Bonpo Manuscript CultureTowards a Definition of an Emerging Field Part 2

A workshop hosted by

The Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, University of Hamburg

Friday-Saturday, 10-11 March 2017Centre for the Study of Manuscript CulturesWarburgstrasse 2620354 Hamburg

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ProgrammeFriday

10:00 am  Welcome10:10–10:40 Charles Ramble: On the traces of a continuous tradition? Ma-

nuscripts of the Naxi, the le’u and Bon10:40–11:10 Sam van Schaik: The main collections and types of Bon ma-

nuscripts from Dunhuang and other Central Asian collections11:10–11:30 Coffee break11:30–12:00 Michael Friedrich: Naxi manuscripts in the West: a survey of

collections and scholarship12:00–12:30 Dan Martin: Sounds of punctuation marks fill the universe:

Bon consecration literature of Tibet’s pre-Mongol era and what it can tell us about Bon bookmaking arts

12:30–13:00 Daniel Berounsky: The Tibetan Nyen Collection (Gnyan ’bum): Three versions of a myth of the fine for killing the Nyen

13:00–14:30 Lunch14:30–15:00 Marc des Jardins: Bon versus Buddhist grimoires, techniques

and mantras15:00–15:30 Paldrun Dechen: A comparison of some recently-discovered

manuscripts of an important Bon work: the “Hundred Tho-usand Nagas” (Klu ’bum).

15:30–16:00 Alexander Smith: Prognosis and prophylaxis: Comparative remarks on the structure and usage of Bon cleromantic texts

16:00–16:20 Coffee break16:20–16:50 Edward Proctor: Practical aspects of digitizing a monastic

collection of Bon manuscripts16:50–17:20 Agnieszka Helman-Ważny: Codicological survey of Bon ma-

nuscripts in Nepal20:00 Dinner

Saturday10:00–10:30 Tsering Thar: A new collection of Bonpo manuscripts in Amdo10:30–11:00 Yang Fuquan: Comparative research on Bonpo and Naxi mythic

literature (summary presented by Charles Ramble) 11:00–11:30 Coffee break11:30–14:00 Round table discussion

Abstracts

The Tibetan Nyen Collection (Gnyan ’bum): Three versions of a myth of the fine for killing the Nyen Daniel Berounsky, Charles University, Prague

The paper will introduce three related myths dealing with fine for killing Nyen (stong) by the original people of Dong (Ldong) clan as they appear in three versions of the Nyen Collection (Gnyan ’bum) available. Two of these versions were reportedly rediscovered as a ‘treasure’ (gter) in western Tibet before 1017 and in the 12th century. The third version was recently found in eastern Tibet by Ngawang Gyatso and there is no available record of its origin available. One of its main characters is Machen Pomra (Rma chen Pom ra) – a famous mountain deity of eastern Tibet – and even one of the versions rediscovered in western Tibet mentions the location of primordial people to be Thebchu (Thebs chu), which seems to refer to Thewo, i.e. the region of eastern Tibet, where the last of the version was located.   

Naxi manuscripts in the West: a survey of collections and scholarshipMichael Friedrich, University of Hamburg

Since the early twentieth century Naxi (sometimes wrongly called Mosuo) manuscripts were bought by Western collectors and institutions. The talk will introduce the major collections in the West and summarise the main topics of Western scholarship on the Naxi corpus.

Codicological survey of Bon manuscripts in NepalAgnieszka Helman-Ważny, University of Hamburg

Tibetan books, from which Bon religious manuscripts can be extracted as a subset, have not been traditionally viewed as artefacts in their own right, with a specific form and technology. They are also not mapped nor even viewed as collections distinguished for the Bon tradition from a scholarly point of view. Moreover, we know relatively little about regional differences in book and paper history across the Himalayas. Considering these perspectives, this study will present the preliminary results from surveying Bon manuscript collections in Nepal. Then it will discuss the codicological and material features in selected manuscripts from four surveyed collections in Nepal, such as the Triten Norbutse Monastery collection in Kathmandu, the Lama Tsultrim collection in Lubrak, the Bonpo Gompa collection in Jharkot, and the Mardzong manuscripts collection preserved

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in Chöde monastery in Lo Monthang. Features particular to these Bon manuscripts will be discussed in the overall context of paper- and book-making traditions in Nepal.

Bon versus Buddhist grimoires, techniques and man-trasJ.F. Marc des Jardins, Concordia University, Montréal

This presentation will focus on contrasting the Bon grimoire titled Man ngag spu gri ’bar ba bka’ rgya ma rdzongs ’phrang of Nyi ma Rgyal mtshan with similar Tibetan Buddhist literature notably those of Mipham (1846–1912) and Ba ri lo tsā ba (1040–1111). It will demonstrate some of the differences and commonalities which are characteristic of this genre of literature.

Sounds of punctuation marks fill the universe Bon consecration literature of Tibet’s pre-Mongol era and what it can tell us about Bon bookmaking artsDan Martin, Jerusalem

Naturally, our first and most general reason for interest in Bon consecration literature is what it can tell us about how and in what ways the materiality of Bon books (including the collections of letters and punctuation marks they contain) is bound up with the religious and spiritual aspects of Bon religion. In Bon practice, holy books take the form of [Buddha-]speech receptacles (gsung-rten), meaning objects that are supposed to be consecrated, afterward receive veneration and offerings, and bestow blessings much like holy relics. But these consecration texts do, perhaps unexpectedly, contain more specific and even practical information about how sacred Volumes (glegs-bam) were produced, including such matters as scribing, papermaking and the various other elements that go into the creation of a Volume, and these will form the focus of this paper. Passages drawn from consecration rituals attributed to the excavations of the Bonpo treasure revealer Shenchen Luga (Gshen-chen Klu-dga’) traditionally dated to 1017 CE, as well as to another treasure revealer of the 12th century will be translated,* with special attention to the technical terms of Tibetan book arts used in them.

* My primary sources are drawn from the 74th volume of the 178-volume 3rd edition of the Bon Kanjur, published by Mongyal Lhasay (Smon-rgyal Lha-sras) Rinpoche between 1995 and 1999.

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Practical aspects of digitizing a monastic collection of Bon manuscriptsEdward Proctor, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, USA

Challenges encountered and solutions implemented digitizing manuscripts held by Menri Monastery in Dolanji, India, under grants EAP296 and EAP687 from the British Library’s Endangered Archives. Programme: http://eap.bl.uk.

Obtaining permissions from the Abbot and the Government of India. Locating and organizing manuscripts scattered throughout the monastic compound. Problems with digital photographic equipment. Environmental issues, including lighting, erratic electricity, toxic dust from decaying manuscripts, &c. Training monks. The complicated nature of original cataloging of Bon manuscripts.

On the traces of a continuous tradition? Manuscripts of the Naxi, the le’u and BonCharles Ramble

Recent research by scholars in China has brought to light large quantities of Tibetan textual material in the Sichuan-Gansu borderlands belonging to a tradition known as le’u. Ngawang Gyatso, of Lanzhou University, has advanced the plausible hypothesis that the term is cognate with lde’u, the name of a category of priests who are reported to have been expelled from Central Tibet by the Buddhist emperor Trisong Detsen. Could this le’u tradition represent a missing link between the systematised Bon religion that developed in Central after the tenth century, and the religion of the Naxi of Yunnan? The influence of Bon on the Naxi religion has been pointed out by various scholars, including Joseph Rock, Rolf Stein and, more recently, Anthony Jackson. This influence is to be seen most obviously in the names of the mythic founder dTo-mba shi-lo (<sTon pa gshen rab) and Shi-lo mi-wu (< gShen rab mi bo). Just how this influence found its way to Yunnan is not clear. Stein attributes the Bonpo presence among the Naxi to a thirteenth-century policy of the Karmapas. Jackson has suggested that the dongba originated as the heirs of an earlier Bonpo monastic tradition that was supplanted by Buddhists, who occupied the soteriological high ground and left room only for the kinds of rituals that feature in the two lowest vehicles of the Nine Ways of Bon; and the pictographic texts (he suggests) must have been developed by Naxi monks who were familiar with Tibetan book culture. Both of these scholars discounted the possibility that the Naxi dto-mba/dongba are the heirs of a tradition that their forebears received directly from Bonpos who fled Central Tibet in the eighth century. However, the discovery of the le’u corpus, which preserves myths and rituals of the “lower” vehicles of Bon, lends credence to the idea of an eastward diffusion to Yunnan via Sichuan. This presentation will focus on previously unnoticed points of kinship between Naxi and Bonpo ritual texts. It will be seen that the Naxi material may

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solve certain mysteries about early Tibetan ritual; it will also be suggested that the le’u corpus may constitute a bridge between Bonpo canonical works and Naxi ritual texts.

The main collections and types of Bon manuscripts from Dunhuang and other Central Asian collectionsSam van Schaik, The British Library

Many manuscript sources for non-Buddhist rituals and narratives are found in the collections of Tibetan manuscripts from Central Asian sites, primarily the library cave at Dunhuang and the Tibetan fort at Miran. Some of these have been known for some time, thanks to the work of scholars such as Ariane Macdonald, Rolf Stein and Samten Karmay. Others have only been recognised recently. I will give an overview of these sources, with an inclusive approach to the question of what constitutes a “Bon” text in this early period.

Prognosis and prophylaxis: Comparative remarks on the structure and usage of Bon cleromantic textsAlexander Smith, Paris

It comes as no surprise that pre-modern divination manuals are, in large part, written by monastics and educated scribes. What is unique about divinatory literature, however, is that rather than being composed entirely for usage by ritual specialists, the prognostic sections of divination texts are also written to respond to questions posed by the diviners’ clientele. Consequently, divination manuals provide researchers with a kind of window onto the quotidian hopes, fears, and anxieties common to the social milieus in which the documents are composed. While this is briefly discussed by both Ariane Macdonald and Brandon Dotson, to date there has been very little scholarly interest in the comparative study of post-11th century divination manuals. As many pre-modern divination manuscripts are being retired in contemporary exile communities in favor of modern, mass-produced publications, this area of textual scholarship is of paramount importance.

Making use of selected translations from ‘canonical’ Bon divinatory compendia, as well as a series of ‘non-canonical’ commentaries written in the 18th and 19th centuries, this presentation will address the compositional structure and literary devices that typify the Bon cleromantic genre. It is hoped that a comparative codicological study of these materials will provide new and promising material for the construction of Tibetan social histories.

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A new collection of Bonpo manuscripts in AmdoTsering Thar, Beijing

There are still many Bonpo manuscripts to be found in private collections of Amdo. A project of China’s Minzu University was set up to find these texts for publication and research, and after a long period of field research in villages and monasteries in Amdo over the course of several years, we were able to collect and scan a large quantity of manuscript material. This has now been edited and published in ten volumes. The content may be divided into 7 parts as follows: 1. Bon gyi rgyal rdzong, comprising 16 texts, including: sMe’i bcos thabs, Me ri’i snying thig, Llu mdos, Klu gtor, among others; 2. Le’u skor, consisting of 19 texts including: Drang rgan gto thig, Khyung ’bum gong ma, Wer ma’i ’bum rtsis, Kong tse gdon skyur; 3. gNyan gyi skor, comprising 24 texts that are sections dealing with the klu and gnyan; 4. gShed mda’, with 12 texts including Du tri su, Nam mkha’, sDe brgyad and mDos kyi cha rabs; 5. gTod ’bum and Klu ‘bum, which subsumes 12 texts that include Bya rdang sgo dbye, Bya rdang gzhung chen, Bya rdang ka ’dzugs, Bya rdang gsas rdo, Bya rdang rgyan bkod; 6. brNgan chog, comprising 15 texts, among them Pom ra’i bsang chog, Wer ma’i dbus phyogs, sMrugs ’khor, and ’Phang brngan; and finally 7. Sa bdag, comprising 9 texts: Klu thabs, bSang mchod and Klung rta, among others.

All these texts belong to Srid pa’i Bon, the indigenous religion of Tibet. Such texts are now very rare in Central and Western Tibet, and represent an ancient stratum of the plateau’s culture. The collection will come out in April 2017.

Bonpo Manuscript Culture: Towards a Definition of an Emerging FieldPart 2

Although a number of important xylographic editions of Bon texts are known to have existed, for the most part this religion has demonstrated a much more marked preference than Tibetan Buddhism has for manuscript works. Manuscripts account for the entire range of Bonpo literary production, from all the major canonical works to the collected writing of famous masters, and the plethora of ritual texts that are coming to light in many parts of the region. Manuscripts have been essential in supporting the efforts of Bon monks, nuns and hereditary priests to preserve their unique culture, as well as the attempts of scholars elsewhere to understand not only the Bon religion but also the early cultural and intellectual history of Central Asia.

Research on the Bonpo literary corpus is still very much in its infancy. Wherever Bon manuscripts have been found, the focus has been on making the material accessible, in either printed or digital form, but little else. The long-standing interest in Buddhism and the preservation of cultural heritage, combined with the more recent focus on the conservation of manuscript collections within Tibet and the Himalayas, has triggered a wave of interest in the codicological, historical and anthropological study of Tibetan book culture. However, Bon manuscripts have not yet been clearly identified as a distinct corpus, or formed the object of codicological and material studies.

The previous workshop was intended primarily as an open-ended discussion on the existing collections of Bon manuscripts which, besides providing a textual record of history and religion, are also material objects that belong to a sustainable cultural world heritage. In this follow-up workshop we intend to refine and formulate these preliminary ideas into a research programme. Along the same lines, we would like to continue an interdisciplinary discussion that will make it possible to see Bon manuscripts in the wider perspective of manuscript studies. The participants are specialists in different academic disciplines, and will present their research on a variety of topics including different collections of Bon manuscripts, “emic” Bonpo ideas about their textual traditions, the science and technology of book studies, inter alia. Following peer review we aim to publish our contributions within the De Gruyter series “Studies in Manuscript Cultures” (see: https://www.degruyter.com/view/serial/43546).