Long Lives and Untimely Deaths

362 Pages·2011·1.36 MB·English

by  Barbara Gerke

Long Lives and Untimely Deaths
Brill’s
Tibetan Studies
Library
Edited by
Henk Blezer
Alex McKay
Charles Ramble
VOLUME 27
Te titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/btsl
Long Lives and
Untimely Deaths
Life-span Concepts and Longevity Practices
among Tibetans in the Darjeeling Hills, India
By
Barbara Gerke
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2012
Cover illustration: Woman with child turning prayer-wheels during a long-life empowerment in
Ghum near Darjeeling, 2005 (photo by the author).
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gerke, Barbara, 1966–
 Long lives and untimely deaths : life-span concepts and longevity practices among Tibetans in
the Darjeeling Hills, India / by Barbara Gerke.
  p. cm. — (Tibetan studies library ; v. 27)
 Includes bibliographical references and index.
 ISBN 978-90-04-21703-4 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Tibetans—India—Darjeeling (District)—Social
conditions. 2. Tibetans—India—Darjeeling (District)—Religion. 3. Longevity—India—Darjeeling
(District) 4. Life span, Productive—India—Darjeeling (District) 5. Old age—India—Darjeeling
(District) 6. Darjeeling (India : District)—Religious life and customs. 7. Darjeeling (India :
District)—Social life and customs. I. Title.
 DS432.T5G47 2011
 305.895’4105414—dc23
2011035141
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ISSN 1568-6183
ISBN 978 90 04 21703 4 (hardback)
ISBN 978 90 04 21748 5 (e-book)
Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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For my parents
with gratitude for their love and support throughout my journeys
CONTENTS
Note on Previous Publications ..................................................................... xi
Acknowledgements  ......................................................................................... xiii
List of Maps and Illustrations  ...................................................................... xv
List of Abbreviations  ....................................................................................... xix
Notes on Tibetan Terms and References  ................................................. xxi
Maps  ..................................................................................................................... xxii
PART ΟΝΕ
ETHNOGRAPHIC SETTINGS AND ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORKS
1 Introduction  ................................................................................................ 3
1. Outlining the Argument ..................................................................... 3
2. Organisation of the Book  .................................................................. 10
3. Some Notes on Important Terms  ................................................... 15
4. Ethnographic Encounters  ................................................................. 17
Monastics  ............................................................................................... 21
The Lay Community  ........................................................................... 23
Tibetan Medical Practitioners, Astrologers, and Diviners  ...... 25
5. Documentation Methods and Challenges  ................................... 28
6. Analytical Frameworks: The Anthropology of Time  ................ 32
PART TWO
THE FIELD SITE AND TIBETAN AREAS OF KNOWLEDGE
2 Tibetans in the Darjeeling Hills: The Socio-Political and
Historical Background  ............................................................................. 45
 1. Historical and Political Climates  .................................................... 45
2. Demographic Data of Tibetans  ....................................................... 56
3. The Reinvention of Ethnicity: Creating ‘Cultural Vibrancy’  .... 58
4. What Does it Mean to be a Tibetan in the Darjeeling Hills?  ... 61
5. Tibetan Refugees  ................................................................................. 66
6. Being Tibetan Without Speaking Tibetan  ................................... 71
7. Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries  ........................................................ 75
8. Tibetan Medical Healthcare ............................................................. 79
viii contents
3 Contextualising Tibetan Longevity Practices  .................................. 84
1.  An Exposition of Pertinent Tibetan Areas of Knowledge  ...... 84
Tibetan Medicine  ................................................................................ 84
Tibetan Astrology  ............................................................................... 92
Divinations ............................................................................................ 99
Tibetan Vajrayāna Buddhist Longevity Rituals  ......................... 105
2. Knowing about the Life-span  ......................................................... 111
PART THREE
THE LIFE-SPAN AND LIFE-FORCES IN TIBETAN MEDICAL CONTEXTS
4 Temporal Dimensions of Life-forces  .................................................. 119
1. The Three Nyes pa  .............................................................................. 119
2. Temporal Frameworks of the Three Nyes pa  ............................. 122
3. Temporalities and Treatment Schemes  ....................................... 127
4. Appropriating the Auspicious: The Best ‘Life-force Days’
and ‘Life-essence Days’  ..................................................................... 131
5 Detecting the Life-forces in the Body and the Life-span in
the Pulse  ..................................................................................................... 137
1. Bla and Its Places in the Body in Tibetan Medical Texts
and Clinical Practice  .......................................................................... 137
2. Divinatory and Temporal Aspects of Pulse Diagnosis  ............ 154
3. Rhythm of Pulse, Rhythm of Life ................................................... 157
4. Distilling the Supreme Radiance of Vitality  ............................... 162
PART FOUR
THE LIFE-SPAN IN ASTROLOGICAL AND DIVINATORY CONTEXTS
6 Merit, Karma, Liberating Animals, and the Five Astrological
Factors  ......................................................................................................... 169
1. Merit and Karma  ................................................................................ 169
2. The Longevity Practice of Liberating Animals  .......................... 174
3. Astrological Calculations Involving the Five Factors  .............. 176
The Tibetan Almanac  ........................................................................ 179
The Life-force & the Body  ................................................................ 181
Power, Prosperity, and Presence  .................................................... 182
contents ix
Generating Good Fortune  ............................................................. 184
‘Bla is the Mother of Srog’  ............................................................ 186
4. Jigme Lost His Bla  ........................................................................... 187
 7 Untimely Deaths, Remaining, and Maximum Life-spans  ......... 191
1. The ‘Timely’ Death of Samden  .................................................... 193
2. A Family Story of Short Lives  ...................................................... 197
3. Controlling Breath and the Maximum Life-span  .................. 201
4. The Life-span is Completed  ......................................................... 205
 8 Divining the Life-span  ......................................................................... 207
1. Your Life-span is Exhausted’: Momola’s Rosary Divination  208
The Notion of Bar chad  ................................................................. 213
2. Throwing the Dice: Textual Divination on Tshe and
Srog  ...................................................................................................... 215
The Palden Lhamo Divination  .................................................... 216
The Certainty of Uncertainty: Divinations on ‘Whether
Srog is Stable or Unstable’  ............................................................ 219
3. Life-span Divination and Issues of Accuracy  .......................... 221
PART FIVE
TIBETAN BUDDHIST LONG-LIFE EMPOWERMENTS
 9 Ritual Layers of Long-life Empowerments  .................................... 229
1. The Notion of Byin rlabs  ............................................................... 231
2. Tshe dbang Literature Review  ..................................................... 234
3. Ritual Layers and Multiple Voices  ............................................. 239
The Lama  ........................................................................................... 240
The Monks  ......................................................................................... 243
The Organisers  ................................................................................. 252
The Sponsor  ...................................................................................... 253
The Interpreter  ................................................................................. 256
The Public  .......................................................................................... 257
Individual Buddhist Practitioners  .............................................. 258
4. The Importance of Visualisation in relation to Byin
rlabs .................................................................................................... 263
 10 The Sakya Tshe dbang: An Ethnographic Account of a
Long-life Empowerment  ..................................................................... 269