Death for a Buddhist Dreamer: Identity and Mortality in Jetsun Drakpa Gyaltsen’s Autobiographical Dream Narrative

Abstract

This article examines the role of dreams in the life of the Tibetan Buddhist master Jetsun Drakpa Gyaltsen (1147–1216). Focusing on The Lord’s Dreams (Rje btsun pa’i mnal lam), Drakpa Gyaltsen’s only autobiographical text, along with the first biography of him written by his influential nephew Sakya Paṇḍita Kunga Gyaltsen (1182–1251), this paper explores the work of dreams in negotiating issues of identity and mortality. It argues that dreams were important sources of knowledge about the past, the future, and the dead in this context, creating intermediate spaces in which access to these times and individuals became possible.

Keywords

• Tibetan Buddhism
• dreams
• death
• autobiography
• biography
• Sakya