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Souls Are Like the Wind

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Souls Are Like the Wind Ma Lihua Souls Are Like the Wind Translated from the Chinese by Markus S. Conley and Song Meihua Reihe Phönixfeder 37 OSTASIEN Verlag We thank the author for the photographs she sent us and the permission to use them for the English edition. Licensed edition with permission from Zhongguo Zangxue chubanshe 中国藏学出版社 (China Tibetology Publishing House) Bibliographische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliographie; detaillierte bibliographische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. ISSN: 1868-4866 ISBN: 978-3-946114-37-6 © 2017. OSTASIEN Verlag, Gossenberg (www.ostasien-verlag.de) 1. Auflage. Alle Rechte vorbehalten Redaktion, Satz und Umschlaggestaltung: Martin Hanke und Dorothee Schaab-Hanke Druck und Bindung: Rosch-Buch Druckerei GmbH, Scheßlitz Printed in Germany Inhalt Prologue 1 Chapter 1: Thragu’s Sacrificial Practices throughout the Seasons 5 Starting from the Ancient Spring Plowing Ceremony in the Fields 5 The Farm Woman Tsöndrü Wangmo and Her Family 10 Farming Ballads and the Ongkor Festival 13 Young City Riders Leaving Home Ballads Behind 19 Looking for the Goddess of the Earth: A Myth That Has Vanished 25 Entering into Everyday Life in Thragu 31 A Young Guy Who No Longer Returned to Thragu 37 Chapter 2: The Spectacular Zhörong Mountain Valley 41 Legends on the Banks of the Zhörong River 41 Drigung Thil Monastery’s Past Brilliance and Adaptation 41 An Ascetic Monk Who Spent Eleven Years in Confinement 43 The Most Renowned Sky Burial Ground in Tibet 48 Tendzin Chödzin: A Ḍākinī’s Incarnation 58 Treu Lo Kagyü: A Grand Ritual Conducted for the Soul 63 Souls Are Like the Wind 73 Chapter 3: Scenes from the Margin: Trülku Khedrup’s Dramatic Life 81 Khedrup’s Literary Talent 81 Khedrup’s Vicissitudes of Life 84 An Ancient Custom from Khedrup’s Hometown: Hail Prevention at the Ongkor Festival in the Year of the Monkey 91 Another Ancient Custom from Khedrup’s Hometown: A Male Spirit Medium Who Summons Deities to Descend into His Body and Yangguk – the Invitation of Blessings 96 Khedrup’s Sacred Moment 99 Khedrup’s Secular Worries 102 A Soul Afloat in the Never-ending Passage of Time 106 v Chapter 4: A Countryside Covered with Deities 109 Legends in the Secret Mountain Valleys 109 Local Deities, Where Do You Come From, and What Have You Come to Do? 112 The Tsen Deities and the King of the Myriad Tsen 116 Investigation of the Deities and a Record of Their Genealogy 121 The Deities Have Descended: Three People I Know Who Summon Deities to Descend into Their Bodies 127 A Relic of High Antiquity: The Deities of the Three Realms and Their Mysterious Qualities 138 The Perfect Fire Offering in Tsenthang Village, in Which the Deities Are Honored and the Ghosts Are Given Alms 144 Chapter 5: Where the Yarlung Tsangpo Flows 159 Traveling to the Source of Tibetan Civilization: the Southern Tibetan Valley 159 The Monks and Nuns of Chimphu Hermitage 162 The Territory of the Lhagyari, Kings of the Hundred Deities 175 Several Thousands of Years from the Living Dead Who Keep the Tombs to Threnggo Valley 183 The Potters of Tsenyül 189 A Collection of Folktales from the Apes that Turned into Humans to Gokza Lhamo 194 The Guardian Deity of Lhoka’s Cultural Relics 200 Chapter 6: The Soul of a Pilgrim 207 The People Who Kowtow in a World of Ice and Snow 207 Singing Songs of the Soul in the Camp of the Pilgrimage Tribe 214 Why We Go on Pilgrimages 221 Experiences and Legends in Norbu Zangpo’s Family History 223 What We Know and What We Do Not Know 231 A Daily Chronicle of the Journey 234 Fulfilling Vows at Jokhang Monastery 238 vi Chapter 7: Since I Heard the Expression “Souls Are Like the Wind” 243 The World in Conceptions: From Word of Mouth and Written Sources 243 A Traditional Life: A Narration from Mr. Pento 248 A Closer Look at the Ups and Downs in the Life of the Narrator of the Previous Story 255 The Year 2000: Spending Tibetan New Year in Thragu Village 260 2015: “Ongkor Festival” in My Old Haunt Thragu Village 267 One Man’s Wanderings and Settling Down 275 Notes 283 Postface by Peter Schwieger 291 Acknowledgements 295 Author and Translators 297 vii Prologue The mountains are high, and the rivers wide. The desolate and cold Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is composed of such massive mountains and rivers. One is left wondering: where else in the world could one see such forbidding and lofty mountain ranges even more vast than these? Even the flat part of the plateau is several thousand meters above sea level, making it the roof of the world. I enjoy the moments when all my eyes meet is mountains. I enjoy appreciating them from all possi- ble angles: gazing at them across their horizontal expanse or from a bird-eye’s view, looking up at them from nearby or viewing them from a distance; I relish looking at them in all different sorts of light- ing: in the rays of dawn in the morning, in the dimming lights of dusk, or in broad daylight; I enjoy going everywhere in the mountains, crossing them or trudging through them, whether in vehicles, on horseback, or simply on foot. During my seventeen or eighteen years in Tibet, these mountains have been my constant companions. – It is jiaogan – bone-dry… I tend to unconsciously think aloud in my native northern Chi- nese, and using “jiaogan” in my dialect fits perfectly in this situation. Indeed, it is bone-dry, bone-dry and boundless. The vast and endless sunshine and monsoon winds above the mountain wilderness weather away the years like wisps of silk thread, desiccating life itself. By the term “life” I do not mean a certain indi- vidual’s life or the lives of a certain group of people, but life in a gen- eral sense…all life. A wiser person would favor water. Fortunately, there are coursing streams of water that never cease to flow. They run through the can- yons and plains between the mountains, tumultuously or gently, continuing day and night, and never turning back. Whoever concen- trates on flowing water will eventually become wise. The currents continue day and night never turning back, coursing off into the distance, into the bosom of the ocean. Along the way, they collect the water from the melted snow, rain, and springs, which ceaselessly surges downward from both banks. Since ancient times, the erosion caused by the water from the melting snow, the rain, and the springs has deepened and broadened the valleys that crisscross the land. Deep and shallow with many twists and turns, this natural environment is a 1 perfect creation of heaven and earth. Human beings have quietly emerged in the creases of the mountains and put down roots there. That vitality and current of life, which made me sigh endlessly with deep emotion for many years, silently flowed forth from the floor of the valley. Such primordial essence of life and living! All the villages I have visited are situated without exception in a place where water flows by. I always went from one valley into the next and crossed one river heading toward the next one. In the last two years I have been rushing back and forth between the mountains and rivers of Lhasa in central Tibet and the Yarlung Tsangpo in Lhoka, visiting these villages and their people who have thus become increasingly familiar to me.1 These patches of mountain wilderness are no longer something to be passed over briskly with an indiscriminate eye or mere objects treated with indifference; some- thing we have in common and mutually share maintains and con- nects my empathy and my observations. No doubt, exploring and documenting the culture in these areas was important for me. Oth- erwise, why would I have approached these villages and homes with a zealous yearning and with such enthusiasm? It was without a doubt a great privilege to be the first to come to appreciate the existence of little known lifestyles in places folklorists and anthropologists had not previously had the chance to cast their eyes on. However: This is not the sum total of its significance, at least not its ultimate and quintessential significance. For me, the process one must go through is much more appealing and pleasureful than the achieve- ment of the objective: Why am I deeply interested in and inspired by a certain phenomenon or behavior? Where can I find clues about it? What methods can I use to trace it back to its origins? Whom can I learn about it from? What further questions may it raise, and what further forks in the road will it lead me to...? Needless to say that these mysterious things were represented and expressed through cognitive and verbal means I long felt novel – almost all of my knowledge of Tibetan folk culture has been acquired through the Tibetan language. Full of expressive force, the Tibetan language is extraordinarily unusual and pleasing to the ear, with a modulation like craggy cliffs, and Tibetan speakers are, without ex- ception, talkative, like streams of water gurgling without pause. Par- ticularly when I conducted interviews, my thoughts would take flight, 2 and some single words I managed to catch would deviate from their original trajectory leading my thoughts to wander off in unrestrained imagination like a heavenly horse riding across the sky. A simple translation tip would make my mind comprehend it, extend the associations I had with it, and allow me to draw further inferences.
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