ཞབས་རྗེས་གངས་ལ་རྗེས་འདེད་བྱེད་པ །

སྲོད་ལ་བྱམས་པ་བཙལ་བས། ། 

ཐོ་རངས་ཁ་བ་བབས་བྱུང༌། ། 

གསང་དང་མ་གསང་མི་འདུག ། 

ཞབས་རྗེས་གངས་ལ་བཞག་འདུག །

 

At twilight, I sought my lover;

by morning, a great snow had fallen.

There is no question of secrecy, 

for my footsteps remain in the snow. 

 

 

Borrowing its title from a beloved verse, this project investigates the living cultural legacies of the Sixth Dalai Lama, Gyalwa Tsangyang Gyatso, throughout the locations of his purported travel in South, Central, and East Asia. The only Dalai Lama to have rejected monasticism in favor of wine, romance and poetry, Gyalwa Tsangyang Gyatso’s life story is one of the most fascinating and mysterious in Central Asian history.

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Official Chinese accounts claim that he died in 1706 while en route to Beijing, having been deposed by Mongol leader Lhazang Khan with the Kangxi Emperor’s approval. Many Tibetan Buddhists, however, believe the account presented in his “Secret Biography” (Tib. gsang ba’i rnam thar), a Tibetan-language hagiography published by a Mongolian disciple in 1757, claiming that the Sixth escaped captivity and lived for another four decades, first as a wandering yogi who traveled across Tibet, India, Nepal, and China proper, and later as the abbot of a small monastery on the Tibetan-Mongolian borderland. 

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Regardless of when he died, Gyalwa Tsangyang Gyatso continues to live in the verses he left behind, which have immortalized him as one of the most beloved poets in the more than 1,300-year history of Tibetan literature. His poetic corpus circulated throughout the Tibetan plateau in handwritten manuscripts for nearly two hundred years before being carved into woodblocks and printed in Lhasa in the early 20th century. Throughout these many generations, however, his words have mainly been transmitted through the warmth of human voices. From the time he first sang for his lovers in Lhasa until the present, Gyalwa Tsangyang Gyatso has been a poet in the vein of the troubadours, his verses carried by song rather than ink. From the 18th century to the present, his lyrics continue to be sung by the nomads of the world’s highest grasslands, lovestruck young men in Lhasa’s wine halls, and wandering bards who traverse the ancient pilgrimage routes connecting Tibet and the entire Himalaya. 

Beginning from his birthplace and homeland of Mon Tawang, in present day Arunachal Pradesh, India, this project will provide an anthropological portrait of the lives and afterlives of the inimitable Gyalwa Tsangyang Gyatso. 

 

 

This project is supported by a Senior Research Fellowship with the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) and an academic affiliation with the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies (CIHTS), Sarnath, Varanasi, India.

 

Portions of the above description were adapted from “Songs Still Sung: The Life and Legacy of the Sixth Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso,” Kyoto Journal 103, 2023: 154-157, by Patrick Dowd.