{"id":1139,"date":"2023-11-01T16:58:29","date_gmt":"2023-11-01T16:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.orient.ox.ac.uk\/kila\/?p=1139"},"modified":"2024-03-10T15:27:33","modified_gmt":"2024-03-10T15:27:33","slug":"one-clue-fewer-about-klu-sgrub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.orient.ox.ac.uk\/kila\/2023\/11\/01\/one-clue-fewer-about-klu-sgrub\/","title":{"rendered":"One Clue Fewer about Klu sgrub"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One Clue Fewer about Klu sgrub.<\/u><\/strong>[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not long ago, I read, with Ogyan Tanzin Rinpoche, a 13th century partly autobiographical work by Guru Chowang (Chos dbang), his Great Treasure History<\/em> (gTer \u2018byung chen mo<\/em>).[2]<\/sup><\/a> It is clear from the narrative that n\u0101ga<\/em>s (klu<\/em>) are deeply involved in the guarding of his treasures. The gter<\/em> is contained in a casket (sgrom bu<\/em>) which takes the form of a nine-headed n\u0101ga<\/em>, and various signs and omens of n\u0101ga<\/em>s appear during the discovery processes. Local people are greatly alarmed to see Chowang digging for treasure, fearing his excavations will annoy their territorial deities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scroll forward to the second half of the 19th century. The great treasure revealers Khyentse Wangpo and Chokgyur Lingpa are standing by a lake in East Tibet, surrounded by a crowd observing the action. Everyone in the crowd believes they witness n\u0101ga<\/em>s emerge from the lake, and in their full view, hand the great treasure revealer (gter ston<\/em>) Chokgyur Lingpa a treasure chest full of gter<\/em>, as well as so much gold that everyone could scoop some up from the shore (Gardner 2019: 250).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At all points between the 13th century and the 20th century, as we can see from the literature, n\u0101ga<\/em>s (= klu<\/em>) continue to play a similarly major part in gter ma<\/em> revelation. N\u0101ga<\/em>s are not the only gter ma<\/em> protectors, although they are certainly quite prominent. Other territorial deities, often implied by Tibetan savants as local functional equivalents to India\u2019s yak\u1e63a<\/em>s, can be observed behaving similarly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public gter ma<\/em> revelations (khrom gter<\/em>) were not so unusual in Tibet. Everyone in the audience tended to believe they could see the n\u0101ga<\/em>s in the waters, or see a gter ston<\/em> magically opening a supernatural treasure portal (gter<\/em> sgo<\/em>) in a rock face. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such treasure portal openings were performed in Tibet in a manner with some strikingly granular resemblances to Indian underworld entry (bilas\u0101dhana<\/em>) and treasure excavation (nidhiv\u0101da<\/em>) texts, of which a substantial quantity was translated into Tibetan from the Imperial period onwards, and preserved in their tantric Buddhist canons (Kangyur and Tengyur). Some such texts were attributed to N\u0101g\u0101rjuna. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did anything akin to the above ever happen in Buddhist India, so rich in n\u0101ga<\/em> lore and from where the innumerable magical texts originated? At least in the case of great scholars like N\u0101g\u0101rjuna, the verdict of many Buddhologists seems to be a resounding \u201cNo!\u201d They seem convinced that nothing like this ever happened to N\u0101g\u0101rjuna, and that when Indian Buddhist texts describe such interactions of humans with n\u0101ga<\/em>s and yak\u1e63a<\/em>s to retrieve relics or scriptures, or the entry of a great Buddhist master like Bh\u0101viveka into a magic cave, they are in a great many or even most cases enjoying literary flights of the imagination, or conducting marketing exercises, but not describing a lived, experienced, traditionally established, ritual and cultural reality. So far, I  have not yet found it altogether easy to share in their conviction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ineffable N\u0101g\u0101rjuna<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Klu sgrub, or N\u0101g\u0101rjuna as he is better known outside of Tibetology, is famous for his matchless ability to undermine our most cherished certainties. Once we subscribe to his interpretation of emptiness (\u015b\u016bnyat\u0101<\/em>), as most Mah\u0101y\u0101nists so enthusiastically do, we can no longer take very much for granted. According to N\u0101g\u0101rjuna, there is no ultimate substratum upon which our apparently real world is based, because no existents whatsoever can have svabh\u0101va<\/em>. In the course of arriving at this radical conclusion, N\u0101g\u0101rjuna systematically and with relentless reasoning refuted the inherent existence, or svabh\u0101va<\/em>, of everything most sane and normal people take for granted: not merely commonplace entities like tables or pots, but even fundamental principles, like causation, change, the self, knowledge, language, and even truth (Westerhoff 2022: \u201cConclusion\u201d). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fittingly perhaps, N\u0101g\u0101rjuna\u2019s own persona seems similarly ineffable. Despite being the most influential figure in Buddhist history after the Buddha himself, academic scholars still know very little about him with any certainty. For example, debates have long persisted about when he lived. As Ye Shaoyong puts it, \u201cThe chronology of N\u0101g\u0101rjuna has long been an issue of debate. Proposals made by scholars vary roughly between the 1st and 3rd centuries of the Common Era.\u201d Likewise no one is exactly sure which of the many works attributed to him were actually written by N\u0101g\u0101rjuna. As Ye Shaoyong (2019: 341) puts it, \u201cThe authentic oeuvre of N\u0101g\u0101rjuna is a hotly debated issue.\u201d Jan Westerhoff concurs: \u201cIt is not easy to come up with a precise list of texts N\u0101g\u0101rjuna composed.\u201d (Westerhoff 2022: \u201cLife and Works\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

N\u0101g\u0101rjuna\u2019s personal life story seems, if anything, even less knowable. As we will see below, there appear to be only two details about N\u0101g\u0101rjuna\u2019s biography upon which many academics agree: that he did<\/strong> live in South India, and that he did not<\/strong> dabble in magic or have any truck with n\u0101ga<\/em>s\u2014these latter despite the profuse accounts of his varied occult activities and his famous visit to n\u0101galoka<\/em> that are extant in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese alike. The purpose of this blog is to reduce our already meagre certainty by a further 50%. I propose to demonstrate that it is not after all so certain that any \u2018historical N\u0101g\u0101rjuna\u2019 was not involved in magic, or with n\u0101ga <\/em>beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

N\u0101g\u0101rjuna\u2019s many life stories<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mah\u0101y\u0101nists have long revered N\u0101g\u0101rjuna as the greatest of sages, who successfully restored the Dharma in India from a low ebb. They further believe that he was the first to introduce hitherto unavailable Buddhist teachings of incalculable importance (most famously the Praj\u00f1\u0101p\u0101ramit\u0101<\/em> scriptures, but others can be mentioned too), which he received in a n\u0101ga<\/em>palace. With such a reputation, it is not surprising that N\u0101g\u0101rjuna soon became a metaphor for subsequent tradition building. Perhaps this was particularly true in China. As Stuart Young puts it (2019: 727), \u201cBy the end of the Tang dynasty (618\u2013907), N\u0101g\u0101rjuna had become a synecdoche for all things Mah\u0101y\u0101na, and was widely regarded as a founding father of almost every East Asian Buddhist tradition \u2013 including most notably Tiantai \/ Tendai (\u5929) and the so-called Three Treatise school (Sanlun zong \/ Sanron sh\u016b [\u4e09\u8ad6\u5b97]).\u201d One might add, he was equally attributed with recovering the Buddh\u0101vata\u1e43saka<\/em> from the n\u0101ga<\/em> palace, cementing his importance to the Huayan  (\u83ef\u56b4) School, and likewise often claimed to have opened the famous iron st\u016bpa in South India to retrieve the Vajra\u015bekhara-s\u016btra<\/em>, thus becoming the notional source of most East Asian tantrism. In Tibet, N\u0101g\u0101rjuna was said to be the founder of the \u0100rya school of Guhyasam\u0101ja<\/em> exegesis (Wedemeyer, 2007:14). And so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation is further complicated by the proposed existence of several subsequent N\u0101g\u0101rjuna namesakes. Note however that nearly all Asian Buddhist traditions maintain there was only a single N\u0101g\u0101rjuna, many claiming that N\u0101g\u0101rjuna was supernormally long lived. For narratives across much of Asia extol his expertise in alchemy, medicine, and mantra, and how these afforded him great longevity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over time, many varied N\u0101g\u0101rjuna biographical narratives began to proliferate. The challenge facing academic historians has therefore been to extract reliable knowledge about a historic N\u0101g\u0101rjuna from the many contrasting sectarian narratives that evolved over many centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In pursuit of this historical goal, the predictable and reasonable strategy of academic scholars has been to seek out the earliest surviving biographical narratives about N\u0101g\u0101rjuna. As far as we currently know, the earliest of such are in Chinese, and they exist in two clusters. Since I am not a Sinologist, the following section is paraphrased from the publications of Chieko Yamano and Stuart Young, and the great many emails they so generously sent me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1] The very earliest extant biographical narratives about N\u0101g\u0101rjuna come down to us in a number of fragmentary accounts bequeathed by the direct Chinese colleagues of the great Kashmiri-educated Kuchean-born translator Kum\u0101raj\u012bva (344-413), notably Sengrui (\u50e7\u53e1; c. 352\u2013436), Sengzhao (\u50e7\u8087; c. 374\u2013414), Lushan Huiyuan (\u5eec\u5c71\u6167\u9060; c. 334\u2013416), and Tanying (\u66c7; c. 348\u2013418). Ye Shaoyong (2019: 335) estimates 300 CE as a reasonable terminus ante quem<\/em>for N\u0101g\u0101rjuna, hence this earliest and broadly concordant tranche of Chinese narratives about N\u0101g\u0101rjuna might have been written within one or two centuries of the man himself. Ye Shaoyang (2019: 337) proposes they \u201cmay be derived from an oral tradition from northwest India in the latter half of the 4th century.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These earliest sources tell us that N\u0101g\u0101rjuna was born as a brahmin, and only later became a Buddhist monk (Ye Shaoyang 2019: 337). Three of them also describe N\u0101g\u0101rjuna\u2019s dealings with n\u0101ga<\/em>s. These three are Prefaces <\/em>that were included within Sengyou\u2019s (\u50e7\u7950) Compilation of Notes on the Tripitaka<\/em> (\u51fa\u4e09\u8535\u8a18\u96c6) (Yamano 2009a: 186). Firstly, Sengrui in his Preface to the Mah\u0101-praj\u00f1\u0101-p\u0101ramitopade\u015ba <\/em>\u5927\u667a\u91c8\u8ad6\u5e8f;[3]<\/sup><\/a> secondly Lushan Huiyuan in his Preface to the Brief Exposition of the Mah\u0101-praj\u00f1\u0101-p\u0101ramitopade\u015ba <\/em>\u5927\u667a\u8ad6\u6284\u5e8f;[4]<\/sup><\/a> and thirdly Tanying in his in his Preface to the M\u016blamadhyamaka-k\u0101rik\u0101<\/em> \u4e2d\u8ad6\u5e8f,[5]<\/sup><\/a> These three sources, each of them contemporary with Kum\u0101raj\u012bva, all agree that N\u0101g\u0101rjuna was invited down to visit a \u2018N\u0101ga<\/em> Palace\u2019 (\u9f8d\u5bae, n\u0101galoka<\/em>), where he was given previously inaccessible Buddhist scriptures. Stuart Young (2019: 728) concurs. Regarding other supernormal abilities, Yamano further mentions that Sengzhao (\u50e7\u8087), in his commentary on the Vimalak\u012brtinirde\u015ba-s\u016btra <\/em>describes an episode in which N\u0101g\u0101rjuna subdued heretics using his supernatural powers.[6]<\/sup><\/a>  In short, as Ye Shaoyang (2019: 337) quotes these early sources, \u201cdue to his great contribution to the revival of Buddhism, he was worshipped in India as a buddha\u201d (and yet, as Shaoyang adds, other evidence suggests N\u0101g\u0101rjuna may not have gained wide popularity in India until the end of the 4th<\/sup> century). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young (2019: 728) explains further that these above-mentioned Chinese colleagues of Kum\u0101raj\u012bva were scholarly monks dedicated to arduous meditational disciplines, which suggests their accounts of N\u0101g\u0101rjuna might have been shaped to conform with their own austere ideals. Yamano independently argues the same point in her PhD thesis. Describing this respectable spin, Young writes (2019: 728): <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The most robust example is provided in Huiyuan\u2019s preface to his abridged edition of the Da zhidu lun<\/em>, in which he describes N\u0101g\u0101rjuna as a \u201chigh-minded gentleman\u201d who \u201cgrieved at the benightedness of the masses\u201d when the Dharma was \u201cdecadent and weak,\u201d so took the tonsure and vows of a Buddhist monk. Thereupon, \u201che dwelt in seclusion in the woods and swamps, lived as a hermit and practiced dhy\u0101na<\/em>. He stilled his mind and studied the subtle, his thoughts penetrating the supra-normal.\u201d He then \u201chad an awakening\u201d and \u201cturned his steps towards the snowy mountains [of the Him\u0101layas]\u201d where he met a \u015brama\u1e47a<\/em> (renouncer) who introduced him to the Mah\u0101y\u0101na teachings. N\u0101g\u0101rjuna next proceeded to the famed dragon (n\u0101ga<\/em>) palace of Buddhist lore, in which \u201cthere was no important canon or secret text that he did not master.\u201d \u201cWhen the roots of his impediments had been pulled up, his name crowned the stages of the [bodhisattva] path … Consequently, the non-Buddhists esteemed his manner and famous gentlemen submitted to his dictates. From that time, the enterprise of the Greater Vehicle flourished again\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2] As Young explains (2019: 727), it was for many years wrongly thought that the earliest N\u0101g\u0101rjuna hagiographies were those found within our second cluster of early sources, the Longshu pusa zhuan <\/em>(\u9f8d\u6a39\u83e9\u85a9\u50b3; T. 2047) and Fu fazang [yinyuan] zhuan<\/em> (\u4ed8\u6cd5\u85cf[\u56e0\u7de3]\u50b3; T. 2058). Most scholars of that era (e.g. Robinson 1977: 21-26) also assumed that the Longshu pusa zhuan<\/em> was a direct transcription of Kum\u0101raj\u012bva’s teachings by his disciples, but this is apparently not the case. It is now understood that the texts of this second tranche, which share similar narratives, were compiled several decades later than the first tranche described above (Young 2019). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yamano however adds a further perspective in suggesting that many elements in the Longshu pusa zhuan<\/em> narrative nevertheless might reflect actual information from what the Chinese referred to as the ‘\u897f\u57df (Western Regions)\u2019. She explains, even though the Longshu pusa zhuan<\/em> per se<\/em> was only compiled into a work at a later date, some academic scholars believe there had been an oral tradition relating to N\u0101g\u0101rjuna’s life story, referred to as \u2018the Indian Tradition (\u5929\u7afa\u50b3),’ which was a shared source for the Longshu pusa zhuan<\/em> and the Fu fazang [yinyuan] zhuan<\/em>, and which dated from Kum\u0101raj\u012bva\u2019s time. Yamano herself believes this tradition was to some extent also circulated in written form, and that fragments of it still exist. Thus the contents of the Longshu pusa zhuan<\/em> might indeed reflect some actual Indian data (Yamano 2009a: 220-1; Yamano 2010). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be that as it may, unlike the above first tranche of texts that were compiled slightly earlier, the Longshu pusa zhuan<\/em> and other texts of this tranche were not written in scholarly academic Chinese, but in a simpler more accessible register of the language, and moreover their contents show little sign of possible redaction to conform with austere monastic ideals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In these latter sources, just as we see in the N\u0101g\u0101rjuna narratives extant in Sanskrit and Tibetan, much more emphasis is placed on N\u0101g\u0101rjuna\u2019s involvement with magic (Ye Shaoyang 2019: 341). Here he is said to have started out as a brilliant non-Buddhist brahmin youth from South India who was deeply learned in the Vedas and all branches of knowledge. He was also interested and skilled in the magical arts. Notoriously, as a youth, he once brilliantly reverse-engineered the secret medicinal recipe of a magician he had consulted, a complex concoction of seventy different ingredients to be placed on the eyelids to confer invisibility (which, as we shall discuss below, looks like a remarkably accurate description of a specific Indian magical category, a\u00f1jana<\/em>). As Roger Corless (1995: 527) translates the passage, the magician tells N\u0101g\u0101rjuna and his friends \u201c..grind this up with water, then smear [the mixture] on your eyelids. Your form will become invisible..\u201d The magician had hoped to exploit his young clients by keeping the mixture secret so that they would have to come back to him for more, but N\u0101g\u0101rjuna was able to ascertain each of the a\u00f1jana<\/em>\u2019s seventy different ingredients merely by their smell. He and some friends had planned to abuse the power of invisibility in an audacious attempt to gain sexual favours from a king\u2019s harem (note that in Indian magic, a\u00f1jana<\/em> can also be used to confer powers of attraction, although this is not spelled out in the Longshu pusa zhuan<\/em>). They succeeded for a while, but after some misadventures, N\u0101g\u0101rjuna repented, and converted to Buddhism, dedicating himself to the practice of dharma. At first, his exceptional brilliance made him arrogant, and he tried to establish his own heretical Buddhist sect. However, a great n\u0101ga<\/em> bodhisattva took pity on him, and took him down to his palace, where he shared with N\u0101g\u0101rjuna numerous Buddhist scriptures taught by the Buddha during his time on earth, but hitherto unavailable to humans. It was these texts that allowed N\u0101g\u0101rjuna to achieve an authentic realisation free of pride, upon which the n\u0101ga<\/em> bodhisattva sent him back to South India to begin his teaching career. Thus he became the great Buddhist philosopher known to posterity, who also brought with him key Mah\u0101y\u0101na scriptures from the palace of a n\u0101ga<\/em> king, and this is why he has the element \u2018N\u0101ga-\u2019 in his name. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reducing our certainties by a further 50%.<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What certainties do academic scholars believe they have extracted from these richly flavoured narratives? As mentioned above, one is the association with South India, which is not my primary interest here, and which I have no plans to challenge. The other \u2018certainty\u2019 is that all mentions of a great philosopher like N\u0101g\u0101rjuna being involved with n\u0101ga<\/em>s and magic, must be later accretions invented for marketing purposes, that we can safely ignore in any attempt to understand a historical N\u0101g\u0101rjuna. It is this latter \u2018certainty\u2019 that I wish to undermine. (NB: in this endeavour, I will necessarily focus on the two magical feats attributed to N\u0101g\u0101rjuna before his Buddhist realisation, the invisibility magic and the visit to n\u0101galoka<\/em>, since further miracles often attributed to him later in his career might be better explained in terms of more orthodox Buddhist categories like the \u1e5bddhip\u0101da<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This latter \u2018certainty\u2019, that all mentions of N\u0101g\u0101rjuna being involved with n\u0101ga<\/em>s and magic are later accretions we can safely ignore, is quite prominently represented in the secondary literature. For example, Walser\u2019s otherwise excellent monograph (2007) freely acknowledges that pretty much every story related to N\u0101g\u0101rjuna contains the recurring elements of n\u0101ga<\/em>s and magic; yet he feels confident to assume a priori <\/em>that these narratives are in their entirety apocryphal, invented at a later date to sell the philosopher to royal patrons in China and India. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Walser (2007: 75) has also falsely assumed, along with several other scholars (e.g. Young 2017: 178), that the seventy-substance invisibility a\u00f1jana<\/em> N\u0101garjuna is described as replicating in the Longshu pusa zhuan<\/em> (which in 2007 was still generally attributed to Kumaraj\u012bva) should somehow be understood as \u2018alchemical\u2019 and can thus be discounted as anachronistic (2007: 77), since alchemy was only first attested in India at a later date. I find that a bit of a stretch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n