Orally Transmitted
Jarung Khashor iconic Story
Jarung Khashor iconic Story
INTRODUCTION
This is the story I heard from one of my teachers about the significance of Jarung Khashor Stupa in Nepal. Some sources say that the Jarung Khashor stupa is the only place where the dissemination of Buddhism took place and the stupa is still believed to be wish fulfilling after the anecdote of great beings of Tibet. Their superpowers made Buddhism, one of the prominent religions in the world and said to have liberated many beings from the samsaric lives during their time and flourished buddhism in many parts of the world.
Origin of Yum Bjazee Saley
As per the oral history, the construction of stupa originated from the heart of Chenrezig (God of compassion) when Chenrezig was trying hard to empty the all beings from hell and he found never ending beings being in hell bearing different sort of punishment based on their karmic action. He felt very compassionate and had an unbearable sense of compassion from seeing those beings suffering excruciatingly for what they did in their previous lives. Uncontrollably, tears rolled down and he wiped with his two fingers and triggered that two fingers to the sky wishing that with even his tears, let it help sentient beings to liberate from the suffering. Right after his selfless prayer, it is said that two drops of tears had given birth to two dakinis in god’s realm. However, one dakini is said to have committed sin stealing flowers while she stayed at god’s realm and for her sin, she was sent to the human body as poulterer for one of the king in Nepal and she was popularly referred to as “Yum Jadzee Saley”.
Jarung Khashor naming convention
Yum Bjazee requested the king of Nepal to grant land to construct one stupa and the king asked Yum Bjazee about the size of the stupa that she can afford to construct as a poulterer. Yum Bjazee replied that the stupa will be of yak-skin sized area and the king granted verbally upon her request assuming it to be a small area that she can afford. Upon approval from the king, Yum Jadzee said to have cut yak skin to fine thread and made a circle from it covering the wide area of land (present size). The chamberlain upon seeing Yum Jadzee marking a wide area of land, reported to the King but the king said it is granted regardless of area the Yum has taken provided it is covered by Yak skin. That is the reason the stupa was named as Ja Rung (Let it be done) Kha Shor (slipped from my tongue) as the king let Yum Jadzee to construct stupa though the king assumed small area but as per the Yum’s coverage of land by the yak skin through her intelligence, the king kept his word as accepted before. Although Bjazee was just a worker under the king but she has four sons who stand behind her and they are also fully motivated as the mother was to construct the stupa no matter how their social status was. They began the construction of stupa and it is said that they are accompanied by one elephant to carry the boulders and required materials for stupa. However the Yum died before it was completed and that is the reason why the stupa has dome (Rugum) upside down for the legacy of their mother who selflessly worked so hard to bring the iconic stupa in the world.
Reasons for the Stupa considering as one of the wish full-filling structure
The four sons upon completion of stupa, stood before stupa and made the aspiration prayer individually. The first son aspired to be born as one of the kings who can spread dharma and help sentient beings to liberate from samsaric sufferings while praying he was stung by a bee where he unintendedly killed the bee even for a bee he prayed that, let the bee be born as my child. The second son wished to be a scholar who can translate dharma to the respective language to help all the being to hear, listen and practice dharma. The third son prayed to be one of the Yogi masters with the ability to subdue all the evils that bring destruction to the Buddha dharma. The fourth son solicit to be the minister with the capability to coordinate and organize all the dharmic activities without failure. However, the elephant who helped to construct the stupa left grief-stricken for not praying on his behalf by four brothers and upon hearing the brothers aspirations the elephant wished to be a devil who can destroy the dharma in bringing total destruction in the area of its prevalence. It is said that a crow on the top of the stupa heard the wishes of the elephant and the crow prayed to be born as a master who can subdue the elephant with the capabilities to retrieve the destroyed dharma.
Later, after their deaths all the four sons, an elephant and a crow are said to be born in a human body as per their wish and prayer. The first son was reborn as the king of Tibet and popularly known as king Thrisong Detsen, who adopted Buddhism as an official religion of the country and he constructed the first Buddhist monastery called Samye with seven Tibetan monks. The king had a daughter Pema Sal who passed away at the age of eight as a rebirth of a bee. The second son was reborn as scholar Shantarakshita and later during the reign of Trisong Detsen some envoys were sent to Nepal and India to learn Buddhism and to obtain Buddhist text. The envoys learned about Shantarakshita in India and recommended him as a Buddhist teacher to the king Trisong Detsen. The king invited Shantarakshita to diffuse buddhism in Tibet and he became the abbot of Samye monastery. Due to destruction forces from anti-buddhist the construction of Samye was very challenging and the king had to overcome hostile supernatural forces from the Bon demons thus, the Shantarakshita recommended the king to invite one of the tantric yogi master of Oddiyana (Pakistan in present). Subsequently, the king invited the yogi master Guru Padmasambhava who was rebirth of third son and he subdued all the Bon demons and converted them to the protector of buddhism. It is said that during the reign of the King Trisong Detsen, there was a Minister known as Selnang who was rebirth of the fourth son and he helped the king to invite both scholar Shantarakshita and Guru Padmasambhava to Tibet. Buddhism was strongly institutionalised during the reign of King Trisong Detsen in Tibet and his three successors had somehow adopted Buddhism as their official religion but during the reign of his fourth successor referred as Emperor Langdarma became a follower of Bon religion. The Langdarma who is rebirth of Elephant is held to have killed his predecessor Ralpacan and enthroned himself as a emperor of Tibet. During his reign it is said that bhuddhist monks are persecuted and religious texts are burnt down thus losing the many spiritual texts and one of the buddhist prominent astrological texts (Tibetean Tse). Later, the buddhist hermit Lhalung Pelgye Dorje rebirth of a crow who was once abbot of Samye monastery was said to have gained supernatural powers like walking through rocks, flying etc. On hearing the persecution of buddhist by the king Langdarma, he came to the emperor’s threshold and performed mask dances attracting the audience. The curiosity aroused king Langdarma to witness the dance whereby the great Lhalung Pelgye Dorji assassinated the emperor Langdarma with an arrow and fled riding on a horse. It is said that he then retrieved religious text and it is because of him the Ningma Religion still exists in the world.
