Religion and Secular Culture in Tibet (Tibetan Studies-II)

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

About The Book THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE SEMINARS of International Association for Tibetan Studies (ATS) 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 vohimnes general proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the 1ATS. It presents a careful selection of scholarly and academic articles on Tibetan Buddhist and Bon religious culture, including a sizeable section of antropological 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 may be the edited volumes by Katia Buffetrille & Hildegard Diemberger (anthropology: territory and identify), Helmut Esmer & David Germano (Buddhist canon), Toni Huber (anthropology: A mdo cultural revival). Christaan Klieger (anthropology: presentation of self and identity), and Deborah Klimburg Salter (art history).

About the Author HENK BLEZER, Ph.D. (1997) in Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, University of Leiden, is research-fellow at Leiden University and investigates antecedents of Bon religion in Tibet. Blezer convened the Ninth ATS Seminar and is (managing) editor of its proceedings. His previous research projects include possible Bon-origins of central rDzongs chen ideas (several articles and a monograph-in-progress) and Tibetan literature regarding so- called intermediate states (see his Kar gling Zhi kbro. A Tantric Buddhist Concept, Leiden 1997).

Preface This is the second of three volumes general proceedings of the ninth seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, held June 24-30, 2000, in Leiden, The Netherlands, hosted by the Inter- national Institute for Asian Studies (IAS).

The spectacular growth of Tibetan Studies and the great popular demand for regular IATS meetings may be apparent from the fact that the ninth seminar-even when organised only two years after the eighth-received close to 400 registrations and eventually had 290 actual participants at the seminar. Approximately 270 papers have been submitted for review, roughly 235 of which have been accepted, 215 were eventually presented, and more than 150 now appear in print. Half the papers were presented in panels.

This second volume comprises contributions on religious and secular culture, both from textual studies and anthropological perspectives, and a couple of articles dealing with literary fiction. Volume one contains articles about history, ancient and modern, and linguistic contributions. The last volume contains articles concerning Bhutan (guest-editor: John Ardussi) and contributions on Tibetan Art. The complete proceedings comprise seven additional volumes, which are based on specialized panels at the seminar and were edited by the panel-organizers:

4. Epstein, Khams pa Histories: Visions of People, Place and Authority

5. Huber, Amdo Tibetans in Transition: Society and Culture in the Post-Mao Era

6. Beckwith, Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages

7. Klimburg-Salter & Allinger, Buddhist Art and Tibetan Patron- age from the Ninth to Fourteenth Centuries

8. Klieger, Tibet, Self, and The Tibetan Diaspora: Voices of Difference

9. Buffetrille & Diemberger, Territory and Identity in Tibet and the Himalaya

10. Eimer & Germano, The Many Canons of Tibetan Buddhism

Introduction Some years ago, I wrote a book on Tibetan religion, Civilized Shamans, which contained three chapters on the Indian background to Tibetan Buddhism. These chapters were a preliminary attempt to make sense of the social and religious context within which the varieties of Buddhism imported by the Tibetans had originally developed. I have been working further on trying to understand this Indian background in recent years. Here I look at some of the implications of what I have been finding out. In particular, I have some suggestions to make about why Buddhism was so appealing to the kings of Tibet in the 7th and 8th centuries.

Of course, we have plenty of literary material on why the Tibetan kings adopted Buddhism. With the exception of the surviving inscriptions, however, which are often not all that revealing in isolation, what we have dates from a later period, mostly from the late 10th and early 11th century onwards. By this stage, it is arguable that the narrative of Tibet's encounter with Buddhism had been reshaped to tell a consistent story, with an essentially Dharmic theme. This is the story with which we are all familiar, of Tibet's conversion into a country where the buddhadharma flourishes as a path to liberation, under the patronage of the great bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Spyan ras gzigs).

It is certainly possible, and entirely plausible, that Srong btsan sgam po, Khri srong Ide'u btsan, Ral pa can and other pro-B Buddhist kings may, as our histories tell us, have had a genuine attraction to Buddhism as a personal path towards liberation. They may too have been moved to establish Buddhism as a religion of state, in part at least, in order to further the spiritual progress of their subjects. However, we should also recall that the Tibetan kings and their governments from the mid-7 century onwards were involved in transforming a decentralised tribal federation into an entity com- parable with, and capable of competing militarily, with the more centralised states they were encountering to their cast and south. Indian-style writing, Greco-Islamic medicine, a largely Chinese. derived architectural style, and an administrative system also, it would seem, based mostly on Chinese models, all formed parts of this package. So did Buddhism, and it is not surprising that we find a stress in the early inscriptions on Buddhism as essentially a religion of virtuous action and of proper ethical relationships among the citizens of a state (e.g., Samuel, 1993, pp.444f.). As a set of teachings on public morality, Buddhism had an obvious role to play.

Are there other ways in which Buddhism was seen as contributing to state purposes? I would suggest that there were, and that these were concerned with the defence and protection of the state, and the maintenance of the king's power. Parallels from China and Japan suggest that protective, defensive and even aggressive uses of Buddhist ritual technology were a regular part of the statecraft of the time. This is an approach which can already be seen in some of the later Mahayana sutras and which becomes more and more noticeable in Vajrayana material. I believe that we can understand the growth of such uses of Buddhist ritual, and also, perhaps, the origins of much of what we now call the Vajrayana, in terms of a wider transformation in the Indian religious context during the 1" millennium C.E. Part of that transformation involved Buddhism making itself attractive to states in terms of its potential to support state power.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages