Tibetan Buddhist Verse Literature

Abstract

There is no single Tibetan term that covers the full range of the English word “poetry,” but versified verbal expression that evinces the qualities of imagery (gzugs), vitality (srog), and ornamentation (rgyan) has been central to Tibetan culture since before the establishment of writing some 1400 years ago. The Tibetan plateau in the era of literacy came to be dominated by the aesthetic, ideological, and institutional power of Buddhism, which was imported, primarily from India, between the 7th and 14th centuries. As a result, much—though certainly not all—of what constitutes Tibetan literature is Buddhist literature (some of it Indian, in translation, most of it originally Tibetan), and a significant portion of the Buddhist literature, across a wide range of genres, is found in one or another of the verse-forms identified by Tibetan authors. These include “folk”-based song styles such as lu (glu) and yang (dbyangs); the bardic tradition of drung (sgrung); expressions of personal accomplishment such as “songs,” or gur (mgur) (which include “spiritual songs” [nyams mgur] and “view songs” [lta mgur]); and the ornate style known as nyengak (snyan ngag). These various types of verse are not completely compartmentalized. Indeed, over the centuries, popular and epic forms influenced the developing Buddhist literature, while Buddhist forms imported from India, such as dohā (= gur) and kāvya (= nyengak), reshaped the original Tibetan genres and pushed the literary tradition to new levels of sophistication and depths of personal expression. Although poetry anthologies sometimes were included in a master’s collected works, or sungbum (gsung ’bum), much of Tibetan Buddhist verse literature is found scattered in thousands of works by hundreds of authors—whether celebrated, obscure, or anonymous. Among the most notable sources of verse are, to name but a few, biographies and autobiographies, songs of praise and supplication, ritual texts, long-life prayers, instruction manuals, and philosophical treatises. In this article, we will proceed more or less chronologically. After the first four general sections, we will isolate early verse forms that, while showing little Buddhist influence, were foundational to all subsequent poetic development in Tibet. We then will identify key Indian sources, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist, that helped shape Tibetan literary aesthetics. Returning to the plateau, we will trace developments from the Tibetan “Renaissance” (when Indian traditions were most influential) down to the 21st century. We will conclude with an examination of some of the permutations of “modern” Tibetan poetry, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist.