kīli kīlaya
Discoveries and research hypotheses in
Tibetan Buddhism from the Oriental
Institute, Oxford University
Did Vairocana have lice?
Posted on July 11, 2012 by Rob Mayer
According to Pasang Wangdu and Hildegaard Diemberger’s translation of the dBa’ bzhed, [1] Pa gor Vairocana,
the great translator and Buddhist culture hero of Imperial-period Tibet, might have been absolutely crawling
with the repulsive little creatures. There is a passage in the dBa’ bzhed which Wangdu and Diemberger found
too obscure to translate, thus leaving some words of the original Tibetan within their English translation, with a
footnote tentatively suggesting the elusive meaning could possibly be that Pa gor Vairocana’s beard was infested
with lice.
The context is the Zas gtad kyi lo rgyus, a famous appendage at the end of the dBa’ bzhed that narrates a lively
debate between various groups of Tibetans about how to conduct the funeral ceremonies of the recently
deceased Emperor, the great Khri Srong lde btsan himself. Some, described in the text as Bonpos, argued for
the time honoured bang so funeral, the ritual interment of the deceased Emperor within a vast tumulus filled
with grave goods which would become the focal point of ritual in future years, a magnificent and elaborate
system of burial that had by then already defined a great part Tibetan ceremonial life for some hundreds of
years. But since such a tumulus burial entailed animal sacrifice, others, described in the text as Buddhists,
strenuously
disagreed:
they
preferred
funerary
rites
based
on
such
Buddhist
systems
as
the Sarvadurgatipariśodhana and Uṣṇīṣa.
The passage that suggested lice to Wangdu and Diemberger occurs near the beginning of the story. Arriving at
the debate in good time, the proponents of Bon had taken up all the rows of seats (gral), leaving no place for the
late-coming Buddhist champions, headed by Vairocana. The Buddhists were facing a serious humiliation: in this
important debate, they did not even have a suitably dignified seat at the table, so to speak (it seems the
hierarchical arrangements of the gral were as significant indicators of status then as now). It is at this point
that Vairocana intervenes. He stood himself behind the opposing minister seated at the head of the row to the
right, thus inducing the hapless minister to glance behind him; and this is what the minister saw [the Tibetan
continues as follows]:
bai ro tsa na’i smra ra’i gseb na khro chung nyungs dkar tsam shig shig snang ba dang/ shin tu skrag nas
kog gis langs pa’i shul du bai ro tsa nas bzhugs pas ban de la g.yas gral shor/ [26v7-27r1]
Wangdu and Diemberger attempted the passage as follows:
“[he] saw khro chung nyung dkar crawling around in the beard of Vairocana, and got up with a start. He was
immediately replaced with Vairocana, and lost the whole right row.” (p. 96) A footnote is added, suggesting khro
chung nyung dkar might indicate lice, as follows (note 381, page 96): “khro chung nyung dkar seem to indicate
some peculiar seeds. Nyung dkar is in Tibet a not very common vegetable species from the seeds of which oil is
obtained. Khro may stand for khra in which case it would indicate a multicoloured gathering. Perhaps the
minister was scared by these seeds looking like parasites. Possibly this expression is a euphemism for nits (in
which case khro = sro) and nyung dkar could be a polite form for shig, i.e. louse (in Mustang the polite form for
louse is lug).”
As one can see, this is a very highly convoluted argument, based on the opinion that the words khro chung
nyung dkar do not exist in the lexicon, and so must be interpreted. It also requires one to accept a number of
other quite complex admitted speculations.
Is this memorable rendering, of lice in Vairocana’s beard startling a Bon po minister, accurate? It seems, alas for
those who have come to love it, not. As Cathy has been reminding us for some time now, the words khro chung
nyungs dkar tsam refer to something altogether less amusing, less repulsive, and more awe-inspiring,
something as familiar to specialists in certain kinds of tantrism as the term ‘front-side bus’ might be to
computer manufacturers, but equally obscure and misleading to anyone else. Nevertheless it nowadays only
takes a quick look at the THDL or Rangjung Yeshe Dictionaries under khro chung to get a clue: khro chung
nyung dkar is in one of these dictionaries usefully if tersely signposted as: “small wrathful ones; yungs dkar –
nyung dkar – Mustard seeds.” In fact, the ‘wrathful ones as small as mustard seeds’ of the Zas gtad kyi lo
rgyus are a well known category notably in Mahāyoga wrathful deity systems, and indicate the emanation of
vast hosts of tiny spark-like wrathful forms from the hair pores or the skin to create an awesome display. Deities
or great yogis are described as doing this. In rituals, the emanation of such tiny deities is often indicated by the
casting of mustard seeds (mustard seeds are commonplace in Tibetan ritual), and hence they are sometimes
termed khro chung and identified with nyung dkar, which conveys both their tiny size (as small as mustard
seeds), and their ritual analogue (the throwing of mustard seeds during a ritual). These tiny wrathful forms are
attested in Dunhuang texts such as IOLTibJ401, in numerous later medieval traditions such as the great Sakya
Phurpa cycles, and in numerous contemporary texts such as Dudjom Rinpoche’s treasures. They have been a
continuous well established feature of Mahāyoga from Dunhuang times until the present. Hence in a book we
published in 2008, Early Tibetan Documents on Phur pa from Dunhuang, we re-translated this passage from
the Zas gtad kyi lo rgyus as follows:
“Amongst Vairocana’s whiskers, miniature wrathful [deities] the size of mustard seeds were appearing and
amassing and, they so much terrified [his opponent that he] abruptly arose, leaving Vairocana behind, who sat
down, so the right row was lost to the Buddhist monks” (p. 50).
Finally, apparent parallels to this ancient story seems to occur in other literature, including the ‘Dra ‘bag chen
mo, the most famous traditional biography of Vairocana. Ani Jinba Palmo’s translation (The Great Image, page
219) mentions Vairocana arriving late at an Imperial funeral, and emitting fierce sparks, to the awe of the other
attendees (no lice!). I have not yet located the original Tibetan wording. The late Khetsun Zangpo Rinpoche’s
Biographical Dictionary of Tibet also has an account of Vairocana’s life, which became a basis of A. W. HansonBarber’s PhD on Vairocana, and there too we find Vairocana arriving rather abruptly at the Emperor’s funeral
with his student gYu sgra snying po, emitting an awesome display of sparks—clearly a version of the same story,
and although Khetsun Zangpo naturally makes clear references to the ‘Dra ‘bag throughout his text, some
variations in detail indicates he might in fact have drawn this section from a different source, or a different
version of the ‘Dra ‘bag (A. W. Hanson-Barber, Madison-Wisconsin 1984, Life and Teachings of Vairochana,
page 89).
Is this the end of the line for Vairocana’s mythical lice? I’m reasonably confident it is in the minds of Wangdu
and Diemberger, who were never much convinced by the lice idea in the first place, and who, as first-class
scholars, are entirely likely to be delighted by Vairocana’s belated liberation from an eternity of itching [in fact,
Hilde recently emailed us, with the words "Thankyou for getting a more plausible solution to this obscure
passage.."]. But I doubt its the end of the story elsewhere: the idea of Vairocana’s lice is simply too funny, too
quaint, and too downright memorable, to die quietly. Once unleashed on the global imagination, I estimate it
has many decades, maybe even several centuries, to run. If there’s one thing any English language reader
remembers about the dBa’ bzhed, its likely to be Vairocana’s lice.
***
Finally, for any hard-core nerds who might be mad enough to read our foolish blog, here are some examples
of khro chung from the ritual literature:
[1] This first passage is from Dudjom Rinpoche’s gNam lcags spu gri bsnyen yig, found in the section
commenting on the Command (bka’ bsgo ba), which is at the beginning of the ritual.
གལ་ཏེ་མི་ཉན་པའི་རིགས་གuག་པ་ཅན་ཡོད་rིད་པ་ལ་རང་ཉིད་ཧེ་u་ཀའི་u་གuང་uགས་ལས་uལ་པའི་r=་ཚ?གས་མཚ@ན་ཆ་n་ཚ@གས་ཐོགས་པ་rངས་མེད་པར་འrོས་nམས་yི་
ཞལ་ནས་rག་ŋགས་d=་jMའི་གད་མོ་འuག་tར་rོགས་ཤིང་མཚ@ན་ཆས་གཟིར།
But, in case there are some evil beings who do not obey, and who remain, from the body, speech and mind of
yourself, the heruka, innumerable wrathful deities emanate, carrying various kinds of weapons. They roar out
the destructive mantra [oṃ sumbhani etc.] with vajra laughter like thunder, and they stab with their weapons.
རོལ་པའི་tངས་tབས་ས་གuམ་གཡོ་བའི་ཉམས་དང་བཅས་ཏེ་བགེགས་nམས་འཇིག་tེན་yི་ཁམས་མང་པོ་བgལ་བའི་ཕ་རོལ་cགས་རི་ཆེན་པ=འ]་yབ་u་བrད།
They manifest (various wrathful) postures with the thought of shaking up the three worlds, and the obstacles
cross over the many worldly realms, and are expelled outside the great iron mountains.
uལ་པའི་r=་ཚ?གས་uར་འuས་ནས་tེང་འོག་yོགས་མཚམས་nམས་དང་བདག་གི་བ་uའི་u་ག་uན་ནས་ཞལ་yིར་yོགས་པས་གཏམས་ཤིང་rག་པ=འ]་uྂ་r་དང་བཅས་ཏེ་ཚམ་ŋམས་
ཆེན་པོས་རོལ་པར་བསམ།
The host of wrathful emanations are reabsorbed back (into yourself as the Great Glorious One), and then
meditate that above, below, and in all directions, and from every hair pore of your skin, they again emanate,
facing outwards, and pervading everywhere. With a really fearsome cacophony, they roar forth the destructive
sound of hūṃ.
(note:) With the destructive mantra recitation, music and bdellium incense, the vajra master casts mustard
seeds (“thun rdzas”, power substances) at the obstacles, which symbolise the miniature wrathful deities.
[2] The Sa skya Phur chen example is mentioned in our book. The Sa skya Phur chen (15v.4) speaks of the
twenty-one thousand (body) hairs of oneself as the deity, filled with miniature Vajrakumāras. In this example,
it is in the main deity visualisation. It is also included, word-for-word, in the short Sa skya Phur pa practice,
the Nges don thig le of the Sa skya Throne-holder, Ngag dbang Kun dga’ blo gros (1729-1783):
རང་གི་uང་པོ་ཁམས་དང་yེ་མཆེད་r་ཉི་rི་ཆིག་tོང་བ་u་yེ་བ་rག་yེད་དང་བཞི་ལ་སོགས་པ་ཐམས་ཅད་yང་d=་jM་གཞོན་u་རང་དང་འr་བས་གོ་མཚམས་མེད་པར་རབ་u་གཏམས་
པར་uར།
All my own skandhas, dhātus, āyatanas, twenty-one thousand hairs, and thirty-five million pores of the skin are
entirely* filled with Vajrakumāras like myself, leaving no gaps in between.
*The Kun dga’ blo gros Vol. Ga edition omits, rab tu, entirely. (Note that the Sa skya Phur chen, f.15v.5, also
omits it, but there is of course no need for the text to follow the Sa skya Phur chen exactly, and a copyist’
familiarity with the Sa skya Phur chen might have been responsible for such a scribal omission.)
[1] Pasang Wangdu and Hildegaard Diemberger. dBa’ bzhed. The Royal Narrative Concerning the Bringing of
the Buddha’s Doctrine to Tibet. Verlag der Österreischischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Wien, 2000.
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27 Responses to Did Vairocana have lice?
Dan says:
July 12, 2012 at 7:44 am
Hi R,
Nice blogging today. How are things going over there? One lexical point. It seems to me that the shig-shig is in an ideal
position in the sentence to serve as an adverbial, and could be one. It resembles the quadrisyllable shag-gi shig-gi, ‘falling
apart, loosely packed’ and I have a feeling the shig-shig may bear some similar meaning. The large Goldstein has an entry for
shig-shig, “moving over” (not a verb, it may be verbalized by adding -byed). I also have an unfortunately lost reference to a
lexicon that reads, “(poet.) ripple ripple. (Amdo) proliferation, crowding.” In the strange ways these quadrisyllabic phrases
seem to work, shag-gi shig-gi could be the ‘same’ word as shig-shig. (Comparable to tshab-bi tshub-bi, ~ tshub-tshub; shab-bi
shub-bi, ~ shub-shub, and other such.)
Any thoughts on this?
Your,
D
Reply
Rob Mayer says:
July 14, 2012 at 10:56 pm
Hi Dan, thanks for this. Yes, we agree with your reference to ‘proliferation’ or ‘crowding’. Basically though, its all
about seeing those words khro chung nyungs dkar tsam in that context, which is equivalent to seeing the following:
‘There were delays in sending the digital movies to Eleanor because we did not have a spare hard drive’. Nowadays,
we just know ‘hard drive’ means computer apparatus. Some day in the future, a baffled archeologist might speculate
if we were talking about a difficult road journey. If you know Mahāyoga terms and categories, the the words khro
chung nyungs dkar tsam are instantly recognisable. If you don’t know Mahāyoga terms, they are quite impossible to
guess. At least, in mentioning Mahāyoga, I am not aware of this sparkling thing in Yogatantra, but then I have not
looked for it there, so it’s not surprising I am not aware of it. But there is at least a possible merkmal that this bit of
the dBa’ bzhed was redacted in an era when Mahāyoga was around – unless someone can point out to us the emitting
of khro chung in yogatantra, which would make the passage possibly older. BTW, I found a probable permutation of
this same episode in the ‘Dra ‘bag chen mo, where Vairocana also arrives late at a royal funeral, and dramatically
emits sparks (no lice!). Same story in Hanson-Barber’s thesis: Vairocana and Yudra arrive late at the Emperor’s
funeral, making an awesome display of sparks emanate from their bodies. Khro chung are not infrequently described
in this way.
Reply
Christian Wedemeyer says:
July 13, 2012 at 5:32 pm
First, I find out from PDSz that Vajrapāṇi didn’t pass gas, now this. What next?
Reply
Rob Mayer says:
July 14, 2012 at 10:42 pm
Remind me of the debate regarding Vajrapāṇi’s alleged flatulence.
Reply
Christian Wedemeyer says:
July 18, 2012 at 1:05 am
http://tibetica.blogspot.com/2011/03/did-vajrapani-pass-gas.html
Reply
Rob Mayer says:
July 18, 2012 at 7:06 am
Ah, now I recall. Might this mark the historic beginnings of one of those odd Oxford traditions, like the intercollegiate tortoise races, or sitting on persons shoulders to sing for Nelson Mandela’s release at the end of Wadham
bops? In this case, the tradition is the restoration of personal dignity to famous Buddhist personages whose name
begins with ‘V’. The next step might be to argue that Vimalamitra should not in fact be associated with urine in the
sand. http://earlytibet.com/2008/01/08/early-dzogchen-i/
Reply
Dan says:
July 18, 2012 at 9:25 pm
But what about Vimalamitra. He had a very clear V name, but nevertheless got thrown in the lice pit. Or was he? Hmmm.
Perhaps the Oxfordians will come to his rescue, too?
Reply
Dan says:
July 18, 2012 at 9:30 pm
Of course I meant Vairocana, but I’m always confounding those V names. Like in this quote:
The Lotus-Born has many of the repetitive and surreal qualities of myth or folktale, sometimes with a note of (perhaps
unintentional) humor. When the master Vairochana is exiled from the king’s realm to an outlying district, the people are
suspicious of him:
“A sophist from Tibet has come,” they said, and threw him into a lice pit. After that he was cast into a frog pit but he
remained unharmed. They took him out and proclaimed him a holy personage.
Reply
Rob Mayer says:
July 19, 2012 at 7:37 am
There you are, it just proves our point. There were no lice or frogs on Vairocana, let alone flies. To assert he did have
lice would in the light of this story subvert his reputation as a holy personage: is this a sign that Pawang and Hilde are
under the sinister influence of reincarnated anti-Buddhist Imperial ministers?
But to be serious, although this is a completely different part of the Vairocana life story and has no direct bearing on
the narrative of his arrival at the funeral emitting sparks which is the topic of my blog, the association of Vairocana
with lice in any context becomes interesting. Although I do not agree that the dBa’ bzhed passage in question can
support Wangdu and Diemberger’s tentative suggestion as it stands, given the far simpler and more obvious
translation of khro chung that is available, there might nevertheless be some backstory with which it resonates and of
which they were aware, thus influencing their admitted guess. In the passage you quote, we find the curious idea of
villages maintaining both lice and frog pits as receptacles for suspect visitors. Can you give us the Tibetan?
Reply
Dan says:
July 19, 2012 at 6:53 pm
Try here and also this book, at p. 181.
In these biographical contexts the lice are very surely intended, and so are the frogs. I don’t have the Tibetan handy to tell you
what the Tibetan words are. Can the Great Mask’s author be faulted for anti-Vairocanism? Who would that be? G.yu-sgra-
snying-po? Anyway, I’m not sure I can agree with you that the point of lice was not having them. So many other saints did
have them. It was the spiritual fortitude demonstrated by suffering from them that was the mark of sainthood. Not their
absence. I think we should debate this important issue further.
.
Reply
Rob Mayer says:
July 19, 2012 at 10:53 pm
Indeed, Dan, there are life stories when saints lovingly care for their lice etc. If I recall, someone, maybe Janet
Gyatso, presented one in translation. Yet here it says ‘threw him into a lice pit…….but he remained unharmed’, so
that the implication is quite possibly otherwise. Of course, one can interpret ‘unharmed’ differently: it might mean he
remained free of lice even though he was in the mysterious lice pit, or it might mean he got covered in them but did
not mind. But the fact is, even Wangdu and Diemberger themselves did not accept the lice in beard theory with any
degree of happiness, so why should I when a much more obvious translation exists? This lice and frog story is
interesting, but if it is also from the Great Mask, then one must remark that it does not have the arriving late at an
imperial funeral element which the other Great Mask sparks story has in common with the dBa’ bzhed. As a friend of
mine Nicola Hernadi pointed out, people were not shocked so much by lice in pre-modern Europe, and I guess Tibet
ditto. I think the emanation of the khro chung, as the dBa’bzhed says so straightforwardly, is a more likely method for
Vairocana to overawe Bon po ministers in this story. The lice interpretation is supported only by Wangdu and
Diemberger’s convoluted argument in their footnote that the text reading khro chung should be emended in a
complex way, and could not really say khro chung at all, simply because they believed khro chung is an incoherent
meaningless term in itself, which did not exist in the lexicon. Since they had never heard of the term khro chung, they
speculate it might be a scribal error for sro and so on and on. I will put in their entire footnote in the blog above, so
you can see how very convoluted it is. As a textual critic, I see continuing to stick to the lice theory even though we
now know that khro chung is both a real term in the lexicon and utterly appropriate to the context, as a massive overapplication of lectio difficilior, and I cannot possibly condone it.
The Great Mask’s author is of course very pro-Vairocana, as one would expect!
Can you shed more light on the frog and lice concept? What is behind it? Are they in this context associated with
certain classes of deities or demons?
Reply
Dan says:
July 20, 2012 at 9:15 am
Dear R,
I have a hunch you may be on to something really really big! Come to think of it, a frog pit is a very weird thing to find
yourself in. Imagine how irritating all that croaking and hopping would get to be after awhile. Well, OK, lice pit would make
sense as an epithet for a prison or dungeon. Typhus is famous for spreading in prisons, thanks to the lice that tend to abound
in them.* But frog pit? I was contemplating the frog pit when I came across my own vocabulary notes that follow:
•SBAL DU OT = dong du. Blaṅ 300.4. = dod du. Lcang-skya. dong du / btson dong du bskyur sogs. Dalai Lama VII, Yig.
•SBAL DU BCUG PA mngal spyod dam dong ‘jug. Btsan-lha.
Sbal is supposed to be an obsolete Tibetan word corresponding to dong, ‘pit.’
Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Was someone trying to read Shakespeare without the footnotes?
Now, back to the louse pit!
*Read the awful accounts of shig-nad in H. Diemberger’s book on the Dorje Phagmo, p. 198, or M. Akester’s translation of
Tubten Khetsun’s Memories of Life in Lhasa under Chinese Rule, p. 74.
Yours, D.
Reply
Dan says:
July 20, 2012 at 9:48 am
Dear R,
I looked into it a little bit. The Sba-bzhed seems to have him in neither a frog nor a louse pit, although it does mention his
banishment after the Sino-Indian debate. The ca. 1260′s Khepa Deu history (1st ed.), at p. 334, has words of praise for
Vairocana that include this line, covering one of his eleven perfections:
sbal dong dang shig dong kun gyis ma tshugs pas bzod pa thob par yang dag /
I guess I could translate this, “All those frog pits and lice pits did nothing to him,
so in terms of his accomplishment of patience (longsuffering/endurance) he is perfect.”
What does Nyangral’s history say? Is this one of the Olympic competitions?
Yours,
D
Reply
Rob Mayer says:
July 21, 2012 at 8:43 am
Hanson-Barber’s thesis has snake pit and leech pit. But these ordeals or trials narratives within the life story are not
the same section at all as the imperial funeral narrative I was originally blogging on, and in the imperial funeral
narrative, the story is indeed consistent across several sources that sparks or khro chung were emitted (not lice).
Reply
Dan says:
July 20, 2012 at 11:23 am
Answered my own question. Look at Meisezahl’s facsimile of the Nyangral, and there at his Tafel 235.1.3 (fol. 348 recto,line 3
if you prefer), right after Bai-ro-tsa-na gets banished toi Tsha-ba-rong:
shigi dong du sgyur [~shig gi dong du skyur]
They plopped him into a pit of lice.
No mention of the frogs, it seems.
Of course, I’m right now thinking ‘pit of lice’ could, just as much as the shorter form shig-dong, be just another word for
dungeon…
Reply
Rob Mayer says:
July 20, 2012 at 10:09 pm
Dan, are you suggesting that these are just ways of saying deep dungeon, and don’t actually signify frogs or lice? In a
way, it would be a more intuitive reading. The idea of someone’s corvee obligation being the maintenance of the local
village frog and lice pits is somehow counterintuitive. But the existence of a local gaol or dungeon makes much more
sense!
Reply
Dan says:
July 21, 2012 at 9:42 am
That’s what I’m thinking, but ask me again tomorrow! sbal-dong looks like it just means ‘pit pit,’ and shigdong, ‘louse pit.’ Both would just mean a foul and windowless prison with no accessible bathing facilities.
Any objections? I’m not saying that dungeons couldn’t have literal lice, quite the contrary.
I’ve noticed dong used to mean ‘prison-dungeon’ in the Zhijé Collection, a ms. dating to ca. 1240, but it more
often uses an archaic term khri-mon (khrim-mon, khri-mun) for ‘dungeon’ that was in use at least up until
the time of Bu-ston’s biography.
So, yes. I say ditch the pit meaning and just call it a prison-dungeon.
Reply
Rob Mayer says:
July 21, 2012 at 1:18 pm
We might learn something more from the actual architecture of local gaols in Tibet. Any ideas?
Reply
Dan says:
July 21, 2012 at 1:51 pm
About all I know from earlier times is that Padampa often makes reference to the western
Tibetan king Tsedé (rTse-lDe)’s prisons of the late 11th century. His must have included
metal chains (shackles of some kind? — see the lcags-sgrog below), otherwise how could the
file help you get out? And apparently the dungeon was right there in his royal palace (as often
happened in old Europe, too, didn’t it?).
Like in this example where the word for file (seg-dar, seg-brdar etc.) is spelled se-gdar: rtse
lde’i pho brang na se gdar lag na tshags byas nas / lcags sgrog myi chod pa’i btson cig mthong
// se gdar gyi dgos pa gtor na gda’ gsung nas dgyes. Zhi-byed Coll. II 172.7.
But this discussion takes us rather far afield from the lice (I hope).
Ratna says:
July 20, 2012 at 8:19 pm
Not having lice (or any other of the 80,000 types of parasites) on one’s body is one of the signs of having attained the phase
of summit (mūrdhan) on the path of preparation (prayogamārga), according to Abhisamayalaṃkāra IV-42. I don’t want to
question the fortitude of those saintly lice-tolerating individuals but I’m afraid their sainthood would be under some question
(if by sainthood one means being an Āryan on the path of seeing or above).
(BTW, I recall a letter sent by one bKa’ gdams pa named Nam mkha’ ‘bum to Sa skya Paṇḍita, in which he asked, among
other questions, (I’m paraphrasing from memory): “I’m having no lice on my body even though I definitely haven’t achieved
the path of preparation — what’s that about? Could it be a bad sign?”. )
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Rob Mayer says:
July 20, 2012 at 10:14 pm
Ratna, many thanks for this significant comment. There is also a passage in Janet Gyatso’s biography of Jigme
Lingpa that might support your point in a more recent rNying ma context: after a particularly powerful moment of
realisation achieved in a dream, Jigma Lingpa loses all his lice on waking (see her Apparitions of the Self, page 19.)
From another angle, I recall a Kagyu yogin once recommending tummo as a way of staying free from lice. As so often
in Tibetan religion, its not what one does, but the way that one does it. When one lama lovingly tends his lice, it
shows his boundless compassion. When another can’t be harmed by them, it shows his attainment.
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Rob Mayer says:
July 21, 2012 at 4:17 pm
An idea has somewhere been picked up in my mind that a cheap if brutal way to build a prison would simply be to dig a deep
hole in the ground, like a shallow well.
But the main thing is, we seem to have freed Vairocana from lice, and the remedy was entirely in our own minds.
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Dan says:
July 22, 2012 at 7:11 pm
Well, R, you know. They say that the Black Hole* of Calcutta was neither black nor a hole, although 2 out of 3 isn’t all that
bad. Wait, it’s Kolkata now, so that’s 3 our of 3, so that’s actually quite bad.
Eric Partridge’s Dictionary of the Underworld (one of my constant companions, since I’m so often in need of the words I find
there… It’s kind of like the Hobson-Jobson, only for communicating with transients, thieves and various such low lifes), says
that “the black hole” means the dungeon in a convict prison… a military lockup or guardroom… a place of confinement for
punishment. Btw, Partridge also defines “louse cage” as a name for a hat, or more particularly a hat belonging to a tramp. He
defines “Louse House” as the roundhouse, or cage, i.e., a lock-up or a prison. 2nd meaning: a cheap hotel. Indeed!
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DW von Bhutan says:
July 28, 2012 at 7:53 am
Based on some the deliberations and comments made thus far, and based on own my reflection, I am tempted to suggest the
following two (almost identical) alternative interpretations and translations:
“In the folds (gseb) of Vairocana’s beard, appeared (snang) a glisteningly [white] ([dkar] shig shig) “miniature wrathful one”
(khro chung) having the size of a white turnip (nyungs dkar tsam).”
“In the folds (gseb) of Vairocana’s beard, appeared (snang) a glisteningly [white] ([dkar] shig shig) “tiny wrathful ones” (khro
chung) having the size of a mustard seeds (nyungs (i.e. here = yungs) dkar tsam).”
I also take shig shig to be an adverb qualifying dkar (either ad sensum or perhaps dkar might have stood there, i.e. dkar shig
shig, but dropped later. That is, the text might have read: nyungs dkar tsam dkar shig shig…. If the deities were so small like
the mustard seeds, people would hardly see that they are wrathful ones and so there would not a cause for fear. I thus prefer
“white turnip” possibility. “Lice,” one would assume, could have been at best a cause of some disgust but not of panic and
even that sounds very unlikely.
DW
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Cathy Cantwell says:
July 31, 2012 at 11:49 am
Dorji is probably not so familiar with the visualisations and rituals connected with mustard seeds which are
ubiquitous in Tibetan Mahāyoga practice. There is no doubt that nyung dkar (or yungs dkar) here has its usual
meaning of mustard seeds, and not turnip. The imagery is drawn on everywhere in the context of a precise
visualisation of the smallest size, such as of a mantra seed syllable, described as, “tiny as a mustard seed” (yungs ‘bru
tsam, e.g. Dudjom Collected Works Vol. Da: 102, two instances, gNam lcags spu gri bsnyen yig). We have exactly the
same principle in the Sa skya Phur pa example cited in the blog, with innumerable deities filling all the pores of the
skin. The size does not limit the potency, quite the contrary: the small visualisation concentrates and focuses the
power. This brings us to the second aspect of the imagery: the destructive ritual symbolism, which can be
concentrated into miniature power substances (thun rdzas) and weapons. During my fieldwork in Rewalsar, one
monk drew a modern analogy: this is the Tibetan atomic weapon [as in tiny thing has vast power]. It is always
mustard seeds which are primarily used for the ritual power substances to be cast at the obstacles at the outset of
every ritual practice session. They are generally referred to in ritual instructions simply as yungs thun (mustard seed
power substances, e.g. Dudjom Collected Works Vol. Da: 501, gNam lcags spu gri yo byad shoms zin). A small bowl
of them will be placed on the Vajra Master’s table, ready for him to throw at the appropriate points in the ritual. The
association of mustard with power substances is demonstrated also in expelling rites, where mustard weapons
(yungs kar zor) featuring mustard flowers are an important part of the attack on the negative spirits. I enclose a
diagram from my Ph.D work, an expelling ritual of the deity rDo rje Gro lod (Gro lod smad las, Dudjom Collected
Works Vol. Ba: 311).
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DW von Bhutan says:
August 4, 2012 at 7:11 am
Cathy may be right. Indeed I have not always kept track of the details of the visualisations and rituals. The use of mustard
seeds and the notion of atom-size deities in such contexts are, however, well known. My primary concern has been been,
however, not so much whether we interpret nyungs dkar as as “mustard seed,” which I also considered a possibility, or “white
turnip” (which I said I preferred for some other reasons) but rather the syntax plus the use of tsam, which seems to be
ignored by Wangdu and Diemberger. Moreover, shig shig, in my view, is still not properly account for and is standing there in
isolation with no adjective to qualify. I hope that our reading khro chung is also correct. I still suspect that something is amiss
in this sentence.
One more point to add: In my view, the relationship between the words nyungs dkar (which does not seem to be attested
elsewhere, cf. nyung ma & nyungs kar) and yungs (d)kar (the standard word for white mustard) is yet to be established. Are
they really and simply interchangeable orthographic variants, as we seem to have taken for granted?
I may modify slightly my translation of the pertinent subordinate clause as follows:
“Upon seeing/appearing (snang ba dang) in the folds (gseb) of Vairocana’s beard, a glisteningly [white] ([dkar] shig shig)
“tiny wrathful ones” (khro chung) having the size of a mustard seed (nyungs dkar tsam),” ….
I am not yet committing myself to one or the other interpretation of nyungs dkar.
Best,
Dorji
Reply
Rob Mayer says:
August 15, 2012 at 6:34 pm
Dorji, I don’t think you are correct if you are suggesting nyungs dkar is not attested elsewhere than this page of the
dBa’ bzhed: on the contrary, whether rightly or wrongly, it is in real life attested very widely. Maybe that’s why Dan
Martin in his Tibetan Vocabulary seems to simply list it as a variant for yungs kar:
YUNGS DKAR = nyungs dkar. white mustard. JD 216. SS 525.3. Varieties: dkar, dmar, nag. white mustard. Clifford,
list. KP1 151.6. KP3 298.5. KP4 475.3. Skt. sarṣapa, a sort of mustard. Metaphoric usage in Jinpa, Mind Training 337.
I am away on a field trip at the moment, working with some excellent Bon lamas on Bon sources (we are doing a
comparative study of Bon and Buddhist Phur pa traditions), so I mainly have only Bon sources to hand right now, but
here are some attestations of nyungs dkar used interchangeably (whether legitimately or otherwise) with nyungs
kar:
These from the Ka ba nag po, the famous Bon po gter ma of Khu tsha zla ‘od, upon which we are currently working.
The following Bon Kanjur and Kathmandu collations are by myself, the Bon Tenjur collation is by J-L Achard:
Chapter 23, Tenjur edition, page 105 l5: nyungs dkar. The Kathmandu edition (folio 32v) also gives nyungs dkar.
Chapter 23 again: Tenjur edition, page 108.4 gives nyungs dkar, as does the Kathmandu edition (folio 33rl4) I
happen to have this folio open before me as I type.
Chapter 35, page 117 of the Kanjur edition, gives nyungs dkar nyungs nag, ditto in Kathmandu and Tenjur versions
(the page in the Kanjur edition is also open before me, and I assure you, it reads nyungs dkar).
Chapter 36: page 119 line 4: nyungs dkar nyungs nag; (ditto, the page is open before me)
also Chapter 36: page 120, line 7 Again, ditto in Kathmandu and Tenjur versions, both times.
Yet note that nyungs kar is also attested elsewhere in this Ka ba nag po text in some editions, at the same places. At
a rough guess, in this particular text, nyungs dkar and nyungs kar probably occur an equal amount.
Then, in J-L Achard’s catalogue of bDe chen gling pa’s gter ma, Bonpo Hidden Treasures, Brill 2004, I found on
page page 60 the following: dBal phur ’bar ba nag po’i ’phrin las me ri ’khyil pa rin chen gter mdzod kyi rgyud las/
Nyungs dkar drag po thun gyi bzlog pa gnam lcags thog mda’.
Then, J V Bellezza in his Spirit-Mediums, Sacred Mountains And Related Bon Textual Traditions In Upper Tibet:
Calling Down The Gods, Brill 2005, page 455, has the following transcription from a Bon text, which he describes as
“a Bon thun rite based on hurling mustard seeds to destroy enemies, called bSad las rin chen ’phreng ba’i smad las
bzhugs so (New Collection of Bon bka’ rten, Ge khod sgrub skor, vol. 122 (smad-cha), nos. 439–453), nos. 450, ln. 4
to 451, ln. 5. No authorship is given in the text:
nyungs dkar rnams ni khro bo’i thun / nyungs nag rnams ni khro mo’i thun/
Then we find nyungs dkar listed on page 855 of the late great Prof. Henry Osmaston’s ‘Technical Zanskari
Vocabularies of Agriculture and Pastoralism’, made within help of Punchok Dawa and Tashi Rabgyas, to mean
mustard.
Now I am neither arguing that nyungs dkar is classically correct, nor the opposite: I am merely pointing out that in
practice it does occur very often indeed to mean the mustard seeds used in such rituals.
As for shig shig: Dan Martin and ourselves tentatively agree on a meaning of ‘swarming’ – see comments above, or
see the entry in Dan’s Tibetan Vocabulary; of course we might all three be wrong, but this interpretation of shig shig
at least has the advantage of making excellent sense in the context.
All best wishes, Rob
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