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.
Towards a textual discourse analysis of Longchenpa’s writings on Buddha nature
Tibetan Graduate Studies Seminar
54 minutes
2 years ago
Towards a textual discourse analysis of Longchenpa’s writings on Buddha nature
Gregory Forgues presents his research on Longchenpa's writings on Buddha nature This presentation offers a new perspective on the discourse of Longchenpa (Klong chen rab ’byams pa dri med ’od zer 1308–1363) regarding the central doctrinal concept of bde gshegs snying po (*sugatagarbha), a synonym for de gshegs snying po (tathāgatagarbha). Longchenpa lived in a time period during which leading figures belonging to distinct Tibetan Buddhist traditions produced systematic presentations of the Buddhist doctrines they inherited from India. Some of these doctrines could have been interpreted as contradictory in the absence of any hermeneutical project aiming at presenting them in a coherent way. The work of Longchenpa is in this way characteristic of this time period. It takes the form of a grand synthesis from the lowest vehicles up to the pinnacle of the path, the teaching of rDzogs chen.
In this presentation, I will share the findings of my investigation of Longchenpa’s entire sub-corpus of texts in which the term bde gshegs snying po and its synonyms are found. This task has not yet been completed in a systematic way, although it is an important preliminary step to (1) better understand Longchenpa’s discourse on Buddha nature and (2) to assess any potential evolution of his position in the course of time.
Recent developments in the Digital Humanities have given rise to a number of tools ranging from time-tested corpus-linguistic methods to innovative text mining algorithms. From a practical perspective, I will show how corpus linguistics, text analytics, and text mining tools can be used to produce a textual discourse analysis of Longchenpa’s writings on Buddha nature.
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.
