Unearthing Bon Treasures: Life and Contested Legacy of a Tibetan Scripture Revealer, with a General Bibliography of Bon

by Dan Martin

The subject for this study, the Tibetan "treasure revealer" Gshen-chen Klu-dga', is a crucial figure in the development of Bon as an organised religion after the eleventh century. Here for the first time he is situated in the context of what was happening in Buddhism at the time.
By scrutinizing his life and gter-ma ("treasures"), that were to be of much controversy in later ages, Dan Martin sheds light on the mechanism of Tibetan polemical tradition and the ways in which sectarianism accords itself legitimacy by resurrecting ancient arguments in a subtly distorted manner.
The exhaustive annotated bibliography of previous works about Bon , forming the second part of the work, can rightly be seen as a legacy of Gshen-chen. Both parts taken together make this an indispensable guide to any student of Bon.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

For the last three years, Martin has written and published over forty do-it-yourself guides on the subject-from how to make your own ethanol, to how to build your own solar panels. These books are all available on Amazon or on his non-profit organization website: www.agua-luna.com. Dan Martin has also drawn the attention of established newspapers, websites, and magazines from several countries, and has been the source of half a dozen radio and television interviews."