As a follow-up to recent research undertaken by our unit, a number of endeavours will focus on complex religious fields marked by the presence of several interacting religious traditions and their current reconfigurations, following the example of movements to convert to Christianity in Nepal, Yunnan or Arunachal Pradesh. Throughout the Himalayas, religion has evolved in societies exposed to new knowledge and new practices : schooling, allopathic and veterinary medicine, the media, or else the monetarisation of the economy. In Nepal, there is also the influence of indigenous identity movements and, in the Tibetan world, the growing influence of Buddhist doctrinal orthodoxy which is notably embodied in the Dalai Lama. For many local specialists (exorcists, mediums, astrologers, etc.), these changes involve rethinking, and sometimes pose major challenges to the traditions they uphold. These situations call for a contextualised study of trajectories and strategies. In what contexts are we witnessing a professionalisation – as in the case of emchi specialists – of the Tibetan medical tradition, or even official recognition of knowledge as having heritage status and even of those who possess it, such as the buchen storytellers of Spiti, who are called upon to perform "on stage" for tourists ? What are the consequences of new modes of remuneration on the nature of the relationship between the specialists and the recipients of their ritual services ? What is the impact on the mode of transmission (hitherto often hereditary) and the mode of learning ? In many of the cases studied, the contrast with the often highly valued monastic clergy of Tibetan Buddhism no doubt provides a key to the analysis.
Elsewhere, however, under conditions of comparable cultural change, the non-monastic component may also show great vitality. Thus, in Amdo (north-east Tibet), communities of ngakpa, householders specialising in Buddhist tantric rituals, can rival with large monastic institutions in terms of population and prestige. Is this a confirmation of the centrality of the Tantric ritual in the Tibetan world, a field of practice shared even by religious elites ? Moreover, the local religious field has also evolved here with, in particular, the strong emergence of a form of female religious specialisation in the most renowned ngakpa circles (eastern Amdo). How (and why) does a very masculine religious path of ritual power open up to women ? The economics of religion, a field somewhat neglected in the past in the Buddhist context, is now receiving increased attention. The articulation with the economic fact of a religion marked by its soteriological aim implies conflicts of values. The ngakpa communities of eastern Amdo constitute a massive pool of prestigious ritual specialists, who are invited to officiate from hundreds of kilometres away : this is an exceptional opportunity to study the tensions between a ritual virtuosity that has always been highly valued and the sometimes ethically reprehensible nature of a paid activity. Innovative historical work will also be done to lay the foundations for a quantitative study of religious economic flows among the elites of eastern Tibet and Lhasa in the 17th and 18th centuries, and to specify the organisation and management of these flows around the major economic centres formed by the great monastic institutions.
Many of these elements are in keeping with the project to develop a comparative anthropology of Buddhism which researchers from our unit and from the Centre Asie de du Sud-Est in particular have been carrying out since 2012 : this project will remain one of the driving forces behind research undertaken on the religious. Within this framework, the ritualities of Buddhist societies, dealt with in a comparative manner, constitute a major theme for the years to come. Thus, the study of large ritual gatherings of ngakpa of Amdo should make it possible to come back to the major question of the religious anthropology of the relationship between collectivity/identity and ritual, by approaching it from a new angle, that of translocal communities made up of religious specialists, and by seeking to mobilise the most relevant comparative data (large gatherings of Tibetan monastic clergy, or Hindu ascetics...). Similarly, for Buddhist practices (for example involving the making of images) intended for the accumulation of merit, a similar comparative approach (here in Tibet and among the Newars of Kathmandu) should make it possible to get a better understanding of the processes by which religious masters and practitioners have appropriated a type of ritual and have adapted it according to specific needs to the social context.
Bibliography
Berti, D. (Accepted, in press) “Possession, Communication and Power in India”, in E. Pocs & A. Zempleni (eds.), Spirit Possession : European Contributions to Comparative Studies, New York : Central European University Press.
Berti, D. (Accepted, in press) “Ritual Presences and Legal Persons. Deities and the Law in India”, in A. de Sales & M. Lecomte-Tilouine (eds.), Encounters with the Invisible. Revisiting Possession in the Himalayas in its Material and Narrative Aspects. hal-03090603
Berti, D. 2016 (with G. Tarabout & R. Voix), Filing Religion. State, Hinduism and Court of Law. Delhi : Oxford University Press, xlvi+358pp.
Berti, D. 2016 (with G. Tarabout & R. Voix), “Introduction”, in D. Berti, G. Tarabout & R. Voix (eds.), Filing Religion. State, Hinduism, and Courts of Law, pp. xv-xlvi. New Delhi : Oxford University Press. hal-01366229
Berti, D. 2016 “Plaintiff deities. Ritual Honours as Fundamental Rights in India”, in D. Berti, G. Tarabout & R. Voix (eds.), Filing Religion. State, Hinduism and Courts of Law, pp. 71-100. New Delhi : Oxford University Press. hal-02181508
Chicharro G., Gros S., Névot A., et Herou A. (eds) 2022 Le Féminin et le religieux, Paris : L’Asiathèque.
Dollfus P. 2020 "Manepa in Ladakh : The Revival of a Religious Tradition", Himalaya : The Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies, 2020, 39 (2), pp.92–103.
Ladwig, Patrice, and Nicolas Sihlé, ed. 2017. "Special section “Toward a Comparative Anthropology of Buddhism". Religion and Society – Advances in Research 8 (1) : 109 209.
Ramirez, Philippe. 2021. The Religious Landscape of the Tiwa. In M. Carrin, M. Boivin, G. Toffin, P. Hockings, R. Rousseleau, T. B. Subba, & H. Tambs-Lyche (eds.), Brill’s Encyclopedia of the Religions of the Indigenous People of South Asia. Brill.
Robin, Françoise, Nicola Schneider, et Nicolas Sihlé, éd. 2018. "Trichologie Tibétaine : Les Cheveux et Leur Traitement Au Tibet / Tibetan Trichology : Hair and its Treatment in Tibet". Ateliers d’anthropologie, No. 45, special issue "Trichologie tibétaine : Les cheveux et leur traitement au Tibet" / "Tibetan Trichology : Hair and its Treatment in Tibet" (novembre). https://journals.openedition.org/ateliers/10487.
Sihlé, Nicolas. 2021. "Ritual Virtuosity, Large-Scale Priest-Patron Networks and the Ethics of Remunerated Ritual Services in Northeast Tibet". In Monks, Money, and Morality : The Balancing Act of Contemporary Buddhism, edited by Christoph Brumann, Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko and Beata Świtek, 51 73. New York : Bloomsbury Academic. https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/monks-money-and-morality-9781350213753/.
Sihlé, Nicolas. 2021. "Du gaṇacakra indien au tsok tibétain : diversité des logiques de la commensalité dans un rituel clé du bouddhisme tantrique". In Religions et alimentation : Normes alimentaires, organisation sociale et représentations du monde, édité par Rémi Gounelle, Anne-Laure Zwilling, et Yves Lehmann, 261 86. Homo Religiosus 20. Turnhout : Brepols. http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503580159-1.
Sihlé, Nicolas. 2020. "The Social Dimension of High Deity Worship : Padmasambhava Tsechu Worship in Tibetan Tantrist Ritual Culture". In About Padmasambhava : Historical Narratives and Later Transformations of Guru Rinpoche, edited by Geoffrey Samuel and Jamyang Oliphant of Rossie, 255 82. Schongau, Switzerland : Garuda Verlag.
Sihlé, Nicolas. 2018. "Assessing and Adapting Rituals that Reproduce a Collectivity : The Large-Scale Rituals of the Repkong Tantrists in Tibet". Religion and Society 9 (special section "Ritual and Critical Reflexivity") (1) : 160 75. https://doi.org/10.3167/arrs.2018.090112.
Sihlé, Nicolas. 2018. "Why Hair Needs to Be Long. Religious Identity, Embodied Divinity and Power among the Repkong Tantrists (North-East Tibet)". Ateliers d’anthropologie, No. 45, special issue "Trichologie tibétaine : Les cheveux et leur traitement au Tibet" / "Tibetan Trichology : Hair and Its Treatment in Tibet" (novembre). https://doi.org/10.4000/ateliers.10562.
Sihlé, Nicolas et Patrice Ladwig. 2017. "Introduction : Legacies, Trajectories, and Comparison in the Anthropology of Buddhism". Edited by Patrice Ladwig and Nicolas Sihlé. Religion and Society – Advances in Research 8 (1, special section “Toward a Comparative Anthropology of Buddhism”) : 109 28. https://doi.org/10.3167/arrs.2017.080107.
Toffin, Gérard. "Introduction" (to the section on Nepal), in Brill’s Encyclopedia of the Religions of the Indigenous People of South Asia, BERIPSA, Ed. by M. Carrin, and M. Boivin, P. Hockings, R. Rousseleau, T. Subba, H. Lambs-Tyche, G. Toffin, Brill, Leiden, 2021, pp. 731-742.
Toffin, Gérard. "The Religious world of the guthis. Three facets of Newar civilization, Nepal", European Bulletin of Himalayan Studies, 2021.
Toffin, Gérard. “Preface”, Martin Gaenszle, Ancestral Voices, Social Science Bahal/Himal Books, Kathmandu, 2021.
Toffin, Gérard. "The Indigenous Background of Newar Religion", in Brill’s Encyclopedia of the Religions of the Indigenous People of South Asia, BERIPSA, edited by M. Carrin, and M. Boivin, P. Hockings, R. Rousseleau, T. Subba, H. Lambs-Tyche, G. Toffin, Brill, Leiden, 2020, pp. 763-784.
Toffin, Gérard. "Buddhism and Ethnicity among the Newars", in Brill’s Encyclopedia of the Religions of the Indigenous People of South Asia, BERIPSA, edited by M. Carrin, and M. Boivin, P. Hockings, R. Rousseleau, T. Subba, H. Lambs-Tyche, G. Toffin, Brill, Leiden, 2020, pp. 763-784.
Toffin, Gérard. "Rituals Clowns and Laughter in the Religions of the Nepalese Himalayas : The Symbolic Language of Transgressive Sacrality", Anthropologica, 2019, vol. 61, No.1, pp. 111-122, 2019.
Toffin, Gérard. "Préface" du livre Langue et religion du Népal. Les Néwar bouddhistes de la vallée de Kathmandu, auteur Frédéric Moronval, Paris, L’Harmatan, 2018, pp. 9-14.
Toffin, Gérard. "Bouffons et clowns sacrés de l’Himalaya", Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, 235, 2018-1, pp. 97-131.
Toffin, Gérard. "Caste and Indigeneity in the Valley of Nepal : Bumgadyah, the rain-making God, and Jyâpu peasants", in Lumanti-Pau, Rajat Jayanti Vishesh (Silver Jubiliee) Souvenirs 2018. Jyapu Samaj, Yala, 2018, pp. 73-83.