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9789004235007.Pdf Revisiting Rituals in a Changing Tibetan World Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library Edited by Henk Blezer Alex McKay Charles Ramble VOLUME 31 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/btsl Revisiting Rituals in a Changing Tibetan World Edited by Katia Buffetrille LEIDEN • BOSTON 2012 Cover illustration: Sherpa house in Changma (Bhandar) village (Solu, Nepal), 2007. Photo by Katia Buffetrille. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Revisiting rituals in a changing Tibetan world / edited by Katia Buffetrille, École pratique des Hautes Études. p. cm. -- (Brill’s Tibetan studies library ; v. 31) This volume is the result of an international conference held on November 8th and 9th 2007 at the Collège de France. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-23217-4 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-23500-7 (e-book : alk. paper) 1. Buddhism--Tibet Region--Rituals--Congresses. 2. Buddhism and culture--Tibet Region--Congresses. I. Buffetrille, Katia, editor of compilation. BQ4975.R48 2012 294.3’43809515--dc23 2012025694 ISSN 1568-6183 ISBN 978 90 04 23217 4 (hardback) ISBN 978 90 04 23500 7 (e-book) Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................... vii KAtiA Buffetrille—introduction ..................................................... 1 HildegArd diemBerger—Holy Books as ritual objects and Vessels of teachings in the era of the ‘further spread of the doctrine’ (Bstan pa yang dar)....................................... 9 fABienne JAgou—the use of the ritual drawing of lots for the selection of the 11th Panchen lama .............................. 43 tHierry dodin—transformed rituals? some reflections on the Paradigm of the transformation of rituals in the tibetan Context........................................................ 69 fernAndA Pirie—legal dramas on the Amdo grasslands: Abolition, transformation or survival?.......................... 83 niColA sCHneider—the ordination of Dge slong ma: a Challenge to ritual Prescriptions?................................................. 109 mireille Helffer—Preservation and transformations of liturgical traditions in exile: the Case of Zhe chen monastery in Bodnath (nepal).......................................................... 137 KAtiA Buffetrille—low tricks and High stakes surrounding a Holy Place in eastern nepal: the Halesi-måratika Caves................................................................ 163 AlexAnder Von rosPAtt—Past Continuity and recent Changes in the ritual Practice of newar Buddhism: reflections on the impact of tibetan Buddhism and the Advent of modernity............................................................ 209 vi Contents mArie-dominique eVen—ritual efficacy or spiritual quest? Buddhism and modernity in Post-Communist mongolia........................................................... 241 roBert BArnett—notes on Contemporary ransom rituals in lhasa................................................................... 273 notes on Contributors....................................................................... 375 index................................................................................................. 379 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This volume is the result of an international conference entitled La transformation des rituels dans l’aire tibétaine à l’époque contempo- raine (Transformation of rituals in contemporary Tibet) held on November 8th and 9th 2007 at the Collège de France. This conference was made possible thanks to the financial and mate- rial support of the École pratique des Hautes Études, the Collège de France, particularly Professeur Pierre-Étienne Will and Professeur Gérard Fussman, the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, the Ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche, the Centre de recherche sur les civilisations de l’Asie orientale and its former director Alain Thote: to all these I wish to express my gratitude. Special thanks go to Mécénat 100%, a non-profit association that supports a variety of artistic, cultural, scientific, and humanitarian proj- ects, and to Marc Chauchard who was instrumental in presenting the conference project. I wish to express my deepest appreciation to the fine scholars whose excellent contributions appear in this book and for their patience in awaiting its publication. The publication of this volume has come about through the com- bined efforts of several people. In particular, I would like to thank Charles Ramble who recommended the book for Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library and has helped with a range of issues. The layout of this vol- ume has been carefully prepared by Kemi Tsewang. Again, the Centre de recherche sur les civilisations de l’Asie orien- tale, and in particular its current director Annick Horiuchi and vice- director Éric Trombert, and Mécénat 100% have been strongly support- ive and I would like to emphasise my gratitude for their encouragement. katia buffetrille INTRODUCTION Katia Buffetrille For several years, a group of researchers from the “Centre de recherche sur les civilisations de l’Asie Orientale” (UMR 8155) has been consid- ering the dynamics of ritual and conducting regular meetings on this theme. In fact, the importance of ritual in the Tibetan world and neigh- bouring regions (Mongolia and Nepal) has been emphasised by numer- ous authors, and for good reasons. In this vast region, ritual permeates all aspects of political, religious and social life.1 Ritual has an intrinsic social dimension. Performed individually or collectively, and repeated regularly, ritual displays a strongly conserva- tive character. Indeed, despite a certain margin of improvisation, any ritual is meant to be faithful to precise rules, which constitute its foun- dation and determine its efficacy. While rituals evolve over the course of time, it generally does so in a very slow, and often almost impercep- tible, way. However, upheavals—for reasons internal or external to the community or society concerned—can occur and bring about signifi- cant modifications in the form of a ritual, and sometimes, even lead to its disappearance, either temporarily or permanently, or give birth to new rituals. The changes that have confronted Tibet and its neighbour- ing regions in the recent past have led us to seriously question the trans- formation of rituals in contemporary Tibet. A symposium on this theme took place in Paris in November 2007, bringing together fifteen researchers from various European and American institutions: École pratique des Hautes Études, Centre national de la recherche scien- tifique, École française d’Extrême-Orient, Université de Lille, Nanterre-Université, and the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Oslo, Columbia, and California (Berkeley). The articles in this volume offer the results of recent research, based on both fieldwork and textual studies, presented at the symposium by 1 For a general and extremely rich study of Tibetan rituals, see J.I. Cabezón (2010) Tibetan Rituals, Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. 2 KATIA BUFFETRILLE researchers who have worked in central and eastern Tibet, Nepal and Mongolia. The choice of these countries is explained by the many and long-standing ties that have been woven over the centuries. These rela- tionships have been political, military, economic and religious in nature. The intention here is not to write a history of Tibeto-Nepali and Tibeto-Mongolian relations—the literature on these topics is well- known—but only to recall some significant facts. Nepal and Tibet have been in contact since the 7th century, when Srong btsan sgam po (617–649/650) brought numerous kingdoms under his power and extended his authority over an immense territory thanks to his conquests and the marital unions he established. According to Tibetan tradition one of his wives was a Nepali Buddhist princess named Bh®ku†¥ In the following century, the king Khri Srong lde btsan (742–797?) sent his minister Dba’ Gsal snang to Nepal in order to invite Íåntarak∑ita, an Indian monk, to confer ordination on the first Tibetan monks. It is to Nepal, as well, that Tibetans went to study Sanskrit, seek out Buddhist manuscripts and visit the two great pilgrimage sites: Bodnath and SwayambËnath, the renovations of which were, moreover, often sponsored by Tibetan monks, as Alexander von Rospatt reminds us in this volume. But the influence of Nepal was not limited to the reli- gious level. The art of central Tibet —a religious art in fact—was sub- jected to a strong Nepali influence that some contemporary Tibetan authors trace back as far as the imperial period.2 The artists, mainly Newar, were gold- and silversmiths, wood sculptors and painters. Among those who practised their talents in Tibet over
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