Pagan Tibet

PaganTibet

Reconstructing the Pagan Religion of Tibet

Part of the ERC Advanced Grant that takes place from October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2028.

Charles Ramble

He is a director of Studies at the Research Center on East Asian Civilizations (CRCAO - UMR 8155).
From 2006 to 2013, he was the President of the International Association of Tibetan Studies (IATS). Author or co-author of ten books, his research interests include the Bon religion, Tibetan pagan religion in the Himalayan region, the social history of Tibetan societies, pilgrimage, and biography.

 

Project summary

The PaganTibet project is studying a corpus of Tibetan manuscripts discovered in 2005, relating to a religious tradition that predates Buddhism. Originating from the families of Leyu priests, these texts represent a minority branch of the Bon religion. Despite difficulties related to writing and codicological particularities, they bear witness to primitive religious practices, similar to those found in Dunhuang. The project aims to reconstruct these pre-Buddhist practices that are more than a thousand years old. To do this, the research team uses a variety of methodologies, such as digital humanities, philology and anthropology.

 

See also