Tibet, Past and Present: Religion and secular culture in Tibet PDF Download

Author: International Association for Tibetan Studies. Seminar
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9789004127760
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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Book Description
The proceedings of the seminars of the International Association for Tibetan Studies (IATS) have developed into the most representative world-wide cross-section of Tibetan Studies. They are an indispensable reference-work for anyone interested in Tibet and capture the cutting edge of Tibet-related research.This volume is the second of three volumes of general proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the IATS. It presents a careful selection of scholarly and academic articles on Tibetan Buddhist and Bon religious culture, including a sizeable section of anthropological contributions. The complete series covers ten volumes. The other seven volumes are the outcome of expert panels. Of special interest to readers of this book are the edited volumes by Katia Buffetrille & Hildegard Diemberger (anthropology: territory and identity), Helmut Eimer & David Germano (Buddhist canon), Toni Huber (anthropology: Amdo cultural revival), Christiaan Klieger (anthropology: presentation of self & identity), and Deborah Klimburg-Salter and Eva Allinger (art history).

Author: Ellen Pearlman
Publisher: Inner Traditions / Bear & Co
ISBN: 9780892819188
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
From the time Buddhism entered the mythical land of the snows, Tibetans have expressed their spiritual devotion and celebrated their culture with dance. This book--lavishly illustrated with color and rare historic photographs depicting the dances, costumes, and masks--is the first to explore the significance and symbolism of the sacred and secular ritual dances of Tibetan Buddhism.

Author: Gray Tuttle
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231144687
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 749

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Book Description
Answering a critical need for an accurate, in-depth history of Tibet, this single-volume resource reproduces essential, hard-to-find essays from the past fifty years of Tibetan studies. Covering the social, cultural, and political development of Tibet from the seventh century to the modern period, the volume is organized chronologically and regionally to complement courses in Asian and religious studies and world civilizations. Beginning with Tibet's emergence as a regional power and concluding with its profound contemporary transformations, this anthology offers both a general and ..

Author: Nicole Willock
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231551967
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Winner, 2024 E. Gene Smith Inner Asia Book Prize, Association for Asian Studies Honorable Mention, 2023 Joseph Levenson Prize Post-1900, Association for Asian Studies In the aftermath of the cataclysmic Maoist period, three Tibetan Buddhist scholars living and working in the People’s Republic of China became intellectual heroes. Renowned as the “Three Polymaths,” Tséten Zhabdrung (1910–1985), Mugé Samten (1914–1993), and Dungkar Lozang Trinlé (1927–1997) earned this symbolic title for their efforts to keep the lamp of the Dharma lit even in the darkest hour of Tibetan history. Lineages of the Literary reveals how the Three Polymaths negotiated the political tides of the twentieth century, shedding new light on Sino-Tibetan relations and Buddhism during this turbulent era. Nicole Willock explores their contributions to reviving Tibetan Buddhism, expanding Tibetan literary arts, and pioneering Tibetan studies as an academic discipline. Her sophisticated reading of Tibetan-language sources vivifies the capacious literary world of the Three Polymaths, including autobiography, Buddhist philosophy, poetic theory, and historiography. Whereas prevailing state-centric accounts place Tibetan religious figures in China in one of two roles, collaborator or resistance fighter, Willock shows how the Three Polymaths offer an alternative model of agency. She illuminates how they by turns safeguarded, taught, and celebrated Tibetan Buddhist knowledge, practices, and institutions after their near destruction during the Cultural Revolution. An interdisciplinary work spanning religious studies, history, literary studies, and social theory, Lineages of the Literary offers new insight into the categories of religion and the secular, the role of Tibetan Buddhist leaders in modern China, and the contested ground of Tibet.

Author: Geoffrey Barstow
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231542305
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
Tibetan Buddhism teaches compassion toward all beings, a category that explicitly includes animals. Slaughtering animals is morally problematic at best and, at worst, completely incompatible with a religious lifestyle. Yet historically most Tibetans—both monastic and lay—have made meat a regular part of their diet. In this study of the place of vegetarianism within Tibetan religiosity, Geoffrey Barstow explores the tension between Buddhist ethics and Tibetan cultural norms to offer a novel perspective on the spiritual and social dimensions of meat eating. Food of Sinful Demons shows the centrality of vegetarianism to the cultural history of Tibet through specific ways in which nonreligious norms and ideals shaped religious beliefs and practices. Barstow offers a detailed analysis of the debates over meat eating and vegetarianism, from the first references to such a diet in the tenth century through the Chinese invasion in the 1950s. He discusses elements of Tibetan Buddhist thought—including monastic vows, the Buddhist call to compassion, and tantric antinomianism—that see meat eating as morally problematic. He then looks beyond religious attitudes to examine the cultural, economic, and environmental factors that oppose the Buddhist critique of meat, including Tibetan concepts of medicine and health, food scarcity, the display of wealth, and idealized male gender roles. Barstow argues that the issue of meat eating was influenced by a complex interplay of factors, with religious perspectives largely supporting vegetarianism while practical concerns and secular ideals pulled in the other direction. He concludes by addressing the surge in vegetarianism in contemporary Tibet in light of evolving notions of Tibetan identity and resistance against the central Chinese state. The first book to discuss this complex issue, Food of Sinful Demons is essential reading for scholars interested in Tibetan religion, history, and culture as well as global food history.

Author: Henk Blezer
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004483071
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 515

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Book Description
The proceedings of the seminars of the International Association for Tibetan Studies (IATS) have developed into the most representative world-wide cross-section of Tibetan Studies. They are an indispensable reference-work for anyone interested in Tibet and capture the cutting edge of Tibet-related research. This volume is the first of three volumes of general proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the IATS. It presents a careful selection of scholarly and academic articles on Tibetan history, which includes contemporary developments as well as a compact, but significant, linguistic section. The complete series covers ten volumes. The other seven volumes are the outcome of expert panels. Of special interest to readers of this book may be the edited volumes by Christopher Beckwith (linguistics), Helmut Eimer and David Germano (Buddhist canon), Lawrence Epstein (Khams pa history), Deborah Klimburg-Salter (art history) and the third volume of the general proceedings (Bhutan and art history).

Author: Christian Smith
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691191646
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
A groundbreaking new theory of religion Religion remains an important influence in the world today, yet the social sciences are still not adequately equipped to understand and explain it. This book advances an innovative theory of religion that goes beyond the problematic theoretical paradigms of the past. Drawing on the philosophy of critical realism and personalist social theory, Christian Smith explores why humans are religious in the first place—uniquely so as a species—and offers an account of secularization and religious innovation and persistence that breaks the logjam in which religious scholarship has been stuck for so long. Certain to stimulate debate and inspire promising new avenues of scholarship, Religion features a wealth of illustrations and examples that help to make its concepts accessible to readers. This superbly written book brings sound theoretical thinking to a perennially thorny subject, and a new vitality and focus to its study.

Author: International Association for Tibetan Studies. Seminar
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004155201
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
Recent archaeological discoveries and scientific research especially focussed on western Tibet and the western Himalayas have resulted in a remarkable redefinition of the historical and cultural processes of the entire Indo-Tibetan civilisation. The present volume reflects these sometimes startling new insights for the first time, covering the wide time range from the Zhang zhung period up to the 20th century, spanning secular, religious and economic history, as well as art and archaeology.

Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047411676
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
The papers provide access for the first time to Tibetan documents and practices from the period of the tenth to fifteenth century.

Author: International Association for Tibetan Studies. Seminar
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004155228
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
This book, the first scholarly publication in the West to provide detailed documentation of modern life in contemporary Tibet, presents the cutting-edge field work carried out by an interdisciplinary group of researchers studying caste, pop music, media, painting, education, economics, childbirth and environment in Tibetan communities today.