Secularity Divinized

Secularity Divinized

A review of Per K. Sorensen, Divinity Secularized: An Inquiry into the Nature and Form of the Songs Ascribed to the Sixth Dalai Lama, Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, Universität Wien (Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, Heft 25), Vienna 1990.  What you see here is a pre-published draft (February 2003) of the piece that appeared in Tibet Journal (Dharamsala), vol. 29, no. 2 (Summer 2004), pp. 90-103. I recommend citing the original publication rather than this document.

Only once in a great while does a new book in Tibetan studies appear that not only manages to encompass and largely supercede a large, widely scattered body of past scholarship, but also adds insights of considerable value of its own.  Something especially  commendable about this monumental study of the songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama is the extensive use made not only of the expectable Euro-American sources, but also scholarly works in Tibetan and Chinese, most of them dating from the last few decades.  The recent flood of new Tibetological scholarship from the People's Republic needs to be consulted more by Euro-American scholars.  Not only do the P.R.C. scholars often make use of materials not easily available to outsiders, they also do, at times, bring new and sometimes refreshing perspectives to their subjects.  They also deserve to be studied as a cultural phenomenon in their own right (see p. 23, especially note 47).[1]  Our book and the dedicated Tibetological researcher who authored it are to be wholeheartedly commended for taking full account of these significant resources.

Devoted to a body of literature often referred to as 'love songs', this book appropriately reflects a labor of love, perhaps the ideal motivation for such an undertaking, shown in the care taken to explain and explore each individual image and allusion, indeed, each individual word.  The text is supplied for each song in transliterated Tibetan, with variant readings from (at least very nearly) all available editions duly noted, a considerable accomplishment in and of itself.  In this review we will not focus on details; there are simply too many of them.  In the time-honored traditions of analytical scholarship, this book is a virtual society of intricately interrelated details (so much so that a word and subject index would have been very helpful, even if it might have required a second volume to contain it).  Rather, we will test the author's conceptualization of the materials he worked over with such painstaking care.

Divinity Secularized is a striking title, which immediately evokes in us a vision of a transcendent being brought down to our level.  Still, a certain ambiguity remains.  Is this to be taken in the sense of a '(re-)incarnation' whereby the holy being remains among us worldlings yet retains a hold on holiness, staying essentially disentangled?  Or, are we to understand by this title that everything holy or transcendent about that being has been desecrated, brought down to the level of mundane and profane contingencies?  After completing the book, we feel that the author has tended toward the latter view, quite unlike the populace of traditional Tibet, who by all accounts overwhelmingly accepted the former.  These different views necessarily preordain different ways of 'reading' the songs.  The author hardly makes any pretense of offering us the traditional views on their meaning 'in general', and quite rightly so, even if somewhere in the background lurk difficult questions about cultural property rights.[2]  Studies in cross-cultural communications are, after all, largely studies of how and why differing perspectives fail to converge on one identical (?) object.

The great contribution of this study is that it takes the previously underutilized insight that these songs bear some relationship to the Tibetan folksong (gzhas) tradition,[3] and demonstrates quite effectively that this is a relationship of considerable intimacy, perhaps even one of identity.  Almost every single song of the collection attributed to the Dalai Lama is accompanied, in the commentary, by one or several folksongs.  By comparing them, we come to feel that we understand both better.  They do have very much in common –– in their form especially, but also in language and content.  How are we to account for this?

When faced with the questions of priority that academics so much enjoy such as, 'Was it the Dalai Lama who inspired the folk tradition, or the folk tradition that inspired the Dalai Lama?' we are baffled.  Clearly, the popularity of the songs ascribed to the Sixth Dalai Lama lent a strong influence to later folk traditions.  See p. 32, where the author says, "All along we cannot exclude the possibility that the songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama may have constituted the source of inspiration for the entire Tibetan folksong tradition."  But, on the other hand, earlier on the same page, "As it will hopefully emerge from the present study, the songs ascribed to Tsha∫s-dbya∫s rgya-mtsho are deeply rooted in the Tibetan popular folksong tradition."  The answer to the near contradiction would seem to be simply that the songs, whether composed by the Dalai Lama or by one or several of the anonymous 'folk', were composed as a part of a larger folksong tradition, while the celebrity lent by their true or false ascription to the Dalai Lama subsequently made them models of the genre. 

If this general portrait seems evident enough, we are yet impeded in our analytical attempts to determine what, if any, individual elements of one group of songs might have been drawn from the other.  We must emphasize that the collection of the Dalai Lama's songs is the first published collection of folksongs (gzhas, even though it is  true that His songs were never directly called by this precise term in the past) known to us — they were evidently first carved onto woodblocks in the late eighteenth century — while the next available collections of folksongs, compiled by missionaries in Ladakh, date from final decades of the nineteenth century.[4]  We may, perhaps, only "assume that it [gzhas] reaches at least four or five hundred years back," since some scattered examples in the form of gzhas can be found embedded in other literary genres, although it seems that the composition of these sources did not truly predate the eighteenth century (p. 20).  The words gzhas and glu-gzhas are already attested in a late twelfth-century work, but since there are no examples supplied there, it is questionable whether these terms refer to songs of the same formal and generic characteristics as our presentday gzhas.[5]

In view of that very basic insight into the nature of the Dalai Lama's songs, it is a pity that the author did not delve more deeply into the biographical materials related to the Dalai Lama and His contemporaries.  It is indeed to a considerable degree true that Regent Sangs-rgyas-rgya-mtsho's biography of the Dalai Lama is "couched in a high-flown panegyric language so replete with obscure and oblique circumlocutions that it is virtually impossible to follow..." (p. 30, note 80), but the author is certainly familiar with the often arcane niceties of the kâvya (snyan-dngags) genre (see pp. 14, 27-30, et passim), while his own writing style is often high-flown,[6] even more often verbose, and at times obscure.  Despite this difficulty, as well as the lesser difficulty of the autobiography of the Second Panchen Lama and other near-contemporary sources, there are important clues to be found in them.  We may hope that our author, who certainly has the necessary competence and interest, will pursue the matter further.  Meanwhile, I would like to offer a few hints.

In the biography authored by the Regent, the account of the procession that first brought the young Dalai Lama to Lhasa is full of descriptions of banquets, tournaments and pageantry, including quite a few accounts of folksongs and folkdances performed for the benefit of the young hierarch.[7]  There are even a few references to performances of the operatic play about Nor-bu-bzang-po,[8] also attended by the Dalai Lama.  Knowledge of these things could have strengthened the arguments about the Dalai Lama's familiarity with the folksong tradition and with this play (discussed on pp. 32, 167-171).

This data might seem to support the Dalai Lama's authorship of the songs.  More certainly, they show that there was a practice in those days of staging popular 'rustic' songs and dances for the consumption and approval of the ruling elite.  Still, there are no telling hints in all this that would answer our question, 'Were the Dalai Lama's songs authored by the Dalai Lama or only sung in His name by the nameless folk?'  All the usages of folk metaphors and allusions to Nor-bu-bzang-po and so forth were 'in the air,' were part of a pervasive pool of cultural knowledge shared by everyone, from the rural farmers and nomads all the way up to the highest government officials and, yes, the young Dalai Lama Himself.

Even if we could decide the question of the 'authorship' of the songs in favor of His Holiness, we would be left with the equally difficult question of what His authorship might mean.  'Authorship' might be located at any point between two extremes.  At one extreme would be the 'creative genius' directly inspired by genii or by nature to express things as they have never before found expression.  At the other extreme the Dalai Lama would be only a mouthpiece or folklorist for the tradition.  At the first extreme, we might expect a large degree of autobiographical self-expression.  At the second extreme, the people talk, and the hierarch is (entirely?) silent.  Trusting intuition momentarily, the truth would lie in between, for while there are evident self-references in some of the songs,[9] we feel that the 'authorship' must lie left-of-center, toward the side of the people.  Still, we are perplexed by the paradoxical message delivered by the author of the book under review, that while the songs probably have "an anonymous provenance" (p. 32), autobiographical self-references are underscored at every turn, and taken quite seriously.  We are asked to see particular love affairs and/or particular political intrigues behind nearly every song.  The Dalai Lama's authorship is negated, and then constantly asserted in a willing 'suspension of disbelief' that practically serves to negate the negation.

There is evidence that the young Dalai Lama was an author of other works, even an author who personally placed pen against paper, however much this evidence may be doubted by some critical scholars.  One text, written in 1701, is a guidebook (dkar-chag) of His ancestral monastery in Mon known as O-rgyan-gling.[10]  Another composition, written in 1693 when He was only about ten years old and partially preserved for us in some citations in His biography by the Regent, is a sâdhana (sgrub-thabs) for Hayagrîva.  The Regent tells us that He composed this work without first receiving any requests or offerings.[11]  The young Dalai Lama first wrote it down in His own hand, while later Grub-gling Blo-bzang-dngos-grub (one of the persons sent from Lhasa to Mtsho-sna to watch after Him) served as the scribe.  The text was brought to Lhasa by Zil-gnon-rdo-rje (b. 1647).  When reading it, the Regent was so struck by the similarity of the style, including the phrases belonging to the Old Translations, to that of the Fifth Dalai Lama that he and his close circle (those privy to the secret of the Fifth Dalai Lama's death), feeling a conflict between the joy and sadness in their hearts, wept uncontrollably.[12]

Although this further example of a composition credited to His Holiness may add grist for the controversies, in essence, we have been brought to the point of considering that the question of the authorship of the songs is simply unanswerable at present,[13] and so our questions about their 'nature' turn out finally to be synonymous to questions about the 'nature' of the Tibetan folksongs known as gzhas, since this genre is, in any case, the genre within which His (?) songs were composed.

This, then, brings us to a question that may have an answer, which is, What is the nature of these gzhas and how might we rightly conceive of them?  The first answer I would put forward is that they are for us a rare opportunity to hear the voices of the people, meaning especially those who were not in the practice of writing books.  Many of them might, with considerable justice, be called 'romantic love songs' which draw their imagery mainly from natural and agrarian sources, although not a few of them extol the virtues of a good beer (chang).  A still smaller number bear political messages of contemporary relevance.[14]  There are also those that sing the praises of a particular region, love of parents, a homesickness for or minor rebellion against parents.  A few songs sing the praises of song itself.[15] 

Still another small, but I think significant, fraction of them conveys sincere religious sentiment. These are all the more important because of the difficulty of locating within the historical record authentic voices for lay religiosity.  This is now a time when questions of 'popular religion' have become, for many, quite crucial ones in academic religious studies.  Our author admits one religious sentiment to our 'popular poet[s]' (and hence to the populace) and that is "the pan-Buddhist concept of transience" (mi rtag-pa, p. 29), but this is a rather expectable theme, even for folk and romantic poetry of non-Buddhist nations.  Are there no other expressions of religious feeling, of devotion and so forth, to be found?  Let us look at a few gzhas found in a recent collection.[16]

khra-'brug sgrol-ma gsung-byon //

khyed-rang mngon-sum yin na //

a-lo'i sems-kyi na-tsha //

ye-shes spyan-zhig gzigs-dang //  [I.29.d]

Oh talking Târâ of Khra-'brug [Temple],

If you are for real,

Cast a Full Knowledge Eye

On the heartache of a boy.

rgya-nag ri-bo-rtse-lnga'i //

rgyal-sras 'phags-pa 'jam-dpal //

gsol-ba snying nas btab yod //

thugs-rjes rgyang nas gzigs-dang //  [I.44.b]

Bodhisattva (Jinaputra) of China's

Wu-tai Mountain, Holy Mañjußrî!

I have prayed to you from the depths of my heart.

Look upon me from afar with compassion.

In the case of the first song, the heartache of the boy obviously does suggest the torments of young love, but it also gives us interesting information about the popularity of talking images, and specifically one at the old imperial temple of Khra-'brug.[17]  The second does not bear any trace of 'secular' content.  The real content of the first may involve the emotional, but the second is, as best I can see, devotional (but then, of course, it could have then been intended or used as an expression of practically any kind of emotional turmoil).  Likewise the following,

chu de chu-bos bskor yod //

ma-ni rlung-gis bskor yod //

bdag dang a-ma'i o-lo //

dam-pa chos-kyis bskor yod // [I.72.b]

The water is turned by the river.

The Mani [wheel] is turned by the wind.

Me and mother's child

are turned by Holy Dharma.

If we are ready now to admit that some gzhas may express sincere religious sentiment, and that the translation 'love songs' does not adequately cover the full range of concerns of gzhas, it is perhaps time to turn to the interpretation of song number 20 in the wellknown collection ascribed to the Dalai Lama, which reads, in Tibetan, as follows:

dag pa shel ri gangs chu //

klu bdud rdo rje'i zil pa //

bdud rtsi sman gyi phab rgyun //

chang ma ye shes mkha' 'gro //

dam tshig gtsang mas btung na //

ngan song myong dgos mi 'dug //[18]

This song has proven to be a particularly difficult stumbling block to previous translators and interpreters.  Here, for example, is the not especially inaccurate but at the same time highly inadequate 1961 rendering by Duncan, headed by his added introduction, "Our love in holy vows will keep off misfortune":

The icy water of the crystal fountain,

With herb's dew-drops to heal demon diseases,

Are fomented in harmful nectared potions,

By the dispenser of wines Yeshe Kandro;

If we drink because of a pure holy vow,

We need not suffer any more misfortune.[19]

Some believed that the song reflected the Dalai Lama's mastery of tantra (M. Tatz, G. Houston, and only perhaps K. Dhondup), while more recently another writer (D. Back) reacted to this with his conclusion that it is little more than a song of nature-appreciation in the service of imbibing intoxicating beverages and bedding comely maidens.  I then argued for a different view, for a religious interpretation based on cultural-historical analysis.[20]  Now that these arguments have been rather thoroughly reviewed[21] and developed-upon in the present volume (pp. 113-142), I can see that my point was not as clear as I had thought.  With our understanding of this song as a gzhas, things may become still more clear.  The associated elements of the mountain named Dag-pa Shel-ri (the central mountain which was circumambulated by pilgrims to Tsari), the herb klu-bdud-rdo-rje, elixirial medicine, the Jñâna∂âkiˆî, the pure commitments, and the liberation from the three undesireable realms of rebirth all point to a particular pellet or pill (ril-bu), in other words a Tibetan Buddhist sacrament, which was evidently quite popular in Tibet in general during those times.  Our author misses the point when he underlines the scenario behind this song as "sacred-occult tradition," "medical-therapheutic[!] and alchemical context," (p. 132) "[oc]cult-alchemical tradition," (pp. 140, 141) or as working on an  "esoteric level" (p. 141), because however much these characterizations might be justified from the viewpoint of their production, our author has failed to see that there is also a consumer's side, and it is surely from the consumer's side that this song, being of a folk song genre, is being sung.  References to Tibetan Buddhist sacraments do not seem to be very common in my gzhas collection, but I did notice the following one:

phu de ya la bzhugs-pa'i //

kham sdong gral star 'grig 'grig //

kham-bu tshe-ril 'dra-ba //

bzhes mkhan phag las mi 'dug //  [I.139.b]

Staying high in the upper valley

are apricot trees arranged in very neat rows.

Their apricots, [looking] like long-life pellets,

[alas] have no other eaters than pigs.

This song shows, if anything, that such sacramental pellets are part of Tibet's common culture[22] (but also that things, even good things, that are high and out of reach are not worth much).  We do not actually need the testimony of folksongs to know from empirical evidence, available wherever Tibetans live, that these sacramental pellets are today very popular.  To judge from my own observations in Tibetan communities in Nepal and elsewhere, those Tibetans who have not renounced the world to devote themselves entirely to religion usually visit Rinpoches for one or both of two reasons—to have mo (or thugs-dam) prognostications performed or to get these pellets.[23]

Our author cites the texts of two songs relating to the Holy Place and pilgrimage center Tsari (Rtsa-ri),[24] which is the place in question in song 20 (although he doesn't supply direct translations, only paraphrases, see pp. 122 and 137):

byams-pa'i pha ni mi 'dug //

byams-pa'i ma ni mi 'dug //

byams-pa pha med ma med //

rtswa-ri gnas-bskor e 'gro //

My loving father is gone.

My loving mother is gone.

With no loving father and mother,

Shall I go on pilgrimage to Tsari?

rtsa-ri'i rtse na bskor yod //

snyug-ma rong nas bcad yod //

nga la rdo-rje-phag-mos //

bka'-chad gnang don mi 'dug //

I did circumambulation at the heights of Tsari

[And] cut a bamboo from a ravine.

If Vajravârâhî punishes me,

It will serve no purpose.

The first of these songs tells us one reason why people might go on a pilgrimage to Tsari, because they have been orphaned or otherwise bereaved.  The second shows full knowledge of the sacral sanctions against harming the wildlife, including the flora, of Tsari since, the Guidebooks say, "One never knows what form the ∂âkiˆîs might take."[25]  After citing the second song, and noting that the association of the Jñâna∂âkiˆî with the beer-maiden is attested in some popular Tibetan folksongs, he says, on p. 137, "we should have all the reason to suspect that the locus classicus of this linking probably hails from the present stanza" [i.e., his number 20].  This insight is contradicted, however, in the conclusion, where he is trying to show that, despite the preponderance of a closely interrelated complex of sacred items, the real message of the song is about romantic love and drink.  He says, "we would find explicit and implicit allusions [in song no. 20] to the consummation [i.e., consumption; my note] of alcohol demonstrated already through the careful choice of words which inter alia hails from the ordinary vocabulary of drinking songs ..., namely..." [p. 141].  We cannot first claim song no. 20 as the locus classicus of the popular tradition (which, so far as we know, might well be the case), and then turn around and use the popular tradition as proof of the meaning of song no. 20.  Historically speaking, based on what is said above about the relative priority of our gzhas collections, such a procedure is precluded.

When we engage in a cultural historical approach, we do our best to elicit the meanings of particular things from the broader fields of meanings that surrounded them at the time of their production.  We try to circumvent later cultural meanings and usages of those items by going as directly as possible to the cultural milieu.  This is what I attempted to do in my essay on song no. 20.  The assumptions of twentieth-century readers, whether Tibetan or non-Tibetan, must not be allowed to guide our understanding.  Indeed, the particular modern Tibetans with whom I conversed on the meaning of the song were unaware of its full web of associations.  But I must stress, even if a little reflection would render the statement unnecessary, that the cultural knowledge of contemporary Tibetans (academic overstatements of Tibet's cultural stagnation notwithstanding) is not identical to the cultural knowledge of Tibetans at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

There seems to be a strong resistance to allowing this particular song, no. 20, to express any cultural meanings of its own.  It must be made to fit, somehow, with the other songs.  There is an implicit anthropology at work here, one which seems to say that 'the people' (even if, in this case, this might mean the young Dalai Lama, a possibility we do not exclude) have no other interests than sex and drink[26] (and perhaps also death and politics on the national level).  I differ  with this anthropology.  To state my objection in a little different way, even if I could be persuaded to submit to our author's final conclusion that, after all, this song is like a majority of the others and is therefore really about romance and beer, I would still not relinquish this precious documentation on the religious interests of the Tibetan populace of the past.  Their voices are simply too difficult to come upon in literature, even more difficult to hear correctly, and too valuable to cast away without considerable forethought.

What I would first of all require in order to be convinced of the truth of our author's final assessment of the meaning of song no. 20 would be near-contemporaneous evidence, or at least evidence datable no later than the probable date of the song's composition, that could justify the author's sex/beer interpretation.  Until such evidence can be produced to account for all or most of the individual elements of the song––the mountain, the herb, the elixirial medicine––I will remain content with the pieces of prior and near-contemporaneous evidence that clearly underscore the religious significance of the song.  If our author and others wish, however, to bypass cultural history altogether and give the song a meaning they find preferable for one reason or another, there is nothing wrong with this.  (The temptation to embroider poems with biographical narratives somehow inspired by them is a universal one.)  Readings of texts change during their careers, largely thanks to their changing readers, but while the readings of our contemporaries are readily available, cultural historical readings require hard work, like archaeology.

Finally, if we were to one day actually find clear justification for the next logical step, that of denying the Sixth Dalai Lama any responsibility for the production of the songs, the whole edifice of popular stories about His double life might dissolve before our eyes, perhaps turn out to owe a great deal to Manchu and/or Mongol war propaganda (a distinct possibility).  Then someone will have to write a new book, based squarely on the other works attributed to Him as well as on the biographical materials from His time.[27]  This book will be entitled, Divinity Realized or, in view of the attribution of these popular songs to Him, perhaps, Secularity Divinized.  There are more chapters and more books to be written.  Meanwhile, its detailed and often illuminating analytical insights make Divinity Secularized essential reading for all who find themselves dazzled by the songs and person of the Sixth Dalai Lama and their still-lingering enigmas.

Dan Martin

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aris, Hidden Treasures:

Michael Aris, Hidden Treasures and Secret Lives, Indian Institute of Advanced Study (Simla 1988).

Back:

Dieter M. Back, 'Zu einem Gedicht des VI. Dalai Lama'.  ZDMG, vol. 135 (1985), pp. 319-329.

Chabpel, 'Historical Interpretation':

Chabpel Tseten Phuntshok, 'A Historical Interpretation of the Songs of Tsangyang Gyatso'.  Tibet Journal vol. 15, no. 3 (Autumn 1990), pp. 19-40.  For the original Tibetan-language article, see Chab-spel Tshe-brtan-phun-tshogs, "Tshangs-dbyangs-rgya-mtsho'i Mgul-glu dang 'Brel-ba Yod-pa'i Lo-rgyus-kyi Don Dngos 'Ga'-zhig Brjod-pa."  Tshe-phun, et al., eds., Bod Rig-pa'i Gros-mol Tshogs-'du'i Ched-rtsom Gces-bsdus, Bod-ljongs Mi-rigs Dpe-skrun-khang (Shin-hwa 1987), pp. 283-315.

Decleer, draft:

Hubert Decleer, 'The Nâga Temple behind the Fort, H.H. Tsang-yang Gyatso, His Songs and Secret Biography.'  An unpublished draft courtesy of the author.

Dhondup:

K. Dhondup, Songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama, Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (Dharamsala 1981).

Duncan, Love Songs:

Marion H. Duncan, Love Songs and Proverbs of Tibet, Mitre Press (London 1961).

Ferrari, Mk'yen brtse's Guide:

Alfonsa Ferrari, Mk'yen brtse's Guide to the Holy Places of Central Tibet, Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente (Rome 1958).

Hanlon, 'Folk-Songs':

Hanlon, Henry, 'The Folk-Songs of Ladak and Baltistan'.  9th International Orientalists' Conference (London 1892), vol. 2, pp. 613-635.

Hanlon, 'Wedding Customs':

Henry Hanlon, Henry, 'The Wedding Customs and Songs of Ladak'.  10th International Orientalists' Conference (Geneva 1894), part 4, section 5, pp. 183-4.

Houston:

Gary Houston, Wings of the White Crane, Motilal Banarsidass (Delhi 1982).

Huber, Cult of Pure Crystal Mountain:

Toni Huber, The Cult of Pure Crystal Mountain: Popular Pilgrimage and Visionary Landscape in Southeast Tibet, Oxford University Press (Oxford 1999).

Martin, 'For Love or Religion?

Dan Martin, 'For Love or Religion?  Another Look at a "Love Song" by the Sixth Dalai Lama'.  ZDMG, vol. 138 (1988), pp. 349-363.

Nyang-ral, Chos-'byung:

Nyang-ral Nyi-ma-'od-zer, Chos-'byung Me-tog Snying-po Sbrang-rtsi'i Bcud, Bod-ljongs Mi-dmangs Dpe-skrun-khang (Shin-hwa 1988).

'Phrin-chos, et al., eds., Bod-kyi Dmangs Gzhas:

'Phrin-chos, Dwangs-grung, & Phur-rdo, eds., Bod-kyi Dmangs Gzhas, Bod-ljongs Mi-dmangs Dpe-skrun-khang (Shin-hwa 1990).  2 volumes.

Sa-skya Paˆ∂i-ta, Sdom Gsum Rab-dbye:

Sa-skya Paˆ∂i-ta Kun-dga'-rgyal-mtshan, Sdom-pa Gsum-gyi Rab-tu Dbye-ba'i Bstan‑bcos (n.p. 1971).  This work also found in his Collected Works (vol. 5 of the Sa‑skya Bka'-'bum: Toyo Bunko, Tokyo 1969), pp. 297-320.

Sangs-rgyas-rdo-rje, Responses to Various Polemical Writings:

Mkhas-dbang Sangs-rgyas-rdo-rje (1569-1646), Responses to Various Polemical Writings, Sherab Gyaltsen Lama & Acharya Shedup Tenzin (Rewalsar 1985).

Sde-srid, 'Dzam-gling-rgyan-gcig:

Sde-srid Sangs-rgyas-rgya-mtsho, Mchod-sdong 'Dzam-gling-rgyan-gcig Rten Gtsug-lag-khang dang bcas-pa'i Dkar-chag Thar Gling Rgya-mtshor Bgrod-pa'i Gru-rdzings Byin-rlabs-kyi Bang-mdzod, Bod-ljongs Mi-dmangs Dpe-skrun-khang (Shin-hwa 1990).

Sde-srid, Gser-gyi Snye-ma:

Sde-srid Sangs-rgyas-rgya-mtsho, Thams-cad Mkhyen-pa Drug-pa Blo-bzang-rin-chen-tshangs-dbyangs-rgya-mtsho'i Thun-mong Phyi'i Rnam-par Thar-pa Du-kû-la'i 'Phro 'Thud Rab Gsal Gser-gyi Snye-ma, Bod-ljongs Mi-dmangs Dpe-skrun-khang (Shin-hwa 1989).

Second Panchen Lama, Works:

Paˆ-chen Bla-ma Blo-bzang-ye-shes, Collected Works (Gsung-'bum) of the Second Panchen Blo-bzang-ye-shes (N. Delhi 1981-1985).

Si-tu, Lam-yig:

Ka˙-thog Si-tu Chos-kyi-rgya-mtsho, Gangs-ljongs Dbus Gtsang Gnas-bskor Lam-yig Nor-bu Zla-shel-gyi Se-mo-do ("An Account of a Pilgrimage to Central Tibet during the Years 1918 to 1920"), Sungrab Nyamso Gyunphel Parkhang (Tashijong 1972).

Tatz:

Mark Tatz, 'Songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama'.  Tibet Journal, vol. 6, no. 4 (Winter 1981), pp. 13-31.

Ye-shes-dbang-phyug, "Khra-'brug Dgon-gyi Lo-rgyus":

Ye-shes-dbang-phyug, "Khra-'brug Dgon-gyi Lo-rgyus Mdor-bsdus," Bod-ljongs Nang Bstan, series no. 5 (1989 no. 1), pp. 43-45.

Yeshe Tsogyal, Life and Liberation:

Yeshe Tsogyal (=Ye-shes-mtsho-rgyal), The Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava (Padma Bka'i Thang), Dharma Publishing (Berkeley 1978).

[1]Euro-American scholarship on Tibet, and especially on the songs ascribed to the Sixth Dalai Lama, is also a cultural phenomenon that deserves to be studied in its own right.

[2]While recent anthropological criticism has been asking just such questions with increasing seriousness, my current attitude is that, as humans living in the present, we all have the right to all the culture we can get.  (Even if most of us have not entirely transcended nationality, we increasingly cultivate trans-national links.)  But even given this attitude, certain problems of cultural transmission and fair usage remain unresolved.

[3]It is true that Duncan (Love Songs), already in 1961, included the songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama in his general collection of folksongs, but he was assuming, rather than arguing for, their similarity.  It is perhaps worth noting that Duncan (p. 9) believed that the folksong tradition was of considerable antiquity, and that many of the Dalai Lama's songs were received rather than composed.  He offers no specific pieces of datable evidence to argue for the truth of his beliefs.

[4]We are thinking in particular of the works of A.H. Francke (refer to the bibliography of the book under review) as well as H. Hanlon's, 'Folk-Songs' and 'Wedding Customs'.  A further collection of songs ascribed to the Sixth Dalai Lama has surfaced in recent years (found in transliterated text with annotations in the Appendix, pp. 285-448), and our statement might need to be tested further in light of still other sources.

[5]See Nyang-ral, Chos-'byung, pp. 160 and 412, where glu-gzhas and gzhas are mentioned in conjunction with bro-gar, 'dances'.  The songs denoted by the two names are stated therein to have originated in the time of the first legendary Tibetan Emperor Gnya'-khri-btsan-po (sometimes traditionally reckoned to about the first century B.C.E.).

[6]Unfortunately, the erudite tone of exposition was not entirely confined to the commentary.  See especially the translation of song number 38:

brag dang rlung-po bsdebs nas //

rgod-po'i sgro la gzan byung //

gyo-can rdzu-bag-can-gyis //

nga la gzan-po byas byung //

Rock and wind kept tryst

To abrade the vulture's plumage;

People fraught with intrigues and deceptive schemes

Fray me to the very bone.

The Tibetan, which uses only common words, free of literary archaisms, is incongruously revealed to us in highly educated 'literary' English.  Vocabulary from what was then colloquial language ought ideally be translated into what is now colloquial language.  I must note, though, in the translator's favor, that I found this poem to be one of the best in literary quality, and apart from its tone, quite true to the meaning.  As an aside, one might well find fault with the sexist tone of many of the poems (and note the author's own use of a puzzling and obsolete term "the weaker sex" on p. 249, where it evidently refers to women's inability to do things that the stronger sex could accomplish with ease), although readers are advised to keep in mind that a large number of these  songs are, in fact, gender-neutral and might be used by members of either sex as bantering tools (see Duncan, Love Songs, p. 11). 

[7]See Sde-srid, Gser-gyi Snye-ma, pp. 337, 339-342, 349, etc., especially p. 342 where it is said that from then on each folk artist (bro-gzhas-pa) without exception received one silver zho.  The story of the Dalai Lama's procession and enthronement in the autobiography of the Second Panchen Lama (Works, vol. 1, pp. 323.4, 327.4, 421.3) also contains references to folk artists (gzhas-bro-ba) and the prizes awarded them.

[8]See Sde-srid, Gser-gyi Snye-ma, p. 334: Chos-'khor-rtse-bas Nor-bzang Rtogs-brjod-kyi gzigs-mo phul ('The people of Chos-'khor-rtse offered a show of the Story of Sudhana').  This performance was part of a program of activities, including also horse races, held at Sna-dkar-rtse, a rdzong (district headquarters) near Lake Yamdok (Yar-'brog Mtsho).  Another reference to a Nor-bzang performance may be noted on p. 349.  See also Sde-srid, 'Dzam-gling-rgyan-gcig, p. 736, where the play about Nor-bu-bzang-po, "which the people call A-lce Lha-mo," folk dances and gzhas are all performed as part of the festivities following the consecration of the Single Ornament of the World ('Dzam-gling-rgyan-gcig), the reliquary for the Fifth Dalai Lama, in 1695.  References to the Nor-bzang play also occur in the biography of the Fifth Dalai Lama.

[9]See especially song no. 54 at p. 239, but it is essential to note that this song may be read either in first-person (as in the translation) or in third-person.

[10]See p. 132 of our book for the reference to Michael Aris's statement on the doubtful nature of His authorship, an attitude with which our author apparently concurs.  'Ghosting' might have been common practice in those days, and 'plagiarism' an alien ethical concept, but this does not absolve us of our responsibility to thoroughly study each work and the circumstances surrounding its writing before passing judgment.  In any case, reasons must be brought forward.  Otherwise, those of us who are critical of critical scholarship will not feel constrained to agree.

[11]This is rather exceptional, since most compositions by Tibetan hierarchs were composed only in response to a prior 'behest' (usually accompanied by petitions and gifts) of one or more of their followers.

[12]See Sde-srid, Gser-gyi Snye-ma, pp. 242-3, as well as the discussion in Aris, Hidden Treasures, p. 139.    For the sake of the curious, I provide here the text, along with a very  provisional translation, of the introductory invocation (mchod-brjod):

Rta-mgrin Dbang-chen mkhyen-brtse nus mthu yis /

bdud-rnams gzhom mdzad dgra bgegs phye-mar 'thag /

rwa-ga'i mdog ltar dmar-ba srin-po'i gzugs /

dus-kyi byin-za'i dbus na 'gying-ba'i gar /

rab 'bar be-con gdengs-pa'i mod nyid la /

khro-rgyal phal-gyi lag-cha dus gcig 'chor /

dri-nga mgo-bo rgyu-mar brgyus-pa'i 'phreng /

'phral bsad lpags rlon lding stabs gos-kyis kyang /

ma tshim snying-gi khrag dron 'thung-ba dang /

lhan-cig thal zhag khrag-gi lus kun byugs /

Ru-dra bsgral-ba'i dpal dang dur-khrod chas /

dpa' rtags log-'dren tshogs la ngom bzhin-du /

ka-dag gdod-ma'i rtsal-gyis 'khor 'das chos /

zad mtha'i lhun-grub mkha' la nam 'phang gcod /

lha sngags ye-shes rdo-rje be-con ni /

nam-mkhar 'phyar tshe 'byung-po Sbyin-skyes-mo'i /

mngal lhung chabs cig lus med smag ni sangs /

O powerful Hayagrîva, through the force of your wise compassion

you defeat the delusionary spirits and crush to dust the opponent impeding spirits.

[You are] red as the color of rubies (rwa-ga), in the form of a râk∑asa.

In the midst of an aeon-ending fire you strike a valiant dramatic pose.

Your necklace is made of putrid heads threaded on intestines.

Even as your clothing, forming a loose canopy around you, is a fresh skin of one suddenly slain,

You insatiably imbibe warm heart blood.

At the same time your whole body is smeared with ashes, fat and blood.

While your militant marks — the cemetary accessories and your glorious brilliance that exorcizes Rudra —

Seem to show off to the host of misleaders, at the same time

your ever-pure original energy-forms

cut through the heights and depths of space,

space which is the natural achievement of the final exhaustion of all dharmas of saµsâra and nirvâˆa.

As you hoist to the sky your Vajra of the total knowledge of divine mantra [and]

Your mace (be-con/ daˆ∂a), you fall into the womb of the elemental Sbyin-skyes-mo;

Yet at the same time you are unembodied, free of any opacity.

This may seem like a startling vision to be entertained in a young boy's mind, but it is nevertheless routine in light of the tantric imagery of sexuality and violence (within the bounds of iconography and ritual, we must hasten to add) that surrounded Him from birth.  For background, one may refer to a version of the story of Hayagrîva's conversion of the fiendish Rudra (Ma-tram-ru-tra) found in the Padma Bka'i Thang-yig (see Yeshes Tsogyal, Life and Liberation, pp. 26-46, or chapters 5 and 6 of the Tibetan).  As is usually the case in stories of the genesis of tantric deities, Hayagrîva (identical to Avalokiteßvara, Bodhisattva of compassion) takes on this terrifying form in order to convert an equally terrifying fiend.  There are some similar examples of tantric verse in the present book, p. 119, but please note that "Heruka, endued with boots" should be retranslated "Heruka, whose soles are soaked [by the wave of red blood from the slaughter]."

[13]It is even difficult to imagine which sort of evidence could possibly prove sufficient to prove or disprove His authorship.  Certainly the Hayagrîva text and the temple guidebook are different enough from the songs and from each other that we may think they could not have been composed by the same person.  Still, it would be important to have some other, more historical, reasons to support such conclusions, since the differences may be seen as differences of genre, rather than differences of authorial 'style.'

[14]I am not convinced by most of the political interpretations of the songs — largely drawn from a work by Xiao Diyan, although the boundaries between Xiao's and the author's interpretations are not often drawn clearly for us — even if others might feel that there might be some truth to be found in some of those 'ill-veiled allusions' and 'trite euphemisms'.  In any case, the author has warned us that these "should remain tentative" (see p. 30), and we can only underline the word tentative, at least until such analysis can find a firmer historical footing.

[15]Duncan (Love Songs, p. 12) says that the allusions of "love songs" (he means folksongs generally) include, besides those connected with love, still others that "hover around religion, nature, rank, wealth and politics."  Among the religious allusions to be found he stresses "fate and karma," but does notice that "other religious allusions refer to famous temples."

[16]'Phrin-chos, et al., eds., Bod-kyi Dmangs Gzhas.  This work was used primarily because, at the time of writing, it is the largest such collection available to me (also, it bears fewer signs of official government appropriation –– most obvious in praises to Chairman Mao and/or the 'Motherland' [here China] –– than do some of the earlier collections).  References given below are given to the volume (Roman numeral), page (Arabic numeral), and verse (lower-case Roman letter).

[17]Talking images are quite common in Tibetan popular religiosity, as we may know from other sources such as the guidebooks (dkar-chag).  An image of Târâ at Bodhgaya is said to have talked to Atißa before his coming to Tibet.  There is an image at Khojarnath (Kho-char or 'Khor-chags) near Kailash that has spoken several times.  In the 13th century, Sa-skya Paˆ∂i-ta, in his Sdom Gsum Rab-dbye, spoke against the popular interpretation of such phenomena (he specifically mentions talking images), as well as against certain aspects of the popular cults of relics and pilgrimages, and thus despite or because of his critical schoolmasterly tone supplies us with important information about popular religion in the early thirteenth century.  There are many sources on Khra-'brug Temple, but most significant for our purposes is the note of Hugh Richardson (for which see Ferrari, Mk'yen brtse's Guide, p. 125, note 240) on a Târâ image he saw at that place, "This sGrol ma [i.e., Târâ] stands among images of the Nye sras brgyad on the left side of the image of Vairocana.  It was pointed out to me as miraculous and I understand that it had once eaten an offering.  Like the other figures it is covered with silk robes and details could not be seen."  See, on the same image, Si-tu, Lam-yig, p. 258.5:  Li-yul Sgrol-ma Jo-mo Zhal-zas-ma Gu-rur gsung-byon (A Khotanese Târâ [image] called "Holy Sister that Eats" which spoke to Guru [Rinpoche, i.e., Padmasambhava?]).  A fuller story of this image is told in Ye-shes-dbang-phyug, "Khra-'brug Dgon-gyi Lo-rgyus," pp. 44-5, and no doubt will be told soon in a forthcoming book on Khra-'brug by Per Sørensen, et al.

[18]Dashes have been purposefully omitted in the transcription in order to avoid prejudicing the interpretation in favor of a particular reading.  None of the variant readings are especially worthy of note (see p. 113), but do compare the version of this song found in the Appendix, verse 45 (p. 290), which adds two lines at the end.

[19]Duncan, Love Songs, p. 123.

[20]Martin, 'For Love or for Religion?'

[21]The author omitted the passage from the Sixth 'Brug-chen's biography (for which, see Martin, 'For Love or Religion?' p. 362), even after promising it on p. 116, which is unfortunate since this testimony, on events that occurred quite close to the time we might suppose the songs to have been composed, is an especially important one.

[22]For evidence nearly contemporaneous to the Sixth Dalai Lama's songs, one may locate in the list of sacred contents enclosed in the Fifth Dalai Lama's tomb-mchod-rten, besides contact and bodily relics of saints, hundreds of references to sacramental pellets of various types (under the names ril-bu, chos-sman, tshe-ril, skye-bdun, myong-grol, bdud-rtsi sman sgrub, bdud-rtsi ril-bu, etc.);  see Sde-srid, 'Dzam-gling-rgyan-gcig, pp. 571-582, and note in this same context at least three occurrences (on pp. 572, 575, 580) of the term phabs-rgyun which occurs in our song no. 20.

[23]They do also go to Rinpoches simply to make an offering and receive a blessing, often called phyag-dbang, or 'hand empowerment', i.e., blessing by the laying on of hands.

[24]A very thorough study of this pilgrimage center has recently appeared (Huber, Cult of Pure Crystal Mountain).  Some earth from Tsari, along with earth from many other holy places, was enclosed in the tomb-mchod-rten of the Fifth Dalai Lama (Sde-srid, 'Dzam-gling-rgyan-gcig, p. 610).  One fact I failed to bring up in Martin, 'For Love or Religion?' might prove significant for arguments about the Dalai Lama's authorship of this particular song.  Among the Sixth Dalai Lama's ancestors in the Gnyos (Smyos) Clan was a 'Bri-gung-pa named Gzi-brjid-dpal (1164-1224) who, together with two other persons, is credited with the 'opening' (sgo-phye) of Tsari.  The story is told how, later on, this Gzi-brjid-dpal, while in the Yar-lung Valley, had a vision of Ye-shes Mkha'-'gro (Jñâna∂âkiˆî), who told him, "Your disciples are in the south."  Following this prophecy, he settled in Mon Bum-thang (in Bhutan), and built two monasteries nearby.  (The preceding based on Sde-srid, Gser-gyi Snye-ma, pp. 105, 115-117.)  Gzi-brjid-dpal would have been significant for later generations of descendents, since it was because of him that the Gnyos family came to be located in Mon (in Bhutan and Mon-yul), and it is hardly conceivable that the Sixth Dalai Lama would have been unaware of this episode in the history of His own clan.  Following this line of interpretation for song no. 20 may support a viable alternative or supplementary explanation to the one I have pursued here.

[25]Martin, 'For Love of Religion?' p. 357.

[26]One detail that might, wrongly I believe, tend interpreters toward a 'beer' interpretation is the verb btung, 'to drink' in line 5.  Sacramental pellets are 'obviously' solids which should be eaten and not drunken.  However, there is an ambiguity in the usage of the verbs bza', 'to eat', and btung, 'to drink', rooted in the enigmatic language of the tantras and tantric treatises, in passages specifically concerned with the consumption of 'sacramental substances' (dam-rdzas) and 'elixirs' (bdud-rtsi; the two words often used to refer to the same sacramental items).  Some of these sacramental pills are intended to be dissolved in liquid before being ingested (just as most medicinal pills are crushed in boiled water).  This interchangeable usage of words for 'eat' and 'drink' is subject of an interesting passage in a 1626 polemical work, Sangs-rgyas-rdo-rje's "Ngam-ring Mkhan-chen Klu-grub-chos-kyi-rgyal-mtshan-pas Brgal-lan Gsang Gsum Rdo-rje'i Snying-po Mchog-tu Grub-pa'i Gtam," contained in a volume of his works published under the title Responses to Various Polemical Writings (pp. 1-242 [pp. 83-88 lacking] at pp. 22.5-26.4).

[27]This hypothetical book will, of course, have to answer the many arguments put forward by Chabpel ('Historical Interpretation') in favor of the Dalai Lama's composition of the songs.  I would just like to point out that, while I have received from Hubert Decleer a very long forthcoming review article devoted to several recent books on the Sixth Dalai Lama, among them that of Per Sørensen, I have not been influenced by any of Decleer's extremely rich findings and often persuasive arguments here, and simply suggest that others ought to look forward to reading what Decleer has to say on many of the issues that I have dealt with in my own way.