Sam van Schaik over at Early Tibet recently posted part of a Tibetan poem, “The Scripture That Fell From the Sky” (IOL Tib J 370), that was written by an anonymous author in either the mid-eighth or the tenth century CE. It was found as part of a hoard of texts in a cave in Dunhuang, China in 1900. Part of it reads,
Due to the death of the royal father, and due to the youth of his son,
The profound dharma and the old sciences have been overturned.
Uphold the the supreme path of truth, the virtuous dharma,
The ten virtues of the monastic rule, and
The royal law of the king—the protector of men—and
The oral teachings & writings of the wise ancestors,
All according to the system of Tibet: how could we?
Continue reading at Formed From Within . . .
