''Bon'', also spelled Bön () and also known as Yungdrung Bon (, "eternal Bon"), is a
Tibetan religious tradition with many similarities to
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...
and also many unique features.
[Samuel 2012, pp. 220-221.] Bon initially developed in the tenth and eleventh centuries,
but may retain elements from earlier religious traditions (which also used the term Bon).
[Kvaerne 1996, pp. 9-10.] Bon remains a significant
minority religion
A minority religion is a religion held by a minority of the population of a country, state, or region. Minority religions may be subject to stigma or discrimination. An example of a stigma is using the term cult with its extremely negative conn ...
in Tibet (especially in Eastern Tibet) and in the surrounding
Himalayan regions.
The relationship between Bon and
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...
has been a subject of debate. According to the modern scholar
Geoffrey Samuel
Geoffrey Samuel (born 22 Nov, 1946) is an emeritus professor of religious studies at Cardiff University. He is known for his ethnographic studies of Tibetan and other Indic religions, investigating topics such as yoga, tantra, and the subtle body. ...
, while Bon is "essentially a variant of Tibetan Buddhism" with many resemblances to
Nyingma
Nyingma (literally 'old school') is the oldest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. It is also often referred to as ''Ngangyur'' (, ), "order of the ancient translations". The Nyingma school is founded on the first lineages and transl ...
, it also preserves some genuinely ancient pre-Buddhist elements.
David Snellgrove
David Llewellyn Snellgrove, FBA (29 June 192025 March 2016) was a British Tibetologist noted for his pioneering work on Buddhism in Tibet as well as his many travelogues.
Biography
Snellgrove was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, and educated ...
likewise sees Bon as a form of
Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religions, Indian religion or Indian philosophy#Buddhist philosophy, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha. ...
, albeit a
heterodox
In religion, heterodoxy (from Ancient Greek: , "other, another, different" + , "popular belief") means "any opinions or doctrines at variance with an official or orthodox position". Under this definition, heterodoxy is similar to unorthodoxy, w ...
kind. Similarly,
John Powers writes that "historical evidence indicates that Bön only developed as a self-conscious religious system under the influence of Buddhism".
Followers of Bon, known as "Bonpos" (Wylie: ''bon po''), believe that the religion originated in a land called
Zhangzhung
Zhangzhung or Shangshung was an ancient culture and kingdom in western and northwestern Tibet, which pre-dates the culture of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. Zhangzhung culture is associated with the Bon religion, which has influenced the philosophie ...
, located in the
Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 10 ...
, perhaps also the area around
Mount Kailash
Mount Kailash (also Kailasa; ''Kangrinboqê'' or ''Gang Rinpoche''; Tibetan: གངས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ; ; sa, कैलास, ), is a mountain in the Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It has an altitude of ...
in Tibet. Bonpos identify the Buddha
Shenrab Miwo
Tonpa Shenrab ( "Teacher Shenrab") or Shenrab Miwo ()—also called the Buddha Shenrab, Guru Shenrab and a number of other titles—is the legendary founder of the Bon tradition of Tibet.
The story of Tonpa Shenrab was revealed in a fourte ...
(Wylie: ''gshen rab mi bo'') as Bon's founder, although no available sources establish this figure's historicity. Bonpos hold that Bon was brought first to
Zhang Zhung
Zhangzhung or Shangshung was an ancient culture and kingdom in western and northwestern Tibet, which pre-dates the culture of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. Zhangzhung culture is associated with the Bon religion, which has influenced the philosophie ...
, a kingdom to the west of the
Tibetan Plateau
The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the ...
, and then to
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...
.
Western scholars have posited several origins for Bon, and have used the term "Bon" in many ways. A distinction is sometimes made between an ancient Bon (), dating back to the
pre-dynastic era before 618 CE; a classical Bon tradition (also called ''Yungdrung Bon'' - ) which emerged in the 10th and 11th centuries;
and "New Bon" or Bon Sar (), a late syncretic movement dating back to the 14th century and active in eastern Tibet.
Tibetan Buddhist scholarship tends to cast Bon in a negative, adversarial light, with derogatory stories about Bon appearing in a number of Buddhist histories. The
Rimé movement
The Rimé movement is a movement or tendency in Tibetan Buddhism which promotes non-sectarianism and universalism.Sam van Schaik (2011). ''Tibet: A History'', pp. 161-162. Yale University Press. Teachers from all branches of Tibetan Buddhism - ...
within Tibetan religion encouraged more ecumenical attitudes between Bonpos and Buddhists. Western scholars began to take Bon seriously as a religious tradition worthy of study in the 1960s, in large part inspired by the work of English scholar
David Snellgrove
David Llewellyn Snellgrove, FBA (29 June 192025 March 2016) was a British Tibetologist noted for his pioneering work on Buddhism in Tibet as well as his many travelogues.
Biography
Snellgrove was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, and educated ...
(1920-2016) Following the
Chinese invasion of Tibet
Tibet came under the control of People's Republic of China (PRC) after the Government of Tibet signed the Seventeen Point Agreement which the 14th Dalai Lama ratified on 24 October 1951, but later repudiated on the grounds that he rendered his ...
in 1950, Bonpo scholars began to arrive in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
and
North America, encouraging interest in Bon in the
West. Today, a proportion of Tibetans - both in Tibet and in the
Tibetan diaspora
The Tibetan diaspora are the diaspora of Tibetan people living outside Tibet.
Tibetan emigration has three separate stages. The first stage was in 1959 following the 14th Dalai Lama's defection to Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh, India. The s ...
- practise Bon, and there are Bonpo centers in cities around the world.
The term "Bon", definition and historiography
Early Western studies of Bon relied heavily on Buddhist sources, and used the word to refer to the pre-Buddhist religion over which it was thought Buddhism triumphed. Helmut Hoffmann's 1950 study of Bon characterized this religion as "animism" and "shamanism"; these characterizations have been controversial. Hoffmann contrasted this animistic-shamanistic
folk religion
In religious studies and folkloristics, folk religion, popular religion, traditional religion or vernacular religion comprises various forms and expressions of religion that are distinct from the official doctrines and practices of organized re ...
with the organized priesthood of Bonpos which developed later,
Shaivism
Shaivism (; sa, शैवसम्प्रदायः, Śaivasampradāyaḥ) is one of the major Hindu traditions, which worships Shiva as the Supreme Being. One of the largest Hindu denominations, it incorporates many sub-traditions rangi ...
, Buddhist
tantras
Tantras ("''doctrine''" or "''framework''" or "''system''" ) refers to numerous and varied scriptures pertaining to any of several esoteric traditions rooted in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. The religious culture of the Tantras is essentially ...
. Hoffman also argued that
Gnosticism
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
from the West influenced the systematized Bon religion.
Hoffmann's study was foundational for Western understandings of Bon, but was challenged by a later generation of scholars influenced by David Snellgrove, who collaborated with Bonpo masters and translated Bonpo canonical texts. These scholars tended to view Bon as a heterodox form of Buddhism, transmitted separately from the two transmissions from India to Tibet that formed the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. With the translation of Bonpo histories into Western languages as well as increased engagement between Bonpos and Western scholars, a shift took place in Bon studies towards engaging more thoroughly Bonpos' own histories and self-identification, recognizing Bon as an independent religious tradition worthy of academic study.
The term ''Bon'' has been used to refer to several different phenomena. Drawing from Buddhist sources, early Western commentators on Bon used the term for the pre-Buddhist religious practices of Tibet. These include folk religious practices,
cults surrounding royalty, and
divination practices. However, scholars have debated whether the term ''Bon'' should be used for all of these practices, and what their relationship is to the modern Bon religion. In an influential article, R. A. Stein used the term "the nameless religion" to refer to folk religious practices, distinguishing them from Bon.
Per Kvaerne uses Bon solely to refer to a tradition he dates from tenth and eleventh centuries CE, the tradition which developed into the modern Bon religion.
[Kvaerne, "Extract from ''The Bon Religion of Tibet''", 486.] Kvaerne identifies this tradition as "an unorthodox form of Buddhism," but other scholars such as Samten G. Karmay take seriously Bonpo narratives which define Bon as a separate tradition with an origin in the land of 'Olmo Lungring. The term
Yungdrung Bon
''Bon'', also spelled Bön () and also known as Yungdrung Bon (, "eternal Bon"), is a Tibetan religious tradition with many similarities to Tibetan Buddhism and also many unique features.Samuel 2012, pp. 220-221. Bon initially developed in t ...
(Wylie: ''g.yung drung bon'') is sometimes used to describe this tradition. "Yungdrung" refers to the left-facing
swastika, a symbol which occupies in Bon a similar place as the
vajra
The Vajra () is a legendary and ritual weapon, symbolising the properties of a diamond (indestructibility) and a thunderbolt (irresistible force).
The vajra is a type of club with a ribbed spherical head. The ribs may meet in a ball-shap ...
(Wylie: ''rdo rje'') in Tibetan Buddhism, symbolizing indestructibility and eternity.
Yungdrung Bon is a
universal religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, t ...
, although it is mainly limited to Tibetans, with some non-Tibetan converts.
There is also a kind of local village priests which are common throughout the Himalayas that are called "bon", "lhabon" or "aya" (and bombo in Nepal). These are not part of the Bon religion proper, but are lay ritual specialists, often on a part time basis. Samuel states that it is unclear if these "bon" priests go back to the ancient period or if the term developed after
Yungdrung Bon
''Bon'', also spelled Bön () and also known as Yungdrung Bon (, "eternal Bon"), is a Tibetan religious tradition with many similarities to Tibetan Buddhism and also many unique features.Samuel 2012, pp. 220-221. Bon initially developed in t ...
.
Furthermore, the
Dongba
Dongba (Nakhi: ''²dto¹mba'', ) refers to both the religion and the priests of the Nakhi people of Southwest China.
Role in society
''Dongba'' is believed to have originated from the indigenous Tibetan Bon religion. According to Nakhi leg ...
(东巴) practices of the
Nakhi people and the Hangui (韩规) religion of the
Pumi people
The Pumi (also Primi) people (Tibetan: བོད་མི་, Wylie: bod mi, , own name: ) are an ethnic group. They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by China.
Ethnically related to the Tibetans of the Mili Tibetan Autonomo ...
are both believed to have originated from Bon.
Types of Bon
As noted by Dmitry Ermakov, "the word Bön is used to denote many diverse religious and cultural traditions." Bon sources acknowledge this and Bon authors like Shardza Rinpoche (1859–1935), Pelden Tsultrim (1902–1973) and
Lopön Tenzin Namdak
Lopön Tenzin Namdak (, born 1926 in Khyungpo Karu – – in Kham) is a Tibetan religious leader and the most senior teacher of Bon, in particular of Dzogchen and the Mother Tantras.
Early life
Tenzin Namdak's father was a farmer in Ch ...
use a classification of three types of "Bon". Modern scholars also sometimes rely on this classification, which is as follows:
[Ermakov, Dmitry (2011]
''Bön as a multifaceted phenomenon:looking beyond Tibet to the cultural and religious traditions of Eurasia''
Presented at Bon, Zhang Zhung and Early Tibet Conference, SOAS, London, 10 September 2011
* Prehistoric Bon (''Gdod ma'i bon'') of Zhangzhung and Tibet. This is an ancient system of belief and ritual practice that is mostly extinct today. However, elements of it exist in various religious practices found in the Himalayas - mainly in the calling of fortune rituals (g.yang 'gug), the soul retrieval or re-call rituals (bla 'gugs) and the ransom rituals (mdos). Ermakov sees some similarities between this tradition and the Eurasian cult of the sky deer.
* Eternal Bon (Yundung Bon), also called old Bon (Bon Nyingma), which are traced to the Buddha Tonpa Shenrab and other sages from Zhangzhung. These religions developed from the 8th to the 11th century and are similar to Nyingma Buddhism. It includes ancient elements which are pre-Buddhist (including the fortune, bla and ransom rituals).
* New Bon (Bon Sarma, Bonsar), a syncretic tradition which includes elements form Eternal Bon and Tibetan Buddhism, including the worship of the Buddhist figure Padmasambhava. This new movement dates from the 14th century and was mainly active in eastern Tibet.
Dmitry Ermakov also adds an extra category which he terms "mixed Bon" and which he defines as:
[Ermakov, Dmitry (2011]
''Bön as a multifaceted phenomenon:looking beyond Tibet to the cultural and religious traditions of Eurasia''
Presented at Bon, Zhang Zhung and Early Tibet Conference, SOAS, London, 10 September 2011a blend of these three types of Bön in different proportions, often with the addition of elements from other religions such as Hinduism, Taoism, Himalayan Tribal religions, Native Siberian belief systems etc. Mixed Bön would include Secular Bön or the civil religion of the Himalayan borderlands studied by Charles Ramble in his ''The Navel of Demoness,'' as well as Buryatian Bѳ Murgel, from the shores of Lake Baikal, the religion of the Nakhi in Yunnan, and so on.
Traditional history of Tibetan Bon
Tapihritsa, a Bon siddha from
Zhangzhung
Zhangzhung or Shangshung was an ancient culture and kingdom in western and northwestern Tibet, which pre-dates the culture of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. Zhangzhung culture is associated with the Bon religion, which has influenced the philosophie ...
.
Tonpa Shenrab
From the traditional point of view of the Bon religion, Bon was the original religion of
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...
and
Zhangzhung
Zhangzhung or Shangshung was an ancient culture and kingdom in western and northwestern Tibet, which pre-dates the culture of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. Zhangzhung culture is associated with the Bon religion, which has influenced the philosophie ...
which was taught there by various Buddhas, including
Tonpa Shenrab
Tonpa Shenrab ( "Teacher Shenrab") or Shenrab Miwo ()—also called the Buddha Shenrab, Guru Shenrab and a number of other titles—is the legendary founder of the Bon tradition of Tibet.
The story of Tonpa Shenrab was revealed in a fourtee ...
(whose name means “Supreme Holy Man”).
Tonpa Shenrab is believed to have received the teaching from the transcendent deity
Shenlha Okar
Shenlha Ökar () or Shiwa Ökar () is the most important deity in the Yungdrung Bon tradition of Tibet. He is counted among the "Four Transcendent Lords" () along with Satrig Ersang (Sherab Chamma), Sangpo Bumtri, and Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche.
Nam ...
in a pure realm before being reborn in the human realm with the purpose of teaching and liberating beings from the cycle of rebirth.
He attained
Buddhahood
In Buddhism, Buddha (; Pali, Sanskrit: 𑀩𑀼𑀤𑁆𑀥, बुद्ध), "awakened one", is a title for those who are awake, and have attained nirvana and Buddhahood through their own efforts and insight, without a teacher to point ...
several hundred years before
Sakyamuni Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...
, in a country west of Tibet, called Olmo Lungring or Tazig (Tasi), which is difficult to identify and acts as a semi-mythical holy land in Bon (like
Shambala).
[Samuel 2012, p. 221.] Various dates are given for his birth date, one of which corresponds to 1917 BCE. Some Bon texts also state that Sakyamuni was a later manifestation of Tonpa Shenrab.
[Samuel 2012, p. 221.]
Tonpa Sherab is said to have been born to the Tazig royal family and to have eventually become the king of the realm. He is said to be the main Buddha of our era.
[Kvaerne 1996, p. 17.] He had numerous wives and children, constructed numerous temples and performed many rituals in order to spread Bon.
[Kvaerne 1996, p. 17.] Like Padmasambhava, he is also held to have defeated and subjugated many demons through his magical feats, and like
King Gesar, he is also believed to have led numerous campaigns against evil forces.
[Kvaerne 1996, p. 17.]
Tonpa Shenrab is held to have visited the kingdom of
Zhangzhung
Zhangzhung or Shangshung was an ancient culture and kingdom in western and northwestern Tibet, which pre-dates the culture of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. Zhangzhung culture is associated with the Bon religion, which has influenced the philosophie ...
(an area in western Tibet around
Mount Kailash
Mount Kailash (also Kailasa; ''Kangrinboqê'' or ''Gang Rinpoche''; Tibetan: གངས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ; ; sa, कैलास, ), is a mountain in the Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It has an altitude of ...
), where he found a people whose practice involved spiritual appeasement with
animal sacrifice. He taught them to substitute offerings with symbolic animal forms made from barley flour. He only taught according to the student's capability and thus he taught these people the lower vehicles to prepare them for the study of
sutra,
tantra
Tantra (; sa, तन्त्र, lit=loom, weave, warp) are the esoteric traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism that developed on the Indian subcontinent from the middle of the 1st millennium CE onwards. The term ''tantra'', in the Indian ...
and
Dzogchen in later lives.
[
]Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche ( Tib. o thog bstan 'dzin dbang rgyal) is a teacher (lama) of the Bon Tibetan religious tradition. He is founder and director of the Ligmincha Institute and several centers named Chamma Ling, organizations dedicated to the ...
, ''Healing with Form, Energy, and Light''. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 2002. , pp. xx It is only later in life that he became a celibate ascetic and it is during this time that he defeated his main enemy, the prince of the demons.
[Kvaerne 1996, p. 17.]
After Tonpa Shenrab's
paranirvana
In Buddhism, ''parinirvana'' (Sanskrit: '; Pali: ') is commonly used to refer to nirvana-after-death, which occurs upon the death of someone who has attained ''nirvana'' during their lifetime. It implies a release from '' '', karma and rebirth a ...
, his works were preserved in the
language of Zhangzhung by ancient Bon siddhas.
Most of these teachings were said to have been lost in Tibet after the persecutions against Bon, such as during the time of
Trisong Detsen
Tri Songdetsen () was the son of Me Agtsom, the 38th emperor of Tibet. He ruled from AD 755 until 797 or 804. Tri Songdetsen was the second of the Three Dharma Kings of Tibet, playing a pivotal role in the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet and th ...
.
[Samuel 2012, p. 227.] Bon histories hold that some of Tonpa Shenrab's teachings were hidden away as termas and later re-discovered by Bon treasure revealers (
tertons), the most important of which is
Shenchen Luga (c. early 11th century).
[Samuel 2012, p. 227.]
In the fourteenth century, Loden Nyingpo revealed a terma known as ''The Brilliance'' (), which contained the story of Tonpa Shenrab. He was not the first Bonpo
tertön
Tertön () is a term within Tibetan Buddhism meaning a person who is a discoverer of ancient hidden texts or '' terma''. Many tertöns are considered to be incarnations of the twenty five main disciples of Padmasambhava ( Guru Rinpoche), who fores ...
, but his terma became one of the definitive scriptures of Bon.
[Van Schaik, Sam. ''Tibet: A History''. ]Yale University Press
Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous.
, Yale Universi ...
2011, pages 99-100.
Bon histories also discuss the lives of other important religious figures, such as the
Zhangzhung
Zhangzhung or Shangshung was an ancient culture and kingdom in western and northwestern Tibet, which pre-dates the culture of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. Zhangzhung culture is associated with the Bon religion, which has influenced the philosophie ...
Dzogchen master
Tapihritsa Tapihritsa or Tapahritsa (c 7th ~ 8th century) was a Bon practitioner who achieved the Dzogchen mastery of the rainbow body and consequently, as a fully realised trikaya Buddha, is invoked as an iṣṭadevatā ( xct, yi dam) by Dzogchen practiti ...
.
Origin myths
Bon myth also includes other elements which are more obviously pre-Buddhist. According to Samuel, Bonpo texts include a creation narrative (in the ''Sipe D zop ’ug'') in which a creator deity, Trigyel Kugpa, also known as
Shenlha Okar
Shenlha Ökar () or Shiwa Ökar () is the most important deity in the Yungdrung Bon tradition of Tibet. He is counted among the "Four Transcendent Lords" () along with Satrig Ersang (Sherab Chamma), Sangpo Bumtri, and Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche.
Nam ...
, creates two eggs, a dark egg and a light egg.
According to Bon scriptures, in the beginning, these two forces, light and dark, created two persons. The black man, called Nyelwa Nakpo (“Black Suffering”), created the stars and all the demons, and is responsible for evil things like droughts. The white man, Öserden (“Radiant One”), is good and virtuous. He created the sun and moon, and taught humans religion. These two forces remain in the world in an ongoing struggle of good and evil which is also fought in the heart of every person.
Powers also writes that according to Bon scriptures, in the beginning, there was only
emptiness
Emptiness as a human condition is a sense of generalized boredom, social alienation and apathy. Feelings of emptiness often accompany dysthymia, depression, loneliness, anhedonia,
despair, or other mental/emotional disorders, including schizoid ...
, which is not a blank void but a pure potentiality. This produced five elements (earth, air, fire, water, and space) which came together into a vast "
cosmic egg
The world egg, cosmic egg or mundane egg is a mythological motif found in the cosmogonies of many cultures that is present in Proto-Indo-European culture and other cultures and civilizations. Typically, the world egg is a beginning of some sort, ...
", from which a primordial being, Belchen Kékhö, was born.
History
Pre-Buddhist Bon and the arrival of Buddhism
Little is known about the pre-Buddhist religion of ancient Tibet and scholars of Bon disagree on its nature.
Bon may have referred to a kind of ritual, a type of priest, or a local religion.
In ancient Tibet, there seem to have been a class of priests known as ''kushen'' (''sku gshen'', “Priests of the Body”, i.e., the king's body). This religion was eventually marginalized with the coming of Buddhism and Buddhists wrote critiques and polemics of this religion, some of which survive in manuscripts found in Dunhuang (which refer to these practices as "Bon").
Likewise, Powers notes that early historical evidence indicates that the term 'bön' originally referred to a type of priest who conducted various ceremonies, including priests of the
Yarlung kings. Their rituals included propitiating local spirits and guiding the dead through ceremonies to ensure a good afterlife. Their rituals may have involved animal sacrifice, making offerings with food and drink, and burying the dead with precious jewels. The most elaborate rituals involved the Tibetan kings which had special tombs made for them.
Robert Thurman
Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman (born August 3, 1941) is an American Buddhist author and academic who has written, edited, and translated several books on Tibetan Buddhism. He was the Je Tsongkhapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at ...
describes at least one type of Bon as a "court religion" instituted "around 100 BCE" by King Pudegungyal, ninth king of the
Yarlung dynasty, "perhaps derived from Iranian models", mixed with existing native traditions. It was focused on "the support of the divine legitimacy of an organized state", still relatively new in Tibet. Prominent features were "great sacrificial rituals", especially around royal coronations and burials, and "oracular rites derived from the folk religion, especially magical possessions and healings that required the priests to exhibit shamanic powers". The king was symbolized by the mountain and the priest/shaman by the sky. The religion was "somewhere between the previous "primitive animism", and the much changed later types of Bon.
According to David Snellgrove, the claim that Bon came from the West into Tibet is possible, since Buddhism had already been introduced to other areas surrounding Tibet (in
Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
) before its introduction into Tibet. As Powers writes, "since much of
Central Asia at one time was Buddhist, it is very plausible that a form of Buddhism could have been transmitted to western Tibet prior to the arrival of Buddhist missionaries in the central provinces. Once established, it might then have absorbed elements of the local folk religion, eventually developing into a distinctive system incorporating features of Central Asian Buddhism and Tibetan folk religion."
According to Powers, ancient Bon was closely associated with the royal cult of the kings during the early
Tibetan Empire
The Tibetan Empire (, ; ) was an empire centered on the Tibetan Plateau, formed as a result of imperial expansion under the Yarlung dynasty heralded by its 33rd king, Songtsen Gampo, in the 7th century. The empire further expanded under the 3 ...
period and they performed "ceremonies to ensure the well-being of the country, guard against evil, protect the king, and enlist the help of spirits in Tibet's military ventures." As Buddhism began to become a more important part of Tibet's religious life, ancient Bon and Buddhism came into conflict and there is evidence of anti-Bon polemics. Some sources claim that a debate between Bonpos and Buddhists was held, and that a Tibetan king ruled Buddhism the winner, banishing Bon priests to border regions. However, Gorvine also mentions that in some cases, Bon priests and Buddhist monks would perform rituals together, and thus there was also some collaboration during the initial period of Buddhist dissemination in Tibet.
Bon sources place the blame of the decline of Bon on two persecutions by two Tibetan kings, Drigum Tsenpo and the Buddhist King
Tri Songdetsen (r. 740-797).
[ Kværne, Per. "Bon Rescues Dharma" in Donald S. Lopez (Jr.) (ed.) (1998). ''Religions Of Tibet In Practice,'' p. 99.] They also state that at this time, Bon terma texts were concealed all over Tibet.
[ Kværne, Per. "Bon Rescues Dharma" in Donald S. Lopez (Jr.) (ed.) (1998). ''Religions Of Tibet In Practice,'' p. 99.] Bon sources generally see the arrival of Buddhism in Tibet and the subsequent period of Buddhist religious dominance as a catastrophe for the true doctrine of Bon. They see this as having been caused by demonic forces.
[Kvaerne 1996, p. 22.] However, other more conciliatory sources also state that Tonpa Shenrab and Sakyamuni were cousins and that their teachings are essentially the same.
[Kvaerne 1996, p. 22.]
The most influential historical figure of this period is the Bon lama
Drenpa Namkha. Buddhist sources mention this figure as well and there is little doubt he was a real historical figure.
[Kvaerne 1996, p. 119.] He is known for having ordained himself into Bon during a time when the religion was in decline and for having hidden away many Bon termas. Bon tradition holds that he was the father of another important figure, Tsewang Rigzin and some sources also claim he was the father of
Padmasambhava
Padmasambhava ("Born from a Lotus"), also known as Guru Rinpoche (Precious Guru) and the Lotus from Oḍḍiyāna, was a tantric Buddhist Vajra master from India who may have taught Vajrayana in Tibet (circa 8th – 9th centuries)... According ...
,
[Kvaerne 1996, p. 119.] which is unlikely as the great majority of sources say Padmasambhava was born in
Swat, Pakistan
Swat District (, ps, سوات ولسوالۍ, ) is a district in the Malakand Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. With a population of 2,309,570 per the 2017 national census, Swat is the 15th-largest district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa prov ...
. A great cult developed around Drenpa Namkha and there is a vast literature about this figure.
[Kvaerne 1996, p. 119.]
The development of Yungdrung Bon
Yungdrung Bon (Eternal Bon) is a living tradition that developed in Tibet in the 10th and 11th centuries during the
later dissemination of Buddhism (sometimes called the renaissance period) and contains many similarities to Tibetan Buddhism. According to Samuel, the origins of modern Yungdrung Bon have much in common with that of the
Nyingma
Nyingma (literally 'old school') is the oldest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. It is also often referred to as ''Ngangyur'' (, ), "order of the ancient translations". The Nyingma school is founded on the first lineages and transl ...
school. Samuel traces both traditions to groups of "hereditary ritual practitioners" in Tibet which drew on
Buddhist Tantra and "elements of earlier court and village-level ritual" during the 10th and 11th centuries.
[Samuel 2012, pp. 230-231.]
These figures were threatened by the arrival of new Buddhist traditions from India which had greater prestige, new ritual repertoires and the full backing of Indian Buddhist scholarship. Both Nyingmapas and Bonpos used the concept of the terma to develop and expand their traditions in competition with the
Sarma schools and also to defend their school as being grounded in an authentic ancient tradition.
[Samuel 2012, pp. 230-231.] Thus, Bonpo tertons (treasure finders) like Shenchen Luga and Meuton Gongdzad Ritrod Chenpo revealed important Bon termas. An interesting figure of this era is the Dzogchen master and translator
Vairotsana
Vairotsana () was a lotsawa or "translator" living during the reign of King Trisong Detsen, who ruled 755-97 CE. Vairotsana, one of the 25 main disciples of Padmasambhava, was recognized by the latter as a reincarnation of an Indian pandita. H ...
, who according to some sources also translated Bon texts into Tibetan and also hid some Bon termas before leaving Tibet.
While Yungdrung Bon and Nyingma originated in similar circles of pre-Sarma era ritual tantric practitioners, they adopted different approaches to legitimate their traditions. Nyingma looked back to the
Tibetan Empire
The Tibetan Empire (, ; ) was an empire centered on the Tibetan Plateau, formed as a result of imperial expansion under the Yarlung dynasty heralded by its 33rd king, Songtsen Gampo, in the 7th century. The empire further expanded under the 3 ...
period, and Indian Buddhist figures like Padmasambhava. Bonpos meanwhile looked further back, to Tibet's pre-Buddhist heritage, to another Buddha who was said to have lived before Sakyamuni, as well as to other masters from the kingdom of
Zhangzhung
Zhangzhung or Shangshung was an ancient culture and kingdom in western and northwestern Tibet, which pre-dates the culture of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. Zhangzhung culture is associated with the Bon religion, which has influenced the philosophie ...
.
[Samuel 2012, pp. 230-231.] The main Bonpo figures of the Tibetan renaissance period were tertons (treasure revealers) who are said to have discovered Bon texts that had been hidden away during the era of persecution. These figures include
Shenchen Luga (gShen chen Klu dga'), Khutsa Dawo (Khu tsha zla 'od, b. 1024), Gyermi Nyi O (Gyer mi nyi 'od), and Zhoton Ngodrup (bZhod ston d Ngos grub, c. 12th century). Most of these figures were also laymen. It was also during this era of Bonpo renewal that the Bon Kanjur and Tenjur were compiled.
Just like all forms of Tibetan Buddhism, Yungdrung Bon eventually developed a monastic tradition, with celibate monks living in various monasteries. Bon monks are called ''trangsong'', a term that translates the Sanskrit
rishi (seer, or sage).
[Powers 2007, p. 505.] A key figure in the establishment of Bon monasticism was
Nyamme Sherab Gyaltsen (mNyam med Shes rab rgyal mtshan, c. 1356-1415).
[Achard 2008, p. xix.] According to Jean Luc Achard, "his insistence on
Madhyamaka
Mādhyamaka ("middle way" or "centrism"; ; Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ ; ''dbu ma pa''), otherwise known as Śūnyavāda ("the emptiness doctrine") and Niḥsvabhāvavāda ("the no ''svabhāva'' doctrine"), refers to a tradition of Buddhi ...
, logic, gradual path (
lamrim
Lamrim (Tibetan: "stages of the path") is a Tibetan Buddhist textual form for presenting the stages in the complete path to enlightenment as taught by Buddha. In Tibetan Buddhist history there have been many different versions of ''lamrim'', pres ...
) and philosophical studies has modeled the now traditional approach of practice in most Bon po monasteries."
[Achard 2008, p. xix.] His tradition emphasizes the importance of combining the study of sutra, tantra and Dzogchen.
[Achard 2008, p. xix.] The most important Bon monastery is
Menri monastery, which was built in 1405 in
Tsang. Bon monks, like their Buddhist counterparts, study scripture, train in philosophical debate and perform rituals. However, Bon also has a strong tradition of lay yogis.
The era of New Bon
"New Bon" (''bonsar'', or sarma Bon) is a more recent development in the Bon tradition, which is closely related to both Eternal Bon and the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism.
It is centered on the figures of
Drenpa Namkha, Tsewang Rigdzin and
Padmasambhava
Padmasambhava ("Born from a Lotus"), also known as Guru Rinpoche (Precious Guru) and the Lotus from Oḍḍiyāna, was a tantric Buddhist Vajra master from India who may have taught Vajrayana in Tibet (circa 8th – 9th centuries)... According ...
, which in this school are considered to have transmitted and written commentaries on the works of Tonpa Shenrab in around the 8th century.
According to Jean Luc Achard, the New Bon movement begins in Eastern Tibet with the works of Tulku Loden Nyingpo (1360-1385), a terton who discovered the ''Zibji'' (''gzi brjid''), a famous Tonpa Shenrab biography.
His reincarnation, Techen Mishik Dorje is also known for his terma revelations.
The movement continued to develop, with new Bon terma texts being revealed well into the 18th century by influential tertons like Tulku Sangye Lingpa (b. 1705) and the first Kundrol Drakpa (b. 1700).
New Bon figures do not consider their revelations to be truly "new", in the sense that they do not see their revelations as being ultimately different than Yungdrung Bon. However, some followers of more orthodox Yundrung Bon lineages, like the Manri tradition, saw these termas as being influenced by Buddhism. Later New Bon figures like Shardza Rinpoche (1859-1934) responded to these critiques (see his ''Treasury of Good Sayings'', ''legs bshad mdzod'').
The work of these New Bon figures led to the flourishing of New Bon in Eastern Tibet.
Some Tibetan tertons like
Dorje Lingpa were known to have revealed New Bon termas as well as Nyingma termas.
Lobsang Yeshe
Lobsang Yeshe (; also written Lobsang Yeshi) (1663–1737) was the fifth Panchen Lama of Tibet.
He was born of a well-known and noble family in the province of Tsang. His father's name was De-chhen-gyalpo and his mother's Serab-Drolma. He w ...
(1663–1737), recognized as the 5th
Panchen Lama
The Panchen Lama () is a tulku of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. Panchen Lama is one of the most important figures in the Gelug tradition, with its spiritual authority second only to Dalai Lama. Along with the council of high lamas, h ...
by the
5th Dalai Lama
Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (; ; 1617–1682) was the 5th Dalai Lama and the first Dalai Lama to wield effective temporal and spiritual power over all Tibet. He is often referred to simply as the Great Fifth, being a key religious and temporal leader ...
(1617–1682), was a member of the Dru family, an important Bon family. Samten Karmay sees this choice as a gesture of reconciliation with Bon by the Fifth Dalai Lama (who had previously converted some Bon monasteries to Gelug ones by force). Under the Fifth Dalai Lama, Bon was also officially recognized as a Tibetan religion. Bon suffered extensively during the
Dzungar
Dzungar may refer to:
*Dzungar people, Oirat tribes in the Dzungar Khanate
*Dzungar Khanate, a historical empire
* Jungar Banner, an administrative division of China
*Junggar Basin
The Junggar Basin () is one of the largest sedimentary basins in ...
invasion of Tibet in 1717, when many
Nyingmapas and Bonpos were executed.
Modern period
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Bon tradition (both New Bon and Eternal Bon lineages) flourished in Eastern Tibet, led by charismatic Bonpo lamas like bDe ch en gling pa, d Bal gter sTag s lag can (bsTan 'dzin dbang rgyal), gSang sngags gling pa, and Shardza Rinpoche.
Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen
Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen () (1859 - 1933 or 1935) was a great Dzogchen master of the Bon tradition of Tibet who took not only Bon disciples, but gathered students from all traditions of Tibetan Buddhism.
According to tradition, Shardza Tashi Gyel ...
(1859-1933) was a particularly important Bon master of this era, whose collected writings comprise up to eighteen volumes (or sometimes twenty). According to William M. Gorvine, this figure is "the Bon religion's most renowned and influential luminary of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries." He was associated with the orthodox Eternal Bon Manri monastery tradition as well as with New Bon figures like the 5th and 6th Kun grol incarnations, gSang sngags gling pa (b. 1864) and bDe chen gling pa (1833-1893) as well as with dBal bon sTag lag ca n, bsTan ' d zin dbang rgyal (b. 1832). These figures maintained the orthodox Manri tradition of Eternal Bon, while also holding New Bon terma lineages.
Shardza Rinpoche is also known to have had connections with the non-sectarian Buddhist lamas of the
Rime movement
Rime may refer to:
* Rime ice, ice that forms when water droplets in fog freeze to the outer surfaces of objects, such as trees
Rime is also an alternative spelling of "rhyme" as a noun:
* Syllable rime, term used in the study of phonology in li ...
and to have taught both Buddhists and Bonpos.
Shardza Rinpoche had many disciples, including his nephew Lodro Gyatso (1915-1954) who led the lineage and Shardza's hermitage and college, after Shardza's passing. His disciple
Kagya Khyungtrul Jigmey Namkha trained many practitioners to be learned in not only the Bon religion, but in all Tibetan sciences. More than three hundred Bon monasteries had been established in Tibet before Chinese occupation. Of these,
Menri Monastery and
Shurishing Yungdrung Dungdrakling Monastery
Shurishing Yungdrung Dungdrakling Monastery is a Buddhist monastery in Sikkim, northeastern India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most ...
were the two principal monastic universities for the study and practice of Bon.
Present situation
Menri Monastery, India
Yungdrung Bon Lamas
14th Dalai Lama and Tenzin Namdak in 1978
In 2019, scholars estimate that there were 400,000 Bon followers in the
Tibetan plateau
The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the ...
. When
Tibet was invaded by the People's Republic of China, there were approximately 300 Bon monasteries in Tibet and the rest of
western China
Western China (, or rarely ) is the west of China. In the definition of the Chinese government, Western China covers one municipality ( Chongqing), six provinces (Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Qinghai), and three autonomous re ...
. Bon suffered the same fate as Tibetan Buddhism did during the Chinese
Cultural revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...
, though their monasteries were allowed to rebuild after 1980.
The present spiritual head of the Bon is
Menri Trizin Rinpoché
Menri Monastery ( — "medicine mountain") is the name of a Bon monastery in Tibet that has been refounded in India. The name derives from the medicinal plants and medicinal springs on the mountain. Menri became the leading Bon monastery in the T ...
, successor of
Lungtok Tenpai Nyima
Lungtok Tenpai Nyima (Tibetan: ལུང་རྟོགས་བསྟན་པའི་ཉི་མ, Wylie : lung rtogs bstan pa'i nyi ma) was the 33rd Menri Trizin, the abbot of the Menri Monastery and former leader of Bon.
At the age of 17 h ...
(1929–2017), the thirty-fourth Abbot of
Menri Monastery (destroyed in the
Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...
, but now rebuilt), who now presides over
Pal Shen-ten Menri Ling
Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...
in
Dolanji
Dolanji is an area near Solan in Himachal Pradesh, India. It is famous for its Bon Monastery, which one of the main tourist attractions in the Sirmour district.
Dolanji is an offshoot of the Menri Monastery
Menri Monastery ( — "medicine mou ...
in
Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...
, India. The 33rd lineage holder of
Menri Monastery, Menri Trizin
Lungtog Tenpei Nyima and
Lopön Tenzin Namdak
Lopön Tenzin Namdak (, born 1926 in Khyungpo Karu – – in Kham) is a Tibetan religious leader and the most senior teacher of Bon, in particular of Dzogchen and the Mother Tantras.
Early life
Tenzin Namdak's father was a farmer in Ch ...
are important current lineage holders of Bon.
A number of Bon establishments also exist in
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...
;
Triten Norbutse Bonpo Monastery is one on the western outskirts of
Kathmandu
, pushpin_map = Nepal Bagmati Province#Nepal#Asia
, coordinates =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name =
, subdivision_type1 = Province
, subdivision_name1 = Bagmati Prov ...
. Bon's leading monastery in India is the
refounded Menri Monastery in
Dolanji
Dolanji is an area near Solan in Himachal Pradesh, India. It is famous for its Bon Monastery, which one of the main tourist attractions in the Sirmour district.
Dolanji is an offshoot of the Menri Monastery
Menri Monastery ( — "medicine mou ...
,
Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...
.
Official recognition
Bonpos remained a stigmatized and marginalized group until 1979, when they sent representatives to
Dharamshala
Dharamshala (; also spelled Dharamsala) is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh, India. It serves as administrative headquarters of the Kangra district after being relocated from Kangra, a city located away from Dharamshala, in 1855.
The ...
and the
14th Dalai Lama
The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...
, who advised the
Parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration
The Tibetan Parliament in Exile (TPiE), officially the Parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration, is the unicameral and highest Legislature, legislative organ of the Central Tibetan Administration, the government-in-exile of the Tibet Au ...
to accept Bon members. Before this recognition, during the previous twenty years, the Bon community had received none of the financial support which was channeled through the Dalai Lama's office and were often neglected and treated dismissively in the Tibetan refugee community.
Since 1979, Bon has had official recognition of its status as a religious group, with the same rights as the Buddhist schools. This was re-stated in 1987 by the Dalai Lama, who also forbade discrimination against the Bonpos, stating that it was both undemocratic and self-defeating. He even donned Bon ritual paraphernalia, emphasizing "the religious equality of the Bon faith". The Dalai Lama now sees Bon as the fifth Tibetan religion and has given Bonpos representation on the Council of Religious Affairs at
Dharamsala
Dharamshala (; also spelled Dharamsala) is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh, India. It serves as administrative headquarters of the Kangra district after being relocated from Kangra, a city located away from Dharamshala, in 1855.
Th ...
.
However, Tibetans still differentiate between Bon and Buddhism, referring to members of the Nyingma, Shakya, Kagyu and Gelug schools as ''nangpa'', meaning "insiders", but to practitioners of Bon as "Bonpo", or even ''chipa'' ("outsiders").
Teachings of Tibetan Bon
According to Samuel, the teachings of Bon closely resemble those of Tibetan Buddhism, especially those of the
Nyingma
Nyingma (literally 'old school') is the oldest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. It is also often referred to as ''Ngangyur'' (, ), "order of the ancient translations". The Nyingma school is founded on the first lineages and transl ...
school (both schools share a focus on
Dzogchen). Bon monasticism has also developed a philosophical and debate tradition which is modeled on the tradition of the
Gelug
240px, The 14th Dalai Lama (center), the most influential figure of the contemporary Gelug tradition, at the 2003 Bodhgaya (India).
The Gelug (, also Geluk; "virtuous")Kay, David N. (2007). ''Tibetan and Zen Buddhism in Britain: Transplantati ...
school.
[Samuel 2012, pp. 223-224] Like Buddhism, Bon teachings see the world as a place of suffering and seek spiritual liberation. They teach
karma
Karma (; sa, कर्म}, ; pi, kamma, italic=yes) in Sanskrit means an action, work, or deed, and its effect or consequences. In Indian religions, the term more specifically refers to a principle of cause and effect, often descriptivel ...
and
rebirth
Rebirth may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Film
* ''Rebirth'' (2011 film), a 2011 Japanese drama film
* ''Rebirth'' (2016 film), a 2016 American thriller film
* ''Rebirth'', a documentary film produced by Project Rebirth
* ''The Re ...
as well as the
six realms of existence found in Buddhism.
Bon lamas and monks fill similar roles as those of Tibetan Buddhist lamas and the deities and rituals of Bon often resemble Buddhist ones, even if their names and iconography differ in other respects.
[Samuel 2012, pp. 223-224] For example, the Bon deity Phurba is almost the same deity as
Vajrakilaya
In Tibetan Buddhism, Vajrakilaya (Skt. ''Vajrakīlaya''; Tib. རྡོ་རྗེ་ཕུར་པ་, ''Dorje Phurba'', Wyl. ''rdo rje phur pa'') or Vajrakumara (Skt. ''Vajrakumāra''; Tib. རྡོ་རྗེ་གཞོན་ནུ་, '' ...
, while Chamma closely resembles
Tara.
[Samuel 2012, pp. 223-224]
Per Kværne writes that, at first glance, Bon "appear to be nearly indistinguishable from Buddhism with respect to its doctrines, monastic life, rituals, and meditational practices."
[ Kværne, Per. "Bon Rescues Dharma" in Donald S. Lopez (Jr.) (ed.) (1998). ''Religions Of Tibet In Practice,'' p. 98.] However, both religions agree that they are distinct, and a central distinction is that Bon's source of religious authority is not the Indian Buddhist tradition, but what it considers to be the eternal religion which it received from
Zhangzhung
Zhangzhung or Shangshung was an ancient culture and kingdom in western and northwestern Tibet, which pre-dates the culture of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. Zhangzhung culture is associated with the Bon religion, which has influenced the philosophie ...
(in Western Tibet) and ultimately derives from land called Tazik where Tonpa Shenrab lived, ruled as king and taught Bon.
[ Kværne, Per. "Bon Rescues Dharma" in Donald S. Lopez (Jr.) (ed.) (1998). ''Religions Of Tibet In Practice,'' p. 98.] Bon also includes many rituals and concerns that are not as common in Tibetan Buddhism. Many of these are worldly and pragmatic, such as divination rituals, funerary rituals that are meant to guide a deceased person's consciousness to higher realms and appeasing local deities through ransom rituals.
In the Bon worldview, the term "Bon" means “truth,” “reality,” and “the true doctrine.” The Bon religion, which is revealed by enlightened beings, provides ways of dealing with the mundane world as well as a path to spiritual liberation. Bon doctrine is generally classified in various ways, including the "nine ways" and the four portals and the fifth, the treasury.
Worldview
According to Bon, all of reality is pervaded by a transcendent principle, which has a male aspect called Kuntuzangpo (All-Good) and a female aspect called Kuntuzangmo. This principle is an empty dynamic potentiality. It is also identified with what is called the “bön body” (bon sku), which is the true nature of all phenomena and is similar to the Buddhist idea of the
Dharmakaya, as well as with the “bön nature” (bon nyid), which is similar to "
Buddha nature
Buddha-nature refers to several related Mahayana Buddhist terms, including '' tathata'' ("suchness") but most notably ''tathāgatagarbha'' and ''buddhadhātu''. ''Tathāgatagarbha'' means "the womb" or "embryo" (''garbha'') of the "thus-gone ...
". This ultimate principle is the source of all reality and to achieve spiritual liberation, one must have insight into this ultimate nature.
According to John Myrdhin Reynolds, Bonpo Dzogchen is said to reveal one's Primordial State (ye gzhi) or Natural State (gnas-lugs) which is described in terms of intrinsic primordial purity (ka-dag) and spontaneous perfection in manifestation (lhun-grub).
The Bon Dzogchen understanding of reality is explained by Powers as follows:
In Bön great perfection texts, the world is said to be an emanation of luminous mind. All the phenomena of experience are its illusory projections, which have their being in mind itself. Mind in turn is part of the primordial basis of all reality, called “bön nature.” This exists in the form of multicolored light and pervades all of reality, which is merely its manifestation. Thus Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen contends that everything exists in dependence upon mind, which is an expression of the bön nature...mind is a primordially pure entity that is co-extensive with bön nature, an all-pervasive reality that is only perceived by those who have eliminated adventitious mental afflictions and actualized the luminous potentiality of mind. Those who attain awakening transform themselves into variegated light in the form of the rainbow body, after which their physical forms dissolve, leaving nothing behind. Both cyclic existence and nirvana are mind, the only difference being that those who have attained nirvana have eliminated illusory afflictions, and so their cognitive streams are manifested as clear light, while beings caught up in cyclic existence fail to recognize the luminous nature of mind and so are plagued by its illusory creations.
Classification of the teachings
According to
John Myrdhin Reynolds, the main Bon teachings are classified into three main schemas:
# The Nine Successive Vehicles to Enlightenment (theg-pa rim dgu);
# Four Portals of Bon and the fifth which is the Treasury (sgo bzhi mdzod lnga);
# The Three Cycles of Precepts that are Outer, Inner, and Secret (bka' phyi nang gsang skor gsum).
The Nine Ways or Vehicles
Samuel notes that Bon tends to be more accepting and explicit in their embrace of the practical side of life (and the importance of life rituals and worldly activities) which falls under the "Bon of cause" division of "the Nine Ways of Bon" (''bon theg pa rim dgu''). This schema includes all the teachings of Bon and divides them into nine main classes, which are as follows:
[Samuel 2012, p. 226]
* Way of Prediction (''phyva gshen theg pa'') codifies
ritual
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized ...
,
divination,
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...
, and
astrology
Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Di ...
;
* Way of the Visual World (''snang shen theg pa'') teaches rituals for local gods and spirits for good fortune
* Way of Magic (phrul gshen theg pa'') explains the magical
excorcistic rites for the destruction of adverse entities.
* Way of Life (''srid gshen theg pa'') details funeral and death rituals as well as ways to protect the life force of the living
* Way of a Lay Follower (''dge bsnyen theg pa'') lay morality, contains the ten principles for wholesome activity as well as worldly life rituals
* Way of an Ascetic (''drang srong theg pa'') or "Swastika Bon" focuses on ascetic practice, meditation and monastic life;
* Way of Primordial Sound (''a dkar theg pa'') or the Way of the White A, this refers to tantric practices and secret mantras (''gsang sngags'');
* Way of Primordial Shen, (''ye gshen theg pa'') refers to certain special yogic methods. This corresponds to the Nyingma school's
Anuyoga
Anuyoga (Skt. अनुयोग 'further yoga') is the designation of the second of the three Inner Tantras according to the ninefold division of practice used by the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. As with the other yanas, Anuyoga represents ...
.
* The Supreme Way (''bla med theg pa''), or The Way of
Dzogchen (Great Perfection). Like the Nyingmapas, Bonpos consider Dzogchen to be the superior meditative path.
Traditionally, the Nine Ways are taught in three versions: in the Central, Northern and Southern treasures. The Central treasure is closest to Nyingma
Nine Yānas teaching and the Northern treasure is lost.
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche ( Tib. o thog bstan 'dzin dbang rgyal) is a teacher (lama) of the Bon Tibetan religious tradition. He is founder and director of the Ligmincha Institute and several centers named Chamma Ling, organizations dedicated to the ...
elaborated the Southern treasure with shamanism.
The nine ways are classified into two main divisions in the "Southern Treasure" terma tradition:
[Samuel 2012, p. 226]
* "Bon of Cause" (''rgyu''), comprises the first four of the above;
* "Bon of the Effect" (bras bu'') includes the fifth through ninth, the superior path being the Way of Dzogchen (as in the Nyingma school).
The Four Portals and the Fifth, the Treasury
This classification, called The Four Portals and the Fifth, the Treasury (''sgo bzhi mdzod lnga''), is a different and independent system of classification.
The main sets of teachings here are divided up as follows:
* The Bon of "the White Waters" containing the Fierce Mantras (chab dkar drag-po sngags kyi bon) deals with tantric or esoteric matters, mainly fierce or wrathful practices and deities.
* The Bon of "the Black Waters" for the continuity of existence (chab nag srid-pa rgyud kyi bon) concerns divination,
magic
Magic or Magick most commonly refers to:
* Magic (supernatural), beliefs and actions employed to influence supernatural beings and forces
* Ceremonial magic, encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic
* Magical thinking, the belief that unrela ...
,
funeral rites
A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect th ...
, purification rituals and ransom rituals.
* The Bon of the Extensive Prajnaparamita from the country of Phanyul ('phan-yul rgyas-pa 'bum gyi bon) includes teachings on lay and monastic ethics, as well as expositions of
Prajnaparamita
A Tibetan painting with a Prajñāpāramitā sūtra at the center of the mandala
Prajñāpāramitā ( sa, प्रज्ञापारमिता) means "the Perfection of Wisdom" or "Transcendental Knowledge" in Mahāyāna and Theravāda B ...
philosophy.
* The Bon of the Scriptures and the Secret Oral Instructions of the Masters (dpon-gsas man-ngag lung gi bon) deals mainly with
Dzogchen teachings.
* The Bon of the Treasury which is of the highest purity and is all-inclusive (gtsang mtho-thog spyi-rgyug mdzod kyi bon), this is an anthology of the salient items of the Four Portals.
The Three Cycles
The Three Cycles of Precepts that are Outer, Inner, and Secret (bka' phyi nang gsang skor gsum) are:
* The Outer Cycle (phyi skor) deals with sutra teachings on the path of renunciation.
* The Inner Cycle (nang skor) contains Tantric teachings (rgyud-lugs) and is known as the path of transformation (sgyur lam).
* The Secret Cycle (gsang skor) contains the Dzogchen intimate instructions (man-ngag) and is known as the Path of Self-Liberation (grol lam).
Traditions of Bon Dzogchen
There are three main Bon Dzogchen traditions:
* ''The Zhang-zhung Aural Lineage'' (''Zhang-zhung nyen-gyu'') - This tradition is ultimately traced to the primordial Buddha Kuntu Zangpo, who taught it to nine
Sugatas, the last being Sangwa Düpa. These teachings were then passed down by twenty four Dzogchen masters in Tazik and Zhangzhung, all of which are said to have attained
rainbow body
In Dzogchen, rainbow body
(, Jalü or Jalus) is a level of realization. This may or may not be accompanied by the 'rainbow body phenomenon'. The rainbow body phenomenon is pre-Buddhist in origin, and is a topic which has been treated fairly serio ...
.
The lineage eventually reached the 7th century siddha
Tapihritsa Tapihritsa or Tapahritsa (c 7th ~ 8th century) was a Bon practitioner who achieved the Dzogchen mastery of the rainbow body and consequently, as a fully realised trikaya Buddha, is invoked as an iṣṭadevatā ( xct, yi dam) by Dzogchen practiti ...
, the last of the 24 masters. He later appeared to the 8th century Zhangzhung siddha Gyerpung Nangzher Lödpo, who was in retreat near Darok Lake, and gave him a direct introduction to Dzogchen.
Gyerpung Nangzher Lödpo transmitted the teachings to numerous disciples who also wrote the teachings down. This lineage continued until it reached Pön-gyal Tsänpo, who translated these works into Tibetan from the language of Zhangzhung.
* ''A-khrid'' ("The Teaching Leading to the Primordial State i.e. A") - This tradition was founded by Meuton Gongdzad Ritrod Chenpo ('The Great Hermit Meditation-Treasury of the family of rMe'u', c. 11th century). These teachings are divided into three sections dealing with the view (lta-ba), the meditation (sgom-pa), and the conduct (spyod-pa) and is structured into a set of eighty meditation sessions which extend over several weeks. Later figures like Aza Lodo Gyaltsan and Druchen Gyalwa Yungdrung condensed the practices down to a smaller number of sessions. The great Bonpo master Shardza Rinpoche wrote extensive commentaries on the A-khrid system and its associated
dark retreat
Dark retreat (Allione, Tsultrim (2000). ''Women of Wisdom''. (Includes transcribed interview with Namkhai Norbu) Source(accessed: November 15, 2007)) is a spiritual retreat in a space that is completely absent of light, which is an advanced pract ...
practice.
* ''Dzogchen Yangtse Longchen'' - This system is based on a terma named the ''rDzogs-chen yang-rtse'i klong-chen'' ("the Great Vast Expanse of the Highest Peak which is the Great Perfection,") which was discovered by Zhodton Ngodrub Dragpa in 1080 (inside of a statue of Vairocana). The terma is attributed to the eighth century Bonpo master Lishu Tagrin.
Donnatella Rossi also mentions two more important cycles of Bon Dzogchen teachings:
* ''Ye khri mtha' sel'', also known as the Indian Cycle (''rgya gar gyi skor''), which is attributed to the eighth century Zhangzhung master Dranpa Namkha and is said to have been transmitted in the 11th century to Lung Bon lHa gnyan by a miraculous apparition of Dranpa Namkha's son.
* ''Byang chub sems gab pa dgu skor,'' which is classified as an important Southern Treasure text and was discovered by
Shenchen Luga (996-1035), a major figure of the later diffusion of Bon.
Pantheon of Tibetan Bon
Enlightened beings
Kunzang Akor, Central Tibet, 16th century.
Trowo Tsochog Khagying
Bon deities share some similarities to Buddhist
Mahayana
''Mahāyāna'' (; "Great Vehicle") is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, texts, philosophies, and practices. Mahāyāna Buddhism developed in India (c. 1st century BCE onwards) and is considered one of the three main existing br ...
deities and some are also called "Buddhas" (sanggye), but they also have unique names, iconography and mantras. As in Tibetan Buddhism, Bon deities can be "peaceful" or "
wrathful
Anger, also known as wrath or rage, is an intense emotional state involving a strong uncomfortable and non-cooperative response to a perceived provocation, hurt or threat.
A person experiencing anger will often experience physical effects, su ...
".
[Kvaerne 1996, p. 24.]
The most important of the peaceful deities are the "Four Transcendent Lords, Deshek Tsozhi (bDer gshegs gtso bzhi)."
[Kvaerne 1996, p. 24.] Each of these four beings has many different forms and manifestations.
[Kvaerne 1996, p. 24.] These are:
[Kvaerne 1996, p. 24.]
* "The Mother"
Satrig Ersang, a female Buddha whose name means wisdom and who is similar to
Prajnaparamita
A Tibetan painting with a Prajñāpāramitā sūtra at the center of the mandala
Prajñāpāramitā ( sa, प्रज्ञापारमिता) means "the Perfection of Wisdom" or "Transcendental Knowledge" in Mahāyāna and Theravāda B ...
(and is also yellow in color). Her "five heroic syllables" are: SRUM, GAM, RAM, YAM, OM. One of her most important manifestations is
Sherab Chamma Sherab may refer to:
*Chetsun Sherab Jungnay, eleventh century Tibetan Abbot and scholar who founded the Shalu Monastery south of Shigatse, Tibet
*Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen (1292–1361), Tibetan Buddhist master known as "The Buddha from Dolpo"
*Khen ...
(loving lady of wisdom), a female bodhisattva like being.
* "The God"
Shenlha Ökar (wisdom priest of white light) or Shiwa Ökar (peaceful white light), a deity of wisdom light and compassion, whose main color is white. He is associated with the
Dharmakaya. Kvaerne sees some similarities with
Amitabha. Another important Dharmakaya deity is Kuntuzangpo (Samantabhadra, All Good), the
primordial Buddha
In Vajrayana Buddhism, the Ādi-Buddha () is the "First Buddha" or the "Primordial Buddha". Another common term for this figure is Dharmakāya Buddha.
The term emerges in tantric Buddhist literature, most prominently in the Kalachakra.Buswell, ...
, which serves a similar function to the figure of the same name in the Nyingma school Both Kuntuzangpo and
Shenlha Ökar are seen as personifications of the 'Body of Bon', or Ultimate Reality.
[Kvaerne 1996, p. 29] In Bon, Kuntunzangpo is often presented in a slightly different form called Kunzang Akor ('the All-Good, Cycle of A'), depicted seated in meditation with a letter A in his breast.
* "The Procreator" (sipa),
Sangpo Bumtri. He is the being who brings forth the beings of this world and plays an important role in Bon cosmogonic myths. He is associated with the
sambhogakaya.
* "The Teacher"
Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche
Tonpa Shenrab ( "Teacher Shenrab") or Shenrab Miwo ()—also called the Buddha Shenrab, Guru Shenrab and a number of other titles—is the legendary founder of the Bon tradition of Tibet.
The story of Tonpa Shenrab was revealed in a fourtee ...
(meaning: Supreme Priest, Great Man). He is associated with the
nirmanakaya and is the present teacher of Bon in this era.
Bon
Yidams
''Yidam'' is a type of deity associated with tantric or Vajrayana Buddhism said to be manifestations of Buddhahood or enlightened mind. During personal meditation (''sādhana'') practice, the yogi identifies their own form, attributes and m ...
(meditation or tutelary deities) are those deities which are often used in meditative tantric practice and are the mainly fierce or wrathful forms. These class of deities resemble Buddhist yidams like
Chakrasamvara and
Hevajra
Hevajra ( Tibetan: kye'i rdo rje / kye rdo rje; Chinese: 喜金剛 Xǐ jīngāng /
呼金剛 Hū jīngāng;) is one of the main yidams (enlightened beings) in Tantric, or Vajrayana Buddhism. Hevajra's consort is Nairātmyā (Tibetan: bdag me ...
. It includes figures like Magyu Sangchog Tartug ('Supreme Secret of Mother Tantras, Attaining the Limit'), Trowo Tsochog Khagying ('Wrathful One, Supreme Lord Towering in the Sky'), Welse Ngampa ('Fierce Piercing Deity'), and Meri ('Mountain of Fire'). The Bonpos also have a tantric tradition of a deity called Purpa, which is very similar to the Nyingma deity
Vajrakilaya
In Tibetan Buddhism, Vajrakilaya (Skt. ''Vajrakīlaya''; Tib. རྡོ་རྗེ་ཕུར་པ་, ''Dorje Phurba'', Wyl. ''rdo rje phur pa'') or Vajrakumara (Skt. ''Vajrakumāra''; Tib. རྡོ་རྗེ་གཞོན་ནུ་, '' ...
.
Like the Buddhists, the Bon pantheon also includes various protector deities, siddhas (perfected ones), lamas (teachers) and
dakinis. Some key figures are
Drenpa Namkha (a major 8th century Bon lama whose name is also mentioned in Buddhist sources), the sage Takla Mebar (a disciple of Tonpa Shenrab), Sangwa Dupa (a sage from Tazik), Zangsa Ringtsun (Auspicious Lady of Long Life).
Worldly gods and spirits
The Bon cosmos contains numerous other deities, including Shangpo and Chucham (a goddess of water) who produced nine gods and goddesses. There is also the 360 Kékhö, who live on the mount Tisé (Kailash) and the 360 Werma deities. These are associated with the 360 days of the year.
Another set of deities are the White Old Man, a sky god, and his consort. They are known by a few different names, such as the
Gyalpo Pehar
According to Tibetan Buddhist myth, Gyalpo Pehar ( lso spelt: ''pe kar'' & ''dpe dkar'' is a spirit belonging to the gyalpo class. When Padmasambhava arrived in Tibet in the eighth century, he subdued all gyalpo spirits and put them under cont ...
called “King Pehar” (). Pehar is featured as a protecting deity of
Zhangzhung
Zhangzhung or Shangshung was an ancient culture and kingdom in western and northwestern Tibet, which pre-dates the culture of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. Zhangzhung culture is associated with the Bon religion, which has influenced the philosophie ...
, the center of the Bon religion. Reportedly, Pehar is related to celestial heavens and the sky in general. In early Buddhist times, Pehar transmogrified into a shamanic bird to adapt to the bird motifs of shamanism. Pehar's consort is a female deity known by one of her names as Düza Minkar ().
Bonpos cultivate household gods in addition to other deities and the layout of their homes may include various seats for protector deities.
Chinese influence is also seen is some of the deities worshiped in Bon. For example,
Confucius
Confucius ( ; zh, s=, p=Kǒng Fūzǐ, "Master Kǒng"; or commonly zh, s=, p=Kǒngzǐ, labels=no; – ) was a Chinese philosopher and politician of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. C ...
is worshipped in Bon as a holy king and master of magic, divination and astrology. He is also seen as being a reincarnation of
Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche
Tonpa Shenrab ( "Teacher Shenrab") or Shenrab Miwo ()—also called the Buddha Shenrab, Guru Shenrab and a number of other titles—is the legendary founder of the Bon tradition of Tibet.
The story of Tonpa Shenrab was revealed in a fourtee ...
, the legendary founder of Bon.
In the Balti version of Bon in
Baltistan, deities such as ''lha'' (gods), ''klu'' (serpents or dragons) and ''lhamo'' (goddesses) are worshipped, and many legends about these deities still exist among the local population.
Tibetan Bon literature
Bon texts can be divided into translations of teachings (the words of Buddha Shenrab, found in the Bon Kanjur) and translations of treatises (philosophical and commentarial texts, the Bon Tenjur).
[Powers 2007, p. 508.] The Bon Kanjur comprises four main categories: the
Sutras
''Sutra'' ( sa, सूत्र, translit=sūtra, translit-std=IAST, translation=string, thread)Monier Williams, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, Entry fo''sutra'' page 1241 in Indian literary traditions refers to an aph ...
(''mdo''), the
Perfection of Wisdom Teachings (bum''), the
Tantras
Tantras ("''doctrine''" or "''framework''" or "''system''" ) refers to numerous and varied scriptures pertaining to any of several esoteric traditions rooted in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. The religious culture of the Tantras is essentially ...
(''rgyud'') and Higher Knowledge (''mdzod,'' 'Treasure-house'), which deals with the supreme forms of meditation.
[Kvaerne 1996, p. 21.] The Tenjur material is classified into three main categories according to Kvaerne: "'External', including commentaries on canonical texts dealing with monastic discipline, morality; metaphysics and the biographies of Tonpa Shenrap; 'Internal', comprising the commentaries on the Tantras including rituals focusing on the tantric deities and the cult of dakinis, goddesses whose task it is to protect the Doctrine, and worldly rituals of magic and divination; and finally 'Secret', a section that deals with meditational practices."
[Kvaerne 1996, p. 21.]
Besides these, the Bon canon includes material on
ritual
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized ...
s,
arts
The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...
and
crafts
A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale prod ...
,
logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premise ...
,
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...
,
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
and
narrative
A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional ( fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc. ...
. According to Powers, Bon literature includes numerous ritual and liturgical treatises, which share some similarities to Tibetan Buddhist ritual. According to Per Kvaerne, "while no precise date for the formation of the Bonpo Kanjur can be ascertained at present...it does not seem to contain texts which have come to light later than 1386. A reasonable surmise would be that the Bonpo Kanjur was assembled by 1450."
[Kvaerne 1996, p. 21.]
According to Samuel, Bon texts are similar to Buddhist texts and thus suggest "a considerable amount of borrowing between the two traditions in the tenth and eleventh centuries. While it has generally been assumed that this borrowing proceeds from Buddhist to Bonpo, and this seems to have been the case for the Phurba practice, some of it may well have been in the opposite direction."
[Samuel 2012, p. 224] Powers similarly notes that "many Bön scriptures are nearly identical to texts in the Buddhist canon, but often have different titles and Bön technical terms" and "only a few Bön texts that seem to predate Buddhism."
[Powers 2007, p. 508.] While Western scholars initially assumed that this similarity with Buddhist texts was mere
plagiarism, the work of Snellgrove and others have reassessed this view and now most scholars of Bon hold that in many cases, Buddhist texts borrow and reproduce Bon texts.
Per Kværne writes that "this does not mean that Bon was not at some stage powerfully influenced by Buddhism; but once the two religions, Bon and Buddhism, were established as rival traditions in Tibet, their relationship was a complicated one of mutual influence.
[ Kværne, Per. "Bon Rescues Dharma" in Donald S. Lopez (Jr.) (ed.) (1998). ''Religions Of Tibet In Practice,'' p. 98.]
Regarding the current status of the Bon canon, Powers writes that,
The Bön canon today consists of about three hundred volumes, which were carved onto wood blocks around the middle of the nineteenth century and stored in Trochu in eastern Tibet. Copies of the canon were printed until the 1950s, but the blocks were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, although it appears that most of the texts were brought to India or hidden in Tibet.[Powers 2007, p. 508.]
Termas
The largest part of the Bon canon is made up of numerous
termas (treasure texts), which were believed to have been hidden away during the period of persecution and to have begun to be discovered during the 10th century. Bonpos hold that their termas were hidden by masters like
Drenpa Namkha during the period of decline and persecution under
King Trisong Deutsen, and then were rediscovered by later Bon tertons (treasure discoverers).
The three principal terma of Yungdrung Bon are:
[M. Alejandro Chaoul-Reich (2000). "Bön Monasticism". Cited in: William M. Johnston (author, editor) (2000). ''Encyclopedia of monasticism, Volume 1''. Taylor & Francis. , . Source]
(accessed: Saturday April 24, 2010), p.171
* the "Northern Treasure" (), compiled from texts revealed in
Zhangzhung
Zhangzhung or Shangshung was an ancient culture and kingdom in western and northwestern Tibet, which pre-dates the culture of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. Zhangzhung culture is associated with the Bon religion, which has influenced the philosophie ...
and northern Tibet
* the "Central Treasure" (), from Central Tibet
* the "Southern Treasure" (), revealed in Bhutan and Southern Tibet.
Three Bon scriptures—''mdo
'dus'', ''gzer mig'', and ''gzi brjid''—relate the mythos of
Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche
Tonpa Shenrab ( "Teacher Shenrab") or Shenrab Miwo ()—also called the Buddha Shenrab, Guru Shenrab and a number of other titles—is the legendary founder of the Bon tradition of Tibet.
The story of Tonpa Shenrab was revealed in a fourtee ...
. The Bonpos regard the first two as ''
terma (religion), gter ma'' rediscovered around the tenth and eleventh centuries and the last as ''nyan brgyud'' (oral transmission) dictated by Loden Nyingpo, who lived in the fourteenth century.
''A Cavern of Treasures'' () is a Bon
terma uncovered by Shenchen Luga () in the early 11th century which is an important source for the study of the
Zhang-Zhung language
Zhang-Zhung () is an extinct Sino-Tibetan language that was spoken in what is now western Tibet. It is attested in a bilingual text called ''A Cavern of Treasures'' (''mDzod phug'') and several shorter texts.
A small number of documents preserv ...
.
The main Bon great perfection teachings are found in terma texts called ''The Three Cycles of Revelation''. The primary Bon Dzogchen text is ''The Golden Tortoise'', which was revealed by Ngödrup Drakpa (c. 11th century). According to Samten Karmay, these teachings are similar to those of the Semde class in Nyingma. According to Jean Luc Achard, the main Dzogchen cycle studied and practiced in contemporary Bon is ''The Oral Transmission of the Great Perfection in Zhangzhung'' (''rDzogs pa chen po zhang zhung snyan rgyud'')'','' a cycle which includes teachings on the Dzogchen practices of Trekchö, trekcho and Tögal, thogal (though it uses different terms to refer to these practices) and is attributed to the Zhangzhung sage
Tapihritsa Tapihritsa or Tapahritsa (c 7th ~ 8th century) was a Bon practitioner who achieved the Dzogchen mastery of the rainbow body and consequently, as a fully realised trikaya Buddha, is invoked as an iṣṭadevatā ( xct, yi dam) by Dzogchen practiti ...
.
[Achard, Jean-Luc (2017). ''The Six Lamps: Secret Dzogchen Instructions of the Bön Tradition,'' pp. vii - 7. Simon and Schuster.]
See also
* Bon in Bhutan
*
Dongba
Dongba (Nakhi: ''²dto¹mba'', ) refers to both the religion and the priests of the Nakhi people of Southwest China.
Role in society
''Dongba'' is believed to have originated from the indigenous Tibetan Bon religion. According to Nakhi leg ...
* Gurung Dharma
* Mun (religion)
* Tengrism
* Kum Nye
* Namkha
* Phurba
* Religion in Tibet
* Samye
*
Tapihritsa Tapihritsa or Tapahritsa (c 7th ~ 8th century) was a Bon practitioner who achieved the Dzogchen mastery of the rainbow body and consequently, as a fully realised trikaya Buddha, is invoked as an iṣṭadevatā ( xct, yi dam) by Dzogchen practiti ...
* Western use of the swastika in the early 20th century
* Shugendō
* Weizza
References
Sources
* Achard, Jean-Luc (2008). ''Enlightened Rainbows - The Life and Works of Shardza Tashi Gyeltsen'' Brill's Tibetan Studies Library, Brill Academic Publishers.
* Donald S. Lopez (Jr.) (ed.) (1998). ''Religions Of Tibet In Practice.'' Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Limited.
* Gorvine, William M. (2018). ''Envisioning a Tibetan Luminary: The Life of a Modern Bönpo Saint.'' Oxford University Press.
* Karmay, Samten G. (1975). ''A General Introduction to the History and Doctrines of Bon''. Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko, No. 33, pp. 171–218. Tokyo, Japan: Tōyō Bunko.
* Kvaerne, Per (1996). ''The Bon Religion of Tibet, The Iconography of a Living Tradition.'' Shambhala
* Powers, John (2007). ''Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, Revised Edition''. Snow Lion Publications.
* Rossi, Donnatella (2000). ''The Philosophical View of the Great Perfection in the Tibetan Bon Religion.'' Shambhala Publications
* Samuel, Geoffrey (2012). ''Introducing Tibetan Buddhism.'' Routledge.
*
Further reading
* Charles Allen (writer), Allen, Charles. (1999). ''The Search for Shangri-La: A Journey into Tibetan History''. Little, Brown and Company. Reprint: Abacus, London. 2000. .
* Baumer, Christopher. ''Bon: Tibet's Ancient Religion''. Ilford: Wisdom, 2002. .
* Bellezza, John Vincent. ''Spirit Mediums, Sacred Mountains and Related Bön Textual Traditions in Upper Tibet''. Boston: Brill, 2005.
* Bellezza, John Vincent. “gShen-rab Myi-bo, His life and times according to Tibet's earliest literary sources”, ''Revue d’études tibétaines'' 19 (October 2010): 31–118.
* Ermakov, Dmitry. ''Bѳ and Bön: Ancient Shamanic Traditions of Siberia and Tibet in their Relation to the Teachings of a Central Asian Buddha''. Kathmandu: Vajra Publications, 2008.
* Herbert V. Günther, Günther, Herbert V. (1996). ''The Teachings of Padmasambhava''. Leiden–Boston: Brill.
* Gyaltsen, Shardza Tashi. ''Heart drops of Dharmakaya: Dzogchen practice of the Bon tradition'', 2nd edn. Trans. by Lonpon Tenzin Namdak. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 2002.
* Hummel, Siegbert. “PE-HAR.” ''East and West'' 13, no. 4 (1962): 313–6.
* Jinpa, Gelek, Charles Ramble, & V. Carroll Dunham. ''Sacred Landscape and Pilgrimage in Tibet: in Search of the Lost Kingdom of Bon''. New York–London: Abbeville, 2005.
* Kind, Marietta. ''The Bon Landscape of Dolpo. Pilgrimages, Monasteries, Biographies and the Emergence of Bon''. Berne, 2012, .
* Lhagyal, Dondrup, et al. ''A Survey of Bonpo Monasteries and Temples in Tibet and the Himalaya.'' Osaka 2003, .
* Martin, Dean. “'Ol-mo-lung-ring, the Original Holy Place”, ''Sacred Spaces and Powerful Places In Tibetan Culture: A Collection of Essays'', ed. Toni Huber. Dharamsala, H.P., India: The Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1999, pp. 125–153. .
* Namdak, Yondzin Lopön Tenzin. ''Masters of the Zhang Zhung Nyengyud: Pith Instructions from the Experiential Transmission of Bönpo Dzogchen'', trans. & ed. C. Ermakova & D. Ermakov. New Delhi: Heritage Publishers, 2010.
* Norbu, Namkhai. 1995. ''Drung, Deu and Bön: Narrations, Symbolic languages and the Bön tradition in ancient Tibet''. Translated from Tibetan into Italian edited and annotated by Adriano Clemente. Translated from Italian into English by Andrew Lukianowicz. Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, Dharamsala, H.P., India. .
* Pegg, Carole (2006). ''Inner Asia Religious Contexts: Folk-religious Practices, Shamanism, Tantric Buddhist Practices''. Oxford University Press.
* Peters, Larry. ''Tibetan Shamanism: Ecstasy and Healing''. Berkeley, Cal.: North Atlantic Books, 2016.
* Rossi, D. (1999). ''The philosophical view of the great perfection in the Tibetan Bon religion''. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion. The book gives translations of Bon scriptures "The Twelve Little Tantras" and "The View Which is Like the Lion's Roar".
* Samuel, Geoffrey (1993). ''Civilised Shamans''. Smithsonian Institution Press.
* https://web.archive.org/web/20070928062536/http://www.sharpham-trust.org/centre/Tibetan_unit_01.pdf (accessed: Thursday January 18, 2007)
* Yongdzin
Lopön Tenzin Namdak
Lopön Tenzin Namdak (, born 1926 in Khyungpo Karu – – in Kham) is a Tibetan religious leader and the most senior teacher of Bon, in particular of Dzogchen and the Mother Tantras.
Early life
Tenzin Namdak's father was a farmer in Ch ...
Rinpoche (2012). ''Heart Essence of the Khandro''. Heritage Publishers.
*Ghulam Hassan Lobsang, Skardu Baltistan, Pakistan,1997. " History of ''Bon Philosophy'' " written in Urdu/Persian style. The book outlines religious and cultural changes within the Baltistan/Tibet/Ladakh region over past centuries and explores the impact of local belief systems on the lives of the region's inhabitants in the post-Islamic era.
External links
Tibet's Bon
Bon FoundationBon in Belarus and Ukraine
Ligmincha InstituteGyalshen Institute
;Studies
Siberian Bo and Tibetan Bon studies by Dmitry Ermakov
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bon
Bon,
Dzogchen lineages
Moksha-aligned dharmas
Religion in Tibet
Religion in the Himalayas