Namgyal manuscript collections

Description:

Namgyal (rnam rgyal) Monastery, located on a hill west of Lo Manthang, Upper Mustang, holds a substantial collection of ca. 126 older Tibetan manuscripts. Even though parts of the collection are sometimes referred to as a "Kanjur," the volumes form a heterogeneous collection. Twenty-eight volumes (Ng1-30) are part of a thirty-volume Sūtra collection (mdo sde), of which two volumes (ma and ha) are missing. Fourteen volumes (Ng31-44) constitute a Prajñāpāramitā set, which contains only one single text, that is, the Śatasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitāsūtra ('bum). A few other volumes (Ng45, Ng46, Ng47) appear to be fragments from other Sūtra collections. One volume (Ng48) is a separate Tog gzungs volume; three volumes (Ng49, Ng50, Ng51) are separate volumes of the Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitāsūtra (brgyad stong), another volume (Ng52) is a separate Gzungs bsdus volume. Some other volumes are yet to be fully documented.
Among these, the volumes of the Sūtra collection and Prajñāpāramitā set stand out both in terms of their quality and their age of production. The manuscripts are adorned with intricate illuminations on the first and last folio of every volume and, given their art-historical as well as codicological features, were likely produced towards the beginning of the fourteenth century. The textual contents and structure of the Sūtra collection seem to represent a stage of canonical development that preceded the model of later structured Kanjurs. Recently, several such Sūtra collections were located and documented in Mustang and Dolpo. All of them are organized in sets of thirty volumes, arranged according to the basic characters of the Tibetan alphabet, and contain about 450 canonical works, several of which are not found in later mainstream Kanjurs. Sometimes, such Sūtra collections were also incorporated in later Kanjurs, as reflected for example in the Early Mustang Kanjur. Textual influences are also felt in some of the Kanjurs preserved in Hemis and Basgo. The Sūtra collection is therefore part of a larger network that spans over different locations in Mustang, Dolpo, and Ladakh, which has been referred to as "Mustang group," in an attempt to distinguish this network from the different groups of the mainstream Kanjurs.
Scans and content information of the volumes are provided by the Tibetan Manuscript Project Vienna (TMPV). Images of the Sūtra volumes (Ng1-30) were taken by Christian Luczanits and Jaroslav Poncar, all other images by Markus Viehbeck. The scans may be used freely for scientific analysis; a commercial usage is prohibited (CC BY-NC 3.0). Particular thanks are due to the monastic body of Namgyal Monastery for permitting Open Access to the manuscript images.

Location:

Namgyal (rnam rgyal) Monastery, Upper Mustang, 29.19002, 83.94746

Bibliography:

- Luczanits, Christian, and Markus Viehbeck. 2021. Two Illuminated Text Collections of Namgyal Monastery: A Study of Early Buddhist Art and Literature in Mustang. Kathmandu: Vajra Books
- Viehbeck, Markus. 2021. "Human Engagement on Manuscript Margins: Glimpses into the Social Life of a Collection of Buddhist Sūtras from Mustang." Revue d'Etudes Tibétaines 58: 103-138
- Luczanits, Christian. 2020. "Establishing an Iconography-The Case of Early Tibetan Representations of the Medicine Buddhas." Journal of Tibetology 22: 119-148
- Viehbeck, Markus. 2020. "From Sūtra Collections to Kanjurs: Tracing a Network of Buddhist Canonical Literature across the Western and Central Himalayas." Revue d'Etudes Tibétaines 54: 241-260
- Luczanits, Christian. 2016. "Portable Heritage in the Himalayas: The Example of Namgyal Monastery, Mustang: Part 1, Sculpture." Orientations 47 (2): 120-130
- Luczanits, Christian. 2016. "Portable Heritage in the Himalayas: The Example of Namgyal Monastery, Mustang: Part 2, Books and Stupas." Orientations 47 (5): 22-32


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