Table Of Content

BUDDHISM AND MODERNITY A series edited by Donald S. Lopez Jr. RECENT BOOKS IN THE SERIES From Stone to Flesh: A Short History oft he Buddha by Donald S. Lopez Jr. (2013) The Museum on the Roofo ft he World: Art, Politics, and the Representation ofT ibet by Clare E. Harris (2012) Bonds oft he Dead: Temples, Burial, and the Transformation ofC ontemporary Japanese Buddhism by Mark Michael Rowe (2011) Locations ofB uddhism: Colonialism and Modernity in Sri Lanka by Anne M. Blackburn (2010) In the Forest ofF aded Wisdom: 104 Poems by Gendun Chopel, a Bilingual Edition, edited and translated by Donald S. Lopez Jr. (2009) - GRAINS OF GOLD Tales of a Cosmopolitan Traveler GE NDUN CHOPEL Translated by Thuptenjinpa and Donald S. LopezJ r. The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London ThuptenJinpa is adjunct professor at McGill University, has translated and edited numerous books, and is the author, most recently, of Essential Mind Training. Donald S. Lopez Jr. is the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2014 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2014. Printed in the United States of America 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 I 2 3 4 5 ISBN-13, 978-0-226-09197-6 (cloth) ISBN-13, 978-0-226-09202-7 (e-book) DOI: 10.7208 / chicago/9780226092027.001.000I The University of Chicago Press gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the University of Michigan toward the publication of this book. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dge-'dun-chos-'phel, A-mdo, 1903-1951, author. [Rgyal khams rig pas bskor ba'i gtam rgyud gser gyi thang ma. English] Grains of gold : tales of a cosmopolitan traveler/ Gendun Chapel ; translated by ThuptenJinpa and Donald S. Lopez Jr. pages cm - (Buddhism and modernity) ISBN 978-0-226-09197-6 (cloth, alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-226-09202-7 (e-book) I. Buddhism-China-Tibet Autonomous Region-History. 2. Tibet Autonomous Region (China)-History. I. ThuptenJinpa. IL Lopez, Donald S., 1952- III. Title. IV. Series: Buddhism and modernity. BQ266.D44 2014 954-dc23 2013025540 @This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO 239.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). - CONTENTS Introduction By Thuptenjinpa and Donald S. LopezJ r. First, How I Set Out from Lhasa 29 2 General Formation of the Land of India and How It Acquired Its Name 59 3 How the Lands Were Given Their Names 71 4 The Snow Mountains of the North and Analysis of Related Issues 89 5 What the Famous Places of the Past Are Like 95 6 On Men, Women, Food, Drink, and Various Apparel 129 7 Identification ofVarious Species of Flowers and Trees and How to Recognize Them 175 8 Writing Systems of Various Lands of Past and Present 189 On 9 the Linguistic Rules of the Tibetan Language 209 IO The Inscriptions of the Dharma King Asoka Carved on the Rock Face of Mount Gimar 221 II The Gupta Dynasty 229 12 The Pala Dynasty 259 V vi • Contents 13 From 1,600 Years after the Passing of the Buddha to the Present 279 14 On the History of Singhala 305 15 On the Conditions and the Customs of the Tibetan People in Ancient Times 349 16 The Religion of the Tirthikas 363 17 Conclusion 397 Acknowledgments 417 Appendix A: Tibetan Transliteration 419 Appendix B: Glossary of Terms 425 Notes 427 Index 453 INTRODUCTION All humans born in this world are given, through their past karma, a task that is suited for them. This [book] seems to be the humble task entrusted to me. Thus, wandering through the realms, I have expended my human life on learning. Its fruit has taken the form of a book. Gendun Chopel, 1941 Aluvihara, "sandy monastery," located in the highlands of Sri Lanka, holds a special place in Buddhist history. According to the traditional chronicles, it was there that the words of the Buddha, preserved for centuries only in the memories of monks, were for the first time committed to writing in the final decades before the Common Era. Two millennia later, in that same monas tery, a less famous task of writing was completed. In this case, the purpose was not to preserve something old but to compose something new. In 1941, a young destitute Tibetan, a former monk who had given up his vows, prepared a package. In it, he placed his life's work, a manuscript of more than five hundred pages written over the previous seven years, to gether with hundreds of watercolors that he had painted, intended as illus trations for the book he had composed. A stranger in a strange land, he was the only Tibetan living in Sri Lanka and so could not entrust the package to 2 • Introduction a compatriot. Instead, he sent it off to his homeland in the far ~orth~astern corner of Tibet, over three thousand miles away. Carried by ship, tram, and yak, the package crossed seas, mountains, and deserts to arri~e at its desti nation. He called the book Grains ofG old: Tales ofa Cosmopolitan Traveler. The package reached its destination but his words remained unread. In 1946, the author returned to Tibet and was promptly thrown into prison for three years. He died in 1951. In 1959, the Dalai Lama fled to India, never to return. For a decade beginning in 1967, Tibet, like China, was ravaged by the Cultural Revolution. Finally, in 1990, during a brief relaxation of Chinese re strictions on Tibetan literature, Grains of Gold was published in its entirety for the first time, fifty years after its composition. It was published with out its illustrations; during the Cultural Revolution, all but twenty-seven of some two hundred watercolors had been lost. It is recognized today as perhaps the greatest work of Tibetan letters of the twentieth century. It is translated here for the first time. Who was Gendun Chopel and why <lid he wtite this book? Neither ques tion is easy to answer. Indeed, Grains ofG old deserves an entire monograph to explore its origins, its legacies, and its myriad fascinations. This introduc tion can only offer a hint of these. Gendun Chopel was born in Amdo (modern Qinghai Province) in 1903, not far from the birthplace of Tsong kha pa (1357-1419), the famous "founder" of the Geluk, the newest of the four major sects of Tibetan Bud dhism. His father was a miintrika, a priest and practitioner of the Nyingma or "ancient" sect of Tibetan Buddhism, which traces its roots to the mythi cally potent but historically problematic visit to Tibet by the In<lian tantric yogin Padmasambhava in the late eighth century. The theme of the new and the old, the modern and the ancient, would appear again and again through out Gendun Chapel's life. Gendun Chopel was something of a child prodigy and was identified as an incarnate lama (tulku) of the Nyingma sect as a young boy. Notlong after his father's death, he entered the local Geluk monastery, before moving in 1920 to the great regional monastery of Labrang Tashi Khyil, where he ex celled in the formal debates that are so central to the monastic curriculum. In the philosophical hierarchy of Tibetan Buddhism, the tenets of the Indian Buddhist schools are considered superior to those of the non-Buddhist In dian schools of Hinduism and Jainism. In the debating courtyard, Gendun Chopel became famous, even notorious, for his ability to hold and defend non-Buddhist positions, defeating monks who held Buddhist positions. He was eventually invited to leave the monastery. Introduction • 3 In 1927, he left his home region of Amdo, never to return. Accompanied by an uncle and a cousin, he set off on the four-month trek to the capital of Tibet, Lhasa, where he enrolled at Drepung, the largest monastery in the world, having over ten thousand monks. Again he excelled in debate, but fell into shouting matches with his teacher, the eminent scholar and fellow native of Amdo, Sherap Gyatso (1884-1968), who eventually refused to call him by name, addressing him only as "madman." During his time in Lhasa, Gendun Chopel seems to have supported himself as a painter, attracting the attention of Phabongkha Rinpoche (1878-1941), the most powerful Geluk lama of the day. It was during this period that he became friends with Tri jang Rinpoche (1900-1981), with whom he shared a love of poetry. Trijang Rinpoche would go on to become the tutor of the fourteenth Dalai Lama. In 1934, the distinguished Indian scholar Rahul Sankrityayan (1893-1963) made his second trip to Tibet in search of Sanskrit manuscripts. He came to Lhasa seeking a Tibetan to assist him in gaining access to the libraries of the monasteries and temples he wished to visit. Sherap Gyatso recommended Gendun Chopel. By this time, Gendun Chopel had successfully completed the scholastic curriculum at Drepung and was waiting to take the examina tions for the geshe degree, the highest academic degree of the Geluk tradi tion. Rather than take the examinations, he decided to accompany Rahul Sankrityayan in his search for Sanskrit manuscripts in the monasteries of southern Tibet. At the conclusion of their expedition, Sankrityayan invited Gendun Chopel to return with him to India, where he would spend the next twelve years. In many ways, Grains of Gold is the most important product of those years, but it was not the only one. Gendun Chopel traveled extensively, of ten alone, throughout South Asia; he studied Sanskrit, Pali, and English, gaining considerable facility in each. He translated selections from the San skrit play Sakuntalii and several chapters of both the Riimiiya7Ja and the Bhagavad Gita from Sanskrit into Tibetan. He translated the Dhammapada from Pali into Tibetan and is said to have translated Dharmaklfti's famous work on Buddhist logic, the Pramii7Javiirttika, as well as Santideva's Bodhi caryiivatiira, both from Sanskrit into English, although these translations are not extant. His extensive knowledge of Tibetan literature brought him to the attention of European scholars working in India. He assisted the Rus sian Tibetologist George Roerich (1902-60) in the translation of an impor tant fifteenth-century history of Tibetan Buddhism, The Blue Annals (Deb ther sngon po), a work that is cited repeatedly in Grains of Gold. He helped the French scholar Jacques Bacot (1877-1965) decipher several Dunhuang 4 • Introduction manuscripts on the Tibetan dynastic period. He also read English transla tions of Tang historical records. The Dunhuang and Tang materials eventu ally served as the basis for his unfinished history of early Tibet, the White Annals (Deb therdkarpo ). He visited and made studies of most of the impor tant Buddhist archaeological sites in India, publishing Guidebook for Travel to the Holy Places ofI ndia (Rgya gar gyi gnas chen khag la 'grod pa'i lam yig), a pilgrimage guide that is still used today. And he studied Sanskrit erotica and frequented Calcutta brothels, producing his famous sex manual, written in verse, the Treatise on Passion ('Dod pa'i bstan bcos). Gendun Chapel spent the last two years of his travel abroad, 1944 and 1945, in West Bengal and Sikkim, where he became involved in discussions with a small group of Tibetans who would become the ill-fated Tibetan Pro gressive Party, which sought democratic reforms in Tibet. Gendun Chopel designed its logo, which showed a sickle and a loom against a snowy peak. Aftertwelve years of travel, Gendun Chapel returned to Tibet in 1946. He did not receive the welcome he expected. In Lhasa in late July, the govern ment placed him under arrest, informing him only that charges had been brought against him for distributing counterfeit currency. He maintained his innocence throughout his interrogation, which included flogging, but he was incarcerated, eventually in the prison at the foot of the Potala, the palace of the young fourteenth Dalai Lama. He was released in 1949, just a year before the Chinese invasion. By most accounts, he emerged from prison a broken man and he became increas ingly addicted to alcohol and opium. His writings had been confiscated and he showed no interest in reviving his many projects, although he dictated to a disciple his thoughts on Madhyamaka philosophy. This would be pub lished posthumously as his controversial Adornmentf or Nagiirjuna's Thought (Klu sgrub dgongs rgyan ), a work critical of certain Geluk interpretations of Madhyamaka philosophy, printed on paper provided by a Nyingma lama. On September 9, 1951, too weak to stand, he was taken to the window to watch the troops of the People's Liberation Army march into Lhasa. Gendun Chapel died a few weeks later on October 14, 1951, at the age of forty-eight. Often neglected and sometimes abused by his compatriots during his short life, Gendun Chapel has become a Tibetan culture hero since his death-venerated both in Tibet and in the Tibetan exile community-a visionary scholar, poet, and painter who has been heeded too late. His col lected works have been published at least five times since 1990. Schools are named after him in his native Arndo, and scholarly papers are published in Introduction • 5 Tibetan on his life and thought. The modern art gallery in Lhasa is called the Gendun Chapel Artists' Guild. Although completed when he was only thirty-seven years old, he con sidered Grains of Gold to be his life's work. At the beginning and end of this long book, Gen dun Chapel explains his motivation for writing it. In the first chapter, he notes the supreme importance of India for Tibet-its history, culture, and religion-and for the Tibetan imagination. He writes: Here in our country, due to the example set by the bodhisattva kings and ministers, everyone-the eminent, the lowly, and those in between-has immeasurable faith, affection, and respect for India, this land of the noble ones, the special land from which the teachings of the Conqueror came to Tibet. Because of this, everything we do with our body, our speech, and our mind-the manner in which our scholars express their analysis, our style of composition, our clothing, our religious rituals-all of these are permeated by Indian influence as a sesame seed is permeated by its oil, so much so that when it is necessary to provide a metaphor in a poem, only the names of Indian rivers, mountains, and flowers are suitable. Yet he notes that, in part because of the reverence for all things Indian, many mistakes and exaggerations about India had become accepted as facts in Tibet. Based on what he saw and learned in his travels, he wants to de scribe India, both past and present, as accurately as possible. Another statement near the end, in the seventeenth and final chapter of this long book, is more telling: Because of the power of our own prejudices, I was not keen to discuss the origins of the Muslims and their histories. However, after the gradual demise of the [Buddha's] teaching, we had no familiarity with what had happened in India [from then] up to the present. In particular, nothing of the history of India of the past seven hundred years seemed to have been heard in Ti bet. Therefore, I strongly motivated myself and wrote about it. In any case, the histories and chronologies prepared [by the Muslims] have extremely reliable sources. In contrast, when it comes to the histories of the upholders of the Buddhist teachings, it is as if they have utterly vanished in India. Although Tibet was surrounded by Buddhist cultures for centuries, ac cording to traditional histories the first contacts did not occur until the