Diatribes and Dialogues : Understanding Bön’s Relations with Tibetan Buddhism Through the Life and Work of Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen (1859-1934)

Abstract

The historical relationship between Buddhism and its “others” has long been a topic of interest — and sometimes controversy — amidst a variety of cultures that assimilated Buddhist traditions. Tibetan culture is no exception. At a fairly early stage in the Tibetan reception of Buddhism during the early imperial era (seventh-ninth centuries) , certain types of ritual practitioners and religious specialists who preceded Indian Buddhism’s arrival came to be collectively designated as bönpo, after which this term came to represent a tradition and a community that was to be differentiated from the newly imported dharma from India. Oftentimes, this process aimed at asserting Buddhism’s moral superiority, its soteriological sophistication, or its ritual or magical efficacy relative to an inferior rival, as is seen in some historiographical narratives that would later recount Buddhism’s decisive triumph over its early adversaries. (One particularly well-known example may be found in the fifteenth century narrative of the iconic Buddhist yogin Milarepa’s defeat of a bönpo dubbed Naro Bönchung.) Yet contrary to these narratives that suggest decisive victory and closure in the relationship between Buddhism and this particular “other,” in reality the Tibetan assimilation of Buddhism would unfold through a centuries-long, unfinished process of cultural change and dialogue that defied whatever clear boundaries were sometimes erected in textual sources to divide Buddhism from its imagined predecessor in Bön. Ultimately, these two traditions have developed in tandem over the past millennium, from the post-imperial “renaissance” that began in the tenth century to the present day.