mNyam med Shes rab rgyal mtshan on the Special Features of the Bon Monastic Discipline by STÉPHANE ARGUILLÈRE
My aim here is to make a few remarks about monastic discipline ('dul ba) in the Bon tradition, especially in contrast with parallel aspects of the Buddhist Vinaya. My corpus is mainly composed of two treatises by mNyam med Shes rab rgyal mtshan (1356-1415), one of the main figures of Bon scholasticismi(1), who, in 1405 or 1406, founded sMan ri monastery, soon to become the main seat for Bon studies. Accordingly, his writings in the field of monastic discipline are nowadays of utmost importance in Bon. The two treatises which I will be mostly following are commentaries by mNyam med Shes rab rgyal mtshan on writings by the important bon po author Me ston Shes rab 'od zer (1058-1132)i(2). See the bibliography at the end of this paper for a short notice about these two texts (‘A’ and ‘B’), and the compilation in which they are included. (1) Bon po scholars assert that he introduced some new doctrines in Bon, notably the idea that the ultimate form of wisdom (ye shes) is a cognitive faculty (blo) that realizes the absolute (don dam), impermanent, born of causes and conditions – a subject that cognizes the ultimate as its object – whereas the ‘Ancients’ (snga rabs pa) regarded ye shes as a mere interruption of all the mind-functions. This innovation is strikingly parallel to one of the main features of the doctrine of Shes rab rgyal mtshan’s famous contemporary, Tsong kha pa. But, besides mere legends, nothing is seriously established about any contact between the two thinkers. Shes rab rgyal mtshan is said to have studied philosophy with another central figure of his times – Rong ston ‡å kya rgyal mtshan (1367-1449), whose intellectual posterity, especially Go rams pa bSod nams seng ge (1429-1490), strongly criticized that precise thesis (among others) in Tsong kha pa’s doctrine. An inquiry on the matter of Shes rab rgyal mtshan’s studies with Rong ston and other events of his life brings up various chronological difficulties, especially about the date (1386?) of the destruction of g.Yas ru dBen sa kha, the centre of the philosophical studies in Bon before the foundation of sMan ri. Many perplexing chronological inconsistencies lead to the conclusion that the commonly accepted idea – namely, that the foundation of sMan ri was somehow a consequence of, and a reaction to, the destruction of dBen sa kha – might well be no more than a ‘myth of transference of legitimacy’. See Arguillère 2006 for details about these issues. (2) Me ston Shes rab 'od zer also wrote, among other texts, a dBu ma bden gnyis to which mMyam med Shes rab rgyal mtshan devoted a commentary that is regarded as very important in the Bon monastic tradition even nowadays (a few lines about this treatise and its commentary can be found in Arguillère 2006). Me ston is definitely a key figure for Bon doctrines, and the fact that he is quite early also has its importance. Still, here, I will focus on mNyam med Shes rab rgyal mtshan without checking whether his ideas about the difference between the Bon pos and the Buddhists are already clearly phrased, or just vaguely alluded to, in Shes rab 'od zer’s source-texts.
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