The Fluid Lives of Tibetan Ritual Narrations during the Imperial and Post-Imperial Period
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11210%2F23%3A10480703" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11210/23:10480703 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004687288_009" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004687288_009</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004687288_009" target="_blank" >10.1163/9789004687288_009</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
The Fluid Lives of Tibetan Ritual Narrations during the Imperial and Post-Imperial Period
Original language description
Buddhism started to play a significant role in the Tibetan Empire (ca. 7th c. to 842, Tib. Bod chen po) from the eighth century onward. On arrival in the Empire, it encountered a ritual tradition lacking universal claim which could be seen as an array of rituals aimed at solving critical situations in the lives of both individual people and society. These rituals were performed by followers of ritualists (Tib. gshen or bon) who often take on mythic proportions. Up to the present time, Buddhist rituals in Tibet remain the sphere of their descendants' influence. An important element of ritual performance was voicing (Tib. gyer) the ritual narrations (Tib. smrang), in order to infuse the ritual with meaning. Surviving origination myth accounts (Tib. rabs, related to 'lineage/succession') probably reflect a later tendency to assemble various originally locally based myths within single collections of such narrations spanning larger areas of Tibetan Plateau. Through this process, qualitatively different ritual traditions were crystallised, giving some traditions prominence whilst silencing others. Post-imperial texts of monastic Bön (Tib. bon) lineages associate the tradition of orating various origin myths with the terms lore or wisdom (Tib. gtsug lag). It is possible to speculate that the great variety of ritual narratives were organised under such umbrella terms. One can observe a certain divide between Central Tibetan ritual traditions and those found across large areas of Western, Northern, and Eastern Tibet. The paper eventually introduces the 'Bum bzhi [Fourfold Collection] that survive in the Bon bka''gyur [Bön Kangyur]. These voluminous texts mostly contain origin myths and tales dealing with four kinds of spirits-(1) chthonic spirits (Tib. klu), (2) fierce spirits (Tib. gnyan), (3) earth-lords (Tib. sa bdag) and (4) rock spirits (Tib. gtod)-and are difficult to date in their current forms. They contain traces of stages of development reflecting monastic Bön religion and evidence of absorbing Buddhist elements. However, they also preserve some features characterising eastern non-Buddhist ritual traditions, although an attempt to include local Eastern-Tibetan lore in pan-Tibetan ritual tradition likely lies behind their compilation.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
C - Chapter in a specialist book
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60500 - Other Humanities and the Arts
Result continuities
Project
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Continuities
I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2023
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Book/collection name
Buddhism in Central Asia III: Impacts of Non-Buddhist Influences, Doctrines
ISBN
978-90-04-52003-5
Number of pages of the result
43
Pages from-to
212-254
Number of pages of the book
481
Publisher name
Brill
Place of publication
Leiden
UT code for WoS chapter
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