Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon in Light of the Tibetan Treasure (gter ma) Tradition

Tanner Davidson McAlister

A Paper Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of

Theological Studies, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts

May 2021

Faculty Advisors:

Dr. David F. Holland

Dr. Janet Gyatso

Teaching Fellow:

Naohito Miura 1

“The American history of Joseph Smith looks for causes: what led Joseph Smith to think as he did? Comparative, transnational histories explore the limits and capacities of the divine and human imagination: what is possible for humans to think and feel?”1

Drawing on observations and suggestions from scholars of Tibetan Buddhism and

Mormonism, this paper compares the production of the Book of Mormon with that of the class of

Tibetan Buddhist scripture known as gter ma (“Treasure,” pronounced “terma”).2 In brief, both are said to have been authored by ancient religious figures, buried with the anticipation of future discovery, discovered by visionaries with the help of supernatural beings, and “translated” from an obscure language into the discoverers’ native tongue by supernatural, revelatory means.3

More specifically, this paper aims to use a new lens—a gter ma lens, if you will—to explore and extend existing theories of the relationship between the gold plates that Joseph Smith

(Mormonism’s founder) claimed to discover, and his translation of those plates, the Book of

Mormon. Whereas current theorists emphasize how (or if) Smith’s mind worked on a set of

(ancient or fabricated) gold plates to produce a text, I will argue that in light of similar events in

1 Bushman, “Joseph Smith’s Many Histories,” 11. 2 I am not the first to notice similarities between these two traditions. However, only Donald Lopez, has done more than merely note superficial similarities. In his The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Biography, Lopez observed that both Joseph Smith and the Tibetan Book of the Dead’s revealer Karma Lingpa legitimated their discoveries by posthumously attributing their text’s authorship to an authoritative religious figure after purportedly uncovering them from their native lands and translating them from an obscure language by supernatural means. Creating this link to a sacred past, Lopez argues, bolstered the Tibetan Book of the Dead’s popularity while leading to widespread suspicion and persecution of Smith “at least in part, because [he] lived in a chronologically recent and geographically proximate past” (137-139, 148-152). As for other Buddhist studies scholars who have noted the comparison, in chronological order: Gyatso, Apparitions of Self, 147; Kapstein, Tibetan Assimilation, 136; Obeyesekere, The Awakened Ones, 503-504. As for Mormon studies scholars: Underwood, “Attempting to Situate Joseph Smith,” 46; Quick, “Emma Smith as Shaman”; Hardy, “Introduction,” xxv-xxvi; Taves, “History and the Claims of Revelation,” fn. 20; Hardy, “Ancient History and Modern Commandments,” 216 (fn. 37). Also tangentially related are the comments of Osto (“Altered States,” 179, fn. 5) and Boucher (Bodhisattvas of the Forest, xii, xiv) that comparisons with Mormonism could aid in understanding the origins of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Both are drawing on comments from Nattier, who has only briefly made the comparison once herself (A Few Good Men, 170). Robert Mayer has also suggested that cross-cultural comparisons with anthropological accounts of treasure recovery could aid in understanding the origins of the Tibetan Treasure tradition, although he does not specifically mention Mormonism (Mayer, “Rethinking Treasure,” 144-146). See also Edward Conze’s essay, “Buddhism and Gnosis,” which compares the Tibetan Treasure tradition with Gnosticism. 3 Although I have presented these actions in the past tense for grammatical symmetry, it is important to note that Tibetan Treasure discoveries continue on in the present day (for example, see Germano, “Re-Membering the Dismembered Body”; Gayley, “Ontology of the Past,” 234-236). 2 the gter ma tradition, and how scholars of the gter ma tradition have studied those events, the primary sources suggest Smith’s mind to be just one element in a larger system of non (or supra) human agents. In fact, in conjunction with recent studies on what Smith could have meant in using the term “translation,” comparison with the gter ma tradition opens up the possibility that

Smith’s gold plates served as a revelatory vehicle that instigated and facilitated his production of the Book of Mormon, rather than the book’s textual source. This possibility, in turn, serves to transcend the traditional bifurcated interpretive options most often applied to this event without bracketing or rejecting important elements of Smith’s account.

This paper will proceed as follows. After briefly discussing Smith’s discovery of the gold plates and how this event has been treated in the field of Mormon studies, I will outline a set of important functional similarities between the gold plates and gter mas within their respective religious traditions. This portion of the paper situates these two traditions in their historical contexts, while also highlighting the gold plates and gter mas’ shared roles as mediators that facilitate the flow of power and knowledge from past to present agents. Thus, it provides fuller context for the following section of the paper, in which I will analyze how the material artifacts of the gter ma tradition are themselves said to exert agency within this mediatory role, and attempt to use this insight to challenge and expand existing theories of Smith’s translation.

Finally, this will be followed by a brief a discussion of the aforementioned implications of reading Smith’s experience in light of the gter ma tradition.

Introduction to Joseph Smith, the Gold Plates, and the Field of Mormon Studies

On the night of September 21, 1823, seventeen-year-old Joseph Smith Jr. claimed an angel named Moroni appeared in his room and informed him that “God had a work” for him to 3 do.4 He told Smith about a set of “gold plates” upon which was inscribed “an account of the former inhabitants of this continent”—of whom Moroni had been a member—buried in a hillside near his home in Palmyra, New York. The plates were inscribed with characters from an unknown language called Reformed Egyptian5 and accompanied by “two stones” referred to as ancient “seers … that God had prepared … for the purpose of translating the book.”6 After four years of annual visits to the plates’ location where Smith conversed with the angel, he was allowed to take possession of the plates and their accompanying stones—later referred to as the

“Urim and Thummim”7—with the stipulation that he show them to no one unless commanded to do so.8 Then, through a process analyzed below, he translated them into English, and in March

4 JSP, “History, 1838-1856, vol. A-1,” 5- 7. 5 Mormon 9: 23 [Unless otherwise noted, citations with chapter and verse references refer to the Book of Mormon edition listed in the bibliography]. 6 JSP, “History, 1838-1856, vol. A-1,” 5- 7. 7 These are Hebrew terms meaning “Lights and Perfections,” referenced in numerous Old Testament passages (Exodus 28: 30; Leviticus 8: 8; Numbers 27: 21; Deuteronomy 33: 8; 1 Samuel 14: 36-42; 28: 6; Ezra 2: 63; Nehemiah 7: 65). Similar to Joseph’s account (see Joseph Smith—History 1: 35) they are often described as placed within a breast plate, but little is known about their usage. Coogan suggests that they were diviners that were “thrown like dice” (The Old Testament, 248, 301). The “seers” or “spectacles” that Joseph found with the plates were not referred to as the Urim and Thummim until 1833, when W.W. Phelps that the Book of Mormon “was translated … through the aid of a pair of Interpreters, or spectacles— (known, perhaps, in ancient days as Teraphim, or Urim and Thummim)” (see MacKay and Dirkmaat, “Firsthand Witness Accounts,” 67). Orson Pratt, an early Latter-day Saint apostle, defined the Urim and Thummim as “a stone or other substance sanctified and illuminated by the Spirit of the living God, and presented to those who are blessed with the gift of seeing” (see Wagoner, “The Gift of Seeing,” 61-62), which is probably how Smith used the term. 8 The primary sources provide little room for interpretive difference on Smith’s experience uncovering the plates. Although Vogel rejects the historicity of all these “evolving” accounts due to their consistent “anachronistic” additions (Vogel, The Making of a Prophet, 44), the vast majority—especially those attributed to Joseph himself— convey quasi-identical central plot points. That Smith’s later accounts incorporate terms and themes that impose a new teleology conducive to his restorationist project is not grounds for rejecting the events as a credible historical touchstone. The only notable contradictions that could have had first-hand evidence are the hostile accounts of Willard Chase and Peter Ingersoll in 1833 (Vogel, Early Mormon Documents (EMD), 2: 67; Brodie, No Man, 37) and that of Joseph’s wife Emma’s cousins in 1879 (EMD 4: 305). For the many other first-hand sources on Smith’s recovery of the plates, see Taves’ summary and comparison in the appendix of Revelatory Events (311-314), as well as a letter written by Smith’s brother Jesse in 1829 (JSP, “Letterbook 2,” 59), the copyright to the Book of Mormon written by Joseph in 1829 (JSP, “Documents, vol. 1,” 76-81), an 1830 newspaper interview by Joseph (Taves, Revelatory Events, 54), a very brief recapitulation by Joseph in 1838 (JSP, “History, 1838-1856, vol. C-1,” 1282), a history recorded by Smith’s employer and early supporter, Joseph Knight (Jessee, “Joseph Knight’s Recollection,”) Henry Harris’ 1833 affidavit (Quinn, Early Mormonism, 163), Martin Harris’ 1859 account (Marquardt, The Rise of Mormonism, 93-94), and a purported firsthand account relayed by Joseph’s father (EMD 2: 245). 4

1830, published his translation entitled, The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon, Upon Plates Taken From the Plates of Nephi.

Although Smith reportedly returned the gold plates to the angel after translating them,9 thus ultimately making his story empirically unverifiable, for many scholars the Book of

Mormon’s claim to be rooted in “artifactual reality” rather than the “nebulous stuff of visions” functions to shift the scholarly debate around Smith’s claims “from the realm of interiority and subjectivity toward that of empiricism and objectivity.”10 As argued by Mormon studies scholar

Terryl Givens:

Dream visions may be in the mind of the beholder, but gold plates are not subject to such facile psychologizing. They were, in the angel's words, buried in a nearby hillside, not in Joseph's psyche or religious unconscious, and they chronicle a history of this hemisphere, not a heavenly city to come. As such, the claims and experiences of the prophet are thrust irretrievably into the public sphere, no longer subject to his private acts of interpretation alone. It is this fact, the intrusion of Joseph's message into the realm of the concrete, historical, and empirical, that dramatically alters the terms by which the public will engage this new religious phenomenon.11

In accordance with this logic, much of the scholarly debate on Joseph Smith and the

Book of Mormon has centered around using historical and inter/intratextual criticism to verify the book’s internal, historical claims in what are often called the “Book of Mormon wars”— debates over perceived archaisms12 vs. anachronisms,13 evidence of many ancient authorial voices consistent with its internal claims,14 or evidence of nineteenth-century interpolations

9 Smith, “Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith.” Some, however, reported that he re-buried them (Vogel, EMD, 1: 16-18, 479). 10 Givens, By the Hand of Mormon, 12 11 Ibid., 42. 12 For two extremely influential works, see Hugh Nibley’s An Approach to the Book of Mormon and John Sorenson’s Mormon’s Codex. Givens gives an excellent summary of the many others who have followed the work of these pioneering figures (By the Hand of Mormon, 117-154). 13 Campbell, Delusions, 13; Vogel, The Making of a Prophet; Forsberg, Equal Rites. Riley, The Founder of Mormonism; Brodie, No Man; Cross, The Burned-Over District; Hill, “Quest for Refuge;” Anderson, Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith; Quinn, Early Mormonism; Vogel, American Apocrypha; Metcalfe, New Approaches to the Book of Mormon. 14 Through computational stylistics, scholars have found over 2,000 authorship shifts between twenty-four unique authorial styles, “consistent to [the Book of Mormon’s] own internal claims” (Hilton, “On Verifying 5 interwoven by a nineteenth-century editor.15 This information, in turn, is used to make sense of what Smith was doing—whether he was restoring a long-lost scripture as part of his larger

Christian restorationist project, or deceptively trying to accrue personal power by playing on the religious sensibilities of his time.16 In this way, rather than asking what the unique revelatory mechanism that facilitated the book’s production reveals about its origins and significance, scholars have focused primarily on what its textual content reveals about its origins and significance. That is, they have conflated the gold plates with the Book of Mormon, creating the logic that the existence of the former can be verified by the antiquity of the latter. And although some have bracketed the question of the gold plates existential origins, focusing rather on how the idea of the plates influenced Smith’s movement, most religious studies scholars and historical biographers make their opinion known on the basis of perceived metaphysical plausibility and/or historical evidence, and proceed to either depict Smith as a rural visionary turned prophet17 or

Wordprint Studies”). Skousen has also found evidence in favor of Smith’s claim to have orally dictated the book to a scribe without prior knowledge of its contents or referencing external sources. These include errors reflective of “mishearing what Joseph had dictated” rather than “misreading while visually copying”—such as writing “&” as a mishearing of “an” or consistently misspelling a name that would be phonetically ambiguous—as well as “scribal anticipation errors,” where phrases from later in a sentence would be written and crossed out before their proper place, due to hearing Smith dictate faster than they were able to write (“How Joseph Smith Translated”). Moreover, even in sections of the text that seem like obvious plagiarisms—such as when the text quotes verbatim from the book of Isaiah—Skousen has noted the same scribal errors consistent with the oral composition of the rest of the text, unorthodox divisions, and even readings that align not with the King James Bible of Smith’s time, but the Masoretic (traditional Hebrew) text and the Septuagint (Greek) (“Textual Variants in the Isaiah Quotations”). 15 Two common theories have been that Smith plagiarized from Solomon Spalding’s “Manuscript Found” and Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews. On the original Spalding hypothesis as first explicated in 1834, see Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 278-288. For a detailed account of the theory in all its expansions, redactions, and challenges, see Bush, “The Spalding Theory Then and Now.” Bushman also offers a quick synopsis (Rough Stone Rolling, 90- 91). On that of the View of the Hebrews, see Charles D. Tate Jr.’s introduction to the 1996 reprint of View of the Hebrews cited below (ix-xxii). For a succinct summary, see Givens, By the Hand of Mormon, 161-162 and Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 96-97. See also, Davis, Visions in a Seer Stone; Wright, “Isaiah in the Book of Mormon.” 16 For two paradigmatic examples of these divergent approaches, see Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 58-83 and Vogel, The Making of a Prophet, 129. 17 Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 58. 6 conscious (or delusional) deceiver.18 This, in turn, has generated a scholastic field sharply divided along emic/etic lines.19

More recently, some scholars—taking after William James—have tried to transcend these dichotomized options by differentiating between existential judgments about how the Book of

Mormon came to be, and spiritual judgments about its scriptural import.20 For these scholars, the

Book of Mormon’s organic origin does not reveal why—and cannot discredit how—it creates meaning for its devotees. The book’s scriptural significance and Smith’s legacy depend, rather, on what the Book of Mormon says and its words’ transformative impact on its readers, not debates over its existential origins.

Yet, such approaches are ignorant of the fact that within the Mormon movement historically, the Book of Mormon has mattered “almost independent of its specific contents, because it existed;”21 its miraculous emergence signaled that God had once again called a prophet (i.e. Joseph Smith) to speak on his behalf, as in biblical times. The Book of Mormon evidenced Smith’s prophetic call in a variety of ways. Many saw in its emergence the fulfillment of a variety of Old and New Testament prophecies that signaled the impending restoration of the primitive Christian church after a period of apostasy, the literal restoration of Israel, and the

18 This is a paraphrase of Vogel’s statement that “existence of the Book of Mormon plates themselves as an objective artifact which Joseph allowed his family and friends and even critics to handle while it was covered with a cloth or concealed in a box … [is] compelling evidence of conscious misdirection” (The Making of a Prophet, xi). 19 This is perhaps most evident in that one of the few etic scholars who has taken their existence seriously, Jan Shipps, has been since dubbed an “insider-outsider” (Bushman, “The Worlds of Joseph Smith, 10”; Shipps, “An ‘Inside-Outsider’ in Zion”). On the pervasiveness of this divide in the field, see Shipps, “The Prophet Puzzle,” 19; Bushman, “A Joseph Smith for the Twenty-first Century”; Taves, “History and the Claims of Revelation,” 183-187. 20 James, Varieties of Religious Experience, 9-20. For this type of approach, see Barber, “Beyond the Literalist Constraint”; Thomas, Digging in Cumorah; Price, “Inspired Author”; Hutchinson, “The Word of God is Enough”; Prince, “Own Your Religion”; Madsen, “Reflections on LDS Disbelief”; Wright, “‘In Plain Terms’”; Ostler has tried to make both claims, writing that Smith was indeed translating an ancient record, but that he expanded it through his own volition (“Modern Expansion”). 21 Barlow, Mormons and the Bible, 48. 7 establishing of God’s kingdom in anticipation of Christ’s millennial reign.22 Others were baffled that a young, uneducated rural farmhand such as Smith could produce such a complex work in such a short period of time,23 and thereby concluded that its origins must be divine.24 However, the sine qua non of Mormon conversion since the movement’s beginning has been a revelatory response to a promise in the book’s final chapter, penned by the hand of Moroni before his angelic resurrection circa 421 A.D., that if one asks God “if these things are true … with a sincere heart and real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you by the power of the Holy Ghost.”25

In theory, the “truth of it” could be interpreted in many ways; but as Jan Shipps has rightly pointed out, since the promise came appended to an angelically revealed, supernaturally translated, heretofore unknown history of God’s dealings with his ancient, covenant peoples,

“this exhortation made authenticity the critical query about which readers of the volume had to make up their minds.”26 In other words, like its perceived fulfillment of biblical prophecy and inexplicable mode of production, the book’s power proceeded from whence it came, not from what it said.

The central point here is that Smith’s legacy is irrevocably connected to the Book of

Mormon’s origin story, and thus cannot be determined by merely analyzing the book’s “spiritual fruits.” Thus, the events surrounding the emergence of the Book of Mormon—especially the role

22 Underwood, “Book of Mormon Usage”; Barlow, Mormons and the Bible, 48; Givens, By the Hand of Mormon, 62-88; Harper, “Infallible Proofs.” As for the biblical references, see Ezekiel 37: 15-22; Isaiah 11: 10-12; 29: 10-14; Daniel 2: 34-35, 44-45; Joel 2: 28-32; John 10: 16; Revelations 14: 6-7. 23 Through an extensive review of the more than two-hundred primary sources relating to the period over which Smith translated—October 1827 to June 1829—John Welch has estimated that the Book of Mormon as currently constituted was translated in just sixty-three days (Welch, “Miraculous Translation,” 100-101), a pace of 3500 words a day (Givens, By the Hand of Mormon, 37). 24 On Smith’s education, see JSP, “History, circa Summer 1832,” 1 and Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 36. For accounts of individuals impressed at this, see Richards, A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, 81-82; “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” 289-290; Welch, “Miraculous Translation,” 86. 25 Moroni 10: 3-5. 26 Shipps, Mormonism, 27. 8 of the gold plates therein—have rightfully become the primary lens that shapes the trajectory of his scholarly depiction and that of his movement. For this reason, the most interesting and relevant alternatives to the either/or binary surveyed above have come from scholars who grapple with (rather than dismiss or bracket) Smith’s story yet demonstrate that nouns such as

“ancient gold plates” and verbs such as “translate” are subject to much wider interpretations than has been previously considered.

Ann Taves, for example, has troubled this dichotomized approach by analyzing this event through a comparative, phenomenological lens that depicts Smith as neither literal translator nor fraud, but creative agent who expressed his subjective vision of an angel and gold plates through a material object he created.27 For example, Taves suggests that Smith’s presentation of the gold plates may be comparable to a Catholic priest’s consecration of the eucharist: just as the priest takes a mundane wafer and calls upon the Holy Spirit to transform it into the body of Christ, perhaps “Smith viewed something that he made—metal plates—as a vehicle through which something sacred—the ancient gold plates—could be made (really) present.” She also suggests that it could be similar to a placebo: just as placebos mimic therapeutic treatment in a way that has demonstrable positive effects, perhaps Smith had “eyes to see what could be (a non- pharmacologically induced-healing process) and the audacity to initiate it.”28 And although

Taves does not engage with the question of why Smith used the term “translation” in his project, her theory becomes especially plausible in light of recent scholarship—which will be surveyed in depth below—which draws on what the term “translation” meant in Smith’s religious, cultural,

27 Taves, “Joseph Smith, Helen Schucman, and the Experience of Producing a Spiritual Text”; Revelatory Events; “History and the Claims of Revelation.” Of course, Taves is not the only one to complicate this binary; however, she is the only one to do so holistically while maintaining that Smith was doing (albeit metaphorically or symbolically) what he said he was doing (and thus not a fraud). 28 Ibid., 195, 202. 9 and intellectual environment, as well on how he used the term in his later scripture-production projects, to deconstruct anachronistic assumptions that have made literal linguistic translation the normative framework for analyzing Smith’s claims.

The biggest challenge to Taves’ attempt to both “assume that there were no plates or at least no ancient golden plates and at the same time take seriously believers’ claim that Smith was not a fraud,”29 is that whereas Taves insists on Smith’s creation of the gold plates, Smith and his associates consistently spoke and acted as if Smith not only had gold plates, but that he discovered gold plates from a hill near his home. They even assisted him in the discovery process, and some were able to hold or see them while covered with a cloth.30 A select eleven were even given permission by the angel Moroni to “handle” them and “[see] the engravings thereon.” The signed testimonies of these eleven witnesses, which have since been canonized,31 accentuate the challenge of interpreting Smith’s experience—especially Taves’ attempt to both reject Smith’s discovery while retaining his sincerity.

Yet, Taves’ “active materialization” theory, that Smith brought into material reality his interiorized, subjective vision of an angel and gold plates is useful in pursuing the aims of this paper because it accentuates Smith’s agency. Rather than asking what the Book of Mormon is and using that information to make an existential judgment about the gold plates, Taves asks what the possible ways of interpreting Smith’s actions are based on reliable primary sources.

29 “History and the Claims of Revelation,” 185. 30 Emma Smith accompanied her husband on his discovery expedition, and many others provided transportation, lodging, protection from thieves, places to hide the plates, and witnessed him return from the hill with a set of plates (although under a cloth) (Bushman, Believing History, 93-105). Emma also describes “[moving] them from place to place on the table, as it was necessary in doing my [house]work” (“Last Testimony of Sister Emma”). 31 See “The Testimony of the Three Witnesses” and the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses.” For a discussion on the credibility of their accounts, see Vogel, “The Validity of the Witnesses’ Testimonies” and Harper, “Evaluating the Book of Mormon Witnesses.” 10

This adds a layer of nuance to the relationship between the Book of Mormon and the gold plates, preventing a facile conflation of the plates with their reified textual product.

What comparison with the gter ma tradition does is add a further layer of nuance to this relationship between discovered material object and translated text by expanding notions of agency from Smith to his non-human surroundings, enabling what I will argue is a fuller, more consistent, and more enlightening reading of Smith’s translation experience. This, of course, is not to claim that the mechanics and theoretical implications of gter ma revelation must map on to the experiences of Joseph Smith due to their perceived comparability. I am not claiming a sort of preposterous organic connection between the two traditions.32 Rather, my purpose here is to use a comparative framework to “test and critique prevailing paradigms, expose their inadequacies, and generate a range of possible models to account for the multiplicity of religious traditions.”33

Perhaps the largest challenge in drawing this comparison is the sheer diversity of the gter ma tradition. Whereas discoveries of ancient, buried texts as an institutionally recognized means of scripture production in Mormonism begins and ends with Joseph Smith,34 the gter ma tradition has generated hundreds of discoveries and discoverers since the late tenth century.35

Yet, limiting the scope of this paper to widely recognized themes in the material-

32 This is a paraphrase of Underwood’s comment about comparing these two traditions (“Attempting to Situate Joseph Smith,” 46). 33 Holdrege, “What’s Beyond the Post,” 85. 34 There have been other non-canonized and generally uninfluential discoveries within Mormonism, such as James Jesse Strang’s Record of Rajah Machou of Vorito (Faber, James Jesse Strang, 58, 65-70) and W.W. Phelps’ discovery and translation of some Native American petroglyphs in Utah (Blythe, “By the Gift,” 47). Christopher Smith has recently drawn attention to a heretofore neglected figure, Earl John Brewer (1933-2007), who claimed to have been led by an angle to find hundreds of inscribed plates in Utah, purportedly placed there by the Jaredites (“The Hidden Records of Central Utah” (forthcoming)). 35 Gyatso and Smith both place the first discovery in the tenth century (Gyatso, “Signs, Memory and History,” fn. 2; Smith, Among Tibetan Texts, 15). It is important to note however, as observed by Doctor, that “although the Nyingma school traces the beginning of Treasure revelation in Tibet to the master Sangye Lama (eleventh century); Nyangral Nyima Ōzer’s writings a century later are the first to show a self-conscious movement” (Tibetan Treasure Literature, 20). Although there is no definitive list, Thondup has compiled the names and dates (if available) of 278 known Treasure discoverers (Hidden Teachings of Tibet, 189-201). Dudjom provides short biographies of twenty-four important discoverers (The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, 743-881). 11 artifact/translated-text relationship as documented by both gter ma theorists/practitioners and contemporary scholars, rather than trying to represent the tradition in its entirety, as well as limiting the historical contextualization to major shared themes around questions of religious authority and national identity at these traditions’ incipience, will allow for a productive and viable comparative analysis.

The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon in Comparison with the Tibetan Treasure (gter ma) Tradition

What is particularly interesting to note in this section of the paper—before turning to the revelatory mechanics at play in the process of scripture production in these traditions—is the way in which these apocryphal scriptures functioned within their respective traditions, which gives us an idea of the comparability of the activities of Joseph Smith and the Tibetan gter ma discoverers (gter ston) despite their highly distinctive temporal and geographical contexts.

Joseph Smith and the Tibetan gter ma discoverers used the aforementioned mode of scripture production as a means of bridging the religiously authoritative past with the present across a period of perceived spiritual darkness to address contested questions of religious authority and national identity amidst religious and political paradigm shifts. Specifically, their scriptures posed similar challenges to the received authority of pre-existing canonical texts, expanded traditional canonical boundaries beyond their previous geographical and temporal limitations, thereby sacralizing their native lands and contextualizing them within the larger arc of

Christian/Buddhist history, and served to authenticate the otherworldly prowess of their discoverers and the contested authenticity of their own traditions.

Mormonism took root in the eastern United States in the early nineteenth century amidst the Second Great Awakening. It can be seen, inter alia, as an eclectic mix of Protestant 12

Christianity and local hermetic treasure-seeking traditions which positioned itself as a distinctive response to pre-existing Christian primitivist or restorationist traditions, attempts to open the traditionally closed Christian canon, and questions of the United States’ providential place in

Christian teleology. Like many Protestant reformers before him, Smith propagated the idea that the early Christian church had apostatized soon after the death of Christ and his apostles.36 He likewise defended this claim and organized much of his own movement around biblical exegesis, as did his restorationist counterparts.37 Yet, Smith’s movement also addressed a set of shared questions with a number of marginal voices challenging the cessationist notion that the Christian canon had been sealed with the writing of the New Testament.38

However, Smith did not only couch his claim in his own words, or even the words of

God revealed to him, but in the words of ancient Israelite prophets who—unbeknownst to the rest of the world—had inhabited portions of the American continent since “the time the Lord confounded the language of the people” at the “great tower.”39 Smith’s Book of Mormon told of two40 ancient civilizations who were each guided by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to the

American continent to avoid biblical calamities—the fall of the Tower of Babel and the

Babylonian exile. With prophetic foresight, they had prophesied that after the death of Christ’s apostles a “great and abominable church” would rise up and take away the “plain and most

36 Bozeman offers a robust summary of the varying Protestant and pre-Protestant “primitivist” claims, from the tenth century to the Puritan era (To Live Ancient Lives, 19-50). On similar strands in Joseph Smith’s religious environment, see Arrington and Bitton, The Mormon Experience, 26-27. 37 This is not to say that Smith was a systematic scholar or theologian. As Barlow points out, “where ‘primitive gospelers’ like Elias Smith or Alexander Campbell might arrive at their views (as they thought) by a reasoned study of the Bible, Joseph Smith arrived at his (as he believed) in the role of a Bible-like prophet (Mormons and the Bible, 42). Rather, it is to say that Smith saw his movement as a restorationist of biblical themes and supported them with biblical proof-texts (61; Smith, “King Follet Discourse,” 9-11). 38 Holland, Sacred Borders, 50-53, 84, 97-98, 127, 137-153. 39 Ether 1: 33, 3. 40 That is, unless one counts the Mulekites, who similarly fled from Jerusalem to the American continent around 600 B.C.E yet kept no records and are only known since they were later found by and united with the Nephites (Mosiah 25; Helaman 6: 10). 13 precious parts of the gospel” from the Bible. Yet, the Lord would hide up a record—the Book of

Mormon—that would later come forth to “make known the plain and precious things which have been taken away from them.”41

In this way, the Book of Mormon positioned itself both as a corrective to erroneous biblical translations and interpretations,42 as well as a source of fresh prophetic wisdom designed to uniquely address contemporary needs amidst turbulent times.43 Yet, as a doctrinal and devotional touchstone, the content of the Book of Mormon received little attention from both

Smith and his early followers,44 despite Smith dubbing it “the most correct of any Book on earth

& the keystone of [his] religion.”45 The Book of Mormon’s scriptural function, as mentioned above, was primarily one of “signifier rather than a signified.”46 Many converts, especially in the early nineteenth century, considered it a signal of the impending fulfillment of eschatological and restorationist biblical prophecies, and asserted the book’s contested authenticity by referencing biblical passages they interpreted as prophesying its emergence.47

The Book of Mormon’s origin story, both in terms of its miraculous translation and what its claimed ancient authors prophesied about this event, served to affirm this typological reading and route the fulfillment of these prophecies through the inspired actions of a particular individual—Joseph Smith. One Book of Mormon prophecy even mentioned Joseph Smith by

41 1 Nephi 13: 26-40. 42 Smith claimed that the Bible was fully God’s word “as it read when it came from the pen of the original writers.” However, “ignorant translators, careless transcribers, or designing and corrupt priests have committed many errors” (JSP, “History, 1838-1856, vol. E-1,” 1755). Thus, Smith wrote: “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God” (“The Articles of Faith”). 43 On the claimed prophetic foresight of the Book of Mormon authors, see 1 Nephi 13; 2 Nephi 3: 19; 27; 29; Enos 1: 13-17; 3 Nephi 21: 9-11; 23; 26: 2, 8; Mormon 5: 9-14; 8: 26-41. For an analysis of this topic as well as examples of this rhetoric among LDS leaders, see Rust, “Annual FARMS Lecture.” 44 Reynolds’ “The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon in the Twentieth Century”; Underwood, “Book of Mormon Usage,” 52-53; Barlow, Mormons and the Bible, 47-48. 45 The Joseph Smith Papers (internet version) (JSP), “Remarks, 28 November 1841,” 112. 46 Givens, The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction, 106; By the Hand of Mormon, 62-88, 235. 47 See fn. 21 of this work. 14 name, saying that the name of the “seer” who would bring this record to light “shall be called after me; and it shall be after the name of his father [hence Joseph, whose father’s name was

Joseph (i.e. Joseph Smith Jr.)].”48 Moreover, the Book of Mormon claims that the resurrected

Christ himself came to the Americas soon after his resurrection. While there, he prophesied that when the record they had kept would come forth in future days—i.e. the Book of Mormon—all should be warned that the Lord had begun to gather his people in fulfillment of his ancient biblical covenants, and that all would be wise not to “spurn” at the latter-day “doings of the

Lord.”49

Smith’s publication of the Book of Mormon thus brought him and his followers into a new (or restored) Christian teleology in which God’s plan had always included, and would culminate with, the prophetic work of his chosen peoples on the American continent. And as the seer who brought to light this ancient scripture whose very existence signaled the incipience of the long-awaited “restitution of all things” as prophesied in the New Testament book of Acts,50

Smith went from rural visionary to God’s newly called prophet,51 and his movement to the culmination of God’s dealings with humankind.

The gter ma tradition can be seen as a mix of native Tibetan traditions of pragmatic treasure burial and Indian Buddhist revelatory traditions that coalesced into a unique response to contested questions of canonical, denominational, and personal religious authority, as well as religio-national identity, amidst religious and political paradigm shifts. The gter ma tradition emerged as a self-conscious movement within what is now called the Nyingma (rnying ma)

48 2 Nephi 3: 14-15. 49 3 Nephi 29. 50 Acts 3: 21. 51 To paraphrase Richard Bushman’s app phrasing of Smith’s transformation (Rough Stone Rolling, 58). 15 tradition of Tibetan Buddhism around the twelfth century,52 during a period denoted by Tibetan historiographers as the later spread (phyi dar) of the dharma in Tibet, juxtaposed to the earlier spread of the dharma (snga dar). These two periods of Buddhist transmission are divided by a hundred year “period of political fragmentation” (rgyal khrims sil bu’i dus) or “dark period,” brought about when the Tibetan central government, and thus imperially sponsored monastic

Buddhism, dissolved following the assassination of the putatively anti-Buddhist king Lang

Darma by a Buddhist monk in the mid-ninth century.53

When political and economic conditions restabilized amidst a cultural renaissance and religious revival in the latter-half of the tenth century,54 the authenticity of extant Buddhist scriptures and practices became a topic of serious concern. Many of the new religious authorities suspected that many if not all of the tantras55 said to have been transmitted to Tibet during the

52 Doctor claims that Nyangral Nyima Ōzer’s writings in the twelfth century “are the first to show a self- conscious movement” (Tibetan Treasure Literature, 20). However, Hirshberg traces the beginning of the gter ma tradition to the thirteenth century when Guru Chöwang wrote his Great History of the Treasures (gter byung chen mo), since this work marks the first attempt at “deliberate codification” (Remembering the Lotus-Born, 85-86). 53 Legendary accounts shade the history of this period. Traditional sources depict Darma as a demon- possessed tyrant set on ridding Tibet of Buddhist influences, subsequently murdered at the request of the patron goddess of Tibet, dPal ldan lha mo by the monk Lhalung Pelgyi Dorjé to save Darma from incurring further negative karmic retribution and to preserve Buddhism in Tibet. Schlieter provides an overview of traditional depictions of Darma’s assassination in “Compassionate Killing or Conflict Resolution.” Scholars have questioned this Buddhist suppression narrative, describing him more as a victim of pre-existing clan tensions which he exacerbated by reducing imperial funding of Buddhist activities, inter alia, in response to his brother’s—king Ralpacan (806-841)—unprecedented Buddhist patronization, military spending, and altering of linguistic and cultural customs, which had led to his own assassination a year earlier (Davidson, Tibetan Renaissance, 64-66; Snellgrove, A Cultural History of Tibet, 93-94; Kapstein, The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism, 10-12, 52; Sørensen, The Mirror Illuminating the Royal Genealogies, fn. 1488). Some have even questioned whether or not this regicide actually occurred (Khangkar, “The Assassinations,” 19-22; Yamaguchi, “The Fiction of King Dar ma’s Persecution”). 54 The religious revival was spearhead by two forces: Central Tibetans affiliated with Tridhé—a purported descendant of Lang Darma who sent young men to receive ordination from monastic refugees on the Eastern edge of the empire, who subsequently revived Central Tibetan monastic institutions, (Davidson, Tibetan Renaissance, 87- 102); and Rinchen Zangpo (958-1055) in the West who initiated monastic revivals and translation efforts with the patronage of Lha Lama Yeshe Ö (947-1019?) (Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 471-472, 477-479; Karmay, “The Ordinance of Lha Bla-ma Ye-shes-‘od,” 150-151). 55 The term “tantra” refers to texts associated with tantric or Vajrayāna Buddhism (rdo rje theg pa), a loose rubric under which an important part of Tibetan Buddhist practice and ritual is categorized. Traditionally, tantric practice and transmission occur within an intimate teacher-student relationship outlined in initiation ceremonies and sealed through a covenant or vow (dam tshig). This stringent mode of transmission ensures that the teachings— which often prescribe sexual and/or other transgressive actions—are conveyed accurately and only to those 16 imperial age—denoted as Old or Nyingma (rnying ma) tantras—were not authentic Buddhist teachings but Tibetan fabrications. In addition, individuals associated with the old dark-period religious traditions were charged with engaging in a variety of disreputable activities, implying that they had misinterpreted or deliberately abused these traditionally esoteric teachings and were thus operating within a lineage corrupted by heresy.56 The only possible solution, it seemed, was to “send young men to India … to bring back to Tibet the pure esoteric dispensation,” resulting in a baseline standard of scriptural authenticity defined as texts of Indic origin, transmitted to

Tibet post-late-tenth century.57

Amidst this importation of new Indic scripture, new Tibetan Buddhist schools also emerged which articulated their ecclesial authority and authenticity by linking their teaching lineage to current Indic traditions “in the face of the supposed corruption and antiquity of previous Tibetan Lineages.”58 These previous lineages were subsequently dubbed Nyingma

(“old”) in contrast to the new (gsar ma) schools. In response, the Nyingma began articulating their own lineal heritage through the Buddhist masters of the imperial period—the ancient

Tibetan kings and Indian Buddhist ambassadors who had come to be remembered as great bodhisattvas (awakened beings) who compassionately introduced Buddhism to Tibet between the seventh to eighth centuries CE.59

spiritually and intellectually qualified, and thus typically operates under an aura of secrecy—as opposed to the mainstream transmission of Mahāyāna and non-Mahāyāna sūtras that received little polemical attention in Tibet. During the earlier spread of Buddhism in Tibet, tantras even faced heavy regulations by the imperial court, who relegated their dissemination to a tight aristocratic circle and even altered or removed entire passages from certain tantric texts (Dalton, The Taming of the Demons, 56-57; Cabezón, The Buddha’s Doctrine, 1-2). 56 Ibid., 73-80, 105-107. 57 Smith, Among Tibetan Texts, 15. Although, Davidson notes that the standard was often selectively applied. Some of the texts and practices revered by the Nyingma but scorned as Tibetan fabrications by their detractors were actually of Indic origins. Similarly, some of the texts considered authentic by the new (gsar ma) Buddhist schools were Tibetan/Indian hybrids Davidson calls “gray texts” (“Gsar Ma Apocrypha,” 208-218). 58 Germano, “Re-Membering the Dismembered Body,” 73. 59 Kapstein, Tibetan Assimilation, 33-36, 144-147, 159; see also Gayley, “Ontology of the past,” 214 and Germano, “The Seven Descents.” 17

It is within these religious paradigm shifts around the turn of the eleventh century that individuals primarily associated with this fledging Nyingma tradition claimed to discover gter mas: heretofore unknown sacred historical, ritual, and doctrinal texts attributed to a Buddhist master (typically Padmasambhava, who will be discussed below) from Tibet’s imperial age.60

Thus, like the early Mormon movement, the Nyingma tradition began to distinguish itself from

Tibetan Buddhist orthodoxy over the doctrine of “continuing revelation” against an ostensibly closed canon,61 by appealing to discoveries of ancient, buried treasure across a period of perceived religious corruption. Also similar to Smith and his followers, Nyingma apologists attempted to legitimate their innovation by appealing to similar revelatory precedents in

Mahāyāna sūtras.62 Yet, despite contextualizing their innovation with canonical sources, this movement posed a unique challenge to traditional modes of scriptural transmission—known as spoken (bka’ ma) or long (ring brgyud) transmission.

By establishing a direct link between the enlightened beings of Tibet’s imperial age and the present, the gter ma discoverers created a timeless repository of ancient knowledge that

60 On the various contextual genres of gter ma, see Gyatso, “Drawn From the Tibetan Treasury,” 155-160. 61 Smith, Among Tibetan Texts, 15; see also Mayer, A Scripture of the Ancient Tantra Collection. 62 As for sūtras, the Āryasarvapuṇyasamuccayasamādhi mentions treasures in mountains, ravines, and woods and that the doctrine will emerge from the sky, walls and trees. The Āryadharmasamgītisūtra refers to concealing doctrines “as treasures.” The Nāgarājaparipṛcchāsūtra describes “four great treasures.” The chu-klung rol-pa’i mdo refers to doctrinal texts being concealed as mind and earth treasures. The Bodhicharyavatara refers to people spontaneously hearing the doctrine, as do a variety of others (Dudjom, The Nyingma School, 743-744, 747- 748, 928). The Pratyutpannasamādhi describes itself being stored in caves, stūpas, the earth, under rocks, in mountains, and into the hands of devas and nāgas (Harrison, The Samadhi of Direct Encounter, 98, 103-104). Gyatso notes that this particular passage has not been noticed by the treasure apologists (“The Logic of Legitimation,” fn. 17), although Mayer has argued that it may have served as the theoretical basis for the entire tradition (“Scriptural Revelation”). There are also some events described in Mahāyāna history that allude to similar occurrences. It is said, for example, that the Mahāyāna sūtras were held hidden in the Dragon World until the appropriate time and that Nāgārjuna retrieved the Śatasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā from the nāgas at the bottom of the sea. Similarly, Dudjom notes that “all the tantrapiṭaka which were reportedly discovered in ancient India … were, in fact, treasure doctrines,” for they were hidden until revealed to “accomplished individuals [who] were given prophetic declarations” (The Nyingma School, 927). Guru Chos-dbang makes a similar point in his gter ‘byung chen mo (see Gyatso, “An Early Survey,” 276-277), as does Tukwan Lobzang Chokyi Nyima (translated in Dargay, The Rise of Esoteric Buddhism, 67). There are also a number of sūtras held to be canonical by the gsar ma schools that came about by similarly revelatory means, listed by Kapstein (Tibetan Assimilation, 132-134). 18 turned “the original critique of decline among the ‘old school’ … on its head.”63 Whereas the tantras accrued by the new schools were passed from teacher to student for generations upon generations and thus—according to Nyingma apologists—subject to corruption, the gter mas shortened the lineage (nye brgyud), placing the gter ma discoverer in direct communication with an enlightened source.64 Thus, they were able to claim that—like the Book of Mormon—the gter mas were a direct revelatory corrective to gaps, errors, or misinterpretations of the current canon.

Moreover, as such had been hidden by an enlightened being with the express purpose of discovery at a precise future date, they were said to be better designed to “suit the mental desires, needs and capacities of people born in those times.”65 Thus, similar to the Book of Mormon, the gter mas existed in a dialectical relationship to the existing canon, which served as a source of legitimacy, yet in turn was made to appear somewhat obsolete as comparatively more distant and less personalized.

Furthermore, the gter mas were not just canonical innovations, but—as was the Book of

Mormon for Smith—means of legitimating the religious career of their discoverer, the authority of his or her associated tradition, and a means of contextualizing that tradition’s place within the larger arc of Buddhist history. As Gyatso has analyzed in depth,66 claiming part in the prophesied discovery and propagation of these ancient materials—itself a complicated semiotic process consisting of locating oneself in canonical prophecies and interpreting external signs—is

“powerfully self-legitimating.” In doing so, the discoverer “accrue[s] to their own person the exalted qualities of that text and its holy origins,”67 and his or her tradition becomes

63 Gayley, “Ontology of the past,” 224. 64 Dudjom, The Nyingma School, 745; Thondup, Hidden Teachings, 49; Gyatso, “Drawn from the Tibetan Treasury,” 149-150; Gyatso, “Genre, Authorship, and Transmission,” 96-100. 65 Thondup, Hidden Teachings, 62-63, see also 150; See also Gayley, “Ontology of the Past,” 223-224. 66 Gyatso, “Logic of Legitimation”; “Signs, Memory and History”; Apparitions of the Self. 67 Gyatso, Apparitions of the Self, 150. Also relevant here is Gentry’s observation: “As samaya in material form, oath and Treasure substances possess the particular feature of binding those who encounter them via the sense 19 authenticated against its detractors through recourse to a “competing power structure located in the culturally powerful memories of the dynastic period.”68 Moreover, as this competing power structure consisted of ancient Tibetan voices in the face of a canonical tradition in which “Indian provenance [had become] the sine qua non of religious authority,”69 the gter ma tradition not only expanded canonical boundaries past their traditional temporal and geographical constraints, but made Tibet “an active partner in the Buddhist cosmos. Instead of being the disheveled stepchild of the great Indian civilization, by means of [gter ma] the snowy land of Tibet became the authentic ground of the Buddha’s enlightened activity.”70

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of the role these texts have played within their respective religious traditions, nor is it an exhaustive list of the commonalities between the two.

Much could be written, for example, about how this revelatory mechanism enabled these traditions to give modern doctrinal, ritual, and theological innovations a historical guise, and how these texts validated canonical texts whose authenticity was being called into question.71 Nor is it to say that their functionality has not changed over time, as it surely has, although I would argue

to one another, to the substances themselves, and through the substances to all the masters, buddhas, bodhisattvas, and deities who were once in contact with them, or had a hand in their creation, ritual treatment, distribution, and consumption” (Power Objects, 11). 68 Germano, “Re-Membering the Dismembered Body,” 75; see also Mayer, “Rethinking Treasure,” 137. 69 Sur, “Constituting Canon and Community.” 70 Davidson, Tibetan Renaissance, 231; see also 243. 71 Germano has written that gter ma functioned to “authorize and authenticate the Nyingmas’ religious traditions,” “appropriate and transform … new intellectual and religious materials stemming from India without acknowledging them as such,” and to develop unique “theories, practices, and systems” in the form of the Great Perfection (rdzogs chen) (“Remembering the Dismembered Body,” 75). Similarly, Davidson notes that gter ma made apocryphal bka’ ma texts with Great Perfection teachings “into true tantric scriptures, for the authenticity of one secured the authenticity of its related works” (Tibetan Renaissance, 228). The Book of Mormon has likewise served to authenticate parallel biblical narratives under the same logic (Givens, By the Hand of Mormon, 177). Although some have noted that there is not much by way of doctrinal innovation in the Book of Mormon (Stark, “The Rise of a New World Faith,” 2; Hardy, “The Book of Mormon,” 134), Givens has written much on its status as a signifier of the validity of the innovations carried out by Joseph Smith (By the Hand of Mormon, 228-239). Further, Gerald Smith has recently argued that the Book of Mormon does in fact carry innovative teachings that contributed to in content, rather than mere sign, to LDS doctrine (Schooling the Prophet). 20 that the concerns mentioned here have been rather constant.72 Yet, this brief comparison indicates that Joseph Smith and the Tibetan gter ma discoverers were—in some important ways—engaged in functionally comparable projects.

Perhaps put somewhat more accurately, this brief comparison highlights that the ancient artifacts discovered within these two traditions operate in functionally similar ways. In both traditions, the discoverer is not using a material object as a means of personal religious expression (as Taves has depicted Smith’s activities), but the material artifact is enabling the discoverer to bring to light ancient voices across a temporal divide. This act subsequently has dramatic personal implications related to that individual’s religious authority and that of their tradition, but those implications are defined by the relationships that the material artifact forges between the discoverer and a variety of other agents. And it is precisely by analyzing how the material artifact is said to do this in the gter ma tradition and applying the theoretical possibilities that this analysis opens up concerning what a material artifact can do—rather than merely what it could be or what Smith could be doing with it—to Smith’s translation of the gold plates that we can begin to tug at the seams of the assumptions undergirding the current theories.

Gter ma Mythology, Discovery, and Translation

Around the twelfth century, gter mas began to be traced primarily to the eighth-century tantric master Padmasambhava (padma ‘byung gnas).73 Recent scholarship on Padmasambhava

72 Doctor, for example, notes that Jamgӧn Kongrtul issued many of the same defenses against twentieth century polemics as did Guru Chӧwang in the thirteenth (Tibetan Treasure Literature, 38). Although, it is clear that gter ma responded to changing religious, social, cultural, and political concerns, as can be seen in the work of the gter ston Orgyen Lingpa (Tucci, Religions of Tibet, 38) and Sera Khandro (Jacoby, Love and Liberation, 100). For the evolution of Book of Mormon usage, see Underwood, “Book of Mormon Usage,” and Reynolds, “The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon.” 73 Hirshberg has recently suggested that scholars differentiate between pre-tradition gter ma—the early gter ma that did not operate within a clear taxonomical schema and origins myth—and post-tradition gter ma, artificially divided by the first classificatory study on the topic, Guru Chöwang’s Great History of the Treasures (gter ‘byung chen mo) written in 1264-1265 (on the topic of earlier vs. later gter ma, see Doctor, Tibetan Treasure Literature, 15- 53). In relation to this schema, my study deals with the later tradition, drawing heavily on the work of Janet Gyatso and Do Drubchen III’s (rdo grub chen, 1865-1926) essay, “Wonder Ocean, an Explanation of the Dharma Treasure 21 suggests he came to Tibet from present-day Pakistan at the request of king Trisong Detsen (khri srong lde btsan) to subdue the local deities who were obstructing efforts to build Tibet’s first monastery, Samye (bsam yas) monastery. Soon after arrival, the earliest sources claim he was expelled from Tibet because his exceptional powers made him a dangerous political rival; although, some scholars have suggested his removal had more to do with the controversial, transgressive tantric teachings he promoted.74 Nevertheless, by the twelfth century, a counternarrative arose that has since become characteristic of his representation in the Nyingma tradition and foundational to gter ma discovery: after pacifying the opposing indigenous forces and enlisting them in the protection and propagation of Buddhism, Padmasambhava traveled around Tibet, teaching his many students and burying his inscribed teachings and other relics in the Tibetan soil for later recovery.75 In conjunction with this narrative, Padmasambhava has taken on the status of “second Buddha” in the Nyingma tradition, remembered as the primary protagonist in Tibet’s conversion to Buddhism, who graciously hid his teachings on account of his prophetic perception of the future challenges Tibetan Buddhist practitioners would face.76

The content of Padmasambhava’s teachings that were inscribed as gter mas are perceived as scripturally authoritative in part because he preached them, but he is more of a codifier than an author. Like the conventional, spoken transmissions (bka’ ma) of the Nyingma tradition, these teachings were said to have been first transmitted non-verbally by a buddha in a pure land

(dgongs-brgyud, “transmission of the realized”), then semiotically by early Nyingma patriarchs

(rig-‘dzin brda’i-brgyud, “transmission in symbols for the knowledge holders”), and lastly in

Tradition” (gter gyi rnam bshad). Drubchen’s essay is translated by Thondup in his book, Hidden Teachings of Tibet, 101-201. Thus, I will cite both Drubchen and Thondup through the same book. 74 Hirshberg, Remembering the Lotus-Born, 14. 75 Ibid., 1-18. 76 Germano, “The Seven Descents,” especially 232-237; Thondup, Hidden Teachings, 50, 62-63, 150; Dudjom, The Nyingma School, 744-745; Gyatso, “Signs, Memory and History,” 16. 22 conventional discourse (gang-zag snyan-khung-du brgyud, “transmission into the ears of people”), which is where Padmasambhava appears.77 Within this last step, the gter ma tradition posits its own three-step transmission process. First, through a tantric ceremony known as a

“benedictory initiation” (smon-lam dbang-bskur), Padmasambhava transmitted teachings and appointed (gtad rgya) specific students to reveal them in future lifetimes; second, he prophesied their future revelation (bka’-’babs lung bstan); and third, he appointed dākinīs (mkha’-’gro gtad- rgya) or Treasure protectors (gter-srung)78 to protect the gter ma and help the gter ma discoverer find them, after which his consort, Yeshey Tsogyal, recorded the teachings on “yellow scrolls”

(shog dril). Finally, the texts were concealed, often in a container with other material objects

(gter dzas).79

The historicity of this narrative, as well as the claims of discovery and translation by each individual gter ma discoverer, have been a primary topic of debate in Tibetan Buddhist inter and intra-denominational polemics, as well as modern academic scholarship.80 Yet, although some scholars have dubbed the entire gter ma enterprise a blatant fraud,81 academic scholarship on the gter ma tradition as a whole has been considerably less polarized and more nuanced than studies

77 Gyatso, “The Logic of Legitimation,” 112-115; “Signs, Memory and History,” 8. 78 Dākinīs—literally “sky-goers” are described by Sarah Harding as “female deities who … clear away obstacles and help bring about wisdom” (Machik’s Complete Explanation, 374). Harding describes protectors as “beings or spirits who act to protect a given place or person. Dharma protectors are beings that have been tamed by a great teacher like Padmasambhava and actually serve the best interests of the Dharma” (378). In Tibetan Treasure literature, the terms are used interchangeably (Gyatso, Apparitions of the Self, 161). For a brief history of their role and development from Vedic religion to Tibetan Vajrayāna, see Jacoby, Love and Liberation, 135-137. 79 Gyatso, Apparitions of Self, 159-161; Gyatso, “Drawn from the Tibetan Treasury,” 151; Gyatso, “Signs, Memory and History,” 9; Germano, “Re-Membering the Dismembered Body of Tibet,” 61. Thondup follows a different order and different terminology: 1) “Aspirational Empowerment of the Mind-mandate Concealment” or “Mind-mandate Transmission” in the “expanse of the awareness state or the Buddha nature of the mind” 2) transcription of the teachings and entrustment to the dākinīs 3) “Prophetic Authorization” (61, 67-70, 84). Further, two additional orderings yet similar descriptions are given in Thondup’s translation of Wonder Ocean (104-106). 80 On the pervasiveness of this historical question, see Doctor, Tibetan Treasure Literature, 32-44 and Gyatso, “The Logic of Legitimation,” 102-106, especially fn. 14. 81 See, for example, Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet, 166-167; Aris, Hidden Treasures, 96-98. 23 of the Book of Mormon.82 There are myriad potential reasons for this difference;83 yet, what is important to note for our purposes is that among scholars of the gter ma tradition there is a tendency to refrain from making comprehensive claims about the plausibility, and thereby historical authenticity, of the gter ma discoverer’s claims. This, in turn, has served to mitigate against the move often made by Mormon studies scholars of either conflating the textual product with the material discovery—that is, in the case of Mormon studies, conflating the Book of

Mormon with the gold plates—or theorizing about potential means of (perhaps pious) fabrication. Rather, scholars such as Janet Gyatso and Thondup Rinpoche have critically analyzed the phenomenology of gter ma discovery and revelation in conjunction with the traditional mythology and claimed material discoveries, shedding light on a complex revelatory

82 Hirshberg offers an apt summary of the differing views on this topic, as well as his own nuanced position (Remembering the Lotus Born, 85-87, 134-139). See also Doctor, Tibetan Treasure Literature, 42-51. 83 One is that the interplay between the Tibetan Buddhist belief in reincarnation and traditions of pragmatic treasure burial prior to the fall of the Tibetan empire create the social and psychological conditions within which scholars could see one actually finding a buried textual object and connecting it with a purported memory of a past live in conjunction with the aforementioned narrative (Germano, “Re-Membering the Dismembered Body of Tibet,” 54. Gyatso, “Drawn from the Tibetan Treasury,” 151-152; “The Logic of Legitimation,” 107-108). In fact, Hirshberg has made this very argument in sympathy with the claims of the first well-documented gter ston, Nyangrel Nyima Ozer (nyang ral nyi ma ‘od zer, 1124-1192) (Remembering the Lotus-Born, 136). Although, it has been noted that Smith lived in a social sphere in which interest in and discoveries of artifacts, even textual artifacts, from indigenous civilizations were common (Brown, In Heaven as it is On Earth, 69-87; Bush, “The Spalding Theory Then and Now”). It could also be said that this is because some scholars have actually found authentic ancient materials in some gter mas (although, as we have seen, Book of Mormon scholars have made similar claims). This is particularly true regarding the bka’ thang sde lnga, whose ancient materials are surveyed by Mayer (“Rethinking Treasure (part one),” 120-133). Donald Lopez, the only scholar to address the question directly, claims that this discrepancy has to do with the general public and academia’s sliding scale for tolerance of and interest in supernatural claims in conjunction with their chronological and geographical context. In his recent comparison of the Western public reception of the Book of Mormon and the famed Tibetan Book of the Dead, Lopez notes that this gter ma’s unique origin story greatly contributed to its mystical allure and widespread popularity, whereas Smith’s similar claims brought widespread suspicion, and even violent persecution, that persists (although generally nonviolently) to the present day. These discrepancies, Lopez argues, have to do not with their respective “intrinsic value, regardless of how that might be measured, but, at least in part, because [Smith] lived in a chronologically recent and geographically proximate past.” (The Tibetan Book of the Dead, 148. Aris (Hidden Treasures, 96-98) and Givens (The Viper on the Hearth, 83, 90-94) make similar claims not on this comparison specifically, but on the treatment of these texts in general). To this possibility, I would also add that the multiplicity of gter stons has served to diffuse the perceived religious implications of the veracity of a single gter stons claims, thus mitigating against the emic/etic divide obviously operative not only in Mormon polemics but religious studies as well, which seeks for clear either/or answers regarding the Book of Mormon’s origins. 24 interplay between agentive material, human, and superhuman forces, as well as Buddhist theories of reincarnation, no-self, prophecy, interdependent origination, and Tibetan semiotics.

Focusing here on the relationship between the discovered material scroll and the textual product, it is interesting to note that although these texts are often described as translations (‘gyur ba), the material scroll which is “translated” in practice serves more as an instigator and facilitator of revelation. In fact, the content of the core text (gzhung rtsa) of a transcribed gter ma cycle (gter skor)—the portion of the gter ma discoverer’s oeuvre authorially attributed to

Padmasambhava—is traced not to the inscriptions on the discovered scroll, but the memory of

Padmasambhava’s oral transmission (described above in the first unique step of gter ma transmission). At that moment of oral transmission, it is said that the teaching goes from the mind stream of Padmasambhava to the “luminous natural awareness … of the minds of his disciples”—as opposed to their ordinary mind stream—which makes the teachings impermeable to karmic forces across the protectors’ various lifetimes.84 According to Thondup, this act of embedding a particular teaching in the recesses of a future revealer’s mind, known as “Mind- mandate Transmission” (gtad rgya), is the defining feature of a Nyingma gter ma.85

In fact, the material scroll often contains no more than a couple of characters or a brief phrase which may or may not be thematically related to the teaching itself. Moreover, the scroll is encoded with a secret script and often written in a secret language,86 hindering attempts at conventional translation. The scroll’s function—with one exception87—is not to preserve the

84 Thondup, Hidden Teachings, 106. 85 Ibid., 61. 86 This is often a form of ḍākinī script (mkha’ ‘gro brda yig) and symbolic language of the ḍākinīs (mkha’ gro brda skad), although Gyatso and Thondup mention myriad other protentional scripts and languages (Gyatso, “Signs, Memory and History,” 12, 18); Thondup, Hidden Teachings, 69-70. 87 Although Thondup and Drubchen are very clear that to discover a gter ma one must have received Mind- mandate Transmission from Padmasambhava, and thus the contents of the gter ma are the evocation of that ancient memory, some gter ma contain complete transcriptions of Padmasambhava’s teachings. However, Thondup and Drubchen conflict on the implications for their revelation. Thondup writes that complete texts are “invariably in 25 teaching itself, but to awaken the memory of its being taught to the gter ma discoverer in a previous lifetime. The contents of this memory are subsequently transcribed by the gter ma discoverer (or a scribe), yet authorially attributed to Padmasambhava. Some who receive Mind- mandate Transmission even reveal gter mas by accessing the memory without a material support, known as mind gter ma (dgongs gter).88 Although I will focus here on the revelatory mechanics of earth (sa) gter ma, as this revelatory mode best aligns with the Book of Mormon, that such a genre exists serves to accentuate the unique mnemonic and revelatory character of gter ma production, and carries interesting parallels with some of Joseph Smith’s other revelatory activities.89

Gter ma discoveries are typically initiated when one discovers or receives a prophetic guide (kha byang), often through a supernatural agent such as a manifestation of

Padmasambhava or a gter ma protector. Although its contents vary, their most significant feature is a prophecy, couched in the words of Padmasambhava, which addresses the prospective gter ma discoverer by name, or clearly alludes to the circumstances of his or her own life. As such, the prophetic guide serves as proof of one’s identity as a reincarnation of one of

Tibetan” (Hidden Teachings, 69) and thus do not require the gter ston to “[awaken] the words of the text” but “it helps to awaken the meaning,” although Thondup does not clarify how (Ibid., 85). Drubchen writes that the mere fact that a text contains the complete teaching does not determine its script and implies that awakening the memory of the teaching is still required (Ibid., 128-129). 88 Ibid., 61-62, 64-66, 85-90, 102-107, 125-135, 159. 89 For example, the seventh section of the Doctrine and Covenants claims to come from a “record made on parchment by John [the apostle of Jesus] and hidden up by himself,” not physically discovered by Smith but revealed by him. The “Book of Moses” in the Pearl of Great Price claims to be a revelation of historical events in the lives of the Old Testament prophets Moses and Enoch, the latter of which Smith alluded to being from the prophecy of Enoch mentioned in the book of Jude in the New Testament (1:14). Again, Smith never claimed to recover a physical manuscript (JSP, “History, 1838-1856, vol. A-1,” 81). In a similar mode, verses six to seventeen of the ninety-seventh section of the Doctrine and Covenants are cast as a revelation given to the apostle John. Smith described Doctrine and Covenants section seventy-six as a “transcript from the records of the eternal world” (Ibid., 192). The “Book of Abraham,” also contained in the Pearl of Great Price, claims to be a translation of a set of Egyptian papyri which Joseph purchased in 1835. Fragments of Joseph’s papyri are extant, but the portion that Joseph used for the translation was burned in the Chicago Fire of 1871. Thus, it is impossible to verify the accuracy or mode of his translation, leaving the question open on if Joseph translated the text in the traditional sense, or received revelation somehow generated by possession of the text as he did the Book of Mormon (Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 9, 83-86). 26

Padmasambhava’s students, contextualizing them within a providential narrative that qualifies him or her for the task of gter ma revelation due to their having received a particular teaching and commission to reveal it in a past life.90 This pivotal event, in turn, sets off a series of arduous tasks, ranging from mastering particular ritual practices prescribed in the prophetic guide, appeasing the gter ma protectors through propitiatory rites, and discerning external signs which reveal when, where, and with whom to uncover the gter ma.91

Once removed from its burial place, the process of cracking the gter ma’s “code” (brda grol) begins. As mentioned above, the scroll serves as the signifier of the signified encoded teaching implanted in the mind stream of the future revealer, functioning both as a tool of secrecy by making the teaching legible only to the appointed revealer, and a type of revelatory mnemonic device. However, awakening the memory is no easy task. The text is often subject to spontaneous change and stabilizing it requires aligning oneself again with the right people, at the right place, at the right time (rten ‘brel sgrig), and often requires engaging in sexual yoga with a karmically aligned tantric consort.92 After the text stabilizes, the gter ma discoverer may be able to perceive its decoded form spontaneously through exposure to an external stimulus, by repeatedly analyzing the scroll, by merely glancing at the scroll, or even through an alphabetical key that accompanied the discovered gter ma.93 Once decoded, the all-important memory comes forth. However, that memory may need to be translated out of a secret language (not to be

90 Gyatso, “The Relic Text,” 7-12; Thondup, Hidden Teachings,72-76; Jacoby, Love and Liberation, 142. 91 Gyatso describes the semiotic process by which one determines the necessary conditions for revelation in detail in her study of the gter ston Jigme Lingpa (Gyatso, Apparitions of the Self, 162-181) and elsewhere (“Signs, Memory and History,” 22-27; see also Drubchen, Hidden Teachings, 130). 92 Thondup describes the consort as one who “helps to produce and maintain the wisdom of the union of great bliss and emptiness, by which the adept attains the ultimate state” (Hidden Teachings, 82-83; see also Gyatso (Apparitions of Self, 173, 194-197). Elsewhere, Gyatso explains this as facilitating the “breaking of codes (brda grol), here a metaphor for the loosening of the psychic knots that bind the cakras, necessary for the mature rendering of the full Treasure scripture in determinant form” (“Signs, Memory and History,” 22). 93 Although Gyatso is sighting Drubchen (Hidden Teachings, 124-135), her systematic outline of this process is quite helpful (see Gyatso, “Signs, Memory and History,” 17-22). 27 confused with the secret script) and the gter ma discoverer must come to comprehend its contents and/or learn to effectuate its rituals before transmitting it to others.94 In all, this process, which must be kept secret from all those not directly involved, can span months, or even years.95

Turning now to Joseph Smith’s translation of the gold plates, it is first important to note that key elements of gter ma translation do not map on to Smith’s experience, as would be expected considering the religious, temporal, and geographical divide at play here. Most notably, ideas of reincarnation and mnemonic revelation so crucial to the gter ma tradition do not find direct parallels with Smith, not to mention important elements mentioned but not elaborated above like Tibetan sign interpretation and karmic connections. Nevertheless, it is important to note that Smith’s experience can be similarly contextualized within a providential framework regulated by interactions with human and nonhuman forces amidst a long, arduous process of psychological preparation and exertion.

When the angel Moroni first visited Smith and told him that God had a work for him to do, he quoted a number of biblical passages with millenarian and/or restorationist themes and informed with that his name would “be had for good and evil among all nations kindreds and tongues,”96 thus foregrounding his providential religious career which, in light of Smith’s later doctrinal innovation of the concept of a premortal or pre-earth existence, was pre-determined in line with Smith’s pre-earth actions.97 It then took Smith four years after this initial visitation to recover the plates, and around another two years to translate them,98 during which time Smith

94 Ibid. 95 Jigme Lingpa’s revelation of the Logchen Nyingtig (klong chen snying thig) for example, took seven years (Gyatso, Apparitions of the Self, 168). 96 Malachi 3-4; Isaiah 11; Joel 2: 28-32; Acts 3: 22-23 (JSP, “History, 1838-1856, vol. A-1, 5-6). 97 On the LDS doctrine of a premortal existence, see Givens, Wrestling the Angel, 147-175. 98 That is, from the time of recovery to the time in which the translation was declared finished. However, through an extensive review of the more than two-hundred primary sources relating to the period over which Smith translated—October 1827 to June 1829—John Welch has estimated that the Book of Mormon as currently constituted was translated in just sixty-three day (“Miraculous Translation,” 100-101). 28 was chastised by the angel on multiple occasions for not following his commands, once resulting in the angel taking the plates away from Smith for a period of three months.99 Moreover, two early sources written by friends of Smith record that the angel told him he must “bring the right person” to retrieve the plates, who Smith later learned was Emma Hale, a local woman whom he happened to marry a few months later.100

Most important for the comparative purposes of this paper, however, is to consider the agentive role of Smith’s gold plates in his translation project, in light of that of the gter ma tradition. As we have seen, gter ma translation consists not in the gter ma discoverer bringing his or her mental faculties to work on the discovered material scroll, but rather the gter ma discoverer engages in different practices and positions him or herself in different contexts to enable the material scroll to do its work—that is, to pull out of the recesses of the gter ma discoverer’s mind a particular memory.101 Thus, the transfer of knowledge and power brought about through the act of “translating” the scroll stems not merely from one’s own abilities, but the fact that the material scroll, as a materialization of “Padmasambhava’s enduring agency” in

Tibet, was able to “act upon” the discoverer and his or her human and non-human surroundings to effectuate this revelatory experience.102 This occurrence, in turn, provides one with a new identity as Padmasambhava’s reincarnated student endowed with a particular set of religious

99 Smith’s mother recorded in the late winter or early Spring of 1827 that Joseph had received “the severest chastisement” of his life at the hand of Moroni for being “negligent” with respect to “the things that God had commanded [him] to do” (Proctor and Proctor, eds., History of Joseph Smith by his Mother, 135). After preparing the first 116 pages of the plates, Smith mistakenly allowed his scribe, then Martin Harris, to show the transcript to family members, after which they were lost and the plates subsequently taken from Smith from June 15th to September 22nd, 1828 (Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 66-69). 100 These accounts written by these friends, Joseph Knight and Willard Chase, are summarized in Quinn, Early Mormonism, 158, 163. 101 The agentive role of these material and superhuman forces is further evidenced by the fact that, as observed by Hirshberg in studying the biographies of the gter ma discoverer Nyangrel Nyima Ozer (nyang ral nyi ma ‘od zer, 1124-1192), “the consistent use of intransitive sentence constructions [is used to mitigate] his agency. He is literally omitted from the action and is merely the one present to directly receive the treasures when the time has come for them to emerge on their own.” (Hirshberg, Remembering the Lotus-Born, 133). 102 Gentry, Power Objects, 49, see also 8, 13. 29 authority and responsibility in the present. However, this new identity is not based merely on what the scroll symbolizes, or one’s own actions, but what the scroll was able to do to the gter ma discoverer.

Again, not assuming that Smith’s account must directly follow the pattern outlined here, the revelatory mechanics at work in the gter ma tradition provides a new framework for considering if Smith’s gold plates perhaps had an agentive role in his production of the Book of

Mormon. Thus, we will now turn to what the primary sources reveal about Smith’s translation experience, in light of the gter ma tradition.

The Gold Plates in Light of the Tibetan Treasure Tradition

Smith was rather quiet on the specifics of the translation process. Most of what scholars now believe about the mechanics of translation come from his scribes and other eyewitnesses.

From Smith’s recorded statements about the translation between 1830 and 1843, it can be gathered that he felt “it was not intended to tell the world all the particulars of the coming forth of the book of Mormon,”103 but that “by the gift and power of God”104 he “translated the Book of

Mormon from hieroglyphics”105 with the “spectacles” that the “Lord had prepared.”106 In line with such pithy accounts and conventional conceptions of what is meant by the term

“translation,” this event was visually depicted for quite some time in the LDS church with Smith sitting at his desk, peering over the gold plates, translating them as one would normally translate

103 JSP, “Minute Book 2,” 13. 104 Smith, “Preface,” 1. 105 JSP, “History, 1838–1856, volume E-1,” 1775. 106 JSP, “History, circa Summer 1832,” 5. For all other accounts not cited above, see JSP, “History, 1838– 1856, volume A-1,” 9; JSP, “Elder’s Journal, July 1838,” 43; Vogel, EMD 1: 17; JSP, “Journal, 1835-1836,” 26; JSP, “Letter to Noah C. Saxton, 4 January 1833”; JSP, “Minute Book 1,” 44; JSP, History, 1838–1856, volume C-1, 1282; JSP, “Times and Seasons, 2 May 1842,” 772. 30 any document, except with the help of a pair of supernatural glasses.107 However, the more detailed eyewitness accounts paint a fuller, quite different picture.

Smith worked on his translation of the gold plates periodically between October 1827 and late June 1829 with the help of eight different scribes.108 Here, I will quote at length from the most detailed account, that of David Whitmer:

Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated by Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear.109

Whitmer’s comments about a “spiritual light,” that “something resembling parchment would appear,” and that the translation proceeded one character at a time may be his own suppositions as they are not mentioned by anyone else. However, all eyewitness accounts are remarkably consistent in stating that Joseph Smith would put either the spectacles he found buried with the plates or a “seer stone”—a circular, chocolate colored stone that Smith had found in 1822, through which he could reportedly see hidden objects110—into a hat, and then dictate the words of the Book of Mormon to his scribe a couple of sentences at a time, pausing to spell out peculiar proper names and large words,111 and to check that it was transcribed correctly by having the

107 For example, see the painting at the following link which was (and often still is) commonly displayed in LDS chapels: https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/content/joseph-smith-translates-the-gold-plates?lang=eng. 108 These are Emma Smith, Reuben Hale, Martin Harris, Samuel Smith, Oliver Cowdery, John Whitmer, Christian Whitmer, and David Whitmer (Welch, “Miraculous Translation,” 83-98). 109 Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ, 13. 110 On Smith’s seer stone and its use before his translating the gold plates, see Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 48-52; Wagoner, “The Gift of Seeing,” 53-62. How much Joseph Smith used the spectacles buried with the plates, and how much he used the seer stone, is still debated (see Lancaster, “The Method of Translation,” 62-63; MacKay and Dirkmaat, “Firsthand Witness Accounts,” 68). 111 On spelling out proper names and large words, see Emma Smith’s description from her 1856 interview with Edmund Briggs (Briggs, “A Visit to Nauvoo in 1856,” 454). 31 scribe read the text back to him. Emma Smith, Joseph’s wife, and others also make clear that during the process he did not consult the plates, as they “lay on the table … wrapped in a small linen tablecloth” while his face was buried in his hat.112 Nor did he consult any other external source. In fact, Emma reports that he never even consulted the English translation as he went along: “and when returning from meals, or after interruptions, he would at once begin where he had left off, without either seeing the manuscript or having a portion of it read to him.”113

Here, it is important to note that this peculiar mode of translation has not been adequately addressed in Mormon scholarship. The translation theories forwarded by scholars who take the existence of the gold plates seriously would work just as well with the antiquated idea that Smith looked at the plates while translating. How do we understand Smith’s production of the Book of

Mormon as a “translation” of gold plates if the plates seem irrelevant to the production process?

Scholarship on how Smith experienced his translation of the gold plates has generally operated under the assumption that Smith was in fact translating an ancient document. The debate has centered around what this translation looked like as it passed through Smith’s seer stone—did Smith see actual words in the seer stone as David Whitmer reported? Or did he receive images or ideas that he then explained in his own language?114 Those who advocate the former position point out certain archaisms and scribal errors that they take as evidence of a literal word-to-word translation.115 Most, however, have opted for a form of translation in which

112 “Last Testimony of Sister Emma.” For what other scribes and eyewitnesses reported, see Wagoner, “The Gift of Seeing”; Lancaster, “The Method of Translation”; MacKay and Dirkmaat, “Firsthand Witness Accounts.” 113 Ibid. 114 Skousen groups the possibilities into three categories: iron-clad control—the seer stones ensured that Smith nor the scribe could make any errors—tight control—Smith was revealed words and tasked with reading them to a scribe—and loose control—where Smith was impressed with ideas (“How Joseph Smith Translated,” 24). 115 For just a few influential examples, see Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, 184-189; Skousen, “How Joseph Smith Translated,” 28-31; Welch, “Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon.” Skousen has also made this argument based on certain scribal errors that he claims indicate Smith spelt out complicated proper names to his scribe and had access through the seer stone to about twenty-words at a time (Skousen, “How Joseph Smith Translated,” 27). 32 imagery or ideas were presented by the stone that Smith then elaborated.116 This theory is backed by an exuberant number of awkward “corrective conjunctive phrases”—phrases such as “or rather” that aim to clarify the meaning of a particular passage—that some claim signal Smith’s grappling with the meaning of an idea or image in a way that the original authors presumably would not have, especially considering that they were inscribing hieroglyphs into gold plates.117

More importantly, this theory accounts for anachronistic elements reflective of Smith’s nineteenth-century environment, especially the obvious contextual and grammatical influence of the King James Bible on Smith’s translation,118 and the fact that, in addition to grammatical changes, Smith did make a few substantive contextual changes to the text of the Book of

Mormon between the publications of the 1830, 1837, and 1840 editions.119

Yet, the inescapable problem here is that Smith did not look at the gold plates while

“translating” them. Although most note but then ignore this fact, two have suggested that perhaps their purpose was simply to reassure Smith and others that the words he dictated came from the plates.120 However, this supposition relies on an excessively narrow plausibility structure, and seems to be a last-ditch effort to ground Smith’s work in an empirically verifiable activity contra the eyewitness-evidence. What is clear from the primary sources is that Smith discovered a set of gold plates and that he orally dictated a narrative about ancient Israelites in the Americas with his head in a hat looking at seer stones while the plates were nearby. That the role of the gold plates

116 Gardner, The Gift and Power, 183-195; Brown, “Seeing the Voice of God,” 144-146; Ostler, “Modern Expansion,” 104; Quinn, “The First Months of Mormonism, 321”; Ricks, “Translation of the Book of Mormon.” 117 Gerald Smith, however, has recently studied the corrective conjunction phrases and noted that “over time and across editions the Prophet chose to retain the original translation of corrective conjunction phrases, including seemingly obvious errors and mistakes,” meaning that perhaps they were in fact part of the original text (Schooling the Prophet, 38-39). 118 Barlow, Mormons and the Bible, 28-33. 119 On these substantive changes, see Skousen, “Changes in the Book of Mormon,” 169-172. For all textual variants in the various additions, see Skousen, The Earliest Text, 739-789. 120 Wagoner, “The Gift of Seeing,” 53; MacKay and Dirkmaat, “Firsthand Witness Accounts,” 71-72. 33 was to provide the content of Smith’s dictation is only surmised by the term “translation” and reinforced by the dominant empiricist/historicist stance of Mormon studies scholars. Yet, as I alluded to above, three scholars (two just this past year)121 have explored alternate theories of what Smith could have meant by the term “translation,” which complicate attempts to assume a framework of literal linguistic translation merely based on Smith’s use of the term “translation.”

Jared Hickman has recently argued against “the paradigm of linguistic translation” in favor of what he calls “metaphysical translation.”122 Hickman notes that “the word ‘translate’ and its variants appear only five times in the King James Bible, and none of these refers to linguistic translation.”123 In fact, three are found in the fifth verse of the eleventh chapter of

Hebrews—which happens to be one of the most cited chapters of scripture in the early Mormon movement124—which speaks of God translating Enoch “that he should not see death.” Moreover,

Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary offers five definitions of the term translate before arriving at today’s conventional usage of “[rendering] into another language,” all of which convey the sense of transporting something from one place to another. With this notion of translation in mind, Hickman argues that Smith’s “[bringing] forth” ancient voices “as if [they] had cried from the dust”—directly quoting what the Book of Mormon itself prophesies regarding its own future advent125—can plausibly be seen not as a conversion of the language of the gold plates into

English, but as Smith’s transferring ancient voices across time and space. Hickman writes that

121 Sandberg’s “Knowing Brother Joseph Again” could also be grouped with the three listed below in that he proposes that the term translation be read not as literal linguistic translation. However, I did not include him here because his analysis rest on what I find to be an unconvincing reading of how seer stones functioned in the Book of Mormon (322-324), and which has been contested (convincingly in my opinion) by Bushman (“Nephi’s Project,” 202-203). However, Sandberg does describe Smith’s seer stones as catalysts for revelatory experience (327), which closely parallels my agentive view of the gold plates, and merits further attention. However, due to my rather exclusive focus on the gold plates, I cannot give it attention here. 122 Hickman, “‘Bringing Forth’ the Book of Mormon,” 54. 123 The other two appearances of the term are in 2 Samuel 3: 10 and Colossians 1: 13. 124 Underwood, Millenarian World, 163-164 (fn. 4). 125 2 Nephi 3: 15-19. 34 the qualifier in the last line, “as if,” arguably opens “a gap between the Book of Mormon text and indigenous voices, emphasizing Smith’s role … as an activist; that is, someone acting on behalf of Native peoples as a ‘spokesman’ … rather than as an actual medium of Native peoples.” In this way, Smith’s metaphysical translation consisted of Smith “[translating] himself into the ancient American world through the virtual reality technology of the seer stone and then

[translating] that world back into his own through the virtual reality technology of oral storytelling,” thereby “altering the way Euro-Christian settlers inhabit the indigenous cosmos they find themselves in.”126

Another argument for this usage of the term comes from Kathleen Flake.127 Flake points out that just after publishing the Book of Mormon, Smith began what he called a “new translation” of the King James Bible, based not on ancient source texts but an 1828 English edition. Much of his translation consisted of grammatical and what one scholar has called

“commonsense” changes to about 3,400 verses, but Smith also appended a few lengthy narratives.128 One of these narratives, for example, is a near 4,700-word expansion of the three pithy biblical verses on the prophet Enoch. In Smith’s translation, Enoch becomes a mighty prophet who calls the wicked children of Adam to repentance, holds lengthy, visionary conversations with God, and establishes a utopic city called Zion which is translated into heaven.129 This particular narrative subsequently became the “blueprint” for Smith’s restorationist and millenarian movement, which aspired to build its own Zion—also called the

“New Jerusalem”—which at Christ’s second coming would literally unite with Enoch’s city.130

126 Hickman, “‘Bringing Forth’ the Book of Mormon,” 54, 60, 75, 77-78. 127 Flake, “Translating Time.” 128 On Smith’s translation of the Bible, see Barlow, Mormons and the Bible, 49-61. 129 This is contained in the “Book of Moses” in the Pearl of Great Price: Moses 6: 21 - 8: 2. 130 Givens, The Prophecy of Enoch as Restoration Blueprint; Underwood, Millenarian World. 35

The pertinent question to ask here is why Smith would call grammatical changes and narrational expansions translations, when they were not based on non-English source texts? One scholar has theorized that Smith’s use of the term implies he believed in, and believed he had revelatory access to, a “scriptural Ur-Text.”131 Yet, although Smith did once allude to his biblical emendations and additions being the restoration of “lost” biblical books,132 that his project was grounded in revelatory access to lost material documents seems unlikely, as Smith’s translations of the same biblical verse occasionally changed over time.133 What seems more likely, as Flake argues, is that “Smith was translating time, not text.” That is, Smith used his claimed prophetic authority to respond to perceived errors or gaps in the biblical narrative as a way of

“reconfiguring the past to suggest what could be, to even create the possible and the real.”134

Put a little more precisely by a third author, Samuel Brown, Smith’s project was “to transform the Bible by wresting it free of its temporal and cultural bounds.”135 He did so by translating biblical narratives into irregular temporal and geographical contexts in a way that both enhanced his own prescriptive, prophetic power by giving his worldview a historical guise, and likewise gave biblical narratives an added contemporary relevance for those who shared his vision. In Smith’s translations, Father Adam practiced baptism in the name of Christ136 while modern Christians built temples like Solomon and engaged in Israelite purification rites.137 Smith called his followers to save their ancestors by performing seemingly modern ordinances for them

131 Givens, “Prophecy, Process, and Plentitude,” 115, 117. 132 On one occasion, Smith referred to his biblical addition on the prophet Enoch as a revelation from the prophecy of Enoch mentioned in the fourteenth verse of the New Testament book of Jude (JSP, “History: 1838- 1856, volume A-1,” 80-81). 133 Jackson and Jasinski give two examples of passages (Matthew 26: 1-71 and 2 Peter 3: 4-6) that Smith translated twice (presumably because he forgot he had already done so) (“The Process of Inspired Translation”). Barlow gives an example of a differing translation between a biblical verse cited in full in the Book of Mormon and the same verse in Smith’s Bible translation project (Mormons and the Bible, 55). 134 Flake, “Translating Time,” 508. 135 Brown, Joseph Smith’s Translation, 124. 136 Moses 6: 64-68 (see also 5: 8-9) in the Pearl of Great Price. 137 Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 217, 308-315; Talmage, The House of the Lord, 15-112. 36 vicariously, as ancient biblical prophets appeared and bestowed on them the power and authority to do so.138 Through his translations, Smith was creatively enabling himself and his followers “to fully inhabit the past,” while likewise “[allowing] the past to inhabit the present.”139

Hickman, Flake, and Brown demonstrate that close attention to Smith’s intellectual environment and later work make forms of non-linguistic translation a very plausible reading of

Smith’s usage of the term. Moreover, such readings provide greater access and insight into

Smith’s unique religious imagination and the distinctive qualities of his religious mission than do debates over the historicity of his textual productions. However, they still leave open the question of the gold plates’ role in Smith’s translation project.

Having moved past the framework of literal translation, it will be useful here to briefly return to the work of Ann Taves, who along with one other scholar has attempted to explain

Smith’s ability to dictate extensive narratives without external sources through reference to trance states which enable “automatic writing.”140 This cross-cultural phenomenon refers to states of consciousness within which an individual is able to write or dictate words to a scribe for extensive periods of time without prior knowledge of, or control over, the words themselves, and thus attributes them to an external force.141 Specifically, Taves’ proposition is that Smith’s seer stones cued a shift in his attention through which he was able to enter a hypnotic state, causing a suspension of his “normal self-referential processing,” thereby allowing “alternate first person voices to emerge” in the form of “the Holy Ghost mediating the words of Nephite [i.e. Book of

Mormon] prophets.”142

138 Doctrine and Covenants 110; 128: 15-25. 139 Brown, Joseph Smith’s Translation, 124, 65. 140 Taves, Revelatory Events, 250-269; “Joseph Smith, Helen Schucman, and the Experience of Producing a Spiritual Text.” Dunn, “Automaticity and the Dictation of the Book of Mormon.” Also related to this idea is Foster’s unelaborated theory that the Book of Mormon is a “trance-related production” (Religion and Sexuality, 296). 141 Taves, “Joseph Smith, Helen Schucman, and the Experience of Producing a Spiritual Text,” 171. 142 Taves, Revelatory Events, 259, 264. 37

That Smith’s experience can be described in these terms is backed, as we have seen, by the stream of seemingly continuous, spontaneous revelation that characterized Smith’s experience, as well as eyewitness and textual evidence which suggests Smith had an extremely limited degree of control over the content of the Book of Mormon. Emma Smith, for example, recorded that “one time while [Smith] was translating he stopped suddenly, pale as a sheet, and said, ‘Emma, did Jerusalem have walls around it?’ When I answered, ‘Yes,’ he replied ‘Oh! I was afraid I had been deceived.’ He had such a limited knowledge of history at that time that he did not even know that Jerusalem was surrounded by walls.”143 Moreover, through an analysis of the original and printer’s manuscripts of the Book of Mormon, Skousen has found evidence that

Smith was oblivious as to the organizational structure of the book, leading to scribal errors in the original chapter headings, and that Smith was consistently dictating only about twenty-words to his scribe at a time.144

The primary problem with this theory, however, is that Taves relies on Smith’s natural knack for storytelling and high degree of familiarity with the King James Bible to posit a robust set of mentally-stored raw materials upon which Smith’s mind drew while under hypnosis to produce the content of the Book of Mormon.145 However, there is scant evidence for these innate qualities and/or cultivated knowledge base.146 Thus, although this may be an interesting

143 Vogel, EMD, 1: 530-531. 144 Skousen, “How Joseph Smith Translated,” 25- 27. 145 Taves, Revelatory Events, 254, 258; “Joseph Smith, Helen Schucman, and the Experience of Producing a Spiritual Text,” 181. 146 Taves and others have claimed that Smith exhibited a knack for storytelling, especially in relation to the Book of Mormon narrative before uncovering the gold plates (Taves, Revelatory Events, 252; Stark, “A Theory of Revelations,” 194; Hickman, “‘Bringing Forth’ the Book of Mormon,”, 76-77). In making this claim, they rely exclusively on Lucy Smith’s (Joseph Smith’s mother) comment that during their “evening conversations” Smith would give “amusing recitals” about “the ancient inhabitants of this continent” before discovering the plates (Proctor, History of Joseph Smith by His Mother, 112). However, they are reading too deeply into this comment. This is quite obviously a reference to what Moroni told Smith during their first meeting. In Smith’s own words: “I was also informed concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of this Country, and shown who they were, and from whence they came; a brief sketch of their origin, progress, civilization, laws, governments, of their righteousness and iniquity, and the blessings of God being finally withdrawn from them as a people was made known unto me” (JSP, 38 revelatory mechanism in theory, it does not definitively explain how the Book of Mormon was produced. Moreover, it fails to recognize that “Smith’s sense of being guided by revelation” was not limited to the particular setting in which Taves believes Smith entered hypnotic states, but was the dominant feature of practically all aspects of his life.147

Yet, as my purpose here is not to definitively explain what happened to Smith but to shed light on the possibilities of his experience, I find Taves’ theory a step in the right direction—with one caveat. Smith did not describe his experience as seeing a vision through a seer stone, or hearing voices facilitated by a seer stone, but a translation of gold plates that he was commissioned to discover. Smith would go on to record volumes of revelation that he couched in the words of God;148 however, his translation of the gold plates was something different, both in terms of the authorial voices and the terms Smith used to describe the process. What made

Smith’s experience translating the gold plates distinctive? To me, the most likely possibility is that Smith experienced the plates, as in the case of the scrolls in the gter ma tradition, as an agentive force that worked on him by pulling out of his mind an extraordinary revelatory product that he then transferred (or translated) into discursive concepts. In this view, the plates generative import is their role as a materialization of ancient voices “[crying] from the dust” which acted upon Smith by instigating and facilitating his revelatory dictation of the Book of Mormon.149

Smith was not using seer stones as a tool to cue an experience, or literally translating an ancient document, but positioning himself in accordance with a number of other non (or supra) human

“History, 1838–1856, volume C-1,” 1282). For a critique of the automatic writing theory as a whole, see Hales, “Automatic Writing.” 147 Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, xxi. 148 Most of these are compiled in The Doctrine and Covenants, cited in the bibliography, and distinctively marked by the introductory phrase, “thus saith the Lord.” 149 2 Nephi 3: 20. 39 agents—such as the angel and the seer stones—in a way that allowed this mysterious material object to effectively exert its own agency over him.

Like all other theories on how Joseph Smith translated the gold plates, the above is just that—a theory, because Smith was not explicit on how the process worked. However, I would argue that the description above is actually a quite straight forward way of explaining the process based on the primary sources. As we have seen, Smith encountered a material object which forged relational bonds between him, an angel, and a past civilization in seemingly unpredictable ways—most importantly, by enabling him to channel a type of revelatory mode through which he served as a medium for ancient voices, yet only while in the object’s presence. Moreover, this theory aligns well with the majority scholarly opinion discussed above, that Smith’s translation consisted of him describing mental imagery or thoughts rather than reading words directly off the plates or seer stones—which, in fact, would be more of a transcription than a translation anyways.150

Most importantly, seeing Joseph Smith’s translation of the gold plates in light of the gter ma tradition troubles the idea that the gold plates were either the Book of Mormon’s literal textual source or part of a scam. That is, it shifts the analytical focus away from unproductive questions of the plates’ existential origins, to questions of not only what Smith could have done with the gold plates, but what they could have done to him, thereby illuminating a wide range of interpretive possibilities into Smith’s experience, and thus the beginnings of Mormonism.

150 Taves, Revelatory Events, 245. 40

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