The Epic of Gesar of Ling

by Robin Kornman

  30. Here Avalokiteśvara begins to argue that his case is important enough to merit being brought before Lotus Skull Garland. This line is missing from later editions of the Tibetan.

  31. Literally, the Tibetan here (tshugs la zad) translates as “no more stations,” but the real meaning is that the continents come to an edge.

  32. A common village expression, as if to say, “If this is so important to you, go to China and come back in a day.”

  33. “The transcendent dharma” (Tib. chos pha rol phyin) is the dharma of pāramitas, or in other words, the mahāyāna—the path of the six perfections: generosity, patience, discipline, exertion, concentration, and wisdom. This supplication introduces a verse sermon on the mahāyāna path of compassion, sung by the patron saint of mahāyāna himself.

  34. The magical child continues to play on the same untranslatable pun. The word for benefit is don (pronounced dön), a translation for the Sanskrit term artha, which means “wealth” and “meaning” and “ultimate,” as well as “benefit.” It also means a reason for undertaking an action, and it means a cause such as in a litigation or court case. Therefore the speech in which the demon minister asked the magical boy what was his cause for coming to the island of the demons was full of different uses of the word don. Now the boy uses it to mean “benefit” as in the classical Buddhist formula, “the benefit of others.”

  35. In other words, this means “the wealthy, those who bear the burden of material possessions.” A wealthy person may be so attached to his possessions that he is separated from others and finds himself alone.

  36. Literally the Tibetan translated as “is just asking to bind himself up with his lucky mouth.” This refers to a poor person who out of pride and boasting may turn away from help.

  37. “Thus he requested and the demon minister answered, ‘Hey, you!’” The cosmic encounter between an ironic Avalokiteśvara and a blustering demon functionary continues with the demon’s grotesque speech on the terrors of the court of Padmasambhava. The minister’s speech is thick with colloquialism and clever folksy puzzles. He is minister to a cannibal demon king who rules over a continent of these man-eating monsters. But somewhere along the line Master Lotus, Padmasambhava, has secretly replaced the demon king, assuming his form. That is why he is called Lotus Skull Garland because he is secretly Lotus, but wears a garland of skulls and other accoutrements of a cannibal demon. The demon minister’s language would be absurd and incongruous in any other situation. But we must remember that this man-eating demon does not realize that a buddha in wrathful aspect has taken over the government of his country. He still believes that the ancient lineage of demon kings rules, for Padmasambhava appears in his Lotus Skull Garland form, which is indeed the shape of a rākṣasa or cannibal demon.

  38. Rāhu (Tib. gza’ rgod) is a planet with a body like a thread. It is nearly invisible, but periodically it eats the sun, causing an eclipse. It also has an influence on the earth. There is an expression, gza’ rgod kha rlang dug gi spu gri, that means “the razor-sharpness of the poisonous breath of Rāhu.” When it passes overhead, sometimes its breath strikes an individual who suddenly falls under its terrestrial influence. The person cut down by Rāhu’s breath falls to earth in an epileptic fit. It is considered quite dangerous. Even on auspicious days, such as Padmasambhava’s feast day, you might see a person suddenly have an epileptic attack. Tibetans would say that “Rāhu struck him down.” Or they would say that “he was cut down by the razor-sharp poisonous breath of Rāhu.”

  As a metaphor it means that the force of these demon kings’ charisma is so powerful that one responds to their commands in a split second, as if struck down by the poisonous breath of Rāhu. This is one of numerous metaphors used for the personal power of a king. Sometimes his command is likened to the sting of a scorpion: “If he gives the command, you will surely obey, even as the sting of a scorpion will surely bring death.”

  39. The truth is that some time ago the great Buddhist tantric yogin Padmasambhava took over this island of demons masquerading as its rākṣa chieftain. The interior minister does not realize that his king has become more open-minded because he is no longer a flesheating monster.

  40. The Tibetan rtswa bsre zhing bsre means “to mix roots and sticks,” signifying that the rules of the government and the code of ethics of the monastic institutions must not be mingled or confused.

  41. Presentation offerings (Tib. phyag rten) are offerings given to an important personage at the moment of greeting. There is an art to greeting an official or high lama; the language of greeting should be elaborate, high-flown, and poetic. Scarves and bundles of smoking incense sticks are presented along with ornamental foods and precious objects. In this case, Avalokiteśvara’s offerings amount to the thirty symbolic gifts as a list of the main practices of the mahāyāna and vajrayāna paths. Repeating the six-syllable mantra OṂ MAṆI PADME HŪṂ again and again is the most widespread religious practice in Tibetan popular religion, especially among the laity who not only repeats it, but spins wheels upon which it is engraved. It literally means “OṂ the Jewel in the Lotus HŪṂ.” Books are devoted to explaining multiple levels of meaning to this cryptic expression. The six perfections are the heart of mahāyāna practice. They are virtues such as generosity and discipline, which promote the deep and profoundly contemplative life of the bodhisattva, whose life is devoted to the vow of compassion. The Maṇi mantra is not taught or learned but rather is culturally ingrained into Tibetans even as children. Avalokiteśvara is the chosen deity of Tibet, and Tibet is his field to tame.

  The last eighteen offerings are nothing more than the sense perceptions and their objects, the ordinary world of form and the ordinary consciousnesses that connect the sense organs with their objects of color, sound, and so forth. In tantra these ordinary things, which are the basis of the saṃsāric confused mind, are transmuted into sacred manifestations of wisdom energy. The idea is that this is a daring offering, as if the bodhisattva were saying to Padmasambhava, “What more precious thing could I offer you than the ordinary phenomenal world, which is a heavenly buddha field when seen by an enlightened mind?”

  42. A dzomo is the female of a cross between a yak and a domestic cow. Raising such fancy hybrid milk cows is not the bandit’s way, but a professional bandit would not hesitate to steal one. Although the dzomo may be valued for its milk, a bandit, apt always to be fleeing from the authorities, would not stay put long enough to care about such luxuries and would simply roast up the dzomo for a meal.

  43. When pilgrims visited Tsari, they would cut a piece of the abundant bamboo to use as a walking stick or to fashion as a frame for a homemade backpack.

  44. “Free and well-favored” (Tib. dal ’byor) is a fixed expression from a standard Tibetan contemplation on the advantages of being born as a human being. It means we should practice the dharma strenuously right now, because it is difficult to be reborn as a human being, possessing the qualities of being free to practice Buddhism and well-favored in the physical circumstances that makes this possible. Thus the human body, which is free and well-favored, is a precious possession. The magical boy is making, as his offering, his own body with its sense organs, good karma, and consciousnesses. From his point of view it is a precious offering, because it is free and well-favored and capable of gaining enlightenment.

  45. “If you do not possess an analytical mind” refers to a distinction made in the scholastic tradition between two kinds of people, those who have developed the critical mind of prajñā, or analytical intelligence, and those who have not. These terms usually occur in philosophical texts, but sometimes, as above, in the simple expression, “If you possess analysis.” The idea here is that it is difficult to obtain rebirth in a human body. If you possess critical intelligence, that body can be used to gain worldly success and transworldly enlightenment. But if you do not possess analytical intelligence, then the body becomes involved in grasping and fixation, and you sink into the whirlpool of cyclic existe
nce.

  46. The original Tibetan of this passage—skyid sdug gnyis kyi yo ge red—is questionable: It could mean “the boundary between happiness and unhappiness.”

  47. “There on top of a wrathful seat of corpses”: In tantric iconography, tutelary deities (yidams) appear standing or sitting on special platforms that reflect the “mood” of the figure, mood here being a question of metaphysical posture toward the practitioner’s path to enlightenment. Moods are wrathful, peaceful, semiwrathful, and so on. A wrathful deity symbolizes the destruction of ego through decisive actions such as suddenly cutting thoughts. Such a deity stands on a “wrathful seat” formed by the corpses of evildoers. Contemplation of wrathful deities is supposed to cut through conditioned psychological patterns and deluded thoughts. The corpses represent the thoughts and conditioned patterns that contemplation on this meditational deity in a wrathful aspect has subdued.

  48. In Tibet, clouds coming from the south always bring rain, while clouds from the north bring snow, if anything. “Southern clouds” are therefore auspicious.

  49. Like tantric Buddhist mandalas, the city of Padmasambhava on Cāmara on the Copper-Colored Mountain is surrounded by an iron mountain wall. Actually, there are two encircling walls, and this is the inner one. So this is the second gate, the eastern gate in the inner encircling wall.

  50. In tantric visualization practices, the central deity sits on a special symbolic throne that represents that buddha’s mastery of the phenomenal world. The throne involves “seats” or cushions stacked one on top of another, with each seat representing a different metaphysical principle. Some thrones have at their base as a seat a huge lotus with hundreds or thousands of petals. This represents compassion and is a “peaceful” throne. The corpse seat placed on top of the lotus represents, among other things, the fact that the deity sitting on top of it has conquered ego fixation and is a wrathful seat.

  51. “When the golden rays of the royal parasol / Struck the peak of [Glorious Copper-Colored Mountain]” is a conventional poetic figure for the dawn. “Royal parasol” is a figure from classical Sanskrit poetry for the sun. In Tibet the sun’s light strikes the mountain peaks in the west before the globe of the rising sun is itself seen above the eastern horizon.

  52. Usually when a petitioner approaches a king, he gives a presentation scarf to the minister or servant, who then carries that scarf to the king as token of the request to enjoy his presence.

  53. The real point of the song here seems to be that the minister wants to help the magical boy, but cannot figure out how to, because he does not entirely understand the subtle points and poetic figures in his speech; the boy’s message is too subtle for the demon to interpret or transmit. He therefore thinks the best thing to do is to simply deliver the boy into Padmasambhava’s presence.

  54. These proverbs are a good example of one of the ways the epic teaches the Buddhist doctrine of “cause and effect.” An example of such a connection (rten ’brel; pronounced tendrel) would be a connection with a guru. For example, if you have devotion and so experience a genuine sense of connection (tendrel) with a guru, that is ultimately more valuable than material goods, not only because it will bring spiritual happiness, but because it will contribute to one’s long-term success and good luck, for tendrels are luck-bringing connections.

  55. This, of course, is a version of the mantra of Avalokiteśvara. It ends with āḥ, the seed syllable of emptiness or of speech. It seems that each time in the epic the bodhisattva of compassion’s mantra appears, it has another seed syllable tacked on to the end. Of course, Padmasambhava and Avalokiteśvara are omniscient and know everything that is going on in their reciprocal masquerade. The demon minister—demons being as dense as they are wise—fails to recognize the mantra of compassion, which is a quintessential form of the bodhisattva himself. This is just the kind of mistake a demon, by nature unacquainted with virtuous dharmas, would make.

  56. The Tibetan appears as bsam blo skor brdzogs bcu gnyis / blo rtse nyi zhu rtsa lnga btang. A blo skor, a “mind circle,” is apparently an attempt to figure something out. A blo rtse, a “mind point,” seems to be a stratagem. The two lines together, however, mean to think a lot and try to figure something out.

  57. One interpretation of this line is that the demon is trying to build his own confidence by saying, “Why should I worry, since the mind is by nature empty. Perhaps I should just relax.”

  58. “Like relic pills from the grave of a pig”: When an enlightened or highly realized being dies, after their cremation, in their ashes, can sometimes be found small, circular or oblong pearl-shaped pills. These ring bsrel, or “relic pills,” are considered to be a sign that the person has reached the ground of liberation and has left behind this sign for the faithful to honor and hold as a support for their prayers and devotion.

  Of course, the grave of a pig would not produce spontaneous relic material. But if it were to, there would still be no point in collecting the relic pills of a pig, for no blessings could come from such an unenlightened creature. So, “relic pills of a pig” suggests a pointless inefficacious substance.

  59. Classical analogy for a person who has not had a certain meditation experience trying to understand the words of one with that experience.

  60. “Auspicious connection” (translating once again the Tibetan term rten ’brel) here refers to the visionary experiences and experiences of sudden insight that a meditation practitioner has when his or her practice is successful. “Accumulating merit” in this case means doing religious practices. Every disciple waits, in theory, for the marks of advancement toward enlightenment that occur from time to time. If such signs do not occur, it may be an indication that the practice instructions are not being carried out correctly, and one might seek fresh instruction or counsel.

  61. A magician’s basis for transformation” (Tib. sprul gzhi) refers to a certain kind of traditional Asian illusionist who uses mantras to fool people into believing that an ordinary object is something extraordinary. The mantras exercise their power over the eyes of the spectators. There is a story that once, for example, a rdzu ’phrul, an illusionist (or literally, “a wonderworker”), used the power of his mantras to make an entire audience think that a shoe was the Potala Palace. The shoe was the basis (gzhi) for the illusion or transformation (the sprul pa). He attached a rope to it and made people think he was pulling the Potala into a lake. One man, however, arrived late and, since the mantra had not been pronounced when he was there, his eyes were unclouded. He saw the sprul gzhi, the basis for transformation, as it truly was. He saw, in other words, an illusionist pulling a shoe into the lake with a rope.

  62. This proverb in Tibetan is gangs dkar sems la ’thud lugs / khra chung mig la mdzes lugs. In other words, “it’s a matter of taste” or “it’s a matter of previous karma.” For example, if a boy and girl fall in love despite the wishes of their parents, the parents may think that this is a bad match. But another relative might correct them with this proverb, as if to say, “No matter what you think, no matter how unsuitable the match seems to you, they are beautiful to each other. It’s a matter of how the mind sees things.”

  63. Like many oral epics, much of the story is known through folktales and village lore but is not literally part of the text of any given volume of the epic. Here Avalokiteśvara gives us more of the background of the epic, a summary of the background story not actually told in this edition. In theory, other versions of the epic or folktales about Gesar would describe how certain tantric Buddhist disciples turned against their gurus when they were criticized in the course of their training. In frustration at their gurus’ disciplining of them, they turned against the dharma itself and swore to use their power to defeat the religion. Although they had turned to evil, because of their previously accumulated good merit and their special tantric powers, in the next lifetime they were reborn as powerful and wealthy demon kings, the sworn enemies of Ling and the buddhadharma.

  64. The song that follows is an in
vocation designed to call forth a deity who will become Gesar of Ling. The deity is an emanation of Avalokiteśvara, who himself is an emanation of the Buddha of the Lotus Family, Amitābha. When the mind-stream is evoked from the breast of Padmasambhava, it will arise as the mind of Thöpa Gawa, the deity who will later be born in the human realm as Gesar. Strictly speaking, this continuity is simply one transformation after another of Avalokiteśvara, each dissolving into the next in the characteristic style of tantric visualization practices.

  The calling forth (Tib. bskul ba) is an important aspect of the technology of tantric ritual. The idea is that by singing this song Avalokiteśvara can provoke, excite, stimulate, and arouse Lotus Skull Garland to action, arousing him to generate Thöpa Gawa/Gesar. Thus we have a complex series of emanations. First Amitābha confers authorization on his bodhisattva emanation, Avalokiteśvara. Avalokiteśvara transforms himself into a magical demon-child. The demon-child becomes a lotus, the symbol of compassion and the mahāyāna. The lotus becomes rays of light, which dissolve into the heart center of Padmasambhava. Now, Avalokiteśvara, even though he has evolved into rays of light, still exists in an absolute sense outside of this series of transformations. Thus his voice can sing the following invocation, which comes from the absolute wisdom mind (Tib. dgongs rgyud) beyond time and space and asks Padmasambhava to call forth from the absolute mind stream of Thöpa Gawa. See glossary: mind stream.

  65. “Oath-breaking demons” (Tib. dam sri; pronounced damsi): Damsi are a particular type of demon that has violated tantric vows. They figure extensively in the Tibetan Buddhist oral literature. And they seem to function roughly in the same way demons do in Christian heroic narratives. That is to say, damsi are not simply another style of demon in the cosmology. They are the demons who play the role of villain in Tibetan Buddhist narratives. As far as their role in plot construction is concerned, the damsi remind one of the fallen angels in Paradise Lost. They are the nine greater enemies of the four cardinal points and the other demons of the intermediate points; some are ministers, rather than kings. See glossary: damsi.