Category: Books

Probably not coming to a library near you:

Bhim Prasad Nepal (Chief Editor), Jagannath Upadhyaya (Editor), Punya Prasad Parajuli and Mohan Singh Lama (Cataloguer). བོད་ཡིག་དཀར་ཆག་ Catalogue of Handwritten Tibetan Texts Volume–1. Archives Publication Series 10. Ramshah Path, Kathmandu: National Archives, VS 2064 Ashad [July 2007]. 192 pp.

Bhim Prasad Nepal (Chief Editor), Jagannath Upadhyaya (Editor), Punya Prasad Parajuli and Mohan Singh Lama (Cataloguer). བོད་ཡིག་དཀར་ཆག་ Catalogue of Handwritten Tibetan Texts Volume–2. Archives Publication Series 11. Ramshah Path, Kathmandu: National Archives, VS 2065 Baishakha [May 2008]. 283 pp.

Arranged in alphabetical order. Most of the MSS catalogued are affiliated with the rNying ma pa. Much of the value here lies in the mystifying one-line summaries (“Content in English”).

Gudrun Bühnemann. Buddhist Iconography and Ritual in Paintings and Line Drawings from Nepal. Lumbini: Lumbini International Research Institute, November 2008.* ISBN 978-99946-933-4-4. [Now available through Vajra Books.]

Contents:

Preface … 7

1. Pictorial Representations of a Tradition of Eighty-Four Siddhas … 9
1.1 Early Textual Sources: *Śrīsena and Bu ston … 9
1.2 A Painting from Bhaktapur Portraying the Siddhas around Vajradhāra … 16

1.2.1 A Discussion of the Painting … 16
1.2.2 A Reproduction of the Painting … 21

1.3 An Incomplete Set of Line Drawings from LACMA Portraying the Siddhas … 25

1.3.1 General Remarks on the Line Drawings … 25
1.3.2 A Reproduction of the Line Drawings … 29

1.4 A Painting from the Kronos Collections Portraying the Siddhas around Virūpā … 45

1.4.1 A Discussion of the Painting … 45
1.4.2 A Reproduction of the Painting … 51

1.5 The Siddha Tradition according to the Two Paintings and the Line Drawings … 55

1.5.1 The Names of the Siddhas in the Bhaktapur Painting and the Line Drawings … 55
1.5.2 The Representation of the Siddhas in the Two Paintings and the Line Drawings … 58

2. Pictoral Representations of Sixty-four and Thirty-six Forms of Cakrasaṃvara … 97
2.1 The Sixty-four Saṃvaras … 97

2.1.1 The Painted Scroll in the Dabriwala Collection Depicting the Sixty-Four Saṃvaras … 97

2.1.1.1 Remarks on the Painted Scroll … 97
2.1.1.2 A Reproduction of the Painted Scroll … 105

2.1.2 The Saṃvaras according to the Catuḥṣaṣṭisaṃvarastotra … 115
2.1.2.1 The Saṃvaras Eulogized in the Catuḥṣaṣṭisaṃvarastotra … 115
2.1.2.2 The Illustrated Stotra Manuscript in the Huntington Collection … 118
2.1.2.3 The Illustrated Stotra Manuscript in the Alsop Collection … 123

2.2 The Thirty-Six Saṃvaras

2.2.1 The Thirty-six Saṃvaras Eulogized in the Chatrisaṃvarastuti … 123
2.2.2 Line Drawings Likely Depicting Another Group of Thirty-Six Saṃvaras … 126

2.2.2.1 Remarks on the Line Drawings … 126
2.2.2.2 A Reproduction of the Line Drawings … 131

3. A Set of Line Drawings Based on the Parikramavidhi in Kuladatta’s Kriyāsaṃgraha(pañjikā)

3.1 Introductory Remarks … 153
3.2 The Kriyāsaṃgraha(pañjikā) … 154
3.3 The Author Kuladatta … 157
3.4 The Parikramavidhi in Chapter 6 of the Kriyāsaṃgraha(pañjikā) … 159

3.4.1 Introductory Remarks on the Parikramavidhi … 159
3.4.2 Extant Sets of Line Drawings Based on a Section of the Parikramavidhi … 164
3.4.3 A Set of Line Drawings from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art 167

3.4.3.1 A Preliminary Analysis of the Set of Line Drawings … 167
3.4.3.2 A Reproduction of the Set of Line Drawings L … 177

Selected Bibliography and Abbreviations … 197

General Index … 207

* Thanks to the author for acknowledging yours truly (Preface, p.[7]).

Now all we need is the commemorative collection of scans of their MSS.

(Thanks to A.R.)

Sobisch, Jan-Ulrich. Hevajra and Lam ‘bras Literature of India and Tibet as Seen Through the Eyes of A-mes-zhabs. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 20 November 2008. xi+249 pp. ISBN 978-3-89500-652-4.

Table of Contents

General introduction to the transmission of the Hevajra teachings … 1

General introduction to the transmission of the Path with Its Fruit teachings … 14

Short note on divisions and numbers in this book … 19

Part I: Hevajra literature of India and Tibet as seen through the eyes of A-mes-zhabs

Chapter 1: The NOTES on the Hevajra literature … 21
Chapter 2: Hevajra literature mentioned in A-mes-zhabs’ records of teachings and other works … 63
Chapter 3: The main lineages of the transmissions received by A-mes-zhabs … 77

Part II: The Path with Its Fruit literature of India and Tibet as seen through the eyes of A-mes-zhabs

Chapter 1: The title list of the Yellow Book … 85
Chapter 2: The title list of the (Little) Red Book … 103
Chapter 3: The records of teachings of A-mes-zhabs … 113
Chapter 4: Additional lam ‘bras and Hevajra Works … 127

Appendix I: Title List of Hevajra and lam ‘bras related works mentioned by A-mes-zhabs … 133

Appendix II: Ten rare title lists … 187

Appendix IIIa: Translation of the NOTES … 219

Appendix IIIb: Tibetan Text of the NOTES … 227

Index of Names … 235

Abbreviations and Bibliography … 245

Vajrācārya, Buddharatna (sampādaka). Vajrayāna pūjāvidhi saphū (bhāga-1). Saphūyā dātā: Kriṣṭopha Emrikha (Jarmanī) va Iyana Sina Klera (Aṣṭreliyana). Nyākhācuka, Yala: Vajrācārya Pūjāvidhi Adhyayana Samiti, NS 1128. 81 pp. Spiral-bound. No ISBN.

John Vincent Bellezza. Zhang Zhung: Foundations of Civilization in Tibet. A Historical and Ethnoarchaeological Study of the Monuments, Rock Art, Texts, and Oral Tradition of the Ancient Tibetan Upland. Denkschriften der phil.-hist. Klasse 368. Beiträge zur Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte Asiens 61. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2008.
841 pp. € 129.20. ISBN 978-3-7001-6046-5 (Print), ISBN 978-3-7001-6150-9 (Digital).

There is more to this remarkable work than even the blurb suggests (“Based on a field survey project of twelve years duration, the morphological, constructional, mythological and cross-cultural traits of the region’s visible archaeological wealth are described in detail… Zhang Zhung has pioneered the application of empirical evidence to gauge the historicity and significance of Tibetan Bon sources.”) When I glimpsed it on a coffee table in Kathmandu last week, the owners volunteered the story behind the story.

Last year I had the fortune to cross paths with Mr. Belezza [pictured] at a slightly unusual event: the installation of a gilt pennant (patāka) atop the Kumari House in Hanuman Dhoka, Kathmandu. Unusual, in this case, because the sponsor of the whole shebang — the manufacture, inscribing, musically-accompanied delivery, consecration, and final hanging from the roof — was a non-Newar who is writing a book on the State (formerly: ‘Royal’) Kumari of Kathmandu. More on that later; for now, let’s just note that this was one occasion on which it was made clear, abundantly so, that Newar society and its Buddhism is by no means off-limits to all outsiders. And Mr. Belezza was among the numerous foreigners present on that day, along with some 300 kumārīs and their relatives, watching and asking thoughtful questions on the historical origins of tantric practice. The questions focused on the very earliest strata of tantrism; they were tied to his larger curiosity about the origins of Himalayan culture.

At the time I had little inkling of the vast scale of the project, the scope and detail of which is laid out elegantly in this dense book. But the coffee-table owners told me something that I had no idea about at all. You see, this field survey of countless remote corners of the Tibetan plateau was, apparently, done largely on foot. That’s right: walked. And while the benefits of this approach are plain — one simply sees and notices more — the book is all the more impressive for seeking results which are harder-won, but qualitatively superior.