Dr Martin A. Mills, Anthropologist and Director of the Scottish Centre for Himalayan Research, University of Aberdeen. Tibet, Himalayas, anthropology.

Roberto Vitali is an independent researcher, author of books and articles, editor of volumes and journals, convener of seminars.

Welcome to Opuscula Buddhologica et Tibetologica on the WordPress! Some of you who know me may think: “Oh no, not again!” This would be a justified reaction because I have several blogs (https://www.blogger.com), which are hardly consistently and continually maintained. Some entries there may be of some academic value but they were never meant to be academically valuable. They were meant to be mere hobbies and sandboxes. I play there whenever I can. But of course the nicest thing would be if work itself can be enjoyed as a hobby. As an academic, one might say that the best holiday would be when one can study and write petty academic works undisturbed by the hustle and bustle of bureaucratic works and other non-academic obligations. What one often ends up doing is stealing, whenever one can, a few moments between various commitments and obligations, and grabbing an academic book and taking down a few random notes (zin bris, brjed tho or brjed byang). But soon one would realize that these notes are like “drawings on the surface of water” (chu’i ri mo). Even if one had etched one’s notes on paper, which one believes is more tangible and durable, it is not easy to trace them again, for one is often on one’s way without any paper. Of course, I know that some people are so systematic and consistent that they can easily trace anything from anywhere. I respect and envy them! So blogs are solutions for people like myself. (a) One can easily write anything on blogs and easily access one’s writings. (b) One can easily delete, add, or change them whenever one wants. (c) It is surprisingly durable and tangible. (d) One can instantaneously share ideas with the interested readership. While none of my previous blogs were meant to be “academic,” this particular blog, lays some claim to being “academic.” I hasten to concede that all my academic writings are hypothetical and are prone to deletions or corrections. While I take full responsibility for the petty little things that I write here, I cannot be sure of their reliability. As my German professor is wont to advise, we cannot fully trust anybody’s work particularly not one’s own. These blog articles will be mostly very terse for they will often be written based on a few random notes and completed in just in one sitting. They would be imperfect. But they would provide me with a feeling of an instant success and fulfillment. If an article grows beyond its scope, I may close down it down and publish it elsewhere in a printed form. Last but not least, I sincerely apologize in advance to all those whose mother tongue is English and to those who write in perfect and elegant English. English is not my mother tongue, and even if it were, I am not so sure if I would have acquired the necessary talent to write in English with mastery, clarity, and beauty. I can only call on readership’s leniency with all the imperfections that bound these short blog articles.

Until relatively recent times the Bon religion of Tibet was poorly understood by the majority of Tibetans and Westerners alike. Although our general knowledge has advanced greatly in the past few decades thanks to the work of a few pioneering scholars, misconceptions still abound, and many areas of this fascinating religion remain obscure. While most of the secondary literature on Bon has dealt with the history, philosophy and meditative systems of the religion, the domain of ritual is still substantially unexplored. Some of the most important contributions to this subject that have so far been published are presented here. [link] Understandably, students of Bon ritual have tended to favour the literary component: after all, where the rituals in question are obsolete, this is the only option available to the researcher, except in the rather unusual cases where the surviving texts are supplemented with illustrations. But ritual, by definition, includes an important performative element. In addition to the various accoutrements and effigies that feature in any performance, there are gestures, processions and interactions that are generally described in only the vaguest terms in the liturgical sources, where they are mentioned at all. Some of the most interesting aspects of ritual performances have no place whatsoever in the sources. These would include a lama’s idiosyncratic interpretation of text prescriptions, his exchanges with the other participants (such as his assistant and his patrons), the occurrence of errors (an assistant pouring red dye onto an effigy what should remain uncoloured), and solicited or spontaneous commentaries on procedures. If the text is just one – albeit an essential – component of a ritual, observing an actual performance can be a hopelessly confusing experience. Behind the noise, the chaotic activity and the protracted chanting it is often far from clear what is going on. One of the main purposes of this site is to render Bonpo rituals more accessible by combining the textual and performative dimensions. A detailed explanation of how this works is given [here], but the general idea can be explained in simple terms as follows: The site hosts several dozen Bonpo ritual texts. The texts are presented in facsimile form as well as romanised transliteration, and, in many cases, with a full English translation and notes. The performative aspect is represented by video recordings of a number of rituals, to which access can be had via links on the site’s pages. The videos are subtitled in English, and range in duration from approximately ten minutes to eight hours. Each ritual is also covered by an article that is divided into two main parts: 1. a general discussion of that category of rituals; and 2. a detailed description of a particular performance. The articles are illustrated with photographs, diagrams and tables, and contain numerous links. The links are of two kinds: 1. to texts; and 2. to video footage. The links will take you to precisely that point in the text or the video that is relevant to the part of the performance that is being described. (It is also possible, of course, to see the texts or watch the videos in their entirety.) The transcriptions of the texts also contain links that will take you to the point in the video where any given passage is being recited. This will enable you to see exactly what is going on when the lama is reading that section of the text. We hope, in time, to establish reciprocal links. This means that it will be possible to go from a point in a video to the corresponding point in a text (assuming that a text is being used at that moment) or to the description furnished in the accompanying article. While this website is dedicated mainly to ritual it also offers resources that are relevant to other areas of the Bon religion. These resources include: paintings (tsaklis and thangkas); texts not directly connected to ritual (such as biographies and canonical works); Tibetan periodicals and other publications related to Bon; scholarly contributions to Bon studies in Tibetan and in European languages.

A website dedicated to the study of 5th to 18th century Buddhist Art of the Himalayas (mostly sculpture).