Religions The ^ o f T i b e t ^ T H E R E L I G I O N S OF T I B E T GIUSEPPE TUCCI Translated from the German and Italian by GEOFFREY SAMUEL Routledge & Kegan Paul London and Henley First published as Die Religionen Tibets in Die Religionen Tibets und der Mongolei by Giuseppe Tucci and Walther Heissig © 1970 W. Kohlhammer GmbH, Stuttgart Berlin Köln Mainz This translation first published in 1980 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd 39 Store Street, London WC1E 7DD and Broadway House, Newtown Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon RG91EN Set in 10 on llpt Baskerville and printed in Great Britain by Lowe & Brydone Printers Ltd, Thetford, Norfolk English translation © Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd 1980 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Tucci, Giuseppe The religions of Tibet, 1. Lamaism /. Title 294.3,923 BQ7604 ISBN 0 7100 02041 Printed in Great Britain CONTENTS Preface vii Note on transcription and pronunciation xii 1 The first diffusion of Buddhism in Tibet 1 1 The beginnings 1 2 Co-existence and conflict among the various tendencies at the time of the first introduction of Buddhism into Tibet 5 3 Ordination of monks, foundation of monasteries, donations to monasteries 8 4 The Indian and Chinese currents 12 2 The second diffusion of Buddhism 16 1 The revival of Buddhism 16 2 Rin chen bzang po and Atisa 20 3 The foundation of the great monasteries 26 3 General characteristics of Lamaism 29 1 Fundamentals 29 2 The most important schools 33 3 The conflicts between the schools and their significance for the political history of Tibet. The office of Dalai Lama 39 4 The figure of the religious teacher (bla ma) 44 4 The doctrines of the most important schools 47 1 Assumptions common to all schools 47 2 The vehicle of the Mantra 50 3 Investiture and consecrations 57 4 The Tantric process of transcendence: mental body, maya-body, body of transcendent consciousness 58 5 Sems and light 63 v 6 Substantialism of the Jo nang pa school 67 7 The bKa’bxgyudpa school 70 8 Tantric practice according to the tradition of the Bla na med rgyud 11 9 The rNying ma pa school 76 10 The gCod tradition 87 11 Conclusion. The special nature of the Lamaist teaching of salvation 93 Appendix: The process of transformation of Sems and rLungs 106 5 Monkhood, monastery life, religious calendar and festivals 110 1 Organization of monastic community: hierarchy and offices 110 2 Religious calendar and festivals 146 3 The hermits’way of life 156 4 The property of the monastery and its administration 158 6 The folk religion 163 1 General characteristics 163 2 Man face to face with divine and demonic powers 171 3 Personal protection and protection oFthe house 187 4 The soul 190 5 Death 193 6 The bsangs or sufjimen (offering of incense) 199 7 Looking into the future: investigating the favourable or unfavourable omens for an action 202 8 The protection of property and of flocks 204 9 Final considerations 205 7 The Bon religion 213 Chronological table 249 Notes 257 Bibliography 1 Tibetan sources 275 2 Books and articles 275 Index 280 VI PREFACE At the beginning of 1958, when Dr C. M. Schröder asked me to write the volume on Tibetan religion for the collection edited by him, ‘Die Religionen der Menschheit’, which in its totality constitutes a remarkable body of material on the history of religion, I hesitated before I accepted. The writing of a book on the subject of Tibetan religion is not a task to be taken on light-heartedly. The main reason for this is that we still know little about Tibetan religion in comparison with other religions; the vast literature which it has produced, and which illuminates its history, is still far from having been made fully- accessible or edited, and is in any case so enormous that a single human life is not enough to master it. In addition there is a deep division between monastic Lamaism and religion as it is lived by the people; the former, too, is fragmented into many schools, while the latter shows numerous variations from place to place. While I was writing it became progressively clearer to me that an account of Lamaism presupposed a presentation of its theoretical foundations; for these, as always in Buddhism, condition the actual religious experience, and give the individual schools their particular character. This however makes it necessary to refer continually to the theory of Indian Buddhism. On the other hand my task was precisely to uncover and ascertain what in Tibetan Buddhism had been created in the meeting between old forms of religious experience and new ideas and motives that was new and individual. A further difficulty, perhaps the greatest of all, has still to be mentioned; no agreement has yet been reached on the precise translation of the religious terminology, of the technical terms, that is, which are used in Tibetan religion and gnosis. One wavers between the two extremes of a comparatively literal rendition, as has mostly been used for Indian Buddhism (although there too there has been a similar lack of unanimity), and the recent fashion of adopting the vocabulary of the more modern philosophical schools of the West as a terminological basis for this area, which is so different in its nature. This latter procedure is certainly the more dangerous of the two, for it misrepresents or even vii PREFACE falsifies Tibetan modes of thought. I became convinced of this when I showed Tibetans jvho knew English well certain translations which had recently appeared of particular works or of commentaries on the doctrines they contained. The Tibetan scholars found it difficult to make any sense of these translations, since Buddhist thought was expressed in them in a mode other than that in which they were used to understanding it. Besides this, many Tibetan concepts and doctrines refer to interior and mystical experiences, and their transposition into rational concepts and expressions is extremely problematic. The corresponding Tibetan words are symbols, which can evoke living experiences which the word as such can only suggest but not define. We are faced here with an extremely difficult, almost impossible task: to coin equivalent technical terms for experiences which take place within the spiritual realm, and which can radically modify our psychic and spiritual reality. I have tried to translate Tibetan expressions in such a way as to avoid both of the extremes mentioned above, those of over-literalness and of arbitrariness, and have struggled throughout to render the Tibetan termini technici with words of meaning close to that which the Tibetan masters appear to give to them. I am not sure that I have always succeeded, but I believe that I have done my best to make accessible to Western readers the complex speculative structure which constitutes the foundation of Tibetan religion. At the same time I recognize that in this field there are real limiting cases. To give an example: the word sems, a pillar of the Lamaist doctrinal edifice, is sometimes translated in English as ‘mind’, ‘mind-stufF and so on; in the German edition of this book it was rendered as Geist* All the same it is evident that the terms Geist and sems do not entirely coincide. The meaning of the term sems will only become clearer to the reader when he has attained an overview of the whole region of signification which this word has, after acquainting himself with the entire contents of the book. For this reason I have, to avoid misunder­ standing, almost always retained the Tibetan form sems, so as to lead the reader gradually to connect the word with the corresponding concept or range of concepts. In the writing of this book I was able to call upon both my personal * Some writers have used ‘spirit* and related terms in English; thus W. Rahula renders the Sanskrit word citta (= Tib. sems) as esprit in his translation of the Abhidharmasamuccaya, and in T. C. Dhongthog’s recent The New Light English-Tibetan Dictionary the English word ‘spirit’ is translated by sems. (G.T.) ‘Spirit’ in English however (unlike Geist, and esprit and spirito, used in the French and Italian translations) nowadays refers almost exclusively to the transcendent and external, and I have generally felt it less confusing to use ‘mind’ and ‘mental’. Wherever possible, however, the Tibetan form itself is used. (G.B.S.) viii PREFACE experiences and a critical review which I had recently carried out of the literature, both that which was known and which was previously unfamiliar to me. The reader will find many of these texts in the bibliography at the end of the work, which however makes no claim to be comprehensive. I have only included those works which have become familiar to me through constant usage. In the text references are given only where it has appeared necessary to indicate the sources and explanatory material concerned. Considering that my intention was to give in this work an overview of the Tibetan religious world, such indications had to be kept to a minimum, in other words primarily to isolated facts and references to sources. Taken all in all my presen­ tation may serve as a summary of past researches, and at the same time as an anticipation of future, more conclusive studies; it is in short an attempt at a bringing to account of the results of an involvement with Tibetan Buddhism which has lasted many years. What is said above will scarcely seem surprising if it is remembered that we have not yet succeeded in completing a comprehensive and convincing account of the Indian world of thought, and particularly of the religious conceptions of India, although today the sources are more easily accessible than in the past, and for many years now accounts of the individual philosophical and religious schools have constantly been appearing. I myself have attempted such a synthesis in my Storia della filosofía indiana (Bari, 1957), although I did it more with the aim of clarifying my own ideas in this field than to present those of others. In my work I have been greatly aided by the counsel, always freely given, of Geshe (Lha ram pa) Jampel Sanghie, a scholar initiated into all the doctrinal problems and details of the reformed school of Tsong kha pa and of its ofFshoots, and also by the assistance of Professor Namkhai Norbu, formerly a sprul sku of Gonchen monastery, who is closely familiar with all the philosophical doctrines of the rNying ma pa school, and also served as a pre-eminent source of information on the folk traditions. Both these two Tibetan religious scholars have lived in Rome for ten years as collaborators of the Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente (IsMEO). Professor Norbu teaches Tibetan language at the Istituto Universitario Oriental in Naples. He is also responsible for the drawings which accompany the book, which were prepared in a form suitable for publication by Mr Fiorentini of IsMEO. I am deeply indebted to both gentlemen for this valuable co-operation. I owe much gratitude also to Dr Giovanna Vallauri Galluppi of Rome, who during my absence of a year (in connection with the archaeological excavations entrusted to me in the Orient) maintained contact with Dr C. M. Schroder, assisted me with valuable advice, IX PREFACE and also helped untiringly with the correction of the proofs. This English vefsion includes certain modifications and additions made in the Italian translation. These include two summaries which clarify the meditative stages of the two processes which are open to the neophyte; (a) the gradual method of the Prajnaparamita, as system­ atized by Nagarjuna and his followers, and presented in the Abhisamayalamkara; and (b) the method of the Tantra (rgyud) which naturally starts off from the previous method, which forms an indispensable preliminary training, but is more corfiplex, in particular in that it proposes experiencing in this very life the concatenation of the three phases of the path {lam) of salvation: (i) the initial phase, (ii) the path itself, (iii) the phase of the result or effect. The English translation, as the most recent, has the advantage of some further additions or reconsiderations which I think should facilitate the reading of a book which is certainly not easy. Since Dr Samuel is a Tibetanist himself his work in several places has been not merely that of a translator but also of a knowledgeable advisor. Thus the arrangement of chapters and of some appendices has been altered from that in the other editions at his suggestion, with the intention of making the flow of the argument easier to follow. I am particularly grateful for his many suggestions and for the careful corrections of some errors which had escaped me, the worst corrector of proofs. Thus this English edition has the advantage of being the most readable. Naturally I am already thinking of adding some further chapters and of changing some sections if further editions are made; I certainly do not have the presumption to believe tharthe first version of a work can be perfect, but it may get there if it is chiselled and filed with revisions and modesty. In short I have no great dislike for being my own zhu chen, especially if in the course of the years I can avail myself of the good advice of a kalyanamiira. During the preparation of the book I was continually aware of a difficulty which I was not in a position to deal with consistently; in describing Tibetan religion I sometimes use the present tense, some­ times the past. This inconsistency of verbal forms is brought about by the singular situation in which Tibet is placed today; it is hardly necessary to say that Tibet is today no longer the same country, from an economic, social and religious point of view, as before becoming an ‘autonomous region5 of the Chinese People’s Republic. Many things have been radically changed. Along with the conditions of life in general, religion too has undergone a violent upheaval. The lamas, like all the other Tibetans who fled to India and other countries, have been able to preserve their beliefs, but their new environment is not like that in which almost their entire previous existence took place. They have been forced to put down new roots in a completely different