Poetics and Persona in Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhist Autobiography

This two-hour roundtable session includes 8 presenters who draw on examples of Tibetan-language poetry in different styles and periods of autobiographical writing. Scholarship over the past several decades has investigated ways that Buddhist ideas of personhood are bound with first-person life writing, but less attention has been paid to the role of poetry and poetics in autobiography, or to how poets use "persona." As Mary Oliver suggests, "The term voice is used to identify the agency or agent who is speaking through the poem |...|. This voice, or speaker of the poem, is often called the persona" (_Poetry Handbook_: 76). The diverse group of presenters will precirculate their own original translations and will limit their remarks to 10 minutes each to investigate ways that Buddhist authors use a variety of poetic techniques to negotiate various modes of self-expression. Forty minutes will be devoted to discussion among participants and audience members to explore voice, poetry, and poetics in Tibetan Buddhist autobiographical writings to better understand how Buddhist thought and literary practices are exemplified throughout the Tibetan literary world.

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p>The first presenter, a prominent translator of Buddhist texts, will discuss a well-known autobiographical verse by Khyungpo Naljor (978–1128?), the founder of the Shangpa Kagyu in Tibet. She will focus her discussion on the tension between the required humility and the required affirmation of accomplishments. The second speaker, a full professor at a research university, will present the "Ornaments for Liberating Mind," in which 15th-century writer Khachö Wangpo offers verses to his own mind using the structure of the poetic exercise book (dper brjod). The presenter will pose the question of how poetic devices and literary self-exploration might be mutually enhancing. The third presenter, a Tibetan scholar at a major US university, will discuss the King of the Wish-Fulfilling Gems, a brief versified autobiography of Khenchen Gendun Gyatso (1679–1765), abbot of Ronbo Gonchen Monastery in Rebkong. The presenter will look at how the author uses this mgur style poem to negotiate a variety of religious and political relationships in the period following the Fifth Dalai Lama. The fourth presenter, a female PhD student, will examine the opening verses in the prose autobiography of Zhuchen Tsultrim Rinchen (1697–1774). She will look at five folia of kāvya-style stanzas and how the author deploys increasingly complex metrical patterns, each labeled with alaṃkāra to represent himself as a Buddhist intellectual whose life and vocation was deeply enmeshed with his persona as a poet. The fifth presenter, a female junior faculty member at a research university, will analyze the autobiographical verses by the Alagśa Nomon Khan Ngawang Lhundrub Dorji (1714–1783), the Mongolian reincarnation of the Desi Sangye Gyatso (1653–1705) titled The Wheel of Samsara to explore the amalgamation of identities and personhood reflected in these verses. The sixth presentation by a well-established scholar will discuss the collected poems of Chokyi Wangchuk (1775–1836), abbot of Drakar Taso Monastery, as an example of writing the self. This collection of 41 poems, most with descriptive colophons, document the circumstances of composition. Taken together, the poems self-consciously construct the author’s public persona as a resident of Tibet’s southern borderlands. The seventh presenter, an ethnically Tibetan, senior independent scholar, who has never presented at the AAR before, will look at the versified autobiography of Buryat Mongol scholar, Agvan Dorjiev (1854-1938). Dorjiev titles his autobiography in a stanza that introduces the persona of "the beggar": "|...|A beggar who is poor in dharma riches/ What he did was as a monk in appearance only” (Latse Journal 8, 2014-15: 90). The presenter will explore the beggar persona and comment upon the author's political and social experiences. The final presenter, a mid-career female professor, looks at the kavya style poem: “In Praise of a Sacred Place: Yangchenma’s Song” by the monastic scholar Tséten Zhabdrung (1910–1985), which unites the first-person “I” (bdag) with that of the goddess Yangchenma (dbyangs can ma; Sarasvatī). In signifying the divine feminine, the genderless wisdom of emptiness, and the mastery of eloquence, in what ways does the use of persona serve to transform the mundane world into a sacred, tantric one?

Primary Sources (in order of presenters):

1. Mkhyung po rnal ’byor. [Untitled] in “Bla ma khyung po rnal ’byor gyi rnam thar zur tsam.” In _Dpal ldan shangs pa’i chos ’khor gser chos rnam lnga’i rgya gzhung_ vol. 1: 60–63. Sonada, India: Samdrup Darje Ling Monastery, n.d..

2. Zhwa dmar 02 Mkha' spyod dbang po. “Sems kyi rnam par thar pa'i rgyan.” In _Snyan 'grel dpe dkon gces btus_ vol. 5: 182–204. Beijing: Krung go'i rgyal spyi'i skad yig dpe skrun khang, 2016.

3. Mkhan chen dge ’dun rgya mtsho. “Rang gi rtogs brjod bsam ’phel dbang rgyal”. In _Mkhan chen dge ’dun rgya mtsho’i gsung bum_, vol. 1: 1–6. Zi lang: Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2017.

4. Tshul khrims rin chen. “Chos smra ba’i ban+de tshul khrims rin chen du bod pa’i skye ba phal ba’i rkang ’thung dge sdig ’dres ma’i las kyi yal ga phan tshun du ’dzings par bde sdug gi lo ’dab dus kyi rgyal mos ri mos su bsgyur ba.” In _Tshul khrims rin chen gyi gsung ’bum_, Vol 9: 519–870. Kathmandu: Sachen International, 2005.

5. Alagśa Nomon Khan Ngawang Dargye. _Sansar-in Kurdun_ ['Khor ba'i 'khor lo].

6. Chos kyi dbang phyug. _Bya bral snyoms las mkhan gyur chos kyi dbang phyug gi nyams mgur sna tshogs gu yangs rig pa’i snang glu_. In _Kun mkhyen brag dkar ba chos kyi dbang phyug gi gsung ’bum rin po che_, vol. 1: 827–916. Kathmandu: Shri Gautam Buddha Vihara. 2011; NGMPP Reel no. L389/2, 43ff.

7. Agvan Dorjiev/Sog po mtshan zhab Ngag dbang blo bzang. [Verse title]. Tibetan Manuscript. In _Latse Journal_ vol. 8, 2014-2015: 90-131.

8. Tshe tan zhabs drung ’Jigs med rigs pa’i blo gros. “Gnas bstod dbyangs can sgeg mo’i glu dbyangs”. In _Gangs ljongs mkhas dbang rim byon gyi rtsom yig gser gyi sbram bu_, 2160-2165. Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1994 [1989].