Notes on the Co ne Bka gyur and Bstan gyur in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 1

Transcription

1 - Notes on the Co ne Bka gyur and Bstan gyur in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 1 Susan Meinheit Library of Congress Abstract: In 1926 the botanist/scholar Joseph F. Rock ( ) acquired a complete set of the Co ne Bka gyur and Bstan gyur for the Library of Congress (LC) in Washington, D.C. This set is considered one of the rarest treasures of the Tibetan rare book collection at the LC. It is also considered especially rare among scholars worldwide since the original eighteenth century wood blocks from which it was printed were destroyed by fire in In this paper the history of its acquisition by the Library and attempts to preserve and disseminate it are described. Introduction One of the rarest treasures of the Tibetan collection in the Library of Congress is a complete set of the Co ne xylograph edition of the Bka gyur and Bstan gyur. This set was acquired for the Library in 1926 by the botanist/scholar Joseph F. Rock ( ) who lived at the Co ne dgon chen (located in Southwest Gansu [Kan su] Province) for a period of two years conducting fieldwork on rare plants for the Arnold Arboretum. Rock s article, Life among the Lamas of Choni, published in the National Geographic in 1928, describes his stay in Co ne, including photos of the actual printing blocks and their official librarian 2 and another of the volumes loaded onto mules as they began their two and a half year journey to the Library. A similar photo, reproduced here, is found in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs collections among a large collection of Rock s photographs. 1 This paper was originally presented at the 2001 Beijing Seminar on Tibetan Studies, July Joseph F. Rock, Life among the Lamas of Choni, National Geographic 54, no. 5 (November 1928): 602. Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, no. 5 (December 2009): /2009/5/T by Susan Meinheit, Tibetan and Himalayan Library, and International Association of Tibetan Studies. Distributed under the THL Digital Text License.

2 Meinheit: Notes on the Co ne Bka gyur and Bstan gyur 2 Mules in western China carrying Buddhist canonical literature, co ne bka gyur/bstan gyur, on first stage of journey to the Library of Congress, LCCN , Prints and Photograph Division, Library of Congress. (Photograph by Joseph F. Rock, Co ne, 1926). Image scanned from Joseph F. Rock, Life among the Lamas of Choni, National Geographic 54, no. 5 (November 1928): 602. Acquisition and Physical Description According to Rock s account, he was treated very kindly by the Prince of Co ne, Yang Tu-ssu, who was eager to make sure the Bka gyur and Bstan gyur reached the Library of Congress and assisted Rock in every way possible with the arrangements. Rock s correspondence with the Library of Congress reveals that the volumes he acquired for the Library were actually printed in his presence in They arrived at the Library in 1928, and are first acknowledged in the 1928 Report of the Librarian of Congress, Notes on Tibetan Accessions where Rock s difficulty in sending them and the strange circumstances of their journey are recounted: After some 18 days journey the precious packages finally reached Sian Fu, the capital of Shensi Province, just at a time fighting was on all around they city. The packages remained in the post office at Sian Fu for more than six months, the city being under siege. During this time in the summer of 1926 the postmaster was shot and the registered packages looted by bandits. Fortunately the Tibetan classics

3 Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, no. 5 (December 2009) 3 did not tempt the robbers; and although the packages were cut open, the contents, beyond some disarrangement of the pages, do not seem to have been molested. 3 The volumes finally reached Shanghai in May, 1927, where the Commercial Press (Ltd.) arranged for them to be bound Tibetan style between heavy wooden boards. There was further delay there because of difficulty in finding someone in Shanghai who could read Tibetan. Fortunately, the general manager of the Commercial Press, Mr. Chang Yuang-chi, took a personal interest in making the necessary arrangements. After sorting the volumes, large labels were pasted on the wooden boards marking them as Choni Kandjar and Choni Tandjar. The volumes have been kept as they were originally received, and later in this paper I will discuss the unique numbering system which resulted from this. Of course, it was very fortunate that Rock purchased this set as the entire monastery and its eighteenth century printing blocks were destroyed by fire in 1929 during fighting between Buddhists and Muslims. Thus, the LC copy is one of only a few in existence, others being in Toyo Bunko (Bka gyur only), and reportedly at Wutai Shan (Bka gyur only) and at the Yonghegong in Beijing (Bstan gyur only). This edition consists of a total of 317 volumes, 108 for the Bka gyur (including the detailed account [dkar chag]) and 209 for the Bstan gyur (including the detailed account). Taishun Mibu, in his article A Comparative List of the Bkaḥ-bgyur Division in the Co-ne, Peking, Sde-dge and Snar-thaṅ Editions, points out an apparent inconsistency in the number of volumes as described by Rock (317 volumes) and the Library of Congress Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions, 1954 (318 volumes). However, the actual number is, as Rock reported, 317 volumes. I suspect the extra volume reported by LC in the 1954 count was merely the extra set of empty wooden boards which is found with the set. The same article also describes a discrepancy between the sizes of the Co ne Bka gyur kept at the Toyo Bunko and the set at LC. My random measurement of folios from the Bka gyur shows the paper to be twenty-two-and-a-half inches long by seven-and-one-eighth inches wide with text blocks eighteen-and-a-half inches long by four-and-a-half inches wide, the same as the copy kept at Toyo Bunko (again, an error on LC s part in the correspondence with Mibu resulted in confusion on the size). 4 Of course, there will be slight variations in individual folios due to the handmade paper. As for the paper, it was purchased by Rock at Kungchang (possibly Rgong gtsang), located eleven days from Co ne in eastern Kan su. Perhaps scholars can identify further any significance to the paper from Kungchang, and whether it was widely used in Tibetan books at that time. Each folio consists of eight pages pasted together and is very strong, even though the original sheets were very thin. It is nearly impossible to detect the individual sheets, even during the separation of the 3 Notes on Tibetan Acquisitions, in Report of the Librarian of Congress 1928 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1928), Taishun Mibu, A Comparative List of the Bkaḥ-bgyur Division in the Co-ne, Peking, Sde-dge and Snar-thaṅ Editions with an Introduction to the Bkaḥ-bgyur Division of the Co-ne Edition, Taisho Daigaku Kenkyukiyo no. 44 (March 1959): 1.

4 Meinheit: Notes on the Co ne Bka gyur and Bstan gyur 4 folios for microfilming. This process was very difficult, because most volumes of the Bka gyur had apparently not been opened since their arrival at LC in 1928 and had literally grown back together into solid bricks. Separation of the folios was a painstaking process during which I had to feel carefully to find the folio edge to avoid separating the individual sheets within each. It was also apparent during this process that the paper possessed special qualities. After about an hour, I would feel lightheaded and have to leave the rare book cage. A thorough chemical analysis of the paper was made by a German scientist and reported by the well-known German scholar, Professor R. O. Meisezahl in an article in Papier Geschichte, June Rock states in his article that the blocks were carved more than 500 years ago. 6 However scholars since have discovered that the blocks of the Bka gyur were carved during the life of the great bla ma, Co ne grags pa bshad sgrub ( ) who also founded the monastery at Co ne. Scholars now give the dates of the Co ne Bka gyur as , and according to the detailed account, the Bstan gyur was begun in 1753 and finished in Details on the publication of the Co ne Bstan gyur and a history of the Co ne region can be found in the detailed account, A Detailed Account of the Choni Bstan gyur (co ne i bstan gyur dkar chag), compiled in 1773 by Dkon mchog jigs med dbang po ( ), the second Jam dbyangs bshad pa. This detailed account, entitled A Detailed Account of the Choni Edition of the Bstan gyur (bde bar gshegs pa i bka i dgongs grel bstan bcos gyur ro cog par du sgrub pa i tshul las nye bar brtsams pa i gtam yang dag par brjod pa dkar chag yid bzhin nor bu i phreng pa), appears in his collected works 7 and is also available in separately published editions such as that published in Lanzhou in Cataloging and Arrangement The arrangement of texts in the Co ne redaction most closely resembles that of Sde dge and therefore one can usually locate individual texts, with slight folio variation, by consulting Ui s 1934 index of the Sde dge edition, A Complete Catalogue of the Tibetan Buddhist Canons. There were early attempts to catalog both the Co ne Bka gyur and Bstan gyur at the Library of Congress. In 1945, a card file was made for the first fifty-one volumes of the Bka gyur: Continuum (Rgyud, Tantra), vol. 1-14, ka-pa; Discourses of the Buddha (Mdo, Sutra), vol. 2-32, kha-ah; Monastic Discipline ( Dul ba, Vinaya), vol , ka-pa; and Mahayana Sutra Class (Phal po che, Avatamsaka 5 R. O. Meisezahl, Bemerkungen zu tibetischen handschriften des Jahrhunderts, Erganzt Durch Die Mikoskopische Untersuchung Im Institut fur Cellulosechemie Der Technischen Hochschule Darmstadt, Papier Geschichte 8, no. 2 (June 1958): This article is in German. A full translation would be interesting for comparison with the above observations. 6 Joseph F. Rock, Life among the Lamas of Choni, National Geographic 54, no. 5 (November 1928): Dkon mchog jigs med dbang po, The Collected Works of Dkon mchog jigs med dbang po (New Delhi: 1971), Volume 5,

5 Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, no. 5 (December 2009) 5 sutra), vol , ka-cha. The card file was the work of Francis H. Ehret based on analysis by Gerda (so far unidentified). The volumes were marked by Gerda to facilitate location of texts, with thin paper strips pasted to the edges of the folios. Apparently, and fortunately from the preservation perspective, staff changes interrupted the work. As for the Bstan gyur, LC had made an agreement with Professor R. O. Meisezahl, to prepare a complete catalog. The Bstan gyur was microfilmed in 1955, and copies of the microfilm were sent to Meisezahl in Germany. Over a period of several years, roughly , the exchange continued, with paper copies of the catalog arriving at the Library periodically. However, there appears to have been communication and mailing problems, with Meisezahl complaining of the quality of the microfilm from which he was working, lost catalog slips in the mail, and the Library having problems securing funding from either Harvard or the Rockefeller Foundation for the publication. The original intent was to microfilm the catalog sheets as they arrived, and when completed, publish the entirety as a book. A further agreement between LC and Toyo Bunko provided for the exchange of a microfilm copy of Meisezahl s catalog slips of the Bstan gyur for a microfilm copy of the handwritten cards of the Bka gyur prepared at Toyo Bunko, with the hope of funding a complete catalog. As far as I can tell, this never happened, and the original slips are still located in the cage next to the volumes. A letter in the LC files indicates that Rock was writing a history of Co ne to be included in Meisezahl s catalog. 8 It would be interesting to find if he had actually done so. Part of the difficulty in preparing both the above catalogs seems to stem from the fact that the volumes were strangely arranged before reaching LC. This could be due to the circumstances surrounding their journey and binding in Shanghai. However, since the volume labels had been glued onto the heavy wooden boards, they are retained for archival purposes. Meisezahl, in his letter to Horace Poleman, December 6, 1964, 9 says, The cataloging work is difficult as the 209 volumes of the Co ne Bstan gyur were disarranged I gave the volumes the following order : Arrangement of the Co ne Bka gyur Collection of Praises (Bstod tshogs), ka Continuum (Rgyud), ka-tshu Discourses of the Buddha (Mdo), ka-to Detailed Account (dkar chag), ka vol. 1 vol vol vol. 209 formerly LC 209 formerly LC formerly LC formerly LC 208 The arrangement of the Bka gyur volumes is also strange, but was also retained for archival purposes. To assist readers in making use of the microfilm I prepared a chart, reproduced below, which was then filmed along with the reels. It lists the 8 Library of Congress Correspondence Files, Library of Congress Correspondence Files, 1964.

6 Meinheit: Notes on the Co ne Bka gyur and Bstan gyur 6 LC volume numbers as given and provides the corresponding volume number from Mibu s catalog, which is also the same as that in the detailed account. CHONI NJUR, Microfilm 95/4780 So Asia MDO The volumes of the Choni Kanjur [Co ne Bka gyur] were received at the Library of Congress labeled as Choni Kandjar and arranged in the order given below. The volume arrangement, which has been retained for historical purposes, is at variance from the dkar chag [detailed account] in which the volume sequence corresponds with the catalog published by Taishun Mibu, A Comparative List of the Bkaḥ-bgyur Division in the Co-ne, Peking, Sde-dge and Snar-thaṅ Editions with an Introduction to the Bkaḥ-bgyur Division of the Co-ne Edition. Taisho Daigaku Kenkyukiyo no. 44 (March 1959): For the researcher s convenience, the corresponding volume number from Mibu is also given. CA CHA JA ÑA TA THA DA NA PA PHA BA MA TSA TSHA DZA WA ŹA

7 Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, no. 5 (December 2009) 7 ZA A YA RA LA ŚA SA HA A AM AH DUL BA CA CHA JA ÑA TA THA DA NA PA PHAL CHEN

8 Meinheit: Notes on the Co ne Bka gyur and Bstan gyur 8 CA CHA DKON BRTSEGS CA CHA ŚER PHYIN SNA TSHOGS KHRI BRGYAD STOṄ PA ŚES RAB KHRI PA RGYUD CA CHA JA ÑA *

9 Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, no. 5 (December 2009) 9 TA THA DA MA PA PHA BA MA TSA TSHA DZA WA ŹA ZA A YA * Volumes 5, 11, 33, 34, and 70 were filmed previously under microfilm shelf number Orien China 242A. ÑI KHRI BRGYAD STOṄ YUM

10 Meinheit: Notes on the Co ne Bka gyur and Bstan gyur 10 CA CHA JA ÑA TA THA DA NA PA PHA BA MA DR CHAG Guide to Reels and Contents: co ne bka gyur. Prepared by Susan Meinheit, October Due to the extremely high quality paper, the volumes are in excellent condition, despite all they endured, and no further preservation measures were necessary other than providing protective housing in the form of acid-free boxes. They are housed in the Tibetan rare books cage, and scholars are welcome to consult the original volumes in the reading room on demand. I often bring the volumes to show special visitors because of the paper and printing quality and rarity. However, for the purpose of long term preservation and dissemination, the entire set has now been microfilmed. 10 As noted above the entire Bstan gyur had been filmed in the 1950s, along with five volumes of the Bka gyur. I had begun preparing the remainder of the Bka gyur volumes for filming in 1995, but gave up when I discovered that over half of the volumes had never been opened and resembled solid bricks of paper. In 1998, motivated by the urging of E. Gene Smith, Director of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center, and scholars at the Bka bstan dpe sdur khang in Chengdu, who were eager to have the Co ne edition included in the Bka bstan dpe bsdur ma, I finally prepared the remaining 103 volumes for microfilming. Separating the folios was the most difficult, then collating the entire volume, folio by folio, to ensure they would be in proper order, legible, and right side up for the camera operators. A complete set of the film was then sent to our colleagues in 10 Choni Kanjur and Tanjur [Co ne Bka gyur and Bstan gyur]. Microfilm available from Photoduplication Service, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C Microfilm So Asia #95/4780 (Bka gyur); #Orien China 242 (Bstan gyur), and Orien China #242A (Bka gyur vols. 5, 11, 33, 34, and 70).

11 Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, no. 5 (December 2009) 11 Chengdu, in exchange for copies of the newly compiled edition. This sort of exchange is extremely beneficial, and, hopefully, will continue with other rare collections held in our respective libraries, for the benefit of Tibetan scholars worldwide and the preservation of these rare treasures. Postscript The above article was first presented at the 2001 Beijing Seminar on Tibetan Studies, July Since that time the question of access and cataloging has been greatly resolved through a cooperative arrangement with the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (TBRC), New York. The microfilm editions are being converted by LC to digital images and supplied to TBRC where they are indexed and made available in the canonical collections of the TBRC Digital Library ( An unexpected benefit of this process is that it was discovered that several folios had been inadvertently skipped during the microfilming. These have now been photocopied and supplied for the digital version. As of March 2009, the complete Co ne Bstan gyur is available, and the Co ne Bka gyur is now in process. With this remarkable accomplishment, the entire set, after the long journey described here, will finally be easily and completely accessible to scholars worldwide.

12 Meinheit: Notes on the Co ne Bka gyur and Bstan gyur 12 Glossary Note: these glossary entries are organized in Tibetan alphabetical order. All entries list the following information in this order: THL Extended transliteration of the term, THL Phonetic rendering of the term, the translation, the Sanskrit equivalent, the Chinese equivalent, other equivalents such as Mongolian or Latin, associated dates, and the type of term. Ka kan su Kansu Chi. Gansu kan su u mi rigs dpe skrung khang Kansu Mirik Petrünkhang Publisher dkar chag karchak detailed account Term dkon mchog jigs med Könchok Jikmé dbang po Wangpo Person bka gyur Kangyur Title collection bka bstan dpe sdur khang Katen Pedurkhang Publisher bka bstan dpe bsdur ma Katen Pedurma Textual Collection Ga rgong gtsang Gongtsang Kungchang rgyud Gyü Continuum (Tantric Teachings) San. Tantra Doxographical Category Ca co ne Choné co ne grags pa bshad sgrub Choné Drakpa Shedrup Person co ne dgon chen Choné Gönchen Monastery co ne i bstan gyur dkar chag Choné Tengyur Karchak A Detailed Account of the Choni bstan gyur Text Ja jam dbyangs bshad pa Jamyang Shepa Person Ta bstan gyur Tengyur Title collection bstod tshogs Tötsok Collection of Praises Doxographical Category

13 Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, no. 5 (December 2009) 13 Da bde bar gshegs pa i bka i dgongs grel bstan bcos gyur ro cog par du sgrub pa i tshul las nye bar brtsams pa i gtam yang dag par brjod pa dkar chag yid bzhin nor bu i phreng pa mdo dul ba sde dge Pha phal po che Ba bla ma Chinese Dewar Shekpé Ké Gongdrel Tenchö Gyurro Chokpardu Druppé Tsüllé Nyebar Tsampé Tamyang Dakpar Jöpa Karchak Yizhin Norbü Trengpa Do Dülwa Degé Pelpoché lama A Detailed Account of the Choni edition of the bstan gyur Discources of the Buddha San. Sutra Monastic Discipline San. Vinaya Mahayana Sutra Class San. Avatamsaka Sutra Chinese Beijing Chang Yuang-chi Chengdu Lanzhou Shanghai Shensi Sian Fu Wutai Shan Yang Tu-suu Yonghegong Text Doxographical Category Doxographical Category Doxographical Category Term Person Mountain Person Monastery

14 Meinheit: Notes on the Co ne Bka gyur and Bstan gyur 14 Bibliography Dkon mchog jigs med dbang po. The Collected Works of Dkon mchog jigs med dbang po. New Delhi, Co ne i bstan gyur dkar chag [A Detailed Account of the Choni Bstan gyur]. Lanzhou: Kan su u mi rigs dpe skrun khang, Library of Congress Correspondence Files, Horace Poleman and Walter Maurer with R. O. Meisezahl, Library of Congress Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions 2, no. 2 (February 1954): 82. Meisezahl, R. O. Bemerkungen zu tibetischen handschriften des Jahrhunderts, Erganzt Durch Die Mikoskopische Untersuchung Im Institut fur Cellulosechemie Der Technischen Hochschule Darmstadt. Papier Geschichte 8, no. 2 (June 1958): Mibu, Taishun. A Comparative List of the Bkaḥ-bgyur Division in the Co-ne, Peking, Sde-dge and Snar-thaṅ Editions with an Introduction to the Bkaḥ-bgyur Division of the Co-ne Edition. Taisho Daigaku Kenkyukiyo no. 44 (March 1959): Notes on Tibetan Accessions. In Report of the Librarian of Congress 1928, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, Rock, Joseph F. The Amnye Ma-chhen Range and Adjacent Regions: A Monographic Study. Serie Orientale Roma XII. Rome: ISMEO, Life among the Lamas of Choni. National Geographic 54, no. 5 (November 1928): Ui, Hakuju, et al. A Complete Catalogue of the Tibetan Buddhist Canons (Bkah-hgyur and Bstan-hgyur). Tokyo: Tohoku Imperial University, 1934.