[Buddha-l] Three Buddhist "Magicians"

[Piya Tan]

Terence,

Alexandra David-Neel belonged to the time of strange, fat, bored and boring
middle-aged
women of some nobility (Russia etc), when little is really known about
Tibetan Buddhism
(or Buddhism itself). In that dark age, their little tinder lights shone
blindingly to the
Morlocks and the Elois just followed blindly when told to.

Donald S Lopez Jr has done great trying to tell us truths about Tibet:

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493105.html

Piya


On Feb 13, 2008 9:13 AM, Terence Hays <thays at stny.rr.com> wrote:

> In her rather sensational account of her exploits in Tibet and surrounding
> areas (_Magic and Mystery in Tibet_), Alexandra David-Neel discusses the
> activities of three types of practitioners, the gomchen (goms chen?),
> naljorpa (rnal 'byor pa), and the ngagspa. For the most part, the
> activities
> of all three are described in similar terms and all receive the title
> "magician". She does make a distinction between the gomchen and ngagspa
> but
> does not, at least from what I recall, clearly articulate the difference
> (if
> I am not mistaken ngags pas are hereditary lamas). At times it appears
> that
> she uses the terms "gomchen" and "naljorpa" interchangeably. Would someone
> be kind enough to shed some light on this issue.
>
> Thanks,
> TH
>
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