Theos-Talk Archives (February 2005 Message tt00667)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Erica Letzerich" <eletzerich@y...> 
wrote:

> Blavatsky mentions that the Bon practices are opposite to the
Gelugpas:

No, read it more carefully:

«It was only after a lama coming to them from Tibet in the tenth
century had converted them from the old Buddhist faith—so
strongly mixed up with the Bon practices of the aborigines—into
the Shammar sect, that, in opposition to the reformed "Gelukpas"»

Butanese had old buddhist faith (mixed with bon) before, and later
someone from Tibet converted them into his own faith, and that
latter faith became later opposed to Gelug. Later in this article
Blavatsky writes about dugpas.

Some orientalists criticized HPB and theosophists for using term
"dugpa" for a sorcerer. They (as many buddhists too) say that
there is a Drugpa Kargyu sect which is quite respectable school of
Buddhism, and to call them "sorcerers" is gross ignorance or
intolerance. They say that "Drugpa" is sometimes pronounced
"Dugpa".

I had to make my own investigation to reconcile these positions
and came to the following conclusions. Tibetan system of writing is
as much inconvenient as English, and there are many words which
spell differently and read alike. The name of the school spells
`brugpa, not dugpa, while one of the meanings of the word dug is
poison. Probably some adherents of that school really indulged in
sorcery, and someone ironically called them dugpa, i.e. poisonous
or harmful, in opposition to gelugpa, beneficent, and later this term
was applied to all sorcerers regardless of school. But I am not sure
of this opinion because I don't know Tibetan at all.