Authorship, originality and innovation in Tibetan Scriptural Revelations: A case study from the Dudjom Corpus.

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Modern Tibetologists habitually refer to 'authors' of religious texts or to 'visionary revealers' of scriptures (gter-ston), yet they remain uncomfortably aware that terms such as 'author' and 'revealer' do not necessarily mean to Tibetans what they imply in modern Western parlance. In truth, a considerable proportion of Tibetan religious literature is de facto produced collectively, rather than individually. Much is also recycled, often through the potentially transformative medium of memorisation. Larger disciplines, notably medieval Hebraic studies, have in recent decades arrived at sophisticated understandings of the interactions of memorisation and written text, and the communal construction along an anthological model of anonymous literature by scribes and scholars acting as 'tradents'. Yet, in the absence of such work in Tibetan Studies, Tibetanists still generally present the untenable convention of a single authorial attribution, as though describing modern Western literature. This solecism is especially acute when applied to mystically revealed literature (gter-ma), a very powerful genre in Tibetan religion, where close analysis shows much of it to be de facto collectively produced. Previous study of revelation (gter-ma) has focused heavily on the initial and sometimes theatrical revelatory process of the individual visionary, generally unreflectively crediting him with sole authorial status of the resulting texts. We propose to contextualise this by focusing on the laborious 'backstage' processes of the subsequent editing, writing up and later expansion of the revelation. This crucial and tightly controlled procedure, which typically draws upon a large amount of pre-existing literature, requires a skilful balance between innovation and tradition. It can often employ several greatly learned people gradually to transform what might often only be a very rudimentary text revealed by a mystic, into a large scale finished literary product ready for public consumption. Our project will be the first ever such investigation into what revelation and authorship actually entail in Tibetan Buddhism, and as such, it is long overdue. We intend to take as a case study the extremely influential revealed literature on the tantric deity, rDo-rje Phur-pa, produced by Dudjom Rinpoche (bDud-'joms 'jigs-bral ye-shes rdo- rje, 1904-1987). Dudjom was a visionary revealer himself and a prolific scholar who wrote or edited texts for a number of different revelatory traditions, including his own and those of his predecessor, Dudjom Lingpa (1835-1904), as well as his elder contemporaries Zilnon Namkhai Dorje (Zil-gnon nam-mkha'i rdo-rje, born c. 1867) and Drakngak Lingpa (Drag-sngags gling-pa, 1871-1936), and on the invitation of the Bhutanese, those of Pema Lingpa (Padma gling-pa, 15th-16th century). He also codified the transmitted textual heritage of the rNying-ma school, and he produced one of the most vibrant and popular Tibetan revealed ritual traditions today. The focus on this single polymath thus encompasses not only the Dudjom revelatory tradition but three quite separate revelatory traditions also, which may provide contrasting cases. The example is particularly accessible to us because of the availability of the texts, and because we are able to consult the first generation of Dudjom's inner circle of students. To analyse minutely the components of this revealed literature and to expose the many and often laborious processes of its gradual maturation will help provide a much truer picture of the broader principles and practices in the creation of new Tibetan scriptures. Since contemporary Tibetan revelatory methods preserve features of great antiquity that were used in India and many other parts of Asia, this research may also contribute to understanding the vast genre of Buddhist scriptural revelation in general, and will mark the first in a series of such investigations.