Book Review:

Calkowski, Marcia

作者

Calkowski, Marcia

出處題名

American Ethnologist

卷期

v.41 n.4

出版日期

2014.11

頁次

772 - 773

出版者

American Ethnological Society (AES)

出版者網址

http://americanethnologist.org/archives/

出版地

New York, NY, US [紐約, 紐約州, 美國]

資料類型

期刊論文=Journal Article; 書評=Book Review

使用語言

英文=English

附註項

Religious Bodies Politic: Rituals of Sovereignty in Buryat Buddhism. By Anya Bernstein. University Of Chicago Press, November 27, 2013. 280 pages. ISBN-10: 022607272X ISBN-13: 978-0226072722

摘要

Only in Buryatia, a semiautonomous republic just north of Mongolia and within the Siberian region of the Russian Federation, the reader may surmise, might one encounter Buddhist devotees who fear that the mummified yet lifelike body of a famous lama could be abducted by a “mad scientist” determined to receive the Nobel Prize for discovering the secret of immortality; a lama's discourse on the ecological and spiritual benefits of Amway marketing; and the import of building a muscular Buddhism that emphasizes indigenous athletics. Anya Bernstein introduces readers to such ethnographic revelations as she describes the challenges Buryats face and the debates in which they engage with respect to reviving Buryat Buddhism and asserting their cultural sovereignty.

To situate these debates and challenges, Bernstein traces the history of Buryat Buddhology within the wider context of Russian Orientalism, noting that the first field research in Buddhist studies was carried out by Buryat scholars of the St. Petersburg school, who visited Tibet in the early 20th century. A political motivation for such studies arose from what the mid‐19th‐century tsarist administration, intent on securing the centrality of Russian Orthodoxy throughout the empire, perceived as an alarming burgeoning of Buddhist monasteries in Buryatia. One consequence of this concern was the official subordination of Buryat religious affairs to state administration, a subordination that was to continue, in different guises, through the Soviet era and into the present day. After 1917, Buryat intellectuals were divided in calling for a greater freedom for Buddhism as well as for the reform of Buryat Buddhism, notably, “the abolishment of the cult of reincarnate lamas and oracles” (p. 54). Although these latter reforms were never enacted, Buryat intellectuals’ competing visions—one tying Buryats’ Mongolian heritage to the notion of a Buryat mission “to combine the best in European/Russian and Mongolian culture” (p. 55), and the other, that of a Tibeto‐Mongolian theocratic state headed by the Dalai Lama—resonate with the post‐Soviet ideological divide in Buryatia between those who would cultivate an “indigenous” Buddhism in a Buryatia melded with Russia and those upholding the Tibetan origin and focus of Buryat Buddhism.

The fates of several Buryat pilgrims who enrolled in a major Gelukpa institution, Lhasa's Drepung Monastery, in 1927, had a profound effect on the current Buryat Buddhist revival. Taking advantage of the freedom to travel under perestroika, the first Buryat lamas to visit Drepung Monastery (albeit the rebuilt Drepung Monastery in India) after some 60 years found one of the 1927 pilgrims still part of the monastic assembly, and two young monks held to be reincarnations of two of the other pilgrims. The two reincarnations have since taken active roles in Buryatia's Buddhist revival. In the 1990s, a Tibetan incarnate lama who, as a young monk, was taught by another one of these pilgrims, was invited to Buryatia to teach Buddhism. He currently resides in Buryatia and is a major authority for those seeking to revive Buddhism in Buryatia. His rival is a Buryat lama, the elected head of the Buddhist Traditional Sangha of Russia, who pursues a nationalist Buddhism.

In addition to the resumption of pilgrimages to Drepung Monastery and the relatively recent arrival of Drepung “missionaries” in Buryatia, Bernstein describes two distinct strategies for the revival of Buryat Buddhism. One, a phenomenon that has served Buryat assertions of cultural sovereignty, is “the post‐Soviet treasure hunt” (p. 89). This hunt (historically a Tibetan practice) has revealed hidden Buddhist relics such as a miraculously preserved mummy, statues, and books, which are uniquely tied to Buryat roots and are being utilized to promote the notion of a “recentering” of world Buddhism north to Buryatia and Mongolia. While this strategy would ideally demarginalize Buryat Buddhism

ISSN

00940496 (P); 15481425 (E)

DOI

10.1111/amet.12111_2

點閱次數

152

建檔日期

2017.05.24

更新日期

2020.02.11