Editor’s introduction
This blog is written by the project’s guest author and honorary member, Peter Richardus, who worked with parts of the Van Manen Collection for many years. In the blog, he briefly considers what has been written about the Ladakhi monk and scholar, Kachen Yeshe Dondrup, and highlights some interesting life events. Once one of Van Manen’s research assistants, the eminent monk went on to become the very first abbot of Tashi Lhunpo in India. As it stands, his Tibetan language autobiography has not yet been translated. We intend to produce an annotated translation during the course of the VAN MANEN project (BKJ)
In around 1937, Johan Van Manen requested the learned monk Yeshe Dondrup (Bka’ chen Ye shes don grub) to write his autobiography, which was contemporaneously translated into English. It was acquired as part of the Johan Van Manen collection by the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden in 1948 (RV-2739-194a and b).
The English translation inspired me to write a brief article, which was published in 1992.1 This autobiography reveals how Yeshe Dondrup would inform the lay nobility that drinking alcohol, smoking, and eating meat were sinful. He also recounts how he performed rituals to cure the ill and distributed charms to enable stable marriages. Referring to a folktale with a female witch (’ba’ mo) and a monk as protagonists, he highlights the superiority of Tibetan Buddhism over malevolent powers. Added is also a brief but interesting comment on so-called “devil dances” (’cham).
We further read how Yeshe Dondrup zealously studies through the night, trying to resolve unclear doctrinal quandaries. Once forced to punish a pupil who had fallen asleep in class, he realises that, according to Buddhist doctrines, karmic retribution was inevitable. On one occasion, several laymen in whose company Yeshe Dondrup is travelling decide to go on a hunting party. As a true Buddhist, he feels great pity for the local wildlife and prays for the animals’ welfare. When the hunters return empty-handed, he informs them that Śākyamuni Buddha considers killing to be sinful.
In addition, the Ladakhi scholar includes a lucid explanation of quite remarkable cryptographic methods referred to as ang yig and tsha yig, among others.
Yeshe Dondrup’s life story provides us with a rich personal account as well as information on numerous Himalayan regional, societal, and religious issues. He wrote this account when he was 39 years old, but he went on to have a long and eventful life. Ladakhi scholar Tashi Rabgyas, in what is presumably the first homage to the monk in the English language, describes his deceased friend as a “person of great understanding”, a “great treasure of knowledge,” and a “Friend of Righteousness”. In 1999, the historian Nawang Tsering Shakspo writes:
Among the writers of modern Tibetan literature, Khenpo Ye shes Don grub is a luminary figure. Born at the village of Stok near Leh, he went to Tibet at the age of eight for monastic training at Tashi Lhunpo monastic institution where he obtained Kachen, the highest degree in Buddhist metaphysics. … At the age of twenty seven, the Kachen returned from Tibet to his native land. On his way back, he stopped at Kalimpong, exchanged views with learned Tibetans there, and then visited Calcutta to exchange views with Tibetologists at the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Thus he came into contact with the Secretary of the Society, M.A.J. van Manen, the Dutch Tibetologist, who was particularly impressed by his scholarship in Tibetan grammar. On van Manen’s suggestion the Kachen wrote a short biography of himself … He composed several poems on current topics and wrote articles, stories, plays and notes on the history and culture of Ladakh. In recognition of his literary works, the Jammu and Kashmir, Academy of art, culture and languages presented to him its prestigious award, the “Robe of Honour”. … Ye shes Don grub passed his last five years at Bylakuppe, South India, as the first Khenpo of the newly established Tashi Lhunpo monastic institution.2
Shakspo later published another work on Yeshe Dondrup (first in Tibetan and then in English), in which he used the Tibetan version of the autobiography from the Van Manen Collection.3 The scholar informs us that auspicious signs accompanied his birth, something otherwise absent from the monk’s initial life story:
… Ye-shes Don-grup had remained in his mother’s womb for a year before he was born. However, his mother had a painless delivery. The family cow also gave a birth to a calf at the same time, promising good nourishment for the young baby. Sparks also flew from the family stove. (p. IX)
In a third article by Shakspo we learn of Yeshe Dondrup being (well) acquainted with the 18th and 19th Kushok Bakula Rinpoche; the 9th Panchen Lama, the 13th and 14th Dalai Lama, the 16th Karmapa, the Queen of Sikkim, Gyalyum Kunzang Dechen Tsomo Namgyal (1906-1987), as well as Friedrich E. Peter (d. 1945), Herrnhutian Bishop in Ladakh, the famed Ladakhi Christian historian Joseph Gergan (1878-1946) who translated the Bible into Tibetan, and Babu Tharchin of the Melong Press in Kalimpong.4
- “The Life and Work of Ye shes Don grub (1897-1980),” in Tibetan Studies, Proceedings of the 5th Seminar of the International of Tibetan Studies, Narita, 1992, pp. 203-207. ↩︎
- In Memoriam entitled “dGe-bShes Yeshes Don Grub (Yeshes Ton dub)”. Shi ra za (shes rab zom), vol. 2, No. 2, 1980-1981, pp. 53-67. ↩︎
- “The Life and Times of Geshe Ye shes Don-grup – an appraisal”. Shi ra za (shes rab zom), vol. 26, No. 3-4, 2004-2005, pp. VII-XXXII. ↩︎
- “The life and times of Geshe Ye-shes-don-grup”, Ladakhi Histories Local and Regional Perspectives (ed. John Bray), Brill: Leiden, 2005, pp. 335-352. https://epdf.pub/ladakhi-histories-local-and-regional-perspectives-brills-tibetan-studies-library.html. For a wealth of further details, see N.T. Shakspo, “Geshe Ye-shes Don-grup” in: A Cultural History of Ladakh (ed. K. Gardner), The Centre for Research on Ladakh, The Solitarian, Sabu-Leh, 2010 (repr. 2012; 2014,) pp. 63-81. ↩︎