Reading section 44

As narrated in the historical section Buddhism suffered a severe reverse with the death of Ralpachan and it was nearly a century before a revival began. This revival was distinctly tantric and the most celebrated name connected with it is Atîśa. According to Csoma de Körös's chronology the Kâlacakra system was introduced in 1025 and the eminent translator bLo-ldan-shes-rab[1003], a follower of Atîśa, was born in 1057. It is thus easy to understand how during the eleventh century a great number of tantric works were translated and the published catalogues of the Kanjur and Tanjur confirm the fact, although the authors of the translations are not mentioned so often as in the other divisions. To Atîśa is ascribed the revision of many works in the Tantra section of the Kanjur and twenty others composed by him are found in the Tanjur[1004]. It is said that the definitive arrangement of the two collections as we know them was made by Bu-ston early in the thirteenth century[1005]. The Kanjur (but not the Tanjur) was translated into Mongol by order of Khutuktu Khagan (1604-1634) the last prince of the Chakhar Mongols but a printed edition was first published by the Emperor K'ang-Hsi. Though it is said that the Tanjur was translated and printed by order of Ch'ien-Lung, the statement is doubtful. If such a translation was made it was probably partial and in manuscript[1006].

Manuscripts are still extensively copied and used in Tibet but the Kanjur has been printed from wooden blocks for the last 200 years. There are said to be two printing presses, the older at Narthang near Tashilhunpo where an edition in 100 volumes is produced and another at Derge in the eastern province. This edition is in 108 volumes. An edition was also printed at Peking by order of K'ang-Hsi in red type and with a preface by the Emperor himself[1007].

Besides the canon the Tibetans possess many religious or edifying works composed in their own language[1008]. Such are the Padma-than-yig, or life of Padma-Sambhava, the works of Tsong-kha-pa, and several histories such as those of Bu-ston, Târanâtha, Sum-pa, and hJigs-med-nam-mkha[1009], biographies of Lamas without number, accounts of holy places, works of private devotion, medical treatises and grammars.

There are also numerous works called Terma which profess to be revelations composed by Padma-Sambhava. They are said to be popular, though apparently not accepted by the Yellow Church.

Although it hardly comes within the scope of the present study, I may mention that there is also some non-Buddhist literature in Tibet, sometimes described as scriptures of the Bön religion and sometimes as folklore. As samples may be cited Laufer's edition and translation of the _Hundred Thousand Nâgas_[1010] and Francke's of parts of the _Kesar-saga_[1011].

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 973: The Tibetan orthography is bKah-hgyur (the translated command) and bsTan-ḥgyur (the translated explanation). Various spellings are used by European writers such as Kah-gyur, Kandjour, Bkahgyur, etc. Waddell writes Kah-gyur and Tän-gyur.]

[Footnote 974: Though this distinction seems to hold good on the whole, yet it is not strictly observed. Thus the work called Udâna and corresponding to the Dhammapada is found in both the Kanjur and Tanjur.]

[Footnote 975: Nanjio's catalogue states that a great many Abhidhaṛma works in Chinese agree with Tibetan, but their titles are not to be found in Csoma's analysis of the Kanjur. They may however be in the Tanjur, which is less fully analyzed.]

[Footnote 976: Analysis of the Dulva, etc., four parts in _Asiatic Researches_, vol. XX. 1836, by A. Csoma Körösi. Translated into French by Feer, _Annales du Musée Guimet_, tome 2me, 1881. _Index des Kanjur_, herausgegeben von I.J. Schmidt (in Tibetan), 1845. Huth, _Verzeichnis der in Tibetischen Tanjur, Abtheilung mDo, erhaltenen Werke_ in _Sitzungsber. Berlin. Akad._ 1895. P. Cordier, _Catalogue du fonds Tibétain de la Bibliothèque Nationale_. Beckh, _Verzeichnis der tibetischen Handscriften der K. Bibliothek zu Berlin_, 1 Abth., Kanjur, 1914. This is an analysis of the edition in 108 volumes, whereas Csoma de Körösi and Feer analyzed the edition in 100 volumes. The arrangement of the two editions is not quite the same. See too Pelliot's review of Beckh's catalogue in _J.A._ 1914, II. pp. 111 ff. See also Waddell, "Tibetan Manuscripts and Books" in _Asiatic Quarterly_, July, 1912, pp. 80-113, which, though not an analysis of the Canon, incidentally gives much information.]

[Footnote 977: _E.g._ Udâna ( = Dhammapada) by Rockhill, 1892 (transl.), and Beckh (text 1911) Madhyamakâvatâra: de la Vallée Poussin, 1912, Madyamika-śâstra: Max Walleser, 1911 (transl.), Citralakshana, ed. and trans. Laufer, 1913; Feer, _Fragments extraits du Kanjur, Annales du Musée Guimet_, tome 5me, 1883.]

[Footnote 978: It is also sometimes divided into three Pitakas. When this is done, the Dulva is the Vinaya P., the Śer-chin is the Abhidharma P., and all the other works whether Sûtras or Tantras are classed together as the Sûtra P.]

[Footnote 979: hDul-ba.]

[Footnote 980: See Nanjio, Nos. 1115-1119, 1122, 1132-4. Rockhill, _Prâtimoksha Sûtra selon la version Tibétaine_, 1884. Huth, _Tibetische Version der Naihsargikaprâyaccittikadharmâs_, 1891. Finot and Hüber, "Le Prâtimoksa des Sarvâstivadins," _J.A._ 1913, II. p. 465.]

[Footnote 981: Strictly Śer-phyin.]

[Footnote 982: Waddell in _Asiatic Quarterly_, 1912, XXXIV. p. 98, renders the title as Vata sangha, which probably represents Avataṃsaka. Sarat Chandra Das, _sub voce_, says Phal-chen-sde-pa = Mahâsanghika.]

[Footnote 983: The statements of Nanjio as to "deest in Tibetan" are not quite accurate as regards the edition in 108 volumes. Compare his catalogue with Beckh's.]

[Footnote 984: This statement made by such scholars as Feer (_Anal. du Kanjour_, p. 288) and Rockhill (_Udâna_, p. x) is of great weight, but I have not found in their works any quotation from the Tibetan translation saying that the original language was not Sanskrit and the titles given by Peer are in Sanskrit not in Pali. I presume it is not meant that the Tibetan text is a translation from a Sanskrit text which corresponds with the Pali text known to us. In Beckh's catalogue of the edition in 108 volumes the same titles occur in the Prajñâ-pâramitâ section, but without any statement that the works are translated from Pali. See Beckh, p. 12, and Feer, pp. 288 ff.]

[Footnote 985: _Life of the Buddha_, p. 224, and _J.R.A.S._ 1899, p. 422.]

[Footnote 986: There is another shorter sûtra on the same subject in the mDo section of the Kanjur. Feer, p. 247. In the edition of 108 volumes, the whole section is incorporated in the mDo, Beckh, p. 33.]

[Footnote 987: The word seems originally to mean string or chain.]

[Footnote 988: Apparently not the same as the Tathâgata-Guhyaka _alias_ Guhya Samagha described by R. Mitra, _Sk. Bud. Lit_. p. 261.]

[Footnote 989: See notices of these in four articles by Satiścandra Vidyâbhûshana in _J.A.S. Beng._ 1907.]

[Footnote 990: _I.e._ the Dhammapada.]

[Footnote 991: Huth's analysis of vols. 117-124 of the Tanjur (_Sitzungsber. Kōn. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin_, 1895) shows that they contain _inter alia_, eight works on Sanskrit literature and philology besides the Meghadûta, nine on medicine and alchemy with commentaries, fourteen on astrology and divination, three on chemistry (the composition of incense), eight on gnomic poetry and ethics, one encyclopædia, six lives of the Saints, six works on the Tibetan language and five on painting and fine art. Cordier gives further particulars of the medical works in _B.E.F.E.O._ 1903, p. 604. They include a veterinary treatise.]

[Footnote 992: See title in Laufer's edition.]

[Footnote 993: See Feer, _l.c._ for instance, pp. 287, 248.]

[Footnote 994: See Feer, _l.c._ p. 344, and Laufer, "Die Bruza Sprache" in _T'oung Pao_, 1908. It is said that King Ru-che-tsan of Brusha or Dusha translated (? what date) the Mûla-Tantra and Vyâkhyâ-Tantra into the language of his country. See _J.A.S.B._ 1882, p. 12. Beckh states that four works have titles in Chinese, one in Bruža and one in Tartar (Hor-gyi-skad-du).]

[Footnote 995: Laufer, _ibid_. p. 4.]

[Footnote 996: See Nanjio, No. 87, and Feer, _l.c._ pp. 208-212, but the two works may not be the same. The Tibetan seems to be a collection of 45 sûtras.]

[Footnote 997: Rockhill, _l.c._ p. 212.]

[Footnote 998: Stein, _Ancient Khotan_, pp. 426-9 and App. B. See also Pelliot in _B.E.F.E.O._ 1908, pp. 507 ff.]

[Footnote 999: The Mahâvyutpatti edited by Minayeff in _Bibl. Buddhica_ and an abridgement.]

[Footnote 1000: According to Feer (_Analyse_, p. 325) Tibetan historians state that at this epoch kings prohibited the translation of more than a few tantric works.]

[Footnote 1001: Numerous works are also ascribed to Sarvajñâdeva and Dharmaka, both of Kashmir, and to the Indian Vidyâkaraprabhâ and Surendrabodhi.]

[Footnote 1002: See Francke in _J.R.A.S._ 1914, pp. 56-7.]

[Footnote 1003: See Pander, _Pantheon_, No. 30.]

[Footnote 1004: Waddell, _Buddhism_, p. 36, gives a list of them.]

[Footnote 1005: It appears to me that there is some confusion between Brom-ston, a disciple of Atîśa, who must have flourished about 1060 and Bu-ston, who was born in 1288. Grünwedel says that the latter is credited with the compilations of the Kanjur and Tanjur, but Rockhill (_Life of the Buddha_, p. 227) describes Bu-ston as a disciple of Atîśa.]

[Footnote 1006: See Huth, _Geschichte des Budd. in der Mongolei_, 291, and Laufer, "Skizze der Mongolischen Literatur" (in _Keleti Szemle_, 1907), p. 219. Also Pelliot in _J.A._ 1914, II. pp. 112-3.]

[Footnote 1007: See Laufer in _Bull. de l'Acad. de S. Pétersbourg_, 1909, pp. 567-574. There are some differences in the editions. That of Narthang is said to contain a series of sûtras translated from the Pali and wanting in the Red Edition, but not to contain two translations from Chinese which are found in the Red Edition. See the preface to Beckh's catalogue. The MS. analyzed by him was obtained at Peking, but it is not known whence it came. An edition by Ch'ien Lung is mentioned by some authors. It is also said that an edition is printed at Punakha in Bhutan, and another in Mongolian at Kumbum.]

[Footnote 1008: Some of these are probably included in the Tanjur, which has not been fully catalogued. See _J.A.S. Beng_. 1904, for a list of 85 printed books bought in Lhasa, 1902, and Waddell's article in _Asiatic Quarterly_, July, 1912, already referred to.]

[Footnote 1009: Edited and translated by Huth as _Geschichte des Buddhismus in der Mongolei_, 1892.]

[Footnote 1010: Finno Ugrian Society of Helsingfors, 1898.]

[Footnote 1011: Same Society, 1900 and 1902, and _J.A.S.B._ 1906-7.]

CHAPTER LII

TIBET (_continued_)

DOCTRINES OF LAMAISM

Lamaism may be defined as a mixture of late Indian Buddhism (which is itself a mixture of Buddhism and Hinduism) with various Tibetan practices and beliefs. The principal of these are demonophobia and the worship of human beings as incarnate deities. Demonophobia is a compendious expression for an obsession which victimizes Chinese and Hindus to some extent as well as Tibetans, namely, the conviction that they are at all times surrounded by fierce and terrible beings against whom they must protect themselves by all the methods that religion and magic can supply. This is merely an acute form of the world-wide belief that all nature is animated by good and bad spirits, of which the latter being more aggressive require more attention, but it assumes startlingly conspicuous forms in Tibet because the Church has enlisted all the forces of art, theology and philosophy to aid in this war against demons. The externals of Tibetan worship suffer much from the idea that benevolent deities assume a terrible guise in order to strike fear into the hosts of evil[1012]. The helpers and saviours of mankind such as Avalokita and Târâ are often depicted in the shape of raging fiends, as hideous and revolting as a fanciful brush and distorted brain can paint them. The idea inspiring these monstrous images is not the worship of cruelty and terror, but the hope that evil spirits may be kept away when they see how awful are the powers which the Church can summon. Nevertheless the result is that a Lama temple often looks like a pandemonium and meeting house for devil-worship, an Olympus tenanted by Gorgons, Hydras and Furies. It is only fair to say that Tibetan art sometimes represents with success gods and saints in attitudes of repose and authority, and has produced some striking portraits[1013], but its most marked feature (which it shares with literature) is a morbid love of the monstrous and terrible, a perpetual endeavour to portray fiends surrounded with every circumstance of horror, and still more appalling deities, all eyes, heads and limbs, wreathed with fire, drinking blood from skulls and trampling prostrate creatures to death beneath their feet. Probably the wild and fantastic landscapes of Tibet, the awful suggestions of the spectral mists, the real terrors of precipice, desert and storm have wrought for ages upon the minds of those who live among them.

Like demonophobia, the worship of incarnate deities is common in eastern Asia but here it acquires an extent and intensity unknown elsewhere. The Tibetans show a strange power of organization in dealing with the supernatural. In India incarnations have usually been recognized post-mortem and as incalculable manifestations of the spirit[1014]. But at least since the seventeenth century, the Lamas have accepted them as part of the Church's daily round and administrative work. The practices of Shamanism probably prepared the way, for in his mystic frenzies the Shaman is temporarily inhabited by a god and the extreme ease with which distinguished persons are turned into gods or Bodhisattvas in China and Japan is another manifestation of the same spirit. An ancient inscription[1015] applies to the kings of Tibet the word _ḥphrul_ which is also used of the Grand Lamas and means that a deity is transformed, or as we say, incarnate in a human person. The Yellow Church officially recognized[1016] the Emperor of China as an incarnation of Mañjuśrî and the Mongols believed the Tsar of Russia to be an incarnation of the White Târâ.

The admixtures received by Buddhism in Tibet are not alien to Indian thought. They received an unusual emphasis but India provided terrible deities, like Kâlî with her attendant fiends, and also the idea that the divine embodies itself in human personalities or special manifestations. Thus Tibetan Buddhism is not so much an amalgam, as a phase of medieval Hindu religion disproportionately developed in some directions. The Lamas have acquired much the same status as the Brahmans. If they could not make themselves a hereditary caste, they at least enforced the principle that they are the necessary intermediaries between gods and men. Though they adopted the monastic system of Buddhism, they are not so much monks as priests and ghostly warriors who understand the art of fighting with demons.

Yet Tibet like Japan could assimilate and transform as well as borrow. The national and original element in Lamaism becomes plain when we compare Tibet with the neighbouring land of Nepal. There late Indian Buddhism simply decayed under an overgrowth of Brahmanism. In Tibet it acquired more life and character than it had in its native Bengal. This new character has something monstrous and fantastic in government as well as art: the magic fortresses of the Snowland, peopled by priests and demons, seem uncanny homes for plain mortals, yet Lamaism has the strength belonging to all genuine expressions of national character and it clearly suits the Tibetans and Mongols. The oldest known form of Tibetan religion had some of the same characteristics. It is called Bön or Pön. It would be outside my province to discuss it here, but even when first heard of it was more than a rude form of animism. In the eighth century its hierarchy was sufficiently strong to oppose the introduction of Buddhism and it possibly contained a pre-buddhist stratum of Iranian ideas[1017]. In later times it adopted or travestied Buddhist dogma, ritual and literature, much as Taoism did in China, but still remained a repository of necromancy, magic, animal sacrifices, devil-dancing, and such like practices, which have in all ages corrupted Tibetan Buddhism though theoretically disapproved.

Of Tibetan Buddhism anterior to 747 there is little to be said. It consisted in the sporadic introduction of books and images from India and did not assume any national character, for it is clear that in this period Tibet was not regarded as a Buddhist country. The first phase deserving the name of Lamaism begins with the arrival of Padma-Sambhava in 747. The Nying-ma-pa or Old School claims to represent his teaching, but, as already mentioned, the various sects have interacted on one another so much that their tenets are hardly distinctive. Still it is pretty clear that what Padma-Sambhava brought with him was the late form of India Buddhism called Mantrayâna, closely allied to the Chên Yen of China, and transported to Japan under the name of Shingon and also to the Buddhism of Java as represented in the sculptures of Boroboedoer. The Far East felt shy of the tantric element in this teaching, whereas the Tibetans exaggerated it, but the doctrinal basis is everywhere the same, namely, that there are five celestial Buddhas, of whom Vairocana is the principal and in some sense the origin. These give rise to celestial emanations, female as well as male, and to terrestrial reflexes such as Śâkyamuni. Among the other features of Padma-Sambhava's teaching the following may be enumerated with more or less certainty: (_a_) A readiness to tolerate and incorporate the local cults of the countries where he preached. (_b_) A free use of spells (dhâraṇî) and magical figures (maṇḍala) for the purpose of subduing demons and acquiring supernatural powers. (_c_) The belief that by such methods an adept can not only summon a deity but assume his form and in fact become the deity. (_d_) The worship of Amitâbha, among other deities, and a belief in his paradise. (_e_) The presentation of offerings, though not of flesh, in sacrifice[1018] and the performance of ceremonies on behalf of departed souls. (_f_) The worship of departed and perhaps of living teachers. His image is a conspicuous object of veneration in the Nying-ma-pa sect but he does not appear to have taught the doctrine of hierarchical succession by incarnation. Grünwedel[1019] has pointed out that the later corruptions of Buddhism in northern India, Tibet and Central Asia are connected with the personages known as the eighty-four Mahâsiddhas, or great magicians. Their appearance as shown in pictures is that of Brahmanic ascetics rather than of Buddhist Bhikshus, but many of them bear names which are not Indian. Their dates cannot be fixed at present and appear to cover a period from the early centuries of our era up to about 1200, so that they represent not a special movement but a continuous tendency to import into Buddhism very various currents of thought, north Indian, Iranian, Central Asian and even Mohammedan.

The visit of Padma-Sambhava was followed by a period of religious activity which culminated in the ninth century under King Ralpachan, but it does not appear that the numerous translations from Indian works made in this reign did more than supplement and amplify the doctrine already preached. But when after a lengthy eclipse Buddhism was reinstated in the eleventh century under the auspices of Atîśa and other foreign teachers we hear of something new, called the Kâlacakra[1020] system also known as the Vajrayâna. Pending the publication of the Kâlacakra Tantra[1021], it is not easy to make definite statements about this school which presumably marks the extreme point of development or degeneration in Buddhism, but a persistent tradition connects it with a country called Śambhala or Zhambhala, translated in Tibetan as bDe-ḥbyuṇ or source of happiness. This country is seen only through a haze of myth: it may have been in India or it may have been somewhere in Central Asia, where Buddhism mingled with Turkish ideas[1022]. Its kings were called Kulika and the Tibetan calendar introduced by Atîśa is said to have come from it. This fact and the meaning of the word Kâlacakra (wheel of time) suggest that the system has some connection with the Turkish cycle of twelve animals used for expressing dates[1023]. A legend[1024] states that Śâkyamuni promulgated the Kâlacakra system in Orissa (Dhânyakaṭaka) and that Sucandra, king of Śambhala, having miraculously received this teaching wrote the Kâlacakra Tantra in a prophetic spirit, although it was not published until 965 A.D. This is really the approximate date of its compilation and I can only add the following disjointed data[1025].

Tibetan authorities state that it was introduced into Nâlandâ by a Pandit called Tsilu or Chilu and accepted by Narotapa who was then head of the University. From Nâlandâ it spread to Tibet. Manjuśrîkîrti, king of Śambhala, is said to have been an exponent of it and to have begun his reign 674 years after the death of the Buddha. But since he is also the second incarnation of the Panchen Lama and since the fourth (Abhayakara) lived about 1075, he may really have been a historical character in the latter part of the tenth century. Its promulgation is also ascribed to a personage called Siddha Pito. It must be late for it is said to mention Islam and Mohammed. It is perhaps connected with anti-mohammedan movements which looked to Kalkî, the future incarnation of Vishnu, as their Messiah, for Hindu tradition says that Kalkî will be born in Śambhalagrâma[1026]. We hear also of a Siddha called Telopa or Tailopa, who was a vigorous opponent of Islam. The mythology of the school is Vishnuite, not Sivaitic, and it is noticeable that the Pâncarâtra system which had some connection with Kashmir lays stress on the wheel or discus (_cakra_ or _sudarśana_) of Vishnu which is said to be the support of the Universe and the manifestation of Creative will. The Kâlacakra is mentioned as a special form of this cosmic wheel having six spokes[1027].

The peculiar doctrine of the Buddhist Kâlacakra is that there is an Adi-Buddha[1028], or primordial Buddha God, from whom all other Buddhas are derived. It is possible that it represents a last effort of Central Asian Buddhism to contend with Moslims, which instead of denying the bases of Mohammed's teaching tried to show that monotheism (like everything else) could be found in Buddhism--a method of argument frequent in India. The doctrine of the Adi-Buddha was not however new or really important. For the Indian mind it is implied in the dogma of the three bodies of Buddha, for the Sambhogakâya is practically an Indian Deva and the Dharmakâya is the pantheos or Brahmâ. Under the influence of the Kâlacakra the Lamas did not become theists in the sense of worshipping one supreme God but they identified with the Adi-Buddha some particular deity, varying according to the sects. Thus Samantabhadra, who usually ranks as a Bodhisattva--that is as inferior to a Buddha--was selected by some for the honour. The logic of this is hard to explain but it is clearly analogous to the procedure, common to the oldest and newest phases of Hindu religion, by which a special deity is declared to be not only all the other gods but also the universal spirit[1029]. It does not appear that the Kâlacakra Tantra met with general acceptance. It is unknown in China and Japan and not well known in Nepal[1030].

The Kâlacakra adopted all the extravagances of the Tantras and provided the principal Buddhas and Bodhisattvas with spouses, even giving one to the Adi-Buddha himself[1031]. Extraordinary as this is from a Buddhist point of view, it is little more than the Hindu idea that the Supreme Being became male and female for the purpose of producing the universe. But the general effect of the system on monastic and religious life was bad. Celibacy was not observed; morals, discipline and doctrine alike deteriorated. A striking instance is afforded by the ceremonies used by Pagspa when receiving Kublai into the Church. The Tibetan prelate presumably wished to give the Emperor what was best and most important in his creed and selected a formula for invoking a demoniac Buddha.