Enduring Trope of Holy Madness

The Enduring Trope of Holy Madness University Press Scholarship Online Oxford Scholarship Online The Holy Madmen of Tibet David M. DiValerio Print publication date: 2015 Print ISBN-13: 9780199391202 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: August 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199391202.001.0001 The Enduring Trope of Holy Madness David M. DiValerio DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199391202.003.0009 Abstract and Keywords This chapter surveys the lives of other “holy madmen” and “madwomen” throughout Tibetan history, from the twelfth century to the present, including Tangtong Gyelpo, “the Madman of the Empty Plain.” This chapter also explores some of the other ways a rhetoric of madness has been employed in Tibetan religious culture, including the use of “madman” as a pen name. Examples of the “madmen’s” influencing one another are shown, as are examples of specific representations of “holy madmen” influencing the biographical representations of later ones. The book closes by arguing that many of the conceptions of “holy madness” operative today bear the influence of Chögyam Trungpa, who employed the rhetoric of “crazy wisdom” to his own specific ends. Page 1 of 38 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Oxford University Press - Main Account; date: 20 June 2016 The Enduring Trope of Holy Madness Keywords: Chögyam Trungpa, Tangtong Gyelpo, holy madness, rhetoric, pen name, madwoman, Cutting, gcod, Kagyü Then at the entrance to the bridge at Tedung, [Tangtong Gyelpo] met the lord of Tsamda, Gyeltsen Pel, accompanied by seventeen attendants on horseback. “Renunciant lama, where have you come from?” they asked. “I came from behind,” he replied. “Where are you going now?” “I’m going forward.” “He’s a feisty one!” LOCHEN GYURMÉ DECHEN, The Life of Tangtong Gyelpo, “Madman of the Empty Valley”1 Other Madmen and Madwomen Drukpa Künlé was not the only “madman” in his illustrious family. His grandfather’s eldest brother, Namkha Pelzang (1398–1425), was renowned as “the Madman of Ralung.” As told in a brief biography composed by his younger brother, Namkha Pelzang was born into the family that controlled Ralung monastery, became a monk at about six, then underwent a standard monastic education. In 1413 he ascended to the throne at Ralung, which he would hold until his death. In 1422 he gave up his monkhood and took a wife. Following this, the biography states how, for the sake of teaching sentient beings during the degenerate age in which we live, the Madman of Ralung assumed both peaceful and wrathful modes and was called a “covert yogin.” Although his time on the throne is said to have been a period of prosperity and wellness in the area around Ralung, Namkha Pelzang fell ill and died before he reached thirty.2 (p.221) There is no mention of Namkha Pelzang’s engaging in antinomian behavior comparable to that of the Madmen of Ü and Tsang. It seems that he was called a “madman” for deviating from the norm of celibacy. Although he assumed Page 2 of 38 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Oxford University Press - Main Account; date: 20 June 2016 The Enduring Trope of Holy Madness various personas and was called a “covert yogin” by some, his lifestyle must have remained at least somewhat conventional, since he was able to remain the abbot of Ralung. In following his own path to becoming a “madman” two generations later, Drukpa Künlé may well have been motivated in part by what he knew of his great uncle. The turn of the sixteenth century was the moment in Tibet’s history when “holy madmen” were most numerous and influential. There was the Madman of the Drukpa, the Madman of Ü, the Madman of Tsang, the Madman of the Charnel Ground, the Madman of Taklung, and the Madman of Üding, all associated most strongly with the Kagyü.3 Another Kagyüpa, the Madman of Dakla Gampo (1451–1502), Mipam Drakpa Gyeltsen, lived a life very similar to that of the Madman of Ralung. He was born into religious royalty as a member of the Nyiwa clan, entered the monkhood at eight, and became the twelfth abbot of Dakla Gampo monastery at the age of ten. In his late teens he underwent a dramatic change in behavior and abdicated in favor of Drukpa Künlé’s cousin, Künga Penjor, the Second Drukchen. Mipam Drakpa Gyeltsen took a consort and acted in ways that seemed strange to others, which put a strain on his relationship with his former community. According to a biography of him contained in a history of Dakla Gampo written in 1662, Because of his performing miracles and signs of accomplishment, he was undisputedly renowned as a siddha. Because he performed various types of activity [or the Practice, spyod pa], in terms of dress and outward display, he was also renowned by the name “the dharma lord, Madman of Dakla Gampo.”4 At this moment in Tibetan culture, “madman” was a ready category through which a practitioner of the Kagyü might present himself, and through which a community might interpret an ascetic’s actions. There were “madmen” and “madwomen” in Tibet long before the fifteenth century. Most early exemplars of the tradition were associated with the meditative and ritual practices of Cutting (gcod) and Pacification [of Suffering] ([sdug bsngal] zhi byed), both of which were initiated by the Indian yogin Padampa Sangyé. According to the history of Cutting offered Page 3 of 38 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Oxford University Press - Main Account; date: 20 June 2016 The Enduring Trope of Holy Madness in Gö Lotsāwa’s Blue Annals, there was a Madwoman of Lhasa, who was one of (p.222) four ḍākiṇīs, along with Machik Lapdrön, important in the life of Padampa Sangyé. Padampa Sangyé had a grand-disciple called Mad Beré. Machik Lapdrön’s great-grandson was called Samdrup, the Mad Skull Cup. The records also tell of a Madwoman Gyel-lecham, a Madman of Chokro, and a Little Madman of Gya, who was also known as Mad Dönden. All three are connected to the Pacification tradition or its mythology.5 The Madmen of Ü and Tsang were also involved with Cutting, and with a Secret Practice that was, by their time, partially synonymous with it. In the nineteenth century, Dharma Sengé, a famous scholar of Tibetan medicine, was known as the Madman of Kham. He was a renowned practitioner of Cutting and wrote biographies of its early masters.6 A figure known as the Latsé Madman, or the Latsé Powerful One, or by his proper name, Latsé Khyenrap, lived in Nangchen, Kham, in the 1970s or 80s. As told to me by one who grew up in the area, the Latsé Madman specialized in the practice Cutting. Living in a cave, he wore tattered clothes and kept long hair and a beard. He is said to have had no concern about clean or unclean things, for it was all the same to him. He never washed and did not care about what he ate. When a corpse was left unattended to (because the person had died from an infectious disease or had no family), the Latsé Madman would prepare it for disposal. He had a miraculous ability to heal sick people, taking the disease into his own body and destroying it. He could drink any amount of alcohol and never get drunk. When the villagers gathered for some occasion, the Latsé Madman would do all manner of crazy things, including taking off his clothes, dancing around, sitting where he was not supposed to, drinking excessively, and saying contrary things: if everyone said something was good, the Latsé Madman would say it was bad; if everyone said it was bad, he would say it was good. Many people in the area had great faith in the Latsé Madman. Nevertheless, the local children were afraid of the unpredictable ascetic and tried to avoid the hillside where he lived.7 Page 4 of 38 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Oxford University Press - Main Account; date: 20 June 2016 The Enduring Trope of Holy Madness Among the other “madmen” associated with the Kagyü sect not already discussed in this book, there was the Madman of Go, or Karma Sidrel, born in the sixteenth century, who was a famous sculptor. There was also the Madman of Ur, who was the first Chungtsang incarnation of Drikung, Chökyi Drakpa (1595–1659).8 A number of Nyingmapas were also known, more or less, as “madmen.” Many of these figures were treasure revealers (gter ston).

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