The Literature of Bön

The Literature of Bon

by Per Kvaerne

From Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre, pp. 138-146.

[page 138] The Bon pos have a vast literature, which non-Tibetan scholars are only just beginning to explore. Formerly, it was taken for granted that this literature was nothing but a shameless plagiarism of Buddhist texts. The last twenty-five years have, however, seen a radical change in the assessment of the entire Bon religion. This has come about above all thanks to the pioneering studies of David L. Snellgrove, who in 1967 made the very just observation regarding Bon po literature that "by far the greater part would seem to have been absorbed through learning and then retold, and this is not just plagiarism" (12). In fact, as Snellgrove also pointed out, Bon po literature is especially important for the light it sheds on pre-Buddhist religious traditions in Tibet (21).

The present essay will be concerned with what is only a part of the vast mass of Bon po literature, viz., the collection of texts which constitutes the bKa' 'gyur of the Bon pos. This is—as is the case with the bKa' 'gyur of the Buddhists (see Harrison, in this volume)—a collection of those texts which are regarded as constituting the authentic and original teachings of the Enlightened One of our age, the latter being, so the Bon pos maintain, not Śākyamuni, but sTon pa gShen rab ("The Teacher gShen rab"). According to Bon po beliefs, sTon pa gShen rab lived long before Śākyamuni and was the ruler of the land of sTag gzig, generally located vaguely to the west of Tibet. From this spiritual center, the universal and [page 139] eternal doctrine of Bon eventually reached Tibet, passing through the historical but enigmatic kingdom of Zhang zhung in present-day western Tibet.

Bon po tradition holds that the early kings of Tibet practiced Bon, and that consequently not only the royal dynasty, but the entire realm prospered. This happy state of affairs came to a temporary halt during the reign of King Gri gum btsan po (usually counted as the eighth king of the royal dynasty), who persecuted Bon, with the result that a large number of Bon texts were hidden away so that they might be preserved for future generations. As far as Bon is concerned, this was the beginning of the textual tradition styled gter ma, "Treasures" (see Gyatso, in this volume), concealed texts which are rediscovered at the appropriate time by gifted individuals known as gter ston, "Treasure discoverers."

Although Bon was reinstated by Gri gum btsan po's successor and flourished as before during the reigns of subsequent kings, it was once more persecuted by King Khri srong lde btsan in the eighth century C.E. While Khri srong lde btsan is portrayed in mainstream Tibetan tradition as a devout Buddhist, Bon po sources maintain that his motives for supporting Buddhism were, on the one hand, the belief that he could thereby prolong his life, and on the other, the argument offered by certain individuals at his court, that the Bon po priests, already equal to the king in power, would certainly take over the whole government of the land after his death.

Whatever the truth of the matter may be, both Buddhists and Bon pos agree that during the reign of Khri srong lde btsan, the Bon po priests were either banished from Tibet or compelled to conform to Buddhism. Once again, Bon texts were concealed, to be taken out when the time would be ripe for propagating Bon anew.

Leaving aside the question of whether "later historians have made two persecutions out of what was in fact only one" (Karmay, 1972: xxxiii), it should be noted that the greater part of the Bon po bKa' 'gyur consists of "Treasures" regarded as having been hidden away during the successive persecutions of Bon and duly rediscovered by gter stons in the course of the following centuries.1 Bon pos also claim, reversing the accusation of plagiarism, that many of their sacred scriptures were transformed by the Buddhists into Buddhist texts.2[page 140]

The Bon pos claim that the rediscovery of their sacred texts began early in the tenth century C.E. The first discoveries are said to have been made by chance. Wandering beggars stealing a box from bSam yas in the belief that it contained gold and later exchanging the contents—Bon po texts—for food (Karmay, 1972: 118), has an authentic ring; the same is true of an account of Buddhists looking for Buddhist texts, who, on finding only Bon po texts, simply gave them away (Karmay, 1972: 152). The first real Bon po gter ston, however, would seem to be gShen chen Klu dga' (996-1035).3 His discovery in 1017 of numerous important texts "was preceded by several years of initiatory preparations culminating in a series of visions in which supernatural beings of various kinds revealed the place where the Treasure was hidden" (Kvaerne, 1974: 34).

This is not the place to present the many gter stons whose textual discoveries constitute the greater part of the Bon po bKa' 'gyur. This has been done elsewhere (Karmay, 1972; Kvaerne, 1974). Some indications, however, as to when the Bon po bKa' 'gyur was formed must be given. Unfortunately, a precise date cannot at present be ascertained. Nevertheless, it should be noted that it does not seem to contain texts which have come to light later than 1386 (Kvaerne, 1974: 38). I have previously ventured the hypothesis that the Bon po bKa' 'gyur—as well as the Bon po brTen 'gyur4—may have been "finally assembled by ca. 1450, which allows ample time for the Bon pos to have felt the need of assembling a canon of their own following the final editing, by Bu-ston and others, of a Buddhist canon in the beginning of the preceding century" (Kvaerne, 1974: 39). While admitting the possibility that the Bon po bKa' 'gyur may, in fact, be more recent still, I would, for the moment, uphold this hypothesis.

We now turn to the bKa' 'gyur itself. A preliminary analysis and title-list was published in 1974 (Kvaerne, 1974) on the basis of a catalogue (dkar chag) (referred to hereafter as KTDG) by the well-known Bon po scholar Nyi ma bstan 'dzin (b. 1813).5 This study can be supplemented by the catalogue of Bon po publications preserved in the Tōyō Bunko library in Tokyo (Karmay, 1977). Each publication is carefully described and the contents briefly presented; among the texts thus dealt with are a number to be found in the bKa' 'gyur.

Recently, another and much more detailed catalogue has come to light, composed in 1751 by the great Bon po yogin-scholar Kun [page 141] grol grags pa (b. 1700) (Karmay, 1990: 148), bearing the title Zab dang rgya che g.yung drung bon gyi bka' 'gyur gyi dkar chag nyi ma 'bum gyi 'od zer ("Catalogue of the of bKa' 'gyur of the Profound and Vast Eternal Bon, Rays of Light from One Hundred Thousand Suns") (ZBKK). This is an extensive work, one manuscript copy containing no less than 197 folios (although the catalogue proper only commences on fol. 69b). It is a particularly useful work, as it lists not only the titles of the texts, but also provides the headings of each individual chapter of each text.

Both catalogues divide the texts contained in the bKa' 'gyur into categories. In the ZBKK they are given as follows:

(1) ṭhe Perfect Class of Sūtras (phun sum tshogs pa'i mdo sde)

(2) The Pure Class of "The Hundred Thousand" (rnam par dag pa'i 'bum sde)

(3) The Wonderful Class of Mantras (rmad du byung ba'i sngags sde)

(4) The Supreme Class of Mind (bla na med pa'i sems sde)

The KTDG has the same categories, but the "Hundred Thousand" is called "Extensive" (rnam par rgyas pa); the third class is designated "Tantras of Secret Mantras" (gsang sngags rgyud); and the fourth, "The Class of Mental (Teachings) of the Great Perfection" (bla med rdzogs chen sems phyogs kyi sde).

mDo, "Sūtras," also includes texts dealing with the discipline and behavior of monks (e.g., 'dul ba, vinaya). The only text which has been partially translated is the gZer mig, the two-volume biography of sTon pa gShen rab in eighteen chapters; a summary of the whole text (Hoffman: 85-96) and a detailed analysis of chapters 10-12 (Blondeau: 34-39) have also been published. Snellgrove has published excerpts from doctrinal sections of the twelve-volume biography of sTon pa gShen rab, the gZi brjid, and a detailed paraphrase of the epic story of the latter text has been published by Kvaerne (1986) together with a set of corresponding narrative picture scrolls.

'Bum, literally "Hundred Thousand," corresponds to the Buddhist Prajñāpāramitā literature. So far, this literary corpus has remained entirely unexplored.

sNgags, "Mantras," or rGyud, "Tantras," constitute the basic tantric texts of Bon. This is a vast and complex collection of text, which, like the preceding section, still awaits study.[page 142]

Sems, "Mind," is the section which deals with the highest philosophical doctrines and meditational practices of Bon. Commonly referred to as the "Great Perfection," this literature has been examined and briefly presented by S. G. Karmay in two chapters of a recent book (Karmay: 201-205, 216-223). The most important textual cycle in this section is probably the Zhang zhung snyan rgyud ("The Oral Transmission of Zhang zhung"). Excerpts from this text have been edited, translated, and provided with useful comments by Giacomella Orofino. Several doctoral dissertations dealing with texts from this group are in the course of preparation, so one may hope that our knowledge regarding the "Great Perfection" of Bon will be significantly expanded in the years ahead.

As far as the main scriptural sections are concerned, the Bon po bKa' 'gyur corresponds, on the whole, fairly closely to the various editions of the Buddhist bKa' 'gyur, with two notable exceptions: the Bon po bKa' 'gyur has a separate section for 'Dul ba (Vinaya, monastic discipline), and it has a separate section—the fourth—containing the rDzogs chen ("Great Perfection") teachings. The rDzogs chen texts of the Buddhists are to be found neither in the bKa' 'gyur nor the bsTan 'gyur, but outside the canon altogether.

It has long been known that manuscript copies of the Bon po bKa' 'gyur existed. Thus, during his expedition to Tibet in 1928, the Russian scholar and explorer George Roerich came across a complete set of the bKa' 'gyur in 140 volumes in Sha ru Monastery, four days' travel northeast of Nag chu rDzong. The whole collection was in manuscript "and had an exceptionally beautiful cursive script.... The front pages bearing the title of the text were invariably painted black and written in gold" (Roerich: 365). The following year, the American scholar J. F. Rock came across another copy of the Bon po canon in the extreme southeastern part of Tibet. In the main temple of the predominantly Bon po Tso so district, situated between Li thang and Lichiang, he found "piled up in a corner of their Lha-khang a manuscript copy of the Bon bKa-hgyur and bsTan-hgyur written on stiff black paper." Unfortunately, Rock was unable to salvage it: "It was an enormous pile, and I could have bought it at the time, but communications were cut, extra transport unavailable, the ferry boat over the Yangtse had been destroyed..." (Rock: 3).

As we have seen, Roerich refers to a set of the bKa' 'gyur in 140 volumes. Whether it really was complete is of course impossible [page 143] to determine today. The ZBKK enumerates 244 volumes, but this may refer to the edition which Kun grol grags pa thought ought to be made, rather than to an actually existing edition; the KTDG (31) lists 175 volumes, which may be taken to refer to a set of the bKa' 'gyur on which Nyi ma bstan 'dzin based his catalogue.6 Only a careful comparison of the two catalogues will shed light on this considerable discrepancy.

Besides manuscript copies, there existed two xylographic editions of the Bon po bKa' 'gyur, both prepared in rGyal rong in the extreme east of Tibet in the second part of the eighteenth century. The lay patrons of this gigantic task were the royal houses of the rGyal rong states of Rab brtan and Khro chen, in both cases under the editorship of Kun grol grags pa (Karmay, 1990b). Presumably, the task of carving the wooden blocks was only undertaken after Kun grol grags pa had completed his catalogue in 1751. The editorial colophon of the Rab brtan edition of the gZi brjid (which, as we have seen, is part of the mDo section of the bKa' 'gyur) states that the carving of the blocks for the sixteen volumes of the Khams chen, a text belonging to the 'Bum section of the bKa' 'gyur, was undertaken in 1766 (Karmay, 1990b). The Manchu conquest of rGyal rong in 1775 and subsequent dGe lugs pa supremacy brought this flowering of Bon po culture to a close, and we may assume that the blocks were already carved by then.7 No complete set of either of the xylographic editions seems to have survived the Cultural Revolution, although single volumes still exist in Tibet.

Although many individual bKa' 'gyur texts have been and continue to be printed in India by Tibetan Bon pos living in exile, it was long thought that no complete set of the Bon po bKa' 'gyur had survived the catastrophic upheavals of the Cultural Revolution. However, in the early 1980s, a complete manuscript bKa' 'gyur was taken out of its place of concealment in Nyag rong in eastern Tibet. "The printing of a new photoset edition to be based on this manuscript copy of the entire Bon po canon was under way in Chengdu in 1985" (Karmay, 1990a: 147), and was in fact completed within a short space of time.8 Several academic libraries (Oslo, Paris, Washington, D.C.) already have copies of this set, thus making it possible to undertake a comprehensive study of a vast but hitherto virtually unexplored part of the rich cultural heritage of Tibet.[page 144]