J. F. Marc des Jardins: the Tradition of Everlasting Bön: Five Key Texts on Scripture, Tantra, and the Great Perfection

Abstract The Bön religion (also known as Yungdrung Bön, “Eternal Bön”) appeared in Central Tibet in the tenth to eleventh centuries at the same time as Buddhism was revived in that country. Although largely indebted to Buddhism for its doctrines, rituals, beliefs, and monastic culture, Bön is sharply at odds with Buddhism in its historical origin narrative, maintaining that it came to Tibet from Tazik, a land of uncertain historical status, situated to the northwest of Tibet, millennia before the arrival of Buddhism. Bön remains a small but vibrant religious community inside Tibet as well as in the Tibetan diaspora. Contrary to what is often believed, Bön cannot be traced to pre-Buddhist religion in Tibet, about which little is known. Des Jardins’ volume is a presentation and translation of core Bön eleventh- to fifteenth-century texts of varying length, which can all be categorized, however, as belonging to the scholastic religious literature of Bön; in other words, texts that include tantric and meditational texts. These texts are translated here for the first time. The book does not contain ritual or historiographical texts.