When a woman becomes a religious dynasty

Description

I first heard tales of the remarkable princess Chokyi Dronma – famed for her daring exploits, cultural and social innovation, and unusual powers – during long evenings spent in the Tibetan monastery of Samding over a decade ago. The monks told me how she had miraculously founded the monastery in the 15th century and how her spiritual leaders had revealed that she was the human embodiment of a deity they gave the title Dorje Phagmo. They showed me her image among the mural paintings that decorated the newly reconstructed monastery and explained how, after her death, her disciples recognised a young girl as her reincarnation, so commencing a lineage of female incarnations that is recognised today.

Two years later, in New York, the legendary scholar of Tibetan studies Gene Smith showed me a copy of the biography of the same princess recorded by her disciples in the wake of her death. It was an astonishing discovery: Leonard van der Kuijp, Professor of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies at Harvard, had been able to reproduce this rare Tibetan text from an archive in Beijing. Coming across the story of the life of this extraordinary woman was like finding a treasure that had remained hidden for centuries. It was a fascinating narrative – vibrant and unexpectedly human – and one that had become the basis for innumerable other stories, genealogical accounts, myths and rituals.

Tantalisingly, the manuscript was incomplete – the final pages were missing. It was in attempting to reconstruct details of Chokyi Dronma’s life, her mysterious and untimely death at the age of 33 in a remote and holy area of south-eastern Tibet, and her disciples’ search for her reincarnation that was to lead me not only across Tibet but also amazingly close to home: to a treasure-trove of rare ...

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http://www.research-horizons.cam.ac.uk/preview/when-a-woman-becomes-a-religious-dynasty.aspx

http://www.research-horizons.cam.ac.uk/preview/when-a-woman-becomes-a-religious-dynasty.aspx