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Buddhism and Lamaism in Tibet
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Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research,scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.Oxford New YorkAuckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong KarachiKuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City NairobiNew Delhi Shanghai Taipei TorontoWith offices inArgentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France GreeceGuatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal SingaporeSouth Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine VietnamOxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Pressin the UK and certain other countries.Published in the United States of America byOxford University Press198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
© Oxford University Press 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored ina retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the priorpermission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law,by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization.Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to theRights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.You must not circulate this work in any other formand you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file at the Library of CongressISBN 978–0–19–939120–2 (hbk.); 978–0–19–939121–9 (pbk.)9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1Printed in the United States of Americaon acid-free paper
Dedicated to the memory of Julian Paul Green
of the Madmen of Ü and Tsang 19Hagiography and History 19The Life of the Madman of Ü (1458–1532) 22The Life of the Madman of Tsang (1452–1507) 29 2. Of Scripture and Bone: The Tantric Discipline of the Madmen of Ü and Tsang 39The Practice of the Observance 40The Secret Practice, the Insane Observance 50“You, the Hero, Glorious Heruka Himself . . .” 56Tantric Literalism 65Conclusion 75 3. Sainthood in the Making: The Madmen of Ü and Tsang in Public 78The Drum Sound of Their Fame 78The Repertoire of
Behavior 88Performing Enlightenment 94“To Spread and Increase the Teachings of the Kagyü” 98Tantric Literalism in Context: Competing Models of Buddhist Holiness 104Conclusion 112Intermezzo: The Relationship between the Madmen of Ü and Tsang 115
Contents
viii
4. Civil War, Strategic Alliances: The Madmen of Ü and Tsang in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Tibet 120The Pakmodru–Geluk Partnership 121The Rinpung Revolt 128Priestly Alliances and Sectarian Aggression under the Rinpungpas 133Sakya, Kagyü, and Rinpungpa Affairs 139“A Mutual Understanding”: The Patrons of the Madmen of Ü and Tsang 141Conclusion 148 5. Making History: The Later Projects of the Madmen of Ü and Tsang 152The Projects of the Madman of Ü and His Disciples 153The Literary School of the Madman of Tsang 154Writing and Printing the
157Milarepa the Madman, the Madman as Milarepa 169Putting the Aural Transmission to Paper 176Renovating the Swayambh
pa 184Conclusion 190 6. Who Was Drukpa Künlé? 193Popular Depictions of Drukpa Künlé 194Drukpa Künlé’s
199The Trajectory of Drukpa Künlé’s Life 202Drukpa Künlé’s Position in Politics 206Drukpa Künlé the Critic 208Drukpa Künlé and the Holy Madmen 213The Transformation of Drukpa Künlé 216 7. The Enduring Trope of Holy Madness 220Other Madmen and Madwomen 220The Broader Rhetoric of Madness 223Influencing Deed and Representation within the Madman Tradition 229The Allure of Holy Madness 234Epilogue 243
0.1 Map of central Tibet 170.2 Map of Tibet and the greater Himalayas 181.1 Woodcut of Nyukla Pe
ṇ
chen Ngawang Drakpa, from the 1494 printing of the first part of the
Life of the Madman of Ü
. Courtesy of the National Archives of Nepal. 221.2 Woodcut of the Madman of Ü, from the 1494 printing of the first part of his
Life
. Courtesy of the National Archives of Nepal. 251.3 Woodcut of Götsang Repa, from his version of the
Life of the Madman of Tsang
. Courtesy of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center. 301.4 A page from Götsang Repa’s version of the
Life of the Madman of Tsang
. Courtesy of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center. 311.5 Woodcut of Shara Rapjampa, from the “Praise of Noble Laughing Vajra [Milarepa]: A Treasury of Blessings” (
rje btsun gzhad
[
sic
]
pa rdo rje la gsol ba ’debs pa byin rlabs kyi gter mdzod
), by the Madman of Tsang. Courtesy of the National Archives of Nepal. 321.6 Woodcut of the Madman of Tsang, from the “Praise of Noble Laughing Vajra.” Courtesy of the National Archives of Nepal. 342.1 Woodcut of Küntu Zangmo, to which pigment has been added, from the 1508 printing of the Madman of Tsang’s
Collected Songs
. Courtesy of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center. 44
List of Illustrations
xii
2.2 Woodcut of the Madman of Tsang, to which pigment has been added, from the 1508 printing of his
Collected Songs
. Courtesy of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center. 592.3 Woodcut of the Madman of Tsang, from the 1508 printing of Ngödrup Pembar’s version of his
Life
. Courtesy of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center. 602.4 The Madman of Tsang. Tibet, sixteenth century. Gilt metalwork with semiprecious stone inlay. 43 × 31 × 20 in. Image courtesy of the Pritzker Collection. Photo by Hugh DuBois. 615.1 Woodcut depicting Nāropa, Tilopa, and Marpa, from Götsang Repa’s
Life of the Madman of Tsang
. Courtesy of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center. 1565.2 Woodcut depicting Rechungpa, Milarepa, and Ngendzongpa, from Götsang Repa’s
Life of the Madman of Tsang
. Courtesy of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center. 1625.3 Woodcut of Mah
ā
k
ā
la, from Götsang Repa’s
Life of the Madman of Tsang
. Courtesy of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center. 1825.4 Woodcut of the Madman of Tsang, flanked by two attendants, from Götsang Repa’s version of his
Life
. Courtesy of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center. 191
MANY PEOPLE HAVE
played important roles in my development as a scholar and in the research that has resulted in this book. In the fall of 2001, Ben Bogin, Kabir Heimsath, and Hubert Decleer introduced me to Tibetan religion and culture through the School for International Training’s Tibetan Studies program. Much of my research addresses ques-tions raised during that extremely formative time.While she was teaching at Wesleyan University, Kim Gutschow gave me guidance in how to pursue a graduate education in this field. I am grateful for her sincere encouragement at that crucial moment.I thank the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia for taking a chance on me. Thanks especially to Jeffrey Hopkins, Clarke Hudson, and Bob Hueckstedt. Karen Lang and John Nemec have supported me from the very start. Years after the fact, I have come to real-ize the important role Paul Groner played in shaping my thinking about Buddhism (at the time, I thought he was only being contrarian for the fun of it). David Germano has had an especially large impact on my develop-ment: since the first day we met I have been trying to live up to his uncom-promising standards. Much of what I have accomplished is thanks to him. Most of all, I thank my dissertation advisor, Kurtis Schaeffer, whom I have always been able to count on for guidance and encouragement.I am fortunate to have been able to draw on the work of other scholars working on these Tibetan “madmen” in recent years. Franz-Karl Ehrhard and Stefan Larsson have been gracious colleagues, always willing to share information and publications with me. I am deeply indebted to Andrew Quintman, who has encouraged me in my pursuit of this topic since the beginning. He and Roger Jackson offered helpful evaluations of my man-uscript as part of Oxford University Press’s review process. Bryan Cuevas, Marcus Filippello, Matt McMullen, and David Tomlinson read and pro-vided useful feedback on late drafts of the book. Peter Dreyer and Michael
Acknowledgments
xiv
Durnin greatly improved this work through their skilled copyediting. I thank Cynthia Read at Oxford for believing in the project.To the Tibetan language instructors I have had over the years: your dedication to teaching has given me the tools most vital to my research. I thank Rinchen (Dharamsala), Steve Weinberger, Tsering Wangchuk, Sönam Yankyi, Slava Komarovski, and the staff of the Foreign Students’ Department at Tibet University, especially our departed friend Dawa.I express heartfelt thanks to the learned Tibetans who have kindly volunteered their time to work with me on an individual basis, both before and during this project. These are Khensur Wangdak Rinpoché of Middletown, Connecticut, who patiently read Tibetan texts with me before I knew much of anything; Lama Ngawang Rinchen and the other members of Bengen Monastery in Kham; Khenpo Ngawang Dorjé of Charlottesville; and Sangyé Tendar Naga of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, with whom I spent many hours discussing the
Life of the Madman of Ü
. I especially enjoyed my conversations with Tashi Tsering of the Amnye Machen Institute in Dharamsala, who gave me many signifi-cant research leads.I am grateful to the many Tibetan lamas,
khenpo
s, and
rinpoché
s I interviewed about the “holy madmen” during my fieldwork in India. In every instance I arrived at their monasteries without any announcement or introduction; without exception, I was met with remarkable candor and generosity. I express my very warmest thanks to Khenpo Tsülnam Rinpoché of Sherap Ling monastery in Bir. Rinpoché met with me daily during what were a very busy few months for him. I benefitted greatly from his knowledge.Thanks to the late E. Gene Smith, Jeff Wallman, and the rest of the staff at the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (TBRC), who have greatly facilitated my research from start to finish. The staff of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala was most helpful during my time there. Nawang Thokmey, Tibetan language materials librarian at the University of Virginia, offered much assistance while I was writing my dissertation. Lastly, the kind help of Namraj Gurung and the staff of the Nepal Research Center and the Nepal–German Manuscript Preservation Project enabled me to get a remarkable amount done during my time in Nepal.I thank Tom Pritzker, the TBRC, and the National Archives of Nepal for allowing me to use their images in this book. Tsering Wangyal Shawa made the two excellent maps.
xv
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my colleagues at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, who all contribute to making it a very nice place to work.I would like to express my appreciation for the many friends I have made since this project began, in Charlottesville and Milwaukee, Tibet and India, and many places in between. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the formative (often spirited) conversations I have had with Jeremy Saucier, Gabe Popkin, Jongbok Yi, Zach Rowinski, Chris Hatchell, Dan Kent, Erin Burke, Ben Deitle, Brenton Sullivan, Chris Bell, Alison Melnick, Geoff Barstow, Nic Bommarito, Élise Turcotte, Nicolas Schlitz, David Slatkin, Alison Broach, Paul Hackett, Michael Sheehy, Alyson Prude, Tülku Ngawang Sönam (of Ganden Monastery in Mundgod), and Tsangsar Künga Rinpoché (formerly of Nangchen, now living in Taiwan). I especially appreciate my relationship with Jann Ronis, a friend and col-league without equal.Lastly, I thank my mother, Jane, for all that she has done for me over the years. Without her many sacrifices, I never could have achieved anything. Although she expressed due motherly concern, she never discouraged me from any of my undertakings. The untimely passing of my uncle, Will Miller, created some opportunities that otherwise would not have been available to me. We remember him with affection.In graduate school I received fellowships from the University of Virginia, as well as Foreign Language and Area Studies grants from the federal government. Fieldwork for this project was made possible by grants from the American Institute for Indian Studies and the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. My education and scholarly career have been supported by many tuition and tax dollars, paid mainly by people with little or no interest in what I do. Some of them I imagine would rather have their money back. I hope this book may mitigate the debts I owe in some small way.
TIBETAN TERMS AND
proper nouns appearing in the body of the text are in most cases rendered according to the phonetic transcription scheme developed by the Tibetan and Himalayan Library. Spellings of Tibetan terms are given in parentheses using the orthographic transliteration sys-tem first developed by Turrell V. Wylie and revised somewhat in recent years. Transliterated spellings of proper nouns are given in a key at the end of the book. Wylie transliterations are used in the endnotes. Some of the Tibetan texts drawn from in this study use shorthand at times. For the sake of consistency, these abbreviations will be transliterated in their fully expanded forms, so that
rn+yor
is rendered as
rnal ’byor
,
srgyas
as
sangs rgyas
,
bzhuD
as
bzhugs
, with numerals spelled out, and so on. Because of the frequency of misspellings encountered in the texts drawn from in this study, they will only occasionally be pointed out using [
sic
].The Tibetan phoneme rendered in this book as ü, as in the Madman of Ü, should be pronounced like a German umlauted u, such as in the word
für
. Its pronunciation is similar to the vowel sound in the French
rue
. An umlauted o, as in Götsang, should be pronounced like a German umlauted o, as in the first vowel sound in the name of the poet Goethe, which is similar to the vowel sound in the French
peu
. É should be pro-nounced like the “ay” in the English “day,” so that Gyantsé is pronounced “Gyan-tsay.”The Sanskrit letter rendered as
Ś
should be pronounced “sh,” as in the god Śiva.
Ṭ
,
ḍ
, and
ṇ
are pronounced as retroflexes, with the tip of the tongue folded back, touching the top of the mouth.
Ṣ
is a retroflex “sh.” In Sanskrit words,
th
should not be pronounced as it would in the English word “the,” but as a hard “ta.” Thus the name of the buddha of our world age, Siddhartha, is pronounced “Siddharta,” with the final
ta
heavily aspirated, rather than “Siddhar-tha.”
Ca
should be read as “cha,” with
Technical Note
xviii
Cakrasa
ṃ
vara pronounced “Chakrasamvara,”
caryā
pronounced “charya,” and so on. A line over a vowel indicates a slight lengthening of its sound.The traditional Tibetan manner of counting a person’s age differs from that which predominates in the European world. Rather than recognizing individual birthdays, everyone would be counted as a year older at the beginning of each new year. What’s more, from the time a baby is born, she is considered “one” year old, because of the time spent in the womb. Thus a baby born late in the year could turn “two” after just a few months. For these reasons, Westerners would in most cases subtract one or two years from the age listed for a Tibetan person. As I draw from a wide range of sources, some using the Tibetan system of calculating ages, some using the European, discrepancies are bound to arise. All ages mentioned in this book are therefore approximate.All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. The European-language sources drawn from in this study use varying conventions in their transcription of Tibetan words and names, the use of diacritical marks, the capitalization of terms like dharma and buddha, and so on. Except where specified in the endnotes, quoted passages have been left unaltered.
His naked body was rubbed with ashes from a human corpse, daubed with blood, and smeared with fat. He wore the intestines of someone who had died as a necklace and ornamenting his wrists and ankles. His hair was bound up with a garland he had made from the corpse’s fingers and toes, which he had cut off and strung together. He wore an incomplete set of bone ornaments that someone had offered to him. Sometimes he laughed, sometimes he cried. He did all manner of nonsensical things in the marketplace. Although the people of Tsari were very coarse in their ways, he overwhelmed them with his abilities and tamed them with his compassion. And so they became faithful, and since they unanimously praised him as “the Madman of Tsang,” in every direction that name became as renowned as the sun and the moon.
GÖTSANG
REPA
,
The Life of the Madman of Tsang
1
SANGYÉ GYELTSEN, COMMONLY
known as Tsangnyön Heruka—“the Madman from Tsang, the Heruka”—first became famous for making gro-tesque displays among crowds of people while wearing an outfit fashioned from human remains. Künga Zangpo, “the Madman from Ü,” miracu-lously survived the many savage beatings he received for making daring affronts to powerful lords. Drukpa Künlé, “the Madman of the Drukpa [Kagyü sect],” is credited with composing verses that overturn all sense of propriety, paying homage, not to the Buddha, but to an old man’s impo-tent member.The central questions this book seeks to answer are: Why did these men (and a few women) behave in unexpected ways that would get them labeled “mad,” with that term carrying generally positive connotations? In what sense were they “mad”? The aim of this book is to convey a well-rounded understanding of the human beings behind these colorful perso-nas, by looking at the details of their lives and literary works in their due historical contexts. Previous studies have addressed aspects of the lives and legacies of a few of these “madmen,” in particular Drukpa Künlé and
THE
HOLY
MADMEN
OF
TIBET
2
the Madman of Tsang. This book seeks to offer a more comprehensive account of the “madman” phenomenon, offering new understandings of the more famous “madmen” and bringing many lesser-known ones into the conversation.Traditional Tibetan worldviews hold that there are a number of factors that could cause mental derangement in an individual. In some cases, madness was thought to result from problems occurring inside an indi-vidual’s body, as understood by Tibetan medicine. Traditionally madness was most commonly ascribed to a disorder of the psychophysical winds (
rlung
in Tibetan,
pr
āṇ
a
in Sanskrit) that carry thoughts and animate the body. Also believed capable of causing insanity were external harms (
gdon
), such as the influence of witches, demons, celestial bodies, and con-tact with poisonous or polluted substances. If correctly propitiated, a deity might even drive an enemy mad at one’s behest.
Distinct from all these possibilities, there have traditionally been indi-viduals in Tibet called “mad,” whose apparent mental unwellness was not seen as resulting from any unfortunate circumstance, but, in the view of some, as symptomatic of high achievement in religious practice. Although they are called “mad,” through a series of inversions, the term comes to bear positive connotations. It is these individuals who are the subject of this book.Tibetans most often simply call such a person a
nyönpa
(
smyon pa
), “madman,” it being clear from context that they do not mean “mad” in the ordinary, negative sense. In these cases,
nyönpa
can often be taken as abbreviating one of three related terms:
druptop nyönpa
, “mad
siddha
”;
neljor nyönpa
, “mad yogin”; or
lama nyönpa
, “mad lama.”
Siddha
and “yogin” are Sanskrit terms; “lama” is the Tibetan translation of the Sanskrit “guru.” A yogin is one deeply involved with the practice of medi-tation (
yoga
in Sanskrit). A
siddha
is an individual who has achieved
siddhi
s (special qualities and supernatural powers) and perhaps enlightenment through advanced tantric practice. Yogin is a general term referring to a meditator, who may or may not have achieved some of the remarkable abilities of a
siddha
. As the Madman of Tsang himself wrote, “If one is a
siddha
, one is certainly a yogin. If one is a yogin, one is not necessarily a
siddha.
”
In common usage, the term yogin carries some of the same positive connotations as
siddha
. “Lama” refers to a teacher who instructs one in meditation. Given the great respect that a student is expected to have for his guru, it is usually assumed or implied that one’s lama has
3
Introduction
achieved an advanced spiritual state. Tibetans use the full terms that trans-late as “mad
siddha
,” “mad yogin” and “mad lama” infrequently, although some examples of their doing so will be shown in the chapters that follow. Tibetans usually assume the more famous and exalted figures referred to as
nyönpa
, like Drukpa Künlé and the Madman of Tsang, to be “mad
siddha
s.” Lesser-known figures referred to as
nyönpa
would likely be con-sidered “mad yogins” or “mad lamas.” In the vast majority of instances, they are simply called “madmen,” leaving their perceived degree of spiri-tual attainment unstated.Those writing in English about these figures have referred to them as crazy
siddha
s, divine madmen, saintly madmen, Mad Yogins, “Crazy Yogins,” and so on. Each of these renderings has advantages and disad-vantages. In this book I mainly use the term “holy madman” (sometimes in quotation marks, sometimes not), since this seems the most neutral phrasing. Although the term “mad
siddha
” may be more accurate in some respects, it is overly delimiting, putting these characters into the predeter-mined category of
siddha
. The term “holy madman,” although less literal, will allow us to come to our own conclusions in our thinking about these figures. In referring to them as “holy madmen,” I do not mean to imply that from my perspective these are in fact holy beings, but rather that they tend to be regarded as such by other Tibetans—although they often had critics who were skeptical of their spiritual worth. This book is an explora-tion of the nature of their holiness.This book does not discuss individuals perceived as “mad” in the unfortunate sense, and as such is not a Foucault-style study of the shifting conceptions of madness in Tibetan culture historically. The saintly figures that are the subjects of this book did not constitute significant points of interface between Buddhist and medicalized discourses about madness (perhaps because a highly structured medical discourse was a later devel-opment in Tibet). However, the argument developed in this book is influ-enced by Michel Foucault’s thought in other ways, as discussed below.Nor does this book address the “mad saint” traditions of other reli-gions and cultures. There are comparable traditions of “crazy” Buddhist saints in South Asia, China, and Japan. There are respected “mad” or “intoxicated” figures in branches of Hinduism and Islam as well. There is a long tradition of saintly “fools for Christ,” and the figure of the “holy fool,” or
yurodivy
, is a mainstay of Russian literature. Each of these tradi-tions is deserving of its own close historical study. Once this has been
THE
HOLY
MADMEN
OF
TIBET
4
accomplished, I hope more meaningful comparisons—rather than flights of fancy inspired by the evocative notion of holy madness—can someday be made.This book only touches upon the ways the idea of Buddhist “holy madness” has become manifest in the imaginations of Western observ-ers. For example, in
The Dharma Bums
, Ray Smith, the voice of Jack Kerouac, narrates: “I wrote a pretty poem addressed to all the people coming to the party: ‘Are in your eyelids wars, and silk
. . . but the saints are gone, all gone, safe to that other.’ I really thought myself a kind of crazy saint.”
Smith often refers to his circle as the “Zen Lunatics,” expressing how they thought of themselves as emulating the ways of past Buddhist sages through their free-spiritedness. For Smith—and Kerouac—holy madness is a natural part of Buddhism. But the goal of the present book is to explore the idea and the workings of “holy mad-ness” in Tibet. The way Buddhist holy madness has been imagined by modern-day Europeans and Americans will be addressed only briefly in chapter 7.
From among the Nyingma, Sakya, Jonang, Geluk, and Kagyü sects of Tibetan Buddhism, it is with the last that most of the individuals dis-cussed in this book are associated. The Kagyü presents itself as continu-ing a tradition initiated by famous practitioners of tantric yoga in India, with whom they remain connected through an unbroken lineage of guru–disciple relationships. The lineage begins with the Indian master Tilopa, who received instructions directly from the primordial buddha Vajradhara. Tilopa’s foremost disciple was N
ā
ropa, at one time a famous scholar at N
ā
land
ā
monastery, who abandoned his monkhood to pursue a more tantric lifestyle. The Tibetan Marpa Chökyi Lodrö (1012–1097) trav-eled to India to train under N
ā
ropa, then brought the teachings back to his homeland, where he imparted them to Milarepa. The poet-saint Milarepa (1028/40/52–1111/23) is discussed throughout this study, as his history is interwoven with that of the “holy madmen” in myriad ways.
Milarepa’s life is one of the best-known stories in the Tibetan world. After having his inheritance stolen by his aunt and uncle, Milarepa’s mother sent him off to learn black magic, in hope of someday exacting revenge. He performed dark rituals that caused the deaths of thirty-five people. After realizing the grave error of his deeds, Milarepa dedicated his life to the practice of Buddhism. He sought out Marpa, who submitted him to a series of gruel-ing trials before accepting him as a disciple and initiating him into tantric practice. Then Milarepa meditated and endured an almost unimaginable
5
Introduction
asceticism in caves along what is today the Tibet–Nepal border, subsisting for years on nothing more than nettles.In time Milarepa achieved highest enlightenment. He would instruct Gampopa (1079–1153), Rechungpa (1083/84–1161), and his many other disciples through songs expressing his spiritual insights. The individ-ual responsible for composing and mass-disseminating the version of Milarepa’s biography that would become most central to the mythology of the Kagyü sect was none other than the Madman of Tsang.In the generations after Milarepa, a variety of subsects were established within the broader Kagyü. There were the Drukpa, Pakmodrupa, Drikung, Shangpa, Taklung, Karma, and other subsects, each with its own monas-tic institutions, favored texts, and eminent hierarchs—sometimes in the form of reincarnation lineages, as with the successive Karmapas of the Karma Kagyü, or the Drukchens (also known as the Gyelwang Drukpa) of the Drukpa Kagyü.This book deals largely with the form of Buddhism referred to as Secret Mantra, Vajray
ā
na, tantra, or sometimes “esoteric” Buddhism.
First aris-ing as a new movement in the latter half of the first millennium , tantra has continued as a subcurrent within certain Buddhist traditions, where it remains contrasted with exoteric or s
ū
tric Buddhism. Tantra has proven notoriously difficult to define. It presents itself as the most potentially powerful form of Buddhism, since it offers the possibility of achieving enlightenment in a single lifetime. (Those who misuse tantra, however, will find themselves in Vajra Hell.) Tantra involves a wide variety of means to the desired transformation. Many of these are ritual actions intended to tap into various sources of power that exist in the universe, most impor-tant among them being enlightened deities with whom the meditator enters into a relationship and strives to achieve full self-identification. A practitioner must undergo a formal initiation ritual before begin-ning these practices, and they must be taught to him by a guru who has already undergone the training himself. A good deal of advanced tantric practice concerns itself with the movements of the psychophysical winds and “drops” (
bindu
in Sanskrit,
thig le
in Tibetan) that circulate within the yogic, “subtle” body, a system of channels running throughout the physical frame. Sexual intercourse is one means by which some practitioners have invigorated the flow of these energies. Intercourse was also the means to produce the sexual fluids that, for some tantric communities, were of cen-tral importance in rituals of initiation. The various forms of mental and physical alchemy that constitute the techniques of tantra involve directed
THE
HOLY
MADMEN
OF
TIBET
6
visualization, the repetition of mantras, tactile rituals, the cultivation of specific experiences, and much more.
TIBETANS TODAY TEND
to think of the “holy madmen” with great fond-ness. Many of the Tibetans I spoke with during my research for this book would immediately laugh when asked what they thought about the holy madmen (using the phrase
druptop nyönpa
or
neljor nyönpa
, “mad
siddha
” or “mad yogin”). This was because my question brought to mind tales of Drukpa Künlé or some other eccentric master of whom they had heard. Drukpa Künlé is by far the best known of all Tibetan “holy madmen.” The Madman of Tsang and the Madman of Ü are second and a distant third best known, respectively. A few of the Tibetan lamas,
khenpo
s, and
rinpo-ché
s I spoke with mentioned these three figures together under the group-ing “the Three Madmen” (
smyon pa gsum
).
Some mentioned the famous Tangtong Gyelpo, Milarepa, or an eccentric lama of more recent times.Tibetans often point out that the term
druptop nyönpa
, “mad
siddha
,” is an oxymoron.
Siddha
means one who is “accomplished [in tantric medita-tion],” and has thereby achieved supernormal abilities and intelligence. An insane person cannot be a
siddha
, and a
siddha
, by definition, cannot be insane—at least, not in the medical understanding of madness. This mutual exclusivity is part of the conceptual framework for the most pre-dominant way in which Tibetans interpret the odd behavior of holy mad-men: the holy madmen are highly realized—enlightened—beings who see everything as it truly is, and act accordingly. Their way of seeing the world is radically different from our deluded, unenlightened one. This puts them at odds with conventional expectations. In this understanding, their being labeled and labeling themselves “mad” is ironic, pointing out the radical disparity between enlightenment and nonenlightenment. This “madness” is at once a marker of the saint’s state of awakening and a reminder of our own lack of it.Based on this view, Tibetans often say that we ordinary beings cannot comprehend the actions, words, or thoughts of an enlightened “madman” like Drukpa Künlé, for they are “inconceivable” (
bsam gyis mi khyab pa
). Many of the lamas I interviewed would offer an interpretation of the “holy madmen” only after making clear their feeling that anything we might say on the topic is somewhat speculative, since we can never fully compre-hend the minds of the enlightened.Tibetan religious specialists employ a variety of related terms to describe the high level of spiritual realization that the eccentricity of the
7
Introduction
“holy madman” is so often taken as indicating. This “madness” is often said to result from the fact that these individuals have abandoned all
namtok
(
rnam rtog
; in Sanskrit,
vikalpa
), meaning conceptual formations or false ideations.
Namtok
are preconceptions, which are, from the Buddhist per-spective,
mis
conceptions. These conceptual thoughts act like lenses, dis-torting our vision of the world around us. Only those who are free of such thoughts can experience reality directly. Thus, while unenlightened beings like us try to understand the world through such relative distinctions as big and small, hot and cold, dirty and clean, pleasant and unpleasant, com-fort and pain, right and wrong, and so on, a highly realized Buddhist mas-ter lives without such discursive categories mediating and distorting his experience of reality. When viewed from this perspective, the Madman of Tsang’s adorning himself in human remains indicates that he has tran-scended the unenlightened distinction between repulsive and nonrepul-sive. In light of the emptiness of all phenomena and worldly distinctions, in truth there is no such thing as virtue or sin, which is why Drukpa Künlé can sleep with other men’s wives with impunity. This state is sometimes explained as the yogin’s having transcended “worldly concerns” (
’jig rten gyi chos
). Sometimes it is said that because the holy madmen have abandoned all
namtok
, they have only “pure vision” (
dag snang
), or see everything as a buddha realm (
zhing khams
). This idea can be formulated in a more gen-eral way by stating that the holy madmen behave in their eccentric ways because they have an abundance of “realization” (
rtogs pa
).Some learned Tibetans with whom I spoke mentioned Saraha, Vir
ū
pa, N
ā
ropa, or other Indian
siddha
s in the process of explaining the nature of holy madness. Often these
siddha
s were cited as individuals who appeared strange to the world but secretly harbored great wisdom. On other occa-sions they were referred to because of their ability to perform miracles, which is taken as an indication of their having achieved
siddhi
s or of their realization of the emptiness of all phenomena.Those adhering to this most widely held understanding of holy madness—that it is a symptom of the individual’s being enlightened and having transcended ordinary worldly delusions—tend to see the irreverent behavior of the “holy madman” as occurring naturally (
rang bzhin gyis
), rather than having some sort of purpose or intention behind it. Alternatively, Tibetans sometimes see the eccentric behavior of these yogins as something engaged in with a specific purpose in mind: either to help unenlightened beings realize the emptiness of phenomena, or as part of the yogin’s own training toward that realization.
THE
HOLY
MADMEN
OF
TIBET
8
The idea that the behavior of the holy madman is by nature pedagogi-cal tends to be articulated in a few different ways. The most common is to say that the madman does and says wild, unexpected things in order to dispel the conceptual thoughts or misconceptions (
rnam rtog
) of those who behold him. Drukpa Künlé is often cited as one who exemplified this. A person taking this view would interpret the Madman of Tsang’s dress-ing in human remains as intended to be a lesson to us unenlightened beings about the falsity of worldly distinctions. The yogin’s purposeful crossing of boundaries and calling into question the observer’s preconcep-tions is sometimes said to constitute the “introduction [to the nature of reality]” (
ngo sprod
) that is essential for a trainee’s progress toward realiza-tion. When viewing the phenomenon from this perspective, it is some-times said that the “mad” yogin is “simulating the behavior of a madman” (
smyon pa’i spyod pa ’khrab
). Some may see this behavior as exemplify-ing the Buddhist concept of “skillful means” (
thabs
in Tibetan,
up
ā
ya
in Sanskrit).A yogin can also teach others by performing a miracle. Many Tibetan yogins like our holy madmen are said to have had the ability to leave impressions on boulders with their hands and feet, to tie metal swords into knots with their bare hands, and so on. These supernatural feats are sometimes interpreted as a lesson to the unenlightened, teaching us that because everything is ultimately empty, nothing is impossible. Even that which seems most solid is in truth completely malleable.The third way in which Tibetan religious specialists tend to explain the behavior of the “holy madman” also involves an element of intentionality, but the yogin’s concern is directed inwardly rather than outwardly. This view maintains that the yogin’s shocking behavior is meant to foster his own spiri-tual development, as part of a deliberate process through which he trains him-self to overcome conceptual distinctions and realize emptiness. By embracing the impure and the disgusting, by doing the utterly unimaginable—like stripping naked in the middle of a bustling marketplace—one can have the invigorating experience of crossing the invisible boundaries we draw around ourselves and which define the way we live. By purposefully transgressing conventions, one can begin to do away with them, and progress into a more immediate way of experiencing the world—a way that is based on the truth of emptiness, rather than our imperfect habits of mind. When viewed in this way, the yogin’s odd behavior can be said to be for the sake of changing his “experiential understanding” (
nyams myong
) or overcoming conceptual formations (
rnam rtog
). It can also be said to advance his training toward
9
Introduction
“experiencing [all phenomena] to be of a single taste” (
ro snyoms
): in other words, to experience everything as empty.All commentators recognize that the “holy madmen” appear to live free from the concerns that define life for ordinary individuals fully participat-ing in society. The question is whether this deviance is a natural by-product of the yogin’s state of realization, or part of his mode of teaching, or some-thing purposefully pursued for the sake of his own edificatory experience. The first possibility is cited most often, and is nearly ubiquitous; the third is least commonly appealed to. The idea that a “holy madman’s” eccentric behavior may be for the sake of his own training is almost never applied to famous saints like the Madman of Tsang or Drukpa Künlé, whom people assume were fully enlightened. The idea is occasionally used to explain the behavior of lesser-known “holy madmen,” who do not have such well-established reputations as highly realized beings.Many of the lamas I interviewed expressed doubts about whether we can ever be sure which of these interpretations is most accurate in a given situation. As His Holiness the Seventeenth Karmapa explained, any of these three motivations might lie behind the eccentric behavior of a “mad” yogin at a particular moment, and it is difficult for us to be sure which applies. Is the yogin in question fully enlightened or still working toward that goal? Is his activity for his own training or for the purpose of instruct-ing others? With figures like Drukpa Künlé and the Madman of Tsang, it is generally agreed that they have long since completed their spiritual train-ing. But for yogins of lesser renown and stature, who can say for certain what they have achieved?When asked pointedly whether or not there are any mad
siddha
s (
grub thob smyon pa
) living in the world today, Tibetan religious specialists offer a wide range of responses. One lama stated that “holy madmen” are difficult to find, but as long as there is good meditative practice in the world, they will exist somewhere. One lama said that they surely do exist, but that they are very rare; they were easier to find in old Tibet. Another lama said that these days holy madmen are more likely to exist in Tibet than in other places, because of the political situation there, but would not elaborate on why. Differences of opinion and interpretation abound.There is also ambivalence with respect to the question of “real” and “fake” crazy yogins. Some lamas say it would be impossible to tell whether or not an eccentric individual was a holy madman, for there are no limita-tions on how a holy madman might act or disguise himself. The behavior of a real holy madman may appear the same as that of a pretender; the only
THE
HOLY
MADMEN
OF
TIBET
10
thing differentiating them would be their respective states of mind. Other Tibetan religious specialists see a more appreciable distinction, maintain-ing that if you were to put a “real” holy madman alongside a “fake” one, it would become obvious which was which. This can also be framed as a question of faith. As one lama told me, those who are open to being taught will learn a valuable lesson from the holy madman, while those who are not will walk away from the encounter unchanged. It is not the motivations of the yogin that matter so much as the attitude with which one beholds him. The most famous holy madmen, with the weight of tradition behind them, tend to be accepted as “real” holy madmen. There is less certainty regarding lesser-known and more recent figures sometimes said to be holy madmen, although an attitude of respect toward them generally prevails.These few pages have summarized some of the main modes of thinking about “holy madmen” that tend to be expressed by Tibetan religious spe-cialists and laymen today. Some of the other ways Tibetans have thought about the “holy madmen” will be examined in the course of this book. At any given moment, past or present, one can find evidence of a wide range of attitudes and opinions about Tibet’s “holy madmen,” moved at times by great faith or skepticism, and based upon differing understandings of individuals, of history, and of the nature of religion. There is no single tra-ditional Tibetan view. What’s more, many of the lines of thinking I apply toward understanding “holy madmen” in the course of this book have long been exercised by Tibetans, in various times and places—including by some of the “holy madmen” themselves. Any perceived chasm between “my” and “their” ways of thinking about the “holy madmen” is an illusion.
THIS BOOK IS
in large part a study of how certain people came to be perceived as holy. It takes it for granted that, for the sake of academic research, we should view all things and people as existing on the same ontological plane, which is material in nature. However, in the course of human history certain entities have been conceptually set aside, and have thereby become imbued with a sense of holiness—at least in the eyes of some observers.I do not contend that ghosts, demons, and gods truly exist, or that the miracles described in these saints’ biographies—flying, disappearing, walking through solid walls—actually occurred. And although history has witnessed a broad spectrum of human capabilities and intelligence, I take there to be no specific moment in a person’s development when he or she gains supernatural abilities or omniscience. In the world described in the
11
Introduction
pages that follow, there is no point at which an individual truly achieves a different ontological state as a
siddha
or a buddha. For the purposes of scholarly research, I assume that all of these designations are tropes and categories produced out of human discourse. It is not the case that holiness or enlightenment or gods or demons or miracles exist, independently and objectively, and that there is a Tibetan discourse describing them. Rather, beliefs in things such as these have been generated out human discourse.Take, for example, the very notion of enlightenment. At any given moment in Buddhist history there have existed competing understand-ings of what constitutes liberating knowledge. This undermines the idea that enlightenment might exist as objectively real, independent of the dis-courses that describe it. Therefore, it must be said that those discourses do not
describe
enlightenment, but that they have in fact created the very idea of it.Rather than accepting the view that through extraordinary religious achievement an individual can attain a different ontological state or the ability to perform miracles, we should examine the histories, needs, and intentions of the people who have made such claims, which brings us back into the domain of language and culture, of “truth” and power. The argument about Tibet’s “holy madmen” that unfolds in the course of this book is in large part about competing models of truth, and the relations of power with which they are associated, and is thus inspired by Foucault’s work in a general way.Instead of trying to somehow plumb the inner, experiential dimension of being a “holy madman,” this book explores its external dimensions—the effects or side effects of taking on the persona of a “holy madman,” for historically and socially embedded individuals. Here sainthood is viewed as something that arises out of the dynamic between a saintly figure and his public, both during his lifetime and after. This allows us to explore the texture and workings of the social medium in which holiness exists. This book thus takes as a starting point arguments advanced by Aviad Kleinberg in
Prophets in Their Own Country
and by Robert Campany in
Making Transcendents
.
In the chapters that follow, I draw from both of these works in ways too innumerable to point out. Like Kleinberg and Campany, my aim is to understand these “holy madmen” as real people, as ordinary humans. As commonsensical as this approach may seem to some readers, it has not always been employed by scholars of religion. Viewing the “holy madmen” as creative, self-aware, meaning-producing
people
enables us to better appreciate their unique and brilliant contributions to
THE
HOLY
MADMEN
OF
TIBET
12
the world. A view that sees the holy madmen as enlightened
siddha
s—and their odd behavior as a natural by-product of that state—actually divests them of genuine agency.Readers should take my use of the term “saint” with a grain of salt, understanding this to mean “saintly figure,” rather than something more reified or traditionally defined. There are differences in the mythologies, ideologies, and relationships that surround saintly figures of the world’s various religions (and at different historical moments within any particu-lar religion). Nevertheless, across cultures and time there are meaningful similarities to be identified in the processes through which individuals come to be perceived by others as having achieved an exalted religious state, and subsequently become the subject of devotion or worship. For this reason, a general phenomenon of “sainthood,” unmoored from the specificities of any particular religion, is a worthy term and object of study.One observation that catalyzes the research presented in this book is that Tibetan “holy madmen,” like the vast majority of Buddhist renun-ciants, still live within the matrix of worldly activity. In the course of Buddhist history, there have undoubtedly been rare individuals who have pursued the hermetic ideal to its fullest, truly turning their backs on the world, undoing all social ties, and living entirely off the grid. But we know nothing of such figures, since they by definition would not have been involved with the production of literature or have associated with com-munities or institutions that would have transmitted their legacies to us. By contrast, we know of the holy madmen who are the subjects of this book only because they were social and cultural actors, with audiences who knew of them and saw preserving their stories as worthwhile.There is also the inescapable fact of embodiment. The basic biological need to eat keeps the hermit in a relationship of exchange with the mun-dane world. Moreover, by separating himself from human society (spa-tially, symbolically, rhetorically) an ascetic can achieve a degree of sanctity. Paradoxically, this sanctity often serves to draw interested parties—faithful laypeople, potential patrons, disciples—to the ascetic, inasmuch as they hope to receive his blessings or his favor. Announcing one’s rejection of society is an act that can carry profound consequences in the social sphere.As a traditional Tibetan adage observes, “When practitioners meditate in mountains, food will roll uphill.”
Those whose livelihoods come from religious practice—monks, ascetics, ritualists, and so on—are as aware as anyone of the ever-unresolved tension between renunciation and engage-ment with the world. As we shall see throughout this book, one of the most
13
Introduction
common criticisms a religious individual or group might level against a com-petitor is to say that they are worldly-minded, only masquerading as being devoted to higher renunciatory ideals. This exposes a concern that lurks perennially beneath the surface of the discourse. Many of these “holy mad-men” were particularly attuned to the dynamics of exchange that inevitably surrounded them. Taking on a new identity as a “holy madman” in many cases had clear social, institutional, political, and economic ramifications. As skilled cultural and social actors, these individuals were aware—consciously or unconsciously—of what kinds of ramifications their decisions were likely to have. This is not to say that such decisions are always fully calculated or strategic, but it is having this basic awareness of how others within their society are likely to respond to their words and actions that defines them as participants in their culture (as it does us in our own).The ascetics discussed in this book (as with the vast majority of all Buddhist ascetics, despite what rhetoric they may espouse) had various social ties and were engaged in worldly activities throughout their lives. The Madman of Tsang, for example, performed his antinomian behavior for all to see and hear of. He also mass-produced Tibetan-language litera-ture using the most advanced printing technology available during his time. And although he underwent periods of meditative retreat, during which he greatly reduced his engagement with the affairs of the outside world, those connections were never severed absolutely, and these periods of withdrawal were temporary, having the effect of profoundly altering his standing in society once he emerged from them. This was not a man striving for her-metic anonymity. This study focusing on individual yogins is necessarily a study of yogic communities, and the ways individuals relate to them.Finally, this book is in large part about narratives, both oral and textual. It considers how narratives are formulated in discrete acts of meaning making, and the way ideals are commodified through those narratives. This study also considers how those narratives circulate, affect people, and change over time, which enables new perspectives on historical questions.The first five chapters are dedicated to developing a comprehensive understanding of two figures: the Madman from Tsang (1452–1507) and the Madman from Ü (1458–1532). Chapter 1 offers a brief discussion of the nature of the religious biographies that are the main sources used in this study, followed by abridgments of the biographies of these two “holy madmen.” This serves to establish the basic trajectories of their lives and to introduce readers to the religious culture in which they operated.
THE
HOLY
MADMEN
OF
TIBET
14
Chapter 2 examines the shocking, antinomian lifestyles assumed by the Madmen of Ü and Tsang as being a form of religious practice. Despite the apparent strangeness of their behavior, it in fact resulted from their enacting a very literal reading of certain passages of tantric Buddhist texts that tended to be taken figuratively in Tibet.Chapter 3 considers the Madmen of Ü and Tsang as public figures. The fact that they had both supporters and impassioned critics suggests that any degree of saintliness they achieved existed in the eyes of their beholders. The two acted in ways that led others to compare them to the enlightened
siddha
s of India, which was cause for controversy. By describ-ing broader patterns in their interpersonal encounters, this chapter argues that the lifestyles assumed by the Madmen of Ü and Tsang were meant to position them as diametrically opposed to representatives of scholastic, monastic Buddhism, which is significant to the question of what may have motivated them to take on their distinctive personas.A brief intermezzo explores the relationship that seems to have played out between the Madmen of Ü and Tsang, and how that relationship is portrayed in their respective biographies.Chapter 4 considers how the “madness” of the Madmen of Ü and Tsang may have been related to the broader religious and sociopolitical events of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Tibet, which was a period of civil war and tense sectarian rivalry. This chapter suggests that the Madmen of Ü and Tsang’s decisions to enact such a literal reading of the tantras was part of an attempt to reimagine and redefine the Kagyü sect in response to its waning fortunes and influence. This decline was caused mainly by the dramatic rise of the Geluk sect and the reformed style of Buddhism it espoused. The specifics of the unique political and religious situation of the moment are what enabled the Madmen of Ü and Tsang to achieve such significance and influence during their lifetimes.Chapter 5 describes the various cultural projects taken up by the Madmen of Ü and Tsang later in their lives, which were important means through which they worked to redefine and invigorate the Kagyü. These projects include the Madman of Ü’s monastery-founding activities, and the Madman of Tsang’s writing and printing the
Life
and
Songs
of Milarepa, his setting to paper the teachings of the Aural Transmission, and his reno-vating Nepal’s Swayambh
ū
n
ā
th st
ū
pa in 1504. This chapter considers the ways these projects served to continue the agendas the madmen earlier pursued through personal identity formation.The final two chapters consider the lives and legacies of other “holy madmen” in Tibet. Chapter 6 attempts to separate the historical Drukpa
15
Introduction
Künlé, Madman of the Drukpa (born in 1455), from more recent and popu-lar representations of him. A close reading of Drukpa Künlé’s four-volume
Miscellaneous Writings
suggests an individual very different from the one that lives on in popular memory. Attendant to the transformation from the historical Drukpa Künlé to the one so well known today was a dramatic change in the nature of his “madness.” This chapter also explores the rela-tionships Drukpa Künlé had with the Madmen of Ü and Tsang, and his views on the politics of his day.Chapter 7 offers a brief survey of the “holy madman” phenomenon throughout Tibetan history, as well as the broader rhetoric of religious madness to which it is related. We will see that individual holy madmen were influenced by what they knew of other holy madmen who preceded them, and also that representations of holy madmen were often recycled. This shows that the holy madmen existed within a literate and self-aware tradition. The final section considers how some of the ideas about holy madness that currently predominate among European and American commentators were produced, and how those ideas have shaped under-standings of the history of the phenomenon.Much of this book focuses on Tibet in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen-turies, which was a society at once as admirable and as problematic as any that has ever existed. Religion dominated, as almost every aspect of Tibet’s culture—conceptions of the self and the world expressed through literature and art, the basic categories through which people thought and communicated—was filtered through Buddhist discourse. Despite its pervasiveness, the influence of Buddhism was by no means totalizing, for people experienced other ways of viewing the world, held competing values, and at times behaved in ways that opposed Buddhist ideals. This Tibet was a place of faith and good works, but also of self-interest and treachery. Civil war carved a path of destruction across the regions of Ü and Tsang ( figure 0.1, figure 0.2). Sectarian conflict was commonplace. Wrongdoing like murder was rarely punished, with clerics on occasion both the targets and perpetrators of this kind of violence. There was no separation of church and state, and the shifting relationships between reli-gious hierarchs and members of the nobility drove the politics of the day. Meanwhile, the majority of the population worked in subsistence agri-culture, subject to the nobles or monasteries whose land they farmed, in some cases as serfs. For those who had the freedom to do so, entering the monk- or nunhood was one of the few alternatives to this lot. Anyone invoking the traditional Buddhist historiographic trope of our living in a degenerate age (
snyigs dus
; similar to the Indian notion of a Kali Yuga),
THE
HOLY
MADMEN
OF
TIBET
16
when Buddhism and the human condition have devolved grossly, would have had much to point to in support of that view.In the individuals described in this book we witness the full range of human emotions, motivations and foibles: faith and doubt, affection and disdain, selfishness and selflessness, pride, compassion, jealousy, allegiance, and opportunism—anything that one can imagine. We see examples of remarkable creativity coming up against deeply entrenched structures of thought, as well as personal striving that is at times in the ser-vice of, at times in tension with, the concerns of various collectives. These people are as complicated as we would ever imagine our own selves to be.The years I have spent studying Tibet’s “holy madmen” have been filled with many kinds of conversation. I have spoken with lamas and
khenpo
s of the various sects, and given lectures on my findings to Tibetan schol-ars. I have had countless conversations with Tibetan laypeople, mostly in India, in which they asked me, “What is it that you’re doing here?” Some thought holy madmen an odd subject to spend one’s time studying, there being a strong sentiment among Tibetans that there is little sense to be made of the holy madmen: they are enlightened masters, so what hope do we have of understanding their behavior? Conversations about my research with other American and European scholars have often given way to debates about our most basic understandings of what religions are. It is my hope that the publication of this book will lead to further meaningful conversations—about these “holy madmen” and the history of Tibet, but also about the nature of religion and the methodologies and assumptions we employ when studying it.In framing my arguments in ways that challenge some readers’ pre-conceptions, I hope to do justice to the legacy of the holy madmen, for as a friendly Tibetan layman said to me one morning as we switch-backed down the steep hill to the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala, the holy madmen have always been important, because “if there were no madmen, there would be no new [ways of thinking]” (
smyon pa med na gsar pa yod ma red
). I hope in the pages that follow to portray these “holy mad-men” as forward-thinking individuals, who had a clear understanding of the workings of the world around them, and who, through their words and actions, challenged others’ assumptions about how things ought to be.
0.1
Map of central Tibet
0.2
Map of Tibet and the greater Himalayas
The master [the future Madman of Ü] entered his mother’s womb in the fire-female-ox year [1457]. At that time there were a variety of wondrous good omens, such as his mother’s and father’s dreaming that the sun, moon and stars were all shining together; that they built and paid reverence to representations of enlightened body, speech and mind; that conch shells, drums and other instruments were blown and played and flew into the air; about a canopy of rainbow light, and other things—so it is renowned.Then when he was born in the year called “abundant grain” in the Indian system, or the earth-male-tiger year in the Chinese [1458], the infant was beautiful and pleasing to behold. His head was broad like a parasol, his brow was wide, and all of his limbs were fully articulated and lovely: one endowed with all the marks of a great being had been born.
NYUKLA
PE
ṇ
CHEN
,
The Life of the Madman of Ü
1
This chapter describes the basic trajectories of the lives of the Madmen of Ü and Tsang—birth, childhood, entering the religious life, abandoning monkhood to take on an alternative ascetic lifestyle, rising to prominence, passing away—while conveying some of the flavor of the biographies that relate the stories of their lives to us. These summaries are based on religious biographies, or hagiographies, of the Madmen of Ü and Tsang, which were composed by their respective disciples. These texts function as the official records of these yogins’ lives within the Tibetan tradition and are our main sources of information about them.There are certain problems inherent in using religious biographies as sources for historical information, since they offer mundane details of their subjects’ lives alongside descriptions of miraculous feats. Many of
THE
HOLY
MADMEN
OF
TIBET
20
these problems stem from the fact that while the authors of these biogra-phies were striving to make accounts that were accurate and convincing, they also sought to make accounts that would inspire readers or listeners to gain faith in the spiritual accomplishments of their respective subjects. The intention of generating “goosebumps of faith” is announced in the very titles of biographies of both madmen.
These authors were not objec-tive, journalistic observers, but were personally invested in their masters’ reputations.The dual nature of these biographies is best described using Dominick LaCapra’s observation that texts can be both
documentary
, in their capac-ity to convey information about empirical reality, and
work-like
, in the way they actively shape understandings of that reality.
These texts tell us about what happened in the past while also manipulating our under-standing of that history. The author of any narrative plays an important role in shaping the truth, whether he acknowledges it or not. But the places where these hagiographies exaggerate or diverge from the truth are no less meaningful and useful to the historian, because by determin-ing which aspects of the story were altered, and when and how those changes took place, we can come to important conclusions about the means through which and the ends to which these texts were produced. This exposes the texts’ work-like nature and tells us meaningful things about the historical past.To put this another way, parts of these hagiographies can be taken as accurate descriptions of events that really did take place. Other parts may not relate events exactly as they occurred, but describe something similar to what took place—perhaps an inaccurate accounting of the gifts that were exchanged during a meeting, or an indirect quotation capturing the gist of what someone said, but not his exact words. Other parts of these hagiographies may relate exaggerated versions of the truth. For example, we have no reason to doubt that the Madman of Ü was at times physically assaulted by people who objected to his provocative behavior. But when his biography says that he was attacked by an entire army of angry Nepalese, with the air becoming “so full with weapons and a rain of stones that there was not space for even a little bird to fly,” it is reasonable to view this as an exaggeration introduced by the author or by other faithful contem-poraries of the yogin.
The logic behind this exaggeration is that the more harrowing a trial the yogin was capable of enduring, the more impres-sive his level of spiritual accomplishment must therefore have been. Meanwhile other parts of these hagiographies may be more thoroughly
21
The Lives and
Lives
of the Madmen of Ü and Tsang
fictional. I take the many miracles described in these texts—the yogins’ walking on water, flying through the air, passing through solid walls—as falling into this category. I understand these miracles as pious fictions imagined by the hagiographers—or imagined by other contemporaries and repeated by the hagiographers—for the purpose of bolstering their masters’ reputations as
siddha
s who have achieved enlightenment and miraculous powers through meditation, and who are therefore worthy of our awe and respect. These miracles reflect the need to externalize and quantify the internal states these yogins are maintained to have achieved. There is no skirting the fact that, in order to make a meaningful argu-ment about these matters, the scholar will at times have to decide which of these four categories any part of the hagiography may or may not fall into. Historical studies that attempt to remain agnostic on this question tend not to amount to much.Volumes could be written about the nature of hagiographies and how they can and cannot be used for historical study. This book will not offer a comprehensive discussion of these issues, but will show a number of examples of how one might use this kind of text as a historical document. One technique that will be employed throughout this study to shed light on authors’ decisions is to compare how different texts—an alternative biography of the individual, a biography of someone else, or some other textual source—portray a single statement, person, or event. As will be seen, these biographies can be “saved” as historical sources, in a limited way, through close attention to the authors’ various agendas and the ways they pursue them.
This brief discussion of the nature of these biographical texts high-lights the fact that the process through which men like the Madmen of Ü and Tsang came to be seen as enlightened, saintly beings, was a collaborative one, involving many agents aside from the yogins them-selves. Ultimately this book is a study of the efforts of various agents of meaning-making: from the “holy madmen” to those who beheld them, wrote descriptions of their lives, or perpetuated and modified stories about them generations after their deaths. I am another of these agents, because by saying what I say about them in this book, I play a role in shaping who and what the “holy madmen” were—exercising a work-like function, in addition to the documentary.The famous holy madmen are, in a way, prisoners of the dynamics of representation—what tends to go on in the space between who a real human being was and what is thought about him by others. This is to
THE
HOLY
MADMEN
OF
TIBET
22
some extent the inevitable fate of anyone who becomes the subject of historical study. But the famous holy madmen are susceptible to the dynamics of representation in a particularly thorough manner. This is because of how skillfully they negotiated those dynamics during their lifetimes. As I hope to show in the course of this book, these “holy mad-men” are best seen as true masters of the alchemy of identity formation.
The following account is based on the only substantial biography of the Madman of Ü. The text was written in two parts by two of his disciples. The first part was written by the monk Nyukla Pe
ṇ
chen Ngawang Drakpa (1458–1515, figure 1.1) in 1494, when the Madman of Ü was about thirty-six years old. Nyukla Pe
ṇ
chen may have been a cousin of the warlord Dönyö Dorjé (1463–1512), who was a member of the Rinpung family and an important character in the story that will unfold in the course of this book. The second part was written in 1537, five years after the yogin’s death, by Lhatong Lotsāwa Shényen Namgyel (born in 1512). The latter part was
1.1
“Homage to the great
pa
ṇḍ
ita,
Ngawang Drakpa”
23
The Lives and
Lives
of the Madmen of Ü and Tsang
composed based on records maintained by the Madman of Ü’s nephew and successor, Künzang Nyida Pembar. The first part bears the title
The Life Story of the Noble Künga Zangpo, Glorious Holy Lama, the Preeminent
Siddha
Whose Practice Is Totally Victorious in All Respects, Called “That Which without Restriction Gives Goosebumps of Faith.”
A consistent chapter structure runs throughout the two parts of the
Life
, which together form a single, continuous narrative. Readers interested in the text should consult my complete translation.
The future Madman of Ü was born in a village called Ölkha, in the central Tibetan region of Ü, in 1458. He was the youngest of five sons born into a farming family of the Nyang clan. They called him Kyepo Dar. When he was five or six years old (the hagiography itself expresses this uncer-tainty) his mother would carry him on her back to a nearby monastery, where he listened to stories about the lives of past masters of the Kagyü sect. When he was eight or nine, he began to learn reading and writing at that same monastery.
Following the death of his mother, while struggling under the weight of corvée labor (compulsory work imposed on the family as a tax) and other hardships, Kyepo Dar decided to dedicate his life to the practice of Buddhism, rather than participate in the self-perpetuating cycle of suf-fering that was village life. Despite his earnest wish to leave home and become a monk, his father and brothers prevented him from doing so for two years.When he was fifteen or sixteen, Kyepo Dar fled to Tsari, a holy mountain and a locus of tantric activity. There he met Chuworipa Künga Namgyel, whom he took as his master. Kyepo Dar took his novice monastic vows and was given the name Künga Zangpo. He would spend the next three years with Chuworipa, who transmitted many tantric teachings and ritual empowerments to him. We are told that because of the teenager’s ardent meditation, warmth blazed in his belly, giving him a feeling of bliss. He understood the emptiness of all phenomena and experienced waking life as if it was a dream.In 1475, at around seventeen, Künga Zangpo took full monastic ordi-nation at the Forest of Glorious Samantabhadra, a site for meditative retreat near Densa Til monastery, not far from his home village. After this, he traveled to various monasteries around Ü to receive transmissions from other masters, including Drakchokpa Rinchen Zangpo, who would replace Chuworipa as his main guru from then on.
THE
HOLY
MADMEN
OF
TIBET
24
Künga Zangpo traveled to southwestern Tibet, where he spent eight years in meditative retreat at Lapchi, Chubar, and other sites. He under-took great austerities during this period, fearlessly exposing himself to extreme weather while eating and wearing very little.Künga Zangpo then underwent a transformation that would pro-foundly change the course of his life. One day he went before a statue of the Buddha and removed his maroon monks’ robes. Then he smeared himself with the ashes and blood of a corpse, and put on bangles and a necklace made from human bone. He dressed in a cloak of human skin and a skirt made from a tiger pelt. He took up a trumpet made from a thighbone, a cup made from a human skull, and a
kha
ṭ
v
āṅ
ga
, an ornate ritual staff incorporating skulls and other tantric symbols. In this way he took on the guise of the wrathful deity Heruka.Shortly after making this dramatic change in his appearance, Künga Zangpo began to engage in the provocative behavior that would make him famous. He went to Dzongkar, capital of the western Tibetan kingdom of Ngari Gungtang, where he stole into the presence of the king. Then the palace guards threw him out into the courtyard and savagely beat him. He danced like a wrathful deity, pronouncing the divine syllables
h
ūṃ
and
pha
ṭ
. Upon seeing this, the king and his ministers and subjects became convinced that Künga Zangpo was a
siddha
. From this time on, he was renowned as “the Madman from Ü” (figure 1.2).After this, the yogin went for the first time to what is today Kathmandu, Nepal. He meditated in the inauspicious places where corpses were burned. According to his biography, he also desecrated many statues of Hindu deities by urinating on them and dancing on their heads. The out-raged locals beat and stoned the yogin in a manner sufficient to kill any ordinary man. When he survived, they started to honor and praise him, and were even swayed to revere images of Buddhist deities and to stop performing animal sacrifices.Künga Zangpo returned to central Tibet, traveling from one monastery to the next, receiving teachings and transmissions he had not gotten previ-ously. After visiting his home village, he spent a year meditating and per-forming rituals at many holy places around Tsari. By this time the yogin had attracted a circle of disciples. He instructed them in the Six Dharmas of N
ā
ropa, the Mah
ā
mudr
ā
, and other practices of defining importance to the Kagyü. In Kongpo, he continued to win people over through his miraculous yogic feats. He visited the provincial governor (
khri dpon
, “lord
25
The Lives and
Lives
of the Madmen of Ü and Tsang
of ten thousand” or “myriarch”), Tashi Dargyé of Ja (died in 1499), who became his first major patron.The Madman of Ü traveled to Tsang, visiting many monasteries and retreat sites along the way. During the autumn harvest in Gyantsé, he danced all over some grain that had been laid out to dry. The people beat him mercilessly, but he survived. He made his second and final trip to Kathmandu, during which, we are told, he punched and urinated on a local king, frightening the people so much that they began to revere him.He then established a meditation center called the Fortress of the Expanse of Being in Tsang, which was made possible by financial sup-port from a powerful lord. This served as the yogin’s base for the next few years, as he occasionally returned there to meditate and teach between his travels.In 1488, when the yogin was about thirty years old, he attended an enormous gathering of religious practitioners at Zambulung in the Shang valley, marking the anniversary of the birth of the tantric saint Padmasambhava. It is said that wearing his Heruka costume, he stood
1.2
“Homage to the Madman of Ü, Künga Zangpo”
THE
HOLY
MADMEN
OF
TIBET
26
out from everyone else in attendance. Around this time, he visited the respected scholar-monk of the Sakya sect Ś
ā
kya Chokden (1428–1507), at Serdokchen monastery.One time the Madman of Ü dug up the corpse of a monk who had died of smallpox. He cracked open the skull and ate some of the brains. Everyone who witnessed this was left nauseated.Much of Künga Zangpo’s life during his thirties revolved around his relationship with the Rinpung family, who by this time had taken control of most of the Tsang region through timely power grabs, alliance-making, and military engagements. Künga Zangpo had first met Dorjé Tseten, one of the heads of the family, when he rudely burst into the presence of the great lord seated at court in Shigatsé. As the Rinpung faction extended their domain into Ü, drawing ever closer to Lhasa, the yogin moved along with them. He spent a significant amount of time with Dönyö Dorjé—younger brother of Dorjé Tseten and the most powerful layman in all of Tibet—at Chushül Lhünpo fortress, strategically located at the confluence of the Tsangpo and Kyichu rivers, west of Lhasa. The yogin stayed in a cave at the foot of the fortress and met daily with the great lord.Around this time, the Madman of Ü endured a particularly vicious beating at the hands of the people of Nyukla, who were skeptical of the man who had arrived dressed like a wrathful deity. After he miraculously survived, he was hosted at Nyukla fortress. There the yogin gave teachings to Ngawang Drakpa, “the Great Pa
ṇḍ
ita of Nyukla,” who shortly thereafter wrote this first part of the biography.After visiting his father in Ölkha, the yogin circled through Kongpo, then stayed for some time at the Yöl Rinchen Ling retreat site. An official from Kharak gave him the gift of an estate called Liberation Park, where he established a second meditation center.Künga Zangpo traveled through Tsang, stopping at Serdokchen mon-astery, where he saw Ś
ā
kya Chokden a second time. He began to use the wealth at his disposal to sponsor festivities at various monasteries, includ-ing a religious service at the Forest of Glorious Samantabhadra before the enshrined skull of Drakchokpa, who must have died in the years since the yogin had last seen him.
PART TWO OF
the biography begins by relating the events of 1495, when the Madman of Ü was around thirty-seven years old. He returned to Ölkha to be present at the death of his father, then took his final trip through Kongpo and Tsari.
27
The Lives and
Lives
of the Madmen of Ü and Tsang
After this the yogin’s lifestyle became much less itinerant, with his activities limited to the Penyül area, northeast of Lhasa. In winter of 1499, he went into meditation at Kya-lhuk cave, where he gave advanced instruc-tions to some of his closer disciples. They held a special event in which those advanced practitioners used yogic heat to dry wet sheets they had wrapped around themselves.The Madman of Ü then set his sights on acquiring a monastery situ-ated on an auspicious site in Penyül. It was called Tsimar Pel. The yogin tasked one of his disciples with getting them ownership of the complex, which may have been sitting vacant. On the fifteenth day of the eleventh month of 1502, the Madman of Ü took residence at the monastery, where he would remain until his death thirty years later.The yogin spent the next ten years in strict meditative retreat, focusing on his own practice rather than teaching. For some or perhaps all of this decade he stayed in a sealed retreat, confined to a single room and inter-acting with the world through a small window. It is said that during some of this time he consumed nothing but flowers and berries.In 1511, one of Künga Zangpo’s disciples returned after having spent a long period in eastern Tibet. The Madman of Ü granted him leave to visit his mother in Tsang. While stopping over briefly in Lhasa, he per-formed some version of the provocative behavior for which his master was famous. Because of his doing so, he was attacked and killed.In 1512, at the age of about fifty-four, the Madman of Ü finished his ten-year retreat. When word spread that he would begin giving teachings again, five hundred practitioners arrived from all over Tibet. To a small circle of disciples, he gave more advanced instructions, like the Aural Transmission (
snyan rgyud
or
snyan brgyud
), a rare and secret body of higher teachings relating to the
Cakrasa
ṃ
vara Tantra
. When the teach-ing session was over, he instructed some of his close disciples to make offerings, raise statues, and meditate at holy sites he himself had vis-ited earlier in his career, including Mount Kailash, Lapchi, Chubar, the Swayambh
ū
n
ā
th st
ū
pa, and the Six Fortresses of Milarepa.During the last twenty years of the Madman of Ü’s life, many local officials would arrive to give offerings in exchange for blessings and teach-ings. The great yogin also corresponded with powerful figures from afar. He received letters and gifts from heads of minor kingdoms throughout the Himalayas, like the king of Lowo Möntang (also known as Mustang, inside present-day Nepal), who sent carpets, five hundred pearls, and other gifts. He also received a flattering letter from the Eighth Karmapa,
THE
HOLY
MADMEN
OF
TIBET
28
Mikyö Dorjé (1507–1554), a leading hierarch of the Kagyü sect, who sought his counsel on some difficult points in the practice of tantra.During these twenty years, the Madman of Ü was also visited by many religious figures. Another “madman,” Drukpa Künlé, came bearing gifts and a praise of the Aural Transmission he had written at the yogin’s request. He was also visited by two Indian ascetics known as Tilmarwa of Bodhgaya and Jaharbhi, who declared that even in India there was no guru greater than the Madman of Ü.In 1514, the Madman of Ü’s nephew, who was thirteen years old, came to Tsimar Pel from Ölkha to become a monk and train as the master’s spiritual heir. The yogin dubbed him Künzang Nyida Pembar.Shortly after the autumn harvest of 1516, when most of the master’s disciples were away collecting offerings, a troop of monks and laymen surrounded the Madman of Ü’s residence and began bombarding it with stones and arrows. (It is unclear which faction these attackers represented; they may have been based in Lhasa or near Ganden monastery, and were likely on their way to some more significant military engagement, since this was a time of open conflict between Ü and Tsang.) A few soldiers who broke into the residence and found the yogin wearing his wrathful deity costume immediately prostrated themselves at his feet. But overcome with craving, they took all of his belongings and left. That night the guilty parties saw bad signs portending punishment for what they had done. They returned the great yogin’s possessions the next morning.In 1518, when the Madman of Ü was about sixty, he announced that it was time to appoint replacements for his lineage-holders who had died. In recent years he had lost the disciple who was killed in Lhasa; Nyukla Pe
ṇ
chen, who died in 1515; and Chokro Pe
ṇ
chen Rinchen Samtenpa. Many aspiring meditators surrounded the yogin. He imparted his highest transmissions to a hundred advanced ascetics.Throughout the 1520s the Madman of Ü taught regularly, holding instructional assemblies in winter, spring, and summer. At the end of these sessions, he would send his disciples (who in many cases had dis-ciples of their own) to meditate and spread their brand of Buddhism in different regions, in southwestern Tibet, eastern Tibet, and even China.To prolong the life of his uncle, Künzang Nyida Pembar made offer-ings and sponsored the performance of rituals at Drikung Til monastery, Tsari, Mount Kailash, the Six Fortresses of Milarepa, Ramoché temple, the Jokhang temple, the Drak Yerpa caves, and before the skull of Drakchokpa.
29
The Lives and
Lives
of the Madmen of Ü and Tsang
According to his biography, in 1531 the Madman of Ü made the fol-lowing announcement: “If you want to meet with papa, come this year! I do not know if we’ll be able to keep meeting again and again.”
People flocked to Tsimar Pel as never before. That summer, the yogin announced that he had decided to cease teaching the dharma. Then he told many stories about the deaths of famous lamas of the past, which was taken as a sign that his own time would soon come. He told his disciples that for their salvation, remaining diligent in meditation was the most important thing—even more important than relying on their lama. He then entered a very strict retreat, meeting with no one.In 1532, on the holiday marking the anniversary of the Buddha’s descent from Trāyastri
ṃ
śa heaven, the Madman of Ü died at dusk, sitting in the meditation posture. He was seventy-five years old in the Tibetan reckoning.The great yogin’s casket was adorned with his set of bone ornaments. His nephew was installed as the head of the Tsimar Pel spiritual com-munity. People gathered at the monastery, making offerings and reciting prayers. After the corpse was cremated, the Madman of Ü’s skull and some pearl-like relics were left behind. A st
ū
pa containing his relics, hair, finger-nails, teeth, and other blessed objects was erected at Tsimar Pel. This holy st
ū
pa would remain there as a “material support enabling sentient beings of this degenerate age to accumulate merit,” thus allowing the master to continue his compassionate activity even after death.
Of the three biographies of the Madman of Tsang composed after his death by his disciples, the following account is based on
The Life Story of the Madman of Tsang, the Heruka, Who Is Victorious in All Respects, Called “The Heart of the Sun, Clarifying the Vajrayāna,”
by Götsang Repa Natsok Rangdröl (1482–1559, figure 1.3). The text was most likely completed in 1512. Götsang Repa’s
Life
draws extensively from a shorter one penned by Ngödrup Pembar (1456–1527) in 1508, as well as from the
Collected Songs
of the Madman of Tsang, which were compiled and printed at that same time. A third biography of the great yogin, by Lhatsün Rinchen Namgyel (1473–1557), also draws extensively on Ngödrup Pembar’s biography and the
Collected Songs
. I have chosen to base the following account on the biography composed by Götsang Repa because it is the most detailed of the three (figure 1.4). In the chapters that follow, I make reference to all three
THE
HOLY
MADMEN
OF
TIBET
30
versions of the biography, which agree with and diverge from one another in significant ways. I have written about the contents of and the relation-ships between these biographies in an article published elsewhere.
The future Madman of Tsang was born in 1452, in a village called Kharkha, in Upper Nyang (
myang stod
), in the Tsang region. Like the Madman of Ü, he was of the Nyang clan. He was the second of three broth-ers, all of whom would have careers as noncelibate tantric practitioners, as the men in the family had done for generations. After his birth he was given the name Chögyel Lhünpo. When playing with friends, he would pretend to be a tantric master teaching the dharma. At the age of seven he took the novice monastic vows and was given the name Sangyé Gyeltsen. It is said that at the age of thirteen, he tied a small bundle of poison around his neck, proclaiming that he would kill himself if he ever broke his vows. He tried to run away to the famous meditation site of Lapchi, but was caught by his mother and brought back home to continue his studies.In his late teens, Sangyé Gyeltsen went to Tsari, where he met Shara Rapjampa Sangyé Sengé (1427–1470, figure 1.5), whom he took as his guru. Sangyé Gyeltsen served as Shara Rapjampa’s attendant for a year, dur-ing which time he received the Six Dharmas of Nāropa, the Mahāmudrā,
1.3
“Homage to Götsang, the great
repa
”
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1 . 4
A p a g e f r o m G ö t s a n g R e p a ’ s v e r s i o n o f t h e
L i f e o f t h e M a d m a n o f T s a n g
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THE
HOLY
MADMEN
OF
TIBET
32
Saraha’s
Dohā Trilogy
, the Aural Transmission, and other teachings. He showed signs of success in meditation, such as a yogic warmth that enabled him to go about wearing nothing but a thin cotton cloth. Before their tear-ful final parting, Shara Rapjampa told Sangyé Gyeltsen to seek out tantric transmissions from other masters, to dedicate himself to the study of the
Hevajra Tantra
, and to wear tattered clothes and practice austerities.Sangyé Gyeltsen returned to Tsang and enrolled in the Gurpa college of the renowned Pelkhor Chödé monastic complex in Gyantsé. For three or four years he studied and received empowerments for a number of tantric systems, including the
Hevajra Tantra
and the Path and Fruit (
lam ’bras
). He became a master of ritual, the proper construction of religious images, and ceremonial singing and dance. He is said to have shown great aptitude in everything he studied, knowing the words of the teachings but also their deeper meanings.It is said that while living in the monastery, Sangyé Gyeltsen entered into a state of “divine pride,” in which he saw himself as having the same nature as his chosen tantric deity.
At the same time, he experienced all phenomena as empty of their own inherent existence. Accordingly, he would no longer bow or use respectful language to kings or ministers, or to the monks who outranked him. He began acting out in strange ways.
1.5
“Homage to the noble Shara Rapjampa”
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33
The Lives and
Lives
of the Madmen of Ü and Tsang
One day a formal assembly was being held, and the ruler of Gyantsé came to the monastery with his ministers. When all the monks were seated in rows, Sangyé Gyeltsen arrived carrying a thighbone trumpet and a skull cup, from which he ate and drank. When scolded by the mon-astery’s disciplinarian for acting in such a disruptive manner, Sangyé Gyeltsen responded by asking, “Where in the
s
ū
tra
s and tantras does it say one cannot bring a skull cup and thighbone trumpet into the line of monks?”
The disciplinarian was unable to say. After this, Sangyé Gyeltsen began to think seriously about leaving the monastery. He rea-soned that he should be meditating diligently, rather than only studying the teachings, and that living as a monk was antithetical to the genu-ine practice of tantra. So he renounced his novice monk’s vows (he does not seem to have taken full ordination) and ritually returned his maroon robes to the monastic assembly.
After spending a night on the roof of his dormitory reciting the
Hevajra Tantra
, he departed from the monas-tery. He was about twenty-one years old. For some years, Sangyé Gyeltsen would wear ornaments made from human bones and carry a skull cup and a
kha
ṭ
v
āṅ
ga
staff.On his way to Tsari, traveling with his younger brother Könchok Gyeltsen, Sangyé Gyeltsen stopped in a Lhasa marketplace, where he tore apart a thread cross and ate a ritual cake (
gtor ma
, pronounced
torma
). Some people attacked him for acting so strangely, but miraculously he was not hurt. In Tsari, where he would stay for the next three years, he behaved in even more shocking ways. He told a female religious dignitary being hosted by Tashi Dargyé of Ja that he wanted to copulate with her. When the yogin successfully justified his impertinent behavior by saying that it was as instructed by the
Hevajra Tantra
, the powerful lord was won over and promised to provide for Sangyé Gyeltsen’s upkeep as long as he stayed in Tsari.Another local lord asked Sangyé Gyeltsen to ritually prepare the ground at a site where he intended to build a temple. The yogin smeared his body with blood, adorned himself with intestines from a human corpse, and danced about. On a different occasion Sangyé Gyeltsen went amid a large gathering of people while holding a chunk of brown sugar in his right hand and human feces in his left, taking bites from both. The people were shocked by this unfathomable behavior. Some believed that he had achieved a higher spiritual state and started to call him “the ‘Hero’ of Tsari” (
dpa’ bo
, the Tibetan equivalent of the Sanskrit
vīra
, the male counterpart to the
ḍā
ki
ṇ
ī
; these are low-level tantric gods and goddesses).
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THE
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MADMEN
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TIBET
34
We are told that one night Sangyé Gyeltsen had a vision of the wrathful deity Hevajra, who gave him four tantric initiations and the title of “King of the Blood Drinkers.” The next morning, he ate the brains of some-one who had died of smallpox. It is said that from this time on, Sangyé Gyeltsen was completely free from all misunderstanding and dualistic grasping.
Sa
ṃ
s
ā
ra
and
nirv
āṇ
a
became one and the same to him. After some further gruesome and shocking behavior, people began to revere him as “the Madman from Tsang” (figure 1.6).During an assembly at a lord’s manor near Lhasa, the yogin got into an argument with some scholar-monks (
dge bshes
, pronounced
geshé
) from Sera and Drepung monasteries concerning the validity of his odd ways of acting and dressing. He argued that they were based on the tantric scrip-tures and the example of the great
siddha
s of the past. From Lhasa, the Madman of Tsang traveled to his home village in Tsang, where his mother implored him to give up his eccentricities and resume his education at Pelkhor Chödé. She reasoned that unless he at least changed his clothes, people might see him as a demon and try to kill him.
1.6
“Homage to the lord of victors, the Madman of Tsang, the Heruka”
35
The Lives and
Lives
of the Madmen of Ü and Tsang
The next period of the Madman of Tsang’s life would be spent in south-western Tibet, meditating at sites made holy by their associations with Milarepa, like Lapchi, Chubar, and Kangtsuk cave. During his stay in the area, he had occasional contact with the rulers of Ngari Gungtang and Tsamda. It was around this time that he made his first of three visits to Kathmandu.While on his way to Dzongkar in Ngari Gungtang, the Madman of Tsang met a meditator known as “the Lama from [Densa] Til” (
bla ma thel pa
). After arriving at the palace, the Madman of Tsang stole into the king’s chambers and woke him from his slumber. The king, queen, and princess were all terrified, but soon saw the yogin’s spiritual worth. The Madman of Tsang stayed there for some time as a guest of the king. When the Lama from Densa Til arrived at the palace gate, the king refused to let him in and even had him beaten. The Madman of Tsang protested that it was wrong to treat a renunciant in such a way. The king was persuaded to receive the Lama from Densa Til, who from then on was renowned as “the Madman from Ü.” The Madmen of Ü and Tsang would have a tenu-ous relationship for some years after this meeting, until their relationship dissolved completely in the wake of some unpleasantness between their disciples, to be described shortly.After spending these years in southwestern Tibet, the yogin decided to return to Tsari, stopping along the way at Kharkha (the third of at least six such visits to his mother), Lhasa, and Nedong. Tashi Dargyé again offered to provide for the yogin’s upkeep, this time having to take into account his disciples as well. Corvée laborers were conscripted to transport these goods. Some refused to carry the Madman of Tsang’s things, which led to a heated exchange. They threw rocks at the yogin, but he was unharmed.After meditating and teaching in Tsari for some time, he journeyed back to southwestern Tibet, visiting various patrons and monasteries along the way. When he stopped at a monastery called Samten Ling in southern Latö (Latö Lho), the elderly abbot invited Sangyé Gyeltsen to take over the monastery, as he felt the yogin to be the greatest living vessel for the Kagyü teachings. Sangyé Gyeltsen declined, saying that he intended to continue living as a wandering ascetic, as he had been instructed by his guru. He remained a homeless itinerant all his life.While staying in caves near Lapchi one winter, the yogin got the idea of composing and printing versions of the
Life
and
Collected Songs
of the famous poet-saint Milarepa. The Madman of Tsang began by sending his disciples to various places to gather existing songs by and narratives
THE
HOLY
MADMEN
OF
TIBET
36
about Milarepa. After he finished composing his versions of the
Life
and
Collected Songs
, woodblocks bearing the imprint of each page of text were carved. Copies were made and sent all over Tibet. The printing project was completed in 1488, when the yogin was about thirty-six years old.One night Sangyé Gyeltsen had a dream in which a woman wearing bone ornaments offered him some jewels. The next day, Küntu Zangmo, the daughter of a minor lord, who had run off to become a nun after the death of her husband, came to him. The Madman of Tsang readily accepted her as a disciple. She would remain his consort and patron throughout the rest of his life, and would sponsor the printing of his biographies and his
Collected Songs
after his death.The great yogin was invited to Rinpung by Dönyö Dorjé, who was impressed by the versions of the
Life
and
Songs
of Milarepa he had pro-duced. They entered into a patron–priest relationship that would continue for the rest of the yogin’s life.The Madman of Tsang went to Lapchi in southwestern Tibet, where he spent three years in meditative retreat. During this time he wrote a num-ber of texts related to the Aural Transmission.After another visit to Ü and his second journey to the Kathmandu val-ley, Sangyé Gyeltsen embarked on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, in the far west of Tibet. He was welcomed with a grand reception arranged by some of his students who were living by the holy mountain. While visit-ing the blessed caves in the area, he showed off his clairvoyance, knowing other people’s thoughts before they even voiced them. He was visited by faithful nomads, who gave him yaks, goats, and sheep. He doled out pay-ments to support his disciples staying in meditative retreat.At this time the Madman of Tsang’s patron in Lowo Möntang was at war with the minor kingdom of Gugé Purang over some territory. Much blood had been shed. Both factions requested that the Madman of Tsang medi-ate in the conflict, which the yogin compassionately agreed to do. Despite his best efforts, he was unable to broker a lasting peace. Eventually, Lowo Möntang prevailed and order was restored.Around this time, the Madman of Tsang composed a letter of safe pas-sage, ensuring that while they traveled, his disciples would be sheltered by the various lords with whom he had connections. This letter, and how it was received by other contemporaries, are discussed in chapter 6.The Madman of Tsang made a vow to stay for three years in meditation at Chubar, where he continued to write texts that would go into a grand collection of Aural Transmission teachings. Two years into his retreat, he
