Theos-Talk Archives (May 1996 Message tl00354)

Kim writes,

>    I would love to participate in a discussion on the MSS
> which served as a basis for "Voice of Silence" and "Secret Doctrine." Since

> both works are described as secret, we would have to expect them to be not
> extant nor even widely distributed and known in Tibet.

Yes and no.  HPB says that her stanzas of Dzyan are taken from the books of
"Kiu-Te" which are "owned by every monastery in Tibet."

Well, as David Reigle and others have pointed out, this "Kiu-Te" is simply
the phonetic spelling of rGyud-sDe, or "Tantra" in the Tibetan Canon.  So HPB
is indicating that her sources for her magnum opus are simply various Tantras
in the Tibetan scriptural collection, many (most) of which have not been
translated, but (almost?) all of which have been published in the various
facsimiles of the Tibetan canon (Peking, Derge, Lhasa, etc. versions).  The
Nyingma have roughly 1,000 more texts which they classify as "tantra" that
are not included in the standard canons, and it is conceivable that HPB drew
her Stanzas of Dyzan from there. (That would make our work a hell of a lot
harder).

But this strikes me as unlikely, given her continual denigration of the "Red
Cap" schools (e.g. Nyingmapa, Sakyapa, Kargyudpa, and heaven forbid the
Drugpa (i.e. "Dugpa") sects) and her very high esteem for Tsong-Kha-Pa,
founder of the Gelugpa or Yellow Cap school and first (retroactive) "Dalai
Lama."

Not that there isn't consant intercourse and doctrinal exchange between all
of these schools, and many Rinpoches who hold lineages in more than one
school, not to mention the Dzogchen tradition which I find very close to
Theosophy, but which claims it precedes all the schools of Buddhism, and
pre-existed Buddhism in the indigenous Bon-po sect.

But I would look first for HPB's Stanzas of Dzyan in the various tantras,
particularly the "inner" and "secret" parts of Kalachakra tantra which David
Reigle is pointing at.

I hadn't thought of looking at Asanga's works for the origin of the Voice of
the Silence, which Kim suggests, but it strikes me as a very good place
indeed to look.  I am not sure that HPB considered the Voice of the Silence
(aka "the Book of the Golden Precepts") as secret in the same sense that the
stanzas of Dzyan were secret (i.e. "tantra") as so it makes sense that it
would be a rather more standard source.

Good suggestion, Kim.  Unfortunately, a lot of Asanga's stuff isn't
translated yet, and Sanskrit is such a BITCH for me.  How 'bout you?
 Wouldn't that be a fun project for the rest of your lifetime?  Maybe a team
of us could tackle it slowly?

I also wonder if a good deal of oral stuff circulated in Tibet which never
had -- or no longer has -- a written source.  HPB says the three texts in her
VOICE she was made to memorize, along with 30+ others, from apparently a
great collection.  Oral or written or both?  Oral transmission and
memorization lineages drive textually oriented Buddhologists mad.

Madder than cows.