Theos-Talk Archives (February 2001 Message tt00084)

Dear Frank,

>Many students misunderstand the messages because they understand the words
as they are understood in a >special (recent) period of time.

This is not a matter of recent usage. In fact you'll find that in recent
usage of the word it does mean Black Magician.

Some time back I was talking about these Dugpas on a list and somebody
pulled me up on it. I happened to have a couple of books on Tibetan religion
and found that he was indeed correct.

For instance in L.A. Waddell's "Lamaism" (1894) you can find a history of
the various Tibetan Buddhist sects. The Nin-ma-pa or "the old school" is the
red hat sect. It is the unreformed section of Lamas more freely tinged with
the pre Buddhist practices- the native "Bon"(their aboriginal
eligon) -"celibacy and abstinence are rarely praticed."

"Dug" means "thunder dragon" and their hats were decorated with lightning
bolts. "The head is named Lama Rin-po-che."
"Dugpa 'brugpa. It is Sanskritised in the Chronicle of Nag-wan Nam-gyal as
Megha Scara or "Cloud Voice", thunder being regarded as the dragon's roar."

"Much confusion has been caused in European books by misusing the term
Dug-pa, employing it as a synonym for the "red hat" sect, which properly is
the Nin-ma."

"In Bhotan the Dug-pa sect possesses the temporal as well as the spiritual
power, and has suppressed all the other sects there."
-Waddell

In fact, if anyone has seen recent television footage of life in Bhutan, I'm
sure they would get the impression that it is something of a model country.

I see an old discussion on theos talk
http://theosophy.com/theos-talk/tt06642.html
http://theosophy.com/theos-talk/tt06569.html

The term Dugpa" does not mean "red hat".

:
> a) HPB was stupid or

She just made a mistake based on the limited knowledge back then.

Best Regards,
Bruce