Chapter - 08 Bon Po Religion - Jain Library

Shri Ashtapad Maha Tirth - II
Central Asia and Siberia. Although these cultures involved various types of religious practice and
belief, the central role was occupied by a practitioner known as a shaman. The activity of the
shaman was definitively characterized as entering into a altered state of consciousness by way of
chanting, drumming, dancing, and so on, whether this altered state of consciousness or "ecstasy"
was understood to be soul-travel, as an out-of-the-body experience, or a form of spirit possession.
[4] The principal social function of such a practitioner was healing. A traditional form of Central
Asian shamanism involving spirit possession continues to be practiced widely in Tibet even today
among both Buddhist and Bon Po populations, as well as among Tibetan refugees living elsewhere
in Ladakh, Nepal, and Bhutan. Such a practitioner is known as a lha-pa or dpa'-bo. [5] Elsewhere
on the borders of Tibet in the Himalayas and along the Sino-Tibetan frontiers, among certain
Tibetan speaking and related peoples, there exist shamanic practitioners known as Bon Po's, as for
example among the Na-khi in China [6] and among the Tamangs in Nepal. [7]
But there exists a second type of religious culture also known as "Bon" whose adherents claim
to represent the pre-Buddhist civilization of Tibet. These practitioners of Bon assert that at
least part of their religious tradition was not native to Tibet, but was brought to Central Tibet
sometime before the seventh century from the previously independent country of Zhang-
Zhung, west of Tibet, and more remotely from Tazik (stag-gzig) or Iranian speaking Central
Asia to the northwest. [8] This from of Bon is known also as Yungdrung Bon (g.yung-drung
bon), "the Eternal Teaching," a term which could be reconstructed into Sanskrit as "Svastikadharma,"
where the swastika or sun-cross is the symbol of the eternal and the indestructable,
corresponding in most every respect to the Buddhist term vajra or diamond (rdo-rje). In addition
to ritual texts relating to shamanic and animistic practices, this ancient tradition possesses a
large corpus of texts, also claiming to be pre-Buddhist in origin, relating to the higher teachings
of Sutra, Tantra, and Dzogchen (mdo rgyud manngag gsum). The Bon Po Lamas, instead of
looking back to the North Indian prince, Siddhartha Gautama, as their Buddha and as the source
of their higher teachings of Sutra, Tantra, and Dzogchen, look back even further in time to
another prince, Shenrab Miwoche (gShen-rab mi-bo-che), born in Olmo Lungring ('Ol-mo
lung-ring) in remote Central Asia, as their Buddha (sangs-rgyas) and as the source of their
teachings. Hence, the latter is given the title of Tonpa or Teacher (ston-pa), literally "the one
who reveals". Modern scholars may question the historicity of this figure and Tonpa Shenrab is
indeed given a rather fabulous date by the Bon Po tradition, asserting that he flourished some
eighteen thousand years ago. [9] Futhermore, he is given a hagiography in Bon Po sources in
no way inferior to that of Shakyamuni Buddha, as found, for example, in the Lalitavistara. [10]
Along with the fabulous hagiographies of Padmasambhava found in the extensive literature
of the Nyingmapa school, such as the Padma bka'-thang and the bKa'-thang gser-phreng, the
career of Tonpa Shenrab represents one of the great epic cycles of Tibetan literature. [11]
To the outsider this Yungdrung Bon nowadays appears little different from the other schools
of Tibetan Buddhism in terms of their higher doctrines and monastic practices. Contemporary
Bon Possesses a monastic system much like the Buddhist one and a Madhyamaka philosophy
fully comparable with the other Tibetan Buddhist schools. According to the Bon Po Lamas
themselves, the main difference between Bon and the Buddhist schools is one of lineage rather
than of teaching or doctrine, since the Bon Po's look to Tonpa Shenrab as their founder and the
The Bon Po Traditions of Dzogchen
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