August 28, 2015

Three Charitable Projects

1. Mu-ne-btsan-po is said to have equalized wealth of his subjects three times although it was to no avail.
2. Thang-stong-rgyal-po’s construction of iron bridges may be considered a charitable project.
3. Zangs-dkar-lo-tsā-ba ’Phags-pa-shes-rab, a contemporary of Mar-pa-lo-tsā-ba, is said to have built “sPrang-tshang,” a shelter for the homeless in lHa-sa. See Notes to the Deb dmar (p. 391).

10 comments:

  1. Nice one, D! I hadn't heard about the homeless shelters. I would add 'Chad-kha-ba's work caring for lepers (or whatever the 'correct' term is these days, if you prefer it) and maybe also the work building and repairing the dikes of Lhasa that saved people from having their homes flooded (sure you know Per Sørensen wrote a piece about this last one in English). Doing good things is such a good idea. I wonder why it hasn't occurred to people more often.
    Yours, D

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  2. Dear Dan, many thanks (from Frankfurt). No, I did not know of that. I am sure we would come across some more of such cases. A possible and plausible explanation why there have not been so many such charitable projects in Buddhist society have something to do with the Buddhist supposition that charitable engagements can only treat the symptom (and not the actual cause) of the problem. But charitable engagements as sincere gestures of one’s compassion would surely be appreciated. To be sure, treating symptom would be better than not treating at all. Just an idea. Dorji

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  3. I'm thinking aloud, but I think "charitable engagements" are just acts of giving with an additional element of service. Example: Not only to give the poor family money to pay for groceries, but also to help carry them home. The volunteering element (dang-du len-pa?), agreeing to engage in helpful actions, seems to be the key element. You can see that in the stories about repairing the Lhasa dikes. People wanted to help with it. I don't think it would be right to belittle that urge to help by saying it was "just for the merit" or because of social pressure to pitch in. Not to deny those things, either. I think Tibetan culture at large has always been characterized by a readiness to help out neighbors, at least as much as people elsewhere, probably more, so it wouldn't be right to talk only of large-scale projects while neglecting the small-scale kindnesses.

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    1. Shana Tova from Kathmandu! It is true that “charitable engagements” reveal as an expression of lhag pa’i bsam pa or simply lhag bsam (adhyāśaya), which is often equated by Tibetans with bsam pa bzang po. It can also be revealed on very personal level and on a very miniature scale such as removing a piece of broken glass from the footpath, or picking up a piece of written text, and the like. The recent charitable activities by Tibetan and Nepalese Buddhist monks following the aftermath of the earthquake in Nepal have been praiseworthy.

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  4. Why is the final 's' on khang-bzangs so often, even though the bzangs is not *really* a possible syllable, is it? I was wondering about that after I saw the phrase rta bzangs-po gcig yod-pa. Does the 's' add something to the meaning so that we would want to translate it a bit differently? What does Mi-pham have to say about it?

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    1. I do not know for sure but I would treat bzang and bzangs as mere orthographic variants. To be sure, we may find fewer cases of bzangs in later writings and more in earlier ones.

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    2. I've noticed a lot of times Nor-bzangs spelling for the Tibetan name of Sudhana. There must be a reason for that, you think? With analogy to Khang-bzangs? Why that extra-added "s" in these cases! I was thinking maybe just to make a distinctive spelling for a distinctive meaning?

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  5. I was also wondering how you understand rigs-gzhung (does the 's' belong there?), and how does it differ from shes-rig? And does either word mean something like 'culture' in classical Tibetan (and not just in modern). I know rigs-gzhung does occur in older sources, but I'm not sure it means the same as it does today.

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    1. Prima facie, I would say that the secondary postscript s should not be there, that is, even when some scholars might insist that it should. It is also true in the case of rig ’dzin (for vidyādhara). I hardly know of the use of rig gzhung in classical Tibetan sources. I have the feeling that its usage (in the sense of “culture”) is quite recent. I recall that Zam-gdong Rin-po-che does not endorse rig gzhung for “culture.” He prefers legs sbyangs (leaning on Sanskrit saṃskṛta). But people do use it in the sense of “culture” (e.g. bod kyi chos dang rig gzhung). I think shes rig is a more common word for “education.”

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  6. That's part of the trouble, that mental cultivations of various sorts can fall into the 'culture' category.
    It all goes back to soil cultivation, really (I mean the English word culture), while the Tibetan words emphasize knowledge (except S. Rinpoche's). I've been puzzling about the semantic boundaries of the terms (and also how much of it is just meant to come up with a good term to stand in for the modern concept of 'culture[s]'.) Rigs-gzhung (with that spelling) appears in titles of some of the classic philosophical works, where it really seems to mean 'reasoning treatise.' Interesting.

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