Lewis Doney compares three different narratives about Padmasambhava and Emperor Khri Srong lde brtsan.
This talk compares three perspectives on the travels of Padmasambhava, beginning in Uḍḍiyāna but focusing on his invitation to Tibet by Emperor Khri Srong lde brtsan: the early Tibetan Buddhist perspective; an early first-millennium view from the autochthonous religion, Bon; and that of a European missionary in the eighteenth century. In the former, the emperor rightfully enters a dependent relationship with Padmasambhava due to the evident spiritual and magical power that the master has acquired through his travels. In contrast, the early histories of the Bon religion and the missionary account of Ippolito Desideri (1684–1733) cast this dependent relationship on Padmasambhava as a negative state that entailed destructive consequences in Tibetan history. However, they did not question the dependency of Khri Srong lde brtsan on Padmasambhava. Beyond their differences, this talk shows how these three perspectives on the master's travels around northern South Asia and to Tibet and his relations with political power there are comparable in following certain legitimisation logics of different dependencies, as well as world-building techniques consistent with supporting the religious lineages that have created these narratives.
