David Templeman on the Gathering of Intentions: a History of a Tibetan

Jacob Paul Dalton. The Gathering of Intentions: A History of a Tibetan Tantra. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. xxiii + 246 pp. $60.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-231-17600-2. Reviewed by David Templeman Published on H-Buddhism (April, 2017) Commissioned by John Powers (Deakin University) At the outset it should be observed that this is the same as it travels through new phases?” (p. a thoroughly researched and rewarding book. If xvi). This leads to even larger questions, such as, there are difficulties for the reader they are in the “Does a tantra’s periodic ‘renovation’ make it into book’s remarkable density. Every sentence re‐ an entirely new text?” As the reader will note quires some thought and where possible requires from their reading of the present work, the au‐ that the reader consult many of the cited refer‐ thor might suggest that it is less an issue of “alter‐ ences. This is in no manner intended as a criti‐ ing or renovating” a tantra than the varying uses cism. Rather, it is a testament to the consistently to which that tantra might be put and the conse‐ high quality of Jacob Dalton’s scholarship, to quent shifts in focus onto entirely different as‐ which we were introduced in his Taming of the pects of it that necessarily follow. Demons: Violence and Liberation in Tibetan Bud‐ The text under discussion, the Dgongs pa ’dus dhism (2011). pa’i mdo, or, as it referred to in the book, the The present work, as the title suggests, tracks Gathering of Intentions Sutra (sic), is said to have the “vicissitudes of a single ritual system” (p. xv) originated from a valley to the north of Kashmir between the ninth century and the present time. and to have been written in the Burushaski lan‐ This in itself is a rare feat for though it is possible guage of northern Gilgit and Baltistan. By the to follow a group of tantras successfully through twelfth century the tantra had come to be radical‐ their lifespans with broad brushstrokes it is infin‐ ly questioned--it was claimed that it was not a itely more difficult to do so with a single tantra. Buddhist work, that it was a Tibetan forgery, that Such an approach permits the questioning of is‐ it was not even Indic, and that its so-called Bu‐ sues that might well have remained hidden had rushaski origins were incorrect. Jacob Dalton dili‐ many tantras been studied. Dalton’s study raises gently follows this discussion as it evolved major questions such as, “Does a tantra remain through to recent times in which the twentieth- H-Net Reviews century lama Khenpo Nüden claims that the origi‐ cussing the formation of a new lineage at the nal text was written in Sanskrit and later translat‐ monastery of Dorje Drak in the seventeenth cen‐ ed into Burushaski and from that into Tibetan, tury, he says, “A lineage and the authority it be‐ thereby fulfilling the Tibetan Buddhist “require‐ stows depend very much on its perceived given‐ ment” for an authentic Indic source. To this con‐ ness, yet it does not simply exist to be discovered; voluted origin account the author adds his own it is created…. Lineage thus pretends to be destiny opinion that the original might well have been but is (at least in part) narrative” (p. 78). He then composed in Tibetan and that the core aspect of discusses the formation of Dorje Drak from a vari‐ the tantra that deals with the Rudra mythos might ety of angles, but the main theme of this chapter well have derived from a Burushaski original. is clearly the detailed discussion of the extent to Moreover, Dalton is of the opinion that the Rudra which the tantra’s trajectory was intimately “in‐ myth did in fact form the core of the tantra in its tertwined with the politics of the day” (p. 79). original form. Later in the book he observes that The author continually raises issues that add in his opinion both the “Gathering of Intentions a deeper dimension to what we already know of and its circle of ‘root sutras’ [sic] had at least one Tibet’s tantric history. In particular, he notes the foot in a genuinely early and possibly Indian ritu‐ implications arising from the Gathering of Inten‐ al system” (p. 72). Between pages 26 and 29 the tions and its ninefold classificatory structure of author discusses the vexed issue of the apparently the tantras that is said to reflect the Buddha’s simultaneous arising of the tantra. Both King Dza teachings. The structure of the classification is and Rudra were said to have possessed their own based upon the three core themes of Suffering views of the tantra’s purpose, and Dalton exam‐ (Śrāvaka/Pratyekabuddha/Bodhisattva), Asceti‐ ines the co-existence of both myths and the prob‐ cism (Kriyā tantra/ Ubhaya tantra/Yoga tantra), lem arising from legends of their origins in the and Powerful Methods (Mahāyoga tantra/Anuyo‐ same location but at different times. ga tantra/ Atiyoga tantra). The benefit of following a single tantra is evi‐ Chapter 3 (“The Spoken Teachings”) discusses dent in the author’s meticulous tracking of the the early Zur tradition and the oral teachings on various “uses” to which it was put, and it is in this the tantra. Among the topics covered are the gene‐ that I think the book’s main strength lies. In the sis of the terma tradition and the Zur lineage’s tantra’s earliest iteration in the ninth century, awkward relationship with that class of literature. Nupchen Sangyé Yeshé shaped it so that it was Its resistance toward terma and its insistence on able to offer a place and a systematic role for all holding them at bay led to accusations being the many new tantras emanating from India. By made that both prelates, the Greater and Lesser the eleventh or twelfth century, members of the Zur (Zurché and Zurchung), had composed their Zur clan had recast the tantra as an Anuyoga text, own texts, passing them off as genuine. The effect largely in response to critics who regarded it as a of the second wave of Indian teachings entering non-Tibetan forgery. By the fourteenth or ff‐ Tibet is summarized and discussed, and the au‐ teenth century, Tibetan use of the tantra had thor notes that they had the efect of ofering their waned and chapter 4 (“The Rise of the Sutra [sic] adherents “unprecedented power and prestige” Initiation”) is, of necessity, a quite densely infor‐ (p. 51). This, he observes, led in part among the mative one, dealing as it does with the develop‐ New School adherents to a process of “growing in‐ ment of the tantra’s initiation structure. terest among Tibetans in constructing lineages ty‐ The author’s shrewd comments are noted ing themselves and their teachings back to India” throughout the book. For example, when dis‐ (p. 55). The tempo of this “archaeological” process 2 H-Net Reviews seems to have been maintained well into the six‐ tas. Among other topics, the author discusses the teenth century. This search for Indic “originals” remarkable changes within the Nyingma that was extremely difficult for the Nyinmgma Old sought for a larger view of the role of the Gather‐ School members, for whom the obtaining of the ing of Intentions, in particular the linking togeth‐ requisite proof was far more difficult. er of its public ritual performance and the pre‐ In what for this reviewer was the most excit‐ senting of larger and more elaborate state cere‐ ing chapter (chapter 5: “Dorjé Drak and the For‐ monies. This move may also be extrapolated to a mation of a New Lineage”), Dalton deals with renewal of a nascent national sentiment, although what he calls “Nyingma Politics in the Seven‐ this is not explicitly discussed by the author. teenth Century.” He provides us with detailed in‐ In the seventh and fnal chapter (“Returns to formation on the ffth Dalai Lama and his uneasy the Origin”), Dalton tracks the slow demise of the relationship with both the Mongols and the rulers tantra as a unique and separate entity. After the of Tsang. Of especial interest to the reviewer was eighteenth century, he writes, it had become so the highly critical (and yet apparently objective) much a part of the background of all Nyingma statement made by the ffth Dalai Lama that the practice that it was no longer regarded as a re‐ ruler of Tsang, Karma Tenkyong Wangpo, “did not markable work. Rather, it had become such an in‐ practice the secret mantra of the Nyingma timate aspect of practice that it had become in [School] as his main doctrinal system” (pp. 91-92). fact “the scene” itself and had almost perfectly From that point the Great Fifth goes on to detail blended into the general Nyingma background. the many and varied failings of Karma Tenkyong The fnal chapter focuses on the Nyingma Wangpo, whose “tiny bit of practice” of the Nying‐ need for a sense of unity, or as the author refers ma was that of Zhikpo Lingpa’s terma cycles. The to it, “homogenization.” In this chapter he tracks Great Fifth further claims that the Tsang ruler the so-called nineteenth-century Nyingma “re‐ might have been intending to retroactively “take vival” in eastern Tibet and notes the focal location over” one of the core aspects of Dorjé Drak, name‐ of the tantra’s maṇḍala, lying as it did rather in‐ ly the Northern Treasures (p. 92n38).

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