Tsering Gyalbo, Guntram Hazod & Per K. Sørensen, Civilization at the Foot of Mount Shampo: The Royal House of lHa Bug-pa-can and the History of g.Ya’-bzang, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Wien 2000), Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse Denkschriften, 290. Band; Beiträge zur Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte Asiens, Nr. 36.
Review in Acta Orientalia (Copenhagen). vol. 63 (2002), pp. 313-316. This was written before the advent of googlebook indexing, as you are bound to notice.
For the review in the form of a PDF supplied by Dropbox, click on this link. (Dropbox link has been dropped, unfortunately, July 2014).
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Tsering Gyalbo, Guntram Hazod & Per K. Sørensen, Civilization at the Foot of Mount Shampo: The Royal House of lHa Bug-pa-can and the History of g.Ya’-bzang, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften & Tibetan Academy of Social Sciences (Wien 2000), Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse Denkschriften, 290. Band; Beiträge zur Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte Asiens, Nr. 36.
Dan Martin, Jerusalem
I have often heard it said that real scholars do not need translations. If so, for this book we must make an exception. Scholars, whatever their precise location on the scale of relative reality, do need this book, if not so much for the translations as for the introduction, informative footnotes, maps, photographs and valuable appendices. Last, but most of all, they need the texts themselves, which are supplied both in transcription (given that the manuscripts are of the cursive kind with short-hand abbreviations, the transcriptions are necessary to many otherwise well accomplished Tibetologists) and in facsimiles of the original manuscripts. If it were not for this publication, these precious historical works would not even be available. Indeed, we would be in the dark about their very existence. And of course, scholars both real and unreal will need it for its indices. The indices alone place this book within that narrow — and all-too-slowly growing — class of Tibetological publications that have true and permanent reference value.
The immediate reaction of some potential readers will be, ‘Well, who ever heard of the G.ya’-bzang Bka’-brgyud-pa? Aren’t they the followers of an unimaginably obscure and unheard of subsect, perhaps even insignificant?’ In the first place, it may well be that, quite to the contrary, in their early centuries, the G.ya’-bzang-pa were relatively numerous and influential. In the second place, they are not entirely unheard of in previous Tibetological writings, and we can even point to two mid-20th century publications that say something about them. In the third place, the importance of the G.ya’-bzang-pa and the significance of this study of their local establishments in the upper Yarlung Valley lies precisely in their local character and specificity. By looking closely at this ‘local power’, we may better understand the systems of allegiance and historical power shiftings that will help us grasp the realities of the social and political conditions of which they formed a part. In other words, focusing on the smaller picture may be the only way to achieve broader understandings of the historical macro-realities. In fact, this work makes a bold attempt to understand how royalist power in post-dynastic Tibet was instated, reinstated and sustained, how its territory was marked off. This was going on sometimes together with and sometimes at variance with the emerging sectarian hegemonies which, as time would prove, eventually came out far ahead of the royalists (without the former ever entirely doing away with the latter, even up into the 1950’s when both were displaced by the PLA and the CCP). This book attempts, with admirable success, to link the local developments at the foot of Mt. Shampo with the historical conditions of Tibet as a whole from the 12th through 15th centuries.
The G.ya’-bzang-pa, as a subschool of the Bka’-brgyud-pa, was distinguished by its own blend of Mahâmudrâ and Avalokiteßvara practices of the Dpal-mo tradition (both from G.ya’-bzang Chos-rje’s teacher Zwa-ra-ba Skal-ldan-ye-shes-seng-ge), the So tradition[1] of the Zhi-byed (from Skal-ldan-byang-chub-ye-shes), Gcod teachings (from Kham-bu Ya-le), and still other, mainly Bka’-brgyud-pa, but also Rnying-ma-pa, influences (pp. 16-20, 72 et passim).
The degree of influence of the early G.ya’-bzang-pa might be argued on the basis of an account of a gathering that occurred rather late in the life of the founder, G.ya’-bzang Chos-rje Chos-kyi-smon-lam (1169-1233). According to this, the gathering, a kind of regional monastic conference, included three hundred and fifty white and black tents, 15,000 monks, 300 monastic ordination seekers, countless other people with their horses, and 21 groups — each consisting of one hundred retreatants — belonging to the G.ya’-bzang-pa (pp. 77-8). While I will grant that the number of monks may seem inflated, it is consistent with reports about other religious conferences of the early 13th century (which, of course, may also be inflated). That this conference was not restricted to purely religious matters is certain, since its one recorded result was the promulgation of Buddhist-inspired environmental protection laws in the surrounding area, which at the same time meant marking off the territory that would be ruled by the G.ya’-bzang-pa for some time.
The former prosperity of the G.ya’-bzang-pa and their myriarchy, along with that of the Tshal-pa Bka’-brgyud-pa and their myriarchy, suffered a terrible blow in about 1352-3 when they were decisively defeated and came under the control of the Phag-mo-gru-pa leaders (see Luciano Petech, Central Tibet & the Mongols, pp. 109, 116 et passim). This did not immediately bring the G.ya’-bzang-pa or the Tshal-pa to an end as religious schools, but it did radically reduce their territorial and economic bases, and this must be what slowly but surely, over the next few centuries, undermined their religious influence as well. In any case, it is surely a problem and an imperative for historians to recognize that the balance of sectarian influence and power has undergone serious and sometimes rather sudden shifts over time, and we simply must restore a sense of proportional weight to the sects that were most influential during the 11th through 13th centuries (rather than projecting current assumptions about sectarian ‘differences’ back on the past, as is so often done by those historically naive who still cling to the belief Tibetan society was totally conservative or basically unchanging, or who still crudely and vaguely believe that Tibet had two ‘Lamaist’ sects who differed mainly in their fashion preferences: the ‘Red Hats’ and ‘Yellow Hats’). If a sect has undergone an historical eclipse, it makes it all the more important to recognize that before that time they had something of such importance that it could undergo an eclipse. (In the same breath, I would add that it seems that no sect or religious movement in Tibet ever experienced a total eclipse; I have seen evidence and heard reports that some of the earlier and more obscure Bka’-brgyud lineages, the G.ya’-bzang-pa, the Tshal-pa and especially the ’Ba’-rom-pa, while now quite rare, nevertheless are still in existence.)
The G.ya’-bzang-pa have not been entirely neglected in older, non-Tibetan-language Tibetological literature. There were brief mentions in Giuseppe Tucci’s 1949 Tibetan Painted Scrolls (at pp. 21, 23, 629, 636 ff., 645, 652 ff.), and another in an unfortunately widely neglected article by Matthias Hermanns (‘Tibetan Lamaism up to the Time of the Reform by Tzoṅ kha pa,’ The Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, n.s. vol. 5, no. 2 [1951], pp. 7-36 at p. 27), which states: “gYa bzaṅ chos rje, the disciple of sKal ldan ye shes seṅ ge, with his monks forms the gYas braṅ bka brgyud. Today we find only the temple and a Lha mo picture at the place of his residence.” It is worth noting that Hermanns’ article compares quite favorably with an even more neglected publication of similar character by Turrell V. Wylie (‘Sectarianism in Tibetan Buddhism,’ Bulletin, Field Museum of Natural History, vol. 38, no. 12 [December 1967], pp. 7, 12-13), in which we find the minimally enlightening statement, “Several sub-sects developed within the Bka’-brgyud-pa school: the most influential of which is the Karma-pa.” The works by Hermanns and Tucci, despite the brevity of their references, do at least persuade us that the G.ya’-bzang-pa were not entirely unknown in the past (and of course, we should not ignore further mentions in the works of Luciano Petech, and still others, particularly the unsigned English-language prefaces to Tibetan works penned by E. Gene Smith as well as the English translation by Dge-’dun-chos-’phel of the Blue Annals), but their evidence finally fails to persuade us that there was information of any great significance before the present book made its appearance.
There are a number of highlights and surprises in this book. Not least, the existence among the microfilms made by the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project of an important early ‘treasure’ (gter-ma) text of historical nature, the Bka’-chems Mtho-mthing-ma, is signalled. There is a discussion about the set of ancient and mysterious metal things called can-dgu — jewelry, swords and vessels, some decorated with ivory, coral and turquoise — that were passed along as ‘power objects’ and heirlooms in the Tibetan royal lines. Their possession was deemed important enough to justify squabbles and conflicts between the ever increasing splinter-dynasties. There is a discussion about one of the G.ya’-bzang specialties, the invocation of the eclipse as a kind of planetary protective spirit. There is something about the hotly disputed birthdate of the Emperor Srong-btsan-sgam-po, about the complicated history of the royal lines that descended from Yum-brtan, and much much more.
While it’s true that few ordinary book readers will automatically find themselves held in thrall of transliterations and heavily footnoted translations littered with square brackets and parentheses, still, those devoted to Tibetan studies will be grateful for the accuracy and explanations these provide. For the devotees this book is highly recommended, while for more advanced students, professional Tibetologists and research libraries, this book ought to be considered an acquisition of the highest order of priority.
[1] The So-lugs was initiated with teachings given to Yar-lungs-pa So-chung-ba Dge-’dun-’bar during Pha-dam-pa’s second teaching visit to Tibet sometime in the last half of the 11th century. It was also during this same visit that Pha-dam-pa is said to have initiated the Gcod teachings, which were then passed on to Ma-cig Lab-sgron (via Bsod-nams-bla-ma). Kham-bu Ya-le received the Gcod teachings from Ma-cig Lab-sgron’s son Rgyal-ba-don-grub.