Turtle in a Bronze Basin

 

... the thoughts of a turtle are turtles ...

If you never kept a turtle as a pet, I don’t recommend it. First and most seriously they are difficult to care for unless you know what you are doing, and largely for this very reason are prone to die a young and untimely death. Another problem is that they often get sick and tired of that terrarium you’ve locked them up in and start scratching nonstop on the walls trying to get out. You wonder if they are just bored or nervous, or in need of a larger living room. The constant scraping noise can be so irritating you could scream and throw a lamp across the room.

But this blog is more about us humans than it is about the challenges of turtle care. Do you ever even imagine that effort itself could, in some circumstances, prove to be an insurmountable impediment to progress? Counterintuitive insight at its best! 

I’m convinced the metaphoric image of the turtle in the bronze basin will be subject of this blog. At least I will try. Wait for the future, as I suppose we have all been doing, and we’ll get there. My primary aim is to persuade you how crucial it is for us to better know in practical terms what futile efforts entail. If I can convince you of this my struggles will not have been in vain. At long last I will be able to give it a rest.*

(*I suppose my further subterranean aim would be to show that there are connections such as this to be seen in the pre-Mongol era between the Bon, Zhijé and Nyingma schools.)

In a selection from one of the primary texts of the early Zhijé tradition containing words of Padampa we once translated as Padampa’s Animal Kingdom, we find these words:

17.  Unable to go anywhere, the turtle in the bronze basin tires itself out.

འགྲོ་བར་མྱི་ནུས་མཁར་ཞོང་ནང་གི་རུལ་རྦལ་ཚི་ཆད་འགྱུར་།། — ZC vol. 1, p. 219.4.

 

The metaphor of the turtle in the bronze basin occurs at least twice in the Padampa Tanjur texts, but curiously in them the emphasis seems to be on how much the turtle in the bronze basin enjoys basking in the sun, and not on how thoroughly trapped it is.  The commentarial text explains Padampa’s precept and, as it often does, gives it an unexpected spin:

17.  “Unable to go...” — If you place a turtle in a bronze basin, it tries to climb out, but at the very first step it loses its footing. Likewise, no matter how high or low something may appear, the mind never moves from its empty nature.  It falls back on it.

འགྲོ་མྱི་ནུས་ཞེས་པ་ནི་། འཁར་གཞོང་དུ་རུ་རྦལ་བཅུག་ན་ཕྱིར་འཛེགས་ཀྱང་ཡང་དང་པོའི་ཤུལ་དུ་འདྲེད་ནས་འོང་། དེ་བཞིན་དུ་འཐོའ་དམན་ཇི་ལྟར་སྣང་ཡང་སེམས་ངོ་བོ་སྟོང་པ་ལས་འགྱུར་བ་མྱེད་དེ་། དེ་ཐོག་ཏུ་འབབས་གསུང་།  — ZC, vol. 1, p. 426.

 

Our concern at the moment, and the very thing that made me return again to this subject, is the single-folio Khyunglung fragment at pp. 142-145 (marked as fol. 3) in the published volume.*

(*For the bibliographical details, refer to the recent blogs on the Four Caches). 

 

At first glance I had thought it might be a Zhijé text, seeing the words meaning ‘From the mouth of Dampa’ (dam pa’i zhal nas) that seemed to suggest it, although it soon turned out to be an illusion. I tried searching in BDRC, and found no matches to the phrases I was trying to check. However, I tried again and found this parallel to the Khyunglung fragment in vol. 121 of The Much Expanded Version of the Oral Scriptures of the Earlier Translations (Snga-’gyur Bka’-ma Shin-tu Rgyas-pa, W1PD100944). In this instance BDRC e-text provides us with no page correspondences (and this is my good excuse for not providing page numbers), although this volume does seem to be a commentary on the Eighty Precepts (Zhal-gdams Brgyad-cu-pa) of Zurchung: 

le'u bdun pa / gdams pa bcu gsum gyi gdams ngag lag len gdams pa ni / gdams pa bcu gsum la / bsgrub pa'i brtson 'grus kyi lcag tu bdag gzhan gyi 'chi ba la brtag / nam mchi nges pa med pas tshe 'di yi bya bzhag thams cad bor thongs / gus pa khyad par can skye bar 'dod pas bla ma'i phyi nang gi yon tan la brtag / skyon rtog spongs / skyon du snang ba de rang snang ma dag pas lan / spyod pa kun dang mthun par 'dod pas gzhan gyi rtsol ba mi dgag / theg pa thams cad rang sa bden pas chos dang grub mtha'i kha 'dzin che / bla ma'i thugs zin pa mi 'gyur bar bya ba'i phyir nyams su len pa drag tu bya / yon tan ma lus pa rang la 'ong / dngos grub myur du thob par 'dod na sdom pa dam tshig ma nyams par bsrung / bsrung mtshams mtha' dag mi dge bcu dang dug lnga rang mtshan la slong bar 'du / chu bo bzhin bcad par.*

(*Compare this to the Khyunglung fragment starting at its folio 3 recto, line 7, and you will see despite all the variant readings that they are the same text all the same.)

I see, too, that Khyunglung, p. 144, line 5 ff. (or fol. 3 verso, line 5) corresponds to section 13 in the English of Zurchungpa’s Testament (its pp. 94-95). The ordering of sections doesn’t seem to be the same in the Khyunglung when compared to later editions of the “same” text. This indicates that a close textual study would be in order. At the moment I cannot safely argue for dependence of one text on the other. A comparative text edition ought to be made, perhaps you would like to give it a try? 

In any case, as you may have suspected by now the Zurchung Eighty does contain the turtle in the bronze basin metaphor even if it may not look like it in the English:

“Cut the stream of the arising of dualistic thoughts and the following after them, taking the example of a tortoise placed on a silver platter.”  (no. 28 on p. 164, see also pp. 292, 346)

I find the Tibetan of it in my physical print volume of the text entitled

Zur-chung Shes-rab-grags-pa'i Gdams-pa Brgyad-cu-pa, Pema Thinley, Sikkim National Press (Gangtok 1999), a booklet in 64 pages not listed in BDRC, at p. 26:

རུས་སྦལ་མཁར་གཞོང་དུ་བཅུག་པའི་དཔེས་མཚོན་ནས། མཚན་མའི་འབྱུང་འཇུག་རྒྱུན་བཅད། 

I go to the trouble to give the Tibetan to convince Tibetan readers that it really does speak of the turtle stuck in a bronze basin, and that the published English translation, as wonderful as it is, is in my estimation slightly off on this particular point. I myself originally wanted to translate brass basin, liking the sound of it, but really, it’s a superior type of brass alloy, and that means some more expensive kind of bronze or bell metal.

To complicate matters necessarily, we find the turtle in the bronze basin in a Bon Dzogchen text of the pre-Mongol era that would need to be brought into a fuller and more adequate discussion. The Bon text I have in mind is Seeing Awareness in its Nakedness (Rig-pa Gcer Mthong), IsIAO Tucci text no. 528, section DA, folio 2 verso, line 6. I would give a quotation, but I no longer have a access to the Tucci manuscript and would need to search it out in one of the published editions of the massive cycle that contains it.

This section DA, according to the published catalog 

Elena De Rossi Filibeck, Catalogue of the Tucci Tibetan Fund in the Library of the IsIAO, Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (Rome 2003), vol. 2, p. 296.

ought to be a 7-folio manuscript with the title Bsnyan-rgyud Gsal-bar Byed-pa'i Gsal-byed. I had thought I might have made a photo of the page, but no, to find it again I would have to fly back to Rome. That hardly seems likely to happen today. Anyway, I believe it ought to be locatable in a different published version of the cycle, so let me go over to BDRC and see what I can come up with. 

Well, I went there and came up with nothing, because the volume I’ll describe in a flash isn’t listed there:

Snyan-rgyud Gcer-Mthong, “Bonpo oral transmission precepts granted by Srid-pa-rgyal-mo to Bon-zhig Khyung-nag, reproduced from rare manuscript from Bsam-gling Monastery in Dol po,” Tibetan Bonpo Monastic Centre (Dolanji 1972).  

That’s a pity that BDRC didn’t scan it.* You might think I’m lucky to have a IASWR microfiche set that ought to include it, but then I don’t have any fiche reader available to me right now. 

(*Or didn’t scan it yet. Those 1960's-1980's Bon publications from India haven’t mostly been posted online, although they might be in the near future.)

Okay, now I think I can find it. As you may know the catalog of the Bon Katen goes with an index volume, 

Samten G. Karmay and Yasuhiko Nagano, eds., A Catalogue of the New Collection of Bonpo Katen Texts (Bon Studies 4), Senri Ethnological Reports series no. 24, National Museum of Ethnology (Osaka 2001).

and it locates the cycle of Seeing Awareness in Its Nakedness in volume 133 of the 300 (plus) volume set. That set is locatable with the title “Bon-gyi Bka’-brten” in BDRC as no. W30498, and its volume 133 is indeed scanned and made available there. What we find when we view the scans of vol. 133 is what looks very much like a photocopy of the 1972 publication listed above (absent only the added title page, and the Table of Contents that could have come in useful). A telltale sign is the Old Delhi style of the added Arabic numerals.* So we go back to the 1,692-page Osaka catalog and run through the titles it lists for vol. 133. Even if it isn’t exactly Gsal-bar Byed-pa’i Gsal-byed, we do see that part 15 (pp. 265-278, or 7 folios in length) has the title Snyan-rgyud Gsal-byed, which seems promising enough to have a look.

(*How can I tell?  It kind of looks like the numbers were applied with a rubber stamp.)

Could you hear the scratching?  A few hours have passed, and I wish I  could tell you that all those efforts had no result whatsoever. That would have made my point for me. But no, there it is on p. 269, line 4: ru[s] sbal mkhar gzhong du, or, turtle in a bronze basin. Have a look:

Of course, now we have the difficult task of understanding it in its special context, as part of a system of Dzogchen precepts. We’ve barely scratched the surface... Or... Perhaps we’ve scratched enough for one day. It may be time to give it a rest.

Originally from Buzzfeed, I linked it from here:
As you see this is a plastic, and not a bronze basin,
or the outcome would be different.

•

A poem by Emily Dickinson has more of the “well turtle” or turtle-in-a-well in it, even if the turtle is disguised as a mole. The piece as a whole is usually taken to be about 19th-century disenchantment or, to put it in different words, our declining perception of the sacred dimensions of our existence.

1228 

So much of Heaven has gone from Earth 

That there must be a Heaven 

If only to enclose the Saints 

To Affidavit given. 

The Missionary to the Mole 

Must prove there is a Sky 

Location doubtless he would plead 

But what excuse have I? 

Too much of Proof affronts Belief 

The Turtle will not try 

Unless you leave him - then return 

And he has hauled away. 

I’m fascinated how in the verse on the mole in a hole we easily perceive the well known Indic metaphor of the well turtle (he finds difficulty believing what he is told about the wider world beyond his ken), while the very next verse seems to have our turtle escaping from an unspecified container. Could she have gotten something from Emerson? But for her, okay, it is quite a different idea, the turtle only tries to get away when you aren’t looking. Then just disappears.

•

In John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, a turtle appears to be a symbol of the family’s struggle for freedom, but here the turtle is in a shirt pocket (or is he crossing the highway?) and not in any basin.

•

From Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Natural History of Intellect:

What strength belongs to every plant and animal in nature. The tree or the brook has no duplicity, no pretentiousness, no show. It is, with all its might and main, what it is, and makes one and the same impression and effect at all times. All the thoughts of a turtle are turtles, and of a rabbit, rabbits. But a man is broken and dissipated by the giddiness of his will ; he does not throw himself into his judgments ; his genius leads him one way but ’t is likely his trade or politics in quite another. He rows with one hand and with the other backs water, and does not give to any manner of life the strength of his constitution. Hence the perpetual loss of power and waste of human life.      [emphasis added]

I like Emerson’s rowing metaphor that has the boat spinning in circles instead of going ahead. This happens to me a lot, although I hope you are kind enough not to notice.

•

The turtle in the bronze basin enjoys the light of the sun.  མཁར་གཞོང་ནང་གི་རུལ་སྦལ་ཉི་མའི་འོད་ལ་དགའ།  mkhar gzhong nang gi rul rbal [~rus sbal] nyi ma’i ’od la dga’.  

—     Zhijé Collection, vol. 1, p. 268, line 7.  The same text is in the Derge Tanjur, no. 2445, with the title Phyag-rgya-chen-po Rin-po-che Brda’i Man-ngag.

•

Note: Today’s blog was promised in an earlier one: https://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2024/03/recovered-connections-1-four-caches.html.

If you have the time to spare, and need some Zen, search the internet for "the goose in the bottle."  Use the quote marks in your search for better results, or not.

Recovered Connections 2 - Interdependent Emergence of Tibetan Buddhist Schools

• Continued from Recovered Connections 1.

It is surprising to see just how prominent the Zhijé school is within the early Matho fragments. Fewer are identifiable with other schools like Sakya, Kagyu and even Nyingma.  Bon does show up twice, but there isn’t even one bit of a text I’ve noticed that can be assigned directly to a Bon religious source. This may indicate that the pre-Mongol* religious situation, in this part of the Plateau at least, was not like we have been thinking it was.

(*Please don’t misunderstand me, I mean by pre-Mongol the era before the Mongols appeared on the world stage [the Xixia invasion of 1205] and in just a couple of decades took over the better part of Eurasia.)

These other schools can wait until later. First, I’d like to direct attention to the Padampa and Zhijé texts. I estimate for now that there are about 25 such Zhijé fragments among the Matho, and will not try to cover them all just yet (some of them will feature in future blogs no doubt).  Right now I will limit myself to a question about early Zhijé art in Ladakh, more on Padampa’s women disciples,* and early lay religious movements: 

The cane flute in Padampa icons

Have a look at this photo, see how Padampa in a relatively large size (compared to nearby painted figures on the robes) is hovering there between the shins of the Bodhisattva of Wisdom and Science. Above him are the robes populated with images of the Great Siddhas (rather generic and difficult to identify individually, as Rob Linrothe has noted in his study).  He has a meditation belt around his knees and his characteristic white blanket loosely hanging behind him, otherwise unclothed.  Difficult to make out what he has in his right hand, but in his left he is holding a kind of white tube pointed downward.

I could show a lot of Ladakhi examples, for instance in the caves of Saspola, and in other sites in Alchi. Earlier Ladakhi sites all tend to have Padampa holding the white tube.  

Click here

It was Sarah Harding who noticed the connection and sent me the text, a Shangpa Kagyü text that she was working on. Tibeto-logicians should go here to view the text, while I suppose the rest of you will have to go to her new book that I don’t yet have on hand. The resulting blog can be seen just above.

So after those earlier revelations about the Shangpa connection had been sealed and settled, or so I thought, I was shocked and perplexed to find just a few years later this Matho fragment with the word “flute” right there on the first line. In the continuation you can see that the wording and the practice are both parallel with the Shangpa Kagyu text, one associated with Sukhasiddhi that Sarah Harding published very recently. So as it turns out we don’t need to imagine that Shangpa Kagyupas were active in Ladakh. This purely Zhijé text existing in Matho quite early on can explain the iconography without their help.

This hardly effects the other points made in the earlier blog. On the Sumtsek temple in general, I most highly recommend the central part of the following book: Peter van Ham with Amy Heller and Likir Monastery, Alchi, Treasure of the Himalayas: Ladakh's Buddhist Masterpiece, Hirmer (Munich 2018). However, there is hardly anything said there about the Padampa painting in question (most of it on page 53), and it differs profoundly with what I would say. For one thing, I don’t believe it is a later addition motivated by Drigungpa interests. I do believe it reflects a very early (ca. 12th century) iconography of Padampa, even if it may have benefitted from some later touchups. While Padampa was still alive there was no concept of any group of precisely 84 Mahâsiddhas, that only started to emerge as far as Tibet is concerned in the mid decades of the 12th century. Still, there are a lot of reasons why he might be associated with or even included within that group, so his portrait is by no means irrelevant in the place where it is found, it is hardly out of place. Of course, there will have to be more discussions on these points, but the newly emerging literary evidence practically hands us the reason why the painting is where it is on a silver platter.

Yuthokpa, HAR no. 185

Teachings found in the Yuthok Nyingtig may also have something about healing nectar being transferred by means of a flute.  Here in this slide you see two flute-playing goddesses dancing on either side of Yuthokpa the Elder. The cycle of medical teachings would have been emerging just around the first decades of the 13th century. We see opening up yet another avenue for  investigation even if we won’t go any further in that direction right now.

Carla Gianotti’s book on the subject of Padampa’s women disciples.
In Italian, an English version ought to be forthcoming.

Padampa’s women disciples

One of the biggest surprises in the Matho was to find fragments of a version of Kunga’s text on Padampa’s women disciples. Owing to its importance and difficulties this deserves more research and, before too much time goes by, an independent blog or two of its own. I mention it here because it connects to the discussion that lies ahead of us.

Here you can see a sample of the fragment about the women, women who went on to be spiritual leaders after scattering all over the Himalayan plateau in the early 12th century.

Lay religious movements

To begin with what may or may not be a remarkable point, these lay religious movements appear to have left hardly a trace if any in the Matho and other caches.

Over 25 years ago I did my best to find out about what may be the most obscure religious movements in 11th to 12th century Tibetan history, or in all of Tibetan history for that matter. That means I was keen to find something about them in the Four Caches.

The sources we do have are scattered and difficult to piece together. The earliest of the them that supplies a general coverage, and by far their most sympathetic witness, is in the appendix to the Chöjung history by Nyangrel Nyima Özer.  

In this slide I’ve made a kind of composite of various sources, all charted out in detail in the Kailash essay. No particular source has everything, but there is a great deal of overlap. You can find women leaders associated with Padampa among the Four Children, the Six Yogis, and particularly the Four Tirthika Dakinis. It is said the latter were originally teaching something contrary to Buddhism, but were then in some way corrected or converted by Padampa. But these are later and very possibly motivated narratives I hesitate to accept as historical reporting.

The first one listed, Karudzin, is mentioned in a couple of 13th century sources, such as Sakya Pandita and the ca. 1260’s author of the Single Intention (Dgongs-gcig Yig-cha) associated with the Drigung Kagyü.  

The second one, Sangyé Kargyal, was said to be a heretical teacher in the form of a spirit pretending to be a Buddha. Despite his initial success in winning a following, he was brought to ground by the Great Translator Rinchenzangpo. You learn about him in the Great Translator's biography, but he is only rarely mentioned otherwise.

Latö Marpo, or Dampa Marpo, is a particularly interesting figure because of his role in popularizing the recitation of the Mani Mantra. He is mentioned a little more often than the preceding ones.

But let’s stop there, I don’t have time to go into the details or supply anything like full coverage right now.  Just to say that I have long been on the lookout for any kind of written trace of them, and particularly useful would be any type of self-representation. This is because all we have available otherwise are external testimonies of varying levels of hostility often with the misunderstandings and the polemical distortions that are likely to accompany that emotion. So far I haven’t noticed anything obvious about them in the Four Caches, but I suppose this doesn’t have to mean much, particularly if these movements were not producing literature, a real possibility.

One other matter of considerable interest is that the Matho cache includes fragments from some relatively rare Padampa transmissions (see the chart above for the overall picture). Of course most fragments are from the Kunga (བྱང་སེམས་ཀུན་དགའ་) lineage belonging to the Later Transmission. Still, Middle Transmissions texts related to both the Rma and Skam lineages can be identified among them as well.*

(*The author of the root verses of the long Deyu history, the so-called “Khepa Deyu” [as distinguished from the Deyu José] that I spent 12 years of my life translating belonged to a third major lineage of the Middle Transmission, the So.)

Other religious schools

I’ll close by saying not nearly enough about other schools represented in the Matho.  Firstly the Kagyü: Specifically Kagyü texts are decidedly less well represented than the Zhijé.  That fact already gives some cause for reflection, but these were days before the flood of Kagyü contemplatives in the Kailash area that began to form a steady stream late in the life of Jigten Gönpo (འབྲི་གུང་ཆོས་རྗེ་འཇིག་རྟེན་མགོན་པོ་རིན་ཆེན་དཔལ་, 1143-1217 CE). It is by now well known among Ladakh historians that the Drigungpa school held prominence in Ladakh before it was virtually eclipsed by the Drukpa, as it is today.

The split between the Drigung and Taglung lineages, both of them Kagyü lineages, would not have taken place if it hadn’t been for a dispute about where donated books were supposed to be kept (“The Book Moving Incident of 1209”). Again, we would invoke the same passage at the end of the history by Nyangrel we mentioned before. Of course it is quite strange to our contemporary minds to see both the Zhijé teachings of Padampa and the Kagyu school as a whole placed together with other popular laypeople-based religious movements. 

When the Nyangral appendix was written in around 1200, at most one or two decades later, the public consciousness of Kagyu subsect identities was at its beginning. When Nyangrel discusses the Kagyü, for most part he just lists a wide variety of students and students-of-students of Milarepa. The only distinction he observes is in recognizing the existence of a “Tshal Circle” and a “Tshur Circle.” That means, of course, what we would call the Tselpa Kagyü, a lineage instituted by Zhang Yudrakpa Tsondrüdragpa, and the Karma Kagyü (with its main monastery at Mtshur-phu) instituted by The First Black Hat incarnate.  I believe that by the term circle he is referring to two mother monasteries while intending to include smaller affiliated retreat caves, temples and monasteries. 

Up to this point none of the eight subschools of the Kagyü that split off from Pagmodrupa were known, meaning to say there was no public awareness of any Drukpa, Drigung, or Taglung Kagyü existing in that time, not yet.  And this is borne out by the contents of the Matho and the other caches. We do find a text associated with Pagmodrupa, and a mention of his name in a small birchbark fragment you will see in a moment, still no inkling of any identifiable subsect of the Kagyü.

The Pagmodrupa-related text is the one illustrated at the end of the published Khyunglung facsimiles, a single folio with atrociously abnormal spelling, but at least it has colophon information. Because of this colophon we are tempted to move the date of the Khyunglung chorten closure to a century later than the others, sometime up to as late as 1300. It will repay closer study, as if that needed saying. I do find it remarkable that, in all the Four Caches, this would be the only Cutting/Gcod-related text.*

(*But then it’s peculiar, when I searched in “Mon-ban and List” I found that teaching entitled Ku-su-lu’i Tshogs-gsog has a lineage through Atisha that does not include Pagmodrupa. I must search also in The Record of Teachings Heard of the Great Fifth Dalai Lama.)

Pagmodrupa (note the spelling Phag-mo-grub-pa!) makes his appearance in the birchbark fragment you see just above.  This doesn’t mean much for our dating of the manuscripts. Of more significance is the absence of the names of any of his disciples in the all Four Caches, with the one exception of the Khyunglung colophon we just mentioned. The odd thing is that this Khyunglung colophon title does after all belong to a known title of a work of Pagmodrupa, one found in his Collected Works (as was normal in those days, his was a Kambum, not a Sungbum), and that work is not about the elephant-hook-equipped Mahākāla as the published version says. This is incorrect. It’s about the practice of Cutting usually believed to have been originated with Machig Labdrön.* But really, this is the one and only text, in all of the caches, on the subject of Cutting practice, and it dates later than all the rest. That could mean something eventually, once it is found to lend its weight to a larger discussion. Our most significant point at the moment is that a prominent Kagyüpa gets to be the author of that one-and-only Cutting text, and he was not a member of any discrete Cutting school.**

(*I do think regarding her as originator makes sense so as long as we don’t allow ourselves to get too doctrinaire about it. Nothing is really ever the work of a single genius working alone, regardless of what some hopeless romantics like to imagine. **More discussion is appended below.)

Now what about the school purportedly founded by the Noble Lord Atisha of Bengal?  The Kadam school can be understood to have its beginning during Atisha’s visit to Tibet of 1042, but came to be known by this name only some decades later. Let’s just say there are four texts that are clearly and unambiguously enclosed within the Kadam realm. At the same time there  any number of scriptural and Indic commentarial texts that were supposed to be studied by Kadampas.* We could say almost the same about the Sakya school, that there are many scriptures and commentaries that Sakyapas may have used, but how many texts could I find that are directly related to the Sakya or to Sakya figures? Not one.**

(*It seems the name of Kadam only became widely known as the name of a distinct school in around 1075, while public knowledge is quite well demonstrated later on, in dialogues that took place during the two decades Padampa spent in Tingri. **Leaving the Four Caches aside for the moment, this silence might yet contribute to a future assessment on the pre-1200 level of prominence, even while their post-1200 prominence is not in the least in question. While there are clear signs that Sakya figures in the 12th century, in particular Dragpa Gyaltsen, were aware of the Kagyü school, the reverse doesn’t seem to be the case, and we ought to look into this. Well, on second thought, what I just said is contradicted by Pagmodrupa, who studied Lamdré with an early Sakya master before meeting Gampopa...)

I should go on and on to speak about the Nyingma content in the Four Caches, but these have featured already in some earlier blogs, so I’ll send you back to them* if you want to hear more and we’ll say farewell for now.

(*The All Making King’s Earliest Fragment.  

The Only Terma in the Matho Termas.)

Well, sorry to hold you at the door just as you were ready to leave, but I suppose I ought to come to some kind of conclusion. I believe we are still far from understanding the era of Tibetan history that preceded the Mongol conquest of Eurasia. That holds true for its religious history, as well as other areas of research. That this time was crucial for the emergence of most of the sectarian affiliations known to us today goes without saying. But there were also movements afoot in those times, of various kinds, that have faded or disappeared from our history books. And these movements and supposed “foundings” were interlinked in ways that slowly come into view. 

That we now have these Four Caches of manuscripts with a quite well established cutoff date of 1200 opens a lot of new avenues of research that could bring much needed light. I realize that some will want to call the result “revisionist” history, so I would like to remind them in advance that history has always been revising itself. It is the history of that revisionism that we most need. Keener knowledge of it could enable us to see with greater clarity, to see through it and achieve greater surety about events and processes that took place in their own time and in their own terms, not ours. We would make ourselves dictators if we pretended to set the past in stone as a monument to our own self-serving concepts.

- - -

For a limited time only, you might be able to find a video of most of the talk here (the opening words were not recorded). The oral and written versions are definitely not identical:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fQpmJcKfUgP1RpRAcp6aqVfXzkOUg4CX/view

• Appendix on the Problematic Pagmodrupa Text in the Khyunglung Cache

Mgon po gru gug skor gyi yig rnying thor bu is the title given at p. 211 of the published book in the upper right hand margin (gru gug should have been spelled gri gug). Here we find a single folio, but it appears as if it could be a complete text, or at least the final folio of one.

At p. 212 line 9 (or 213 line 19) the following title:  Ku-su-lu'i Tshogs-gsog. I found among the works of Phag-mo-gru-pa a text with exactly this title:  Ku-su-lu'i Tshogs, or, Ku-su-lu'i Tshogs-gsog (just search BDRC for it).  The texts need comparing closely, as I see parallels in the last parts.

Colophon: phung po gzan du sgyur ba’i mchod pa phag mo grub pas spa’ ldan lum / gnyan sgom ras pa la [/] des ya’ chung gseng ge rgyal tshom la bla ma bdag la... I’d say the author is tracing the teachings that came from Phag-mo-gru-pa up through his own teacher named Seng-ge-rgyal-mtshan (?). What looks like Dpal-ldan Lum might actually be Dpal-ldan Ldum, and therefore this person: Chos-rje Ldum, a disciple of Phag-mo-gru-pa. See Blue Annals, p. 563.  Probably equals Chos-rje Bum known elsewhere. I couldn’t find any Gnyan-sgom-ras-pa, although one named Gnyan-ras-pa or Gnyan-ras Dge-’dun-bum was teacher of The Third Black Hat Karmapa incarnate (1284-1339), so this would bring us up to around 1300! In any case such a date would make sense for the activities of a spiritual grandchild of Phag-mo-gru-pa.

§   §   §

Email from John Bellezza (May 3, 2024):

Dear Dan, I don't want to be a bug-bear but when you compare the Gathang Bumpa mss. with the Toling ms., which I just downloaded, there are significant differences in the scripts used. On paleographic grounds, I think this comparative exercise justifies dating the GB mss. to before the 11th century. One must do the legwork still, but grammatical and orthographic analysis are likely to bear this out too.

Ph Kh

My answer (May 4, 2024):

Dear J, Yes, I know those captchas are often impossible even for young people with sharp eyes, but I have to allow them, otherwise we’d be swamped with enhancement and disfunction ads. I don't myself doubt the Gathang could very well go back to the late 10th century as physical manuscripts, I just don't know. The one thing I am relatively certain about is that all of the Four Caches were closed at about the same time in around 1200 (the Khyunglung perhaps a century later, but anyway). By Toling I take it you mean the history book, since the cache as a whole is not yet out there for downloading. Or is it?  If you think about the Matho, there are quite a lot of them that based on their content could be dated at earliest to mid-11th or mid-12th centuries. That would go for all the Zhijé fragments that had to have been inscribed during the long 12th century, definitely not before the 12th.  The history book from Toling, too, by its content, has to be mid- or late-12th-century (detailed discussion in D. Pritzker's dissertation).  All that is fine by me, since the 12th century is the very time I'm interested in knowing more about.

Yours, D.

Bon Studies of Guru Chöwang at Age Six

 

Guru Chöwang statue, HAR 73029

In the face of a recent statement on the hopelessness of ever finding chronological coordinates for the history of Bon,* I have to say I’m not so pessimistic, at least not for the early 11th century up into the Mongol period.  Yes, there are problems with dating with assurance a lot of events during that time whether they have to do with Bon or not. Part of the problem is that back in those centuries it was usually thought enough to supply 12-year-cycle “animal” dates for events without calculating 60-year-cycle “animal-element” dates.** There are indeed recorded events in Bon history that present chronological conundrums.***  Having said that, there are nevertheless myriad opportunities to coordinate events and feel more sure about chronology, and that’s one thing that makes me an optimist. I feel I need to rein in the naysayers.

(*Huber's book, vol. 2, p. 367, note 10. The criticism is harsh and in a some part deserved, but no alternative is suggested, so the general attitude dismissive of early Bon written sources is to my mind too much too soon. **Of course I'm speaking about writings actually written in those times. Later writers writing about those times tend to give 60-year-cycle dates, in this way 'updating' their pre-Mongol sources, but in the process they sometimes introduced problems. Among 20th and 21st century scholars it has been normal to trust Blue Annals dates, but as far as these early dates are concerned, we often have to wonder if they might not be a 12-year-cycle or two off the mark... This goes for the date of death of Phadampa, which might need moving back in order to make his stay in Tingri fit in the reign of the western king Tsedé (see this recent Tibetologic blog). We continue to give this date as 1117, but other chronologies, like the one by Katok Rinzin, give 1105, and this I now believe is more likely to be correct. That’s just to supply an example of one of the uncertainties we might well entertain for quite many events during those days and, I would emphasize, not only datings of Bon events. ***For instance, the consecration ritual of Shenchen’s disciple Zhuyé that Atiśa is invited to attend, even though by then Atiśa would have been long gone from the scene. Martin’s book, pp. 87-89, discusses this.)

If we are being optimists, the biggest problem that looms over us is the prevailing public skepticism that is largely thanks to centuries of polemical interchanges between Bon and Chos. There is no simple way to extract ourselves from the poisoned atmosphere, we have to work on it, and we may even have to work on ourselves. I think one of the most useful prongs of approach is to find mentions of Bon events and Bon texts in Chos works of earlier times. 

At least to some degree such evidence can count as outside verification.  Some of these mentions have already been located in datable early Kagyü literature from the pre-Mongol era (especially in the last half of 12th century, since that’s when the majority of those more reliably dated texts start becoming available for our consideration). One example is when Zhang Yudragpa tells us in a matter-of-fact way that he was presented with a copy of the Eight Elements (Khams-brgyad) scripture of Bon.* This is the kind of material we can use against the Bon minimalizers, not that by themselves such bits will be enough.

(*Martin's book, p. 123. The Tibetan passage, as found in an unpublished manuscript of his works known as “Samdo A,” vol. 1 (KHA), fol. 90: bon po cig gis khams chen phul, “A Bonpo offered him a Great Eight Elements scripture.”  The Great Eight Elements ought to be the one in 16 volumes. From around the same era, there are a lot of Bon references in the works of Drigung Jigten Gönpo, regarded as the founder of the Drigung Kagyü school. He was born as a Bönpo after all. In past blogs, like this one, we’ve sometimes mentioned Padampa’s late 11th-century teaching exchanges with the Bon teacher Trotsang Druglha. The list could go on, so if you want to pursue this matter see the book by Phun-tshogs-nyi-ma listed below.)

So it was partly with this aim in mind that I was intrigued to find this passage telling us what Bon texts the famous Tertön Guru Chöwang studied as a child, as that would appear to date the list to around 1217. This would tell us with some degree of assurance that the texts and teachings there mentioned have to date prior to 1217. 

Janet Gyatso over 30 years ago wrote a breathtakingly pathbreaking work about Terma/Treasure revelations, a study of Guru Chöwang’s treatise on the subject.  Search it down and have a look.

My source of the Tibetan text and my text edition with some variant readings may be seen at the end of this blog entry in the Appendix One, but here is my translation, in two parts, each part followed by my attempts to identify persons, places and texts:

“When he was in his sixth year, in the presence of the Pha-jo, he studied the following: orally transmitted texts subsumed under the nine root mdo of Shen Priests’ Phenomenal World Vehicle scriptures together with terma treasures from Red Rock Having Leather Egg* and still others adding up to ten divine Bon sets. He knew all the minor chapters of the (?) Bon scriptures he took up,* while his practical application of them was very strong.”

(*The Hardened Leather Case refers to an evidently globe-shaped casket with leather casing that would have contained a set of texts.)

“Now for the tantras of Bon that he learned:  He once stated that he did not know the Bon-gsal Kun-’dul apart from just the great sādhana (sgrub-chen).  As for the Mind Section of Bon, these included the Bon Lung Drug Ti-’dab Rgyas-pa, the Sems Sngon Sde Bcu,**  the Thugs-brnag Nyer-gcig, the Bon ’Khor-ba Dong-sprugs, the G.yung-drung ’Bum-khri, and the Man-ngag Kun-btus.”

(*I follow P here, although it seems to supply an example of what philologists call ‘eye skip,’ and I’m not any more sure about its meaning.  **I.e., the Sems don sde bcu teaching. See the Yang-rtse Klong-chen history, pp. 44.8, 45.1.  Actually, the Dzogchen texts mentioned here belong to treasure texts of Bzhod-ston Dngos-grub-grags-'bar, as part of the “proclamation to the humans” section of the Three Proclamation Cycles (Sgrags-pa Skor Gsum), their discovery conventionally dated to 1088 CE. In the Brgyud-rim text we find this: lung la / rdzogs chen sems don sde bcu le'u bcu / man ngag la / thugs kyi brnags pa skor gsum. The main tantra of the “proclamation to the gods” section is the Golden Tortoise studied by S. Karmay along with the Twelve Small Tantras studied in D. Rossi’s book. [Note April 23, 2024: See now the comment by Jean-Luc Achard, below.]  See the listing that includes all these texts in Per Kvaerne’s canon catalogue, no. K111.)

 

Two small yet significant points: Here is evidence that one of the greatest of the early Nyingma Tertöns studied Bon texts as a child, even practiced some of the more shamanic teachings and had some success at it.  He did have acquaintance with one tantra text of Bon, but the greater part of what he studied were Mind Class, and that means Dzogchen. Since he would have received these teachings in around the year 1217, we can say that the Bon texts mentioned should have been available before that time.

By taking the evidence from the Matho fragments as well as this list of teachings given to Guru Chöwang we have a basic list of Dzogchen scriptures that were assuredly extant in the pre-Mongol period. Not that there were not others, I’m sure there were, but these texts deserve a special emphasis in our future research on the history of Nyingma and Bon developments in the field of Terma and Dzogchen both. Because sad to say there are many doubters out there who require greater clarity before they will be convinced.

But when we place our two in varying degrees reliable sources on pre-Mongol era Terma teachings side-by-side, we see the two of them are pointing at two different bodies of texts. The Matho evidence points to Nyingma/Bon Termas from the mid-11th century while the Guru Chöwang evidence points to a Bonpo Tertön active in 1088 by the name of Gzhod-ston Dngos-grub-grags-'bar. Interesting to see, the latter is indeed one of those Tertöns shared between Bon and Chos. He is often identified with a shadowy figure involved in the Terma origins of the Mani Kambum collection in association with Nyangral, the somewhat earlier Nyingma Tertön Guru Chöwang is so often paired with.  Gzhod-ston may be identical to the one usually remembered in Nyingma sources as “Grub-thob Dngos-grub.” This very possible identification was discussed 40 years ago in an essay by Madame Blondeau.

So, anyway, I’ll spare a final word or two in an attempt to drive in my point before saying a friendly farewell for now. The 1217 dating of Guru Chöwang's Bon library fits fiendishly well with my diabolical plan to split Tibetan history in half with the dividing point right there in the vicinity of 1200. By standing sure-footedly above that gap with a set of well verified or verifiable coordinates, with datable texts from before and the possibility of comparing and contrasting what they say with what comes after, we could hope to achieve enhanced historical clarity all around. And yes, that includes chronology.

•   •   •

Biblio Refs

Michael Aris, Bhutan: The Early History of a Himalayan Kingdom, Vikas Publishing House (Ghaziabad 1980). On p. 6, you may learn that Rtsis-lung (var. Rtse-lung) Temple is nowadays called Dkon-mchog-gsum. See also pp. 7, 33-37, 39, 54-55.  It was site of a bell with inscription and remains of a pillar from Imperial Era Tibet. Of course if this is easier for you there is an entry with less information at Wikipedia. The temple by this name that you can see today is entirely rebuilt, although presumably some of its ancient artefacts are still there.

Anne Marie Blondeau, “Le ‘Découvrer’ du Mani Bka' 'bum était il Bon po?” contained in: Louis Ligeti, ed., Tibetan and Buddhist Studies Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Alexander Csoma de Koros, Akadémiai Kiadó (Budapest 1984), in 2 vols., vol. 1, pp. 77-123, at p. 83 & ff.

James Gentry, “Why Did the Cannibal King Fly? Tantric Transformations of an Indian Narrative in Tibet,” Revue d'Etudes Tibétaines, no. 64 (July 2022), pp. 84-135, particularly pp. 100-102, on Guru Chöwang.

Janet Gyatso, “Guru Chos-dbang’s Gter ’byung chen mo: An Early Survey of the Treasure Tradition and Its Strategies in Discussing Bon Treasure,” contained in: Per Kværne, ed., Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 6th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Fagernes 1992, The Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture (Oslo 1994), pp. 275-287. This well researched and much too seldom cited article is essential reading on the subject of Guru Chöwang's connections with Bon, based on a different text. The passage on his Bon studies at age 6 is mentioned, without going into it, at footnote 34 on p. 286, usefully telling us where it can be located in the published version of his Autobiography at vol. 1, pp. 44-45, but this must be a typo, it’s actually on pp. 14-15. It is the proximate source of our ebook version, so its readings ought to be entirely identical.

Gzhod-ston Dngos-grub-grags-’bar, Tertön, Rdzogs-chen Bsgrags-pa Skor Gsum — Rdzogs-pa Chen-po Zab Lam Gnad-kyi Gdams-pa Bsgrags-pa Skor Gsum Ma Bu Cha-lag dang bcas-pa, “collection of Bonpo Rdzogs-chen teachings rediscovered by Gzhod-ston Dngos-grub-grags-’bar from a Vairocana image at Lho-brag Mkho-mthing, reproduced from a manuscript from Bsam-gling Monastery in Dolpo,” Patsang Lama Sonam Gyaltsen, TBMC (Dolanji 1973).  BDRC Work RID: W8LS67596.

Toni Huber, Source of Life: Revitalisation Rites and Bon Shamans in Bhutan and the Eastern Himalayas, Austrian Academy of Sciences (Vienna 2020), in 2 vols. This may be the most important Tibetan Studies book to appear so far in print during this century. If you don’t understand why I can say that, it’s because you haven’t read enough of it yet.

Jamgön Kongtrül Lodrö Taye, The Hundred Tertons, tr. by Yeshe Gyamtso, KTD Publications (Woodstock NY 2011). At pp. 101-106 is a sketch of Guru Chöwang’s life. It makes no mention of his childhood Bon studies, even if it does emphasize that he studied a broad range of traditions. Notice that among his 18 treasure recoveries, one took place at Bumthang in what would become Bhutan. Bumthang Tsilung Temple was a site for Nyingma Termas beginning around the mid-11th century. See the passages in the Aris book, listed above.

Per Kvaerne, “The Canon of the Tibetan Bonpos,” Indo-Iranian Journal, vol. 16 (1974), pp. 18-56, 96-144. No. K111 is the entry that most concerns us right now.

Jacob Leschly, “Guru Chowang,” Treasury of Lives website.

Dan Martin, Unearthing Bon Treasures: Life and Contested Legacy of a Tibetan Scripture Revealer, Brill (Leiden 2001).

Dol-po Dge-bshes Phun-tshogs-nyi-ma (Menri Geshe from Dolpo), Bon dang ’Brel-lam Byung-ba’i Bod-kyi Chos-brgyud Khag-gi Skyes-chen Gleng-ba, Nor-bu Ghar-phig-si Dpe-skrun-khang (Sarnath 2016), in 191 pages.

Subject of a blog page dated to April 2016 (http://theyungdrungbon.com/2016/04/ttt-3/), including a long table of contents, this remarkable book surveys Bon connections among the Chos teachers of various schools. Some of these Chos teachers had either Bon personal connections, or were even born into Bon families. It is especially important for showing that relations were not always as antagonistic as we tend to assume. There is even a section about Guru Chöwang on pp. 47-49. He quotes a rather recent work by Jigme Lingpa telling us how he had studied various topics: “Bon gyi gzhung chen bdun cu don lnga / mdos gzhung chen po brgya phrag / gsang sngags phyi nang gi thig rtsa mang po / phur pa'i skor pod chen bzhi la sogs pa thos pa mang po mdzad.” I need to look into what the 75 Great Textbooks of Bon might be, but the other items in this list are not explicitly marked as Bon, and probably are not. He quotes some even later summaries of the same information in Tertön histories. But then he also quotes our same passage from Guru Chöwang’s biography, with a few significantly different readings (introduced in footnotes to my text with the siglum “P” in the Appendix One below).

Donatella Rossi, “The Don Gsum (Three Teachings) of Lady Co za Bon mo, a Bon po Gter ma from the G. Tucci Tibetan Fund,” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, no. 51 (July 2019), pp. 301-322. The Dzogchen text that is the subject of this and her other essay listed just below is among the rediscoveries of Bzhod-ston Dngos-grub-grags-pa.

———, The Philosophical View of the Great Perfection in the Tibetan Bon Religion, Snow Lion (Ithaca 1999). This includes text editions and translations of two Dzogchen texts: [1] a Rgyud Bu-chung Bcu-gnyis and [2] a terma of Bzhod-ston entitled “TheView which is Like the Lion’s Roar.”

———, “The Three Teachings (Don gsum) of Lady Co za Bon mo: A Bon po gter ma from the Giuseppe Tucci Tibetan Fund,” contained in: Elena de Rossi Filibeck et al., eds., Studies in Honour of Luciano Petech, a Commemoration Volume, 1914-2014, Fabrizio Serra Editore (Pisa 2016), pp. 155-164.

Appendix One

Gu-ru Chos-kyi-dbang-phyug, Gter-ston (1212-1270), Gu-ru Chos-dbang-gi Sku'i Rnam-thar Skyabs-brgyad-pa, as contained in: Idem., Rang-rnam dang Zhal-gdams, ed. by Gdung-sras Bla-ma Padma-tshe-dbang, Tsum Library / Btsum Dpe-mdzod-khang (Tshum, Nepal 2022), vol. 1, pp. 14-57, at p. 23 (of 306). A freely downloadable ebook, in 3 vols., given the title “NangNam.”

དགུང་ལོ་དྲུག་ལོན་པའི་ཚེ་ན། ཕ་ཇོ་ལ་གནང་གཤེན་གྱི་བོན་རྩ་མདོ་དགུས་བསྡུས་པའི་བཀའ་མ་དང་། བྲག་དམར་བསེ་སྒོང་ཅན་གྱིས་གཏེར་ལ་སོགས་པ་ལྷ་བོན་སྡེ་བཅུ། གཡང་བོན་མེ་དྲོན་ཀུན་མཁྱེན་ཅིང་ལག་ལེན་ཤིན་ཏུ་ཆེའོ།།

Differences in P (punctuation differences are not noted): གནང་གཤེན་ > P སྣང་གཤེན་.  ཅན་གྱིས་ > P ཅན་གྱི་.  The final part beginning with གཡང་བོན་... > P གཡང་བོན་སྡེ་བཅུ། ཡར་ལོན་བོན་ལེ་ཕྲན་ཀུན་མཁྱེན་ཅིང་ལག་ལེན་ཤིན་ཏུ་ཚའོ། ། A གཡང་བོན་སྡེ་བཅུ། ལར་བོན་ལེ་ཕྲན་ཀུན་མཁྱེན་ཅིང་ལག་ལེན་ཤིན་ཏུ་ཚའོ།  

བོན་གྱི་སྔགས་ལ། བོན་གསལ་ཀུན་འདུལ་གྱི་སྒྲུབ་ཆེན་ཙམ་གཅིག་ལས་མི་ཤེས་གསུངས། བོན་སེམས་ཕྱོགས་ལ། བོན་ལུང་དྲུག་ཏི་འདབ་རྒྱས་པ། སེམས་སྡོན་སྡེ་བཅུ། ཐུགས་ནག་ཉེར་གཅིག །བོན་འཁོར་དོང་སྤྲུགས། གཡུ་དྲུང་འབུམ་ཁྲི། མན་ངག་ཀུན་བཏུས་ལ་སོགས་མཁྱེན་ནོ། །ཆོས་ཀྱི་ཀྲི་ཡ་སྤུངས་བཟང་གི་རྒྱུད་ཀྱི་བཀར་བཅས་པ་ཚར་གཅིག་གསན།

བོན་གསལ་ > A བོན་གསས་  སྒྲུབ་ > P གྲུབ་.  བོན་ལུང་དྲུག་ཏི་འདབ་རྒྱས་པ། > P བོན་རླུང་ཏི་འབར་བ་བཅས་པ། A བོན་ལུང་དྲུག་ཏི་བར་བཅས་པ། [?]  སྔོན་ > AP དོན་.  ཐུགས་ནག་ > [I read:] ཐུགས་བརྣག་.  ཉེར་གཅིག > P ཉེར་ལྔ།.  འཁོར་ > P འཁོར་བ་.  གཡུ་དྲུང་ > P གཡུང་དྲུང་.  བཏུས་ > AP འདུས་.  P omitted the final sentence, as it is about a Chos scripture the Subāhu-paripṛcchā (Dpung-bzang, not Spungs-bzang), not Bon.  གི་རྒྱུད་ཀྱི་བཀར་ > A ཀྱིས་རྒྱུད་ཏི་དཀར་.

The first set of teachings he received from Pha-jo were from one of the Causal Vehicles of Bon, the Vehicle of the Priests of the Phenomenal World (Snang-gshen Theg-pa).  It includes a group of Kama teachings summarized in Nine Root Scriptures (Bon Rtsa Mdo Dgu). The second set of teachings were derived from Terma findings from the treasure site in Brag-dmar called Bse-sgong-can (“Having a Hardened Leather Egg’).  These are characterized as Ten Sets of Divine Bon Texts (Lha Bon Sde Bcu). The third set is rather obscure, and so there are variant readings, but I believe we have to understanding it as saying that he had entirely mastered and very much put into practice G.yang Bon texts in ten minor chapters (le phran).

Now for the tantras of Bon that he learned:  He once stated that he did not know the Bon-gsal Kun-'dul apart from just the Great Sâdhana (Sgrub-chen).  As for the Mind Section of Bon, these included the Bon Lung Drug Ti-’dab Rgyas-pa, the Sems Sngon Sde Bcu, the Thugs-brnag Nyer-gcig, the Bon 'Khor-ba Dong-sprugs, the G.yung-drung ’Bum-khri, and the Man-ngag Kun-btus.

Appendix Two

Source:  Sku gsum ston pa'i gsung rab bka' 'gyur rin po che'i lung rgyun ji snyed pa phyogs gcig tu bsdus pa'i bzhugs byang brgyud rim bcas pa dri med shel gyi phreng ba, a 1929 work by Gsang-sngags-gling-pa (for more on it, see the Oslo Bon Kanjur catalog) —

bla ma bzhod ston dngos grub grags 'bar gyis / lho brag khom mthing rnam snang sku rgyab nas dngos grub tu rnyed pa'i / RDZOGS CHEN SGRAGS PA SKOR GSUM GYI BKA' STENG LHA YUL DU SGRAGS PA'I BKA' la /

[347] rgyud lung man ngag gsum ste / rgyud rgyal gser gyi rus sbal le'u sum cu pa dang / yan lag tu rgyud chung bcu gnyis zhes pa le'u bcu gnyis pa / lung la'ang rtsa ba lung nyi ma dgu skor le'u dgu pa / yan lag la lung drug ste rtsa bral nyag gcig dgongs pa'i lung / kun bral nyag gcig ci ma spang pa'i lung / man ngag thams cad 'dus pa'i lung / sun 'byin rdzogs chen gsang ba'i lung / rang byung nyag gcig sems kyi lung / la zla rdzogs pa chen po'i lung dang le'u drug / man ngag la / man ngag brgyad pa zhes pa le'u brgyad / ston pa ye gshen gtsug phud kyi stong thun / BAR MI YUL DU SGRAGS PA'I BKA' la rgyud lung man ngag gsum ste / rgyud la [ ] g.yung drung

 

[348] gsang ba'i dbang rgyud / ba ga mngon rdzogs kyi rgyud / phun sum tshogs pa'i rgyud / gol sgrib rnam par phye ba'i rgyud / thams cad ma lus rdzogs pa'i rgyud / rtsa ba gcig la rnam pa bgrang ba'i rgyud dang drug go // lung la / rdzogs chen sems don sde bcu le'u bcu / man ngag la / thugs kyi brnags pa skor gsum / 'og klu yul du sgrags pa'i bka' la / rgyud lung man ngag gsum ste / rgyud dmar byang le'u bcu pa / lung seng ge'i sgra bsgrags / man ngag 'khor ba dong sprug le'u bcu dgu pa / de'i yan lag / man ngag lung gi tshad ma [illeg. mchan] lta ba la shan sgron ma sogs bzhugs pa'i rim ni / bon sku kun tu bzang po'i thugs nyid rnam par dag pa'i / longs sku gshen lha 'od dkar gyi thugs la go /

[349] longs sku'i thugs nyid sprul sku ye gshen gtsug phud kyi thugs la gsal / sprul sku'i thugs la gsal ba de / lha klu mi gsum gyi snyan la bsgrags / de la sgrogs lugs gsum du gyes pa yin te / lha bon yongs su dag pas mang la 'brel pa'i bon rin po che'i byang bur rin po ches bris te / steng lha yul du spyan drangs nas bstan pa dar zhing rgyas par mdzad / klu grub ye shes snying pos nyung la 'dus pa'i bon dar dkar la g.yu yis bris te 'og klu yul du spyan drangs nas bstan pa dar zhing rgyas par mdzad / rgyal gshen mi lus bsam legs kyis dran la 'tshoms pa'i shog gur ke ru la snag tshas bris te / bar mi yul du spyan drangs nas bstan pa dar zhing rgyas

[350] par mdzad / STENG LHA YUL DU SGRAGS PA'I SKOR ni yongs su dag pas slob dpon bla ma bzhi yi snyan du sgrags te / 'od zer dpag med / mun pa kun gsal / 'phrul gshen snang ldan / gsang ba 'dus pa dang bzhi'o / de nas mkhas pa mi bzhis spyod de / stong rgyung mthu chen / gyim tsha rma chung / lce tsha mkhar bu / sha ri dbu chen dang bzhi'o / de nas mkhas pa nyi shu la brgyud de / khyung po stag sgra dun tsug / snya li shu stag ring / bhe shod tram / gu ru btsan po / phu li gru 'dzin / sde gyim thar tha bo / bum pa mu phya / 'gang po dug 'dul / stag sgra ge shag / ba gor dod de / ljang tsha 'phan snang / gnub gnyer bzhi btsan / ga ra mon pa / lha gnyer mtshams pa / sku gyim thang

[351] rma bo / gshen dran pa nam mkha' / bla chen blon gsas chen / dbal khri zung lod / mkha' 'gro co za bon mo / 'gos khri srong rgyal po dang nyi shu'o // de nas gter bdag bya ra ma gsum gyis / bla ma bzhod ston dngos grub la lung gnang ngo / 

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Update (April 23, 2024)

I moved Jean-Luc’s comment out of the comment section to give it more prominence. I hope other people won’t make the same mistake I did.

Jean-Luc AchardTuesday, April 23, 2024

Dear Dan, The rGyud bu chung bcu gnyis that Donatella translated is from the Zhang zhung snyan rgyud. The one that is referred to here is from the bsGrags pa skor gsum. These are two different texts, although they share the same title.