Table Of ContentBuddhism Beyond the Monastery
Brill’s
Tibetan Studies
Library
Edited by
Henk Blezer
Alex McKay
Charles Ramble
VOLUME 10/12
Buddhism Beyond the Monastery
Tantric Practices and their Performers in Tibet
and the Himalayas
PIATS 2003: Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the Tenth Seminar
of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Oxford, 2003.
Managing Editor: Charles Ramble.
Edited by
Sarah Jacoby and Antonio Terrone
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2009
On the cover: “A noncelibate Tantric yogi (sngags pa) with a young pupil at a grocery shop in
Gser rta town, Dkar mdzes Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan, PRC.” July 2007. Photo by Antonio
Terrone.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
International Association for Tibetan Studies. Seminar (10th : 2003 : Oxford, England)
Buddhism beyond the monastery : tantric practices and their performers in Tibet and the
Himalayas / edited by Sarah Jacoby, Antonio Terrone.
p. cm. — (Brill’s Tibetan studies library, ISSN 1568-6183 ; v. 10/12)
“PIATS 2003: Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the Tenth Seminar of the International
Association for Tibetan Studies, Oxford, 2003. Managing Editor: Charles Ramble.”
ISBN 978-90-04-17600-3 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Tantric Buddhism—China—Tibet—Customs and practices. 2. Tantric Buddhism—
Himalaya Mountains Region—Customs and practices. I. Jacoby, Sarah. II. Terrone, Antonio.
III. Title. IV. Title: PIATS 2003. V. Series.
BQ8912.9.C52T5553 2003
294.3’92309515—dc22
2009025040
ISSN 1568-6183
ISBN 978 90 04 17600 3
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction to Buddhism Beyond the Monastery
SARAH JACOBY & ANTONIO TERRONE...................................1
HEATHER STODDARD—Eat it up or Throw it to the Dogs?
Dge ’dun chos ’phel (1903–1951), Ma cig lab sgron (1055–1153)
and Pha Dam pa sangs rgyas (d. 1117): A Ramble Through the Burial
Grounds of Ordinary and ‘Holy’ Beings in Tibet...............................9
SARAH JACOBY—To be or not to be Celibate: Morality and
Consort Practices According to the Treasure Revealer Se ra mkha’
’gro’s (1892–1940) Auto/biographical Writings..............................37
ANTONIO TERRONE—Householders and Monks: A Study of
Treasure Revealers and their Role in Religious Revival in
Contemporary Eastern Tibet.............................................................73
FRANÇOISE POMMARET—‘Local Community Rituals’ in
Bhutan: Documentation and Tentative Reading.............................111
NICOLAS SIHLÉ—The Ala and Ngakpa Priestly Traditions
of Nyemo (Central Tibet): Hybridity and Hierarchy......................145
DANZANG CAIRANG—The ‘Spirit Mediums’ (lha pa) of Reb
gong in A mdo................................................................................163
MARCIA S. CALKOWSKI—Signs of Transition:
On Interpreting Some Predictors of Sprul sku Rebirth...................189
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS..........................................................201
INTRODUCTION TO BUDDHISM BEYOND THE MONASTERY
SARAH JACOBY & ANTONIO TERRONE
Tibetan religions, including Buddhism and Bon, have been profoundly
shaped by the institutional influence of monasticism―the
congregation of ordained monks and nuns who support a sole religious
tradition according to a cenobitic (communal), eremitic (isolated), or
peripatetic (itinerant) lifestyle. Although Tibetan tradition claims that
monasticism was established in the ninth century with the ordination
of the first monastic community at Bsam yas monastery in southern
Tibet, the full emergence and development of large-scale monasticism
appeared only in the eleventh century with the emergence of the Sa
skya school and the foundation of their monastery in Tsang. Buddhist
monasticism is widely popular not only in Tibetan society, but also in
the culturally akin societies along the Himalayan belt.
Despite its prominent role, monasticism is not the only religious
manifestation in Tibetan society. Next to monastic life and activities, a
variety of lay or non-celibate movements, communities, traditions,
lineages, and religious practices have emerged in Tibet and the
Himalayas. While sharing a common lexicon of contemplation and
ritual practices with monasticism, non-celibate religious life is
predominantly set in the more mundane world of the householder.
Tibetan religions, therefore, can be equally characterised by both their
monastic and non-monastic manifestations, the latter being popular
beliefs, customs, communal gatherings, festivals and ceremonies, and
religious rituals typically performed by non-celibate religious
professionals.
This volume presents a wide spectrum of studies of the enormous
set of cultural practices that constitute the body of Tibetan and
Himalayan religion outside of the confines of monastic institutions.
The majority of the essays collected in this volume were originally
presented as papers at the Tenth Seminar of the International
Association of Tibetan Studies in Oxford, England, in September
2003.1 As these papers focused on rituals, communities, and practices
that were largely non-monastic, the organisers clustered the papers
1 We would like to thank Dr. Charles Ramble for his extensive efforts organising
this meeting and for providing valuable editorial comments on this volume.
2 SARAH JACOBY & ANTONIO TERRONE
into one session appropriately entitled “Buddhism Beyond the
Monastery.”2 In addition to the papers originally presented on this
panel, Françoise Pommaret and Sarah Jacoby were invited to
contribute their articles, which were originally presented at the
Eleventh Seminar of the International Association of Tibetan Studies
in Bonn, 2006.
The vantage points from which the essays contained herein view
Buddhism beyond the monastery are diverse, including analyses of
Tibetan funerary practices, tensions between celibate and non-celibate
interpretations of ideal religious conduct, the rise of non-monastic
religious institutions such as religious encampments (sgar) and
mountain hermitages (ri khrod) in contemporary Tibet led by Treasure
revealers (gter ston), the overlapping and amorphous borders between
Buddhism and Bon as seen through local community rituals in Bhutan
and Central Tibet, the significance of spirit mediums (lha pa) in Reb
gong, A mdo, and the social practices surrounding the recognition of
reincarnated lamas (sprul sku) in the Tibetan Diaspora. Through these
varied studies, readers gain familiarity with a host of religious
specialists not necessarily associated with monastic Buddhism
including yogis and yoginīs adept at gcod practice, funerary specialists
who dispose of bodies in Tibetan sky burials (ro rgyab pa), (cid:24)ākinīs
(Tib. mkha’ ’gro ma), Treasure revealers (gter ston), tantrists (sngags
pa), ala priests, spirit mediums (lha pa), and reincarnated lamas (sprul
sku). A common thread that ties these inquiries together, however, is
their methodological approach emphasising ethnographic fieldwork.
Though many authors included herein provide close textual analyses,
they have also all spent time in the ‘field’ (either Bhutan, Tibet, or the
Tibetan Diaspora) gathering information and working with informants
to corroborate their findings.
The following essays are organised loosely in chronological and
thematic order, beginning with Heather Stoddard’s historical study of
the rise of Tibetan sky burial after the fall of the Spu rgyal Empire
(7th–9th centuries) and moving quickly to the volume’s focus on the
‘modern’ period of the twentieth-century into contemporary, early
twenty-first century Tibet.
Heather Stoddard’s article brings the topic of Buddhism beyond the
monastery to a perennial problem in human societies: the disposal of
2 Ching Hsuan Mei and Damcho Diana Finnegan’s contributions to the Oxford
IATS session “Buddhism Beyond the Monastery” unfortunately could not be
published here.
INTRODUCTION 3
the dead. Stoddard explores multiple theories for how and why sky
burial replaced earlier burial practices associated with the ancient Spu
rgyal Empire between the periods of Fragmentation (846–978) and the
Later Diffusion (late 10th–12th centuries). These theories include
Zoroastrian influence, climactic changes brought on by a gradual
desiccation and altitude increase in Tibet, shifting patterns of belief
from pre-Buddhist to Buddhist understandings of the human body, and
the influence of gcod and zhi byed practices in the second half of the
11th century associated with the teachings of Pha Dam pa sangs rgyas
and Ma cig lab sgron. Stoddard’s subtle analysis questions
archaeologists’ associations between the spread of gcod and zhi byed
practices from India in the 11th century and the transformation in death
rituals from earlier Spu rgyal Empire burial customs to later sky burial
practices. Instead, she suggests that Tibetan sky burial is a remnant of
the eastward spread of Zoroastrian-influenced Sassanian and Sogdian
practices of exposing the dead that entered Tibet from the 8th century
onwards. Nevertheless, Stoddard concludes that although sky burial in
Tibet came from Zoroastrian Middle Eastern practices, there is a
significant conceptual harmony between gcod practices involving
mentally cutting up the body and offering it as a means to cut ego-
clinging and the prevalent Tibetan funerary custom of exposing the
dead for vultures to eat in sky burial. This symbiotic relationship
between sky burial and gcod mutually reinforced both practices under
the guise of distinctly Buddhist understanding of the significance of
the human body.
Sarah Jacoby’s article focuses on the controversial dilemma
between celibate and non-celibate interpretations of ideal Tibetan
Buddhist conduct. She explores this topic through a study of the
biographical and autobiographical writings of Se ra mkha’ ’gro
(1892–1940), who was both a Treasure revealer (gter ston) and a
consort. Se ra mkha’ ’gro lived outside of the monastery but in
another form of religious community called a religious encampment
(chos sgar), which in early twentieth-century Mgo log was a mobile
group of both celibate and non-celibate religious practitioners that
often formed around a charismatic Treasure revealer. Jacoby suggests
that we can interpret the many dialogues that Se ra mkha’ ’gro
recounts in her descriptive and prolific auto/biographical writings
between herself and divine and human interlocutors as resources not
only for a better understanding of the role of women and consorts in
Tibetan Buddhism, but also for a social history of the religious
