The Life and Times of Mingyur Peldrön: Female Leadership in 18Th Century Tibetan Buddhism
The Life and Times of Mingyur Peldrön: Female Leadership in 18th Century Tibetan Buddhism Alison Joyce Melnick Ann Arbor, Michigan B.A., University of Michigan, 2003 M.A., University of Virginia, 2008 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Religious Studies University of Virginia August, 2014 ii © Copyright by Alison Joyce Melnick All Rights Reserved August 2014 iii Abstract This dissertation examines the life of the Tibetan nun Mingyur Peldrön (mi 'gyur dpal sgron, 1699-1769) through her hagiography, which was written by her disciple Gyurmé Ösel ('gyur med 'od gsal, b. 1715), and completed some thirteen years after her death. It is one of few hagiographies written about a Tibetan woman before the modern era, and offers insight into the lives of eighteenth century Central Tibetan religious women. The work considers the relationship between members of the Mindröling community and the governing leadership in Lhasa, and offers an example of how hagiographic narrative can be interpreted historically. The questions driving the project are: Who was Mingyur Peldrön, and why did she warrant a 200-folio hagiography? What was her role in her religious community, and the wider Tibetan world? What do her hagiographer's literary decisions tell us about his own time and place, his goals in writing the hagiography, and the developing literary styles of the time? What do they tell us about religious practice during this period of Tibetan history, and the role of women within that history? How was Mingyur Peldrön remembered in terms of her engagement with the wider religious community, how was she perceived by her followers, and what impact did she have on religious practice for the next generation? Finally, how and where is it possible to "hear" Mingyur Peldrön's voice in this work? This project engages several types of research methodology, including historiography, semiology, and methods for reading hagiography as history.
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