The Origins of the Stanzas of Dzyan - A Project

[Joe Fulton]

THE NEW HOME FOR THIS FORUM IS THE GROUP

The Origins of the Stanzas of Dzyan - A Project

This is the new home of the discussion started in September of 2010. Moving to a group gives much greater flexibility and allows the segmenting of the discussion into different aspects.

Undoubtedly the most mysterious piece of writing in the Theosophical tradition, the Stanzas of Dzyan are an extremely beautiful and complex work of art. Without the commentaries provided by HP Blavatsky they would stand as a modern sphinx, clothed in poetic beauty and vivid imagery. With the various axioms and commentaries, they are the outline for a complex cosmology and a spiritual anthropology as fantastic as it is intuitively insightful.

But what are the Stanzas? What do we know about them? What can we truly say for certain?

The goal of this exercise is extremely ambitious. Various individuals, most notably David Riegle, have spent their entire lives at this question. Others, including Gershon Scholem have posited their origin/inspiration as being from other than Tibet.

What are the Stanzas of Dzyan? Where did they come from and where can they be found today? Please keep in mind that no source is off limits. This may involve a great deal of discussion with Indian scholars, Tibetan monks and others in various settings. And it will take more than a month to come to the truth of the matter.

The first task is to break this endeavor into manageable parts and determine our focus. Since the operation of this site is based on "Open Source Theosophy", we may have people jump in for maybe one or two postings, not to be heard from again and we may have some who stick all the way through to the conclusion. It's ok. That's how open source works.

Let's start off by getting some categories together, then we can go from there. By categories we can break them into language type, content, tradition, etc. There are numerous ways we can approach understanding and integrating what we find.

The activity here will be led by David Reigle, Jacques Mahnich and Ingmar DeBoer.  Each will have the ability to edit or delete content not appropriate.

We encourage a mindset of curiosity, and a dedication to the quality of research that David, Jacques and Ingmar exemplify.

I hope this sounds like a challenge...it is. Have fun!

Please download the Stanzas (see attachment).

Stanzas of Dzyan.rtf

 

[Jacques Mahnich]

P.S.Pallas wrote the report of his journey across the various parts of Russia (1771-1776), and a french translation by G. de la Peyronie was published in 1788 and is available at Google Books Here . Out of these 810 pages, 30+ pages are dedicated to the description of the Kalmucks people, including their religion (lamaism). There is a brief description of a cosmogenesis similar to the ones quoted on January 12th's David post. On page 552, Pallas introduced the BODIMER : the kalmucks priests have a book called BODIMER, which deals thoroughly with the history of their gods. It is the most important of all, and at the same time, the biggest. I was told also of a book dealing with lamaism mythology, whose name is ERTJOUNZ-JOUN-TOALI.

Pallas finished his description of the Kalmuks people by saying : one would need many years and to master Tangout and Mongol language to learn all the details of this religion, and it is not worth the time and energy required...

[David Reigle]

Ken Small called my attention to an article in The Tibet Journal, titled, "Buddhist Cosmology as Described in the Historical Work of Sum-pa mKhan-po Entitled the 'Tree of Contemplation'," by R. E. Pubayev (vol. 6, no. 2, Summer 1981, pp. 53-63). This article refers to an 1841 book written in Russian by O. M. Kowalewski, titled, Buddiyskaya kosmologiya (Buddhist Cosmology). It is based on Mongolian sources. Pubayev says, "Kowalewski's great contribution was his critical review and evaluation of the views of Pallas, Bergman, Schmidt and Remusat on the problems of Buddhist cosmoology which were in many respects erroneous and contradictory although widely diffused among orientalists of that period" (p. 53). We know that HPB's native language was Russian, that Schmidt quoted the Bodhi Mor, and also that Pallas quoted the Bodhi Mor before Schmidt did. So HPB could have accessed this material by way of Kowalewski's Russian book.

[David Reigle]

It is true, Ingmar, that neither of the "Bodhi Mor"s has yet led us to HPB's quote. Unless she says she is quoting from a secret book, what she quotes can usually be found in books available in her day. The report by Jacques from Abel-Remusat shows that the Bodhi Mor had been quoted by Pallas prior to Schmidt. There are some bibliographic entries for Pallas in Schlagintweit's Buddhism in Tibet. There is still a very large amount of material that has not been scanned by Google. So her quote may yet be found. It could well be "unrecognizably garbled" from the original. It may also be true, as you say, the she misplaced the reference. Then this quote might be found in some other source than the Bodhi Mor.

[Ingmar de Boer]

The arguments against the "Wayman" and "De Zirkov" Bodhimörs are of course valid. Arguments in favour of these could be, 1. that HPB's quote was not yet found in the Rgyal rabs, and 2. that while not matching the technical viewpoint of the Lam rim chen mo, the quote does not really match a historical report either. We might expect the quote in a (different) philosophical work.

 

There are several different Rgyal rabs texts/versions in circulation, just as there are several Mongolian works with bodhi mör in their titles. A quick comparison of the Bodhimör text from Schmidt's Forschungen and Sørensen's Rgyal rabs translation shows us that it is indeed the same text: Forschungen p. 202 corresponds to Sørensen p. 111 (beginning of Ch. 5, and to Kuznetsov, p. 32. Kuznetsov (1966) tells us that the Kalmuck version is not always parallel to the Tibetan. (p. xviii)  Kuznetsov and Sørensen (his "GLR A", p. 36) both have been using the same xylograph, no. 1931/173 from the Library of East Asian Faculty of the St. Petersburg University, of which Wassiljew, who collected the work and sent it from Peking to St. Petersburg, already remarked (around 1851) that it was a Tibetan version of Schmidt's Bodhimör.

 

A.I. Vostrikov seems to have been the first to have noticed the remarkable correspondence of the titles Lam rim chen mo and Bodhimör, which led him to the conclusion that Schmidt must have been mistaken in his attribution of the title Bodhimör. (Tibetskaya Istoritseskaya Literatura, Institut Narodow Azii, Moskwa, 1962 (posthumous), p. 190-191 n207)

 

If the quote is not found in Sørensen's translation the following options are open:

 

1. HPB used a source other than Schmidt's. (and other than "Wayman" and "De Zirkov")

2. The quote has somehow become unrecognizably garbled.

3. HPB misplaced the reference to "Bodhimur II".

[Jacques Mahnich]

(con'td with text which was cut...)

• Abel-Remusat concluded his review with the following : « We already knew the style of this story from Pallas and Bergmann : obviously, M. Schmidt would have made a better job if he would have finished his story with the translation of the Bodhimer, which Pallas has already brought to us some strange paragraphes.

At least, we can safely conclude that the Bodhimor cannot be the « History of the Mongol Princes » written by Sanang Setsen, following Schmidt and Abel-Remusat who refer to it as a different text.

[Jacques Mahnich]

Here is a summary of Abel-Remusat review of J.Schmidt « Geschichte der Ost-Mongolen und ihres Fürstenhauses, verfasst von Ssanang Setsen Chungtaidschi der Ordus », which were published in the « Journal des Savants » , January thru April 1831.

I have kept the original spelling of names.

• Schmidt book is based on the history of the Mongol princes, written by Sanang Setsen,

• Schmidt considered the author (Sanang Setsen) as an historian with a bias, being a buddhist devotee. His book is but a collection of buddhistic traditions, and a lot of things on Tibet and the Tibet's annals,

• The first chapter (8 pages) starts at the creation of the world until the death of Shakiamouni

• The second and third chapters deal with the history of Tibet over 1,300 years

• Abel-Remusat introduced the « Bodhimer » when, speaking about the succession of the tibetan king Srongdsan in 698, he says : « The serie of the successors of the tibetan king is reported somehow differently in the Sanang text, and in the additional quotes the translator (Schmidt) made by consulting another chronicle named « Bodhimer ». The « Bodhimer » and Father Horace (de la Penna) chronicles match together pretty well.

• Other quotes of the « Bodhimer » in Abel-Remusat review :

  • Describing the doctrinal fight between Kamalashila and the chinese master Ho-chang (during king Thisrong period), he says that the chinese master was defeated, and went back to China, and from China he sent back one of his boot as a souvenir for his supporters. This story is to be found in the Bodhimer.

  • About the genealogy of Tibet's kings, Schmidt called the Bodhimer as a source in one of his bottom page note to give the name of one prince at the time of Thisrong death (877).

  • One of the last event Sanang mentioned was the building the Toling temple in 1014, and the trip of Lodsâva Saïn Erdeni with 21 other people to Hindoustan, from where they came back with many Pandits and the four Tantras of the secret Dharani. It is the last event told by Sanang and the Bodhimer does not add anything further.

• Abel-Remusat concluded his review with the following : « We already knew the style of this story from Pallas and Bergmann : obviously, M. Schmidt would have made a better job if he would have finished his story with the translation of the Bodhimer

[David Reigle]

Thank you, Ingmar, for figuring out what text Boris de Zirkoff was referring to under the Mongolian title he gave. This is helpful. Also, it is good to know that there is an English translation of it. It would seem that Boris found a reference to a title starting with "Bodhi Mor," and then assumed that this was the text. The HPB quote does not seem to be found in it, nor would we expect to find such a statement in a Lam rim text.

 

Likewise, although the abbreviated reference "Bodhi Mor" can apparently refer to the Lam rim chen mo, we would not expect any such idea, of an essence that can be equated with the one true existence, to be found in it. Such an idea is repeatedly and forcefully refuted again and again in Gelugpa texts, especially by Tsongkhapa.

 

When you found what text Schmidt was referring to as the Bodhimor, the rGyal rabs gsal ba'i me long, this made sense because these references would have been available to HPB. After that I found confirmations of this identification in the writings of Per Sorensen, Berthold Laufer, and others. It seems that Schmidt had translated some chapters of this text (4, 5, 8, and 18?). Sorensen indicates that Bodhi Mor is a popular although erroneous designation for the Kalmuck Mongolian translation of this Tibetan text, but not used for the other Mongolian translation of it. Like in the Lam rim texts, HPB's quote does not seem to be found in this text, at least in its English translations made directly from the original Tibetan. Who knows where she got it from?

 

For her Theosophical Glossary entries on Abhayagiri and Sthavirah, she drew most of her information from E. J. Eitel's 1870 Hand-book for the Student of Chinese Buddhism, pp. 1 and 133. This book is available free on Google Books. A comparison will show how much is Eitel's and how much is HPB's. Eitel's information will need to be corrected.

[Ingmar de Boer]

Summarizing the three - more/less plausible - leads regarding the identification of HPB's Bodhimur as either:

 

1. The Rgyal rabs gsal ba'i me long, following Schmidt,

 

2. A Mongolian translation of the Lam rim chen mo, following Wayman, or

 

3. The Byang chub lam gyi rim pa'i dmar khrid thams cad mkhyen par bgrod pa'i bde lam, following De Zirkoff.

 

Ad 1: I checked Schmidt's partial translation of the Rgyal rabs gsal ba'i me long, in Die Geschichte der Ost-Mongolen und Ihres Fürstenhauses, and some other versions/partial translations. Schlagintweit has published a complete translation in Die Könige von Tibet, in 1866, in the Abhandlungen der philosophisch-philologischen Classe der königlich bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Teil X, on the basis of a manuscript his brother Hermann acquired from a monastery in Leh. He does not identify the Bodhimör with the Rgyal rabs. (p. 810) He refers to the extracts of the Bodhimör in Schmidt's Die Geschichte…. I will be checking this again in more detail.

 

Ad 2: I checked the "Four Interwoven Annotations" (Lam rim mchan bzhi sbrags ma) to the Lam rim chen mo in the translation by Elizabeth Napper in Dependent-Arising and Emptiness, which is based om the 1972 Delhi edition and a microfilm of a different edition found in the Berkeley university library.

 

Ad 3: I checked the Tibetan (ACIP) version and will check the 1991 translation, see my previous post.

 

David: thanks for your interesting discussion on the two Lam Rim chen mo translations. When I first read Wayman's translations from Tibetan I noticed that they were not exactly easily readable, but as you said, faithful to the original. The LRCM translation committee translation appears to be made with a broader insight into the area.

[Ingmar de Boer]

Returning to Boris de Zirkoff's annotation in his edition of The Secret Doctrine (vol. III p. 679) on the Bodhimör being "a manual of Tsong-Kha-pa's Lam-rim-chen-mo": the 4th Panchen lama, according to the blo bzang chos kyi rgyal mtsan dpal bzang po'i gsung 'bum nga pa'i dkar chag, has written a work entitled Byang chub lam gyi rim pa'i dmar khrid thams cad mkhyen par bgrod pa'i bde lam, which is apparently one of the most important Lam rim works of the Dge lugs school. This title seems to correspond to De Zirkoff's Mongolian title Bodhi Mör-ün Jerge-yin ulagan Kötelbüri Gamug-yi Ayiladugci-dur Odqui Amur Mör Kemegdekü Orusiba. ACIP has pubished a digitised version of this Tibetan text. The present Dalai Lama has written a book about it, including a full English translation, entitled Path to Bliss: A Practical Guide to the Stages of Meditation, published by Snow Lion in 1991.

[David Reigle]

Hannes has called my attention to two passages in the Theosophical Glossary that pertain to the Buddhist book, Jnana-prasthana-sastra. He informed me that these references are found there under Sthavira and Abhayagiri. The Jnana-prasthana-sastra is considered to be the primary text among the seven books on Abhidharma as taught by the Sarvastivadins. These seven books are quite different from the seven books on Abhidharma (or in Pali, Abhidhamma) as taught by the Theravadins, now preserved in the Pali Buddhist canon. The Sarvastivada Abhidharma was written in Sanskrit. Other than some Sanskrit fragments and one text in Tibetan translation, these seven books are now preserved only in Chinese translation in the Chinese Buddhist canon. The Theosophical Glossary speaks of the early Buddhist schools that used these Abhidharma texts as being "highly mystical." I have never heard Abhidharma described as mystical at all; but on the contrary, it is usually regarded as quite the opposite.

 

It is, of course, in the Abhidharma that we find Buddhist accounts of cosmogony. HPB's comments in the Theosophical Glossary agree with information given in more detail in "Some Inquires Suggested by Mr. Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism," found in the Blavatsky Collected Writings, vol. 5. A now secret school, of the "disciples of Katyayana," is spoken of, that was established "beyond the Himalayas" (ref. Abhayagiri, Theosophical Glossary). HPB implies that this is the school of her teachers. Katyayani-putra is regarded as the author of the Jnana-prasthana-sastra. This same secret school now beyond the Himalayas is referred to in connection with the Arhat Kasyapa in BCW vol. 5, pp. 245-247. They are apparently the possessors of the "Book of Dzyan" that we are seeking. The cosmogony of the Stanzas, in comparison with the cosmogony found in the known Abhidharma texts, could indeed be called "mystical."

 

It would be worthwhile to sort out which of HPB's statements in these two Theosophical Glossary entries are copied from known works (e.g., Spence Hardy, Rhys Davids, Samuel Beal), and which are her own. Some of the "facts" about Buddhist schools and teachers that she there gives do not match later, more complete information that is now available. Thanks to the efforts of Ingmar and Joe, many of the texts used by her are posted here on this site. We need to correct the exoteric information, and separate out the esoteric information.