The Biographies of Rechungpa: The Evolution of a Tibetan ...

The biographies of Rechungpa 32
adorned by his history (rJe rNal-byor 131 dBang-phyug dPal bZhad-pa’i rDo-rje’i 132 ‘Gur
‘tshogs tshad phyogs gcig 133 tu bsgrig-pa lo-rgyus kyis spras-pa).
Also, the TBRC text opens with a verse from the beginning of The Life and Songs of
Shepay Dorje which it is based on. There are a series of portraits of lamas and deities on
the pages, in an archaic style, but unfortunately with atrocious spelling of their names.
The latest teacher that I have been able to identify is Zurpukpa (Zur-phug-pa), who was a
teacher of Barawa (‘Ba’-ra-ba, 1310–91), so that the manuscript dates from the
fourteenth century at the earliest, but the text itself, cannot be earlier than the fifteenth as
shown below.
The identity of A Dark Treasury is made more puzzling by the following sentence
from The History of Drakar Taso, which was written in the early nineteenth century:
The one named Shiché Ripa (Zhi-byed Ri-pa) who is famous for having
read a hundred and twenty-seven different biographies of the venerable
one, composed A Dark Treasury, and a blockprint of this previously
existed amongst the retreat centres of Chuwar (Chu-dbar) as is described
in the biography of Gamnyön Chardor Norbu (sGam-smyon Phyag-rdor
Nor-bu).134
The identity of Gamnyön is yet another mystery. The full form of his name is presumably
Ghana Dorje Norbu (Phyag-na rDo-rje Nor-bu). This is presumably referring to the
Shiché Ripa text that Deshung Rinpoche saw at the Drakar Taso library. As will be seen
below, Kathok Tsewang Norbu in the eighteenth century also refers to a biography of
Milarepa by Zhiché Repa, and says he was famous for having read a 127 biographies, but
he does not name the title of the text. However, as ‘a dark treasury’ is a generic rather
than a specific title, referring to a text that is not to be widely distributed, the title could
apply to Shiché Ripa’s text as well as to the one attributed to the third Karmapa, and also
to A River of Blessings itself. Their limited distribution and their being referred to by the
same name could be the cause for the present confusion.
The scribe of this edition published in India states that he wrote this text in Pema Kö
(Pad-ma bKod), a lush border area that he describes with delicate imagery. He refers to
himself as ‘the old mendicant’ who failed to start his work for some time as he lacked the
resources. He lists various donors that supplied him with food and paper to write on. He
commenced the work in a water-tiger year and completed it in the following year, a
water-hare year. He prays that a master named Pema Tendzin (Pad-ma bsTan- ‘dzin)
have a long life. 135 Although the name is not uncommon, an examination of the religious
history of Pema Kö, which begins in the seventeenth century with Dundul Dorje (bDud-
‘dul rDo-rje) (1615–72), 136 may be able to fix the time of the writing out of this
manuscript. Possible dates for this particular manuscript are 1722–3, 1782–3, 1842–3 and
1902–3, with the latter two dates being more likely.
Much of A River of Blessings is comprised of verbatim extracts from The Life and
Songs of Shepay Dorje. The absence of a specific title in the colophon’s citation of The
Life and Songs of Shepay Dorje agrees with the absence of a title in the Oxford
manuscript, different titles for the Newark and Stockholm versions, and Tsangnyön
Heruka’s reference to it as The Hundred thousand Songs of Venerable Mila (rJe-btsun
Mi-la’i ‘Gur-‘bum). 137