Birth, Discipleship, and Precepts

Chapter 2 shifts its focus from key issues behind the biographical works to address the narrative presentation of Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen’s early life. It draws upon the saintly themes of The Pleasure Garden of Wish-Fulfilling Trees and the detailed chronicles of The Strand of Jewels to produce a new, composite image. Taking up his birth, childhood, and entry into religious life, and his relationship with his primary teacher and his assumption of monastic vows, this chapter begins to trace the arc of Shardza’s religious career as it emerges from these two sources. A close reading of these sources, which vary significantly by length, organization, and style, reveals how they render very different accounts of Shardza’s childhood, with implications for the life to follow. In the process, this chapter interrogates the relationship between tantric and monastic sources of religious power and authority in the biographical milieu of nineteenth-century Kham.