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

The biographies of Rechungpa 34
born in 1375 (wood-hare). However, Bodongpa privately supplied his real birth dates for
those who were to perform ceremonies for his benefit. 143 The incorrect public date is still
found recorded in the Tshig-mDzod Chen-mo dictionary. 144 Ehrhard gives the dates of
1375–1473, without indicating his source, extending his life by twenty-two years in what
must be an error. 145
King Namgyal De (rNam-gyal lDe) (1422–1502; reigned 1436–1502), the ruler of
Mangyul Gungtang (Mang-yul Gung-thang) had been a patron of both Bodongpa and
Tsangnyön Heruka (1452–1507), spanning two generations of teachers in his long
reign. 146 Therefore, if Shiché Ripa was a contemporary of Bodongpa, his lost work may
have been written only a few decades before Tsangnyön Heruka’s famous work, but it
had no influence on Tsangnyön’s version.
Date and Authorship of A River of Blessings
The colophon contains a prayer for the future of the Drubgyu (sGrub-brgyud), which
means ‘practice lineage’, an alternative name for the Kagyu. The colophon’s reverence
for the Karmapa identifies the anonymous compiler as being connected with the Karma
Kagyu. The author first refers to the Karmapa without specifying which Karmapa he is.
Subsequently, he identifies him, in passing, as Rangjung Dorje, who was the third
Karmapa (1284–1339). This implies that the author assumed the authorship of A Dark
Treasury was known to his potential readership and the colophon is a crude rewrite from
that text’s colophon. However, if Shiché Ripa’s text dates to the fifteenth century, the
compilation would have to be of a later date. Moreover, a detailed comparison of
passages reveals that the second Shamarpa (1350–1405) based himself upon the Donmo
Ripa text, making a few transpositions, additions and substitutions. A River of Blessings
retains these alterations. They could not have been identical by coincidence. It also
makes further alterations to Clouds of Blessings, such as dropping an adjective and so on,
further distancing itself from Donmo Ripa. This would again appear to establish that the
text could not be earlier than the fifteenth century. However, it could be argued that the
Shamarpa was reproducing passages from some source verbatim, and that A River of
Blessings was based solely upon that text.
A River of Blessings does not appear to have been influenced in the least by
Tsangnyön Heruka or his pupils’ works, and vice-versa, which argues for their being
roughly contemporary, but that is not necessarily so, as, for example, though Shiché
Ripa’s works appear to predate Tsangnyön Heruka and his followers, even Götsang Repa
does not appear to have had access to it. Tsangnyön Heruka’s works became widely
available through printing, while A River of Blessings remained in manuscript, and so it
would be more likely that A River of Blessings predates Tsangnyön’s, for it seems
unlikely that the compiler of A River of Blessings would have ignored Tsangnyön
Heruka’s work, as he had a predilection for compiling variants of the same incident.
Therefore, A River of Blessings may have been written in the second half of the fifteenth
century by a contemporary of Tsangnyön Heruka. None of this is certain, but hopefully
this mystery will be soon solved with the ongoing re-appearance of ancient Tibetan texts.