Nyang Ral und seine Kodifizierung der rNying ma-Literatur und -Rituale. Eine Untersuchung tibetischer Originalquellen zur Formationsphase des tibetischen Buddhismus (10.-12. Jh.).
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
The present project has enabled a thorough appreciation of Myang ral Nyi ma ’od zer’s (AKA Nyang ral, 1124–1192) significant contributions to Tibetan ritual literature. By focusing on the Vajrakīlaya section from within Myang ral’s voluminous tantric cycle on the Kagye Deshek Dupa (bKa’ brgyad bde gshegs 'dus pa or Eightfold Buddha Word, Embodying the Sugatas; henceforth KD), the project provides detailed philological studies of key texts within this collection, and thus opens the door to this corpus of literature which, though utterly seminal for the codification of the Nyingma (rNying ma) tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, has so far been unstudied by Tibetologists. One of the core texts of the cycle is the Phurpa Root Tantra, and the in-depth thematic and philological study of this text has not only illuminated the relationship patterns that exist among the various editions of the text, but also provided evidence of stylistic and content-related continuity between this revelation by a known individual (i.e. Myang ral) and other anonymously produced scriptures of the Ancient Tantra Collection. This is significant since it would support the view that the only way to properly understand the phenomenon of Tibetan treasure (gter ma) discovery – of which Myang ral is the first proponent in the emerging Nyingma tradition – is not to treat it as an isolated phenomenon, but instead to look at it within the broader context of tantric revelation in India and Tibet. Furthermore, the project has also been able to demonstrate in some detail the ways in which Myang ral reused existing textual material in some of his revelations forming the KD corpus. One of the texts studied, the Action Phurpa (’phrin las phur pa), incorporates a ritual manual which is virtually identical to an archaeologically recovered manuscript from Dunhuang (IOL Tib.J 331.iii) dating from no later than the 11th century. An unexpected finding was that the whole text in which it is embedded also seems to pre-date Myang ral. The substantial instructional and commentarial materials in this text help also to shed light on the early Dunhuang manuscript from the formative period of tantric Buddhism in Tibet. Considering Myang ral’s presentation of the text as part of his revelation raises some fundamental issues regarding the boundaries and relationships existing between authorship, compilation, revelation and transmission of sacred literature. By exploring the continuities between Tibetan modes of treasure (gter ma) discovery and earlier patterns of tantric revelation in Tibet and India, and by looking at these issues within a broad, comparative framework that makes use of cultural anthropology, particularly with regard to treasure burial and the cult of local deities, the project proposes a multi-layered and nuanced understanding of tantric revelation in Tibet. Such an approach may prove useful not only to Tibetologists working on the Tibetan treasure tradition, but also to scholars in the fields of Religious Studies and of Anthropology.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
- “Rethinking Treasure (Part One).” In Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines 52 (2019): 119–184
Robert Mayer
