A note on Dharmasvāmin's travels

As most of you will have observed I am not quite up to date with secondary literature (nor with primary literature for that matter), so whatever I say here may have been discovered already. Jinajik tells me that there is an annotated Japanese translation of the first part of Chag lo the younger's priceless rnam thar. This is unavailable to me and I do not read Japanese (unfortunately).

The passage we are concerned here is from the second chapter of Dharmasvāmin's life (let's keep the re-Sanskritized name, although it is thoroughly unjustified in my view). When he - through his disciple - speaks of Thaṃ vihāra, he states: 

"Further, in Nepāla there is a Vihāra called Thaṃ, also called the "First Vihāra" [note 10: ka pa'i gtsug lag khang], or the "Upper Vihāra" [note 11: Gong gi lha khang]." (p. 55 in Roerich's translation)

You will find the Tibetan on p. 6.: 

yang Bal yul na Thaṃ bi ha ra Ka pa'i gtsug lag khang ngam Gong gi lha khang zer|

As far as I can tell Roerich read the ms. correctly here, but the translation is problematic. I know of no tradition that would call the Thaṃ bahi (or Vikramaśīla mahāvihāra if you prefer the Sanskrit) the 'first' or the 'upper' monastery.

It is not difficult to see the Newari Kwāpā dyaḥ behind ka pa'i gtsug lag khang. It should then follow that the expression gong gi gtsug lag khang is a corruption of *ā gaṃ [/gi] gtsug lag khang, rendering Newari āgaṃ dyaḥ. I am not quite sure how this might have happenned if it is indeed a corruption. Chances are that 'gong' or 'gi' originally read *gaṃ and the *dang a (instead of 'dang ā') was somehow misread '-ng ngam'. All this can happen quite easily in dbu med and one can play further with adding or deducting a few strokes. But the syntax is still unsatisfactory. zer does indeed seem to suggest that we are dealing with alternative names here. Perhaps Chos dar did not quite understand what his master was trying to explain?

Yum bu bla mkhar

Chances are that you will arrive quite exhausted to the Yum bu bla mkhar. Do not be fooled by the approach, which is very cleverly constructed. If yours truly managed to be at the gate in thirteen minutes from the bottom of the hill, you will certainly do better.

Here is a close-up of this magnificent building. Some fifteen hundred years ago Lha tho tho ri was taking his afternoon stroll up there just to be knocked on the head by some sūtra.

That's the newly constructed bus station with the usual tourist rip-offs such as one yuan for the bathroom (raw silk sanitary towels and complimentary Chanel no. 5 included).

The rest of the view is, however, breathtaking (quite literally). The Yar lung valley is lush. It was for the first time I really understood the eulogy of P.t. 1026.

Note the walled area on the left. According to legend this was the first parcel to be worked upon after the self-planting, self-growing grains were gone.

The small stele marks the spot of the first settlement created by the sons of the good monkey and the brag srin mo.

Yonder a small chapel holding the throne of Atīśa.

A view best enjoyed with good friends.

The old man will insist that you offer bsangs to the gods. Don't resist, he's very nice.

Madan Mohan, the pawned deity

Bishnupur (Viṣṇupura for you and me) in Bankura district boasts one of the finest collections of terracotta temples in West Bengal. Amongst them Madan Mohan may not be the most spectacular, yet it has a curious little story attached to it.

When this image greeted me at the entrance I instantly knew that I was going to like this place.


Madan Mohan was perhaps some kind of local divinity who later became incorporated into/conflated/homologized with Kṛṣṇa. The strangest thing was that I already knew a Madan Mohan temple in North Calcutta. It turned out that this is not a coincidence at all. Early into the last century the temple in Bishnupur was in dire need of money and they pawned (!) their central deity to the wealthy and mighty Mitras of North Calcutta. The Mitra house still stands, although the owners have been evicted for some reason. One of the upper floors, obviously a former living room, is now converted into a place of worship. Every evening devotees come and sing bhajans in front of the image (this is a Kṛṣṇa playing the flute accompanied by Rādhā by the way). Presumably the Bishnupur temple is not interested in honouring their debt anymore, since now they have a perfect copy of the original enshrined in their Madan Mohan.


And here is the inscription (in śārdūlavikrīḍita) on the Bishnupur temple:

śrīrādhāvrajarājanandanapadāmbhojeṣu tatprītaye |
mallābde* phaṇirājaśīrṣagaṇite māse śucau nirmmale |
saudhaṃ sundararatnamandiram idaṃ sārdhaṃ svaceto'linā |
śrīmaddurjanasiṃhabhūmipatinā dattaṃ viśuddhātmanā ||

*The Mallas of Viṣṇupura had an era of their own starting with 694-5 CE, the coronation date of their first (legendary) king. The date is written with numerals at the bottom (1000 Malla era), that is 1694-5 CE. Phaṇirāja is of course Śeṣa, who is a thousand-headed serpent, hence: 'In the year of the Mallas numbering the head of the Serpent Lord'. I'm not sure I understand ceto'linā.


Here are a couple of images from the Mitra house, now known as a 'temple'. These pictures were taken two years ago just before Durgāpūjā, hence the clay idols in the making in the courtyard of what must have been a very imposing residence in its time.

gaṇā iti– mikimūṣādaya iti subodham

Panchugopal Sadhukhan is a relatively unknown artist. In fact, this is the first (and probably last) time I heard of him. I spotted his work today, in a small lane just off Bag Bazar Road in North Calcutta, on a building which was some kind of religious establishment.


The panel has the following: on the left a perfectly respectable Harihara (half-Viṣṇu, half-Śiva), on the right Kṛṣṇa minding his herd (not portrayed, you have seen this already). Below a band of gaṇas being merry, beating drums, the usual business. However, they are sporting the heads of the phirang deities (usually worshipped by children, but not exclusively): Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and what looks like Goofy. I guess this is what anthros call 'cultural translation'?

A day in the life of a zip-fasteners smuggler

I return today, probably for the last time this year, with another prahasana-fragment recovered from Delhi and greetings for the new year. The day starts at four in the morning in a certain country in the Wild East of Europe. Flight takes me to London. So far so good. Some friends don't show up for a meeting. No matter. I peruse the Asian collection at the British Museum, about which I will have to say more another time. Very nice. Still have to kill the day, my flight to Delhi is at ten in the evening. This much I can take. After all, if you can't find things to do and places to go in London, you are hopeless. I am one of those people, so I show up early at Heathrow, which in retrospect seems like the friendliest and best organized airport ever. After a few minor glitches big bird flies back to where I came from (carbon footprint!) and several thousand more miles towards the south-east.

And then, the monster. The extreme interfaces of Indian airports are nice. People at the check-in desk are nice. Stewardesses are nice. Now, in between these two lies no man's land, an amorphous mass, a gigantic belly that devours and spews up things and people at random. Four different people tell me seven different things about where I have to go next: 1) go through immigration; 2) don't go through immigration, never ever, you'll never get back; 3) go to transit above; 4) go to transit below; 5) wait for Air India ground staff (nowhere to be found); 6) go to domestic terminal; 7) drop dead (ok, no one said this, but it's by far the easiest way out). So I go through immigration, after all, that guy _is_ the one who is supposed to know the rules. Sir, you go pick up your bag. Am I in the right place? Yes, yes, go retrieve your luggage. Am I in the right place. He insists on my being reunited with my luggage. But London checked-in my bag all the way to Calcutta. In spite of this, I find it in a pile next to a belt which was already spitting out the next flight's cargo.

Time for a cigarette. But for this you have negotiate Cerberus Kumar Singh at the gates. He takes a look at my exotic passport and shouts at me in Hindi. C. Singh thinks it's the most obvious thing on the planet that anyone holding a Romanian passport can speak Hindi. No surprise shown when I answer in Hindi. His doubts have been cleared. My Bollywood is great. Getting out was fairly easy, but getting back proves to be more difficult. I have to go upstairs. I beg to differ. Upstairs. I object. He shrugs and takes the next boarding card. I'm not important anymore. And I'll be damned: I did have to go upstairs!

Although the flight is not listed anywhere, this is the right place, gate H, I am told by a nice person. At least he knows. But there are about 70% of staff whose jobs are utter mysteries: take-boarding-pass-seven-yards-after-the-gate-guy, stamp-vigorously-boarding-pass-and-look-mean-guy, check-boarding-pass-and-nod-guy, give-out-customs-forms-ten-yards-and-a-half-behind-escalator-guy (we'll return to this later). Cerberus Pramod Singh fails to understand why I'm at the International Terminal when I'm flying domestic. I share his worries. He lets me through nevertheless. He doesn't tell me I'll never get out of there.

Aimlessly wondering about is nice. Especially when you haven't slept for about 38 hours by now. Perhaps another cigarette would take the edge off this boredom. Cerberus Kartik Singh thinks otherwise. I'm not allowed to leave the terminal. He's got a gun and is increasingly angry. Isn't there any way? Go to gate one (he probably has an old rival there, let him get into trouble). Being able to get out at gate one (all the gates lead to the same forecourt) proves to be an illusion. I return to look for my flight. Few hours later Air India counters show sings of life. And they actually know about a flight to Calcutta. Counter-guy admonishes me: "you were never supposed to leave transit, what are you doing here?" I recount my odd-ysey. "Sir, I am telling you now, you should be in transit."

And here comes the best part, the one that made all this and what is to come, worthwhile. I get a slip: "Declaration of domestic passengers travelling by Air India flight". I will bury this and let next generations of epigraphists wonder what on earth this was supposed to mean. I have to declare items for which I do/do not possess valid customs clearance documents. 1) Watches, watch movements or parts thereof. 2) Transistors and diodes. 3) cameras etc. (fair enough so far, although diodes might strike you as a bit odd). Item number 6), however, is the most bizarre entry ever: Zip fasteners (for effect: जिप फस््नर्स). I ask the person whether I have to declare the ones that are on my person (and whether anyone wishes to inspect these personally, in which case I shall protest), or the two-thousand others that I am smuggling in from Hungary to ruin the Indian zip-fastener industry in a day's time. A blasé wave tells it all: there will be someone in charge of zip-fasteners, after immigration. It's his problem.

I eagerly embrace the prospect of meeting zip-fastener-guy and rush through passport control. This person I have to meet. Sadly, no-one is interested in your zippers after passport control. Not a soul. To my utter disappointment zip-fastener-guy fails to show. To my utter despair, so does my flight. In this, yet another, level of what makes Dante's purgatory and Buddhist hells seem like a pleasant weekend outing activity, no one has ever heard of a flight to Calcutta. Helpdesk even claims that they don't work with Air India and sends me to gate 1. Gate 1 sends me to helpdesk. After all, why should the airport of the capital know where government-owned flights are operating from?

At least they do have a smoking area. I retire here to mull over what to do next. Since lighters and matches are prohibited items, the smoking room is thoughtfully equipped with the modern reincarnation of the supari-wallah's 'electronic lighter'. This device, which I perceived in Pondicherry to be an ancient remain from the time matches were a luxury, is basically a piece of wolfram (I think) which, when a button pushed and electricity allowed to heat up the metal, glows, and thus becomes able to light a cigarette. Naturally, such complex devices (perhaps a software glitch) break down often, and it's out of order. I break the law as I pocket a box of matches I see on a table, but I do so for other than selfish reasons. I increasingly have the feeling that if one was so inclined one could easily hijack the entire airport with a toothbrush, let alone a box of flammables.

Few more hours passed and I was lucky to be at a particular gate where a man shouted 'passengers to Calcutta'. The loudspeaker was silent of this affair. A bus took us to the most obscure corner of the airport where a plane proudly wearing an "Indian Airlines" inscription in late 70's devanāgarī turned out to be Air India no. xyz. From here everything became normal again. Well, save half of Calcutta cooking under your window and fake Bauls screaming their lungs out on heavy-duty loudspeakers right across Jay Ma Kali Cyclestores. But if you think that I will drop my current business and take up the study of Nordic Sagas in order to visit only efficient and spotless Scandinavian airports, you're very much mistaken.

Holy port

Being a great fan of port, I have long entertained suspicions that there must be something holy about it. Now we have irrefutable evidence from "Dpal Zha lu Gser khang khra mo dgon gyi ngo sprod rags bsdud - A brief description to the Shalu Monastery". The book is available from a small table on the right side of the lane leading to Zhalu (make sure to taste their original Red Bull as well, although that drink is not so holy).

Many treasures kept at Zhalu are related to holy port. Here are two examples:


Caption reads: "Bumchu Nyongtrol: beings will be liberated from the Samsara (suffering ocean) when they have some water* drops from this holy port." [*NB: 'water' is probably a contamination.]

'dir ma zad. Apparently Bu ston was also a great fan of port since there is a statue of him holding 'Life-port' at his abbatial seat.


Caption reads: "Buton Tshebuma (Buton Life-port Holder)"


Za khang ja khang chang khang in Zhalu is for the time being the exclusive distributor for Zhalu holy port. Coming soon to an Oddbins near you.

Sa skya - A second Dunhuang?

I could find next to nothing in 'western' media about the book treasure found recently at Sa skya. Last time I visited the place (these are pictures from one year before that) there were major renovation works going on and someone told me there that a new building is being raised not very far away from the 'Southern Fortress' to house the monastery library, "in order to make it available to scholars". It is a bit difficult to imagine how moving the books a few hundred yards away is going to solve that problem and I still don't know of anyone having produced an overview of this collection, let alone seen it.

The English sites produced in China (see this for an example) praise the collection as a 'second Dunhuang'. Although there is nothing to suggest that there are Old Tibetan documents here as well, the comparison might be apt if one is to believe the information about the sheer size of the hoard.

Among the long forgotten books I mentioned yesterday I also found this gnas yig of the Sa skya monastery, published in 2004:


The contemporary author, Sa skya Blo gros rgya mtsho, includes this picture of the little known library (apparently still in the state that Sankrtyayan might have seen it):


The meticulous description of sacred items found in the monastery follows the old tradition of gnas yig's and dkar chag's (as of places). While these modern descriptions can be of a lesser quality than the classical ones, they are nevertheless immensely useful, if only to establish what has gone missing. On the subject of books (under a heading "Sgo rum dpe khang chen mo") our author says i.a. (p.63.):

gzhan yang gser chos skya chos 'dres pa sogs pod sum brgya | Ba ri ba | Mal lo | Dkon mchog rgyal po | 'Khon dge bcu pa | Gnam kha'u pa | Sa chen yab sras | chos rje Sa paṇ rnams kyi gzigs dpe rgya dpe 'dres pa stong phrag gcig dang gsum brgya so bzhi bzhugs |

Furthermore, there is a medley of three hundred golden-letter and ink-letter religious volumes and [another] medley of one thousand three hundred and thirty-four, personal books (gzigs dpe?) and Indian manuscripts (rgya dpe) of Ba ri [lotsā]ba, Mal lo[tsāba], Dkon mchog rgyal po, 'Khon dge bcu pa, Gnam kha'u pa, the great Sa skya patriarchs and their descendants, and the lord of the doctrine Sa[ skya] paṇ[ḍita].

What is interesting about this passage is the exact number '1334'. Someone must have counted it, otherwise there would be something like 'about a thousand'.

Here is but a mere fragment of the books collected at Sa skya from the chapel where the patriarchs' remains are kept:

Renovation of the Jana Bahaa

As Iain pointed out in one of his new posts, the Jana Bahaa is now being renovated (the official announcement came today). The blog ran by the project (official site here) is an enjoyable read and quite unique in its genre. In fact it created a genre as far as the Valley is concerned.

You can find all kinds of sites with pictures of the Jana Bahaa, and snippets of information on its history and significance written by pros and amateurs alike. These are all much better what yours truly could offer.

It is quite impossible to do justice to the magical atmosphere of this small Kathmandu courtyard with photographs. Try to enter the courtyard from the West rather than the main entry through a dark alleyway - you'll have to trespass a house for a short while but it's worth it - thus ending up at the back of the shrine. In this way the splendour of the shrine (and the pigeons in front of it) won't hit you right away. Make sure to tap one of the beams on the way and take its blessings on your head. I have no idea what this means but I have seen locals do it. Your trespassing has better chances to be forgiven.

The eastern facade.

The courtyard.

Spectacular gilt-copper images.

More of the same.

[pictures taken by the author, September 2007]