The Biography of Brag dkar sngags rams pa

Bryan J. Cuevas (Florida State University)

Tcenturies was a momentous one in Tibetan history, he period between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth

witnessing among other consequential movements the surge of Dge lugs pa power throughout the whole of Tibet. In A mdo specifically (those northeastern areas of Tibet that are now in Qinghai, Gansu, and northern Sichuan), it was also a period dominated by native-born A mdo monks who spent time in central Tibet training in some of the most celebrated Dge lugs pa institutions in and around Lhasa, later to return home to establish their own important monasteries and religious centers. This was, of course, the story of the foundation of Bla brang Bkra shis ’khyil (est. 1709), as well as many other major Dge lugs pa monasteries in A mdo that maintained strong ties to central Tibet. The stories of those institutions and the lives of the monks who founded them are generally well-known and have received abundant attention by scholars in our field. Less well-known is the story of the figure I want to introduce here, Brag dkar sngags rams pa Blo bzang bstan pa rab rgyas. His life, for the most part, fits the basic pattern of this historical period, although the main institution he founded in the early eighteenth century, called Me long brag dkar in the northern A mdo province of Khri ka (Ch. Guide), certainly never rose to the illustrious stature of a Bla brang, or Dgon lung, or Sku ’bum. But his eventful activities in central Tibet at the end of the seventeenth century, the contacts he made there, and his ties at home to some of A mdo’s most prominent personalities

On this as a characteristic pattern in the periodization of A mdo’s history from roughly 1673 to 1709, see Tuttle 2012: 137-138. Nietupski 2011. For the history of Dgon lung, see Sullivan 2013; on Sku ’bum, see Karsten 1996.

Bryan J. Cuevas, “Sorcerer of the Iron Castle: The Life of Blo bzang bstan pa rab rgyas, the First Brag dkar sngags rams pa of A mdo (c. 1647-1726),” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, no. 39, April 2017, pp. 5–59.

and institutions makes his story worth telling. At the very least, such is the viewpoint of Brag dkar sngags rams pa’s eighteenth-century biographer.

[1] The Biography of Brag dkar sngags rams pa

We now have available to us a short biography of Brag dkar sngags rams pa in 11 folios, which is included in a collection of his writings preserved in a two-volume set of blockprints edited and produced in 1990 at Rong bo dgon chen, scans of which have only recently been published online at the TBRC. The biography is entitled Drops of Nectar Nourishing the Faith of Devoted Disciples: The Life of the Supreme Lord of Siddhas Brag dkar Rin po che, [from] the Lama’s Own Words (Grub pa’i dbang phyug dam pa brag dkar rin po che’i rnam thar bla ma nyid kyi gsung sgros dad ldan gdul bya’i dad pa’i gso byed bdud rtsi’i zegs ma). By the literary standards of traditional Tibetan Buddhist hagiography, the text is a rather ordinary and fairly modest piece of sacred biography. As is typical, it promotes Brag dkar sngags rams pa as a virtuous Buddhist monk and powerfully effective tantric master. In particular, the text is persistent in what appears to be one of its primary goals: to demonstrate Brag dkar sngags rams pa’s special relationship to Vajrabhairava, his personal chosen deity (yi dam), and to the fearsome protectors Gshin rje Chos kyi rgyal po (Yama Dharmarāja) and Dpal ldan lha mo, in her wrathful form as Dmag zor rgyal mo. I will say more about his special relationship to Vajrabhairava and the rituals associated with this deity in the next section. But first a few additional details about the biography itself.

Stylistically, the text is an interesting patchwork of biographical and autobiographical narrative vignettes in a mix of voices, somewhat loosely organized, and semi-chronological, but with no specific dates provided. Consequently, the dates I have come up with were calculated from the few precise dates recorded in the colophons of Brag dkar sngags rams pa’s own works and by corroborating various events and individuals mentioned in the biography with information that is more securely established in the historical record. Nonetheless, all my dates remain tentative. The text appears to be have been compiled from the author’s personal conversations with the subject, as well as Brag dkar sngags rams pa’s own recollections, notes, and letters. The colophon indicates that the text’s author was the monk Drung yig pa Blo bzang rgya mtsho. This is an individual who would later rise to become the fourteenth abbot of the Tantric College (rgyud

Brag dkar gsung ’bum. For a table of contents see Appendix 3 below. According the publisher’s par byang, the collection was compiled from original texts procured in 1949 from the holdings at Me long brag dkar. Brag dkar gsung ’bum v1, text ga. A translation of the biography is given below in Appendix 1; a transcription of the Tibetan is reproduced in Appendix 2. I am grateful to Cameron Foltz, Roland Mullins, and Tracy Stilerman for their valuable insights and observations on the text and translation of this work.

grwa) at Rong bo.6 The project was supported by [[Mkhan chen Dge ’dun rgya mtsho (1679-1765), who at the time was the sitting abbot of Rong bo dgon chen. This would mean the biography was most likely written sometime between the years 1732 and 1735, just a few years after Brag dkar sngags rams pa’s death in c. 1726. Alternatively, it could have been written a bit later, between 1755 and 1759, during the tenure of Dge ’dun rgya mtsho’s second term as abbot of the monastery. But, given the evidence, I find the later dates less compelling. I have included a translation of the entire biography in Appendix 1, but here in this introduction I would like to highlight three historical events that are alluded to or mentioned directly in the text, and that I hope will contribute something valuable to the history of A mdo in general, but more specifically, to the neglected stories of significant individuals and institutions in this region that have yet to be duly explored. Brag dkar sngags rams pa, as one might expect, was born in Brag dkar, a small village in Reb kong (Ch. Tongren) just north of Rong bo, likely in the year 1647. At the age of thirteen he took his novice

6 See Rong bo gdan rabs, 378-379. No dates are given for him, but note that his predecessor, the thirteenth throne-holder of Rong bo Rgyud grwa, was Mkhar gong Sangs rgyas tshang who is mentioned by name in the biography (Brag dkar rnam thar, 47.4-48.2). The twelfth throne-holder Dge ’dun mkhas grub (17421811) assumed office in the iron-bird year 1780 and served in that post for several years. His predecessor, the eleventh throne-holder, was Dge ’dun mkhyen rab (1736-1815), who in 1781 was appointed the seventeenth abbot of Rong bo dgon chen. Drung yig Blo bzang rgya mtsho was a student of the famous Dkon mchog ’jigs med dbang po, the Second ’Jam dbyangs bzhad pa (1728-1791). Among Drung yig pa’s own students are listed Skyabs mchog rin po che, [[Mkhan [[chen Don yod [rgya mtsho]] (1778/79-1825, nineteenth abbot of Rong bo), our own Brag dkar sngags rams pa, [Bis pa Ngag dbang] Mi pham zla ba (1767-1807, seventeenth throne-holder of Rong bo Rgyud grwa), Rje Dge ’dun mkhas grub (1742-1811), A khyung Ngag dbang mkhyen rab, Sku mche Rdo rje ’chang Bsod nams rgya mtsho, and Rje Dge ’dun mkhyen rab (1736-1815). Drung yig pa’s successor, the fifteenth throne-holder of Rong bo Rgyud grwa, was Blo bzang bstan pa’i rgyal mtshan (d. 1808), who would be recognized as the first reincarnation of Brag dkar sngags rams pa and hence the First Brag dkar sprul sku (see below).

songsmith and Dge lugs pa reformer of Rong bo. It has been well-documented that throughout Skal ldan rgya mtsho’s illustrious career as monastic leader of Rong bo, he worked diligently to expand Dge lugs pa influence among the Khoshud Mongols and Tibetans in northern A mdo and was profoundly successful in that endeavor. By the time the young Brag dkar rin po che had entered Bkra shis ’khyil under Skal ldan rgya mtsho’s tutelage, the elder leader had begun to pull back from his official duties and soon retired from his post at Rong bo to spend his remaining years at the remote hermitage he had founded two

opinion, seems a few years too late, especially given certain other events that are alluded to in the original text whose dates are more secure, e.g. the turmoils at Bya khyung and its abbatial succession (see discussion below). The discrepancy appears, in part, to have been the result of a misreading of Brag dkar sngags rams pa’s age in the original blockprint on fol. 34.1, where clearly it says he studied under Skal ldan rgya mtsho at Bkra shis ’khyil until he was 29 years old (lo nyer dgu), which by my rendering would have been in the year c. 1676/77. Dge ’dun dpal bzang (2007: 262), however, gives his age incorrectly here as 24 (dgung lo nyer bzhi). According to the 1653 birthdate proposed by Dge ’dun dpal bzang, this too would have been around 1676/77. So the year is more or less accurate, but the age is mistaken. I suspect this misreading may be the reason the rest of Dge ’dun dpal bzang’s dates in his summary are off by five or six years. With that in mind, note also that he gives 1729 as the year of Brag dkar sngags rams pa’s death. This is more difficult to verify, or to dispute, and is thus a slightly more reasonable date to accept, at least tentatively. However, I still suggest an earlier date of 1726, which is the year a small set of prayers and supplications to Brag dkar sngags rams pa was compiled by his student and friend, the Fifth Stong ’khor Bsod nams rgya mtsho (1684-1752) at the behest of one Sngags rams pa Dpal ldan rgya mtsho (see Brag dkar gsung ’bum v1, text nga). It is reasonable to presume that these prayers could have been written in memoriam to the lama shortly after his death. For what it is worth, the last of the dated texts authored personally by Brag dkar sngags rams pa and contained in his Gsung ’bum was completed in the first month of the earth-pig year 1719 (see Brag dkar gsung ’bum v1, text pha)

decades earlier in 1648. It was during these years, and in this setting at Bkra shis ’khyil, that Brag dkar sngags rams pa became a fully ordained monk and received from Skal ldan rgya mtsho his initial religious training. He would remain at Bkra shis ’khyil with his teacher until he was thirty years old, which I surmise was likely the year of Skal ldan rgya mtsho’s death in 1677 or shortly before.

A brief account of the life of Skal ldan rgya mtsho can be found in Deb ther rgya mtsho, 305-308. For a detailed study of his life and songs in English, see Sujata 2005. The hermitage of Bkra shis ’khyil was founded by Skal ldan rgya mtsho in 1648. On its early history and later developments, see Rong bo gdan rabs, 402-423. According to Sujata (2005: 372), in the time of Skal ldan rgya mtsho, the congregation hall was called Bka’ gdam pho brang, where “instruction in both scriptures and rituals evoking protective deities, initiations, textual transmissions and tantric rituals was given to mountain hermits, and practices such as year-long retreats and month-long retreats were established for them. The number of mountain hermits studying there increased, later reaching as many as two hundred.” The hermitage was Skal ldan rgya mtsho’s primary residence for the last seven years of his life, which for the most part is the period described at the start of Brag dkar sngags rams pa’s biography.