SUP-RAP-191/2010

With the theme of cultural diffusion in mind, I would like to briefly turn the clock forward to the reign of Khri Srong lde btsan (c. 742-797), where one finds a parallel diffusion narrative in which divination practices are introduced to Tibet from India by the tantric master Padmasambhava. As is well known, in the Pad ma bka'i thang (14th century), Padmasambhava is portrayed as traveling widely throughout Tibet, teaching, performing miracles, and concealing a number of manuscripts, which emerge in later generations as important gter ma discoveries. However, aside from PT 44, a late-dynastic period text, the earliest account of the saint's journey to Tibet is the sBa/dBa' bzhed, which exists today in a plurality of different versions, the various witnesses of which date to periods between the 11th and 14th centuries (see: Stein 1961; Macdonald 1971: 283, 288-289, 370-371;

Martin 1997; van der Kuijp 1984; Seyfort Ruegg 1989; Denwood 1990: 135-148; Sørensen 1994;

and Wangdu and Diemberger 2000).¹⁶ In this corpus, Padmasambhava's role is considerably more modest than one sees in the saint's later hagiographical tradition, being limited to the domain of exorcism and the performance of water-related miracles (cf. Sørensen 1994: 4). Though Padmasambhava's mastery of divination is peripheral to the sBa/dba' bzhed's central narrative, divination practices are represented as playing an important role in taming indigenous deities hostile to the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet.

As related in the earliest extant version of the sBa/dBa' bzhed (cf. Wangdu and Diemberger 2000), shortly after the monk Śāntarakṣita's arrival in Tibet, a series of calamities occur, all of which coincide with Khri Srong lde btsan's conversion to Buddhism (sBa bzhed fol 8a5-7). "The 'Phang thang [palace] was flooded, the royal castle of lHa sa was struck by lightning and burnt down, great famine as well as epidemics of people and animals occurred" (Wangdu and Diemberger

16 The three best known of which are, perhaps, the following: (1) The sBa bzhed zhabs brtags ma, or 'The

Supplemented Testament of sBa' (mid-14th century), which is published in facimilie by Stein in 1961 and then re-issued in Dharamsala in 1968; (2) the sBa bzhed, a composit of three witnesses edited by Gonpo Gyaltsen (the earliest of which is dated by Sørensen [1994: 634] to the 12th century), published in Beijing in 1980; and (3) the dBa' bzhe (distinguished by the 'd' prefix), a recently discovered manuscript, published by Wangdu and Diemberger in 2000, which the authors date to the 11th century.

2000: 54). According to the manuscript, the king's ministers (zhang blon) ascribe these catastrophes to indigenous, non-Buddhist deities, who have been angered by Khri Srong lde btsan's patronage of the foreign religion. As a consequence, the king is forced to ask Śāntarakṣita to return to India in order to await a more auspicious time in which to propagate Buddhism in Tibet (sBa bzhed 8b1-6).

After some time, however, the king is able to convince the minsters to accept Buddhist teachings.

Śāntarakṣita is then invited back to Tibet, this time together with both Padmasambhava and a Nepalese architect-geomancer, who plays an important role in the construction of bSam yas Monastery (consecrated 779). In the narrative, Padmasambhava's primary role is the subjugation of indigenous deities who, once tamed and bound by oath, are given instruction on a variety of Buddhist doctrines. During the prelude to the construction of bSam yas Monastery, divination is depicted as one of the central means by which this is accomplished. For instance, shortly after Padmasambhava's arrival in Tibet, we find the following episode:

That day the mKhan po (Padmasambhava) performed a mirror divination to gZims mal ba nang chen Seng mgo lHa lung 'tsho bzher gnyan legs and pronounced the names of all the gods and nāga which had caused the flood of 'Phang thang, the fire of the lHa sa castle, the epidemics among the people and cattle and the famines. Then calling the names and the clans of all the wicked [gods and nāga], these were summoned to the presence [of Padmasambhava]. They were transformed into human beings and severely threatened by Padmasambhava. With the help of a translator Ā tsā rya Bo dhi sa twa taught them in the Tibetan the doctrine of cause and effect and made the truth evident. Afterwards mKhan po Padmasambhava told [the king]: 'Henceforth, praise the holy doctrine as you like in the country of Tibet! The gods and nāga have been bound by oath but such a ritual for giving orders to the gods and nāga and binding them by oath must be performed twice more

(Wangdu and Diemberger 2000: 55-56).¹⁷

Here, divination practices once again emerge at the vanguard of the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet; however, in this case, the passage depicts the diffusion of Indian Buddhist traditions rather than those introduced from China. Though the performance of divination in Padmasambhava's vita remains largely unstudied, when the above episode is read against the narrative of Chinese diffusion, a number of similarities come to the fore. In particular, Padmasambhava's usage of divination bears much in common with the manner in which geomantic techniques are employed by the Chinese princess Kong Jo in the subjugation of the Supine Demoness. In both cases, highly specialized divinatory techniques are brought to Tibet from neighbouring regions and, upon their arrival, are used to either subjugate or convert a variety of indigenous forces hostile to the proliferation of Buddhism. In doing so, divination practices also serve to consolidate imperial authority. As seen above, Srong bstan sgam po is represented as relying heavily upon geomantic calculations in establishing a complex network of Buddhist temples. Similarly, in the sBa bzhed, Padmasambhava's performance of mirror divination plays an essential role in clearing away the obstacles impeding Khri Srong lde btsan's construction of bSam yas Monastery. In each case, the performance of divination is the point d'appui for a state-sponsored ritual process, the goal of which is the pacification of indigenous deities so as to make Tibet amenable to the proliferation of Buddhism from India and China.

Speaking of Tibetan Buddhist historiography, it is perhaps not surprising to find that narratives of cultural diffusion figure so prominently in representations of Tibetan divination. It is commonplace that histories are often written to respond to a particular need to validate existing

17 Though I have endeavoured to provide my own translations of the majority of the Tibetan language materials presented in my thesis, the poor quality of the scans of the manuscript at my disposal combined with the problems posed by the script make it extremely difficult to offer a constructive reproduction of this passage. As such, I am referring the reader to Wangdu and Diemberger's excellent translation of the sBa bzhed (Wangdu and Diemberger 2000).

authoritative figures and institutions. Authors often strive to embed ideology in history and, as Spiegel writes, "thereby endow that ideology with the prestige and imprescriptible character that the past [is] able to confer [upon a later] society" (1997: 2). Vance (1973) argues that even the most putatively objective literary work—which is to say, one that aims to reproduce the world 'as it is'—

will inevitably deploy certain ideologies that "must prevail in the minds of both artist and audience if the system of communication is to remain intact" (1973: 557; cf. Spiegel 1997: 5-6). With regard to Tibetan literary milieus, similar points are raised by Michael Aris in his introduction to Dan Martin's Tibetan Histories, published in 1997. Aris contends that many post-imperial histories, including the sBa/dBa' bzhed and the Ma ṇi bka' bum, "were written from an exclusively Buddhist viewpoint to celebrate the past glories of clans and principalities, religious schools, cults and monasteries and the Tibetan state itself. The histories met, and continue to meet," he writes, "the urgent need for legitimising present conditions or aspirations through vigorous assertions of authority" (Martin 1997: 9; cf. Wangdu and Diemberger 2000: 5). In this sense, the mytho-historical origins of Tibetan divination, as represented in the Tibetan Buddhist literary record, can be seen as part of the larger quasi-historical 'civilizing' narrative in which Buddhist traditions are introduced to Tibet from its neighbouring regions. However, it should be emphasized that Tibetan Buddhism has never been a static reproduction of Indian (or, for that matter, any other form of) Buddhism. As Kapstein writes, "Buddhism in Tibet developed through a sustained and subtle process, whereby the foreign religion achieved a decisive cultural hegemony but was at the same time, as conquerors always are, transformed by its own success" (2000: 15).