Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Himalayan Hermitess: The Life of a Tibetan Buddhist Nun

Kurtis R. Schaeffer

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Himalayan Hermitess is a vivid account of the life and times of a Buddhist nun living on the borderlands of Tibetan culture. Orgyan Chokyi spent her life in Dolpo, the highest inhabited region of the Nepal Himalayas. Illiterate and expressly forbidden by her master to write her own life story, Orgyan Chokyi received divine inspiration, defied tradition, and composed one of the most engaging autobiographies of the Tibetan literary tradition.
The Life of Orgyan Chokyi is the oldest known autobiography authored by a Tibetan woman, and thus holds a critical place in both Tibetan and Buddhist literature. In it she tells of the sufferings of her youth, the struggle to escape menial labor and become a hermitess, her dreams and visionary experiences, her relationships with other nuns, the painstaking work of contemplative practice, and her hard-won social autonomy and high-mountain solitude. In process it develops a compelling vision of the relation between gender, the body, and suffering from a female Buddhist practitioner's perspective.
Part One of Himalayan Hermitess presents a religious history of Orgyan Chokyi's Himalayan world, the Life of Orgyan Chokyi as a work of literature, its portrayal of sorrow and joy, its perspectives on suffering and gender, as well as the diverse religious practices found throughout the work. Part Two offers a full translation of the Life of Orgyan Chokyi. Based almost entirely upon Tibetan documents never before translated, Himalayan Hermitess is an accessible introduction to Buddhism in the premodern Himalayas.

Language: English

Pages: 232

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Release: July 08, 2004

ISBN: 0195152999

ISBN 13: 9780195152999

Himalayan Hermitess: The Life of a Tibetan Buddhist Nun

Kurtis R. Schaeffer

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Himalayan Hermitess is a vivid account of the life and times of a Buddhist nun living on the borderlands of Tibetan culture. Orgyan Chokyi spent her life in Dolpo, the highest inhabited region of the Nepal Himalayas. Illiterate and expressly forbidden by her master to write her own life story, Orgyan Chokyi received divine inspiration, defied tradition, and composed one of the most engaging autobiographies of the Tibetan literary tradition.
The Life of Orgyan Chokyi is the oldest known autobiography authored by a Tibetan woman, and thus holds a critical place in both Tibetan and Buddhist literature. In it she tells of the sufferings of her youth, the struggle to escape menial labor and become a hermitess, her dreams and visionary experiences, her relationships with other nuns, the painstaking work of contemplative practice, and her hard-won social autonomy and high-mountain solitude. In process it develops a compelling vision of the relation between gender, the body, and suffering from a female Buddhist practitioner's perspective.
Part One of Himalayan Hermitess presents a religious history of Orgyan Chokyi's Himalayan world, the Life of Orgyan Chokyi as a work of literature, its portrayal of sorrow and joy, its perspectives on suffering and gender, as well as the diverse religious practices found throughout the work. Part Two offers a full translation of the Life of Orgyan Chokyi. Based almost entirely upon Tibetan documents never before translated, Himalayan Hermitess is an accessible introduction to Buddhism in the premodern Himalayas.

Language: English

Pages: 232

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Release: July 08, 2004

ISBN: 0195152999

ISBN 13: 9780195152999

More books from Kurtis R. Schaeffer

The Life of the Buddha

The Tibetan History Reader

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Sources of Tibetan Tradition

4.1/5 ( ratings)

The Hidden Life of the Sixth Dalai Lama

3.5/5 ( ratings)

An Early Tibetan Survey of Buddhist Literature: The Bstan pa rgyas pa rgyan gyi nyi ‘od of Bcom Idan ral gri (Harvard Oriental Series)

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Proceedings of the Tenth Seminar of the Iats, 2003: Tibet in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Volume 3: Power, Politics, and the Reinvention

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Dreaming the Great Brahmin: Tibetan Traditions of the Buddhist Poet-Saint Saraha

3.5/5 ( ratings)

The Culture of the Book in Tibet

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Histories of Tibet: Essays in Honor of Leonard W. J. van der Kuijp

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Buddhist Meditation: Classic Teachings from Tibet

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Buddhist Meditation: Classic Teachings from Tibet

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Power, Politics, and the Reinvention of Tradition: Tibet in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Proceedings of the Tenth Seminar of the IATS, 2003, 3)

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Rate this book!

Write a review?