Description
In the early fifteenth century, two Tibetan monks debated how to transform the body ritually into a celestial palace inhabited by buddhas. The discussion between Ngorchen Ku nga Zangpo and Khedrupje Gelek Pelzangpo concerned the mechanics of this tantric ritual practice, known as body mandala, as well as the most reliable sources to follow in performing it. As representatives of the Sakya and emerging Geluk traditions respectively, these authors spoke for communities of Buddhist practitioners vying for patronage and prestige in an evolving Tibetan scholastic culture. Their debate witnessed clashes between imagination and deception, continuity and rupture, and tradition and innovation.
Searching for the Body demonstrates the significance of the body mandala debate for understandings of Tibetan Buddhism as well as conversations on representation and embodiment occurring across the disciplines today. Rae Erin Dachille explores how Ngorchen and Khedrup used citational practice as a tool for making meaning, arguing that their texts reveal a deep connection between ritual mechanics and interpretive practice. She contends that this debate addresses strikingly contemporary issues surrounding interpretation, intertextuality, creativity, essentialism, and naturalness. Buddhist ideas about the construction of meaning and the body offer new ways of understanding representation, which Dachille illuminates in an epilogue that considers Glenn Ligon's engagement with Robert Mapplethorpe's photography. By placing Buddhist thought in dialogue with contemporary artistic practice and cultural critique, Searching for the Body offers vital new perspectives on the transformative potential of representations in defining and transcending the human.
About the Author
Rae Erin Dachille is assistant professor of religious studies and East Asian studies and affiliate faculty in social, cultural, and critical theory and gender and women's studies at the University of Arizona.
Reviews
Searching for the Body uses a famous fifteenth-century Tibetan debate about a tantric ritual practice called body mandala to explore historical and literary questions that show the relevance of that debate to the broader field of the humanities. Dachille's knowledge of the Tibetan texts is superb, and her analysis of the body mandala debate is a major contribution to the field. -- Jose Ignacio Cabezon, author of Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism
Rae Dachille makes exemplary use of exegetical practices drawn from trans, queer, Black, and disability studies to enable a posthumanist, and more-than-human, interpretative stance within Buddhism. She critically reframes the ways Buddhist authors can understand how reference, citation, and representation work in Buddhist texts and traditions, expanding our understanding of the ever-shifting boundaries between self, others, and world. This is a smart, beautiful, and timely work. -- Susan Stryker, executive editor, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly
This insightful, well-researched, and original book will ideally appeal to readers who have at least a background in Tibetan Buddhism and care about contemporary social matters. * Religious Studies Review *
A clear and comprehensive contribution to the field. * Religion *
Book Information
ISBN 9780231206099
Author Rae Erin Dachille
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press
Searching for the Body demonstrates the significance of the body mandala debate for understandings of Tibetan Buddhism as well as conversations on representation and embodiment occurring across the disciplines today. Rae Erin Dachille explores how Ngorchen and Khedrup used citational practice as a tool for making meaning, arguing that their texts reveal a deep connection between ritual mechanics and interpretive practice. She contends that this debate addresses strikingly contemporary issues surrounding interpretation, intertextuality, creativity, essentialism, and naturalness. Buddhist ideas about the construction of meaning and the body offer new ways of understanding representation, which Dachille illuminates in an epilogue that considers Glenn Ligon's engagement with Robert Mapplethorpe's photography. By placing Buddhist thought in dialogue with contemporary artistic practice and cultural critique, Searching for the Body offers vital new perspectives on the transformative potential of representations in defining and transcending the human.
About the Author
Rae Erin Dachille is assistant professor of religious studies and East Asian studies and affiliate faculty in social, cultural, and critical theory and gender and women's studies at the University of Arizona.
Reviews
Searching for the Body uses a famous fifteenth-century Tibetan debate about a tantric ritual practice called body mandala to explore historical and literary questions that show the relevance of that debate to the broader field of the humanities. Dachille's knowledge of the Tibetan texts is superb, and her analysis of the body mandala debate is a major contribution to the field. -- Jose Ignacio Cabezon, author of Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism
Rae Dachille makes exemplary use of exegetical practices drawn from trans, queer, Black, and disability studies to enable a posthumanist, and more-than-human, interpretative stance within Buddhism. She critically reframes the ways Buddhist authors can understand how reference, citation, and representation work in Buddhist texts and traditions, expanding our understanding of the ever-shifting boundaries between self, others, and world. This is a smart, beautiful, and timely work. -- Susan Stryker, executive editor, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly
This insightful, well-researched, and original book will ideally appeal to readers who have at least a background in Tibetan Buddhism and care about contemporary social matters. * Religious Studies Review *
A clear and comprehensive contribution to the field. * Religion *
Book Information
ISBN 9780231206099
Author Rae Erin Dachille
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press
