23-27 AUGUST 1999
OSAKA, JAPAN
New Horizons in Bon Studies
While in Lausanne, Switzerland, several hundred Buddhologists braced themselves for their twelfth convention of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, on the opposite side of the globe, in Osaka, Japan, from August 23 to 27, a rather smaller group of about forty international scholars, all specialists in specific areas of Bon and Zhang Zhung (linguistic) studies, gathered for their first major symposium on Bon Studies.
By HENK BLEZER
Even though some might feel inclined to read some significance into the difference in numbers and perhaps the coincidence of the events as well, I can assure you that it was just that, a coincidence. Nevertheless, quite a few of the Osaka participants had at least that seems to be the emic Lausanne view more or less conspicuously 'bunked off' the larger Lausanne event. In a sense, all this provides a perhaps anachronistic yet telling metaphor for the status of Bon Studies in general. It is quite obvious, indeed, that Bon Studies are lagging far behind the impressive momentum that (Tibetan) Buddhist Studies are currently building up. Even in hitherto neglected areas, such as the study of rNying ma Tantra-s, we are, through the efforts of a few talented and dedicated individuals, steadily gaining ground. Now we are in the fortunate position of witnessing a growth of scholarly attention and recognition of the importance of these traditions within (and for) the flourishing larger field of Tibetan (Buddhist) Studies which should be very good news to any scholar of Bon traditions too.The Bon symposium was hosted and facilitated by the National Museum for Ethnology (Kokuritsu Minzokugaku Hakubutsukan) at Senri Expo Park in Osaka and was convened in an impressively smooth and professional manner by Prof. Yasuhiko Nagano.
The conference was connected to a major Japanese project on Bon. This project was initiated by Nagano in the middle of the nineties and arose in close partnership with Dr Samten Gyaltsen Karmay (CNRS, Paris), a well-known senior scholar in Bon Studies. Being well aware of the general neglect of specific Bon studies within the larger field of Tibetan Studies, they decided that, in order to achieve a better grasp of the Bon cultural complex, this imbalance should be addressed and a good common basis for Bon Studies established. This basis should encompass research material, a scholarly network and, last but not least, a thorough interdisciplinary survey of Bon traditions in Tibet and the Himalayas, from as many angles as possible. In recognition of the lacunae mentioned in the field, the Ministry of Education of Japan and the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka encouraged the proposed project and generously supported overseas field research as well as a joint survey for the period from 1996 until 1999. Many scholars, both Tibetan and non-Tibetan, have since been involved in this, the most comprehensive survey of Bon traditions to date. The publication of a series of volumes on Bon Studies was envisioned. So far, ten volumes are scheduled to appear, many of which are being prepared at the moment. Two volumes of the proceedings of the Osaka Bon symposium will be part of this pioneering series.
Quite a few of the presentations and speakers at the Bon Symposium were linked to the project in one way or the other. The first five days focused mainly on non-linguistic issues in Bon cultural studies. Participants had the rare and priceless opportunity of witnessing a few 'first-ever' introductions into hitherto unexplored terrain by specialists in the field, for instance, a preliminary research report by Donatella Rossi on a text from the important Ye khri mtha' sel, which is referred to as the Indian cycle of rDzogs chen (Great Perfection) and sometimes counted as a fourth Bon rDzogs chen-tradition next to the a rdzogs snyan gsum, the traditions of A khrid, rDzogs chen and Zhang zhung snyan rgyud, Bon and its relation to Buddhism, Cosmology, and Ritual, Bonpo Society and Related Rituals, Possession, and Related Rituals, and Bonpo Monasteries and their localities constituted the larger topics in which these interesting papers were accommodated. Eastern Tibet especially was very well covered during the symposium.
Considering the linguistic background of many of the research scholars connected to the National Museum for Ethnology in Osaka and Nagano's Bon project, at this occasion it was possible to pay special attention to the linguistic study of what has become known as the somewhat controversial ancient 'Zhang Zhung language of the Bon po-s', a hypothetical 'dead language' or group of languages that by some, first and foremost by the Bon po-s themselves, is thought to have existed in the area of greater Western Tibet, from roughly before the eighth up to the ninth century AD. This projected Zhang Zhung language seems to have echoes in several surviving dialects in the area. The last day of the symposium was dedicated exclusively to this fascinating field of Zhang Zhung linguistic studies, which seems to be all the more intriguing and appealing to scholars because of the paucity of unequivocal evidence for the 'language'. Even though the matter of the actual status of Zhang Zhung as a language remains far from being settled, and, in fact, on this occasion no revolutionary ideas were added to the hypotheses that had been adduced in the past, some interesting additional evidence and also possible mechanisms for the 'generation' of Zhang Zhung vocabulary have nevertheless been suggested. To underscore the nascent state of Bon and Zhang Zhung linguistic studies we may observe be this with some self-satisfaction, be this rather with some measure of alarm or, perhaps, discomfort that the total amount of articles ever written on the subject of Zhang Zhung up to the year 1999, has now more than doubled in just one week!
Nagano's conference has definitely succeeded in creating a temporary network of leading scholars of Bon, which I sincerely hope is here to stay, and in facilitating exchange of the newest often highly interesting research findings in the area. Without exaggeration, I may say that the Osaka symposium constitutes a milestone in Bon Studies, promising a brighter future for the field, for which we all owe Nagano and the other people involved, not in the least the staff at the National Museum for Ethnology at Osaka, a debt of gratitude.
The proceedings of the 1999 Osaka Bon symposium are scheduled to appear very soon, that is, in April 2000, as Bon Studies 3: New Horizons in Bon Studies (eds Samten Karmay & Y. Nagano) and Bon Studies 4: A Linguistic Approach to the Zhang Zhung Language (ed. Y. Nagano).
Dr Henk Blezer is a research fellow at the IIAS. E-mail: blezer@let.leidenuniv.nl.