Chaṅs-dbyaṅs Rgya-mcho

SELECTIONS FROM THE LOVE POETRY
OF THE SIXTH DALAI LAMA

TRANSLATED BY CHARLES HARTMAN

INTRODUCTION

THE sixth Dalai Lama (1683-1707), Charis-dbyans rgya-mcho (Ocean-of-Melody) wrote the following poems. As his verses reveal, he was a rather atypical Dalai Lama. But despite his gaiety and romantic temperament, his life was basically unhappy. He died at the age of 24, a victim of Sino-Mongol-Tibetan political intrigues. Tibetan legend claims that the Chinese, on the orders of Emperor K’ang-shi, murdered him. His followers understood the reference in his poetry to Li-thaṅ as a prophecy concerning his next reincarnation. And in 1708 the seventh Dalai Lama was born in that village.

In the original Tibetan, these poems have four lines of six syllables each: the complete poem has only twenty-four syllables, and in brevity of expression resembles the twenty-character Chinese lyric (chüeh-chü) and the seventeen-syllable Japanese haiku. The oriental mind appreciates this brevity and its corresponding vagueness. Thus the reader should not be dismayed if he cannot understand the Eastern as he would a Western poem. The Tibetan author presents only the components of a poetic situation. The reader must draw upon these imagerial elements and form them himself into a personal poetic message. But an Eastern and a Western reader will doubtlessly accomplish this process differently; since, no matter how adept a translation may be, an American cannot be furnished with the mental apparatus of an eighteenth-century Tibetan. Therefore, I have chosen for translation eleven poems which transcend as far as possible the Tibetan cultural milieu. But difficulties still remain.

The sixth Dalai Lama was the spiritual leader of his country. His use of religious words or references in mundane situations enhances the novelty or “shock-value” of his poetry. Thus in the first poem, “circumambulate” translates the Tibetan custom of walking clockwise around a temple or religious site. When this pious devotion is juxtaposed in the same line with thoughts of the author’s mistress, his doubtless intention was to elicit from us an indulgent smile.

The complete text containing sixty-three poems is printed in Yu Dawchyuan, Love Songs of the sixth Dalai Lama Tshangs-dbyangs- rgya-mtsho, Peking, 1930. The translations and introduction in this book should be used with caution and consulted only in conjunction with the review by Paul Pelliot in T’oung Pao, 1932 pp. 272-74.

FROM THE LOVE POETRY OF THE
SIXTH DALAI LAMA

From eastern snow mountain peak

shines a clear-bright moon.

The face of an eternal beloved

circumambulates my mind.

•

A handsome peach seed,

daughter of a high official,

the ripened fruit

from heights of lofty bole.

•

If mind would tend to holy doctrine

as fast as it traces her—

this life, this very body

would I find my Buddhahood.

•

In our hide-away,

deep forest, south valleys,

only parrots squawk,

who else shall ever know?

•

Wild brant fond of the marsh

sometimes desires to settle

but ice-frozen lake surface

frustrates and despairs intent.

•

When I dwell in Potala palace

Knowledge-holding Ocean-of-Melody, I am.

When I rove in Lhasa haunts

as playboy of the Lamaist world, I’m known.

•

Dusk: “Do not arise.”

Dawn: “Do not return.”

Dusk: I seek my beloved.

Dawn: Snow is falling.

•

Cuckoos come from the south,

essence of seasons arrives

and I and my loved on meeting

mind and body rise to unconcern.

•

As brush of wind and rock

wear the vulture’s feathers,

men’s lies and men’s deceits

exhaust my soul.

•

Bird, white crane,

lend me your wings.

I shall not travel far, only

encircle Li-than, then return.

•

The religion-king’s magic mirror

foresees for me the hellish regions,

yet for this world I was not meant,

grant me repose in another.