2024-04-17 13:32
Guru Chöwang statue, HAR 73029In the face of a recent statement on the hopelessness of ever finding chronological coordinates for the history of Bon,* I have to say I’m not… Read More
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Tibeto-logic Blog
tibeto-logic.blogspot.com
More-or-less Monthly Musings on mainly antiquarian topics of Tibet-related interest: Independent, non-commercial and unremunerated since 2006.
2024-04-02 10:55
Swat River, Pakistan - Wikicommons“Slippage” in Buddhist Geography: Orissa, Bengal, Kashmir, and Nepal as Sacred ProxiesTodd GibsonNote: Today’s blog is an original es… Read More
2024-03-22 20:11
༄༅།།དངུལ་སྒོང་གི་བཤད་འབུམ་ལ… Read More
2024-03-21 09:32
Let’s not make this about me, but I’d like to lead into the subject lightly by telling a story that does involve myself. I believe it may help explain my enthusiasm for the subje… Read More
2024-02-16 10:20
Lynn Greyling,ducks addedI was having visions of northern lights flash dancing in a starlit Norwegian night, even while thinking to write a light-hearted piece about the Milky Way. To b… Read More
2023-12-13 20:14
Five Seals symbols at end of Menri Manuscript EAP687/1/39Click to enlargeYou might remember last May’s posting addressing my mistake in saying that in Tibet the Seven Seals (or in Bon… Read More
2023-12-10 12:08
Shrî Seng-ha, after the Gting-skyes edition, vol. 4One thing that has puzzled me about the 1261 history of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism associated with Scholar Deyu is its nearly comple… Read More
2023-12-01 10:24
Scanned leaf from Matho, BDRC no. W1BL9, vol. 405 (click to enlarge)ཀུན་བྱེད་རྒྱལ་པོ་, t… Read More
2023-11-26 19:17
Title page of a text included in BDRC no. W4PD975 (click to enlarge)If you’ve been with us in recent years you would know this: Surprising new pieces of older Tibetan literature a… Read More
2023-09-29 16:27
Pemakarpo, HAR 65368Over the years I’ve developed my own way of seeing holy places. I’ve spent decades living in one of the most celebrated pilgrimage destinations the world has… Read More
2023-09-23 12:32
Star Trek: The Next GenerationSeason 7, Episode 6 — PhantasmsInternal conversation, discursive thinking and troubling thoughts. All three are practical synonyms for something that keep… Read More
2023-09-05 13:50
“Bon-byung Yid-ches Sgron-ma [b]zhugs.” Endangered Archives Project EAP687/1/19I see no need to overplay that old scenario of the precious object lost and unknown suddenly r… Read More
2023-08-31 10:56
Everest & Nubtse, photo by Vyacheslav Argenberg.The Land of SnowsThe land of snows, where mountains touch the sky,And rivers flow from glaciers pure and white.A sacred place, where ancie… Read More
2023-08-26 21:43
I never expected to see this. Last year I blogged about the several Afroeurasian versions of the Seven Seals. Among other things I concluded that the several sets of seven are interrelated o… Read More
2023-08-22 15:49
The Realm of Dharmas,a Treasury of Jewels,by Longchen Rabjampa CHAPTER SEVENEVERYTHING IS TOTALLY NATURALLY-ARRIVED-AT IN BODHICITTA[Not only are all dharmas included in Bodhicitt… Read More
2023-08-07 20:35
Plates 1 and 2If you are intrigued by the use of The Tibetan Book of the Dead in Tibetan funerals, these drawings are well worth examining. What they may lack in artistic ref… Read More
2023-06-11 18:10
Horse enteroliths(the circled area much resembles the Bhutanese Horse Egg)Nota bene! All of today’s blog is a guest blog authored by Ariana.For the original posting, look here.The Hors… Read More
2023-05-30 11:15
Orgyanpa, detailWhat kind of royal history is this? Represented to posterity as a gift to the Khan, we get the feeling it was produced without much enthusiasm, and definitely without m… Read More
2023-05-12 11:19
རྟ་ཡི་སྒོ་ང་། Egg of HorseI’ll admit my ability to think stopped cold when my eyes fell on this object in… Read More
2023-04-30 15:39
Mayday! Mayday! No idea what I’m doing here.Not a techie, this is meant to help people like myself who are not techies themselves, but humans in humanities who want to make the m… Read More
2023-04-18 19:00
The 2nd from top is called the ‘easy-to-use eye spoon’as one item from a set of Tibetan surgical implements The aim of this brief blog is just to make available an until rec… Read More
2023-04-04 15:34
I’d like to start with a story. Not one about myself, one told by David Snellgrove about his 1956 travels in Dolpo, Nepal, in his book Himalayan Pilgrimage. Bear in mind, this was back… Read More
2023-03-11 13:48
click to enlargeRecognize anyone here? The photo is low resolution, for this I apologize. I saved it years ago from a website that doesn’t seem to exist anymore. Despite this lack of c… Read More
2023-01-14 16:25
Agathon, mad saint of Mt. Athos, 1925“The job of an artist, the work of an artist, is not to do with what we know. The artist is like a fool, like an idiot, going on a journey to disco… Read More
2022-12-29 22:10
I ought to warn you, already decades ago I submitted a paper about Tables of Contents (dkar-chag) as a Tibetan literary genre. It was finally published, but I still get push-back for it… Read More
2022-12-11 18:54
Count von Zinzendorf receiving light rays from the side wound, oil painting by Johann V. Haidt dated 1747I suppose I first sensed something odd was going on years ago. I was testing the limi… Read More
2022-12-05 22:03
The Realm of Dharmas,a Treasury of Jewels,by Longchen RabjampaCHAPTER SIXEVERYTHING IS INCLUDED IN BODHICITTA[It has been shown that all dharmas are included in the purity of the Awareness s… Read More
2022-11-22 16:39
To start at the beginning, click here.So here is my fast attempt to elaborate on the meanings of every last detail in this surprisingly complex picture. First of all, look on the Old Man&rsq&hell…Read More
2022-11-18 18:30
South Korea, July 2022From Lhasa to PhiladelphiaThe White Old Man Sūtra and the Long Life Tableau on the Back of Tibetan Currency Notes.This two-part blog is for Yu Wonsoo, an… Read More
2022-11-13 10:20
Turcologist Herbert Wilhelm Duda,who may be in some sense partly to blameDear reader! I recommend you read this astonishing story about more and slightly less imperfect academics first… Read More
2022-10-22 14:46
I wouldn’t expect you to remember a set of old Tibeto-logic blogs about the Nine Chan, imperial period royal heirlooms that may have continued being passed down for several centuries f… Read More
2022-10-09 13:47
The two chortens inside the cave, photo by Katia Buffetrille, 2018A guidebook to a Padampa Cave — a cave in Yunnan we’ve blogged about before — has shown up in print, in a… Read More
2022-09-27 18:55
Imagine receiving a written message like this. It looks like a page hastily torn from the end of a book or notebook, then folded down the middle. In some sense, it could be an example… Read More
The Realm Of Dharmas, A Treasury Of Jewels, Chapter 5: Beyond Pushing And Striving, Cause And Result
2022-09-14 19:20
The Realm of Dharmas,a Treasury of Jewels,CHAPTER FIVEBEYOND PUSHING AND STRIVING, CAUSE AND RESULTIn the Mind Proper, Bodhicitta’s substance, isno philosophy to ponder,no… Read More
2022-09-05 17:17
When you hear the word shaman [1] what does it evoke, and [2] where do you think the word came from? Ignoring the first, something only you can answer, and going on to the second… Read More
2022-08-25 17:59
In recent times an old polemic text has surfaced. Actually, it has surfaced twice, not that I’ve heard of anyone remarking on it. I haven’t. Because of obscurity in the front tit… Read More
2022-07-31 18:27
PeraldusCivilization means to be made to conform to your social world, it makes you feel more and more a part of your society the more you give in to its demands. Cultivation, an entirely di… Read More
2022-07-11 11:36
The white beard always gives me away, so no need to speak of age. But I will tell you it was back in 1989 that I first knew of the history book connected with the name Khepa Deyu. At the tim… Read More
2022-06-29 22:22
photo by Kevin Trotman (It looks like a Magritte painting, doesn’t it?Sky doors are not something we often visualize let alone view, and even then they’re not likely to take… Read More
2022-06-10 14:33
Seven Seals (as seen in Arabic magic)I’ve long had the intention of blogging about the Seven Seals, and more than once announced that I would. In a sense I’m just plowing ahead w… Read More
2022-05-14 17:28
A scene from Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh SealAs so often here in the land of blogs, it may seem like it’s about who receives the proper credit for getting something starte… Read More
2022-05-04 20:36
Book of Secrets manuscript, New York Public Library, page 167This blog means to add some persuasive force to the preceding one on Maṇḍalas of Medieval Arabic (and Latin) Mag… Read More
2022-03-28 10:18
Tibetan studies hardly ever get old or boring. And they can lead in unexpected directions. They can even pull you far outside the boundaries defined by and for that semi-(?)academic discipli… Read More
2022-03-17 12:08
‘ Supreme of All the Translators of the New Translations Rinchen Zang ’ His iconography shows him as both a monk and a meditator, and oddly, without a single book.Here… Read More
2021-12-22 10:11
—CHAPTER FOUR—THE NATURE OF BODHICITTA[So now that it has been approximated by metaphors, in order to drive home the significance, the nature of Awareness-Bodhicitta is unc… Read More
2021-11-30 20:35
Woodcut miniature of Pad-ma-dkar-po,or in Sanskrit PuṇḍarīkaToday’s guestblog was written by Marta Sernesi.It is in response to two recent Tibeto-logic blog… Read More
2021-11-27 11:41
Buddha Miniature from the Gondhla KanjurI hope to better demonstrate the truth of it to you if you have a little time for it, but I can tell you one thing right away. I am ready to swear tha… Read More
2021-11-11 15:34
Folio 1 verso. The label below the miniature seems to say “dang po'i sangs rgyas” ༼ ? ༽2. Woodblocks Carved in Memory of NyagpuwaIn his essay mentioned in the previou… Read More
2021-11-03 17:58
1. Woodblocks Carved for OrgyanpaOne Thanksgiving holiday in Boston back in 1998, E. Gene Smith gave me free use of his library with permission to take out and photocopy anything I found int… Read More
2021-10-13 09:08
A gracefully uplifting Nâga figure extracted from the famous tomb-chortens of Densatil HAR 32071, from a private collectionout of the becoming that was not-at-all-becoming...out of the… Read More
2021-09-26 18:00
His divine fish-soul hung there, poised in its alien element, gazing, gazing through huge eyes that perceived everything, understood everything, but having no part in what it saw. &mda&hell…Read More
2021-09-11 16:26
Everything you need to know about Śākyaśrībhadra you will find in this biographical sketch by Alexander Gardner. Otherwise I would have to teach you Tibetan, and then you… Read More
2021-08-29 19:14
Scapegoat - Photo by Natesh RamasamyTODAY’S BLOG is about how I found, to my amazement, a very clear and specific ritual practice shared by ancient Mesopotamia and Tibet until modern t… Read More
2021-07-28 20:37
I suppose this to be the original bagel, even if in Turkish it’s called simit.I won’t waste time apologizing for the frontispiece. Still, I wish I hadn’t put it up the… Read More
2021-07-02 11:39
CHAPTER THREEMETAPHORS OF BODHICITTA[Having shown the nature of Bodhicitta, now the nature where all dharmas are gathered into the Great Completion in Bodhicitta’s continuity is explai… Read More
2021-06-15 13:40
The White Cliffs of DoverPhoto by Piotr Kuczynski, 2005. Creative Commons. “[There is something that] thoroughly dries out when placed in water.” —Pad… Read More
2021-05-31 14:21
Swayambhunath, Nepal, taken in 2011The Buddha Image shrines niched into its sides were being renovated Combining the Cult of the Image with the Cult of the ChortenI was reading Anne Mar… Read More
2021-05-11 14:29
This is a guest blog written by Simon Maghakyan, University of Colorado Denver lecturer in international relations and independent researcher of heritage crime. He is best known for his… Read More
2021-04-11 13:49
— CHAPTER TWO —APPEARANCES AND BECOMING DAWN AS BUDDHAFIELD[Now that the nature of the Realm has been determined to be the basis for dawning, the reason why the Realm and i… Read More
2021-04-03 13:53
Foreground: Takeuchi Tsuguhito (lft.) and Elliot Sperling (rt.) Bergen, Norway, 2016Just this morning I heard the very unwanted news that my old friend Tsugu* had, very early this morn… Read More
2021-03-30 13:28
The last ten years have seen some interesting and important new publications enriching the field of Padampa and Zhijé studies. Included in this list are some fresh new translati… Read More
2021-03-09 15:26
Dionysos with his Thyrsos on his PantherBy Unknown author - from Le Musée absolu, Phaidon, 10-2012, Public DomainAfter a night of very serious drinking, far past the time reasonable p… Read More
2021-02-19 22:36
I remember being perplexed over and over again by this particular painting of Padampa, not only because of its unusual iconography but perhaps even more by its placement. Not that there is t… Read More
2021-01-03 19:58
I’m sure some of you reading this already know about it. But in case you don’t I’m happy to report that those months of struggle at my keyboard during the 2nd shutdown last… Read More
2020-12-14 18:51
In celebration of this holiday season Tibeto-logic is passing on a gift, or spilling the beans, one or the other. We just want to tell you that if the Younghusband Expedition of 1904 is as i… Read More
2020-11-08 19:55
If you haven’t seen any “Curators’ Corner” videos yet, some of them are both amusing and informative, so I warmly recommend watching. One in particular made me think… Read More
2020-10-13 17:11
Quite frankly I resentpeople who give vent to their loquacity by extraneous bombastic circumlocution.—Monty PythonI’m not suggesting there was a lot of talking aro… Read More
2020-09-27 09:18
All the words below were written by a guest blogger Matthew Akester, translator and author of several books, including his Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo's Guide to Central Tibet, recently publishe… Read More
2020-09-09 17:49
Today I just wanted to apologize for my silence and try to make up for it by telling you a little bit about what I’ve been doing to keep myself occupied during these difficult ti… Read More
2020-08-14 21:56
A screen shot from the Swat Museum’s virtual tour websiteNow that the Crown Virus lockdown seems doomed to be forever, we need to find more productive ways of wasting our time indoors… Read More
2020-06-04 19:37
I was struggling with it until just a few minutes ago, but now I believe it is all there. I opened one of those free new websites that Google supplies for free. As today is the eve of Saga D… Read More
2020-03-22 18:48
As I am often prone to do when trapped in my room with nowhere to go, I was wearing out my eyesight for a good cause browsing through some recently posted photos of Tibetan art works at Hima… Read More
2020-03-18 15:20
I found this going though old papers I hadn’t had access to for a few decades. I was initially a little puzzled what it was. But nowadays with such easy ways of searching things out on… Read More
2020-02-14 21:39
Our thanks to Katia Buffetrille, who sent us this remarkable sign of Padampa’s presence way up in Amdo to the south of the Blue Lake known by various names, among them Kokonoor.The ful… Read More
2020-02-05 12:28
It’s such a pleasure to read the essays of Rasé Konchok Gyatso, each one devoted to a subject even more interesting than the last. Now is one of those times I wish I had paid mo… Read More
2020-01-18 19:08
It’s one of those oddly interdependent co-incidents that now and then show up to remind you the Enlightened Ones got it right. In the last couple of days a whole lot of clues about th… Read More
2020-01-04 22:46
The Biography of Jñānapāda and His Guhyasamāja LineageIn times long gone by, in the southern part of India, was a king of Orissa by the name of Visukalpa. He had faith… Read More
2019-12-10 14:48
Homage to Total Good.Homageto these strange and marvelous dharmas,naturally-arrived-at from beginningless time;to this self-engendered full knowledge,Sheer Luminosity Bodhicitta;to this unmo… Read More
2019-11-22 22:08
Twelve and a Half Crippled Verses Prostrations to the revered Lama andto the Vajra Skygoers.Human body: attained.Sense faculties: complete.Age: young.Dharma: encountered. What mir… Read More
2019-09-29 21:37
"Magic and Mystery in a Tibetan Woodblock Print" could’ve been the title. Some mysteries here beg for clarification ... your clarification, and for the magic, well, with a li… Read More
2019-09-10 19:06
Edward Brumgnach, The Lost Symbol: Magic Squares, Masonic CipherYears ago, a friend passed along to me color xeroxes of a 2-folio text in Tibetan, part of a very large set he had cataloged i… Read More
2019-08-16 18:47
My theory is a theory against theory—although I am well aware of the painful irony of the fact that a profoundly theoretical book is needed for the rejection of theory.— Frank A… Read More
2019-06-20 16:19
Samyé Temple and Monastery, founded in the era of Trisongdetsen. It has an inscribed stele of its own.I apologize to my rare and for that reason all the more precious readers that I h… Read More
2019-06-14 14:52
An Old Tibetan army general named Sna-nam Rgyal-rgan, aka Sna-nam Rgyal-rta Rgan-mo-chung, commander of the Central Horn:after Khetsun Sangpo RinpocheMy heroes have always been the… Read More
2019-04-29 09:10
Continued from here.In 1968, in his introduction to the Eighth Dalai Lama’s biography of His Tutor Yeshé Gyaltsen, the late E. Gene Smith emphasized the importance of locating a… Read More
2019-03-08 13:14
You must have heard the story before. It’s been told for nearly two and a half millennia. People have been arguing for their own views about it since at least the Greek historian Herod… Read More
2019-02-11 10:02
A Tangut TangkaBelow is a donor couple, the man holds an incense burnerThis is hardly the first time we’ve spoken of Tanguts. You might remember we once blogged on evidence of the Tang… Read More
2019-02-11 09:45
A dhole, or more specifically Cuon alpinus dukhunensisIn the bus on my way back from my Rheumatology appointment, I wanted to withdraw my attention from the bothersome crowd, so I drew… Read More
2019-02-02 15:16
Ganden Phodang, the building, as it exists today at Drepung Monastery in LhasaIt’s one of those mysteries in the history of history making why some major events get memorialized over t… Read More
2019-01-16 16:52
Take the comedian and the scholar; of the two the fool that makes people laugh comes out on top. The comedian takes home the money, while the scholar goes away broke and… Read More
2019-01-05 10:52
I must apologize. I know according to my own rules I am supposed to post something here every month or so. Ease up on me though. It’s not like I have a contract or anything. I reckon m… Read More
2018-10-23 14:43
Today’s blog has something to do with singing bowls, skepticism, physics, and the creative metaphysics of sound. As is often the case in these pages, there will be no conclusion apart… Read More
2018-10-01 14:44
The first blog in the series, about script oddities, is here.In this blog we’ll look at some odd spellings. For the most part these are not exactly misspellings, more like unexpected s… Read More
2018-09-10 15:49
I apologize to all three of my regular readers that I haven’t posted here for awhile. I’ve been preoccupied by several projects, and will be busy with one or the other of them in… Read More
2018-07-11 08:20
The Tibetan-born translator Vairocana’s role in the transmission of Dzogchen, and particularly the Mind Series kind of Atiyoga Dzogchen, into Tibet has been a well kept secret in tradi… Read More
2018-05-20 14:00
At Tashilhunpo Monastery in Tsang ProvinceContinued from here. The Eighth Dalai Lama’s thangka was not the first neither was it the largest ‘brocade image.’* It m… Read More
2018-05-08 18:46
“I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous winding labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future and in some way involve the stars.”—Jorge Luis Borges… Read More
2018-04-20 07:45
Dreaming Giant ThangkasOn the History and Meanings of a Tibetan Religious PracticeI suppose everywhere in the world we may find people greatly impressed by things that are higher and taller… Read More
2018-02-11 14:02
With a sense of hope to a degree justifiable, we may think that these oddities, the things that can and do trip up even some of our best translators of Tibetan texts, are a disappearing phen… Read More
2018-02-09 17:54
“Bla-ma Mkhas-pa Bi-ji-ba” after a manuscript of the Yellow Edged Volume.Likely meant as an icon of Tsan Bashilaha, or at least a member of his medical lineage.A few of our regul… Read More
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