Max Oidtmann's Books

Forging the Golden Urn

The Qing Empire and the Politics of Reincarnation in Tibet

By: Max Oidtmann

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Forging the Golden Urn

The Qing Empire and the Politics of Reincarnation in Tibet

By: Max Oidtmann

In 1995, the People’s Republic of China resurrected a Qing-era law mandating that the reincarnations of prominent Tibetan Buddhist monks be identified by drawing lots from a golden urn. The Chinese Communist Party hoped to limit the ability of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile to independently identify reincarnations. In so doing, they elevated a long-forgotten ceremony into a controversial symbol of Chinese sovereignty in Tibet. In Forging the Golden Urn, Max Oidtmann ventures into the polyglot world of the Qing empire in search of the origins of the golden urn tradition. He seeks to understand the relationship between the Qing state and its most powerful partner in Inner Asia—the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism. Why did the Qianlong emperor invent the golden urn lottery in 1792? What ability did the Qing state have to alter Tibetan religious and political traditions? What did this law mean to Qing rulers, their advisors, and Tibetan Buddhists? Working with both the Manchu-language archives of the empire’s colonial bureaucracy and the chronicles of Tibetan elites, Oidtmann traces how a Chinese bureaucratic technology—a lottery for assigning administrative posts—was exported to the Tibetan and Mongolian regions of the Qing empire and transformed into a ritual for identifying and authenticating reincarnations. Forging the Golden Urn sheds new light on how the empire’s frontier officers grappled with matters of sovereignty, faith, and law and reveals the role that Tibetan elites played in the production of new religious traditions in the context of Qing rule.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

215

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231545304

ISBN 13

9780231545303

Forging the Golden Urn

The Qing Empire and the Politics of Reincarnation in Tibet

By: Max Oidtmann

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Forging the Golden Urn

The Qing Empire and the Politics of Reincarnation in Tibet

By: Max Oidtmann

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

215

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231545304

ISBN 13

9780231545303

Greater Tibet

An Examination of Borders, Ethnic Boundaries, and Cultural Areas

By: P. Christiaan Klieger

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Greater Tibet

An Examination of Borders, Ethnic Boundaries, and Cultural Areas

By: P. Christiaan Klieger

The concept of Greater Tibet has surfaced in the political and academic worlds in recent years. It is based in the inadequacies of other definitions of what constitutes the historical and modern worlds in which Tibetan people, ideas, and culture occupy. This collection of papers is inspired by a panel on Greater Tibet held at the XIIIth meeting of the International Association of Tibet Studies in Ulaan Baatar in 2013. Participants included leading Tibet scholars, experts in international law, and Tibetan officials. Greater Tibet is inclusive of all peoples who generally speak languages from the Tibetan branch of the Tibeto-Burman family, have a concept of mutual origination, and share some common historical narratives. It includes a wide area, including peoples from the Central Asian Republics, Pakistan, India, Nepal Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, People’s Republic of China, Mongolia, Russia, and Tibetan people in diaspora abroad. It may even include practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism who are not of Tibetan origin, and Tibetan peoples who do not practice Buddhism. Most of this area corresponds to the broad expansion of Tibetan culture and political control in the 7th–9th centuries AD, and is thus many times larger than the current Tibet Autonomous Region in China—the Tibetan “culture area.” As a conceptual framework, Greater Tibet stands in contrast to Scott’s concept of Zomia for roughly the same region, a term which defines an area of highland Asia and Southeast Asia characterized by disdain for rule from distant centers, failed state formation, anarchist, and “libertarian” individual proclivities.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

182

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1498506453

ISBN 13

9781498506458

Book's by Max Oidtmann

Forging the Golden Urn

Forging the Golden Urn

Forging the Golden Urn

Forging the Golden Urn

Greater Tibet

Greater Tibet

Username

Password

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email