The Biographical Literature Of The Fragmentation Era

From the middle of the 9th century AD to the middle of the 13 th century AD,for about 400 years,the politically unified Tubo fell apart,and the raids and wars spread across the entire plateau,resulting in near stagnation of social development.In this environment,the original royal forces,emerging nobles,and social elites introduced different cultures from neighbouring nations and countries,and after localization,a cultural phenomenon with both national commonality and local characteristics was formed.The biographical literature during the period of the separation and fragmentationis an important representative of this localization phenomenon.Such texts are not only influenced by the translation and introduction of Jataka and Avadana of Indian literature,but also inherited the tradition of history writing that has also begun in the mid-Tubo period,and at the same time it follows the traditional oral history transmission method,forming a unique biographical literature.After nearly two centuries of gestation,starting from the middle of the 11 th century,a typical biographical writing genre was finally formed,and professionals who collected and wrote biographical literature also appeared,laying a foundation for the popularity of later biographical literature.Therefore,fully excavating and studying biographical literature not only provides a unique perspective for learning the social and cultural development of the past,but also fills an important gap in the study of Tibetan historiography and it extends the dimension of historical literature research in general.This thesis is based on the latest ancient texts excavation and collation results,the goal of this thesis is to analyse Tibetan biographical literature from the mid-9th century to the mid-13 th century.Theauthor argues that this period is the formation stage of biographical literature.The first biographical writings of various schools appeared at this stageand allbiographical literature types were formed during this period.Therefore,it became the budding stage of the prosperity of biographical literature for the later period,and its importance is self-evident.This thesis analyses the specific development process and literary characteristics of biographical literature at this stage through the research methods of examining different editions and historical sources.By starting with representative literature,this thesis examines the date of completion for each text and analyses the sources of historical materials used in these biographical writings.The thesis is composed of three parts: introduction,body,and conclusion.The introduction summarizes the background,significance,and research status of the thesis.In Chapter I,the author mainly defines the concept of traditional terminologies such as the term rnamtharcorresponding to the wordzhuanjiin Chinese and analyses the classification method of Tibetan biographical literature.Chapter II analyses the development process of the biographical literature in the period of the secession and fragmentation of Tubo.The development stage is divided into four stages: germination,brewing,forming,and enrichment.In Chapter III,by comparing the typical biographical documents of different periods and the biographies of different genres from the same period,the author studies the literary characteristics,historical materials,literary style,structure,and the existing editions of individual biographical writings.In the Chapter IV,the author examines biographical literature of the Kadam School and selects the texts titled The Source of Dharma:Atisha's Biographyby Domtonpa and The Biography of the Venerable Atisha by Cha Duldzin,and analysed the date,authorship,literature characteristics,etc of these texts.Chapter V focuses on The Copper World: Biography of Padmasambhava written by Nyang Nima?ser,Brief Description of the Glory of Life,a biography of Rongsomwritten by Yolchak Dorje Wangchuk,Dolpukpa Shakya Sengé's Biography of Zurchung Sherab Dakpa,and other biographical textsfor the study of biographical texts from the Nyingma School and their sources and related historical records.Chapter VI selected several texts from the main biographical texts of the Sakya School,The Biography of Bari Lotsawa Rinchendakby Sonam Tsemo,Sachen Gunga Nyingpo's Biographyby Dakpa Gyeltsen,and the Sakya Pandita's representative biographical writing such as The Biography of Dakpa Gyeltsenand analysed the unique biographical structure of the Sakya School.In this chapter,by comparing with the historical materials of biographical texts of other schools,the author has conducted a literature analysis of several key historical facts.In Chapter VII,the author focuseson the biographical literature of the Kagyu School,and selected a textfrom the biographies known as the Golden Rosary Genre,The Golden Rosary of Shangpa,The Biography of Dilopa and Naropa,and The Biography of Dilopa,and other major biographies such as of Marpa and Milaripa,etc.,for this chapter,the author is especiallyinterested in thestudy of editions and historical narrative of the biography of Golden Rosary Genre.Finally,in the conclusionsection,the author reviews the research process and briefly summarises the research findings.