Bøker i Brill's Tibetan Studies Librar-serien

A shaman chants to make the sun rise in the Apatani valley, high in the eastern Himalayas. A comparative analysis of this oral text, its ritual context and performer reveal the core ideas of local society, including fertility and cohesion.

A grammar of Kurtöp presents the phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics of Kurtöp, a Tibeto-Burman language of northeastern Bhutan. When possible, data are presented in a comparative light, lending insight into the development of phenomena such as tonogenesis and nominalizations.

Kailas Histories demonstrates how British colonial, Hindu modernist, and New Age interests synthesised historically diverse representations to construct the understanding of Tibet's great pilgrimage centre Mount Kailas - and India's Gangotri - as ancient sacred sites embodying a universal sacrality.

In A Grammar of Prinmi Picus Ding provides the first in-depth description of a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by the Pǔmǐ Nationality and the Zàng Nationality in southwest China. Prinmi is closely related to the extinct language of Tangut.

Art and Architecture in Ladakh presents the latest research on Ladakh's varied cultural inheritance. Edited by Erberto Lo Bue and John Bray, the topics of the collection's 17 papers range from prehistoric art to Buddhist murals and contemporary architectural conservation.

Agnieszka Helman-Ważny's Archaeology of Tibetan Books provides a comprehensive guide to the making of Tibetan books. Concerned with the relation of papers, inks, and layout to questions of provenance and dating, this work is a must-have companion to any textual analysis.

This volume brings together recent research findings that highlight the multi-ethnic and multi-religious composition of Rebkong, a frontier region located at the Sino-Tibetan border.

The articles brought together in this volume not only deal with Tibetan inscriptions on such diverse writing supports as paper, temple walls, rocks and tsha tshas, they also span a wide range in respect to the contents of the historical and religious epigraphs discussed.

Through ten contributions written by specialists, Revisiting Rituals in a Changing Tibetan World examines the changes rituals have undergone in Tibet, Nepal and Mongolia in the wake of political and socio-cultural upheavals.

Unique original material on the phenomenon of the spirit-mediums of Upper Tibet, the men and women who channel the gods. With extensive interviews with members of this living tradition.

Shardza Tashi Gyeltsen (1859-1934) is one of the most important luminaries of the Bon tradition of Tibet and certainly the most striking recent master of the teachings of the "Great Perfection." Throughout his life, he applied the principles of the "Great Perfection" in numerous isolated retreats and perfected both spiritual realization and scholarly erudition. His works have nowadays become immensely important references for the modern Bon tradition, even if, for some lineage holders of this Tibetan school, he is best associated with the movement known as "New Bon." This widely diffused view, however, is wrong as is clearly shown by the analysis of Shardza Rinpoche's Collected Works in the present volume.

This study of an oral tradition in northeast India is the first of its kind in this part of the eastern Himalayas. A comparative analysis reveals parallel stories in an area stretching from central Arunachal Pradesh into upland Southeast Asia and southwest China. The subject of the volume, the Apatanis, are a small population of Tibeto-Burman speakers who live in a narrow valley halfway between Tibet and Assam. Their origin myths, migration legends, oral histories, trickster tales and ritual chants, as well as performance contexts and genre system, reveal key cultural ideas and social practices, shifts in tribal identity and the reinvention of religion.

Early medieval Tibet remains one of the most challenging fields in Tibetan Studies overall, wherein numerous mysteries remain. The six contributions comprising the present collection shed light on major topics in history, literature and religion.

Recent archaeological discoveries and scientific research especially focussed on western Tibet and the western Himalayas have resulted in a remarkable redefinition of the historical and cultural processes of the entire Indo-Tibetan civilisation. The present volume reflects these sometimes startling new insights for the first time, covering the wide time range from the Zhang zhung period up to the 20th century, spanning secular, religious and economic history, as well as art and archaeology.

This book presents the first comprehensive anthropological account of premodern Tibetan pastoral economy and social organization in the Kham region of eastern Tibet, and convincingly readdresses anthropological debates and political claims about feudalism or serfdom in Tibetan societies.

This anthropological study of Ladakh analyses the means by which small communities create spaces of order amidst the heterogeneous forces of modernity. In doing so it also filling a conspicuous gap in the secondary literature on Tibetan law.

This illustrated volume presents a wide variety of themes from the historical and modern periods of Bhutan, illustrating change and adaptation to new realities.