Robert Mayer's analysis of Guru Chowang's enduring connection between territorial deity cosmologies and the preservation of hidden teachings in Tibetan Buddhism Academic scholars are accustomed to understanding gter as sacred texts often associated with Padmasambhava, within a cult deriving historically from ancient imperial burials. Yet the great 13th-century Padmasambhava devotee Guru Chowang primarily understood gter, by definition, within a mundane framework, barely mentioning Padmasambhava at first, and with not a word about ancient tombs. Even more striking about Chowang’s understandings of gter are their widespread and continuing persistence, as suggested by recent ethnographies of Tibet’s territorial deity cosmologies. For rather than place ancient tombs at the centre of his analysis, Chowang looked to popular terrestrial deity cosmologies to provide a vehicle for Padmasambhava’s hidden teachings. This graft of Indian Buddhist notions of transcendent, spiritual, transmission onto mundane Tibetan territorial deity cosmologies still thrives to this day. Indeed, Tibetan scholars understood Indian Buddhism previously to have made a similar use of India’s nāga and yakṣa territorial deity cosmologies for the concealment and rediscovery of Buddhist teachings.
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Robert Mayer's analysis of Guru Chowang's enduring connection between territorial deity cosmologies and the preservation of hidden teachings in Tibetan Buddhism Academic scholars are accustomed to understanding gter as sacred texts often associated with Padmasambhava, within a cult deriving historically from ancient imperial burials. Yet the great 13th-century Padmasambhava devotee Guru Chowang primarily understood gter, by definition, within a mundane framework, barely mentioning Padmasambhava at first, and with not a word about ancient tombs. Even more striking about Chowang’s understandings of gter are their widespread and continuing persistence, as suggested by recent ethnographies of Tibet’s territorial deity cosmologies. For rather than place ancient tombs at the centre of his analysis, Chowang looked to popular terrestrial deity cosmologies to provide a vehicle for Padmasambhava’s hidden teachings. This graft of Indian Buddhist notions of transcendent, spiritual, transmission onto mundane Tibetan territorial deity cosmologies still thrives to this day. Indeed, Tibetan scholars understood Indian Buddhism previously to have made a similar use of India’s nāga and yakṣa territorial deity cosmologies for the concealment and rediscovery of Buddhist teachings.
Sūtra in Early Buddhist Treasure Texts (Oxford Treasure Seminar Series)
Tibetan Graduate Studies Seminar
50 minutes
2 years ago
Sūtra in Early Buddhist Treasure Texts (Oxford Treasure Seminar Series)
Reinier Langelaar’s talk on early Tibetan treasure literature’s influences, inspirations, and narrative themes Early Tibetan treasure literature was pivotal in the development of a distinctly Buddhist vision of Tibetan history. In formulating such narratives, two influential early works, the Ma-ṇi-bka’-‘bum and the Bka’-chems-ka-khol-ma, appear to have relied quite heavily on inspiration from Buddhist scriptures, as they refer to, and sometimes explicitly cite from, a raft of sūtra, dhāraṇī, and tantra. These sources include a somewhat enigmatic set of 21 scriptures that were taught to the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara.
This talk will explore to what degree Buddhist scripture in fact informed the composition of these two authoritative treasure texts. Were references and citations from Buddhist scripture chiefly window dressing, or did they provide genuine inspiration for the narratives formulated in these works? What narrative themes were adopted from Buddhist scripture? Did some sūtras play a particularly large role? By delving into such questions, this talk opens a window on the gestation of early Buddhist treasure texts, as well as the role that the Buddha’s Word (buddhavacana) played in Tibetan Buddhism during the phyi dar period.
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Tibetan Graduate Studies Seminar
Robert Mayer's analysis of Guru Chowang's enduring connection between territorial deity cosmologies and the preservation of hidden teachings in Tibetan Buddhism Academic scholars are accustomed to understanding gter as sacred texts often associated with Padmasambhava, within a cult deriving historically from ancient imperial burials. Yet the great 13th-century Padmasambhava devotee Guru Chowang primarily understood gter, by definition, within a mundane framework, barely mentioning Padmasambhava at first, and with not a word about ancient tombs. Even more striking about Chowang’s understandings of gter are their widespread and continuing persistence, as suggested by recent ethnographies of Tibet’s territorial deity cosmologies. For rather than place ancient tombs at the centre of his analysis, Chowang looked to popular terrestrial deity cosmologies to provide a vehicle for Padmasambhava’s hidden teachings. This graft of Indian Buddhist notions of transcendent, spiritual, transmission onto mundane Tibetan territorial deity cosmologies still thrives to this day. Indeed, Tibetan scholars understood Indian Buddhism previously to have made a similar use of India’s nāga and yakṣa territorial deity cosmologies for the concealment and rediscovery of Buddhist teachings.
