UCSF UC San Francisco Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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UCSF UC San Francisco Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Tibetan Medicine in Exile: The ethics, politics and science of cultural survival Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3207476k Author Kloos, Stephan Publication Date 2010 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Copyright (2010) by Stephan Kloos ii Acknowledgements There is an African saying that to raise a child, it takes a village. Similarly, it takes much more than one individual to finish a PhD dissertation, and indeed this one is indebted to the support, help, contribution and influence of more people than I can possibly mention in the space of a few pages. Some people stand out, though – perhaps most of all the two with whom everything began and ended (for now): Laurent Pordié, with whom my interest and work on Tibetan medicine in India began at a chance meeting in Ladakh in 1998, and who supported my work as a friend and mentor since then; and Vincanne Adams, advisor par excellence, who taught me as much by advice as by example, and whose unwavering support and dedication enabled me to bring my academic training to a happier completion than I could ever have imagined in 1998. I feel truly fortunate and very grateful to have had the pleasure and privilege to be shaped as a scholar and person by these two people. There were other people, too, who were key to my professional training and the writing of this dissertation. This applies first and foremost to Andre Gingrich, whose outstanding encouragement and professional support enabled me to pursue my PhD in the first place, and to retain ties to Austrian academia despite my long absence. I am also deeply indebted to Lawrence Cohen and Aihwa Ong – who were my dissertation committee together with Vincanne and Laurent – for their generous insights and advice throughout the years. Besides them, Paul Rabinow, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Philippe Bourgois, Judith Justice, Sharon Kaufman, Gay Becker and Sienna Craig provided important intellectual resources and joy to my work. I am grateful to all of them. iii Similarly, I consider myself very fortunate to have been able to work among the exile-Tibetan community in Dharamsala and elsewhere, and particularly with exile- Tibetan amchi. Their friendly cheerfulness, constant help, inexhaustible patience, great intelligence and originality of thought humbled and delighted me throughout, and made this dissertation not only possible but actually a labor of love. I am especially grateful to Dr. Wangdue, Dr. Jamyang Tashi and Dr. Tenzin Kunga for their friendship, jokes, and long conversations; they were the first exile-Tibetan amchi I met when I began my dissertation research in 2005, and they not only encouraged me to persevere with my research, but also helped set its tone and direction. They made my first encounter with the Men-Tsee-Khang – a large and at times seemingly inaccessible institution for an anthropologist – thoroughly positive and welcoming, a feeling that was only reinforced by them and many other doctors in the years since then. Of the latter, I would like to particularly mention Dr. Lhawang la, the institute’s first student and thus senior-most doctor until his demise in September 2008, whose many stories about his flight from Tibet and the Men-Tsee-Khang’s reestablishment in exile – all told in vivid detail and with much humor – were both treasures and delights. I also am deeply grateful to my friend Dr. Tenzin Nyima, and to Dr. Dorjee Rabten, Dr. Tenzin Namdul, Dr. Tenzin Thaye, Dr. Tsering Dorjee Dekhang, Dr. Pema Dorjee, Dr. Tsering Thakchoe Drungtso, Dr. Thokmay Paljor, Dr. Dawa Dolma, Dr. Choelo Thar, Dr. Sonam Dolma, Dr. Tseten Dorjee, Tsering Phuntsog and Tsewang Gyatso for their help and insights. One of the greatest benefits of working on Tibetan medicine consists in gaining knowledge of, and access to, some of its best practitioners, and thus to the medicine itself in its most effective form. Indeed, the outstanding medical skills of Dr. Tsewang Tamdin iv (the new Men-Tsee-Khang director since 2010) and Dr. Yeshi Dorjee have saved my family and me much physical suffering during our stay in Dharamsala, and the Men- Tsee-Khang’s pills have continued to keep my rlung in precarious balance during the writing phase of my dissertation. Of course, my work would not have been possible without the tacit and explicit support of the Men-Tsee-Khang’s director from 2004 to 2010, Dr. Dawa, and his administrative staff, including the deputy director Dr. Namgyal Tsering, Dr. Tseten Dorjee and Tsering Phuntsog. I have also had the privilege to meet several previous Men- Tsee-Khang directors – Jigme Tsarong, Rinchen Dolma Rechung, Tsering Tashi Phuri, and Pema Damdul Arya – as well as Dr. Yeshi Donden, who almost single-handedly reestablished the Men-Tsee-Khang as its first doctor, teacher and acting director in the 1960s. I have benefited tremendously from their recollections and insights, and I thank them all for their help, friendship and trust in my work. There are many others outside the context of the Men-Tsee-Khang who I am equally indebted to for their help, information and perspectives. Dr. Tashi Yangphel Tashigang, Dr. Namgyal Qusar, Dr. Tsewang Dolkar Khangkar, Dr. Thokmay, Dr. Lobsang Tenzin Rakdho, Dr. Tashi Dawa, Dr. Dickey Nyerongsha, Dr. Tsering Phuntsog, Dr. Thinley Angjor, and Dr. Padma Gyurmet are all non-Men-Tsee-Khang amchi outstanding not only for their medical skills but also for their involvement in the development of Tibetan medicine in exile and their contribution to this dissertation. I have also benefited greatly from Dr. Bhagwan Dash, who generously invited me to his home to discuss various historical and political aspects of Tibetan medicine, from Herbert Schwabl (Padma AG) for his insights into the Men-Tsee-Khang, from Tashi Tsering v Josayma (Amnye Machen Institute) and Tsering Shakya for their critical insights into exile-Tibetan society, and from Barbara Gerke, who helped me establish important contacts in the beginning phase of my research when I stayed at the ITTM in Kalimpong, and who since then has been both a good friend and colleague. The latter is true of several others, including Calum Blaikie, Martin Saxer, Scott Stonington, Resi Hofer and Ulli Cokl. To no lesser extent, I am grateful to Karma Ngodup, Pema Jugney, Maling Gombu, Benoit Petit, Dawa Tsering, Sonam Topgyal, Pema Youdon, Sarika and Locho Singh, Yogesh (Yogi) Gupta, Yeshi Tsomo, Namgyal, Lhumu, and Lata for the various kinds of help, support and advice they provided. Whenever my Tibetan skills proved insufficient, Yungdung Dhargye was available as an extraordinarily capable and reliable interpreter, and the same was true for Samten for interviews in Ladakhi. Jigme Ugyan of CST Darjeeling and Tenzin Dhardon Sharling from the Tibetan Women’s Association and her parents translated entire books and many documents from Tibetan to English in outstanding quality. Sebastian Georges (SebGeo) agreed to do a photo-project on the Men-Tsee-Khang, and generously shared the beautiful results with me. This dissertation has been made possible by the generous financial and bureaucratic support I received, over the years, from different institutions and agencies. In particular (and in chronological order), I am grateful to the Austrian Fulbright Commission; the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research; Land Steiermark; the French Institute of Pondicherry; the University of California, San Francisco; the Quayum Foundation; the Wenner-Gren Foundation; the Indian Institute of vi Advanced Study in Shimla, the Austrian Science Fund (FWF Project P 20589-G15) and the Institute of Social Anthropology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents, Hannes and Luise Kloos, for their unceasing, unconditional support and love. I am particularly grateful to my wife Cristina Bonnet, who was more involved in the process of researching and writing this dissertation than anyone else. Apart from following me to India for a year, she repeatedly read and commented drafts of my dissertation, bringing analytic clarity into the jumble of my thoughts, and readability into that of my words. Finally, our daughter Sophia proved an inexhaustible source of sweetness and joy through it all, drawing smiles and kindness from strangers in India, California and Austria alike. I thank them all for their understanding, patience, love and support; to me, they are the greatest teachers of all. vii Tibetan Medicine in Exile The Ethics, Politics and Science of Cultural Survival Stephan Kloos This dissertation combines ethnography, history and critical analysis to produce the first comprehensive account of Tibetan medicine in exile to date. Beginning with exile- Tibetan medicine’s fundamental claim, it asks how its practitioners and institutions strive to simultaneously “preserve Tibetan culture” and “help the world”. I argue that Tibetan medicine “preserves” Tibetan culture and produces a modern Tibetan nation by instantiating, materializing and validating Tibetan Buddhist ethics – and thus Tibetan culture and nation – in its medical knowledge, its institutions, doctors, pills, and efficacy. At the same time, it claims to “help the world” not only by transforming itself into a globally recognized (and recognizable) system of alternative medicine providing herbal pills to an international community of patients, but also by producing an alternative, uniquely Tibetan modernity that addresses the perceived shortcomings and desires of Western modernity. The dissertation is organized in seven chapters including the introduction. After outlining the analytic framework and introducing the subject matter in the introduction, the chapters proceed from the historical background of Tibetan medicine in exile to the ways traditional connections between ethics, politics and money have been (and are) renegotiated since the 1960s, to the transformation of exile-Tibetan medicine into a medical system and efforts to achieve legal recognition, to finally Tibetan medicine’s engagement with modern science.