by Justin Stein

On May 31, His Holiness the 17^th Gyalwang Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje opened his first visit to Canada on our campus. Convocation Hall filled with 1500 people who wanted to hear the head of one of the largest schools of Tibetan Buddhism and the incarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Born in 1985 to a traditional nomadic family in the high mountains of western Kham in the southeastern part of historical Tibet, Ogyen Trinley Dorje was recognized at the age of seven as the next Karmapa. He was enthroned in the Karmapa’s traditional seat, where he resided until he escaped to India in 2000. In the last ten years, His Holiness has established groundbreaking initiatives in the Tibetan Buddhist world, promoting environmental sustainability, vegetarianism, and full monastic ordination for women.

His Holiness gave a teaching sponsored by the Ho Centre, titled “Mindfulness and Environmental Responsibility.” His Holiness opened by reflecting on the site of Toronto as a gathering place for diverse peoples. His Holiness contrasted Canada’s multicultural vision with one of immigrant assimilation, expressing appreciation for the way Toronto’s immigrant communities maintain intergenerational cultural identities and serve as ambassadors to their cultures.

Audience members posed difficult questions that bridged the psychological and the political, and His Holiness’ responses, mostly given through his uncommonly erudite and eloquent personal interpreter, were uniformly clear and inspiring. When asked about how to enact change in the world, His Holiness explained his path to vegetarianism. “I didn’t just like eating meat, but I loooved eating meat,” he joked about his youth growing up in a Tibetan nomadic community. But, he explained, as he received his Dharma transmissions and reflected on compassion for sentient beings, meat appeared differently. He eventually stopped eating it and began advocating vegetarianism as a commitment to decreasing suffering. He suggested that social change, similarly, happens through individual reflection on how our ingrained habits are tied to oppression, commitments to change one’s own habits, and involvement in movements within one’s own community.

The next day, I was among a group of Buddhist Studies students and faculty who, along with students and faculty from the Centre for Indigenous Studies, Emmanuel College, and the School of the Environment, were invited to a private luncheon dialogue on “Sustainability and the Sacred” with His Holiness. Thirty of us sat in a square of tables in the main hall of the Multi-Faith Centre, and each able to ask questions directly to His Holiness.

Sean Hillman, a bioethicist and PhD candidate in Buddhist Studies, asked about the applicability of the Buddhist ethical doctrine of non-harm to the practice of medical assistance in dying, which became available to Canadian patients in 2016. His Holiness said that literal interpretations of the teachings on the Bodhisattva practice of generosity clearly indicates that it is not permissible to give poison to others, but other reflections could complicate this interpretation. Another saying of the Buddha’s dictates that, at times, what is proscribed must be weighed against what is needed. This suggests that, in extraordinary circumstances, the most ethical action could be something that is generally forbidden. For example, there is a Jātaka story in which the Buddha, in a previous incarnation as a ship captain, killed someone because he saw it was the only way to prevent hundreds of other deaths. He concluded more dialogue between the practice’s supporters and detractors is needed to determine that all perspectives are being understood.

I asked about whether the Buddhist concept of transforming poison into medicine (presented in the Lotus Sutra) could suggest a possible place for negative emotions, particularly anger, in movements for social justice. His Holiness said that anger plays a large role in activism, particularly environmental activism, but this anger can lead to a number of negative outcomes in addition to serving as a healthy spark to righteous action in the face of injustice. However, emotions, he warned, are fleeting, and when they go, the resulting sense of powerlessness can lead to burnout or depression. Thus, successful action comes from combining emotional impetus with planning and preparation to sustain efforts into the future. As His Holiness’ visit coincided with the announcement that the U.S. was pulling out of the Paris climate agreement, I found it reassuring to hear that anger could be a natural response to negative events in the world even if it is insufficient to carry a lasting movement.

It was a great honor to have the Karmapa visit the University of Toronto and provide profound teachings so relevant to our lives. It was particularly inspiring to hear how His Holiness is putting his principles into action, using his office to personally support Buddhist temples and monasteries’ development of sustainability plans, as well as his involvement to improve gender equality by instating the full ordination of Tibetan Buddhist nuns. It was remarked upon several times during his visit that the title “Karmapa” literally denotes the one who carries out Buddha-activity in the world and his interactions at the University of Toronto reinforced the claim that he is actively engaged with embodying these religious ideals in the public sphere.

Below see the full “Mindfulness and Environmental Responsibility” talk

By Barbara Hazelton

In the summer of 2016, I traveled to Trehor, Dokhams (Eastern Tibet). The Yalong valley opens like a blossom as you descend around the curving hill down from Kandze (དཀར་མཛས) and enter the tunnel of tall dappling leaved trees, like an impressionist painting, that mark its entrance. On both sides the fields of barley spread out, high and waving in the gentle wind, their heavy tops gleaming green – but they will be golden waves or stacked bundles by the time we leave this sweet land in a couple of months. Grazing freely on the hills and fields the chestnut coats of the Khampa horses shimmer in this same clear radiance of the sun, and the tinkling of their bells play in the soothing quiet of the generous wide open spaces.

The cars stop to prepare for Rinpoche’s approach to the monastery, the monks jump out and throw softly waving piles of various colored khatas over their shoulders and swiftly and gracefully tie them from the front of the car around the mirrors, the ends draping over the doors. Then, as the cavalcade slowly approaches the monastery, for miles along the route there are the brightly decorated horses, motorcycles, acars, and as far as the eyes can see people line the roads with bunches of wildflowers and khatas, children tied to their backs or running in and out of their feet. The air is fragrant with the clouds of sang, the burning juniper and herbs that raise in clouds of fragrant smoke from small fire pits all along the road and on the rooftops of the houses.

Entering Khams

I always wait in anticipation as we climb up the sacred mountain pass on the outskirts of Darsedo (དར་རྩེ་མདོ) to the rock cairn, that for the Tibetans marks the entrance to the eastern Tibetan nomadic land of Khams. This ancient frontier town was the centre for tea trade between Tibet and China, formerly the capital of the Chakla Kingdom. As we near, shouts of ki ki so so and hla gyalo echoing in the otherwise quiet air and which is also is filled with thousands of colored paper wind flags like a colorful rain, flying and twirling everywhere a scattered offering by the travellers who pull their cars over and jump out to joyfully praise and honor the mountain gods of the pass. The Khampa men with their long hair decorated with red threads, dressed in fur-lined chuba and long-sleeved white shirts with one shoulder nonchalantly swinging free, and with their bright boots firmly planted, as they let fly the piles of tiny paper prayer flags. The women in their black chuba, colorful aprons and blouses and worn or youthful faces with the ruddy cheeks of this high altitude, like a mark of the Khampa highland heritage.

Just as quickly they reload themselves back into their trucks and jeeps, cars and motorcycles and resume their journey at breakneck speed along the road that curves and climbs up and down the mountain passes, following the course of the Yalong, dza chu, Nya chu and Tsang po rivers strewn with massive boulders, with its torrents of thick, fast-flowing muddy waters which clear into falls and pools and jewel-like stretches at the higher altitudes.

Tibet is about land and water air and space in its enormity, its majesty its overwhelming beauty and magnificence, which is effortlessly healing comforting and enriching to the body and mind.

Kitchen warmth

The trip to Tibet is long and arduous, and over these many trips to Tibet, I have found I have developed my wits and ways of adapting to this fierce world. In the monastery, the food, tiresome, over-fried and boiled vegetables and tasteless white rice which the kind, bow-legged, cook Karma carefully prepares for the “foreigners”, Rinpoche’s guests, I discovered one gloomy cold morning, can be avoided by taking refuge in the warm cozy kitchen, where one finds the dzo yogurt from the nunnery and the leather bag of tsampa from the cook’s family, hanging on a post by the kitchen stove and in the decorated wooden bowl, dried cheese, and sugar. This is where the monks gather and laugh and chat, as they make their morning tsampa balls and slurp the heavy nourishing butter tea, in the kitchen by the long black metal stove filled with fragrant wood, that snaps and spreads out its waves of welcome heat.

The beginning

The journey begins at the jumping off point for the journey to Khams, the hot, lush city of Chengdu. The road moves up to the higher altitudes through the switchback roads carved into the sides of the steep mountains, and the vegetation gradually changes from forests of bamboo and crowded houses made of stone, to the open fields and high mountain forests and the beautiful Tibetan-style houses of wood, brightly painted. The lower floor housing the animals and the upper floors accessible by steep stairways cut into the side of a single massive log.

As I was looking out the window of the car, I was waiting for these usual signs, however the landscape instead became dotted and the black woven yak-thread tents of the nomads and the houses were in a style I had never seen before. Herds of yaks and sheep filled the mountain sides and the people were dressed in an unfamiliar style. However everywhere were the customary lovely Buddhist white stupas pinning the land and the rocks were painted with Buddhas and other deities and the familiar OM MANI PEDME HUNG and other mantras were carved in rock and written on the mountain sides blending the familiar with the new.

There is the constant sense in Tibet that the land is alive. It can be read as a sacred manuscript punctuated with the great white Buddhist stupas and illustrated with the painted rocks and caves high in the upper reaches of the mountains sides. Triangles and circular structures made of prayer flags mark the abodes of the local gods who inhabit the mountains and lakes.

Several hours into this unfamiliar landscape, it dawned on me that we were not going by the usual road straight to Tehor in lower Khams, Kalu Rinpoche’s valley, Tre-sho Gangi Rawa, but somewhere else entirely. Many hours later, as the sun was beginning to set we turned along a dusty narrow road surrounded by flower filled trees and arrived at a newly built Tibetan style mountain lodge. Everyone was remarking that the land was like Sikkim, lush and abundant. Stiff and weary, we climbed out only to find we had arrived at our destination in Amdo!

This mountain lodge had the rooms for guests below, large hand carved wooden beds and wash bowl made of hand-pounded copper and above a huge open room with brightly colored cushioned seating along the walls and glass cases with handcrafted kitchenware and the classical Tibetan black iron wood stove with steaming pots of butter tea, large rounds of flat bread and golden honey and through the windows looking over the balcony the vista of green hills and valleys spread out.

After a few days of exploring this terrain, we climbed into the cars again and made the grueling 12-hour drive over the passes and along the rivers, past the small villages along the road finally to the familiar valley, the village of Rangpatsa and Kalu Rinpoche’s monastery complexes. Deciding to stop in the middle of the night, the party had split up into several different hotels as there wasn’t enough room for all of us in one, so exhausted and hungry we fell into a few hours sleep before we began the journey again as the sun rose and burned off the morning mist and warmed the chill air.

Arriving at Trehor Begun Kagyu Monastery

Arriving at the main monastery, Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche’s seat, the car passes the lines of monks and lay people and the children dressed in their finest holding bunches of wild flowers as we pass through the high thick-walled houses of the monks, like fortresses and surprisingly pass by the main temple and continue along past the open fields of slender clusters of trees and high purple wildflowers in full bloom and stop by the entrance to the monastic college. Amid the mellow sounds of the gyaling (a clarinet type musical instrument), cymbals, conch shells and long trumpets, Rinpoche descends from his car and under the wind waving yellow traditional umbrella passes through the courtyard and into the central temple. The monks kick and slip off their shoes and the lay crowd pushes and shoves their way into the temple and I am popped through the door by the crowd and find my way up beside the throne to get a good view of the ceremony. The chanting begins and the traditional offering of the mandala and the auspicious offerings of body, speech and mind are made amid chanting and chatter and the sounds of drums, gyalings, radung (long horns) and the tinkling of the ritual bells. The assembly them passes by the throne for blessing (a text touched to the head) and offering of the scarf.

Study and Ritual

Life in the monasteries and retreat centre focuses on ritual and study which fills the days of the monks. As we leave the courtyard one morning after breakfast, the field just outside the monastery walls is dotted with the forms of monks sitting in the tall grass and flowers, memorizing, reciting and preparing for debate. The sound of their voices reciting softly reverberates in the clear, early morning light slanting across the field.

Much of the time during Rinpoche’s weeks in the monasteries, nunnery and retreat centre is composed of special ritual ceremonies. One two occasions, Nyunye, the two-day fasting ritual to the thousand-armed Chenrezi draws the villagers to the monastery and nunnery where they bring their children and come with bedding rolled under their arms and camp out overnight in the large open room in the temple main floor as the ritual begins at 5 am with the sojong vows that must be taken before sunrise and then the day is composed of four sessions of chanting, prostrating and recitation of mantra. The second day, in the early morning, the five vows are taken and the entire assembly is quiet, on this day there is no talking, eating, drinking and a solemnity descends upon the sangha.

Visiting the retreat centre

As we are eating our breakfast in the anti-room to Rinpoche’s apartment, one morning, the monks begin packing bags and organizing packages and out comes Rinpoche’s bag and umbrella, whispers pass through the room. One of the monks quietly lets us know to get ready as we will shortly be leaving for the retreat centre, high up on the mountainside where the monks have now completed their first year of the three-year retreat program. Rinpoche will spend the afternoon conferring empowerments and teaching the next set of practices to the retreatants. We have been invited to accompany him to the retreat centre where we will wait outside while he confers these rituals. The monks unfurl narrow rugs, then sitting under the lines of prayer flags lining the steep cliff we sip tea and relax in the sun. I am nostalgic as last year, the retreat had just come out and I was given permission to meditate inside the retreat. I cleaned out a room for my tiny kitchen and settled myself in for a delightful solitary retreat amidst the clouds.

This year, the doors were firmly closed as the retreat master Lama Talu and Rinpoche’s backs disappeared past the heavy black yak-hair door cover and the wooden doors were bolted into place.

My friend Peggy and I as westerners are given the small house of the retreat master to rest in and pass the waiting hours. Eventually, we start to wander the surrounding hills, among the horses and yaks and endless stretches of wild flowers and green grasses and herbs covering the hillsides. The air is thin and the sun hot, climbing is fatiguing, finding a spot with a lovely view I sat and meditated while Peggy, a devoted gardener, took pictures of the flowers and insects here and there.

We slowly made our way back to the retreat, to find all the monks had left, we were left alone on this high perch for the rest of the afternoon. In the quiet a fox is spotted coming out from his den, beautiful golden colored, with alert ears, he streaks in and out among the foliage and delights us with this rare sighting. In the quiet buzzing of the sun and cloud and gentle breezes, we see the wide wings of eagles above and then swooping down into the valley below or gliding smoothly on the windstream.

Then just as quickly as they left, the form of a monk is seen coming down the little path, one then more, they are returning to greet Rinpoche as he comes out of the retreat. We wait chatting and laughing on rugs rolled out on the dirt and grass, then as Rinpoche reemerges, jump up and accompany him back to the waiting cars and wind our ways back down the retreat mountain hillside, back to the activities of the monastery.

Retreat

At my favorite part of the monastery, the old Mahakala temple, the only part that survived the Chinese occupation without damage as it was used for grain storage, the lower temple is painted with vivid frescos and on the outside porch entrance there is a fresco now faded with the weather, of the local protectors of the valley and monastery. The lower register of the shrine has a series of goddess paintings, unusually lyrical with beautiful faces. For ten days, I went into retreat in the newly renovated upstairs in a large open room smelling of new wood, looking out to the stupas and the glorious view of the valley and mountains

Last days

For the last three days of our time in the valley, there was a special three-day ritual of Shadrupa, the main Shangpa Kagyu protector and a central deity practice of Kalu Rinpoche. Every year at new year at Kalu Rinpoche’s Monastery in Sonada India, there was a drupchen or great accomplishment ritual for Gongpo Shadrupa which I joined in several times, so in memory of this and for the sake of the lineage of Shadrupa to remain active and vibrant, Wangchen Rinpoche organized this three-day ritual performance it in Tibet. The temple was filled with the traditional torma, piles of fruit and other foods for the large ganachakra ritual feast and thunderous sound of the wrathful music with the thigh bone trumpets, drums and all the other instruments resonated shaking the floors and walls.

After the last of the protector ritual, at 4 AM in the morning, the car came lunging through the fog to pick us up for the journey back and with only a few hours sleep, in the drizzling rain and darkness, we loaded in our luggage and started down the road towards Chengdu and the long journey through the mountains back to the heat and flat of Chengdu, where we found our first entry back into the world with coffee latte’s and shopping in the Tibet town district and then began the long three-day, three-flight journey home.

Barbara Hazelton is a doctoral student in Buddhist Studies.

By Alexander James O’Neill

My journey to Nepal begins a few years ago, when I decided to do a master’s project about Buddhist texts, in particular, the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā. It was in the process of studying Buddhist texts that my supervisor, Professor Christoph Emmrich, and I began to delve into the realm of paratexts in relation to Buddhist texts. Paratexts are the materials that surround text, where text is not understood simply as being a book, but the material for which the book exists. Titles, intertitles, colophons, covers, and so forth, all serve text. They are text’s vehicle and medium. In this case, the medium is not the message, but it shapes the message. It is the argument of paratextual studies, as pioneered by the French literary theorist Gérard Genette, that paratext, that is to say, materials surrounding the text, like titles, footnotes, and so forth, all point to the text and mediate the reader’s approach to the text. In this way, the reader is manipulated by the paratexts crafted by the author and published. The title of Genette’s study of paratexts is appropriately called Seuils, meaning thresholds, which captures the essence of the idea that paratexts manipulate the entrance of the reader into the text, shaping their approach and understanding.

Buddhist texts provide extremely ample opportunities for studying paratexts in historical cases, as there is a great abundance of materials to work with. The work that scholars at the Centre for Manuscript Studies at the University of Hamburg have done on paratexts is quite telling in this respect. They have engaged in studies on paratexts in manuscripts from all over South Asia, South East Asia and East Asia. In these cases, paratexts that are focused on include marginalia, commentaries (which paratextual studies would call intertexts), and other kinds of markings and indications that are peripheral to the text itself. In the case of the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, of which the Aṣṭasāhasrikā serves as the earliest example, there are also many opportunities for studying paratexts. The manuscripts of this text are full of illustrations, adornments such as gilding, and other such flourishes. A great study that looked into these examples was Jinah Kim’s Receptacle of the Sacred.

In addition, my own supervisor, Professor Emmrich, looked into the practices of repairing and editing a thirteenth century manuscript of this text in contemporary Nepal, in his chapter “Emending Perfection” from the book Buddhist Manuscript Cultures. This study looked into rites and other practices engaged in by the Vajrācarya priests of Kwa Bahah in Lalitpur, Nepal, known in English as the Golden Temple. The same manuscript was involved in rites previously studied by David Gellner in his 1996 article “The Perfection of Wisdom: A text and its Uses in Kwa Bahah, Lalitpur.” In that article, Professor Gellner discusses the recitation practices of the manuscript, which have since become far more popular than they were at the time of his study.

What had not been studied as extensively in reference to these practices were the contents of the text itself. While the rites do not involve the use of a ritual manual, the texts being recited and edited do contain passages that suggest to the reader, or the ideal practitioner (“Son of Good Family or Daughter of Good Family”), to engage in very similar practices and to regard the text as supreme above all texts and its teachings as supreme above all teachings. As I began my master’s project, Professor Emmrich and I had the feeling like these passages may have originally been separate texts, such as ritual manuals, from early forms of book worship (or pustaka pūjā). Theories of composite origin for texts are frequently used as explanations for vast differences in textual content from one part of a text to another. A classic example would be Julius Wellhausen’s documentary hypothesis for the origin of the Torah. While the Prajñāpāramitā has lent itself to similar theories over the years, and there is almost certainly an evolution in the text as regards its gradual expansion into the 100,000 śloka form (Śatasāhasrikā), it is best to exhaust other possibilities first. Therefore, these passages in particular needed further scrutiny and study.

My master’s project was essentially setting myself the task of identifying these self-referential passages and analysing them. Some examples include passages that suggest that the reader should spread and teach the text, that it should be made into a book (keeping in mind that text is not the same as a book), and that the text should be preserved. In addition, passages frequently spell out that practices related to the text are superior to passages relating to caityas, or the mounds containing the Buddha’s relics that were the focus of Buddhist devotional practice up until the time of the Prajñāpāramitā’s composition in the first century. The text also suggests that the spot of earth on which the text is worshipped becomes the true caitya, a passage discussed in its form as found in the Vajracchedikā by Gregory Schopen in his 1975 article, “The Phrase sa pṛthivīpradeśaś caityabhūto bhavet in the Vajracchedikā.” The other kind of such passage is that of self-identification, where the text identifies itself as the mother or progenitor of all buddhas and all perfections, as the true body of the Buddha, as the good friend, and so forth. The text concludes with self-referential passages where the Buddha is depicted as bestowing responsibility of the text to Ananda, his attendant, and asking that it be laid out in writing. In relation to paratextual studies, we have an interesting case here, where textual features, which are usually only found in paratexts, are found within the text itself.

As I began my PhD project, I decided to expand this study into one that investigates texts that involve these passages as they are used in practice—in particular as they are used in practice in Nepal. The question then became, where do these passages begin and end? How broad is this textual phenomenon? Do we find it in all Buddhist texts? What about non-Buddhist texts? It was while taking a course on recent scholarship on the Mahāyāna at McMaster University with Shayne Clarke that I came across Richard Gombrich’s thesis that the early Mahāyāna relied upon written texts for their survival in a time when the established monastic infrastructure surrounding caityas and oral recitation was not at their disposal. Henceforth, the role of the written text in the Mahāyāna began to make more sense, as did the passages that I had been studying. The written text not only became the mode for the transmission of the Mahāyāna, but the centre of worship—standing in for the caityas that were dominated by mainstream Buddhism. These passages, in this light, serve to promote the preservation of text in book form and to prioritise their worship and their value over that of caityas, at a time when print media secondary to oral media in the transmission of sacred texts. In order to verify this theory, I had to see whether these are common features of all Mahāyāna texts, and whether they are found in non-Mahāyāna texts or non-Buddhist texts.

The conclusion of my research was that texts that have been considered earlier or middle period Mahāyāna by scholars, such as the Prajñāpāramitā corpus or the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, are full of such passages, but later texts, such as the Nirvāṇa Sūtra and the tantric texts, tend away from their use, instead directing the ideal practitioner to the recitation and practice of materials that are not identified with the text itself, such as mantras. After scouring the non-Mahāyāna corpus, I found only a few references to divisions of the Tipiṭaka, but not instances of self-referentiality of one text to itself. As for non-Buddhist texts, the question is where one starts and where one stops. However, Purāṇas come close: for instance, the Śivapūraṇa and Viṣṇupūraṇa have prefaces about the virtues of the texts, and how they should be used, but from the paratextual studies perspective, this is still a paratext: not incorporated into the body of the text in the same way the passages found in Mahāyāna passages are. This really emphasises a point that needs to be understood about these passages in Mahāyāna sūtras, they are not paratextual, but act like paratexts: they are interspersed throughout the text and are not prefatorial or introductory. My theory on why this is so, is that prefaces and introductions, being paratextual, may be discarded in the process of textual transmission, but if hardwired into the text itself, they are less likely to suffer this consequence, both making the passages more resilient parts of the whole and underlining their importance to the redactors of the Mahāyāna texts.

Thus, my project began to take shape as something that looked beyond the scope of the paratextual sphere. The text reaches out to the reader directly, without the need for external mediators, which may be tampered with or not considered “word of the Buddha.” The question then became, how do these passages actually influence people in the real world? In the world, there is no such thing as texts in abstract from material things: books just as much as computer screens. Paratextual studies also takes into account how these mediums change the way people interact with the text: whether a book is set up for worship on an alter or bound and printed by a scholarly press make a difference to how that book is used by ritual specialists. Thus, in asking how texts influence people, we are fundamentally asking a question of what agency do objects have. To explore this facet of the text requires me to locate actual cases of texts with these passages being used. The natural case would be in Nepal, where these texts are still worshipped, studied, and recited in Sanskrit.

My Trip to Nepal

My trip to Nepal had the following objectives: to identify cases of these texts being used, to identify the relationship between the self-referential passages and their use, to develop knowledge and acquaintance with research strategies and skills in Nepal, and to develop my understanding of the language. The last objective was the most straightforward, as Prof Emmrich put me in contact with his Newar and Nepali teacher, Laxmi Nath Srestha, who I met almost every morning and afternoon for two hours of intense drilling in Newar and Nepali. The other objectives required some more work.

Daily life was aided by the warm hospitality of Prof Emmrich and Prof Srilata Raman, his wife and one of my other committee members. I would join them almost every day for lunch and dinner, where we would discuss progress in the project, as well as daily life in Nepal. In the evenings, we would play card games, occasionally joined by their very skilled daughter Emilia, who usually won! The food was a mixture of Newar and Italian cuisine, and was always more than satisfying. Newar food was very agreeable for me, as it is not too spicy, dry, and quite mild overall. The exception would be beaten rice, baji, to which I never managed to get used.

The task of research was aided by Prof Emmrich’s long-time assistant in Nepal, Nutan Sharma, who also treated us to his warm hospitality on a number of occasions. Nutan was very supportive in helping me learn how to navigate and use the National Archives in Nepal, where a number of manuscripts could be obtained in microfilm form. Examples include ritual manuals for Aṣṭamīvrata rites, where texts are recited, as well as examples of early translations of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā into Newar with their introductions, which will allow me to trace the development of modern practices involving that text, as well as its understanding, in Nepal. This is a more difficult and time-consuming task than it sounds, as the electricity is very intermittent in Nepal. This means that in the middle of going through microfilm reels, the electricity may go off and one will have to wait a number of hours before one can get to work again. Nutan also helped on a number of occasions with interpretation, as my Nepali and Newar are not yet at the conversational level.

As for the cases of such texts being used, I observed a couple of significant rites in relation to this. The first was the recitation of the Navagrantha, the nine most sacred sūtras of Nepalese Mahāyāna Buddhism. These are the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā, the Gaṇḍavyūha, the Daśabhūmika, the Samādhirāja, the Laṅkāvatāra, the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, the Tathāgataguhya, the Lalitavistara, and the Suvarṇaprabhāsa Sūtras. This took place at Bouddhanāth Mahācaitya in Kathmandu, and was organised by the Bajrācārya Pūjāvidhi Adhyayan Samiti, which is an association for Newar ritual specialists, or Vajrācāryas (B and V are interchangeable), based in Nyākhacok in Lalitpur. Lalitpur is the most Buddhist of the three main cities of the Nepal/Kathmandu Valley. The official reason why performance of the rite was in Kathmandu rather than Lalitpur was that it was a very sacred location. It may also have been an opportunity for the Bajrācārya Pūjāvidhi Adhyayan Samiti to get in touch with the wider public outside of Lalitpur. The rite took place on Friday, the 10^th of May, the full moon day (Pūrṇimā) of the month of Caitra, and its official name was the Nava Sūtra Pāṭha, or reading of the nine sūtras. It was paired with a rite called the Saptavidhānottara, or the performance of the seven higher rites—a series of ritual offerings, involving complex mudra choreography, representatives of the five Buddhas, and a massive maṇḍala. These rites had separate sponsors, but according to one specialist, Deepak Bajracharya, were done on the same day on the same location because it is difficult to get so many priests free on the same day. As for the priests who participated, the rite involved 108 Vajrācārya from not only Lalitpur, but also Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, Thimi, Kirtipur, and Bungamati. While the main sponsors were from Lalitpur, the other supporting sponsors included many Buddhist devotees from around the world, including Taiwan.

The actual practice of the recitation of the Navagrantha involved first a series of offerings and pūjās for the nine texts, as since they are so sacred, they cannot simply be opened and read like a novel. Then the manuscripts, which had strings tied around individual chapters, were distributed in those sections to each of the priests who had assembled for the occasion. Each priest then read the section that they were given. Thus, the nine texts, which from beginning to end, one after another, would take months to complete, could be completed through simultaneous reading in only a couple hours. What appears to be important here is the recitation of each syllable of the text for its sacred value, rather than having the text be read for study or entertainment.

Not long after the rite, I had the opportunity to talk in depth with Deepak Bajracharya, one of the specialists from Lalitpur who took part in this rite. He clarified many things about the rite itself. He also explained that the reason why the Prajñāpāramitā is prioritised at Kwa Bahah and other places, and the reason why it is given pride of place in the centre of the Navagrantha, is that it is considered the mother of all Buddhas. Thus, just as a good son takes care of his mother, likewise the practitioners of the Mahāyāna should take care of their mother on the path to Buddhahood: the Prajñāpāramitā. This confirms part of the theory of the influence of the book on the individual reader or ritual specialist: the reason why the concept of the Prajñāpāramitā being the mother of all Buddhas is prevalent is that this is what the text itself claims. Likewise, the text suggests that the ideal practitioner recite, memorise, teach, and protect it, which is just what is done.

Later in my stay in Nepal, I also had the pleasure to meet Prof Naresh Man Bajracharya, the Vice-Chancellor of Lumbini Buddhist University. Prof Naresh Man is not just a scholar but also an active reformer of the Newar Buddhist tradition, attempting to modernise many aspects of the practice, such as introducing initiations to people whose parents had not been traditionally Newar Buddhists, using language understood by the participants (i.e. rather than Sanskrit), and building new Newar Buddhist institutions outside of the Kathmandu Valley, such as in Pokhara. Prof Naresh Man was kind enough to invite me to the performance of another rite involving the Navagrantha. This time it was the ritual recitation of the Lalitavistara Sūtra, the Mahāyāna version of the life of the Buddha up to his awakening. This was a unique occasion as the rite was sponsored and attended by Theravāda monks originally from Thailand who are now working for Dhammachai International Research Institute based in Sydney, Australia. One of these monks, Phra Weeachai, explained that they were in Nepal to collect manuscripts, but were invited by Naresh Man to observe the pūjā.

This rite took place in a monastery right in Thamel, the tourist centre of Kathmandu, called Chhusya Bahal. Once inside the monastery, the bustle of the street was quietened. The rite again involved the preliminary rites required to open the manuscripts for reading, as well as an explanation at various points by Prof Naresh Man as to what he was doing. The manuscript pages were then handed out to the participant priests who then proceeded to recite. Afterwards food was distributed and everyone ate and enjoyed themselves. The ceremony was also recorded by a Buddhist television station, Bodhi TV.

Outside of my research, later in my stay, I had the opportunity to meet Prof Chiara Letizia, from Université du Québec à Montréal, and her students, who had come with her for a course project. Prof Letizia and her students were guided around to various important sites by Nutan. Unfortunately, a number of her students got sick. Hygiene is very important in Nepal, and even a small mistake in the preparation of food can result in a few days in bed. It is usually advised that all water used, with the exception of shower water, be bottled water.

With Prof Letizia and her students, I had the opportunity to see the performance of the Rāto Matsyendranāth Jātrā, which is the parading of a chariot containing the deity called Buṅga Dyaḥ around Lalitpur. The deity is identified as both Karuṇāmaya, or Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, and as Matsyendranāth, a Hindu saint, making the rite one of the many occasions in which Buddhist and Hindu traditions and practices intersect in Nepal. There are a number of these festivals in Nepal, but this one is distinguished by the colour of the deity, red (rāto). The chariot is built according to ritual specifications over an extended period, and ends up being a very tall structure, looking somewhat like a Christmas tree. In the process of the chariot’s procedure through the city, many events occur. For instance, the chariot is met by a smaller version pulled by teenage boys, and at one point one of the Kumārīs, or girl goddesses, exits from her shrine to greet the chariot as it passes. This year, not all of the electrical cables had been cut across the streets, meaning that at one point, the smaller chariot had to force its way through the wires, forcing everyone who was standing behind that wire have to jump out of the way to dodge the cable! The cable snapped off each pole down the street, to what seemed to be the entire length of the cable around a bend in the street.

At the festival, by chance I met some people who had been visiting Nepal from BLIA/Fo Guang Shan, the Taiwanese monastic order for which I had previously volunteer editing work. I met them by noticing a logo on the shirts of one of the observers. They invited me to come with them to get an update on the aid work they were doing near Banepa, to the east of the Kathmandu Valley. I took this opportunity, and at various points on the journey up the mountain to visit some of the relief sites, I almost regretted it! The road up these mountains was sometimes paved entirely with jagged rocks and was always bordered on one side by a sheer drop of thousands of feet. The driver said that these roads were no problem compared to those going up to Gorkha! At the top, we visited a Tamang temple which was being rebuilt, after being devastated in the earthquake last year. The original temple had been built with mud brick and was being replaced by one with steel reinforcement and concrete with funding from BLIA. On another mountain peak was Shree Tapeshwor Higher Secondary School, which had been rebuilt entirely with BLIA funds. The view from the mountain was quite breath-taking, and after going down into the valleys for lunch, we proceeded back to Banepa, where we observed the shelters that had been built for urban families who had lost their homes in the earthquake. At that point, the majority of the people who had benefited from these shelters had been rehoused, meaning the project, overall, was a success. One can only pray that the next earthquakes are weaker, and the buildings are made more resilient.

There were many other opportunities to experience Newar Buddhism and Hinduism on a daily basis. At various points from my room in Lalitpur, I heard the sound of distant drumming or the blowing of horns. At some points, I was laying down for a rest, when I was almost compelled to arise and rush to see where the sound hearing a distant ritual out the window was coming from. One such occasion was the opportunity to see a Newar Buddhist ordination ritual. Unlike other forms of Buddhism, Newar Buddhist monks get married. Nevertheless, they still ordain in the traditional way, according to the vinaya, when at a young age. After a period in the robes and with a shaven head, the young boys who had ordained give back the precepts, but not their status as monks. This practice may have its roots in the gradual merging of Buddhist and Hindu traditions and cultures, but the Newar Buddhist oral tradition relates that it was forced upon Buddhists by either Śaṅkarācārya or by a king, such as Jayasthiti Malla. It seems likely that a combination of these explanations is true. In this particular ordination ceremony, I saw young ordained Newar Buddhists in orange robes being carried by their parents into Kwa Bahah for a rite.

Nepal is a place full of opportunities to learn about religion, as well as humanity and its resilience. One year after a devastating earthquake, people are managing to continue their lives and practice of the Dharma, despite economic and political difficulties. Inspirational is one of the many things one could call this experience. My research is not over, but has just begun in Nepal, however this trip eventually ended and I had to say good bye to friends made over that period. Even the owners of the bed and breakfast I was staying at, Traditional Homes at Swotha, showed some disappointment at having to part company after so long, and so many days of practicing broken Nepali and Newari. On my part, I can only express my utmost gratitude to them for their very kind hospitality and the great meals they offered on a daily basis. Likewise, to everyone else who helped with this fruitful trip, including SSHRC, my supervisor, Prof Emmrich, Prof Raman, and Prof Letizia, Nutan, and Laxmi.

By Tony Scott

Please call me Anthony, Tony, ခန္ဒိ (Khandi), or whatever other names I collect along the way. As a third-year PhD student, I spent the summer of 2016 pursuing my thesis work in Toronto, Tokyo, and Yangon, what looks to be a typical trifecta in my program. The trip started off as an attempt to continue learning Burmese, combined with a preliminary journey to scout out and assess the nature and feasibility of future archival work. With some luck and the right personal connections, it turned out to be a very productive tenure with many unforeseen redirections in the development of my thesis.

On the way to Myanmar, I first made a month stop in Japan, in part to meet with scholars there studying Southeast Asia, Burmese Buddhism and Pali philology. Initially I visited the Institute for Advanced Research on Asia at the University of Tokyo, where Pali scholar Baba Norihisa works on commentarial literature and Theravāda philosophy. I then had the fortune to meet with Ryosuke Kuramoto, currently at Nanzan University. He and Buddhist Studies Scholar Mayumi Okabe, from Chukyo University, welcomed me in May 2016. As an expert on modern Burmese monasticism, Kuramoto and I have the potential to collaborate on issues of the kathina-kamma, or robe-giving ceremony, untangling issues of vinaya and Buddhist economy critical to my research. In June, after returning from Myanmar, I traveled to Sendai College of Technology to meet with Sanskrit-Pali philologist Sunao Kasamatsu, creator of several indexes for the Pali Text Society (PTS). Kasamatsu is currently conducting his digitization project of Pali palm leaf manuscripts in monastic libraries of Myanmar, in collaboration with the PTS. I also met with anthropologists of Buddhism Tadayoshi Murakami, University of Okasa, and Tatsuki Kataoka at the University of Kyoto, to discuss their experiences studying the periphery Southeast Asian Buddhism.

Once in Yangon, I immediately set to improving my Burmese language skills. After contacting her through email, Professor of Myanmar Languages, Dr. Cho Cho Aung from the International Theravāda Buddhist Missionary University, agreed to meet for Burmese language training. She taught me at the university for two weeks every evening while I resided nearby the Kaba Aye Pagoda, built by the U Nu independence government to promote world peace and commemorate the so-called Sixth Buddhist Council, 1954-56. After being attuned by Professor Aung, I then had the opportunity to study with Burmese language titan, John Okell, at the Institut francais d’birmanie, for two weeks. These intensive courses included lessons in writing, reading and speaking Burmese, as well as workshops on Literary Burmese, which supplements my own translation work directly.

After studying Burmese language for almost a month, I acquired numerous materials crucial to my research. It partly started when Professor Kuramoto introduced me to an independent researcher in Burma, Nang Kham Wah, lecturer in Japanese language at the University of Foreign Languages, Yangon. Nang Kham Wah graciously introduced me to many scholar-monks and professors at the State Sasana Pariyatti University, Yangon. Through these scholars I learned about the background and personage of Ū Nārada, a meditation master and Pali specialist whose work is at the centre of my thesis. Everyone agreed I should meet U Aung Mon, the resident expert on my thesis topic, accomplished scholar and Buddhist bookshop owner in Yangon. U Aung Mon graciously gave me new editions of my source text, published in 2015 by a group of lineage devotees marking the centennial of the founding of Mingun Jetawun Sayadaw’s monastery. This group also compiled an anthology dedicated to Mingun Jetawun Sayadaw, with contributions from professors, scholar-monks and trustees of the monastery. The anthology may prove an invaluable resource containing twenty-first century interpretations of Ū Nārada’s controversial writings, but I have not yet begun translation. Several autobiographies and lineage-histories also exist for the Sayadaw, considered one of the so-called ‘arahants’ of the twentieth century in Burma.

Back in Canada, it becomes clear how fortunate I am to have made the friends that I did. Without their kindness and assistance, I would not have accomplished nearly as much on my first trip to Myanmar. As the Centre for Buddhist Studies starts up at the University of Toronto, I am honoured to bring some Burmese influence back home, both in terms of language, translations and longyis. With the CBS as home base, I am sure next year’s trip will be even more fruitful!

Tony Scott is a doctoral student in Buddhist Studies.