|
|
Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Non-Christian religions > General
In Divination in Exile, Alexander K. Smith offers the first
comprehensive scholarly introduction to the performance of
divination in Tibetan speaking communities, both past and present.
While Smith surveys a variety of ritual practices, the volume
focuses on divination and its associated rites in the contemporary
Tibetan Bon tradition. Drawing from multi-site ethnographic
fieldwork conducted in Himachal Pradesh and the translation of
previously unpublished Tibetan language materials, Divination in
Exile offers a valuable, social scientific contribution to our
understanding of the perception and usage of ritual manuscripts in
contemporary Tibetan cultural milieus.
Academic study of the tantric traditions has blossomed in recent
decades, in no small measure thanks to the magisterial
contributions of Alexis G. J. S. Sanderson, until 2015 Spalding
Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford University.
This collection of essays honours him and touches several fields of
Indology that he has helped to shape (or, in the case of the Saiva
religions, revolutionised): the history, ritual, and philosophies
of tantric Buddhism, Saivism and Vaisnavism; religious art and
architecture; and Sanskrit belles lettres. Grateful former
students, joined by other experts influenced by his scholarship,
here offer papers that make significant contributions to our
understanding of the cultural, religious, political, and
intellectual histories of premodern South and Southeast Asia.
Contributors are: Peter Bisschop, Judit Toerzsoek, Alex Watson,
Isabelle Ratie, Christopher Wallis, Peter-Daniel Szanto, Srilata
Raman, Csaba Dezso, Gergely Hidas, Nina Mirnig, John Nemec, Bihani
Sarkar, Jurgen Hanneder, Diwakar Acharya, James Mallinson, Csaba
Kiss, Jason Birch, Elizabeth Mills, Ryugen Tanemura, Anthony Tribe,
and Parul Dave-Mukherji.
|
|