GRAINS OF GOLD: TALES OF A COSMOPOLITAN TRAVELER
by Gendün Chöpel
translated by Thupten Jinpa & Donald S. Lopez Jr.
First posted March 2016
The watercover color is exquisite. “Grains of Gold” is an apt metaphor—you’re really digging through a lot of words to get to a few magical moments.
If you explain something difficult with ease to Tibetans, you lose the luster of a scholar. If, in contrast, you utter whatever incredible lies you are capable of and, at the same time, make a path through a deep cave so that the lies of other people can also come out, you are granted the title of scholar. I would love to be a learned scholar, but this time, I would rather be honest.
I, too, choose to be honest; you probably will not finish this book. You—who have not spent the prior three years extracting pull-quotes and jotting notes in the margins of everything you read—may struggle to avoid the gentle glazing that chews up pages for non-assigned reading. Life is short; don’t feel shame. This is not an easy book. It is often not very fun.
I almost shelved it. Reading every word is a lot of work. Lists of kings and queens followed by lists of gods and cities just weren’t working for me. Then, in the midst of such dry, dense tedium, a sentence caught my attention: “Although there is not much to be admired in other Indian food and drink, the thought occurred to me that it is definitely our bad karma that the mango does not exist in Tibet.” Mangoes are a wonder to me, and each time I indulge, I give thanks that I live in a world where they are readily accessible. It was at that point that I knew I would finish the text—even if only one page in twenty contained such a wonder, it would be worth it. But you won’t find those bits if you aren’t reading every word.
That is the reason Grains of Gold: Tales of a Cosmopolitan Traveler is not a book to recommend; it cannot be skimmed. Ever. Almost to the point of being purposefully cheeky, the fascinating is muddled together with the mundane and tedious. Perhaps the author realizes that a reader will appreciate knowledge more when they must work for it:
Alas! Such is the nature of reality that if you explain something difficult to fools in a way that makes it clear, they are unhappy and despise you for it. If something that is easy is explained in a way that makes it difficult, people become terrified and take it as a mark of great learning. Although this seems to be the doorway to decline, there is nothing I can do about it.
Perhaps it is an extended metaphor: the grains of gold are there, within the text, waiting to be extracted; more than worth their weight, they are worth the wait to find them. Whatever the rationale, the pages are long, the words are dense, and the tales will tend to wrap you up. The author is a constant presence, part professor, part put-upon uncle:
In general, it appears that in India there is no talk, even in the distant past, of there being a creature called a dragon in the clouds and that the thunder is its roar. Moreover, even in authentic Chinese lore there is no dragon that travels in the clouds. Thus, this is a uniquely Tibetan way of speaking; this is similar to our talking about such things as the four types of wind gods that come from the Yungdrung Bon tradition. However, I do not divide things in such a way that I elevate something by saying that it is a Tibetan or Bon custom. Thus, please do not impose your misconceptions on me at any point [in this book].
His mood seeps into every word—“permeated…as a sesame seed is permeated by its oil”—and through the course of the dozens of hours spent with the text, and it will be dozens of hours, he becomes the sole voice of reliable authenticity. Not that he is always correct, mind you. Nor does he demand you believe so:
A work by the Sinhalese monk Dhammakitti titled Saddhammasangaha, explains how different [Buddhist] schools divided off from each other and contains the following account: when Harsa ruled the region south of Mathura, a learned elder of the Sammitiya school wore blue robes and went to the house of a prostitute at night. He fell asleep and when he woke up it was already dawn, so he went to the vihara wearing the same robe. To hide his shame, he upheld a new view and wrote a treatise bearing such statements as, “Beer, women, and sex [our] three jewels. / The other three jewels are just jewels of stone and wood,” and “Enjoy beer. If it is difficult to find even a drop of this mixed with salt in the heavens, why should you fear going to hell?” Initially, his students embraced [this view]. Then it spread among other monks as well and the “view of the blue robes” became widespread. Hearing of this, Harsa invited their master. Acting as if he admired him, he made great offerings, saying he would proclaim this throughout his realm. He gathered all their followers and texts, and placing them in a large building, he burned them all in a fire, thus ending their lineage. However, one or two escaped and it is from them, like a contagious disease, that this system reappeared. So he [the Sinhalese monk Dharmakitti] writes.
Because the sravaka schools do not respect the Vajrayana, here [in the Sinhalese monk’s work] the Blue Robe sect and the Vajrayana are described as if they were the same. It appears that what the all-knowing Jonang Taranatha has said [elsewhere] and this story of burning them all in a fire both derive from the same source. As for the Blue Robed [master] himself, he seemed to have been a great tantric master. For example, in the Kalacakrottaratantra, with respect to the disciples, it lists the names of some masters, saying “'The Blue Robed,'” that is a samudacara clad in blue robes.” This, I think, is a reference to him.
His tone has a natural flow, a counterpoint to the dense subject matter:
In general, because all the stories in the Hinayana [scriptures] are narrated in an ordinary way; when the deeds of the Buddha are recounted, they are always quite moving. The majority of what appears in the Mahayana sutras is excessively elaborate. Thus, apart from the extremely wise and the extremely stupid, it is difficult for them to appeal to the minds of all common people. I will not write about the disparities in the life of the Teacher [between the Pali and the Mahayana sutras]. Similarly, their sutras use so many amazing analogies that it can be very confusing. For example, there was once a man who, having heard that Gautama did not react to either praise or blame, went before the Teacher and spoke abusively until he was exhausted. Then, the teacher asked, “If a recipient does not take possession of a gift, then whose property does that gift become?” The person thought about this and replied, “It becomes the property of the person who gave it.” “In that case,” the Buddha responded, “I have not taken possession of the harsh words you just uttered, thus they are yours now.”
What Grains of Gold does, it does extremely well; it slides facts and lessons into conversations and tales. It presupposes more Tibetan, Buddhist, Indian, and Hindu history than I have:
The name of the Muslim city of Delhi, built in later times, also appears [in the Kalacakra Tantra]. The visualization of aham, Sanskrit for “I,” as existing naturally within one’s body is a profound form of Hindu meditation on the self. Similarly, when one observes well how Hindus practice many subtle and detailed instructions on the stopping of thought as well as conduct with elaboration, without elaboration, and so on, then discarding something as Hindu based on a small difference [in practice requires] subtle and detailed analysis and knowledge of the essential points. Therefore, the statement that if you denigrate the tīrthikas, Vairocana will become far from you is not difficult to understand.
A working knowledge of Sanskrit is also often assumed. Moreover, even when it is ostensibly about Sanskrit, art history is folded in:
In the Sarasvatikanthabharana it read, “The pearls turned red by women’s dark red soles…” In the old Nepalese paintings, this is absent on the bodies of the male deities. It is also possible that, “Entirely red, like a lotus” in the Kavyadarsa refers to something like this. However, there the term is atamra, which is copper color. Some day that because the letter a here is a negative particle and not a superlative particle, it should be translated as slightly reddish for if it is very red, how can it be a feature of beauty? Yet we cannot know whether or not this is a negative particle unless the letter a itself opens its mouth to speak.
Linguist theory can be understood even if the context is impenetrable—credit to the translators for preserving a sense of erudition without creating an unassailable barrier of cultural fluency.
Grains of Gold is a tough read. Allowing it to absorb you is a commitment that gives little practical advantage to the reader. It is beautiful. It is different. No one could possibly absorb ever fact, detail, or anecdote as they fly by; most are lost by simple lack of context. It will force any reader to slow down. In that stillness—that impracticality—hides the faintest hint of a true lesson.