Treasure Texts on the Age of Decline: Prophecies Concerning the Hidden Land of Yolmo, their Reception and Impact

Abstract

The toponym “ Yolmo ” appears in Tibetan texts from the fifteenth century onwards and refers to an area near the border of Tibet with Nepal, corresponding to today ’ s Nepalese districts of Sindupalchok and the edge of Rasuwa. Yolmo is described as one of the Hidden Lands (sbas yul) concealed by Padmasambhava in the eighth century and opened by sNgags ’ chang Śā kya bZangpo, a famous “ treasure-revealer ” (gter ston), at the beginning of the sixteenth. The first part of this article explores Buddhist cosmology and eschatology, teachings regarding the Age of Decline, and the way these ideas were transferred between cultures and reached Tibet. This discussion provides the wider context for the subsequent analysis of the prophecies attributed to Rig ’ dzi rGod ldem, a late fourteenth/early fifteenth century Tibetan treasure-revealer. His prophecies about the End Times warn of foreign invasion and urge people to escape Tibet and find a Hidden Land in the Himalaya to save their lives and preserve Buddhist teachings. Five of these describe the Hidden Land of Yolmo and the way in which it could be transformed into an ideal place to serve as a safe haven for Buddhist practitioners. The third and final part highlights the activities of a Tibetan lama, gTer dbon Nyi ma seng ge, who followed these prophecies in the early eighteenth century and settled in Yolmo. According to the rNying ma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, the great Tantric master Padmasambhava and his consort Ye she mtsho rgyal concealed spiritual treasures ( gter ma ) in the eighth 1 century, to be revealed in the future, when conditions were right for their dissemination and practice. 2 They were concealed in the form of texts, religious objects, remote valleys and lands, or as teachings buried in the mind stream of future reincarnations of ’ s direct disciples. , the practitioners. the there is for and common people. To the there is a plain. Establish a place there for Tantric practitioners.