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Accueil > Recherche > Axes de recherche

The religious and its reconfigurations

Coordinated by : N. Sihlé ; Participants from CEH : P. Dollfus (up until 2021), G. Toffin ; Associate members : Remi Bordes, Rémi Chaix, Irene Majo Garigliano, Kunsang Namgyal-Lama, Anne de Sales, Grégoire Schlemmer

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.
 

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