The Copper-Coloured Mountain, pronounced as Zangdok Palri (zangs mdog dpal ri) in Tibet, is the Tibetan pureland of Padmasambhava who is the founder of the Nyingma Tradition. The Copper-Coloured Mountain pureland manifests itself in the form of a mountain with the combination of sacred mountain and pureland which can be seen as “a sacred mountainized belief of pureland.”
The pureland of Copper-Coloured Mountain is to be distinguished from other purelands of Buddha for two reasons: Firstly, this pureland is not remotely located in a realm of void space apart from our world. It existed in the Jambudvīpa inhabited with all beings instead. Secondly, according to the accounts of Padmasambhava’s biographies, the Copper-Coloured Mountain was originally inhabited by fierce flesh-eating rākṣasas. Padmasambhava transformed the kingdom of Raksas into a pureland of peace and perfection. This origin is founded not only upon a revelation from Guru Rinpoche’s unity of compassion and wisdom of a sacred place of “Revealed Treasures” (terma), but also has the real uniqueness of being a purely Tibetan pureland and an ultimate divine refuge for all tertöns and practitioners in the Nyingma Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.
The Copper-Coloured Mountain manifests itself in the form of an island and is shaped like an inverted heart. The bottom of the mountain penetrates deeply into the underground of Naga’s realm. On the mountainside, it belongs to the realm of daka and dākinī. On the peak, the mountain reaches the realm of Brahma. The entire mountain is surrounded by a blue sea and the islands of the Rakshasa. In the vast plains of the mountain, Padmasambhava abides in a large three-storied edifice called The Lotus Light Palace. Made out of four gems, it is surrounded and protected by various deities and dharmapāla and also symbolizes the Trikāya of a Buddha, namely dharmakāya, sambhogakāya and nirmānakāya.
The dissertation aims to analyze the “space” and “place” in the motif of the Copper-Coloured Mountain Pureland through an investigation into three main Buddhist traditional sources, namely the tertöns’ biographies of Revealed Treasures, the paintings from Bhutan murals and Tibetan thangkas, and my own field research in the ritual practices of the Copper-Coloured Mountain in Hong Kong during the year 2014. It is found, as explained in Chapters Three, Four and Five respectively, that the Copper-Coloured Mountain Pureland is multiply-constructed within the three traditions from six main perspectives: first, in the Buddhist scriptures, delicate symbols are used in interpreting the multi-spaces and places of th
