(LGG1001) A long time ago, the religion of demons had spread in the entire world. (LGG1004) But in the sky, there had been nine Buddhas. (LGG1005) And these nine Buddhas had said: ‘Hey, in almost the entire world of mortal souls down there, the religion of demons has spread’. (LGG1006) They said: ‘But that’s not right. One of us siblings needs to go down to subdue the demons’. And all the siblings up there had a discussion.
(LGG9084) In the entire world the Buddhist religion appeared. The religion of the speech of Buddha, the religion appeared. It is said our own entire world was like that, because king Ling Gesar was a true Buddha.
Great prayer ceremony (སྨོན་ལམ་ཆེན་མོ་) conducted in Lhasa
Blessing (དབང་) conducted by Ling Gesar in the guise of a
rinpoche (རིན་པོ་ཆེ་)
Two Buddhist temples
Ling Gesar as a druba ‘accomplished master’ (སྒྲུབ་པ་)
The demon Shapa Mindru Tsekpa = 13th Tsona Gontse Rinpoche in a previous reincarnation
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Missing are references to …
Monastic or scholarly Buddhism
Teachings of the Buddha or the commentaries
Tantric Buddhist deities
Meaning of being a ‘good’ Buddhist
Magical rituals of expulsion, invocation of Buddhist deities, meditation practices
Circumambulation of Buddhist structures, prostrations
Binding of the defeated demons by oath
Guru Rinpoche
🡪 Buddhist reference is commonly added by the author.
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Lessons from the narrative
‘religious’
Taking life
Reincarnation
Supernatural power and magic
‘social’
Position of women
Making assumptions based on outward looks
Slander, gossip and backbiting
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Taking life
“Ling Gesar is not a human king, not a human being similar to us. He is a reincarnation of the Buddha and that explains his extraordinary powers but also why the things he does are not against the Buddhist teachings. There are things that we have to accept that extraordinary beings do, and we should not question them. If Ling Gesar had not killed the demons, the demons would have taken over our world.”
– Thingly Dorji, male, 26 years, ex-monk
“The demons were making problems for the people, even for Ling Gesar and his wives, so naturally they had to be dealt with, to make everyone feel comfortable and safe.”
– Dechen, 32 years, farmer
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Reincarnation
“Ling Gesar simply kills the demons. He slaughters them, some quite cruelly. And that’s it. They are gone. There’s no more mention of them, no reincarnation or enlightenment.”
– Tamrin, male, 58 years, farmer.
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“Was Ling Gesar really a Buddha? None of the other characters in the story was a reincarnation. And for those who died or got killed, they did not perform any Buddhist ritual like phowa [‘transference of consciousness’, འཕོ་བ་] or gewa [‘virtuous acts for a deceased person on fixed days after death’, དགེ་བ་]. Maybe, they were all bonpo, like we used to be.”
– Kesang, male, 67 years, bonpo
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Supernatural powers and magic
“In the past, exceptional beings like Ling Gesar could do these things. Now, there are no exceptional beings like him. So, we don’t see such magic anymore. For ordinary people, this is not possible to do.”
– Kesang Drakpa, male, 58 years.
“Well, they are nice stories, but they can’t be true, can they? No one can do those kinds of magic tricks. They show them in movies on television, too, but we know those are all tricks made by the camera. They are for entertaining us, and the tricks Ling Gesar does in the story are the same.”
– Pema Tsering, male, 17 years.
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Position, role and disposition of women
“Before and after marriage, women will always get jealous of each other. In a husband, they will look for wealth and not consider a good heart. We have to be careful when choosing a wife.”
– Pema Khandu, male, 31 years
“After marriage, we should always be there for our husband, and help him whenever we can, just like Ama Tashi Dolma [sic Man Zhangzhang Drongmu] helps out Ling Gesar when he tries to save her and kill the demon.”
– Dechen, female, 32 years, farmer
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Making assumptions on outward looks
“We often treat people who look poorly bad and people who look good, with nice expensive clothes, cut hair, make-up, clean face, and all, we treat them good. But the way someone looks from the outside doesn’t say anything about the person’s character. Someone may be black [dirty, ugly] from the outside but white [pure, clean] from the inside. Similarly, white, clean people like you may be black inside [poor character], we can’t say without knowing the person.”
– Pema Jomba, female, 42 years, farmer
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Slander, gossip and backbiting
“We know everyone here in the village and we talk a lot. So, naturally, we talk about other people. But it’s not good to make up stories about others. Or to lie or encourage others to lie. In the end, we will face problems because of doing that. When we talk bad about others, others will also talk bad about us. It will disturb the good relations between people.”
– Tashi Wangmu, female, 23 years, farmer, class 12
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Conclusions
Duhumbi Ling Gesar narrative has Bon/pre-Buddhist and Buddhist aspects
Bon aspects ingrained in the story
Buddhist aspects often added by narrator himself
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Lessons derived from the story are about social relations as much as they are about religious aspects
Obstructive forces both external (demons, enemies) and internal (human traits).
Main theme: secure harmony, safety and stability on earth for human beings to thrive.
Necessary precondition for further development, incl. propagation of Buddhism.
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Taming the spirit world, but by defeating and killing them, not by subduing them and binding them by oath.