Prof. Shen Weirong: “A Recently Discovered Early Chinese Biography of dPal ldan bkra shis (14th to 15th Cent), A Tibetan Lama from Amdo: New Perspectives on the Interaction between Ming China and Tibet”

14 January 2015

Recently an early Ming Chinese translation of the biography of dPal ldan bkra shis, a Tibetan lama from Amdo who lived in the 14th to 15th centuries, was discovered in Gansu Province, China. The biography is titled The Record of the Origin of the Buddha Son of Western Heaven—The Precious Garland, The Adornment of Devotion of Vajrayāna. It was written in 1449 by the nephew of dPal ldan bkra shis while the biographee was 69 year old and still alive. It was soon translated into Chinese and block-printed by a Ming imperial order. The block-print of the biography is accompanied by painted scrolls in Ming Chinese style which vividly depict the life stories of dPal ldan bkra shis one after another. The biography is divided into seven chapters and provides great details on the political and religious activities of dPal ldan bkra shis in Tibet, China and Southern Asian lands. It also includes numerous imperial edicts and other official documents which were conferred to dPal ldan bkra shis by the Ming court. It is the earliest Chinese translation of a biography of a Tibetan lama in Ming China and also the only one of its kind so far known to us. It provides invaluable sources on almost all relevant political and religious events in both Tibet and China during that period. It sheds especially new light on the history of the rigorous political and religious interactions between Tibet and Ming China that was often neglected or denied by Tibetan historians up to date.

• Click here to download the invitation (PDF)

January 14th, 2015 - 16.00h
Universität Hamburg, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1,
ESA-OST, Raum 209

Free Entrance.