{"id":220,"date":"2011-05-08T19:20:54","date_gmt":"2011-05-08T19:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.orient.ox.ac.uk\/kila\/?p=220"},"modified":"2016-11-16T20:16:33","modified_gmt":"2016-11-16T20:16:33","slug":"padmasambhava-in-early-tibetan-myth-and-ritual-part-2-ioltibj321","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.orient.ox.ac.uk\/kila\/2011\/05\/08\/padmasambhava-in-early-tibetan-myth-and-ritual-part-2-ioltibj321\/","title":{"rendered":"Padmasambhava in early Tibetan myth and ritual, Part 2: IOLTibJ321"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let me begin this reassessment of the early sources on Padmasambhava with IOL TibJ321. One of the most remarkable finds from Dunhuang, this manuscript in 85 folios[1]<\/a> contains a complete Nyingma Mah\u0101yoga tantra embedded within its commentary, with many marginal notes. The tantra is famous, still a mainstay of the Nyingma canon and found also in several Kanjurs, called The Noble Lassoo of Methods, a Garland of Lotuses<\/em> (‘phags pa thabs kyi zhags pa padma ‘phreng gi don bsdus pa<\/em>). Cathy and I have been editing and studying the tantra and its commentary for some time, and our work is nearing completion.<\/p>\n

Current palaeographical knowledge locates the Dunhuang manuscript to the latter half of the tenth century. However the text itself must be older than its Dunhuang witness:\u00a0 our critical edition can demonstrate that an ancestor of the versions from the local Kanjurs of Bathang, Hemis, and Tawang, and from the South Central Tibetan rNying ma’i rgyud ‘bum editions, was older than the Dunhuang manuscript by more than one copying at the least.<\/p>\n

The Dunhuang manuscript mentions Padmasambhava four times: once in the marginal notes at the beginning, twice in the marginal notes near the end, and once within the main text of the commentary itself, also near the end. The references are somewhat enigmatic, and we will be publishing on them at greater length elsewhere, so here I will only review our findings in brief.<\/p>\n

Ken Eastman in the 1980’s was the first to look at these references, and had tentatively suggested they might be presenting Padmasambhava as the human author of the commentary. Jake Dalton and Sam van Schaik follow him in taking much the same line, albeit quite assertively and no longer tentatively.[2]<\/a> However, despite the difficulty of the materials and the rather complicated way in which the root text, commentary and marginal notes cross-reference, neither Ken Eastman, Jake Dalton or Sam van Schaik had time to study the text in much depth or for very long, and none have written more than a few pages on it.<\/p>\n

After a much more detailed study by Cathy, it now appears quite uncertain that Padmasambhava is being represented as the author of the commentary, and it is important that the scholarly community takes note of this fact. Rather, there is a distinct emphasis on portraying him as a sublime realised being with exceptional access to the Tath\u0101gata\u2019s secret teachings, and quite possibly even as the source of the root tantra itself.<\/p>\n

The references it makes to Padmasambhava are not entirely clear and unambiguous, since they assume the reader already has such information, but what is clear and unambiguous is that these are references to an exceptional, mythologised being, and not to an ordinary human teacher. At its end, the main text of the commentary lavishly praises Padmasambhava as padma rgyal po<\/em>, the ‘Lotus King\u2019, in verses which the accompanying notes explain are being addressed by \u015a\u0101ntigarbha to Padmasambhava. It is fascinating that these verses comprise a precise form of laudatory words picked up two centuries later by Nyang ral Nyi ma’i ‘od zer and the wider hagiographical tradition in their own praises of Padmasambhava, and Nyang ral again specifically links these words to the Lotus King, a form which remains canonical as one of the famous Eight Aspects of Guru Rinpoche.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Figure 1: Padma rGyal po, as depicted in the Ritual Dance of the Guru\u2019s Eight Aspects (gu ru mtshan brgyad \u2019chams), Jangsa Monastery, Kalimpong, 2009. Photo by Cathy Cantwell.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The praises from IOLTibJ321 and from Nyang ral’s Zangs gling ma<\/p><\/div>\n

As you can see in the diagram, the verses say that Sam bha ba is “he who has attained the supreme siddhi, of great wonder, Padma rGyal po [The Lotus King] (who) is not worldly; (he who) unravels from the expanse the tath\u0101gata’s great secret pith instructions<\/em>“. Note the use of the Tibetan word ma ‘gyur<\/em> here in the Dunhuang manuscript. It is not a very natural Tibetan usage, and like many phrases in these old manuscripts, it’s not entirely clear what it means. Where ‘gyur ba<\/em> <\/em>occurs in Tibetan literature, it is often as a translation of the Sanskrit bh\u016bta<\/em>. Literally, both ‘gyur ba<\/em> and bh\u016bta<\/em> mean ‘become’, but most often, the idiomatic meaning of the Sanskrit is simply ‘who is’. Tibetans tended to translate bh\u016bta<\/em> literally rather than idiomatically, thus giving ‘gyur ba<\/em> (to become) simply to render ‘who is’.[3]<\/a> So there is some albeit rather tenuous suggestion here that the verse of praise might have somewhere in its background or prehistory, something translated into Tibetan from Sanskrit.<\/p>\n

The marginal notes attached to this praise are slightly ambiguous, explaining that after examination, \u015a\u0101ntigarbha finds either Padmasambhava himself, or his teachings, flawless, and is praising him.[4]<\/sup><\/a> Right at the start of the text, the notes already told us that while the Buddha has condensed (the meanings) of the root text (‘bu tas bsdus<\/em>), it was Sambhava who produced or made (them) (sam ba bhas byas<\/em>)\u2014a similar meaning to \u015a\u0101ntigarbha\u2019s praise of him here for unravelling the secret great pith instructions of the tath\u0101gata from the expanse.<\/p>\n

Finally, a page above this praise which ends the commentarial text, right at the end of the root tantra itself, a marginal note refers to Padmasambhava.\u00a0 This annotation seems possibly to suggest that what has gone before, namely the speech of the tantra, which has emerged naturally out of sameness, was demonstrated by Padmasambhava without any personal fabrication or rang gzo<\/em>.\u00a0 There follows an explanation of how, given this natural emergence, when a noble being speaks with pure awareness, the resulting utterance is Tantra.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

Thus, Padmasambhava seems to be closely involved with the Buddha\u2019s original teaching of the tantra, in terms that go some distance to making him sound like a treasure revealer of some kind, and so one might speculate if the name ‘Padma’ in the texts’s title might conceivably be referring to Padmasambhava.\u00a0 This, however, is unlikely: the first chapter of the commentary, which discusses the title, gives no hint of the word, “padma”, having any such implication.<\/p>\n

I should add, these findings in IOL Tib J321 have not been remarked upon by previous scholars, but we feel they might add significantly to our knowledge of 10th<\/sup> century representations of Padmasambhava. We will deal with them at very much greater length in our forthcoming book.<\/p>\n

Finally, a note on the citation from Nyang ral Nyi ma’i ‘od zer: Lewis Doney of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, has worked on critically editing Nyang ral’s Guru Padma hagiography.\u00a0 He argues convincingly that the earliest and historically most influential recension is that represented by two manuscripts in the National Archives in Kathmandu and two manuscripts from Bhutan, which he classifies as ZL3.\u00a0 The version of ZL3 used here is Lewis Doney’s identification in the Kathmandu National Archives.\u00a0 We have emended rtog<\/em> in line 2 to rtogs<\/em>, found in all the other witnesses of ZL3.\u00a0 The Rin chen gter mdzod chen mo <\/em>version (Paro: Ngodrup and Sherab Drimay, Kyichu Monastery, 1976, Volume Ka: 25), which has in modern times become the most widely used version, incorporates later material.\u00a0 It gives a variant second line for this verse (rtogs ba bla med mchog tu gyur pa yis\/<\/em>).<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

[1]<\/a> The folios are numbered up to 84, but there is one unnumbered folio so there are 85 folios in total.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[2]<\/a> Eastman himself expresses some caution, finally concluding, “It appears<\/em>… that we have one of the few surviving works of Padmasambhava” (1983: 50, my emphasis).\u00a0 Jacob Dalton (2004: 763 note 17), states rather more positively that, “in the interlinear notes to the Dunhuang versions of the Thabs kyi zhags pa pad mo’i ‘phreng ba<\/em> commentary (ITJ321), the commentary is attributed to Padmasambhava”.\u00a0 An article from Sam van Schaik (2008: 47) also states that, “the Dunhuang Ms IOL Tib J 321 contains a colophon which states that Padmasambhava was the author of the commentary”.\u00a0 However, van Schaik reassesses the evidence in his blog (dated June 2007 but presumably written after the article, ‘Padmasambhava I: the early sources’ at http:\/\/earlytibet.com\/2007\/06\/20\/padmasambhava\/<\/a> ), where he no longer refers to a colophon and writes, “Finally, just in case I have given the impression that Padmasambhava actually wrote<\/em> this manuscipt, let me be clear that he didn’t”.\u00a0 However, it seems that he simply means that the manuscript is no autograph copy, since he continues to speak of , “the attribution of this text to Padmasambhava”, and interprets one of the annotations in this way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[3]<\/a> For a lucid discussion of this, see Prof Tillemans’ excellent lecture 84000 Lecture Series Video #1: Sanskrit compounds and methodological issues in translation<\/em>, at http:\/\/vimeo.com\/22734087<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[4]<\/a> slobs dpon shan ting gar bas brtags nas ma nor nas\/\u00a0 sam ba bha la stod pa ‘o\/<\/em> (f.84r.5)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[5]<\/a> mnyam las ‘phros te\/ [marginal note: pad ma sam ba bhas rang gzor byas pa ma yin bar ston<\/em>]\u00a0 \/byung ba’I don\/ \/skyes bu gang gis rig pa de \/\/ngag gis ci skad brjod pa’i sgra \/ \/thams cad ma lus tan tra zhes<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let me begin this reassessment of the early sources on Padmasambhava with IOL TibJ321. One of the most remarkable finds from Dunhuang, this manuscript in 85 folios[1] contains a complete Nyingma Mah\u0101yoga tantra embedded within its commentary, with many marginal … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mainly-monthly-postings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.orient.ox.ac.uk\/kila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.orient.ox.ac.uk\/kila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.orient.ox.ac.uk\/kila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.orient.ox.ac.uk\/kila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.orient.ox.ac.uk\/kila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.orient.ox.ac.uk\/kila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1029,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.orient.ox.ac.uk\/kila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions\/1029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.orient.ox.ac.uk\/kila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.orient.ox.ac.uk\/kila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.orient.ox.ac.uk\/kila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}