Review of Ngag dbang skal ldan rgya mtsho, Shel dkar chos ’byung: History of the ‘White Crystal’ — Religion and Politics of Southern La stod, translation and facsimile edition of the Tibetan text by Pasang Wangdu and Hildegard Diemberger, in cooperation with Guntram Hazod, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Vienna 1996). This was supposed to be published in Kailash (Kathmandu), but apparently it never appeared, and there have been no new issues of this journal for several years now.
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Ngag dbang skal ldan rgya mtsho, Shel dkar chos ’byung: History of the ‘White Crystal’ — Religion and Politics of Southern La stod, translation and facsimile edition of the Tibetan text by Pasang Wangdu and Hildegard Diemberger, in cooperation with Guntram Hazod, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, Denkschriften, 252. Band, and Academy of Social Sciences of the Autonomous Region Tibet, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, 1996.
Dan Martin
January 1998
This large-format paper-bound book has 175 pages (including introduction, translation, appendix, tables, bibliographies, indices, maps, and photographs), plus 59 pages (without page numbers apart from the original Tibetan folio numbers) of photographs of the original manuscript on which the English translation was based.
Every specialist in Tibetan studies should have a look at this publication, and if possible acquire it, for the following reasons. The first and in itself sufficient reason is the photographic reproduction of the Tibetan manuscript of a previously unavailable historical writing.[1] The particular manuscript was inscribed in 1929 in the traditional Tibetan manner, in order to replace two previous manuscripts that had become worn from frequent reading. The historical work itself was composed during the years 1731 and 1732. About the author very little is known (see p. 6 of the introduction), and I was unable to locate even a single word about him in any of the standard biographical reference works at my disposal. (He is pictured on the cover of the book, in monastic robes with head uncovered and circled by green halo, a stack of books on his righthand side.) Everding (op.cit.) tells us he was the twelfth Dge-lugs-pa abbot of Shel-dkar Chos-sde.[2] We may know from the colophon information that the author was a resident of the area of Shel-dkar, and that he was urged to write his book by the Lama in charge of the Tibetan government sponsored project to carve the woodblocks for the full set of Buddhist scriptures that were then moved from Shel-dkar to Snar-thang, and so became famous to posterity as the Snar-thang Bka'-'gyur. It is a pity that the colophon information is reduced to a paraphrase in the English. The Tibetan, but not the English, text tells us that this Lama, the 'director in chief' during the final stages of the woodblock carving project, belonged to the Nyang family (this and other sources suggest he was a descendent of Nyang-ral Nyi-ma-'od-zer, the famous 12th-century treasure revealer), and that he wanted the history of the area to be written 'as a seed for the new carving of the catalogue (dkar-chag) of the carved Bka'-'gyur edition' (fol. 113 verso, line 6). According to my understanding, it was felt that some local history of Shel-dkar was needed for the writing of the catalogue.[3] The woodcarving project, first envisioned in the beginning of the eighteenth century under the Sixth Dalai Lama, evidently had suffered from several false starts. It was finally due to the patronage of the ruler Pho-lha-nas that the resources were provided and expert carvers numbering over a thousand from all over Central Tibet gathered in Shel-dkar to work on it. This required the carving of the Buddha Word on 50,019 wooden boards. Some of the expert carvers were able to carve as many as 16 or even 23 boards in one lunar month, although most were able to finish only five to seven, and the entire project was completed in record-breaking time, during one year and six months between 1730 and 1732. The attention focussed on Shel-dkar during this immense undertaking, fraught with religious merit for everyone involved, in large part occasioned the writing of this history which, I would emphasize, might otherwise never have been conceived, much less composed.
A second reason Tibetologists should pay attention to this book, it nicely complements certain developments in scholarship which, while influential in social sciences (and humanities, too, to some extent) in recent decades, have only now begun to have their impact on Tibetan studies. Because it centers on a history of a particular area, rather than on larger state formations, the book reflects a trend to place increasing emphasis on local knowledge. One part of local knowledge is the way local people place their shared memories, hence their 'identity', within the landscape that directly shelters them. This aspect emerges clearly upon reading the analysis of the text in the appendix by Dr. Guntram Hazod (pp. 110-128). A third reason for interest: This history is important for the little-known Bo-dong-pa tradition, which will in coming years start receiving the attention it deserves in Tibet scholarship. A fourth reason: The indices of this book place it within a very small class of Tibetan histories that have been so equipped, lending it the status of a permanent research resource. A fifth reason: The pictures add life and perspective to the historical details. Especially striking are the pictures of Mount Rtsib-ri, which as its name would imply really does look like a 'mountain of ribs', and Mount Shel-dkar, in which one may easily see the shape of Târâ (a mountain-side landscape configuration quite similar to that found leading up to the hermitage area of Yer-pa near Lhasa, which is likewise characterized). Overall this book is of interest as a source for understanding how religious institutions emerged, developed, and changed sects within fields of economic and political, and not only religious and spiritual, influences.
Being an academic publication, with all that entails, the following observations may seem superfluous. But I assume that part of the reason for supplying an English translation is to make it as accessible as possible to those English-language readers who cannot read the Tibetan source text, of which the English ought to be an accurate reflection. The translators have by their own admission openly chosen to give the 'gist' of the Tibetan text in parts, but their reasons for doing so were not really to make their English text more readable, but to smooth over things considered to be redundant or uninteresting. Although I am not opposed to paraphrasing — practically everyone does it, and under certain circumstances it may be preferable — its aims should at least be to encapsulate all the significant information in a more communicative manner than would be possible with a more strict form of translation. (In truth and in practice, it is difficult to draw a solid line such that 'paraphrase' and 'translation' would fall on opposite sides of it.) Both random and not-so-random comparisons of the Tibetan with the English convince me that, generally, the parts that are fully translated are quite accurate and literal, leaving only small points for quibbling.[4]
A related point: It is certainly true that transcriptions of Tibetan-language names present obstacles to English readers no matter what method is followed. Capitalization of letters in mid-syllable, whether done to further the two quite different aims of [1] representing the first element in the transcription of a 'syllable foundation [letter]' (ming gzhi), for examples dByangs-can and Bla-ma, or [2] indicating which letter has the initial impact on pronunciation (ignoring tonal aspects for the moment), for examples dbYangs-can and bLa-ma, is a Tibetological practice which should be put to rest, since it helps no one, least of all the non-Tibetan non-Tibetologists who are the alleged beneficiaries (the second aim may be to 'help' non-Tibetanists, but it is hardly sufficient to allow them to pronounce most of the syllables so as to be understood by a native speaker). I do recognize that there is one serious reason for indicating the 'syllable foundations', so that one might make indices in same sort-order used in Tibetan dictionaries. But if transliteration itself is considered to be a helpful exercise, taking letters which it is presumed will not be legible and putting them into more familiar letters, it makes little sense not to help people even further by putting things in an alphabetical order which they could follow, and this would in turn render the practice of indicating syllable foundations irrelevant. In our book, readers are 'helped' with transliteration, but not 'helped' with alphabetic order.
An equally serious problem lies in the decision not to use hyphens in proper names. This presents real cognitive obstacles for the innocent English reader who will have to make a conscious effort to distinguish English words from the long strings of transcribed Tibetan syllables. The simplest solution would be to use hyphens, the more the better (although it would be best, I think, to follow the name authority work of the Library of Congress, and avoid hyphenating between titles, place or clan names, and given names), or failing that to put all the letters of proper names in small capitals. English readers with sufficient interest will eventually come to tolerate the presence of names they cannot pronounce, just as they do names preserved in books translated from other languages they do not know, like perhaps French or Welsh or Chinese, but only if we translators will smooth their way as much as we are able.
In sum, for any one of the several reasons which have been detailed above, this book is strongly recommended to Tibetologists, but to them and their research libraries primarily.
[1]Two studies of this history have reached publication only very recently. Karl-Heinz Everding, "La stod Lho, Some Notes on the Rise and History of the Tibetan Principality" (H. Krasser, et al., eds., Tibetan Studies, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, 1997, vol. 1, pp. 269-265) is strongly recommended, although his characterization of the manuscript as a xylograph is rather puzzling. Khang-dkar Tshul-khrims-skal-bzang, "Shel-dkar Chos-'byung Skor" (same volume, pp. 511-524, plus a sketch map on p. 525) is also well worth reading, in part because the author lived and studied for over 15 years at Shel-dkar Chos-sde Monastery, and so possesses considerable 'local knowledge'.
[2]The greater bulk of the history chronicles the lives of the abbots of Shel-dkar Chos-sde. Everding (op.cit.), basing himself on a more recent history of the monastery, tells us that Shel-dkar Chos-sde was founded in 1387 by Lo-chen Grags-pa-rgyal-mtshan (1352-1405), although the present work consistently and unquestioningly places its founding in 1385, as does Khang-dkar, op.cit., p. 515. None of these writers seem to make reference to the particular passage in the dynastic history of Gung-thang written in 1749 by Ka-thog Tshe-dbang-nor-bu (as contained in Bod-kyi Lo-rgyus Deb-ther Khag Lnga, ed. by Chab-spel Tshe-brtan-phun-tshogs, et al., Bod-ljongs Bod-yig Dpe-rnying Dpe-skrun-khang, Lhasa, 1990, pp. 87-150) where we read, on p. 121, that the dynastic history made by Dus-'khor-ba Mang-thos-rdo-rje [otherwise unknown, his work unavailable to us] placed the founding of Shel-dkar Chos-sde by Sidhu Rab-brtan in a Fire Ox year [here equivalent to 1397], while other records placed this event in the previous Wood Dog year [1394]. Even more chronological perplexity is introduced when we realize that the first abbot was supposed to have been Dpang-ston Blo-gros-brtan-pa (1276-1342) who, given the date of his death, could hardly have been 'abbot' of a monastery that hadn't yet been founded.
[3]I was kindly referred (letter of Nov. 20, 1997) by Dr. Helmut Eimer (Indologisches Seminar, Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn) to the introductory portion of the 124-folio catalogue of the Snar-thang Bka'-'gyur, extant under the title Bka'-'gyur Rin-po-che'i Gsung-par Srid Gsum Rgyan Gcig Rdzu-'phrul Shing-rta'i Dkar-chag Ngo-mtshar Bkod-pa Rgya-mtsho'i Lde-mig. The woodblock print edition of the Snar-thang Bstan-'gyur is also known to include a catalogue, in 141 folios, entitled Bstan-bcos 'Gyur-ro-cog Gsung-par Bsgrubs-pa'i Dkar-chag Tshangs-pa'i Dbyangs. This latter catalogue was composed in 1742 by Phur-bu-lcog Ngag-dbang-byams-pa (1682-1762). It would certainly be interesting to see if the local history contained in these canon catalogues corresponds in any way to the contents of our book, or if they have any information about our mysterious author. For a fascinating account of the carving of the blocks for both the Bka'-'gyur and Bstan-'gyur at Shel-dkar, see pp. 358-360 of the printing history by Tshe-ring-phun-tshogs entitled "Snga-rabs Bod-kyi Par-skrun dang Par-khang Skor Mdo-tsam Gleng-ba," contained in: Bod Rig-pa'i Ched-rtsom Gces-bsdus, Bod-ljongs Mi-dmangs Dpe-skrun-khang, Lhasa, 1987, pp. 345-375, source of much of the information that follows in this paragraph.
[4]For example, there is some minor variation in the transcription. Nam-mkha' (word for 'sky', as it is consistently spelled in the Tibetan text) is sometimes spelled na-mkha', or nam-mka' in the text of the translation. On p. 43, "Mri tha pyag tshwa (?)," which is not explained, corresponds to the Tibetan text's m-ti'i phyag-tshwa, which certainly means a stamped clay plaque, a tshwa-tshwa, made by the hands of the 10th and early 11th century Indian teacher Smti[jñânakîrti], as part of a very common form of religious practice. Several similarly nugatory points could be underlined if one felt so inclined.