Articles by alphabetic order
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 Ā Ī Ñ Ś Ū Ö Ō
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0


The Earth as a Treasure in Tibetan Buddhism: Visionary Revelation and its Interactions with the Environment

From Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search




The Earth as a Treasure in Tibetan Buddhism: Visionary Revelation and its Interactions with the Environment


Antonio Terrone

Tibetan Buddhist Studies, Graduate Institute of Religious Studies, National Chengchi University,

64, Sec. 2, Chih-nan Road, Taipei, 116 Taiwan aterrone@nccu.edu.tw

Abstract

In this article I examine conceptions of the environment in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of Treasure revelation that I propose are founded upon systems of exchange and relationality. Tibetan religious specialists known as Treasure revealers do not simply remove a Treasure from its place; they often leave a ‘replacement Treasure’ intended to appease both the local protective deity believed to be in charge of guarding the Buddhist Treasure and nourishing the local environment. I demonstrate that the logic of Treasure revelation is based on forming an interdependent exchange between humans and the land they inhabit. The source of the Treasure becomes a place deserving respect, protection, and devotion on both religious and ecological levels. I call this phenomenon ‘the ecology of revelation’, and I maintain that this is a fundamental socio-religious ethic characterized by respect for the environment and awareness of humansconnection to it.

Keywords

Tibetan Buddhism, visionary revelation, mountain deitiescult, sacred place, environment, Dechen Ösel Dorjé, religious life and customs, Tibet, China. To understand Tibetans and the land they inhabit, it is important to illuminate the Buddhist concept of ‘Treasure revelation’ and aspects of the Tibetan cult of the mountains. Analysis of the Treasure revelation

. tradition, which involves the retrieval of Buddhist scriptures and sacred items generally called ‘earth Treasures’ or sater1 (sa gter) from the geographical landscape of Tibet, can elucidate a potential for environmental sustainability informed by Tibetan culture and Buddhist praxis.2 One of the primary purposes of the Treasure or terma (gter ma) tradition from a Buddhist perspective is that such items are believed to have been hidden with the speci??c intent to be revealed and disseminated at an opportune time in order to bene??t the Buddhist doctrine and human beings (O rgyan gling pa 1988: 582-83; Doctor 2005: 17; Cuevas 2003: 88-89; Gyatso 1998: 169; Tarthang 1991: 256-57; Thondup 1986: 161-62).3 Beyond the theological and soteriological purposes, however, I propose that another essential characteristic highlighted in Treasure revelation lies in the Tibetans’ interactions with their environment, which are rooted in indigenous understandings of their landscape as a locus of human exchange with the divinities that inhabit it for both this-world material gain (good harvest, livestock health, well-being, etc.) and transcendental purposes (revelation, spiritual realization, favorable rebirth, and so forth) (Terrone 2010: 201-202, 252).

My insights into this speci??c subject are predominantly drawn on ethnographic work performed over several years among contemporary Buddhist masters living in eastern Tibet, who are celebrated as Treasure revealers, and among members of their communities. The geographic focus of my study is the areas of Nangchen (Nang chen) and Jyekundo (sKye dgu mdo) in the eastern Tibetan region traditionally known as Upper Kham (Khams stod) and nowadays incorporated in the Qinghai Province of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

I use both ethnographic and empirical data collected during approximately twelve cumulative years of participant observation fieldwork

1. The Tibetan phonetic transcription provided in this article re??ects the standardized system elaborated by Germano and Tournadre (2003). Whenever a relevant Tibetan term appears for the ??rst time in the article, I offer a THL phonetic transcription of the term followed by one in accordance with the Wylie transliteration system.

2. Martin (2001) and Achard (2004) offer good discussions of the tradition of revealing religious scriptures in the Bon tradition. See also Hanna (1994) for an eyewitness account of a Bon revelation in eastern Tibet. In Tibet, the concealment and retrieval of sacred scriptures and artifacts has some analogies with the Bon tradition. However, the rationale and the history behind this activity differ considerably from those later developed in the Buddhist context and thus the Bon tradition will not be discussed in this study.

3. Tulku Thondup writes that concealing the termas serves many purposes, including ensuring that ‘the doctrine shall not disappear, the instructions not be adulterated, the blessing not fade, and the lineage of the transmission be shortened’ (1986: 62).


among several Buddhist communities, both monastic and lay, in eastern Tibet. In particular, I conducted multiple semistructured interviews and conversations with the Tibetan Buddhist master Dechen Ösel Dorjé (bde chenod gsal rdo rje, 1921–2010, henceforth Ösel Dorjé) and several monastic as well as lay members of his community over several visits between 1998 and 2010. At this time Ösel Dorjé was residing in his two mountain retreat centers (ri khrod) in the Nangchen, one of the ??ve formerly independent kingdoms of eastern Tibet that has one of the highest monastic populations in Tibet. Ösel Dorjé was a well-known Buddhist master of the Nyingma and Kagyu schools of Tibetan Buddhism in Nangchen as well as a tertön, or ‘Treasure revealer’, with more than a dozen volumes containing Treasure cycles he revealed in the last thirty years of his life.

Other informants for the present study are the Buddhist master Tashi Gyeltsen (bkra bshis rgyal mtshan) and his wife Khandro Pelchen Lhamo (mkha’ ’gro dpal chen lha mo), who also reside predominantly in Nangchen. As close disciples of the late Ösel Dorjé, they are pivotal members of his community and themselves active religious professionals as well as proli??c visionaries. Observing this community has exposed me to a wealth of activities, rituals, interactions, and dialogues that continue to offer opportunities to re??ect on the role of lived religion in Tibet today. In addition, the primary written sources that inform my comments on the mountain cults and the history of Treasure revelation include both Ösel Dorjé’s twelve volumes of Treasure cycles (gter skor) and traditional accounts of Padmasambhava’s deeds in Tibet, such as the Testament of Ba (dba’ bzhed) and the Padma’s Edict (padma dka’ thang).4 Based on these sources, one of the primary arguments that I propose in this essay is that the Treasure revealer or tertön (gter ston) not only reinforces the association between Buddhist doctrine and human beings, but he also mediates between the land of Tibet and its inhabitants. Particularly central to this mediation is the activity of replacing the sacred Treasure extracted from the place it was hidden (gter gnas) with a substitute. This action was meant to maintain spiritual balance between the environment and its inhabitants. Contemporary Buddhist understandings of the relationship between humans and the environment tend to argue for the existence of an ethical empathy based on respect for all lives and for the natural environment (Nha??t Hanh 2008; Deegalle 2006). The network of relationships fundamental to the practice of revealing Treasures and worshipping local sacred mountains—often associated 4. For the dba’ bzhed I use Wangdu and Diemberger (2000). As for the padma bka’ thang, I use the O rgyan gling pa (1988) edition.


with the Treasure they hide—does not accord directly with modern concepts of environmental sustainability. Nevertheless, I suggest that it is founded on a principle of relationality and exchange speci??c to the Tibetan Buddhist context that is resonant with environmental sustainability that I term ‘the ecology of revelation’. By this I refer to the relationship of exchange embedded in the tradition between humans and their physical environment. A central feature in the Treasure tradition that I want to emphasize here is the importance of replacing any Treasure removed from the Tibetan earth with a ‘replacement Treasure’, or tertsap (gter tshab). In order to maintain harmony in the physical and spiritual environment, a Treasure revealer is expected to replace the Treasure he or she retrieves with a substitute item made up of precious and consecrated substances. It is in this act of replacing what is extracted from the earth with a substitute so as to maintain equilibrium between human needs and environmental resources that we ??nd the greatest commensurability between contemporary concepts of environmental sustainability and the Tibetan tradition of Treasure revelation.5 Within the literary context of the Nyingma school of Buddhism, which more than other Tibetan traditions propones a very elaborate and comprehensive mytho-historical background to the terma revelation system, the Treasure tradition is characterized by a special relationship between the landscape of Tibet, the ??gure of Padmasambhava who is believed to have hidden these Treasures, the tertöns who claim to reveal them, and the human beings who bene??t from these revelations.6 This interdependence and interrelationship among human beings, their religious beliefs and practices, the environment, and the divinities they believe to inhabit it make up the ecosystem of the ecology of revelation. Methodologically, the metaphorecology’ can be helpful to understand the diverse interactions, interrelationships, and engagements that religious practitioners maintain with others in their societies as well as in speci??c regional landscapes. Territorial and spacial dimensions are intrinsically linked to the practice of religion, in which ‘religion seems above all a link with a place, a space, a temple, a land, a building’ (Cipriani 1998: 155). For Durkheim (1976 [1912]), Wach (1944), and later

5. For a select bibliography on Buddhist perspectives on nature and environment, see the bibliography by Duncan Ryuken Williams on the website of The Forum of Religion and Ecology at Yale at http://fore.research.yale.edu/ religion/buddhism/ bibliography/.

6. For an account of Padmasambhava’s activities in Tibet, see, for instance, ‘The Close Lineages of the Treasures’ in Dudjom Rinpoche (1991: 743-881). For a list of works on the terma tradition in Western languages see ‘A General Bibliography on the


Pouillon (1975)—to name only a few among historians of religionreligion is autochthonous, endogenous, and strictly linked to the place. Recent works on the history of religion in China, such as those of Vincent Goossaert and David Palmer, have also utilized the ecological metaphor to understand the holistic nature of religion in China (2011: 12- 13). Other China scholars such as Mou Zongjian (2006) and recently Anna Sun (2013: 168-69) have looked at the ‘ecology of religion’ as a discursive comparison to explain the nature and the dynamics of religiosity within Chinese communities.

In my study of the Treasure revelation tradition in contemporary eastern Tibet, the ecology of religion metaphor illustrates not only how human societies and social networks interact, but also how landscape, place, and more broadly the environment participate in a continual relationship and interactive exchange with the result of maintaining religious equilibrium and social harmony. The dominant theory about the origins of the revelation of Buddhist Treasures in Tibet relies on narratives produced and disseminated by the Nyingma school. It claims that the Treasure revealers are reincarnations of Padmasambhava’s 25 Tibetan disciples. They enact Padmasambhava’s prophecy of bene??tting future generations with his teachings by acting as the legitimate messengers (pho nya) of his word endowed with the capacity to retrieve his teachings in the form of Treasures (gter) from the soil and sometimes the space of Tibet for the bene??t of the present generations. According to this tradition there are mainly two kinds of Buddhist terma that Padmasambhava hid in Tibet. One type of such Treasures are material artifacts, including ritual implements, blessed objects, statues, and small written scrolls concealed in physical places, such as boulders, rocks, lakes, rivers, trees, and the sky. These tend to be collectively called earth Treasures or sater, and the name refers to the physical origin of the places from where they are retrieved.

Another class of Treasures is that of mind Treasures, called gongter (dgongs gter) in Tibetan. These are mostly rituals, scriptures, manuals, and instructions, but also biographies of Padmasambhava, which were originally transmitted orally from Padmasambhava to his disciples. The later reincarnations of those disciples are believed to be able to remember and reveal those items and scriptural materials. They then write them down to form cycles of Treasure teachings (gter skor) ready to be offered to their devotees. Particularly interesting when discussing the association of Treasure with the environment is the connection between hidden Treasures—predominantly applied to earth Treasures, but in some cases mind Treasures as well—and the physical landscape where they are believed to be stored. As we shall see in more detail below,

some classic accounts of Padmasambhava’s deeds in Tibet narrate that in order to pave the way for the practice of the Buddhist doctrine in the land of snows, he tamed the inimical and reluctant divinities that resided in Tibet’s mountains and coerced them to become not only Buddhist but also to protect the hidden Treasure until its revelation at the appropriate time. It is this speci??c aspect of the narrative and the practice of Treasure revelation that can shed some light on the special relationship between revelation and the landscape in Tibet. Through the legitimacy of his past life as one of Padmasambhava’s disciples now reappeared to convey his message to Tibetans, the Treasure revealer thus incarnates his teacher’s words, teachings, and aspirations. He also, and in our case more importantly, acts as the mediator between Tibetans and their physical landscape. It is the landscape of Tibet that protects the Buddhist teachings in different forms and for different needs as a consequence of Padmasambhava’s blessings and consecration activities. In thinking about the Treasure tradition as a nexus of relationships between humans and their spiritually endowed environment, I am indebted to the work that Robert Orsi has done on the topic of religion as ‘relationship’ (2002 [1985]: xxv; 2004: 2). Whereas Orsi talks of relationship between heaven and earth, I consider the relationship between humans and the earth as a locus of divine beings that can affect people’s lives. In either case, however, the religion we ??nd through examining these relationships moves beyond formal and institutionalized doctrines. Instead it emerges in devotees’ daily practices, habits, gestures, movements, and household rituals (Orsi 1997: 9; Ammerman 2007: 6; McGuire 2008: 118). Therefore, the agency in the religious phenomena that we study is shared between religious professionals, their devotees, and the spiritually inhabited environment itself.

The exchange between a Treasure revealer and the spiritually inhabited environment has repercussions that exceed the arcane process of revelation and extend to the larger community. The Buddhist master’s identi??cation and denomination of a place as the storeroom of the Treasures assigned to him or her enriches it with higher status and prestige. The local community bene??ts from this event spiritually as the inhabitants of a sacred place. Additionally, their bene??t is political and economic because the Treasure site is transformed into a destination of pilgrimage and object of worship for devotees interested in accruing merit and achieving realization. Thus I argue that religious, sociopolitical, and economic concerns are all embedded in the ecology of revelation and in the politics of sacred landscape inscribed therein.


The Lay of the Land

Human views of the environment are as diverse as the civilizations that have constructed them. The biophysical model of the world that different societies inhabit is a product of each society’s perception of the space in which they live and with which they interact. The study of myths and rituals offers rich data on how people think and engage with the environment they live in (Grim 2001; Apffel-Marglin and Parajuli 2000; Tucker and Williams 1997; Gottlieb 2006; Nasr 1996). In Tibetan culture, there are classes of deities, such as chthonic deities (yul lha), who ‘own’ and populate the land, called ‘lords of the land’ (sa bdag, gzhi bdag). Some of these chthonic deities are malevolent, such as the tsen (btsan), and can disturb territorial and weather stability (Nebesky-Wojkowitz 1990 [1956]: 4, 115, 472).

The relationship between these land deities and humans is often a tension-??lled one in which their nature is wild, restive, and fuelled by forces not necessarily conducive to the ??ourishing of nature’s human inhabitants. Tibetans venerate the eighth-century Padmasambhava not only as the founder of Buddhism in Tibet and the most powerful tantric master in the world (’dzam bug gling), but also as the tamer of opposing forces personi??ed by the demons, spirits, and mountain gods inhabiting the land and possibly reluctant to welcome a new and foreign culture. Padmasambhava is, therefore, the ‘demon whisperer’: the one who restored harmony in the land of snows and permitted the introduction of Buddhism, thanks to the invitation by the king (btsan po). The eleventh-/ twelfth-century Tibetan Testament of Ba offers a now classic narrative of early events in Tibet that left a mark in later Tibetansconscience: After one month the mKhan po (Padmasambhava) arrived at the royal palace and prostrated to the bTsan po. Then Bo dhi sa twa told the bTsan po: ‘Once upon a time, when bCom ldan ’das was dwelling in the world, there was no one among all the gods and the n??ga of ’Dzam bu gling who was not bound by the order of the Buddha. However, in this land of Tibet, gods and n??ga have escaped [from] control and seem to have prevented the bTsan po fom practising the holy doctrine. At present nobody in ’Dzam bu gling possesses greater power in the use of the mantra than the mkhan po of U rgyan, called Pad ma sa[m] bha ba. Last year [[[Wikipedia:calamities|calamities]] occurred], such as the ??ood of Phang thang, and the royal castle of lHa sa burnt down, and wicked gods and n??ga have been hindering the practice of the doctrine on the part of the bTsan po. This master of mantra can perform the mirrordivination (pra phab) of the Four Great Kings (rGyal chen bzhi) and make the relevant interpretation. If most of the wicked gods and n??ga are subdued, bound by oath and ??rmly instructed, the land will become peaceful. So, this master of the mantra is capable of letting the holy doctrine be practised in the future’. (Wangdu 2000: 54)

This divinity of the land, however, can also be seen as representative of Tibetan conceptions of the environment in theological and socio-political terms, in which the land and the people engage in a mutually bene??cial exchange and a do ut des trilateral interchange in which the terms of the trade are decided by human and divine beings in an interdependent transaction. Within this conceptual framework, the revelation of Treasures at the same time justi??es and is justi??ed by the unique relationship that Tibetans form with their geographical territory as well as the imagined sacred landscape they have superimposed on it. Traditional narratives of the origins and sources of the Treasure tradition refer to many various types of Treasures hidden in physical places in Tibet (O rgyan gling pa 1988: 548-57; Tarthang 1991: 255-56). The locations from which Treasures are typically extracted include caves, valleys, mountains, rocks, trees, lakes, rivers, and even the sky of Tibet. The Treasure tradition asserts that Padmasambhava and his cohorts traveled all over Tibet to hide Buddhist scriptures, artifacts, and blessed stones for the bene??t of future Tibetan devotees (Tarthang 1991: 256-57). In this way, Nyingma authors not only attempted to provide legitimacy to their teaching lineages by establishing a common founder— that is, Padmasambhava and his closest disciples—but also by introducing a privileged relationship between them and the land of Tibet under the auspices of Buddhism. This special relationship rests at the heart of the tradition. When the time is ripe and the auspicious connections established, the imminent appearance or materialization of a Treasure is announced through several means, mostly oneiric and visionary. This can happen through the participation of ethereal female divinities, the d????kin??s, who announce the forthcoming event and offer clues about the location of the Treasure(s). The revealer then invites (spyan drangs) the Treasure item (rdzas gter) and receives it from the earth in a ritual context (Tarthang 1991: 259).

The Treasure items in their scriptural or relic form are, ??rst of all, assimilated into the soil through Padmasambhava and his close disciplesconcealment. Secondly, they are safeguarded by the protectors (gter srung) who, transformed from antagonistic demons into protective guardians, have been coerced to look after the Treasures. Later on, at the appropriate time when karmic interconnections (rten ’brel) have matured, speci??cally appointed Treasure revealers extract them from the land just like miners extract minerals (gter kha), a word etymologically connected to Treasure (gter ma).7

7. For a narrative of the concealment of Treasures and the appointment of Treasure revealers, see Chapters 91, 92, 93, and 94 in O rgyan gling pa (1988: 548-88).

No matter how ephemeral the revelation or how ritualistic the process, the materiality of the discovery and the interaction between landscape and human being, environment, and religious ritual enact both imagined as well as physical processes (Norberg-Hodge 2001: 332). Buddhist devotees, whenever present at the moment of revelation, welcome the manifestation of a terma Treasure with awe and emotion. It manifests itself as the material appearance of a sacred Buddhist item or scripture. It also represents an epiphany of the glory of Tibet’s imperial past—the deeds of Padmasambhava, the second Buddha, as well as the rule of Buddhist-inspired emperors—and a continuity of the ancestral relationship between landscape and human beings embedded in the Tibetan sense of ethnic and cultural identity. The Treasure hiding place that has protected and then released the sacred item upon being invited (spyan drangs) by the revealer becomes itself an object of worship and continuous source of blessing (byin brlabs). In the hands of the Treasure revealer, the soil, rocks, water, and sand around it turn into powerful essences of apotropaic effect for the believer. Hence they are collected by devotees and often distributed by the visionary him- or herself as panacea with extraordinary healing powers.

The ecological function of the revelation ritual is implicit; the tertsap nourish the environment by adding sacredness and Buddhist signi??cance to the landscape. Additionally, for Tibetan visionaries the extraction of a Treasure from its physical locale and the recognition and consecration of a place as a source of Padmasambhava’s activity can offer signi??cant opportunity to expand authority, build alliances, and establish new zones of in??uence, thereby recon??rming the Buddhist ideals of the universe. Buddhist rituals of worship of the sacred mountains and the cult of the Treasures believed to be hidden inside of them and then retrieved also affect the way humans relate to that environment and produce practical consequences in the world in which they live (Ramble 2008; Rappaport 1979). Treasure revelation ritual activities thus play a central role in regulating the relationship of humans with the nonhuman components of their immediate environment (Rappaport 1979: 28). Visions and Rituals: Extracting the Dharma from the Land Dechen Ösel Dorjé was a Buddhist master and a visionary who was recognized as the reincarnation or trülku (sprul sku) of Shübu Pelgyi Sengé (Shud bu dpal gyi seng ge, eighth century), believed to be a disciple of Padmasambhava in the eighth century (Thondup 1984: 162). Since his childhood Ösel Dorjé was convinced that he had a special connection with Padmasambhava, who appeared frequently in visions

and dreams, and when he was in his twenties his visions increased and his contemplative experiences ampli??ed. This is when terma-related visions began guiding him to retrieve Treasure items, such as statues and other sacred objects ??rst, and later on to reveal Treasure cycles of scriptures (’Od gsal rdo rje 1999). Ösel Dorjé’s revelations comprise twelve volumes representing a career almost uniquely focused on studying and teaching Tantric liturgies and contemplation techniques according to the Great Perfection system known as Dzokchen (rdzogs chen). During the early part of his career, he revealed numerous Treasure items, often extracted from mountain sites, caves, and ‘hidden lands’ (sbas yul) in various places in eastern Tibet. While extracting a Treasure often involves removing an object from an actual physical site, in the process of revelation a Treasure revealer interacts with a number of nonhuman elements. These include the guardian spirit believed to protect the Treasure (gter srung or gter bdag) and, of course, the physical ground itself where the Treasure object is believed to have been stored for a long time.

When Ösel Dorjé started to retrieve terma items in the early 1960s in eastern Tibet, he would leave most of them in the area and take only a few with him. As he put it: ‘I started to reveal numerous Treasures in various forms including precious stones, turquoise, and artifacts from a variety of places. At that time, I left most of the Treasures there’ (’Od gsal rdo rje 1998: f. 9b; 1999). According to Ösel Dorjé, in his early years as a visionary, from about 1940 to 1960, he retrieved several material Treasures in the form of Buddhist ritual objects and other relics. Some of these Treasures included Treasure chests (gter sgrom), blessed stones engraved with Treasure symbolic letters and words (gter yig) or Padmasambhava’s handprints (phyag rjes), and also statues, ritual daggers (gter phur), and vajra-thunderbolts (rdo rje). On a few occasions, Ösel Dorjé also claimed to have revealed a few precious yellow scrolls (shog ser) or small pages on which Padmasambhava himself or one of his closest disciples wrote an encoded teaching (Thondup 1986: 237 n. 127). However, while he kept some, he gave away others. He either put some back into the openings (yang gter) with the intent of bene??tting future generations and thus further empowering the sacred place, or he offered them to local temples (lha khang) and monasteries (dgon pa) in the vicinities of the Treasure sites. He explains that he did this in order to bene??t the locals, foster faith in Padmasambhava’s teachings, contribute to the dissemination of Buddhism, and keep a personal connection with the area. Most of these Treasures were lost or destroyed during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76).

In many cases, soon after the retrieval of a Treasure Ösel Dorjé left a ‘replacement Treasure’ (gter tshab), which typically is an equally sacred or consecrated item meant to maintain the balance between the Treasure site, the local Treasure protector (gter srung) in charge of the Treasure until its retrieval, and the Treasure revealer. The concept of Treasure replacement participates in a sort of trade that underpins the interrelationship between the land and the beings who live on it, the sacred mountain, and the devotee. According to this practice, Treasure revealers are supposed to replace the retrieved material Treasure with a substitute or replacement of the Treasure immediately after its extraction from the trove (gter gnas) (Thondup 1986: 79).

As Tulku Thondup explained the practice, there is more to the actions of a Treasure revealer than removing a Treasure from a rock or a cave: The Terton puts a substitute in place of an Earth Terma. It can be religious objects, offering materials, or any kind of auspicious substances as homage to please the protectors. The substitute helps to maintain the auspiciousness of the land provided by the Terma (Thondup 1986: 84). The land hosting the Treasure teaching is considered to be imbued with the blessing power of the object, which is believed to have been handled originally by Padmasambhava and his entourage. Altering the balance between the land and the protector in charge of safeguarding the Treasure would, therefore, put the auspicious and propitious results of the retrieval at risk. The perception of a relationship between revealer and the land protecting the Treasure exists in present-day as well as ancient Treasure revelation accounts. One example is Tertön Sogyel Lerab Lingpa’s (gter ston Bsod rgyal las rab gling pa, 1856–1926) replacement of a Treasure after he retrieved his well-known Yang Nyi Pudri (yang snying spu gri) teaching contained in a casket hidden at Tsadra Rinchen Drak (Ts?? ’dra rin chen brag) near Pelpung Chönkhor Ling Monastery (dpal spungs chos ’khor gling) in Degé (Pearcey 2005). The act of inserting a substitute for a Treasure (gter tshab bcug pa / bzhag pa) appears in a number Tibetan literary works. A Treasure replacement scene, for instance, was documented in the biography of the Buddhist visionary Drimé Özer (Dri med ’od zer), also known as Pema Drondul Sangak Lingpa (Padma ’gro ’dul gsang sngags gling pa, 1881– 1924), which narrated in detail the entire process of revelation from the moment of extracting it from the rock crevasse until the sealing of the opening (Bde skyong dbang mo 1981: 420-22).8 Chokgyur Lingpa (O 8. Dekyong Wangmo (bde skyong dbang mo), also known as Sera Khandro (Se ra mkha’ ’gro, 1892–1940), authored not only the biography of Drimé Özer, her

rgyan mchog ’gyur bde chen gling pa, 1829-1870), a nineteenth-century Treasure revealer, also typically performed the practice of replacing a terma Treasure with a substitute and even composed a supplication prayer (smon tshig) for this ritual.9 The great ??fth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lozang Gyatso (Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho, 1617–1682), discussed aspects of the Treasure replacement process in one of his works.10 Despite the prevalence of the practice of replacing an extracted Treasure with a substitute object, to date no study has been done on its signifcance.

The Treasure revealer Tashi Gyeltsen (b. 1957) and his consort Khandro Pelchen Lhamo (b. 1964) who assists him in his revelation activities have regularly replaced Treasures with substitutes and continue to maintain the proper protocol and respect the protective deity in charge of the Treasure. This is especially true in the case of revelations that have been announced in advance by visions, dream experiences, and premonitions about the place of revelation.11 When it is time to perform the revelation they typically prepare a small vase of precious substances (bum rdzas) properly consecrated that Tashi Gyeltsen then inserts in the Treasure door (gter sgo) immediately after extracting the sacred object before sealing the opening. The kind of substitute for the Treasure that needs to be inserted in the Treasure opening and how to perform the substitution can be often found described in the prophetic indexes (kha byang) that revealers receive in the visions that announce their forthcoming revelations.

teacher and life partner, but also her autobiography. For a translation of this passage, see Jacoby (2014: 300).

9. mchog gsum rtsa gsum ’dus thod phreng rtsal is a short supplication prayer composed by the Treasure revealer Chokgyur Lingpa (1829–1870) to accompany the offering of a Treasure replacement (gter tshab tu ’bul rgyu’i ’dod gsol smon tshig). Contained in Blo gros mtha’ yas (1975–76); Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho (2009).

10. The thob yig gang ga’i chu rgyun is a record of teachings received by Ngawang Lozang Gyatso (Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho, 1617–1682). This work is included in the first volume of his collected works (gsung ’bum), Mchog ’gyur bde chen gling pa (1975–76: vol. 16, f. 38).

11. Tashi Gyeltsen, personal communication, Nechen Pema Hermitage (2000). Tashi Gyeltsen also informed me of several minor retrievals that occurred a very short time after their visionary announcements and for which he did not leave a replacement. For instance, he may have been in retreat in a cave, or visiting a sacred place, with therefore no opportunity to organize a replacement once the Treasure had been collected.

Nectars and Clay Talismans: Ingesting the Soil, Wearing the Soil The extraction of Treasures (gter len pa) is not the only aspect of the Treasure tradition directly involved with the earth. In addition to the material Treasure that the revealer removes, Treasure revealers often recount that precious substances (bdud rtsi) in the form of medicinal powder, mineral dust, or clay pellets pour out of the Treasure trove together with the sacred object. Many Tibetans believe that these substances possess liberatory power that can be enacted through taste.12 Considered highly sacred substances and loaded with powerful blessings (byin brlabs), the nectar is typically ingested in very small quantities with the awareness that to the pure-minded and completely motivated devotee this can generate an instantaneous realization of ‘liberation through the taste’ (myong grol). Ösel Dorjé regularly used the dust often collected with his earth Treasures as an ingredient of medicinal pellets (mani ril bu) that he then distributed to close disciples and devotees. In his case and in accordance with his Treasure cycles these were called Hayagr??va pills (rta mgrin ril bu) after the name of the major horseheaded Tantric deity to which large parts of the cycle were dedicated. These practices are still performed in eastern Tibet, and Treasure revealers combine various ingredients including medicinal plants, minerals, and Treasure nectar to produce panacea-type pellets believed to generate both spiritual and physical bene??ts. Treasure revealers, including Tashi Gyeltsen from Nangchen and Dorung Karma (d. 2006) from Gonjo, are also known for both the production of mani ril bu and for the extraction of essences (bcud len) from ingredients that included several substances that come from Treasure troves.13 In the case of Tashi Gyeltsen, for instance, the bdud rtsi collected with earth Treasures constitutes one of the few unique ingredients for the production of his bram dze’i ril bu, the Brahman’s sacred pills according to his revealed scripture, the title of which goes by the same name. Tashi Gyeltsen typically offers a few of his bram dze’i ril bu pills to followers and devotees who seek from him such services as divination, advice, and spiritual assistance. Another important role that the actual earth collected from the Treasure site takes in this tradition is that of protection. In addition to healing and medicinal purposes, Treasure revealers also use Treasurerelated substances and clay released from the sacred mountains (gnas ri) to produce other religious items aimed at spiritual support. Of all his

distinctive activities, Ösel Dorjé, for instance, was particularly fond of producing what he named mutik tsatsa (mu tig rtsa rtsa). The mutik tsatsa are pearl-clay ??gurines that he turned into talismans and protective objects of apotropaic value. Together with his healing powers, blessing charisma, wisdom, and Buddhist knowledge, the pilgrims and devotees seeking an audience with him were also hoping to take home one of his renowned mutik tsatsa. In the 1990s and the 2000s these became so popular that they became a sort of signature mark of Ösel Dorjé, and those wearing them around their necks were immediately recognized as his devotees. Ösel Dorjé embraced the practice of producing the mutik tsatsa from one of his most in??uential teachers, Nyala Changchub Dorjé (Nyag bla byang chub rdo rje, 1926–c. 1978). An eclectic noncelibate Buddhist Tantric teacher and traditional Tibetan physician, Nyala Changchub Dorjé, was himself a Treasure revealer well known for his revelations and expertise in the practice of the Great Perfection or dzokchen (rdzogs chen), a highly praised system of meditation popular in the Nyingma as well as the Kagyu traditions. He also produced mutik tsatsa and, in the typical Tibetan fashion, his disciples always wear them around their necks. Ösel Dorjé produced his mutik tsatsa with clay that was predominantly shaped in the form of a diamond representing Sangdok pelri (Zangs mdog dpal ri), the Glorious Copper-colored Mountain believed to be Padmasambhava’s Pure Land abode. Occasionally Ösel Dorjé also prepared some in the shape of the head of Tamdrin (rTa mgrin; Skt. Hayagr??va), the main Treasure protective deity associated with his Treasure cycles (gter chos). The materials he used to prepare the mutik tsatsa were mostly clay, dirt, and other Treasure substances that would fall together with the material Treasure item from the openings in the rocks and caves where the Treasures were hidden. These were then baked in a little stove that warmed his personal bedroom. Once again the sacred environment of Tibet found a way to offer spiritual assistance to its inhabitants.

Sacred Mountains as Sites of Exchange between Tibetan Buddhism and the Environment

To understand the far-reaching implications and repercussions of the Treasure tradition’s interactions with the environment, it is important to look more broadly at Tibetansperception of their land and some of the beliefs and practices associated with it, particularly those surrounding the worship of sacred mountains. The attention to holy places (gnas) and territorial or local gods (yul lha) is a characteristic of Tibetan culture dif??- cult to overlook. Tibetans, especially in lay communities, have preserved

a wealth of rituals and practices associated with the cult of the mountains and other deities of the land. Tibetanssense of their environment and their national identity have been profoundly in??uenced by ancient literary traditions that described the birth of Tibetan civilization not only through the interactions of living beings, but also through the control of, the adaptation to, and the relationship with a very harsh climate within the world’s highest mountains. In many areas of Tibet, performance of annual propitiation rites to maintain and nourish ancestral rapport with local mountain deities is a very popular practice. As various scholars such as Karmay and Buffetrille have shown, worship dedicated to local mountain deities aims mostly at worldly gains, including prosperity, good harvest, health, and power (Karmay 1996: 60-61; Buffetrille 1998). The relationship between the worshipper and the local deity has a contractual nature, exemplifying its mundane, secular, and non-transcendental character. Revered as divine residences of Buddhist deities and bodhisattvas, as objects of worship and sources of merit, sacred mountains are destinations of pilgrimage and sites of circumambulation, offerings, and prostrations. Both Padmasambhava, subjugating the divine and spiritual residents of the land in an act of conversion of the people who believe in them, and the Treasure revealer retrieving a Treasure item from a prophesized local mountain, are attempts to create, recreate, and con??rm ‘a sacred environment in accordance with the Buddhist ideals of the universe’ (Karmay 1996: 69). Nechen Pema Shelri (Gnas chen padma shel ri), Padma’s Great Sacred Place Crystal Mountain, was Ösel Dorjé’s most celebrated sacred mountain from which he retrieved the majority of his scriptural revelations, especially in the 1990s and early 2000s. Mount Nechen Pema illustrates how a local mountain’s spiritual power is augmented by its association with the revelation of Buddhist Treasures.

Ösel Dorjé started to feel a connection with Mount Nechen Pema in the 1980s when he began to have visions of Buddhist teachings concealed as Treasures in the mountain and protected by its local deity or nedak (gnas bdag) Genyen Dorjé Barwa (Dge bsnyen rdo rjebar ba). When rumors spread in the areas that Ösel Dorjé was considering taking the mountain as his new retreat place, local villagers welcomed the news. Gonjo village at the foot of Mount Nechen Pema, whose inhabitants trace their ancestry to the mountain deity and its ancillary peaks surrounding it, invited Ösel Dorjé and encouraged him to settle down there. They collectively built a residence for him and his modest monastic following on the southern slopes of the mountain in a place that formerly housed the retreat hermitage (ri khrod) of the local Ganden monastery (Dga’ ldan dgon pa) of the Geluk (dge lugs) school of Tibetan Buddhism.14 This was completely razed by the Red Guards (dmar srung dmag; Ch. hong weibing) during the Cultural Revolution in the early 1970s. Ösel Dorjé opened (or rather re-opened) the place (gnas sgo ’byed ba) and consecrated it, thus transforming the mountain from a local residence of territorial gods to a Buddhist sacred mountain imbuing the entire area with the soteriological energy of its imagery. In the early 1990s Ösel Dorjé composed a text of propitiations and invocations (gsol mchod) as part of the cult of the deity Genyen Dorjé Barwa, which became part of the daily recitations in his community.15 In this way, Ösel Dorjé reinserted the deity and his retinue in the local religio-environmental practices of the villagers, reestablishing the ancestral link between nature and human beings and the villagers’ relationship with their territory lying at the base of the Tibetan sense of national and cultural identity (Terrone 2010: 215-16). Some regions of the mountain were declared ‘hidden valleys’ (sbas yul) or sacred areas associated with Padmasambhava and the hidden Treasures he concealed there; hunting became informally regulated and logging was more controlled out of concern that these activities would offend the local deities. When Chinese logging companies started to arrive in the area in the late 1980s, they met with immediate (albeit ineffective) resistance from the villagers. Eventually, several villagers were employed by the state logging company, and reluctantly the necessity to make a living overthrew some of the old religious beliefs regarding the sacredness of the space. However, the arrival of Ösel Dorjé and the upgrade of Mount Nechen Pema from the abode of a mundane and localized powerful deity to a transcendental sacred mountain associated with Padmasambhava and the revelation of his Treasures via Ösel Dorjé expanded the power of the place and the spiritual and material bene??ts for the local population, thereby transforming the exchange between place and human beings from mundane to transcendental. Villagers performed Buddhist rituals of circumambulation (skor ba) of the mountain and made offerings during major Buddhist anniversaries, such as Saka dawa (sa ga zla ba; Skt. Vai????kha), which celebrates the birth and enlightenment of the Buddha ??akyamuni. Monks, nuns, pilgrims, and nomads regularly ??ocked to the place to pay visits to the master,

14. Although homonymous, this should not be confused with the larger and more prominent Ganden monastery in Lhasa.

15. The text is titled Mdo stod gnas chen padma shel ri’i gnas bdag dge bsnyen rdo rje ’bar ba’i gsol mchod don kun ’grub pa’i dpal ster (Glorious Gift of Universal Bene??t: Offerings and Invocation to Genyen Dorjé Barwa, territorial lord of the Crystal Mountain Nechen Pema in Khams).

circumambulate the mountain, perform offerings, and often to collect juniper leaves for their own domestic fumigation practices, thus contributing to the augmenting of the mountain as a sacred place. Although logging did not stop, and indeed the industry continued to ??ourish in that area until the early 2000s, in the 1990s stricter regulations were enforced by local authorities in terms of transportation rights and fees for contracting companies. Some of the company managers and employees were local Tibetans and among them a number were devotees of Ösel Dorjé and thus had to negotiate between duty and personal devotion. This was also the case for several local Tibetan of??cers working for the Public Security Bureau (PSB, Ch. gonganju) who, as devotees of Ösel Dorjé, managed to retain their interest for their homeland despite working for the Chinese government.

From these anecdotes it may be seen that the existence of speci??c rituals for the worship of mountain deities (bskang gso, gsol kha) is also emblematic of the importance of the relationship between humans and mountains in the context of revelation. Among the twelve volumes of collected revelations and other scriptures that he authored, Ösel Dorjé’s collection includes a number of revealed terma texts that are liturgies dedicated to both Nechen Pema Shelri and Za Merchen (Rdza me chen), the latter being the second major sacred mountain (gnas ri) intimately linked to his more recent revelations. The scriptures contain supplications (gsol ’debs), offerings (’bul ba), and offering rituals to guardian deities (bskang gso) dedicated to those sacred mountains, including invocations, worship, and praise of these sacred mountains. Reciting these liturgies helped enable Ösel Dorjé to have full and unobstructed access to the Treasure teachings sealed in the depths of the Tibetan soil. As a Treasure revealer, Ösel Dorjé operated in the ??eld of the sacred by producing religion in the form of holy artifacts and sacred scriptures and by establishing and appropriating sacred spaces. The devotees participate in this phenomenon by being the recipients of these actions. The Treasure revealer’s discovery Treasures (gter ma) would not exist without the intention and the goal of bene??ting his contemporaries in order to encourage their practice and foster their faith in the Buddhist teachings. In this case, Buddhist devotees, therefore, do not receive their teacher’s instructions and religious activities passively. They actively participate in producing their religion by engaging the Treasure material and inviting its blessing power. They also regularly pay homage to the Treasure revealer, leaving him donations and offerings in the hopes of obtaining spiritual advice and protective amulets in return. Devotees regularly go on pilgrimage to sites where Treasures have been revealed and perform ritual offering and prostrations to the Treasure protectors associated

with the Treasure cycle. Most of Ösel Dorjé’s devotees carry his protective clay mutik tsatsa amulets around their necks and many proudly possess small locks of his hair in their reliquary ga’u boxes that Tibetans typically wear around their bodies, especially in eastern Tibet. Therefore, while the Treasure revealer has the power of authority, the devotees have the power to support and maintain their Treasure teachings as manifested in the everyday practice they perform (Ammerman 2007: 14). Towards a Tibetan Ecology or Concept of Environmental Sustainability? Can the ecology of revelation inform us about Tibetans’ conceptions of environmental preservation? How are we to understand the environmental rami??cations of the Treasure tradition and the wider Tibetan mountain cult? Do the phenomena of exchange with the environment and the ecology of revelation that I describe in this article accord with modern conceptions of environmental sustainability? As I discuss in this essay, when critically examining Tibetan notions of ecology, we must avoid easy generalizations such as the idea that Tibetans understand the maintenance of a sustainable environment as the source of life for all living creatures (Nor 2010). On the one hand, since the 1980s the Tibetan community in exile has projected what some might call a romanticized and idealized interdependent and harmoniously coexisting relationship between Tibetans and the environment (Atisha 2008 [1991]; Tenzin Gyatso 1990: 53-54; 1992; Derong 2007; Yeshi 1991; Damdul 1994). There is a very powerful and globally publicized modern Tibetan presentation of themselves as ‘green Tibetans’, borrowing Huber’s locution that portrays them as environmentally aware, eco-friendly, and in tune with nature (Huber 1997: 105).

However, this is not the only way to view Tibetans’ historical concern for environmental sustainability as informed by traditional sources of religious practice in Tibet. Much of the apparent af??nities between Tibetan Buddhist practices and environmental sustainability is a Tibetan retroactive projection of modern notions of nature and environment rather than ancient lore transmitted over time (Huber and Pedersen 1997; Huber 2001: 359-61). Early interactions between humans and the Tibetan landscape were characterized by subjugation, coercion, and control, much like the Christianity-led dominion over nature as suggested by Lynn White (1967). Tibetan territorial deities (yul lha) are not friendly in Buddhist records but confrontational and sometimes violent. Nevertheless, the practices developed by local communities are based on exchange and contractual transactions rather than on direct exploitation of the land. The ef??cacy of these transactions is demonstrated by the accrual of

temporal power, authority, wealth, and health. Religious specialists such as Treasure revealers engage the environment and the energies that it hosts with an expectation of mutual exchange. The offerings to the mountain involving food, juniper incense, oblations, throwing paper prayer-??ags, and processions performed in collective rituals by members of the same village not only renew their collective sense of identity, but also, and more importantly, strengthen their ancestral relationship with the land and foster faith in mountain deities and in Buddhist ideals. Although they are not the same as modern Euro-American concepts of environmental sustainability, the practices and beliefs from which the ecology of revelation manifests are emblematic of a holistic rapport between humans and their environment. Everyday religious practices, such as the ones brie??y described in this micro study, including the circumambulation of sacred mountains, the ingestion of sacred soil, the replacement of Treasure items, and the talismanic amulets of apotropaic power made out of Tibetan earth, can inform us about how Tibetans perceive the natural environment in which they live as well as the bene- ??ts that ethically correct conduct toward sacred places and mountains can produce. My informants have always been clear in articulating that within the Treasure revelation tradition ties to local protectors and sacred geography are of utmost centrality. Without respecting sacred mountains and consistently performing rituals and recitations to the protectors and Treasure protectors that ripen the auspicious connections (rten ’brel) between revealer and Treasure, the revelation of Treasure teachings could not take place. Though the ‘ecology of revelation’ re??ects both overlapping economies of local deity worship and reverence for sacred Buddhist mountains, Tibetans may not all be green in the sense that some Tibetan propaganda produced and disseminated in the exile community would have us believe. However, the system of relationality and exchange upon which many Tibetan religious traditions are founded, such as the Treasure tradition, does demonstrate a sensibility regarding interdependence based upon mutual respect that shares more than it diverges from modern concepts of environmental sustainability.

References

Achard, Jean-Luc. 2004. Bon Po Hidden Treasures: A Catalogue of Gter Ston Bde Chen Gling Pa’s Collected Revelations (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers). Ammerman, Nancy (ed.). 2007. Everyday Religion: Observing Modern Religious Lives (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/


Apffel-Marglin, Frédérique, and Pramod Parajuli. 2000. ‘Sacred Grove and Ecology: Ritual and Science’, in Christopher Key Chapple and Mary Evelyn Tucker (eds.), Hinduism and Ecology: The Intersection of Earth, Sky, and Water (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press): 291-316. Atisha, Tenzin P. 2008. ‘The Tibetan Approach to Ecology’. View Tibet Adventure Tours. Online: http://viewtibet.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/the-tibetanapproach- to-ecology/. [[[Tibetan]] Review, 1991 (25).2: 9-14]. Buffetrille, Katia. 1998. ‘Re??ections on Pilgrimage to Sacred Mountains, Lakes and Caves’, in Alex McKay (ed.), Pilgrimage in Tibet (Surrey, UK: Curzon Press): 18- 34.

Cipriani, Roberto. 1998. ‘Ecology of Religion’, in William H. Swatos, Jr. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion and Society (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press): 152-60. Cuevas, Bryan J. 2003. The Hidden History of the Tibetan Book of the Dead (New York: Oxford University Press).

Damdul Namgyal, Geshe. 1994. ‘Buddhist Ecology: Its Theoretical Base’, Tibet Environment and Development News, vol. 1 (Dharamsala, India: Department of Information and International Relations): 27-30. Deegalle, Mahinda. 2006. ‘Buddhism for Sustainable Thinking: The Role of Religion in Protecting Environment without Abandoning Science and Technology in the Development Process’. Online: http://www.vesakday.mcu.ac.th/vesak49/ article/pdf/Sustainable_Thinking.pdf.

Derong, Cering Denzhub. 2007. ‘Traditional Tibetan Beliefs and Environmental Protection’, China’s Tibet. Online: http://2007.tibetmagazine.net/en/20045-p43.htm. Doctor, Andreas. 2005. Tibetan Treasure Literature: Revelation, Tradition, and Accomplishment in Visionary Buddhism (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications). Dodin, Thierry, and Heinz Räther (eds.). 2001. Imagining Tibet: Perceptions, Projections, and Fantasies (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications). Dudjom Rinpoche, Jikdrel Yeshe Dorje. 1991. The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism: Its Fundamentals and History (ed. and trans. Gyurme Dorje and Matthew Kapstein; Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications). Durkheim, Émile. 1976 [1912]. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (London: Allen & Unwin).

Germano, David, and Nicolas Tournadre. 2003. ‘THL Simpli??ed Phonetic Transcription of Standard Tibetan’. Online: http://www.thlib.org/reference/ transliteration/#!essay=/thl/phonetics/.

Goossaert, Vincent, and David Palmer. 2011. The Religious Question in Modern China (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press). Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/ chicago/9780226304182.001.0001.

Gottlieb, Roger. 2006. A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet’s Future (New York: Oxford University Press). Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ acprof:oso/9780195176483.001.0001.

Grim, John A. (ed.). 2001. Indigenous Traditions and Ecology: The Interbeing of Cosmology and Community (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press for the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School).

Gyatso, Janet. 1998. Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).

Hanna, Span. 1994. ‘Vast as the Sky: The Terma Tradition in Modern Tibet’, in Geoffrey Samuel et al. (eds.), Tantra and Popular Religion in Tibet (Delhi: Aditya Prakashan): 1-13.

Huber, Toni. 1997. ‘Green Tibetans: A Brief Social History’, in Frank J. Korom (ed.), Tibetan Culture in the Diaspora (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften): 103-19. ———. 2001. ‘Shangri-La in Exile: Representation of Tibetan Identity and Transnational Culture’, in Dodin and Räther 2001: 357-71. Huber, Toni, and Poul Pedersen. 1997. ‘Meteorological Knowledge and Environmental Ideas in Traditional and Modern Societies: The Case of Tibet’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 3: 577-98. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/ 10.2307/ 3034768. Jacoby, Sarah. 2014. Love and Liberation: Autobiographical Writings of the Tibetan Buddhist Visionary Sera Khandro (New York: Columbia University Press). ’Jam mgon Kong sprul blo gros mtha’ yas. 1975–76. Rgya chen bka’ mdzod (dpal spungs par ma ’brug spa gro’i bskyar par ma) (Palpung, Sichuan, PRC: Palpung Monastery Printing House). TBRC W21808.

Karmay, Samten G. 1996. ‘The Tibetan Cult of Mountain Deities and its Political Signi??cance’, in Anne-Marie Blondeau and Ernst Steinkeller (eds.), Re??ections of the Mountain: Essays on the History and Social Meaning of the Mountain Cult in Tibet and the Himalayas (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften): 59-75. Martin, Dan. 2001. Unearthing Bon Treasures: Life and Contested Legacy of a Tibetan Scripture Revealer (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers). McGuire, Meredith B. 2008. Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/ 9780195172621.001.0001. Mchog ’gyur bde chen gling pa. 1975–76. Gter chen mchog gling nas seng chen gnam brag gi zab chos sde drug rten dang dam rdzas gter nas spyan drangs skabs gter tshab tu ’bul rgyu'i ’dod gsol smon tshig. In ’Jam mgon kong sprul blo gros mtha’ yas, Rgya chen bka’ mdzod (dpal spungs par ma ’brug spa gro’i bskyar par ma) (Palpung, Sichuan, PRC: Palpung Monastery Printing House), vol. 16, ff. 35-38. TBRC W21808.

Mkha’ ’gro bde skyong dbang mo. 1981. Skyabs rje thams cad mkhyen pa grub pa’i dbang phyug zab gter rgya mtsho’i mnga’ bdag rin po che padma ’gro ’dul gsang sngags gling pa’i rnam par thar pa snying gi mun sel dad pa’i shing rta ratna’i chun ’phyang utpala’i ’phreng ba (Dalhousie: Damchoe Sangpo). TBRC W23945. Mou Zongjian. 2006. ‘Zongjiao wenhua shengtai de zhongguo moshi’, Zhongguo minzu bao 6: 536.

Nasr, Sayyed Hossein. 1996. Religion and the Order of Nature (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195108231. 001.0001. Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Réne de. 1990 [1956]. Oracles and Demons of Tibet: The Cult and Iconography of Tibetan Protective Deities (Taipei, ROC: SMC Publishing). Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho. 2009. Thob yig gang gai chu rgyun, vol. 9, in Rgyal dbang lnga pa ngang dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho’i gsung ’bum: The Collected Works of the 5th Dalai Lama Ngagwang Lozang Gyatso (1617–1682) (28 vols.; Beijing, PRC: krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang [[[China]] Tibetan Culture Publishing House]). TBRC W1PD107937.

Nha??t Hanh, Thích. 2008. The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press). Nor, Zaato Matthew. 2010. ‘Religion and Environmental Sustainability’, in Yahya Oyewole Imam (ed.), Religion and Environment (Ibadan, Nigeria: Association for the Study of the Interplay between Religion and Science): 45-72. Norberg-Hodge, Halena. 2001. ‘Tibetan Culture as a Model of Ecological Sustainability’, in Dodin and Räther 2001: 331-38. O rgyan gling pa. 1988. Padma bka’ thang (Chengdu, PRC: Sichuan Nationalities Publishing House).

Od gsal rdo rje, bde chen. 1998. Rig ’dzin nus ldan rdo rje’i rnam thar bsdus pa dri med rdo rje’i zlos gar (Nechen Pema, Qinghai, PRC, Unpublished manuscript). ———. 1999. Bde chen rdo rje’i rnam thar phran bu (Nechen Pema, Qinghai, PRC. Unpublished manuscript).

Orsi, Robert A. 1997. ‘Everyday Miracles: The Study of Lived Religion’, in David D. Hall (ed.), Lived Religion in America: Toward a History of Practice (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press): 3-21.

———. 2002 [1985]. The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880–1950 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press). ———. 2004. Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Pearcey, Adam (trans.). 2005. ‘The Life of Tertön Sogyal (1856–1926)’, Lotsawa House. Online: http://www.lotsawahouse.org/tibetan-masters/terton-sogyal/ biography.

Pouillon, Jean. 1975. Fétiches sans Fétichisme (Paris: Maspero). Ramble, Charles. 2008. The Navel of the Demoness: Tibetan Buddhism and Civil Religion in Highland Nepal (New York: Oxford University Press). Doi: http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195154146.001.0001. Rappaport, Roy A. 1979. Ecology, Meaning, and Religion (Richmond, CA: North Atlantic Books).

Sun, Anna. 2013. Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Tarthang Tulku. 1991. Lineage of the Diamond Light (Crystal Mirror Series, 5; Berkeley: Dharma Publishing).

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. 1990. My Tibet (London: Thames & Hudson). ———. 1992. ‘A Buddhist Concept of Nature’, in His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. Online: http://www.dalailama.com/messages/environment/buddhistconcept- of-nature.

Terrone, Antonio. 2010. Bya rog prog zhu: The Raven Crest. The Life and Teachings of bDe chenod gsal rdo rje, Treasure Revealer in Contemporary Tibet (PhD dissertation, Leiden University, Netherlands).

Thondup, Tulku. 1984. The Tantric Tradition of the Nyingmapa: The Origin of Buddhism in Tibet (Marion, MA: Buddhayana).

———. 1986. Hidden Teachings of Tibet: An Explanation of the Terma Tradition of the Nyingma School of Buddhism (London: Wisdom Publications). Tucker, Mary Evelyn, and Duncan Ryuken Williams (eds.). 1997. Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnectedness of Dharma and Deeds (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

Wach, Joachim. 1944. Sociology of Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). 482 Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014.

Wangdu, Pasang. 2000. dBa’ bzhed: The Royal Narrative concerning the Bringing of the Buddha’s Doctrine to Tibet (trans. Hildegard Diemberger; Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften). White, Lynn Jr. 1967. ‘The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis’, Science 155.3767: 1203-207. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.155.3767.1203. Yeshi, Kim. 1991. ‘The Tibetan View of the Environment’, Chö Yang: Year of Tibet Issue (Dharamsala, India: Council for Religious and Cultural Affairs): 265-69.


Source