Forword toTāranātha’s History of Buddhism in India

(The following is the Forward by His Eminence Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche, to the English translation (by Lama Chimpa et al) of Tāranātha’s History of Buddhism in India, published in 1970 and reprinted in 1990, Motilal Banarasida Publishers.)

When I walk on snow-laden paths of hills my each footprint appears clear, deep and distinct through which I can trace my path back without effort. But after a while due to wind and fresh snowfall all traces of my footsteps are wiped out in the snow. The residue is what sticks to my imagination. It is the same with the study of history. Every episode in it howsoever realistic, does, fade with the sweep of time and occurrences of new events. Surviving evidences largely depend on interpretati<?n of the historian whose reason emanates from intellect and as such has the glaring weakness of limitations of one’s mind which are conditioned by the present environment.

The general attitudes and outward expressions of men of our time cannot be similar to those of the primitive society or even of the preceding generations. Thus, the logic{ of today recalling the events of the past times with indecisive evidences must surely be inaccurate in many ways.

The line of demarcation between history and legend is too thin to observe while writing; the two overlap e::tch other uncon-sciously and unknowingly.

Faith and reason overpower each other throughout one’s life, which results in contradiction, but the conflict never ceases in any sphere. As such, it is difficult to say if the author of a book of history is free from the influence of his faith in analysing the past.

I know many such persons who do not accept in their writings many episodes as historical in order to exhibit their rational mind and modern scholarship. But in the core of their hearts they believe the episodes in toto and do respect them. Such proclivities in authors are nothing short of dishonesty.

As we focus our vision on the historical perspective of our time interspersed with strong socio-economic bias of the historian for recording past events to suit their political ideologies, we can sense the real flaw in the cross currents of historical literature and that takes us into a land of phantasy.

In this situation I cannot claim Lama Taraniitha to be free from all those conditions which make me ponder, but I can un-hesitatingly say that his rationality and honesty to his own findings are beyond cavil, a thing which held him high in the assessment of his contemporaries.

I entirely agree with V.P. Vasil’ev that the history of Taranatha is not history as such but history in the sense of a document that calls for further research in history. Straightway, this notion of an acute historiographer claims for specialisation in the field of an independent discipline. We should not be oblivious of the fact that Taranatha’s work does not aim at revealing the past in the strict sense of a modern history, his work vouchsafes better and more clear understanding of the lineages and developments of the virtuous Buddhists with a view to strengthening the faith (sraddhii) in lineage of teachers as well as distinguishing the right lineages from the fake ones. We may thus assume the work to be a part or outcome of his own spiritual practices.

A reader of Tiiranatha’s work should bear in mind that he is reading a Buddhist treatise composed by a great devotee of Buddha who earnestly wishes to intensify faith in the lineage. But at the same tirile a reader may find init useful material for historical purpos~s also. With this approach one may succeed jn evaluating the work of TaramHha in right perspective. It is also noteworthy that Taraniitha made an attempt to keep the episodes at con-ventional level. Tiiraniitha disavowed many well known legends specially with regard to the extraordinary length of the life-span” of many personages and saw that the sequence of the lineages did not distort the chronology. But in one thing he remained an avowed Tibetan as he did not ignore or refute miracles (riddhi).

He admitted the power of riddhi not as something supernatural but as perfectly natural. Such view is possible for a person who himself had possessed direct experience of it.

Lama Taranatha was the most suitable person of his age to write an account of the development of Buddhist teachings in India due to following reasons:

1) He was vitally interested in writing accounts of the past and the lives of personages of lineages.
2) He had mastery over Sanskrit and also knew some of the Indian dialects prevalent at that time.
3) He had moreover access to the authentic works of Pandits, viz. K~emendrabhadra, Indradatta and Bhataghati.

For modern scholarship it would have been much better if Taranatha had translated all the source materials into Tibetan language instead of writing his account based on them. Besides, Taranatha has also not thrown any light on the lives of the Pandits from whose works he has freely drawn. So, neither can we trace the lives and works of those Pandits who are mentioned by him nor have we any access to their works.

In his autobiography called The Secret Biography Lama Taranatha records that without any formal instructions from any teacher he effortlessly acquired proficiency in various Indian languages. When he was just four years old, he overheard the conversation of Venerable Tenzin Ngawang with an Indian Zoki (Yogi) and he could understand the substance of it.

He further says that because of his many previous births in India he had vivid recollection of geography and topography of the country and knowledge of various Indian languages since his childhood. At 16, he was prophesied by his personal deity (i~tadel’a) that if h,e chose to go to Zanskar in Ladakh and Gar-Sha (presently in Himachal Pradesh) before he was twenty years old, he would accumulate merit to do immense service to the sentient. beings. But since the prophecy remained unimplemented he thought his life work could not be so prolific. Further he tells that while in his twenties he once fell sick with constant. bleeding through his nostrils for about three months. At that time in a dream he saw two Indian yogis. One of them named JvaIanatha gave him the name Taranatha. “Taramltha” is purely an Indian name. It does not correspond to his original Tibetan name.

It appears that in Taranatha’s time Indian pilgrims and other visitors used to trail the passes to reach the land of snow, although by that time very few Buddhi£t scholars were left in India. Most of the travellers who visited Tibet were not the followers of Buddhism. This is clear from Taranatha’s autobiography in which he refers to two ,Pandits, Purnananda and Paramananda who stayed with him for about ten days. He talks of their great erudition in various subjects. He learnt the episodes of the Riimiiyal)a and M ahiibhiirata from them. Being persuaded by them’ to worship Hanuman, Taranatha did not accede to their desire.

The only likelihood of meeting with a Buddhist Yogi from Telangana (India) occurs in an allusion to such an ascetic Pandit Changasri whQ stayed for only two days with Taranathabut who was in a hurry to go back to India. Changasri was consi-dered as a Mahayana Buddhist scholar by Taranatha. Although he did not visit India during his life time, yet it seems that he was known to many Indian scholars and rulers.

aranatha tells in his Autobiography that he got a letter from Raja ,Balabhadra of Badua of the Vindhya Hills which was written in Sanskrit in the Gaudi script. The content of the letter is as follows:
“I hear that you are the only person in Himavat (snowland) who has preserved the tradition of Siddha Santigupta. I have also known from the Siddhas that you have had close relation-ship with me in other births. Therefore, 1 am sending you two “batol jarb” and two “Suryakanta”.

A reply was sent by Taranatha, the purport of which is as follows:
“When the Buddha’s doctrine is languishing ‘in India you are the only king who is reviving the Saddharma in the Vindhyas and the contiguous regions.” The name of the messenger who brought the letter and the gift from Raja Balabhadra is recorded as Illikhan.

The above episode is difficult to verify. but i.t shows Tara-natha’s contacts with Indian scholars and rulers. Among the works of Taranatha we have no text translated by him, but he mentions in his Autobiography, that he did translations of minor texts also. He relates to have studied several Sanskrit manu-cripts belonging to Atisa which he found preserved in the Rading Monastery. ‘His scholarship of Sanskrit is evidenced from many of his extensive works on the Kiilacakra Tantra and other philosophical texts. ‘ Till recent times Tibetan scholars did not take much notice of Taranatha’s History of Buddhism in India. Taranatha is widely known in Tibet for his works on Tantra and Philosophy. It seems Taranatha himself did not give importance to History of Buddhism ‘\ in India,. as he does not make any mention of it in his autobio-graphy whereas he refers to most of his important works with details of time and circumstances which prompted him to write.

But strangely modern scholars know Taraniitha by the presnt work alone, and despite the alleged limitation of Taranathaas \ historian scholars invariably refer to Taranatha’s History of Buddhism.
I personally do not attach much importance to the fact whether Taranatha’s work is history or a religious documeilt.

The importance of the work of Tarau,fttha which is modest in \ comparison to his other works lies\ in the fact that it has contributed extensively to the Indian Studies in general and the Buddhist Studies in particular in the recent time.

Taranatha in his autobiography lays emphasis on his utter honesty, straightforwardness and impartiality in his writings for which he is proud. He also pays his deep. respect to all the lineages of various Buddhist scholars. All these facts of Tara-natha are substantiated by his extensive works relating to a diversity of subjects ranging from his random Psalms and Verses (dohiis and giithiis) to the most sophisticated philosophical and Tantrika treatises, including commentaries of sutras and· tantras besides his original compositions.

Thus I can say with much confidence that History of Buddhism in India written by Taranatha is a faithful recounting of Indian source materials to which Taranatha had an access and there is no scope of distortion of facts in his narratives.

This English translation of Taranatha’s History of Buddhism. in India belongs, indeed, to the class of finest translations of Tibetan works in English. The age-old tradition of Tibetan translation of treatises with one Pandit of the source language and one translator of the destination language and a third person for checking and editing has been faithfully preserved in the preparation of this work. Lama Chimpa, an erudite scholar of Tibetan studies who is also well-versed in English, has acted as the Pandita, Alaka Chattopadhyaya, an erudite scholar of English and History with copious grasp of the Tibetan language has worked as lotsava (translator). Further the work has been edited by, a scholar of great eminence, Professor Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, who worked as Shuchain (reviser). The supple-mentary notes and appendices have much enhanced the value of the present work. I am happy to know that the book which has been out of print for a long time is now being reprinted for the great benefit of scholars and students.

May all sentient beings be happy!
Sarnath S. RINPOCHE
7th December, 89