GREATER INDIA STUDIES No. 2 TRAVELS OF TIBETAN PILGRIMS IN THE SWAT VALLEY BY GIUSEPPE TUCCI PUBLISHED BY THE GREATER INDIA SOCIETY CALCUTTA GREATER INDIA STUDIES 0. ' TRAVELS OF TIBETAN PILGRIMS IN THE SWAT VALLEY BY GIUSEPPE TUCCI. lvl~mb(r of th~ Royal Aclttl(my of !tilly. PUBLISHED BY THE GREATER INDIA SOCIETY CALCUTTA. Thi~ book has been publidhed with the aid of n grant from the National Council of Education. Bengal Price Ri. 4/. or 8/ .. Shillings, inclusive of post8(e. Pri-;;t~fbYl. C. Sarkhdal tl7;Calcutta Orienl!!.1 Pret! Lim'""itd- 9, Panch an an Chole Lane. Calcuttn. e , CONTE. TS P"GE Part I. INl nODUC110N Pare 11. Tlt/l.N~L.o\rION OF THE ITlNFR:\RY OF QRGYAN PA Part III. TRAVELS OF STAG TS'j\:\ RAS P. . ), Part IV. ....PPENDIX-TIBETAN TEXTS TL"avels of Tibetan Pilgrims the 111 Swat Valley l'All'f I INTRODUCTION It is now accepted by all scholars that U<)diyana' must be located in the Swat Valley: in fact I think that the view of Illy friend Benoytosh Bhattacharyya' who still identifies Ud~liyana with the western part of Assam has but few supporters. BlIt it must be admitted that our knowledge of the countty in Buddhist times is very scanty; our only informants are in fact the Chillese pilgrims, but the des cription which they have left of the place is not very much delailed.' It was Idt to Sir Aurcl Stein to identify, in the course of his adventurous travels in the Swat Valley, the various places referred to by the Chinese pilgrims and to describe I S. I L\ I, Lt: c,'I.doglle tit'S Yak!a5 tiailS la iHttlJilmiiy;,ri, !ol/mal ASi'lllfjlIC. 1915. p. 19 IT. 2 HmldJJl.st /collogr.Jpby. p. x,,\:xli ami II" Ill/Tot/llelloll to BlltltlblSl CJ'ott'nsm, p. 45. nUL c/. llAGClI1 in Imlitm fil.Jtorical Quarter/y. Vol. VI, p. 580 II. 3 Fa hsicn, Rl'cords, Lt'ggc's tr:11l5, p. 28: Yuan Chw:lIlg. (Hiollcn. Th ... ;mg), l\lemOm!s (If/Iit'II), I, 13' IT., CIIAV,\NNES, Dommcuts StIr II'S TOil Kille ocatlenl(lf/X (I" 128). S/lIIg YIlII in ClIAVANNI:::S. I'oyf/ge til' Soug 1'1111 dflllS rUdy.illa ct Ie GIII/dbiir" (5'8.522 A. C), B,dlellll de {'Ecole PrilllpWi! de f'£Atr;me·Orimt. 1903. p. 379· G. TUCCI in , fascinating book' the remains which have escaped des truction. The systematical exploration of this region is likely to contribute greatly to our knowledge of Buddhism and Oriental history. In fact, modern researches point to the great importance of the Swat Valley; not only was it very near to the commercial routes linking India with Central Asia but it was considered' as the birthplace of many rites and practices later on absorbed into Mahayana. There are many Tantras which were commonly ackno,,' ledged as having been first revealed in Uddiyana. One of the most esoteric methods of Tantric realisations relating chieAy to the cycle of the cjakin i was even known as the Ud,liyanakrama; the connection of the country with magic is alluded to in some Tantric manuals which even to-day enjoy great popularity. It is therefore desirable to have some better and more detailed information about a country to which our research es point as one of the most active centres of radiation of Hindu esoterism. During my travels in western Tibet I was fortunate enough to find two texts which are a kind of itinerary of the Swat Valley. We easily understand why this place became so famolls as a kind of magic-land for many Tibetan pdgnms when we remember that it was considered to have been the birth-place of Padmasacnbhava. There are, In 4 On Alexander's track to /bc Indus, London, '9 9- 2 . 5. TUCCI, Some glosses "POII the GII/Jyasnmaj(1 in Me/tllJgrs CbmolS et lJOl/(ldbiqfleJ. III, p. 351 and llldo-Tibelica III, II, p. 79. TRAVELS OF TIBETAN PILGRIMS 3 fact, besides India proper, other countries which greatly inAuenced the mystic literature of Tibet; when the inter course with them became rare or came to an end for poli tical reasons, those countries were transformed into a fairy~ land of which the geographical and historical reality faded and decayed; one of them, is Sambhala and the other Orgyan, viz., U99iyana. The various mystic revelations connected with the two countries were respectively accepted by two different schools; Orgyan, tbe country of Padmasambhava, and the place of tbe fairies (Jakin;) became tbe holy land for the rNi.i Illa pa, and, later on for the bKa' rgyud pa (specially (or the sub-sects I)Brug pa and Kat" ma pa); Sambhala was, Ol! the other hand, changed into a paradisc for tbe ascetics initiated into the mysteries of Kalacakra still counting mony adepts chieAy among the dGe lugs pa, viz., the yellow sect. I think that Sambb.1a became popula.· in Tibet afrer Orgy.n; that is the reason why we cannot find about it as mucb information as we can gather as regards Orgyan; nor do I know of any historical itinerary of tbat country. This seems to point to the fact that the mystic significance of S.mbhaJa developed at a later time, when any real and direct connection with the country had come to an end and the Tibetans had only to rely upon tbe information to be gathered from tbe Vimalaprabh:; or from the earlier commentators of tbe Kalacakr. Tantra.' Even the infor- 6 No great weight can be attached fa a fragment published by LAUFER, ZM Bllddhistisc/Jell Litl'TtllfIr rler UigflTeIl. TOllIIg PlIO, 190r G. TUCCI 4 mation about tlie country of Sambhala which we gather from the commentary of mK 'as hgrub rje contains nothing but mythology. The only itinerary which has come down to us, viz., the "Slim &1", Iili lam yig'" by the famous third Pal' e'en bLa ma bLo bzal' dpal Idan ye 5es (1740-1780), as I have shown elsewhere, gives the impression of being nothing more than a literary compilation largely based upon mythic and fantastic traditions. From all these facts we can draw the conclusion that the yellow sect composed its guides to $ambhala, viz., to the Kalacakra-paradise which had, in the meantime, become a supreme ideal for most of its fol lowers, in order to possess the counterpart of the holy Orgyan of the rival schools. The country itself was no longer a geographical reality to be exactly located in some part of the world; it was somewhere in the north, but as to where, that was practically a mere hypothesis. On the other hand we know of many itineraries to .Orgyan. One is that of Buddhagupta;' it is not very late, p. 401, which seems lO have been influcllced hy the mythological clilllo s.raphy of Central A.5ian cOlllmies as prc~t:rved in lhe Chine~ campi!.l lions such as the Shall hai king. According to lhe Villlulaprabha Sambhala would bave been on the !hore of ehe Sila river, its chief pJ.lce bemg Kalapa. 7 Edited and translated hy GRUNWt.OEI, Drr WeI!. ,,,,ch StfmbbaJa, Sam bhll fat lam yig-AhhlHlf/. ncr Kowgl. IJaycmcben Ilk. au Wmct.scba!tCII, l\liinthcn, 19 5- 1 8 U h' . ~n IS travels sec TUCCI, Tlu sed IIlId lalld travels 0/ If Bllddbut sadhlf ill the sixteell//) celli Iffy. Indiall /-/islori"tl Quarterly. Vol. VII. p. 683. I avail myself of the opportunity which i~ here TRAVELS OF TIBET AN PILGRI~IS 5 but it shows that even as late as the XVlth century that part of Asia was still considered as a kind of holy place wotth visiting by the few Buddhist adepts still surviving in India, in spite of the dangers which they were likely to meet on account of the ,·isk of the journey itself and of the unfriendliness of the Muslims. According to Buddha gupta the country in his time was known under the name of Ghazni. But he usually mentions the country under itS tradi tional name, showing that Tibetan Orgyan is derived from U9diyana, "on account," he says, "of the similarity of sound between d and r." It must be mentioned in this con nection that in Tibetan we arc confronted with two forms of this name, some sources giving 'Orgyan' and some others 'Urgyan.' There is no doubt that both go back to a Sanskrit original: it is in fact known that in the Indian texts this country is called bod; Uddiyana and Odiyana. The lirst seems, anyhow, to be the right one. But there are two older itineraries to the same country and much morc detailed: the similarity between some passages of these textS containing the description of the place and the narrative of Buddhagupta leaves me little offered to me to correct ::I st;ltcmcllt cont.lined in the Iml'llll HIStorical Qllllrttriy. Vol. IX. p. ..'.35, I did not say in thal p:lpcr lhat Poulaka is to be searched (or in Madaga .. car. huc that according to the lr:ldllioll referred to by Buddhagupta, there was .1 timr.: ill India when POl.,1a was loc.1Ieel by sOllie schools in that islaml and I insisted upon the fact clue this locali~acion shifted from place to place ":lccording to beliefs of the various comOluniriC's anti the spreading of the geographical knowledge." G. TUCCI doubt that Taranati,a had one of them under his eyes when he wrote the account of the travels of his master. The twO itineraries here studied arc respectively that of Orgyan pa and that of sTag ts' all ras pa .. Orgyan pa Illeans in fact "the man of Org)'an" whtch tmpltes that his travels were so famous that he was given the name o( the miraculous country which he l13d been able to visit and whence he returned safe back to his fatherland. He was the most prominent disciple of a sit/till" or grub t'ob who still enjoys a great renown all over Tibet, I mean rGod ts'all pa. The study of Tibetan chronology is still at its very beginning and it is therefore very difficult ro fix the date of many Tibetan events; but fortunately some chronicles contain a short biography of Orgyan pa with certain chronological data which enable us to fix his age applOximately. The historical work I am referring to is the C' os bbylfn by Pad rna dkar po, one of the most famous poly graphs of Tibet and the greatest authority among the hBtug pa who call him 'Ilag dbatl,' the master of the speech .• The inclllSion of the biography of Orgyan pa in hIS chronicle depends on rhe fact that Orgyan pa belongs to rhe same sampradiiya, viz., to the same mystic school a, Pad ma dkar po, both being adepts of the hBrug pa sub- 9 n le full title being C'os bbYlf1l b.llim pili plU/mll rgydJ pa; iim bycd. The biography or Orgyan pa is at p. 181.