Tibet, Tibet

Tibet, Tibet PDF Author: Patrick French
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307548066
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Get Book

Book Description
At different times in its history Tibet has been renowned for pacifism and martial prowess, enlightenment and cruelty. The Dalai Lama may be the only religious leader who can inspire the devotion of agnostics. Patrick French has been fascinated by Tibet since he was a teenager. He has read its history, agitated for its freedom, and risked arrest to travel through its remote interior. His love and knowledge inform every page of this learned, literate, and impassioned book. Talking with nomads and Buddhist nuns, exiles and collaborators, French portrays a nation demoralized by a half-century of Chinese occupation and forced to depend on the patronage of Western dilettantes. He demolishes many of the myths accruing to Tibet–including those centering around the radiant figure of the Dalai Lama. Combining the best of history, travel writing, and memoir, Tibet, Tibet is a work of extraordinary power and insight.

Tibet, Tibet

Tibet, Tibet PDF Author: Patrick French
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307548066
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Get Book

Book Description
At different times in its history Tibet has been renowned for pacifism and martial prowess, enlightenment and cruelty. The Dalai Lama may be the only religious leader who can inspire the devotion of agnostics. Patrick French has been fascinated by Tibet since he was a teenager. He has read its history, agitated for its freedom, and risked arrest to travel through its remote interior. His love and knowledge inform every page of this learned, literate, and impassioned book. Talking with nomads and Buddhist nuns, exiles and collaborators, French portrays a nation demoralized by a half-century of Chinese occupation and forced to depend on the patronage of Western dilettantes. He demolishes many of the myths accruing to Tibet–including those centering around the radiant figure of the Dalai Lama. Combining the best of history, travel writing, and memoir, Tibet, Tibet is a work of extraordinary power and insight.

An Account of Tibet

An Account of Tibet PDF Author: Ippolito Desideri
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415346788
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 546

Get Book

Book Description
In Desideri's account we receive the first accurate general description of Tibet: from the eatural world to the sociological and anthropological aspects of the people and a complete exposition of Lamaism.

The Hidden History of the Tibetan Book of the Dead

The Hidden History of the Tibetan Book of the Dead PDF Author: Bryan J. Cuevas
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780195306521
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Get Book

Book Description
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.

The Story of Tibet

The Story of Tibet PDF Author: Thomas Laird
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 080214327X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 494

Get Book

Book Description
In a series of candid interviews with the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader speaks out about the land, people, culture, history, traditions, and spirituality of Tibet, discussing the role played by religion and spirituality in the nation's history, the Dalai Lama's flight into exile in 1959, his personal religious beliefs, and his lifelong study of Buddhism. Reprint.

Tibet

Tibet PDF Author: Sam van Schaik
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300154046
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350

Get Book

Book Description
Presents a comprehensive history of the country, from its beginnings in the seventh century, to its rise as a Buddhist empire in medieval times, to its conquest by China in 1950, and subsequent rule by the Chinese.

Tibet

Tibet PDF Author: Paul Christiaan Klieger
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1789144027
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

Get Book

Book Description
The history of Tibet has long intrigued the world, and so has the dilemma of its future—will it ever return to independence or will it always remain part of China? How will the succession of the aging and revered Dalai Lama affect Tibet and the world? This book makes the case for a fully Tibetan independent state for much of its 2,500-year existence, but its story is a complex one. A great empire from the seventh to ninth centuries, in 1249, Tibet was incorporated as a territory of the Mongol Empire—which annexed China itself in 1279. Tibet reclaimed its independence from China in 1368, and although the Manchus later exerted their direct influence in Tibetan affairs, by 1840 Tibet began to resume its independent course until communist China invaded in 1950. And since that time, Tibetan nationalism has been maintained primarily by over 100,000 refugees living abroad. This book is a valuable, fascinating account of a region with a rich history, but an uncertain future.

Surviving the Dragon

Surviving the Dragon PDF Author: Arjia Rinpoche
Publisher: Rodale Books
ISBN: 1605291625
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book

Book Description
On a peaceful summer day in 1952, ten monks on horseback arrived at a traditional nomad tent in northeastern Tibet where they offered the parents of a precocious toddler their white handloomed scarves and congratulations for having given birth to a holy child—and future spiritual leader. Surviving the Dragon is the remarkable life story of Arjia Rinpoche, who was ordained as a reincarnate lama at the age of two and fled Tibet 46 years later. In his gripping memoir, Rinpoche relates the story of having been abandoned in his monastery as a young boy after witnessing the torture and arrest of his monastery family. In the years to come, Rinpoche survived under harsh Chinese rule, as he was forced into hard labor and endured continual public humiliation as part of Mao's Communist "reeducation." By turns moving, suspenseful, historical, and spiritual, Rinpoche's unique experiences provide a rare window into a tumultuous period of Chinese history and offer readers an uncommon glimpse inside a Buddhist monastery in Tibet.

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

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.

Tibet

Tibet PDF Author: Jetsun Pema
Publisher: Element Books, Limited
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book

Book Description
Jetsun Pema, the Dalai Lama's younger sister, offers a rare and poignant account of life in Tibet before the Chinese occupation--a world that is lost forever. She presents her story from her childhood, growing up in pre-invasion Tibet, to her work today as a minister of the Tibetan government. These courageous and moving words are an enduring testament to the indomitability of the human spirit. photo insert.

One Hundred Thousand Moons

One Hundred Thousand Moons PDF Author: Tsepon Wangchuk Deden Shakabpa
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004177329
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1261

Get Book

Book Description
A sustained argument for Tibetan independence, this volume also serves as an introduction to many aspects of Tibetan culture, society, and especially religion with a compendium of biographies of the most significant religious and political figures.