The Lives of Bu ston Rin chen grub and the Date and Sources of His Chos 'byung, a Chronicle of Buddhism in India and Tibet * Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp Center for Tibetan Studies, Sichuan University Harvard University For David Seyfort Ruegg, who did so much to introduce us to the polymath Bu ston, his life and some of his works, and for the intrepid individuals of the Dpal brtsegs bod yig dpe rnying zhib 'jug khang, who continue to provide us with so many rare books that illuminate the depth and breadth of Tibet's rich literary culture. Preliminaries: The Multiple Lives of Bu ston T o date, the principal source for the life of the great Bu ston Rin chen grub (1290-1364) was his biography by his disciple Sgra tshad pa Rin chen rgyal mtshan (1318-88), which was studied by D. Seyfort Ruegg now almost fifty years ago in the form of annotated translations and paraphrases of lengthy passages from this work; H. van den Bogaert's recent, more popular rendition is, it needs to be said, somewhat less useful for scholarly purposes and it is evident that he has not always correctly understood his text.1 Sgra tshad pa's work actually consisted of two distinct parts. Sgra tshad pa wrote the first part in Sa skya monastery, in 1355, at the request of Chos kyi rgyal mtshan (1332-59), a scion of Sa skya monastery's Lha * For the prequel to this paper, see my "Some Remarks on the Textual Transmis- sion and Text of Bu ston Rin chen grub's Chos 'byung, a Chronicle of Buddhism in India and Tibet," Revue d'Etudes Tibétaines no. 25 (Avril, 2013), 115-93. Sources that are cited more than thrice are given abbreviations and these can be found in the bibliography of the present paper. 1 See, respectively, Seyfort Ruegg (1966) and a Handful of Flowers. A brief biography of Buton Rinchen Drub, tr. H. van den Bogaert (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1996). Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp, “The Lives of Bu ston Rin chen grub and the Date and Sources of His Chos ‘byung, a Chronicle of Buddhism in India and Tibet”, Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, no. 35, April 2016, pp. 203-308. 204 Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines khang Residence and he composed the second part in 1366 in Bu ston's personal see of Ri phug Bde chen chos kyi pho brang that is located not far from Zhwa lu monastery where his master stayed for much of his life. Compared to other fourteenth century specimen of the genre, it is in several ways an unbalanced and rather disappoint- ing work. Sgra tshad pa is by and large content with religious hy- perbole of the kind that includes lengthy enumerations and interpre- tive descriptions of Bu ston's visions, all of which are detailed at the expense of surveys of other types of important historical events and the roles Bu ston played in these. This is not to say that these visions are mute and that they reveal nothing that would otherwise inform the historian of those ideas that were current during his lifetime and in which Bu ston played no insignificant roles. Of course they do, and they often contain details that are actually of crucial relevance to the subject, at times even to the extent that their misunderstanding could lead us far away from a more intimate familiarity with, if not Bu ston, then the milieu in which he breathed, lived and worked. But very little of the sort can be deduced from this biography. What Sgra tshad pa does offer his audience, therefore, are by and large mini- malistic descriptions of Bu ston's relationships with his peers and his political activities. Some time ago, J. Gyatso drew attention to the circumstance that many Tibetan religious figures kept diaries that in turn formed critical sources for the composition of autobiographies and biographies.2 We do not know when this habit began or when it became more or less widespread. Sgra tshad pa's fairly thin presen- tation leads us to conclude that either Bu ston himself never kept a diary of the day to day events of his life, or that it had for some rea- son not been accessible to Sgra tshad pa, or that the latter had con- sciously refrained from using it. The first seems to be the more likely scenario. It is equally puzzling that Sgra tshad pa often even seems to have been unclear about the precise dates for some of his master's main compositions, which is surprising as most of their colophons provide these in an unambiguous fashion.3 Given that he himself 2 See her "Counting Crow's Teeth: Tibetans and Their Diaries," Les habitants du Toit du monde, eds. S. Karmay and Ph. Sagant (Paris: Société d'Ethnologie, 1997), 159-178. 3 Sgra tshad pa also lists, respectively, one letter (spring yig) and two replies to quenries (dris lan) with some of their addressees, namely King Bsod nams lde, on whom see below, G.yag sde Paṇ chen Bsod nams dpal (1299-1378) and Rin chen ye shes. The first was written on July 3, 1339; the second probably refers to the letter in BU26, 245-6 and is undated, and the identification of the third is more problematic, the only available option is a series of replies that is found in BU26, 185-216. Dated to the first half of 1326, this important piece is cursorily discussed in section four of the present essay. Thereafter, Sgra tshad pa notes the compila- tion of the Zhwa lu Gser khang Tanjur and Bu ston's catalog, the latter of which, The Lives of Bu ston Rin chen grub 205 composed two catalogs of Bu ston's oeuvre and that his master had handpicked him to succeed him as abbot of Zhwa lu monastery, we cannot conclude that he had been unable to gain access to these. In short, then, his work is undoubtedly one of the less satisfactory rep- resentatives of its genre, but it is [almost] the only source of infor- mation, and certainly the longest one, that we have for Bu ston's works and days per se. As I show below, Sgra tshad pa was not the only disciple of Bu ston to have written his master's biography. It is therefore a great pity that none of these other disciples considered it worth their while to do the required homework and sit down to write a biography worthy of their master! It is of course possible that their incapacity to do so may have been the result of the sheer weight that their master's voracious and curious intellect was able to exert on their creative impulses even long after his passing. At the very outset of his narrative, Sgra tshad pa describes at some length his master's previous births that we could say culmi- nated in the Kashmirian Śākyaśrībhadra (1127-1225) — hereafter Śākyaśrī — who, as is well known, arrived in Tibet in 1204 at the in- vitation of Khro phu Lo tsā ba Byams pa'i dpal (1172-1236).4 Of course, Bu ston had very close ties with Khro phu monastery. As a young man, he had studied and taught there on numerous occa- sions5 and just prior to his retirement from his abbatial duties at according to its colophon, was completed on June 12, 1335! All exact dates of the texts cited and individuals mentioned in this paper are calculated with the help of the Tabellen in D. Schuh, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der tibetischen Kalender- rechnung, Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland, Supplement Band 16 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1973). 4 For several biographies of Śākyaśrī and Khro phu Lo tsā ba, see D.P. Jackson, Two Biographies of Śākyaśrībhadra. The Eulogy of Khro phu Lo tsā ba and Its "Com- mentary" by Bsod nams dpal bzang po, Tibetan and Indo-Tibetan Studies, vol. 2 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1990) and my review article in van der Kuijp (1994). 5 The most detailed, yet in many places still rather thin, study of the Khro phu Bka' brgyud pa sect so far is the one sketched in Rta tshag Tshe dbang rgyal po's 1446/47 survey of the Bka' brgyud pa school as a whole [minus the Shangs pa Bka' brgyud], the Bka' brgyud rin po che'i lo rgyus phyogs gcig tu bsgrigs pa, C[ultural] P[alace] of N[ationalities, Beijing] catalog no. 002448(6), fols. 185b-201b. For the C.P.N. manuscript of this work, usually known as the Lho rong chos 'byung, see my remarks in "Studies in Fourteenth Century Tibetan Cul- tural History III: The Oeuvre of Bla ma dam pa Bsod nams rgyal mtshan (1312-1375), Part One," Berliner Indologische Studien 7 (1993), 112, n. 4, and my "On the Fifteenth Century Lho rong chos 'byung by Rta tshag Tshe dbang rgyal and Its Importance for Tibetan Political and Religious History," Aspects of Tibetan History, eds. R. Vitali and Tashi Tsering, Lungta 14 (2001), 57-76. In the latter, I discuss inter alia its relationship to the recently printed edition, which omits much that is found towards the end of the above manuscript's narrative of the Khro phu tradition, see the Lho rong chos 'byung, ed. Gling dpon Padma skal bzang and Ma grong Mi 'gyur rdo rje (Lhasa: Bod ljongs bod yig dpe rnying dpe 206 Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines Zhwa lu in 1355, he also functioned briefly as abbot of this smaller institution from circa 1353 to 1354, although his biographies do not specify the reasons for this. Khro phu monastery was the see of a branch of the Gnubs family and a relatively important center for Bka' brgyud pa school-related spiritual practices. The first entry of his "record of teachings studied" (gsan yig) — see Appendix One for an analysis of this work — relates the instructions he had received from a certain Rin po che Khro phu ba. Sgra tshad pa consistently refers to him as the unrivalled Sems dpa' chen po Rin po che Khro phu ba whose "name is difficult to utter" (mtshan brjod par dka' ba), and states that it was he who had foretold that Śākyaśrī would be reborn in the Tibetan area, albeit without mentioning the name of his Tibetan re-embodiment.6 Indeed, the period in question knows of a Sems dpa' chen po Khro phu ba (1229-98), who is the subject of a very in- teresting biography by a certain Mkhan chen Chos rgyal dpal bzang.7 There his name in religion is not explicitly given, but we learn that he was born in a family that was part of the Gnubs clan, that his fa- ther Mi bskyod rdo rje, the elder brother of Rdo rje bdud 'dul, had built the foundation of a/the large stūpa at Khro phu monastery at the age of fifty-eight, that his father had "excavated" a revelatory treasure text (gter ma),8 and that his father passed away at the age of skrun khang, 1994), 328-37. The recent publication of yet another manuscript version of the Lho rong chos'byung follows the latter; see Bod kyi lo rgyus rnam thar phyogs bsgrigs, ed. Dpal brtsegs bod yig dpe rnying zhib 'jug khang, vol. Na [= 12] (Xining: Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2010), 519-34; the text is completed in vol. Pa [= 13]. The first two pages [2-3] of vol. Na are in fact fol. 1b and the first two lines of fol. 2b of the C.P.N. manuscript after which the text fol- lows the printed version, and pp. 593-4 of vol. Na were taken from yet another manuscript. Other surveys of the Khro phu Bka' brgyud pa sect are found in 'Gos Lo tsā ba Gzhon nu dpal's (1392-1481) chronicle in 'GOS, 616-21 [Roerich 1979: 705-11] and Dpa' bo II Gtsug lag phreng ba's (1504-66) chronicle in DPA'p1, 857-9 [DPA', 842-3]. 6 He is mentioned in Seyfort Ruegg (1966: 55 [see also 14, n. 1], 66-7). 7 For what follows, see the Mnyam med sems dpa' chen po khro phu ba'i rnam thar yon tan phreng ba, Bod kyi lo rgyus rnam thar phyogs bsgrigs, ed. Dpal brstegs bod yig dpe rnying zhib 'jug khang, vol. Zu [= 82] (Xining: Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2011), 343-347, 360, 362, 367 ff. The preamble of his biography gives a capsule survey of his ancestry. 8 Gu ru Bkra shis states in the early nineteenth century Gu bkra chos 'byung, ed. Rdo rje rgyal po (Beijing: Krung go'i bod kyi shes rig dpe skrun khang, 1998), 503, that his gter ma text was "the tantra of the one carrying a red spear (mdung dmar can)," a work that is associated with Gnyal pa Nyi ma shes rab (ca. 1100). This tantra is connected to or the source for the cycle of practices associated with a form of Vaiśravaṇa who is styled Rnam thos sras Mdung dmar rta can, for which see R. de Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Oracles and Demons of Tibet (Kathmandu: Pilgrims Book House, 1993), 69-70. D. Martin, "A Brief Political History of Tibet by Gu ru Bkra shis," Tibetan History and Language. Studies Dedicated to Uray Géza on His Seventieth Birthday, ed. E. Steinkellner, Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und The Lives of Bu ston Rin chen grub 207 sixty-four in 1236. His mother was Ma gcig Bde skyid, the daughter of G.yas phyug Nyi ma rin chen, and nothing else is related about her. He himself became abbot of Khro phu in 1251 after Bla chen Bsod nams dbang phyug (1218-50), his cousin and the previous ab- bot, passed away at the age of thirty-two. Following this, Sa skya's Grand-Governor (dpon chen) Shākya bzang po requested that he also assume the abbacy of Brag ram monastery when Bo dong Rin chen rtse mo (1200-60), alias Bo dong the Cleft-Paleted (sho re ba), its abbot and one of his main teachers, had died at the age of sixty. Finally, noteworthy is that Sems dpa' chen po Khro phu ba is recorded to have done much to enlarge Khro phu monastery with funding that the Yuan Mongol courts in Dadu and Shangdu had released as a re- sult of his excellent connections with the imperial family. Of course, Khro phu Lo tsā ba, too, was a scion of that branch of the Gnubs clan that founded and by and large controlled Khro phu monastery. He writes in his autobiography that his father's name was Nag po Jo 'phan (1149-99) and that his mother was Bsregs Gsal byed (1148-1215), the daughter of Bsregs Dpal gsum sgra.9 His father's nickname The Black (nag po) may refer to him being involved in black magic to the extent that, as 'Gos Lo tsā ba related,10 at one point the twenty year old Khro phu Lo tsā ba contracted a psy- cho-pathological disorder (nad gzhi'i rtog pa) because of his father's activities, and that these had resulted in him living a secluded life for three years. While he does disclose in his autobiography that he was prone to disease when he was in his early twenties, he does not sug- gest anywhere that his father's activities had something to do with it. But he does hint there that his father was prone to some unsavory practices.11 At the same time, he provides no evidence that either parent played an important role in his life. Khro phu Lo tsā ba states that, at the age of fifty-eight, which would be in 1230, he had built a stūpa at Khro phu to commemorate the passing of his teacher Śākyaśrībhadra. To be sure, he makes no Buddhismuskunde, Heft 26 (Wien: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 1991), 329-51, is a valuable survey of this monumental work. 9 For what follows, see the Paṇ grub gsum gyi rnam thar dpag bsam 'khril shing (xy- lograph) [= tbrc.org W1KG13616], 3a, 5a-b, 72b, 74a [= Khro lo chen pos mdzad pa'i rnam thar dpag bsam ljon shing (manuscript) (tbrc.org W1CZ1180), 3a, 5b, 83a, 86a]. 10 'GOS, 619; Roerich (1979: 709) equates nad gzhi'i rtog pa, with "the thought of lep- rosy." Gu ru Bkra shis suggests, in the Gu bkra chos 'byung, 503, that his father was [primarily] a practitioner of Rnying ma pa and not Bka' brgyud pa practises and suggests an alternate name for him, to wit, Ro zan Nag po. 11 Paṇ grub gsum gyi rnam thar dpag bsam 'khril shing, 3a-5a [= Khro lo chen pos mdzad pa'i rnam thar dpag bsam ljon shing, 3a-5a] details his father's exploits. 208 Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines explicit mention of having sired a son, never mind whether he had a wife or girlfriend. Indeed, either would have been unbefitting a supposedly celibate monk. Yet, the combined evidence from these sources that is tallied above makes it certain that Sems dpa' chen po Khro phu ba is none other than Khro phu ba Bsod nams seng ge, Khro phu Lo tsā ba's biological son. Indeed, bsod nams seng ge occurs embedded in the opening verse of Sems dpa' chen po Khro phu ba's biography, Rta tshag Tshe dbang rgyal notes him as Byang sems chen po Bsod nams seng ge, and this is also 'Gos Lo tsā ba's take on the matter.12 Of the sources that have something to say about the notion that Bu ston was Śākyaśrī's "re-birth" (sku skye ba), it is Bu ston's biog- raphy by his disciple Khyung po Lhas pa Gzhon nu bsod nams in which we find the explicit statement, right or wrong, that it was Sems dpa' chen po Khro phu ba who had initiated this connection.13 As we shall see below, Sgra tshad pa was considered to have been a re-embodiment of Dānaśīla, and this equation must be viewed as the almost logical consequence of Bu ston's spiritual identity with Śākyaśrī. Given Sems dpa' chen po Khro phu ba's salutary im- portance for the health and well-being of Khro phu monastery, it is quite remarkable that Bu ston makes no mention of him in his ex- ceedingly thin description of the activities of Khro phu Lo tsā ba to- wards the end of his Chos 'byung proper. In the bibliography of the works that he used for his 1865 study of Buddhism in Amdo, Brag dgon Zhabs drung Dkon mchog bstan pa rab rgyas (1801-after 1871) observes that Khro phu Bsod nams seng ge had written a study of Bu ston by way of a poetic narrative tale of his life that was written for spiritual edification (rtogs brjod, 12 See, respectively, the Mnyam med sems dpa' chen po khro phu ba'i rnam thar yon tan phreng ba, 340: … mtha' yas bsod nams … mi'i seng ge ... , see the Bka' brgyud rin po che'i lo rgyus phyogs gcig tu bsgrigs pa, 189b [= Lho rong chos 'byung, 335], where he is said to have been born one year after his father's death, and 'GOS, 307 [= Roe- rich 1979: 345], which lists a Khro phu Rin po che Bsod nams seng ge between Bo dong Rin [chen] rtse [mo] and Tshad ma'i skyes bu, that is, Byams pa mgon, one of Bu ston's primary teachers. 13 See van der Kuijp (1994: 604, n. 21) and his undated study of Bu ston's life, the Thams cad mkhyen pa bu ston rin po che'i rnam par thar pa yon tan rin po che'i lhun po, C.P.N. catalog no. 002772(2) [= tbrc.org W26456], 3a-b; a brief biography of Khyung po Lhas pa is found in Ri phug sprul sku Blo gsal bstan skyong's (1804-after 1864) circa 1835 study of Zhwa lu monastery, in ZHWA, 77-8. Not found in his biography by Mkhan chen Chos rgyal dpal bzang, Dpa' bo II sug- gests that Khro phu Sems dpa' chen po himself was a sku skye ba–re-birth of Buddhaśrī (1140-after 1201), the second Indic scholar Khro phu Lo tsā ba had in- vited to Khro phu. For a biographical sketch of Buddhaśrī, see van der Kuijp (1994: 613). The Lives of Bu ston Rin chen grub 209 *avadāna).14 While this work may yet have to be recovered, it could very well have been the earliest literary source for "equating" him with Śākyaśrī, especially if this "Bsod nams seng ge" were indeed to refer to Khro phu Lo tsā ba's son. If so, then he would have com- posed it towards the very end of his life and then only on the occa- sion of his realization that Śākyaśrī and little Bu ston were spiritually identical — the "deep-structure" nature of the mechanism and moti- vation remain obscure. Although no other cognate literary instances come to mind that would support this contention, it does not seem a priori impossible that this Rtogs brjod might have focused precisely on the theme of this proposed affinity with Śākyaśrī, rather than being a study of Bu ston as such. Widely attested in titles of the fourteenth century and later developments of Tibetan biographical and autobi- ographical literature, the use of the expression rtogs brjod in the sense of a plain biography seems rather uncommon for this time. On the other hand, if it were a fullfledged biography, then the much more likely candidate for its authorship would be his namesake Khro phu Mkhan chen Bsod nams seng ge, a disciple of Bu ston, who was later an abbot of Khro phu monastery.15 Lastly, another possible identifi- cation of the putative author of this Rtogs brjod might be the Rin chen bsod nams seng ge whose Ngo mtshar gtam gyi rol mo in twenty-one verses is cited by Blo gsal bstan skyong as an additional, if somewhat uninformative, source on Bu ston's life.16 At first glance, he may be either of the two, or perhaps even Yang rtse pa Rin chen seng ge, an- other scholar active at Khro phu and a disciple of Khro phu Lo tsā ba's son, who figures as the third teacher in Bu ston's gsan yig. The probability for equating the said Rtogs brjod with this little text is not diminished by the fact that only the sixth verse, which has it that Dānaśīla had previously been one of his disciples, would point to the connection drawn between Śākyaśrī and Bu ston, since Dānaśīla was one of the nine men who had accompanied the former to Tibet in 1200. He apparently stayed on in Central Tibet and lived and taught there until the 1240s or perhaps even the 1250s, where inter alia Dar 14 See his Yul mdo smad kyi ljongs su thub bstan rin po che ji ltar dar ba'i tshul gsal bar brjod pa deb ther rgya mtsho, vol. 1 (New Delhi, 1974), 23 [= Mdo smad chos 'byung, ed. Smon lam rgya mtsho (Lanzhou: Kan su'u mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1982), 10]. This would be one of the earliest uses in Tibet of rtogs brjod designating something in the way of a biography of a human being, rather than of a bodhi- sattva or the historical Buddha unless, of course, Bu ston was regarded as a bo- dhisattva or a buddha, and…he was! 15 ZHWA, 97. 16 ZHWA, 367-71. In his edition of Tshal pa Kun dga' rdo rje's (1309-64) chronicle of Tibet, the late Dung dkar Dge bshes Blo bzang 'phrin las (1927-97) clearly identi- fied the author of this work as Khro phu ba Bsod nams seng ge; see TSHAL, 383, n. 364. 210 Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines ma [or: Chos kyi] rgyal mtshan (1227-1305), alias Bcom ldan {rig[s] pa'i} ral gri and Bcom ldan ral gri, had been one of his students. It is hardly surprising that not one single text of the considerable literary corpus on Śākyaśrī's life, from the major and most authorita- tive study by Khro phu Lo tsā ba and the other relatively early biog- raphies that I signaled in my paper to the one we find in Mang thos Klu sgrub rgya mtsho (1523-96),17 confirms that the Kashmirian master himself "occurred" in a sequence of ongoing embodiments. It is therefore transparent that such a series was either fully unknown to them, which is unconvincing, or that the authors of the later, post-fifteenth century studies of Śākyaśrī's lives considered it irrele- vant or perhaps even suspect. Given the evidence that, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the idea of the re-embodiment of important masters was gradually being brought into focus in the Rnying ma tradition and among certain sects of the Bka' gdams pa and Bka' brgyud pa schools,18 we can only interpret Khro phu Mkhan chen Bsod nams seng ge's and Khyung po Lhas pa's asser- tions of an intrinsic connection between Śākyaśrī and Bu ston as their attempt to construct such a series for the Khro phu sect of the Bka' brgyud pa, most likely with the aim of securing a measure of conti- 17 See the references in van der Kuijp (1994) and MANG, 153-60, 176-7, for the biog- raphies of Śākyaśrī and Bu ston respectively. Mang thos began his important work in 1564, completed it two years later in 1566, and then substantially revised in 1587. In an entry for the year 1565 (glang lo) of his autobiography, we learn that by this time he had finished about one hundred folios of this treatise; see his Rang gi rnam par thar pa yul sna tshogs kyi bdud rtsi myong ba'i gtam du byas pa zol zog rdzun gyis ma bslad pa sgeg mo'i me long, The Slob bshad Tradition of the Sa skya Lam 'bras, vol. III (Dehra Dun: Sa skya Centre, 1983), 443, 546. 18 For the Bka' gdams pa, in which we find one of the earliest instances of a Tibetan being the re-embodiment of a Tibetan and not of one or the other Indian master or Buddhist deity, see the brief remarks in my "The Dalai Lamas and the Origins of Reincarnate Lamas," The Dalai Lamas: a Visual History, ed. M. Brauen (Chicago: Serindia, 2005), 29. Of course, it would seem that Nyang ral Nyi ma 'od zer (1124-92) — on him, see below n. 114 — considered himself to be the re-embodiment of the Mighty One (btsan po) Khri srong lde btsan (r. ca.742-800). Karma pa II Karma Pak shi (1204/6-83) is usually said to have been the first em- bodiment of this kind in Tibet, but this was not the case. Although the Karma Bka' brgyud pa tradition holds that he was the immediate re-embodiment of Karma pa I Dus gsum mkhyen pa (1110-93), Mang thos writes that Karma Pak shi had himself stated that he was the reembodiment of Saraha, and not of Dus gsum mkhyen pa; see MANG, 171. To be sure, this requires further investigation. Attempts at making sense of the notion of embodiment are, for example, T. Wylie, "Reincarnation: A Political Innovation in Tibetan Buddhism," Proceedings of the Csoma de Koros Symposium ed. L. Ligeti (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1978) 579-86, and especially K.H. Everding, Die Präexistenzen der Lcang skya Qutuqtus, Asiatische Forschungen, Band 104 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1988), 182-6. Tibetan and Chinese scholars in the People's Republic of China have recently published a spate of papers on the subject. The Lives of Bu ston Rin chen grub 211 nuity and stability for his monastery's abbatial succession and eco- nomic integrity. In this connection, it is important to stress that his family had no apparent heirs to succeed him by way of a progression of father-son (yab sras) or uncle-nephew (khu dbon) sequences, which would have kept the monastery and the estates attached to it in this family's purview and under its control. Since no re-embodiments of Bu ston are recorded to have held official positions at Khro phu or Zhwa lu, Bsod nams seng ge's and Khyung po Lhas pa's propositions seem to have had no lasting impact on their further developments.19 One of the reasons for Bu ston's appointment to Zhwa lu monas- tery's abbatial throne in 1320 by Sku zhang Grags pa rgyal mtshan dpal bzang po (?-after 1333)20, a scion of the Lce family whose mem- 19 The history of Tibetan Buddhism is littered with onsets of reincarnate lines that for one reason or another never quite made it and simply fluttered out. This would seem to have befallen initially to the one of Rgod tshang pa Mgon po rdo rje (1189-1258), whom U rgyan pa Rin chen dpal (1230-1309) met in circa 1280; see Bsod nams 'od zer, Grub chen u rgyan pa'i rnam par thar pa byin brlabs kyi chu rgyun (Gangtok, 1976), 143. The biography of Karma pa III Rang byung rdo rje (1284-1339) notes that the re-embodiment of U rgyan pa was among the Karma pa's disciples; see TSHAL, 107. The biography of that re-embodiment, actually the account of how he was invited to and then feted at U rgyan pa's see of Sbu tra, as well as some notes on his pre-embodiments are found in U rgyan sprul sku'i rnam par thar pa, Bod kyi lo rgyus rnam thar phyogs bsgrigs, ed. Dpal brstegs bod yig dpe rnying zhib 'jug khang, vol. Dzi [= 49] (Xining: Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2011), 411-21, but I have yet to come across his proper name in religion. The Tshal pa Bka' brgyud pa sect knows of Sangs rgyas 'bum, the abbot of Tshal Gung thang monastery from 1214 to 1219, who is called the "re-embodiment of Sgom bde [monastery]" in TSHAL, 133. While a thorough study of its occurrence is still outstanding, it appears that, at least in the post-fifteenth century Tibetan literature, the idea of successions of pre-embodiments is encapsulated by the ex- pression 'khrungs rabs. 20 Note his name in religion that evidently is connected to the vinaya-line of Śākyaśrī, none of our sources elicit the year in which the Sku zhang passed away. R. Vitali, Early Temples of Central Tibet (London: Serindia Publications, 1990), 100-2, provides an accessible account of his activities. For the genealogy of his family, see G. Tucci, Tibetan Painted Scrolls, vol. II (Rome: La Libreria Dello Stato, 1949), 656-62, which is based on the Chos grwa chen po dpal zhwa lu gser khang gi bdag po jo bo lce'i gdung rabs by Bkra shis don grub; my thanks to Cyrus R. Stearns for long ago providing me with a copy of this text. This work is in turn based on a variety of sources including, no doubt, the introductory remarks of Zhwa lu Lo tsā ba Rin chen chos skyong bzang po's (1441-1528) biography of Rin chen mkhyen rab mchog grub (1433-97), alias Mkhyen rab Chos rje, of 1494, which also presents a genealogy of this family; see the Zhwa lu sku zhang mkhyen rab[s] pa'i rnam thar, C.P.N. catalog no. 004399(6), indigenous catalog number 'bras spungs nang, 2b-11a. A synopsis of their genealogy is also found as an in- troduction to the biography of Rin chen bstan pa'i gsal byed (1658-96), a re-embodiment of 'Ba' ra ba Rgyal mtshan dpal bzang po (1310-91), for which see the Chos rje 'ba' ra ba sprul sku rin chen bstan pa'i gsal byed kyi rnam thar mu tig 'phreng ba, Bka' brgyud gser phreng chen mo, vol. III (Dehradun, 1970), 159-61. Fi- nally, another genealogy of this family that was compiled by Rin chen dpal ldan 212 Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines bers ruled over Zhwa lu and her estates as myriarchs for most of the time when Tibet was at least de jure part of the Mongol empire from 1240 to 1368, was no doubt due to the fact that he was among the best of the younger generation of scholars to have been ordained as a full monk by Bka' bzhi pa Grags pa gzhon nu (1257-1315) in 1312.21 This man had been appointed [or elected], in 1294, as abbot of the Tshogs community of monks, one of three [and later four] monastic communities that had their origin in Śākyaśrī’s vinaya transmission,22 after which he also functioned as Zhwa lu's abbot upon the death of his predecessor Grags pa brtson 'grus. Earlier, the vinaya followed in Zhwa lu seems to have been a somewhat mixed affair, inasmuch as the transmission that issued from the one begun by Bla chen Dgongs pa rab gsal in the tenth century appears to have existed side by side with one that was associated with Abhayākaragupta (ca.1065-ca. 1125). Lce Shes rab 'byung gnas, who had built Zhwa lu's Gser khang temple in 1123, had received the latter's vinaya transmission while studying under him in Bodhgayā. However, beginning with Grags pa gzhon nu the vinaya lineage of Zhwa lu changed to the one that was initiated by Śākyaśrī, but it is difficult to assess what these changes or juxtaposed vinaya traditions in one institution might have really entailed, if anything. Blo gsal bstan skyong astutely connects this change to the political circumstances of the time. He first indi- cates that Sa skya Paṇḍita himself was ordained by Śākyaśrī in the temple of Rgyan gong Byang chub dge gnas, located in Zhwa lu's immediate vicinity, and that Tibet was under the control of Sa skya's 'Khon family. Of course, with his nephew Phyag na rdo rje (1239-67) being wedded to inter alia Manggala, a daughter of the Mongol prince of the blood Köten, and Mkha' 'gro 'bum of Zhwa lu's Lce family, the latter came to be related in matrimony to Sa skya's branch of the 'Khon family and therefore to the Mongol imperial house as well. The son he had with Mkha' 'gro 'bum was Dharmapalarakṣita blo gros was published in Jo bo lce yi gdung rabs, Bod kyi lo rgyus rnam thar phyogs bsgrigs, ed. Dpal brstegs bod yig dpe rnying zhib 'jug khang, vol. Thi [= 40] (Xi- ning: Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2011), 341-54. His primary source consisted of the information provided him by a certain Mkhan chen Thams cad mkhyen pa. I wonder if this may refer to Bu ston, since the last Zhwa lu Sku zhang mentioned by him is Ye shes kun dga' and his three sons. 21 See Seyfort Ruegg (1966: 78), with an inadvertent omission of "Grags pa." The designation shing stag in ZHWA, 364 must be corrected to shing rta. What follows is based on ZHWA, 365-6. 22 See now the exhaustive study in J. Heimbel, "The Jo gdan tshogs sde bzhi: An Investigation into the History of the Four Monastic Communities in Śākyaśrībhadra's Vinaya Tradition," Nepalica-Tibetica. Festgabe für Christoph Cüp- pers, Band 1, ed. F.-K. Ehrhard and P. Maurer (Andiast: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies GmbH, 2013), 188-241.