the supine demoness

AUTHORED numen AND NOT deity, AND THE CHOICE IS THE POINT: she is not a goddess with a cult but the terrain of a country understood as a body, which is as exact a fit as this schema's vocabulary offers anywhere. THE THIRTEEN TEMPLES ARE PLACES and are not ingested, though they are named on this record because they are what holds her down. She is a different figure from MA DRAG SINMO, the rock ogress of the origin myth, who is also a srin mo; the names overlap and the figures do not, and both records say so - the Sujata lesson of lane 26 applied before the sweep rather than after it.

Domains

• the land of tibet
• territory and locality

Relations

• pinned by: Songtsen Gampo

Sources

• Reference treatment of the supine demoness and the thirteen geomantic temples: at the time of King Songtsen Gampo, Tibet was believed to be a supine demoness (srin mo gan rkyal du nal ba'i gzugs), prone to sudden and violent movement and unwelcoming to Buddhism, and the demoness is referred to as senmo (srin mo); Songtsen Gampo, with the help of his Chinese bride Wencheng, who explains the shape Tibet has, mapped the form of the demoness and then constructed temples at all of the key locations above her principal organs and joints; the thirteen geomantic temples - the four Region Subduing temples, the four Extremity Taming temples, the four Farther Taming temples, and the Jokhang in the centre above her heart - were built to tame the demoness lying along the land of Tibet and to guard the country, the temples emanating outwards from the centre in concentric zones; successful geomantic practice became an embodiment of political legitimacy, linking the subjugation of the landscape to the authority established by the king.