Buddhist Studies

This seminar provides an introduction to a broad range of Tibetan Buddhist texts, including chronicles and histories, biographical literature, doctrinal treatises, canonical texts, ritual manuals, pilgrimage guides, and liturgical texts. It is intended for graduate students interested in premodern Tibet from any perspective. Students are required to do all of the readings in the original classical Tibetan. It will also serve as a tools and methods for the study of Tibetan Buddhist literature, including standard lexical and bibliographic references, digital resources, and secondary literature in modern languages. The content of the course will vary from semester to semester to account for the needs and interests of particular students.

This semester the course offers the reading of a wide range of topics within Tibetan Buddhist history. Based upon a number of key texts, the intriguing system of incarnation as presented by a number of the most prominent Buddhist schools will be analyzed and discussed. In medieval Tibet prophecies played a huge communicative role as a political and religious strategy, the topics will be addressed through the reading of a number of informative texts; further, the course will look at the some medieval historiographical texts recently traced in Tibet.