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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
324
MARCO POLO BOOK I.
A-
~i
dwarf environed by flames and his head garnished with a diadem of skulls. He trod with one foot on the head of Sliakia-tiipa [Sliakj%a Thubba, i.e. ' the Mighty Shakya,' the usual Tibetan appellation of Sakya Buddha himself]. . . . The idols are made of a coarse composition of mud and stalks kneaded together, on which they put first a coat of plaster and then various colours, or even silver or gold. . . . Four oxen would scarcely have been able to draw one of the idols." Mr. Emilius Schlagintweit, in a paper on the subject of this sect, has explained some of the names used by the missionary. Tamba-Shi-h'ob is " bstanpa gShen-rabs," i.e. the doctrine of Shen-rabs, who is regarded as the founder of the Bon religion. [Cf. Grenard, II. 407.—H. C.] Keun-tu-ryon-bo is " Kun-tu-bzang-po," " the All Best."
[Bonpo seems to be (according to Grenard, II. 410) a " coarse naturism combined with ancestral worship" resembling Taoism. It has, however, borrowed a good deal from Buddhism. "I noticed," says Mr. Rockhill (Journey, 86), " a couple of grimy volumes of Bönbo sacred literature. One of them I examined ; it was a funeral service, and was in the usual Bönbo jargon, three-fourths Buddhistic in its nomenclature." The Bonpo Lamas are above all sorcerers and necromancers, and are very similar to the kam of the Northern Turks, the bô of the Mongols, and lastly to the Shamans. During their operations, they wear a tall pointed black hat, surmounted by the feather of a peacock, or of a cock, and a human skull. Their principal divinities are the White God of Heaven, the Black Goddess of Earth, the Red Tiger and the Dragon ; they worship an idol called Kye' p'ang formed of a mere block of wood covered with
garments. Their sacred symbol is the svastika turned from right to left . The
most important of their monasteries is Zo-chen gum-pa, in the north-east of Tibet, where they print most of their hooks. The Bonpos Lamas " are very popular with the agricultural Tibetans, but not so much so with the pastoral tribes, who nearly all belong to the Gélupa sect of the orthodox Buddhist Church." A. K. says, " Buddhism is the religion of the country ; there are two sects, one named
Mangba and the other Chiba or Baimbu." Explorations made by A K , 34.
Mangba means " Esoteric," Chiba (p'yi-ba), " Exoteric," and Baimbu is Bönbo. Rockhill, Journey, 289, et passim. ; Land of the Lamas, 217-218 ; Grenard, Mission Scientque, I I. 407 seqq.—H. C.]
There is an indication in Koeppen's references that the followers of the Bon doctrine are sometimes called in Tibet Nag -choi, or " Black Sect," as the old and the reformed Lamas are called respectively the " Red " and the " Yellow." If so, it is reasonable to conclude that the first appellation, like the two last, has a reference to the colour of clothing affected by the priesthood.
The Rev. Mr. Jaeschke writes from Lahaul : " There are no Bonpos in our part of the country, and as far as we know there cannot be many of them in the whole of Western Tibet, i.e. in Ladak, Spiti, and all the non-Chinese provinces together ; we know, therefore, not much more of them than has been made known to the European public by different writers on Buddhism in Tibet, and lately collected by Emil de Schlagintweit. . . . Whether they can be with certainty identified with the Chinese TaossC I cannot decide, as I don't know if anything like historicål evidence about their Chinese origin has been detected anywhere, or if it is merely a conclusion from the similarity of their doctrines and practices. . . . But the Chinese author of the Wei-tsang--to-Shi, translated by Klaproth, under the title of Description du Tubet (Paris, 1831), renders Bonpo by Taossé. So much seems to be certain that it was the ancient religion of Tibet, before Buddhism penetrated into the country, and that even at later periods it several times gained the ascendancy when the secular power was of a disposition averse to the Lamaitic hierarchy. Another opinion is that the Bon religion was originally a mere fetishism, and related to or identical with Shamanism ; this appears to me very probable and easy to reconcile with the former supposition, for it may afterwards, on becoming acquainted with the Chinese doctrine of the
Taossé,' have adorned itself with many of its tenets. . . . With regard to the following particulars, I have got most of my information from our Lama, a native of
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