パーラー (チベットのネワール商人結社) のヴァジュラーチャールヤたち

チッタダル・“フリダヤ”の小説『燃え残った手紙』をもとにして

抄録

Newari merchants and artisans in Tibet commissioned to copy many Newari Buddhist manuscripts during their stay for their own business. The colophons of these manuscripts often note that merchants —the donors of the manuscripts— belonged to commercial associations in Tibet (palas). It appears that a pala was a particular form of guthi, being established to carry on trade with the Tibetans. There is much valuable information about the palas in Cittadhar Hrdaya's novel, Mim manah pau, written in the Newari language. According to this novel, there were Vajracarya priests in Lhasa to perform Newari-style rituals for the members of the pala. Vajrasattva-pala was the name of the associations of such Vajracaryas. It is thus reasonable to assume that the copyists of these manuscripts in Tibet were Vajracarya priests working in the palas. Ratnamuni Vajracarya was one of these men.