Review of Christoph Baumer, Tibet’s Ancient Religion Bön, Orchid Press (Bangkok 2002). Contained in Circle of Inner Asian Art Newsletter (SOAS, London), vol. 17 (2003), pp. 91-94.
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Tibet's Ancient Religion Bön
by Christoph Baumer, Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2002 (printed and bound in Austria). English translation by Michael Kohn, from a revised version of the German, Bön. Die lebendige Ur-Religion Tibets, Graz: ADEVA, Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1999. Pp. 200, color illustrations on nearly every page, maps, chronological table, bibliography, three indices.
ISBN 0-8348-0517-0 (North America)
ISBN 974-524-011-7 (Asia & Europe)
This book would be a worthwhile acquisition for any library or personal study because of its extraordinary pictorial documentation alone. Anyone who enjoys leafing through National Geographic will love it. Most of the photographs were taken by the author — in Tibet, mainly, but also in Yunnan, India and Nepal — and demonstrate a considerable talent. Not just for decoration, they have clear connections to the neighboring prose 99 percent of the time. Panoramas of vast uninhabited landscapes alternate regularly with photos of humans and their cultural productions. This pictorial presentation nicely matches the author's approach to Tibetan folk religion as the response of humble humans threatened by an overpowering natural environment. In contrast to many books and articles written about Bon in recent decades, which have tended to stress Bon's relationship (or non-relationship) with Indian-derived Buddhism, Bon scriptures, and Bonpo monks, Christoph Baumer goes to the local folk and folk-priests — mediums, shamans, weathermakers — and draws a picture of Bon as (truly, or historically, or at base) animistic and shamanistic. To the usual Indocentrism, the author offers an opposing position: What is interesting about Tibet is primarily what is truly native to it, secondarily connections with its southeastern (Nanchao, Yunnan) and northern (Silk Route) neighbours. This could surely be a refreshing perspective, from some perspectives.
In overviews of this type, generalizations (like those I've just made), while serving the useful function of reducing complexities, are likely to result in occasional oversimplifications, distortions and misrepresentations. I haven't the patience to go into these sorts of problems here. Instead, I will just point out a few more or less isolated but weighty statements that beg to be challenged or corrected.
A sensationalist emphasis on blood sacrifices keeps surfacing throughout the book. Sacrifices of chickens and goats by northern Nepalese Tibetan ethnic groups may be seen today in various parts of Nepal, and I think few would find reason to argue that these never occur. But reading the label to the picture on p. 45, "Animal sacrifices are still made today, even by Buddhist communities; Gelug monastery Riwo Dechen, near Chongye, central Tibet," and then observing the sheep's head in the picture standing next to a neatly stacked tower of kabtse — deep-fried Tibetan 'pretzels' in a marvellous variety of shapes — tells me that this is just a rather normal altar setup for Tibetan New Year (for a written source on this, see for example Tawa & Tashi Topgyal, The Lifestyle of Nomads, Tibet Journal, vol. 23, no. 3 [Autumn 1998], pp. 34-49, at p. 47). The decorated tower of kabtse (kha-zas) called sder-kha is as important to Tibetan New Year as the Christmas tree to Christmas. The sheep's head in my own experience has always been one made of porcelain, not a real one like in the picture, although I've heard it said that sometimes a sheep's skull is used. But until I am shown an unretouched video of the Dge-lugs-pa monks ritually sacrificing this sheep, I will feel certain that the presence of its severed head in the picture demonstrates that they were able to procure one from their all too un-priestly neighborhood butcher. Not every ritual use of animals, animal products, or animal figurines necessarily implicates ritual sacrifice, or even a 'survival' of the same, as the author often glibly implies.
"New Bon... starting in the nineteenth century, spread in the eastern provinces of Kham and Amdo following the teachings of Sangye Lingpa (1340-1396) and adopted many elements from the Buddhist Nyingma school" (p. 28). Clearly something is wrong with the chronology of this passage. Certainly New Bon received its main impetus in the 18th, if not already in the 17th century (I believe Mi-shig-rdo-rje, b. 1650, was its true originator). The author has mistakenly given us dates for the Rnying-ma-pa treasure teacher (gter-ston) Sangs-rgyas-gling-pa (whose actual dates might still have to be moved back 60 years), when without a shadow of doubt he intended the New Bon gter-ston Sangs-rgyas-gling-pa, who lived from 1705-1735 (also known as Byang-chub-rdo-rje-rtsal).
On p. 146: "... could it have been here that the mythical capital of Shangshung, Ngülkhar, the legendary 'Silver Castle' in which Tönpa Shenrab was born, was located?" Lord Shenrab was not born in a silver castle in any legend known to me. He was born in Bar-po-so-brgyad, the capital of 'Ol-mo-lung-ring (and not of Zhang-zhung) in Tazik (Stag-gzig). His one-volume biography called the Mdo-'dus does, however, have Lord Shenrab visiting Khyung-lung Dngul-mkhar (Garuḍa Valley Silver Castle), near Mount Ti-se (Kailash), on his way home to Tazik following his visit to Kong-po. It was there, in 'Silver Castle,' that his recently wedded wife Rkong-za, the daughter of the Lord of Kong-po, gave birth to their son Gshen-bu Rkong-tsha.
The wallpainting photographed on p. 84 is labelled: "Sacred diu puzzles with an astrological function are found in temples of Bön as well as Buddhism: Gelug monastery of Tashi Lhunpo." The "diu" represents lde'u, which means 'riddle' or 'enigma' (see p. 83). Simply reading the Tibetan-language title floating above the checker-board pattern (with one syllable in each square) proves something altogether different. It says it is a kun-'khor (short for kun-tu 'khor-ba, 'turning everywhere,' although Tibetans call it kun-bzang-'khor-lo, 'wheel good every which way'). This special form of concrete (or acrostic) poetry, often seen on the porches of Tibetan temples, was directly inspired by the third chapter of Daṇḍin's Kāvyadārśa (the only work of Indian kāvya poetic theory that was translated into Tibetan). The lines at the bottom explain how it should be read — from the upper left corner to the lower right, and from the upper right corner to the lower left, then from left to right one line at a time. The subject of the praise is the 10th (or the 7th if you prefer) Panchen Lama (1938-1989), whose name can be found by reading diagonally from the upper corner on your left to the lower corner on your right: "Blo-bzang-'phrin-las-lhun-grub-chos-kyi-rgyal-mtshan." There is nothing even remotely astrological about it. It is a poem of praise to the late Panchen Lama and to Bkra-shis-lhun-po Monastery.
I must express my disappointment with the author's decision to use only phonetic representations of proper names. Doing so, far too often, makes them impossible for even the most seasoned Tibetologists to recognize (there are some who compromise by giving correct spellings in parentheses or in the index entries). For example, who would guess that the phonetic name of a Bon monastery, "Ü Wün" (p. 67), would be the same as the properly spelled G.yu-bun ('Turquoise Mist')? Well, I suppose I did, but it surely wasn't easy. Similarly, "Tobden" (on p. 147) is Rtogs-ldan Monastery, not Thob-ldan as one would expect from the phonetic rendering. "Palha Puk" looks like Pha-lha Phug (Pha-lha being the wellknown aristocratic family), when instead it has to be Spa La-phug (Spa is the name of one of the six most important Bon clans, while La-phug is a placename, meaning 'radish').
Tibetan art historians will be most excited by the photos of early southern Tibetan mural paintings from Sras-mkhar Dgu-thog (of the Bka'-brgyud-pa school) and the Bon temple of Spa La-phug (also known as La-phug Bde-chen-sgang), with proposed datings to the 13th and 15th centuries respectively (see pp. 128-9, 139). Given the La-phug paintings' importance for Bon art history, also stressed in Baumer's journal article on the subject in Oriental Art, it may be worthwhile to give a rough translation of Dpal-tshul's entry on La-phug in his survey of Bon monasteries (G.yung-drung Bon-gyi Bstan-'byung, Tibetan Bonpo Monastic Centre [1972 Dolanji], vol. 2, pp. 605-6):
"After that, the greater headquarters [of the Spa family], La-phug Bde-chen-sgang, in southern La-stod, seems to have been founded more or less in the time of Spa-ston Rgyal-ba-shes-rab [direct disciple of Khyung-rgod-rtsal whose birth took place in 1175], in about the fourth rab-byung [i.e., 1207-1266]. Some say instead that it was founded by Dpal-ldan-bzang-po [two generations later]. An assembly of teaching and meditative accomplishment — for teaching, learning, meditation and practice — was instituted and fluorished there. A succession of thirteen Spa family lamas with 'Good' (bzang-po) [in their names] appeared there, including [in chronological order] Bla-ma Spa Don-grub-'bum-bzang, Dpal-ldan-bzang-po, and Nyi-dpal-bzang-po, and the teachings spread and increased even more. In later times, the descendents of the Spa family reached a bottleneck (nyag phra), and that is why, even if the teachings continued, they became constricted. Still, even today the meditation practice community and the three receptacles (images, sacred books and chortens) remain as they were. [The following sentence, in smaller letters, may be an added note:] Here, there are many very holy inner receptacles, such as the mask portraying A-bse made by the hands of Stong-rgyung. It is claimed that this is the place of the pig-faced sky-goers, a substitute holy place for the site where the devas and asuras engaged in combat."
For more on La-phug, see Thondup Lhagyal's contribution in S. Karmay & Y. Nagano, eds., New Horizons in Bon Studies, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, 2000, p. 458. Lhagyal concludes that it is very difficult to point out who the founder was, or when it was founded (it seems to have been used as a retreat place for several generations before its foundation as a monastery). It was here that Spa-ston Bstan-rgyal-bzang-po composed his important histories of Bon and of the Zhang-zhung Oral Transmissions in the 1470's. La-phug's heyday lasted from the 13th through the end of the 15th century, when the main center of the Spa family lineages shifted first to Rgyal-mo-rong and finally, in the 19th century, to Ye-tha in Nag-chu-kha. This historical data could help confirm the 15th century dating for the paintings, proposed on grounds of stylistic comparison, although a date a century or two earlier might prove worthy of consideration.
At first I was intrigued and even somewhat excited when I opened up to the picture of a beautifully arranged Tibetan monastic library in Sigyal (Srid-rgyal) Monastery, the oldest existing monastery in the vicinity of the sacred mountain of Kong-po (page 159). The label says, "The library of Sigyal Monastery holds a complete edition of the Bön canon, comprising 406 volumes." Since only one Bon Kanjur collection is known to have survived intact, that of Dbal-khyung Monastery in Nyag-rong, and not even one Bon Tanjur (or Katen/Bka'-brten) collection (the Katen that has been reprinted recently in about 360 volumes is a new collation of texts gathered from here and there), this would be very good news. However, I slowly came to realize that the number 406 comes from totaling the number of 113 volumes in the Kanjur and 293 in the Katen. This number was derived (see the main text on p. 159), without acknowledgement, from Samten Karmay's article, A General Introduction to the History and Doctrines of Bon, Memoirs of the Research Department of the Tôyô Bunko, vol. 33 (1975), pp. 171-218, at p. 190. Even here, they are not in fact 'volumes', but the main titles that are being counted (Karmay took the numbers from Per Kvaerne's 1974 journal article listing of titles found in one particular canon catalogue, one among many, and every catalogue is unique in the numbers of titles and volumes it lists). Hence our illusion that the author actually counted 406 volumes of canonical works in this particular library simply dissolves, and we remain in the dark about which Tibetan books are in the picture (the thin red-covered binding-boards on some of them, including the one the monk is holding in his hands, suggest that they are recent reprints, not original manuscripts or xylographic prints).
If asked to recommend a good introductory reading on Bon, I would probably name this book as a general overview, with only minor reservations. Typographical errors are few (note the "Bönpo chronic" on p. 16), and an excellent job has been done with the layout of (mainly colour) illustrations and maps. There is a chronological table, a very long list of relevant publications (the majority of them not explicitly cited in the text), and, rather unfortunately, in my opinion, three separate indices, where one index would be enough, as is the fashion in German academia these days.
— Dan Martin