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ABSTRACT
A 15th century Tibetan biography offers a rare glimpse into the life of the Tibetan princess Chokyi Dronma (1422–1455), who experienced marriage, childbirth, the death of her daughter and eventually became a Buddhist nun and a famous spiritual master. Recognised as an emanation of the Buddhist deity Dorje Phagmo, she became the founding figure of Tibet’s most famous female reincarnation line. Written close to the events by one of her fellow monks and rich in daily life details, this account offers an ideal opportunity to explore gender and kinship practices among Tibetan rural elites of the time. It also gives a rare insight into the hurdles that women faced when they decided to challenge social and cultural conventions to pursue spiritual aims.
An anthropologically informed study of this manuscript offers a unique opportunity to explore kinship terminology and practices as well as particular instances of kinship politics at a time in which marriage alliances were essential for the relationships among Tibet's regional polities. It also offers useful insights into kinship networks that underpinned patronage practices, highlighting the often mis-recognised importance of women (including their role in printing projects). Finally, it enables the exploration of Tibetan spiritual kinship and reincarnation contributing to wider debates in the anthropology of kinship and relatedness. Substances and spiritual principles appear to be symbolic fields connecting past and present – they constitute the backdrop for practical negotiation not only in Chokyi Dronma’s biography but also in many other historical sources and ethnographic cases.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 This paper reflects research from a string of collaborative projects. After an initial exploration supported by the Austrian Science Fund, the life story of Chokyi Dronma became the focus of a dedicated project supported by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (A Tibetan Woman-Lama and her Reincarnations: a Study of the Samding Dorje Phagmo, AN11783/APN19407) and a subsequent project focusing on the introduction of printing technologies in Tibet (Transforming Technologies and Buddhist Book Culture AH/H00159X/1). Over the years, many scholars in Tibet and all over the world have contributed to this work; most importantly I wish to thank the late Gene Smith, who drew my attention to the manuscript of the biography, Leonhard van der Kujip, who made it accessible to me, Pasang Wangdu and Yudru Tsomo as well as Sonam Tsering and Tsering Dawa, who provided invaluable assistance in the process of translation, revision and analysis of related historical sources. Any mistakes are all mine. Tibetan terms are given as they are pronounced except for instances in which Wylie transliteration is useful or significant.
2 I am referring here to the debates triggered by Janet Carsten’s suggestion that the term ‘kinship’ could be usefully substituted with ‘relatedness’ so as to widen the scope of anthropological research. Rather than taking for granted the notion of ‘kinship’ with the relevant assumptions about ‘biology’ it sought to interrogate it in light of what ‘being related’ implies in local contexts and to use this as the basis for comparative analysis (see Carsten Citation2000). This move inspired by Schneider’s critique of kinship and kinship studies triggered a range of responses that pointed out its limitations; reflecting this debate and other related developments it has thus become common practice to speak of ‘kinship and relatedness’ (see also the editors’ introduction to this theme issue).
3 This manuscript (Tibet Museum No. 4281) was transferred to the Tibet Museum after having been kept at the Palace of Nationalities in Beijing, where it had arrived from the library of Drepung monastery in Lhasa.
4 The most important among the sources that have helped in this work are the Biography of Thangtong Gyalpo and the Bo dong chos ‘byung (The History of Bodong). The biography of Thangtong Gyalpo is a life narrative of one of the masters with whom Chokyi Dronma interacted and was written in 1607 on the basis of pre-existing sources, including a version of the biography of Chokyi Dronma. The Bo dong Chos ‘byung is a history of the religious tradition to which Chokyi Dronma belonged and was written in the early 17th century (see Diemberger Citation2007).
5 In his book The Old Ways, the award-winning writer and scholar of English literature Robert Macfarlane describes the entanglement of life and place that led him to physically follow in Edward Thomas’s footsteps, using the paths as a route to his past. Inspired by Walter Benjamin, who floats the idea of representing his own life cartographically, “setting out the sphere of life – bios – geographically on a map” he reflects: “I have come to imagine Thomas’ ‘sphere of life’ as a kind of way map and so I retold it … : not an act of biography, exactly, but perhaps one of biogeography” (Macfarlane Citation2012, 32–33).
6 “Early scholars of Buddhism … noted the central role of place and pilgrimage in the development of the Buddha’s biography. Studies of East Asian traditions have explored the relationship between Buddhist lives and places … Yet little attention has been paid to the relationship between sacred geography and narrative in the context of Tibetan life writing” (Qunitman Citation2008, 365).
7 When the Fifth Dalai Lama established his rule over Tibet, promoting the hegemonic power of the Gelugpa tradition to which he belonged, many texts seem to have been taken out of circulation and deposited in libraries such as that of Drepung monastery (see Kapstein Citation2006). The biography of Chokyi Dronma may have been one of them since explicit and implicit references to this text do not seem to appear in other sources after the seventeenth century.
8 The name Chokyi Dronma was given to her when she was ordained as a Buddhist nun in Porong Pema Choding monastery. Her original name as princess of the Mangyul Gungthang kingdom was Konchog Gyalmo.
9 For a detailed discussion of the history of this region, see Everding (Citation2000).
10 Kuntu Sangmo’s biography indicates that she became literate at a young age as she lived for long periods with her aunt, who was a nun. Later in her life she used to travel around reading scriptures as a religious service to households. She also became a promoter and manager of printing projects (see Diemberger Citation2016, 267-–308).
11 This is a reference to a place south of the capital where Chokyi Dronma spent some of her childhood with her mother.
12 The name Bongdzog is both a place and a clan name referring to people inhabiting the Rasuwa Valley in Nepal. This points to a marriage alliance between Chokyi Dronma’s father and the neighbouring polity to the south (see Diemberger Citation2016, 295).
13 As the Tibetan empire was created by the rulers of the Yarlung valley taking over numerous pre-existing petty kingdoms, the relevant ruling families became integrated into the imperial political structure. Some of these lineages became known as clans (Tib. ru, lit. bone [lines]) providing queens to the royal lineage and as ministers of the empire. Given the high status of these maternal uncles (zhang) of the royal offspring, the figure of the uncle-minister (zhanglon) was extremely important and combined a kinship order with an imperial political structure based on territory and administration. On the term zhang and Tibetan imperial marriage practices and politics, see also Dotson (Citation2004), 75–99.
14 Situ Lhatsen Kyab was a ruler of southern Lato, the region immediately north of Mt Everest, in the fifteenth century. His father Situ Chokyi Rinchen (died 1402) established the capital in Shekar and was celebrated in the local history Shel dkar chos ‘byung. See Wangdu and Diemberger (Citation1996).
15 Protector of the Sakya tradition, see de Nebesky-Wojkowitz (Citation1956), 49–51.
16 The term ‘Bonpo’ can be used in a variety of ways in different contexts and within different classifications of Tibets religions. From a Buddhist perspective it is often used in a derogatory way to indicate pre-Buddhist religious traditions and practices (often associated with practices such as animal sacrifice that are condemned by Buddhists). However, the organized Bonpo religion co-exists and shares many features with Buddhist traditions as discussed in the wide-ranging literature on the subject.
17 This is rendered by the metaphorical expression skye rgyal pham, meaning “male and female” and alluding to the fact that a male rebirth is a better rebirth than a female one.
18 skye sman thams cad kyi blo btod pa’i bud med rnams kyi bstan pa la phen pa cig bgyid pa yin
19 This narrative is reminiscent of Christian hagiographical traditions: see for example Saint Clare of Assisi (see, for example, Bartoli Citation2010). Like Clare of Assisi, Chokyi Dronma became a referent for later women who followed her example of withdrawal from worldly life and fulfilment through support of spiritual deeds; see Diemberger (Citation2016), 267–308.
20 See Obeyesekere (Citation1981) for a wide-ranging discussion of hair as personal symbols in Buddhism.
21 In the English literary translation (Diemberger Citation2007) I had to add more subdivisions for the sake of clarity.
22 See, for example, Mohr & Tsedroen J. Citation2010; Lekshe Tsomo (Citation2004).
23 Hor indicates Mongols or other people of Central Asia.
24 A form of the female Buddhist deity Vajrayogini, see English (Citation2002).
25 In western and eastern Tibet as well as in Bhutan there are examples of house societies where the house and all the relevant entitlements and obligations are passed on matrilineally.
26 When discussing his tradition, the Aya priest pointed to the bones of his body whilst referring at the same time to “bones” as genealogically transmitted substance.