Rekindling Ashes of the Dharma and the Formation of Modern Tibetan Studies: The Busy Life of Alak Tseten Zhabdrung

Considered one of the three great scholars1 of twentieth century Tibet,2 Alak Tseten Zhabdrung Jigmé Rigpé Lodrö (A lags Tshe tan Zhabs drung \u27Jigs med rig pa\u27i blo gros 1910-1985) is credited with regenerating many aspects of Tibetan culture at a time of unprecedented socio-political change. Despite enduring twelve years in prison, Alak Tseten Zhabdrung energetically reclaimed his classical education to further transmit nearly all the traditional fields of knowledge including language, poetry, history, astronomy, calligraphy, and Buddhist philosophy

The Revival of the Tulku Institution in Modern China: Narratives and Practices

[First paragraph] What child could perform such an impossible feat? Arik Geshé Chenmo Jampa Öser’s (A rig dge bshes chen mo Byams pa ’od zer, 1728-1803) 2 trenchant last testament chided his disciples for imploring him to reincarnate, yet he did not deride the tulku institution itself. In his autobiography, the Sixth Tséten Zhabdrung, Jikmé Rikpai Lodrö (Tshe tan zhabs drung ’Jigs med rigs pa’i blo gros, 1910-1985) retold Arik Geshé’s story with a similar didactic purpose, in order to analytically expound “the Tibetan-Mongol system of reincarnation.”3 Yet when Arik Geshé’s incisive words were re-employed for a twentieth century audience, the socio-political cornerstones of the tulku institution had undergone dramatic restructuring

Dorjé Tarchin, the Mélong, and the Tibet Mirror Press: Negotiating Discourse on the Religious and the Secular

Much scholarly attention has been given to the importance of the Mélong, the first Tibetan newspaper, in the discursive formation of Tibetan nationalism; yet in claiming the Mélong as ‘secular’ and ‘modern,’ previous scholarship has also evaded the press’s Christian and colonial roots. This paper investigates the secularization of the Mélong and the Tibet Mirror Press as an historical project, and as a corollary demonstrates the emergence of a vernacular project of secularism that aligned pan-Tibetan national identity with religious pluralism against the threat of communism. As a Tibetan Christian intellectual, the Mélong’s founder Dorjé Tarchin (1890-1976) creatively responded to divergent and competing processes associated with British colonialism and missionary activity in India which led to the birth of the newspaper in 1925. Based outside of the purview of the xenophobic Lhasa government, Tarchin’s base in the Christian Scottish Mission provided an alternative institution for cultural production outside of Buddhist ones. This contributed to the secularization of Tibetan print culture by moving production away from the Buddhist-monastic elite, introducing a new genre into Tibetan discourse, opening up a public sphere for Tibetans, and supporting vernacular language publications. Despite or because of the press initially being situated in the Scottish Mission Church, the Mélong promoted literacy, religious pluralism, and fostered Tibetan national identity. Over the course of its near forty-year history, the press would undergo processes of institutional secularization with its separation from the Scottish Mission Church in 1946. Parallel to these processes, secularism emerges as a discursive terrain whereby the boundaries of religion, nation, and language are negotiated. I chart Tarchin’s role in negotiating and creating this conceptual terrain, gesturing to how the distinct boundaries between Christianity and Buddhism evident in his early career become more porous against the ‘distinct other’ of communism—the enemy of faith

The Sixth Tseten Zhabdrung, Jigme Rigpai Lodro

(First Paragraph) Jigme Rigpai Lodro (\u27jigs med rigs pa\u27i blo gros), the Sixth Tseten Zhabdrung (tshe tan zhabs drung), was born on May 31, 1910, the twenty-second day of the fourth month of the iron dog year in the fifteenth rab byung cycle. He was the second youngest of eight children born to his father Yang Cai, whose Tibetan name was Lobzang Tashi (blo bzang bkra shis), and his mother, Lhamotar (lha mo thar). His birthplace, Yadzi (ya rdzi), is more commonly known today by its Chinese name, Jishi Town (Jishi zhen 积石镇) in today\u27s Xunhua Salar Autonomous County of Qinghai Province. Although his patrilineal descent was Chinese, in his autobiography, Tseten Zhabdrung stated, “Starting with my father\u27s generation , my ancestry is a mix of Chinese and Tibetan ethnicity; but if I base my own ethnicity on written and spoken language, habits and residence, then I am exclusively Tibetan.” At age two, he was recognized by Amdo Zhamar Paṇḍita Gendun Tendzin Gyatso (a mdo zhwa dmar paNDita dge \u27dun bstan \u27dzin rgya mtsho, 1852-1912) of Ditsa Monastery (lde tsha) as the reincarnation of the Fifth Tseten Zhabdrung (tshe tan zhabs drung 05). He had been called “the grandson of Tsering Dondrub (tshe ring don grub)” until this time, when he was given the name Lobzang Chopel (blo bzang chos \u27phel) by a Rebkong Nyingma lama called Alak Namkha Tshang (a lags nam mkha\u27 tshang)

Introduction | Theorizing the Secular in Tibetan Cultural Worlds

This special issue on ‘The Secular in Tibetan Cultural Worlds’ originated in a panel on The Secular in Tibet and Mongolia at the Thirteenth Seminar of the International Association of Tibetan Studies held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia in 2013. To contextualize the contributions to this issue, spanning diverse temporal and geographic contexts, this Introduction raises theoretical concerns and discusses contested terminology regarding ‘religion’ and the ‘secular’ in Tibetan discourse. The authors situate local articulations of the secular within broader academic discussions of the varieties of Asian secularisms and offer a key intervention to complicate the secularization thesis and prevailing views of Tibet as a predominantly religious culture

Lineages of the Literary: Tibetan Buddhist Polymaths of Socialist China

In the aftermath of the cataclysmic Maoist period, three Tibetan Buddhist scholars living and working in the People’s Republic of China became intellectual heroes. Renowned as the “Three Polymaths,” Tséten Zhabdrung (1910–1985), Mugé Samten (1914–1993), and Dungkar Lozang Trinlé (1927–1997) earned this symbolic title for their efforts to keep the lamp of the Dharma lit even in the darkest hour of Tibetan history. Lineages of the Literary reveals how the Three Polymaths negotiated the political tides of the twentieth century, shedding new light on Sino-Tibetan relations and Buddhism during this turbulent era. Nicole Willock explores their contributions to reviving Tibetan Buddhism, expanding Tibetan literary arts, and pioneering Tibetan studies as an academic discipline. Her sophisticated reading of Tibetan-language sources vivifies the capacious literary world of the Three Polymaths, including autobiography, Buddhist philosophy, poetic theory, and historiography. Whereas prevailing state-centric accounts place Tibetan religious figures in China in one of two roles, collaborator or resistance fighter, Willock shows how the Three Polymaths offer an alternative model of agency. She illuminates how they by turns safeguarded, taught, and celebrated Tibetan Buddhist knowledge, practices, and institutions after their near destruction during the Cultural Revolution. … [Amazon.com]https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/philosophy_fac_books/1026/thumbnail.jp