Sacred Recitation of the Tibetan Yungdrung Bön Tradition: The Kharnatsang Collection of Skad and the Arrangement of the Three Heart Mantras

The digital age has long dawned in many of the Tibetan Monasteries in exile. Thus, the inclusion of internet platforms and the usage of digital communication technologies was naturally part of my ethnomusicological collaboration with the Tibetan Bön monastic chant leader and scholar Geshé Dawa Namgyal Kharnatsang on the sacred recitation of the Yungdrung Bön tradition of Menri Monastery in Dolanji, India. In this article I will offer insights into Kharnatsang’s and my motivation to develop a hybrid collaboration and discuss the role and impact of the digital technologies on the traditional chain of transmission. I will draw on two of our projects concretely related to the transmission of the sacred recitation of the Bönpos. In the first project, we audio recorded a collection of recitation formulas as performed in the Menri tradition and made them accessible online. The second project belongs to the artistic part of our collaboration. We recorded and arranged three of the central mantras of the Bön tradition at the recording studios of Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen. While in the first project Kharnatsang was focused on implementing and adapting digital technologies into the traditional way of teaching ritual recitation, in the second project, he granted the collaborating musicians a surprisingly high level of artistic freedom regarding the musical interpretation of the mantras. I will argue that the reason for this difference in handling of the sacred recitation has to do with the different audiences targeted in the two projects and is in accordance with the Bönpos’ traditional way of transmitting sacred recitation.