1 00:00:03,030 --> 00:00:23,630 For. So welcome everybody, and this is our third meeting of the third series of the Oxford Treaties seminar, 2 00:00:23,630 --> 00:00:29,930 so it's I'm really delighted to be able to introduce David Grey today. 3 00:00:29,930 --> 00:00:31,700 David Grey is the Bernard J. 4 00:00:31,700 --> 00:00:39,680 Henley, professor of religious studies at Santa Clara University in California, where he teaches a wide range of Asian religions. 5 00:00:39,680 --> 00:00:46,310 And his research explores the development of tantric Buddhist traditions in South Asia and the dissemination in Tibetan East Asia, 6 00:00:46,310 --> 00:00:56,220 with a focus on the Ugadi countries, a genre of Buddhist country that focussed on female deities and yogic practises involving a subtle body. 7 00:00:56,220 --> 00:01:03,750 His publications include numerous journal articles and book chapters, an edited volume, as well as the Chuck Rosenberg Tantra, 8 00:01:03,750 --> 00:01:10,550 a study annotated translation published with the American Institute of Buddhist Studies in 2007. 9 00:01:10,550 --> 00:01:19,400 So, Chuck assemble 10 editions of the inscription Tibetan Texts with the same publisher, 2012. 10 00:01:19,400 --> 00:01:25,250 Illuminations of the hidden meaning chapters one to 24 Mandala mentioned the cult of the Ugandans again 11 00:01:25,250 --> 00:01:32,750 with this theme published in 2017 and Illumination of the Hidden Meaning Part two chapters 25 to 50 one. 12 00:01:32,750 --> 00:01:39,690 You'll get close contacts and ritual practise with wisdom publications in Twenty Nineteen. 13 00:01:39,690 --> 00:01:45,900 So, David, I'm really, really grateful you could come and speak to us today and over to you. 14 00:01:45,900 --> 00:01:51,330 Thank you so much, Rob, and I'm really it's really a great pleasure to join you all. 15 00:01:51,330 --> 00:01:57,510 I've long had a great love and interest in the treasure, you know, term phenomenon. 16 00:01:57,510 --> 00:02:04,770 Probably none of you know this, but or maybe a couple of people do, but I actually translated a treasure text. 17 00:02:04,770 --> 00:02:12,270 The holiday Qatar from the Qatar getting a collection back when I was an undergraduate. 18 00:02:12,270 --> 00:02:15,840 There's an interesting story there, just really, really quickly. 19 00:02:15,840 --> 00:02:25,230 I went on the Wisconsin to Year Abroad in Nepal programme in 1991 and 92 because I was a nerdy, you know, 20 00:02:25,230 --> 00:02:33,330 student who studied too hard over the summer, learning Tibetan language in Madison, Wisconsin, and got A's and the class they put me. 21 00:02:33,330 --> 00:02:39,690 They placed me with the one Tibetan family and Bowdoin us who didn't speak any English at all. 22 00:02:39,690 --> 00:02:47,040 So I had three weeks of linguistic [INAUDIBLE], you know, learning, you know, quickly, you know, how to speak Tibetan, at least, 23 00:02:47,040 --> 00:02:56,520 you know, stuck tongue eating and drinking language, which came pretty quick, you know, in that crucible of necessity. 24 00:02:56,520 --> 00:03:01,590 But it just so happened that, you know, before I arrived shortly before I arrived in Nepal, 25 00:03:01,590 --> 00:03:08,790 Dogo Kenzi Rinpoche had passed away in his funerary ceremonies, which basically took over a year. 26 00:03:08,790 --> 00:03:17,240 We're beginning in Nepal, so pretty much every, you know, Nygma Lama in Jumbo-Visma and beyond were pouring into boat enough. 27 00:03:17,240 --> 00:03:20,880 So it was really an amazing time to be there. 28 00:03:20,880 --> 00:03:32,700 I I went to go study first with one Lama who spoke English well talking ima empeché because he was already overflowing with English speakers. 29 00:03:32,700 --> 00:03:37,380 He sent me on to stronger and stronger Empeché, who didn't speak English at all. 30 00:03:37,380 --> 00:03:46,500 I guess he figured my Tibetan was good enough. I went to Tharanga Empeché explaining how I really wanted to translate a number. 31 00:03:46,500 --> 00:03:53,460 I had read the life of military power, you know, as an undergraduate at Wesleyan University, and I really wanted to translate something like that. 32 00:03:53,460 --> 00:04:03,870 So he suggested I work on the bloody cattle, which I said, OK, I went and got a copy, started working on it. 33 00:04:03,870 --> 00:04:09,210 I later wondered if this was all a cruel joke, because it turns out it's an incredibly difficult, 34 00:04:09,210 --> 00:04:14,850 obscure text written in a very archaic form of Tibetan. 35 00:04:14,850 --> 00:04:20,460 But I worked my way through it, and by the end of the year, I produced a translation, 36 00:04:20,460 --> 00:04:29,310 never published it because I still don't feel like I understand the text anywhere near the level of sufficiency to publish something like that. 37 00:04:29,310 --> 00:04:37,770 But I've at least had the experience of working through a term of text and, you know, attempting to understand it. 38 00:04:37,770 --> 00:04:43,200 That particular term I was, you know, discovered by organ, by supposedly, you know, 39 00:04:43,200 --> 00:04:49,320 he discovered a single sheet of gold parchment, which contained the text. 40 00:04:49,320 --> 00:04:53,520 What does that mean? Clearly, it's not the full text, obviously, right? 41 00:04:53,520 --> 00:05:00,210 You know, was it a single sheet with duck, any scraps, perhaps, which he later decoded? 42 00:05:00,210 --> 00:05:04,830 But anyway, I bring this up because, you know, the term a tradition has, 43 00:05:04,830 --> 00:05:13,500 the Nygma tradition has such a rich kind of lore concerning textual discovery and the ways in which textual discovery can occur. 44 00:05:13,500 --> 00:05:24,240 And I'm sure we're all familiar with the two main types of terma mind and Earth, you know, terma, the different types of discovery that entails. 45 00:05:24,240 --> 00:05:28,290 While this interested me a great deal when I was younger, I, you know, 46 00:05:28,290 --> 00:05:36,510 ended up when I went to grad school at Columbia University being sidetracked by, you know, Bob Thurman to work on Samah materials. 47 00:05:36,510 --> 00:05:41,490 You ended up working on Chuck with some borrowed time. Sure, I don't have any regrets about that. 48 00:05:41,490 --> 00:05:49,770 But you know, my initial love of the term, a genre, you know, kind of was put on the back burner, you know, more or less permanently. 49 00:05:49,770 --> 00:05:58,800 Although, you know, I find myself drawn back again, back to it again and again, both because of that rich lore about textual discovery. 50 00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:05,970 But another thing I love about the Tibetan tradition is the rich, biographical and autobiographical literature. 51 00:06:05,970 --> 00:06:10,350 You know, the num num Tajura. It's so amazing. 52 00:06:10,350 --> 00:06:21,810 What I wanted to talk about today were these kind of myths or lore concerning textual discovery in the Indian, you know, tantric literature. 53 00:06:21,810 --> 00:06:28,620 Unfortunately, it's much sparser. We don't have that kind of rich kind of biographical or autobiographical lore, 54 00:06:28,620 --> 00:06:39,420 nor do we have kind of in-depth kind of nitty gritty descriptions of exactly how do you discover a text in spite of this, 55 00:06:39,420 --> 00:06:43,020 you know, there is some scraps of information here or there. 56 00:06:43,020 --> 00:06:47,220 And you know, I recently completed a. Book manuscript on the Tantaros, 57 00:06:47,220 --> 00:06:52,430 looking at some of these myths and origin story isn't so what I'll bring to your 58 00:06:52,430 --> 00:06:59,910 attention today are just a very small number of passages that I found to be of interest. 59 00:06:59,910 --> 00:07:11,850 Now, as for my thesis, looking at the Indian materials, you can see you can see hints of both the both types of discovery. 60 00:07:11,850 --> 00:07:17,850 Let's say, you know, discovery of actual texts, you know, like the Sauter Earth tremor versus, you know, the Mayan term, 61 00:07:17,850 --> 00:07:27,030 a discovery happening through some sort of visionary revelatory process dreams, waking visions and the like. 62 00:07:27,030 --> 00:07:33,240 But you see both kinds of phenomena, I think, in these materials as well as the Tibetan. 63 00:07:33,240 --> 00:07:37,950 But I would also suggest, at least based on my reading of these passages, 64 00:07:37,950 --> 00:07:43,560 that both types also entail what we might call visionary types of experiences. 65 00:07:43,560 --> 00:07:48,960 Even even in the cases where someone discovers, quote unquote, an actual physical text. 66 00:07:48,960 --> 00:07:57,960 There's visionary stuff going on and going a bit further, drawing on the work of the anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann. 67 00:07:57,960 --> 00:08:02,820 You know, I would argue, and I'll get to this the end that, you know, 68 00:08:02,820 --> 00:08:15,060 Luhrmann argues in her works that the practise of visualisation actually leads certain types of susceptible individuals to have visionary experiences. 69 00:08:15,060 --> 00:08:21,240 And where else do we find such a focus on visualisation practises and in tantric Buddhist traditions? 70 00:08:21,240 --> 00:08:25,560 Right? So, so much of the practise focuses on visualisation. 71 00:08:25,560 --> 00:08:31,350 And if you visualise a lot and some of us here may have done that in our own personal experience, 72 00:08:31,350 --> 00:08:41,670 I have may I may find that they've had visionary experiences as well, perhaps triggered by these visualisation practises. 73 00:08:41,670 --> 00:08:48,180 I myself had these sorts of experiences as well again, while an undergraduate studying intensively in Nepal, 74 00:08:48,180 --> 00:08:52,080 doing intensive meditation practise in visualisation practise, 75 00:08:52,080 --> 00:08:59,670 I had a series of dreams as well as visions, including a dream in which Padma Sambora came and talked to me. 76 00:08:59,670 --> 00:09:05,280 Unfortunately, I woke up and couldn't remember what he said. 77 00:09:05,280 --> 00:09:10,590 Being malama I was studying with at the time told me this was because I wasn't yet a suitable vessel for the teaching. 78 00:09:10,590 --> 00:09:14,640 Right? You know, my mind wasn't clear enough, pure enough. 79 00:09:14,640 --> 00:09:25,860 My concentration wasn't firm enough. Hence, I couldn't recall in vivid details required to recover the visionary text. 80 00:09:25,860 --> 00:09:30,850 So I sometimes joke I'm a failed mother. Of course I'm not really. 81 00:09:30,850 --> 00:09:33,180 But anyway. 82 00:09:33,180 --> 00:09:42,450 But for certain susceptible individuals of which I apparently am one, if you visualise a lot, you may find yourself having visionary experiences. 83 00:09:42,450 --> 00:09:51,450 And I my suggestion is that if you look at the mythology, certainly in the Indian tradition, and I think in the Tibetan tradition too, 84 00:09:51,450 --> 00:10:01,050 you'll see these these visionaries who who have encountered deities and dreams, visions, recover texts and the like. 85 00:10:01,050 --> 00:10:07,110 Of course, we're doing intensive meditation practise, so there very well may be a connexion there. 86 00:10:07,110 --> 00:10:18,960 So that's basically what I'm going to argue. But I drew I I called up a couple of interesting texts that I just wanted to bring to your attention. 87 00:10:18,960 --> 00:10:26,430 These are things that I've come across while working on my book. 88 00:10:26,430 --> 00:10:29,670 This is the text I wanted to bring to your attention. 89 00:10:29,670 --> 00:10:41,040 This is, you know, from a mug of address account of Vajra Beauty's story about the origin of these the so-called wanding. 90 00:10:41,040 --> 00:10:52,620 I mean, Jhingan Jinjiang being genuinely adamant in pinnacle scripture, which according to the tradition that Vajra Booty recorded Nagarjuna. 91 00:10:52,620 --> 00:11:01,680 You know, of course, our famed bodhisattva for recovering lost text discovered this text in a Ayan Sutra. 92 00:11:01,680 --> 00:11:11,130 Now I'm not going to read this text, but I just wanted to bring to your attention a few details that I thought really interesting. 93 00:11:11,130 --> 00:11:20,520 On the one hand, this was the the so-called, you know, or text, the massive version of the text 100000 stanzas long. 94 00:11:20,520 --> 00:11:27,750 Those of us who read these myths, you know, we'll come across the number 100000 again and again because, you know, 95 00:11:27,750 --> 00:11:38,130 of course, there actually was a scripture that reached this this this length 100000 verse pragnell parameter sutra. 96 00:11:38,130 --> 00:11:44,670 But in tantric literature, we often read these reports one hundred thousand verse scriptures. 97 00:11:44,670 --> 00:11:52,980 And it's I just found very funny the description how it was broad and long, like a bed four or five feet thick with innumerable verses. 98 00:11:52,980 --> 00:11:57,390 So there's massive masses or tantra. 99 00:11:57,390 --> 00:12:05,530 It must have been written in very large. Because if you look at the, you know, shutters, the Hazarika pregnant parameter and the Tibetan translation, 100 00:12:05,530 --> 00:12:09,430 I think it's eight or nine volumes long and to conjure. 101 00:12:09,430 --> 00:12:14,380 So a pretty big text, but not quite this vast. 102 00:12:14,380 --> 00:12:21,400 But of course, if you used a large enough font, large enough script, you could reach any size. 103 00:12:21,400 --> 00:12:25,990 So it was enclosed in Iron Stupa South India. 104 00:12:25,990 --> 00:12:30,910 No one was able to open it because of its iron gate and locks. 105 00:12:30,910 --> 00:12:41,980 So in this in this country, there was the so-called great worthy who we later learnt as Nagarjuna, who though is not mentioned by name in this text. 106 00:12:41,980 --> 00:12:47,530 So he, you know, found the Stupa, but he couldn't get in. 107 00:12:47,530 --> 00:12:57,250 So he recited the mantra of Maha the Rukhsana, who manifested his body in a multitude of bodily forms in mid-air. 108 00:12:57,250 --> 00:13:00,020 So what is this? Seems to be a vision, right? 109 00:13:00,020 --> 00:13:10,960 You know, reciting Maharaj and his mantra Maha Baratunde on a kind of, you know, bewildering kind of many bodily manifestation appears in the air. 110 00:13:10,960 --> 00:13:18,190 Expound of the teachings, along with its textual passages and lines, it told the Great Worthy to write it down. 111 00:13:18,190 --> 00:13:22,750 And then and then it was when it was finished, he vanished. 112 00:13:22,750 --> 00:13:27,190 And this this, in a way, is the origin story for one tantric text. 113 00:13:27,190 --> 00:13:30,220 The essential rights for religion. 114 00:13:30,220 --> 00:13:40,180 The short or abridged version of the Adamantine Pinnacle Sutra, which Vajra Booty translated and presented to the Chinese emperor. 115 00:13:40,180 --> 00:13:51,040 The long version 100000 version of the collection we learnt later was lost in a typhoon as he was travelling back from India to China. 116 00:13:51,040 --> 00:13:54,520 But that's that's a whole nother story. 117 00:13:54,520 --> 00:14:04,450 So I wanted to bring this to your attention because I found interesting both the idea of there being this massive or text, 118 00:14:04,450 --> 00:14:13,930 but also the idea that even even when discovering the massive physical text right, there's a visionary experience that accompanies it. 119 00:14:13,930 --> 00:14:21,670 He couldn't get into the stupor, but he had a vision of China who gave him the instructions essential rights. 120 00:14:21,670 --> 00:14:36,410 And with these instructions, he was able to perform the ritual that enabled him to kind of magically opened the locks, so to speak on the Stupa. 121 00:14:36,410 --> 00:14:43,310 And got it. Now, what did he do when he got it? Apparently, he didn't read the book. 122 00:14:43,310 --> 00:14:52,520 He chanted Praises for this, you know, sovereign tantra or, you know, Tantra Raja Scripture King is or is a translator. 123 00:14:52,520 --> 00:14:57,320 And then he attained the obstructions of all the Buddhism Buddhism offers, 124 00:14:57,320 --> 00:15:06,080 and these he remembered and did not forget that he was commanded to go forth from stupor and close the gate. 125 00:15:06,080 --> 00:15:11,930 So in other words, he sat in front of the scripture, apparently reciting praises of it, 126 00:15:11,930 --> 00:15:18,410 and then apparently had another visionary experience in which he was taught by awaken beings. 127 00:15:18,410 --> 00:15:23,540 What isn't Buddhist was doesn't tell us who maybe Mahavir of China again, 128 00:15:23,540 --> 00:15:33,620 along with perhaps other figures from his, from his, from his mandala, perhaps. 129 00:15:33,620 --> 00:15:38,850 And so again, there's no taking of this of the physical text. 130 00:15:38,850 --> 00:15:44,630 He doesn't even touch it as far as the myth tells us. He he sits in front of it. 131 00:15:44,630 --> 00:15:52,880 He champs. He has another vision, apparently, and then he goes for having memorised the teachings, whatever they may be. 132 00:15:52,880 --> 00:16:00,200 Apparently, the teachings on the hundred thousand verse scripture, because according to Djibouti, at least, 133 00:16:00,200 --> 00:16:06,680 you know, Nagarjuna was the first person to kind of reveal this, you know, put it down in the writing, so to speak. 134 00:16:06,680 --> 00:16:16,280 Vajra butI claims that he actually acquired a copy of the 400000 verse scripture in Sri Lanka, but then lost it, you know, 135 00:16:16,280 --> 00:16:22,340 en route back to China being left only with the short, you know, 136 00:16:22,340 --> 00:16:30,170 the short practise text that was the initial revelation coming to coming to Nagarjuna. 137 00:16:30,170 --> 00:16:37,340 So this is, you know, one case in this case, the disclosure of a of a yoga tantra, right? 138 00:16:37,340 --> 00:16:42,740 The discovery of a yoga tantra, apparently involving the discovery of an actual text. 139 00:16:42,740 --> 00:16:46,910 At least, you know, that's how the story seems to go. 140 00:16:46,910 --> 00:16:52,790 At first glance, but if you look closely, you see these visionary, these visions, you know, 141 00:16:52,790 --> 00:17:00,770 surrounding the whole revelatory process, you know, an initial vision allowing him entry to gain access to the text. 142 00:17:00,770 --> 00:17:10,940 And then again, a later series of visionary teachings, which lead to him securing the teaching in memory, apparently. 143 00:17:10,940 --> 00:17:16,310 And then, you know, moving off, leaving the bedside scripture in place. 144 00:17:16,310 --> 00:17:27,950 Because as far as we know, Nagarjuna didn't have super strength, although who knows, maybe he did, but apparently he didn't touch that big scripture. 145 00:17:27,950 --> 00:17:33,700 Or if he did, he myth doesn't tell us so. 146 00:17:33,700 --> 00:17:39,590 So that's one story that I wanted to bring to your attention. And here's another one. 147 00:17:39,590 --> 00:17:47,180 This is from Jana Mitra, as you know, commentary on the method of the perfection of wisdom and 150 stanzas. 148 00:17:47,180 --> 00:17:50,510 Very, very interesting text. You know. 149 00:17:50,510 --> 00:18:02,960 As you as I'm sure many of you know, Ron Davidson translated a portion of this in his, you know, in his book on Indian Esoteric Buddhism, 150 00:18:02,960 --> 00:18:13,490 it's one of the probably the earliest kind of Indic or to discuss the whole 18 the collection of 18 major yoga Tantaros, 151 00:18:13,490 --> 00:18:17,090 you know, again, in the Tibetan collection, 152 00:18:17,090 --> 00:18:28,340 it's almost identical to the 18 texts badminton Pinnacle Collection that the Moga Vajra wrote about which Djibouti partially, 153 00:18:28,340 --> 00:18:37,280 you know, brought back to China with him. So these early, you know, eighth century, you know, collections of 18 countries. 154 00:18:37,280 --> 00:18:43,610 Jana Mitra was writing, I think, late 8th century, so a bit later than LaGuardia. 155 00:18:43,610 --> 00:18:51,050 But here again, a similar collection including, you know, the sort of a of summer yoga Ducati, 156 00:18:51,050 --> 00:18:56,090 Jealous and Vargas, a major tantra, you know, a few others. 157 00:18:56,090 --> 00:19:08,150 Shri Pramod Yeah. Now this text tells us that supposedly king in Djibouti in Zahara, which, as Davidson points out, was was likely, 158 00:19:08,150 --> 00:19:19,690 you know, Diana, you know, SWAT Valley, you know, Northwest India, not Bengal, as you know, some people have hypothesised. 159 00:19:19,690 --> 00:19:29,140 That this scriptural collection manifested first to king in Djibouti and members of his court because they were deemed to be suitable vessels, 160 00:19:29,140 --> 00:19:35,530 so again, they had the proper background and training to enable them to understand them. 161 00:19:35,530 --> 00:19:44,890 In theory, the texts appeared. Ganymede sure doesn't tell us exactly how they came to King in Djibouti. 162 00:19:44,890 --> 00:19:53,680 He was unable to understand them, so he requested the help of Master Cucaracha, who asked that the text be sent to him. 163 00:19:53,680 --> 00:20:00,130 The king obliged. And here's a direct quote from the text. 164 00:20:00,130 --> 00:20:05,050 This is my translation. The scriptures arrived as he read them from beginning to end. 165 00:20:05,050 --> 00:20:11,710 They were unlike anything he had ever read, an account of which he collapsed without recourse, exclaiming, I'm without refuge. 166 00:20:11,710 --> 00:20:19,960 Shreveport results appeared and asked him what he desired. He said he wished he could understand the scriptures just by reading them. 167 00:20:19,960 --> 00:20:24,760 Don't we? All right. Particularly when reading Tantaros. 168 00:20:24,760 --> 00:20:30,010 Thus, it shall be granted there upon the meaning of these unopened texts of the starving, 169 00:20:30,010 --> 00:20:34,270 but summer yoga and so forth became directly apparent in his mind. 170 00:20:34,270 --> 00:20:40,960 I love that detail that the text has unopened tax rate, so he I guess he'd gotten his tax, 171 00:20:40,960 --> 00:20:49,270 started reading them, couldn't make heads or tails of them, had a vision of such the who granted his wish. 172 00:20:49,270 --> 00:20:57,490 You know, the wish of all students, right to be able to understand text without even reading them without even opening in the text. 173 00:20:57,490 --> 00:21:06,190 But he was able to do so. So again, this is another myth of the kind of textual discovery of texts appearing right. 174 00:21:06,190 --> 00:21:15,220 We don't know exactly how he's got a metre, doesn't tell us, but text appearing, people being unable to understand them. 175 00:21:15,220 --> 00:21:27,510 But then through, in this case, the grace of such. Poggi, who Cora Gaines kind of directs an immediate knowledge of the text within his mind. 176 00:21:27,510 --> 00:21:39,360 So again, this kind of strong visionary dimension to a in a myth which is ostensibly about the discovery of physical tax rate, 177 00:21:39,360 --> 00:21:45,540 physical tax being discovered or appearing and being revealed to the world. 178 00:21:45,540 --> 00:21:54,440 So this is yet another example of this sort of discovery. 179 00:21:54,440 --> 00:22:01,160 Now there's one other passage I wanted to bring to your attention of this sort of text, 180 00:22:01,160 --> 00:22:12,620 and this is from what I what I suspect might be the earliest account of a of a kind of tantric or bordering on a kind of origin story in print. 181 00:22:12,620 --> 00:22:20,060 And that's from your Jeong's, you know, records of eminent monks, the great tong sought the dharma and the western regions. 182 00:22:20,060 --> 00:22:29,090 And in this book, he recounts the stories of various Chinese monks who travelled to India prior to Eugene's journey to India. 183 00:22:29,090 --> 00:22:33,770 He journeyed there and arrived in 671. 184 00:22:33,770 --> 00:22:38,180 I think he spent about 15 years in India, if I remember correctly. 185 00:22:38,180 --> 00:22:48,830 Now he tells the story of one Chinese monk named Darlene, who while in India encountered a text called the video dropped the car, 186 00:22:48,830 --> 00:22:53,330 which I kind of loosely translate as wizardry collection. 187 00:22:53,330 --> 00:23:03,890 You know, taking video diaries, wizards unite these immortal, immortal kind of magical beings of tantric myth and lore, right? 188 00:23:03,890 --> 00:23:08,210 Who you know who? What are they most akin to? An English language? 189 00:23:08,210 --> 00:23:14,180 Perhaps the wizards of, you know, of English folklore, you know, here have in mind, like, 190 00:23:14,180 --> 00:23:20,720 you know, Tolkien's Gandalf the mortal capable of great feats, you know, so on, so forth. 191 00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:28,020 Maybe it's a bad idea. I'm I'm open to criticism, but this. 192 00:23:28,020 --> 00:23:34,740 This a this is an interesting account of the text vigilant Pittock, I should point out, was actually, you know, 193 00:23:34,740 --> 00:23:43,080 Matsunaga tells us, was actually the name of a of a force basket, you know, the three baskets of Buddhist cannon? 194 00:23:43,080 --> 00:23:47,850 Well, apparently the Dharma Gutta tradition proposed a fourth canon. 195 00:23:47,850 --> 00:23:57,000 The Vijayendra put together the the the the basket or collection of spells as the kind of place where the magical lure, you know, the rock shelter, 196 00:23:57,000 --> 00:24:11,870 the Durrani is mantra collections that were growing within some you know, Mahayana traditions or say, around fifth, sixth, seventh centuries of. 197 00:24:11,870 --> 00:24:18,560 As a place for them in the canon, and so this is the origin story of a text that has that name, 198 00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:23,660 but the name is a kind of generic name that could also be for we might say, 199 00:24:23,660 --> 00:24:33,380 you know, the the conjurer or the the tiger bomb or Nygma Jubaland, the kind of tantra section of the canon, so to speak. 200 00:24:33,380 --> 00:24:37,390 So again, this wizardry collection provided our picture. 201 00:24:37,390 --> 00:24:42,860 What is it? Eugene tells us that in Sanskrit, it consists of 100 thousand stanzas. 202 00:24:42,860 --> 00:24:49,790 Here we go. You know, 100000 appearing again. And where did it come from? 203 00:24:49,790 --> 00:24:55,850 It does. The text doesn't say, but it says after the death of the great sage, Nagarjuna mastered them. 204 00:24:55,850 --> 00:25:03,380 So the implication here, I think, is that maybe, you know, Schottky money taught them and then but then who did he pass it on to? 205 00:25:03,380 --> 00:25:14,000 Who kind of received this law? Well, of course it was Nagarjuna, and he happened to have a disciple named Nanda, who was steeped in this text. 206 00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:20,750 So Nagarjuna, you know, passed on the law to his disciple, named Nanda. 207 00:25:20,750 --> 00:25:27,590 He spent 12 years practising the spells where party experience supernormal effects. 208 00:25:27,590 --> 00:25:33,250 So in other words, he achieved the city is right whenever his meal time food descended from space. 209 00:25:33,250 --> 00:25:45,510 You know, we read accounts like this in the stories of many, you know, great add ups and bougie Indian, Tibetan and Chinese, you know, lure. 210 00:25:45,510 --> 00:25:48,990 Also, one source saying spells he prayed for wish fulfilling bass, 211 00:25:48,990 --> 00:25:53,800 which he attained after a little while within a jar, he found the scripture which delighted him. 212 00:25:53,800 --> 00:26:00,750 But since he failed to bind the bass with a spell, it disappeared. OK, another failed Turton here, right? 213 00:26:00,750 --> 00:26:08,320 You know, you gain access to some magically appearing text, but if you don't follow the right procedure, you might lose it. 214 00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:17,520 So he if he lost it, then perhaps fearing that all this great lore he got from Nagarjuna might be scattered and lost. 215 00:26:17,520 --> 00:26:27,060 He gathered them together, formed a single compilation of 12000 stanzas, so a more reasonably lengthy scripture. 216 00:26:27,060 --> 00:26:32,010 And that supposedly is what Dowling studied when he was in India. 217 00:26:32,010 --> 00:26:43,110 So again, an origin myth for a for a tantric collection in this case, the Vijay DA a picture which I don't think survives. 218 00:26:43,110 --> 00:26:48,420 I don't think this was ever translated into Chinese or Tibetan. Maybe I'm wrong. 219 00:26:48,420 --> 00:26:52,140 Tibetans sometimes use that same phrase of, you know, 220 00:26:52,140 --> 00:27:00,870 50 did Pittock to refer generically to the kind of collection of tantra is at least some early Tibetan authors did. 221 00:27:00,870 --> 00:27:06,510 But I've I've never encountered a reference to this text. 222 00:27:06,510 --> 00:27:14,550 Oh, I've encountered some references to it, would you go yet another eighth century offer, but Agya Rafiq refers to it. 223 00:27:14,550 --> 00:27:25,280 He actually listed as one of the creators, but to my knowledge, it wasn't translated, though maybe I'm missing something. 224 00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:32,560 So anyway, we have these stories of people discovering texts. 225 00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:39,550 Sometimes successfully, sometimes, you know, failing to successfully kind of capture them. 226 00:27:39,550 --> 00:27:45,550 But the visionary element, I think, is prominent and in many of these accounts. 227 00:27:45,550 --> 00:27:49,000 But of course, you know, so far we're only really talking about, you know, 228 00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:54,250 Earth terms sort of discoveries, you know, discoveries of actual physical text. 229 00:27:54,250 --> 00:28:02,040 What about discoveries that entail, you know, other kinds of. 230 00:28:02,040 --> 00:28:10,410 Other kinds of. Of Revelation. Let me. 231 00:28:10,410 --> 00:28:16,950 One more I wanted to bring to your attention was contas discovery of the Kuta to look at tantra. 232 00:28:16,950 --> 00:28:27,660 This is, you know, according to Tara Natas hagiography here, I'm not going to translate anything but just just briefly go over it. 233 00:28:27,660 --> 00:28:36,660 This is a case of, you know, undertaking a physical journey to pray, to pray somewhere on the Tibetan plateau. 234 00:28:36,660 --> 00:28:45,270 In this case, you know, Joel Dripper, you know, sent her off to recover some putative liquor from Eugeni, 235 00:28:45,270 --> 00:28:50,430 from the Duchesne Badree told her she lived in pray to. 236 00:28:50,430 --> 00:28:56,160 Eventually found a derelict shack on a cliff overlooking a grey desert. 237 00:28:56,160 --> 00:29:04,830 You didn't recognise her at first, but eventually he did and discovered he was at the right place. 238 00:29:04,830 --> 00:29:09,090 She kind of magically transformed her shack into a mansion. 239 00:29:09,090 --> 00:29:16,500 And granted him the texts and the teachings. So this is kind of another, I guess, short term sort of discovery. 240 00:29:16,500 --> 00:29:27,120 But one involving a journey that could a pilgrimage to a sacred site, you know, pray to Puri is one of the 24 sacred sites and be, 241 00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:34,580 you know, Chuck Sambora, you know, Mandalore, at least Chuck Chuck or some of our pilgrimage route. 242 00:29:34,580 --> 00:29:39,110 But, you know, recovering a tax from a from a Ducati. 243 00:29:39,110 --> 00:29:46,610 And of course, we all know the doctrine is play a big role in in the revelation of Tantaros, 244 00:29:46,610 --> 00:29:52,070 you know, huge, huge role in the Nygma tradition, as I'm sure everyone here knows. 245 00:29:52,070 --> 00:29:57,320 But they also play a role in the, you know, Indian tradition as well. 246 00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:07,280 They are a celestial paradise. Harry Potter sometimes portrayed as a repository of esoteric lore. 247 00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:17,230 So again, we have accounts, you know? Again, in this case, you know, Villa Saavedra again reported by Tara Natur. 248 00:30:17,230 --> 00:30:24,550 Tells us that the loss of our dear, troubled Odierno or the doctor news gave him temporary access to a treasury of Tantaros, 249 00:30:24,550 --> 00:30:29,530 permitting him to withdraw as many tests as he could memorise in seven days. 250 00:30:29,530 --> 00:30:35,500 He was able to memorise during this time, you know, Chris Imari, tantra and several other texts. 251 00:30:35,500 --> 00:30:44,470 So again, this idea of a kind of special treasury of tantrums overseen by the Dokken, his they'll give you access to it, 252 00:30:44,470 --> 00:30:52,120 but you can't actually take any physical tax rate you have to memorise, just like Nagarjuna had to memorise. 253 00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:54,730 So apparently 100000 verse, 254 00:30:54,730 --> 00:31:10,980 you know about adamant in Pinnacle Collection loss of our was given seven days to memorise as many texts as he could from the doc in his Treasury. 255 00:31:10,980 --> 00:31:20,220 So. A final kind of count I wanted to bring to your attention is the story of a teacher's pride, 256 00:31:20,220 --> 00:31:31,930 which again features this idea of the dock in East Treasury, so this is in his target extensive biography the biography lists at one point. 257 00:31:31,930 --> 00:31:36,400 An astounding list of all of the Tantaros that a teacher knew. 258 00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:41,050 Now, T-shirt, as I'm sure some of you guys, some of you all know, 259 00:31:41,050 --> 00:31:51,130 had his own kind of unique classification or toxic graphical scheme of organising Tantaros into seven categories Action, 260 00:31:51,130 --> 00:31:59,680 Performance, Precept, Dual Yoga, Tantra, Maha Yoga, Tantaros and Unexcelled Yoga Tartarus. 261 00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:08,530 And the biography gives us a long list of all the Tantaros know all the countries he knew, and all of these classes and all these classes. 262 00:32:08,530 --> 00:32:12,760 Here is what it says he knew about the unexcelled yoga tantrums. 263 00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:21,820 He knew an uncountable number, but if you actually count them, you know, 12000 tantrums of five hundred thousand stanzas and so forth. 264 00:32:21,820 --> 00:32:29,350 The Sri customer, the great hundred thousand stanza Chuck Lorre chatters Peter Muhammad to serve a bit of summer yoga, 265 00:32:29,350 --> 00:32:38,080 but a cappella drum and so forth, right? So huge number of texts, twelve thousand of them, and not the simple, 266 00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:51,340 abridged versions like Lago Savara that we have the colour yoga need, but the the massive, you know, or text versions of these texts. 267 00:32:51,340 --> 00:33:01,450 So he knew these tantrums. But, you know, one night, he added, had a dream. 268 00:33:01,450 --> 00:33:10,990 Well, he had a dream, but before he had a dream, he once offered to buy gifts for a handful of gold to to receive top interest from him, 269 00:33:10,990 --> 00:33:16,960 and he received ten thousand four hundred fifty five Tantaros in one session. 270 00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:23,770 So I mean, one hundred and forty five countries. I find that number so interesting as we get one hundred thousand again. 271 00:33:23,770 --> 00:33:32,380 But added to it is a number that's very close to the number of countries that are actually in Tibetan conjure collections. 272 00:33:32,380 --> 00:33:47,920 But the paltry number of countries that ordinary people now 455 plus 100000 on top of that, so again, astounding number and a pride rose in his mind. 273 00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:52,570 He thought no one is more learnt in the Mahayana or Anantara than I there. 274 00:33:52,570 --> 00:33:58,870 Upon one night, many darkened years presented many volumes of tantrums, asking him if he knew them. 275 00:33:58,870 --> 00:34:06,760 Of course, he didn't know any of them. There are a few little measly volumes off to the side, you know, he asked what they were. 276 00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:13,510 They said, these are the ones, you know. So in other words, again, the Dokken is, you know, 277 00:34:13,510 --> 00:34:23,300 playing the role that's often given to them of breaking down the pride of arrogance dollars, much like, you know, Naropa and life on Europa. 278 00:34:23,300 --> 00:34:30,520 You know, the doctor who challenged his understanding of the text that he was studying here to a teacher, 279 00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:39,100 you know, gets challenged by the darkened years and they demonstrate to him the the paucity of his knowledge. 280 00:34:39,100 --> 00:34:49,900 The message from this, of course, is that, you know, the top the the the tantrums are, you know, uncountable. 281 00:34:49,900 --> 00:34:54,040 There are countless of them that have been taught countless Buddhas and all the 282 00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:59,170 various Buddha realms have taught them and are teaching them again and again, 283 00:34:59,170 --> 00:35:02,830 you know, in the moment, so to speak. 284 00:35:02,830 --> 00:35:13,630 And all you need to be able to access them is the ability to travel to those celestial realms to, you know, to visit them. 285 00:35:13,630 --> 00:35:20,810 How do we do that? Well, here's Chapter 39 of the charter for some maritime terror, 286 00:35:20,810 --> 00:35:27,100 which actually gives a description of of going to how you go to catch a reporter, right? 287 00:35:27,100 --> 00:35:37,240 And this is the chapter that introduces the Eat Field mantra, which is the laughter mantra ha ha hee hee who I forget. 288 00:35:37,240 --> 00:35:45,730 But a series of ha, you know, syllables which, you know, emulates laughter. 289 00:35:45,730 --> 00:35:53,090 So the yogi of great powers lay down the eightfold mantra should have no doubt vision is imparted to him through that and bearable Dokken. 290 00:35:53,090 --> 00:35:57,190 And he's terrified with many kinds of awesome sounds. That hero is frightened. 291 00:35:57,190 --> 00:36:01,900 He trembles and runs away. But if that hero is not frightened and held by the left hand, 292 00:36:01,900 --> 00:36:08,950 [INAUDIBLE] be led by them to their abode together with the darkness through devotion and desire for Sri Haruka once connected, 293 00:36:08,950 --> 00:36:17,050 the Ariel state always delighting them when we'll go to the land of a blessed cavity for the add up to as a mantra body, 294 00:36:17,050 --> 00:36:23,170 nowhere is there old age and death. So how do we get to catch Harry Potter? 295 00:36:23,170 --> 00:36:29,680 This is a very short little text, right? But it's it's very suggestive in many ways. 296 00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:35,980 Lesson number one, I suppose, is right. You know, when the Dokken is come, don't freak out, you know? 297 00:36:35,980 --> 00:36:39,490 Don't be scared and run away. If you do, they'll devour you. 298 00:36:39,490 --> 00:36:44,200 So you know you don't want to do that. Instead, you have to, you know, the law, right? 299 00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:54,880 Know how to deal with the dark and use. If you were, you know, steeped in kind of your any tantra law, you would know the the secret signs, 300 00:36:54,880 --> 00:37:00,970 the the code, so to speak, that you would need to communicate with them. 301 00:37:00,970 --> 00:37:06,130 The the gestures, the the the symbolic language, 302 00:37:06,130 --> 00:37:17,830 so on and so forth to get on their good side and then through devotion and desire to she Haruka, you can be conducted to the Ariel state. 303 00:37:17,830 --> 00:37:23,480 Now I wonder, Alisa, I wonder what devotion and desire for Sri Haruka might mean. 304 00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:32,500 And my my suggestion is it probably means here, you know, diva to yoga or Buddha yoga, you know, 305 00:37:32,500 --> 00:37:44,320 creation stage practise meditation on Sri Haruka, you know, visualising yourself as Shri Haruka doing that sort of visualisation practise. 306 00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:52,210 What else do you need a mantra body, right, you need to have developed that kind of training contemplative training through creation, 307 00:37:52,210 --> 00:38:00,160 stage perfection, stage practise to, you know, you know, dissolve yourself into emptiness. 308 00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:11,350 You know, we arise in the form of a deity. Do the body mandala practise, you know, laying down the mantras in the in the inner body mandala, right? 309 00:38:11,350 --> 00:38:14,950 So so that you generate the body mandala. 310 00:38:14,950 --> 00:38:25,330 Only then can you ascend through visionary journeys to places like Kitsch, Harry Potter, Meet the Dark Ages, Meet the Buddha and, 311 00:38:25,330 --> 00:38:33,010 you know, directly receive the teachings of one of the commentators on this passage, Veera Vadra, he'd recite. 312 00:38:33,010 --> 00:38:38,320 He interprets all of this interpreted in terms of the perfection stage practised. 313 00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:42,460 So being conducted to the aerial state, you know, and for him, 314 00:38:42,460 --> 00:38:48,670 is a reference to the perfection stage process of unifying your psychic energy within your 315 00:38:48,670 --> 00:38:55,180 central channel and having that the energy ascend the channel up to the point of the cavity, 316 00:38:55,180 --> 00:39:00,580 which is the jailendra point within the the the cerebral cavity. 317 00:39:00,580 --> 00:39:02,260 So in other words, you know, 318 00:39:02,260 --> 00:39:12,550 the so-called journey to the place of the Dokken is is a kind of visualised imagined journey taking place within one's mind. 319 00:39:12,550 --> 00:39:25,870 But if you do it properly, it may very well result in, you know, ascending to celestial realms and possibly receiving revel revelatory teachings. 320 00:39:25,870 --> 00:39:30,400 I think at least that's what what is promised now. 321 00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:37,180 Unfortunately, we don't have that much detail within these in these Indian tantric traditions, 322 00:39:37,180 --> 00:39:42,580 or at least if they're if the details are there, I haven't found them. 323 00:39:42,580 --> 00:39:48,490 We we don't have the kind of rich kind of lore, biographical autobiographical lore. 324 00:39:48,490 --> 00:40:02,350 We get stuff like, you know, in the blue annals, the lineage less like, say, or Savara was taught by Lord Trapani to SA or by Vajra Bharati to Luther. 325 00:40:02,350 --> 00:40:11,230 But how exactly did they teach this? You know, how did these masters gain access to the scriptures? 326 00:40:11,230 --> 00:40:19,810 We don't know. I wish we had that kind of information, but my guess is that it's likely much more of a visionary practise. 327 00:40:19,810 --> 00:40:35,490 You know, doing your meditation and having gaining a vision of, say, budgetary he or thud Trapani in a dream or in a kind of meditative state. 328 00:40:35,490 --> 00:40:44,340 Again, I mentioned Tanya Luhrmann, you know, in her first book, Persuasions The Witches Craft, which was on ritual magic in contemporary England. 329 00:40:44,340 --> 00:40:46,260 She talks about her own experience. 330 00:40:46,260 --> 00:40:58,050 She she was studying with kind of contemporary kind of neo pagan practitioners in England, learning, you know, witches, craft and what this entailed. 331 00:40:58,050 --> 00:41:02,590 She describes, was basically the practise of intensive visualisation. 332 00:41:02,590 --> 00:41:08,580 She learnt a series of kind of contemplations involving visualisation that were taught to him by her, taught to her, 333 00:41:08,580 --> 00:41:17,580 by her teachers, and she was doing these practises pretty intensively as part of her kind of anthropological fieldwork. 334 00:41:17,580 --> 00:41:23,100 And she started having visions. One night she had a she was sitting in her apartment in London, she describes, 335 00:41:23,100 --> 00:41:32,020 and she had a vision of a group of druids, you know, flying through the air, you know, outside her window and. 336 00:41:32,020 --> 00:41:37,390 She writes about this both in that book as well as in her 2006 book When God's Talk Back, 337 00:41:37,390 --> 00:41:47,170 and one of the things she she mentions is how visualisation practise in particular can lead susceptible people to spontaneous, 338 00:41:47,170 --> 00:41:50,740 visionary experiences and by susceptible, susceptible individuals. 339 00:41:50,740 --> 00:42:01,780 She means people who score high on the on the Nordics susceptibility scale, which is a kind of test worked out by psych, 340 00:42:01,780 --> 00:42:08,830 by a psychologist, basically as a test to see how vivid your imagination ends and the more vivid it is, 341 00:42:08,830 --> 00:42:20,480 the more suggestible or susceptible you are, the more likely you are apparently to have spontaneous visions if you engage in these sorts of practises. 342 00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:27,920 So again, you know what I was doing when I was an undergraduate in Nepal, doing every day, 343 00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:33,170 you know, practise focussing on payments and other contracts to do sadhana, 344 00:42:33,170 --> 00:42:45,050 the on a basic side of now where you visualised Padma symbol that is the unification of all of the Concho goal of the refuges doing that, 345 00:42:45,050 --> 00:42:51,560 you know, intensively, I started having dreams. Padma Zimbardo, for example, vivid dreams in which she would come to me. 346 00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:57,290 Was I a Turton? I don't think so. I I certainly wasn't a successful one. 347 00:42:57,290 --> 00:43:01,850 But were I properly prepared? Maybe I I might have had a chance. 348 00:43:01,850 --> 00:43:10,010 I don't know. So in other words, you know, I can't prove this, but my suspicion is that, you know, 349 00:43:10,010 --> 00:43:17,030 doing the sorts of intensive, contemplative practises that tantric traditions call for will lead some people, 350 00:43:17,030 --> 00:43:21,710 maybe not necessarily everyone, but some people to have powerful, 351 00:43:21,710 --> 00:43:31,280 visionary experiences that may just lead to experiences of revelation, but not necessarily. 352 00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:34,750 Another book to take into account. Here is done. 353 00:43:34,750 --> 00:43:45,410 Gun will be Seeker's book 2012 book the The Awakened Ones, a phenomenology of visionary experience and one of the points he makes in this book. 354 00:43:45,410 --> 00:43:53,690 Looking comparatively at that visionary kind of figure is including the Buddha is that the easy step is having divisions? 355 00:43:53,690 --> 00:44:02,330 The hard part that comes later is communicating your visions, you know, form that are meaningful to others, right? 356 00:44:02,330 --> 00:44:07,190 And certainly that was my experience. You know, much, much harder to do that, right? 357 00:44:07,190 --> 00:44:18,470 So my my suspicion is and I can't prove that my suspicion is if you look very carefully at this law about revelation of texts and Buddhist traditions, 358 00:44:18,470 --> 00:44:29,620 you'll you'll find, I think again and again that visionary experiences play a key role in these in these revelatory moments. 359 00:44:29,620 --> 00:44:35,500 And I guess that's it for now. 360 00:44:35,500 --> 00:44:37,390 Yes, thank you. That was very, very interesting. 361 00:44:37,390 --> 00:44:45,020 I remember a kind of seminar series that Tanya Luhrmann did in Oxford just before the lockdown, I guess. 362 00:44:45,020 --> 00:44:50,300 And she was a fascinating character. Her work is very interesting, I corresponded with her a bit afterwards. 363 00:44:50,300 --> 00:44:54,920 I'm very glad you brought her up, you know? Yes. 364 00:44:54,920 --> 00:45:04,230 And I'm very grateful as well for your mixture of anthropological and textual scholarship, which is really what we need in this subject. 365 00:45:04,230 --> 00:45:09,830 You know, neither one on its own can really address our problems. 366 00:45:09,830 --> 00:45:27,636 So if anyone's got any questions?