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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2011
The ritual use of objects and images designed to serve as effigies or surrogates of specific persons, animals or spirits is more or less universal across cultures and time. In Tibet, recent archaeological evidence attests to the use of illustrated effigies possibly dating from the eleventh century. Other early Tibetan images include anthropomorphic figures inscribed on animal skulls. The practical use of effigies in Tibetan ritual, both Buddhist and Bon-po, was almost certainly derived from much older Indian practices transmitted to Tibet. In this article illustrated effigies, their iconography and ritual use are discussed and the article concludes with the translation and transliteration of a short work by the fifteenth-century treasure revealer (gter-ston) and patron saint of Bhutan Padma-gling-pa (1450–1521), which gives instructions on how to draw a liṅga for a ritual of defence against human adversaries.
Much of the research for this article was carried out in preparation for a larger study on the history of Tibetan sorcery and the politics of ritual magic during the tenure of a year-long fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, sponsored in part by The Starr Foundation Fund. I wish here to acknowledge my sincere gratitude to both organisations for their charitable support. I would like also to extend my thanks to Frances Garrett, Amy Heller, Tamara-Monet Marks, Trent Pomplun, and Kurtis Schaeffer for graciously sharing their time and suggestions.
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8 R.A. Stein cited in Heller, Amy, “Early Textual Sources for the Cult of Beg-ce”, in Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 4th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Schloss Hohenkammer—Munich 1985, (eds.) Uebach, Helga and Panglung, Jampa L. (Munich, 1988), pp. 185–195 [p. 188 n. 22]Google Scholar.
9 The term liṅga (syn. nya-bo) is defined in the dictionary of Dge-bshes Chos-grags as “whatever serves as a support for the ‘liberation’ of the one named as intended ‘victim’ during [the rite of] liberation [by] secret mantra” (gsang sngags sgrol ba'i skabs su dmigs yul gyi ming rus can gyi bsgral rten gang yin pa'i linga lta bu). See Dge-bshes chos-kyi-grags-pas brtsams-pa'i brda-dag ming-tshig gsal-ba (1957, reprint Beijing, 1995), p. 303. Nebesky-Wojkowitz (Oracles and Demons, p. 360) gives the names and brief descriptions of four traditional types of illustrated liṅga: “In Tibetan books on black magic one often finds drawings of certain special lingam, required for performing various ceremonies destined to destroy the life of an enemy; thus a lingam showing two entwined and fettered human bodies is called the wa thod lingam, the drawing of a bound naked man who has an enormous tongue hanging out of his mouth bears the name ar gtad kyi lingam, a shackled human figure is the bkrad pa'i lingam, and a drawing showing a human figure being boiled in a cauldron resting upon a hearth is the ’Gong po me brdung ba'i lingam”. For traditional instructions on how to draw liṅga, specifically of the bkrad pa'i lingam variety, see Appendix to this article.
10 For further discussion of the mimetic principles of substitution in Tibetan sorcery and practical magic, see Cuevas, Bryan J., “The ‘Calf's Nipple’ (Be'u bum) of Ju Mipam (’Ju Mi pham): A Handbook of Tibetan Ritual Magic”, in Tibetan Ritual, (ed.) Cabezón, José I. (New York, 2010), pp. 165–186Google Scholar.
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13 Nebesky-Wojkowitz, René de, Tibetan Religious Dances: Tibetan Text and Annotated Translation of the ’Chams Yig (1976, reprint New Delhi, 2001)Google Scholar.
14 Interestingly, such images are also found embroidered on carpets, presumably to be utilised in the aforementioned ritual of the New Year's dance or similar rites. See Casey, Jane, Tantric Carpets from the Himalayas (London, 2008), pp. 9–12Google Scholar, examples on pp. 28–31.
15 Stein, “Le Liṅga”; Beyer, Stephan, The Cult of Tārā: Magic and Ritual in Tibet (Berkeley, 1973), pp. 310–312Google Scholar; Kohn, Richard, Lord of the Dance: The Mani Rimdu Festival in Tibet and Nepal (Ithaca, New York, 2001), pp. 74–86Google Scholar.
16 See, for example, the programme outlined in Smyos-btsun Rin-chen-rnam-rgyal (1694–1728), Zhig-gling-gi gter-byon dmag-zlog nyer-lnga las rgyal-chen mchod-thabs gtor-zlog mdos-rnams nyams-su blang-ba'i lag-len bklag-chog mthong-bas don-rtogs, in Rin-chen gter-mdzod chen-mo, (ed.) ’Jam-mgon Kong-sprul (Paro, Bhutan, 1976–1980), vol. 71, fols. 169–215 [fols. 201–204] (henceforth, Rgyal-chen mchod-thabs); cf. also Stein, “Le Liṅga”, pp. 224–227. On the notion of ritual killing (bsgral-ba) as an act of ‘liberation’ (sgrol-ba), see Cantwell, Cathy, “To Meditate upon Consciousness as Vajra: Ritual ‘Killing and Liberation’ in the Rnying-ma-pa Tradition”, in Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 7th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Graz 1995, (eds.) Krasser, Helmut, Much, Michael Torsten, Steinkellner, Ernst and Tauscher, Helmut (Vienna, 1997), pp. 107–118Google Scholar; and Meinert, Carmen, “Between the Profane and the Sacred? On the Context of the Rite of ‘Liberation’ (sgrob ba)”, in Buddhism and Violence, (ed.) Zimmermann, Michael (Lumbini, Nepal, 2006), pp. 99–130Google Scholar.
17 Padma-gling-pa (1450–1521), Liṅga bri-ba'i yig-chung gsod-byed gri-gug rgya-can, in The Rediscovered Teachings of the Great Padma-gliṅ-pa (Thimphu, Bhutan, 1975), vol. 3, fols. 365.6–366.1 (henceforth, Liṅga bri-ba'i yig-chung). See Appendix below.
18 Liṅga bri-ba'i yig-chung, fol. 365.2; Stein, “Le Liṅga,” p. 202.
19 Kohn, Lord of the Dance, p. 76.
20 Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Tibetan Religious Dances, passim, esp. pp. 18–19, 41–42, 45.
21 For descriptions of the use of gtor-ma in ritual, see: Beyer, The Cult of Tārā, pp. 217–222 and 340–346. On mdos, see: Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Oracles and Demons, pp. 369–397; Beyer, The Cult of Tārā, pp. 318–330; Blondeau, Anne-Marie, “The mKha’ klong gsang mdos: Some Questions on Ritual Structure and Cosmology”, in New Horizons in Bon Studies, (eds.) Karmay, Samten G. and Nagano, Yasuhiko (Osaka, 2000), pp. 249–287Google Scholar.
22 Norbu, Namkhai, Drung, Deu and Bön: Narrations, Symbolic Languages, and the Bön Tradition in Ancient Tibet (Dharamsala, India, 1995), p. 79Google Scholar.
23 Zhig-po-gling-pa (1524–1583), Dmag-zlog nyi-shu rtsa-lnga las spyi-ru zlog-thabs-kyi rim-pa sde-tshan-du byas-pa, in Rin-chen gter-mdzod chen-mo, vol. 71, fols. 57–72 [fol. 61] (henceforth, Dmag-zlog nyi-shu rtsa-lnga).
24 Rgyal-chen mchod-thabs, fols. 201–202; Norbu, Drung, Deu and Bön, p. 257 n. 40.
25 Brag-dkar Sngags-rams-pa Blo-bzang-bstan-pa-rab-rgyas, Gtor-zor ’phen-skabs-kyi dmod-bcol spu-gri dar-ma dug-gi-mde'u-thung, in Gsung-’bum/Blo-bzang-bstan-pa-rab-rgyas (Reb-gong, Qinghai, c. 1990), vol. 2, fols. 285–291 [fols. 287–291]; Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Oracles and Demons, pp. 354–356.
26 To cite a few historical examples: Nebesky-Wojkowitz (Oracles and Demons, pp. 493–500) describes the use of such rites by the Lhasa government in the time of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama (1876–1933), and again later in 1950 against the Chinese PLA forces; for an early nineteenth-century account of Lcang-skya Rol-pa'i-rdo-rje's (1717–1786) deployment of gtor-zor weapons in the service of the Qianlong Emperor (1711–1799) during the Manchu campaign (1771–1776) in Rgyal-mo-rong, see: Martin, Dan, “Bonpo Canons and Jesuit Cannons: On sectarian factors involved in the Ch'ieh-lung emperor's second goldstream expedition of 1771–1776 based primarily on some Tibetan sources”, The Tibet Journal 15.2 (1990), pp. 3–28Google Scholar; on the use of liṅga rites to repel Mongol invaders at the beginning of the seventeenth century, see: Gentry, James, “Representations of Efficacy: The Ritual Explusion of Mongol Armies in the Consolidation and Expansion of the Tsang (Gtsang) Dynasty”, in Tibetan Ritual, (ed.) Cabezón, José I. (New York, 2010), pp. 131–163Google Scholar.
27 On the Tibetan theory of totem deities, see: Stein, “Le Liṅga”, pp. 215–219.
28 Dmag-zlog nyi-shu rtsa-lnga, fol. 62; Rgyal-chen mchod-thabs, fols. 208–213.
29 Mi-pham-rgya-mtsho (1846–1912), Las sna-tshogs-pa'i sngags-kyi be'u-bum dgos-’dod kun-’byung gter-gyi bum-pa bzang-po (Hong Kong, 1999), pp. 33–43; cf. Cuevas, “The ‘Calf's Nipple’ (Be'u bum) of Ju Mipam (’Ju Mi pham)”.
30 Dmag-zlog nyi-shu rtsa-lnga, fols. 63–66.
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32 Stein, R.A., “A propos des documents anciens relatifs au phur-bu (kīla)”, in Proceedings of the Csoma de Köros Memorial Symposium Held at Matrafüred, Hungary, 24–30 September 1976, (ed.) Ligeti, Louis (Budapest, 1978), pp. 427–444Google Scholar; Boord, Martin J., The Cult of the Deity Vajrakīla: According to the Texts of the Northern Treasures Tradition of Tibet (Byang-gter phur-pa) (Tring, 1993)Google Scholar; Cantwell, Cathy and Mayer, Robert, The Kīlaya Nirvāṇa Tantra and the Vajra Wrath Tantra: Two Texts from the Ancient Tantra Collection (Vienna, 2007)Google Scholar. Cantwell and Mayer (pp. 6–12 and 17–20) advocate that the Buddhist phur-pa ritual, in which the destruction of liṅga effigies is a central component, preserves in symbolic form the ancient pre-Buddhist Tibetan predilection for blood sacrifice, the liṅga representing the victim of the once literal violent offering. It is their hypothesis that Tibetans were initially attracted to Buddhist tantric rites of this sort because of the latter's “exceptionally strong emphasis on deeply familiar motifs of sacrifice, dismemberment, and hierarchical sharing” (p. 20).
33 See especially: Jackson, David P. and Jackson, Janice A., Tibetan Thangka Painting: Method and Materials (Ithaca, New York, 1988)Google Scholar; Jackson, David P., A History of Tibetan Painting: The Great Tibetan Painters and Their Traditions (Vienna, 1996)Google Scholar; Klimburg-Salter, Deborah E. and Luczanits, Christian, Tabo: A Lamp for the Kingdom: Early Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Art in the Western Himalaya (New York, 1998)Google Scholar; Heller, Amy, Tibetan Art: Tracing the Development of Spiritual Ideals and Art in Tibet, 600–2000 A.D. (Milan, 1999)Google Scholar; Linrothe, Robert N., Ruthless Compassion: Wrathful Deities in Early Indo-Tibetan Esoteric Buddhist Art (Boston, 1999)Google Scholar; Linrothe, Robert N., Rhie, Marylin M., Watt, Jeff and Busta, Carly, Demonic Divine: Himalayan Art and Beyond (New York, 2004)Google Scholar. For a contemporary Tibetan account of the history of painting in Tibet, including also thorough discussion of artists’ techniques, tools, and materials, see Brtson-’grus-rab-rgyas and Rdo-rje-rin-chen, Bod-kyi ri-mo spyi'i rnam-gzhag blo-gsal ’jug-sgo (Beijing, 2001).
34 Sangs-rgyas-gling-pa (1340–1396), Bla-ma dgongs-’dus: A Complete Cycle of Buddhist Practice (Paro, Bhutan, 1981–1984), vol. 18; Karmay, Samten G., Secret Visions of the Fifth Dalai Lama: The Gold Manuscript in the Fournier Collection (London, 1988)Google Scholar.
35 M.L.B. Blom acknowledges that in Asia the use of sketchbooks may be unique to Nepal: “Up till now, a model book tradition comparable to that in Nepal has not been discovered in the other countries of South- and Southeast Asia. It is, of course, known that from time-to-time sketches were made as preparatory studies for the production of sculptures and paintings, but this habit evidently never grew to a tradition like that of the model books in Nepal”. See Depicted Deities: Painters’ Model Books in Nepal (Groningen, 1989), p. 1.
36 Pal, Pratapaditya and Meech-Pekarik, Julia, Buddhist Book Illuminations (New Delhi, 1988), pp. 123–124Google Scholar.
37 On the history and significance of artists’ model-books in Europe, see Scheller, Robert W., Exemplum: Model-Book Drawings and the Practice of Artistic Transmission in the Middle Ages (ca. 900 – ca. 1470), (trans.) Hoyle, Michael (Amsterdam, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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39 See: Gyatso's, Janet comments in her introduction to Body & Spirit: Tibetan Medical Paintings, (eds.) Williamson, Laila and Young, Serinity (Seattle, 2009), pp 3–13Google Scholar.
40 Blo-bzang-bstan-pa-rab-rgyas was first in the line of the Brag-dkar Sngags-rams-pa incarnates seated at Rong-po Dgon-chen Thos-bsam-rnam-rgyal-gling near Reb-kong. He was born in Brag-dkar probably in the middle decades of the seventeenth century and spent his youth and early career at the meditation centre at Bkra-shis-’kyil monastery in Amdo. At the age of 30 he travelled to Lhasa and entered the Lower Tantric College at Se-ra monastery where he developed a reputation as a skilled sorcerer and exorcist. In this capacity he was several times called upon to perform rituals for the protection of the Lhasa government. Considered an incarnation of the infamous sorcerer Rwa-lo-tsā-ba (b. 1016), he was said to be a devout and masterful practitioner of the fierce rites of Bhairava/Yamāntaka and especially the cycle of rituals known as the Lcags-mkhar cho-ga (Rites of the iron castle), which included special techniques for the suppression of the life-threatening sri demons (see note 41 below). The small collection of liṅga illustrations detailed here belongs to this group of Yamāntaka rites. A very brief biography of Blo-bzang-bstan-pa-rab-rgyas, from which this little bit of information is drawn, can be found in Dkon-mchog-bstan-pa-rab-rgyas (b. 1801), The Ocean Annals of Amdo = Yul-mdo-smad-kyi ljongs-su thub-bstan rin-po-che ji-ltar-ba'i tshul gsal-bar brjod-pa deb-ther rgya-mtsho (New Delhi, 1975–1977), vol. 1, fols. 738.5–740.5. A more extended account of his life is included in the first volume of his two-volume Collected Works. See Gsung-’bum/Blo-bzang-bstan-pa-rab-rgyas (Reb-gong, Qinghai, c. 1990), vol. 1, fols. 31–52.
41 Depicted here are the liṅga of four types of sri demon. From top left, they are: (1) the sri that harms men (pho-sri), (2) the sri that causes loss or damage (god-sri), (3) the fox-headed sri of the charnel grounds (dur-sri), and (4) the scorpion-headed sri that causes accidents (nye-sri). For a descriptive analysis of the wide variety of sri demons in Tibetan mythology, see Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Oracles and Demons, pp. 300–303.
42 Meyer, Fernand, “Introduction à l’étude d'une série de peintures médicales crée à Lhasa au XXIIe siècle”, in Tibet civilisation et société, (ed.) Meyer, F. (Paris, 1990), pp. 29–58Google Scholar [p. 43]; Parfionovitch et al., Tibetan Medical Paintings, pp. 35–36 and 109–110.
43 Ibid., pp. 35 and 109.
44 Meyer, “Introduction”, pp. 30, 43–44, and 48 n. 7; cf. also Winder, Marianne, “Tibetan Medicine compared with Ancient and Mediaeval Western Medicine”, Bulletin of Tibetology (Gangtok), New Series 1 (1981), pp. 5–22Google Scholar [pp. 15–16].
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49 Ibid., p. 11.
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52 Sudhoff, “Anatomische Zeichnungen (Schemata)”, pp. 54–55; Sudhoff, Studien zür Geschichte der Medizin, vol. 4, pp. 3–10; Herrlinger, History of Medical Illustration, p. 13. On the significance of Galen as a chief source for knowledge of the Alexandrian anatomical tradition and of its most important pioneers, see Longrigg, James, “Anatomy in Alexandria in the Third Century B.C.”, The British Society for the History of Science 21.4 (1988), pp. 455–488CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
53 Lindberg, David C., The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450 (Chicago, 1992), pp. 126 and 342–345CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In China, the legal practice of forensic medicine had begun a century earlier, from the middle of the thirteenth century, though there is textual evidence indicating that the Chinese had already established a tradition of anatomical study going back to the second century, paralleling the period of the Greek tradition. See: O'Neill, Ynez Violé and Chan, Gerald L., “A Chinese Coroner's Manual and the Evolution of Anatomy”, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 31 (1976), pp. 3–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gwei-Djen, Lu and Needham, Joseph, “A History of Forensic Medicine in China”, Medical History 32 (1988), pp. 357–400Google Scholar. Still, it seems for knowledge of the internal body the medieval Chinese anatomists did not put as much emphasis on dissection and autopsy as did their western counterparts, instead relying more on traditional religious and cosmological paradigms. See: Despeux, Catherine, “The Body Revealed: The Contribution of Forensic Medicine to Knowledge and Representations of the Skeleton in China”, in Graphics and Text in the Production of Technical Knowledge in China: The Warp and the Weft, (eds.) Bray, Francesca, Dorofeeva-Lichtmann, Vera and Métailié, Georges (Leiden, 2007), pp. 635–684Google Scholar [pp. 635–639]. This also held true in Tibet, where Buddhist tantric and Indian Āyurvedic models of internal physiology predominated and the institutional development of anatomical knowledge based on direct empirical observation of cadavers appears only to have been initiated for a fleeting moment at the end of the seventeenth century. See Gyatso, Janet, “The Authority of Empiricism and the Empiricism of Authority: Medicine and Buddhism in Tibet on the Eve of Modernity”, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24.2 (2004), pp. 83–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Garrett, Frances, Religion, Medicine and the Human Embryo in Tibet (London, 2008), pp. 57–84Google Scholar. Nevertheless, Gyatso (p. 85) surmises that Tibetans must have been familiar with the anatomy of the human body much earlier, their firsthand knowledge likely to have been gained through the longstanding practice of ‘sky burial’ in which corpses are cut up to be fed to vultures. It is uncertain, however, whether there is tangible evidence to substantiate that this sort of funerary practice was actually understood and utilised by Tibetans as an opportunity for anatomical research.
54 Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, pp. 168–180.
55 A series of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Islamic examples associated with the Tashrīḥ-i Manṣūrī are discussed by Savage-Smith, Emilie, “The Depiction of Human Anatomy in the Islamic World”, in Science, Tools & Magic. Part One: Body and Spirit, Mapping the Universe, vol. 12 of Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, (eds.) Maddison, Francis and Savage-Smith, Emilie (London, 1997), pp. 14–24Google Scholar. More recently, an eighteenth-century non-Muslim example preserved in Gujarat has been identified. See Wujastyk, Dominik, “Interpréter l'image du corps humain dans l'Inde pré-moderne”, in Images du corps dans le monde hindou, Collection Monde Indien, Sciences sociales, 15–20 siècle, (eds.) Bouillier, Véronique and Tarabout, Gilles (Paris, 2002), pp. 71–99Google Scholar [pp. 81–83] and “A Persian Anatomical Image in a Non-Muslim Manuscript from Gujarat”, Medical History, 51.2 (2007), pp. 237–242.
56 Russell, Gül A., “Ebn Elyās, Manṣūr”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, (ed.) Yarshater, Ehsan (London, 1998), vol. 8, pp. 16–20. http://www.iranica.com (accessed 31 January 2010)Google Scholar.
57 O'Neill, Ynez Violé, “The Fünfbilderserie Reconsidered”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 43.3 (1969), pp. 236–245 [p. 242]Google Scholar.
58 O'Neill, “The Fünfbilderserie Reconsidered”, p. 238; see: also French, Roger, “An Origin for the Bone Text of the ‘Five-figure Series’,” Sudhoffs Archiv 68.2 (1984), pp. 143–156Google ScholarPubMed. On the works of Constantine the African and the influence of his school in Salerno, see the essays collected in Burnett, Charles and Jacquart, Danielle (eds.), Constantine the African and ’Alī ibn al-’Abbās al-Magūsī: The Pantegni and Related Texts (Leiden, 1994)Google Scholar.
59 See for example, Sangs-rgyas-rgya-mtsho, Sde-srid (1653–1705), Dpal-ldan gso-ba rig-pa'i khog-’bubs legs-bshad vaiḍūrya'i me-long drang-srong dgyes pa'i dga’-ston (Beijing, 2004), pp. 108–131Google Scholar (henceforth, Khog-’bubs); De'u-dmar Bstan-’dzin-phun-tshogs (b. 1672), Gso-ba rig-pa'i chos-’byung rnam-thar rgya-mtsho'i rba-rlabs drang-srong dgyes-pa'i ’dzum-phreng, in Gso-rig gces-btus rin-chen phreng-ba (Xining, 1991), pp. 632–764 [pp. 661–706]; Pa-sangs-yon-tan, Sman-rams-pa, Bod-kyi gso-ba rig-pa'i lo-rgyus-kyi bang-mdzod g.yu-thog bla-ma dran-pa'i pho-nya (Leh, Ladhakh, 1988), pp. 8–22Google Scholar; Beckwith, Christopher, “The Introduction of Greek Medicine into Tibet in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries”, Journal of the American Oriental Society 99.2 (1979), pp. 297–313CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Taube, Manfred, Beiträge zur Geschichte der medizinischen Literatur Tibets (Sankt Ausgustin, 1981), pp. 10–17Google Scholar; Garrett, Frances, “Critical Methods in Tibetan Medical Histories”, Journal of Asian Studies 66.2 (2007), pp. 363–387CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Martin, Dan, “An Early Tibetan History of Indian Medicine”, in Soundings in Tibetan Medicine: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives. PIATS 2003: Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the Tenth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Oxford, 2003, (ed.) Schrempf, Mona (Leiden, 2007), pp. 307–325Google Scholar, and the same author's “‘Greek and Islamic Medicines’ Historical Contact with Tibet”, in Islam and Tibet: Interactions along the Musk Routes, (eds.) Anna Akasoy, Charles Burnett and Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim (Aldershot, forthcoming). On other aspects of the influence of Greek-derived medical traditions in early Tibet, see Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim, “On Urine Analysis and Tibetan Medicine's Connections with the West”, in Studies of Medical Pluralism in Tibetan History and Society: Proceedings of the 11th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Bonn 2006, (eds.) Sienna Craig, Mingji Cuomu, Frances Garrett and Mona Schrempf (Halle, forthcoming).
60 Some of the available Tibetan sources offering an account of Ga-les-nos are reviewed in Beckwith, “The Introduction of Greek Medicine into Tibet, pp. 297–301, and in Byams-pa-phrin-las, Gangs-ljongs gso-rig bstan-pa'i nyin-byed rim-byon-gyi rnam-thar phyogs-bsgrigs (1990, reprint Beijing, 2000), pp. 30–33 (henceforth, Gangs-ljongs gso-rig bstan-pa). The geographical identity of Khrom/Phrom and Stag-gzig are discussed by them as well.
61 Beckwith, “The Introduction of Greek Medicine into Tibet”, p. 300.
62 Ibid., pp. 300 and 310 n. 28.
63 French, “An Origin for the Bone Text of the ‘Five-figure Series’”, pp. 146–147.
64 Gangs-ljongs gso-rig bstan-pa, pp. 51–54; Beckwith, “The Introduction of Greek Medicine into Tibet”, pp. 301–305; Garrett, “Critical Methods in Tibetan Medical Histories”, pp. 374–377; Martin, “An Early Tibetan History of Indian Medicine”, pp. 316–317.
65 Beckwith, “The Introduction of Greek Medicine into Tibet”, p. 303. Byams-pa-phrin-las (Gangs-ljongs gso-rig bstan-pa, p. 54 n. 1), on the other hand queries whether the name Tsan-pa-shi-la-ha might be of Latin or Chinese origin.
66 Boulnois, Luce, Silk Road: Monks, Warriors and Merchants, (trans.) Loveday, Helen (2001, reprint Hong Kong, 2008), pp. 255–278Google Scholar. Another physician of Sogdian affiliation said to have been active in the court of Khri-srong-lde-btsan was a certain Sog-po Ha-la-shan-ti (see: Beckwith, “The Introduction of Greek Medicine into Tibet”, p. 305), though it is unclear whether he also travelled to Tibet via a similar route.
67 Beckwith, “The Introduction of Greek Medicine into Tibet”, p. 304; Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, p. 125.
68 A long list of titles are reproduced in Byams-pa-phrin-las, Gangs-ljongs gso-rig bstan-pa, pp. 51–52 and in Beckwith, “The Introduction of Greek Medicine into Tibet”, pp. 302–303, both of whom cite as their source the list given in Khog-’bubs, pp. 111–113. One of Tsan-pa-shi-la-ha's major medical treatises, the Bi-ji'i po-ti kha-ser (Bi-ji's yellow book), which deals primarily with the treatment of bodily wounds and general therapeutic remedies, is extant in several editions: (1) a manuscript in Lhasa, housed at the medical research office outside the Jo-khang temple (Frances Garrett, e-mail correspondence, 8 September 2009); (2) a manuscript copy of uncertain date from Nepal that is now in the possession of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Centre (TBRC) (Bi-ji'i po-ti kha-ser zhes-bya-ba rgyud-lung man-ngag thams-cad-kyi snying-bsdus, http://tbrc.org/link?RID=W1CZ1230 (accessed 31 January 2010); and (3) a modern print edition, published in Beijing in 2006 (Bi-ji po-ti kha-ser, in Sman-dpyad zla-ba'i rgyal-po, pp. 349–481). I am told that still another edition is soon to be published by Tashi Yangphel Tashigang (E. Gene Smith, e-mail correspondence, 7 July 2009).
69 Martin (“An Early Tibetan History of Indian Medicine”, p. 317) suggests the possibility that Tsan-pa-shi-la-ha's Dbye-ba drug (Six divisions), for example, might be linked to the “Six Necessities” of Greco-Islamic medicine. It should be noted, however, that this text is not usually attributed to Tsan-pa-shi-la-ha but rather to Ga-les-nos, though I believe the general point is still relevant.
70 Xu Xinguo, “An Investigation of Tubo Sacrificial Burial Practices”.
71 Heller, Amy, “Lions and Elephants in Tibet, Eighth to Ninth Centuries”, in Journal of Inner Asian Art and Archaeology, vol. 2. Roderick Whitfield Felication volume, (eds.) Lerner, Judith A. and Russell-Smith, Lilla (Leiden, 2007), pp. 59–67Google Scholar.
72 China Heritage Project, “New Discoveries in Qinghai”, China Heritage Newsletter 1 (2005). http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org (accessed 31 January 2010); Heller, “Some Preliminary Remarks on the Excavations at Dulan”.
73 See: for example, the authoritative work of the Fifth Dalai Lama's trusted physician, Dar-mo Sman-rams-pa (1638–1710), on the fundamentals of medical instruction, the Man-ngag bka’-rgya-ma, which also contains detailed instructions for the practice of a wide variety of Buddhist magical rites, including liṅga rituals complete with illustrations. See Man-ngag zab-mo kun-kyi snying-khu bsdus-pa dar-mo sman-rams-pa'i gdams-ngag bka’-rgya-ma (Beijing, 2006), esp. pp. 219–222 and 441–445.
74 See: Liṅga bri-ba'i yig-chung gsod-byed gri-gug rgya-can, in The Rediscovered Teachings of the Great Padma-gliṅ-pa (Thimphu, Bhutan, 1975), vol. 3, fols. 365–367.
75 Perhaps attaching the collar bones of these birds is meant to break the joints of the figure representing the enemy, as we had described above. See also Kohn, Lord of the Dance, pp. 75–78.