- Homepage: https://www.ioa.uni-bonn.de/suedasien/de/personen/jun-prof-dr-carmen-brandtedit
Complete book digitally and open access: https://crossasia-books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/xasia/catalog/book/642?lang=en Wege durchs Labyrinth ist eine Festschrift zu Ehren von Professor Dr. Rahul Peter Das. Sie enthält deutsch- und... more
Complete book digitally and open access:
https://crossasia-books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/xasia/catalog/book/642?lang=en
Wege durchs Labyrinth ist eine Festschrift zu Ehren von Professor Dr. Rahul Peter Das. Sie enthält deutsch- und englischsprachige Beiträge von Kollegen und Kolleginnen, Schülern und Schülerinnen sowie Weggefährten von Professor Das. Die hier versammelten Aufsätze bilden verschiedene thematische Schwerpunkte ab, die auch Professor Das in seinem umfangreichen wissenschaftlichen Oeuvre bearbeitet hat. Dazu gehören Sanskrit-Studien, historische Sprachwissenschaft, Texteditionen in neuindoarischen Sprachen, Soziolinguistik, südasiatische Religionsgeschichte, bengalische und Hindi-Literatur, Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Indologie/Südasienstudien sowie auch Tamilistik. Einige der Beiträge knüpfen direkt an Rahul Peter Das' Werk oder bestimmte Schriften an, während die Gesamtheit der Aufsätze seine verschiedenen Forschungsinteressen und unterschiedlichen methodischen Ansätze widerspiegeln.
Beitragende zu dieser Festschrift sind Carmen Brandt, Renata Czekalska, Ines Fornell, Eli Franco, Ratul Ghosh, Olav Hackstein, Hans Harder, Martin Kämpchen, Klaus Karttunen, Makoto Kitada, Frank J. Korom, Agnieszka Kuczkiewicz-Fras, Halina Marlewicz, Ulrike Niklas, Tatiana Oranskaia, Felix Otter, Adapa Satyanarayana, Britta Schulze-Thulin, Sabine Franziska Strich, Heinz Werner Wessler und Benjamin Zachariah.
https://crossasia-books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/xasia/catalog/book/642?lang=en
Wege durchs Labyrinth ist eine Festschrift zu Ehren von Professor Dr. Rahul Peter Das. Sie enthält deutsch- und englischsprachige Beiträge von Kollegen und Kolleginnen, Schülern und Schülerinnen sowie Weggefährten von Professor Das. Die hier versammelten Aufsätze bilden verschiedene thematische Schwerpunkte ab, die auch Professor Das in seinem umfangreichen wissenschaftlichen Oeuvre bearbeitet hat. Dazu gehören Sanskrit-Studien, historische Sprachwissenschaft, Texteditionen in neuindoarischen Sprachen, Soziolinguistik, südasiatische Religionsgeschichte, bengalische und Hindi-Literatur, Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Indologie/Südasienstudien sowie auch Tamilistik. Einige der Beiträge knüpfen direkt an Rahul Peter Das' Werk oder bestimmte Schriften an, während die Gesamtheit der Aufsätze seine verschiedenen Forschungsinteressen und unterschiedlichen methodischen Ansätze widerspiegeln.
Beitragende zu dieser Festschrift sind Carmen Brandt, Renata Czekalska, Ines Fornell, Eli Franco, Ratul Ghosh, Olav Hackstein, Hans Harder, Martin Kämpchen, Klaus Karttunen, Makoto Kitada, Frank J. Korom, Agnieszka Kuczkiewicz-Fras, Halina Marlewicz, Ulrike Niklas, Tatiana Oranskaia, Felix Otter, Adapa Satyanarayana, Britta Schulze-Thulin, Sabine Franziska Strich, Heinz Werner Wessler und Benjamin Zachariah.
Research Interests: Comparative Literature, Hindi Literature, Theatre Studies, Languages and Linguistics, South Asian Studies, and 12 moreHistory of Science, Sanskrit language and literature, South Asia, Tamil Literature, Biography, Bengali Literature, Linguistics, Writing systems, Indology, Bengali Language & Literature, Bauls of Bengal, and Religious Studies /Indology
In the Bengali speaking regions of Bangladesh and India, the Bengali term "bede" today often evokes stereotypical imaginations of itinerant people. Of highly contested origin, the term has in the last two hundred years become the pivotal... more
In the Bengali speaking regions of Bangladesh and India, the Bengali term "bede" today often evokes stereotypical imaginations of itinerant people. Of highly contested origin, the term has in the last two hundred years become the pivotal element for categorising and portraying diverse service nomads of the Bengal region. Besides an analysis of their portrayal in ethnographic and Bengali fictional literature, this book traces causes, reasons, and processes that have led to an increasing perception of these so-called 'Bedes' as being ethnically different from the sedentary majority population.
Research Interests: Indian studies, South Asian Studies, Stereotypes, Stereotypes and Prejudice, Eurasian Nomads, and 15 moreMuslim Minorities, Bengali Literature, Caste and Untouchability, Bangladesh, Ethnicity, Nomadism, India, Dalit studies, Gender stereotypes, Gypsies & Travellers, Bengali Language & Literature, Nomads, Gypsies, West Bengal, and Nomadic/Indigenous People
Serbs write their language in Cyrillic or Latin letters in seemingly random distribution. Hindi-Urdu is written in Nāgarī by Hindus and in the Arabic script by Muslims. In medieval Scandinavia the Latin alphabet, ink and parchment were... more
Serbs write their language in Cyrillic or Latin letters in seemingly random distribution. Hindi-Urdu is written in Nāgarī by Hindus and in the Arabic script by Muslims. In medieval Scandinavia the Latin alphabet, ink and parchment were used for texts ‘for eternity’, whereas ephemeral messages were carved into wood in runes. The Occitan language has two competing orthographies. German texts were set either in blackletter or in roman type between 1749 and 1941. In Ancient Egypt the distribution of hieroglyphs, hieratic and demotic was much more complex than commonly assumed. Chinese is written with traditional and simplified characters in different countries.
This collective monograph, which includes contributions from eleven specialists in different philological areas, for the first time develops a coherent typological model on the basis of sociolinguistic and graphematic criteria to describe and classify these and many other linguistic situations in which two or more writing systems are used simultaneously for one and the same language.
This collective monograph, which includes contributions from eleven specialists in different philological areas, for the first time develops a coherent typological model on the basis of sociolinguistic and graphematic criteria to describe and classify these and many other linguistic situations in which two or more writing systems are used simultaneously for one and the same language.
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Research Interests: Asian Studies, Southeast Asian Studies, South Asian Studies, Political Science, South Asia, and 9 moreNationalism, South Asian History, Minority Studies, National Identity, Nationalism And State Building, History of Nationalism and Nation-Building, Minority Rights, Ethnicity and National Identity, and Nation building and State making
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In: Asian Ethnology 80,2: 287–317.
Research Interests: Border Studies, South Asian Studies, Identity (Culture), Race and Ethnicity, South Asia, and 13 morePakistan, Anthropology of Tibet and the Himalayas, Sino-Tibetan Linguistics, Borderlands Studies, History of Nationalism and Nation-Building, Tibetan and Himalayan societies, Ethnicity & Ethnic Conflicts, Nation Building, History of Shia Islam, Script, Ethnicity and National Identity, Nation building and State making, and Gilgit-Baltistan
In: Ulrike Niklas, Heinz Werner Wessler, Peter Wyzlic and Stefan Zimmer (eds): »Das alles hier«: Festschrift für Konrad Klaus zum 65. Geburtstag. Heidelberg/Berlin: CrossAsia-eBooks: 23–54.
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In: Trang Dai Vu, Oliver Pye, Hans Dieter Ölschleger and Günther Distelrath (eds): Humanistische Anthropologie: Ethnologische Begegnungen in einer globalisierten Welt. Festschrift für Christoph Antweiler zu seinem fünfundsechzigsten... more
In: Trang Dai Vu, Oliver Pye, Hans Dieter Ölschleger and Günther Distelrath (eds): Humanistische Anthropologie: Ethnologische Begegnungen in einer globalisierten Welt. Festschrift für Christoph Antweiler zu seinem fünfundsechzigsten Geburtstag von seinen Freund*innen und Kolleg*innen. (Bonner Asienstudien 20.) Berlin: EB-Verlag: 473–502.
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Complete book digitally and open access:
https://crossasia-books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/xasia/catalog/book/642?lang=en
https://crossasia-books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/xasia/catalog/book/642?lang=en
Research Interests: Languages and Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, South Asian Studies, Orality-Literacy Studies, South Asia, and 13 moreIdentity politics, Nationalism, Colonialism, Lingua Franca, Cultural Identity, National Identity, Hindi/Urdu, Printing History, Writing systems, India, Scripts, Nation building and State making, and Scripta Franca
Complete book digitally and open access: https://crossasia-books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/xasia/catalog/book/642?lang=en Wege durchs Labyrinth ist eine Festschrift zu Ehren von Professor Dr. Rahul Peter Das. Sie enthält deutsch- und... more
Complete book digitally and open access:
https://crossasia-books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/xasia/catalog/book/642?lang=en
Wege durchs Labyrinth ist eine Festschrift zu Ehren von Professor Dr. Rahul Peter Das. Sie enthält deutsch- und englischsprachige Beiträge von Kollegen und Kolleginnen, Schülern und Schülerinnen sowie Weggefährten von Professor Das. Die hier versammelten Aufsätze bilden verschiedene thematische Schwerpunkte ab, die auch Professor Das in seinem umfangreichen wissenschaftlichen Oeuvre bearbeitet hat. Dazu gehören Sanskrit-Studien, historische Sprachwissenschaft, Texteditionen in neuindoarischen Sprachen, Soziolinguistik, südasiatische Religionsgeschichte, bengalische und Hindi-Literatur, Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Indologie/Südasienstudien sowie auch Tamilistik. Einige der Beiträge knüpfen direkt an Rahul Peter Das' Werk oder bestimmte Schriften an, während die Gesamtheit der Aufsätze seine verschiedenen Forschungsinteressen und unterschiedlichen methodischen Ansätze widerspiegeln. Beitragende zu dieser Festschrift sind Carmen Brandt, Renata Czekalska, Ines Fornell, Eli Franco, Ratul Ghosh, Olav Hackstein, Hans Harder, Martin Kämpchen, Klaus Karttunen, Makoto Kitada, Frank J. Korom, Agnieszka Kuczkiewicz-Fras, Halina Marlewicz, Ulrike Niklas, Tatiana Oranskaia, Felix Otter, Adapa Satyanarayana, Britta Schulze-Thulin, Sabine Franziska Strich, Heinz Werner Wessler und Benjamin Zachariah.
https://crossasia-books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/xasia/catalog/book/642?lang=en
Wege durchs Labyrinth ist eine Festschrift zu Ehren von Professor Dr. Rahul Peter Das. Sie enthält deutsch- und englischsprachige Beiträge von Kollegen und Kolleginnen, Schülern und Schülerinnen sowie Weggefährten von Professor Das. Die hier versammelten Aufsätze bilden verschiedene thematische Schwerpunkte ab, die auch Professor Das in seinem umfangreichen wissenschaftlichen Oeuvre bearbeitet hat. Dazu gehören Sanskrit-Studien, historische Sprachwissenschaft, Texteditionen in neuindoarischen Sprachen, Soziolinguistik, südasiatische Religionsgeschichte, bengalische und Hindi-Literatur, Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Indologie/Südasienstudien sowie auch Tamilistik. Einige der Beiträge knüpfen direkt an Rahul Peter Das' Werk oder bestimmte Schriften an, während die Gesamtheit der Aufsätze seine verschiedenen Forschungsinteressen und unterschiedlichen methodischen Ansätze widerspiegeln. Beitragende zu dieser Festschrift sind Carmen Brandt, Renata Czekalska, Ines Fornell, Eli Franco, Ratul Ghosh, Olav Hackstein, Hans Harder, Martin Kämpchen, Klaus Karttunen, Makoto Kitada, Frank J. Korom, Agnieszka Kuczkiewicz-Fras, Halina Marlewicz, Ulrike Niklas, Tatiana Oranskaia, Felix Otter, Adapa Satyanarayana, Britta Schulze-Thulin, Sabine Franziska Strich, Heinz Werner Wessler und Benjamin Zachariah.
Research Interests:
By analysing the film "Bideśinī – From Bangladesh with Love" (Bangladesh 2005), in which the author played the lead female role, the chapter shows that the identity of the Bangladeshi state is constructed by invoking similar stereotypes... more
By analysing the film "Bideśinī – From Bangladesh with Love" (Bangladesh 2005), in which the author played the lead female role, the chapter shows that the identity of the Bangladeshi state is constructed by invoking similar stereotypes and dichotomies to those that characterise the dichotomisation of non-‘indigenous’–‘indigenous’ people. It becomes apparent that the current trend in public discourses to divide humankind into ‘dominant’/‘dominating’ and ‘dominated’ entities, or ‘perpetrators’ and ‘victims’, solely based upon group identities, is one reason why the Bangladeshi state denies its so-called ‘indigenous’ people the right to officially call themselves ‘indigenous’. The construction of the identity of the Bangladeshi state as well as the global discourse on the ‘indigenous’ people draw heavily on both ‘histories of oppression’ and ongoing struggles for cultural survival. This propensity to self-victimisation makes it difficult for those classified as ‘dominated’ on a global scale to recognise that they may also be ‘dominant’ at a different level, which may contribute to the perpetuation of socioeconomic inequalities. Furthermore, by analysing the film "Bideśinī – From Bangladesh with Love", it will become apparent that members of a putatively ‘dominated’ entity, in this case exemplarily Bangladesh, try to compensate for their marginalised position on a global level by the self-ascription of specific positive characteristics that they, in general, assume members of ‘dominant’/’dominating’ entities to be lacking.
Research Interests: Perception, Indigenous Studies, Media Studies, Film Studies, Poverty, and 14 moreFilm Analysis, South Asian Studies, South Asia, Nationalism, Stereotypes and Prejudice, National Identity, Bangladesh, Indigenous Peoples, Adivasi Studies, Happiness and Well Being, Bengali, Poverty Studies, Bengal, and Ethnicity and National Identity
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Der China-Pakistan-Wirtschaftskorridor (CPEC) spielt in der Seidenstraßeninitiative Chinas eine zentrale Rolle und befindet sich derzeit im Aufbau. Er soll die Infrastruktur Pakistans modernisieren und seine Wirtschaft stärken. Allerdings... more
Der China-Pakistan-Wirtschaftskorridor (CPEC) spielt in der Seidenstraßeninitiative Chinas eine zentrale Rolle und befindet sich derzeit im Aufbau. Er soll die Infrastruktur Pakistans modernisieren
und seine Wirtschaft stärken. Allerdings ist das Projekt sehr umstritten, da es die Spannungen mit Indien und den verschiedenen ethnischen
Gruppen innerhalb Pakistans verstärken könnte. Auch sind die Umweltauswirkungen ungeklärt, was Anlass zur Sorge gibt.
und seine Wirtschaft stärken. Allerdings ist das Projekt sehr umstritten, da es die Spannungen mit Indien und den verschiedenen ethnischen
Gruppen innerhalb Pakistans verstärken könnte. Auch sind die Umweltauswirkungen ungeklärt, was Anlass zur Sorge gibt.
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This essay gives an overview of the complex relationships between language, script, and identity in various speech communities across South Asia. South Asia hosts a great number of languages, whose written forms play an important role in... more
This essay gives an overview of the complex relationships between language, script, and identity in various speech communities across South Asia. South Asia hosts a great number of languages, whose written forms play an important role in the formation of their speakers' identity. Apart from polygraphia, i.e. several scripts for one language, and the phenomenon of one script being shared by several languages, some scripts have been assigned or associated with a dominant or dominating role over the course of time. The reasons for choosing one script over another can be linked to the conscious and unconscious strengthening of ethnic, national, and/or religious identities. These choices can also be linked to state agencies, their regulation of mass education and bureaucracy , or simply to standardization processes caused by technological inventions. In this issue, which contains six articles, the authors compare socioculturally and linguistically divergent geographic areas to examine script-related politics of identity among Chakma, Konkani, Marathi, Meitei, Punjabi, Santali, and Tamil speakers. In the essay at hand, meanwhile, we highlight the complex roles various scripts have played across geopolitical, linguistic, and religious borders, for instance the Arabic, so-called Bengali, Nagari, or Roman scripts.
Research Interests: Information Technology, Print Culture, Languages and Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, South Asian Studies, and 14 moreScriptwriting, Language Planning and Policy, South Asia, Language and Power, Language Policy and Politics of Identity, Hindi/Urdu, Printing History, Writing systems, History of Colonial India, Standardization, India, Printing, Indology, and Scripts
Although the large number of scripts in use in South Asia is intriguing and causes challenges hardly known from any other region, there is still a dearth of studies looking at the sociopolitical role of scripts. This article will give a... more
Although the large number of scripts in use in South Asia is intriguing and causes challenges hardly known from any other region, there is still a dearth of studies looking at the sociopolitical role of scripts. This article will give a comparative overview of the historic background and current situation regarding script movements for two languages that are today still largely written in the script predominantly identified with the Bengali language. For the last few decades, a host of activists have been trying, partly successfully, to implement specific scripts for Chakma, a minority language spoken mainly in the southeast of Bangladesh, and Meitei (today officially Manipuri), the dominant language in the Indian union state of Manipur. An initial juxtaposition of these two examples will allow us to detect the preconditions that encourage certain agents in smaller ethnolinguistic groups in two South Asian states to demand their own distinct script, and the circumstances that facilitate or curb the successful implementation of these demands. This will be done by taking into account the attitudes among Chakmas and Meiteis towards a third group: Bengalis, the biggest ethnolinguistic group in the northeast of South Asia. As a result, the comparison between the Chakma and Meitei script movements will show that today's identity politics, especially among smaller ethnolinguistic groups in that region, are more than ever interdependently connected with real or imagined interactions with other allegedly or actually dominant groups in the past and present.
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In 2006 the German Association for Asian Studies became host to the ongoing working group “Modern South Asia” (Arbeitskreis “Neuzeitliches Südasien”). This was the first such platform for scholars in Germany working on Modern South Asia... more
In 2006 the German Association for Asian Studies became host to the ongoing working group “Modern South Asia” (Arbeitskreis “Neuzeitliches Südasien”). This was the first such platform for scholars in Germany working on Modern South Asia that strived to link them beyond disciplinary boundaries. The reasons for this relatively late endeavor of interdisciplinary networking are manifold, and are discussed in depth in the article. Among other reasons, explanations are to be found in the particular history of institutionalized research on South Asia in Germany — meaning Indology. This discipline has been dominated by a focus on Old Indian languages, literatures, philosophies, and religions since its establishment at the beginning of the 19th century. Despite German scholars from other disciplines — mainly History and the Social Sciences — developing selective research projects related to modern South Asia from the mid-20th century onward, these new academic interests would barely lead to an institutionalization of Modern South Asian Studies. Only from the 1990s onward did this gradually change, with the economic liberalization of India, emerging trade relations between Germany and that country, the new geopolitical relevance of the region post-9/11, and overall increased media attention being given to the region in Germany. Accompanying these developments, a growing number of research groups in a variety of disciplines emerged to conduct research on a diverse range of current social, political, economic, or environmental phenomena in South Asia — developments manifested also by an enlarged number of South Asia-oriented funding initiatives. The transformation of research related to South Asia in recent years has thus brought out a new mode of interdisciplinary knowledge production, one driven particularly by young scholars.
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The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is currently under construction and supposed to modernise Pakistans infrastructure and strenghthen its economy. However, the project is highly controversial as it might increase tensions with... more
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is currently under construction and supposed to modernise Pakistans infrastructure and strenghthen its economy. However, the project is highly controversial as it might increase tensions with India and among the different ethnic groups, and raises concerns about environmental impacts.
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Imaginations of India have been an important ingredient of the German literary and media landscape since the end of the 18th century. Though they are highly diverse, these images are equally often emotionally charged and situated... more
Imaginations of India have been an important ingredient of the German literary and media landscape since the end of the 18th century. Though they are highly diverse, these images are equally often emotionally charged and situated somewhere between euphoric glorifications and deprecating condemnations. When Germany and India were celebrating the 60th anniversary of their diplomatic relations, the time had come to investigate why Germans until today, even in the so-called age of information, have so diverse perceptions of India. By reference to the three dominant German images of India, this article seeks to understand the various factors that influence our perception of another culture.
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A brief account on the evolution and separation of Hindi and Urdu.
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Due to its enormous expansion of and the networks established by the Tibetan Empire between the 7th and 9th century, Tibetan culture, language, and religion spread in a vast territory , reaching from Ladakh in the west to Dartsedo in the... more
Due to its enormous expansion of and the networks established by the Tibetan Empire between the 7th and 9th century, Tibetan culture, language, and religion spread in a vast territory , reaching from Ladakh in the west to Dartsedo in the east, and covering parts of present-day Nepal (Mustang) and regions today administered by Pakistan (Gilgit-Baltistan). The area where Tibetic languages are still spoken, and where cultural traits which can be identified as being of Tibetan origin persist, therefore goes far beyond the actual Tibetan Autonomous Region and further Tibetan autonomous prefectures currently administered by the People's Republic of China. Thus, scholars often use the term "ethnic Tibet" to define this entire zone to distinguish it from today's geopolitical entity Tibet. But while the term "ethnic" implies a specific belonging to one group, in our workshop we will discuss in detail the various forms of assertion or rejection of belonging to a real or imagined wider Tibetan community among speakers of Tibet-ic languages outside of today's geopolitical entity Tibet. The speakers of this workshop are scholars of different disciplines studying diverse aspects of Tibetic speaking groups in present-day Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, and Pakistan, focussing on various identity (trans)formation processes among these groups. Among others, the following questions will be addressed: Does the Tibetan past play a role and if so, to what extent for the identity (trans)formation processes among these Tibetic speaking groups? What kind of endeavours to preserve and/or revive Tibetan heritage can be observed? What role do global networks, social media, local and international NGOs, education institutions, and the respective states play? Are Tibetan Buddhism and symbols in general allocated to this integrative elements of the identity (trans)formation processes? What local and global factors contribute to the assertion or rejection of belonging to a wider Tibetan community? How do members of these groups define Tibetanness?
Research Interests: Tibetan Studies, South Asian Studies, Identity (Culture), South Asia, Identity politics, and 9 moreTibet, Minority Studies, Anthropology of Tibet and the Himalayas, Tibetan Buddhism, Borderlands Studies, Tibetan and Himalayan societies, Tibetan History, Classical Tibetan Language, and Borders and Borderlands
Programme of the 1st German South Asia Day, June 27th & 28th, 2019, Bonn.
Please register until May 31, 2019.
Please register until May 31, 2019.
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Für diesen Workshop konnten Lehrende verschiedener moderner südasiatischer Sprachen an unterschiedlichen Universitäten für Kurzvorträge gewonnen werden. Die Kurzvorträge thematisierten u.a. formale Rahmenbedingungen des Sprachunterrichts,... more
Für diesen Workshop konnten Lehrende verschiedener moderner südasiatischer Sprachen an unterschiedlichen Universitäten für Kurzvorträge gewonnen werden. Die Kurzvorträge thematisierten u.a.
formale Rahmenbedingungen des Sprachunterrichts, Ziele des Spracherwerbs, Unterrichtssprache, Intensivsprachkurse, Sprachtandem, Sprachpraxis, Erstellung eigener und Verwendung anderer Lehrmaterialien, verschiedene Methoden der Sprachdidaktik, digitales Lernen, Vorstellungen von und Anforderungen an die Studierenden, heterogene Gruppen von Lernenden, Grammatikterminologie etc.
formale Rahmenbedingungen des Sprachunterrichts, Ziele des Spracherwerbs, Unterrichtssprache, Intensivsprachkurse, Sprachtandem, Sprachpraxis, Erstellung eigener und Verwendung anderer Lehrmaterialien, verschiedene Methoden der Sprachdidaktik, digitales Lernen, Vorstellungen von und Anforderungen an die Studierenden, heterogene Gruppen von Lernenden, Grammatikterminologie etc.
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Call for Papers:
-deadline for abstract: 21st of June 2019
-workshop: 30-31st of January 2020
-deadline for abstract: 21st of June 2019
-workshop: 30-31st of January 2020
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In April 2019, Dasho Karma Ura, the director of the Centre for Bhutan and GNH Studies in Thimphu, opened the Third International Vajrayana Conference, by stat- ing that he is taking pride in the fact that Bhutan is the last remaining... more
In April 2019, Dasho Karma Ura, the director of the Centre for Bhutan and GNH Studies in Thimphu, opened the Third International Vajrayana Conference, by stat- ing that he is taking pride in the fact that Bhutan is the last remaining Vajrayana Bud- dhist nation-state in the world, and his country consequently had a responsibility in safeguarding and preserving the Vajrayana Buddhist teachings. The prime minister of Bhutan, Dr. Lotay Tshering, gave an inaugural speech and H.M. Jigme Namgyal Wangchuck, the Fifth King of Bhutan offered a private audience to all international participants at the final day of the Conference, both of them reinforcing Bhutan’s strong sense of ownership of the Vajrayana Buddhist teachings as their ‘main stake- holders’. The conference was attended by a wide range of international scholars and practitioners of Vajrayana Buddhism, as well the local intellectual elite and people in power.
The Bhutanese Buddhist state was founded by a Tibetan Lama and many important Tibet-born Buddhist authorities directly impacted Bhutan by spreading the Buddhist teachings there in person. Still, in present discourse, Bhutanese exclusively refer to their Buddhist practice as Vajrayana and Mahayana Buddhism, rather than ‘Tibetan Buddhism’, and when talking about their liturgical language solely use the term chos skad (“dharma language”), avoiding the English term “Classical Tibetan” at all costs. Obviously, there is a politically motivated necessity to protect the tiny state’s sover- eignty by means of emphasising its distinctive culture which is not to be equalled with Tibetan culture, stressing Bhutan’s ‘Non-Tibetanness’.
When researching Bhutan’s communal Vajrayana festivals, I was often taken aback, how different Bhutanese practice of ‘cham festivals is in comparison to all festivals I had observed in Ladakhi/Zanskari and Tibetan-exile monasteries in India and what I knew from literature about ‘chams located in Tibet. As a consequence, I started to understand Bhutanese practice of ‘Tibetan Buddhism’ as syncretism, a “creative blend- ing of indigenous and foreign beliefs or practices into new cultural forms” (Havilland 2013), resulting in ‘Bhutaneseness’ of Vajrayana Buddhism in Bhutan, rather than ‘Ti- betanness’. Drawing on my field research, I would like to discuss ‘Non-Tibetanness’ and the transformation of ‘Tibetanness’ into ‘Bhutaneseness’ using the example of communal ‘cham festivals in Bhutan.
The Bhutanese Buddhist state was founded by a Tibetan Lama and many important Tibet-born Buddhist authorities directly impacted Bhutan by spreading the Buddhist teachings there in person. Still, in present discourse, Bhutanese exclusively refer to their Buddhist practice as Vajrayana and Mahayana Buddhism, rather than ‘Tibetan Buddhism’, and when talking about their liturgical language solely use the term chos skad (“dharma language”), avoiding the English term “Classical Tibetan” at all costs. Obviously, there is a politically motivated necessity to protect the tiny state’s sover- eignty by means of emphasising its distinctive culture which is not to be equalled with Tibetan culture, stressing Bhutan’s ‘Non-Tibetanness’.
When researching Bhutan’s communal Vajrayana festivals, I was often taken aback, how different Bhutanese practice of ‘cham festivals is in comparison to all festivals I had observed in Ladakhi/Zanskari and Tibetan-exile monasteries in India and what I knew from literature about ‘chams located in Tibet. As a consequence, I started to understand Bhutanese practice of ‘Tibetan Buddhism’ as syncretism, a “creative blend- ing of indigenous and foreign beliefs or practices into new cultural forms” (Havilland 2013), resulting in ‘Bhutaneseness’ of Vajrayana Buddhism in Bhutan, rather than ‘Ti- betanness’. Drawing on my field research, I would like to discuss ‘Non-Tibetanness’ and the transformation of ‘Tibetanness’ into ‘Bhutaneseness’ using the example of communal ‘cham festivals in Bhutan.