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1. In the Forest of the Blind: The Eurasian Journey of Faxian's Record of Buddhist Kingdoms

Author:
Matthew W. King and Gray Tuttle
Publication Date:
04-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Speaker's Bio: Matthew King is an Associate Professor of Buddhist Studies and Director of Asian Studies at the University of California, Riverside. He is also a visiting scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute for 2022-2023. His research examines the social history of knowledge in Buddhist scholastic networks extending across the Tibeto-Mongolian frontiers of the late Qing empire and its revolutionary ruins. Much of his published work has focused on encounters between Buddhist scholasticism, science, humanism, and state socialism in the 19th and early 20th centuries. He is also broadly engaged with methodological revision in the study of religion and Buddhist Studies, and in revisionist theoretical projects associated with the critical Asian humanities. King's first book Ocean of Milk, Ocean of Blood: A Mongolian Monk in the Ruins of the Qing Empire (Columbia University Press, 2019), was awarded the American Academy of Religion Excellence in the Study of Religion: Textual Studies book award, the Central Eurasian Studies Society's 2020 Best Book in History and Humanities, and the International Convention of Asia Scholars Book Prize (Specialist Publication).
Topic:
Religion, History, and Buddhism
Political Geography:
Eurasia and Asia

2. The Seventh Dalai Lama's Residence in Kham with Yudru Tsomu

Author:
Yudru Tsomu and Gray Tuttle
Publication Date:
02-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
The Seventh Dalai Lama’s residence at Gartar Monastery (Mgar thar dgon, མགར་ཐར་དགོན། ), beginning in 1730, greatly affected the relationship between the Kham region and the Tibetan government as well as the Qing court’s control over Kham. The Dalai Lama’s interactions with various indigenous leaders, local monasteries, monks and lay people increased the influence of the Geluk school in Kham, and also inspired their support for the Dalai Lama. Measures adopted by the Qing court to protect the Dalai Lama, such as stationing troops and inspecting check-points, also strengthened Qing control of Kham. After the Dalai Lama left for Tibet in 1735, Gartar Monastery continued to serve as a religious and cultural center of northern Kham, having the function of “civilizing” and “enlightening” the neighboring regions that were far away from the political center. Successive abbots of Gartar Monastery—all the way up to 1920—came from Drepung Monastery in Lhasa; they and the monks of Gartar influenced, interfered and controlled the local affairs of Gartar and other regions in Kham. In particular, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Gartar Monastery, together with the Tibetan commissioner in Nyarong, was able to assist the Tibetan government’s efforts to extend its sphere of influence in Kham.
Topic:
Government, Religion, History, Buddhism, and Dalai Lama
Political Geography:
Asia and Tibet

3. Book Launch: Lineages of the Literary: Tibetan Buddhist Polymaths of Socialist China

Author:
Nicole Willock and Gray Tuttle
Publication Date:
10-2021
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
In the aftermath of the cataclysmic Maoist period, three Tibetan Buddhist scholars living and working in the People’s Republic of China became intellectual heroes and were renowned as the “Three Polymaths”: Tséten Zhabdrung (1910–1985), Mugé Samten (1914–1993), and Dungkar Lozang Trinlé (1927–1997). Lineages of the Literary, by Nicole Willock, reveals how the Three Polymaths negotiated the political tides of the twentieth century, shedding new light on Sino-Tibetan relations and Buddhism during this turbulent era. An interdisciplinary work spanning religious studies, history, literary studies, and social theory, Lineages of the Literary offers new insight into the categories of religion and the secular, the role of Tibetan Buddhist leaders in modern China, and the contested ground of Tibet.
Topic:
Religion, History, Leadership, Literature, Secularism, Buddhism, and Social Theory
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Tibet