Prajnaparamita and Bodhisattva career in Bon?

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gelukman
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Prajnaparamita and Bodhisattva career in Bon?

Post by gelukman »

The prajnaparamita literature have a central theme in Mahayana, as does the career of a bodhisattva.
I have read that the Bon has it own prajnaparamita literature? Is this true?
If so I expect that Bon prajnaparamita texts are older than Buddhist as there is claim that Bon have roots
thousands years before Buddhism appeared.
What is the position of a Bodhisattva in Bon literature. Is there any?
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Sādhaka
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Re: Prajnaparamita and Bodhisattva career in Bon?

Post by Sādhaka »

Someone correct me if I'm mistaken or misremembering, but according to Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, the only actual pre-Buddhist Bön text that are authentic Buddhadharma without copying Buddhism, are the Twelve Small Tantras (and he also wrote that although these do explain the View correctly, they do not constitute a complete path to follow in and of themselves). The rest is either Terma revelations, or is copied from Buddhist texts.

This begs the question though: How did Bön come to have its own pre-Buddhist text(s) explaining the View correctly, yet apparently didn't offer a complete Path to reach the Result that the said View is based on? It seems like the implication is that before Buddhadharma came to Tibet, Bön was mostly shamanic practices, yet with only one set of texts that explains the correct Dzogchen View, yet no path to actualize it....
Last edited by Sādhaka on Fri Dec 30, 2022 7:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Malcolm
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Re: Prajnaparamita and Bodhisattva career in Bon?

Post by Malcolm »

Sādhaka wrote: Fri Dec 30, 2022 7:00 pm yet with only one set of texts that explains the correct Dzogchen View, yet no path to actualize it....
They were not texts, they were orally transmitted verses.
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Sādhaka
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Re: Prajnaparamita and Bodhisattva career in Bon?

Post by Sādhaka »

Malcolm wrote: Fri Dec 30, 2022 9:13 pmThey were not texts, they were orally transmitted verses.

Of course, I knew that the ZhangZhung Nyengyud started as a Kama tradition. I just didn't really put it to thought as I was typing my post. Nevertheless, they were eventually written.

Perhaps we can deduce then that the Twelve Small Tantras and the ZhangZhung Nyengyud, had a complete Path from the very beginning; and that when the Twelve Small Tantras were first written down, there was much more to Bönpo Dzogchen than that, and, for whatever reason, the one(s) who first wrote the Twelve Small Tantras did not yet want to unveil any more than that at the time....
Last edited by Sādhaka on Fri Dec 30, 2022 10:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Malcolm
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Re: Prajnaparamita and Bodhisattva career in Bon?

Post by Malcolm »

Sādhaka wrote: Fri Dec 30, 2022 10:18 pm
Malcolm wrote: Fri Dec 30, 2022 9:13 pmThey were not texts, they were orally transmitted verses.

Of course, I knew that the ZhangZhung Nyengyud started as a Kama tradition. I just didn't really put it to thought as I was typing my post. Nevertheless, they were eventually written.

Perhaps we can deduce then that the Twelve Small Tantras and the ZhangZhung Nyengyud, had a complete Path from the very beginning; and that when the Twelve Small Tantras were first written down, there was much more to Bönpo Dzogchen than that, and, for whatever reason, the one(s) who first wrote the Twelve Small Tantras did not yet want to unveil any more than that at the time....
ChNN asserted that most of ZZNG is quite late. It’s origins, however, are far less interesting than its content. Most Bonpo teachings, 95 percent, are post 1000 CE.
gelukman
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Re: Prajnaparamita and Bodhisattva career in Bon?

Post by gelukman »

Prajnaparamita and Bodhisattva career in Bon?

Any one can comment on the topic?
References?
James Sealy
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Re: Prajnaparamita and Bodhisattva career in Bon?

Post by James Sealy »

gelukman wrote: Sat Dec 31, 2022 7:00 am Prajnaparamita and Bodhisattva career in Bon?

Any one can comment on the topic?
References?

By: Dan Martin


In this paper I will confront the problem head on by identifying one Bön mDzodphug list that closely parallels a list in the Abhidearmasamuccaya and three mDzodphug passages that are in varying degrees paralleled in Vasubandhu's Abhictharmakos'a. In My suggestion is that the Bön mDzod phug is best understood, historically speaking, not only as a continuation of the general Buddhist Abhidharma tradition but also a continuation of a traditional ' Buddhist technique for perpetuating and reproducing the teachings of the Buddha for different audiences.

If Abhidharma treatises could be produced in Kashmir, Gandhara, Tukhara and Bactria, there is really no reason they could not be produced in nearby Zhang-zhung and Tibet as well.

Up until now, scholarship has uncovered very few examples ofBon-Chos intertextuality (for a survey with references, see Martin 1991: 83-109), and
these scarcely amount to a drop in the two oceans of their scriptural collections.

The traditional Chos polemical stance, that Bon scriptures are entirely explainable as Chos scriptures with a word or two changed here and
there as necessary, is inadequate for explaining the so-far observed textual facts (Walter [1994] has shown that two texts, one Bon and one Chos, that might be presumed similar based on their similar titles, in fact have hardly any wording in common).

This particular type of scriptural adaptation is, at this stage of research, best attested in rNying-ma-pa adaptations of Bön scripture (as well as perhaps in Buddhist adaptations of Shaivite tantric scriptures, as argued by Alexis Sanderson, on which, see Mayer 1998). The shared lists (and the methods of slotting them into repeated passages) would seem to suggest that in future comparative work parallel structures may prove
as significant as parallel passages.

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Well , we can see that Bön Sutra is not for the full 100% of Bön origen, and that is not a shame at all.
To come, out of a state of persecution, to a more integrated accepted tradition, within the Chös / Dorje Thekpa religion of Tibet , Bön adopted for sure the Madyamika debate and other non Bön customs. That is for me personal very clear and logic. This all resulted in the acceptance that Bön became the 5th Tibetan spiritual Tradition, granted by the Dalai Lama. That was done after the Tibetan exodus , somewhere in India.

Bön is finally more a Tantra / Dzogchen Tradition and has 4 unbroken lineages. Bön cosmology is also different as far as i know.

Sutra and its boring Madyamika about a self and non-self doctrine , as well as the states of emptiness and the 51 emotions that is nice to know, but not so important in Dzogchen practice.

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Source of information:

file:///C:/Users/hp/Documents/SER15_004.pdf
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