Tibetan Studies – THE VAN MANEN PROJECT

A 1922 Shopping List for Tibet: Disentangling Van Manen’s Ephemera

One of the shopping lists I found while perusing the many loose-leaf papers in the Van Manen Collection, written in Johan Van Manen’s hand and dated to the 25^th of April 1922, shows that Van Manen requested “the Geshe” to buy several things for him from Lhasa. The list is as follows:

l.1 A list of Tibetan things

l.2 A pointed monk’s hat, a water flask, a monk’s undershirt

l.3 An upper robe, a lower robe, cloth boots

l.4. A Mongolian-style hat, an official’s hat (’bog rdo), an aristocrat’s summer hat (lcags mda’ zhwa mo)

1.5. A knife and chopstick holder (rgya gri), a pouch to hold a bowl (phor shubs), scales (nya ga), a grain measure (bre), a pail measure (zo ba)

1.6 A volume measure (’bo), an earthenware pot (khog ma), an earthenware kettle (khog til [sic]: khog ldir), a brazier (me lang [sic]: me slang)

1.7 Various kinds of wool: white, red, green, yellow,

l.8 cross-patterned (thig ma), a bowl for pag (lpar phor [sic]: spags phor], a tea container (zhags blugs [sic]: zhag blug)

l.9 A churn with a brass binding band (mdong mo rag gshan ma [sic]: rag shan ma), a wooden ladle (zar ru [sic]: gzar bu)

l.10 Various grains: barley, wheat, peas, beans (rgya sran ma)

l. 11 Rapeseed (pas khang [sic]: pad kha), flax seed (so ma ra tsa [sic]: so ma ra rtsa), ta chur (what is this?)

l. 12 Kham traditional clothing (kham chas [sic]: khams chas), Nomadic traditional clothing (’brog chas)

The subscript reads:

List of things proposed for attempt at acquisition by the Geshe leaving for Lhasa within a few days. Expected back about September. JvM 25/4/22

As with so many other things in this collection, we have no context for this little note. There is nothing in the box, filled with other miscellaneous papers, that tells us why it was preserved. We do not know this Geshe, nor why he was asked to buy rather mundane-sounding things like braziers and ladles.

One of the tasks I have burdened myself with is to try to find out what these ephemera can tell us about the rest of the collection, about the provenance of these works, about Van Manen’s motives for collecting. Van Manen himself does not tell us much: there are no diaries, no administration, and no well-archived bundles of correspondence. Fortunately, I came across another piece of paper – seemingly unimportant – that gives us some insight into what this shopping list is about.

B. Ethnographic Collections

By far the most important additions have been from Tibet and have been obtained through the kind offices of Mr. van Manen, mainly since he acted temporarily as Assistant Superintendent in the department. He was fortunately able to secure the assistance of several Tibetans, amongst others a monk learned in the magic arts, who constructed for the Museum a set of the peculiar spider’s web-like structures of woolen yarn which are set up outside Tibetan monasteries as the abode of important spirits and their attendants. He also obtained from Lhassa at a small price an extremely interesting collection of domestic implements, etc. including several primitive pieces of apparatus of a kind impossible to obtain through the ordinary dealers.

We are not sure who wrote the above, but it is found in the archives kept by his sister Charlotte Van Manen, meaning that it may have been of some importance (perhaps just because of the compliments paid to him) (Panthaleon van Eck, 230, p. 130). This single sheet of paper tells us that the Geshe did not buy the items for Van Manen himself, but on behalf of the Indian Museum in Calcutta. Van Manen worked there for six months in 1922, after which he left to work at the Asiatic Society of Bengal. While hardly any of the treasures on display in the Indian Museum nowadays are of Tibetan or even Himalayan origins, during Van Manen’s time, quite a collection was assembled.

Another fascinating detail (at least to me) is the fact that Van Manen had arranged for “the peculiar spider’s web-like structures of woolen yarn” to be set up for the Museum. These structures, also known as mdos these days more commonly translated as “thread-cross” (see Blondeau: 2022 [1990] and earlier, Nebesky-Wojkowitz 1975 [1956]: 369). This explains why wool (presumably yarn) in various colors was on the shopping list. Previously, I had always assumed that Nebesky-Wojkowitz had pioneered in commissioning one of these large thread-crosses on behalf of what is now the Weltmuseum in Vienna, in or around 1951 (pictured here, see Niebuhr & Widorn 2019, p. 4). The above information suggests, however, that the Indian Museum may have been the first to display such a ritual thread-cross, of course, quite out of its religious context. We have, however, no further information on its exhibition in the museum in Calcutta, in or around 1922.

Picture courtesy of the Weltmuseum Vienna, 134460_1_29

In the Van Manen collection itself, several ritual texts deal with mdos rituals, such as Gsang bdag dregs pa ’dul byed las tshogs las dam sri’i glud mdos, which only contains 5 folios (I.KERN Br.79/M58), or A ya’i mdos kyi zin bris (I.KERN 2740/M400). This latter text is a memorandum on the construction of these cross-threads. This text was, in fact, used by Nebesky-Wojkowitz in his Oracles and Demons of Tibet (1956, but also see Ramble 2007, 709-11). There are no indications that Van Manen made any serious study of these works, but they may have been used by the anonymous monk who constructed the cross-thread structure in Calcutta. Most of these ritual texts await further study.

If the reader now suspects there is a connection between Van Manen and Nebesky-Wojkowitz, they are absolutely correct. While they were not contemporaries, they did work in the same region, Darjeeling, but perhaps more significantly, Nebesky-Wojkowitz was employed by the museum in Leiden to create the first catalogue of the Van Manen collection in 1953, and appears to have read and used quite a few of these works for his 1956 masterpiece.

Once more, the ephemera in the Van Manen archives, such as the shopping list discussed here, lead us from prosaic items, such as peas and beans, to intricate cross-thread rituals, created for the Indian Museum. My impression is that there is still a lot more disentangling to do!

P.S. Do let me know if you happen to know what ta chur ( ཏ་ཆུར) could refer to..

Bibliography

Blondeau, Anne-Marie. “Some preliminary questions regarding the mdos rituals.” European Bulletin of Himalayan Research 59 (2022 [1990]): 1-28.
Nebesky-Wojkowitz, René. Oracles and Demons of Tibet. The Cult and Iconography of the Tibetan Protective Deities, De Mouton, The Hague, 1956.
Niebuhr, Uwe and Verena Widorn. “‘Tibetan Treasures’ of the Weltmuseum Wien: A First Critical Approach to René de Nebesky-Wojkowitz’s Policy of Collecting.” Kunsttexte.de, Journal für Kunst-und Bildgeschichte 1 (2019): 1-11.
Ramble, Charles. “The Aya: fragments of an unknown Tibetan priesthood.” Pramanakirtih. Papers Dedicated to Ernst Steinkellner on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday. Part 2. Vienna (2007): 681-718.

A biographical note on Yeshe Dondrup (1897-1980), by Peter Richardus

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.

Above the Tibetan version (RV-2739-194a) and below, the way Richardus (1992, 207) deciphered the material based on the English version (RV-2739-194b). Note how the actual contents of the cipher is in praise of Johan Van Manen.

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 18^th and 19^th Kushok Bakula Rinpoche; the 9^th Panchen Lama, the 13^th and 14^th Dalai Lama, the 16^th 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

This is the volume of Shiraza (*shes rab zom*) that contains Yeshe Dondrup’s Tibetan language autobiography as commissioned by Van Manen. The photo is of the Ladakhi master and an exact copy was given to Peter Richardus by Ronald Poelmeijer (1946-1993), who acquired it during a trip to Ladakh.

“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. ↩︎

What’s behind a thang ka?

Photomontage of the backs of four different thang kas in the Van Manen collection
Photographs ©Ernst Molenaar

Tibetan Buddhist scroll-paintings, or thang kas, are traditionally focused on the images of deities painted on higher-than-wide, rectangular strips of cotton, which are then framed with fabrics that leave their reverse visible. This first of a series of blog post aims at introducing what literally lies behind a thang ka.

When thang kas are displayed in their cultural context, hung on the walls or pillars of a temple or private shrine room, one can rarely observe their backs. The same holds true in Western museums, where countless thang kas have ended up during the 20^th century. In these institutions, worn-out frames, or thang mtha’, were often removed or hidden by folding them inward for aesthetic reasons, and the paintings accommodated in Western-style frames. In some cases, fragile paintings were further glued on stronger supports using the marouflage technique.

For these practical reasons as well as aesthetic ones, the reverse (and frames) of thang kas have not received as much interest as they deserve. A notable exception is the exhibition The Flip Side, curated by Christian Luczanits at the Rubin Museum of Art, which exhibited both sides of a selection of thang kas, statues, and initiation cards (tsakli) with elaborate backs. You can have a look at the exhibition display here.

The reverse of thang kas can bear multiple inscriptions and marks. Some were made by their painters, such as the seed syllables oṃ āḥ hūṃ often inscribed to infuse the painted figures with the enlightened Mind, Speech, and Body before their consecration by a Buddhist master. Others such as aspirational prayers and handprints could be added as blessings by eminent masters approached by the owners of the paintings. Thang kas that were conceived as a set were also often inscribed on their fronts, backs, or frames with the positions in which they should be placed when displayed together.

This does not mean that thang kas that do not bear any of these marks were not created or used in a traditional context. To be sure, a significant number of the thang kas that I have documented in such context do not bear such marks. Conversely, we may expect Tourist and forged art to bear such marks for the sake of matching the expectations of potential buyers.

In the Van Manen collection, most thang kas have fortunately kept their original frames and their reverse is thus visible. In this series of blog posts, I hope to explore those illustrated above as well as others. From pasted letters of a Dalai Lama to inventory post-it notes by an assistant of Johan Van Manen, they feature on their backs documents, inscriptions, and marks of great interest for provenance research.

Reading Van Manen’s Work (1)

A summary of “Minor Tibetan Texts: the Song of the Eastern Snow Mountain”

A Lexicographical Treatment of a Tibetan Language Text by Johan Van Manen

van Manen, Johan. Minor Tibetan Texts: The Song of the Eastern Snow-Mountain. Bibliotheca Indica, New Series 1426. Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1919.

This is the first in a series of blog entries in which we discuss Johan Van Manen’s writings.

This one was written by Samten Yeshi, with additions by Berthe Jansen

Johan van Manen’s (1877-1943) Minor Tibetan Texts: The Song of the Eastern Snow Mountain provides a lexicographical treatment of the Tibetan language in Gsung mgur shar gangs ri ma, a poetic religious verse by Dge ’dun grub (1391-1474), a prominent Dge lugs pa scholar and the first Dalai Lama. It was published in a small booklet form by the Asiatic Society of Bengal in their Bibliotheca Indica: A Collection of Oriental Works in 1919.

In this 86-page work, Van Manen advocates for a precise philological and lexicographical analysis of the Tibetan language – the “inglorious and humdrum drudging away at small texts with scrupulous attention to the smallest detail” (p. iv) – which he considers more crucial for the future of Tibetan scholarship than simply producing a generic translation. This work clearly shows his lexicographical approach to the Tibetan language in the text, highlighting and contrasting alternative glosses to those found in extant dictionaries.

Although not always accurate, he presents all the words and phrases he encounters, while investigating particular terms that occur in the original Tibetan texts and providing significant contextual information. An example of this is his treatment of the term mkha’ ’gro ma (ḍākinī) which he translates as “sky goer” (p. 77). He presents various other terms such as mi ma yin (not human); chos rje, which according to him is a term used in Lhasa and other urban areas to indicate “oracle” and “shaman” (in today’s Tibetan this term is mostly obsolete); dpa’ bo as a term used in Darjeeling for male and rnyal ’byor ma for female shamans and oracles, besides other terms and narratives he stumbled upon while examining the word mkha’ ’gro ma.

Van Manen makes use of his Tibetan assistants to gloss certain terms but he also notes the contextual information they provide, such as the fact that Tashi Lhunpo monks were supposed to learn this work by heart (p. 3). He even asserts that most of the lexicographical work “can only be suitably undertaken on the spot in consultation with educated, intelligent Tibetans, and not in European closets.” (p. 6) He subsequently names his assistants, Skarma Bsam Gtan Paul (also spelled Karma Sumdhon Paul) and P’un Tsh’ogs Lung Rtogs (phun tshogs lung rtogs), hailing from Ghoom and Lhasa respectively. He describes them as intelligent, helpful, and names them his “teachers” (p. 13) and elsewhere his “informants” (p. 73).

The integration of historical, cultural, and ethnographic backgrounds next to the literary details given to clarify the glosses of Tibetan terms in this work is fascinating. It displays his scrupulous – and unusual – approach to the lexicographical treatment of the Tibetan language.

Van Manen’s attempt at a thorough lexicographical treatment of this “Song of the Eastern Mountains”, thus includes a number of Tibetan colloquial idioms, accounts, and proverbs that he collected orally, and that he finds lacking in the dictionaries available to him. While this makes the work seem to go off on a tangeant at times, the work remains quite a valuable contribution due to his, for the time, divergent notions regarding the study of Tibetan textual materials. The work can be downloaded and read here.