Exorcising the Illusion of Bon Shamans: A Critical Genealogy of Shamanism in Tibetan Religions

Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines Number 6, October 200

The mirrorwork of Tibetan religious historians: A comparison of Buddhist and Bon historiography.

This thesis provides an analysis of the historical literature composed by Tibetan Buddhist and Bon writers about the origins and development of their respective religion in Tibet (bon/chos 'byung). These texts present competing versions of Tibet's sacred history, for they were written as apologetic works in defense of the writer's own religious tradition. Despite their partisan perspective, Tibetan historians often style their own works as mirrors that faithfully reflect past events without any distortion. These texts, however, are not only mirrors of events, but mirrors in which Tibetan writers ponder their own religious identity, and what is more they are mirrors of the other religion, in which their differences and symmetries are explained. The purpose of this dissertation is to demonstrate how Buddhist and Bon histories function as mimetic literary narratives, and explore how their distorted images of the other religion have been interpreted by western and Tibetan scholars. The mirror imagery used by Tibetan writers raises questions about how to represent the relationship between Buddhism and Bon. Two common strategies can be detected in the work of Tibetologists: either Bon is marginalized as the historically insignificant native religion of Tibet (as shamanism), or Bon is assimilated into Buddhism and its doctrines and practices deemed derivative. This dissertation presents a different perspective on their relationship, drawing upon the methods of Hayden White on narrative, Jonathan Z. Smith on comparison, and Homi Bhabha on mimesis. The comparative literary approach adopted here shuttles back and forth between Buddhist and Bon historical narratives as a dynamic ensemble, and it avoids the fixed perspective that results once one adopts the position of one tradition to view the other. This reading technique aspires towards reflexivity by making apparent the stylized symmetries created by Tibetan historians, who rely on similar tropes, categories, and techniques of emplotment. Rather than achieving two distinct monolithic identities, Buddhist and Bon writers create symmetrical subjects, whose hybrid identities are mutually implied, thus blurring the boundaries between the two traditions. These two religions are identified as mutually constituted and mimicking traditions, rather than as authentic and derivative, as they are commonly portrayed.Ph.D.Asian historyPhilosophy, Religion and TheologyReligious historySocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/128622/2/3000921.pd