Tonpa Shenrab (, ), also known as Shenrab Miwo (),

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 legends, he was ...

Shenrab,

Guru Guru ( ; International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: ''guru'') is a Sanskrit term for a "mentor, guide, expert, or master" of certain knowledge or field. In pan-Indian religions, Indian traditions, a guru is more than a teacher: tr ...

Shenrab and a number of other titles, is the legendary founder of the

Bon Bon or Bön (), also known as Yungdrung Bon (, ), is the indigenous Tibetan religion which shares many similarities and influences with Tibetan Buddhism.Samuel 2012, pp. 220–221. It initially developed in the tenth and eleventh centuries but ...

religious tradition of

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 ...

. The story of Tonpa Shenrab was revealed in a fourteenth century terma of Loden Nyingpo.

Existence

Etymology

The name ''Shenrab Miwo'' is in the

Zhang-Zhung language Zhangzhung () is an extinct language, extinct Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan language that was spoken in Zhangzhung in what is now western Tibet. It is attested in a bilingual text called ''A Cavern of Treasures'' (''mDzod phug'') and sever ...

, which is a relative of

Old Tibetan Old Tibetan refers to the earliest attested form of Tibetan language, reflected in documents from the adoption of writing by the Tibetan Empire in the mid-7th century to the early 9th century. In 816 CE, during the reign of Tibetan King Sadnaleg ...

; while many suggestions have been put forward as to its meaning, it appears to be the Zhangzhung word "

bodhisattva In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a person who has attained, or is striving towards, '' bodhi'' ('awakening', 'enlightenment') or Buddhahood. Often, the term specifically refers to a person who forgoes or delays personal nirvana or ''bodhi'' in ...

" (equivalent to Tibetan ''shégya sempa'', ).

Shenrab's life according to Bon traditions

According to Bon doctrine, Tonpa Shenrab lived 18,000 years ago, predating

Gautama Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist lege ...

. Practitioners of Bon believe that he first studied the Bon doctrine in Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring, at the end of which he pledged to Shenlha Okar, the god of compassion, that he would guide the peoples of this world to liberation. Like Gautama, Tönpa Shenrab was of royal birth. Tonpa Shenrab renounced his royal inheritance at the age of thirty-one to travel the path to

enlightenment Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to: Age of Enlightenment * Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...

. Tonpa Shenrab embraced the life of a renunciate and commenced austerities, spreading the doctrine of Bon; at length, he arrived in the land of

Zhangzhung Zhangzhung or Shangshung was an ancient kingdom in western and northwestern Tibet, existing from about 500 BCE to 625 CE, pre-dating Tibetan Buddhism. The Zhangzhung culture is associated with the Bon religion, which has influenced the philos ...

near what is widely held to be

Mount Kailash Mount Kailash (also Kailasa; ''Kangrinboqê'' or ''Gang Rinpoche''; ; ; , ) is a mountain in Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It lies in the Kailash Range (Gangdisê Mountains) of the Transhimalaya, in the western part ...

. Accounts of Tonpa Shenrab's life are to be found in three principal sources, the ''Dodü'' (), ''Zermik'' (), and ''Ziji'' (). The first and second of the accounts are held to be terma discovered by

tertön In Tibetan Buddhism, a Tertön () is 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 foresaw a dark time in ...

in the 10th or 11th century; the third is part of the oral lineage () transmitted from teacher to disciple.

Aspects of Shenrab Miwoche

Shenrab Miwoche is said to have three aspects or forms: * the

tulku A ''tulku'' (, also ''tülku'', ''trulku'') is an individual recognized as the reincarnation of a previous spiritual master (lama), and expected to be reincarnated, in turn, after death. The tulku is a distinctive and significant aspect of Tibet ...

() or nirmaṇakāya, Shenrab Miwoche; * the ''dzokku'' () or sambhogakāya, Shenlha Okar and * the ''bönku'' () or

dharmakāya The ''dharmakāya'' (, "truth body" or "reality body", zh, t=法身, p=fǎshēn, ) is one of the three bodies (''trikāya'') of a Buddha in Mahāyāna Buddhism. The ''dharmakāya'' constitutes the unmanifested, "inconceivable" (''acintya'') a ...

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 () by Dzogchen practitioners in bo ...

References

Citations

Sources

* Bellezza, John Vincent. (2010). "gShen-rab Myi-bo, His life and times according to Tibet’s earliest literary sources." ''Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines'' Number 19 October 2010, pp. 31–118. * Unknown author (2005).
The Bonpo's Tradition
'. (Accessed: January 17, 2007).

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Miwoche, Tonpa Shenrab Bon Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Founders of religions Bon deities