1st Edition

The Selfless Ego Configurations of Identity in Tibetan Life Writing

Edited By Lucia Galli, Franz Xaver Erhard Copyright 2021
284 Pages
by Routledge

284 Pages
by Routledge

284 Pages
by Routledge

The essays collected in The Selfless Ego propose an innovative approach to one of the most fascinating aspects of Tibetan literature: life writing. Departing from past schemes of interpretation, this book addresses issues of literary theory and identity construction, eluding the strictures imposed by the adoption of the hagiographical master narrative as synonymous with the genre. The book is... Read more

Introduction

Lucia Galli and Franz Xaver Erhard

Part I: Memory and Imagination in Tibetan Hagiographical Writing

1. Between Self-Expression and Convention: Tibetan Reflections on Autobiographical Writing

Ulrike Roesler

2. Nested Autobiography: Life Writing Within Larger Works

David Templeman

3. From Song to Biography and from Biography to Song: The Use of gur in Marpa’s namthar

Cécile Ducher

4. The namthar in Khalkha Dzaya Paṇḍita Lobsang Trinle (1642–1715)’s Clear Mirror

Sangseraima Ujeed

5. Reincarnation and Personal Identity in The Lives of Tibetan Masters: Linking the Revelations of Three Lamas of the Dudjom Tradition

Cathy Cantwell

6. Traces of Female Voices and Women’s Lives in Tibetan Male Sacred Biography

Hanna Havnevik

7. Forest Walking, Meditation and Sore Feet: The Southern Buddhist Biographical Tradition of Ajahn Mun and His Followers

Sarah Shaw

Part II: Conjuring Tibetan Lives

8. Memory, Politics, and Peace in the Autobiography of Sumpa Khenpo

Rachael Griffiths

9. Genealogy, Autobiography, Memoir: The Secular Life Narrative of Doring Tenzin Penjor

Franz Xaver Erhard

10. The Crafting Memory of the Self. Reflections on Tibetan Diary-Keeping

Lucia Galli

11. Family Matters: Women’s Spaces and Quiet Truths in House of the Turquoise Roof and Dalai Lama, My Son

Isabella Ofner

12. The Wandering Voice of Tibet: Life and Songs of Dubhe

Lama Jabb

13. Bearers of the Past, Bridges with the Beyond: The Complicated Lives of Ordinary Objects

Charles Ramble

Biography

Lucia Galli is Research Fellow at the Centre de recherche sur les civilisations de l’Asie orientale (CRCAO, Paris, France) and a member of the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE – PSL), where she is currently working within the framework of the ANR/DFG-funded research project Social Status in the Tibetan World (TibStat). She holds a D.Phil in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford, UK, with a thesis on the nyindep (nyin deb, ‘diary’) of the Khampa trader Khatag Dzamyag (Kha stag ʼDzam yag).

Franz Xaver Erhard is researcher at Leipzig University, Germany. He holds a PhD in Tibetan Studies with a dissertation on contemporary Tibetan literature and has published widely on Tibetan fiction and the history of Tibetan print media. His current research project focuses on ‘Secular Life Writing in Early Modern Tibet’ with a study of Kalon Tenzin Paljor’s Autobiography Music of Candid Speech.