Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies

·期刊原文

Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies

Reviewrd by Cathy Cantwell

MAN

Vol.29 No.3 Sep 1994 Pp.776-777

Copyrighy by Royal Anthropological Institute

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Samuel, Geoffrey. x, 725 pp., bibliogr. Washington, London:
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993. 51.50[pounds]

Civilized shamans is the first major comparative study of the
Tibetan-speaking peoples written by an anthropologist. Earlier
Tibetologists -- such as Tucci, Stein, Snellgrove and Richardson --
wrote general books on Tibetan society which remain useful
introductions, although today their content and analysis appear
dated. Since these pioneers, most Tibetologists have contributed
more academically rigorous specialized studies. Because of the
Chinese occupation of Tibet, anthropologists have usually worked
with Tibetan refugees -- some producing reconstructions of
communities within Tibet -- or in areas outside the modern
boundaries of the People's Republic of China, such as Nepal, Bhutan
and Ladakh. The problem of assessing their work on relatively
marginal communities and understanding the general features of
pre-modern Tibet remains. In this encyclopaedic book, Samuel draws
together the work of Tibetologists of different disciplines, to
analyse the patterns structuring the great variety of specific
social, political and religious forms throughout the
Tibetan-speaking region. He argues that concentration on the formal
features of the political hierarchy of Central Tibet prior to 1959
has distorted our understanding of Tibetan society, when even
Central Tibet was in practice fairly decentralized, especially
before this century.

Much of the first part of the book is made up of extremely useful
succinct ethnographics of different Tibetan areas, drawing on the
works of numerous anthropologists and other scholars who have
written in European languages. He outlines the kinds of political
organization associated with the various regions at different times,
and relates them to his fourfold classification of Tibetan social
structures: centralized and remote agricultural communities,
pastoral and urban communities. He points out that the diversity of
social systems over time and place can be seen in terms of
variations on common themes, such as the institution of estates
(gzhung), which were flexible enough to adapt to changing political
realities.

In the second part of the book, Samuel explores the nature of
Tibetan religion, discussing three approaches which may be said to
characterize Buddhist societies: the `pragmatic', `karma' and
`bodhi' orientations. He argues that the `karma orientation', which
puts emphasis on a well disciplined monastic sangha, ethical conduct
and gradual training, has tended to be dominant in Theravada
Buddhist countries, with the `pragmatic orientation' relegated to
the sphere of non-Buddhist practice, performed by low-status
religious specialists, and the `bodhi orientation', which is
concerned with the realization of Enlightenment, relatively
marginalized, confined to groups of forest ascetics. In Tibet,
however, all three orientations are integrated in Buddhist practice
and in the same religious specialists, and the karma orientation' is
rarely dominant. Samuel stresses the variety and fluidity of
religious roles, practices and institutions. He relates the
difference between Tibet and other Buddhist societies to the
weakness of the State in Tibet: it never succeeded in controlling
Buddhist monasteries and their lamas, or making the religious system
completely `clerical'.

Part 3 is an account of historical developments in the religious
ideas and practices in the Tibetan cultural world. Samuel links the
complex combinations of religious trends in India prior to the
importation of Buddhism to Tibet, and throughout Tibetan history, to
social and political changes. The final chapters examine the two
major cultural streams of the later period: the dGe-lugs-pa order
and the Ris-med movement. The dGe-lugs-pa became politically
dominant and especially from the late nineteenth century, moved
towards a more centralized state structure in the political sphere,
a more hierarchical monastic order and a relatively dogmatic and
graduated religious path. The Ris-med -- non-sectarian -- movement
emerged in Eastern Tibet in areas under threat from the expansion of
the Central Tibetan State, and remains a major influence on
contemporary Tibetan Buddhism. It emphasized the primacy of tantric
meditative insights and the numerous routes to Enlightenment. While
the dGe-lugs-pa graded and excluded teachings, Ris-med gathered
together and transmitted teachings of all the lineages, including
those of the non-buddhist Bon-pos and minor Buddhist lineages which
may otherwise have been lost. The contrast is one of emphasis: the
dGe-lugs-pa were never entirely rationalized', while the
non-dGe-luge-pa orders maintained monastic colleges and scholastic
traditions.

The book uses the theoretical perspective Samuel outlined in Mind,
body and culture: anthropology and the biological interface
(Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990). The concluding chapter summarizes
this approach, which essentially assumes that political, economic,
social, religious and cultural developments are inseparable
processes. He acknowledges a debt to Weberian sociology, while
arguing that primacy should not he given to the political and
economic spheres.

Civilized shamans is a clear, readable account integrating research
on Tibet in terms of Samuel's theme of the synthesis of `clerical'
and `shamanic' cultural patterns, in this unusual society in which a
complex literate culture maintained `shamanic' insights and
procedures as its highest achievement.

There are some problems with the system used for transcribing
Tibetan: the elimination of hyphens or spaces means that words such
as roue snyom become `ronyom' rather than `roue-nyom' and the
appropriate pronunciation might be less clear to a non-tibetanist
than the use of correct spelling, which would have been preferable
for the specialist.