The Bon religion
Bon is often described as the indigenous religion of Tibet, predating the arrival of Buddhism. In fact the Bon religion as it exists now developed alongside Buddhism in Tibet, and shares many of its features. Bon is often considered as one of the five spiritual traditions of Tibet, alongside the four Buddhist schools. That said, Bon is more connected with the early ritual practices of Tibet than the other schools, and has its own unique way of presenting the doctrines and practices that it shares with Buddhism. Today there are still many adherents of Bon (known as Bonpos) across the Tibetan cultural area, from India and Nepal in the south to the Chinese provinces of Gansu and Qinghai in the north.
Menri monastery
The new Menri monastery in Himachal Pradesh, India.
The original Menri (sman ri, meaning ‘medicine mountain’) monastery was at the centre of the Bonpo world, but it was only one of a vast network of monasteries in Tibet. Founded in 1405, the monastery, along with many others, was completely destroyed during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s. The destruction targeted not only the buildings, but their contents, especially books, as Samten Karmay has described:
The process of dismantling was carried out methodically stage by stage. First there was the removal of metal objects, followed by the woodwork, books and other items. When the building was entirely emptied of its contents, it was often then detonated. However, in many cases, recorded documents that contained local histories and annual events of the monasteries and above all books were privileged targets of destruction. They were often brought out into the open air where they were either torn or chopped into pieces or simply burned with the public made to look on, but in certain cases some books were saved by being concealed in unsuspected places. (Samten Karmay, "A Survey of Bonpo Monasteries")
During the 1950s a new Menri monastery was established in Himachal Pradesh, India, by the abbot of Menri, Lungtok Tenpai Nyima (1929–2017) and other Bon monks who had fled Tibet. Menri then became the repository for books and sacred objects that were being smuggled out of Tibet to save them from destruction. The abbot had a library built for the monastery, which was finished in 2007. Around the same time, he met Edward Proctor, a librarian at Duke University, who suggested applying to the Endangered Archives Programme. The abbot was enthusiastic about this idea, seeing the potential for increasing awareness of the Bon religion across the world.
Two EAP projects
The project team for EAP296 identifying and cataloguing the manuscripts.
The first EAP project at Menri began in 2009, with the intention of making a simple catalogue of all of the books held at the monastery (EAP296). Edward Proctor, and four of the monastery's monks – Yungdrung Konchok, Tsewang Namgyal, Geshe Sonam Gurung and Geshe Tenzin Yangton – worked together on the collections. They identified a total of 129 books, as well as 18 sets of illustated ritual cards called tsakali. The abbot fully supported this work and gave his blessings to further application to EAP, thus time to digitise the collection. Though some of the higher Bon teachings are considered secret (as is the case in Tibetan Buddhism), the abbot felt it was more important to preserve them and make them available to future generations.
The second project (EAP687) began in 2013, and the digital photography of the images was done at the monastery and its library, again thanks to the hard work of the resident monks. However, severe floods and logistical problems delayed the project, and the cataloguer, Pema Dorjee, a Tibetan librarian working at the Library of Congress, passed away while his work was at an early stage. Then the Covid-19 pandemic delayed the delivery of the images to the British Library. Eventually, in 2023 EAP employed the Tibetan cataloguer at the British Library, Charles Manson to work on the project, and he was able to catalogue the manuscripts in enough detail for the images to go online.
The 33rd abbot of Menri, Lungtok Dawa Dhargyal, receiving a hard drive containing the archival images from Kalsang Norbu Gurung.
The remaining problem was that Menri monastery did not have a copy of the archival quality digital images. In 2024, the scholar Kalsang Norbu Gurung was travelling from Germany to visit Menri monastery, and kindly offered to bring the images to the monastery. EAP prepared two hard drives and Kalsang Norbu Gurung brought them to Menri, where he presented them to the new abbot Lungtok Dawa Dhargyal. After so many obstacles and sad events, this auspicious handover brought the project to a conclusion.
The Menri collections
The Bon religion is known for the rich tradition of ritual practice that it has preserved and transmitted through the centuries. The collections of Menri, now available in digital form on the EAP website, reflect this heritage. These include instructions for creating and consecrating paintings, statues, and other sacred objects, as well as texts on medicine and divination. Most of the manuscripts however, contain texts focussed on the ultimate goal that Bon shares with Buddhism – liberation from the cycle of suffering. These range from instructions in mantra recitation and the visualisation of deities (sgrub thabs) to teachings on the highest form of meditation practice, known as the great perfection (rdzogs chen). Almost all of the manuscripts are in the oblong, loose-leaf format called pecha, mostly dating from the 17th to 19th century, and some are very fragile.
The first pages of a manuscript of collected treasure (gter ma) teachings in the tradition of Menri (EAP687/1/88)
Alongside the manuscripts, Menri's digitised collections include 18 sets of illustrated cards known as tsakali. These sets were stored in cloth bags, and in one case kept between wooden covers as well. Not all sets are complete, but it is rare to have so many cards preserved in their original sets. The purposes of the sets include consecration, making offerings, initiation into advanced practices, and rituals for the bardo, the intermediate state between death and rebirth. Due to the issues with cataloguing the project EAP687, the contents of each tsakali card have not been identified. This would be a wonderful theme for a new research project.
Tsakali cards laid out on a table at the monastery, prior to digitisation.
This post is dedicated to the memory of Lungtok Tenpai Nyima and Pema Dorjee.
Written by Dr Sam van Schaik, Head of the Endangered Archives Programme
Links
"Digitisation of the manuscripts and xylographs held by the Tibetan Yungdrung Bon Library of the Menri Monastery in Dolanji, India" (EAP296)
https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP296
Digitisation of manuscripts held by the Tibetan Yungdrung Bön Library of Menri Monastery, Dolanji, India (EAP687)
https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP687
Duke University Library's blog post on EAP687
https://blogs.library.duke.edu/blog/2013/06/17/british-library-grant-helps-duke-preserve-tibetan-manuscripts/
The website of the Menri monastery library
https://ybmcs.org/the-tibetan-yungdrung-bon-library/
References and Further Reading
Karmay, Samten and Yasuhiko Nagano (eds). 2008. A Survey of Bonpo Monasteries in Tibet. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology. Online version: https://www.thlib.org/places/monasteries/publications/bon-book.php#!book=/bonpo-monasteries/wb/b1/
Karmay, Samten. 1972. The Treasury of Good Sayings: The Tibetan History of Bon. London, Oxford University Press.
Klein, Anne and Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. 2006. Unbounded Wholeness: Dzogchen, Bon, and the Logic of the Nonconceptual. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
David L. Snellgrove. 1967. The Nine Ways of Bon: excerpts from gZi-brjid. London: School of Oriental and African Studies.