Pa Drengen Changchop Simpa

Mythical monkey-ancestor of the Tibetan people. He is, with King Gesar and Avalokiteśvara, one of the most important figures of the Tibetan culture [the myth is attested in the book Maṇi bka' 'bum, allotted to the king Songtsen Gampo.] . Sometimes he is considered as the incarnation of the bodhisattva of the compassion. Pa means in fact “father”, Drengen “old monkey”, Changchop can be translated by “compassion” and Simpa by “heart”.

Birth of the first Tibetans

In a very popular myth of creation in Tibet, the world in the beginning was covered by water. This one evaporated little by little, leaving room to the animal life. On the immersed grounds of Tibet, a monkey arrived which had withdrawn to this country to plunge in the meditation and to follow a life of asceticism and chastity. He installed himself on the Gongori mount, which should be Tsetang city today in the prefecture of Lhoka in the South of Tibet. One day, whereas he had sat in meditation, a female demon came to seduce him. According to the traditions this one would be the manifestation of the bodhisattva Tara (Buddhism), "Jetsun Dolma" in Tibetan, also symbol of the energy of the compassion and protectress of the merchants and travelers. She threatened him, if he did not want to bind with her, to go to see a demon and to conceive a multitude of small monsters which would destroy the beings. The wise monkey yielded up and required the authorization of Avalokiteśvara to marry her. This last blessed the monkey and the female demon and, a few months later, six small monkeys were born from their union. The monkey let his six children grow in forest, but after three years, he discovered that they had become five hundreds. The fruits of the forest were not consequently sufficient any more to feed them and the five hundreds monkeys beseeched their father to help them to find food. This one didn’t know what to do and went again to find the god of the compassion to require his assistance. Then, Avalokiteśvara went on the mount Meru, or Sumeru, which should correspond today to the Kailash mount; sacred place for the Buddhists as well as the Hindouists, also for the Jains and the Bönpo. According to some people, he gathered at the top of the mountain a handful of barley, for others, he would have extracted directly from his own body five cereals before offering them to the monkey father. This last learned the cultivation and after a good harvest, could finally nourish all his children. As they nourished themselves with cereals, the monkeys lost little by little their hairs and their tail. They also started to use implements in bone and stone, then made clothes and build houses until forming a civilization from which the people Tibetan would be descended.

Another version

It is also said that, seeing the world peopled of demons, Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of the compassion took pity for the Earth. Then, he incarnated himself in a monkey and mated with an ogress of the rock. From this union were born six monkeys which represent the six principal clans constituting the Tibetan people [Khar, Rabgong Dorjee (1991). "A Brief Discussion on Tibetan History Prior to Nyatri Tsenpo." Translated by Richard Guard and Sangye Tandar. The Tibet Journal. Vol. XVI No. 3. Autumn 1991, pp. 52-62. (This article originally appeared in the Tibetan quarterly Bod-ljongs zhib-'jug (No. 1, 1986).] .

References

Bibliography

SEGARRA A., "Du Singe au Signe ou la figure du Trickster à travers les deux principaux personnages du Rāmāyaṇa et du Xīyóu jì : Hanuman et Sun Wukong", mémoire de littérature sous la direction de Valérie Deshoulières, Université Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand, 2007.

External links

* [http://www.xzta.gov.cn/yxxz/jdgk/726.shtml] (in chinese)
* [http://www.tibettrip.com/cityguide/shannan/gongpori.htm] (in english)

See also

* Avalokiteśvara
* History of Tibet
* Hanuman
* Sun Wukong