On the Historicity of the Tibetan folk tale hero A khu sTon pa

As a supplement to the post "Tibet's Nasreddin? Touching on Uncle Tompa's Elusive Historicity" on Dan's Tibeto-Logic Blog from November 04, 2007, I like to give here a rough translation of the article "Initial considerations on the appearance of A khu sTon pa" (a khu ston pa'i byung bar thog ma'i bsam gzhigs) by the 'Bri gung bKa' brgyud scholar Ra se dKon mchog rgya mtsho (b. 1968). In this article he draws a connection between the folk tale hero A khu sTon pa and a religious person living in the 13th century with the same name by means of some textual sources found in the Collected Works of 'Bri gung sPyan snga Grags pa 'byung gnas (1175-1255).

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A khu sTon pa Bibliography

The telling of A khu sTon pa tales is actually an oral tradition. However in the last 30 years some tales have been written down in Tibetan and published in form of a few compilations. Moreover have some tales appeared in English translation and some have been published as Comics in Tibetan and English. For all of You who don't have the chance to listen to the telling of A khu sTon pa tales, I have put together a small bibliography on A khu sTon pa. Hopefully You can find some of these works and enjoy entering the world of A khu sTon pa. If You know of some A khu sTon pa publications or thematically related publications not listed in the bibliography please let me know.

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Introduction

Over the course of time I like to create an oral archive of A khu sTon pa tales told by Tibetans in Tibetan. It will be possible to hear the tales as an online stream or download them. Moreover I like to put together different material related to A khu sTon pa: (1) a bibliography on A khu sTon pa, (2) translations of material related to A khu ston pa and (3) tranlsation of A khu sTon pa tales. [Keywords: a khu ston pa, a khu bstan pa, nyi chos bzang po, Uncle Tompa, Uncle Tempa, Tibetan folk tale, Tibetan Trickster, Oral Archive]