Redescribing Two Old Tibetan Prayers with J. Z. Smith

NAASR Working lapers Series Editor: Emily D. Crews, University of clicaşo, Founding Series Editor: Brad Stoddard, McDaniel College in Westnniuster, Maryland. NAASR WOrking Papers provides a venue for publishing the latest research carried out by scholars who understand religion to be an historical element of human cognition, practice, and organization. Whether monographs or multi-authored collections, the volumes published in this series all reflect timely, cutting edge work that takes seriously both the need for developing bold theories as well as rigorous testing and debate concerning the scope of our tools and the implications ofour studies.NAASRWorking Papers thereforeassessthe current state-of-the-art while charting new ways forward in the academic study of religion. Published Thinking with J. Z. Smith Mapping Methods in the Study of Religion Edited by Barbara Krawcowicz Constructing "Data" in ReligiousStudies: Examining the Architecture of the Academy Edited by Leslie Dorrough Smith Hijacked: A Critical Treatment of the Public Rhetoric of Good and Bad Religion Edited by Leslie Dorrough Smith, Steffen Führding, and Adrian Hermann Jesus and Addiction to Origins: Towards an Anthropocentric Study of Religion Willi Braun Edited by Russell T. MCCutcheon Key Categories in the Study of Religion:Contexts and Critiques Edited by Rebekka King Method Today: RedescribingApproaches to the Study of Religion Edited by Brad Stoddard On the Subject ofReligion: Charting the Fault Lines ofa Field of Study Edited by James Dennis LoRusso "Religion" in Theory and Practice: Demystifying the Field for Burgeoning Academics Russell T. McCutcheon Remembering J. 2. Smith: A Career and its Consequence Edited by Emily D. Crews and Russell T. McCutcheon Forthcoming Discourses of Crisis and the Study ofReligion Edited by Lauren Horn Griffin Religious Studies Beyond the Discipline: On Earning and Awarding a Humanities Ph.D. Edited by Russell T. McCutcheon euinoX SHEFFIELD UK BRISTOL CT Published by Equinox Publishing Ltd. UK: Office 415, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield, South Yorkshire S1 2BX This book is dedicated to Ukrainian scholars and students USA: ISD, 70 Enterprise Drive, Bristol, CT 06010 www.equinoxpub.com First published 2023 O Barbara Krawcowicz and contributors 2023 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. ISBN-13 978 1 78179 983 3 (hardback) 978 1 78179 984 0 (paperback) 978 1 78179 985 7 (ePDF) British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Krawcowicz, Barbara, 1976- edito. Title: Thinking with J.Z. Smith: mappingmethods in the study of religion/edited by Barbara Krawcowicz. Descrlpton: Sheffiel, South Yorkshire ; Bristol, CT : Equinox Publishing, Ltd, [2023]| Serles:NAASR working papers |Includes bibliographical references and index. Sunmary: "Ihinking with J. Z. Smith brings together the contributions of scholars whw consider theoretical and methodological issues central to J. Z. Smith's oeuvre in lhe coilext of their own research. Through analyses of Smith's own work as well N pllcalions of his concerns to new situations, historic periods, and regions, the contributors test the adequacy and applicability of Smith's ideas and thus provide n indirect assessment of his influence and legacy in the field of Religious Studies" Provided by publisher. klentifiers: L.CCN 2022058539 (print) | LCCN 2022058540 (hardback) | ISBN 9781781799840 (paperback) | ISBN (ebook) | ISBN 9781781799833 9781781799857 (epd) Subjects:LCSH:Smith, Jonathan Z. | Religion-study and teaching. | Religion-Philosophy. classification: LCC BLA1 .T466 2023 (print) | LCC BL41 (ebook) | DDC eng/20230510 L.C record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022058539 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022058540 Typeset byJS Typesetting Ltd, Porthcawl, Mid Glamorgan 200.71-dc23/ Contents Acknowledgements ix Preface Xi Russell T. MCCutcheon Introduction Barbara Krawcowicz Part I 1 11 J.Z. and Me Aaron W. Hughes 2 Imagining a Proper Academic Study of Religion Inspired by J. Z. Smith 22 Sam Gill 3 IsJ. Z. Smith a Nominalist ... a Pragmatist ... or a Constructionist? Does It Even Matter? 34 Indrek Peedu 4 An Uneasy Silence:J. Z. Smith and the Divorce of Race from Power 46 Craig R. Prentiss 6 When No "Magic" Dwells Andrew Durdin The Semantics of Comparison in J. Z. Smith 63 77 Mark Q. Gardiner and Steven Engler 7 Blending Ontologies and Epistemologies: Mapping Deontic GridsMethodological Considerations for the Comparative Study of Religion 94 Jeppe Sinding Jensen Part 8 I Redescribing Two old Tibetan Prayers with J. z. Smith 105 Lewis Doney 9 Multiple Magdalenas: Locative, Utopian, and Other Orientations in an Indigenous Community Divided by an International Border 118 Seth Schermerhorn 10 Interpreting "Brahmanization" in the Indian Buddhist Monastery with J. Z. Smith Nicholas Witkowski 127 viii 11 • Thinking withJ. Z. Smith Smith, Comparison, and Jewish Theology 139 Barbara Krnwcowicz 12 13 Imagining the Past: ACaseStudy of Double Archaeology Vaia Toua Orphism: The Whole Created of Fragments-The -ism and the Formation of ReligiousCategories 150 163 Lech Iracionkowski Part III 14 Principles ofPedagogy:Thinking with Smith to Revision OurSystems ofTraining 181 Antie Alexnder 15 Teaching J. Z. Smith in Scandinavia 194 Gabriel Levy 16 Is There Room for "This Sort of Reflexivity"? The Meaning of JZ Smith inReligiousEducation 206 Jack C Laughlin and Kornel Zathureczky Part IV 17 Mapping the Future of Smith's Legacy. A Conversation 219 Andie Alender and Aaron W.Hughes 18 AResponse to Andie Alexander and Aaron Hughes 229 WilliBraun Index 233 Acknowledgements Iwant to thank Ann-Kathrin Bretfeld-wolf, without whosekeenscholarly mind and exceptional organizational skills the J. Z. Smith conference in Trondheim would have never taken place. I'm also grateful to Russell T. MCCutcheon, whose suggestions were very helpful in formulation of the theme of the conference, which was made possible by the generous funding from the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies of Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Last but not least, big thank you to Andie Alexander for all her help with the manuscript. Chapter 8 Redescribing Two Old Tibetan Prayers withJ. z. Smith Lewis Doney Jonathan Z. Smith, in his discussion with René Girard and Walter Burkert after presenting "The Domestication of Sacrifice," defines his approach to comparison in a tone of jovial exasperation, as well as in contrast to their search for the obscured and hidden origins of ritual: For me, things are surface: there simply is no depth; there simply is no original; and there is no concealment. It's all out there, it's plain, it's ordinary, it's largely uninteresting, and it's utterly--in fact, overwhelmingly, that's the problem for a scholar-accessible. The problem that I, at least, face as a scholar is what not to look at, what to refuse, what not to make relationships with, because they are just out there lying around all over the place. (Smith 1987: 211) When I first looked into old Tibetan prayer as a genre (Doney 2018), I made a number of choices that betrayed a search for origins, for causality and for specialness. Re-ordering the data under the imagined eye of J. Z. Smith has enabled me to approach the topic of comparison and differentiation in another way and to resituate two prayers of the late first millennium in relation to each other. On re-inspection, these prayers-an epigraph on a bronze bell and a song of praise captured in a single manuscript copy-are linked as not only expressions of devotion but also largely elite constructions of ideal Buddhist worlds, or "maps" (following Smith 1978a, 1978b especially), such as are held as much by the religious as by scholars of religion. The extent of these prayers' divergence from each other suggests that both may be redescribed as both an "occasion for thought" (Smith 1987a:309) and an important occasion in the history of Tibetan thought: reflecting the movement of Tibetan religious literature from a more locative to an increasingly utopian map of reality from the eighth century C.E. onwards. Background old Tibetan prayer denotes the earliest examples of Tibetan indigenous and Tibetan Buddhist devotional literature dating from the Tibetan imperial period (ca. 600-850) and just afterwards and written in the language known as Old Tibetan. Taken together, the works of inter alia praise, confession, initiation and invocation at first seemed to me to reflect a nexus of Buddhist terminology emerging during the imperial period. A few years ago, my interest was drawn 106• Thinking with J. 7. Suith back to a prayer cast into a large temple bell datiny, lromthe lyhthcentury C.E., which I had previously studied in another context. In this bell epigraph, one of the queensof the Tibetan emperor, Tri Songdétsen (Khri Srong lde brtsan;r. 755ca. 800), prays that he will attain Buddhist enlightenment. It is one of the oldest sources showing the emperor at the center of Buddhism's maintenance and propagation. The text states: Queen Gyelmotsen (rGyal mo brtsan), mother and son, made this bell in order to worship the Three Jewels of the ten directions. And [they] pray that, by the power of that merit, Divine Emperor Tri Songdétsen, father and son, husband and wife, may be endowed with the harmony of the sixty melodious sounds, and attain supreme enlightenment. The prayer contains reference to "the ten directions" of Buddhist cosmology, rather than the "four directions" (think "four corners of the earth") mentioned among other places in the Old Tibetan Annals and other authoritative court sources. This Buddhist toposis important for the changing representation of the Tibetan emperor, marking the shift in orientation of the central Tibetan universe away from the wider Eurasian notion of the four compass points towards an Indic Buddhist landscape surrounded by personifications of enlightenment and with a bodhisattva-emperor at its centre (Doney 2020a: 213-214). Yet here the queen uses the odd phrase, "Three Jewels of the ten directions," found almost nowhere else in Tibetan Buddhist literature. I was surprised to find that the same odd phrase, "the Three Jewels of the ten directions," also occurs in a manuscript copy of a Tibetan Tridandaka (rGyudchags gsum) prayer dating from the mid to late nínth century. The Tridandaka prayer is mentioned in pan-Asian Buddhist canonical material as a work set to melody and praising the Buddha, but the Buddhologist Gregory Schopen notes that no Indic Buddhist example of this genre has been found so far (see Schopen 1997: 231-233, n, 62; Schopen 2010: 118 and n. 35). The Old Tibetan exemplar, IOL Tib J 466/3, comes from the Mogao Library Cave now in northwest Chína but prob- ably ruled by the Tibetan empiré when it was written down. This prayer shares a number of interesting phrases in common with other imperíal-period prayers, for example praises to the Three Jewels, a paeon to a Tibetan emperor as both a ruler and a Buddhist, and a cosmology that includes both local deities and great Indian gods(seeDoney2018). It appears from notes within the text itself that part of this Tridandaka prayer was also to be accompanied by music, just as Schopen suggested. At the tíme of makíng this connection, it appeared to me to raise the intriguing possibility that the bell epigraph's text references this rare sung prayer, which could have entered Tibet from any number or combination of Buddhist lands surroundíng it during the imperial period. If so, it would be especially fitting sínce the Tridandaka prayer is one of the only Buddhist prayers that monastic regulatíons say may (and in fact should) be chanted to a melody, while the epigraph is cast into a sound-emitting bell and consists of sixty syllables meant to DONEY Recdeseribng T'wo Old Tiletani Prayers witlh J. Z. Sunith 107 reflect the sixty melodious sounds of the Buddha mentioned in the epigraph itself (Richardson 1985: 35, n. 3). However, here I now hear J. Z. Smith cautioning me to look again, and ques- tion whether this connection is merely a "magical" a confusion of a subjective relationship with an objective one (Smith 1982: 21), due to "a process of working from a psychological association to an historical one ... to assert that símilarity and contiguity have causal effect" (Smith 1982: 22; see also Krawcowicz 2019). In fact, I imagine Smith suggesting that a better approach could be one emulating Smith's own method in his essays,as enumerated by Burton Mack: (1) a text is placed in view to provide an exegetical challenge; (2) a commonly accepted interpretation of the text is reviewed; (3) an alternative reading is given, based on strictly historical methods of textual reconstruction and placemént; and (4) conclusions are drawn for questions of method and theory in the study of religion. (Mack 1987:33) In this chapter, I shall take the bell epigraph and the Tridandakaprayer as our texts, and the occurrence of the same phrase in both texts as an exegetical challenge. There is no commonly accepted interpretation of these texts or their relation, because Tibetan Studies does not hold much of an exalted place in academic discourse, and these prayers have not been studied extensively even within Tibetan Studies. The wider genre of prayer and related concepts have been usefully theorized by scholars who profess a debt to Smith (see Gill 1987; Geertz 2008) and their Buddhist and Tibetan instantiations have been addressed in broad strokes (e.g., Makransky 1996; Gómez 2000; Zorin 2010; Sernesi 2014). Yet, their old Tibetan forms have yet to be compared and contrasted systematically (though see now Doney 2021 as a first attempt, written after this draft was submitted). Therefore, my original proposed relation between the texts will have to standín, as requiring reassessment. Below, I shall briefly attempt to recontextualize the two texts with an eye to their ifference, within the epigraphic and manuscript traditions respectively, balanced by a seńse of their both having emanated from Tibet's imperial period or shortly after. I shall focus only on the importance of the Tibetan emperor (where mentioned), and the part that this characterplays in the structure, ideology and performance of these imperial and early post-imperial prayers. Retuning the prayers to this key will allow them to be heardagain within the differing contexts of the court family in the first caseandsomewhereoutside thís inner circle in the second. Thís will hopefully enable a more scientifically grounded comparison between the two prayers ín preparation for a wider investigation of old Tibetan devotional literature. The Emperor The expansion of the Tibetan empire meant gradually taking control of other kingdoms, city states and regions (by alliance or force) between the seventhand ninth century and rullng them as an empire with an emperor (btsan po) at its 108 DoNrY Releribing Iwo od TibetunPrayerswith1. 2. Smith hinking with . 2.Smith 109 head. Tibetan,Chineseand Arabic histories all laim tat the Yarlung (yar klung) What little evkleue we lave of the imperial-period marking of the construc- rulersconqueredthe "kingsofthe fourdirections nd toredthen topay tribute" tion of Samyé Monastery may be found chiseled in large letters on a red rock pillar located against its east wall and to the south of its main entrance, and so undoubtedly would have been conspicuous to many of those visiting the monastery (see Richardson 1985: 26-29). Such pillar edicts perhaps imposed a Buddhist world order on the public space in the same wayas the architecture and murals of Samyé (Beckwith 1980: 30). On a local level, the emperors maintained a somewhat nomadic base of opera- tions, travelling around central Tibet and gravitating towards the ancestral home of their dynasty in the Yarlung valley. It was from this base that, at the close of the sixth century, the Yarlung dynasty took over southern Central Tibet (Beckwith 1987: 8). Each generation enthroned a male to act as head of the Yarlung dynasty and a primus inter pares ruler of an empire consisting of a number of conquered kingdoms. Loyal ministers, drawn from both the families who had first supported the Yarlung house and also principalities newly encompassed by the empire, did service to these rulers and their sons.These ministers and their families benefited thereby with land taken from the disloyal or rival rulers, The lineage of Tibetan emperors was deified to some extent, said to have come from heaven to rule over the Tibetan subjects, but the primes interpares system meant that the sovereign could not remain aloofbut had to rule in close collaboration with the surrounding nobility (Ramble2006:129-133). Nevertheles, the centrality of the emperor to even geographic and temporal reckoning in Tibet is reflected in imperial literature, for example the dating formula of the OldTibetanAnnals is based upon these travels around the lands of loyal Tibetan subjects. As Brandon Dotson comments: "In this way, time itself was centralized by the figure of the Tibetan emperor" (Dotson 2009: 11). Much in this system could be fruitfully analyzed using Smith's concept of "a locative map of the world, organized by an imperial figure in which things are sacred by virtue of keeping their place" (Smith 1978b:428). However, the primus inter pares form of rulership seems to have been deeply unstable and needed to be constantly reinforced as the emperor moved his mobile court of administrators, judiciary, priests and guards in semi-nomadic fashion around the lands of his loyal aristocracy (Dotson 2009: 43-46). In fact, the entire duration of the imperial period, like its beginnings, was marked by internal power struggles, marital alliancesand territorial disputes among and within the Yarlung dynasty and other local polities and major families of Central Tibet (Hazod2012: 49-55). The emperors did not always hold meaningful power (which sometimes resided with their queens), and the Gar (mGar) family group maintained a brief ministerial "shogunate" in the late seventh century (see Dotson 2009: 18-19). Yet when the system was most stable, andacquiescence to it ensured by the spoils of continued expansion of the empire, the Tibetan aristocracy with the emperors at their head saw a period of great wealth and cosmopolitanism. The Tibetan empire reached its greatest extent during the reign of Emperor Tri Songdétsen (see Beckwith 1987: 143-157). This emperor also presided over the growing institutionalisation of Buddhism in Tibet, as a state religion. This patronage was epitomized by his construction of Samyé (bSam yas) Monastery in central Tibet, which shows signs of influence from the older Buddhist cultures surrounding the empire at this time-most notably South Aslu and china. The ascendancy of the empire allowed Emperor Tri Songdétsen to confer high status, patronage, and support on the samgha of monks. Monastery itself did. In this famous Samyé Inscription, Emperor Tri Songdétsen proclaims that such patronage "shall never be abandoned or destroyed," as well as provide the wealth that makes the "provision of the necessary accoutrements" possible (Li and Coblin 1987: 186-192; Doney 2020a: 209-210). The donee is not a specific person or clan as in some other imperial inscriptions, but rather monastic followers of Buddhism. The Samyé Inscription dräws on certain rhetorical devices that in earlier secular proclamations were used to evoke both imperial expansion and stability. It uses these topoi here to lend authority to Buddhism. Reciprocally, the ministers who swore to protect this newly established state religion also thereby pledged their continued loyalty to the Yarlungdymasty,and the imperially-sponsored construction of large temple structures centralized the generally itinerant power base of the empire around the two "capitals," Rasa(Ra sa, later to be named Lhasa) and Drakmar (Brag dmar, further southeast where Samyéstands; Doney2020a:210). The circular mandala symbolism inherent in the design ofSamyé Monastery reflects the ideal empire, with the emperor identified with the powerful cosmic buddha (Vairocana) at its center-as at other imperially sponsored Buddhist sites in East Asia more generally during this period (Kapstein 2000: 60-65). All the documents described in this chapter should be read carefully, with an eye for their various expressions of the royal and religious "self-presentation" of the empire (Doney 2020a: 209-214). The Samyé Inscription introduced above states that "in order that no violations of the oath shall be perpetrated or caused to come about, the supra-mundane and mundane gods and the spirits are all invoked as witnesses" to the oath to maintain the shrines of the ThreeJewels and thereby the practice of Buddhisn in central Tibet. As CristinaScherer-Schaubhas observed(2014:151), neither the tone here nor the deities invoked are so explicitly Buddhist as tocauseoffense to the non-Buddhist factions at court. In a longer version of this proclamation, most likely also by the eighth-century emperor, the deities in question are listed in greater detail and within a more obviously Buddhist context. This passage reads: And invoking as witnesses to the oath thus made, in the ten directions: all the buddhas,all of the holy law, all of the community of the enlightened / all monks who arebodhisattvas,all the self-perfected buddhas and disciples, whatever order of gods there are in heaven and earth, the personal gods (skuIha) of Tibet, all the nine gods, and all the nāgas, demons and spirits, let it be made known that this edict is unalterable. (Doney 2018: 73) The role of the deltles in this proclamation accords well with that in the Samyé Inscription. above. Thev are nvoked as witnesses of the oath. in order to ensure I0 DONEYRele Thinkonywith . 7. Smith that it is kept in perpetuity.Thesedeitiesthen, btlh lne d supramun- dane, indigenous, and incoming, are tied to the fate of Budlhisn earliest extant proclamations for its support. inTibet from the The Bell Epigraph It is in this imperial and court context, surrounded by the gods of central Tibet and international Buddhism, that we should situate the bell epigraph discussed at the start of this chapter: Queen Gyelmotsen, mother and son, made this bell in order to worship the Three Jewels ofthe ten directions. And [they] pray that, by the power ofthat merit, Divine Emperor Tri Songdétsen, father and son, husband and wife, may be endowed with the harmony of the sixty melodious sounds, and attain supreme enlightenment. (Doney 2018:73-74) The inscription resembles an aspirational prayer more than it does an historical account. Most of it inhabits an aspirational future (ending in smondto) more commonly found in donor inscriptions and later aspirational prayers (smonlam). It depicts Tri Songdétsen as on his way towards enlightenment (byangchub). This prayer appears to be readable on two levels, perhaps belonging simultaneously to two maps (following e.g. Smith 1978a: 101 and 289-309): the ordered, locative world of the empire with the divine emperor at its center and head, and the utopian Buddhist soteriology of transcending the mundane world through supreme enlightenment. Let me unpack this a little in the Tibetan imperial context. The epigraph's eulogizing description of Tri Songdétsen mixes royal and religious metaphors. He is "Divine Emperor" the divine element (lha) being the same term used for the deities called on to witness the oath in the longer edict above. These are deities of the ten directions, and the bell epigraph's reference to "the ThreeJewels of the ten directions" is interesting from this perspective. However, it is also part of the deification of the emperor, as a god requested to come down to rule the Tibetan subjects, and so places the emperor at the pinnacle of society. The queen's relation to her husband, the emperor, is also worth exploring within this context. The lord (stangs) is Tri Songdétsen qua husband in relation to his queen (dbyal), just as he is father (yab) in relation to his son (sras; Li and Coblin 1987: 338, note to panels 8-9). More importantly, these two phrases and the tenor of the whole inscription suggest that the queen and her son are only able to pray using the royal and abiding medium of epigraph because they stand in a privileged relation to the emperor. A perspective is taken from within the imperial family, an insider position, but not that of the most powerful and highest status member of that imperial family, the emperor. Remembering the ministers' relations to their emperor and the duties entailed by those relations (above), it is perhaps no mere accident or sign of Buddhist devotion that this prayer is also directed towards the emperor's enlightenment. Self-presentation is yet again a key feature of the bel, Its posltlon attracts the viewer as part of a Buddhist world and Dublic space of Samvó Monasterv's maln big Iwo ol TilbetanPruyerswith /, 2.Smith 1 entrance, in the sne way as tlhe Sanyé Inscription described albove did. Its fornm is Chinese (and more broally East Asian), and its casting required wealth and expertise, which display the cosmopolitanism of the court in having this bell founded and using it to promote the international Dharma of the Buddha (see Doney 2020b, especially 126-129). The bell epigraph speaks from the insider per spective of the imperial farnily and the court. Moreover, the words of the prayer itself, like the peals of the bell itself, radiate outwards towards the ten directions of the empire for the good of the subjects. Finally, the prayer hopes that the Tibetan emperor responsible for this seeming spread of Buddhism throughout his realm is rewarded by attaining complete enlightenment. It is apparently not enough to be a divine emperor (to what extent and in which ways this divinity is manifest or ossified into a mere title at this time is unclear). This suggests that the emperor is also viewed from a utopian perspective, one in which "it is man who is out of place, who is estranged from his true home 'on high" (Smith 1978b: 438). Turning to the Tridandaka prayer, from a slightly later perlod, we shall see that this enlightenment has become an already completed actlon in history. The Tridandaka Prayer This Tibetan prayer, found in IOL Tib J 466/3, is at once devotlonal, hsioral, cosmological, and local (see most recently Doney 2018), Its mlddle sectlon, set to melody, begins by paying homage to the imagined Indic pantheon of the time of the Buddha and his disciples. This part ends with offerings to the lndlgenous deities surrounding Tibetan centers of worship (such as Rasa Monastery n Lhasa), veneration of the imperial preceptors of Tibet, and mentlon of tmperor TriSongdétsenhimself (modelled after the great Indian Dhara Klngs). n adli tion to Indic references and "spells" (dhāanis) the text includes archale Tibetan concepts in the description of the "Great King" (rgyal pochen po), Including the difficult to define deities perhaps translatable as "royal ancestral spirits" (pliywa). TheTridandakaalso depicts Tri Songdétsen holding the sword of the celestlal splr its (gnam gyl lde), a reference perhaps to the early legends of the kings' ancestral lineage of deities descended from the sky. The prayer that forms the third section of this manuscript,IOL TIb J 466/3, opens with the reference to "the Three Jewels of the ten directions" that we also find in the bell epigraph. The Tridandaka prayer in 10L Tib J 466/3 goes on to provide an almost historiographical account as part of its praiseand In this way differs from the content of the bell epigraph, whichresemblesmore of an aspirational prayer. The central meat of the Tridandakaprayer consists of stan zas of worship to the Buddhist deities, deifled heroes of Buddhist histortography, and the important human and non-human figures of renown among Buddhist communitles,Thesestanzasdescribe whom they praise,offer one or two named examples or subgroups and end with a repeated praise formula. Yet, in the early part there is nothng to uggesl a Tlbetan mnlleu apart from the language of the Draver (nor a Chlnese one lor that matler). 112 • 1hinking with J. Z. Smith However, the prayer finally brings human actors related to Tibet onto the stage, including praising royal figures of the Buddhist tradition: Praise to the Spiritual Friends (kalyāņamitra) of our own Tibet, the great Dharma Kings (dhamarāja) such as the great king, Tri Songdétsen. I offer prostration, reverence and praise to all those teachers who have gone to nirvāņa, who propagated the teachings: Magical Lord Tri Songdétsen-who has mastered the royal methods of the royal ancestral spirits (phywa) and [rules] the kingdom with the weapon of the celestial spirits-and Dharmāśoka, Kanişkā, śilāditya (Harşa) and so on. (Doney 2018: 88) Here, Emperor Tri Songdétsen is included in a list of Buddhists worthy of worship, placed at the end of a line of Buddhist rulers beginning with EmperorAśoka (third century B.C.E.). That he is mentioned alone among Tibetan rulers could suggest that we date this work or this stanza the eighth century. For one thing, if later emperors had reigned between the eighth century and the creation of the work, one assumes that they would have included the ruler(s)'s name(s)alongside that of Tri Songdétsen.That is unless this prayer is written very late in the tenth century and this emperor is merely one the compiler thinks worthy of mention as an exemplary Buddhist monarch. However, the codicology, paleography, and linguistic merkmals argue against this. The Tridandaka prayer, as it is extant in IOL TibJ 466, praises Tri Songdétsen as a Spiritual Friend. According to old Tibetan usage, this would mean a state preceptor, which would be.an impossibility (see van Schaik and Doney 2007: 192-193; Doney 2017: 311-314), so perhaps here it means a guide to those on the Buddhist path. It alsoapotheosises the emperor as a fully enlightened teacher. The bellepigraph (above) records a prayer that he will attaín enlightenment. This Tridandaka prayer states that, like his royal Indian predecessors, Tri Songdétsen has now gone to nirvāņa. This prayer also deploys a seemingly "non-Buddhist" description of the emperor. It gives Tri Songdétsen the title Magical Lord (phrul rje), which is perhaps similar to the title or epithet Magical Divine Emnperor (phrul gyi lha btsanpo) used in late imperial-period inscriptions. Lastly, it uses terms like "royal ancestral spirits" (phywa) and "celestial spirits" (gnam gyl lde) in unique descriptions of the emperor. The text thus singles out Tri Songdétsen as ruling both Tibet and its indigenous deities. Thus, despite the overt attempt in the prayer to place Tri Songdétsen in the line of great Buddhist kings like Aśoka, elements of the imperial cult are still present here. Such elements are found elsewhere in Old Tibetan literature, for instance in a critique of non-Buddhist religious traditions in another Old Tibetan prayer, IOL Tib J 1746. The latter contains an attack on non-Buddhist religion, as Sam van Schaik states: As an alternative to such rituals, IOL Tib J 1746 promotes the figure of the Buddha as a figure of compassion who treats everyone equally. ... IOL. TIb J 17A6 İs one of very few early sources that makes explicit reference to Tlbetan non-Buddhist practices in general (rather than specific ritual technlques); these are consistently DONIY Relesbing t woold Tibetun rayers withJ.7.Smith discussed as a form of lus: either religion' (hos chu ngu). Buddhism, buddhadharma (clos b'u dlha), the correct religion (chosyang thag pa) 2013: 233) 13 as 'the bad religion' (chos ngan pa) or 'the little on the other hand, is the Buddha's religion, or good religion (chos bzangpo/ chos legs pa), the or the great religion (choschenpo). (van Schaik This text hints at a native taxonorny, with both "religions" (chos) being allowed to share the term chos but dístanced from each other and hierarchised in their adjectival qualifications. The "bad religion" or "little religion" is thus othered as a practice of "them," not "us" (Compare Smith 1978b: 429). I0L Tíb J 1746 seems to present the "good" and "bad" religions as competing registers of discourse, reflecting the statuses of Buddhists and non-Buddhists with regard to truth and society. In contrast, the extant Tridandaka prayer betrays no sense of inconsistency in using both types of language to describe the Dharma-protecting emperor, Tri Songdétsen. He is both the deified emperor and also the enlightened and transcendent Buddhist teacher. It then follows this with a description of the local deities of Tibet before moving back into firmly Buddhist territory for the final stanzas (Doney 2018: 89-91). Conclusion Re-ordering the data of these two old Tibetan prayers under what I imagine to be J. Z. Smith's special eye for surface, difference and our unacknowledged tendency to see some things but not others in the texts that we study, has enabled me to resituate both the bell epigraph and the I0L Tib J 446/3 prayer and bring new dis/similarities to the fore. I have reassessed the content of the Tridandaka prayer in its extant form as lying somewhere between the imperial bell epigraph prayer and later Tibetan histories that glorify the emperors in almost completely Buddhist terms. Some of these elements in the Tridandaka prayer are loosely historiographical, or perhaps mythographical. Someone associated with the creation and/or redaction of this work seemingly worked to fit the Tibetan emperor, Tri Songdétsen, into the lineage of Indian Buddhist kings. This Tibetan version of the Tridandaka also apotheosises him as a fully enlightened teacher, like his pre- decessorsto the south. In summation, much of this prayer in Tibetanappears to be taken from the Indic Tridandaka, to which are added Tibetan elements ata late imperial or early post-imperial time (many of which areobscure). Both the bell epigraph of Samyé and this exemplar of the Tridandaka prayer are not only expressions of devotion but also largely elite constructions of ideal Buddhist worlds, or "maps" (which may be incongruent with the actual religious landscape of the period). Both inhabit a particular genre of Buddhist literature that incorporates court ritual and deification of the emperor inindigenous terms but ultimately situates salvation in another world of complete enlightenment. The bell epigraph asplres towards this soteriological goal on behalf of the ruler. The Tridandaka prayer portrays the sovereign as already having attained this goal 14 hinkiny with 1. 2. Snith in history. Moreover, the latter prayer vclipses the pre existny imperal worldview and religio-political hierarchy to a grealer degree than the bell epigraph, while also papering over the actual intracultural discrepancies that the entry of Buddhism into Tibet had caused by incorporating the imperial cult, the local deities and Buddhist cosmology into a new whole. As time goes on, the utopian map increasingly holds sway, especially as Buddhist masters (rather than rulers) take over the high-status roles within society (Doney 2019: 55-57). Sam Gill, in this volume, draws attention to Smith's (1978a: 309) mention of "yet another map of the cosmos"; and this intermediary and more mercurial representation can be made by the religious as much as by scholars of religion. Perhaps wandering tantric adepts and lamas, who formed social status groups outside of-but connected to-society (see Doney 2019: 40), may have created such a third map in Tibetan society. A similar situation is intimated by Smith in the context ofLate Antiquity, in which "the new center and chiefmeans ofaccess to the divine center will be a highly mobile holy man whose chief skill is that of negotiation rather than the older locative skill of relocation or the utopian power of salvation" (Smith 1978b:438-439). Yet, it is not necessary to try to fit all aspects of Smith's schema perfectly into, or map them onto, the early Tibetan situation. Smith's map of maps is his own exaggeration, and the imagined process of Tibetan Buddhicisation may call for different overstatements of my own. Moreover, it should bestressed that the final victory of the utopian, if that proves a useful phrasing, is contingent, due to the empire collapsing around 850 C.E. and the emperor no longer being present as the locative measure of time and space. Thus, the utopian must notnecessarily succeed and eclipse the locative (as Smith 1978a: 101 and 309 also makes clear for DONEY Relewring Two Oll Tibetun Prayers with 1. 7. Smith 15 and comparison wltlh the bell epigraph from Samyé Monastery has shown the former to lie somewhere close to the latter in incorporating what we could call locative terminology into a utopian soteriology; yet differing in being farther along the path of forgetting the locative character of Tibetan imperial religious practices by historicizing the emperor in the line of Indian Buddhist kings who have likewise transcended the world. In this, it represents a bridge between imperial Buddhism and the later descriptions of how the Dharma came to Tibet contained in mythographic histories from the tenth to twelfth century onwards. Lewis Doney is Professor of Tibetan Studies at the University of Bonn. His most recent book is a solo-edited volume, Bringing Buddhism to Tibet: History and Narrative in the Dba' bzhed Manuscript (De Gruyter, 2021). References Beckwith, Christopher I. 1980."The Tibetan Empire in the West:" In Michael Aris, and Aung San Suu Kyi (eds.), Tibetan Studies in Honour of Hugh Richardson:Proceedings of the International Seminar on Tibetan Studies, Oxford 1979, 30-38. Warminster: Aris and Phillips. -. 1987. TheTibetanEmpire in CentralAsia:A History of theStrugglefor GreatPoweramong Tibetans, Turks, Arabs, and Chinese During the Early Middle Ages. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Doney, Lewis. 2017. "Narrative Transformations: The Spiritual Friends of Khri Srong lde brtsan." In Eva Allinger, Frantz Grenet, Christian Jahoda, Maria-Katharina Lang and Anne Vergati (eds.), Interaction in the Himalayas and Central Asia:Processesof Transfer, Translation and Transformation in Art, Archaeology, Religion and Polity, 311- 320. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. 2018. "Imperial Gods: A Ninth-Century Tridandaka Prayer (rGyud chags gsum) from Dunhuang." Central Asiatic Journal 61(1): 71-101. https://doi.org/10.13173/ centasiaj.61.1.0071 2019. "The Degraded Emperor: Theoretical Reflections on the Upstaging of a Bodhisattva King." Revue d'Etudes Tibétaines 49: 13-66. -,2020a. "Tibet" In Erik Hermans (ed.), A Companion to the Global Early Middle Ages, 191223. Leeds: Arc Humanities. the Antique period). Nor is Buddhism, by definition,a utopian religion (let alone World Religion) that acts as an agent in destroying locative cultures. In this case, though, Smith's two (or three) maps provide useful terms to think with in pursuing my particular project of charting the changes taking place in the Tibetan religious landscape around the end of the first millennium C.E.-as long as we are aware of the limits of that change. Buddhism probably had little wider influence on Tibetan cultural practices beyond the court, unlike the transformations it wrought from the post-imperial period onwards(seeDoney2017;2020a:210). Yet, even if the spread of Buddhism throughout the empire was more rhetorical than real, the idea of this spread was important-in part because it reflected positively on the Tibetan Yarlung dynasty's power over their realm. This could be viewed as the adoption of a utopian scheme for locative motives: to further strengthen state structures with the emperor at their center. The identification of Buddhism as a state religion and the emperor as Buddha Vairocana may also have facilitated relations between the Yarlung dynasty and rulers of surrounding states, which made similar claims around this time, further spreading this mixed-model self-presentation of the der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. 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