Tibetan religion

Translation of two Tibetan devotional texts in praise of the goddess Tara written in the 15th century by His Holiness Gendun Drubpa, the First Dalai Lama. The texts are presented in Tibetan and in English translation, with individual words and phrases defined for each verse.

Within the horizon of Bonpo tantric literature, Mother Tantras (Tib. Ma rgyud) are celebrated for their remarkable philosophical soteriology. The article introduces elements and features of seminal Ma rgyud tenets unravelled through the exegesis of Lopon Tendzin Namdak (1926-), the major spiritual authority in the field of Bonpo hermeneutics. Specifically, it presents an analytical overview of the opening section of the latter’s Ma rgyud ye shes thig le’i mchan ’grel (Commentary and notes to the Mother Tantra, Essence of Primordial Wisdom). The pivotal point is that the eschatologic principles of the Ma rgyud set out in the work prove relevant to the core of rDzogs chen metaphysics.

Konchok Gelek. 2018. Review: A Step Away from Paradise. Asian Highlands Perspectives 51:346-350.

Thomas K. Shor. 2012. A Step Away from Paradise: A Tibetan Lama's Extraordinary Journey to a Land of Immortality. [Kindle version]. ASIN B006TR0Y7W (7.03USD); ISBN 0999291890 (paperback 19.95USD).

In the early twentieth century in a remote region of Golok, Tibet, Tulshuk Lingpa demonstrated this quality while very young. He grabbed a phurba, a ritual dagger with a pointed three-edge blade,  from the empty space of air above him in front of monk novices and his teacher.
Tulshuk Lingpa's father was also a terton with two wives, a common practice among lingpa. The second wife was a dakini 'sky goer', a female embodiment of enlightened energy, intermediaries between the hidden land and lingpa.
In the 1930s, when Tulshuk Lingpa was teaching at a monastery adjacent to Chongay Town in Central Tibet, he met Phuntsok Choeden from a nearby household. They fell in love and ran away together to India. While on pilgrimage to places that Padmasambhava had once visited, they found themselves in a Himalayan region of India. Tulshuk Lingpa used his knowledge of herbal medicine in tandem with ritual and magic to treat the local people. He was then invited to a monastery in the Pangi Valley in the Chamba District in India, where he lived for fifteen years.
 At times Tulshuk acted insanely, was unpredictable, contradicted his own statements, and often drank. Nevertheless, his ability to locate ter proved he was a terton. For example, one night when he was drunk while circumambulating a temple, he ordered his disciples to smash a wall of the temple, revealing a scroll with some writing that only a terton could decipher. He later produced two books of some 300 pages each based on his interpretation of this ter.
His fame grew in the Pandi Area in the west Himalayan region of India and he acted as a judge when there were local disputes. When well-armed Muslims entered the adjacent village, Kaan, people feared that Pandi would be the next target. Tulshuk Lingpa performed a ritual to stop the intrusion, and then he and a few of his disciples went to Kaan Village, which seemed abandoned. In fact, anxious villagers were hiding inside their homes. The intruders had left. Villagers cheered with joy when they realized the invaders were gone, put garlands of flowers around his neck, and regarded Tulshuk Lingpa as their savior. To prevent a return of the invaders, Tulshuk Lingpa performed rituals for some days. The Muslims did not return.
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Guardians of Nature is a clearly written and very insightful view of the political economic, environmental, and social-cultural transformations reshaping lives and livelihoods on the Tibetan Plateau. Written as a first-hand narrative account of his work over several years with Hashul villagers in Yulshul, Tsering Bum’s perceptive book discusses key issues of contemporary Tibetan pastoralism: mining, the importance of the caterpillar fungus economy, resettlement, co-ops, education policy, human-wildlife conflict, and sacred mountains. It also explores quite new phenomena, such as Tibetan pastoralists hiring Han Chinese and non-local Tibetans as herding laborers while living off of caterpillar fungus income, and the rise of feral dogs as a result of the sharp drop in Tibetan mastiff prices. Tsering Bum’s analysis is informed by critiques of nature-culture binaries and illustrates the many effects of perverse policy incentives. Strongly recommended for anyone interested in understanding Tibetan pastoral areas today.

Guardians of Nature is available  at-cost print versions

http://tinyurl.com/hjw6zr6 (hardback)

http://tinyurl.com/h2lzt33 (paperback)

༼རང་བྱུང་ཁམས་ཀྱི་སྲུང་སྐྱོང་བ། བོད་ཀྱི་འབྲོག་པ་དང་ཕྱི་སྣོད་ཀྱི་འཇིག་རྟེན།༽གྱིས་དེང་སྐབས་མདོ་དབུས་མཐོ་སྒང་གི་སྐྱེ་ཁམས་ཁོར་ཡུག་དང་སྤྱི་ཚོགས་རིག་གནས་ཀྱི་འགྱུར་ལྡོག་གིས་ས་གནས་འབྲོག་པ་མི་དམངས་དང་རང་བྱུང་ཁམས་ལ་ཐེབས་པའི་ཤན་ཤུགས་སོགས་ཞིབ་ཏུ་བརྗོད་ཡོད། ཀླུ་ཚང་ཚེ་རིང་འབུམ་གྱིས་མིའི་རིགས་རིག་པའི་ཁྱབ་ཁོངས་ཀྱི་མི་རིགས་རིག་པའི་ཞིབ་འཇུག་ཐབས་ཤེས་བཀོལ་ནས་རང་བྱུང་དང་རིག་གནས་གཉིས་ལྡན་གྱི་འགལ་ཟླས་གྲུབ་པའི་སྐྱེ་ཁམས་ཀྱི་གནད་དོན་མང་པོ་ཞིབ་བརྗོད་བྱས་ཡོད་དེ། དཔེར་ན། དབྱར་རྩྭ་དགུན་འབུས་བོད་ཁུལ་གྱི་དཔལ་འབྱོར་དང་རིག་གནས་ལ་ཐེབས་པའི་ཤན་ཤུགས། རྩྭ་ས་དོ་དམ་གྱི་གནད་དོན་དང་སྲིད་ཇུས། མི་དང་རི་སྐྱེས་སྲོག་ཆགས་བར་གྱི་འགལ་བ། གནས་རི་དང་ཡུལ་ལྷ་གཞི་བདག་རིག་གནས་ཀྱིས་སྐྱེ་དངོས་སྣ་མང་རང་བཞིན་སྲུང་སྐྱོབ་ལ་ཐེབས་པའི་ཕན་ནུས་སོགས་བརྗོད་ཡོད་ལ། དེ་མིན་བོད་ཁུལ་གྱི་འབྲོག་པ་མི་དམངས་ཀྱིས་གནད་དོན་འདི་དག་ལ་བརྒྱབ་པའི་འགྲེལ་བཤད་དང་དེར་བརྟེན་གྱི་སྐྱེ་ཁམས་སྲུང་སྐྱོབ་ཀྱི་ལག་ལེན་སྐོར་ཞིབ་བརྗོད་བྱས་ཡོད་པས་ན། དེབ་འདི་མདོ་དབུས་མཐོ་སྒང་གི་སྐྱེ་ཁམས་ཁོར་ཡུག་དང་འབྲོག་པའི་སྤྱི་ཚོགས་རིག་གནས་ལ་དོ་སྣང་བྱེད་མཁན་རྣམས་ལ་འོས་སྦྱོར་བྱས་པ་ལགས།

《自然的守护者: 藏地牧民与他们的生态世界》一书讲述了青藏高原数十年来生态环境、经济及社会文化的变迁，以及这些变迁对自然生态和本土牧民生活的影响。作者鲁仓才让本运用人类学民族志的手法，展示了自然、文化二元对立的思维结构造成的社会和生态问题。全书叙述了冬虫夏草经济对藏区经济、文化的影响，草原管理及其相关政策议题，人兽冲突，藏地自然圣境对生物多样性保护的作用，以及藏区牧民对这些问题的解读和应对等内容。谨以此书献给对青藏高原游牧社会、生态环境议题感兴趣的人。

Weiner, Benno. 2014. Review: Monastic and Lay Traditions of North-Eastern Tibet. Asian Highlands Perspectives 35:237-242.

Review of

Yangdon Dhondup, Ulrich Pagel, and Geoffrey Samuel (eds). 2013. Monastic and Lay Traditions of North-Eastern Tibet. Leiden and Boston: Brill. viii. +244. Four Maps, fifteen
illustrations, preface, index. Volume 33, Brill's Tibetan Studies Library. ISBN: 9789004255692 (hardcover, 112.50USD).

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Monastic and Lay Traditions in North-Eastern Tibet, edited by Yangdon Dhondup, Ulrich Pagel, and Geoffrey Samuel, is the product of a 2011 workshop convened at St. Michael's College, Llandaff, Cardiff. Although the conference's focus was the tantric practitioner community of the Reb kong region (Ch. Tongren), the resultant volume expands the scope of inquiry to include surrounding areas as well as monastic communities. The editors have organized the volume's nine chapters into three sections, the first on the Dge lugs pa monastic establishment, the second on Rnying ma pa and Bon tantric communities, and finally 'Ritual and Performance in Contemporary Reb kong'. While the chapters are all informative and scholarly, providing new, important empirical detail on an under researched subject, several tend toward the descriptive. The most successful contributions, however, present their findings within larger analytical and contextual frameworks, giving their chapters explanatory weight beyond the more narrow confines of their studies.

Zhang, Jundan (Jasmine). 2014. Review: Tales of Kha ba dkar po. Asian  Highlands Perspectives 35:255-274.

Review of
Jing Guo . 2012. Xue shan zhi shu  [Tales of Kha ba dkar po] [ཁ་བ་དཀར་པོ།]. Kunming : Yunnan People's Press. 531pp, ethnography, notes, oral history, 134 photos, 29 maps, and 5 illustrations. ISBN: 9787222088979 (paper, 68RMB).

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ToK is, in many ways, a valuable academic work. Guo's favorite lines of xianzi allude to a 'space-in-between' the secular and sacred, which provides a unique experience for a broad readership, and induces the readers to deeper reflections on topics such as 'nature/ culture', 'belief', 'rite', and 'life/ death'.  ToK is one of nineteen contemporary anthropological and ethnological works conducted in Yunnan Province, Southwest China and published in the 'Anthropology and Ethnology series in  Contemporary China'. In the preface for the series, Yin (2012) suggests that there are two primary reasons for the somewhat slow  development of Chinese scholarship in the field of anthropology and ethnology. One is the historically Han-centered intellectual atmosphere, and the other is the ideological ambivalence that ethnic  culture has faced since the establishment of the People's Republic of China. In this context, Guo's longitudinal academic and intellectual engagement with the Tibetan communities in northwest Yunnan is included in this series as part of the increasing recognition of the
significance of understanding southwest China's complex ethnic and cultural diversity.  The book consists of eighteen chapters.

Tshe dbang rdo rje. 2017. Tricking the Abbess Again. Asian Highlands Perspectives 47:244-246.

Uncle Ston pa finally arrived at the home of the farmer, whom he had helped to grow and sell penis-shaped turnips. Uncle Ston pa then lived with his wife, the most beautiful nun, and his son in a new home built by the farmer.

One day, the farmer visited Uncle Ston pa and said, "My dear savior! How are you?"

"I'm very well, my friend!" greeted Uncle Ston pa, "How are you?"
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