Buddhacising the Mountain

chapter 12 Buddhacising the Mountain

Introduction

We saw that the earliest Buddhist presence in the Tise/Mapham region was probably generated by the tendency for esoteric practitioners to seek out remote and auspicious locations for their practice rather than any specific identi- fication of the region with the lake visited by the Buddha or any other textually- based understanding of it as within Buddhist sacred geography. None-the-less, those renunciates required patronage and the process of transforming a remote location appropriate to esoteric practice due to its sanctity in local culture into a textually-sanctioned Buddhist sacred landscape required a specific agency. In this case the agents were the local rulers, who offered support for Buddhist monastic and renunciate activities. Transformation also required explanatory conceptual devices. While the conversion of Ngari to a Buddhacised realm was a lengthy and multi-layered process involving the ritual conversion of numerous local people, sites, and deities, the historically dominant imaginary construction involved the instal- lation of the mandala of the Tantric deity Demchok onto the landscape. The myth of Milarepa winning Tise from the Bönpo may be better known, but his activities were primarily significant in the context of revealing the mountain as the abode of Demchok, his tutelary deity. His victory thus restored the cosmic order. The process of (re)installing Demchok ultimately relied upon the visionary authority of certain renunciates of the Kargyu order and the attribution to them of the power to read the landscape with the understanding of the fully- enlightened being. Toni Huber has pointed out that;

all traditional Tibetan [literary] genres depend upon and invoke two principal sources of authority to identify sacred sites. The main type is visionary authority, based upon the “pure visions” (dag-snang) of particular landscapes experienced by Tantric lamas in altered states of con- sciousness, during meditation, dreams, and so forth … The second type is prophetic authority, in the form of citation and analysis of “prophecies” (lung-bstan) reputedly made by Buddhas, deities, recognised saints or highly realised lamas about the identity of particular places.1

1 Huber (1997: 306).

Both such authorities were manifest in the sacralisation of Tise; the prophetic authority of Naropa and Marpa validating Milarepa’s role at Tise and the visionary authority of later Kargyupas that validated the understanding of Tise as the abode of the tutelary deity of their sect through the citation of prophecies said to have been made by the Buddha. Having discussed the religio-political aspects of the phyidar, the mythology surrounding Milarepa, and the move- ment of renunciate groups into Ngari in the previous chapter, we now look at the contested process by which the mountain was constructed as a Buddhist one.

The Cakrasamvara Tantra

Śambara/Saṃvara is frequently mentioned in the Rgveda, where he appears as a mountain-dwelling chief (or deity) whose forts are destroyed by Indra.2 But Cakrasamvara only emerges as a Buddhist deity in late Indic Tantric formula- tions as expressed in the Cakrasamvara Tantra. This is, according to a study by David Gray;

a Buddhist ritual text composed in India during the eighth century by an unknown author or group of authors …, developed in a non-monastic setting, and composed via the active appropriation of elements of [landscape and3] both text and practice belonging to non-Buddhist groups, most notably the Kāpālikas.4

2 On Śambara/Saṃvara in the Vedic literature, see Parpola (2002: 261–262, 272–279); also see Parpola (1988: 210–211, 215–217, 261–263). In these and other works Parpola proposes links to the later Buddhist deity Cakrasamvara. Davidson (2002: 214), while also noting that a deity of that name is mentioned in the Arthasastra, sees no evidence for continuity. Such recurrence of names is common but the processes by which they were recycled is unclear. Did they still retain some cultural currency that gave meaning to their revival? Were they, like toponyms, part of a stock of “free-floating” spiritual indicators and symbols available to whoever needed them? 3 Gray (2006: 306–307). 4 Gray (2007: xv). Where not otherwise indicated, I have relied on this outstanding study. On this text, also see Gray (2001); Loseries (2011). Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s Shrīchakrasambhara Tantra: A Buddhist Tantra (1918. Edited by Ar- thur Avalon: Calcutta/London: Thaker, Spinks, & co), is not the actual Tantra of this name but a series of associated ritual texts.