Among the many unpublished papers of Brian Houghton Hodgson is a short English work on the iconography of a “Dharmacakramaṇḍala”. No such thing is known in the Indic tradition; it was conceived for Hodgson by his teacher and collaborator, the Newar Paṇḍita Amṛtānanda. Hodgson, being the diligent scholar that he was, kept a copy of Amṛtānanda’s original, which is useful for understanding Hodgson’s ‘translation’.
The first thing to notice is that one of the Sanskrit words appearing in transcription in the English text, *vajrāsana (‘Bujer Âsan’), is not in Amṛtānanda’s Sanskrit, which instead uses the term kuliśāsana. It is quite unlikely that Hodgson was responsible for this substitution, in light of his general lack of familiarity with Sanskrit texts. Rather, from the way he transcribes other Sanskrit terms from the same work, transcriptions which in places show obvious traces of Newar accent, Hodgson is echoing someone’s spoken words. That someone was probably Amṛtānanda himself, who knew a bit of English (going all the way back to his role in the first ever recorded transmission of Dharma to a Westerner, some two decades prior to Hodgson’s arrival in Nepal). Hodgson is hardly translating at all; he is taking dictation, maybe while the various parts on a drawing of the maṇḍala (a document also preserved in his papers) are pointed out.
Another point of interest is that internal features of the Sanskrit text confirm that it is a Nepalese composition. The form of Mañjuśrī it describes is unknown in India, where it would moreover be improper for this gentle bodhisattva to be decked out in the yoginītantric human bone ornaments of “Chuckry, Kundall, Kunthi” and so on (MS: cakri-kuṇḍala-kaṇṭhi-rocaka-mekhalānupura). There are similar deviations in the account of the maṇḍala’s superstructure.
Categorical errors of this kind would not have occurred in the early medieval period. Amṛtānanda, erudite and widely read though he was, occasionally betrays serious gaps in his knowledge of Buddhist doctrine. Even in the medieval period it was the case that one could know dozens of major works well and still miss out on important aspects of Buddhism.
Such deficits are typical of the Newar scene, which not only continued the Indian resistance to systematization, but compounded it, by diffusing scripture among many small private collections, rather than transmitting it comprehensively (and expensively) under the auspices of large monastic institutions. This was without doubt a preference, driven by tantric secretiveness, not only in Nepal but in parts of India; but it had its downside. (Today, efforts are underway to improve this state of affairs by constituting a new Sanskrit canon, a task which is for the first time in many centuries feasible for the living tradition. It remains nonetheless a difficult undertaking, predictably hindered, not helped, by the Buddhist Studies establishment’s vocal cretins: ‘how dare they call their collected authoritative works a Canon!’)
Given that Amṛtānanda and Hodgson were working on this piece together, it must predate Amṛtānanda’s passing (c.1829), probably by some years. That places it before Wilson’s article, which contains the first published translations and summaries of basically tantric Buddhist works. It is hard to read much into the fact that Hodgson left it unpublished, because he also did not publish a lot of other material. After his debates with other scholars in the 1830s, he may have concluded that much of what Amṛtānanda left him would not measure up as ‘authentic’ Buddhism, a pseudo-concept which was at that very moment — and forever onwards, to this day — being defined to accord with the whims of Theravādin fanatics and their sympathizers. (You’ve heard it all before: Buddhism Is Pali Texts. Or the derivative and equally unsupportable variant: Buddhism Is Rationality.)
So without further ado, here is the translation, or rather, ‘Description’:
Description of Dharmacakramandala
Manjusry is sitting in the Kornica or centre of a Lotos with Bujer Âsan.1 His colour is that of Saffron[;] he has one head and four hands, by two of which he is performing Dharma Chackra Moondra[,] putting his hands on his breast[;] and from the other two[,] in one he has a book and in the other a japmala[,] and is2 beautified himself by the undermentioned ornaments viz. Chuckry, Kundall (or a large ring worn in the ears)[,] Kunthi (or a short necklace)[,] Rochuck (or stomacher)[,] Makhla (an ornament worn in the waist) and Anapoor.
Out[side] of this Kornica of Kamal or the centre of the lotos[,] there are two circles and [surrounding the] out[side] of that circle3 are eight4 Dull or leaves of the lotos and these leaves are without a single mark. Again out[side] of it there [are] two more circles in which [there] are eight Bajars (or thunderbolts).
On the four doors of it there are four Boudhs viz. Amoghasidh Boodh on the northern, Ratna Sambh on the Southern, Ochhobh Boodh on the eastern and Amitab Boodh on the Western doors. After all this there are 3 quadrangular figures[:] in the first there are 165 Bodhisats on all its four sides[,] viz. Lasaya[s], 1st? who are busy in dancing[;] in the 2nd there are 44 lotos[;] 6 in the 3rd are eight Kalas or water filled with amrit or the water of life[;] on all four sides and on the four Corners[,] there are Chāters of three stories together with Patakas and on the four doors are7 Torans together with Kinkinijal and the both sides of the Toran are beautified by two Mackers who are standing by their jutting8 teeth[.]
in the fourthThen again there are 3 circles[:] the 1st is filled by leaves ×××[,] the 2nd by the lotos[,] and the 3rd by the flames of the fir[e].
References and notes have been omitted here. In the first place, it is not my custom to give such things out online, where they can be (and have been) easily ripped off. Moreover, in Buddhist Studies as currently practiced, it is common to see new ‘contributions’ containing no original research whatsoever, and in which even the recycled material is misunderstood.
I was appalled when Jacob Dalton recently told me that Donald S. Lopez, Jr. was working on a new monograph about Brian Hodgson, given that Lopez’s error-ridden, condescending chapter for The Origins of Himalayan Studies got Hodgson (and Amṛtānanda) so comprehensively wrong. When I reviewed this a few years ago, I lacked access to Hodgson’s papers, and thus missed one particular howler. Lopez accused Hodgson of not ‘recording the activities of pilgrims around the great stupas’ of the Valley. He did not explain why this should have been a research priority for Hodgson, but for some reason considered it a serious omission.
It so happens that in Hodgson’s unpublished papers, we find precisely that: descriptions of pradakṣiṇa, and so on, and descriptions of the stupas. They were in Sanskrit, and so were of course vulnerable to being overlooked by self-appointed chroniclers of ‘Western Buddhism’. Today we do not only lack a proper account of Nepal’s role in Buddhism in South and East Asia; such a thing is missing even from the West’s understanding of its own role.