Gyalpo spirits

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cck123
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Gyalpo spirits

Post by cck123 »

Hi friends,

is there an Indian pendant to the tibetan gyalpo and tsen spirits? Or a fitting term from another culture?
It's a bit tricky for westeners to put the different classes in an european mindframe. Are there unique classes in India/Tibet/China
or is the concept everywhere the same, that means: different language for the same beings?

Best wishes
Chris
MiphamFan
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Re: Gyalpo spirits

Post by MiphamFan »

It doesn't correspond 100% to gyalpos in Tibetan Buddhism but even the Abhidharmakosa already mentioned that the kings of the pretas have a lot of powers and can influence humans. (gyalpo means king, and they are a kind of preta)

It's not that difficult for a Western mind to understand it if you have read any kind of fantasy literature or even mythology, legends etc. There are plenty of ghost stories and so on in Europe. Maybe you can start with the Odyssey where Odysseus summons the shade of Achilles.
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Re: Gyalpo spirits

Post by pemachophel »

think powerful magus who has turned the dark side -- Darth Vader
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crazy-man
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Re: Gyalpo spirits

Post by crazy-man »

Gyalpo are a class of devas who live in the Cātummahārājika-world (lowest deva world). Besides the Four Great Kings (Cattāro Mahārājāno) and their followers (Dhatarattha: king of Gandhabba of the East, Virūlhaka: king of Kumbhanda of the South, Virūpakkha: king of Nāga of the West, and Vessarana: kinf of Yakkha of the North), other dwellers are to be found in these world:
the Khiddāpadosikā
http://www.palikanon.com/english/pali_n ... osikaa.htm
the Manopadosikā
http://www.palikanon.com/english/pali_n ... dosika.htm
the Valāhakāyikādevā:
Unhavalāhakā (cloud spirits of heat)
Sītavalāhakā (cloud spirits of cold)
Abbhavalāhakā (cloud spirits of air)
Vātavalāhakā (cloud spirits of wind)
Vassavalāhakā (cloud spirits of rain)
https://palikanon.com/namen/va/valaahakaayikaadevaa.htm
the devaputtas and devadhītaro Candima, Suriya, etc.
https://suttacentral.net/sn2
Supanna
https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/supanna
Kinnara
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinnara
etc.

Atanatiya Sutta: Discourse on Atanatiya
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .piya.html

in Tibetan mythology is used to refer to the Four Heavenly Kings (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་ཆེན་བཞི) and especially to a class of spirits, both Buddhist and Bon, who may be either malevolent spirits or oath-bound as dharmapalas (Wylie: chos skyong, bon skyong).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyalpo_spirits

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Heavenly_Kings
Norwegian
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Re: Gyalpo spirits

Post by Norwegian »

crazy-man wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:05 pm Gyalpo are a class of devas [...]
No.

Gyalpos are pretas, and they live in the preta realm.

You seemingly don't even read the things you copy-paste yourself:

"Gyalpo (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་པོ, Wylie: rgyal po), a word which simply means "king" in the Tibetic languages, in Tibetan mythology is used to refer to the Four Heavenly Kings (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་ཆེན་བཞི) and especially to a class of spirits, both Buddhist and Bon, who may be either malevolent spirits or oath-bound as dharmapalas (Wylie: chos skyong, bon skyong)."

In other words, "gyalpo" as a word just means "king", and that can refer to the Four Heavenly Kings, but more especially it refers to a class of beings found in both Bon and Buddhism.

And that is the context here. The term "gyalpos" refers to that particular class of beings, found in the preta realm.
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Josef
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Re: Gyalpo spirits

Post by Josef »

Norwegian wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:40 pm
crazy-man wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:05 pm Gyalpo are a class of devas [...]
No.

Gyalpos are pretas, and they live in the preta realm.
Definitely not.
Not all "spirits" are preta.
Gyalpo are one of the 8 classes of very powerful beings and are much more closely related to the beings of the higher realms than the lower.
They have little in common with preta other than being generally unseen sentient beings.
"All phenomena of samsara depend on the mind, so when the essence of mind is purified, samsara is purified. Since the phenomena of nirvana depend on the pristine consciousness of vidyā, because one remains in the immediacy of vidyā, buddhahood arises on its own. All critical points are summarized with those two." - Longchenpa
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Re: Gyalpo spirits

Post by jet.urgyen »

Josef wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 10:05 pm
Norwegian wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:40 pm
crazy-man wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:05 pm Gyalpo are a class of devas [...]
No.

Gyalpos are pretas, and they live in the preta realm.
Definitely not.
Not all "spirits" are preta.
Gyalpo are one of the 8 classes of very powerful beings and are much more closely related to the beings of the higher realms than the lower.
They have little in common with preta other than being generally unseen sentient beings.
i knew this class is somethimes classified as pretas and other as asuras because are always fighting and competing for domination, and that not all of them are bad

in my experience they are very provocable by other beings doings so it's not advisable to make contact with them as we don't know much of their intentions also. are like politicians with superpowers, not good.
true dharma is inexpressible.

The bodhisattva nourishes from bodhicitta, through whatever method the Buddha has given him. Oh joy.
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Mantrik
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Re: Gyalpo spirits

Post by Mantrik »

This may be useful as a reference:
viewtopic.php?f=78&t=27472)l
http://www.khyung.com ཁྲོཾ

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Aryjna
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Re: Gyalpo spirits

Post by Aryjna »

Josef wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 10:05 pm
Norwegian wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:40 pm
crazy-man wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:05 pm Gyalpo are a class of devas [...]
No.

Gyalpos are pretas, and they live in the preta realm.
Definitely not.
Not all "spirits" are preta.
Gyalpo are one of the 8 classes of very powerful beings and are much more closely related to the beings of the higher realms than the lower.
They have little in common with preta other than being generally unseen sentient beings.
The eight classes, or at least most of them, are classified as pretas that move through space in WOMPT. But as one of the eight classes is devas I suppose these are actually devas and not pretas, and perhaps this is true for 1-2 others.
Malcolm
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Re: Gyalpo spirits

Post by Malcolm »

crazy-man wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:05 pm Gyalpo are a class of devas...
No, they are a class of spirits native to Tibet. Classifying them according to Indian lists is inaccurate.

They are basically pretas of a particularly powerful kind.
Malcolm
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Re: Gyalpo spirits

Post by Malcolm »

Aryjna wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:37 pm
Josef wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 10:05 pm
Norwegian wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:40 pm
No.

Gyalpos are pretas, and they live in the preta realm.
Definitely not.
Not all "spirits" are preta.
Gyalpo are one of the 8 classes of very powerful beings and are much more closely related to the beings of the higher realms than the lower.
They have little in common with preta other than being generally unseen sentient beings.
The eight classes, or at least most of them, are classified as pretas that move through space in WOMPT. But as one of the eight classes is devas I suppose these are actually devas and not pretas, and perhaps this is true for 1-2 others.

Lha are not completely identical with devas, just as klu are not completely identical with nāgas.
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Mantrik
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Re: Gyalpo spirits

Post by Mantrik »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:39 pm
crazy-man wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:05 pm Gyalpo are a class of devas...
No, they are a class of spirits native to Tibet. Classifying them according to Indian lists is inaccurate.

They are basically pretas of a particularly powerful kind.
Are all spirits 'native to Tibet' as capable of causing problems world-wide?
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Malcolm
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Re: Gyalpo spirits

Post by Malcolm »

Mantrik wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 9:09 pm
Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:39 pm
crazy-man wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:05 pm Gyalpo are a class of devas...
No, they are a class of spirits native to Tibet. Classifying them according to Indian lists is inaccurate.

They are basically pretas of a particularly powerful kind.
Are all spirits 'native to Tibet' as capable of causing problems world-wide?
sure.
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Mantrik
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Re: Gyalpo spirits

Post by Mantrik »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 9:11 pm
Mantrik wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 9:09 pm
Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:39 pm

No, they are a class of spirits native to Tibet. Classifying them according to Indian lists is inaccurate.

They are basically pretas of a particularly powerful kind.
Are all spirits 'native to Tibet' as capable of causing problems world-wide?
sure.
Thanks. That makes perfect sense in the context of global practices, regional and local guardians etc.
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Aryjna
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Re: Gyalpo spirits

Post by Aryjna »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:40 pm
Aryjna wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:37 pm
Josef wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 10:05 pm

Definitely not.
Not all "spirits" are preta.
Gyalpo are one of the 8 classes of very powerful beings and are much more closely related to the beings of the higher realms than the lower.
They have little in common with preta other than being generally unseen sentient beings.
The eight classes, or at least most of them, are classified as pretas that move through space in WOMPT. But as one of the eight classes is devas I suppose these are actually devas and not pretas, and perhaps this is true for 1-2 others.

Lha are not completely identical with devas, just as klu are not completely identical with nāgas.
Is it just because the two kinds of Lha belong to different systems of classification or is it that one of them are pretas and the other devas?
Malcolm
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Re: Gyalpo spirits

Post by Malcolm »

Aryjna wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 9:18 pm
Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:40 pm
Aryjna wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:37 pm

The eight classes, or at least most of them, are classified as pretas that move through space in WOMPT. But as one of the eight classes is devas I suppose these are actually devas and not pretas, and perhaps this is true for 1-2 others.

Lha are not completely identical with devas, just as klu are not completely identical with nāgas.
Is it just because the two kinds of Lha belong to different systems of classification or is it that one of them are pretas and the other devas?

Lha and 'dre, so-called gods and spirits, are basically the eight classes, which are called "lha" when they act beneficially, and "'dre" when they act harmfully.

The eight classes is originally an Indian categorization which the Tibetans took over and adapted.
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Aryjna
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Re: Gyalpo spirits

Post by Aryjna »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 9:43 pm
Aryjna wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 9:18 pm
Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:40 pm


Lha are not completely identical with devas, just as klu are not completely identical with nāgas.
Is it just because the two kinds of Lha belong to different systems of classification or is it that one of them are pretas and the other devas?

Lha and 'dre, so-called gods and spirits, are basically the eight classes, which are called "lha" when they act beneficially, and "'dre" when they act harmfully.

The eight classes is originally an Indian categorization which the Tibetans took over and adapted.
Thanks
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