Adaptive Capacity among Himalayan Agro-Foresters: The Hyolmo of

Tor Halfdan Aase

The paper is about a Tibetan-speaking people in Nepal, the Hyolmo, and their capacity to adapt to climate change. The Hyolmo practice an Agro-Forestry type of farming where forest and fields are interconnected through livestock. Hyolmo practice a pure organic agriculture and cultivation is dependent upon manure which is produced by boffalos and goats. Foliage collected from forest (lopping) is a vital animal fodder, thus being a constituent part of the farming system. Hyolmo villages are situated on mountain ridges and used to be marginal and rather poor in comparison with Hindu communities in the valley floors. Buddhist Hyolmo’s have used to barter barley and potatoes for rice through symbolic kinship ties (mithe) with Hindus in the valley bottom. Since Hyolmo communities have recently been connected to road networks, their terms of trade vis-à- vis Hindus have improved threefold. Today, the Hyolmo emerge a dynamic and enterprising community with innovative farming in the villages, and businesses in Kathmandu. They have been able to exploit external changes to their own benefit through an enterprising mind-set and a high degree of social cohesion. The question is if they can keep on making progress during projected future climate change. On the one hand, they can most probably benefit from longer growing seasons; but on the other hand, they may face water scarcity. Farming is also hampered by a cultural trait. The establishment of Langtang National Park on their doorstep has caused a substantial increase of wild animals, which are presently the main obstacle to productivity in agriculture. Being pious Buddhists, Hyolmo’s are not allowed to kill predators which are presently proliferating, especially wild boar and deer. Another threat is inherent in climate policy. If the UN administered Reduced Emission from Decreased Deforestation (REDD+) implies that utilization of forest resources becomes more restricted, the present agro-forestry farming system is put under severe pressure. Today, even human ‘night soil’ is applied to fields, which is quite unique on the southern slopes of the . The paper will look into Hyolmo’s adaptive capacity in general and in relation to climate change in particular. The IATS seminar is a welcome opportunity for me to receive comments from scholars who have intimate knowledge of farming practices in proper.

The deep prehistory of the Mustang-Kali Gandaki corridor

Mark S. Aldenderfer

Although the trade route up the Kali Gandaki valley in Mustang is well known from the historical record, its deep prehistory is, in contrast, poorly understood. Archaeological research conducted over the past two decades offers clear evidence of the movement of people and goods along the route from the Indian subcontinent to the that begins at least as early as 2500 years ago. By 1500 years ago, the route appears to have become a spur or secondary path to the Silk Road, thus connecting the subcontinent to both the west and east. The evidence for these claims and their significance is discussed in depth in this presentation.

The East Tibetan Manuscript Editions of the rNying ma rgyud ʼbum: Independent Line(s) of Transmission?

Orna Almogi

Historical sources report on various rNying ma rgyud ʼbum edition that were produced in East Tibet. However, until recently only the Derge xylographic edition was accessible, but, as is well known, this edition reflects a line of transmission rather than an Eastern Tibetan one. Recently, new material started to surface from East Tibet, e.g., the 39-volumes edition from gZhu chen dgon, Kardze. During a visit to Chengdu in the fall of 2013, I have been able to obtain digital images of (another?) edition consisting of 34 volumes, which reportedly stems from the same area. A preliminary assessment of the images suggests that this edition is unique in terms of its organisation and content. Moreover, the set includes texts found in both the Tibetan-Nepalese Borderlands and Central Bhutanese groups, along with texts that are only found in the Central Bhutanese group. However, its organisation does not resemble any of these groups, and its relation to them is yet to be determined. In my talk, I shall attempt to give a general overview of the compilatory activities in East Tibet regarding the rNying ma rgyud ʼbum on the basis of historical sources and the manuscript edition(s) that have surfaced recently, and address the question of whether there had been an independent Eastern Tibetan line of transmission of the collection.

Possible futures for traditional architecture and conservation in ?

Ingun Bruskeland Amundsen

The changes that took place in Bhutan until the 1960s can best be described as adjustments; slow processes of transition within the framework of the traditional society. Today the rate of change has speeded up extensively, and this represents a potential threat of deformation to the historical buildings, the sacred landscapes and the sense of place. More than ever, people in Bhutan are exposed to the world at large, and these influences may prove to be more powerful than the cultural momentum from within. How to promote the inner cultural dynamics which permit traditional architecture and settlements to evolve in the future too? The core goals of Gross National Happiness are to integrate equitable economic development with environmental and cultural conservation. Today´s focus on sustainable development is an important argument in favour of traditional architecture and heritage buildings. Sustainable, green design has a lot to learn from principles of traditional building. These buildings are commonly composed of a few natural materials with little embodied energy, small ecological footprints and limited health hazards. How to support traditional skills and methods? How may traditional architecture be adapted to new needs and requirements? Conservation of cultural heritage is being addressed in Bhutan and a Heritage Sites Bill has been forwarded to the parliament. However, conservation in a culture like the Bhutanese raises important questions, some of which are highly relevant to international discourses on concepts of authenticity and established charters for conservation. This paper will discuss how preservation of the past may avoid becoming an antithesis of progress in Bhutan.

Negotiating Tibetan National Identity in the Face of Chinese Colonisation and Displacement

Dibyesh Anand

Tibetan stateless but national identity today is a product of negotiations between different dynamics including the colonisation of Tibetan homeland by , creation of a diaspora after displacement of more than hundred thousand Tibetans, and transnational solidarity movement. How do these dynamics engender and shape Tibetan nationalism? Why has there been a reluctance to categorise and name Chinese control over Tibet as a colonisation? Has the West and 's focus on cultural and religious rights and reluctance to see Tibetans as a people deserving right to self-determination been a factor in limiting Tibetan nationalism and refusal to name colonisation as such? Is the Dalai 's focus on a pragmatic response and making virtue out of necessity? These are some of the questions that would be covered in the paper.

Outside Looking In: Painted images of the city from the 18–20th centuries

Brid Arthur

Tibet’s pilgrimage and holy sites formed a popular subject for traditional paintings, particularly in the 19th and early 20th century, likely for use and collection by Tibetan pilgrims and Tibetan Buddhist devotees. However, there is some evidence that such paintings were also of great interest and use to outsiders, collectors, statesmen and scholars who were neither Tibetan nor Buddhist. Who were these outsider collectors and what drew them to these paintings? What sort of meaning(s) did such images hold for people outside of the Tibetan sphere? Images of Lhasa, by far the most prevalent variety in this genre, seem to have been of particular import and enthusiastically collected by scholars, collectors and specialists from many countries and many ethnicities as early as the 18th century and continuing into the 19th century. This paper examines several specific instances in which traditional images of Lhasa were not only collected but were actively utilized by outsiders, including Russians, Americans, and others, to create, explore and promote specific views and understandings of Tibet’s capital city. Unravelling the history and use of these images allows for a new way to investigate the question of how Lhasa, and thus Tibet, was seen and understood outside its borders over a century ago.

The Dzungar Invasion of Tibet According to the Autobiography of Lelung Zhepe Dorje

Cameron Bailey

The 1717-1720 Dzungar Mongol invasion and occupation of central Tibet was one of the most turbulent and important periods for Tibetan, Mongolian, and Qing relations in the eighteenth century. Before the occupation was broken by a combination of Tibetan resistance forces aided by Qing armies, the Dzungars had caused significant damage to central Tibet. In particular, they targeted institutions for destruction and Nyingma for execution, perhaps most notably the centrally important Nyingma monastery of Mindroling. At the front lines of the conflict, both physically and metaphysically speaking, was the Geluk-Nyingma , and student of Mindroling, the Fifth Lelung, Zhepe Dorje (1697-1740). This paper will examine parts of Lelung's report of the invasion in his autobiography, written a few years after the Dzungar occupation ended. In particular I will examine passages discussing Lelung's visit to a Dzungar encampment, and his meeting of the Qoshot Mongol king of Tibet, Lajang Khan (d. 1717) just before he was overthrown and killed by Dzungar forces. I will also examine some of the metaphysical ramifications the invasion had on Lelung's spiritual life, including dreams and portents he experienced during the troubled period, and his effort to repel the invading armies through the propitiation of various protector deities. Lelung was especially devoted to the deity Karpo at the time, a pre-Buddhist clan deity of the who was enshrined at the famous earth-taming temple of Tradruk. I will argue that Lelung's ritual invocation of this deity in particular was part of an imaginative reassertion of Tibetan sovereignty at a time of external threat and political dissolution.

The Library of Congress finally adopted the Wylie system – a wise decision?

Michael Balk

The Library of Congress (LC) in Washington, DC, is not only the largest library in the world, but also the most influential one as regards standards for descriptive cataloguing and transliteration systems for non-Latin scripts. In a periodical called "Cataloging service" the LC first published its Romanization table for Tibetan in Winter 1977, ever since followed my most libraries, archives and documentation centres worldwide. Its use of diacritics for certain nasals and sibilants is different from the Wylie transliteration which is often assumed to go back to Turrell Verl Wylie who wrote an article on a standard system of Tibetan transcription in 1959 – ie almost two decades before the library decided to completely ignore his proposals. This has now changed. In May 2015 it was announced that "Romanization of Tibetan letters follows the principles of the Wylie transliteration system". The LC also offers a "Summary of proposed revisions to Tibetan Romanization Table" on its website with a substantial focus (about 34 percent of the text) on one particular character, namely the so-called 'a-chung which is the 23rd letter of the alphabet. According to the new Table, the letter should be Romanised by a sign called "the alif" that looks like an apostrophe and is technically identified as Unicode 02BC (the "modifier letter apostrophe" as the consortium names it). The paper comments on this and other intricacies of transliteration with a view to reliability of document retrieval and other aspects.

Tibetan Astrology and Divination among the Mongols: Lamyn Gegeen Blo Bzang bstan ’dzin rgyal mtshan and His Followers

Agata Bareja-Starzynska

Present paper focuses on Tibetan astrology and divination as used by the Mongols, mainly in Khalkha Mongolia. In the 17th and 18th centuries together with the spread of Tibetan also Tibetan astrology, divination and medicine became better known in the steppes. Mongolian monks travelled to Tibet and gained there knowledge which they spread back at home. Lamyn Gegeen Blo bzang bstan ’dzin rgyal mtshan (1639-1703) is regarded as the main figure responsible for introducing Tibetan astrology and divination in Mongolia, especially in the form practiced in the Gelugpa monasteries. He studied in Tibet in 1655-1661 under many eminent masters, including the Fifth , Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mstho and the Fourth , Blo bzang chos kyi rgyal mtshan. His works on astrology, divination and medicine, written in Tibetan, laid the foundation for Mongolian monks’ knowledge on these subjects. In the presentation an attempt will be made to analyze how the Tibetan tradition was adapted in Mongolia and how it has been preserved until the present day.

Oral Ogling: watching out for the voyeur in Tibetan oral history practice

Robert Barnett

Oral history comes from a long of documentary methods that often bordered on the disreputable and whose near-cousins had distinctly shady records. Modern scholars have labored to establish standards that can distinguish their work from that of less rigorous practitioners, and Case Western Reserve’s project has set the benchmark for Tibetan studies. But border-marking in this field has been fuzzy and difficult to police, and the focus can easily shift, turning the interviewee into a self-validating object of the gaze, where, as Frisch put it, “contradictions of the culture are doubly masked” (2010). These and other issues within oral history and fieldwork In the socialist context have been discussed by Bulag (2010) and Sarah Turner (2013). But what happens to border- marking and the gaze when oral history practice becomes primarily visual, and when it seeps out into the world beyond academia? In this paper I look not at textual-aural forms of oral history but at issues raised by video interviews, and by popular uses of filmed oral history. Are these at greater risk of transgressing unstated boundaries in the Tibetan context? How do they reshape the stories of the Tibetan past? When does the voyeuristic gaze creep in? Looking first at the work of Case Western’s project and those of other collections, this paper presents versions of Tibetan history told through filmed interviews in formal oral history archives, foreign television news reports, independent documentaries, and film and television output within China.

Meat Eating and Masculinity

Geoffrey Barstow

Meat eating is a highly contested practice in Tibet, with many religious leaders describing it as sinful, deeply opposed to religious ideal of compassion. For these leaders, meat was, at best a necessary evil, and at worst completely unacceptable. For many other Tibetans, however, meat was thought of in largely positive terms. There were a variety of perspectives in which meat could carry such positive connotations, but in this paper I focus on only one: the connection between meat eating and hegemonic masculinity. For many Tibetans, masculine identity was centered on such ideals as physical strength, skill at arms, and the practical ability to dominate animals. Meat eating is part of this ideal both directly, as a concrete example of the ability to dominate and control animals, and indirectly, as a support for the cultivation of physical strength. In both perspectives, I argue, eating meat was integral to this vision of masculinity, to the extent that becoming vegetarian could be seen as emasculating. This perspective on meat eating militated powerfully against those religious voices that promoted vegetarianism.

Mapping Changes in Nomads’ Lives Consequent to Resettlement (Yushu Prefecture, Qinghai Province, PRC)

Kenneth M. Bauer

Drawing upon fieldwork conducted in nomad communities of Yushu Prefecture (Qinghai Province, PRC) in 2011 and 2015, this paper reports on the socio-economic transformations that have accompanied resettlement. What has resettlement and urbanization meant for pastoral hosueholds in terms of income earning opportunities, labor allocation, and investment strategies? How is urbanization affecting affecting conceptions of community and resource use? Data and observations from two periods elucidates the incentives, opportunities, and constraints under which pastoralists are operating in this era of urbanization. In particular, I use a cultural map of a watershed to index changes in land use, property regimes, and the broader relationship between pastoralists and their environment.

The Pantheon of the Fifth Dalai Lama

Christopher Bell

The Fifth Dalai Lama’s collected works (gsung-’bum) have been, and continue to be, the subject of extensive scholarship and research. Due to its immensity, rather than examine the entirety of the Great Fifth’s gsung-’bum, I will explore one specific compilation available in the eleventh volume of the edition of his collected works. This 232- folio compilation is entitled the Effortless Achievement of the Four Activities: A Collection of Iconographies, Offerings, Amendments, Confessions, and Panegyrics for the Ocean of Oath-bound -protectors, who are Unhindered, Wrathful, and Powerful (Thogs med drag rtsal nus stobs ldan pa’i dam can chos srung rgya mtsho’i mngon rtogs mchod ’bul bskang bshags bstod tshogs sogs ’phrin las rnam bzhi’i lhun grub). This work is a dense assortment of nearly one hundred brief but distinct ritual texts dedicated to a menagerie of Tibetan Buddhist dharma protectors. I have created a full outline of this work’s contents, correcting and completing previous lists provided by the Tohoku University catalogue of Tibetan works and the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (TBRC). My goal in exploring this ritual collection is to build on the ground first broken by Amy Heller in her article, “The Great Protector Deities of the Dalai Lamas,” by looking more comprehensively at the expansive pantheon of deities propitiated by the Fifth Dalai Lama. This examination will look at the frequency of certain deities over others in terms of their textual presence, as well as explore what details the individual colophons provide. In many cases the rituals in the Effortless Achievement were requested by other religious specialists, government officials, and political figures for various occasions, a glimpse into the complex ritual social network that the Great Fifth cultivated over the course of his life. The location where these rituals were composed is also often included. With this information, I intend to use a searchable transcribed edition of the Fifth Dalai Lama’s autobiography to cross-reference the names of the deities and historical figures at the center of these rituals in order to ascertain their biographical presence and frequency as well. The details behind these figures will be further corroborated by TBRC and the “Mapping the Dalai Lamas” database coordinated by Kurtis Schaeffer and published by the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia. The expectation is that the motivations and individuals surrounding the composition of these ritual texts will yield greater insight into the intricate relationships the Great Fifth developed and maintained with protector deities, religious specialists, and sacred sites across Tibet. For the purposes of this paper I am limiting my focus to deities described or understood as dharma protectors (e.g., chos skyong, dam can, srung ma) and excluding buddhas, , and tantric tutelary deities. I am also solely concentrating on material found in the Fifth Dalai Lama’s three-volume autobiography and the Effortless Achievement compilation. Nevertheless, this work could be extended to include the Great Fifth’s esoteric autobiography as well as the 2.5-volume tham-phud collection of chronologically organized dedicatory verses. By using a cross-textual approach that contrasts multiple texts within a single author’s collected works, I hope specifically to map out and elucidate the connections between the deity cults, historical persons, and religious institutions that came to buttress and define the Fifth Dalai Lama’s administration. More generally, I hope to illustrate how a strategic reading of a collected works’ contents can illuminate a religious figure’s burgeoning ritual activity and professional refinement. Finally, this paper will contribute to the burgeoning study of deity cults in Tibet by reorienting the locus of deity networks away from a perceived monolithic cultural arena or monastic institutions and around a specific historical individual and his religious career.

A Typological Study of Tiered Ritual Structures in the Rock Art of Upper Tibet

John Vincent Bellezza

This paper presents a typological study of tiered ritual structures commonly known as gsas-mkhar and mchod-rten in the rock art (petroglyphs and pictographs) of Upper Tibet. It is based on extensive field surveys in the Byang-thang and Stod conducted by the author between 1995 and 2013, including the first documentation of more than two dozen rock art sites. Using black and white drawings of the more than two hundred tiered ritual structures surveyed, this genre of ancient figuration is organized into various stylistic categories. Through photographic imagery these categories of form are subject to an appraisal of their physical characteristics (techniques of production, placement of superimpositions, assessment of erosion and re-patination of petroglyphs and browning and ablation of pictographs, etc.), in order to produce a relative chronology of tiered ritual structure facsimiles in Upper Tibet. The periodization of the tier ritual structures established through analysis of the typological and empirical evidence is harnessed to chart their historical and cultural development in Upper Tibet’s Protohistoric period (100 BCE to 600 CE), Early Historic period (600–1000 CE) and Vestigial period (1000–1300 CE). This is followed by a review of comparable tiered shrines in the rock art of adjoining regions (Spiti, and Northern Pakistan) to illustrate their wide geographic compass as well as regional variability. This comparative exercise is applied to an examination of non-Buddhist iconographic aspects that contributed to the origin and evolution of the tiered shrines and their role in trans- regional communications. The tiered shrines emerge as an indicator of ideological and artistic affiliation, contributing to a better understanding of the historical and cultural makeup of Upper Tibet in antiquity, with direct relevance to the territoriality of the ancient polity traditionally known as Zhang Zhung.

Did Mkhas grub rje challenge the authenticity of the Sa skya Lam ’bras tradition?

Yael Bentor

According to the autobiography of Glo bo Mkhan chen Bsod nams lhun grub (1456– 1532), translated into English by Jowita Kramer, when chen Kun dga' bzang po (1382-1456) was invited to Glo bo, he replied that he could not leave central Tibet "because of a work by Mkhas grub rje [Dge legs dpal bzang (1385–1438)] that says that the body maṇḍala of Hevajra is not authentic teachings." A later biography of Ngor chen, one by Mnga' ris pa Sangs rgyas phun tshogs (1649–1705) that was studied by Heimbel, explains that Ngor chen could not travel because of a dispute over his claim that "The body maṇḍala of the Sa skya pa was not explained in the and treatises." On the other hand, in his letter to the Sa skya master Kon ting Gu śrī Mkhas grub rje protested against the claim that he refuted the Lam 'bras teachings [with Hevajra Tantra cycle at its foundation]: “Those who say that I refuted the Lam 'bras should examine carefully: Where did I refute the Lam 'bras? When did I refute it? How did I refute it? In the presence of whom did I refute it? In what writing of mine did I refute it? They should search for the source that would not ultimately vanish like a rainbow in the sky.” In my paper I will inquire into the question whether Mkhas grub rje did challenge the authenticity of the Sa skya Lam 'bras tradition.

Animal Offerings in the Old Text of Gnyan ‘bum

Daniel Berounsky

Some three collections of texts entitled Gnyan ‘bum are available to me. First of them, the one contained in Bon Kanjur, has already been introduced by Samten G. Karmay (Karmay, S. G., 2010, Tibetan Indigenous Myths and Rituals with Reference to the Ancient Bön Text: The Nyenbum (Gnyan ‘bum). In Cabezón, J., I., ed. Tibetan Ritual, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 53-68). The rediscovery of this apparently old text is dated approximately to the first half of the 10th century by the chronicles of Bon. Its literary form sometimes resembles that of non- to be found among Dunhuang documents. Other shorter versions of Gnyan ‘bum known to me include a text from the so-called New Collection of Katen Texts and a version which was found in . The Gnyan ‘bums contain number of myths relating mostly a conflict between ancestors of people and Gnyan. Quite frequently the original people are referred to as Dong (Ldong); a fact which points to the association of these collections of texts with this particular clan of Tibetans. The conflicts described by the myths are then remedied through the ritual means by mythical priests including Gshen rab mi bo. All the three versions are replete with descriptions of animal offerings among which the offerings of birds stand out. The birds often act as messengers of mythical primordial people to Nyen beings, who represent the “intermediate space” (bar snang) between the sky and the earth. The paper will firstly introduce these extraordinary texts. Secondly, the role of some animals used as offerings to Nyen will be discussed. Besides animals representing various vertical layers of a space inhabited by humans, the paper will focus particularly on birds.

Reformation of tsha ru: Traditional Tibetan Clothing and its Innovation in Contemporary Amdo

Yusuke Bessho

In the Tibetan pastoral life in the pre-modernization era, animal furs were an indispensable material. Not only was a handwoven "black tent" used as their living quarters but most of their basic daily necessities, such as clothes, carpets, bags, and ropes, were made manually from the skin, hair, and organs of livestock. Moreover, these products produced in the chilly highlands were also important exchange resources in trade with farmers or Muslim traders, and especially since cashmere was traded at a high price, it was common practice to raise a fixed number of goats in a group of livestock along with yak and sheep. However, garments and household goods made using chemical fibers have flooded the pastoral region with the expansion of the Chinese domestic market after the reform and opening-up policy. Until the 90s, cashmere was traded in the price range of 70-80 yuan per half kg, while wool was traded at 5-10 yuan, and these have become the pastoralist's main cash income. Now, however, cheap and easy chemical fiber products have depreciated the market value of the furs greatly, and the furs have only dirt-cheap value in the local market these days. The duration of life in the pasture became shorter following the grassland privatization and sedentalization after the 80s, and the black tent knit using yak hair was replaced by the simple white canvas tent. In the tent, instead of felts or woolen fabrics, polyester blankets and mats now wield their influence. Furthermore, in respect of clothing, since the Chinese traders mass-produced Tibetan costumes and casualwear made from chemical fibers in urban areas, the tendency to wear folk costumes has decreased sharply. In this regard, the women's ethnoveterinary skills such as spinning, weaving, sewing, and tanning have nowadays become unnecessary. Thus, after the inclusion into a modern nation state, the dependence on animal furs is rapidly falling, and the processing techniques that women have inherited from generation to generation are no longer being passed down to future generations in actual pastoral society. On the other hand, a new market formation is seen involving traditional ethnic costumes called tsha ru following the population concentration and occupation diversification in the local urban areas in Tibet with the progress of the economic development and relocation program in keeping with the "Development West" policy. Tsha ru is a high-class formal dress that is tailored by sewing up 40 pieces of a one- or two-month-old lamb's wool skin. Usually, since tsha ru is worn on formal occasions, such as a child's coming-of-age celebration, each household collects the skins of lambs that died in accidents during grazing, and the dress is produced by hand-sewing as a private manufacture. However, today, people more often purchase ready-made tsha ru made by individual tailors in the local city because private manufacture becomes difficult owing to the reduction in the number of sheep following the progress of today's environmental policy and change of economic structure (cf. Sulek 2010). Most such private-management tailors are middle-aged women who perform this independent economic activity in the local city depending on their personal dressmaking skill. They incorporate materials and designs that are in fashion inside and outside Tibet in the form of the traditional tsha ru as per people's tastes, which change frequently in response to globalization or the influence of media (TV, internet, local Tibetan fashion shows, etc.), and they are not only following the tradition of the beautiful form of the traditional tsha ru, but are also reforming the design. For example, they created a handy short coat with stand-up collar by modifying Mongolian riding clothes that they saw on a TV program. Moreover, a new tsha ru with a slim silhouette was developed using weight-saving techniques so that the person wearing the tsha ru might look more smart. Thus, female tailors in urban areas have produced a new form of tsha ru that has attracted public attention through the bold arrangement of traditional clothing. In this presentation, I explore the transitional situation in the production of traditional fur clothing and its regional potentiality by focusing on the local Tibetan female tailors' originality and creativity, which are demonstrated when producing the new form of tsha ru.

Performing Sönam Peldren: Three Ritualized Interactions with a Regional Female Tibetan Saint

Suzanne M. Bessenger

This paper analyzes the unexplored ritual legacy of the historical female Tibetan religious exemplar Sönam Peldren (bsod nams dpal 'dren, 1328-1372, tentative). While forthcoming work introduces Sönam Peldren through analysis of biographical writings, this paper raises questions about Sönam Peldren's living legacy by examining her followers' ritualized interactions with, and thus in some senses constructions of, this unusual woman. The subject of this paper is Sönam Peldren, an ostensibly illiterate, nomadic 13th/14th century Tibetan woman who lived and died in what is today's Driru county ('bri ru; sometimes also called Nakshö Driru, nag shod 'bri ru) of the eastern TAR. Our primary source of information about Sönam Peldren is her Life (rnam thar), an untitled text attributed largely to her husband Rinchen Pel (Tib: rin chen dpal, c. 14th century). The Life describes Sönam Peldren claiming religious authority despite lacking any of the more conventional routes to religious legitimacy, such as religious practice, training, or relationships with religious institutions. Instead, the Life traces its subject's authority to her "naturally arisen wisdom" (rang byung ye shes) and her status as a ḍākinī (mkha' 'gro ma); the text also describes Sönam Peldren as an enlightened emanation form (sprul sku) of, alternately, Dorjé Pakmo and Dorjé Nenjorma (rdo rje phag and rdo rje rnal 'byor ma), and ultimately of the "Great Mother" (yum chen), or emptiness itself. Today Sönam Peldren's death site is recognized by locals as sacred; an active nunnery houses Sönam Peldren's relics, biographies, and a mural depicting the main events of the saint's life. This paper examines three ritualized interactions involving the figure of Sönam Peldren. The first is found as an addendum to one version Sönam Peldren's Life. Entitled "Propitiating the Wisdom Ḍākinī Sönam Peldren" (ye shes mkha' 'gro bsod nams dpal gyis 'dren gyis bskang ba bzhugs so), the eleven-folio long text seems to fall into the category of uniquely Tibetan rituals called kangso (bskang gso). Kangso rituals have multiple intended goals: confessing a practitioner's transgression of vows to tutelary deities (thugs dam); ritually feeding those deities; and, ultimately, restoring positive relations between human practitioner and divine protector. While the presence of a kangso is not unusual, its content is: for the tutelary deity propitiated by name in the text is none other than the historical figure Sönam Peldren herself. No evidence exists that this prayer is currently utilized by devotees of Sönam Peldren; however, the text prescribes an interaction with the human saint as a deity, a feature that is highly unusual, if not anamolous, among kangso texts. The second ritual under examination is a biographical prayer of supplication (gsol ba 'debs) addressed to Sönam Peldren. Recited from memory for transcription in 1998 by a nun who had fled to India, it seems that this prayer continues to be recited monthly at the nunnery built on Sönam Peldren's death site. A recording of a performance of this prayer, as well as a translation of the text, will be presented as part of this paper. The third interaction is a "ritual" only in an informal sense. In interviewing refugees from around the eastern Tibetan village of Ya Nga, one informant explained that his familiarity with the story of Sönam Peldren began as a child: this man recalled his father regularly reading a Life of Sönam Peldren aloud to his mother (and, by default, to him) so as to provide inspiration for her religious practice. Sönam Peldren is nearly unknown today by those without connection to the small region of her life and death. In each of the interactions described above, however, followers construct, animate, and invest meaning in the figure of "Sönam Peldren." In Beyond Phenomenology, Gavin Flood notes that "[i]t is ritual structures and performed narratives which have primacy in the transmission of traditions through the generations and not any individual experience or state of consciousness." Although tradition remembers Sönam Peldren's religious authority as originating in little more than a professed relationship with the divine, it is ritual interactions that animate Sönam Peldren to this day, making significant, gendered impact on regional social imaginations of the sacred.

How much power does water encompass? A study of OT chab

Joanna Bialek

In all sorts of lexicographical sources one finds chab glossed as a respective and elegant equivalent of chu with two basic, seemingly unrelated, meanings: 1. water; 2. power. Some authors have placed these in one lemma; others have distinguished between two lemmata as if the meanings belonged to two homophones of distinct origins. Still, as far as I am aware, no one has ever presented a thorough semantic analysis of chab that would aim at explaining not only its actual usage but also the relation of the two meanings to each other as well as the origins of the morpheme. Thus, in my reading I would like to propose the etymological explanation of chab based on the corpus lingustic analysis of Old Tibetan (OT) documents (‘internal evidence’) as well as on later native and foreign lexicographical sources (‘external evidence’). There is no doubt that the meaning of the lexeme was in a way connected to “water” already during the OT period of the language. In the overwhelming majority of the analysed cases (independent occurrences in a sentence but also compounds) the meaning of chab could be stated to have been “river”. In a relatively few instances the term denoted “water” in general. Just to quote two sample sentences: rta bzhugs ni gnam la bzhug rmang bzhugs ni dgung la [bzhugs] (r42) na’ kha yangs kyi ran ma mchis // mgrin yangs kyi chab ma mchiste rta bab ni gnam nas bab rmang bab / (r43) dgung nas bab // te (ITJ 731; apus OTDO) “When the abode of the horse was in the sky, when the abode of the charter was in the welkin, there being no grass for the large-mouth, there being no water for the large-throat; the horse occurred - [it] came down from the sky. The charter occurred - [it] came down from the welkin.” yar chab sngon mo rab myi ‘bog / (PT 1285:r81) “[He] does not wade the ford of the blue river of the Yar [ valley].” The phrases as well as the compounds examined prove that the lexeme has not belonged to the honorific register of the language yet. Its numerous attestations in religious texts like the ones cited above point rather to a ritual language as its main domain of usage. According to the lexicographical sources, chab can also mean “power; authority” but only in a very restricted number of compounds. The formations mentioned usually in this context include: chab ‘bangs, chab zhabs, chab ‘og, chab yig, chab shog, and chab srid. Since not even a one unambiguous instance of the usage of chab as an independent morpheme in the meaning “power” could be traced in OT documents, other tools have to be applied in order to shed some light on its semantic composition and the potential source of that sense. To this end, I shall first examine the word family of chab that is assumed to include: ‘chab, khyab, skyob, and yab. In addition, I will touch upon sound changes that took place within the word family by quoting further analogical examples. In consequence, I will be able to provide the common semantic denominator for all five lexemes. Secondly, I shall adduce a few other OT lexemes the semantic development and metaphorisation of which seem to have proceeded along the same lines and which could additionally contribute to our understanding of the historical semantics of chab. The most important of them are mthing and thang. In the third place, I will avail myself of some awkward but highly instructive idioms and phrases (e.g., ci chab, ci chib, rtses phyibs) that one finds in later lexicographical sources on (CT). As a result of a careful treatment of OT sources as well as a wide-ranging semantic analysis of the available lexicographical data it shall be possible to demonstrate two important points as concerns the OT chab. First, a historical link to the CT verb khyab can unanimously be established. Secondly, through the analysis of the figurative meanings of chab and khyab it is possible to trace the semantic development within the word family from the primary concept of “to cover over, to spread over” to, on the one hand, “water; river; body fluids; 2sphere, range, extent” (i.e. “everything that covers something else”) and, on the other hand, the notion of dominating by spreading (one’s control) over sth.

Unpacking the Matrix of Marriage: Kinship, Marriage and Buddhist Bureaucracy in Muli

Eveline Bingaman

In studies of Tibetan kinship and marriage practices, research in areas where the state is present has consistently overlooked the role of the state as an active agent shaping family structures through systems of bureaucratic control. This research, which explores the impacts of a Tibetan Buddhist regime on a non-Tibetan Buddhist population, highlights the connection between family organization and state governance in a new way, revealing marital forms as one option through which local populations were able to negotiate with the state. The majority of the Naxi ethnic minority lives in and around the Lijiang basin in Northwestern Yunnan province. With the exception of Naxi living in the Eya area of Sichuan province, there is no historical evidence that fraternal polyandry was ever a common practice among them. The people of Eya Naxi Township in Sichuan province trace their history back to a migration from Lijiang near the end of the Ming dynasty, which took place at a time when the ruling Mu Clan of the Naxi people, was expanding its territory north (Wang 2008). However, less than two generations after their arrival the power of the Mu Native Officialdom waned, and with permission granted by the 5th Dali Lama, the territory of Eya was incorporated into the domain of the growing Muli Tibetan Buddhist Theocracy (Muli Tibetan Autonomous County Documents Office 1993). There is evidence that the Muli regime made attempts to establish religious authority in Eya, but these efforts were ultimately unsuccessful. Instead, Muli ruled Eya indirectly through the authority of a Naxi headman while incorporating Eya into Muli’s bureaucratic system for taxation and control. Under this regime, Eya society was organized into feudal estates which limited the number of landed estates and also imposed a “two son” policy which required each tax paying household with more than two sons to send the “extra” sons to serve in the Muli bureaucracy. The practice of imposing a tax on sons is not unique to Eya, but has been a common tactic utilized by Tibetan Buddhist polities as a means of negotiating authority with cultural others (See Lien’s paper, this panel). What is interesting in the case of Muli is that only the Naxi population of Eya appears to have been subject to this two-son policy. Since the Muli Theocracy was overthrown and Eya became officially incorporated into the People’s Republic of China (PRC), researchers have consistently noted the complex matrix of marital practices, not found among other Naxi populations, yet all present within the relatively small settlement of Eya Dacun (Liu 1986a, 1986b, 1996; Song 2003; Wang 2008), including; fraternal polyandry, sororal and non-sororal polygyny, delayed transfer marriage, a high rate of uxorilocal marriage, and non-marital sexual unions. This research will demonstrate that the presence of the state is directly relevant for understanding polyandry, within the context of other marital practices present in Eya, insofar as it was a means through which families negotiated with the state by arranging marriages for their children. They did this through multiple forms of affinity in which polyandry condensed affinal relations into a single affinity while at the same time allowing all male siblings to marry. Discussions of Tibetan polyandry have sought to provide explanations for its emergence in socio-economic terms (Goldstein 1971, 1978) and as a cultural value (Levine 1988). Recent research conducted in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) have shown us how the practice has changed with changing land policies under the People's Republic of China (PRC) (Jiao 2001; Fjeld 2006). Other research has placed a strong focus on fertility, examining polyandry as one of many potential strategies used to control population growth (Goldstein 1976; Childs 2003; Childs et al. 2005). The role of the state is present in all these studies, either explicitly (Goldstein 1971; Jiao 2001; Fjeld 2006) or implicitly (Levine 1988; Childs 2008). However, in this consideration the state is examined only in terms of the conditions it creates, particularly in terms of access to land. In its function, the state is treated as an additional source of limitations and constraints working in conjunction with the already harsh environmental conditions of the Himalayan highlands. In exploring the kinship and marital practices of Eya Naxi in the period prior to its incorporation into the PRC (which took place in 1957), this paper explores the role of Tibetan Buddhist Regimes in actively shaping families as means of bureaucratic control in connection with local strategies to negotiate within the limitations presented by the state. In this, I do not interpret these negotiations as efforts to evade the state, rather as efforts to both domesticate and encompass the state while at the same time keeping the state out of the house. Thus, this paper will shed a new light on old debates within discussions of polyandry, bringing further attention to the intersection between state policy and kinship practices, while at the same time demonstrating that the PRC was not the first polity in the Sino-Tibetan borderlands to enforce family planning policies.

Social, economic and pharmaceutical dimensions of Sowa ‘mainstreaming’ in Ladakh

Calum Blaikie

The Government of India rolled out the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in 2005 as a flagship programme for improving health standards in underserved regions. An important and novel component of this scheme is the ‘mainstreaming’ of traditional medicine services into primary healthcare, which is portrayed as a low-cost and locally adapted solution to health problems in rural areas, as well as a boost to the herbal products industry. This paper examines the social, economic and pharmaceutical dimensions of Sowa Rigpa’s integration into public healthcare in Ladakh. It focuses upon the changing way healers perceive their roles, relate to one another and to other doctors, procure their medicines and treat their patients in this new context. What impact is mainstreaming having on treatment patterns and the social dynamics of healing? How is growing public sector demand shaping medicine production and its products? What are the impacts for prescription practices and the perception of treatment efficacy? Exploring these issues provides a solid basis from which to reflect upon the effects of this national scheme on the structure and dynamics of Sowa Rigpa in one locality, as well as on broader debates concerning medical pluralism, integration, industrialisation and globalisation.

Historic migration: Chang Tang from wilderness

to inhabited rim and frontier society

Tone Bleie and Dawa Tsering

This paper addresses historical migrations from the region in Eastern Tibet to Chang Tang, the high-plateau region in Western Tibet. New evidence is presented about centuries-long coexistence of people, their domesticated herds and a teeming wildlife. The historically informed narrative questions the current dominant, environmentally framed narrative of Chang Tang as a largely uninhabited wilderness. Combining sources of oral history, our own archival research and published historic sources, the paper sheds light on specific migratory events and processes in the late sixteenth century and seventeenth century. It portrays transitions from a nomadic, band-like way of life, characterized by the use of brute force to an intriguingly regulated herding mode with an emergent institutionalized governance structure. The paper asks why the Kham people migrated from Nangchen to this high-elevation plateau and how they adapted to a sacred landscape, an inhospitable climate, already established nomads and centralized sources of religious and political authority, while drawing on their own martial ethos and diverse skills they had brought from Kham.

In order to explain causes and define the features of specific trans-regional migration events, protracted processes and outcomes in terms of nomadic adaptation, settlement patterns, and emergent structures of governance, the paper employs an interdisciplinary theoretical and analytical approach to trans-Tibetan migration and societal outcomes. The paper draws not only on conceptual tools from migration studies, but from anthropology and human geography’s notion of sacred landscapes and transnational frontiers. A multifaceted frontier concept in our understanding enables a more sophisticated understanding of Southern Chang Tang as spiritual abode, sacred landscape, and contested rim zone – sought controlled by the lords of distant Lhasa and expansionist rulers of Ladakh, Western Mongolia, and Manchuria.

A New Sense of (Dark) Humour in Tibet

Henk Blezer

By all appearances, the medical category of ‘brown phlegm’ (Tib. bad kan smug po) disorders looks to be a Tibetan innovation. Based on the chapter on brown phlegm in the rGyud bzhi—mainly because of philological intuitions vis-à-vis structural features, such as the flow of text and an implied clash of humoral systems—I had reason to believe, or rather hypothesise, that the Tibetan category brown phlegm might relate to or derive from Graeco-Arab categories of black bile disorders—of course without implying too much unity in the latter. I published the framework for this idea, in a most preliminary way, with the promise of revisiting this later. Savants steeped in Tibetan medicine, who possess at least a smattering of understanding of black bile disorders, usually respond scathingly negatively to the suggestion. Descriptions of brown phlegm disorders indeed seem very different from what we presently understand melancholia to entail. The best one could hope for is a longish traditionalist lecture on what Bad kan smug po really is all about, more often than not according to the rGyud bzhi. Probably unbeknownst to those lecturing me, I in fact much sympathised with their intuitions and shared their doubts: I also felt that, content-wise, there did not seem to be much overlap. I revisited the problem for the ICAS 9 (July 2015, Adelaide). I checked out early Graeco- Arab sources and was really quite surprised to find that, counterintuitively, there is in fact a stunning amount of overlap in the descriptive parts, also in the observation that not just bile or blood, but also phlegm is much involved (in Tibet it is considered a ‘combined disease’ after all). Especially if one would care to look at what became known as melancholia hypochondriaca, there appears to be a convincing and undeniable match with what one finds recorded on brown phlegm disorders in Tibetan medical treatises, such as ‘The Moon King’ (Zla ba’i rgyal po), the Nor bu'i 'phreng ba, the Bu don ma, and the ‘rGyud chung’, and of course in the ‘Fourfold Collection’ ('Bum bzhi) and the ‘Fourfold Tantra’ (rGyud bzhi)—the descriptions in the former, earlier sources, mostly are very close to latter two. Our European perceptions of melancholia may be a bit skewed (certainly at present); we took a ‘left’ turn, somewhere, and increasingly came to associate black bile disorders with mental afflictions, roughly filling the void between epilepsy (according to some also a black bile disorder, but then of the body) and plain madness. This begs questions of a much wider scope, for instance: how come brown phlegm disorders are not in any significant way connected to specifically mental afflictions in Tibetan systems (a niche that in Āyurveda seems to have been already taken by wind disorders, demonic possession and the like; cf. chapters 77–79 of the rGyud bzhi Man ngag gi rgyud). Melancholia, on the other hand, seems to have become inextricably entwined with the ‘shadow’ of ‘Western’ intellectual and creative life, embedded in a somewhat countercultural stream (Romanticism and the like): interesting, also comparative angles seem to open up. On a still more ambitious note, on the long term, I am also interested to find out whether this knowledge on dark vapours and humours reached Tibet at the turn of the first millennium CE (say, at around the time of Avicenna/Ibn Sīnā) when Tibetans were tinkering on their grand medical syntheses, or perhaps already before that time, say, in the first centuries of the CE (approximately at the time of Rufus of Ephesus, Galen of Pergamum and the like) or even already BCE (Diocles of Carystus), and whether this medical knowledge was, perhaps, already there early-on. But without (Tibetan) written records, how could one ever ascertain this?

Conflict, identity and Young Tibetans: the realities and dynamics of exile experience and young Tibetan approaches to peace, conflict and tradition

Julie Blythe

Having long crafted the appearance of a seemingly cohesive identity espousing such admirable qualities as compassion, spirituality and humanitarianism, the perception of the ‘deeply spiritual’ and ‘peaceful’ of the is widely established. Since 1959, preserving traditional and maintaining their ‘unique’ Tibetan identity have been critical themes within the diasporic community, and global perceptions and expectations of ‘Tibetanness’ continue to be shaped by the behaviour of the exiles. Tibetans and their supporters have employed specific representations of an essentialised Tibetan identity and culture in their political struggle with China, with the attributes of ‘peacefulness’ and ‘nonviolence’ in particular being advanced as inherently Tibetan qualities. Bearing this in mind, it is the aim of this paper to explore how members of the younger generation of exile Tibetans understand the notions of ‘peace’ and ‘conflict’, and how they apply this understanding to transforming conflict on a practical level in their everyday lives. Since the mid-1980’s the Tibetan leadership has cultivated a particularly Tibetan approach to the conflict with China using nonviolent practices, and through this approach the Tibetans have elicited international support and sympathy over the last thirty years. The Dalai Lama, influenced by Gandhi’s reasoning and principled approach to conflict through nonviolent action, remains convinced that nonviolence is the consummate method of conducting politics. The principles of the Tibetan approach to the conflict have been established on the precepts of Buddhism and are comparable to the principles of Gandhi’s satyagraha. The Dalai Lama and other Tibetan leaders continue to advocate that Tibetans conduct their ‘struggle’ with China in a nonviolent manner through the guiding principle of ahimsa – that is, not harming, injuring or killing sentient beings. In performing the nonviolent actions which characterise the Tibetan approach to this conflict, the Tibetans can inevitably be viewed as reinforcing the ‘peaceful’ and ‘nonviolent’ qualities essentialised as inherently Tibetan. History reflects Tibet, at times, as an aggressive conqueror of neighbouring lands. After centuries marked by warring tribal factions and internal unrest, as well as invasions and power struggles resulting in the mysterious deaths of several Dalai Lamas, Tibet’s largely nonviolent resistance towards China for half a century becomes exceptional. That said, there have been significant examples of the Tibetan use of violence since the 1950’s, including the Chushi Gangdrug resistance and violent demonstrations within Tibet during the late 1980’s and again in 2008. In recent years there have been calls by some sections of exile Tibetan youth for the use of violence in pursuit of Tibet’s goals: these calls have been dismissed by the Dalai Lama as suicidal and unrealistic. Moving forward to the present, Tibetans have spent 57 years in exile as three generations of Tibetans engage with global cultural flows, influences, and interdependences. Inevitably these forces continue to reconfigure essentialist manifestations of Tibetan culture and identity, including the concepts of peace, conflict and nonviolence which have been presented as central elements of Tibetan culture and identity. Increasingly, the conflict and violence which occurs within Tibetan groups and between Tibetans and outsiders is being documented. In early 2016 I will undertake research within the Tibetan community residing in Melbourne, Australia in order to gain insight into Tibetan approaches to conflict. In this paper I will discuss the research outcomes which will identify the knowledge and understanding that young exile Tibetans have developed about conflict, and how they learn their approach to conflict. The paper will provide insights into the ways in which the younger Tibetans formulate their approaches to conflict, what influences t

Religious Ambiguity in The Khache Phalu

Nicolas Bommarito

Composed in central Tibet in the late 18th or early 19th century, The Khache Phalu has a unique place in . As a collection of advice both spiritual and practical, is it widely read and quoted. As a blend of Islamic and Buddhist ideas, questions of its authorship and interpretation have been partisan and polarized. I argue that the textual evidence supports a hybrid or fusion religious worldview. After examining the Buddhist and Islamic strands in the text, I will discuss some of the religious ambiguities and idiosyncratic verses found in the text and discuss a social explanation for the religious fusion it evokes. The Khache Phalu has a very strong Buddhist tone, with references to Buddhist themes and concepts like samsara, , karma, the Three Poisons, the Three Jewels, vajras, and the preciousness of a human birth. However, many passages veer from typical Buddhist advice. For example, the advice for rulers dealing with evil people instructs them to “… cut the roots of the wicked. You don’t need to see people like that with compassion.” Next I offer a detailed analysis of the Islamic references in the text and the similarities with the work of the Persian Poet Sa’di, particularly a shorter poetic work attributed to him called The Pand Namah. Though The Khache Phalu has many explicit references to Islamic beliefs and practices, these are nearly always juxtaposed with central Buddhist ideas. So we find the advice to take in the Three Jewels immediately preceding one to following the commands of Allah. Other references to Islam are more oblique and may also be read in a Buddhist way. Various passages can be interpreted as alluding to isha (Muslim evening prayers), Halal (Muslim dietary practices), and burial practices. The majority of these, however, can also be read in a Buddhist way. For example, lines that might refer to evening prayer can also be read as referring to Buddhist prostrations. Or lines that can be read as referring to the practice of eating only Halal meat, can be read as a standard Buddhist injunction to refrain from taking life. The Khache Phalu also contains discussions in a spiritual idiom that is quite unique, allowing for various readings. The emphasis on the ‘center’ (lte-ba), which can refer the navel or, more generally to the abstract or literal source of something, is not commonly found in Buddhist texts. This allows these passages to be interpreted through the lens of both Buddhism and Islam. A similarly unique passages is the discussion of ‘one’ and it’s relation to ‘two’ – these passages can be understood as Buddhist or Islamic metaphysical claims (all things lack independent existence / all things depend upon Allah), but also as a claim about Buddhism and Islam themselves. Finally, I will discuss a few lines that continue to puzzle interpreters in the hopes that others will have suggestions. These various religious ambiguities can be understood as motivated by a particular social role for the text. When understood in the context of religious conversion in Tibet at the time. Most conversions to Islam were via marriage rather than through religious proselytizing, usually when a Buddhist woman married a Muslim man. In this context, a text that closely identified aspects of Buddhist and Islamic belief and practice could serve an important social role. Conversion through marriage can create tension between the new husband and wife and between them and their families. As a popular ethical work emphasizing the shared practical advice of Islam and Buddhism and an example of a shared literary world, The Khache Phalu could help to ease familial tensions after a marital conversion by highlighting ways in which the two religions are deeply similar and have common values.

Edward Amundsen (1873-1928): a Norwegian pioneer on the borders of Tibet

John Bray and Per Kværne

In 1894 Edward Amundsen (1873-1928) was one of thirteen aspiring missionaries who travelled to Darjeeling and with Anne Taylor’s Tibetan Pioneer Mission. He subsequently served in Tachienlu (Dartsendo) before returning to Darjeeling and then to Yunnanfu (Kunming). In 1915 he was sacked by the British & Foreign Bible Society for his allegedly pro-German sympathies during the First World War. Amundsen ranks as one of the first Norwegians to engage with the study of Tibet and the Tibetan border regions, together with his missionary colleague Theodor Sørensen (1873-1959). This paper aims to place his life within its contemporary social and political context, and to bring his activities to the attention of a wider Tibetological audience. It considers Amundsen’s work from three perspectives: The first concerns the political and social environment within which he operated: how did a Norwegian come to work with three British missionary societies, and how did British political interests affect the prospects for his evangelistic activities? The second concerns his literary work in Tibetan. The third concerns his contribution to wider Western knowledge of the Tibetan border regions through other publications, including a Primer of Standard Tibetan, a fictional account of the life of a Tibetan girl, and articles for a range of journals. The paper is part of a long-term study of Western missionary activity in the Tibetan border regions. It draws on missionary a range of original sources including the British & Foreign Bible Society archives.

From expedition to fieldwork: Prince Peter’s work among Tibetans in Kalimpong, 1950–57

Trine Brox and Miriam Koktvedgaard Zeitzen

H.R.H. Prince Peter of Greece and Denmark (b. 1908 Paris – d. 1980 London) was an old- world ethnographer and explorer, who was based in Kalimpong for seven years (January 1950 to February 1957) as part of, and later leader of, the Third Danish Expedition to Central Asia. According to the original plan, Prince Peter was to lead a team of researchers to the “practically unknown space lying in Upper Asia” (Prince 1954, 228). His team consisted of anthropologists, archaeologists, geographers, meteorologists, and religious studies scholars, who through their various disciplines would document the ‘empty spot’ on the map, unchartered by Europeans and thus to be entered and described by the expedition. Prince Peter was aiming for Tibet, which not only furnished many empty spaces to explore and document—its geopolitical situation made its culture ripe for rescue as well. However, due to the PLA’s advancement into Tibet in 1950, Prince Peter was denied entry and therefore stranded in the north-east Indian Himalayan town of Kalimpong—“the little frontier town at the very gate of central Tibet.” (Prince 1963, 581). Yet, in the eyes of Prince Peter, the inopportune political circumstances turned into a great opportunity since it drove thousands of displaced Tibetan refugees into Kalimpong, which became a funnel through which Prince Peter could distil authentic Tibetan heritage. Prince Peter’s particular predicament turned out to be blessing in disguise, however, as it allowed him to collect numerous accounts, artefacts and anthropometric data, and amass a collection which stands out among other ethnographic work amongst Tibetans based on the variety and amount of material that he collected during 1950-1957 in Kalimpong. Prince Peter never reached the geographical aim of the expedition, yet he acquired a rich collection of Tibetan artefacts and books, still and moving photography, sound recordings, ethnographic information as well as an astoundingly large set of physical anthropology data, and he published several articles based on the expedition data, covering topics that span from adelphic polyandry to anthropometrical studies, as well as investigations of Tibetan oracles, aristocrats, Muslims and many more. Prince Peter ‘salvaged’ both tangible cultural heritage, on commission from the Danish National Museum, as well as intangible cultural heritage, documenting particular Tibetan lifeways, such as polyandry, for prosperity. He even embarked on a momentous task of measuring 5000 Tibetans anthropometrically on commission for the University of Copenhagen. Prince Peter thus oscillates between two collection modes: in the ethnographic mode, displaced Tibetans were carriers of a culture facing extinction, and their artefacts and accounts became scientific specimens to be secured. In the anthropometric mode, the displaced people themselves were turned into scientific specimens of different races and developmental stages that could be measured and documented. Together, these two modes represent the main expression of his quest to explore a terra incognito and rescue the remains of its culture. The focus of our paper is Prince Peter’s knowledge production during his seven years in Kalimpong. The paper traces how the expedition mode had to be abandoned in favour of more modern ethnographic fieldwork methods of intense study in circumscribed spaces. We look at the various types of data that he aimed at collecting; the different samples that he took of Tibet as a dying civilization; and the artefacts that he wanted to rescue, in order to send them to Europe and be studied and preserved for future generations. Furthermore, we discuss how Prince Peter worked within a paradigm of objective and classificatory science; how he shifted between different methods to collect and document a civilization as completely and objectively as possible — where accounts, anthropometry, photography, sounds, and artefacts supplemented each other in order to give a complete picture of Tibet. This paradigm went hand in hand with a rescue paradigm, still current in anthropology at that time, of salvaging as much as possible of a civilization which was considered on the brink of extinction. The proposed paper will shed light on new empirical, methodological and theoretical insights into Prince Peter’s knowledge production about Tibet and Tibetan cultural heritage, and introduces the richness of his collections that offers an unparalleled case study of great relevance to current and anthropology.

The paper will present the preliminary results of our research project Prince Peter and the Third Danish Expedition to Central Asia. The two primary investigators come from Prince Peter’s two core disciplines: Zeitzen is an anthropologist and expert on polygamy introduced to Prince Peter through his seminal work on polyandry. Brox is a Tibetologist with an expertise in modern Tibetan history and language, introduced to Prince Peter through his importance to Tibetology at the University of Copenhagen.

In between Kashmir and Xinjiang: Buddhist remains of the Nubra region. Results of the Indo-French Archaeological Mission in Ladakh.

Laurianne Bruneau

The introduction of Buddhism into Ladakh is traditionally associated with (958-1055). This famous translator is one of the main characters of the Second Diffusion of Buddhism into Tibet that initiated in the kingdom of and of which he was native. In Ladakh the ruins of Nyarma are traditionally held to be the oldest Buddhist remains because the temple is mentioned in Rinchen Zangpo’s biography as one of his foundations as well as in the royal Chronicles (La-dvags rgyal-rabs). However, archaeologists and art historians assume that numerous stūpa engravings and Buddhist stone sculptures seen throughout Ladakh predate these written sources and therefore the Second Diffusion. Such remains were documented within the frame of the Indo- French Archaeological Mission in Ladakh (Mission Archéologique Franco-Indienne au Ladakh, hence MAFIL). Created in 2012, the MAFIL is a cooperation project between the Archaeological Survey of India and the East Asian Civilisations Research Centre in Paris, funded by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The mission focuses on the Nubra, the northernmost area of Ladakh region. The role of the Nubra as a gateway between the northwest of the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia, especially the Tarim basin, is well known for modern times. Preliminary surveys, conducted in the Nubra between 2006 and 2011, revealed a variety of remains ranging from Prehistory to the Medieval period. Three additional campaigns by the MAFIL (2013, 2014 and 2015) enabled to better apprehend the role of the Nubra for the diffusion of Buddhism. Therefore we will present an inventory of Buddhist remains from the Nubra along with a comparative analysis and proposed dating. A large ruined stūpa was archaeologically and geophysically surveyed at Tirisa. It is morphologically reminiscent of monuments of Kashmir and Central Asia attributed to the last quarter of the AD, thus enabling a preliminary dating for the monument of Tirisa. Remains of other buildings were noticed in vicinity. Two wooden samples submitted for C14 analysis confirmed our hypothesis: the Buddhist site of Tirisa was in use as early as the 6th century AD, making it so far the earliest known Buddhist site in Ladakh and the Western Himalayas. As we will see Tibetan rock inscriptions engraved next to stūpa images found in proximity of the ruins testify to the long existence of the Buddhist site of Tirisa, at least until the 13th century AD. Other early Buddhist remains in the Nubra consist of a dozen of rock sculptures. The iconographic and stylistic features of the steles and relieves, sometimes monumental (more than 4m in height), are typical of Western Himalayan . The latter span a long period of time, from the 8th century with the bronzes, to clay sculptures and paintings of the late 12th-early 13th century found in the temples of Alchi for example. Consequently we will proceed to a comparative analysis and propose dating for the rock sculptures. We will also address their possible function(s) in considering their archaeological setting. Buddhist remains from the Nubra documented in the frame of the MAFIL testify not only to the importance of the Western Himalayas for the diffusion of Buddhism from its Indian homeland to Central Asia (the Nubra being one of the main gateways to the oases of the Tarim basin) but also to the undeniable contribution of archaeology to reconsider the religious history of the area.

“Beasts, Men and Gods”: A Dmar bsang ritual in Khri ka (Amdo).

Katia Buffetrille

While on one side, for Buddhist masters like the great yogi Shabkar, “all beings have been our parents in previous lives; therefore, it is utterly wrong to kill in order to obtain the worst of all foods; the flesh and blood of living beings”, on the other side G. N. Patterson, an American missionary, could observe in a monastery having ordered “the slaying of the animals to supply the monks with meat for food, and also to stock against future profitable trade.” On this occasion, “three hundred yaks were being slaughtered every day, and the butchering has already gone on for several days”. Besides, we know that traditionally the cult of the yul lha requested a blood sacrifice and that Tibetans liked to hunt, two demeanors in total opposition with the Buddhist precepts, which are still going on. At the present time, a movement for vegetarianism is taking place which meets a serious opposition from some Tibetans. Through the relationships between “Beasts, Humans and Gods”, this presentation will look in a diachronic perspective at the cultural, social and religious forces at play behind what appears as a contradictory behavior.

Space to Create: The Future of Tibetan Identity

Albion Butters

This paper examines potentialities for Tibetan identity construction from a multidisciplinary perspective. While considerable research already exists on concepts of national self-identity, defined first in relation to the country of Tibet itself and then life in exile, the focus has largely been put on historical and cultural forces, both past and present. In contrast, I am interested in exploring the ways in which new forms of Tibetan identity may being charted, looking toward the future. To do this, it is necessary to first identify how the past is privileged, both within Tibet and outside, and the various motives for this. For example, Tibetan historians have had good reason to frame Tibet in terms of antiquity and its status as an autonomous nation, Tibetans in exile have faced cultural imperatives to maintain their national identity, and the Tibetan Buddhist religious tradition itself draws on a rich biographical tradition (rnam thar), which provides a model for contemporary spiritual teachers. Furthermore, the great majority of representations of Tibet in Western popular culture similarly focus on its past, perhaps not only due to naïve romanticism but because stereotypes of magic and the exotic tend to sell well. Only by exposing the dilemma of contemporary Tibetan identity, a contradictory concept torn between nationalistic and cultural agendas and the soteriological path of selflessness taught by Buddhism, is it possible to understand the space in which potential new forms of agency may be revealed. This discussion is informed by critical theory and the Frankfurt school (e.g. Adorno & Horkheimer), but perhaps it is even more relevant to view the question of potentiality through the lens of Tibet’s own intellectual heritage. In terms of the tantric tradition of deity yoga, promulgated there and developed outside of India for over more than twelve centuries, Tibet could actually be argued to possess a powerful technology of identity construction: when practitioners are taught to radically transform their limited and habitually ego- based concepts of self into the state of a full-blown Buddha, it is precisely the degree of identification – or “vajra-pride” – that they are able to achieve that determines their future, not only in this life but future ones as well. In this sense, one can speak of manifold life-worlds and the space between them as offering new types of meaning and relevance for Tibetans today, especially in relation to the West. There is no question that this is a precarious moment: in the face of multiple competing narratives, including distortions by Western mass media and cultural displacement within Tibet, there is a demand for novel approaches. Traditional forms find new artistic expressions (such as the graphic novel Man of Peace: The Illustrated Life Story of the Dalai Lama, forthcoming through Tibet House US and the U.S. Cultural Center of H.H. the Dalai Lama), and Tibetans imagine themselves into the future (see the Transcending Tibet: Mapping Contemporary in the Global Context exhibit in New York, 2015). This paper briefly examines such works and the way in which they function, not only raising the question of what it means to be Tibetan today but what Tibetans would like it to mean.

‘Flight from Tibet’ and vertical social climbing: idioms of ancestral arrival and ‘yoyo’ belonging across the Rasuwa – Kyirong corridor.

Ben Campbell

Based on long-term fieldwork among Tamang-speaking communities of northern Rasuwa, this paper will address the various dimensions of cultural, ecological and economic ‘slinky’-spring tensions which draw individuals and communities together and push them apart. Ancestral idioms of flight from Tibet literally speak of airborn descent from above to ridges and tree-tops below in Nepal. These include the clans of Tokar (‘Tokra’) and of Bongtso Ghale, which archival research has now proven links to Gungthang lineage alliances. The paper argues for the vertical Himalayan pluriverse as a pragmatic and imaginary means of negotiated difference and belonging.

The Ceremony for Imbibing the , with particular reference to examples from Nyang ral Nyi ma 'od zer's bKa' brgyad bde gshegs 'dus pa

Cathy Cantwell

Tibetan tantric practice emphasises direct engagement with the senses as an integral part of the spiritual path. This approach is especially clear in the case of the ceremony for imbibing the siddhis, when spiritual accomplishments are activated through bodily contact. This paper will explore examples from Nyang ral nyi ma 'od zer's (1124-1192) thirteen volume revelation, the bKa' brgyad bde gshegs 'dus pa (Eightfold Buddha Word, Embodying the Sugatas), which focuses on eight "" or wrathful male tantric deities. Nyang ral played a crucial role in the formation of the rNying ma Tantric Buddhist system, producing a complex and elaborate system of ritual practice. These examples of imbibing the siddhis will be connected with continuing practice traditions, especially paying attention to the context of the Major Practice Session (sgrub chen), a communal ritual lasting for some ten days or so.

Making profits, making gifts: business, wealth and

religious donation in northeast Tibet

Jane Caple

This paper explores attitudes towards the idea of ‘profit’ within Tibetan Buddhist lay and monastic communities in contemporary Amdo. Since the turn of the millennium, many individuals and communities have experienced rapid increases in cash income, much of it coming through the caterpillar fungus trade, which has also spurred local business development. This increase in wealth has provided an impetus for religious giving to monasteries, both in terms of its further pursuit but also to balance and manage the conflict in values that its pursuit involves. A donation might, for example, be oriented towards both good fortune in future business affairs and off-setting the negative results of success (i.e. profits) in past business affairs. People are generally open about having a mixture of self-regard and other-regard in their practices of giving. Far from there being a Bourdieusian hidden or double truth in the relationship between ethical self-cultivation and wealth and status, this is explicit in people’s understandings of the workings of karma, and ritual efficacy. However, there is a tension between karmic understandings of the correlation between wealth and virtue and people’s own reflections on and judgements of contemporary society and its prevalent values. What is understood to be an ever-increasing emphasis on material development, wealth accumulation and (often debt-fuelled) consumption is often associated with ideas of moral decline and a weakening, even loss, of faith. This paper explores such tensions and conflicts of value and the extent to which they can produce ambivalence towards the ‘good’ not only of profit-making activities, but also contemporary practices of religious giving. The paper draws on two years of ethnographic fieldwork in the eastern part of Amdo over the period 2008-2015.

Inference and deferred evidence in Tibetan: Further consideration of the morpheme bzhag

Nancy Caplow

The sentence-final evidential morpheme bzhag in ‘Lhasa’ or Spoken Standard Tibetan (SST) has been interpreted by a number of scholars as a marker of inference (e.g., DeLancey 1985, 1990; Tournadre 1994, 1996a, 1996b; Bartee 1996; Volkart 2000; Tournadre and Dorje 2003: 168; and Vokurková 2008). DeLancey (1990:299) provides a representative definition: bzhag “marks a clause as a report of an event whose occurrence the speaker infers from present traces”. This definition is perfectly true, as far as it goes: the speaker indeed perceives something which leads her to deduce that a particular event has taken place. In this talk, though, I will demonstrate that bzhag is better interpreted within a broader framework, and from a listener-centric point of view. That is, while inference is certainly entailed when a speaker chooses bzhag, what she primarily wants her listener to know is not that she has engaged in this cognitive process, but rather, that she is certain about her claim and that she has current perceptual evidence to support it. To highlight this emphasis on perception, I gloss bzhag as a marker of ‘deferred perception’ rather than ‘inference’. Hill (under review) uses the term ‘perfect testimonial’, which also captures this distinction. The earlier studies noted above consider bzhag within a limited context – that is, its meaning is evaluated in contrast to a handful of other evidential markers: red, yod pa red (sometimes written yogs red), ‘dug, song, and byung. These evidentials indicate general knowledge, perception, and personal knowledge or experience. In fact, though, it is more appropriate to consider bzhag within the larger framework of epistemics in Tibetan. This includes not only the morphologically simple evidential markers of certainly listed above, but also the set of morphologically complex markers of non-certainty, which advise the listener that the speaker’s statement has not been verified, or validated. This set includes forms such as yod kyi red (‘I think’), yod pa ’dra (‘it seems’), and pa yin sa red (‘I infer’). The last of these is one of a set of six markers of inference, shown in Table 1 below. Corresponding forms from émigré Drokpa Tibetan (Caplow, under review) are provided here as well, for further comparison in examples presented in this talk. (Note that the Drokpa forms exhibit phonological and morphological leveling, whereby all the forms include sa, and none are preceded by pa.)

Table 1: Inference markers in Lhasa/SST and in Drokpa

Basis of inference Lhasa/SST Drokpa a. non-evidential pa yin sa red, yod sa red yı̱ ̃ sā re̱ ʔ, yö̱ sā re̱ ʔ b. sensory evidence pa yin bzo ‘dug, yod bzo ‘dug yı̱ ̃ sā du̱ k, yö̱ sā du̱ k c. speaker knowledge (pa yin bzo yod), yod bzo yod yı̱ ̃ sā yö̱ ʔ, yö̱ sā yö̱ ʔ

The forms in row (a) of Table 1 do not provide the listener with any information about the speaker’s basis for drawing an inference; I thus consider them to be non- evidential. (Aikhenvald 2004 refers to this situation as ‘assumption’.) Those in rows (b) and (c) indicate, respectively, that the speaker’s inference was based on sensory evidence or on personal knowledge (which Tournadre and others refer to as egophoric); though they index non-certainty, I regard them nonetheless as evidentials. A speaker’s selection of a form beginning with yin vs. yod depends not only on syntactic factors such as predicate type and tense, but also on semantic-pragmatic factors, such as whether the speaker is drawing an inference about the subject of the clause or about the predicate of the clause (Caplow 2000). The six morphologically complex markers of inference thus index non-certainty, and they also explicitly convey to the listener that the speaker’s assertion was arrived at via the mental process of deduction through reasoning. When bzhag is considered in the context of the epistemic system as a whole, it becomes clear that glossing it as ‘inference’ is inadequate; bzhag must be distinguished not only from the other morphologically simple markers of certainty (red, ‘dug, etc.), but also from the morphologically complex forms in Table 1. bzhag contrasts with these forms not only in the degree of certainty expressed, but also in terms of the primary epistemic information conveyed to the listener: bzhag indexes perceptual evidence, while the morphologically complex forms index the mental process of deduction. In my view, just because a speaker goes through the mental process of inference to draw a conclusion from observed evidence, that does not mean that an epistemic marker indexes that mental process; thus bzhag entails inference, but it does not express inference.

“Rekindling the (Institutional) Flame”: sNgags ’chang Kun dga’ rin chen’s Restoration of Sa skya in the 16th Century

Volker Caumanns

The “Great Monastic Seat” (gdan sa chen po) of Sa skya was one of the most long-lived institutions of pre-modern Tibet. Founded in the late 11th century, Sa skya evolved within a few generations from a small temple of local importance to a vast monastic complex, which served the aristocratic ’Khon family as prestigious spiritual and administrative home base. During the so-called “Yuan–Sa skya period” of Tibetan history (mid-13th to mid-14th centuries), Sa skya monastery reached its height of power when the ’Khon aristocrats became temporarily one of the leading political players in Tibet. However, with the demise of the Yuan dynasty in China and the rising fortunes of the Tibetan Rlangs Phag mo gru family—which was destined to become the new ruling power in Tibet—the ’Khon family forfeited its dominant position. The political changes in the mid-14th century heralded a period of prolonged decline in Sa skya, something which grew into a severe institutional crisis during the first half of the 16th century: Not merely had parts of the monastic complex became subject to decay or had been damaged by warfare, but rather the status of the ’Khon aristocrats as overlords of Sa skya was seriously challenged by opposing political forces. As is well known, the ’Khon family eventually managed to emerge victorious and even strengthened from this crisis. According to the Sa skya pa sources this was mainly due to the activities of the 23rd head lama of Sa skya, sNgags ’chang Kun dga’ rin chen (1517-1584). Being credited with having “rekindled the flame (me ro gso ba) of the venerable Sa skya hierarchs’ doctrine, monastic community and descendants”, Kun dga’ rin chen is conceived of by tradition as the great restorer of Sa skya in the 16th century. In my paper, I would like to focus on the various measures that were adopted by Kun dga’ rin chen in his attempt to restore and consolidate the ’Khon familiy’s supremacy over Sa skya. Some of the most conspicious features of this “restoration project” are obviously to be seen in the extensive work of rebuilding temples, and other holy objects in Sa skya, in the modification of rituals and liturgies, and in the reinforced recourse to the rNying ma pa heritage of the ’Khon family. There is, however, much evidence to suggest that Kun dga’ rin chen’s project cannot be confined to these single aspects and has to be considered from a more general perspective. In order to achieve this, I will draw on historical and cultural sociological approaches that emphasise the close connection between institutional processes and forms of symbolic communication or action (see, for example, the respective writings of G. Althoff, B. Stollberg-Rilinger and K.-S. Rehberg). Thus I will argue that Kun dga’rin chen’s endeavours can be best understood by analysing the institutional mechanisms at work, namely: the promotion of an institutional Leitidee, the symbolic representation of values and norms in ritual and other media, the use of legitimising narratives, and the semantisation of space, etc.

A brief autobiography of Rin spungs ruler Ngag dbang ‘jig rten dbang phyug grags pa Extract from Chos kyi rgyal po ngag dbang rnam par rgyal ba la zhu ’phrin du bya ba rig pa ’dzin pa’i pho nya zhes pa shambha la’i lam gyi yi ge dang bcas pa

Thupten Kunga Chashab

The text Chos kyi rgyal po ngag dbang rnam par rgyal ba la zhu ’phrin du bya ba rig pa ’dzin pa’i pho nya zhes pa shambha la’i lam gyi yi ge dang bcas pa (A Letter to Father, Dharma King Ngag dbang rnam rgyal, called Messenger of a Yogi Including a Guide Letter to ), is a work of the 16th century Tibetan ruler Ngag dbang ’jig rten dbang phyug grags pa of Rin spungs. The unique manuscript of this text has been found during cataloging of the Pander Collection of Tibetan materials preserved in the Jagiellonian Library in Cracow, Poland. The text consist of thirty-seven folios and it deals with two subject areas; first itinerary of Shambhala and the second part deals with his personal life story and power struggle in Rin spungs kingdom. According to my preliminary studies on the second part of the text, which consists of fourteen folios, author explains situation of Rin spungs kingdom, power struggle and his everyday life, after the death of his father Ngag dbang ’rnam rgyal. The author explains how Rin spungs power declined three times and how it was restored two times by his brother. However, the third fall was the end of Rin spungs power and power of Ngag dbang ’jig grags on the Tibetan political scene. Author also mentioned about his solitude life in palace and how he stayed hidden while his power was weakened by the opponents. As it is said in other sources, Rin spungs’s power was finally taken by his relative Zhing shag pa. Here, also the author tells about power struggle between uncle and nephew (dbon sras), as well as about his extreme passion for Tibetan poetry which was the cause of falling Rin spungs kingdom into parts.

རིན་ངས་པ་ངག་དབང་འཇིག་གས་ི་རང་མ་མདོར་བས། ཆོས་ི་ལ་པོ་ངག་དབང་མ་པར་ལ་བ་ལ་་ཡིག་་་བ་རིག་པ་འཛན་པའི་ཕོ་ཉ་ཞེས་་བ་ཤ་ལའི་ལམ་ཡིག་དང་བཅས་པ་ནས་བ ས།། ༄༅།།ཆོས་ི་ལ་པོ་ངག་དབང་མ་པར་ལ་བ་ལ་་ཡིག་་་བ་རིག་པ་འཛན་པའི་ཕོ་ཉ་ཞེས་་བ་ཤ་ལའི་ལམ་ཡིག་དང་བཅས་པ་ཞེས་ པའི་བན་བཅོས་འདི་ནི་རིན་ངས་མངའ་བདག་ངག་དབང་མ་ལ་ིས་ས་རབས་བ་ག་པར་བམས་པ་ཞིག་རེད། ད་་མཚར་བའི་བན་བཅོས་འདི་བཞིན་ཀར་ཀོབ་ཡ་གི་ལོ་ནིཡན་དཔེ་མཛད་ཁང་ན་བགས་པའི་བོད་ི་དཔེ་ཚགས་ི་དཀར་ཆགས་ིག ་བས་ེད་པ་ཞིག་དང་དཔེ་ཚགས་འདི་ནི་པན་ཌར་་བ་ཞིག་ནས་བ་བསོགས་གནང་བ་ཞིག་རེད། བན་བཅོས་འདིར་དཔེ་ཤོག་ངས་བོམས་མ་སོ་བན་དང་དོན་ཚན་གཉིས་ལ་འེལ་བོད་གནང་ཡོད། དོན་ཚན་དང་པོ་ཤ་ལའི་ལམ་ཡིག་དང་དོན་ ཚན་གཉིས་པ་ནི་རིན་ངས་ལ་ིད་ནང་དབང་ཆའི་འཐབ་ོད་དང་ོམ་པ་པོའི་རང་མ་ོར་མདོར་བས་ཤིག་བན་ཡོད།། ས་པའི་ོན་འོའི་ཉམས་ཞིབ་ར་ན་གང་འདིའི་མག་གི་ཆ་དཔེ་ཤོག་བ་བཞི་ཙམ་ཡོད་པ་འདིའི་ནང་ོམ་པ་པོས་རང་གི་ཕ་རིན་ང ས་ངག་དབང་མ་ལ་འདས་པའི་ེས་རིན་ངས་པའི་ིད་དབང་ལ་འཐབ་ོད་དང་འེལ་བའི་རང་མ་འེལ་བོད་གནང་འག ོམ་པོ་པོས་རིན་ངས་པའི་ིད་དབང་ཐེངས་གམ་ཉམས་ད་ིན་པ་དང་། དེའི་ནང་ནས་ཕམ་ད་་མ་གཉིས་རང་གི་གཅེན་པོས་ར་གསོ་གནང་བ་དང་ ཉམས་ད་མཐའ་མ་དེ་ནི་བོད་ི་ིད་དོན་ལོ་ས་ནང་རིན་ངས་པ་དང་ངག་དབང་འཇིག་གས་ི་དབང་བར་མཐའ་མ་དེ་ཆགས་པ་རེ ད། དེ་བཞིན་ོམ་པ་རང་ཉིད་བས་དེ་དང་དེར་ས་པའི་ལ་དང་བཟང་བཙན་་ར་བགས་དགོས་ང་བ་ཡང་བན་ཡོད། བན་བཅོས་གཞན་་རིན་ངས་པའི་ིད་དབང་རང་གི་ཉེ་འེལ་ཞིང་ཤག་པས་འོག་པ་བན་པ་ར་ངག་དབང་འཇིག་གས་ིས་ང་ དབོན་ས་མངའ་ཐང་ལ་མ་ འཆམ་པ་དང་རང་ཉིད་ན་ངག་ལ་ོ་ང་ཆེ་བས་རིན་ངས་པའི་མངའ་ཐང་ན་ཟད་་སོང་བ་བན་ཡོད།།

The Compilation History of Tokmé Zangpo’s Collected Works

Gloria I-ling Chien

Tibetan Lojong (blo sbyong), which can be translated as “mind training,” is arguably the most prominent Buddhist teaching system that provides a process of gradual self- cultivation to remove destructive emotions and to develop compassion towards all sentient beings. Tibetan Master Tokmé Zangpo (Thogs med bzang po, 1295-1369) composed Lojong texts, which were included in different editions of his collected works (gsung ‘bum). The first Lojong anthology was compiled soon after Tokmé Zangpo’s death in the fifteenth century, implying that Tokmé Zangpo’s collected works were a critical point in the development of Lojong literature. In spite of their importance, his collected works have received little academic discussion. This paper will investigate the compilation history of two editions of Tokmé Zangpo’s Collected Works and two editions of his Fragmentary Collected Works (bkar ’bum thor bu) preserved today. The list of these editions is as follows. It is not in chronological order due to the complicated editorship of these works. 1975 Bhutan Fragmentary Collected Work (Rgyal sras thogs med kyi bka’ ’bum thor bu). Manuscript of Fragmentary Collected Works (Rgyal sras thogs med pas mdzad pa’i bka’ ’bum) in umé styles. Approximately brought to the as early as the seventeenth century. Degé Collected Works (Rgyal ba’i sras po thogs med chen po’i bka’ ’bum) under the sponsorship of Künga Trinlé Gyatso (Kun dga’ phrin las rgya mtsho, 1714-1751). 2011 typeset edition Labrang Collected Works (Rgyal ba’i sras po thogs med bzang po’i bka bum). I first clarify the layers of authorship and editorship of Bhutan Fragmentary Collected Works: 1. Tokmé Zangpo wrote one hundred and thirteen separate texts. 2. Tokmé Zangpo’s disciple Penden Yéshé ((Dpal ldan ye shes) composed Tokmé Zangpo’s biography Drops of Ambrosia, approximately the late fourteenth-century after Tokmé Zangpo’s death in 1369. 3. Most likely the first editing team arranged the content of one hundred and thirteen texts, creating what I call the “113 Texts.” 4. An unknown editing team or Penden Yéshé combined Drops of Ambrosia with the “113 Texts,” to make Bhutan Fragmentary Collected Works after 1386. Second, this paper examines the printing history of Degé Collected Works, which includes the “113 Texts” and the 114th text “Hearing Transmission” (Blo sbyong snyan brgyud chen mo). I suggest that Tokmé Zangpo gave lectures about “Hearing Transmission” and that Penden Yéshé wrote notes. Penden Yéshé further edited “Hearing Transmission” before or after Tokmé Zangpo’s death in 1369. Approximately one of the Fire Tiger years between the late fourteenth- century to the seventeenth- century, Gendün Kyap’s (Dge ’dun skyabs) team arranged or transcribed the “113 Texts” as found in Bhutan Fragmentary Collected Works. The Fifth Dalai Lama (1617-1682) added the five lineages of Lojong transmission to the end of “Hearing Transmission.” The Fifth Dalai Lama indicated that his version of “113 Texts” and “Hearing Transmission” were related. He might have combined these two parts into a single document during his lifetime. As late as in 1737 or 1738, Degé prince Sönam Gönpo sponsored the publication of the “113 Texts. Later, Degé prince Künga Trinlé Gyatso’s team printed the “113 Texts” and “Hearing Transmission” as a whole work: Degé Collected Works. Finally, this text was brought to the and became the source of the modern typeset edition of Labrang Collected Works. In terms of Fragmentary Collected Works founded in the Drepung monastery, the order of the “113 Texts” is the same except for some missing parts. In conclusion, this paper shows how Tokmé Zangpo’s Collected Works and Fragmentary Collected Works are related to each other. Second, this paper examines how Tokmé Zangpo’s followers, such as Penden Yéshé and the Fifth Dalai Lama, created their religious identities by arranging Tokmé Zangpo’s writings. In this way, they demonstrate their status as the recipients of Tokmé Zangpo’s Lojong teachings. Third, this paper clarifies the different sponsorships for Tokmé Zangpo’s works, implying that his reputation continually increased after his death. Those sponsors include: Drölma, who was a female ruler of Chudü (chu ’dus), as well as Sönam Gönpo and Künga Trinlé Gyatso, who were members of the royal family in the Degé Kingdom. They believed that supporting the publication of Tokmé Zangpo’s writings could fulfill their mundane purposes. Their sponsorships played a crucial role in spreading Tokmé Zangpo’s writings. These sponsorships indicate how Tokmé Zangpo’s literary heritage travelled from the Bodong (bo dong) area, to the library of the Fifth Dalai Lama, to the Dége Kingdom, and eventually to the Labrang Monastery.

Engraving Mani-Stones. Preliminary Notes on Raw Materials and Production Technologies in Eastern Tibet

Monia Chies

The main object of my research is to focus on the structural and social changes around the highly significant cultural site of Gyanak Mani pilgrimage area, which is a vast shrine-array with tens of thousands of carved, votive stone tablets known as mani- stones. The shrine is situated in the Sengze village, 4 km from the centre of Yushu, which is a county capital in the south-western part of Qinghai Province (PRC) as well as the northern-most city of the ethnic Tibetan region of Khams. The site was founded in 1715 by Master Gyanak, a Tibetan Buddhist mendicant lama from Chamdo and has been recently recognized by the Chinese Authorities as the “greatest mani-wall in the world”. The long-established practices of ritual stone carving and pilgrimage certainly embody the main expressions of the local culture and this holy place attracts thousands of pilgrims from the whole Tibetan Plateau annually. On 14th April 2010, during my first stay, a 6.9 magnitude earthquake destroyed the entire urban area of the county capital Yushu . After the earthquake, both local administration and central government officials responsible for reconstruction quickly agreed on urban planning policies and development strategies that have led to a complete re-shaping of the Yushu city-scape, into what is being labelled an “Eco-Tourist City.” At this point, the Gyanak Maniwall has been listed as one of the main tourist attractions of Yushu and due to its close proximity to the city centre, the post-earthquake development processes are obviously having a strong impact on the pilgrimage site itself. Within this fast-changing context, at the core of my current ethnographic work is the study of the mani-stones produced and piled-up at the Gyanak Maniwall, that I often examined in comparison with the engraved stones observable at several minor mani-piles distributed in the Northern Kham region. In this article, I will firstly introduce the raw materials generally employed in the production of mani-stones. Particularly, this is a preliminary reflection resulting from the ethnographic data collected during several fieldwork trips, for a total of 17 months spent in Yushu and in the nearby areas during the last five years.

By means of an object/language approach, from the analysis of the raw materials, it will be possible to:

• understand how such material are described and/or chosen by the carvers;

• unfold several notions and local representations about the landscape of Yushu and the related Tibetan Buddhist ( or non-Buddhist) beliefs; • provide an overview concerning the local management of resources.

In the second part of the article, I will then focus on the production methods and on the historical development of the stone-carving technologies in this area during the Post- Maoist Era. This analysis will help to understand the main technological choices (Lemonnier 1993) carried out in this Tibetan context and the consequent relationships emerged between the new tools/carving techniques and the various raw materials. Such arguments are based on the following anthropological queries: In what kind of technical features or phenomena do we observe these choices? Are they real choices? What logics underlie these choices? What are the results? All these research questions and themes will eventually converge into what is known as the central issue about the contemporary concept of “Materiality” ( De Marrais et al. 2004; Meskell 2005; Miller 2005), that can be summarised as “humans create and shape artifacts, engage with objects, and in turn are shaped by these interactions” (Hollenback and Schiffer 2010). Drawing on both, objectification theories and carvers' life histories, in this paper I will hence provide examples of how different aspects related to local preservation discourses as well as to modernisation, migration and post-earthquake development processes are entangled (as both causes and effects) with the production of mani-stones, both at the Gyanak Mani pilgrimage site and in some nearby areas. In other words: how different methods and materials, within the production of stone-carving practice, actually create specific and/or changing forms of “sociability”? Which are the social forces at work? Does the inclusion of specific technologies produce similar or opposite outcomes at different sites? Is the post-earthquake reconstruction having an impact on the carving practice? How? Finally, in order to complete this ethno-historical account related to a rather unexplored typology of Tibetan cult objects, my analysis will also include brief textual references extracted from the founder's biography (rnam thar) and specifically related to the mani-stones.

Gompa Tibetan Monastery Services – facilitating near-live global connection to traditional Tibetan institutions while supporting multimedia library development of classical Indo-Tibetan cultural resources

Robert Chilton

Gompa Tibetan Monastery Services (www.gompaservices.com) is a recently formed network of partnerships [organized by a U.K. registered charity, Orient Foundation for Arts and Culture (www.orient.org), in cooperation with the leading lineage holders of the major Tibetan lineage traditions and the administrators of the major Tibetan monasteries of India and Nepal] which provides an array of online connections to the religious, social and educational activities of the major Tibetan monasteries and nunneries of India and Nepal. All of the major Tibetan lineages are represented within this network. My presentation will describe how the Gompa TMS project utilizes digital technologies, including webcasting, to create a variety of connections between the centuries-old traditional Tibetan institutions (monasteries and nunneries) and the worldwide public. In conjunction with giving a brief demonstration of the website I will discuss how the online facilities offered by Gompa Tibetan Monastery Services assist in: 1/ maintaining the traditionally close relationship between the monasteries/nunneries and their followers (who are now scattered around the world) by enabling access to the traditional activities of the partner institutions, including the main ceremonies, teachings and individually requested rituals; 2/ providing scholars and other interested persons with near-live online access to the discourses, seminars and other events held at the monasteries and nunneries. I will also discuss the manner in which all the events and other monastery/nunnery activities recorded by Gompa TMS are integrated into the Classical Tibetan Knowledge Archive and Multimedia Study Resource (CTK) (www.tibetan-knowledge.org) for conservation and for scholarly access, regionally and internationally.

The sacred landscape of West Sikkim: formation, functional territorial system and transmission of the heritage

Olivier P. Chiron

Sikkim, in the eastern Himalaya, is named by the Bhotyas and sikkimese people, a sacred land, (Ti. Sbas Yul), and in West Sikkim, the Beyül Demojong (Ti. Sbas Yul bras mo ijongs), the "hidden valley of rice" where the inhabitants, the Lepcha (Ti. Men), the Bhotya (Ti. Lhopo) and the Limbu (Ti. Tsong) live and share a mutual culture. Rituals, festivals, and environment (inc1uding natural aspects) are a common intangible heritage, a buddhist patrimony reconstructed and participate to the construction of a national heritage defended by the Bhotyas, an ethnic buddhist minority in Sikkim. In his paper, the author approaches the sacred landscape with the concept of state-, a territorial model and the structural formation and functionning system of the sacred land, the Beyül Demojong (Ti. Sbas Yul Bras mo ijongs), a hidden land (Ti. Sbas Yul). He also turns our interest to the transmission and conservation of this eco-religious landscape and the constitution of a touristic patrimony in Sikkim. In the first part of this paper, we attempt to show that there is also a process of buddhicisation, a conquest of the topography within their territory delimitating the cultivate and non cultivate lands. We must describe here the physical and geomorphological landscape; the topography around the lake of Kaychupalri (West Sikkim) : association between mountains and lakes, caves, hillsides, dolines and tablelands. In fact, we observe that the physical architecture of the place is inseparable from the forms of representation imposed in Buddhism, as will be seen, this is a part of my theory. Indeed, , the precious master of ( rimpoche) fixed a certain number of religious and deontological codes that inform the pilgrims on the quality and function of each place. In fact, it shows that this is a transposition of a model of classical buddhism into the landscape or geographic territory as it has been repeatedly described in the architecture of Hindu temples and tibetan temples including the Monastery in Tibet (build in 779 on a mandala model). A spatial matrix within the main places sanctified by Guru Rimpoche appears who blessed the sacred land of Sikkim and the fourth sacred caves in the fourth cardinal directions: Lho mha'gro gsang phug (south), Nub bde chen phug (west), Shar phyod pad phug (east), Lha ri sny phug (north) : (Chiron, 2007, p 174. ). Padmasambhava put treasures into the landscape rediscovered by eminent tertöns (treasures's discovers, Ti. Gter. Ston). Through the religious, and using the domain of representations, is superimposed on a real landscape an imaginative and pure landscape. By readings classical buddhist spatial structures (Chiron, 2002) and religious elements in the sacred landscape whose landscape is the mediator in the second part of this paper, the mandala configuration is necessary to explain the spatial construction of a religious territory. This diagram, a recurrent structure in buddhism (a topology) may explain the socio-political organization of Beyül Demojong (second part of this paper). This landscape has set limits which shapes and configures this buddhist space. Paul Mus said the foundation of the idea of state- mandala is dealing with the cosmic architecture of the of Borobudur (a cosmic buddhist mountain like Kangchendzonga, the guardian deity of Sikkim) and defining the ethnogeographic base of South East Asian states. The concept of state-mandala was popularized by other authors such as Wolters (1982) and developped by some historians (S. Chutintaranond, 1990; J.S. Tambiah; Wolters, 1982; Slusser 1982). However, other very similar models (segmentary state, unitary state: Bruneau: 2002, 2006) were developped such as for example with the model of J.S. Tambiah (mantja lima and manjapat) and apply to the geographical territories that we study here with the notion of center and periphery. We also discuss in the last part (third paper) of this paper on the transmission of the heritage which belongs to immaterial patrimony such as the sacred landscape. The Beyül is considered by sikkimese (Lepcha, Bhotya) as the cradle of their civilization and their the main repository of their culture ; we put here our attention on this historical legation and on the role of the patrimonial transmission of this sacred landscape.

Overtly Moral: Buddhist Practices, Business, and a Good Life among China’s New Rich

Yasmin Cho

In recent years, Buddhist-inspired business practices have slowly grown within large Chinese cities such as Chengdu. As a getaway city for pilgrims on their way to Tibetan monasteries as well as China’s most rapidly developing innermost city, Chengdu has been a gathering site for middle-class Chinese pilgrims and Tibetan lamas, and contains an uncanny mix of Chinese wealth, Tibetan Buddhist teachings, and citizens who have an increasing demand for a good life. The recent Buddhist business practices in Chengdu that are the focus of this paper are shown to be an assemblage of money, religion, and secular ethics. By drawing on ethnographic research concerning Buddhist-inspired businesses in Chengdu, I will show how these three elements are operating and synergizing with one another in a conflict-free way. These Buddhist businesses include vegetarian restaurants, organic food shops, tea houses, and the shops that sell Buddhist rosaries and beads. The owners are usually devoted Buddhist themselves and what is distinctive about their business management is that they prioritize the quality of their sale items over lowering prices for market competition. They attract Chengdu’s new rich, a group that values self-caring and well-being, and in so doing, also differentiates their lives from others’ lives. The shops are decorated with Buddhist items such as incense, lotuses, Tibetan prayer wheels, and flags that are placed between sale items; and all food products are high quality organic and vegetarian goods. Although Buddhism is certainly present as a material form and a discourse in the shop, the owners do not overtly promote Buddhist teachings per se, but rather focus on improving the general (and secular) quality of life through practices such as eating healthy food, thinking positively and morally, being peaceful, and so on. They also organize various community activities to show their care for the well-being of their neighbors and the environment, in a manner that resembles the practice of social entrepreneurship. Morality plays a key role in the combination of and business in this setting. I argue that what is being traded and shared in these Buddhist-inspired businesses is this moral superiority: the view that as long as a practice is moral, it is Buddhist and it supports good business and a good life.

Construction of Hegemonic Tibetan National Identity in Exile: A Case Study of Exiled Bon Community

Ugyan Choedup

In exile the was followed by some 80,000 Tibetans, mostly from the central Tibetan regions largely due to its geographical proximity to India. This region was traditionally under the political authority of the Dalai Lama’s Lhasa government, albeit within a ‘federative-type’ decentralized political structure. However substantial numbers of exiled Tibetans were also from the eastern regions of Tibet, who for centuries remained beyond the purview of central Tibetan politics. Historically people from these regions, now commonly identified as ‘Khampas’ or ‘Amdowas’_, maintained a strong sense of political independence from both the Lhasa government in central Tibet and also from Qing empire in China, later at-least from early 18th century had a ‘nominal’ indirect control over the regions within the imperial administrative arrangement of ‘Tu’ssi’. This strong sense of ‘independence’ is largely due to the fact that the social histories of the common masses in these regions were imbued with the pervasive sense of ‘social sovereignty’. Moreover, traditionally the ‘politics of power’ was largely confined within the autonomous ‘domains of elite’ and thus the native ‘subalterns’ and the Qing/Lhasa political interactions were virtually absent. The Dalai Lama though historically was highly revered as one of the highest incarnate lama and more so as a ‘king of (central) Tibet’ (Bod kyi rgyalpo) but he was however not a ‘supreme’ object of loyalty among many Tibetans. This was/is particularly true of the Tibetans from beyond 's or Lhasa’s political domain. In fact there was no singular ‘supreme object’ of common loyalty among Tibetans in pre-modern times; the socio- political structure was inherently decentralised with multiple, often-overlapping religio- political centers of loyalties. Thus in exile, the groups of Tibetan refugees, previously unknown (or even hostile) to each other found themselves in new exilic socio-political environment and it is within this new imposed exilic condition, where social interaction sphere has expanded beyond ones own traditional religio-cultural space, that the earlier Tibetan conception of we/they differences has undergone a drastic changes. Within generations new ‘nationalized identity’ emerged among exile Tibetans, which is a homogenised hegemonic kind, previously unknown throughout the long . This new supra-ordinate national identity, which problematises and criticises the earlier ‘regional’ or ‘sectarian’ identities, was not a ‘natural’ result of collective realisation of their inherent ‘nation-ness’ but is a product of deliberate social engineering by the traditional Tibetan elites through series of inventions of ‘national’ symbols and traditions. This was done through modifying, ritualising and institutionalising existing traditional values and norms for a new ‘national purpose’, however in doing so the particular Lhasan-specific values and norms were homogenously recasted over the general heterogeneous exile Tibetan populations. Such (re)construction of past through the ‘invention’ of new ‘national’ symbols and traditions created a myth of political cohesiveness, perennially sharing a collective historical continuity among the ‘national members’. However this homogenization process, as would be expected, was not without its internal-contradictions leading at times to a situation of almost splitting the refugee communities apart along regional/sectarian lines. Such contradictions are, to use Anderson’s phrase with slight alteration, a symptomatic result of “stretching the short, tight, skin of the nation over the gigantic body of the ethnie”. Particularly the groups of Tibetans from Eastern region with non-Gelug affiliation resisted the imposition of this particularistic ‘national culture’ and ‘national vision’ deemed to be exclusionary and overly Lhasa/Gelug-centric. This process was epitomized by the formation of ‘deviant’ group later collectively categorized as ‘13 settlements’ whose members were primarily from the eastern part of Tibet with non-Gelug sectarian affiliations. This group, despite their internal diversities, realigned themselves with each other’s, mainly in response to homogenizing hegemonic nation building project of exile leadership, furthered through the tacit endorsement of the organizations such as ‘Unity Party’ (Gchig sgril tsogpa). This hegemonisation process entails the subjugation of deviants by use of various strategies ranging from ‘persuasion’, ‘symbolic violence’, ‘threat of violence’ and at times actual use of violence. This study will look into how this ‘hegemony’ is built by taking a case study of Bon community in exile, which in my opinion provides an interesting case for analyzing ‘successful’ national integration in exile. In doing so, this research will also historicize the early exilic past by underlining the key challenges in the exilic Tibetan national hegemonisation process. This study will employ mainly field interviews and also use primary materials such as both the Tibetan and English language newspaper archives (‘Shes-bya’, ‘Bod mi rang-dbang’, ‘Mang tso sar shog’, ‘Tibetan Review’) and autobiographies written in exile.

Sangye Gyatso’s secret medicine (gsang sman) in the treatment of srog rlung: The encoded ingredient of esoteric therapeutics

Antonio (Tony) Chui

According to the Tibetan medical tradition, the symptoms of srog rlung - the disorder of the life-wind, is comparable to that of depression described by modern biomedicine. In the Tibetan perspective, srog rlung can be treated by means of diet, lifestyle, and medicinal interventions. Apart from these frequently discussed methods, srog rlung can furthermore be managed synergistically by a seldom mentioned magical-religious- paradigm of an esoteric nature. This study attempts to explore this mystical esoteric healing of srog rlung in the seventeenth century based on the Tibetan medical text by Sangye Gyatso (Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho, 1653-1705): the Extended Commentary on the Instructional Tantra of the Four (Man ngag lhan thabs). The Four Tantras (Rgyud bzhi) is notably the foundation text of the Tibetan medical tradition. Its authorship can be traced back to the eighth century CE. (Ga 2010, 21-22). During the evolvement of Tibetan medicine, novel therapeutic methods have been developed. Works of commentaries and supplements have also been composed to fill in the inadequacy of the Four Tantras throughout the Tibetan medical history. Among these medical developing moments, the reign of the Fifth Dalai Lama (Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho, 1617- 1682) in the seventeenth century remarkably contributed to the development of the Tibetan medical tradition. As the leader of the Ganden Podrang Government, the Gelugpa consolidated its political control over central Tibet. Buddhist doctrine (chos) and political power (srid), refers to as chos srid gnyis ‘brel, comprised a dual governance (lugs gnyis) of the theocratic sovereignty (Halkias 2006, 103). The Gelugpa’s cultural hegemony influenced utterly the Tibetan Plateau at that time subsequent to their immense literary, architectural, political, and institutional campaign (Schaeffer 2013, 348). Together with his regent (Desi, sde srid) Sangye Gyatso, the Great Fifth established at Chagpori (Lcag po ri, Iron Mountain) the leading school of medicine and astrology known as the Chagpori Rikche Dropenling (Gyatso 2015, 115). Under this establishment, the Tibetan medical tradition was systematized and institutionalized (Schaeffer 2003, 622), and represented as a significant authority of medical education until the 1950’s (Meyer 2003, 117). During his fairly short lifespan of fifty-two years, Sangye Gyatso composed three influential medical works in the Tibetan medical genre. The most prominent one is the Blue Beryl (Vaiḍūrya sngon po), which is a commentary on the Four Tantras. Another well-known opus is his Mirror of Beryl (Sde srid 1982), which gives a detailed account of the history of Tibetan medicine. The third one is his aforementioned extended commentary (lhan thabs) on the Instructional Tantra (Man ngag rgyud) of the Four Tantras: the Man ngag lhan thab. In this extended commentary, esoteric ingredients that are not mentioned in his two other works can be found. Furthermore, upon studying the Man ngag lhan thabs, “secret” terminology can be found throughout Sangye Gyatso’s manuscript. These “secret” terms seem to keep this text impracticable to anyone without the decrypting keys. This “encrypting” implement keeps the confidentiality of the esoteric tradition, while hindering modern scholarship from further investigation. In his Blue Beryl, Sangye Gyatso reminds us that reading medical texts alone would not lead to a good medical training; it was necessary to have the guidance of a skilled teacher (Sde srid 1981, 493-494). Did he mean that some materials were not covered in the ordinary medical texts, and a “skilled” teacher probably holding the keys to these texts was the determining factor to good medical training? What did the “secret” encryption mean and why were they kept secret? In this paper, I will introduce Sangye Gyatso’s Man ngag lhan thabs and discuss the necessity for the encryption of “secret” material. In addition to that, I will attempt to decrypt and explore the “secret” terminologies specified in the curing of srog rlung.

Horse Racing Gala and its Ceremony in Wufeng mountain,rGal-Thang

Ciren Zhuoma

In the cosmology of Tibetan, man and God in nature has a boundary. People abide by the contract commonly known as rules and receive asylum through sacrificial practices. From origin of worship of holy mountain until now, NW Yunnan Tibetan holy mountain worship and holy mountain worship ceremony still has an important social function in the village. I try to analyze social function of holy mountain worship in the northwest Jiantang area through introducing worship of Wufeng holy mountain and major worship ceremony -horse racing . After Buddhism has been introducing into Tibetan area in the seventh Century, Buddhism and native religion struggle and integration with each other in the propagation process. But holy mountain worship system is accepted by Buddhism and finally became protector god . In Tibetan society, every region exists holy mountain worship. Diqing Tibetan Autonomous prefecture as the main area of the Northwest Yunnan, its biological and cultural diversity are very rich. Within the territory of Diqing, holy mountain worship system has rich cultural deposits. The worship of holy mountain is not only respected Kawagebo, but also each village has its corresponding holy mountain. Wufeng mountain, the local Tibetan called "Nazhududan", is the holy mountain of Zhongxinzhen of Jiantang area, the mountain is located in the east part of Shangri-La and close to Zhongxinzhen, whose elevation is about 3700 meters. About the legend of Wufeng mountain. It is said that long time ago,(Zhongdian) Jiantang ruled by the Tibetan king, people lived in an abyss of misery of heavy taxes, and have no time to practice archery and horsemanship, riders from Jiantang area always got the last name in the horse racing competition. In order to reduce the heavy tax burden of the hometown people, a young man named Dou Dan from Zhongxinzhen, practiced archery and horsemanship at foot of Wufeng Mountain day and night. Finally, he got the first prize in the horse racing competition. In order to commemorate Duan, people respect him as mountain god after he has passed away .This legend direct impacted holy mountain sacrificial ceremony of the village . In the Tibetan holy mountain worship ceremony, its main activities are : pilgrimage, walking around holy mountain, hanging prayer flags, burning aromatic plants, releasing religious flags , crawling and chanting.

In the middle of Wufeng mountain there is a temple which worshiped Nazhuoudan's statue and all the wall painting is story of the Doudan mainly. Outside of the temple, there are Platform for burning aromatic plants and cylindrical wall. In the first day and 15th of each month there is small sacrificial ceremony for holy mountain. People burn aromatic plants chant and hang prayer flags according to everyone's time and conditions. Because Nazhududan is legendary hero of Zhongxinzhen. In his story description, he is a superb equestrian rider. So in honor of Nazhududan solving people's suffering and getting the favor of holy mountain through the superb riding skills, each year, the fifth day of the May according to lunar calendar, there was a big horse racing sacrificial ceremony at the foot of Wufeng Mountain, which also became the most important sacrifice ritual in Five Phoenix Mountain worship. In the fifth day of Lunar May each year, the villagers around Wufeng Mountain area have to participate in the holy mountain worship ceremony by pitching tents at foot of mountain and preparing the food which can eat about three days. In the morning of fifth day in May, people dressed up and burn aromatic plant in the Wufeng Mountain. People light butter lamps in the temple, and severed god with fruits, cakes and others. Before the horse racing started, monks need to chant for Holy Mountain and pray for smooth conduct of race. In the Wufeng mountain, the main chanting is that Lord Dudan's heroic deeds. The noble character of the gods is respected by people, and it has become the pursuit of quality in real life. Because of the mountain's interests, and the impact of the role and form of ritual activities. Show that people want to get a good impression of God, so as to produce a dialogue, and to obtain the desire to meet. People think, in horse racing to obtain a good ranking, can get holy mountain and gods’ blessing, remove karma catastrophe, get lucky opportunity. Horse racing items mainly including speed competition, horse riding and archery competition, skill competition. During the three days of horse racing festival, all of the villagers participated in the ritual activities. People dress up in festive costumes, to participate in rituals of the Wufeng mountain,sing songs and dance at foot of mountain. To a large extent, serious holy mountain worship becomes a cheerful village festival, which creates a cultural entertainment atmosphere under the dominant of sacrifice ceremony. Creating a new form of dance, song lyrics in the rites, and further enrich the village culture. Holy mountain sacrificial ceremony, starting from the most primitive desire, but with the perfection of the social development, people's production and life in deepening the cognition of the nature, and burst out of the new features, has become the promoter of the development of village culture. First, worship of Holy Mountain maintains the public security of village. Villagers gathered together during the ritual activities, it is a deterrent to the external forces, and it also security checks within the village. Second, such ceremony strengthens the collective identity of the village. Villagers from same area blessed by the same holy mountain, regardless of genetic relationships, affirmed the mutual recognition of villagers. Third, the ritual of Wufeng Mountain worship embodies the organic combination of holy mountain worship ceremonies and folk sports. In northwest Tibetan holy mountain worship system, Kawagebo is not only the representative of the regional holy mountain in the northwest of Yunnan Province, but also has a far reaching impact in whole Tibetan area. However, in a small area, the village corresponding holy mountain still plays an important role in social cohesion. Taking Wufeng Mountain worship as an example, the following and development of the horse racing festival has played an important role in the village collective identity and cultural development.

The Lhasa Government Workshop the ‘Dod zhol dpal ‘khyil 1642-2010 and the bzo khang system

John Clarke

Drawing on oral evidence from 20th century craftsman this paper examines the ‘guild workshop’ or bzo khang system instituted by the 5th Dalai Lama soon after his assumption of power in 1642 and which continued, with modifications until 1959. There was a heavy involvement of Newar workers in the first two centuries of its existence which the consciously departed from in order to create a more purely ‘Tibetan’ institution. The quasi guild system and its relationship to freelance workers and their tax obligations is outlined. While the ‘Dod zhol dpal ‘khyil or government workshop situated in the village of Zhol at the foot of the housed the bzo khangs or workshops of the metalworkers, woodcarvers and clay statue makers, other craftsmen, most notably the painters and tailors worked elsewhere. Possible and definite still surviving metalwork commissions of the workshop are discussed, these range from musical instruments and vessels to architectural elements. The more recent history of the metalworkers bzo khang is related.

Contextualizing the Milieu of the Sa skya ’bag mo in 17th-20th Century Tibet.

Sara Conrad

The Sa skya ’bag mo (customarily translated as “witch” or “witches”) are a minor class of deities specific to the Sa skya school of Tibetan Buddhism. This paper aims to contextualize the milieu of the Sa skya ’bag mo, starting from and going beyond Pema Wangdu’s 1995 article in G. yum tsho. The Journal of Tibetan Women’s Studies, published by the Amnye Machen Institute entitled, “Sa skya’i ’bag mo zhes pa byung tshul lo rgyus ngag rgyun du chags pa ‘ga’ ‘zhig,” which chronicles the oral history of the Sa skya ’bag mo. The aforementioned text outlines key figures, chapels, places, and rituals that this paper will link to other Sa skya sources, thus constructing context for the Sa skya ’bag mo. This paper will chronicle the references to the Sa skya ’bag mo as they emerge in other Sa skya pa sources such as the Sa skya gdung rabs chen mo. This paper will focus predominantly on the primary Sa skya ’bag mo who are known in the oral traditions as: Nam mkha’ sgrol ma and Shangs mo Rdo rje bu khrid. Rab ‘byams pa bsod nams ‘od zer, the teaching master of the 23rd Sa skya khri chen Sngags ‘chang kun dga’ rin chen is considered the first ’bag mo in the oral tradition. It is uncertain why he was tied to a pillar and executed with arrows, but the oral history asserts while he bled out, he recited an incantation that sealed his fate to be reborn as the first ’bag mo. In her later emanation, Nam mkha’ sgrol ma became the consort of Sgra chen mthu stobs dbang phyug who is said to have fileted her face at her death and made a mask out of it. The mask is believed to dwell in a temple in Gcung yul chen and is taken out every year when the Sa skya mdos chen ritual is performed. Shangs mo Rdo rje bu khrid, the second ’bag mo, was said to have been summoned from the region of Sgo skyid in Shangs by a high-ranking Sa skya pa, and appointed to the entourage of Srid skyid. Shangs mo Rdo rje bu khrid is presumed to serve the hierarchies of Sa skya and protects them against anyone who might do harm to a Sa skya pa. She is said to have served the 27th Sa skya khri chen Kun dga‘ bsod nams as well as the 40th Sa skya khri chen Drag shul ‘phrin las rin chen in her subsequent emanations. Ngag dbang kun dga’ rin chen is said to have performed a gsol kha at Shangs mo rdjo rje bu khrid’s place of residence where smoke rose from the empty home at the time he performed this particular ritual. Pema Wangdu briefly mentions other ’bag mo in his collection of oral histories, but gives very little details other than the names. Wangdu declared one Yar ‘brog rmo’o lags to be the last known ’bag mo emanation bound by Ngag dbang mthu stobs dbang phyug in the 20th century. These names will be considered in this paper in order to understand more recent texts on ’bag mo. Working contextually, this paper will elaborate on the names and places in Pema Wangdu’s description of the oral history of the Sa skya ’bag mo in order to see when and how these figures appear in written history. In addition, it is said that when Nam mkha’ sgrol ma and Shangs mo Rdo rje bu khrid escaped the control of the Sa skya; the sectarian leaders directed governmental warnings to the office of the Dalai Lama. This paper will consider the existence of analogous correspondences, in order to understand how official discourses regarding these figures were produced. Finally, as it is the objective of the panel to give voice to women who have played a crucial role in the political and cultural history of modern Tibet, this paper will additionally take into consideration: local stories, legends, and first-hand accounts of Sa skya ’bag mo as they play a role in modern oral narratives. Interviews and accounts will be collected and presented on how modern Tibetans have heard about and discuss ’bag mo. Even today young Tibetans are warned of the presence of ’bag mo. Obviously these figures still have a place in modern Tibetan beliefs and lore.

Bhikṣu Mahādeva, the Dog in between Humans and the Bridge Consisting of Only One Beam: Imagery in the Normative Writings of Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas

Gabriele Coura

Cognitive linguists maintain that metaphor is a phenomenon not limited to written or spoken language, but starting much earlier when we are forming thoughts, and that both the thought-based conceptual metaphor and its figurative meaning expressed in language may either vary over time and cultures, or be universally valid. In a wider sense, the same holds true for any kind of imagery – stories, proverbial sayings, similes, metonymies and other tropes. These different types of figurative meanings based on conceptual metaphors are also an integral part of the Tibetan language, both in its oral and its written form. In Tibetan literature, their use becomes more and more frequent over the centuries. Their origins can be traced back to two main sources: Tibetan folk lore and Indian Buddhist writings. Imagery in Tibetan literature has already been researched in the context of the Ge sar epic and other folk literature, as well as in the fictional writings of contemporary authors. In my paper, I will widen the perspective toward some other literary genres, drawing on preliminary results of my dissertation project „Kong sprul Blo gros mtha' yas (Kongtrul Lödrö Tayé) on the Education of Buddhist Practitioners in the Correct View, Meditation and Conduct: A Contribution to the Intra- and Interreligious Comparison of in Pre-Modern Tibet”. The project aims at contributing toward a better understanding of Tibetan Buddhist monasticism, its underlying norms, and its similarities and differences with other forms of monastic life. The thesis focuses on education in a monastic context. This term can be understood in two ways: on the one hand, in the sense of German “Erziehung”, i.e. making a person behave in a way that is considered appropriate, and on the other hand, in the sense of German “Ausbildung”, i.e. the transmission of knowledge on one or several subjects. In both cases, what happens in the process of education is the transmission of norms. Moreover, we can distinguish between what is being transmitted, i.e. the topics, and how it is transmitted, i.e. the strategies or tools of education. Imagery belongs to the latter area – the teacher may for example use images in order to elucidate the abstract through the concrete, thus enhancing the students’ understanding, or in order to boost their motivation to adopt the desired attitude, practice or conduct. I will attempt to determine the characteristics of these images and the function they fullfil for monastic education based on the following research questions: Which topics are illustrated by means of an image? The majority of cases I have come across so far serves one of the following purposes: pointing out the nature of mind, and stabilizing the monastic community. Are there universal figurative meanings? For example, in the Shes bya mdzod we find the wild horse of mind (sems kyi rta rgod) being tamed by the good bridle (srab bzang po) of training in ethics. The English verbs “to rein” and “to bridle” and the German verb “zügeln” are used in an identical figurative sense. Are there culture-specific figurative meanings? If yes, which particular characteristics constitute their Tibetan-ness? In the case of stories, frequently the person that adheres to the norms gets rewarded, and/or the one who does not gets punished. Which pedagogical strategy is predominant – reward or punishment? My research is based on a variety of texts and text passages that perform a normative function, both from Kong sprul’s rGya chen bka’ mdzod and Shes bya mdzod. They cover different genres, e.g. bca’ yig, bslab bya, sdom bshags, dris lan etc. Based on the answers to the above research questions extracted from this textual basis, I will argue that the combination of the concrete and the abstract that characterizes imagery is supportive, in some cases even indispensable, for any kind of monastic education.

Mothers and Medicine Buddhas: Young Women Amchi from Northern Nepal

Sienna Radha Craig

Despite the exponential growth of scholarship on Tibetan medicine in recent years, the place of women in the history of Sowa Rigpa has been limited, and has tended to focus on women doctors of prominence (Adams 1998, Byams’-pa ‘Phrin-las 2000, Tsering 2005). The exceptional contributions to studies of women and gender in relation to Tibetan medicine in Hofer and Fjeld’s edited collection in Asian Medicine (2010-11), Hofer’s (2011) work on nuns trained in medicine in Central Tibet, and Pordié and Blaikie’s (2014) discussion of the life-work of a female exile Tibetan physician who has devoted much of her career to educating Ladakhi amchi notwithstanding, relatively little attention has been paid to experiences of a new generation of female Tibetan medical practitioners, particularly in the greater Himalayan region where, until this current generation, the practice remained entirely dominated by men. This paper focuses on the lives of two culturally Tibetan women from northern Nepal, each of whom claim connections to a medical lineage (sman gyi rgyud) but who have pursued training as physicians through institutional and apprenticeship-based forms of knowledge transmission. Both successfully completed their training, but only one remains an active practitioner. This individual splits her time seasonally between teaching and practicing medicine in her rural mountain home and urban Nepal. The other woman has migrated to the United States, where she works as a childcare provider; she practices medicine only on occasion, when called upon to do so by fellow community members. Both have recently become wives and mothers. These young women struggle to balance traditionally gendered expectations of what it means to be a wife and mother against their socioeconomic needs and personal desires to work outside the home. These dynamics mark distinct shifts in subjectivity when compared to their own mothers, at times producing family tension. And, as these young women have navigated their own direct experiences of pregnancy and childbirth, they have come up against the limits of what their Tibetan medical education has taught them about women’s health. In considering their parallel personal experiences and divergent professional trajectories, I explore how these women’s stories are emblematic of a new cycle of enduring gendered tensions about “women’s” work in the context of healing professions, and in relation to the role and status of women in Tibetan societies.

Sorcerer of the Iron Castle: The Obscure Life of Blo bzang bstan pa rab rgyas (c. 1646–1721), the First Brag dkar Sngags rams pa of A mdo

Bryan Cuevas

Blo bzang bstan pa rab rgyas (c. 1646-1721) was first in the line of the Brag dkar Sngags rams pa incarnates seated at Rong po Dgon chen in Reb kong. He was born in Brag dkar and spent his youth and early career at the hermitage of Bkra shis ’kyil under the tutelage of its founder, the influential Shar Skal ldan rgya mtsho (1607-1677). At the age of 30 he traveled to Lhasa and trained for nine years at the Dge lugs pa tantric college of Rgyud smad where he developed a reputation as a skilled sorcerer and exorcist. In this capacity he was several times called upon to perform rituals for the protection of the Lhasa government. Recognized as the of the infamous sorcerer Rva lo tsā ba Rdo rje grags, he was renowned as a masterful practitioner of the fierce rites of Vajrabhairava, especially the cycle of rituals known as Lcags mkhar chen mo (Great Iron Castle), which among other forceful practices included special techniques for the suppression of the life-threatening sri demons. His writings are contained in a rare two- volume set of blockprints produced in 1949 at Rong bo Dgon chen and recently made available through the TBRC. In this paper, I introduce and examine the largely neglected life and work of this remarkable figure who flourished during a period of great transition in Amdo.

Deconstructing and reconstructing tradition: Good Manufacturing Practices and the Tibetan Medicine Industry in China, 2001-2014

Mingji Cuomu

This article explores the impact of the implementation of modern pharmaceutical governance methods, specifically Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) upon the production of Tibetan medicines in China. GMP is a system of modern pharmaceutical regulation aimed at ensuring the safety and efficacy of drug production. The introduction of GMP to Tibetan medicine stands as a symbol for the industrialization of Tibetan medicine in Tibet. I argue in this article the introduction of GMP is an important part of a continuous and long-term modernization phenomenon. I therefore started this research by looking into the broader social and cultural transformation processes effecting Tibetan medicine as a whole prior to the implementation of GMP, which helped me to place the impact of GMP in recent historical and social context. I examine the more specific impact of GMP implementation on Tibetan medicine in terms of the overall compatibility of the ideologies underpinning these two systems for determining what 'good' manufacturing entails. I ethnographically examine the attitudes of practitioners which are reflected in their narratives about GMP, along with illustrations of local professionals' engagement at different stages of implementation. These points of evidence describe the advantages and problems prompted by integrating GMP into Tibetan medicine production.

Taste, Post-digestive Taste and Potency in Tibetan Medical Treatises

Olaf Czaja

It is well-known that taste (ro), post-digestive taste (zhu rjes) and potency (nus pa) are fundamental concepts of great importance in Tibetan medicine. This is also reflected in written sources on this topic composed by Tibetan authors in the past. This paper is meant as an initial study that will enquire what they had to say on this subject. The famous Rgyud bzhi of G.yu thog Yon tan mgon po will be taken as a starting point of this subject. It will be discussed how he presented his view and how later commentators explained it. In particular, it will examine the treatises authored by Ye shes gzungs, Rnam rgyal grags pa bzang po (1395–1475), Mnyam nyid rdo rje (1439–1475), Skyem pa Tshe dbang (b. 1524?), Blo gros rgyal po (b. 1509), Bsod nams ye shes rgyal mtshan (b. 15th cent.), Mi pham Dge legs rnam rgyal (1618–1685), Blo bzang chos grags (1638– 1710), Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho (1653–1705), Gling sman Bkra shis ’bum (b. 1726), Rin chen ’od zer (19th cent.) and others. It will address in which issues they agreed and disagreed and therefore how the view on the above-mentioned concepts developed in the past.

Reading the Body Mandala Debate as Bodily Discourse: Knowing the Body Through a Network of Fifteenth-Century Tibetan Texts

Rae Erin Dachille-Hey

Buddhist texts perpetually remind readers to realize the pervasive nature of suffering by reflecting upon the impermanent and even putrid nature of the human form. However, they also proclaim birth in a human body to be the ideal condition for liberating oneself from that suffering. How can the body be both a tool for transcendence and an obstacle to be overcome? My dissertation was motivated by questions surrounding the paradoxical status of the human body as limitation and potentiality as reflected in visual and textual representations of Himalayan ritual life. This paper reveals attitudes toward the body uncovered through that close study and translation of a polemical encounter regarding a bodily-oriented ritual practice. It also asks how we might best approach representations of the body within ritual, polemical, and tantric exegetical genres of Tibetan literature. Finally, it proposes some ways of introducing such technical and esoteric sources into the broader study of bodily discourses. Within tantric Buddhism, the body mandala is a ritual process of imagining parts of the human body as parts of the mandala, a cosmic palace inhabited by buddhas and attendant deities. In examining a network of texts by scholar-monks Mkhas grub rje (1385-1438) and Ngorchen Kun dga' bzang po (1382-1456) concerning body mandala, my dissertation brings to light complex attitudes towards the role of the body in tantric practice and contextualizes esoteric conceptions of the body in terms of fifteenth- century Tibet’s larger social, religious, and political dynamics. The paper begins by evaluating body mandala as a ritual discourse for knowing the body through technologies of mapping and inscription. As JZ Smith reminds us, “Map is not territory.” Mapping and inscribing the body through ritual acts of imagination are technologies for controlling it, harnessing its power, and controlling its borders. Controversies over how best to locate deities in or upon the body may be read as attempts to pin down and demarcate its vital points, its sites of strength and vulnerability. Tantric discourses on the body map and inscribe its more elusive aspects as the most powerful sites of ritual action. Like medical discourses, they often focus upon the capacities and dimensions of body not visible to the naked eye. A degree of expertise is required to truly know the body. In the tantric context, we often us the term “subtle body” to refer the body as defined by these invisible structures and processes. Perhaps more appropriately termed “vajra body,” this is the body realized exclusively by the advanced tantric practitioner through sustained ritual practice. The body mandala debate engages with the relationship between the ordinary and “subtle” aspects of the body and introduces complex issues surrounding its role as a support [rten] for ritual practice. It also promotes this particular ritual technology as unique in its ability to “pierce to the pith of the body” [lus la gnad du bsnun], to unlock its most potent and essential capacities. Finally, it suggests some distinctions between Ngor chen’s and Mkhas grub perspectives on the body’s role in realizing soteriological goals. Next, the paper addresses the polemical aspects of the body mandala debate. In particular, it examines how tantric ritual uses of the body provided a context for challenging the relationship between competing approaches to Buddhist theory and practice current in fifteenth-century Tibet. Why is the body mandala debate important, and how much does it actually have to do with the body? In the process of interpreting the body mandala debate, the body is revealed as site for experimenting with the boundaries of tantric exegesis. Through the technical details of the mechanics of visualization and commentarial method, authorial and institutional identities are concretized, authenticated and reinvented. The human body provides the arena for this debate. In the process, corporeality and textuality are revealed to be parallel sites within the meaning-making process. Having considered the ritual, polemical, and tantric exegetical dimensions of the representations of the body in the body mandala debate, the paper concludes by reflecting upon methods for reading these texts within a broader field of bodily discourses and histories. Drawing upon the works of theorists such as Catherine Bell, Michael Foucault, and Judith Butler in dialogue with the contributions of Ngor chen and Mkhas grub, it presents possibilities for evaluating the body in a new light. These possibilities include the body as ritual instrument and agent, as “cultural text,” as a fluctuating and paradoxical object of knowledge, and as an “explanatory continuum” providing insight into the nature of the mind.

Gyalrong Between the Qing and Tibetan Worlds in the 18th Century

Tenzin Jinba

Many scholars have studied the causes and consequences of the two Jinchuan Campaigns waged by Emperor Qianlong against the Gyalrong chieftains in the 18th Century. However, due to the lack of the Tibetan source or the knowledge of Gyalrong indigenous history and society, the contexts in which these campaigns occurred have not been fully explored. Deriving from new findings from/on Gyalrong, this paper will resituate the campaigns and the contemporaneous politics and religious culture of Gyalrong politics within the broader frame of Qing frontier policy. Throughout, I highlight the concerns and interests of Gyalrong chieftains as well as their internal politics. I will argue that such remapped sociopolitical contexts will not only help interpret the reason why the Qing waged such expensive wars but also speak to the importance of the inadequately studied Gyalrong history in reexamining the Qing- (Central) Tibetan dynamics.

The Challenges of Conservation and Development in the Sacred Landscape of Demojong in West Sikkim

Karubaki Datta Sarkar

Landscapes can be defined as the ensemble of physical and cultural features connected to each other which shape the character and the form of a territory. The cultural features of a landscape are related to human presence and activity that could often change and transform its space or modify the aspect of that natural space. A landscape becomes sacred when it becomes invested with meaning. Mountains, rivers, springs and rocks become sacred by being associated with particular myths, heroes and deities. Sacred spaces confer to the landscape a specific holiness insuring the divine protection for the whole community. Demojong in West Sikkim is regarded as a sacred landscape as per Tibetan/Sikkimese worldview. Situated below the Mt. Kanchanjungha, it is believed to have been blessed by Guru Padmasambhava , who, according to Tibetan mythology, set his foot on top of the peak Kanchanjungha when he came in search of the sacred land of Sikkim. He trekked all the way down from the peak to the sub- tropical region below and this region became known as the Demojong. Qualities of sacredness are attached to all the mountain peaks, hills, rivers, lakes, caves, and rocks of the region. It is viewed as the land of happiness and also the abode of several divinities. Guru Rimpioche, as Padmasambhava is widely known, is believed to have praised Demojong in many literature and treasure texts. It is further believed that whatever teachings of Buddha were translated in Tibet are hidden in this land and many such teachings are yet to be discovered from the sacred land of Demojong. The uniqueness of this heritage site is its holism and the interconnection between the soil, water, biota and visible water bodies – river and lake systems and also the physical monuments such as the monasteries. The four most important sacted features are the Rathong-chu- the river, Khechipalri – the lake and Pemionchi and Tashiding – the monasteries. Religious ceremonies are performed annually in the monasteries in presence of hundreds of pilgrims. It is also the place where the history of Sikkim was made with the consecration of the firsat Chogyal of Sikkim in 1642. The region of Demojong is a hot spot zone of bio diversity within the Eastern Himalayas. It is a part of Kanchanjungha Bio sphere that covers a much larger area of 36% of the total Geographical area of Sikkim. About 30% of the West district of Sikkim falls within this Kanchanjungha Bio sphere. Due to different altitudes, climatic conditions range from warmer foothills to freezing cold in the Northern hills. Land of rhododendrons and orchids, ferns and allies, Sikkim also houses species of birds, mammals, fishes and reptiles. About 26% of the total plant wealth of Indian sub continent are found in Sikkim. The state also houses about 500 species of medicinal plants. The undisturbed forests of Demojong are storehouses of many of those species. Almost all the sacred sites from other parts of the world attract human intervention for several reasons. Thanks to the sanctity attached to the sites and taboos maintained by local population, these sites are often saved from extinction. Similar has been the experience in Demojong. One Hydel Power Project was proposed on the Rathong chu in 1990s that invoked a major adverse reaction from the Buddhist communities of Sikkim, so much so that the project had to be eventually abandoned. Belief goes that any act of disturbing the protecting deities through cutting of hillsides, felling of trees and blasting of rocks will have ire consequences for the state as a whole and nation will suffer from natural calamities and general disharmony. The protest against the effort finally encouraged the government to bring in a legislation to protect the sacred sites of the state in 2001. However, similar projects are underway again. Number of tourists has also increased manifold over the last few years, the Khecipalri lake and Pemionchi monastery being the favourite tourist destinations. Since tourism has a greater potential to alleviate poverty and generate income, the state encourages tourism as a potential tool of development. This in its turn could affect the pristine and undisturbed environment of the sacred sites. The paper proposes to illustrate the foundations of sacredness of the region, highlight its bio cultural diversity and then go into the government policy of conservation of the same. Demojong gives cultural identity to the state of Sikkim and the basic objective of the paper is to examine how the state policy makes a balance between preservation of this cultural heritage and the needs of development through a properly managed policy of sustainable development and environmental conservation.

Notes on the local Tibetan literary market in late 2000s Amdo

Xénia de Heering

Numerous studies have been devoted to the development of modern Tibetan literature from the perspectives of literary history and criticism. Scholars have started exploring the field, but studies of the practical and commercial aspects of the Tibetan language publishing industry in the PRC remain rare. This paper provides a preliminary description of the Tibetan language literary market as experienced by writers and readers in late 2000s Amdo. It describes publication venues, both State-controlled minority nationalities publishing houses and technically illegal alternatives in the private sector, available to authors based in Xining and a few surrounding Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures. At the other end of the publishing process, it describes how readers access published works, in Xinhua or privately-run Tibetan bookshops in Amdo. Given the frequency of counterfeit editions it is difficult to ascertain exact print runs for any given successful book. The description of book publication and distribution networks will allow to shed light on the many actors of the book trade, ranging from relatively large businesses in Xining such as the famous “1+1” bookshop to smaller shops in rural areas that sell books among other goods. The presentation, drawing inspiration from studies in book history, focuses on uses of the printed word (books and journals), leaving aside online publishing and reading practices. It is based on 20 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Xining and TAPs of Qinghai and Gansu between 2008 and 2012. It also draws on the translation and analysis of official Chinese documents (laws and regulations, work reports, etc.).

Sems nad, spirits and psychosis: an examination of smyo nad (‘madness’) in the Tibetan context

Susannah Deane

Previous research on the topic of mental illness (Tib.: sems nad) in the Tibetan context has predominantly focused on the Tibetan category of ‘rlung’ – ‘wind’ – illnesses (see, for example, research by Epstein and Topgay 1982, and Jacobson 2002, 2007) and explorations of the twelfth-century Tibetan medical text, the rGyud bzhi. There has been little research to date on the category of ‘madness’, with the Tibetan term ‘smyo nad’ used to describe both a severe mental illness and also the state of a highly-realised Tibetan Buddhist tantric practitioner – the bla ma smyon pa (‘saintly madman’), who is common figure in Tibetan Buddhism – described in works by Ardussi and Epstein (1978) and Trungpa (1982) amongst others. The rather limited previous research on Tibetan medical notions of ‘madness’ as an illness has predominantly focused on explorations of the rGyud bzhi, and its sections on spirit causation (see, for example, Clifford 1984 book, entitled The diamond healing: Tibetan Buddhist medicine and psychiatry). In terms of ethnographic research, following his exploration of Tibetan medicine practice in clinics in both Nepal and the UK, Millard (2007) has drawn some tentative comparisons between some of the Tibetan and biomedical categories of mental illness, including the Tibetan diagnosis of smyo nad. He has suggested that there are some similarities evident between the Tibetan smyo nad and the biomedical psychosis. However, there has been little research on this condition so far. Findings from my doctoral research, conducted within a Tibetan exile community in Darjeeling, north east India, suggest that for many Tibetans, there is often a significant focus on religious explanations and practices in relation to mental illness. This was particularly true for cases of smyo nad, where I found causative explanations often focused on factors such as problematic or potentially ‘dangerous’ religious practices, or the relationship between the afflicted individual and a particular ’jig rten pa (unenlightened deity). In terms of smyo nad as an illness, we have Tibetan textual descriptions of ‘madness caused by spirits’ (Tib.: smyo byed kyi gdon) in the rGyud bzhi, described by Clifford (1984). However, findings from my ethnographic fieldwork in Darjeeling suggest, in fact, that local deities such as btsan and rgyal po may be more frequently implicated in the causation of madness than the lower level gdon described by Clifford. Here, Tibetan Buddhist concepts such as ‘attachment’ and dbang thang (‘spiritual power’) were often referenced within discussions on the dangers of such ‘worldly’ deities. Indeed, this condition was often linked to religious experiences, such as spirit afflictions, ritual and/or possession practices, and ‘incorrect’ tantric practice, alongside explanations related to the three bodily ‘humours’ or ‘faults’ delineated in the Tibetan medical system, and other causative and/or contributory factors such as karma and ‘luck’. In cases like this, suggested treatments included religious activities such as the receiving of blessings from monastic practitioners, rituals conducted by monastic ritual specialists or spirit-mediums, and the reparation of relationships with the deity/deities involved. With Tibetan medical theory deriving from both tantric theory and amongst other influences, it is perhaps unsurprising that a number of Tibetan delineations of ‘health’ and ‘illness’ are to a large extent influenced by Buddhist concepts of the mind and body, particularly in relation to mental health. What is equally interesting, however, is how other, what might be termed more ‘folk-religious’ concepts, such as those related to deities and their relationship to the local community, are also often implicated in explanations of mental health, ill-health and madness. This paper, based upon findings from ethnographic research conducted within a Tibetan exile community in Darjeeling, north east India during 2011 and 2012, uses a number of case studies to examine notions of the causation of smyo nad in the Tibetan context. It will examine how contemporary notions of smyo nad are related to cultural, religious and medical concepts in the Tibetan context, and investigate how religious and medical understandings of madness are reflected in health-seeking behaviours within contemporary Tibetan communities.

Rivalry and Identity: Tibetan and Chinese Artists in Early 17th Century Amdo

Karl Debreczeny

A brief account dated 1611 of local Tibetan artists of Seng ge gshong Village and Chinese artists working side-by-side in the building and ornamenting of a monastery in Qinghai, Gro tshang dgon, can be found in a yearly chronicle of Reb gong history, the Reb gong rus mdzod lta ba mkha’ khyab phyogs bral. After some disparaging remarks between Tibetan and Chinese artists a competition ensues as they strive to outdo each other in various arts such as goldsmithing, sculpting, and painting. This is not only a fascinating account of ethnic rivalry between two artistic communities in the early 17th century, but also an interesting account of questions of identity along the Sino-Tibetan border. Reb gong is a famous center of Tibetan artists in Amdo and known to this day for a style that draws heavily on Chinese painting. Linguistically the people of the Wutun area also speak a Tibetan dialect heavily influenced by Chinese, including many Chinese loanwords, lending to confusion regarding the local artists’ language, and therefore identity. The identity of this Gro tshang Monastery, where Tibetan and Chinese artists are employed simultaneously in the same construction project, has also been confused historically. It appears to be Gro tshang dgon bkra shis lhun po (Yaocaotaisi 藥草台寺), located in Shipogou Village 石坡溝村, originally built as a satellite of its once powerful namesake Gro tshang rdo rje ’chang (Qutansi 瞿曇).

Archaeological Ladakh: contribution of recent discoveries to redefining the history of a key region between Pamir and the Himalayas

Quentin Devers

The before the 17th century is mainly fragmentary. Historical documents are rare and incomplete. Archaeological remains represent by far the most abundant material to approach the region’s past. Yet, little to no research has been carried out on these until recently. The usual image we have of Ladakh is that it is a ‘Little Tibet’, with strong Tibetan and Buddhist influences. This impression was introduced by the first explorers who travelled in the area, and was largely supported by the handful of documents and of archaeological sites that were published. Architectural remains, in Ladakh, are numerous and, overall, well preserved. They form an ideal corpus for study, using the methods developed by the discipline of archaeology of buildings. These are based on the analysis of elevations and do not require excavations to be carried out. Studying remains in such a way reveals a diversity of features that point to a region with a wide variety of influences, with complex territorial dynamics and with a turbulent history. Noticing these, the author has conducted comprehensive surveys throughout Ladakh, in the course of which he single-handily covered over five hundred archaeological sites. In this presentation, we will combine this broad field research with recent discoveries made in complementary domains such as wall paintings, epigraphy and rock art, so as to fill some of the numerous gaps left in the history of the country. Ladakh appears, for instance, to have been unified only very late in time, in the mid-16th century. Prior to that, it was a mosaic of small kingdoms, the extent and durability of which constantly changed. The analysis of forts and fortified settlements further leads to a better understanding of the nature of the threats faced by Ladakhis in the past, as well as of the important evolution that took place in warfare around the time of the rise of the Namgyal dynasty. The observation of material remains also highlights a wide variety of influences in the region, in particular from the Central Asian and Turkic worlds. ‘Little Tibet’ is only one aspect of Ladakh: the region can just as much be seen as a ‘Little Turkestan’, a ‘Little Dardistan’ and of course a ‘Little ’ – Maryul and Ladakh being not synonymous, they designate different entities. The location of the remains moreover points to a durable divide between Upper and Lower Ladakh, a critical element to consider in order to understand the pre-Namgyal history of the country. The number and the geographical configuration of the sites reminds us that far from being obstacles cutting the region off from the rest of the world, the high mountains of Ladakh have since time immemorial represented fantastic corridors travelled by merchants and armies from varied origins. Tibetans, Turks, Mongols, Kashmiris and hordes of bandits of all kinds fought battles in these lands, in a struggle to control the prosperous trade routes and precious resources such as gold, musk and pashmina. Remains, in particular fortifications, are at the heart of this Ladakh at the crossroads. Their study allows for a better understanding of the territorial organization of the region and of past trade routes through the identification, for instance, of ancient population centers and protected itineraries. In this presentation, we will review archaeological sites in chronological order in order to understand the evolution of the region. We will define three main periods for Ladakhi history – Protohistory, early historical kingdoms and the Namgyal dynasty. For each of these, we will look at the specificities of territorial organization and political division, at the economic specialization of separate areas, at warfare strategies developed in reaction to changing threats, at the geographical and topographical development of Buddhism, and at trade route patterns. As a conclusion, we will draw an outline of the key elements through which one can understand better the non-written history of the country, and how the region went from being known as Maryul to being called Ladakh.

A Lama Under Tutelage: Regent Ngawang Tshültrim as Tutor to the Eight Dalai Lama

William K. Dewey

Tibet’s Ganden Palace regime was theoretically ruled by the Dalai Lama, but regents dominated nearly continuously from 1757-1895. In theory the Dalai Lama was to take the throne when he reached about the age of 18, while meanwhile a regent (rgyal tshab) would rule in his place. However, regents dominated from the Ninth through the Twelfth Dalai Lamas (whose lives span 1805 to 1875) because these Dalai Lamas died before coming of age, or shortly afterward. The regents’ dominance begins during the reign of the Eighth Dalai Lama (1758-1804), who did live to adulthood but was mostly kept away from political power. My paper focuses on Ngawang Tshültrim, who was appointed regent in the key transition period around the time of the Eighth Dalai Lama’s coming of age. His Tibetan biographies describe him as holding three key offices: the regency, the Throne of Ganden (), and tutor of the Dalai Lama. The time of the Ngawang Tshültrim’s appointment, following the death of the regent Demo Rinpoché in 1777, was a time of decisions. The Eighth Dalai Lama was 19 when the regent was appointed, so it was close to the age when he was formally expected to take power. But both the Qing and the regents had their own reasons for thwarting this. Ngawang Tsultrim's biography tells us that the emperor and ambans wished to appoint a regent because the Dalai Lama was young, and that still needed to “learn and tantra.” At about the same time, the position of tutor to the Dalai Lama (yongs ‘dzin) became vacant, with the death of Ngawang Chödrak (1710-1778). The appointment of his replacement involved negotiation among many players, including the Qing emperor, the Panchen Lama, and the regent himself. My paper explores these negotiations. The emperor’s decision was to appoint the regent as head tutor. I will explore how the appointment of the new regent as tutor managed to keep the Dalai Lama from assuming the throne, ostensibly because he was focused on his studies. My paper also explores the content of the Dalai Lama's studies as detailed in Ngawang Tshültrim’s biographies. The education covered the classic Geluk topics as , , , and so forth, but it also included the secular Five Sciences. There is a tension here between the use of education as a political pretext, and the expectation that any Dalai Lama have scholarly competence. Many sources claim that the Dalai Lama was disinclined to rule and preferred to focus on the religious side of his duties, and the biographies partially confirm that judgment. Although the decision to appoint a regent and a tutor was not his, the biographies do try to portray the Dalai Lama as having a genuine interest in the curriculum, for instance in seeking further studies in valid cognition. After the Eighth Dalai Lama’s “tutelage” under the regent was finished and his studies complete, there were tentative moves to elevate him to power. British diplomats such as Saumel Turner indicate a certain level of intrigue involved in these decisions, portraying the regents as wanting to keep the Dalai Lama out of power, while the Panchen Lama asks the emperor to put him on the throne. The Dalai Lama was given the seals of office by the emperor in 1781, but apparently little changed. The tutorship still continued, lasting until the end of the regent’s term of office in 1786. His studies apparently over, the Dalai Lama was given more power at this point, the regent taking a new post in Beijing as preceptor of the emperor. But this release from tutelage, would not last, or reveal the Dalai Lama to be competent; after the disastrous Gurkha war (which is beyond the scope of this proposal) the Eighth Dalai Lama would soon again be placed under the command of a regent.

The ancient Tibetan game of dice, sho

Dawa Dhargye

Tibetans, especially the laity, have been entertaining themselves since time immemorial in a unique Tibetan game of race and gamble, Sho. It has been one of the best pastimes of Tibetan life, but due to import of Majang from the east and cards from the west, Sho is loosing its grounds in Tibetan aesthetic life. Being a lay subject, very little has been written about Sho and its origin. There is a popular belief that Sho existed in pre- Buddhist era. Some hold that the counting of dice numbers (1 to 12) in Sho, worded as “Chik, para , suge…. Jamo”—a very different manner from the in-vogue counting “Cig , gNyis, gSum ….. bCu gNyis”—might have something to do with its antiquity. In gTsang smyon He ru ka’s biography of Mi la ras pa, the first chapter revolves around the theme of a great game of Sho played between his grandfather Mi la rDo rje seng ge and a deceitful native. References to Sho appear in the biographies of Ma gcig Labs sgron and Drug pa Kun legs and in the epic Ge sar Gling drung, too. The game of Sho is not confined to race and gamble. Sho bshad (“dice-calls”), or descriptions of each dice number, is an integral part of the game. They are short humorous satires of praise, ridicule, invocation etc. recited—sort of prayingly—for the desired dice number to appear during each rolling. They add great aesthetic and cultural value to the game. In an era of feudalistic Tibet then, “dice-calls” served as a medium of expression of the commoners’ feelings. They therefore form a repository of rich unwritten Tibetan literature composed by mostly illiterate people, distinct to a particular region and time. Though it is game of luck, the dynamics of the game plan demands sharp intelligence on the part of the player. The game mostly played between three partners involves cautious moves in the form of “killing, blocking and alliance”.

Where is 'the heavenly pillar of Bongdzog (Bong rdzogs/tshogs)'? Exploring the social life of places and place names on the Kyirong/Rasuwa trans-Himalayan route

Hildegard Diemberger

Mapping place names in biographical and historical narratives against the background of the actual landscape can be a fascinating and revealing enterprise. Intrigued by the name Bong rdzogs linked to the mother of the Gung thang king Khri rnam rgyal lde (1422/1426?-1502) as mentioned in the biography of Chos kyi sgron ma, I tried to identify its location. It turned out that this name is connected to specific places and ancestral lineages in the Rasuwa area, including a fortress called 'the heavenly pillar of Bong rdzogs' (Bong rdzogs/tshogs gnam kyi ka ba), which appears also in the Gung thang rgyal rabs as established by the first king of Mang yul Gung thang Bum lde dgon Nag po. In what ways is this identification accurate? What does it tell us about political, kinship and trading relations along the Rasuwa sKyid grong route? Setting out from this example, I explore the methodological issues and the opportunities encountered when engaging in a cross-disciplinary approach to the identification of place names, and what this can offer in terms of understanding the social life of places.

Ecological Connotation of Tibetan Buddhism within Guo Xuebo’s Novels

Yan Ding

With continuous deterioration of global ecosystem, more and more literary works concerning ecology are extensively discussed and debated among the readers and critics alike globally. The close relationship and interaction between the Mongolia Shamanism and the ecological implication within several masterpieces of Xue-Bo GUO have been noticed and revealed. However, the influence of Tibetan Buddhism on the formation and expression of the ecological connotation within those works have foremost left unattended. By adopting the general literary study method of text analysis, close attention have been paid to analyze Xue-Bo GUO’s representative works in order to illustrate the effect of ecological wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism on the formation and expression of the ecological connotation within Mr. GUO’s representative works Text analyzing result of “Sand Fox”, “Sand Burial”, “Silver Fox” and “Wolf Child”, the most famous ecological masterpieces of Xue-Bo GUO, have shown the author has obtained a good understanding of the Tibetan Buddhism and close observation of desertification of Horqin Grassland. So that he can extend the concepts of cherishing life and equality of Tibetan Buddhism from mankind and any other animals who have feelings to grass, trees, mountains and rivers, those having no emotions in his works. Xue-Bo GUO also agrees on the well accepted ideas of ecology that proclaims all life forms can finally co- exist together and the eco-system can maintain if all life forms are treated equally. This fact resembles closely to the well-known concept of egalitarianism of Tibetan Buddhism characterized by the ideas of “all creatures are equal” and “worshipping nature”. Emphasizing on the symbiotic relationship between human and nature, as well as other living beings can be one of defining features of GUO’s works just mentioned. Moreover, Xue-Bo GUO also applied the Karma idea of Tibetan Buddhism in his works to explore the relationship between the desertification and mankind’s blindly exploitation of Horqin grassland. Narrations of animals’ repaying a favor to whom has offered help or revenging whom has caused harm are just mirrors reflecting the concepts of cause and effect, good and evil of the Karma idea. In summary, representative works of Xue-Bo GUO closely examined in the present study have shown the delicate effect of Tibetan Buddhism on the formation and expression of ecological idea of the author. The concepts of egalitarianism and Karma of Tibetan Buddhism have all been adopted in his way to explore sustaining ecological consciousness and self-redeem for human being. The approach of this study may introduce a good way to understand the ecological connotation concealed in Xue-Bo Guo’s novels. On The Life of the Madman of Ü

David DiValerio

Through years of meditation and more unconventional asceticism, the Kagyüpa Künga Zangpo (1458-1532) became renowned throughout the Tibetan Buddhist world as the Madman of Ü (dbus smyon). Our main source of information about the yogin is his biography (rnam thar), which was composed in two parts, in 1494 and 1537, by Nyukla Peṇchen Ngawang Drakpa and Lhatong Lotsāwa Shényen Namgyel. This presentation will address: the available editions and manuscripts of the Life; its authors; the formal and linguistic features of the text; the aspects of the text that are corroborated or challenged by other textual sources; the process of making a complete translation of the text (which will be published in September 2016); and how this biography compares to other better-known examples of the genre. The presentation will close with reflections on the important things about the Madman of Ü that we still seek to know.

“The Tibetan Scholarly Tradition”: Searching for a Locus, Constructing a Program

Thomas Doctor

In his Brave Wrong Views (log lta snying stobs) the contemporary Tibetan iconoclast, Tsawa Danyug (tsha ba mda' smyug), revolts against a Buddhism that he finds absurdly self-absorbed – priding itself of unique respect for rational thought and the objective nature of things, yet hopelessly lost in bizarre and mutually contradictory dogma that blatantly belie the facts of the world. While such rejection of religious thought and tradition might be expected in a communist pamphlet, the author of Brave Wrong Views does not seem to have any particular political agenda – apart from a general quest for integrity and freedom to think beyond dictated beliefs. Indeed, he is in a very concrete sense a “voice of the tradition,” for as a trained monastic scholar he works amongst the traditional categories of Tibetan Buddhist view and conduct, and his rejection of them all bears the marks of fervor and triumph that are so characteristic of much of traditional Tibetan polemical literature. At the same time, Tsawa Danyug’s commitment to human freedom in an imperfect, disenchanted world obviously rings in the key of the European Enlightenment and the experience of modernity. The case of Tsawa Danyug illustrates well how the presumed parties in the encounter that the present panel is meant to explore are becoming increasingly difficult to separate in practice. Another evidence of this predicament is the fact that a substantial amount of academics who study Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism declare themselves Buddhist and evince deep commitments to “the tradition.” In my paper I will seek to extrapolate the Buddhist tradition that Tsawa Danyug criticizes in his text, comparing it with contemporary representations of Buddhism as a freedom-loving, science-friendly, and anti-dogmatic form of humanist spirituality. Locating Buddhism under either of those two rubrics is of course an act of construction, and since such construction takes the form of a dichotomy, it is hard to conceive of a middle ground between the two poles. But what then to think of “the Tibetan Buddhist tradition”? Is it simply an idiosyncratic modern slogan that readily lends itself to various fanciful uses and abuses? Or might there be some essence that “the academics” can study and explain, and that “traditional Buddhist scholars” can adhere to and uphold? In my paper I will attempt to formulate steps towards a meaningful construction of “the Tibetan scholarly tradition.”

Identity and the globalisation of Tibetan Buddhism. On the expansion and cohesion of a trans-cultural religious network.

Thierry Dodin

The paper seeks to elucidate how Tibetan Buddhism could establish, or, in the case of its traditional regions of origin re-establish itself sustainably in very different socio-cultural settings across the globe, and develop forms adapted to these settings (‘glocalisations’) while remaining fairly coherent. The paper shows that adoption of Tibetan Buddhism can be understood as an identity process that consists of two moments: through a moment of identity adoption the adepts acknowledge Tibetan Buddhism as the appropriate spiritual path for their lives. This implies that prior to their encounter with Tibetan Buddhism they perceived themselves as seeking, more or less intensively, for a spiritual fulfillment, which they could not find in their socio-cultural contexts of origin. Through a moment of identity definition then, a creative process takes place in the course of which preoccupations which can be traced back to the socio-cultural of origin of the adepts are reintegrated, thus shaping specific forms of Tibetan Buddhism. In other words, professing Tibetan Buddhism would not appear to be a mere adoption of a culturally alien faith, but rather a phenomenon of its adaptation to the demands of individuals well anchored in their contexts of origin. That such adaptation is possible testifies that Tibetan Buddhism is a flexible spiritual system, that builds on a fairly universally appealing theology embedded in a corpus of rituals, and leaves the further definition of the spiritual identity of its new adepts to their perceived needs and their context specific demands.

Singing to Imperial Gods: A Ninth-Century Buddhist Prayer from Dunhuang

Lewis Doney

IOL Tib J 466/3 was found in the Mogao Library Cave near Dunhuang, closed in the early eleventh century, but its text was perhaps first written closer to the Tibetan imperial period and heartland. This prayer is at once devotional, historical, cosmological and local. Its middle section, set to melody, begins by paying homage to the imagined Indic pantheon of the time of the Buddha and his disciples. This part ends with offerings to the indigenous deities surrounding Tibetan centres of worship (such as the ’Phrul snang gTsug lag khang), veneration of the imperial preceptors of Tibet, and mention of Emperor Khri Srong lde brtsan himself (modelled after the great Indian dharmarājas). The prayer is written on the same paper, and in the same handwriting style, as the many copies of the Aparimitāyurnāma sūtra that were scribed under the reign of Emperor Khri gTsug lde brtsan (815–841) and shortly after his death. As such, the manuscript offers us imortant insights into the re-use of the yugs (“panels”) of paper, made and even pre-ruled for this massive sūtra-copying project, in line with previous analysis of similar manuscripts such as IOL Tib J 1746. In addition to Indic references and dhāraṇīs, the text includes archaic Tibetan concepts in the description of the “Great King,” (rgyal po chen po). In its depiction of gods and emperors, therefore, IOL Tib J 466/3 warrants comparison with earlier, imperial prayers such as the bSam yas Bell Inscription, the founding celebration of the “Temple of the Treaty” (gtsigs kyi gtsug lag khang) in De ga g.yu tshal, and the prayer to Glang dar ma, as part of a wider investigation of Old Tibetan devotional literature.

Why Tantric Tathāgatagarbha and Mantric Madhyamaka Would Have Made No Sense to Rong-zom-pa

Dorji Wangchuk

Although there is no evidence that the eleventh-century Tibetan scholar Rong-zom Chos-kyi-bzang-po knew the Ratnagotravibhāga, he must have known the Tathāgatagarbha theory from the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtric scriptures translated during the Period of Early Dissemination of Buddhism in Tibet and also from Tantric scriptures such as the *Guhyagarbhatantra where the term *sugatagarbha (which is semantically equitable with tathāgagarbha) occurs and upon which he comments. He seems to be, however, rather reticent about the theory and when he could not avoid commenting upon it, he seems to interpret it in the light of svayaṃbhūjñāna. This would be in sharp contrast to, for example, Dol-po-pa Shes-rab-rgyal-mtshan, who interprets svayaṃbhūjñāna in the light of tathāgagarbha. In this paper, I wish to take a closer look at how Rong-zom-pa interprets the tathāgatagarbha theory within a broader context of his Madhyamaka philosophy of Sarvadharmāpratiṣṭhānavāda, and also speculate why the concepts of Tantric Tathāgatagarbha and Mantric Madhyamaka (i.e. sNgags-kyi-dbu- ma) would have made no sense for his philosophical scheme.

Locating Resistance in Culture: A Reading Lhasa Street Songs

Dorji Tsering

Literature had considerably been part of the mechanisms of the twentieth century decolonization process notwithstanding the debates about the role literature in revolution. Resistance movements, or ‘liberation Movements’ received scholarly attention in varied fields of study such as Postconial Studies, Sulbaltern Studies, Cultural Studies. But the recent interest in Resistance Literature significantly differs from the earlier interest in Resistance movements. Resistant literature as a new field of study seeks to move beyond the socio-political factors of resistance movements and focuses on the modes of resistance, locale of resistance and generic significance of resistance literatures. This interdisciplinary frameworl of resistance literature helps the scholars turn towards the unexplored modes of resistance and work on the complexities involved in understanding resistance across cultures. The study of armed and organized forms of resistance in the twentieth century against western imperialism has gained scholarly attention across disciplines. Resistance literature had taken an active role in the bygone resistant movements; it continues to take that moral role even today in the fight against oppression and injustice around the world. But the cultural location of resistance (through literature) has not gained proper attention amongst the academicians. In the case of Tibet, the scale of areas covered, numbers involved, and immediate impact (ignoring other factors behind) always qualifies the discourse of resistance to foreign occupation. Tibetan resistance is always associated with armed resistance and peaceful rallies in the street. Thus, literature and agents lesser impact involved in the resistance are rarely incorporated in the annals of Tibetan resistant movement. Another significant factor is the self-critique of resistant movement. These two factors could be seen in the case of ‘Lhasa street folksongs’. With the passage of time any information about the street folksongs of Lhasa is almost unavailable, and hence the complexity of corpus remains unexplored. Tibet is a repository of folksongs of all kinds: folksongs of celebration, of love, of work and of politics. The political folksongs of antiquity are brought to light with the discovery of the manuscript from Dunhuang cave in the early twentieth century. With this discovery, the political folksongs in Tibet date back to as far as the Seventh century. The presence of folksongs is a common feature of all the regions in Tibet, but political folksongs are restricted only to the central part of Tibet, especially Lhasa, which had been the seat of the Tibetan political affairs until the Chinese occupation. These political folksongs have the potential to give considerable insight into the history of Tibet. The tradition of folksongs reflecting upon the political situation is inherited to date. Tibet has faced two foreign occupations: the British in the early twentieth century and the Chinese in the mid-twentieth century. These foreign occupations gave way to the emergence of people’s songs in the streets of Lhasa. Given the origin of these street songs and how they reflect the sentiments of common Tibetan people, the songs bear the characteristics of conventional folksongs. But the subject matter and form of these songs move far away from general understanding of folksongs. The notion of folksongs as pastoral in theme, simple and colloquial in diction is not applicable to all the Lhasa street songs. The comprehension of some of these songs demands considerable social knowledge and language skill. In this context, this paper attempts to bring out the nature of these Lhasa street songs to highlight their uniqueness and complex mode of resistance. It also tries to find out the reason for the exclusiveness of such songs only in the erstwhile Tibetan capital. Tibetan people resisted and have been resisting the two foreign occupations of the twentieth century through myriad ways. But the resistance through folksongs is the least studied or discussed today within Tibetan Studies. Thus, this paper looks at Lhasa street songs from the political and cultural perspective emphasised in the recent methodology of resistance literature. This inter-disciplinary theoretical reading of the street songs may help us see its function as a counter-narrative to the official history of Tibetan resistance.

Maitrīpa’s Amanasikāra Cycle as a Foundation for Mi bskyod rdo rje’s (1507- 1554) Madhyamaka-based Mahāmudrā

Klaus-Dieter Mathes

One of the special features of Bka’ brgyud Mahāmudrā are personal instructions which directly introduce the student to the luminous nature of mind. In his Dgongs gcig commentary, the Eighth Mi bskyod rdo rje characterizes this type of introduction as an “immersion in natural and continuous mahāmudrā” and points out that being common to Sūtra and Tantra, it differs from the mahāmudrā of the completion stage of the unsurpassable [yāna]. The related view and meditation of this practice are mainly based on Maitrīpa’s Amanasikāra Cycle, which, in the eyes of Mi bskyod rdo rje, was composed in both the Sūtra and Mantra Madhyamaka traditions. In his Sku gsum ngo sprod, the Eighth Karmapa even claims that the view of the two truths transmitted by the Mar pa Bka’ brgyud roughly is the one of the Tattvadaśaka, one of the main philosophical texts in the Amanasikāra Cycle. In the present contribution, it will be shown that, following Maitrīpa, Mi bskyod rdo rje endorses the Madhyamaka view of “non-abiding” (apratiṣṭhāna) and the related practice of non- mentation (amanasikāra) and combines them with the “mahāmudrā of the nature of mind” (a term Mi bskyod rdo rje adopts from ‘Gos Lo tsā ba gZhon nu dpal, 1392-1481). The latter term signifies that the uncontrived nature of mind manifests without effort in the absence of any dichotomizing reification. Particular emphasis will be given to three texts belonging to Maitrīpa’s Amanasikāra Cycle: the Tattvadaśaka, the Amanasikārādhāra, and the Pañcākāra.

A new database on Tibetan medical terminology

Katharina Sabernig

Due to the widespread application of Tibetan medicine and varying local biodiversity of medicinal substances, publications on Tibetan medicine often present deviating translations or meanings of medical terminology as found in classical or modern texts. The database presented here was established by myself within the scope of previous projects. Now put online with the digital support of the Berlin State Library, the database is intended to shed light on the plurality of these translations in their historical and geographical context (free access at: http://crossasia.org/en/service/lab/tibetanterms.html). In my presentation the different sources considered and the various search functions available for the user will be introduced. Currently the database is populated by Tibetan materia medica including synonyms or orthographic varieties and their available common English and German correlates as well as the more precise Latin biomedical or scientific identifications. In my present project on Tibetan anatomical terms (P26129-G21), subsidised by the Austrian Science Fund, the database is regularly updated. Especially in the case of Tibetan anatomical terms it is not always clear which anatomical structure is actually meant by a particular Tibetan anatomical term, and biomedical anatomical structures are named differently in different publications. With the help of this digital service it should become easier for colleagues and the interested public to get a better overview of possible identifications of certain terms as well as the development of anatomical or pharmacological nomenclature in the course of time.

Mahāmudrā, revealing the key point of the last dharmacakra, the 4th Zhwa dmar pa’s Sixty Verses of Mahāmudrā

Martina Draszczyk

Mahāmudrā (phyag rgya chen po), the practice of the Great Seal, forms an integral part of Tibetan Buddhism. It synthesizes philosophical views of the Yogācāra- and Madhyamaka tenets as a common ground and goes back to various Indian Mahāsiddhas. While some of the so-called new (gsar ma) schools cultivated miscellaneous strands of mahāmudrā, emphasizing different aspects of this broad approach towards reality, the core of mahāmudrā relates to mind itself directly and non-analytically. This allows for the experiencing of mind’s true nature in its full dimension beyond superimposition and deprecation, and leads to actualizing the mind’s connate qualities of emptiness and luminosity. From among the numerous presentations of Mahāmudrā, this paper focuses on the 4th Zhwa dmar pa’s Sixty Verses of Mahāmudrā. The 4th Zhwa dmar pa Chos grags ye shes (1453–1524) was among the most prolific and influential authors of his day, but only in recent years has his work received some attention by contemporary scholars. His collected works in 13 volumes that were published in the year 2009 cover a wide range of subjects, among much else the topic of Mahāmudrā as it is developed in the Dwags po Bka’ brgyud pa tradition. With his Sixty Verses of Mahāmudrā Chos grags ye shes provides an overall account of the doctrinal background and the practice of Bka’ brgyud Mahāmudrā. Based on the intention to clear away mistaken views, he ascertains suchness and he objects to a number of views on mind and meditation which in his eyes obstruct the process of approaching realization of reality. He describes the meditative phases, the cultivation of śamatha and vipaśyanā, culminating in the yogin’s capacity to settle into whatever arises as well as the post-meditative phase of subsequent attainment. He also goes into the topic of Mahāmudrā and its place in the secret mantrayāna, in particular in connection with the inner heat yoga. Another important issue raised is the effect which mahāmudrā meditation has on a yogin’s realization. Right at the beginning as well as toward the end of the verses, he emphasizes the inseparability of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa being but mahāmudrā.

While Chos grags ye shes thus focuses on the identification or unity (zung ’jug) model in terms of ascertaining the ground and the fruition of practice, he also integrates the differentiation model by delineating the conventional practice based on the need of a clear distinction of the two truths. His criticism is mainly directed at those who either ignore the causality of cause and effect and focus on their concept of emptiness as the supposedly only means to realize reality or at those who just pretend to refrain from any philosophical standpoint by declaring themselves to be beyond extremes. Going into the issue of nonaffirming and affirming negations, according to Chos grags ye shes a nonaffirming negation is nothing but a conceptual limitation where one revolves within one’s intellectual assumptions not being able to leave these concepts behind. On the contrary, mahāmudrā requires the intellectual background of an affirming negation in the absence of which it cannot be realized. This he clearly demarcates from a view that holds on to a permanent nature of reality. It is in this regard that he also criticizes the Jo nang system of Dol po pa which is said to abide in the extreme of attributing a permanent and stable nature to the ultimate, while considering everything else as fictitious. Chos grags ye shes thus attempts to steer clear of any extremes regarding reality. This reflects the background that Chos grags ye shes defines as the appropriate intellectual view for the practice of Mahāmudrā, the supreme Apratiṣṭhāna Madhyamaka of Unity (rab tu mi gnas zung du ’jug pa yi dbu ma mchog), his descriptions strongly reminiscent of lines in Maitreyanātha’s (Advayavajra) Sekanirdeśa such as “not to abide in anything (apratiṣṭhāna) is known as mahāmudrā” (SN29ab). It appears that he also takes Jñānakīrti’s Tattvāvatāra (8th/9th cent.), Maitrīpa’s (1007-1078) short Tattvādaśaka, and Sahajavajra’s (11th cent.) Tattvadaśakaṭīkā, pointing to Prajñāpāramitā related Mahāmudrā as a reference for his presentation. Thus, according to Chos grags ye shes Apratiṣṭhāna Madhyamaka and an affirming negation form the ground upon which Dwags po Bka’ brgyud Mahāmudrā is to be developed, revealing the key point of the last dharmacakra.

A Neglected bKa’ brgyud Lineage: the rNgog Family from gZhung and the rNgog bKa’ brgyud Transmission

Cecile Ducher

The Tibetan translator Mar pa Lo tsā ba Chos kyi blo gros (1000?-1081?) brought important cycles of teachings back from India. Among his four main disciples, the most famous, Mi la ras pa (1028?-1111?), received his “lineage of practice” (sgrub brgyud), while another, rNgog Chos rdor (1023-1090), received his “lineage of exegesis” (bshad brgyud). It was the former’s disciple, sGam po pa (1079-1153), who developed the bKa’ brgyud tradition of Mahāmudrā. He and Mi la ras pa played a great role in defining what the bKa’ brgyud school became famous for centuries, that is to say a lineage of hermits, for whom faith in the master, compassion and diligence were essential. It is clear that this view is a gross generalization of reality, of course, but the exegetic aspect of the Mar pa bKa’ brgyud heritage remains nonetheless understudied, especially with regards to the tantric cycles that became known as rNgog pa bKa’ brgyud and form today the greatest part of the bKa’ brgyud sngags mdzod, one of Kong sprul’s (1813-1899) five treasuries. The relative neglect of Mar pa’s contribution to the spread of tantric exegesis in Tibet is not due to a lack of interest of scholars, but to a lack of sources. Until recently, the only available historiographical writings on the topic were chapters on the rNgog from the Lho rong chos ’byung and Deb ther sngon po. With the unearthing of thousands of volumes in ’Bras spungs’ gNas bcu lha khang, however, that situation changed, and we are now in a much better position to study the history of the rNgog family from gZhung and their transmission. My presentation will be a summary of the major findings of my ongoing doctoral dissertation on the rNgog pa religious history. I will first introduce the two collections of biographies that served as sources for the above-mentioned histories, and on their basis describe the important achievements of rNgog masters, the branches of the family, their seats, etc. I will then introduce the large collection of their writings that was discovered in ’Bras spung and published as facsimiles and computerized books. Although an exact analysis of the content of their transmission exceeds the limits I set for my work, I will describe Mar pa and the rNgog’s main transmissions and their specificity. Their main systems of tantric practice are known as “the seven maṇḍalas of the rNgog” (rngog dkyil bdun), an expression coined in the late 15th century by those who continued the rNgog lineage when the rNgog family ceased to take on that role. Their specificities, broadly speaking, is the large role taken therein of “key-instructions” (man ngag). This last aspect will bridge my presentation with the others in the panel, as this is a distinguishing feature of the bKa’ brgyud transmission at large, be it its presentation of Mahāmudrā, tantric cycles or yogic practices associated with the phase of perfection.

Jamyang Shepa's Composition of an Yigcha: An Analysis of the Collected Works of the First Jamyang Shepay Dorje Ngawang Tsondru (1648-1721/2), the Author of the Textbooks (yig cha) of Drepung Gomang College

Baatar Erdene-Ochir

The First Jamyang Shepa Ngawang Tsöndru (or simply Jamyang Shepa) was an Amdo native who studied at Drepung, one of the major Gelug seats in Central Tibet, where he flourished into a brilliant scholar. Although well known for his intellectual achievements, his political impact was significant as well. During his time in Lhasa, he worked closely with the Fifth Dalai Lama (1617-1682) and his regent Desi Sangye Gyatso (1653-1705), two powerful political agents in the history of the seventeenth- century Tibet. In addition, Jamyang Shepa was influential among Mongol rulers operating in Tibet and his activities were later recognized by the Manchu court. The collected works of the First Jamyang Shepa were published in 15 volumes at Labrang Tashi Khyil Monastery (founded by him) in Amdo. His sungbum comprises works of a variety of genres including devotional works, poetry, liturgies, philosophical commentaries, epistolary works, lecture notes and so forth. His sungbum also covers a broad spectrum of topics, such as logic and epistemology, path systems, Buddhist philosophy, history, praises, tantric practice, monastic codes, rules for composition, grammar, etc. The Labrang edition of the sungbum was reproduced in India in the 1970s. As far as I know, prior to this publication, Jamyang Shepa's complete collected works had been published nowhere except at his own monastic seat, although many of his individual philosophical works were published in several Gelug monasteries which used them as standard textbooks—for example, at Gomang Dratsang, which used them as its yigcha or monastic textbooks. Subsequently, these works spread throughout Tibet as well as into Mongolia and southern Siberia. As a result, Jamyang Shepa's yigchas have become the most widespread geographically and also the most prevalent monastic textbook among Gelug monasteries. In this paper, I explore the circumstances surrounding the creation of Jamyang Shepa's yigcha corpus. A common suspicion among scholars is that many Tibetan scholars were motivated to author texts out of a desire for prestige and the attendant economic and political gain derived from this. In Tibetan circles it is also rumored that Desi Sangye Gyatso ordered the composition of the yigchas in order to diminish the posthumous influence of Dragpa Gyaltsen (1619-1656), whose rivalry with the Fifth Dalai Lama tragically had ended in Dragpa Gyaltsen's death, and in the controversy surrounding the protector deity Shugden. According to this oral tradition, the Desi ordered Jamyang Shepa to write his yigcha to replace that of Panchen Sonam Dragpa (1478-1554), a figure who is considered to be a prior incarnation of Dragpa Gyaltsen. However this tantalizing rumor will not be addressed directly in this paper. Instead, in this paper, I offer a close reading of portions of Jamyang Shepa's collected works in order to determine whether or not his writings themselves can shed light on his motivations for writing them. I believe that by locating, dating, and analyzing his important works, we can draw credible conclusions. For instance, one can analyze the major works of Jamyang Shepa's yigcha whether they were written before or after his gaining of political influence to determine his less political and more intellectual or religious motivations. However, this raises a bigger question: how textbook traditions in Gelug monasteries developed, and the sociopolitical implications of the adoptions of specific corpora of texts. I maintain that a more holistic and panoramic approach which focuses on an author's entire corpus rather than on individual works will help us to understand the actions of historical agents in a more nuanced fashion. In addition to studying Jamyang Shepa's works themselves, I hope to shed light on the process by which yigcha were propagated by Gelug institutions throughout Eastern Tibet and Mongolia. For instance, as Gelug influence extended throughout those regions, a twin process emerged by which Mongolian and Eastern Tibetan monks and rulers were involved in both the founding and patronage of new Geluk monasteries, and the dissemination of Jamyang Shepa's yigcha. Indeed, in most of these institutions, Jamyang Sheba's yigchas were used to study all of the topics related to the five great texts of the Gelug curriculum, as well as many of the supplementary topics. For this ambitious project, in addition to his collected works, I will also consult the biographies of Jamyang Shepa composed by his close disciple Ngawang Tashi (1678-1738) and his subsequent "reincarnation," the Second Jamyang Shepa Könchog Jigme Wangpo (1728-1791), as well as works written by contemporary scholars.

The evolution of urban employment and social stratification in Tibet

Andrew Fischer

The urban employment system in Tibetan areas up until the 1990s was dominated by state-owned units, whether in the public sector (e.g. ‘government work units’) or in state-owned enterprises (for the sake of simplicity, we shall call the combination as ‘state-sector employment’). In the TAR, Tibetans also accounted for just over 71 percent of such state-sector ‘staff and worker’ employment up until 2000, although the share fell sharply in 2003, reflecting a strong Han bias in the retrenchment of state-sector employment that was happening at that time, particularly at the cadre level. In contrast, there was a gradually increasing share of employment in so-called private enterprises, self-employment or informal forms of employment during the 1990s, which would have been occupied by Tibetan migrants from local rural areas, migrants from other parts of China (both Tibetan and non-Tibetan), or by Tibetan urban residents not working in (or laid-off from) the state-sector. The rapid growth of the latter in the 2000s was fuelled by the heavily subsidized rapid growth of Tibetan towns and cities, which stimulated both local Tibetan and interprovincial migration. However, despite the fact that the state- sector dominated economic growth, state-sector employment remained stagnant until the mid-2000s and its share of overall urban employment fell sharply, and that of private enterprise and self employment increased sharply, to more than half of total urban employment in the case of the TAR. Moreover, despite this rapid transformation since the early 2000s, a persisting feature of urban employment in Tibetan areas has been the extremely limited supply of non-state (private or corporate) formal employment. This refers to professional ‘staff and worker’ employment that offers wages, security, benefits and status en par with state-sector employment (whereas ‘private enterprise’ employment is less privileged and semi-informal in this sense). As a result, the state-sector has remained as the almost exclusive supply of jobs that are appropriate for university graduates, resulting for an all or nothing prospect for such graduates. The persistence of this situation is unique in comparison to all other regions and provinces in China and helps to explain the grievances that fed the protests of 2008, given the strong ethnic bias that became apparent in state-sector employment in the early 2000s. This paper analyses these structural trends since the mid-1990s and their relation to emerging patterns of social stratification and inequality in the Tibetan urban areas over this period, with a focus is on the (TAR). Two notable trends in the TAR can be observed. One is a sharp polarization in urban-rural inequality from the mid-1990s up to 2001, followed by equalization in urban-rural inequality after 2001, albeit converging with the rising norm of urban-rural inequality in other western provinces. The second trend was a sharp (and administered) increase in urban wage inequality from the late 1990s up to 2007, followed by a sharp reduction in this form of inequality up to 2013, again, back down to the rising norm elsewhere in western China. In essence, the first trend appears to be related to the sudden onset of labour transition out of agriculture from 2000 onwards, which would have offset the rising urban-rural inequality in the late 1990s. The second trend suggests that the subsequent decline in urban-rural inequality represented not so much of an end of polarisation, but rather a transfer of urban-rural inequality to the urban areas through urbanisation, with rural Tibetan and out-of-province migrants occupying the rapidly expanding lower end of informal urban employment, while a shrinking share of privileged state-sector employees, increasingly composed of Han migrants, were riding on some of the highest wages in China. Intra-urban inequality thereby became the new fault line of polarisation in the region, at least up until 2008. The equalisation in urban wage inequality after 2008 (according to the approximate measure used) represents a variety of intersecting dynamics. One has been a return to increasing public sector employment after about a decade of retrenchment or stagnation, and, since 2011, a commitment by the TAR government to employ local (and largely Tibetan) university graduates. There also appears to be a sudden exceptional increase in non-state formal (or corporate) employment in 2013, although the causes and trends of this are too early to tell. This has occurred in tandem with a tempering of the extremely high public sector salaries that were characteristic of the TAR up to 2008 (relative to other provinces). The conclusion of the paper will explore whether or not these dynamics since 2008 have deepened intra and/or inter-ethnic inequalities.

Investigating Minyag lexical features attested in in Minyag Rabgang: with a reference to the past and ongoing language shift

Dawa Drolma (Dawa Zhuoma)

This paper fundamentally examines an existence of Darmdo Minyag lexical features remaining in Khams Tibetan spoken in the Minyag Rabgang region, referring to the past and ongoing language shift. It mainly focuses on an investigation of lexical features attested in two dialects of Khams Tibetan: Lhagang (Chn. Tagong) and rGyagampa (Chn. Jiagenba). Minyag has traditionally designated a greater region, which might have included the present counties of Nyagrong (Chn. Xinlong), Branggo (Chn. Luhuo), rTa’u (Chn. Daofu), Nyagchukha (Chn. Yajiang), brGyalzur (Chn. Jiulong), and Darmdo (Chn. Kangding) of dKarmdzes (Chn. Ganzi) Prefecture, Sichuan Province. From a linguistic viewpoint, it can be divided into three parts: upper, middle, and lower Minyag. The upper area is Nyagrong, Branggo, and Basmad of rTa’u, where Tibetans speak Khams and rGyalrongic languages (sTau and Nyagrong Minyag); the middle area is mainly the northwestern part of Darmdo County, where Tibetans speak Khams Tibetan; and the lower area is mainly the southwestern part of Darmdo County, where Tibetans speak the Minyag language, which linguists divide into the Qiangic branch, called “Darmdo Minyag” here. The boundary of middle and lower Minyag is situated over rGyagampa Village, where Tibetans now speak Khams, but there were Minyag-speakers at 1950, who were over 80 years old. As mentioned above, the language area of Darmdo Minyag is getting narrower, however, its language distribution might have been so large that it could have covered a whole middle Minyag area. In order to elucidate the existence of Darmdo Minyag in the middle area, I conducted research on lexical items in Khams dialects spoken there, and I have found word forms in Khams which should be derived from the Minyag language, not from Literary Tibetan. In addition, the regional tendency that the number of such words remains in a dialect has also been clarified. The Khams dialect spoken in Lhagang Village, at the northernmost point of the middle Minyag area, has several words with the Darmdo Minyag origin, and that spoken in rGyagampa Village has also several ones. It should be noted that the nature of loanwords from Darmdo Minyag is different between theses two dialects. rGyagampa Khams has also borrowed basic words such as ‘mountain’ and ‘frost’ from Minyag. Because lexical features are highly related to its linguistic situation, frequence and intensity of the language contact will be reflected in lexical characteristics. The case in Lhagang will imply an existence of the Minyag language at a certain historical period, which supposes that Lhagang was also a linguistic area of Darmdo Minyag in the past. This situation, with concrete linguistic evidence, has not been reported so far. This paper investigates the current linguistic situation of Darmdo Minyag as well, because it is highly related to the language influence functioning the linguistic substratum in the surrounding area. The number of Darmdo Minyag-speaking people is estimated as ten thousand, and most of them are now multilingual of Darmdo Minyag (mother tongue), Khams Tibetan, and/or Chinese (practically, Sichuan Mandarin). Current issues regarding the decrease of the Darmdo Minyag-spoken area are highly related to social developments, which have influenced Darmdo Minyag-speaking people’s traditional way of life. This makes the function of the Darmdo Minyag language as a communication tool decrease to higher extent, and results a rapid change of its language construction. Many particular words to Minyag are being lost, and gradually tibetanised or sinitised. At 1980s, it has reported that 715 words of (30,6%) 2338 words in Minyag were already Tibetan loans. Under this situation, the fact that Minyag loans are found in surrounding Khams dialects implies that the language status of Minyag was once as strong as that of Tibetan, however, gradually got weaker. Additionally, the current rapid social change leads Darmdo Minyag much weaker, facing language endangerment. The sole access to the Minyag language is to use a methodology of descriptive linguistics, because it has not ever been written in any scripts so far. So is it for dialects of Khams Tibetan. The key to understand the language contact history between them is collecting language data with an appropriate way of descriptive linguistics before each language has completed tibetanisation, and even, sinitisation.

Richness of Tibetan Nomadic Vocabulary and its Loss

Shiho Ebihara

Tibetan nomads have extensive vocabularies relating to the pastoral life. These vocabularies include terminology for livestock, dairy products, meat, clothing, textiles, tents, dung, kitchen stoves and so on. Generally, individual ethnic groups have folk vocabularies that are deeply related to their lives. For example, Inuit language is known to have hundreds of words for categorizing snow, while Japanese is known to have different words for the same fish at different stages of its growth. These lexical categorizations reflect the field in which each ethnic group takes a great interest (see Sapir 1929). Through this terminology, we can begin to understand the knowledge and cognition of Tibetan speakers, accumulated over a long era of traditional nomadic life. For example, Tibetan nomads have a systematic way of referring to livestock (yak, sheep, horse, goat and so on) according to sex, age, role in herds, physical features (i.e., colors and patterns of fur, shapes of horns), and personality (Ebihara 2015). The terms differ from livestock to livestock. These terminologies are closely related to their method of individual identification and management of livestock (herding, milking, riding, and packing etc.). They also have various words for tents. Tents are distinguished into several types according to their material. Each part of a tent—the sheet, column, rope, joint, and space—are individually named. These specialized names are of great assistance for the complicated work of setting up tents. Terms concerning dung are distinguished according to type and age of livestock, degree of dryness and warmth, diet of livestock, season, and form, etc. These terms are important for nomads when collecting dung for fuel. Recently however, under economic development and migration policies (‘Converting Pastures to Grassland’, ‘Eco-migration’, and the ‘Relocation Program’) that have influenced a decline in pastoralism, the nomadic vocabularies above are already being forgotten. Schooling has also reinforced this tendency. During fieldwork in Tsekok, Qinghai Province, China, I interviewed a nomad man in his forties who migrated to the city under the ‘Eco-migration’ policy. The man told me that he has to help setting up tents for local community events, because the younger generation has no experience with setting them up. He added that his two sons in their twenties, who have never lived in tents, do not know the terminology for each part of the tent. This episode impressed upon me that nomadic vocabularies face a risk of being lost, together with traditional material objects and techniques. The local community shares a crisis in that language and culture are being lost, which has led some of them to begin the task of conserving their mother tongue. Based on these observations above, the first half of this presentation demonstrates the richness of Tibetan nomadic vocabularies. By applying linguistic analysis to data from Tsekok, a plethora of systematic terms on pastoralism will be revealed. Following this, the way in which these terms are related to the nomads’ way of life will be explained. In particular, the terms for cognizing yaks and tents will be introduced. The second half of this presentation reports the current situation—that nomadic vocabularies are being lost— through the conduction of interviews and tests. This presentation is positioned in the introductory part of the panel titled ‘‘Decline and local innovation in the pastoral society of Amdo Tibet.” The aim of this talk is to show the richness and broad range of traditional pastoral culture in Amdo Tibet, and to specify that a portion of them are declining at present, through loss of vocabularies.

Two Words, One Meaning: kLong chen Rab ‘byams and Tsong kha pa’s Interpretation of Tripiṭakamāla’s Lamp for the Three Modes (Tshul gsum pa’i sgron ma)

Renee Ford

“Even though they are of one meaning, through being unobscured, having many methods, without effort and having the power of sharp qualities, the Mantrayāna is distinctly superior.” --- Tripiṭakamāla.

Tripiṭakamāla’s verse from A Lamp for the Three Modes (Tshul gsum gyi sgron ma) offers a foundation for comparing the dialectic (mtshan nyid) and mantra (gsang sngags) vehicles. His verse plays an important role in the Tibetan tradition, where much commentarial material revolves around the relationship between sūtra and mantra. Tibetan Buddhist masters often quote this verse and use it as a basis for establishing their own view on the relationship between the two vehicles. Tsong kha pa (tsong kha pa blo bzang grags pa, 1357 – 1419), kLong chen rab ‘byams (kLong chen rab ‘byams, 1308 – 1364), Bo dong Phyogs las rnam rgyal, and the first Pan chen Lama, bLo bzang chos kyi rgyal mtshan, all agree with Tripiṭakāmāla, but interpret him in different ways. In particular, these writers highlight the verse that analyzes the difference between sūtra and mantra perspectives. We find the very same verse cited in Tsong kha pa’s Great Treatise of Mantra (sNgags rim chen mo), kLong chen rab ‘byams’ Treasury of Philosophical Systems (Grub mtha’ rin po che’i mdzod), Bo dong Phyogs’ rGyud sde spyi’i rnam bshad, and the first Pan chen Lama’s bsTan pa spyi dang rgyud sde bzhi’i ranm par gzhag pa’i zin bris. The differences in their interpretations play out significantly in their very different understandings of what tantra is, and its relationship to the mtshan nyid theg pa. In exploring Tripiṭakamāla’s Tshul gsum gyi sgron ma, this paper will provide a translation and a discussion of the quoted verse above and its various contexts. Although scholars are aware of Tsongkhapa’s and other specific instances of Tripikamala’s verse, the cross-traditional arc of influence stemming from this verse has not yet been a focus addressed by contemporary scholarship. I also elaborate on key terms such as ‘phags, ma rmongs, and dka’ ba med and their significance for understanding Tripiṭakamāla’s meaning. In the process, I elaborate on and contextualize Tripiṭakamāla’s account of the relationship between sūtra and mantra, especially noting key differences between the Nyingma and interpretations. By demonstrating Tripiṭakamāla’s understanding of the relationship between the two vehicles, I support my thesis that the Tibetan tradition, specifically Gelug and Nyingma, although differ in interpretations, are in agreement on the relationship between sūtra and mantra and perhaps more importantly, both stress the importance of mantra. More specifically, I propose that and Tsongkhapa are in agreement with their views of the pāramitā and mantra vehicle because insofar as both understand two key points: 1) that the pāramita vehicle is a preparatory vehicle because it focuses on emptiness and 2) the pāramitā vehicle is not sufficient to achieve . In this way, we begin to understand the relationship between sūtra and mantra.

Renaissances on the Top of the World? A Journey from Nepālamaṇḍala to Mang yul Gung thang and Back Again

Camillo Formigatti

The present paper describes the first steps of a larger project focusing on the cultural history of Nepal between the 14th and the 17th century. The study begins with the reign of king Jayasthitirājamalla (1382-1395) for two reasons: firstly, numerous unpublished Sanskrit works were composed in Nepal during this period. Secondly, a dynastic change occurs with Jayasthitirājamalla, which marks a cultural change as well. The aim of the project is to investigate the political empowerment and cultural legitimisation of the through its linking to a mythological and poetical past, revived through the study of literary classics and the production of new literary works. This cultural enterprise will be investigated through the philological studies of some instances of ornate poetry (kāvya) and through the analysis of manuscript production and diffusion. In particular, the focus is on the numerous dramas composed from the time of Jayasthitimalla’s reign onwards, many of which are re-adaptations of Rāma’s story. Furthermore, the continuous interest for Rāma’s story in the Malla period is witnessed for instance by the numerous manuscripts of the Raghuvaṃśa produced up to the 17th century. In this respect, we have noticed a general increase in the production of manuscripts in Nepal starting from the 14th century and culminating in the 17th century. This phenomenon is closely linked with the diffusion of paper as a writing material—in fact, by the 17th century paper completely replaced palm-leaf. In the second half of the 14th century, the political and cultural situation of the neighbouring Tibetan kingdom of Mang yul Gung thang was very similar. A politically unstable situation was paralleled by an intense cultural activity. Both king bKra shis lde (ruled 1352–63 CE) as well as king King Khri rgyal bsod nams lde (ca. 1371–1404 CE) commissioned the production of a set of bKa’ ’gyur and bStan ’gyur, and the latter contributed also to the re-establishment of the royal lineage and of Sa skya patronage over Gung thang, taking political control also of the Glo bo (Mustang) and Dol po areas. He was also responsible for the foundation of the Gung thang chos sde (ca. 1390) and the Shel dkar chos sde (the latter included a printery, par khang). Moreover, Chos skyong rgyal mo, Khri rgyal bsod nams lde’s wife, commissioned the production of a set of bKa’ ’gyur and bStan ’gyur in memory of her husband. In order to complete these three big editorial projects many people were involved: translators (who most probably came from the Nepal Valley), artists for the miniatures as well as craftsmen for the writing materials (like paper and inks). The Tamang population of the Mustang area controlled by the Mang yul’s kings had an important tradition of papermaking. Is it too far fetched to presuppose a link between the impulse to papermaking triggered in this area by the editorial projects of Mang yul’s king and the technological shift from palm leaf to paper witnessed in Nepal starting from the 14th century?

Post-Buddhist gTerma: Wor(l)ds (Re)Discovered in Contemporary Tibetan English Fiction

Enrique Galvan-Alvarez

Although most Tibetans who have chosen English as a language of literary expression are poets (e.g. Chögyam Trungpa, Tenzin Tsundue or Tsering Wangmo Dhompa), there is also a slowly growing number of Tibetans writing novels and short stories in English. This paper discusses how the last two Tibetan-English novels published, Thubten Samphel’s Falling through the Roof (2008) and Tsering Namgyal Khortsa’s The Tibetan Suitcase (2013), engage their Buddhist heritage in a displaced and hybrid context. Post- Buddhism is a term of my invention that covers various re-appropriations of Buddhist narratives in literary contexts that are not strictly Buddhist, soteriological or even religious. Therefore, post-Buddhism does not imply a rejection or overcoming of Buddhism but an, often contestive, appropriation of some of its motifs for non-Buddhist purposes. Such a project is very popular among the new generations of Tibetan-English writers, who tend to make political and identity statement by dis-embedding and re- embedding Buddhist narrative formulas. Among Tibetan Buddhist narratives that of treasure discovery (gterma) seems to feature prominently in Tibetan-English fiction. For instance, Jamyang Norbu’s The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes (1999) is framed as an unearthed text and it skillfully weaves the narratives of reincarnation (sprul ku) and treasure discovery in a post-modern, historically metaficitive fashion. Samphel’s and Namgyal’s novels are no exception and they are full of references to gterma both in terms of content and narrative structure. Thus my discussion focuses on how the singularly Tibetan Buddhist gterma story is re-appropriated and reengaged in a diasporic, hybrid and (post-)modern context. The peculiar way in which these traditional narratives are redeployed illustrates how Tibetan-English authors renegotiate and reinvent their religious and cultural heritage in exile. The often complex, complicated and multilayered structure of novels like Falling Through the Roof or The Tibetan Suitcase expresses the diasporic Tibetans’ ambivalence towards the the culture of their ancestors, as it offers an implicit contestation or reformulation of their ancient values. Furthermore, by framing contemporary, exilic stories as gterma discoveries, authors like Samphel or Namgyal move away from the preservationist paradigm that regards Tibetan culture and religion as a rare and static object that ought to be kept intact and offer a distinctly (post-)modern and hybridly Tibetan cultural product. In this way they resist two paradoxically parallel cultural forces: Tibetan conservatism, which considers innovation un-Tibetan, and Chinese/Western/Indian voices who either expect Tibetans to assimilate to other cultures or to perform their culture in a scripted, stereotypical and pre-modern way.

Wearing the Black Hat: the third Karmapa’s reinvention of reincarnation.

Ruth Gamble

This paper will explore the pivotal role the third Karmapa, Rang byung rdo rje (1284– 1339) played in the development of the Karmapa reincarnation lineage, the oldest extant reincarnation lineage in Tibet. By Rang byung rdo rje’s lifetime, belief in the incarnating abilities of buddhas and bodhisattvas had led to the developing narrative tradition of “manifestation” (sprul ba or rnam ’phrul). Many Tibetan political and religious figures had claimed to be manifestations. Some were said to be manifestations of divine bodhisattvas, who were in turn high-level manifestations of specific buddhas. Others were said to be the manifestation of one or another realized . These usually highly regarded Buddhist practitioners claimed for themselves or had claimed for them memories of past lives and the ability to manifest at will. Just before Rang byung rdo rje’s time and during his life, in part thanks to the developing of the “treasure tradition” in the Rnying ma lineage, a parallel reincarnation narrative focused on directed “re-birth” (yang sri or simply skye) also developed. The idea of directed “re- birth” was much more directional, much more focused on a singular line of beings than the multiplications of the manifestation trend. It allowed Rang byung rdo rje and others that adopted it to present themselves as part of larger, trans-life institutions. As such, they also understood themselves to be the rightful spiritual and material heirs of their previous . It was a claim that caused a marked shift in the Plateau’s religious, social and political life. Rang byung rdo rje’s claim to be a rebirth of the earlier was, furthermore, aided by his recognition as the second Karmapa’s rebirth by authoritative figures, including the yogi O rgyan pa and the Mongol Emperors, which created a social framework for the continuation of the Karmapa lineage. It was further solidified by his strategy of connecting himself, and the Karmapa lineage with sacred sites and sacralizing the sites with which they were connected. These frameworks consequently allowed Rang byung rdo rje to make claims not only to a personal link with the previous Karmapas, but to create social and physical spaces for future Karmapas to occupy. The paper will also explain how the one thing Rang byung rdo rje did not claim to be was a sprul sku. During Rang byung rdo rje’s time there was no distinct classification for those who were recognized as reincarnates; he was “the Karmapa” rather than one member of a class of people. The use of the term sprul sku to describe reincarnates developed slowly; the term is not used this way in Rang byung rdo rje’s writing or the writing of the fourth Karmapa, Rol pa’i rdo rje. Instead, in their writing, the term sprul sku is used to describe their personal ; in Rang byung rdo rje’s writing, for example, the term is used as a synonym for his guru O rgyan pa.

Pelliot Tibétain 986: New Approaches to a Tibetan Paraphrase of a Chinese Classic among Dunhuang Manuscripts

Emanuela Garatti

Among the Tibetan manuscripts found in the cave number 17 in Dunhuang at the beginning of the last century, there are few documents containing versions of some Chinese classics. These documents are: Pelliot Tibétain (PT) 986, 987, 988, 1291 and the fourth chapter of the Old Tibetan Chronicle, PT 1287. In the past, scholars have worked on those texts: Huang Bufan (1981) and South Coblin (1991) both wrote about the PT 986, a paraphrase of the Shujing, the Classic of Documents; Rolf Stein (1992) studied the PT 987 and 988, a collection of maxims found in the Lunyu and the Liji, respectively the Analects of Confucius and the Classic of Rites; Yoshiro Imaeda (1980) and Ma Mingda (1984) both analysed about the PT 1291, a translation of the Chunqiu houyu, the Later Comments on the Spring and Autumn Annals; Tsuguhito Takeuchi (1985) wrote an article on the fourth section of the Old Tibetan Chronicle and its original Chinese text, the Shiji, the Records of Grand Historian. Those texts have been translated and analysed; yet, mainly due of a lack of information, some fundamental questions remained without answers: why scribes composed such documents? Were those texts part of a larger corpus of non-Buddhist texts translated from Chinese into Tibetan? When were they composed? This presentation tries to provide preliminary answers to those and other questions with the help of new approaches involving codicology, epigraphy and the comparison of Tibetan documents with other Dunhuang manuscripts. Thanks to the developments of new methodologies applied to the “Dunhuang studies”, it is nowadays possible to analyse the Tibetan manuscripts from different points of view: the material of the documents, their peculiarities, the type of writing and tools used in the composition of the texts as well as their historical context. For example, in the analysis of the PT 986, a text providing a set of information that can be used in the study of the whole corpus of Tibetan versions of non-Buddhist Chinese texts, it is possible to see that the paper used was of good quality and, both on the recto and on the verso, present characteristics proving that the documents was probably composed in an official context and was not the result of a single scribe’s initiative or a writing exercise. This assumption is confirmed by the epigraphic analysis of the writing style which seems to be an official pattern, placing then the document in the context of official translations probably sponsored by the imperial power. The analysis of the PT 986 can be push further with the comparison with other Dunhuang manuscripts, in particular with the document Stein 799, today kept at the British Library; this is a Chinese version of the Shujing, the Classic of Documents, which is also paraphrased in the PT 986. Both the Stein 799 and the PT 986 present exactly the same portion of the original Chinese text: three chapters of the last book, the Zhoushu, the Book of Zhou; the study of both texts sheds light on the fact that the Tibetan document is a paraphrase of the Chinese classic and of its commentary. If it is not possible at this stage of the research to assert with certainty that the PT 986 is a paraphrase of Stein 799, the analysis of the shared characteristics of the two documents and their content is an important step toward the understanding of the genesis of such Tibetan documents. The study through comparison with other types of documents can also be carried on with the analysis of a series of Tangut manuscripts which also present paraphrases of Chinese classics. Finally, the consideration of the historical context can be a further tool in the study of the Tibetan non-Buddhist texts translated from Chinese: according to the Chinese sources, in 731 the Tibetan court, through the Princess of Jincheng requested a series of Chinese classics to the Chinese court in Chang’an; after many discussions, the Chinese ruler, Xuanzong, accepted to grant the texts to the Tibetan court.

The 2015 Treasury of Lives Redesign: Greater Accessibility and Increased Data

Alexander Gardner

The Treasury of Lives (treasuryoflives.org) is a peer-reviewed, crowd-sourced online biographical encyclopedia of Tibet, the Himalayas, and Central Asia. Launched in 2007 and now encompassing 1017 biographical entries, this paper presents an overview of its 2015 redesign aimed at making our data more accessible. Initially limited to biographies of religious figures, the 2015 redesign expanded the scope of the biographies to include non-religious historical figures such as government officials and royalty. We present the new features were added (a map, a timeline, and pages for each institution and incarnation line), as well as discuss the necessary revision of existing data to add internal links, the addition of hundreds of monasteries now located and described, and the addition of abbot lists and incarnation lines. Although the internet is replete with biographical material connected with Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism, much of it is written within narrow parameters, incomplete, or unreliable. Consequently, the Treasury of Lives works in close partnership with TBRC, and all data is updated or created in collaboration with them. Just as TBRC is positioned to be the global archive for Tibetan- language textual information, and Himalayan Art Resources has become the global standard for Himalayan Art, the Treasury of Lives aims to be the internet's authoritative reference for biographical information about Tibetan and Tibetan Buddhist historical figures. To this end we also discuss the manner in which we are actively encouraging linking to our database, as well as undesirable instances in which the content of our biographies are being taken without permission and re-posted on other websites.

Western-Tibetan Philosophical Collaborations

Jay Garfield

Western philosophers or scholars of Tibetan philosophy often treat the Tibetan intellectual tradition as a historical and not a present phenomenon. They often treat the point of interaction between the Tibetan and Western traditions as the enrichment of the Western tradition by appreciation of insights and arguments gleaned from the Tibetan tradition. They often treat Tibetan colleagues as informants about the Western tradition. While all of this might appear to be a valorization of Tibetan philosophy as a profound source of wisdom, it in fact deprecates it as less than a full dialogue partner, and deprecates Tibetan colleagues by treating them as sources and not as full colleagues. I will discuss practical models of collegial interaction and concrete instances of collegial interaction that involve genuine collaboration between Western and Tibetan colleagues from which all particpants learn and in which all participants receive appropriate academic recognition.

Healing Landscapes and Hidden Lands

Frances Garrett

This paper will discuss how mountain landscapes are represented as healing agents in Tibetan texts. Through a study of Gesar episodes focused on travel to Medicinal Lands (sman rdzong) and guidebooks to hidden lands (sbas yul), the paper will examine embodied and imagined practices of therapeutic travel as represented in place-based narratives. Pilgrimage practices described in these texts configure multisensory human relationships with this landscape: pilgrims eat mountain herbs, drink glacial waters, walk mountain circuits, touch sacred stones, and vocalize stories about the mountain (Huber 1999), such that the sensory body of the pilgrim itself is a methodological tool. How do these texts create the traveler’s body, and how do they create the mountain itself? By asking how different textual representations of landscape ask a human body to experience and engage with mountain terrain, the paper explores how movement through ‘natural’ landscapes is presented as healing and as morally salubrious. It also will propose new ways to think about how ‘nature’ is constructed in Tibetan narratives, attending to its close integration with moral issues, forms of identity, and modes of embodiment. Textual sources for this paper include several Medicinal Land episodes published in written form, each defined by the mountain at the center of the region (the Tsa ri sman rdzong, Ma la ya'i sman rdzong, and Li ma sman rdzong). Much of the plotline in these episodes involves Gesar’s effort to gain access to hidden lands inside these mountains so that their medicinal substances can be shared with the people of Ling. These stories depict landscapes full of medicinal substances and serve as catalogs of medicines and their healing properties. The extensive landscape descriptions in Medicinal Land episodes share features with pilgrimage and guidebook genres of Tibetan writing that focus on travels to hidden lands (sbas yul), and this paper will therefore also examine several of these guidebooks, focusing in particular on those addressing the region of Sikkim. How do such guidebooks attempt to shape travellers’ experiences as ‘therapeutic,’ and how are physical features of the mountain itself foregrounded or disappeared by the discourse of the guidebook? Scholarship has shown how guidebooks are not only a product of a place but also an agent of a place’s transformation, and how guidebooks reveal the polysemic nature of terrain. Drawing on such research, this paper asks how narratives about sacred geographies configure both the environment and the human body in therapeutic terms.

Ama Yangri, the goddess riding on a dragon – A mountain cult in the Nepal Himalaya

Erzsébet Gelle

Ama Jomo Yangri is the name of a mountain and a mountain goddess in Yolmo, an area northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal. With its 3771 m, it is visible from many villages, no wonder that locals see it as a mother goddess, maintaining order and protecting them as long as they live under her watchful eyes. They also believe, that for those who grew up worshipping her, she is able to ensure prosperity and protection far beyond her territory. The aim of my presentation is to explore Buddhist literature available in Yolmo in order to find out how different Buddhist traditions relate to the local protectress of Yolmo, and if this local goddess mentioned by Tsangnyön Heruka, Ngachang Shakya Zangpo and others could be identical with Ama Yangri, the only popular mountain goddess of today. By researching the cult of Ama Yangri and her mention in Buddhist texts I intend to draw attention to the possibility of an earlier layer of mountain cults in Yolmo.

Solar radiation energy on the Tibetan plateau

Nuozhen Gelsor

Solar energy utilization is expected to be increasingly important in order to meet future energy needs and to limit CO2 emissions in a future climate. To quantify the solar energy resources on the Tibetan Plateau, we have analyzed irradiance levels over a three-year period at four sites with different latitude, altitude, and cloud conditions. Latitude and altitude differences between the sites were found to change the yearly radiant exposure with only 2%, while the difference in cloudiness caused a 23% exposure change. Compared to a hypothetical all year clear sky condition, aerosols were found to reduce the yearly radiant exposure by about 5%, and the combined reduction from aerosols and clouds was found to be at most 23%. In Lhasa the yearly solar radiant exposure was found to be 7.6 GJ m-2, indicating that the yearly power consumption in the region could be covered by (16% efficient) solar panels covering an area of about 5 km2.

Querying the Sensual in Tibetan Religion

James Gentry

The rNying ma school of Tibetan Buddhism has since its formation into a self-conscious tradition been subject to critiques of its most cherished texts, doctrines and practices. A prevalent but unstudied theme throughout these critiques is the rejection of claims from the rNying ma’s rDzogs chen tradition that there are certain specialized objects of the senses—visions and other visual media (mthong grol), speech formulas (thos grol), amulets (btags grol), pills (myong grol), etc.—so powerful that they can confer liberation from saṃsāric destinies and saṃsāra as a whole through sensory contact alone. Such objects are typically framed within the rubric of “four liberations” (grol ba bzhi), or sometimes “six liberations” (grol ba drug) when adding liberating through “touching” (reg pa) and “smelling/sensing” (tshor ba), or sometimes “recollecting” (dran pa). The rNying ma school has promoted this set of practices as special techniques that promise “Buddhahood without meditation” (ma bsgoms sangs rgyas). Objects and instruction texts alike are sometimes said to possess all four liberations, which sometimes signals that liberation through “wearing” and “eating” are replaced with liberation through “touching” and “recollecting.” The power of such objects can extend also to persons. Being someone endowed with the four liberations, one with whom any kind of sensory contact brings others spiritual progress, is described in much rDzogs chen literature as the highest form of beneficial action in the world, theoretically achievable only by sublime beings who have perfected themselves for the welfare of others. The charisma of certain objects, texts and persons believed to liberate through sensory contact meant also that possession of liberation-through-senses objects became a popular component of institutional prestige even outside rNying ma circles. The monasteries and institutions of other sectarian groups, such as the Sa skya school’s Zhwa lu monastery, among several other examples, gained renown for their possession of relics, reliquaries, texts or other objects similarly dubbed as items that could cure disease, purify negative karma and sometimes even bring liberation simply through sensory contact.

In the fourteenth century, as objects that purport to liberate through sensory contact became more prevalent in the rDzogs chen practices of the rNying ma school’s gTer ma traditions, these sensory forms began to provoke critical scrutiny among gSar ma scholars who construed their claim to be an exaggerated denial of the efficacy of personal karma and the role of cultivation on the Buddhist path. Such criticisms reached their fullest expression in a well-reasoned polemical writing attributed to the Eighth Karmapa Mi bskyod rdo rje (1507-1554). This letter, believed to have issued from the most powerful hierarch in mid-sixteenth-century Tibet, elicited a series of apologetic responses from rNying ma scholars of the time, thus sparking an enduring concern among subsequent rNying ma figures to secure a legitimate doctrinal space for this series of sensory practices. A close study of the critiques of these objects alongside rNying ma apologetic responses reveals rarely voiced theoretical understandings of the roles of the senses and sensory experience in Tibetan Buddhist practices that continue to have broad appeal throughout Tibetan cultural areas and wherever Tibetan Buddhism is practiced. This paper will present research on the history and general patterns of these sensory-focused debates, with particular emphasis on the divergent understandings of efficacy that they reflect. It will also explore a single compelling case example: the role of hearing in the efficacy of the popular practice of reciting in ritual settings the Great Liberation Through Hearing in the Intermediate State (Bar do thos grol chen mo), more commonly known as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, to benefit the post- mortem condition of the deceased. This theme will be traced throughout the polemical works of the Eighth Karmapa Mi bskyod rdo rje (1507-1554), mKhyen rab rgya mtsho (c. mid-16th century), Lho pa bya bral ba (c. mid-16th century), Sog bzlog pa blo gros rgyal mtshan (1552-1624), and dKar brgyud bstan ’dzin nor bu (1899-1959), among others. In analyzing the contours of this debate, it will be argued that the controversies surrounding the efficacy of “liberation through hearing” instructions sets into relief tensions between two contrasting approaches to the enunciation of scripture, both of which are well represented in canonical Indo-Tibetan Buddhist literature. Fundamentally at issue is the role of scripture as potent sound, whose force makes its impact felt upon the person beyond the level of discursive comprehension; versus the role of scripture as semiotic code, whose efficacy depends upon personal discursive comprehension and intentional implementation. Phrased differently, the Tibetan figures active in this debate were contending over the place in Buddhist spiritual development of sensory contact with the media of awakened speech, in relation to the endeavor of understanding and cultivating its content, along with how personal karma might mitigate this process. In arguing for their particular accounts of how personal factors play into the efficacy of scripture, the interlocutors of this debate also unfolded contrasting visions of what constitutes the person, body, mind, gnosis and more. The terms of this argument end up giving voice to particularly Tibetan expressions of disagreements over the character of ritual language, the roles of propositional versus performative understandings of its efficacy, and how best to parse the categories of mind and body, meaning and materiality, and nature and culture, thus offering considerable insights into divergent conceptions of the roles of the senses in Tibetan religious practice as a whole.

The Signature of Recipes: Authenticity and the Development of Precious Pill Formulas

Barbara Gerke

Tibetan Precious Pills are arguably the pinnacle of Tibetan pharmacology. They contain not only processed mercury (btso thal), but also gold, silver, rubies, diamonds, coral, turquoise, pearls, Zi-stones, and sapphires, etc. To date, the origin of their recipes are poorly understood. This paper explores some trajectories of particular precious pill recipes within the ‘compounding medicine’ genre (sman sbyor) of selected Tibetan pharmacological texts. Taking the example of the ‘Precious Moon Crystal’ (rin chen btso bkru zla shel), which is still a popular medicine today, this presentation analyses its recipes by the Tibetan medical authors Zurkhar Nyamnyi Dorjé (1439-1475) and Deumar Tenzin Püntsok (b. 1672), and compares those with contemporary formulas by Troru Tsenam, Gawa Dorje, and Sonam Bakrö. In this comparison, I addresses the following questions: What do categories and taxonomies in recipes tell us about how Tibetan medical authors thought about ‘precious’ ingredients, their authenticity, potency, and therapeutic value? How have recipes and their presentation in pharmacopeia changed over time? In analysing the formulas of the Precious Moon Crystal in these sources, I ask what the developments and changes occurring in this recipe reveal about the historicity of the sman sbyor genre specific to precious pills. This presentation thus raises critical questions on how recipes as a special literary genre not only list ingredients but more importantly encode historical data on how medicinal substances have been authenticated and therapeutically understood as ‘precious’ over time.

Revealing in 14th Century Tibet

David Germano

My presentation will examine The Seminal Heart of the Ḍākinīs (mkha' 'gro snying thig), a fascinating fourteenth century revealed cycle of diverse texts built around the revelations of a shadowy figure, Tsultrim Dorjé, who passed away at a young age in the beginning of the fourteenth century. The texts constituted a pivotal moment in the history of the Great Perfection (rdzogs chen), as they followed a century or more of literary silence in the Seminal Heart (snying thig) tradition and preceded the explosion of new writings from Longchenpa onwards, who himself claimed to be Tsultrim Dorjé's reincarnation in a complicated extension of the cycle's narratives of the past, present, and future. The texts are bound together by the feminine figure of the Ḍākinī, reflected in the visionary narratives of Yeshe Tsogyel and Princess Lhacam Pemasel that frame its origins, and the prominent sexological themes winding through its texts doctrinally, ritually, and narratively. My talk will first examine the cycle as a literary anthology and compare it to its twelfth century predecessor, The Seminal Heart of (bi ma snying thig), to discern its innovative qualities as well as explain its importance at ushering in a literary efflorescence of the tradition. I will also explore the complicated questions of its authorship and compilation, which revolve around the star-crossed nature of the life of its revealer. In doing so, I will pay special attention to the narratives that range over the deep past with its visionary accounts of Padmasmabhava, Yeshe Tsogyel, Lhacam Pemasel, and the Emperor , over the contemporary present with its accounts of fourteenth century revelations, transmissions, and the lives that hung in the balance, and the future with prophetic accounts of times and lives to come. In this context, I will particularly examine the role and function of prophecies in such cycles; I will also look at the nature of "revelation" by juxtaposing the visionary frames of these texts with the frames offered in Longhenchenpa's commentary on it - The Seminal Quintessence of the Ḍākinīs (mkha' 'gro yang tig) just a few decades later. Against this background, I will then analyze the role of the Ḍākinī as an integrating figure in these narratives of all three temporal orientations, doctrines, and practices. I will outline a sociological framework for understanding the motif that involves Tibetan women and men pursuing religious visions, practices, and aspirations outside of the monastic institutions that were rapidly consolidating all around them.

The Implementation Effect of New Rural Cooperative Medical Policy in Pastoral Areas in Tibet Autonomous Region – Taking the Jiaqiong Second Village as an Example

Gesang Zhuoma

This article discusses the implementation of health policies in pastoral areas of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) during "Twelfth Five Year Plan" (2011-2015). The new rural cooperative medical care system widespread influence on Tibet rural residents health life，the function and influence of the health policy implementing in Tibet pastoral area is different in Tibet's towns or rural areas. As China's largest alpine meadow grassland animal husbandry area, there live 155000 households, 854200 nomads in Tibet’s pastoral region. Due to the remote location of the grassland and poor public services, Pastoral areas have become the key areas of new rural cooperative medical service in Tibet. Not only bad living habits have affected the health status of the residents, the relatively weak basic facilities and social development in pastoral areas, and other constraints have restricted the medical and health policy to take effect in pastoral areas. Taking a typical animal husbandry village as an example in the article, the influence of the new rural cooperative medical policy on the nomad families will be investigated and analysis by way of household interview survey, so as to evaluate the policy effects. The main conclusions are: first, medical and health care policies bring many positive effects to local herdsmen; second, the new rural cooperative medical policies implemented in pastoral areas have faced many challenges, for example, overall development lag of the pastoral areas blocked local residents to fully enjoy the policy effect, quality and quantity of medical staff now is unable to meet the needs of reality in pastoral areas, and so on. Therefore there still have a lot of room for improvement on the accessibility and availability of medical services in Tibet’s pastoral areas.

Communicative competence in Tibetan language Teaching and Learning at the Beginner’s level in higher education – A New Approach

Tsering Dhundup Gonkatsang

In the paper, I’ll seek to share my thoughts and experience on a radical approach taken in content organization and teaching methods to promote communicative competence in for non-Tibetans studying Tibetan at the beginner’s level in a relatively short time. The paper will attempt to demonstrate how to teach and learn Tibetan for communicative purposes whilst developing a foundation for further studies in standard or classical Tibetan. Approach to teaching and learning: The whole approach is based on the knowledge and assumption that all the students starting the Tibetan language at University level courses are not only proficient in English language but also have sufficient awareness of the basic rules of grammar governing the English language. Prospective students are informed a month in advance of the actual course to study, learn and master the basics of orthography and the pronunciation of the Tibetan syllabary and new words formed by using the prefixes, suffixes, super-scribed letters and sub-joined letters by taking recourse to digital learning resources. Based on an assessment that all the students have achieved minimal competence the pre-course task and a through a quick review of the pronunciation of the words learned, the class is ready to embark on vocabulary building and introduction to grammar points. Departing from the traditional Tibetan syllabus and teaching approach, a limited but high frequency list of Tibetan vocabulary in the category of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and propositions are presented for reading and memorizing in preparation for using them in short, simple sentences according to the tense pattern of English grammar – present, past, future with reference to the first person (I/we) and third person (he/she/they etc.) As the students have acquired the vocabulary as building blocks, exercises in using them are presented in order to further introduce other parts of the Tibetan grammar such as the conjunctive particles (gi, kyi, gi, yi, ‘ai) and their transformation to instrumental particles when an agentive suffix sa is affixed to each. The next stage is to begin teaching and learning how to use simple sentences in Tibetan using only the stock of limited vocabulary in order to familiarize themselves with the unique syntactic pattern of SOV (subject-object-verb) format of Tibetan which requires a reverse mental somersault for those habituated to thinking and framing sentences in English. Since students learning Tibetan at University level are, by and large, likely to have ambitions to acquire and develop their reading comprehension skills for research above and beyond just social communication, an integrated approach of teaching to read, write, listen and speak Tibetan is attempted. Pedagogical principles and guidelines in teaching Tibetan as a Second Language (TSL) or Tibetan as a foreign language (TAFL) based on the approaches and methodology in English as a Second Language or Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) Through a judicious mix of lexical approach, vocabulary development, audio-lingual, grammar-translation, communicative language teaching including task based learning, and so on, in real communicative situations and contexts are presented in worksheets for classroom practice and learning. Assessment Criteria: How do teachers and learners know how well they are progressing? For this, we have adapted version titled Criteria of Formative Assessment in Tibetan: aligning with Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) to guide our activities. Although the Tibetan language is not yet a validated language among the CEFR certified languages, we align our teaching and learning of Tibetan to follow their guidelines and approach where appropriate. For the Beginners level, we aim to achieve A1 to A2 levels, and B1 to B2 levels for the Intermediate group, and B2 to C levels for the Advanced group. Review and Discussion: In the panel I’ll review the actual implementation of the above course and methods of teaching Tibetan for communicative competence and discuss relevant theory in second language acquisition to provide a theoretical and empirical underpinning or justification for this kind of more communicative approach to Tibetan language teaching.

‘Mapping’ an unstable border at the beginning of the seventeenth century — Songpan and Zhangla

Roger Greatrex

In the Record of the Military Exploits of the Wanli Era (1612), compiled by Qu Jiusi, we find a statement made by the militarist Li Hualong (1554-1611) that Songpan was ’the courtyard to all Sichuan’ (5:43). The strategic military significance of the walled-town Songpan, and Zhangla twenty kilometers to its north, during the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth century cannot be underestimated. In addition to the military importance of its frontier road, Songpan was an age-old location for cross-border trade and an entry point for tribute missions. This paper relies upon An Investigation of Indigenous Tribes throughout Sichuan (1598) by Cheng Zhengyi, the above-mentioned Record of the Military Exploits of the Wanli Era, and other contemporary sources such as the Veritable Records of the Wanli Era, and the Administrative Circulars for the Wanli Era (Wanli dichao), to give a detailed overview of Songpan and Zhangla, and the fortifications and bridges that existed in the vicinity. The cross-border struggles that occurred in the region in the closing years of the seventeenth century are discussed and analysed, and a meta-geography of cross-border interactions proposed.

Sum pa mkhan po Ye shes dpal 'byor: an interlocutor between the Tibetans, Mongols and the Manchu

Rachael Griffiths

This paper presents excerpts from works regarding the life of the Tibetan Buddhist scholar Sum pa mkhan po Ye shes dpal ‘byor (1704–1788). It examines his role in Sino- Tibetan-Mongolian relations. The recognition of the Qing Empire’s (1644–1911) cultural complexity has become increasingly evident with the development of ‘frontier studies’, as seen in the work of C. Paterson Giersch and John E. Herman. The thriving age of the high Qing produced economic growth, social mobility, and advances in scholarship, along with military conquest. The latter resulted in impressive territorial expansion, which fostered an environment in which cosmopolitan practices could take root. Qing rule inadvertently encouraged a cosmopolitan culture; promoting the crossing of boundaries and the ability for various people under Qing rule to think, see, and act beyond the local. Qing cosmopolitanism is often seen as a phenomenon that largely took place in the Qing court; the variety of altars housed in the Imperial City are a clear example of this. The intermixing of artistic styles at Qianlong’s (1711–1799) court, which has received much scholarly attention, further demonstrates this multicultural empire. However, few works have adequately addressed the issue of Qing cosmopolitanism at grass-root level. As noted by John Elverskog, the leading exemplars of this phenomenon were people who hailed from marginal areas. In the Sino-Tibetan- Mongolian context, the Mongolian Tibetan Buddhists of Amdo (Tib. A mdo), such as Thu’u bkwan Blo bzang chos kyi nyi ma (1737–1802) and Sum pa mkhan po Ye shes dpal ‘byor, provide a clear example of Qing cosmopolitan culture. This paper, therefore, addresses the issue of Qing cosmopolitanism outside of the capital, with special attention on the role of Sum pa mhan po Ye shes dpal ‘byor as an interlocur between the Mongols, Tibetans and Manchus in the vicinity of Lake Kokonor (Tib. mtsho sngon po) - an area that has long been occupied by a wide range of ethnicities, including the Han, Tibetans, Monguors, Mongols, and Salars. In enforcing their authority over this area, the Qing relied on multi-ethnic intermediaries such as Sum pa mkhan po Ye shes dpal ‘byor who, as a Tibetan scholar and lama, was able to function as both a religious teacher and imperial diplomat. Sum pa mkhan po Ye shes dpal ‘byor operated within a ‘priest-patron’ relationship (Tib. mchod yon), which was modelled on the relationship that can be traced back to the relationship between Tibetan lamas and rulers of the Tangut state. This relationship evolved during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1398), with an alliance established between the Sa skya pandi ta kun dga’ rgyal mtshan (1182–1251) and Koden Khan (1206–1251), and later ‘Phags pa bLo gros rgyal mtshan (1235–1280) and Khubilai Khan (1215–1293). On a local level, this relationship was established between Tibetan Buddhists and the local Mongols of the Kokonor area. Specifically, my paper draws on mTsho sngon gyi lo rgyus sogs bkod pa'i tshangs glu gsar snyan, his autobiography (PaN+Dita Sum-pa Ye-shes-dpal-byor mchog gi spyod tshul brjod pa sgra dzin bcud len), along with three biographical accounts of Sum pa mkhan po Ye shes dpal ‘byor’s life in both Tibetan and Mongolian, which can be found Gangs ljongs lo rgyus thog gig rags can mi sna, Yul mdo smad kyi ljongs su thub bstan rin po che ji ltr dar ba'i tshul gsal bar brjod pa Deb ther rgya mtsho, and Tubed Nom yier Geigsen Mongol Erdemted. Examining his work in detail will shed new light on the rarely acknowledged issue of Sino-Tibetan-Mongolian relations outside of the capital, and will reflect the cosmopolitan culture that took hold during the 18th century.

The Sādhanic Sector: Narratives on the Origination and Transmission of the bKa’- brgyad Cycle of Tantric Teachings in India and Tibet

Guy Grizman

As a part of my ongoing research on the Rig ’dzin ’dus pa’i rtsa rgyud, a Tantric scripture of the Ancient (rNying-ma) school of Tibetan Buddhism, which belongs to bKa’-brgyad- bde-gshegs-’dus-pa cycle revealed by Nyang-ral Nyi-ma-’od-zer (1136–1204), counted as the first and one of the “Five Kings of Treasure Revealers” (gter ston gyi rgyal po lnga), I intend to investigate the Tibetan narratives on the origination and transmission of the bKa’-brgyad (“Eight Pronouncements”) cycle of Tantric teachings in India and Tibet. The bKa’-brgyad teachings are said to customarily belong to the Sādhanic Sector (sGrub-sde) of the Mahāyoga system within the nine-vehicle scheme of rNying-ma school. This may explain why the cluster is also often called the “sGrub-pa-bka’-brgyad.” The bKa’-brgyad cluster consists of eight Tantric practice-systems, each associated with a specific Tantric deity such as Vajrakīla/Vajrakīlaya or Yāmantaka and associated with a specific Indian Siddha/Vidyādhara such as Mañjuśrīmitra or Prabhāhasti/Padmasambhava, to whom the specific Sādhanic teaching is said to have been first revealed. I seek to do three things in this paper. First, I intend to take a closer look at the various pertinent passages in the writings of rNying-ma and gSar-ma scholars that contain the narratives of the origination of the bKa’-brgyad teachings in India. For this purpose, having gathered and chronologically arranged the pertinent sources that make explicit reference to the narratives of the origination or initial revelation of the bKa’-brgyad teachings in India, I intend to see which sources may have been the earliest and how the narratives evolved in course of time. The sources that I wish to consult are historical works such as the Nyang ral chos ’byung, lDe’u chos ’byung, Chos ’byung mkhas pa’i dga’ ston by dPa’-bo gTsug-lag-phreng-ba (1504–1566), and so on; pertinent gTer-ma source such as those contained in the bKa’ brgyad bde gsheg ’dus pa cycle of Nyang-ral Nyi-ma-’od-zer; miscellaneous works such as the Baiḍūrya’i g.ya’ sel by sDe-srid Sangs-rgyas-rgya-mtsho (1653–1705); specific works on bKa’-brgyad such as the bKa’ brgyad rnam bshad by Mi-pham rNam-rgyal-rgya-mtsho (1846–1912); records of teachings received (gsan/thob yig) such as the those of the Fifth Dalai Lama (1617–1682), gTer-bdag-gling-pa (1646–1714), and Kong-sprul Yon-tan-rgya-mstho (1813–1899). The second matter that I intend to explore is the narrative of how the bKa’-brgyad teachings were transmitted in Tibet by Padmasambhava to a group of selected Tibetan disciples. Here, too, having systematically gathered the pertinent passages, arranged them in an assumed relative chronology, compared and contrasted the various versions and details of the narrative, I intend to find out how the narrative has been initially conceived and how it has evolved in course of time. The third matter that I intend to look into is the narrative of how the bKa’-brgyad teachings have been concealed and subsequently revealed and transmitted by treasure revealers (gter ston) such as Nyang-ral, who are believed to the emanations of King Khri-srong-lde-btsan, who is said to have taken rebirth as a treasure revealer thirteen times. According to bDud-’joms ’Jigs-bral-ye-shes-rdo-rje, there are said to be nine bKa’-brgyad cycles of the gTer-ma tradition: (1) The bKa’ brgyad bde gshegs ’dus pa of Nyang-ral Nyi-ma-’od-zer (1136–1204); (2) bKa’ brgyad gsang ba yongs rdzogs of Guru Chos-kyi-dbang-phyug (1212–1270); (3) bKa’ brgyad rang byung rang shar of Rig-’dzin rGod-kyi-ldem-phru- can (1337–1409); (4) bKa’ brgyad thugs kyi me long of Padma-gling-pa (1450–1521); (5) bKa’ brgyad yang gsang dregs ’dul of bSam-gtan-bde-chen-gling-pa (15/16th century); (6) bKa’ brgyad gsang rdzogs drag sngags ’dus pa of rDo-rje-gling-pa (1346–1405); (7) bKa’ brgyad dngos grub snying po of Rig-’dzin ’Ja’-tshon-snying-po (1585–1656); (8) bKa’ brgyad bde gshegs yongs ’dus of Klong-gsal-snying-po (1625–1692); and (9) bKa’ brgyad khrag ’thung bde gshegs ’dus pa of mKhyen-brtse’i-dbang-po (1820–1892). Of these nine cycles, the first five, described respectively as (1) heart-like (snying dang ’dra ba), (2) cardiac-blood-like (snying khrag dang ’dra ba), (3) essence-like (dwangs ma dang ’dra ba), (4) life-force-like (srog dang ’dra ba), and (5) body-like (lus dang ’dra ba) are very influential. Among these, it seems that the bKa’ brgyad bde gshegs ’dus pa of Nyang-ral Nyi-ma’i-’od-zer is the archetype of all bKa’-brgyad cycles. The study of Rig ’dzin ’dus pa’i rtsa rgyud seems particularly important because it seems to be a core scripture underlying the bKa’ brgyad bde gshegs ’dus pa.

«The Most Profound Treasure Trove of Existence» as a lexicographical source for a study of the Zhang zhung language

Pavel Grokhovskiy and Bembya Mitruev

Zhang zhung proper names, words and phrases found in Tibetan Bon works were allegedly translated from the language of kingdom of Zhang zhung captured by Tibet in VI-VII centuries. "The most profound treasure trove of existence" (tib. Srid pa'i mdzod phugs, proposedly XI c.) is considered to be the text containing the most extensive fragments in new Zhang zhung language - a Tibeto-Burmese language, that could had been spoken in Western Tibet till about XI century. Presumably, this original text was translated from the language of the Zhang zhung kingdom that stretched from the borders of Western Tibet to the far south-east of Tibet and was captured by Tibet during the reign of the Tibetan king Srong btsan Sgam po. According to the colophon, a teacher from Zhang zhung Stong rgyung Mthu chen and a Tibetan Sha ri Dbu chen, while residing on the border of Tibet and Zhang zhung kingdom, edited this scripture by Gshen rab Mi bo in the Zhang zhung and Tibetan languages. Gradually, with the acquisition of primacy by Tibetan language, Zhang zhung language was slowly eliminated from use and ultimately became completely extinct. Dan Martin in the article “Comparing Treasures: Mental states and other mDzod phugs lists and passages with parallels in Abhidharma works by and Asaṅga, or in Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras: A progress report" comes to a conclusion that definitely three rather long passages from the "Treasury" were in some way borrowed from the Tibetan translation of "Abhidharmakośa." "Treasury" consists of 17 chapters, not all of which contain fragments in Zhang zhung language, and when they do, the Zhang zhung text mirrors the Tibetan one, presumably translated from Zhang zhung language. In total, this work has 1256 lines of text in the Zhang zhung language and 4499 lines in Tibetan. The critical digital edition by Dan Martin provides a comparison of several versions of the text. In some cases, all the manuscripts exhibit the trend towards "tibetization" of Zhang zhung words. In the original manuscripts syllables are often incorrectly split, the tsheg sign is often mistaken for syllable nga. Da, nga and even ra (and more rarely even na and zha) can often be taken for each other or are written so that they are difficult or impossible to discern. Despite the differences between the various editions, possible inaccuracies and errors in representation of Zhang zhung lexical material composition of the Bon canon the "Treasury" is a valuable source for the study of the Zhang zhung language. In 1933, F. Thomas put forward a hypothesis that two manuscripts from Dunhuang contain text in the Zhang zhung language written in . Five such manuscripts are known nowadays, and their language is tentatively identified as Old Zhang zhung (due to significant differences from New Zhang zhung of Bonpo scriptures), which has not yet been properly interpreted. On the basis of Zhang zhung glosses in Bon sources Bon followers and scholars compiled several glossaries: "The light that explains the meaning and spelling of words" (Sgra yi don sdeb snang gsal sgron me) by Zhu Nyi ma Grags pa, perhaps the first third of the XVI or the beginning of the XVIII century); "The Zhang- Zhung language: a Grammar and Dictionary of the unexplored language of Tibetan Bonpos" by (1968, more than 1,200 entries, based on Zhu Nyi ma Grags pa), "A Short Zhang zhung-Tibetan vocabulary" (Zhang bod skad dod snying bsdus, 2003, about 1,500 articles), "Zhang-zhung-Tibetan-English Contextual Dictionary" by Brag dkar Rnam rgyal Nyi ma (2003, 3875 articles, based on 468 sources), "A Lexicon of and Bonpo Terms " by Spa sar Tshul khrims Bstan 'dzin, Spyang ru Khri gtsug Rnam dag Nyi ma & Ga tsha Blo gros Rab gsal (2008 , 3500 articles); "Zhang-Zhung Dictionary" by Dan Martin (2010, about 3,500 articles), "Dictionary of the ancient Tibetan and Zhang zhung languages" (Mna' bo'i zhang bod tshig mdzod, over 3,000 articles) by Ga tsha Blo gros Rab gsal.

Violation of dam tshig and its consequences in the Bonpo monastic communities

Kalsang Norbu Gurung

This paper will present a theoretical and practical discussion of the terms dam tshig and dam nyams according to the Bonpos. As the Sanskrit term samaya in Tibetan Buddhist texts, the Bonpos interpret the Tibetan term dam tshig also as a commitment made with one’s spiritual teacher to enter a monastic community or to engage in a spiritual practice, or at any other time when spiritual guidance is needed. In this regard, there are different sets of rules to be followed or vows to be taken depending on the level of one’s practice. However, without undertaking a general discussion of dam tshig and dam nyams, I will focus particularly on how these have been interpreted in the monastic communities. For this purpose, I will use the guidebook of monastic rules, i.e. bKra shis sman ri’i bca’ yig gser gyi thig shing written by Sku mdun bSod nams blo gros (1785- 1835), and the works that served as the sources for that guidebook. I will attempt to clarify a number of issues, such as: In what sense has the term dam tshig been defined in Bon monastic communities? When may a monk be charged with violating his dam tshig, thus labelling him as a vow-breaker (dam nyams)? What are the consequences of such a violation for a monk according to the guidebook of monastic rules?

Climate Change on the Tibetan Plateau, understanding it from Tibetan History.

Tempa Gyaltsen

Climate Change and its impact on the Tibetan Plateau is fortunately gaining prominence, more and more scientific studies shading light on the history of climate change on the Tibetan Plateau from a strictly scientifically point of view. The scientific findings on the plateau could be enriched and more complete with a written account of climate change by its inhabitants, but there isn’t any such studies so far. So this paper will try to understand and highlight accounts of numerous natural calamities recorded in Tibetan History that could be understood as a result of change in certain climatic conditions occurred in the past but general Tibetan history has given it a religious connotation and described it as acts of angry Mountain Deities. There are archeological evidence showing abandoned agricultural fields and outmigration due to lowering of spring and drier weather (Mark Aldenderfer). A study at the Kiang Co lake sediment record indicated period of warmth from 1250-1400 AD, 1600-1750 AD and 1900-2007 (Jessica Conroy). ShangShung flourished until circa 1300 years ago, when the deteriorating climate and cultural and religious changes in Tibet conspired in its demise (John Bellezza). Such scientific findings clearly show the strong impact climate change had on the plateau and its consequences for social, economic and political life. There are also enough written account of climate change and its impact on the land and the people, but not written it in the present context of climate change. During the reign of Trisong Detsen, the 38th King of Tibet, Lhasa experienced extreme weather causing floods and landslide due to incessant rain, palaces and temples were washed away. The Tibetan history described it as an act of mountain deities angry with coming of a new religion (ལ་རབས་གསལ་བའི་མེ་ལོང་།) or the coming of Buddhism. Now with climate change and its extreme impacts clearly visible before us, we could better understand what caused such extreme natural calamities in ancient Tibet. The Ling Gesar Epic believed to have written sometime after the 12th century described unusual heavy (summer) snow fall in the upper regions of Machu or Matoe, thus forcing whole of Ling Nomadic community to move south (འངས་ིང་མེ་ཏོག་་བ). Here the issue is not about whether the Ling Gesar epic is true or not, but the cultural way of life and natural environment in which Kingdom of Ling flourished gives us an authentic historical account of a particular community or a region on the Tibetan Plateau. The area described as the strong hold (Matoe, Zatoe, Dritoe, Chumarlep, Kyegudo and Golog) of Ling Kingdom is the largest grassland on the Tibetan Plateau, but these regions again facing the extreme impact of climate change in the form of rapid permafrost degradation and grassland desertification. There are also historical accounts of villages and monasteries located on hilltops shifting to valleys. The history does not give a specific reasons for people moving to lower altitude or valleys, but it's obviously clear to researchers that colder weather forcing people off mountains and into warmer valleys. Abandoned ruins of houses and fields found in most part of Tibet with some fascinating folk story. Many biographies of prominent lamas and aristocratic families describing how local communities over came droughts, famine and natural calamities in Tibet in the past. So there are plenty of information recorded in the Tibetan history about climate change on the plateau but it’s just that we never tried to understand it beyond what the authors religiously described the events as.

Holistic Education: Redefining the Purpose of Education in the Royal University of Bhutan

Lungtaen Gyatso

We seem to agree on the notion that the primary purpose of life is to be happy and prosperous, but the pursuit of this goal takes people in very different directions. Our present education system including Bhutan, focuses on the role of science and technology as the path to material progress, but largely neglects to offer a holistic perspective of human development and teach students the role of personal transformation as a means to mutual happiness. The Royal University of Bhutan (RUB) has embarked on a process of transforming the role of education based on the universal values embedded in the Buddha’s teachings, which suggest that while ignorance is the source of all problems, knowledge is indeed the solution to all. At RUB we believe that we must take responsibility for a more holistic education, embedding human values in our curriculum. Our aim is to create an integrated education system that helps transform students and lead them on the path to peace, harmony, and happiness. This paper explains RUB’s decision to launch a new course on human values as a foundation course. We will detail the course content, which is largely inspired by the two texts: byang chub sems dpa’ spyod pa la ‘jug pa and kun bzang blama’i zhal lung. This course aims to lead students to understand themselves: as an individual (knowing oneself); as a member of a family; as a member of larger society; and as a unit in nature. This paper also highlights the importance of the Buddhist concepts of right understanding, right feelings (trust; respect; affection; care; guidance; reverence; honour; gratitude; love; kindness; compassion etc.), and right thoughts as the key factors in the overall human transformation. However, keeping in mind that Bhutan is a multi-religious country, the Royal University of Bhutan will design the course in line with what the Dalai Lama emphasizes as a ‘system of secular ethics’.