Akhu Tönpa (Tib: , Wyl: a khu ston pa), or Uncle Teacher, is a fictional character portrayed as a
trickster
In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story (god, goddess, spirit, human or anthropomorphisation) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherw ...
in
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...
an
folklore
Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...
. Akhu Tönpa is portrayed as a layperson who frequently plays harmless and not-so-harmless pranks on villagers, monks, and members of the aristocracy. However, he also acts as a leader or role model. He is believed to be sent by Chenrezig (
Avalokiteśvara
In Buddhism, Avalokiteśvara (meaning "the lord who looks down", International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA: ), also known as Lokeśvara ("Lord of the World") and Chenrezig (in Tibetan), is a Bodhisattva#Bhūmis (stages), tenth-level bodhisattva associ ...
), the Buddha of compassion, to teach Tibetans the art of being shrewd and witty. As such, he frequently outwits the strong and mighty in society and is portrayed as a champion of the common man.
Etymology
"Akhu" means
uncle
An uncle is usually defined as a male relative who is a sibling of a parent or married to a sibling of a parent, as well as the parent of the cousins. Uncles who are related by birth are second-degree relatives. The female counterpart of an un ...
in Tibetan, but it is also used as a title for older men by younger people, while ''ston pa'' means "to demonstrate, to show, teacher" and refers ultimately to the Buddha. However, he is known by different names in different parts of Tibet. In the Nedhong province of Tibet, he is known as Nyichoe Zangpo (Wyl: nyi chos bzang po), which translates to "good Dharma."
History
Akhu Tönpa fables (Wyl.: sgrung stam) are a vast corpus of folklore in Tibetan culture. These fables convey traditional values while also simultaneously providing entertainment and are meant to be humorous. They often end with a moral message provided by Akhu Tönpa himself. In this way, Akhu Tönpa stories are interwoven with Tibetan Buddhist values and traditions. As folktales, they were originally passed down orally and have only recently been written down as interest grew in preserving Tibetan oral culture. As such, the provenance and age of many of these folktales is unknown, but it can be said with certainty that they are from the pre-1949 Chinese
Annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China
Tibet came under the control of China, People's Republic of China (PRC) after the Ganden Phodrang, Government of Tibet signed the Seventeen Point Agreement which the 14th Dalai Lama ratified on 24 October 1951, but later repudiated on the grou ...
.
In one folktale, he leads the planting of a barren field by telling the villagers to dig for jewels that he lost.
According to "a survey of fifty-three Tibetan students from Yul shul, Mgo log, Rma Iho, Mtsho byang, Mtsho Iho, and Mtsho nub prefectures studying at
Qinghai Education College in
Xining
Xining is the Capital (political), capital and most populous city of Qinghai province in western China and the largest city on the Tibetan Plateau. As of the 2020 census, it had 2,467,965 inhabitants (2,208,708 as of 2010), of whom 1,954,795 l ...
...all the students had heard Aa khu bston pa (Akhu Tönpa) stories, thirty-three students had heard
Afanti stories,"
[Mchog Dge Legs, Kun, Dpal Ldan Bkra Shis, and Kevin Stuart. "Tibetan Tricksters." Asian Folklore Studies. 1st ed. Vol. 58. N.p.: Nanzan U, 1999. 5-30. Print.] while many other Tibetan tricksters were only known by a small number of the students, showing the ubiquity of Akhu Tönpa stories.
See also
*
Tibetan literature
References
*
External links
A Tibetan folk tale about Uncle Tompa (Akhu Tönpa) buying and selling a special harvest, translated into English
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