Prof. Dr. Cristina Scherrer-Schaub (Honorary Professor, University of Lausanne & Ancien Directeur d’études, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris Sciences Lettres (PSL))‘Small Pieces Flock Together’The Case of a Tabo Manuscript on a Diatribe Against sbyor and sgrol

28 June 2023

16:00 June 28, 2023. ESA-Ost, Raum 120 & Zoom

The manuscript, written in a beautiful hand, counts fourteen paragraphs separated by a zigzag śad.¹ The anonymous author signals, in small letters (ka to si), the fifty-eight subjects that the author, possibly, intended to comment orally.

Published in French twenty–two years ago,² the texts presents a series of legal monastic rules, and the propositions are expressed in the typical apodictic tone.

As such it could be one of the many ‘call to order’, known in monastic context. However, when studied in historical perspective, together with other documents, in particular with the famous ‘Ordinance’ (bka’ śog) addressed to the sṅags pas of Central Tibet—at the end of the tenth century CE—by Ye-śes-’od (924–1019/1024), the king of Guge-Puraṅ, and the bka' śog of Pho-braṅ Źi-ba-’od (great nephew of king Ye-śes-’od)—written in 1092 CE—,³ both are transmitted to us by Sog-bzlog-pa Blo-gros-rgyal-mtshan (1552–1624).

In the comprehensive survey of the available documents related to the existence of ‘un-orthodox’ tantric practices, the Tabo manuscript figures as an early and rare piece of evidence.

The detailed study of 2001 has been recently translated into English, and this augmented version benefits from the publications that have appeared in the course of the two decades passed by.

The lecture will present an overview of the subject–matter, with particular attention to the heuristic potential and value of the ‘slow reading’ of sources.

Click to download the invitation as a PDF

The lecture will be held at ESA-Ost, Raum 120, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, 20146 Hamburg, and via Zoom. For those who wish to participate via Zoom and are not students/members of Universität Hamburg, please write a short email to Prof. Dr. Wangchuk one day before the event: dorji.wangchuk@uni-hamburg.de(dorji.wangchuk"AT"uni-hamburg.de?subject=Khyentse Center Lecture Zoom Access)

Prof. Dr. Dorji Wangchuk (Director)

Khyentse Center for Tibetan Buddhist Textual Scholarship (KC-TBTS)
Abteilung für Kultur und Geschichte Indiens und Tibets, AAI, Universität Hamburg
Alsterterrasse 1, D-20354 Hamburg

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1. Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, ‘Toward a methodology for the study of Old Tibetan manuscripts: Dunhuang and Tabo.’ In: C. Scherrer-Schaub and E. Steinkellner Eds. Tabo Studies II (SOR LXXXVII). Roma: IsIAO, 1999. pp. 18–19.
2. Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, ‘Contre le libertinage: un opuscule de Tabo adressé aux trantristes hérétiques?’ In: Raffele Torella et alii Eds. Le parole e i marmi. Studi in onore di Raniero Gnoli nel suo 70° compleanno (SOR XCII.2). Roma, IsIao 2001, pp. 693–733.
3. See the fundamental works of Samten Gyaltsen Karmay: ‘An open letter by Pho-brang Zhi-ba-’od to the Buddhist in Tibet’, The Tibet Journal 1980, vol. V. N° 3, 3–28; ‘The Ordinance of Lha Bla-ma Ye-shes-’od’, in: M. Aris and Aung San Suu Kyi Eds., Tibetan Studies in Honour of Hugh Richardson. London: Aris & Phillips, 1980, 150–162.