"Apparitions of the Self" is a groundbreaking investigation into
what is known in Tibet as "secret autobiography," an exceptional,
rarely studied literary genre that presents a personal exploration
of intimate religious experiences. In this volume, Janet Gyatso
translates and studies the outstanding pair of secret
autobiographies by the famed Tibetan Buddhist visionary, Jigme
Lingpa (1730-1798), whose poetic and self-conscious writings are as
much about the nature of his own identity, memory, and the
undecidabilities of autobiographical truth as they are narrations
of the actual content of his experiences. Their translation in this
book marks the first time that works of this sort have been
translated in a Western language.
Gyatso is among the first to consider Tibetan literature from a
comparative perspective, examining the surprising fit--as well as
the misfit--of Western literary theory with Tibetan autobiography.
She examines the intriguing questions of why Tibetan Buddhists
produced so many autobiographies (far more than other Asian
Buddhists) and how autobiographical self-assertion is possible even
while Buddhists believe that the self is ultimately an illusion.
Also explored are Jigme Lingpa's historical milieu, his revelatory
visions of the ancient Tibetan dynasty, and his meditative
practices of personal cultivation. The book concludes with a study
of the subversive female figure of the "Dakini" in Jigme Lingpa's
writings, and the implications of her gender, her sexuality, and
her unsettling discourse for the autobiographical subject in
Tibet.
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