General Studies
A classic and still useful introduction to the subject is Charles A.
Bell’s The Religion of Tibet (1931; reprint, Oxford. 1968).
More recently, several excellent studies have been published:
David L. Snellgrove and Hugh E. Richardson’s A Cultural
History of Tibet (1968; reprint, Boulder, 1980); Rolf A.
Stein’s Tibetan Civilization, translated by J. E. Stapleton
Driver (Stanford, Calif., 1972) and republished in a revised
French edition as La civilisation tibétaine (Paris, 1981); Gi-
useppe Tucci’s The Religions of Tibet, translated by Geoffrey
Samuel (Berkeley, 1980); Geoffrey Samuel’s Civilized Sha-
mans, Buddhism in Tibetan Societies (Washington and Lon-
don, 1993); and Donald S. Lopez Jr. (ed) Religions of Tibet
in Practice (Princeton, NJ, 1997). A particularly lucid exposi-
tion is Anne-Marie Blondeau’s “Les religions du Tibet,” in
Histoire des religions, edited by Henri-Charles Puech, vol. 3
(Paris, 1976), pp. 233–329.
Pre-Buddhist Religion
Most studies of the pre-Buddhist religion can be found only in
specialized publications. The works of Snellgrove and Rich-
ardson, Stein, and Blondeau, however, all contain pertinent
discussions based on their own research. A useful study of the
early inscriptions is H. E. Richardson’s A Corpus of Early Ti-
betan Inscriptions (London, 1985).
Buddhism
Snellgrove and Richardson’s work is particularly strong on the for-
mation of the orders and the subsequent political history of
the church. Tucci’s The Religions of Tibet contains a most
useful survey of Buddhist doctrine and monastic life. A con-
cise presentation of Tibetan Buddhism is provided in Per
Kvaerne’s “Tibet: The Rise and Fall of a Monastic Tradi-
tion,” in The World of Buddhism: Buddhist Monks and Nuns
in Society and Culture, edited by Heinz Bechert and Richard
F. Gombrich (London, 1984), pp. 253–270. For a discus-
sion of ritual and meditation, see Stephan Beyer’s The Cult
of Ta ̄ra ̄: Magic and Ritual in Tibet (Berkeley, 1973).
Popular Religion
General surveys of Tibetan popular religion are given by Stein in
Tibetan Civilization and in Per Kvaerne’s “Croyances
populaires et folklores au Tibet” in Mythes et croyances du
monde entier, edited by André Akoun, vol. 4 (Paris, 1985),
pp. 157–169, and Satmten G. Karmay, The Arrow and the
Spindle, Studies in History, Myths, Rituals and Beliefs in Tibet
(Kathmandu 1998). A basic reference work is René de Ne-
besky-Wojkowitz’s Oracles and Demons of Tibet, The Cult
and Iconography of the Tibetan Protective Deities (1956; re-
print, Graz, 1975). The reprint edition contains an introduc-
tion by Per Kvaerne in which numerous corrections and ad-
ditions to the earlier edition are provided. A useful
supplement to this work is Tadeusz Skorupski’s Tibetan Am-
ulets (Bangkok, 1983). A major study of ritual texts has been
published by Christina Klaus, Schutz vor den Naturgefahren:
Tibetische Ritualtexte aus dem Rin chen gter mdzod ediert,
Übersetzt und Kommentiert (Wiesbaden, 1985). A discussion
of Tibetan myths intended for the nonspecialist is provided
by Per Kvaerne in a series of articles in Dictionnaire des my-
thologies, edited by Yves Bonnefoy (Paris, 1981), vol. 1,
pp. 42–45, 249–252; vol. 2, pp. 194–195, 381–384, 495–
- A survey of the most important pilgrimages is provided
in Anne-Marie Blondeau’s “Les pèlerinages tibétains,” in Les
pèlerinages, edited by Anne-Marie Esnoul et al. (Paris, 1960),
pp. 199–245. A collection of more specialised articles is Alex
McKay (ed.) Pilgrimage in Tibet (Richmond, Surrey, 1998).
The most complete study of Tibetan festivals is Martin Br-
auen’s Feste in Ladakh (Graz, 1980).
Among numerous studies published in recent years on the cult of
mountains, Toni Huber, The Cult of Pure Crystal Mountain,
Popular Pilgrimage and Visionary Landscape in Southeast Tibet
(New York and Oxford, 1999) is likely to become a standard
work.
There is a considerable body of literature on the Gesar epic. The
fundamental study is R. A. Stein’s L’épopée et le barde au
Tibet (Paris, 1959). Several translations of the text exist,
mainly in the form of summaries. The most easily accessible
is probably that of Alexandra David-Neel, La vie surhumaine
de Guésar de Ling (Paris, 1931), translated with the collabora-
tion of Violet Sydney as The Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling
(1933; rev. ed., London, 1959). More scholarly translations
are R. A. Stein’s L’épopée tibétaine de Gesar dans la version la-
maïque de Ling (Paris, 1956), and Mireille Helffer’s Les
chants dans l’épopée tibétaine de Gesar d’après le livre de la
course de cheval (Geneva, 1977). On visionary journeys to
Sambhala and related phenomena, see Edwin Bernbaum’s
The Way to Shambhala: A Search for the Mythical Kingdom
beyond the Himalayas (New York, 1980).
Bon
An important translation of a Bon text is David L. Snellgrove’s
The Nine Ways of Bon: Excerpts from the gZi-brjid (1967; re-
print, Boulder, 1980). Samten G. Karmay surveys the Bon
religion in “A General Introduction to the History and Doc-
trines of Bon,” Memoirs of the Research Department of the
Toyo Bunko, no. 3 (1975): 171–218. On Bon literature, see
Per Kvaerne’s “The Canon of the Bonpos,” Indo-Iranian
Journal 16 (1975): 18–56, 96–144. See also the works of
Snellgrove and Richardson, Stein, and Blondeau cited above.
Contemporary Religion
Peter H. Lehmann and Jay Ullai’s Tibet: Das stille Drama auf dem
Dach der Erde, edited by Rolf Winter (Hamburg, 1981), and
on Bon art and iconography, Per Kvaerne, The Bon Religion
of Tibet, The Iconogragphy of a Living Tradition (London
1995, reprint 2001). The book is remarkable not least for its
photographic documentation of the years following the Cul-
tural Revolution. The situation at the end of the twentieth
centruy is discussed in Melvyn C. Goldstein and Mathew T.
Kapstein (eds.) Buddhism in Contemprorary Tibet, Religious
Revivial and Cultural Identity (Berkeley, 1998).
PER KVAERNE (1987 AND 2005)TIBETAN RELIGIONS: HISTORY OF STUDY
Until the 1980s, scholars took a threefold approach to the
study of Tibetan religions. First, they used Tibetan materials
to supplement Indian and Chinese materials; second, West-
ern scholars were drawn by a fascination with Tibetan Bud-
dhism itself; and third, they studied the numerous Tibetan
texts completed since the 1970s by Tibetans who were living
either in exile or in Tibet and China. Events and develop-
ments of momentous importance for research into the reli-TIBETAN RELIGIONS: HISTORY OF STUDY 9187