Envisioning a Tibetan Luminary
Title | Envisioning a Tibetan Luminary PDF eBook |
Author | William M. Gorvine |
Publisher | |
Pages | 329 |
Release | 2019 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 0199362343 |
Envisioning a Tibetan Luminary examines the religious biography of Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen (1859-1934), the most significant modern figure representing the Tibetan B n religion-a vital minority tradition that is underrepresented in Tibetan studies. The work is based on fieldwork conducted in eastern Tibet and in the B n exile community in India, where traditional Tibetan scholars collaborated closely on the project. Utilizing close readings of two versions of Shardza's life-story, along with oral history collected in B n communities, this book presents and interprets the biographical image of this major figure, culminating with an English translation of his life story. William M. Gorvine argues that the disciple-biographer's literary portrait not only enacts and shapes religious ideals to foster faith among its readership, but also attempts to quell tensions that had developed among his original audience. Among the B n community today, Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen has come to be unequivocally revered for an impressive textual legacy and a saintly death. During his lifetime, however, he faced prominent critics within his own lineage who went so far as to issue polemical attacks against him. As Gorvine shows, the biographical texts that inform us about Shardza's life are best understood when read on multiple registers, with attention given to the ways in which the religious ideals on display reflect the broader literary, cultural, and historical contexts within which they were envisioned and articulated.
Envisioning a Tibetan Luminary
Title | Envisioning a Tibetan Luminary PDF eBook |
Author | William M. Gorvine |
Publisher | |
Pages | |
Release | 2019 |
Genre | Bon lamas |
ISBN | 9780190914547 |
Envisioning a Tibetan Luminary examines the religious biography of Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen (1859-1934), the most significant modern figure representing the Tibetan Boen religion-a vital minority tradition that is underrepresented in Tibetan studies. The work is based on fieldwork conducted in eastern Tibet and in the Boen exile community in India, where traditional Tibetan scholars collaborated closely on the project. Utilizing close readings of two versions of Shardza's life-story, along with oral history collected in Boen communities, this book presents and interprets the biographical image of this major figure, culminating with an English translation of his life story.0William M. Gorvine argues that the disciple-biographer's literary portrait not only enacts and shapes religious ideals to foster faith among its readership, but also attempts to quell tensions that had developed among his original audience. Among the Boen community today, Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen has come to be unequivocally revered for an impressive textual legacy and a saintly death. During his lifetime, however, he faced prominent critics within his own lineage who went so far as to issue0polemical attacks against him. As Gorvine shows, the biographical texts that inform us about Shardza's life are best understood when read on multiple registers, with attention given to the ways in which the religious ideals on display reflect the broader literary, cultural, and historical contexts within which they were envisioned and articulated.
Envisioning a Tibetan Luminary
Title | Envisioning a Tibetan Luminary PDF eBook |
Author | William M. Gorvine |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 329 |
Release | 2018-10-26 |
Genre | Religion |
ISBN | 0190914629 |
Envisioning a Tibetan Luminary examines the religious biography of Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen (1859-1934), the most significant modern figure representing the Tibetan Bön religion-a vital minority tradition that is underrepresented in Tibetan studies. The work is based on fieldwork conducted in eastern Tibet and in the Bön exile community in India, where traditional Tibetan scholars collaborated closely on the project. Utilizing close readings of two versions of Shardza's life-story, along with oral history collected in Bön communities, this book presents and interprets the biographical image of this major figure, culminating with an English translation of his life story. William M. Gorvine argues that the disciple-biographer's literary portrait not only enacts and shapes religious ideals to foster faith among its readership, but also attempts to quell tensions that had developed among his original audience. Among the Bön community today, Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen has come to be unequivocally revered for an impressive textual legacy and a saintly death. During his lifetime, however, he faced prominent critics within his own lineage who went so far as to issue polemical attacks against him. As Gorvine shows, the biographical texts that inform us about Shardza's life are best understood when read on multiple registers, with attention given to the ways in which the religious ideals on display reflect the broader literary, cultural, and historical contexts within which they were envisioned and articulated.
Living Treasure
Title | Living Treasure PDF eBook |
Author | Andrew Quintman |
Publisher | Simon and Schuster |
Pages | 547 |
Release | 2023-06-06 |
Genre | Religion |
ISBN | 1614298009 |
Senior scholars and former students celebrate the life and work of Janet Gyatso, professor of Buddhist studies at Harvard Divinity School. Inspired by her contributions to life writing, Tibetan medicine, gender studies, and more, these offerings make a rich feast for readers interested in Tibetan and Buddhist studies. Janet Gyatso has made substantial, influential, and incredibly valuable contributions to the fields of Buddhist and Tibetan studies. Her paradigm-shifting approach is to take a topic, an idea, a text, a term—often one that had long been taken for granted or overlooked—and turn it inside out, to radically reimagine the kinds of questions that might be asked and what the answers might reveal. The twenty-nine essays in this volume, authored by colleagues and former students—many of whom are now also colleagues—represent the breadth of her interests and influence and the care that she has taken in training the current generation of scholars of Tibet and Buddhism. They are organized into five sections: Women, Gender, and Sexuality; Biography and Autobiography; the Nyingma Imaginaire; Literature, Art, and Poetry; and Early Modernity: Human and Nonhuman Worlds. Contributions include José Cabezón on the incorporation of a Buddhist rock carving in Central Asian culture; Matthew Kapstein on the memoirs of an ambivalent reincarnated lama; Willa Baker on Jikmé Lingpa’s theory of absence; Andrew Quintman on a found poem expressing worldly sadness on the forced closure of a monastery; and Padma ’tsho on Tibetan women’s advocacy for full female ordination. These and the many other chapters, each fascinating reads in their own right, together offer a glowing tribute to a scholar who indelibly changed the way we think about Buddhism, its history, and its literature.
The Faults of Meat
Title | The Faults of Meat PDF eBook |
Author | Geoffrey Barstow |
Publisher | Simon and Schuster |
Pages | 352 |
Release | 2019-10-01 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 1614295050 |
Vegetarianism is a hotly debated topic within Buddhist circles. This book provides a valuable new contribution to the discussion with translations of thirteen Tibetan texts focused on the ethical problems associated with eating meat, coming from a wide variety of perspectives and lineages. Should all Buddhists be vegetarian? Vegetarianism is an important topic of debate in Buddhist circles—some argue that Buddhists should avoid meat entirely while others suggest that it is acceptable. For the most part, however, this ethical query has been conducted in the West without consulting traditional literature on the subject. The Faults of Meat brings together for the first time a collection of rich and intricate explorations of authoritative Tibetan views on eating meat. These fourteen nuanced texts, ranging from scholastic treatises to poetic verse, reveal vegetarianism as a significant, ongoing issue of debate for Tibetans across time and traditions, with a wide variety of voices marshaled against meat, and a few in favor. Authors include many important Tibetan teachers: Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen (1292–1361) Khedrup Jé (1385–1438) The eighth Karmapa, Mikyö Dorjé (1507–1554) Shabkar Tsokdrük Rangdröl (1781–1851) Khenpo Tsultrim Lodrö (1961– ) and many more. These Buddhist teachers recognize both the ethical problems that surround meat eating and the practical challenges of maintaining a vegetarian diet; their skilled arguments are illuminated further by the translators’ introductions to each work. The perspectives in The Faults of Meat are strikingly relevant to our discussions of vegetarianism today; they introduce us to new approaches and solutions to a contentious issue for Buddhists.
Divining Slavery and Freedom
Title | Divining Slavery and Freedom PDF eBook |
Author | João José Reis |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 377 |
Release | 2015-04-20 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1316299767 |
Since its original publication in Portuguese in 2008, this first English translation of Divining Slavery has been extensively revised and updated, complete with new primary sources and a new bibliography. It tells the story of Domingos Sodré, an African-born priest who was enslaved in Bahia, Brazil in the nineteenth century. After obtaining his freedom, Sodré became a slave owner himself, and in 1862 was arrested on suspicion of receiving stolen goods from slaves in exchange for supposed 'witchcraft'. Using this incident as a catalyst, the book discusses African religion and its place in a slave society, analyzing its double role as a refuge for blacks as well as a bridge between classes and ethnic groups (such as whites who attended African rituals and sought help from African diviners and medicine men). Ultimately, Divining Slavery explores the fluidity and relativity of conditions such as slavery and freedom, African and local religions, personal and collective experience and identities in the lives of Africans in the Brazilian diaspora.
Naked Seeing
Title | Naked Seeing PDF eBook |
Author | Christopher Hatchell |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 497 |
Release | 2014 |
Genre | Religion |
ISBN | 0199982902 |
Buddhism is in many ways a visual tradition, with its well-known practices of visualization, its visual arts, its epistemological writings that discuss the act of seeing, and its literature filled with images and metaphors of light. Some Buddhist traditions are also visionary, advocating practices by which meditators seek visions that arise before their eyes. Naked Seeing investigates such practices in the context of two major esoteric traditions, the Wheel of Time (Kalacakra) and the Great Perfection (Dzogchen). Both of these experimented with sensory deprivation, and developed yogas involving long periods of dwelling in dark rooms or gazing at the open sky. These produced unusual experiences of seeing, which were used to pursue some of the classic Buddhist questions about appearances, emptiness, and the nature of reality. Along the way, these practices gave rise to provocative ideas and suggested that, rather than being apprehended through internal insight, religious truths might also be seen in the exterior world-realized through the gateway of the eyes. Christopher Hatchell presents the intellectual and literary histories of these practices, and also explores the meditative techniques and physiology that underlie their distinctive visionary experiences. The book also offers for the first time complete English translations of three major Tibetan texts on visionary practice: a Kalacakra treatise by Yumo Mikyo Dorj , The Lamp Illuminating Emptiness, a Nyingma Great Perfection work called The Tantra of the Blazing Lamps, and a B n Great Perfection work called Advice on the Six Lamps, along with a detailed commentary on this by Drugom Gyalwa Yungdrung.