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The
Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Part II – 2. The Dalai
Lama (Avalokiteshvara) and the Demoness (Srinmo)
©
Victor & Victoria Trimondi
2.
THE DALAI LAMA
(AVALOKITESHVARA)
AND
THE DEMONESS (SRINMO)
History
as understood in the Kalachakra Tantra is apocalyptic
salvational history, it is — as we have said —
an alchemic experiment aimed at producing an ADI
BUDDHA. The protagonists in this drama are no
mere mortals but gods. History and myth thus form
a union. If we take the philosophy of Vajrayana literally then all
the events of the tantric performance ought to
be able to be found again in the history of Tibet.
The latter should therefore be interpreted as
the expression of a sexual dynamic. Before we
ourselves begin to search for symbolic connections
and mythic fields behind the practical political
facts of Tibetan history, we should ask ourselves
whether the Tibetans have not of their own accord
conducted such a sex specific and sexual magic
interpretation of their historical experiences.
We
know that the rules of the game demand two principal
actors in every tantric performance, a man and
a woman, or, respectively, a god and a goddess.
In any case the piece is divided into three acts:
1.
The sexual magic union of god and goddess
2.
The subsequent “tantric female sacrifice”
3.
The production of the cosmic androgyne (ADI BUDDHA)
Let
us turn our attention, then, to the individual
scenes through which this cosmic theater unfolds
on the “Roof of the World”. Here, the country’s
myths of origin are of decisive significance,
then they provide the archetypal framework from
which, in an ancient conception of history, all
later events may be derived.
The
bondage of the earth goddess Srinmo and the history of
the origin of Tibet
The
Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara is considered
the progenitor of the Tibetans, he thus determines
events from the very beginning. In the period
before there were humans on earth, the Buddha
being was embodied in a monkey and passed the
time in deep meditation on the “Roof of the World”.
There, as if from nowhere, a rock demoness by
the name of Srinmo appeared. The hideous
figure was a descendent of the Srin clan, a bloodthirsty
community of nature goddesses. “Spurred on by
horniness” — as one text puts it — she too assumed
the form of a (female) monkey and tried over seven
days to seduce Avalokiteshvara. But the divine
Bodhisattva monkey withstood all temptations and
remained untouched and chaste. As he continued
to refuse on the eighth day, Srinmo
threatened him with the following words: “King
of the monkeys, listen to me and what I am thinking.
Through the power of love, I very much love you.
Through this power of love I woo you, and confess:
If you will not be my spouse, I shall become the
rock demon’s companion. If countless young rock
demons then arise, every morning they will take
thousands upon thousands of lives. The region
of the Land of Snows itself will take on the nature
of the rock demons. All other forms of life will
then be consumed by the rock demons. If I myself
then die as a consequence of my deed, these living
beings will be plunged into hell. Think of me
then, and have pity” (Hermanns, 1956, p. 32).
With this she hit the bullseye. “Sexual intercourse
out of compassion and for the benefit of all suffering
beings” was — as we already know — a widespread
“ethical” practice in Mahayana Buddhism. Despite
this precept, the monkey first turned to his emanation
father, Amitabha, and asked him for
advice. The “god of light from the West” answered
him with wise foresight: “Take the rock demoness
as your consort. Your children and grandchildren
will multiply. When they have finally become humans,
they will be a support to the teaching” (Hermanns,
1956, p. 32).
Nevertheless,
this Buddhist evolutionary account, reminiscent
of Charles Darwin, did not just arise from the
compassionate gesture of a divine monkey; rather,
it also contains a widely spread, elitist value
judgement by the clergy, which lets the Tibetans
and their country be depicted as uncivilized,
underdeveloped and animal-like, at least as far
as the negative influence of their primordial
mother is concerned. “From their father they are
hardworking, kind, and attracted to religious
activity; from their mother they are quick-tempered,
passionate, prone to jealousy and fond of play
and meat”, an old text says of the inhabitants
of the Land of Snows (Samuel, 1993, p. 222).
Two
forces thus stand opposed to one another, right
from the Tibetan genesis: the disciplined, restrained,
culturally creative, spiritual world of the monks
in the form of Avalokiteshvara and the wild,
destructive energy of the feminine in the figure
of Srinmo.
In
a further myth, non-Buddhist Tibet itself appears
as the embodiment of Srinmo
(Janet Gyatso, 1989, p. 44). The local demoness
is said to have resisted the introduction of the
true teaching by the Buddhist missionaries from
India with all means at her disposal, with weaponry
and with magic, until she was ultimately defeated
by the great king of law, Songtsen Gampo (617-650),
an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara (and thus
of the current Dalai Lama). “The lake in the Milk
plane,” writes the Tibet researcher Rolf A. Stein,
“where the first Buddhist king built his temple
(the Jokhang), represented the heart of the demoness,
who lay upon her back. The demoness is Tibet itself,
which must first be tamed before she can be inhabited
and civilized. Her body still covers the full
extent of Tibet in the period of its greatest
military expansion (eighth to ninth century C.E.).
Her spread-eagled limbs reached to the limits
of Tibetan settlement ... In order to keep the
limbs of the defeated demoness under control,
twelve nails of immobility were hammered into
her” (Stein, 1993, p.34). A Buddhist temple was
raised at the location of each of these twelve
nailings.
Mysterious
stories circulate among the Tibetans which tell
of a lake of blood under the Jokhang, which is
supposed to consist of Srinmo’s heart blood. Anyone
who lays his ear to the ground in the cathedral,
the sacred center of the Land of Snows, can still
— many claim — hear her faint heartbeat. A comparison
of this unfortunate female fate with the subjugation
of the Greek dragon, Python, at Delphi immediately
suggests itself. Apollo, the god of light (Avalokiteshvara), let the
earth-monster, Python (Srinmo), live once he had
defeated it so that it would prophesy for him,
and built over the mistreated body at Delphi the
most famous oracle temple in Greece.
The
earth demoness is nailed down with phurbas. These are ritual
daggers with a three-sided blade and a vajra handle. We know these
already from the Kalachakra
ritual, where they are likewise employed to
fixate the earth spirits and the earth mother.
The authors who have examined the symbolic significance
of the magic weapon are unanimous in their assessment
of the aggressive phallic symbolism of the phurba.
In
their view,
Srinmo represents an archetypal variant of
the Mother Earth figure known from all cultures,
whom the Greeks called Gaia (Gaea). As nature and as woman
she stands in stark contrast to the purely spiritual
world of Tantric Buddhism. The forces of wilderness,
which rebel against androcentric civilization,
are bundled within her. She forms the feminine
shadow world in opposition to the masculine paradise
of light of the shining Amitabha and his radiant emanation
son, Avalokiteshvara. Srinmo symbolizes the (historical)
prima materia,
the matrix, the primordial earthly substance which
is needed in order to construct a tantric monastic
empire, then she provides the gynergy,
the feminine élan
vitale, with which the Land of Snows pulsates.
As the vanquisher of the earth goddess, Avalokiteshvara triumphs in
the form of King Songtsen Gampo, that is, the
same Bodhisattva who, as a monkey, earlier engendered
with Srinmo the Tibetans in myth,
and who shall later exercise absolute dominion
from the “Roof of the World” as Dalai Lama.
Tibet’s
sacred center, the Jokhang (the cathedral of Lhasa),
the royal chronicles inform us, thus stands over
the pierced heart of a woman, the earth mother
Srinmo.
This act of nailing down is repeated at the construction
of every Lamaist shrine, whether temple or monastery
and regardless of where the establishment takes
place — in Tibet, India, or the West. Then before
the first foundation stone for the new building
is laid, the tantric priests occupy the chosen
location and execute the ritual piercing of the
earth mother with their phurbas. Tibet’s holy
geography is thus erected upon the maltreated
bodies of mythic women, just as the tantric shrines
of India (the shakta pithas) are found on
the places where the dismembered body of the goddess
Sati fell to earth.
Srinmo
with different Tibetan temples upon her body
In
contrast to her Babylonian sister, Tiamat, who was cut to pieces
by her great-grandchild, Marduk, so that outer space
was formed by her limbs, Srinmo remains alive following
her subjugation and nailing down. According to
the tantric scheme, her gynergy
flows as a constant source of life for the Buddhocratic
system. She thus vegetates — half dead, half alive
— over centuries in the service of the patriarchal
clergy. An interpretation of this process according
to the criteria of the gaia thesis often discussed
in recent years would certainly be most revealing.
(We return to this point in our analysis of the
ecological program of the Tibetans in exile.)
According to this thesis, the mistreated “Mother
Earth” (Gaia
is the popular name for the Greek earth mother)
has been exploited by humanity (and the gods?)
for millennia and is bleeding to death. But Srinmo is not just a reservoir
of inexhaustible energy. She is also the absolute
Other, the foreign, and the great danger which
threatens the Buddhocratic state. Srinmo
is — as we still have to prove — the mythic “inner
enemy” of Tibetan Lamaism, while the external
mythic enemy is likewise represented by a woman,
the Chinese goddess Guanyin.
Srinmo
survived — even if it was under the most horrible
circumstances, yet the Tibetans also have a myth
of dismemberment which repeats the Babylonian
tragedy of Tiamat. Like many peoples
they worship the tortoise as a symbol of Mother
Earth. A Tibetan myth tells of how in the mists
of time the Bodhisattva Manjushri sacrificed such
a creature “for the benefit of all beings”. In
order to form a solid foundation for the world
he fired an arrow off at the tortoise which struck
it in the right-hand side. The wounded animal
spat fire, its blood poured out, and it passed
excrement. It thus multiplied the elements of
the new world. Albert Grünwedel presents this
myth as evidence for the “tantric female sacrifice”
in the Kalachakra ritual: “The tortoise
which Manjushri
shot through with a long arrow ... [is] just another
form of the world woman whose inner organs are
depicted by the dasakaro vasi figure [the
Power of Ten]" (Grünwedel, 1924, vol. II, p. 92).
The
relation of Tibetan Buddhism to the goddess of
the earth or of the country (Tibet) is also one
of brutal subjugation, an imprisonment, an enslavement,
a murder or a dismemberment. Euphemistically,
and in ignorance of the tantric scheme of things
it could also be interpreted as a civilizing of
the wilderness through culture. Yet however the
relation is perceived — no meeting, no exchange,
no mutual recognition of the two forces takes
place. In the depths of Tibet’s history — as we
shall show — a brutal battle of the sexes is played
out.
Why
women can’t climb the pure crystal mountain
Even
the landscape is sexualized in Tibetan folk beliefs
(this too squares with the ideas of Tantrism).
In mountain lakes, the water of which has taken
on a red color (probably because of mercury),
the lamas see the menstrual blood of the goddess
Vajravarahi. In rivers, lakes,
and springs dwell the Lu, who resemble our nixies.
They are hostile towards we humans, yet they were
nonetheless preferred as spouses by the kings
of the highlands in ancient times and brought
their magic abilities with them in the marriage.
We learn from the Fifth Dalai Lama that they leave
no corpse behind when they die.
The
myths have also divided the massive snow capped
peaks along sexual lines. It was hence not uncommon
for particular mountains to marry and the descendants
of such alliances are supposed to have grounded
powerful royal houses. One of
the mountain goddesses is world famous,
because it rises above the other peaks of the
planet as the highest mountain of all. We know
her under the name of Mount Everest, the Himalayan
peoples, however, pray to her as the “Mother of
the Earth”, the “White Heavens Goddess”, the “White
Glacier Lady”, the “Goddess of the Winds”, the
“Lady of Long Life”, the “Elephant Goddess”.
In
his study with the descriptive title of Why can’t women climb pure crystal
mountain?, the Tibet researcher Toni Huber
describes an interesting mythic case
where a mountain goddess was deprived of her power
by a tantric Siddha and since then the location
of her former rule may no longer be visited by
women. The case concerns the Tsari, a mountain
which was the seat of a powerful female deity
in pre-Buddhist times. She was defeated by a yogi
in the twelfth century. The brutal battle between
her and the vajra
master displays clear traits of a tantric performance.
As the yogi entered the region under her control,
the goddess let a series of vaginas appear by
magical manipulation so as to seduce her challenger,
yet the latter succeeded in warding off the magic
through a brutal act of subjugation. As she then,
lying on the ground, showed herself willing to
sleep with her conqueror, she was at first rejected
on the grounds that she was of the female sex
(!). But after a while the yogi accepted her as
a wisdom consort and took away all her magic powers
once they had united sexually (Huber, 1994, p.
352).
From
this point in time on, Tsari, which was among
the most holy mountains of the highlands, became
taboo for women, both for Buddhist nuns and for
laity. This ban has remained in force until modern
times. Groups of pilgrims who visited the mountain
in the eighties sent their women back in advance.
Toni Huber questioned several lamas about he significance
of this misogynist custom. The majority of answers
made reference to the “purity of the location”
which in the view of the monks formed a geographic
mandala: “Because it is such a pure abode, ....
women are not allowed. ... The only reason is
that women are of inferior birth and impure. There
are many powerful mandalas on the mountain that
are divine and pure, and women are polluting”
(Huber, 1994, p. 356).
But
there was also another justification for the exclusion
of the female pilgrims which likewise shows how
and with what presumption the androcentric power
elite of the land seize possession of the formerly
feminine geography: “The reason why women can't
go up there is that at Tsari are lots of small,
self-produced manifestations of the Buddha genitals
made of stone. If you look at them they just appear
ordinary, but they are actually miraculous phalluses
of the Buddha, so if women go there these miracles
would become spoiled by their presence, and the
women would get many problems also. They would
get sick and perhaps die prematurely. It is generally
harmful for their health so that is why they stopped
women going to the holy place in the past, for
their own benefit. The problem is that women are
low and dirty, thus they are too impure to go
there” (Huber, 1994, p. 357). It is no wonder
that in feminist circles the future climbing of
Tsari by a woman and its “re-conquest” has become
a symbol for female resistance against patriarchal
Lamaism.
Matriarchy
in the Land of Snows?
Siegbert
Hummel sees remnants of a long lost maternal cult
in the Tibetan female mountain deities and their
attributes. These could have already reached India
and the Tibetan plateau from Mediterranean regions
in the late stone age (from 4000 B.C.E.). It is
a matter of one of the two contrary cultural currents,
which may have embedded themselves deeply in the
Tibetan popular psyche thousands of years ago:
“The first is lunar in character and could be
connected with the Tibetan megalithic. ... Its
world view is triadic, exhibits chthonic, demonic
and phallicist tendencies, snake and tree cults,
as well as the worship of maternal deities ...
The other component is markedly solar, dualist
and heaven-related, primarily nomadic. Shamanist
elements, probably from an earlier solar, hunting
basis, are numerous” (Hummel, 1954, p. 128).
In
that he nominates the sexual discord which has
kept the civilizations of the Land of Snows in
suspense since the earliest times, Hummel speaks
here with the vocabulary of Tantrism, probably
without knowing it. In his view then, the two
heavenly orbs of moon and sun already stood opposed
as two polar, culture-shaping forces in pre-Buddhist
Tibet. Following the solar Bon cult Tantric Buddhism
has taken over the sunly role since the eighth
century. In contrast, the moon cults have been
— the myth of the nailing down of Srinmo teaches us — overthrown
by the sun warriors.
According
to Hummel the lunar and solar cultural currents
are graphically demonstrated in the very popular
garuda motif in Tibetan art.
The garuda
is a mythical sun-bird. Not infrequently it holds
in its beak a snake, which must be assigned to
the lunar, matriarchal world. There was thus a
fundamental clash between the two cultures: “Since
the garuda is thereby understood
as an enemy of the snakes, it seems natural to
suspect that there where the snake-killing garuda arose, the lunar and
solar cultures encountered and opposed one another
as enemies” Hummel writes (Hummel, 1954, p. 101).
There
are in fact numerous historically demonstrable
matriarchal elements in the old Tibetan culture.
In this connection there are the still unexplained
and mysterious stone circles which have been brought
into connection with matriarchal cults and were
already discovered by Sven Hedin on his research
trips. In contrast, numerous prehistoric shrines
found in caves offer us less ambiguous information.
It has been clearly proven that female deities
were worshipped at these chthonic sites. In this
century such caves were still considered as birth
channels and a visit to them was seen as an initiation
and hence as a rebirth (Stein, 1988, pp. 2-4).
A
further secret concerns the mythic female kingdoms
which are supposed to have existed in Tibet —
one in the West, another in the East, and the
third in the North of the Land of Snows. The in
part detailed reports about these stem from Chinese
sources and may be traced back to the seventh
century C.E. We learn that these realms, depicted
as being very powerful, were ruled by queens who
had command over a tribal council of women (Chayet,
1993, p. 51). When they died several members of
court voluntarily joined the female rulers in
death. The female nobles had male servants, and
women were the head of the family. A child inherited
its mother’s name.
On
one of his first expeditions to Tibet, Ernst Schäfer
encountered a matriarchal tribe who distinguished
themselves through their cruelty. In his book,
Unter Räubern
in Tibet [Among Robbers in Tibet], he reports:
“As we learn in Dju-Gompa, primitive matriarchy
is still practiced by the wild Ngoloks. A great
queen, Adjung de Jogo by name, reigns autocratically
over the six main tribes that are governed by
princes. As the reincarnation of a heavenly being
she enjoys divine honors and at the same time
is the spouse of all her tribal princes on earth.
She rules with a strong hand, is pretty and clever,
possesses a bodyguard of seven thousand warriors,
and handles a gun like a man. Once a year Adjung
de Jogo proceeds up the God-mountain with her
seven thousand men in a grand procession in order
to meditate in the glacial isolation before she
returns to the black tents of her mobile residence.
It
is not just about the intrepid courage of the
Ngoloks but also their cruelty that people tell
the most terrible stories. Of all the Tibetan
tribes they are supposed to have figured out the
most ingenious ways of despatching their victims
off to join their ancestors. Chopping off hands
and splitting skulls are minor things; they can
be left to the others! But sewing [people] up
in fresh yak skins and letting them roast in the
sun — disemboweling while alive, or launching
the entrails skywards on bent rods, these are
the methods that are loved in Ngolokland.
At
nearly all times of the year, but especially in
early fall when the marshes are dried out and
the animals are best nourished, the Ngoloks undertake
their large-scale plundering raids to as far as
Barum-Tsaidam in the north, Sungpan in the south,
and Dju-Gompa in the West. Even for Chinese merchants
they are the epitome of all the terrible things
that are said of the “Western barbarian country”
in the Middle Kingdom. (Schäfer, 1952, pp. 164-165)
In
the nineteen fifties, to the south of Bhutan a
matriarchally organized tribe by the name of “Garo”
still existed, the members of which were convinced
that they had emigrated from a province in Tibet
in prehistoric times (Bertrand, 1957, p. 41).
We may also recall that in the Shambhala
travel books of the Third Panchen Lama there
is talk of regions in which only women live.
It
would certainly be somewhat hasty to conclude
the existence of a matriarchy across the whole
Himalayas solely on the basis of the material
at hand. But at any rate, the male imagination
has for centuries painted the inaccessible highlands
as a region under the control of female tribes
and their queens.
The
western imagination
As
early as the thirteenth century the myth of the
Tibetan female kingdoms had reached Europe. Speculation
about this have had a hold upon western travelers
up until the present day. Likewise noteworthy
is the frequent allegorical connection of Tibet
to something enigmatically feminine, that is,
a western imagining which is congruent with the
traditional Tibetan conception. Since the nineteenth
century European researchers, mountain climbers,
and followers of the esoteric have enthused about
the Land of Snows as if it were a woman who ought
to be conquered, whose veil should be lifted,
and into whose secrets one wished to “penetrate”.
The Tibet researcher, Peter Bishop, has devoted
a detailed study to this occidental fantasy (Bishop,
1993, p. 36).
Probably
the most absurd depiction of a western encounter
with the “Great Mother Tibet” can be found in
the travel report of the Englishman, Harrison
Forman, from the nineteen thirties. To offer the
reader some amusement, but above all to show how
strongly the culture of the Land of Snows can
over-stimulate the masculine fantasy of a westerner,
we would like to present one of Forman’s lively
recounted experiences in detail.
The
Briton had heard of the Abbess Alakh Gong Rri
Tsang (Krisang), a living “female Buddha” who
aroused his curiosity immensely. He visited her
convent and was given a most friendly reception.
During a tour he asked about a mysterious grotto,
the entrance to which could be seen on a mountainside.
The Abbess gave him a sharp look and announced
she was prepared to show him the “shrine”. In
that moment Forman felt a painful bout of nausea,
but was nonetheless prepared to follow. Thus,
after a difficult climb, they both — he and the
Abbess — reached the grotto. Alakh Gong Krisang
lit two torches and they entered the cave. They
were met by a thick darkness, a musty smell, and
dancing shadows. Squeaking bats fluttered through
the stale air. The ghastly ambience made the Briton
nervous and he asked himself, “A
thought struck me. Good Lord! Just what was
this woman Living Buddha? Reason struggled
with emotion. This was Tibet, where millions believed
in ever present evil spirits and their capriciousness”
(Forman, 1936, p. 179).
Without
looking back, and with a firm footstep, the Abbess
proceeded further into the grotto. „Do not be
afraid, my friend!”, she calmed Forman. They progressed
deeper and deeper through passages filled with
stalactites and stalagmites. Then they came to
a space in the center of which four pyramids of
human bones rose up, with a golden statue in the
middle of them. The Abbess smiled as if in a “hysterical
ecstasy”, writes Forman. Immobile, she stared
at the golden sculpture.
Alakh
Gong Rri Tsang, the woman Grand Buddha of Drukh
Kurr Gomba
And
now we should let the author speak for himself:
„And as I watched her, my jaw dropped. I stared
as she began to disrobe. A shrug of the shoulders
her and her long toga slipped to the floor. Then
she loosened the silken girdle at her waist and
let drop the voluminous skirt-like garment. Her
other garments followed, one by one, until they
formed a red pile at her feet. And I saw, what
I am sure no white man ever saw before me, or
ever will see again, the nude body of Alakh Gong
Rri Tsang, the woman Grand Buddha of Drukh Kurr
Gomba. Her body was amazingly voluptuous, and,
I suppose, beautiful. Her breasts stood like those
of a schoolgirl, firm and round – like hemispheres
of pure alabaster. Her figure was magnificent
and of sinuously generous proportions. I was minded
of the substantial nudes of Michelangelo and his
school. And amid the ever-encircling bats she
stood there – still gazing ecstatically upward”
(Forman, 1936, p. 183). If we examine the photo
which Forman took of the Abbess in the convent
and in which she is not to be distinguished from
a portly male Abbot, one is indeed most amazed
at just what is supposed to be hidden beneath
the clothes of the Living Buddha.
But
there is better to come: „The bats had suddenly
settled on her - like vultures to a feast. In
a moment she was covered from head to foot. Like
lustful vampires they sank their horrible libidinous
beaks into her flesh and the blood began to flow
from a hundred wounds” (Forman, 1936, pp. 183,
184). Forman turned to stone, but then — even
in the most hopeless of situations a gentleman
— he came to his senses, and began to shoot madly
at the bloodsuckers with his revolver. He emptied
more than seven magazines before the Abbess, to
his great astonishment asked him with a smile
to calm down. With a majestic gesture she reanimated
the bats which he had killed. There was not the
slightest trace of a wound to be seen on her body
any more. „And in that moment”, Forman reports
further, „had she been the loveliest woman in
all the world [...] Nothing remained of the grisly
scene of a few moments before to prove t me that
it had ever happened at all, save the nude woman
and the solid golden idol with its four guardian
pyramids of human bones. Somewhere off in the
blackness I could still hear faintly the obscene
screaming of the hordes of bats” (Forman, 1936,
p. 185). As they left the grotto, Forman commented
upon the incident — typically British — with the
lapidary words: „It must bee the altitude!” (Forman,
1936, p. 186).
As
absurd as this story may seem, it nonetheless
quite exactly hits the visual world which dominates
the tantric milieu, and it in no way exaggerates
the often still more fantastic reports which we
know from the lives of famous yogis.
Women
in former Tibetan society
How
then is the fate of Srinmo expressed in Tibetan
society? We would like to present the social role
of women in old Tibet in a very condensed manner,
without considering events since the Chinese occupation
or the situation among the Tibetans in exile here.
Their role was very specific
and can best be outlined by saying that,
precisely because of her inferiority the Tibetan
woman enjoyed a certain amount of freedom. Fundamentally
women were considered inferior creatures. Appropriately,
the Tibetan word for woman can be literally translated
as “lowly born”. Man, in contrast, means “being
of higher birth” (Herrmann-Pfand, 1992, p. 76).
A prayer found widely among the women of Tibet
pleads, “may I reject a feminine body and be reborn
[in] a male one” (Grunfeld, 1996, p. 19). The
birth of a girl brought bad luck, that of a son
promised happiness and prosperity.
The
institution of marriage itself is definitely not
one of the Buddhist virtues – the historical Buddha
himself traded married life for the rough life
of a pilgrim. To be blessed with children was,
because of the curse which rebirth brought with
it, something of a burden. Shakyamuni thus fled
his father’s palace directly following the birth
of his son, Rahula. With unmistakable and decisive
words, Padmasambhava also expressed this anti-family
sentiment: „When
practicing the Dharma of liberation, to be married
and lead a family life is like being restraint
in tight chains with no freedom. You may wish
to flee, but you have been caught in the dungeon
of samsara with no escape. You may later regret
it, but you have sunk into the mire of emotions,
with no getting out. If you have children, they
may be lovely but they are the stake that ties
you to samsara” (Binder-Schmidt, 1994, p. 131).
According
to the dominant teaching, women could not achieve
enlightenment, and were thus considered underdeveloped.
A reincarnation as a female being was regarded
as a punishment. The consequence of all these
weaknesses, inabilities and inferiorities was
that the patriarchal monastic society paid little
attention to the lives of women. They were left,
so to speak, to do what they wanted. Family life
was also not subject to strict rules. Marriages
were solemnized without many formalities and could
be dissolved by mutual consent without consulting
an official institution. This disinterest of the
clergy led, as we said, to a certain independence
among the women of Tibet, often exaggerated by
sensation-hungry western travelers. Extramarital
relationships were common, especially with servants.
A wife nevertheless had to remain faithful, otherwise
the husband had the right to cut off her nose.
Of course such privileges did not exist in the
reverse situation.
The
much talked about polyandry, discussed with fascination
by western ethnologists, was also less of an emancipatory
phenomenon than an economical necessity. A wife
served two men because this spared the money for
a further woman. Naturally, twice the work was
expected of her. Male members of the upper strata
tended in contrast toward polygyny and maintained
several wives. This became quite a status symbol
and having more than one wife was consequently
forbidden for the lower classes. In the absence
of cash, a husband could pay his debts by letting
his creditors take his wife. We know of no cases
of the reverse.
A
liberal attitude towards women on behalf of the
clergy arises out of Tantrism. Since the lamas
were generally viewed to be higher entities, women
and girls never resisted the wishes of the embodied
deities. The
Austrian, Heinrich Harrer, was amazed at the sexual
freedom found in the monasteries. Likewise, the
Japanese monk, Kawaguchi Eikai, wondered on his
journey through Tibet about „the great beauty
possessed by the young consorts of aged abbots”
(quoted by Stevens, 1990, p. 80).
A proportion of the female tantric partners may
have earned a living as prostitutes after they
had finished serving as mudras. There were many of
these in the towns, and hence a saying arose according
to which as many whores filled the streets of
Lhasa as dogs.
But
there was a married priesthood in Tibet. For members
of a monastery the relaxation of the oath of celibacy
was nonetheless considered an exception. These
married lamas and their women primarily performed
“pastoral” work in the villages. As far as we
can determine, in such cases the wife was only
very rarely the tantric wisdom consort of her
husband. In the Sakyapa sect the great abbots
were married and had children. A proper dynasty
grew up out of their families. We know of precisely
these powerful hierarchs that they made use not
of their wives but rather of virgin girls (kumaris) for their rites.
The
“freedom” of the Tibetan women was null and void
as soon as sacred boundaries were crossed — for
example the gates of the monastery, which remained
closed to them. Only during the great annual festivals
were they sometimes invited, but they were never
permitted to participate actively in the performances.
In the official mystery plays the roles of goddesses
or dakinis were exclusively performed by men.
Even the poultry which clucked around in the Dalai
Lama’s gardens consisted solely of roosters, since
hens would have corrupted the holy grounds with
their feminine radiation. A woman was never allowed
to touch the possessions of a lama.
The
Tibetan nuns do admittedly take part in certain
rites, but have in all much more circumscribed
lives than those of lay women. Did not the historical
Buddha himself say that they stood in the way
of the development of the teaching, and long hesitate
before ordaining women? He was convinced that
the “daughters of Mara” would accelerate the downfall
of Buddhism, even if they let their heads be shaved.
Still today the rules prescribe that a nun owes
the lowliest monk the greatest respect, whilst
the reverse does not apply in any sense . Rather
than being praised for her pious decision to lead
a life in a convent, she is abused for being incapable
of building up an orderly family life. Despite
all these degradations, to which there have been
no essential changes up to the present, the nuns
have , without concern for life and limb, stood
at the head of the emergent protest movement in
Tibet since 1987.
The
alchemic division of the feminine: The Tibetan
goddesses Palden Lhamo and Tara
In
our explanation of Buddhist Tantrism we repeatedly
mentioned the division of the feminine into a
gloomy, repellant, and aggressive aspect and a
bright, attractive, and mild one. The terrifying
and cruel dakini is counterpointed by the sweet
and blessing-giving “sky walker”. Femininity vacillates
between these two extremes (the Madonna and the
whore) and can be kept under control because of
this inner turmoil. In the same context, we drew
attention to parallels to Indian and European
alchemy, where the dark part is described as the
prima materia
and the bright as the feminine elixir (gynergy) yearned for by the
adept. Does such a splitting of the feminine also
find expression in the mythical history of the
Land of Snows?
Palden
Lhamo — The Dalai Lama’s protective goddess
A
monumental dark and wrathful mother par excellence is Palden Lhamo, who, like her
“sister” Srinmo,
was a wild, free matriarch in pre-Buddhist times,
but then, brought under control by a vajra
master, began to serve the “true doctrine” — but
in contrast to Srinmo she does so actively.
She is the protective deity of the Dalai Lama,
the whole country, and its capital, Lhasa. This
grants her an exceptionally high position in the
Tibetan pantheon. The Fifth Dalai Lama was one
of her greatest worshippers, the goddess is supposed
to have appeared to him several times in person;
she was his political advisor and confidante (Karmay,
1988, p. 35). One of her many names, which evoke
both her martial and her tantric character, is
„Great
Warrior Deity, the Powerful Mother of the World
of the Joys of the Senses” (Richardson, 1993,
p. 87).
After the “Great Fifth” had repeatedly recited
her mantra for a while, he dreamt “that the ghost
spirits in China [were] being subdued” (Karmay,
1988, p. 35). Since then she has been considered
to be one of the chief enemies of Beijing.
In
examining a portrait of her, one becomes convinced
that Palden Lhamo would be among
the most repulsive figures in a worldwide gallery
of demons. With gnashing teeth, bulging eyes and
a filthy blue body, she rides upon a wild mule.
Beneath its hooves spreads a sea of blood which
has flowed from the veins of her slaughtered enemies.
Severed arms, heads, legs, eyes and entrails float
around in it. The mule’s saddle is made from the
leather of a skinned human. That would be repulsive
enough! But the horror overcomes one when one
discovers that it is the skin of her own (!) son,
who was killed by the goddess when he refused
to follow her example and adopt the Buddhist faith.
In her right hand Palden
Lhamo swings a club in the form of a child’s
skeleton. Some interpreters of this scene claim
that this is also the remains of her son. With
her left hand the fiendess holds a skull bowl
filled with human blood to her lips. Poisonous
snakes are entwined all around her. [1]
Like
the Indian goddess, Kali,
she
appears with a loud retinue. One can encounter
her of a night on charnel fields together with
her noisy flock. Just what unbridled aggression
this army of female ghosts kindled in the imaginations
of the monks is best shown by a poem which the
lamas of the Drepung monastery sing in honor of
their protective lady, Dorje Dragmogyel, who is one
of Palden
Lhamo’s horde:
You
glorious Dorje Dragmogyel ...
When
you are angry at your enemies,
Then
you ride upon a fiery ball of lightning.
A
cloud of flames — like that at the end of all
time -
Pours
from your mouth,
Smoke
streams from your nose,
Pillars
of fire follow you.
Hurriedly
you collect clouds from the firmament,
The
rumble of thunder pierces
through
the ten regions of the world.
A
dreadful rain of meteors
and
huge hailstones hurtles down,
And
the Earth is flooded in fire and water.
Devilish
birds and owls whir around,
Black
birds with yellow beaks float past,
one
after another.
The
circle of Mnemo goddesses spins,
The
war hordes of the demons throng
And
the steeds of the tsen spirits race galloping
away.
When
you are happy,
then
the ocean beats against the sky.
If
rage fills you, then the sun and moon fall,
If
you laugh, the world mountain collapses into dust
....
You
and your companions
Defeat
all who would harm the Buddhist teaching,
And
who try to disrupt the life of the monastic community.
Wound
all those of evil intent,
And
especially protect our monastery,
this
holy place ....
You
should not wait years and months,
drink
now the warm heart’s blood of the enemies,
and
exterminate them in the blink of an eye.
(Nebesky-Wojkowitz,
1955, 34)
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