THE CALL OF THE CUCKOO TO THE THIN SHEEP OFSPRING: HEALING AND FORTUNE IN OLD TIBETAN DICE

DIVINATION TEXTS

BRANDON DOTSON

Anthony Aris got me my first paid job as a Tibetologist. This was in thesummer of 2002, transcribing and translating inscriptions on the basesof bronze statues kept in a private collection in London and in theChristie’s warehouse. The work was in support of Serindia’s magnifi-cent 2003 book, Portraits of the Masters. As I didn’t know anyone inLondon, Anthony invited me to stay at his house. He politely discussedmy interests in Tibetan historiography, and my ideas for a master’s the-sis. While doing so he reached for various books on the shelves of hisstudy, and gave me a copy of Dan Martin’s Tibetan Histories. I waspositively amazed, and remain amazed, at the capaciousness of heartAnthony displayed both in his obvious labor of love in publishing thesefantastic works (and beautiful objects) that line his bookshelves, and inhis giving them away so freely. As part of my own somewhat meagerattempt to honor Anthony, and to aspire to such generosity of spirit inmy own life, I offer this small vignette of auspicious dice divinationsfrom Tibetan manuscripts from Dunhuang.

EARLY TIBETAN DICE DIVINATION

There are many reasons why these texts should fascinate us.1 Theyoffer a window into folk religion, and into people’s practical concernswith prosperity, fortune, trade, family, and health. The individual prog-noses within a dice divination text often issue from the mouth of a godor goddess. These often cryptic prognoses partake of a heightened reg-ister of language involving archaisms, metered song, and impressionis-tic images. Dice divination texts also participate in a material culturalheritage: besides being objects themselves—mostly scrolls, but in onecase a small, head-bound codex—they were used in concert withcarved bone dice of the type found by Aurel Stein at Niya. Looking

beyond the Tibetan world, one can also query connections with thesimilar bone and terra-cotta dice found in Sirkap, Taxila, KhairabadTepe, and elsewhere, and consider the relationship of Tibetan dice div-ination to neighboring traditions such as those recorded in the mid-fourth to early-sixth century Sanskrit Pāśakakevalī, and in the Irk Bitig,a ninth-century Runic Turkish text found, like the roughly contempo-rary Old Tibetan divination texts, in Dunhuang Cave 17.2

Beyond questions of origins and transmissions, dice are fun. Theyare used for games and gambling, they dramatize mythological contestsbetween light and dark, and they adorn the images of deities such asDpal ldan Lha mo. Dice are involved in Vedic royal consecration ritu-als, in Tibetan festivals and collective rituals, and in Tibetan legal pro-ceedings.3 Dice blur the lines between play, divination, and contest, andbetween chance, fate, and divine will.

To begin with the material side of things, the dice used in earlyTibetan dice divination are rectangular. One, two, three, and four cir-cles or “pips” are carved on a die’s four long sides, and its two shortsides are blank. These short sides often rounded, making it even moredifficult to return a “non-throw” when dropping or rolling these oblongdice. (The semantics of dicing in Tibetan has it that the dice “fall,”rather than being “thrown,” “rolled,” “cast,” or “shot.”4) Three dice“fall” in order to arrive at one of sixty-four possible combinations, e.g.3 – 1 – 2, which is depicted “OOO O OO” both with respect to dice andwith respect to the entry in a divination text. Thus each possible diceroll has a corresponding prognosis within the text, and the text is essen-tially divided into sixty-four “paragraphs” separated by circles repre-senting the dice “falls.” The resulting page setting makes a dice divina-tion text immediately recognizable.

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The same holds true for the page setting of the Irk Bitig.

3THE CALL OF THE CUCKOO TO THE THIN SHEEP

Figure 1: Old Tibetan dice divination text PT 1046; Bibliothèque nationalede France.

Figure 2: two folia of the Irk Bitig, shelfmark Or.8212/161, British Library.

In India, the oblong, four-sided dice used in the divination systemknown as the Pāśakakevalī, where there are similarly sixty-four prog-noses in the text, were called pāśaka-s. Six-sided dice, possibly earlier,were also known, and these were traditionally made from the nut of thevibhītaka tree (Terminalia Bellirica), and were typically called akṣa-s(Lüders 1907; Michon 2007: 152–53).

Later Tibetan divination traditions tend to use cubed, six-sided dice, ofthe type that are often seen dangling from the saddle of Dpal ldan Lhamo’s mule.5 Similarly, later Tibetan divination traditions differ inimportant respects from what we find in the Dunhuang dice divinationtexts, but also retain some continuity. For example, in a divination textassociated with Dpal ldan Lha mo, found in the Collected Works ofDkon mchog ’Jigs med dbang po (1728–1791), a small-print notebetween the invocation and the prognoses instructs that three dice arecast three times. This is similar to the method described in the OldTibetan dice divination text ITJ 739, as we shall see. In the later tradi-tion represented in ’Jigs med dbang po’s text, however, the results ofthe three six-sided dice rolls are added together, resulting in sixteen

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Figures 3a, 3b, and 3c: four-sided rectangular die from Niya (Stein, SerindiaVol. 4: plate XXXVI, L. B. IV. v. 0034) where “3” and “2” are visible; thesame from Niya (Stein, Ancient Khotan Vol. 2: plate XXXVI, N. xv. 004),where only a cramped “4” is visible; and the four sides of die from Taxila

(Marshall, Taxila, plate 200, n. 93). All three objects are made of bone.

possible prognoses numbered three to eighteen.6 I leave to one side thequestion of continuity between the earlier and later dice divination tra-ditions, and also the matter of whether or not the obscure language usedin the shouts and calls of gamblers might faintly echo the mysteriousand imagistic prognoses in dice divination texts.7

The working hypothesis among Old Tibetanists is that the Tibetan dicedivination texts from Dunhuang date mostly to the late imperial period,that is, generally to the early to mid-ninth century, and to the period ofthe Tibetan occupation of Dunhuang (c.786–848) (Takeuchi 2012: 9).The exception is the head-bound divination text ITJ 739, which dis-plays an orthography that likely dates to the tenth century. Unlike theother Old Tibetan divination texts, this one has a preamble, which goesinto invocations to sman goddesses, and also spells out the methods forcasting the dice and using the text. The connection with sman goddess-es is noteworthy, and persists throughout the divination prognoses inthis and other early Tibetan divination texts, which often mention smanand mu sman. These are goddesses who are notable for their connec-tion with divination and for their protection of wild animals, particular-ly from the hunt.8 Remaining agnostic with respect to transmission, itis interesting to note here that in India dice are also connected withfemale divinities in the form of apsaras-es and yakṣī-s (along with

5THE CALL OF THE CUCKOO TO THE THIN SHEEP

Figures 4a and 4b: Dpal ldan Lha mo thangka; and detail from the same,showing the black and white dice. By Daderot, via Wikimedia Commons.

male yakṣa-s), who are often associated with fertility and childbirth.9After the invocation, the verse preamble goes into the practicalities ofdivination. This includes a description of the ritual setting, and themention of a fee and a gift offered to the ritual specialist, called a mobdag, for the performance. The method is given as follows:

The dice—if all three [prognoses] are good,Since it is good, do not do it again.Two being good, with one badThis being middling, set it on the floor.10

Two being bad and one being good,Just once more—cast again.The dice—if all three are bad,Even if one [cast] again, it is of no use.cho lo ni bzang gsuM na / bzang gis ni bskyar myI ’tshal / bzang gnyisni ngan gcig dang / ’bring gis ni gzhi’ la zhog / / ngan gnyis ni bzang’gcig la / gcig tsham ni bskyar te btab cho lo ni ngan gsuM na / bskyarkyang ni don ma mchis; ITJ 739, 3v1–4.

This preamble is valuable in that it tells us how the divinations wereperformed in Dunhuang in the tenth century. Namely, one did not castthe three dice only once, but three times. Of course this may be onlyone of many methods, and may not represent the standard practice. Thepreamble’s invocation is extremely helpful in placing the focus on per-formance, and it reminds us of the serious consequences of a bad prog-nosis, and indeed of the importance of divination more generally inearly Tibet. From a modern bias, one is apt to look at these divinationtexts as “manuals” that one might even consult by oneself with the aidof dice. (Indeed, for the enterprising among us, “Ancient Tibetan DiceDivination” could represent a business opportunity in the religiousboard game industry, if the Pāśakakevalī hasn’t already cornered themarket.11) While Ariane Macdonald might overstate the case in assert-ing that the performance of these divination prognoses involved spiritpossession (Macdonald 1971: 275, 285), this should at least serve as ahelpful corrective by reminding us of the ritual, performative setting ofdice divination. Here multiple transactions take place simultaneously—between ritual performer and client; between the abode of fortune inthe untamed natural world of sman goddesses and wild animals and thedomestic space of hearth, livestock and trade—and such transactionscarry with them serious risk. Some very bad prognoses, for example,direct one to perform rituals in order to avert the misfortune that theybring upon their unhappy recipient. There is surely more that can be

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said about the relationship between divination and female deities, andthe role of the latter as protectors of wild animals—the objects of thehunt. On an elementary level, we should also consider such divinationrituals—and particularly their emphasis on the untamed, natural world,on female divinities, and on fortune (phya)—within the context ofTibetan economies of fortune, where dice divination represents a tech-nology not simply for calling in good fortune, but for winning it.12

Within the dice divination texts from Dunhuang we find overlappingcontent, and variants of the same prognoses in different texts. But notwo texts are identical with respect to the prognoses and their contents.Thus a given roll may result in a favorable prognosis in one text, but anunfavorable one in another. The language and the themes are very sim-ilar, however, and there is no question that a large group of these dicedivination texts belong to the same tradition. Alongside these, we findother dice divination texts that appear to belong to a separate tradition;PT 1047, for example, includes many prognoses whose names do notappear to be Tibetan.13 Here I shall focus on one dice divination text,shelfmark ITJ 738, which partakes in a tradition where—again follow-ing the rule of three—the entry for each roll includes three levels ofanalysis, or, to put it another way, repeats the same information succes-sively in three different ways. The first is an imagistic verse, usuallyfrom the mouth of a deity. This is something like an omen, not so unlikewhat one finds in Tibetan raven divination texts or in the Turkish IrkBitig.14 Following this speech act, the second is a prose explanation ofthe applicability of the prognosis: it may be good for trade, family,health, etc. Or, if it is a prognosis that causes delay, it will be bad ifyou’re expecting a visitor, but good with respect to illness. The third isthe simplest analysis, and this closes the entry: it simply states, “this isa good prognosis,” “this is a bad prognosis,” “this is a middling [thatis, mixed] prognosis,” etc.

Comparing this sort of tripartite prognosis with those found in thePāśakakevalī and the Irk Bitig, which employ the same type of diceand also contain 64 prognoses, one notes that the former is devotedmostly to the “second-level” analysis explaining a prognosis’s applica-bility to prosperity, health, family, etc. These do not come from themouths of gods, however, and they lack a summation at the end. TheIrk Bitig’s prognoses, by contrast consist only of the “first-level” omenand “third-level” summation. The omen does not come from the mouthof a god, but it does sometimes begin in the first person, e.g., “I am a

7THE CALL OF THE CUCKOO TO THE THIN SHEEP

yawning leopard” (no. 8; Tekin 1994: 11). Other Tibetan dice divina-tion texts also omit the specifics of the “second-level” analysis, as inthe case of ITJ 740. In terms of content, however, there is little overlap,as the prognoses of the Pāśakakevalī, the Irk Bitig, and Old Tibetandice divination texts reflect the concerns of Indians, Turks, andTibetans respectively, and are thus populated by differing nomina andnumina. Possible exceptions include the appearance in the Tibetan textsof the sky god (gnam lha) and the road god (lam lha), which could con-ceivably correspond to Tengri and to the god of the road in the TurkishIrk Bitig. Other such generic gods as the “great mother goddess” —found below in the last prognosis—could point to a connection withIndia, and of course the point has already been made about the place ofminor female divinities in dice divination. More often, however, thegods in the Tibetan dice divination texts, like the animals and other cul-tural reference points in the prognoses, are Tibetan, and include, forexample, many of Tibet’s famous mountain deities.15 The specificsawait resolution through a detailed study (being undertaken now by AiNishida under the direction of Tsuguhito Takeuchi), but it is alreadyevident that dice divination in early Tibet was a complex and importantmatter in which the dynamic between popular practices and officiallysanctioned ones, as well as that between Tibetan traditions and those ofits neighbors, help to define dice divination’s scope and importance.

IMAGES OF PROSPERITY AND HEALING

I would like to conclude by sharing translations of some of the moreuplifting and poetic images in early Tibetan dice divination texts, espe-cially those that pertain to healing the sick. Before sharing a few tripar-tite prognoses, I begin with an auspicious image from which this shortcontribution takes its title. This is found in ITJ 740, a scroll that alsocontains a legal text that I studied in the context of an investigation ofthe use of dice in imperial Tibetan legal practice (Dotson 2007).

OOO – O – O From the mouth of Gar the Chos bu: “Winter is over and summer hascome. The cuckoo resounds in the ears of the thin sheep of spring, and itgoes from suffering to happiness, from poverty to wealth, from thin tofat. For you, man, so too shall it be.” A good prognosis.@@@ @ @ $ /:/ gar the chos bu’i zhal nas / / dgun zad gyang dpyar

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byung / dpyid gyI lug rid gyI rna bar khyu byug grag ste nyon mongs palas / / skyid dbul ba las phyug / rid pa las tshos myI khyod gyang de dangmtshung ste mo bzang ngo / /; ITJ 740, ll. 121–24.

In keeping with the rule of three, I offer the following translations,imagining that the dice have fallen in three particularly auspiciouscombinations according to the system found in the dice divination textITJ 738. The language of the impressionistic image or omen withwhich the prognosis begins is both allusive and elusive, and probablyeven involved an aesthetics of obscurity at the time that these textswere written. Over a thousand years on, gaining access to this idiom—which is not so far removed from that of proverbs—poses difficultiessuch that the translations below are necessarily provisional.16 The fol-lowing three prognoses—a sort of “textual meta-divination” that I per-form here—result from dice throws of 3-3-1, 3-2-1, and 2-1-2.

OOO – OOO – O “Oh! Up on the northern plainsOver there—they seek seven gazelle.

The thieves shall never get themThey are the possessions of the mu sman.”This divination has fallen on the divination of the sman Rgod spangs

She le. If you have cast it for household fortune and life-force fortune,then the fortune of men shall be undiminished and the fortune of animalsshall be undiminished.17 The gods protect your happiness and long life.If you undertake some matter, it shall be accomplished. If you’ve castthis for a sick person, s/he shall recover. If you’ve requested an officialpost, it shall be given. If you’ve cast it for subsistence fortune, you shallhave subsistence.18 If you’ve cast it for companionship/marriage, youshall meet it. If you go for trade, you shall make a profit. If you’ve castit for a visitor, s/he comes near. For whatsoever you’ve cast it, this div-ination is extremely good.@@@ / @@@ / @ / kye byang ka nI ya bya19 na dgo bdun nI phaskyang ’tshal / / rkun pos nI re myI ’tshal / mu sman nI nyid gI dkor / / mo’dI sman rgod spangs she le’i mo la bab ste / / khyIm phya dang srogphya la btab na / myI’I phyva myI nyams / / phyugs kyI g.yang myInyams / / dga’ skyId tshe rIng lha srung / don gnyer na grub / nad pa labtab na sos / rje blas gsol na gnang / / srId phya la btab na srId yod /gnyen byas na ’phrod / / tshong byas na khye phyIn / / ’dron po la btabna nye bar ’ong / / mo ’dI cI la btab kyang bzang rab / / /; 3v91–95.

OOO – OO – O

9THE CALL OF THE CUCKOO TO THE THIN SHEEP

“Oh! Whatever sman there are, they gather togetherThe deer and female yak…

Each and every gazelle meadowDivinations are cast and portents are...

The speech of Mu sman Rgyal moOffering gifts—offering them well,You are warm in the day and warm in the night.

Melodious words—continuously uttered,A trifling present—the abode of many.

This has fallen on the divination of gathering sman. If you have castit for household fortune and life-force fortune, then give gtsang to thegods.20 If you’ve cast it for fortune to undertake some matter, it shall beaccomplished. If you’ve cast it for a sick person, s/he shall recover. Ifyou’ve cast it for a visitor, s/he shall come. For whatsoever you’ve castit, this divination is good.

@@@ / @@ / @ / kye sman kang nI ’du ’du zhIng / / sha ’bI21 nI nyankyI [---] dgo spangs nI re re mo / mo btab nI phyva la can22 yang / / musman nI rgyal mo’i bka’ / / yon phul nI mchod legs na / / nyIn dro nImtshan yang dro / / bka’ snyan nI gsung yang rtag / / skyes phran nImang kyI gnas / / ’dI nI sman ’du ’du ’I mo la bab ste / / ma khyIm phyadang srog phya la btab na lha la gtsang [sbra?] phyin bar gyIs zhig / /don phya la btab na gru gru[b] / / nad pa la btab sos / / ’dron po la btabna ’ong / / mo ’dI cI la btab kyang bzang /; 1v85–89.

OO – O – OO “Oh! The clarity—in the coming of summer,Both a small valley and a small stream.The rain falls…

Skyi Mountain, atop the willowThe king of birds—the son of the khyung rests.

Phye ba—offered [to] a new friend.23

Yogurt and the ’ol mo herb,The six grains—twisted into a braid.

Over there—upon the hill,The g.yang wool—we take it as it comes.24

This has fallen on the divination of the little sman. If you have cast itfor household fortune and life-force fortune, then you, man, who havebeen mired in suffering, shall be protected by a kind god. It is as if agreat conflagration, present for ages, were quenched by rain cast downby the gods of the heavens. It is a prognosis in which one without anysubsistence, and in poverty, is given subsistence by the great mothergoddess. If you’ve requested an official post, it is a prognosis for hear-ing a pleasing decision. If you engage in trade, you shall make a profit.If you’ve cast it for a visitor, s/he is coming. If you’ve cast it for a sickperson, s/he won’t [even] need an elixir. If you undertake some matter,it shall be accomplished. If you’ve cast it for shis fortune, it is good.25

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For whatsoever you’ve cast it, this divination is good.@@ / @ / @@ kye dang ma nI dbyar ’khor na / lung phran nI chu phrangnyIs / / char bab nI [thag?] skal yang / / skyI rI nI lcang tog la / byargyal nI khyung sras [bzhags (/bzhugs)] / / phye ba nI gsar rogs pul / /sho zhIng nI ’ol mo la / ’phras drug nI lcang lo ’khrIl / / phas gyI na rIbo la / g.yang bal nI sleb gyIs long / / ’dI nI sman cung ngun gI mo labab ste / khyIm phya dang srog phya la btab na / myI khyod [sdun(/sngun)] nyon mongs zhIg ’dug la / / lha bzang po zhig ’go zhIng ’dug’o / / mye ngam ched po la skal mas nas ’dug pa las / gnam gi lhas charphab nas / skom rnyed pa dang ’dra / / srId myed nas phongs las / malha chen mos srId byIn ba’I ngo yod / / rje blas zhus na bka’ lung snyanpa thos pa’I ngo / / tshong zhig byas na khe phyIn / / ’dron pho cig labtab na phyIn te ’ong / / nad pa la btab na stsI sman myI dgos / / dongnyer na grub / / shIs phya la btab na bzang / / mo ’dI cI la btab kyangbzang ’o / / / /; 3v72–79.

NOTES

1 I am grateful to Ulrike Roesler for her editing and helpful comments thatimproved this piece. My research is supported by the Alexander von HumboldtFoundation and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

2 On the Pāśakakevalī, see Hoernle 1897: 209–15. See also Schröter 1900. See tooDaniel Michon’s perceptive remarks on both ludic and divinatory contexts of dice inTaxila; Michon 2007: 145–62. On the date of the fragmentary version of thePāśakakevalī preserved in the Bower manuscript, see Sander 1987. On the Irk Bitig,see Clauson 1960 and Tekin 1993.

3 See Heesterman 1957: 147–50; Richardson 1993: 65; and Dotson 2007.4 The same is true of the Pāśakakevalī in the Bower manuscript, which uses the

Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit form āpatanitaḥ (Hoernle 1897: 210, n. 5).5 On Dpal ldan Lha mo in relation to dice divination, see Róna-Tas 1956.6 See Dkon mchog ’Jigs med dbang po, Dmag zor rgyal mo’i sgo nas sho brtags

tshul kun gsal me long, 442, l. 2; and a modern printed version in Tshe ring and ’Brugmo rgyal 1997: 2.

7 On Tibetan dice games, see Wang Yao 1997 and Bde chen Sgrol dkar 2003.8 On hunting scenes as topoi in the context of Old Tibetan ritual literature, see

Dotson 2013a: 63–70.9 For a discussion that draws on the Mahābhārata, the Jātakas, and the

Mahāvastu,see Michon 2007: 153–55.10 An alternative reading for gzhi’ la zhog would be something like bzhi la shog,

“go for a fourth [roll].”11 See Schmitt-Rouselle 2009; http://www.schmitt-rousselle.de/philosophia/orakel.asp.

There is already a small manual on the market for performing your own Tibetan dicedivinations, based on a more recent system that employs two six-sided dice; seeMipham 1990. On religious board games and dolls more generally, see Bado-Fralickand Norris 2010.

11THE CALL OF THE CUCKOO TO THE THIN SHEEP

12 In this context see da Col 2012 and other contributions from the special issue ofSocial Analysis in which it is contained.

13 See, for example, the names of the prognoses in PT 1047, partially studied inMacdonald 1971: 288–309.

14 On Old Tibetan raven divination see Nishida 2013. On Tibetan raven divinationin cross-cultural context, see Mortensen 2006.

15 On the gods who speak the prognoses in the divination text ITJ 740, see Dotson2007: 22–25.

16 For a discussion of the aesthetics of obscurity in ritual speech, which is not onlya proprietary strategy for secrecy, but also a rhetorical code of persuasion that helps toconvey the ritual-spatial universe of the divinations and ensure their power, seeGaenszle 2002: 9–10, 45–50; and Mauss 1902: 135. On the approximation of tradition-al literacy required in order to read and appreciate Old Tibetan ritual literature, seeDotson 2013b.

17 Note here the difference between the two types of fortune: phya relates here tohumans, g.yang to animals; c.f. Ramble forthcoming: 510–11, 518.

18 The meaning of srid phya is complicated, as it depends on the polyvalent termsrid. As a starting point—and without going into thorny detail—it is perhaps easiest tocomprehend by analogy with kingship: the srid is the realm of the king—all that hegoverns and possesses. The srid of an ordinary person is similar, but on a smaller scale.

19 Read byi.20 The text is damaged here. This may refer to rite of purification such as bsangs.21 Read ’bri.22 The meter is such that la can should be either a scribal error or a transcription

error by Old Tibetan Documents Online. I have yet to check this passage in the manu-script itself at the British Library, and it has not been digitized by the InternationalDunhuang Project.

23 I tentatively gloss phye ba with barley meal (bag phye).24 The translation of this final line is conjectural. It may relate to the association of

g.yang with sheep and felt (and perhaps wool), among other things (Ramble forthcom-ing; cf. Bellezza 2005: 146–51, 456–83). According to Karmay, g.yang is also an epi-thet of sheep, perhaps as a loan from Chinese yang, also meaning “sheep” (Karmay1998: 149). An example of the equivalence of lug and g.yang is found in noun pairscharacteristic of Old Tibetan ritual speech. These occur in the “Tale of the Mdzo” (mdzorabs), an Old Tibetan ritual antecedent tale found in PT 1068: “he milked one hundredsheep, one hundred g.yang, and churned (?) [this] into butter” (lug brgya g.yang brgyazho bzhos mar drumsde; PT 1068, l. 84). In any case, the final verb suggests that theabove line concerns “getting fortune” (g.yang len).

25 This is an error—possibly a phonetic misspelling of srid—or a mistranscription.

12 BRANDON DOTSON

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