Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

The Shangpa Masters and Their Lineage 337
in prison for two centuries. 52 Thankfully, the extraneous-emptiness repression
restricted itself to the Jonang, as much of the greatest writing Tibet
had produced (such as Longchenpa’s works, to name but one among
many) would have been incarcerated with those of Taranata had the repression
been countrywide.
The justification given for the end of the Jonang centered on Taranata,
his corrupt views and conduct. As absurd as the charges were in the Tibetan
context—many of Tibet’s greatest masters were contentedly guilty of the
same “crimes”—they were enough to justify the action taken against the
Jonang and to blacken Taranata’s reputation in many circles. Certainly, the
removal of his written works from circulation ensured that the only account
of his life and thought available to the public was the official version.
Woven into this tale of the transformation of Taranata into Tibet’s public
enemy number one, we can find easily discern dark family hatreds.
Who gained by Taranata’s fall? The new ruler of Tibet, the Fifth Dalai
Lama (1617–1682), was none other than Taranata’s nephew. In Tibet’s past,
maternal uncles have a way of appearing as the bad guys. For example,
although scholars have not yet decided why some government ministers
under the early kings were called zhang-lön, the zhang in their title could
refer to their family relation as maternal uncles, ah-zhang in Tibetan. (Lön
is a contraction of lönpo, government minister.) At the time of Guru Rinpoché’s
visit to Tibet, many of the “evil government ministers” are referred
to as zhang-lön. Although it seems that the title predated Tibet’s formal
relations with China, the ties between the Chinese and Tibetan royal families
were referred to as those of nephew-uncle, again the maternal uncle
(ah-zhang) rather than the paternal one (ah-ku). Even today, I have Tibetan
friends who refer to Chairman Mao as “ah-zhang,” not from fidelity to the
Party but with all the wry humor of an oppressed people whose seeming
embrace of Mao and his political offspring as family members reserves for
them the implied role of family villains. No Tibetan needs to have that reference
interpreted.
Taranata, then, was the Fifth Dalai Lama’s maternal uncle. Although
their lives overlapped, the defining acts of their relationship occurred after
Taranata had left for the pure lands. The nephew’s dismantling of his
uncle’s reputation and life work led to a popular Tibetan proverb, “A goat’s
horns can grow to poke out the goat’s own eyes; a nephew can grow to
undermine his own uncle.” For Tibetans, this is a rare example of the
nephew and not the maternal uncle cast in an unfavorable light.