Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mikhayl Von Riebon on May 29, 2009 at 2:48am

LOL hahaha...

I cant wait to see the response from this. thanks for sharing.

Permalink Reply by Katinka Hesselink on May 29, 2009 at 3:08am

A faster way would be to check with one of our theosophical Tibet experts, you know, the ones that actually know Tibetan? Transliterating Tibetan is a rather hard business - I know enough about it to know Blavatsky didn't know the first thing about it, which makes sense as she lived before the transliteration systems were developed.

Now I don't know any Tibetan myself, but I do know that when any such question arises I should first check with Henk Spierenburg. Him being no longer alive, I went to 'The Buddhism of H.P.Blavatsky'. Those books by Henk were more than just compilations of Blavatsky, he added valuable notes as well. And his indexes are priceless. Even now with the internet.

Check the index and you will find 'dugpas, or red caps'. This latter remark gets us straight into known religious history: the red caps are simply all the non-gelugpa schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The term was used in early Western descriptions of Tibetan Buddhism according to http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O101-RedHats.html and by Chinese commentaries on Tibetan Buddhists according to http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O108-YellowHats.html.

Of course it's hard business to accuse all non-gelugpa schools of Buddhism of black magic, but that's indeed what Blavatsky seems to do. See for instance p. 132 - 134 of that book (C.W. 4, pp. 9,10, 12, 16,17, 18) for the Dugpas of Bhutan.

I don't know where the term Dugpa comes from, but generally it's safe to err on the side of caution before saying that Blavatsky invented a term. For instance: devachan sounds like sanskrit to lay ears (deva = a god), but David and Nancy Reigle have found a Tibetan foundation for that term which fits the theosophical meaning perfectly.

In Tibetan Buddhism spirits play an important role. They are seen as creations of the mind - but so is everything else - so they are in fact treated as real (curious inversion of the maya/sunnyata doctrine). Anyhow, there are good spirits, divine spirits and bad spirits. People who worship bad spirits are themselves bad - religiously. The history of Gelugpa Buddhism is a history of trying to purify the Buddhism of Tibet from Bon practices. Read for instance this explanation of the Shugden Dorje controversy: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2096/is_1_49/ai_54482231/?ta...

A belief in black magic was and is certainly part of Tibetan Buddhism - just not one often exported to the West, and Western commentary on the Shugden Dorje controversy usually stresses the political implications.

Of course blaming someone for practicing black magic is a way to denounce them, without a possibility of reconciliation. Blavatsky was a bit too prone to it, in my view. Her readers, unfortunately, have inherited that tendency sometimes with a vengeance. I suspect, but can't prove right now, that Blavatsky's treatment of non-gelugpa Buddhism in Tibet is partly the result of the lack of inter religious tolerance within Tibet at that time, though it also reflects Western sources of that period.

Permalink Reply by Katinka Hesselink on May 29, 2009 at 5:46am

Can you elaborate a bit? What does she mean when she uses the phrase 'animal dugpa'?

I agree on the general principle though: she clearly believed in black magic and used the word dugpa often as a synonym of black magic. Her opinion of hypnosis should be seen in that context as well.

Permalink Reply by Julie Rene( Rude)Mulzer on March 29, 2010 at 1:49am

I know that this may be off subject, but how does one protect one's self from those prana vampires besides surrounding one's self w/ love?
Thank you kindly, Julie

Permalink Reply by Katinka Hesselink on May 29, 2009 at 10:34am

No - I would not allow that :)

Right Joe - but you know, most people will do a google search BEFORE they do a dictionary search. So if we do come up with a scholarly answer (I did e-mail David Reigle, and he may answer my question), they are likely to find this discussion before they try the dictionaries :)

Perhaps we're getting into too many meta-discussions here?

ModeratorPermalink Reply by M K Ramadoss on May 29, 2009 at 12:50pm

Here is some interesting material on Dugpas.

In the following book, Raghavan Iyer inquired of Dalai Lama about Dugpas. The response will interest some.

My Talk with the Dalai Lama
by RAGHAVAN IYER 1961
LONDON
EAST AND WEST LTD.
1961

Here is the quote:


"Then I turned to him and asked him whether he was referring to the Dugpas, to sorcerers and to ‘soulless men.’ When I said this, his interpreter could not translate it because the word ‘Dugpa’ has two senses. Literally, it refers to an inhabitant of Bhutan, and using that meaning his interpreter could not make sense of what I was saying. There is another meaning to the word, meaning an evil being, or even a sorcerer, and to my surprise this seemed to be unfamiliar to the interpreter. But the Dalai Lama showed that he understood exactly what I had in mind. The Dalai Lama hinted at an important point which was understood by Spinoza in Europe but which is often ignored. There is no real distinction in the long run between the true self-interest of a person and an unpleasant duty. There were unfortunately people who persisted in doing things which were going to harm them above all as well as others. He spoke with quiet compassion about these ignorant though cunning evil-doers. It would be most wrong for us, he implied, to condemn them or to dismiss them out of the horizon of our sympathy, as they did more harm to themselves than to other human beings, although they could not see it. Sometimes people were able to see the truth but through selfishness they could not apply it. There were also people who were utterly misguided in their view of what was in their own interest. If only they could know, if only they were not so short-sighted through their own desperation and through their own false concepts, they would see more clearly what was in their interest and that this could not be so very different for different peoples. In all conflicts the combatants ought to realize that their ultimate interests were the same, but this was exactly what was so difficult. Therefore, it was always the people who could stand outside a violent conflict in any part of the world to-day, who, by their awareness of this ultimate identity of interests between both sides in terms of their common survival and in relation to the whole of humanity, could be an active force for good. They could act as a check on the recurrent and ever-increasing nature of evil, generated by folly, selfishness and above all short-sightedness."

See full text at:

http://www.phx-ult-lodge.org/study_referenc.htm


MKR

Permalink Reply by Katinka Hesselink on May 29, 2009 at 3:33pm

You can't blame us for that entirely :) Can't say I understand this quote though.

The Dalai Lama is much easier to understand, especially as this relates to what he's often repeated: the doing good to others is ultimately good for ourselves as well. And it combines well with Blavatsky: it's selfishness of motive that determines good or evil action - though we can think we do good, and really be doing evil if we're partial and prefer one portion of humanity to another.

Permalink Reply by Charles Cosimano on May 30, 2009 at 2:47am

I'm a little Dugpa, short and stout.

Here is my tummy, here is my snout.

Permalink Reply by Susan Thomas on May 31, 2009 at 12:06pm

I think what people are missing here is that you are trying to validate Blavatsky's use of the term OUTSIDE THE THEOSOPHICAL LITERATURE.
On the other hand, in defense of Blavatsky, I can only think of trying to exp;ain the sense of smell to someone who does not and has never had. That person would never understand what I was trying to explain, and in my frustration I might use terms I thought would be familiar to continue the attempt. I believe that Blavatsky may have been in that same situation, trying to explain what she knew in terms that her audience could possibly have as a reference. Also, when one is listening to clairaudience, it sometimes doesn't translate well, and that is another barrier that could look like "making things up."

Permalink Reply by Charles Cosimano on May 31, 2009 at 1:11pm

If anyone outside of Theosophy is going to take a word of this seriously it has to be verified from sources outside of Theosophy. Otherwise we are in the same position of Christian Fundamentalists proving the "truth" of the Bible using Bible passages.

It is not a position that creates credibility.

Permalink Reply by Arnold Herders on May 29, 2009 at 3:33pm

Martin told me on the phone, the only dugpa's are the ones you create with your mind...Martin makes them all his friends..:)

Permalink Reply by Charles Cosimano on May 31, 2009 at 8:24pm

Which is why a number of us over the years have appropriated the word to annoy the fundamentalists.

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next ›
• Page