Literature and the Moral Life: Reading the Early Biography of the Tibetan Queen Yeshe Tsogyal The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Angowski, Elizabeth. 2019. Literature and the Moral Life: Reading the Early Biography of the Tibetan Queen Yeshe Tsogyal. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:42029522 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Literature and the Moral Life: Reading the Early Biography of the Tibetan Queen Yeshe Tsogyal A dissertation presented by Elizabeth J. Angowski to The Committee on the Study of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of The Study of Religion Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts January 24, 2019 © 2019 Elizabeth J. Angowski All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Janet Gyatso Elizabeth J. Angowski Literature and the Moral Life: Reading the Early Biography of the Tibetan Queen Yeshe Tsogyal ABSTRACT In two parts, this dissertation offers a study and readings of the Life Story of Yeshé Tsogyal, a fourteenth-century hagiography of an eighth-century woman regarded as the matron saint of Tibet. Focusing on Yeshé Tsogyal's figurations in historiographical and hagiographical literature, I situate my study of this work, likely the earliest full-length version of her life story, amid ongoing questions in the study of religion about how scholars might best view and analyze works of literature like biographies, especially when historicizing the religious figure at the center of an account proves difficult at best. In my readings, I advocate a hermeneutical approach that engages the Life of Yeshé Tsogyal's self-understanding as a work that is both an authentic terma (gter ma), that is, a "treasure text" or "revealed scripture," and a namtar (rnam thar), here understood to be a narrative of an individual's pursuit of spiritual realization. Following a consideration of the work's genre, I examine two of its dominant literary features: intertextuality and dialogue. Through its use of intertextuality, I suggest that the Life seeks to cultivate a reader who is ever eager to find more—more information, but above all, further significance—in the text. The reader who reads intertextually is apt to gain both facility and comfort with the work, and even, ideally, the ability to see the work as persistently relevant to their own life. Through its use of dialogue, I find that the story works to familiarize the reader with Yeshé Tsogyal in ways that extend beyond the capacities of diegesis alone. For its dialogic qualities both among texts and between persons, I understand the Life of Yeshé Tsogyal to be a work of literature that seeks not only to account for the spiritual progress of Yeshé Tsogyal, but also to enliven her amid the religious landscapes of Tibet and Bhutan. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS _____________________________________________________________________________ Abstract ............................................................................................................................................. iii Table of Contents .............................................................................................................................. iv Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................ vi Note on Translation and Transliteration .......................................................................................... ix Introduction: The Individual and the Idea of Yeshé Tsogyal in History and Literature ................. 1 What We Talk About When We Talk About Yeshé Tsogyal ................................................................. 1 Was Yeshé Tsogyal?........................................................................................................................... 12 What was (or is) Yeshé Tsogyal? ........................................................................................................ 15 Chapter Outlines................................................................................................................................. 21 Analytical Approach ........................................................................................................................... 25 PART I: Situating the Life of Yeshé Tsogyal Chapter One: The Literary Apotheosis of Yeshé Tsogyal ............................................................... 32 The World(s) of Yeshé Tsogyal: The Religious and Literary Contexts in which Her Lives Emerged.... 32 Emplotting Tibet's Buddhist History ................................................................................................... 33 The Imperial Era (Seventh to Tenth Centuries).............................................................................. 36 The Renaissance (Beginning in the Late Tenth Century): Nyangrel Nyima Öser and the Elaboration of the Padmasambhava Literature ................................ 39 Padmasambhava Literature in Nyangrel's Wake ............................................................................ 43 The Renaissance amid a Degenerate Age ...................................................................................... 52 The Treasure-Revealer Drimé Künga .................................................................................................. 56 Drimé Künga's Life of Yeshé Tsogyal .................................................................................................. 62 Chapter Two: The Life of Yeshé Tsogyal as a Treasure Text .......................................................... 67 Treasure Revelation in (Literary) Theory ............................................................................................ 72 Readers of Revelations: Engaging in a Hermeneutics of Intimacy ....................................................... 79 Overview of the Life of Yeshé Tsogyal: Formal Features, Dominant Themes, and Chapter Summaries ............................................................. 82 General Features of the Work ................................................................................................. 84 Dominant Themes in the Life of Yeshé Tsogyal ...................................................................... 92 Dharma, dharma, d/Dharma?.................................................................................... 92 Dzogchen: The Great Perfection ................................................................................ 96 Sex and Gender ......................................................................................................... 97 The Life as Work and Text................................................................................................................ 107 The Work: Chapter Summaries ......................................................................................................... 108 Chapter I: The Princess is Born and Renounces Royal Life .................................................. 108 Chapter II: The Princess Tours the Lands of Oḍḍiyāna ......................................................... 112 Chapter III: The Princess Requests that Oḍḍiyāna Compose Verses of Songs of Advice ....... 119 Chapter IV: The Princess Requests the Transmission of the Teachings of the Nine Successive Vehicles in Oḍḍiyāna's Presence ............................................. 122 Chapter V: The Princess Benefits Beings in the Hell Realm ................................................. 122 Chapter VI: The Princess Obtains Prophesies ....................................................................... 125 Chapter VII: The Dissemination of the Buddha's Teachings in Every Direction .................... 125 The Texts ......................................................................................................................................... 127 The Life's Sources: Manuscript Witnesses and Modern Editions ........................................... 127 iv Thinking Critically about Editions........................................................................................ 136 PART II: Reading the Life Story of Yeshé Tsogyal Chapter Three: A Difference that is Also a Link: Genre as a Critical Category for Reading the Life Story of Yeshé Tsogyal ................................... 142 Understanding "Namtar" in the Namtar of Yeshé Tsogyal ................................................................. 142 Translating Namtar........................................................................................................................... 144 The Comprehensiveness of Namtar, or, the Life of Yeshé Tsogyal, a Lost Drama?............................. 147 Life as Live Performance...................................................................................................... 149 The Life of Drimé Künden .................................................................................................... 155 Drama in Tibet, an Aside ..................................................................................................... 157 Comparing the Life of Drimé Künden and the Life