The Bon Religion of Tibet: Konchok Tsering

There is much debate and controversy over what religion presided over Tibet prior to the establishment of Buddhism in the ninth century. Most researches agree that it was a religion called Bon while some still assert that it didn’t originally have it’s own name and was simply “The Folk Religion” of Tibet. Norwegian tibetologist and historian Per Kværne sums it all up into three main theories:

1. Bon, often referred to as “The Nameless Religion”, was not a religion in its own right, but the sum of all the indigenous beliefs, cults of local gods, popular rites, etc., that were once prevalent across Tibet.

2. Bon was the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet, its central figure a king with sacred powers.

3. Bon was a form of Buddhism that developed in western Tibet at least as early as the period in which Buddhism was introduced into Tibet, and was similar in many respects to orthodox Buddhism.

It is said that over the centuries there were multiple attempts by the royal courts of Tibet to establish Buddhism as the official religion. It is even claimed that during the 8th and 9th centuries a Buddhist persecution of Bon was enacted, as well as the destruction of texts during the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the 1960’s, and the Bonpo hid their sacred texts in caves, buried them underground and walled them up in some of the temples.

Later the texts were rediscovered. In the Bon religion these hidden texts are called Terma and a person who finds these treasures are called Tertön. Here’s where it gets interesting! Tradition holds that terma may be physical objects such as a text or ritual implement that is buried in the ground, hidden in a rock or crystal, secreted in a herb, or a tree, hidden in a lake, or hidden in the sky. The teachings associated should be understood as being concealed within the mind of the guru, that is, the true place of concealment is in the tertön’s nature or essence of mind. If the concealed or encoded teaching or object is a text, it is often written in “Dakini” script, a non-human type of code or writing that only a tertön can decipher. While many of these texts were found by mere chance; A Tertön would later be known as one who finds Terma through the intervention of supernatural beings who would direct them to the hidden sites. Later still, texts would be revealed in visions or through purely mental transference from divine beings.

The greater part of the Bon texts consists of such “rediscovered” or supernaturally inspired texts. “Treasure finders” have been active until the present, and indeed may be said to play an important role in the revival of religious activities in Tibet today, as texts that were hidden for safekeeping during the systematic destruction of the 1960s and 1970s are once more being removed from their hiding places.

One of the special requirements for the discovery of termas is inspiration. Tertöns have consorts with whom they practice sexual yoga or karmamudra to accelerate and enhance their capacity for realization. Karmamudra is a technique of sexual practice with a physical or visualized consort. When the consort is a visualized one they are known as a jnanamudr(psychic gesture of knowledge). The consorts are thought to be very important to tertöns.. Generally they are accompanied by these companions and they are someone representing the tertön’s complementary energy, whether male or female.