Tāranātha: A ‘Virtual Indian’ in 16th–17th century Tibet
David Templeman
(Monash Asia Institute, Monash University, Melbourne)
Asia-Africa Institute, University of Hamburg, 15 November 2007
Summary
The famous History of Buddhism in India or Chos ‘byung by Tāranātha (1575–1634) is informed by face-to-face encounters with South Asian yogins and pandits. This work was written as part of Tāranātha’s lifelong project to present himself as a ‘virtual Indian’ — not merely an Indophile, but someone with direct connection to the language, religion and ruling powers of Tibet’s holy land. In an age when transmissions of Buddhism from India to Tibet had all but ceased, Tāranātha’s Indian links were a source of unusual religious prestige, and central to his self-made public persona.
David Templeman’s doctoral research critically examines the construction of this persona as seen both in Tāranātha’s autobiographical writings and in the wider historical context. In his later years, Tāranātha [pictured below, left ] no longer referred to the unique teachings he received as a teenager from the Buddhist yogin Buddhaguptanātha, an indication that he may have come to doubt their veracity. It is difficult to determine what Buddhism meant in India so long after its disappearance as an institutional force; for while Buddhaguptanātha and his teacher Śāntigupta [below, right ] undoubtedly maintained authentic Vajrayāna transmissions, in the spirit of Nāthism they also moved freely and unapologetically in the non-Buddhist world.
Other Indians wandering through Tibet, who collaborated with Tāranātha on partial translations of the Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata and Sārasvata grammatical texts, clearly left Tāranātha unconvinced about their professed Buddhist leanings. There was opportunism too in Tāranātha’s correspondence with the Baghela king Bālabhadra — whose court, having formerly patronised Śāntigupta, could be valorised in Tibet as ‘Buddhist’. Both Bālabhadra and Tāranātha were embroiled in wars at the time, and their exchanges were concerned as much with cultivating safe refuges across the Himalayas as with reviving a near-extinct Nātha-transmitted tantric Buddhism.
Although Tāranātha’s authority on matters Indian has been widely accepted in the West since Schiefner’s nineteenth-century translation of his Chos ‘byung, it is remarkable that Tāranātha’s self-styled Indianness — as advertised in tales of his past (and even contemporary) Indian lives — did not receive widespread acceptance in Tibet itself.
Mr. Templeman’s presentation drew on work-in-progress editions and translations of Tāranātha’s autobiographies, which are under preparation as part of his doctoral studies at Monash University.
The presentation concluded.