Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism Volume II: Lives Editor-in-chief Jonathan A. Silk Editors Richard Bowring Vincent Eltschinger Michael Radich Editorial Advisory Board Lucia Dolce Berthe Jansen John Jorgensen Christian Lammerts Francesco Sferra LEIDEN | BOSTON For use by the Author only | © 2019 Koninklijke Brill NV Contents Prelims Contributors ............................................................................................................................................................. xi Editors and Editorial Board .................................................................................................................................. xxxiii Primary Sources Abbreviations........................................................................................................................... xxxv Books Series and Journals Abbreviations ......................................................................................................... xxxvii General Abbreviations .......................................................................................................................................... xlii Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................. xliv Section One: Śākyamuni: South Asia .......................................................................................................................................... Barlaam and Josaphat ............................................................................................................................................ 3 39 Section Two: South & Southeast Asia: Ajātaśatru .................................................................................................................................................................. Āryadeva.................................................................................................................................................................... Āryaśūra..................................................................................................................................................................... Asaṅga/Maitreya(nātha)....................................................................................................................................... Bhāviveka .................................................................................................................................................................. Brahmā, Śakra, and Māra ...................................................................................................................................... Buddhaghoṣa............................................................................................................................................................ Buddhas of the Past: South Asia ......................................................................................................................... Buddhas of the Past and of the Future: Southeast Asia ............................................................................... Candragomin ........................................................................................................................................................... Candrakīrti................................................................................................................................................................ Ḍākinī ......................................................................................................................................................................... Devadatta .................................................................................................................................................................. Dharmakīrti .............................................................................................................................................................. Dharmapāla .............................................................................................................................................................. Dharmottara............................................................................................................................................................. Dignāga ...................................................................................................................................................................... Early Sarvāstivāda Masters ................................................................................................................................... Gavampati in Southeast Asia ............................................................................................................................... Gopadatta ................................................................................................................................................................. Guṇaprabha.............................................................................................................................................................. Haribhadra................................................................................................................................................................ Haribhaṭṭa ................................................................................................................................................................. Harivarman............................................................................................................................................................... Harṣa .......................................................................................................................................................................... Hayagrīva................................................................................................................................................................... Indian Tantric Authors: Overview ...................................................................................................................... Jñānagarbha ............................................................................................................................................................. Jñānapāda ................................................................................................................................................................. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 Also available online – www.brill.com For use by the Author only | © 2019 Koninklijke Brill NV 51 60 70 73 81 85 92 95 109 121 125 132 141 156 168 173 179 186 191 196 198 204 209 211 214 218 228 261 264 BEB, vol. II vi Contents Jñānaśrīmitra ........................................................................................................................................................... Kamalaśīla ................................................................................................................................................................ Karuṇāmaya ............................................................................................................................................................. Kṣemendra ................................................................................................................................................................ Kumāralāta ............................................................................................................................................................... Mahādeva.................................................................................................................................................................. Maitreya..................................................................................................................................................................... Mārīcī ......................................................................................................................................................................... Mātṛceṭa .................................................................................................................................................................... Nāgārjuna .................................................................................................................................................................. Paccekabuddhas/Pratyekabuddhas in Indic Sources ................................................................................... Phra Malai in Thailand and Southeast Asia..................................................................................................... Prajñākaragupta ...................................................................................................................................................... Ratnākaraśānti......................................................................................................................................................... Ratnakīrti .................................................................................................................................................................. Saṅghabhadra .......................................................................................................................................................... Śaṅkaranandana ..................................................................................................................................................... Śaṅkarasvāmin ........................................................................................................................................................ Śāntarakṣita .............................................................................................................................................................. Śāntideva ................................................................................................................................................................... Sarasvatī/Benzaiten................................................................................................................................................ Śāriputra .................................................................................................................................................................... Scholars of Premodern Pali Buddhism ............................................................................................................. Seers (ṛṣi/isi) and Brāhmaṇas in Southeast Asia ............................................................................................ Siddhas....................................................................................................................................................................... Śrīlāta ......................................................................................................................................................................... Sthiramati ................................................................................................................................................................. Śubhagupta............................................................................................................................................................... Tantric Buddhist Deities in Southeast Asia ..................................................................................................... Thera/Therī in Pali and Southeast Asian Buddhism ..................................................................................... Udbhaṭasiddhasvāmin .......................................................................................................................................... Upagupta ................................................................................................................................................................... Vāgīśvarakīrti ........................................................................................................................................................... Vasubandhu .............................................................................................................................................................. Vināyaka .................................................................................................................................................................... Yama and Hell Beings in Indian Buddhism ..................................................................................................... 269 272 279 286 293 298 302 325 332 335 348 357 363 366 371 374 378 382 383 391 398 409 420 437 443 452 456 458 463 474 479 481 490 492 507 513 East Asia: Ākāśagarbha in East Asia ...................................................................................................................................... Arhats in East Asian Buddhism .......................................................................................................................... Aśvaghoṣa (East Asian Aspects) ......................................................................................................................... Avalokiteśvara in East Asia................................................................................................................................... Dizang/Jizō ............................................................................................................................................................... Jianzhen (Ganjin) ................................................................................................................................................... Mahākāla in East Asia............................................................................................................................................ Mahākāśyapa in Chan-inspired Traditions...................................................................................................... Mañjuśrī in East Asia ............................................................................................................................................. Maudgalyāyana (Mulian)...................................................................................................................................... Musang (Wuxiang) ................................................................................................................................................. Tejaprabhā ................................................................................................................................................................ Yinyuan Longqi (Ingen) ........................................................................................................................................ For use by the Author only | © 2019 Koninklijke Brill NV 521 529 540 546 562 571 576 586 591 600 608 612 616 Contents vii China: Amoghavajra ............................................................................................................................................................ An Shigao .................................................................................................................................................................. Chengguan ................................................................................................................................................................ Daoxuan .................................................................................................................................................................... Falin ............................................................................................................................................................................ Faxian ......................................................................................................................................................................... Fazun .......................................................................................................................................................................... Hanshan Deqing ..................................................................................................................................................... Hongzhi Zhengjue .................................................................................................................................................. Huihong (see Juefan Huihong) Huineng (see Shenxiu) Huiyuan (see Lushan Huiyuan) Jigong.......................................................................................................................................................................... Juefan Huihong ....................................................................................................................................................... Liang Wudi................................................................................................................................................................ Lokakṣema ................................................................................................................................................................ Luo Qing .................................................................................................................................................................... Lushan Huiyuan ...................................................................................................................................................... Mazu Daoyi............................................................................................................................................................... Mingben (see Zhongfeng Mingben) Nāgārjuna in China ................................................................................................................................................ Nenghai...................................................................................................................................................................... Ouyang Jingwu ........................................................................................................................................................ Ouyi Zhixu ................................................................................................................................................................ Paramārtha ............................................................................................................................................................... Qian Qianyi............................................................................................................................................................... Qisong ........................................................................................................................................................................ Shenhui (see Shenxiu) Shenxiu, Huineng, and Shenhui ......................................................................................................................... Śubhākarasiṃha...................................................................................................................................................... Wumen ...................................................................................................................................................................... Wuxiang (see East Asia: Musang) Wuzhu ........................................................................................................................................................................ Xiao Ziliang............................................................................................................................................................... Yinshun...................................................................................................................................................................... Yixing ......................................................................................................................................................................... Yuan Hongdao ......................................................................................................................................................... Yuanwu Keqin .......................................................................................................................................................... Zhanran ..................................................................................................................................................................... Zhi Qian ..................................................................................................................................................................... Zhili............................................................................................................................................................................. Zhixu (see Ouyang Zhixu) Zhiyi............................................................................................................................................................................ Zhongfeng Mingben............................................................................................................................................... Zhuhong .................................................................................................................................................................... 623 630 642 648 653 657 662 668 673 679 684 689 700 707 711 722 727 735 741 748 752 759 764 768 777 782 787 791 795 800 806 810 814 818 826 833 839 844 Korea: Chinul......................................................................................................................................................................... Hyujŏng ..................................................................................................................................................................... Ich’adon ..................................................................................................................................................................... For use by the Author only | © 2019 Koninklijke Brill NV 853 860 864 viii Contents Kihwa ......................................................................................................................................................................... Kim Sisŭp .................................................................................................................................................................. Kyŏnghŏ..................................................................................................................................................................... Kyunyŏ ....................................................................................................................................................................... Muhak Chach’o ........................................................................................................................................................ Musang (see East Asia) Pou .............................................................................................................................................................................. Tosŏn .......................................................................................................................................................................... Ŭich’ŏn ....................................................................................................................................................................... Ŭisang ........................................................................................................................................................................ Wŏnch’ŭk .................................................................................................................................................................. Wŏnhyo...................................................................................................................................................................... Yi Nŭnghwa .............................................................................................................................................................. 869 873 877 882 887 891 895 900 903 908 913 918 Japan: Amaterasu Ōmikami .............................................................................................................................................. Annen......................................................................................................................................................................... Benzaiten (see South and Southeast Asia: Sarasvatī) Dōgen ......................................................................................................................................................................... Dōhan......................................................................................................................................................................... Eisai (see Yōsai) Eison ........................................................................................................................................................................... En no Gyōja .............................................................................................................................................................. Enchin ........................................................................................................................................................................ Ennin .......................................................................................................................................................................... Ganjin (see East Asia: Jianzhen) Genshin ..................................................................................................................................................................... Hachiman ................................................................................................................................................................. Hakuin ....................................................................................................................................................................... Hōnen ........................................................................................................................................................................ Ikkyū Sōjun ............................................................................................................................................................... Ingen (see East Asia: Yinyuan Longqi) Ippen Chishin .......................................................................................................................................................... Jakushō ...................................................................................................................................................................... Jiun Sonja .................................................................................................................................................................. Jizō (see East Asia: Dizang) Jōjin............................................................................................................................................................................. Jōkei ............................................................................................................................................................................ Kakuban .................................................................................................................................................................... Keizan Jōkin ............................................................................................................................................................. Kōmyō ........................................................................................................................................................................ Kūkai .......................................................................................................................................................................... Kūya ............................................................................................................................................................................ Menzan Zuihō ......................................................................................................................................................... Monkan ..................................................................................................................................................................... Mugai Nyodai ........................................................................................................................................................... Mujaku Dōchū ......................................................................................................................................................... Musō Soseki .............................................................................................................................................................. Myōe ........................................................................................................................................................................... Nichiren ..................................................................................................................................................................... Nōnin.......................................................................................................................................................................... For use by the Author only | © 2019 Koninklijke Brill NV 923 930 933 941 944 951 956 961 967 971 976 980 987 991 995 998 1002 1006 1011 1016 1020 1026 1036 1041 1047 1057 1062 1066 1071 1076 1088 Contents Raiyu........................................................................................................................................................................... Ryōgen........................................................................................................................................................................ Saichō ......................................................................................................................................................................... Saigyō ......................................................................................................................................................................... Shinran....................................................................................................................................................................... Shōtoku Taishi ......................................................................................................................................................... Tenjin ......................................................................................................................................................................... Tenkai ......................................................................................................................................................................... Yōsai/Eisai ................................................................................................................................................................. Zaō .............................................................................................................................................................................. ix 1094 1097 1102 1107 1111 1117 1122 1128 1134 1139 Tibetan Cultural Sphere Atiśa and the Bka’ gdams pa Masters ................................................................................................................ Ge sar of Gling ......................................................................................................................................................... Gter ston: Tibetan Buddhist Treasure Revealers ............................................................................................. Gtsang smyon Heruka ........................................................................................................................................... Lcang skya Rol pa’i Rdo rje ................................................................................................................................... Mi la ras pa................................................................................................................................................................ The Mongolian Jebdzundamba Khutugtu Lineage ....................................................................................... Padmasambhava in Tibetan Buddhism ............................................................................................................ The Sa skya School’s Five Forefathers................................................................................................................ Spirits of the Soil, Land, and Locality in Tibet ................................................................................................ Ston pa Gshen rab: The Bön Buddha ................................................................................................................. Tibet's Crazy Yogins ................................................................................................................................................ Tsong kha pa and his Immediate Successors .................................................................................................. Worldly Protector Deities in Tibet ..................................................................................................................... 1145 1159 1165 1171 1175 1181 1191 1197 1213 1226 1233 1239 1246 1254 Appendix To Volume I: Buddhist Narrative Literature in Japan ............................................................................................................. Poetry: Japan ............................................................................................................................................................ Korean Sŏn Literature............................................................................................................................................ For use by the Author only | © 2019 Koninklijke Brill NV 1269 1286 1294 Ston pa Gshen rab: The Bön Buddha For Tibetan Bon pos (followers of Bon), Gshen rab mi bo holds much the same position as the Buddha Śākyamuni does for Buddhists: he is the founder of their religion, and the promulgator of its fundamental teachings. If anything, his centrality is even more crucial in Bon: while Tibetan Buddhists believe that certain esoteric tenets were taught by buddhas other than Śākyamuni, Bon pos hold Gshen rab to be the ultimate source of all their doctrines. The similarities in the life stories of the two figures are such that Western authors and Buddhists often represent Gshen rab as a fabrication created in imitation of Śākyamuni. In fact, the story is more complicated than this. The three main (though not the only) scriptures that Bon pos regard as authentic accounts of the life of Gshen rab are, in chronological order, the Mdo ’dus (Mongyal & Shense, 1995–1999, vol. XXX), the Gzer mig (Tshe ring thar, 1991), and the Gzi brjid (Pa sangs tshe ring, 2000). The dates of the first two are not precisely known, but since they are cited in the work of an author who lived in the 11th and 12th centuries, they cannot have been produced any later than his death in 1107 (Karmay, 1975b, 169–170, n2). They comprise respectively one and two volumes, though several single-volume manuscripts of the Gzer mig have recently come to light. The Gzi brjid, a massive work of 12 volumes, is known to have been composed in the late 14th century (Snellgrove, 1980[1967], 3). These and other sources have provided the basis for a number of Tibetan and European language publications related to the life and identity of Gshen rab. Among the secondary accounts of Gshen rab’s life, Tenzin Namdak (1971) is a two-volume compilation of excerpts from the Gzi brjid; a valuable chapter by chapter summary of the Gzi brjid and the Gzer mig appears in ’O thog (no date); Kvaerne (1986a) is a study of a collection of thangkas, kept in Paris’s Musée Guimet, that reproduces the deeds of Gshen rab according to the Gzi brjid (a brief English language summary is Kvaerne, 1987); a more extended overview of the biographical sources for Gshen rab is Kvaerne (2007). An illustrated bilingual account of Gshen rab’s life, intended for schoolchildren, was recently published (Shetsu Gyatso, 2017). Although there is still no full translation of any of the biographies, different sections have formed the subject of translations or analytical studies. Several chapters of the Gzer mig were translated into English by Francke in a series of publications (1924–1949); Clemente examined an episode from the Gzi brjid in which the young Gshen rab receives his magical weapons from the warrior gods; the figure of Gshen rab in sources predating the abovementioned biographies is explored by Stein (1988), Blezer (2008), and Bellezza (2010), while the most extensive examination to date of the sources of the main biographies – particularly the Mdo ’dus – has been undertaken by Kalsang Norbu Gurung (Gurung, 2011). Inconsistencies in the spelling of Gshen rab’s full name invite different interpretations of its meaning. Adherents of Yung drung (“Everlasting”) Bon, the systematized form of the religion that emerged after the 10th century, prefer the extended form Ston pa Gshen rab mi bo che: the great (che) important man (mi bo), the excellent (rab) priest (gshen) who is the teacher (ston pa). However, gshen is also the name of a patrilineal clan; some early sources render rab as rabs, meaning lineage, and in at least three instances (twice in the Dunhuang document PT 1136, once in PT 1289) the term rabs is followed by the genitive particle kyi (Imaeda et al., 2007). With the orthography Ston pa gshen rabs (kyi) mi bo che, the name would mean “the great important man who is a member of the Shen clan.” This reading supports the suggestion that the name may originally have denoted a class of hereditary priests before it came to be associated with a particular individual (Blezer, 2008, 424). Tibetan Buddhists revere India as the land where the Buddha was born and where he taught, and Sanskrit as the language from which most of their scriptures were translated. The equivalent land for the Bon pos is Zhang zhung, a historical polity located in the western part of the Tibetan Plateau, but endowed, in Bonpo literature, with vast dimensions extending well into Central Asia, around the north and south of Central Tibet and into China and India. Part of Zhang zhung embraces Tazig, © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 Also available online – www.brill.com For use by the Author only | © 2019 Koninklijke Brill NV BEB, vol. II 1234 Ston pa Gshen rab: The Bön Buddha and in Tazig lies the sacred land of Ol mo lung ring, where Gshen rab was born. The various attempts to link Ol mo lung ring to a geographical location – some of them as far away as the Near East – have been reviewed by Martin (1999, 2007), though a more recent publication has added Almalik, in China’s Xinjiang Province, to the list of candidates (Dor, 2014). Gshen rab’s life story begins before his descent to earth, while he is still living in heaven as the second of three divine brothers: Dag pa, Gsal ba, and Shes pa. After a period of study under a Bonpo sage, the three are charged with the task of acting as the spiritual guides of living beings for three successive ages. Dag pa is the first in line, followed by Gsal ba in his earthly form as Gshen rab, and it is therefore the latter who is the teacher of the present age. He descends to earth in the form of a cuckoo, a bird whose blue-grey plumage is cited as the reason why Bon po priests sometimes wear blue robes. He enters the womb of Yo phyi rgyal bzhad ma, the queen of King Rgyal bon thod dkar, the ruler of Ol mo lung ring, and comes into the world from his mother’s right side (Gurung, 2011, 66ff.), just as did Śākyamuni. A significant strand in the subsequent narrative resembles the life story of Śākyamuni, and while this aspect is particularly strong in the Mdos ’dus, the similarities are attenuated in the later Gzer mig and the Gzi brjid. The main model for the “Śākyamuni narrative” is likely to have been the Lalitavistara, which was translated into Tibetan in the 7th century, but certain names and motifs appear to be derived from other Indian sources, such as the Jātaka tales – the stories of the Buddha’s previous births – and the Mdzangs blun (Sūtra of the Wise and the Foolish, D 341/ P 1008; Gurung, 2011, 155). Until the Bon po’s own accounts of their history and doctrines achieved a wider circulation after the 1960s, Gshen rab was known to Western readers (and to most Tibetans) from brief accounts of his life contained in the writings of certain Tibetan Buddhist historians, especially the 18th-century Dge lugs pa scholar Thu’u bkwan Blo bzang chos kyi nyi ma (1737–1802; Hoffmann, 1950, 1961). The vignettes offered in these narratives coincide with the Bon po scriptures in some respects, but differ widely in others. In some of these works, Gshen rab was born in Central Tibet, and in others in a land to the west of the Plateau; he had ass’s ears and wore a woolen turban to conceal them; as a child he was abducted by demons and instructed by them for up to to 12 years, before being reintroduced to the human realm. Thanks to the powers he had acquired, he was able to determine what kinds of gods and demons inhabited any given territory, to identify the causes of various afflictions, and to recommend or perform the rituals needed to propitiate the earthly powers that were responsible. These rituals included the performance of animal sacrifice (Ramble, 2007). Not surprisingly, followers of Everlasting Bon recognize very little of their founder in these stories, and we must therefore consider where the accounts originated. In fact, some of them belong to the stock of tales that are likely to have traveled freely along the trade routes between Central Asia and Tibet, and have clustered around a variety of real and imaginary persons. The story of the ass’s ears, for example, is best known to Europeans from the story of the Phrygian king Midas, whose hypertrophied ears were a punishment inflicted by Apollo in a fit of pique against the king’s judgment of a musical contest. Variants of the tale (in which the ears are sometimes replaced by horns) are to be found throughout Central Asia (Morris, 2004), and its application to Gshen rab is likely to be the result of the story being associated with an obscure class of Tibetan priests called a ya, whose headgear is a turban of white wool (Ramble, 2007). Another significant motif is that of being spirited away for training in a parallel world. This is a common theme among the Tibeto-Burman communities of the Himalayan region, who believe that some of their neophyte shamans are abducted for training by the spirits of the forest and wilderness (Macdonald, 1966, 122–123: ) The presence of this motif may also be one of the reasons why some early Western authors describe Gshen rab as a shaman, and the Bon religion itself as a form of shamanism. The structure of Gshen rab’s hagiography is provided by the Twelve Major and the Sixty Minor Deeds. While this scheme clearly recalls the framework of Śākyamuni’s life, the deeds themselves are not identical. For example, where the first four Major Deeds attributed to Siddhārtha are the Descent from Heaven, Entrance into the Womb, Birth, and Youthful sports and miracles, the corresponding events in Gshen rab’s case are Birth, Dissemination, Pacifying, and Leading (Sangye Tandar & Guard, 1992). The precocity of Gshen rab’s dissemination of his doctrine is explained by later exegetes, who took an ambiguous passage in the Mdo ’dus to signify that one gshen year is equal to 100 human years (Mdo ’dus, 221). Curiously, the passage in question bears several interpretations, among them that 100 For use by the Author only | © 2019 Koninklijke Brill NV Ston pa Gshen rab: The Bön Buddha (or eight) human years are equal to one gshen day, but not the 100-to-one ratio of years that seems to have become generally accepted. Among other things, the construction of Bon chronology on the basis of this interpretation is one of the justifications given by some Bon po authors for the claim that Gshen rab had a life span of 8,200 years (since he is said to have died at the age of 82). As for the period when he lived, chronologies vary, but all situate him in an extremely distant past. For example, a work from 1804 by the Bon po scholar Tshul khrims rgyal mtshan places Gshen rab’s birth to 22,799 years before the time of his writing (Kvaerne, 1990, 160– 161; Bellezza, 2010, 31n2; Gurung, 2011, 19, 22–24). It is assertions such as these that underlie the reluctance of most scholars to regard Gshen rab as a historical person, though opinions on the matter range from the outright dismissive to the cautious. For Snellgrove, “the story of gŚen rab’s life is a deliberate fabrication” (1980[1967], 15n1), an opinion broadly shared by Stein (1988). Others have suggested that the later mythic tradition, including the Buddhist elaborations, may have accreted around the kernel of a historical Tibetan figure (Karmay, 1975a, 111; Bellezza, 2010, 33), while at least one author has suggested that Gshen rab is none other than Zarathustra (Kuznetsov, 1975). Generally, however, there is agreement that the absence of contemporary sources makes it impossible to say anything at all about whether there was a historical figure at the heart of the tradition (Karmay, 1975a, 111; Kvaerne, 2007, 83; Blezer, 2008, 425). The motor for much of the dramatic action in Gshen rab’s life is furnished by an archrival named Khyab pa lag ring, “Long-armed Pervader,” a name that is traceable to that of one of the demons, Dīrghabāhurgarvita (Lefmann, 1902, 310:20; Hokazono, 2014, 277, n.12; Tib. Lag rings), in the retinue of Māra, the adversary of Siddhārtha (Gurung, 2011, 83, n.118). Among his numerous hostile acts, Khyab pa steals six of Gshen rab’s horses and escapes to southeast Tibet, where he takes refuge in the demonic land of Kongpo. Gshen rab pursues the thief, ostensibly to retrieve his horses but in reality because he recognizes that this will give him the opportunity to spread his teachings into new territory. Although Gshen rab is vastly superior to the demons in battle, Khyab pa refuses to cede unless his opponent can demonstrate his prowess as an archer by shooting an arrow through a series of nine iron shields. The arrow pierces all the obstacles, and from the point where it strikes the hill on the far side 1235 a spring of medicinal water gushes forth. The arrow is returned to Gshen rab by the local king’s daughter, who becomes one of his brides. While the motif of the arrow and the spring (and the subsequent marriage) appear in the biography of the Buddha, the feat of penetrating the nine shelds may recall a more distant achievement: Odysseus’s shooting an arrow through 12 iron axeheads to regain the hand of his wife Penelope. It has been plausibly suggested that the motif of shooting an arrow into the cliff and releasing a spring of water may have Mithraic antecedents (Kvaerne, 1986b). The submission of Khyab pa and the demons is shortlived, and they soon revert to obstructing Gshen rab's mission to propagate his doctrine. The awesome thaumaturgical feats performed by him do little more than stiffen their resolve, and Khyab pa’s resistance is overcome only when, rather late in the story, Gshen rab abandons his martial exploits and royal lifestyle to take up the life of a monk. Gshen rab’s archenemy becomes his disciple, opening the way for the conversion of all the other demons. While Gshen rab’s renunciation occurs only towards the end of the penultimate volume of the Gzi brjid, all his main doctrines are set forth in the second, third, and fourth volumes. These take the form of series of discourses, each corresponding to one of the nine “vehicles” or “ways" (theg pa) that together make up the ritual and doctrinal system of the Bon pos. Gshen rab succumbs to illness at the age of 82, and his earthly remains are cremated. His disciples consolidate his doctrinal legacy and proceed to disseminate it in various lands. One of these disciples reincarnates in India as Śākyamuni, hence the resemblance of so many aspects of Buddhism to what was taught at first hand by Gshen rab himself (Ramble, 2013, 210; see also Kvaerne, 1989, 34). The “authorized” version of the life of Gshen rab that culminates in the Gzi brjid begins with the Mdo ’dus. But Gshen rab appears in sources that predate even this work. The texts in question were found in Dunhuang (PT 1068; PT 1134; PT 1136; PT 1194; PT 1289; IOL Tib J 731) and in another cache that was extracted from a large stūpa in southern Tibet that may date from as early as the Imperial period (7th to 9th centuries; Pa tshab & Glang ru, 2007). In these works, Gshen rab is not the omniscient world-saviour of the later tradition; his name is not prefixed by the title ston pa (“teacher”), and there is no suggestion of a soteriological system called Bon. Gshen rab does not appear as a solitary hero but as For use by the Author only | © 2019 Koninklijke Brill NV 1236 Ston pa Gshen rab: The Bön Buddha one of a group of priests who collaborate on the resolution of conflicts that have unsettled society and nature (Blezer, 2008, 425). We do not know a great deal about the religious environment of Tibet before the arrival of Buddhism in the 7th century, for three main reasons: writing arrived in the country along with Buddhism itself; accounts from neighbouring countries are sparse and unreliable, and very little archaeological research has been carried out. However, we are fortunate that early non-Buddhist ritual texts, like many later Bon po works, contain a narrative mythic section from which it is possible to deduce certain religious beliefs. A recurring theme in these works is that of a state of harmony between gods and humans that is upset as a consequence of the latter offending the former through transforming the land by digging the earth, felling trees, and building houses. The gods respond by visiting various calamities on humans, who must appease the gods by making an offering (Stein, 1971). In a variant of this scenario, different classes of divinities enter into conflict because one side has offended the other. In some cases, the compensation demanded by the aggrieved party is impossibly high, and the offender is unable or unwilling to pay it. It is in circumstances such as these that Gshen rab is invited to intervene in the capacity of a ritual specialist and mediator. The purpose of these narratives is to legitimize and empower the ritual that is to be performed in the here-and-now by citing the paradigmatic occasion on which it was proved to be efficacious. In these accounts, Gshen rab may be a specialist of certain types of rituals, but above all he is a glorified form of a figure that has always occupied a crucial place in Tibetan society: the mediator. For most of their history, most parts of the Tibetan world were not under an effective centralized judicial authority, and the resolution of potentially disastrous disputes between individuals and communities depended, as it still depends, on skillful mediation. Like Gshen rab and the other priests in these stories, the mediator is invited to persuade both parties to moderate their respective positions so that an acceptable compromise can be reached. In the ordinary world, the injured party is persuaded to reduce the level of compensation demanded, and the offender is induced to pay it. In the realm of myth, the angry gods desist from punishing humans in exchange for compensation in the form of symbolic offerings. The religion that emerges from these early works is not a soteriological system like Everlasting Bon, but fundamentally a legal construction, with the mediatorpriest at its heart. A number of the Buddhist works referred to above specifically mention, as one of the attributes of their version of Gshen rab, that he would mediate in disputes between different types of divinities and between gods and humans (Ramble, 2007, 691). It is highly likely that these Buddhist treatises drew partly on early Tibetan myths about Gshen rab that were rejected by the emerging Everlasting Bon tradition. The older, indigenous form of Gshen rab may not have been completely eclipsed by his more Buddhist manifestation, but acquired a new identity among the Naxi people of Yunnan as the mythical founder of their religion, Dto-mba shi-lo. The plausible suggestion that this name is a deformation of Ston pa Gshen rab(s) was originally made by the botanist J. Rock (1937, 7–8), and although the mechanism of this transmission is still uncertain, there is growing evidence to support Rock’s conviction that the Naxi religion owes a considerable debt to a form of Bon that was relatively unmarked by Buddhism. Schools of Tibetan Buddhism began to crystallize in the 11th century, and the appearance of the Ston pa gshen rab mi bo of the major biographies coincides with the emergence of other figures: to be seen as authentic, any such movement apparently had to be able to trace its core doctrines back to a single charismatic founder. The most significant of these for the Buddhists was →Padmasambhava, a tantric master from the Swat Valley. While this figure does have a certain prominence in the earliest sources as one of the vectors of Buddhism to Tibet in the 8th century, he acquires superhuman proportions from the 11th century as the founder of the Rnying ma school, whose doctrines were based on the earliest, imperial-period translations of scriptures from Sanskrit, and which needed a founder-figure who belonged to that period of literary production. The hagiographic literature that was to develop around Padmasambhava finds numerous parallels in the lives of Gshen rab, but in this case there is compelling evidence to suggest that the borrowings were not from Buddhist to Bon sources, but rather the other way around (Blondeau, 1971). Like the Rnying ma pas, the Bonpos were able to turn to Old Tibetan literature in their quest for a prototype for the hero who was to be built up into the figure of their founder. As noted earlier, Gshen rab always appears in these texts as one of a group of priests. For use by the Author only | © 2019 Koninklijke Brill NV Ston pa Gshen rab: The Bön Buddha The reason why it was he who was singled out to be the retrospective founder is not clear, but is likely to be because he was seen as more polyvalent. For example, another prominent figure who appears with Gshen rab in these early works, Dur gshen rma da, may have been disqualified because his name identifies him as a specialist of the funerary rites known as dur. While the debt that the main biographies of Gshen rab owe to the lives of Śākyamuni should not be overlooked, it should not be exaggerated either. Gshen rab takes up the life of a renouncer late in the Gzi brjid, and most of his deeds are performed long before he takes this step during a career far more reminiscent of that of an adventuring hero than that of the unworldly Śākyamuni. Not surprisingly, the salience of this characteristic has elicited comparisons with the story of King →Ge sar of Gling, the hero of the Tibetan epic (Kvaerne, 2007, 93). The parallels between the two figures go beyond their written biographies to inform local folklore. In parts of Tibet, certain features of the landscape are explained by Buddhists as being traces of the exploits of Ge sar – a cliff that he split with his great sword, for example, or a stone column that serve as the tethering-post for his horse – whereas local Bon pos attribute the features to the activities of Gshen rab (Ramble 1997). The Epic of Ge sar is likely to have been transmitted by bards before it was ever committed to writing, and it is tempting to conclude that the Bon pos assimiliated aspects of this Buddhist hero into the figure of their own founder. However, we have no way of knowing when the bardic tradition began, and what the form of the epic may have been. 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