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Testament of Ba
The Testament of Ba or the Chronicle of Ba(Tibetan དབའ་བཞེད or སྦ་བཞེད; Wylie transliteration: dba' bzhed or sba bzhed) is a Tibetan chronicle written in 8th century Classical Tibetan documenting the establishment of Tibetan Buddhism and the Vajrayana, Samye Monastery and the Samye Debate, and notable events and people in Tibet's history. Written during the Tibetan Empire period, it covers the reigns of kings Songsten Gampo, Trisong Detsen (r. 755–797/804), and the years after Rapalchen's reign. The monk Ba Salnang (Tibetan སྦ་གསལ་སྣང; Wylie transliteration: sba gsal snang) of the Ba Family was the main recorder of the Chronicle who used other scribes and members of the kings' courts.
In 2008, early versions of the text were said to have been discovered in London, where two manuscript fragments possibly dating to the 9th or 10th centuries are held by the British Library.
The Testament of Ba was transmitted in manuscript form over many centuries, and so many different recensions of the text have been located in the Dunhuang manuscripts, but not one single, canonical printed version. Scholars think they have identified two early versions of the text:
The Testament of Ba is also widely quoted in earlier and in later Tibetan historiographical works, for example the Treasury of Knowledge (1863), the Scholar's Feast (mkhas pa'i dga' ston). The author of the Scholar's Feast calls the Testament the Rba bzhed (with an 'r' prefix to the Ba clan name), and refers to 'genuine', 'impure', 'large' and 'medium' versions of the text.
A later, expanded version of the Testament of Ba, titled Sba bzhed zhabs brtags pa (Supplemented Testament of Ba), was produced during the mid 14th century. A manuscript copy of this text was published with a summary in French by Rolf Stein in 1961.
While Tibetan scholars and even Jamgon Kongtrul in 1863 knew the Chronicle of Ba covered the events and people in the 8th century and before, western historians until 2009 thought that the Testament of Ba dated back to no earlier than the 11th or 12th century, and therefore its composition may not have been contemporaneous with the late 8th century events that it recorded.
In 2009 Sam van Schaik of the British Library realised that two Tibetan manuscript fragments had been mis-catalogued amongst the Chinese manuscripts of the Stein collection, and consequently previously overlooked by historians. These fragments are said to preserve a section of the Testament of Ba relating to the arrival of the Indian monk Śāntarakṣita, Khenpo of Nalanda University, to Lhasa:
These two fragments allegedly came from the 'Library Cave' at Sachu, now Dunhuang, which was sealed in the early 11th century with all of the other known versions of the Testament of Ba. Van Schaik dates the fragments to the 9th or 10th centuries. The manuscripts in the caves were plundered by Aurel Stein and Paul Pelliot in 1908 and 1909, and taken without cataloguing to various countries, then and afterwards.
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Testament of Ba
The Testament of Ba or the Chronicle of Ba(Tibetan དབའ་བཞེད or སྦ་བཞེད; Wylie transliteration: dba' bzhed or sba bzhed) is a Tibetan chronicle written in 8th century Classical Tibetan documenting the establishment of Tibetan Buddhism and the Vajrayana, Samye Monastery and the Samye Debate, and notable events and people in Tibet's history. Written during the Tibetan Empire period, it covers the reigns of kings Songsten Gampo, Trisong Detsen (r. 755–797/804), and the years after Rapalchen's reign. The monk Ba Salnang (Tibetan སྦ་གསལ་སྣང; Wylie transliteration: sba gsal snang) of the Ba Family was the main recorder of the Chronicle who used other scribes and members of the kings' courts.
In 2008, early versions of the text were said to have been discovered in London, where two manuscript fragments possibly dating to the 9th or 10th centuries are held by the British Library.
The Testament of Ba was transmitted in manuscript form over many centuries, and so many different recensions of the text have been located in the Dunhuang manuscripts, but not one single, canonical printed version. Scholars think they have identified two early versions of the text:
The Testament of Ba is also widely quoted in earlier and in later Tibetan historiographical works, for example the Treasury of Knowledge (1863), the Scholar's Feast (mkhas pa'i dga' ston). The author of the Scholar's Feast calls the Testament the Rba bzhed (with an 'r' prefix to the Ba clan name), and refers to 'genuine', 'impure', 'large' and 'medium' versions of the text.
A later, expanded version of the Testament of Ba, titled Sba bzhed zhabs brtags pa (Supplemented Testament of Ba), was produced during the mid 14th century. A manuscript copy of this text was published with a summary in French by Rolf Stein in 1961.
While Tibetan scholars and even Jamgon Kongtrul in 1863 knew the Chronicle of Ba covered the events and people in the 8th century and before, western historians until 2009 thought that the Testament of Ba dated back to no earlier than the 11th or 12th century, and therefore its composition may not have been contemporaneous with the late 8th century events that it recorded.
In 2009 Sam van Schaik of the British Library realised that two Tibetan manuscript fragments had been mis-catalogued amongst the Chinese manuscripts of the Stein collection, and consequently previously overlooked by historians. These fragments are said to preserve a section of the Testament of Ba relating to the arrival of the Indian monk Śāntarakṣita, Khenpo of Nalanda University, to Lhasa:
These two fragments allegedly came from the 'Library Cave' at Sachu, now Dunhuang, which was sealed in the early 11th century with all of the other known versions of the Testament of Ba. Van Schaik dates the fragments to the 9th or 10th centuries. The manuscripts in the caves were plundered by Aurel Stein and Paul Pelliot in 1908 and 1909, and taken without cataloguing to various countries, then and afterwards.