Dorje Shugden

Deity in Tibetan Buddhism From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dorje Shugden (Standard Tibetan: རྡོ་རྗེ་ཤུགས་ལྡན་, Wylie: rdo rje shugs ldan, Tibetan pronunciation: [toːtɕe ɕuktɛ̃]), also known as Dolgyal and Gyalchen Shugden, is an entity associated with the Gelug school, the newest school of Tibetan Buddhism.^[1]^[2] Dorje Shugden is variously looked upon as a destroyed gyalpo, a minor mundane protector, a major mundane protector, an enlightened major protector whose outward appearance is that of a gyalpo, or as an enlightened major protector whose outward appearance is enlightened.

Dorje Shugden was first worshipped as a minor spirit in Buddhism during the 17th century.^[3]^[4]^[5] In the 1930s, increased worship of Dorje Shugden under Pabongkhapa, who portrayed Shugden as a violent protector of the Gelug tradition, resulted in the Dorje Shugden controversy.^[6]^[7]^[8] Debates have centered on Dorje Shugden's nature and role—including his association with sectarianism, his place within traditional Gelug teachings, and whether he is enlightened or not—and the actions of his adherents in the International Shugden Community and the New Kadampa Tradition.^[9]^[8]^[2] Promoters of Dorje Shugden consider it the protector of the "pure dharma" of Tsongkhapa, traditionally regarded as the founder of the Gelug school.^[10]

History

Dorje Shugden, also known as Dolgyal, was a gyalpo (or "angry and vengeful spirit") of South Tibet that was subsequently adopted as a "minor protector" of the Gelug school, the newest of the schools of Tibetan Buddhism, headed by the Dalai Lamas (although nominally the Ganden Tripas).^[11]^[2]^[8]

Dorje Shugden worship developed relatively recently within Buddhism, likely dating back to the 17th century at the earliest.^[3]^[4]^[5] According to early histories, the 5th Dalai Lama destroyed Shugden through black magic and tantric rituals. Later, adherents of Shugden said that the 5th Dalai Lama was unsuccessful.^[12]

Dorje Shugden remained a minor Gelug protector until the 1930s when Pabongkhapa Déchen Nyingpo "started to promote him aggressively" as the main protector of the Gelug tradition.^[8] Pabongkhapa transformed Dorje Shugden's "marginal practice into a central element" of worship amongst his own disciples, replacing the original protectors appointed by Tsongkhapa and "replacing the traditional supra-mundane protectors" of the tradition.^[2] This change is reflected in artwork, since Dorje Shugden artwork is absent from the Gelug tradition before the end of the 19th century.^[13]

Pabongkhapa fashioned Shugden as a violent protector of the Gelug school, employing him against other traditions as a symbol of Gelug exclusivism.^[6]^[7] Shugden was a key symbol associated with Pabongkha's persecution of the Rimé movement, which promoted inclusivity and the sharing of practices across different strands of Buddhism. Nyingma Buddhists were also forcibly converted by Pabongkhapa and his disciples, and relics associated with Padmasambhava (a Buddha considered second only to Shakyamuni among the Nyingma) were destroyed.^[14] Pabongkhapa taught that Shugden was "the protector of the tradition of the victorious lord Manjushri", and thus replaced the traditional Gelug protectors Pehar, Nechung, Palden Lhamo, Mahakala, Vaisravana, and especially Kalarupa, who was traditionally believed to have been appointed by Tsongkhapa himself as the main Gelug protector.^[15]^[16]^[17]

The 13th Dalai Lama limited the practice of Shugden propitiation, after which Pabongkhapa apologized and promised not to practice Shugden worship any more.^[8]^[2]^[18]

Characteristics

A characteristic of the iconography of Dorje Shugden is the central figure surrounded by four cardinal emanations. According to Nebresky-Wojkowitz, these are:

East: The "body emanation" (sku'i sprul pa), which is white and has a mild expression (Vairochana Shugden)
South: The "emanation of excellence" (Ratna Shugden)
West: The "emanation of speech" (gsung gi sprul pa), which is white with "a slightly wild expression" (Pema Shugden)
North: The "emanation of karma" ('phrin gyi sprul pa), which has with a green body and ferocious mood (Karma Shugden)^[19]

Dreyfus describes Dorje Shugden as "a fearsome deity, holding in his right hand a sword dripping with blood and in his left hand the heart torn out from the chest of its enemies".^[20] Frederick Bunce describes Dorje Shugden as baring fangs, with "three bloodshot eyes", and flames protruding from his eyebrows and facial hair. He has yellow-brown hair standing on end, and "his nostrils issue rain clouds with violent lightning". He holds a flaming sword in his right hand (khadga, ral-gri) and a skull-cup (kapala, thod-pa) filled with organs in his left. Under his arm, he carries "a mongoose (ichneumon or nakula, nehu-li) and golden goad/hook (ankusha, lcags-kyu)", and his body is bejeweled. He wears elephant skin on his top half, a tiger skin loincloth, a "five-skull crown", a "garland of fifty freshly severed heads", and an "apron of carved human bones". He stands on a "carpet of human skins on one hundred thousand thunderbolts (vajra, rdo-rje) on the back of a garuda-like bird (khyung)".^[21]

Michael von Brück describes Dorje Shugden as being "fierce and violent" and destroying all his enemies. He says animals are sacrificed to him symbolically, he lives among "skeletons and human skulls", near a blood of lake, with a dark-red body and facial expressions similar to rakshasas. He notes that none of these are unique to Dorje Shugden, being "more or less stereotypes for dharma-protectors in general".^[22]

Control under Vajrabhairava

In Phabongkhapa's text, Shugden is to be controlled by Vajrabhairava.^[23] Michael von Brück provides a translation of Phabongkhapa's text which states:

....the disciples visualize themselves as the yidam Vajrabhairava and as such invoke and control Shugden. The dharmapāla Shugden is presented to the disciples as the one who abides by their commands.^[23]

New Kadampa Trust

According to the NKT, Dorje Shugden worship is "the very essence of the New Kadampa Tradition", and the protector is presented as the deity most able to help practitioners. The NTK's versions of The Heart Jewel and Wishfulfilling Jewel sādhanās, compiled by Kelsang Gyatso, incorporate the elements of the Dorje Shugden sādhanā. Dorje Shugden may also have influenced Geshe Kelsang's teaching that practitioners cannot mix with other traditions, a view which has been criticised by other Buddhists.^[24]

David Kay notes that Kelsang Gyatso, the founder of the New Kadampa Tradition, departed from Pabongkhapa and Trijang Rinpoche (his root guru) by stating that Dorje Shugden's appearance is enlightened, rather than worldly.^[25] Kelsang Gyatso explicitly rejected the idea that Dorje Shugden was worldly rather than a Buddha, and made Dorje Shugden worship central to the practices of the New Kadampa Tradition.^[25]^[26]^[27]

Both Dreyfus and Kay note that Shugden is generally considered a worldly being. Dreyfus says the view that Shugden is enlightened exists only amongst the "most extreme followers of Shukden".^[27]^[28] He says the viewpoint among the New Kadampa Tradition that it is "a proper object of refuge and worshiped as such" appears unique to that sect.^[26] Kay states that the view of Shugden as an enlightened being "is both a marginal viewpoint and one of recent provenance".^[27]

In 1996, Kelsang Gyatso was formally expelled from the Sera Je Monastery and his geshe degree voided as a result of his support for Dorje Shugden and criticism of the Dalai Lama.^[29]

Oracle

As with other spirits in Tibet, there is an oracle of Dorje Shugden.^[30] According to René Nebesky-Wojkowitz, the best-known Dorje Shugden oracle "lives at a shrine in Lhasa called sPro bde khang gsar Trode Khangsar (rgyal khang) or sPro khang bde chen lcog".^[31]

According to Joseph Rock, there were two main Dorje Shugden oracles: Panglung Choje and Trode Khangsar Choje. Rock witnessed and documented a public invocation of the Panglung Oracle in Kham (Eastern Tibet) in 1928. At that time, the oracle took a sword of Mongolian steel and twisted it into many loops.^[32] Choyang Duldzin Kuten Lama was a Dorje Shugden oracle for many years.^[33]

Kay notes the presence of an oracle of Shugden conflicts with Kelsang Gyatso's portrayal of Shugden as a Buddha, since Buddhas do not have oracles. He suggests that "the oracle may have been marginalised by Geshe Kelsang because his presence raised a doctrinal ambiguity for the NKT".^[34]

References

[1]
Matthews, Carol S. (2005). "New Kadampa Tradition". New Religions. Religions of the World. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers. pp. 128–143. ISBN 9780791080962. LCCN 2004024514.
[2]
Georges Dreyfus. "The Shugden affair: Origins of a Controversy (Part I)". Archived from the original on 2013-11-03.
[3]
Are We Prisoners of Shangrila? Orientalism, Nationalism, and the Study of Tibet by Georges Dreyfus, JIATS, no. 1 (October 2005), THL #T1218, 21, section 3: The Shukden Affair and Buddhist Modernism, retrieved 2014-05-09.
[4]
Christopher Emory-Moore. "Branding a New Buddhist Movement: The New Kadampa Tradition's Self-identification as 'Modern Buddhism'". Journal of Global Buddhism (Vol.21 11–28). ISSN 1527-6457
[5]
Mills, Martin. Identity, Ritual and State in Tibetan Buddhism. Routledge 2003, page 366.
[6]
Kay, David (2004). Tibetan and Zen Buddhism in Britain: Transplantation, Development and Adaptation. London: RoutledgeCurzon. p. 43. "A key element of Phabongkha Rinpoche’s outlook was the cult of the protective deity Dorje Shugden, which he married to the idea of Gelug exclusivism and employed against other traditions as well as against those within the Gelug who had eclectic tendencies."
[7]
Georges Dreyfus. "The Shugden affair: Origins of a Controversy (Part I)". Archived from the original on 2013-11-03. For Pa-bong-ka, particularly at the end of his life, one of the main functions of Gyel-chen Dor-je Shuk-den as Ge-luk protector is the use of violent means (the adamantine force) to protect the Ge-luk tradition...This passage clearly presents the goal of the propitiation of Shuk-den as the protection of the Ge-luk tradition through violent means, even including the killing of its enemies...Pa-bong-ka takes the references to eliminating the enemies of the Ge-luk tradition as more than stylistic conventions or usual ritual incantations. It may concern the elimination of actual people by the protector.
[8]
Georges Dreyfus. "The Shugden affair: Origins of a Controversy (Part II)". Archived from the original on 2016-12-11.
[9]
Kay, David N. (2004). "The New Kadampa Tradition: The Identity of the NKT". Tibetan and Zen Buddhism in Britain: Transplantation, Development, and Adaptation. Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 100–113. ISBN 9780415753975. OCLC 51315294.
[10]
Sparham, Gareth (13 July 2020) [28 October 2011]. "Tsongkhapa". www.oxfordbibliographies.com. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/obo/9780195393521-0169. ISBN 978-0-19-539352-1. Archived from the original on 17 January 2021. Retrieved 28 September 2021.
[11]
Schaik, Sam van. Tibet: A History. Yale University Press 2011, page 129.
[12]
Bultrini, Raimondo. The Dalai Lama and the King Demon. Tibet House 2013.
[13]
Himalayan Buddhist Art 101: Controversial Art, Part 1 - Dorje Shugden by Jeff Watt, retrieved Feb. 16, 2014.
[14]
Kay, D. N. (2004). Tibetan and Zen Buddhism in Britain: Transplantation, development and adaptation. RoutledgeCurzon critical studies in Buddhism. London: RoutledgeCurzon. p.43."As the Gelug agent of the Tibetan government in Kham (Khams) (Eastern Tibet), and in response to the Rimed movement that had originated and was flowering in that region, Phabongkha Rinpoche and his disciples employed repressive measures against non-Gelug sects. Religious artefacts associated with Padmasambhava – who is revered as a 'second Buddha' by Nyingma practitioners – were destroyed, and non-Gelug, and particularly Nyingma, monasteries were forcibly converted to the Gelug position. A key element of Phabongkha Rinpoche's outlook was the cult of the protective deity Dorje Shugden, which he married to the idea of Gelug exclusivism and employed against other traditions as well as against those within the Gelug who had eclectic tendencies." p.47. "His teaching tour of Kham in 1938 was a seminal phase, leading to a hardening of his exclusivism and the adoption of a militantly sectarian stance. In reaction to the flourishing Rimed movement and the perceived decline of Gelug monasteries in that region, Phabongkha and his disciples spearheaded a revival movement, promoting the supremacy of the Gelug as the only pure tradition. He now regarded the inclusivism of Gelug monks who practised according to the teachings of other schools as a threat to the integrity of the Gelug tradition, and he aggressively opposed the influence of other traditions, particularly the Nyingma, whose teachings were deemed mistaken and deceptive. A key element of Phabongkha's revival movement was the practice of relying upon Dorje Shugden, the main function of the deity now being presented as 'the protection of the Ge-luk tradition through violent means, even including the killing of its enemies'."
[15]
Kay, David (2004). Tibetan and Zen Buddhism in Britain: Transplantation, Development and Adaptation. London: RoutledgeCurzon. p. 48. "It seems that during the 1940s, supporters of Phabongkha began to proclaim the fulfilment of this tradition and to maintain that the Tibetan government should turn its allegiance away from Pehar, the state protector, to Dorje Shugden."
[16]
Kay, David (2004). Tibetan and Zen Buddhism in Britain: Transplantation, Development and Adaptation. London: RoutledgeCurzon. p. 48. "Phabongkha's claim that Dorje Shugden had now replaced the traditional supramundane protectors of the Gelug tradition such as Mahakala, Vaisravana and, most specifically, Kalarupa ('the Dharma-King'), the main protector of the Gelug who, it is believed, was bound to an oath by Tsong Khapa himself."
[17]
Georges Dreyfus. "The Shugden affair: Origins of a Controversy (Part I)". Archived from the original on 2013-11-03. These descriptions have been controversial. Traditionally, the Ge-luk tradition has been protected by the Dharma-king (dam can chos rgyal), the supra-mundane deity bound to an oath given to Dzong-ka-ba, the founder of the tradition. The tradition also speaks of three main protectors adapted to the three scopes of practice described in the Stages of the Path (skyes bu gsum gyi srung ma): Mahakala for the person of great scope, Vaibravala for the person of middling scope, and the Dharma-king for the person of small scope. By describing Shuk-den as "the protector of the tradition of the victorious lord Manjushri," Pa-bong-ka suggests that he is the protector of the Ge-luk tradition, replacing the protectors appointed by Dzong-ka-ba himself. This impression is confirmed by one of the stories that Shuk-den's partisans use to justify their claim. According to this story, the Dharma-king has left this world to retire in the pure land of Tushita having entrusted the protection of the Ge-luk tradition to Shuk-den. Thus, Shuk-den has become the main Ge-luk protector replacing the traditional supra-mundane protectors of the Ge-luk tradition, indeed a spectacular promotion in the pantheon of the tradition.
[18]
Bultrini, Raimondo. The Dalai Lama and the King Demon. Tibet House 2013. Pabongkhapa said: "I shall perform purification and promise with all my heart that in the future I will avoid propitiating, praying to, and making daily offerings to Shugden. I admit to all the errors I have made, disturbing Nechung and contradicting the principle of the refuge, and I beg you, in your great heartfelt compassion, to forgive me and purify my actions."
[19]
Nebesky-Wojkowitz (1998:138–139)
[20]
Dreyfus, Georges (2011). “The Predicament of Evil: The Case of Dorje Shukden” in Deliver Us From Evil, p. 60, Editor(s): M. David Eckel, Bradley L. Herling, Boston University Studies in Philosophy and Religion.
[21]
Bunce, Frederick. An Encyclodpaedia of Buddhist Deities, Demigods, Godlings, Saints and Demons. p. 441
[22]
von Brück, Michael (2001). "Canonicity and Divine Interference" in Dalmia, V., Malinar, A., & Christof, M. (2001). Charisma and Canon: Essays on the Religious History of the Indian Subcontinent. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. p. 337.
[23]
von Brück, Michael (2001). "Canonicity and Divine Interference" in Dalmia, V., Malinar, A., & Christof, M. (2001). Charisma and Canon: Essays on the Religious History of the Indian Subcontinent. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. p. 340-341.
[24]
Waterhouse 1997, pp. 188–196, 195: "Geshe Kelsang in teaching that NKT Buddhism should not be mixed is probably referring to this dispute. Mixing Gelugpa practices with the practices of other schools is for him the process by which the pure lineage of Tsongkhapa's teaching is corrupted, a view promulgated by Pabongka Rinpoche who strongly relied on Dorje Shugdan as Dharma Protector. This view is easily understood as sectarian since it entails separation from other Tibetan schools, a matter of significant concern to the Dalai Lama who is anxious to promote unity among Tibetans in a time of exile. Geshe Kelsang takes the view that Gelugpa practice should be followed without the introduction of practices from other schools and also that Dorje Shugdan is the most appropriate protector deity for this time."
[25]
Kay, David (2004). Tibetan and Zen Buddhism in Britain: Transplantation, Development and Adaptation. London: RoutledgeCurzon. p. 101-2.
[26]
Dreyfus, Georges (2011). "The Predicament of Evil: The Case of Dorje Shukden" by Georges Dreyfus in Deliver Us From Evil, p. 74, Editor(s): M. David Eckel, Bradley L. Herling, Boston University Studies in Philosophy and Religion.
[27]
Kay, David (2004). Tibetan and Zen Buddhism in Britain: Transplantation, Development and Adaptation. London: RoutledgeCurzon. p. 230.
[28]
Dreyfus, Georges (2011). “The Predicament of Evil: The Case of Dorje Shukden” by Georges Dreyfus in Deliver Us From Evil, p. 74, Editor(s): M. David Eckel, Bradley L. Herling, Boston University Studies in Philosophy and Religion.
[29]
Blomfield 2022
Sera Je 2017
[30]
von Brück, Michael (2001). "Canonicity and Divine Interference" in Dalmia, V., Malinar, A., & Christof, M. (2001). Charisma and canon: Essays on the religious history of the Indian subcontinent. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. p. 337
[31]
Nebesky-Wojkowitz (1998:144)
[32]
Rock, Joseph F. Sungmas, the Living Oracles of the Tibetan Church, National Geographic, (1935) 68:475-486.
[33]
Autobiography of His Eminence Choyang Duldzin Kuten Lama (1989). p. 1. retrieved 2008-12-07
[34]
Kay, David (2004). Tibetan and Zen Buddhism in Britain: Transplantation, Development and Adaptation. London: RoutledgeCurzon. pg. 102.
[35]
Birgit, Zotz (18 April 2018). "Zur europäischen Wahrnehmung von Besessenheitsphänomenen und Orakelwesen in Tibet". othes.uivie.ac.at. Retrieved 18 April 2018.

Dorje Shugden

History

Characteristics

Control under Vajrabhairava

New Kadampa Trust

Oracle

See also

Further reading

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources

References

Sources

External links

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