The Oxford Treasure Seminar began in 2017, as a collaboration between the Sinologist Yegor Grebnev, the anthropologist Anna Sehnalova, and myself, a Tibetologist. Yegor\u2019s specialisations are Chinese heirloom treasures and early Chinese scriptural traditions, Anna is an anthropologist specialising in Asian territorial deity cosmologies, and I am a specialist in Tibetan rNying ma. Our hope was that the collaborative and cross-disciplinary approach of our seminar would enrich each of our understandings, and in general, that hope has been amply fulfilled, beyond expectations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, so far at least, one of my own initial assumptions is being called into question. I set out on this research path proposing that a knowledge of treasure discovery and scriptural revelation in China might shed a considerable and direct light onto the still obscure origins of the gter ma<\/em> traditions of Tibet (see Mayer 2019 139-142 and 167-169). Yet this has not yet happened as expected. There have been a number of very valuable Sinological contributions to our seminar, including a few from Yegor himself (sometimes with Barendt ter Haar in attendance as well), followed by further offerings from Vincent Goossaert and Ryan Overbey. In addition, I have engaged in ongoing academic correspondences over many years with further Sinological scholars, including Rob Campany, Eric Greene, Barend ter Haar, Henrik S\u00f8rensen, and Stefano Zacchetti. Yet so far, we have been unable to find clear connections or correlations between the rich and varied treasure and revelatory traditions of China, and the origins of Tibetan gter ma<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vincent Goossaert\u2019s magisterial presentation to the Treasure Seminar<\/em> on 23rd January 2023, entitled \u201cA Typology of Modes of Revelation in Chinese Religious History\u201d made a particularly strong impression on me, because of the nature of Goossaert\u2019s academic research. Firstly, Vincent is very much a specialist in Chinese scriptural revelation, and his book Making the Gods Speak. The Ritual Production of Revelation in Chinese History<\/em> (Cambridge, Harvard University Asia Center, 2022) is probably the leading contemporary publication on the topic. Secondly, Goossaert\u2019s work is truly vast in scope, addressing the entirety of Chinese religions. He has the requisite data at his fingertips because since 2019, he has been leading a major international digital collaborative project to systematically describe all<\/em> Chinese-language religious texts of every kind<\/em> and every period<\/em>. His unique vantage point as the director of such a program has afforded him an unequalled panoramic view of the methods of revelation employed across all of Chinese religious history. His book accordingly is able to present a five-fold typology summarising all the different kinds of revelation used over time in all the different Chinese religions. Yet, to my disappointment, none among these five offered us anything approaching the smoking gun I was hoping for, which might have identified definite Chinese influences on the emergence of Tibetan gter ma<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Goossaert classifies his five types of revelation as: [1] s\u016btra<\/em> type [2] encounter type [3] spirit possession type [4] visualisation type [5] presence type. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Of these, the first or s\u016btra<\/em> type, might initially seem quite promising for our purposes, since it was introduced into China with the arrival of Buddhism in the first and second centuries CE. Nothing like it had existed in China before then. This is of course the mode of revelation ascribed by the Chinese to Mah\u0101y\u0101na scriptures, both those of authentic Indic origins, as well as the numerous home-made or Chinese-produced so-called apocryphal s\u016btra<\/em>s. This model also came to be adopted by Daoists, although they did not classify their texts by the Buddhist designation of \u2019s\u016btra<\/em>s\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet as Goossaert explains, this Chinese interpretation of the s\u016btra<\/em> type of revelation did not seek to explain events that happened in human history, and says nothing about the circumstances in which such scriptures were revealed to humans. S\u016btra<\/em>s were usually described as revealed or spoken by the Buddhas to deities or bodhisattvas or divine entities in another time and another place, so that the scene of the revelation was not one that took place in human history. Nor are we told where or when or how such texts, first preached in heaven, subsequently reached humanity. As Eric Greene puts it, \u2018for 99% of such texts, they just appear, and we have no idea how\u201d (personal communication, 3 February 2025). Hence it would appear that there might have been no openly accepted emergent blueprints for scriptural revelation in the present time, which could have been transmitted from China to Tibet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is, of course, in marked contrast to Tibetan ideas about the revelation of Mah\u0101y\u0101na s\u016btra<\/em>s. Bka\u2019 brgyud and rNying ma scholars such as Guru Chos dbang and Kong sprul squarely placed Mah\u0101y\u0101na scriptural revelation within remembered Indian geography and history, for example, describing some s\u016btra<\/em>s as having been concealed at U\u1e0d\u1e0diy\u0101na, and many others at Vikrama\u015b\u012bla; and as having being variously retrieved by such perceived historical figures as the various Cittam\u0101tra masters, and N\u0101g\u0101rjuna (Gyatso 1994 276-277; Kong sprul 2007: 350). It is precisely the fact that their recovery was<\/em> placed within<\/em> recorded human history that enabled these later Tibetan masters to use the emergent historical example as a template for their own production of new scriptures in Tibet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There remains the interesting case of the Consecration Scripture<\/em> (Guanding jing, <\/em>T1331), first studied by Michel Strickmann (1990), and much dicussed ever since. This voluminous hybrid text is a mixture of Indic and Chinese materials, amongst which (Strickmann 1990: 86-7) we find a version of the reincarnating dharmabh\u0101\u1e47aka<\/em> narrative that is so characteristic of so many Indian Mah\u0101y\u0101na s\u016btra<\/em>s from earliest times onwards (Drewes 2011, 2022; Harrison 2005; Gummer 2012; Mayer, in press). In this case, resembling the Indian Pratyutpanna-buddha-sa\u1e43mukh\u0101vasthita-sam\u0101dhi-s\u016btra<\/em> and the Tibetan sa gter<\/em> traditions, the narrative includes the detail of the physical rediscovery of a manuscript from within a casket hidden in a cave. However, it\u2019s not clear to me to what extent Strickmann was aware of the ubiquity of the reincarnating dharmabh\u0101\u1e47aka<\/em> narrative trope within Indian Mah\u0101y\u0101na s\u016btra<\/em>s, since he seems to suggest (Strickmann 1990: 81) that the Consecration Scripture<\/em> was the original source of it; although elsewhere, he does recognise that the same theme was earlier found in the Mah\u0101parinirv\u0101\u1e47as\u016btra<\/em>, translated by Faxian at Jiankang in 417-418 (Strickmann 1990: 87). <\/p>\n\n\n\n In Tibet, this very same narrative structure was adapted from the Indian Mah\u0101y\u0101na s\u016btra<\/em>s in Tibetan translation (Mayer in press), to be deployed as the central plank for the apologetics of gter ma <\/em>(Kapstein 1987). However, as Goossaert points out, unlike the Tibetans, the Chinese in most cases did not openly (if at all) make use of this well known narrative device to legitimate further scriptural revelation in China, even though it is eminently susceptible to such an interpretation. Yet in the unusual case of the Consecration Scripture<\/em>, the narrative does in fact serve just such a purpose, and does so quite explicitly. It purports to describe the first appearance of the Consecration Scripture<\/em> collection itself, which we know to be a hybrid containing Chinese-composed materials alongside its other authentically Indian materials. Might this, I wondered, have served as a Chinese influence on the Tibetan gter ma<\/em> tradition? <\/p>\n\n\n\n I am no Sinologist, so I put my query to Henrik S\u00f8rensen, a Sinologist who has for many years worked closely with Dunhuangologists and Tibetanists. He had himself pondered the very same question, but was adamant for a number of reasons that the Consecration Scripture<\/em> could not have been a source for the Tibetan revelatory tradition. He concluded that \u201cthe concept of revealed and hidden scriptural treasures in Tibet and China developed largely independently of each other….I would go for two basically separate traditions\u201d (personal communication, 11th<\/sup> July, 2015). <\/p>\n\n\n\n If the Consecration Scripture <\/em>has attracted a lot of attention, there is another less discussed occasion, again from about four centuries before the advent of gter ma<\/em> in Tibet, in which Chinese Buddhists again seem to have used key elements from the standard Indian Mah\u0101y\u0101na model for scriptural revelation, namely, the reincarnated dharmabh\u0101\u1e47aka<\/em> narrative. This can be found in a single source from late 6th century China. In his Lidai sanbao ji<\/em> (T 2034), compiled in 594, the canonical cataloguer Fei Changfang ruled that a key factor rendering the nun Nizi’s previously unheard s\u016btra<\/em> canonical, was that she had remembered it from a past life (suxi<\/em>). By contrast, Fei Changfang did not accept “divine transmission” (shenshou<\/em>), i.e. transmissions direct from deities. As Campany writes, “for Fei, “divine transmission” (shenshou<\/em>) is either a non-existent phenomenon or, if it does occur, it is not a way in which authentic s\u016btra<\/em>s are produced. What he does admit as authentic are s\u016btra<\/em>s “learned in a former life” (suxi<\/em>) and spontaneously recalled and chanted in this life” (see Campany 1993: 8-9). However, as Eric Greene observes, although these and similar criteria might have been acceptable in some circles during the earlier periods of Chinese Buddhism, such criteria later came to be rejected by the official bibliographic traditions, for whom only translated s\u016btra<\/em>s with a proven Indic origin could officially be deemed authentic (Eric Greene, personal communication, 5th July 2023). Hence neither this dgongs gter<\/em> like system of mental remembrance from a past life (suxi<\/em>), nor the sa gter<\/em> like model of physical rediscovery in a cave used in the Consecration Scripture<\/em>, could gain observable cultural traction in China, and were therefore not very likely to have influenced Myang ral\u2019s and Chos dbang\u2019s Tibetan gter ma<\/em> tradition of five or six centuries later. It would seem more probable that Myang ral and Chos dbang (and indeed their bKa\u2019 gdams pa contemporaries too) created their respective models directly on the basis of Mah\u0101y\u0101na s\u016btra<\/em> translations into Tibetan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Goossaert\u2019s other types of scriptural revelation, [2] \u2018encounter\u2019 [3] \u2018spirit possession\u2019 [4] \u2018visualisation\u2019 and [5] \u2018presence\u2019 offer us even less. Tibetan gter ma<\/em> is not in essence the result of encounters with spiritual beings in this life (although the separate system of dag snang<\/em> can be understood as such); it is not the outcome of spirit possession; it cannot be created through visualisation; nor is it produced by invoking the immediate presence of deities who might manipulate the letters on a table covered in ash. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Rather, the most distinctive element in Tibetan Buddhist dgongs gter<\/em> or \u2018mind treasure\u2019 is the idea of the awakening of a memory of a teaching from a past life that had been imprinted within the mind-stream of a specially prophesied individual deemed to be the reincarnation of a direct student of Padmasambhava (or other great beings from the past). In the case of rNying ma pa sa gter<\/em> or \u2018earth treasures,\u2019 the same scenario is further elaborated by the parallel consignment of the teaching in written form to the care of a long-lived territorial deity, whose immense life span bridged the time of Padmasambhava with the time of the later reincarnation of his student. While received Indian scriptural sources abounded with just such narratives (albeit of the original Buddha \u015a\u0101kyam\u016bni and his students, rather than of the \u2018second Buddha\u201d Padmasambhava and his disciples), it seems that China, unlike Tibet, decided very early on against legitimising any adaption of such narrative structures for use within China. Hence no overt revelatory culture resembling the Tibetan gter ma <\/em>system developed in China, which might have been exported to Tibet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ryan Overbey\u2019s virtuoso presentation to the Treasure Seminar (6th<\/sup> February 2023) introduced us to the Great Lamp of the Dharma Dh\u0101ra\u1e47\u012b Scripture <\/em>(\u5927\u6cd5\u70ac\u9640\u7f85\u5c3c\u7d93, T1340), <\/em>a text in 52 chapters now extant in only a single Chinese translation, made between 592 and 594 by a Gandharan monk probably named Dhy\u0101nagupta. There are no other extant versions of this text, in any other languages. Its main focus is a dh\u0101ra\u1e47\u012b <\/em>or spell that enables its wielder to become a perfected dharmabh\u0101\u1e47aka<\/em>, with unlimited powers to reveal new buddhist scriptures (buddhavacana<\/em>). This is achieved through contemplative entry into a series of mystic syllables (ak\u1e63ara<\/em>), which act as doors to the primordial treasury of Buddha dharma. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are indeed some aspects of this that might be considered reminiscent of later rNying ma traditions. Some of the ideas about syllables might just conceivably anticipate later traditions such as the Guhyagarbha tantra<\/em>, and perhaps even the famous rNying ma idea of the \u2018symbolic syllables of the \u1e0d\u0101kin\u012bs\u2019 (mkha\u2019 \u2018gro brda yig<\/em>), from the contemplation of which gter ma<\/em> texts are said to emerge. The Great Lamp of the Dharma Dh\u0101ra\u1e47\u012b Scripture\u2019<\/em>s deep investment in the figure of the dharmabh\u0101\u1e47aka<\/em> might also provide a possible \u2018missing link\u2019 between the dharmabh\u0101\u1e47aka<\/em>s of the older classic Mah\u0101y\u0101na s\u016btra<\/em>s, and later tantric revelations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, as Overbey also emphasises, the Great Lamp of the Dharma Dh\u0101ra\u1e47\u012b Scripture <\/em>seems to have made no impact in China, was seldom cited in later literature, and didn\u2019t form the basis of any East Asian Buddhist schools. As he bluntly puts it, the Great Lamp of the Dharma Dh\u0101ra\u1e47\u012b Scripture<\/em> \u201cis a textual dead end\u2026 it’s a road not taken in [Chinese] Buddhist intellectual and ritual history.\u201d Thus if there are any ideas that might transpire to be shared between the later rNying ma gter ma<\/em> tradition and the Great Lamp of the Dharma Dh\u0101ra\u1e47\u012b Scripture,<\/em> they will more likely have entered Tibet not from China, but via Gandh\u0101ra or Kashmir. For it is in the latter regions that the Great Lamp of the Dharma Dh\u0101ra\u1e47\u012b Scripture <\/em>itself probably first appeared, and also where broadly similar ideas about mystic syllables were widespread (Salomon 1990: 255-273). In due course, by not later than the 9th<\/sup> century, Kashmir was also to witness the widespread and notable acceptance of public, named, preachers of entirely new esoteric scriptures, a central concern of the Great Lamp of the Dharma Dh\u0101ra\u1e47\u012b Scripture <\/em>from earlier centuries that was to proliferate significantly in Kashmiri tantric circles both \u015aaiva and Buddhist (Nemec 2022, Cantwell and Mayer 2023). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yegor Grebnev\u2019s brilliant work (Grebnev 2022) continues in the tradition of Anna Seidel, and looks inter alia at how the revelation of some Taoist scriptures could be closely related to the notion of mystically empowering heirloom treasures. Such heirloom treasures pertained specifically to elite politics. They were conceived of as ancient power artefacts, such as bronze vessels one might find in ancient royal burial tombs, ownership of which conferred political legitimacy on an emperor. Grebnev\u2019s study focuses on a political compendium dating from the times of the early empires in China, the Yi Zhou shu <\/em>(\u9038\u5468\u66f8), thus tracing the origins of such ideas very far back in Chinese history, .<\/p>\n\n\n\n Much later in time, the Y\u00fcan or Mongol dynasty in China still relied heavily on a broadly similar conception of antique power objects for its legitimation (Franke 1978). Although totally absent from the voluminous writings of the two earlier and most definitive codifiers of gter ma<\/em>, Myang ral and Chos dbang, the discovery of or at least descriptions of parallel types of imperial power objects enjoyed what appears to have been a comparatively brief and limited vogue in gter ma<\/em> circle towards the end of Tibet\u2019s period of Y\u00fcan domination. O rgyan gling pa is best remembered for his highly influential Padma bka\u2019 thang,<\/em> which is inter alia an extremely elaborate exposition of the classic Padmasambhava-based Tibetan adaptation of the reincarnating dharmabh\u0101\u1e47aka<\/em> narrative that served to legitimise gter ma<\/em>. Yet to a rather greater degree than most of his predecessors, O rgyan gling pa also showed a fascination with material gter ma<\/em>s, many of which were tantric, but including also a proportion that could be considered Tibetan equivalents to the Chinese and Y\u00fcan ideas of imperial heirloom treasures. O rgyan gling pa\u2019s near contemporary Sangs rgyas gling pa apparently showed similar interests, finding inter alia<\/em> a royal seal for the Ka snam sde pa (king) of Spo bo, as well as other treasures that could serve as sacred or power objects for his enthronement (Lazcano 2005: 44-45). Especially following Rig \u2018dzin rGod ldam, the sbas yul<\/em> tradition also began to proliferate at this time, and some (Orofino 1991:239 n.1) have rather tentatively suggested this might also reflect a Chinese influence, through the utopian magical realms that were particularly famous in Taoist literature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, as the memory of Y\u00fcan domination faded, and as Tibetans began to relinquish some of the Y\u00fcan cultural patterns they had previously absorbed, the preoccupation with imperial power objects seems to have waned within Tibetan gter ma<\/em> culture. Yet nevertheless, here we might actually find some Chinese (or at least Y\u00fcan) influences on Tibetan gter ma<\/em>, even if they were never formative of the gter ma<\/em> tradition as a whole, and did not have a very lasting influence. Certainly the many thousands of gter ma<\/em>s discovered since the late Y\u00fcan period are not excessively (if at all) focused on imperial funerary power objects, ditto the great gter ma<\/em> cycles that preceded that period, although the sbas yul<\/em> tradition of course is still very much with us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So was my original hunch, that Chinese sources might offer us very important insights into the origins of gter ma<\/em>, simply mistaken? At the moment, I must admit my earlier anticipations in this respect are beginning to look a little bit unrealistic, although I think it is still too early to say for sure. The most important period for Chinese influences on Tibetan Buddhism was in the very earliest period, when a substantial number of translations were made from Chinese into Tibetan and when Chinese Buddhists were active in Tibet (Li 2021). Yet this was some hundreds of years prior to the first appearances of the fully fledged rNying ma gter ma<\/em> traditions, which, as many scholars have observed, seems to have emerged during the 11th<\/sup> century phyi dar<\/em>, albeit harking back rhetorically to the late 8th<\/sup> century introduction of Indian Buddhism in the reign of Khri srong lde\u2019u btsan. None of this makes Chinese sources for the origins of the classic rNying ma gter ma<\/em> systems per se appear overwhelmingly likely. Yet what we might still discover are Chinese influences on motifs of textual production or scriptural revelation from the earliest days of Buddhism in Tibet, which might or might not have any genetic connections with the later more classic forms of Tibetan gter ma<\/em>, but which could nevertheless be of considerable interest. As well as the (presumably rather discreet) possible transmissions into Tibet of whatever actual Chinese methods of scriptural production were covertly used in the production of Chinese Buddhist \u2018apocrypha\u2019, we might also find originally Indian scriptures that were first translated into Tibetan via their Chinese translations, and which contained references to the above-mentioned Indian methods of scriptural production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If any such interesting Chinese connections do actually exist, I think we have a reasonable possibility of finding them. On the positive side, there have been great advances in our knowledge of Chinese Buddhist influences on Tibet and of s\u016btra translations from Chinese into Tibetan in the early period, thanks to scholars such as Sam van Schaik (2012), Jonathan Silk (2019), and Channa Li (2021). There is also now a major ERC funded project led by Jonathan Silk, employing some excellent researchers, entitled \u201cBuddhism\u2019s Early Spread to Tibet” (BEST), which might throw up more data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the negative side, the PRC has for several decades been pumping huge resources into its project of obfuscating or trivialising Tibet\u2019s historic religious and cultural links with India, providing substantial incentives to any scholars who will play down Tibet\u2019s historical inclusion within what William Dalrymple has recently dubbed \u2018the Indosphere\u2019. With so much of international research funding in Buddhist studies now deriving either directly or indirectly from CCP-aligned sources, there will no doubt be big rewards for anyone willing to support the PRC\u2019s propagandist historiography, which seeks to deprecate Indian influences and exaggerate Sinitic origins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The last word in the history of gter ma<\/em>, however, will most likely go neither to India, nor to China, but to Tibet itself. For if there is one absolutely rock solid certainty that has emerged from the eight\u00a0years that our Oxford Treasure Seminar has been convening,\u00a0 it is the following: that the complex structures and hierarchies of the indigenous Tibetan territorial deity cosmologies have had an incalculably important and formative influence on the celebrated Tibetan earth treasure (sa gter<\/em>) tradition, which, quite simply, would not even exist without them. Paradoxically however, and despite their definitive importance to the emergence of gter ma<\/em>, the indigenous Tibetan territorial deity cosmologies have not often received sufficient consideration in the existing studies of gter ma<\/em>, too few of which have paid enough attention to their workings or even to their existence. That is something that surely has to change.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bibliography<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Campany, Robert, 1993. \u201cBuddhist Revelation and Taoist Translation in Early Medieval China\u201d, in Taoist Resources<\/em> 4.1 (1993): 1-29.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cantwell, Cathy, and Robert Mayer, 2023. \u201cSome Interesting Passages from the Noble Noose of Methods, the Lotus Garland Synopsis and Its Commentary.\u201d In Histories of Tibet. Essays in Honor of Leonard W. J. van der Kuijp<\/em>, edited by Kurtis R. Schaeffer, Jue Liang, and William A. McGrath. Boston: Wisdom Publications, pages 403-420.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Drewes, David, 2022. \u201cEarly Explanations for the Appearance of Mah\u0101y\u0101na s\u016btras.\u201d Talk given to Oxford Treasure Seminar, 16th May, 2022. Podcast: https:\/\/podcasts.ox.ac.uk\/early-explanations-appearance-mahayana-sutras-oxford-treasure-seminar-series<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Drewes, David, 2011. \u201cDharmabh\u0101\u1e47akas in Early Mah\u0101y\u0101na\u201d, in Indo-Iranian Journal <\/em>54 (2011) 331-372.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Franke, Herbert, 1978. From tribal chieftain to universal emperor and god: the legitimation of the Y\u00fcan dynasty<\/em>. M\u00fcnchen: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goossaert, Vincent, 2023. \u201cA typology of modes of revelations in Chinese religious history.\u201d Talk given to Oxford Treasure Seminar, 25rd January, 2023. Podcast: https:\/\/thsc.web.ox.ac.uk\/event\/typology-modes-revelations-chinese-religious-history<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Goossaert, Vincent, 2022. Making the Gods Speak. The Ritual Production of Revelation in Chinese History<\/em>. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grebnev, Yegor, 2022. Mediation of Legitimacy in Early China: A Study of the Neglected Zhou Scriptures and the Grand Duke Traditions<\/em>. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gummer, Natalie D., 2012. \u201cListening to the Dharmabh\u0101\u1e47aka: The Buddhist Preacher in and of the S\u016btra of Utmost Golden Radiance\u201d, in Journal of the American Academy of Religion<\/em>, March 2012, Vol. 80, No. 1, pp. 137\u2013160. doi:10.1093\/jaarel\/lfr089<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gyatso, Janet , 1994. \u201cGuru Chos dbang’s gTer ‘byung chen mo: an early survey of the treasure tradition and its strategies in discussing Bon treasure\u201d, PIATS 6, vol. 1<\/em>. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture, pp. 275-287.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kapstein, Matthew T, 1989. \u201cThe Purificatory Gem and Its Cleansing: A Late Tibetan Polemical Discussion of Apocryphal Texts,\u201d HR 28\/3<\/em>, 1989, 217\u2013244.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kong sprul blo gros mtha\u2019 yas, 2007. Grub thob gter ston rim par byon pa rnams kyi rnam thar mdor bsdus bkod pa rin chen bai \u1e0d\u016brya\u2019i phreng ba<\/em> (a.k.a gTer brgya\u2019i rnam thar<\/em>) pp. 341-765 of Rin chen gter mdzod chen mo<\/em>, Volume 1. New Delhi: Shechen Publications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lazcano, Santiago, 2005 (translated from Spanish by Rita Granda). \u201cEthnohistoric Notes on the Ancient Tibetan Kingdom of sPo bo and its Influence on the Eastern Himalayas.\u201d Revue d’Etudes Tib\u00e9taines.Vol. 7<\/em>. pp. 41-63.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Li, Channa, 2021. \u201cA Survey of Tibetan S\u016btras Translated from Chinese, as Recorded in Early Tibetan Catalogues\u201d, Revue d\u2019Etudes Tib\u00e9taines<\/em>, no. 60, Ao\u00fbt 2021, pp. 174-219.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mayer, Robert, in press. \u201cDharmabh\u0101\u1e47akas, Siddhas, Avat\u0101rakasiddhas, and gTer stons: Rethinking Treasure (Part Three)\u201d, in Revue d\u2019Etudes Tib\u00e9taines<\/em>, no. 75, Avril 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mayer, Robert, 2019. \u201cRethinking Treasure (part one)\u201d. In Revue d\u2019Etudes Tib\u00e9taines, no. 52, Octobre 2019<\/em>, pp. 119-184.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nemec, John, 2022. \u201cPerfected Beings in Human Form: The Siddha Tradition in \u015aaiva Tantra.\u201d Talk given to Oxford Treasure Seminar, 25th April, 2022. Podcast: https:\/\/podcasts.ox.ac.uk\/perfected-beings-human-form-siddha-tradition-saiva-tantra-oxford-treasure-seminar-series<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Orofino, Giacomella, 1991. \u201cThe Tibetan Myth of the Hidden Valley in the Visionary Geography of Nepal\u201d. In East and West Vol. 41,<\/em> No. 1\/4 (December 1991), pp. 239-271.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overbey, Ryan, 2023. \u201cTheorizing Buddhist Revelation in the Great Lamp of the Dharma Dh\u0101ra\u1e47\u012b Scripture.\u201d Talk given to Oxford Treasure Seminar, 6th February, 2023. Podcast: https:\/\/thsc.web.ox.ac.uk\/event\/theorizing-buddhist-revelation-great-lamp-dharma-dharani-scripture<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Salomon, Richard, 1990. \u201cNew evidence for a Gandhari origin of the Arapacana syllabary,\u201d in Journal of the American Oriental Society 110, no. 2<\/em> (April-June 1990, 255-273).<\/p>\n\n\n\n van Schaik, Sam, 2012. \u201cDzogchen, Chan and the Question of Influence\u201d, in Revue d\u2019Etudes Tib\u00e9taines 24<\/em>, 5\u201319.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Silk, Jonathan A., 2019. \u201cChinese S\u016btras in Tibetan Translation: A Preliminary Survey\u201d, in Annual Report of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology at Soka University 22<\/em>, 227\u201346.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Strickmann, Michel, 1990. \u2018The Consecration S\u016btra: A Buddhist Book of Spells.\u2019 In Robert E. Buswell, Jr, (ed.), Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha<\/em>. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Oxford Treasure Seminar began in 2017, as a collaboration between the Sinologist Yegor Grebnev, the anthropologist Anna Sehnalova, and myself, a Tibetologist. Yegor\u2019s specialisations are Chinese heirloom treasures and early Chinese scriptural traditions, Anna is an anthropologist specialising in … Continue reading