The Treasury of Lives

Margyel Dongkar (rma rgyal ldong skar) is also known as Margyel Tsokarma (rma rgyal mtsho skar ma), the Tsepong Bride (tshe spong bza'), Metok Dron (me tog sgron), Gyeltso Karma (rgyal mtsho dkar ma), or Margyenma (dmar rgyan ma).[1] Her primary name, Margyel, simply means "the Ma Queen"—Ma (rma) being an ancient Tibetan word with tribal associations.[2] The common variant Margyen translates to "Adorned in Red," referring to her sanguinary character.   

She was one of King Tri Songdetsen's (khri srong lde btsan, 742–796) five queens strategically chosen from five of Tibet's most powerful old families—part of a strategy to unify the kingdom. The other four queens were Chimza Lhamo Tsen (mchims bza' lha mo btsan), Droza Jangchub Dronma ('bro bza' byang chub sgron ma), Poyongza or Gyelmo Tsun (pho yong bza' / rgyal mo btsun), and Kharchen Yeshe Tsogyel (mkhar chen ye shes mtsho rgyal), who was later allegedly given by the king to his guru, Padmasambhava, to serve as his consort.[3] These later four queens are traditionally depicted as Buddhists, like the king himself, whereas Margyel Dongkar is said to have been an ardent adherent of the Bon religion. Her Bon faith is sometimes questioned because she is credited with constructing one of Samye's (bsam yas) auxiliary Buddhist temples called Khamsum Zangkhang Ling (khams gsum zangs khang gling).[4] However, all the queens at the time were linked to similar buildings at Samye,[5] which may have simply been their residences erected in their name.[6]

While Tibetan Buddhist histories suggest that the king was ecumenical,[7] the legends around Margyenma depict him as partial to Buddhism, to the extent that the queen and her family felt the need to defend their position in the kingdom.[8] Over the course of Tri Songdetsen and his sons' reigns, Buddhism was established as the dominant religion and subsequent Buddhist historiography did not look kindly on Margyel Dongkar.

Although the biographies of Tri Songdetsen's sons are notoriously murky, Margyel Dongkar is believed to have been the mother of at least two princes: Mune/Muni Tsenpo (mu ne/ni btsan po) and Mutik Tsenpo (mu tig btsan po), also known as Senalek (sad na legs) or Tri Desongtsen (khri lde srong btsan).[9] Later sources also named her as the mother of another, possibly apocryphal prince, Murum, Murub, or Muruk Tsenpo (mu rum / mu rug / mu rug bstan po).[10] Still other later sources name her as the mother of Prince Mutri Tsenpo (mu khri btsan po),[11] who is sometimes considered the same as Mune/Muni Tsenpo.[12]

She is most infamous as the antagonist in the story of the translator Vairocana who had been sent to study Buddhism and Sanskrit in India, where he is said to have trained under the Dzogchen master Śrīsiṃha. According to tradition, Śrī Siṃha authorized him to return to Tibet to spread the Mind Class (sems sde) and Space Class (klong sde) of the Dzogchen teachings, which had hitherto only been introduced slightly by Padmasambhava to a few of his close disciples.

It is important to note that Vairocana's hagiographies were written by those loyal to the Buddhist tradition in general and the Dzogchen tradition in particular. According to the most-well-known biography of Vairocana, The Great Image (ba'i ro'i rnam thar 'dra 'bag chen mo) compiled by his own students, after the great translator returned to Tibet, certain Indian scholars and an Indian king who were fiercely possessive of the Buddhist teachings opposed his plans to disseminate the Dzogchen instructions in Tibet. To thwart the Tibetans' cultural appropriation, they dispatched rumors about Vairocana to Tibet saying that he was a malicious fraud peddling false teachings.[13] These rumors found a sympathetic champion in Margyel Dongkar, who joined a group of ministers in urging the king to execute the treacherous translator. The king, who was eager to receive Vairocana's secret instructions, was forced to respond to the accusations, and he arranged for an unfortunate body double to be drowned in a river to pacify Vairocana's enemies.[14] After that, the king is said to have constructed a new pavilion supported by a thick hollow pillar in which there was enough space for Vairocana to camp. Since kings seldom enjoy seclusion, Tri Songdetsen would retire to the semi-privacy of his pavilion where he listened to Vairocana's Dzogchen instructions through the planks of the pillar. Late one night, wondering what the king was doing in his pavilion, Margyel Dongkar uncovered the scheme and revived the court's hysteria against Vairocana.[15]

Two influential texts attributed to the fourteenth-century treasure revealer Orgyen Lingpa— (o rgyan gling pa) The Chronicles of Pema (padma bka' thang), also known as the Crystal Cave Chronicles,[16] and The Queens' Chronicles (btsun mo'i bka' thang)—add a dramatic layer to the saga, contending that Margyel Dongkar had been in love with the handsome translator well before he had traveled to India to study.[17] According to this account, Vairocana rejected her persistent attentions, causing her to make spiteful accusations that he had made improper advances to her.[18] Scholars have pointed out that this element of the story seems to be derived from a nearly identical story about a queen in an earlier Bon history called the Nail Scripture (mdo gzer mig).[19]

Whatever the source of the strife between Margyel Dongkar and Vairocana, the king was unwilling to execute the translator and sent him into exile in the eastern Tibetan region of Tsawarong (tsha ba rong), where he would stay for a number of years converting the people to Buddhism before returning to central Tibet years later to work on the massive project of translating the Sanskrit canon into Tibetan.[20] Upon his arrival in Tsawarong, it is said that Vairocana expressed his annoyance at the dramas he was sucked into back in central Tibet:

According to Nyingma histories, while Vairocana was in exile, Tri Songdetsen invited the Indian monk Vimalamitra to be his Dzogchen preceptor, and along with Padmasambhava, they continued their efforts to establish Buddhism in Tibet.

Within a few years, the king passed away and the throne passed to his and Margyel Dongkar's son, Mune/Muni Tsenpo, who is said to have locked horns with the aristocracy in his efforts to implement idealistic economic and land reforms.[22] On top of that, according to The Crystal Cave Chronicles/The Chronicles of Pema, Margyel Dongkar was enraged that Mune Tsenpo married her younger former co-wife, Poyongza Gyelmo Tsen, whom she hated. The Tibetan historian Shakabpa Wangchuk Deden (zhwa sgab pa dbang phyug bde ldan, 1908–1989) has it that she poisoned both Poyongza and her own son.[23] Other histories, however, claim that the king was assassinated by those opposed to his reform program, a claim Shakabpa also repeats.[24]

According to the Queens' Chronicles, Vairocana, hungry for some justice of his own, used his powers to curse Margyel Dongkar with either leprosy or smallpox, from which she allegedly suffered for some years before having it dispelled by Padmasambhava after a half-hearted confession of her dark deeds.[25]

Later Nyingma literature brings her story back to light. In the seventeenth century, the Kagyu-Nyingma master Karma Chakme (karma chags med, 1613–78) composed a thread cross liturgy for expelling dremo ('dre mo), a kind of female demon, in which Margyel Dongkar is evoked as a complicated, troublesome force, but a redeemable one. He writes,

Also in the late seventeenth century, Nyima Drakpa (nyi ma grags pa, 1647–1710) revealed, in a treasure text, a new story involving Margyel Dongkar, Padmasambhava, and Vairocana. In this episode, Padmasambhava regales a small gathering of disciples with his knowledge of their noble past aspirations. After hearing him speak positively of Vairocana, Margyel Dongkar asks Padmasambhava if she had also made noble past aspirations. When he says nothing in reply, she feels humiliated and inwardly vows to torment Vairocana in all her future births as a senmo—a female spirit that distracts people from Dharma. Reading her thoughts, Padmasambhava places his hand on her head in a gesture of blessing and forgiveness, then describes, over many pages, the obstacles that will unfold for Vairocana over the next centuries because of her toxic intentions.[27]

Picking up on this, the drama between Vairocana and Margyel Dongkar plays an important role in the early relationship of the nineteenth-century master Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye ('jam mgon kong sprul blo gros mtha' yas, 1813–1899), who is considered a reincarnation of Vairocana, and the great visionary Chokgyur Lingpa (mchog gyur gling pa, 1829–1870). When Jamgon Kongtrul was suffering from an eye ailment, Chokgyur Lingpa, who was then still seeking Kongtrul's patronage, told him,

There is mention [in a treasure text] of you being one of the successive rebirths of the great translator Vairocana. Due to the karmic obscuration that Vairocana incurred in bringing smallpox on Margyenma, that naga's influence is felt wherever that rebirth occurs, causing such afflictions as smallpox. Your eye disease is due to nothing but this; your eyes are affected by smallpox.[28]   

Following her alleged murder of King Mune Tsenpo and after the ascent of Mutik Tsenpo to the throne, Yudra Nyingpo and Orgyen Lingpa's histories record no more of Queen Margyel Dongkar's actions. Her story was picked up again by the Bhutanese treasure revealer, Pema Lingpa (pad+ma gling pa, 1450–1521) in his Guide to the Hidden Land of Kenpajong (sbas yul mkhan pa ljongs kyi gnas yig padma gling pa'i gter ma).[29] According to Pema Lingpa, she is said to have resorted to bestiality after her husband, King Tri Songdetsen failed to satisfy her lust. After copulating with a goat and a dog, she gives birth to a son with a goat-like head and dog-like protruding mouth. This son is referred to as Kyika Rato (khyi kha ra thod), "Dog-Mouth Goat-Skull," and is identified as Murum or Muruk Tsenpo.[30] Knowing that this was not his progeny, the king banishes the queen to a region called Yargyab Drazhung (yar rgyab gra gzhung) on the southern stretches of the Tsangpo River where she builds a temple dedicated to the future Kadam tradition, adding the specific aspiration that her ex-husband's Nyingma tradition not flourish there.[31] Of course, such sectarian identities did not exist during the life of Magyel Dongkar and Tri Songdetsen, but they were strong by Pema Lingpa's time, when antagonism between the Kadam-Geluk and Nyingma traditions were occasionally fierce. This account also has it that the unnatural and restive prince, Kyika Rato, is driven further south to Lhodrak (lho brag), and then to Kenpalung (mkhan pa lung) and Bumthang (bum thang) where he founds communities that would become integral to the future Bhutan.[32]

Margyel Dongkar is also vilified in the Epic of Gesar, compiled over centuries, as the incarnation of an evil being who for many lifetimes aspired to do harm. A passage reads,

Four generations later, when Chipön had authority over Ling and Padmasambhava had come to glorious Samyé, Lady Margyenma was born. Through her previous perverted aspirations, she had descended from the cannibal demon nāgas. Endowed with a strong mind and body, she was rather unambiguously named Yitrok Wangjema (Hypnotic Ruleress). She ruled by sucking blood and delighting in flesh, tramping around like a whore, and copulating with all the humans and gods-demons. From that state of utter defilement, at the pig-time hour, leading up to midnight, the seven damsi of perverted aspirations simultaneously spawned seven black eggs.[33]

The Epic of Gesar also portrays her as taking rebirth as a particularly inveterate demoness who even the great King Gesar could not liberate.[34]

Her legacy as a quasi-historical, literary, and folk figure, remains strong in the contemporary Tibetan imagination. For example, it is not uncommon to hear male practitioners refer to women they are unhappy with as incarnations of Margyel Dongkar.

 

 

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