and Rolf A. Stein’s Recherches sur l’épopée et le barde au Tibet
(1959). The former study shows the influence of the “nature
mythology” school of religious studies, while the latter in-
cludes sections dealing with Buddhist, Bon, and popular reli-
gious influences and motifs. Gesar studies are a subfield in
themselves, with Chinese scholars taking a keen interest in
the matter.
Among early general studies on popular religion in
Tibet, an extensive analysis of the iconography and hierarchi-
cal ordering of Tibet’s spirits and deities in ritual and litera-
ture was René de Nebesky-Wojkowitz’s Oracles and Demons
of Tibet (1956; 2d rev. ed., 1975). Rolf A. Stein’s Tibetan
Civilization (1972) also dwelt on popular religion.
Many anthropologists have studied what is sometimes
called shamanist practices in Tibet and the Tibetan areas.
Geoffrey Samuel’s Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan
Societies (1993) is a challenging and innovative work on the
links between Tibetan Buddhism and shamanism. Anthro-
pologists with the opportunity to do fieldwork started study-
ing local deities more or less integrated into Buddhism, as
well as different cults and other religious manifestations.
These were important in understanding the daily religious
life of the people and their relation to their territory. Among
different publications, four collections should be noted:
Mandala and Landscape, edited by A. W. Macdonald (1997);
Reflections of the Mountain: Essays on the History and Social
Meaning of the Mountain Cult in Tibet and the Himalayas,
edited by Anne-Marie Blondeau and Ernst Steinkellner
(1996); Tibetan Mountain Deities: Their Cults and Represen-
tations, edited by Blondeau (1998); and Territory and Identity
in Tibet and the Himalayas, Tibetan Studies in Honour of
Anne-Marie Blondeau, edited by Katia Buffetrille and Hilde-
gard Diemberger (2002).
Alex McKay’s edition of Pilgrimage in Tibet (1998) was
another important contribution to the study of religion as
practiced by the common people. The history of Tibetan re-
ligions must also take into account the numerous publica-
tions and translations done in Tibetan Buddhist centers in
the West, as well as the biographies of lamas written directly
in Western languages. In most cases, such works were not
produced as contributions to the field of study, but rather
as a means of propagating Buddhist thought. Still, the mate-
rial they present is often new and interesting for the research-
er, while appealing to a wider audience. Two such works that
were successful worldwide were The Words of My Perfect
Teacher by Patrul Rinpoche (1998) and especially The Tibet-
an Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche (2002).
Also noteworthy is Philippe Cornu’s handy and informative
Dictionnaire encyclopédique du Bouddhisme (2001).
Religious studies scholars and followers of Tibetan reli-
gious traditions have begun engaging in fruitful exchange
and interface, although both are often still wary of each
other. The academics tend to scorn the disciples’ lack of criti-
cal approach, and the disciples tend to condescend towards
the scholars’ lack of “inner understanding” of the religious
traditions. A promising development is that Tibetan and
Chinese scholars from different research institutes and uni-
versities in China have begun to show interest in religious
studies, mostly in the Gesar epic and in popular religion. The
Tibetan and Chinese scholars concentrate mostly on histori-
cal, ethnographic, and sociological subjects. Working as re-
searchers in different academies and institutes, they have
good opportunities to publish their studies. They also partic-
ipate in the seminar of the International Association of Ti-
betan Studies (IATS), which is held every four years and
where they exchange ideas with their Western and Japanese
colleagues.
Since the 1980s the amount of written literature and the
number of learned informants from all traditions has in-
creased dramatically. Tibetans for the most part feel a great
urge to accommodate Western research into their traditions,
and many are now working in research institutions in Eu-
rope, Japan, and North America. Indeed, Tibetan studies are
now awash in resources, and scholars have begun to call into
question many of the most important positions that were
only recently thought to be firmly established. There is also
a new interest in Buddhism as practiced today in Tibet, as
evidenced by Melvyn G. Goldstein and Matthew T. Kap-
stein’s Buddhism in Contemporary Tibet: Religious Revival and
Cultural Identity (1998), which demonstrates that the study
of religions of Tibet needs to be envisaged in a cultural and
political context.BIBLIOGRAPHY
An appreciation of the status of modern scholarship can perhaps
best be gained by perusing volumes of the Proceedings of the
Csoma de Körös Memorial Symposium, as well as the Pro-
ceedings of the International Seminar on Tibetan Studies,
which are being published regularly. Along with university
presses, several private publishing houses, including Wisdom
Publications in Boston, Serindia Publications in Chicago,
Shambhala Publications in Boston, Snow Lion Publications
in Ithaca, N.Y, Padma Publishing in Junction City, Califor-
nia, Prajna Press in Boulder, Colorado, the Tsadra Founda-
tion in New York City, and Dharma Publications in Berke-
ley, California, as well as the Padma karpo Translation
committee in Denmark, are continually releasing books on
different aspects of Tibetan Buddhism.
Websites
Digital Himalaya: http://www.digitalhimalaya.com.
Latse Contemporary Tibetan Cultural Library: http://www.
latse.org.
Old Tibetan Documents Online: http://www.aa.tufs.ac.jp/
~hoshi/OTDO_web/index.html.
Padma karpo translation committee: http://www.tibet.dk/pktc/
onlinepubs.htm.
Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines: http://www.digitalhimalaya.com/col-
lections/journals/ret.
Tibet Visual History Online: http://visualtibet.org.
Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library: http://iris.lib.vir
ginia.edu/tibet.
Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center: http://www.tbrc.org.TIBETAN RELIGIONS: HISTORY OF STUDY 9191