen from their vows (3 cont.) (4) (5) bka’ las ’byung zhing de ltar ma bgyis pas/ gsang sngags chos pas dbye bsal rka ba dang/ nyams dang lhan cig nyams la chos bshad pas/ nyams ’gyur nges pa’i dri mas phog ko tsha’l /’phags mgon khyed gis thugs rjes dbye bsal mdzad du gsol/ / Not having done what was commanded, and [faults] being difficult to discern by those in the dharma of secret mantra, may you, Sublime Lords, compassionately make [us] discern all those taints, certainly leading to falls, that afflict [us], whether due to [our dwelling] together with those who have fallen, or explaining the dharma to those who have fallen. DMShG 71.3-72.2: rnal ’byor gang zhig dam tshig nyams pa dang// skad cig tsam yang ’phrad par mi bya zhes// bka’ las byung zhing de ltar ma lcogs te// gsang sgo ’chol bas dbye bsal dka’ ba dang// mngon shes med pas skyon can ma rtogs te// nyams dang tshogs ’dres nyams dharmas that are the endowment of pleasing commitments—the whole ocean of witnesses—attend [to those performing contrition]. 190 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN pa bskang ba dang// nyams dang snod min rnams la chos bshad dang// nyams la mi ’dzem nyams pa’i skyon la sogs// nyams dang ’grogs shing nyams pa de dag gis// nyams grib skyon gyis gos par gyur to ’tshal// tshe ’di’i rkyen dang yun gyi sgrib gyur rnams// rab gnong ’gyod pa’i sems kyis mthol lo bshags// byams pa’i thugs brtses bdag la dgongs nas kyang// gnyis med dbyings las mi ’gyur bdag bkod de// dmigs med btang snyoms ngang la bzhugs nas kyang// gnyis med don gyi tshangs pa stsal du gsol// III. Petition to the Conquerors’ maṇḍala (5 cont.) (6) (7) ma rig bdag cag lus dang ngag sems gyis/ bag myed tshul gyis dam las ’das ’gyur te/ rgyal ba’i dgyil ’khor thugs dang ci ’gal ba’/ thugs rje che mnga’ khyed la bzod par gsol/ We, ignorant, through body, speech and mind, have heedlessly transgressed our commitments; in whatever ways [we] oppose the spirit of the Conquerors’ maṇḍala, we pray that you, compassionate ones, be forebearing of it. DMShG 71.1-3: yun du mi gtong ’da’ bar mi bgyid la// don las gol zhing zlog sems ma mchis kyang// gdod bya long yod snyam pa’i le lo yis// klong du ma gyur rtsal shugs chung ba dang// shes bzhin mi ldan bag med dbang gyur te// sgom la mi brtson bsnyen sgrub g.yel la sogs// tshor dang ma tshor ma rig dbang gis ni// ston pa’i bka’ dang dam las ’gal gyur te// 90.6-91.1: phung po lnga ni ye nas mngon sangs rgyas// rgyal ba rigs lnga’i dgongs spyod de ’dra yang// de ltar bdag gis ma rig ma rtogs te// rgyal ba rigs lnga’i thugs dang ci ’gal ba// thugs rje che mnga’ khyed la bzod par gsol// IV. Petition to the wrathful divinities (8) ma rig bdag cag lus dang ngag sems gyis/ khro bo khro mo thugs dang ci ’gal ba’/ ye shes spyan can khyed la bzod par gsol/ BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE 191 We, ignorant, through body, speech and mind, [have heedlessly transgressed our commitments;] 74 in whatever ways [we] oppose the spirit of the wrathful male and female [divinities], we pray that you who possess the eye of gnosis be forebearing of it. DMShG 100.3-5: o9/ dang por gsang mchog sdom pa ’di mnos nas// ’da’ dka’ khas blangs dam las g.yel gyur te// khrag ’thung rigs lnga’i thugs dang ci ’gal ba// thugs rje che mnga’ khyed la bzod par gsol// ga ṇa’i sbyor mchog rtog ’dzin bar chad kyis// yum chen krodhī’i thugs dang ci ’gal ba// khro mo dbyings phyug ma la bzod par gsol// V. Petition to r mat Heruka (9) (10) ma rig bdag cag lus dang ngag sems gyis/ bag myed tshul gyis dam las ’das ’gyur te/ dpal can he ru ’i thugs dang ci ’gal ba’/ thugs rje che mnga’ khyed la bzod par gsol/ We, ignorant, through body, speech and mind, have heedlessly transgressed our commitments; in whatever ways [we] oppose the spirit of r mat Heruka, we pray that you, compassionate ones, be forebearing of it. [DMShG 102.6: de nas yang dpal chen po he ru ka la sogs pa’i dam tshig la gnas pa’i gtso ’khor rnams kyis bshags pa ’di gsungs so//] VI. Petition to the twenty-eight var s (11) (12) ma rig bdag cag lus dang ngag sems gyis/ bag myed tshul gyis dam las ’das ’gyur te/ dbang phyug nyi shu rtsa brgyad thugs dang ci ’gal ba/ ma srin rgya mtsho khyed gI spya ngar mthol zhing bshags/ We, ignorant, through body, speech and mind, have heedlessly transgressed our commitments; in whatever ways [we] oppose the spirit of 74 The phrase bag myed tshul gyis dam las ’das ’gyur te, as found elsewhere throughout the text, appears to have been omitted in this case by the scribe at this point. 192 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN the twenty-eight mother ogresses. var s, we repent of it before your eyes, ocean of DMShG 101.2-3: longs spyod ’byams nas tshogs kyi phud nyams te// phud yul (VIII.) dbang phyug thugs dang ci ’gal ba// dbang mo nyi shu brgyad la bzod par gsol// VII. Petition to the eleven Earth Goddesses (13) (14) ma rig bdag cag lus dang ngag sems gyis/ bag myed tshul gyIs dam las ’das gyur ste/ ldan ma bcu gcig thugs dang ci ’gal ba’/ sprul pa’i tshogs rnams khyed la mthol zhing bshags/ We, ignorant, through body, speech and mind, have heedlessly transgressed our commitments; in whatever ways [we] oppose the spirit of the eleven Earth Goddesses, we repent before you, emanational assembly. DMShG 101.1-2: ’da’ dka’ khas blangs ’khor drug ma thul te// ma bdun sring bzhi’i thugs dang ci ’gal ba// mkha’ ’gro bcu gcig sku la bzod par gsol// VIII. Petition to the recipients of the first fruits (15) (16) ma rig bdag cag lus dang ngag sems gyis/ bag myed tshul gyis dam las ’das ’gyur ste/ rdo rje phud yul thugs dang ci ’gal ba’ thugs rje che mnga’ khyod la mthol zhing bshags/ We, ignorant, through body, speech and mind, have heedlessly transgressed our commitments; in whatever ways [we] oppose the spirit of the recipients of the first vajra-fruits, 75 we repent of it before you, compassionate ones. [See VI. above for the parallel in the Dri med bshags rgyud.] 75 By ‘first vajra-fruits’ (rdo rje phud) one means the best of the ritual offerings, consecrated to be consumed during the tshogs ’khor (Skt. gaṇacakra). BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE 193 IX. Petition to the Dvārapālas (17) ma rig bdag cag lus dang ngag sems gyis/ bag myed tshul gyIs dam las ’das ’gyur ste/ sgo ba sgo ma thugs dang ci ’gal (18) ba’/ thugs rje che mnga’ khyed la mthol zhing bshags/ We, ignorant, through body, speech and mind, have heedlessly transgressed our commitments; in whatever ways [we] oppose the spirit of the male and female gate-keepers, we repent of it before you, compassionate ones. DMShG 100.6-101.1: shar lho nub byang sgo bzhi ma phyed de//rta gdong sgo ma’i thugs dang ci ’gal ba// ye shes sgo ma bzhi la bzod par gsol// X. Petition to the Vajrācārya (19) (20) ma rig bdag cag lus dang ngag sems gyis/ bag myed tshul gyis dam las ’das ’gyur te/ rdo rje slob dpon thugs dang ci ’gal ba’/ thugs rje che mnga’ khyod la mthol zhing bshags/ / We, ignorant, through body, speech and mind, have heedlessly transgressed our commitments; in whatever ways [we] oppose the spirit of the Vajrācārya, we repent of it before you, compassionate ones. DMShG 124.1-3: rdo rje slob dpon byams pa’i bka’ drin gyis// snyan khung brgyud nas sems kyi dkyil du bzhag// thugs kyi man ngag byin pas dam tshig ’dres// gsang mtshams ’das nas ’chol bar smras la sogs// thugs kyi dam tshig nyams pa mthol lo bshags// XI. Request for the accomplishment of purification (21) mthol bshags phul nas tshangs pa’i rngos sgrub gsal tu gsol/ Having offered our repentance, we pray that you grant the siddhi of purity. 194 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN DMShG 125.5: dus gsum byas bsags sdig sgrib mthol bshags na// tshangs par mdzad nas sku gsung thugs la sogs// mchog dang thun mong dngos grub stsal du gsol// XII. Petition to the brethren and siblings (22) (23) ma rig bdag cag lus dang ngag sems gyis/ bag myed tshul gyis dam las ’das ’gyur te/ mched dang lcam ’dral thugs dang ci ’gal ba’/ /thugs rje che mnga’ khyed la mthol zhing bshags// // I’ti // : // We, ignorant, through body, speech and mind, have heedlessly transgressed our commitments; in whatever ways [we] oppose the spirit of the brethren and siblings [with whom we share common vows], we repent of it before you, compassionate ones. Iti. 76 DMShG 102.3: byang chub mched lcam thugs dang ci ’gal ba// rdo rje ming sring sku la bzod par gsol// APPENDIX: THE NA RAK DONG SPRUGS CYCLE IN THE RNYING MA BKA’ MA DUDJOM RINPOCHE 1982-87: Rnying ma bka’ ma rgyas pa, vol. Pa (13): Na rag dong sprugs kyi skor. The cycle as given here consists of fourteen texts (A.-N.) as follows: A. Dri med bshags rgyud (full title: Dam tshig thams cad kyi nyams chag skong ba’i lung/ bshags pa thams cad kyi rgyud dri ma med pa’i rgyal po), pp. 5-126 (61 folios) 1. gleng gzhi dang gleng bslang ba’i le’u ste dang po’o, 1.1-12.4 2. theg pa lam zhugs kyi bshags pa ste gnyis pa’o, 12.4-18.5 3. nyams chag dang rtog sgrib sbyong ba’i bshags pa ste le’u gsum pa’o, 18.5-68.4 4. ye shes lha dang ’khon gcugs bshags pa ste le’u bzhi pa’o, 68.472.4 76 Borrowed from Sanskrit, but meaning roughly “it is done,” in the sense of sealing the closure of a ritual text, instead of merely “closed quote.” Cf. the comments of MEINERT 2007: 277-279. BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE 195 5. nyams grib bskang ba’i bshags pa ste le’u lnga pa’o, 72.4-77.6 6. dam tshig nyi shu rtsa brgyad pa’i bshags pa ste le’u drug pa’o, 77.6-82.3 7. rdo rje dpal chen gyi bshags pa ste le’u bdun pa’o, 82.3-86.2 8. ye shes mkha’ ’gro’i bshags pa ste le’u brgyad pa’o, 86.2-90.3 9. chos nyid zhi ba’i bshags pa ste le’u dgu pa’o, 90.3-96.6 10. khro bo’i dkyil ’khor khrag ’thung bshags pa ste le’u bcu pa’o, 96.6-102.6 11. rū tre’i smre bshags te le’u bcu gcig pa’o, 102.6-108.1 12. rgyud lung man ngag gi bshags pa ste le’u bcu gnyis pa’o, 108.1-110.3 13. grol lam lta ba’i bshags pa bstan pa’i le’u ste bcu gsum pa’o, 110.3-114.2 14. thabs lam dbang gi bshags pa ste le’u bcu bzhi pa’o, 114.2119.3 15. ’bras bu’i don ma rtogs pa bshags pa ste le’u bco lnga pa’o, 119.3-122.4 16. yongs su gtad pa’i bshags pa dang rjes su yi rang ba ste le’i bcu drug pa’o, 122.4-126.1 Colophon, 126.2-4: rgya gar gyi mkhan po bi ma la mi tra dang/ bod kyi lo ts ba gnyags jñ na ku m ras bsgyur cing zhus te gtan la phab pa’o// //dus phyis yi ge rgyun ’phugs pas ma dag rnams sngar gyi dpe rnying khungs thub dag la gtugs shing gong ma’i gsung rgyun dang/ gzhung don la dpyad de rang bzos ma bslad par dge slong mtsho skyes bzhad pas brda tshig gnyis ka dpyis phyin par zhus dag par bgyis te yid brtan du rung ba’i phyi mor bsngags pa dge zhing bkra shis par gyur cig// //slar yang khams dang bod phyogs su sngar nas yig rgyun so sor gyes pas tshig ’bru ’ga’ re chad lhag ’dug pa rnams dge paṇ zhabs nas rnying rgyud spar gyi skabs zhib par bcos te yid brtan du rung bar mdzad pa las zhal bshus pa siddhi ra stu// // B. rnal ’byor gyi spyi khrus dong sprugs kyi brgyud ’debs, 127-128 [A. ’Gyur med rdo rje, i.e., Gter bdag gling pa, supplemented by ’Jigs bral ye shes rdo rje, i.e., Bdud ’joms Rin po che] C. na rag dong sprugs kyi [spyi khrus chen po’i] cho ga ’khor ba kun sgrol, 129-241 [A.Rig pa ’dzin pa ’Gyur med rdo rje, i.e., Gter bdag gling pa, dated to his 49th year, 1694] 196 MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN D. na rag dong sprugs kyi cho ga ’khor ba kun sgrol gyi zur ’debs lhan thabs ngo mtshar rin chen phreng ba, 243-257 [unsigned] E. na rag dong sprugs kyi cho ga bde chen lam bzang (= padma brgya ldan gyi cho ga), 259-384 [A. Lo tsā ba Ngag gi dbang phyug Chos dpal rgyal mtsho (i.e., Dharm r ), on the basis of the work of Rig pa ’dzin pa ’Gyur med rdo rje, i.e., Gter bdag gling pa, and dated to the rnam gnon year (= lcags ’brug), 1700] F. na rak dong sprugs las phyag gi bkol byang, 385-407 [unsigned, excerpted from the Dri med bshags rgyud] G. na rak dong sprugs kyi sngon ’gro bla ma’i rnal ’byor, 409-410 [A. Dznyā na, i.e., Bdud ’joms Rin po che] H. na rag dong sprugs phyag rgya gcig pa’i sgrub thabs zab don nying khu, 411-430 [A. Dharma r , dated 1703 (chu lug)] I. na rag dong sprugs phyag rgya gcig pa’i rgyun khyer yang zab snying po, 431-439 [A. ’Jigs bral ye shes rdo rje, i.e., Bdud ’joms Rin po che] J. na rag dong sprugs phyag rgya gcig pa’i khrid yig zab lam snang byed, 441-460 [A. Dharma r ] K. na rag dong sprugs kyi dbang gi cho ga mtshams sbyor gyis brgyan pa bde chen lam bzang, 461-538 [A. Rgyal sras Gzhan phan mtha’ yas, on the basis of the earlier work by Rje btsun Mi ’gyur dpal sgron, and edited by ’Jigs bral ye shes rdo rje, i.e., Bdud ’joms Rin po che] L. na rag dong sprugs phyag rgya gcig pa’i zhi ba’i sbyin sreg, 539549 [A. Pra dznyā] M. dong sprugs phyag rgya gcig pa’i zhi ba’i sbyin sreg snying por dril ba, 551-558 [A. ’Jigs bral ye shes rdo rje, i.e., Bdud ’joms Rin po che] N. gshin po rjes su ’dzin pa’i cho ga thar ba’i myur lam, 559-571 [A. Rig pa ’dzin pa ’Gyur med rdo rje, i.e., Gter bdag gling pa, dated as written in a bag yod year, but this must be an error for bag med, equivalent to chu mo glang, i.e., 1673] BIBLIOGRAPHY BEGUIN, G. 1995. Les peintures du bouddhisme tibétain. Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux. BLEZER, H. 1997. Kar gliṅ Źi khro: A Tantric Buddhist Concept. Leiden: Research School CNWS. BETWEEN NA RAK AND A HARD PLACE 197 CLARKE, G. 1991. Nara (na-rag) in Yolmo: A Social History of Hell in Helambu. In E. Steinkellner (ed.), Tibetan History and Language: Studies Dedicated to Géza Uray on his Seventieth Birthday. Vienna: Arbeitskreis fur Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 43-62. DALTON, J., T. DAVIS and S. VAN SCHAIK. 2007. Beyond Anonymity: Paleographic Analyses of the Dunhuang Manuscripts. In Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies (www.jiats.org), issue 3 (2007). DALTON, J., and S. VAN SCHAIK. 2006. 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Sketches of an Emerging Discipline The development of a properly “Tibetan Tibetology,” wherein Tibetan civilization is appropriated as an object of analysis by and for Tibetan thinkers themselves, is a recent development that in its broad outlines recapitulates many aspects of ethnic and nationalities studies elsewhere. The present essay seeks to present a general account of the evolution of the area, together with a more detailed review of the study of archaic Tibetan as a specialized field in which the emergence of a new Tibetological discipline among Tibetan researchers is particularly clear. Resulting substantive work in the field has been accompanied by refinements of methodological reflection. In the final section of the essay, the peculiar political pressures to which “Tibetan Tibetology” is subject is discussed in brief. « Une Tibétologie tibétaine ? » Aperçus d’une discipline émergente Le développement d’une « Tibétologie tibétaine » proprement dite, dans laquelle la civilisation tibétaine devient l’objet d’analyse des intellectuels tibétains eux-mêmes, résulte d’un développement récent qui dans ses grandes lignes récapitule de nombreux aspects des études sur les minorités ethniques faites par ailleurs. Cet essai propose ici une présentation générale de l’évolution de la discipline, tout en parcourant de façon plus détaillée l’étude du Tibet ancien en tant que domaine de recherche spécifique dans lequel l’émergence d’une nouvelle discipline tibétologique parmi les chercheurs tibétains apparaît clairement, et dans lequel au travail principal s’ajoute l’affinement de la réflexion méthodologique. L’article se termine sur une brève discussion concernant le problème de la « Tibétologie tibétaine » prise comme objet de pression politique “tibetan tibetology”? sketches of an emerging discipline matthew t. kapstein W hen i was invited to participate in the present collection, it was suggested that i write on the topic of “tibetan tibetology.” this, of course, is a problematic notion, and before entering into the discussion of the particular matters that i wish to introduce in this context, it would be well to clarify some of the implications of the phrase “tibetan tibetology,” as well as the ways in which my chosen subject responds to the initial charge. the various “-ologies” that have national or ethnic designations (sinology, Japanology, indology, tibetology, etc.), together with their analogues formed in similar contexts by the use of the word “studies” (or equivalents in languages other than english)—Jewish studies, african studies, bhutan studies, and the like—are now generally regarded as the direct or indirect products of the nineteenth century project of rationalizing, along more or less “scientific” lines, our knowledge of human societies. three often conflicting tendencies, in particular, informed this project in its principle dimensions: the rationalization of european colonialism, the rise of modern nationalisms, and the post-enlightment emergence of critical historical-philological methodologies. the late edward said, in his ground-breaking and influential essay Orientalism (1978), focused notably on the role of the first mentioned in his analysis of the growth of the modern Western academic disciplines concerned with the peoples of asia and africa who were subject to the colonial powers during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. however, it is clear that the other two factors mentioned were of considerable importance here as well. in some instances—chinese, indian and Western european Jewish intellectual circles figure among the notable examples—we find local elites reflexively embracing the new project of the human sciences, in these cases as sinology, indology and Judentumswissenschaft, respectively, in the interest of the modernization and political emancipation of their own communities. it is no accident that we thus find some of the leading “-ologists” of the twentieth century— figures such as hu shi (1891-1962), Ócårya narendra dev (1889-1956), and gershom scholem (1897-1982)—to have been closely associated with progressive, nationalistic political movements of various kinds. in short, while acknowledging the valid aspects of said’s argument, it may be said that orientalism together with its cognate disci- Images of Tibet in the 19 th and 20 th Centuries paris, efeo, coll. « Études thématiques » (22), 2008, p. 799-815 800 Matthew T. Kapstein plines nevertheless proved to be a double-edged sword, serving, in separate ways, both colonialist and nationalist projects. With the formation of the soviet Union following the revolution of 1918, this bivalence found expression in the on-going development of communist policies with respect to minority nationalities. on the one hand, in line with the forward-looking aspirations of minority cadres, the liberation of their communities as coequal partners in the new socialist order was articulated as a proper goal, but, on the other, rigorous control of the minorities was increasingly emphasized as a key practical objective of the centralized soviet state. Under such circumstances, in a pattern mirrorring that which said attributes to the colonial project of orientalism, nationality studies under communism tended to mix scholarship with the political “education” of minority cadres, a bifurcation of interests that continues to play itself out in china today.1 in tibet, of course, analogous developments occurred much later than they did in many other parts of asia. the tibetan experience of colonialism was largely limited to late-Qing and chinese republican efforts to establish a colonial presence in some parts of khams (later Xikang) and exposure to Western modes of knowledge production and organization was of negligible importance prior to the mid-twentienth century.2 nevertheless, the beginnings of modern chinese education among khams pa elites, together with central tibetan contacts with british india, did contribute to a gradual reevaluation of traditional tibetan learning in some quarters, while at the same time the distant roar of chinese and indian nationalisms also began to be heard. though elements of what one might call a “tibetan tibetology” may be seen in the work of dge ’dun chos ’phel (1903?-1951),3 above all, it is only in the 1950s, in 1 the twists and turns in the development of chinese nationalities policy in relation to tibet are trenchantly illustrated in melvyn c. goldstein, dawei sherap, and William r. siebenschuh, A Tibetan Revolutionary: The Political Life and Times of Bapa Phüntso Wangye (berkeley: University of california press, 2004). the tension between social scientific research and political development continues to characterize tibetan studies in china today: in the tibet autonomous region, for instance, scholars attached to the tibet academy of social science have been regularly called upon to participate in political education campaigns. 2 for a useful introduction to the chinese colonial project in khams, see laurent deshayes, Histoire du Tibet (paris: fayard, 1997): 241-251. from the contemporary chinese perspective, of course, british engagement in tibetan affairs, especially in the case of the younghusband expedition of 1904, was the main form of foreign imperialism to which the tibetans were exposed. actual british colonial activity among tibetans, however, was restricted to some parts of northwestern india that were culturally tibetan, i.e., ladakh and adjacent regions, as well as sikkim and parts of what is today arunachal pradesh. in some areas in khams and amdo, educational activities on the part of christian missionaries also made small inroads; see goldstein, sherap and siebenschuh, A Tibetan Revolutionary: The Political Life and Times of Bapa Phüntso Wangye, on the american misson school in ’ba’ thang. 3 this controversial figure has been the subject of much study in recent years. the major contributions to date are heather stoddard, Le mendiant de l’Amdo (paris: société d’ethnographie, 1985), and donald s. lopez, Jr., The Madman’s Middle Way: Reflections on Reality of the Tibetan Monk Gendun Chopel (chicago: University of chicago press, 2006). for further aspects of his scholarly interests, refer to toni huber, The Guide To India. A Tibetan Account by Amdo Gendun Chöphel (1903-1951) (dharamsala: library of tibetan Works and archives, 2000). the most complete collection of his own work will be found in hor khang “Tibetan Tibetology”? 801 the years following the incorporation of tibet into the people’s republic of china and the foundation in 1951 of the central nationalities institute (Zhongyang minzu Xueyuan 中央民族学院) in beijing, that, under conditions parallelling colonial ethnic studies projects (and directly inspired by soviet nationality studies), we find a characteristic chinese and tibetan iteration of tibetan studies taking shape.4 at the same time, the growing tibetan diaspora in india and to a smaller extent in the West meant that exiled tibetan scholars, too, were gaining increasing exposure to nontraditional sources and methods. in some cases—the tibetan christian journalist g. tharchin of kalimpong offers an early example5—new ways of examining tibet were tied to the impulse to modernize tibetan society overall, thereby replicating aspects of the pattern noted above. in the present essay, however, our primary focus will be on tibetan scholarship in china, touching on developments in the tibetan diaspora only occasionally. the establishment of the central nationalities institute, together with similar institutions at the provincial level, formed the framework for the birth of tibetan studies as a distinct discipline in china.6 however, beginning during the late-1950s these institutes became sites for the intensive political campaigns that wholly dominated tibetan affairs for some twenty years, including, but not limited to, the period of the cultural revolution.7 during this time, there was little possibility for undertaking sustained scholarly work on tibet,8 and most of those qualified for such bsod nams dpal ’bar (ed.), dGe ’dun chos ’phel gyi gsung rtsom, 3 vols., gangs can rigs mdzod series 10-12 (lhasa: bod ljongs bod yig dpe rnying dpe skrun khang, 1990). 4 on the foundation and early years of the central nationalities institute in beijing, see carmen meinert, “gangs dkar rin po che between tibet and china: a tibetan lama among ethnic chinese in the 1930s to 50s,” in Buddhism Between Tibet and China, ed. matthew t. kapstein (forthcoming). 5 the rev. tharchin was the founder of the tibetan mirror press in kalimpong, West bengal, which published the Tibet Mirror newspaper from 1925 until 1962. 6 chinese tibetology, however, had its start under the republicans. prof. yu daoquan (b. 1901) initiated some tibetological work during the 1930s at what was then peking University, but then left the country until the late 1940s. after his return, he was active in the post-revolutionary development of tibetan studies. the noted anthropologist li anche (b. circa 1900) conducted some of his fieldwork in tibetan regions during the 1930s and 40s, and joined the faculty of the southwest nationalities institute in chengdu in 1956. chinese official statements maintain that there were no organizations devoted to tibetological research in china prior to the establishment of the people’s republic (see, for example, the document found on the website of the chinese ministry of foreign affairs [http://www.fmprc.gov. cn/eng/ljzg/ 3585/3592/3599/t17976.htm]). strictly speaking, this seems correct, but nevertheless there were already some tibetologists. 7 melvyn c. goldstein, William siebenschuh, and tashi tsering, The Struggle for Modern Tibet: The Autobiography of Tashi Tsering (armonk, new york: m. e. sharpe, 1997) illustrates some of these struggles as they unfolded at the nationalities institute in Xianyang. 8 there were, however, some rare exceptions, particularly in fields that were somehow valued during the cultural revolution itself. thus, for instance, we find that the “barefoot doctor” (tib. em rje rkang rjen ma) campaign facilitated some on-going work in tibetan medicine. a fine pocket encyclopedia of herbal medicines, entitled Bod ljongs rgyun spyod krung dbyi’i sman rigs, was completed by the cultural revolution and military bureaux of the tar in 802 Matthew T. Kapstein work, whether they were han or tibetan, were subjected to periods of imprisonment or rural reeducation. hence, it was only following the assumption of power by deng Xiaoping and his relatively liberal faction of the chinese communist party in 1978 that academic research in this area began slowly to reemerge.9 one of the chief problems that the new generation of tibetan scholars immediately faced was to assess the place of traditional tibetan learning in relation to the new enterprise of the post-cultural revolution, secular study of tibet. clearly, some measure of traditional knowledge was essential for conducting textual research of whatever kind, and in relation to some specific fields, among which local history offers a prime example, the new environment favored the collection and preservation of whatever records and archives might still be found. nevertheless, a critical engagement with tradition, rather than a mere acceptance thereof, was the felt need of the hour, both for scientific and sociological reasons. this is reflected in the remarks of don grub rgyal (19531985) on the study of traditional tibetan poetics, which had for centuries followed the indian model of ornate and difficult sanskrit court poetry, or kåvya: While even now there are innumerable model-books on poetics, still it appears that [the tibetan authors who composed and studied them] were unable to produce many new and novel poetic compositions that are easy to understand, facilitating comprehension. the chief reason for this was that the basis for earlier composition and kåvya was not established among the tibetan people as a whole, but instead was established only among those endowed with the learning involving mastery of the sciences. owing to this, the treatises and model-books of kåvya were bound up with many unknown or poorly known synonyms and archaisms, and adorned with incomprehensible poetic ornaments. thus, the masses of the people were not able to study their compositions or found them hard to understand, so that it came to be that the relationship between kåvya among our literary arts and the tibetan people grew ever more distant.10 1971 and published by the tibet people’s publishing house (bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang) in 1973. the expression “chinese medicine” (krung dbyi, ch. zhongyi 中医) in this case clearly includes tibetan medicine, “china” (Zhongguo) always being taken, in official usage, as inclusive of the various nationalities and not as exclusively han. 9 for a survey with respect to literature, see my “the indian literary identity in tibet,” in Literary Cultures in History: Perspectives from South Asia, ed. sheldon pollock (berkeley: University of california press, 2003): 747-802, and on religious affairs, my “a thorn in the dragon’s side: tibetan buddhist culture in china,” in Governing China’s Multi-ethnic Frontier, ed. morris rossabi (seattle: University of Washington press, 2004): 230-269. the crucial moment, ushering in elements of dengist reform in tibet, was the visit of party secretary hu yaobang to the tar in 1980, on which see Wang yao, “hu yaobang’s visit to tibet, may 22-31, 1980,” in Resistance and Reform in Tibet, eds. robbie barnett and shirin akiner (bloomington: indiana University press, 1994): 285-289. a statement of chinese policy with respect to tibetology at the time may be found in liyu yi, “tibetology: a chinese View,” trans. samten g. karmay, The Tibet Journal 8.2 (1983): 25-32. 10 don grub rgyal, mGur glu’i lo rgyus dang khyad chos (beijing: mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1985): 39, translated in kapstein, “the indian literary identity in tibet,” 792-793. see, too, my “don grub rgyal: the making of a modern hero,” in Lungta, vol. 12 (dharamsala: amnye machen research institute, 1999): 45-48. “Tibetan Tibetology”? 803 despite this, however, don grub rgyal himself felt compelled to retain many of the conventions derived from kåvya in developing his own analysis of tibetan poetic composition. the double relation with tradition that is entailed here, whereby the contemporary scholar is at once critical of and constrained by it, is characteristic of much of “tibetan tibetology,” as indeed it has been of analogous projects among other peoples as well. there are now a number of fields in which tibetan authors have to varying degrees similarly attempted to bracket out presuppositions inherited from tradition, while elaborating new assessments on the basis of data gleaned in part from non-traditional sources (for instance, previously unstudied documents and other artifacts), as well as from field research of various kinds (especially, archeological and ethnographical work), and, as we see above, from new assumptions guiding research. among the areas in which these developments have been most pronounced in china, one may note above all tibetan linguistics and lexicography;11 literature, folklore, and the study of the gesar epic;12 and tibetan historical studies.13 not surprisingly, these are the fields that are stressed in tibetan higher education and so are institutionally supported, in part, no doubt, because their apparently secular character insulates them to some extent from the complexities surrounding the study of religion in a communist state.14 local ethnography and cultural geography have also emerged as foci for research in 11 in accord with my present subject-matter, i note two interesting dictionaries focusing upon archaic tibetan: btsan lha ngag dbang tshul khrims, brDa dkrol gser gyi me long (beijing: mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1997); and rnam rgyal tshe ring, Bod yig brda rnying tshig mdzod (beijing: krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang, 2001). a useful textbook of old tibetan has also appeared: go shul grags pa ’byung gnas, Bod btsan po’i skabs kyi gna’ rtsom gces bsdus slob deb (beijing: mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2001). 12 for an overview of work on traditional literature, see kapstein, “the indian literary identity in tibet.” the documentation of the numerous editions, collections, studies and glossaries devoted to tibetan folklore and the gesar stories that have been published in china in recent decades goes beyond the scope of the present article. the major anthology of tibetan poetry, with historical notes and commentary, remains blo bzang chos grags and bsod nams rtse mo (eds.), Gangs ljongs mkhas dbang rim byon gyi rtsom yig gser gyi sbram bu, 3 vols. (Xining: mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1988). 13 the most noteworthy modern synthesis of tibetan history published in tibetan to date remains chab spel tshe brtan phun tshogs and nor brang o rgyan, Bod kyi lo rgyus rags rim g.yu yi phreng ba, 3 vols. (lhasa: bod ljongs dpe rnying dpe skrun khang, 1989). a ten volume history of tibet, to be published in chinese, is currently in progress at the national centre for tibetan studies in beijing and is being prepared under the general editorial direction of professor chen Qingying. dan martin, Tibetan Histories: A Bibliography of Tibetan-Language Historical Works (london: serindia publications, 1997) includes many of the traditional and recent histories published in tibetan in china through 1996. a series of publications initiated by nga phod ngag dbang ’jigs med, Bod kyi rig gnas lo rgyus rgyu cha bdam bsgrigs, some (but not all) intended for internal distribution only (neibu), has provided testimony and documentation concerning many aspects of modern tibetan history. 14 tibetan-medium degree courses were for a long time only available to students majoring in tibetan language and literature, history, and marxism-leninism. students wishing to specialize in other subjects have generally had no option but to pursue their studies in chinese. 804 Matthew T. Kapstein the academies of social science, together with some work in archaeology and art history.15 tibetan medical systems, a source of considerable pride in contemporary china and regarded as particularly promising with respect to the commercial development of patented herbal medications, are mostly studied within the aegis of specialized pharmacological and medical institutions, often not in connection with tibetology per se as a discipline within the social and human sciences. tibetan religious studies remain problematic, however, with apparently deep uncertainties regarding just how these may be pursued in a relatively detached, secular manner. to appreciate more fully the shape of current tibetological research in china, i offer in the following section a brief sketch of recent work within a particular, specialized domain. The Study of Early Tibet early tibetan history stands out as a key example of an area in which the transition from traditional modes of knowledge to the new tibetology, as this has unfolded in china during the past few decades, may be followed with considerable clarity. here, as is well known, until very recently writers were generally content to follow established tradition, although some daring thinkers—dpa’ bo gtsug lag phreng ba (1504-1566) and rig ’dzin tshe dbang nor bu (1698-1755) are among the outstanding examples—did realize that there were documents and inscriptions in existence that could be employed to refine and to amplify the available record.16 nevertheless, as illustrated by the much-perpetuated error of such giants among tibetan savants as bu ston rin chen grub (1290-1364) and the great fifth dalai lama (1617-1682), both of whom insisted upon the identification of the quite separate monarchs khri lde srong btsan (r. 804-815) and khri gtsug lde btsan (ral pa can, r. 815-841), traditional scholarship was restricted by its relative indifference to epigraphical and manuscript sources.17 to embrace ancient documents and inscriptions as possessing an evidentiary value for historical research that is often superior to that of later, synthetic accounts involves a marked change of epistemological orientation, one that only a small number of traditional authors were apparently prepared to make, and that could not become current in tibetan learned circles at large until the institutional conditions for knowledge-formation had been altered, as they were from the 1950s on. the 15 exemplary in this regard are the fruitful collaborations of g. hazod and p. sørensen with the tibet academy of social science: tsering gyalbo, guntram hazod, and per k. sørensen, Civilization at the Foot of Mount Sham po: The Royal House of lHa Bug pa can and the History of g.Ya’ bzang (Vienna: Verlag der Ö sterreichischen akademie der Wissenschaften, 2000); and per k. sørensen and guntram hazod, in cooperation with tsering gyalpo, Thundering Falcon: An Inquiry into the History and Cult of Khra ’brug, Tibet’s First Buddhist Temple (Vienna: Verlag der Ö sterreichische akademie der Wissenschaften, 2005). 16 see, especially, hugh e. richardson, High Peaks, Pure Earth: Collected Writings on Tibetan History and Culture, ed. michael aris (london: serindia publications, 1998): chapters 12 and 38. 17 for a full discussion of the particular question mentioned, and the role of the old inscriptions in resolving it, see don grub rgyal and khrin chin dbyin [chen Qingying], bTsan po khri sde srong btsan gyi lo rgyus mdo tsam brjod pa (beijing: mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1984). “Tibetan Tibetology”? 805 sharp contestation involved here may be seen in the incomprehension that greeted a mdo dge bshes dge ’dun chos ’phel in lhasa official circles when the researches that formed the basis for his Deb ther dkar po (White annals) became known. this was the first modern history of early tibet that sought to incorporate data gleaned from the dunhuang manuscripts, together with a variety of sources unknown to earlier tibetan writers.18 other tibetans who were engaged in historical scholarship, however, soon also began to take stock of the value of previously neglected materials. the late bdud ’joms rin po che (1904-1987), for instance, who might best be described as an openminded traditionalist, was sympathetic to dge ’dun chos ’phel’s efforts and indeed had undertaken to transcribe several of the imperial inscriptions himself. his rGyal rabs includes the fruits of his labors along these lines, though set within an otherwise traditional narrative.19 similarly, the noted bon po scholar, slob dpon bstan ’dzin rnam dag (b. 1926), made use of the Old Tibetan Chronicle from dunhuang in his history of early tibet and the bon religion.20 nevertheless, in neither of these instances do we find so trenchant a questioning of traditional historiography as dge ’dun chos ’phel had already begun. the tibetan scholars who, indirectly following the footsteps of the latter, would first explore the deeper ramifications of old documentary sources for tibetan imperial and early post-imperial history were in fact two of the most dynamic tibetan intellectuals settled in europe, samten g. karmay (mkhar rme’u bsam gtan rgyal mtshan, b. 1936) and namkhai norbu (nam mkha’i nor bu, b. 1938), both of whom, through their publications and personal contacts, made a major impact on tibetan thinking in both china and the exile communities.21 before the contributions of these figures became well known in china, however, a new generation of tibetan thinkers, those who like don grub rgyal came of age during the closing years of the cultural revolution, had independently begun to reassess the early historical record. in this, the role of tibetophone han chinese scholars, including Wang yao 王尧 (dbang rgyal), chen Jian 陈践 (bsod nams skyid), and chen Qingying 陈庆英 (khrin chin dbyin), in advancing work in this area together with tibetan colleagues and students should not be overlooked.22 among the 18 stoddard, Le mendiant de l’Amdo, 247-248. bdud ’joms rin po che ’Jigs bral ye shes rdo rje, Bod kyi rgyal rabs ’dus gsal du bkod pa, in The collected writings and revelations of H.H. Bdud ’joms Rin po che ’Jigs bral ye shes rdo rje (kalimpong: dupjung lama, 1979-1985): vol. 2. 20 slob dpon bstan ’dzin rnam dag, Bod kyi ’byung ba brjod pa’i ’bel gtam (dolanji, h.p.: slob dpon bstan ’dzin rnam dag, 1983). 21 samten g. karmay’s best known historical essay in tibetan is perhaps: mkhar rme’u bsam gtan rgyal mtshan, bTsan po lha sras Dar ma dang de’i rjes su byung ba’i rgyal rabs mdor bsdus (dharamsala: library of tibetan Works and archives, 1986). for an anthology of namkhai norbu’s tibetan language writings, see Nam mkha’i nor bu’i gsung rtsom phyogs bsgrigs (beijing: krung go’i bod kyi shes rig dpe skrun khang, 1994). 22 though the topic of the present essay requires that i underscore to some extent the ethnicity of the persons mentioned, i must confess to some unease in this regard. in my experience as a tibetanist in europe and the United states, i have found that in some quarters it is automatically assumed that, in connection with tibetan affairs, one can draw a strict inference from ethnicity to value: tibetan is good and han is bad. this is of course absolutely 19 806 Matthew T. Kapstein tibetan language contributions that initiated new approaches to the study of early tibet in china, some of the key works were by these and other han authors, whether originally written in or translated into tibetan.23 moreover, because tibetan scholars in china today are universally literate in chinese, they draw regularly upon chinese publications, including recent translations of Western tibetological writings, or use chinese as their own language of scholarship. in sum, the contemporary tibetan historian in china is in the interesting position of one who must mediate between traditional tibetan and modern chinese (and to a lesser extent Western) historical studies, while at the same time being buffeted by the crosscurrents of scientific research and political interest, as will be seen in the following section.24 With these points in mind, my focus in the remainder of this section will be on a recent collection of articles, most of them previously published during the past two-and-a-half decades, devoted to the study of early tibet: Bod kyi yig rnying zhib ’jug (research on old tibetan writings). this volume, which was produced at the northwest nationalities institute (Xibei minzu Xueyuan 西北民族学院) in lanzhou, gansu, under the general editorship of kha sgang bkra shis tshe ring, and was published by the nationalities press (minzu chubanshe, mi rigs dpe skrun khang) in beijing in 2003, brings together eighty-nine articles of which the great majority are naive. in relation to the quality and balance of tibet-related scholarship from china, one finds similar merits and problems informing the work of both tibetan and han scholars, and some of the latter must be counted among the foremost tibetanists today. in any case, one must distinguish, too, between serious scholarship produced in china and the work of political hacks, while noting that the latter by no means belong to a single ethnicity. our interest in the present context, however, exclusively concerns credible academic research, regardless of the scholar’s ethnicity. perhaps the best way to put these complications to rest would be to consider just publication in the tibetan language as the major characteristic of the scholarship that interests us. in all events, among major tibetan works by the three authors mentioned above we may note: bsod nams skyid [= chen Jian] and dbang rgyal [= Wang yao], Tun hong nas thon pa’i gna’ bo’i bod yig shog dril (beijing: mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1983); bsod nams skyid, Bod kyi rdo ring yi ge dang dril bu’i kha byang (beijing: mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1984); dbang rgyal and bsod nams skyid, Tun hong nas thon pa’i bod kyi lo rgyus yig cha (beijing: mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1992); don grub rgyal and khrin chin dbyin [chen Qingying], bTsan po khri sde srong btsan gyi lo rgyus mdo tsam brjod pa; and don grub rgyal and khrin chin dbyin (trans.), Thang yig gsar rnying las byung ba’i bod chen po’i srid lugs (Xining: mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1983). 23 in a useful appendix (pp. 793-802) to the collection to be discussed in greater detail below, Bod kyi yig rnying zhib ’jug, we find a bibliography of chinese-language publications on early tibetan, including chinese translations of works on the subject by Japanese and european authors. 24 While chinese popular and propaganda sources sometimes seek to date tibet’s incorporation into china to the tang dynasty, incredibly citing srong btsan sgam po’s marriage to the princess Wencheng as the basis for this assertion, most responsible scholars, whether writing in tibetan or in chinese, take the yuan dynasty as the beginning of their political union. more delicate is the treatment of the ming period, when the chinese court was continuing to grant, and tibetans were continuing to seek and to accept, chinese titles in legitimation of their authority. While it is clear that these tokens of diplomacy did not imply the real extension of ming power into tibet, but only the recognition of the status quo, official history in china at present nevertheless generally insists that one find here proof of tibet’s subordination to the ming. “Tibetan Tibetology”? 807 tibetan-language contributions by tibetan scholars currently active in china. (a small number of the articles are by han chinese authors and one is by namkhai norbu; some, too, whether by tibetan or han writers, were originally published in chinese and are here translated into tibetan.) the work thus forms a useful conspectus of current tibetan scholarship on early tibet. the introduction to the volume (pp. 1-3), contributed by one of the leaders in the field of old tibetan studies in china, professor gnya’ gong dkon mchog tshe brtan,25 provides a valuable overview of the principle orientations in this domain among tibetan academics in china today. i provide a full translation of it here, although, because the author prefers a syntactically complex style, with very long sentences containing several layers of dependent clauses, it has been necessary to paraphrase at some points rather than to attempt a literal rendering throughout. the bracketed expressions and footnotes have been added by the present writer in order to clarify gnya’ gong dkon mchog tshe brtan’s references and allusions as seems required: in this great cool and medicinal land, which has been said to be “in the middle of the heavens, in the center of the earth, in the heart of the continent, in the enclosure of snow mountains, at the head of all rivers, where the mountains are high, the earth pure,”26 that is, in this highland of glacial tibet, history is long and learning is profound and extensive, from the perspective of both theory and practice. because they possess the exceptional characteristics indicative of the spirit of the [tibetan] nationality, they form the basis for discovering virtues while rejecting faults through scientific research,27 which is the true responsibility of scholars in the present generation. for it would be inappropriate not to promote fully the positive qualities of tibetan thought. if one thinks to undertake well-grounded research concerning tibetology in general and tibetan cultural history in particular, at the outset one must gain correct knowledge of the nature and qualities of the true culture of the ancient tibetans. to arrive at that, there are just three principle objects [of study]: (1) there are the authentic annals and documents of past scholars in which the authentic oral traditions that were passed down for generations were written down, together with the documents of various types that are related to them. (2) there are the genuine remains of cultural objects, whether found below the earth or on the surface, which have been successively deposited since this world began. by means of them, there has been a careful scientific investigation of the actual developments of tens of thousands of years ago, so 25 among the same author’s earlier works, we find an extended study of the “uncle-nephew pillar inscription” in lhasa, dBon zhang rdo ring dang thang bod bar gyi ’brel ba (lanzhou: kan su’u mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1986), and a useful collection of old tibetan texts with notes and commentary, Bod kyi brda rnying yig cha bdams bsgrigs (beijing: krung dbyang mi rigs slob grwa chen mo’i dpe skrun khang, 1995). 26 the citation is from the famous dunhuang document pelliot tibétain 1286, lines 35-37. 27 this no doubt paraphrases a favorite adage of deng Xiaoping: shíshì qiú shì 实事求是, “seek truth from facts.” 808 Matthew T. Kapstein that these may be explained clearly and without error. hence, this science [of archaeology] is a great, recent anthropological development. if we take, for example, the regions inhabited by tibetans, we find various plant and animal fossils from many tens of thousands of years back, and, from many thousands of years ago, amazing petroglyphs, as well as the mausoleums of the ancient tibetan emperors (btsan po), and the remains of ancient dwellings, stone tools, pottery, bone needles, ornaments, etc. many such have been found in Western, central and eastern tibet, and have been subject to scientific analysis. (3) through the several phases of the development of tibetan society, writing finally emerged so as to record the linguistic conventions used by the [tibetan] nationality in common. thereafter, by stages, the production, livelihood, ideas, activities, customs and local traditions, etc., of society as it was during that time were set down, and the genuine ancient writings which give indications [of these matters] were not subject to tampering by later persons. to put it clearly, these are the pillar and stone inscriptions from the period of the tibetan btsan po dynasty, as well as the bell-inscriptions, the ancient tibetan writings that came from the dunhuang cave and that are now distributed everywhere in lands outside and inside [of china], the tally-sticks discovered in the ruins of the ancient tibetan fort at miran in Xinjiang, etc. these are unadulterated ancient writings, composed by the tibetans of a millenium ago. Whichever among these three objects one evaluates, one obtains true and verifiable results. otherwise, it is difficult to find other means to resolve the many knotty problems of history. in order to undertake genuine research that is really meaningful, the axiom of the examination of gold by burning, cutting and grinding seems to be certainly necessary.28 absent that, in tibet, in the face of the many doubtful points of history, it transpired that each scholar seemed to have had his own opinion. even after the fruits of tibetological research had ripened in the country, 29 whether one considers the methods of analysis or the substance, a high level was still not attained. examining the basis for this, [it was because], without pushing the truth to its limits, and relying on ephemeral learning, there seems to have been mostly an effort to undermine other objectives, so there was much weakness [of argumentation].30 in particular, in many of the scientific writings that were published in tibetan, [the authors] considered the presuppositions of their own thinking to be valid reasons, and this saying of buddhist philosophers (see, e.g., the Tattvasaµ graha of ÍåntarakΣita, verses 3343 and 3587), which is oft-repeated by the present dalai lama, is usually applied to the examination of religious doctrines, which are not to be taken up on faith, but subject to rigorous examination. 29 rgyal nang, i.e., china. 30 i assume that this is an intentionally vague allusion to the subordination of historical scholarship to purely political ends, as occurred in exaggerated fashion during the years of the cultural revolution. cf. the introduction to blo bzang chos grags and bsod nams rtse mo (eds.), Gangs ljongs mkhas dbang rim byon gyi rtsom yig gser gyi sbram bu, vol. 1, p. 2, of which a translation is given in my “the indian literary identity in tibet,” 790. 28 “Tibetan Tibetology”? 809 so would not accept others’ positions even when these were true and, making every effort to refute them, set forth their own positions. the objective of what is called “research” (zhib ’jug), however, is primarily to affirm what is or is not true or false. it refers to an articulation of the actual matter of fact, just as it is, on the basis of accumulated learning and reason (lung rigs),31 but it is not sophistry (rig ’phrul) that serves just to befuddle the thinking of others. therefore, one ought to get to the essence of what is demonstrated in fine compositions that are based on prior analysis. examining them repeatedly, and basing oneself upon reliable learning and reason with respect to the many points that flow from them, it is sufficient that the truth be revealed so that all come to affirm it. What is well-known as the view propounded by the scholarly community is just what comes forth through such research. in research, forced efforts that depart from the truth are never applicable. the revision of past conclusions and the rectification of errors are the basis for setting out on the true and genuine path—this is now the point of departure that merits the adherence of all who join the discussion. for this reason, the renowned professor kha sgang bkra shis tshe ring has compiled the conclusions of investigations on the old writings of ancient tibet that are most beneficial for current tibetological activity. in particular, he has accepted the burden of fulfilling here the need of researchers in this area for rare study materials and, what’s more, because many of the studies [republished here] contained errors of word or of meaning, he has corrected them insofar as was possible. in accord with his function as editor-in-chief of the collection, in the year 2000, the research students specializing in archaic tibetan writings—bis mdo rdo rje rin chen, chu bzang klu rgyal tshe ring, bla mtsho, and rdo sbis gcod pa klu rgyal32—made efforts to assist him in compiling most of the compositions on ancient tibetan writings that had appeared in provincial journals and books. this book, which they produced, has four great merits: 31 in traditional buddhist contexts this expression refers to the two main sources of religious knowledge, scriptural authority and reasoned argument. in the present secular context, however, lung is probably best taken as meaning “received knowledge” or “book learning.” 32 the title page in fact lists five associate editors: it omits bla mtsho, but adds rdo rje ’tsho and ’brug mo skyid. though the phrase zhib ’jug slob ma used above does literally mean “research student,” in the present context it seems to mean something more like “research fellow” in english academic usage. several of those named here have in any case published work included in the present collection: bis mdo rdo rje rin chen, “sBa bzhed las ’byung ba’i don chen ’ga’i dogs dpyod” (pp. 450-455); chu bzang klu rgyal tshe ring, “tun hong nas thon pa’i rje blon bar gyi mna’ tshig ’ga’ gleng ba” (pp. 598-602); gcod pa klu rgyal, “tun hong nas byung ba’i bod kyi gna’ rabs yig rnying skor la rags tsam dpyad pa” (pp. 391-395); “tun hong nas thon pa’i bod kyi lo rgyus yig cha las don chen gnad bsdus kyi lo tshigs skor gleng ba” (pp. 396-400); “li yul nas rnyed pa’i khram byang skor gyi ngo sprod rags bsdus” (pp. 410412); and rdo rje ’tsho, “tun hong gter yig las bod btsan po’i lo rgyus dang ’brel ba’i bud med kyi skor brjod pa” (pp. 362-368). the editor-in-chief, kha sgang bkra shis tshe ring, is represented by a study of tibetan relations with khotan, “dus rabs bdun pa dang brgyad pa’i dus kyi bod li mdza’ mthun ’brel ba’i skor gleng ba” (pp. 229-248), and, in collaboration with gnya’ gong dkon mchog tshe brtan, a general introduction to the dunhuang tibetan manuscripts, “tun hong bod kyi gna’ rabs yig rnying byung lugs dang de rnams dag sgrig dang par bskrun byed thabs kyi bsam tshul gleng ba” (pp. 157-165). 810 Matthew T. Kapstein first, it illustrates in a single collection the achievements of research, undertaken during the more than fifty years since the [people’s] republic [of china] was founded, concerning tibetology in general and ancient tibetan writings in particular. second, in accord with the development of tibetan educational work, it visibly demonstrates the increasing level of proficiency in composition and research. third, it offers for researchers a key to knowledge and insight with respect to the archaic writings, for it unites and clarifies the main methods and perspectives of past and current research on the part of many scholars concerning the ancient tibetan writings. fourth, it makes it easy to research whatever inconsistencies of word or meaning there may be by comparing earlier and later, former and posterior [contributions]. beyond that, some works of research on the old documents of ancient tibet that had not received attention [lit. “left empty,” stong char lus yod pa], or, for whatever reason, had received passing approbation, and so forth, are made available for examination and may henceforth contribute to the progress of research work overall. because this work, which possesses these four qualities, is obviously important for all efforts to grasp, preserve, and enlarge tibetan culture, it merits our hearty congratulations. clearly, the essential conception of historical research that is articulated here, that of a discipline that seeks to establish historical truth through critical investigation of the most reliable sources, including both documentary and material evidence, and through an on-going revision of past results, is one that accords in its broad outlines with current conceptions of historical scholarship in general. in particular, in contrast with traditional tibetan modes of historical study, we find articulated here a clear conception of historical research as an autonomous intellectual discipline. it is perhaps just this fact that presents the most striking novelty, relative to past tibetan ways of thought, informing the entire collection. the essays given in Bod kyi yig rnying zhib ’jug are presented in five major sections, embracing the primary concerns of recent research on early tibet: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) gna’ bo’i rdo ring dang brag brkos yi ge (“ancient pillar and stone inscriptions”) gna’ rabs rig gnas (“ancient culture”) gna’ rabs rtsom rig (“ancient literature”) gna’ bo’i skad dang yi ge (“ancient language and writing”) gna’ shul (“ancient remains”) as it will not be possible to review individually the almost ninety articles presented in the space available here, in the brief remarks that follow i shall attempt to survey some of the main topics discussed in each of these sections, drawing attention to particular contributions as seems warranted. the studies of the old inscriptions open with an essay on the skar chung rdo ring of khri lde srong btsan (r. 804-815) by hor khang bsod nams dpal ’bar (pp. 2-7), who begins with his reminiscence of a visit to the site in the company of his friend “Tibetan Tibetology”? 811 dge ’dun chos ’phel in 1946, during which they prepared the transcription of the inscription given here. the editorial decision to place this at the head of the collection may perhaps be read as a tacit acknowledgement of the controversial dge bshes’s singular role in the modern tibetan study of early tibet. following this, four articles (pp. 8-40) are devoted to just one particular pillar inscription, namely, the so-called “Uncle-nephew pillar” (dbon zhang rdo ring), on which the sino-tibetan treaties of 821-823 are engraved in tibetan and chinese. it is not at all surprising that this lhasa monument should receive a disproportionate share of attention; for it is among the most important witnesses of chinese and tibetan political relations and diplomatic conventions to survive from the tang/tibetan imperial period. that it should be so stressed in current research is of course also a healthy sign, as the treaties it reports make absolutely clear that tibet and china were, at the time, equal partners, despite the symbolic seniority that was perhaps attributed to the tang emperor through the designation of “uncle.”33 Usefully reproduced here, too, are a number of studies concerning previously undocumented early inscriptions which have come to the attention of scholars in recent years: pa tshab pa sangs dbang ’dus’s study of the khrom chen rdo ring (pp. 78-85); two essays by the celebrated historian chab spel tshe brtan phun tshogs on the recently discovered inscriptions of ldan ma brag and kong po de mo (pp. 86-101); and two substantial studies of the ’bis mdo and leb khog inscriptions in yul shul, one by gnya’ gong dkon mchog tshe brtan with padma ’bum (pp. 111-128), another by gdugs dkar tshe ring (pp. 129-148). essays on two later inscriptions are also included: hong he examines yuan-period inscriptions near beijing (pp. 102-110), and tshe rdor documents a historical text found on the wall of the monastery of mtho lding (tholing) in mnga’ ris (pp. 149-155).34 the section on “ancient culture” (gna’ rabs rig gnas), with thirty-six articles, is the fullest in the book and concerns primarily (though not exclusively) the study of the dunhuang tibetan documents. a number of these are general introductions to dunhuang and the manuscripts of mogao cave 17, with much to say, of course, regarding their removal (usually: “theft”) by stein, pelliot, and others.35 a number of the articles, however, address precise philological questions: bsod nams skyid (chen Jian) on the terms slung tshang and slungs dpon (pp. 266-271); dga’ ba pa sangs on the expression phyug nor in pelliot tibétain 1071 (pp. 300-306); rgya ye bkra bho on brla’ 33 on aspects of this question, see my The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism: Conversion, Contestation and Memory (new york: oxford University press, 2000), 35 and 221, note 77. more recently, the designation zhang has received detailed attention in brandon dotson, “a note on ¸a∫: maternal relatives of the tibetan royal line and marriage into the royal family,” Journal Asiatique 292.1-2 (2004): 75-99. 34 the text in question appears to supplement the materials collected in roberto Vitali, Records of Tho.ling: A Literary and Visual Reconstruction of the “Mother” Monastery in Gu.ge (dharamsala: high asia, 1999). 35 in some cases, however, the authors discuss the “carrying off” (khyer ba) of the manuscripts without speaking of “theft” (rku ba) by foreigners, while at the same time noting that some chinese officials did indeed steal and sell some of the texts for personal profit (dpon rigs che chung rnams kyis rku khyer dang gang ’dod du btsongs), pp. 160-161. 812 Matthew T. Kapstein brdungs in the historical annals (pp. 323-327); sangs rgyas mkhar on the phrase g.yag zhu (pp. 456-460); and the same author’s detailed study of expressions referring to the tibetan military divisions (pp. 417-431). other matters interestingly discussed in this section include social classes (gnya’ gong dkon mchog tshe brtan, pp. 210-218), relations with khotan (kha sgang bkra shis tshe ring, pp. 229-248), land measurement (chen Qingying, pp. 249-255), law (hor dkar bu phrug, pp. 307-315), medicine (chab spel tshe brtan phun tshogs, pp. 316-323, and skal bzang ’phrin las, pp. 378383), the queen khri ma lod and other notable women (Zla ba tshe ring, pp. 341-347, and rdo rje ’tsho, pp. 362-368), p. t. 1062 and 1065 on horses (gdugs dkar tshe ring, pp. 369-378), and the tibetan tally sticks (khram shing) found in Xinjiang (chos ’phel, pp. 401-409, and gcod pa klu rgyal, pp. 410-412).36 these essays, together with other published interpretations of the tibetan dunhuang documents by scholars writing in tibetan should now be included among the essential bibliography for those working in this special field. notable contributions in the two following sections, on literature and language, include: ’Ju skal bzang’s study of poetry in the dunhuang documents, focusing on metrical analysis (pp. 491-506) and chu bzang klu rgyal tshe ring’s article on sworn oaths (pp. 598-602). the final section provides surveys and reports on a number of important ancient sites and archaeological finds: the ruins of the skar chung temple (tshe brtan dge legs, pp. 757-766), the neolithic village of mkhar ro (phur phan, pp. 777-779), an early necropolis in dwags po (bsod nams dbang ’dus, pp. 780-786), and mortuary finds in nying khri (Wang yuanjie, pp. 787-792). When we recall that the sustained investigation of the old tibetan artifacts and documents has been feasible for tibetan scholars in china only during the past three decades, it is clear that Bod kyi yig rnying zhib ’jug represents impressive, rapid growth in a difficult department of historical-philological research. this development, moreover, as only exemplifying the virtually unlimited potential of chinabased tibetologists, given their exceptional access to archival and material resources bearing on all phases of tibetan history, may be taken as presaging their central role in the future growth of the field. the comments of gnya’ gong dkon mchog tshe brtan cited above underscore, too, that the methodological principles of research in the historical disciplines have come to be articulated with increasing clarity during this time. nevertheless, tibetology in china is not free of political constraint, and this must be taken into consideration still in connection with any assessment of the unfolding “tibetan tibetology.” The Political Uses of Tibetology in the above remarks, i have attempted to provide a brief overview of the emergence of tibetology as a new sphere of academic research among tibetan scholars in china, followed by a more detailed review of a specialized area, the study of early 36 some of these topics have been the subjects of extended research by scholars in europe or Japan. this is not the occasion, however, to present a full bibliography. “Tibetan Tibetology”? 813 tibet, as seen through a recent publication that highlights both methodological and substantive concerns. We must bear in mind, however, that the political interests of tibetan studies in china are never far from the surface, and these cannot be overlooked if one is to assess the achievements and prospects of the field overall. the remarkable development that has taken place in recent years reflects in part chinese policy decisions to promote tibetology, and to do so for certain well-defined ends. it behooves us therefore to know what these are, but not to rush to judgment on this account. let us recall, for instance, that the great upsurge of asian studies of all kinds in the american academy during the cold War years was encouraged by U.s. government funds, and that middle eastern and central asian studies have more recently been the beneficiaries of the “war on terrorism.” political decisions to enable scholarship, however, do not always translate directly into the determination of scholarly outcomes. this may be seen in contemporary china, no less than in the West. perhaps the clearest statement delineating chinese official interest in tibetology in recent years may be found in the “statement at the conference on national research in tibetology and external propaganda on tibet” delivered on 12 June 2000 by the then director of the information office of the state council, Zhao Qizheng, and entitled “tibet-related external propaganda and tibetology work in the new era.”37 this substantial discourse, some 6500 words in its english translation, is concerned in the first instance to combat what it regards as “hostile external publicity” on tibet, due mainly to the “dalai clique” and its supporters in the West. tibetology is presented as a key battleground in the struggle: the external propaganda on tibet issue is a very complicated matter. the dalai clique and hostile western forces have a history of several decades of anti-china activities and propaganda. as well as having complete experience and expertise, they command an army of specialists in this field. they have also developed a complete network of cooperation between nations, between organizations, between parliaments and governments, between governments and peoples, between grassroots level organizations, between media and governments, between non-governmental organizations and media, etc. in this way, they launch their campaigns under various guises and through different methods. in the struggle for public opinion on the issue of tibet, our adversary is an organized international anti-china force. to counter this united force, we have to build an effective organization and network. the external propaganda struggle for public opinion should be treated as an important work, requiring relentless attention. We should launch a coordinated assault on different fronts. in this overall struggle for public opinion on the tibet issue, tibetology institutes should become an effective army. in our tibet-related external propaganda, we should use our departments of foreign affairs, information, 37 the version of this document to which i have had access is an english translation that was circulated electronically by the organization students for a free tibet. as their name suggests, this is not a neutral scholarly body, and in fact it has been very actively engaged in promoting opposition to the chinese position in tibet. however, i have no reason to believe that mr. Zhao’s comments have been misrepresented in the text cited here. 814 Matthew T. Kapstein security, law, nationality, religion, culture, etc. We need specialists with knowledge on our internal and external affairs as well as those with experience in undertaking campaigns. in addition, we need tibetology scholars and professors from the academic departments of nationality, religion, philosophy, political science, law, history and archaeology. effective use of tibetologists and specialists is the core of our external propaganda struggle for public opinion on tibet. to sum up, the main responsibilities and potential of tibetology research in our external propaganda on tibet are to produce ideas, results, intellectuals, and confrontation strategies. to put it in another words, tibetology research, in consideration of the needs of our external propaganda, must support our propaganda for public opinion by producing scholastic arguments, handy materials and consummate intellectuals for external propaganda. tibetologists should develop confrontation strategies and approaches. they should produce effective articles, ideas and materials for external propaganda. […] our research activities and their impacts are still a bit scattered. they lack the required organization and planning. there is much research on tibet’s history, but little on the present situation and future development. there is much academic research, but little effort to use this to face the ground reality of international confrontation. there is much work on tibet’s history, but little research to build an intellectual argument to carry out our external propaganda. lots of research materials have been published in chinese and tibetan languages, but not enough in foreign languages to influence international opinion. We have not been able to influence the international public opinion. We do not have enough internationally-known tibetan intellectuals. We do not have adequate intellectual arguments to carry out our external struggle. […] our tibetology institutes and specialists have become an effective army of external propaganda for public opinion on tibet. as a matter of fact, the very act of writing and publishing books by the specialists of our tibetology institutes is for external propaganda and public opinion. We should not underestimate the contribution of scholarly works to our external propaganda for public opinion; westerners have a lot of respect for this kind of works. […] tibetology has become the object of international attention in the 20 th century. the scope of tibetology is expanding internationally; tibetologists are mushrooming; tibetology institutes are also multiplying. there are more than ten tibetology institutes in america and europe. some well-known universities have established tibet study departments and specialized programs. of course, all of them do not serve western political interests; some of them are serious academic institutes. however, generally speaking, the majority of western tibetology institutes and tibet-related organizations have connections with western government and the dalai clique. even if they do not have direct connections, they still have deep influence on western perspective and the dalai clique. their research on tibet is politically biased and fraught with many mistaken views. a section of them serve western anti-china forces and the dalai clique. […] if we publish books and articles that are geared to meet the confrontational needs of our struggle against the dalai clique and hostile western forc- 815 “Tibetan Tibetology”? es, they will serve as material for our external propaganda and as weapons for external struggle. particularly, succinct and well-written works are as effective as missiles in the battlefield. however, such works should be factual with ability to strike the important views of foreign adversaries; the arguments should be clear and credible; sources quoted should be reliable; there should be footnotes and bibliographies. to sum it up in one sentence, they must be standard works, combining political and scholarly elements. ., in the title of this essay, i introduced a question: tibetan tibetology? is there such a thing, can there be such a thing under present circumstances? the easy answer is, of course, “yes and no.” certainly there are tibetan tibetologists, in china, india and the West. that is to say, there are highly qualified tibetan scholars, working in the contemporary academy, whose special sphere of study is tibet and whose contributions represent the forefront of tibetan studies today. but, at the same time, they must often confront the particular challenges that stem from the necessity of steering a course between the powerful currents of ancient tradition and contemporary political interest. in this, their predicament resembles the one faced by others who find themselves to be at once the objects and agents of ethnic or nationality studies. precisely how they negotiate the challenge, however, will necessarily reflect the specificities of the tibetan world today.