The Dawn of Tibet

The Dawn of Tibet PDF Author: John Vincent Bellezza
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442234628
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
This unique book reveals the existence of an advanced civilization where none was known before, presenting an entirely new perspective on the culture and history of Tibet. In his groundbreaking study of an epic period in Tibet few people even knew existed, John Vincent Bellezza details the discovery of an ancient people on the most desolate reaches of the Tibetan plateau, revolutionizing our ideas about who Tibetans really are. While many associate Tibet with Buddhism, it was also once a land of warriors and chariots, whose burials included megalithic arrays and golden masks. This first Tibetan civilization, known as Zhang Zhung, was a cosmopolitan one with links extending across Eurasia, bringing it in line with many of the major cultural innovations of the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age. Based on decades of research, The Dawn of Tibet draws on a rich trove of archaeological, textual, and ethnographic materials collected and analyzed by the author. Bellezza describes the vast network of castles, temples, megaliths, necropolises, and rock art established on the highest and now depopulated part of the Tibetan plateau. He relates literary tales of priests and priestesses, horned deities, and the celestial afterlife to the actual archaeological evidence, providing a fascinating perspective on the origins and development of civilization. The story builds to the present by following the colorful culture of the herders of Upper Tibet, an ancient people whose way of life is endangered by modern development. Tracing Bellezza’s epic journeys across lands where few Westerners have ventured, this book provides a compelling window into the most inaccessible reaches of Tibet and a civilization that flourished long before Buddhism took root.

The Dawn of Tibet

The Dawn of Tibet PDF Author: John Vincent Bellezza
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442234628
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 363

Get Book Here

Book Description
This unique book reveals the existence of an advanced civilization where none was known before, presenting an entirely new perspective on the culture and history of Tibet. In his groundbreaking study of an epic period in Tibet few people even knew existed, John Vincent Bellezza details the discovery of an ancient people on the most desolate reaches of the Tibetan plateau, revolutionizing our ideas about who Tibetans really are. While many associate Tibet with Buddhism, it was also once a land of warriors and chariots, whose burials included megalithic arrays and golden masks. This first Tibetan civilization, known as Zhang Zhung, was a cosmopolitan one with links extending across Eurasia, bringing it in line with many of the major cultural innovations of the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age. Based on decades of research, The Dawn of Tibet draws on a rich trove of archaeological, textual, and ethnographic materials collected and analyzed by the author. Bellezza describes the vast network of castles, temples, megaliths, necropolises, and rock art established on the highest and now depopulated part of the Tibetan plateau. He relates literary tales of priests and priestesses, horned deities, and the celestial afterlife to the actual archaeological evidence, providing a fascinating perspective on the origins and development of civilization. The story builds to the present by following the colorful culture of the herders of Upper Tibet, an ancient people whose way of life is endangered by modern development. Tracing Bellezza’s epic journeys across lands where few Westerners have ventured, this book provides a compelling window into the most inaccessible reaches of Tibet and a civilization that flourished long before Buddhism took root.

Stars at Dawn

Stars at Dawn PDF Author: Wendy Garling
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834840308
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
In this retelling of the ancient legends of the women in the Buddha’s intimate circle, lesser-known stories from Sanskrit and Pali sources are for the first time woven into an illuminating, coherent narrative. Interspersed with original insights, fresh interpretations, and bold challenges to the status quo, these stories invite us to open our minds to a new understanding of women's roles in the Buddha's life and in early Buddhism.

भोट अभिधान

भोट अभिधान PDF Author: Sarat Chandra Das
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 776

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Book Description
A Tibetan-English Dictionary, With Sanskrit Synonyms by Sarat Das Chandra, first published in 1902, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.

The Dawn of Tantra

The Dawn of Tantra PDF Author: Herbert V. Guenther
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834821605
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 137

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Book Description
Westerners wanting to know about tantra—particularly the Buddhist tantra of Tibet—often find only speculation and fancy. Tibet has been shrouded in mystery, and "tantra" has been called upon to name every kind of esoteric fantasy. In The Dawn of Tantra the reader meets a Tibetan meditation master and a Western scholar, each of whose grasp of Buddhist tantra is real and unquestionable. This collaboration is both true to the intent of the ancient Tibetan teachings and relevant to contemporary Western life.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead

The Tibetan Book of the Dead PDF Author: Padmasambhava
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1583945555
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
The Tibetan Book of the Dead: Awakening Upon Dying, with introductory commentary by Dzogchen Buddhist master Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, is a new translation of the ancient text also known as The Great Liberation through Hearing in the Intermediate State. Both a practical guide and intriguing historical, cultural, and spiritual document, this new version incorporates recent discoveries that have allowed for a better translation of previously ambiguous passages. Revealing a set of instructions designed to facilitate the inner liberation of the dead or dying person, the book provides a guide to navigating the bardo--the interval between death and rebirth. Originally composed by Padmasambhava, an important Indian master of the eighth century, the Tibetan Book of the Dead was concealed in Tibet until it was discovered in the fourteenth century by Karma Lingpa, a famous Tibetan tertön (discoverer of ancient texts). Describing in detail the characteristics and fantastic visions of each stage beyond death, the book includes invocations to be read aloud to the dying person, to help his or her successful journey toward the stage of liberation. Chögyal Namkhai Norbu's introduction clarifies the texts from the Dzogchen point of view and provides a scholarly summary of the ancient material based on his oral teachings and written works. In addition, material from several of Namkhai Norbu's more recent written works and oral teachers have been added, including an essay on the four intermediate states after death entitled Birth, Life, and Death. A full-color 16-page insert of traditional Tibetan art highlights Tibet's unique aesthetic wisdom.

My Tibetan Childhood

My Tibetan Childhood PDF Author: Naktsang Nulo
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822376385
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description
In My Tibetan Chldhood, Naktsang Nulo recalls his life in Tibet's Amdo region during the 1950s. From the perspective of himself at age ten, he describes his upbringing as a nomad on Tibet's eastern plateau. He depicts pilgrimages to monasteries, including a 1500-mile horseback expedition his family made to and from Lhasa. A year or so later, they attempted that same journey as they fled from advancing Chinese troops. Naktsang's father joined and was killed in the little-known 1958 Amdo rebellion against the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the armed branch of the Chinese Communist Party. During the next year, the author and his brother were imprisoned in a camp where, after the onset of famine, very few children survived. The real significance of this episodic narrative is the way it shows, through the eyes of a child, the suppressed histories of China's invasion of Tibet. The author's matter-of-fact accounts cast the atrocities that he relays in stark relief. Remarkably, Naktsang lived to tell his tale. His book was published in 2007 in China, where it was a bestseller before the Chinese government banned it in 2010. It is the most reprinted modern Tibetan literary work. This translation makes a fascinating if painful period of modern Tibetan history accessible in English.

The Enlightened Gene

The Enlightened Gene PDF Author: Arri Eisen
Publisher: University Press of New England
ISBN: 151260125X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Eight years ago, in an unprecedented intellectual endeavor, the Dalai Lama invited Emory University to integrate modern science into the education of the thousands of Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns in exile in India. This project, the Emory Tibet Science Initiative, became the first major change in the monastic curriculum in six centuries. Eight years in, the results are transformative. The singular backdrop of teaching science to Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns offered provocative insights into how science and religion can work together to enrich each other, as well as to shed light on life and what it means to be a thinking, biological human. In The Enlightened Gene, Emory University Professor Dr. Arri Eisen, together with monk Geshe Yungdrung Konchok explore the striking ways in which the integration of Buddhism with cutting-edge discoveries in the biological sciences can change our understanding of life and how we live it. What this book discovers along the way will fundamentally change the way you think. Are humans inherently good? Where does compassion come from? Is death essential for life? Is experience inherited? These questions have occupied philosophers, religious thinkers and scientists since the dawn of civilization, but in today's political discourse, much of the dialogue surrounding them and larger issues-such as climate change, abortion, genetically modified organisms, and evolution-are often framed as a dichotomy of science versus spirituality. Strikingly, many of new biological discoveries-such as the millions of microbes that we now know live together as part of each of us, the connections between those microbes and our immune systems, the nature of our genomes and how they respond to the environment, and how this response might be passed to future generations-can actually be read as moving science closer to spiritual concepts, rather than further away. The Enlightened Gene opens up and lays a foundation for serious conversations, integrating science and spirit in tackling life's big questions. Each chapter integrates Buddhism and biology and uses striking examples of how doing so changes our understanding of life and how we lead it.

Matrix of Mystery

Matrix of Mystery PDF Author: Herbert V. Guenther
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 1570626499
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
World-renowned Buddhist scholar Herbert V. Guenther here offers the first comprehensive study of the rDzogs-chen or Ati tradition of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. Matrix of Mystery explores man's ability to preserve as well as transmit essential insights into the structure of reality. Utilizing a key root Buddhist scripture, the Guhyagarbha ("Matrix of Mystery"), along with dozens of commentarial Tibetan textual sources, Guenther presents the most profound teachings of the Buddhist tradition, which represent the culmination of religious thought and practice in Tibet. In relating these teachings in modern scientific and humanistic perspectives, he demonstrates how, in many cases, the traditional religious and modern secular perspectives on the nature of reality interface. Professor Guenther discusses the mandala and the deities that reside therein; the organizing principles of body, speech, mind, quality, and action, the three bodies of the buddha (trikaya); the inseparability of prajna and skillful means; and the complex field of Buddhist iconography. Throughout, quotations from numerous Tibetan sources are used to illustrate various teachings. His book will appeal to any serious student of Tibetan Buddhism.

The Buddhism of Tibet and The Key to the Middle Way

The Buddhism of Tibet and The Key to the Middle Way PDF Author: Dalai Lama XIV Bstan-ʼdzin-rgya-mtsho
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Australia
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description


The Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk

The Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk PDF Author: Palden Gyatso
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802190006
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
“With this memoir by a ‘simple monk’ who spent 33 years in prisons and labor camps for resisting the Chinese, a rare Tibetan voice is heard.” —The New York Times Book Review Palden Gyatso was born in a Tibetan village in 1933 and became an ordained Buddhist monk at eighteen—just as Tibet was in the midst of political upheaval. When Communist China invaded Tibet in 1950, it embarked on a program of “reform” that would eventually affect all of Tibet’s citizens and nearly decimate its ancient culture. In 1967, the Chinese destroyed monasteries across Tibet and forced thousands of monks into labor camps and prisons. Gyatso spent the next twenty-five years of his life enduring interrogation and torture simply for the strength of his beliefs. Palden Gyatso’s story bears witness to the resilience of the human spirit, and to the strength of Tibet’s proud civilization, faced with cultural genocide. “To readers of this memoir, however untraveled, Tibet will never again seem remote or unfamiliar. . . . Gyatso reminds us that the language of suffering is universal.” —Library Journal “Has the ring of undeniable truth. . . . Palden Gyatso’s clear-sighted eloquence (in Tsering Shakya’s fluent translation) makes his tale even more engrossing.” —San Francisco Chronicle