In 1978, Stephan Beyer could write that his book, The Cult of Tārā: Magic and Ritual in Tibet (Berkeley: University of California Press), “represents a first attempt to formulate the processes and presuppositions of Tibetan Buddhist ritual, a field that has been left relatively untouched by Western scholars” (p. xii). Since that time, rituals have become an object of research for not only anthropologists but also philologists and historians. The book under review is the result of an international conference held in May 2007 at the University of California, Santa Barbara. It is formed of eleven chapters, each dedicated to a particular Tibetan religious ritual.
To publish on Tibetan rituals could appear as a challenge when one knows how rituals pervade Tibetan landscape and Tibetan time (p. 2). In general, publications focus on a single Tibetan ritual, be it The Cult of Tārā, A Death Ritual of the Tibetan Bonpos,Footnote 1 or The Cult of Pure Crystal Mountain,Footnote 2 to give just a few examples. J.I. Cabézon, the editor of the present book, gets around the difficulty by offering the reader an extensive, and extremely informative essay (pp. 1–34) that puts rituals in the broader context of the Tibetan cosmological worldview. The author touches on theoretical as well as practical aspects of rituals, and brings out themes that implicitly or explicitly appear in the articles.
For lack of space, only a short presentation of each of contribution will be given here, enough to show how rich and interesting the whole volume is.
The book opens and ends with articles written by anthropologists. In Chapter 1, Nicolas Silhé (pp. 35–52) shows how local tantric ritualists in a small Tibetan community of Lower Mustang in Nepal understand, domesticate, and transmit a corpus of ritual texts that belong to the larger world of Tibetan Buddhism. In the last chapter, Françoise Pommaret offers insight into a pilgrimage in Central Tibet that she did with Bhutanese pilgrims. She proposes to see pilgrimage as a ritual, since, among other reasons, “the figure of the religious guide is as central to the pilgrimage as it is to a ritual” (p. 252).
Two chapters are dedicated to Bonpo rituals. Samten Karmay (Chapter 2) deals with an unknown collection of texts, the Gnyan 'bum, preserved in the Bonpo canon from which the rituals related to the spirit gnyan might have originated. He underlies the function of the officiant, the lha bon, who has to “reestablish the harmony of the good age that existed before” (p. 56). His study resonates with previous findings on the lha bon of the Khumbo of East Nepal who “restores the relationship to the gods whenever it is threatened.”Footnote 3 Marc des Jardins (Chapter 8) focuses on a particular Bonpo ritual of exorcism he observed at Ye shes Monastery in Nyag rong. Centered on Rta mgrin (Skt. Hayagrīva), this performance has dramatic aspects that “give this rite its perceived value” (p. 201).
Through the careful study of “a selected sample of Dunhuang Tibetan Mahāyoga rituals texts” (p. 70), Cathy Cantwell and Robert Mayer (Chapter 3) raise questions of continuity and change in terms of these rituals in space (India and Tibet) and throughout Tibetan history (since the 10th century).
Yael Bentor (Chapter 4) considers a four-line verse from the Guhyasamāja Tantra and “examines the role of this verse in the practice of the Guhyasamāja and explores how it was understood” (p. 89).
Irmgard Mengele (Chapter 5) opens the first of three chapters dedicated to apotropaic rites. She explores a particular genre of rituals (’chi bslu) of Indian origin that is performed to avert premature death. She describes the three phases of the rituals, and shows that “when introduced into Tibet, some aspects of these rituals were likely incorporated into already existing Tibetan indigenous rituals centered on sacrifice” (p. 121).
James Gentry (Chapter 6) presents ritual exorcisms aimed at repelling or vanquishing armies. He focuses his article on the biography of the great Rnying ma figure, Sog bzlog pa Blo gros rgyal mtshan (1552–1624) that describes his “thirty-two year ritual career of expelling Mongol armies from Tibet through ritual sorcery” (p. 134).
Brian Cuevas (Chapter 7) examines a particular work, The Calf's Nipple (Be'u ’bum), one of the three be'u ’bum constituting 'Ju Mi pham's “handbook of Tibetan practical magic” (p. 167).
Two chapters are dedicated to Mongol rituals. Vesna Wallace (Chapter 9) investigates the Mongolian rituals “involving the veneration of popular Mahāyana sūtras regarded as deities” (p. 207) that “became an integral part of a daily religious life on the steppe” (p. 220).
Jared Lindahl (Chapter 10) deals with the veneration of Mongolian mountains. He points out that there was a conscious strategy on the part of Buddhists to tie Buddhism and its pantheon to the Mongolian landscape, a conclusion I also came to in my research on sacred mountains in Tibet (in Montagnes sacrées, lacs et grottes: lieux de pèlerinage dans le monde tibétain. Traditions écrites. Réalités vivantes [Université de Paris X-Nanterre, 1996]).
The different approaches of the authors (anthropological, philological or historical), the variety of rituals described —Buddhist (Chapters 1, 3, 4, 9, 10, and 11); Bonpo (Chapters 2 and 8); and apotropaic (Chapters 5, 6, and 7); as well as the inclusion of Nepalese (Chapter 1), Mongolian (Chapters 9 and 10) and Bhutanese (Chapter 11) rituals make this book a essential source for readers interested in religious rituals in general.
