The Holy Land Reborn Pilgrimage and the Tibetan Reinvention of Buddhist India

Abstract

This book had a long, slow gestation, and its birth owes a lot to many different people. While I have more recently envisaged it as a companion volume to my earlier monograph on Tibetan religion, The Cult of Pure Crystal Mountain (New York, Oxford University Press, 1999), which also deals with place creation and the ritual culture of pilgrimage in Tibetan societies, this has admittedly been something of an afterthought. The roots of The Holy Land Reborn actually reach all the way back to my undergraduate days. I have fond memories of studying India with Jim Wilson, whose enthusiasm and generosity as a teacher helped determine my long-term fascination with some of the dimensions of religion in India that are treated here. Nor have I forgotten how, during my early days as Jim’s student, I serendipitously came across a book by August Hermann Francke (1870–1930) in the university library while daydreaming of Himalayan adventures instead of studying. With fascination, I read and copied Francke’s notes on some of the reinvented Tibetan pilgrimage sites to which I have now devoted a chapter in this book. Francke was the fi rst professor to be awarded a chair of Tibetan studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin, and as fate would have it that is the post I now hold today. To my other early teacher, and friend, Paul Harrison, I will always be grateful for the inspiring glimpse into the higher levels of the academic study of Buddhism which he gave me. Although I chose to follow a different path, the interest in Buddhist studies which Paul once kindled seems to have fi nally found some expression in this book. I hope it gives him more satisfaction than regret! I thank Paul as well for introducing me to Gregory Schopen, and also to his scholarship, which as a nonphilologist I nevertheless came to appreciate for its counterintuitive approach. During a long period of research and writing, I benefi ted much from the kind and generous assistance, constructive criticism, and inspiration of various friends, colleagues, and informants. I thank them all here simply in alphabetical order, with apologies to those I may have inadvertently overlooked. First, I would like to offer my sincere gratitude to my many Tibetan informants living in South Asia, Tibet, and Europe over the past few decades. Thanks also to John Ardussi, Anthony Aris, Michael Aris, Dandi Swamin Prakash Ashram, Christopher Atwood, Michael Balk, Heinz Bechert, Duncan Campbell, Di Cousens, Soumitra Das, Simon Digby, Dennis Dutton, Isrun Engelhardt, Elizabeth English, Bernard Faure, Gu¨nther Gro¨nbold, Sudeshna Guha, Tsering Gyalbo, Peter Hansen, Paul Harrison, Jens-Uwe Hartmann, Hanna Havnevik, Jeffrey Hopkins, David Jackson, Matthew Kapstein, Per Kværne, Donald Lopez Jr., Alexander Macdonald, Alex McKay, Dan Martin, Irmgard Mengele, Jon Meisler, Paul Morris, Vishvajit Pandya, Jampa Panglung, Heinz Ra¨ther, Bo Sax, Gene Smith, Poul Pedersen, Burkhard Quessel, Nicholas and Deki Rhodes, Nyaken Riba, Aditi Nath Sarkar, Gregory Schopen, Mona Schrempf, Peter Schwieger, Lobsang Shastri, Jan Sobisch, Elliot Sperling, Heather Stoddard, Axel Stro¨m, Kate Teltscher, David Templeman and family, Ngawang Thogme, Alan Trevithick, Tashi Tsering, Helga Uebach, Steven Weinberger, David White, and Monika Zin. I am particularly indebted to Jens-Uwe Hartmann for the highly productive and very enjoyable time I spent at the Institut fu¨ r Indologie und Iranistik, Munich, over the winter of 2000–2001. While in Munich, I fi - nally gained the space and time I needed to conceive the present form of this book. At the other end of the process, the positive encouragement and sensible suggestions I have always received from Don Lopez helped spur me on to complete the project. Constructive feedback from my readers Janice Leoshko and Richard Jaffe on earlier drafts of the manuscript was most appreciated, and I thank them, as I do also Alan Thomas and his staff at the University of Chicago Press for their excellent and professional support during publication. I am very grateful to the Alexander von Humboldt- Stiftung for generously supporting my research in Germany at various points during my career. My former colleagues in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Victoria University, Wellington, magnanimously granted me the freedom I required at a crucial phase in the development of the research, and I remain most grateful for that. Dedicated librarians and archivists always stand in the background of successful scholarship, and I appreciate the efficient cooperation of the staff who assisted me at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala, the Alderman Library of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, the Asiatic Society in Calcutta, the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, the British Library in London, the Museum of Archaeology at Cambridge University, and the Library of Victoria University in Wellington. Thanks to my hardworking assistants at the Humboldt University in Berlin, especially Norma Schulz (with whom I drew all the maps), Tina Niermann, and Katja Schwarz, and also to Janus Currie and my daughter Shanti Daellenbach for their editorial assistance. Finally, with all affection I thank my wonderful family, both in Germany and New Zealand, who have always been unconditionally supportive of my scholarship.