| My thesis is a profile of the Tibetan Buddhist protector deity Rahula (Tib: Khyab 'jug chen po), particularly the ritual/magic and mythic complex that surrounds the cult of this deity. However, I will be using Rahula as a case study to make a larger theoretical point. Namely, I will argue that the cult of Rahula, as it developed in Tibet, was part of a broader Buddhist campaign to demonize the landscape of Tibet for missionizing and political purposes, in what we might call the mandalization of Tibet. While this took place in Tibet approximately from the twelfth century through the seventeenth, I will further argue that Buddhism, since its inception and as it developed in India, rested firmly on the foundation of a cosmology teeming with spirits (or daimons, to use a Greek umbrella term for a host of different kinds of beings). That is to say, conceptions of daimons like Rahula have historically been intimately connected with Buddhist doctrine and philosophy. As such, I will critique both the borrowing model and (to a lesser extent) the substratum model which both suggest that daimon cults are somehow an amalgamation or epiphenomenon in Buddhism.;I am particularly interested in using Rahula as a case study because he represents a peculiar case of Tibetan elaboration upon an Indian antecedent. Rahula, or Rahu in Indian conceptions, has been a more or less abstract cosmological force that is synonymous with malignancy. While all the other planets (Skt. graha, Tib. gza') are deemed to be gods, Rahula alone is an asura (demon or titan), in fact the only asura to have tasted the elixir of immortality. Thus he is regarded as a particularly fierce enemy of the gods. By the early second millennium in Tibet, Rahula has become a high-level Buddhist dharma protector (specifically of the Dzokchen (Rdzogs chen) tradition of Nyingma (Rnying ma) philosophy) and an emanation of the bodhisattva Manjusri (or often, Vajrapan&dotbelow;i). He has historically been heavily associated with destructive rites or war magic, and weather-making magic.;There are a number of specific questions concerning this particular deity that I intend to answer in my thesis, in particular: How do the mythology and astrological functions of Rahula in Tibet relate to Indian antecedents? Why might Buddhists have transformed a relatively minor figure in Hindu mythology in such a significant way? Who were some of the Tibetan figures involved in valorizing this deity? What larger social and political climate in Tibet might have contributed to this transformation? How might Rahula's mythology relate to Buddhist philosophy, specifically Dzokchen thought?... |
