Manuscripts, Rituals, and Magic in the Bon Religion

A workshop hosted by

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

on March 22–23, 2019

This workshop, entitled “Manuscripts, Rituals, and Magic in the Bon Religion”, is the fourth

event we have devoted to Bon manuscripts. The previous three, entitled Bonpo Manuscript

Culture: Towards a Definition of an Emerging Field (parts 1 and 2), and Bon manuscripts in

Context were oriented to the Bon tradition itself: Bon manuscripts perceived as material

objects and part of heritage, their possible interconnections with Naxi culture, and surveys

of collections from all around the world. In this workshop we would especially like to

explore connections between manuscripts, their function, their form in the context of

the Bon religion and ritual performance, and in general the material forms encapsulating

this entire range of features. We would also like to perceive manuscripts as complex

entities that are an essential component of ritual performance. 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 including philology, anthropology, art history,

archaeology and codicology, and will present their research on a variety of topics, including

different collections of Bon manuscripts, text and illustrations, writing materials, and the

historical and archaeological context of their places of origin. Thus, this workshop aims to

explore various aspects of Bon written culture, with an emphasis on physical appearance,

including the development of scripts, book culture through time, the layout of original

manuscripts, and the transition from earlier to later traditions.

Introduction

ProgrammeFriday

10:00 am Welcome

10:10–10:40 Charles Ramble: An illustrated manual for the production of Bonpo “protective wheels” (srung ’khor)

10:40–11:10 Sam van Schaik: Ritual manuscripts in the households of Amdo Ngakpas

11:10–11:30 Coffee break

11:30–12:00 Henk Blezer: Polemical cartoons about Bon

12:00–12:30 Daniel Berounsky: Bon manuscripts of the lay ritual traditions from eastern Tibet

12:30–14:30 Lunch

14:30–15:00 Amy Heller: A Bonpo meditation diagram and ritual text: preliminary remarks

15:00–15:30 Fidel Devkota: Obscure traces of Bon heritage in Dhe village (Sha ri, Lo Mustang)

15:30–16:00 Agnieszka Helman-Ważny: Preservation of Bon manuscript collections in remote Himalayan regions

16:00–16:20 Coffee break

16:20–16:50 Dan Martin: The binding elements and the “Cult of the Book — Older Bon scriptural sources newly found

16:50–17:20 Marc des Jardins: Ritual performance, texts and standardisation under the institutionalisation of g.Yung drung Bon: Phur ba and the other gSas mkhar mchog lnga

20:00 Dinner

Saturday10:00–10:30 Tsering Paldrun: A comparison of seven versions of the gTsang ma klu

’bum

10:30–11:00 Michael Friedrich, Dan Petersen: New results from the study of some Naxi manuscripts in the John Rylands Library

11:00–11:30 Agnieszka Helman-Ważny, Mengling Cai and Dan Petersen: A look at Naxi manuscript culture: codicological study of the manuscripts from the Weltmuseum in Vienna

11:30–11:50 Coffee break

11:50–14:00 Round table discussion

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AbstractsBon manuscripts of the lay ritual traditions from eastern TibetDaniel Berounsky, Charles University, Prague

Vast corpora of manuscripts related to the lay ritual traditions from the area between Gansu and Sichuan provinces (Thewo, Zitsha Degu, Dongtrom) have been published in the last decade in almost a hundred volumes containing reproductions of the original manuscripts. These texts are labelled mostly as“ancient Bon manuscripts”, but what we know about their background is almost nothing. Based on my research trips to the area of Bozo and Phenchu, this paper will attempt to present bits and pieces of information on the lay ritualists from this area since the second half of 18th century and the changes the tradition has undergone. The case of a corpus of manuscripts preserved in the Bon monastery from Khapalung region will be reported, and some information on ritual practices dealing with the purification of pollution (sil) will be touched upon. It is hoped that even such partial information can cast some light on the nature and context of the manuscripts published. 

Polemical cartoons about BonHenk Blezer, Leiden University, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Prof. dr Andries Hummel,1 A retired professor in radiation chemistry, started collecting Tibetan ritual cards or tsa ka li and other small Tibetan artefacts approximately a decade ago. As he started collecting early, when tsa ka li were still fairly affordable, he was able to build a sizable collection that by now runs into hundreds of cards, partly in sets (but, as usual, not all sets are complete and there are many stray and individual cards). Together with these tsa ka li, he also acquired various tangential other materials, such as srung ‘khor-style diagrams; small objects, such as amulets; and illustrated texts, also often incomplete. The bulk of the material seems to hail from Mongolia.2 Among the additional acquisitions there also are some pages (two folios)3 of an intriguing-looking, illustrated block-print, acquired as part of a bundle, which I should like to discuss at our meeting.

It turns out to be a vitriolic polemical text that crudely vilifies purported Bon ritual practices (pressing an old sore spot: the trope that bon po-s (have) entertain(ed) blood sacrifices, dmar mchod). That allegation and stereotype is nothing new, of course, but what for our purposes looks to be novel about this text is that it partly drives its points home via the use of illustrations, more or less in the way of a modern-day ‘cartoon’. The extant pages depict both the practices that are criticised and the dire consequences of performing such sinful rituals (usually a bad rebirth). The phrasing is quite abrasive and polemical, and in

any case offensive to bon po-s—and probably intentionally so, as it strives to deprecate their practices and deities.

These folios also seem to be of Mongolian provenance, which is borne out by an occasional Mongolian word. The title in the margin reads: Legs nyes kyi rgyu ‘bras bstan pa’i mdo (las byung ba).4 Judging by the repeated numbering (of folio ‘one’) this may not be the complete text.5

As said, these folios were acquired as part of a larger bundle of what look to be somewhat related and equally fragmentary materials. The other set features similar-looking pictorial representations, and has the title Ke’u tshang bca’ yig (las byung ba). Again only two folios were included in the purchase: one page has a title-like phrase (Ke’u tshang sprul sku’i bca’ yig ‘gro kun phan bde’i gzhi bsrung (las)); followed by three very short narratives; and, finally, the narratives also appear in pictorial form.6

These cautionary or edifying bca’ yig cartoons seem to be thematically related to the former: they also are about bad things that will befall you if you do not behave properly (in these cases all are about proper behaviour toward the sangha, particularly concerning offerings and ‘generosity’). But these do not deal with bon po-s specifically. This second set does recommend, however, that it would make sense to look at bca’ yig-type texts for these kinds of cautionary and edifying tales.

For my paper, I should like to present and discuss the illustrated polemical text about Bon ritual; reflect on its possible origins; and consult the audience on possible other sightings.

1 This is a name with resonance in Tibetology, but Andries Hummel appears unrelated to Siegbert Hummel.

2 He bought these from various Chinese and Mongolian sellers and through the Internet, but this geographical centre of gravity may partly also simply reflect the lie of the land of on-line trade at the time.

3 These may be part of a larger text with at least two more folios; in any case the text is probably incomplete as it is.

4 There probably are quite a few texts with such edifying content and title: there is one in the bKa’ ‘gyur and also one attributed to ‘Jig rten mgon po. (But those seem unrelated.)

5 The collector occasionally scanned the last page first (with a fifty-fifty chance, as he does not read Tibetan).

6 The order of the illustrations in the latter set does not match the listing at all (neither as scanned nor as glued together). Here too the order of scanning occasionally seems to be off (again 50-50) and the numbering is off too (e.g., ‘four’ opposite ‘one’). The pages may even have been glued together in the wrong order. The 67th dGa’ ldan khri pa, a sPrul sku by the name of Ke’u tshang (1750–1814), produced a bca’ yig (v. BDRC).

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Obscure traces of Bon heritage in Dhe billage (Sha ri, Lo Mustang)Fidel Devkota, Berlin

Dhe is predominantly a Nyingmapa (rNying ma pa) village and its rituals and ceremonies are guided by it. Nyingmapa ngapas (sngags pa) from the village perform most of the village rituals, except the death ritual (Lo. Shinchos), which is officiated by Drukpa Kagyu (’Brug pa bka’ brgyud) monks from nearby Luri Gompa. Further, sacred texts such as the Prajnaparamita sutra (Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa), Kangyur (bKa’ ’gyur), and Tengyur (bsTan ’gyur) recitations and a few other ceremonies are performed by Ngor Sakyapa (Ngor sa skya pa) monks from Tsarang Monastery. Dhe also has a strong Bon heritage and the traces of it are still visible in numerous rituals and ceremonies performed in the village today. The presence of Bon related caves, manuscripts, artworks, myths, and folklore in the village also highlight the strong influence of Bon tradition in the past. This paper briefly focuses on some of this obscure and vanishing traces of Bon heritage of Dhe Village to initiate measures to ‘safeguard’ it for the future generation.

Ritual performance, texts and standardisation under the institutionalisation of gYung drung Bon: Phur ba and the other gSas mkhar mchog lngaMarc Des Jardins

Sometime between the founding of sMan ri monastery in 1405 and his passing in 1415, mNyam med Shes rab rgyal mtshan (b. 1356) wrote a commentary on the root tantra entitled “The precious gathering of all, the net of sun rays.” The latter text, attributed to the 9th century Tibetan sage Dran pa nam mkha,¹ is a synopsis of the Tantric Path. The rgyud in Bon are expositions of ritual systems for the propitiation of the various spiritual heads. These beings demonstrate a variety of possible sources. Some appear to be indigenous to Tibet, many not without influence from India, and others clearly point to adoptions and adaptations. What may have been different unrelated ritualistic trends in the early days of the Tibetan Empire became part of a growing effort of Tibetan lamas to create an organized religion able to compete with Buddhism. Shes rab rgyal mtshan was a proponent of this movement and after founding sMan ri began writing feverishly the lore he learned at gYas ru dBen sa kha Monastery (destroyed in 1386). His seminal treatise on rgyud may have been the source guideline used for later codification and standardisation of Bonpo ritual texts, in particular the Phur ba cycle particularly central to the sMan ri institution. This paper examines these guidelines in view of the standard sMan ri phur ba ritual compendia and that of the other members of the gSas mkhar mchog lnga pantheon.

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A Bonpo Meditation Diagram and Ritual text, Preliminary remarksAmy Heller, University of Bern, Institute of Religious Studies and Central Asia

In 1998, Samten Karmay published the volume entitled The Little Luminous Boy, which he described as «A detailed exposition of the Bon secret oral tradition from Zhang-Zhung in western Tibet, and its transmission by recognized masters up till the present.» This volume was richly illustrated with exquisite details from two Tibetan thangka paintings, one of which was analyzed as an 18th century thangka attributed to the Shar khog region of Khams. Karmay provided full translation and iconographic analysis of this thangka. Subsequently, the present writer identified another thangka of this same ritual now conserved in a private collection and Charles Ramble has photographed a third thangka, now conserved in Samling monastery, Dolpo. This presentation will study the three thangka and their diagrams to compare the texts and the iconographic representation of the text entitled the sGron ma drug (Six Lamps) as well as a subtext of this called the ’Khor lo bzhi sbrags.

A look at Naxi ritual manuscripts: a codicological study of the manuscripts from the Weltmuseum in ViennaAgnieszka Helman-Ważny, Mengling Cai and Dan Petersen (Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, University of Hamburg)

Despite significant collections of Naxi written heritage preserved in China, America and Europe, these pictographic manuscripts have not yet been systematically studied as material objects, and we know very little about the history of Naxi (Dongba) manuscripts and paper made in Yunnan Province. The studied collection of Naxi manuscripts from the Weltmuseum in Vienna was donated to the museum by K. Anton Gebauer, Heinrich Handel-Mazzetti, Joseph Francis Charles Rock, and Rene Nebesky-Wojkowitz. The comparative codicological study of sixteen manuscripts allowed us to learn about their form, technology and materials. Various raw materials detected by microscopic examination may signal regional patterns, production habits related to local plant resources or cultural habits used by Naxi communities in various geographical locations in Southwest China. It is possible that other codicological features of these manuscripts – for example format, leaf shapes and sizes, specific paper used for particular ritual texts, scribal traits, and so forth – may have been consciously applied and preserved in this context. However, further research on a much larger corpus of the Naxi manuscripts is necessary to better define and understand these manuscripts as a corpus.

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Preservation of Bon manuscripts collections in remote Himalayan regionsAgnieszka Helman-Ważny

This presentation will give an overview of the current situation in the preservation of Bon manuscripts in Mustang, Nepal. This includes discussion on issues such as the physical condition of Bon manuscripts, their locations, access, as well as possible measures to support local communities in preservation of cultural heritage. I will also discuss the importance of systematic collection of data, templates, and metadata on the material objects for Special Collections cataloging, as well as the development of methodologies and tools for both digitization and conservation of Tibetan rare books in remote Himalayan regions.

The binding elements and the “Cult of the Book” —older Bon scriptural sources newly foundDan Martin, Jerusalem

Not always but sometimes, what looks like a cul-de-sac goes on to open a new and unexpected boulevard of thinking. I had planned to look into the as-yet unexplored post-Mongol era Tibetan treatises on consecration (zhal-sro or rab-gnas). However, I found to my disappointment that overall they just repeat and copy material from the pre-Mongol era texts that I already made use of in our last two meetings. Along the way I did find one lead on a very evidently scriptural text that is quoted in one early and again in one later consecration text. Thanks to help from Jean-Luc Achard, I was able to make use of an incomplete but searchable Bon scriptural canon or Kanjur. Performing word-searches through it, I was unable to find (and, sorry to say, still haven’t identified the source for) that text I was looking for. Still, what I did find along the way surprised me. Three different-length versions of the Khams-brgyad scripture contain a passage that speaks of the binding elements (two of them are practically identical, while the other looks like an abbreviated version of the same). All three of these scriptures belong to the 1017 CE revelations of Shenchen Luga (Gshen-chen Klu-dga’), and thus would appear to be the earliest datable pieces of written textual evidence on Tibetan binding practices. And there is yet another treatment of the subject in a scripture that must have been revealed by ‘Go-lde ‘Phags-pa in the mid- or late-13th century. This quite different passage is nested within a larger discussion of Speech Receptacles (gsung rten) that is worthwhile to notice.

After looking into these passages, working to overcome difficulties in the readings and interpretations, we might achieve a sense of closure by imagining or re-imagining a traditional Bon way of understanding the book as holy object, as object of worship. Inevitably, comparisons are going to be made with the Buddhist cult of the book in the Prajñaparamita Sutras, as well as the well-known Mahayana Buddhist idea—apparently in large part derived from that same scripture—of the “Ten Practices [that focus on] Dharma

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[scriptures]” (chos spyod bcu). This numeric concept is known to have its roots in a work of Maitreya or Asan. ga dating to the fourth or fifth centuries CE. Research always means looking again at what we thought we knew, and never needing to say we’re sorry.

An illustrated manual for the production of Bonpo “protective wheels” (srung ’khor)Charles Ramble (EPHE - PSL, CRCAO, Paris)

As is well known, scriptural works are revered by Tibetans not only for their content but also for their inherent sanctity as sacred objects. In many communities, canonical works are removed from the shelves on which they are stored far less often to be read than to be paraded around fields to protect crops from hail and parasites, or to bestow blessings by contact with the bared heads of devout villagers. While such apotropaic or benedictive functions are incidental to the purpose for which the texts were created, there is a wide range of blockprints or manuscripts – or often a combination of the two – that are produced precisely with a view to ensuring protection. Perhaps the most important of these devices are the srung ’khor, literally “protective wheels”, that are a common sight in Tibetan villages, where they are often pasted to the doors of houses and stables to ward off afflictions such as disease and malicious gossip. Less visibly, but even more widely, they are used as personal protectors, folded up into small squares and stitched into cloth envelopes that are worn around the neck. Since the sixteenth century such devices have usually been made from blockprints that may be embellished with handwritten formulae (Jeff Watt, personal communication). Discoveries in caves and in private collections in villages have revealed hand-drawn and hand-painted examples that probably date from earlier than the time when the use of blockprints became widespread. While protective wheels are usually described in terms of the types of protection they offer, they may also be classified according to the tutelary divinities with whom they are associated. This paper will present a rare manual, photographed in a temple in Dolpo, Nepal, that gives instructions for creating such wheels as part of the ritual cycles of a dozen major divinities of the Bon religion. In addition to detailed descriptions of the amulets, the text specifies how they are to be used, the categories of persons who are likely to derive the greatest benefit from their use, and the precise types of protection they will ensure. Most strikingly, each description is accompanied by a miniature painting that reproduces exactly the intended appearance of each amulet.

Ritual manuscripts in the households of Amdo NgakpasSam van Schaik, The British Library

This paper is a reflection on the manuscripts documented in EAP727, a project to document the manuscript collections in the households of Ngakpa families in Amdo carried out by

Valentina Punzi and funded by the Endangered Archives Programme IN 2015. The project documented 184 books from five households and the collection of the Qinghai Province Buddhist Culture Research Centre in Xining. The digital photographs and catalogue data was deposited at the Research Centre, as well as TBRC and the British Library where they are available on the EAP website (https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP727). These are pecha format books that show signs of heavy use and wear and tear; several were hidden in walls or buried underground during the Cultural Revolution. The contents of the books include divination, medicine, rainmaking, and other worldly rituals, as well as tantric sadhanas. In this paper I introduce these collections and some of the considerations they raise in terms of assessing the agency of manuscripts in Tibetan worldly rituals, and the question of whether manuscripts of this type can be definitively categorised as either Buddhist or Bonpo.

A comparison of seven versions of the gTsang ma klu ’bumTsering Paldrun, EPHE - PSL, CRCAO (UMR 8155), Paris

A few years ago the Bonpo scholar Khri bde mchog gave a conference presentation in which he offered an overview of five recensions of the gTsang ma klu ’bum dkar po/ nag po/ khra bo, with lists of the chapter titles of each set. However, he did not compare the actual content of the different versions. In the past two years I have been able to undertake a comparison of these five recensions: Rtag brtan phun tshogs gling, Dga’ ldan phun tshogs gling, Sde dge par khang, Sman ri, and Bon Canon, as well as two further versions from Mustang that were made available to me by Charles Ramble and Agnieszka Helman-Wazny. Taking the first of these collections – Rtag brtan phun tshogs gling – as the base text, I will present a summary of the contents and draw comparisons of certain features, such as vocabulary and sentence structure, in order to suggest how these seven versions may be related.