July 2007 – early Tibet

Buddhism and Bön II: What is tsuglag?

July 31, 2007April 30, 2008 by Sam van Schaik, posted in Bon

One of the most important, yet most difficult to define concepts in pre-Buddhist Tibet is tsuglag (gtsug lag). In the early texts it has a variety of meanings, which were aptly summarized by Rolf Stein:

Il désigne une sagesse, un art, une science, un savoir-faire (et les écrits qui en parlent).

Thus wisdom, art, science, and indeed savoir-faire all coalesce in the tsuglag. It can be found as a personal characteristic of the ancient rulers of Tibet (such as Songtsen Gampo, pictured here), where it signifies the wisdom exercised in rulership. It is also used as a name for non-Buddhist ritual techniques (or ‘sciences’). Later on the word tsuglag became attached to Buddhism (just as the word chos gradually changed from signifying religion in general to Buddhism in particular). Thus one very common name for a Buddhist temple: tsuglakhang (gtsug lag khang), a “house of tsuglag.”

The manuscript shown below (IOL Tib J 339) is a prayer, a series of homages to the Buddha, the dharma, the sangha, and other noble objects. In the verse pictured here, the dharma is called “the supreme tsuglag”. The detailed commentary written in a tiny hand underneath this line goes on to distinguish between right and wrong forms of tsuglag. Right tsuglag is of course Buddhism itself, which is defined here in terms of teaching (bstan pa), accomplishment (bsgrub pa) and the path (lam).

The definition of wrong tsuglag is a bit more interesting, as it reveals the systems (of ‘science’) which were considered to be in competition with Buddhism at the time. The first kind of wrong tsuglag mentioned is called “the king of Chinese tsuglag” (rgya nag gi gtsug lag gi rgyal po). The exact system that is being referred to here is unclear but it is worth noting that Chinese astrologers equated the Pole Star with the emperor.

Then the author of the commentary tells us that there is wrong tsuglag “even within Tibet”. This includes studying the portents of the days (gnyi bzhur blta ba), probably a divination system for deciding whether particular days are favourable for certain activities–a very popular form of divination throughout Tibetan history. Another kind of wrong tsuglag is the gab tse, a word still used by Tibetans to refer to astrological charts. And the last form of wrong tsuglag is li zhi, which is unfamiliar to me but certainly looks like a Tibetan transliteration of a Chinese term—it might be worth investigating a link with the neo-Confucian li (理) and qi (氣).

Another manuscript, which I will discuss soon, shows that advanced forms of Chinese divination based on astrological tables were translated into Tibetan and apparently practised in Dunhuang by the 10th century. In fact Dunhuang and the surrounding area may well have been the entry-point for many elements of Chinese culture into the Tibetan cultural sphere.

References
1. Hahn, Michael. 1997. “A propos the term gtsug-lag”. Helmut Krasser, Michael T. Much, Ernst Steinkellner, Helmut Tauscher (eds.) Proceedings of the 7th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies. Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1997. 341-348.
2. Macdonald, Ariane. 1971. “Une lecture des Pelliot Tibétain 1286, 1287, 1038, 1047 et 1290. Essai sur la formation et l’emploi des mythes politiques dan la religion royale de Sroṅ-bcan sgam-po”. Études Tibétaines, 190-391.
3. Stein, R.A. 1985. “Tibetica Antiqua III, À Propos du mot gcug-lag et de la religion indigène”. Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême Orient, 74, 83-133.

Also in this series
Buddhism and Bon I: the religion of the gods
Buddhism and Bon III: what is yungdrung?

Tales from the scriptorium II: It’s a scribe’s life

July 26, 2007July 5, 2023 by Sam van Schaik, posted in Manuscripts

This document (IOL Tib J 1359) gives us some real insights into how scribes and their managers worked. The document relates to a particular order for Prajñāpāramitā sūtras paid for by the Tibetan prince (lha sras). The sutras have been copied, and now it’s time to reckon how much paper has gone missing, and to get the scribes who have lost paper to pay the authorities back. The disciplinary work is done by a supervisor (gnyer pa) who is responsible for making sure the scribes pay back the paper they’ve lost.

Any scribes who fail to do so will be in trouble. The supervisor has the authority to kidnap one of their relatives and hold them hostage until the repayment is forthcoming. He can also impound their property and cattle. This interestingly suggests that the scribes were householders, and that their scribal work was done under the threat of serious punishments. Another punishment menioned here is whipping: 10 lashes for each missing batch of paper.

After setting out these rules, the document goes on to list 50 local scribes (all of whom have Chinese names) and the amount of paper allotted to each of them. Scribes were actually allowed to waste some of their paper; this scrap paper was known as legtsé (glegs tshas), and may have been the cover (i.e the top sheet) of each of the batches of paper alloted to the scribes (this is Takeuchi’s suggestion). We have several examples of this scrap paper in the Dunhuang collections. Inevitably they were used by scribes for doodling, writing exercises, or writing practice letters. Several letters are found among the scrap paper (presumably rough drafts) indicating that the scribes made extra earnings by writing letters for others.

Scribes often marked their scrap paper as their own by signing it. We find, for example, written right in the middle of one piece (Pelliot tibétain 1166): “This is the scrap paper of Liu Lutön (Li’u klu rton).” Scribes also wrote contracts for loans between each other. One such contract between two scribes (IOL Tib J 1274), gives some insight into the tools of the scribes’ work. One scribe wants to borrow some paper and wrapping cloth from another. If he fails to repay, the borrowing scribe will have to forfeit his inkpot and handkerchief.

References
1. Takeuchi, Tsuguhito. 1994. “Tshan: Subordinate Administrative Units of the Thousand-Districts in the Tibetan Empire”. Per Kvaerne (ed.), Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 6th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Fagernes 1992. Oslo: The Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. 848–862.
2. Takeuchi, Tsuguhito. 1995. Old Tibetan Contracts From Central Asia. Tokyo: Daizo Shuppan.
3. Thomas, F.W. 1951. Tibetan Literary Texts and Documents concerning Chinese Turkestan. Part II: Documents. London: Royal Asiatic Society.

Avalokitesvara in Early Tibet III: Om mani padme hum

July 19, 2007January 8, 2008 by Sam van Schaik, posted in Buddhism, New discoveries

As I’ve shown in previous posts, the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteśvara (Tib. Chenrezig) was popular in Tibet before the second propagation of Buddhism which began in the late 10th century. However the way Avalokiteśvara was worshipped in this early period may have been somewhat different. We associate Tibetan devotion to Avalokiteśvara so closely with the six syllable mantra (Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ) that it is difficult to think of one without the other. Nevertheless it does seem that before the 11th century, the six syllable mantra was only loosely associated with Avalokiteśvara in Tibet. Among the many Dunhuang texts devoted to the bodhisattva, only two contain the six syllable mantra, and in both cases it is still not quite the mantra as we know it. In particular, it has more than six syllables.

In one manuscript, a guide for the dying (Pelliot tibétain 420/421), the mantra is Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ mitra svāhā. In another, a ritual collection (IOL Tib J 401), it is Oṃ vajra yakṣa maṇi padme hūṃ. And in all other cases, entirely different mantras are associated with Avalokiteśvara.

Despite this lack of pre-11th century textual sources for the mantra, it might well have been gaining popularity through oral transmission. There is a story in the Blue Annals about a certain Latö Marpo (La bstod dmar po), who went to India in the 11th century to find a teaching to purify the negative actions he committed as a child. Latö found a guru who agreed to teach him a very secret mantra that would remove the obstacles of this life and provide enlightenment in the next. The guru, speaking down a bamboo tube inserted into the ear of the student, so that no-one could overhear, said “Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ.” Latö immediately thought: “This mantra is recited throughout Tibet by old men, women and even children!” He had to perform some unpleasant acts of penance for having such doubts, but the story ends well.

If true, the story suggests that the six syllable mantra was transmitted in India as a secret oral teaching, but had permeated deep into the popular oral culture in Tibet by the 11th century. This might have been accomplished by wandering religious preachers in Tibet, the forbears of those who later came to be known as maṇipas, because they spread a simple form of dharma which concentrated on recitation of the six syllable mantra.

What really changed in the textual tradition was the appearance of the early treasure cycles (especially the Maṇi Kambum) which took the narrative of Avalokiteśvara from the Kāraṇḍavyūha sūtra and merged it with Tibetan creation myths to make Avalokiteśvara Tibet’s patron deity. And the Avalokiteśvara’s mantra in that sutra is of course Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ.

References
1. Imaeda, I. 1979. Note préliminaire sur la formule oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ dans les manuscrits tibétains de Touen-houang. In Michel Soymié (ed.) Contributions aux études sur Touen-Houang. Geneva/Paris: Librairie Droz.
2. Kapstein, Matthew. 1992. “Remarks on the Mani bka ‘bum and the Cult of Avalokitesvara in Tibet”. Goodman & Davidson (eds.), Tibetan Buddhism, Reason and Revelation. 79-93.
3. Roerich, G.N. [1949] 1976. The Blue Annals. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
4. Stein, R.A. 1959. Recherches sur l’épopée et le barde au Tibet. Paris: Presses universaires de France.
5. Stein, R.A. 1970. Un document ancien relatif aux rites funéraires des Bon-po tibétains. Journal Asiatique CCLVII, 155–185.
6. van Schaik, S. 2006. “The Tibetan Avalokitesvara Cult in the Tenth Century: Evidence from the Dunhuang Manuscripts”. Tibetan Buddhist Literature and Praxis (Proceedings of the Tenth Seminar of the IATS, 2003, Volume 4), ed. Ronald M. Davidson and Christian Wedemeyer. Leiden: EJ Brill, 2006. 55–72.

Image
Stones engraved with the six syllable mantra. Courtesy of Indologica.

Infrared, prayers and booklets

July 10, 2007August 23, 2007 by Sam van Schaik, posted in Manuscripts

Here’s another manuscript darkened with age and made readable again with infrared photography. IOL Tib J 76 is a booklet (or codex, to give the technical name), with 64 pages measuring about 15 by 22 cm. I tend to think that this kind of darkening is a sign that a manuscript was well used during its lifetime before internment in the Dunhuang cave. The majority of the Dunhuang manuscripts do not look like this; by contrast, many look shockingly fresh, as if they were written weeks rather than centuries ago.

I find the ‘well-used’ theory particularly convincing in the case of this particular manuscript, because the booklet form lends itself to practical use. In contrast to the pothi and scroll form, it is easy to open the book to a particular page. For a monk or lay Buddhist carrying around a collection of frequently perused texts the advantage of this would be particularly clear.

This particular booklet does indeed seem to be a collection of such frequently used texts. The first 44 pages contain the Jinaputra-arthasiddhi sūtra, used perhaps for memorization, recitation, or both. The next text is The Butter Lamp Prayer (mar mye smon lam), a prayer recitated during the ceremonial lighting of butter lamps on a shrine, followed by the Hymn to the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara Cintamāṇicakra, a popular hymn in Dunhuang, as I have mentioned elsewhere. Both texts would be useful in regular personal devotions and services rendered to others (for a fee).

More interesting still, the next two texts are teaching or study aids. The first is titled Knowledge of Worlds (Lokaprajñā), and is a kind of question-and-answer catechism. It’s contents are well summarized in the colophon:

A teaching, based on the important sutras of the dharma, on the characteristics of the three jewels, the good qualities and the path of liberation, on seeing the two truths, on actions and the ripening of actions, written merely to oppose what is not in concordance with the pure scriptures.

Following this is a Sanskrit-Tibetan dictionary of sorts, defining the Sanskrit terms tantra, mantra, vidyā, dhāraṇī and maṇḍala. Christina Scherrer-Schaub has identified this text as an extract from a translation manual (the Sgra sbyor bam po gnyis pa) composed in the reign of King Senaleg (799–815). Interestingly, only the tantric words have been copied here.

As for the back page, which has now been revealed in stunning infrared, it just contains the first page of the Jinaputra-arthasiddhi sūtra once again, perhaps for handwriting practice or to test memorization.

In any case, this is clearly just the kind of book that a monk or lay Buddhist might carry around, and keep in their home/monastic cell. The darkening of the cover is then probably due to frequent handling (with inevitably greasy hands) or being kept in a room smoky with cooking fire or incense.

References
1. Dietz, Siglinde. 1999. “Jig rten gyi lo rgyus bśad pa, ‘Die Kunde von der Welt.’ Ein katechetischer Text aus Tun-huang.” Helmut Eimer, Michael Hahn, Maria Schetelich and Peter Wyzlic (eds.) Studia Tibetica et Mongolica (Festschrift Manfred Taube). Swisttal Odendorf: Indica et Tibetica Verlag. 71-86.
2. Scherrer-Schaub, Cristina A. 2002. “Enacting Words. A Diplomatic Analysis of the Imperial Decrees (bkas bcad) and their Application in the sGra sbyor bam po gñis pa Tradition.” JIABS 25/1–2: 263–340.