So Much
Seems To Be Certain That It Was The Ancient Religion Of Tibet, Before
Buddhism Penetrated Into The Country, And That Even At Later Periods It
Several Times Gained The Ascendancy When The Secular Power Was Of A
Disposition Averse To The Lamaitic Hierarchy.
Another opinion is that the
Bon religion was originally a mere fetishism, and related to or identical
with Shamanism;
This appears to me very probable and easy to reconcile
with the former supposition, for it may afterwards, on becoming acquainted
with the Chinese doctrine of the 'Taosse,' have adorned itself with many
of its tenets.... With regard to the following particulars, I have got
most of my information from our Lama, a native of the neighbourhood of
Tashi Lhunpo, whom we consulted about all your questions. The
extraordinary asceticism which struck Marco Polo so much is of course not
to be understood as being practised by all members of the sect, but
exclusively, or more especially, by the priests. That these never
marry, and are consequently more strictly celibatary than many sects of
the Lamaitic priesthood, was confirmed by our Lama." (Mr. Jaeschke then
remarks upon the bran to much the same effect as I have done above.)
"The Bonpos are by all Buddhists regarded as heretics. Though they worship
idols partly the same, at least in name, with those of the Buddhists,...
their rites seem to be very different. The most conspicuous and most
generally known of their customs, futile in itself, but in the eyes of the
common people the greatest sign of their sinful heresy, is that they
perform the religious ceremony of making a turn round a sacred object in
the opposite direction to that prescribed by Buddhism. As to their dress,
our Lama said that they had no particular colour of garments, but their
priests frequently wore red clothes, as some sects of the Buddhist
priesthood do. Mr. Heyde, however, once on a journey in our neighbouring
county of Langskar, saw a man clothed in black with blue borders, who
the people said was a Bonpo."
[Mr. Rockhill (Journey , 63) saw at Kao miao-tzu "a red-gowned,
long-haired Boenbo Lama," and at Kumbum (p. 68), "was surprised to see quite
a large number of Boenbo Lamas, recognisable by their huge mops of hair and
their red gowns, and also from their being dirtier than the ordinary run
of people." - H. C.]
The identity of the Bonpo and Taosse seems to have been accepted by Csoma
de Koroes, who identifies the Chinese founder of the latter, Lao-tseu, with
the Shen-rabs of the Tibetan Bonpos. Klaproth also says, "Bhonbp'o,
Bhanpo, and Shen, are the names by which are commonly designated (in
Tibetan) the Taoszu, or follower of the Chinese philosopher Laotseu."[11]
Schlagintweit refers to Schmidt's Tibetan Grammar (p. 209) and to the
Calcutta edition of the Fo-koue-ki (p. 218) for the like identification,
but I do not know how far any two of these are independent testimonies.
General Cunningham, however, fully accepts the identity, and writes to me:
"Fahian (ch. xxiii.) calls the heretics who assembled at Ramagrama
Taosse,[12] thus identifying them with the Chinese Finitimists. The
Taosse are, therefore, the same as the Swastikas, or worshippers of the
mystic cross Swasti, who are also Tirthakaras, or 'Pure-doers.' The
synonymous word Punya is probably the origin of Pon or Bon, the
Tibetan Finitimists. From the same word comes the Burmese P'ungyi or
Pungi." I may add that the Chinese envoy to Cambodia in 1296, whose
narrative Remusat has translated, describes a sect which he encountered
there, apparently Brahminical, as Taosse. And even if the Bonpo and the
Taosse were not fundamentally identical, it is extremely probable that the
Tibetan and Mongol Buddhists should have applied to them one name and
character. Each played towards them the same part in Tibet and in China
respectively; both were heretic sects and hated rivals; both made high
pretensions to asceticism and supernatural powers; both, I think we see
reason to believe, affected the dark clothing which Polo assigns to the
Sensin; both, we may add, had "great idols and plenty of them." We have
seen in the account of the Taosse the ground that certain of their
ceremonies afford for the allegation that they "sometimes also worship
fire," whilst the whole account of that rite and of others mentioned by
Duhalde,[13] shows what a powerful element of the old devil-dancing
Shamanism there is in their practice. The French Jesuit, on the other
hand, shows us what a prominent place female divinities occupied in the
Bon-po Pantheon,[14] though we cannot say of either sect that "their idols
are all feminine." A strong symptom of relation between the two religions,
by the way, occurs in M. Durand's account of the Bon Temple. We see there
that Shen-rabs, the great doctor of the sect, occupies a chief and
central place among the idols. Now in the Chinese temples of the Taosse
the figure of their Doctor Lao-tseu is one member of the triad called
the "Three Pure Ones," which constitute the chief objects of worship. This
very title recalls General Cunningham's etymology of Bonpo.
[Illustration: Tibetan Bacsi]
[At the quarterly fair (yueh kai) of Ta-li (Yun-Nan), Mr. E. C. Baber
(Travels, 158-159) says: "A Fakir with a praying machine, which he
twirled for the salvation of the pious at the price of a few cash, was at
once recognised by us; he was our old acquaintance, the Bakhsi, whose
portrait is given in Colonel Yule's Marco Polo." - H. C.]
(Hodgson, in J. R. A. S. XVIII. 396 seqq.; Ann. de la Prop, de la
Foi, XXXVI. 301-302, 424-427; E. Schlagintweit, Ueber die Bon-pa Sekte
in Tibet, in the Sitzensberichte of the Munich Acad. for 1866, Heft I.
pp. 1-12; Koeppen, II. 260; Ladak, p. 358; J. As. ser. II. tom. i.
411-412; Remusat.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 271 of 335
Words from 275949 to 276948
of 342071
