Download or read book Early Temples of Central Tibet written by Roberto Vitali and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The conspicuous place occupied by temples within Tibetan culture, even before Buddhism was introduced, has been recognized by Tibetan tradition and literature throughout the centuries, for almost a millenium and a half. Tibetan sources have recorded constructions, their history, and the religious and lay patrons conected to them. -- Preface.
Download or read book History of Central Asia The 4 volume set written by Christoph Baumer and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-04-18 with total page 1580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This set includes all four volumes of the critically acclaimed History of Central Asia series. The epic plains and arid deserts of Central Asia have witnessed some of the greatest migrations, as well as many of the most transformative developments, in the history of civilization. Christoph Baumer's ambitious four-volume treatment of the region charts the 3000-year drama of Scythians and Sarmatians; Soviets and transcontinental Silk Roads; trade routes and the transmission of ideas across the steppes; and the breathless and brutal conquests of Alexander the Great and Chinghiz Khan. Masterfully interweaving the stories of individuals and peoples, the author's engaging prose is richly augmented throughout by colour photographs taken on his own travels. This set includes The Age of the Steppe Warriors (Volume 1), The Age of the Silk Roads (Volume 2), The Age of Islam and the Mongols (Volume 3) and The Age of Decline and Revival (Volume 4)
Download or read book A Historical Atlas of Tibet written by Karl E. Ryavec and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-05-08 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pioneering work documents cultural and religious sites across the Tibetan Plateau and its bordering regions from the Paleolithic Era to today. Western fascination with Tibet has soared in recent decades, yet this historic and globally celebrated region has barely been mapped. With this groundbreaking atlas, Karl E. Ryavec sweeps aside the image of Tibet as Shangri-La, offering a comprehensive vision of the region as it really is. The product of twelve years of research and eight more of mapmaking, the results are absolutely stunning. A Historical Atlas of Tibet ranges through the five main periods in Tibetan history, offering introductory maps of each followed by details of western, central, and eastern regions. It beautifully visualizes the history of Tibetan Buddhism, tracing its spread throughout Asia, with thousands of temples mapped, both within Tibet and across North China and Mongolia, all the way to Beijing. There are maps of major polities and their territorial administrations, as well as of the kingdoms of Guge and Purang in western Tibet, and of Derge and Nangchen in Kham. There are town plans of Lhasa and maps that focus on history and language, on population, natural resources, and contemporary politics. Extraordinarily comprehensive and absolutely gorgeous, this volume makes a major contribution in the realms of cartography, Asian studies, and Buddhist studies.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Tibet written by John Powers and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-10-22 with total page 881 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historical Dictionary of Tibet, Second Edition is a comprehensive resource for Tibetan history, politics, religion, major figures, prehistory and paleontology, with a primary emphasis on the modern period. It also covers the surrounding areas influenced by Tibetan religion and culture, including India, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Central Asia, and Russia. It contains a chronology, a glossary, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on important personalities as well as aspects of the country’s politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Tibet.
Download or read book An Atlas of the Himalayas by a 19th Century Tibetan Lama written by Diana Lange and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-06-08 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Diana Lange's patient investigations have, in this wonderful piece of detective work, solved the mysteries of six extraordinary panoramic maps of routes across Tibet and the Himalayas, clearly hand-drawn in the late 1850s by a local artist, known as the British Library's Wise Collection. Diana Lange now reveals not only the previously unknown identity of the Scottish colonial official who commissioned the maps from a Tibetan Buddhist lama, but also the story of how the Wise Collection came to be in the British Library. The result is both a spectacular illustrated ethnographic atlas and a unique compendium of knowledge concerning the mid-19th century Tibetan world, as well as a remarkable account of an academic journey of discovery. It will entertain and inform anyone with an interest in this fascinating region. This large format book is lavishly illustrated in colour and includes four separate large foldout maps.
Download or read book Tibetan Inscriptions written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-07-01 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inscriptions are a rather neglected field within Tibetan Studies, because they are often located in places that are not easily accessible for both geographical and political reasons. It is thus especially welcome that two of the contributions to this volume deal with inscriptions documented on recent field trips to Tibet: Benjamin Wood discusses an inscription in Zha lu that relates an enigmatic conflict in the history of the monastery, and Kurt Tropper looks into an epigraphic cycle on the life of the Buddha in Tsaparang. Moreover, Nathan Hill provides a new interpretation of the beginning of the famous Rkong po inscription, and Kunsang Namgyal Lama surveys the various kinds of texts found on tsha tshas. An extra level of reflection is added to the volume by Cristina Scherrer-Schaub’s methodological considerations on the classification and interpretation of inscriptions.
Download or read book The theatre of Tibet written by Antonio Attisani and published by Mimesis. This book was released on 2024-04-05T00:00:00+02:00 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: he theatrical culture of Tibet is probably the last to remain virtually unknown to the outside world, and to the West in particular. As well as describing the current situation of studies on Tibetan theatre, the current volume also provides an essay on imagination and how it is concretely manifested by the Tibetan people and their actors. Recent decades have seen radical change for Tibetan theatre, ache lhamo, now performed by a diaspora for whom a declining artistic and technical change derives from an uncertain politics concerning secular and popular culture, as well as the ongoing cultural genocide caused by China’s subjection of Tibet.
Download or read book Into Tibet written by Thomas Laird and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “fascinating” story of espionage that “fills a blank space in the hidden history of the Cold War” (Houston Chronicle). Into Tibet is the incredible story of a 1949–1950 American undercover expedition led by America’s first atomic agent, Douglas S. Mackiernan—a covert attempt to arm the Tibetans and to recognize Tibet’s independence months before China invaded. A Nepal-based American journalist reveals how the clash between the State Department and the CIA, as well as unguided actions by field agents, hastened the Chinese invasion of Tibet. A gripping narrative of survival, courage, and intrigue among the nomads, princes, and warring armies of inner Asia, Into Tibet rewrites the accepted history behind the Chinese invasion of Tibet. “A gripping tale.” —The Washington Post
Download or read book Tibetan Diary written by Geoff Childs and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2004-09-27 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: High in the Nepali Himalaya are a number of ethnic Tibetan communities. Geoff Childs presents a portrait of Nubri & Kutang in which he chronicles the daily lives of community members in all their tangled intricacies.
Download or read book Proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the IATS 2000 Volume 7 Buddhist Art and Tibetan Patronage Ninth to Fourteenth Centuries written by Deborah Klimburg-Salter and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-11-01 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Increasing accessibility of Tibet has provided important new insights on the history and context of Tibetan art. This book discusses the impact of Tibetan patronage on Buddhist artistic monuments from both the heartland of Tibet as well as its far (cultural) borders. A score of experts here explore the dialectic between local and “foreign” traditions. Thus the role of Indian artistic traditions, the merging with Chinese, Kidan and Turkic artistic features come to the fore, while at the same time Central Tibet gets ample attention. Recent field research and the study of previously neglected primary literary (inscriptional) evidence make clear that the study of Tibetan art is still in its infancy. This edited volume is the first comprehensive guide to emerging new insights on the intricate context in which Tibetan art emerged and flourished.
Download or read book Beyond the Silk and Book Roads written by Michelle C. Wang and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-11-27 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Silk Road studies has often treated material artifacts and manuscripts separately. This interdisciplinary volume expands the scope of transcultural transmission, questions what constituted a “book,” and explores networks of circulation shared by material artifacts and manuscripts. Featuring new research in English by international scholars in Buddhist studies, art history, and literary studies, the essays in Beyond the Silk and Book Roads chart new and exciting directions in Silk Road studies. Contributors are: Ge Jiyong, George A. Keyworth, Ding Li, Ryan Richard Overbey, Hao Chunwen, Wu Shaowei, Liu Yi, Lan Wu, Sha Wutian, Michelle C. Wang, and Stephen Roddy.
Download or read book Tibetan Nation written by Warren Smith and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-31 with total page 648 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This detailed history offers the most comprehensive account available of Tibetan nationalism, Sino-Tibetan relations, and the issue of Tibetan self-determination. Warren Smith explores Tibet's ethnic and national origins, the birth of the Tibetan state, the Buddhist state and its relations with China, Tibet's quest for independence, and the Chinese takeover of Tibet after 1950. Focusing especially on post-1950 Tibet under Chinese Communist rule, Smith analyzes Marxist-Leninist and Chinese Communist Party nationalities theory and policy, their application in Tibet, and the consequent rise of Tibetan nationalism. Concluding that the essence of the Tibetan issue is self-determination, Smith bolsters his argument with a comprehensive analysis of modern Tibetan and Chinese political histories.
Download or read book The Culture of the Book in Tibet written by Kurtis R. Schaeffer and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of the book in Tibet involves more than literary trends and trade routes. Functioning as material, intellectual, and symbolic object, the book has been an instrumental tool in the construction of Tibetan power and authority, and its history opens a crucial window onto the cultural, intellectual, and economic life of an immensely influential Buddhist society. Spanning the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, Kurtis R. Schaeffer envisions the scholars and hermits, madmen and ministers, kings and queens who produced Tibet's massive canons. He describes how Tibetan scholars edited and printed works of religion, literature, art, and science and what this indicates about the interrelation of material and cultural practices. The Tibetan book is at once the embodiment of the Buddha's voice, a principal means of education, a source of tradition and authority, an economic product, a finely crafted aesthetic object, a medium of Buddhist written culture, and a symbol of the religion itself. Books stood at the center of debates on the role of libraries in religious institutions, the relative merits of oral and written teachings, and the economy of religion in Tibet. A meticulous study that draws on more than 150 understudied Tibetan sources, The Culture of the Book in Tibet is the first volume to trace this singular history. Through a single object, Schaeffer accesses a greater understanding of the cultural and social history of the Tibetan plateau.
Download or read book The Story of Tibet written by Thomas Laird and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A memorable and vivid history lesson about a remote mysterious place that, in terms of its sheer survival, has implications for our own lives.” —The Times-Picayune Over the course of three years, journalist Thomas Laird spent more than sixty hours with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in candid, one-on-one interviews that ranged widely, covering not only the history of Tibet but science, reincarnation, and Buddhism. Laird brings these meetings to life in this vibrant, monumental work that outlines the essence of thousands of years of civilization, myth, and spirituality. Tibet’s story is rich with tradition and filled with promise. It begins with the Bodhisattva Chenrizi (“The Holy One”) whose spirit many Tibetans believe resides within the Dalai Lama. We learn the origins of Buddhism, and about the era of Great Tibetan Emperors, whose reign stretched from southwestern China to Northern India. His Holiness introduces us to Tibet’s greatest yogis and meditation masters, and explains how the institution of the Dalai Lama was founded. Laird explores, with His Holiness, Tibet’s relations with the Mongols, the Golden Age under the Great Fifth Dalai Lama, Tibet’s years under Manchu overlords, modern independence in the early twentieth century, and the Dalai Lama’s personal meetings with Mao just before His Holiness fled into exile in 1959. The Story of Tibet is “a tenderly crafted study that is equal parts love letter, traditional history and oral history” (Publishers Weekly). “Captivating reading.” —Tricycle
Download or read book The Hidden History of the Tibetan Book of the Dead written by Department of Religion Florida State University Bryan J. Cuevas Assistant Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2003-03-27 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1927, Oxford University Press published the first western-language translation of a collection of Tibetan funerary texts (the Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Bardo) under the title The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Since that time, the work has established a powerful hold on the western popular imagination, and is now considered a classic of spiritual literature. Over the years, The Tibetan Book of the Dead has inspired numerous commentaries, an illustrated edition, a play, a video series, and even an opera. Translators, scholars, and popular devotees of the book have claimed to explain its esoteric ideas and reveal its hidden meaning. Few, however, have uttered a word about its history. Bryan J. Cuevas seeks to fill this gap in our knowledge by offering the first comprehensive historical study of the Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Bardo, and by grounding it firmly in the context of Tibetan history and culture. He begins by discussing the many ways the texts have been understood (and misunderstood) by westerners, beginning with its first editor, the Oxford-educated anthropologist Walter Y. Evans-Wentz, and continuing through the present day. The remarkable fame of the book in the west, Cuevas argues, is strikingly disproportionate to how the original Tibetan texts were perceived in their own country. Cuevas tells the story of how The Tibetan Book of the Dead was compiled in Tibet, of the lives of those who preserved and transmitted it, and explores the history of the rituals through which the life of the dead is imagined in Tibetan society. This book provides not only a fascinating look at a popular and enduring spiritual work, but also a much-needed corrective to the proliferation of ahistorical scholarship surrounding The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
Download or read book The Hidden History of the Tibetan Book of the Dead written by Bryan J. Cuevas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-12-08 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1927, Oxford University Press published the first western-language translation of a collection of Tibetan funerary texts (the Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Bardo) under the title The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Since that time, the work has established a powerful hold on the western popular imagination, and is now considered a classic of spiritual literature. Over the years, The Tibetan Book of the Dead has inspired numerous commentaries, an illustrated edition, a play, a video series, and even an opera. Translators, scholars, and popular devotees of the book have claimed to explain its esoteric ideas and reveal its hidden meaning. Few, however, have uttered a word about its history. Bryan J. Cuevas seeks to fill this gap in our knowledge by offering the first comprehensive historical study of the Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Bardo, and by grounding it firmly in the context of Tibetan history and culture. He begins by discussing the many ways the texts have been understood (and misunderstood) by westerners, beginning with its first editor, the Oxford-educated anthropologist Walter Y. Evans-Wentz, and continuing through the present day. The remarkable fame of the book in the west, Cuevas argues, is strikingly disproportionate to how the original Tibetan texts were perceived in their own country. Cuevas tells the story of how The Tibetan Book of the Dead was compiled in Tibet, of the lives of those who preserved and transmitted it, and explores the history of the rituals through which the life of the dead is imagined in Tibetan society. This book provides not only a fascinating look at a popular and enduring spiritual work, but also a much-needed corrective to the proliferation of ahistorical scholarship surrounding The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
Download or read book Tibetan Literature written by Leonard van der Kuijp and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 555 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tibetan Literature addresses the immense variety of Tibet's literary heritage. An introductory essay by the editors attempts to assess the overall nature of 'literature' in Tibet and to understand some of the ways in which it may be analyzed into genres. The remainder of the book contains articles by nearly thirty scholars from America, Europe, and Asia—each of whom addresses an important genre of Tibetan literature. These articles are distributed among eight major rubrics: two on history and biography, six on canonical and quasi-canonical texts, four on philosophical literature, four on literature on the paths, four on ritual, four on literary arts, four on non-literary arts and sciences, and two on guidebooks and reference works.
