Pha Trelgen Changchup Sempa

THE TIBETANS' OWN ACCOUNT OF WHERE THE TIBETANS COME FROM WAS NOT IN THE CORPUS AT ALL. Neither the monkey nor the ogress had a record under any of the three Tibetan keys. He is authored deity and not mortal because the tradition names him a bodhisattva in his own name; NO parentIds ARE WRITTEN FOR THE SIX MONKEY CHILDREN, who are a number and not six attested figures, and manufacturing six records from a number is what this programme does not do.

Domains

• ancestry
• origin of the tibetans
• asceticism

Relations

• fathered the tibetan people with: Ma Drag Sinmo
• authorised by: Avalokiteśvara

Sources

• Reference treatment of the Tibetan creation myth: in the beginning the world was covered by water, which evaporated little by little, leaving room for animal life; to the flooded land of Tibet came a monkey who had withdrawn there to immerse himself in meditation and follow a life of asceticism and chastity, settling on Mount Gongori - Pha Trelgen Changchup Sempa, pha 'father', trelgen 'old monkey', changchup sempa 'bodhisattva'; one day as he sat in meditation a female demon named Ma Drag Sinmo came to seduce him, held by tradition to be a manifestation of the bodhisattva Tara (Jetsun Dolma in Tibetan); she threatened that if he refused she would visit a demon and conceive a multitude of small monsters that would destroy all living creatures; the monkey yielded and requested Avalokitesvara's authorisation to marry her; Avalokitesvara blessed the pair, six small monkeys were born of their union, and as they fed on cereals they gradually lost their hair and their tails, which marked the beginning of the Tibetan people.