STUDIES IN INDIAN AND TIBETAN BUDDHISM Buddhism B etween T ibet and C hina Edited by Matthew T. Kapstein Wisdom Publications r Boston Contents Illustrations Preface Contributors Transcription Conventions ix xv xix xxii Introduction: Mediations and Margins Matthew T. Kapstein 1 Part I: Sites of Encounter 1: The Treaty Temple of the Turquoise Grove Matthew T. Kapstein 21 2: The Commissioner’s Commissions: Late-ThirteenthCentury Tibetan and Chinese Buddhist Art in Hangzhou under the Mongols Rob Linrothe 73 3: Dabaojigong and the Regional Tradition of Ming Sino-Tibetan Painting in the Kingdom of Lijiang Karl Debreczeny 97 Part II: Missions from the Frontiers 4: Tibetan Buddhism, Perceived and Imagined, along the Ming-Era Sino-Tibetan Frontier Elliot Sperling vii 155 viii buddhism between tibet and china 5: The “Reverend Chinese” (Gyanakpa tsang) at Labrang Monastery Paul Nietupski 181 6: Gangkar Rinpoché between Tibet and China: A Tibetan Lama among Ethnic Chinese in the 1930s to 1950s Carmen Meinert 215 Part III: The Modern Chinese Discovery of Tibetan Buddhism 7: Translating Buddhism from Tibetan to Chinese in Early-Twentieth-Century China (1931–1951) Gray Tuttle 241 8: Tibetan Learning in the Contemporary Chinese Yogãcãra School Zhihua Yao 281 9: The “Chinese Lama” Nenghai (1886–1967): Doctrinal Tradition and Teaching Strategies of a Gelukpa Master in Republican China Ester Bianchi 295 Part IV: China and the Dalai Lama in the Twentieth Century 10: The Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s Visit to Beijing in 1908: In Search of a New Kind of Chaplain-Donor Relationship Fabienne Jagou 349 11: The Taiwanese Connection: Politics, Piety, and Patronage in Transnational Tibetan Buddhism Abraham Zablocki 379 Tibetan Spelling List Chinese Glossary Index 415 423 439 7: Translating Buddhism from Tibetan to Chinese in Early-Twentieth-Century China (1931–1951)* Gray Tuttle O f the textual sources currently available, accounts of the transmission of Buddhism between China and Tibet during the Republican period (1912–1949) are predominantly recorded in Chinese. This is because it was the Chinese who were seeking instruction on Buddhism from Tibetans, at times from fairly marginal figures in the Tibetan cultural world. Thus, while Tibetan language records of time spent in China were left by major lamas, such as the Ninth Paṇchen Lama, Lozang Tupten Chöki Nyima (1883–1937), the most copious archive of Buddhist exchange in this period, involving less prominent teachers, is preserved in Chinese. Two important Chinese language collections of Tibetan Buddhist materials, reprinting rare materials first published in the 1930s and 1940s in China, are the Dharma Ocean of the Esoteric Vehicle (Micheng fahai) and the Secret Scriptures of Tibetan Esoteric Dharma Practices (Zangmi xiufa midian).1 These works preserve compilations made in 1930 in Chongqing and from 1931 to 1951 in Beijing, respectively. From reprints of Nenghai’s (1886– 1967), Fazun’s (1902–1980), and Norlha Khutughtu Sonam Rapten’s (1865 or 1876–1936) works, we know that additional material was preserved in other locations, and it is clear that we do not yet have access to everything that was printed at local presses or circulated in manuscript. Further, whatever is still extant is merely what happened to survive the decades of mid-twentieth-century warfare and Communist suppression of religion. Nonetheless, given the breadth of publishing activity during the Republican period and evidence in both this chapter and others in this volume, we are aware that we are just beginning to ascertain the efflorescence of Chinese involvement with Tibetan Buddhism at that time.2 The two collections 241 242 buddhism between tibet and china under discussion here, however, demonstrate the scope of Tibetan Buddhist activity among Chinese Buddhist communities in mid-twentieth-century China as no other available materials do. The Dharma Ocean and Secret Scriptures indicate that Tibetan Buddhism was understood and practiced by the Chinese to a much greater degree than previous research has suggested.3 The texts demonstrate the interest and success of the Chinese in mastering the Tibetan language as a way to more fully access Tibetan Buddhist teachings and illuminate the critical role of the laity and lay institutions in sponsoring the translation and publication of Tibetan Buddhist teachings in China. While previously the laity of the imperial court may have engaged in such activities, to my knowledge the widespread participation of ordinary laypeople that we see at this time marks an historic development in Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism. These translations also acquaint us with many lesser-known Tibetan Buddhist teachers active in China in the Republican period. Finally, the rapid growth of interest in Tibetan Buddhism in early-twentieth-century China provides a useful counterpoint to the late-twentieth-century explosion of interest around the globe. The early translation of Walter Evans-Wentz’s work into Chinese is only one of the more obvious signs of the underlying trends that had already begun to integrate Tibetan and Chinese Buddhists into what has become a routine process of global religious exchange. These texts also help chart the growth of interest in Tibetan Buddhism among Chinese from parochial provincial communities to a broad domestic audience. This is well illustrated by the significant shift that can be seen in the method of phoneticizing Tibetan between the 1930 Dharma Ocean publication and some of the later publications collected in the Secret Scriptures. For the earlier publication, the intended audience was clearly a local one, as the editor indicates that the Sichuan dialect was the basis for the Chinese character transliterations.4 But by the late 1930s, many of the translators were using roman letters (presumably based on English pronunciation) to help standardize pronunciation. This reflected the more diverse audience (from Beijing, Kaifeng, Shandong, and Shanghai) that would have had access to these later, east coast, publications. But why would the Chinese be so interested in Tibetan script in the first place? In 1934, the argument for using Tibetan was that it preserved old Sanskrit pronunciation better than any other contemporary script or language (such as those that survived in Nepal). Therefore, the Tibetan script was taken as the basis for approximating Sanskrit sounds. To transliterate these correctly, English phonetics (zhuyin), “which were already familiar to [educated] society,” were used alongside Chinese characters. Because Chinese pronunciations differ depending on dialect, the Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 243 editors of this text chose the Beiping (Beijing) pronunciation as the standard, even though the book was published in China’s new capital, Nanjing (a prescient decision given Beijing’s downgraded status at the time).5 Elsewhere I have argued that throughout China an indigenization of Tibetan Buddhism occurred among the Chinese after the departure of the Paṇchen Lama and the Norlha Khutughtu in the late 1930s, and this attempt to make the Tibetan language accessible to Chinese Buddhist practitioners lends support to that argument.6 The role of lay societies and laymen as translators and shapers of the Tibetan Buddhist teachings that entered China in the twentieth century has also not been substantially examined. Previously, I and others have examined the important accomplishments of the Chinese monks Nenghai and Fazun in making Tibetan Buddhism accessible to the Chinese, especially through translation of critical works. These same monks, as well as their colleagues Guankong (1902–1989), Chaoyi, Yanding, and Mankong, also played a role in the translations under consideration here. But they only contributed to fifteen of the seventy-six titles collected in these volumes, roughly twenty percent. Accordingly, a surprising new picture emerges of the heretofore neglected role that Chinese Buddhist laymen played in the translation and dissemination of a broad range of Tibetan Buddhist teachings. With the exception of the six Chinese monks named above and one Mongol Tibetan Buddhist teacher (who authored three of the titles), translation and explication of these Tibetan Buddhist texts (and the oral teachings upon which many were based) relied on Chinese Buddhist laymen, accounting for approximately eighty percent of the works included in the Chinese collections. All told, some ten laymen were responsible for realizing this project, but nearly half of the translations were penned by just two men: Sun Jingfeng (twenty-one texts) and Tang Xiangming (thirteen texts). Yet to my knowledge, no one—certainly no Western scholar—has ever mentioned these two figures. Had their works not been preserved and reprinted in the 1990s, we might have remained ignorant of their impressive contribution to the spread of Tibetan Buddhism in China, since unlike the monks, they lacked disciples willing to write their biographies. That their works and those of so many other lay Buddhists dedicated to the propagation of Tibetan Buddhism in China were reprinted in the last years of the twentieth century is testament to the fact that there is a revived interest in Tibetan Buddhism in both China and Taiwan. Another important facet of the history of Tibetan Buddhism in China that can be discovered in these texts is the role played by several lesser-known Tibetan Buddhist teachers of the late 1930s and early 1940s. These are: (1) 244 buddhism between tibet and china Fig. 1 A page of the Dharma Ocean of the Esoteric Vehicle (82), with a photograph of Geshé Dorjé Chöpa. the best known, Dorjé-chang Trashilhünpo Ngakchen Darpa Khutughtu (Ch. Anqin shangshi, Anqin duokengjiang), Dewé Jungné Gyelten Rinpoché, Lozang Tendzin Jikmé Wangchuk Pelzangpo (1884–1947); (2) Geshé Nomunqan Lama Dorjé Chöpa (Ch. Duojie jueba gexi, 1874–?); (3) Vajralama Nomci Khenpo Dorampa Lozang Zangpo (Ch. Jingang shangshi nuomoqi kanbu daoranba Luobucang sangbu); (4) Vajra-lama Tupten Nyima (Jingang shangshi Tudeng lima, called a gexi, Tib. dge bshes in one instance7); and (5) the Mongol Gushri Könchok Dorjé (Guxili Gunque duoji).8 The last of these seems to have been the only teacher whose command of Chinese allowed him to pen his own Chinese texts, as no translator is listed. Though he wrote only three of the works considered here, they are three of the lon- Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 245 ger and earlier works and likely played a seminal role in shaping the practice of many Chinese disciples of Tibetan Buddhism. Aside from Dorjé Chöpa, who was active in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the other three Tibetan figures were most active in the late 1930s, especially in 1939, in which year alone at least sixteen Tibetan Buddhist works were published.9 We are hampered by the relative paucity of historical and biographical information on most of these figures, lay and monastic. With the exception of lengthy biographies of Fazun, Nenghai, and Norlha Khutughtu, as well as a few brief observations on Guankong, Geshé Dorjé Chöpa, and Ngakchen Khutughtu, I know of no account of these men save what we can extract from the two collections under review, which is precious little.10 There is so much more we would like to know. Regarding the Tibetans: Where were they from? Where did they train? How did they end up in China? Regarding the Chinese: How did they become interested in Tibetan Buddhism and capable of translating Tibetan Buddhist texts? What were the historic forces that shaped their rise and later near disappearance from the historical record? And in general: What roles did the presence or absence of Nationalist Chinese and later the occupying Japanese governance play in the explosion of interest in Tibetan Buddhism in 1930s China? These questions, and a detailed analysis of the contents of the texts, will have to await further exploration. My more limited aim in this chapter is to sketch an overview of the collections in order to introduce them, and their authors, to the scholarly community. Dorjé Chöpa, Zhang Xinruo, and the Dharma Ocean of the Esoteric Vehicle Geshé Dorjé Chöpa, along with his Chinese disciple Zhang Xinruo, was responsible for the practice-oriented work Dharma Ocean of the Esoteric Vehicle (Micheng fahai, hereafter called Dharma Ocean). This master was the first fully trained Tibetan monk to teach the Chinese in the Republican period. Originally from Dartsedo (Ch. Dajianlu, later renamed Kangding), he spent twenty years at Loséling in Drepung, the largest monastery in Lhasa, earning an advanced degree in Buddhist philosophy, before undertaking three years of tantric studies at a monastic school dedicated to these practices. For years afterward he lived in Mongolia and must have become familiar with Chinese Buddhists on his five trips to Wutai shan in the first decades of the twentieth century. As early as 1925, he initiated Chinese disciples into ten different Tibetan Buddhist tantric cycles and translated over twenty different 246 buddhism between tibet and china types of Tibetan esoteric texts into Chinese. Dorjé Chöpa also started the Tantrayāna Study Society (Micheng xuehui) in Wuchang.11 His teaching took him into China’s far northeast, and he performed rituals for warlords as far south as Canton. But he was most productive, in terms of recorded activities and publications, during the time he spent in his native Sichuan province. There he conducted the second and third Dharma-Assemblies for Peace, in Chongqing and Chengdu respectively (the first had been held in Shenyang). The last of these ritual assemblies, along with details about the teachings that followed the event, is recorded in a special issue of Chengdu’s Southwestern Dharma-Assembly for Peace (Chengdu Xi’nan heping fahui tekan).12 However, the Dharma Ocean was produced while Dorjé Chöpa was in Chongqing and records his teaching activities there. In the eulogizing prologue to the Dharma Ocean, the compiler (and most likely main translator), Zhang Xinruo, compares Dorjé Chöpa to Padmasambhava, Atiśa, and other great figures in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. He praises his teacher for opening and revealing (kaishi) the esoteric vehicle to the east. He gradually narrows his focus, from China initially, then to the southwest, and finally to the particular teachings the master gave in Chongqing in 1930.13 Discussing his master’s prior teaching in eastern China, including in Zhejiang, Beijing, Hankou, and Wuchang, Zhang notes that other manuscripts had been circulated and edited previously. Yet these earlier translations suffered from certain shortcomings, most notably the reliance on Japanese esoteric Buddhist terminology. This situation is reminiscent of the earliest days of the entry of Buddhism into China, when Daoist terminology was used to translate Indian or Central Asian Buddhist terms. But what Zhang found problematic in this case was that the two forms of Buddhism— Japanese and Tibetan—were sufficiently dissimilar to lead to misconceptions in the context of translation. Given this problem, it is not surprising that Zhang’s prefatory remarks clearly indicate that Dorjé Chöpa’s Chinese was inadequate to produce a proper translation himself. Here too there is a comparable situation in the nearly simultaneous efforts of Walter Evans-Wentz to assist with the translation of Tibetan Buddhist texts through an oral exchange with a Tibetan teacher of English in Darjeeling, Kazi Dawa Samdup. Like Evans-Wentz, Zhang and his colleagues who recorded the teachings never claim to be translators.14 Possibly they, also like Evans-Wentz, served as “living dictionaries” for their lama. Evans-Wentz’s theosophic terms, like those of the Chinese Buddhists accessing Tibetan esoterica through the medium of Japanese esoteric Buddhism, embedded within this context a distinct and not necessarily compatible discourse. One gets the impression that in both Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 247 cases, the terms in the “target” language were chosen from a pre-existing lexicon (theosophy and Japanese esoteric Buddhism, respectively) that did not approximate the concepts of the “source” language. How were the twentieth century Chinese to resolve this problem? Zhang remarks that this edition contains new translations of each teaching, but that the method of translation made use of earlier translations, while also attending to the master’s scriptural comparison and reliance on thorough research (kaozheng). Without seeing the earlier editions that used Japanese esoteric Buddhist terms, we cannot evaluate the degree of improvement afforded by the new edition. However, it is likely that over time the linguistic skills of translators would have improved considerably. In the case of the monastic translators, we know how their education progressed, from initial studies in China to completion of their studies abroad, in Kham and Central Tibet. As for the laymen who translated for various lamas, we know only that some of them had initially joined the short-lived Beijing Buddhist College for the Study of Tibetan Language in 1924–1925 or had studied with individual monks at Yonghegong.15 Yet their resources were meager, lacking both language textbooks and dictionaries until the mid-1930s.16 Of course, long-term interaction and study with a native speaker of the language may have proved a more valuable tool than any number of reference works. In any case, while the extent of their training is a matter of speculation, their motivations are made clear by the kinds of materials they chose to translate, from which we can only conclude that the objectives of these prolific authors and translators were decidedly religious. Several of the early texts in particular were devised as comprehensive introductions to the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. And unlike some recent works on Tibetan Buddhism in America, which mix advocacy for Tibetan political interests with Buddhist teachings, propaganda on the political status of Tibet was absent from any of the works consulted.17 In order to provide a sense of what one of these works did contain, it is necessary to briefly outline the earliest comprehensive set of Tibetan Buddhist practice materials to be printed in Chinese, the 1930 Dharma Ocean of the Esoteric Vehicle by Dorjé Chöpa and his disciple Zhang Xinruo. Though Tibetan precedents for the organization of parts of this work may be found,18 I suspect that the precise shape it took was the result of the interaction of Tibetan and Chinese expectations about what should be taught and learned. The book, over six hundred pages long, is divided into six major sections (bu), and an appendix. The first section, the longest, is devoted to the fundamentals of Tibetan Buddhist practice. The other five sections build on this foundation but are devoted 248 buddhism between tibet and china respectively to specific (1) tantric deities, (2) (male) buddhas, (3) female buddhas, (4) bodhisattvas, and (5) dharma-protectors. The inclusion of the final appendix, called “extra-curricular (kewai)” practices, indicates that the first six sections should be considered a curriculum for practitioners to study and practice. Tibetan Buddhist monasteries often had particular curricula that they expected their monks to adhere to, but this seems to be the first example of a curriculum created for Chinese Buddhist lay disciples of Tibetan Buddhism. In this respect, it anticipates the often unpublished English translations of Tibetan Buddhist practice texts that dharma-centers around the United States have produced for their own use. The Dharma Ocean of the Esoteric Vehicle may be outlined as follows: 1) Fundamentals (nine divisions) 1. Dorjé Chöpa’s Teachings of Spring 1930 2. Basic Practices (refuge, bodhicitta, four immeasurables, making offerings) 3. Short biography and explanation of proper ritual setting (with illustrations), proper sitting and daily practice 4. Visualization of Dorjé Chöpa as one’s root lama 5. Visualization of Tsongkhapa 6. Visualization of Yamāntaka 7. Visualization of the Ten-wheeled Vajra Lama 8. Visualization of Green Tārā 9. Recitation of Miktsé (a popular Gelukpa practice) 2) Tantric Deities 3) [Male] Buddhas 4) Female Buddhas 5) Bodhisattvas 6) Dharma-Protectors 7) Appendix: Extracurricular Practices [Index of Mantras, Recitations, and Hymns. Added to the reprint edition.] An examination of the contents of the various sections of the Dharma Ocean yields insights into this critical exchange between Chinese and Tibetan Buddhists. The fundamentals (Ch. genben) section has nine internal divisions; as the initial three are more central than the latter six, I turn to them first. 19 These three are collections (ji) of the teachings basic to the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. The first collection records the teachings given by Dorjé Chöpa in the spring of 1930 for the Buddhist Study Society (Foxueshe) at Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 249 Chang’an Temple in Chongqing. On the first day, some 160 men and women took the fivefold precepts as well as the bodhisattva precepts.20 This first day’s teaching also records the Tibetan language verses that were taught to the Chinese audience. The verses are first given in Tibetan script, then in (Sichuan) Chinese transliteration, and finally in Chinese translation. This method, which would allow the Chinese to see and pronounce the Tibetan words, is repeated throughout the book. Usually the Tibetan passages are quite short, either a stanza or a mantra, though sometimes these fill an entire folio. This work’s bilingual presentation marks it as the first such Republican-era text (or at least the first to have survived), and possibly the first such text ever produced without imperial sponsorship. Probably this type of text had been produced earlier by Dorjé Chöpa and his students in eastern China and served as the model here. Following the bestowal of exoteric precepts on the first day, on the second day the esoteric or tantrayāna (micheng) precepts were given to the same group of men and women.21 By the third day the crowd had nearly doubled to over three hundred people, including the four types of disciples, presumably meaning monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen. On the final two days several dozen more—probably attendees who had missed the first round of precepts—received the same sets of precepts previously bestowed.22 Dorjé Chöpa’s teachings were marked by a distinctively Tibetan Buddhist, and especially Gelukpa, teaching style. After transmitting the precepts on the first two days, he opened the third day by teaching about the difficulty of attaining a human existence within the six realms of cyclic existence that comprise saṃsāra.23 This teaching was meant to inspire the audience to seize the rare opportunity they had to learn Buddhism in their present existence as human beings. He opened the next day by discussing how extraordinary it is to even hear Buddhist teachings.24 The third day, he discussed the life and thought of the progenitor of the Gelukpa tradition to which he belonged: Tsongkhapa. The record of these three days of teachings, and the two days of conferring precepts before and after, comprise the first division of the fundamentals section. The second division is devoted to the basic practices of taking refuge, developing bodhicitta, the four immeasurable states of mind (si wuliang xin), making offerings, and so forth. Unlike the first division of this section, which recorded details such as the date and time of the teachings given, this division is presented as a practical guide for daily use. The same format of providing Tibetan script, Chinese transliteration, and Chinese translation is used throughout this division. Only occasionally are short additional notes 250 buddhism between tibet and china provided, as guides to the manner in which some portion of the text should be recited (such as: “repeat three times”). After describing the practices outlined above, the bulk of this division of the text is devoted to the recitation of mantras, as well as to the proper way to make offerings and set up an altar. The third division of the fundamental section appears to have existed as a separate work before its inclusion in this compilation. It opens with a frontispiece, showing a photograph of the master, and a short biography of him. This is followed by a preface and introductory notes on the use of the text (liyan).25 The body of this division is devoted to explaining how to create the proper ritual setting for practice and begins by describing how to approach and clean the altar and set up offerings before the image of the Buddha. A diagram illustrating the proper arrangement is included.26 A description of the proper way to sit and meditate follows. Developing the correct mental state ( faxin) that takes all beings into consideration and the associated visualizations preparatory to taking refuge are also described.27 The daily practice routine goes into great detail regarding the ritual offerings, presenting a diagram of the universe (according to IndoTibetan cosmology) and a detailed breakdown of the thirty-seven precious objects, which are to be visualized as an offering.28 As with the previous division, this section concludes with a series of mantras but also includes an addendum from the master about coming to Chongqing to teach Buddhism. With regard to the esoteric school’s characteristic feature of becoming a buddha in this very body ( ji sheng cheng fo), the master says: “Indians, Tibetans, and Mongolians who have practiced this dharma successfully are without measure, without limit. Recently transmitted to this land (ci tu, meaning China) [to] those who have received initiation . . . a great host has attained this secret dharma.”29 Thus, the promise here is that the Chinese, like the Indians, Tibetans, and Mongolians before them, would now have the opportunity to attain buddhahood in this lifetime. The fourth to eighth divisions of the fundamentals section are short “combined practices (hexiu)” that each open with taking refuge, generating the four immeasurable attitudes and bodhicitta, and then turn to visualizations of: Dorjé Chöpa as one’s fundamental lama in the fourth division; Tsongkhapa in the fifth division; Yamāntaka (Ch. Daweide, Tib. Rdo rje ’jigs byed) in the sixth division; the Ten-wheeled Vajra Lama in the seventh division; and Green Tārā in the eighth division. The ninth and concluding division contains a recitation (niantong), which is known as the Miktsé in Tibetan and has been called “the Creed of the Gelukpa.” Through this recitation, the speaker prays to three central bodhisattvas of Tibetan Buddhism (Avalokiteśvara, Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 251 Fig. 2 The diagram of the universe according to Buddhist cosmology, as given in Secret Scriptures of Tibetan Esoteric Dharma Practices (1.748). Mañjuśrī, and Vajrapāṇi), understanding them to be identical to the lineage master of the Gelukpa tradition, Tsongkhapa.30 This short passage is so central to the Gelukpa tradition that both the Fifth Dalai Lama and his regent Desi Sanggyé Gyatso made reference to the first occasion on which Qing courtiers recited this verse in 1653.31 Its recurrence here, among a lay Buddhist community in China, marks another significant advance of the Tibetan Buddhist missionary effort launched by the Gelukpa some three and half centuries before, among the Mongols on the eastern frontiers of Tibet.32 The transmission of the basic tenets of Tibetan Buddhist practice might seem unnecessary for a culture that had known of Buddhism for over 1500 years. However, there are several distinctive aspects to Tibetan Buddhism, differentiating it from Chinese Buddhism, that are made clear in these texts. Most important of these is the focus on the lama (Ch. shangshi) that is found in Tibetan Buddhism, a point also underscored in Ester Bianchi’s study of Nenghai lama in chapter 9. Rather than taking refuge in only the standard Three Jewels—the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha—Tibetan Buddhists introduce a fourth object of refuge at the head of the list: the lama. This unique formula for taking refuge is repeated throughout the texts of the Dharma Ocean, first appearing in the fundamentals section on proper 252 buddhism between tibet and china worship and thereafter at the start of nearly every one of the dozens of ritual texts devoted to a specific tantric deity, buddha, etc.33 This attention and devotion to the lama, who is elevated even above the other Three Jewels of Buddhist refuge, is characteristic of late esoteric practice. Reliance on the teacher over any other authority is seen as necessary for the disciple to be guided through the tantric path. This introduces a second distinctive feature of these texts, namely that they involve tantric practice. Although many of the short ritual texts are devoted to buddhas and bodhisattvas who are also present in the (Mahāyāna) Chinese Buddhist world, many other texts are dedicated to tantric deities and esoteric forms of various bodhisattvas and dharma-protectors, beings who would not have been familiar to the Chinese. The next major section of the Dharma Ocean is devoted to these very esoteric deities. With the exception of the first text, these thirteen short works are recitations (niantong) devoted to various tantric figures such as Yamāntaka, the Kālacakra deity, and various versions of Hayagrīva (Tib. rta mgrin). Each text opens with the fundamental practices of the four refuges, generating the four immeasurables and bodhicitta, and then a threefold repetition of refuge. The first text in this section, a completion stage (cheng jiu) work, has the practitioner transforming him or herself into Heruka for the sake of all sentient beings.34 In each of these texts, the repetition of mantra(s) associated with the particular deity is a central part of the ritual practice. This pattern is followed throughout the rest of the work, for almost five hundred pages, covering ninety-nine different Buddhist figures. Thus, on average, these are short texts of some five pages (ten folios in their original form, as two folios are copied on each page of the reprint). These include roughly two hundred mantras, so many that a separate index of them has been made for the reprint edition. This added index also lists nearly one hundred recitations (niantong) and over 120 hymns of praise (jizan) to the various figures, from Dorjé Chöpa to the White God of Wealth (Bai cai shen). The section of the work focused on [male] Buddhas is the shortest, with only nine texts. It is noteworthy that the section on the buddha-mothers ( fomu, or female buddha) is the second longest of the work, after the fundamentals section. Covering twenty-seven female figures in 125 pages, this section is extensive perhaps because it includes the female tantric deities, who might otherwise have appeared in the Vajra section, such as the White Parasol Buddha-mother (Ch. Bai sangai fomu; Tib. Gdugs dkar can ma; Skt. Sitātapatrā).35 Moreover, the texts devoted to various forms of Tārā (Ch. Dumu) are divided first by color (green, white, yellow) and then enumerate Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 253 each of twenty-one forms of Tārā separately. While I cannot offer a definitive explanation for this attention to and segregation of the female figures, it may be that Chinese Buddhists, well known for their transformation of Avalokiteśvara into a female form and their attention to female salvific figures in various syncretic traditions, especially appreciated the diverse assortment of female forms of enlightened beings in the Tibetan Buddhist world and chose to highlight them in this way.36 The section on bodhisattvas opens with four different texts devoted to the various forms (colors) of Mañjuśrī, the bodhisattva most closely associated with China in the minds of Tibetans.37 A favorite of Chinese Buddhists, Avalokiteśvara, including the esoteric eleven-headed and four-armed versions of the deity, is the subject of ten texts.38 Vajrapāṇi (Ch. Jingangshou; Tib. Phyag na rdo rje), the third in the usual Tibetan trinity of bodhisattvas, but foreign to the Chinese Buddhist world, is covered in six texts.39 A Maitreya recitation ends this section. The last regular section, on protectors of the Dharma (hufa), also includes figures not typically found in the Chinese Buddhist world. Mahākāla, a wrathful form of Avalokiteśvara, had long been venerated by Mongols and Manchus who lived in or ruled over China from the Yuan to Qing dynasties.40 But as far as I know, this is the first time that Chinese lay Buddhists were granted access to texts devoted to this powerful protector. This may be why this text is unusually long for the compilation, thirty-three pages with roughly twelve pages of Tibetan script interspersed.41 This section also includes praises to the white and yellow gods of wealth and concludes with a text dedicated to making offerings (gongyang) to the Four Heavenly Kings (Si tian wang). The final, “extracurricular” section includes an assortment of recitations and practice texts, such as one that promises Avalokiteśvara’s aid in curing eye ailments.42 For such a vast work, the Dharma Ocean is notably lacking the sorts of philosophical texts that Chinese monks such as Fazun were devoting themselves to translating at this time, as will be seen in the following chapter. Although this distinction cannot be made too rigidly (because there were monks, such as Nenghai, who were also very interested in ritual and practice texts), I think it is safe to say that lay interest in more directly efficacious forms of Buddhist teaching and practice, namely mantras and merit-generating recitations and hymns of praise, dictated the production of this work. What is remarkable here is the abundance of short, focused texts, generally with very concrete goals—salvation from particular dangers, such as the eight enumerated in an Avalokiteśvara recitation;43 the accumulation of wealth; or the curing of eye 254 buddhism between tibet and china problems. Moreover, the emphasis on attaining enlightenment in this very lifetime eschews the gradual approach of some of the philosophic works so central to the Gelukpa monastic tradition. As for the distribution and popularity of the Dharma Ocean, presumably it would have enjoyed the same renown as did its editor, Dorjé Chöpa, whose reputation was widely known, especially in Chongqing, where the book was compiled. The mayor and other local notables were initiated into Tibetan esoteric practices and built an enduring monument, an enormous and expensive Tibetan-style stūpa set on a hill in the center of the city, to commemorate his visit and the forty-nine-day Southwestern Dharma-assembly for Peace held there early in 1930.44 Early the next year, the second Southwestern Dharma-assembly for Peace was held in the nearby provincial capital, Chengdu, and was attended by leading warlords, dignitaries, and at least 4,500 individuals whose donations (totaling nearly 50,000 silver dollars) were individually recorded in a memorial volume. Such a following demonstrates that Dorjé Chöpa was a highly esteemed figure in Sichuan. We can be almost certain that by the middle of the twentieth century, his written work had spread as far as Beijing and Taiwan. A 112 page volume of what appears to be extracts from the larger work and dates to 1934 is found in a collection of esoteric texts from Beijing and seems to be a combination of various parts of the 1930 Sichuan work: a text dedicated to Amitāyus, the long-life Buddha, is here coupled with parts of the fundamentals section. To this, two letters from Dorjé Chöpa’s disciples, one the principal editor of his works, were appended.45 While Dorjé Chöpa had disappeared from the historical record by 1934, his work continued to be reproduced and dispersed throughout China and Taiwan. Secret Scriptures of Tibetan Esoteric Dharma Practices (Zangmi xiufa midian) The second major collection, Secret Scriptures of Tibetan Esoteric Dharma Practices, brings together esoteric materials collected from 1931 to 1951 in Beijing from a variety of printing presses on China’s east coast. These materials were compiled by someone respectfully referred to as “forefather” Zhou Shujia, who in pointed understatement was said to have “attended to the esoteric tradition (mizong).” During the Cultural Revolution, when homes were being searched and books confiscated, these texts were preemptively bundled up and taken to a branch of the government’s inspection stations by his Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 255 son. At the end of the Cultural Revolution, the latter was able to recover the impounded materials and later donated his collection to China’s Buddhist Library (Zhongguo Fojiao tushuguan). There, the layman Lü Tiegang catalogued them and published a booklist called the “Catalogue and Account of China’s Buddhist Library’s Manuscript Collection’s Chinese Translations of Tibetan Buddhism.” This list was published in the official Chinese Buddhist Association’s journal Fayin (Sound of the Dharma) in 1988, just a year after Dorjé Chöpa’s work was reprinted in Taiwan. The scholarly community in China apparently encouraged the reprinting of these rarely seen and important translations, for the benefit of Tibetologists, and as a result Lü had the collection published in this five-volume set.46 Rather than trying to summarize the contents of this vast and diverse body of work—five volumes containing seventy-five titles in 4,500 pages—it is perhaps more beneficial to highlight a few of the major institutions, teachers, and translators that seem to have played important roles in the Chinese and Tibetan Buddhist interactions recorded in its pages. The two major Beijing institutions involved in the initial publication of the individual texts were the Esoteric Treasury Institute (Ch. Mizang yuan, Tib. Gsang ngags chos mdzod gling; active 1931–1938) and the Bodhi Study Association (Puti xuehui, active 1938–1951).47 The four most important teachers, already mentioned above, were the Mongol Könchok Dorjé, the Ngakchen Khutughtu, Lozang Zangpo, and Tupten Nyima. The translator Sun Jingfeng was active from 1936 to at least 1942, with most of his bilingual translations published in 1939 as part of the series of the Collected Translations of Tibetan Esoterica (Zangmi congyi) by the Tibetan Esoteric Practice and Study Association (Zangmi xuixuehui). Most of Tang Xiangming’s numerous translations are not dated but his involvement with Esoteric Treasury Institute suggests he might have been active from as early as 1932. From his dated works, he was clearly active from at least 1939 to 1944. The only other figure that deserves special mention is Walter Evans-Wentz (1878–1965), whose English-language compilations of Tibetan texts served as the basis for five translations in the collection. The Esoteric Treasury Institute and Könchok Dorjé We know very little about Beijing’s Esoteric Treasury Institute, but the books published at the institute during the mid-twentieth century hold important clues to the institute’s activities. The key figures associated with this institute 256 buddhism between tibet and china were the Mongol Könchok Dorjé, the Ninth Paṇchen Lama, the Ngakchen Khutughtu, and Tang Xiangming. Most informative is a short inscription written across a photograph in the opening pages of one of the institute’s illustrated works, which reads: “Mizhou fazang si (The Dharma Treasury of Esoteric Dhāraṇī Monastery), named in brief: Mizang yuan; established in good order by the [Ninth] Paṇchen Lama.”48 The headboard inscription over the altar is too poorly reproduced to make out clearly, but from a later occurrence of the Tibetan name of the institute, it is clear that it reads “Sangngak Chödzöling,” plainly a translation of Mizang yuan.49 Despite the poor quality of the photograph, we can make out what may be the Lentsa script version of the Kālacakra Tantra’s symbol decorating the hangings over the altar. If this identification is correct, this photograph would probably date from the 1932 Beijing Kālacakra ceremony led by the Paṇchen Lama, with the participation of the Ngakchen Khutughtu.50 The presence of a photograph of the Ngakchen Khutughtu at the front of the book confirms this link with the Paṇchen Lama, though the Khutughtu also returned to Beijing just before the death of the Paṇchen Lama in 1937.51 Three of the four dated works we have from the institute were written by the Mongol translator Könchok Dorjé. Of him, we know only these writings, which include the earliest text in the Secret Scriptures of Tibetan Esoteric Dharma Practices: a 1931 work of over one hundred pages devoted to the eleven-headed form of Avalokiteśvara.52 This text, like most of Könchok Dorjé’s own compositions, contains no Tibetan script whatsoever. His next publication, a 1934 “essentials of daily recitations,” included several translations as well as a text illustrating thirty-five buddhas. Alone among his writings, in this work a few syllables of Tibetan script are interspersed throughout the text.53 The final, 1936 version that bears his name is a massive five-hundredpage work that opens with six pages of illustrations and a Yamāntaka text. The image of Tsongkhapa at the start of this publication confirms that Könchok Dorjé, like the Ninth Paṇchen Lama and the Ngakchen Khutughtu, adhered to the Gelukpa tradition.54 The appearance of the dated works at the Esoteric Treasury Institute from 1931 to 1938 provides the only indication of the time frame during which we know that the institute was active. We can therefore surmise that the other writings published by the institute, including four works consisting mostly of illustrations and their captions, were also produced during the same period. The terminal date of the only one of these illustrated works merits a detailed examination, in that the text either had no preface, or else the front matter was removed during the most recent editorial process. If the latter is the case, Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 257 Fig. 3 The Ngakchen Khutughtu in a photograph published in Secret Scriptures of Tibetan Esoteric Dharma Practices (5.99). Notice that the image was printed in reverse. the material may have been removed due to political sensitivity, as it may have reflected positively on the Japanese occupation of Beijing, or at least not been critical of the occupying force. The Tibetan postscript, however, remains and includes a long series of phrases useful for dating the work, given in descending order as points of reference as the events approach the present, and interesting for what they tell us of the cultural and political concerns that were most relevant to the Tibetan author. Not surprisingly, the first reference is to the number of years since the Buddha’s birth. Following this, the year is dated from the number of years that have elapsed since each of a series of major events: the Buddha teaching the Kālacakra root-tantra; his passing into nirvāṇa; the Muslims (kla klo) taking possession of Mecca—an interesting point of global reference; the appearance of the Kālacakra commentary; the birth of Tsongkhapa; and the ascension to the throne of the most recent ruler of Shambhala. At this point the method of dating changes and the reader is offered a significant anomaly—the reign date of the Qing Emperor—thereby extending the dynasty’s “rule” of China 258 buddhism between tibet and china some twenty-seven years beyond the dynastic abdication in 1911. The final chronometric references return to standard methods for dating in Tibetan texts, listing the years since the deaths of the thirteenth Dalai Lama and Ninth Paṇchen Lama, and finally noting the Tibetan year: Earth Male Tiger. All these points indicate that the year of publication was 1938. For all their variety, the events noted share one common feature: not that they are all Buddhist, as they are not, but that none recognizes the end of the Qing dynasty or the foundation of any new state in China. Instead, the reference to the Qing Emperor’s reign date is shocking: “the thirtieth year of the Mañjughoṣa Great Emperor Xuantong” (‘jam dbang gong ma chen po shon thong gyal sar bzhug gnas lo sum cu).55 Even the Japanese, when they installed Puyi, previously known as the Xuantong Emperor, as the “Chief Executive” of the puppet state Manchukuo in February of 1932, described him as the former Xuantong Emperor.56 Useful as it might have been to their plans for the occupation of China, they no longer recognized his claim to the throne of the Qing empire. Yet this is exactly what the Tibetan strategy of dating his reign as continuous since 1908 succeeds in doing; the Tibetan author still acknowledges Puyi as the Qing Emperor. With the death of the Paṇchen Lama in 1937, did such lamas as the Ngakchen Khutughtu feel some fragile hope for a future alliance of Buddhist Tibet and Buddhist Japan under the banner of the Mañjughoṣa Emperor? It is this that leads me to suspect that there may have formerly been a politically offensive, Chinese-language preface that was omitted by the modern editors who failed to take note of the implications of the Tibetan-language postscript. In any event, certainly no alliance of the sort alluded to ever materialized, but the Japanese did have plans (and spies on the ground) for working with Tibetan Buddhists who might have been persuaded to envision a future within Japan’s Asian empire.57 This speculative excursus aside, I turn now to consider the contents of the four largely pictorial texts printed by the Esoteric Treasury Institute, presumably between 1931 and 1939. The first two, which are the longest and very similar, consist mainly of single, mostly tantric, figures on the front side of the folio (measuring roughly five by nine inches), with bilingual captions including a number, and the name and color of the figure (as they were printed in black and white).58 On the reverse of each is, again in both Tibetan and Chinese, information on the figure as well as the associated mantra. According to the postscript to the second text, five hundred and forty Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongolian monks and laity attended events at the Esoteric Treasury Institute in 1938 to receive initiations into the tantric cycles described in the book.59 The third text, dedicated to Yamāntaka, is printed in Tibetan pecha Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 259 format (unbound narrow horizontal leaves) with five figures illustrated on each page and bilingual captions below. On the reverse, behind each figure in a vertical line are the syllables “Oṃ āḥ hūng swā hā.” The end of the text includes illustrations of ritual paraphernalia, symbols, and circular dhāraṇī (zhou). The final illustrated text returns to the vertical orientation typical of Chinese works and has only Chinese captions describing the figure depicted and no other textual content. The opening image is again Yamāntaka and the final figures likewise depict paraphernalia and dhāraṇī similar to those found at the end of the third book. However, in this fourth text almost all the intervening pages are densely filled with four or five detailed line drawings of Buddhist figures. As suggested by the lone postscript to the second text indicating how it was to be utilized, it seems that all of these works were meant to accompany other ritual or training manuals. They appear to be aids rather than standalone guides to the practice of esoteric Tibetan Buddhism. The other consistent characteristic is the appearance of Tsongkhapa in the early pages of each text, indicating that the authors and users of these texts were adherents of the Geluk tradition. This is hardly surprising given the close association between this institute and the Ninth Paṇchen Lama and his envoy, the Ngakchen Khutughtu. Moreover, the Geluk tradition was still in power in Tibet at the time of these early Chinese publications, and it had had a long institutional presence in China proper, especially in Beijing. Interlude: Nyingma and Kagyü Translations, 1932–1936 Given the tradition of imperial support for the Gelukpa tradition, there was a relatively strong showing of interest in other Tibetan Buddhist traditions over the next several years, especially in the Nyingma and the Kagyü. The most prominent figure from the non-Geluk traditions was the exiled Khampa lama, the Norlha Khutughtu (Ch. Nuona huofo), a Nyingmapa who, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, had been imprisoned by Tibet’s Gelukpa government for cooperating with late Qing efforts to extend Chinese administrative control deep into Tibetan territory. Having escaped prison and arrived in China in 1925, it took some years for the lama to become wellestablished in China, gaining renown first in Sichuan province (by 1927) and in Nanjing by 1929. His teaching career in China peaked in the early 1930s, and the works he authored that are translated in the Secret Scriptures collection date from this time.60 The first set of his translated texts to appear 260 buddhism between tibet and china in the collection is dedicated to Sitātapatrā (Tib. Gdugs dkar, Ch. Da bai san’gai fomu), the female Buddhist deity associated with a protective white parasol, illustrated in this case with three faces and six arms. As described by Ishihama Yumiko, this deity had been worshipped by the rulers of China in the Yuan and Qing dynasties, and the Norlha Khutughtu used at least one of the previously translated practice texts as the basis for his teachings.61 The origins of the Secret Scripture’s set of Sitātapatrā texts can be found in the Nanjing Buddhist Lay Group (Fojiao jushilin), which invited the Norlha Khutughtu to transmit esoteric dhāraṇī (mizhou) in 1931. In the preface, the translator Wu Runjiang states that the goal of the teachings was to make the Sitātapatrā dhāraṇī widely available so that beings in this age of the decline of the dharma might escape saṃsāric suffering. Thus he translated the dhāraṇī into the national (vernacular) speech (guoyin).62 As for the Tibetan portion of the text, the Norlha Khutughtu did not provide the Tibetan script of the dhāraṇī that is included in these texts. Instead, Zhong kanbu (Tib. mkhan po) of the Paṇchen Lama’s Nanjing representative’s office was asked to undertake this.63 The second short text devoted to Sitātapatrā in this collection recommends that dharma-assemblies be held to eliminate disaster and protect the country (xiaozai huguo). At the end of the text, the Norlha Khutughtu is recorded to have said that if good men and women would practice reciting this dhāraṇī with the correct mindset, in dharma-assemblies, whether conducted by a single person or many people, and lasting for one, seven, twenty-one or forty-nine days, then the country would be shielded from disaster.64 This was a powerful promise, especially given the threats that China was then facing from Japan. The second set of collected texts associated with the Norlha Khutughtu was published in 1935, but includes texts from 1932 and 1934, all oriented around the same themes as the first set: female Buddhist figures who had the ability to save the Chinese from catastrophe. In this case, the female figures were the various forms of Tārā. The Norlha Khutughtu first gave teachings on Tārā in the winter of 1932 in Nanjing.65 The audience for the event initially numbered only six people, but by spring of 1934 they had persuaded the master to teach a larger audience. Over the summer, the lama went to Lu shan, the nearest mountain retreat where one could hope for cool breezes and escape Nanjing’s sweltering summers. There a Chinese monk and a layman invited him to give the same teaching to 130 people. Laymen wrote out the text and the lama corrected it somehow, though no source indicates that he knew Chinese. As before, a member of the Paṇchen Lama’s office staff, Zhong kanpo, wrote the Tibetan text. Presumably, the printed text could then be distributed at other teaching events. In one instance, in Nanjing in 1934, the Nor- Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 261 Fig. 4 The phonetic scheme adopted to transcribe Tibetan in connection with Norlha Khutughtu’s teachings. From Secret Scriptures of Tibetan Esoteric Dharma Practices (2.385). lha Khutughtu’s teachings on the Tārā practice were occasioned by a dharma assembly convened to avert disaster and benefit the people of Guangdong.66 To lend an air of secrecy and importance to this revealed “esoteric” text, it was said that in Kham and Central Tibet (Kang Zang) this text had not yet been transmitted, while in China (Zhongtu) a broad transmission of this dharma had also never before occurred.67 The first distinctively Nyingma teaching, devoted to the tradition’s progenitor, Padmasambhava, was also introduced in this second set of texts. In the introduction to this practice, readers are promised that making offerings to the image of Padmasambhava will generate unimaginable merit, which will clear away all future calamities and difficulties, and produce boundless fruits of virtue and the like.68 A short biography of Padmasambhava included in this set is his earliest introduction to the Chinese in the history and culture of Sino-Tibetan Buddhist exchange that I have seen.69 The Norlha Khutughtu left for the borderlands in 1935 to campaign against the Communist Red Army’s Long March through Kham. He was captured and died in the custody of the Communists in 1936, putting to an abrupt end his short but promising teaching and publishing career in China. Among these collected volumes, the only Tibetan Buddhist texts that are obviously from the Kagyü tradition came to be translated into Chinese via a circuitous route; these texts were not translated directly from the Tibetan, nor 262 buddhism between tibet and china did they originate in China. Instead, two texts devoted to principal practices of the Kagyü school, the Six Yogas (Ming xing dao liu chengjiu fa) and the Great Symbol practices (Da shou yin fa yao), as well as two shorter texts, were translated from English language translations made by Kazi Dawa Samdub (Ka zi Zla ba bsam sgrub, 1868–1922) and edited by Walter Evans-Wentz, which were then published as Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines in 1935. In all, five of this work’s seven “Books of Wisdom of the Great Path”—the second, third, fourth, sixth, and seventh—are preserved here, but it appears that they were all translated and issued together as part of a series at the time. These five were “The Nirvanic Path: The Yoga of the Great Symbol,” “The Path of Knowledge: The Yoga of the Six Doctrines,” “The Path of Transference: The Yoga of ConsciousnessTransference,” “The Path of the Five Wisdoms: The Yoga of the Long Hûm,” and “The Path of the Transcendental Wisdom: The Yoga of the Voidness.”70 Although the impetus for translating Tibetan Buddhist texts into Chinese was clearly connected to modern ideas about Buddhism as a world religion, this is a dramatic instance of Chinese Buddhist involvement in the transnational circulation of Tibetan Buddhist works.71 Previously, it had been Chinese Buddhist works that were translated into English. At that point, Chinese had been the “source” language, but now the positions were being switched and Chinese became the “target” language. And the original Tibetan source then had to be approached indirectly through the unique translations of a Himalayan school-teacher of English and an American student of yoga and theosophy.72 The Chinese translation was accomplished by a Chinese student of Tibetan esoterica, Zhang Miaoding, just a year after the texts were first made available in English. He correctly credits the first text to Pema Karpo (Ch. Poma jia’erpo), whom he calls the twenty-fourth master of Tibet’s Kagyü (Ch. Jiaju’er) tradition. But in what appears to be a misunderstanding of the English transliteration of the Tibetan translator’s name, Lama Kazi Dawa Samdup is described as Tibet’s Dawa Sangdu Gexi Lama. In Chinese, gexi typically transliterates Tibetan dge bshes, which is apparently how Zhang thought he should describe the translator.73 This misconstrual transforms the lay boys-school teacher into a monastic lama trained in Central Tibet’s highest institutions of Gelukpa learning.74 Another work is attributed to a certain American, Mrs. Evans (Meiguo Aiwensi furen), and listed as the co-author with the Chinese layman, Wang Yantao. This illustrated text, variously titled the (Ch. Study of ) Five Hundred Buddha-images of the (Tib. Four Classes of the) Esoteric Tradition (Ch. Mizong wubai fo xiang kao; Tib. Gsang chen rgyud sde bzhi’i sku brnyan lnga brgya), is also included in the Secret Scriptures. Five hundred images are set twelve to the Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 263 Fig. 5 A sheet depicting twelve divinities, from the Five Hundred Buddha-Images of the Esoteric Tradition. page with a Chinese caption added under the Tibetan name of each figure. On the reverse is a corresponding prayer or the mantra(s) associated with each figure written horizontally in Tibetan around a vertical string of Lentsa script letters reading “Oṃ āḥ hūng swā hā.” The Chinese seals and Tibetan and Mongolian inscriptions of two prominent Gelukpa lamas (the Ngakchen/Anqin Khutughtu and the Changkya/Zhangjia guoshi) grace the front matter, and the inscriptions and opening images of Tsongkhapa with his two main disciples indicate that this text is of Gelukpa provenance. These are almost certainly reproductions of Qing-period block carvings.75 As for the date of this text, I suspect it was around 1939, when the Ngakchen Khutughtu was actively publishing in China. Layman Sun Jingfeng and the Collected Translations of Tibetan Esoterica Series Sun Jingfeng was the most prolific Chinese Buddhist translator of Tibetan texts. Sun’s twenty-one translations, though generally short, are notable for 264 buddhism between tibet and china their frequent inclusion of complete Tibetan language texts as appendices. Fifteen of his translations include or incorporate a Tibetan text, five others use Tibetan script for the mantras, and only one is completely devoid of Tibetan letters. Sixteen of Sun’s works were part of the Collected Translations of Tibetan Esoterica (Zangmi congshu) issued by the Tibetan Esoteric Practice and Study Association Printery (Zangmi xuixue hui shiyin). As for the dates of his translation activity, his earliest work is from 1936, and his last was published in 1942. He seems to have been attracted to Tibetan Buddhism by 1931, when the Paṇchen Lama was in Nanjing, as indicated by his awareness of the Paṇchen Lama’s teaching on the six-syllable mantra (Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ) there.76 Another influence may have been the Mongol Vajra-Guru (Jingang shangshi) Bao Kanbu (Tib. Dkon mchog mkhan po, i.e. Gu shri Dkon mchog rdo rje), who was invited to Shanghai to teach in 1934. Also present in Shanghai at that time was Tupten Nyima, the Tibetan Buddhist teacher who transmitted nearly a third of the texts Sun translated. 77 On the basis of this rather limited evidence, we may tentatively conclude that Sun was introduced to Tibetan Buddhism in Nanjing and Shanghai, after which he probably studied Tibetan language for some years before he was sufficiently proficient to translate texts.78 The learned Lozang Zangpo was another of Sun’s major teachers, transmitting almost one quarter (five) of the texts that Sun translated.79 Sun seems to have traveled widely in central and north China to attend teachings and find publishers for his materials, ranging from Beijing, where the Yonghegong’s Jasagh Lama taught, to Shandong, Kaifeng, and Shanghai. In assessing his work, it is necessary to consider both his early translations and the later ones found in the Collected Translations of Tibetan Esoterica series. His early work is distinguished by his attention to the importance of the Tibetan script and its pronunciation and his careful explication of these. Otherwise, it deals with the same fundamental practices of Tibetan Buddhism described by Dorjé Chöpa and Zhang Xinruo. His first two texts date to 1936, with the longer of the two, the Precious Treasury of Esoterica (Ch. Micheng bao zang; Tib. Bsang sngag [sic, Gsang sngags] ren [sic, rin] chen gter bzang) opening with a summary explanation of the Tibetan alphabet, with Chinese transliteration to assist the reader’s pronunciation. Endnotes explain the consonants, vowels, as well as which letters can serve as prefixes, postfixes, and so forth, covering the variant spellings and pronunciations of Tibetan syllables. This is followed by prayers for blessings, taking refuge, and making maṇḍala-offerings (with an illustration of the world according to Indo-Tibetan Buddhist conceptions), dhāraṇī, and other ritual texts associated with Avalokiteśvara, including one taught by the fourth Paṇchen Lama.80 Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 265 Fig. 6 A talisman with dhāraṇīs in Sanskrit and Tibetan scripts, together with Chinese transcription. From the works of Sun Jinfeng in Secret Scriptures (4.508). Another text dated 1936, Tibetan Esoteric Essentials of Worship and Praise (Zangmi lizan fayao), was clearly used to introduce novices to basic Gelukpa practice.81 Each Tibetan passage and its Chinese transliteration is followed by a second transliteration into Roman script, to clarify the proper pronunciation of the Tibetan text. Sometimes this format is extended to include a short Chinese explanation of the translation. For instance, the previously described Gelukpa “Creed” (dmigs brtse) here is called Tsongkhapa’s heart dhāraṇī (xinzhou), and the text explains that Tsongkhapa is a manifestation (huashen) of Avalokiteśvara, Mañjuśrī, and Vajrapāṇi’s compassion, wisdom, and strength, respectively.82 Like other translators, Sun was concerned with the correct pronunciation of mantras and was troubled by the difficulty of transliterating these into Chinese, with its many local dialects. This is apparent, for example, in Sun’s third and much longer translated work, Collected Tibetan Esoteric Dharma (Zangmi fa hui), where the use of Tibetan script is limited to writing mantras, with Chinese transcriptions added to clarify the pronunciation.83 In this text, however, Tibetan letters are introduced for their value 266 buddhism between tibet and china in reproducing Sanskrit sounds, and a guide to the relevant letter combinations is included.84 Sun’s strategy was to use Tibetan letters to indicate the original Sanskrit, and then students could check with their Tibetan teacher for the correct pronunciation.85 Sun himself relied on the Vajra-guru Tupten Nyima for this third work. Tupten Nyima taught the material at Kaifeng’s Henan Buddhist Study Society (Henan Foxue she) sometime before its June 1937 publication in Chinese translation.86 Although few specifics of this event are described in the text, the preface and back matter reveal some noteworthy details, especially interesting given that our knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism in Kaifeng is extremely limited. First, the preface was written by a Chinese monk who briefly recounts the history of the transmission of Tibetan Buddhism to China, noting the role of Pakpa in the Yuan dynasty, and the imperial court’s reception of Tibetan Buddhist teachings and initiations in the Ming and Qing dynasties. He also recognizes that the common people (ping min) had no access to these treasures until the present time, when Chinese could study abroad in Tibet and return to their ancestral country to transmit the results of their learning (liuxueyu Xizang; xue cheng, fan chuan zuguo). Finally, he celebrates the presence in China of the Paṇchen Lama, as well as other great and virtuous Tibetans and Mongols who were actively teaching and holding rituals in China.87 The back matter reveals that this Chinese master was not alone in his support for Tibetan Buddhism in Kaifeng, although he was the only monk involved. The final page lists his donations and those of some forty individuals who sponsored the printing of the teachings in translation, namely, as the book examined here, the Collected Tibetan Esoteric Dharma.88 The amounts collected were modest, from as much as five yuan from the master to as little as a single jiao from a lay Buddhist, but together they amassed around one hundred yuan. To put this into perspective, ten yuan was sufficient for basic living expenses for a month at this time, and one hundred yuan a month was considered a very generous salary.89 The back-matter also mentions a second book to follow in the series, but it has not been preserved in the Secret Scriptures, if indeed it was ever published. Sun’s greatest publication success was the Collected Translations of Tibetan Esoterica (Zangmi congyi), a series that included at least thirty volumes. Only sixteen of these are preserved in the recent assemblage of reprints under the Secret Scriptures, but these suffice to give us some idea of the scope of this corpus. The earliest extant text, the third in the series, dates to 1937, and the latest, the twenty-eighth, dates to the fall of 1942; for some reason the thirtieth was printed out of order in 1941. Nine of the extant texts were Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 267 published in a single year, 1939, while another four are undated. This series consistently incorporates Tibetan script, usually at length. Twelve of these works have complete Tibetan language texts, often with subscribed transliteration or translation in Chinese (and sometimes Roman letters). Four of the works use Tibetan script only for the mantras and dhāraṇī, which are then followed by Chinese transliteration. Most of these translations are based on teachings transmitted from Sun’s Tibetan Buddhist teachers, but some are based on earlier translations from the Tang dynasty, with the addition of mantras written in Tibetan script, probably as correctives to the earlier translations.90 By examining Sun’s efforts we realize that, as was true for the Chinese monk who wrote the preface to his earlier translation, the central concern was esoteric Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism, especially because of its ability to preserve the original Sanskrit sounds, was considered crucial for linking past Indian and Chinese Buddhist practice to modern Chinese Buddhist practice. Master Guankong: Lamrim Teachings and Activities at the Bodhi Study Association Shortly after Sun started publishing his translations, the Chinese monk Guankong, who had studied abroad in Kham and Central Tibet, began to publish numerous texts that have since been reprinted in the Secret Scriptures collection. Guankong graduated from Taixu’s short-lived Wuchang Academy, probably by 1925. Thus, like Fazun, he was introduced in his formative years to Taixu’s aspiration to unite Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism. Given his close association with Fazun, who published a Chinese translation of Tsongkhapa’s Great Sequential Path to Enlightenment (Byang chub lam rim chen mo, Ch. Puti dao cidi guang lun), it is no surprise that Guankong’s first recorded lecture after returning from Tibet was dedicated to this central teaching of the Gelukpa school. The preface to his 1937 Notes on “The Practice of the Sequential Path to Enlightenment” (Puti dao cidi xiufa biji) describes the origins and spread of these teachings in modern China. The preface first sketches the story of how his teacher Dayong founded the Beijing Tibetan language school, the school’s relocation to Ganzi (Tib. Dkar mdzes), and Dayong’s efforts to gain access to Central Tibet. Dayong apparently sent a letter to the Dalai Lama requesting permission to enter Tibetan territory (qing ru jing). However, according to the preface, because at the end of the Qing dynasty “the court had not been courteous to the Dalai Lama and the 268 buddhism between tibet and china Sichuan army resident in Tibet had acted harshly and unreasonably, therefore the Tibetan people had lost confidence [in the court and the Chinese, as represented by the Sichuan army].”91 Permission to enter was not granted. As a result, the Chinese monks were stuck in Kham, where Fazun began to study the Lamrim genre of texts. The preface celebrates this circumstance as the moment when China proper gained access to these teachings.92 For his notes on the Lamrim teachings, Guankong used Fazun’s translation of The Practice of the Sequential Path to Enlightenment by Geshé Tendzin Pelgyé (Ch. Shanhui Chijiao zengguang) as the basis for his lectures to the North China Lay Group (Ch. Hua bei jushilin) in the winter of 1937.93 This work, like Guankong’s other translations, was printed in 1939 at the Beijing Central Institute for the Carving of Scriptures (Ch. Zhongyang kejing yuan). Guankong’s remaining translations were also published in the watershed year of 1939, all by the center most actively involved with Tibetan Buddhism in Beijing from 1938 to 1951: the Bodhi Study Association (Puti xuehui). These works were all translations of the Ngakchen Khutughtu’s teachings, which had presumably taken place in Beijing.94 It may even be that the North China Lay Group was renamed the Bodhi Study Association sometime in 1939. I suggest this because the description of the North China Lay Group’s long-term interest in the Lamrim teachings in the above-mentioned preface would provide a logical connection between Guankong and the Ngakchen Khutughtu’s presence, first at the North China Lay Group and later at the Bodhi Study Association. Moreover, the preface’s narrative recounts that the elder Hu Zihu, a layman who had, since 1923, consistently funded Tibetan Buddhist activities in and around Beijing and supported the monks studying abroad in Tibet, invited one of the returned monks, Master Nenghai, to teach the Lamrim to the North China Lay Group in 1935.95 The Lay Group was later happy to receive the Ngakchen Khutughtu, who was living in Beijing in 1938, and hear his teachings on the importance of developing bodhicitta. Guankong seems to have been following in the Ngakchen Khutughtu’s footsteps when he too gave teachings on the Sequential Path to Enlightenment.96 We can further pursue the narrative of Guankong and the Ngakchen Khutughtu’s activities by piecing together their collaborative work, all published in 1939. For instance, Guankong translated the Ngakchen Khutughtu’s brief commentary on Tsongkhapa’s Praise for the Sequential Path to Enlightenment (Puti dao cidi she song luejie), a commentary that elaborated on Fazun’s Chinese translation of the root text, which the audience could follow while the Ngakchen Khutughtu’s explanation was translated by Guankong.97 The Ngakchen Khutughtu and Guankong also collaborated on Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 269 practice oriented-texts dedicated to Green Tārā, the eleven-headed manifestation of Avalokiteśvara, the Medicine Buddha, White Mañjuśrī, and the sixarmed Mahākāla, to name a few.98 These texts may also serve as an indicator of some of the concerns of the laity affiliated with the Bodhi Study Association, the publisher of these texts. Tang Xiangming: From Esoteric Treasury Institute to the Bodhi Study Association Tang Xiangming was the other prolific lay Buddhist translator of this period, and he worked with both of Beijing’s esoteric centers, though most of his translations seem to have been published by the Bodhi Study Association. As with Guankong, many of his works are devoted to particular bodhisattvas, such as Mañjuśrī, Avalokiteśvara, and Tārā. Presumably, in these later texts, he was building on the basic knowledge of Tibetan Buddhist practice already introduced by Dorjé Chöpa, Sun Jingfeng, and the Esoteric Treasury Institute. With the exception of one short undated text on taking refuge, his works do not describe basic practices. This text is also unusual for Tang’s work, as it is a bilingual edition in Tibetan-formatted (narrow horizontal) pages, with Chinese transcriptions below the Tibetan text. 99 For the most part, Tang’s translations either have no Tibetan at all, or use Tibetan only for the mantras associated with the texts. Tang also collaborated with the Ngakchen Khutughtu in producing two undated translations that were published by the Esoteric Treasury Institute, probably during the last years during which it was still most active, 1932 or 1934, when the Ngakchen Khutughtu was in China.100 We can surmise that these translations pre-date Guankong’s 1937 arrival in Beijing, because after that time the Ngakchen Khutughtu would have been able to rely on this welltrained monastic translator, as their publication record shows he did. Once the Ngakchen Khutughtu ceased to need Tang, the latter was free to work with the seventh Changkya/Zhangjia Khutughtu, Lozang Pelden Tenpé Drönmé (1890–1957), and together they completed at least two translations.101 Tang’s datable works commence in 1939 and continue until 1944, with almost one translation a year.102 Many of his translations deal with a typical assortment of Buddhist figures: Avalokiteśvara, Mañjuśrī, and Yamāntaka,103 and more unusual, he translated two texts dealing with Kurukullā (Ch. Gulugule/ Guluguli, Tib. Ku ru ku lu), goddess of wealth, said to be associated with Red Tārā.104 His last dated work is a 1944 text praising the twenty one Tārās, 270 buddhism between tibet and china originally written by the first Dalai Lama.105 Earlier I argued that making Tibetan script accessible to the Chinese marked an indigenization of Tibetan Buddhism in China, but I think that the complete absence of Tibetan in these later texts may indicate a further stage of development and a new and more deep-rooted level of indigenization. It is possible that translators such as Tang felt that they and their readers had such a thorough understanding of Tibetan Buddhism that they had gone beyond the simple need to reproduce Tibetan script and phonetics. Conclusion Lay support for Tibetan Buddhism did not immediately disappear from China’s cities with the rise of Communist control, but within two decades Chinese translations of Tibetan Buddhist texts had been supplanted by Tibetan translations of Chinese state policy documents.106 I have no evidence that the lay translators I have discussed continued to use their talents in service of the state, but some of the monks, both Chinese and Tibetan, who had been involved in teaching and translating in Republican China did so. Fazun, Nenghai, and one of his disciples, Longguo, as well as the lama that the Norlha Khutughtu introduced to China, Gangkar Trülku, filled important roles in state institutions, though only Longguo was actually employed as a translator for the People’s Liberation Army. In addition to figures such as Gangkar, Fazun, and Nenghai, who are discussed elsewhere in this volume, discovering what happened to the lay translators and the less well known lamas with whom they worked presents an important future research project. Although many questions remain unanswered, this chapter has shed new light on several unheralded Chinese Buddhist translators, especially laymen, and the Tibetan Buddhist teachers and institutions that supported their work. In the early years, translations were typically the product of a special kind of team—a teacher and his devoted disciple, such as Dorjé Chöpa and Zhang Xinruo or the Norlha Khutughtu and Wu Runjiang. Once these teachers faded from the scene so too did their translators. Over time though, a more substantial base of translators and institutions that could support them developed. Based on current records, though this may simply be an artifact of where the collector of the texts lived, Beijing seems to have been the principal center for this activity, with important work also occurring in Chongqing, Shanghai, and Kaifeng. The three main translators I have highlighted here—Sun Jingfeng, Guankong, and Tang Xiangming—all worked Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 271 with a variety of teachers, texts, and institutions in their efforts to expand Chinese access to Tibetan Buddhist teachings. The role of Mongols, such as Gushri Könchok Dorjé and the Changkya Khutughtu should also not be overlooked. The very relationship between Tibetan Buddhism and Beijing was set in place during the Qing dynasty, when Mongol monks filled the imperial capital’s monasteries, and they remind us that the customary association of Mongols as teachers of Tibetan Buddhism to outsiders remained in force well into the twentieth century. Notes * I am grateful both to Yale University’s Council on East Asian Studies for the postdoctoral year that funded me to do this research and to Valerie Hansen for her support and advice. Browsing Yale’s wonderful Sterling Library shelves, I was fortunate enough to stumble across the first of the texts considered here. 1 Duojue jueda gexi!"##$%& [Duojie jueba "'#(], Micheng fahai )*+, (Dharma Ocean of the Esoteric Vehicle) (Taipei [Chongqing]: Xinwenfeng chuban she gongci, 1987 [1930]), hereafter referred to as Dharma Ocean. This book is catalogued under the title Misheng fahai at Yale University, where I first located the text. There are several variants in the spelling of the Tibetan author’s name. First, his name is given as Duojue jueda gexi, a pinyin transliteration of the incorrect characters used in the reprint edition, under which this book is catalogued. The second and third spellings are romanizations of the Chinese and Tibetan versions of his name—Duojie jueba and Rdo rje bcod pa, respectively—as found in the reprint of the original edition. The correct spelling of his Tibetan name is Rdo rje gcod pa. However, the true author of the Dharma Ocean was probably his Chinese disciple, Zhang Xinruo, as the author of the preface notes that though the master had lived many years in China, he was “still not very highly skilled in the Chinese spoken language” (bu shen xian hanyu). Assuming this is true, it is likely that Rdo rje gcod pa’s Chinese literary skills were not much better. This text was reprinted again in 1995. The other collection is Zhou Shao-liang -./, Lü Tiegang 012, eds., Zangmi xiufa midian 3)4+56 (Secret Scriptures of Tibetan Esoteric Dharma Practices), 5 vols. (Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe, 1996 [1931–1951]), hereafter referred to as Secret Scriptures. (This text was reprinted again in 2002.) Lü Tiegang first published a catalogue and account of these collected materials in the Chinese Buddhist Association’s journal Fayin (Sound of the Dharma) in 1988. The first mention of either of these texts that I am aware of, in any language, is Huang Hao’s fourpage review of the latter collection: Huang Hao 78, “Sanshi niandai Zhongguo Zangmi yanjiu—Zangmi xiufa midian ping jie”!9:;<=>3)?@—3)4+ 56AB (“Chinese research on Tibetan esoterica in the 1930s—critique and introduction to Secret Scriptures of Tibetan Esoteric Dharma Practices”), Minzu yanjiu hui xun CD?@EF [Newsletter on Ethnic Studies] n. 17 (March, 1997): 52–56. One more recent on-line article by Shunzo Onoda, “A Pending Task for the New 272 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 buddhism between tibet and china Century—The Pioneering works of Tai-xu Ta-shi (!!"#): Han-Tibetan Interchange of Buddhist Studies ($%&'())” (http://www.bukkyo-u.ac.jp/mmc01/ onoda/works/paper/0201taipei_e.html) refers to another collection: Zeyi *+, ed. Zhongguo Zangmi bao dian ,-%."/, 6 vols. (Beijing Shi: Min zu chu ban she, 2001). Additional materials may be found in the following collections, which I have not examined closely: Ji Xianlin 012 and Xu Lihua 345, eds., Zhongguo shaoshu minzu guji ji cheng: Hanwen ban,-6789:;<=: $>?, vols. 99–100 (Chengdu Shi: Sichuan min zu chu ban she, 2002); Zhongguo zong jiao li shi wen xian ji cheng bian zuan wei yuan hui ,-@ABC>D<=EFGHI, Zang wai fo jing %J&K, vol. 1–7 (Hefei Shi: Huang shan shu she, 2005). Mei JingshunL MNO, “Minguo yilai de Han Zang Fojiao guanxi (1912–1949): Yi Han Zang jiaoli yuan wei zhongxin de tantao” 8-PQR$%&AST (1912– 1949): P$%AUVW,XRYZL (“Sino-Tibetan relations during the Republican period [1912–1949]: Probing into the Sino-Tibetan Buddhist Institute at the center of relations”), Zhonghua Foxue yanjiu ,5&'[\L (Chung-hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies, Taipei) 2 (1998): 251–288; and “Minguo zaoqi xianmi Fojiao chongtu de tantao 8-]^_.&A`aRYZ” (“Probing into the conflicts of exoteric and esoteric Buddhism in the early Republic”), Zhonghua Foxue yanjiu ,5& '[\L (Chung-hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies, Taipei) 3 (1999): 251–270; Françoise Wang-Toutain, “Quand les maîtres chinois s’éveillent au bouddhisme tibétain: Fazun, le Xuanzang des temps moderns,” Bulletin de l’école française d’extréme-orient 87 (2000): 707–727; Ester Bianchi, The Iron Statue Monastery “Tiexiangsi”: A Buddhist Nunnery of Tibetan Tradition in Contemporary China (Firenze: L.S. Olschki, 2001); Monica Esposito, “Una tradizione rDzogs-chen in Cina: Una nota sul monastero delle Montagne dell’Occhio Celeste,” Asiatica Venetiana 2 (1997): 221–224; Fabienne Jagou, Le 9e Paṇchen Lama (1883–1937): Enjeu des relations Sino-Tibétaines, Monographies 191 (Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 2004); Gray Tuttle, Tibetan Buddhists in the Making of Modern China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). Dharma Ocean, p. 6. Secret Scriptures, vol. 2, p. 377. Tuttle, Tibetan Buddhists, pp. 212–220. Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, p. 777. Part of the spelling of the Sngags chen Khutughtu’s name differs in contemporary and recent accounts. His religious name is given in two places in the Secret Scriptures: vol. 5, pp. 99, 351. For a contemporary biography of the Sngags chen Khutughtu, which translates the Chinese of Anjin Duokengjiang as Dazhou Jingangzhi, meaning “Great Mantra Vajra-holding [One] (from Tib. Sngags chen rdo rje ’chang),” see Miaozhou bc, Meng Zang Fojiao shi d%&AC [Rgyal bstan bod sog gyi yul du ji ldar dar ba’i lo rgyus/Mongol-Tibetan Buddhist History], Xizangxue Hanwen wenxian congshu, 2 (Beijing: Quanguo tushuguan wenxian zhongxin, 1993 [1934]), 214– 218. For a later biography, see Bkras dgon lo rgyus rtsom sgrig tshogs chung, Sngags chen bdar pa Ho thog thu Blo bzang bstan ’dzin ’jigs med dbang phyug gi rnam thar rags bsdus (Short biography of the Sngags chen bdar pa Khutughtu, Blo bzang bstan ’dzin ’jigs med dbang phyug), in Bod kyi rig gnas lo rgyus dpyad gzhi’i rgyu cha bdams Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 273 9 10 11 12 13 14 bsgrigs, ’don thengs bzhi pa (Materials on the culture and history of Tibet, vol. 4), ed. Bod rang skyong ljongs chab gros rig gnas lo rgyus dpyad gzhi’i rgyu cha u yon lhan khang (Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, 1985), pp. 80–91. Zhashilunbu si lishi bianxie xiaozu !"!#$"#%$, “Angqin daba kanbu shilüe &%' ()#*+” (“Brief Biography of Sngags chen bdar pa mkhan po”), in Xizang wenshi ziliao xuanji ,-./&0'(, no. 4, ed. Xizang zizhiqu zhengjie wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1985), pp. 39–44. For a photo, see Zhang Bozhen 1234 Canghai cong shu 5678, 4 vols., vol. 4 (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 1934), illustration 5. Rdo rje gcod pa’s full title, given on the original cover page of Dharma Ocean of the Esoteric Vehicle (Micheng fahai) has several spelling errors: Bod pa ’bral sbongs [’bras spungs] blo gsal gling dge bshes no mon han (from Mongol: nom un qan, originally from Tib. chos rgyal) bla ma Rdo rje bcod [gcod] pa; Xizang Biebang si gexi nuomenhan da lama duojie jueba zunzhe. The use of “Bod pa,” generally meaning “(Central) Tibetan,” is interesting here as the lama hailed from Khams, but the Chinese translation suggests it was used as a geographic name, possibly to indicate the location of ’Bras spungs, rather than as an ethnic designation. The Mongol term nomci means “one learned in the law, dharma.” Four other texts in a particular series by Sun may have also been published in this year, but no dates are recorded in those texts. For Guankong’s biography, see Lü Tiegang )*+, “Xiandai fanyijia—Guankong Fashi ,9:-;—.<=/” (“A Modern-day Translator—Master Guankong”), in “Fayin” wenku-Fojiao renwu gujin tan <<=>>>.0—?@ABCD14 vol. 2 (Beijing: Zhongguo Fojiao xiehui chubanshe, 1996), pp. 648–652. On Sngags chen, see n. 8 above. For Fazun, refer to Fazun wenji =E.F (Collected Works of Fazun), ed., Hong Jisong and Huang Jilin (Taipei: Wenshu chubanshe, Wenshu Fojiao wenhua zhongxin, 1988), and Zhihua Yao’s chapter in the present work. On Nenghai, see Dingzhi GH, Nenghai shangshi zhuan I6JKL (Biography of Guru Nenghai), vol. 6 of Nenghai shangshi quanji I6JKMFN(The Complete Works of Guru Nenghai), 7 vols. (Taipei: Fangguang wenhua shiye youxian gongci, 1995) and Ester Bianchi’s contribution to this volume. On Nor lha Khutughtu, see especially Han Dazai O' P4 Kang Zang Fojiao yu Xikang Nouna hutuketu yinghua shilüe Q-?@R,QST UVWVXY*+ (Khams-Tibetan Buddhism and a Brief Biography of the Manifestation of Nor lha Khutughtu of Khams) (Shanghai: Zangbanchu yujia jingshe. 1937). For more details on this figure, see Tuttle, Tibetan Buddhists, pp. 55–56, 93–97, 133– 134, 165–166. Chapter 6 above, by Carmen Meinert, includes selected additional references to Nor lha, as well. Fafang =Z4 “Zhongguo Fojiao xianzhuang [\?@]^” [“The current state of Chinese Buddhism”], Haichao yin 6_>N15, no. 10 (1934): 24; Mei, “Minguo yilai de Han Zang Fojiao guanxi,” 275, n. 20. Chengdu Xi’nan heping fahui banshichu `a,bcd=ef*g, Chengdu Xi’nan heping fahui tekan `a,bcd=ehiN [Special issue of Chengdu’s Southwestern Dharma-Assembly for Peace] (Chengdu: Chengdu Xi’nan heping fahui banshichu, 1932), p. 148. For further details on this event see Tuttle, Tibetan Buddhists, pp. 114–118. Dharma Ocean, p. 2. See Don Lopez, “Tibetology in the United States of America: A Brief History,” in 274 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 buddhism between tibet and china Images of Tibet in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Monica Esposito, ed. (Paris: École Française d’Êxtrême-Orient, forthcoming). For more information on this school see Tuttle, Tibetan Buddhists, pp. 74, 82, 89, 104. For a Chinese Tibetologist who studied at Yonghegong, see my “Modern Tibetan Historiography in China,” Papers on Chinese History 7 (1998): pp. 85–108. For development of these language training tools, see Tuttle, Tibetan Buddhists, pp. 203–205. Somewhat politicized language does appear in one preface, however it seems only to reflexively signal the ambivalent status of Tibet as both a part of China and separate from it, and does not didactically argue either viewpoint. This preface opens with the explanation that esoteric teachings have come into “our country” (wo guo) through two different routes: 1) to China Proper (neidi) in the Tang dynasty through Bukong and others and 2) to Tibet through Padmasambhava and Atiśa; the inclusion of the latter route tacitly incorporates Tibet as part of China. Yet at the same time, this preface describes study in Tibet as “study-abroad” (liuxue) (Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, pp. 775–777). For a recent American translation that links Buddhist teachings with political activism, see His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Advice on Dying and Living a Better Life, trans. and ed. Jeffrey Hopkins (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002). I would like to thank Matthew Kapstein for noting that much of this text is a “pretty clear splice of a simplified work of the chos spyod genre (i.e. a collection of the most fundamental liturgical works of any given monastic order) together with the rudiments of a sādhana collection, though the progression of these latter is more often (but by no means exclusively): Buddhas, bodhisattvas, tantric deities, female Buddhas and deities, dharma-protectors.” Personal communication, May 2007. Chinese genben was also presumably used to translate Tibetan rtsa ba, as found in the Chinese phrase genben lama, corresponding to the Tibetan rtsa ba’i bla ma. Dharma Ocean, p. 22. Dharma Ocean, p. 28. Dharma Ocean, pp. 33–35. Dharma Ocean, p. 11. Dharma Ocean, p. 16. Dharma Ocean, pp. 82–86. Dharma Ocean, p. 91. Dharma Ocean, pp. 94–95. Dharma Ocean, p. 105. Dharma Ocean, p. 112. Dharma Ocean, pp. 127–128. The phrase “Creed of the Dge lugs pa” is drawn from Zahiruddin Ahmad’s Sino-Tibetan Relations in the Seventeenth Century, Serie Orientale Roma 40 (Rome: Instituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1970), p. 182, in his discussion of Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho’s 1698 text Vaiḍūrya ser po, which repeats, almost verbatim, the description of this event from the fifth Dalai Lama’s biography: Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho, Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho’i rnam thar (Lhasa: Bod ljong mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, 1989 [1681]), p. 400. For a Chinese translation see, Awang luosang jiacou !"#$%&, Wushi Dalai lama zhuan '(!")*#, Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 275 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 trans. Chen Qingying !"!" and Ma Lianlong #$%, Zhongguo bianjiang shi di ziliao conggan-Xizang juan (Beijing: Zhongguo Zangxue chubanshe, 1992), p. 333. For more details on this missionary effort, see Gray Tuttle, “A Tibetan Buddhist Mission to the East: The Fifth Dalai Lama’s Journey to Beijing, 1652–1653,” in Bryan J. Cuevas and Kurtis R. Schaeffer, eds., Power, Politics, and the Reinvention of Tradition: Tibet in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 2006), pp. 65–87. Dharma Ocean, p. 99. Dharma Ocean, p. 131. Dharma Ocean, pp. 237–240. See Chün-fang Yü, “Feminine Images of Kuan-yin in Post-T’ang China,” Journal of Chinese Religions 18 (1990): 61–89, and Kuan-yin (The Chinese Transformation of Avalokiteśvara) (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001); and Daniel L. Overmeyer, Folk Buddhist Religion: Dissenting Sects in Late Traditional China, Harvard East Asian series 83 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976). Dharma Ocean, pp. 351–368. Dharma Ocean, pp. 369–396. Dharma Ocean, pp. 403–423. Patricia Berger, Empire of Emptiness: Buddhist Art and Political Authority in Qing China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003). Dharma Ocean, pp. 435–468. Dharma Ocean, pp. 582–584. Dharma Ocean, pp. 388–390. Gan Wenfeng, “Zangchuan Fojiao zai Chongqing #&$%&'",” in Chongqing wenshi ziliao 41 '"()'* 41 (Chongqing Historical and Cultural Materials, no. 41), ed. Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi and Chongqing shi weiyuahui wenshi ziliao weiyuanhui, pp. 170–171. The stūpa, known as the Bodhivajra Stūpa (Putijingang ta) was built under the direction of the mayor, the Public Security Bureau chief of Chongqing He Beiwei, and several others toward the end of 1930. The stūpa represented a substantial investment on the part of Chongqing’s residents and officials. It stood about thirty feet tall, was filled with Tibetan scriptures, and inscribed with Buddhist scriptural passages and mantras in Chinese and Tibetan. The stūpa was said to have cost over 40,000 yuan (around US $13,000), a tremendous sum at the time. Secret Scriptures, vol. 2, pp. 1–112. Preface, Zangmi xuifa midian, vol. 1. Although the preface says that the list was published in Fayin 1988, issue 2, I could not find it there; Huang Hao, “Chinese research on Tibetan esoterica,” p. 52 (refer to n. 1 above). In my Tibetan Buddhists in the Making of Modern China, I followed Holmes Welch (The Buddhist Revival in China, Harvard East Asian series 33 [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968]) in his translation of Shanghai’s “Puti xuehui” as “Bodhi Society.” In this article, I will use the more literal translation “Bodhi Study Association” to distinguish the Beijing center from the Shanghai organization, founded around the same time. The Beijing Bodhi Study Association was based in the Zhengjue Hall in the North Ocean Public Park (Beihai gongyuan, formerly part of the imperial grounds). For this association, see Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, p. 363. 276 buddhism between tibet and china 48 Secret Scriptures, vol. 5, p. 101. 49 The Tibetan name of this institute is found in Secret Scriptures, vol. 5, p. 354. 50 On the Beijing Kālacakra see Tuttle, Tibetan Buddhists, pp. 169–172, and “Tibet as the Source of Messianic Teachings to Save Republican China: The Ninth Paṇchen Lama, Shambhala and the Kālacakra Tantra,” in M. Esposito, ed., Images of Tibet in the 19th and 20th Centuries. For the Sngags chen Khutughtu’s participation in the ritual, see the Paṇchen Lama’s biography: Blo bzang thub bstan chos kyi nyi ma, Paṇchen Lama VI (IX), Skyabs mgon thams cad mkhyen pa Blo bzang thub bstan chos kyi nyi ma dge legs rnam rgyal bzang po’i zhal snga nas kyi thun mong ba’i rnam bar thar pa rin chen dbang gi rgyal po’i ’phreng ba (The autobiography of the Sixth [Ninth] Paṇchen Lama Blo bzang thub bstan chos kyi nyi ma), in Paṇ chen thams cad mkhyen pa rje btsun Blo bzang thub bstan chos kyi nyi ma dge legs rnam rgyal bzang po’i gsung ’bum (The collected works of the Sixth [Ninth] Paṇchen Lama Blo bzang thub bstan chos kyi nyi ma) (Reproduced from the Bkra shis lhun po blocks, 1944), p. 637. For details on the travels of the Sngags chen Khutughtu in the service of the Paṇchen Lama, see Jagou, Le 9e Paṇchen Lama (1883–1937), pp. 216– 220, 241, 267–270; Bkras dgon lo rgyus rtsom sgrig tshogs chung, “Sngags chen bdar pa,” pp. 80–91. 51 This photograph (Secret Scriptures, vol. 5, p. 99), though reversed, is an early source for the Sngags chen Quthughtu’s full religious name, as listed above. See also, Secret Scriptures, vol. 5, p. 351. 52 Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, pp. 603–726. 53 Secret Scriptures, vol. 3, pp. 451–676. 54 Secret Scriptures, vol. 3, pp. 1–502. All of his works were first taught at a lay center for practice called Jilejingshe on Yangguan Lane (hutong), Beijing’s Dongzhi Gate, see pp. 498–499, although he was also connected to the Mizang yuan during the same period. 55 Secret Scriptures, vol. 5, pp. 351–353. 56 Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi, From Emperor to Citizen, trans. W.J.F. Jenner (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988 [1964]), p. 253. 57 Hisao Kimura (as told to Scott Berry), Japanese Agent in Tibet: My Ten Years of Travel in Disguise (London: Serindia, 1990) and Scott Berry, Monks, Spies and a Soldier of Fortune (London: Athlone, 1995). 58 Secret Scriptures, vol. 5, pp. 95–372. 59 Secret Scriptures,vol. 5, p. 351. 60 Refer to n. 10 above. 61 Secret Scriptures, vol. 2, pp. 367–509. Ishihama Yumiko, “The Image of Ch’ienlung’s Kingship as Seen from the World of Tibetan Buddhism,” Acta Asiatica: Bulletin of the Institute of Eastern Culture 88: Ming-Ch’ing History Seen from East Asia (2005), 54–55. The text was the Foshuo dabai san’gai zongchi tuoluoni jing, Taishō no. 97. 62 Secret Scriptures, vol. 2, p. 375. 63 This must have been Li Jinzhong, who was made the director of the Paṇchen Lama’s representative office in November of 1936. See Jagou, Le 9e Paṇchen Lama, p. 331. 64 Secret Scriptures, vol. 2, pp. 447–448. For similar language, see the postscript for the collected texts, vol. 2, p. 506. Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 277 65 Secret Scriptures, vol. 3, p. 817. 66 Secret Scriptures, vol. 3, p. 767. 67 Secret Scriptures, vol. 3, p. 768. For an earlier instance of the transmission of a Tārā mantra by the Ninth Paṇchen Lama in 1925, see Tuttle, Tibetan Buddhists, p. 91. 68 Secret Scriptures, vol. 3, p. 771. 69 Secret Scriptures, vol. 3, p. 785. A much more detailed biography of this figure also dates from around this time: Nuona Hutuketu !"#$%$ (Nor lha Khutughtu), Mizong Lianhuasheng dashi mifa &'()*+,-. (The esoteric school’s Padmasambhava’s esoteric teachings) (Taipei: Wulin, 1985 [1933–1936]). 70 Walter Y. Evans-Wentz, Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958). The Chinese translation of the series, called “Tibetan Esoterica, The Seven Great Essential Dharmas, nos. two, three, four, six, seven” (Zangmi qi zhong fa er san si liu qi) seems to indicate that the original books one and five were also translated and are just not preserved in this collection. Secret Scriptures, vol. 4, pp. 603–649, 509–586, 587–602, 650–652, 653–655, respectively. 71 Tuttle, Tibetan Buddhists, pp. 68–86. 72 For details on these figures, see D. Lopez, “Tibetology in the United States of America.” 73 Chinese has an identical phonetic sound to reproduce the “ka” in “Kazi” if this had been Zhang’s intent, but he clearly thought this was a term that he recognized, no doubt because of the predominance of Dge lugs monks in China proper. For evidence of the identification of these two phonemes, see Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, p. 684. 74 In reality, the first bona-fide Bka’ brgyud master to come to Republican China was the Gangs dkar Sprul sku (1893–1957, Ch. Gongga hutuketu), on whom see Carmen Meinert’s discussion in chapter 6 above. Shi Dongchu /01, Zhongguo fojiao jindai shi 2345678 (Modern history of Chinese Buddhism), 2 vols. (Taipei: Zhonghua fojiao wenhua guan, 1974), p. 401. See also Mi nyag Mgon po, ’Bo Gangs dkar sprul sku’i rnam thar dad pa’i pad dkar (Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1997), pp. 57–70. 75 See Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, pp. 749–764. For examples of such work circulating in America around the same time see, Walter Eugene Clark and A. Freiherr von StaelHolstein, eds., Two Lamaistic Pantheons, Harvard-Yenching Institute monograph series 3–4 (Cambridge: Harvard-Yenching Institute, 1937). For the involvement of a previous incarnation of the Lcang skya Khutughtu with such illustrated works, see Patricia Berger, Empire of Emptiness: Buddhist Art and Political Authority in Qing China. 76 See Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, pp. 869–876; for a translation based on a text by the Paṇchen Lama, see pp. 715–724. These two texts are dated according to the Buddhist calendar (Foli), years 2963 and 2964, respectively, which I have converted to 1936 and 1937 based on similar dates found in other texts. However, it is possible that some minor variant in the understanding of the Buddhist calendar would place these texts in different years. On the 1931 event see Dai Jitao 9:;, Banchan dashi shou liuzi daming zhenyan fa yao <=+,>?@+ABC.D (Essentials of the Paṇchen Lama’s teachings on the six syllable mantra), vol. 3, Dai Jitao xiansheng wencun 9:; E*FGH(Taipei: Zhongguo guomindang zhongyang weiyuanhui, 1959 [1931]), pp. 1173–1174. 278 buddhism between tibet and china 77 This date is arrived at by subtracting the “three years before” the lama was invited from the date of publication of the text, 1937. Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, p. 813. 78 From another text we know that the presence of Tibetan lamas in Shanghai continued into the late 1930s. The Guru Rongseng mkhan po of Central Tibet (Shangshi Xizang rongzeng kanbu) taught a text spoken by Rje btsun Blo bzang chos kyi rgyal mtshan (Zunzhe Luosang qiuji jiacang), presumably a reference to the fourth Paṇchen Lama (1570–1662). See Secret Scriptures, vol. 4, p. 415. 79 In the absence of any other indication, I have assumed that Thub bstan nyi ma and Blo bzang bzang po were ethnic Tibetans, as the Mongol teacher Gushri Dkon mchog rdo rje was singled out as a Mongol. However, the fact that one of these texts associated with Blo bzang bzang po was transmitted by the Mongol monk Bai Puren (1870–1927) casts some doubt on this assumption. (For more on Bai, see Tuttle, Tibetan Buddhists in the Making of Modern China, pp. 79–81 and passim; his biography and the memorial inscription from his stūpa can be found in Zhang Bozhen !"#, Canghai cong shu $%&', 4 vols. [Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 1934.]) It would be surprising for a Tibetan to seek such a text from a Mongol lama. 80 Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, pp. 677–772. For the Paṇchen Lama text, see pp. 715–732. 81 Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, pp. 255–270. 82 Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, p. 265. 83 Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, pp. 773–944. 84 Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, pp. 790–791. 85 Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, p. 781. 86 Another text published in 1939 was transmitted by Thub bstan nyi ma at Kaifeng’s Henan Buddhist Study Society, possibly at the same time as this larger corpus. The later translation includes the Tibetan text with subscribed Chinese phonetics to assist with its recitation. 87 Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, pp. 775–777. This work also includes a translated work by the fourth Paṇchen Lama on Avalokiteśvara, vol. 1, pp. 877–878. 88 Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, p. 944. 89 Melvyn Goldstein, Dawei Sherap, and William Siebenschuh, A Tibetan Revolutionary: The Political Life and Times of Bapa Phüntso Wangye (Berkeley: University of California, 2004), pp. 29, 43. 90 Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, pp. 325–356. 91 Dayong, who had previously been an officer in the modern Sichuanese army during the early Republican period, had not served in Tibet. 92 Secret Scriptures, vol. 4, p. 227. He was mistaken in this, as the Qing period saw numerous instances of this genre being taught in China proper. To name just a few instances: according to their biographies, the fifth Dalai Lama taught a mixed ethnic audience at Sku ’bum on the way back to Central Tibet from Beijing, and Lcang skya Rol pa’i rdo rje taught at Xiangshan, outside Beijing; according to Dharmatala’s Hor Chos ‘byung, Erteni Nomon Han, Lcang skya’s teacher and disciple, taught the Lam rim in China; moreover, the Qianlong Emperor studied an abbreviated version with Lcang skya Rol pa’i rdo rje in Beihai, Beijing, though the Qianlong Emperor was a Manchu. 93 Secret Scriptures, vol. 4, p. 231. I am assuming this society was based in Beijing. 94 According to Jagou (Le 9e Paṇchen Lama, p. 270) the Sngags chen Khutughtu returned to Beijing for three months in 1937. Translating Buddhism from tibetan to chinese 279 95 In 1948, Nenghai was invited back to Beijing by the Bodhi Study Association; see Dingzhi, Nenghai shangshi zhuan [Biography of Guru Nenghai], op. cit., p. 53. In 1951, the Bodhi Study Association would publish one of Nenghai’s translations of a Yamāntaka text taught there in 1949. See Secret Scriptures, vol. 2, pp. 683–821. 96 Secret Scriptures, vol. 4, pp. 229–230. 97 Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, pp. 47–79. The root text proved so popular that in 1940, three different versions of Tsong kha pa’s Praise for the Sequential Path to Enlightenment were published together, including the one used in Guankong’s and the Sngags chen Khutughtu’s collaborative efforts. See Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, pp. 31–45. 98 Secret Scriptures, vol. 2, pp. 113–156; vol. 4, pp. 7–34; vol. 3, pp. 885–912. 99 Secret Scriptures, vol. 1, pp. 1–8. 100 Secret Scriptures, vol. 2, pp. 821–970; vol. 1, pp. 357–451. See Jagou, Le 9e Paṇchen Lama, pp. 303, 218. 101 Secret Scriptures, vol. 2, pp. 565–574. The 1942 preface to another translation published by the Bodhi Study Association also mentions the Sngags chen Khutughtu, vol. 3, pp. 583–602. 102 Two of Tang’s translations were published by the Esoteric Treasury Institute, but as they are not dated, we cannot know for certain whether they preceded his work with the Bodhi Study Association. 103 Secret Scriptures, vol. 3, pp. 583–602; vol. 2, pp. 565–574 and pp. 875–970. 104 Secret Scriptures, vol. 4, pp. 35–110. For this association, see Alice Getty, The Gods of Northern Buddhism: Their History and Iconography, 2nd ed. (New York: Dover, 1988 [1928]), p. 126. One of these texts opens with a bilingual section, in which the Tibetan script is subscribed with Chinese transliteration. 105 The preface to this work notes that the text was written by the first Dalai Lama and that Lama Yuwangbujiao wrote a commentary on it. See Secret Scriptures, vol. 3, pp. 729–731. 106 Lauran Hartley, “Contextually Speaking: Tibetan Literary Discourse and Social Change in the People’s Republic of China (1980–2000)” (Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 2003), pp. 56–87.