The Epic of Gesar of Ling

by Robin Kornman

  66. Southern Throne [Lhotri] Tiger Eye (Tib. lho khri stag mig) is actually a place name, as if this were “Tiger Eye from Lhotri.” Sadam [Sa Dam] is also a place name. White Tent [Gurkar] The’u rang Cub (Tib. gur dkar the’u rang bu) is called “the child of the the’u rang.” This implies that he is a gambler because the one-legged the’u rang demons are the patron deities of gamblers, who supplicate them in order to win at cards or dice. This is actually how new the’u rang are made. If the gamblers depend on them too much, in their next lifetimes they become “servants of the the’u rang” and have the form of these creatures themselves—a terrible price to pay for good luck in gambling. Since they have but one leg, they travel riding tornados as their mounts. Children are sometimes told to avoid cyclones when they see them in the distance, because these are the mounts of the’u rang, who are coming to steal the children.

  67. Here begin the demons of the intermediate directions. Turquoise Peak (Tib. g.yu rtse) is actually the name of a mountain near the Kokonor region, which is considered in the north, insofar as epic geography is concerned. This region figures in the history of the Gologs. In principle it is a region that borders the tribal lands of the Kingdom of Ling, a land where many of the Gologs settled.

  68. Each of the major demons is subject of a complete volume of the epic. Beyond the main demons, one for each of the eight cardinal points, there are minor demons who receive sagas and chapters in the larger versions of the epic, depending upon their particular powers.

  69. Notice that at this point Avalokiteśvara directly addresses Thöpa Gawa, who still exists as a potentiality in the breast of Padmasambhava. This is the “calling forth” of Gesar from the wisdom mind of Padmasambhava. The universality of the principle that becomes Gesar is stressed here. He is called primordially pure (Tib. kun bzang), as in kun tu bzang po, that is, Samantabhadra [Always Excellent], the primordial buddha of the dharma body (dharmakāya) level in the Nyingma tradition. The three protectors (Tib. rigs gsum mgon po) are the three main bodhisattvas in mahāyāna and tantric iconography: Mañjuśrī, Vajrapāṇi, and Avalokiteśvara.

  70. “It falls upon you to invoke your samaya” means “the time has come to fulfill your sacred vow.” This is a standard expression in any Buddhist supplication, but within the context of the epic narrative it has a specific reference. In effect, Padmasambhava has already taken a sacred vow, a samaya, to produce a manifestation on the earthly plane, a transformation body (nirmāṇakāya), who will complete the taming of the demons threatening Tibet. This promise is implied in Padma’s original failure to complete the taming of the demons when he first arrived in Tibet. Since he did not bind them three times, he still is bound by his vow to see to their permanent enslavement. Thus there is a preexisting samaya within Padmasambhava, which Avalokiteśvara can “call forth” when he calls forth Gesar from within Padmasambhava.

  71. “In the limitless sky of your enlightened mind of bodhicitta”: This stanza shows one of the most frequently used extended figures in epic language. In the sky are stars, constellations, the sun, and the moon; each of these different kinds of lights, according to its nature, is a metaphor for a particular religious principle. When it speaks of the moon surrounded by the moving stars, the idea is that the moon is brighter when it is surrounded by all these other lights.

  72. The perfection of aspiration (Tib. smon lam pha rol phin; Skt. praṇidhānapāramitā) is the perfection practiced at the eighth level, or bhumi, of the bodhisattva path. It is a measure of Avalokiteśvara’s degree of enlightenment, for complete buddhahood is attained just after the bodhisattva passes beyond the tenth level.

  73. Here begins the section in which Padmasambhava initiates the process by which Thöpa Gawa is miraculously born (Tib. rdzus skyes) as a deity in heaven. Miraculous birth is a term for the way gods come into being. Just as humans and animals are born from wombs, eggs, and so forth, so gods are “miraculously born.” The entire process of emanating and gathering lights, sounds, and tantric symbols and hand implements that are depicted in this passage could be regarded as a technical description of the birth of a deity.

  The passage is quite remarkable for its detail. In this case, however, it is a very special deity—a deity who is not just a long-lived intelligent creature living in an immaterial realm, but a being who is a manifestation of ultimate truth and will become in his next incarnation an avatar of such. It is this evolution or devolution, if you will, from reality to appearance that is represented by the birth of Thöpa Gawa, the Buddhist equivalent of the “word becoming flesh.”

  74. This passage could actually be interpreted as saying that White Supreme Bliss Good Nature not only imagined himself as the horse-headed Buddha but that his appearance changed into that of Hayagrīva.

  75. “Passionless union” means that the union was not based on ordinary sexual desire. According to the tantric tradition, this is a union that symbolizes the indivisibility of the method of compassion and the wisdom of emptiness.

  76. “Space” is a coded way of referring to a woman’s genitalia. She and her consort are in yab yum, sexual union.

  77. In other words, that wisdom prajñā became the nirmāṇakāya of a buddha, the magical or emanation body, which is an interesting point. Usually it is said that the ultimate body of the Buddha is the dharma body, and his or her visionary body, which appears like a god wearing ornaments, is the enjoyment body (sambhogakāya), whereas the human body of a buddha, the physical form he assumed to walk the earth is the nirmāṇakāya. Here, however, the nirmāṇakāya is actually a godling (Tib. lha sras; Skt. devaputra).

  78. The passage just concluded follows the logic of many Buddhist tantric ceremonies. It shows how a buddha manifests as a nirmāṇakāya, a historical buddha, when prayers are made to draw forth from the formless void his incarnation.

  First the Great Compassionate One and Padmasambhava sing songs to “invoke and call forth the mind stream.” This means that although the buddha abides on a level of absolute enlightenment, beyond time and space, an invocation to his pure mind can draw him down into the realm of manifestation.

  All the thus-gone ones, all the buddhas who abide in the ten directions, when they were bodhisattvas had made vows help beings out of compassion. The two songs remind them of those vows and call them down through the power of those vows.

  Later at a tantric ritual feast, Padmasambhava sends out rays of light, which get the process of incarnation going. A green ray of light, symbolizing action, radiates from his head and strikes the ultimate buddha Samantabhadra. This evokes a blue vajra from that buddha, which flies to the Heaven of the Thirty-three and lands on the head of a local deity. It transforms him into the special demon-slaying tantric buddha, Hayagrīva, the horse-headed one.

  At the same time, presumably also in response to Padmasambhava’s catalyst, the female buddha of the element of space sends out a red lotus that enters the head of a female local goddess in Heaven. Just as a blue vajra turns a god into a male buddha, the red lotus turns a goddess into a female buddha, the Vajra Sow.

  Thus a buddha and his consort have used their power to bless two local deities and transform them into absolute principles. Those two manifest buddhas enter into union, not out of lust or desire but rather in order to bring together the absolute male and female principles. This act of divine coupling sets off a chain reaction throughout the universe. Innumerable male and female buddhas send out rays of light throughout the universe. These rays of light benefit countless beings invisibly and then gather into a double vajra, the symbol of all accomplishing activity. That double vajra enters the horse-headed buddha, then passes through his body and out his vajra into the lotus of the Vajra Sow. There it transforms into a nirmāṇakāya buddha, Thöpa Gawa. He is a godling, but later he will incarnate as Gesar.

  79. The song that follows, by Thöpa Gawa [Gesar], presents divine Ling’s first complete picture of the political theory of Mipham Rinpoche. Like many thinkers of the ecumenical school of Tibetan Buddhis
m, Mipham was fascinated by political theories that were, in effect, fresh ideas for Tibetan culture in the nineteenth century. Although fresh, they hearken back to theories of a golden age when the Tibetan Empire was founded in the time of Padmasambhava, and they evoke Indian notions of a hierarchical society.

  In this song we see the details of his theory of monarchy as the ideal political system. Society is constructed of classes or orders of humans. Sometimes Mipham presents five orders: rgyal po, or kings; blon po, or ministers; btsan po, or “mighty ones”; phyug po, the rich; and sde, the commoners, the people. Technically the blon are advisors to the king, but actually they are often powerful heads of clans, provincial leaders in their own right whose accord the king must attain for his major decisions to become actions. The dbang po are people who have power because of the possession of lands, wealth, and (principally) arms. According to Tendzin Samphel, one of the Tibetans who Robin Kornman worked with at the Sorbonne, they are considered to be people whose power rests on their use of force as much as on their political connections. The words btsan po and dbang po can in certain contexts be considered as equivalent, in which case “the mighty ones” are in effect the aristocracy. Their wishes also must be taken into account when the king makes important decisions. The phyug po are rich people. They are considered to have a special nature because of their wealth; their wealth is a sign that they possess an extraordinary accumulation of good karma from actions in previous lifetimes. Chapter 2 of the epic describes this ideal hierarchical order as it presents in detail the social strata of Ling.

  The song begins with a traditional sermon on the “Four Thoughts Which Turn the Mind.” This contemplation ordinarily is used to motivate the disciple to practice meditation with greater diligence. However, in this case, it is given a special twist and becomes the basis for a political message. The Four Thoughts aim to develop general motivation to tread the path to enlightenment.

  Here, on the other hand, the motivational force is directed toward the classes of society. If a king understands the force of karma, the certainty of death, and the difficulty of finding a precious human rebirth, then, understanding cause and effect, he will rule virtuously and wisely. The same pertains to the other classes of society; they will fulfill their duties properly if they have a correct perspective on karmic causality.

  The horrors of sickness, old age, and death, the last stages of the twelve niḍānas or causal links, are graphically described. Realizing the impermanence of ordinary human life and the certainty of suffering should motivate the proper detachment in the high, the middle, and the low orders of society. Detached from materialistic goals in that way, they will perform the duties of their station properly and will thus create an enlightened society.

  80. The usual three kāyas are the body, speech, and mind of the Buddha. The five-body (kāya) system includes qualities and action, along with body, speech, and mind. The five kāyas are the kāya of nature as it is, the kāya of truth, the kāya of complete abundance, the kāya of emanation, and the vajra kāya. The five wisdoms are the wisdom of the basic space of phenomena, mirrorlike wisdom, equanimity, discerning wisdom, and all-accomplishing wisdom.

  81. Continuing the traditional sermon on motivation, Gesar speaks of the obstacles to practice, which are twofold: neither being free (Tib. dal ba) nor well-favored (Tib.’byor pa). The “eight states of being” mentioned here are the opposite of the eight freedoms or leisures (Tib. dal ba), which are the eight conditions of life in which one has an opportunity to hear and practice the Buddha’s teachings.

  82. “And when you are born in the central land, with faculties whole, with faith, / Without reversed karma, inclined to virtue”: This is a list of five of the ten endowments with which one is well-favored. The ten endowments (Tib. ’byor ba bcu), are the ten positive qualities or prerequisites that one must possess in order to be able to seek enlightenment. And so, altogether there are eighteen elements—“the precious eight leisures and ten endowments”—with which one is “free and well-favored.”

  83. There are two kinds of fatal illnesses. The first is chi ba’i nad, a sickness unto death. In that case, you get sick and die quickly. But then there is gcong chen nad, a great fatal illness—that is, a long fatal illness. This occurs because a person has evil karma from a previous lifetime and cannot die until it is brought to fruition in suffering before dying. The long illnesses produce bedsores, one becomes hypersensitive, the body is weak, and the mind depressed. Tibetans often pray to avoid this kind of illness: “In this life to avoid the suffering of a long fatal illness and after death to avoid the suffering of the lower realms.”

  84. Tibetans believe that it is unhealthy to sleep during the day if you are ill. Sleeping in the day is believed to cause fever. And so people take turns sitting by the sick person keeping him awake. The “sleep guardian” may even fashion little devices to keep the sick person awake by prodding him or her.

  85. The Tibetan here, meaning “auspicious connections are reversed in your spells and divinations,” is mo dang phywa la rten ’brel log. Mo are divinations using dice and the like, and phywa are usually ceremonies to deflect magical attacks or to call back loved ones who are dying. In this case, because of the nearness of death, you have run out of auspicious connections, tendrel, or good fortune. Tendrel is the driving force behind mo and phywa; therefore, in this state of exhaustion of the energy of good luck, the divinations are misleads and the spells do not work. The theory is that a person has a certain amount of karma for life. When that karma is exhausted, the person will die, no matter what magical interventions are employed. Furthermore, the signs are no longer reliable when you have no more karma to live.

  86. It seems that the negation that appears in the Tibetan text as min (chos rnam dag min cing dge rtsa phyi) should read yin. Then the reading would be, “But even though you have pure dharmas, it’s too late to plant virtuous roots.” The idea is that any meritorious actions you perform now, such as making great offerings, will ripen in your next life and not come to fruition now, preventing your death. The karmic seeds for your death were planted long ago.

  87. The Tibetan phrase translated as “help in the forty-nine days” (Tib. zhe dgu’i re ba) literally means “hope for the forty-nine.” “Forty-nine” refers to the length of time an individual spends in the intermediate state (bardo) between death and rebirth. Tibetan Buddhists believe that if relatives and loved ones pray and make offerings to the Three Jewels during the forty-nine days of the bardo, then the departed one’s rebirth will be higher or more fortunate.

  88. The Tibetan bsod nams [sönam] ordinarily means “merit,” as a translation of the Sanskrit word punya. But in Tibetan it can also refer to a field of power around a person, a kind of karmic aura. When it is strong, a person is in good health. But your aura of merit may leak and degrade, particularly in the hour of death.

  89. The Tibetan has a misspelling in the text: mthur bud (reins fall off) should be thur bud (fall down, upside down).

  90. Dralas are, among other things, tiny energetic beings who perch on the body of the warrior and help to give him energy. Drala castles or temples are tiny shrines to these drala (Tib. dgra bla or lha). There are visualization practices in which places on the body that the dralas are to bless are pictured as little castles inhabited by the dralas. The expression “the castle of the dralas is turned away” (Tib. dgra lha’i bse mkhar phyir log) thus means that your dralas have deserted your body/mind complex and left you unblessed, vulnerable. This happens at the time of death, when all the positive energies organized around the body depart, including the protecting dralas. See glossary: drala.

  For the warrior, there are practices that serve to increase one’s windhorse (see glossary), raise one’s field of power, and attract the dralas. A person fully invested with these elements would be completely healthy, but at death they scatter and the energy drains away.

  91. “Inner stores” (Tib. phug zas) means “long-term provisions.” In Khampa dialect, the
most inward room where long-term storage of foodstuff (Tib. zas) is kept is the phug ma, the innermost room. When food is stored for the winter, there is always an emergency store in the furthest room. It is held for a last resort, the last stores to be eaten. By extension, phug zas are anything stored away and the object of the greatest attachment, such as gold and precious gems—things with which the stingy would never part.

  92. “A wooden stake of attachment driven into the ground”: Attachment to the things of this life interrupts the process of rebirth and, like a stake driven into the ground, the deceased person, instead of journeying on to the next rebirth, remains as a ghost.

  93. “Now even regret is merely cause for more suffering”: Buddhist teachings emphasize “the force of regret” as a mental influence that can lead to personal moral reformation. When a person regrets their negative actions, this leads to confession of sins. This act of confession leads to actions that favor religion and so to the eventual lessening of suffering as one becomes free of negative karma. Thus, for ordinary people, regret ordinarily leads to a lessening of suffering.

  But when the gods die, their regret does not improve their karma. By regret they simply increase their own suffering. They have led a dissolute life of self-indulgence in heaven and failed all that time to practice religion. Now it is too late to regret their laziness.

  94. “Determine to resolve the nature of mind”: This is a step on the way to enlightenment. “To resolve” (Tib. kho thag chod) here means arriving at a sense of intellectual certainty through reasoning and reference to scriptural authority. Once a lama has resolved for him or herself that the nature of the mind is buddhahood, then it is possible to meditate with determination directly on the nature of mind. This leads to direct realization and thus to enlightenment.