The Dawn of Tibet
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Recensione di Sam van Schaik su The Silk Road, vol.13, 2015
Il progetto di una vita di John Vincent Bellezza, volto a esplorare e documentare la religione e la cultura della più antica civiltà pre-buddhista del Tibet, è di un'ambizione unica.
In una serie di pubblicazioni, ha utilizzato le tecniche dell'archeologia, dell'antropologia e della ricerca testuale per far luce su questo mondo, oscurato com'è dal passare del tempo e dal predominio del buddhismo nella cultura tibetana negli ultimi mille anni. Bellezza è particolarmente interessato alla civiltà nota alla tradizione tibetana come Zhang Zhung, che aveva sede nel Tibet occidentale, noto anche come Alto Tibet(toponimo non usato in italiano),
Il regno di Zhang Zhung compare nelle storie tradizionali tibetane come nemico del regno tibetano Pugyal, che espanse il suo dominio sotto l'imperatore Songtsen Gampo fino a includere l'intero altopiano tibetano, nonché fasce di regni minori himalayani e centroasiatici. L'Antica Cronaca Tibetana, un ciclo di canti bardici che descrive la vittoria degli imperatori Pugyal sui loro nemici, narra la storia di una principessa della casata Pugyal, sposata con il re di Zhang Zhung; profondamente insoddisfatta del suo matrimonio, iniziò a lavorare come spia e informò Songtsen Gampo quando il re di Zhang Zhung era lontano dal suo castello. Si dice che il vittorioso attacco di Songtsen Gampo al castello abbia portato tutto l'Alto Tibet sotto il suo dominio. E sebbene la Cronaca non sia un documento storico sobrio, non vi è dubbio che i regni dell'Alto Tibet siano stati effettivamente conquistati dall'impero tibetano.
La religione Bonpo del Tibet emerse nell'XI secolo come reazione al travolgente successo del Buddhismo in Tibet, incorporando gli antichi rituali del Tibet pre-buddhista con molta dottrina e pratica buddhista, con alcune modifiche nel simbolismo e nel linguaggio. Per i Bonpo, Zhang Zhung divenne una mitica casa perduta, la fonte dei loro insegnamenti, che si diceva fossero stati tradotti dalla lingua perduta di Zhang Zhung (sebbene la fonte originale si trovi in una regione chiamataTazig, a volte identificata con l'Iran). Le storie Bonpo raccontavano storie simili a quelle buddhiste, ma le invertivano, rendendo gli imperatori Pugyal i cattivi e i re di Zhang Zhung gli eroi. Così, in Tibet, Zhang Zhung è al centro di una storia alternativa, in quanto civiltà perduta di Atlantide da cui proveniva il meglio della religione e della cultura tibetane.
Il modus operandi di Bellezza non è lo scavo archeologico.
Viaggia molto, scoprendo siti inesplorati e documentandoli. Le sue pubblicazioni sono quindi indagini su un gran numero di siti che, insieme al suo lavoro sulle fonti testuali, costituiscono la base delle sue teorie sull'antica cultura dell'Alto Tibet. Un simile approccio, simile a quello di esploratori della fine del XIX secolo come Sven Hedin, potrebbe essere considerato obsoleto o dilettantistico, ma offre molto valore nelle aree poco conosciute che Bellezza ha scelto di esplorare.
I viaggi di Bellezza in Tibet sono iniziati negli anni '80, ma le sue spedizioni organizzate risalgono alla fine degli anni '90 in poi. Il suo primo importante studio basato su queste spedizioni fu "Divine Dyads: Ancient Civilization in Tibet", pubblicato nel 1997 dalla Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in India. Ulteriori resoconti delle sue scoperte apparvero in due volumi pubblicati contemporaneamente nel 2002, "Antiquities of Northern Tibet" e "Antiquities of Upper Tibet", sempre da un editore indiano. L'ingresso di Bellezza nel dibattito accademico e nell'editoria mainstream fu segnato dalla pubblicazione del suo libro "Calling Down the Gods", pubblicato da E.J. Brill, che aggiunse nuove ricerche testuali e antropologiche al suo già vasto lavoro archeologico. La pubblicazione più significativa di Bellezza è "Zhang Zhung: Foundations of Civilization in Tibet", pubblicata nel 2008 dall'Accademia Austriaca delle Scienze.
Quest'opera monumentale si compone di tre parti: la prima descrive dettagliatamente le esplorazioni dell'autore di rovine, grotte e altri siti dell'Alto Tibet, con fotografie dei punti chiave, in particolare antiche pitture rupestri e graffiti, e una discussione sui manufatti rinvenuti in questi siti. Nella seconda e terza parte Bellezza collega queste scoperte alla tradizione testuale, basandosi su antiche fonti manoscritte e sulla letteratura della tradizione Bonpo; la seconda parte tratta dei culti reali di Zhang Zhung e la terza delle tradizioni funerarie.
L'Alba del Tibet è essenzialmente una sintesi delle opere precedenti di Bellezza, in particolare del suo Zhang Zhung, in una forma pensata per essere accessibile al lettore comune.
Il libro inizia con un'introduzione alla storia personale di Bellezza e alle sue esplorazioni in Tibet. Menziona brevemente il lavoro di altri, tra cui spedizioni archeologiche cinesi, e il lavoro dell'archeologo americano John Aldenderfer, ma sarebbe stato utile avere maggiori informazioni su come il lavoro di Bellezza si integri con quello di questi archeologi, in particolare dei team cinesi coinvolti in scavi significativi nel Tibet occidentale negli ultimi anni.
In ogni caso, il lavoro di Bellezza nell'Alto Tibet è stato ampio e la documentazione delle sue scoperte
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John Vincent Bellezza’s lifelong project to explore and document the religion and culture of Tibet’s earliest, pre-Buddhist civilization, is uniquely ambitious.
In a series of publications he has used the techniques of archaeology, anthropology and textual scholarship to shed light on this world, obscured as it is by the passage of time and the dominance of Buddhism in Tibetan culture for the last thousand years. Bellezza is particularly interested in the civilization known to Tibetan tradition as Zhang Zhung, which was based in western Tibet, also known as Upper Tibet.
The kingdom of Zhang Zhung appears in Tibet’s traditional histories as the enemies of the Tibetan Pugyal kingdom, which expanded its reach under the emperor Songtsen Gampo to include the whole of the Tibetan plateau, as well as swathes of minor Himalayan and Central Asian kingdoms. The Old Tibetan Chronicle, a bardic song cycle describing the victory of the Pugyal emperors over their enemies, tells the story of a princess from the Pugyal house who was married to the king of Zhang Zhung; deeply unhappy with her marriage, she began working as a spy, and informed Songtsen Gampo when the king of Zhang Zhung was away from his castle. Songtsen Gampo’s successful attack on the castle is said to have brought all of Upper Tibet under his sway. And while the Chronicle is no sober historical document, there is little doubt that the kingdoms of Upper Tibet were indeed conquered by the Tibetan empire.
Tibet’s Bonpo religion emerged in the 11th century as a reaction to the runaway success of Buddhism in Tibet, incorporating the old rituals of pre-Buddhist Tibet with much Buddhist doctrine and practice, with a few alterations in symbolism and language. For the Bonpos, Zhang Zhung became a mythical lost home, the source of their teachings, which were said to have been translated from the lost Zhang Zhung language (though the original source is located in a region called Tazig, sometimes identified with Iran). Bonpo histories told similar stories to the Buddhist ones, but inverted them, making the Pugyal emperors the villains and the kings of Zhang Zhung the heroes. Thus in Tibet, Zhang Zhung is at the centre of an alternative history, as an Atlantean lost civilization from which came the best of Tibet’s religion and culture.
Bellezza’s modus operandi is not archeological excavation.
He travels widely, inding sites that have not been previously explored, and documents them. Thus his publications are surveys of large numbers of sites, which, along with his work on textual sources, form the basis for his theories about the ancient culture of Upper Tibet. Such an approach, similar to that of late 19th century explorers such as Sven Hedin, might be considered outdated or amateurish, but offers much of value in the little known areas which Bellezza has chosen to explore.
Bellezza’s travels in Tibet began in the 1980s, but his organized expeditions date from the late ‘90s onwards.
His first major study based on these expeditions was Divine Dyads: Ancient Civilization in Tibet, published in 1997 by the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in India. Further accounts of his inds appeared in two volumes simultaneously published in 2002, Antiquities of Northern Tibet and Antiquities of Upper Tibet, again by an Indian publisher. Bellezza’s move into mainstream academic discourse and publishing was marked by the appearance of his book Calling Down the Gods, published by E.J. Brill and bringing new textual and anthropological research to his already extensive archaeological work.
The most significant of Bellezza’s publications is Zhang Zhung: Foundations of Civilization in Tibet, which was published in 2008 by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. This monumental work is in three parts, the irst detailing the author’s explorations of ruins, caves and other sites in Upper Tibet, with photographs of key features, especially ancient cave paintings and grafiti, and discussion of artefacts found at these sites. In the second and third parts Bellezza links these discoveries with the textual tradition, based on early manuscript sources and the literature of the Bonpo tradition; part two deals with the Zhang Zhung royal cults, and part three with funerary traditions.
The Dawn of Tibet is essentially a synthesis of Bellezza’s previous work, particularly his Zhang Zhung, into a form intended to be accessible to the general reader.
The book begins with an introduction to Bellezza’s personal history of exploration in Tibet. He mentions briefly the work of others, including Chinese archaeological expeditions, and the work of American archaeologist John Aldenderfer, but it would have been good to have more information here on how Bellezza’s work its in with that of these archaeologists, especially the Chinese teams who have been involved in significant digs in Western Tibet in recent years.
In any case, Bellezza’s work in Upper Tibet has been extensive, and the documentation of his inds has become increasingly systematic. As he states, he has documented around seven hundred sites containing monuments, rock art, or both, and this work forms the basis for the theories about the history and culture of Zhang Zhung that he relates later in the book.
Before that point, the second and third chapters are an introduction to the geography and people of Upper Tibet, with particular focus on the drokpa, the tent-dwelling people who live by herding yaks, sheep and goats. Bellezza briefly summarizes his anthropological observations from his time spent among the drokpa. Their shamanic practices, performed by ritual specialists known as lhapa, have some interesting similarities with the ancient practices found in Upper Tibet.
In the fourth chapter Bellezza introduces a historical account of the Zhang Zhung kingdom, based on the literature of the Bonpo school, mythological stories of culture heroes that are dubious sources for the modern historian; nevertheless, Bellezza links these stories in interesting ways with the peoples and sites of Upper Tibet.
In the ifth, sixth and seventh chapters Bellezza summarises his work on the ruined castles and temples of Upper Tibet, burial grounds, and the rock paintings and artefacts that he has documented at these sites.
These chapters are, by neccessity, densely packed, bringing together the several hundreds of pages of Bellezza’s previous reports. The amount of information gathered and systematized here is admirable, and will no doubt inform future work in this area. Yet these chapters also highlight how little we know about the practices of which these monuments and artefacts were once a part, as Bellezza acknowledges.
In the eighth and ninth chapters, Bellezza turns to the texts in earnest, bringing together the literature of the Bonpos with texts for funerals and other rituals preserved in the Dunhuang manuscripts. These texts do describe practices, which can tentatively be connected with ancient sites and artefacts, and the practices of spirit possession in particular seem to have survived to some extent, or at least to be connected with similar practices among the contemporary drokpa of Upper Tibet. In the tenth chapter, Bellezza attempts to draw together the threads of past and present.
There are certainly dangers in this ambitious project, and one inds in Bellezza’s text a number of leaps of faith, statements such as the following, on a narrative from a Dunhuang manuscript: “Unmistakeably, this origin tale alludes to a prehistoric phase in the culture of Upper Tibet” (p. 235). But the fact that the text in this manuscript refers to the practices of ancient times is no guarantee that it is a reliable witness to them. Texts such as these were not written to help the modern historian or archaeologist reconstruct the prehistorical past. Nevertheless, The Dawn of Tibet offers much to ponder, and if Bellezza sometimes makes
assertions where he should leave questions open, he is always asking interesting questions, and providing materials for possible answers.
Another criticism that has been levelled against Bellezza is that he sometimes its his source material to his theories, that the Zhang Zhung kingdom is an idée fixe, an overarching concept that holds together Bellezza’s disparate material. Similarly, he has been criticised for imposing the concept of a monolithic Bon religion upon the early ritual material. If there was justification for these criticisms in Bellezza’s previous work, in The Dawn of Tibet he is careful to distinguish earlier and later uses of the term bon, and offers a very good summary of how we should understand the shifting meanings of the term (pp. 7-8):
In Old Tibetan literature, written circa 700-1000 CE, bon denotes specific mythological and ritual traditions, and bonpo are the practitioners of those traditions.
In this older historical context, bon was not the name of a monolithic religion, nor was it a blanket referent for every one of early Tibet’s myriad cultural traditions. This sense of the word only came about after the archaic religious and cultural traditions were bundled up into one conceptual framework by Lamaism retrospectively.
There are still considerable obstacles to understanding the early civilizations of Upper Tibet. Early manuscripts sources for ritual practices, such as those from the Dunhuang cave, post-date the assimilation of these cultures into the Tibetan Buddhist mperium.
The much more detailed and elaborate ritual and historical literature of the Bonpo school is even later, and is written to present the Zhang Zhung kingdom as a mythological golden age. However, there certainly are many correspondences to be found between the manuscripts, the later Bonpo literature, and the archaeological record, and Bellezza is the only scholar to have attempted to map them in a sustained way. The Dawn of Tibet is the best introduction to his work so far.
—Sam van Schaik
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