1 00:00:14,400 --> 00:00:20,040 [Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.] So welcome everyone to the first talk in the fourth series of our Padmasambhava in Tibet seminar. 2 00:00:21,360 --> 00:00:26,280 We have an excellent programme of four talks, this Trinity term. You can find details on our website. 3 00:00:27,360 --> 00:00:31,120 Just Google Padmasambhava or Dhyana in Tibet seminar and you'll find it. 4 00:00:33,200 --> 00:00:34,960 All our talks are published as video podcasts. 5 00:00:35,720 --> 00:00:41,880 They can be freely there, freely available from our own web pages at the Wolfson College Tibetan and Himalayan Studies cluster. 6 00:00:43,040 --> 00:00:49,560 They are also available from the Central University of Oxford podcast page, from Apple Podcasts and from other sites too. 7 00:00:51,200 --> 00:00:58,320 Uh, please try not to interrupt during the recording. The discussion periods of the talks will not be podcasting and are open to the entire audience, 8 00:00:59,320 --> 00:01:03,380 so please feel absolutely free to express yourselves and ask questions then. 9 00:01:05,740 --> 00:01:10,820 Today we are delighted to welcome Professor Curtis Schaefer, who is joining us from the University of Virginia, 10 00:01:11,740 --> 00:01:15,700 where he is the Francis Myers Ball Professor in the Department of Religious Studies. 11 00:01:17,220 --> 00:01:23,780 Curtis is a student of Buddhist literature in Tibet and the Himalayas, and one of the best known figures in Tibetan studies in the United States. 12 00:01:25,060 --> 00:01:33,940 He is the translator of The Life of the Buddha 2014 and Buddhist Meditation Classic Teachings from Tibet, 2024, both from Penguin Classics. 13 00:01:35,260 --> 00:01:39,980 He's also the author of Himalayan Hermitage Hermit Himalayan Hermits, 2004. 14 00:01:41,460 --> 00:01:44,860 Dreaming the Great Brahmin Tibetan Traditions of a Buddhist Poet Saint, 2005. 15 00:01:46,420 --> 00:01:49,700 The culture of the Book in Tibet, 2009, and several other books. 16 00:01:51,700 --> 00:01:55,340 Curtis specialises in the narrative and poetic literatures of Buddhism in Tibet, 17 00:01:55,780 --> 00:02:01,400 India and the Himalayan Buddhist Kingdom of Bhutan, and more broadly in the literary and religious cultures of Buddhism. 18 00:02:02,560 --> 00:02:07,040 He regularly conducts research in Bhutan, Nepal, India, China, and Tibet. 19 00:02:08,040 --> 00:02:12,240 He has also served as president of BRC, the Buddhist Digital Resource Centre. 20 00:02:13,360 --> 00:02:17,600 So, Curtis, many thanks for taking the time to speak to our seminar. And over to you. 21 00:02:18,960 --> 00:02:26,840 Thank you. Rob, it's a real pleasure to be here. It's an honour and I want to thank my host and thank all of you for being here today. 22 00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:37,080 Uh, I have a presentation. It's essentially about one text today, but I've tried to extend it out to create some context for that text. 23 00:02:37,440 --> 00:02:43,360 And the text will simply refer to as the 11 Acts of Padmasambhava or the 11 Acts. 24 00:02:44,240 --> 00:02:58,140 And this is some a text that we've known about for about a hundred years, and it was considered lost and was not available to us until 2012, but I. 25 00:02:58,980 --> 00:03:01,220 I at least I certainly didn't notice it in 2012. 26 00:03:02,020 --> 00:03:09,700 And it wasn't until several years later that I, um, that I came across a different manuscript version of it and realised, oh, 27 00:03:09,900 --> 00:03:19,540 this is very interesting and probably worth inserting into the broader conversation about, um, narratives dedicated to Padmasambhava. 28 00:03:21,540 --> 00:03:25,500 Um, this is the second thing I've done about this text. 29 00:03:26,180 --> 00:03:33,540 The first one is listed here. Uh, it came out in 2023, so there's material there that I won't talk about today. 30 00:03:33,900 --> 00:03:37,980 So if you're interested in that, you can go find that. 31 00:03:38,500 --> 00:03:41,780 I will say this is a very text dense presentation. 32 00:03:42,740 --> 00:03:51,460 So I'm so happy and grateful that Rob and Cathy and company have been putting these up as freely available, 33 00:03:52,900 --> 00:03:58,640 uh, um, video presentation so you can go and grab all the BRC numbers if you like. 34 00:03:58,960 --> 00:04:04,560 So what am I going to do today? Let's see here, um, an outline of the talk. 35 00:04:04,800 --> 00:04:07,800 First I'm going to talk about the the texts, the Bhutan manuscript, 36 00:04:08,600 --> 00:04:14,280 the manuscript and a modern edition that we have of probably one of those two manuscripts. 37 00:04:15,520 --> 00:04:18,880 Uh, I will give you an overview of the 11 acts. 38 00:04:19,600 --> 00:04:26,680 I'll give you an example of an act. We'll read, um, probably part of chapter six of the 11 acts. 39 00:04:27,600 --> 00:04:29,640 We'll talk a little bit about basic narrative structures, 40 00:04:30,280 --> 00:04:35,920 and then I'll have some comments really more than a side, because I haven't theorised it sufficiently. 41 00:04:36,920 --> 00:04:40,120 The many names of Padmasambhava, which are important for this text. 42 00:04:40,880 --> 00:04:48,400 I'll talk about contexts. Um, this is probably where we'll spend the most time today looking at our author, Guru Chong's, 43 00:04:49,600 --> 00:04:54,840 uh, two other two of his other major collections, the so-called Autobiography and Instructions. 44 00:04:55,520 --> 00:05:06,540 And then his Monte Carlo Shenmue, where we find lots of interesting relationships between our central text and other writings by Guru Guru Chong. 45 00:05:07,620 --> 00:05:16,580 We'll do some comparisons. We'll look at the Katanga, the act names in particular, and this is probably already familiar to you. 46 00:05:16,700 --> 00:05:26,700 But from to many of you, from Lewis Donnie's writings, especially his article in the Brill's Encyclopaedia of Buddhism on Padmasambhava, 47 00:05:28,180 --> 00:05:33,260 um, I'll make glancing reference to the Katong, but honestly, not as much as I should have. 48 00:05:34,380 --> 00:05:39,540 Um, and then we'll look a little bit in some detail at Sungai Lepas surrogate trauma, 49 00:05:40,540 --> 00:05:49,580 and looked at the way at least one writer integrated episodes from Guru Chong's 11 acts into the his own work. 50 00:05:49,940 --> 00:05:51,860 And then we'll look at some next steps, 51 00:05:52,180 --> 00:06:00,040 possible next steps for thinking about how we might want to integrate this work into our broader collective research about group narratives. 52 00:06:01,240 --> 00:06:03,240 Looking fat. Forward and backward in time. 53 00:06:03,800 --> 00:06:12,240 Looking outward to other narrative traditions, and then maybe looking regionally to the extent that, um, um, records allow us to do as well. 54 00:06:12,800 --> 00:06:24,120 So let's talk about the text a little bit. Um, the reason I got into this is because in 2015, I was at the National Library in Bhutan, 55 00:06:24,960 --> 00:06:30,000 where they had a set of hard drives containing scans that Carmen. 56 00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:35,040 And then it was Arcadia, primarily in Arcadia project. 57 00:06:35,440 --> 00:06:44,320 And now we all know it as Endangered Archives program. Um, they had a complete set, um, ostensibly complete set of the work that they had done, 58 00:06:44,680 --> 00:06:51,360 and they were kind enough to make the catalogue available and some of those resources available. 59 00:06:52,040 --> 00:06:56,460 So the scan that I that got me into this whole thing. 60 00:06:57,420 --> 00:07:01,620 Is currently located in the National Library of Bhutan, or at least it was in 2015. 61 00:07:02,420 --> 00:07:06,260 I'm honestly not 100% sure where those digital files are now. 62 00:07:07,420 --> 00:07:17,660 Um, although we have many works on the EAP site, um, uh, from Kaman work and his team's work. 63 00:07:18,460 --> 00:07:21,900 This one does not appear to be part of the current online offerings. 64 00:07:22,820 --> 00:07:26,940 Um, you can correct me if if I'm wrong about that. I've not been able to find it. 65 00:07:27,860 --> 00:07:33,300 Uh, so that's one. And we'll look at that in a second. And again, we'll look at one image of it. 66 00:07:33,500 --> 00:07:36,540 And it's 74 folios long. It's located. 67 00:07:37,620 --> 00:07:40,700 It was located at the time of scanning in uh portrait monastery. 68 00:07:41,420 --> 00:07:45,060 The, the manuscript itself the south of Paro in Bhutan. 69 00:07:46,220 --> 00:07:51,140 The next one we have is a Khan manuscript. I'm not exactly sure when this one became available to us. 70 00:07:51,700 --> 00:07:56,480 Probably in the late teens. Um, and, um. 71 00:07:57,560 --> 00:08:00,680 Uh, it's a shorter, more densely written work. 72 00:08:00,880 --> 00:08:02,920 We'll see it in a second. This is available on BBC. 73 00:08:03,760 --> 00:08:18,480 It was, um, part of, um, US Aids, uh, of funding that was so instrumental in Bach's work in China throughout the tens and teens. 74 00:08:19,040 --> 00:08:22,720 It's part of a personal collection, and there's not a whole lot of, uh, 75 00:08:22,920 --> 00:08:28,880 data about the nature of this collection on the PRC site, so I don't actually know that much about it. 76 00:08:29,120 --> 00:08:32,720 And as we'll see, if we look at the image of it in a second, there's annotations, 77 00:08:34,240 --> 00:08:38,000 um, periodically inserted throughout that text as well, especially at the beginning. 78 00:08:38,640 --> 00:08:46,920 And then finally we have a modern edition, um, in 2012, this work, probably in addition of the manuscript, 79 00:08:47,600 --> 00:08:53,460 was published by Ludovico Um in his Katong children make good jump. 80 00:08:53,740 --> 00:08:57,260 Georgie makes a beautiful collection of Tang like material. 81 00:08:58,140 --> 00:09:13,820 It was, I believe, the last of seven volumes that he published between 2007 and 2012 on various more or less well known narratives of scripture. 82 00:09:15,500 --> 00:09:23,420 Um, the Bedok numbers are there for all of those, so you can go find those if you like, and you can go back to the slide and go grab all of them. 83 00:09:23,620 --> 00:09:31,700 So it's a great collection and a good, um, if we can talk about if we could talk about it this way, 84 00:09:31,940 --> 00:09:36,100 a sort of one stop shopping for a lot of material, uh, narrative material. 85 00:09:36,540 --> 00:09:43,380 So in short, right now, as far as I know, we have two manuscripts and one recent edition of the 11 acts. 86 00:09:44,140 --> 00:09:47,620 Here's the Baton manuscript. It's the kind of plain manuscript. 87 00:09:48,300 --> 00:09:55,440 So if you if you've looked at handwritten, Uyen Bhutanese manuscripts much? 88 00:09:56,120 --> 00:09:59,520 You'll this will look familiar to you. Um. 89 00:10:00,440 --> 00:10:04,520 It's a simple manuscript. Um, the writing is very clean. 90 00:10:04,960 --> 00:10:13,400 The spelling is terrible, though. And in fact, what I've had to do to, um, to work through the terrible spelling is go over to logic. 91 00:10:13,760 --> 00:10:22,840 Guangzhou's edition of of of the manuscripts that he had at his disposal to get the spelling right. 92 00:10:23,040 --> 00:10:26,360 Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it's not. Um, this text. 93 00:10:27,400 --> 00:10:31,080 Um, this manuscript witness never met an accounting it didn't like. 94 00:10:31,320 --> 00:10:35,280 If you could stick an Chung in someplace where there shouldn't be an Chung, this one does it. 95 00:10:35,920 --> 00:10:39,840 So it's a it's, um, orthographically, it's, um. 96 00:10:40,440 --> 00:10:49,400 It's challenging, let's say. Okay, here's the manuscript. Um, you can see those red interlinear notes. 97 00:10:50,300 --> 00:10:53,580 Those are really thick at the beginning and they kind of Peter out towards the end. 98 00:10:53,780 --> 00:10:58,180 It has a much longer title. Um, my initial sense. 99 00:10:58,940 --> 00:11:03,620 I've not done a full edition of the two texts, although I think it's in the long run, 100 00:11:03,980 --> 00:11:11,540 probably merited, because I think what we're looking at is to fairly distinct, um, textual histories. 101 00:11:12,580 --> 00:11:21,220 Um, and I think we might get some we might be able to, um, uh, reverse engineer, um, 102 00:11:21,620 --> 00:11:26,020 the long history of this work, if we look at what I'm, what I think of now as the. 103 00:11:26,140 --> 00:11:30,180 Com tradition and the Bhutan tradition, but that's work I really haven't done yet. 104 00:11:30,460 --> 00:11:32,820 So. And then finally, here's the modern edition. 105 00:11:33,140 --> 00:11:44,380 If you look down on the lower third of that, you'll see the smaller Tibetan font where Gazzo has um, um represented the interlinear notes. 106 00:11:45,020 --> 00:11:50,160 Again, I assume, of the the Kham manuscript that we're looking at, but it could certainly be another one too. 107 00:11:50,480 --> 00:11:57,600 That's related anyway. Llodra Gateaux is much closer, let's say, to the manuscript than the Bhutanese manuscript. 108 00:11:58,400 --> 00:12:03,560 Okay, let's go to an overview of some of the themes and context of the work. 109 00:12:04,400 --> 00:12:08,000 Um, uh, in the Baton manuscript, I believe also in the common manuscripts. 110 00:12:09,080 --> 00:12:12,240 The work represents itself as the work of the founders, so to speak. 111 00:12:13,480 --> 00:12:20,040 And it says towards the end of the work, Queen May took to her this great chronicle, or again directly from Oregon, and wrote it down. 112 00:12:20,960 --> 00:12:24,480 The Tibetan Chronicle Chogyal heard directly from him and wrote it down. 113 00:12:25,080 --> 00:12:30,800 When he was 3500 years old, he went to Tibet, and he stayed at Sameer for between 23 and 25 years. 114 00:12:31,200 --> 00:12:38,120 And then there's a lineage. This is an excerpt at the beginning of a much longer lineage that takes the work basically up to, 115 00:12:38,520 --> 00:12:42,520 I think, more or less when the manuscript was described in Bhutan, 116 00:12:42,960 --> 00:12:50,020 I think, um, I made an initial stab at that list of names in the article I referred to at the beginning of this talk, 117 00:12:50,300 --> 00:12:56,060 and Kathy already started to help me out. Um, coming up, trying to identify some of those other names. 118 00:12:56,380 --> 00:12:59,740 So this is work that requires more effort. 119 00:13:00,020 --> 00:13:04,900 But if we look at this lineage, um, we see that it has, in its own estimation, 120 00:13:05,700 --> 00:13:13,100 a cosmic origin from Samantabhadra, uh, down through Guru Rinpoche himself to Tokyo Tristen Davison. 121 00:13:13,620 --> 00:13:20,180 And then finally to make a quick jump, um, from Tristen Jason to Choki Wangchuk himself. 122 00:13:20,700 --> 00:13:29,140 So clearly one of the ways in which, um, uh, Kuang authorises this work is to say I was there. 123 00:13:29,860 --> 00:13:33,620 I was there back in the day, the 11 acts themselves. 124 00:13:34,780 --> 00:13:38,660 We'll look at them through various in various ways over the course of the. 125 00:13:41,740 --> 00:13:44,900 Presentation. But let's get started. Here's an opening. 126 00:13:45,860 --> 00:13:51,040 Uh, here's some opening verses from the the 11 acts itself, the text, the 11 acts. 127 00:13:52,200 --> 00:13:55,320 It's the same in the Bhutan and the manuscript, with some. 128 00:13:57,960 --> 00:13:59,040 Minor orthographic differences. 129 00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:05,760 Son in whom are gathered all of the good acts and qualities of the three bodies of all the victors throughout space and time. 130 00:14:06,200 --> 00:14:10,240 Organ. Padmasambhava, you are the peerless lord of the three times in this world. 131 00:14:10,760 --> 00:14:16,240 Indisputably renowned from the Buddha's word as an emanation. It is difficult to present your story in full. 132 00:14:16,800 --> 00:14:27,080 Still, if I relate a brief story of his enlightenment, as I have heard, the 11 acts of the victors are these one. 133 00:14:27,560 --> 00:14:32,960 The intention to civilise the beings two. Entry into the lotus womb three. 134 00:14:33,400 --> 00:14:36,760 Spontaneous birth four. Playing as a prince five. 135 00:14:37,480 --> 00:14:41,360 Ordination six. Mental and physical training seven. 136 00:14:42,160 --> 00:14:45,950 Taming demon hordes seven. Enlightenment as a Buddha. 137 00:14:46,750 --> 00:14:49,750 Nine or excuse me eight. Enlightenment is a Buddha nine. 138 00:14:50,350 --> 00:14:54,070 Turning the Wheel of Dharma ten. Ascetic practices 11. 139 00:14:54,550 --> 00:15:06,950 Hiding treasures to enhance the Buddhist teachings. And then immediately following that verse is a classic, um, evocation of the cult of the book. 140 00:15:07,190 --> 00:15:14,870 Whoever sees or hears or writes or shows to others, or against brief life story explained here will be born in the land of bliss. 141 00:15:15,430 --> 00:15:22,710 Whoever devotes themselves to this and its and practices, its intent will doubtless be a Buddha with an excelled enlightenment. 142 00:15:23,670 --> 00:15:31,110 And if this looks familiar to you, um, you may have read it some in some other text, but you may also have read it in Louis Dan's article. 143 00:15:31,990 --> 00:15:37,510 We'll get back to that, okay, because we'll use this as a point of comparison to at least one later text. 144 00:15:38,030 --> 00:15:41,710 But let's think about just briefly and we can talk about this more. 145 00:15:41,910 --> 00:15:55,530 I hope we can talk about this more. How we might start to see these 11 acts as enacting a larger set of, let's say, theological and narrative themes. 146 00:15:55,850 --> 00:16:02,010 So here's one way that I thought about it. And clearly I'm thinking about Buddha narratives in 12 acts here. 147 00:16:02,330 --> 00:16:06,730 So perhaps we can put, um, acts one and two, 148 00:16:06,970 --> 00:16:15,610 the intention of civilised beings and the entry into the lotus essence womb into a category we might call pre incarnation under pre renunciation. 149 00:16:16,730 --> 00:16:25,690 We might say, um, we should include spontaneous birth in Dona Scotia and then playing as a prince, um, five, 150 00:16:26,050 --> 00:16:30,970 six and seven we might conceive of as a single larger set on renunciation and training, 151 00:16:31,850 --> 00:16:38,250 ordination, mental and physical training, taming demons up to gods and up to the enlightenment. 152 00:16:39,570 --> 00:16:43,910 And then finally a teaching period, using all the paths to turn the wheel of Dharma everywhere, 153 00:16:44,550 --> 00:16:48,750 undertaking ascetic practices of all sorts and hiding treasures of the Buddhist teachings. 154 00:16:49,310 --> 00:16:53,590 These are all from the chapter titles. And these are. These are more or less the chapter titles. 155 00:16:53,990 --> 00:17:03,870 So if we go to the slide before I have this quick version from the opening verses of the 11 acts, which does not name places, 156 00:17:04,430 --> 00:17:13,910 and it's a little bit more tightly expressed, but if we go here, we start to see how the chapter titles themselves, um, describe their contents. 157 00:17:15,790 --> 00:17:24,270 Um, so one of the most fascinating parts of this for me, and the part I would like to think more about, 158 00:17:25,030 --> 00:17:30,430 um, for myself and with all of you is its relationship to the 12 acts of the Buddha. 159 00:17:31,070 --> 00:17:38,230 I mean, one way to look at this very quickly is that we have a Lalita Vistara version of the life of the Buddha, 160 00:17:38,830 --> 00:17:42,590 which ends with the Buddhist teachings. It does not contain his death. 161 00:17:42,790 --> 00:17:42,790 Right? 162 00:17:42,990 --> 00:17:53,210 It was up to Tibetans to tack on whatever they felt was the appropriate death narrative after the teaching, because the law officer didn't have it. 163 00:17:53,490 --> 00:17:58,970 And so here we also grew up in this narrative set of 11 does not die, right? 164 00:18:00,250 --> 00:18:03,650 He teaches in the last act. Okay. 11 acts. 165 00:18:04,330 --> 00:18:14,410 Um, there are loosely two versions of the 11 acts, or two sets of 11 acts, one from India and one from Tibet. 166 00:18:15,690 --> 00:18:20,290 Um, we're dealing with the Indian one Guru Cho one's dealing with the Indian one. 167 00:18:20,650 --> 00:18:28,970 And, uh, Oregon Lingpa tells us that there was a set of 11, um, that were all about guru guru. 168 00:18:29,210 --> 00:18:35,210 And he's working on that as well. Um, so but they really they're kind of different. 169 00:18:35,770 --> 00:18:50,710 They're kind of different beasts. Um, uh, in the beginning of the Katanga, Says, um, yes, there's a set of 11 acts in India, but go. 170 00:18:50,910 --> 00:18:51,710 Lookouts were for those. 171 00:18:52,230 --> 00:19:01,470 But here are 11 acts in Tibet, and he gives them to you in a very nice, concise order in the opening moments of the laundry Khotang. 172 00:19:02,670 --> 00:19:10,350 Um, but he doesn't actualise them in a very specific way throughout the Katanga, at least not to my initial read. 173 00:19:11,190 --> 00:19:24,830 So we find these acts, um, starting out to be pretty tightly woven into the narratives of the Katanga, but then they get looser as they go on. 174 00:19:26,030 --> 00:19:32,350 Um, so my thought here is that this notion of 11 is a it's a productive rubric. 175 00:19:33,430 --> 00:19:39,630 Um, and we'll see. There are other, um, numbers of sets of acts that Dru Chong in particular also worked with. 176 00:19:40,470 --> 00:19:43,610 Um, and we have this in at least two cycles, right? 177 00:19:43,810 --> 00:19:51,690 An Indian cycle and a Tibetan cycle. I can't say that I found the 11 acts in Tibet anywhere in corpus. 178 00:19:52,250 --> 00:20:01,410 It doesn't mean it's not there. It just means I haven't come across yet. Okay. Let me give you just a little example of of a chapter now. 179 00:20:02,770 --> 00:20:08,970 Um, this is, uh, undertaking various ascetic practices in the snows and in mountain retreat. 180 00:20:10,090 --> 00:20:15,650 Um, it does have a place listed in the chapter. I'll say snowy lands, mountain retreat. 181 00:20:16,970 --> 00:20:20,890 Um, but he's only on a single place here. I think he's only on a single place here. 182 00:20:21,130 --> 00:20:27,570 So let me read a little bit. I won't read the whole thing, but I'll stop on each slide so you can go back and read it, uh, if you like. 183 00:20:27,970 --> 00:20:33,770 Later, then the great monk or again, shaky singer. So note that I've highlighted the name here. 184 00:20:34,050 --> 00:20:39,330 There's a lot of names in this chapter. Um, and this is a hallmark of this work, 185 00:20:39,610 --> 00:20:48,670 like other groups narrative material is that when he does something really amazing at a particular place for a particular audience, 186 00:20:49,390 --> 00:20:57,030 he gets a new name. So showcasing a thought, even if one is all knowing and exalted, if one does not make it a part of one's experience, 187 00:20:57,870 --> 00:21:03,510 then one returns empty handed from an island of jewels while taking the teachings into his experience. 188 00:21:04,110 --> 00:21:12,230 Resolve obstacles such as being distracted by food or fashion, and to launch the ship of the body, which liberates one upon the sea of samsara. 189 00:21:13,150 --> 00:21:15,230 He undertook ascetic practices and alchemy. 190 00:21:16,190 --> 00:21:22,630 This chapter ends up to be in great part about his alchemical skill, the development of his alchemical skill. 191 00:21:23,830 --> 00:21:29,070 He emanated on the peak of Dakota and stayed in a place made of stacked rows of light. 192 00:21:30,230 --> 00:21:36,310 He undertook all types of ascetic practices and alchemy, in which his body was firm and controlled in a state of detachment. 193 00:21:37,310 --> 00:21:41,930 He practised every water based aesthetic and alchemical practice which clarify wisdom. 194 00:21:42,570 --> 00:21:46,690 He practised every kind of fire based aesthetic and alchemical practice which. 195 00:21:49,930 --> 00:21:54,570 Produce heat and make clothing unnecessary. He also practised every kind of wind. 196 00:21:55,890 --> 00:22:05,730 Let's see. What am I going to do? Sorry. Uh, wind and aesthetic and chemical practice, which produce strength and fast walking over the land. 197 00:22:06,290 --> 00:22:12,690 He practised every kind of sky based ascetic and alchemical practice in which taking the sky as food increases one's lifespan, 198 00:22:13,690 --> 00:22:19,490 lifespan and understanding. At this time, he was called by the named Dana Roper, maybe playing in bliss. 199 00:22:20,370 --> 00:22:24,010 He practised every kind of aesthetic and alchemical practice involving the Five Nectars, 200 00:22:24,690 --> 00:22:33,650 where they pacify negative spirits with a self blazing blessing. He was known by the name Tommy Haruka, who goes for alms in the cemetery, you know. 201 00:22:33,970 --> 00:22:38,310 Likewise, he practised all green. As an alchemy. I'm going to summarise a little bit here. 202 00:22:38,670 --> 00:22:42,190 There he was known as Zico cow man. 203 00:22:43,190 --> 00:22:47,990 Um, he practised poisoned based alchemy. He was named birria number two. 204 00:22:48,750 --> 00:22:56,190 Yeah. Um, he had a variety of alchemical practices that gave him the name Mitra Dama. 205 00:22:57,190 --> 00:23:07,630 Yeah. Um, and again, with Pima Gwangju, he undertook the alchemical and ascetic practices of water skill, 206 00:23:07,990 --> 00:23:13,950 alchemy or detox or slash ion alchemy and Eye-Opening alchemy. 207 00:23:14,350 --> 00:23:19,510 And he became known as Renkin Ningbo. You can see a variation on a theme here. 208 00:23:20,470 --> 00:23:24,150 Uh, there's some narrative structure that emerges in chapter six. 209 00:23:25,190 --> 00:23:34,470 Um, he undertakes a certain practice. Uh, he achieves a certain result through using the various materials of that practice. 210 00:23:35,070 --> 00:23:40,050 And for that, he gets a new name later in the chapter. 211 00:23:41,210 --> 00:23:46,610 He, um. Um. He receives notice of the of the gods above. 212 00:23:47,050 --> 00:23:50,410 So at this time, medicine Lord Buddha, Vader, a light appeared. 213 00:23:51,210 --> 00:23:56,450 The Buddha granted a full container of nectar to Padmasambhava, who drank half for long and expansive life. 214 00:23:56,690 --> 00:24:01,130 The Buddha concealed half a container full in an auspicious collection stupa made of crystal, 215 00:24:01,570 --> 00:24:05,850 and when the Buddha offered it to Padmasambhava, he was known by the name payment se mudra. 216 00:24:06,370 --> 00:24:13,250 So not only does Rinpoche do the work himself, he also receives blessings from, in this case, the Medicine Buddha, 217 00:24:13,650 --> 00:24:23,170 and then he receives praise towards the end of the chapter by Brahma and other gods who are called Rishis in this case, 218 00:24:23,730 --> 00:24:31,530 and they offer praise to him and he receives a new name because of that as well. 219 00:24:32,010 --> 00:24:35,730 So that's a whole chapter right there. So you can go back and review that. 220 00:24:35,970 --> 00:24:43,230 There's chapter two, I believe is, um, I have a translation of that in the article that I mentioned at the beginning of the talk. 221 00:24:43,430 --> 00:24:49,870 So right now, as far as I know, there's two chapters that are available to you in English, uh, if you want to go look at those. 222 00:24:50,590 --> 00:24:59,390 Okay. So let's, um, let's step out a little bit, um, uh, and start to get some other topics on the table. 223 00:25:00,870 --> 00:25:05,790 Um, there are ten names in chapter six, and they were all great in, you know, um, 224 00:25:06,910 --> 00:25:12,670 my most recent count suggests that there's about 100 names, uh, in this work as a whole. 225 00:25:13,670 --> 00:25:23,030 I don't know how that compares to the, um, um, to the tongue, probably some of, you know, um, but there's also a lot of names there too. 226 00:25:23,310 --> 00:25:28,190 So this is, you know, great. Um, um, piece by piece work to do. 227 00:25:28,390 --> 00:25:38,730 I think we might benefit in some measure, uh, from doing a more careful comparison of names in the development of names from the song forward. 228 00:25:40,970 --> 00:25:44,170 Um just for to to. 229 00:25:44,570 --> 00:25:49,530 To glance at that process. Um, we can use Lewis Donnie's work. 230 00:25:49,890 --> 00:25:55,410 There's a great column in 2000, Donny 2014, page 95, column A, which I love. 231 00:25:55,810 --> 00:25:59,690 I love it that it's there. Um, and he lists 12 names in the song. 232 00:26:00,530 --> 00:26:09,530 So, um, one of the things we might suggest is that there was an explosion of names between the, um, in general and Guru Chohan. 233 00:26:10,570 --> 00:26:16,170 The reason why and the how of it are all things that are still questions for me. 234 00:26:17,010 --> 00:26:26,690 Um, but does emerge, though, if we focus on names, is that there are a lot of groups of names, um, in throughout Guru Chong's work. 235 00:26:26,930 --> 00:26:30,290 And we'll start to move into, uh, Guru Chong's other works. 236 00:26:31,050 --> 00:26:34,790 Uh, here in in the next section of the talk, we have. 237 00:26:34,990 --> 00:26:42,110 For instance, in his autobiography and instructions, we have a praise in nine names to Guru and pray. 238 00:26:42,630 --> 00:26:47,630 We have a praise in 21 names. Autobiography. Second volume of the autobiography. 239 00:26:48,310 --> 00:26:59,710 We have a praise in 32 names. So these are all works that are in the same collection of praises and teachings and narratives authored by Guru Chong. 240 00:27:00,110 --> 00:27:12,230 So we can see that there's a proliferation names. It's not just limited to 12 or 11 or 100, but there are multiple groupings and it may be useful. 241 00:27:12,790 --> 00:27:14,510 It may be interesting, um, 242 00:27:15,310 --> 00:27:25,110 to be a little bit more systematic about how those might relate to each other and to the earliest strata of names that we can find. 243 00:27:25,990 --> 00:27:30,190 Okay. Let's move to context. Um, for by context, I mean literary context. 244 00:27:30,910 --> 00:27:37,490 And I want to look at two collections. I want to look at Guru Cho Wong's so-called autobiography instructions. 245 00:27:38,690 --> 00:27:43,730 This is where the famous Trojan camel is in. But there's much more to this work. 246 00:27:44,650 --> 00:27:53,490 Um, and by my count, we can find three instances of the 11 acts, um, in this two volume collection. 247 00:27:54,530 --> 00:27:57,610 That's one of Groucho collections that we'll look at. 248 00:27:57,730 --> 00:28:00,850 And the second one is just Monty com boom HMO, The Big Book of Money. 249 00:28:02,330 --> 00:28:10,770 Um, together. I think these make a really nice set with the the Groucho Wong's work, the 11 acts and moving forward. 250 00:28:11,890 --> 00:28:15,850 Um, my intention is to read them as a as a kind of a triad. 251 00:28:16,290 --> 00:28:23,490 I think they go together quite well. Um, and I hope to give you some examples of why I think that, um, in the following. 252 00:28:24,250 --> 00:28:29,690 Okay. Let's look. I'm going to give you a 2 or 3 examples from the autobiography and instructions. 253 00:28:30,850 --> 00:28:35,110 Um, this was the title autobiography and Instructions was the name that was given 254 00:28:35,430 --> 00:28:39,590 to this collection in 1979 when it was published in the PL 40 collection. 255 00:28:40,790 --> 00:28:47,750 Um, and that's a fine brief summary of it, I suppose. 256 00:28:48,150 --> 00:28:56,710 But there's so much in here and a systematic approach to the structure and contents of this really repay a lot for the study. 257 00:28:57,390 --> 00:29:12,230 Um, not just of, um, of revelation, not just of, um, of money practice, but of Guru Rinpoche himself, too, because he really suffuses the work. 258 00:29:14,310 --> 00:29:21,550 Um, so first we're going to look at a praise poem to the 11 acts of the, uh, of guru. 259 00:29:21,830 --> 00:29:26,470 And, and this is one of 15 to our praise poems to Guru Vijay. 260 00:29:27,190 --> 00:29:37,890 And these 15 collectively make up um chapter eight um uh out of 19, in a longer collection within the autobiography instructions. 261 00:29:39,410 --> 00:29:45,370 Um, uh, and this is really the kind of beauty and challenge of this collection, 262 00:29:45,850 --> 00:29:51,970 the autobiography and instructions is the way that small works are nested into larger chapters, 263 00:29:52,490 --> 00:29:57,210 which are in turn nested into larger works, which form, I think, 264 00:29:57,450 --> 00:30:03,530 a structured whole that we should really reflect on, um, more than we've done in current scholarly literature. 265 00:30:04,210 --> 00:30:11,970 Okay. I'm going to give you three verses out of the 11 and, um, um, and we can move on from there. 266 00:30:12,170 --> 00:30:15,530 Okay. The first one. So each verse has a name. 267 00:30:16,610 --> 00:30:22,170 Um, it's got an act. Does it have a and most of them have a place, I think, where the act happens. 268 00:30:22,490 --> 00:30:26,850 So here's number one to load and say, yeah. Um, and what's the point of this verse? 269 00:30:27,210 --> 00:30:33,470 He's making the intention to civilise, um, living beings. And if you recall back from the beginning of the talk. 270 00:30:34,030 --> 00:30:44,710 The first act in the 11 acts, in the narrative work, the 11 acts, was in fact this very act, the intention to civilise living beings. 271 00:30:45,830 --> 00:30:53,670 Amitabha. Amitabha. Compassion. Rousing from the open space of the Samantabhadra body of reality to civilised people. 272 00:30:54,230 --> 00:30:58,390 He kindly thought to emanate as a son of the victor in the land of Oregon to Loden. 273 00:30:58,790 --> 00:31:08,030 Chukchi. Chukchi who wondrously aimed to civilise living beings. I pray and offer praise to Padma Vajra existing for the good of living beings. 274 00:31:08,390 --> 00:31:15,350 This is a little variation on the act. Number two, actually on the peak of a lotus stalk on the island of Kusha. 275 00:31:16,270 --> 00:31:20,190 Not born through a mother and father, he sits on a lotus amid flower, 276 00:31:20,710 --> 00:31:24,990 the vajra and Hari to Padma Vajra, who wondrously lived for the benefit of beings. 277 00:31:25,350 --> 00:31:32,570 I pray and offer praise. And then finally, number three, a Jew name Self rising birth on the 15th day of the spring. 278 00:31:32,930 --> 00:31:38,410 Month of the spring of of the monkey year, a flower bloomed in the dawning sun. 279 00:31:38,650 --> 00:31:45,890 And a glorious Buddha, a glorious Buddha. Padma was born to a genie who wondrously conceived the self arising birth. 280 00:31:46,170 --> 00:31:50,650 I pray and offer of praise. So there's eight more six line verses to continue this full set. 281 00:31:51,730 --> 00:31:55,010 Um, and these largely align with the seven acts. 282 00:31:55,210 --> 00:32:01,850 So here's our most, um, maybe compelling evidence for, um, the the narrative work, 283 00:32:02,170 --> 00:32:11,090 the 11 acts being related in a very specific way to a poem, in the autobiographical autobiography and instructions. 284 00:32:13,450 --> 00:32:19,770 Let's look at another one. Um, we're going to move a little bit farther afield from the 11 acts. 285 00:32:20,050 --> 00:32:23,770 Two kind of acts in general, but I think that this is probably, um, 286 00:32:23,970 --> 00:32:30,070 a useful thing to do in terms of trying to imagine the the broader range of creativity 287 00:32:30,710 --> 00:32:35,310 or perhaps resources and narrative structures that grew Chuong was working with. 288 00:32:36,070 --> 00:32:50,030 So in this recollection, um, uh, prayer um, he he's remembering things that, uh, are recalling things that happened in his life. 289 00:32:51,030 --> 00:32:56,470 And this represents, I would say, a variation on the set of 11 acts. 290 00:32:56,790 --> 00:33:03,430 And we have eight acts here. So in these eight we have coming to his earth, coming to this earth as an emanation body. 291 00:33:04,350 --> 00:33:07,630 Um, his distinctive liberation story working for the benefit of being. 292 00:33:07,870 --> 00:33:12,110 You'll see it's variation on a theme here. Teachings of this secret compassion treasure. 293 00:33:12,830 --> 00:33:18,630 Meeting him in dreams in accordance with treasure and Scripture. Meeting him in contemplative visions in accordance with treasure and Scripture. 294 00:33:19,350 --> 00:33:28,690 Civilising demons while staying in Tibet. So, unlike the 11 Acts narrative work in this recollection prayer we move into Tibet. 295 00:33:29,930 --> 00:33:33,370 And then finally a prayer to recollect him all the time and in every situation. 296 00:33:34,650 --> 00:33:41,530 This is a medium size. Um uh um uh, um, recollection prayer. 297 00:33:41,810 --> 00:33:47,930 So here's just a section of it, just to give you a little taste of what this prayer looks like. 298 00:33:48,770 --> 00:33:54,530 Dwelling is an emanation body in India at the northwest corner of Oregon and the Lake of Akasha, in the centre of a lotus stalk. 299 00:33:55,090 --> 00:33:58,210 An emanation body of limitless appearances whose essence is great compassion. 300 00:33:58,930 --> 00:34:04,570 He is famed as Lotus. Born for eight years, he acted like a young, like a child. 301 00:34:04,890 --> 00:34:09,370 His complexion was brilliant, like a lotus. He fulfilled all needs and desires like a wishing gem. 302 00:34:09,970 --> 00:34:14,610 Born into a miraculous emanation body, he was enthroned as the son of a king. 303 00:34:15,450 --> 00:34:19,770 Relatively familiar material to to to many of us. 304 00:34:20,690 --> 00:34:32,910 And this set of eight chapters could be marked on, I think, with a high degree of specificity to the 11 acts, 305 00:34:33,150 --> 00:34:38,830 even though we're looking at a set of eight, um, scenes rather than 11 scenes. 306 00:34:39,430 --> 00:34:43,310 He maintained both political and religious affairs and fulfilled 11 acts. 307 00:34:43,550 --> 00:34:52,510 So in this prayer, um, in this eight chapter prayer, he does mention specifically the 11 acts to like and here this is really important here, right? 308 00:34:52,910 --> 00:34:56,270 He maintained both political and religious affairs and fulfilled 11 acts. 309 00:34:56,550 --> 00:35:01,950 And here I think he's really showing something like Lord Siddhartha, we should recollect him now as a peerless master. 310 00:35:02,430 --> 00:35:11,110 So I think he doesn't actually say, I got the 11 acts from the 12 acts of the Buddha or somebody before me did. 311 00:35:11,550 --> 00:35:15,910 But, um, in quick succession he's saying, look, this, these, these. 312 00:35:16,310 --> 00:35:20,070 This is a cogent way to think about, uh, Guru Jay's narrative in 11 acts. 313 00:35:20,390 --> 00:35:30,010 And we should think of him like we do the Buddha, and we should engage in recollection recollection practices as we do. 314 00:35:31,370 --> 00:35:43,010 But I think there's a close relationship, at least implied here in Guru Wong's text between guru 11 acts and Shakyamuni 12 acts. 315 00:35:43,690 --> 00:35:52,890 Again, this is another thing that we might, um, dig into, um, uh, more to see what kind of relationships we might come up with. 316 00:35:53,850 --> 00:35:58,570 Um, between the life of the Buddha, um, conceived of as a 12 act narrative, 317 00:35:59,570 --> 00:36:05,570 the life of guru and the various sets of acts in the autobiography and instructions. 318 00:36:06,210 --> 00:36:10,730 Okay. Final one for the autobiography. Autobiography and instructions. Um, dreams. 319 00:36:11,530 --> 00:36:16,930 This is a related set of eight names and places that occurs in the autobiography instructions. 320 00:36:17,770 --> 00:36:21,770 This is in the Chung uh Nam Lama, a dream account. 321 00:36:23,450 --> 00:36:32,990 Um, these are dream meetings with Guru and Pichai in various manifestations, and they're organised in a three fold seam outer, inner in secret. 322 00:36:33,990 --> 00:36:38,790 Each of those has its own narrative movement, and it's in the inner, 323 00:36:39,230 --> 00:36:47,430 the inner set that we find the, um, the, the acts that look the most like the 11 acts. 324 00:36:47,790 --> 00:36:55,990 So inner guru defines as in accordance with treasure, prophecy, the story or nam Tara uses of Oregon, Padmasambhava and the places he stayed, 325 00:36:56,630 --> 00:37:05,150 along with symbolic dharma right locations and names in the inner category, which briefly outline the dream sequences. 326 00:37:06,390 --> 00:37:12,590 Um are included for each moment in the dream narrative, 327 00:37:13,070 --> 00:37:21,790 and then a longer explanation of the actual dream and the whole inner dream account is organised into, um, uh, ten chapters. 328 00:37:23,190 --> 00:37:27,090 And so in this narrative structure that we find in the dream accounts, 329 00:37:28,690 --> 00:37:34,890 it looks a lot like the narrative structure that we find in the 11 acts narrative. 330 00:37:35,410 --> 00:37:39,290 Padmasambhava, go someplace, he does something wonderful. 331 00:37:40,410 --> 00:37:44,010 He acquires some new superpower. Um, he's given a new identity. 332 00:37:44,890 --> 00:37:52,090 The difference is in the dream account here. Graham Chong goes there, and he actually interacts with Padmasambhava in the midst of an act. 333 00:37:52,450 --> 00:38:00,890 And, um. And then Padmasambhava uses that same word, um, to introduce the signs and their meeting the dun tree. 334 00:38:01,690 --> 00:38:06,330 Um, um, um, excuse me. 335 00:38:06,450 --> 00:38:12,490 Pardon of a given teaching to him. So, again, this is another place where we might want to do more systematic, um, 336 00:38:12,730 --> 00:38:17,610 work on the relationships between the narrative scenes in which Guru Chong inserts himself through, 337 00:38:18,610 --> 00:38:23,070 um, a dream account and his biographical work on Google. 338 00:38:23,830 --> 00:38:24,950 Now let's look at some names and places. 339 00:38:26,110 --> 00:38:39,350 Um, and, uh, my goal here is to just give you a sense that, um, there are, uh, names that we can collate, um, with in the dream account. 340 00:38:40,470 --> 00:38:46,870 Um, and, but that there are limits to that, very serious limits to that, because the places are going to be largely different, 341 00:38:47,150 --> 00:38:56,470 because if you start to look at this chart, these are the names and places, um, in of each of the eight chapters in the dream account, I believe. 342 00:38:56,710 --> 00:39:02,750 That's right. Ten chapters. Excuse me. Um, and we'll find most of these names in the main column. 343 00:39:03,190 --> 00:39:06,870 We will find those in the, um, 11 acts narrative work. 344 00:39:07,390 --> 00:39:13,550 But the places in the dream account are mostly about, um, mostly in Tibet, not exclusively, but mostly in Tibet. 345 00:39:13,830 --> 00:39:22,490 So Sameer, Sameer, Ramesh, um, um, um, etc., etc. but we get down to six, we find again two. 346 00:39:22,690 --> 00:39:30,770 True. Um, so we find some, um, South Asian imaginaire, uh, mixed in with Tibetan places as well. 347 00:39:31,090 --> 00:39:40,090 So again, um, one of the most interesting things of about trying to relate the 11 acts narrative with 348 00:39:40,330 --> 00:39:43,770 the material in the autobiography and the instructions was not 1 to 1 correspondences, 349 00:39:44,730 --> 00:39:55,250 but variations on a theme. Um, all of which I think will repay, will repay rereading and reassessment as we go along. 350 00:39:57,250 --> 00:40:06,930 Um, yeah. So one of the things I want to throw out there is maybe we consider that Wang authorises innovation through dreams and dream accounts. 351 00:40:07,610 --> 00:40:10,970 It's a big question that I'm not trying to answer at all here. 352 00:40:11,770 --> 00:40:15,690 Um, where the material in the 11 acts narrative comes from? 353 00:40:16,770 --> 00:40:18,690 Um, and we could talk about that more. 354 00:40:18,970 --> 00:40:27,030 Cathy's already given me wonderful thoughts about that and encourage both me and us collectively to look backwards. 355 00:40:27,550 --> 00:40:35,390 Now that we know what the 11 acts are, and we have access to a really slim narrative of the 11 acts in a way that we didn't before, 356 00:40:35,950 --> 00:40:37,670 we can go backwards and start to look at that. 357 00:40:38,670 --> 00:40:46,430 Um, if I'm looking, um, um, simultaneously in the corpus of Guru Guru Chong, I'm seeing a lot of variation, 358 00:40:47,590 --> 00:40:52,030 and it leads me to think that he's engaging in a lot of creativity right here. 359 00:40:52,470 --> 00:40:58,510 Is it new? Maybe not. Are they new? Um, organisations of pre-existing material? 360 00:40:59,350 --> 00:41:04,550 Maybe. Yeah. Okay, let's go to the, um, Monty Campbell memo. 361 00:41:05,790 --> 00:41:13,150 Um, the other main work that I wanted to, um, uh, draw your attention to. 362 00:41:13,470 --> 00:41:19,860 And this is much, uh, this is a much simpler story. Um, and basically, the money come from. 363 00:41:20,020 --> 00:41:27,580 Chimo contains the same praise poem as Groucho Wong's other collection, The Autobiography of Instructions Money Combo. 364 00:41:27,900 --> 00:41:33,580 Chimo is a set of 152 chapters, and give or take. 365 00:41:34,180 --> 00:41:39,700 Each of those chapters aligns a certain practice could be a prayer, could be a ritual, 366 00:41:40,500 --> 00:41:45,540 could be a narrative sequence with the practice of money recitation. 367 00:41:46,300 --> 00:41:49,260 So everything in the money combo is about money recitation, 368 00:41:49,980 --> 00:42:03,620 and it basically is a place where you could have a snapshot of dozens of different practices around in, um, 13th century Tibet. 369 00:42:04,100 --> 00:42:09,220 And you can relate all of them to this one single powerful practice of mani recitation. 370 00:42:09,900 --> 00:42:16,020 So and we find that the the 11 acts of Padmasambhava are integrated into this. 371 00:42:16,420 --> 00:42:21,520 So it's a very different context than we find it in the autobiography and instructions here. 372 00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:28,320 It basically says you do this prayer to the 11 acts of guru and you're doing morning prayer. 373 00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:38,400 So again, another iteration, another variation. But this one is more or less about the distinctive narrative elements than 374 00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:44,200 the distinctive practices that the 11 acts might be related to in his corpus. 375 00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:52,520 All right, let's on a little bit. I'm probably going to talk about ten more minutes, and then we'll open it up for questions and comments. 376 00:42:53,800 --> 00:43:00,080 Um, let's go to the place where many of you may well know the 11 acts from, and that's Oregon Lingua Katanga. 377 00:43:01,720 --> 00:43:08,280 Um, if we look at this chart here, we can see three things. One is my translation of the 11 acts chapter titles into English. 378 00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:14,520 On the left side, in the middle we have Guru Cho Wong's uh, um, the chapter titles. 379 00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:25,100 And then on the right side, we have the verse summary of the, uh, from the lumber, from the Katanga. 380 00:43:26,020 --> 00:43:33,900 And to make a long story short, we will see that they are identical and great notes in an overview of this passage, 381 00:43:35,020 --> 00:43:41,420 and some relationships to the other passages you can find in Louis Dan's 2019 article, 382 00:43:42,780 --> 00:43:45,060 which is really a great starting point for all of this material. 383 00:43:46,620 --> 00:43:54,660 Um, uh, one thing that might be different is that, or at least, um, more elaborate in one versus the other, 384 00:43:54,900 --> 00:44:05,100 is the chapter titles in Chuong often will list a place where the act happens, but in the Katanga, um, where those are removed. 385 00:44:05,700 --> 00:44:09,620 Right? Probably for verses of for reasons of verse concision. 386 00:44:10,100 --> 00:44:13,100 But you do lose some, some some some context. Right? 387 00:44:13,300 --> 00:44:16,400 You lose this imaginative, um, World. 388 00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:22,240 That group she acts within in Indian context. 389 00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:33,480 Okay. So, um, the you know, the short story there is that, um, there was a direct relationship between Guru Chung's work and, 390 00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:38,320 uh, organ linguist work, and we could see that now quite clearly. 391 00:44:39,720 --> 00:44:43,720 Could there have been an intermediary? Of course there could have. But at least we can say they're related now. 392 00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:48,400 Yeah. Um. Uh, or lenguas. 393 00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:56,600 Um, uh, Khotang, um, has many of these, um, uh, Indian acts, but they're divided in a very different way. 394 00:44:56,880 --> 00:45:04,080 And I initially thought I was going to do, um, a presentation about how the tongue, 395 00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:09,000 uh, relates to the 11 acts, but it proved to be too much for me right now. 396 00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:16,420 So maybe, maybe later. We'll see. Um, but Oregon Lingpa did a lot of creative work that, um, 397 00:45:17,140 --> 00:45:24,940 appears to know quite well of Gertrude Wang's 11 acts, but is not beholden to them for its structures. 398 00:45:27,380 --> 00:45:36,100 For example, the acts about the alchemical practice in act six that we looked at earlier in Guru Chong's 11 Acts. 399 00:45:36,660 --> 00:45:42,460 They appear to be only partially represented in the cartoon, and they're not formally called out in the same way. 400 00:45:43,420 --> 00:45:50,940 Um, they're just sort of they're, they're they're embedded within a chapter, which is, um, um, 401 00:45:51,340 --> 00:45:55,860 is expressing itself to be about something else besides the development of alchemical practices. 402 00:45:56,420 --> 00:45:58,340 So, um, I think he knew about the material. 403 00:45:59,140 --> 00:46:07,180 He used it, but the ways in which he edited it into his own vision of guru and his life are yet to be determined by me at least. 404 00:46:07,580 --> 00:46:12,700 Okay, let's move to one more example. And that's Sungei Lenguas, uh, Katong. 405 00:46:14,680 --> 00:46:20,760 Um, another one of the big works of, uh, narrative literature. 406 00:46:21,720 --> 00:46:28,680 And what I have here is a part of chapter six, which we read. 407 00:46:29,720 --> 00:46:38,160 Um, and, uh, and then I have some, uh, chapter 22, 2222 out of 27. 408 00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:53,360 We're in the middle of chapter two. Um, and, uh, like, uh, um, or the book used or at least had available to him in some version of the, 409 00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:58,320 uh, narrative scenes, uh, that are also in the 11 acts. 410 00:46:59,240 --> 00:47:02,080 But I think the relationship is a little bit stronger here. 411 00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:12,680 So it looks to me like Sungei Lingpa had, um, Guru Cheung's text and was using it very specifically, um, 412 00:47:13,460 --> 00:47:21,820 Um, to write or at least um, um, as the basis for elaboration of his own, uh, of his own narrative. 413 00:47:23,220 --> 00:47:28,340 Um, it's much longer work. It's probably four times as long. 414 00:47:28,580 --> 00:47:34,860 So we're just in a little section of chapter two out of 117 in the Katong Trang right now. 415 00:47:35,300 --> 00:47:46,100 But if you look at on the chart on the right, we have, um, um, uh, ludo gateaux, um, edition of, uh, 11 acts. 416 00:47:46,500 --> 00:47:53,580 Excuse me, on the left. And then on the right, we have Sanjay Lingas text again from Ludo Gateaux edition of that. 417 00:47:54,020 --> 00:48:02,900 And the material that is in, um, um, grey in the single column. 418 00:48:03,620 --> 00:48:08,540 That's material that it appears to come straight out of Guru Atul Wong's text. 419 00:48:08,980 --> 00:48:19,080 So the material in white in the Sanjay Linga column on the right column is material that ostensibly sunk Lingga, or one of his sources added. 420 00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:24,360 You can see, and we don't have to read it at all. To get a sense between the grey and the white. 421 00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:37,840 What Sungei Lingua was doing, he's writing a version of the text on the left side, probably the 11 acts or some intermediary or some source. 422 00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:42,640 That is largely exactly the same, but we can see a really, really close relationship. 423 00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:51,280 Sometimes he makes the grammar a little bit better. Sometimes he adds a a doctrinal word or a here, but for the most part, it's pretty. 424 00:48:51,680 --> 00:48:59,560 It's pretty similar. Yeah. It moves along. Yeah. So Sungei linguists text would appear to integrate most of Wong's text. 425 00:48:59,880 --> 00:49:02,360 I've done this. I've spot checked this with other chapters too. 426 00:49:03,080 --> 00:49:11,200 Um, and I'm reasonably confident that we're going to find most of Guru Chong's 11 acts embedded within Sungei Linguist text. 427 00:49:11,720 --> 00:49:21,420 There's another text I'm not going to talk about here. Um, um, attributed to, uh, Zhang Dok Tokyo, um, which does the same thing too. 428 00:49:21,660 --> 00:49:24,780 And that text is, in fact, why we know about the 11 acts in the first place. 429 00:49:24,980 --> 00:49:33,620 Because I've had access to that text 100 years ago and saw that one of his sources was the, um, Guru Cho Wang's 11 acts. 430 00:49:33,860 --> 00:49:39,180 So anyway, um, where does Sungai Lenguas? Where does the rest of Sungai Lenguas material come from? 431 00:49:39,500 --> 00:49:45,020 We don't know or I don't know. Yeah, but I'm. I'm now I'm a little bit more confident we can find out. 432 00:49:45,260 --> 00:49:50,100 Right. Um, we can reverse engineer googling this text. Um, uh, as well. 433 00:49:50,580 --> 00:49:55,860 And the 11 acts gives us a really good source to do that, if we're interested. 434 00:49:56,740 --> 00:50:00,460 Okay, that was a lot of text. And, um, I hope some of it was interesting. 435 00:50:00,820 --> 00:50:08,060 Let me give you three takeaways from this. And then we'll look at some maybe next steps, things I'm thinking about as I move this project along. 436 00:50:08,940 --> 00:50:12,560 And I think about things to do with any of you who are interested as well. 437 00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:19,560 So just really simply, we now have access to three witnesses of Guru Chong's biography of Padmasambhava in India the 11 acts, 438 00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:23,720 two manuscripts, and in addition probably of one of those manuscripts. 439 00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:30,560 Yeah. Um, 11 acts is both a single and narrative work that we now have access to, 440 00:50:30,760 --> 00:50:37,200 but it's also an it's interrelated with specific references to a set of 11 narrative scenes into varied sets of acts, 441 00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:41,720 names and settings in at least two of Guru Chong's other works. 442 00:50:42,400 --> 00:50:49,760 The collection we typically call in global scholarship, the Autobiography and Instructions, and then also in the Money Combo memo. 443 00:50:51,400 --> 00:50:58,880 Um, and some, but not all, later narrative writers made explicit use of this text of the 11 acts in particular. 444 00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:01,840 So those are the three things I really want you to take away from there. 445 00:51:02,040 --> 00:51:08,960 So let's if we think about next steps for study, I think, um, the, the excitement of um, 446 00:51:09,360 --> 00:51:17,220 of identifying a new work within a corpus that many of us have done so much research on is a great occasion to think, 447 00:51:17,460 --> 00:51:20,620 oh, what are we going to do with this corpus as a whole? So there's things I've been thinking about. 448 00:51:21,260 --> 00:51:25,940 The first one is its relationship with the Lima, which is probably its most proximate neighbour. 449 00:51:26,260 --> 00:51:27,300 Looking backward in time. 450 00:51:28,020 --> 00:51:34,980 My initial read is there remains a gap, or a great deal of creative work occurred between General and Guru Chong because they look quite different. 451 00:51:35,420 --> 00:51:39,580 The Lima and the zipper, the 11 acts? 452 00:51:40,260 --> 00:51:46,060 Yeah. If we look forward, we might systematically compare narratives or hymns and names. 453 00:51:46,660 --> 00:51:52,660 Up until at least the 11th century, when people were talking about the 11 acts and using them. 454 00:51:52,980 --> 00:51:58,020 I haven't even talked about Ratna Lingas, 11 acts, which are actually different than Guru Chong's 11 acts. 455 00:51:59,340 --> 00:52:02,540 Um, and then finally, we might think about the groups of narratives, uh, 456 00:52:04,700 --> 00:52:11,960 sections such as the fourfold grouping I suggested at the beginning to foster comparison. 457 00:52:13,160 --> 00:52:20,400 We might think of if we take this group for a group of four, for instance pre incarnation, pre renunciation, training and teaching. 458 00:52:21,120 --> 00:52:28,240 How does this help us thinking more broadly about the narrative structures of the 11 acts in a smaller set of themes? 459 00:52:29,360 --> 00:52:35,760 Um, how does this compare to the other works that we know were being developed at the time, or that come up later? 460 00:52:36,400 --> 00:52:44,400 Yeah, if we look outward along the same lines. Um, there's so much we can do with the narrative corpus. 461 00:52:45,400 --> 00:52:52,880 Um, we might look at relationships with other existing and emerging narratives, such as the Buddha narrative, um, which is, you know, 462 00:52:53,080 --> 00:53:02,240 they received in such a, um, uh, in such an elaborate version in the form of the Lalita Sutra and in the Vinaya material as well. 463 00:53:03,160 --> 00:53:08,380 Um, but we might also look to Milarepa right where it's sung in, Haruka says, 464 00:53:08,700 --> 00:53:15,460 I'm making you a 12 act version of Milarepa or Tom Shinra or the fifth Dalai Lama, also using a 12 act song. 465 00:53:15,900 --> 00:53:24,340 Sargasso used a 12 act set to develop the one of his life stories of the fifth Dalai Lama. 466 00:53:25,020 --> 00:53:29,460 So narrative patterns, imagery, passages, existential and philosophical concerns. 467 00:53:30,300 --> 00:53:33,300 If we take a step back and we look not just at the guru input corpus, 468 00:53:33,820 --> 00:53:42,780 but that corpus in relationship to other emerging and developing a corpus of narrative literature, it could be really interesting and exciting. 469 00:53:43,340 --> 00:53:48,460 And again, the, the, the inclusion of, of, of, of, 470 00:53:48,980 --> 00:53:56,940 of a new work into our current work is great invitation to do this kind of broader comparative work. 471 00:53:58,700 --> 00:54:02,460 Um, if we look regionally, it's really what I've done the least work on. 472 00:54:02,620 --> 00:54:03,860 But I think there's probably a lot here. 473 00:54:04,420 --> 00:54:11,800 Um, we can note that the three works of guru, which are discussed here all extant and one exclusively in handwritten manuscripts from Bhutan. 474 00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:18,080 So the 11 acts upon the samovar appears to come from poor drip gumbo, from putrid monastery near Paro. 475 00:54:19,240 --> 00:54:22,600 But we have to remember there's a calm manuscript in the mix as well. 476 00:54:23,320 --> 00:54:34,400 The guru unpacks autobiography, and instructions came from Kishu Lacan, also right next to Paro and the Monty Campbell demo version B, at least. 477 00:54:35,000 --> 00:54:40,080 Um, there's three versions that we have extant right now, as far as I know, also comes from Bhutan. 478 00:54:40,640 --> 00:54:49,000 Different plays zone up in the northeast. So, um, we could probably, um, um, look, 479 00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:57,720 use our manuscript evidence and our hunt for more manuscript evidence to localise these narrative traditions as well. 480 00:54:58,320 --> 00:55:03,640 And I will stop there. And thank you very much and some time for questions and comments. 481 00:55:04,600 --> 00:55:04,600 Yeah.