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When a Woman Becomes a Religious Dynasty: The Samding Dorje Phagmo of Tibet |
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| Author |
Diemberger, Hildegard
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Strathern, Marilyn
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| Date | 2007.11.16 |
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| Pages | 416 |
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| Publisher | Columbia University Press |
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| Publisher Url |
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/
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| Location | New York, NY, US [紐約, 紐約州, 美國] |
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| Content type | 書籍=Book |
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| Language | 英文=English |
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| Keyword | 心靈=Spiritual; 西藏佛教=藏傳佛教=Tibetan Buddhism; 佛教人物=Buddhist; 佛學研究=佛教學=Buddhist Studies=Buddhology; 法師=Master; 剃度=出家=Ordination; 傳記=Biography; 轉世=輪迴=Samsara=Rebirth=Reincarnation |
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| Abstract | "A fascinating account of the women who constituted the most famous of all female incarnation lineages in Tibet, perhaps the most intriguing series of women in recent Tibetan history." -- Robert Barnett, director, Modern Tibetan Studies Program, Columbia University, and author of Lhasa: Streets with Memories.
"A stunning contribution to our knowledge about women in Tibetan Buddhism. This book also has a great deal to tell us more generally about how to study the role of women in religious institutions, literature, and society. It contains a superb translation of a rare biography of Samding Dorje Phagmo, and also provides fascinating information about the legacy of her lineage in modern Tibet and China. Most of all, the book is outstanding for its thoughtful reflections upon issues of gender, writing, and power, and for its ability to relate medieval Tibetan matters to contemporary theoretical reflection in anthropology, history, and literature." -- Janet Gyatso, Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies, Harvard Divinity School, and author of Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary
Book Description
In the fifteenth century, the princess Chokyi Dronma was told by the leading spiritual masters of her time that she was the embodiment of the ancient Indian tantric deity Vajravarahi, known in Tibetan as Dorje Phagmo, the Thunderbolt Female Pig. After suffering a great personal tragedy, Chokyi Dronma renounced her royal status to become a nun, and, in turn, the tantric consort of three outstanding religious masters of her era. After her death, Chokyi Dronma's masters and disciples recognized a young girl as her reincarnation, the first in a long, powerful, and influential female lineage. Today, the twelfth Samding Dorje Phagmo leads the Samding monastery and is a high government cadre in the Tibet Autonomous Region.
Hildegard Diemberger builds her book around the translation of the first biography of Chokyi Dronma recorded by her disciples in the wake of her death. The account reveals an extraordinary phenomenon: although it had been believed that women in Tibet were not allowed to obtain full ordination equivalent to monks, Chokyi Dronma not only persuaded one of the highest spiritual teachers of her era to give her full ordination but also established orders for other women practitioners and became so revered that she was officially recognized as one of two principal spiritual heirs to her main master.
Diemberger offers a number of theoretical arguments about the importance of reincarnation in Tibetan society and religion, the role of biographies in establishing a lineage, the necessity for religious teachers to navigate complex networks of political and financial patronage, the cultural and social innovation linked to the revival of ancient Buddhist civilizations, and the role of women in Buddhism. Four introductory, stage-setting chapters precede the biography, and four concluding chapters discuss the establishment of the reincarnation lineage and the role of the current incarnation under the peculiarly contradictory communist system. |
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| ISBN | 9780231143202 |
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| Hits | 878 |
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| Created date | 2007.12.20 |
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