In
most of the academies in the western world where Tibetan is taught it is
handled as a subject ancillary to Buddhist studies, as a sort of fill-in for
research in Buddhist Sanskrit texts which have not, or only partially, been
preserved in the original language. Tibetan studies, and especially Tibetan
linguistics per se without reference to Buddhism or to Buddhist texts are as
yet exceedingly rare, and the few scholars who are interested in Tibet, not as a
feeder service to Indian and Buddhist studies, but as a culture area in itself,
are few and far between. Scholars like Rolf Stein at Paris, Petech at Rome,
Hugh Richardson in Britain, and the Seattle group, rightly resent the fact that
Tibetan is being treated as nothing but a stopgap for unavailable Sanskrit
material.
With
the research of Professor G. Tucci at Rome and the Tibetologists at the
University of Washington, in Seattle, there is a good chance that this state of
affairs will be remedied. In addition to this, the physical presence of Tibetan
scholars in India and in other parts of the world, including the United States,
Britain, and several European countries, should be conducive to the study of Tibetan
culture per se. However, ironically perhaps and certainly understandably,
scholars from among the Tibetan immigration in India are themselves not overly
keen on divulging secular knowledge about their country. Occidental scholars, orient
lists, and cultural anthropologists alike, don't seem to realize or realize
with reluctance only that their zeal, their 'scientific' interests, are not
necessarily shared by their informants. For the Tibetans at least, it is the
Sanskrit-cum-Buddhist tradition which gives them the only lasting satisfaction
and all the prestige they think worthwhile. The Tibetan scholars at Seattle,
Washington one of them being among the three most learned in the Tibetan
emigration—smiled, at first, at the anthropologists' and sociologists' interest
in Tibet for its own sake, that is without reference to Buddhism and its
scholastic tradition. In the minds of many learned Tibetan scholars or monks,
Sanskrit is and remains the phags skad (aryabhasa), the 'Noble Language', and
Lama Kunga. Labrang wanted to learn the Nagari alphabet from me in order to be
able to transcribe Tibetan Buddhist texts into the original script, or into
what he thought was the original script, of the Buddhist tradition.
Although
it is perfectly justifiable for the cultural anthropologist to be interested in
a cultural milieu, in a tradition without reference to its literary background,
in the case of Tibet he is not likely to get much co operation from his
informants, unless they have been confronted with occidental scholars and
exposed to western learning for a long time. In this manner the Tibetan
attitude is accidental grist for the occidental Buddhologist mill just as
Tibetan per se is no object of linguistic study except as a feeder service to
the missing Sanskrit originals, to the western Buddhologist, the Tibetan monk scholar
feels exactly the same way and hardly regards Tibetan as an important object of
study apart from Buddhist interest. It goes without saying that references to
India and to Indian mythological or ritualistic matters abound in Tibetan
literature. Compared with these references, those to Tibet are negligible, in
number and importance, in Inclian texts. The reasons for this scarcity of
references to the northern neighbor are sundry first, there has never been much
interest in non-Indian regions, throughout the religious and philosophical
literature of India after all, India is the most important and the only
spiritually significant part of Jambudvipa (i.e. the generic name for the
regions adjacent to India in the north, north-east, east, and south-east, with
India at the centre the etymology of the word and its exact connotation is not
clear). There is a Jaina work called Jambudvipaprajnapti the 'introduction to
the knowledge of Jambudvipa' it is the sixth `Upanga' of the eight Canonical
Texts of the Jainas Jacobi assigned this work to the third century A.D., which
would place it at least two centuries previous to the beginnings of Buddhist
proselytization in Tibet. The work enumerates Naipala, Mahacina, and Cinadega the
term `Bhota' does not appear in it (vd. ed. Jainagrantharnala, Banaras 1899).
Secondly,
Tibet as a geographical referend might well be included or at least, not
excluded in the numerous Puranic accounts of India and Jambudvipa the orthodox
northern demarcation of India is, of course, the Himalaya, but it is never
quite clear what region is precisely denoted by such terms as uttare parvatah,
'the mountains in the North', auttariyah (i.e. -desah, 'the northern regions),
both of which occur scores of tunes in Puranic and Epic literature these terms
definitely include Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan, but possibly also parts of Tibet.
Thus, the Hindu Phetkarini Tantra (ed. Moradabad 1920, p. 5) a late work,
probably of the thirteenth century mentions the Goddess Ugratara as auttariyair
aradhita 'worshipped by those in the North' this Goddess is not worshipped in
Kashmir, nor, to my knowledge, by Nepalese Hindus on the other hand, the sgrol ma
(Tara) of various forms is extremely popular in the Tibetan pantheon. B.
Bhattacharya thinks she is a purely Buddhist goddess who was subsequently
Hinduized (Buddhist Iconography, 77 f). Ugratara in Buddhist tantric literature
is synonymous with Mahacinatara (vd. Bhattacharya, ibid.). There is an image of
Ugratari in the Vajrayogini Temple at Sanku in Nepal, but Hindu visitors at
this shrine call her Samkari, Spouse of Siva, prompted possibly by the
similarity of the place name, i.e. Sanku (the Nepalese hardly distinguish the
palatal and the dental sibilant). Whenever Hindus worship Tara, she is simply
the wife of Siva, as in Bengal, where the male first name Tarapati, Lord of
Tara, is extremely frequent. I do not know whether Bhattacharya really meant to
say that Tara was a purely Buddhist goddess, albeit Hinduized I believe the
Hindu Tara is simply an entirely different deity the name is a common epithet
of all the great Hindu goddesses, and we find it in the Sahasranama, in the
'Invocation of the thousand Names', of Lalita (Siya's spouse proper), of
Sarasvati, and of Laksmi neither of them bears any relation to a Tibetan or
Vajrayana Buddhist goddess.
In
this connection, it must also be said that the division into three krantas or
'circles' of worship, and ritualistic tradition, is common to all Tantric
texts, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jaina. Bagchi writes `There is ample evidence to
prove that the zone of heterodox Tantras went far beyond the natural limits of
India. Some of the Tantras divide the Tantric world into three krantas or
regions, Visnukranta, Asvakranta, and Rathakranta. Asvakranta comprises the
region from the Vindhya Mountains (in Central India) to Mahacina including
Nepal, and Rathakranta from the Vindhya to the great ocean including Cambodia
and Java. . .’
This
division into three vaguely circumscribed regions is rather typical of what I
would call 'religious geography' in India it is sufficiently broad so as to
include whatever region was not really accessible to the compilers, or what
they knew from pious hearsay. I am not even quite sure if Mahicina ever meant
Tibet the late Dr. Raghuvira told me he thought it was Mongolia, and this is
what Bagchi appears to have held. Most scholars in India seem to agree that
Maliacina and Bhota are synonyms I would, however, suggest that the term should
not really be equated with an actual geographical name I think `Mahacina' to
Hindu tantric authors suggested the entire region to the north of the Himalayas,
Tibet, and at least parts of Mongolia and western China. There is no text in
tantric literature which would indicate a serious attempt to demarcate any
regions lying outside India; we have a parallel in the most read sacred
literature of the Hindus, the Puranas 'Suvarnadvipa', i.e. the 'Golden
Continent' is mentioned in all of them, but the referents differ the
Bhagavatapurana calls it palebhyo purve sthita, 'located eastward from the
Palas, i.e. Bengal', which might mean Burma or perhaps Siam the more recent
Skandapurana refers to Suvarnadvipa as agneyesu vistrtah 'stretched out in the
south-east', which would point to the usually accepted identification of
Suvarnadvipa with Indonesia.
The
third reason for the lack of geographical detail in Indian texts seems to me
the unbelievable credulousness of the Indian religious with regard to reports
on places of worship outside his own ken this has not changed through the ages.
I have heard two Hindu priests at Ernakulam (Kerala) saying that Sakti herself
dispenses drugs against gout and other diseases. She, in the form of a virgin,
lived in a cave at a shrine in a far off western land called 'Rudradega', i.e.
'Region of Siva’ I found out that this news was inspired by the fame of the
Lady of Lourdes in France the history of this modification was easy to trace,
and exemplifies the said credulousness the area around Ernakulam has a
substantial population of Syrian Christians, and many women of that community
have been given the name lourdhammar’ since the beginning of this century. 'Lourdes'
sounds very similar to 'Rudra-des' when pronounced by speakers of Malayalam and
Tulu most Syrian Christians unfamiliar with occidental languages and spellings
would pronounce the last syllable of 'Lourdes' not knowing that it is mute in
French.
More
possible reasons for the scarcity of topographical reference or for the lack of
geographical accuracy in such references can be readily adduced and subsumed in
the above three headings. Caste-Hindus lose their caste when they cross the
northern mountains just as when they cross the ocean places that cannot be
inspected are not described with any claim to precision escorts of Buddhist
missionaries who returned from Tibet told wild tales about that inaccessible
country, with impunity Tibetans who came to study at Nalanda or Vikramasila
might have done the same.
.jpg "Tantra techniques (Vajrayana)")
In
the first half of the eighth century, Tibet wielded enormous influence over
Nepal. In a grant of the Licchavi King Sivadeva, dated A.D. 714, there is a
reference to `Bhotta-Visti' or a corvee payable to Tibet. That Nepal was a
vassal to Tibet during this era is not documented by any Indian or Tibetan
source, except for this casual reference to the corvee there is only a Chinese
source which throws light on this phase.
King
Yasovarman of the Central Indian Chandella Dynasty ascended the throne after
his father King Haria's death around A.D. 925. An inscription at Khajuraho in
Vindhya Pradesh, Central India, mentions that he received an image of the God
Visnu from Devapala (i.e. of the Bengali Pala Dynasty which was one of the
foremost champions of Buddhism), which had been given to Devapala's father
Herambapala by King Sahi who had obtained the image from the King of Bhota
(Tibet).
There
seems to be no mention of Tibet in any secular Indian document between the two
periods referred to above.
That
Tibetans may have held portions of Bengal for a short time seems to be
supported by the fact that the early Arab travellers Ibn Haukal and Istakhri
who wrote in the tenth century, refer to the Bay of Bengal as the 'Tibetan
Sea'. As to the exact extent of their actual conquests in India, we have to
rely on Tibetan sources, due to the complete lack of Indian materia1.
Zia
Barni, an officer at the court of Muhammad-bin-Tughlag, who ascended the throne
of Delhi in 1325, wrote a sort of political record of his time in Persian, Ta’rikh-i-Firuz-Shahi,
and the famous Arab traveller Ibn Batutah mentions Muhammed-bin-Tughlag's plans
to 'capture the mountain of Kara-jal . . . which lies between the territories
of Hind and those of China'.
I
now proceed to Sanskrit texts, most of which are straight tantric literature.
Here our search is bound to yield, at least quantitatively, better results. In
tantric literature and practice, the direction of influence is almost entirely
a one way affair it seem reasonable to assume that the tantric elements were
imported into, ' Tibet along with the Buddhist precepts, though this does not
preclude the possibility that certain features of tantric practice could have
had some analogues in pre-Buddhist Tibet Hoffmann and Nebesky-Wojkowitz think
that the tantric practices among the `Ka' rgywd pa monks are largely of Bon
provenance Tucci does not commit himself, to my knowledge. Be that as it may, I
do not think there is any portion of the rgyud section of the Tibetan canon
which could not be traced to some Indian model so far as practice and doctrine
are concerned. From this conjecture it cannot be anything more at this point it
in no way follows that there could not have been similar procedures, or even
apparently identical items, in pre-Buddhist Bon similar efforts yield
independent inventions and parallel procedures in religious and mystical
matters in areas that have had no mutual contact of any sort.
I
think that the numerous references to Tibetan deities and Tibetan acaras, i.e.
ritualistic and meditative methods, have no geographical significance whatever,
so far as the authors were concerned I would venture to say that acaras which
would seem either very strange or repulsive to the Indian aspirant, were
particularly eligible for the epithets 'of Mahacina' or 'of Bhota'. This trend
has continuity in modern Hindu scholarship; P. C. Bagchi, B. Bhattacharya in
his short prefaces to Vajrayana texts published in the Gaekwad Series, and all
the less illustrious pandits known to me, tend to claim rather peremptorily
that the left-handed rites, and the deities propitiated by such and other
uncanny ritual, are of non-Indian origin.
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