1,721,014 research outputs found
Conférence de M. Samten G. Karmay
No full textKarmay Samten G. Conférence de M. Samten G. Karmay. In: École pratique des hautes études, 5e section, Sciences religieuses. Annuaire. Tome 82, Fascicule III. Comptes rendus des conférences de l'année universitaire 1973-1974. 1973. pp. 53-57
Conférence de M. Samten G. Karmay
No full textKarmay Samten G. Conférence de M. Samten G. Karmay. In: École pratique des hautes études, 5e section, Sciences religieuses. Annuaire. Tome 82, Fascicule III. Comptes rendus des conférences de l'année universitaire 1973-1974. 1973. pp. 53-57
An annotated translation of the Treasury of Good Sayings (Legs-bshad-mdzod).
Full text linkThe work of which I here offer a partial translation is a history of the Bon religion from its origins down to the lifetime of the author (1859-1935). The sections which I have left Untranslated are those dealing with the origins of the religion. I have preferred to limit myself to the sections concerning the spread of Bon (approximately the second half of the work) on the grounds that these are the sections most likely to be of interest to historians. The translated sections, therefore, concern the spread of Bon. The work divides this into three phases, interruption having been brought about by persecution and abolition on two occasions. The reassembly of the textual material dispersed at these times is a major object of attention. The sources of the work are numerous and varied and it is the principal aim of my notes to indicate them as fully as possible. In an introduction I have tried to make some assessment of the historical value of the work, to consider the extent of its reliability and factual accuracy, to define its scope and note its limitations
How Zhang zhung Emerges in Emic and Etic Discourse and is Ever at Peril of Disappearing Again in the Same
Full text linkHow Zhang zhung Emerges in Emic and Etic DiscourseAnd is Ever at Peril of Disappearing Again in the SameIf evidence is weak, fragmentary or opaque, such as it is, rather notoriously, in our study of Zhang zhung before the tenth to eleventh century CE, from a heuristic-methodological point of view, the biggest obstacle in research may well be what we wittingly or unwittingly thought we knew, such as may be apparent in our explicit or implicit hypotheses, starting assumptions, personal biases or preferences and the like.The discussion on Zhang zhung, much like that of so-called ‘early’ Bon, stands to benefit greatly from clearly distinguishing which source or register of data is being accessed. For example, late Bon or Buddhist religious historical narratives on Zhang zhung; references to Zhang zhung in Dunhuang sources; or ‘pre-Buddhist’ archaeological remains from (larger) Western Tibet, deemed to pertain to Zhang zhung, are not necessarily concerned with the same ‘Zhang zhung’, nor do they always sound from the same culture-historical registers. I shall argue that each of these major domains of data first needs to be discussed from its own contexts of use or occurrence and, if applicable, with a view on its emic or etic narrative framings. This way we can avoid rather ubiquitous anachronisms and the pitfalls of conflating what may au fond be only loosely or dis-connected or even incommensurable.Just to be absolutely clear on the matter: I do not start from the assumption that any of the mentioned domains necessarily are incommensurable—far from it! But we should not assume that they are otherwise before we have thoroughly examined and appreciated (also) potential disconnects.In my analyses, I start from the assumption that fully narrativised religious histories, to a much larger degree than we have been willing to accommodate, tend to be creative and inventive in their narrativisations of facts and events, and, more often than not, are not primarily concerned with events and chronologies, but also, and usually more significantly, with narrative vectors that reveal various ideological investments, factional framings & identities, and the like. I furthermore assume that so-called ‘invention of tradition’, in a Hobsbawmian/Rangerian sense, is not the exception but rather the rule: traditions that have survived for an extended period of time usually are ‘traditions of invention’.Therefore, in genuinely Popperian spirit, especially when data are scarce and hard to come by, we should systematically scout for dissonances and disconnects, later historical overlays and reinventions, before historicising and, perhaps, naively correlating evidence from possibly disparate domains and various religious or academic registers of narration.For these intents and purposes, I shall survey some of my findings over the past few years of research on Bon and Zhang zhung, especially focussing on data from periods closely contemporaneous with the earliest events that, when it comes to releasing reliable facts on Zhang zhung, tantalisingly border on being underdetermined, and contemplate what these preliminary and fragile findings may contribute to the ongoing discussion on Zhang zhung and ‘early Bon’.Henk BlezerLeiden UniversityAmsterdam Free Universit
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