Wrathful Tantric Imagery at the Seat of the Tibetan State Oracle

Christopher Bell

Mural of Pehar; Assembly Hall, Nechung Monastery, Lhasa, U region, central Tibet (present-day TAR, China); ca. 1900, restored ca. 1996; materials unknown; height approx. 13 ft. (4 m); photograph by Cecilia Haynes, 2011

Nechung Monastery Murals

Nechung Monastery, Lhasa, U region, central Tibet (present-day TAR, China) ca. 1682

Mural of Pehar; Assembly Hall, Nechung Monastery, Lhasa, U region, central Tibet (present-day TAR, China); ca. 1900, restored ca. 1996; materials unknown; height approx. 13 ft. (4 m); photograph by Cecilia Haynes, 2011

Summary

Tibetan Buddhist practitioners believe that the gods can speak through human mediums making prophecies. Scholar of Tibetan Buddhism Christopher Bell surveys the tantric murals of Nechung Monastery, the seat of the Tibetan state oracle, where the ancient Tibetan emperors are said to have confined a fierce deity, whom the Dalai Lamas consult on state affairs. The Nechung chapel outside of Lhasa is filled with vivid images of dismembered bodies, the deity’s ferocious cohorts, and past oracles in their trances.

Key Terms

circumambulation

Circumambulation means walking around something. Himalayan Buddhists often circumambulate as a form of veneration and generate/accrue merit by walking in a clockwise direction around stupas, monasteries, or sacred mountains. Bonpos do the same thing, except counter-clockwise.

Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lamas are a tulku lineage that has played a central role in Tibetan history for the last five hundred years. In 1577 a Mongol khan gave the Geluk monk Sonam Gyatso (1543–1588) the title “Dalai Lama,” combining the Mongolian word for ocean, dalai (a reference to the depth of his knowledge), and the Tibetan word for guru, lama. Later, two previous incarnations were retroactively identified. The fifth incarnation, Ngawang Gyatso (1617–1682), allied with another Mongol khan to unite most of the Tibetan Plateau, forming the Ganden Podrang government that would govern Tibet until 1959. Since the Communist takeover, the current Fourteenth Dalai Lama has lived in exile at Dharamshala in India. The Dalai Lamas are understood to be emanations of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.

tantra

Tantra was a religious movement in India around the fifth to seventh centuries, and its practices are part of Buddhism and Hinduism. The word tantra also refers to texts which transmit tantric practices. In Buddhism, tantra is also called Vajrayana, “The Vajra Vehicle.” Tantric ritual and art are characterized by deity yoga, mandalas, mantras, abhisheka (initiation), wrathful deities, and ritual sexual union. In Hinduism, tantrism was often associated with the worship of Shiva and various goddesses (shakti). A practitioner of tantra is called a “tantrika.” Tantra is also a genre of texts that have been variously categorized. Most common is the division of tantras into four categories: Kriya Tantra, Charya Tantra, Yoga Tantra, and Highest Yoga Tantra.

Tibetan Buddhism

Historically, Tibetan Buddhism refers to those Buddhist traditions that use Tibetan as a ritual language. It is practiced in Tibet, Mongolia, Bhutan, Ladakh, and among certain groups in Nepal, China, and Russia and has an international following. Buddhism was introduced to Tibet in two waves, first when rulers of the Tibetan Empire (seventh to ninth centuries CE), embraced the Buddhist faith as their state religion, and during the second diffusion (late tenth through thirteenth centuries), when monks and translators brought in Buddhist culture from India, Nepal, and Central Asia. As a result, the entire Buddhist canon was translated into Tibetan, and monasteries grew to become centers of intellectual, cultural, and political power. From the end of the twelfth century, Tibetans were exporting their own Buddhist traditions abroad. Tibetan Buddhism integrates Mahayana teachings with the esoteric practices of Vajrayana, and includes those developed in Tibet, such as Dzogchen, as well as indigenous Tibetan religious practices focused on local gods. Historically major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism are Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and Geluk.

Tibetan Government-in-Exile

The Tibetan Government-in-Exile is a reconstituted form of the Ganden Podrang government that now resides in Dharamshala, India. In 1951, Tibet was formally incorporated into the People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong (1893–1976). In 1959, an uprising against the Chinese communist rule led to the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and surviving members of the Tibetan government flight to India, where they rebuilt a government-in-exile, with a democratically elected parliament (Tib. kashag) and a president. In 2011, The Dalai Lama formally relinquished his political leadership role in Tibetan exile government. This government represents the roughly 150,000 Tibetans who form an exiled diaspora in India, Nepal, and worldwide.

Nechung Monastery lies on the outskirts of Lhasa (fig. 2), halfway up to the sprawling monastery of that dominates the face of . While not as large as Drepung or the other major monasteries of the  tradition, Nechung is home to a unique and evocative collection of murals portraying wrathful figures that cover the walls of its courtyard and assembly hall. The content of these paintings includes numerous fierce protector deities and wrathful tantric  divinities. While all Tibetan monasteries have their assortment of murals and paintings, Nechung’s stand out for the extensiveness of their graphic and fierce images, as well as their gruesome nature and connection to the Nechung Oracle.

Fig. 2.

Nechung Monastery; Lhasa, U region, central Tibet (present-day TAR, China); ca. 1682; photograph by Cecilia Haynes, 2011

These expansive murals ultimately center on a Tibetan Buddhist protector deity named , who has an important place in Tibetan mythic history overall, but who came to be housed at Nechung, where he and his various forms have taken oracular possession of a human medium for almost five hundred years. This famous medium, known as the Nechung Oracle, has had a close connection to the lineage of the Dalai Lamas since the turn of the sixteenth century. Under the auspices of the Great Fifth Dalai Lama (1617–1682), the Nechung Oracle became the main state oracle of Tibet and has since been consistently providing clairvoyant advice to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government up to the present day.

Mythology and the Nechung Oracle

Nechung represents a confluence of rich mythologies and important institutions, both of which are embodied in the vast imagery of its murals. As the monastery’s central protector of the Buddhist teachings, Pehar (fig. 1) has a rich pedigree that traces back to Tibet’s first Buddhist monastery of Samye, and further still into the legendary past. Elements of this mythos can be found in ritual manuals, biographies, and histories that span the major Buddhist sectarian traditions. Fittingly, however, a summary of the deity’s past can be found at Nechung itself, where a late seventeenth-century monastic record is inscribed on the southern wall of the complex’s courtyard.

In brief, many eons ago Pehar had been a religious king who took on monastic vows with his equally devout friend and minister. Unfortunately, the king misunderstood the teachings while the minister excelled, and this resulted in the king regressing in his vows. Out of envy and anger over his former friend’s progress, the king proceeded to torment the minister in different animal forms over several lifetimes, until the wrathful being was finally subdued by the great tantric deity Vajrapani. After more lifetimes spent in Buddhist Hell, the king’s spirit eventually arrived at a meditation center in Mongolia, near modern-day Lake Kokonor (Qinghai), where he acted as the local deity. He was then captured by the army of the Tibetan king Tri Songdetsen (742–ca. 800) and brought back to central Tibet. The great tantric master Padmasambhava tamed and named the spirit Pehar and entrusted him with guarding treasures. Eventually Pehar migrated to Tsel, a region southeast of Lhasa, and became a protector deity for the Tselpa Kagyu hierarchs. In the sixteenth century, Pehar made his way to the vicinity of Drepung Monastery, where an abbot there predicted the deity’s arrival and built for him a “small abode”—the literal meaning of nechung.

Once established at Nechung, Pehar began to periodically possess a monk of the monastery every generation to provide clairvoyant advice to the Dalai Lama and Tibetan officials. Oracular possession is one of numerous forms of divination and prognostication found in Tibetan culture, which also include astrology, geomancy, interpreting dreams, reading omens or signs, using dice or dough balls, counting rosary beads, interpreting the pulse for health concerns, and so on. When a human oracle falls into a trance state, the particular possessing deity or related divine emissaries take over, causing the oracle to hiss and dance wildly before making strained and often cryptic prophetic proclamations. In preparation for such intense ceremonies, the oracle is dressed in special attire and wears a ritual mirror (fig. 3) over his chest while monks chant and play various instruments to assist the deity’s descent into the human vessel (fig. 4). Sometimes an oracle brandishes the weapons associated with the deity during these ritual exercises, such as the oracle of Nechung wielding Pehar’s sword (fig. 5 at 1:45), bow, and arrow (fig. 1).

Video
Fig. 4.

Bhangzoed, "Nechung trendha tsechu official function dharamsala 2016," YouTube, July 21, 2016, 29:56, https://youtube.com/watch?v=gaxjDp-09nA

Video
Fig. 5.

delicateear, "NECHUNG ORACLE.mp4," YouTube, July 11, 2012, 3:33, https://youtube.com/watch?v=l2oQM92om14

Numerous oracles in Tibetan history have served patrons on village, monastic, and government levels. While there have been several state oracles—oracles that exclusively serve the Dalai Lama, his ministers, government officials, or powerful members of the aristocracy—the Nechung Oracle has been the highest and most important of these since the seventeenth century. During such divinatory consultations, the Nechung Oracle offers insight into concerns over the Dalai Lama’s well-being or next rebirth, any domestic conflicts, war and other foreign policy issues, and important matters of state overall. While the oracle now resides outside Tibet and the institution of Nechung has been reestablished in , India, such ritual services are still performed today for the Dalai Lama and members of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. It is in the oracle and his activities that Pehar’s robust mythos and Nechung’s prophetic significance intersect.

Murals and Tantric Power

The late seventeenth century was the watershed moment for Nechung, because the monastery was extensively renovated and expanded under the auspices of the Fifth Dalai Lama and his regents, particularly his final regent, Sanggye Gyatso (1653–1705). It was at this time that the monastery structure reached its current extent, the Nechung Oracle was established as the main state oracle, and Nechung became intimately linked to the Dalai Lama’s burgeoning government. The monastic record inscribed in its courtyard was also composed by the Great Fifth and Sanggye Gyatso, and it further provides descriptions of the murals the latter had commissioned, which match those still visible today. While the images have been repainted and touched up over the centuries—most recently in the 1990s—the figures and configurations date to the turn of the eighteenth century. For this reason, the exact artists are unknown, but the visual architectonics of the Nechung murals reveal a great deal about the tantric power represented within the monastery.

Upon entering Nechung’s western gate, the visitor is immediately greeted by images of two large wrathful door guardians—the Red and Black Butchers (fig. 6)—before arriving inside the open and expansive courtyard. Along every wall of the courtyard are vividly detailed and extensive murals of Pehar’s retinue (fig. 7), an amazing assortment of fierce spirits of all sizes and colors riding various animals, brandishing weapons, and wearing armor or draped in human and animal skins (fig. 8). Paintings of human skins in different states of putrefaction cover the top register of the walls, as if hanging from the rafters. Along the lower register circling the courtyard, the red waves of a painted ocean of blood churn around decapitated heads, decaying skulls, and other dismembered body parts. This frightening scene surrounds viewers as they make their way toward the main entrance of the monastery’s assembly hall, where more hanging human skins are painted on the central doors. Such wrathful imagery along doors, beams, and other architectural features is typical of  at Tibetan monasteries.

Monumental porch featuring blue timbered ceiling and red columns covering two large murals flanking ornate portal
Fig. 6

Murals of the Red and Black Butchers; Western Entrance, Nechung Monastery, Lhasa, U region, central Tibet (present-day TAR, China); ca. 1900, restored ca. 1996; materials unknown; height approx. 13 ft. (4 m); photograph by Cecilia Haynes, 2011

Mural depicting fearsome deity and attendants outlined in flames traveling through green landscape
Fig. 7

Murals of Pehar’s Retinue; Courtyard, Nechung Monastery, Lhasa, U region, central Tibet (present-day TAR, China); ca. 1900, restored ca. 1996; materials unknown; height approx. 13 ft. (4 m); photograph by Cecilia Haynes, 2011

Mural depicting serpents and three flayed human skins painted to appear to hang from blue timber rafters
Fig. 8

Murals of Human Skins; Courtyard, Nechung Monastery, Lhasa, U region, central Tibet (present-day TAR, China); ca. 1900, restored ca. 1996; materials unknown; height approx. 13 ft. (4 m); photograph by Cecilia Haynes, 2011

After the pandemonium of the courtyard, Nechung’s tantric cosmology becomes more evident inside the assembly hall (fig. 9). The movement from the front entrance to the back of the hall where the rear shrine rooms are found reflects the movement from the mundane to the transcendent through the murals that cover the walls of this interior space. On the walls abutting the main doors, two murals depict past Nechung Oracles in trance states. One portrays the oracle Lobzang Lekjor, who was installed as the medium of Nechung in 1690 when the monastery’s major renovations were nearly complete; the other image is of Shakya Yarpel (fig. 2), who acted as the Nechung Oracle from 1856­ to 1900. These figures embody the mundane world most overtly, as human beings possessed by protector deities.

Floorplan in black and white of monastery with component structures numbered; scale and compass at bottom right
Fig. 9.

Franco Ricca; Floor Plan of Nechung Monastery, Lhasa, U region, central Tibet (present-day TAR, China), from Franco Ricca 1999. Il tempio oracolare di gNas-chuṅ: Gli dei del Tibet più magico e segreto. Alessandria, Italy: Edizioni dell’Orso, 47, fig. 4, showing 1) Western Gate, 2) Courtyard, 3) Entrance Portico, 4) Assembly Hall, 5–7) Rear Shrine Rooms; diagram © Franco Ricca & Edizioni dell’Orso, Alessandria/CESMEO, Torino; alterations made to image with author’s permission

Moving further into the hall, on both the east and west walls, one first encounters the Five King Spirits—Pehar with the four protectors that emanate from him (fig. 1)—before advancing to the higher enlightened tantric divinities of the Eight Sadhana Teaching Deities (fig. 10). Finally, near the back of the assembly hall before the rear shrine entrances, representing the height of tantric power and control, one finds on walls opposite one another murals of Padmasambhava and  (figs. 11 and 12)—the very tutelary deity that the tantric master embodied to tame Pehar in the eighth century.

Mural depicting blue-skinned wrathful deity and his consort locked in embrace; both wear skull crowns
Fig. 10

Mural of Yamantaka, one of the Eight Sadhana Teaching Deities; Assembly Hall, Nechung Monastery, Lhasa, U region, central Tibet (present-day TAR, China); ca. 1900, restored ca. 1996; materials unknown; height approx. 13 ft. (4 m); photograph by Christopher Bell, 2011

Mural depicting seated Guru wearing resplendent robes in blue, saffron patchwork, and red-and-gold brocade
Fig. 11

Mural of Padmasambhava; Assembly Hall, Nechung Monastery, Lhasa, U region, central Tibet (present-day TAR, China); ca. 1900, restored ca. 1996; materials unknown; height approx. 13 ft. (4 m); photograph by Christopher Bell, 2011

Mural depicting wrathful deity with red skin wearing animal and human pelts, standing before flames
Fig. 12

Mural of Hayagriva; Assembly Hall, Nechung Monastery, Lhasa, U region, central Tibet (present-day TAR, China); ca. 1900, restored ca. 1996; materials unknown; height approx. 13 ft. (4 m); photograph by Christopher Bell, 2011

These murals thus display a spectrum of mundane and transcendent power that moves along the north-south axis of the assembly hall. Devotees who circumambulate the space clockwise along the walls move from the historic worldly entrance to the heightened mythic and timeless arena at the back, before returning once again to the front doors and the temporal present. In the central rear chapel at the back of the assembly hall, amid statues of the Five King Spirits and various goddesses, there now stands a life-size statue of the Nechung Oracle in trance, specifically Shakya Yarpel. In premodern Tibet, however, this space was where the oracle’s throne was located and where he would fall into trance during special occasions and annual ceremonies. Nechung is Pehar’s palace, and it places the deity at its center—represented by the oracle. The visitor must pass through the encampment of the deity’s ferocious entourage, which fills the courtyard, before propitiating his emanations in the assembly hall and approaching his oracle in the central chapel beyond. Powerful tantric divinities, headed by Padmasambhava and Hayagriva, watch over the whole miraculous encounter, illustrating the rich dynamism of the murals that permeate Nechung Monastery and fill it with a unique cosmic drama.

Footnotes
1

Nechung itself is an ecumenical monastery, with its ritual and scholastic corpus drawing from the Geluk, Nyingma, and Sakya traditions.

2

For a complete translation and transcription of this Nechung record, see Christopher Bell, “The Nechung Record,” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines 36 (October) (2016): 143–249.

3

For other variant accounts of Pehar’s arrival at Nechung, see René de Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Oracles and Demons of Tibet: The Cult and Iconography of the Tibetan Protective Deities, Reprint (New Delhi: Paljor, 1956) 1998, 104–7.

4

See Petra Maurer, Donatella Rossi, and Rolf Scheuermann, Glimpses of Tibetan Divination: Past and Present (Leiden: Brill, 2020), vii–xx.

5

See Petra H. Maurer, “Das tibetische Staatsorakel (sku-rten) des Klosters Nechung (gNas-chung,” in Tibet-Encyclopaedia, ed. Dieter Schuh et al. (Andiast: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, 2010), http://www.tibet-encyclopaedia.de/staatsorakel.html.

6

See Christopher Bell, “The Nechung Record,” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines 36 (October) (2016): 168–69.

7

See Franco Ricca, “Il tempio oracolare di gNas-chuṅ: Gli dei del Tibet più magico e segreto,” Orientalia 8 (1999), 7.

8

For a complete list of these deities, see Franco Ricca, “Il tempio oracolare di gNas-chuṅ: Gli dei del Tibet più magico e segreto,” Orientalia 8 (1999), 95–97.

9

See Thub bstan phun tshogs, Gnas chung rdo rje sgra dbyangs gling gi chos ’byung kun gsal chu shel dbang po (Dharamsala: Nechung Monastery, 2007), 84.

10

See Thub bstan phun tshogs, Gnas chung rdo rje sgra dbyangs gling gi chos ’byung kun gsal chu shel dbang po (Dharamsala: Nechung Monastery, 2007), 138.

11

While drawing from a Ladakhi context, Martin Mills discusses in greater depth the Tibetan understanding of such axes of mundane and transcendent power. Martin Mills, Identity, Ritual and State in Tibetan Buddhism: The Foundations of Authority in Gelukpa Monasticism (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003), 48–52, 153–64.

Further Reading

Bell, Christopher. 2021. The Dalai Lama and the Nechung Oracle. New York: Oxford University Press.

Heller, Amy. 2003a. “The Great Protector Deities of the Dalai Lamas.” In Lhasa in the Seventeenth Century: The Capital of the Dalai Lamas, edited by Françoise Pommaret, 81–98. Leiden: Brill.

Nebesky-Wojkowitz, René de. (1956) 1998. Oracles and Demons of Tibet: The Cult and Iconography of the Tibetan Protective Deities, 94–133, 409–66. Reprint, New Delhi: Paljor.

Citation

Christopher Bell, “Nechung Monastery Murals: Wrathful Tantric Imagery at the Seat of the Tibetan State Oracle,” Project Himalayan Art, Rubin Museum of Art, 2023, http://rubinmuseum.org/projecthimalayanart/essays/nechung-monastery-murals.

circumambulation

Circumambulation means walking around something. Himalayan Buddhists often circumambulate as a form of veneration and generate/accrue merit by walking in a clockwise direction around stupas, monasteries, or sacred mountains. Bonpos do the same thing, except counter-clockwise.

Dalai Lama

Language:
Mongolian,Tibetan

The Dalai Lamas are a tulku lineage that has played a central role in Tibetan history for the last five hundred years. In 1577 a Mongol khan gave the Geluk monk Sonam Gyatso (1543–1588) the title “Dalai Lama,” combining the Mongolian word for ocean, dalai (a reference to the depth of his knowledge), and the Tibetan word for guru, lama. Later, two previous incarnations were retroactively identified. The fifth incarnation, Ngawang Gyatso (1617–1682), allied with another Mongol khan to unite most of the Tibetan Plateau, forming the Ganden Podrang government that would govern Tibet until 1959. Since the Communist takeover, the current Fourteenth Dalai Lama has lived in exile at Dharamshala in India. The Dalai Lamas are understood to be emanations of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.

tantra

Language:
Sanskrit
Alternate terms:
Vajrayana, esoteric Buddhism, tantric

Tantra was a religious movement in India around the fifth to seventh centuries, and its practices are part of Buddhism and Hinduism. The word tantra also refers to texts which transmit tantric practices. In Buddhism, tantra is also called Vajrayana, “The Vajra Vehicle.” Tantric ritual and art are characterized by deity yoga, mandalas, mantras, abhisheka (initiation), wrathful deities, and ritual sexual union. In Hinduism, tantrism was often associated with the worship of Shiva and various goddesses (shakti). A practitioner of tantra is called a “tantrika.” Tantra is also a genre of texts that have been variously categorized. Most common is the division of tantras into four categories: Kriya Tantra, Charya Tantra, Yoga Tantra, and Highest Yoga Tantra.

Tibetan Buddhism

Historically, Tibetan Buddhism refers to those Buddhist traditions that use Tibetan as a ritual language. It is practiced in Tibet, Mongolia, Bhutan, Ladakh, and among certain groups in Nepal, China, and Russia and has an international following. Buddhism was introduced to Tibet in two waves, first when rulers of the Tibetan Empire (seventh to ninth centuries CE), embraced the Buddhist faith as their state religion, and during the second diffusion (late tenth through thirteenth centuries), when monks and translators brought in Buddhist culture from India, Nepal, and Central Asia. As a result, the entire Buddhist canon was translated into Tibetan, and monasteries grew to become centers of intellectual, cultural, and political power. From the end of the twelfth century, Tibetans were exporting their own Buddhist traditions abroad. Tibetan Buddhism integrates Mahayana teachings with the esoteric practices of Vajrayana, and includes those developed in Tibet, such as Dzogchen, as well as indigenous Tibetan religious practices focused on local gods. Historically major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism are Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and Geluk.

Tibetan Government-in-Exile

The Tibetan Government-in-Exile is a reconstituted form of the Ganden Podrang government that now resides in Dharamshala, India. In 1951, Tibet was formally incorporated into the People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong (1893–1976). In 1959, an uprising against the Chinese communist rule led to the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and surviving members of the Tibetan government flight to India, where they rebuilt a government-in-exile, with a democratically elected parliament (Tib. kashag) and a president. In 2011, The Dalai Lama formally relinquished his political leadership role in Tibetan exile government. This government represents the roughly 150,000 Tibetans who form an exiled diaspora in India, Nepal, and worldwide.