Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

elationships with women; he also wanted to express the fact that his love life was in the service of his
high office as supreme vajra master. One story tells of how, in the presence of his court, he publicly
urinated from the platform roof of the Potala in a long arc and was able to draw his urine back into his
penis. Through this performance he wanted to display the evidence that in his much-reproached love
life he behaved correctly and in accordance with the tantric codex, indeed that he had even mastered
the difficult draw-back technique (the Vajroli method) needed in order to appropriate the female seed
(Schulemann, 1958, p. 284). It is not very difficult to see from the following poem that his rendezvous
were for him about the absorption of the male-female fluids.
Glacier-water (from) 'Pure Crystal Mountain'
Dew-drops from (the herb) 'Thunderbolt of Demonic Serpent'
(Enriched by) the balm of tonic elixir;
(Let) the Wisdom-Enchantress(es)
be the liquor-girl(s):
If you drink with a pure commitment
Infernal damnation need not be tasted.
(see Sorensen, 1990, p. 113)
Other verses of his also make unmistakable references to sexual magic practices (Sorensen, 1990, p.
100). He himself wrote several texts which primarily concern the terror deity, Hayagriva. From a
tantric point of view his “seriousness” would also not have been reduced by his getting involved with
barmaids and prostitutes, but rather in contrast, it would have been all but proven, because according
to the law of inversion, of course, the highest arises from the most lowly. He is behaving totally in the
spirit of the Indian Maha Siddhas when he sings:
If the bar-girl does not falter,
The beer will flow on and on.
This maiden is my refuge,
and this place my haven.
(Stevens, 1990, p. 78, 79)
He ordered the construction of a magnificently decorated room within the Potala probably for the
performance of his tantric rites and which he cleverly called the “snake house”. In his external
appearance as well, the “god-king” was a Vajrayana eccentric who evoked the long-gone magical era
of the great Siddhas. Like them, he let his hair grow long and tied it in a knot. Heavy earrings adorned
his lobes, on every finger he wore a valuable ring. But he did not run around naked like many of his
role-models. In contrast, he loved to dress magnificently. His brocade and silk clothing were admired
by Lhasa’s jeunesse dorée with whom he celebrated his parties.
But these were all just externals. Alexandra David-Neel’s suspicion is obviously spot on when she
assumes: “Tsangyang Gyatso was apparently initiated into methods which in our terms allow or even
encourage a life of lust and which also really signified dissipation for anyone not initiated into this
strange schooling” (Hoffmann, 1956, 178, 179).
We know that in the tantric rituals the individual karma mudras (wisdom girls) can represent the
elements, the stars, the planets, even the divisions of time. Why should they not also represent aspects
of political power? There is in fact such a “political” interpretation of the erotic poems of the Sixth