Cult of Tara
Foreword
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The real history of man is the history of religion.” The truth of the famous dictum of Max Muller, the father of the History of Religions, is nowhere so obvious as in Tibet. Western students have observed that religion and magic pervade not only the forms o Tibetan art, politics, and society, but also every detail of ordinary human existence. And what is the all-pervading religion of Tibet? The Buddhism of that country has been described to us, of course, but that does not mean the question has been answered.
The unique importance of Stephan Beyer’s work is that it presents the vital material ignored or slighted by others: the living ritual of Tibetan Buddhists. The reader is made a witness to cultic proceedings through which the author guides him carefully. He does not force one to accept easy explanations nor does he direct one’s attention only to aspects that can be counted on to please. He leads one step by step, without omitting anything, through entire rituals, and interprets whenever necessary without being unduly obtrusive. Oftentimes, as in the case of the many hymns to the goddess Tãrã, the superb translations speak directly to the reader, and it is indeed as if the reader himself were present at the ritual.
If any blame attaches to this book, it is that it presents itself too modestly. It is, in fact, the first major work on the core of Tibetan life. I do not want to imply that all the most meaningful things in Tibetan culture or religion have been overlooked by others. The author begins his work with a discussion of great Western scholars who have studied Tibet before him. Few students, however, have been able or willing to deal extensively with the cultic procedures of Tibetan Buddhism. Instead they have focused on other subjects, such as the sublime paintings and sculptures of Tibet, the philosophical texts, the biographies of saints. These subjects are no doubt important, but their treatment has too often left the general impression of Tibetan religion as a collection of primitive customs and odd superstitions.
Tibet has retained an aura of mystery and fascination for travelers; and, as it happens, scholars have been slow in demystifying Tibetan religion. While most Asian traditions have become almost the exclusive domains of learned specialists, who sometimes seem to make it their chief concern to dampen loose enthusiasms, the history of Tibetology, in contrast, is rich in romantic details. In 1820, Alexander Csoma of Körös set out from Hungary in quest of the original homeland of the Hungarians. In the end, his journey— for the most part by foot— brought him to Tibet, and this wanderer became one of the founders of Tibetology. Our own century has seen the travelogue of Alexandra David-Neel, the fearless lady who journeyed across Tibet from one marvelous adventure to another. In spite of great political changes in our age, it is not impossible that Tibet will continue to appeal to travelers. Nevertheless, the romantic zeal that has accompanied the study of Tibet has not succeeded in unveiling Tibetan religion.
Tibet, indeed, may present one of the last great religious traditions to be interpreted. The word “last” should not sound fatalistic. I mean only that Tibet is a latecomer on the horizon of our religiohistorical understanding. Perhaps we may say: Tibetan religion gives us an extraordinary opportunity for a genuine understanding of religious data. The peculiar place of Tibet in the history of Western scholarship may even be a novel chance for an understanding of man, for in our approaches to various religious traditions we have to face the fact that our understanding of man must strive to be unified if it is to be anything at all.
The search for a unity in our understanding of religious man is not an idle dream. The stimulus for such a search comes from the religious data themselves. For indeed, every religious tradition has a center, and no serious interpretation is possible if that center is ignored. Stephan Beyer has rendered us a great service by pointing to what can truly be regarded as central in Tibetan Buddhism: ritual forms, especially those in the worship of TãrLi.
Beyer shows Tibetan religious ritual and magic in their mutual relationship as set forth in the Tibetan documents themselves, and not by relying on familiar biases concerning magic and religion. The ritual forms of religion and the practice of magic are very different from what the reader might imagine beforehand. They are different also from what most experts— often victims themselves of biases that made Tibetan religion “harmless” before it was confronted in earnest-—have led us to believe. Magic and ritual as defined in the Tibetan Buddhist sources complement each other. They do not contrast in the way most of us have assumed. In particular, they are not opposed to each other in the manner of a psychological attitude of reverential submissiveness (“religion”) versus the will to manipulate the sacred for one’s own ends (“magic”). In Tibetan tradition, it would be meaningless to speak of an individual’s control over anything empirical or mental, if such control did not depend on something else. This “something else” is the perfection of a being far beyond random individual wishes. Such a being is either a Buddha, who is free from the endless chain of finite existences, or a Bodhisattva, who is perfect in every way, is “'almost a Buddha,'” yet chooses to relate to the world out of compassion. Such a being is Tãrã, the great Goddess. Whatever reality is seen or “'made up,'” whatever is done religiously or magically, and, ultimately, what is done, whether with good or evil intentions, can be realized only when it is directed toward the pure goal manifest in those beings. Stephan Beyer records the story concerning the king Langdarma, who had to be killed by a type of magic that seems '“black'” indeed. Yet the act was necessary in order to prevent the king from accumulating still more evil deserts than he had already. This little episode is a vivid instance of Beyer’s ability to select data that illuminate religious structures and at the same time nullify extraneous assumptions. (Obviously, the story makes a very different point from the ideal of Calvin’s democracy that might come to the mind of a Western intellectual looking for reasons to justify a rebellion. . . .) Elsewhere in the manuscript there is an eloquent example where a “'ritual of subjugation'” (magic, obviously!) has in its later stages a sort of meditation or prayer in whose expression the practitioner becomes, in all important ways, like a Buddha himself; hence the concrete object of subjugation seems itself lifted up and spiritually transformed in the process. The magic while being performed—the devotees in full awareness of its magic character— turns into universal bliss. The subtlest, hardly fathomable Buddhist lore —that of skill in means - becomes manifest, tangible in the ritual.
The image of the goddess Tãrã, the focus Of this work, is of great importance to our understanding of Tibetan religion. Tarä is the principal superhuman being in Tibet who might be called divine without further qualification. She is prayed to by millions; her help in all adversity is divine.
How may a person be sure that his need is observed by a higher power? A real fear in Tibet’s Mahãyäna Buddhism was that the most qualified more-than-human powers might pass into nirvana and thus disappear from the world in which need was felt. These more-than-human beings are the Bodhisattvas, the beings who are able to become Buddhas, yet are still present in the world. With Tãrã, the fear that she would pass beyond this world did not seem to exist. It does not help much to search for “causes” to explain this trust in Tãrã and her eternity. It would be misleading to think, for instance, of the widely held Indian tradition that only a male birth can be a last birth. Such rationalizations are too thin, especially if the cause for the formation of a deity is the issue. The help provided by Tära was real. She was real, she was divine. Tãra was, had always been, and still is the almighty support of her devotees who address her. In fact, she is mightier than Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. The author convinces us that '“Tärã in all her forms transcended any monopoly'. And we hear that in a hymn she is addressed as '“. . . mother who gives birth to all the Buddhas of the three times”'. To understand something of her cult is to understand something of the mainstay of Tibetan culture and religion.
Certainly, no study of magic can be undertaken from now on that does not take the present study into full account. A serious beginning has here been made on a deep understanding of Tibetan religion, and the general history of religions will profit by it. Locating the vital center of a religious tradition prepares the ground for a unified, structured, meaningful understanding of all religious phenomena. Obviously, this is no task that can be completed overnight. Rather, we are encouraged on the road we travel and we are surer of our direction. The time is past in which historians of religions might think themselves capable of writing complete histories of the religion of all mankind. The framework of ideas for such undertakings turned out to need more generous dimensions than even the most far-seeing minds could envision. Many historians of religions in the last couple of decades have reacted by addressing themselves to the safer studies of specific religions, ignoring the demands of a general history of religions. Ultimately, such modesty provides no solutions. It seems to me that the right direction will be provided by essays, not in the sense of small, safe studies, but in the sense of endeavors at interpretation of specific phenomena, done with full awareness of the great task of the general history of religions. The perennial aim of the history of religions is the interpretation of man as a religious being. The awareness of this aim must be reflected in the essays which in turn will inform that gigantic task. I feel honored to present Stephan Beyer’s book as the first such essay in a series devoted to the interpretation of religious phenomena.
Kees W. Bolle
Инфо по туммо, практикам Тары.
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