Dugpa

Dugpa (Tibetan ’brug pa) is a word used by H. P. Blavatsky and the Mahatmas as a synonym for a black magician or sorcerer, frequently referred to as "Brother of the Shadow":

Dugpas (Tib.). Lit., “Red Caps,” a sect in Tibet. Before the advent of Tsong-ka-pa in the fourteenth century, the Tibetans, whose Buddhism had deteriorated and been dreadfully adulterated with the tenets of the old Bhon religion,—were all Dugpas. From that century, however, and after the rigid laws imposed upon the Gelukpas (yellow caps) and the general reform and purification of Buddhism (or Lamaism), the Dugpas have given themselves over more than ever to sorcery, immorality, and drunkenness. Since then the word Dugpas has become a synonym of “sorcerer”, “adept of black magic” and everything vile. There are few, if any, Dugpas in Eastern Tibet, but they congregate in Bhutan, Sikkim, and the borderlands generally.

As we can see, the word "dugpa" is used here in a generic sense to refer to all "red-cap" or "red-hat" sects of Tibetan Buddhism, that is, the Nyigmapas, Kagyupas, Sakyapas, and the pre-Buddhist natives Böns. These are the non-reformed sects that did not follow Tsongkhapa’s new order, the Gelugpas. As David Reigle showed, this general meaning for the word "dugpa" was prevalent during Blavatsky's time. This mistake was corrected in 1895 by L. Austine Waddell’s book, The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism, where he states that the Dug-pa are a sub-sect of the red-cap sect Kagyupa. This eventually became the main school of Buddhism in Bhutan.

Although the non-reformed sects do not impose the preventive rules created by Tsongkhapa, this does not mean they are all black magicians. Even within the particular sect of the dugpas in Bhutan this is not the case. In reference to the Brothers of the Shadow Mme. Blavatsky wrote:

In Sikkim and Tibet they are called Dug-pas (red-caps), in contra-distinction to the Geluk-pas (yellow-caps), to which latter most of the adepts belong. And here we must beg the reader not to misunderstand us. For though the whole of Bhûtan and Sikkim belongs to the old religion of the Bhons, now known generally as the Dug-pas, we do not mean to have it understood that the whole of the population is possessed, en masse, or that they are all sorcerers. Among them are found as good men as anywhere else, and we speak above only of the élite of their Lamaseries, of a nucleus of priests, "devil-dancers," and fetish worshippers, whose dreadful and mysterious rites are utterly unknown to the greater part of the population.

Shammar

When Blavatsky uses the term "shammar" she is not referring to the tribe of Shammar (Arabic: شمّر "Šammar"), one of the largest tribes of Nejd, Saudi Arabia, which around 1850 ruled much of central and northern Arabia, from Riyadh to the frontiers of Syria and the vast area known as Al Jazira in Northern Iraq. She refers to an offshoot of the Böns:

The Shammar sect is not, as wrongly supposed, a kind of corrupted Buddhism, but an offshoot of the Bön religion—itself a degenerated remnant of the Chaldean mysteries of old, now a religion entirely based upon necromancy, sorcery and sooth-saying. The introduction of Buddha’s name in it means nothing.

There are references to this use of the term in the 19th century:

The contest between the Gyllookpa [Gelug-pa] and Shammar, appears to have taken place in the year 1426, from which the latter took refuge in Bootan.

Further reading

• Dugpa at Theosopedia

• Who Are the Dugpas in Theosophical Writings? by David Reigle at Katinkahesselink.net